Help us here to hear your word
and to understand the message you have for us. Help us to glorify
and honor you and serve you and all that we do here today. And
we ask you this for the sake of Christ in whose name we pray.
Amen. Good morning, beloved. Good to
see you all. I can say summers are fun. We should go back to the old
building for a couple of summers. Next time somebody's really,
really pregnant, we'll just take a trip. It'd get like 130 degrees
in there. We've seen a lot of women mistake
heat stroke for labor. Thank God for the niceties. I'm
going to be in the Gospel of John today. I want to continue spot teaching, if I can say it
that way. And I want to talk specifically
about something that I've been discussing for months, and that
is what it means to be and live authentically and free. We hear
where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. We know
that the scripture talks about that Christ the Son has come
to set you free. If you are free in the Son, you
are free indeed. And there is a wonderful emphasis and a theological
purpose behind those teachings. And yes, it is inclusive of what
is naturally occurring because of what Paul teaches in Romans,
because of the context of his audience, and that we are free
from sin and death. We are slaves to righteousness. We are free from the law, from
its consequences, from its bondage. And what this does for us is
it establishes in our minds this presence, this mindful reality
of being here in this earth, but knowing that we are tethered
to something greater than this world. And more than that, there
is a love that we have experienced that most people in the world
do not know. Most people in the world cannot know. Most people
in the world do not understand because it is a divine work.
It is a spiritual experience. However, there is a huge disconnect
in our culture that people have mistaken theological passion
and study. You've heard Pastor Trey and
I talk about this over the summer often. They've mistaken that
with spiritual maturity. It has its place and it is good
for some of us, but it is not recommended nor required of all
of us. And so, therefore, if it's not
required of us, it is not the essence, it is not the grounds,
it is not the root from which our maturity and our authenticity
and our identity comes. What do I mean? In other words,
we can know a whole lot of truth about the Bible, we can know
a whole lot of spiritual things, we can actually know all the
original languages, and we can be amazing in our discussion
with these things, but it does not make us a child of God. And
I'm here to attest, and I've said this many times over, a
child can be born of God, no matter their age. no matter their capabilities,
no matter where they are in life or what they've come through
or what their parents believe or what they don't believe, no
matter where they may be in the context of their spiritual journey,
a three-year-old, a two-year-old, a 92-year-old can be born of
the Spirit of God to rest in the sufficiency of Jesus Christ
and then learn through the teaching of the scripture exactly what
that means. But there are some who argue
that without certain theological premises, without certain theological
things stacked upon each other, that if you're missing one of
these puzzle pieces, you have not been born of God. There are
some people who would say, well, if you haven't confessed the
awakening to know that something that you may have believed 57
years ago was false, that you don't even remember what you
did yesterday, but you knew what you believed 57 years ago in
a children's camp. Because you haven't come to conclude
that that was wrong, then you haven't been born of God. I'm
not kidding. This is nonsensical. I want to be kind and not dogmatically
assertive, but this is nonsensical. Our authentic lives as believers
is because of God doing what he promised to do in spite of
his people and without his people. He did the work of redemption
for us. He's loved us before we were,
and we have been saved by the finished work of Christ who said
in his dying breath, it is finished. And faith is a gift of God to
rest and to know divinely, not cognitively, not academically,
not through good schooling, but through the spirit himself. Sometimes
that surpasses understanding, sometimes that surpasses everything
that the world would say is authentic. If you're authentically a child
of God, you authentically have been given a divine faith that
sometimes you are unable to truly grasp the depths of. And beloved, I have tried many
times to throw it away. Have you? The beauty of that
is you can't throw it away, and it hasn't been the study of theology
or the study of precepts or the systematic application of the
grammar or the syntax has kept me in the faith. It's been the
Spirit of God. that when everything I've ever learned, I've thrown
off the cliff of despair, and when I'm done, I'm through, there's
nothing, I'm done with this God stuff and this gospel stuff and
this mission stuff and this ministry stuff, and I'm done, and you
walk back out and you fall right into it. Yes, pride comes before
the fall, you know? There's nothing that can keep
us away from the love of God, nothing. We see that, we see John, go
to John chapter 1. I'm going to be all over the
place. I'm going to be in John 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, all over the place. I'm just
going to talk about some things. I want to show, I'll give you
an outline. I want to show how the miracles
of Jesus, the teachings of Jesus, the I am statements of Jesus,
the interactions that Jesus has with two groups of people. give
us the foundation of our authentic, free lives in Him. And if our identity is attached,
is tethered, if who we really are and our value is tethered
to what we've accomplished, or what we know, or the job we have,
or the children we have, or the marriage we have, or the career
we have, or the wealth we have, then we are not authentic. We are playing the game of culture.
If our identity is tethered to our successes or failures or
to our grievances or to our passions, then we're not understanding
who we really are. I mean, if someone were to ask
you in the middle of nowhere, which happens sometimes, Hey,
who are you? The first thing we do is we tell
them our name. We give them the moniker given
to us by our families that have some significance to our parents,
and sometimes we don't even know why. Some people tell me, they're
like, where did your mom come up with that? Boggle roulette? Well, there's
nine characters spilled on the table. Sounds good. There's your
name. Couple of consonants. We don't
know, but that's not our identity. That might be the stamp of our
identification and culture, but it's not our identity. Well,
my father is or my mother is. Yeah, that identifies us in the
sense of people knowing who we are and who we're from and where
we're from. But who are we? And I think for the Christian,
it goes deeper than that because for the non-believer and for
us, we will always be digging through the layers of this depth. We will always be mining underneath
the earth to try to find in our soul exactly who we are, but
we must change the question as Christians to whose are we, not
who are we. Our significant identity, our
authentic selves are tethered to whose we are. Because our
gifts, passions, our avocations, you know what that means? Hobbies,
interests, things we do not for a living. Don't define us because they
change. And I personally believe that we ought to every day recognize
that there is one place of our authentic selves that will never
change, and that is in Christ. And that because of that, it
will inform everything else. And everything else will change.
And the only thing that doesn't change in our life is the commitments
we've made and the promises we've made, as long as it is up to
us. The Gospel of John. I taught
through this quickly. I taught through this entire
letter quickly. It was four years, and it was
fast. There's a lot of things that
I'm like, oh, I get like halfway through two years, I'm going,
man, I want to start over. But that's just me. It's not necessary.
So this morning I'm going to just like, I'm just going to
explode in this. And this is my jam, y'all. It's
going to be fun for me. This is like my summer vacation.
Just going through John is just great for me. But let's look
at the miracles of Jesus. In the Gospel of John, where
it starts here, let's hear the first few verses. In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He, the person, the Word, who
was God, was in the beginning with God, and all things All
things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything
made that was made. In Him was life, and the life
was the light of men, of humanity. It doesn't mean male. The light
shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
We'll stop there. Because if not, I'll end up in
verse 18, and then an hour will be gone. John developed this writing in
his late days, near his death. He was imprisoned, not like what
we know, in exile on Patmos, and he had the freedom to write.
He wrote his letters, he wrote his gospel, he received his revelation. That's what apocalypse means,
revelation, revealed things. It doesn't mean chaos and end
times, it means revealed things. And he wrote seven miracles.
Did Jesus do more miracles than seven? Yes. He wrote about seven
teachings. Did Jesus teach more than seven
things? Yes. He wrote about seven I am statements. Did Jesus say
more than seven? Yeah, absolutely. Matter of fact,
in this gospel record, it says if the pages of the teachings
of Jesus were penned, the world could not contain them. Now, that's a tall order. Because Jesus' teaching is not
over. It's continuing. It's not new revelation. It's
not expansion of new things. It's just continuation of teaching. And as we teach Christ, His teaching
is still. The world could not hold. We're not even thinking about that rightly when
we think it's, well, that's a lot of books. It's about the depths. of God revealing Himself to His
people through Jesus Christ, His Son. So let's think about
these things. The seven miracles, I'll give
them to you. The turning the water into wine, the healing
of the official son, the paralytic at Bethesda, feeding the 5,000,
walking on water, healing the blind man from birth in John
9, and raising Lazarus from the dead. Well, He raised Himself. But let's look specifically those
things. The first one, turning the water
into wine, okay, it's not written there so we can have the freedom
to drink. We do, it's okay, but it's also a personal conviction. Nothing that prohibits the use
of alcohol in the Bible. The Bible prohibits any use of
anything, cheeseburgers or apple pie, that leads to debauchery. For our good, not because God
is this maniacal killjoy. No fun for you. It's only kale. I mean, you know, could you get
to heaven and the marriage supper of the lambs, kale and cucumber
water? Excuse me. Can I talk to the manager? Turn
the water into wine. At the wedding of Cana, Jesus
turns the water into wine, the ceremonial water that is used
for cleansing, the thing that signifies my righteousness as
a Hebrew person ready to worship. And Jesus goes and takes that
water, which had deep spiritual significance, and he turns it
into the greatest alcoholic beverage that these people have ever tasted,
long after they had already had the trash wine that had run out. And it proves that Jesus is the
better bridegroom. It proves that Jesus is the one
to whom marriage points. It shows
who He is, and it establishes the reality that He did not even
take credit for this. He gave credit to the bridegroom
who screwed up royally, who did not plan well. How are you going
to plan for a future when you can't even plan for a dinner?
Well, it was seven days. Could you imagine having a seven-day
lunch with an open bar? I mean, come on. How do you manage
that? You pour it all in there. But
Christ gave credit to the groom. It's like Christ's righteousness
is credited to us. And the pictures go on and on
and on. The healing of the royal official's
son. This Capernaum, where Jesus did
most of his ministry in Capernaum. He comes to Jesus and he says,
hey, teacher, my son is dying. Remember this? If you just come
with me, if you just show up, you just go and heal him, and
Jesus says to him what? He's healed. He's healed. I mean, Jesus proves who he is
right here. He shows that he's not some man
that has to walk around like a doctor. He's not some magic
guy. He's not some healer that has to go lay hands on someone.
He's the creator of all things. He created the official. He created his son. He created
the sickness inside of him. He's the God of all things, the
God of microbes, the God of biology, the God of psychology. He's the
God of life. In him was life. And the life that was the light
of men and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness
has not, better yet, cannot overcome it. Death is not the enemy. Death is not the end. Death is
nothing for the believer. And Jesus, I mean, this man's
identity became, oh, my son is sick. My son is dying. That became
who he was. That was his authentic self.
And Jesus says, I speak against that. You don't understand. I have healed your son. And what
did the man do? He just went home. What would we do? Nah, Jesus.
Sort of like Mary. I mean, Martha did. Mary and
Martha. They were so grieved. Martha's like, if you had just
come. Jesus says, and we'll get to this today, I am the resurrection.
and I am the life. This healing of the paralytic
in John 5, the pool of Bethesda. Jesus heals this man. This man
has been paralyzed his whole life, 38 years. You know the
story, and you see the marginal notes in a lot of the texts throughout
antiquity. See the marginal notes? Because
it was a myth. It was something that people believed. The reason
so many invalids laid at that pool is because they believed
that when the water stirred, you know, with a bird turd, Oh,
there's a ripple in the water. It's an angel touching down.
And if we, the first one in the water is healed, it was their
mythology. This man had been laying there
every day. Somehow, either his family or some person, whatever,
just took him, like, I'm sick of this guy. I'm just going to
take him down here. I'm going to let him sit by this pool.
He thinks he's going to be healed. And so Jesus asking this absurd
question, why are you here? This wasn't beach resort. This
was people wanting to be healed. And there were hundreds of people,
hundreds of people. And Jesus walks up to them and
says, hey, do you want to be healed? Duh, I'm here, right? It's not that
Jesus needed to know. We needed it written down. We
needed to understand what was taking place here. We needed
to see. Jesus is revealing himself. This man's identity was he was
a cripple. He was an invalid. He was unable
to walk. He was unable to move. He was unable to take care of
himself. He was unable to dress himself. That's who he was. That was his authentic self. Because of whose he was, something
changed. Now the miracle would have gone
something like this had the world written it. Jesus would have
helped him into the water and he would have been healed and
everybody would have been excited because Jesus would have been a hero to help
this man get into the water so that this would be true for him.
Yay, Jesus, you're such a wonderful guy. You helped the old lady
across the street. You helped the invalid into the
pool. But no, Jesus doesn't do any of that. Jesus looks at him
and he commands him with all authority. You've been laying
here all your whole life? To get into the water, he says,
nobody helps me get into the water. I command you to stand up and
pick up that mat you've been wallowing on and laying on your
entire life and get out of here. And the dude stood up, picked
up his mat and got out of there. That's what he did. Oh, his identity changed. He
goes to the chief priests and the Pharisees, he says, ta-da! But he forgot to leave his mat.
He forgot to leave his beach towel. And he had it with him,
and it was against the law to do laundry on the Sabbath. It
was against the law to fold your underpants on the Sabbath. It
was against the law to take a trip on the Sabbath. It was against
the law to do anything that didn't look like sitting and doing nothing
on the Sabbath unless you found a way around it, like tying strings
or other unique creative ways of getting around it. And here's
this guy whose identity is the 38-year-old man who's never walked,
and he goes, hey, look at me! And under his arm is his beach
towel, and the only thing that these religious zealots can do
is go, who told you to pick up your towel? In their eyes, this man's authentic
identity was the man who picks up towel on Sabbath. And the guy goes, I don't know,
but he told me to get up and I got up. I had no choice. I just did it. I don't know what
happened. I didn't argue with him. I didn't
try to wiggle my legs to see. I just stood up. I've never stood
up in my entire life. And I just stood up and I walked
right in. You're going to sit here and you're going to fuss
about a towel? Whose are you? This man belonged to Christ. It doesn't matter what people
say you are. It doesn't matter what people say you believe or don't believe.
It doesn't matter all the things in this world that everybody
else has prescribed for you. The feeding of the 5,000. What
shall we do? Jesus looks out on these people
and he has compassion. This is John chapter six. And
John six is rich and thick. There's a lot there. feeding
the 5,000. And Jesus looks and He has compassion
on them. Why does He have compassion?
Because that's what Jesus, that's who He is. And He goes, man, they're hungry.
They need some food. They've been following us around
for days and they're here for this festival and, goodness,
look at the bondage. You see, look at the bondage,
look at the shackles, look at the ropes, look at these people
who are walking away from their homes for days on end to travel
over here so they can fulfill this religious requirement that's
supposed to point to me and here I am and they're following me
around and they're starving to death. I'm gonna show them how
I feed. Y'all got some food? And in an
attempt to be sort of like a smart aleck in my opinion, Hey, we
got a little boy's sack lunch. Here you go. What are you going
to do with this? Here it is. That's fine. That's plenty. I
got it. Get ready, because we got a lot
of serving to do. Could you imagine 5,000 people
eating? And when it was done, they took
up 12 baskets of leftovers. And then the very next day, All
the people are standing on the beach waiting for Jesus, and
He vanishes, right? And a storm comes and blows some
boats around, and the disciples get into the boats to go to Capernaum
because Jesus is gone. Can't find Him. All these people
say, the disciples are leaving, let's follow them. And they get
across the way, and what happens? The disciples are halfway through.
They're halfway through. They don't know where Jesus is.
They don't know how to get to him. And a storm comes up and
some things happen and all sorts of stuff. And they look out there
and there's this guy standing in the middle of the sea. Two and a half, three miles out,
in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the water, here's
Jesus standing out there, and he steps into the boat, and the
boat teleports to dry land, and there they are. And then some
hours later, all the rest of these knuckleheads get to where
they're going, and they're looking after Jesus. Says, Jesus, where
did you go? We was looking for you. And he
turns to them and he says these words, and hear these words.
He says, you seek after me only because you want your stomachs
full. Don't labor for the bread that perishes, but labor for
the bread that endures to eternal life. I am. See, there's one. That bread. I mean, how many of the disciples
told the story, man, we was in the ocean and I mean, there were
fishermen, they had hundreds of stories about storms and surviving
things. I find it extremely odd and a
little macabre that in a comedic interest, I have a lot of terrifying
events in my life that I've made funny when I tell the story.
I don't think it's because I grew up in a household law enforcement.
And sometimes I guess you just have to make things funny because
they're not. Imagine the stories. Oh yeah,
you're a fisherman. Tell me about a time you almost
died. Oh man, it was horrible. You should see. And Bartholomew was juggling
fire, and the boat caught fire. I mean, can you see it? And we
almost burned to death. Ain't that something? No, it's
not something. But their identity was changed.
Their authentic selves were not, we almost perished in a storm. We didn't know where this man
was. The God of the cosmos took our boat to shore. The God of
the cosmos calmed the storm. The God of the cosmos took it
all. But he didn't take them out of
it. They still had to go through the storm. They still had to
experience the storm. Beloved, who's with us? That's five, by
the way. Healing of the man born blind. And the disciples don't like
this one, right? They see him there. He's been there a lot,
blind. They didn't have disability coverage
back in that day. This man has to panhandle and
ask for mercy so he can eat. And a lot of times it's compassion
that people help others like that, but you can only do so
much out of compassion. But most of the time I believe it's tolerance. Oh, this is so exhausting. Give
the man something to eat so he won't ask me again today. You
know, that kind of thing. And so that was the temperament
of the day and these people came and passed him all the time and
the disciples were with Jesus and they saw this man and he
goes, the disciples asked, who sinned in this man's life? What
wicked sin caused this man to be born blind? Was it his sin?
Now get the implications of that silly question. Was it his sin or was it his
parents? You know, that sinful zygote
of, I mean, he calls his mom some acid reflux. He kicked her
a little bit too many times in the kidneys. That full bladder
made her scream. Jesus is like, yeah, little sinner,
I'm going to make you blind. I mean, you see how absurd that
question is? But that's the point. Beloved, nothing's changed. That's
the sentiment of the sovereign grace community that we're a
part of. That's the sentiment of the evangelical
church that we've lifted as a part. That's the sentiment of Protestantism.
That's the sentiment of American Christian culture, by and large. Oh, the reason you're suffering,
the reason you're doing this, the reason you're going through
that, and we find our identity in our suffering. Instead of knowing what Jesus
says, he said, that man was born blind so that I could be glorified
in it. What's that mean? Explaining
glory. Look at glory in a simple way.
The glory of God is seeing God for who he really is in full. It's like when you're born, there's
your glory. You're naked and you're unashamed
and you see everybody sees you and they see you as you are.
No pretense, no character flaws, no acting, no building, no masks. God's glory is to see him as
he is. And the Bible says we have seen
him, verse 14 of chapter 1 of John. And the word became flesh
and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory. We have seen him for who he is.
We've seen God in all his fullness, that which Moses could not even
look at. The fullness of all that he is
as the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. For
from His fullness, from His glory, from all that He is, from everything
that He's exposed Himself to be, we have received grace upon
grace. And this man had never seen anything
in John 9, had he? And he'd only heard everything
that was that everybody said about him, despised. He heard
what these men said. And he sat there in his blindness
and he thought to himself, what did I do wrong? What did my mom
and dad do? Jesus heals him of his blindness
and says, tell no one. And the man does exactly the
opposite. And he tells everyone and he goes into the temple,
the very the very refuge of his people, the place where God meets
man in the mercy seat of the holy of holies and the people
who orchestrate and who govern and who oversee the intimacy
of God and his people as arbiters of truth, as compassion, and
as proclaimers of the good report of restoration and reconciliation. And here's this man who has been
reconciled in his physical body and he says, this man told me
to do and I did and I can see. And they think he's a liar. So they call his parents. He's been faking for 38 years,
hasn't he? He's just as sharp. He's on the side of the road
with his cardboard sign getting in his Lambo at the end of the
day. I know. I see it. Aha, gotcha. No, don't gotcha. His parents said he's old enough
to speak for himself. We're not getting in the middle
of this. Who is this man? His entire identity changed. He's no longer the blind guy
begging for food. He's the liar. They threw him out of the temple.
That means they banned him from Jewish life. You can buy or sell
or trade or worship, but he belonged to Christ. In John 11, we have this wonderful
story. of this man whom Jesus loved.
I want to really emphasize this. John 11, now there was a man,
Lazarus, of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
And it was Mary who anointed the Lord with oil and wiped his
feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters,
Mary and Martha, sent to Jesus, saying, "'Lord, whom you love
is ill,' but when Jesus heard it, He said, "'This illness does
not lead to death. "'It is for the glory of God,
"'so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.'" Now,
Jesus loved Martha. Listen to this instruction. Loved
Martha and loved Mary and loved Lazarus. It's already been said,
but it's reminding, the gospel writer here, the evangelist John,
is reminding us he loved them. And the very next word should
be in your Bible, so. Why? Because Jesus' love for
these three people informed his decision about what's about to
be said. So when he heard that Lazarus
was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. If it says but, it doesn't make
sense, right? It's okay, it's a little tiny
thing. Even with but, you still see the context. The context
actually proves it. But the word so is so much more powerful.
It's actually so much more authentic because it's so much more written
in the context of the manuscripts. But people were like, if Jesus
loved it, he surely had a reason that he didn't go. I can't be
the reason that he didn't go. The Bible actually teaches us
the reason that he didn't go. Why? Because Lazarus had to die. Lazarus and Martha Mary, their
whole identity was who they were, where they were from, their wealth. They were very wealthy. I mean, imagine a year's salary
being poured out on somebody else's head and feet into the
floor. People are always like, Judas
is so greedy. No, he's pragmatic also. Hey, don't pour the diamonds
in the toilet. I mean, so he stayed two days longer
in the place where he was. And then after two days, he said
to the disciples, okay, let's go to Judea. There's a lot there. And he goes and he says plainly
to the disciples, Lazarus is dead, okay? And for your sake, I'm glad that
I was not there. See, that goes ahead and reinforces what I've
just said, right? I'm glad that I was not there for your sake,
but let's go to him. Because they had a little argument
there with Jesus in John 11 that, oh, no, no, no, no, we can't
go back to Judea. They're after you, man. They've got posses
after you. They've got detectives after you. They've got bounty
hunters after you. They're going to get you, Jesus. And so when
Jesus says, listen, we're going. This is what it's about. This
is the point. Thomas goes, fine, then let's
just all go die together. Mr. Pessimist. Mr. Realist, honestly. Peter's like, let's kill them
all, you know, two swords. That's all they had, two swords
and 12 men. We can take on the entire Sanhedrin's
army and all the temple priests and the guards and Caesar's guards
and the sticks and stones and all the people with rocks. You
know, Stephen will prove that you can't beat the masses. So Thomas is a realist. He's
like, okay, I got this. This is it, y'all. These four
years, it's been real. See you in heaven. I'm out. Let's
go die, Jesus. The irony. So Jesus goes and
he tells the story and he says, here, Lazarus, come out. Four days dead. Bunch of people
there, paid mourners. When they found out Jesus was
in town, all the Pharisees show up, the priests, the lawyers,
The debaters, the rock bearers, they're all there, they're waiting.
But what are they going to do? Come out! And Lazarus comes out
bound. And if I could find a way to
make this work, I'd love to tattoo this idea on my body, and that
is unbind him and let him go. The man came out. His hands and
feet were bound, verse 44. His face wrapped with the burial
cloth. And Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go. And a majority of the people
that saw that knew. Just all of a sudden. They had no theological
reference. They had no learning. They had
no systemized theology. They had no preaching in their
face. They had nothing but to behold
the glory of God the Son as this dead man came out unscathed by
decay. And Jesus said, let him go. He's
free. This used to choke me down and
now it riles me up. And then Caiaphas and the rest
of those highly religious, extremely important people with all the
right answers said as they met, we got to kill Jesus and the
man he brought back from the dead. It shows you how ridiculous
they are. If this man can bring him back,
what will killing him do?" But it was the will of the Lord
to crush him. Jesus taught those seven miracles. Show us our identity. Show us
the power of Christ. And the teachings, and I don't
have time to go through all of them in depth, but listen to these
teachings. These teachings that we see, Nicodemus, John 3, we're
in it a lot. I mean, Trey and I refer to either
Romans 3 or John 3 or somewhere in between about every other
week. And Jesus talks about being born
again. I am born of my mother. I am son of my parents, yada,
yada, yada, that's who I am. You know, pastor, philosopher, professor, whatever
you want to call it, all these different things that we do and
we accomplish. Yes, they're important. Some
of these things are important. My role as a husband, as a father,
as a pastor are important to me. But they're not necessarily who
I am. Who I am informs these roles. So you see how if we get it mixed
up, we do it wrong? And if we're listening to the
people walking by in our blindness and pretending we're not blind
or wishing that something was different rather than embracing
and embodying that which we are for the sake of God's glory. We're not understanding and Jesus
tells Nicodemus this reality in a bold way when Nicodemus,
the smartest man alive at the time theologically, Jesus gives
him the moniker, the teacher of all Israel. Are you not the
teacher of all Israel yet you do not understand these things?
When he's telling Jesus that which points to Jesus. I love it when experts are talking
and Typically men are like, well, yeah, but let me stop you right
there. You know, they always have a
thought. And they're interrupting the expert. And that's sort of
what Nicodemus was doing, you know. It's because that's the
nature of humanity, right? Well, I've studied now, and I'm
older than you, Jesus. Are you? And Jesus says, you must be born
again. You must be born of the Spirit. And it blew his mind. Why? Because there's no philosophy,
there's no psychology, there's no theology, there's no sociology,
there's nothing. There's not even any math. I looked at Trey just to make
sure. There's not even any math that can talk to that. You gotta
be born by the Spirit. Huh? Your identity is not found in
your birth, it's understood in your rebirth. Same thing with the woman in
the well, the second intercourse of seven. in the Gospel of John. Jesus, and that's what's different
than Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Jesus is dealing with the Pharisees
and the Sadducees and all this public speaking stuff, and John
gives us seven intimate conversations, the first one being with Nicodemus,
the second one being with the woman at the well of Sychar,
John 4, which is my evangelistic stick. It's where I go when I'm
sharing the Gospel with most people. Jesus speaks to the Samaritan
woman at a well about the concept of living water. the sustenance
of life. And Jesus knows who she is. He
knows her. He created her. He knew her before
she was, and she didn't know who she was. And her identity
had been intermingled with all of her mistakes and with her
desperation of feeling loved and attached. And she had become
so dependent upon affection that she was an outcast from
her religious society. She was an outcast as an outcast
from the Jewish society, so much so that she walked way out of
town to an old well that Jacob had given the people that nobody
even used anymore because she was embarrassed. She didn't want
people to see her. She was tired of feeling, just
like the blind man, hearing. She knew in the deep parts of
her soul that there were people who looked at her and saw her
through eyes of disdain and contempt, and she was tolerated. There's
nothing worse in life than to be tolerated. It is not love.
And people tolerated her and Jesus loved her. And Jesus broke
the rules and Jesus broke the law. And Jesus violated his own
people's traditions that would have kept him as an authorized,
valid teacher. He became unqualified in the
eyes of the religious elites when he spoke to a woman like
this. and offered her a drink from his own cup. He knew her, and he pokes the
bear inside of her. Because she tries to debate,
to find an identity. She is religious. She is okay. She does have a foundation. She
is grounded. It's okay. She's trying to posture
herself in this. And that's not the point. That's
not who she is. She doesn't have to, you don't
have to be that. And he says something to her
that strikes a nerve. I know that you have no husband.
You've had five and the man you're with is not." And that brought
shame on her and her conscience, but it wasn't Jesus' intention,
see? But that's what happens in the religious world. That's
what happens when our identity is tied to what other people
think we should be. And then she begins to tell all
sorts of things. And in the end, she sits and
she looks and she says to this man, and I don't know what I'm
gonna do. I don't know how to fix this.
I don't know how to find out who I really am or how I'm gonna
escape this identity that I have, but I know this. She resolves.
She says, I know this, that when Christ comes, He'll teach me. Isn't that great? And he says,
woman, the one to whom you speak, I am. And she leaves everything and she
does exactly what she was scared to do. She runs into Capernaum.
I mean, she runs into Sychar and exposes herself. She reveals
her glory. Hey, everybody, look at me, whereas
an hour before she was hiding from everybody for years. I met
a man who's told me everything that I've ever done. He's told
me who I really am. He might be the Christ. Come
see." And this is the day after Jesus is thrown out of the temple
for cleansing the temple, by the way. He talked about the bread of
life. Jesus talks about being the good
shepherd. Jesus talks about being the way
and the truth and the life. He talks about being the vine
and the branches. He promises in John 16 the Holy Spirit, the
paraclete, the one who comes alongside as a helper. Where
are we in all of this? We're the thirsty. We're the
oppressed. We're the tolerated. We're the
blind. We're the intelligent. We're
the theologian. We're the wandering sheep. We're trying to figure out on
our own. We're the ones who are alone. We are the ones not knowing
where we are going. Christ is the way. Christ is
the good shepherd who takes us to green pastures. Christ is
the living water. He is the bread of life. Christ
is the one who sends the Holy Spirit. Christ is the birther
of new things. That's whose we are. That's whose
we are. I am the bread of life, John
6. When we're hungry and we're looking,
not just in the physical sense, but in the emotional sense, in
the mental sense, in the spiritual sense, we always have a way of
finding out how we can fill ourselves. But Christ says He is the bread
of life. And if we don't find that as the core of our identity
in our hunger, then everything that we ingest is going to come
and to stand wanting. It will not measure. When we
are blind and unable to see and we don't know where we're going
and we're looking for that beacon, if we don't understand that our
identity is in what Jesus says, I am the light of the world. then we will look at other sources
of direction. We will find other ways, but
if we know whose we really are, and that Christ is our light,
when we see other things, we will filter them through that.
Not through culture, not through evangelicalism, not through the
church, but through Christ. And together, if we are unified
in this cause, and unified in this understanding, and unified
in our authenticity, we will walk. We will not quit. You'll find no way out, but Jesus
says He's the door. I am the good shepherd. I am
the resurrection and the life. I am the way. I am the true vine. I have this little metaphor that
I've created in a poem some months ago about being in the soil. And it's interesting as I unpack
that every single day, as I think about it just a little bit more.
And if I'm not careful, I can put myself at the center of that.
And I can be the nourishment and I can be the light and I
can be the water and I can be everything to produce the crop
that's coming out. And then what happens is in an
attempt to find myself, I will see myself as everything I've
accomplished and I will miss the point of who I really am.
But if Christ. Has planted me. Isn't that the
imagery that says, unless a seed dies, it cannot live unless something
is planted in the ground? So I am in the dirt. We are in
the dirt and Christ is growing us. And with that growth comes weeds
and harvest. We talked about that some last
week. And these I Am statements, along
with everything else that's taught in this gospel, they present
a distinct metaphor revealing different facets of Jesus' true
identity. of His true purpose, highlighting His role as Christ,
as King, as Lord, as Priest, as Provider, as the source of
life who connects His people in their
humanity with God the Father who is righteous. Jesus talks to a lot of people.
I don't have time to go through all of it. He talks to Peter,
Thomas, Mary, Magdalene. He talks to Pilate. He says a
lot of profound things. He talks to Mary and Martha and
Lazarus, the man born blind, the adulterous woman, John 8,
Samaritan woman that we just talked about in John 4, Nicodemus
in John 3. The first person he talks to
in John's Gospel is Nathanael. And he tells Nathanael, go to
John chapter 1 starting in verse 47, it's a long chapter. Verse 43, next day Jesus decided
to go to Galilee and he found Philip and he said to Philip,
follow me. He commands him, follow me. Now Philip was from Bethsaida,
the city of Andrew and Peter. And Philip found Nathanael. And
Philip said to Nathanael, we found him of whom Moses and the
law and the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
And Nathanael said to him, can anything good come from Nazareth? You see the sentiment, right? Nothing's changed. And these
are religious zealots, kind people. Nathaniel's not listed as some
mean dork or bully. He's just a product of his culture. And in that sentiment, he is
fulfilling the expectation of his religious center. That's not about today. Just
hold that for future. And Jesus saw Nathaniel coming
toward him. Anyway, he says, what good can come out of Nazareth?
And Philip said, why don't you come and look? I'll show you what good
comes out of Nazareth. Okay, so Jesus saw Nathanael
coming toward him and said, I love this. Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit, no
guile. You're the authentic thing, buddy.
I know you and your reputation and your identity and your authenticity
shines before you. You know nothing good comes from
Nazareth. That's a really profound thing. And Nathaniel, in his
humility, goes, oh, so you've heard of me. Now, see, hey man, this guy knows
who I am. Yeah, nice to make you acquainted,
sir. Isn't that how we are? Jesus talks to him. How do you
know me? How do you know who I am? How
do you know that about me? Jesus answers him. Before Philip called
you, when you were under that fig
tree, I saw you. See, today we call
the police. Yeah, before you got here about
an hour ago when you were sitting on your porch, I saw you. What? Have you tapped into my
security system? Have you done something on my phone? What are
you doing? No, Jesus saw nothing. Nobody knew where Nathanael was
before Philip got there, except God. And there's more than that
than just saying, because Jesus just said who he was. Jesus just
identified Nathanael deeply in the soul, in the essence of his
being. Not his name and his father's name and the town he was from
or the tree he was sitting under. He saw him. How do you know this
about me? Because I see you. That's intimacy. And when we
see each other that way, that's intimacy. And some relationships
are to be more intimate. But it's about being seen. It's
about being known. It's about being heard. This is the authentic
identity we have in Christ. He sees us. The call of Christ,
the shepherding of Christ, the life of Christ, the light of
Christ, the bread of Christ, the water of Christ is not this
arbitrary blanket of possibilities. It's a very myopic, intrinsic,
intimate, small, narrow, focused, powerful affection that Christ
gives to us. And Nathanael calls him teacher. Rabbi, what does he say? You are the Son of God. You are
the King of Israel. See, and him was no deceit. Nathaniel would have no idea
who his true identity was in that statement for about four
years. Jesus also talked to the religious
leaders. He talked to them in John chapter
5. You notice when Philip went and found out, he says, the one
of whom Moses speaks? But the religious leaders in
John 5 was looking for the one to whom Moses spoke, about whom
Moses spoke. And they were like, we are Moses'
people. We are Abraham's people, and
Jesus says, if you were God's children, you would know me. You would see me, but you haven't
been born again, see, so you can't see me. You would know
me because Moses wrote of me. A little parting shot there. Jesus wrote, talked to Pilate. He says, you know who you're
talking to? I hold your life, man. Pilate says, I hold your life
in my hands. You better watch what you say. And Jesus says,
the only reason I'm standing here now is because the Father
has put me here. And if you take my life, it's
because I've given it to lay it down. And when I lay it down,
I'm going to bring it back again. Now see, my personality would
have killed him on the spot. Oh, really? I mean, you know. Pilate's like, I've got to wash
my hands, whatever the people want. What do you want? This murderer, this
rebellious person who was trying to damage y'all's relationship
with Rome to the point where we were going to kill all of
you? We want this guy released and we want this man dead. The substitution of Christ. This is freedom, beloved. Jesus
is freedom. He teaches it. He embraces it.
An authentic life is a free life. The miracles of Jesus display
the power of liberation, of freedom, from not just the physical, but
more importantly, the spiritual bondage. The old to new. The healing. The blind to sight. From death
to life. The I Am statements of Jesus
illustrate the same thing. These things that give us life,
that give us direction, that give us hope, that give us sustenance,
that keep us going. Jesus Christ is the one who liberates
from darkness and blindness and ignorance. As the door, He ensures
freedom for His people. And as the Good Shepherd, He
secures them from harm. Jesus' interactions with people
and the religious leaders, it's all about setting people free. Be born again. Be born again. Stop the self-judgment. Samaritan
woman, I am your freedom. Be free of guilt and shame. Be free of self-judgment. It's not about law. It's about
authenticity. It's about grace. It's about
God doing this work. The miracles validate His authentic
self. The I AM statements validate
Christ's authentic identity. And everything that He says and
teaches shows us whose we are. So, beloved, Who are you? Every day is a journey into that
discovery. Stop settling and start living. And let's walk together in that
journey. Let's pray. It is great, Father, to just
be reminded of all these things. And you know me. You know me. And there's so much that I I
just love to just dance around up here and and enjoy the gospel. The gospel letter of John. For through the pages of that
in my childhood, you brought me to know you. To understand
whose I am. And through those pages, you
called me to share it with others. So Lord, help me to live authentically. Help me to teach others to do
the same and to understand that if we are not free, we are not
truly living. And while we know that we will
not escape the bondages of this world and the sickness and the
turmoil and the frustration and the emotional things, we've not
escaped it completely, Father. Even though in the midst of these
things, Lord, we are still free. We are still free, we are still
free to live freely. So Lord, we need each other to
grow, to mature, to expand our understanding of these things
that we might celebrate. And we might celebrate together
the freedom we have in Christ. So Lord, give us a gentle spirit. because of your mercy and love
and grace toward us in Christ. Give us a gentle spirit to each
other. Help us to actively pursue intimacy. Not in the way the
world has taught us or the church has taught us or the culture
has taught us or history, but in the way the gospel reveals
to us newly every single day. Lord, that is my prayer for us.
Please, if it be your will to give us that now. Starting now. And as we take the table to be
reminded of the body and the blood of Christ, we thank you
and we worship you and we love you because you have first loved
us. In Christ we pray these things. Amen. Come take the table.