September 8th, 2024
From The Series: John-
So That You May Believe
Part 01 Background
and Introduction
The Gospel of John
Mountain View
Evangelical Missionary Church
This morning I
thought I might begin with a quote”
“Proverbs 24:16 says,
“No matter how often an honest man falls, he always gets up again” (TEV). The
first person to invent the wheel only discovered what God had already designed,
for the Lord created things in circles. The stars and planets are round, they
move in orbital circuits, and life, as a result, moves in cycles. Every one
hundred years, we have a new century; every 365 days, we have a new year; every
24 hours we have a new day; every 60 minutes we have a new hour. God created
the potential for new beginnings into the very design of our universe.
And for good reason.
Every hero of Scripture needed new beginnings: Adam and Eve after they ate the
forbidden fruit, needed a new beginning; Moses after he killed the Egyptian, needed
a new beginning; David after his adulterous relationship, needed a new
beginning; Elijah after an emotional breakdown in the desert, needed a new
beginning; the disciples after Good Friday…, needed a new beginning.
And maybe you.[1]” End Quote.
Those who know Jesus
Christ as Lord and Saviour have the ultimate “New Beginning” and that is we are
made new in Christ. Our rebirth into Jesus after salvation is the most
important “New Beginning” that we can ever experience. I was thinking of new
beginnings because here we are at the beginning of a new ministry year. We can
tell that things are starting back again because the bulletin is full again
with the various ministries here at the church.
We are starting a new
book series this morning as we will begin a journey together through the Gospel
of John. Another new beginning. I was going through some papers last week and
found my Baptismal Certificate. Well, the Baptism that I find the most
significant anyway. You see, some of us learn faster than others, and I was
actually baptized three times in my life.
As an infant, I was
Baptized in the Presbyterian Church that was located at the end of the driveway
of my grandparents' home in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Next, at 12 years of age,
I was Baptized into the Roman Catholic Church after completing my catechism
classes and as a family, we attended a Catholic church for a period of time.
Finally, in 2005, I
had my final and proper Baptism, my Believer’s Baptism, after I finally
understood who Jesus Christ was and what He had done for me. That last Baptism
took because I first received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This August, I
will celebrate 20 years as a Baptized Believer, but this Easter is my 20th
anniversary as a follower of Jesus. As an aside, if you have not been baptized
yet, and would like to take that wonderful step on your walk with Jesus, come
and talk to me after the service and we can discuss it and you can have a new
beginning.
As important as new
beginnings are, there is something that I feel is even more important than new
beginnings: the maturing process. Ironically, we will begin our look at the
Gospel of John with a quote from the Book of Hebrews.
Hebrews 6:1-3 says
the following, “1 Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings
about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation
of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, 2 instruction
about cleansing rites, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the
dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And God permitting, we will do so.”
I mention this passage from
Hebrews this morning because I want us to keep this question in mind as we go
through the Gospel of John together, “Am I maturing in my walk with Jesus?” As
you sit here this morning, ask yourself “Have I grown as a Christian, or do I
still believe the same things I did as a baby Christian?” “Am I still
committing the same sins and seeking forgiveness for them time after time?”
In the third chapter of his first
letter to the church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul chastised the believers there
for being still on the milk of the Word and not yet progressing onto the solid
food or onto the “meat” as the King James Version puts it. Paul accused
them of still being "infants in Christ" despite having some of the
best teachers pass through that church. There is a certain obligation that each
of us has as believers to mature in Jesus. This is work that we need to
do. No one can do this work of maturing for us.
I have had a few people come to
me and accuse me of not feeding them. I have heard “I’m not being fed by your
teaching”. Friends, it’s not my job to feed you, unless you are a baby
Christian. A shepherd feeds the lambs or rather makes sure the lambs are being
fed, but a shepherd doesn’t feed the mature sheep. The shepherd leads them to
where they can find the food to dine on, but the shepherd doesn’t feed
the flock. If you are mature in Christ, it is your job to feed yourself, to get
off the milk and on to the solid food as Paul encourages.
What is my job, is to shepherd
you. To tend to the flock. To move them along to greener pastures. To make sure
the flock is growing, both in numbers and in maturity. My job is to make sure
we are on the right path and to protect you from the wolves of false teachings
and non-biblical ideas.
With that in mind, I would like
you to consider two other questions this week to meditate on. Ask yourself,
“Have I evolved my personal theology over the years?” and, “Am I teachable to
what the Bible is saying to me?”. Let me explain…
A big part of the maturing
process is taking time to examine your personal theology from time to time.
What do I mean by “personal theology”? If we are serious Christians we should
all have a personal theology. A personal theology is what you believe about the
secondary issues regarding the Christian faith. What is your eschatology? What
do you believe about the end times and the sequence of events leading up to it?
What do you believe about salvation and who initiates it? How do you explain
the presence of evil in the world and who is responsible for it? Have you
determined these things for yourself or are you clinging to something someone
told you in the past? Perhaps from your distant past? Are you still clinging to
something that a professor told you in Bible College but you haven’t examined
that belief critically since then?
Have your views changed as you
have read through your Bible from year to year? Is the Holy Spirit revealing
anything new to you this year? If not, why not? Are you teachable to what the Bible
is saying to you? This boils down to a worldview issue. A worldview is a lens
that we use to filter through all the information that is thrown at us each
day. Our worldview allows us to reject information we disagree with and accept
information that we agree with. The problem is, that over time, the lenses of
our worldview can become dirty and clogged and we inadvertently reject useful
new information because the filter is too full to let the good new stuff
through.
A useful habit to develop is to
stop every once in a while and take time to examine our worldview and check the
filters to see if we are rejecting useful new information. We may also have to
adjust our worldview if we find ourselves absorbing too much worldly
information that flies in the face of biblical teaching.
When I became a believer 19 years
ago, I had to make some major changes to my worldview. I had to examine how I
felt and thought about what books I read, what music I listened to, what movies
I watched, and even what video games I was playing. I had to make sure that my
worldview was being adjusted to what the Bible taught and not be so concerned
with what the world taught. I needed a new rudder for my ship. A new compass
and map to chart the course of my life. I needed a new direction, a new goal, a
new beginning.
I also needed to return to the
map and make sure that I was still on course and that I have not been blown off
course by the winds of culture, or politics, or new teachers, or even old
beliefs. My compass is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and my map is God's
Word.
Two other necessary tools for the
Christian to keep the filters of your worldview clean is discernment and
discipleship. Discernment is like a muscle, it needs to be used in order for it
to become stronger. Discernment is the filtering of good and bad information.
You do not have to rely on your own wisdom to develop discernment. As a
believer, you should have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit tp guide you and to
open up the meaning of God’s Word for you. You also have the Bible. If you come
across some teaching that is not found in the Bible, then as a Christian you
should be very wary of accepting it, if not outright rejecting it. I won’t
spend a lot of time on details but, subjects like abortion, drug use, same-sex
marriage, and medically assisted suicide are all acceptable if not encouraged
by both the legal, political, and cultural systems of our day, yet each of them
run contrary to what the Bible teaches. But it is so easy to have our worldview
blinded by all that culture throws at us and fail to see what God is saying
about these subjects.
My encouragement to you is this:
take some time this week, or the next couple of weeks and think about the three
questions posed at the end of this blog and examine your walk with Christ,
check your current worldview, and examine your heart to see what you are
clinging to and see if is it truly biblical?
Ok, let’s look at the Gospel of
John and this morning we are going to do an overview of the book and what the background
is before we begin our deep dive in the coming weeks. I’m going to warn you, that
we may get into some deep waters in the coming days, so if you are still paddling
around in the shallow end, you may want to bring some water wings or a life
jacket. I promise not to drown you in information, but I might give you a bit
of a nudge into deeper waters than you are currently comfortable swimming in.
Let’s open our Bible together and look at a few selected verses this morning
from the Gospel of John.
If you did not bring your Bible
this morning, you should find one underneath one of the chairs in the row in
front of you. The Gospel of John, chapter 1 will be found on page 860 of the
pew bible. If you do not have a bible at home, please take that bible with you
as a gift from Mountain View Church. We feel that it is vitally important that
you have easy access to God’s Word.
Three things we will cover this
morning regarding the Gospel of John are:
1) Purpose: To prove that Jesus is the Son of God.
2) People: Jesus, God, and John the Apostle. The
three main people that the Book of John revolves around are Jesus, God the
Father and the Apostle John. Interestingly, the Apostle John is never mentioned
by name in the book. The only time the author uses the name “John” is referring
to John the Baptist or “Peter son of John”. This is one of the strongest
arguments for the authorship of the Apostle John. The author is never clearly
identified, and this was a common tactic among authors at that time. We will talk
more about this in a bit.
3) Payoff: Man’s reconciliation with God.
Over the coming weeks, I would
like us to keep in mind these three points of the book. The main purpose of the
Gospel of John is to prove conclusively that Jesus is the Son of God and that
all who believe in Him will have eternal life. Each of the four Gospels has a
different purpose and audience in mind. The other three Gospels, Matthew, Mark,
and Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels. They are called synoptic because
they share similar content, order, and statements.
John is different. As a matter of
fact, over 90% of the Gospel is original. The originality is not just in what
it contains, but also in what it omits. John chooses not to record the genealogy
of Jesus, nor will you find a birth account of Jesus in this Gospel. John
doesn’t talk about the childhood, temptation, or even the transfiguration of
Jesus in spite of being one of only three people to witness it.
It would be tempting to say that
John doesn’t talk about the humanity of Jesus, but the humanity of Christ is
very evident in the Gospel. Look at John, chapter 1, verse 14, “14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his
glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of
grace and truth.” John
chooses an interesting word here in this passage. The Word became “flesh”.
Flesh, not “man”. Even when John is speaking about Jesus taking on human
form, John is still emphasizing the divine nature of Jesus. “We have seen His
glory” is a reference to the transfiguration of Jesus recorded in the synoptics,
and it truly was a magnificent and miraculous event, but John simply makes an
oblique reference to it here. Why do you think that is?
I think it is because John’s Gospel was the
last of the four to be written. It was probably written between 85 and 90 AD.
20 to 30 years after the last of the synoptics were written. I don’t think John
was interested in repeating events of Jesus’ ministry that had been spoken of
by the other Apostles.
Other things have occurred since then that should
be addressed. Think about that. This Gospel would have been written after
the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple by the Roman army. John
would have been aware that the last of Jesus’ prophecies had been fulfilled,
the destruction of the Temple. Something that none of the religious leaders of
that time thought would have been possible.
I also think that is why John does not contain
any of the parables of Jesus. John instead spends his time speaking of the miracles
of Jesus and John lists 8 of them, which John refers to as signs, rather than
miracles. John sees these acts as signs of Jesus’ divinity, power, and
authority as given by God the Father. Of the eight major signs mentioned by
John, six of them are unique to his Gospel. I say eight major signs
because all the commentaries only list eight signs but I think there is at
least one more sign listed in the book.
Turn with me to John 18:6, or page 878 of the
Pew Bible. John 18, 4 to 6 are referring to the arrest of Jesus in the Garden
of Gethsemane. John is the only one who records what happens to the detachment
of soldiers who accompanied the religious leaders who sought to arrest Jesus.
John 18:4 says, “4 Jesus, knowing all
that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, “Who is it you want?”
5 “Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied.
“I am he,” Jesus said. (And Judas the
traitor was standing there with them.) 6 When Jesus said, “I am
he,” they drew back and fell to the ground.” With the words, “I am he” an entire detachment
of soldiers fell to the ground. I fail to see how that isn’t considered a
miracle or a sign of Jesus’ divinity.
Speaking of the words, “I am”. Jesus uses this
phrase 9 other times in very significant ways in the Gospel of John. Ways in
which, Jesus is clearly pointing back to His divine nature. Jesus refers to
himself as the Bread of Life, He says, “I am the Light of the World” twice. “I
am the Gate”. “I am the Good Shepherd”. “I am the Resurrection and the Life”.
Perhaps the most famous, is “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life”. And,
finally, “I am the True Vine”. Watch for each of those passages and the deeper
examinations of each of those statements when we get to them as we progress
through the book.
The final point I’ll make about the purpose of
the book The Gospel of John is the original intended audience. There are two
main theories as to who the audience could have been. The first is those
influenced by Hellenistic thought both believers and non-believers. Hellenistic
thought is still prevalent today and it refers to the influences of Greek
thought and philosophies. Greek writers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle
and the philosophies that grew out of their teachings. We will dive deeper into
that next week when we examine the choice by John of the word “Logos” in next
week’s message.
We can see philosophy interfering with the
Biblical Worldview of certain individuals today such as Dr. Jordan Petersen.
I’ve been watching Dr. Petersen’s faith journey for a few years now and I find
it fascinating and maddening at the same time. I can see how his training in
psychology is interfering with his flat-out acceptance of Jesus as Divine
Saviour and Lord. Dr. Petersen keeps examining and reading the Biblical
accounts through His psychology worldview lens first. Jordan most frequently
explains the biblical record as a “collective record of man’s consciousness”
rather than the “revealed Word of God”. This gives Jordan permission to accept
the things he is comfortable with and reject those things that make him
uncomfortable by relegating them to the musings of man rather than the
teachings of God.
So, those are the Hellenistic thinkers. The
second theory of the original audience is those who were being influenced by the
Judaisers and those who wanted to hang onto the traditions of Judaism while
accepting the teachings of Jesus. We still have this group with us today, we
refer to them as Messianic Jews. They accept Jesus as Saviour while still
maintaining their Jewish heritage and traditions to a greater or lesser extent
depending on the individual.
The relevant fact for both of these audiences
and one of the main things that keeps the Gospel of John so relevant today is
that both new Christians and searching non-Christians find what they are
looking for in this Gospel. Because of His divinity, Jesus is a more acceptable
character in this Gospel. That is why this book is recommended as preferred
reading today for those who have just come to Christ, to help them understand
who Jesus is, and it is equally relevant for those seeking answers to what the
Bible says about Jesus, and what Christianity is all about. Our free little
booklet “The Story That Matters” which we encourage you to hand out is based on
the Gospel of John.
The next point I want us to move onto this
morning is the three main persons who this book revolves around. All four of
the Gospels are indeed biographies of Jesus Christ. They are eyewitness
accounts of the earthly ministry of Jesus of Nazareth while he walked the
earth. They are more than that though. The thing that makes them more than just
biographies or eyewitness accounts, is the fact that they are eyewitness
accounts written at a time when other eyewitnesses were still alive to refute
them. The Gospels are not books that were written 100 or 200 years after Jesus
died when there were no other eyewitnesses available to refute what they had written.
This is an important fact that speaks to the authenticity of these accounts. We
don’t see volume after volume of other books “telling the true story of Jesus
of Nazareth”.
Don’t skip over this too quickly, it is
something that you can use to reinforce your faith and as a point of defence
when someone accuses the Bible of being a book of myths. For example, if I were
to write an autobiography claiming that I was the next Billy Graham and that my
preaching style was so fabulous that I was able to travel around the province selling
out stadiums with people dying to hear me preach. If I was foolish enough to
print that while I was still alive and you were still alive, it would be easy
to refute what I claimed in the book by simply coming and talking with one of
you who could say, “Billy Graham, more like Billy goat. That guy only ever brayed
in front of thirty people at the little country church known as Mountain View”.
It might be a little harsh, but it would be true. You would be the contemporary
eyewitnesses who could refute my claims of stadium-filled glory with the
reality of a country-church sanctuary. We don’t see these types of
counter-claims with the Gospels. I’m not aware of volumes of contemporary books
claiming that Jesus was a fictional character. There are some of those books
out there, but they were written sometime after all the eyewitnesses had died.
So, Jesus is of prime importance in the
Gospels, but so is God the Father. It is dangerous to exclude the other members
of the Trinity when we are reading the Gospels. God the Father is present throughout
the Gospels and it is from the Father and the Holy Spirit that Jesus draws His
authority and strength from which to act while He is engaged in His earthly ministry.
Jesus never acted alone. That is why we see frequent mention of Jesus being
engaged in prayer with the Father. One of the most beautiful examples of this
behaviour is recorded in chapter 17 of the Gospel of John when Jesus is in the
Garden of Gethsemane for the final time and Jesus is praying the High Priestly
Prayer to the Father. Jesus prays first for himself, then for His disciples who
are there in the Garden with him, and finally for all the believers who would
come after Jesus and the 12.
I am looking forward to discovering the beauty
of that prayer with you, especially when we juxtapose that prayer with what the
Romans and religious leaders were about to do to Jesus. So, we see that God the
Father plays a prominent role in the gospel.
I also want us to pay attention to what is
happening to the man John as we progress through his book. I want us to track
how John progressed from fisherman to disciple, to Apostle, to Evangelist, and
finally to author and revelator of God’s Word to God’s people. The Bible traces
a beautiful example for us of the maturing of John in his walk with Jesus. I’m
not saying that we will all evolve into evangelists or revelators of God’s
Word. I doubt any of us will progress to the latter. At least I hope none of us
will start writing a new version of the Book of Revelation, for the canon is
closed and complete, but we should all be maturing and growing in our faith
while we are here on earth. And, we all can share what we are learning with
others.
Our final
point this morning that I wish us to pay attention to as we go through this
book together in the coming weeks is the common climax to all the Gospels: the Payoff:
Man’s reconciliation with God. Our greatest gift and the primary
purpose of Jesus’s earthly ministry is the reconciliation of mankind with God.
Through His patience, long-suffering, and mercy, the Father
has made a way for wicked and rebellious people to come back into a right
relationship and enjoy the benefits of this union with Him. We must never
forget that this is not the case for everyone. The Bible is not universalist in
its teachings. A couple of weeks ago we sang the Hymn, “When We All Get To
Heaven”, friends I must warn you that not “everyone is “getting to Heaven”. The
“All” in that hymn refers only to fellow believers in Jesus Christ.
I know I keep hammering on this
point, but I don’t want us to ever forget that there will be another
destination for those who don’t know Jesus. We cannot afford to sleepwalk
through this world comfortable in our salvation while ignoring the plight of
those around us.
If we were on a plane together
and I knew the plane was about to crash and I had two parachutes and you didn’t
have one, what kind of a person would I be if I didn’t share my parachute with
you? Or, what if while I standing up here looking out over your alert and
smiling faces, I saw a grizzly bear sniffing around the back door beside Robert?
What if I noticed that the bear was beginning to feel trapped and was getting
agitated and looked like he might crash through that door any second? What kind
of person would I be if I didn’t shout out a warning to Robert about the bear?
How loving would I truly be if I just stood up here and thought, “Boy I sure
hope Robert opens his eyes to the danger that is right outside his door”. “I
mean, I’m OK, I’ve got a side door here where I can get outside and to my car
and away before that bear is done with Robert. I’m OK, but he’s hooped if he doesn’t
wake up”. What kind of a friend would I be? How loving am I being really?
So, here’s the scoop. We are
about to learn that some two thousand years ago, Jesus, who was God and is God,
thought that we were important enough for Him to enter into His own Creation
and to add flesh to His Divine Being. Not like putting on a costume or assuming
a meat-puppet, but through a once-in-all-of-Creation event, This Jesus who Was
and is and ever will be God, added human flesh, added humanity to His Divinity.
The Divinity didn’t make Him less than a human being, and His humanity didn’t
make Him less Divine. He was fully god and fully man at the same time.
The really amazing thing about
this event is that Jesus didn’t arrive on clouds with trumpets accompanied by
angels, that’s reserved when He comes back. No, instead Jesus decides to enter
into His own Creation through the womb of a virgin girl in the Palestinian
region of the dry, desert area of the world. An area of the world that was
suffering under the brutal foreign rule of the Roman Empire. An Empire that
dealt with the worst of its criminals by nailing them to a wooden cross stuck
in the ground until they died an excruciating death of asphyxiation. Oh, and
did I mention that they often beat these criminals within an inch of their
lives to hasten the whole process?
This was a terrible end for the
worst of criminals, but how much more unfair and unjust would it be if it were
to happen to an innocent man? Add to that awfulness, what if said man was more
than just innocent, what if he was to have lived a faultless life, never having
wronged or harmed anyone? As a matter of fact, what if he never did anything
but help other people by feeding them, freeing them from demons, and healing
them of physical ailments? What if this innocent man was able to make the lame
walk, restore sight to the blind, bring people, including children, back from
the dead and return them to their loved ones?
What if that guy was nailed to a
Roman Cross? But wait there’s more. What if that innocent, helping, healing guy
had to take the punishment that was due me for my sins? For my sins and your
sins? For our sins and the sins of those who were killing Him that day? For our
sins, and their sins, and the punishment for all the sins of all those who came
before Him and for all those who would come after Him and after us even?
How amazed are you that God
entered into His Creation through the womb of a virgin, lived a perfect and
blameless life, and was tortured, killed, and punished by both men and God so
that we could live a blessed life while we are here on earth and then spend an
eternity with this God in the next life continuing to be blessed?
What would you pay for this privilege?
What if I told you that today, and today only it is a bargain? What if I told
you that I have secured a special deal with the distributor of this product and
today only, we are forgiving the down payment normally required for such a
precious gift and that we have only a few reserved spots left in our payment
plan of 0% interest and no monthly payments.
That’s right friends, you can get
in on this friends and family discount of no down payments, no interest, and no
monthly payments to receive your special gift called Grace which is an eternity
spent in a place with streets of gold and free food and shelter for life.
If you could get all your friends
and family in on this deal, how many would you tell today? I know it sounds too
good to be true, but I have a book full of promises here and a book full of
testimonies and eyewitness accounts proclaiming the authenticity of this deal. Heck,
I even know people who have died trying to tell others about this special
offer. None of our competitors can even come close to our reward program that
we have. If you try one of the other guys, you have to read the small print,
because you are going to have to work forever to get anything close to what I’m
offering for free today.
I know a guy, who knows a guy,
who is willing to take this other guy’s payment for you! Friends, if haven’t
accepted this deal yet, don’t delay, do it today. Sure, it doesn’t mean that
this life will be a bed of roses for you, but you will have someone to help
carry the load when things get tough and if you follow the plan outlined in our
handbook, I guarantee you will see an improvement, or at the very least, a
lessening of your cares.
Don’t fall for the promises of
the imposters, it only leads to lies and heartaches.
Can you think of someone who
could use this Good News?
CONCLUSION
No great illustrations this week
and no pithy quotes. Just a plea from your pastor to go and tell someone the
Good News of the Gospel this week. That is your application for this sermon: share
the Gospel with someone. Come back, heck bring them here with you, in seven days
when we begin to dive into the evangelistic Gospel of John.
I’ll simply close with this Doxology:
24 “The Lord
bless you and keep you;
25 may the Lord
make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
26 may the
Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace."
Go
in peace, you are dismissed.
Please
join us downstairs for coffee and treats.
Pastor
Paul’s Points:
1)
Purpose: To prove that Jesus is the Son of God.
2)
People: Jesus, God, and John the Apostle.
3)
Payoff: Man’s reconciliation with God.
Questions
to meditate on this week:
1. Have I matured in my walk with Jesus?
2. Have I evolved my personal theology
over the years?
3. Am I teachable to what the Bible is
saying to me?
[1]
Robert J. Morgan, Nelson’s Complete
Book of Stories, Illustrations, and Quotes, electronic ed.
(Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2000), 449.
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