Dan Lee
John 17:9-13, For the Joy of God's Elect

Jesus’ first petition for His disciples is found in these verses. Jesus prays that the Father would keep them in His name. Jesus prays for a special people, His disciples and He does so because He was about to physically leave His disciples. What He would no longer be able to do in His physical absence, He asks the Father to accomplish. May the Lord grant to us a greater work of His Spirit to draw us to walk in Jesus’ ways and thus live with His joy evermore in our hearts.

Dan Lee
John 17:6-8, Two Realities of Salvation

Jesus describes the salvation of His disciples from two perspectives, one from heaven and the other from earth. In heaven, salvation was the product of the intratrinitarian transaction between the Father and the Son. On earth salvation was the product of divine revelation through the word of God and the hearty response of faith on the part of believers. The heavenly realities evoke worship, humility, and thanksgiving. The earthly realities compel us to take seriously every word of our Lord Jesus Christ and act upon them by faith.

Dan Lee
John 17:3-5, Salvation for the Glory of God ...

In His prayer, Jesus defines eternal life for our benefit. Contrary to popular belief, eternal life according to the Son of God is a reconciled relationship with God that begins in the present and stretches out to eternity. Jesus also reveals to us that He is the God of eternal glory which is demonstrated through the cross which He was about to bear. In the cross of Christ, the glory of God’s grace shines brilliantly so that all the redeemed and all the angelic host would glorify God forever and ever.

Dan Lee
John 17:1-2, Salvation for the Glory of God

Jesus’ prayer in John 17 begins with a focus on the glory of God. Jesus prays that His impending death will ultimately glorify the Father and that this would come about through the granting (gifting) of eternal life to His elect. What Jesus’ crucifixion puts on display is the glory of God’s grace in salvation.

Dan Lee
Deuteronomy 27-34, Two Ways to Live

As Moses closes his final message to the children of Israel, he focuses on the consequences of obedience and disobedience. He does so by setting down before them two pathways: the pathway to life, good, and the blessing, and the other pathway to death, evil, and the curse. Along with these options for their future, he reveals to them their future in apostasy, judgment, and even a restoration afterwards. The Pentateuch closes with an allusion to the prophet like Moses to come, the Lord Jesus, who speaks from the LORD and all the people ought to hear. The call to choose life echoes throughout the ages, calling all to be reconciled and restored to God and to enter into His blessing through the Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.

John 7:32-36, The Unstoppable Purpose of God

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day wanted to stop His influence from spreading, but they could not. Even though they seek to stop Him now (and will seek to kill Him even in the future), they will not succeed, because the purpose of God is unstoppable, whether it relates to Jesus’ life or His death. And His unstoppable influence continued from Pentecost down through the ages to today when Jesus is continuing to build His church. May the unstoppable proclamation of Jesus Christ advance through His church for the glory of God.

John 7:25-31, Christ of False Expectations [Part 2]

Everyone must start somewhere in their faith in Christ. But one may enter into faith in Christ with wrong expectations. In this second installment of Christ of False Expectations, we consider “the many of the crowd” who believed in Jesus with the mere expectation that the Christ is the greatest performer of signs. But is this adequate for a genuine saving faith? We consider what the Scriptures have to say about faith that saves and faith that doesn’t.

John 7:25-31, Christ of False Expectations

False expectations are commonplace in life, however, false expectations about the Messiah can be eternally catastrophic. In this first installment on a study of this text, we look at one of the two false expectations that Jesus’ audience had at the temple during the feast of Tabernacles. May the Lord always keep our hearts yielded to the true Christ who came to save us from our sins and calls us to earnestly follow Him.

John 7:19-24, The Ugliness of Sin [Part 3]

In this final installment on the ugliness of sin, we wrap up our study of the gross negligence of the religious leaders and their anger against the Lord, for which they had no right. Lastly, we look at the Lord’s call for change as His call for repentance in their specific area of lawlessness. May the Lord guard us from the hardness of heart and the ignorance that marks those who are far from Him.

John 7:19-24, The Ugliness of Sin [Part 1]

In this passage, Jesus points out the sin of the Jews. What emerges from this dialogue is the Jews’ unwillingness to obey God (v. 19a), their specific violation of God’s law (v. 19b), the vilification of God (v. 20), and their gross negligence of God’s Law (v. 21-23). Even though sin rears its ugly head through these verses, the Lord points His audience to hope and calls them to repentance (v. 24) and the quenching of their spiritual thirst (v. 37-39).

Matthew 28:16-20, What the Risen Lord wants for His world [Part 3]

The Lord has risen from the dead in glory and power. What comes next? From the Lord’s own mouth, we hear the Lord’s post-resurrection desire for the world: discipleship of all of His world. In this third installment we examine the four part definition of discipleship that the Lord gives us: baptism, trinity, obedience and His presence.

Matthew 28:1-20, What the Risen Lord wants for His world [Part 2]

The Lord has risen from the dead in glory and power. What comes next? From the Lord’s own mouth, we hear the Lord’s post-resurrection desire for the world: discipleship of all of His world. In this first installment we examine the first 15 verses of this final chapter of Matthew and see the three part confirmation of Jesus’ bodily resurrection from the dead: via the angelic announcement, the Lord’s appearance, and the Jewish leaders’ cover-up which ends up only confirming the empty tomb.