Harvest Bible Chapel

What do you do when someone you know walks away from the faith? Maybe it's happened in your own family. John 6 shows us a crowd that followed Jesus — and then didn't.

Executive Producer: Dave Putnam

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What are you actually looking for when you come to Jesus? A better life? Answered prayers? Relief? In John chapter 6, a crowd chases Jesus across a sea — and he stops them cold with a question they weren't expecting. Today, Pastor Jeff Bucknam opens up what it really means to find Him. This is 'Eat the Bread.'

Executive Producer: Dave Putnam

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Have you ever looked at a problem and just done the math — and the math didn't work? The need was too big, the resources too small, the odds too long. So you either froze up or gave up.

In John chapter 6, Jesus's disciples are staring down exactly that situation: a massive crowd, no food, no budget, and no plan. And what happens next is one of the most famous miracles in all of Scripture — but Pastor Jeff Thompson isn't just here to tell us a great story. He's here to show us what the disciples got wrong, and what we get wrong in the same ways today.

Our math is too small. Our little feels too insignificant. And our view of what Jesus can do is far too narrow.

We're in John 6, verses 1 through 21 — Bread, Baskets, and Boats . . . Oh, My! Let's get into it.

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Everybody has an opinion about Jesus. Some people want Jesus the moral teacher, but not Jesus the judge. Some want Jesus the forgiver, but not Jesus the Lord. Others build a version of Jesus that conveniently agrees with everything they already believe.

But John 5 will not let us shrink Jesus down into something manageable.

Right after healing a man on the Sabbath, Jesus makes a claim so massive that the religious leaders immediately understand what he’s saying: he is making himself equal with God. And instead of backing away from that claim, Jesus presses even further. He says the Son gives life, executes judgment, deserves the same honor as the Father, and will one day call the dead from their graves.

Today Tommy Creutz walks through John 5:18–47 in our series Believe! The Gospel of John, and this passage forces us to deal with the real Jesus, not the version we would prefer to build for ourselves.

Because Jesus is not someone you reduce, review, or reject. He is the divine Son you must receive.

This is a sermon about the identity of Jesus, the authority of Jesus, and the question every person eventually has to answer: what will you do with him?

Let’s get into it.

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What happens when Jesus gives you what you asked for, but then invites you into something deeper?

In John 5, Jesus meets a man who has been unable to walk for 38 years, lying near the pool of Bethesda and waiting for someone to help him reach the water. Then Jesus asks him a question that seems obvious, but goes far deeper than physical healing: “Do you want to be healed?”

What follows is a miracle, a controversy, and a warning. The healed man can walk, but the passage leaves us asking whether he actually sees who Jesus is. The religious leaders think they are defending God’s law, but they completely miss the renewal God is bringing right in front of them.

Today Pastor Jeff Bucknam is walking us through John 5:1–17 in our series Believe! The Gospel of John, and this passage asks a crucial question: when Jesus calls us beyond what we first wanted from him, will we keep following, or will we take the off-ramp?

This is a sermon about healing, renewal, and the danger of stopping short of Jesus himself. Let’s get into it.

Executive Producer: Dave Putnam

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During World War II, the Allied forces deployed entire armies of inflatable tanks — rubber decoys designed to fool enemy bombers into thinking they were looking at the real thing. From the air, you couldn't tell the difference.

Jesus says the same problem exists with faith. In Matthew 7, he describes people who prophesied, cast out demons, and did mighty works in his name — and he looks at them and says, "I never knew you." Belief that looks real from the outside can turn out to be something else entirely.

So how do we tell the difference? How do we know if our faith is the genuine article — or just a very convincing decoy?

That's exactly what Pastor Jeff Bucknam is walking us through today from John chapter 4. We're in our series Believe! The Gospel of John, and this week we're in a passage that raises two uncomfortable but important facts about superficial faith — and what it looks like when faith becomes the real thing.

This is The Problem of Superficial Faith. Let's get into it.

Executive Producer: Dave Putnam

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One conversation. One encounter. And an entire village is never the same. In John 4, Jesus meets a woman at a well — and what happens next is nothing short of explosive.

Executive Producer: Dave Putnam

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It's high noon. Jesus is tired, thirsty, and sitting alone at a well in territory most self-respecting Jewish men would have walked miles out of their way to avoid. And then she shows up — a Samaritan woman with a complicated past and a water jar. What happens next is one of the most remarkable conversations in all of Scripture. Today we're in John 4, verses 1 through 26.

Executive Producer: Dave Putnam

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Have you ever misunderstood someone so completely that you walked away with the exact opposite of what they meant? It happens with Jesus more than you might think.

In the Gospel of John, we watch it happen in real time. A religious leader hears Jesus talk about being born again and thinks he's describing a literal second birth. Temple officials hear Jesus talk about raising the temple in three days and think he's making wild architectural promises. Over and over, people listen to Jesus — and completely miss him.

So what does it actually look like to get Jesus right?

That's the question Pastor Jeff Bucknam opens up today in John 3:22–36, the next stop in our series Believe! The Gospel of John. In this passage, John the Baptist steps into the frame — and unlike the religious leaders, unlike Nicodemus — John actually gets it. And watching how he responds to Jesus reveals three marks of someone who truly understands who Jesus is: they recognize that everything they have is a gift from God, they willingly lay down their own popularity for his purposes, and they treat his words not as suggestions — but as the very words of God himself.

This one is going to challenge the way you think about contentment, ambition, and what genuine belief actually looks like in practice. Let's get into it.

Executive Producer: Dave Putnam

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You've seen it at football games. Maybe you've held up the sign yourself. John 3:16 is arguably the most famous verse in the Bible — but here's a question most people never stop to ask: what's the context? It starts with the word "for," which means it's explaining something. But what?

Executive Producer: Dave Putnam

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