The Gospel According to John –Review (Part I)
December 18, 2005


Today’s message is the first part of a review of the entire gospel according to John. We’ve been going through John’s gospel since April 2004, well over a year-and-a-half. Today, I want to hit a few of the high points.

(And before I go on, I want to remind you as always to read your Bibles every day. What’s in your Bible is the word of God –the word that gives life –the word that gives eternal life.)

[Prayer]

As I’ve pointed out a number of times, John says that he recorded a few of the many miraculous signs that Jesus performed so that we, his readers, might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing we might have life in his name. (John 20:30, 31) John’s ultimate purpose is for us to believe in Jesus –to trust him – and to have eternal life through faith in him. There’s no other way to eternal life than through faith in Jesus. John wants us live, not to perish.

John says that he wants us to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. What does it mean to be the Christ? The word Christ is the English version of the Greek word that means anointed. It’s also the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah, which also means anointed. In the Old Testament, when priests or kings were commissioned for office, they were anointed by pouring oil over their heads. And Jesus was anointed by God to be both priest and king forever. The Jewish nation was longing for God’s Messiah –God’s Anointed –to come and make all things right and to restore Israel to it’s former glory according to all that the prophets had said in the Old Testament. (Are you longing for Jesus to come back and make all things right?)

John says that he wants us to believe that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of God.” What does it mean “the Son of God”? Let me read Psalm 2 to you. I’ve read it to you before. It’s about the Christ, the Son of God, the Anointed. Here’s what it says:

1Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?
2The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One (that’s his Messiah, his Christ!).
3 “Let us break their chains,” they say, “and throw off their fetters.”
4The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.
5Then he rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,
6 “I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.”

7I will proclaim the decree of the Lord: He said to me, “You are my Son (that’s the Son of God); today I have become your Father.
8Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.
9You will rule them with an iron scepter; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.”
10Therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth.
11Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.
12Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. (Psalm 2 –NIV)

Blessed are all who take refuge in him. Blessed are all who take refuge in Jesus!

Now I’m going to go through John and talk about a few passages that I think are highlights. I’m not going to say too much about Jesus’s miraculous signs that John talks about. I may just mention some of them. But they are signs so that you will believe the other things that Jesus said and learn from the things he did. So let’s see what we can learn from John’s gospel. The first passage I’m going to talk about is right at the beginning of John’s gospel. It says even more about what it means for Jesus to be the Son of God than we can learn from Psalm 2 (what I just read). Listen to the first four verses of John’s gospel, John 1:1-4:

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.
3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. (John 1:1-4 –NIV)

The Word is Jesus before he was called Jesus, before he took on a human body, before he became flesh. He was there in the beginning. In fact, he was there before the beginning. The writer of Hebrews says that he is without beginning of days or end of life! He always was and always will be. Everything that God made was made through Jesus. He is the source of all life and the source of all truth. We would have no life without Jesus. “In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”

Now let’s look at John 1:29. This is John the Baptist speaking. He is the one that God sent into the world as a baby just a few months ahead of Jesus to prepare the way for Jesus. John called people to repentance (after he grew up). When Jesus began his ministry, here’s what John said about him: “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29)

God had established among the Israelites the sacrificial system. A perfect flawless innocent animal was sacrificed to pay for sin. They had been doing this for 1,500 years. Everyone knew that that was the way to cleanse away sin. Everyone also knew that it didn’t really work. They were still sinners. The rich young ruler asked Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life. He knew that he didn’t have eternal life! He knew that he was still a sinner! It took the sacrifice of God’s perfect Lamb, Jesus, the Lamb of God, to take away the sin of the world.

Now let’s go on to chapter 3. The title at the beginning of the chapter is Jesus Teaches Nicodemus. Nicodemus came to Jesus at night to talk to him. He was a leader of the Jews, but was afraid to be seen with him because most of the Jewish leaders were against Jesus. When he came to him, Jesus didn’t ask Nicodemu what he wanted. He knew what Nicodemus needed. He told him that, unless he was born again, he wouldn’t be able to see the kingdom of God, and unless he was born of water and of the Spirit, he would not be able to enter the kingdom of God. What can we learn from this? Well one thing is that, even though Jesus died for all the sins of the world – Nicodemus’s sins and your sins and my sins – we don’t automatically enter the kingdom of God, or for that matter, even see the kingdom of God. We don’t even know that there is such a thing as the kingdom. Something else has to happen first. We must be born again! Jesus told Nicodemus, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” (John 3:14, 15) You don’t just automatically have eternal life. You have to believe that you are a sinner and that Jesus was lifted up –that he was crucified to pay for your sin. You have to believe in Jesus. That means you have to trust him.

Now let’s look at the next two verses, John 3:16 and 17. (John 3:16 is pretty famous.) Here’s what Jesus says:

16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:16, 17 –NIV)

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” God wants to save the world. He wants to save everyone! And you don’t have to make yourself perfect before you can have salvation. You just have to believe in Jesus.

Now let’s go on to chapter 4. The beginning of chapter 4 has the title Jesus talks to a Samaritan Woman. Jesus was on his way from Judea to Galilee. To get to Galilee, he had to go through Samaria, unless he took the long way around. Some of the Jews actually did take the long way around when they went to Galilee because they despised the Samaritans. The Samaritans had a version of the Old Testament Law that they tried to obey, but were not Jews.

Jesus met the Samaritan woman when she came to the well where Jesus was resting. Besides being a Samaritan, the woman would have been an outcast among her own people. She had been married five times and was not married to the man she was currently living with. But she was interested in finding God. She asked Jesus where it was appropriate to worship God. She said, “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” Now listen while I read the rest of the conversation.

21Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
25The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.” (John 4:21-26 – NIV)

You know what happened next? The woman was so excited that she left her water jar at the well and ran back to town and told everyone about Jesus! (They probably would have normally ignored her too, but she was so enthusiastic that they all ran out to meet Jesus! Many of them believed in Jesus just because of what the woman said about him. They urged Jesus to stay and he stayed two days. When they heard all that he had to say, many more became believers.)

Now let’s look ahead to chapter 5 to the section the NIV give the title Life Through the Son. Jesus says:

21For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. 22Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.
24 “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. (John 5:21-24 –NIV)

Jesus is the source of life. He raises the dead. He is also the judge. And those who believe what God (the one who sent Jesus) gave him to say, will not be condemned. Jesus won’t condemn them. They will have eternal life. When this happens, Jesus says, you have crossed over from death to life. And I want to point out that this means there is a definite time when you receive salvation – when you are born again to use the terminology Jesus used when he was talking to Nicodemus. You cross over from death to life!

Now let’s look ahead to chapter 6. In chapter 6 (after Jesus had fed the 5,000 and walked on the water), there’s a section entitled Jesus the Bread of Life. Look at verse 27. Jesus told the crowd,

27 “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

Again, eternal life comes through Jesus. Jesus gives the food that endures to eternal life. That food is his word –and Jesus himself. He gave himself for us.

Now look at verse 28. Verse 28 says, “Then they asked him, ‘What must we do to do the works God requires?’” This sounds like a reasonable question. But here’s the problem. You see, it’s human nature to work for the things we can see, the things that belong to the “here and now”. We work for these things and compete for them. But Jesus says, “Do not work for food that spoils.” When they asked him what they needed to do to do the works God required, what they were really saying is, “What is the minimum we need to do to satisfy God so that we can spend the rest of our time working for the things we want to work for. It’s the nature of the flesh to think that way. They had it completely wrong. Do you know what Jesus told them? Here’s what he said: “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” Do you know what that means? What it means is that if you really believe in Jesus –if you really believe in him, everything you do will be the work of God –the work God requires – everything. Your whole life will be the work of God. There will be no “my work” and “God’s work”. There will be no “my life” and “God’s part of my life”. All of it will belong to God! They had it completely wrong!

Now look at chapter 6 verses 66 through 69. These verses are in the section the NIV titles Many Disciples Desert Jesus. Here’s what they say:

66From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
67 “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.
68Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:66-69 – NIV)

Peter and the other disciples that didn’t leave Jesus knew what was really important. They knew that Jesus was their life. Do you know what’s really important? Do we know what’s really important? What we do in this life only matters to the extent that it affects what will happen in the next life. Jesus is our Judge and he is also our Savior. Jesus didn’t come to condemn the world but for the world to be saved through him. He came into the world to save sinners of which, to use the words of the apostle Paul, I am the worst. Paul says that that’s a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance too. Do you believe it?  Do you believe that Jesus died for your sin and that he rose from the dead and is reigning at the right hand of God? Do you believe that he is going to come back (maybe soon) to judge the whole world –both the living and the dead? Do you believe that Jesus will reign until all of his enemies are submitted under his feet –and that the last enemy to be conquered will be death –that death will be destroyed? Do you believe that the whole creation will be liberated from decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God? Do you believe in Jesus? Amen!

I’ll have more next year.

[Prayer]