is going to be a transitional
day for us. We transition out of this gospel
into John's first epistle. And I think it's going to be
fitting because we are able to grasp the continuity for one. And most importantly, as John
begins his letter, he just reiterates what he's shown us throughout
this gospel. He talks of it, he speaks of it, he expresses
it in a poetic way. There is a lot of controversy
amongst evangelicals concerning John's intention in his writing.
And while it is somewhat debatable, the context of scripture is simple.
And I say that because I don't want any of you to feel as though
here we are now three years or so into John and now we're finishing
to think, well, I could have never learned all of this had
the pastor not taught us this. Would you? Yes, you could have. And there's a question that I
get often in Well, not weekly, but I'd say at least once a month.
There's a question that I get often concerning how I prepare
for the preaching of the Word of God. And the answer to that
simply is this, time with it. Time with it, time with you,
time with the Word, time with you, prayerful consideration
of how the Word is to be taught concerning what it says for you. That's what it means to be a
pastor on its foundational level. That if I'm teaching the scripture
for any other purpose than for you, I'm not shepherding. Now, I can be a teacher. The
scripture can be taught, but it's different. It's different
when we have to consider one another when we're learning and
teaching the scripture. would argue and could show this throughout
all of the Pauline epistles specifically, but I could argue that the New
Testament was written primarily for the sake of the church, her
joy, unity, and spiritual health, so that she would learn to do
the work of the ministry through the teaching of the Word of God
as she also learned the Word of God herself. So that's why
I emphasize fully and always redundantly to an absurdity that
we must be reading the Bible. But there are a lot of folks
who in their zeal to know stuff approach the Bible from a purely
academic, and that wouldn't be horrible, But what that means
in our community is that I'm going to study the precepts of
scripture, I'm going to get it under my belt in an outline form,
and then I will know it and I can tell everybody the knowledge
of it. So I can be my own Bible answer man, I can be the debater
of this age, the wise of the wise, you see. Now if you know
anything about Paul, that should have rung a bell right now in
your head. But Paul rhetorically asked the
question, where is the debater of this age? Who are the wise? Which of you were of noble birth? Which of you are wise? Remember,
God used what is dumb in the world to confound the wise. We must be in the Word of God
and we will be, as John's Gospel represents, we will be taught
by God. And you will affirm that which is taught from this pulpit.
And it will impact your life in such a way that you won't
just gain knowledge, you will gain life. Because to know Christ is to
know that He is life. And when you think of the New
Testament, we know that the four Gospels are indeed that. A systematic narrative of the
life and ministry of Jesus, the Christ, so that we may believe. And specifically John's gospel,
John writes this, I believe, with Jews in mind because it
is the most Jewish writing of the entire New Testament. In
its context, John centers everything he does around the feast of the
Jews, everything. Yet it was written that you may
believe that Jesus is the Christ and by believing you may have
life in His name. And so when we see the purpose
of this gospel, it is evangelistic first and foremost, but for the
saints now we are encouraged. This is to show us and to remind
you all and myself that the gospel is not something we Now we're
saved. Moving right along. The gospel
is the power of God unto salvation. And the gospel is the power of
God unto worship. And the gospel is the power of
God unto joy. And the gospel is the power of
God unto peace. The gospel is the power of God
unto preservation. So that anytime we look at the
instructions of scripture and we try to look at how our life
should look and how our mouths should sound and how our minds
should think, if we lose sight of the gospel, we become legalists. And if we ignore those, we become
antinomian. See, these are the debates. John is not antinomian, but his
gospel is because the law is fulfilled in Christ. Christ is
the righteousness of God. And this is a part of how we
grow. We grow together as the elders
of this congregation grow in their knowledge of the Word of
God through their time with it and their time with you. And
then as you grow with your time with each other and in the Word,
we learn deeply. the truths that we find. And
that deep learning produces an intimacy that is more powerful
than marriage, that is more powerful than blood, that is more powerful
than any institution that has ever walked the face of the earth. And it makes us look like fools.
People mock us and think that we're silly and that we're superstitious
or that we're worse, just plain stupid. Paul answers that very clearly.
Yes, I'm out of my mind for the sake of Christ. All the knowledge
I had is nothing concerning Christ. Paul didn't spend his time beating
the drum of his Judaistic PhD so that he could seem smart.
Paul was probably one of the greatest teachers that ever walked
the earth. Probably one of the greatest
academic minds that has ever lived. Probably one of the greatest
philosophers that has ever had breath in his lungs. Yet he says,
I choose to preach Christ and him crucified, lest the cross
lose its power. I did not come with eloquence.
I did not wax eloquence and come with great speech and to argue
in such a way that was ironclad so that I might convince you.
I preached Christ and God, as he wishes, brings to life his
people. And they see. This gospel shows me Jesus every day of my
life. So that when I look at the world
and when I see calamity, when I see riots, when I see murder,
when I see fear and I see all these things that are taking
place in the culture, I have only one place to look. I can
look, well I have two places to look. I can look within me
and my own intellect and my own ability to logically parse these
circumstances and place them in certain categories so that
I can handle them, which is foolishness, or I can look to Christ. And
looking to Christ is not something that we are empowered to do by
our own will. It is something that we are privileged
to do by the will of God. And in doing so, all we have
to do is walk into the pages of John's gospel and just read
it. I love epic music. Don't you? Epic music. Now, how do you define
that? For me, it drives some type of something in me that
feels like I could conquer the world. Put my Superman pose on.
You know, I could conquer the world. When I'm doing martial
arts, I don't want to hear violins. I want to hear drums, brass.
I want to hear some electric guitars even. I want it to be
epic. I want it to be like the closing credits of a superhero
movie. I like epic music concerning
the gospel. That's why I like Steve Green
a lot. Remember that song he sang in,
I think it was 1988, We Have Seen God's Glory. And the man's range is like 75,000
octaves. And he starts out and he sings
and then he modulates and he modulates and he modulates. The
next thing you know, you're like in the third heaven. I mean, you
know, we have seen God's glory. We have seen God walk as a man
amongst us. We have seen it. That's what
John's message is. We have seen God's glory. I see if I were in a mega sick
or sensitive type situation, I'd play that video for you right
now. And we just we just go home.
It would move us emotionally. But in the truth, we don't have
to feel it. We can be with him. And so as
you see how John closes this gospel, he does so as a way of
encouraging us. And there's several things that
I want to say in closing. Then I want to revisit the important
aspects of how we have seen the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ moving into next Sunday when we will go to 1 John 1. In verses 24 and 25 of John 21,
we see this. This is the disciple who is bearing
witness about these things and who has written these things.
And we know that his testimony is true. Now there are also many
other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be
written, I suppose, says John, that the world itself could not
contain the books that would be written. I want you to think
about that for just a moment. In every one of us is a testimony
of Christ. In every season of our lives,
in every moment, where we are walking in Christ. We could write that down. We
could share that truth. We could talk about how John's
witness became our witness because we beheld the glory of God through
his pages. And we could write it and discuss
it and talk about it. And quite honestly, the data
fields are filling up. The data fields of the world
and the books of the world, they continue to be produced and they
are filling up and server rooms have to get larger and libraries
have to get denser. Yet for the whole of the world,
the teachings of Christ are small in the pile of data. Yet if every child of God were
to write their own account of the testimony of Christ in them,
and I mean just reiterating what we learned, we could fill the
world. And Christ is continuing to do
the same work that he came to do. He paid for the sins of his
people. He satisfied the wrath of God,
and he's working that salvation into each of his elect every
moment of life. And everywhere the witness of
the disciples are taught, God is bringing to life His church. He's equipping His people. He's
establishing their learning and His wisdom in them. So in some
way, and this may sound cliche, your life is a testimony of Christ
if you are in Him. But now verse 24. This disciple whom Jesus loved,
John, this writer of this gospel, is bearing witness about these
things. When we think of evangelism, and I was to have a conversation
with a brother about evangelism this week, but he never got in
touch with me. I just realized that I didn't
hear from him. Evangelism in its strategy and
in its practice has gone off the rails. It's gone off the
rails. It's gone off the rails because
the gospel witness has been lost. Let me tell you how that works. John witnesses the Christ. Paul witnesses the Christ. All the other apostles witnessed
the Christ. And they write of him and God has established their
witness as the concrete presence of Christ manifested to us. And
I've said this before and I'll say it again because it's worth
repeating that we often in our humanity would rather experience
something objectively to hold on to rather than be intimate
subjectively with Jesus. What's the difference? We'd rather
see something cool than be with him personally. And that's what
we see. We see the Jews looking for signs.
We see the Greeks looking for knowledge. We see all of the
people. We see the division that happens
in chapter 7 where some start to believe that He's Messiah,
others deny it. We see the division in John chapter
8. We see the division in John 3. I mean, everywhere you look
in John's gospel, there's two things at work. Jesus as a witness
of redemption, as a witness of the Father, doing the work of
the Father. And we see Him revealing Himself
to His people. And we see the majority of the
religious people rejecting Him. I want you to get that. Because
that is the pattern of history. Religious people reject the gospel
while thinking they have the gospel. And when I say religious,
what do you mean by that? Ask a thousand people, you get
five thousand answers. But in a general sense, the way
John establishes religion is one who, by their practice of
life, affirms some sense of security in their hope of eternal life. And in doing so, they don't want
to hear about grace. They want to partner grace with
flesh and give God credit for flesh so that it's all a big
shebang of man and God working together, but God gets all the
credit. when the gospel is the exact
opposite. God gets all the credit because
God did all the work and God met all the conditions. God slaughtered
His Son. God satisfied His wrath. God
establishes life in Christ and God gives His people as He wishes
to His Son and then He dies for them. Period. And evangelism is to proclaim
what God has finished, that the elect may, by the Spirit of God,
be taught the truth of that, and their resolve come, repentance,
to believe in the mind that gift of life was theirs. But yet, we have become, as a
nation, a divided people when it comes
to the gospel. And you may say to yourself and
you look at history and I love church history and I love historical
theology as a hobby. I could really bog down in that
stuff. And when you look at the history
of the gospel or of man's iterations of the gospel. It's easy to say,
well, there are thousands of different viewpoints or hundreds
of different divisions, or there are dozens of different ways
of looking at the same thing. You see how pleasant that sounds?
And that's true from a logical standpoint, to be pure in our
way of communicating. The primary foundation of communication
is to what is to listen. is to listen a whole lot more
than we think and to think a whole lot more than we speak. If we could just get that down.
So if we're listening and we're describing this room right now
and all of us are writing one page, no longer, I don't want
to grade all these, but one page description of what you're witnessing
this very moment. Some of you may talk about music,
because I mentioned a song. Some of you may talk about the
scripture. Some of you may talk about the temperature. Some of
you may talk about the empty front row. What's he done? Some of you may discuss certain
things that may be going through your mind, the tracks in your
trunk. Or a discussion that you have
with your family this week. Or some of you may be thinking
about the dust on the walls, or the coffee stain on the floor,
or oops, I didn't put shoes on this morning. Or you might describe what the
stage looks like, or what the lights look like, or that one's
yellow and the rest of them are white, or whatever. You never
noticed that, did you? Now you can't stop looking at
it. And we would all be correct We would all be talking about
the exact same thing, having put our focus on other things.
And that is good observational listening. If you're able to
talk to me about the sound and I'm able to talk to you about
the comfort of the cushion. But when we begin to divide on
that, no, you're just dumb. That isn't what was happening.
No, that's not dumb. That's your perspective. But
let me tell you, that works in everything else in life in describing
things. And as a musician, analytical
techniques is a class that I hope I never have to take again. I
think I'll just take a lobotomy. But you listen to the music and
you have to pick out things that are happening in this score.
keys, changes, all this other stuff, and you listen, and you
write, and you write, and you dictate, and you transcribe,
and you turn it in, your prayer said, that ain't what I was looking
for. It's a seven minute song. 90 instruments in this thing, what
do you want? I wanted you to pick out the piccolo, I wanted
to hear what you had to say about the, then ask the question that
way, you see? Now what's the point? Everything in life is
subjective. except the gospel. But just because we are subjectively
approaching the text of scripture does not mean we're all divided.
But when we take the subject of Jesus and we differ on him,
we are not the same. When we take the witness, and
that's why the witness of scripture is essential. That's why it is
the myopic, dogmatic, blind view of God's revelation to his people. It doesn't matter the commentary
of James Tippins. It doesn't matter the structure
of our theological understanding as grace, truth, assembly. What
matters is, are we identifying and sticking with the dogma of
the witness of God through the apostles? So when philosophy,
and everything's philosophical, you can't think without philosophy,
ergo its definition. But when our thoughts move outside
the boundaries of the dogma of the context of scripture, we
have created another gospel. And it is the norm of our world,
beloved. It is normal for men and women
and children to think and theorize and to dream and to contemplate
all these different things concerning God and what happens here and
when did this take place and what about this and hypothetical
ourselves into a dreamland of mystery and then begin to express
it in some way as though God revealed it to us and not to
others. God has revealed to every believer the truth of the gospel
of Christ and the scripture is our God alone to these things. So we look back at what John
says. This is the disciple who is bearing
witness about these things and who has written these things
and we know We know that his testimony is
true. Now, if John had written this in the first person, he'd
have been like Paul. I've seen this with my own eyes and as
God is my witness by the Spirit, I cannot lie. I am true in this
testimony. And if you don't believe it,
you're going to stand in judgment. That's the dogma of the gospel
of Jesus Christ. You do believe it, beloved, because
of the witness of scripture. See why reading the Bible is
99.99% of your hope? I love my Sunday night question
and answers. I like it. I enjoy it. I used to enjoy doing
them midweek here. And it's engaging and it's helpful
and it's healthy for the body. But where does that stuff come
from? You know, I can tell as a pastor
who's reading the scripture because of the questions they have versus
I can tell as a pastor those who are just on the peripherals
of listening to the gossip winds and they're troubled by something.
What does the Bible say? That's the question. What does
the Bible say? Where in scripture are we to
learn it? And it's okay. Any question is
good. But my hope is that we have all and are all learning
to go back to the word of God, to the testimony of John. What
is it that John has taught us? I want you to listen. I want
you to get this very quickly. What is it that John has taught
us? John has taught us that the witness
of scripture that he has written is indeed sufficient for salvation. John has told us that if someone
is going to believe, they can take John's gospel and read it
and be saved. John has taught us that if there's
anything that doesn't agree with what he's written, it is not
a gospel. It is actually bad news. John
has taught us that there's nothing else that's needed aside from
what he's written. John has taught us that if anything
else has been written by any other apostle in any way that
contradicts what he has written, that it's a false gospel. So when we find contradiction,
you know what the problem is? We're not reading it. When we pit Paul and James and
John against each other, we're not reading it. John's gospel
is for the sake of knowing the gospel, that you might believe
and have eternal life in Christ. John's epistles are so that you
might live in unity and in harmony and in fellowship with each other
because of the gospel. We have seen his glory. What
I want to do in the time we have left is to just, let's just walk
through John's gospel one more time. Just walk through the whole
thing. You were right. Let's just walk
through it. If he is witnessed, and I could teach about the authority
of Scripture here, I could go back and pull 10 to 12 key verses
out of John's Gospel. But imagine yourself now having
had years in it. Are you reading it every day?
I promise you, if you read John's Gospel every day, it will become
more and more intimate for you, which means that you'll be more
intimate with Jesus. I don't know if you're watching
the news. I pray you're not. Be a good citizen of this country
and don't watch it. Be a joyful worshiper and just put it away. Some people, that
sounds foolish. I think it's the wisest thing
that has come out of my mouth in months in a practical way. Read the Bible, stay off the
news. Stay off the fodder. When John
opens this letter, he sets the stage in chapter 1, the first
18 verses, that are printed over everything else he writes. Jesus
Christ is God, and we cannot know Him except that He revealed
Himself to us, and He has revealed Himself to us. Of course, as
Paul would teach the Romans, there is this creative essence
of God's revelation, but it is not salvific. It cannot save.
Only seeing and knowing Christ, John 17 3. Can you have eternal
life? So just knowing that Jesus is
God is insufficient, but denying that he's God is proof you're
not elect or that at this moment you've not been born again. We've learned more about the
Trinity in John's Gospel than we will learn in any other text,
except maybe Hebrews. But we see God, the Father, calling
Jesus God and commanding all creation to worship Him. That's
pretty good. Matter of fact, God the Father calling the Son,
my God. But in this gospel, we see that God, the Son, who is
the creator of all things, is the creator of life. And in this
life, in Him was life and the life was the
light of men. And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness
shall not overcome it. This is the witness of John concerning
Jesus, the Son. This is important, because beloved,
if you don't keep this running like a rat cage, or what are
not a rat cage, what are they called? A squirrel cage, or gerbil
cage, or whatever kind of rodent you let see run, you're going
to misunderstand 1 John from the beginning. No pun intended
there. Jesus Christ, as he wishes, by
the will of the Father, gives light to His people. And so we who are in Christ,
we are in the light. And though there were many witnesses,
Jesus is the primary witness. John the Baptist is imparted
there, verse 8, 6. I'm not going to go through the whole text
like this and sit here for five hours, but this is important.
John the Baptist, to bear witness about the light. He was not the
light. But the true light was coming
into the world, and the world didn't know him, though he made
it. He came to his own, to the Jews. His own people did not
know him and did not receive him, did not acknowledge him. But all who did acknowledge him,
those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the
children of God who were born, who were born. who were born
not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of the
mind, nor the will of man, but the will of God. These are the
children of God. And this gospel is written that
you may know that you are a child of God. Paul deals with that
in Romans 8. The Spirit of God testifies to
my spirit that I am a child. And as a child, I'm an heir.
And as an heir, I can cry out, Daddy! Paul deals with the same thing
in his writing to the Hebrews. That we can come to the throne
of the King of Kings and we can walk in like a child walks into
their father's workplace, to their father's business, to their
father's house. And no one tells the king's child
to get in line, to get in the back of the line. They're walking
through the back door saying, hey, dad. And I say, just a minute,
sweetie, y'all. I'm judging and ruling here.
Just give me a minute. Hey, we're waiting in line. Cut
his head off. This is my daughter here. You
see, we don't have to fear. John deals
with that in his letter. He's talking about fear. Perfect
love casts out all fear. Cast it out. This Word became
flesh and has dwelt among us, and this is the point. We have
seen the fullness of all that He is in all detail, completely,
without lacking nothing. That's the definition of glory. And this is the fullness of all
that He is as He is a Son from the Father. This is not ontology. This is not the existence of
Jesus. This is the operation of the
work of Jesus coming from the father. He is God. He is eternal. He took on flesh and came into
the world and subordinated himself to the will of God, the father,
to redeem his people from their sins and to reveal himself to
them as their redeemer, not offer himself for them that they may
accept it. He came into them and overcame
them and purchased them. And we see the means to which
this glory is seen as the only son from the father. He is full
of grace and he is full of truth. That verse is the namesake of
our assembly. It is the quintessential glue of the gospel, grace and
truth. And from his fullness, we have
all beloved. received grace upon grace. And
then the contrast here, and this is important, for the law was
given through Moses, but grace and truth came through
Jesus Christ. Grace and truth came through
Jesus Christ. The law came through Moses and
produced death. The righteousness of God that
the law pointed to as a shadow comes through grace, comes through
the truth who is Jesus. And then John says what he says
in verse 18. No one has ever seen God. No one has ever seen God. Moses
saw the shadow of the wind of the back of the fake train of
God's glory. And the people on the bottom
of Sinai could not stand to see the face of Moses because it
reflected the nature of the image of the glory of God. But the one and only God who
is at the Father's side has made God known. And this is the testimony. This
is the testimony of John. This is the testimony of John
the Baptist. This is the testimony of Mark, of Matthew, of Levi,
of James, of Peter, of Paul. This is the testimony of the
pastoral letters. This is the testimony of Luke's
account of the acts of the apostles. This is the testimony and is
congruent and it is solid and it is sealed and nothing's going
to change it. There is no other way to know
truth and to have life except that you believe in the life
who is the resurrection, who is the light, Jesus Christ. And that light shines in the
darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. This is the testimony of John. When John the Baptist says, behold,
the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, we know
the context there of the word cosmon or cosmos. We understand the sins of the
world is inclusive of Gentiles, not just Jews. That Israel, as
they were created out of no people, became a people so that through
Israel, God could show the microscopic picture of Christ in the church.
That even in the context of marriage, as we see husband and wife coming
together, Ephesians 5. Paul says, I say that it refers
to Christ in the church. It's a small picture of the macrocosmic
reality of the redemption of God's elect only that he's loved
before the world began, that when he said, let there be light,
it was intended for them to see him. And they will and you have. And then Jesus, in like manner
of the testimony of Israel, who were not a people, who were called
out of a man who worshipped the moon and went and did all that
he could do to find his way to God, even building these large,
flat-top pyramids called ziggurats that still stand today in Ur. To get closer to God, like Babel,
to get closer to God, like all the other Possibilities of humanity
that find some way to say, we know that there is a God. Let
us find him in our own power. Let us go to him in our own strength.
Let us witness him by searching him and finding him. Beloved,
we can't even get a group of people off to outer space. How are we going to find the
ineffable God? Only when he bows down. And I
say bow down, that might not be the right word. lowers himself
to show himself to us. That is Jesus. And then in like
manner, Jesus calls the first disciples. He commands them,
follow me, follow me, follow me, follow me. And they're in
awe. Oh, this great teacher. See,
it was cool to follow a rabbi during that day. But these men
laid down their lives and they followed after Christ, not even
knowing who he was. They just obeyed him because
Christ will. have what he wants. And Judas
was eager to follow after Christ, just as Peter was eager to follow
after Christ. And then as they're all together
there with Mary, the mother of Jesus, at the wedding at Cana,
a tragic thing happens, a devastating thing happens where the man runs
out of wine, proving himself an unfit bridegroom. The mother
of Jesus says, Jesus, can you do something? He kindly, in rebuke,
says, it is not my time. Jesus submits to the will of
the Father. And everything he did was to
display the glory of God in redemption. Jesus was not here on the earth
to satisfy the needs and nutrition of men, to satisfy the healing
of men, to satisfy a kingdom of men. As a matter of fact,
John's gospel bears witness against that very idea. And so then he
takes the ceremonial cleansing jars that were so prominently
and proudly displayed at the wedding of Cana, so that everybody
that was there that was so holy and pious in their law keeping,
they said, well look how wonderfully spiritual this man is. But then
when he ran out of wine, that didn't matter. So Jesus took the very thing,
the law of Moses, that was a symbol of cleansing, and an arbiter
of death and judgment. And he shows himself to be the
one and only true bridegroom, and he gives credit to the man
who could not even prepare for his wedding feast. And many people saw these miracles,
and then we know what goes on when the Pharisees get wind of
this. They've already been looking
at John the Baptist for months, and they see what he says about
this man, the Lamb of God, whose sandals I'm not worthy to tie. And he was he is before me, though
I was born before he was born. He is before me. Nicodemus comes and the illustration
of darkness here is not so that we might have a neat play on
words, it is the intention of God to see no pun intended for
us to see the depravity of humanity, even in the highest state of
religion. and zeal and knowledge. and wisdom. And Nicodemus confesses that
Jesus is from God, the one come from God. And Jesus says, You
can't see me, nor can you enter into me, unless you are born
again. For the judgment is this, that men love the darkness. So
that you, Nicodemus, as you worship and as you teach the Bible, it's
darkness. You can't see what you're talking
about. You don't even know the truth
because it's standing before you. And unless the Spirit of
God gives you the light to see who it is I am, you will die
in your sin. That's the gospel. That's evangelism. You know everything, Nicodemus.
You're the teacher of all Israel. You should understand. Let me
give you a two-year-old explanation. See the wind? No, don't do it. See where the leaves are going?
You can't see the wind. You can just see what it's doing.
You see the wind, but you can't see what it's doing. And you
can't tell it where to go. You can't go out in the yard and say, blow
all these leaves. Oh, thank you, wind. No, you're going to be
blowing them this way, and the wind's going to blow them that
way. I've been in the yard before blowing leaves, and they're actually
a wall 12 foot high of leaves. Because I'm blowing this way,
and the wind's blowing that way. And it's just this big, weird mess. Such is the Spirit. It blows
where it wishes. It does what it wishes. And when it blows,
you see. And until it blows, you can't see. There's nothing
wrong with teaching people that. It is the evangel. It is part
of the teaching of this gospel. All the teachings of this gospel
are fruitful unto eternal life, are necessary unto eternal life. So you want a list of what's
necessary to believe? The gospel of John. Because you
may say you believe in part, and then something else comes
along like John 6. Oh! That's a tough one. Well, you know, I believe the
gospel, but I don't believe that. And you don't believe the gospel.
You've not been taught by God. It's not a get-to. It's not a
graduation. Well, I learned English pretty
good, and now I'm going to learn another language. How can these things be? How
can I go back into my mother's womb? How can this stuff? You can't
understand it. You know Moses, right? You know Moses as he lived
with the serpent in the wilderness. So I will be lifted up. I will
be crucified. Whoever believes in me has eternal
life. Why? Because he is the eternal
life. For God loved the world in this way that he gave his
only son, the only one that he had. And the believing ones will not perish, but have eternal
life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn
the world, but in order that the world might be saved through
him. And whoever is believing is not condemned, but whoever
is not believing is condemned already, because he does not
believe." And we know what happens there.
And we know that in Jerusalem, things got really tough for Jesus. In that very early days, we know
that the witness of the gospel brings us to the place where
Jesus begins to spread out a little bit. And he goes into the Samaritan
countryside. Sychar, remember that? And this
woman is well-versed in the law. She's well-versed in the practices
of Judaism. They do the same thing at Gerizim
that they do on Mount Jerusalem. And these are mountains, you
know, they're elevated, they go up. These cities are up. And Jesus reveals himself to
her. Jesus reveals himself to her through all of the sin, through
all of the things. He doesn't say, woman, you need
to stop doing all this stuff and you can be saved. He says,
woman, the one of whom you speak, I am. And she goes back and says, I
have met a man who's told me everything I've ever done. Come
see, it could be the Christ. And he stays in Sychar and teaches
to the dogs and to the unclean and to the sinners and to the
prostitutes and to the thieves and to the adulterers. While the religious center in
Israel mocks him for it. And he goes back into Jerusalem. Feast, feast, feast. And this
is the witness of John. Jesus goes back into Jerusalem,
not so that he can heal a bunch of people, but he just goes to
this pool where there are thousands of people who are invalids, who
have been there, most of them, their whole lives, trying to
follow after the myth. If they could just get into the
water with the angel wings, then they'll be saved. They'll be
healed from their infirmity. And Jesus walks up to this man
who cannot move and says, do you want to be healed? Why? So that he can heal him and command
him to violate the law of the Jews. So that he can stand before
the Jews, obviously an instrument of God's mercy. And the Jews
will look at him and say, what? Who told you to pick up your
bed? You remember that? This is the witness of Christ
by the Apostle John, that you may believe that he is the Christ
and by believing you may have life in his name. And he commanded
this man against all doubt to stand up and walk. And the man
stood up and walked and he commanded him. Why did he need to bed?
So that he could uproot the law of Moses and its improper application
and its improper understanding and its improper use. Take up
your bed. Roll that towel up. Take it with
you when you go see the chief priest. I know what they're going
to say. We didn't tell him that. They rejected this man. They didn't care that he was
healed. They didn't care that God had done the work of creating
this man's legs to walk again. They didn't care. And the scripture
says that Jesus vanished from amongst them because there were
many invalids and people in need of healing. His purpose was not
to heal. His purpose was to reveal the
gospel. And this is where Jesus tells
them He has all authority, but the authority that He carries
is given to Him by God so that all the authority of God is His. And they want to kill Him because
He says that He's God. They hated him because he was
doing healing on the Sabbath and teaching other people to
become lawbreakers. Now they wanted to kill him because
he said he was God. They made himself equal. He made
himself equal with God. And then he begins to talk about,
they begin to talk about their witness. Now he says, this is
where it's coming to be seen. They're witness. We have seen
God. We're the children of Abraham.
We know Moses. Look at us. Look at our lives. Look at our stature. Look at
our ability to teach. Look at who we are and how we
govern. If it weren't for us, who knows
how debauched Jerusalem would be. And Jesus says, the father who
sent me as himself born witness about me, but you aren't recognizing
the father's work. You have never heard his voice. You have never seen his face.
And you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not
believe in the one who he has sent. See how dogmatic and narrow
the gospel is. You search the scriptures because
in them you think you have eternal life and it is they that bear
witness about me. Yet you refuse to come to me
that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people. And I know that you do not have
the love of God within you. Because I have come in my Father's
name, and you have not received me. And do not think that I am
going to accuse you before the Father. Moses will do, for he
wrote of me." See, the witness of Scripture. Then after that,
what does John talk about? He goes and he shows the miracle
of the feeding of 5,000. And this is one of the most controversial
parts of John. But it shows that Jesus' intention
of feeding the 5,000 is to prove He was God. And at the minimum, to prove
that He was sent by God. And all these people wanted after
that was more food. And people would say, well, James,
you know, they stayed up all night. They looked for Jesus.
So what? I got friends who stayed up all night to get the next
Xbox. I got suckered into a movie premiere
one time and stood in line outside for six hours. That was the last time I ever
did that. No, no, step outside. If you step out, you lose your
place in line. And the problem with that is, I mean, you know.
So just because we're willing to wait or stay up all night,
I mean, heck, with all this COVID-19 shutdown, we've probably stayed
up all night binging on Netflix, haven't we? Just because we stay
up all night looking for Jesus means nothing. Because when they
found him, all they wanted was more food for their stomach.
And when he says, don't labor for that bread, but labor for
mine, the one that I give you, then they wanted a sign that
was in the myths of the rabbinic tradition. Where is that manna?
So Jesus says, the manna fed your fathers in the wilderness
as God was killing them in judgment. Don't labor for that bread. You've
got to eat of me. You've got to drink of my blood.
You've got to eat of my flesh. You have to consume me. You've
got to find your sustenance in me. You've got to understand
I am the bread of life that came down from heaven. You have to
see me in this way. You need to believe in what I
tell you, and you cannot believe unless you've been given to me
by the Father. Now, when's the last time you
heard street preaching like that? Ladies and gentlemen, you can't
believe Unless God gives you to the sun. I mean, is that the
traditional evangelical evangelism? No, but that's the truth of Christ. It's the truth of Christ. I'm
the bread of life. You don't go to the Passover
and you're going to eat the bread there. You're going to do the
bread things. You're going to drink the wine there or pour the wine there.
You're going to eat these feasts. You're going to do all this stuff
and you're going to think that it's going to satisfy something. Nothing
works but me. I'm doing the work of the Father.
All the other stuff are things that God called man to do to
point to me. Anything that a man does cannot
satisfy God's wrath. Only this man, the God man, can
satisfy God's wrath. That's what Jesus revelation
is. And then after he gets through
with that, everybody, 5,000 men plus women and children, walk
away. And Jesus turns to the 12, and
Peter in his zeal, he says, y'all gonna leave? He says, where shall
we go? For you have the words of eternal life. And he says, well, I know that
you believe in that, Peter, but there's some of you who don't,
speaking of Judas. And after this, we see in Galilee
that Jesus went to the Feast of Booths and so on and so forth. He continues to teach, he continues
to reveal himself to his people, but there are the elite, the
religious, the zealous, the wise, the academics, the exegetes,
and they can't see. Why can't they see? Because they've
not been given to the Son. Because they've not been dragged
against their depravity by giving the gift of faith. And Jesus calls himself the living
water. In the middle of the ceremony
where the priests were taking the water and channeling it into
the presence of the temple where the steam would rise for people
to see from miles around where they would weep and feel the
chill bumps and go, Oh, our Lord and the presence of God, the
spirit with us this day. And it was just a shadow when
the true creator of God was standing right there. And then big people began to
hear just a little bit, and the people were divided. Then Jesus
says that he's the light of the world. He doesn't bear witness
of himself, but the Father sends him. And he argues with them
as they feel in their hearts. They say, we're going to kill
this guy. And he says, why do you seek
to kill me? And then they call him crazy. Then they call him
a sinner. And so Jesus says to the Jews,
if you abide in my word, if you believe who I am, and if you've
been given faith to know me, you are truly my disciples and
you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. And
they said, well, we're the offspring of Abraham. We're some of the founding families
of the Southern Baptist Convention. I coined the word evangelical.
I mean, you can hear it, can't you? My great great grandpa was a
signatory on one of the old confessions. I don't care. Neither does the
Lord. I'm a 12th generation preacher.
Good. A lot of them could be in hell right now. We're the offspring of Abraham.
We're not slaves. Never been slaves. Everyone who practices sin is
a slave. Matthew 5, Jesus looked at the
Pharisees and He's speaking to the crowd and He's talking about
the false witness and the unbelief because of self-righteousness.
And He turns and He talks about how the one who does all evil
and sin and all this kind of stuff will never inherit the
Kingdom of Heaven. And everybody's sitting there on bated breath,
then tell us what to do! And he turns around and says,
you see this example before you? You see the Pharisees here? Unless
your righteousness, unless your life, unless your goodness is
better than theirs, you're gonna die on your sin. Unless the Son sets you free
and becomes your righteousness, you're gonna die on your sin.
Unless you believe that your righteousness is imputed to you
through Jesus Christ, you're gonna die on your sin. It's trusting,
it's knowing, it's drinking, it's resting. All these verbs
that the scripture uses that John uses in his witness. The
slave does not remain in the house forever, so if the sun
sets you free, you're free indeed. I know. that you are the offspring
of Abraham. Yet you seek to kill me because
my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I've seen with
my father and you do what you have heard from your father.
And Jesus calls their father Satan. How dare you? Because I tell you the truth,
you don't believe me. Which one of you are going to bring a charge
of sin against me? Why don't you believe me? If you hear the
word of God, whoever is of God hears his words. And the reason
you do not hear them is because you are not of God. You are not
children of God. He's got a demon. How dare you? We know who we honor and Jesus
just throws the anvil over the side. Before Abraham was, I am. And they seek to kill him immediately
because he called himself the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
at that moment. Then he goes on about his ministry
and we see John's revelation. We see John's witness that he
heals a blind man and he gives sight to him and the religious
and his family kick him out of their lives. that only those
whom Christ gives sight to see will see. And when that happens,
you will suffer loss. And you will hear the words,
and there are a lot of people who claim to be, quote, shepherds,
but they're not going to shepherd you by the gospel. They're going
to shepherd you by your flesh, and they're going to shepherd
you over with fear, and they're going to shepherd you in ways
that manipulate you so that they can have control over you. But
those who are the children of God, who are truly the sheep,
will hear the voice of their Savior, of their shepherd, and
they will come out of the constriction of the pen of self-righteousness,
and they will walk in the glorious fields of the grass of grace. Psalm 23. Psalm 23. And then Jesus reiterates His
unity with the Father. And then there's one more miracle
that Jesus is going to do in the Gospel of John, and that
is to bring Lazarus back from the dead because He loved Lazarus
so. When He heard that Lazarus was
ill, He stayed extra three days so that, what? Lazarus would
surely be decomposing by the time He got there. And then against all doubt, Jesus
stands and opens the gates of that tomb. And then He opens
the gate of death and judgment and He commands a corpse to come
out. And though I don't read into
this, you hear me. I'm a poet at heart when it comes
to John's gospel. When Jesus says unbind him and
let him go, it is completely prophetic to my heart and I worship
knowing that God has unbound me and let me go. And then, of course, what does
Mary do? Martha, we see their differences
and we go on and we see Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.
And we see his teaching about being the way and the truth and
the life when they're wondering where he's going. And he says,
I am the way I'm showing you the way. If you've seen me, you've
seen the father. If you know me, you know the
father. And if you know that I am your life, you have it.
This is the witness of John's gospel. All of that is summarized
in that last verse. bearing witness about these things,
and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony
is true. Beloved, if you want to know Christ and intimately
engage with Him every day, read this Gospel. But understand that
when you get to 1 John, next week, I would encourage you to
read John's gospel, then go in to 1 John. As often as you can.
If it takes you three or four days during the week, do it all.
But go in. That which was from the beginning, that which we
have seen, that which we have heard concerning the word of
life, that which we touched with our hands, that which was manifest to us.
John's saying we have seen God's glory, touched He heard it, and
ate with it, and hugged it. John sat upon the breast of Jesus. We now proclaim to you, and we
have intimacy with this God. And indeed, you have intimacy
with us. Oh, what a glorious God. we have. This is where we go. So beloved, don't get through
with the gospel. Let it be in you. Let the word
of God dwell richly. And I promise you this world
and all the junk is not going to change. It's just going to
be something new tomorrow as it is today. But Christ will
never change and he will never fail. And your hope is found
in him. Let's pray. We thank you, Lord,
for walking us through this journey in John's gospel, that it might
be real to us. And Father, just in my own heart
today, I want to refeed myself these truths. And I want to go
back and slow down and turn this three years into six and into
12. And Lord, never get beyond it. So Father, as we continue
in your word, as we continue in all the other teachings of
these testaments, Never let us forget that these are the testaments
of Jesus Christ. The witness, the testimony of
you, your testimony concerning your son through which you have
saved your people for your glory and from which we gain all hope
and life and joy. And so in Christ, Lord, we glory. Keep us that we might be a blessing
to one another and we might find other sheep who will hear your
voice and believe this true sovereign and free grace in Jesus name. Amen.