John 5:19-30,

19 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. 21 For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. 22 For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

30 “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.

It’s Palm Sunday, and I do love “Holy Week” and these last seven days leading up to Easter next Sunday. And that last verse we just read sounds like Holy Week, does it not? Jesus says in verse 30,

“I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.”

On Thursday night, Jesus will kneel in the garden, and in those final moments before soldiers come to get him, he will pray, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39).

How do you get your soul ready to say “not my will but yours be done”? Answer: you don’t say it for the first time in garden. You say it in John 5:30, and you say it in John 6:38: “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.” And you pray it every morning and throughout your life: “Your kingdom come, your will be done.” Day by day, you condition your soul to will God’s will.

I’m not saying you train yourself to bite your lip and not do what you want but what God wants. Rather, you condition your wants. You train your desires and delights, like Jesus did. When he says “not my will,” he means not what my human, creaturely will would will apart from God’s will, but rather, with God’s will in view, and with a love for God and his will, and with my will formed to embrace and cherish God’s will, I will, with my human will, what is also the divine will I share with my Father.

Last week in John 5, we saw Jesus heal a man who had been paralyzed for 38 years. How did he heal him? With his voice. One little word:

Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. (verses 8–9)

The Jewish leaders see the man carrying his bed and say, Hey, you can’t do that on the Sabbath! So, they make their way to Jesus to press him about it. And Jesus could have entered into the fray on their terms. He could have said, I didn’t break the Sabbath. I only said a word and healed a man who’d been paralyzed for 38 years. But Jesus doesn’t respond on their terms. Instead, he says, in verse 17, 

“My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

“My Father” — now these Jewish leaders are “seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God” (verse 18).

That’s the issue on the table, the issue to which Jesus responds in verses 19–47. This morning we’ll look at verses 19–30, then next week, verses 30–47.

There are a few key concepts on the surface of verses 19–30. You heard them in the reading of the passage. Twice Jesus mentions “marveling.” Verse 20: he wants them to marvel, to be shaken from their unbelief. And verse 28: he says not to marvel yet because something even more marvelous is coming.

Also on the surface is the relationship between Jesus and the Father, and their working in synch to give life and execute judgment.

But what’s harder to see at first pass is how much the word of Jesus, or the voice of Jesus, knits this whole section together. It was the word or voice of Jesus that started this controversy. How did Jesus heal the man? He spoke. No bandages or braces. No oil or medicine. He just says, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”

Who else works like this through simply uttering his voice? Answer: God. How did God create the world? Through his word. And he gives life through his word, upholds the universe through his word, and sends his Word, who gives spiritual life through his word and in the end will raise the dead, good and evil, through his word.

Then, how is it that Jesus gets himself into hotter water with the Jewish leaders? Through his voice, his word. He says, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” So they want to kill him all the more, and think he’s “making himself equal with God.” And now Jesus will again speak in verses 19–30. So, let’s see three marvelous words he speaks with his voice, and about his voice.

Jesus’s first response to the charge that he is making himself equal with God is that it’s not what they think. He starts with “it’s less than you think.” But then he’s going to say, essentially, “it’s almost what you think,” and then finish with, “it’s more than what you think.” But first verses 19–20:

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel.

So, first, Jesus deescalates: “the Son can do nothing of his own accord.” And he’ll come back here in verse 30: “I can do nothing on my own.” It’s almost the exact same humble, dependent words — he just says “I” in verse 30 and calls himself “the Son” in verse 19. Which is important.

Jesus mentioned his Father in verse 17: “My Father is working till now, and I am working.” So, God is his Father, and he is the Son. And the first thing he says about that, which distinguishes Father from Son, puts Jesus in the humble, dependent position of sonship: “I can do nothing on my own.”

Jesus is not the Father. And the Father is not the Son. There are not two Gods. Jesus is not “making himself God” alongside God. This is not ditheism. Rather, this will come to be known as Christian monotheism.

But then, granting that dependent, humble sonship, Jesus escalates things again. At the end of verse 19, he says, the Son does “whatever the Father does,” and then in verse 20: “the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing.” So, not only is this Father-Son relationship less than what the Jewish leaders assume, but it is almost what they assume. Jesus is not independent of his Father, but neither is the Father independent of the Son.

This passage, along with many others, is why Christians confess the doctrine of “the Threeness,” the Trinity. There is a threeness in the one God — and very soon in this Gospel we’ll hear more about the Spirit. The claims Jesus makes in John 5 reveal within the one God a plurality of persons. The Father is God. And the Son is God. But the Son is not the Father. What’s striking in John 5 is the ordered equality between Father and Son. Consider what Jesus says the Father does in these verses:

• The Father acts first; the Son sees what the Father does and the Son does likewise.

• The Father loves the Son and shows the Son; the Son is beloved and shown.

• The Father has given all judgment to the Son, that all might honor the Son like they do the Father. And the Father has given the Son authority to execute judgment. Not vice versa. Not reciprocal.

• As we’ll see in verse 26: The Father has life in himself, and he grants the Son to have life in himself.

If we wanted to sum up the relation between Father and Son we might say the Father gives, and the Son receives. The Father gives cues; the Son takes them. The Father gives the Son guidance and direction, and gives all judgment to the Son, and gives honor to the Son, and he gives him “life in himself.”

A word for fathers in the room. (This is relevant for mothers too, but especially fathers.) Fathers, if you had to name the difference between you and your children, what would it be? You wouldn’t say, I’m human and their children. No, you’re human; they’re human. Human nature is not the difference between father and son. Soon enough, the children grow up, and you’re all adults together. Rather, what you’d say, most fundamentally, is that the father begets his children. That is, he and their mother give them life. They generate the children.

And a good father keeps giving to his children, giving himself, his energy, his attention — yes, his money, but oh so much more than just finances — your presence, your listening, your patience, your counsel, your prayers, your example, your priorities, your love. You give and give and give, until one day, they are ready to give and give and give to give life to the next generation.

So, Dads — and Moms too, but focusing on Dads right now — Dads, that’s the very heart of our calling: give and give and give. And it’s a glorious honor and profound joy. To be like our heavenly Father who gives and gives and gives. And Dads, we’re not God the Father. Human dads get tired; we run on fumes, we get empty; we sin; we’re impatient, unloving, unsupportive, distracted, inattentive, emotionally absent. But the difference between a good human father and a bad one isn’t that one makes mistakes and the other doesn’t. The difference is whether the human father, when in sin, when empty, when failing, knows and goes to his heavenly Father to get help — both forgiveness and fresh effort. 

Dads, your energy, your emotional resources, your love is not bottomless like our Father’s. And that’s okay. Because your fundamental identity is not father but son; your Father has life in himself, and his capital-S Son, Jesus, our brother, has life in himself, and they never tire and never empty. You know where to refill when you’re empty.

Jesus says at the end of verse 20, “And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel.” Impressive as it is to heal a man who could not walk — and do so with only a word — Jesus and his Father have greater works in store, to make people marvel, and so shake them from their unbelief. 

Now, verses 21–27 are very dense. Let’s first read verses 21–23, and talk about the honor of the Son (and then verses 24–27). Verse 21:

For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life [that is, he is God, this is what God does], so also the Son gives life to whom he will. 22 For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

We’ll say more in a minute about the Father himself judging no one but giving all judgment to the Son. This he does, Jesus says, “that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father.”

And then comes the inverse: “Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.” And there is scarcely a more incendiary word in our world today. Not that it was easy then. Can you imagine, a man in flesh and blood, standing before the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem saying, “The one true God, the God of the Hebrew Scriptures, has given all judgment to me, that all might honor me, just as they honor him”? So, it was incendiary then. And in our pluralistic world, the offenses multiply. This is not only a word for Jewish people today. This is a word for Muslims, and Buddhists, and Hindus, and various folk religions, and the so-called “irreligious,” and for anyone presuming to be a Christian. Check yourself here, not just your neighbor.

This is the question for every religion and every human: Do you honor God? Do Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and nice, charitable secular people honor God? Verse 23 says the issue is this: Do they honor the Son? What do they do with Jesus? How do they orient on Jesus? What do they believe and say about Jesus? Do they honor the divine Son for who he is, and what he says, and what he has accomplished, or do they dishonor him as simply a moral man and good teacher and influential person? Which makes him into a liar or lunatic.

Jesus is the dividing line in every soul: “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:12).

So, the negative word, the distancing word, is “No Jesus, no spiritual life.” But what about the positive word? Verse 21 says, “the Son gives life to whom he will.” What about them? Verse 24:

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. 25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.

Oh this is such good news. The voice of Jesus gives life, even now, to those who hear him with faith. Verse 24 is in the present: “whoever hears my word and believes,” and Jesus says that person “has eternal life.” Not: will have, someday. But: has, right now. Jesus says the hour “is now here, when the (spiritually) dead will hear his voice and their souls will live.”

And there’s one more “has” in verse 24. If you hear Jesus’s word even now, and believe in him and his Father who sent him, Jesus says you do not come into judgment but have (already) passed from death to life.

The all-important question this morning is, Do you believe in him now? Has he opened the eyes of your heart to see him in his glory, and believe his words, and receive him as sent from his Father, and trust him for the forgiveness of your sins, then have eternal life in your soul already? Now, you don’t have the fullness of all that eternal life will be — no sin, new heavens and new earth, glorified human body, surrounded by those who love and worship Jesus. But that simple faith in your soul — that coming awake in your heart to Jesus — is new life in your once spiritually dead heart. And that new life is the first taste and beginning of the full eternal life we will experience when Jesus returns.

When Jesus says about you, “He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life,” you know how we might say that in the words of Paul? “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” This, friends, is justification by faith alone. If you believe now in Jesus, eternal life has begun in you. If your faith is genuine, it is the very life of God in you and will endure to and blossom one day into the fullness of eternal life. Already, through faith, there is no condemnation.

And marvelous as that is — almost too good to be true — Jesus has one last marvel for us in verses 28–29. 

It’s one thing to heal a paralyzed man with a word, and take on the Jewish leaders by yourself. It’s another thing, then, to speak a word and give life to a dead soul, as you choose — and an increasing number of dead souls. But Jesus takes us to one further level in verses 28–29.

We saw the “now” in verse 25: “an hour is coming, and is now here.” So, I take verses 21–27 to be about the present, from the first century to the 21st century. But these last two verses turn to an hour that is coming, and not here yet. Look at verses 28–29:

Do not marvel at this [the power Jesus has to speak life into spiritually dead souls even now], for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

Earlier we heard that the Father “has given all judgment to the Son.” Verses 24–27 fleshed this out in terms of the spiritual life the Son gives now to dead souls. But verses 28–29 give us what it will mean in the future. Not only does the voice of the Son — springing from the will of the Son, perfectly in sync with the will of the Father — give spiritual life now to his people, but one day the voice of the Son will ring in the ears of all the dead: “all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out.” Come out to what? To the final judgment, with the Son presiding.

We skipped over the phrase “the Son of Man” at the end of verse 27. These verses are so dense, and Jesus is laying it on so thick here, that the end of verse 27 comes and goes by so quickly. But it is a stunning claim.

“Son of Man” is an ambiguous phrase. It could just mean a man, or human. Like Psalm 8, “what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” Or, throughout Ezekiel, God calls him as “Son of man.” It’s a humbling term. “Son of man, know your place. Not only are you a man, but the son of one.” But “Son of Man” is also the name of this enigmatic figure who steps forward in a vision of the final judgment in Daniel 7:

As I looked,  

thrones were placed,  

and the Ancient of Days took his seat;  

his clothing was white as snow,  

and the hair of his head like pure wool;  

his throne was fiery flames;  

its wheels were burning fire.  

10 A stream of fire issued  

and came out from before him;  

a thousand thousands served him,  

and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him;  

the court sat in judgment,  

and the books were opened. . . .

. . . and behold, with the clouds of heaven  

there came one like a son of man,  

and he came to the Ancient of Days  

and was presented before him.  

14 And to him was given dominion  

and glory [honor!] and a kingdom,  

that all peoples, nations, and languages  

should serve him;  

his dominion is an everlasting dominion,  

which shall not pass away,  

and his kingdom one  

that shall not be destroyed.

So, two meanings for the phrase “son of man” — one humble one, and one exalted. And throughout Jesus’s ministry, as he refers to himself as “the Son of Man,” it’s often tough to tell exactly which one he means. But here in John 5, with the final judgment in view, it’s clear what Jesus means, even if he passes over it quickly. And it’s Daniel 12 he alludes to when he mentions the resurrection of all, some to eternal life and some to judgment. A messenger from God says in Daniel 12:2,

“those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”

And now Jesus says, My voice will do that. I am the God-exalted Son of Man, and my Father has given me the authority, as man, to execute judgment. One day soon, I will speak, and all the dead will hear my voice. And if they have believed in me, and have life in them from me, I will raise their bodies and glorify them and they will pass into the fullness of eternal life. And if they have rejected me, and not had life in them but continued in evil and unbelief, I will raise their bodies and send them into everlasting judgment and shame.

Which brings us back, in verse 30, to Jesus’s humble word he started with in verse 19. The divine Son never goes rogue in willing what he wills, or saying what he says, or doing what he does, or judging how he judges. Jesus says,

“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.”

So, we come to the Table, and we remember the one who knelt in the garden. One day soon the Son of Man will sit in judgment over the nations. But during Holy Week, we remember what he achieved to offer life to sinners like us. 

The one who will sit in judgment is the one who rode in honor into Jerusalem on a donkey and staggered out in shame on Good Friday carrying his own cross. He’s the one who knelt on Thursday with sweat like drops of blood as he faced the cross for sins not his own. He’s the one who was crucified on Friday, lay dead in the tomb that night, and all day that final Sabbath, till early Sunday morning, when his Father, who raises the dead and gives them life, gave him the indestructible life of the new creation — the very life that is in us now who trust him by faith.

John 5:1-18,

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.

Now that day was the Sabbath. 10 So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” 11 But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” 12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” 13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. 14 Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16 And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. 17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

18 This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

One of the realities of our humanity is that we can be wrong sometimes.

Being wrong, a lot of times, isn’t a terrible thing, we know we don’t always get it right — but there are some big things in life that we can’t afford to get wrong because the stakes are too high. And Jesus targets one of those things in our passage today, John Chapter 5. 

It’s all about the way that God works in this world. That’s the focus in this passage — it’s the activity of God, the power of God, the working of God in this world. We must get that right. And we find here two things it is not, and one thing it is. 

And that’s the outline of this sermon. We’re going to consider two misconceptions about God’s work and then thirdly, we’re gonna see how Jesus answers both.

Father, the unfolding of your word gives light. This morning, we ask, that by the power of your Spirit, shine on our hearts, and speak to us, in Jesus’s name, amen. 

John starts in verse 1 with the setting of this story: Jesus is back in Jerusalem, and he’s in a particular part of the city John describes for us. By the Sheep Gate (in the northeast part of the city) there was a pool called Bethesda.

This pool would have been a pretty big rectangle — think the size of a football field — and then surrounding the pool is what verse 2 calls “five roofed colonnades.” This is a shelter held up by columns. There would have been a shelter surrounding the four sides of the pool, and then a shelter through the middle section, and verse 3 says that under this shelter, or in these colonnades, lay a “multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.” Keyword there is “multitude” — down in verse 13 John says that there was a crowd in the place, so we should imagine here:

A long pool, surrounded by a swarm of people. And many of the people in this area would have been disabled folks, many of them were likely homeless and they found shelter here.

So imagine this to look like a homeless encampment. There’s lots of people who hang around here, and there’s shopping carts scattered around and backpacks and pallets and stuff laid out.

And one person in this multitude, verse 5 says, was a man who had been an invalid for 38 years. We don’t know the exact details of his condition, but most likely he was paralyzed in some way.

Everybody find verse 6 for a minute. There’s an important detail to the story in verse 6 I want you to see. John 5, verse 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?’”

Again, imagine what’s going on here: It’s a swarm of people. People everywhere. But Jesus saw this one man in the crowd and he knew he’d been there a long time — now how’d Jesus know that? 

We’re not sure. Maybe he knew because he knows things, or maybe he asked around, either way, Jesus was interested in this man. He knew he’d been there a while, and he wanted to know what the man was looking for. So Jesus asked him, verse 6, “Do you want to be healed?”

And this is when the action starts. Kind of like in Chapter 4 with the Samaritan woman, Jesus asks the questions and that’s when things start to unravel … 

The man responded to Jesus with an implied “Yes” but he jumped straight to the problem. Look at verse 7. The man said:

“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.”

What in the world is he talking about? Again, there’s some unraveling here …

This is the situation that was going on: during this time in Jerusalem there was a superstition that God would occasionally send an angel to infuse these pools with healing power — the waters would apparently be stirred up — and whoever would get in the water first, would be healed. (So it was like part healing, part contest.)

The reason the man had been there by the pool for a long time was because he was waiting for his moment — and apparently a lot of other people were doing the same. Remember it’s a multitude of people. They’re all looking for their chance. But each time the ‘magic’ came, this man was too disabled to get himself in the water first. So he was constantly just missing out. 

So I think the man’s reply to Jesus in verse 7 is an indirect request. 

Try to track with this: in verse 7 the man is telling Jesus his problem to see if Jesus would solve this problem by helping him get to the pool. Because this man thinks that’s where the power of God is. He thinks God’s work is in the pool, and he thinks his problem is that he doesn’t have anyone to help him get access to where God works — and he’s telling this to Jesus! Which is super ironic, isn’t it? We’re supposed to read this and be like Oh my goodness! We should think: This guy has it all wrong.

He is complaining to Jesus about not having access to where he thinks God works.

All he needs is for Jesus to say the word, like Jesus did in Chapter 4. He just spoke the word and 25 miles away the fever broke!

What this man gets wrong is that he thinks the work of God in the world is impersonal to us.

According to how this man viewed the world: he believed that God was the one behind miraculous things — God was the one who made the water magic — but that’s the thing: it was the water that became magic at random, arbitrary times, which means the power of God is disconnected from the person of God. This thinking disconnects the work of God from the will of God.

And this kind of thinking, this misconception, still exists today in those who we could call the vaguely spiritual. That’s the title I’m putting on this thinking. These are people who don’t deny the existence of a higher power — they’re not atheists — but they’re also not committed to the God of the Bible. 

And you find this everywhere. I remember one Sunday I was talking with someone after the service and they were going on and on about Sedona, Arizona and this rock formation that has divine healing power. It’s making the work of God impersonal to us. That’s what the vaguely spiritual do. 

A lot of these people might even consider themselves to be Christians, but they really only appreciate the ‘inspirational’ side of things. They only want the self-help stuff — which is an attempt to have blessing without relationship.

And this is where we start to see that the belief that God’s work is impersonal is not just something people get wrong, it’s also a preference. 

People are very interested in the good God can do for them, but they’re not interested in daily trusting him. A lot of people love the idea of ‘getting from God what we want without having to deal with God on his terms.’ See, that prefers to keep things non-committal and vague.

The vaguely spiritual are ‘spiritual’ enough not to be atheist, but ‘vague’ enough not to be subject to God’s moral demands. But look: that’s wrong … Wrong.

That’s not how God works. God’s work is not impersonal to us. Here’s the second thing we see about God’s work in the world.

Jesus says the word, heals this man, and then John tells us, verse 9,

“Now that day was the Sabbath.” 

Verse 9 is like a hard right turn that takes us into what seems like a whole different topic. We go from pool superstition to Sabbath controversy like this. Verse 10 says right away that the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed:

“It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” 

And it’s interesting here how the man deflects the blame. He said he took up his bed because the man who healed him told him to. Baked into that statement is a recognition of authority. It’s like the man is saying, I’ve been paralyzed for 38 years, and a man just showed up from this crowd and told me to get up, and I did. So yeah, I’m just gonna do whatever he says.

Look how they respond, verse 12. Again, they just want to know who healed him and where he went — not so they can meet Jesus and be in awe of him, but because they want to correct him.

And again, the irony here is thick. The only person who does not need to be corrected in this story is Jesus. That’s how misguided these people are!

And in case you were wondering, there’s no law in the Old Testament that says you can’t take up your bed on the Sabbath. The statement in verse 10 that it’s not lawful is according to the Mishnah — that’s Jewish oral tradition. A bunch of rabbis had analyzed the Sabbath command and came up with 39 categories of prohibited work, one of which included that on the Sabbath you can’t carry anything from one place to another. That was their rule. So the Jewish leaders here are not trying to defend God’s word, but this is their own word.

Again, there’s irony: they think they’re defending God’s law, but they’re actually defending their misapplication of God’s law in opposition to God himself!

I wanna make sure you see what’s going on here: These Jewish leaders meet this guy who has been paralyzed for 38 years and now he’s not! He’s up! He’s walking! They don’t give him a high-five! They’re not amazed by the fact that this man has been healed! But instead they interrogate him because according to them the timing of his healing didn’t make sense!

For them, this healing, which was God’s work, happened when it wasn’t supposed to, and that became their concern. 

What these Jewish leaders get wrong is that they think the work of God in the world is dictated by us. According to how these people viewed the world, they believed that God did miraculous things, but only so long as it fits with their expectations and their standards. The issue here is that they’ve disconnected the work of God from the word of God by making it subject to their own word. They’ve separated the power of God from the freedom of God by putting themselves in the place of God. 

And this kind of thinking, this misconception, still exists today in those who we could call the legalistic henchmen. That’s the title I’m putting on this one. These are people who believe that God is at work in the world, but they’ve drawn very clear lines of where that work can happen and where it can’t, and anything outside their lines is rejected. If it doesn’t fit in their construct and conform to their rules then it’s dismissed. 

And this is where we can see that this belief also — the belief that God’s work is dictated by us — is not just something people get wrong, it too is a preference. Because it means that we as humans are the ones in control. The ‘legalistic henchmen’, see, never get corrected, but they’re always the ones doing the correcting, because “they’re always right and they’re the only ones who really do God’s work.”

Now there are very few people who would admit that they think this way, but it’s out there. 

It’s the inability to appreciate God’s work in things you had nothing to do with. The legalistic henchmen are so blinded by their own man-made ideals that they miss the work of God when it’s right in front of them. That’s what’s going on here. And it’s wrong … Wrong.

That’s not how God works. God’s work is not dictated by us. 

So let’s just track what we’ve seen so far in the pool superstition and the Sabbath controversy. Two misconceptions:

So far we know that God’s work is neither impersonal to us nor dictated by us. We don’t wanna be vaguely spiritual or legalistic henchmen — so how should we be?

How should we understand God’s work in the world?

I want you to see how Jesus engages both of these misconceptions. 

First, let’s go back to what Jesus said to the paralyzed man. This is for the vaguely spiritual. Jesus says to the man in verse 8,

“Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”

Verse 9: And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

I want you to see here that there is a beautiful contrast between where this man was looking for healing and what he actually experienced.

He is looking to somehow find his way into that pool because he thinks the work of God is impersonally connected to the water, meanwhile, the true work of God is in the person of Jesus Christ who finds his way to this man. In this crowd, Jesus saw him and learned about him and healed him.

And look at verse 14. After the healing there was some commotion and Jesus withdrew from the crowd. But verse 14. Look at verse 14: 

“Afterward Jesus found him in the temple …”

Not only did Jesus see him that once, and learn about him, but Jesus was looking for him again. How much more personal can this get?! Jesus found him again! 

Look, some of you in this room should know that the reason you’re here today is because Jesus has been looking for you. Jesus has found you. 

Look what Jesus says in verse 9. He says, 

“See, you are well! [Yes, you’re walking! I just hear the joy of Jesus in these words! … Then he says:] Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”

Jesus here is calling this man to a new way of life. He’s calling this man to true faith and repentance. What is worse than being paralyzed for 38 years is to be able to walk but still die in your sin. 

You know one thing about the Gospels and these stories is that they show us real-life people who encounter Jesus, which makes me think of other real-life people who have encountered Jesus. People at our church.  

This story makes me think of Jean Swenson, our dear sister. This man had been paralyzed for 38 years, and Jean has been there for 45 years (and she has an amazing testimony — if you’ve not heard it, Jean wrote something for our church I’m gonna share this week).

Jesus has not healed Jean’s body yet, but Jean has experienced the work of God in her life in the most important way. She has believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. She has been forgiven. And Jean has a perspective on life that we all need. She says, “My value lies in something that can never be taken away…and that’s the fact that God loves me.” 

Do you hear that? “God loves me.” 

Jean knows: Jesus sees her, knows her, he found her.

There’s nothing impersonal about that. 

Lastly, here, I want you to see what Jesus says to these Jewish leaders in verse 17. This is for the legalistic henchmen. 

Now John gives us a summary statement in verse 18 — the reason these Jewish leaders despised Jesus is not just because he was breaking their man-made rules about the Sabbath, but, end of verse 18, “he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.”

Jesus was doing that in verse 17, when he said, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

See, implied here is that God the Father is always working. God doesn’t take breaks. He neither sleeps nor slumbers, Psalm 121. God is exempt from having to stop work on the Sabbath because we need him constantly to uphold the universe. We need God to always keep things in orbit and sustain life, and the Jewish worldview understood that. Jesus says, The Father is working until now — and they all would have been like, Yes, of course — but then Jesus says, and I am working. 

And they knew what he meant. Jesus was saying that his working, what he’s doing, is what God is doing. What God is doing is what Jesus is doing. 

Jesus is not one of several different ways God works, but Jesus is the only way. God’s work in the world is never apart from Jesus, but it’s always through Jesus, centered on Jesus, lifting high Jesus. We will see more of this in the Gospel of John. Jesus will say in Chapter 14, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

That is the final answer to our question …

God’s work in the world is what Jesus Christ is doing, and he is both personal and active. Jesus finds us where we are, he calls us to himself, and he is doing this all the time. He’s active every single day.

Which means, as for God’s work in the world, we should be neither vaguely spiritual nor legalistic henchmen, but we should be attentive to Jesus Christ. Focusing on Jesus Christ. Remembering Jesus Christ.

And that’s what brings us to the Table.

I’m convinced that the greatest need in the Christian life is to keep Jesus clear in our hearts. We need to remember his realness in all of life. And that’s something we do on purpose together at this table each week. 

We remember that the definite work of God in the world was when Jesus died for us on the cross. Jesus was working then, and Jesus is working now by his Spirit every time the message of his cross is heard and shared and embraced. And that’s what we’re doing at the table. 

If you’re not a Christian yet — if you’ve not put your faith in Jesus — this moment is an invitation for you. Trust in Jesus. That could look like a prayer of the heart that says:

Jesus, I can’t save myself and I’m done trying. 

You died on the cross to save me, and I trust you. Save me.

And for those of us who have done that, who have trusted in Jesus, we receive this table with thankfulness, and we remember Jesus and his work in our lives, in our church, in this world. Rejoice in Jesus Christ.

John 4:43-54,

43 After the two days he departed for Galilee. 44 (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) 45 So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast.

46 So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. 47 When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. 48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” 49 The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” 50 Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. 51 As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. 52 So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” 53 The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” And he himself believed, and all his household. 54 This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.

To get started this morning I want to tell you the first thing I told our middle school baseball team this past week: it’s that the most important thing in your life is your faith in Jesus Christ.

Now there’s a lot of important things in life — there’s big things, critical things — but the most important thing is your continued, abiding, daily faith in Jesus, and that’s what I want to talk about this morning, because that’s the main theme in our passage.

We’ve already said (and we’re gonna keep saying) that John’s purpose in this Gospel is that we believe in Jesus. John cares a lot about our faith and the nature of true faith — and that comes through in this story, verses 43–54. 

So for today’s sermon, we’re gonna look at these verses and I want to show you three aspects about the nature of true faith. And these are aspects that, as we look at them, we should evaluate our own faith in their light. 

Here’s the first:

This is the broader message coming through in this whole section and I know it’s gonna make sense to you, but I need you to track with me, okay? There’s a lot of details here, so get ready. We’re gonna start by looking at verse 43. 

“After the two days he [Jesus] left for Galilee.”

Now where did he leave from? Where has Jesus been (that we’ve seen) over the last couple of Sundays? Samaria.

So Jesus has now left Samaria to go to Galilee, which means we need to do a little geography check-in for a minute. In ancient Israel there were three regions stacked on top of one another: Galilee in the north, then Samaria, then Judea. Let’s try to follow where Jesus has been: Remember Chapter 2 starts and Jesus is in Galilee, at the wedding at Cana; then, in 2:13, he goes to Jerusalem to go to the temple, which is in Judea (south); then in Chapter 4, verse 3, “[Jesus] left Judea and departed again for Galilee” (going north, and what’s in the middle of Judea and Galilee? Samaria) … 

So Chapter 4, verse 4: “[Jesus] had to pass through Samaria” (that’s what we’ve seen in Chapter 4) — Jesus spent two days in Samaria, but now he’s back on the road to Galilee.

And Galilee is where he’s from. Nazareth is in Galilee, and Jesus grew up in Nazareth, but notice what John includes for us in verse 44. This is a little note in the text just for us, verse 44. Everybody look at verse 44:

“Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honor in his own country.”

That phrase “own country” is literally the word “fatherland” — it’s another way to say “hometown,” and in this case, it’s not talking about Galilee specifically, but it’s talking about the land of Jewish people — which includes both Galilee and Judea. Basically, this means not Samaria. The land of the Samaritans is not Jesus’s “own country” — but the land of Jewish people is. That’s the point. 

And so we’re set up here to see a contrast between the way Jesus is treated by his own people in his own country and the way he was just received in Samaria (not his country). And verse 44 would suggest that the difference is going to be a negative response in Galilee. “No honor,” verse 44 says.

Now look at verse 45. It’s just the next verse. You’re right there. Verse 45: 

“So [or therefore] when he came to Galilee [his own country], the Galileans welcomed him …”

Now wait a minute! Verse 44 just said no honor in his own country. Verse 45 says his own country welcomed him. How does that make sense?

Well, it has to do with why they welcomed him. We gotta keep reading, verse 45: 

“the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast.”

Which means they had seen Jesus bring the mayhem. Remember that in Chapter 2? They saw him pushing over tables and cracking a whip — it was a scene! He turned some heads. He got their attention. They wanna see more of that!

Now, skip down to verse 48. In verse 48, Jesus is speaking to this official who’s son was sick — we’re about to get there — but first I want you to see this part. 

Jesus is talking to this official, but when he says “you” in verse 48, it’s plural. Jesus is actually talking about the Galileans overall. He’s speaking to the official in verse 48, but he’s saying: “Unless y’all [unless all you Galileans, Jewish people, my people] — Unless y’all see signs and wonders y’all will not believe.” That’s their problem. Now how is that different from Samaria? 

Remember there’s supposed to be a contrast between Jesus’s own country and where he’s just been in Samaria. So then, what was it like in Samaria? Fruitful! People believed! 

It started with the Samaritan woman who believed in Jesus and then by verse 41 a whole crowd of Samaritans believed in Jesus, but the details here are really important. We gotta pay attention to this. I want you to see this in verse 41. Look back up, Chapter 4, verse 41:

“And many more [Samaritans] believed [in Jesus] because of his word.”

So they believed in Jesus because of his what? Word.

That’s the contrast. Jesus’s own country, his own people, they just wanna see a spectacle. They wanna light show. Give me that head-turnin’ buzz-worthy drama! Their faith is as true as a roller-coaster ride is eternal.

But the Samaritans … there was nothing flashy there at all. It started with a conversation at a well at noon. Yet the Samaritans believed Jesus because of his word.

And we’re supposed to see here: that is true faith! 

It goes much deeper than gawking at signs and wonders Jesus can do, but it’s about Jesus himself. Because what he gives us in his word is himself.

Look, I don’t know what all of you think faith in Jesus is, but it might be much simpler and deeper than you imagined — most basically, faith in Jesus is taking Jesus at his word. What he says is … because of who he is. So what you do with his word is what you do with him. 

Here’s the second aspect we see about true faith …

Now we’re gonna talk about this official in verse 46. Jesus is back in Cana, in Galilee, and verse 46 says,

46 … And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. 47 When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked [or begged] him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.

We don’t know too much about this official — just they that he was a royal official (that’s what that word means — most likely he worked under Herod); so we know that, and we know he was a man; and we know he was a father who lived in Capernaum where his son was sick. 

Capernaum was around 25 miles east of Cana, by the Sea of Galilee, and so this official’s travel from Capernaum to Cana would not have been easy. It would have been 25 miles uphill. And that helps us understand more his request. It was not a mere “Hey, Jesus, if you got a minute, would you consider helping me?”

That word translated “ask” in verse 47 has already been used twice in John Chapter 4. First, in verse 31, when the disciples urged Jesus to eat, that word for “urge” is the same word translated “ask” here in verse 47. It shows up again in verse 40, when the Samaritans “asked” Jesus to stay with them for a couple more days. They really wanted Jesus to stay. 

So this word means an earnest petition. Like begging. Which means we should imagine this official, wearied from his journey, finally seeing Jesus, and he pleads with him to heal his son who is on his deathbed.

And what does Jesus do? 

He takes this moment as an opportunity to address the problem of shallow faith. This official is desperate, and it’s almost like Jesus looks over him, for the sake of everyone else, all of Galilee, and he says, “Y’all are all about the signs and wonders, and that’s not truth faith.”

It’s like Jesus starts going all “rabbi” on this guy (and whoever else is listening) — Jesus is teaching about the nature of true faith. This is important! Listen up! 

And notice how this guy replies in verse 49. He’s ‘super intrigued’ by what Jesus says! He’s been ‘waiting his whole life for this theological conversation’ — is that what we see? No. 

Jesus says what he says about faith, and the man says back to him: 

“Sir, come down before my child dies.”

This official is locked in on one thing. His child is sick. And the word for “child” in verse 49 is different from the word “son” used in verse 47. A son can be any age — every man in this room is a son — but that word “child” means little child. It’s an affectionate term.

So here’s what’s going on: This man comes to Jesus because he wants his son to be healed; Jesus teaches about true faith; the man replies: Sir, if you don’t come now my little child will die.

And that is a clue for us that this official is not really after signs and wonders. He’s not looking for a show. He’s not motivated by the thrill of entertainment. He just loves his little boy, that’s all. 

I think all the parents in here could put ourselves in this official’s shoes. We get this — we love our children, don’t we? 

But as I worked on this passage, I thought especially about parents whose children have been terribly sick. And there are more than a few parents in our church who have been there. We pray often for them. And I thought of Logan and Stacy Brennecke.

The Brenneckes have five children, and they’ve experienced suffering as parents. In 2014 they lost their daughter at six days old, and today their youngest son, Theo, who is three, has been on our prayer list his whole life so far. He was born with some complications — He’s had four surgeries, including a kidney transplant. He’s had countless procedures, worked with 12 different specialists, and in the last two years he’s been in the hospital about 100 days. 

And praise God, today he’s doing well! But I was able to connect with Logan and Stacy this week because I wanted just to hear more about their experience in light of this passage.

In hearing from them, Stacy talked about one of the hardest parts in their experience is being told there’s nothing you can do to make your child well. She called the feeling a “desperate energy.” She’s been there more than once, but about one experience, Stacy said, 

I felt claustrophobic — I was stuck in a tight space, unable to get out but frantically trying to. I would’ve done anything, gone anywhere, acted the fool in front of anybody, if it would just help my child.

See, that’s where this official was in this story. He was at home, in Capernaum, a father by his little son’s bedside, stuck with that desperate energy. And then someone told him, “Sir, Jesus of Nazareth has come back.”

In verse 47 of this story we don’t know anything about this official’s faith, just that he heard Jesus was back — this Jesus who was different, this Jesus who had caused that scene in Jerusalem, who claimed to be the Messiah. 

For this father, it’s only hearsay, but what if there’s a chance?! So he goes. He goes to Jesus. He meets Jesus. He pleads with Jesus, and in verse 50 Jesus replies: 

“Go; your son will live.”

And what does it say at the end of verse 50? You gotta see this. 

Verse 50, after Jesus says “Your son will live,” we read: “The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way.”

So for this Galilean, he has faith like the Samaritans did. Because he believed Jesus’s word. 

And we might think, wait a minute. He didn’t come to Jesus because he wanted Jesus, he came to Jesus because he wanted his son to live. 

And that’s right, but, the initial reason why he came to Jesus should not make us continue to question the sincerity of this man’s faith. The fact that he wanted his child to live just means he’s a real person. He lives where we do. He lives in real life, with real needs and longings and love for his children. Get this: true faith emerges from this, from real life.

Understand that a lot of times what comes first is not “standing amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene,” but it’s falling desperate before him because you need help. Often it’s real-life stuff that leads us to Jesus. We know this in our stories.

For a lot of us, we were living our lives, doing our own thing, and then something went sideways. Living got hard. We were leveled by a need and we found ourselves in a mess, and somewhere in that mess we heard about Jesus — or we remembered Jesus — and we thought, “Maybe he can help.” 

And guess what? He can.

See, a lot of us started by looking for answers over here, and we ended up finding Jesus, and that’s okay. This gets to something super important when it comes to faith: listen, it’s not how you start; it’s how you finish.

Which means two things:

One, if you’re here this morning and you’re currently in a mess, if you’re in a desperate situation and you’re not really seeking Jesus but you find yourselves here, I want you to know that’s not strange. That’s how it goes. You don’t have to have your life all figured out first. You don’t have to have your “theological Ps and Qs” in order. Most of the time, true faith emerges among real-life needs. You’re in real life, and then you meet Jesus, and then you take Jesus at his word. 

And this is his word to you this morning — listen, this is the gospel word of Jesus to you — he says:

“Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

I love you. I died for you, if you come to me. I will forgive you all of your sins and I will make you a child of God. 

Wherever it is you’re coming from this morning, right now you can take Jesus at his word.

Second, if you’ve trusted in Jesus in the past, which is a lot of us, the question today is, Do you trust him now? Believe him now. Keep taking him at his word! 

And if at times it seems like your faith is failing, if your trust dwindles, you can pray what another desperate father once prayed, Mark 9:24,

“I believe; help my unbelief!”

And Jesus will. 

True faith often emerges among real-life needs. 

This man believed Jesus’s word and went on his way back to Capernaum, and on his way back his servants met him on the road. They had good news. They told him that his son was alive. He’s recovering. And the man asked them what time his son started to recover. (Which is fascinating. This is dramatic irony. As readers, we know why he’s asking this question, but his servants don’t know). They tell him, His fever broke yesterday at 1pm. And the father knew! That’s when Jesus said the words “Your son will live.”

So verse 53 says,

“And he himself believed, and all his household.” 

So this man’s initial, simple faith is now followed by an abiding faith that spreads. His whole household believed. Like with the Samaritan woman, true faith gets shared. 

But I want to end here by saying more about who our faith rests in. I want you to notice the power and kindness of Jesus in this passage.

First, his power. All he had to do was say the word. The very moment Jesus said “Your son will live,” 25 miles away the fever broke. Look, he who commands the wind and the waves also has power over sickness. Jesus has power over fevers and kidneys and MCLs and you name it. Jesus is powerful.

And also Jesus is kind. Notice a change that happens in this story. This official, who is a father, is not actually called a father until verse 53.

First, it’s formal. He’s an official from Capernaum. He’s a Galilean. Then he’s called a man. But by the end of the story, in verse 53, for the first time he’s called “the father.”

And I think this shows us the kindness of Jesus to meet all of us where we are. 

We come to him in our need and he meets us as those who are needy. Which does not mean, listen, this does not mean he always gives us the healing we want. Sometimes he doesn’t give us the Yes we want in that moment, but, he always gives us himself. And he helps us. 

Sometimes that means he just has to carry us. Be near to us. If he doesn’t make the pain go away, he will bring you through the pain. He’s kind. He’s kind. Jesus is kind.

And I can’t help but think that Jesus’s kindness to this father shows that Jesus must know something about a father’s love for his son. Jesus doesn’t know this because Jesus was a father — he wasn’t — but he was a son — he is a Son, the beloved Son of God the Father. And the Father’s love for Jesus is so glorious that Jesus wants us to know what it’s like (see John 17:24). That’s why he went to the cross.

And that’s what brings us to the Table.

At the cross, Jesus game himself for us to make us the children of God, and at this table we remember that. And we come here to rest in him. We come here to remember his death for us, and his word to us: We are loved. In him we are forgiven. We are children of God. 

That’s why this Table is for Christians. This table is for everyone who has put their faith in Jesus. And if that’s not you yet, you can just pass the elements down the row, but don’t let the moment pass. As we’re hearing and singing this song, I invite you to believe in Jesus. Put your faith in him. And if you’d like, I’d love to talk to you more about that after the service.

Now, to those who trust in Jesus, let’s rest in him and give him thanks…

John 4:27-42,

Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.

31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

39 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”

I want you to imagine yourself walking down a hard-packed, weather-worn trail. An arid wilderness of dry, cracked earth all round you, the heat of the midday sun upon your skin. And a group of twelve Jewish men walking alongside you whose faces seem to all-too-closely match that of their surroundings — they too appear worn, vacant, and tired.

You ask this group of 12 men where they’ve been traveling. They say they’ve been on a journey — one that had begun with a wedding up in Cana of Galilee — a most festive occasion, they say. From there, they’d traveled south to Jerusalem in Judea. After spending some time there, they’d begun their travel back up to Galilee, cutting through Samaria on their way.

Earlier that day they’d left their Rabbi back at Jacob’s well to rest while they headed into town to buy bread — much needed sustenance for the remaining miles in front of them. And now, with Jacob’s well just a few hundred yards out in front of them, and their master’s form seated beside that well now visible just off in the distance, they were growing more and more eager to, at last, sit down, eat their bread, and rest.

And then, they fall quiet. You assume it’s because they’re so sapped of strength. But a few minutes later, you look up, and discover their silence is owing to another reason. Before them stands their Rabbi, and he is no longer alone. A woman from Samaria is there as well. 

In this morning’s text, we’re going to cover the second half of this unexpected scene involving Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Last week, Pastor Marshall preached through part one involving the private conversation between Jesus and this woman. Today, we’re going to walk through part two, which will have us looking on at this scene mainly through the eyes of the disciples. Along the way, we’re going to see two ways Jesus uses this moment to invite his disciples — they and us included — to become even more like him. Let’s pray and ask the Lord for his help.

So, part two of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. And we’re looking for two ways Jesus uses this moment to invite us to become even more like him. Let’s begin with the first one — Jesus invites us to see as he sees.

So, verse 27, the 12 disciples return to the well to find not Jesus alone, but Jesus and the Samaritan woman. And we shouldn’t think it incredible that they find the Samaritan woman there. They are, after all, in Samaria. And while its true, most of the townspeople would’ve gone earlier that morning to draw water from the well, it’s not unthinkable that at least one woman, especially one so socially despised and rejected as her, should’ve chosen to come to the well midday. 

However, what is unthinkable, is the fact that Jesus had not immediately turned his back to this woman upon her arrival. Jesus had not sneered at her, jumped to his feet, and stomped off in disgust. Instead, Jesus began conversing with her. He, a Jewish man, had turned his gaze upon her — a sin-stained, Samaritan woman.

And when his disciples see that, they’re stunned. Verse 27:

“Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman.”

They marveled. They wondered. They began thinking to themselves, “This is not a part of the plan. This is not the point of our travels. We are in Samaria, not because we’re wanting to linger here, much less engage the Samaritan people in conversation. We’re here to get in, get rest, and get out. Samaria is just a sidewalk to us — an unfortunate sidewalk, an unseemly sidewalk — but a sidewalk, nonetheless. And we mean to step over it as quickly as possible.” 

Well, you could imagine the awkward tension of that moment. I mean, the disciples are just standing there. Jesus and the Samaritan woman have wrapped up their conversation, and the disciples enter in, and just stand there. Silent. Stunned. Looking on in dislike and disbelief.

And the Samaritan woman notices. In fact, my guess is that she took one look at the twelve tense, standoffish disciples and thought, “My, how astonishingly different they are from their master.” She sets down her water jar, turns around, and hurries back into town.

Pause for a moment… How do we account for the disparity of that one moment? How do we explain the stark difference between Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman which had been so full of love and consideration and the disciples’ interaction with her which had been so cold and disinterested?

I mean, think about it, their entrance made the woman want to leave. Made her want to turn away. She took their arrival as her signal to exit the scene.

And for all they know, she’s headed right back to a life of shame, isolation, and unrelenting soul-level thirst. And the disciples don’t run after her. They don’t say, “Wait, come back, stay here with Jesus. You don’t need to leave. We want you to stay. We want you to linger before the one who can help you, save you, satisfy you. You’ve found Jesus, don’t walk away from him.” 

No, they don’t say any of that to this woman, because they don’t care two cents about this woman. “She’s gone,” they think, “and so are our troubles. Now, Jesus, its time to eat.”

How do you explain the incredible gap between Jesus’ love for the Samaritan woman, and his disciples complete and total lack thereof? Well, I believe Jesus explains it for us in verse 35. We’re skipping over a few lines that we’ll get back to in a moment, but for now, take a look at verse 35. It is here, I believe, that Jesus exposes the problem:

“Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest?’ Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.”

Notice all the sight-related language in that sentence…

• “Look”

• “Lift up your eyes”

• “See.”

Think about it… What is Jesus trying to teach here? What is Jesus trying to show? It’s this: the disciples have a problem with their vision. A problem with their sight. Though they have begun to follow him, it appears they have not yet begun to see like him. 

For them, all they saw in the Samaritan woman was a nobody. A nuisance. A being not worth their time, or effort, or attention. They failed to see her as Jesus saw her.

And so, now with the entire town of Samaria approaching — note how verse 30 says, they (the people of Samaria) went out of town and were coming to him. So we’ve got the entire town of Samaria approaching. And Jesus takes that as an opportunity to correct his disciples’ vision. Verse 35,

“Look, lift up your eyes, see that the fields are white for harvest.”

“I want you to see,” Jesus is saying, “These Samaritans are not nobodies. They’re not unimportant to me, or unimportant to my father. They’re not people I want you to dismiss, or ignore, or avoid. They’re the harvest. They’re the prize. They’re the yield we’re here to receive. The exact harvest I’ve led us here to find. The exact harvest I’ve led us here to reap. Samaria is not our sidewalk, it’s our mission field. Do you see? Look, lift up your eyes, can you see them, can you see them, how I see them?”

Cities Church, when we look out at the world, out at the multitude of non-Christians all around us, do we see what Jesus sees?

When we see our neighbors hanging out in the backyard together, or our co-workers typing on their laptops in the office, or our classmates walking by us in the hallway, or our family members seated next to us at the dinner table — do we see them, do we see those people, the way Jesus sees them?

What if Jesus we’re to say of us, friends — you’re missing the harvest. You’re ignoring the harvest. It’s ready, it’s ripe, I’ve prepared it, I’ve brought you here to find it and reap it — do you see it? Do you see it? 

Or, do you see a wasteland? An empty field? A sidewalk? A bunch of people who are quite simply not worth your time? 

If so, then we need to repent, and pray and commit to daily praying, “Jesus, make us to see the way you see. Help us to recognize the harvest field that is the world all around us. Help us to envision, if he were standing right beside us at work, or in the neighborhood, or at the dinner table, how you would care for, and speak to, and invite to drink and be satisfied. Help us to see as you see.” 

The first way Jesus invites us through this text to become even more like him — He invites us to begin seeing as he sees. See with eyes focused upon the harvest. Now, the second way Jesus invites us to become more like him. For this, we’ll back up in the story to verse 31.

These are the first words the disciples speak upon their return to the well, just as soon as the Samaritan woman has left them. Verse 31:

“Rabbi, eat.”

We’ve brought back the bread — let’s eat.

And Jesus’ response to them takes them a bit off guard. Verse 32:

“But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’”

You know, I said that to Amelia once. I had packed a lunch for work but then left it in the fridge — you guys ever do that? Well, my wife felt terrible about that because she assumed it meant me taking on a full days’ work on an empty stomach. I got home later that day and she said, “I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to run your lunch up to you.” And I said, “it’s okay, I have food to eat that you do not know about.” And it was true, I did. I had like half a dozen frozen burritos in the staff fridge at my disposal. I was good to go.

It’s a bit of a funny story, but I share it with you because when Jesus says this to his disciples, “I have food to eat that you do not know about,” his disciples assume something along the lines of burritos in the fridge. Like, perhaps he had an extra loaf of bread he’d been carrying around. Perhaps a passerby gave him some food while we were away. Or maybe one of the other disciples had given him something to eat prior to heading out into town. 

That’s why in verse 33 they begin asking one another: “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” I mean, if Jesus says he has food, then he must’ve gotten it from somewhere.

But the truth is, Jesus had not gotten his fill of bread. In fact, he had not taken in any physical food whatsoever. His stomach was just as empty in that moment as those of his disciples. But his soul was full!

See, he had found sustenance at that well. He had found heart-enlivening provision while conversing with the Samaritan woman. He had enjoyed a feast — one that had satisfied his soul far more than any four-course dinner ever could. But what was that feast if not food?

Verse 34,

“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.”

My food is the joy-giving recognition of God’s smile upon me as I carry out his will in the world. My food is to receive real, necessary sustenance through obedience to him.

For no, just as Jesus said to Satan in the wilderness after being tempted to turn a stone into a meal, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” He’s not trying to be cute in that moment. Not trying to be clever. In fact, he’s quoting there from Deuteronomy 8:3, not because he’s trying to be cute, or clever, but because he believes it! God designed us, you see, to crave a certain satisfaction that comes only from him and living for him, and crave it far more than we crave our bread and water. And security and rest.

Obedience to God, living for God, going out to gather the harvest for God is literally God-given food for the soul. Jesus had come upon one of his Father’s beloved — a woman dying of soul-level thirst. A woman who’d been drinking her entire life from wells that held no water. And he showed her where true life is found. He showed her where her thirst could be quenched. He made her alive! He made her to see! He saved her! He changed her life’s trajectory for eternity. And in that moment, it did not matter that his stomach was still empty. His heart was full. His soul was full. He was full and well-satisfied.

Do you believe that if you were to engage in the good work of the harvest — the good work of going out into the world to win people to Christ — that tiring as it may be, challenging as it could be, it would actually produce in you a sort of joy and fullness no amount of feasting and rest and relaxation ever could? Do you believe that?

If you don’t believe me, then take a stroll up and down Grand Avenue this afternoon, and meet the hundreds of people who walk these streets as men and woman living entirely for themselves and entirely for their comfort. They’re in the prime of life, and in the greatest of health, and have the fullest of wallets and the most comfortable lifestyles — and they’re empty, bored, and lifeless.

Afterwards, get on a plane, travel to the most poverty-stricken, war-torn most hellish places on earth and find Christian missionaries there who could’ve lived on Grand Avenue, and could’ve chosen a life of comfort, and who gave up all the money they had in order to become poor, and hungry, and friends to all the needy souls around them, and find them to be tired, a bit worn down, and yet radiating with joy!

Friends, have you been starving your souls of the much-needed sustenance found by those who seek after God’s harvest? Have you — in your hurry, in your self-focus — been skipping meal after meal of hearty, filling, joy-giving ministry to others? Have you been fasting from the experience of God’s smile upon those who do the work he prepared for you to do?

The disciples had bread in that moment, I doubt they felt full. 

The woman had left her water jar, I doubt she felt thirsty. 

Jesus says, I believe in reference to the Samaritan woman, verse 36:

“Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.”

Jesus saw those Samaritans, those fields ready for harvest, and, O, it made his heart to swell. The Samaritan woman led all her townspeople toward Jesus, and O, how it made her soul glad. 

See, joy is being had, my brothers and sisters, by those who have entered into the good work of the harvest. 

By those who are bringing others to Jesus to drink their fill of living water. 

Joy — soul-sustaining, heart-filling, spirit-enlivening joy is being had by those who are doing the will of him who sent us, which Jesus tells us in Matthew 28:

“Go and make disciples.”

Verse 36 states,

“Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.” 

Will you, today, get in on that joy as well? Will you, today, begin tasting the spiritual food of carrying out the Father’s will?

First way Jesus invites us through this text to become even more like him — He invites us to begin seeing as he sees. Second way, he invites us to be satisfied as he is satisfied.

Now, a word of application. Because many of you may be thinking: “I’m seeing it, I’m seeing my neighbors afresh, I’m seeing them with eyes of love and care rather than dismay and disinterest. And I’m wanting to be filled, I’m wanting to be satisfied by the kind of joy that comes from sowing and reaping of the harvest. But how do I do it? Where do I begin? What do I say?”

And really, there is no one way to answer that question. In fact, I encourage you, following the commission, to ask a few people around you how they’ve sought to answer that question. But for now, there is at least one way we can answer it, from this text. Look with me back up at verse 28: The woman goes back into town and says to the people, verse 29,

“Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”

She gave them her personal testimony. She says, “Come, let me tell you what Jesus has done for me.” She didn’t offer an intellectual defense for Christianity — though it wouldn’t have been wrong for her to do so. Instead, she told her people what she knew. And that is that no one had ever treated her so kindly as this man. No one had ever spoken so directly to her as this man. No one had ever so known her faults, and yet loved her all the same, as this man. “Would you like to come with me to meet him for yourself? Would you like to come see for yourself if this be the Christ?”

Brothers and sisters, in a world of fake-news, and phony salesmen, and people who are more concerned about what’s on their phone than what’s on the heart of the person in front of them, there is incredible power in the genuine, humble, love-driven sharing of personal testimonies.

• Did Jesus rescue you out of a pit of depression? 

• Did Jesus cover the shame you felt was visible all over you? 

• Did Jesus guide you by a wisdom far greater than your own? 

• Did Jesus calm the mountains of anxiety that you’d been suffocating under? 

• Did Jesus save you from a life dedicated to the hollow approval of man? 

• Did Jesus heal the pain you experienced from growing up in a broken home?

• Did Jesus love you when you felt unlovable?

• Did Jesus care for you when you felt uncared for? 

• Did Jesus protect you when you felt fearful? 

• Did Jesus draw near to you when you felt all alone? 

• Did Jesus free you from judgment, assure you of his love, lead you to the Father, provide for you an inheritance, build a room for you in heaven, promise you what no human being (no mom, no dad, no husband, no wife, no friend, no confidant) could ever promise you — that “He would never leave you nor forsake you?”

Did Jesus save your life? Did Jesus satisfy your thirsty soul?

If so, you should tell someone. If so, you should share that story with another. 

No, our testimonies don’t always lead to others immediate salvation. That was the case for some upon first hearing of the Samaritan woman’s testimony. Verse 39 says,

“Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.”

Not all of them did though. Some remained skeptical. Some were not yet sold. But they were intrigued enough to travel to the well. Intrigued enough to go and check out Jesus for themselves. Intrigued enough to ask Jesus, verse 40, to stay in their town just a bit longer. And Jesus did. He, a Jewish man, expected to despise these Samaritans, gladly stayed two days later in their town, with the result that, verse 41:

“And many more believed because of his word.”

They said to the woman:

“It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”

And just as John the Baptist, I trust the woman was all-too-glad for her and her testimony to fade into the background as her townspeople met Christ firsthand.

Picture it brothers and sisters: Your non-Christian neighbor, your non-Christian co-worker, your non-Christian family member coming to you, maybe months after you shared your testimony with them, saying, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” What joy would erupt within you? What soul-satisfying sustenance would you take in at such a moment. 

Cities Church, see as Jesus sees. Be satisfied as Jesus is satisfied. And go out into the harvest, with testimony ready upon your lips, and take joy in the work alongside the other sowers and reapers you meet there.

Well, what brings us to the table this morning is Jesus’ sacrifice of his body in death upon a cross for our sins. Without this ransom which he paid there so that we who trust in him might be forgiven of our sin, we’d have no good news to share. No harvest to reap. No joy to take in. No future feast in heaven at Jesus’ table to look forward to. 

Because that is what this table represents, it is for those who are presently trusting in Jesus. If this is you, please eat and drink with us. If this is not you, whether you have yet to receive Jesus and his life, death, and resurrection for you, or believe that you are presently living in disobedience and are in need of repentance, please allow the bread and the cup to pass by. The pastors will come, let us serve you.

John 4:1-26,

Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

Before we get into the story here in John 4, and the conversation with the Samaritan woman, I just wanted you to see something unusual and beautiful here about Jesus.

In the last chapter, Jesus is ministering to a curious Pharisee, a teacher of the law, a ruler of the Jews — untouchable. And yet Jesus reaches out to him to invite him in, answer his questions, and challenge his thinking, to draw him into the kingdom. This is a guy from the highest, most intellectual, most religious stratosphere of society. . . . And then here, just a few verses later, he’s stopping to minister to a sexually-immoral, socially-alienated woman — untouchable. And yet Jesus reaches out to her, engages her questions, and invites her to drink from his fountain of living water. 

These two couldn’t be more different. He’s a Jew, a leader in society, steeped in Scripture, rigorously observing the law; he’s a man and he comes at night, and we know his name: Nicodemus. She’s a Samaritan, and an outcast even in Samaria, in and out of relationships with men, far less familiar with God’s law; she’s a woman and they meet in broad, scorching daylight; and we don’t even get her name. These two people couldn’t be more different — and I believe that’s utterly intentional. What do I take from it? 

It doesn’t matter who you are this morning, Jesus has something to say to you. It doesn’t matter if you’re a politician or a prostitute, a priest or a thief, a CEO, a stay-at-home mom, or a college student, a Jew, a Samaritan, or a lifelong Minnesotan — Jesus has something to say to you this morning: something convicting and renewing, something hard and something really, really good. It was true with Nicodemus, and it’s true here with this woman, and it’ll be true here in this room — if we have ears to hear him.

Okay so we read here, verses 1–3, that Jesus leaves Judea because of pressure from the Pharisees (they were getting jealous and angry), and so he heads for Galilee. And you had to go through Samaria to get to Galilee. But “Samaria” was a bad word for Jews. Jews hated Samaritans, and Samaritans hated Jews.

But he had to pass through Samaria to get to Galilee, and as he did, he gets tired from all the walking, and so he finds a well where he can stop and get a drink. It’s the sixth hour (probably about noon), the hottest part of the day. No one draws water at noon in Samaria. They come earlier or later in the day when it’s cooler. No one comes at this time. But while he’s there, a woman stops at the well. A “woman of Samaria,” so this is Mrs. Bad Word. And as we’ll find out in a minute, she’s here at the well in the hottest part of the day for a reason. She’s likely ashamed to be around the other women — because of all the men she’s been with. 

Despite all that, Jesus says to her, verse 7,

“Give me a drink.”

You can tell how surprising it was for him to even talk to her, because of how she responds, verse 9:

“How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?’ (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)”

No dealings. Not even a cup of water in the heat of the day. 

Why did Jews and Samaritans hate one another? In the beginning, the nation of Israel had twelve tribes, one each for the twelve sons of Jacob. And the capitol of that nation was (and is) Jerusalem. And Israel still had twelve tribes when Solomon was king, but when he died and his son Rehoboam took over, he ruled badly and alienated 10 of the 12 tribes. So those ten split off in a mutiny against Jerusalem. They formed a new northern kingdom, and they made Jeroboam their king. That makes them traitors in Jerusalem. And Samaria was the capital of traitor nation.

Foreigners moved into the northern kingdom, and they inter-married with the Jewish people, making the people less and less Jewish over time. Eventually that mixed race is called “Samaritans,” after the capitol city. For the Jews, it was synonymous with “half-breed” or “impure.” They despised Samaritans. One scholar writes,

“The ethnic and cultural boundary between the Jews and the Samaritans,” one scholar writes, “was every bit as rigid and hostile as the current boundary between Blacks and Whites in the most racist areas of the United States.” (From Every People and Nation, 163)

Imagine refusing someone something as small and critical as water, simply because of their ethnicity. That’s how malicious this rivalry was.

But Jesus isn’t offended. He answers, verse 10,

“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

You think you’ve got me figured out, that I’m like every other Jewish guy you’ve heard about, but you have no idea. If you knew who I was, you wouldn’t have waited for me to ask for a cup of water.

She’s of course confused, so she says,

“Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”

This water’s been just fine, and for hundreds of years. As far as wells go, this is a great well. Why would I need different water? (And besides, if you had better water, what would you even put it in?)

To which he replies, Has this water really been enough for you? And if it has, why do you have to keep coming back here like you do? Here’s how he says it:

“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

What do we learn about this “living water”? When you drink it, you’ll never be thirsty again. It might be hard for us to feel what this would have meant in that day. We have clean water everywhere we turn, coming out of every faucet in our homes. In that day, they had to carry these buckets back and forth, back and forth — for drinking, for cooking, for bathing. Water was a huge part of their lives. And Jesus says, you drink from my well, and you’ll never be thirsty again. You’ll never have to do this walk again. But he goes even further than that.

“The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

When you drink this water, you’ll never thirst and you’ll never die. You’re going to live forever.

The woman still doesn’t totally get it, as we’ll see, but she’s heard enough to be sold:

“Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

Give me this eternal water service, the gallons just showing up at my house every day. I don’t want to come out here over and over and over again. I hate coming out here in the heat of the day. Please give me some of this special water you’re telling me about.

“Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come here.’”

Seems straightforward enough. If you want what I’m offering, go grab your husband and we’ll talk more. It’s not straightforward, though, not at all — and Jesus knows that.

“The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’”

A little awkward, but not necessarily a problem (not yet). But, again, Jesus knows more than she thinks he does.

“Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.’” 

Okay, so we’re not really talking about water at all, are we? This isn’t about Jacob or buckets or H₂O. Her well was men. She had been trying to quench her thirst for love, for security, for life in the arms of romance. He asked her for a drink because he knew how thirsty she was. She was dying of thirst inside, and she had tried well after well after well — Greg, then Ryan, then Jared, then Dave, then Scott, then Tony (who knows what their names were). And she was still so thirsty. She was more thirsty than she was before she met the first guy. 

Sin is the anti-well, the anti-fountain. And some of you are drinking there every day. Maybe you’re like this woman, and you’ve thrown yourself into relationship after relationship. Maybe your wells are online, in the dark places of the internet. Maybe you’re fostering some bitterness or anger. Maybe it’s indulging in alcohol, or over-eating, or binge-watching. The first time you put your bucket in, you got enough for a drink. And then a little less, and a little less, and a little less. Now you’re scraping the dirty bottom for a thimble, for a drip of water. But you’re so thirsty, so you keep trying. Put your bucket down. Whatever it is, put it down and walk away. Don’t drink there anymore! Come to the fountain of life and you’ll never be thirsty again.

And all you have to do is ask. Did you hear that in verse 10?

“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

Why would he give it? Because you asked. All you have to do is ask!

Right here, in these verses, is a well, a spring — and it will never fail you. You don’t even need your bucket anymore, because the well’s inside of you. “The water that I will give him will become in him” — in you — “a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

So which well will you choose? What’s keeping you from asking? What’s between you and the fountain right now?

Jesus overcomes three great hurdles, three great barriers in this story, the kinds of barriers that might be keeping you from coming to the fountain. Three great barriers, and you could summarize them like this: six husbands, two temples, one wall.

First, six husbands. Well, five husbands and the boyfriend. But six men wasn’t too many. It might have gotten her canceled in town (she had to go draw water by herself in the heat of day), but six men didn’t disqualify her from this well. No, these six husbands tell us that no sin is too great. You know that, but I want you to know it. Some of you know it, but you don’t believe it. You don’t. You think your sins are too great, too bad, too many. This woman’s in the Bible to tell you that’s not true.

We don’t find out that she’s been with so many men until verse 18, but Jesus already knew in verse 1. He knew and he still stopped to talk to her. He still offered her a drink. He offered her the only drink she’d ever need, the one that would quench and heal all the aching dryness inside of her. 

He wasn’t embarrassed to be seen with her. He wasn’t too ashamed of her to bear her sins and make her his own — if she would just ask.

So will you ask, will you forsake all your other wells, and drink from this fountain? Will you believe, repent, and be forgiven?

Second, two temples. When Jesus knows about all her husbands, she realizes he’s a prophet, and so she turns the conversation to how and where to worship. Verse 19:

“Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

She’s bringing up an argument between Jews and Samaritans. When the northern kingdom split off from Judah and Jerusalem, they built their own temple on Mount Gerizim (that’s the mountain she mentions). The Jews in Jerusalem obviously didn’t think that temple was legit, though, and so that was another reason to hate each other.

She realizes this conversation’s not really about water, or even about her husbands, this is a conversation about worship. And worship happens, in her mind, in either that temple or that temple. Jesus says to her, 

“Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.”

For hundreds and hundreds of years, God’s people worshiped in one big temple, a building — 150 feet tall and a million and a half square feet. It’s a big, massive dot on Google maps. But it’s one big dot. Not anymore, Jesus says. Up until now — up until me — you had to come to a place, a temple to offer right worship to God. Now, you can worship him anywhere. You can worship him at 1524 Summit Ave in St. Paul, Minnesota in a country that won’t even exist for another couple thousand years.

What do these two temples tell us in the story? That now, no place is too far. The hour has come when true worshipers worship the Father in spirit and truth. True worshipers worship in spirit — not just with our hands, and knees, and gifts, but by the work of the Spirit inside of us. This is what Jesus just told us in the last chapter, verse 5:

“Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

And true worshipers worship in truth, that is, they worship according to how God has revealed himself in his word and in the Word made flesh, his Son. Those are the essential ingredients: God’s supernatural work in you by the Spirit and God’s supernatural revelation in the Bible, most fundamentally in Jesus. And now, in Jesus, if you worship in spirit and truth, you can worship God anywhere.

You don’t have to come to this building to worship Jesus. You should absolutely join a local church and faithfully attend their gatherings, but you can worship Jesus in the temple high on the mountain or down by a well in the heat of day, in the sanctuary on Sunday morning or alone in your bedroom on your knees. Because of Jesus, you can meet and worship God in any place. And one day soon he will be worshiped in every place, when his glory covers the earth as the waters cover the sea. No place is too far.

Third, the wall. Jesus calmed the raging storm with a word, and he brought down the mile-high racial-ethnic-religious wall between Jews and Samaritans with a drink of water (with less than a drink of water, because as far as we know, he never got the drink). This raging hostility — between Jews and Samaritans — this hostility tells us no wall is too high. This Jesus overcomes every conceivable boundary and hostility between us. So what walls seem too high today?

Are they in the Middle East or Asia? Jesus had to pass through Samaria — and he has to pass through Iraq, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. He has to pass through Cameroon, the Philippines, and Turkey, where our global partners serve right now. Those are high, high walls. And no wall’s too high. Why does he have to pass through those hard places? Matthew 24:14,

“This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

One day we will sing, Revelation 5:9,

“Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”

Do you want to reach an unreached people with the gospel, to help bring down walls around the world so that people dying of thirst might finally hear about Jesus? You won’t find a wall too high. Jesus can bring any wall down, and he can do it with a cup of water. How much more might he do through you?

You won’t find a wall too high in the Middle East, and you won’t find a wall too high in Minneapolis. In your neighborhood. In your family. These walls are a lot closer, so they might look and feel a lot higher, a lot thicker, (in the case of family) a lot more sensitive and painful. 

How could God ever save him? Or her? There’s no sin too great, no place too far, and no wall too high. Do you still believe that — even for them?

And why is no sin too great, no place too far, and no wall too high? Because, verse 23, the Father is seeking people like us to worship him.

“The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.”

Despite all the barriers, it’s going to happen. Why? Because the God of heaven is out looking for them — he’s meeting them at wells and in temples, he’s finding them at big Christian conferences and in conversations at the gas station, he’s using parents and neighbors and little-league coaches and roommates and co-workers — he’s seeking. He’s seeking worshipers. 

Does that sound selfish to you? “The Father is seeking worshipers.” If one of you talked that way, it would be gross, right? If I said, “Pastor Daniel is seeking worshipers who will worship him,” you’d say he shouldn’t be a pastor. We’d think he’d lost his mind. We don’t like people like this. So why is it any different with God? Why can he do everything he does for his own glory (and he does do everything he does for his glory)? And why can he tell us to do everything we do for his glory? (“Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”)

Because he’s worthy of all the glory — more than we could ever give him, more than the sun and moon and stars and mountains could ever say — and because his glory is the best news in the world for people like us.

Why do I find so much hope and comfort in him seeking worship? Because when this God finds a worshiper, he gives us the spring of living water in him. Worship is our well of living water. And if he wasn’t seeking, we’d never find him. That’s how blinding sin is. This God reveals his glory by satisfying the dry and weary souls of the undeserving, of the sinful. I want a God like that. And he’s the only one there is.

And this Father was so relentlessly committed to finding you, knowing you, saving you that he sent his Son into the world to die for you. The woman says, verse 25,

“I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.”

And Jesus says to her (maybe the clearest, most shocking statement he makes about himself in all the Bible):

“I who speak to you am he.”

And in that moment, she hears what we’ve known since verse 1: The normal-looking Jewish man standing by this well, at the heat of day, asking her for a drink, is the Savior of the world, the Son of God, the Messiah.

This brings us to the table. One of the sneaky startling things about this passage is hiding in verse 6. We read right over it.

“. . . so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well.”

Jesus was wearied. It should take our breath away that the Son of God was wearied. He didn’t count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself. He got tired like we do, and needed a drink like we do. He was willing to be wearied for you. And far more than wearied, “he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, death on a cross.” This long, hot journey from Jerusalem to Galilee, through terrible hostility, it’s a picture of this whole Gospel, of the whole Bible. Jesus was wearied for you, betrayed for you, pierced for you, crushed for you, so that you might worship him in spirit and truth — and never be thirsty again.

He’s still seeking. Will he find worship in you? 

This table, this meal is a meal for the members of Cities Church, but if by faith in Jesus Christ you have to come to drink at the fountain of living water, we invite you to eat and drink with us. If you’re not yet a believer in Jesus, we’d ask you to let the bread and the cup pass. But let today be the day you put your bucket down and follow Jesus.

John 3:22-36,

After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he remained there with them and was baptizing. 23 John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because water was plentiful there, and people were coming and being baptized 24 (for John had not yet been put in prison).

25 Now a discussion arose between some of John’s disciples and a Jew over purification. 26 And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness—look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” 27 John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. 28 You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’ 29 The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease.”

31 He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all. 32 He bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony. 33 Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true. 34 For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. 35 The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Okay, to get started here, I need you to use your imagination for a minute. Imagine that you’re in a helicopter and you’re flying over Jerusalem — say the helicopter is an eyewitness news station that you’re a part of — and so you’re flying over Jerusalem to see what’s going on — also it’s the year 28 (so there’s some time travel involved here, but you’re using your imagination). 

Well, you’re flying over Jerusalem, over the outskirts, in an area known as the Judean countryside, and you look down and you see a little pocket of people — there’s a leader and some followers — and more people are coming to them and they’re dunking them in the water.

Then you fly up a little more north of Jerusalem, in the countryside and you notice another little pocket of people — there’s a leader and some followers — and they’re also dunking people in the water.

You realize you’ve seen, basically, two identical pockets of people: two different groups led by two different men in two different areas outside of Jerusalem but they’re doing the same thing — that’s the setting of our passage today. That’s how John, the writer of this Gospel, sets this story up. 

But now imagine that you jump out of the helicopter (with a parachute) and you come down to one of these pockets of people — and it’s the group led by John the Baptist — and you overhear a dialogue.

There had been a discussion between a Jewish man and the disciples of John the Baptist about purification — that’s all we’re told in verse 25 — but apparently that discussion sparked some confusion for the disciples of John the Baptist and so they came to John the Baptist to talk with him in verse 26 and here is where the real action starts. 

And there are three main things going on here that John, the writer of this Gospel, wants us to see. And I think that if we can track with these three things then we will understand this passage. So three things, really simple:

1. Questions Continue

2. Mission Complete

3. Jesus Clear

We’re gonna look closer at each of these three things and we’re gonna find in each one there’s something for us to take away. There’s some practical connections that we need to make. So I’ll pray again and we’ll get started. 

Father, you are good and you do good things. Even in the midst of our hard things, we know that you’re at work and you do not make mistakes. We ask that you give us now everything we need, to hear from you and to trust you, in Jesus’s name, amen.  

Now there’s not a question mark in verse 26, but these disciples of John the Baptist are bringing a question. Look at verse 26,

And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness—look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him.”

So these guys had found out about that other pocket of people outside of Jerusalem which was led by Jesus, and they found out that they were doing the exact same thing that John the Baptist and his pocket of people were doing — and these guys were confused by that. 

Now some have read this and assumed that the disciples of John the Baptist are jealous here; that interpretation assumes they don’t like the fact that more people are now going to Jesus than to John. And that could be true, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on. Notice that these guys recognize in verse 26 that Jesus is the one John the Baptist bore witness to back in Chapter 1. They’re saying: Hey, that guy that you were telling us about — the one that you said some pretty amazing things about — he’s over there doing what we’re doing. 

See, the implied question is: If the one you said you were here to point to is now doing what you’re doing, why are you still doing it? (This is the question at least that John the writer wants us to wonder as we read this story.)

Don’t get too distracted by the details of verse 26 because it’s really just there to set up what John the Baptist is about to say in verses 27–30, and the main thing we should see here is that the reality of Jesus raises questions. We’ve already seen this in the Gospel of John. Everywhere Jesus goes, there’s more questions. 

In Chapter 1: Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?

At the wedding, Chapter 2: Why have we kept the good wine for the end? 

At the temple: Who do you think you are to bring this mayhem?

Then, Nicodemus: Can a grown man enter into his mother’s womb a second time and be born?

We’ve already seen Jesus raise questions, and here questions continue (and they’re gonna keep coming), but at this point, let’s drill down into what the question is. Basically, these guys are asking: since Jesus is now here, what do we do?

You get that? They’re asking: How do we make sense of what we’re doing in light of the reality of Jesus?

And I want you to know that question has never stopped being asked — in fact, that’s a question we should ask ourselves today. 

How does Jesus being Jesus change the way I live?

And first, we might think broadly about the whole course of our lives and all of our big decisions. If it were not for Jesus, things would look very differently for most of us (I know that’s true for me!) — but let’s not settle with that broad kind of thinking. Take another step. 

For example, you might first think … “Because of Jesus I’m a mother.” Okay, yes, but it’s more than that. Because of Jesus you want to be a certain kind of mother. What kind? How does Jesus being Jesus make you a certain kind of mother?

Another example: “Because of Jesus, I give” — and that’s great, but take another step. How does Jesus being Jesus impact the ways you give, and how much you give, and to where?

One more example: You might think: “Because of Jesus, there are certain things I don’t do” — and that’s good, but how does Jesus being Jesus change the way you use your time? What do you give your energy to? How do you think about your purpose?

See, the fact is: Jesus has come! Jesus is real. It’s like he’s right over there. So what do we do now? Today? Tomorrow? The next day? Since Jesus is Jesus, how should we live?

The questions continue. And that’s the question for us. 

The second thing to track in this passage is …

This is in verses 27–30 where John the Baptist answers his followers, and what he does here is he gives the concluding explanation of his ministry. Like in Chapter 1, he says again, one more time, what he’s all about. He starts with verse 27:

“A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven.” 

Now that’s a true statement all across the board. Every gift we have is ultimately from God. But John is saying this here about what God has called him to do. He’s had one job this whole time — to point people to Jesus. That’s the job God gave John the Baptist to do, and he says he’s done it.

He says to his followers, Hey, you guys can vouch for me. You’ve heard me say, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.

You’re telling me that all are going to him — and they should be! This is the point. Jesus is the bridegroom; I’m just the friend of the groom, verse 29.

And just like that, John the Baptist uses a wedding metaphor. And this is important. When he mentions the “friend of the groom” here he’s talking about the best man. That’s the idea. That’s how John the Baptist understood himself. He is Jesus’s best man.

Have any of y’all ever been to a wedding when after the ceremony, at the reception or wherever, there’s a big receiving line?

Well, have y’all ever seen it that when people are lining up to meet the bride and groom, the best man is over in the corner of the room, and he’s trying to get people to form a line to see him? Ever seen that before? Have you ever heard of a best man who is confused that people wanna see the groom?

Of course not! This is a perfect image, John!

For those of you who have a wedding this summer — a lot of you, actually — understand this: the best man has one job. (Now I know today he does a couple of things — there’s the ring and the speech and all that — but traditionally, the best man had one job). He was to make sure the groom gets to the wedding. That’s it. That’s what he’s for. And when the groom gets there, the best man is done. “This joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease.”

See, this is the fadeout moment for John the Baptist. And his whole ministry has been looking forward to this. He’s known the whole time it’s not about him. His one job has been to prepare the way for Jesus — to clear the way for us to see Jesus — and John the Baptist says here, “I’ve done it. Mission complete.”

And I’m so happy for him! I love that he experienced this! I love that he says mission complete, but it makes me wonder: Do you think we’ll ever say that?

John the Baptist was able to begin his ministry with the end in mind, and here he’s reached the finish line. He did it. But when it comes to our mission, is it possible for us to experience that in this life?

At one level, no. When we think of the mission Jesus has given us — “make disciples of all nations” — one day that mission will be complete, but not here. Technically, mission complete for us comes in the New Jerusalem, in heaven.

So then what does that mean for now? 

Like for now, are we just spinning our wheels trying to climb a mountain we’ll never reach?

If that’s how we think about our mission, that’s pretty depressing and non-compelling.

So think about it like this: although we may not see the full mission complete in our lifetime, the things we do today on mission have an eternal impact. Our actions have eternal consequences. They matter.

As a local church, last year we focused in on our mission — we exist to make joyful disciples of Jesus who remember his realness in all of life.

This means that we don’t just want ourselves to be happier in God, but we want more people in the Twin Cities to be happy in God! That’s over 3.7 million people! That’s gonna take some time and look, we probably won’t get there in the next 50 years. And that’s okay. It’s not our responsibility to do it all, but we are responsible for a part.

Our cities are full of lost people who must be found, and hopeless people who must find hope, and drowning people who must be saved — and we have a life boat. And we can and should make a difference. 

One day, in heaven, it will be mission complete for us like it is for John the Baptist here … but that mission complete does come in part through what we do now. 

Questions continue …

Mission complete …

This is verses 31–36, and it’s where John, the writer of this Gospel, speaks up with his own commentary. Now that John the Baptist has officially faded out, John the writer wants us to focus in all the more on Jesus. Like he did in Chapter 1, John here tells us who Jesus is. He tells us seven truths about Jesus:

1. Jesus is above all (v. 31)

2. Jesus has seen and heard from God the Father (v. 32)

3. Jesus utters the words of God the Father (v. 34a)

4. Jesus has been given the Spirit without measure by God the Father (v. 34b)

5. Jesus is loved by God the Father (v. 35a)

6. Jesus has been given all things by God the Father (v. 35b)

7. Jesus, therefore, elicits a consequential response (vv. 33, 36)

You can track each one of these in order, but I’m just gonna highlight one here in closing (one and a half). It’s in verse 34, and I want you to see this — I also wanna make sure you’re still with me. So everybody, if you can, find verse 34. Verse 34,

“For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure.”

Now, when John is telling us about Jesus here, he’s doing it in contrast to John the Baptist. Remember John the Baptist was an Old Testament prophet, and John wants us to know that Jesus was much greater than just a prophet — he comes from above, and he’s not just told what to say, but he’s actually seen and heard directly from God the Father because he’s been with the Father forever. So what Jesus says, the Father says, “for” or “because” the Father gives Jesus the Spirit without measure. 

That’s also meant to be a contrast with John the Baptist, or really with any prophet. It was commonly understood in the Jewish worldview that as God spoke through the prophets, God gave a measure of his Spirit to each prophet for their assigned task. Every prophet received the measure of the Spirit that was required for their assignment.

Well John is saying that it’s different with Jesus. He’s more than a prophet. He doesn’t just receive a bit of the Spirit for a one-off job, but he’s been given the Spirit without limit. His job never ends. Jesus is constantly, always, revealing God to us. He’s always making God known. He’s always the way back to a relationship with God. 

And the Spirit is always with Jesus doing that work. The Spirit was doing that work when Jesus was here on this earth, and the Spirit is still doing that work today, as the message of Jesus continues to be told. One way to say it is that anywhere Jesus is made clear, the Spirit is at work. 

And that elicits a consequential response. This is verse 36. And it’s really simple: Whoever believes in Jesus has eternal life; whoever does not obey him — does not believe him — the wrath of God remains on him.

That’s verse 36, which means we all have to make a choice about Jesus. Whenever we hear about Jesus we come to a fork in the road: will we believe him or not?

Those are the only two options for us when we encounter Jesus. And this book has been written so that we encounter him. 

See, a lot of times in life, we can try to stay with only that helicopter view of Jesus. We kinda see him from afar, we know about him, but we don’t wanna get too close to him. We don’t wanna have to make a choice about him. 

But the Gospel of John doesn’t let us do that. This book gives us closer than a helicopter view. This book brings Jesus right here in front us. John is all about making Jesus clear to us — and we should choose him. Believe him. Trust him. 

Questions continue.

Mission complete.

Jesus clear.

That’s what’s going on in this passage, and that’s what brings us to the Lord’s Table.

We come to this Table each week, first, because Jesus told us to — he told us to come to this table and remember his death for us. The bread represents the body of Jesus, and the cup represents his blood, and as we eat and drink this bread and cup we are saying together that Jesus is our hope. That’s why this is a meal for Christians.

If you’re here this morning and you’re not yet a Christian or if you’re not sure, I’m so glad you’re here and I invite you, Put your faith in Jesus! Believe him! — and I’d love to talk with you more about that. I’ll hang out down here after the service as usual. Come talk to me.

So for those who believe, if you trust in Jesus Christ, let’s eat and drink together and give him thanks.

John 3:16-21,

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

Okay, I’ve got really good news and really bad news — which do you want first?

I’ll explain the bad news first, but let me at least start with the good news just by reading verse 18. Here it is, verse 18: 

“Whoever believes in him [in Jesus] is not condemned,”

“…but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

This is super straightforward. Everybody get that?

1. Whoever believes in Jesus is not condemned (that’s really good news!)

2. Whoever does not believe in Jesus is condemned already (that’s really bad news, for those who don’t believe).

And a keyword in both statements is the word “whoever” — that’s whoever as in anybody …

Whoever as in — it doesn’t matter who you are or who your momma is; it doesn’t matter where you’re from or what you’ve done; it doesn’t matter how you look or the place you live or what anybody else thinks about you — it doesn’t even matter what you think about yourself — “whoever” is the broadest, most inclusive way to refer to humanity. 

Whoever means whoever — this is every human on this earth, it’s any person you could ever think of, whoever is all of us all the same — and the apostle John says there’s one thing that makes the main difference with the whoevers — it’s: Do you believe in Jesus or not?

John has written this book so that we would believe in Jesus, and he wastes no time putting the fork in the road here.

Will you believe in Jesus and not be condemned? 

Or will you not believe in Jesus and be condemned?

Those are the only options for us, and I hope that you hear this as both really good and really bad. It’s really good if you believe (it’s amazing — I want this to be all of us!) but it’s really bad if you don’t believe … or if you love those who don’t believe (which I hope is also all of us). 

Cities Church, God is speaking to us today in his word, in the good news and the bad news, and that’s my focus in this sermon. I just have two points, and you’ve already heard them. I’ll say a few more things about each one, but before we move on, let’s pray again:

Father, right now, your Spirit is at work like the wind! He does what he wishes according to your will! And we ask: would you will that he give life this morning! Give life! Revive life! Make us to see reality at it is. In Jesus’s name, amen. 

For the first point, there’s more on the bad news, here it is:

Y’all ever been in a situation before when you realized: “Oh no, this is not good. I’m doomed.”? 

You could call it the “moment of reckoning” or a “mayday moment.” 

I’ve had more than one of these but the moment that stands out was one time when I was a kid when I accidentally hit my brother in the face with a shinguard and knocked his front tooth out. I wasn’t worried about him — he’s tough; I knew he’d be fine — I was worried about telling my dad. I felt doomed. If you know the feeling, it’s like your ears get really hot and something gets stuck right here. It’s not pleasant. 

There’s a historical figure who knew all about these moments — it was a woman named Violet Jessop. Maybe you’ve heard her name before. Violet was a ship stewardess and nurse in the early 1900s who is famous for being a passenger on three different ships — the Olympic, the Titanic, and the Britannic. (You recognize that second ship — the Titanic struck an iceberg and Rose let Jack freeze to death.) 

But get this: the Olympic, in 1911, collided with another ship and in 1916 the Britannic hit a naval mine. 

All three ships turned into disasters and Violet Jessop survived each one, which means she lived through at least three real moments in her life when she would have heard the words, and realized, literally, “We’re going down! … I’m in a situation that is doomed.” … 

She felt that three different times — isn’t that crazy?

I want you to know verses 18–20 are meant to give us a similar realization. 

The truth is, the coming of Jesus has a dooming effect — now, that’s not the purpose for why Jesus came (we’ll get to more on that later, but verse 17 is clear: “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world.”) 

Jesus didn’t come with the purpose to condemn the world, but a result of his coming, and people not believing in him, is that it makes clear that people are condemned already. 

In other words, the reality of Jesus reveals the doom that already exists for everyone who does not trust him. Verse 36, the last verse of this chapter, says that for the one who does not believe in Jesus, “the wrath of God remains on him.”

Deserving the wrath of God is something else that we all have in common — and it goes back to what’s called original sin. We all face condemnation — we all face doom — because we all sin … because we choose to sin … because we inherited sinfulness. 

The first rebellion of our granddaddy Adam infects us as humans. It defiles us in all faculties and parts of the body and soul. None of us are just humans, we’re broken humans. We are bent away from God. Our default thinking is that if we need to be saved, we can save ourselves. We are “by nature,” as Paul says in Ephesians 2:3, “children of wrath like the rest of mankind.” If we reject Jesus, the wrath of God remains on us because we start with that verdict. 

We all start with the verdict of condemnation because of our sin, but we don’t know that until we’re confronted with the gospel. That’s what John is saying in verse 19,

19 And this is the judgment [another word for judgment is “verdict” — this is it:] the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

See, people love the darkness but the darkness is all they know until the light comes — so, they don’t actually know they love the darkness until the light comes and they hate the light; they want to avoid the light.

Why? Because the light exposes them. 

The problem with this exposure is not that it makes these people look bad in front of others — we don’t avoid the exposure because of what others might think — but we avoid the exposure because in the light we must face the verdict.

The light shows things as they really are; which means the lovers of darkness can’t be oblivious anymore to what the darkness means. The light is what makes everyone finally realize: “This whole thing is going down. … I’m in a situation that is doomed.”

And let’s be honest, if you like your situation, if you love the darkness, you don’t want to hear this. So most times you stay away from places like this, or if you come, you plug your ears and stiffen your heart and you try to protect yourself from the fear of condemnation by pretending there’s no such thing.

If that’s you, I’m so glad you’re here, and the best thing that could happen right now is for the Holy Spirit to rush through here like a mighty wind and open your eyes. Because the bad news is that if you don’t believe in Jesus, you are condemned.

And I’m not telling you you’re condemned because I’m trying to be a jerk — I’m telling you because there’s a way out.

This is the second point …

This is verse 17. And you gotta see this. Everybody find verse 17. Verse 17, get ready to finish the sentence for me:

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be [saved] through him.”

Now “saved” is an important word in this verse, but another important word is the word “send.”

Track with me here: 

“God” here is referring to God the Father, and “Son” is referring to Jesus — and along with the Holy Spirit, we should think Trinity. This is God in himself from all eternity happy and satisfied — the Father loving the Son, the Son loving the Father, and the Holy Spirit as the bond of that love.

And John tells us that God the Father sent Jesus his Son here, into this world. And God the Father did that because of his love, verse 16,

“God so loved the world that he sent [he gave] his only Son!”

I want to make sure we get this right: Jesus did not come here so that God the Father would love us; but Jesus came here because God the Father loves us. 

John will say later, 1 John 3:1:

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”

I can’t improve what Pastor Marshall said last week, so I’ll just say it again: We are loved by God. … By the triune God — the Father who chose us in love, the Son who came to save us in love, the Spirit who pours that love into our hearts. This is love, love, love. 

That is why the Father sent the Son. Amen. Now keeping hanging with me here:

The word for “sending” in Latin is the the word “missio” — which is where we get our word mission. And there’s range of meaning for how we use this word, but most of the time when we use the word “mission” we mean an important assignment or ambition. It’s something that we aim to do, that we’re sent to do. So I think it’s appropriate to speak of Jesus as having a mission — his mission is what he was sent to do. What was that?

Verse 17 says he was sent to [do what again?] … to save.

And that’s save as in rescue. That’s save as in the ship is going down and we’re all on it and we’re all doomed … unless someone is sent to save us.

What we find in these verses, very clearly, is that God the Father sent Jesus here on a rescue mission. Jesus came here to rescue us. Will you be rescued?

Jesus was sent here on a rescue mission, and that leads to two big opportunities for us this morning … one opportunity is for those who are here and don’t yet believe in Jesus and then the other opportunity is for those of us who are longstanding committed members of Cities Church. 

First, if you’re here and you don’t yet believe. The light shines this morning and the message is plain: If you don’t believe in Jesus you are condemned, but if you believe in Jesus you are not condemned. If you trust in Jesus, he will save you, and he will do that right now.

And look, I don’t mean to ignore the complexities of our various circumstances. I know that we all come from different places, and that faith for some feels really hard. I understand that. I don’t dismiss that. But I do want to emphasize the wonderful simplicity of the gospel as John puts it here. 

There’s a lot more stuff you can think through and we can talk about, and I’d be happy to do that, but it is also biblical to cut to the chase, put Jesus in your face, and ask what you’re gonna do with him.

Your greatest need in all your life is to be saved, and Jesus came to save you. Will you be saved by him? Will you put your faith in him?

This is what that looks like … you saying to him from the heart:

Jesus, I’m a sinner who needs to be saved, 

And I know you came here to save me!

You died on the cross and were raised from the dead,

You are Lord and I trust you.

Believe in Jesus and you will be saved. That’s the first opportunity this morning.

Here’s the second, and this one is for those of us who are part of Cities Church, the members of this church, if you’re all-in here, this is for you …. 

We, as disciples of Jesus, we’re on a rescue mission, too. Or really, the better way to say it is that Jesus continues his rescue mission and now he involves us — by his Spirit he works through us. Which means: the ministry of Jesus through us, our church’s ministry, what we’re about, most fundamentally, is a rescue mission. 

And man, it’s so important that we get this. I’ve come to realize, for myself and for all our members, that we will give little effort to make more room in this church until we understand we’re on a rescue mission. When I say “more room” I don’t just mean physical space, but I mean first at the heart level, in our imagination.

I’ve got this image. I’ll tell you about it … it’s a choice between two different ways of being for our next decade …

The first way is that we’re a nice cruise ship and we’re just coasting along, and every now and then, when we’re not on our phones, we might glance out over the deck and we see some stuff going on down in the water, but we don’t really bother — just keep cruising. That’s one way.

The other way is that we’re a life boat sent out because there’s been a storm, and that stuff going on down in the water is people drowning, and so we’re going out trying to get as many people in our boat as we possibly can. 

Church, see, we have a choice — Will we be a cruise ship with high walls, maybe throwing a rope down every now and then? Or will we be a life boat, going out in the storm, leaning over the edge, saying “Get in the boat! Be saved! Jesus is real! Trust him!”

Cruise ship or life boat? Who do you want to be? And if it’s not a life boat, then what are we telling ourselves to make us think that’s okay?

God, make us a life boat.

Church, let’s give our lives together to be a life boat.

Father, we know that by your Spirit you are at work in our lives and in our church and we ask for more. Don’t let us get in the way, but give us humble hearts and yielded spirits. Give us a deepening gratitude for what you’ve done in our past, and a growing passion for what you are yet to do, what you are able to do, what we believe you are pleased to do for your glory and our good. In Jesus’s name, amen.

John 3:1-21,

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? 11 Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

I have prayed over this morning, this message, these verses because I believe some of you came in needing to feel loved by God again. I know some of you need to feel loved again. You don’t feel loved right now, at least not in your worst moments. You might know that you’re loved, but you struggle to know it — and even more to feel it. There’s something clouding God’s love for you — different clouds in different stories.

The cloud might be a relationship. Maybe a parent has been especially overbearing — or especially absent. Maybe a child has changed and started responding in ways that are confusing and painful. Maybe a spouse has grown distant, or distracted, or irritated, or worse. Maybe you’re a young family battling sickness — and I mean battling, going to absolute war with the flu or RSV for weeks on end. Maybe you’re in a job you hate, but you feel stuck. Maybe you’re in a job you love but might lose. Maybe you’d love to have any job at all. Maybe you feel stuck in a cycle of sin that you have tried to break, maybe for years. Maybe someone keeps sinning against you. I have my clouds this week. . . . I have needed to be reminded that the God of heaven, the Maker of mountains and oceans, sunsets and freezing temperatures, the final Judge of every human soul, the most powerful, most holy, most valuable being in this or any universe loves me (loves you). Do you know that? Not just in your mind, but in your heart — in every bone and muscle in your body. I want you to know this love like that.

I want you to feel how loved you are. And to do that, I’m going to take you to the most familiar verse in all the world: 

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” 

You know these words by heart, but I’ve prayed that you might have ears to hear them this morning as if you’ve never heard them before. I want the love of God to wash over you and give you strength to endure whatever makes you feel loved any less. 

With these next 30 minutes, I want to show you four loves in John 3:16 (and by extension, John 3:1–21). I see four loves in this one verse, and I think this verse can help us make some sense of the other 20 verses in this passage. 

Okay, so four loves in one verse. First love: God loves the unlovely.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son. . . .”

When you hear Jesus say that word “world,” I wonder what you hear. Do you hear “world,” and immediately think of places like Kenya, Japan, and Brazil? Or do you hear “world,” and think darkness, wickedness?

“For God so loved [sinners], that he gave his only Son. . . .”

The former is certainly and beautifully true — God does love and has redeemed people from all tribes, tongues, peoples, and languages (Revelation 5). And it was provocative, in Israel, for John to say that God loves the world, and not just Israel. But I don’t think that’s the main point here. No, the main point here is that God loves the unlovely. He loves sinners. He loves the world who despised and rejected him.

This “world” is the world immersed, drowning in sin, the entirety of humanity — today, 8.062 billion people, every single one of them perishing apart from faith in Jesus. And we see that when we keep reading, verse 17:

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world (sinners), but in order that the world (sinners) might be saved through him.

Why would Jesus have to clarify that: God didn’t send me to condemn the world? Because the world deserved condemnation. We deserved condemnation. Romans 3:23,

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

We all have sinned and do sin, and that sin deserves condemnation, punishment, death. The wages of sin are death (Romans 6:23) — and not just death, but a never-ending, always-dying death.

See how ugly this world really is, next verse — how ugly, unlovely we were apart from Christ:

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. . . .

We didn’t just do bad things; we loved bad things. That’s the world Jesus sought out. That’s the world God loved. We were evil people — plotting evil, doing evil, savoring evil, and hiding in shadows — and yet God loved us, even while we laid in the dark. He didn’t wait for us to come out of the darkness looking for him; no, he sent his Son, the Light of the world, into the awful, wicked shadows to find us and save us. God loves the unlovely.

We named our son “Sorin Pierce” because of verses like these. Sorin means “sun” in Romanian. I’m not Romanian (Faye’s certainly not Romanian), but we went looking for something that meant light (preferably two syllables, and starting with S). And we wanted to see that light pierce the darkness — the darkness in us, the darkness in our son and other children, and the darkness in the world. We named him Sorin Pierce because our God has a heart for those in darkness, because he loves the unlovely.

Second, God loves believers. Where do I see that in verse 16?

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” 

Now, this verse would be enough to say that God loves believers simply because it says he saves us from perishing and gives us eternal life. Like I just said, we deserved death — the worst death, a death in which we die and die and die forever — and he gave us the opposite, the very best life imaginable, a life so good, for so long, we can hardly believe it’s true. God loves believers. But there’s more to this love in these verses. 

How does God love believers? Does he send his Son into the world and then wait around for someone to believe? This is how I used to think about salvation. God sends his good news out into the world, the gospel, and then he loves those who choose to love and believe in him. There’s more to this love, though. And this gets us into the first fifteen verses of our passage. Verse 1:

“Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.’”

Jesus was turning water into wine, healing the blind and sick, seeing people’s minds, and the religious leaders were taking notice. Clearly something supernatural’s happening here, but it’s not happening in the ways they expected. So Nicodemus comes looking for an explanation. 

He comes in secret, at night, and essentially says, “Help me understand what I’m seeing.” Jesus answers, verse 3:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Say what? . . . Nicodemus is even more confused and so he asks, 

“How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

Jesus has this pharisee so turned around that he asks if an adult man has to climb back into his mother’s womb. It sounds a little like the kinds of crazy questions a curious 5 or 6-year-old might ask. Jesus answers,

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’”

He’s not talking about a womb birth. We had two babies born into our community group in the last couple months, two different families — Ambrose and Annie. He’s not talking about that — but he’s using that to talk about something else. He’s talking about a spiritual birth, a birth of faith. He’s pointing to the miracle of physical birth to describe something even more miraculous that has to happen in us in order for us to believe. 

Anyone can be amazed by a man healing blindness, or turning water to wine, or reading people’s minds — whoa that’s pretty cool. Something profound, something spiritual, has to happen in our eyes for someone to see those same signs and worship. Or, in the words of John 3, to see what Jesus was doing and saying and believe. Believe what? Believe that this man, born in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth, is the Son of God, the Messiah, and that he came to die in order to save sinners. 

That’s where Jesus goes, verses 13–15:

“the Son of Man (must) be lifted up [we know now, lifted up on the cross], that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

So, for someone to believe in Jesus, they have to see the kingdom of God. And to see the kingdom of God, we must be born again by the Spirit. How does that happen? Jesus explains, verse 8:

“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Translation: We don’t know. How is someone born of the Spirit? We don’t know. You can’t predict, much less control, the Spirit. It’s like trying to herd the wind. No, God gives life to whoever he chooses, that’s the point. This love doesn’t wait for a response. This love goes into the darkness and brings sight to the blind. This love brings the dead to life, a new and second and greater birth.

So when I say, “God loves believers,” I don’t just mean he loves those who love him. I mean he actually gives the love we have for him. 

If you know Faye and I’s story, you know that it took me a long time to convince her to date me. We met at a wedding. She lived in Los Angeles. So I called and called and called to try and win her. She actually came out to Minnesota to visit her family here. We hung out during her trip. I thought everything was going well, and so I told her how I felt and asked her to be my girlfriend.

She said (and I quote), “You’re a really nice human being. And I enjoy our conversations. But when I think about a relationship, my heart is cold.”

I said, “Like ice cold or lukewarm?”

She said, “Cold.”

She went back to California. And so I called and called and called and asked, and then called and called and called and asked. She was still colder than a Dairy Queen. Later that year, I was in LA for work, and she was willing to hang out again. I thought it was going well (you’re learning some things about your new pastor here), and so I told her how I felt (again), and asked her to be my girlfriend (again). She paused for a second, and then said (and I quote), “Sure.” I was obviously over the moon with sure. And here we are, ten years of marriage, and three beautiful children.

I share that story here because that’s not the picture of love we get in John 3:1–21. We might imagine a lovesick God who desperately calls and calls and calls and asks, and then calls and calls and calls and asks, just waiting, hoping, begging for a “Sure.” No, this love reaches into the darkness, into the grave, and he pulls his lifeless bride out, breathes life into her body; washes her from head to toe so that she is clean, radiant, beautiful; replaces her heart of stone with a beating heart of flesh; and then performs supernatural surgery on her eyes so that she can see — and when she does see him, in the face of Jesus Christ, she loves him. Of course she loves him! She can’t help but love him. We can’t help but love him, right? Because his love, by his Spirit, awakens love.

I think the whole conversation with Nicodemus is a window into who believes in verse 16. No one can see the kingdom of God — that is, see, believe, and worship — unless he is born again by the Spirit. This God not only loves sinners, but he sends his Spirit to awaken sinners. If you look at Jesus and see your Lord and Savior and Treasure, God’s done that in you. You are born again. You’re not the same person anymore. 

God loves those who believe — everyone who believes — with a life-resurrecting, eyesight-restoring, love-awakening love.

Okay, God loves the unlovely (he loves sinners), and he loves believers (he awakens us and enables us to see). Now, the third love in John 3:16. I wonder if you see it. This third love is the love on which the others hang. There would be no love in this verse, in this Gospel, in the universe without this third love.

Third love, God loves his Son.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

The sentence doesn’t make sense unless the Father really, really, really loves his Son. This is how much God loved us — he gave the Son whom he loved. And this love (of the Father, for the Son) is going to come up again and again in this Gospel. Just a few verses later, Jesus says, verse 35:

 “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.”

In John 15, in his final words to his friends, his disciples, he says,

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.”

We have never seen nor experienced a love like this one. And this love — from eternity past, long before the foundation of the world — was so sweet, so intense, so pure, that it spilled over in a world, a universe. God made the world in order to share the love they enjoyed within the Godhead — Father, Son, and Spirit. That’s what Jesus prays in John 17:24:

“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. . . .26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

God has always loved his Son, and will always love his Son.

And yet to really show the height and width and depth and glory of this love, the Son had to die. If sinners were going to not perish but have eternal life, someone had to die for our sin. And that someone had to be perfect, infinitely lovely, spotless, blameless, pure, holy. That someone was the Son of God, the Son we meet in Jesus, fully God (God enough to make galaxies and move mountains) and fully man (man enough to sweat and bleed and die, really die).

In John 10:17, in maybe the most surprising verse of all about this love, Jesus says, 

“For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.”

We might think the Father would love the Son less because he sent him to die (we might think a father hates his son because he gave him up like this), but the Son himself says just the opposite. The Father loves the Son precisely because —“for this reason” — the Son laid down his life and then took it back up again. God loves his Son. He so loves his Son, more than we can put into words. Certainly more than I can put into a few hundred words in this sermon. And yet as much as he loved him — infinite, immeasurable love — he gave that Son, that Treasure, his very Heart, for you. And that brings me to the fourth love in John 3:16.

God loves the unlovely. God loves believers. God loves his Son. And finally, God loves you. And I don’t mean all of you; I mean each of you. 

God so loved you that he gave his only Son, so that if you would just believe, you will not perish — you don’t have to die that death — but have eternal life.

As John relives this conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, and as he hears Jesus say to this confused and curious pharisee, “. . . the Son of Man [must] be lifted up, so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life,” John can’t help but jump in and say, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” You can almost see him turning from Jesus and Nicodemus to us and asking, “So do you believe? Do you see? Will you relent from your sin and step under the waterfall of this love?” 

Like Nicodemus, I suspect someone’s hiding in here this morning. He came at night, in secret. You’re here in broad daylight, but you’re still hiding. You’re going through your Sunday morning motions, because someone might ask questions or give you a hard time if you didn’t. But you’re not sure what to think about Jesus. You’re quietly anxious, you’re miserable, you’re looking for answers and you don’t want anyone to know. But you’re here hoping something might finally click and make sense of all your questions and longings and heartaches. And so I want to look you in the eye, or as many of you as I can anyway, and tell you: God loves you. God loves you. He really loves you.

If you believe, all four of these loves are yours.

Are you weighed down by your sin, wondering if anyone (much less God) could love someone like you? The holy God loves unholy people, he loves the unlovely and undeserving. He loves sinners, even you. Do you believe?

Do you look at Jesus and see the Son of God? Do you believe he is who he said he was, that he died for your sins so that you don’t have to and that he rose from the dead so that you might live with him forever? Do you love him? The love of God gave you those eyes, that heart, that love. 

Do you see how much he loves his one and only Son? Do you see the holy, happy love that made the universe? God gave that precious Son for you, on the cross.

That’s what we rehearse each week at this table. Jesus’s body was broken for you. His blood was spilled for you. The wrath that was meant for you fell on him. What more does God have to do to prove his love for you? 

Does he have to heal that sickness? Does he need to send a husband or a wife, or a child? Does he need to give you that job? Does he need to change your parent or child or spouse? Faye and I are praying all of those prayers for someone we love right now, and we want God to do all those things. We really do. But I want you to hear this morning (I want myself to hear this again): God doesn’t have to answer that prayer to prove he loves you. He doesn’t. In Jesus, he’s already proved it. 

Behind all the clouds that keep you from feeling loved by God, there’s a blazing, irresistible, unstoppable love — bigger and hotter than the sun. He loves you. He loves you. He really loves you.

John 2:13-25,

13 The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. 15 And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. 16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

18 So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 22 When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. 24 But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25 and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

The setting of a story is one of its most important parts. If you want to fully understand the significance of an action, then you need to know the when and where that the action takes place, and so that’s where I want to direct our attention right away.

Jesus is in Jerusalem at the temple during Passover week (and this is a very different setting than that wedding at Cana we just saw last week). Jerusalem during Passover week was the busiest time of the year because worshipers from all over would have flooded the city to visit the temple and make sacrifices — and John tells us that Jesus is right in the middle of this. He’s at the temple. Verse 14:

“In the temple he [Jesus] found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there.”

Put your imaginations to work for a minute and try picture this:

First of all, the temple was a massive building. It was a total of about 36 acres, which is like 27 football fields combined. And again because it was Passover, the normal population of Jerusalem would have swelled to be around 2.5 million people. 

So think: big number of people in one city and a lot of them are coming to this big building — that would have been the first thing you noticed if you were there — but then John tells us that Jesus found people at the temple who were selling stuff. There were some selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and there were others who set up basically first-century ATMs. This was a full-out marketplace set up at the temple, and for a decent reason.

If all these worshipers had traveled to Jerusalem to sacrifice, they needed animals for that, and so these animal salesmen had set up shop in the area closest to where the buyers needed the animals. And because these buyers came from all over, the money-changers were there to make sure people had the right currency to buy the animals. 

What’s happening here is pretty basic human reality: Events influence supply and demand, and that supply and demand shapes markets. We see this sort of thing all the time today. This is why parking prices downtown go up when the Wild play at home. We have all kinds of examples of this. There’s nothing unusual about it, and nobody at the temple thought anything of it — but Jesus found the people who were doing this and he started making a whip of cords.

I don’t know the last time you made a whip, but this doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you just do in a minute. Jesus has a plan here. Whatever is about to happen, this is a pre-meditated situation. 

Verse 15 tells us that, with this whip, Jesus drives out all these animal salesmen and their animals away from the temple. So whatever your imagination volume-level has been, crank it up!

Try to picture this: Jesus is cracking a whip and oxen and sheep are running everywhere in a crowd of people. Then Jesus dumps out all the coins of these money-changers; he flips their tables, and he tells the pigeon people to get their birds outta here. This is absolute chaos. 

Honestly, it reminds me of one of those Allstate commercials (you know what I’m talking about?) I’m waiting for Jesus to say: “Get Allstate, and be protected from Mayhem like me.” 

Jesus is mayhem in this story! He’s making a mess. 

And that’s the setting here. We don’t get to the meaning of this until verse 16, but already we can tell this is very different from that wedding we were at last week.

Last week, at that wedding, Jesus was the hero. This week Jesus is the headache.

Last week Jesus provided the wine. This week Jesus cracks the whip. 

And here’s the thing: we need all of it. 

All of Chapter 2 is meant to show us who Jesus is, and there are at least two things we learn about him in our passage today. And I want you to know that something here could be the most relevant truth about Jesus you’ve ever heard. I’m not kidding. 

Because these are not merely truths about who Jesus was, these are truths about who Jesus is … like right now. And when he confronts us, like he does here, it has an effect. And my prayer has been that you open your heart for Jesus to do what he wants. So let’s pray that:

Lord Jesus, as we study your ways this morning in the Gospel of John, we ask that you would have your way in our hearts and lives, in your name, amen. 

Here’s the first truth we learn about Jesus:

Again we don’t even start to get an idea of what’s going on in this crazy scene until the end of verse 16. Everybody, if you can, find verse 16, and look at the end of the verse, the part in quote marks. Jesus says,

“Do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” 

That’s a big statement. Jesus is criticizing these animal salesmen and money-changers (and he criticizing everybody else who’s okay with what they’re doing) — but the problem is not so much their commerce, but it’s where the commerce takes place. They were doing all this at the temple. 

This would have all been happening in the Court of the Gentiles, which was an area set aside for Gentile God-seekers — but instead of that area being open for prayer for all nations it was crowded with money-making. The house of God, the place set aside for the worship of God, had been made into a house of trade. Matthew, Mark, and Luke stress this point. The problem here is misuse, which reveals unfaithfulness, which requires judgment. That’s real here. 

But at the same time, if we’re tracking with the Gospel of John, the most important thing that Jesus says in verse 16 is not about the business deals going on, but it’s that he calls the temple “my Father’s house.” Don’t let all the animals distract us from this!

This is the first time in the Gospel of John where Jesus calls God his Father — we already know this about Jesus from Chapter 1 — Jesus is the only begotten Son of the Father, and he has made the Father known — but this is the first time where Jesus himself says that. The temple, he says, is my Father’s house. 

And that’s why Jesus did what he did. The focus here, John wants us to know, is on the authority of Jesus.

And we can tell that’s the issue because that’s exactly what the Jewish leaders targeted. Right away, after this scene, they wanted to know what grounds Jesus had for doing what he did. They don’t argue with him about the “house of trade” comment. They say, basically: Who do you think you are?

And it makes sense that they would think this way. We have to understand that these Jewish leaders considered themselves to be the authority of the temple. To them, they were the ones in charge of that place. 

So it would kind of be like if you got home this afternoon and you went into your house and you found a stranger in your kitchen rearranging what’s in your cabinets. The first thing you’re gonna say is not, “Why’d you put the coffee mugs there?” 

You’re gonna wanna know Who are you? Who do you think you are?

That’s the conflict that’s setting up the dialogue, but first, by the end of verse 16, as the readers of this story, we know more about what’s going on here than the people in the story Jesus is talking to. 

That’s often the case in the Gospel of John. John as the narrator helps us out along the way by telling us little things here and there to give us a fuller picture of what’s going on. So as readers, we know the grounds Jesus has to do all this. We know what he means when he says the temple is my Father’s house. More than authority, Jesus has ownership! The temple is his.

And in simple terms: Jesus has the right to clean what’s his. 

And look: nobody would have a problem with any of this until Jesus claims to be in charge of something they thought they were in charge of.

We’re all fine with Jesus going and cleaning stuff up and rearranging dishes … until it’s my stuff, my dishes. 

This is where we need to zoom out for just a minute and remember New Testament theology. The apostle Paul tells us that as Christians we ourselves become the temple of God because the Holy Spirit is in us. The dwelling place of God is in us by the Spirit! And the implications are clear. Paul says: “You are not your own” (1 Cor. 6:19). 

Not if you’re a Christian. 

If you’re a Christian it means Jesus is in charge. And sometimes that means he’s gonna have to overturn a table. He might have to make a little bit of a mess. He’s up to something good, but it might be uncomfortable.

It might not make sense. It might be a little mayhem. But remember Jesus is the cleaner of what’s his, and to be his is a good thing.

We learn that right away.

In order for this to make sense we need to see how this passage is structured. Notice that verses 18–20 is the actual dialogue between Jesus and the Jewish leaders. They ask him a question; he answers; they respond. It’s straightforward. But then on both sides of this dialogue, in verse 17 and verses 21–22, John chimes in as the narrator to give us a fuller picture of what’s going on. 

Because of the way the paragraphing is laid out in our English translations, it might look like verse 17 goes with verse 16, but it’s better to understand verse 17 as setting up what comes after it. Verse 17 and verses 21–22 go together. They’re both places where John is speaking.

So the dialogue with Jesus is here (verses 19–20), but John introduces here (verse 17) and John concludes it here (verses 21–22).

We’re gonna look at both parts. First, the dialogue with Jesus.

In verse 18, the Jewish leaders demand an explanation for why Jesus did the whole thing with the whip and tables at “their temple.” They want to know, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?”

They rightly interpreted Jesus’s actions to be a claim of authority. They got that message. But now they want him to prove that authority. And Jesus says, All right.

Verse 19: Jesus answered them,

“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

Verse 20: The Jews then said,

“It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” 

And the dialogue is over. 

That’s it. It’s a short exchange. What’s really important here for John is that we understand this dialogue through a certain lens.

That’s why John tells us right away in verse 21 that Jesus of course wasn’t talking about destroying the physical temple, but he was talking about his own body. 

Jesus himself is the new temple. He is the dwelling place of God embodied as a man. And the proof that he has the authority to run the physical temple is that he’s going to be destroyed (by the very people he’s talking to) and he’s going to rise from the dead. Whoever has authority over death is the one in charge.

Now John admits that the disciples didn’t understand all of this when Jesus said these words, but later on, after the resurrection, that’s when everything clicked for them.

Now why is it so important that John tell us this in verse 22? Why does John have to come in here in verse 21 and clarify that Jesus wasn’t actually talking about the literal temple?

Verses 21–22 all have to do with how John introduces this in verse 17.

Everybody look at verse 17 for minute. It’s a short verse, and I want you to see it.

Verse 17:

“His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’”

This is from Psalm 69, verse 9. Remembering that psalm is what makes sense of the dialogue in verses 18–20. When John says in verse 22 the disciples “believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken” he’s talking about Psalm 69. They believed that Scripture and connected it to what Jesus was doing.

So then what is Psalm 69 about?

Let me go back and read more of Psalm 69. This is a psalm of David. Listen to this, Psalm 69, verse 7:

7  For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach,

that dishonor has covered my face.

8  I have become a stranger to my brothers,

an alien to my mother’s sons.

9  For zeal for your house has consumed me,

and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.

10  When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting,

it became my reproach.

11  When I made sackcloth my clothing,

I became a byword to them.

12  I am the talk of those who sit in the gate,

and the drunkards make songs about me.

Psalm 69 is a psalm of shame. David, the psalmist, is bearing shame and dishonor, and he’s speaking as the Messiah. That’s how the New Testament authors understood this psalm.

A clear example is Psalm 69 verse 21, which says,

“They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.”

Where else do we see that? 

All four Gospel writers tell us that Jesus, when he was on the cross, was offered sour wine. 

Psalm 69 is about the Messiah’s shame. The Messiah had been speaking up for God’s sake. He was zealous for God’s house. But in his faithfulness to God, his own people turned on him. “His own people did not receive him” (John 1:11), but instead he became the lightning rod of their insults. The reproach and dishonor the people had directed at God was directed at him. That’s what he means: “the reproaches of those who reproached you have fallen on me.” God-haters became Messiah-haters. 

The Messiah was shamed. He was dishonored. 

That’s the message of Psalm 69 and John wants us to keep that in mind because we see it start to happen in this dialogue. 

When Jesus says “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” we know what he’s talking about — John makes sure we know — but the people Jesus is talking to don’t know and they shut Jesus down here. When they reply “It took us 46 years to build this temple” that’s a “gotcha” statement. It’s a mic-drop. If you were there on the ground, seeing all this happen, you would have thought that Jesus just got roasted. They shame him.

And see, John is trying to help us understand Hey, it’s okay — a shamed Messiah is the true Messiah. 

Just in case we think this whole thing is going to be a party … all wedding feasts and high-fives … Jesus just kicking butt and taking names … taking charge … he’s the new temple … he’s come to show us God … he’s manifesting his glory — this thing is going to be easy.

No it’s not. Not if you want the true Messiah. The true Messiah is a shame-bearer. People didn’t hoist him up on their shoulders and trot him around in victory. They esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted (Isaiah 53:4). And that didn’t just happen out of nowhere on the cross, but that was part of his entire ministry. 

And the Old Testament would tell us this is to be expected — the Messiah is a shame-bearer — but I want you to know that a Messiah who bears shame is the Messiah we need. 

Shame is one of the most powerful forces in our world. Right next to death, it is every human’s greatest fear. And when I’m talking about shame, to clarify, I’m not talking about a feeling. I don’t mean shame as a subjective, personal sense, but I’m talking about shame as a social verdict. Shame is to be exposed as unworthy and rejected. Shame is when your worst nightmare for yourself, true or not, is put on display for everyone to see, and they see it and agree that you deserve rejection.

That’s what the old medieval village stocks were about. You know that wooden thing you put your head and arms through and people throw rotten tomatoes at you. The whole thing is about public humiliation. So was the dunce cap teachers put on kids 50 years ago. Today it happens all kinds of ways online. Public scorn. To be shamed. It’s all downstream from crucifixion. That’s what I’m talking about.

So how does Jesus bearing shame help us?

He shows us there is a reality more powerful than the shame we fear, and that reality is the verdict of God. The eyes of God are the only eyes that really matter — and Jesus knew that whether he was getting pats on the back at a wedding feast or insults in the aftermath of mayhem. 

Jesus was not defined by man’s opinion — he knew what was in man (verse 25) — and he knew that what man would say about him will not be the same as what God says. There’s a disconnect, and the same goes for us!

“If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household?” (Matthew 10:24)

Just like with Jesus, there is a disconnect between what the world says about us (and sometimes what we even say about ourselves) — there’s a disconnect between that and what God says. So what does God say? What is God’s verdict of us? 

To all who receive [Jesus], who believe in his name, Jesus gives them the right to become children of God (John 1:12). That’s what God says. He calls you “my son” or “my daughter” and that’s the reality that will overcome and outlast any shame.

And that’s what we remember at this Table. 

As Christians, we come to this Table each week to remember this ultimate reality of who we are. We remember what Jesus did for us to make us his own. Even if there’s a little mayhem going on, we’re his and he’s good. 

And so Christian, son or daughter of God, you who trust in Jesus, come to this table, eat and drink, and let us give him thanks.

John 2:1-12,

On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. 3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

6 Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. 9 When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

12 After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days.

I had not experienced the Joe Rogan podcast until last month — with its three-hour conversations. But I heard he hosted a Christian apologist from Canada named Wes Huff.

At one point early on, they were talking about the beginning, whether creation, or “the Big Bang”:

Rogan: However many billions of years ago there was nothing. And then all of a sudden there was something. . . science requires one miracle.

Huff: When people ask me about . . . the miracles in the Bible . . . I say “Well . . . if the first miracle happened, if everything you know [came from] nothing [then] Jesus turning water into wine . . .

Rogan: That’s an easy one. 

Huff: Well, yeah. That’s a party trick.

Rogan: Yeah, exactly. It really is nothing compared to the birth of the universe. But [people today are] convinced at the creation of the universe, and we’re very skeptical at other miracles.

Huff: Yeah, very odd.

Rogan: Yes, it’s very odd.

This morning we come to that “party trick.” And the Rogan and Huff conversation might help us put a piece of it in perspective.

The fundamental miracle is that we’re here. The world exists. You exist; you are alive. Once there was nothing, and now, everything you know! And if that original miracle happened, which it obviously did, then multiplying loaves, giving sight to the blind, turning water into wine, and even raising the dead — those are not the real issues. 

Life, existence, the world as it is, that’s the original miracle, which clearly happened — and these other lesser miracles are secondary — important but secondary. And in that light, such miracles are not as imponderable as your average unbelieving person today might first think.

But how does that help us this morning with “water into wine”? Well, perhaps like this: the most shocking reality in John 2 isn’t that water became wine. What’s most stunning is this person named Jesus. This story is not finally about water and wine. That’s secondary. The story is about Jesus. It’s not about science and whether this can happen; it’s not about alchemy and whether we might be able to repeat it. The point is what the miracle points to — that is, whom the miracle points to.

Which is why John calls this a “sign.” See that in verse 11:

“This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.”

A sign is something that points beyond itself. It signifies. And what does this miraculous episode signify in John 2? John says it “manifested [Jesus’s] glory.” That echoes what we saw a few weeks ago in John 1:14:

“the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

In this Gospel, John is giving us glimpses of the glory. John has seen Jesus’s glory and believed in him. And so he carefully writes what he’s seen, that we can see it too, with the eyes of faith. 

Verse 11 says that in doing this miracle, and revealing his glory, Jesus’s “disciples believed in him.” That, John says, in 20:31, is the purpose of the book, chapter 20, verse 31,

“that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

The Gospel of John was written to give us life (now and forever) in the name of Jesus by presenting him to us in his glory that we might find him compelling and believe in him. 

So, let’s ask this morning: How does this story breed faith in Jesus? I’ll highlight three in particular.

Let me give you a word ahead of time about where we’re going at the end: I want to invite you to consider Jesus this morning like maybe you never have. I’m not going to ask you to raise a hand or walk to the front, but I am going to ask you not to get in the way of this Jesus decisively changing your heart and your life.

I’m not asking you to make a decision today, as much as not get in the way. If you came here not believing in Jesus, or not quite sure what to think about Jesus, I’m asking you to let your guard down for a few minutes, and look with me at these three glories. See if Jesus presents himself to your soul as compelling, and whether he evokes your trust.

First, he’s a human son to Mary, his earthly mother. Verses 1–3:

“On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. 3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’”

Put yourself in Mary’s shoes. She has raised this amazing boy, now a man. And while his sheer holiness must have been frustrating to her sin at times, can you imagine what it must have been like to have the sinless, eternal Son of God, in full humanity, as her earthly son? Just think of the ingenuity of Jesus.

Somewhere along the way, her husband, Joseph, had died. We don’t know when or how. But now Jesus is in his thirties, and for years he has provided for his mother. She has leaned on him as her man, and what a good son he must have been.

So, Mary’s helping with this wedding, perhaps for extended family, and they run out of wine (which is a huge disgrace at a wedding!). She comes to her son, who seems to always fix her problems. 

Just recently he left carpentry behind to take disciples and travel around as a teacher, and he’s there at the wedding with his disciples. So Mary tells him, “They have no wine.” Jesus, help. You always know what to do, my good son.

Then comes verses 4–5 and Jesus’s surprising response:

And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Jesus’s response is abrupt. It puts distance between this good son and his earthly mother. Instead of calling her Mother, or something more endearing, he calls her “Woman.” Which is not disrespectful; it’s true. But it’s a stiff arm. And a surprise.

As we move through the Gospel of John, we will see how Jesus’s mind and awareness is often operating at a different level than the person he is speaking with. Mary states the practical problem at hand: “They have no wine.” Jesus hears wine, and he thinks of his calling. The Old Testament has promised a coming messianic age in which, says Amos 9:13–14, 

“the mountains shall drip sweet wine,  

and all the hills shall flow with it.  

[God] will restore the fortunes of [his] people Israel,  

and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;  

they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine.”

Jesus hears whispers of the coming age, which he has come to bring in, but there will be a price, and he says, “My hour has not yet come.” 

What will become very clear in the Gospel of John is that Jesus’s “hour” is the time of his death and resurrection — the moment of his glorification, when he’s lifted up on the cross to die for sins of his people, and then lifted up from the grave in the new life of the resurrection.

And this hour that Jesus has coming will not come from any human initiative. No human will suggest the time and the way Jesus will bring in the new age. Not even his dear mother.

Jesus will take his cues from his heavenly Father, not his earthly mother. And how does Mary, who could have been offended, respond? She responds humbly, in faith. She trusts him.

This is an awesome moment for Mary. Jesus has just distanced her (his own family, his own mother), which is necessary but surely unpleasant for her. Yet she responds in faith, and gives the wedding servants the timeless advice “Do whatever he tells you.” Which is what she would tell us still today.

So, in verses 1–5, we see that Jesus is the good son. He is the earthly son of Mary, the one she has relied on for years, and she trusts in him even when he gives her this necessary pushback. And even more than Mary’s good son, he is the Son of his heavenly Father, and does his Father’s will, as we will see.

What does Jesus do next? Verses 6–8:

Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it.

Verse 6 mentions the six stone jars used for Jewish rites of purification (key detail). To fill these, the servants must draw from a well about 150 gallons of water. This is no small job. It likely took some time. Mary has said, do whatever he tells you, and the servants do it, as much work as it is. Then, once they’ve completed the job, he says, “Draw now and carry to the master of the feast.” This is like the emcee today, the guy on the mic.

What is Jesus doing with these six jars? Remember, Jesus already has in mind his “hour.” The coming hour of his death and resurrection, when he will usher in the new age, is not here yet, but in the meantime, he’s going to give this modest wedding, and these servants, and his disciples a glimpse of his coming glory. A taste of the glory.

The stone jars were used for Jewish purification rites, for various washings according to old-covenant laws and traditions. And Jesus wants the servants to fill up these six stone jars to show that the old way, the old covenant, is coming to its fulfillment. Then Jesus will do something new.

Jesus brings with him a new covenant, a new era, a new age, one dripping in sweet wine, rather than endless washings and ritual cleansings. The old was grace (huge water jars, filled to the brim); the new is grace in place of grace (1:16), the dawning age that drips with wine.

Now look at verses 9–10:

When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.”

Like Mary speaks even better than she knows in verse 5 (“Do whatever he tells you”), now the master of the feast speaks even better than he knows: “you have kept the good wine until now.”

The master of the feast thinks it was the bridegroom who provided the good wine, but the servants know it’s Jesus. It’s Jesus who kept the good wine till now. And it’s Jesus’s Father who in his perfect timing and plan has kept his good wine for now.

Ultimately, what the master of the feast says is true about God, and about the way he works in the world and in history, and in particular in the old covenant with Moses and now the coming new covenant in Jesus: God has kept the good wine until now.

By “now,” John means the church age — from the first coming of Christ until his second. We live now in the era of the new covenant; membership for God’s people is not by birth, but new birth; not by family, but faith; and so the new covenant rituals, baptism and the Lord’s Table, are based on faith, not family. The church is not a group of people born into Christian families; the church is a born-again people.

What about the significance of wine here? The wine of the new covenant has multiple meanings. First is the Old Testament imagery: wine is associated with joy and celebrations, feasts and weddings. God’s Messiah will come to rescue his people and bring them into joy, gladness, celebration, song.

And yet, what else does wine represent (especially in these jars of purification)? It’s red, like blood. And if you drink too much of it, it makes you stagger. Which is why a cup of wine can represent blessing or curse, depending on the context and use.

The wine of this new covenant is rich with meaning. On the one hand, it’s the joy and celebration of God’s people finally united to him and near to him, living with him in final bliss. And on the other hand, the cup also represents the curse we deserve, which Jesus drinks to the bottom as he sheds his blood for us. At the cross, Jesus drinks the cup of our sin, that we might drink his cup of joy.

(You might ask, whether this use of wine in John 2 has practical significance for us today, in whether we choose to partake, or not, in alcohol. It’s a good question, but not the main point here. Let me save that for the article in the church email this Friday.)

The point in the Old Testament prophecies and the point here is the glory of Jesus. He brings such blessing and joy and celebration, that wine, among other pointers, signifies the riches and abundance of his goodness and glory for his people.

So, Jesus is the good Son, and he provides the good wine of a new-covenant relationship with God in him. And finally . . .

Verse 9 mentions the bridegroom: “the master of the feast called the bridegroom.” This is the man whose wedding it was — and he was responsible for the feast. And when it is discovered that the wine has run out, he’s the one on the hook. This is his oversight, his failure. So, by turning the well water into wine, Jesus is getting the bridegroom off the hook, and in doing so he’s showing that he himself is a superior bridegroom.

In the next chapter, just a few hundred words away, in John 3:29, John the Baptist will talk about Jesus as the bridegroom and himself as the bridegroom’s friend. John says,

I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him. 29 The one who has the bride [the people, the church] is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease.

(Elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus portrays himself as the bridegroom in Matthew 9:15; 25:1, 5, 6, 10; Mark 2:19–20; Luke 5:34–35.)

So, what’s the bridegroom image mean, related to Jesus? He came, as the divine Son of God, to care for his people, the church, like a good husband. To save all who believe in him from their sins. And to love and lead and protect and provide for his bride, the church. To be our ever-strong, ever-providing, ever-reliable, ever-loving husband. Not just individually, but especially together as the church.

This good Son, who provides the good wine, embodies the good groom. In Jesus, God himself has taken on our flesh and blood, that he might give his flesh for us, and shed his blood for us — which brings us to the Table, and with it, the invitation I mentioned at the beginning.

Okay, I’m not asking anyone to raise a hand or walk to the front, but I am asking you: Are you seeing any glory? Is this Jesus moving on your soul, in any compelling way? Is he opening your eyes? Is he stirring in your soul? If he is, I want to encourage you to welcome his work. Receive him. Embrace him. A miracle is in progress. Let it happen; don’t try to stop it.

What’s next? You could start with a very simple conversation with someone you came with, or with Jonathan or me. We’ll be here at the front after the service if you want to speak with a pastor.

And for any here who would say that you believe, but have not yet been baptized, to identify publicly with Jesus, we have a baptism on March 2.

And for the kids among us, say, ages 8-12, including teenagers too. Maybe you’ve grown up in the church, and you believe in Jesus, and it can be tough to know when to take the step to move toward baptism. We want to help with that this spring. Pastor Mike Schumann and I will be doing a two-week baptism class for kids during Sunday School on April 6 and 13. Sign up online.

For the rest, who have believed in Jesus, and been baptized in his name, we come to this Table to drink his cup of blessing. Jesus drank the cup of our curse and shed his own blood, that through faith in him, we might have the good Son as our all-supplying bridegroom.