March 17, 2024 • 43 mins
DCN Online | Welcome Home
Join us for #dcnsunday as Pastor Terra leads us in Week 4 of our Sermon Series "3:16."
and be sure to visit our website https://defiancenazarene.org/
& did you know you could give online? https://defiancenazarene.org/online-giving/
Join us for #dcnsunday as Pastor Terra leads us in Week 4 of our Sermon Series "3:16."
and be sure to visit our website https://defiancenazarene.org/
& did you know you could give online? https://defiancenazarene.org/online-giving/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've been sitting in John chapter three, verse sixteen together
these last weeks and journey into the cross, and we
stand together and let's read it together. I think there's
something good about getting ourselves ready to receive the word
and declaring it together. Let's read it together. For God
so love the world that he gave his one and
only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish,
(00:25):
but shall have eternal life. Let's pray God, I thank
you for this day. God, this is a good day.
You are here, you are in this place. May we
sit at your feet. May we draw from your word
right now? Just settle on our souls today God in
Jesus' name. Amen. Well, we have been in the book
(00:46):
of John these past few weeks, like we've been talking about,
as we're moving towards the cross. I began a few
weeks ago kicking off this series with that famous conversation.
Anybody just want to shout out who was that conversation
with Jesus and Nicodemus, a famous well to do, knowledgeable
Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin who went out
(01:09):
at night to find Jesus. And one thing I loved
after that sermon. I had some of you that I
just look up to that are well versed in scripture,
and you stop by the door to discuss some things
that we talked about. And I love that because God
is wanting to reveal himself to us, and he does
that through his word. And so we talked about that.
(01:32):
Nicodemus had questions and he just needed answers, and Jesus
told him, you must be born again. Now this baffled
this incredibly intelligent, high up official. And then right there
in the middle of the conversation, Jesus says, for God
(01:52):
so loved the world that he gave his one and
only son. Well, right then, right there, Nicodemus is thinking,
why because God came for us, he came for my people. No,
God so loved the world. That means we can put
our name right there in the scripture. What is your name?
God so loved Tara, God so loved Brian, God so
(02:14):
loved Grayson, God so loved McKenna, but he gave his
only son. Now, Pastor Lisa then got to follow up
that week about the immeasurable love. You can measure things,
and it's a good idea to measure things in this world,
isn't it. Any of you tried to bake without measuring.
(02:34):
My husband one time in college. You know, college kids,
we know it all. He was hungry for some brownies
and he didn't have any eggs, so he just thought
he could double the oil he was measuring. But people,
we have to have the right ingredients too in our lives,
said how that turned out for you? Well, it was chocolatey,
but it ran right out of the spoon. But he goes,
(02:54):
I ate it. Anyways, it's good to measure things. My
dad is getting ready to lay some flooring out here
for us, and Scott's about killed himself and many of
you joined him ripping it out, and he will be
measuring and measuring. What is it? Measure twice, cut once,
or measure five times cut once. My dad is very diligent,
(03:15):
but when it comes to the love of God, it
is immeasurable. It breaks every bound of our finite minds
to begin to understand it is forever and ever, it
is everlasting. And then Pastor Scott followed up with this
greatest gift. I just thought that was outstand look at
him holding the baby today, He's like, yeah, the greatest gift.
(03:38):
It is Jesus. Behold the Lamb of God who takes
away the sins of the world. Behold today the Savior
has come. Now. John, the author of this book, I
talked a little bit about him. I want to even
go a little bit further with him today. He was
very late in life when he wrote the scripture, when
when he was a disciple of Christ, one of the twelve,
(04:00):
he was the youngest, and that plays into a big
part of how we read things and how you know,
I'm the youngest in the family, really kind of the
youngest on both sides of the family. And Brianna and
I were just laughing at things my cousins used to
tell me was gonna happen to me because I was
the youngest, and they could and I believed them. She say, Mom,
why don't you eat that? My cousins told me not to. Mom,
(04:22):
you're forty eight now, but you know, we believe it.
So you can see John as being the youngest, and
now here we have him much later in life, and
he is writing, and he's the last of the survivors
writing to us. He writes from a first hand eye witness.
That's important as we read and go through these scriptures.
(04:42):
He says, we have heard, we have seen with our eyes,
we have touched with our hands. That's what he says.
In First John, chapter one, verse eleven. He had rubbed
up against the Savior. The disciple was called the one
whom Jesus loved. It took me a lot of you
to figure out he wrote that about himself. Wouldn't that
(05:04):
be fun, Tammy, if I wrote a book about our
parents and said, Tara the one who our dad loved.
But he was next to Jesus. And I don't know
what all took place, but I knew John knew that
he was the one whom Jesus loved. And I pray that,
(05:25):
without a shadow of a doubt today that when you
leave this place, that you know that you are the
one whom Jesus loves. He had heard the voice, he
heard his voice. The Book of John unveils the majesty
and the power of Jesus Christ. The word became flesh
(05:47):
and dwelt among us. That's so powerful right there, as
we open up the Book of John. I recently was
in charge of this area of ministry on our district level,
and part of that was this two day confie prints
that I planned, and God was so evident and so
good during those times. But I was planning lots of
(06:07):
different segments and speakers and worship and all of these things.
And one of the segments was on our articles of
faith and the Church of the Nazarene. We have sixteen
articles of faith. We preach about them, teach about them.
We may not say that this is an article faith,
but is what we believe according to scripture. And so
sometimes when you're talking about these things, they can get
kind of heavy. And a lot of the day was
(06:28):
real heavy. So I'm thinking, Lord, how can I make
this part fun? Well, how do you make the articles
of faith fun? Well? We did a family feud style.
So anyways, in the middle of it, I thought, you know,
we have a new district superintendent. It would be fun
for people to get to know him better, to get
to know facts about him. And you know, my husband,
he's full of wisdom. And he said, well, read his bio.
(06:49):
And I read his bio. It gave me a little
bit of information about him. And then Pastor Scott and
I spent about fifteen minutes in his office just making
up things about him that I could say like, we
didn't know. We just kind of thought that'd be funny.
But then I thought, you know, I should probably stick
to the facts. So someone on our team said, you know,
why don't you ask his wife. Yeah, that's wisdom right there.
(07:12):
If you want to really know about someone, ask someone
that's spent time with him, Ask someone that knows the
ins and outs. And I sent her an email and
within about five minutes she emailed me back, just a
list of things about him because she knew firsthand, direct insight.
(07:32):
As we read the Book of John that is inspired
by the Holy Spirit, I am so fascinated by what
John chose to put in and what he chose to
leave out that's in all the other gospels. He doesn't
even include the Nativity story. But he goes back even
way further and he says in the beginning, was the Word?
(07:57):
Isn't that powerful? He says, I, I'm an eye witness
to the fact that Jesus is the Son of God
and the savior of the world. Jesus is the one
and all through the scripture, all through the Book of John,
John is pointing to him, pointing to him. See him today,
see him as the savior of the world. He writes,
(08:20):
to provoke faith in us, faith that will end an
eternal life, that is everlasting. That's what that scripture says,
that those who believe in Him shall not perish, but
have eternal life. John stood at the foot of the cross.
He witnessed the ultimate sacrifice for his sin, for your sin,
(08:45):
for my sin. Mary Magdalene, she went to the tomb
on that third day we're about to celebrate Easter. Is
there any greater day than Easter that we celebrate? The
Lord is risen, So Mary Magdalene, she goes to the
tomb on that day and she discussed. It's empty. And
she runs and she tells Peter and John, and Peter
and John they take off. And then it says that
(09:05):
other disciple, John runs a little head and he gets
there first, and he saw the empty tomb. He saw
the resurrected Lord. And let's not forget that John would
receive the revelation. Just a bit of a glimpse of
what we have to look forward to as sons and
daughters of the Most High. Jesus is the Way, the Truth,
(09:26):
and the Life. God so loved the world that he
gave his only son that whoever believes in him. Now,
when I was a kid, we memorize the King James version.
Anybody else there we go. So what was the word
in the King James version instead of whoever? Whosoever? Now?
I don't use that word in my day to day speech.
(09:47):
But my grandma and Grandpa they sang a song, and
maybe many of you remember it. It was whosoever surely
meaneth me? Do you remember that one? Annabelle remembers it.
I am happy today, and the sun shines bright. The
clouds have been rolled away for the save Your says,
(10:08):
whosoe who will may come with him to stay? How
many of you sang that who soever surely mean with me,
surely mean with me? You surely mean with me? Who
soever surely mean with me? Whosoever mean with me? You
(10:33):
young people are looking around like what. Let me tell you.
I was a young person when I heard those words.
I didn't use the word whosoever in my day to
day language. I didn't use the word meaneth in my
day to day language. But the way that my grandma
(10:53):
sang it, and the countenance on her face as she
worshiped the Lord, and the life that she lived day
in and day out as a kid. This big I
knew what whosoever surely meaneth me meant. It means whosoever
believes in him shall not perish. He is the source
(11:16):
of eternal life and eternal joy that only can come
from a father who paid the price. What does whosoever mean?
It's the great universal call. It is ultimately a call
from a holy God to a fallen world, and Scripture
says all have fallen short of the glory of God.
(11:39):
Whosoever means all, that means me, That means you, That
means everybody that we encounter. Whosoever surely means me whoever.
It's also often translated out and I did some research
and translation in the Hebrew and Greek because I wanted
to be very pastoral today and really learn what this means. Oh,
(12:00):
what whosoever means? It means whoever? It means whoever, and
I mean, I kept searching and searching. It's pretty much
self explanatory. Why do we make it so hard? It
means whoever person, any person, anyone, whoever. Well that puts
in perspective our day to day, doesn't it Because I
(12:22):
don't know about you, but I like get caught up
in a lot of little details that really don't mean
nothing to nothing, but it seems so big in that
moment that sometimes I forget to see the whoever and
the whosoever, and I forget to remember God, you paid
it all for me. You paid it all. You see,
(12:44):
the Messiah had not just come for God's chosen people.
But could it be that you and I are chosen?
Don't it feel good to be picked? Don't it feel
good to be chosen? You are chosen? Are you feeling
the extreme joy in the implications of what this means
(13:06):
for your life? This word whoever, this word whosoever, if
you used to say it, What this means for your
family's life, for their future, for their eternity, What this
means for your neighbor's life, for their future, for their eternity.
When Zach put together the right up for building the
Vision Day, I loved how he mapped it out. This
(13:28):
is for our families, this is for our church, but
this is for our neighborhood, our neighbors. How many times
in the stories that I've heard you tell of when
you came to Jesus, was it a Nazarene neighbor who
brought you. I love it. We have family that are
in the church now because of a neighbor. Whosoever surely
(13:55):
means me, it surely means you, and it surely means
everyone that we come into contact with. And I wonder today,
you know, we come to church, and I'll be honest
with you. This week, my mind has been a little
elsewhere and we've been waiting and waiting. And I told her,
(14:17):
I said, I know you're going to deliver that baby
while I'm preaching, and everybody's going to be there but me.
But I wonder if we came in today seeking, searching
what God has for us? Is this something we just
(14:38):
do do every week when we come in, or do
we come in ready to receive the word of God,
ready to break it open, hungry for more of God.
Because I settled on my soul a couple of days ago,
Scott said, just preach ten minutes and leave. If she
goes in labor my soul with God. God, if you've
(15:02):
called me to preach today and you have given me
your word, help me to be faithful to it. And Lord,
I know you will take care of the rest. You
will take care of my girl. You will take care
of her, girl. You will take care for that big
six foot seven man that I don't know what he's
going to do with her when this all gets going,
but he is so good with her. God will take
(15:23):
care of it when we are faithful, hungry seeking his word.
I fed my kids the other night. I used to
do that a lot. They're old, and they work, and
they go to college and they do all of these things,
and I work, and our schedules just have trouble kind
of coming together. But it's been a week for our family.
It's been a blessed week in the waiting. God is good.
(15:44):
Monday morning, Brianna had a procedure that was supposed to
get labor going within forty eight hours. It's Sunday here
we are. So when I say it's been a week,
it's been a bit of a week. But I texted
them all on Tuesday, I said, family at five thirty,
moms cooking. So I tried to get out of here
in time, got the oven going, set a pretty table.
(16:05):
They all kind of struggled in one by one. It
was funny. I don't think any of them had asked
what we were having, which I was kind of funny
because usually that's the question, which you know, all of
us moms don't really like that question. Are you only
gonna come if you have what we like? It's kind
of the same in church, who's preaching you're only gonna
come when the person's preaching you want right when you're hungry.
We all know, Yeah, we hear that too. No, it's good. So,
uh so I got home, got everything on, and they
(16:27):
all came in one by one and they start smelling
the food and they're like hovering over me, and I'm like,
step away, step away, like you know, we're getting it done.
And so they were talking and I won't tell you
which one, but the one with the baby said, mom,
I have been waiting for this moment all day long.
(16:49):
And then we said a prayer and then a lot
of times I just haven't filled their plates. And so
one of them went the direction of our typical place
we fill the plates, and the other two hit the
other one because they didn't want to waste any time.
I mean, who was in charge of these kids and
who raised them? They were ready to receive. They didn't
(17:10):
even care what was going to be laid out before them.
Their plates were ready they had formed a line and
they wanted to be fed. And I wonder if we
came into church ready to receive, with the plates ready
(17:31):
and say, God, I don't even care what songs they
sing or who's preaching, Just give me all of you today,
all of you today, because I am a whosoever. You
are a whosoever. Do you know that God wants to
take you deeper today than you were when you came
(17:52):
in here. He wants to do a work in you.
Pastor Scott talked last week, and I love how he
does this. Analogy of this is you know the zero
to ten. This is you know, far away from God
ten as you're just perfect perfectly in the will of God.
Everything's going to Where are you And that's a great
question because then he didn't say, well, you need to
(18:16):
go from zero to ten right now, but he did
say God wants to take you to the next step.
And he does because he's a good God. I want
to take my kid's good places and do things for
them because I love them. He loves you. Today. Just
(18:36):
sit at the table in the Book of John. You
know we've been saying, go ahead and read it for yourselves.
Go ahead and get into this as we journey to
the cross, sit at the table. Well, I wanted to
dig deeper in the Book of John. Two, Who are
the whosoevers in the Book of John. I'll be brief,
but buckle up. Who are the whosoevers in the Book
(18:57):
of John. We've already talked about Nicodemus. He was a
big deal. He knew it all, he had it all,
but he had not received from Christ. He had not
believed yet. He knew God, knew all the ins and outs,
knew all the rules, knew how to look, knew how
to act, knew how to dress. But he had not
(19:19):
received yet what God had for him. And so Nicodemus,
this high ranking official we kick off right here in
chapter three. He was a whosoever that John talked about
in the book. He held all the intelligence. And I
believe at the end, when he went and prepared Jesus' body,
(19:40):
I believe that that meant he caught a glimpse of
it and he began to understand. But then in chapter four,
John goes from chapter three with Nicodemus. Chapter four we
read about the Samaritan woman. Now she really needed saving.
She was a mess it takes us from this high
(20:01):
ranking religious official to the Samaritan woman at the well. Now,
first of all, she was a Samaritan, and we don't
have time to get into all the ins and outs.
But what I want you to know today was Samaritans
were not very well thought of as by the Jews.
So Samaritan. That's a checkmark right next to her name.
Oh and she's a woman want want checkmark, checkmark, And
(20:26):
that I mentioned she had quite a past and pretty
much not so great of a present that she was
living in. Check check check check, check check check. Jesus
sits down and talks with both. Nicodemus was an insider.
(20:48):
The woman at the well was an outsider. But it
didn't matter to Jesus because he came for all the whosoevers.
He presents the life changing message to both. All have
sinned and fallen short, all need a savior, and all
must be born again. Here's the Samaritan woman at the well.
(21:10):
We know she's there at the heat of the day.
John points out, why do you go to draw water
at the heat of the day. It's not very smart.
Do you want to go early in the morning before
it's like got hot. You know, she didn't want to
face the crowds. Have you been there? I have. She
didn't want to face the crowd, So she goes to
this historical well, it was Jacob's well in Psychar at
(21:33):
the hottest part of the day, and there is Jesus,
there is the Messiah. She doesn't quite know this yet,
but can you imagine what is about to unfold in
her life? And Jesus asks her for a drink. And
(21:55):
in John chapter four, verse nine and ten. John chapter four,
verse nine and ti him, the Samaritan woman said to him,
you are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman.
How can you ask me for a drink? For Jews
do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, if you
knew the gift of God and who it is that
(22:17):
ask you for a drink, you would have asked him
and he would have given you living water. You see,
the Great i Am was in her midst someone that
could take everything that she was, who could come in
and transform her and cleanse her and wash her clean
and make her new. That's what she was facing. She
(22:39):
came to get water in the heat of the day,
but he was about to offer her living water. He
sees the worn traveling in the heat of the day,
a constant reminder of her brokenness. There is nothing too
broken that my heavenly Father cannot fix and cannot restore.
(22:59):
His mission is to come and make sons and daughters
of God restored, brought in, brought into the family, just
like my kids enter my kitchen knowing that they're gonna
be fed, welcome, and loved. They don't have to ask,
can I open the fridge, mom. God came to restore.
(23:24):
Restoration is his mission. Nicodemus needed it, the woman needed it.
They were both whosoevers. And when we become a whosoever,
and when we believe it, there is a stir and
an excitement. The woman is so excited she leaves her water.
Now I can relate. Have you ever went to get
something and you get everything but that? But I don't
(23:45):
believe this is the case. I believe she didn't need
the water anymore because she has experienced the living water.
John chapter four, verse thirty nine. John four, verse thirty nine.
Many of the Samaritans from that believed in him because
of the woman's testimony. He told me everything I ever did.
(24:07):
He knew it all. But she was a whosoever. And
I believe there was a change all over her that
was recognized, or people would have been looking at her
the same way. They want to have listened. But she
had experienced Christ, she had experienced transformation, she had become
a whosoever. And because of her, many people believed. Don't
(24:31):
think that your witness and your testimony is not powerful
in the hands of the Almighty. Give your testimony about
what God has done in you. Tell the world, Tell
your coworkers, because they need to hear about Jesus. Then
right there in that same chapter, after the Samaritan woman,
we read about this official son. Now, this royal official
(24:54):
had heard about Jesus. He had heard. He had come
down from Judea to Galilee, and he went to him
and he begged him come to come down and heal
his son because his son was about to die. Now
can you imagine the urgency. Can you imagine the desperation
the man's son was about to die. I can't think
(25:14):
of anything worse. And this is where Jesus meets him.
Because the official was a whosoever. The official son was
a whosoever. And Jesus said go your son will live,
and the man believed in John chapter four, verse fifty one,
John four fifty one. While he was still on the way,
(25:37):
his servants met him with the news that his boy
was living. And when he inquired as to the time
when his son got better, they said to him yesterday,
at one in the afternoon, the fever left him. Now
this was very powerful because that's the same time that
Jesus had done it, because Jesus came to restore. And
(26:00):
then in the next chapter, chapter five, we read how
Jesus goes up to Jerusalem by the sheep Gate, by
the pool of Bethesda. Now there's a whole lot of
historical significance at the sheep Gate and this pool of Bethesda,
and sometime we'll get into that. But today I want
you to see the whosoevers. I want you to see
the man laying by the pool of Bethesda. You see,
tradition stated that an unseen angel would go to the
(26:23):
pool at certain times and they would stir the water,
and whoever was the first to go into the water
would be healed. And so they would lay there day
after day after day. And you might be thinking, why
would they just lay there they know only one person's
(26:43):
gonna get in there. And I thought, well, maybe the
blind could lay there because they could hear the stir
and run, or maybe the deaf because they could see
the stirl. But those who couldn't walk, how were they
gonna get into the pool. But they would lay there
day after day, no one feeding them unless they begged,
no one taking care of their day to day needs.
(27:04):
Can you imagine the scene? Can you imagine the smell
of people laying there day in and day out. And
we might wonder why, But if any of you have
ever suffered or sat beside a loved one that is suffering,
you get it because you would stop at nothing to
(27:25):
get them relief. Would you think of the suffering picture?
The scene, though sick and afflicted with all sorts of debilitations,
laying their day after day. That could be my loved one,
That could be your loved one, That could be me
(27:46):
waiting for a chance to be healed. There was a
man there who had been disabled for thirty eight years
right here in the book of John. I love the
specificity of scripture. He could have just said near forty
or a long time, I'm marking thirty eight years, because
Jesus is personal and he knows exactly what you have
(28:07):
been through. Jesus points to the number of years because
the man is a whosoever. Jesus sees him and he
knows he had been there a long time, and he
asks the man, do you want to get well? Do
you have a question like do you ever stop in like? Interesting?
Of course he wants to get well. He's laying by
the pool of Bethesda. He's waiting for the water to stir.
(28:31):
But Jesus asks the question anyways, because he's asking us
today do you want to get well? Because you see,
he's given us free will to receive from him. And
he says to the man, do you want to get well?
And the man's response is, I have no one to
put me in the pool. He was about to find
(28:53):
out that there was a healer in the house. He
is in the presence of the Great. I Am. The
winds and the waves obey his voice. Are you catching
this today? John chapter five, verse eight. John five verse
eight says, then Jesus said to him, get up, pick
up your mat, and walk. Hallelujah. This man was a whosoever.
(29:17):
Now it's the Sabbath and all sorts of negativity begins
to stir, and Jesus finds the man in the temple
later and he says, see you are well. And then
he says, go and sin no more. Now we can't
receive the healing without reading Jesus' words, Go and sin
no more. Because Jesus did not come to put a
(29:40):
band aid on our ailment. He came to bring complete
and total healing, complete and total restoration to your life,
to my life. He didn't heal him and then send
(30:01):
him back to the pool to lay in the muck
and the yuck. Because the man was later found in
the temple. That's where Jesus found him. Isn't that fantastic?
And Jesus was able to speak to him there. Then
in chapter five, Jesus crosses the Sea of galilea huge
crowds following him. They hear about his healings and teachings,
(30:23):
and there's just too many people to feed. The feeding
of the five thousand, the great miracle. I love it.
When Andrew, Now remember Andrew was a follower of John
the Baptist, and he was one of the fishermen, one
of the disciples. And he says, well, there's a boy
here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But
what are they for so many? Lord? What can we do? Lord?
(30:47):
All of these people were hungry, but the boy was
a whosoever. The disciples were whosoevers. The crowd, who numbered
five thousand and counting only counting the men, were all whosoevers.
Jesus takes the loaves, he gives thanks, he distributes them.
He does the same with the fish, and Scripture says,
when they were full, there were leftovers. Don't miss the
(31:11):
power of God. He not only provides what you need,
but he can do so in abundance. When they were full,
they were leftovers, from hungry to fully satisfied with leftovers.
Has anyone here today experienced the leftovers of Jesus Christ
in their lives? The abundance that day when you think
(31:35):
you can't take another step, that day when you think, Lord,
life is too hard, and why does it have to
be this way? That day walking into the doctor's office
that you set and you say, I can't do it
one more time, and Jesus says, take my hand and
we'll go together. Because you are a whosoever, and I
(31:59):
love you, and I died for you, and I died
to give you life and to set you free. Jesus
sees the crowds there, But I wonder if we do
do we say, Lord, I'm tired and warn and I
just want to watch Netflix and do some scrolling. Jesus says,
(32:23):
they are whosoever's go feed them, feed my sheep. Well.
More miraculous things occur in the Book of John and
then in chapter eight, and I wish I could spend
more time on it, but I won't. I'll keep us moving.
We read about the adulterous woman. There's a lot of
(32:45):
people we don't know the name of in the Bible.
The names are not given, but there's something about the
adulterous woman. That's her name. She was most known for
her greatest sin, most known for her deepest, most shameful acts.
Jesus is there teaching. The adulterous woman is brought to him.
And if Jesus was teaching, we know that there are
(33:07):
crowds of people all around, because everywhere he went, crowds
followed to hear. She was labeled for her sin, called
out in front of the crowd. The Pharisees throw her
in front of Jesus, and I'm guessing they weren't real gentle.
She had been caught in the act. And so they
throw her in front of Jesus and they continue and
they say, the law of Moses commands that we stone
(33:30):
this woman. What do you say? They didn't care about
the woman. They were trying to catch Jesus. They were
trying to find reason to arrest him. They were trying
to find reason to accuse him of blasphemy. Imagine the
woman thrown out in the crowd, known from her greatest
sin called out. But the woman was a whosoever. Don't
(33:56):
forget that. Can you see her standing there in front
of Jesus, tears streaming, about to face a horrible death.
Can you imagine being stoned to death? How many stones
would hit you before your lungs would stop breathing, and
(34:19):
people throwing them at you, over and over and over.
And they throw her in front of Jesus and says,
this is what the law says. What do you say?
Jesus stoops down and he begins to write something on
the ground. The Pharisees continue and they're persisting with him
with all of the questions until Jesus stands up, and
(34:41):
he says, the one without sin among you should be
the first to throw the stone at her. Can you
imagine the faces of the crowd. Can you imagine the
countenance of the woman as one by one the crowd
begins to dissipate in her presence. Where she thought she
(35:02):
was heading to death, she was standing right in front
of life. Life. He is the light of the world,
He is the great shepherd. In him is everlasting life.
You see, no one could throw a single stone, because
no one was without sin. In John chapter eight, verse ten,
(35:26):
John eight, verse ten says Jesus straightened up and asked her, woman,
where are they? Has no one condemned you? No one, sir.
We finally hear her speak. I wonder if she said
anything before this, or if she was hiding in her shame,
or if she couldn't even stumble through the tears, no one, sir?
(35:46):
She said neither. Then do I condemn you? Jesus declared,
But here's transformational power right here. Go now and leave
your life of sin. Go now, because whosoever believeth in him,
It says, I do not condemn you, but from now
(36:08):
on sin no more. You see, he gives this woman.
He gives the rest of humanity. He gives you and
I a second chance, but not to give us freedom
to keep living in our sin over and over, but
instead to live under the power of the Holy Spirit.
It is why he died and why he sent us
(36:29):
the Holy Spirit, so that we do not have to
live under the control of the world anymore. We could
be unbound, We can be set free. We can have
new life, better life, the only life worth living, redemption, forgiveness, adoption,
life everlasting, a new name written down in glory, and
(36:54):
it's mine. Chapter nine, Jesus was passing by the scriptures.
He saw a man blind from birth. His disciples, his followers,
the witnesses to the miraculous. They asked him, I love this.
They've been witnessed all of it. They're trying to catch it.
They're starting to catch it. But they say, Rabbi, who
sinned this man or his parents? That he was born blind,
(37:19):
and Jesus continues to teach them neither this man nor
his parents sinned. He begins to explain to them about
displaying God's works and that night is coming, but he
is the light of the world. Then he spits on
the ground, he makes some mud from the saliva. This
all sounds very strange, but there's a purpose in a plan,
and he puts it on the man's eyes. You see,
(37:41):
this man, born blind was a whosoever. He tells the
man to go wash in the pool of siloam. And
he went and he washed, and he came back seeing
from darkness to light, born from birth that many had
never seen anything, and now he can see fully restored.
The man that used to sit begging, now healed. But
(38:04):
then the Pharisees got involved again and they begin to
ask him, how did this happen? Who did this? The
people still didn't really believe, so they summon his parents.
Now I love this interaction between the parents. They say,
is this your son that was born blind? And they
say yes. But then they begin to ask them, and
the parents are like, WHOA. We don't want arrested, We
(38:25):
don't want to say anything. So they say, our sons
of age ask him. I thought that was just fun.
Our sons of age go ahead and ask him. John nine,
twenty two and twenty three. John chapter nine, twenty two
and twenty three. His parents said this because they were
afraid of the Jewish leaders who had already had decided
that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would
(38:47):
be put out of the synagogue. That was why his
parents said he is of age. Ask him so this
was really powerful. Then in John chapter nine twenty five,
the man answers John nine twenty five, he replied, whether
he is a sinner or not, I don't know, but
one thing I do know. I was blind, but now
(39:12):
I see. Thank you Jesus. Continue on in John chapter eleven,
that wonderful story about Lazarus, Mary, Martha. The worship team
can come forward. Martha, Mary and Lazarus. They were close
(39:35):
friends of Jesus. Do you all have your close friends?
I mean you have like your friends and your friends
and your friends, but then you have like your friends.
He loved them. Lazarus had gotten sick. They sent for Jesus.
Scripture says, because Jesus loved him, he waited two days.
I've had to read that over and over and over
(39:56):
and over. Because Jesus loved Lazarus, because Jesus loved Mary,
because Jesus loved Martha. He waited for two days. The
weighting is hard. His ways are higher, His path is
(40:20):
good for you, and we come just as we are today,
as whosoevers. So we know the story. Lazaruth dies, Jesus
does come. Martha runs to him and she says, Lord,
if you had been here, my brother would still be alive.
But she expresses her belief that she knows that he
(40:42):
is still the Messiah. And he says, Martha, I am
the Resurrection and I am the Life. And she says,
I know that, Lord. But see she was just so broken,
it's so hurt. And then she goes and gets her
sister Mary, and Mary comes out, and the mourners follow her,
because the mourners were in the house with Mary comforting her.
And then they all come out, and then she throws
herself at the feet of Jesus, Lord, if you had
(41:04):
been here, my brother would still be alive. And then
right there in the middle of all of this encounter,
Jesus weeps with them. You see, we are whosoevers. Nothing
passes through, no pain, no sickness, no illness that our
heavenly Father has not walked with you and with me,
(41:27):
Jesus right there in that scripture, in the Book of John,
the only place we read about the death and resurrection
of Lazarus. He weeps with his friends because he loves them,
and then he says, take me to the tomb, and
we know the story. He said, Lazarus come out. Lazarus
comes out with his grave clothes on wrapped up. Imagine
(41:49):
being Lazarus, whoa what is happening? Mary was a whosoever,
Martha was a wosoever, Lazarus was a whosoever in Jesus
was getting ready to get on that donkey that we're
gonna celebrate next week. He was getting ready to enter
Jerusalem while they waved those palm branches and said, Hosana, Hosanna,
(42:10):
blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
And he was getting ready to walk the road to
the cross for you and for me, so that when
we read that scripture that we says, whosoever believeth in
Him shall not perish, but shall have everlasting life. And
that is given to you today, that is given to
(42:32):
me today. Will you receive it. You've come to the table,
You've even picked up a plate. You're still kind of
awake at the end of the sermon. You've got your plate,
you've got your fork. Will you eat today, will you
feast on what the Word of God has given you.
I talked about a song my grandma and Grandpa used
(42:52):
to sing, Whosoever meaneth me. There was another one that
my grandpa led at the close of all of our
services for seventeen years, just as I am without one clea,
but that Thy blood was shed for me. And one day,
as I was nine years old, clinging to the pew
in front of me, sitting beside my dad who was
running the soundboard, I had heard the same songs over
(43:13):
and over all my life. I had heard the same testimony.
But the Holy Spirit was working. And when you sense
the Holy Spirit working on you, do not wait. Do
not wait, because God wants to do the miraculous in
your life. And we began to sing just as I am,
and he said, let's sing it one more time, because
I believe there's somebody here that needs to accept Jesus.
(43:36):
I was the somebody
We've been sitting in John chapter three, verse sixteen together
these last weeks and journey into the cross, and we
stand together and let's read it together. I think there's
something good about getting ourselves ready to receive the word
and declaring it together. Let's read it together. For God
so love the world that he gave his one and
only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish,
(00:25):
but shall have eternal life. Let's pray God, I thank
you for this day. God, this is a good day.
You are here, you are in this place. May we
sit at your feet. May we draw from your word
right now? Just settle on our souls today God in
Jesus' name. Amen. Well, we have been in the book
(00:46):
of John these past few weeks, like we've been talking about,
as we're moving towards the cross. I began a few
weeks ago kicking off this series with that famous conversation.
Anybody just want to shout out who was that conversation
with Jesus and Nicodemus, a famous well to do, knowledgeable
Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin who went out
(01:09):
at night to find Jesus. And one thing I loved
after that sermon. I had some of you that I
just look up to that are well versed in scripture,
and you stop by the door to discuss some things
that we talked about. And I love that because God
is wanting to reveal himself to us, and he does
that through his word. And so we talked about that.
(01:32):
Nicodemus had questions and he just needed answers, and Jesus
told him, you must be born again. Now this baffled
this incredibly intelligent, high up official. And then right there
in the middle of the conversation, Jesus says, for God
(01:52):
so loved the world that he gave his one and
only son. Well, right then, right there, Nicodemus is thinking,
why because God came for us, he came for my people. No,
God so loved the world. That means we can put
our name right there in the scripture. What is your name?
God so loved Tara, God so loved Brian, God so
(02:14):
loved Grayson, God so loved McKenna, but he gave his
only son. Now, Pastor Lisa then got to follow up
that week about the immeasurable love. You can measure things,
and it's a good idea to measure things in this world,
isn't it. Any of you tried to bake without measuring.
(02:34):
My husband one time in college. You know, college kids,
we know it all. He was hungry for some brownies
and he didn't have any eggs, so he just thought
he could double the oil he was measuring. But people,
we have to have the right ingredients too in our lives,
said how that turned out for you? Well, it was chocolatey,
but it ran right out of the spoon. But he goes,
(02:54):
I ate it. Anyways, it's good to measure things. My
dad is getting ready to lay some flooring out here
for us, and Scott's about killed himself and many of
you joined him ripping it out, and he will be
measuring and measuring. What is it? Measure twice, cut once,
or measure five times cut once. My dad is very diligent,
(03:15):
but when it comes to the love of God, it
is immeasurable. It breaks every bound of our finite minds
to begin to understand it is forever and ever, it
is everlasting. And then Pastor Scott followed up with this
greatest gift. I just thought that was outstand look at
him holding the baby today, He's like, yeah, the greatest gift.
(03:38):
It is Jesus. Behold the Lamb of God who takes
away the sins of the world. Behold today the Savior
has come. Now. John, the author of this book, I
talked a little bit about him. I want to even
go a little bit further with him today. He was
very late in life when he wrote the scripture, when
when he was a disciple of Christ, one of the twelve,
(04:00):
he was the youngest, and that plays into a big
part of how we read things and how you know,
I'm the youngest in the family, really kind of the
youngest on both sides of the family. And Brianna and
I were just laughing at things my cousins used to
tell me was gonna happen to me because I was
the youngest, and they could and I believed them. She say, Mom,
why don't you eat that? My cousins told me not to. Mom,
(04:22):
you're forty eight now, but you know, we believe it.
So you can see John as being the youngest, and
now here we have him much later in life, and
he is writing, and he's the last of the survivors
writing to us. He writes from a first hand eye witness.
That's important as we read and go through these scriptures.
(04:42):
He says, we have heard, we have seen with our eyes,
we have touched with our hands. That's what he says.
In First John, chapter one, verse eleven. He had rubbed
up against the Savior. The disciple was called the one
whom Jesus loved. It took me a lot of you
to figure out he wrote that about himself. Wouldn't that
(05:04):
be fun, Tammy, if I wrote a book about our
parents and said, Tara the one who our dad loved.
But he was next to Jesus. And I don't know
what all took place, but I knew John knew that
he was the one whom Jesus loved. And I pray that,
(05:25):
without a shadow of a doubt today that when you
leave this place, that you know that you are the
one whom Jesus loves. He had heard the voice, he
heard his voice. The Book of John unveils the majesty
and the power of Jesus Christ. The word became flesh
(05:47):
and dwelt among us. That's so powerful right there, as
we open up the Book of John. I recently was
in charge of this area of ministry on our district level,
and part of that was this two day confie prints
that I planned, and God was so evident and so
good during those times. But I was planning lots of
(06:07):
different segments and speakers and worship and all of these things.
And one of the segments was on our articles of
faith and the Church of the Nazarene. We have sixteen
articles of faith. We preach about them, teach about them.
We may not say that this is an article faith,
but is what we believe according to scripture. And so
sometimes when you're talking about these things, they can get
kind of heavy. And a lot of the day was
(06:28):
real heavy. So I'm thinking, Lord, how can I make
this part fun? Well, how do you make the articles
of faith fun? Well? We did a family feud style.
So anyways, in the middle of it, I thought, you know,
we have a new district superintendent. It would be fun
for people to get to know him better, to get
to know facts about him. And you know, my husband,
he's full of wisdom. And he said, well, read his bio.
(06:49):
And I read his bio. It gave me a little
bit of information about him. And then Pastor Scott and
I spent about fifteen minutes in his office just making
up things about him that I could say like, we
didn't know. We just kind of thought that'd be funny.
But then I thought, you know, I should probably stick
to the facts. So someone on our team said, you know,
why don't you ask his wife. Yeah, that's wisdom right there.
(07:12):
If you want to really know about someone, ask someone
that's spent time with him, Ask someone that knows the
ins and outs. And I sent her an email and
within about five minutes she emailed me back, just a
list of things about him because she knew firsthand, direct insight.
(07:32):
As we read the Book of John that is inspired
by the Holy Spirit, I am so fascinated by what
John chose to put in and what he chose to
leave out that's in all the other gospels. He doesn't
even include the Nativity story. But he goes back even
way further and he says in the beginning, was the Word?
(07:57):
Isn't that powerful? He says, I, I'm an eye witness
to the fact that Jesus is the Son of God
and the savior of the world. Jesus is the one
and all through the scripture, all through the Book of John,
John is pointing to him, pointing to him. See him today,
see him as the savior of the world. He writes,
(08:20):
to provoke faith in us, faith that will end an
eternal life, that is everlasting. That's what that scripture says,
that those who believe in Him shall not perish, but
have eternal life. John stood at the foot of the cross.
He witnessed the ultimate sacrifice for his sin, for your sin,
(08:45):
for my sin. Mary Magdalene, she went to the tomb
on that third day we're about to celebrate Easter. Is
there any greater day than Easter that we celebrate? The
Lord is risen, So Mary Magdalene, she goes to the
tomb on that day and she discussed. It's empty. And
she runs and she tells Peter and John, and Peter
and John they take off. And then it says that
(09:05):
other disciple, John runs a little head and he gets
there first, and he saw the empty tomb. He saw
the resurrected Lord. And let's not forget that John would
receive the revelation. Just a bit of a glimpse of
what we have to look forward to as sons and
daughters of the Most High. Jesus is the Way, the Truth,
(09:26):
and the Life. God so loved the world that he
gave his only son that whoever believes in him. Now,
when I was a kid, we memorize the King James version.
Anybody else there we go. So what was the word
in the King James version instead of whoever? Whosoever? Now?
I don't use that word in my day to day speech.
(09:47):
But my grandma and Grandpa they sang a song, and
maybe many of you remember it. It was whosoever surely
meaneth me? Do you remember that one? Annabelle remembers it.
I am happy today, and the sun shines bright. The
clouds have been rolled away for the save Your says,
(10:08):
whosoe who will may come with him to stay? How
many of you sang that who soever surely mean with me,
surely mean with me? You surely mean with me? Who
soever surely mean with me? Whosoever mean with me? You
(10:33):
young people are looking around like what. Let me tell you.
I was a young person when I heard those words.
I didn't use the word whosoever in my day to
day language. I didn't use the word meaneth in my
day to day language. But the way that my grandma
(10:53):
sang it, and the countenance on her face as she
worshiped the Lord, and the life that she lived day
in and day out as a kid. This big I
knew what whosoever surely meaneth me meant. It means whosoever
believes in him shall not perish. He is the source
(11:16):
of eternal life and eternal joy that only can come
from a father who paid the price. What does whosoever mean?
It's the great universal call. It is ultimately a call
from a holy God to a fallen world, and Scripture
says all have fallen short of the glory of God.
(11:39):
Whosoever means all, that means me, That means you, That
means everybody that we encounter. Whosoever surely means me whoever.
It's also often translated out and I did some research
and translation in the Hebrew and Greek because I wanted
to be very pastoral today and really learn what this means. Oh,
(12:00):
what whosoever means? It means whoever? It means whoever, and
I mean, I kept searching and searching. It's pretty much
self explanatory. Why do we make it so hard? It
means whoever person, any person, anyone, whoever. Well that puts
in perspective our day to day, doesn't it Because I
(12:22):
don't know about you, but I like get caught up
in a lot of little details that really don't mean
nothing to nothing, but it seems so big in that
moment that sometimes I forget to see the whoever and
the whosoever, and I forget to remember God, you paid
it all for me. You paid it all. You see,
(12:44):
the Messiah had not just come for God's chosen people.
But could it be that you and I are chosen?
Don't it feel good to be picked? Don't it feel
good to be chosen? You are chosen? Are you feeling
the extreme joy in the implications of what this means
(13:06):
for your life? This word whoever, this word whosoever, if
you used to say it, What this means for your
family's life, for their future, for their eternity, What this
means for your neighbor's life, for their future, for their eternity.
When Zach put together the right up for building the
Vision Day, I loved how he mapped it out. This
(13:28):
is for our families, this is for our church, but
this is for our neighborhood, our neighbors. How many times
in the stories that I've heard you tell of when
you came to Jesus, was it a Nazarene neighbor who
brought you. I love it. We have family that are
in the church now because of a neighbor. Whosoever surely
(13:55):
means me, it surely means you, and it surely means
everyone that we come into contact with. And I wonder today,
you know, we come to church, and I'll be honest
with you. This week, my mind has been a little
elsewhere and we've been waiting and waiting. And I told her,
(14:17):
I said, I know you're going to deliver that baby
while I'm preaching, and everybody's going to be there but me.
But I wonder if we came in today seeking, searching
what God has for us? Is this something we just
(14:38):
do do every week when we come in, or do
we come in ready to receive the word of God,
ready to break it open, hungry for more of God.
Because I settled on my soul a couple of days ago,
Scott said, just preach ten minutes and leave. If she
goes in labor my soul with God. God, if you've
(15:02):
called me to preach today and you have given me
your word, help me to be faithful to it. And Lord,
I know you will take care of the rest. You
will take care of my girl. You will take care
of her, girl. You will take care for that big
six foot seven man that I don't know what he's
going to do with her when this all gets going,
but he is so good with her. God will take
(15:23):
care of it when we are faithful, hungry seeking his word.
I fed my kids the other night. I used to
do that a lot. They're old, and they work, and
they go to college and they do all of these things,
and I work, and our schedules just have trouble kind
of coming together. But it's been a week for our family.
It's been a blessed week in the waiting. God is good.
(15:44):
Monday morning, Brianna had a procedure that was supposed to
get labor going within forty eight hours. It's Sunday here
we are. So when I say it's been a week,
it's been a bit of a week. But I texted
them all on Tuesday, I said, family at five thirty,
moms cooking. So I tried to get out of here
in time, got the oven going, set a pretty table.
(16:05):
They all kind of struggled in one by one. It
was funny. I don't think any of them had asked
what we were having, which I was kind of funny
because usually that's the question, which you know, all of
us moms don't really like that question. Are you only
gonna come if you have what we like? It's kind
of the same in church, who's preaching you're only gonna
come when the person's preaching you want right when you're hungry.
We all know, Yeah, we hear that too. No, it's good. So,
uh so I got home, got everything on, and they
(16:27):
all came in one by one and they start smelling
the food and they're like hovering over me, and I'm like,
step away, step away, like you know, we're getting it done.
And so they were talking and I won't tell you
which one, but the one with the baby said, mom,
I have been waiting for this moment all day long.
(16:49):
And then we said a prayer and then a lot
of times I just haven't filled their plates. And so
one of them went the direction of our typical place
we fill the plates, and the other two hit the
other one because they didn't want to waste any time.
I mean, who was in charge of these kids and
who raised them? They were ready to receive. They didn't
(17:10):
even care what was going to be laid out before them.
Their plates were ready they had formed a line and
they wanted to be fed. And I wonder if we
came into church ready to receive, with the plates ready
(17:31):
and say, God, I don't even care what songs they
sing or who's preaching, Just give me all of you today,
all of you today, because I am a whosoever. You
are a whosoever. Do you know that God wants to
take you deeper today than you were when you came
(17:52):
in here. He wants to do a work in you.
Pastor Scott talked last week, and I love how he
does this. Analogy of this is you know the zero
to ten. This is you know, far away from God
ten as you're just perfect perfectly in the will of God.
Everything's going to Where are you And that's a great
question because then he didn't say, well, you need to
(18:16):
go from zero to ten right now, but he did
say God wants to take you to the next step.
And he does because he's a good God. I want
to take my kid's good places and do things for
them because I love them. He loves you. Today. Just
(18:36):
sit at the table in the Book of John. You
know we've been saying, go ahead and read it for yourselves.
Go ahead and get into this as we journey to
the cross, sit at the table. Well, I wanted to
dig deeper in the Book of John. Two, Who are
the whosoevers in the Book of John. I'll be brief,
but buckle up. Who are the whosoevers in the Book
(18:57):
of John. We've already talked about Nicodemus. He was a
big deal. He knew it all, he had it all,
but he had not received from Christ. He had not
believed yet. He knew God, knew all the ins and outs,
knew all the rules, knew how to look, knew how
to act, knew how to dress. But he had not
(19:19):
received yet what God had for him. And so Nicodemus,
this high ranking official we kick off right here in
chapter three. He was a whosoever that John talked about
in the book. He held all the intelligence. And I
believe at the end, when he went and prepared Jesus' body,
(19:40):
I believe that that meant he caught a glimpse of
it and he began to understand. But then in chapter four,
John goes from chapter three with Nicodemus. Chapter four we
read about the Samaritan woman. Now she really needed saving.
She was a mess it takes us from this high
(20:01):
ranking religious official to the Samaritan woman at the well. Now,
first of all, she was a Samaritan, and we don't
have time to get into all the ins and outs.
But what I want you to know today was Samaritans
were not very well thought of as by the Jews.
So Samaritan. That's a checkmark right next to her name.
Oh and she's a woman want want checkmark, checkmark, And
(20:26):
that I mentioned she had quite a past and pretty
much not so great of a present that she was
living in. Check check check check, check check check. Jesus
sits down and talks with both. Nicodemus was an insider.
(20:48):
The woman at the well was an outsider. But it
didn't matter to Jesus because he came for all the whosoevers.
He presents the life changing message to both. All have
sinned and fallen short, all need a savior, and all
must be born again. Here's the Samaritan woman at the well.
(21:10):
We know she's there at the heat of the day.
John points out, why do you go to draw water
at the heat of the day. It's not very smart.
Do you want to go early in the morning before
it's like got hot. You know, she didn't want to
face the crowds. Have you been there? I have. She
didn't want to face the crowd, So she goes to
this historical well, it was Jacob's well in Psychar at
(21:33):
the hottest part of the day, and there is Jesus,
there is the Messiah. She doesn't quite know this yet,
but can you imagine what is about to unfold in
her life? And Jesus asks her for a drink. And
(21:55):
in John chapter four, verse nine and ten. John chapter four,
verse nine and ti him, the Samaritan woman said to him,
you are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman.
How can you ask me for a drink? For Jews
do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, if you
knew the gift of God and who it is that
(22:17):
ask you for a drink, you would have asked him
and he would have given you living water. You see,
the Great i Am was in her midst someone that
could take everything that she was, who could come in
and transform her and cleanse her and wash her clean
and make her new. That's what she was facing. She
(22:39):
came to get water in the heat of the day,
but he was about to offer her living water. He
sees the worn traveling in the heat of the day,
a constant reminder of her brokenness. There is nothing too
broken that my heavenly Father cannot fix and cannot restore.
(22:59):
His mission is to come and make sons and daughters
of God restored, brought in, brought into the family, just
like my kids enter my kitchen knowing that they're gonna
be fed, welcome, and loved. They don't have to ask,
can I open the fridge, mom. God came to restore.
(23:24):
Restoration is his mission. Nicodemus needed it, the woman needed it.
They were both whosoevers. And when we become a whosoever,
and when we believe it, there is a stir and
an excitement. The woman is so excited she leaves her water.
Now I can relate. Have you ever went to get
something and you get everything but that? But I don't
(23:45):
believe this is the case. I believe she didn't need
the water anymore because she has experienced the living water.
John chapter four, verse thirty nine. John four, verse thirty nine.
Many of the Samaritans from that believed in him because
of the woman's testimony. He told me everything I ever did.
(24:07):
He knew it all. But she was a whosoever. And
I believe there was a change all over her that
was recognized, or people would have been looking at her
the same way. They want to have listened. But she
had experienced Christ, she had experienced transformation, she had become
a whosoever. And because of her, many people believed. Don't
(24:31):
think that your witness and your testimony is not powerful
in the hands of the Almighty. Give your testimony about
what God has done in you. Tell the world, Tell
your coworkers, because they need to hear about Jesus. Then
right there in that same chapter, after the Samaritan woman,
we read about this official son. Now, this royal official
(24:54):
had heard about Jesus. He had heard. He had come
down from Judea to Galilee, and he went to him
and he begged him come to come down and heal
his son because his son was about to die. Now
can you imagine the urgency. Can you imagine the desperation
the man's son was about to die. I can't think
(25:14):
of anything worse. And this is where Jesus meets him.
Because the official was a whosoever. The official son was
a whosoever. And Jesus said go your son will live,
and the man believed in John chapter four, verse fifty one,
John four fifty one. While he was still on the way,
(25:37):
his servants met him with the news that his boy
was living. And when he inquired as to the time
when his son got better, they said to him yesterday,
at one in the afternoon, the fever left him. Now
this was very powerful because that's the same time that
Jesus had done it, because Jesus came to restore. And
(26:00):
then in the next chapter, chapter five, we read how
Jesus goes up to Jerusalem by the sheep Gate, by
the pool of Bethesda. Now there's a whole lot of
historical significance at the sheep Gate and this pool of Bethesda,
and sometime we'll get into that. But today I want
you to see the whosoevers. I want you to see
the man laying by the pool of Bethesda. You see,
tradition stated that an unseen angel would go to the
(26:23):
pool at certain times and they would stir the water,
and whoever was the first to go into the water
would be healed. And so they would lay there day
after day after day. And you might be thinking, why
would they just lay there they know only one person's
(26:43):
gonna get in there. And I thought, well, maybe the
blind could lay there because they could hear the stir
and run, or maybe the deaf because they could see
the stirl. But those who couldn't walk, how were they
gonna get into the pool. But they would lay there
day after day, no one feeding them unless they begged,
no one taking care of their day to day needs.
(27:04):
Can you imagine the scene? Can you imagine the smell
of people laying there day in and day out. And
we might wonder why, But if any of you have
ever suffered or sat beside a loved one that is suffering,
you get it because you would stop at nothing to
(27:25):
get them relief. Would you think of the suffering picture?
The scene, though sick and afflicted with all sorts of debilitations,
laying their day after day. That could be my loved one,
That could be your loved one, That could be me
(27:46):
waiting for a chance to be healed. There was a
man there who had been disabled for thirty eight years
right here in the book of John. I love the
specificity of scripture. He could have just said near forty
or a long time, I'm marking thirty eight years, because
Jesus is personal and he knows exactly what you have
(28:07):
been through. Jesus points to the number of years because
the man is a whosoever. Jesus sees him and he
knows he had been there a long time, and he
asks the man, do you want to get well? Do
you have a question like do you ever stop in like? Interesting?
Of course he wants to get well. He's laying by
the pool of Bethesda. He's waiting for the water to stir.
(28:31):
But Jesus asks the question anyways, because he's asking us
today do you want to get well? Because you see,
he's given us free will to receive from him. And
he says to the man, do you want to get well?
And the man's response is, I have no one to
put me in the pool. He was about to find
(28:53):
out that there was a healer in the house. He
is in the presence of the Great. I Am. The
winds and the waves obey his voice. Are you catching
this today? John chapter five, verse eight. John five verse
eight says, then Jesus said to him, get up, pick
up your mat, and walk. Hallelujah. This man was a whosoever.
(29:17):
Now it's the Sabbath and all sorts of negativity begins
to stir, and Jesus finds the man in the temple
later and he says, see you are well. And then
he says, go and sin no more. Now we can't
receive the healing without reading Jesus' words, Go and sin
no more. Because Jesus did not come to put a
(29:40):
band aid on our ailment. He came to bring complete
and total healing, complete and total restoration to your life,
to my life. He didn't heal him and then send
(30:01):
him back to the pool to lay in the muck
and the yuck. Because the man was later found in
the temple. That's where Jesus found him. Isn't that fantastic?
And Jesus was able to speak to him there. Then
in chapter five, Jesus crosses the Sea of galilea huge
crowds following him. They hear about his healings and teachings,
(30:23):
and there's just too many people to feed. The feeding
of the five thousand, the great miracle. I love it.
When Andrew, Now remember Andrew was a follower of John
the Baptist, and he was one of the fishermen, one
of the disciples. And he says, well, there's a boy
here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But
what are they for so many? Lord? What can we do? Lord?
(30:47):
All of these people were hungry, but the boy was
a whosoever. The disciples were whosoevers. The crowd, who numbered
five thousand and counting only counting the men, were all whosoevers.
Jesus takes the loaves, he gives thanks, he distributes them.
He does the same with the fish, and Scripture says,
when they were full, there were leftovers. Don't miss the
(31:11):
power of God. He not only provides what you need,
but he can do so in abundance. When they were full,
they were leftovers, from hungry to fully satisfied with leftovers.
Has anyone here today experienced the leftovers of Jesus Christ
in their lives? The abundance that day when you think
(31:35):
you can't take another step, that day when you think, Lord,
life is too hard, and why does it have to
be this way? That day walking into the doctor's office
that you set and you say, I can't do it
one more time, and Jesus says, take my hand and
we'll go together. Because you are a whosoever, and I
(31:59):
love you, and I died for you, and I died
to give you life and to set you free. Jesus
sees the crowds there, But I wonder if we do
do we say, Lord, I'm tired and warn and I
just want to watch Netflix and do some scrolling. Jesus says,
(32:23):
they are whosoever's go feed them, feed my sheep. Well.
More miraculous things occur in the Book of John and
then in chapter eight, and I wish I could spend
more time on it, but I won't. I'll keep us moving.
We read about the adulterous woman. There's a lot of
(32:45):
people we don't know the name of in the Bible.
The names are not given, but there's something about the
adulterous woman. That's her name. She was most known for
her greatest sin, most known for her deepest, most shameful acts.
Jesus is there teaching. The adulterous woman is brought to him.
And if Jesus was teaching, we know that there are
(33:07):
crowds of people all around, because everywhere he went, crowds
followed to hear. She was labeled for her sin, called
out in front of the crowd. The Pharisees throw her
in front of Jesus, and I'm guessing they weren't real gentle.
She had been caught in the act. And so they
throw her in front of Jesus and they continue and
they say, the law of Moses commands that we stone
(33:30):
this woman. What do you say? They didn't care about
the woman. They were trying to catch Jesus. They were
trying to find reason to arrest him. They were trying
to find reason to accuse him of blasphemy. Imagine the
woman thrown out in the crowd, known from her greatest
sin called out. But the woman was a whosoever. Don't
(33:56):
forget that. Can you see her standing there in front
of Jesus, tears streaming, about to face a horrible death.
Can you imagine being stoned to death? How many stones
would hit you before your lungs would stop breathing, and
(34:19):
people throwing them at you, over and over and over.
And they throw her in front of Jesus and says,
this is what the law says. What do you say?
Jesus stoops down and he begins to write something on
the ground. The Pharisees continue and they're persisting with him
with all of the questions until Jesus stands up, and
(34:41):
he says, the one without sin among you should be
the first to throw the stone at her. Can you
imagine the faces of the crowd. Can you imagine the
countenance of the woman as one by one the crowd
begins to dissipate in her presence. Where she thought she
(35:02):
was heading to death, she was standing right in front
of life. Life. He is the light of the world,
He is the great shepherd. In him is everlasting life.
You see, no one could throw a single stone, because
no one was without sin. In John chapter eight, verse ten,
(35:26):
John eight, verse ten says Jesus straightened up and asked her, woman,
where are they? Has no one condemned you? No one, sir.
We finally hear her speak. I wonder if she said
anything before this, or if she was hiding in her shame,
or if she couldn't even stumble through the tears, no one, sir?
(35:46):
She said neither. Then do I condemn you? Jesus declared,
But here's transformational power right here. Go now and leave
your life of sin. Go now, because whosoever believeth in him,
It says, I do not condemn you, but from now
(36:08):
on sin no more. You see, he gives this woman.
He gives the rest of humanity. He gives you and
I a second chance, but not to give us freedom
to keep living in our sin over and over, but
instead to live under the power of the Holy Spirit.
It is why he died and why he sent us
(36:29):
the Holy Spirit, so that we do not have to
live under the control of the world anymore. We could
be unbound, We can be set free. We can have
new life, better life, the only life worth living, redemption, forgiveness, adoption,
life everlasting, a new name written down in glory, and
(36:54):
it's mine. Chapter nine, Jesus was passing by the scriptures.
He saw a man blind from birth. His disciples, his followers,
the witnesses to the miraculous. They asked him, I love this.
They've been witnessed all of it. They're trying to catch it.
They're starting to catch it. But they say, Rabbi, who
sinned this man or his parents? That he was born blind,
(37:19):
and Jesus continues to teach them neither this man nor
his parents sinned. He begins to explain to them about
displaying God's works and that night is coming, but he
is the light of the world. Then he spits on
the ground, he makes some mud from the saliva. This
all sounds very strange, but there's a purpose in a plan,
and he puts it on the man's eyes. You see,
(37:41):
this man, born blind was a whosoever. He tells the
man to go wash in the pool of siloam. And
he went and he washed, and he came back seeing
from darkness to light, born from birth that many had
never seen anything, and now he can see fully restored.
The man that used to sit begging, now healed. But
(38:04):
then the Pharisees got involved again and they begin to
ask him, how did this happen? Who did this? The
people still didn't really believe, so they summon his parents.
Now I love this interaction between the parents. They say,
is this your son that was born blind? And they
say yes. But then they begin to ask them, and
the parents are like, WHOA. We don't want arrested, We
(38:25):
don't want to say anything. So they say, our sons
of age ask him. I thought that was just fun.
Our sons of age go ahead and ask him. John nine,
twenty two and twenty three. John chapter nine, twenty two
and twenty three. His parents said this because they were
afraid of the Jewish leaders who had already had decided
that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah would
(38:47):
be put out of the synagogue. That was why his
parents said he is of age. Ask him so this
was really powerful. Then in John chapter nine twenty five,
the man answers John nine twenty five, he replied, whether
he is a sinner or not, I don't know, but
one thing I do know. I was blind, but now
(39:12):
I see. Thank you Jesus. Continue on in John chapter eleven,
that wonderful story about Lazarus, Mary, Martha. The worship team
can come forward. Martha, Mary and Lazarus. They were close
(39:35):
friends of Jesus. Do you all have your close friends?
I mean you have like your friends and your friends
and your friends, but then you have like your friends.
He loved them. Lazarus had gotten sick. They sent for Jesus.
Scripture says, because Jesus loved him, he waited two days.
I've had to read that over and over and over
(39:56):
and over. Because Jesus loved Lazarus, because Jesus loved Mary,
because Jesus loved Martha. He waited for two days. The
weighting is hard. His ways are higher, His path is
(40:20):
good for you, and we come just as we are today,
as whosoevers. So we know the story. Lazaruth dies, Jesus
does come. Martha runs to him and she says, Lord,
if you had been here, my brother would still be alive.
But she expresses her belief that she knows that he
(40:42):
is still the Messiah. And he says, Martha, I am
the Resurrection and I am the Life. And she says,
I know that, Lord. But see she was just so broken,
it's so hurt. And then she goes and gets her
sister Mary, and Mary comes out, and the mourners follow her,
because the mourners were in the house with Mary comforting her.
And then they all come out, and then she throws
herself at the feet of Jesus, Lord, if you had
(41:04):
been here, my brother would still be alive. And then
right there in the middle of all of this encounter,
Jesus weeps with them. You see, we are whosoevers. Nothing
passes through, no pain, no sickness, no illness that our
heavenly Father has not walked with you and with me,
(41:27):
Jesus right there in that scripture, in the Book of John,
the only place we read about the death and resurrection
of Lazarus. He weeps with his friends because he loves them,
and then he says, take me to the tomb, and
we know the story. He said, Lazarus come out. Lazarus
comes out with his grave clothes on wrapped up. Imagine
(41:49):
being Lazarus, whoa what is happening? Mary was a whosoever,
Martha was a wosoever, Lazarus was a whosoever in Jesus
was getting ready to get on that donkey that we're
gonna celebrate next week. He was getting ready to enter
Jerusalem while they waved those palm branches and said, Hosana, Hosanna,
(42:10):
blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
And he was getting ready to walk the road to
the cross for you and for me, so that when
we read that scripture that we says, whosoever believeth in
Him shall not perish, but shall have everlasting life. And
that is given to you today, that is given to
(42:32):
me today. Will you receive it. You've come to the table,
You've even picked up a plate. You're still kind of
awake at the end of the sermon. You've got your plate,
you've got your fork. Will you eat today, will you
feast on what the Word of God has given you.
I talked about a song my grandma and Grandpa used
(42:52):
to sing, Whosoever meaneth me. There was another one that
my grandpa led at the close of all of our
services for seventeen years, just as I am without one clea,
but that Thy blood was shed for me. And one day,
as I was nine years old, clinging to the pew
in front of me, sitting beside my dad who was
running the soundboard, I had heard the same songs over
(43:13):
and over all my life. I had heard the same testimony.
But the Holy Spirit was working. And when you sense
the Holy Spirit working on you, do not wait. Do
not wait, because God wants to do the miraculous in
your life. And we began to sing just as I am,
and he said, let's sing it one more time, because
I believe there's somebody here that needs to accept Jesus.
(43:36):
I was the somebody
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!