A sermon on John 5:24-30. [Hear the message at the Spotify or Apple links below.]

Last Saturday, I watched an old video of the moments right after my son’s birth. Right after the delivery, the nurses took him to a table near the bed, cleaned him off, and put medical tags around his wrist and around his ankle. Do you know why they did that? So that no one at any time would get confused about who this baby is. I recently read about two men who were born on the same day in the same hospital in Canada 67 years ago (source, source). A few years ago, the men discovered that the hospital sent them home with the wrong families. At this point, all…

We are a people prone to allow lesser things to loom larger in our thoughts than God does. For those without Christ, ignoring God or denying His beneficence is a way of life. The apostle Paul says it this way: Romans 1:21, “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” But even for those of us who have experienced the grace of God, is it not the case that we too are often tempted to let other things loom large in our imaginations while God appears to be…

Why did people reject Jesus and fail to give him honor? Because the old secular proverb is still true: “Familiarity breeds contempt.” People witnessed Jesus’ perfections with their own eyes. Nevertheless, they could not fathom how ordinary and imperfect Mary and Joseph–with all their other rascally kids–could come produce someone worthy of worship. They knew his parents. They knew his siblings. And they knew him. And there was nothing remarkable to them in anything that they had seen. And so they appeal to their familiarity with this family as a basis to dishonor Jesus. [Hear the rest of the sermon at the Spotify or Apple links below.]

Jesus’ behavior toward women reflects the fact that God created both male and female in his image with equal value and dignity and differing complementary callings and roles. Their differences don’t negate their equality, nor does their equality negate their complementary differences. Thus, wherever Christianity has taken root in a culture, the lot of women has improved. “Men treat women with respect, and they take humble, courageous initiatives to protect women and create stable, loving families where the covenant faithfulness of husband and wife display the mystery of Christ and to his church to the world” (Piper). Jesus is showing us that even if other men wouldn’t give this woman…

Sometimes we have an egocentric allergy to confrontation—to being criticized in any way. And yet how foolish and impoverished we are for it. It is this allergy to conflict that not only makes people behave in foolish ways, but also makes them resist following Jesus. Jesus offers a series of confrontations to the Samaritan woman at the well, and the only way she’s ever going to taste the living water is on the other side of these confrontations. How will she respond? How will you respond? I.   Jesus Confronts Sin (4:16-18) II.  Jesus Confronts False Religion (4:19-22) III. Jesus Confronts Unspiritual Worship (4:23-26) [Hear the rest of the sermon at…

The Gospel of John introduces us to a Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at a well. Jesus will say to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who speaks to you… you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” And do you know what her response is? “Where’s your bucket?” She’s looking for something from Jesus that He isn’t offering; and what He is offering, she’s not looking for. And I want to submit to you this morning that this isn’t just her problem. On display in this woman’s response to Jesus is the human condition—which means it’s all of…

Have you ever behaved as if you are the center of reality? As if all of your wants and desires and ideas are better than everyone else’s and as if everyone needs to reorient their lives and priorities around your priorities? Have you ever found yourself relating to God that way? Such that your prayers shift subtly from Thy will be done to My will be done. Your kids or your spouse does something that irritates you, and so you fly off the handle in a self-righteous rage because the little people around you disturbed your comfort and tranquility in some way? The basis for that anger is the subtle…

? Last Saturday morning, I Googled the following question: “What happens to us after we die?” Before I finished typing the sentence, Google autocompleted the words. I assume that means the question has been asked so many times that Google “knows” what’s coming. It occurred to me that this fact all by itself is sad. Can you imagine someone being gripped by such a question and then resorting to a Google search? After I entered the question, the top result was this paragraph from Quora.com: Your consciousness ends (we know this because all detectable signs of it stop) and your cells cease to function. Your body begins to decay until…