John 5:39-47 (ESV)

Another Confidence

39 “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,

40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

Another Glory

41 I do not receive glory from people.

42 But I know that you do not have the love of God within you.

43 I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.

44 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

Another Belief

45 “Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope.

46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.

47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

Scripture Reading: John 5:19-30 (ESV)

Love and Power

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.

Judgement and Honor

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.

Life and Death

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.

John 5:18 (ESV)

18 This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him,

His Behavior

because not only was he breaking the Sabbath,

His Words

but he was even calling God his own Father,

His Claim

making himself equal with God.

Scripture Reading: John 5: 10-17 (ESV)

The Thing About 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.”

The Thing About Sin and Repentance

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.'”

Scripture Reading: John 5:1-9 (ESV)

A House of Mercy

1: After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

2: Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.

3: In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.

4: Waiting for the moving of the water; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred the water: whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had.

5: One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.

Grace and Insufficiency

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.”

Power and Authority

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.

John 4: 46-54 (ESV)

Faiths Trial

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.”

Faiths Fruit

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.

John 4: 39-45

Believing and Truth

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.

Hearing and Knowing

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.”

Seeing and Receiving

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.

John 4:27-38 (ESV)

A Passion for the Gospel

27 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.

The Satisfaction of Submission

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 food?”

34 Jesus said to them,
“My food is to do the will of him who sent me
and to accomplish his work.

The Unity of the Task

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.”

Rev. Jim Whittle from Equipping Leaders International

1 You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus,

2 and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.

3 Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

4 No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.

5 An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.

6 It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.

7 Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.

John 4:1-14 (ESV)

The Samaritan

1 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.)

The Water

The Messiah (Verses 10, 12, 14)

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.”