Our Messages

We finished last week with the religious leaders saying, "Look, the whole world has gone after Him." And then in the first verse we will study today, we see that even the Greeks were seeking Him. And as Jesus hears they are looking for Him, He shares a particularly important teaching of how we are to prioritize living for Him rather than ourselves if we are to have eternal life.

Jesus' public ministry is coming to an end. Recent events have caused Him to no longer walk openly among the Jews. However, now God's timing Jesus ultimate purpose is at hand.

After making His way to Bethany, Jesus is deeply moved by all those who are hurting at Lazarus' death. But as He promised Martha, they would soon see the glory of God. Jesus calls to Lazarus to come forth, and in that moment, Lazarus is raised from the dead.

Today begins the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. He is going to claim that He is the resurrection and the life, and then He demonstrates it by raising Lazarus.

Today begins the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. He is going to claim that He is the resurrection and the life, and then He demonstrates it by raising Lazarus.

At this point in Jesus' ministry, there is a temporary standstill between Jesus and the religious leaders. There are enough people who are on Jesus' side, or at least aren’t actively opposing him, that the religious leaders have been unable to achieve a successful attack on Him. And we have seen they have been quite frustrated with those who were not against him. But, today, they will have another chance as Jesus make His way to visit the temple during the Feast of Dedication.

Jesus switches from teaching on the ability to really "see" since He is the "Light of the world." Now He introduces Himself as the door and the Good Shepherd. Contrasting Himself against the thief and the hired hand, He promises us "abundant life." He sets forth as proof to these claims His willingness to lay down His life, knowing that He will conquer death. We can rest assured "there will be one flock and One Shepherd."

In Chapter 8 of John’s gospel, Jesus made the claim that He was the light of the world.‌ To the pharisees, this was outrageous as He was making a claim to deity when He said it. But in today’s passage, Jesus not only makes the claim again, but He also demonstrates it by healing a man who had been born blind. However, the real miracle isn’t that he can now physically see, but that fact that he believes on Jesus, and His spiritual blindness is also healed!

God often does things in ways we don’t expect, and certainly in ways that we would not do them. I think this is true even in the way He saved the world. We would have sent a fully formed warrior, but God chose to send a helpless babe. I'm glad God doesn't do things my way.

Once again Jesus is misunderstood by the Pharisees. They stoop to insulting Jesus and they cannot fathom His words. While seeking to honor the Father, Jesus tells them that Abraham (who they claim as their father) saw Jesus and they question Him on His age. The chapter closes with Jesus plainly calling Himself, "I AM".

In today's passages, Jesus begins speaking to those who had recently believed Him. These were the Jews who had heard Him speak and began to believe. But it appears this belief was a superficial one, because Jesus begins to confront and criticize those whom John says had believed in Him. Belief isn’t a one and done type of thing. You must remain in the faith, abiding in His word.

This is a continuation of Jesus teaching in the temple during the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7:14-52) that we studied a couple weeks ago. You will remember that when Jesus first began teaching in the temple, he made some pretty incredible claims dealing with His authority and His identity. Namely that He was sent by God and therefore His authority is from Him. He also made it clear that He was in fact God Himself. Today we will see Jesus makes another bold claim when He says, “I am the light of the world." In this passage, Jesus makes many declarations about who He is.