Today’s passage: John 10:1-6

Helpful thoughts:

• A robber of sheep has to use cunning and force because the shepherd’s sheep only know and follow their shepherd’s voice.
• The shepherd knows his sheep and calls them by name.  They hear his voice and they follow him.  They run away from anyone else.
• Stay tuned for Christ’s explanation in tomorrow’s passage!

Questions to consider:

1. Given what we read in chapter 9, who might be the thieves and robbers to whom Jesus was immediately referring?  What kind of cunning and force were the Jewish religious leaders employing to get people to submit to their leadership?
2. Does the shepherd drive the sheep from behind like cattle or lead out front with his voice?  How might this illustration apply to pastoral ministry?  Are pastors cowboys or shepherds?
3. How many sheep does the shepherd bring out and lead (Verse 4)?

Today’s passage: John 9:18-41

Helpful thoughts:

• Today, we will complete the narrative of the healing of the man born blind.
  • Because he was healed on the Sabbath, the spiritually blind religious leaders refused to believe Jesus was of/from God.
  • In chapter 8, Jesus claimed to BE God (8:48).
• The fear of man is a powerful thing. These parents should have been rejoicing and praising God.  Instead, they were devising ways to get around the angry questioning of their religious leaders.
• The Pharisees believed they already “saw” and were therefore unwilling to see the Light.  They did not WANT to believe in Jesus.  Therefore, they:
  • Forbade their people from believing in Jesus
  • Threatened expulsion from the synagogues
  • Interrogated with intimidation and mockery
  • Publicly humiliated people who challenged them
    • All in the name of following Moses.

Questions to consider:

1. What would the Pharisees and other religious leaders have had to admit if they were going to believe in Jesus?  What was so precious to them that they would have “lost” in order to gain Christ?  What similar thing is true of all sinners in need of repentance?  Why is it so hard to truly believe in the simple gospel message and surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ?
2. What is the sad irony of the Pharisees’ claim to be followers of Moses?  Were they following Moses?  If they were, what would they have done with Jesus? (John 5:46, Luke 16:31)
3. What did the formerly blind man do once Jesus told him He was the Christ (Verse 38)?  Of what response and of what kind of life is Jesus worthy?

Today’s passage: John 9:1-17

Helpful thoughts:

• After Jesus clearly declared His Divine identity and was rejected by man, God had a divinely arranged appointment ready for Him to give further evidence and to communicate an important truth.
• Again, it was not against the Law to make a little mud or to heal a man on the Sabbath.  It was against the additional rules the religious leaders had devised.
• In this passage, there is one man who was born blind but now could see and there are several men who continued in their blindness (Spiritual blindness).
  • The light of the world was right in front of them!  They were in the daylight, yet they continued to walk in darkness.

Questions to consider:

1. Why was this man born blind?  What purpose did it serve?  How can this help us to view the suffering of others differently?  How could this help us to view our own suffering differently?  We certainly can suffer because of our own sinful choices (Not all suffering is innocent), but what will our perspective be in eternity, looking back at any suffering we endured for the glory of God?
2. What did the man born physically blind need to gain his sight?  What does a sinner born spiritually blind need to gain his/her sight?  (Colossians 1:13, Acts 26:16-18)
3. What did the blindness of the Jewish religious leaders cause them to say concerning Jesus?  How did it cause them to tamper with and elevate in importance their additions to the Law of God?  How might spiritual blindness cause people in a pluralistic naturalistic age (Our own) to respond to the message of the gospel?  Why doesn’t this change our message?

Today’s passage: John 8:48-59

Helpful thoughts:

• Please read verse 47 for context.  What the Jews said to Jesus was in response to what He had said of them.
  • Jesus’ version = “You are not of God.”
  • Jews’ response = “You are a Samaritan and have a demon.”
• What the Jews said to Jesus was incredibly offensive (That’s an understatement).  He did not respond in kind (1 Peter 2:23).
• In saying, “Before Abraham was, I am” Jesus was making a clear declaration of His deity.  He was claiming to be God.
  • The Jews absolutely understood this.  There was a clear reason why they picked up stones to execute Him.

Questions to consider:

1. Why was the response of the Jews in verse 48 so egregious?  What might have been the equivalent hateful statement in our culture today?  How did the response of the Jews reveal the nature of their hearts and the lack of actual content for their argument?
2. How was Jesus’ response and the conversation that followed so instructive?  What did He respond with?  Did He act in kind (Was He nasty back to them)?  Did He stop speaking the truth? (1 Peter 3:15)
3. Who is Jesus (Exodus 3:14)?  What then is the only right response in light of this truth (John 3:18)?

Today’s passage: John 8:39-47

Helpful thoughts:

• At the end of verse 38, Jesus referred to the people’s “father.”  The people were being like their “father” in their sinful disobedience (Like father, like son).  This, as we would expect, sparked controversy.
• No one will ever be right with God because of their physical heritage.  Even if the very blood of Abraham is in you (Or seven generations of Christians) you are born in sin and must be born again “from above” to be a child of God (John 3:3).
• We hear and respond to what our nature demands.  Our character and conduct are inherited and also willfully chosen.  But, when we become “of God” we can hear and respond according to our new nature (Ephesians 2:8-10, 2 Corinthians 5:17).

Questions to consider:

1. What did the people say to counter Jesus when He acknowledged their sinful behavior?  Did they debate the accuracy of His observation or did they seek to demean and humiliate Him?  Why did they believe He didn’t have any room to talk?
2. Why does Satan lie (Verse 44)?  Where does that come from?  Why do we sin?  How does humbly acknowledging our condition lead to freedom and victory (1 John 1:8-9)?
3. How can this passage help us to understand the bigger picture of what happens when a person is saved?  What will happen in the life of a Christian after their conversion?  Will they stay the same?  How have you changed and how are you continuing to grow?

Today’s passage: John 8:31-38

Helpful thoughts:

• A disciple of Jesus Christ is a person who continues to sit under His teaching, believes what He has said, and grows in obedience.  This is what it means to abide in His word.
• You cannot liberate people from something they don’t want to leave behind.
  • Jesus came to save people from their sin.  The people overwhelmingly chose (And continue to choose) their sin over Jesus.
• It is a greater blessing from God to have victory over your sin than it is for God to heal you from sickness, bless you with money, give you success in your career, etc.

Questions to consider:

1. At the root level, why do people reject Jesus?  What do they love more?  What don’t they want to give up?  Is your presentation the reason people wouldn’t believe and repent?  In what way can this encourage you to keep sharing the truth?
2. What has Jesus given you the freedom to do?  Do you have to sin?  Are you bound to do what is wrong?  What are you free to do?  How is that different than the way you were before you were saved and liberated?
3. What sin struggle could you take to the Lord in prayer, seek His Word and strive to grow in?  What might happen in the lives of Christians as victory over these sin issues becomes increasingly more important to us than any other area of our lives we may fret over (Matthew 6:33)?

Today’s passage: John 8:12-30

Helpful thoughts:

• Jesus does not judge “according to the flesh” or according to the world’s sinful standards.  Jesus will always rightly discern all things.  He is the very essence and the standard of righteousness.
  • He did not come into the world to condemn but to save (John 3:17).  But the day is coming, the Father has given judgment to the Son (John 5:22).
• The Pharisees wanted to use the law concerning witnesses against Jesus.  In the courts, one witness was not enough to confirm what happened.  However, if only one witness sees an event, it doesn’t make it untrue.
  • The Pharisees were not right to reject Jesus on a legal technicality, though in truth Jesus had much more than Himself as a witness.
• There are consequences to unbelief.
  • Jesus said, “Unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”
  • When Jesus told them they couldn’t come where He was going, they assumed He was about to commit the sin of suicide (Calling good, “evil.”  Calling evil, “good.”).

Questions to consider:

1. What does the light reveal?  Are you a sinner who needed saving by God’s grace through the blood of Christ?  Do you desire to walk in the light and pursue purity and righteousness before the eyes of God?  What are the results to the answers for these questions?
2. What was Jesus record of righteous living in his earthly life (Verse 29)?  He didn’t just not sin, what was He always doing?  How can this help us to learn how to put off sin and put on righteousness?

Today’s passage: John 7:53-8:11

Helpful thoughts:

• The earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of John do not contain the content from 7:53-8:11.  Some manuscripts place this content in other places (Even in the Gospel of Luke).  This does not mean it never happened or that we cannot learn from it.
  • Nothing in this passage adds or takes away from any doctrines that we could not formulate from the rest of the Bible.
  • Every single passage like this in the Bible is openly noted as such.  This is incredibly encouraging.  We know with incredible accuracy what the original manuscripts contained.  And every section that raises any question contains nothing which would change our understanding of biblical doctrine.
  • More information about this passage was given in this sermon from 2019.
• The scribes and Pharisees do a despicable act here.  They care nothing for justice or for the woman (Not to mention the man, since they said she was caught in the act!).  They simply wanted to find fault in Jesus.
  • They failed!  There is no fault to find in our Savior!
• In Deuteronomy 13:9 and 17:6-7, rules are given for this kind of stoning in Israel.  The only people who could commence the stoning were people who were eye-witness and who were not also guilty of the same sin.
  • All of the scribes and Pharisees walked away.

Questions to consider:

1. Many people speculate what Jesus wrote on the ground in that moment.  Perhaps more important that what He wrote, why do you think he took the time to write?  What did Jesus’ writing in the ground give these scribes and Pharisees time to think about?
2. How do Jesus’ words to the woman compare with what it says in John 3:17?  Was Jesus telling this woman it was OK to commit adultery?  What was he offering to her?
3. What would have been the best response from the scribes and Pharisees after hearing all of this?  What is the correct response of the reader (us)?  Why is it right that we should go and sin no more?

Today’s passage: John 7:37-52

Helpful thoughts:

• Whoever thirsts for God, come to Christ and drink!
• The Spirit had worked and been involved before.  But He had been promised in a special way in the New Covenant (Ezekiel 36:26, Acts 2:1-13).
• The prophet Jonah had come from Galilee (2 Kings 14:25).  The Chief Priests and Pharisees were asking questions that could be answered.  But the point of their questions was not to learn, it was to pressure people into rejecting Christ.

Questions to consider:

1. What is the sad irony of the people’s confusion concerning Jesus’ birthplace?
2. Why was no one able to lay hands on him, even if they wanted to more than anything (Look back at verse 30)?
3. What do we see happening in Nicodemus in today’s passage?  What was he willing to do in the face of this pressure?  What could this indicate about his belief after his interaction with Jesus in John 3?

Today’s passage: John 7:25-36

Helpful thoughts:

• The people’s thinking in verse 27 was the result of bad teaching from the rabbis.  The Old Testament gave information on the birthplace of the Messiah (Matthew 2:1-6).
• If someone truly knows the Father, they will know the Son.  If someone truly knows the Son, they will know the Father (John 14:8-11).
• When the Jews heard Jesus was going where they couldn’t find Him, they assumed He was going “further away” from God (To the Dispersion of the Jews among Gentiles, outside of the Promised Land) when instead He was speaking of going closer to the presence of God in glory.

Questions to consider:

1. How can the errant teaching we see represented in verse 27 encourage us to continue faithfully digging into the Scriptures?  How important is good teaching/preaching and a people (taking advantage of the vast access we have to the Scriptures) who follow the example of the church in Berea (Acts 17:10-15)?
2. Even though the authorities wanted to arrest Jesus, why were they unable (Verse 30)?  How was God’s sovereignty being displayed?
3. What apparently was the view of the Jewish people and leaders concerning their standing with God?  How did their view contrast with Jesus’ words?  How did their view of themselves and their own excellence blind them from the truth and their need for rescue?