Mark 11:1-11

¹ Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples ² and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. ³ If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.'” ⁴ And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. ⁵ And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” ⁶ And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go. ⁷ And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. ⁸ And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. ⁹ And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! ¹⁰ Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” ¹¹ And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

One of my favorite writers is the late Flannery O’Connor, the great Southern short-story writer from of Milledgeville, Georgia.  She was a fascinating, odd, and insightful writer whose stories were often shocking in making their points.  She was once asked why it was that she wrote such unsettling things.  She responded that when one lives in a world of deaf and blind people, one has to shout loudly and draw startling pictures.

There’s a lot of truth in that:  in a deaf and blind world, one has to shout loudly and draw startling pictures.

The prophets of Israel understood this well.  They knew that merely saying something to people seldom was enough.  So, under the inspiration of God, they moved to act out the truths of God in shocking ways.  For instance, the prophet Ezekiel laid on his left side for 390 days and then on his right side for 40 days to highlight the sins of God’s people (Ezekiel 4).

To illustrate the coming exile into foreign lands that would befall the people of God, Ezekiel dug through the wall of his house with his bare hands, crawled out with a bag of belongings, and walked out (Ezekiel 12:1-7).  He also baked cakes over a flame fueled by cow dung (originally it was supposed to be human waste) in front of God’s people as a symbol of Israel and Judah’s sins against God (Ezekiel 4:12-13).

Isaiah walked around barefoot and naked for three years “as a sign and a portent against Egypt and Cush” (Isaiah 20:3)!  Can you imagine what his deacons thought?!  “Is that…oh no…!”

I would like to propose this morning that Jesus, when he decided to enter Jerusalem to initiate the events of the week of His passion, was standing firmly within the prophetic tradition.  In other words, he decided to enter in such a way that the manner of His entering said as much as the fact of His entering.  For the way He entered was shocking indeed.

Jesus’ triumphal entry, in other words, was Him shouting loudly and drawing a startling picture without even saying a word.  His entry into Jerusalem said something about His kingship, and what it said was startling indeed.

I. Jesus’ Kingship Was Marked by Divine Commission (vv.1-3)

To begin, Jesus’ kingship was marked by divine commission.  There was, in other words, a purpose behind it.  This week will culminate in Jesus laying down His life, but even this was part of a meticulous divine plan.  There was nothing happenstance or haphazard about Jesus’ kingship.  It was kingship of divine intent and commission.

Notice the details of the passage:

¹ Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples

No detail of the events of this amazing, miraculous week was by chance.  Jesus’ kingship was marked by divine commission.  He came to do the will of His Father, and it was the will of the Father that the Son go up to Jerusalem.  In Matthew 16, Jesus explains this to the disciples:

²¹ From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

The disciples struggled to understand the divine commission that lay on Jesus’ life.  As if Jesus were merely making this up as He went, Peter scolded Jesus for the very thought of going to Jerusalem:

²²And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.”

Many of you will recall Jesus’ amazing and painful response to Peter at Peter’s rejection of Jesus’ plan to go to Jerusalem:

²³But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

It is a crucial point:  Jesus is not following man’s plan, but God’s plan, and the devil always opposes the plan of God.  So, Jesus goes to Jerusalem.  Let us get back to Mark 11:

² and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it.

Jesus’ plan rested on divine commission, on the perfect will of God Father, even down to the detail of how Jesus entered Jerusalem.  He knows what village the disciples are to enter and He knows precisely where the colt (“the foal of a donkey,” as Matthew tells us in Matthew 21:5) is tethered.

Some commentators struggle with this amazing display of knowledge.  How could Jesus have known where this young donkey would be?  But, come now!  Jesus repeatedly reveals His own divine knowledge.  He knows what is in the hearts of those He meets before they even say it.  He knows details before people reveal them.  It is not surprising that Jesus would know exactly where this donkey is.  Once again, we see that Jesus’ is operating in the midst of a divine plan.

And we see the divine commission also in the detailed instructions that Jesus gives His disciples:

³ If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.'”

Indeed!  “The Lord has need of it!”  It’s as if He is instructing them to say, “Even this detail, the use of this donkey, is necessary.  Even this is part of the divine plan, part of God’s salvific blueprint to offer salvation to the nations.  The Lord has need of it!  Do not mind us taking the donkey for a moment.  This, too, is part of the plan.”

Jesus’ plan was intentional, deliberate, and meticulous.  He never had to guess what was going to happen.  Jesus was not Napoleon.  Do you know what Napoleon’s approach to war was?  Napoleon said, “Engage, then see what happens.”  In other words, make a move, watch the result, then improvise and formulate your next move.  Jesus never said, “Engage, then see what happens.”  Jesus knew precisely what was going to happen.  His plan was known from the beginning.

I once took a college class on Napoleonic warfare.  The professor had written a book entitled, Blundering to Glory.  His thesis was that Napoleon’s genius rested in his ability to engage, observe, then act.  He suggested that Napoleon was less a great strategist than improviser.  But Jesus was not an improviser.  Jesus did not react.  Jesus acted.  He walked resolutely in the center of the Father’s will.  Napoleon blundered to glory, but Jesus did not!

Jesus was not Indiana Jones.  Do you remember in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” when Indy and the group are trying to escape the Nazi archaeological dig site?  Indy is asked what he’s going to do next and he responds, “I don’t know.  I’m making this up as I go along.”  Jesus never said that.  He never made it up as He went along.  He knew what needed to happen, and He knew how it would play out.

Jesus was not Forrest Gump.  One of the truly funny things about the movie “Forrest Gump” was how Forrest just happened to stumble on and off the major cultural and political stages in modern history.  He just happens to run across a football field when Bear Bryant is in the bleachers.  He just happens to be in Washington, D.C., and is pushed onto a stage where Abbie Hoffman is leading a huge anti-war rally.  Lt. Dan just happens to invest his money in Apple stock.  He just happens to give John Lennon some of the lyrics to “Imagine” on the Dick Cavett show.  He just happens to be thrust onto the stage of ping pong diplomacy with Communist China in the early seventies.  On and on it goes.  Forrest happens to stumble onto pretty much every significant cultural and political stage during his lifetime.

But hear me:  Jesus never stumbled onto the stage.  Jesus built the stage.  Jesus wrote the script.  Jesus’ kingship was marked by divine commission.  It was a known, embraced, sure plan.  He knew what He had to do, and he did it.  Life, for Jesus, was never like a box of chocolates:  He knew exactly what He was going to get!

Dear church, I think we can take great comfort in the meticulous nature of God’s plan and the Lord Jesus’ fulfillment of it.  Your existence and your salvation, if you have trusted Christ, are part of a divine plan.  Your presence here this morning is part of a divine plan.  Some of you this morning are hearing the gospel for maybe the first time.  I believe that the Lord God knew before He created the heavens and the earth that you – you! – would be right here right now in this sanctuary.  He has you right where He wants you.  This, too, is part of His plan.

I believe the Lord is calling out to you this morning.  I believe He is calling you to Himself.  You are no accident.  The events of this week are no accident.  This service is no accident.

I believe the Lord know that some of you, this very morning, are being drawn into Christ and will take His hand.

II. Jesus’ Kingship Was Marked by Shocking Humility (vv.4-7)

Jesus’ kingship was marked by divine commission.  But there’s more:  it was also marked by shocking humility!  Note the manner of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem:

⁴ And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it.

By “colt,” the Bible means here “young donkey.”

⁵ And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” ⁶ And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go. ⁷ And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it.

To be sure, donkeys were not viewed with the derision with which many people view them today.  They were not the punch line of jokes in the ancient world.  But neither were they the expected mode of travel for kings.

I recall being in high school and seeing Elizabeth Taylor’s movie, “Cleopatra.”  Many of you have seen this movie as well.  Do you remember the amazing scene where Cleopatra enters Rome?  The Roman royalty are seated on a dais awaiting her arrival.  The great gates open and an entire pageant of sights and sounds come through:  marching soldiers, exotic animals, trumpeters, dancers, smoke of differing colors, etc.  Finally, seated atop a huge black Sphinx being pulled by a large number of rhythmically marching slaves is Cleopatra and her son, regal and majestic, towering above everybody in the watching audience.  Even royal Rome seems awed by the display.

I recall watching this for the first time and think, “Now that’s how royalty should enter a city!”

Compared to the pomp and circumstance of such an entrance, Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem seems almost comical.  Again, I believe Jesus is standing in the great, odd, and venerable prophetic tradition in which the prophets act out the truths of God.

Jesus came lowly, seated on a donkey.  The very manner of His entry seemed to say:  “The Kingdom of God is not like the kingdoms of the world.  The kingdoms of the world vie for power and prestige.  In the Kingdom of God, however, the King comes lowly and humbly.  The kings of the earth come to remind you that you are lowly.  The King of Kings comes lowly to lift you who are low up and out of your sins.”

There is something wonderfully subversive about the way that Jesus enters Jerusalem!  In coming in this manner, He is exalting humility as a cardinal virtue.  He is saying:  “This is what God treasures!  This is how the world will be won!  God works through the meek, the humble, and the lowly!  The world will be won not by powerful armies, but by a Suffering Servant.”

In speaking of the triumphal entry of Jesus, St. Augustine called Jesus, “the master of humility.”[i]  I think that is very well said, indeed.  His people are to be masters of humility as well.

I remember reading an account by Muhammad Ali about a meeting he had with Billy Graham some years back.  Muhammad Ali flew into an airport where he expected to be picked up by one of the great evangelist’s assistants.  Nobody came.  He was looking for somebody with a sign.  Nobody was there.  Finally, he went to the curb and there sat Billy Graham himself.  Muhammad Ali expressed his amazement that Graham came to pick him up himself…in a station wagon!

There’s something very Christian about that.  Humility is in the DNA of God’s people because Christ Himself was the very definition of humility.  He entered Jerusalem on a donkey, and He enters human hearts today only through the door of humility.

Humility marked the life of Christ, and His kingship.  It marked His birth in Bethlehem, His life, and, especially, His death on the cross.  On the cross, Christ glorified humility as the true birthright of the people of God.

D.A. Carson once asked the great Baptist theologian Carl F.H. Henry how he managed to remain so humble in the face of all of his monumental accomplishments.  Do you want to know what Dr. Henry said?  He answered:  “How can anyone be arrogant when he stands beside the cross?”[ii]

Christ is King, and He defined His kingship in terms of humility.

III. Jesus’ Kingship Was Marked by Misunderstanding Followers (vv.8-11)

His kingship was also marked by misunderstanding followers:

⁸ And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. ⁹ And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! ¹⁰ Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” ¹¹ And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

The word “Hosanna!” does not mean, “Praise to God!”  What it really means is, “Save us now!”  We must understand this in order to understand how even the shouts of joy from the crowd reveal that those calling the name of Jesus misunderstood His person and His mission.

“Save us now!”  They cry.  This is an explicitly political statement, and we must understand this to get what is happening here.  They are crying, “Save us, Jesus!  Save us now!  The Roman foreigners have oppressed us too long!  The armies of Caesar have walked out streets unchallenged for too long!  Hosanna!  Save us now, Jesus!  Drive the filthy Romans out of God’s holy land!  Raise up an army!  Muster the troops!  Start the revolution!  Save us, Jesus!”

It is often asked how it can be that so many in this crowd who shouted, “Hosanna!” would cry, “Crucify Him!” just a few days afterward.    In a sense, it is an easy question to answer:  simply put, Jesus failed to deliver what the crowd thought He was going to deliver.  “Hosanna!” morphs tragically into “Crucify!” because in the “Hosanna!” of the crowd was a deep and profound misunderstanding.

Jesus did come to topple kingdoms.  He did come to start a revolution.  He did come to cast down the mighty and the proud.  But He did not come to do so through armed rebellion.  He came to do so through a much more subversive and profound strategy.  He came to turn the world upside down by drawing simple men and women into a kingdom that operated on God’s agenda and on divine mores, instead of on the agenda and mores of the world.  He came to start a rebellion by turning men and women’s hearts back to God.  In doing so, He came to begin the outworking of the Kingdom of God in the kingdoms of the world through the radically transformed hearts and minds of His disciples.  He came, in other words, to strike at the very core of what the world called “power” by subverting it through the lives of His followers.

Jesus did come to save and to “save now,” but not in the way the people expected.  He came to win the world one heart at a time.

The church father, the Venerable Bede, commented on this passage and said that “it was not God’s pleasure to give an earthly kingdom to the powerful, but a heavenly kingdom to the gentle.”[iii]

This is not what the crowd expected.  It is not even what they wanted.  And when Jesus failed to deliver, the crowd did what crowds always seem to do when Jesus doesn’t perform according to our plans:  they turned on Him.  They turned on Him and clamored for Him to be murdered.  Why?  Because He failed them so far as their expectations were concerned.  He did not come to be the political, military leader they expected.

In all honesty, some of you are struggling with this dynamic this very morning.  You feel frustrated with Jesus.  He has not done for you what you think He should do.  He has not been quick enough to give you what you want.  He has not healed the sickness, given the promotion, fixed the relationship, straightened out the child, or given you the financial blessing you think you are entitled to.

Some of us are coming to church and crying, “Hosanna!  Make it happen, Jesus!  Make it happen now!”

When it doesn’t happen, we grow frustrated and disillusioned.  Like the mob in our text we are too proud to realize that the Kingdom of God does not operate along the lines on which we think it should operated.  We are too stubborn to realize that when the King seems not to answer our requests it’s because He knows that we do not know our own requests as well as He does.

The King of glory comes to save and transform our lives, but not always as we wish.  But we may be sure of this:  His Kingdom is so much better than our own!

Let us misunderstand our King no more.  He comes lowly, humbly, and with the power of Almighty God.  He comes to turn everything upside down.  He comes to revolutionize all of life, one heart at a time, on His timetable, and as part of His divine plan.

It is not for us to hate the plan, to chafe under the plan.  It is for us to fall on our knees before the King of kings and Lord of lords and say, “I trust.  I believe.  I will follow.”

Have you embraced the King?  Have you bowed heart and mind and knee to His majesty?

I do pray that you will today.

John 4:46-54

⁴⁶ So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. ⁴⁷ When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. ⁴⁸ So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” ⁴⁹ The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” ⁵⁰ Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. ⁵¹ As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. ⁵² So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” ⁵³ The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” And he himself believed, and all his household. ⁵⁴ This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.

Well-known pastor Fred Craddock tells a story about something very awkward that happened to him while he was serving as the dean of a seminary.  I’ll let him tell it:

                  For a brief time, I was acting dean at Phillips Seminary.  It was for fifteen months.  That’s similar to fifteen years.  The secretary said, “There’s someone here to see you.”  A woman asked me to come out to the parking lot.  I was a little nervous, but I followed her to the parking lot and to her car.  She opened the back door, and slumped in the back seat was her brother.  He had been a senior at the University of Oklahoma.  He had been in a bad car wreck and in a coma eight months.  She had quit her job as a schoolteacher to take care of him.  All of their resources were gone.  She opened the door and said, “I’d like for you to heal him.”

I said, “I can pray for him.  I can pray with you.  But I do not have the gift of healing.”

She got behind the wheel and said to me, “Then what in the world do you do?”  And she drove off.

What I did that afternoon was study, stare at my books, and try to forget what she had said.[1]

I sympathize with that woman.  I also sympathize with Fred Craddock.  It is, after all, a difficult thing to look into the eyes of a suffering person and be unable to stop their pain.  And, in truth, nothing causes a person as much pain as watching a loved one – especially a child – suffer.

This woman who came to Fred Craddock knew at least enough to know that Jesus was a healer, so she came to one of Jesus’ followers looking for the Master’s touch.

The Bible records a similar story, but with a radically different result.  At the end of John 4 we find a fascinating account of a father’s cry for Jesus to heal his dying son.  It is, on the surface, a powerful drama that grips the attention and moves the heart of the reader.  And yet, as is so often the case with Jesus, it is a story about so much more.  It is a story about the nature of faith, the nature of Christ, and what it means to believe the amazing gospel of Jesus.

It is a story, ultimately, about the greatness of Jesus and about what it means to place your faith in Him.

I. Saving faith is not perfect faith but it is sincere faith. (v.46-50a)

We have now left Samaria, where Jesus’ ministry bore great fruit.  We are returning to familiar territory where Jesus’ first great miracle and revelation of Himself occurred:

⁴⁶ So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine.

Undoubtedly Jesus’ name was well known and His reputation as a miracle-worker was well established in the land of Cana.  It is not surprising, then, that He is approached by a man with a need that only a miracle could meet:

And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. ⁴⁷ When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.

This man comes to Jesus.  At this point we should realize that this man’s coming is one of many that we have already seen in John’s gospel.  This man comes just as the crowds went to Jesus seeking baptism.  He comes just as Mary came to Him earlier in this same town when the vessels of wine were found to be scandalously empty.  He comes to Jesus as His disciples came when He called them to follow Him.  This man comes to Jesus just as Nicodemus came, in the night, asking how he might be saved.  He comes to Jesus as the Samaritan townspeople came to Him after hearing the woman’s testimony that they should come and see a man who told her all that she had ever done.

John’s gospel is saturated with the consistent movement of people coming to Jesus.

So this man comes.  He is no insignificant man.  He is, John tells us, “an official.”  This almost certainly means he was a man of some importance and position in the royal house of King Herod.

Royal men, important men, do not normally come to others seeking help.  But this man, John informs us, had a son who was ill.  Who knows what this illness was?  Who can say?  Perhaps it was a heart problem.  Perhaps it was a problem of breathing.  Perhaps it was leukemia, or some other disease or sickness.

Regardless, this child is dying, and so his important father comes.  And he does not merely come, he calls out to Jesus and asks him “to come down and heal his son.”

How heart breaking, and how very understandable this is! Would we not do the same?  In fact, I daresay some of you have done the same.  Some of you have stood by the sickbed of your child and cried out to Jesus for help.  Perhaps the Lord has healed some of your children. Perhaps, in other cases, it was not in the Lord’s will to grant physical healing.

Either way, I suspect there are those of you in this sanctuary today who understand what this broken-hearted-coming-to-Jesus means.

Our heart breaks at the thought of a child dying.  I have done funerals for babies before.  Hands down, it is the most terrible aspect of ministry.  Even though I know that these precious babies are in the arms of Jesus, I can never help but be overcome with grief at the sight of grieving parents.  And if you and I are moved to tears by this, how much more the Lord Jesus, whose love is perfect, pure, and undefiled.

No doubt Jesus was moved with sympathy for this man.  This fact is what makes Jesus’ response to the man all the more startling.  In truth, Jesus seems almost to scold the man:

⁴⁸ So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.”

It is as if Jesus is seizing this heart-rending moment to cast the light of His own divine knowledge on the man’s motives and the motives of the crowd.  Is Jesus being cold here?  Is Jesus being harsh?  I think not.

We must understand that Jesus always sees and knows the story behind the story.  Even in a moment of great pain, Jesus knows that reality behind what we are saying.  Furthermore, Jesus knows that this moment is not only a moment for healing, it is a moment in which and through which he can draw this man’s broken heart into deeper fellowship with Himself.

So Jesus points out what he knows to be true:  that the man believes in Him in a sense, but the man does not really appreciate and understand who Jesus is.  Why does this matter?  Because Jesus knows that if He heals this man’s son without drawing this man into a relationship with Him, the man may come to marvel at Jesus as a powerful magician or wizard or sorcerer or healer, but he will not worship Jesus as Lord.

After all, what if this man gains a son but loses his own soul by missing the entire point of who Jesus is.  In this man’s mind, and likely in the minds of many who were initially attracted to Jesus, Jesus had great power.  But Jesus came not merely to let people know that He had great power, but, more so, to let the displays of His power reveal to people that, in Him, God had drawn near to seek and to save lost humanity.

The man had a miracles-based faith, but Jesus wanted Him to have a Christ-centered faith.  After all, it is possible to love the power of Christ more than we love Christ, isn’t it?  I fear this sometimes happens in movements within the Church that focus on healings.  After a while, the healings, the signs and wonders, become bigger in our minds that He who heals, than He who performs signs and wonders.

Jesus has compassion on this man, but He does not want the man to miss Him in His healing of the man’s son.  The man’s faith has already been revealed to be a bit misguided, a bit shortsighted.  But, let us notice that he does not turn away at Jesus’ observation.  Instead, he persists:

⁴⁹ The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”

This is powerful!  This is significant! Let us not miss what is happening here.  Let us not miss that something has happened between the man’s first plea for help and his second.  After his first plea, Jesus reveals to Him the true motivations of his heart and faith.  Yet, the man persists.  He does not turn from Jesus.

Interestingly, neither does the man deny the reality of what Jesus has said about his imperfect faith.  He knows that his own cry for help is a mixture of weak faith, desperation, and curiosity to see if maybe Jesus can pull of what no doctor had been able to do to that point.  The man knows that his faith is imperfect, but, in staying and crying out again, the man reveals something very significant:  that his faith, though imperfect, though small, though mixed with foreign elements, was nonetheless sincere.  It was not perfect, but there was a core at the heart of it that dared to believe that this Jesus could heal his dying boy.

Jesus mildly scolds the man the first time, though He did so for the man’s own good.  But what will Jesus do with this second cry for help.  Let us see:

^50a Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.”…

Dear church, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, saving faith is not perfect faith, but it is sincere faith.  Has this man’s faith suddenly grown perfect? No.  Is this man’s faith now suddenly completely pure in its convictions?  No.  This man’s faith is a simple faith.  It is not untainted by sheer curiosity.  It is not untainted by a sense of consumerism:  he wants Jesus to perform a miracle to make everything right.  This man’s faith has not really thought out the full implications of what a relationship with Jesus would mean.  But I will tell you this:  with all of its imperfections, all of its weakness, all of its shaky instability, this man’s faith dares to cry out to Jesus for help and mercy.

And Jesus honors his faith.

Some of you grew up in homes where you were not allowed to ask questions, where you were not allowed to struggle in your doubts.  Some of you grew up in homes where Christianity was defined as the absence of struggle.  Some of you inherited, and some of you are propagating, an understanding of Christianity in which our faith must be perfect and pristine.  Some of you think this is what good Christians believe.  Some of you think we’re supposed to have all the answers, never waiver, never struggle in our faith.

But here’s the truth:  all of us come to Jesus with an imperfect faith.  We speak about “growing in our faith.”  But “growing in our faith” assumes that there is a weaker and lesser point from which our faith must grow.

Yes, to be saved you must “confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead” (Romans 10:9).  But I plead with you not to wait until you think you have it all figured out.

Your faith must be sincere, but it must not be perfect.

We say, “Well, I would trust in Christ, but I cannot see it all.  I do not understand it all.  I cannot comprehend it all.”

Some of you are plagued by doubts concerning your own motivations, “Am I just doing this to avoid going to Hell?  Am I just doing this to please my parents, my mother, my father?”

And yet, even while you struggle, you feel drawn to this Jesus.  Like this man, your great need for mercy compels you forward.

Oh, listen:  if you feel your need for Jesus, if you really desire to know Him and to have Him, do not wait and wait and wait with your faith under the microscope of your own scrutiny.  If you feel drawn to Jesus and are willing to confess Him as Lord, cry out to Him now, now, now!

Jesus honors the imperfect faith the official.

And why should this surprise us?  Yes, again, you must be sincere in your faith.  No doubt you must!  God is not mocked.  God is not an ATM machine.  You don’t get the privilege of mindlessly mumbling some magical incantation and calling yourself “saved.”  But neither must you wait until all your struggles are removed, until all your questions are answered.

I plead with you to consider this man’s cry for help, even when Jesus scrutinized His motives.  I plead with you to remember that Jesus honors the faithful cry of any person who seeks Him, even when that person is still struggling.

Consider, for instance, the amazing episode in Mark 9 of another father whose son was possessed by an evil spirit that tortured him.  After the disciples fail to heal the boy, they bring the boy to Jesus:

²⁰ And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. ²¹ And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. ²² And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” ²³ And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” ²⁴ Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

Did you hear that father?  “I believe; help my unbelief!”  How many of us understand exactly what this means:  “Oh, Jesus, I believe enough to cry out to you, to know that you can do something, but I do struggle.  I struggle with my own weak faith.  I struggle in the flesh with being willing to give it all to you.  I’m struggling, Jesus, because my son is being tortured before my very eyes.  It makes me wonder where God is.  It makes me wonder IF God is.  But, Jesus, I believe enough to cry out to You.  I believe that if anybody could heal my son, you could.  Do I believe, Jesus?  Do I?  I am trying to.  I believe; help my unbelief!”

Or consider how Jesus describes faith in Matthew 17:20

For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

Do you see?  A mustard seed is a tiny thing, but Jesus will take even a tiny faith and multiply it.  Do not fail to come to Jesus because you find your own faith to be a struggling faith.  Come to Jesus with what faith you have and cry out to Him!

There has never been a sincere cry of faith, no matter how struggling, that the Lord Jesus looked upon with contempt.  He looks upon us as He looked upon this struggling father.

Your faith in Jesus may not be perfect, but, if sincere, the Lord God will take it, grow it, strengthen it, and bless you in it.

II. The blessings of faith are enjoyed in the enacting of faith (v.50b-53a)

Jesus said in the beginning of verse 50, “Go; your son will live.”  The miracle has occurred, but the man must move to realize it.  The healing had taken place by the power and authority of Christ’s word, but the man had to put feet to his faith to enjoy the blessing.

^50b …The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way.

The man goes!  He brings his struggling faith to Jesus, then he walks in His faith by the word of Jesus.  He goes.  He has voiced his faith in his cry for help, now he realizes the great blessings of his faith in His obedience to Jesus.  When he does so, he encounters something amazing indeed:

⁵¹ As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. ⁵² So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” ⁵³ The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.”

The blessings of faith are enjoyed in the enacting of faith.  Faith is a verb.  When is faith is lived, faith is realized, and the blessing of it are enjoyed.

What if this man had determined to stay at the feet of Jesus instead of walking in the words of Jesus?  What if he had said, “No, Jesus!  I believe in You.  I will stay with You.  I will build a church right here and worship you forever!”

I suspect Jesus would likely have said, “Man, do you not see that faith is not a stationary declaration, it is a continuing journey.  When you walk in obedience to my commands, you walk in faith.  As this happens, your walk becomes your worship.  I have healed your son.  I wish for you now to see and know and marvel at My greatness.  When you see your boy alive and well, your faith will grow even stronger and you will see even greater things.”

How many of us miss the blessings of faith because we do not wish to walk in our faith?  How many of us miss the greater blessings of faith because we will not obey Jesus?

If we truly believe, we will want to obey, so Jesus says, “Go…”

Had the man not gone, he would never have seen his son healed.  He would have missed opportunities for greater worship because he would have committed himself to lesser obedience.

Some of us say, “Well, Jesus has spoken salvation over me.  Jesus has spoken healing over me.  That is enough.  It is enough.”

Is it?  What if Jesus has more to show you, more to teach you, more blessings to bestow upon you, but you miss it because you refuse to walk in His ways?

III. True faith is contagious faith (vv.53b-54)

The man believes as best he can, and the man obeys.  In doing so, his faith becomes stronger and his convictions more pronounced:

^53b …And he himself believed, and all his household. ⁵⁴ This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.

Ah, he believed enough earlier for Jesus to heal his son, but here John says that “he himself believed.”  It is as if true conviction begins to take root.  He has grown from an imperfect faith based on a desire for a miracle, to a substantial faith based on an understanding of Jesus’ kingly authority.

But that is not all, is it?  “And he himself believed, and all his household.”

What is this?  His household believed?  Yes, they did:  not just the man, but his household.

Let us note here a powerful truth about faith:  true faith is contagious faith.  True faith spreads.  Faith, by its very definition and properties, touches those with whom it comes into contact.

How many of you have been drawn into a stronger belief in Christ because of the example of belief you have seen in others?

His household believed.  This likely means his family and his servants.

Of course, it also means his boy, the one who was sick.

I try to imagine this man’s reunion with his son.  When he left, he thought he would never see his son alive again. He left his son on his deathbed.  I imagine this father leaving Jesus, coming home, and being greeted by his son:

Son:  Daddy, what happened?  I was so very sick.  I felt the cold creeping up from my feet.  Oh, daddy, I felt the grip of death closing in around me.  The world was growing dim and shadowy.  I could feel myself slipping away.  And then, daddy, just before the darkness washed over me completely…

Father:  Yes, son?

Son:  Oh, daddy, just when the darkness was about to swallow me up, I saw…

Father:  Yes, son?  What did you see?

Son: No, daddy, not “what” but “Who.”  Who did I see?  I saw, daddy, that man that was at that wedding a while back, that man who turned the water into wine.  I saw that man daddy.  I saw Jesus.

Father:  You did, son? You saw Jesus?

Son:  Yes, I saw Jesus.  And He came to me as I was slipping away.  He came to me, daddy, and, and…

Father:  Yes, what happened…

Son:  He came to me and reached out His strong hand.  He grabbed me as I was sinking into death and drew me to Himself.  He held me tight and whispered to me, “Not yet, boy.  Not yet.  Behold, I am making all things new.”  He held me, daddy.  And I buried my face in his chest, and when I awoke, I saw the servants standing in amazement.  Oh, daddy, have I said something wrong?  Why are you crying?  Don’t be mad.

Father:  Wrong?  No, boy, you have done nothing wrong.  I cry because, if I don’t, my heart will burst in half.  I cry, son, because I saw Him too.  I saw Him, son, and I begged for your life.

Son:  And did you know He would heal me, daddy?

Father:  Know?  No, I did not know, son.  You see, I went there with you on my mind.  But when I looked into His eyes, I realized that you were not the only one that needed saving.  So did I.  I did not know at first if He would heal you.  But I now know that I would follow Him anywhere, whether He healed you or not.  Oh, son, do you understand?

Son:  Yes, daddy.  Oh, yes, I know exactly what you mean.  I felt the same.  It’s not the miracle I love, daddy.  It’s Jesus.  And I will give Him my all.

Father:  Yes, me too.  Me too, child.  Me too.

How about you?  Have you trusted in Jesus?  Will you?  Will you come?  Will you dare to believe?  Will you?

Oh, come.

Come.

John 4:31-45

³¹ Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” ³² But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” ³³ So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” ³⁴ Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. ³⁵ Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. ³⁶ Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. ³⁷ For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ ³⁸ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” ³⁹ Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. ⁴¹ And many more believed because of his word. ⁴² They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” ⁴³ After the two days he departed for Galilee. ⁴⁴ (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) ⁴⁵ So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast.

I have two older brothers: David, the oldest, and Condy, the middle brother.  David is a couple years older than Condy and a few years older than me.  When Condy was born, David would have been somewhere between two and three-years-old.

My mother tells the story of waking up one morning shortly after having brought my brother Condy home from the hospital.  She noticed that he was not crying.  No sound at all was coming from his crib.  So she went into his room and looked into the crib, only to find a most unusual sight.

Baby Condy was lying there, still on his back.  On his face, balanced perfectly, was a large biscuit!  She said she could see Condy’s eyes peering out over the rim of the biscuit!

My mother called my brother David into the room and inquired as to the meaning of this very strange scenario.  He told her that he had awoken in the night worried that Baby Condy might be hungry.  So, David, just a couple of years older, went into the kitchen in the night, found a plate of leftover biscuits that my mother had made for dinner that night, grabbed one, and positioned it perfectly on Condy’s face so that he could have something to eat should he wake up hungry in the night!

That story has become legendary in our family.  It is a cute story, and more than a little bit sweet.  My brother David had good motives.  He wanted to feed his baby brother.  The problem was he was not able to comprehend the nature of the food that this new little baby needed.  I’m sure it provided a good teaching moment (and a lot of laughs) for my parents!

I can’t help but think of that little story when I read John 4:31-45. In this story the disciples try to give Jesus food, but He reveals to them that they have misunderstood the nature of the food that He, and they, and we need!

We are not done with Samaria.  The curtain has yet to drop on this strange and wonderful scene.  Last week ended with a series of fascinating motions.  Jesus reveals Himself to the woman at the well.  “The Messiah is coming,” she says.  “I am he,” Jesus replies.  Then there is immediate movement:  the woman leaves to return to the town.  The disciples, who missed the entire episode because they were grocery shopping, return.  (As an aside, there may have been a connection between the arrival of the twelve Jewish men and the sudden departure of this lone Samaritan woman.  Perhaps she thought they had not food but stones in their grocery bags!)  So the dust has barely settled from her departure and is barely settling from the disciples’ arrival.  As if to round off the amazing anti-climactic nature of their arrival, they begin to talk about food.

She leaves and the disciples say, “Rabbi, eat.”

But not so fast!  We’ve already seen Jesus handle people who want to change the topic of conversation.  The woman at the well did it when Jesus got too close to the real issues in her life.  Now the disciples do it when they encounter Jesus talking with this Samaritan woman.

“Rabbi, eat.”

Jesus appears to take the bait.  He too begins to talk about food.  But it is immediately obvious that Jesus has not taken the bait at all.  He will not be so easily distracted from the amazing drama of grace that has just taken place.

He talks about food, but, in doing so, he steers it toward the Kingdom of God.

Do not miss the irony here:  Jesus has just talked about water with the woman.  Now He talks about food with the disciples.

There are differences in the focus because there are differences in the immediate needs of the woman and the disciples.  The disciples, after all, are already following Jesus.  So when Jesus talks about water with the woman, He talks about her need for grace, her need for salvation.  With the woman, Jesus talks about the waters that save.  With the disciples, however, he talks about the food of their “followship,” the sustenance of their responsibilities and privileges as disciples.

With the woman, Jesus talks about the living water that brings one into the Kingdom.  With the disciples, He talks about the sustaining food of those who are already in the Kingdom.  The water speaks of entry into the Christian life, the food speaks of the life of a Christian.

Our intake becomes more solid as we grow.  In 1 Corinthians 3:1-3a, Paul chastises the Corinthian church for their refusal to grow towards more solid spiritual food:

¹But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. ² I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, ³for you are still of the flesh.

So it is with us.  We always need the life-giving spiritual water of Christ.  We never do and never can abandon the waters of life.  But we also need the solid food of spiritual growth, the bread of discipleship.

This is what Jesus is speaking of here.  In doing so, He is calling the disciples to a more substantive feast.  It is a feast of growth and fellowship with God through Christ.  It is also a feast of motion.  Just as the episode at the well ends in movement and motion, so Jesus’ conversation with His disciples is likewise full of energy and power.

In particular, Jesus speaks to the disciples of an upward call, an outward privilege, and an inward gathering.

Let us rejoin the story as it unfolds.

The Upward Call: The Will of the Father (vv.31-34)

The disciples arrive with their groceries and marvel at the scene that has just ended.  You might remember that they marvel but they do not ask Jesus about it.  Perhaps you will remember verse 27 from last week:

²⁷ Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?”

They do not ask because they likely do not want to know.  They likely do not want to know, because they are probably beginning to understand that following Jesus just might well mean they’re going to have to rethink everything they’ve ever been taught about God, His grace, who the objects of His grace are, and what it means to have the mind of Christ.

So they do what we do when things get too uncomfortable.  They turn their attention to the menu:

³¹ Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”

I might point out to you that this is likely one of the first recorded instances of stress eating found anywhere in antiquity!  The disciples are stressed, so they start talking about food!

³² But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” ³³ So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?”

Well, this is all becoming rather predictable, isn’t it?  We saw this with Nicodemus (i.e., “You must be born again!” “What?!  I’m an old man!”).  We saw this with the woman at the well, (i.e., “I will give you living water.”  “The well is deep and you don’t have a bucket!”)  And now we see it with the disciples (i.e., “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” “Has anyone brought him something to eat?”)

Once again, we’re witnessing an adventure in missing the point.  For Jesus, of course, this is a teaching moment.  He isn’t talking about physical food at all:

³⁴ Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.”

I think I can imagine the disciples hearing this, slowly taking their eyes off of the food in their hands and lifting them to Heaven.

Jesus is revealing to the disciples the upward call of the Christian life.  The world may stand around looking only at that which they hold in their hands, but not the believer.  We have an upward call, a Heavenward focus, a higher mandate.

It is almost as if He is whispering to them, “Guys, it’s really not all about what you can see.  What’s really important is what your God has called you to do.”  As He says this, it is almost as if Jesus is taking His hand, gently taking the chins of the disciples, and lifting them to the Heavens.

“Guys, if you’re going to follow Me, if you’re going to get Me and what I’m about, you’ve got to stop constantly thinking on this level down here.  I expect that woman to do so.  She has only just heard the gospel.  But you are my followers.  It is time to begin aligning your thoughts, your goals, your aspirations, your dreams, your hopes, and your plans to the thoughts, goals, aspirations, hopes, and plans of God Himself.  You are now of a new Kingdom.  You are now sitting at a new table.  This food that you hold in your hands will keep you for a moment.  The food that I want to introduce you too, however, will sustain you forever.  Yes, we need to have dinner in a bit, but there’s something you need even more:  to eat the bread of the will of the living God.”

“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.”

What a moment!  What a revelation!  In calling the accomplishment of God’s will and work his “food,” Jesus was claiming that there is nothing more important than this.  Furthermore, in calling it “food,” Jesus was claiming that there is no real life outside of the will and work of God.

Jesus was sustained and nurtured and filled and blessed by obeying and accomplishing God’s plan in God’s way.  This union of purpose was so radical that Jesus will say in our next chapter:

“So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel.” (John 5:19-20)

Doing the will of His Father drove, sustained, and overwhelmed the life and ministry of Jesus, to the extent that when it was the Father’s will for the Son to die a cruel death on the cross, Jesus resigned Himself to that will.

Christian, listen to me:  you have nothing else to do, nothing else to consume and eat, and nothing else to live on but the will of your Father!

Yes, we must eat and work and live in the physical realm.  This is not unimportant.  Christianity has never taught (when it has been faithful to scripture) that the physical is irrelevant.  God made us to eat physical bread.  The point, however, is that there is a reality greater and more real than the mere reality of our physical survival.  There is a bread that is greater than bread, and that is the bread of doing the will of the father.

Christianity is not an escape from physical reality, but it is a breaking-in of the deeper realities of the Kingdom of God into mere physical reality.  Christianity does not say you should not eat bread, but it does say that you are more than the bread you eat.  “Man does not live by bread alone” (Matthew 4:4).  Christianity does not say you should abandon your earthly jobs and callings, but it does say that you have the high privilege of living out your Heavenly job and calling here in the context of your earthly job and calling.

Oh, Jesus will eat again.  He may have eaten shortly after this conversation.  But the point stands:  His food is to do the will of the Father, and ours should be as well.

How often do we miss out on the greatest feast because of our obsession with the lesser meals?  How often do we miss out on the greatest plans because of our preoccupation with our own paltry plans?

Church, are we, as a church, feasting on the will of God?  What is it that sustains us as a church family, that nurtures us in Christian growth, that compels and propels us forward?  Do we seek a feast here, a kingdom here?  Or do we delight in doing the will of God!

Some of us are perhaps trying to have both, but may I remind us all that we cannot serve two masters?  Either your life is going to be consumed with achieving more here and now, or it will be consumed with doing the will of your Father.

The Outward Privilege: Right Now! (vv.35-38)

Jesus next fleshes out what the will and work of the Father is.  He begins to speak to them of planting and harvesting that which was planted:

³⁵ Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’?

Here is language the disciples understand.  They live, after all, in an agrarian society.  They know what it is to plant and await the time of harvest.  But wait you must do!  In the fields of the earth, you plant in the ground and wait.  You may wait four months.  You may wait longer.   But the Kingdom of God is different.  In the Kingdom of God, the wait is over.  The harvest has come.  The time to gather up is here:

Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. ³⁶ Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.

What is this harvest Jesus speaks of?  The harvest is nothing less than the gathering in of the world to Christ.  It is this harvest that we are called to and it is the privilege of our discipleship as followers of Christ.

But before the harvest can be gathered it must be seen.  We must look out.  We must understand and be convicted over and burdened by the great outward privilege of our calling.  For out there is the woman at the well!  Out there is the world!  Out there is lost humanity!  Out there are hurting men and women who need precisely that which we can give them!

“Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see…”

You cannot look out and see when you are only looking at the food or the job or the money or the relationship or the car or the house or the promotion or the ambition or the plans in your own hands.  What we miss because we will not look!  What we miss because our eyes are fixed on the horizons of our own ambitions instead of on the great fields under our very noses that are white unto haves.

Looking out to the harvest means looking away from what has previously held your attention.  It is an upward focus on God resulting in an outward burden for lost humanity.  Here are the motions and movements of discipleship.

Look up, church!  Look out, church!  “Lift your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest.”

I agree with David Platt when he says, “Every saved person this side of heaven owes the gospel to every lost person this side of hell.”[1]

Jesus continues:

³⁷ For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ ³⁸ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

Unlike a farmer planting a crop, we cannot look at a saved man and say that his salvation is the fruit of our labors.  “I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor.”  In fact, salvation is a miracle of God, wrought by the Holy Spirit of God.  God gets the glory, but we get the privilege of being instruments through which He works to win the world.

Dear church, are we broken-hearted over the lost?  Do we see the fields that are white unto harvest?  Will we go and work in the fields for the Kingdom?  I do hope we will, for then we will have the honor of witnessing the final movement of discipleship, namely, the inward gathering of the nations to Christ.

The Inward Gathering: The Nations Come (vv.39-45)

Oddly enough, the great missionary in this text is not the disciples.  They were off shopping for groceries.  They were conveniently busy elsewhere.  They missed this amazing scene!  No, the great missionary in this text is a woman who was only just beginning to understand the nature of the gospel:

³⁹ Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.”

It may not have been the most polished testimony.  It may have been more a statement of amazement than anything.  But it did testify to the greatness of Christ, and, in doing so, it bore fruit.  It bore fruit in the belief of many of the woman’s townspeople.  It also bore fruit in the growth of the Samaritans in their understanding and walk with Jesus:

⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. ⁴¹ And many more believed because of his word.

There may have been a powerful moment here when the Samaritans asked Jesus to stay with them.  I cannot help but wonder if He turned and looked in the eyes of His disciples before answering.  Did He look at His disciples as if to say, “Do you see now?  Do you understand?  Do you get that these people are what I’m about and what I want you to be about?  Will you now look at the fields white unto harvest?  Will you now enter the fields to work?”  And I imagine the sheepish disciples pausing, looking into the plaintive eyes of the Samaritans, then looking back at Jesus, smiling, and nodding, “Yes.  Yes.  Let us stay.  We are with you Jesus.”

The Samaritans come on the basis of the woman’s witness, but then they come to see and know Christ themselves:

⁴² They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” ⁴³ After the two days he departed for Galilee. ⁴⁴ (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) ⁴⁵ So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast.

It is an amazing scene, is it not?  One woman at a well was touched by the power of Jesus Christ.  Through her witness, many came to know Christ and be saved.  She had the privilege of speaking the word of ingathering to the harvest.  She had the honor of saying, “There’s something about this Jesus!  There’s something about this man!  You must come and see Him!”

How about you?  Will you look at the field?  Will you enter the field?  Will you join in reaping the harvest of souls for Jesus Christ?  Will you take your place in the great adventure of witness and proclamation?  Will you join in the celebration of the harvest?

I pray we will.  I pray we will!

John 4:1-30

¹ Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John ² (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), ³ he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. ⁴ And he had to pass through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. ⁷ A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸ (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” ¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” ¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” ¹⁷ The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” ¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” ²¹ Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵ The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” ²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” ²⁷ Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” ²⁸ So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” ³⁰ They went out of the town and were coming to him.

Some of literature’s most beloved stories involve men’s struggles with showing grace to women who have made mistakes.  Most notably, Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina focuses on Anna, the adulterous wife of Alexey Alexandrovitch.  In the story, Anna is having an affair with a character named Vronsky.  When her husband, Alexey, discovers it he ultimately writes her off as irredeemable and unworthy of grace.  Tolstoy has Alexey Alexandrovitch say the following about his adulterous wife:

“Forgive I cannot, and do not wish to, and I regard it as wrong.  I have done everything for this woman, and she has trodden it all in the mud to which she is akin.  I am not a spiteful man, I have never hated any one, but I hate her with my whole soul, and I cannot even forgive her, because I hate her too much for all the wrong she has done me!” he said, with tones of hatred in his voice.[1]

Or consider Jane Austen’s beloved story, Pride and Prejudice.  In the story, there’s a scene where a minister, Mr. Collins, writes a letter to Mr. Bennet after Bennet’s daughter, Lydia, scandalously runs off with a shady character named Wickham, publicly shaming her family in the process.  Mr. Collins, a Christian minister, writes a letter encouraging Mr. Bennet to forget his daughter and consider her dead because of her shameful actions. Here’s Mr. Collins letter to Mr. Bennet:

My Dear Sir – I feel myself called upon, by our relationship, and my situation in life, to condole with you on the grievous affliction you are now suffering under, of which we were yesterday informed by a letter from Hertfordshire.  Be assured, my dear sire, that Mrs. Collins and myself sincerely sympathise with you, and all your respectable family, in your present distress, which must be of the bitterest kind, because proceeding from a cause which no time can remove.  No arguments shall be wanting on my part, that can alleviate so severe a misfortune; or that may comfort you, under a circumstance that must be of all others most afflicting to a parent’s mind.  The death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison to this…Let me advise you then, my dear Sir, to console yourself as much as possible, to throw off your unworthy child from your affection for ever, and leave her to reap the fruits of her own heinous offence.  I am, dear Sir, [Mr. Collins][2]

“I hate her with my whole soul, and I cannot even forgive her,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch.  “Let me advise you then, my dear Sir…to throw off your unworthy child from your affection for ever, and leave her to reap the fruits of her own heinous offence,” said Mr. Collins.

The common denominator in these examples is the unwillingness of these men to show grace to the offending women.  There are other examples in literature as well.

Interestingly, before either of these two examples were written, the New Testament revealed a situation in which Jesus had an encounter with a woman involved in scandalous behavior.  Jesus had the opportunity to withhold grace, like Alexey Alexandrovitch and Mr. Collins, but He didn’t.  In fact, Jesus’ approach to the woman He encountered has justly made this one of the most famous episodes in all of scripture.

Jesus chose to show grace.  In doing so, He revealed the nature of God.  Furthermore, He revealed the nature of grace itself.

Grace refers to the undeserved mercy and favor that God offers sinful human beings in the person and work of Jesus Christ.  If you don’t get grace, you won’t understand what Jesus is doing.

Grace is all over this story in John 4.  Let’s see what we learn about it from Jesus’ encounter with this unnamed woman.

God’s Grace Is For The Unworthy (vv.1-9)

John begins the story by telling of Jesus passing through the land of Samaria:

¹ Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John ² (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), ³ he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. ⁴ And he had to pass through Samaria.

Let us begin by observing that good Jews didn’t pass through Samaria.  Good Jews went around Samaria.  This was because Samaria was inhabited by Samaritans, and Samaritans were considered to be a kind of half-breed, heretical, unclean people by the Jews.  The Samaritans did not honor all of the Hebrew scriptures.  Neither did they honor Temple worship.  Their religious views were suspect, and their standing before God was considered broken by their own sinfulness and pride.

Some have found John’s wording interesting here:  “And [Jesus] had to pass through Samaria.”  In point of fact, He did not have to pass through Samaria, at least not as far as the customary Jewish routes of travel were concerned.  But what if Jesus “had to pass through Samaria” because He was driven more by the meeting He knew He would have there than any need for a shortcut?

John continues:

⁵ So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. ⁷ A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸ (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

Jesus has already violated social custom by entering an unworthy land.  Now He further breaks it by conversing with an unworthy person.  The woman had a number of strikes against her as far as Jewish men were concerned.  She was (a) a Samaritan, (b) a woman, and (c) a sinner.

But Jesus enters her land.  He “had” to enter Her land, verse 4 tells us.  He enters her land, sits where He knows she is coming, then asks her for a drink.

This is highly unusual and, in truth, highly scandalous.  This almost certainly explains the parenthetical statement in verse 8: “For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.”  But of course they did!  The truth is they didn’t want to be anywhere near this scene that Jesus was creating by His presence in Samaria.  They found a convenient excuse to do something else.

Let us not miss the prophetic significance of Jesus’ actions.  Merely by entering Samaria and speaking to a woman like this, Jesus was signifying something profoundly important and fundamental about the nature of grace.  His very presence said this:  grace is for the unworthy.

In truth, this is basic to the very definition of grace.  Grace, by definition, is for the unworthy.  The worthy don’t need grace.  Only the unworthy need grace.  As R.C. Sproul has put it:

It is impossible for anyone, anywhere, anytime to deserve grace.  Grace by definition is undeserved.  As soon as we talk about deserving something we are no longer talking about grace; we are talking about justice.  Only justice can be deserved…God never “owes” grace….God reserves for Himself the supreme right of executive clemency.[3]

And the further reality is that all of us are unworthy.  All of us are in need of grace.  “For all have sinned,” Paul wrote in Romans 3:23, “and fall short of the glory of God.”

Shane Clairborne recounts seeing a panhandler holding what he calls “the best cardboard signs for panhandling that I’ve come across…The sign simply read ‘In need of grace.’”[4]

The truth is, we all carry that sign:  “In need of grace.”  Paul knew this well.  A self-righteous Pharisee who persecuted the Christian church in his blindness and rage, Paul was overcome by the grace of Jesus Christ.  Did you know that the word “grace” appears at least by the second sentence of every letter Paul wrote.[5]

Do you feel unworthy this morning?  Have you done too much, said too much, thought too much?  Do you feel like an outcast, like damaged goods?

If so, you will want to pay special attention to this story, for in this story, Jesus intentionally creates an opportunity to confront a person just like that.

God’s Grace Is An Always-Sufficient Well (vv.10-14)

Grace is for the unworthy, meaning grace is for us all.  And God’s grace is always sufficient.  Listen to how Jesus explains this to the woman at the well:

¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”

Once again, as in the earlier conversation Jesus had with Nicodemus about being born again, Jesus is speaking on one level and His hearer is trying to process it and respond on another level.  Jesus says that He can give this unworthy woman “living water.”  He means, of course, that He can give her salvation, that He can give her Himself.  But she is only thinking of the literal water that she has come to draw from the well.  We might call this conversation “Exercises in Missing the Point!” at this particular point.

Jesus then further explains what He means:

¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

It is as if Jesus is saying, “No, you misunderstand.  I’m not talking about this water.  I’m talking about the refreshing, life-giving, saving waters of Almighty God.  Eventually, this well will run dry.  But, lady, the waters of God will never run dry.  The waters of God are for you, if you will drink, but they are also forever.  The waters of God are my grace that I will pour into you, and these waters will quench your thirst forever.”

But there’s even more to this, isn’t there?  Jesus also said that “the water I will give…will become…a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

This means that we not only drink from the well of grace, but the well is dug in our own hearts.  Grace isn’t just something outside that we take in.  Grace takes root inside and bubbles out.

God’s grace is an always-sufficient, never-ending, forever-refreshing well of water that He digs in our own hearts and souls when He gives us His Spirit.  The Spirit of God takes root when we come to Jesus and accept Him.  He is like a gushing torrent or an overflowing river of grace, continuously ministering to us, refreshing us, encouraging us, challenging us when we act contrary to His grace, and sustaining our hearts.

Church: grace breaches the banks and spills over, flooding the parched lands of our own souls with God’s great beneficent mercies!

God’s Grace Is Received By Repentant Hearts (vv.15-19)

Even so, Jesus turns to address the condition of the woman’s heart.  For as beautiful as this grace is, it is received by repentant hearts.

¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

At least to some extent, the woman begins to understand that Jesus is speaking of something more than mere water.  “Yes,” she says, “I want this.  Let me have this.”

What Jesus does next is curious.  He has created a sense of need and desire in her heart.  She now knows that she needs this water, and she desires to have it.  But Jesus goes on to steer the conversation into awkward areas. He begins to talk about her personal life.  Watch:

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” ¹⁷ The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” ¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

How fascinating.  As modern Americans accustomed to steering clear of awkward subjects, we might instinctively find this rude.  I might go so far as to say that the climate of our churches even might find this rude.

See, if Jesus were one of us, He might have said, “Oh, great!  You’re ready to accept me!  You’re ready to pray the prayer!  You’re ready to get saved and join the church!”

After all, that’s how we act.

But Jesus does something very interesting, doesn’t He?  She says, “Ok!  I’m ready!  I want this water!  I’m ready to drink!”  And Jesus turns on her and essentially says, “Fine, but tell me a little about the way you’re living.”

He baits her:  “Go, call your husband, and come here.”  He’ll say in just a moment that He knows she doesn’t have a husband.  He knows that she’s living with a guy who isn’t even her husband.  He knows that her past is strewn with the wreckage of ill-conceived relationships:

¹⁷ The woman answered him, “I have no husband.”

You can see this woman fall from the heights to the valley.  A minute ago Jesus was enticing her with living water, with unending water.  A minute ago she was ready to go.  “This is great,” she seemed to be saying, “a little bit of Jesus to make my life go better.”  Then Jesus puts the spotlight on her life, on her sins.

Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

What a painful moment:  “Yes, you don’t have a husband.  You’ve had five.  And the guy you’re currently shacking up with, he’s not your husband at all, is he?  You have a tendency of running through relationships, don’t you?  You have a tendency to live your life on impulse, don’t you?  You really have made a mockery of God and His plan in the way you’re living, haven’t you?  You’ve had a lot of men, and you’re living in sin with one right now.”

How will she respond?  Like us?  “Well, Jesus, that’s really none of your business, is it?  Who are you to judge me?  Who do you think you are?!  You guys are so narrow-minded.  If I want to live with a guy I’m not married to, what is that to you?!”

She could have said that, but she doesn’t.  Instead:

¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

I imagine her pausing.  The smile slips from her face.  Her voice is more quiet now.  The light of understanding dawns in her eyes.  Then she says, “You’re right.  My life is a wreck.  I’ve been doing it my own way.  Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.”

What is happening here?  Why would Jesus so suddenly expose the dark corners of this woman’s life?  We say, “Don’t go there!”  But Jesus went there.  And because Jesus went there, something deepened in this conversation, in this interaction between Jesus and this woman, didn’t it?

What’s happening here is that Jesus needs to teach her something else about grace.  He needs to teach her that grace is for the unworthy, yes, and God’s grace is an always-sufficient well, yes. But He needs to teach her here that God’s grace can only be received by repentant hearts.

To receive the gift, we need to know our need for the gift.  To receive these living waters, we need to know that our hearts and minds and souls are parched and dry with sin.  To be saved, we need to be convinced that we’re really lost.

It’s not just that Jesus went there with this woman, it’s that Jesus had to go there, because we don’t really know the joy of being found until we know the anguish of being lost.

It could just be that some of you this morning have tried to have grace without repentance, water without thirst, Jesus without humility. But that doesn’t work.  The nature of grace is that it is designed for those who know they need it.

Those who are proud or stubborn in their sins don’t want grace. They don’t think they need it.

Jesus created a sense of wanting in this woman when He told her about living water.  But then He created a sense of need in this woman when He reminded her of her sins.

What about us this morning?  What about you?  What is it that’s keeping you from Jesus?  It could be this particular sin:  cheap, disposable relationships.  Living with somebody in sin that you’re not married to?  Are something else: greed, anger, bitterness?

Oh, listen:  I know it’s painful to let God reveal what’s really going on, but I want you to get that this too is part of grace.  He reveals the wounds only so that He can heal.  He tears the scab off only so that He can get to the real problem.

Jesus isn’t trying to be cruel.  Jesus is trying to save this woman from herself.  To do that, He must bring her to a point of repentance.

Grace is received by repentant hearts.

God’s Grace Is Found In A Relationship (vv.20-30)

And then He shows her one more thing. He shows her that grace is found in a relationship.

This woman finally does what most of us do when somebody gets too close to what’s really going on in our lives.  She changes the subject:

²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

She changes the subject by pointing to one of the old religious debates between the Samaritans and the Jews:  namely, where the people of God should worship.  But Jesus is having none of it:

²¹ Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

It’s almost as if Jesus is saying, “Woman, it’s not about where we worship.  It’s about Who we worship.  It’s not about knowing where worship should take place.  It’s about knowing God personally and intimately – knowing His name, knowing His nature, knowing Him as Father – so that you might worship Him at all.  Woman, worry less about these matters than about the fact that you don’t know who God is!”

²⁵ The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.”

Ah, the irony!  Do you see it?  The woman shrugs off Jesus’ answer by saying, “Well, whatever.  We can’t settle it here.  Eventually, God’s going to send His chosen One to the world, then He’ll make sense of it.”  Ha!  Then Jesus strikes:

²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

Scripture does not describe her immediate reaction:  the look on her face, her body language, whether or not she opened her mouth in astonishment.  But what a powerful moment!  This woman suddenly seems to want to avoid the unpleasant issue of her sins.  She wants to avoid now the confusing issue of religious debate.  She retreats now behind the casual observation that one day the Messiah is coming to reveal the truth.  And Jesus responds by throwing all of His cards on the table:  “I who speak to you am he.”

“Woman!  Woman!  Don’t you get it?  Don’t you see?  What you’ve been looking for in all those past and now-shattered relationships…what you’ve been searching for in those five ex-husbands…what you’re looking for now in this man you’re living with…what you’re reaching blindly for in your religious tradition and religious questioning…what you’re waiting for in the promised Messiah…everything that your life has been hungering and thirsting and searching and looking and waiting for is right here in front of you!  You don’t have to keep running through relationship searching for meaning.  Meaning is right here!  You don’t have to keep mulling the religious questions over in your mind anymore.  The answer is right here!  You don’t have to keep approaching life looking for the next rush, the next relationship, the next whatever.  What you’re looking for is here!  Woman:  God’s grace is for you but God’s grace is found only in a relationship with Me!  I who speak to you am He!”

Even the thick-headed disciples seem to get that something amazing is happening here.  For once, they hold their tongues:

²⁷ Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?”

They are silent.  They didn’t understand it, but they knew better than to interrupt the high drama of grace with dumb questions.

But what of the woman?  What happened to her after her encounter with God’s grace?  Watch this:

²⁸ So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” ³⁰ They went out of the town and were coming to him.

I love this.  No, the woman didn’t seem to have complete understanding.  I don’t think it can be definitively said that she truly trusted in Christ.  Of course, neither can it be said that she didn’t.  She was still struggling.  But I personally think her response here reveals the gentle sunrise of God’s grace over the horizon of her darkened heart.  It’s almost like watching the slow dawning of realization:  “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did.  Can this be the Christ?”

Ah, yes. Yes, dear lady, it could be…and it is.

He has come.  God’s grace has come.  God’s grace has come…and it has a name…and that name is Jesus.

This morning, I’m going to let this woman offer our invitation.  Her words will be mine:  “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did.”

Come.  Come and see.

John 3:22-36

²²After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he remained there with them and was baptizing. ²³ John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because water was plentiful there, and people were coming and being baptized ²⁴ (for John had not yet been put in prison). ²⁵ Now a discussion arose between some of John’s disciples and a Jew over purification. ²⁶ And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness—look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” ²⁷ John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. ²⁸ You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’ ²⁹ The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. ³⁰ He must increase, but I must decrease.” ³¹ He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all. ³² He bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony. ³³ Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true. ³⁴ For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. ³⁵ The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. ³⁶ Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Let me share with you a blunt but honest opinion:  second place stinks.  Really, it does.  Second place stinks.

When I was in high school, I saw that the South Carolina Baptist Convention was hosting a speaker’s tournament for teenagers.  At that time, I knew that I had been called to ministry, so I signed up for the tournament.  I passed through the first and second rounds, then prepared for the final round at St. Andrews Baptist Church in Columbia, South Carolina.

There were, I recall, about ten of us.  There was one other guy and myself, and the rest were girls.

I knew when the other guy started speaking that I was in trouble. He was polished, smooth, and delivered a fantastic speak.  I figured he would win and, in the end, I was correct.  I won first-runner-up and he won the speaker’s tournament.

I’ll never forget when the state Baptist newspaper came out and our pictures were in it.  Under his picture it said, “Winner.”  Under mine it said, “First-Runner-Up.”

Well, I wasn’t thrilled about second place, but I enjoyed the experience.

A few years later, as a junior or senior in college, I was sitting in a large classroom listening to a lecture.  I noticed that the guy next to me looked familiar.  I began to talk to him and quickly surmised that he was the guy in the youth speaker’s tournament from some years earlier!  I couldn’t believe it.  Here I was, sitting next to “First Place” again!

I asked him how things had turned out for him and he replied:  “Pretty good.  I’m President of the student body here at the University.”

I will admit, to my shame, that I immediately thought, “Well, good grief!  This guy is always going to be ahead of me in life, isn’t he!”

I say it with laughter now, and with no small bit of embarrassment, but it really was odd.  I half thought, upon moving here to North Little Rock, Arkansas, that I would move into my house only to find that he lived next door to me in a little bit bigger house, driving a little bit nicer car.  (I knew he couldn’t have a prettier wife than I did, though!)

Yes, I must admit, I hate second place.  To be perfectly honest, none of us enjoy second place, do we?  We wouldn’t think highly of a ball team who, entering a tournament, declared publicly that their great goal was to win second place.

I suppose there’s something natural about this, but, really, that’s the problem.  Our nature isn’t a good guide.  Our nature, after all, is sinful and under the curse of sin.  The root cause of our hatred of second place is that, really, we think we are entitled to first place.  We practically demand it, don’t we?

I once read a biography on Edgar Allen Poe and was struck by the following statement that he made:  “My whole nature revolts at the idea that there is any Being in the Universe superior to myself.”[1]

There you have it.  That is actually a pretty good summary of the human condition and conviction.  Before we come to Christ, we all say that:  “My whole nature revolts at the idea that there is any Being in the Universe superior to myself.”

Of course, when we come to Christ, we should not say such a thing, right?  After all, the Apostle Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me…” (Galatians 2:20)  The New Testament, then, sees the Christian life not as the obliteration of the self, but as the rebirth of the self through its death to enslaving sin and reanimation through the resurrected Christ.

So Jesus came not to say that you and your life doesn’t matter.  On the contrary, He came to give you your life back.  But He came to give us new life through the death of the old life that was bound to sin, death, and hell.

This leads us to an amazing paradox.  This means, if you think about it, that our lives begin only when they end at the feet of something greater than and outside of ourselves.  We must die in order to live.  Consider the words of Jesus in John 12:

²⁴Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. ²⁵ Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

Part of this dying is recognizing that there is something in the universe greater than yourself.  Brothers and sisters in Christ, may I be so bold as to remind you that you are not God.  I am not God.  We are not God.

The Christian journey begins with a recognition that our attempts at self-deification, at being God, have only served to highlight our great distance from God.  When we repent at the feet of Jesus, we repent first and foremost of the native and inherent obsession with our own selves and our own opinions and our own desires and our own will and our agendas that has only served to destroy us.  The Christian journey begins not only with the recognition that there is something greater and grander than us, but that He has a name and His name is Jesus.  Our Christian journey begins, then, with an amazement at the God we behold in the face of Jesus the Christ and a subsequent rejection of the god we used to think we were.  The Christian journey begins with a heart-broken smashing of the altars of our own selves, a rejection of the false god we have crafted in our own image, the casting down of the golden calf that bears our own faces.

And yet, it seems that the “me-culture” in which we live is forever causing us to forget this.  Even in the church of the living God we may forget that we are not God if we are not careful.  We may slowly and subtly begin to suspect that we, after all, are pretty great and that God, after all, is really secondary.

It can happen!  It can!  But, ladies and gentlemen, with all due respect, may I remind us that we are not the point.  We are not the point!

The church rises and falls on her view of Christ.  A church saturated by a holy longing to see and celebrate the infinite greatness of Christ is a church heading in the right direction.  A church, however, that is committed to meeting the felt or perceived needs of people, or to providing for the comfort of people, or to offering people entertainment, is a church doomed to fail.

This is because the church was designed to be captured and held by a vision of Christ in His glory.  Then, through that vision of and relationship with Christ, the church, under the guidance and with the power of the Holy Spirit, engages people for God’s further glory.

It can be a difficult thing to put Christ first.  At the very least, it had to be a temptation for John the Baptist.  After all, there was a time when John was the bright star on the scene.  All of Jerusalem was going out to the Jordan to be baptized by him, by John.  To be sure, John the Baptist always made great efforts to remind the people that he, John, was not the point and should not be the object of their attention.  John was keen to tell the curious crowds and the angry religious officials that his entire job was to point to the coming of one greater than himself.

Even so, at least some of John’s followers had trouble with the transition.  They seemed to struggle with the fact that the crowds were now running to Jesus and His baptism instead of to their own master, John.

A lesser man, of course, might, in such a situation, find subtle ways to edge on the frustrations of his disciples, but not John.  Oh, to be sure, John was human.  I do not think it is dishonoring to John the Baptist to wonder if, in some way, he had to struggle a bit internally with feelings of jealousy.  But John was a man of God, and all the evidence suggests that at every opportunity given him he sought to downplay the jealousy of some of his own followers and make Jesus look great!

This morning, then, let us consider John as an example of a man who knew and loved Jesus Christ.  Let us look at him to see how we, too, should stay focused and attached to Jesus.

To Know Christ Is To Reorient Our Joy To His Joy (vv.22-29)

We first see that some of John the Baptist’s disciples were struggling with the attention that was being given to Christ:

²²After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he remained there with them and was baptizing. ²³ John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because water was plentiful there, and people were coming and being baptized ²⁴ (for John had not yet been put in prison).

It is interesting to note that John’s ministry did not cease with the coming of Christ.  John continued to baptize.  But let us note that John’s ministry was not in competition with Christ’s.  On the contrary, John simply continued his ministry and his baptism of repentance as a means to draw and point more people to Christ.  In the midst of this continuing ministry, some of John’s disciples grow concerned and, most likely, a bit jealous about the crowds’ shifting focus to Jesus and away from their own master:

²⁵ Now a discussion arose between some of John’s disciples and a Jew over purification. ²⁶ And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness—look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him.”

Now John has a choice here, does he not?  He could do what we might have done and egged on his disciples’ frustration.  He could have said, “I know, right?  I mean, we were out here baptizing before my cousin, Jesus, came along.  They used to listen to me preach.  I used to have the big church in town.  And then, wham!, here comes Jesus and steals the crowd!  I mean, isn’t that sheep-stealing?  And what about those folks that used to sit at my feet?  Well!  I guess all I did for them didn’t matter after all.  Go figure!  I’ve just been tossed out back, I guess.  You’re right:  it isn’t fair!”

John could have said that.  He really could have.  But, instead, he does a curious thing.  He begins to talk to his disciples about joy.  Listen:

²⁷ John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. ²⁸ You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’ ²⁹ The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete.

He speaks of joy twice here, and he approaches it through an illustration of a wedding.  Let us imagine John’s address to his disciples.  In doing so, allow me to read the cultural trappings of our weddings into the different cultural setting of a first-century Jewish wedding.  Nothing will be lost in doing so and I think this will help us get the point of what John is saying a little more easily.  Let us imagine John turning to his disciples and addressing them thus:  “Guys, look:  I get your frustration, but let me help you get this right.  Imagine with me that we’re at a wedding.  You’re sitting in the crowd and the wedding’s about to start.  You see all the guys standing up front wearing tuxedos.  And there’s the groom.  There beside him is the shoshbin[2], the best man.  And to the left and right, looking like nervous penguins, are the groomsmen.  The preacher is standing there in the middle.  And all the guys are waiting for the doors in the back to open and the bride to come down.  You guys with me?”

“Yeah,” all of John’s disciples nod.

“Well, imagine with me that the doors to the church open and there, standing in the doorway, is the bride!  Oh, man, she looks just like an angel!  She’s got on an amazing, white, wedding gown.  She’s smiling.  Everybody stands up and turns to her, and here she comes down the aisle on her daddy’s arm.  You hear the sniffles of some of the ladies in the crowd crying softly at how beautiful the bride looks.  Her father is kind of grimacing but trying to look happy.  And imagine they’ve come down the aisle and the bride is now just a couple of steps from the bridegroom.  He swallows hard and grins nervously at his bride.  You know what I’m talking about fellas?”

“Yeah, yeah, John.  We’re following.”

“Then imagine, guys, that just as she is being presented to her husband, the best man all of a sudden lunges at her, throws an elbow at the bridegroom, knocks him over, pushes her dad away, grabs the bride around the waist, plants one on her and shouts, “Woooo-hoooo!  Ain’t my woman FINE!”

I can see John’s disciples all laughing hysterically at the image.  John continues:  “I mean, guys, come on!  There would be absolute pandemonium, wouldn’t there?”

“Yeah, John, you’re right!  That would be crazy…and very wrong!”

“Yeah,” John continues, “it would be.”  Then he pauses, looks up for a minute and says, “Guys, listen:  Jesus – the one that all the folks are running to – Jesus is the groom.  I’m just the best man.  I’m not jealous that the bride – the people – want to be with their groom.  On the contrary, I feel just like a best man at a wedding.  My joy is linked to his joy, and all I want is for their marriage to be a great success.”

St. Augustine imagines John’s point in these beautiful words:  “I am in the place of hearer; he, of speaker; I am as the one that must be enlightened, he is the light; I am as the ear, he is the word.”[3]

Do you see?  Verse 29 again:

The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice.

John is saying to his disciples that knowing and loving and following Jesus means reorienting our joy to His.  It means determining that what makes me joyful isn’t the real point anymore.  Rather, what gives Jesus joy now becomes the source of my joy as well.

Then John puts an amazing bow on the thought.  At the end of v.29 he says, “Therefore this joy of mine is now complete.”

Theodore of Mopsuestia summarized this amazing statement in this way:

“My joy is that I see his incorruptible bride keeping her love for him.  That all would love him and believe in him – this is the kind of love that is fitting and due him – and most certainly due to him as Lord!  If I, instead, wanted to attract the bride to myself, I would be committing an act of spiritual corruption because I would deceitfully pursue a union for which I have no right, and would be committing adultery.”[4]

Don’t miss that, church.  John’s joy found its completion where Jesus’ joy began.  To put his plans above Jesus’ plans would be adulterous and wrong.  Doing the will of the Father brought Jesus joy, so doing the will of the Father became John’s joy as well.  Seeing people come to Himself brought Jesus joy, so seeing people come to Jesus brought John joy too.

How about you?  How about you?

Can you honestly say this morning that the joy of Christ has redefined and now defines your own joy?  Can you say that your affections have been aligned to His?  Or are you trying to have it both ways?  Are you trying to have the benefits of Christ without embracing and submitting to the joys of Christ?  Are you trying to have the gift of salvation that Christ gives without letting Him overtake your heart to such a degree that His mind becomes your mind, that His affections become your affections, and that His joy becomes your joy?

In thinking about joy, I really appreciate how philosopher Peter Kreeft differentiates between pleasure, happiness, and joy:

“Joy is more than happiness, just as happiness is more than pleasure. Pleasure is in the body. Happiness is in the mind and feelings. Joy is deep in the heart, the spirit, the center of the self.

The way to pleasure is power and prudence. The way to happiness is moral goodness. The way to joy is sanctity, loving God with your whole heart and your neighbor as yourself.

Everyone wants pleasure. More deeply, everyone wants happiness. Most deeply, everyone wants joy.

Freud says that spiritual joy is a substitute for physical pleasure. People become saints out of sexual frustrations.

This is exactly the opposite of the truth. St. Thomas Aquinas says, “No man can live without joy. That is why one deprived of spiritual joy goes over to carnal pleasures.” Sanctity is never a substitute for sex, but sex is often a substitute for sanctity.”[5]

Kreeft speaks of pleasure, happiness, and joy as a spectrum from lowest to highest.  Pleasure is a physical phenomenon.  Happiness is linked to moral goodness.  But joy is linked to the condition of the human heart.  Joy is the deepest and most profound condition in, by, and through which we have a deep and profound peace with the will of God.

I think that holds up nicely.  Christian joy is that condition of the believer’s heart in which he or she is so consumed with the beauty and glory of Christ that his or her affections, desires, wishes, and hopes have been aligned to Christ’s affections, desire, wishes, and hopes.

To know Christ is to reorient our joy to His joy.

To Know Christ Is To See Our Ego End Where His Greatness Begins (v.30)

Of course, the greatest challenge that John’s disciples presented to him was the challenge of ego.  When John’s disciples complained of the crowds flocking to Jesus, John the Baptist was faced with an amazing choice:  would he fall back into his own ego and take offense, or would he let his ego die at the feet of Jesus.

The answer is found in verse 30, in one of the most amazing, humble, selfless statements ever to pass the lips of mortal man.  Here is what John the Baptist said to his disciples:  “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

That statement is chill-inducing in its astounding humility.  “He [Jesus] must increase, but I must decrease.”

I can imagine the stirring storms of intensity in John’s eyes as he says it:  “Guys, get this and don’t forget it:  I want Jesus to get bigger and myself to get smaller.  I want my cousin to get the big crowds.  I want them to go to Him, not to me.  I want His fame to spread and my own name to slip into obscurity.  I want His name in the bright lights and my name off the marquee.  I want His ministry to explode and my ministry to have simply accomplished its temporary task!  I want Jesus’ to be known and worshiped and spoken of and adored and praised and followed by everybody who walks the earth.  I’m not the point, guys!  It’s not about me!  Guys, it was never about me!  He must increase, but I must decrease!”

Church, hear me:  to know Christ is to see our egos end where His greatness begins!  To know Christ is to see our agendas end where His plan begins.  To know Christ is to take the petty furniture of our egos and burn it in a pile out back.  To know Christ is to say, “He must increase, but I must decrease!”

Have you said that?  Are you saying that?  Do you wake up each morning with a profound sense of Christ’s greatness over your own?

Let me ask a more fundamental question:  are you convinced of the greatness of Jesus Christ?  Is he, in your opinion, the greatest?  Now, don’t revert to your Sunday School answers.  Answer honestly:  in the way that you approach your business, your relationships, and your own life, is Christ and His teachings and His vision and His cross and resurrection the main piece of the puzzle, the key component, the North Star of your path?  Do you see Jesus as the greatest and the best?

Even here there is a problem.  Actually, calling Jesus “the greatest” falls short of the reality.  Here’s how John Stott put it in his amazing book, The Radical Disciple:

“So we may talk about Alexander the Great, Charles the Great and Napolean the Great, but not Jesus the Great.  He is not the Great – he is the Only.  There is nobody like him.  He has no rival and no successor.”[6]

Indeed!  He is the Only!

He must increase, but we must decrease.

To Know Christ Is To Accept His Countercultural Message (vv.31-36)

To know Christ is to reorient our joy to His joy, to let our egos die where His greatness begins, and to accept His countercultural message.

I like the word “countercultural,” especially as it applies to Jesus.  A “cultural” message is one that is in harmony and agreement with the predominant message of the culture in which we live.  If you want to know what our cultural message is, observe the arts coming out of the culture:  music, movies, literature, etc.  But a “countercultural” message is one that runs against the cultural message, colliding, conflicting, and contrasting with it at key and crucial points.

Jesus’ message has always been countercultural and Jesus Himself was countercultural.  This is why He always sounded like He was upside down in the world.  This is why the world (and, oftentimes, the church) struggled and struggles to understand Him.  Jesus spoke and thought in a way that highlighted His origin from above and our enslavement to the ways of the world.  This is how John puts it in verse 31:

³¹ He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all. ³² He bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony.

“No one receives his testimony,” John says.  The more we are immersed in our culture, the harder it is to get a handle on what Jesus was saying and doing.  His message was countercultural.  More than that, His message was the message of God, and lost people do not care for the thoughts of God.  But John the Baptist goes on to say that knowing and loving Jesus means accepting without reservation His countercultural message.  Hear verses 31-36:

³³ Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true. ³⁴ For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. ³⁵ The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. ³⁶ Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

To be a believer in Christ means taking up the joy of Christ, letting our own egos stay nailed to the cross, and then trusting, believing, embracing, and walking in the message of Christ.

Do we really believe the truth of what Jesus said and who Jesus is?  “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life,” John says in verse 36.  But that belief, if true, should evidence itself in our lives as we follow and obey Jesus.  This explains the shift in verbs in verse 36.  Watch closely:  “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

Belief, then, is obedience.  Disbelief is disobedience.  You cannot say you believe if you will not obey.

To know Christ is to believe and walk in His will.  To truly believe in Christ is to see His miraculous and life-transforming power flesh itself out in our day-to-day existence.  This is how Lois Cheney put it:

There was a place

Where the unbelief was so great

That Jesus

Jesus, the Son of God,

Could not heal and help,

And so he left them.

Has anyone seen Jesus lately?

That’s not a bad question, really.  “Has anyone seen Jesus lately?”  Have you?  Have I?

Jesus, the Son of God, lives and reigns on high.  He is still in the business of turning worlds upside down, of transforming lives from the inside out.  He still confronts and challenges both the world and His church.

If you know Him, embrace His joy, abandon your own ego, and believe and follow the Risen King!

John 3:16-21

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. ¹⁹ And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. ²⁰ For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. ²¹ But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

Even the most shocking things become normal when we get used to them.  That’s true, for instance, of the human tolerance of sin:  things that once shocked us stop shocking us once we see them enough times.  Think, for instance, of the things you now watch on TV that you would not have tolerated just a few short years ago.  You can see this when you turn to your kids and say, “Let’s not watch that show tonight, Grandmamma’s coming over!”  All that means is you have come to tolerate things you once found shocking.

But it’s also true for the human understanding of God and His grace.  For instance, we in the church sometimes do not seem to be shocked anymore by the gospel.  This is a tragedy, for the gospel is the most shocking news the world has ever heard.  The Greeks were shocked by what they perceived as the gospel’s foolishness.  The Jews were shocked by what they perceived as the gospel’s blasphemy.  And believers were originally shocked by the amazing good news of the gospel.

Admit it:  there was a time when you were shocked by the gospel.  You used to sit in church or read your Bible with tears running down your face. You used to read of the cross and marvel that Christ did such a thing for you.  You were in awe of amazing grace, of His amazing love.

But somewhere along the way, many of us have ceased to be shocked by the gospel.

Our familiarity with John 3:16 is a perfect example.  This verse (and the verses following it) is immeasurably astounding in its central assertion and implications, yet we seem almost not to hear it anymore.  Don’t get me wrong:  almost everybody can quote John 3:16, but I sometimes wonder how many of us really listen to John 3:16?

This passage is one of the greatest passages in all of the Bible.  Its message is certainly the greatest message the world has ever heard!

James Montgomery Boice recalls coming across a little card with John 3:16 written on it.  Beneath the verse was this summary:

God (the greatest Lover)

So loved (the greatest degree)

The world (the greatest company)

That he gave (the greatest act)

His only begotten Son (the greatest gift)

That whosoever (the greatest opportunity)

Believeth (the greatest simplicity)

In him (the greatest attraction)

Should not perish (the greatest promise)

But (the greatest difference)

Have (the greatest certainty)

Everlasting life (the greatest possession)[1]

That’s well said!  This is, indeed, a great and beautiful verse, as are the verses before and after it.  Its greatness comes in its amazing revelation of the nature of God’s love for humanity.

God’s Love Is a Crucified Love

In verses 16 and 17, John writes:

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Listen again:  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son…”

It’s the very famous beginning of the most famous verse in the world.  We teach our children to say these words.  If we are not careful, we can say them without even really thinking about them.  But when is the last time you were shocked at these words?  When is the last time you reeled at these words?

Honestly, some of you are thinking, “Why should I be shocked at them?”  The answer lies in the words “gave his only Son” and our over-familiarity with them.

“Gave his only Son” is an amazing thought, but it is made even more amazing when we remember what this giving meant.  It meant that he gave His Son to be crucified, killed by His own creation.

What if we flesh this out a bit when we quote John 3:16:

For God so loved the world, that He let us murder His boy.

For God so loved the world, that He handed His Son over to us and we stripped Him naked and nailed nails through His hands and feet.

For God so loved the world, that He allowed us to mock and beat and strike and curse and spit upon His boy.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His Son to us so that we might make Him the object of our petty, ego-driven, and murderous desires.

For God so loved the world, that He let His own rebellious, ingrate creation mock, taunt, and torture His Son.

For God so love the world, that He gave His only Son, and we hated His Son, and we nailed Him up in front of His mother, and we yelled out, “Kill Him!  Kill Him! Crucify God’s Son!  Away with Him!  Destroy Him!”

Ah, it is no small thing, this giving of God’s Son!  It is no small thing because of who God’s Son Jesus was.  Do you remember when Jesus told His murderers, “Let us be clear:  you don’t take my life.  I give my life.  And if I wanted, I could snap my fingers and 10,000 angels could come and kill you all in a second.  But I will not do that, for I love you even as you kill me.  I am praying God’s forgiveness over you.  I will let this happen so that you can have life.  I will let this happen so that you may be forgiven!”

It is no small thing that God “gave His only begotten Son!”

Let us not reduce the cross through over-familiarity!  Let us not defang it.  It is a startling, shocking, scandalous, and amazing thing that “God so loved the world” and “gave His only begotten Son.”

Shane Clairbone once alluded to a CBS miniseries on Jesus that aired some years ago.  He recalled a scene in the miniseries “in which the Tempter meets Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane just before he is about to be crucified.  The devil tells him, ‘They do not understand your cross, Jesus.  They will never understand your cross.’”[2]

Indeed, sometimes it seems that we have failed to understand His cross.  This is, of course, understandable with lost people who have rejected Christ, but it must never be the case with the church, the people of God, who claim to have bowed heart and knee before the cross of Christ!

May we never forget that God’s love is a crucified love!

God’s Love Is a Rescuing Love

This crucified love is for our salvation.  It is a rescuing love.  It rescues us from sin, death, and hell.

John 3:16 does not stand in a vacuum.  The Word of God goes on to explain the radical implications of this Son-giving love of the Father:

¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Christians, followers of Jesus, believe in two advents, two comings, of Christ.  The first advent was when Jesus was born in Bethlehem.  In His first advent, Jesus came meekly and mildly, born a baby in a manger to a young, virgin, Jewish girl.  In His first advent, Jesus came to proclaim the Kingdom and to offer grace.  In His second coming, Jesus will come for His own and will mete out justice on the earth.  It will be a coming of judgment.  His second advent will be the conclusion of the entire production.  The curtain will fall then, and all will be assigned to their eternal homes.

But John reminds us here that, in the first advent of Christ, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”  He came to save you!

The rejection of His saving work is also clear to see:

¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

Do you see how this works?  Notice that Jesus does not step into a spiritually neutral world.  The world is already condemned.  The world is currently in a state of condemnation.  We are born condemned.  We are born sinners.  This is the upshot of verses 19 and 20, where we read:

¹⁹ And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. ²⁰ For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

We are condemned by our love of the darkness, but when we trust in Christ, we are saved.  When we reject Christ, it is less that Christ actively condemns you as a punishment for your rejection than that He leaves you in the condition of condemnation into which you were born and in which you have chosen to stay if you have rejected Christ.

So God’s love is a crucified love, but it is also a rescuing love.  Christ comes to rescue you.  He comes to seek and to save those who are lost. He has not come to condemn or destroy you.  In Romans 8, Paul writes:

¹ There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ² For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

In the crucified Christ, God offers us His rescuing love.

God’s Love Is An Offered Love

This crucified and rescuing love is offered to the world, but not forced upon it.  Notice the phrases calling for us to accept this gift:

“whoever believes in Him” (v.17)

“whoever believes in Him” (v.18)

“whoever…comes to the light” (v.21)

Christ is a gift and gifts are offered.  Something happens to the whole dynamic of gift giving when it is forced.  One does not normally kick in a friend’s door, pin the poor victim to the ground, and violently duct tape a gift to his face with a, “There!  Take that!”

I suppose that is one way to give a gift, but it sure makes for a weird party afterward!

No, gifts work best when offered and, tragically, offered gifts can be rejected.  So it is with Christ.  You may reject Him, but, if you do, you will not only be rejecting God’s offered grace, you will be embracing your own condemnation. 

Let me tell you about Edmond Safra.

Edmon Safra was a Lebanese-born billionaire banker who founded the Republic National Bank of New York.  In 1999, Mr. Safra was 67 years old and sealed a multi-billion-dollar deal to sell his banking empire in preparation for his retirement.  He was going to receive almost three billion dollars from the British bank HSBC.

Safra had homes in Paris, Geneva and New York, but in December of 1999 he was in the penthouse of his favorite residence overlooking Monaco’s yacht-filled harbor in the Mediterranean.

Safra felt safe in this home and even sent his bodyguards home at night.  On one particular night in early December, 1999, however, something happened that frightened Safra.  There might have been a couple of burglars somewhere in the house, nobody knows.  Regardless, Safra fled with a nurse into the bathroom where he locked the door.  Also, somewhere along the line, the penthouse was set on fire.

When the police and the firefighters arrived, the floor was on fire and Safra was locked in the bathroom.  The firefighters were making a great noise trying to put out the flames.  In a state of fear, he heard the noise and took it to be the burglars trying to get in to kill him.  The bathroom was slowly filling up with smoke.  Safra refused to open the door.  He made some cell phone calls to his wife, who begged him to come out, but he refused.  She told him that there were no burglars.  She told him that it was the police and the firefighters.  She told him that the ones he feared were the ones who were there to save him.  Still, in fear, he refused to come out.

And there, in a smoke-filled bathroom, as the blaze spread through the ceiling and reached the bathroom, billionaire Edmond Safra and his nurse, Vivienne Torrent, died a horrible death.

All he had to do was open the door and come out.  The sound that frightened him so badly was only his salvation:  firefighters fighting the blaze that threatened his life.  He refused to open the door, and so he died.  The article from which this story came was entitled, “Banker Hid Too Long, Paid With His Life.” [3]

How often have we feared the sound of the One who wants to save us?  How often have we too refused to open the door for fear of what we might lose?  This was the mistake of Edmond Safra.  This, too, is oftentimes our mistake.

Edward Safra died inches from his own salvation.  He feared his saviors, refusing to believe that they were who they said they were.

This morning the Lord Jesus is calling out to you.  Some of you know Him and others of you do not.  Some of you are afraid of what you might lose if you open the door, but, in refusing to do so, you risk losing everything.

Please hear me this morning:  He loves you.  He does not want to harm you.  He wants to save you.  Will you come to Him today?

John 3:1-15

¹ Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. ² This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” ³ Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” ⁴ Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” ⁵ Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ⁶ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” ⁹ Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” ¹⁰ Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? ¹¹ Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. ¹² If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴ And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 

In John 3, Jesus told the Jewish teacher Nicodemus that he had to be born again if he hoped to see the kingdom of God.  In doing so, Jesus was saying the same thing to us.  “You must be born again.”  But what on earth does that mean?

R. Kent Hughes has passed on a story about Ian Thomas that is very interesting indeed:

“Ian Thomas tells of getting on an airplane and being so tired that he planned to just curl up and sleep.  But then heard a “psssst” and then another ‘psssst.’  Looking in the direction of the sound, he heard a man say, ‘I am reading in the Bible about Nicodemus in John 3, and I do not understand it.  Do you know anything about the Bible?”[1]

It’s an interesting story, and one that raises an interesting question:  If somebody were to ask you what the phrase “born again” means, what would you say?  Unfortunately, many Christians simply do not know how to explain being born again.  As Kent Hughes observes:

“One of the greatest of all Biblical terms has been stolen, emptied of its meaning, and dragged through the mire so that today born again can mean almost anything or nothing!  We need to rescue it and return it to its proper place…The term born again has been pirated, emptied of its meaning, dragged through the gutter, and given back to us minus its power.  Today when a person says he is born again we cannot be sure what he or she means.  The mere use of the word tells us almost nothing.”[2]

Kent Hughes makes a very troubling but very true point:  the words “born again” cannot really be explained by most Christians who claim to be born again.

But there’s an even bigger question than whether or not you can explain being born again, and that is the question of whether or not you yourself have been born again.

Let me simply pose that question to you this morning.  It is very important that you be honest with yourself, as we will see.  Have you been born again?  Have you?  Can you say this morning that you have experienced the second birth, that you have been born again?

As we look at what God’s word says about being born again this morning, let me teach you the word that the church has historically used to describe this reality:  regeneration.  Regeneration is being born again.  Regeneration is the inward work of the Holy Spirit in a man or woman’s life in, by, and through which he or she passes from death unto life and is born again and saved.  When a man or woman is born again, he is said to be a regenerate man or woman.

Now, for our purposes this morning, learning the truth of regeneration is not as important as learning the word “regeneration,” but I do think it is a good word and one worth taking note of.

In John 3, we find Jesus being visited by a Jewish teacher.  The man, Nicodemus, wants to learn the essence of who Jesus is and what His message is.  Jesus responds by talking about regeneration, being born again.

It is a fascinating conversation that Jesus has with Nicodemus.  This morning I’d like for us to watch and observe what Jesus does here and what He says.  More important than that, I would like for us to listen to Jesus’ teachings about being born again as far as they relate to our own lives.

The Necessity of Being Born Again

The first thing Jesus does is reveal the necessity of being born again.  He does so in a rather blunt and straight-forward way.  Look at the first three verses:

¹ Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. ² This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” ³ Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Now, in verse 4 we will see evidence that Nicodemus is almost certainly an older man.  He is a man who has a high regard for God and the things of God.  He is a man who apparently treasures truth and, to some extent, seems to want to know the truth.  But it is also possible that, in this initial meeting with Jesus, Nicodemus is driven in large measure by curiosity.  “Who are you?” he seems to be saying.  “Who are you and what are you about?”

Jesus’ response goes (as Jesus’ responses always go!) to the heart of the matter, and He strikes at the root issue of Nicodemus’ spiritual condition.  “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Imagine the shock of this statement as it hit Nicodemus’ ears!  “Nicodemus!  Nicodemus!  If you are not born again, you will never see the kingdom of God!”

Like a shotgun blast in the middle of a nap, Jesus’ proclamation of the necessity of being born again is as astounding as it is profound.  It cuts through Nicodemus’ surface concerns and hits at the real issue.

Why does Jesus do this?  Why is Jesus so emphatic that you must be born again?  Because being born again is absolutely necessary.  It is essential.  Without the second birth, nothing else matters.

Let me assure you that I am not wanting to overstate the case this morning.  In fact, I do not think the case can be overstated.  You must be born again!  Listen to me:  you must be born again!

Jesus says that if you are not born again you cannot see the kingdom of God.  That is a terrifying thought!  It is made even more terrifying when the entire New Testament teaching concerning the necessity of being born again is allowed to speak.

While what I am about to share with you is startling, I give you my word that I am not exaggerating.  I am simply going to let the New Testament say what it says.  Consider the following:

A. If you are not born again, you are going to perish.

1 Peter 1:22-23

“Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.”

B. If you are not born again, you are enslaved to your own unrighteousness.

1 John 2:28-29

“And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.”

The church father Tertullian made a helpful comment on this truth when he said, “Every soul, by reason of its birth, has its nature in Adam until it is born again in Christ; in addition, it is unclean all the while that it remains without this regeneration. And because it is unclean, it is actively sinful and suffuses even the flesh, with which it is joined, with its own shame.”^[3]

C. If you are not born again, you are a child of the devil.

1 John 3:9-10

“No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.”

D. If you are not born again, you do not know God.

1 John 4:7

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.”

E. If you are not born again, you are wide open to the devil’s attacks.

1 John 5:18

“We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.”

Do you see now why Jesus immediately confronted Nicodemus about being born again?  Do you see now why He immediately confronts us as well?  There is no more important question than this.

Billy Graham once told how the great preacher, George Whitfield, “preached every night on the subject, ‘You must be born again.’ Some of the leaders of the church came to him and said, ‘Why don’t you change your text?’ He said, ‘I will when you become born again.'”[4]

Whitfield understood what we must understand:  without regeneration, without being born again, nothing else matters.  It is that important!

The Agent of Being Born Again

Having established the necessity of being born again, Jesus, in response to Nicodemus’ questions, explains the agent of regeneration.  Who creates the reality of being born again?  Who gets the glory for the amazing transformation?

Nicodemus, being an elderly man and a teacher, is caught off guard by Jesus’ insistence that he be born again.  Hear verses 4:

⁴ Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

You’ll have to admit that, looking at it from the angle from which Nicodemus was looking at it, that’s a pretty good question!  But once again we note that Jesus and the one to whom He is talking are talking past each other on very different levels.  Nicodemus is being a literalist here, while Jesus is trying to make a much more profound point:

⁵ Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ⁶ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Jesus’ answer to Nicodemus’ question is powerful in that it reveals the contrast between the first and second birth.

Nicodemus is thinking only of the first birth, which is physical, originates with man, and is medically observable.  Jesus is speaking of the second birth, which is spiritual, originates with God, and cannot be observed by the human eye (although the fruit of the second birth certainly can be observed).

The first birth results from the union of a man with a woman.  In a physical sense, man is the agent of the first birth.  But the second birth is different.  The second birth is a result of an inward work of transformation wrought by the Holy Spirit of God.

In verse 5, Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”  This verse is fascinating, and no small number of interpretations have been proposed to explain it.  Among the most likely are the following:

• That “water” refers to physical birth and “Spirit” refers to spiritual rebirth.
• That “water” refers to baptism (meaning you cannot be saved until baptized).
• That “water” refers to repentance, of which baptism is a symbol, and that repentance leads to the second birth.

In truth, I find the third option most likely.  After all, we are on the heels of John the Baptist’s baptism of repentance in the Jordan.  Nicodemus was aware of the fact that people were going to the Jordan to repent in anticipation of the coming Messiah.  He may have even observed John the Baptists baptism of repentance.  Matthew’s record of John the Baptist’s work is helpful here.  In Matthew 3:11, John the Baptist says:

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

John said that his baptism, the baptism of repentance, was one of water, but that Jesus’ baptism was one of the Holy Spirit.  So you have water (repentance) and the work of the Spirit in the believer’s life.

When a man or woman repents of their sins and places faith in Christ, they receive the Holy Spirit who works an internal transformation in their very hearts and souls.  The Holy Spirit affects the new birth.  He is the agent of regeneration, of being born again, of the second birth.

John already hints at this in the first chapter.  Do you remember?

“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13)

The first birth is one of body and blood and human procreation.  The second birth is of God.

Likewise, Peter is more explicit in 1 Peter 1:3 when he proclaims:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

He has caused us to be born again!  It is a miraculous, gracious, inward work of a holy God who loves us and gave Himself for us.

When you repent of your sins and place your faith in Jesus Christ, He works an inward work that cannot be grasped by the human mind.  He makes a dead thing live.  He makes a sinful thing forgiven.  He breaths light into darkness, life into death.  The second birth is nothing less than a resurrection, a re-generation, a beginning again.

The Means of Being Born Again

Being born again, then, is absolutely necessary, and it is wrought inwardly by the Holy Spirit, but how does it happen?  What is the means of regeneration?

Nicodemus had the same question, as verse 9 reveals:

⁹ Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?”

This, too, is a very important question!  How can I be born again?  By what means?

Jesus has already put the spotlight on Nicodemus and his lost condition.  And He has put the spotlight on the Holy Spirit who affects the new birth.  But finally He turns the spotlight on Himself.

¹⁰ Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? ¹¹ Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. ¹² If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴ And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

Jesus is reminding Nicodemus of a story he knows well.  He is reminding him of Israel’s wilderness wanderings in the Exodus.  He is calling to mind that terrible scene in the wilderness, so many years ago, when poison serpents came into the camp of the Israelites and bit the people of God so that death hung over the entire camp.

When that happened, the Lord instructed Moses to fashion a serpent, put it on a pole, and lift it up.  Whoever then looked up toward the raised serpent was healed.

Nicodemus undoubtedly thought this was a strange time to be telling this particular story, but Jesus does two interesting things with it:  (1) He connects it to the new birth and (2) He applies it to Himself.

What is the means of the new birth?  It is nothing less than Christ crucified, Christ lifted up, Christ on the cross.  Christ is now the One to whom we who have been bitten by deadly sin look for forgiveness, healing, and salvation.  We are born again when we cry out to Christ, bowing at the foot of His cross.

John would say this letter in 1 John 5:4-5

“For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world— our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”

Notice the progression of verbs and concepts:  (a) whoever has been born again overcomes, (b) we receive this overcoming victory through faith, and (c) the one who overcomes is the one who believes in Jesus Christ.

We are born again, then, when we believe that Jesus is the Son of God.  We are born again when we come to Him in faith and repentance.  And when we come in this way, the Holy Spirit of God works an amazing miracle in our lives.  He regenerates us, causing us to be born again into life everlasting.

It is a very simple question, and a very important question:  have you been born again?

John 2:13-25

¹³ The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. ¹⁵And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” ¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” ¹⁸ So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” ¹⁹ Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” ²⁰ The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” ²¹ But he was speaking about the temple of his body. ²² When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. ²³ Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. ²⁴ But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people ²⁵ and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

It seems like we sometimes say things without really thinking them through.  For instance, I often hear good Christian people say, “I’m praying that we’ll meet Jesus at church today.”  Sometimes when I hear that I want to say, “Are you sure about that?  Did you read what happened the first time He went to church?”

Would I like to meet Jesus in church?  Well, of course, unless I was just playing church or making a mockery of God in church.  You see, the first time Jesus went to church, it didn’t turn out so well.  The episode is recorded in John 2:13-25.  What it reveals is pretty startling:  the first recorded time that Jesus went to church in John, He grows so angry that He starts driving people out with a whip of cords!

Why?  Let’s take a look.

The Church’s Lack of Love

Now, I am obviously, in this sermon, drawing a parallel between Jesus’ visit to the Temple at Passover and the idea of Him coming to church, but, of course, there were and are great differences between the church and the Temple.  The differences are stark too:

• The Jews saw the Temple itself as a physical symbol of God’s presence with and in Israel.  The church, on the other hand, is a body of believers.  We do not (or should not) view the actual church building in the same way that the Jews viewed the Temple.

• In the Temple, the Jews came to have sacrifices made over and over again.  In the church, we come to celebrate the fact that the sacrifice has been made once-and-for-all on the cross.

• There was one Temple.  There are many church buildings.

So there are limitations in drawing analogies between the Temple and church.  Yet, in a general sense, in both the Temple and the church the people of God gathered to worship, to pray, to seek God, and to seek His forgiveness.

So let us let the analogy stand for our purposes this morning.  When Jesus went to church, He was not pleased by what He saw there.  Consider:

¹³ The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

The Passover was a high, holy, religious day. The Passover was that time when the Jews remembered and celebrated God’s miraculous liberation of His people from the bondage of their slavery in Egypt.  You will, I trust, remember that the Jews were freed from their enslavement when the Lord informed them that the angel of death was going to pass through Egypt slaying the firstborn son of every house whose doorposts were not marked by the blood of a sacrificed lamb.  So do not miss the ironic and poignant scene of this story:  Jesus, the Lamb of God, goes up to Jerusalem, to the Temple, at that time in which the Jews remembered that they were saved by the blood of the sacrificed lamb.  It is not the only irony we will find in this story.

What He found in the Temple astounded and angered Him:

¹⁴ In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. ¹⁵And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.”

There are two things happening here:  animals are being sold for sacrifice and money changers are converting the coins of the Jewish males into the appropriate currency to be used for paying the Temple tax.

We will consider the specifics of that in a moment, but let me first point out that Jesus’ indignation was excited first not by the fact that animals were being sold but rather by the fact of where they were being sold.

You see, the Temple itself was designed to remind people of how far or close they were from God.  Consider this diagram of the 1^st century Temple:

You will notice that the outermost court of the Temple was called the “Court of the Gentiles.”  This is where non-Jews, Gentiles, who nonetheless feared God could come and call on His name.  Let us at least acknowledge that the provision of a court for Gentiles was a gracious gift from the Jews.  At the very least, it acknowledged that God loved some of those who were not of Israel.

Even so, it was insufficient, was it not?  For instance, it was the farthest place in the temple from the altar and from the place of sacrifice.  The God-fearing Gentile who came to worship would have been reminded that he was far from God.  Jewish women could go further into the Temple by entering the “Court of Israel,” and Jewish men could go even further by entering the “Court of the Men of Israel.”

What did it say to the Gentile to watch observant Jews pass through doors through which he could not enter?  What did his spatial distance from the holy inner courts of the Temple communicate?  Well, it communicated that he could call on God, of course, but he was still far from God.

But the Court of the Gentiles is even more significant in this story for it was here that the animal sellers and money changers set up their tables.  They brought their oxen and sheep and pigeons into that part of the temple where those furthest from God were supposed to be able to worship.

In doing so, they showed an amazing lack of love for those who needed grace.

Jesus comes into the Court of the Gentiles, that is, into the court of the outcasts, the court of the sinners, the court of those who could not call themselves the people of God.  Jesus comes into the court of those who did not feel worthy to approach a holy God and those who were reminded of their unworthiness by the very layout of the temple.  Jesus came into the court of those people who, to the Jews, were unclean, who were rebels, whose touch could defile good and holy people.

And what did He see here?  He saw that insult had been added to injury and the court of the outsiders had been desecrated by the foul smells and loud sounds of animals and commerce.

After all, what exactly do oxen, sheep, and pigeons do to a sacred place?  To be delicate, the necessities of nature would inevitably lead these animals to taint the place with excrement and with stench.   The money changers doing their business helped to transform the court of the Gentiles into something like a crude shopping mall.

Jesus is incensed that the house of prayer has been transformed into a house of commerce, but He is particularly incensed that the Gentiles, those farthest from God, have been so demeaned as to render their efforts at worship unpleasant and odious.

No doubt there were some Jews who objected.  It would be unfair to suggest otherwise.  But at least a sizeable portion of the Jewish authorities, as well as those actually involved in the commerce, did not object.

But Jesus did object.

What they were doing was roughly equivalent to you bringing an embarrassing relative to church only to tell him to sit in a folded chair in the court, out of sight of the real action going on in the sanctuary.

The reason Jesus had none of this in the Temple and will have none of this in the church is that He understands something that we religious people too-often forget, and that is this:  there is no foyer in the Kingdom of God.  There is no outer court.  There is no back of the balcony.  There is no “over there” as opposed to “up here.”  There is no dark corner.

Because of the blood of Jesus, the most terrible sinner can draw as close to God as the most righteous person.  The blood of Christ is the great equalizer, obliterating our petty distinctions.

Grace, brothers and sisters in Christ, is horribly embarrassing.  It does not honor our manufactured caste systems, social stati, class ranks.  Grace does not favor the couple who has it all together more than the couple who are a train wreck.

Grace cries out to those on the outside, those sheepishly hiding in the corner just hoping maybe to get to touch the hem of the robe, and it says, “What are you doing back there?  You are the special object of My love!  You are the apple of my eye!  Come on down!  Come near to me!  You do not have to stand at a distance anymore!”

Jesus was enraged at the lack of love being shown to the Gentiles.  He was angered by their shameful relegation to a secondary class of miscreants.

Let us be honest:  how often do we communicate in ways both subtle and explicit that we prefer these kinds of people but not those?  How often have we been guilty of ushering him to the front of the line, but not him; of giving her the good seat, and putting her in the back?

A friend of mine used to serve as an Associate Pastor at a large urban church.  He was telling me that a young family once visited the church.  He said that the lady looked like a model and so did her husband.  They were good looking folks: successful, articulate, nicely dressed.  He said their children were models of politeness, charm, and grace.

He visited a moment with this family at the back door and they departed.  When they left, an elderly lady in the church leaned over to my friend, motioned to the departing family, and said, “Now those are our kind of people!”

My friend was expressing how uneasy this made him.  It makes me uneasy too.  “Our kind of people”?  What does this say about us?  What does this say about the church?

Let us make this perfectly clear:  all people, regardless of their problems, regardless of their issues, regardless of their baggage, regardless of this lives, who come and call on the Lord Jesus Christ are God’s kind of people.  Gentiles are God’s kind of people.  And we had best make sure that our kind of people are God’s kind of people or we risk becoming the objects of God’s wrath.

Let us not dishonor anybody who is seeking God.

Are we doing this? Do people who come into this church know that we love them wherever they’re at?  Do they know that we love them?

Fred Craddock once told the following story:

“My mother took us to church and Sunday school; my father didn’t go.  He complained about Sunday dinner being late when she came home.  Sometimes the preacher would call, and my father would say, “I know what the church wants.  Church doesn’t care about me.  Church wants another name, another pledge, another name, another pledge.  Right?  Isn’t that the name of it?  Another name, another pledge.”  That’s what he always said.

Sometimes we’d have a revival.  Pastor would bring the evangelist and say to the evangelist, “There’s one now, sic him, get him, get him,” and my father would say the same thing.  Every time, my mother in the kitchen, always nervous, in fear of flaring tempers, of somebody being hurt.  And always my father said, “The church doesn’t care about me.  The church wants another name and another pledge.”  I guess I heard it a thousand times.

One time he didn’t say it.  He was in the veteran’s hospital, and he was down to seventy-three pounds.  They’d taken out his throat, and said, “It’s too late.”  They put in a metal tube, and X rays burned him to pieces.  I flew in to see him.  He couldn’t speak, couldn’t eat.  I look around the room, potted plants and cut flowers on all the windowsills, a stack of cards twenty inches deep beside his bed.  And even that tray where they put food, if you can eat, on that was a flower.  And all the flowers beside the bed, every card, every blossom, were from persons or groups from the church.

He saw me read a card.  He could not speak, so he took a Kleenex box and wrote on the side of it a line from Shakespeare.  If he had not written this line, I would not tell you this story.  He wrote:  “In this harsh world, draw your breath in pain to tell my story.”

“I said, “What is your story, Daddy?”

And he wrote, “I was wrong.”[1]

Oh, church, let us prove the world wrong.  Let us show them that we love people, and we love them all alike.  Let us show amazing grace and radical love to any and all who would draw near.

After all, we are the Gentiles in the story, and radical love has been shown to us.

The Church’s Profiteering

Jesus was also enraged by the commerce that was taking place.  To be sure, those selling animals were providing a kind of service.  After all, it is difficult to cart your own animals from far away to be sacrificed at the Temple, and the risk of injury is great.  No doubt these animal sellers had convinced themselves they were doing the Lord’s work in setting up shop.

The money changers were there to convert currency into Tyrian coinage whose purity of silver made them acceptable as a form of payment for the Temple tax.

In both case, money was being handled and profits were being made.  The Temple was being perverted into a place of commerce and the people of God were being reduced to objects for financial gain.

Jesus makes a cord of whips and drives these people from the Temple.  What a terrifying sight that must have been!  It is not the business of the church to profit off of people!

Let us be clear:  giving is a spiritual act of devotion and one for which we will not apologize.  I have no intention of apologizing that we pass the offering plates.  It is good and right to give back a portion of that which has been given to us.  But let us quickly add that it would be better for the church to close its doors than to use the name of God for profit and to use the people of God for gain.

Let us give cheerfully, and let us encourage one another to give as we should, but let us never pervert the gospel into financial gain!

Is it not odd that, in many cases, the church’s spiritual power decreases as her wealth increases?  Not always, mind you.  There are churches who have been richly blessed and are richly blessing others with what they have, but, tragically, this is not always the case.

A medieval writer named Cornelius once told a fascinating story about St. Thomas Aquinas:

St. Thomas Aquinas was in Rome.  He was walking along the street with a cardinal.  The cardinal noticed a beggar.  Reaching in his pocket, he pulled out a silver coin and gave it to him.  Then he turned to Aquinas, the great doctor of the church, and said, “Well, Thomas, fortunately we can no longer say, as Peter did, ‘Silver and gold have I none.’

St. Thomas replied, “Yes, that is true.  But neither can we say, ‘In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.’”[2]

Why is it that our spiritual power sometimes decreases as our wealth increases?  This is especially true when a church determines that it wants to be a wealthy church.  This inevitably leads to a perversion of worship and the manipulation of God’s people for financial gain.  It is a deep tragedy, and one we must avoid.

A friend of mine once went on a mission trip to India.  What he saw in India had an amazing impact on his life, especially the squalor and poverty of that nation as it contrasted with the wealth and power of the American church.  When he returned home, he wrote a poem entitled “My Easy Christ Has Left the Church.”  (As an aside, the question that is asked of Jesus repeatedly in the poem – “Quo Vadis, Domine?” is Latin for, “Where are you going Lord?):

My easy Christ has left the church.
Who can say why?
Maybe it’s because His video-logged apostles all
read diet-books, travel agency brochures
and Christian fiction thrillers
on how the world should end
But none read books on what the starving ignorant
should do until it does.
He left the church so disappointed that Americans
could all spell “user friendly”
but none of them could spell “Gethsemane”

Can we say for sure he’s quit?
Oh yes, it’s definite, I’m afraid:
He’s canceled his pledge card.
I passed him on the way out of the recreation building
near the incinerator where we burn
the leftover religious quarterlies
and the stained paper doilies
from our Valentine banquets.
“Quo Vadis, Domine?” I asked him.
“Somewhere else,” he said.

My easy Christ has left the church,
walking out of town past seminaries where
student scholars could all parse the ancient verbs
but few of them were sure why they had learned the art.
He shook his head confounded that many
had studied all his ancient words
without much caring why he said them.
He seemed confused that so many
studied to be smart, but so few prayed to be holy.

Some say he left the church
because the part-time missionaries were mostly tourists
on short-term camera safaris,
photographing destitution to show the
pictures to their missionary clubs back home.
I cannot say what all his motives were.
I only know I saw him rummaging through dumpsters
in Djakarta looking for a scrap of bread
that he could multiply.
“Quo vadis, Domine?” I asked him.
“Somewhere else,” he said.

He’s gone – the melancholy Messiah’s gone.
I saw him passing by the beltway mega-temple
circled by its multi-acred asphalt lawn,
blanketed with imports and huge fat vehicles
nourished on the hydrocarbons of distant oil fields
where the poor dry rice on public roads
and die without a requiem, in unmarked graves.

Is it certain he is gone?

It is.

We saw him in the slums of Recife,
telling stories of old fools
who kept on building bigger barns,
oddly idealistic tales of widows with small coins
who outgave the richer deacons of the church.

I saw him sitting alone in a fast-food franchise
drinking only bottled water and sorting through
a stack of world-hunger posters.
He couldn’t stay long.
He was on his way to sell his
old books on Calvin and
Arminius to buy a bag of rice for Bangladesh.

My easy Christ has left the church.
I remember now where I last saw him.
He was sitting in one of those new
square, crossless mega-churches
singing 2x choruses and playing bongos
amid the music stands and amplifiers
with anonymous Larrie and Sherrie.
He turned to them in church and said
“I am He! Follow me!”
But they told him not to be so confrontational
and reminded him that they
had only come for the music and the drama,
and frankly were offended that he would dare
to talk to them out loud in church.
After all, they were only seekers, with a right to privacy.

I followed him out through the seven-acre vestibule,
where he passed the tape-duplicating machine
where people could buy the “how to” sermons
of the world’s most famous lecturers.

He left the church and threaded his way
across the crowded parking lot,
laying down those whips and cords
he’d once used to cleanse the temple,
and looked as though he wanted to make
key-scrapes on Lexi and huge white Audis
and family buses filled with infant seats.

He stooped and shed a tear after
and wrote “Ichabod” in the sand.
In a sudden moment I was face to face with him.
“Quo vadis, Domine?” I asked him.
“Somewhere else,” he said.

My easy Christ has left the church,
abandoning his all-star role in Easter pageants
to live incognito in a patchwork culture,
weeping for all those people who
cannot afford the pageant tickets.

He picked up an old junk cross,
lugging it into the bookstore
after the great religious rally,
and stood dumfounded
among the towering stacks of books
on how to grow a church.
“Are you conservative or liberal,” I asked him.
But he only mumbled, “Oh Jerusalem…”
and said the oddest thing about a hen
gathering her vicious, selfish chicks under her wings.
He left the room as I yelled out after him,
“Lord, is it true you’ve quit the church?
Quo vadis, Domine?”
“Somewhere else,” he said.[3]

Let us love people where they are.  Let us never use people for financial gain.  Let us never pervert the worship of a holy God.  And let us NEVER become a church that Jesus would not attend.

The Church Missing the Point

Ultimately, however, Jesus reveals His anger that those who were most religious missed the truth of God that was standing right in front of them.  Jesus was incensed by the empty religiosity of man that, far from drawing him closer to God, actually blinded him to the things of God!

Did you know it is possible to be religious and completely miss Jesus?  The Temple authorities proved this:

¹⁸ So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” ¹⁹ Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” ²⁰ The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” ²¹ But he was speaking about the temple of his body. ²² When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

After Jesus’ great and terrifying prophetic act of cleansing the temple, He makes an astounding assertion:  “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

The Jews are bewildered at the statement, for they take “this temple” to be a reference to the building itself.  But the disciples would learn, of course, that Jesus was speaking of His own body.

There is rich irony here.  The Temple was that place that symbolized the presence of God with His people.  And here stands Jesus, God-with-us, in the Temple trying to get the Jews to see and understand.  What He was trying to get them to understand was nothing less than this:  that what the Temple symbolized and typified had come to its completion in Christ.  Christ fulfills completely what the Temple could only hint at incompletely.

Christ was saying that He was the Temple.

Would you see God?  Run to Jesus.  Would you come into the presence of the God?  Run to Jesus.  Would you enter the holy of holies?  Run to Jesus.

In redefining the Temple to His own person, Jesus spoke of his crucifixion (“Destroy this temple…”) and His resurrection (“and in three days I will raise it up.”)  He did so because it is precisely through His crucifixion and resurrection – that is, through the cross and the empty tomb – that we are ushered into the presence of God.  For Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes unto the Father except through Him.”

How is it possible that they could not see?  How could they be blind to the truth of God standing in the very Temple of God conversing with the Son of God?

I’ll tell you how:  because their religion had blinded them to God, and what the Temple had become had blinded them to the One to whom the Temple was meant to point.

It is a profound calamity when those who should be most keen to the things of God miss the things of God!

How about you?  Have your religious duties blinded you to the person of Jesus?  What has church become for you?

Honest question:  would you really like to meet Jesus in church?  Would you?

Our Lord Jesus loves to shower His grace on all who come to Him.  However, He is not mocked.

Let us make it right.  Let us call upon His name for forgiveness today.

Let us return worship to what it is supposed to be.

John 2

¹ On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. ² Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. ³ When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” ⁴ And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” ⁵ His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” ⁶ Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. ⁷ Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. ⁸ And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. ⁹ When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom ¹⁰ and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” ¹¹ This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him. ¹² After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days.

I want to invite you this morning to a party.  It is a wedding party, a wedding celebration.  It is, in fact, a feast.  If you are going to come along, you will have to be well-rested, because this celebration is a first-century Jewish wedding celebration, and that means it could last as long as one week.

Would you like to go?  Good!  Let’s go.

The wedding is in Cana, which was probably located on a site that archaeologists call today Khirbet Qana.  It is now “an uninhabited ruin about nine miles north of Nazareth, and lying in the Plain of Asochis.”[1]

I do not know who is getting married, and, frankly, that is not our concern.  You see, I, and many of you, are friends of some friends of the bride and groom.  The unnamed couple has invited our friend Mary, her Son Jesus, and his five new friends, which we learned about in chapter one of John:  Andrew, Peter, Philip, Nathanael, and an unnamed disciple (who I suspect may be John, the author of the fourth gospel).

So we are in the house now, and man what a party!  There’s a pretty big crowd here.  You will have to forgive me, I do not know a lot of these folks.  But, look, there’s Mary and a couple of her younger sons.  I cannot tell for sure, but Mary may actually be in charge of the catering duties.  She seems to be looking over the food and drink aspects of the party.

Up there is the bride and groom.  They look so happy, do they not?  And yet, the party has been going for a few days already.  I wonder if they are about exhausted by all of the festivities!  Who knows?  They are living on love, right?

Ah, and look over there.  Hard to believe, is it not?  There is Jesus.  Hmmm.  That is suprising.  I had expected to see Jesus looking somber, unsmiling, looking…well…holy.  Having heard some preachers talk about Him, I just assumed that He would be standing with his arms crossed in the corner.  But, no!  Just look at Him!  He is reclining at the table laughing with the disciples and some other guests.  Apparently Peter tripped over Nathanael’s foot getting up from the table and spilt his plate in Philip’s lap!  That is pretty funny!

Wow!  What a scene.  Everybody looks pretty happy, don’t they?  Man, I just love seeing people in love, don’t you?

Wait a minute.  What’s going on?  One of the servants is excitedly whispering something to Mary and she looks concerned.  They’re having a pretty intense whispering match over there.  Now look.  She’s brushing past the servants and making her way quickly to Jesus.  She’s trying to be graceful about it in the way that we always try to be graceful in a crowd when we have something urgent to do!

Let’s come over here and listen.  She’s talking to Jesus.  She’s having to raise her voice a bit to be heard over the crowd.

Listen:  “They have no wine.”  That’s what she just said to Jesus.

He can’t hear her.  Andrew is sitting next to Jesus and is telling everybody a joke.  Andrew’s one of those guys who doesn’t get how loud his voice is.  Jesus is asking Mary to say it again.

“They have no wine!”

Jesus is looking at her now, a look of seriousness coming over his face.

He’s probably concerned because He knows what a big deal this is.  Running out of wine at a wedding feast is not good.

No, really, I don’t think you understand this.  See, this kind of culture – first century Jewish culture – is what’s known as a “shame-based culture.”  It’s easy to dishonor yourself or your guests if you don’t take proper steps to provide for them at a time like this.  In fact, I kid you not, you can technically sue somebody if they invite you to a wedding feast and do not provide enough wine and food.

This is a problem.

Look, Jesus is standing up.  He’s going to speak to Mary.  Let’s listen to what He is saying:  “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”

Did you hear that?

Jesus and Mary are now just looking into one another’s eyes.  Mary’s intensity seems to have given way to momentary confusion, then to a kind of acceptance.  Jesus just did two very interesting things:  He called her “woman” and He told her, “My hour has not yet come.”

He’s not being rude to her, but He’s also not using the normal term of affection for a mother.  Jesus’ use of the word “woman” here is roughly equivalent to the Southern use of the word “ma’am”…not exactly so, but maybe that helps a bit.

He says to her, “My hour has not yet come.”  When Jesus talks about “my hour” in the gospel of John He is talking about His death on the cross and His great work of salvation.

When he says, “Woman, what does this have to do with me?  My hour has not yet come,” He’s pointing out to His mother that He came to do a job.  He came ultimately to give Himself on the cross to save all who will trust in Him.  But this plan is God’s initiative, not man’s.  The great work of Jesus cannot be prompted, manipulated, controlled, or even begun by the request of man or woman, even the sincere request of Jesus’ own mother.

It’s almost as if He’s saying to His mother, “Mom, you are correct that I have a task to do, but this task does not and will not and cannot operate along human timetables and human initiatives.  It cannot begin because you feel that it is time for it to begin.  It is something I must do.  I must do it because I and I alone can do it.  It is a commission from my Father, mom…my real Father.  I love you, and I honor you, but my job and its timing and how it’s going to play out is separate from you and from your expectations.”

This must have been difficult for Mary.  After all, she bore Jesus in her womb, delivered Jesus in childbirth, raised Him, nurtured Him, taught Him.  Mary is Jesus’ mother.  But Jesus had something to do, you see, that transcended His mother.  “Woman, what does this have to do with me?  My hour has not yet come.”

Some commentators point out that in the gospel of John almost every time Jesus appears with Mary He’s distancing Himself from her and her plans so as to highlight the fact that His great mission is to do the will of His Father, not of His earthly mother, or of any man or woman.

Well, back to the party.  Mary seems a bit wounded, but she also seems to understand.  Look, she’s turning now to the servants.  She’s saying, “Do whatever He tells you.”  Yes, she understands a little better now.  Her Son and His great work cannot be directed by immediate earthly concerns.  He is operating in the will of His Father.  Mary trusts in Jesus.

Jesus Refills What Has Run Out

Now if you’ll look over there in the corner of our room you’ll notice six large stone jars.  The first thing I want us to notice is how big they are!  Each one holds twenty or thirty gallons.

What’s Jesus doing?  He’s talking to the servants now.  He’s saying, “Fill the jars with water.”  The servants have filled them up, all the way to the brim.

Now what’s He doing?  He’s telling them to draw some of the water out and take it to the master of the house.

What?!  I’ve got to tell you, Jesus sometimes doesn’t make a lot of sense from my perspective.  This is going to be a grave insult to the master when they take him a cup of water.

Watch, they’re carrying it up to him now.  Jesus is waiting in the background.  The servants themselves seem hesitant.  When the master of the house tastes water instead of wine, he’s really going to be hot!

Watch this.  He’s putting the cup to his lips.  This is going to be awkward!  He’s taken a drink now.  He’s looking down into the cup.  He seems confused.  His face looks surprised.  Told you!  Oh no, he’s yelling for the bridegroom!  That poor guy is going to be mortified that he insulted the party’s sponsor, the master of the feast.  He’s coming up to the master.  Let’s listen:  “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.”

What?!  Wine?  But the servants served him wat…oh man.  That isn’t water.  That IS wine!

But how did Jesus…

I’ll tell you something about Jesus that I think you need to know:  Jesus came to refill what has become empty.

Some of you, this very morning, feel like dry, parched, empty vessels.  Life has not turned out like you thought it would.  The joy of earlier years, the joy of your marriage’s first love, the joy of being a parent, the joy of being an employer or employee, the joy of friendship, the joy of living…all of these things have slipped away.

Some of you are empty vessels.  Some of you are as empty as a desert inside.

But could it be that one of the points of this amazing miracle is for Jesus to remind empty people that He is the God who fills empty things to overflowing?  He had these six vessels filled to the brim then He worked a miracle in them.

Friends, Jesus fills empty hearts, heals broken lives, and turns disaster into joy.

But that’s not all that’s happening with these vessels.  Did you know that many of the Jews looked forward to the coming of the Messiah, and they envisioned His coming in terms of a great feast with overflowing wine?  For instance, in Hosea 2 we find:

²¹ “And in that day I will answer, declares the LORD,
I will answer the heavens,
and they shall answer the earth,
²² and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and they shall answer Jezreel,
²³ and I will sow her for myself in the land.
And I will have mercy on No Mercy,
and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’;
and he shall say, ‘You are my God.'”

And, again, in Isaiah 25 the prophet says:

⁶ On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.

So to the Jews a miraculous overflowing of wine signaled the coming of God’s Messiah who would save Israel.

Jesus was doing more here than simply filling up what was empty.  He was saying that He Himself is the one who fills the empty hearts.

Are you empty this morning?  Jesus can fill your life to overflowing.  After all, Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly.”

Jesus Frees Us From Religious Ritual

But there’s even more happening here.  These jars, verse 6 tells us, were jars the Jews used for their rites of purification.  That is, they were jars that served a general religious purpose.  They were stone jars, which was customary for jars containing water, since earthen vessels would contaminate the water.  But they were jars containing water for purification.

Not only was the first century a shame-based culture, it was a purification-based culture.  The Jews were forever having to wash themselves so that they might be pure before God.  These jars contained water that was used in an effort to meet the demands of the law.

How many times had those in this house turned to these jars for their own peace of mind before God?  Before they prayed, before they ate, before they worshiped, they went to these jars for purity and for cleansing so that they might stand before God in good conscience.

These jars represented their best efforts at standing rightly before God.  These jars meant a continuous cycle of religious ritual.  The jars meant man’s best effort at obeying the law, keeping the rules, being good…and these are the jars in which the first miracle of Jesus is wrought.

Jesus came not only to fill up what was empty, He came to free us from what causes only despair. 

It is a tricky thing trying to be clean enough for God.  It is a tricky thing trying to wash yourself enough to feel really clean.  It is a difficult thing to perform enough rituals to please a perfectly holy God.

When all is said and done, our best efforts at religion fall short of bringing us into a relationship with God, don’t they?  Some of you have tried this.  You’ve run to the jars over and over and over and over again, trying somehow in your own power to be clean.  You’ve read the books, bought the t-shirts, sung the songs, quoted the verses, attended the services, dropped money in the plates, been on the committees, attended the potlucks, gone to the conferences, been on the trips…some of you have done it all but you’ve done it in an effort to meet the demands of God, to please God, to pacify God, to make God, in your mind, somehow less angry with you.

Oh, listen to me:  religious ritual cannot be a substitute for a real relationship with Jesus.

This is why some commentators even find significance in the fact that there are six jars.  The number seven is the perfect number, the holy number, and it’s very possible that this account is pointing to the number of seven.  After all, it should be pointed out that Jesus performs the miracle at the wedding of Cana on the seventh day of the gospel of John.  In other words, the first day begins in John 1:19-28 with the delegation being sent to question John the Baptist, and it culminates here, on the seventh day, with the creation of wine.[2]  This is consistent with John’s drawing on Genesis 1, which we’ve already seen when looking at the beginning of John 1.  Jesus performs his first miracle on the seventh day.  There are six days of creation in Genesis 1, then the Sabbath.  Jesus represents new creation, the beginning of a new way of living life.

But there are only six jars.  Six, obviously, falls just short of seven.  Again, this may or may not be the case (not every number in the Bible should have a spiritual meaning read into it), but it could just be that the six jars represented the imperfection of the Law and of ritual to save the people of God.  The Law, in other words, fell just short of being able to accomplish true peace between God and humanity.

But Jesus takes these six purification jars and miraculously makes them containers of wine.  The jars that used to remind the people of their distance from God have not been transformed into vessels of joy, of celebration, of a new day.

Jesus comes to fill what is empty, and to free us from what brings only despair.

Are you tired of empty religion?  Then come to the fountain of life and live.  Jesus is waiting to give you life.

Jesus Calls Us To a Relationship of Joy

And of course, this miracle occurs at a wedding with wine.  This is not insignificant.  A wedding and wine.  Jesus would link both of these images to Himself in powerful ways.  For instance, in Matthew 9:

¹⁴ Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” ¹⁵ And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. ¹⁶ No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. ¹⁷ Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”

So Jesus calls Himself the bridegroom and the gospel is likened to new wine put into a new wineskin.  In other words, Jesus calls us into a relationship not unlike a marriage and into a new way of living life (new wine).

In John 3, some of John’s disciples will question John about Jesus:

²⁵ Now a discussion arose between some of John’s disciples and a Jew over purification. ²⁶ And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness—look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” ²⁷ John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. ²⁸ You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’ ²⁹ The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. ³⁰ He must increase, but I must decrease.”

So John the Baptist calls Jesus the bridegroom and His followers “the bride.”

Also, at the end of the Bible, in Revelation 22, Jesus links together the ideas of a wedding and of being thirsty:

¹⁷ The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

It simply cannot be denied that the venue for this miracle, the fact that it was performed at a wedding, means something very important.  What it means is this:  when Jesus calls us to accept Him, He is calling us into a celebratory relationship of fulfillment and away from a despairing cycle of ritual.

Brothers and sisters in Christ:  Jesus is calling you to a wedding, and the feast is the gospel and the groom is Christ Jesus Himself, and we are the bride.

Around thirteen-hundred years ago, a Christian we call today the Venerable Bede commented on this miracle at Cana and made the following observation:

“By this sign he made manifest that he was the King of glory, and so the church’s bridegroom…Therefore, let us love with our whole mind, dearly beloved, the marriage of Christ and the church, which was prefigured then in one city and is now celebrated over the whole earth.”[3]

It is true!  It is true!  You are invited to a wedding in which you are the bride! You are called to come to Jesus.

But may I finally be allowed to remind of you the most powerful image?  At the wedding of Cana Jesus turned water into wine to declare who He is and to declare the type of relationship He is calling us to.  But the creation of miraculous wine also speaks of the way in which we enter into a relationship with Jesus.

For this is not the only meal Jesus attended with wine.  On the night that He was betrayed, Jesus took bread and wine.  He broke the bread saying, “This is my body,” and He poured the wine saying, “This is the new covenant in my blood.  This do as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

The miracle at the wedding of Cana is not the last time that Jesus would use wine to make a point.  He also used it to reveal that He would pour His own blood out on the tree for you and for me.  Jesus changed water into wine at Cana.  Jesus turned His blood into your salvation at Calvary.  Jesus filled the purification jars at Cana.  Jesus filled the righteous demands of God at Calvary.

Cana pointed to Calvary, and Calvary points us to a loving God who has given Himself so that we might have life, and have it abundantly.

Would you like to come to the wedding this morning?  Would you come to Jesus this morning?  He is waiting with open arms.

John 1:35-51

³⁵The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, ³⁶and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” ³⁷The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. ³⁸Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” ³⁹He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. ⁴⁰ One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. ⁴¹He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). ⁴²He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter). ⁴³ The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” ⁴⁴Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. ⁴⁵Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” ⁴⁶Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” ⁴⁷Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” ⁴⁸Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” ⁴⁹Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” ⁵⁰Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” ⁵¹And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

I would like to introduce you this morning to a word that you may not be familiar with.  It is a word that the church used to talk a lot about, but not so much anymore.  But it is a good word, a great word even, and one that we must learn again if we are to be the kind of church we have been called to be.

The word I’m talking about is the word “disciple.”

Now, some of you are immediately suspicious that I might be playing a game with you.  Some of you might even think that I am trying to insult you.  Let me assure you that I am doing no such thing.

I realize that probably all of us in here have heard the word “disciple,” but, as a church culture – meaning, as a conservative, evangelical church in North America – it is just possible that some of us have actually forgotten that Jesus came to call us to be disciples.  In other words, He called us to a life of discipleship.

I think that many Christians today have forgotten that the Christian life is supposed to be a life of discipleship for a couple of reasons:

1.  First of all, many of us have emphasized conversion so strongly that we see it, conversion, as the main thing with discipleship as the less important thing.  This can happen sometimes in very evangelistic churches like ours.  Sometimes, out of a sincere desire to see people come to Christ, we can almost neglect discipleship in order to focus on conversion.  We may say, for instance, “I want to see people saved.”  And, of course, we should want this.  Something is wrong if you do not want to see people saved.  But let me ask you a fairly awkward question:  after a while, what happens to the church when all we talk about is seeing the lost saved without ever talking about seeing the saved grow into full-fledged disciples of Jesus?  I’ll tell you:  an emphasis on conversion to the neglect of discipleship will inevitably make us ten-miles-wide and one-inch-deep.  I think this may be a reasonable picture of the church today:  we’ve all been saved, but are we all disciples?

Now, this is another sermon for another day, but many of us are of the opinion that it is reasonable to ask a man who is not a disciple of Jesus whether or not he has truly been converted at all.  In other words, can you come to Jesus for salvation if you have no intention of following Him as a disciple?  I think not, personally, and I think the New Testament bears that out.  But, for our purposes this morning, let us just observe the following:  when the church exalts conversion to the neglect of discipleship, it only hurts itself.

One more thought here:  let us remember that mature disciples are more effective in reaching the lost for Christ.  Meaning, in time, if we do not focus more on discipleship we will have a church of people who “asked Jesus into their hearts,” but who never learned to walk with Jesus, and that includes learning to share the gospel effectively.

2.  Second, the idea of discipleship has suffered in recent years because sometimes we seem to have reduced Christianity to a moment based on knowledge instead of to a life based on a relationship.  In other words, we almost talk about Christianity as if it is nothing more than mere agreement with an idea.  We say, “Believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that He died for your sins, and you are a Christian.”  But the Bible never presents the Christian life in merely this way.  This Christian life is not less than this, of course, but it is more than this.  To be a Christian is not merely to agree with something.  To be a Christian is to agree with the truth, accept the truth, and let the truth of the gospel of Christ take root in and change your life.

Somebody once said that a student is a person who wants to know what his teacher knows.  A disciple is a person who wants to become what his master is.

Let me ask you:  which one or you?  Are you a student of Jesus, or a disciple?  Are you an observer of Jesus, or a disciple?  Do you agree with Jesus, or are you following Jesus?

Are you a disciple?

“Why,” you may ask, “does it matter?  What’s the big deal?”  That is a good question, and it deserves an answer.  The reason why it is important that we reclaim this idea of discipleship, of being disciples of Jesus, is that our witness is weakened, our church is wounded, and mission is undermined when we fail to be disciples.

You see, to be a disciple is to be on a daily journey of looking more and more like Jesus.  Disciples grow consistently toward being more like their masters.  This means that if we fail to be disciples, we fail to look and sound more and more like Jesus, and the lost world is consequently less and less interested in seeing what we say.

For instance, consider these words by John Stott:

Why is it that our evangelistic efforts are often fraught with failure?  Several reasons may be given, and I must not oversimplify, but one main reason is that we don’t look like the Christ we proclaim.  John Poulton has written about this in his perceptive little book A Today Sort of Evangelism:

The most effective preaching comes from those who embody the things they are saying.  They are their message…Christians…need to look like what they are talking about.  It is people who communicate primarily, not words or ideas…Authenticity…gets across from deep down inside people…A momentary insincerity can cast doubt on all that has made for communication up to that point…What communicates now is basically personal authenticity.

Similarly a Hindu professor, identifying one of his students as a Christian, once said, “If you Christians lived like Jesus Christ, India would be at your feet tomorrow.”

Another example is of the Reverend Iskandar Jadeed, a former Arab Muslim, who has said, “If all Christians were Christians there would be no more Islam today.”[1]

Another wise Christian teacher, Dallas Willard, has put it like this:

“So the greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heart-breaking needs, is whether those who, by profession or culture, are identified as “Christians” will become disciples – students, apprentices, practitioners – of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into every corner of human existence.”[2]

And again, Willard writes, “Most problems in contemporary churches can be explained by the fact that members have never decided to follow Christ.”[3]

When John shows us the beginnings of Jesus’ ministry, he shows us Jesus calling people to discipleship.  Let us make sure we do not miss this fact, for it is as true today as it was then:  when Jesus calls us, He calls us to be disciples, not merely converts and not merely students.  He wants you to follow Him and be consistently transformed into His own image.

Fortunately, John’s account of the calling of the first disciples gives us amazing insights into the nature of discipleship.  What does it mean to be a disciple?  Let’s look and see.

I. A Disciple is a Person in a State of Movement Toward His Master.

Let us look at the first two disciples who follow Jesus:

³⁵ The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, ³⁶ and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” ³⁷ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. ³⁸ Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” ³⁹ He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.

If you read that too quickly, you may miss the very interesting contrast in two of the main verbs in this passage. In verse 35, two of John’s disciples are “standing” with their master.  In verse 36, Jesus is “walking” by.  In verse 37, the disciples see Jesus and “they followed Jesus.”

John’s choice of verbs is not incidental. These two men were standing with John the Baptist, then they were walking with Jesus.

This is fitting, in a way, because John the Baptist’s ministry was one of anticipation and announcing.  They stood and proclaimed what was coming.  But when Jesus came, they no longer stood and announced, they saw and they followed.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the difference between being a disciple and being a mere believer can be seen in the contrast between these two verbs:  standing and following.

Some of you accepted Jesus many years ago, and you have stood right there, in that moment, with that understanding of who Jesus is and what the gospel is all these years.  You have not moved forward.  You are, for all intents and purposes, still in 4^th grade Sunday School.  You have no greater knowledge of God’s Word, no greater understanding of Christian truth, and no greater sense of the work of Christ in your life than you did when you were maybe 8 or 9 and first believed in Jesus.

That is “standing” Christianity.  That is immobile Christianity.  That is stuck, unmoving, sedentary Christianity.  That is a Christianity of profession, but not of life.  That is Christianity without discipleship, the so-called acceptance of Jesus without acceptance of the life of Jesus.

But disciples move.  Disciples gravitate constantly toward the object of their affection, Jesus the Lord.  Disciples do not consider themselves as having arrived, but this one thing they do:  they forget the past and “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14).

In verse 38, Jesus quizzes the would-be disciples: “What are you seeking?”

It is a great question for us today:  what exactly do you think following Jesus means?  What are you hoping to find?  What are you willing to lay down to follow Him?  What, exactly, is it that you think you are doing when you call yourself a Christian?  Do you realize that Jesus asks for your entire life?  Do you realize that Jesus wants it all?

“Rabbi, where are you staying?” they ask.  “Come and see” is His answer.

Here is the invitation to discipleship.  “Come and see.”

Listen:  You cannot see if you will not come.

Sometime will try to see without coming after Jesus.  But that does not work.  Jesus calls us further and deeper and higher than we were when we first met Him.

Jesus calls us to movement, to motion, to followship, to being a disciple.

Are you a disciple?  If so, you are constantly moving toward Jesus.

II. A Disciple is a Person Whose Identity is Changed by His Master.

But there is more.  A disciple is not simply in a state of movement.  In fact, his or her very nature and identity is in a state of transformation by his master.  A disciple is somebody whose name is changed in following Jesus.  Listen to verses 40 through 42:

⁴⁰ One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. ⁴¹ He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). ⁴² He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).

Here we see the beginning of Simon Peter’s life with Jesus.  Andrew, his brother, finds Peter and announces, “We have found the Messiah.” When Peter comes to Jesus, Jesus says, “So you are Simon the son of John?  You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).

To be a disciple is to have your name changed by the Master.  We all had a name before we met Jesus, and, when He is through with us, we have a new name.  We must come to learn what our new name in Christ is.

The story is told that the Queen of England once toured a large nursing home in England.  She was surprising the elderly men and women and encouraging them with uplifting words.  The whole nursing home was abuzz with the Queen’s unexpected visit!

In one particular room, an elderly woman was lying in her bed.  Upon seeing the Queen, she did not react at all and appeared not to recognize who the Queen was.  The Queen leaned over her bed and the lady looked up at her blankly.  The Queen smiled sympathetically, patted her hand, and gently asked, “Madam, do you know who I am?”  After a moment of curious staring, the lady said, “No, dearie, but the nurse out in the hallway can help you with that if you’re confused.”

Well!  Peter must have been confused about his name.  “You are Cephas,” Jesus said, “but you will be named Peter.”

Understand  that Jesus was not playing with words in renaming Peter.  Instead, he was telling Peter that his very identity would be transformed as Peter followed Jesus and became a disciple.

Many of you had a name when you came to Jesus.  Some of you were named “Bad Temper.”  Some of you were named “Greedy.”  Some of you were named “Profanity.”

Before you came to Christ, your character was formed by your distance from God, by your vices and your sins.  Some of you used to be named “Adultery,” “Arrogance,” “Selfishness.”  Some of you might have been named “Anger” or “Gossip” or “Self-righteous.”  Some of you were named “Religious” or “Spiritual.”

All of us come to Jesus with a name.  But then you accepted Christ as Lord and Savior and He gave you a new named:  “Saved,” “Redeemed,” “Forgiven,” “Born again.”  In fact, one of the glories of salvation is the knowledge that we will have the name of Christ stamped upon us, as Revelation 22:1-5 reveals:

¹ Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ² down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. ³ No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. ⁴ They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. ⁵ There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.

But the Christian life is not simply a game of waiting for something to happen when you die.  This is where being a disciple comes in.  At conversion you were given a new name.  But in discipleship you actually become your new name.  When you move toward Jesus and walk with Him, He grows you into your new name.

As a disciple, your name starts to fit you.  It is no longer a declaration of a position before God.  It begins to become an accurate description of your very character.

So as you walk with Jesus day by day, watching Him and learning from Him, your name is changed from “Anger” to “Gentleness,” from “Bitter” to “Forgiving,” from “Unfaithful” to “Faithful,” from “Religion” to “Relationship.”

People often say, “Jesus loves you right where you are.”  And that is true, thank the Lord, for where we are is where we’re at!  But let us make sure that we understand that while Jesus loves us right where we are, He never leaves us right where we are.  Jesus meets you in the valley, but it is not His intent to leave you there.  He wants you to walk with Him, and, as you do, you are changed by Him.

When we become disciples, Jesus changes our name.

III. A Disciple is a Person Whose Faith is Expanded by His Master.

After Peter sets his feet on the path of discipleship, Philip and Nathaniel do the same.  Nathaniel’s case, in particular, is interesting and helpful:

⁴³ The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” ⁴⁴ Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. ⁴⁵ Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” ⁴⁶ Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” ⁴⁷ Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” ⁴⁸ Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” ⁴⁹ Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” ⁵⁰ Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” ⁵¹ And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

When Philip tells Nathanael about Jesus, Nathanael has trouble believing.  The main problem is that Philip tells Nathanael that Jesus is from Nazareth, which, to put it mildly, is not the kind of razzle-dazzle place most people would expect the Messiah to come from.

Nathanael is a lot like us.  He has a surface-level faith.  His faith is dependent upon his own understanding of things.  When Jesus comes along, He fits into Nathanael’s faith like a round peg in a square hole.  It just does not seem right.

Then, of course, he comes to realize that this Jesus is none other than “the Son of God” and “the King of Israel”?  Why?  Because Jesus demonstrates His divinity by showing Nathanael that He knew him before He met him, that He had seen him sitting under a fig tree before Philip even called to Nathanael.

Nathanael is amazed by this.  His skepticism gives way to awe.  Suddenly this Jesus that did not fit his expectations exceeds his expectations.  When Nathanael expresses amazement and praise, Jesus says, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe?  You will see greater things than these.”  One of those things, Jesus tells Nathanael, is that he “will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” (v.51)

Do you see what is happening here?  Jesus, here in this initial meeting with Nathanael, is already expanding Nathanael’s faith.  He’s expanding his faith concerning what type of Messiah Jesus is.  He’s expanding his faith concerning Jesus’ on character and nature.  And He’s expanding Nathanael’s faith concerning what is about to happen to him as he walks with Jesus.

To be a disciple is to have your faith, your perspective, your understanding, and your knowledge of God in Christ increasingly expanded so that you can know Him more, walk with Him more faithfully, and love Him more completely.

Many of you have experienced this.  When Jesus met you, you were lounging beneath a fig tree.  But now that you have walked with Jesus, you are learning and seeing wonderful things!  You look back over your walk with Jesus and see how He has grown you.

This is the way of the disciple.  Disciples expand in their grasp of Jesus.  Disciples have their skepticism hammered into awe, their doubts formed into faith.

But some of you have not experienced this.  You are attempting something that simply will not work:  you are attempting to receive the benefit of Jesus without ever having to follow him.  Some of you want Jesus to come to you under the fig tree, bless you, then leave you alone.  Some of you want Him to save you without you having to follow Him.

It is a tragic thing when a man or woman wants Jesus to be Lord without wanting themselves to be a disciple.  It is a selfish kind of Christianity, is it not?  Listen to how Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola put this in their Jesus Manifesto:

Our problem is this:  We have created a narcissistic form of Christianity, in which “conversion” is less a turning toward Christ than a turning toward success or fame or fortune.  Narcissus never had it so good than in best-seller Christianity, which has become self-centeredness wrapped up as “spirituality,” which has become the latest fashion accessory for the person who has everything…We have made conversion primarily about ourselves, a finding of ourselves and a fulfilling of ourselves.  We’ve made it a journey of self-discovery rather than a journey of God discovery.  Yet conversion is not about us, but about God’s overture of love, without which we are devoid of sufficient motive or power to change and be changed.  True “conversion” is to lay hold of Christ, or rather, as Paul corrected himself, to allow Christ to lay hold of us.  True “conversion” is directed toward the one to whom we convert, the one to whom we turn.  It is a life of “fullness,” in which the “fullness” is Christ.

You are not the point.  And we are not the point.  Jesus Christ always has been and always will be the point.  All the arrows point to him and not to us.[4]

In truth, to refuse to walk with Jesus, to refuse to be changed by Jesus, to refuse to follow Jesus, to refuse to be a disciple, is to rob yourself of the greatest blessing the Christian has:  daily fellowship with Christ Himself.

Some of you simply want to be converts without being disciples.  But God is not mocked.  You cannot claim Him as Lord if you refuse to follow Him as a disciple.

Some of you have never come to Him at all, and you desperately need to.  Today can be the beginning of a wonderful journey in your life if that is you.

Would you come to Jesus?  Would you become a disciple?  Will you follow Him?