LBC Sermons & Messages

John 4:1-30

In this chapter we see the gospel message being proclaimed to Gentiles and in it we are taught what it means to “surrender your life to Christ”. The basic issue is the same between both chapters which is; you need to personally decide what you’re your relationship is going to be between you and this person called Jesus?

Jesus overcomes barriers of cultural, race, lifestyle and religion as he interacts with this Samaritan woman. She progresses in her knowledge of Jesus, from being a Jew, then being greater than Jacob, to being a prophet and finally recognizes him as the Messiah, to which Jesus clearly identifies him self by stating in v26 “I AM”.

This woman was hurting and rejected as a result of her life style, and needed to know the comfort and peace of God in her life.

In John 1:12 the pattern is given: “believe/receive (then) you will enter into God’s family” In our text (v14), Jesus states the same, “drink (picture of saving faith) and he promises her a life of satisfaction (never thirst again). She will go from present temporal life to eternal life. Her emptiness will be replaces with fullness and her unhappiness with joy and from being an outcast to being placed into God’s family.

In verses 21-24, her false worship would be replaced with true worship of God, “in spirit and in truth”. God does not accept worship from any one who does not know Christ as their Savior. Hosea 6:6 reads “for I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offering”. The way to this knowledge is verse 14, accepting Christ. Since God is a spirit, we don’t use rites, ceremonies, pomp or any external aids, but by offering of gratitude, prayer and service, thru Christ who is the embodiment of truth (John 14:6).
The Samaritan woman makes the connection and goes to her village, relating the news, that “Jesus is the Messiah” (v29).

What decision have you made concerning Jesus?

John 3:16-36

Jesus has been revealed as the Creator God and the coming Messiah to establish His kingdom. Nicodemus has connected the dots and has come to inquire of him and discovered the way into the kingdom of God is thru a spiritual birth (born from above) by being regenerated by Holy Spirit and the channel for this is faith in Christ as illustrated by the events of Number 21.

This section is a discourse inviting the reader to make a choice concerning this one called Jesus and gives us two compelling why we need to do this.

First reason is because of judgment. God in his love sent His only Son into the world to save us. This love, a willingness to sacrifice for something of great value, was exhibited at Calvary. But mankind loves his sin and does not come to the light of Christ and therefore remains in his sin, condemned already and some day will experience the final judgment, the lake of fire.

The second reason we need to make a choice concerning Jesus is the fact that Jesus, the Son of God is sovereign. Verses 22-36, uses the testimony of John the Baptist, in which he humbly submits to the fact that Jesus is superior in nature, in rank and in authority.

Unregenerate man can view Jesus as a liar, deceiver, as a legend, a new age teacher, etc or he can come and accept him as who he is, “Lord of all”. At the end of the day, this one called Jesus cannot be ignored so that each one of us is faced with the question “what am I going to do with him?

Through out this passage we see the phrase “believe” (v15, 16, 36). Just what are we to believe. We are to believe that Jesus is God (v13), that he is our sin bearer (v14) and that he is the giver of life (v16) and it is our responsibility to make this choice (v16). How to believe is to make him part of your life, just like drinking water (John 4:14). It is not enough just to mentally accept the facts about him. We must repent, want to change the direction of our life and then receive him as our Savior (Rom 10:9-10).

I Kings 18:23-29

Elijah has challenged the people “to get off the fence”, either serve Jehovah or Baal, not both, there can be no middle ground.

In this portion of scripture, Elijah proposes a test to prove who is God. Each would build an altar, sacrifice a bull as the offering, put “no fire” under the altar and then pray to your god and see which one answers with fire.

Fire was at that time an accepted means of communication. Pagan religion accepted it and Jehovah in the past has used fire to exhibit His divine presence and leading of the nation of Israel. The answer of fire would be immediate, decisive, and clear to all and would remove all doubts as to who was God.

All morning the priest of Baal call out to their god, Elijah sarcastically mocks Baal refusing to acknowledge Ball as anything. The prophets of Baal work them selves up a frenzied stated total loss of self-control and emotional abandonment.

The result at end of day was “no voice, no one answered, no one paid any attention” (v29).

The prayers to a false god are futile, they cannot give access to Jehovah but they do open up the way to demonic influence and they cannot meet man’s greatest need. It cannot save them from penalty of sin, cannot give the Holy Spirit, and cannot give the peace of God.

We can recognize the basic belief practices of any false religion. The people are doing something to become spiritual. It will always reject the person and work of Christ as the only way of salvation and false religions tend to be ecumenical ready to accept any belief and eventually will become hostile to those of faith in Christ.

We as God people need to alert to the influences of false religion in our society today, humanism being the primary one that is invading into our culture.

John 2:23-3:15

John has presented Jesus as the creator God, ready to replace our emptiness with joy when we receive him. Jesus is shown to be the Messiah coming to establish his kingdom. In this portion, Jesus reveals the requisite into his kingdom.

Jesus has performed many miracles and the people are impressed, but he does not commit himself to them since he knows their motives and intentions but there is one, Nicodemus, who he does commit too and it obvious that Nicodemus has some understanding of who Jesus is and has determines to check out his credentials. In the dialogue between these two, it becomes clear that Nicodemus is struggling to rise above the physical and understand the spiritual requirements of entering into the kingdom of God.

Jesus presents three illustrations of what is involved in entering the kingdom. The first involves a birth symbolized by water. A new birth is needed, not just a makeover of the old but a spiritual birth from above. (John 7:37-39). We were born with biological life for our present existence, but for the kingdom we need spiritual life.

The second illustration is wind. “pneuma” is translated both as wind and spirit. Both operate sovereignty, both are perceived by their effects and both their actions arise from unseen and unknowable factors. The “pneuma” is a picture of the regeneration that happens with the new birth. Ezel 37, the valley of bones, illustrates how the Holy Spirit brings spiritual life into a being that was dead.

The third illustration is the event found in Numbers 21. Jesus likens his death on the cross to this event and just as they had to look on with faith, so to must we turn and in faith and accept Jesus as the mediator of forgiveness for our sin and the giver of new life.

Apart from this new birth, we will not enter into the kingdom. So the question is, “are you born again”, have you accept Christ as you savior and been born again.

I Kings 18:20-22

There are breaches in the walls of Christian values and many are seeking to destroy Christianity. As it is today, so it was true in the days of Elijah.

The people have been gathered to Mt Carmel, meaning “garden land”. The prophets of Baal are confident in their 450 to 1 majority, Ahab is probably somewhat apprehensive, but willing to do anything to get rain and there stands Elijah trusting and sure.

There also are many people waiting to see what happens. To them Elijah issues a challenge, “if the Lord is God than follow Him, but if Baal then follow him”. In other words get off the fence. The people did not want to totally reject Jehovah but rather wanted to serve both. That cannot be. Not neither then nor today.

Today we are pulled by two competing systems that are diametrically opposed to each other. We come to church on Sunday but the rest of the weeks we are dominated by other concerns and commitments. The Holy Spirit tugs at us to maintain our godly values, while at the same time the world with its values beckons us, and many times we try to serve both God and the world, which results in our indecisiveness.
Matt 6:24, warn us of half hearted commitments, “no one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money”.

Matt 12:30, tell us that we are either for Him or against Him, there is no middle ground.
We need to evaluate our life style and the sources of our trust. When we straddle the fence we become instable (James 1:5-8).

When the reality of the true God and His claims on our lives grip us, we will then find that we have no logical or sensible choice but to trust Him to the degree that we then commit our live totally to Him.

Leviticus 1:1-9

On the Sundays in which we as a local church observe Communion, we want to study the offerings and feasts that the Lord gave to the nation of Israel and apply those truths to us today. The book of Leviticus teaches us of the holiness of and how sinful man can approach God and have fellowship with Him.

The burnt offering is the most prevalent of all the offerings and was made in conjunction with other offerings. The Hebrew word meant, “that which goes up”, referring to the smoke rising from the altar.

The worshipper would bring the appropriate animal, based upon his economic status, to the temple and there lean upon it and kill it. The priest would catch the blood in a bowl, and sprinkle it on the side of the altar. The worshipper would then skin the animal, butcher it, and the priest would then take the butchered animal, place it on the alter and all of it would be burned unto the Lord.

What did all this mean and signify? In Genesis, we have two accounts of burnt offering which lay the foundation for its meaning. With Noah, after the flood it signified his thankfulness of being spared from God’s wrath and also his dependency upon God to meet his needs. With Abraham, we see the symbolism of substitution, as a ram was substituted for Isaac. So this burnt offering came to symbolize the worshipper’s faith in God’s provision for their sin and also his need to dedicate his life unto God, which would result in doing good.

For us today, we no longer need to take an animal for sacrifice, since Christ who was the Lamb of God, became our substitute when he went to the cross to die in our place for our sins, and when we accepted him as our savior he became our burnt offering. But we are told to be “living sacrifices” (Rom 12:1) and to “offer up sacrifices of praise” (Heb 13:15-16). In Eph 2:10, we are told that we were saved unto good works. In other words our lives need to express our commitment to the Lord in every thing we do.

I Kings 18:16-19

In the last section, we saw how God providentially brought Elijah and Obadiah together. Obadiah need to be refreshed spiritual and Elijah needed Obadiah to bring King Ahab to meet with him.

This week we see the theme of confrontation. Confrontation is rarely painless, never easy, often rejected and always risky. Therefore we often try to avoid it, but some times it is necessary to establish spiritual growth, godliness and biblical change. In our text, Elijah is going to confront King Ahab for the purpose of trying to get him to repent and turn to the true God.

Immediately Ahab accuses Elijah as being the “troubler of Israel”. What it reveals is the condition of his heart. One gets a sense of resentment and hatred that Ahab has been dwelling upon for the last 3 years against Elijah. Prov 23:7 states “as a man thinks in his hear, so he is”. His words represent vain thinking, human strategies by which Ahab seeds to handle life independently of faith in God. It also is a defensive mechanism, name calling rather than to deal with the problem.

Elijah responds to the charge with confidence and boldness. He lists the real cause as “Ahab having abandoned the commandments of the Lord”, which brought about the effect of “following Baal” and thus incurred the judgment of God upon the land as foretold in the book of Deuteronomy.

Before we confront anyone, we need to make sure our hearts our right before God (Phil 4:8-9), and if so then we can act with confidence and boldness just as Elijah did with King Ahab and not resort to any anger or name calling.

James 1:22-27, is a good barometer of our hearts condition.