Jesus Christ is without a doubt the most important figure in the history of the world. He was born more than 2000 years ago, contrary to the laws of life. He lived in poverty and was reared in obscurity. He exchanged a royal robe for a pauper’s ragged coat. He did not travel extensively. Only once did He cross the boundary of the tiny country in which He lived; and that was during His exile in childhood. 

He possessed neither wealth nor influence. His relatives were inconspicuous and He had neither training nor formal education. Yet in infancy He startled

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We are considering today one of the great sermons of Christ. This message marks a turning point in the ministry of Jesus. It reveals the moment when the vast throngs of people that initially followed Him in response to His miracles, turned away and rejected Him when confronted with the truth of the gospel. It would be foolish for me to think that I can add anything new to this message. But I do hope that we can exegete the text in order to make it’s meaning more clear. Jesus was speaking to a large group of disciples, or followers,

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I think that quite often, the greatest difficulty in living the Christian life of faith is being able to distinguish between the physical and the spiritual distinctives 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. And that seems to be accepted by most Christians. You may not have thought of

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I don’t know what it is about religious holidays, but I just can’t get too enthusiastic about them. I guess I’m less concerned about formalities, and more concerned about realities perhaps. Somehow, the more ceremonial and religious it gets, the less it does for me. So that’s my excuse why I’m not too concerned that my message this morning is not a typical Easter message. I guess I’m not your typical preacher, and this isn’t a typical church for that matter. The fact is though, we celebrate Easter every Sunday. If it were not for the reality of the resurrection,

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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 pastor’s job is not to try to find out new information, or a new perspective and show everyone how smart he is because he has something different. But the pastor’s job is just to

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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. They really are amazing. He 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 eternal life. Now those are

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This is difficult material. It would be more gratifying perhaps to give a sermon that is more energizing, uplifting, or empowering rather than deep 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. He would later declare that He was the way, the truth and

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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 lessons which I would like to bring out today. Not the least of which is the nature of healing. That is the most obvious application in the context and so we should look at it first. I suspect that everyone sooner or later will come to a point of desiring to receive a healing

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There are many degrees of faith. Often, Jesus rebuked people for not having enough faith, or too small of 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 ideas out there which seek to say 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 says it very succinctly; “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not

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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 worship music, or even a worship pastor. The connotation is that worship is a part of a church service, or a separate experience in the church or life of the believer. But as I indicated, worship

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