InVerse 4th Quarter 2024: The Gospel of John

Justin Kim

Israel Ramos

Joe Reeves

Jonathan Walter

Hope Channel

05 Entering into Conflict

Coming to you from Silver Spring, Maryland, welcome to Inverse, a Bible-based conversation on life principles, contemporary issues, and thought-provoking perspectives.

Now here's your host, Justin Kim, with Inverse.

Hey everyone, welcome to our special Lumberjack edition of Here at Inverse.

We are here in a love cabin in front of a wooden table and as you can pan out, you can see we're all wearing different earthly colors.

My name's Justin Kim and I'm the host here at Inverse.

And we have 3 guys here talking around a round table about scripture, about Jesus, and about the gospel of John.

We're so glad that you decided to join us.

You can also put on a, I don't know, a lumberjack shirt, a flannel or something and join the conversation with us.

We just kind of wear what we do, and then sometimes we look good, and sometimes we look like, it looks like this, and it's a different look.

Those are only listening, they now will want to watch the episode.

Yeah, hey, so if you want to watch, you can go to hopetv.org slash inverse and you can watch along with us.

Well, you can't watch along with us, you'd be watching us.

But we'd love for you guys to pop over that website and check out the previous episodes, but also check out the current episode as well.

And if you guys are on podcast or radio, we just love your support, and we love any insights that you may have in the Gospel of John.

You can visit our social media sites and through the handle InverseBible, and leave your comments, leave your reactions, leave your, no insults please, by any other conclusions and other analyses you have on the Gospel of John, we can do a group study together online.

We're gonna go to John chapter 5, John chapter 5.

We have been looking at John chapter 1234 in the previous 4 episodes.

If you want to follow along with us, you can go to inversebible.org and download the Bible study guides there.

Joe, if you can lead us to the throne and we'll study the word of God afterwards.

Heavenly Father, thank you that we can join here at this table and those on the other side of the screen, that we can study your word.

We want to learn the things that you want to teach us in Jesus name.

Yeah, It's just been a huge blessing for this ministry.

Thanks to all of you guys support out there through video, through screen, through audio.

So many consumers of the Inverse Bible Study Guide, but also the TV show.

And it's just a blessing to sit around with friends and be studying the Bible and have you guys around.

This has really been a huge, 1 of the top 3 blessings of my life.

And Israel, are you ready to read the scripture?

So I was gonna say you might need your bifocals now verse 1 Let's go, okay After this there was a feast of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having 5 porches.

In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water.

For an angel went down at a certain time of the day into the pool and stirred up the water.

Then whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well of whatever diseases he had.

Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity for 38 years.

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been in that condition for a long time, he said to him, do you want to be made well?

The sick man answered him, sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I'm coming, another steps down before me.

Jesus said to him, "'Rise, take up your bed and walk.' And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed and walked.

The Jews Therefore said to him who was cured, It is the Sabbath, it is not lawful for you to carry your bed.

He answered them, He who made me well said to me, Take up your bed and walk.

Then they said to him, Who is the man who said to you, Take up your bed and walk?

But the 1 who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn a multitude being in that place.

Afterward, Jesus found him in a temple and said to him, see, you have been made well.

Sin no more, lest the worst thing come upon you.

The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who made him well.

Okay, So it is imperative that when we read scripture that we need to read it multiple times over and over.

And there's sometimes we're very familiar with these passages, but there's something, the power of the word of God, just getting familiar with it is not enough.

You have to get over it, you have to go over it over and over again.

And sometimes, and I don't get me going to speak for myself, but I know you guys have also studied the passage before, that you see, you start seeing stuff that you never saw before.

So we do put a place a premium on reading God's Word.

Let's go back to verse 1, and what do we see here in this passage?

John chapter 5 and healing of the guy at Bethesda.

You know, his first miracle was up in Galilee, but now he's in the capital of the nation.

And there's this big crowd and it's as if Jesus is setting up a scene to intentionally create a disturbance.

You know, he could have healed him on any other day of the week.

By telling the man to pick up his bed and walk, that bed becomes like a sign, like a placard, like it creates a scene.

This is not supposed to be happening on the Sabbath.

And it seems like this is all by design for Jesus.

He's ready to create some kind of controversy.

There's a lot of intentionality in the gospel of John.

From the marriage to Nicodemus to the 1 at the well to this.

It's a little too strong of a word, but a lot of purpose.

This is the second miracle that Jesus performs.

The first 1 was, as you mentioned a little bit ago, turning the water into wine.

And each of these miracles, if we remember from our first lesson, each of these miracles is designed to show how or why Jesus is the Son of God, or is God himself.

And so I think that having that context as we look at this passage will be important, you know, to keep in the back of our minds.

I see a huge contrast in the story and that is on the 1 hand you have Jesus the power You know to heal.

He comes into the situation And you know redeems the man redeems the Sabbath of its, you know, to its true purpose and true meaning.

And on the other hand, you have in Jerusalem, the capital of the Jews, where, you know, there should be the reflection of the heaven of Jerusalem, you know, ideally.

You have darkness, you have this idea, this superstitious belief that this pool, maybe possibly even occult situation here where there's some demonic activity, playing around with vulnerable sick people and their superstitious ideas that they could be healed, but it's water moving, and maybe that even took place at some point, because otherwise how would they come up with this situation?

So John's description of this is not narrative, but it's...

It's not prescriptive, but it's narrative?

But if you study the word of God, there is...

This would be a very odd, unusual thing of God.

It's almost like playing with the people like, oh, well, who's the fastest?

Cory Reeves

Mills River SDA Church

Hope in the Seed Grower

Dearly Father, Lord, technical difficulties, Satan is definitely trying to attack.

And Father, we just pray for your blessing.

Father, I pray for nothing of my thoughts or my words, but your thoughts and your words, Father, that you would be glorified in everything we do.

We love you and praise you, in Jesus' name, amen.

So originally I had planned this sermon, and Satan really tried to attack.

And so this sermon was for that first week, that week that we all missed.

This was gonna be the last week before our evangelistic series, which he didn't want to.

And So that was the point of this sermon, but I think there's a lot more to this.

As I started thinking about, should I hold this sermon for later, I decided to go ahead and preach it.

Does everyone have the study guides for today?

Anybody not have it, raise your hand if you don't have it.

And in Spanish group, if you need headphones, there's actually headphones over there if you need some headphones.

There's a couple headphones and some adapters for you.

Our faith should lay hold upon God, and we should expect success.

The great multitude was fed with a very meager supply.

Let our scattered supply be placed in missionary work and God will multiply it as we shall impart to others so that we may eat and be filled.

We are not to stop our work and measure our advance in the work by the means at hand.

To do this will show a very limited faith.

As God said to Moses, so he says to us, go forward.

We are to diffuse the gospel over the whole earth.

And we, and be our means large or small, we are to plan and work in faith, realizing our responsibility as God's human agents to whom He has given this great work.

Then stop fretting over the evils that you cannot help and do your work in sincerity and faith that your characters may be formed after the divine pattern.

You know, it's interesting, as I was thinking and preparing for our evangelistic series, I've heard over the years, We've tried that, it doesn't work.

Friends, if Jesus calls us to do it, it is a work we should move forward and do.

It says here we shouldn't even measure the outcome.

You see, as we put it on hold, we still have lots of evangelism that we're doing in this church.

We have God's Closet, our school, our medical missionary work, our cooking schools, our literature handouts, And I would add after this hurricane, chainsaw evangelism and water evangelism.

But we need to be careful how we measure success.

As you see today, we are going to be looking, we sometimes look in the wrong places and use our own timelines to measure.

To measure by human hands, it says, shows little faith.

Sometimes when our efforts fail, I've heard people cry out, why God?

You know, I think of 3 years ago when I first got here, we jumped right into, our conference evangelist called and said, let's do an evangelistic series.

He came straight here, And we didn't add 1 person to this church through that series.

And that's what we're going to see today.

There's a story in the Bible where sadness happens.

Jeremiah is actually sometimes referred to, you know what kind of prophet he's referred to?

Jeremiah has preached to the people of Judea for over 41 years without anything to show for it.

Can you imagine preaching and preaching and preaching and nothing to show for it?

There's a few of them out there in the Bible.

He begged them, Jeremiah, to leave their sinful, idolatrous ways.

Can you sense his frustrations in these words?

Jeremiah 25, verse 3, I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened." How many feel that way at times with people you've worked with or talked to?

I've spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened.

16, for these things I weep, my eyes flow with tears.

In ministry, has there been times in your life when you felt like Jeremiah crying out?

Have you ever wanted to cry out, why God?

I have worked so hard for you, God, and this is all I have to show.

In just over a decade, this man created approximately 2, 100 pieces of artwork, including 860 oil paintings.

Most of them were in the last 2 years of his life.

To make ends meet, he would trade art for food and painting supplies, or for painting supplies as well.

Before his young death, a very small percentage of his work sold for money.

There's an argument of how many he actually sold for money before he died.

Sadly, he died plagued with depression and mental illness.

I'm going to show you 1 painting at a time and we'll see who can get it first.

Most everyone knows, at least recognizes some of those paintings, right?

Van Gogh's artwork is some of the most expensive painting in the world.

A few of them have sold, at least 2 or 3 have sold for over $100 million.

In 93, 1 of them sold for 53, another 1 for 66 million.

Yet Van Gogh never saw the love for his work, the success of his work.

This was the doctor — if you remember, Van Gogh lost his ear.

This is the doctor who helped him when he lost his ear.

He also moved in with this doctor when his apartment, Van Gogh's apartment, which some of us can feel with, flooded, so he moved in with this doctor.

As a thank you to the doctor, he painted a portrait of the doctor.

Talking Points 4th Quarter 2024: Themes in the Gospel of John

Kameron DeVasher

Mark Howard

Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

05 The Testimony of the Samaritans

I'm Cameron DeVasier and I'm Mark Howard and this is Talking Points.

Rolling right through our themes in the Gospel of John lesson series, we're now at number 5, lesson number 5, titled, The Testimony of the Samaritans.

And Pastor Howard, I was reviewing this lesson and it says the Testimony of the Samaritans, and we'll get to the plural at the very end of the lesson, but really this is at its heart the story of the woman at the well and This is taking from John The Samaritans is the outcome of the exact that's the end of the whole process, but the bulk of this lesson Overwhelming majority of it is simply recounting the story of Jesus' encounter with the woman at the well.

Which happens to be 1 of my absolute favorite witnessing stories, which I think is the direction that...

Oh, we're absolutely gonna touch on that.

So anyway, as we're looking at this 1, I believe it's a very straightforward, very linear type of walking through a well-known story and looking for lessons to apply in our lives, so I think the Lord is going to bless as we go through this study.

Well, why don't I pray and then you can give us our talking points this week and we'll start walking through it.

Father in heaven we are so thankful for the testimony of Scripture that gives us the understanding of you, your purposes, your ways, and the ministry of Jesus in this earth, we ask, Lord, that you would bless our time in study, and it would be to the furtherance of the gospel message throughout our world field.

Be with those teachers and students who will participate in our Sabbath school classes, and we thank you for the privilege we have of coming to you in worship we ask it all in Jesus name amen amen all right little introductory comment just simply says that this week's lesson examines Christ's encounter with the woman at the well and the impact of her testimony on her Samaritan community.

Okay, so we have 3 talking points as is our custom, and this week we start with number 1, all of Christ's actions were intentional.

That comes from Sabbath, Sunday, and Monday, the first part of the lesson there.

And Pastor Howard, this is a theme we've seen not only in the Gospel of John, but also in the Book of Mark.

Basically, any time you study the life of Christ, you realize he was not haphazard or accidental, he was purposeful and intentional in his actions.

Yes, we've seen that a number of times, haven't we?

Now, talking point number 2, successful witnessing involves careful listening.

That's gonna come from Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday now as we're moving now into the dialogue that Jesus has with this woman.

You will see how he's very wise and careful in what he says and purposeful even in that.

And finally talking point number 3 is that spiritually open people require less and share more.

So when you're hungry and thirsting you'll be thrilled with what you have available in Christ and these people are a great example of that.

All of Christ's actions were intentional.

If you would please read the first 3 verses of John 4.

Yes, the Bible says, Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that John made and baptized more disciples than John, that Jesus made, therefore when the Lord knew 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 Judea and departed again to Galilee.

Now before we get to where he goes, because we know he's aiming for Galilee, he's in Judea, and what was the issue?

It wasn't like, well, I've run out of people to minister to and everyone is healed and everyone is better, so now it's time to go.

There was a kind of an interpersonal, not between Jesus and John, but between the followers of the, you know, there's a political kind of divide coming up here.

And Jesus absolutely could have spent time I think there and sorting out the, oh you have the wrong application of scripture and don't you understand this and clarifying these errors but instead he just leaves.

He's like you know what, not for now And he just walks away from that field of ministry and he's aiming for Galilee.

So, obviously we're getting to his encounter in Samaria with this woman at the well, but I wanted to even look at the fact that he left where he was, because the Bible then says, so he, but, verse 4, he needed to go through Samaria.

So we have Judea, where he was, he's aiming for Galilee to get away from the Judean political mess that's starting to brew there.

And like any good Jew, he could have just avoided the Samaritan area there, but he said he needed to go through there.

Well it's just the lesson brings out it's a straighter shot so as the crow flies it's a quicker way but it's fraught with peril the whole like Jew and Samaritan thing and most people like to avoid that but Jesus is purposely looking to confront that.

So the first thing I noticed that Jesus is strategically avoiding a political mess in Judea and removes himself, but he's intentionally trying to stir up some involvement here among the Samaritans.

So he's being purposeful in leaving, purposeful in where he's going, and purposeful in how he's getting there each step of the way.

And that, you know, I look at our, I mean, we could do the whole lesson on that.

I can tell you just in pastoral ministry, you know the same thing.

In fact, I was reading a history of 1 of our local churches here in Michigan the other day, and they came up to a point after 75 years in a certain location that the members got together and they said, look, none of us live here anymore.

Why don't we relocate our church over there?

And what that meant was not their building, they had a building.

They did not have a building over in the other location where they all were living now where the community was where they were ministering, where they had interaction with the folks, where it made more sense to do ministry, where the population was they wanted to reach.

And so they relocated without having a building Because that was the place to do more effective place to do ministry in other words They totally inconvenience themselves because that was the clear place where people were responsive to the gospel Now this is what Jesus is doing.

But how many Adventist churches would do that today?

Oh, no, our church is here This is how we've all we've been we want to be a light in the community, yada yada yada, and as much as there's truth in that, sometimes the best thing to do, sometimes if we're following where the people are, and that's our reason for existence, not just to have, well, we got this nice church now.

It's that and the other which was the case with this Church, I'm telling you about it just there's so much in here that tells us about how ministry should be conducted.

Mm-hmm and Jesus He saw Was there more work he could have done in the area of Judea Judea?

Sure, but he saw a more What I want to say, I don't want to even say more fruitful.

Yes more fruitful, but presently fruitful relevant at this point in time he felt the need to go to Samaria, that he could accomplish a greater work there.

And I think that we should always be analyzing our field that we're in, our mission territories, and ask ourselves what's the most effective thing we can do.

Yeah, absolutely, and Jesus clearly could have, again, had some interesting insights to share, but he would have been pretty much bogged down with people who are already believers and sorting out their differences and settling there.

He said, no, I need to go a place where there's more receptive hearts and more present relevant need, and so he, it says so, he needed to go through Samaria.

In other words, the same ministry that he might do in Judea would be turned around and made the point of contention right where if he were to take that same ministry and go over here to Samaria he'd win some souls.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

05 Entering into Conflict

29m

Hope in the Seed Grower

42m

05 The Testimony of the Samaritans

30m

05 The Testimony of the Samaritans

28m

Get Up

45m

28 Facing Life’s Record

5m

A Nation Divided

58m

Why We’re Still Here

53m

The High Priest, The Sanhedrin, and the Great High Priest

35m

01 The Gift of Struggle

35m

Leaven, Pharisees, and the Great Solution

59m

The Blessed Hope

40m

Sound Doctrine