495: The Fourth Gospel | Tim Henderson

Introduction

All right, I would like you to please picture an old man. He's around 90 years old, and he's living in Ephesus, which is a coastal town in the Mediterranean Sea. Over the years, all of his friends have died. In fact, they've been killed, martyred, actually. There used to be 12 of them, and the thing that drew them all together was this particular person, the most incredible person they'd ever met. He was their teacher, their rabbi, their leader, their friend. And then one of those 12 betrayed the teacher, and then killed himself. And then the rest of them have basically spent the rest of their lives telling everyone everywhere they meet, everywhere they go, about this unbelievable teacher, this friend. In fact, the fundamental message that they have for everyone everywhere they go is that this man is the savior of the world.

The problem is, as I tell that story, everywhere they go, one by one, they get killed. Originally in that 12, it's shrunk down and down and down to one. And eventually, the political leaders, the religious leaders, just get tired of their incessant obsession to talk about their friend. Some were killed early, including this old man's brother, James. But sure enough, by now, it's been 60 years since they were all together. And he's the only one left. The story is that they had told were usually conveyed verbally, out loud. They would recruit others, just kind of bands of people to travel throughout the Roman Empire to tell the stories about what he had done.

And everywhere they went, people would be intrigued by the stories that they told. And they would start little communities, gatherings of people who were centered around the life and the teachings of this particular person. They'd model their life after it. They itself had been crucified by the Romans who were not incompetent in the art of killing men. Nevertheless, for the first six weeks after his execution, these followers claimed to have seen him multiple times. They said that they saw him with their eyes. They touched him with their hands. They heard him with their ears. They ate with him. They saw him ascend to heaven. But not before, he had promised that he would come back and take them to be with him. That where he was, they would be also.

The Gospel of John and the Testimony of the Witnesses

Some of them had begun to write down the stories that they were telling. There was one guy, actually, he wasn't part of the 12. His name was Luke. And he was a historian, so he interviewed everybody. He interviewed the 12. He interviewed this guy's mom. He just interviewed everybody. And he made this orderly account so that we would know the certainty of the things, the stories that were circulating.

Another one, another account was written by the secretary of the leader of the 12. The leader of the 12 was a guy named Peter, and his secretary was named Mark. And so Mark essentially took notes on all the stories that Peter told and compiled that into an account. And then one more, one of the 12, a guy named Matthew, who was a Jew, he was a tax collector. He himself kept track of everything and recorded all these stories. And so these stories are out there, but they were incomplete. We love these accounts. These are fantastic accounts. These are some of the most translated and most read documents from antiquity. But they left a lot of stuff out, which, to be fair, you would have to leave a lot of stuff out.

Because a number of things that this guy did, the number of things that he said, you couldn't, you could fill the earth with books about him and not capture it all. But so this particular old man, there are rumors spreading that he's never going to die. He's the last one left, and there's this rumor, ridiculous, that he's never going to die. He knows that that's not true. He can feel his own body doing the things that bodies do. And though there were stories in his mind that were indelible of the things that this man did and the things that this man said, he knows that pretty soon those indelible stories in his mind won't exist at all, because he won't be here to tell them.

So he sits down and he begins to write what he's heard, what he has seen, what he's touched, and what he's been reflecting on for like 60 years. He's had a long time to play over and over in his head these miraculous signs that he saw and the things that he's heard. He begins to write them all down. Now he prioritizes, as you might expect him to do, the stories that were not included in Matthew's account and Mark's account and in Luke's account. He brings a whole bunch of unique material that he wouldn't have if he hadn't done so.

His collection is just filled with things that are self-evidently memories, right? So he doesn't just say that this woman broke this jar of perfume, but he remembers that the fragrance of their perfume filled the room. He remembers and comments on the strength of the wind as the waves grew rough. He points out that the tree that Nathaniel was sitting under when he first met their teacher was a fig tree. It's just full, one of the marks of this account is full of all these very personal details. And it's also filled with theological reflection, as you would expect it to be if he's had 60 years to process this and ponder it.

When he writes his account, he never uses his own name, preferring to refer to himself simply as the disciple whom Jesus loved. But long ago, we figured out that the other accounts name all 12 of this circle, and that the only one that's not mentioned in this book is John. And that the author of this account, this gospel, sometimes called the fourth gospel is John, the son of Zebedee and the brother of James, one of the sons of thunder as they were nicknamed. His gospel, the fourth gospel, most usually called the gospel of John, is I think probably the most beloved of all the biographical accounts of Jesus. And it's going to be the focus of our study for the next probably two years.

And the ten years that I've been at Church of the Holy Spirit, I don't think we've done a series that lasted more than eight weeks. So this one's going to go about probably 90 weeks, so get comfy. We are going to be in John for a long, long time. We're going to do it. We're going to have a fantastic time looking at it. As we do, we're going to take a look at this incredibly warm portrait painted by John. All of these insightful theological reflections that John records about this friend, about this particular man, that John could not get past whom John could not get past the fact that he loved him. It's going to be, I think, a really sweet time.

We're going to begin it in earnest next week. Sloop's going to kick us off. We're going to be in John 1-1 and take it from there. I'm not sure how far we'll get. Maybe the first 18 verses, there's so much density in there that Sloop's going to get to unpack. We're just going to start at John 1. We're just going to try to start a series in the beginning and just see what that's like and walk away through it. Again, for the next year or two, we're going to be in John. We want you guys to study it, to know it, to go alongside it with us.

I want to give you an overview today. Some of you, hopefully, did you get one of these when you came in? This is your guide for it. Here's what I want to challenge you to do. We're going to have two ultimate application points. Anybody know how many chapters are in the Gospel of John? What is it, Emmy? 20. Okay, close. One more. 21. That's exactly right. There are 21 chapters in John. Just do the math. You've got a week. You can read three chapters a day. Does that feel attainable to you? Read three chapters a day. You will finish John by Saturday night.

When you show up here and Sloop starts walking us through it, you'll be ready to go. You'll have it all loaded into your mind and then maybe read it a whole bunch more over the next year or so. We really want to get after it. When we do, I hope that you might refer to this document. I made this actually for Sunday school, like a year ago, and then just kind of recycled it for this.

The reason I made this in the first place is the next time, or it might be the first time you read John's Gospel, I would love it to be more like the tenth time, because you just kind of know certain things to look for. You're kind of a clued angel. This is where we're going to go. These are some of the key things. I want you to have some of these Easter eggs pointed out that you can find them and savor them. I'm going to give you a handful of things this morning so we kind of get a big picture overview, and then next week we'll just start marching through it.

The Structure of John's Gospel

Here's the first thing. John's Gospel, almost any commentary is going to tell you this. It splits in half into what we call two books. The book of signs and then the book of glory. The book of signs is the first 11 chapters. The book of glory is chapters 12 through 21.

In the book of signs, John uses the word "sign" in reference to what? What is sign a code for in John's Gospel? Miracle, okay? And that's because miracles are not just events, they're messages. They signify something. They mean something. What's the first sign in John? It's in John chapter two. Water to wine, okay? It begins with the first sign, and then there's going to be seven of them. And that's significant because John loves the number seven. John also wrote Revelation. Revelation maybe is more obviously full of sevens, but John likes to package things with a sense of completeness. Seven is the number of completion, and so he's going to have seven signs, but only six of them are in the book of signs. One of them he saves to the very, very end, okay? You guys can work out why that is here. The seventh sign, we'll see what it is, but does anybody know what the sixth is? What is the final, the greatest, the climactic sign in the first half of the book? Anybody know? It's John chapter 11. What is it? Did I hear it? Resurrection of Lazarus, okay?

So we're going to work away from turning water into wine, which frankly I can't do that, but we're going to get even more impressive all the way to the resurrection of Lazarus. And the resurrection of Lazarus is simultaneously two things. It is the greatest thing that happens in the first half of the book, the most astonishing, the most significant, the most like world-shattering thing, but it is also, what is it? It's the foreshadow of the seventh and really greatest signs, right? The book is designed that that last thing that happens in the first half is setting us up for the last thing that's going to happen in the whole book, which is even greater than the resurrection of Lazarus. It is the resurrection of Christ. He's building the case to prepare us for the enormity of this most central thing that's ever happened in human history, okay? So that's how that ends. And then he jumps into the book of glory. I'll come back to the book of glory in a minute. I want to stay on the seventh thing for a minute because John has lots of sevens. It's not just that there are seven signs. There are seven IMs. And when I say there are seven IMs, what I mean is seven times Jesus says in John's gospel, I am. And that's incredibly meaningful more than it might be initially.

Probably the most jarring because it's the one the translators clean up the least. Usually the translators will kind of like smooth it over, which is silly. They should just leave it raw. But in John 8, at least they left it raw. There's this moment where Jesus is engaging with the Pharisees. They're fighting with them. And he had claimed that he himself was Abraham's joy. He said, "Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day." He saw it and was glad. And they're like, what are you talking about? You're not even 50 years old. And Jesus responds and he says, I tell you the truth. Before Abraham was born, I am. And what looks like bad grammar is actually good theology. More properly he should have said before Abraham was born, I was if all that he was trying to convey is that I'm a lot older than 50. Like I've been around since the beginning of time. As John is going to say in John 1-1, in the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was God.

Here in this moment Jesus is not only referring to that. His origins are from old to ancient times, but more significantly he is claiming to be God. See in Exodus 3, God revealed his name to Moses. He's telling Moses, go to Pharaoh. Do you remember this whole scene? Go talk to Pharaoh. Tell him to knock it off. Tell him to let my people go. Moses is afraid. He doesn't want to go. And so he's like, what do I say? What do I say? Who sent me? What do I say? And God's response to him is, you tell him that I am sent you. And he reveals his name. That gets translated in English usually as to all caps L-O-R-D. But really what it says in Hebrew is Yahweh, which means I am. And so when Jesus says before Abraham was born, I am. That's one of the seven times that he's taking the name of Yahweh and pinning it on his own chest. He's claiming to be God.

Not only that, but John has him seven times, a different version of I am. Seven times in John's Gospel Jesus will say, I am blank. What are some of those blanks? I am, I am the door or the gate for the sheep. I am the bread of life. I am the resurrection in the life. What are we missing? I am the true vine. I heard that. There's another one. What did I miss? Somebody? The gate, we said the gate for the sheep, the door. I'm the good shepherd. I am the bread of life. I'm the gate for the sheep. I'm all these things. Okay? Now, here's what's kind of interesting about this. If I were to ever stand on this stage, and Mary Beth, listen to me, I am the light of the world. What would you do? No, you're not. That's a good thing. What I would suggest you do is leave and find a better dish. Okay? What do you think he meant? I'm the good shepherd. I'm the bread of life. I'm the gate for the sheep. I'm all these things. You guys, it's an absurd set of things for a person to say, unless it's true. Have you guys been on 81 lately? Have you seen this? Have you seen this guy? These are all up and down the highway. Jesus is not God. Well, actually he is, but let's talk about that for a minute.

Nobody could say the things that Jesus said, unless he means that he's God. This is a central thing. One of John's primary purposes here is to persuade us of who Jesus is, to convince us that he is in fact God. But maybe you don't believe it. Maybe you don't. Well, if you don't, if you're like, you know, I'm not sure that he is. You're allowed, I mean, I guess, to deny that Jesus is God, but you do so at your own risk. But here's the thing. If you deny that Jesus claimed to be God, you're just being intellectually dishonest. It's just not, it's not possible to read these accounts, in particular, John's, but it's evident for Matthew, Mark, and Luke, as well as in John, although it's kind of John's primary, one of John's primary purposes is to persuade you of this. And once you grant that Jesus claimed to be God, your options are severely constrained, okay?

There was an argument that actually Augustine made in like the 300s that Lewis popularized in the 50s. I want to present this to you in a slightly different way, just a little bit more of a logical kind of frame, so you can see how inescapable this is. Take a look at this. So Jesus claims to be God. He says it. I am God. Now, logically you guys, there's only two possibilities. Either that statement is true or it's not true. That's the whole map. It's only that. If it is true, if he claims to be God, and he is, well, then he is the Lord. And you should bend the knee. Whether you like it or not, he's the king of all things and you should worship him, you owe him your life, and maybe just maybe you'll come to find on the way that he loves you, that he is a gracious God, that he's kind of compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love.

Or here's the other possibility. He says he's God. He's not, well, if he's not God, but he claimed he was, now again, there's really only two options. Either he knows that he's not or he doesn't know that he's not. He claims to be God. He's not, and he knows it. If that's the case, then he has perpetrated the greatest scam in the history of the world. He is unquestioningly the greatest con man who has ever lived, and billions of people have lived and died believing alive, because he is a liar. Or, or he claimed to be God. He's not, but he really thinks he is. He has, I don't know, he's schizophrenic. He's crazy. He is not just egotistical. Like, you know, if I think that I'm the greatest athlete in the world, okay, that's delusional, but it's not necessarily that I'm completely, you know, is arrogant. Your arrogance gets better and better until the point that it kind of goes off a cliff.

If he claims to be God, but he's not, and he doesn't know it, he really thinks he is, then he's a lunatic. And this is the map. He is the Lord. He is a liar. He is a lunatic. That's the whole opposite. That's everything. You have no option beyond that. Most people that don't want to accept him as the Lord, they're too polite to call him a liar, and they just can't make sense if it's a lunatic creating the greatest moralistic framework the world has ever seen. They say, well, I think he was just a good moral teacher. But you guys, it's not an option. That's what C.S. Lewis calls patronizing nonsense that he was, and you can throw that up there too, that he's not just a good teacher. Cross it out. Because that's not an option. Your options are constrained. He is either the Lord, or he is a liar, or he's a lunatic. Pick one of those. I vote Lord for reasons that we'll see as we study through this book.

The Structure and Focus of John's Gospel

Lots of sevens, lots of these sevens direct us to the IMs, to his claims to deity, to the things that he does to back up those claims. Very briefly though, the second, oh, the timer didn't get started, so we're here forever. Also, that's how long it takes me to actually notice that the timer wasn't started.

The book of glory is the second half. So the book of signs, chapters 1 through 11, you'll get through that. By chapter 12, you get into the book of glory. Most of that is the last night. All of it is the last week. It begins basically with like, what do we call it? Palm Sunday with Jesus coming in, right? We're going to have the last night in John 13 where he washes the disciples' feet. All of this stuff, what John is doing is that last week was so important, this stuff that happened in those seven days. We get about three years with the content, but half of it is seven days and the majority of that is the last 24 hours when everything happens. His death, his resurrection, but what John really loves to focus on in that whole section is what we call the upper room discourse. This last night, this extended conversation that Jesus had with the 12 up in this room; we get to listen to the most intimate prayer, maybe ever prayed by anybody. We get to see here is teaching on the Holy Spirit, all kinds of stuff. So we won't get there for like a year, but when we do this, it's going to be a lot of gold, okay?

Belief as the Central Theme

Final thing that I want to mention is John's favorite word. Do you know what it is? Do you know what John likes to, the term he loves to use over and over and over and over through this letter, through this book? Do you know? It is? Open up your notes and look at this bread there in the middle. What's his favorite word? I think it's 84 times that John is going to talk about believing. Sometimes it's translated as trust, but it's always the same Greek word as believe. I'm just going to read you a sample. This is a fraction of the number of the 84 times. It would take a long time to read all 84. This is still going to feel excessive, and I'm doing that on purpose.

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. — John 1:12

But everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave us one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. — John 3:15-16

But whoever rejects the son will not see life. For God's wrath remains on him. — John 3:36

If you believed Moses you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say? — John 5:46-47

The work of God is this: to believe in the one whom he has sent. I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. — John 6:29

Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. — John 7:38

Then the man said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshipped him. — John 9:38

I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies. — John 11:25

When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. — John 12:44

Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. — John 20:29

But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. — John 20:31

And then finally for our purposes this morning, John 20:31, this is what Bob read to us earlier:

But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

This last one tells us why John wrote this account. He was an old man. He was dying. All of his friends were dead. There were three accounts circulating telling the stories about Jesus, but not all the stories. In fact, not some of his favorite stories. So he sat down and he wrote them out. So that long after he was gone, you could hear the stories. So that you could believe. And that as you believe, you could have a life in his name.

Application

Now I want you to think about two different people that John meant when he said you. These are written that you may believe. The first is you. If you're here right now, you are someone who is in the process of coming to trust that Jesus told the truth. In the process of coming to believe that he could do what he promised. That he will do what he promised. Now maybe some of you would say what some of his earliest followers said, "Lord, I believe help me in my unbelief." Maybe you've believed him for a long time, but some things have happened lately that stretch your ability to believe to the breaking point. I hope that you will keep coming every week and that you will both discover and experience reasons to keep trusting him because life is found when we trust him.

But the second you is the person who is not currently in this room, but will be if you will simply invite them. Because not a lot of people get invited to church, but many of the people who do get invited to church come. I hope that there have been Sundays that you're sitting in this room and you're enjoying the community, you're learning from the teaching, you're worshiping God with the body and you think to yourself, "Oh gosh, I wish so-and-so were here this week." Our commitment to you is to make every Sunday that kind of a Sunday that any week that you invite your friends and any week they come that you will be glad they are here.

Luke and I are going to do the majority of the teaching through the Gospel of John. Every once in a while, we'll sprinkle in some special guests that we trust, that we think will do a fantastic job. But every single week as we prepare these messages in John, we will be thinking about you and your friends. Your friends that are not in the room right now but that will come if you invite them. We will be thinking about how to explain to you and to them this book in a way that will make sense. We want to help this thing pop. We want you to see all these stories that John wanted us to know so that you will know them so that your friends can know them.

And I hope my request to you is this: will you trust us? Will you trust that we are going to work on these messages? We're going to frame this experience in such a way that if your friends come, you will be glad that they are here. We are begging you to invite your friends. Come with us. Worship with us. And bring your friends along so that they too can believe that Jesus is the Christ and that believing they will find life in his name. Because, you guys, that's the whole game. That's everything.

If you get him, if they get him, if we get him together, we get everything. And we get it forever. Did you notice how many times in that little sample how many times believing is linked to living forever? And how absolutely dreadful it is for those who don't believe.

Conclusion

Two applications. Number one, 21 chapters in seven days. Three chapters a day. Read through it. Come back next week. We'll kick it off in John 1 and you'll have this whole thing freshly loaded into your brain. If you picked up the audio Bible and talked about when we did Philippians, you can listen to it. That would be great too. Whatever you want, just get it in your head that the stories that John is telling will be kind of coursing through our collective consciousness.

Number two, invite your friends. Let's bring them in that they might hear how great Jesus is. We will be soaking in these reflections of an old man who had an incredible friend whom he wanted you and your friends to know all about.

By the way, that old man is not the only one that Jesus loved. He loves you and he gave himself for you. Join us for the next two years as we get to know him better. Amen.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, you are the center of this story. You are the center of all things. In you, all things hold together. And we love you. Lord, I pray that you might join us here in a particular way. As we study this book, as we read these stories, as we memorize parts of it, as we reflect on it, that you would come alive to us in its pages—that we would see you. We would ponder these signs and the things that you said.

Lord, I pray that you would give us the courage and the grace and the love and the wisdom and the tact and the perseverance, the concern to invite our friends to join us. And you would be gracious that this year, these next couple years, that lots and lots and lots of people would come to believe that you are the Christ and that believing they would have life in your name. Please give us a front row seat as it happens, that we would see lives be changed because men and women meet you, because children meet you, and you turn everything in their lives upside down. We love you.