Five and a half years ago we started the Gospel of John, and this is where we are today. So many visitors with us today, and so just so you know, this text is not picked for you. Five and a half years ago we started, and this is just where we are. John chapter 20. So if you find something in this message that applies to you, I presume God wanted you to hear it. Here you are, and this is the text we are on. John 20, two verses, and then also I think we'll read the last verse of this gospel as well. So these two verses, at least in the ESV, read this way. 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." Believe what? Believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name. At the last verse, John 21-25, now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. So the revealing of truth does have a purpose. The revealing of truth has a purpose. Now this sermon is for all of us because we make things special and we turn them into something that's common. But what we do on Sunday is not just something we do to go through the motions of Sunday. It may be what you do, I don't know, but it's not the way it's supposed to be. God reveals things to you, not to just fill up space, but He actually has a purpose. He's trying to say something to you, and you need to do something with what He's saying. You need to apply it in some way. I think about this in America's education system, just in the school system at large. But countless number of people go through the educational institution of America. They go to kindergarten. Some of them even make it to first grade. Others, like Wade, make it to the third grade. And so, you know, we go on. I'm just kidding. I'm sure you made it past fourth grade. But you and I know, and there's a lot of teachers in the room, and some of you know this and you experience this, and it drives you crazy sometimes that you've got students who seem to only go through class because they have to. It's like they don't have a choice, and so they kind of just... go because mom and dad take them or they make them get on the bus and they show up at class and they don't really apply themselves. It's hard to get them to do any homework and they don't do it halfway right. It's like you spend half your time just trying to get them to learn something and maybe we don't want to admit it, but there's a lot of people walk across the graduation stage and they don't have an education. They went through the system, but they didn't get anything at the end because they never applied themselves. They never put forth any effort to learn anything. I saw the same thing happen in seminary just as well as it did in the education system. Sadly to be so, it's not a whole lot different in church. It's like a teacher, a pastor in a way is like a teacher. He labors and puts forth the work, does everything he can. Some people learn visibly. Some people learn audibly. Some people need an illustration. Some people need an explanation. The teacher, the preacher is doing everything they can to try to make it make sense because quite frankly, if you don't understand it, you're surely not going to do anything with it. So you labor all you can, but it's like playing tennis. If you don't hit the ball back, it's not a fun game. You knock the ball over and you're like, okay, well that was fun, I guess you go home. This is the way it is sometimes in church. You knock the ball of truth over and it just lays there. You gotta take the ball of truth up. You gotta do something with it. You gotta read your Bible. You gotta apply things and you gotta take these things and put them in your life and exercise them for them to have any relevance for you. Some people, and they get a baptismal certificate, they get their name on the church roll, but somehow they're never able to connect the dots between theology, doctrine, and everyday life. This stuff actually matters on Monday. Numerous people just go through the motions, kind of keep their consciences at bay. You never connect what's being taught as extremely important ramifications for your daily life. I assure you, at least on this side of the fence, I'm not preaching to hear myself talk. You ever connect these things? The preacher talks, the people walk, and life goes on as we know it. It's almost like if you need a visual, it's like three times a week you go to the gym and walk through the gym and do no exercise. It's not the fault of the equipment. All the equipment's there. Everything's there. You just didn't use none of it. And that's what happens a lot of times in church. We come through and there's no fault with the truth. We just don't ever apply any of it, so it never bears any fruit in our life. That's the tragedy for many involved in the church. Well, we get to the end of 20 chapters of preaching, over five years of preaching, verse by verse, line by line, word by word, to the best of our ability, and we actually, those many years ago, actually I preached this verse to start the book. And now we find ourselves back with the same verse. A little bit different focus this time, so it's a different sermon for sure, but my thesis is this. The God of heaven has given us a written revelation of Himself for a purpose. There is a reason that God worked through all these years to write this down in English so that you could read it, you could hear it, and it could be proclaimed and applied to your soul. God wasn't just taking up space because He was bored. God gave us this book for a purpose. All right, that's the best I got for an introduction. Now, verse 30, you see it there in your text very clearly. Now, Jesus did many other signs. We know from going through this book that signs have to do with these miraculous occurrences that happen throughout this book. Many signs, many miracles, many wonders, if you will. And He did them. in the presence of his disciples. It's not a made-up mystical thing, it's not a dream, it's not a fairy tale, but in live physical bodily form, Jesus did signs before their very eyes. Signs that no one could duplicate, only the Son of God could do such things that he did. Now, all of these are sermons in and of themselves, but I just give you the reminder of these seven signs in the Gospel of John, because he said these signs were done. So remember these things. You remember in the beginning of the Gospel of John, John chapter 2, it even says in the text, this was the first sign, which was the turning of the water into wine. You look at that story, and you can get off on all kinds of alcoholic-type agendas, and you can preach that if you like. I'd love to preach that. We don't have time for it. But what we know from the text is this. There's a lot of good things that have come through the land, but God saved the best for last. The best was Christ. And here He was, here's the best, right there before Him. All the prophets of old have preached. All the prophets of old have said, thus says the Lord, but I've saved the best for last. Here is my beloved Son. He is. You say, well wine brings joy. I've got great news for you. Christ is the superlative joy. I tell you this, the joy that is in the person of Christ can't be uncorked in a bottle. I'm telling you, there's something with Christ that never runs dry. And the more you drink of him, the more infatuated you are with him, the more in love you are with him. And you drink and you drink and you drink. It's like, quite frankly, I'm absolutely satisfied and starving to death at the very same time. I can't get enough, yet I'm not looking for anything else. Satisfaction. Let it ring. Let it sit in your mind. Let it come down in your heart. Would somebody here today listen that Christ satisfies. You wonder and go for everything under the sun. You do everything the world has to offer. You've got all these hobbies, all these interests, all these goals, and all these hopes, and you keep coming up short. And you come here today in this church, and the pastor says, look, he saved the best for last. Why don't you just embrace Christ and believe Him with all of your heart, and you'll be satisfied eternally. The second sign, Jesus heals the official son. Marvelous, marvelous story. Christ's words are to be believed. Here's what Jesus says. A guy comes to him, his child is sick, and here's what Jesus says. Your son lives. That's it? You need something else? Why don't you just go home? Yes, sir. I'll just go home. He meets his servants on the way and says, hey, your child's well. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. What time? It was the exact time Jesus said your son lives. This was the second sign that he did. And so I say to you from this sign, submission. The Lord speaks and all of his servants say, yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Whatever you say is right. I just submit myself unto the authority of what you speak. The third sign, Jesus heals an invalid at the pull of Bethesda. This guy had been laying around there for some 38 years. It's a marvelous sign that is done. Christ comes up to this man, he's been laying there 38 years. You think, put yourself in the position of being unable to walk, unable to get around, sitting by this pool, hoping you could get in the water. Supposedly you'd be healed. If the angel stirs the water and you get in first, you'd be healed. You can't get there because you're an invalid. And this guy walks up and he says, why don't you get up? I never thought of that. And so here, Christ commands him to do that which he cannot do. Just get your bed, get up, and go home. The man, he said, you know what? It's a good idea. He just took up his bed and went home. The sovereignty of Christ is revealed. Nobody walks in a room and does something like this. And so you see his sovereignty over all things, and you have The fourth, whatever number we're on, the fourth sign, Jesus feeds the 5,000. The text also says besides women and children, some commentators say up to 10,000 people. You got some bread and a couple of fishes, breaks bread, prays, blesses it, they pass it out, and you end up with something like 12 basketfuls left over. That's not the amazing part to me, is they ate their fill and were satisfied. What an astounding thing that could be done. The sustenance of Christ. Would anybody in the room listen this morning? That to the sign of Christ we can learn this. You will never lack one good thing if you're in Christ. I've seen the old. I've seen the young, but I ain't never seen the righteous begging for bread. Why? Because Christ, who did this sign, always gives the sustenance to His children. And people that are outside even have enough sense to say something like this. At least you can eat the crumbs that call off the table. Look, Christ's sustenance is enough. You'll never lack anything you need in Christ. The fifth sign, Jesus heals the blind man. John chapter 9, the whole chapter, all 41 verses. But the thing about this thing is that Christ makes those who cannot see able to see. He anoints this guy's eyes. He tells him to go wash in the pool of Siloam and come back seeing. I mean, you just at least for a moment have to put yourself in another man's shoes. And you got mud in your eyes, some guy spit in the dirt, made mud, put it on your eyes, and you're walking towards this pool. Supposedly somebody's helping him, I suppose. However, he's going to this pool. Somewhere through that process, you've got to think, is this actually going to work? I mean, you think maybe the guy's taken a bath at some point in his life? Maybe he's had water on his face at some point in his life, he's never come away seeing. But this time, there's been one that's commanded him to go and wash and return seeing. Christ gives sight. You say, what is the significance of this sight? Oh, you find it towards the end of John chapter 9. At the end of John chapter 9, when Jesus reveals himself, the man has faith. Okay, that's good. Most Americans would say they got faith in Jesus. Oh, I believe Jesus. I believe Jesus. Don't miss the other part of the blind man. He had faith and he worshipped. And he worshiped. You cannot tell me you're a Christian and have no inclination to worship the living God. You got all these people out in the world that believe in Christ but do not have a habitual lifestyle of worship. They are lost, lost, and lost. You cannot refrain a man from worship who has believed upon Christ. The sixth sign is Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. Christ works in our lives for His own glory, but also for our good. God certainly received glory for the resurrection, and the people were greatly helped. I'm still being helped by Lazarus being raised from the dead. He's the source. Christ is the source of all life. Let me put it in blunt terms, if I can. You have never had one day of life outside of Christ. Because He's the source. The only way you can ever live is to be in Christ. Because outside of Him, you may exist, but you cannot live. And then the sign that is above all signs. Remember in Matthew 12 and Matthew 16, they say, We need to see a sign. I'm not going to give you another sign except this one, the sign of Jonah. Just like Jonah was dead in the belly of that fish and God raised him from the dead and spit him out on the land, here's your sign. The Son of Man is going to be put in the heart of the earth and he's going to be dead, cold dead, and on the third day, he's going to walk out of the tomb. There's your sign. Put it on the billboard. He has been resurrected from the dead. Now in two points of application in this sense, for those of you in the room who are pretending to be Christian, not even pretending maybe some of you, I want to say this as clearly as I can, and you know it's true, you just don't want to say it out loud. Unbelief is not a result of the lack of evidence. The reason you don't believe is not that there's not evidence. There's evidence out the kazoo. So that's not it. Unbelief is not a result of the gospel being difficult to comprehend. That's not it. It's real simple. You have sinned against God. The Ten Commandments tells me so. Romans 3 tells me so. You've broken the law of God, you've profaned his name, and you've walked your own way, and you deserve to go to hell. Christ has been set forth before you on a cross as a substitute. He's dead and buried in the tomb. On the third day, he rises from the dead. It's very clear, he says, repent and believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ, for the kingdom of God is at hand. It's not a matter of understanding. You know the gospel message. You must believe Christ. Arrita, right now, you must believe Him. Today is the day of salvation. You have no guarantee of nothing in the future. Right now, this moment, believe on Christ. And for the believer, for those in the room, there are many who are believers. I'll repeat what James says, faith without works is dead. If you believe, there's evidence to your faith. Life, that which has a clean conscience, experiences daily satisfaction, joy, purpose, and hope, is only possible for those who actually believe. And if you don't actually believe, you've never experienced those things in the way that God had intended them. All right, number two. Number two in your text. My next point is, so that. So you see many signs. I gave you the seven that are in the Gospel of John, climaxing in the resurrection of Christ. And now, there's many others that were not written in this book. But these are written. These are written. And then you get, so that. They're written for a purpose. You may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Now, I don't want to bore you, and I assure you point number three is so short it won't take us no time. But I need you to understand, the Gospel of John is written to a Jewish audience to convince them that Jesus is the Christ. That much I know. So the purpose here is to reach these Jews. I'm saying this because of this phrase here, it is written. Now that may not stand out to you, but it's a significant thing because the exact form in Greek of how this is written is very, very informative to us. Why? Because this form is used sixty-seven times. Sixty-seven. Sixty-five of the times where it says it is written is a reference to the Old Testament Scripture. Any Jew reading this would see sixty-five references that say the Old Testament is the Word of God. So, they have a veracity to the Old Testament. They hold to it to being the truth and God-inspired and authoritative. Sixty-five times the New Testament tells them so. What about the two other occasions? The other occasion is in the book of Revelation. It says, it is written in regards to your name being written in the Lamb's book of life. Not that one. We've got one more, and it's here. And John takes a word that is 99% used to refer to the validity of the Old Testament, and he uses that word to say this book is just as valid as the whole Old Testament. And the Jews confronted with this, John is making a claim. My book has the same amount of authority that the Old Testament has. Now, we're in a different culture. We have people like Andy Stanley, so now we're swapping it. Now we believe the New Testament, not the Old Testament. You always go one way or the other. Look, the whole thing is inspired by God and authoritative. It is written by the hand and the inspiration of the living God. Now, two things, the purpose here, written why? To believe what? We may believe. Believe that He is the Christ. What does it mean, Christ? It's not His last name. It's not Jesus Christ, like Jesus' first name, Christ is His last name. What is this Christ? He's the fulfiller of Israelite expectation. He's the deliverer. He's the anointed one. He's the Messiah. He's the Christ. He is the coming one. The Jews have a hard time with this. Even to this day, they can't embrace that Christ is the Messiah, the anointed one. But John says, that's why I wrote you this book. to tell you don't look for another. There's no other Savior coming. God's got nothing else in heaven to give you. Christ has all he has. He has given the superlative of heaven. He has set Christ before you in time and history, on the cross, in the resurrection, in the ascension, and at the right hand of his throne in heaven. Here's Christ, and you say, well, I want something else. Ain't nothing else coming. You see it, you either embrace Christ or you're damned in hell for all of eternity. You'll get an option. It's not a multiple choice test. It's not random selection. It's not equal opportunity. It's not make everybody happy, let somebody be offended. Jesus said, I come to bring division. I come to bring a sword. Either you're with me or you're against me. Sergeant York, against me. He's the Anointed One, and He's also the Son of God. You'll find Him in Psalm chapter 2. As for me, I've set my King on my holy hill. This is the One. This is my beloved Son. You better kiss the Son, lest He be angry with you, and you perish in the way, for His wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed is everyone who takes refuge in Him. Son of God, human flesh, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen Him. We have beheld His glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father. Here is God in human form. If you've seen me, you've seen God. There's no difference. I'm the full revelation, the exact imprint of His nature. And I would say to you this morning, if you believe that He is the Christ and you believe that He is the Son of God, then you will have life in His name. It is only those who believe who actually live. Life is not possible outside of Christ. To be fair, unbelievers do exist. I'm well aware of that. They exist in the world. They function in the world. They work jobs. They go to school. They get married. They have hobbies. They have interests. There's unbelievers. Go to a cycling race. There's thousands of unbelievers. You don't believe it? Just preach the gospel. You'll find out real quickly. They experience emotions in the world, they cry, they laugh, all of those things, but they never experience life as God intended. Not as God has designed it, they just exist. What's sad is those phrases sound more like the animal kingdom than the human kingdom. They just exist. They just go out in the pasture and eat grass, and at night they go to bed about two in the morning. They go out and eat grass, and about two in the morning they go to bed. They just go through. Make a little money, buy a little drink. Make a little money, buy a little food. Make a little money, buy a new car. Oh, car's not new anymore, buy another new car. Oh, that don't work, buy a house. That don't work. Okay, we'll do this. Hey, we'll go on vacation. We'll take a cruise. We'll do something. We just keep doing and doing and doing and doing, and then one day, don't even. They wake up dead. And they say, he said you can't wake up dead, and I used that phrase the other day. You wake up dead and you go, what in tarnation did I do with my life? I read the obituary every week. Ask Jeff, he gets tired of me reading the obituary. He's like, here's this person, 85 years. They loved their family, they loved their dog, they loved their cat, and they would give their shirt off their back and they died. That's it. that you're going to give 80 years for that? Rather than to have someone laid in their grave, they lived for the glory of God. I think about some of the funerals in this church that have done for some godly women and some godly men. It's like what a privilege and what a jewel to be able to know them and to experience life with them and all that they provided and all the fruit that they bore. And it's like, I can't even begin to say all that he's to say in a funeral because their life was so full. You couldn't even write an obituary because there's not enough ink in my pen that produced out of their life. That's what goes on in Christianity, fruit in abundance. John's primary application was to these Jews, but man, this book has far exceeded Jews. It's converted lots of Gentiles, I assure you. And I pray this book would continue to produce this in this church. Evangelism, missions, comfort, confirmation, knowledge, love, love of Christ. These things would continue to grow as a result of what God, through His Spirit, inspired the Apostle John to write. So this is our text. Many other signs have been done, so many more they couldn't even write them all down. These things were done, these things were written that you might believe, and that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and that by believing you might have life, might have it right now, in His name. I told you point number three is short, and it is. It's a very serious point, but it's a short point. And it is this. There are implications to how you respond to the truth. I feel this every week. Everybody's accountable, including the preacher, to what is preached from this book. You can't get out. You're here and you've heard it. There's implications. You have to respond. Romans chapter 14 verse 12 says, so then each of us, everyone, each one of us in this room, each one of us will give an account. You're going to give an account of yourself to God. You can feel or not feel the weight of that. I can't make you feel the weight of that. But you're going to go and you're going to stand before the thrice holy God and you're going to explain your response to him of what he revealed to you and you're going to have to justify why it is that you would not apply it to your own life. You have to tell God, look, I know you gave your son, but I didn't care about your son because I care about me more than him. You've got to have that conversation with God. You've got to give an account to God. You've got to give an account of why you spurned the Church of God, His bride, the Word of God, His revelation. You've got to give an account of why you've rejected these things for worldliness that has burned up. You've got to give an account. You've got to say something to God. And there He is, and His eyes are burning a hole into your soul. His eyes are a very flame of fire, and they're penetrating all the way to the depths of your soul. And He knows everything there, and you can't hide nothing. Everything is naked and exposed and bare before Him, and there you are. It could be like the parable of the ten minas. Ten minas are given to one, five minas are given to another, and maybe today you're here, and you're the guy, you're the gal who got one mina. And you say something like this, well I know he's a severe judge. I know he reaps where he doesn't sow. So I've just taken what I've heard, and I've held on to it, and I've done nothing with it. And here it is God, here's everything I've heard about you, you can have it back. He was brought to account for his neutrality. Being neutral does not make you safe. If you ever race motocross and you come out of a 90 degree corner and you hit a 120 foot triple and you come up the face of the jump and you hit neutral on the way up, it's not a good day. This is worse. Lastly, in response to the implications of how we respond, it's the story of the parable of the sower and the seed. Four different people represented. One of them is a path. Truth was given, but they never took hold of it. It's laid out there on the barren ground, and the birds took it and flew away. Just maybe in this morning. The seed's going out. It's just laying out there, and you won't even pick it up. You're just like, all I want to know is this guy's got four minutes, and I just want to get out of this place, and I'm going to leave my seed laying here, because quite frankly, I don't care about bird seed. I'm just going to leave it. I don't want it. And so there's your seed lying on the ground. God gave it. God laid it out. He put it before your eyes. And you, by neutrality, said, I won't pick it up. And then there's another person represented by the rocky ground. Boy, I've seen a thousand of these. It's pseudo-faith. I believe, I believe, I love Jesus, I love Jesus. Hey, what do I do to get baptized? I do this, I do this. It's like, you can never get those people to come back to church, read their Bible, go do evangelism missions for the rest of their life. If for a moment, they were the most spiritual person in the room, and within a matter of two weeks, they don't even know what John 3, 16 says. And then there's another person represented by the thorns, and herein lies America. I want Jesus, I don't want to go to hell, because hell's hot, and I don't like hot. I want to go to heaven, and so I want Jesus, but the world has all these things, and I don't want to give up any of that stuff. I want a gospel that gives me Jesus and the world. That's where we're at. Do we not read Amos? Can two walk together lest they be agreed? You cannot love God and love the world. Either you'll love one and hate the other. You can't have them both. That's the whole gospel. The gospel takes you out of the world. It delivers you from all that the world has and all of its temptations, delivering you out, setting you apart for the glory of Christ. Do not let the thorns of this world choke you out. You imagine, you know how many people confessing to be Christian, they can't serve the church because they got to go chase a ball with their kids, they got to go dance in circles with their kid, they got to go to this, they got to go to that, we can't come to church because we got to spend time with our family. What is that? My family wants to see me, they better come to church. And then you have another person, and I pray it would be you today, good soil. They receive the truth of the Word of God and they take it in and they cherish it. They cherish it and they love the Word of God. They love the truth and out of their life comes fruit. 30-fold, 60-fold, 100-fold, 20 years, 30 years, 60 years, until death do them part, they're serving the Lord Jesus Christ because they can't get over Him. They fell in love with Him and that love just grows and grows and grows. Fruit always being produced. Disciplined, consistent, always pursuing, always pressing on. Why? Because there's something in them compelling them to follow the Savior. I pray that that would be you because that's the reality of a true Christian. They know the evidence is real, and they believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. And by believing, they actually have life right now in His name. Let us pray as Brother Jeff comes. Thank you, Lord, for being kind and gracious to reveal your truth to us. Thank you for the gospel. Thank you for your Son. And I pray for each person in this room today who needs to repent of their sin and believe upon Christ that today they would embrace Christ by faith and that they would never be the same again. Oh God that even right now they would be asking you for mercy. And I pray for this your church that we may never take these things as common and treat them with contempt, but that we will always be overwhelmed with the privilege and the honor of being allowed to be adopted into your family. We pray these things by your Spirit, in Christ's name, amen.