John 3-4: Private Conversations

We read John 3 and 4 and sit with three private encounters that reveal who Jesus is and what he offers. We leave with a simple encouragement: Jesus is accessible, and he meets our questions and mess with truth and grace. 
• John’s goal in writing: helping us know Jesus as Son of God and Son of Man 
• Jesus and Nicodemus: being born from above by water and Spirit 
• John 3:16 in context: God’s love and rescue rather than condemnation 
• Light and darkness: why people avoid exposure and how truth brings freedom 
• John the Baptist’s joy: Jesus becomes greater as John becomes less 
• Jesus and the Samaritan woman: living water that satisfies forever 
• Worship in spirit and truth: beyond location and tradition 
• A village transformed: testimony, belief and “Savior of the world” 
• The royal official’s son: trusting Jesus’ word without demanding signs 
• Closing reflection: bringing complaints, questions and concerns to an accessible Jesus 

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Transcript

John 3 And 4 Preview

Nicodemus And The New Birth

John 3:16 In Full Context

John The Baptist Steps Aside

Jesus At The Well In Samaria

Living Water And A Life Exposed

Worship In Spirit And Truth

A Town Comes To Believe

Healing By A Simple Word

Jesus Is Accessible To You

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hey, welcome back to the Out Loud Bible Project Podcast. This is Mike. We're reading through the book of John. And John is a really unique book. It's not like the other Gospels. It's not like the other biographies of Jesus that we have and the other accounts. He shares unique stories, he shares unique perspectives, and he's coming at it with a desire to help you, the reader, know who Jesus is. The Son of God and the Son of Man. And John had a unique perspective because of his proximity to Jesus. He was one of Jesus' closest friends, arguably his best friend. And that blew him away. I mean, he can't even believe that that was a relationship he had with the Son of God. But he speaks from this perspective and helping you recognize who Jesus is so that you can live like a friend of Jesus yourself. That's what we're here to do. In this season of the podcast, we're taking a look at some of John's writings, the Gospel of John. After this, we'll take a look at 1 and 2nd and 3 John, his letters, and his final letter, Revelation, and uh and get this whole scope of what is Jesus' role in his interaction with us here on earth, and uh and what is what can we look forward to in this friendship with God, both now and in the future. So today we're reading John three and four, two chapters, arguably, oh man, some of the best chapters in the book of John. John three contains the most famous Bible verse of all time, and we get to read it in its full context, which is actually a very private conversation with one of the Pharisees. Normally the Pharisees come up and it's like, oh boy, what's what trouble's happening now? But one of them comes to have a conversation with Jesus to find out more, and it's a great example of how Jesus responds to even his enemies if they come and they try to eagerly seek to know him and to understand him. That's what we get to see in chapter three, and in chapter four, we find another private conversation between Jesus and someone who would not normally associate with a Jew at all, a Samaritan woman. And we remember from our time reading about the exile period, where the Samaritans actually came from a kind of a half-breed of Israelites that weren't exactly faithful Israelites in the first place, but then mingled with Assyrian uh immigrants who kind of just settled and brought their own brand of paganism, and so what resulted was next-door neighbors to now the Jews who have moved back into their hometown. Uh, well, now the Samaritans are there, and they don't really worship God, but they claim to have lineage to the Israelites, and well, it's a mess. And unfortunately, the Jews and the Samaritans did not get along, and they thought very poorly of each other, and so we see another conversation that would be forbidden if it weren't for Jesus, who doesn't care about those sort of things and wants to show love anyway. We find that change not just one woman's life, but a whole village's life. So, uh some really powerful private conversations here in John 3 and 4. Let's listen in. This is the New English translation. Now a certain man, a Pharisee named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council, came to Jesus at night and said to him, Rabbi, we know you're a teacher who's come from God, for no one could perform the miraculous signs that you do unless God's with him. Well, Jesus replied, I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he's old? He can't enter his mother's womb and be born a second time, can he? Jesus answered, I tell you the solemn truth. Unless a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. So what's born of the flesh is flesh, and what's born of the spirit is spirit. So don't be amazed that I said to you you must all be born from above. The wind blows wherever it will, and you hear the sound it makes, but you don't know where it comes from and where it's going. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit. Nicodemus replied, How can these things be? Jesus answered, Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you don't understand these things? I tell you the solemn truth. We speak about what we know and testify about what we've seen, but you people don't accept our testimony. If I told you people about earthly things and you don't believe, how will you believe it if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that every one who believes in him may have eternal life. For this is the way that God loved the world. He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. For God didn't send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him. The one who believes in him is not condemned. The one who doesn't believe has been condemned already because he's not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. Now this is the basis for judging that the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed. But the one who practices the truth comes to the light, so that it may be plainly evident that his deeds have been done in God. After this, Jesus and his disciples came into Judean territory, and there he spent time with them and was baptizing. John was also baptizing at Anon near Salim because water was plentiful there and people were coming to him and being baptized, for John had not yet been thrown into prison. Now a dispute came about between some of John's disciples and a certain Jew concerning ceremonial washing. So they came to John and said to him, Rabbi, the one who was with you on the other side of the Jordan River about whom you testified, see, he's baptizing, and everyone's flocking to him. Well John replied, No one can receive anything unless it's been given to him from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said I am not the Christ, but rather I've been sent before him. The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly when he hears the bridegroom's voice. This then is my joy. And it's complete. He must become more important. Well I become less important. The one who comes from above is superior to all, and the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is superior to all. See he testifies about what he's seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. The one who has accepted his testimony has confirmed clearly that God is truthful. For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he does not give the Spirit sparingly. The Father gives the Son and places all things under his authority. The one who believes in the Son has eternal life. The one who rejects the Son will not see life. But God's wrath remains on him. Now when Jesus knew that the Pharisees had heard that he was winning and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were, he left Judea and set out once more for Galilee. But he had to pass through Samaria. Now he came to a Samaritan town called Sikar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, so Jesus, since he was tired from the journey, sat right down beside the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, give me some water to drink for his disciples had gone off into the town to buy supplies. So the Samaritan woman said to him, how how can you, a Jew, ask me a Samaritan woman for water to drink? For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, If you had known the gift of God and who it was who said to you, give me some water to drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. Sir, the woman said to him, You have no bucket and the well's deep, where then do you get this living water? Surely you're not greater than our ancestor Jacob, are you? For he gave us this well and drank from it himself, along with his sons and his livestock. Jesus replied, Everyone who drinks some of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. But the water that I give him will become in him a fountain of water, springing up to eternal life. The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water so that I won't be thirsty or have to come here to draw water. He said to her, All right, go call your husband and come back here. The woman replied, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, Right you are when you said I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the man you're living with now is not your husband. And this you've said truthfully. The woman said to him, Sir, I see you're a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you and you people say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem. Jesus said to her, Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you'll worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what you don't know. We worship what we know because salvation is from the Jews. But a time is coming and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father seeks such people to be his worshippers. God is spirit, and the people who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming, the one called Christ. Whenever he comes, he'll he'll tell us everything. Jesus said to her, I, the one speaking to you, am He. Now at that very moment his disciples came back, and they were shocked because he was speaking with a woman. However, no one said, What do you want, or why are you speaking with her? But then the woman left her water jar, went off into the town, and said to the people, Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Surely he can't be the Messiah, can he? And so they left the town and began coming to him. Meanwhile, the people were urging him, Rabbi, eat something. But he said to them, I have food to eat that you know nothing about. So the disciples began to say to one another, What no one brought him anything to eat, did they? Jesus said to them, Ma my food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to complete his work. Don't you say there are four more months and then comes the harvest? I tell you, look up and see that the fields are already white for harvest. The one who reaps receives pay and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that the one who sows and the one who reaps can rejoice together. For in this instance the saying is true, one sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap what you did not work for, and others have labored, and you have entered into their labor. Now the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the report of the woman who testified, he told me everything I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they began asking him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days, and because of his word many more believed. They said to the woman, No longer do we believe because of your words, for we have heard ourselves, and we know that this one really is the Savior of the world. After the two days he departed from there to Galilee, for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no water in his own country. So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, because they had seen all the things he had done in Jerusalem at the feast, for they had themselves gone to the feast. Now he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine, and in Capernaum there was a certain royal official whose son was sick, and when he heard that Jesus had come back from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and begged him to come down and heal his son who was about to die. So Jesus said to him, unless you people see signs and wonders you'll never believe. Sir, the official said to him, Come down before my child dies. Jesus told him, Go home, your son will live. The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and set off for home. And while he was on his way down, his slaves met him and told him that his son was going to live. So he asked them the time when his conditions began to improve, and they told him, Oh, yesterday at one o'clock in the afternoon, the fever left him, and then the father realized it was the very time Jesus had said to him, Your son will live, and he himself believed along with his entire household. Jesus did this as his second miraculous sign when he returned from Judea to Galilee. One attribute or characteristic we see of Jesus in these chapters is his accessibility. He's not trying to stay hidden, and he's willing to have these hard conversations. I hope that's an encouragement to you. If you feel like, oh, I don't know what to pray, I don't know, I just don't feel like I'm in the right headspace, I don't feel like I'm in the right place in life right now to go talk to God, as if you have to, I don't know, clean up or I don't know, be happy to go talk to him. You don't want to bring your complaints, you don't want to bring your questions, your concerns. Jesus is fully accessible to you, and he's willing and eager to have these conversations. Now, when we have these conversations, as Nicodemus found and the woman at the well found, we can expect him to speak with us and deal with us with equal measures of truth and grace. He may speak to us in prayer, he may speak to us through the word as we read it and get engaged with the Bible more. But when he speaks, he may say something that we don't understand, like Nicodemus. What are you how is that even possible? How is that even true? I don't even understand what I'm supposed to do with that information. Or he may show us the things that we're doing wrong, like the woman at the well. Oh, yikes. Yeah, I don't uh I feel seen in not a good way. That's all the truth part of what Jesus has to say, but he follows it up with grace and an invitation to more. Invitation to be loved, to be seen and known and loved for it. That's what Jesus offers. And he's not far away. And that's the thinking out loud, thought for the day. We'll see you next time.