GracePointe Church of Christ in Elizabethtown, PA

This sermon explores that story of Jesus healing the Blind Man showing how a Blind Man walked in the light of Jesus while the Pharisees continued to walk in blindness and sin.  The text is from John 9 and the main idea is that Jesus will open our eyes to clearly seeing His Kingdom if we allow Him.   

This is the fifth lesson in a series entitled, Signs of John, which examines the 7 signs in the Gospel of John.  This latest lesson looks at Jesus walking on the water to meet his disciples in the middle of the sea.  This podcast is not the live recording of the Sunday sermon, but is recorded later due to some failure of our recording equipment.  The text for this Sermon is John 6:16-21. 

This sermon explores the text of John 6, the feeding of the multitude and focuses us on the people's response.  This then leads us to a discussion about who and what satisfies us...does Jesus truly and wholly satisfy?  Join in on the discovery of who Jesus is and what his mission is through the seven signs of John series.  

So, Jesus makes a choice that should strike us this morning, instead of going to the Temple like everyone else, he goes to the pools where the sick, diseased, hurting, and unclean people are gathered.  Listen to the story: 

John 5:1 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. 3 In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be healed?" 7 The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me." 8 Jesus said to him, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk." 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

Here are a list of the Ten Callings or "Works of Mercy" discussed in the sermon:

1. Doing Good - an attitude that Christ calls us to assume with every person we meet - we are there to benefit them. Basic attitude: Do good to every one. 

2. Sharing Your Bread - This is not giving away food, but the word bread means your basic means for sustenance. We give away what is valuable to us. We are good at giving, but not sharing. Do we know how to share? 

3. Opening your Home - host people in your home. So many people have a big house, and the Lord wants to use it to bless people. 

4. Visiting and Remembering - We take hospitality and go to places where it is not often found. We visit widows and prisoners and orphans, we visit those who we are leading spiritually. We revisit those who we lead to the Lord. If we cannot visit them, then we remember them. God visits places through us. 

5. Healing and Comfort - bring care and healing of all kinds, particularly in physical distress but also mental and spiritual distress. This has to do with a specific group of people which makes it different than the indiscriminate Doing Good above. 

6. Proclaiming the Gospel - this goes hand in hand with Healing and Comforting, and this refers to the specific story of Jesus. Christ died, was buried, and rose again according to the Scriptures and appeared to his disciples. 

7. Forgiving and Reconciling - When the gospel is proclaimed, the people are cut to the heart and we respond with the Biblical way to transform their relationship through the Cross of Christ. Forgiveness in the Bible is a AHA! 

8. Making Disciples - comprehensive commitment to help people grow in all of these areas. 

9. Ransoming the Captive - ministry to those who are physically in bondage. (Ex: getting people out of debt, sex trafficking, Immigration, people in prison) But willingly entering into crucifixion, hanging, or neck twisting in order to ransom a captive brother or sister—that is not about being nice. The stronger must take care of the weaker for the sake of the faith. 

10. Reigning - If we are crucified with him we will reign with him. We will have stuff to do in a new heaven and a new earth. 

Looking to discover the essence of our legacy as a Christian people and a church, we turn to John who is one of the Apostles and leaders of the church.  John wrote to the next generation, and generations of Christians though the ages, a set of stories that would provide us with what we needed to have faith and live life in Christ's name.  This series looks at the 7 signs in the Gospel of John, miracles that point us ultimately to the character of God and his work through Jesus.  As we seek to pass on a legacy of faith, we need to follow the signs and find our destination at Jesus.  

This Sermon explores the dangers of wealth and teaches us to be generous, to do good works, and to share.  Coming out of 1 Timothy 6, we consider what it means to live this blessed life that we have been given by God.  

One of our Elders, Gary Damschen, explores the text of Matthew 3:1-12 as part of our Advent Series: Renewed through Anticipation. 

Looking at Matthew 24 and Romans 13, we see a reason to live with great anticipation for the coming of Jesus Christ; and like our current expectation for Christmas, we must allow our hope to fuel our preparation not just for a holiday, but for the coming of our Lord.    

Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.