The 'So That' of John's Writing

Laurel Bible Church

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It's important because we want to look at the purpose statement that the Apostle gives to us for why this account was written.

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At the time that John wrote, the other Gospels had already been written. So why did

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John find it necessary to contribute and add his eyewitness testimony? So as we enter this season of preaching through the

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Gospel of John, we'll start this morning with the so that of John's writing.

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That would be the title of today's sermon, the so that of John's writing. Look at chapter 20 starting in verse 30.

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Two verses before us this morning, John chapter 20 verses 30 and 31, the so that of John's writing.

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John says this, therefore, many other signs Jesus also did in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the

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Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

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And it is from this purpose statement that now we can enter this eyewitness testimony with the right perspective as we seek to understand what

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John is going to communicate about his time spent with Jesus during Jesus's earthly ministry.

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And you think about that. The purpose of an author's writing is extremely important. Just serving in ministry for a brief number of years, this one touches me personally.

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I remember going into some sort of communication with one of the pastors I was serving under or alongside of, and we had a disagreement about some doctrine.

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So when we met together, very graciously, the brother took me to the scriptures and we were going to look. The topic was really whether something written in one of Paul's letters was more descriptive in terms of it was just recording something that happened in history, or whether it was prescriptive as in, we need to do this in church today.

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This isn't a history lesson. This is telling us how we should conduct ourselves. So we went to this particular passage that spoke on this issue, and as thinking about it, is this a description for how history was in the time of culture for the

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Greeks? Or does this apply to us today? Is it prescriptive? Well, before we went to that passage,

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I said, no, actually, this letter has a purpose statement. So we went to the purpose statement of the letter.

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It was Paul's letter to 1 Timothy, and Paul says something in chapter three. He says,

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I'm planning on going to Ephesus to be with you, Timothy, but until I get there, this is why

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I'm writing this letter. He says, I want you to know how one ought to conduct themselves in the church until I get there.

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Okay, so now that we know why Paul wrote, we can now look at the rest of the letter of 1

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Timothy. Extremely helpful. Otherwise, you're just reading it and you're kind of coming to your own conclusions.

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Every book of the Bible has a purpose statement. Some of the books are crystal clear because the author writes in there,

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I wrote this so that, I wrote this because. This happens to be one of the gospels, one of the books of the

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Bible that has this very crystal clear. But every book of the Bible has a purpose statement.

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And so with John's writing, we have this really beautiful gift that the apostle has put in here.

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So I'm not telling you all this eyewitness stuff just so you can marvel over, isn't this so cool that he did this stuff?

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No, he says, I want you to know without a shadow of a doubt, Jesus of Nazareth is the

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Messiah. He's the one prophesied in the Old Testament. He's the son of God and that by believing that you'd have eternal life.

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What an amazing statement. Just think how important an author's writing is. Think about for your own lives, just practically, if you got a letter in the mail or let's say an email is probably the more normal communication, right?

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Do people still do letters? I don't know. I write emails. But think about, let's say if you're going to get an email and you just got one from your friend or family member, coworker, fellow student, and it was like a list of ingredients or something, but there's no statement.

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Well, you could deduce, okay, this is like a recipe, but just adding in one statement, hey,

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I'm sending this to you so that you know how to do this. Or if a person communicated with you and you opened the email and it just had a bunch of truth statements or was telling you about their day yesterday, you'd say like, what am

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I to do with this information? But adding in a statement, I'm writing this email to you so that you know.

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You know, even in correspondence here, I'll email one of the deacons about something and I'll say, hey,

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I'm writing this so that, you know, you know kind of what's happening here. If I didn't have that statement, it'd just be random information, like what am

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I to do with this email? So the author writing a purpose statement helps us to understand the content.

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It brings clarity. The purpose of an author's writing is extremely important. The purpose of belief in Jesus, the

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Christ, the Son of God developed in John is the claim of Jesus' oneness with God, his oneness with God, and the signs that Jesus performed.

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From the start of John, the apostle describes Jesus' equality with God. The claim of Christ's oneness with the

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Father are made directly by Jesus, and they're recorded here for us by John, as a sign to his deity.

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Jesus performed many miracles. John was written to give an eyewitness testimony to the

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Jewish people, to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. With the evangelistic purpose of demonstrating

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Jesus was the Christ, and believing in him is the only way to eternal life.

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Not many roads to heaven, only one way. At the end of the gospel, John writes that his purpose for recording the miracles of Jesus is so that the reader will believe, and by believing, have life.

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And John is a complicated gospel. It's one that is kind of out on its own. The first three gospels are very similar.

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They're the same events and some of the same things recorded. They're often called the synoptic gospels, just a fancy word for the same, the same account.

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John is unique in that he records things that are not recorded in the other three gospels.

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Now John can be divided into many different divisions, but I think the best way to think about this gospel as a whole is just to divide it into two major divisions.

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Two major divisions. The first division is the deity and signs of Christ, and you can almost just cut it right down the middle.

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The first 12 chapters, John 1 through 12, the deity and signs of Christ.

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This division presents Jesus as God and gives an account of several signs that he performed, demonstrating he is the son of God, his deity.

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And the second division is the death and resurrection of Jesus. And this is starting in chapter 13, really

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John 13 through 21. So an easy division, 1 through 12, the deity of Christ, the signs, 13 through 21, it's the death and resurrection.

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Even chapter 13 starts with the Lord's Supper. And from the rest of the gospel account, it's just talking about him preparing his disciples for his eventual arrest, death, and then of course his resurrection and ascension.

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Beautiful. So a really easy division. The second division is the death and resurrection of Jesus. This division focuses on the preparation of Christ for his trial, death, and resurrection.

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The themes in the gospel include Jesus as Christ, the son of God, Jesus as man, very important,

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Jesus and his humanity, that he's truly man. Of course, the miracles of Christ are what we call signs.

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Belief, belief is a key theme, belief in Jesus. The disciples are another theme.

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A lot of time spent with the disciples and their interactions with Christ. The Jewish people, the world, very broadly, this is the

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Jewish nation, but then going out and extending to the whole world. So the world is a theme in this gospel.

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The witness testimony, and we want to say eyewitness, this is not a narrative, this is a historical, accurate, eyewitness account of things that took place.

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Of course, the trial and crucifixion of Jesus and the resurrection and appearance of Jesus.

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Now along with the themes of John's gospel, the historical context is helpful to understand that we're not reading this gospel in a vacuum.

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This was written to real people. These are real people, real events that happened.

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People that are struggling with making ends meet, dealing with sickness, dealing with spouses, with children, with work, the normal things of life, just like we deal with.

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And John wanted to write this gospel account. So the historical context helps us to see this is real.

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This is not a narrative, this is not a fable, this is not a mythology. These things took place, and they took place at a certain time in the historical record.

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The early church father Irenaeus, who was a disciple of Polycarp, had much to say on this gospel.

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Polycarp was a disciple of the apostle John. I mean, we need to think about that.

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These men exist in reality, in the historical record. Polycarp, he was discipled by the apostle

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John, the John who laid his head on Jesus' shoulder, who spent time with Jesus of Nazareth.

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Polycarp was a disciple of John, so Irenaeus testified on Polycarp's authority that the gospel was written by John.

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It was written by John the apostle during his residence at Ephesus, when he was more advanced in age.

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And preceding the writing, some things were going on in culture. In 68

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AD, the Roman emperor Nero dies. The emperors Vespasian and son

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Titus reign and persecute the early church. This is the destruction of Jerusalem, which occurs in 70

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AD. Under the new emperor Domitian, brother of Titus, the persecution of the church continues from about 81 to 96.

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John writes his epistles along with this eyewitness account in the 80s and 90s.

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False teaching continued to be an issue in the early church, hence we have 2 John. John is very clear, don't fellowship with people who don't live by the

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Bible. These missionaries, these false teachers who are coming around, they don't believe the word of God.

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He says the elect, God's people, will listen to the apostles. He says don't even eat with one of these people.

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Don't even invite them into your home. False teaching was a prevalent problem with the early church. So false teaching is going on, he writes 1st, 2nd, and 3rd

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John. Around this time we have some other historical writings. Josephus writes his famous Antiquities in 94.

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Clement of Rome writes the first epistle of Clement in 95, though not later recognized as canon because he's not an apostle.

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John then writes the revelation of Jesus Christ while exiled on Patmos, and that's 95 -96.

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John eventually dies an old man, one of the apostles who didn't suffer persecution and martyrdom.

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He was persecuted, but he wasn't killed. So he dies an old man in 100 AD. The gospel is written from Ephesus in the late 80s as a supplement to the synoptic gospels.

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So John knows the other gospels have been written. John is the brother of James. So 1st through 3rd

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John are written in 90 -95, also from Ephesus where John had relocated from Jerusalem a few decades earlier.

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Revelation was written toward the end of Domitian's reign from John's exile on the isle of Patmos. John supplied a large amount of unique material not recorded in the other gospels.

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This gospel account is unique from the other gospels. Material recorded in John doesn't appear in the other gospels.

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He provided extra content that helps readers fully understand the events in the other gospels.

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So it's not to get away from the other gospels, but to supplement and add and bring more clarity.

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John's gospel is the most theological and it contains spiritual insight into Christ's ministry while he was here on the earth.

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Early church fathers indicate that John was actively writing in his old age and that he was already aware of the other gospels.

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John wrote his gospel to provide reasons for saving faith for his readers. And as a result, to assure them.

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Assurance is something that you see in John's gospel and his letters. He says, I want you to have assurance.

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The reason that I'm writing this is so that you will have assurance in your faith. That's in the epistles.

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John wrote this gospel to provide reasons for us to have assurance in our faith.

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An assurance in the matter of fact of eternal life in the eyewitness of John's account.

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It was important to John. One commentator noted this about this gospel.

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The apologetic purpose is closely related to the evangelistic purpose. John wrote to convince his readers of Jesus's true identity as the incarnate

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God man whose divine and human natures were perfectly united into one person who was the prophesied

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Christ or Messiah and savior of the world. In accordance with John's evangelistic and apologetic purposes, the overall message of the gospel is found in chapter 20 verse 31.

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Jesus is the Christ, the son of God. The book therefore centers on the person and work of Christ.

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Three predominant words, signs, believe, and life in chapter 20 verse 30 and 31 receive constant re -emphasis throughout the gospel to reinforce the theme of salvation in him.

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Which is set forth in the prologue and re -expressed throughout the gospel in varying ways.

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In addition, John provides the record of how men responded to Jesus Christ and the salvation that he offered.

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Summing up, the gospel focuses on Jesus as the word, the

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Messiah, the son of God who brings the gift of salvation to mankind who either accept or reject the offer.

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In today's passage, John explains his purpose for recording his eyewitness testimony of his time spent with Jesus so that you can know for certain

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Jesus is the Christ and have everlasting life in his name. Two incredible components of John's eyewitness, the miracles of Jesus in verse 30 and number two, the

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Messiahship of Jesus in verse 31. Two incredible components of John's eyewitness.

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Number one is the miracles of Jesus. John says therefore many other signs

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Jesus also did in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book.

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Now the therefore here isn't necessarily pointing back to verse 29. Sometimes this kind of conjunction can be used in an inferential way.

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So it would point backwards, meaning it's denoting that what it introduces is the result or an inference of what precedes it.

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You see a so, therefore, consequently, accordingly, or even then.

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Now in the immediate context, John could be referring to the account when Jesus appeared to the disciples including

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Thomas. So look at what he just wrote starting in chapter 20 verse 26.

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It says, after eight days his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them.

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Jesus came, the doors having been shut. Now that word shut, you might have a little number there next to that.

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The original language says locked. It's not just that it was shut. He's making a point.

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The doors were locked. It's locked. There's no way to get inside here. The door is shut.

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It's locked. And he stood in their midst. He didn't come through the door. He didn't need to come through the door.

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And Christ says, peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, bring your finger here and see my hands and bring your hand here and put it into my side.

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And do not be unbelieving, but believing. Thomas answered and said to him, my

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Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, because you have seen me, have you believed?

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Blessed are those who did not see and yet believed. Therefore, many other signs.

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So we can read it like that. But in this case, the therefore in verse 30 is actually being used as a marker of continuation of a narrative.

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It still fits with the idea of believing without seeing, faith, believing without seeing.

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But John is being intentional here. He uses the conjunction in a way that serves to indicate a transition to something new.

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He'll actually repeat himself in the final sign off of this gospel eyewitness account. Look at chapter 21, verse 25.

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So here's a repeat. This is the way he closes. And there are also many other things which

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Jesus did, which if they were written one after the other, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

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That's the right way to think about this. The word he uses in verse 30, translated signs, is actually a word used for miracles.

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It is the Greek word for miracles. It literally reads like this, therefore many other attesting miracles.

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Jesus also did in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. Here in verse 30, we see the bookends of the gospel account.

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He started his testimony the way he concluded it. Turn with me to chapter 2.

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Let's go to the beginning of this gospel. Chapter 2, starting in verse 1.

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So we know how he's ending. Let's see how he started. We're thinking about the attesting miracles.

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John chapter 2, starting in verse 1. And on the third day, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.

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And both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding. And when the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine.

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And Jesus said to her, woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour has not yet come.

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His mother said to the servants, whatever he says to you, do it. Now there were six stone water jars set there for the

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Jewish custom of purification, containing two or three measures each. Jesus said to them, fill the water jars with water.

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So they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, draw some out now and take it to the head waiter.

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So they took it to him. Now when the head waiter tasted the water, which had become wine and did not know where it came from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew, the head waiter called the bridegroom and said to him, every man serves the good wine first.

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And when the people have drunk freely, then the inferior wine, but you have kept the good wine until now.

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Jesus did this in Cana of Galilee as the beginning of his signs and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him.

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The attesting miracles Jesus performed clearly identified him as the

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Messiah. So turn back to chapter 20. The only person in all of the human historical record to fit the description made by God in prophetic perfection, hundreds of years before his appearance.

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And notice he didn't do the signs out in the wilderness by himself. His miracles were witnessed by many.

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John points out here in verse 30, the attesting signs were performed in the presence of his disciples.

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He uses a preposition pertaining to being present or in view, in the sight of, in the presence of, among.

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He's giving added authenticity to the other gospel accounts. You know, think of John, I'm not the only one who saw the miracles.

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All of us witnessed what he did. We all saw these things, believe it. We can think about John.

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Through the other gospels, we can see that only Jesus of Nazareth fits all of the prophecies of the

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Messiah. Now when I was doing this sermon preparation, I was looking up the prophecies of Jesus and I was intending to include them here.

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And I got about a quarter of the way in and I realized, oh, this is like a five -part sermon on two verses.

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There were so many, I ran out of space. I had to go back and omit them. They are unbelievable.

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From Genesis all the way through the Bible, Genesis to Revelation, one prophecy after another fulfilled by only one person.

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John's very specific additions to the account of Jesus' earthly ministry only adds what was already said in the other gospels.

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The attesting miracles is just one aspect of the prophecies. There must have been a hundred on there.

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And this was only one of them. It's not breaking them down as each signed miracle. These attesting miracles was one aspect of the prophecy.

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Most of us would probably say, you know, we would believe in Jesus if we could have seen a definite miracle or a sign performed.

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But I'm not so sure. There were many people who witnessed Christ's miracles and they still didn't believe.

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The point John is making is that Jesus says we are blessed if we believe without seeing.

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Every person on planet earth have all the proof they need in creation to believe there's a

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God. Every person has all the proof they need in the creation to believe in Jesus in the words of the

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Bible, in the words of the gospels, the testimony of believers. The cold hard truth is that a physical bodily appearance would not make

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Jesus any more real than He is to us now in this testimony, in the testimony of the

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Scripture. And this really brings us back to this first division of the gospels.

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We think about the big picture, the deity and signs of Christ in the first 12 chapters.

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The opening of John starts with a declaration that Jesus is the Word of God. He is the

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Word of God, meaning that the Bible, the living Word of God is Jesus Christ.

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The Bible is the revealed mind of Christ in what He has revealed, not all of it. The Word was not created, but has existed from the beginning.

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It is the Word that brought all creation into being and Jesus was with God from the beginning.

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It is through Jesus, the Word of God, that all things were made. That's the first three verses of chapter one.

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Lord willing, we'll look at that next Sunday. John is strongly and clearly stating that Jesus has existed from eternity past.

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John is saying Jesus is God. Jesus is the bodily manifestation of God in the flesh.

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John describes how the Word, which is God, became flesh and took on a bodily form to enter the creation and explain

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Himself to us. John explains this manifestation of Jesus and uses the word

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God synonymously with Jesus, who is the only begotten

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Son of the Father. The first sign Jesus performs in John is turning the water into wine.

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Now the second sign recorded in John was the healing of a nobleman's son. So the second sign is the healing of a nobleman's son.

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This sign took place in Capernaum where Jesus, it was basically an area, a larger area than Cana existed in Capernaum.

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So Jesus was in Cana when a nobleman who was a royal official approached him about his son.

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So a royal official comes up to him and this guy says, hey, my son is in Capernaum and he's dying.

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The man asked Jesus to heal his son by accompanying him to Capernaum. But Jesus simply told the man that he would heal his son right there on the spot.

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I don't need to be present, he's healed. So that he and others would see the sign and believe.

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And this is in John chapter 4 verses 46 through 54. So John 4, 46 through 54 is the second sign.

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The third sign in John was the healing of a paralytic man in Jerusalem. The man had been a paralytic for almost 40 years when

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Jesus met him. This isn't a trickster who pretends to be crippled and is a panhandling thing.

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40 years this guy's been out there, 40 years. He's a paralytic man.

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Jesus saw the man and asked if he wished to be healed and simply commanded the man to get up and walk.

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Do you want to be healed? Get up and walk to a person that's paralyzed. And the man was healed in the sight of many.

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The third sign wonder, that's John chapter 5 verses 1 through 9. So John 5, 1 through 9, the third sign.

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The fourth sign described in John was the miraculous feeding of a crowd of 5 ,000 people by the

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Sea of Tiberias. They had seen the other signs of healing that Jesus performed that are not detailed in John.

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The crowd was very large and there was not enough food to feed everybody. Jesus took five loaves of bread and two fish and miraculously multiplied it so that it was enough to feed 5 ,000.

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You think of five loaves of bread. Think about like doing like a French toast casserole.

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You use like a loaf there by yourself. You're feeding you and your kids. 5 ,000 people, 5 ,000 people, five loaves and two fish.

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So he miraculously multiplied it so that everybody was fed and many believed that Jesus had come from God.

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That was the fourth sign. The fourth sign can be found in John 6 verses 1 through 14.

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So John 6, 1 through 14, the fourth sign. The fifth sign in John was when

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Jesus walked on water, when his disciples were crossing the Sea of Tiberias toward Capernaum. It was in the evening during the crossing that the sea was stirred up from a strong wind.

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The disciples were several miles into the sea. They saw Jesus walking on water and he comforted their fear and suddenly they arrived on land.

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That's John chapter 6 verses 15 through 21, the fifth sign. John chapter 6 verses 15 through 21, the sixth sign in John was the healing of a blind man who had his sight restored by Jesus near the temple.

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Again, this is not a trickster. This is not a scam. The man was born blind. A blind man, born blind.

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The disciples actually asked Jesus if the man or his parents had sinned.

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Did he sin or did his parents sin to cause him to be born blind? They were asking about this cause of his condition of blindness.

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Jesus answered them that the man had been born blind so that God would have glory in his healing.

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That they would know he is the Christ. And Jesus promptly restored the man's sight as a sign of his deity and to give glory to God.

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That's John chapter 9 verses 1 through 7. John 9, 1 through 7, the sixth sign.

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The seventh and last sign testified about in John was in the raising from the dead of Lazarus and Bethany.

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Lazarus was a man loved by Jesus. When Jesus heard that Lazarus was very sick, he waited two days before he went to the family's home.

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He waited two days. During that time, Lazarus died and the family were grief stricken.

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By the time Jesus had arrived, Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. He'd been in the tomb four days.

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Jesus came to the entrance of the tomb and told the man to rise and come out of the tomb.

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And Lazarus rose and came out of the tomb. Lazarus was raised. This is not a resurrection from the dead.

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But it is a signed miracle and a testing sign. This final sign is John 11, 38 through 44, the seventh sign.

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John 11, 38 through 44. You think about these amazing claims that John is making here.

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And we can think about the gospel even in a real simple way, John 3 .16. This is the power of the gospel, the power of the word of God.

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Everybody here knows John 3 .16. What's amazing is there's people that hate

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God, practical atheists. They know John 3 .16.

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People on the other side of the world that have never read the Bible know John 3 .16. And for us, the gospel entered our lives at some point.

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And it might have been John 3 .16, it might have been one of the other gospels. But the gospel was heard, it was proclaimed.

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And then the word of God penetrates the heart. And God gives that person the ability to believe

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John 3 .16. And we all have a story like that. Or we maybe have a family member or a friend who doesn't yet know the

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Lord. And if we are honest about it, it might even seem that it's hopeless.

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Just hopeless for this person. But think about it, at some point in your life, the gospel entered your life.

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The word of God entered your life. There was a man who was raised as a

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Catholic, didn't have a believing, really, mother or father.

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Raised in a home of verbal and physical abuse. Started drinking at a young age, started doing drugs at a young age.

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Spent the majority of his adult life as a drug addict and alcoholic. Just not knowing

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God. Totally entrenched in secular things and worldly things. The kind of person, the

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Lord allowed him to marry a godly woman. And there was some sunshine in the life, but just a life of depravity.

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Even being married and having small kids, doing every kind of drug there is.

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Drinking alcohol like it's breathing water, hating God. The kind of person that is confrontational and violent, addicted to pornography, alcohol.

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Every kind of thing that the world has to offer. Just a reprobate mind. The kind of person who gets drunk on Christmas and smashes the

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Christmas presents that are wrapped under the tree. The kind of person who starts fights with his wife over creation versus evolution.

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And when the wife is crying, the man in his heart says, yes, I got her again.

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I'm talking about just a deplorable reprobate, depraved mind. But at a certain point in this person's life, the gospel is preached.

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Maybe it's just somebody that he talked to. And then the word of God is opened up to him. The Holy Spirit opens his mind to see that the truth is in the word of God.

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And God gives him the grace to believe the gospel, but it starts with the gospel. And then that depraved person who lives a secular lifestyle, this man, ends up becoming a preacher.

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A college dropout with nothing to offer the world. What we would say is a loser, a stupid person.

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No public speaking, no education, no formal anything. And the

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Lord brings him to seminary through five to eight years of training. That man then gets called into the ministry.

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So this reprobate mind is now serving as a pastor. That's the power of the gospel.

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A person that was written off as completely hopeless. We all have that person in our life.

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Maybe that, what I'm describing, that person was you in your past.

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And now you look back at the way things used to be and you can remember that time that the gospel entered your life and changed you.

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John is very clear. I want you to know for certain that Jesus of Nazareth is real.

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He really did these things. He performed these miracles. They were witnessed by all of us.

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Not even every miracle's written down here. That's the purpose of, he just wants you to believe.

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He wants you to know that it's true. In this gospel, there's two really incredible components of the eyewitness account from John.

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The first is the miracles of Jesus. The miracles of Jesus were witnessed by many people and were in great number that exceeds the records in the various gospels.

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The miracles of Jesus were witnessed by many people and were in great number that exceeds the records in the various gospels.

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And the second incredible component is the Messiah ship of Jesus. In verse 31,

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John says, but these have been written. These miracles have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the

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Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name.

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And here we have the so that of the writing. John says so that you may believe.

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And this is a recurring theme throughout the gospel of John, throughout the gospel. Turn back a page or two in your

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Bible to chapter 19. Chapter 19, starting in verse 28, the heading in my

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Bible, I'm preaching from the legacy standard, says scripture fulfilled, it is finished.

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What a great piece of scripture here. John 19, starting in verse 28.

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After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been finished, in order to finish the scripture, said,

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I am thirsty. A jar full of sour wine was standing there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it up to his mouth.

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Therefore, when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished. And bowing his head, he gave up his spirit.

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Then the Jews, because it was the day of preparation so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the

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Sabbath, for that Sabbath was a high day, asked Pilate that their legs might be broken so that they might be taken away.

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So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man and of the other who was crucified with him.

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But coming to Jesus, when they saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.

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But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear and immediately blood and water came out.

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And he who has seen has borne witness, and his witness is true.

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And he knows that he is telling the truth so that you also may believe. For these things came to pass in order that the scripture would be fulfilled.

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Not a bone of him shall be broken. And again, another scripture says, they shall look on him whom they pierced.

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In verse 31, John says, he has written, he has written a word used to convey to inscribe characters on a surface to write or to express thought in writing of brief statements.

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But this isn't prose or thought, he's not writing a poem. This isn't a narrative, this isn't a fun thing, this isn't something that's supposed to inspire you.

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He didn't write this to inspire you, to live a better life. Here the word specifically means of pronouncements and solemn proceedings, to write down, to record.

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Oftentimes used of a vision, commandments, or even parables. He is conveying, I have recorded an eyewitness testimony of things myself and many others witnessed in person.

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And John says, this record is so that you believe, so that you believe.

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This is really the Greek verb form of the word for faith, pasteo. To consider something to be true and therefore worthy of one's trust.

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To trust it, to believe, not faith, this is not faith directly.

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John is saying, treat this record like an eyewitness evidence in a court of law that necessitates faith to the point of not having doubt.

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Believe it as if you've seen it with your own eyes. Because this record is accurate, these things happened.

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Know that your faith is grounded in factual eyewitness testimony.

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You can take this to court. And he makes it clear what the outcome of the testimony is.

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Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. The word in the original is

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Christos, hence Christ. But it's very interesting, this Greek word, Christos.

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Its literal lexical meaning is this. This is in the Greek lexicon, fulfiller of Israelite expectation of a deliverer, the anointed one, the

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Messiah. That's who John says this man is. Fulfiller of Israelite expectation of a deliverer, the anointed one, the

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Messiah. John is a Jewish man and he makes it clear, Jesus of Nazareth is the

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Messiah. Jesus is the fulfiller of the Jewish hope in deliverance. He is the hoped for one.

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He is the deliverer, God's anointed one, promised deliverer and savior of the

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Jewish people. And then by extension because of God's grace, all that believe on him, all that call on him, all that call on him.

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Jesus is the Christos. And John takes us back to a few parallels from the

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Gospel of Matthew. At the beginning and middle of Matthew, we see this same kind of language.

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When tempted by Satan, the devil refers to Jesus as the son of God. It says this in chapter four of Matthew, and the tempter came and said to him, if you are the son of God, command that these stones become bread.

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But he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

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Really interesting there, and we kind of miss this. One of the things you're gonna hear when you do evangelism is,

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Jesus never said he was God. Jesus never said he was God. Au contraire, he sure did.

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Think about this. Notice the devil acknowledged that Jesus is the son of God. Also notice that Jesus accepted this title, but he refers to himself as God.

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He's not just answering back with scripture. We have a misunderstanding when we read this. You say, what's the way to resist the devil?

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Well, you answer back with scripture. That's true, that's true for us. But in those passages, Jesus is calling himself

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God. He claimed outright deity in what came out of his mouth came from the mouth of God.

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You see, he was talking about himself. Jesus is saying, yes, I am the son of God. Yes, I am

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God. When Jesus asked his disciples who they thought he was, we see this in the middle of Matthew.

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He said to them, but who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, you are the Christ, the son of the living

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God. Of course, that's Matthew 16. John is merely pointing out the culmination of the evidence.

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This is the culmination of the evidence. He knows Matthew's out there, he's familiar with it. Jesus is the

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Christ, the son of God. And the crescendo of the passage this morning.

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What is the result of believing this testimony? What is the result of believing this factual eyewitness testimony?

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That believing you may have life in his name. And the word life can mean life in the physical sense, we understand that, alive versus dead.

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But John is clearly talking about more than that. This is about transcendent life.

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There is clearly an implication to the last times or what comes after physical life and death.

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Both a life of grace and holiness now, and the promise of life transcendent of the physical realm in the future.

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Eternal life in the spiritual realm. This is not your best life now.

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That's not what he's talking about. We understand grace and holiness abound now in the lives of every believer.

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But this isn't your best life now, and that you have all of these abundant life, and some of the hallmark card

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Christian quotes that are going around. It's just weird. Your best life now on Earth?

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Your best life now is like garbage compared to what awaits you in heaven. We can't even imagine what awaits us.

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I'm saying everything's going good for you. Doesn't matter. It's not that you have it good now and you'll have it good then.

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Your best life imaginable, everything you would ever want here now on Earth is like a dirty trash heap compared to the wonderful and amazing glories that await all of us in heaven.

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It's not a comparison. John concludes the same way he started. At the beginning of the gospel, he used the same word for life.

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In the account of the exchange between Jesus and the Pharisee Nicodemus. And this takes us back to John 3 .16.

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We all know John 3 .16 and the explanation of God's love for the world. But we sometimes forget the amazing statement from Jesus that preceded the explanation in verse 16.

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What John is saying here in verse 31 goes back to the beginning of his gospel account.

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In John chapter 3 in this exchange, Jesus says this, truly, truly,

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I say to you. We speak of what we know and bear witness of what we have seen.

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And you do not accept our witness. If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

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And no one has ascended into heaven, but he who descended from heaven, the son of man.

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And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up.

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So that whoever believes will in him have eternal life.

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This is eternal life. If we are to rightly understand the mission and life of Jesus more completely, we simply need to study the gospels.

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The apostle John tells you that this gospel record is only a few of the many events in Jesus' life while he was here on earth.

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But the good news proclaimed by God to humans includes everything we need to know to believe.

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The gospel of John gives you everything you need to know that Jesus is the Messiah. That Jesus is the son of God through whom you will receive eternal life.

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And this takes us really to the second division of this book, thinking of the big picture, the death and resurrection of Christ in chapters 13 through 21.

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Jesus was crucified in a place called Golgotha, known as the place of the skull. The crucifixion was witnessed by many people, including

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Jewish people, Roman soldiers, the chief priests, a group of women, including his mother and aunt.

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The apostle John, amongst the many other bystanders. The crucifixion is really an historical reality.

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The resurrection of Christ was also witnessed by many, because Jesus appeared to different people over the course of several weeks.

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Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, Jesus appeared to the disciples. Once without Thomas, he appeared again to the disciples with Thomas.

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Jesus later appeared to seven of the disciples, at which time he had a lengthy conversation with the apostle

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Peter. The eyewitness testimony speaks of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus.

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The resurrection validates Jesus is who he claimed to be, the word of God, who is

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God. Jesus is the son of God and the Christ. John makes it a point twice in his gospel to state that Jesus performed many other signs.

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The first claim is in John's purpose statement at the end of the gospel. That's verse 30. The second mention of the number of miracles performed but not recorded is in the conclusion of John's testimony.

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We read that this morning, verse 25 of chapter 21. The purpose of belief in Jesus, the

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Christ, the son of God, developed in the gospel according to John is that by believing, the reader may have eternal life in his name.

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You just think about this idea of at some point the gospel entering your life.

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You know, there was a young man who came into shop. In my history of work,

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I used to work in a retail setting. I was a store manager in a video game store many moons ago.

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I was not a believer at that point in my life. And a young man came into the store.

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And the way it would work is there would be products behind you and the person would stand at the counter and they'd say, hey,

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I want to look at that game. So I would reach and grab the game and hand it to them and they're deciding if they want to buy it.

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Well, this young man came into shop and he didn't seem that interested in the games.

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And I was kind of leaning on the counter and he came up to me and he said, hey, have you ever heard the gospel? I was like, please, just get out of my sight.

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But I let him talk and we're talking about the game and he keeps kind of bringing it up. And he says, you know that Jesus loves you and he died for your sins?

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And he was asking me, where are you gonna go when you die? And I was so infuriated, so irritated.

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It's like how the audacity of this young man to come into the store and tell me that I'm a sinner and that I'm gonna go to hell unless I believe in Jesus.

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The Sky Fairy is up there trying to, I was just almost like just rude to him.

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Irritated, frustrated, like give me a break. Are you gonna buy the game or not? If you're not gonna shop, get out of my store.

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That's the way I conducted myself. And I thought about this later in life, many years later, as God graciously gave me the ability to believe in the name of Jesus.

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I think back to that young man who came into shop. And I think about his face,

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I'll see his face. And I was so irritated and frustrated. I wanted to throw him out of the store.

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I probably would have cussed at him. But now, as a believer, I look back on that young man and I thank

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God that God sent that young man. Something about that gospel challenge

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God used later in my life is I accepted Jesus as my

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Lord and my Savior. I looked back on that time and I just reflect on what a beautiful thing that young man did, risked offending me, didn't care, told me that I was a sinner.

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Told me about the judgment of my sin and the forgiveness of sins and the love of God displayed in the gospel. And that Jesus really is

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God, I really needed to put my faith in him. I'll see his face and sometimes I think, man,

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I would love to talk to him. I would love to tell him today, God used you to save me.

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I heard the gospel that day because you were willing to offend me and just tell me the truth. And there's a sorrow there in the humanness and the regret.

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But the hope of the gospel is this, that someday I will be able to talk to that young man.

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And I'm gonna tell him thank you so much as we worship together the God who saved us both, the promise of heaven that awaits.

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I will see that young man. Now all of you have a similar story. Now maybe you read the

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Bible and you believe the gospel because of what you read and you don't have someone that came and shared the gospel. But that could happen and praise

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God for that. But more than likely at some point, all of you in your salvation, remember there was this one person, there was this event that happened.

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In your daily life, where the gospel entered your life. And the Lord used a person to do that.

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We can believe what is written here is the truth and we can have eternal life. But also remember the evangelistic purpose of the writing.

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I want us to think about it. Are you that person for an unbeliever? Are you willing to risk offending an unbeliever that they might be saved?

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I want us to think about that. I want you to be that young man who came into the shop for somebody else as they look back and they get saved down the road.

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The young man who came into shop, I mean, the gospel entered my life at that time. And it was a special time.

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In this gospel, we really see two incredible components of John's eyewitness. The first was the miracle of Jesus, the miracles of Jesus.

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And number two, the messiahship of Jesus. The messiahship of Jesus removes any other person from the office of the

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Christ. And proves that faith in Jesus is the only pathway to God.

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The messiahship of Jesus removes any other person from the office of the

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Christ. And proves that faith in Jesus is the only pathway to heaven.

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Now the gospel means the good news. I think we know that. The gospel in the Greek is euangelion. It's God's good news to humans as a proclamation.

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But that means there's bad news. God created and owns everything.

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He rules over the earth and everything in it, including humans. God is holy and perfect.

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Mankind is not holy. We are sinful and violate God's perfect law.

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The wages of sin is death and eternal punishment and separation from God. But this is the good news.

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Jesus, the son of God, took on human flesh and entered into the creation. He lived a perfect and holy life and voluntarily gave up his life as a perfect sacrifice.

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Becoming the just and due penalty from God. So that upon faith in Jesus, we can be legally pardoned in righteousness and justness abundantly for the forgiveness of sin.

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God is righteous and just to forgive us of all sins. And he's still holy because of what

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Christ has done. Salvation cannot be earned by living a good life or being a moral person.

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The apostle Paul explained it like this. For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our

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Lord. The reality is there's going to be a lot of good moral people in hell.

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People that led moral lives, but did not believe in Jesus. That's the offense of the gospel.

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How do you, you're gonna tell me I'm not gonna go to heaven, I'm a good person. And that's offensive to a person.

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That is the offense of the gospel. Also that we just need to believe, you can't earn your way, that's offensive to some people.

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We just need to believe, that's all, to believe in Jesus. The preacher

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Paul Washer said this about how the world thinks about the gospel today, you may say,

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God doesn't hate anybody. God doesn't hate anybody, God is love. No, my friend, you need to understand something.

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Jesus Christ taught, the prophets taught, the apostles taught, that apart from the grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ our

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Lord, the only thing left for you is the wrath. The only thing left for you is the wrath.

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The fierce anger of God because of your rebellion and your sin.

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When we understand the bad news, then we'll truly appreciate and be thankful for the good news.

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There is no offense here, just praise at the righteousness of a merciful and loving

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God. The God who forgives sinners on the base of his glory and good pleasure.

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No offense, nothing to be ashamed of. For I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

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For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. Therefore, many other signs

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Jesus also did in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. But these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the

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Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

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In verses 30 and 31, John explained his purpose for recording his eyewitness testimony of his time spent with Jesus.

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So that you can know for certain, Jesus is the Christ and have everlasting life in his name.

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Two incredible components of John's eyewitness. The miracles of Jesus were witnessed by many people and were in great number that exceeds the records in the various gospels.

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And the Messiahship of Jesus removes any other person from the office of the Christ and proves that faith in Jesus is the only pathway to heaven.