The Gospel According to John | Sermon 08/21/2022

Apologia Utah

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All right, please turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter 1.

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John chapter 1. We are in our new expository series of the

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Gospel according to John. John chapter 1, verse 1.

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The title of the sermon today, church, is simply the fourth gospel account.

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The fourth gospel account. Starting in verse 1 of chapter 1, hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true

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God. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the

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Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being.

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In him was life, and the life was the light of all men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

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There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him.

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He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. There was the true light, which coming into the world enlightens every man.

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He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own, and those who were his own did not receive him.

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But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

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And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory as of the only begotten from the

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Father, full of grace and truth. John testified about him and cried out, saying,

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This was he of whom I said, He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for he has existed before me.

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For of his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.

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No one has seen God at any time, the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the

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Father. He has explained him. Thus ending the reading of God's holy inspired word,

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I'm going to pray real quickly as we begin. Father, I pray your blessing upon the word being brought today,

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Lord, upon the sermon. Lord, help us to always be faithful to the text.

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Help us always be faithful to your word. And Lord, I pray God that you would illumine the scriptures today for me and your people.

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God, that you would teach us through this new series in John, Lord. Help us,

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Lord, to so much more deeply know who Jesus is, his nature and his love for us and that he is our

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Messiah. Lord, help us to never leave here unchanged, but transformed by your word and growing in the knowledge of grace and truth.

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God, help me to speak in a way that is faithful and helpful and let it always be true. And I always pray this,

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Lord, in Jesus' name, amen. The gospel according to John.

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The gospel according to John has been loved by many throughout the centuries.

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It has been used honestly in a variety of ways. Those who are on their deathbed want to hear

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Jesus say he is the resurrection and the life. They want to hear that Jesus can raise people from the dead as he did with Lazarus.

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Missions, organizations recognize the power of the words of the gospel according to John when they make little booklets and they go to campuses or they'll be anywhere, they'll be at the mall and people will hand out gospel of John booklets.

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They understand the power that it brings when given to the lost. Countless sermons have been given from the gospel according to John as well.

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And honestly, when I was reflecting on that, that was an astounding thought to me, that now

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I will join thousands, if not maybe millions of other preachers who have gone before me and who are preaching now the gospel according to John.

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Glorious, glorious thing to me that we are preaching the very words of the son of God.

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No doubt the very words of eternal life. One doesn't have to, I guess, comb the deep caverns of the earth.

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They don't have to go to mountain sanctuaries.

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They don't have to find cloud fortresses to find the words of God. We have the words of God.

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We have the words of God. We don't have to go to any secretive place to find the words of immortality.

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The very words of eternal life are on our phones and in our hands today.

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And that is an amazing reality. Some of our most beloved verses as Christians come from the gospel according to John, you have, of course,

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John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever shall believe on him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

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You have John 14, verse 6, and Jesus said to them, I am the way and the truth and the life.

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No one comes to the Father but by me. And you have, of course, John 19, verse 30, where it says,

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Therefore, Jesus had received the sour wine and he said, It is finished. And he willingly gave up his spirit.

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Those are just to name a few. But just as the author considered, used, and referenced the rest of the

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Holy Scriptures, we are to do the same as we go through this series. The fourth gospel doesn't exist in a vacuum, right?

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The doctrine of totoscriptura, which means to say all the scriptures to be considered in the life of a believer, will be utilized as we learn from this gospel as a church.

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This is a gospel not in isolation, but it is considered all of redemption history from the beginning of creation until now.

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And I have to tell you, many critics, many critics pit what's called the synoptic gospels against the gospel of John.

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The synoptic gospels are Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And synoptic literally means seeing together.

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Synoptic means seeing together. And so Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the synoptic gospels, can be seen together.

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They have very much the same quotes and some of the same stories. They differ in some sort of ways, but there's, of course, theories, and we won't get into Markian priority or Q theory or anything like that, but it is clear that these individuals were witnesses of the life, ministry, death, burial, and resurrection of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. But oftentimes they're saying, John? What about John, the fourth gospel?

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And so they're putting them against each other. The glory about the testimonies of the synoptics is that they have things that John doesn't.

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Praise God for that. And the glory about the gospel of John is that it has things that the synoptic gospels don't have.

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So together, we have a fuller picture of Jesus Christ.

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All considered, harmonized together, they don't make multiple gospels, right?

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The titles are not a gospel according to Matthew, a gospel according to Mark, a gospel according to Luke.

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It is the gospel, the gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

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There is one gospel that is singular. One gospel, four witnesses of that one gospel.

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In fact, very early on, the four gospel accounts were grouped together very early on in what's called a codex.

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A codex was basically, they used papyrus back then, and what they would do is instead of making scrolls, is they would take the sheets, the leaves of papyrus, and they would make glue and they would glue one edge of the sheet and they would put them in one binding together.

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So very early on, possibly early second century in the 100s, we have a codex, we have a grouping.

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And you know what? It wasn't just the three synoptic gospels, it had all four gospels,

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Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And on the front of that codex, you know what it was titled?

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It was titled the gospel. The gospel with all four accounts in it.

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And so, of course, there is no account of the transfiguration.

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There is no record of the institution of the Lord's Supper. There's no mention of the temptation of Jesus and no

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Olivet discourse in the gospel of John. But the synoptics don't have things that we see in John.

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For instance, many parts of chapter two through four, you're not going to see in the synoptics at all.

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What do we have? We have like the marriage ceremony in Cana, where Jesus turns the water into wine.

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You have John chapter three, which Nicodemus comes in the middle of the night to Jesus, asking him questions about the spirit.

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Jesus tells him to be born again. You have the woman at the well, right? You have the resurrection of Lazarus in John 11.

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You have the high priestly prayer in John 17. And of course, the numerous

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I am statements from Jesus Christ. But because these witnesses are all writing of the same ministry of Jesus, the same

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Messiah, there are also so many ways that they are alike.

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Very much so. The author likely didn't feel he needed to restate everything the synoptic gospels had already recorded.

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He wrote with several purposes in mind, and we are going to consider those purposes in this sermon.

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This will be a sermon to introduce us to the glorious gospel account, with considering things like authorship and themes and the purpose.

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We did read John 1, 1 through 18 today, but I'm actually going to save that for next week to exposit that verse by verse.

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And so today we're going to kind of just introduce ourselves to the gospel according to John.

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And we're going to start with something like authorship. Now, you might say, well,

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Pastor Wade, that's easy. My Bible says the gospel according to John.

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It's John. It's clearly John. What does yours say? And of course, there's much more to it than that, right?

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The gospel according to John came very early. Oh, and the title itself, the gospel according to John, was not added originally in the first manuscript.

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That was something that was added to that account. Probably we're thinking mid second century, the title.

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So all of the words are inspired there from the Holy Spirit. But the title, the gospel according to John, was something that was added second century.

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Of course, we don't consider it authoritative, the titles, of course. That is a different category.

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So this account, this gospel account is formally anonymous, just like actually the three other gospel accounts.

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That's right. If you were to go back into Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, you would not find an introduction that says, this is the witness of Matthew, this is the witness of Mark or anything like that.

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But you know what's interesting to me? The four gospels that we have are formally anonymous.

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But then everything that came later in like the second, third and fourth centuries, which are apocryphal gospels, these are gospels that we do not consider to be the word of God.

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They are what's called pseudepigraphas. Pseudepigraphas means fake.

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And then the pigrapha, it's like basically calling yourself by a different name as an author.

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And that's happened with other authors throughout history. They've gone by different names as authors.

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But we don't consider those. They're not in our Bible. But that's why I guess my point is what's so interesting about that is these fake false gospels try to use apostolic names to give themselves some sort of authority that they didn't have.

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So you have the gospel according to Thomas. You have the gospel according to Peter. But they aren't Scripture. They're false.

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They're false things. And so that's what's interesting to me is they identified themselves.

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But the ones that are actually Scripture are formally anonymous. Okay? So, why is authorship important though?

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Why am I even talking about this and boring you guys today about authorship? It's because it's actually very important.

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We want to make sure that the person who penned this gospel was actually an eyewitness to the life, ministry, death, burial, and resurrection of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Someone who actually walked with Jesus. Someone who actually viewed these things.

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Someone who was actually inspired by the Holy Spirit, who was given the God -breathed words to pen down.

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That's why it's important for us. So, what we can first deduce when reading through the fourth gospel is that the author had an intimate knowledge of Jewish customs, festivals, and beliefs.

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He also quotes even from the Jewish Scriptures, which was known as the Septuagint at that time, showing his own familiarity with God's Word.

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He writes about geography and physical locations of Israel in a way that would demonstrate that the writer of the fourth gospel was a native to Israel.

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Absolutely. There's no way he would have known. The author says in John 19 .35,

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and he who has seen has testified, writing about himself, and his testimony is true.

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And he knows that he is telling the truth. John 21 .24, again, the writer writes about himself.

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He says, this is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things down.

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And we know that the testimony is true. Now, when the writer uses that word, testifying, in the

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Greek, that word is marturon. Marturon, which is the same word from which we get martyr.

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Literally, in the Greek, martyr means witness. So, the author here, according to John 19 and John 21, he's saying he was a witness to all these things.

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In fact, chapter 21, verse 24 is the second to last verse of the whole gospel of John.

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And he's saying, all these things that I've written about, all these things that I've just said, these are true.

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And I'm a witness to them. So that's what's occurring here. And rather by going by a name, this evangelist calls himself what?

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Anyone know? The disciple whom Jesus loved. And he's been known by that name, also called the beloved disciple.

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The disciple whom Jesus loved. John 13, verse 23 -25 shows a scene with this beloved disciple.

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It shows here they were in the upper room. They were celebrating the

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Passover celebration. And it says this. There was reclining on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples whom

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Jesus loved. So Simon Peter gestured to him, to the disciple whom

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Jesus loved, and said to him, he's like this. And it blows my mind because if he's laying on Jesus' bosom, how did

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Jesus not hear? And number one, Jesus knows everything. But Peter's like, hey, ask

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Jesus who it's going to be. Who's going to be the one to betray him?

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So he's trying to get him to tell us who he's speaking about. Peter asks this beloved disciple.

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So it says, leaning back thus on Jesus' bosom, this disciple said to him,

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Lord, who is it? Lord, who is it? And so the biggest takeaway though from that moment, you're going, what does that have to do with anything?

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What does that have to do with authorship? The biggest takeaway is that this disciple whom

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Jesus loved, who wrote the fourth gospel, was who we know to be one of the twelve apostles.

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When they were in the upper room, when they were celebrating the Passover feast, there was none of the seventy.

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It was only the twelve. Not the seventy disciples. The twelve apostles were in that room.

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And so, boom, we already bring down our authorship to the disciple whom

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Jesus loved was an apostle. One of the twelve. And of course, we can see it wasn't

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Peter, because Peter asks that disciple to ask Jesus. John 19 verse 26 -27 takes us to the scene of the beloved cross.

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It declares this, When Jesus then saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby,

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He said to His mother, this is Jesus saying, Woman, behold your son.

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And then He said to the disciple, Behold your mother. And it says from that very hour, that disciple took

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Mary into his own household. So, you can imagine, to give the responsibility of the care of your own mother to someone else, this must have been someone that Jesus trusted immensely.

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Very much. Now, if we consider the final chapter,

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John 21. Chapter 21 begins saying this, After these things,

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Jesus manifested Himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. Another time,

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Jesus came to them after His resurrection several times. He made appearance to the apostles.

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But this time, they're at the Sea of Tiberias. And He's on the beach. And it says,

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Simon Peter and Thomas, who is called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee and the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were all together.

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They were all back on the sea. They were fishing. And Jesus comes up. He's on the beach.

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And one of them notices Him. After Jesus makes His presence known to them, it says,

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Therefore, the disciple whom Jesus loved, there He is again, said to Peter, It is the

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Lord. So when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put his outer garment back on, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea.

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And so Peter's swimming. And then they're like, well, we're just going to row the boat. I wonder actually who got there first.

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It's funny to consider that. Remember Peter also raced the other disciple to get to the tomb?

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And Peter lost there as well. It says the other disciple overtook him and beat him to the tomb. So you can imagine

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Peter put on his tunic, and he jumped in, he dove in, and he's swimming, and they're smiling as the boat goes by.

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I don't know why. I just think that's hilarious. Peter. Peter. Just so quick to do things.

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We would too. But you have this moment. And these apostles are identified.

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With who? The disciple whom Jesus loved. And so what we can deduce then is that again, it wasn't

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Peter. It wasn't Judas Iscariot. By now, he betrayed Jesus. He probably already hung himself and then fell into the gorge and his belly ripped open, as Acts says.

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It wasn't Nathanael. It wasn't Philip. It wasn't Thomas. It wasn't the other Judas. Since they are all identified in this

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Gospel according to John. But it does mention the sons of Zebedee.

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The sons of Zebedee were there fishing as well. And we can see clearly, especially in the

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Synoptic Gospels in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, that Peter, John, and James, those were the two brothers, the two sons of Zebedee, Peter, John, and James, they were the closest to Jesus.

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And obviously, we see now twice Peter and this disciple whom

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Jesus loved interact on a more close level than we see with any other apostle. They speak to each other confidently.

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So, we can also see...

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Excuse me. Lost my place here. It mentions the sons of Zebedee. It mentions, of course, like I said, in the

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Synoptic Gospels, that they were the closest to Jesus. And oh, yes, that's what it was. They were the ones, of course,

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Peter, John, and James, they were the ones chosen selectively to go to the

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Mount of Transfiguration to see Jesus in His glorified state. So these were obviously three individuals very much close to Jesus Christ.

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And if you move on into chapter 21, you'll see Peter question Jesus about the beloved disciple.

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So you have this moment where Peter and the beloved disciple are there together at the end of this

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Gospel, and Peter, of course, goes through those three times where he's reaffirming his love for Jesus.

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You know I love You, Lord. You know it. You know all things. You know I love You. And then, of course,

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Peter looks to the disciple whom Jesus loved and he goes, but what about this guy? Right?

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But what about him? So Peter takes the focus off of him and he says, what about him?

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Directing to the disciple whom Jesus loved. And it's said that that disciple whom

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Jesus loved would not die a martyr's death essentially. It says, what is it to you that if he remains until I come?

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And what he's saying is, what is it to you that if this disciple remains alive until I come in judgment in 70

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A .D. spiritually? What is it to you? And with the process of elimination, we also consider the fact that James, the son of Zebedee, was the first apostle to be martyred in history and it was early enough to be recorded in what?

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Acts 12. And that would have been in like A .D. 41 -44.

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And he was put to death by the sword, it says in Acts 12, by Herod Agrippa.

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So that takes away James, the son of Zebedee. And so, by process of elimination, by what we've just considered, the internal evidence of the

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Bible, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the evangelist, the son of Zebedee, is

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John. The apostle John is the author of the fourth Gospel.

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Who of course also wrote three epistles. 1 John, 2 John, and 3

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John. And he lived long enough to be exiled to the island of Patmos where he recorded down the revelation of Jesus Christ, which of course is the last book in our

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Bibles. So, no big surprise there. It's absolutely true.

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The author of the fourth Gospel is the Gospel according to John, the son of Zebedee.

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Now as you can imagine though, there are many speculations that this is not true.

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That it was another John. They think that there's another John named John the Elder, or that it was some sort of Johanan community.

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Or they think maybe it was another disciple who wrote this Gospel account. But especially liberal theologians love to challenge the authorship.

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But here's the thing. We simply don't have evidence for anyone else. The internal evidence in the

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Bible points to John the Apostle. And also, I'm going to show you now, the only external evidence we have of authorship also points to John.

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First, in the writings of Justin Martyr in the early 2nd century, Justin Martyr, in maybe the 120's or 130's, he wrote that an apostle wrote the

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Gospel accounts. And he even quotes in one of his apologies from John 3.

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And did you know this church that the oldest New Testament fragment, the oldest

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New Testament manuscript that we have today, it is the oldest New Testament fragment, is

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P52, Papyrus 52, and that is a section or a fragment of the

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Gospel according to John 18. It is the oldest one we have. And so that could have been anywhere from the 90's to the 120's that that fragment was written, possibly.

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It is a very big deal because it points to the validity that John the

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Apostle is the author. There's even greater external evidence though from very, very early on.

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Also, early 2nd century in the low 100's, you have writings from the patristic writer

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Irenaeus. Irenaeus was the overseer of modern day Lyons, France.

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And he wrote that John the Apostle, he wrote clearly and definitely that John the

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Apostle penned the fourth Gospel. You say, wow, some early church father wrote that John the

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Apostle wrote the fourth Gospel. What's the big deal? Well, what's the big deal is that Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp.

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And who was Polycarp a disciple of? The Apostle John. The Apostle John, when the

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Apostle John was likely a pastor of the church at Ephesus, Polycarp studied and learned from John.

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And so you have this direct line where someone like Irenaeus would have learned from Polycarp that John was absolutely the author of the fourth

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Gospel. So, beyond that, you even have one of the earliest fragments of the

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Muratorian Canon also shows the authorship of John in the

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Muratorian Canon. In fact, Johanan, which means John, Johanan authorship has been held by the majority of the

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Christian church from the beginning until now. Almost all of the

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Christian church has accepted that John is the author. Now, some protest and say, well, how did a

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Galilean know Greek? How did a man like John, a fisherman, know

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Greek? How did he know all these glorious truths? Kind of like how the

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Jewish elders in the book of Acts say, these are unlearned men. How did these men know anything?

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How can they teach us? That's kind of the challenge that some people put on John. But the fact is there is overwhelming evidence.

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In fact, it is clear. The evidence is clear today enough to say that Galileans were likely bilingual or even trilingual.

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Galileans. And of course, you have Jerusalem, right? But Galilee was north.

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Galilee would have been on a route that would have led to the rest of the

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Mediterranean world. So, Galileans had to know different languages.

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Aramaic would have been the everyday language, Aramaic. And then

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Hebrew would have been used very, very sparingly. Hebrew would have been used maybe in synagogue or for religious rituals or things like that.

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Hebrew in the first century was used just seldomly. But then very much used would have been

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Greek. Greek would have been known by Galileans and Judeans.

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Okay? And John's Greek is not elegant, by the way. When it comes to the

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Greek in the New Testament, John's is considered the most basic. So that kind of goes along with what they're saying.

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He's learned a lot from the time that he was a young apostle, and now he knows more.

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Of course, having walked with Jesus and being inspired by the Holy Spirit to write these things.

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But the very basic element, his Greek is a lower level.

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And he has similar wordings to the Septuagint in his Gospel. So, I'm going to change pace here.

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I'm going to talk a little bit about John right now. A little bit more about who he was as an individual.

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The first time we see John the son of Zebedee on the scene is when he is fishing along with his brother and Peter and Andrew.

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He was just a regular fisherman working. He was still with his father.

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It says that Zebedee was there with them. They were fishing with their father. He was likely still under his father's household.

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It's possible that John was maybe one of the youngest disciples that followed

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Jesus. Especially because there's a moment where his mother comes and speaks on his behalf, and we'll get to that.

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But his mother speaks for him. And he goes by the name

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John, the son of Zebedee. And not all of the apostles went by their name and then their father's name.

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And it kind of maybe denotes to us that he was still in his own father's household.

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It says in Matthew 4 .18, Now as Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers,

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Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother. They were casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.

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And Jesus said to them, Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men. Immediately they left their nets and followed

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Him. And going on from there, Jesus saw two other brothers,

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James the son of Zebedee and John his brother. In the boat was Zebedee their father. They were mending their nets.

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And Jesus called them. Immediately, it says, they left the boat, and they left their father, and they followed

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Him. It was just like that. Just like that.

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Jesus says, follow Me, and they immediately leave the boats, and it says they leave their own father, and they follow after Jesus.

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John's whole identity, his entire aspirations in life are now wrapped up in who?

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The Messiah. Everything that John has found purpose or meaning in is now to be found in Jesus.

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And when you think about it, Jesus calls us to the very same thing. He calls us to nothing less than full commitment to Him.

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He wants all of us as He wanted all of John and James. That means all your hopes, all your dreams, all your aspirations, your work, your relationships, and all your decisions are to be viewed and executed in pursuit of knowing

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Christ and making Him known in this world. Jesus gave

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John and James the name Boanerges. Boanerges.

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That's what He calls John and James. Which literally means sons of thunder.

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So, it almost sounds like the first apostles were in a biker gang or something like that.

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The sons of thunder. Right? I wonder if there's a Christian metal band called

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Sons of Thunder or Boanerges. Maybe we need to start that. I don't know. We won't be like a

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Hillsong thing. But anyways, Boanerges. Sons of Thunder.

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John and James. And that wasn't purposeless. Okay? The Scriptures say that Jesus knew all men well.

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He knew their thoughts. He knew the nature of man. And these men, John and James, were full of thunder.

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They were full of thunder. They were full of energy and zeal. John knew that he was involved in something so magnificent, so special, because he sought to protect it.

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But he sought to protect it wrongly. Let me show you how. In Mark 9, v.

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38 -40, it reads, John said to him, Teacher... This is

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John talking to Jesus. John said to Jesus, Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we tried to prevent him because he was not following us.

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But Jesus said, Do not hinder him, for there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name and will be able to soon afterwards speak evil of Me.

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For he who is not against us is for us. What Jesus is saying is, this man had faith in Jesus, faith enough to call out in Jesus' name and see a demon exercised because of it.

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This man, even though he wasn't following with the twelve, had faith in Jesus Christ. But John is like, what's this guy doing?

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He's acting like he's one of us. He's not one of us. He hasn't been following us. Who is he?

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Jesus says, He's not against us, so He's for us. Right? It's possible

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John wanted to maintain his privilege and honor of having this miraculous ability. I thought only we could do this.

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I thought only you had given us the power to heal people and exercise demons.

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How could someone not authorize or not walking with us do this? He thinks to himself.

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He may have thought, are we not the sole possessors of this power? But soon, of course,

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John would see the miracles and signs of Christ would spread across the whole Mediterranean and now to the whole world, of course.

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But we see a desire in him to become great. John wants to become great.

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But at first, John didn't see that to become great, he would have to become least.

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Matthew 20. Verse 20 -24 details one such occasion.

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Matthew 20. It says, Then the mothers of the sons of Zebedee, that is John and James, they came to Jesus altogether, the mother and John and James, and she bowed down and she made a request of Jesus.

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And Jesus said to her, What do you wish? She's walking up with her sons.

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What do you wish? She said to Jesus this. And it's quite shocking to me.

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She said, Command that in your kingdom these two sons of mine may sit, one on your right and one on your left.

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But Jesus answered, You do not know what you are asking. And he turns to them,

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Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink? And these two brothers probably look at each other and they look back at Jesus and said,

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We are able to drink the cup you are about to drink. Maybe a bit audacious.

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He says, You will drink the cup that I am going to drink.

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My cup you shall drink, but to sit on my right hand and to sit on my left, that is not mine to give, but is for those whom it has been prepared for by my

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Father. And it says this, And hearing this, the other ten apostles became indignant with the two brothers.

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They became upset with John and James. By their own selfish desire, by their mother's own desires, they created a rift between the twelve.

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Self -gain and self -exaltation always leads to division, by the way.

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When you seek to make yourself great, you are seeking to make others lower than you.

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And that is really what he is showing here. And so Jesus tells them that they are not to be like the

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Gentiles who lord their power over others. They are not to flex their authority on one another.

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He says, that's not how it should be for those who follow Me. So servanthood is taught to the twelve apostles.

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Jesus uses this moment as a lesson to these men.

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Servanthood. And you know what? Servanthood would have been thought as a foolish idea back then.

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And you know what? Servanthood today is considered a foolish idea as well. Serving other people.

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And you know, I'm not talking about HR groups with corporations who are like, we should serve each other and do all this stuff and D &I and love each other.

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Right? That's not what I'm talking about. That's not what it is. Right? Because a lot of times, in those corporations, people are trying to serve others to make themselves look good so they can be man -pleasers and gain more traction in the workforce.

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So servanthood ultimately is a foolish idea to the carnal man. But if you want to be with Jesus, if you want to be a disciple of Jesus, you must serve.

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That's what He says. If you are to be My disciple, you must serve others.

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Our status goes low, so Christ's status goes high.

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He eventually says to Him, the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give

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His life as a ransom for many. And finally, in Luke 9, we see the sons of thunder come up with this other thunderous idea in Luke 9.

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It says, when the days were approaching for Christ's ascension, He was determined to go to Jerusalem.

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And Jesus sent messengers ahead of Him and they went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make arrangements for Jesus.

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But they would not receive Him. Because Jesus was traveling toward Jerusalem. So, Jesus needs to go to Jerusalem.

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He has to pass through Samaria. And the Samaritans would not receive Jesus. They would not put

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Him up into housing, lodging, anything like that. They reject Jesus in this moment to stay there.

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And it says this, when Jesus' disciples, guess who, sons of thunder,

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James and John, saw this. They said, Lord, do

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You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them? They want to be like some sort of Elijah.

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They want to call down fire from heaven. They want to destroy people in this moment. Jesus turned and rebuked

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John and James and said, you do not know what kind of spirit you are of right now.

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You don't realize what kind of spirit you are of right now. He says, for the

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Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And then they went on to another village.

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Maybe John didn't want to mention his own name in the fourth Gospel, because every time he is mentioned in the synoptic

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Gospels, he's being scolded or rebuked for something he's done. So he's like, I'm just going to go by the disciple whom

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Jesus loved. That's a safe title. But Jesus is saying, where's your love for the lost, guys?

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In his early days with Jesus, at times John acted rashly.

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John acted aggressively and with blind zeal sometimes. But as the apostles receive the great commission and the

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Holy Spirit comes upon them with power, John grows through the persecution and the trials mentioned in the book of Acts.

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The book of Acts is now later. There's a progression of time in the book of Acts. Now he stands firm.

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John even had the strength to stand with his life in the balance, and he says, we must obey

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God rather than man. John is able to say that now. He's grown.

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He risks his own earthly life so that others may hear of eternal life. Decades later,

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John writes his letters to the churches in his three epistles. 1, 2, and 3

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John. And what do we see? We really see a shepherd. A shepherd's heart displayed in John's epistles.

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Very much. He calls them little children. If you remember that, John calls them little children.

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He has this same affectionate demeanor that Jesus had towards the others.

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He calls them little children, this church. He's protective now, not over his unique title of apostle, but he's protective over these churches from heresy, from false teachers, and division.

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He's protective now over the church of God. He seeks to keep them from error.

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He's learned now from the time of wanting to call down fire from heaven.

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He learns that God is love. In fact, he says it. That's where that verse comes from.

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In John's epistle, he says, God is love. And of course, that is taken out of context in our 21st century in many ways.

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God is love. They don't know what that means. Because in the context and in the greater scope of the

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Bible, God is love because He is wrathful. God is love because He is also wrathful.

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Because the thing is, we all deserve wrath, but He gave love, and that makes God love. That's the glorious truth of the

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Gospel is that we should all perish for all eternity, but in God's great love for us,

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He sent Jesus, His one and only Son. That's why God is love. We deserve wrath, but we get grace.

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And that is so different from what the world says today. Because they want to say that God is love means some sort of sprinkling of pardon.

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And an affirmation of sin. In fact, you go to an LGBT pride festival, you'll see

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God is love on signs with wicked, fornicative things happening all around you.

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Men dressed in the most disgusting, indecent ways. And they'll put God is love on a sign.

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What they think that means is God approves of my sinful life.

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No. When God loves a sinner, He imputes to them

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Jesus' righteousness. Their account is brought current. They are forgiven.

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The slate is clean. The sin is gone. Forgiveness is given. Hell is no longer the destiny for the redeemed sinner, now

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Christian. And that's the difference. Jesus not only saves us from the penalty of sin,

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He saves us from the power of sin. That we might not commit sin anymore.

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Now, we're not going to be perfect. But He says to walk in the newness of life. Jesus says in John 14 -15, if you love

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Me, you'll keep My commandments. And so, there's a difference, right? Now, John went off on a sidetrack there, but John comes to these understandings that Jesus has given them from the beginning.

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He says God sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him.

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He says it's not that we have loved God. That's what he says right after that. It's not that we have loved God, but He loved us.

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And He sent His only Son to make propitiation for us. And John, as he has seen so many brothers and sisters die for the faith over the years, it's critical.

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One last message from Jesus is to be delivered to the seven churches. One last message.

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It's crucial. John, get this message to the churches. What is that?

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Revelation. He was kept alive for this very purpose. Jesus alludes to that.

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In Revelation 1 .9 it says, I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the

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Word of God and the testimony of Jesus. And it's understood in history that John was the last apostle to die.

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He was the very last one. He was put into a vat of boiling oil and he did not die.

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And the Romans then exiled him to Patmos. Why? Because that's where Jesus would give him the final revelation to be delivered to the churches.

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But he shared his life in all these ways with the saints. They look to John as a pillar, according to Paul.

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And the amazing thing is, I think, is that we can relate to John the Apostle so much.

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So very much. As new believers and even old believers, we can get so zealous and even act rashly like John.

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Right? We can sometimes shove the Gospel in people's faces in such a way that is aggressive and is not considering the

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Spirit of God, that the Spirit works in people. We don't. We ought to be faithful, but it's

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God's prerogative. We just bring the message. But we can get so zealous, we can act like John.

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We can get self -righteous, maybe elevate ourselves because, hey, I'm a saint. I'm a saint.

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Just like John was like, we're apostles, man. Why does he get to do that? We can maybe have the same sort of attitude that John had, but John learned it.

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He lived it. And his life is a testimony to us that when Jesus calls you and says, follow

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Me, He won't leave you where you're at. That's the promise that we see in John. We see

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John acting all these immature ways, and then we see him change in the book of Acts. Then we see him change in his epistles.

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Then we see him as this old, ripened sage of a man with wisdom, and he's given the revelation of Jesus Christ, the last book of the

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Bible, and we see this progression in John. And the promise is that that's going to happen to you.

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That you'll change too. That you won't be kept where you're at. As Boanerges, as sons and daughters of thunder, you will change.

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That's the promise that we see in John. He'll grow you and He'll mature you.

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The Lord will take you through some hard lessons, sometimes humbling and embarrassing ones.

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Like John, especially before we came out here, I had some very humbling and embarrassing lessons with my pastors that are hard to remember even.

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Things that just make your head hang low, but then I look high because I remember what Jesus has done.

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And that He's changed me through it. He'll take you through trials.

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He'll take you through things so that the master potter can form the clay.

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And you are the clay. He is the potter. And He will form in you the masterpiece that He has already determined that He wants to make.

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John's life shows us that there's hope for us who are in immature sin or any sort of lacking of sanctification.

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There's hope that our lives will be used for something great. If you're in Christ today, if you are found in Jesus today, your life will be used for something great.

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It will. Great because of Jesus. Great because of Him.

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Not because of anything in and of yourself. But despite all that, church,

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John would probably tell us... Right now, if John were here, he'd say, stop talking about me.

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Stop talking about me. I left my name out for a reason. Because the focal point is someone else.

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He would rebuke me and say, I didn't write this Gospel account so that you could talk about me.

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And I respect that and I understand that. He would say, I wrote this account so that all your attention, all your focus, all your praise and adoration and affections would be toward the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And you know what's interesting? It's not called John's biography of Jesus.

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It doesn't start with John's name. Again, there's no formal wording of who wrote this.

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He maybe would have disagreed with having the title, The Gospel According to John. But it doesn't say

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John's biography of Jesus. Notice when titles were added to the Gospel accounts, the witnesses' names were last.

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They were last. It says The Gospel According to. This is a historical and theological book.

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This is historical and theological. And even the

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Gospel According to John, that's historical and theological. Why? Euangelion, Kata, Yohanan.

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Euangelion, Kata, Yohanan. That means The Gospel According to John. Even in the very title, we get from it the word evangelize.

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Evangelize. The Gospels are historical, but when one writes about the

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Gospel account of Jesus Christ, it is impossible to not evangelize if you're true to the

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Word, if you're true to what happened. To write about Jesus is like light invading darkness.

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It is inevitable. It can't be stopped. This means that although these are historical accounts of Jesus, it's not simply data.

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The Gospel According to John is not simply data, right? When I was a reporting analyst at my last job before the

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Lord brought me to Utah, and by God's grace we planted this church, I was a reporting analyst.

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And so I was working in Microsoft Excel all day and making these spreadsheets.

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But you know what? I dealt with raw data, and people would come up and they'd look at what

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I was looking at and almost want to vomit. They're like, there's too many numbers, too many grid lines, too many things going on.

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And they were like, what are you working with here? And I didn't mind working with the raw data, but at the end of the day, for the data to be useful, for the data to educate anyone, for me to be able to use the data to give it to colleagues or clients,

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I had to make graphs and charts and pivot tables and formulas, and I had to illustrate the data in such a way that was meaningful to people.

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They look at numbers. It's hard for them to see anything, but I made those numbers illustrate something.

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And in a way, I had to interpret the data for those who I worked with. Right? Organize it in a way that is coherent and understandable.

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And so by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Gospel writers interpret the data, the history of Christ, and how we should believe it.

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And they tell us that it is authoritative, that we should know it and we should receive it and we should believe on it. We need to know what we should make of these spectacular events in history.

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We should know what they mean for us and for the whole world, because these are God's words. And when

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God speaks, it's got power. It's binding on all human beings.

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I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon that we would look at the purpose of the Gospel of John. John gives us that purpose in his

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Gospel account in chapter 20. If you would, I know I don't have it on the screen, and I typically do have things on the screen.

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Go to John 20 real quick, just so it's in front of you. John 20, verses 30 and 31.

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John 20, verses 30 and 31. John comes out of the narrative and speaks directly to anyone who would dare to read these words.

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John says, Therefore, many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book.

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He's saying there are many more things that Jesus did, and John says, I simply could not write about them all.

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In fact, he says in the very next chapter, he says that if one wrote all the things that Jesus ever did,

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John says all the books in the world contain all the glorious things and glorious truths that Jesus has accomplished and done.

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Even the whole books in the world, John says. He's possibly even tipping his hat to the synoptic

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Gospels. There's a possibility that John was written after the synoptic

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Gospels. Okay? Nevertheless, John was selective.

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He says, I could have wrote so many other things. I could have told you so many other stories about Jesus, but he was selective.

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What is in John? All of it is true. All of it is historical. And yet, all of it serves a purpose.

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Verse 31, this is it. This is the whole purpose, according to John, for the

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Gospel according to John. But these things, all these things, he's pointing to everything that he's wrote about in the

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Gospel, but these things have been written so that you may believe Jesus is the

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Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name. That's the purpose.

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That's the purpose of this Gospel. That's what John wants any of his audience, any of his readers to get out of this.

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He says, these things have been graphe. Graphe in the Greek. That is also a word that is used for Scripture.

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It's often translated as that. And so that's crucial for us to hold on to. Cast away all doubt.

01:00:04

Cast away all skepticism. All that we will read, all that we will cover in the

01:00:09

Gospel according to John is Scripture. It is the very words of the living and true God.

01:00:17

It is from the mouth of God Almighty. The Lord spoke and carried John along by way of the

01:00:23

Holy Spirit. These words are then powerful. They are powerful.

01:00:30

Powerful because the Word of God, they are not inert. They are not static.

01:00:36

They are not passive. The words of God do something. They are active.

01:00:42

They are living. They accomplish things. They do things. That if a sinner were to read the words of the

01:00:50

Gospel of John, only of course by the grace of God, and only by that grace, a sinner may repent and believe.

01:00:58

A sinner may read the Gospel of John, repent and turn to Jesus, and have eternal life.

01:01:03

That is possible. That has happened. And it will continue to happen. They may become born again.

01:01:11

The words in this Gospel account are so very powerful that you already being believers will change because of it.

01:01:20

You will experience change as well. The Word is living and active, and so when the living and active

01:01:26

Word interacts with living and active people, transformation occurs.

01:01:35

It is inevitable. This graphe, these words from God are true.

01:01:40

Every single word of God proves true. And more precisely, the words of God are truth.

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They're not simply true. They are truth. In Christ we have the source of all truth.

01:01:56

He is the truth. He calls Himself the truth. And so what you have here in the Gospel according to John is a reliable and trustworthy account.

01:02:05

What you have here is pure. Put this Word into darkness and it will be like light shining.

01:02:13

It will light up the room. Put this Word in a place of sin and righteousness will come.

01:02:21

Put this Word into death and you'll get life. Truth is a beacon.

01:02:28

Truth contains no viruses or defilement or staining. Because think about it, there's so much falsehood in this world.

01:02:39

There's so many lies in this world. There's so many.

01:02:46

You watch TV, there's lies and falsehood. You watch the news, there's lies and falsehood.

01:02:53

You talk to other people in this world and oftentimes they will lie to you. It's inevitable.

01:02:59

And so there's these lies and falsehood throughout our whole world.

01:03:06

But right in front of you, you get to open truth. Isn't that unbelievable?

01:03:13

There's all this falsehood all around us but you get to open truth. You get to have truth in your hand.

01:03:20

And you get to read it. And you get to learn it. And you get to live it. That is unbelievable.

01:03:28

They aren't hidden away in some deep place that we can never attain.

01:03:35

They aren't in an Indiana Jones movie where he has to go and find it in some sort of last crusade, right?

01:03:43

These words are in your hand and they are truth in a world of lies. Unbelievable.

01:03:51

I'm finishing up here. It's been written, God's Word has been delivered through John so that you may believe.

01:04:01

That you may believe. And this isn't a basic confidence church.

01:04:08

This is a supernatural believing. Something that only

01:04:14

God can do in you. Some will say belief doesn't require proof, just acceptance.

01:04:24

But God doesn't do that for us. You and I, church, we could look at all the proof that we want.

01:04:32

We could scour God's Word. We could comb through God's world.

01:04:37

We can walk the halls of Heaven. We from far, far away off could see a throne with lightning and peals and thunder and colors and glory and holiness and the

01:04:50

Shekinah glory emanating from this throne. And we could know that God is there. And yet, that wouldn't be enough for us as fallen people.

01:04:59

We don't need proof. We need God to instill belief in us.

01:05:05

We could get all the proof you want. And you see that all the time. Even secular atheists, secular and liberal theologians will look at the truth of the

01:05:17

Bible and they'll say, yeah, I think these things happen, but it doesn't change me. They could receive all the proof that they want and still not accept it.

01:05:33

We will see that the Father has given the Son a people. We will see that in the

01:05:39

Gospel according to John. We will see that Jesus will never lose anyone. And He will not cast them out.

01:05:45

He says He will raise them up on the last day. We will see that Jesus according to John 10 is the

01:05:52

Good Shepherd. And He brings His sheep into His fold. And He says, I am the door by which they come.

01:05:58

And they come and I protect them. And I watch over them. And my sheep hear my voice and they know me and I know them and I love them.

01:06:05

That's what we're going to see in the Gospel of John. He doesn't let us run away.

01:06:11

He brings us in. We are going to see one of the most amazing things in Scripture.

01:06:17

We're going to see in John 14, 15, and 16 the Holy Spirit. We're going to see promises of the

01:06:24

Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Helper, the One who convicts the world of sin. We're going to see that in the

01:06:31

Gospel of John. We're going to see that this Spirit gives us belief and this belief has a focal point.

01:06:39

This belief hangs on something that if it was on anything or anyone else it would crumble.

01:06:47

These things have been written so that you would believe that Jesus is the Christ. That's why these things have been written.

01:06:57

So that you would believe and not simply believe anything generically, that you would so specifically believe that Jesus is the

01:07:06

Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah, God in the flesh. That's why these things have been written.

01:07:13

He is the Christos. It's not simply to believe that Jesus existed.

01:07:21

It's not to believe as scholars or historians barely accept that Jesus was a man or a rabbi in the first century.

01:07:31

It's so that you and I and everyone may believe that Jesus is the Christ in the

01:07:36

Hebrew, the Messiah. Literally, in Hebrew, the Messiah means the

01:07:43

One who has been anointed. And it's just the One. It's just the

01:07:49

One anointed One. The One Christ. Not many Christs.

01:07:54

Not many Messiahs. Jesus warns that others will come in His name. Others will give themselves these titles of Christ.

01:08:02

Other people will write and record about these false Christs. But there's only One. The One of Holy Scripture defined in these holy words which were written based off the living

01:08:16

Christ, Jesus the Son of God. And notice John gives the two main titles for the expected

01:08:24

Savior of the world. He says that you would believe that Jesus is the Christ and the

01:08:29

Son of God. And right there in that statement, we see function, we see nature or being, and we see status in those two titles.

01:08:42

Christ and Son of God. John wants us to know so very deeply that Jesus is

01:08:49

God. Right? We're going to see that. We're going to see that Jesus is the

01:08:55

I Am. He is Yahweh. He is the God who says

01:09:00

He is I Am that I Am in the burning bush passage in Exodus. That He is from God and of God.

01:09:09

He is from God and of God. He is homoous. He is of the same substance of God.

01:09:16

And Jesus will act. Things have gone wrong in this world, but there is a

01:09:23

Chosen One who will make all things right. The Old Testament makes it clear that the

01:09:29

Messiah will do many, many glorious things, but there is one feat that He has accomplished that has been

01:09:36

His primary objective. That you may have life in His name. That's the final word there.

01:09:43

That you may have life in His name. You may have...

01:09:50

Zoe is the word. Life. You may have Zoe. You say, well, I'm already alive.

01:09:56

No, He will make you alive again. He'll make you born again. That's the promise. And at the end of the ages,

01:10:04

Jesus will give you everlasting Zoe. He will give you everlasting life.

01:10:11

We need life because we're in sin. And when we're in sin, we're dead.

01:10:16

And the wages of sin is eternal death. Dead here and death forever.

01:10:27

But in Christ, in His name, we will have life here and life forever.

01:10:36

That's the promise. That's the promise. He's the way, the truth, and the life.

01:10:44

In John 6, we will see the bread passages. Bread we know can get moldy, it can get stale, it can get worms or weevils, but He is the bread of life.

01:10:54

He says He is the manna that comes down from heaven showing His origin, but also showing that He gives life.

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He is the manna that comes down from heaven giving life in the desert. He is sustenance to the hungry.

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He is living water to the thirsty. And you could more rightly say He is the bread that gives life.

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And that's why Jesus came. He wants to give you life. He wants a people for His own possession whom it says in John 1 .12

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He will give the right to be called children of God. Sons and daughters of God.

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A privilege only afforded through Him. If you follow this series in the

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Gospel according to John, and you are still spiritually dead, you may just find life in this series.

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And I pray that you do. I pray that you do. And if you are already alive in Christ, my hope is that your belief, your faith, your confidence will be strengthened through this series, through the

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Gospel according to John. That your knowledge of God increases and therefore your love and faithfulness to Jesus overflows.

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I pray our relationship to Jesus is made into a stronger bond than ever as we go through this church.

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So, we are about to embark on one of the greatest events in history.

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Both the history of man and the history of redemption. The Lord Jesus Christ.

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And I pray that we all see it with fresh eyes. With fuller hearts. With greater adoration and praise.

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That we may never lose the wonder. In fact, Lord, I pray that may we never lose the wonder.

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The wonder of Jesus. That He is the Christ. The Son of God.

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Let's pray. Father, please bless the message that went out.

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Pray that it glorified Your name, dear Lord. In all whom the Father has given to You, Jesus, You will surely not cast out.

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You will hold us. And You will help us to persevere. You are our

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Good Shepherd, Lord Jesus. You are the Bread of Life. You are the Great I Am. You are the

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Son of God, our Savior and our Redeemer. We thank You, God, for what

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You've done through Christ for us. The eternal life that we have in Him. And we thank

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You, God, that You will do for us like what You did for the Apostle John.

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That although we start one way, You will change us into another.

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You will sanctify us and make us more holy. Not by anything in and of ourselves, but because of You.

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So, Lord, do that in us. Do that in us. Pray this all in Jesus' name,