This morning I want us to look not at the healing but at John’s comment about the healing. “The day on which this took place was a Sabbath..so because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” It was not the intent of the Sabbath commandment that Jesus had offended but the traditions…

This morning I want to make a few comments on the story of the healing of the man born blind in John 9 and then hand the balance of the time to our guest, Lewis Swann. Some of you know Lewis and have known his family, the Swann’s, for many years. I’ve asked him to be with us this morning because giving sight to the blind has become the story of his life. Four quick things before Lewis comes up: First, healing the blind is central to the work of the Messiah. It is not just in the New Testament that giving sight to the blind is a sign of…

Last week we talked about the weaker brother being accepted by those who had worked through some of the issues that new believers were wrestling with and this week the first part of this passage extends that. Clearly, it was an important issue then as it is now. Some people have liberty in areas that others do not. Some people have issues of conscience that others do not and learning to live with those differences and have respect for them is fundamental to everything Paul wants to encourage in the early Church. It was too easy to accentuate the differences and allow them to become divisions – whether it was…

1. The topic this morning is “Christian Worldview” and the text is Romans 12:1-2. It is such a familiar passage. But we should start reading in the previous chapter to see where Paul’s mind was heading. Let’s look at the doxology of 11:33-36: Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?” For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.…

There is so much in this chapter to get our attention and it is difficult to know where to focus. Should it be on Nicodemus, being born again, God’s loving the world so much that he sent his Son or even John the Baptist’s testimony about Jesus? This morning I want to concentrate on the person of Nicodemus. Who is he? Why does John include him at pivotal points in the Gospel when others appear and then are gone? Why does John always introduce him in the same way every time as the man who came to Jesus at night? What is the relationship between Nicodemus and Jesus? Between John…

There is so much in this chapter to get our attention and it is difficult to know where to focus. Should it be on Nicodemus, being born again, God’s loving the world so much that he sent his Son or even John the Baptist’s testimony about Jesus? People are fascinating for me. Probably more than teachings or theology so this morning I want to concentrate on the person of Nicodemus. Who is he? Why does John include him at pivotal points in the Gospel when others appear and then are gone? Why does John always introduce him in the same way every time as the man who came to Jesus…

What a difference after a few days at home between the quiet miracle of turning water into wine at the small town wedding and the family coming once again to Jerusalem to observe Passover. We know this was a regular event for his family as Luke tells us they came every year. But this is an entirely different scene from Jesus as a young boy in the Temple. Instead of sitting in his Father’s house among the teachers listening to them and asking questions he is clearing the place out, overturning tables and driving out animals with a whip. I’m sure no one expected this from him. I had a…

The book of John is organized around seven signs. The Wedding at Cana is the first. Nowhere in his description of these signs does John use the word for miracle. The other Gospels are filled with miracles one after another but not John. Every supernatural event has a purpose or a teaching whereas miracles in the other Gospels may not. Every one of the seven signs in John – except this first one – are followed by teaching about the larger meaning of the sign. That’s not the case in the other Gospels. Jesus almost scatters miracles like seed in the course of his ministry but here each event is…

The Scottish preacher Andrew MacLaren said this is the most profound page in the entire New Testament – and he is right. It is also the most controversial and the source of most Christian heresies in the early church. What you think about this one page pretty much defines what you believe about Jesus, God, and the Gospel. That is why it is so important not to read it as an isolated page but as part of the whole of Scripture. It is the same Jesus as in Matthew, Mark and Luke but intended for a different audience. 100 years after the death of Christ the Gospel had migrated from…

Normally, we think of a prophet as calling people to repentance to avoid the judgment of God. But that is not Micah’s message. The people are beyond repenting. All that awaits them is punishment and exile. They have become fully corrupt – but corrupt in a particular way. Micah is not calling them out so much for idolatry as he is for religion with no reality. Idolatry is the worship of other gods. Corruption is the false worship of God. It is the twisting of religion into what you want it to be. It is inserting a lie into what we have taken to be true. Idolatry is an overt…