Simple Grace Radio

John 5:1-18 | What Do You Want?

What do you want? Have you ever stopped and asked yourself that question? What do you want from life? You know, we are busy people. Busy with work. Busy with family. Busy with school and hobbies and chores and vacations and buying stuff on Amazon. And there are various desires behind all those busy activities. We work because we want to eat. We study because we want to graduate. We head to Florida because we want to see the sun. But what’s the great desire behind all those smaller ones? What do you want more than anything else in your life, and for your life? Here's another question, related, but a little more focused. What do you want Jesus to do for you? If Jesus appeared to you today, and asked you: “What would you like me to do for you”, what would you say? He has all power in His hand. He can do absolutely anything you ask. What would you ask Him to do? Would you ask Him to change your physical appearance? Resolve your financial trouble? Heal your marriage? Bring back a lost loved one? What do you want from Jesus?

John 4:43-54 | The Second Sign

Every great story involves a great conflict: some great battle to be fought, or a great danger to face or journey to complete. Whether it’s Lord of the Rings, The Old Man and the Sea, or Beauty and the Beast, conflict is essential to a great story. And in these scenes of great conflict there are great decisions that need to be made – decisions that have profound consequences. Frodo makes the fateful decision to travel through Moria, leading to the death of Gandolph. Belle decides to return to the cast le to rescue the Beast – leading to his transformation and true love. Decisions have consequences – sometimes eternal.

John 4:1-45 | The Savior of Sinners

This morning we’ve come to one of the great conversion stories of the Bible. This is, in fact, the longest recorded conversation between Jesus and another person in any of the gospels. It’s a very important text for conservative Reformed churches in general, and for Harvest church in particular. You see, the vast majority of conservative, Reformed churches suffer from the same problem – we are poor at evangelism. We see very few adult baptisms. That doesn’t mean the Spirit of God is not at work – He clearly is. People are growing in the faith. Young people are professing faith. Some have been truly converted here. But the fact remains that we see very few from outside of church circles come to faith – and I’m increasingly convinced that we can’t just be ok with that.

John 3:22-36 | The Supremacy of Christ

You may have noticed, in the first few chapters of John’s gospel, that John spends a lot of time explaining who Jesus is. He wants his readers to be perfectly clear about this. And so, he begins his gospel with those memorable words, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” All through these first 3 chapters John has been striving to show us the truth about who Jesus is. His reason for doing this is quite clear. If Jesus really is the Son of God come to earth; if Jesus really is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world; if He really is the Messiah who has come to save and the King who will come to judge – then it is critically important that we understand and believe these things. This isn’t something you can afford to get wrong.

John 3:18-21 | The Verdict

What’s wrong with the world? It’s a very important question. We can all agree that there is very much wrong in the world. For instance: There is devastating poverty in the world. Although the number of deaths from hunger is declining – it is estimated that 9 million died from starvation last year, many of them children under the age of 5. Millions of people are suffering under soul-crushing totalitarian regimes like North Korea, Eritrea and Afghanistan. Homicide continues to be one of the leading causes of death. 440,000 people died last year by an act of violence. Nearly quadruple the number of people killed in war. Sex-trafficking of young girls and women is on the rise around the world. We have recently been hearing of massive corruption in our governmental agencies. These are just an example of the things that are wrong in the world. But what is the underlying problem with the world? Why is the world this way?