John Sermon Podcast
John the Baptist had one message for the crowds: "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" In this sermon on John 1:19-34, Pastor Ben Smith examines John's testimony of who Jesus is. John pointed to Jesus and declared two essential truths: Jesus is the Lamb of God, and Jesus takes away your sin. The wait is over. The promise has been fulfilled. Behold the Lamb of God.
Salvation is not determined by man's worthiness but by God's authority. It is impossible for sinful man, blind in sin, to receive and believe on Jesus for salvation. But God, rich in mercy, grants with His power and authority, by grace alone, for sinners to receive and believe in faith on Jesus and to become children of God. From beginning to end, salvation is entirely the work of God—a truth that brings both humility and unshakable hope to all who trust in Christ.
The confidence you have in a promise is dependent on the one who guarantees the promise. The assurance of the gospel is singularly founded on the personhood of Jesus. Being the incarnate eternal God through whom all things were created and in whom the eternal redemptive plan of God is fulfilled. Jesus is not limited by the fragility of man—He has always been, He is, and He will always be. The hope of the gospel rests on God alone. And this is the hopeful word of verse 5: even though the world opposes the light, it will not overcome the light. Like the sunrise that dispels the grip that darkness has on the world and demands that it surrender in defeat, so is the glory of the light of the gospel. Darkness is presently warring against the light, but it will not overcome it.
TXTThe desire of God is not that you would be insulated or isolated from the world but that you would be a living testimony to God’s truth in and to the world.
Every Christian experiences a tension between desiring to be separated from the world and obedience to proclaim the gospel to the world. Throughout history, there have been excesses on both sides of this tension. Sometimes, Christians have overemphasized separation from the world and sought to isolate themselves from the world and restrict contact with non-Christians. At other times, Christians have overemphasized ministry to the world and abandoned holiness and the requirements of faith and obedience in a foolish attempt to make the gospel more worldly appealing.
The Christian who attempts to isolate themselves from the world disobeys God’s command to be a gospel light and witness to the world, and the Christian who seeks at all costs to be appealing to the world disobeys God’s command to live lives of holiness.
Whether you are a recent high school graduate preparing to enter the working world or attend college, or an adult working a secular job, every Christian must wrestle with this tension that comes from living a holy life for Christ while living in an evil world.
This is the very issue that Jesus is praying about in John 17:14-19. He does not pray that God would take Christians out of the world, but while they are in the world, keep them holy and obedient to the faith.
In this sermon, pastor Ben Smith preaches from John 17:14-19 on how you can be in the world without becoming like the world by seeking godly affections, resting in God’s power, and being set apart by God.
The resurrection of Jesus is more than a historical event. The resurrection of Jesus is a confrontation of faith. Do you believe that He is the resurrection and life?
This interaction between Martha and Jesus is dripping with emotion. Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha, had a close and affectionate relationship with Jesus. Verses 33-36 tell us that when Mary met him, accompanied by many mourners, he was deeply moved, and when he came to the tomb, he wept. The sisters are grieved by the loss of their brother and disappointed that Jesus had not arrived in time to heal him from his sickness.
There is a tendency to read this passage and focus primarily on the emotions. However, God is doing more than ministering to emotions in this passage. In God’s providence, he was providing an opportunity to demonstrate His glory and call his disciples to a deeper faith and belief.
Martha acknowledged that she believed in the resurrection on the last day, but this belief was academic and did not influence how she experienced the grief of the moment. Jesus called her to personally believe that he alone is the source and power of resurrection and eternal life. Many people, like Martha, acknowledge Jesus's resurrection, but what does it mean to have faith and belief that Jesus is the resurrection and the life? This passage exposes the insufficiency of knowledge alone and the requirement of faith and confession.
Having faith and belief that Jesus is the resurrection and the life is:
More than an acknowledgment of fact.
Believing that in Jesus alone is salvation.
Confessing Jesus as Christ and Lord.
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Before you can be obedient to the commands of Jesus, you must have faith that Jesus can accomplish His purpose and His will. When Christians have faith, they obey. Experiencing the power of God comes in the context of obeying God.
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One of the common experiences of growing up in a Baptist church in the south was hearing preachers tell stories of their recent evangelistic conversations. The stories would generally begin with the preacher telling how he met someone in a restaurant or on a plane. The stories tended to have similar arcs. They would begin by describing the other person as someone the preacher was unlikely to run into in their daily activities. The conversation was begun with an intriguing question and eventually ended with the person praying to receive Christ as their savior. At their best, these stories were intended to encourage the church to take every opportunity to share Jesus wherever they went and with whomever they encountered. At their worst, these stories were thinly veiled boasts of spiritual greatness and had the effect of creating the feeling of inferiority and ineptitude in those listening in the pews. I genuinely believe the stories were true, yet I suspect the presentation was skewed. Skewed, in that, intended or not, the way these stories were told seemed to communicate that every conversation the preacher had ended in a successful conversion story. I doubt that was the reality for the preachers of my youth, and it has certainly not been true for me in my experience.
I do try to take every opportunity to share Jesus wherever I go and with whomever I encounter. This has indeed led to unexpected opportunities to share Jesus with strangers. And I have experienced great joy when these encounters have led to someone confessing in faith Jesus as their Lord. But the truth is that most of these encounters have not ended in a sermon illustration-worthy confession of faith but rather a rejection of my plea to come and know Jesus. What follows is the account of just such an encounter and how it has changed how I think about evangelism.
There is a crack in my parents' front door. The door is not in disrepair, and to most observers, there is no visible sign that the door's integrity is compromised. At night the severity and even the presence of the crack are impossible to determine. But when the sun shines, the light that presses through the crack bears an undeniable testimony.
I recently spent a few days at my parents' home. It was not a visit of pleasure but one of heartache. Close family friends had lost a son and a grandson, and I returned home to be with this family. My heart was broken. The heaviness of grief was felt with every breath. The fatigue of sadness rested on my shoulders like cumbersome over-stuffed luggage. Everything within me wanted to do something to make it better, assuage my friends' pain, and heal the brokenness. But there was nothing that could be done. All I could do was remember the wisdom of Solomon that there is an appointed time for everything, and this was a time to weep and mourn. And so, we did.
I have often heard it said that sheep are dumb. Generally, this assessment of the deficient intelligence of the ovine mind is used to explain the propensity of sheep to wander off from the herd and become lost. The Bible often uses sheep as a metaphor for God’s people. As such, when biblical passages are taught that deal with the imagery of sheep and their shepherds the negative assessment of being dumb and stupid is often applied both to the sheep and to Christians. This negative description of sheep is so commonly used that it gives the impression that the biblical perspective of sheep is universally negative.
Personal experience and academic knowledge are related but not the same. They are distant cousins. One can have a vast academic and technical understanding of something, even being able to describe it in the most specific details without personally and experientially knowing what they are describing.
In October of 1735, the trustees for the establishment of the colony of Georgia appointed Francis Moore to be the keeper of the stores for the new fort and town that was to be established on the banks of the Mackay River. Both the fort and the town would be named Frederica. Moore would travel to Georgia with James Oglethorpe to this new town on what today is known as St. Simons Island. Moore would return to England a year later only to come again to Frederica in 1738 as recorder. He would live in Georgia until 1746, witnessing the siege of St. Augustine and the Spanish invasion of Georgia in 1742. Moore kept journals detailing the establishment of the fort and town, the people, flora and fauna, and events he witnessed. Some of his journals were published.
When I was a kid, my church did a Living Christmas Tree program each Christmas season. The event was very much a product of 1980s church culture. It featured a massive steel-framed Christmas tree that rose from the base of the stage to inches from the high ceiling. The tree was constructed to support ascending rows of choir members who stood behind the tree's greenery with only their heads and shoulders exposed. The large choir would perform from the tree, while drama skits and small musical ensembles would perform on stages to the left and right of the tree. The event featured a full orchestra and the spectacle of lights on the tree. I loved it and looked forward to it each year. Over the years, there were common themes that were used year after year. One of those was a narration that made a distinction between this tree and that tree.
John Sermon Manuscripts
A Four-Sermon Collection for the Christmas Season
Celebrate the Advent season with this collection of 4 expository sermon manuscripts by Ben Smith, Sr. This resource provides rich theological insight into the prologue of John's Gospel, exploring the eternal nature of Christ, the gift of salvation, and the hope of redemption found in Jesus—the Promised King.
The Hope of Christ is a theologically rich sermon manuscript on John 1:1-5 that declares the foundation of the Christian hope: the personhood of Jesus Christ. This exposition carefully unpacks the opening verses of John's gospel, demonstrating how Jesus—the eternal Word—is God incarnate, the creator of all things, and the promised victor over sin and death.
Formatted for 5.5 x 8.5 pages, this resource includes:
A full sermon manuscript in a clear, three-point outline format
A fillable outline handout ideal for congregations, small groups, or personal study
Reflection questions designed to deepen meditation and application through the week
The Faith that Saves – Sermon Manuscript on John 1:6-13
Product Description:
The Faith that Saves is a theologically rich sermon manuscript on John 1:6-13 that declares the divine provision of salvation through faith alone in Jesus Christ. This exposition carefully unpacks how God provided both the testimony to and the way of salvation, demonstrating that saving faith is entirely a work of God's grace and power.
Formatted for 5.5 x 8.5 pages, this resource includes:
A full sermon manuscript in a clear, three-point outline format
A fillable outline handout ideal for congregations, small groups, or personal study
Reflection questions designed to deepen meditation and application through the week
John the evangelist continues his gospel prologue by identifying John the Baptist as the God-ordained witness and revealing the way of salvation through Jesus Christ. This sermon unfolds three essential elements of God's provision for salvation:
God provides for salvation through a preceding witness (vv. 6-8).
The sermon explores John the Baptist's God-ordained ministry as the final Old Testament prophet, examining how God graciously provided faithful witnesses from Adam and Eve to John the Baptist. This section demonstrates how God's provision of witnesses was both a gift of God and a ministry to man, preparing hearts for the Messiah and calling people to saving faith.
God provides for salvation through the revelation of truth (vv. 9-11).
This section reveals Jesus as the true light—the full revelation of God Himself. The manuscript addresses the sobering reality that the presence of light does not guarantee reception, examining spiritual blindness and why many who encountered Jesus did not recognize or receive Him. It emphasizes that salvation comes only through the true light of Christ.
God provides for salvation through the work of Jesus (vv. 12-13).
The sermon concludes with the hopeful declaration that God gives the right to become children of God to those who believe. This section unpacks how salvation is granted by God's authority and accomplished by God's power alone—not by blood, nor by human will or effort, but of God. It powerfully demonstrates that faith itself is a divine gift.
The included reflection questions help readers:
Identify how God has used witnesses in their own lives to point them to the gospel
Recognize attempts to know God apart from faithful obedience to Jesus
Understand the difference between knowing about Jesus and believing in Jesus
Grasp why it's vital to proclaim that salvation is of God alone, not human effort
Apply the truth of God's sovereign grace to their daily walk with Christ
Whether used for preaching, teaching, discipleship, or personal devotion, The Faith that Saves provides a biblically grounded, pastoral, and grace-centered exploration of John 1:6-13. It is an excellent resource for the Christmas/Advent season or any time when believers need to be reminded that salvation is entirely God's work from beginning to end.
Format: Digital PDF
Length: 22 pages
Page Size: 5.5 x 8.5 in.
Scripture Text: John 1:6-13
Author: Ben Smith, Sr.
Usage: For personal study, teaching, or ministry preparation (see copyright permissions included in the document)
Download includes:
✔️ Printable PDF format
✔️ Ready-to-preach sermon outline
✔️ Fill-in-the-blank outline handout
✔️ Reflection questions for spiritual growth and group discussion
The Joy of Salvation – Sermon Manuscript on John 1:14-18
Product Description:
The Joy of Salvation is a theologically rich sermon manuscript on John 1:14-18 that declares the glorious truth of the gospel: the eternal God became flesh to save sinful man. This exposition carefully unpacks how the incarnation of Christ provides for salvation by revealing God's glory, demonstrating God's grace, and making peace with God possible.
The Peace of Redemption is a theologically rich sermon manuscript on John 1:19-34 that proclaims the heart of the gospel through John the Baptist's powerful declaration: "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" This exposition carefully unpacks who Jesus is and what He has done, demonstrating that Jesus is the offering of God to atone for your sin and make you righteous and holy before God.
Pastor Ben Smith’s sermon pulpit notes for preaching John 11:17-27. A sermon for Resurrection Sunday. The PDF file contains sermon notes, illustrations, and sermon outline handouts.
"The Word became flesh to reveal the glory of God, the grace and truth of God, and to provide for sinners to be saved from the wrath of God. See the birth of Jesus for what it is: the eternal God, coming in the flesh to be in the presence of man to reveal His glory."