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…

Love is only love if it seeks out the good and the flourishing of the loved. If in the name of love, you simply affirm what will destroy another person, it will not ultimately feel like love to them. It will eventually feel to them something more like hate. Why? Because if love doesn’t seek out the good and flourishing of the beloved, then it isn’t love at all. It is cowardice and capitulation to evil. How do we know this? We know what love is because we know how God has loved us. [Hear the rest of the sermon below.]

Did you know that the human condition has been so corrupted by sin that apart from grace not a single one of us would give a fig about God, the cross, the Bible, the resurrection, judgment, eternal life. The Bible says that apart from grace, all of those spiritual realities—those ultimate realities—would be foolishness to us (1 Cor. 2:14). This is the human condition, and it really is desperate. We are corrupted by sin and headed for damnation, and yet we don’t have it in us to seek out or even to want the salvation that God has provided. Left to ourselves, we open the Bible or we hear the…

This is the miracle of the new birth. Jesus sends forth His Spirit and says to you, “Come forth.” To use Ezekiel’s imagery, he looks at your valley of dry bones, and he says to the bones, “Live.” What was once dead comes to life. The eyes and ears of your heart open. There is a blink of recognition. And in that moment, faith and love and obedience to the good news of Jesus appear. Have you ever wondered why you responded to the Gospel but your neighbor didn’t? It’s not because you were by nature smarter and more spiritually sensitive than your neighbor. You weren’t. You were dead as…