The spiritual vs. the physical kingdom, John 6:22-36

I think that quite often, the greatest difficulty in living the Christian life is being able to distinguish between the physical and the spiritual realities of our faith.  By that I mean, how does God operate in the physical realm, and how does God operate in the spiritual realm, and by extension, how are we to operate in both?  I have said from this pulpit repeatedly, that every physical healing or miracle presented in the gospels, is given to illustrate a spiritual principle.  For instance, what I mean by that is  when Jesus healed the paralyzed man, spiritually speaking He

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The Source of Life, John 6:16-21 

Last week we studied the first miracle presented in this chapter, that which is known as the feeding of the 5000.  Actually I said last week that another gospel account said that only the men totaled 5000, so we might assume that as many as 15000 people were present, including women and children.  So it was a tremendous miracle that Jesus did, as the multitudes had followed Him and they had no place in which to buy food, and hardly anyone had bothered to bring food. But I also told you last week something which I say often, and that

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The Bread of Life, John 6: 1-15   

This miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is probably one of the best known miracles in the Bible.  Perhaps that’s because it is the only miracle that is presented in all four gospels. And as such it is perhaps difficult to provide new insight that hasn’t already been presented elsewhere at some point in the past.  But that’s not really my job anyway.  A preacher’s job is not to try to find out new information, or a new perspective and show everyone how clever he is because he has something different.  But the preacher’s job is just to

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The claims and proofs of Christ, John 5:31-47   

As we continue in this study of the fifth chapter of John, I would remind you of the claims that Jesus made concerning Himself in the second half of this chapter which we studied last time.  They really are amazing.  Jesus claims to be the Son of God, equal with God, the One sent by the Father, the source of eternal life,  the one in perfect unity with the Father,  the judge of all the world, and that He would raise all the dead in the earth either to stand in judgment before Him, or that He would give them

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Christ’s declaration of deity, John 5: 16-30   

This is a difficult passage to deal with, especially for 8am on a Sunday morning.  It would be  perhaps easier on everybody to give a sermon that is more energizing, uplifting, or empowering rather than heavy theology.  But if our faith is going to really and truly be those things, if our faith is going to have any power, or any energy, or any ability to lift us up out of darkness, then it has to be grounded in truth.  Jesus said in the previous chapter (4:23) that they that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

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The living water of life, John 5:1-15 

I have said before that every miracle presented in the gospels is given to illustrate a spiritual parable.  And so it is with the miraculous account of the healing at the pool of Bethesda.  In fact, this text perhaps more than many others offers several spiritual principles which I would like to bring out today.  Not the least of which is the nature of healing. That is the most obvious feature in the passage and so we should look at it first.   I suspect that everyone sooner or later will come to a point of desiring to receive healing

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Belief through the Word; John 4:27-54 

There are many degrees of faith.  Often, Jesus rebuked people for not having enough faith, or because they only had a little faith.  So as believers, it is important for us to consider our faith and examine it in light of what the word of God says.  There are a lot of ecclesiastical statements out there which attempt to clarify what constitutes faith, but the best definition of faith is found in the scriptures themselves.  Several places in the scriptures speak of faith, but Hebrews 11:1 defines it very succinctly; “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the

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Worship in spirit and truth, John 4:19-26 

Today in 21st century Christianity, one of the most misunderstood words or principles in the church is the word worship.  If I were to ask you this morning to write down a succinct sentence describing worship, I would not be surprised if there were as many definitions as there are attendees.  Today when we think of worship, we think of a church service, or what’s called worship music, or perhaps even a performance by a worship pastor or band.  Usually the connotation is  a church’s music service.   But as I indicated, I believe that’s a misunderstanding of what worship

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The living water; John 4:1-19

I cannot read the story of the Samaritan woman at the well without thinking of something I used to hear people say when I was growing up.  They would sometimes say that a certain person would rather cross the street than have to speak to them.  Obviously, they believed that a certain person disliked them so much that they would go out of their way to avoid them. There is a phrase in the Greek text in vs.9 that basically is saying the same thing.  It’s a word that conveys the idea that the Jews so despised the Samaritans that

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The Light of Truth, John 3:17-36 

The other night as I was walking my dog after dinner, I was able to witness a particularly beautiful sunset.  There were these clouds that had reflections of all these colors in them and the sun’s rays shining through.  It was really amazing.  It’s almost sad though because it changes right before your eyes and soon it’s gone.  I can’t help but think that sunsets are kind of like life.  They are so beautiful, and yet so fleeting.  By the time you think it’s really going great it’s basically starting to dim. But as tragic as that thought is, imagine

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