Sermon Tone Analysis

We have been going through Johns gospel as you all know and we have looked initially in the first chapter at how John expresses in clear language who Jesus is.

we saw Jesus as God, the incarnate one, the one from the beginning, the one who created all things and the one who all things are created for.

he is the saviour, the Redeemer, he is the one who we have been waiting for.

The long awaited one who took on flesh and was tempted in every way like us but with out sin. the Lamb of God....

This morning we continue looking in John's gospel and find ourselves in chapter 2 looking at what is traditionally known as the First sign of Jesus.

When he turns water into wine.

And with this, we begin a new series within our expositional study of the gospel of John by looking at the signs of Jesus.

But before looking at the six signs of Jesus, I want us to look first to the purpose of the signs.

With first a reminder of the purpose of the book.

Maybe at this point you may be thinking why did john write all of this.

what is the purpose?

you know Jihns gospel was not the first gospel to be written.

it was the last to be written.

why another one?

Generally when someone is a new believer or is to be introduced to the truth of Christianity, they are brought to read John’s Gospel.

I don’t know if you have ever wondered why that is?

Why not Matthew or Mark or Luke?

All of which are accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus.

Why John?

Well, if you recall each one presents a portrait of who Jesus is.

Matthew presents Jesus as the King, Mark has a portrait of Him as a Servant, Luke demonstrates that He is our Saviour.

All important.

All necessary truths.

But John shows a different portrait of the same person.

That He is the Son of God, that He is indeed God.

He is the one in whom we believe in as God,as the one who gives eternal life.

Scripture Reading

Introduction

Here we read about the purpose of John’s Gospel.

It is so that people will believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that in believing you will have life.

How beautiful is that.

It is not by works or by effort, but by believing.

It is not that you had to have been an eye witness or that you had some sort of existential experience.

But simply that you believe.

This is vitally important.

So this is purpose , the whole reason for why he wrote this book.

To point people to Christ.

To believe.

And he uses some specific events in the first half of the book, the first 12 chapters of the book, to convey this truth, presenting evidence that Jesus is more than a mere human.

That Jesus performed many signs.

Body

Within John’s Gospel, there are what are known as the signs of Jesus.

Perhaps in your Bible, you have chapter or section headings.

In Chapter two, you will find something like “The First Sign: Jesus turns water into wine.”

Or if you have a children’s Bible, I have seen it say Jesus turns water into Grape Juice.

And throughout John’s Gospel, you will read of six signs.

The six undisputed Johannine “signs” are:

(1) The turning of water into wine at the wedding in Cana (2:1–11)

(2) The healing of the official’s son (4:46–54)

(3) The healing of the lame man (5:1–15)

(4) The feeding of the multitude (6:1–15)

(5) The healing of the man born blind (chap.

9)

(6) The raising of Lazarus (chap.

11)

Traditionally, these are the six signs of Jesus, although some theologians will argue that there are seven.

Or they may switch the raising of lazarus, with Jesus walking on the water.

Dr. Andreas Kostenberger --

He defines a sign in John’s Gospel as “A symbol-laden, but not necessarily ‘miraculous,’ public work of Jesus selected and explicitly identified as such by John for the reason that it displays God’s glory in Jesus who is thus shown to be God’s true representative (cf.

20:30–31).”

First, you will notice that all six undisputed signs (and even the walking on the water) occur in chapters 1–12 of John’s Gospel, which is concerned with Jesus’ mission to the Jews.

Second, it appears that every one of the signs is identified as such at least somewhere in John’s Gospel (notice that often this is somewhat indirect and sometimes not until several chapters later; see below).

Image

Third, as John 20:30–31 makes clear, John selected certain events in Jesus’ public ministry to the Jews as signs because they all demonstrated that Jesus was the Christ and Son of God.

This, of course, would fit the walking on the water and perhaps other elements in John’s Gospel, but any candidate for “sign” (like the six undisputed signs) must fit all three criteria, not merely one or two.

You see, the signs that John includes in His gospel serve a purpose.

Just like all of the Scriptures do.

They are not meant to tickle our imaginations, although they may do that at times.

They are not just to relay to us historical accounts, although it does that as well.

But, in particular, what we find is that the whole scope of Scripture is revealing to us God and His work in salvific history.

And the signs of Jesus show us God, and bring us to give Him glory, as we see how he is working out His plan of salvation.

Some will try and wrangle the text, twist the signs, and say that you can do the same things.

As if the miracles that Jesus performed were common tricks or abilities that now every believer is capable of doing.

No, the signs we performed to display the glory of God within the Son who truly was God incarnate.

He performed signs, so that they would believe.

But they did not.

How sad that is.

I don’t know how many times I have heard that if only God would perform a miracle then I would believe.

Some churches, one pastor of a church even said that we need to do miracles nowadays so that people will believe in God, despite the fact that this pastor has not performed any miracles of his own.

But even in Jesus’ day, he was performing great signs and wonders and still they did not believe.

So many other signs that John said that he does not even contain them in his book.

And that is tragic isn’t it.

John includes what he believes, under the inspiration of the Spirit, all that is necessary.

But many will stay say he should’ve included those signs and everything that Jesus did.

We need evidence.

We need to know in order to believe.

John, you walked with Jesus, you saw the things he did.

But not us!

So you have to write it all down, otherwise I will not believe.

John here seems to indicate, no you don’t.

What I have written is enough.

What is written in this book is so that you may believe.

Now notice, he does not say what I have written and the signs that you will see.

Those who crave after signs are craving after exactly that, signs.

They are not desiring God.

They want to be awed, but there is nothing more awesome than God Himself.

Even with the signs, we read that many still did not believe.(John

12:37).

And to those who asked for signs, Jesus spoke fairly harshly to them.

We unfortunately, as a human race have a really poor record of handling signs.

When God performed amazing and powerful miracles for the Israelites, did that cause them to obey Him? No, the Israelites constantly disobeyed and rebelled against God even though they saw all the miracles.

The same people who saw God send the plagues to Egypt, part the Red Sea, feed them constantly, guide them by a pillar of fire and cloud, and spoke from the mountains, they later doubted whether God was able to conquer the inhabitants of the Promised Land.

This truth is explained in Luke 16:19-31.

In the story, a man in hell asks Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his brothers.