Sunday School Lesson for July 17, 2022 - The Word Saves: Printed Text: John 12:44-50 NLT; Background Scripture: John 12:27-50 NLT; Devotional Reading: John 12:44-50 NLT

 

Unit 2: The Word: The Agent of Creation

Key Verse:

John 12:46 NLT

 

46 I have come as a light to shine in this dark world, so that all who put their trust in me will no longer remain in the dark.

 

There are so many reasons to place your trust in Him. Come see.

 

 

What you need to know

 

 

John 12:25-26 NLT

 

25 Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life.[e] Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. 26 Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?”

As we approach this week’s lesson, consider what has transpired before we reach today’s text (John 12:44-50). In Chapter Eleven (next week’s lesson), Jesus and his disciples return from the wilderness outside of Judea in response to Mary and Martha’s desperate plea to come to Bethany, just on the southeast side of Jerusalem, to heal their brother, Lazarus, who was dying. His return to the area carried some risk because, during His last visit to the area, the religious leaders in Judea threatened to stone Him (John 10:31-32). Nevertheless, Jesus arrived in Jerusalem and raised Lazarus from the dead, literally calling him from the tomb. In the moments preceding that miracle, we have the record of His exchange with Martha, where He declares Himself in another of His ‘I AM’ statements to be the One who has the power of death, hell, and the grave. He declares that He is the resurrection and the life, the very power of God to give life and to give it eternally. It is right after Lazarus’ resurrection the religious leaders determine that Jesus must be killed.

 

 

John 12:3 NLT

 

3 Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jar[b] of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance.

 

Song of Solomon 1:12 NLT

 

12 

The king is lying on his couch,

    enchanted by the fragrance of my perfume.

 

Immediately after Lazarus' resurrection, Jesus and His disciples returned to the wilderness, to the village of Ephraim on the other side of the Jordan, to avoid those who were plotting His death. He and His disciples returned to the area to observe Passover, the last Passover that He would observe with His disciples. They arrived at the home of their friends: Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. A grand meal was prepared for them, and in attendance were some of the very religious leaders who were planning to kill Him. It was here that Mary very publicly took the jar of expensive perfume and anointed Jesus’ feet. In doing so, Mary silently declared that which inspired the religious leaders' ire. Her silent, thoughtful worship made it clear to all that Jesus was the Messiah. 

 

 

John 12:12-15 NLT

 

12 The next day, the news that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem swept through the city. A large crowd of Passover visitors 13 took palm branches and went down the road to meet him. They shouted,

“Praise God![f]

Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

Hail to the King of Israel!”[g]

14 Jesus found a young donkey and rode on it, fulfilling the prophecy that said:

15 

“Don’t be afraid, people of Jerusalem.[h]

Look, your King is coming,

    riding on a donkey’s colt.”

 

Zechariah 9:9 NLT

 

9 

Rejoice, O people of Zion![a]

    Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem!

Look, your king is coming to you.

    He is righteous and victorious,[b]

yet he is humble, riding on a donkey—

    riding on a donkey’s colt.

 

Next, Jesus makes a public and very bold declaration of His identity as the Lord’s Messiah, Very God, and Very man, by entering Jerusalem at the beginning of the Passover celebration on the foal of a donkey. By doing so, he declares victory and peace. In both cases, they are proclaimed with the air of finality and eternity. He declares victory over sin and death forever at the cross on which his enemies will have Him executed. 

 

John 12:30-32

 

30 Then Jesus told them, “The voice was for your benefit, not mine. 31 The time for judging this world has come, when Satan, the ruler of this world, will be cast out. 32 And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.” 

 

Finally, Immediately preceding this week’s lesson, God speaks from Heaven, declaring that He will glorify His great Name through the name of His Son, Jesus. This declaration still stands as an eternal witness that the Father and the Son are One. These events, each significant in their own right, serve as a backdrop for this week’s lesson. Let’s get started. 

 

 

The Lesson

John 12:44 NLT

44 Jesus shouted to the crowds, “If you trust me, you are trusting not only me, but also God who sent me.

This is Passover, a distinctly Jewish observance celebrating God’s deliverance of the Hebrew people from Egypt. Subsequently, Jesus is speaking, primarily to Jews. Let that sink in. To the uninitiated and uninformed, Jesus’ statement provides a teachable moment: that Jesus identifies with the Eternal and Almighty God of Heaven. This is a truth emphasized throughout Scripture. For Christians, this is a core belief that we accept and become comfortable with from the time that we first believe. However, to the Jew, Jesus’ declaration presents a much different problem. Upon hearing these words, a Jew is confronted with a choice. To believe Jesus’ words is to reject key parts of their understanding of their history, their culture, and God. To reject Christ’s words is to embrace their reverence for their heritage as children of Abraham and for the Law of Moses. To accept Christ’s words, in their minds, they would have to tune their backs on the very things that made them…Jews. Their entire concept of God was intricately woven throughout the fabric of their culture. Jesus invited them to a new and living way. In the next brief verses, He will paint a picture of God that they are heretofore unfamiliar with.

John 12:45 NLT

45 For when you see me, you are seeing the one who sent me.

“For when you see me, you are seeing the one who sent me.” With these words, Jesus not only identifies Himself with God, but He also identifies God with Himself. That’s not just a cute play on words, but a profound truth that warrants our consideration. Beloved, Jesus wants you to know that He is the express image of the invisible God. He wants you to know that all you need to know about God is Jesus. What that means to me is that God is fully expressed in the words and actions of Jesus. This truth is so profound, especially to the Jews, that just a short time later, He would make this very same claim to one of His disciples, Thomas. Thomas walked with Jesus for three years, somehow waiting for the ‘big reveal’, that Jesus had direct access to the father. Not yet convinced, Thomas finally confronted Jesus with these words, “...show us the Father”. Jesus responded, “When you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” Again, for you and I, these words are part of our learning as Christians. For a Jew, these words change everything. What, then, does Jesus reveal to us about the Father?

John 12:46 NLT

46 I have come as a light to shine in this dark world, so that all who put their trust in me will no longer remain in the dark.

1 John 1:5 NLT

5 This is the message we heard from Jesus[c] and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.

James 1:17 NLT

17 Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens.[d] He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.

Beloved, Jesus wants us to know that God is Light. James identifies Him as the Father of Lights. He no longer speaks to us from thunder, storms, billowing smoke, or whirlwinds. He speaks to us through His Son, Jesus. All Jesus has ever done is prove His love for us. He rescued us from our lost state. He pulled us from some of the darkest places. He has only ever offered us …Grace. He has only ever shone us Love. That is what the Father wants us to know about Him, that He is love.

John 12:47 NLT

 

47 I will not judge those who hear me but don’t obey me, for I have come to save the world and not to judge it.

In this dispensation of Grace, Jesus and His Father, our Father, want us to know that we are not under judgment. Not by them. Not in the Church age. All Jesus wants us to know about our Father is that He loves us. Jesus had no problem hanging out with tax collectors and sinners, drunkards, and prostitutes. He wants us to know that the Father sent Him for the express purpose of saving those very people. He wants us to know that those people are not invisible, nor are they lost. God knows exactly who they are and where they are. He sent us Jesus to save them (us).

1 John 4:16 NLT

16 We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 

 

Matthew 5:3 NLT

 

3 

“God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him,[a]

    for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.

 

Beloved. God is love. All Jesus ever expressed to His followers was love. Above all else, He wants us to know that we are loved. He doesn’t care what our station in life might be. Lepers didn’t frighten Him. These regarded among us are cherished by Him, and by God. Don’t ever think for a moment that God feels anything but love for you, no matter how disappointed you are…in yourself. God loves you. He’s not sitting over you in judgment. Instead, by His Holy Spirit and by The Word that He sent to us, He continually calls us to life, eternal life to all who will trust His Son.

 

 

John 12:48 NLT

 

48 But all who reject me and my message will be judged on the day of judgment by the truth I have spoken. 

 

It is at this point that I must remind you that Jesus’ primary listening audience are…Jews. He is confronting the Jews with a choice. They must either choose Him and His message or …not. But He is warning them that the failure to choose Him will result in eternal separation from the Father and from Himself for eternity. He’s not pointing an accusatory finger at any and every sinner, or any and every sin. No, He is simply telling Jews that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and that no one can come to the Father and gain eternal life without trusting Him (Christ). Beloved, the same is true today. The only message that we have for the lost is this: Jesus saves. Trust Him. You can come to Him just as you are, and He will save you. I’m a witness. Jesus loves sinners. He demonstrated that fact continuously during His earthly ministry.

 

 

John 12:49-50 NLT

 

49 I don’t speak on my own authority. The Father who sent me has commanded me what to say and how to say it. 50 And I know his commands lead to eternal life; so I say whatever the Father tells me to say.”

 

Jesus closes His narrative with this point. He has only done what the Father has commanded Him to do. He has taken care to stick to the script. He has only said what the Father has instructed Him to say. Why? Because God saw it all from the beginning. He saw our eventual fall and devised a plan to save us, all of us, before the world was spoken into existence. After all, He wants us to know the most important thing about Him is that He loved us from the beginning. From the beginning, God is Love.

 

Selah,

 

wb

 

 

1 John 4:19-19 NLT

 

18 Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. 19 We love each other[b] because he loved us first.

Sunday School Lesson for July 10, 2022 - The Word Heals: Printed Text: John 4:46-54 NLT; Background Scripture: John 4:46-54 NLT; Devotional Reading: John 4:46-54 NLT

 

Unit 2: The Word: The Agent of Creation

Key Verse:

John 4:53 NLT

 

53 Then the father realized that that was the very time Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” And he and his entire household believed in Jesus.

 

The fruit of the Word is the bounty of the Kingdom!

 

 

What you need to know

 

 

John 4:1-6 NLT

 

1 Jesus[a] knew the Pharisees had heard that he was baptizing and making more disciples than John 2 (though Jesus himself didn’t baptize them—his disciples did). 3 So he left Judea and returned to Galilee.

4 He had to go through Samaria on the way. 5 Eventually he came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime. 7 Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Please give me a drink.” 

Continuing our survey of the Book of John, we find Jesus preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven in the region of Judea, outside of Jerusalem, in the wilderness near the Jordan River. People are responding to His message, Souls are being saved. John, the Baptist has been preaching the message of repentance in preparation for the coming of Christ. Now that Christ has come, the masses are turning to Him with hearts that have been prepared for His arrival. So much so, that in that moment, His ministry had overtaken John’s ministry in the number of followers (believers) who had committed their lives to His message.

However, the religious leaders in Jerusalem remained a threat as long as Jesus remained in the area, so He departed for Galilee, stopping briefly in the region of Sychar, which had beed the capital of the Northern Kingdom in the day of old. It was there that Jesus encountered the Samaritan woman, which turned out to be one of the most important narratives in the entirety of the Gospels. This brief encounter with a woman whose people were rejected by the Jews because of their questionable lineage revealed a great truth that remains to this day: that a day would come, and indeed had come where true worshipers of God would worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. It was after Jesus made this statement to the Samaritan woman that He revealed Himself to her as the Messiah; The Messiah to the Samaritans and the Gentiles, as well as the Jews. IT was after this pivotal narrative that our lesson begins.

 

The Lesson

John 4:46a NLT

46a As he traveled through Galilee, he came to Cana, where he had turned the water into wine…

So Jesus returned to the place that He called home. Cana was situated between Nazareth, the place of Jesus’ birth and Capenaum, the place where Jesus made His headquarters, as it were. It was in Capernaum that Jesus performed His first miracle, turning water in to wine at a family wedding. The people in the area knew him well. He was the carpenter’s son.

John 4:46b NLT

46b …There was a government official in nearby Capernaum whose son was very sick.

We don’t know his name, or his nationality, per se. We can make some informed guesses, but they are only guesses. The Amplified Bible and the NASB  identifie him as an official of of the Royal court. That connects him to Herod Antipas, who was Governor of the northern region of Israel. This official may then, have been Jewish, an Edomite, or gentile of Roman descent. There are several possibilities. The reason I introduce this seeming element of question into the narrative is because of a something I’ve noticed in my own study of Scripture. It seems there was a symbiosis of sorts that existed amongst the people in the regions of Israel, out side of Jerusalem and the region of Judea. It seems, the further that one was from Jerusalem, the better the people of the communities got along, regardless of ethnicity or background. Often times, Jesus was invited to speak to religious leaders in northern Israel. In those situations He was treated cordially. By contrast, the religious leaders in Judea often sought to entrap Him in their encounters. It is along this line of thought that I suggest that, whatever the background of this royal official, he would have been quite comfortable in the presence of this Jewish Rabbi.

John 4:47 NLT

47 When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged Jesus to come to Capernaum to heal his son, who was about to die.

So then, when faced with a personal crisis, a life and death situation, this official made the trip to Capernaum without reservation. He did what any parent would do. He sought help from someone that felt certain could help him. The Bible says, “…when he heard that Jesus had come…”, indicating that somehow, faith was stirred at the thought that Jesus was in the vicinity. It was in desperation and faith that this man sought the Master’s help. Selah.

John 4:48 NLT

48 Jesus asked, “Will you never believe in me unless you see miraculous signs and wonders?”

This verse could be interpreted in several different ways. Some theologian suggest that Jesus was not addressing the official directly, but that he was addressing the people gathered around him. This is quite plausible. We will see later that many of the people of the region had trouble accepting Jesus as the Messiah, sent from God. To many, especially the Jews in the region, he was the carpenters son.

On the off chance that Jesus was addressing the official directly, there are a couple of possibilities that come to mind. One; might Jesus have been upbraidding the official for a lack of faith? The official desired that Jesus come and heal his son. Compare that to the Centurion, who requested that Jesus only speak the Word and his servant would be healed. Similarly, the Syro-Phonecian woman entrated Christ for the life of her daughter by stating that een dogs (gentiles) had a right to the crumbs from the Master’s table. In both cases, Jesus lauded their faith as greater than any that He had encountered among the Jews, who were the rightful heirs to the Inheritance promised to Abraham: Jesus.

The other possibility is similar. In Judea, Jesus had not performed any miraculous signs. He had only preached the Gospel and people believed. Lives were changed eternally simply at the hearing of the preached Word. Again, was Jesus displaying His frustration at the level of unbelief that He continually encountered in Galilee?

John 4:49 NLT

49 The official pleaded, “Lord, please come now before my little boy dies.

“...Lord, please…” , the urgency with which this man sought Jesus’ help is clear in his response, or rather lack of response to Jesus’ seeming frustration. Rather than retreating into a shell of guilt or shame for having somehow missed the moment, he continues to press Jesus on behalf of his son. His son is first and foremost in his heart and mind at this moment. The Good News is that it seems that the increased urgency and determination that the official displayed in the face of Jesus’ retort stirred the Master’s heart on his son’s behalf.

John 4:50 NLT

50 Then Jesus told him, “Go back home. Your son will live!” And the man believed what Jesus said and started home.

The the Logos spoke. With the same creative force that set time and space in motion, Jesus spoke to the man, telling him to go home, assured that his son would live. And the Bible says that the man believed what Jesus said and turned toward Capernaum. His desperation had been rewarded. His  entreaty of God had been met with God’s umatchable … Grace.

John 4:51-52 NLT

51 While the man was on his way, some of his servants met him with the news that his son was alive and well. 52 He asked them when the boy had begun to get better, and they replied, “Yesterday afternoon at one o’clock his fever suddenly disappeared!”

I can only surmise how much this man was loved by his servants. Before he could make the entire trip home to Capernaum, some of his servants met him with joyous news: his son was healed! While he immediately left Jesus’ presence to return home and find out his son’s condition, at the moment of his son’s recovery his servants embarked on the road to Cana with haste to tell their master the good news. Wait. Pause for a moment. Consider this wonderful example of thankfulness. The official inquired of his servants the very time of his son’s recovery. They confirmed that it had occurred the previous afternoon at around one o’clock. That confirmed to the official that his son was healed in the very hour that Jesus had spoken. 

John 4:53 NLT

53 Then the father realized that that was the very time Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” And he and his entire household believed in Jesus.

Because of the miraculous healing of his son, the official’s entire household believed. This was a common occurrence on the region with concern to religion. When the head of the household came to faith, the entire household followed suit (including the servants). We find this to be the case in the case of Cornelius, in Acts 10 and Lydia in Acts 16. 

John 4:54 NLT

54 This was the second miraculous sign Jesus did in Galilee after coming from Judea.

In closing, I want to make note of thought that John brings to our attention the fact that this is the secon miracle performed by Jesus. It wasn’t His last. A quick survey reveals that most of His miracles occurred in the regions of Galilee, Samaria and other regions outside of Jerusalem and Judea. Yet, in the region of Judea, many came to Christ through just the preaching of the Gospel. Why is this important. Here’s why. Beloved, I can’t guarantee you a miracle on demand. No one can. YEs, I believe in miracles, but I believe in Christ above all else. We don’t have the benefit of being able to seek Christ out in Cana or Jerusalem or anywhere on earth to ask him personally to intervene on our behalf in our time of need. But we have the assurance that we can invoke His Word, we can pray to Him, literally standing in His presence spiritually at the throne of Grace, when we are making our requests to God, our Father. We have been given His Word, the very Logos, the embodiment of His (Christ’) essence. The very same essence that set time and space in motion. Additionally, He gave us His name: Jesus. And He assured us that if we ask anything in His Name, the authority of His name woud be present to perform it. All of this is tied to the will of God, which activates the logos and performs His will by His Spirit. Additionally, according to His will, He empowers us by the indwelling of that very same Holy Spirit, thus grafting us (believers)into the family of God. No, we don’t need Jesus to be present in the flesh. He’s accomplished all that was required of Him and for us… at the cross. Selah. Miracles: sometimes yes, sometimes no. Jesus: yea and amen!

2 Corinthians 1:20 NLT

20 For all of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding “Yes!” And through Christ, our “Amen” (which means “Yes”) ascends to God for his glory.

We have all we need.

Selah,

wb