A major corporation in America recently re-structured its management team and embraced a new mission statement. This corporation then declared: “We are born again!” Because of urban renewal efforts, city leaders declared that the south side of Chicago has been “born again”! Civic leaders in Boston said much the same thing about its west end. In fact, you hear similar claims being made about virtually every movement, political party, educational institution, and most individuals when they make some life-altering decision. There is simply no escaping the fact that the world at large has co-opted the language of being “born again” from Christians and in doing so has thoroughly corrupted the true meaning of the term.

I found myself this past week asking a question as I prepared for today: “How does one preach on a biblical text already known by virtually everyone in the world? What can one say that hasn’t already been said? How do I prevent people from mentally checking out because of their frustration at having to listen to yet one more sermon on a passage they committed to memory decades ago?” Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t have a good answer. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to skip over John 3:16 and pretend that all of you know everything that can be known about what is probably the most famous verse in all the Bible.

Most of what we find in the Bible is designed to comfort and encourage us. But there are a few texts that are deliberately designed to frighten us. By “frighten” I mean they are there to wake us up and shake us up.

In his book, Rediscovering Holiness, J. I. Packer makes the point that being a Christian is largely concerned with living our lives as Jesus lived his. Therefore, says Packer, Christians are to:

Jesus is bushed. He’s tuckered out. He’s bone-tired from his journey. He’s hot, thirsty, and hungry. It’s high noon and the disciples have nothing to eat. So while they go shopping for lunch, Jesus sits down at a well to drink. It is here that he decides to enlist yet one more person into the ranks of those who will worship the Father. But it isn’t just any person. It isn’t a recent graduate of the local theological seminary. It isn’t a respectable businessman or a housewife with three kids, a cat and a dog. He chooses to speak with a person who, in the opinion of the ancient world, has already struck out. This person is a Samaritan. Strike One! This person is a woman. Strike Two! This woman is sexually immoral. Strike Three!

Last week we spent all our time unpacking the significance of what Jesus said in John 4:23. In his conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, he told her that God is seeking people to worship him in spirit and in truth. That’s the sort of statement that will either offend you and make you angry and cause you to turn and run away from God, or it will fill you with joy and delight and excitement as you realize that in your worship of God you find your greatest heart happiness and soul satisfaction. But I don’t won’t to preach last week’s message again, so today we turn our attention to the story as a whole.

Does the subject of divine healing ever confuse you? I’m almost embarrassed to ask that question, because everyone answers in the same way: Yes! And I’m not sure I trust those who say No. I agonize over the question of why one person is healed and another is not, why some healings are instantaneous and total while others are gradual and partial. Does it strike you as odd, as it does me, that notwithstanding a multitude of prayers a Christian suffers and dies while a non-Christian recovers and lives without the aid of so much as one prayer? Do you find it baffling, as I do, that on occasion those who sin the most suffer the least, and those who sin the least seem to suffer the most?

Even though the Jehovah’s Witnesses have stopped ringing my doorbell, they will on occasion leave at my front door a copy of their magazine published by The Watchtower Society. It is very easy for undiscerning or uninformed people to think that the Jehovah’s Witnesses are a Christian group who confess Jesus as Lord. After all, the magazine several times will refer to the knowledge of Jehovah and everlasting life “through Jesus Christ.”

Last week we looked at the most amazing claim that any human being ever made concerning himself. We listened as Jesus of Nazareth, carpenter and itinerant preacher, claimed to be equal in power, dignity, deity, and glory with God the Father. It is one thing for a man in a mental institution to claim to be Napoleon or for a woman to insist she’s Amelia Earhart. But Jesus claimed to be God. He claimed to be the long-awaited Messiah, foretold and foreshadowed in the OT Scriptures.

I’ve told one particular story a number of times over the years, but for whatever reason it remains vividly impressed on my mind. It’s almost as if it were yesterday, even though it took place on January 5th, 1976. I can still recall everything I heard, where I was standing, the cold of that winter night, and what I was thinking as Ann and I stood outside in the parking lot as we watched the fire creep closer and closer to our apartment. I learned a lot about myself that night, and it wasn’t pretty.

I realize those words of the medieval mystic, Bernard of Clairvaux, sound a bit dated and more than a little cheesy to some of you, but stay with me as I use them to make a point. “Jesus, the very thought of Thee, with sweetness fills my breast.”

Churches often divide over certain theological issues, such as the role of women in ministry and leadership, charismatic gifts, water baptism (infant baptism vs. believer’s baptism), and matters related to eschatology or the end times (the timing of the rapture, the role of Israel, etc.)

I am constantly amazed by the lengths to which people will go, and the sacrifices they will make, in an effort to cleanse their consciences of the stain and guilt of sin. One example of this is the Ganges River and the pagan beliefs concerning its alleged cleansing and purifying powers.

I wonder if you’ve ever given much thought to how much of our lives is spent trying to avoid offending people. I thought about it this week, and I was amazed at the steps we take to be as inoffensive as possible. Most of it goes back to the way our parents raised us.

We are going to do something different today as we come to John 7. It is a long chapter of 52 verses. But I have decided that we will focus in on the most important section in the chapter and spend only this one week in our study of it. The reason for this will soon become evident.

I don’t often take time to address some of the more technical issues regarding the trustworthiness and integrity of the Bible, but our text today is unique and calls for some additional comment.

Jesus was never one for ambiguity. When something of eternal importance needed to be said, he said it in no uncertain terms. He pulled no punches. He cut no corners. He was rigidly opposed to compromise. And this is nowhere seen more clearly than when it came to his identity. If people left the presence of Jesus confused about who he was and what he claimed, it was their own hard-heartedness and spiritual blindness that must be blamed.

For the Christian, freedom may be experienced in any number of ways: freedom from the world and the pressure to conform to its ways; freedom from the fear of being rejected by those whose expectations we don’t meet; freedom from allegiance to anyone other than God; freedom from selfish preoccupation with what others think of us. Freedom! What a wonderful word.

I can’t think of a time in history when there was as much confusion about what it is to be a Christian as there is in our day.

At precisely this time of year, every year without fail, newspapers, magazines, and numerous TV documentary shows provide a list of the more notable figures, both male and female, who died in the past twelve months.

I’m asking you to do something today that may strike you as odd, but bear with me. I want all of you to close your eyes and not to open them until I tell you to do so. Now, try to envision in your mind what it’s like to be blind from birth. How would it feel never to have seen anything? Not the words on the pages of your Bible. Not the shoes on your feet. Not the smile on a friend’s face. Nary a star in the sky above. Nothing. Just darkness. It’s a terrifying thought, but try.

As far as the world was concerned, and based on its standards by which “success” is measured, “Steve” had every reason to be miserable. After all, he wasn’t particularly attractive physically speaking. He wasn’t gifted athletically. He was of average intelligence and held down a job that paid him just enough to get by.

As all of you know, there are theological differences among those who call themselves evangelicals. By “evangelical” I mean those who affirm the fundamental and foundational truths of Christianity, such as the inspiration and authority of the Bible, the deity, virgin birth, sinless life, and substitutionary death of Jesus, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the reality and necessity of being born again, salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and of course his second coming at the close of human history.

I’m happy to say today that Jesus and I share at least one thing in common: neither of us likes funerals. But, then again, I’ve never met anyone else who does enjoy funerals, with the exception of the mortician!

The portrait of Jesus that the four gospels have sketched for us is truly stunning. Jesus, described by his enemies as the friend of sinners, was uninhibited in the presence lepers and unafraid to confront demonic spirits. He was unembarrassed by prostitutes and unimpressed by religious leaders. He is unoffended by your weaknesses, undeterred by your sin, and unashamed to call you his own. How do you respond to someone like this? Matt Redman asked the question in the lyrics to one of his songs: “What can be said, what can be done, to so faithful a friend, to so loving a King?”

If you look up the word “paradox” in Webster’s dictionary you will find this definition: “a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense, and yet is perhaps true.”

I’ll be the first to admit that prayer can often be quite frustrating. Why is it that sometimes God says “Yes” and at other times “No” and in most cases, “Wait”? It can be frustrating and confusing to watch as one person receives an answer and another does not. There are numerous other unanswered questions about prayer that I could mention, but let me come to my primary point: There is one prayer to which God is always quick to say, “Yes!”

There was an old and godly man named Simeon who would often linger in the Temple in Jerusalem, because “it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ” (Luke 2:26). When Mary and Joseph brought the baby Jesus to the Temple, along with the appropriate sacrifice, Simeon took him into his arms and blessed God.

Picture yourself in the most painful situation imaginable. Your finances are in a shambles, your health is deteriorating daily, and you are all alone. No one seems to care how you feel. You have a splitting headache, the house is an unmitigated mess, and tomorrow has all the signs of being worse than today . . . and the telephone rings. Sure enough, it’s that one person in your life who never calls or seems to care until they need something from you. And today, of all days, you’re in no condition to give. How would you react?

Today is the second message in our new series in John 13-17 that we are calling, Last Words. That is to say, we are looking at what has also been called The Farewell Discourse of Jesus, the concluding words of instruction and encouragement that Jesus gave to his disciples on the night on which he was betrayed by Judas Iscariot. Some have referred to these five chapters as The Upper Room Discourse because that is where they gathered to celebrate the last supper.

If someone were to ask you what it is about Christianity that makes it unique among the many world religions, how would you answer them? What is it about the Christian faith that sets it apart and in doing so helps to confirm its truthfulness? What is it about Christianity that makes it so appealing?