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A Divine Appointment, Part 2 - John 4:27-42

  Decisions, Discipleship, and Mission John 4:27-42 Introduction: Last week we saw the initial encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in Sychar. She came looking for water from Jacob’s well, and instead found much more: she encountered Jacob’s God, she found living water, the source of life itself, Jesus. As we continue in the chapter, the disciples return, and this unnamed Samaritan woman, having heard from Jesus himself that he is the Messiah, is seemingly so excited that she can’t even take the time to fill her bucket, she leaves it behind and goes back to town and tells others the good news. We all need to drink water, it is essential for life. I read somewhere that by the time you start feeling thirsty, you are already dehydrated. But as humans, created in God’s image, we have an even deeper thirst, a longing that can only be satisfied through a life-changing relationship with the living God. I am not saying that unsaved people are seeking God. The Bible ...
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A Divine Appointment, Part 1 - John 4:1-26

 A Divine Appointment John 4:1-26 Introduction: On Monday of this week one of my devotional readings included Psalm 63 which begins, “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Psalm 42 opens with similar imagery, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.  2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God…”  “Thirsting for water” is used by Jesus as an illustration of spiritual thirst in this scene in John 4.         The story of the encounter of Jesus with a woman from Samaria stands as a contrast with the encounter between Jesus and a religious leader in John three. In the dark of night Nicodemus, a highly respected teacher of Israel, a member of the ruling council, came to Jesus investigating who this worker of miracles was. Jesus initiated a discussion with him about spiritual birth and all indications are that Nick...
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Jesus is LORD: Trust and Obey! John 3:31-36

 Jesus is Lord: Trust and Obey!  John  3:31-36; cf. Psalm 2 Introduction: In a famous poem, the Road not Taken, Robert Frost concludes, I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. I think Frost was speaking more generally about the momentous decisions a person might make that change the course of their life. There is no more weighty decision any human will make, than their response to the Gospel, “What will you do with Jesus?” John is likely writing his Gospel some time after the other Gospels were written and circulating. Under the inspiration of the Spirit he is supplementing those accounts with his own eyewitness perspective, and specifically presenting his case that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the Son of God, and calling the reader to believe, and find life in His name. If you think back in this chapter, after Jesus’ dialog with Nicode...
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The Attitude of a Christ-follower: "He must increase, I must decrease" - John 3:22-30

  “He must increase, I must decrease” John 3:22-30 Introduction: One of the things that may surprise us when we pick up the New Testament for the first time, is the fact that we have four Gospels that tell us about the life and ministry of Jesus. Why didn’t God give us a single, complete biography of the Lord? Some scholars have tried to help us out by putting together a harmony of the Gospels. Those works can be useful to guide us to see the connected history of Christ, helping us to understand that the gospels do in fact complement one another, they don’t contradict. Even so, by God’s design, the inspired record, the Bible, gives four parallel and complementary Gospels. Each one has its own emphases in terms of theology and pastoral concerns. All four Gospels agree on the fundamentals: Jesus is the promised Messiah, the Son of God, and He came in fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament. He came to give His life so that fallen humans could be reconciled to Holy God. He...
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Come to the Light! - John 3:11-21

  Come to the Light! John 3:11-21 Introduction: Thinking of the theme of “light and darkness,” I remembered a night about 20 years ago, when I was teaching an evening class at the Baptist Seminary in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The class was proceeding normally, when suddenly, the lights went out, we were plunged into darkness. The power grid was not always reliable, and brief outages sometimes happened. For a couple of minutes, I tried to continue lecturing in the dark, but that was not going to work, it was difficult enough for the students to understand my “Americanized” Portuguese with the lights on and PowerPoint illustrating the lecture! I had some papers to return to the students, and several of them had cell phones, so with the light of their phones they came forward and got their papers. Then we dismissed the class. As I left the school and began the drive home, I was surprised as I drove, mile after mile, the city of over 15 million people was in darkness. Traffic lights were not ...
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You must be born again! - John 3:1-12

 You Must Be Born Again! John 3:1-12 Introduction: Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, died about six weeks ago, at the age of 100, the longest life of any US president. He was not particularly effective during his four years as president, but he did devote himself to a life of service when he left office, and really had a big part in the growth of Habitat for Humanity, which has done a lot of good for many families. Some of you remember that President Carter did openly profess to be a born-again Christian. I had heard the term “born again” when Jimmy Carter was running for president, but I really had no idea what it meant. Most of you know that one of the things the Lord used to bring me to faith was serving on a jury that heard a murder trial, that was late in the Carter presidency. A couple of the questions asked perspective jurors were, “would you describe yourself as a Christian?” And, “Does the term born again mean anything to you?”  One perspective ju...
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