Sunday School | John Part I

I have been looking forward to this one for a long time, so come on in. Welcome. You're gonna need a copy of these notes on the gospel of John. Does anybody? Ray's got them passing them out here. Dan's got them up here. Folks back in the corner, guys. So you're gonna wanna grab one of these.

Oh, and I always forget. I don't know why I always forget this. Joe, could I ask you to do me a favor? Could you just run into that closet and grab that accordion folder that you'll find on the table there?

You guys, if you haven't been here or if you've kind of been in and out, we're about halfway through a series of summaries on the books of the New Testament. So we're taking one book a week, and we're talking about what is that, what's the big argument? What's the main things to look for in that book?

The Purpose of This Series

The reason we're doing it is that we really want to encourage you and help you to read these books and understand them. My goal is in giving you these sheets and having these conversations to make it so the next time you read John, it's more like the fifth or sixth time you've read John because you've learned a bunch of stuff that you're looking for and recognizing as you go through. The goal here is not just to give you the summary so you don't have to read it, but to give you the summary so that as you read it, it'll come forward and be alive to you in richer and more accessible ways.

Typically, we do one book a week. We'll do First Corinthians one week or Second Peter in one week. We gave two weeks to Romans because it's the most important thing that's ever been written. We're going to give two weeks to John because it's second only to Romans. I love this book. It's incredibly important.

Today's Plan

My goal here is that today we're gonna walk through John's gospel, and then hopefully many of you will read it this week. And if you haven't been in the habit or you have been in the habit, wherever you're at, you could read John this week. It's 21 chapters. And so you could read 21 chapters in seven days at the low, low rate of three chapters a day. Then we're gonna talk about John again next week. We'll cover some of the stuff here in this summary that we have. And then you guys can read it over the week, and then we're gonna do it again. We're gonna have a John sandwich. Next week I'll have a few more things that I would like to share, but I'm really gonna be interested next week to hear what you noticed as you read it yourself this week. We'll share a few more insights.

Before I walk you through the way that I would frame it and the things that I would think would be useful to look for, I'd love to hear from you guys. What are some of your favorite things about John or the most important insights about John or things you've noticed?

From the Audience: John's Opening

Gil: In the beginning.

Okay. So John's prologue is deeply loved. He begins with the words "in the beginning," which is a very obvious homage to creation. It's Genesis. Genesis 1:1 begins:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

And John begins:

In the beginning was the Word.

Was the word. And the word was with God, and the word was God. It was with God in the beginning.

That opening couple of paragraphs of John, we call it the prologue. It's brilliant and it's poetic, and he's peering through all of time. Other gospels begin their story at Jesus' birth, but John does not include a birth narrative for Jesus. He starts his story. He anchors his story before the beginning of time. In the beginning was the word. That's Jesus. He's talking about Jesus, the logos. He was with God and he was God. So John is not content to anchor this thing at Christmas. He's anchoring it before the foundations of the world.

Jesus Is God

Other big things from John that you remember or that you love?

Chris: About Christ being God.

Okay. So Chris says that Jesus is God. This is absolutely the case. Each of the four gospels has a particular portrait that they're trying to paint of Christ. Matthew shows Christ as king. Mark shows Christ as servant. Luke shows Jesus as a human being. And John, unmistakably, his primary focus here is that Jesus is God. We're gonna talk about that a lot this morning. I'm not sure if we even get past that. John is very interested in persuading us that Jesus is God. Absolutely.

Jennifer: John 3:16.

Okay. That's probably the most famous verse in the Bible, most well known, most well quoted verse, and there's a reason. I'll explain to you why I think it's so quoted.

It's John 3:16. Who has John 3:16 memorized? Probably the most memorized verse in the Bible, right?

God so loved the world, the gift of his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. — John 3:16

It's super, super well known. It is one of the most apt little pithy summaries of the gospel message for sure.

What are your big takeaways from John? Suzanne? John's relationship with Christ. Yeah, what do you know about that? A loving relationship.

The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved

We call this the gospel of John, but John never identifies himself in this gospel. He's never mentioned in this gospel by name. Instead, whenever he refers to himself, he always calls himself "the disciple whom Jesus loved," which we have concluded he's talking about himself. And it's funny because at some point in my own journey through the scriptures, that struck me as a little bit cocky. You know, like those buttons that say, "Jesus loves you, but I'm his favorite." That's kind of the vibe of John—that it's a flex that he is the one that Jesus loves.

But I don't think that anymore. If I asked most of you to tell me about yourself, you would say, "Well, I work at such and such a place," or "I have thus and many kids," or "This is my spouse." You have some sense of yourself based on your family or your job. But if you ask John about John, he'd tell you about Jesus. What's important about you? What would you like me to know about you? And John's reflective response is: Jesus loves me. It is the centerpiece of his identity—that he is loved by this person who really was his best friend.

Jesus had all of humanity, but then he had this particular twelve. And then within the twelve, there was this particular three: Peter, James, and John. John is one of that inner circle. And he just could never get over the fact that Jesus picked him, that he loved him. So he writes from an incredible posture of warmth and affection toward Jesus.

I do notice that the phrase "the disciple whom Jesus loved" doesn't occur in the first half of the book. The book divides in two halves, and Lazarus's death is the climax of act one. The phrase only occurs in the second half of the book. John is one of the sons of Zebedee—his brother is James. James and John are brothers. And then Lazarus is the brother of Mary and Martha. So they're different people.

John's Purpose in Writing

John is always very explicit in what he's doing. He wrote five books in the New Testament. There's the gospel—the biography of Jesus—then three letters: First, Second, and Third John, which he wrote to the early church. And then Revelation.

When John writes First John, he says:

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know you have eternal life. — 1 John

He's telling you exactly why he wrote the book.

In John's gospel, he does the exact same thing. It's at the very end of chapter 20. John is explicit in his purpose for writing:

Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 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 20:30-31

He's very, very straightforward.

This is what I'm doing. I'm writing you a persuasive paper so that you will become convinced that my best friend is Messiah and God so that you will believe in him and be able to live forever. So let's get going. That's what the whole letter is. He's trying to write a persuasive case, and we'll unpack some of those elements here as we go through.

One more thing, and then we'll get started. I'll tell you some of the stuff I want you to see. The fact that it's the latest gospel, written about fifty years after Christ's ministry, seems significant. Who's gonna scrape off that hasn't already been reflecting on the new church?

That's true. We generally understand that John is probably the last living member of the twelve disciples, and his gospel is later. Matthew, Mark, and Luke were all earlier. If you read Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they all have remarkable similarity. We call them the synoptics—s-y-n-o-p-t-i-c-s—meaning that they look the same. They have the same vantage point. John is radically different from the others. Very different stories that he tells, very different ways that it's organized.

Generally, the understanding is that as John knows his life is drawing to an end, he wanted to record the stories about his dearest friend that weren't known in the other gospels. He's writing almost certainly conscious of the synoptics but wanting to bring this other information that he knew, that he had experienced, that was true, but that wasn't captured in those other accounts. So it's a very personal and reflective account. It's later. Matthew is a little more didactic about what happened. John is writing after probably years of reflection on what he had seen and experienced. So it's a little more developed theologically.

Robin points out that at the end of Luke—Luke 24—there's this Emmaus walk where Jesus is walking with some second-tier disciples. It says that to them he explained all that was written in the law and the prophets concerning himself. It's this moment where Jesus is explaining how all the scriptures pointed to him. And John is very interested in that same theme.

In fact, in John 5, Jesus says:

You diligently study the scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the scriptures that testify about me.

John understands that Jesus knows the whole book is about him. And John, like all the gospel writers, is deeply interested in persuading us that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Jewish prophecies. He is the one who has come. Although John is drawing from the Jewish prophecies—and Jesus is, of course, a Jewish person and goes to Jewish festivals and feasts and celebrations—John has a very universal appeal. He's not writing just to a Jewish audience like Matthew. John is really writing to a much broader audience.

The Seven "I Am" Statements

So let's go through it. There are a couple of things I want you to see. I don't know if we might get past the front page this morning. We'll see. But in John's gospel, he loves the number seven. He keeps doing things seven times. Do you guys know why that would be? Seven is always a number of completion. There are seven days in creation. The number seven is often used symbolically. He keeps putting things in sets of seven. Among the things that he does in sets of seven is the number of times Jesus says, "I am." This is an interesting thing. There are actually two different sets of seven "I ams" in John's gospel. As you read through, just watch for them, but you're gonna have to watch like a hawk because the translators, bless their hearts, they try to clean it up.

Here's what's going on: In Exodus 3, when Moses is getting called to go stand before Pharaoh, he's like, "Well, what do I tell him? If Pharaoh asks me who sent me, what do I say?" And God says, "You tell him that I am sent you." When he says that word "I am," it's in Hebrew—it's YHWH. It's transliterated as Y-H-W-H. And it is the covenant name of God. God reveals in Exodus 3 that this is who he is.

He's like, "I am who I am. I am who I say I am. I am." And Yahweh becomes YHWH—I am—becomes the Jewish understanding of the very name of God. God has lots of names. He is Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides. He is Elohim, the God who sees. He's got all these names. But the namiest name of all the names is Yahweh.

Now that word Yahweh, when it gets transliterated or translated into Greek in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, it uses a word that simply means "I am." And John has Jesus say "I am"—period—seven times in his gospel. The problem is, he often will say it in ways that are grammatically awkward. And so when he does, translators have a tendency to try to make this flow in English, and sometimes they'll translate it a little bit differently than "I am."

But maybe the most famous and maybe the most important would be the one in John chapter eight. If you have a Bible, go to John eight, and I'll show you one of these. I've listed them all, so you can as you read through your Bibles, you read through John, you can look for these. But this one in John eight is probably the most pointed and the most obvious, and it's one that the translators tend to not clean up, which I really appreciate.

We'll pick it up in John eight, verse fifty-two:

At this, the Jews exclaimed, "Now we know that you're demon possessed. They're saying this to Jesus. Bad idea. Abraham died and so did the prophets. Yet you say that if anyone keeps your word, he will never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?"

And Jesus replied, "If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. Though you do not know him, I know him. And if I said I did not, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him, and I keep his word.

Your father, Abraham, rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day. He saw it and was glad." — John 8:52-56

And in verse fifty-seven, they say, "You're not fifty years old, and you have seen Abraham?"

And Jesus answers, "I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I am." — John 8:58

Now, grammatically, that's weird. He should have said, "Before Abraham was born, I was." If all he's trying to say is that he's existed before Abraham, then properly he should have said, "Before Abraham was born, I was." He should simply say, "Hey, I existed before Abraham, so everybody calm down." But that wouldn't calm them down. But he doesn't say, "Before Abraham was born, I was." He says, "Before Abraham was born, I am."

This is one of the seven instances where Jesus is taking the covenant name of God as Yahweh and saying, "That is me. I am the I Am. Before Abraham was born, I am." And they knew exactly what he meant because look at their response to it:

At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. — John 8:58-59

Why specifically did they pick up rocks to stone him? Blasphemy. It was blasphemy. What was blasphemous about that? To claim to be God. They perfectly understood what he was saying.

When he says "I am," it's not just that he's got bad grammar. He is intentionally claiming to be. There's a whole bunch of these. When he says, "I who speak to you, am he." When he says, "I who speak to you, I am." Same thing as when he says, "It is I, don't be afraid." That's not really what he said. What he said is, "I am, don't be afraid." Seven times. And John is pointing out over and over and over again that Jesus is claiming to be God.

Jesus' Claim to Divinity

Some people have really questioned—in fact, it's one of the massive questions in world history—not only is Jesus God, but did Jesus really even think he was God? Did he claim to be God? When I was a younger Christian, I thought that was a reasonable question. Well, did he or didn't he? And today, I'm like, what do you think he was saying? It is the most obvious thing in the world. Yes, Jesus Christ of Nazareth absolutely thought he was God without question.

Now C.S. Lewis does something fascinating with this. He's actually borrowing from Augustine. But he says, basically, when Jesus claims to be God, there's only two options. Either he was or he wasn't. And if he was, then he is, and bend the knee. If he wasn't, then either he didn't know it or he did know it. Meaning, either he knew he wasn't God and he was lying, or he didn't know he wasn't God because he was crazy.

And that's the whole map. He is Lord. He is Liar. He is Lunatic. Pick. That's the whole menu. This man absolutely claimed to be God.

He says over and over and over again, Yahweh Yahweh Yahweh Yahweh. That's what he's doing. And that's not the only case. We'll look at other things. My favorite version though of all the seven times, and he just drops Yahweh, best one I think the most clear and maybe the most important, is in John 8 when he says "before Abraham was born, I am." But the best one is in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Grab your Bibles, flip back here, and let's see. Go up to chapter 18 and watch this. This is so brilliant. In John 18, verse 2, we're in the Garden of Gethsemane. He's about to be crucified. He's about to be arrested. And in ways that are very surprising, he surrenders to it. They come with clubs. It's crazy that you think you don't need a club because he's going to go voluntarily. But if you did need a club, you would need a lot more than a club.

Now Judas, had betrayed him, knew the place because Jesus had often met there with his disciples. And so Judas came to the grove guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and the Pharisees. They were carrying torches and lanterns and weapons. Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked him, "Who is it that you want?" "Jesus of Nazareth," they replied. "I am," Jesus said. And Judas the traitor was standing there with him. — John 18:2-5

And do you know what happens? They hit the ground.

When Jesus said, "I am," they drew back and fell to the ground. — John 18:6

Do you realize what's happening here? They come to get him. There's a bunch of soldiers with torches and swords and clubs, and then there's Jesus wearing a robe. He says, "Who are you looking for?" And they say Jesus. And he just pulls back the veil. This is like Superman unbuttoning his shirt. And he says, Yahweh. And as soon as he pulls back the curtain, they fall to the ground.

It's a very strange response. Why did they fall? All he said was "I am." But as soon as he reveals it, something happened there more than just the words. It was the revelation of the eternal God. And when it happens, they hit the ground. At which point, Jesus rather cheekily says, "I'm sorry. Who was it you were looking for?" And again, he asked them, "Who do you want?" And they said, "Jesus of Nazareth." And this time, he's a little kinder. And he says, "I told you that I am he. If you're looking for me, then let these men go."

Isn't that incredible? When they fall down, it's because it's not just the words "I am." It is the revelation of his person. He is Yahweh.

The Seven "I Am" Statements

That happens seven times. As you walk through John, I've got them all listed here. Watch for this. There's not only the seven "I am" periods, but there's also seven "I am this"—"I am the." What are the other seven things that Jesus says, "I am the"? Let's try to make a list.

I am the light of the world. I am the door or the gate for the sheep. I am the way, the truth, the life. Bread of life. I am the bread of life. True vine. I am the true vine. What are we missing? Shepherd. I am the good shepherd. There's the good shepherd and the gate for the sheep. There's the way, truth, and life. I think there's one more that we haven't hit. I am the living water. I am the resurrection.

Look at your list here:

• I am the bread of life
• I am the light of the world
• I am the gate for the sheep
• I am the good shepherd
• I am the resurrection of life
• I am the way, truth, and life
• I am the true vine

Did Jesus claim to be God? Look at this list. What do you think he meant? Would Susan McQuade ever stand up on this table and say, "I am the light of the world"? And if she did, what would you think of her? If she were to say, "You need to eat my flesh and drink my blood or you'll have no life in you." If she were to stand up and say, "I am the good shepherd," and you are mindful of what the Bible, what the Old Testament says about the good shepherd. If she were to stand up and say, "I'm the bread of life." Come on. What do you think he meant?

There's the "I am" Yahweh, but there's also this outrageous self identity. He is the superlative of all things. He is the highest point.

And John's point in all of these things is to build a case to persuade us, to make us believe that it's true, that he really is the light of the world. The light of the world. The only hope of anything.

I used to think that when I'd hear the question "Did Jesus really claim to be God?" the answer was yes, but I thought it was a reasonable question. I no longer think it's a reasonable question.

The other huge question about Jesus is: Is he really the only way? Is he really unique? Is he really particular? Mightn't there also be other ways that we can come into a relationship with God? And the longer that I've walked with him and studied his word and pondered on these things, that question strikes me as more and more absurd as well.

If you think that there are alternatives to Jesus, who do you propose? Who is his rival? Like, literally, who would you even run against him? Who can contend with the light of the world, the bread of life, the way, the truth, and the life, the good shepherd, the gate for us sheep? Who else lived such an extraordinary life, showed such unimaginable compassion under the most extreme conditions? Who else voluntarily surrendered to death? Who else conquered death, came back to life? Who else, having conquered and reigned over all things, comes to reign in kindness and gentleness and brilliance and wisdom? Who do you propose? What is he lacking that anyone could possibly vie with him for the position of savior of all things?

This is what John is trying to say. He wants to persuade you. He wants you to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, which John means as a claim to deity. This whole book is designed for that. So as you read through it this week, watch for those things.

The Seven "I Ams," Seven Titles, and Seven Signs

One more thing—actually, two more things—on the front. Titles. John gives seven "I ams," and he gives seven titles. If you read through the prologue that Gil mentioned, look at all the things that John specifically has Jesus identified as: the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the son of God, rabbi (also translated as teacher), Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, the king of Israel, the son of man. We could build up a case of what the implications of each of these are. He's offering us a fully orbed vision of who he is.

And then the final thing on this front page that I want you to get is the seven signs. Now, we don't usually use the word "sign." When John says sign, what does he mean? Miracles. That's what he means.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke have plenty of miracles, plenty of healing. So tell me, what are some of the most famous healings or miracles in Matthew, Mark, and Luke?

A man born blind. Okay, very good. But wait—you're giving me things out of John. Go with Matthew, Mark, and Luke first, and then we'll come back to John's.

Feeding 5,000. Sure, that's still going to show up in John too. You all are stuck in your John framework. What else?

Walking on water. Okay, there we go. That's a non-John miracle. Walking on water. Healing the lepers. Yes, we saw that just last week in Matthew 8, I think. Very good. Raising a little girl from the dead. A paralytic—they put down through the roof in Matthew 4, maybe. All of that.

Okay, you've got a bunch of these. But John excludes all of those. He doesn't talk about any of those things. He gives you seven—exactly seven—miracles in John's gospel. That's it. But he doesn't call them miracles. He calls them signs.

The first two, he explicitly identifies as signs, and then he kind of tapers off on that language until we get to the very end of the book. What's the very first sign according to John? At Cana. In John 2, he turns water into wine. John is very explicit and says:

This, the first of his miraculous signs Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory and his disciples put their faith in him. — John 2:11

Why does John call the miracles signs? They're pointing. They're proof. What is the essence of a sign? It's directional. It conveys information. They're not just things that happened. They weren't just compassionate acts, but they were meaningful. You have to remember, John, through the whole book, he's trying to persuade you. He wants you to believe so you believe in him so you get to live forever. That's the plan of this whole thing.

So he sees John heal—making water to wine, which the other synoptics didn't mention. He's like, this is where it starts. And so the case begins to build. Right? And if you look here, I've got listed for you all seven of John's signs.

Number one, the turning of water into wine. Number two, he heals a man's son. Number three, he heals a paralytic. Number four is the feeding of the 5,000. Number five is John 9. I love the John 9 passage—that'd be a good one to linger on—when he heals the man born blind. That's the guy that's super, super sassy. Right? And then number six is the climax.

The Structure of John's Gospel

This is an important thing to understand. When you read John's gospel, it's 21 chapters total. You could read it three chapters a day—that'd be a great idea. You could sit down and read it in a single setting, also not a bad idea. You could also read it in two chunks. If you read it in two chunks, stop at the end of chapter 11 because it really is the natural division of the book.

What we call the first half—the first 11 chapters of John—is the book of signs because all of the miracles, save one, are front loaded. It's John 1 through 11. All of these signs occur here.

And what's the final sign? What happens in John 11? It's Lazarus. It's the raising of Lazarus.

So we're gonna see him do all these things—turning water into wine is a pretty good trick, raising a man's son, giving sight to the blind. All these things are good. But the climactic action at the very end of the book of signs is the raising of Lazarus from the dead. And this has at least two purposes.

Number one, it's a pretty good finale for the end of act one—it's like, and Lazarus lives. As you walk through these signs, the story is getting better and richer and more astonishing. You have this question: Who is this guy? The question about Jesus' identity is foremost in John's mind. And in fact, you really see that in John 9 when he heals the man born blind.

When you read through that story, watch this: the way the whole thing is organized, this entire event is supposed to spark a controversy about the identity of Jesus. He's not just showing compassion to this man; he's showing compassion to this man at a particular time, in a particular place, in a particular way, so that there will be a buzz. Who is this guy? The whole thing is designed to ask: Who is this man? What do you say? What do you think about him? And the conclusion is that John, the blind guy, is like, what do you think? I was blind my whole life, and now I can see. Does that give you any clue? There's this case around his identity.

By the time he gets to chapter 11 and he raises the dead, now everybody is on their heels. Who is this guy? What can make possible sense of this? So it is the climactic moment in the book of signs.

But then what else is it? Lazarus' resurrection foreshadows the greatest sign, which is going to be his own resurrection from the dead. Lazarus died. Lazarus was raised. Lazarus is dead again. Jesus died. Jesus was raised, and he will never die again. Jesus' resurrection is a better resurrection.

To a certain extent, Lazarus' resurrection is more like resuscitation. His heart stops, and he comes back to life, and it's a big deal. I don't mean to undersell it, but it is not as great as what Jesus is going to do.

So Lazarus, at chapter 11, you read through the book, you get to this thing, it's like, oh my gosh, what's going on here? And it lingers in your mind. It leaves this taste in your mouth that he can raise the dead, and then no more miracles until he raises himself from the dead to reign forevermore over the cosmos. You follow the literary structure, this big thing, and it just explodes at the end. That's what John is doing.

The Cost of the Miracles

Kelly's pointing out something important: the resurrection of Lazarus is kind of the set in stone point for the death of Jesus. Because he raised Lazarus, the Jews and Pharisees really start to go after putting Jesus to death. That's right.

So what Kelly is pointing out is there's this common event, and this is true in the other synoptics as well, but what all of the authors point out is that every time Jesus does a miracle, it causes some people to say, man, this guy's amazing. And it causes other people to say, man, we gotta kill this guy.

Right? So when he raises Lazarus from the dead in John's gospel, that tears it. Like, enough's enough. Like, I don't know what this guy's next trick is gonna be, but we're gonna kill him before he does it. Right? So you'll see a similar feature. Jesus heals a leper and makes people mad. Jesus heals a man with a shriveled hand and makes people mad. Everything he does hastens his own death. But as John tells the story, when he raises Lazarus from the dead, people are like, of course, what are we going to do now? We have to kill him. He's getting way, way, way out of hand. Okay? Make sense? You with me on all that? Okay.

So when you walk through and watch—you're reading through the book of signs all through the first half, climax with Lazarus being raised, foreshadowing Jesus' resurrection. And then the second half of the book we call it the book of glory. You have the book of signs, then you've got the book of glory. So if you decide to read it in two halves, read the front up to Lazarus for the signs, and then read the second half for the glory. We'll probably talk more about it. I'll probably save my thoughts on the book of glory for next week, and I'd love to hear yours as you read it yourself.

The Word "Believe"

But the one more thing I want you to see—because it's just John's favorite word—is the word "believe." Open up your guide here. I know this is terrible design because it's just so many words with no white space. It's just a disaster of a page. But do you know what this is? It's every time John uses the word "believe" in his gospel. Isn't that extraordinary? Over and over and over and over. Ellen, what was the purpose of the book? That we would believe. That's right. Right? He said, write these things so that you'll believe. And absolutely, just listen:

After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he said, then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. — John 2:22

Whoever believes in the son has eternal life. Whoever rejects the son will not see life. — John 3:36

Believe me, the time is coming and you'll worship the father. — John 4:21

Get down at the very bottom of that leftmost column:

The father realized this is the exact time in which Jesus has said to him, your son will live, so he and all his household believed. — John 4:50-53

I tell you the truth, whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned. He's crossed over from death to life. — John 5:24

In the middle left column:

Yet there are some of you who do not believe. For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. — John 6:64

We believe and know that you are the holy one of God. — John 6:69

Even as he spoke, many put their faith in him. — John 8:30

To the Jews who believed him. — John 8:31

I mean, read through this. Just sit down and take a minute, or take ten minutes, and just read the entire list staccato. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Believe. Believe. Believe. And I'll tell you what happened when I did this this week. I read through this entire list, and I was overwhelmed. Not only, "Oh, I get it. This is the thing that John is trying to make a point about because Jesus wants us to believe him." But rather, I was struck by how little I believe and how given I am to fear and worry and anxiety and unbelief.

Do you have ever met anybody like that? He longs for us to trust him. And I was just thinking—you guys remember when you're raising your children? How many of you fathers have ever stood in a pool like this, saying, "Just trust me. Like, do you really think I'm going to let you drown? Just jump. Jump. Come on, just trust me. No, no. It's gonna be fine. I've got you. Jump."

You know that feature? Right? And the kid stands around the edge, "Yeah, maybe and maybe not, but I don't know." They got little floaties on their arms, right? That whole thing. That's what's happening here. He says, "Would you just look at my face? Look at my face. Would you trust me? Would you believe?" Everything hangs on this. It is stunning how many times he says, "Believe, believe, believe, believe."

Now I will say, John has lots of words that he likes to use over and over again. Love, world, truth, judgment. There's a whole bunch of terms that he just keeps going. But nothing is more preferable to him than the word "believe." He says it over and over and over again. So as you go through, as you read through John this week, you might just underline every time you see the word "believe." Read this thing with a highlighter. You might read through it and underline—okay, here's one of the I AMs, here's the I am, here's the believes.

And just turn my hope is that all of these things would eventually you'd throw them away because they've all made their way into your actual Bible. Right? So that these—you're making like an annotated Bible that has some of these things so that in three years when you're reading through it and you forgot about this entire conversation, you'll be reminded in the margins: "Oh, that's right." And it will help you to not let your heart be troubled, that you would trust in God, you would trust also in Him, that you'd believe.

So I think we're probably out of time. So read through it this week. Come back prepared to tell us something that you noticed that was intriguing, that was interesting. There's a little bit more here on the back, and we will look at the back page next week. I'll share with you. So you're welcome to read it if you want. There's all kinds of delicious things on the back. We'll talk about them next week along with your insights, and we'll just see what God has for us in the book of John.

Alright. Good enough. See you then.