Chapter # 4 Paragraph # 1 Study # 1
February 11, 2024
Broadlands, Louisiana
(Download Audio)
Thesis: The central, most basic, "truth" that "Jews" (Nicodemus) and "disciples" (Witness-John's followers) and "Samaritans" (unnamed woman at Jacob's well) and "Gentiles" (Author-John's readership)
need to understand is that "what-is-in-man" (
John 2:25) reality for which "belief into Jesus" is designed: our pathetic disbelief in the words of God that causes us to "make life work" without the input of "The Living God".
Introduction: We have spent the last 18 months considering the testimony of Author-John as he wrote it down. According to his own words, the writing was "for us" so that we might "believe into Jesus" so that we might
experience the presence of "The Living God" in our daily lives (
John 20:31). In his first "letter" he said much the same thing: "we proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us ... so that you too may have fellowship with ... The Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ ... so that ...
joy may be made complete" (
1 John 1:2-4).
However, in spite of those considerations of the last 18 months, some, if not all, of us cannot claim to have a consistent experience of that joy of Life. There is a reason for that.
And, as innocuous as they appear on the surface, the three verses of transition between chapters three and four, contain "reminders" (like echoes in the hollowness of the caverns of our souls) of the one thing that prevents us from "living".
This morning we are going to look into these three "transition verses" to see why God's Spirit inspired their presence in John's Gospel.
- I. The Background For These Verses: John 2:23.
- A. This record reveals that even "faith into the name of Jesus" does not automatically bring us into a sufficiently close proximity to Jesus for us to experience the joy of Life.
- 1. The text declares that "many believed into His name"; a declaration of the fact of the "faith" that is supposed to bring us to "Life" (John 1:12).
- 2. The text, however, also declares that Jesus withheld Himself from entering into the depth of relationship with these "believers" that brings that joy of Life.
- 3. And, the text tells what the reason is for Jesus' reluctance to "entrust Himself" to these "believers": there was "something in them" that prevented them from possessing the "Lord of Life" at a level that would impart "joy" to them.
- B. Our question is this: to what does this "background" text refer?
- 1. What is it that prevents Jesus from "entrusting Himself" to us?
- 2. According to Author-John, the case is not hopeless (that which is "in" us can keep us from a vital relationship with Jesus, but it does not have to).
- II. The Main Features of Our "Innocuous" Text Of Three Verses.
- A. First, there is the deliberate action of Jesus provoking the "Pharisees".
- B. Second, there is the issue of the diminishing impact of the message of Witness-John in favor of the increasingly significant message of Jesus.
- C. Third, there is the curious statement about Jesus not baptizing those who were embracing His "progressive movement from Witness-John's message to the superior message of Jesus".
- D. Fourth, there is the claim that Jesus forsook "The Jews" in favor of "The Galileans".
- III. The Unifying Thread That Runs Through These Three Verses.
- A. This thread begins with Jesus deliberately taunting "the Self-Righteous" Pharisees.
- 1. The text says that Jesus' purpose for coming to Judea was to force those Pharisees to recognize that His message was becoming "acceptable" to many people -- exceeding Witness-John's "acceptability" by the populace.
- 2. This was Jesus, in a sense, telling the "Pharisees" what He told Nicodemus: you guys have a theology that has not let you even begin a joy-producing relationship with the God you claim to worship, and you will not see or enter God's kingdom unless that changes.
- 3. These "Pharisees" were so busy trying to prove their own success in the pursuit of righteousness that they couldn't even stop and ask themselves: if our theology of Self-Righteousness is "Truth" why are we so filled with the emptiness that the absence of "joy" produces?
- B. This thread continues with the declaration that Jesus baptized no man, though His disciples did.
- 1. What's going on here?
- 2. The reality of which Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:14 is this: those who are into "self-promotion" will even use the reputation of the one who baptized them to bolster their sense of superiority over others.
- 3. Jesus refused to baptize because He knew that if a person was "baptized by Jesus" it would not foster humility but, rather, pride.
- C. This thread concludes with the statement that Jesus departed from "The Jews" to go to "The Galileans" even though the majority of the next chapter is all about Jesus "needing" to go through Samaria.
- 1. Jesus' departure was a deliberate snub.
- 2. The "snub" was that He was going to do His "most convincing signs" in Galilee where the stink of self-righteousness was not nearly as potent as it was in Judea.
- 3. And, to make it worse, Jesus went to the Samaritans before going on to Galilee.
- D. The "constant" in this "thread": man's incorrigible habit of denying God's evaluation of him in his desperate need and compensating for his loss by trying to get "men" to give him a better evaluation than does God.
- 1. James is blunt in James 4:6 where he wrote: God resists the proud; His grace is reserved for those who recognize their need for it.
- 2. Peter is just as blunt in 1 Peter 5:5 (with the same words as James used) where he insists that those who "believe into Jesus" "clothe themselves with humility" so that they might enter into the Grace-based "joy" of life.
