Hearing God’s Voice from His Word
James 4:8 says, “Come near to God and he will come near to you.”
Take a moment and turn your attention to God. Tell God that you desire to trust and obey Him. Ask God to speak to you from His word.
Psalm of the Day
Psalm 75:6-10
Exaltation does not come
from the east, the west, or the desert,
7 for God is the Judge:
He brings down one and exalts another.
8 For there is a cup in the Lord’s hand,
full of wine blended with spices, and he pours from it.
All the wicked of the earth will drink,
draining it to the dregs.
9 As for me, I will tell about him forever;
I will sing praise to the God of Jacob.
10 “I will cut off all the horns of the wicked,
but the horns of the righteous will be lifted up.”
Read the Entire Psalm
God is the exalter of people. He raises up and he brings down for his own purposes. Trust him. Those he’s given to lead are not accidentally in positions of authority. He is good. He is wise. Thank him for his righteous judgment and exaltation of people for his purpose.
SCRIPTURE READING:
John 4:31-54 – New Living Translation
31 Meanwhile, the disciples were urging Jesus, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32 But Jesus replied, “I have a kind of food you know nothing about.”
33 “Did someone bring him food while we were gone?” the disciples asked each other.
34 Then Jesus explained: “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work. 35 You know the saying, ‘Four months between planting and harvest.’ But I say, wake up and look around. The fields are already ripe for harvest. 36 The harvesters are paid good wages, and the fruit they harvest is people brought to eternal life. What joy awaits both the planter and the harvester alike! 37 You know the saying, ‘One plants and another harvests.’ And it’s true. 38 I sent you to harvest where you didn’t plant; others had already done the work, and now you will get to gather the harvest.”
Many Samaritans Believe
39 Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, “He told me everything I ever did!” 40 When they came out to see him, they begged him to stay in their village. So he stayed for two days, 41 long enough for many more to hear his message and believe. 42 Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard him ourselves. Now we know that he is indeed the Savior of the world.”
Jesus Heals an Official’s Son
43 At the end of the two days, Jesus went on to Galilee. 44 He himself had said that a prophet is not honored in his own hometown. 45 Yet the Galileans welcomed him, for they had been in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration and had seen everything he did there.
46 As he traveled through Galilee, he came to Cana, where he had turned the water into wine. There was a government official in nearby Capernaum whose son was very sick. 47 When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged Jesus to come to Capernaum to heal his son, who was about to die.
48 Jesus asked, “Will you never believe in me unless you see miraculous signs and wonders?”
49 The official pleaded, “Lord, please come now before my little boy dies.”
50 Then Jesus told him, “Go back home. Your son will live!” And the man believed what Jesus said and started home.
51 While the man was on his way, some of his servants met him with the news that his son was alive and well. 52 He asked them when the boy had begun to get better, and they replied, “Yesterday afternoon at one o’clock his fever suddenly disappeared!” 53 Then the father realized that that was the very time Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” And he and his entire household believed in Jesus. 54 This was the second miraculous sign Jesus did in Galilee after coming from Judea.
Having God’s Ear through Prayer
- Express thanksgiving to God.
- Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal sin to you.
- Confess your sin to Him and receive forgiveness.
(1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sin He is faithful and just and will forgive our sins.”) - Bring your personal requests to God.
(Psalm 62:8 “Pour out your heart before God”) - Pray for someone in your small group.
- Join with others from River and pray for those who do not know God. Ask God to help you see the lost people around you and have compassion for them. Ask God for opportunities to build trust. Ask God to give you opportunities to have gospel conversations.
Living as God’s People by applying the Bible
Scripture Reflection from the Sermon
“And they told the woman, ‘We no longer believe because of what you said, since we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world.'”
John 4
Do people need to hear “our” story, or do they need to hear only God’s story, the gospel, in order to be saved? In a way, this is a false distinction. Of course, people are not saved by hearing our testimony, they must hear, believe, and obey the gospel. Paul said that we do not preach ourselves but Christ crucified. At the same time, Paul often told his story of coming to Christ. The key distinction is that we do not tell only our story, and we must realize that our story is ultimately about Jesus. As we tell of what God has done in our lives to bring us to faith, it doesn’t matter if we had some dramatic conversion experience or if we grew up in a Christian home and never lived in a pig pen like the prodigal son. It doesn’t matter because the point of every Christian’s story is that they were a sinner saved by grace. When we make much of how “bad” someone was before their conversion, we are in danger of missing the point. There are no “dramatic” conversions and “non dramatic” conversions. There are only conversions of people who were dead in their sin becoming alive in Christ. So, tell your story of coming to faith in Christ as often as you can, but do not fail to tell them of Christ crucified and risen from the dead. The woman at the well told her story and it was impactful; the Lord Jesus told THE story and it was transformational. That is a powerful combination.