John 3:22-4:24 - Part B

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Now let's get started with today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. and what he has seen and heard that he testifies and no one receives his testimony he who has received his testimony has certified that God is true for he whom God has sent speaks the words of God for God does not give the spirit by measure the father loves the son and has given all things into his hand he who believes in the son has everlasting life and he who does not believe the son shall not see life but the wrath of God abides on him we have a little bit of a problem not really a problem we have an issue with these verses there is an issue with these verses you see in my bible i i and i don't know if it's so in yours but i'm guessing it is if we have the same version i'm noticing that verse 31 begins with quotation marks do you do you have that in your bible little quotes and then it ends at verse 36 now that indicates that the one who has been speaking that is john the baptist is continuing to speak so we would assume in reading this by looking at the quotation marks that john the baptist is simply continuing his speech after he must increase i must decrease john keeps talking all the way down to verse 36 right that's the assumption the issue we have the problem we have is it doesn't actually sound like john the baptist that is the style and the grammar sound more like john the apostle rather than john the baptist you look at all the words of john the baptist recorded in the bible and match these up to it especially if you looked in the original language you would discover that's not john the baptist he doesn't talk like that he doesn't use that kind of sentence uh construction syntax and grammar but it sounds a lot like john the apostle so why am i making a deal of this because in the original greek there are no quotation marks the original text of the scripture had no quotes like we have in in english in in western language so it had to be inserted and when you insert that you are making an interpretive statement you are interpreting that as john the baptist right by the way do you know that chapters and verses weren't in the original manuscripts let alone quotation marks there weren't like chapter four chapter three verse one verse two they didn't come along till 1227 when stephen lankton who was the archbishop of canterbury to make things easier decided to format the bible so people could find things in it that's when chapters and verses came along so the first printing of a bible that had chapters and verses were in the 1300s it was the wickliffe translation of the bible now i'll tell you what i believe i don't believe john the baptist said these verses at the end i believe this is john the apostle the author of this book's commentary his editorial comments on chapters one through three and he's summing them up and saying here's why jesus christ was and is so unique and this is why so many people believe in him and this is why you should believe in him and i told you before in our previous studies that this is one of the the marks of john's writing he will often do this he'll he'll include a thing and then he'll kind of sum it up he did it at the end of chapter two talking about the response in jerusalem before he turned to nicodemus in the third chapter so i believe these are john's comments and let's just read them again with that in mind he who comes from above is above all he who is of the earth speaking of john is earthly and speaks of the earth he who comes from heaven is above all and what he has seen and heard that he testifies and no one receives his testimony he who has received his testimony has certified that god is true that's very johannan that's very john the apostle like in authorship for he whom god has sent speaks the words of god for god does not give the spirit by measure that is to jesus the father loves the son and has given all things into his hand he who believes in the son has everlasting life and he who does not believe in the son shall not see life but the wrath of god abides in him therefore verse one chapter four therefore when the lord that is jesus the lord knew that the pharisees those that religious that religious gang in control of judaism legalistic judaism conservative judaism in jerusalem when he heard that the pharisees had heard that jesus made and baptized more disciples than john though jesus himself did not baptize but his disciples he left judaea and departed again to galilee but he needed to go through samaria it's interesting that when it talks about the baptism of jesus that it makes the point that jesus himself didn't baptize people which is wise it was very wise for jesus not to personally baptize people in my opinion and here's why can you imagine how heady it would be how spiritually superior one would feel if well there's john the baptist he baptized peter baptized a few philip but jesus baptized me right you can hear the conversation right they're having a turkish coffee and a falafel in jerusalem and somebody says yeah you know i was baptized by john the baptist himself and somebody goes well that's cool but jesus baptized me heady stuff so he let his disciples do it but do you know even with that divisions grew in the early church when paul writes a letter to the carinthians he said i thank god that i didn't baptize any of you except for crispus and gayus and the household of stefanis beside that i don't know if i baptize anyone else for christ didn't send me to baptize but to preach the gospel not with the wisdom of words but the power of god that the cross of christ be made of no effect otherwise in that same chapter he says i've heard that there are divisions among you contentions among you some say i'm of paul others say i'm of apollos others say i'm of cephas and others the fourth group are saying i'm of christ so already in the early church the church at corinth there were groups of people dividing up over their favorite preacher personalities i'm a paul i love paul you know paul the apostle he's that great rabbi who had that radical conversion and paul was he's kind of radical i like the radical paul i like his radical approach i'm radical like him i identify with paul others are saying well you know paul was good but we love apollos apollos has a golden tongue he has a communication skill he's a he's an orator par excellence he's intelligent we like that kind of intelligent approach and then there's a third group saying i know all that stuff is good but peter now he's blue collar he's a fisherman he just you know he says it like it is he uses words we can all understand and and and yeah i mean that's a man of the people we love peter but then there was a fourth group they were probably the worst because they felt superior than all of the other three by saying we're of christ no we don't believe in any human institutions or anything like that we just follow christ and paul wrote to them and said some say i'm a paul of apollos i'm of cephas of christ i want you to know you're all carnal because you are taking the body of christ and dividing it into personalities and he says was paul baptized for you is is christ divided and he said we've all had various ministries but it's god who does the work and god who brings the increase so so that whole mentality has been with us a long time it's with us here so jesus wisely did not baptize but his disciples did so it says he left judea and he departed again to galley so he's been in jerusalem he moves to judea and he's going then to samaria jerusalem judea samaria i'm bringing that up for a very important reason in acts chapter 1 verse 8 before jesus ascended into heaven he told his disciples go into all the world and share the gospel wait for the filling of the holy spirit from on high and you will be my witnesses in jerusalem judea samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth and that was the strategy they undertook they began in jerusalem they moved to judea they were scattered around samaria and elsewhere so what jesus told them to do he himself did as a model he modeled it he instructed it and they did it you're listening to connect with Skip heitzig before we get back to skips teaching nate heitzig has written a children's book just in time for christmas and this month we're offering it to you as thanks for your support of connect with Skip heitzig christmas under the tree follows the timeless story of jesus christ from the cradle to the cross through the eyes of an unlikely character a humble tree this beautifully illustrated book which includes a companion audio experience is a wonderful way to tell the christmas story and the story of christ to the children in your life this resource is our thanks for your gift of just 25 dollars or more today to help share biblical teaching with more people around the world through connect with Skip heitzig go to connect with Skip dot com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copy when you give 25 dollars or more today to reach people all around the world through connect with Skip heitzig let's continue with today's teaching with pastor Skip notice first four so he's going north going to galley but on the way to galley he needed to go through he needed to go through samaria you know if you and i lived 2 000 years ago and we were reading this he needed to go through samaria we we we'd say one question why that'd be like saying um i need to go to los angeles but i need to go through through Juarez you need to go through Juarez to get to los angeles that's out of your way there's a direct route you could take just take i-40 go west young man go west but it says jesus needed to go through samaria and why well we find out as we read there's a woman at samaria jesus has appointment with she doesn't know this the apostles don't know this jesus knows this it's in the providence of god he wants the lesson to be known that god loves samaritans as much as he loves jews he loves all people no matter who they are no matter what their background no matter what they've done and there's only one woman you go why would he go out of his way to samaria to speak to one woman why not do a mass crusade because interestingly one woman is going to be affected by this conversation she's going to believe in the lord and she will carry the gospel to samaria and many more in her village and the surrounding towns will believe because of her testimony and then later on when the church scatters from jerusalem judaea into samaria the pump has already been primed the ground has already been tilled and fertilized and jesus did it he needed to go through samaria there's a little background you need to get this to really understand the impact of this there's a little bit of background that i just need to bring you up on some of you know this already if you do just bear with me for 700 years by this time 700 years there has been animosity between samaria and jerusalem the jews have no dealings with the samaritans the woman will rightly say in a few verses jews on their way north would go away from samaria if you're going north if you were jewish especially if you were a very compliant even why i would say legalistic jew you you you want to stay away from samaria they would actually go across the jordan river out of the land of israel into the land of perea and go north and then re-enter from the north to get to galley they would stay away from that central ridge of mountains which is samaria now why is samaria so important to you because of this long-standing animosity let me begin in 722 bc in 722 bc the asyrian empire took over the world they swept down through the north from the northeast and they took over the 10 tribes in the north now israel was split you remember how israel was split in the old testament after solomon's kingdom jeroboam effectively split and riabom split the kingdom to two tribes in the south 10 tribes in the north jeroboam introduced idolatry in the north and placed golden calves for the people to worship at two of them one in the far north of dan and the second in the area of samaria in bethel in bethel and dan golden calves were there for worship that really angered the people of judaea and can i say the lord god because that's idolatry so they continued doing their idolatry in 722 bc the asyrians took over the world took captive the 10 northern tribes and when the asyrians took places over here's what they did they would take over the world they would remove the population base away from the land they didn't just take over they took you out of your homeland and brought you to another place and they brought in the place of the population people from other areas they conquered they wanted to really mix it up because it takes the nationalistic spirit away if you're if you're away from your homeland you feel very defeated very depleted you don't you're not buying into this land that's not your land so he took away the people except the asyrian policy was always to keep the people of the land the farmers the poor people let those people stay so the jewish people some of them remain the poorest of the land while floods of new people came in from other countries you follow the floods of new people non-jews from other places populating the northern area of samaria intermarried with the jews who remained in the land now there was a syncretism that is a meshing together of ideologies belief systems foreign gods and goddesses so it wasn't a pure bloodline and it wasn't a pure religion not that it ever really was but it's getting worse it got so bad that after the babylonian captivity down south right you know that in 586 bc the babylonians took over the area of judaea 70 years after that they came back to judaea to rebuild their temple when they wanted to rebuild their temple some samaritans came down san ballad was one of them tobias and they said we want to help you build rebuild this temple and the people of judaea said no way we're not letting you help at all we the people of judaea from these tribes were building on our own we we want nothing to do with you because of the idolatry and the pollution that was in their system in their in their lives wow that didn't help matters they got so angry with the people of judaea for not letting them participate in that that they built a rival temple on another mountain see the one in jerusalem is on mount zion the one in samaria they built on mount gersim mount gersim remember that mount ebal and mount gersim the blessings and the cursings that were shouted in our study of the old testament so they built a temple on mount gersim interesting fact it is believed that the son-in-law of san ballad was the one who built that temple in 303 b or 330 bc so now there's a rival temple and josephus says the rival temple in samaria was almost exactly like the temple in jerusalem so you have samaritan worship in samaria and the jerusalem worship in the temple and they're at odds with each other so the people in judaea the pharisees the sadducees all of them they don't like the samaritans they have no dealings with the samaritans it's a rival religion a rival temple god said only worship and sacrifice only worship and sacrifice animals in the place that i choose that was jerusalem everybody knew it they had their own priesthood their own high priests they offered sacrifices and they only believed in the first five books of moses not the whole old testament so they had their their five books their pentateuch their torah the the samaritan pentateuch another just quick little fact there are still samaritans alive today just a few years ago the oldest high priest died and they elected a new one in his place part of his family part of his lineage there's only a few hundred of them left but they're there in samaria it's very interesting and they still perform their worship systems every year and they still sacrifice in that area so that's samaria jesus needed to go through samaria so he came verse five to a city of samaria which is called psycar near the plot of ground jacob gave to his son joseph now jacob's well was there jesus therefore being wearied from his journey sat thus by the well it was about the sixth hour a woman of samaria came to draw water and jesus said to her give me a drink for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food don't miss that phrase jesus was wearied from the journey we believe in christianity that jesus was fully god and at the same time fully human and here is the human side of jesus weary from the journey can i rephrase it weary in the pursuit of souls weary tired it's a long walk he's not on a tour bus he didn't have a tour guide it's not air-conditioned not hotels and meals and falafel lunches he's walking it's 12 noon he goes to the well jacob's well i've been there he's tired and a woman is drawing water now women typically didn't draw water at noon they drew it in the morning and in the evening she comes at noon why i believe she's not liked she doesn't want to be seen with everybody else and we'll discover why as we go through the story she's a woman with a reputation she's been around the block with men she's had several men in her life she's had five husbands and she's married now to number six but jesus weary in his pursuit of souls what do you get weary in is there any spiritual pursuit that you are willing to put your your uh hand to the plow with and get tired doing it oswald sanders once said the world is run by tired men now he wrote that in his day we would say today it's run by tired men and women and that's true show me a successful vbs and i'll show you a group of tired women show me a successful women's retreat and i'll show you a group of tired women anytime something spiritual is done and and a and a and a an event takes place there's a group of people staff and volunteers who get tired in the journey missionaries will go to the other side of the world to the hardest places weary because of the journey weary because they don't want the creature comforts of america they don't have air conditioning in this place the food is different it's hard they're not respected by the people and they stay there sometimes for a lifetime what sometimes for a lifetime what drives them the satisfaction of knowing you're right in the center of god's will there's no feeling like that we're glad you've joined us today before you go remember that when you give 25 or more to help reach more people with the gospel through connect with Skip heitzig we'll send you nate heitzig's new children's book christmas under the tree which includes a companion audio experience just in time for christmas this book will help young readers understand why jesus left heaven to be born under and die upon a tree to request your copy call 800-922-1888 that's 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com donate for more from Skip be sure to download the connect with Skip heitzig app where you can access messages and more content right at your fingertips come back next time for more verse by verse teaching of god's word here on connect with Skip heitzig is a presentation of connection communications connecting you to god's never changing truth in ever-changing times