All About Him

Here we are in the Christmas season; a season that seems to begin earlier and earlier each year. How long have Christmas decorations been up at the mall? If you were from another planet and came to our country and observed our whole country celebrating Christmas in the manner we do, what might you think? You may ask someone, “So what does this word “Christmas” mean?”

“Well, it’s a compound word. “Christ” and the ancient “mass,” which was The Lord’s Supper. Christ is the biblical title for Jesus and the Lord’s Supper celebrates what he did dying for us. So the word Christmas means “celebrating Jesus who came to save us.”

“What are these decorations everywhere for?”

“Our culture celebrates Jesus coming to save us.”

“What about all these songs I hear in the background of the stores?”

“They are songs about Jesus like, ‘O holy Night the stars are brightly shining/it is the night of our dear Savior’s birth’ or ‘Joy to the World! the Lord has come…let heaven and nature sing…’”

“Interesting…So are all the people shopping for presents at the mall and all the people decorating their homes with Christmas lights and all the people you pass real believers in Jesus?”

“No! Are you kidding? It’s one giant celebration of something most of us don’t really believe.”

Something’s clearly not getting through to our culture. Seeing but not seeing. Hearing but not hearing. Knowing but not understanding. That is what unbelief is – the suppression of truth that could save, but it doesn’t and therefore, it can’t.

Another example of modern unbelief is Christopher Hitchens (pictured below). You may have seen in the news that Hitchens died on Thursday. You may or may not know who he is. He and Richard Dawkins are the two most well-known modern day atheists. He was a brilliant writer and thinker and held many debates with evangelicals. Hitchens understood Christianity. In fact, he probably understood it better than most Christians. But that didn’t mean that he believed it.

A few years ago a film was made of a series of debates between Hitchens and Pastor Douglas Wilson, entitled “Collision.” The movie ends with the two of them in the back of a limo and Hitchens, the famous atheist, says this:

“If I could convert everyone in the world – not convert, if I could convince – to be a non-believer and I’d really done brilliantly, and there’s only one left, one more, and then it’d be done – there’d be no more religion in the world, no more deism, theism, I wouldn’t do it…I don’t quite know why I wouldn’t do it. And it’s not just because there’d be…no one left to argue with. It’s not just that, though it would be that. Somehow if I could drive it out of the world, I wouldn’t.”

In these words we hear the most famous and articulate atheist of our time groping in the darkness of his unbelief for something he instinctively knew he needed.

Where are you today? Missing heaven by 12 inches (the distance between your head and your heart)? What is needed is what Jesus said in John 12:36, While you have the light, believe in the Light. Jesus is that light. May you believe fully and truly in him today.

The flip side of this is that for genuine believers here today, we are reminded of God’s gracious act in allowing us to see who Christ is and to believe in him. Who can boast? Who can say, “Look at me”? What do we have that God has not given to us? Let’s allow this reminder to humble us and rekindle in our hearts the wonder that God would show such love to us.

Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

© 2011 Steve DeWitt. You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author, (2) any modifications are clearly marked, (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction.

To hear the message of this excerpt in its entirety, click here

It is either lunacy or the great hope for mankind

I often think of those who may be visiting with us as either seeking answers for life’s hard questions or skeptics who sit here wondering what the big deal is. Jesus’ statement here is one that makes it hard to admire Jesus in a kind of religious sense without it driving you to a very personal decision about who He is. Who says things like, “I am the resurrection and the life?” Such a claim is so absurd unless you are who? God. Only God could make a claim like this and the conditional clause of “whoever believes” forces us to internalize our admiration in what the Bible calls “saving faith.”

I don’t see how people can admire Jesus generally, not with statements like this. He is either a madman, in which case you wouldn’t want to admire anything about Him, OR He is who He claims to be – eternal God, giver and sustainer of life eternal for all who believe in Him. It is impossible to rationally sit on the fence about Jesus. So like Jesus said to Martha, I ask you, do you believe?

Jesus’ promise is nothing less than an indestructible, eternal life

Of all the “I am” statements, this one is the most dramatic because it is filled with the most far reaching promise. To believe in Jesus is to be promised by God an indestructible life. The skeptic will quickly say, “Christians die.” Yes. But so did Lazarus and Jesus resurrected Him as a demonstration of His power to raise the dead.

How can this be anything less than about the most wonderful news we could ever hear? For the natural man, death is a nightmare unbroken by a dawn. Death is emptiness. It is the absence of everything, including everything I value and want from beauty to love, to family, to relationships, and even deeper to my personhood and whether anything matters at all.

I was recently asked to speak at a high school that was dealing with a suicide. The condition was that I could not mention or insinuate anything about God or the gospel or faith, and definitely not Jesus. As I considered it, I couldn’t think of anything I would say. How do you speak hope into a grieving student body filled with young people asking very personal questions, like “What really matters?” “Why did this happen?” “What will death mean to me?” I declined the offer.

The only thing I know to say is what Jesus said at a funeral so many years ago, “I am the resurrection and the life.” There’s hope in that. There’s hope in Him. I couldn’t say it at the high school, but I can say it here, and I can say it to you. The question is, like for Martha, do you believe this?

Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

©Steve DeWitt. You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author, (2) any modifications are clearly marked, (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, (4) you include Bethel’s website address (www.bethelweb.org) on the copied resource.

To hear the message of this excerpt in its entirety, click here

There are 41 verses in this chapter, how many of them are about the healing itself? Two. The point of the chapter is not that Jesus heals (although that is wonderful); it is about light and darkness, blindness and seeing. It is wonderfully written to juxtapose what unbelief (blindness) looks like and what belief (seeing) looks like.

Pharisees                                              Blind Man

Jesus is not from God                         Jesus is a prophet

He doesn’t keep our rules                 He comes from God

Jesus is a sinner                                    He is the Son of Man

We are disciples of Moses!               Lord

You were born in sin (not us)         I believe!

We are the experts!

Could the differences be any starker? Light/darkness. Blindness/sight. The twist here is like the movie, The Sixth Sense. The ones everyone thought could see (including themselves) turn out to be the ones who are actually blind. The one who was actually blind turns out to be the only one who can see.

The purpose of the healing of the blind man was to illustrate that Jesus is the Light of the World. His light blinds some and causes others to see.

That is the key here. What is the difference between those who are spiritually blind and those who can spiritually see? Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:4-6,

“In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:4-6)

Remember the progression of the blind man. Healer. Prophet. Son of Man. Lord. Believe. The light of understanding and faith unveiled Jesus’ true identity. But for the Pharisees, the light blinded them and their willful and almost humorous unwillingness to believe shows just how blind they are. That is the meaning of verse 39, Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.”

“He is the real light which shows up the hidden motives and the darkest secrets of men. The inevitable consequence of His presence in the world is a separation between those who claim to have religious insight though they are in fact spiritually blind, and those who, conscious that they are blinded by sin, pray that they may be giving the sight of which the sin inherent in their nature has robbed them.” (Tasker, John, p. 121.)

Look at the progression of the blind man:

Prophet                      I admire Him

Sent from God         I think He is more than human

Son of Man               I believe He is God

Lord                            I submit and personally believe in Him

I am a part of cohort of pastors that meets in Dallas. These pastors all pastor churches our size and larger and are around my age. We get together every six months. I was there this past week. On my way home I had a businessman sit next to me on the plane for the one-hour flight from Dallas to Kansas City. Right away we got to talking. We started with football. He was from Kansas City, so we talked Chiefs and Bears. We got rolling along pretty good as airplane conversations go; this in spite of him using more profanity in that one hour than I’ve heard in the last decade. Nearly every sentence and every other word or so was bleep…bleep…bleep…English word…bleep…bleep…bleep.

He eventually asked me, “What do you do for a living?” I told him I was a pastor. I have found most people can magically turn off the profanity. It didn’t stop this guy at all. It opened him up. He had gone through a divorce recently. He had a college roommate recently commit suicide. This went on for a while. He went on to tell about another buddy. Remember, this whole time it’s… Blankety blank, blankety blank. This buddy of his was really struggling. He said, “I told him to do what I’ve done. He needed to go to church.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or not. Go to church? You’ve used Jesus’ name as profanity multiple times in the last ten minutes but the solution is to go to church?

Jesus is the Light of the World meaning that the light of His life and teaching and death on the cross for sin – the whole thing unveils Him, but also unveils us. It shows us for who we really are. By His light do we see Him as prophet, God, and Lord leading to “I believe” OR are we blinded to His majesty and refuse to submit to His Lordship? That’s seeing. Can you see Him for who He is today? Do the words of the formerly blind man resonate in your heart, “Lord, I believe!”

For believers here, where are we in the story? Disciples? Nope. Townsfolk? Nope. Pharisees? I hope not. Each Christian here is illustrated in this story by the blind man. We are born spiritually blind and without the light of the gospel of Jesus, we would die blind to Him. But Jesus is a healer and is light and He has given light and sight to all who see Him as prophet, God, and Lord. Christian, I want you to see yourself in the story. A beggar. Without resource. Without hope. And one day, by the hearing of the gospel, Jesus came along your path and caused you to see. Let’s rejoice in a Savior who puts mud on the eyes of the blind and causes us to see.

 Amazing Grace – how sweet the sound – that saved a wretch like me!/I once was lost but now am found/Was blind but now I see.

Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

©Steve DeWitt. You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author, (2) any modifications are clearly marked, (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, (4) you include Bethel’s website address (www.bethelweb.org) on the copied resource.

To hear the message of this excerpt in its entirety, click here

A virtual visit of Jesus’ Jerusalem. Check it out!

What is Jesus Saying and What Was the Feeding of 15,000 Really All About?

The miracle of the multiplying bread pictures the salvation Christ offers in Himself as the Bread of Life:

Bread                      His body
Broken                   Crucifixion
Multiplied             Atonement offered and applied
Crowd                    Mankind
Requirement        Hunger
Eating                    Believing/personal receiving
Satisfaction          Fullness/completeness of Christ
Extra bread          His all-sufficiency

When Jesus said, “I am the bread of life,” it didn’t mean He was a baker, it means He is a Savior. Hungry people the world over eat bread with an understanding of what the bread inside their stomach means. Take it. Believe it will satisfy. Place it in your mouth. Chew it. Savor it. Bring it into you inwardly by swallowing. Feel its satisfaction of hunger. This is what the crowd didn’t understand. Their thoughts toward Jesus were material and fleeting. They were just about their bellies being filled. Jesus as their King was a means to their superficial need.

People still seek Jesus in the same way. They experience need in a wilderness experience of their life. Life is difficult. Life is hard. They feel desperation and seek Jesus to fix or heal or meet some temporary need. They pray for God’s help. That’s good and we should do that. But if that is all we seek, we are like the Jews who simply wanted their bellies filled. Jesus didn’t die for our hunger, He died for our sins and to save us from God’s righteous judgment of them. “I am the bread of life” had nothing to do with empty stomachs but had everything to do with empty hearts and souls.

“I am the bread of life.” I am the broken and multiplied Savior of the world. That’s what the miracle was about. The boy provided the bread, but it had to be broken and multiplied to meet the needs of the many.

That is what it means for Jesus to be the Bread of Life. His mission. His love for mankind. His willingness to be personally broken that His death in our place could be multiplied over and over again across the centuries, even to us here today. He is the Bread of Life, which can be received by faith into the soul and will satisfy our spiritual hunger forever. Sinners are hungry people – hungry for forgiveness; hungry for life – eternal life.

Like the manna in the Old Testament, it wasn’t about the bread, it was about Him. In fact, I wonder, what was Jesus thinking as He broke the bread, over and over and over again? This is my body which is broken for you. And this. And this. And this. Over and over. Every tear and every piece was a picture of Jesus’ body broken on the cross.

“I am the Bread of Life” implies a final question, is He your Bread of Life? Every man, woman and child in the crowd that day was a picture of this room as well. Jesus offers Himself like bread to us. Each one of us must decide if we believe He is the source of eternal life. Are you hungry for Him? Will you personally receive Him by faith as Savior?

Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

©Steve DeWitt. You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author, (2) any modifications are clearly marked, (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, (4) you include Bethel’s website address (www.bethelweb.org) on the copied resource.

To hear the message of this excerpt in its entirety, click here

John 4:1-42

Right now I want to ask you, how are you looking at this woman? If you are appalled and critical towards her, it’s understandable from one perspective. She deserves it. However, that is not the perspective Jesus had, is it?

He didn’t see her as the town tramp; He looked into her heart. You know what He saw there? The same thing He saw in the highly refined and educated Nicodemus. He saw a person in need. He knew her weight that day was not her water pot, but her conscience and her heart.

Think of the inner life of this woman. What do five divorces do to a woman? What does sexual involvement without a commitment from a man do to a woman? Think of the years she has lived in this town where everywhere she went, she wore the scarlet letter. Think of how important it is for a woman to have the friendship of other women. Is it just a coincidence that she went to the well alone, or was this the reality of rejection in her relationships? No husband. No friend. The only apparent person in her life is in her life for all the wrong reasons.

What did Jesus see when this Samaritan woman arrived at the well? He didn’t see her for her failures. He didn’t see her for her reputation. He saw her as a real person with real need.

The language here is about water and living water that if you drink it, you’ll never thirst again. What is Jesus doing? Jesus is simply doing with her what He did with Nicodemus, to whom He picked a metaphor of need and said, You must be born again. He knew the Samaritan woman’s heart. He knew that she was thirsty and it wasn’t water that her soul longed for. It was truth found in a Savior she could believe in.

Jesus Treated This Woman as a Person

Every person we come across is an image bearer of God Himself. They have a soul that will spend eternity somewhere. They are an intricate and complex being with spiritual longings and searchings. How Jesus treated the woman at the well ought to challenge each of us to see even the outcasts and the marginalized of society, even those in totally different categories than us, as worthy of our loving attention.

There are profound implications for us in the multiethnic, multiracial, multireligious community we find ourselves in. Can we look at people this way too, at the gathering places of our community where we rub shoulders with people different than us? People like this woman and Nicodemus have one thing in common – they are thirsty and they need Jesus.

They expect the same old treatment. If we can simply see them a little more like Jesus and see past the brokenness and hardness; see them as simply people in need…whose heart can’t be filled with compassion toward them?

The “I Met Jesus” Effect

As this woman walked to the well, she was her old self. Carrying the burden of five husbands and one uncommitted lover. She had lived a basically selfish life. She was on the fringes of her world. She snuck around. She walked alone. Her life was curved in on herself.

This is why verse 28 is so surprising. The woman left her water jar and went away into town. When a woman leaves her dishes, something big is going on. Suddenly, this selfish woman has a heart for her town; a town of people who had dismissed her years ago. Now she has a concern for them. Come and hear…He told me everything…Might he be the Christ? (Verse 29, paraphrased) She is no longer primarily thinking of who? Herself.

Jesus speaks through the ages into this room today the very same word to real people with real thirst. I who speak to you am he. (Verse 26)

What it takes for that to be a transformational reality is thirst. Soulish thirst for something true and real in a world full of lies. Something inward in a superficial world.

Are you thirsty? You might have been intimidated by Nicodemus. So polished. So refined. So not like me. But here today we may have someone on the other end of the spectrum. A woman with secrets. A woman with heartache. A woman feeling very alone. Perhaps someone like you.

Jesus guided her on a path of faith into His divine call as Messiah. She couldn’t worship in Spirit and Truth. If that’s what God requires, this woman of all women couldn’t meet the standard. She needed the Messiah. She needed Christ. She needed a Savior. The story ends with her and many others giving testimony to this man sitting at the well, We know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.

That is the bottom line. Is Jesus your Messiah? Does their testimony resonate with your own? We know that he is the Savior of the world! The Jesus at the well is the same Jesus on the Cross who died for our sins, our secrets, our shame. Believing in Him as Savior of the world begins a new life. We see it in the woman. We see it around here too. New life. Fresh starts. Authenticity. Transformation. No more lies. No need for secrets. Rather, in Christ a life of worship, in spirit and in truth.

Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

© Steve DeWitt. You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author, (2) any modifications are clearly marked, (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, (4) you include Bethel’s website address (www.bethelweb.org) on the copied resource.

To hear the message of this excerpt in its entirety, click here

Night or Day?

Jesus continues to this day to have many people seeking Him hoping to find what they’re looking for. Many of these people are quite willing to do so in the dark. At night. When it’s safe. Is that you? You cannot deny He is the Christ, but you want that relationship on your terms; when being a follower doesn’t do damage to your reputation or career or standing in your circles.

Ever spoken up for Him in the Sanhedrins of your life? Ever identified yourself as a Jesus follower when to do so may cost you? I want you to see in Nicodemus what happens when you are born again of the Spirit. In the daytime. With all Jerusalem watching. Your clothes stained with Jesus’ blood. Night or day, friend? A genuine faith encounter with Jesus changes us. It’s the difference between night and day.

Jesus, Friend of Sinners

It’s wonderful to think about this story from Jesus’ perspective. That night, there was a  knock at the door. He heard the sound of Nicodemus saying, “May I see Jesus?” As Jesus sat there, did He know that this self-righteous aristocrat would one day defend Him to the ruling party? Did He know that He would show up carrying a lavish gift for His burial? Did He know that the hands of the one before Him would take His body off the cross? Wrap His body with the very grave clothes through which His resurrected body would pass? Be the last hands to touch His body in the grave? Did He know that this Nicodemus, so filled with self-importance, would someday humble himself and be born again?

Of course He did. It is not just the leper and the adulterer and the tax collector that Jesus receives; He receives the spiritually pompous as well. He loves us, too. He sees what we will be when we get over ourselves; when we are born of the Spirit. I am sure we have the physically infirm here. We have the financially poor here. But if there is a category we overflow in here, it is the spiritually proud. I’ll stand in the front of that line. This is why I love the story of Nicodemus. It tells me that Jesus loves me too.

Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. 

© Steve DeWitt. You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author, (2) any modifications are clearly marked, (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, (4) you include Bethel’s website address (www.bethelweb.org) on the copied resource.

To hear the message of this excerpt in its entirety, click here

“Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

Later in John’s story he is arrested by Herod and put in a remote prison. While in prison he has time to think, and in spite of seeing the Holy Spirit descend and hearing the thundering voice of the Father, he begins to have some creeping doubts. So he sends word to Jesus with a question, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” (Matthew 11:2)

Really? John the Great doubted? I can hear Thomas telling people in heaven when they call him “Doubting Thomas,” “John doubted too!” They all doubted at times. Too often we put these people on the hero pedestal and miss the moments like this when they are just like us. Who here hasn’t doubted at times? Wondered at times, “Is it really true? Is He really the Savior?” Looked into the sky and thought, “Is there really a God?” It’s easy to believe when the crowds are huge and God is doing amazing things, but when your life feels more like a prison and nobody’s shouting your name anymore, “Jesus are you real?”

He doubted. Are you doubting today? Are you worried that your doubts may mean you don’t have faith or that you are a spiritual failure? Look at John the Greatest who also was John the Doubting and see that God has room in His grace for our humanity and our moments of weakness.

“He must increase, but I must decrease”

After Jesus’ baptism, John’s ministry begins to diminish. His disciples come to him greatly worried because more people are going to Jesus than to John. John should be worried. His polls are down. His numbers are down. His stature is down. His influence is down. Yet perhaps his most famous words are his response, He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3:30)

Here we see John’s true greatness. John was great because in his own eyes, John was small. The test of our self-assessment is not when things are good, but when things are bad and hard. Am I okay with less of me if it means more of Him? It’s like a teeter-totter. It’s been awhile, but do you remember the teeter-totter? For one person to go up the other person has to go down. True spiritual greatness is when my goal is to go down so that through my life Jesus can go up. G.K. Chesterton said it another way, “Alice must grow small if she is to be Alice in Wonderland.”

Could it be that we are missing some of what God could do here in our church and in your life because we refuse to grow small? The glory of Christ and what He did for us, when properly understood, shrinks us. The Cross says we’re sinners. The Cross says we are under judgment. The Cross says we can’t do it. The Cross says we can’t save ourselves. But as we embrace what Christ’s cross says, and as we shrink, something truly wonderful happens. He gets bigger. His sacrifice gets bigger. God’s love get’s bigger. But once we are small, now the wonderland of God’s grace overwhelms us and God’s love assures us and the wonder of it all amazes us. Amazing love! how can it be That Thou my God, shouldst die for me! (And Can It Be? Public Domain)

Thank you John the Greatest for showing us that to be the greatest we have to aspire to be the smallest.

Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. 

© Steve DeWitt. You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author, (2) any modifications are clearly marked, (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, (4) you include Bethel’s website address (www.bethelweb.org) on the copied resource.

To hear the message of this excerpt in its entirety, click here