Very great respect for our denominations, catechisms, and confession of faith, but I find the Heidelberg, thank you, the Heidelberg Catechism question number one to be best of all of them. I can't think of anything compares as far as comfort with truth. And so I'm very grateful to hear that this morning for myself. Before I ask you to stand for the reading of God's Word, I want you to know that whenever I preach, every sermon for my start, I have a bunch of quotes in front of me to help me focus. If you ever look at anybody who is really good in their field, for the most part, they're very focused about what they do. They're focused about their calling. They're able to get rid of the extraneous things. And I find that these words that I have before me help me to think about what I'm doing and what's my purpose here. And this one passage comes from Nehemiah 8, 7 to 8, where the people will stand to hear the Word of God. And it says that, He helped the people to understand the law, while the people remained in their places. They read from the book, from the law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading." It's a very simple task in many ways, and yet, sometimes, I'll speak for myself, you get kind of full of yourself, and you just, you forget, what's the purpose? What's the goal? It's the feeding of the sheep of Christ. That is the goal. of a sermon, feeding with Christ from God's Word. So with that, please stand for the reading of God's Word. I'll be reading from, I'm going to start from John 20, starting with verse 19. At this point, Mary Magdalene has just seen the Lord, and the verse before where I'm going to start here at 19 says, Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord, that He had said these things to her. So hear the Word of God. On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, peace be with you. When he had said this, he showed him his hands and his side. The disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld. Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, We have seen the Lord. But he said to them, Unless I see his hands, in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will never believe. Eight days later, His disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here, and see my hands, and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe. Thomas answered, My Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. Amen. Please be seated. Pretty much for all of my life, I have like cleanliness. I've liked cleanliness. I like those disinfectant wipes. I like those disinfectant sprays. And that was one of my things. You know, when I go to the grocery store, I look for those and they're always plentiful. Just pick it right off the grocery store shelf. But since COVID has happened, it's pretty rare to find these things. I was in a grocery store, a small chain in Annapolis, and I was at the deli line, and I saw this woman had like two or three containers of wipes. I said, where'd you get those? She said, oh, it was over there on the rack. So I hurry over there. I might have even left the deli line to get over there. And I'm looking, looking, and I don't see it. So there was a guy stalking the shelves. I said, hey, you got some disinfectant wipes? He says, yeah, they're right over here. So I go over there, and they're right, you know, it's like you have all these things on the front of the shelf, but they're deep in there. And I said, how many can I take? He said, help yourself. I was like, woo-hoo. You know, it's like, this is great. This is amazing. I took like two or three. I mean, I was like, OK, I got to leave some for somebody else. But I was so happy to see them. But when I see these things now on the shelf, I feel like, my precious. I mean, I hate to say it, but I was thinking about that this morning. I thought, this is really sad. But it's like, you would have thought I found gold. Because it's so rare to find these things on shelves now. But I want us to understand how precious, how blessed we are that Cliff has alluded to, this gospel of John is an incredible, incredible treasure. And I think even for me, who most of my life as a Christian probably now, I spend almost every day reading John, some verse of John. So I've been through it a lot, and it's like, wow, I think I'm starting to scratch the surface of what John's saying here. Part of understanding something is time on task. And I spent a lot of time thinking about what is John trying to do here? Why is this so important? And I think as we look at John's gospel and find out why did he write it, that we'll come to understand why it is so precious or why it is so significant as we have in our title this morning. And so, as we look at this, I have a doctrine, and I'm going to go through this slowly, maybe over two to three weeks, because when we get the foundation right, the rest of it's going to come pretty easy, or it'll make more sense along the way. It's like the grammar of John's Gospel, to understand what is he doing, why is this so important. And so my doctrine is John's purpose statement sheds light on the significance of his gospel. And we'll probably look at that next week and maybe the following week as well. John's purpose statement sheds light on the significance of his gospel. The question is, why is this so important? And what I'd like for us to look at today is John's history or John's context. John's history or John's context. Now, history is so important in any field of study. If you want to be an expert in anything in the world, it's good to know the history of that field because you'll see the developments along the way. You'll see how it got to be where it is today. My son went to a school where they had the history of economics, which is pretty rare, I've heard. There's only like two schools, I think, that have a history of economics. But it helps you to understand, I think, better where we are today in economics if you can know the history. And the same thing is true if you understand John's history, why this is so important. Let me just try a few things here with you just for a second. For my friends, my young friends here, Does somebody know how many stars there are on the United States flag? Anybody know? How many stars are on the United States flag? 50, exactly. There are 50 stars on the United States flag. Does anybody know what they represent? The states, exactly. They represent the 50 states of the United States. Exactly true. Now, when some of us were born, there were 50 stars on the flag. But when somebody like me was born, there was only 48. There's only 48 stars. It wasn't a bad thing. It wasn't like a discount place. You got flags that were not made right. It was that there were only 48 states in the country at that time. We're both United States citizens by birth. But the flags look different because there was a history. Alaska and Hawaii were eventually added to make it 50. But when I was born, there was 48. And probably nobody was near with 47. I'm pretty sure. But my point is that there's a history there that we came into at a certain time. There was history before us. There was history before you, my young friends were here, came into the world. And there was a history before I came into the world in the United States, believe it or not. I wasn't one of the original 13. So let me try another one with you, a little bit more closer to home, more personable. A word association, if I say the word Mabel Sawhill. Mabel Sawhill. Now some of you say, I don't know who she is. And that's understandable. Maybe it's your first time here. Maybe you wouldn't know her. For some of us, we have a history with her. A long, joyful history. She's gone to be with the Lord. I think she died at 103. My wife, and I, and my sister-in-law, and her husband had the privilege of singing at her 100th birthday. I don't get too many 100th birthday gigs, so I don't know why. But we did get to sing at that one. And it was a great joy. Glenn Konek was there. He was donning an apron and telling stories about Mabel. But Mabel was known for her food. That was one of the things she was known for. I mean, there's lots of things you could think about when you think about Mabel. And maybe you thought sticky buns or hot chicken salad. or strawberry and spinach salad. I mean, I think those were like her major, her three major ones. She was featured in the Washington Post. It was a wonderful article about her there. And yet, so all of us have a history. If you've known Mabel, you have a history with her. It's a common history. But John's history is a little bit different. For most of us are not Jewish. We don't have a Jewish background. And it's important to know that John was an Israelite, that he was a Jew. And he had a very unique history associated with him, a history that the Gentiles did not have, that all other nations didn't have. The Israelites were a privileged people. They were a privileged people that God tells us all throughout the scripture that they were privileged. We see Paul in his epistle in Romans. He starts out with his great sorrows. He thinks about his fellow countrymen who had these great, great privileges. And yet they didn't come to the one that those words pointed to. They didn't come to the living Christ. Paul says in verse 4, they are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. Why his anguish? Because they'd been given so much and it was for naught, it seemed like. It seemed like it was for naught that so many Jews turned from the one that their words, their background pointed to, that great sorrow that he had in the midst of his great joy of being united to Christ. Or we see Moses in Deuteronomy 4, 4, 5 to 8. He's speaking to the people of Israel. He says, "'See, I have taught you the statutes and rules, as the Lord my God has commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding.' And the sight of the peoples, who when they hear all these statutes will say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what great nation is there that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon Him? And what great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today? that their greatness was not bound up in them, they were the smallest of nations, they were insignificant, but God has set His love upon them, and He gave them His word, He gave them His word, the infallible word of God, the light of the nations. We hear it in David in Psalm 103, verses six to seven. The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the people of Israel. this unique people group that God chose out of all the nations, all the fallen nations of the world. He blessed them. That is the testimony of scripture with his very own words. In John's gospel, we see that the context for much of what's going on in John's gospel has to do with the Old Testament scriptures. In chapter 7 verse 42 it says, has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was? Scripture was their right reference point. They had a history, a history of God speaking to them and God made promises and God always keeps his promise. And so they knew something about what the Old Testament said. The better we know the Old Testament, the better we'll see it is Jesus. It is Jesus. And that's the whole point of John's gospel, is to persuade us, not with spins of truth, not revisionist history, but with the truth of the Old Testament and the Old Testament alone. Oftentimes, people would reason with the Jews from the Old Testament, rightly. And as Christians at this point in time, we ought to be able to do the same in some measure, too. That we could take the Old Testament and say, see, look, look, this book here, this book here. And in John's Gospel, we'll see where he refers to the Old Testament as well. He says, look, they're talking about me. David's talking about me. Abraham's talking about me. Moses is talking about me. all through his word. But if that wasn't enough, even Jesus affirms these things, particularly in John 4, in his conversation with the Samaritan woman. The Samaritans were syncretistic. They tried to worship the true God and false gods at the same time. They were looked down upon. And in John 4, 19 to 22, it says, the woman said to him, sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. He had just uncovered her sins. He just shed light on her life. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship. Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. Salvation is from the Jews. Now, in our world, That's a hard statement. That's a hard statement, but it is absolutely true. It is absolutely true. It does not mean that we are allowed to treat anyone unkindly or with disrespect. God has called us to be holy. We are to love our enemies, but speak the truth in love. A Christian ought to be someone you say, that's the most glorious person I ever met. They are so kind, they are so patient, they are so gentle, and yet they always tell me the truth. They don't hedge on the truth. That is what a Christian is by God's grace. That's what we grow in, is this unusual combination of truth telling, of love, of gentleness, never veering to the left or the right, of what God says. I can't stress hard enough that the Israelites were the only people group that had the light. If you go through the Old Testament, you'll see these different passages that even make it more clear. If this aisle here was the truth of the Israelites, you would see all these other people groups groping in the darkness. And the darkness was very great. In Leviticus, God gives these sexual laws. He says, the people that you came out of, they did these things. And the people that you're going to, they do these things, these horrific things, but you are not to do them. You are my people. And what he's saying, he is giving them the light of this is what is right and normal and good in the sight of God. No other people group, apart from some, you'll see these Gentiles kind of being grafted or coming in, but it was the people of Israel who had these truths. And we need to, my main goal today is to have that fixed in us. I'm trying to pound this into all of us because we have so many things in our culture. Oh, everything's the same. It's just your opinion, blah, blah, blah. It's not true. That's not what the word of God says. Like I said, it doesn't say we can mistreat people or be unkind. But it also says we don't lie. And the Word of God is the Word of God. I am not an Israelite. I don't have any Jewish history that I know of. But the Jews had the Word of God. They had the Word of God that shed light, not just on their nation, but on creation. They had Genesis, and Exodus, and Leviticus, and Numbers, and Deuteronomy. They had all of this. They knew the history of the world, because their God was the God of the world. I think sometimes we have our Bible world, and then we have this world. But the glorious thing is that the Bible world matches up perfectly, point to point, idea to idea, with this world. As Cliff said, I think he said it was practical, I think that's the phrase he used. It's practical because the God who created the world is the one who gives us his word. You know, I've tried to make the point that as we gather on the Lord's Day, this is kind of a reset for us, a reset of our minds. And I thought about coming in and doing this, not to pulpit pound in a wrong way, but to demonstrate this beautiful pulpit made out of wood has its attributes because God gave it to him through the wood. And I was here last week. You know what? Everything looks the same. Like I've been pointing out, the sun rises or sunsets. I had nothing to do with that. Praise the Lord. It was God setting them into their places and giving them their assignments. And they obey the Lord. And this same God gave His Word to Israel and He gave them promises. Promises of an anointed one. Promises of a prophet. Promises of a priest, promises of a king, a prophet like Moses, a priest like Samuel, and a king like David. And years went by, and years went by, and for 400 years there was silence. And in the fullness of time, God sends His Son. What a waiting period. Generations, but the promises still stood. coming and going, coming and going of men and women over the ages. But the promises stood still. They stood firm because God had made them. And so when we come to this gospel, this dear gospel, and I've always felt this is the warmest book of the Bible for me. But my initial opinion who John was was somebody who would go out into the woods and he could feed the deer and they wouldn't run away. Then he's called the Sons of Thunder. I had to have my views corrected. But it is amazing how pastoral he is, how tender he is as he speaks to us throughout the gospel. There's something about it. I can't explain it, but it's just there's something different about it that seems to speak to us in a pastoral way. But even as he does that, we need to know, and praise the Lord, it's built on the foundation of truth. It's built on the foundation, not of the church as the church by itself, but on the church as created by God, as ordered by God in His Word. And so that is where John's basis comes from. John is going to try to persuade us, with evidence, after evidence, after evidence, after evidence, that the One that we saw in the Old Testament, this is Him. This is the One. All the things. Let me show you what He did. Let me tell you what He did. And that's what His Gospel is about. This presenting of evidences to persuade us, to lead us to faith, initially, or to build us up in the faith. these bombardments of truth that He'll give us to reinforce the truth of the Good News of the Gospel, as Cliff said. It's interesting where this purpose statement here, this purpose statement in verse 30, now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name." There's his purpose statement. That's what he's all about. Everything that went before, and I trust everything that went after, that last chapter, has to do with this. That is his goal. But it's interesting that he brings it in right after the Thomas incident. Thomas had unbelief. I've got to see it. I've got to see it. I've got to touch him. And Jesus in his tender mercy says, Thomas, do it, do it. And he says, my Lord and my God, he's so kind, God is so kind. He knows our weaknesses and he often grants us these things that help us that we would never expect to encourage us. And then Jesus says, have you believed because you've seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Now I was talking to a dear woman in our church yesterday about the question about, did the apostles know their status in the history of redemption? And I said, I'm so glad you asked that. I was thinking the same, I've wondered that too. And I'm not sure what I thought initially, but I am absolutely persuaded, of course they did. I think they must have. Now here's a silly analogy, but my wife is a principal of a school. And every morning she doesn't wake up and I have to say, honey, don't forget you're a principal of a school. And then the next morning, honey, don't forget you're the principal of the school. You know, it's pretty obvious. I think it was pretty obvious in their lives as they saw what God had called them to, that they knew that they had this responsibility above all other men as an apostle. And so when he says, blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed, that's the majority of who would read this gospel. Even Thomas who saw him said, I wanna see, I wanna touch. But we've never seen Jesus like he did. Thomas could give you an eyewitness description of him, but I've never seen him, you've never seen him, and yet we love Christ. because God has opened his word to us and given us a new heart, and one day we will see him. We will see him face to face, no masks. No masks. Praise the Lord, amen. And we will see him as he is, and we will be like him. And we will be like him. This is just like what Peter says in the beginning of his first epistle, verses eight to nine. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls." Totally consistent with one another. You haven't seen Him, but you love Him. You have great joy in Him. And so what John's Gospel does is kind of give us a backfill of the history of who Jesus was and what he did. And we grow in that knowledge every Lord's Day in some sense. You know, just like my young friends, they know that there's 50 stars on the flag. But they don't know the history of the United States as they could probably. They probably know more than I do, but they don't know all of it yet. And there's still much that I could learn about the history of the United States. But they're still citizens. They're still citizens. And God's people need to know these things that God, in His incredible goodness, has given us in John's Gospel. Stories that we did not see with our own eyes, or we did not hear with our own ears, but John did. In his first epistle he says, "...that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life. The life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life, just like John is doing here in his gospel." which was with the Father and was made manifest to us, that which we have seen and heard we proclaim to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.' that just like John would write this epistle to encourage believers with the truth, he's written his gospel to encourage us, to build us up in our most holy faith by the truth, by the truth. And so John's purpose statement, his goal is that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, this anointed one of the Old Testament, and we'll start to move into that next week, Lord willing. He's the son of God and that by believing you may have life in his name. The bottom line of John's gospel is this is him. This is the Messiah. This is the anointed one. Let me illumine you on this. Let's pray. Our heavenly father, we thank you for your word. Father, I'm sure that many of us hope that a COVID vaccine will be found soon. We would like, in many ways, for our life to go back to what we think of as normal. And yet, Father, you've done exceedingly abundantly beyond all we could ask or think in providing the remedy for our greatest problem, which is our sin, as Cliff alluded to as he opened worship. Father, we ask that we would take this to heart, that we would not be deluded by the events of the world, that we would not be deluded by the cares of the world, but that we would have your word speaking the most loudly to us, telling that Christ has come and it is finished. And that in our various callings, we might be proclaimers of this good news to your glory and to the edification of your people. We pray all this in Jesus' name, amen.