Video Teaching
Verse-by-Verse Commentary
Full Transcript

Video Teaching

Verse-by-Verse Commentary

4 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 

1. Note that the Bible explicitly clarifies that Jesus was not baptizing people.  Even though it was a part of his ministry, he didn’t personally do the baptizing.  He only oversaw the process.
2. Why didn’t Jesus baptize?
   1. Some suggest that Jesus was more concerned with inspiring faith over baptizing each individual person, so he left the follow-up to the disciples.
   2. Some suggest Jesus prioritized inspiring faith over personally baptizing, leaving the act to disciples, though there’s not textual support for this.
   3. A stronger reason for Jesus’s reluctance to personally baptism is that He is the one who is supposed to baptize with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5).  Since the Holy Spirit had not yet been given by Jesus, the fullness of Christ’s baptism was not available.  This was more akin to John’s baptism for repentance, which only involved water.
3. “The reason why He baptized not Himself, had been already declared by John, He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. (Luke 3:16) Now He had not yet given the Holy Spirit: it was therefore fitting that He should not baptize.” -John Chrysostom, Hom. xxxi. 1

3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

1. Jesus’s rising fame created tension with the Pharisees.  Rather than allowing his ministry to the “anti-Pharisee” ministry, Jesus moved on to continue focusing on the truth that he needed to share, rather than just arguing in an increasingly hostile environment.   HE wasn’t afraid of the Pharisees.  He would engage with them again later, but he refused to allow himself to be reduced to their opposition.
2. “He was showing an example to them who were to believe in Him (that any one servant of God sins not if he retire into another place, when he sees, it may be, the rage of his persecutors, or of them that seek to bring his soul into evil; but if a servant of God did this he might appear to commit sin, had not the Lord led the way in doing it), that good Master did this to teach us, not because He feared it.” -Augustine of Hippo, Tractate 15 on John

4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 

1. Jesus traveled from Judea to Galilee and “had to” go through Samaria. While the route made geographical sense (Samaria lies near Israel’s borders; Galilee is an outlying enclave), most Jews would have found a way around it.  There was severe tension between the Jews and the Samaritans.
2. Sources of Tension between Israelites and Samaritans
   1. Similarity can create friction; groups that live in the same area with competing claims and identities often clash more easily than groups that are obviously different.
   2. Competing Religious Claims:
      1. Both the Jews and the Samaritans claimed to be true worshipers of God and the true Israel, considering the other’s claim illegitimate.
      2. The Samaritans only accepted the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) as Scripture, denying later prophetic books, which increased conflict with the Jews who affirmed other books as divinely inspired.
   3. Competing Identity Claims
      1. Samaritans said they were the true Israelites because they stayed in the land during the Assyrian exile.  Others were forced to leave because of the Assyrian policies, but the Samaritans found a way to stay and shepherd the area.
      2. The Israelites that returned after the exile saw the Samaritans as people who had compromised themselves by intermarrying and adopting Assyrian culture to appeal to the dominant culture, losing their real identity while others suffered exile for their faith. 

5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

1. “Jacob’s well was there,”
   1. Jacob’s well is not particularly famous.  There is nothing mentioned in Scripture about it.  Its importance comes from its owner, not any event that happened at it.  
   2. A modern equivalent might be something like “George Washington’s cornfield.”  Assuming such a place exists somewhere, nothing noteworthy happened there, but it’s notable because of the owner.
   3. “And what more proper place than Jacob’s well, for exposing the unlawful husband, i. e. the perverse law? For the Samaritan woman is meant to figure to us a soul, that has subjected itself to a hind of law of its own, not the divine law. And our Saviour wishes to marry her to a lawful husband, i. e. Himself; the Word of truth which was to rise from the dead, and never again to die.” -Origen, tom. xiii. c. 8
2. “It was about noon.”
   1. In first century Israel, women typically drew water in the morning to avoid heat and to catch up with one another at the well.
   2. The Samaritan woman arriving at noon likely indicates that she’s avoiding others.  As Jesus unfolds her story in the coming verses, it becomes increasingly obvious that she may be a social outcast and subject of gossip.

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9 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.[a])

10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

1. “Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”
   1. Jesus spoke directly to her, which broke social norms on several levels.  Firstly, Jews didn’t associate with Samaritans.  Secondly, men didn’t tend to speak to women alone without a husband, father or brother present to witness the propriety of the interaction.
   2. He asks her for a drink—a deliberate request for a favor.  Sociologists say that this is a good way to build rapport in a new environment.  By asking for help, you show that you see value in the other person and are vulnerable, which prevents you from appearing as some sort of social threat.
2. “living water”
   1. Jesus offers “living water,” a phrase carrying dual meanings in Greek: flowing, fresh water (spring/river) and spiritually vivifying water pointing to eternal life.
   2. English translations prefer “living water” to preserve the spiritual resonance; the woman initially interprets it as literal fresh water, focusing on convenience (not having to return to draw water).

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

17 “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

1. Transition from physical thirst to spiritual thirst
   1. Jesus contrasts water that only provides for earthly needs (“whoever drinks this water will be thirsty again”) with the spiritual benefit of the water he gives, which becomes “a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
   2. He reveals awareness of her personal life: she has had five husbands and lives with a man who is not her husband. She’s been seeking fulfillment in relationships with men.  Not only has it not gone well, but it hasn’t quenched the thirst for meaning in her life.
   3. In the Jesus revolution of the 1970s, many young people that had sought their fulfillment in drugs or hippie counterculture found lasting fulfillment in Jesus.

19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

1. 1. “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain…”
      1. The woman shifts the whole conversation towards “religious” questions, shifting the tone from an honest conversation about her life to theoretical doctrinal debates.
      2. “From the truth which was becoming inconveniently personal she flew to that natural resort of the carnal mind, namely, to religions discourse upon points of outward observance”. -Spurgeon, Verse Expositions of the Bible

• “true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth”

1. 1. Jesus reframes the issue away from ethnicity, tradition, and location: “A time is coming…when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.”
   2. He isn’t vague on doctrine.  He acknowledges “salvation is from the Jews” but moves towards that bigger picture that he’s inviting her to participate in where people “worship the Father in spirit and in truth,” because “God is spirit.”
   3. Ethnic lineage and traditional sites are not the path to God; the Holy Spirit’s indwelling and truth-seeking are essential. He invites her to abandon religious formalism and be honest about what she really needs.  He knows her thirst and how she longs for God in her life.

25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

1. Conversion doesn’t come from superior religious theory being explained well or being so nice for so long that someone just goes with it.  Conversion comes from a person encountering Jesus and knowing his power and his person directly.
2. This encounter gives us some key principles for evangelism.
   1. Talk to someone, even if it’s uncomfortable or seemingly strange.
   2. Build and honest rapport by letting yourself be vulnerable and seeing their gifts.
   3. Connect things that people know to what they don’t know yet.
   4. Lovingly help people see what they’re looking for can be found in Jesus.
   5. Avoid getting trapped in debates over little things.  Emphasize the big picture of what God is doing.
   6. Introduce people to Jesus personally.  His power is sufficient.

Full Transcript

We pick up in the Gospel of John at chapter four. You’ll remember last week, Jesus’ number of followers had eclipsed John the Baptist’s, and John had humbly okayed it. He said, “That’s a good thing. He’s the Messiah. I hope people go to him.” But he is not the only one wrestling with this. The Pharisees also noticed that Jesus has gained a considerable amount of fame, and Jesus had not endeared himself to the Pharisees.  You remember chapter two, what he did in the temple. Jesus and the Pharisees are not on good terms, and he has become more and more famous… and more and more of a target for Pharisee frustration. 

What does Jesus do? He leaves. Jesus did not allow his ministry to become the anti-Pharisee ministry. He’s not going to become the anti-Pharisee guy. That’s not his ministry. Yes, the Pharisees are wrong. Yes, he will disagree with them sometimes. But the wholeness of Jesus’ ministry is not just arguing against what is wrong. It is also saying what is right, what is true, what is good, what is beautiful. So rather than just dig in his heels and spend the rest of his time becoming the anti-Pharisee guy, he moves. He moves on. He’ll argue with them more later.

Also notice this really odd detail here: they heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. What an odd little detail to include. It has now explicitly said twice that Jesus was baptizing people, but here it goes out of its way to say he baptized them, but not directly. He was not the one doing it himself. It was his disciples. He was kind of overseeing it. It was a part of his ministry, but he didn’t personally do the baptizing.  

I looked around to try to see why this detail was so important. I found a few kind of interesting takes. One was that some suggested Jesus did this because ultimately, yes, baptism is important—but having faith in Christ is the most important thing. So Jesus pursued inspiring faith in people and left the baptizing to his disciples. I thought that was interesting. Not necessarily correct. I don’t know that it’s really supported anywhere. Interesting. 

Another, I think a little more compelling, was the suggestion that why didn’t Jesus personally get involved? We saw back in John 1 that John the Baptist said Jesus is going to baptize people with the Holy Spirit. He’s going to introduce this new form of baptism. And we know that fullness of that hasn’t been unleashed on the world just yet, because Jesus says later in the Gospels that he is going to ascend into heaven so that the Holy Spirit can come. That’s when Christian baptism as we know it is really unleashed on the earth. So maybe Jesus not personally baptizing here is to show that the fullness of baptism is not here yet. The Holy Spirit will be unleashed, and he will baptize people with the Holy Spirit, but right now we still have just water baptism, the same kind of baptism that John practiced:the baptism for repentance. Eventually we will see the Holy Spirit get involved in that, and it’ll get crazy. But maybe this is just a hint: the fullness is not here yet.

Jesus leaves Judea and goes to Galilee, and in verse four it tells us that he had to go through Samaria.  Not surprising. If you look at a map, Samaria is practically inside the borders of Israel. Not completely, but it’s nestled up next to it on the northeast side, and Galilee is kind of this outlying enclave. So sometimes to get to the farthest portion of Israel, you have to cut through Samaria.

Most people avoid doing it. Samaria is not the kind of place you want to get caught in. There is a ton of tension between the Samaritans and the Israelites.  Some of it is just geography: two different people groups right up next to each other in a really inconvenient way. There’s always going to be tension as long as the geography is what it is.  But there are also other things that make it especially challenging. The Samaritans and the Jews had competing understandings of who they were and what the world was.

Sometimes when we’re next to people who are very different from us, it’s actually easier to have a conversation because we know we are not talking about the same things.  If, for example, the Samaritans were actually a group of Buddhists who had somehow come from China and settled in this area, it might actually be easier. Because they would know: you’re Buddhists, we’re Jewish. You’re from that place, we’re from this place. We may not agree on everything, but we know we’re different. At least we can agree on our disagreeing.  The Samaritans were much, much closer in terms of the way they thought about the world.

Both groups claimed to be worshippers of God and said the other was illegitimate. Both groups claimed to be the true Israel and said the other was illegitimate. For example, the Samaritans followed the God of the Old Testament very clearly, but they said Moses was the last prophet of God. They said there were only five books in the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Anything after that? Fake. Now that’s going to create tension with the Israelites, who say, “But there are a whole lot of prophets that came after that.” So both are competing for who are the true worshippers of God, who really understands who God is.

Not only that, but they also disagree on who they are. Both groups claim to be the true Israelites. The Samaritans say that in the Old Testament—you can read about it—the Assyrians come and destroy Israel and send all of the Jewish people into exile. The Samaritans claim that during that event, when everyone was scattered to different parts of the earth, they stayed. “We were here and they never moved us. So we are actually the true Israel who stayed here the whole time. If anyone’s legitimate, it’s us. You can’t trust the other people. They went all over the place! We are the ones who stayed.”

The rest of Israel responds, “You stayed because you were willing to work with the Assyrians. You intermarried with them. You took on their culture, you took on their way of life, and you want to call yourself Israelites? No. There is nothing Israelite about you anymore. You’re something else. We suffered because we stood true to what it means to be us. You gave it up. That’s why your life was easier.” A lot of division between these two groups. Very uncomfortable, very at odds.  But Jesus goes through Samaritan territory here.

Verse five: So he came to a plot of ground in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there.

The way it introduces Jacob’s well, you might almost think it’s this famous historical site—like, “Oh man, Jacob’s Well! Something important must have happened there.” Not really. This is the only mention of Jacob’s Well in the Bible, so is it famous? Kinda—but only because Jacob owned it. It’s less important in itself and more important because of who owned it.  Kind of like saying, “I went to George Washington’s cornfield.” Oh, that’s cool. Did something important happen there? No, not really, but George Washington owned it, and that’s something.  Same idea here. So don’t get caught up in the object itself. Think about the person it’s connected to: Jacob. Jesus is going to a place historically associated with one of the great patriarchs and someone God made multiple promises to.

Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.  His disciples go into town.  It’s a little ways off—not super far, but far enough. Jesus takes a breather by the well.  It tells us it’s about noon, and that detail is not random. In the Middle East in this era, getting water for the day would be a task done by the women of the household. And if you were someone who had to go get water from a well outside of town, what time of day do you think you would do that?

Middle of the day? You’re going to be roasting. It gets hot out there. I would go at the beginning of the day, just because it’s a hot region. The longer you wait, the more you’re going to get toasted by that sun. So normally people would go in the morning. That would be the norm, and that’s when everyone would be going to get water. You go because you get to see your friends, you get to chat on the way there. But this woman is not going then. She has chosen to go in the middle of the day. On one hand, maybe it’s just her preference That’s possible. Maybe she’s just a middle-of-the-day kind of person. But I think there’s a very distinct possibility here. She chooses to go at the hottest time of the day, when no one else is going? There’s a very real possibility, and I think it’s supported by what we see later, that this is a woman who has led a dramatic life. The kind of life that would naturally lead to gossip, to her being ostracized, to her probably being picked on by other people in the community. So why does she go at the hottest part of the day to get water? Probably to avoid people. Probably because she’s an outcast. I think that’s a reasonable take.

Verse seven: “When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, ‘Will you give me a drink?’”

What we’re about to see unfold is this incredible example of evangelizing. Jesus is about to tell her that he is the Messiah. And evangelizing can be a challenge, but we see so much here in how he chooses to do it. First off, he talks to her, which is worth noting. I think sometimes we try to evangelize without actually talking to people. We come up with these really clever, and much more comfortable, strategies. “I’ll just be really nice, and then maybe someday they’ll want to talk to me about Jesus unprompted.” Probably not. Or, “Maybe I’ll give them a little trinket, and the trinket will excite them, and they’ll suddenly start asking me about Jesus.” If you want to talk to someone about something, the best way to do it is to start talking to them. And that’s what Jesus does.

He talks to her, and he’s not just addressing anyone. He’s talking to a Samaritan woman at the well at noon. We talked about how she’s likely an outcast. She’s also someone who would naturally be uncomfortable for a Jewish person to talk to.  But not only that: she’s also a woman. In this region, in this era, for a man to talk to a woman without her spouse being present, that’s not the sort of thing you do. That’s odd.

Normally, if a man wants to talk to a woman, you make sure that either her husband or her father is around. Why? Because you want everyone to know there’s nothing strange going on. You’re not trying to hit on her. This is not a weird conversation. Everything is normal, and other people can witness that. There’s a witness to your innocent intentions.

So this is not the kind of conversation that would normally happen. But Jesus is having a conversation that really shouldn’t be happening at all, at least not by the polite standards of the day. If he were worried about what people thought of him, he wouldn’t be having this conversation. But he risks it.

He doesn’t just talk to someone he’s not supposed to talk to, he also asks her for a favor. According to sociologists, that’s one of the best ways to get people to like you if you don’t know them very well: you ask them for a favor. It’s kind of counterintuitive. I don’t know about you, but normally if I want to be on good terms with someone, I try to show that I’m the kind of person you’d want to be friends with. I’m impressive. I know things. I can do things. “I’m the kind of person you want to be friends with—look at how great I am!” That’s a common instinct. It’s not a good instinct. Again, according to sociologists, that’s more likely to make you appear threatening, because you’re trying to come off as a big deal. People think, “Whoa, I don’t know about that person. They’re trying to get something out of me.” Meanwhile, if you ask for a favor, you’re being vulnerable. You’re recognizing their value and saying, “Hey, I see that you can do something. You’re important. I want your help.” Recognizing their value and showing your own vulnerability goes a long way toward building a relationship they actually want to invest in. So—wise of Jesus. Very wise.

She responds, shocked that he would do this. She says, “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 answers her: “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” This is really playful. He takes it and flips it on its head. She says, “You’re asking me for a drink? That’s ridiculous.” And he’s like, “Yeah, now that I think about it, you should be asking me for a drink. You should be asking me for living water.”

“Living water” could also be translated “spring water.” In the Greek, those ideas overlap. It means moving water—water from a river, from a stream, not stagnant water. Obviously, that’s better than water that’s just been sitting there. I don’t know the last time you went shopping for bottled water, but “Old Desert Well” is not the name of any brand. It’s always “glacial spring,” “mountain river,” something that implies fresh, moving water.

So that’s the physical meaning, but most translators go with “living water” because there’s also a spiritual meaning—eternal life. It has this great double meaning in Greek. And you have to choose: do I emphasize the physical or the spiritual? They’ve chosen well. “Living water” makes it clear that Jesus is hinting at something deeper as the conversation unfolds. But in the moment, she probably just hears it as fresh water. “You should be asking me for better water.” That makes this sound even more ridiculous.

She responds, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock?”

He answers, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” So Jesus takes something she knows very well, physical thirst, and uses it to talk about something she doesn’t really want to talk about: spiritual thirst.

He starts talking about eternal life. “I know you’re physically thirsty, you’re here getting water, but I also know there’s another kind of thirst in your life. There’s a deeper thirst. A spiritual thirst. A longing for something more than the life you’re currently living.”

She shies away from that. She doesn’t seem very interested in the religious or theoretical side of the conversation. She responds without engaging the spiritual part at all: “Sir, give me this water so I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” She’s talking strictly about physical water. “Look, if you’ve got some kind of magic water, I’m in. But the deeper conversation? I’m not really interested.”

And Jesus responds: “Go, call your husband and come back.” Again, that would have been the social norm. At this point, the conversation has gone on long enough that for Jesus to say, “Go get your husband and come back,” would be polite. It would be mannerly. Go get your husband so everyone knows this conversation is legitimate. We’re not going to continue without it being clear that this is a normal, innocent interaction. But Jesus has a secondary motivation here.

She says, “I have no husband,” and he responds, “You’re right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is quite true.” You’re acting like you’re not interested in this spiritual thirst. You don’t think you have any need for this “religious theory” about eternal life. And he responds, “No, I’m not just talking about theory. I’m talking about your life. Look at the life you’re living! I can see you’re thirsty. I know you are looking for something, and you’re not finding it.”

Clearly, in her case, she’s seeking it in relationships, and she can’t find one that fulfills her. She’s been with five men. She’s living with a sixth. They’re not married. That’s probably not going to work out. You’re not doing things right. Anyone can look at your life and see: you are thirsty. But you’re looking in all the wrong places. You’re looking for more than what you’re finding. And that is so common for all of us.

I just saw Jesus Revolution this past week—I know, I’m late to the party. That came out a couple years ago at this point. But I watched it, and I think it’s another great example. You have this hippie generation, and they want more. They are thirsty for more, but they’re looking in all the wrong places. Looking in drugs, in free love, in parties, and it’s not filling them. The more they drink from those wells, the thirstier they become.

A pastor I really admire, David Guzik, describes this process of searching for what you’re really thirsty for and looking in the wrong places as drinking salt water. You see something that looks like it will quench your thirst, so you drink—but the more you drink, the thirstier you get. I think that’s a really good picture. Specifically, this woman has been looking in relationships. She seems to think, “If I just find the right man, then everything will come together.” But it always falls apart.

That’s incredibly common. People think, “If I just have the right relationship with the right person, then everything will come together. Then I’ll be happy.” But that’s an unfair expectation. No person can fulfill us. There is one, but Jesus is the only one. No other person can do that. They’re just people. They have good days and bad days. They’re boring sometimes. They’re rude sometimes. People are people. They can never fulfill you. But now Jesus has shown her that this thirst—it’s not a theory. This is her life. “I see you are thirsty. I see you want more. Let’s talk about it.”

And the way she responds might seem baffling. She says, “I can see that you’re a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

That feels a little random—kind of out of left field. Who is right about proper worship? The Jews or the Samaritans? As a pastor, I think I can safely say what’s going on here: she has switched into religion mode. She knows she’s talking to someone with religious authority, so she starts saying the things she thinks she’s supposed to say, rather than being honest about her life and what she’s looking for. She’s uncomfortable, so she moves into safer territory—religious discussion. This happens to me sometimes. I’ll be talking with someone, they find out I’m a pastor, and suddenly the conversation shifts to baptism, prayer, the Catholic Church—things like that. And you can tell: “Okay, this is what you think pastors want to talk about.” You’ve gone into religion mode.

Jesus tells her she’s asking the wrong questions. “Woman, believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” The questions she’s asking are about ethnicity and tradition. Who is more right? The traditions of the Samaritans or the traditions of the Jews?

Jesus says, “Look, you’re thinking by the wrong metrics. Who you’re related to—that’s never going to get you closer to God. That’s the wrong way to think. This is not about ethnicity. That’s always too far removed. You need the Holy Spirit in you—and that’s coming. There’s going to be a way of opening up and being closer to God than just being related to someone who was supposedly a prophet. You need something closer than what you’re thinking about in these traditions. You’re caught up in which set of traditions is right. You’re asking me who’s more right—their traditions or our traditions. Don’t think in terms of tradition. Think in terms of truth. Who are you, and what are you coming to God for? Be honest. Don’t go into religion mode on me. Talk about your life. What are you thirsty for? Be honest. Are you seeking God? Where are you seeking him? That’s what’s important.”

Now he’s got her right where he wants her. You can almost see throughout this conversation what’s familiar and what’s foreign constantly being intermixed—this playfulness as he talks with her. And finally she says, “I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” The conversation has brought her to a place where she realizes: the only one who’s really going to solve this is God. God is going to send someone who can make sense of all of it—all these confusing questions about religion, about what I’m supposed to be doing, about how I’m supposed to find meaning. God’s going to send someone, and then it’s going to be fixed.

Jesus responds, “I, the one speaking to you… am he.” He reveals who he really is. And that’s the goal of all evangelism. It’s so interesting to watch how this conversation unfolds. Jesus does so many incredible things in it. But at the end of the day, the goal of evangelism is not building the best relationship, or having the best religious theory, or giving people what they need. Jesus does a little bit of all of those things. He talks about something they both understand—water. He builds a relationship you wouldn’t expect. He even engages with religious ideas, but none of those things is enough. The only thing that’s enough is introducing someone to Jesus and seeing him for who he is.

I don’t know how each of you came to faith, but I’m guessing, even if those elements were involved, none of you came to know Jesus because he was simply the best religious theory on the market. You weren’t just intellectually convinced and that was it. Or because someone was really nice to you one day and you thought, “Well, I’ll go along with it—they’re so polite.” Or even because someone gave you things and you thought, “These Christians seem pretty all right.” Those things might have played a role. But there’s really only one thing that makes a Christian—and that is encountering Jesus. Encountering a God who is more amazing than you could possibly understand. Encountering a Messiah who has entered in to solve the problems of meaning, of understanding, to bring the world to what it was meant to be.

I don’t know who God has placed in your life. I don’t know if there’s someone waiting to be introduced to Jesus as Messiah. Or maybe it’s you. Maybe you are someone who has never truly met Jesus as Messiah, never felt his power in your life, but this is good news. This is something we need to share. This is something that should fill us with joy and delight and make every day infinitely better. I hope we are able to share that good news with people as naturally, as joyfully, and as beautifully as Jesus does here.

Amen.

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Verse-by-Verse Commentary

22 After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized. 

1. Note that according to John 4:2, Jesus didn’t personally baptize anyone.  His disciples did it for him while he oversaw it.

23 Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were coming and being baptized. 24 (This was before John was put in prison.) 25 An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. 26 They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”

1. John’s disciples are worried that Jesus is now stealing John’s ministry!  Not only is he baptizing people, something that John literally has a title about, but he’s drawing bigger crowds!
2. Ministries built on ego or a sense of territory do not reflect the kingdom of Heaven.  Many such “ministries” exist to this day, much to the sadness of God.

27 To this John replied, “A person can receive only what is given them from heaven. 28 You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.’ 29 The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. 30 He must become greater; I must become less.”

1. In his response, John submits to the authority of Jesus.
   1. John’s response to his disciples reveals a fundamental truth about the prophets: prophets are people who submit.  
      1. The image of a prophet being a wild man standing at the edge of society, unwilling to submit to church authorities isn’t accurate.  They only refuse to submit to authorities who have abandoned God’s word.  
      2. When leaders stop submitting to God, they lose their authority, and prophets arise as God’s true spokesmen.
   2. Conversations about “submitting” to anyone in our culture can be very jarring and even offensive!  Submission seems as though it’s against our core expectations to live as free people in this world!
      1. Modernity tends to defines freedom via “negative freedom”–you’re free from external obligations when making choices.
      2. The Bible presents a definition of freedom that might be called positive or teleological freedom–you’re free to live well and be what you were made to be through the grace of God.
      3. We can only understand how submission can lead to freedom if we understand freedom on God’s terms.  Through modern expectations, submission to anyone would seem tyrannical, but on Biblical terms, freedom requires you to submit to God and to others in your life.
   3. The willingness to submit that John models is important for every Christian today as well.  The Bible speaks often about submission.  
      1. Colossians 3:20: “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord,” 
         1. Notice that there is no age limit specified in the text.
      2. Colossians 3:18-19 reads “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.  Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.”
         1. Uncomfortably enough, the passage doesn’t advocate for mutual submission.  The language for each gender is intentionally different.
         2. Ephesians 5 explains the husband’s role in greater detail: “Love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” This is servant leadership—putting his wife first, himself second. To exploit this authority is to abuse one’s spouse.
      3. Colossians 3:22: “Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything… work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”
         1. The idea of getting rid of slavery would have been ridiculous to most people in the ancient world.
         2. Athenaus’s comedy, “The Banqueting Sophists” includes a section where people theorize about a world without slaves, but it would require automata, or items that move themselves.  They imagine a world where you could just tell objects, “Table, lay yourself! … Cup, pour yourself!”
            1. Depressingly enough, this seems to be somewhat prophetic–slavery in our world mostly ended with the advent of the Industrial Revolution
         3. For Christian slaves, the question would have been, should we stage a violent uprising?  That’s what is being addressed in submission.  The answer is no.
         4. For Christian slaveholders, The Book of Philemon shows that slavery is incompatible with Christianity as Paul encourages a master to treat his runaway slave both as a brother, a partner, and as he would treat Paul himself (v. 16-17)
      4. Many other examples can be found throughout the Bible, in reference to civil authority, religious authority, and so forth.  If it does not disobey God to submit, Christians are encouraged to submit
2. “He must become greater; I must become less.”
   1. This especially sums up the way John has completely submitted to God.  He knows that his authority must give way to Christ’s. He doesn’t sabotage Jesus–he makes room.
   2. As God becomes greater in us, we don’t become less ourselves but more truly ourselves, the people we were made to be, freed from sin’s distortion. This is good, though it may frighten us at first.
      1. “Imagine turning a tin soldier into a real little man. It would involve turning the tin into flesh. And suppose the tin soldier did not like it? He is not interested in flesh: all he sees is that the tin is being spoilt. He thinks you are killing him” -CS Lewis

31 The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32 He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. 33 Whoever has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. 

1. John’s witness to Jesus affirms God’s truth; whoever accepts Jesus’s testimony isn’t doing anything wild!  They’re just certifying that God is doing exactly what he said he would do.
   1. Affirming God’s truthfulness in worship and Scripture reading is a daily opportunity.

34 For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. 35 The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

1. Submission to the authorities we can see helps us submit to the authorities we can’t see until they’re fully revealed in their glory
   1. IfJesus entered the room, radiant with heavenly rays, wearing an otherworldly crown and the finest robes imaginable, the ONLY response would be to kneel and submit.  To do anything else would be absurd!  But if we don’t prepare our hearts for that moment, we’ll miss it.
2. “[H]e who denies God the glory of redemption, in addition to his folly, has robbed the Lord of the choicest jewel of his regalia, and aimed a deadly blow at the divine honor. I may say of him who despises the great salvation, that, in despising Christ, he touches the apple of God’s eye. “This is my beloved Son,” saith God, “hear ye him.” Out of heaven he saith it, and yet men stop their ears and say, “We will not have him.” Nay, they wax wrath against the cross, and turn away from God’s salvation. Do you think that God will always bear this?” -Charles Spurgeon

Full Transcript

Submit. There is a word that appears in the Bible an uncomfortable amount of times—uncomfortable for anyone, but especially for us, who culturally value our individuality and autonomy so much. The amount of submitting isn’t just uncomfortable; it’s downright offensive. I mean, did you hear that first passage I read this morning? I hesitated before I chose that one. I actually asked my wife, “I’ve only been here three months. You think I can read that one?”

And she said, “It’s in the Bible. People have eyes.”

I said, “All right, I’ll go with it.”

But look at it—you can see why it’s controversial. We start right out in verse 18: “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” I have never been present in a church service where a pastor preached on that passage. But I was in a church where someone had that as a reading that the pastor didn’t touch. And while they were reading it, I looked around the room at people’s faces. Boy, was that an adventure. People had feelings. I saw quite a few women who were outraged, and I saw quite a few men who had the weirdest mix of a little bit of smugness combined with a lot of fear of what’s going to happen after church today.

Regardless of the feelings it evokes, there it is: “Wives, submit to your husbands.” And then you follow up in verse 19.  Wouldn’t it be more comfortable if it followed up with, “And husbands submit to your wives”? My goodness. Then I wouldn’t be sweating up here talking about it, because two submits practically cancel each other out. We’re good to go. But that’s not what it follows up with. Instead, it says, “Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.”

I think Ephesians goes into a little more depth on this general concept. Ephesians 5 talks about what kind of love the husband should have for the wife. It says, “Love your wives as Christ loved the church, giving himself up for her.” That’s intense. An intense responsibility. This leadership is not just so you can bask in the glory of yourself. It’s intended to serve her. You are supposed to be putting her first and yourself second. That’s what it’s supposed to be. If you’re not willing to give yourself up for her, if you’re not putting her first, there is a problem. You are not only abusing your position—you are abusing your spouse.

Then we continue on. Verse 20.  We’re still on that general theme of submission: “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” Commandment number five, right there. And notice that there is no age limit on that. It doesn’t say, “until you are eighteen and then you’re good to go.” Obey your parents.

Then it goes right back to that leadership role of the head of the household. It says, “Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.” Again, what is your goal here? You work for them. That’s your goal. As you discipline them, it’s not so you can have a nice quiet evening. If you need to discipline them, your goal is to guide them, to help them. If you are interacting with them in a way that’s making them permanently frustrated and warping them, you’re doing it wrong.

We’ve got a model of a household that would be controversial in a lot of places. But as we continue on, controversy of controversies, “slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything.” Obey your earthly masters in everything, and do it not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.

Now, there are some who have used verses like this to claim that the Bible supports and encourages slavery. This is not the case. Not only is it not the case, it betrays a lack of knowledge about the Bible. One need only look in the book of Philemon to see more about this.  The book of Philemon—short but important, near the end of your Bible—is a letter from the apostle Paul. Paul is writing to a Christian slave owner, and he says, “Hey, I found your runaway slave, and I’ve got good news for you. I’m sending him back. And whereas before you had him as a slave, good news—now you get to accept him as your brother. He used to be your servant, but now he’s your fellow worker for Christ. I know how excited you’re going to be about this. So I want you to receive him as though he were me.”  

I want you to treat him in the exact same way you would treat me, the apostle Paul.  In other words, slavery, if you’re really caring about your neighbor the way you’re supposed to be, is incompatible with Christianity. Now, there are still some who say Paul is not direct enough on that point. And while I think he’s pretty direct, it’s actually shocking to think that in the ancient world this would even appear anywhere. In the ancient world, slavery was not considered morally ambiguous. It was just a fact of life. It was normative.

If you look, for example, a couple hundred years after the New Testament was finished, there is a Greek writer named Athenaeus. He wrote comedies. He wrote one called The Banqueting Sophists, and it’s about rich people having a dinner party. At one point they say, “There are no more slaves. We’re done with slaves. Let’s enjoy dinner.” And then the table magically sets itself, the food magically cooks itself, and the wine magically serves itself.  The point is, it’s a joke. The idea that there could be no slaves is literally a joke played for comedic effect. It’s absurd. Who’s going to do the cooking?

Slavery continued to be the dominant system of labor in the world, in every culture, up until—grimly enough—the Industrial Revolution, when it became less economically viable. But it is a shame how little Christians often followed the clear words of Scripture. And they are clear enough. You can see, going all the way back to the ancient era, people understood Paul’s condemnation of slavery in Philemon.  They just didn’t always follow it.

Either way, wouldn’t it be more comfortable? Paul here is talking to Christians serving under non-Christian slave owners. He tells them to serve. Wouldn’t it be more comfortable if he said, “Take up arms and fight for your freedom”? That would be considered much more justifiable today. But instead, he says to serve as you would serve Christ.

And we could go on and on about this. We could go into detail about the ones presented here, or we could look at other instances. We could look in 1 Peter, where it tells us to submit to civil authorities. We could look in Hebrews, where it talks about submitting to your leaders more broadly. There are a lot of places we could continue to explore. We could even talk about Jesus—how He submits to God the Father and is crucified.

But I bring all of this up not because we have time to delve into each of these in their fullness today, but just to remind us how often submitting appears in the Bible, and how uncomfortable it is to think about. Submitting is shown as a normal part of Christian life, because if you can’t submit to what you can see, how on earth are you going to be able to submit to a God that you can’t see?  Learning to submit is an important part of Christian life. And today we are going to look at someone who submitted practically perfectly—not quite, but he’s up there. He is a master of submitting: John the Baptist.

As a prophetic figure, John the Baptist is not often considered for his ability to submit. The popular image of a biblical prophet is not someone who submits, but a madman standing at the edge of society, saying whatever he wants and doing whatever he wants because no one can tell him what to do.  That’s not actually true. If you look in the Bible, there are a lot of prophets who do a considerable amount of submitting—not only to God, but to other figures. How many Old Testament prophets end up delivering messages to evil kings? They do this knowing the king is going to do bad things. They do this knowing they will likely be punished for the message God has given them. And sometimes they are. And yet they submit.

Just about the only figure that prophets genuinely don’t submit to is religious authorities. Religious authorities in the eras when prophets arise have usually abandoned their true source of authority. Religious leader, your authority comes from God—from submitting to His Word. That’s what makes you a leader. The second you stop doing that, the second you abandon God’s Word and start doing your own thing, that’s the moment you don’t have any real authority left.

And so prophets are raised up as the true authorities. That’s why they appear in Scripture. The religious leaders of Israel in those eras fade because they abandoned their relationship with God and sought to say whatever they thought was best.  Bottom line: prophets do submit. And here we see John the Baptist showing us an amazing picture of submitting to God.

Go ahead and let’s look at it. Let’s go through it piece by piece—John chapter three. By the way, we said we were going to do the first five chapters of John together. We’re a little over halfway through this morning, so I encourage you to take a minute at some point today and look back on everything we’ve covered and think about what you’ve learned. It is so easy to deliberately go about learning things and then not take the time to reflect on them. That’s what helps you remember things long-term.  What have you learned? Something you heard in a sermon, something you found in your own private study, something you experienced. There will be a quiz on this at the end, because I want to hear from you. Not quite yet, though—you’ve got some time. Think about it.

Verse 22:

After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them and baptized. Jesus baptized people. I don’t think that’s something we think about all that often, but it happens. That’s one of the ways you see continuity between John the Baptist’s ministry and Jesus’s ministry. John the Baptist comes before, showing them this baptism of repentance, preparing the way for Jesus, and then Jesus comes along and also baptizes.

Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim because there was plenty of water, and people were coming and being baptized. This was before John was put in prison. An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan, the one you testified about—look, he’s baptizing, and everyone’s going to him.”

In other words, John, that Jesus guy is stealing your shtick. You’re the baptism guy. You came up with that. You gave him some credibility, and look how he’s repaid you. He’s turned around and he’s doing your thing, and now everybody’s going to him. We’ve got to find a way to get our people back. What are we going to do? We need something new to catch people’s attention.

And John responded, “A person can receive only what is given them from heaven.”

God is the one who brings people to his ministry, and if people move on, that’s all right. Any person—even just one—is a gift from God. I know a lot of you are involved in different ministries. Some of you have Bible studies at your house. Some of you are involved in programs. I know how passionate you are about serving God.

It can be really tempting to equate success with size. And if something doesn’t get big, it can be frustrating. But that’s thinking the way the world thinks. The world says bigger is better. The world says the more impressive, the more money coming in, the more people in seats—that proves success.

That’s not how God thinks. You can have a small ministry that is still a vital ministry. Think back to one of the first Bible studies I led. This was before I went to seminary. We began with six people, and we ended, by the grace of God, with five people. We actually lost one.

But when I look back on it, it’s amazing to think about each person in that study—the ways they grew and what they went on to do afterward. Even though it was small, it made a difference in people’s lives.

So don’t judge your ministries by, “Did I blow it up? Did I become the next massive thing everyone’s talking about?” God has given you the gift of even one person who wants to talk to Jesus with you. How exciting is that? That’s a blessing.

“A person can receive only what is given them from heaven.”

You yourselves testify that I said, “I am not the Messiah, but am sent ahead of him.” The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice.

This language of the bride and the bridegroom—we’d probably just say “groom” today—but it’s language you find throughout Scripture, both Old and New Testaments. Probably the clearest example is the Song of Songs, a whole book about the relationship between the bride and the bridegroom. But you also see it in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and several other places.

When you see that language, it’s talking about God. God is the groom, and God’s people—individually and corporately—are the bride. The bride prepares herself for the groom, and the groom waits with excitement for the bride. They are made for each other. This is our relationship with God.

So what John is saying here—remember, when he saw Jesus earlier, he said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Now he uses even stronger language. Jesus is the groom; his people are the bride. It’s pretty unambiguously calling Jesus God.

The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.

He must become greater; I must become less.

I think that can seem scary. I remember when I was a new Christian, when I first started attending church regularly and reading my Bible and praying. I was on fire for the Lord, and I remember feeling different—feeling the Holy Spirit inside me, changing me and making me something other than what I was.  That sounds really cool to us in church, but at the time it wasn’t cool. It was pretty freaky. I didn’t want anything to do with it. So I stopped reading the Bible and prayed a little less for a while because I didn’t want to become something other than what I was. The idea was terrifying.

But it shouldn’t be terrifying. When the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives, transforming us, it’s not making us less of ourselves. As God becomes greater in our lives and we become less, we actually become more of ourselves. The “us” we usually know is an “us” tainted by sin. It’s not what we were made to be.  As God becomes more present in our lives, we become more of the person we were made to be. It’s not something to be afraid of. Don’t back away from it. It’s a good thing.

Verse 31: “The one who comes from above is above all. The one who is from the earth belongs to the earth and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all.”

“Above all” has both a cosmic and a rank dimension. Jesus is literally from heaven, and he is above in authority. He is the One above all—the King of the universe, the divine ruler over everything.

He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. Whoever has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. We have the opportunity to do that every day. That’s what we’re doing right now in worship. When we read the Bible and affirm it, we are affirming that God is truthful. When we worship God, we are affirming that He is good.

So much of the Christian life is simply affirming what is true—responding rightly to what we know.

Imagine, for example, if King Jesus in all his glory walked into this room right now—heavenly light shining off him, an otherworldly crown, the finest robes imaginable. What would be the right response? To kneel. Maybe something like that. The natural response in the presence of one who is so clearly above all is to serve, to submit.

It continues: “For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.”

We have the opportunity to affirm what is true, but we can also, unbelievably, deny it—even when it’s obvious.  Imagine Jesus in all that glory standing here, and someone says, “You’re not in charge. I don’t know who you are. You have no authority here. Get out.” In that moment, seeing something so clearly from heaven, how absurd would it be to deny what’s right in front of you?  And yet we can do that.  We can choose to deny the truth. There is no life in that.

I’m grateful that God brought this passage into my life, especially as I’m getting ready to go to one of our Global Methodist conferences. It’ll be my first one. I’m stepping into a new world—new leaders to submit to, new leadership to learn from, new rules to understand.

I won’t lie—it makes me a little nervous. I’ve seen some religious abuses of authority that I’m not going to forget anytime soon. It makes me a little skittish. But part of the Christian life is learning to submit to the leaders God has given you.  So as I go in, knowing these are people who have submitted themselves to Scripture, I have to learn to submit—even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it’s challenging.

I wonder where this intersects with your life. I don’t know what authorities God has placed in your life that you need to learn to submit to. And to be clear, this is always something people get nervous about, especially if they’ve seen abuses.  Remember: it is never true submission if it involves sin. If someone asks you to submit by doing something wrong, that’s out of the question. You can’t submit to a lesser authority and ignore a greater one. Submission never involves sinning.

But often, it’s not about being asked to do something blatantly sinful. Maybe you’ve seen abuses and don’t want to put yourself in that position. Maybe it’s pride—you think, “They may be in charge, but I’m better than them.” Maybe it’s vanity. There are a lot of reasons we can be skittish about authority. Some are legitimate; some are less so.

But the challenge as a Christian is to learn to submit well. Because if we can’t submit to the authorities we can see, how on earth are we going to submit to the Lord we don’t see?  Amen.

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Verse-by-Verse Commentary
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Verse-by-Verse Commentary

3 Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council.

1. Profile of Nicodemus
   1. “A Pharisee”- Nicodemus was a Pharisee, part of a Jewish group that was known for zealous, legalistic teaching of God’s law, often missing its true meaning.
   2. “A member of the Jewish ruling council”- He was a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council.  There were traditionally only 71 scholars in the Sanhedrin, so his influence and power were exceptional.
   3. “Nicodemus”- His name is Greek, not Hebrew.  Jews with Greek names in this timeframe were influenced from the Greek culture that spread throughout the region during Alexander the Great’s reign.  Jews that spoke Greek were disproportionately likely to be from urban centers, have access to wealth and travel, and have had access to quality education.
   4. Given these details, Nicodemos was someone who likely thought he knew everything!  He had a good education on how to think incorrectly.  It’s very likely that he was arrogant, given how many worldly accolades he had.

 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

1. Despite his background and influence, something compelled Nicodemus to seek Jesus.  There was something about this “Jesus” teacher that evaded him, and he had to know what it was.
2. He met Jesus at night, indicating a desire for secrecy to protect his reputation.
3. He addressed Jesus as “Rabbi,” a title he also held, approaching the meeting as a peer-to-peer discussion (“teacher to teacher”) to explore “finer points of religious philosophy.”

3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

1. In response to Nicodemus’s formal introduction, Jesus immediately and authoritatively declares, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they’re born again.”
   1. “Truly, truly” (amen amen) is a doubled emphatic in Greek—an exclamation, not filler.  Jesus isn’t theorizing!  He’s making a serious, decisive statement.
2. Jesus’s directness is tailored to Nicodemus’s arrogant, know-it-all demeanor.  He wants to shake him out of his stupor!
3. “Take away whatsoever seemeth thee good, reputation, fortune, friends, health, only give me this, to be born of the Spirit, to be received among the children of God!” -John Wesley

4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

1. Nicodemus’s question isn’t sincere.  Metaphor long before Jesus’s time.  To ask this question in a way that implies that Jesus is literally demanding someone to go back into their mother’s womb is intentionally obtuse, misunderstanding on purpose to suggest that Jesus is being absurd.

5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 

1. Many interpreters assume that Jesus is referring to baptism, but Nicodemus wouldn’t have understood what Jesus meant if that was the intended analogy since Christian baptism doesn’t exist yet. Jesus’s words needed to be comprehensible, and they would have been to someone who knew Scripture as well as Nicodemos.  Water and the Spirit are both well-established symbolically throughout Scripture.
   1. Water: Symbolizes repentance and cleansing (Psalm 51:7: “Wash me and I will be whiter than snow”; Ezekiel 36:25: “I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean”).
   2. The Spirit: Represents God’s creative power at work in the world and in people (Genesis 1: Spirit hovering over the waters; Judges 6:34: Spirit coming upon Gideon; 2 Samuel 23:2: Spirit speaking through David).

6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 

7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

1. Jesus compares the Spirit’s work to the wind: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.”
2. This illustrates that one can experience and feel the effects of God’s Spirit without fully grasping the “finer points” of doctrine.

9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.

10 “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11 Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 

1. This particular verse is an elemental part of the Christian faith.  It’s the most commonly-known verse in the entire  Bible.  Rather than approach it with the assumption that we know it, it’s good to think through it slowly.  Having come so far, do we still align with the very basics that we set out with?
   1. “For God”: In a world like ours, it is a bold claim to know something true about God.  Who can say what is true or false about God?  But the core of Christianity is to know who God is… and who he isn’t.
   2. “so loved”: God’s primary motive is love, not anger or sadness.
   3. “the world”: God’s love extends to all creation—plants, animals, and people—not just humanity.
      1. Dostoyevsky discussed true love for the world beautifully in his novel, The Brothers Karamazov: “Love all God’s creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day, and you will come at last to love the world with an all-embracing love…. Treasure this ecstasy, however absurd people may think it.” -Dostoyevsky
   4. “that he gave”: God has not begun this relationship with us by demanding anything, but by freely giving to us grace upon grace.
   5. “His one and only son”: his most precious possession.
   6. “that whoever”: A universal invitation open to anyone from a beggar in India to a bureaucrat in China and everyone in between
   7. “believes in Him”: Belief means full, trusting surrender of one’s life to Jesus, not just intellectual assent.
   8. “shall not perish”: God intervenes to save us from the perishing caused by our own sin.
   9. “but have eternal life”: New life that begins now, not only after death.
2. “Men who love much will give much, and you may usually measure the truth of love by its self-denials and sacrifices. That love which spares nothing, but spends itself to help and bless its object, is love indeed, and not the mere name of it. Little love forgets to bring water for the feet, but great love breaks its box of alabaster and lavishes its precious ointment.  Consider, then, what this gift was that God gave.” -Charles Spurgeon

17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 

1. It can be uncomfortable to acknowledge that God openly condemns those who don’t believe in his Son, but we need to address this uncomfortable reality.  If we don’t acknowledge that we’re condemned without Jesus, how can he be a savior?  What is he saving us from? 
2. Some people say God is stingy for not giving us multiple ways to be saved.  That isn’t reasonable.
   1. Imagine a person $5 million in debt who complains that a blank check from a benefactor requires them to walk a block to the bank.
   2. Or imagine a person falling off a cliff who criticizes their rescuer for offering a hand instead of a rope or a helicopter.
   3. In both cases, the one needing salvation is entitled; the savior is not stingy.

19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

1. Evil-doers “hate the light” and avoid exposure. US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” in reference to the simple fact that corruption grows where there is no visibility and accountability.
2. Belief must be embodied in deeds; evidence of new birth should be visible.

Full Transcript

All right, so here we are back in the book of John, and we are picking up chapter 3, beginning in verse 1. This section has quite a bit. Jesus is going to talk about what it means to be born again, and we have the famous John 3:16, possibly the most succinct explanation of what Christianity is all about. Let’s just dive right in.

So verse 1: “Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council.” Right here, we get a surprising amount of information in just this one little verse. We understand quite a bit about Nicodemus just from this.

First off, he’s a Pharisee. This is the same Jewish sect that constantly causes Jesus trouble throughout the Gospels.  They are zealous for God’s law. They are teachers of God’s law. They are very legalistic. They know a lot of Scripture, but they don’t really understand any of it. Not only is this man a Pharisee, but he sits on the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin. That’s big. He’s a big deal. He makes decisions that affect all of Israel. This guy is not just some random Pharisee.  He is a guy who makes things happen. 

And if we look at his name, Nicodemus, that’s not a Hebrew name; that’s a Greek name. Nicodemus comes from Greek. The Greeks had invaded Israel not that long before the Romans, in the grand scheme of things, and they took over for a while until the Israelites rose up and kicked them out. But people who had some level of Greek influence and were still in Israel—there were certain things that you could know about them.  For example, they were more likely to be from urban centers. They were more likely to be wealthy, and they were more likely to be educated and well-traveled. So hopefully that gives you a little taste of the kind of guy Nicodemus was. Were he around today, he would probably have multiple degrees.  He would have honors stacked up. He would be the kind of guy who thinks he knows everything. He would probably be a little arrogant. But truth be told, we’ve all met people like this. They have a fancy education, but they don’t really know what they’re talking about. That’s the thing about education: a good education based on wrong truths is worse than no education at all. That’s what Nicodemus has. He’s an expert in wrong thinking.

But for all of that, there is some good news. Clearly, there’s something about Nicodemus that makes him want to talk to Jesus. Something within him says, “This guy knows something. Go talk to him.” And he has—he’s gone to Jesus.

Verse 2 tells us that he went to Jesus at night. He wants to talk to Jesus, but not where he could actually be seen doing it. He doesn’t want to get caught in the temple in broad daylight talking to Jesus. Think of his reputation. But he has snuck out to see Jesus at night, and Jesus has been gracious enough to grant this audience.

He says: 

“Rabbi! We know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” 

A polite, formal introduction, showing, “I know you’re doing miracles. It’s very impressive. Clearly you know something.”

But notice how he talks to Jesus. How does he address him? Rabbi. As a Pharisee, Nicodemus is also a rabbi.  He’s also a teacher. He sees this as a meeting of the minds. He has come, teacher to teacher, to talk to Jesus. “Look, you know something that I don’t know. I’m a little interested. Let us discuss the finer points of religious philosophy. I’m interested. You’ve got my attention.”

How does Jesus respond? “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” That’s an intense response.  Notice, “Very truly I tell you.” Jesus says this throughout. You might be tempted to think it’s just one of those transitional phrases we work into everyday conversation, something like “well” or “now that I think about it,” just buying a little time as you talk.  That’s not what this is. This is an exclamation point. Jesus is being decisive. He is absolutely saying this. If you look at the Greek, a very literal translation would be, “Truly, truly I tell you.” They repeat it for emphasis. It’s there twice so you know it’s extra serious.

Jesus isn’t wasting time. Nicodemus has come to have this polite conversation. Jesus comes in directly. He’s saying what he’s all about. He’s drawing a line. “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”  That’s the thing about Jesus: He addresses people differently depending on who they are and what they need.  When he’s with someone who is wounded, he’s gentle. When he’s with an outcast, he’s friendly. When he’s talking to a hypocrite, he doesn’t put up with nonsense. And when he’s speaking to someone who thinks they know it all, who’s pretty arrogant, Jesus is not afraid to tell him like it is, to try to shake him out of his stupor and say, “I’m serious.”

Nicodemus kind of rebuffs him here. He responds:

“How can someone be born when they’re old? Surely they cannot enter into their mother’s womb to be born again.”

Now, some people think Nicodemus is truly baffled here. If he had just said, “What do you mean by ‘born again’?” that would show curiosity. But he follows it up with, “Surely you cannot crawl back into your mother’s womb to be born a second time.” Obviously Jesus was not talking about that.  Jesus did not invent metaphor. Nicodemus can clearly tell that’s not what Jesus is talking about, but he’s being intentionally obtuse. He is deliberately presenting what Jesus said as though it’s absurd.  Jesus is trying to bring something life-changing, and Nicodemus says, “No, that’s ridiculous.”

I think it can be easy to be like Nicodemus in that way. Sometimes we come to Jesus wanting something convenient and easy—just something to think about on the way to work, something to calm us for the day, something small to mull over, but sometimes Jesus isn’t going to give you a small thing. Sometimes he’s going to give you something life-changing, and we can’t shy away from that.

We can’t say, “I opened Scripture today, and what Jesus said is a little intense for my taste. Time to turn to something more comfortable.” We miss out when we try to escape intense Jesus. Sometimes he wants to change our lives.

Jesus answers Nicodemus again. You see it again: “Very truly I tell you.”

“No one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

So first off, look at this beginning. He says, “You must be born by water and the Spirit.” Very commonly people say, “Well, that’s baptism. Jesus is talking about baptism here.” And I don’t think that’s wrong. I think that’s a good answer. It’s a very good answer. Water and the Spirit are the two elements most prominent in baptism, right? Fair enough.  But I don’t know if that’s what Jesus was necessarily saying when he was talking to Nicodemus. That’s us reading backwards, and I think that’s good. You can learn deeper dimensions within Scripture and find things that are certainly true—ways that Jesus was telling truth that people at the time may not have fully understood. But Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, an expert in the Old Testament, and Jesus has not baptized anyone yet. Why would he be referring to things that haven’t happened yet? That would be impossible to understand. But he suggests that Nicodemus should understand.

So I think what Jesus meant is comprehensible without referring necessarily to baptism that came afterward. Look at the symbolic elements of what Jesus is talking about. He says you must be born by water and the Spirit. Water is prominent throughout the Old Testament.  For repentance, the symbolic dimension of water is that you come dirty and you are washed and made clean. Just a few examples of that: Psalm 51:7, “Wash me and I will be whiter than snow,” or Ezekiel 36:25, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean.” This is not obscure. I’ve just plucked these two out—they’re random examples—but you can find many. Water commonly represents repentance throughout Scripture.

And the Spirit—the Holy Spirit—is certainly understood better in the New Testament. There are dimensions we might not have understood before then, but the Spirit makes quite a few appearances in the Old Testament too. While Nicodemus might not have understood the fullness of the Holy Spirit, he certainly would have been able to understand some of it. Just look at these—these are prominent passages in the Old Testament.

How about Genesis? Genesis chapter 1: the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Throughout the book of Judges, whenever a new judge is in charge, it says that the Spirit of the Lord comes on them. For example, Judges 6:34, “The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon.” Or 2 Samuel, at the end of King David’s life—the most prominent king of Israel—2 Samuel 23:2: “The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me.” Those are some of the last words King David says.

Repeatedly we see that the Spirit is comprehensible. It’s in the Old Testament, and it shows the different ways that God is active in the world. It shows God being active in creation. It shows God being active in a person’s life, God’s wisdom being bestowed on someone, God’s power being bestowed on someone. Consistently, that is what the Spirit of God is. It is God’s creative power at work in this world.

So all that to say, Nicodemus totally has all the elements necessary to understand what’s going on here. He has them laid out for him, but he doesn’t understand. Jesus doesn’t expect him to know all of it, but he expects him to understand the basics.  He even says, “Look, it’s like the wind. Do you know where the wind’s from? Do you know where the wind is going? No. You don’t understand the finer points of the wind, but you feel it.” That’s what the Spirit’s like. You can feel the Spirit of God in the world, even if you don’t know the finer points of every piece of that doctrine.

Nicodemus, however, does not seem to be catching on. Here we see Nicodemus again: “How can this be?” Why does he say that? Is he baffled because he’s confused, or because those Pharisaical teachings he had in his head are now at war with the words that Jesus is saying, and he doesn’t know where his heart is at? Who can say? But we know he’s not picking up what Jesus is laying down.

Jesus responds: “You are Israel’s teacher, and you do not understand these things. Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.”

Who’s “we”? Jesus is talking about everyone who has given testimony on behalf of God—all these people. Nicodemus is supposed to be an expert, but he has not accepted any of their testimony: not the prophets, not those who have lived this life of the Spirit and been changed by the Holy Spirit.

“I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe. How then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?”

“No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

This is an obscure reference to the book of Numbers, chapter 21. There’s a story in which the people of Israel start saying nasty things, and God sends venomous snakes to bite them. The way they are saved is that God tells Moses, “Make a snake out of bronze, put it on a pole, and lift it up.” Everyone who looks upon that bronze snake will be healed.  Look at the thing that wounded you, and when you look at it, you will be healed of it.

Why would Jesus want to be compared to a snake, though? Snakes are no good. Throughout the Bible, snakes are bad. A snake got us into this whole predicament to begin with. But remember what Jesus became on the cross. Jesus took on the sins of the world. He who did no sin became sin for us, as the Scriptures say.  On that cross, Jesus took on that which hurt us—sin. And so as we look up at him on that cross, in the same way that people looked upon snakes to be healed from snakes, we look upon the burden of sin to be freed from it.

And now we are at that famous passage: John 3:16. Whenever you get to one of those big passages, you have to slow down a little bit. You can go into cruise control and zip right by it without thinking. You’ve heard it a million times, so you assume you’ve got it—but then you miss it.  Usually, these well-known passages are well known for a reason. They’re big. They have depth you can explore and live in. What I like to do is stop and go word by word so that nothing sneaks by me.

Let’s break this down piece by piece. John 3:16: “For God.” First off, we start with “For.” This is an explanation. What is this an explanation for? Everything.

“For God.” To speak of God, to have God as the subject of a sentence—there are people who think that’s absurd. They think you can’t possibly know anything about God. There are too many differing beliefs. Surely not all of them are right, so you shouldn’t even bother talking about God. No one can really know anything—don’t be so bold as to claim that knowledge.  But that’s what John 3:16 does right from the beginning. It claims to know something about God.

“For God so loved…” the motive of God. Why has God done something? Not because he’s an angry, nasty God sitting around seething, wanting to zap people. Not because he’s a sad, weepy God who can’t go on any longer. He loves. He loves the world.  And it doesn’t just say people. Sometimes we imagine it says people, but it says the world—all of it. Every leaf, every blade of grass, plants, animals, people, even in their sin. Everything.

“For God so loved the world that he gave…” This God has already given us life, food, air—everything—and yet he gives again. That’s just the kind of God he is. He gives his most prized possession, his one and only Son. You cannot imagine something of higher value than that.

“That whoever…” That is the widest welcome imaginable. Whoever—you, me, a beggar in India, a bureaucrat in China—everyone. Everyone is included in that “whoever.”

And what do they need to do? “Believe in him.” Belief in Christ is not just intellectual assent. It’s not just wanting miracles. It is fully trusting him, fully giving our lives over to him.

“Shall not perish…” That’s where we were already headed. That was our doing. We were already on the path to that through our sin. God has intervened so that we do not perish.

“But have eternal life.” Eternal life—heaven, and eternal life now. It doesn’t say you have to die to begin it. It starts now: eternal joy, eternal hope.

That’s just me breaking down this verse. You should do it yourself. Walk through John 3:16 slowly and see what you uncover.

Verse 17: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already.”

There’s a lot of use of the word “condemned” here, especially next to a passage about God’s love. Some people want to remove those uncomfortable elements—references to judgment or hell—but you can’t really get rid of them.  Even philosophically, if you say, “There is no hell, I don’t like it,” then what did Jesus save us from? Remove the negative, and Jesus is no longer a Savior.  Uncomfortable though it may be, it’s essential to understanding.

We also see consistently: salvation is through Jesus Christ alone. That’s uncomfortable for some people. I remember a friend who said, “God has infinite power. Why only one path? That sounds stingy.”  But think about it. Imagine someone is $5 million in debt, with nothing. A wealthy person gives them a signed blank check and says, “Go to the bank and write whatever you need.” And the person responds, “This is inconsiderate. I didn’t want to walk to the bank. Why not cash? Why not a card?”  Or imagine someone hanging off a cliff, about to fall, and a hand reaches down to save them. And they say, “I don’t know where your hand has been. You should have brought a rope. Or a helicopter.”  Does that make the rescuer stingy, or the person in need entitled?

“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” It doesn’t say they were confused. It says they loved the darkness.

“Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into it for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light so it may be seen that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”

Notice here at the end: we’ve talked a lot about belief, but now we see deeds—how you live. Belief is not just theoretical. It should be expressed in your life.

So as we come to the end of this passage—new birth, God’s love, genuine belief—we should ask: What kind of deeds have we done? What kind of life have we lived? Is there evidence that we are living out what Jesus is talking about? Have we truly experienced that new birth? Can people see it?  If not, why not? Why is our belief still theory and not practice?  Real belief changes our lives, not just some inner portion of our minds.

I just want to say a quick prayer. Let’s pray together. If you are recognizing that you are not living into that new birth, that your life is not lining up with what you say you believe, I’m going to leave some silence and ask you to ask God for help.  That’s what Jesus came to do. That’s what the Holy Spirit is for: to live by water and the Spirit, to repent and live by the Spirit’s power. Jesus came to enable that in our world.  Just ask him for help. He’ll give it.

Video Teaching
Verse-by-Verse Commentary
Full Transcript

Video Teaching

Verse-by-Verse Commentary

Introduction

1. Popular Misinterpretations and their Roots
   
   
   1. Sometimes, people use this passage to justify heavy drinking.  Jesus “partied,” so why shouldn’t we?  A counter-misreading claims that “wine” was actually grape juice.  Notice that no respectable translation uses that language.  Both of these readings have roots in the prohibition era.
      
      
   2. In the early 20th century, during Prohibition, the passage became a proof text against alcohol bans: “If I’m not supposed to have wine, why did Jesus give it to me?” Both temperance advocates and opponents crafted arguments that persist culturally.
      
      
   3. Earlier Christian tradition did not primarily read the story as about personal alcohol use.
      
      
2. First-Century Context of Wine and Drinking
   
   
   1. Alcohol content and dilution practices
      
      
      1. Fermentation techniques in the first-century Mediterranean were less advanced; wine peaked around 11–14% alcohol, similar to lower-content wine today.
         
         
      2. The social norm was to mix wine with water; rabbinic literature indicates a usual ratio of three parts water to one part wine (Pesahim 108b, Shabbath 77a), which reduced the total alcohol content to around 2–3% ABV, roughly half of low-end beer in the United States.
         
         
   2. Drinking unmixed wine would have been gross and sad, kind of like ordering a full glass of vodka with your lunch at a restaurant today.
        
3. Drunkenness and Judaism
   
   
   1. In first-century Israel, a respectable Jew did not get drunk; drunkenness was associated with Greeks and Romans (Dionysus, Bacchus), the oppressors!
      
      
   2. Public drunkenness suggested that you were taking on the culture of the oppressors and could brand you as a collaborator in a time of constant rebellions.
      
      
4. Scripture on Wine and Drunkenness
   
   
   1. A lot of biblical references to wine are actually positive:
      
      
      1. Psalm 104:15: “God makes wine that gladdens human hearts.”
         
         
      2. Judges 9:13: “Should I give up my wine, which cheers both gods and humans?”
         
         
      3. Deuteronomy 14: Instructions for religious feasts include encouragement to buy wine if resources permit.
         
         
   2. Drunkenness, on the other hand, is consistently condemned
      
      
      1. Galatians 5:21: Paul warns gentile converts that those given to drunkenness will not inherit the kingdom of God.
         
         
      2. Proverbs 20: “Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler. Whoever is led astray by them is not wise.”
         
         
      3. In 1–2 Kings, bad kings are often characterized as drunks, but good kings are not.

2 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 

1. Weddings were major, joyous feasts (see Song of Songs for more on the topic).  The presence of Jesus and his disciples implies they were joyful, welcomed guests who enhanced celebrations.

2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

1. The shortage threatened severe social embarrassment for the hosts: in a culture where weddings were grand, hospitality was important, and emotions ran high, guests could feel insulted if provisions fell short, harming the young couple’s social relationships and reputation.

4 “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

1. Jesus calls Mary “woman,” rather than “mom.”  There’s some distance here that’s appropriate for his public ministry.  He’s not about to do a chore for his mom!  He’s acting by the will of his heavenly Father.
    
2. Jesus frames his timing (“my hour”) as divinely set.  The miracle will proceed on God’s terms, not anyone else’s.

5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

1. Mary tells the servants, “Do whatever he tells you,” showing her absolute confidence that Jesus will act.  It’s also good advice for discipleship today: do whatever Jesus tells you.

6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.

7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.

1. Notice that Jesus offers no explanation for what he’s asking for, but the servants still fill the jars to the brim!  Their faith is impressive, given that what Jesus is asking for appears to make no sense.
   
   
2. Jesus involves the servants and water in this miracle, rather than producing wine ex nihilo (out of nothing) for spectacle; their actions and resources become the ordinary material he transforms into the extraordinary.  For the disciple, any action can be a part of the miraculous work of God.  Many are, if we pay attention.

8 Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

They did so, 9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside 10 and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

1. There is no singular “alakazam” moment where the water miraculously changes in a puff of smoke.  Instead, the miracle just happens without anyone quite being able to pinpoint the exact moment, much like the mercy of God is not always clear at first when it enters into our life, but it is not long before it is recognized.
   
   
2. The first person to notice is the master of the banquet.  He is not a follower of Jesus, nor is he someone that Jesus seems to be particularly familiar yet, and yet he can verify the goodness of the miracle.  Real miracles don’t need to be hidden, nor do they require believers to see their goodness.  Their goodness is evidenced by all.
   
   
3. Jesus ensures that joy does not run out.  As Fyodor Dostoevsky puts it in The Brothers Karamazov, “He has made himself like one of us and shares our joy and turns our water into wine, so that the joy of the guests shall not cease.”

11 What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

12 After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.

1. Wedding as metaphor for the soul’s relationship to God
   
   
   1. Throughout Scripture, weddings symbolize preparation, purity, and lifelong union with God; Cana’s setting connects Jesus’s mission to restoring and binding souls to God.
      
      
2. Banquet as eschatological celebration
   
   
   1. Jesus often uses banquet imagery in parables to depict the grand celebration at the end of time when the faithful rejoice with God.
      
      
   2. Cana anticipates this eschatological joy: not dour or harsh, but celebratory.
      
      
3. Wine as joy and Jesus’s gift
   
   
   1. Wine frequently symbolizes joy (Psalm 104:15; Judges 9:13). At Cana, Jesus ensures joy where circumstances were turning shameful.
      
      
   2. Jesus’s first miracle establishes him as the bringer of joy, transforming scarcity into abundance and elevating ordinary water into superior wine.

Full Transcript

So we’ve made it to chapter two, and here we see Jesus’s first miracle: turning water into wine. Unfortunately, this particular story in Scripture has some of the shallowest popular interpretations. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone use this story to show that Jesus was an awesome party guy. There was a party, they were running low on booze, and the party would be lame if someone didn’t intervene. Luckily, Jesus shows up and ensures that the booze keeps flowing. Much rejoicing.

Now obviously I’m exaggerating a little, but it is used to justify why one ought to drink readily and often and a lot. On the other hand, I have heard people read this story and try to explain why there’s actually no wine in the story at all—that it’s really just a mistranslation and ought to be grape juice. You can’t find a respectable translation out there that uses grape juice instead of wine, because it’s wine. Wine is wine.

Either way, you can see how both of those popular interpretations treat this as a metaphorical story intended to explain an individual person’s relationship to alcohol, which is a shame. For the vast majority of Christian history, that was not how people looked at this story. That’s something you only really see creeping in around the beginning of the 20th century, right around the time of Prohibition. This became an anti-prohibition proof text: “If I’m not supposed to have wine, why did Jesus give it to me?” Both sides then crafted their explanations from there, and the last vestiges of that haven’t quite fallen away yet.

So we have this cultural baggage that gives us a different understanding of the passage than people had for hundreds of years. When you put this passage into not our cultural context but the context of first-century Israel, you can see pretty quickly that it doesn’t even make sense for this to primarily be a story about an individual person’s relationship with alcohol.

First off, alcohol in the first century was not quite what it is today. If you really wanted to get drunk in first-century Israel, you would have a task in front of you. Fermentation techniques in the Mediterranean region were not as advanced as they are today. The highest alcohol content you could get in wine was somewhere between 11 and 14 percent, which puts it on par with lower-content wine today. That sounds reasonable until you learn that you didn’t drink wine without mixing it with water. That was considered gross.

It would be like going out to lunch with a friend, and the waiter asks for your drink order. Your friend says, “I’ll have a vodka.” The waiter hesitates—“a vodka cranberry? a vodka seltzer? a shot?”—and your friend replies, “No. Just a full glass of vodka.” That’s gross and sad. That’s how it would have been viewed in the first century if someone drank unmixed wine.

Rabbinic literature indicates a common mixture of three parts water to one part wine. That brings the alcohol content down to around two to three percent—about half of what low-end beer is in the United States today. So yes, it was wine, but very low-content wine. Could you get wild with it? Sure, but you’d really have some work ahead of you.

On top of that, there was a strong social stigma against drunkenness in first-century Israel. If you were a good Jew, you didn’t get drunk. That was something Greeks and Romans did—the outsiders, the oppressors. They had gods like Dionysus and Bacchus, with wild parties and excess. A good Jew did not do that.

So if your friends saw you getting drunk, they would think you were adopting the practices of your oppressors. In a time of frequent rebellion, that was not a label you wanted. You can see how, culturally, this wouldn’t even enter into the picture for the average listener of that time or the centuries that followed.

Scripture speaks about alcohol often enough that you don’t need this story to understand it. Wine is generally presented as a good thing—Psalm 104:15 says God gives wine to gladden human hearts. Judges 9:13 speaks of wine that cheers both gods and humans. Deuteronomy 14 even encourages buying wine for religious feasts if you have the means.

Drunkenness, on the other hand, is consistently condemned. Galatians 5:21 warns that those given to drunkenness will not inherit the kingdom of God. Proverbs 20 says, “Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler.” And in First and Second Kings, bad kings are often described as drunkards.

In other words: drinking, fine; drunkenness, bad. That’s consistent throughout.

So why spend time on this if that’s not what the story is about? Because people focus on it to the detriment of the true meaning. There is such depth in this miracle. It’s the first miracle of Jesus. It has so much to say about who he is, what he’s going to do, and how the miraculous works in the world. When we get hung up on the alcohol, we miss all of that.

So let’s approach the passage on its own terms. John chapter 2, beginning at verse 1:

On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’s mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.

Weddings in first-century Israel were a big deal!  The happiest day of your life, a grand feast. Jesus’s mother is there, and Jesus and his disciples are invited. Imagine the honor: this random peasant wedding is attended by the King of Kings, and they don’t even know it.

It also tells us something about Jesus and his disciples. They were the kind of people you wanted at your party. They were joyful. They made the event better.  Then verse 3: 

When the wine was gone, Jesus’s mother said to him, ‘They have no more wine.’

Why is Mary concerned? Is she just wanting another glass? No. Weddings were social events with high expectations. Running out of wine would have been embarrassing, even insulting. It would damage relationships for a young couple just starting out. This isn’t a minor inconvenience; it’s a social disaster.

Jesus responds:

“Woman, why do you involve me? My hour has not yet come.”

It sounds strange to our ears, but he’s creating distance. At the beginning of his public ministry, he is making it clear that what he is about to do is not simply out of obligation to his earthly mother. He is about his Father’s work.

Mary’s response is remarkable. She turns to the servants and says, 

“Do whatever he tells you.” 

That’s some of the best advice in Scripture.

Nearby were six stone jars used for ceremonial washing, each holding twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus tells the servants, “Fill the jars with water,” and they fill them to the brim. He doesn’t explain himself. He simply gives the command, and they obey fully.

Then he says, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

Notice, there’s no moment where it says the water turned to wine. As far as we know, the servants are carrying jars of water to their boss. That takes trust.  This tells us something about human participation in the miraculous. Jesus could have acted alone, but he involves them. Through their obedience, something extraordinary happens.

The master of the banquet tastes the water—now wine—and says, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink. But you have saved the best till now.”

Here we even have verification from someone outside the event. Real miracles don’t need to be hidden. They can be seen and experienced, even by those who don’t yet understand them.

Verse 11 says this was the first of the signs through which Jesus revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

So how does this miracle reveal his glory?

Consider where it happens: at a wedding banquet. Throughout Scripture, weddings symbolize the relationship between God and his people. Banquets symbolize the final celebration in the kingdom of God. Jesus begins his ministry in a setting that points to the ultimate goal: union with God and eternal celebration.

And what does he do there? He provides wine—symbolically, joy. Psalm 104:15 speaks of wine that gladdens the heart. Jesus ensures that joy does not run out.  As Fyodor Dostoevsky puts it in The Brothers Karamazov, “He has made himself like one of us and shares our joy and turns our water into wine, so that the joy of the guests shall not cease.”

With all the serious, eternal work Jesus comes to do, he is not dour or joyless. The first thing he does is preserve joy.

I hope each of you experiences that joy to its fullest. Amen.

Video Teaching
Verse-by-Verse Commentary
Full Transcript

Video Teaching

This particular sermon happened at a Church picnic, so apologies for the lack of picture and subpar sound quality.

Verse-by-Verse Commentary

Introduction

1. These four stories all show different disciples being called into ministry by Christ:
   1. Andrew and Peter join Jesus through intellectual inquiry 
   2. Peter follows Jesus because of a personal invitation from someone he trusts
   3. Philip joins Philip abruptly because of his experience meeting Jesus
   4. Nathanael overcomes his skepticism after seeing a miracle
2. The close proximity of the stories help illustrate the diverse ways that people come to faith in Christ

35 The next day John was there again with two of his disciples.

1. In the ancient world, discipleship was immersive—students followed a teacher to observe how they lived and embodied their teachings. This approach emphasizes that profound truths should transform one’s whole life, not remain abstract. The speaker contrasts this with modern education’s focus on fact acquisition and suggests discipleship offers a valuable lesson in witnessing wisdom lived out.

36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”

1. John refrains from retaining disciples for personal benefit (labor, prestige). Instead, he directly points them to Jesus, modeling ministry that prioritizes others’ growth over personal gain.
2. This contrasts with common tendencies of leaders to hoard followers; John advocates sending people to the best source for their development.

37 When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. 38 Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”

They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”

39 “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.”

So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon.

1. “It was about four in the afternoon” (verse forty) is a pretty specific detail.  This, along with the fact that John never names himself in his gospel and this particular disciple is unnamed, suggests this unnamed disciple was John.

40 Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. 41 The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). 

1. In his book The Inviting Church, church growth expert Roy Oswald asked a number of congregants why they worshipped at the church they did if they weren’t raised there. 
   1. 86% started attending because a friend or family member invited them; 
   2. 6% came because of a program; 
   3. 6% were invited by a pastor, 
   4. 2% due to advertising.
2. Peter’s journey is statistically common!  So many people relate to Peter, but the Church needs more Andrews to invite others.
3. Peter (originally Simon) comes to Jesus through his brother Andrew’s invitation: “We have found the Messiah!” Andrew is only mentioned twelve times in the Bible, and four of those are just in lists!  Of the remaining eight narrative mentions of Andrew, he’s bringing people to Jesus in three of them. He has a gift for connection and evangelism. The Church needs its Peters and Pauls, but we also need our Andres!

42 And he brought him to Jesus.

Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter).

1. Jesus renames Simon to Cephas (Aramaic for “stone”; translated into Greek and then English as “Peter”), signaling a break from old to new identity and commissioning him as a “rock” on which Jesus will build his ministry. This affirms Peter’s gifts and shows that Jesus is giving him meaningful work.
   1. Everyone wants to make a difference in the world!  We are not just called to sit in pews for Jesus, but change the world for Him.

43 The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”

1. Philip’s calling is incredibly abrupt! Jesus says, “Follow me,” and Philip does just that. The abruptness suggests an immediate, vivid experience with Jesus that was enough to get Nathaniel to worship Jesus without a prior relationship.  For some, a direct encounter is decisive.

44 Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. 45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

46 “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.

“Come and see,” said Philip.

1. Nathanael resists at first, ignoring the ties that Philip makes to the prophets and Moses.  fixating on the detail that he’s from Nazareth, and that’s not a particularly reputable town.  Philip wisely avoids debating issues that don’t really matter and instead invites him to “come and see.”  His goal is not to win a debate, but to win Nathanael over to Christ by introducing them.

47 When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”

48 “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked.

Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

49 Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.”

1. Jesus greets Nathanael as “an Israelite in whom there is no deceit,” showing that he knows his character, and says that he saw him under the fig tree before Philip called him.  Given Nathanael’s reaction, obviously this wasn’t a mere overhearing of someone else’s conversation; it was miraculous!

50 Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” 51 He then added, “Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man.”

1. In verse 51, Jesus is referencing Genesis 28 (Jacob’s ladder) to declare himself the bridge between Heaven and Earth.  If knowing a name is so impressive to Nathanael, he should be ready to see the full nature of the Son of Man, which is infinitely more miraculous.

 

Full Transcript

In this little passage this morning, we have various stories about apostles coming to faith in Christ and following Him. I love that we have all of them one right after the next, getting to see all the diversity in those stories packed together. I think it’s good to remember because we’re all passionate about following Jesus. We want to share our faith with others. It can be easy, when you want to evangelize, to remember the exact circumstances under which you started following Jesus and to try to recreate those in the lives of others. That doesn’t always work because they have different circumstances! They’re at a different place in life! You have no idea what they’re going through. There are so many different things that happen in different people’s lives that lead them to start following Jesus.  Let’s jump in.

We’re going to see the first of the four stories. We see Andrew make his decision to start following Jesus. It’s not just Andrew. It tells us that there are two people involved in this story. One is Andrew; he’s identified in verse forty, but there is also a second disciple who is never named. The majority belief is that this was probably the apostle John. There are a few reasons for that.

First, John never refers to himself directly in the Gospel that he wrote. He always refers indirectly, and there are different guesses as to why he did this. Some say it was because he was so humble that he did not want to put his name forward as though he were some great guy. He just wanted to share it without highlighting himself. Others say maybe it was a creative choice that he made so that people would have the opportunity to put themselves in his shoes as they read and feel like they were right there. Who knows? Regardless, he never refers to himself directly, and this disciple is strangely never directly mentioned. That’s a point in John’s favor.

Another thing that leads a lot of people to believe that this was probably John is that, in verse forty, there’s a level of detail that’s just uncommon. It says it was about four in the afternoon. That’s very specific, almost so specific that you wonder, were you there? Was that you? Do you know this personally? I think it was probably John, but we don’t need to double down on that. That’s not really the point. We know for certain that Andrew was one of these two.

We find that these are two people who come to start following Jesus because they are curious. They want to know more. Intellectual inquiry leads them to start following Jesus. I know we have some kids with us this morning. Kids, how are you doing? I know there is no children’s church this morning, so you’re going to have to help me out. How many of you are curious? Do you ask your parents a lot of questions? If you are a question asker, give me a hand. There we go. I see one. Maybe that’s a future Andrew right there.

So we’ve got these two, Andrew and probably John. They are question askers. They ask questions: Why am I here? Who is God? What am I doing? How do I live life well? They’re asking a lot of questions, and asking those questions leads them to seek a good teacher. They end up as disciples of John the Baptist.

It’s a good reminder that Jesus wasn’t the only one with disciples in the ancient world. In the ancient Mediterranean region, great teachers (if they were really good) ended up with disciples. The logic was that you can learn a lot by listening to a great teacher. Maybe you just go to their lectures and listen a little bit. But if you’re really serious about learning, you don’t just attend the lectures–you become a disciple. You follow them around. You see the way they live. You see the way they act.

If the truth they have is really that big a deal, it should change their whole lives. It shouldn’t just be this floating idea that you can hear and tuck away in your mind. It should be something that your whole life speaks to. So if you really want to learn what they are teaching, you become a disciple. You start following them. You watch how they live and how they embody the truth they’re talking about, and you learn to live according to that truth. It was very common for great thinkers in this era to have disciples, and here we see that John the Baptist has a couple of disciples in these two soon-to-be followers of Jesus. That’s where our story starts.

As an aside, isn’t it interesting how they thought about learning in that discipleship model? So much of our model for education is built on just learning facts. That’s good. I’m not anti-fact. But how much more important is it for people to see a wise life well led? I think that’s a model of education we could all learn from.

In any case, our story begins with these two disciples.  

The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus.

That is so unselfish of John the Baptist. How rare is it to see someone actively point people toward opportunities that are good for them? It is so common to see people in positions of authority trying to keep everyone under them so they can get the most work and harvest their labor. John had every reason, personally and selfishly, to keep these men as his disciples. Disciples would help you do things. These are two people who are hands for the road; that’s helpful. They certainly bring him some prestige. It would have been tempting to say, “We’re going to point people to Jesus, but you personally don’t have to go. You’re going to help me get other people there.”

John is not like that. He is selfless when it comes to the cause of ministry. He’s thinking about the people with him and saying, “You could learn better over there. Your growth and development are with that man. Go to Him. Don’t waste time with me.” Incredibly unselfish.

When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”  

That is a piercing question, one that I think all of us are asked as we come to Jesus today. What do you want? What brought you to worship this morning? Do you want to be happy? Do you want to be healed? Do you want money? What do you want?  Some answers to that question are better than others.  I think the apostles give one of the best answers there is. What do they want? Just time with Jesus. That’s all they want. They respond, 

“Rabbi,” which means Teacher, “where are You staying?” 

He replied, “Come, and you will see.” So they went and saw where He was staying, and they spent that day with Him. It was about four in the afternoon.

Right there we see these first two people start being followers of Christ. Whatever they saw in that conversation, whatever it was they were seeking to learn, they realized by just spending time with Jesus that this was the best teacher they could possibly have. This man knew things that were worth their time. They didn’t go back to John. They didn’t even think about it. This was the new path they had been set on.  That’s one story.

Now we move on to another. We get to see the moment when Peter the apostle decided to start following Jesus. Peter is one of the most popular Bible characters there is, and it’s easy to see why. He has a lot of stories because he gets a lot of things wrong. Peter is always trying his best, and he’s always messing up, and Jesus has to bail him out. That’s relatable. We all make mistakes. We all need Jesus to bail us out sometimes.  His name is not Peter to begin with; it’s Simon. Jesus is going to rename him in just a moment. Peter comes to faith not through intellectual inquiry, but because of a personal invitation. He’s invited by someone he trusts to start following Jesus. In this case, Andrew. Andrew gives him an invitation: “You have to come see Jesus. This is incredible.” That makes a difference to him.

Personal invitation makes such a difference. I saw a study the other day talking about why people attended the churches they did. If people were at a church they did not grow up in, this study asked them, “What made you start attending this church?” Eighty-six percent said it was because a friend or family member asked them to start attending. Eighty-six percent! Six percent said they started attending because of a program they thought was really good. Six percent said they started because a pastor invited them. Two percent said they started because of advertising.  Eighty-six percent! Personal invitation makes a difference. That is one of the most common ways people start actively following Jesus in their lives, and here that’s the way Peter comes to faith. 

Simon Peter’s brother, Andrew, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. 

The first thing Andrew did was find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah!” And he brought him to Christ.

The man from our first story immediately goes and finds Peter and brings him to Jesus. 

Andrew is not in the Bible a lot. He is named twelve times, and four of those twelve mentions are just in lists of the disciples. So he is only actually named in a story eight times. Of those eight, three are because he is bringing people to Jesus. That is something he seems to be good at. He is good at connecting people to Jesus. That is something he seems to be gifted to do, and this is one of those times. He brings Peter to Jesus.  He may not be in the Bible a lot, but he probably deserves a little more recognition. A lot of people want to be like Peter. A lot of people want to be like Paul. Maybe we need more Andrews in the world.

In any case, the first thing Andrew did was find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah.” 

He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas,” which, when translated, is Peter. 

That is the moment when Peter starts following Jesus.  It’s a little bit of an odd moment for a lot of us because we wonder, why is He renaming him? What is this about? Usually in Scripture that happens to show a break between the old self and the new self. You are so radically different that you need a new name because you’re that new.  Here He chooses the name Cephas, which is Aramaic for “stone.” That is the name Simon will go by from now on: Peter. Cephas, stone. In other words, this is a rock. “You are a rock on which I am going to build My ministry.” In that, He is really doing two things. Jesus has both built up Peter and put him to work.

He encounters Peter and does not treat him like any random man. He does not say, “Good to see you. Hope I see you around.” He knows him personally and sees the value in him. He is not just another name, not just another person in a crowd. He is uniquely gifted to do something important, and Jesus treats him that way.

At the same time, He puts him to work. He says, “You are the rock. You are solid. You are someone I am going to build My ministry on.” It may be a compliment, but it is not a compliment you get to live into by doing nothing. He is going to have to do some work to live up to the fullness of that compliment, and that is exciting for him.

Sometimes we forget how much people want to change the world. I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: one of the biggest reasons I find people leave the churches they are at is because they feel like they are just being asked to sit in a pew. No one wants to just sit in a pew. That’s boring! They want to change the world. That does not mean they necessarily need to do it through church programs. It means that wherever they are in their lives, whatever they are doing, they need to be equipped to make a difference. Jesus is offering Peter the opportunity to make a difference in the world, and Peter is all in. Peter starts following Jesus.

Now we have two down and two to go, two more apostles, two different stories. We have seen intellectual inquiry. We have seen personal invitation. Now we get to Philip’s story, which is so short that we will just look at it and then talk about it after.

The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, He said to him, “Follow Me.” 

That is it. That is the whole thing. Incredibly short. That is all we get. Jesus finds him and says, “Follow Me,” and he does.

When you look at different commentators thinking through this passage, one of the things people are curious about is whether Jesus knew him before this moment. Had they ever met? Sometimes Jesus knew people before offering them this formal invitation to discipleship. Is this one of those instances? Did Jesus already know Philip? Did He already have a relationship with him? Or was it totally out of the blue? Who can say? But the way the Bible tells the story, it seems intended to be abrupt. It does not say, “Jesus saw Philip, whom He had known for a long time and felt pretty good about.” It deliberately tells it in a way that emphasizes how jarringly fast this is. Out of nowhere, Philip is in.

That is how it goes for some people. There are people who have vivid personal experiences that are hard to put into words. Something about that moment, something about that experience, tells them, “I need to start following Jesus. This is it.” That appears to be the case with Philip. Whatever it was like, whatever the details were, he meets Jesus. Jesus says, “Follow Me,” and he is in. That experience with Jesus alone was enough for him to start following.

Now we come to the last person. This one has the longest story. We go from the shortest to the longest. This is Nathanael. Nathanael ends up being an apostle despite having no interest in it initially. He is the only one of the four who is actively resistant to the idea of buying into this whole Jesus thing at all.

Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote: Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

“Nazareth? Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.

Think about all the things Philip said. “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law and about whom the prophets also wrote: Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” There is a lot there that is exciting. The Nazareth detail is not really the point. It is just the town He is from. It is not the important part, and yet that is what Nathanael gets caught up on. He is not curious about the prophecy. He is not asking about the main things. He is caught up in details.  You could imagine a world in which Philip started debating those same details with him! Maybe they get caught up in a debate about whether anything good can come out of Nazareth. What a waste of time that would have been. This is not actually about Nazareth. Who cares about Nazareth?

Philip does not get caught up in the details. He does not waste time debating Nazareth. Instead, he invites Nathanael to see Jesus for himself. He is essentially saying, “Do not tell me who you think Jesus is, what you think He is going to be like, or how you imagine this is true or not true. Just come and see for yourself.” That is what he says: 

“Come and see.”

When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, He said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” 

In other words, this is an honest man. He is a straight shooter.

Nathanael is thrown off and says, 

“How do You know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

Occasionally you will hear someone try to read this passage in a way that removes the miraculous element. They suggest that maybe Jesus simply saw him under the fig tree from a distance. That does not make sense. If you read this without a miraculous element, you are reading against the grain.

Imagine you were standing under a tree behind us, and I saw you and later said, “I saw you over there.” Would you fall to your knees and say, “The Son of God has arrived”? Of course not. It is not impressive if the tree is right there. There is something impressive about this. You do not fall to your knees and declare someone to be the Son of God because they noticed you standing nearby.  Clearly, wherever this fig tree was, it was somewhere you could not see from where Jesus was standing. This is a man who has shown that He knows Nathanael’s character and knows things about him that He should not be able to know.

This man who was caught up in the details meets Jesus and sees that He is more than expected. He decides to start following Him. Nathanael declares, 

“Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

Jesus responds, “You believe because I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” Then He adds, “Very truly I tell you, you will see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

That is a reference to Genesis twenty-eight, to Jacob’s ladder. Jacob dreams of a ladder with angels ascending and descending, a bridge between heaven and earth. Here Jesus references that and says, in effect, “I am the bridge. I am the bridge between heaven and earth. You think it is impressive that I know details about your life? That is not even the most exciting thing. Stick around.”

Four different stories. Four different ways we see people start following Jesus.  I have seen in you a passion for evangelism. You are excited to share your faith, and that is good. It is helpful to see the diverse ways people come to faith because there is no one particular methodology that works. No one person is so clever, so witty, so good at talking, or so friendly that they can make someone come to faith.  No one comes to faith because of a method or a personality. The only essential person involved is Jesus. That is the common thread in all these stories. In each one, someone takes another person to Jesus so they can meet Him for themselves. Whether they have reservations, enthusiasm, or no prior interest at all, that personal encounter makes the difference. That is what matters.

As we think about evangelism and harness that passion, remember this: in this city alone there are about eight thousand people. Statistically, a little over half would identify as Christian, and about twenty-five percent would be active church attenders.  That means roughly six thousand people are not involved in a church family, and about four thousand may not be Christian at all, statistically speaking.

If we want to share our faith, the key is not you. You are not the key. You are not the thing that is going to change the world. You have been invited by Jesus to change the world with Him. The Savior is already here. You do not have to carry that burden. You do not have to feel clever enough, smart enough, or charismatic enough to convince anyone of anything.  All we have to do is invite people to come and get to know Jesus for themselves, regardless of what they think He is or where they are in life. Jesus will not disappoint.  If we want to be effective evangelists, the key is simply inviting people to come and see. Amen.