The church’s relationship with sin has gotten progressively more confused.

Do we discuss our sin in order to make us more relatable to the outside world? Or do we only reference sin in order to make Christianity more palatable to non-christians?

How should we talk about sin?

This past Sunday while Pastor Jake was away, we had the privilege of hearing Rev. Doug Hart preach on Psalm 77.

Is there any doubt that we live in a performance driven society? Your success or lack of success is the direct result of your performance. We’re always analyzing data in order to better inform our decisions.

Analytics are big in everything from business to sports. College and professional football teams now hire analysts. Information and data analysis is a part of the world we live in.

And the church isn’t immune to our performance driven society. It’s standard practice within the church to collect and analyze data. How many people are in attendance? How many baptisms were there? Which service is more popular: the contemporary or traditional?

This week, we’re continuing to look at Jesus's interaction with the woman of Samaria, or as it’s commonly called, “the woman at the well.” Last week we looked at verses 1-15 and a lot of the issues we discussed last week will be relevant once again this week.

Today we’re beginning a four part series looking at Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman or what is often referred to as the woman at the well. When you read this passage, there’s really no good way to break it up because it hangs together so beautifully as a cohesive unit.

There’s a real temptation among pastors that every time they preach they need to say something innovative or unique. To present an angle on a text that you maybe haven’t ever considered before.

I was recently talking about this with a pastor friend of mine and we were talking about how there are some texts that simply don’t allow that. And I think this is one of them.

There isn’t anything unique or special about John’s words. He presents the basic gospel to his disciples. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”

Humility is a difficult topic because you can’t claim to be a humility expert and still be humble. Isn’t it prideful to think of yourself as a very humble person? In a similar vein, the desire to appear humble is in fact a demonstration of pride.

We’re at the end of Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus. And by way of reminder, Jesus explained what it means to be “born again” in verses 1-15, described the depth of God’s love in verse 16, and is now moving into why people don’t put their trust in Him.

It’s still a relevant question, isn’t it? Why don’t more people come to Christ? What exactly is the barrier that prevents people from putting their trust in Him?

As a reminder, we’re still in the middle of the nighttime meeting between the Pharisee Nicodemus and Jesus and their discussion continues through verse 21. John 3:16 is what comes after Jesus explains to Nicodemus the work of the Holy Spirit.

Next week, I’ll preach John 3:16-21. But it certainly seems appropriate to stop and reflect on this one verse, because it’s the most well known verse in the entire Bible. Whether you’ve grown up in church or not, you’ve probably heard someone quote John 3:16 at some point or another.

The bulk of our passage deals with the work of the Holy Spirit. Honestly, when was the last time you heard a sermon on the Holy Spirit?

There’s a lot of confusion over what exactly the Holy Spirit does. If someone asked you what the Holy Spirit does, what would you say?

Typically you don’t think of John 3 as a class on the Holy Spirit, but that’s really what it is.

In order to put faith in Christ, you must first be born again.

“Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then they said among the nations, ‘The LORD has done great things for them.’ The LORD has done great things for us; we are glad.” Psalm 126:2-3

Reflecting on the past several weeks since launching public worship on Easter Sunday, I can’t help but echo the psalmist. The Lord has done great things!

It’s really no secret that the American church is in decline. Only 47% of Americans claim to belong to a religious house of worship. We’re not even talking about regularly attending, we’re talking about people identifying themselves with a particular house of worship. Not even Christian for that matter; that includes the other major world religions as well. So really, it’s less than that.

As if that isn’t bad enough, even those who attend church don’t even have a biblical worldview. In fact, a large minority of those who participated in Ligonier’s State of Theology held heretical, unchristian, unbiblical views.

30% of American Christian evangelicals believe that, “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.”

Jesus turned water into wine, which unequivocally proves that it’s permissible for Christians to consume the occasional alcoholic beverage. Should I just close up the Bible and say ‘amen’ so we can all leave now?

Obviously, I’m kidding, but isn’t that typically why this portion of Scripture comes up in conversation? Maybe it’s just my conversations. Nevertheless, in my mind at least, the wedding at Cana is so frequently used as a proof text in the Christian alcohol debate we don’t even know the real point of this passage anymore. Why exactly did Jesus turn water into wine?

A couple weeks ago I had the privilege of traveling to Birmingham, Alabama for the Gospel Reformation Network’s (GRN) National Conference.

The GRN is a conservative/confessional network within our denomination – the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) – whose purpose is to cultivate healthy Reformed churches. They emphasize biblical fidelity, confessional integrity, the ordinary means of grace, intentional evangelism, and personal discipleship, among many other things. Being a part of this network has been a blessing to me, especially in the midst of starting a new church in the Roanoke Valley.

There are a lot of similarities between last week’s passage and this week’s passage. In last week’s passage, Jesus called disciples. In this week’s passage, Jesus called disciples.

The similarities are even closer when you consider the fact that both passages have one disciple tell another about Jesus. Andrew told Peter about Jesus. Here we read that Philip tells Nathanael about Jesus.

This past Sunday while Pastor Jake was away, we had the privilege of hearing Rev. Doug Hart preach on John 1:35-42.

I’d be willing to bet that all of us have some degree of guilt and shame over things we’ve done in our past. Have you ever just been laying there in bed, trying to fall asleep when all of sudden one of your worst moments floods your mind? And you’re just laying there thinking to yourself, why did I do that? Why did I say that? Why didn’t I do x, y, or z? We all have regrets.

The internet is full of advice on how to deal with guilt and shame. I just randomly picked three. Here are three ways to deal with guilt and shame.

Originally college wasn’t intended to be a time to figure out your purpose in life. But in many ways, that’s what it has become. It’s become a season to figure out what you want to do with your life. Apparently there was a point in time where folks went to college knowing exactly what they wanted to do. What was that like?

But a lot of people even go to school thinking they want to do one thing only to later learn they made the wrong decision. And many folks end up doing something that has nothing to do with the degree they earned.

People change their minds a lot because they doubt what they’re doing. Who can’t relate to that? Even people who have done the same thing their whole lives have to go through a season of doubt. We all wonder from time to time, “am I doing the right thing?” “Is this what I’m supposed to be doing with my life?”

The first book we’re going to look through together is the gospel of John. The gospel of John is probably the most well-known gospel. Not only that, but the Apostle John is very explicit in his purpose. John says that he wrote it in chapter 20 so “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

Direct. Clear. Simple. That’s where I want this body to begin - with the gospel. I want all of us to have a clear understanding of the good news of Jesus Christ.

And so, I’m excited to get started in the book of John. Just so you know, we’re going to be in John for the next several years. This will probably be a two to three year project. But let’s continue to pray that the Lord will bless each of us through it.

Glory to God for a very encouraging first service! Thank you to everyone who came to worship with us on Easter Sunday and who prayed for us. It was a special day that we’ll look back on with gratitude for years to come.