Looking at the Gospel of John, John portrays Jesus Christ. as the Son of God. We saw the Son of Man and the Suffering Servant. This is the Son of God. And there's a lot of things about John. John's, of course, a unique character, as each of the writers in the Bible are. And we'll look at some things about him as we get down through this. But John chapter number 20, verses 30 and 31 is what we're going to read this morning. The Bible says this, and many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life through His name. John says basically in that passage of scripture, he says, look, this don't don't be mistaken. This isn't what's written down in this book, isn't everything that the Lord did. He says many other things. The Lord did a lot of other things that aren't written down in this particular epistle or not this epistle, rather, but this gospel. He says that this this book. It's a synopsis, it's a brief, you know, if I was to say I'm going to take just the last three and a half years of your life, and I'm gonna write it down in 20 chapters, 21 chapters, it would be pretty tough to write down everything that's happened. You could hit some highlights and some high points, maybe some low points, the biggest changes, pivotal moments in your life, but there's no way that you could do justice to that, and John just says, Everything can't possibly be written just in this book, but he says in verse 31 But these are written in other words the things that I have written are written That you might believe that Jesus is the Christ He says these things are written down so that there won't be any doubt in your mind about whether or not that he is who he says he is The reason we wrote these things down and John from the very beginning I mean if you look all the way back to John 1, what does he start out at the very beginning? in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. I mean, from the very beginning, John's plan was what he says in verse 31 right here. And remember, this Gospel of John was written about A.D. 90. It was written a good 30 years after the other Gospels were written. He wrote it with a plan. He knew what the other Gospels said, and so he wrote it with a purpose in mind. And he states his purpose in this verse. These are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, that believing You might have life through his name in other words. He says I want I wrote this gospel so that you would believe that Jesus is who he says he is and that Believing that you would place your faith and trust in him as your Savior that believing You might have life through his name It's one thing to believe that God is who He says He is, but if we don't ever place our faith and trust in Him as our Savior, we won't have life through His name. And John said, this was my purpose for writing this book. And when you keep that in mind, you know, if I was to say, I'm going to write your life down in a book, but I'm going to take Brother Remus and I'm going to write a book about his life, but I'm going to write a book about his life as the husband of Mrs. Donnie Fulford. That's what I'm trying to get across to you, is to portray him in that light, that his life as a husband to his wife. If that's my plan from the beginning, then that's going to affect what stories I put into the book, and how I portray them, and all of those things. And John just says, look, the reason that I wrote this was with this plan in mind, and that's why I, on purpose, put the things that I did into this book. The key word is believe, believe. John wanted people to believe. It's one thing to have head knowledge or to hear the stories, but it's another thing entirely when it becomes real to you when you believe it. read and study a lot of war history and he's got a computer now and he's got a couple of games on his computer but they're basically a lot of the battles on these games are reenactments of ancient wars that have taken place. And so AJ's done reading and studying on some of these things and how this all took place. And so then he knows if the game is historically accurate or not. And he'll tell me, Dad, this is what it says in the game, but this is what really happened in that war. This is how things really took place. But you know, because he's done the studying and because he's done the research in those things, he has an understanding and he believes And it's real to him. Why? Because he knows the facts. He's done the study. He knows what happened. And John says, the reason that I wrote these things down over and over again in the book, you see, 52 times the word believe in the book of John. Believe. Knowing it is one thing, but believing it is something different. There's a lot of people that know in their head that Jesus is the Son of God, but they've never believed on Him as their Savior. And it's so vital, and John understood that, and that was his purpose. The first use, chapter 1, verse 7. The most significant use, chapter 20, verse 31, the verse that we just read. I wrote all this down that you might believe. The reason, my purpose for writing it was that you might believe. Written AD 90, as I mentioned, the latest gospel other than this was AD 60, and this is 30 years later. So he's had opportunity to kind of sit back and take stock of everything and how things are playing out after the life of Christ in the church age. He's seeing these things happen, and in light of all that and in light of what he knows about the Lord, He sits down and writes a gospel and says, I want to write this in such a way that people will believe on Jesus Christ. That people will know that they can know that they can know. So like I said, from the very beginning of the book, he establishes the credentials of Jesus Christ. And then all the way through, makes it abundantly clear. The theme is the deity of Christ, as I said, the Son of God. He's establishing that. Was Jesus a good man? Yes. Was Jesus a prophet? Yes. but He wasn't just a good man and He wasn't just a prophet. He is and He was and He always will be the Son of God. And it's so important. So many religions today and cults are trying to take that away from Him. He is the Son of God. The writer is John the Apostle. He's the youngest. of the twelve disciples, brother of James, you see James and John, the sons of Zebedee. His mother's name was Siloam, believed to be Mary's sister. She was present at the cross. She was one of those that was present when they went to anoint the body of Christ. She was Around all the time and you can imagine not just because of her relationship with Mary but also Her two sons being very much involved in the ministry. We've talked about this before the idea that as a mom Moms like to keep up with their children and what's going on and given the opportunity, you're going to be there. I think of Mrs. Barbara Mitchell. There's often times when her son Eddie that is a youth pastor over here by my house or by Clarksville, she says whenever he's preaching somewhere, whether it's at his church or someplace else, she'll call me and she'll say, Pastor King, I'm not trying to skip out on church, but my boy is preaching and I want to go hear my boy preach. And I tell her every time, praise the Lord for it. I hope, I think, that if my mom lived close enough to do that, she'd want to come hear me preach. But there's something about that. Of course, because of that, I'm sure that she was around very much for the ministry of Christ, but their father as well, although I'm sure that he had to, you know, with both your sons. If your sons are in the family business and they both just walk away one day, somebody's got to hold down the fort and keep on fishing and pay the bills. So I imagine that dad had to do that, but was involved as much as he could be. They were called, James and John, the sons of thunder when chosen by Jesus. They were diamonds in the rough, if you will, fishermen. Grew up in Galilee in the fishing business. He was partnered with James' brother and then Andrew and Peter, of course. He was a disciple of John the Baptist. was around the ministry of John the Baptist, and he was one that was closest to Jesus. And I know, I'm very much aware, I've talked about this, actually preached a sermon about this, the fact that he was the disciple whom Jesus loved, but we know that the only place that we actually see that is where? In the book of John. The only one that calls him the disciple whom Jesus loved is John himself. Now, you can look at that from a couple of different ways. One, John believed that Jesus loved him. John believed that Jesus loved him, and I know that he was the one that leaned on Jesus' breast at the Last Supper, and he was the one that was closest to Jesus at that by choice. I don't know that Jesus said, John, I want you sitting next to me, but John made it a point to be close to the Lord. And John believed in his heart that Jesus loved him. John's also the one that wrote what? For God so loved the world. He knows that God loves everybody and he knows that Jesus came to die for everybody. He wrote that and made that very clear in his Gospel. He made it clear in his Gospel, but what he also wanted to do in that word believe that he uses over and over again is he wanted you and I to believe as much as he believed that Jesus loved us, that Jesus does love us. And when it becomes real, like I said, listening to that preacher on Friday night, sing that song, Redeemed. When you believe it, when you see somebody that's preaching or singing or just sharing with you and sharing their testimony, sharing the gospel with you, when they're ministering something that is real to them, it's like watching... I've mentioned before Dr. Pete Cowling, and he was a science teacher and math teacher at the college where I went to, Bible College. And when you have a teacher that loves the subject that they're teaching, And it's real to them. You can have a history teacher, for instance, that can sit down and just tell you the facts about history. And say, after this, you know, this happened in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. In 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed. And they can give you the facts. But it's a whole lot different. Let me tell you about Christopher Columbus. This guy was something else to tell you about all everything that he went through. And he had this, this, this thing on his mind and his heart that he just had to do. And he wanted to get to the new world and he was going to do it no matter what wasn't going to let anything stand in his way. And he just went off. And to tell you the stories about it and as they looked and then you think about you you hear the stories about the people the first pilgrims coming over on the Mayflower and all those different things and when you have somebody that's excited about what they're teaching you and They believe it and it means something to them That fosters a love in the hearers of You know, it's amazing to me when you see a particular, for instance, in the case of history, if you have somebody that's a great history teacher, you'll find that you'll have a lot of students that come out of there that want to be history teachers. Why? Because they sat under somebody that loved what they were teaching. And John, Loved the Lord and he believed with all of his heart that Jesus loved him personally Yes, he said Jesus loves the entire world. He loves everybody, but he said Jesus loves me and I want everybody to experience That kind of love I want everybody to feel that everybody to have that deep down in their being that Jesus Loves them. I want them to believe it His passion for that is what comes across through the whole book because he believed it. He said, I am the disciple whom Jesus loved. Did Jesus love all of his disciples? Of course he did. I believe Jesus even loved Judas. It broke Jesus' heart that he knew Judas was going to betray him, but he loved Judas and wanted to see Judas come to Christ. It didn't happen. But to know that, to understand that, and John saw that firsthand. And when people see that firsthand, they want to bring others to that. They want other people to experience that. That's what John was trying to do. He wrote five books. Of course, the Gospel of John, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, and the book of Revelation. Altogether, 50 chapters in the New Testament that John wrote. And God used them in some extraordinary ways. I mean, you think about what the Bible would be like without the Gospel of John, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, which by the way also talk an awful lot about how much the Lord loves us and Then the book of Revelation. I Mean we all the time are talking about what we've read the back of the book We know what happens the Bible tells the book of Revelation. Look at what it tells us is coming. Can you imagine? Can you imagine I? Know that the Bible talks in other places about the end times, but just imagine our Bible without the book of Revelation the uncertainty in a lot of ways that we may be left with. The Lord revealed those things to him and used him in an extraordinary way. The gospel of John was written to whosoever. Whosoever. Whosoever will. John 3.16. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever." Anybody, everybody, anybody that'll read it. Why? Because he knew how much the Lord loved him and he said, anybody that will believe, He loves you just as much as He loves me. Written from Ephesus before his exile to Patmos, 43rd book of the Bible 4th book of the New Testament 21 chapters 879 verses long the purpose to reveal Jesus as the Christ the Messiah of Israel that men might believe and be saved by trusting Christ as their personal Savior He said that is my goal in life is to bring people to Christ. I the divisions of the book. First of all, you see His ministry to the multitudes, that being Christ's ministry to the multitudes. The coming of the Son of God in chapters 1-4. The claims by the Son of God, chapters 5-7. Confrontation with the Son of God. being confronted with Him being who He says He is. And we've studied through these chapters on Sunday mornings, and I've enjoyed that. The coronation of the Son of God, chapters 11 and 12. And then you see His ministry to the disciples towards the end of the book. His comfort, or the comfort that comes by the Son of God in chapter 13, verse 17. And then the crucifixion of the Son of God. when he comes to the end of his ministry, and we're just getting into that portion now with our Sunday morning lessons, which we've taken a break from just at the beginning of the year here. You begin to see more when you get into these chapters where we're about to get into the Gospel of John, his personal ministry with those that are close to him, the disciples, those that are following him, and him confirming himself and strengthening their faith because he knows what they're going to face. He knows what they have ahead of them. The outline. First, of course, the introduction in chapter 1, verses 1 through 18, probably one of the most, other than John 3.16, some of the most familiar passages in the book of John. After the introduction though, you see the beginning there at the end of chapter 1 of the public ministry of Christ. John, again, doesn't tell us much about, really anything about the birth and the youth of Christ. Why? Because he's trying to establish, he establishes from the beginning, at the very beginning of the book, establishes that he is God and that he always was God. and that He always will be God, that He's been present from the beginning. And then He goes right from that into... Well, He establishes who He is, and then He establishes that the world doesn't want Him, that the lost people... Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. And He goes right from that into the ministry of Jesus Christ. First of all, in confronting individuals, Chapter 1 through chapter 4 there then confronting multitudes That's of course where he deals with Nicodemus and other individuals like that that he has one-on-one interactions with and it went then he begins as his ministry grows and now he's confronting the multitudes and Then he's conflicting with the multitudes when they begin to question him and accuse him, the Pharisees do and others. Then you see the climax of his public ministry in chapter 11 and 12. Then his private ministry in chapter 13 through 17. Again, this is talking about his ministry to his disciples. is his one-on-one personal relationship with them individually and then as a group, a smaller group. The Last Supper, chapter 13, his final discourse at the end of chapter 13 down through chapter 16, and the High Priestly Prayer in chapter number 17. It's great to, like I said, I love, if you're studying a book of the Bible, to have something like this kind of an outline. It doesn't have to be this outline, any sort of outline like this that kind of helps to put things a little bit in perspective as you're studying. it tends to make the Word of God come alive more. We begin to see things fit together. It's like when you put a puzzle together and you know, I don't know if you do this or not, but when I put a puzzle together, we put all the edge pieces together first, right? So that you can kind of see. My wife has gone through just about a month ago, she decided to go through all of the puzzles in our house and make sure we had all the pieces. If you've had kids, you know that puzzle pieces have a way of disappearing miraculously, even in puzzles that you've never even put together before. They just disappear. And so we went and we've got a couple of 1,000 or 1,500 piece puzzles and then some 500 piece puzzles. And the whole family, we left it sitting out on the coffee table there. And as you're going by, you might sit down for 30 minutes and try to put puzzle pieces together. But when you start to see things come together and you start to see the picture take shape, and all of a sudden what's on the table starts to look like what's on the box. And the neatness of how that begins to come together. When you see this and you look at an outline, you see an overview of the whole book. or of the entire Bible and you'll watch as those things come together then as you're reading. It's amazing to see the Word of God that has been given to us. It really is a living book, very much alive and relevant for us today. The Passion Ministry of Christ in chapters 18-20, His betrayal and trials, His crucifixion, and then of course His glorious resurrection in chapter 20 and His post-resurrection ministry in chapter number 21. Seven famous miracles in John. Of course, we see these things recounted, and I like the way that the man that put this together, this particular outline, the way that he illustrates the different power, what Jesus had power over. First of all, the water to wine, power over quality. What do we know? When he turned the water to the wine, the governor of the feast said, why would you save the best for last? If you're going to have something, whether it's food or something to drink or anything else, the creator of the universe... I think about these master chefs. My wife and daughters love to watch these cooking shows. And you see some of these people, these master chefs that throw together a bunch of ingredients that you've never heard before and you can almost taste it through the television, how good I'm sure that it is. And you see those things, but if you were going to have somebody make something for you, don't you think that the creator of the universe, I mean, I don't care if it was when he turned the water to wine or when he made the fish for the disciples by the side of the sea there. I'm sure that everything was perfect, but you see his power over quality Then the nobleman's son is healed Of course the man comes to him says heal my you know asked him to heal his son and the Lord does but he doesn't go to him He goes back home and his son is made whole and he inquires when his son was made he was made whole and it's the same time that Jesus told him that Jesus understand that he doesn't he didn't have to be there physically in the room and lay his hands on somebody to heal them. I Was I was texting a friend of mine that's going through some Very serious issue just this week and I texted him this morning and he said just pray pray pray pray pray and I said I'm praying that God will work a miracle today and I believe that God can work a miracle today. He's still in the miracle working business. Jesus didn't quit working miracles when he left this earth. And, you know, God can still do amazing things. And Jesus just showed, hey, I can heal somebody over a distance. That's nothing to me. Distance isn't anything to Him. The infirm man is healed. Power over time. He'd been lame for years and years and years. That doesn't matter. There's a lot of people that have just resigned themselves to, I'm just going to live with this for the rest of my life. I've had this ailment for 30 years. I've had this ailment for 20 years. I've had this ailment for 50 years. That doesn't mean you have to just be okay with it. God can still fix it. God can still change that. Feeding of the 5,000, power over quantity. Oh, sure, the Lord can have fish there on the side of the seashore for His disciples, but what about if you get together a crowd of 5,000? You know, it really wouldn't have mattered if there was 50,000 or 100,000 or a million people there. That wouldn't have mattered. Sure, there was 5,000, but the number isn't really the point. The point is the Lord can take You know, I love the song, little is much when God is in it. He can make little be as much as you need. You say, Pastor King, I don't have two pennies to rub together. I've only got one penny. Little is much when God is in it. The widow's might. What did he say? She cast in more than all they that cast into the treasury. Why? He said, what I can do when somebody will give me everything they have? You can't even begin to imagine. That boy with the loaves and the fishes, what did he do? He said, this is what I have. It's not much, but it's what I've got. It's all I need. It's all the Lord asks us for is what we've got. But He wants everything that we have. Power over quantity. Of course, the walking on the water. Power over nature. Same thing when he calms the sea. Nature's no obstacle to the Lord. It's not something that he has to really wring his hands about. And what am I going to do? You think about these natural disasters and hurricanes and earthquakes and all that stuff. The Lord's in charge of all that. He's got power over all those things. The blind man healed. Power over helplessness. Lazarus raised. Power over death. Amen and amen and amen Seven I am's in the book of John Things that the Lord said that he is he says I am the bread In chapter 6. I am the light chapter 8. I am the door. I am the Good Shepherd I am the resurrection I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the true vine." And of course, he said, in the Bible we see the Lord say, what else? He just says, I am. I am. That's what He is. He's everything. Think of the song again. I've had songs on my mind this week. Think of the song, He's Everything to Me. He's everything to me, to me. Is He really? To you and I, is He everything? Is He our everything? I asked Chloe this morning, and I always give her a hard time. I tease her, and I always want her to say that I'm her favorite. And I said, this morning we were getting ready, and I just said, Chloe, I just love you so much. I said, you love me the most, don't you? And she just stops and she says, actually, I love the Lord the most. I said, okay, but you love me the second most, right? She says, yeah, I love you the second most. Okay, that's fine. I think it's Sunday school teachers. No, but I, you know, hey, there's something about, I hope, for the rest of her life, that my daughter, that all of my children will say, I love the Lord the most. He's everything to me. He really is everything to me. On the last page, there's just titles for each chapter of John. Is this the title? Are these titles inspired? No. Just if you were looking for a one-word title. If you could say, what about John 5? What about John 10? What's that about? Just kind of as a quick reference guide, if you will, about some of these chapters, you see this list. Chapter 1 is the beginning. Chapter 2 is the marriage. Of course, we know the wedding at Canaan. Nicodemus comes to in Chapter 3. The nobleman's son is healed in Chapter 4. The infirmed man, the bread, the feast, the light, the sight, the shepherd, Lazarus, the Greek, Passover, peace, vines, spirit, prayer, Gethsemane, the cross, the resurrection, and fishing, the fishing. But just as I said, just a one word summary maybe of a chapter, and of course we know that in all the chapters there's more than just that. What a blessing the book of John is. All the books of the Bible, but I just, I enjoy the book of John. It's not by accident that a lot of, probably the most printed portion of Scripture, when they hand out Scripture portions, is John and Romans. I mean, my whole life, you think about the thousands and millions of John and Romans that have gone through just the print shop, I think of up at my dad's church. just over and over again. I have no idea, just in my life, how many have been put together there in that print shop, how many I helped to put together. And then you think about the man that runs the printing ministry there who's been doing it for 35 years, every single day, putting together scriptures. And John and Romans. Because the book of John makes it personal and helps us to believe. And then Romans helps us to know how we ought to live as Christians. But what a blessing that the book of John is. Let's pray this morning. Heavenly Father, I thank you for today. Lord, I thank you for the book of John. I thank you that we can believe. I pray, Lord, that You would help us to be fully persuaded in our own minds to a point that, Lord, there's almost a contagiousness about it to those that get around us, that they would say, man, You must really believe that. It's obviously very real to You. Let it be obvious to the world that You are real to us. Lord, we love You. I ask that You bless the service here in just a few minutes. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.