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John 05

Healing a Paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda

5:1 After this there was a Jewish feast, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 5:2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool called Bethzatha in Aramaic, which has five covered walkways. 5:3 A great number of sick, blind, lame, and paralyzed people were lying in these walkways. 5:4 [[OMITTED]] 5:5 Now a man was there who had been disabled for thirty-eight years. 5:6 When Jesus saw him lying there and when he realized that the man had been disabled a long time already, he said to him, “Do you want to become well?” 5:7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. While I am trying to get into the water, someone else goes down there before me.” 5:8 Jesus said to him, “Stand up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 5:9 Immediately the man was healed, and he picked up his mat and started walking. (Now that day was a Sabbath.)

5:10 So the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and you are not permitted to carry your mat.” 5:11 But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’” 5:12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Pick up your mat and walk’?” 5:13 But the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped out, since there was a crowd in that place.

5:14 After this Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “Look, you have become well. Don’t sin any more, lest anything worse happen to you.” 5:15 The man went away and informed the Jewish leaders that Jesus was the one who had made him well.

Responding to Jewish Leaders

5:16 Now because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began persecuting him. 5:17 So he told them, “My Father is working until now, and I too am working.” 5:18 For this reason the Jewish leaders were trying even harder to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was also calling God his own Father, thus making himself equal with God.

5:19 So Jesus answered them, “I tell you the solemn truth, the Son can do nothing on his own initiative, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. 5:20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he does, and will show him greater deeds than these, so that you will be amazed. 5:21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes. 5:22 Furthermore, the Father does not judge anyone, but has assigned all judgment to the Son, 5:23 so that all people will honor the Son just as they honor the Father. The one who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

5:24 “I tell you the solemn truth, the one who hears my message and believes the one who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned, but has crossed over from death to life. 5:25 I tell you the solemn truth, a time is coming - and is now here - when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 5:26 For just as the Father has life in himself, thus he has granted the Son to have life in himself, 5:27 and he has granted the Son authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.

5:28 “Do not be amazed at this, because a time is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 5:29 and will come out - the ones who have done what is good to the resurrection resulting in life, and the ones who have done what is evil to the resurrection resulting in condemnation. 5:30 I can do nothing on my own initiative. Just as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of the one who sent me.

More Testimony About Jesus

5:31 “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. 5:32 There is another who testifies about me, and I know the testimony he testifies about me is true. 5:33 You have sent to John, and he has testified to the truth. 5:34 (I do not accept human testimony, but I say this so that you may be saved.) 5:35 He was a lamp that was burning and shining, and you wanted to rejoice greatly for a short time in his light.

5:36 “But I have a testimony greater than that from John. For the deeds that the Father has assigned me to complete - the deeds I am now doing - testify about me that the Father has sent me. 5:37 And the Father who sent me has himself testified about me. You people have never heard his voice nor seen his form at any time, 5:38 nor do you have his word residing in you, because you do not believe the one whom he sent. 5:39 You study the scriptures thoroughly because you think in them you possess eternal life, and it is these same scriptures that testify about me, 5:40 but you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life.

5:41 “I do not accept praise from people, 5:42 but I know you, that you do not have the love of God within you. 5:43 I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me. If someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. 5:44 How can you believe, if you accept praise from one another and don’t seek the praise that comes from the only God?

5:45 “Do not suppose that I will accuse you before the Father. The one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have placed your hope. 5:46 If you believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me. 5:47 But if you do not believe what Moses wrote, how will you believe my words?”

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John 04

Departure From Judea

4:1 Now when Jesus knew that the Pharisees had heard that he was winning and baptizing more disciples than John 4:2 (although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were), 4:3 he left Judea and set out once more for Galilee.

Conversation With a Samaritan Woman

4:4 But he had to pass through Samaria. 4:5 Now he came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 4:6 Jacob’s well was there, so Jesus, since he was tired from the journey, sat right down beside the well. It was about noon.

4:7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me some water to drink.” 4:8 (For his disciples had gone off into the town to buy supplies.) 4:9 So the Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you - a Jew - ask me, a Samaritan woman, for water to drink?” (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.)

4:10 Jesus answered her, “If you had known the gift of God and who it is who said to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 4:11 “Sir,” the woman said to him, “you have no bucket and the well is deep; where then do you get this living water? 4:12 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.”

4:13 Jesus replied, “Everyone who drinks some of this water will be thirsty again. 4:14 But whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.” 4:15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” 4:16 He said to her, “Go call your husband and come back here.” 4:17 The woman replied, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “Right you are when you said, ‘I have no husband,’ 4:18 for you have had five husbands, and the man you are living with now is not your husband. This you said truthfully!”

4:19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 4:20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you people say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 4:21 Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 4:22 You people worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews. 4:23 But a time is coming - and now is here - when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers. 4:24 God is spirit, and the people who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 4:25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (the one called Christ); “whenever he comes, he will tell us everything.” 4:26 Jesus said to her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”

The Disciples Return

4:27 Now at that very moment his disciples came back. 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?” 4:28 Then the woman left her water jar, went off into the town and said to the people, 4:29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Surely he can’t be the Messiah, can he?” 4:30 So they left the town and began coming to him.

Workers for the Harvest

4:31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 4:32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” 4:33 So the disciples began to say to one another, “No one brought him anything to eat, did they?” 4:34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to complete his work. 4:35 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! 4:36 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. 4:37 For in this instance the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 4:38 I sent you to reap what you did not work for; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”

The Samaritans Respond

4:39 Now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the report of the woman who testified, “He told me everything I ever did.” 4:40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they began asking him to stay with them. He stayed there two days, 4:41 and because of his word many more believed. 4:42 They said to the woman, “No longer do we believe because of your words, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this one really is the Savior of the world.”

Onward to Galilee

4:43 After the two days he departed from there to Galilee. 4:44 (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country.) 4:45 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 themselves had gone to the feast).

Healing the Royal Official’s Son

4:46 Now he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had made the water wine. In Capernaum there was a certain royal official whose son was sick. 4:47 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. 4:48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders you will never believe!” 4:49 “Sir,” the official said to him, “come down before my child dies.” 4:50 Jesus told him, “Go home; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and set off for home.

4:51 While he was on his way down, his slaves met him and told him that his son was going to live. 4:52 So he asked them the time when his condition began to improve, and they told him, “Yesterday at one o’clock in the afternoon the fever left him.” 4:53 Then the father realized that it was the very time Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live,” and he himself believed along with his entire household. 4:54 Jesus did this as his second miraculous sign when he returned from Judea to Galilee.

Sermon By Friendmaker for God

Sermon Notes Here 

Translation from Bible.org

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John 03

Conversation with Nicodemus

3:1 Now a certain man, a Pharisee named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council, 3:2 came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3:3 Jesus replied, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 3:4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time, can he?”

3:5 Jesus answered, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 3:6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 3:7 Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must all be born from above.’ 3:8 The wind blows wherever it will, and you hear the sound it makes, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

3:9 Nicodemus replied, “How can these things be?” 3:10 Jesus answered, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don’t understand these things? 3:11 I tell you the solemn truth, we speak about what we know and testify about what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony. 3:12 If I have told you people about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 3:13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven - the Son of Man. 3:14 Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 3:15 so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”

3:16 For this is the way 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. 3:17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him. 3:18 The one who believes in him is not condemned. The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. 3:19 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. 3:20 For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed. 3:21 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.

Further Testimony About Jesus by John the Baptist

3:22 After this, Jesus and his disciples came into Judean territory, and there he spent time with them and was baptizing. 3:23 John was also baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because water was plentiful there, and people were coming to him and being baptized. 3:24 (For John had not yet been thrown into prison.)

3:25 Now a dispute came about between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew concerning ceremonial washing. 3:26 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 is baptizing, and everyone is flocking to him!”

3:27 John replied, “No one can receive anything unless it has been given to him from heaven. 3:28 You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but rather, ‘I have been sent before him.’ 3:29 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 is complete. 3:30 He must become more important while I become less important.”

3:31 The one who comes from above is superior to all. 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. 3:32 He testifies about what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. 3:33 The one who has accepted his testimony has confirmed clearly that God is truthful. 3:34 For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he does not give the Spirit sparingly. 3:35 The Father loves the Son and has placed all things under his authority. 3:36 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.

Key Point: Maintain a discipline of prayer even when God seems distant, silent, or unable to respond.