Author: Ben Riche

Sermon notes 👇

It is entirely feasible that we may concede that God is the source of all things…and at the same time believe that we are the focus of all things.

Not to John? though. To John the Baptist, Jesus is both the source and center of all things.

Jesus must increase. I must decrease.

To John, the important role that he was given – the last and greatest of the prophets pointing to Jesus – that role wasn’t the reward. Jesus was the reward. Jesus was the focus of it all.

We would be remiss to walk away from this passage this morning without hearing a call to have Jesus increase among us, and for us to decrease.

It’s not about us, it’s about Jesus.

If we want to be a church that makes the real Jesus known then we have to live and think and behave in a way where Jesus is the center and focus of it all.

And that starts not with our trying and doing better. That starts with our acknowledgment that all we have come from Jesus, and that we desperately need Jesus.

Sermon notes 👇

Jesus reminds Nicodemus of an old story from Israel’s history.

Back when Moses was leading God’s people through the wilderness, there was a scene where serpents were biting and killing the people, and it was happening because of their own sin.

But God told Moses to make a fiery serpent made of bronze and lift it up on a pole.

He said that if anybody was bit by a serpent, all they had to do was look at the fiery serpent and they would be healed.

Jesus says that in the same way, He must be lifted up, and whoever will believe in Him will have eternal life.

He is the way to healing, the way to new life, the way to be reborn…

All one has to do is look to Him.

If God wanted to condemn the world…if God wanted to condemn you…Jesus simply would not have stepped into our reality.

Jesus not coming would be condemnation.

Those who see themselves as superior and those who see themselves as inferior would both be found guilty.

But Jesus did come…because God loves us…because God loves you.

He loves you where you are and as you are – self-righteous or blatantly rebellious – He came for you there.

And He was lifted up on that cross, and He died for your sins so that you could be purified once and for all.

He rose again so that God could dwell with us, so that the Spirit could indwell us, and so that we could live the way He made us to live.

We can have life. God-given eternal life.

And we should be living in that life here and now – living from this good news of Jesus today.

All we have to do is look to Him.

Sermon notes👇

…what they came to understand was that Jesus had said and demonstrated Himself to be the new Temple.

He was replacing it.

He was taking place of the sacrifices.

He was replacing the need to build something bigger and better.

He was replacing the stone, and the wood, and the metal objects of the Temple that could never make the living God known.

Jesus was making God known in the flesh.

He was doing what the Temple had only whispered of. He was what it had always pointed to.

Jesus is the latter Temple of Haggai. He is better than any Temple that was ever built by hands.

The Temple had never restored a right relationship between God and His people. Not in the sense that they could walk together and talk together like Adam and Eve were able to do with God back in the Garden.

Jesus, the true and better Temple, made a way to know God in the flesh.

He died and rose again after 3 days and purified us so that God could dwell with us…so that the Holy Spirit could indwell us…so that we could know God more fully and worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Sermon notes 👇

This story isn’t just about Jesus turning water into wine.

This story is about Jesus showing up and saving the best for last.

This story is about God breaking in to do new things and providing far more abundantly than anyone could imagine.

This story is about Jesus being the fulfillment of all that God promised, and taking on God’s wrath, so that we don’t have to.

If you want to see who Jesus is, then you need to see Him as someone who willingly steps into the gap for us, who willingly goes out for His people.

He doesn’t leave us where we are in shame and guilt, He takes that shame and guilt onto Himself, and instead gives us wine abundant….

Sermon notes👇

Maybe you aren’t okay with not being sure you have all of who Jesus is figured out.

Maybe it scares you to be unsure of whether you have all the answers to all the questions that may come your way…questions from you or from others.

Parents – maybe it scares you to think your child might get baptized and not fully understand the gospel.

Those are valid concerns that we have to take seriously…

But also, John the Baptist, Andrew, Peter, John (the writer of this book), Philip, Nathaniel – none of them knew it all. None of them knew Jesus thoroughly.

But the Jesus who met them and invited them to know Him was strong enough to hold them close and lead them graciously to glorify God with their entire lives.

Sermon notes👇

If Jesus was anything less than who John introduces us to in John 1:1-18, then how could we ever believe He has anything for us?

But…The Eternal name of Jesus, here in John 1, is “The Word”

His name is teaming with life. It is by and from The Word that all life has come to be.

If we want to truly live, where else would we go?

There is life for us in His name.

This morning we began a new sermon series we’ve titled Jesus is Better – The Book of Hebrews.

You can catch the replay here.

Sermon notes:

We’re naming this series “Jesus is better,” because He is…

God is not who the serpent would have us believe. He is not hiding something from us. In fact, He made everyone and everything in order to make Himself known.

He sent His Son into the world to die for our sins. In that alone we see so much of what He is like.

And Jesus rose again…

And all our big questions about what God is like and what His intentions are –
those questions that stem from confusion and suspicion…

Jesus is the Answer to them all.

That is what we will unfold throughout our time in Hebrews. It’s pretty deep and wide and dense, but it is packed with the good news that Jesus is the Answer from eternity past and into eternity future…

Jesus is better.

He is greater than angels.
Greater than Moses
Greater than the priests, and the temple, and the law.

We’ll see that His oath is better than any commitment we could make or break.

And His Word is better than whatever the enemy could speak – better than whatever we would speak for ourselves.

Read 1 Timothy 5:1-16

Over and over in the Gospels we see Jesus saying something along these lines; that the last will be first and the first shall be last.

In some ways, that truly defines the subversive nature of the gospel.

In the context of 1 Timothy, a widow with no family to care for her would truly be at the mercy of society. She’d be on the outskirts of society, potentially subject to injustice, and probably in a place of poverty. That may not have been true of all widows, but it was certainly a possibility.

So, what does Paul call the church to do?

To put these most vulnerable people into positions of honor. To treat them like mothers. To provide for them. To care for them

Think about that – Paul tells the church that it honors God to take the lowliest of people and to put them in positions of honor.

The ways of God – the application of the Gospel to real life – is so subversive to the ways of this world.

The ways of God calls us to invite people in to the family of God – and not just invite them in – but to give them places of honor.

You can catch the replay here.