Sermon Tone Analysis

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Prayer

C.S. Lewis once said, “Believing things 'on authority' only means believing them because you have been told them by someone you think trustworthy.

Ninety-nine percent of the things you believe are believed on authority.

I believe there is such a place as New York.

I could not prove by abstract reasoning that there is such a place.

I believe it because reliable people have told me so.

The ordinary person believes in the solar system, atoms, and the circulation of the blood on authority--because the scientists say so.

Every historical statement is believed on authority.

None of us has seen the Norman Conquest or the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

But we believe them simply because people who did see them have left writings that tell us about them; in fact, on authority.

A person who balked at authority in other things, as some people do in religion, would have to be content to know nothing all his life.”

Sometimes we have to take someone else’s word for it.

We can’t always be there to see the whole story, and therefore we need to gather facts and make a determination as to what is true or not.

We are a people, though, who like to know what happened and what’s going on.

That’s why there’s so much traffic that builds up around an accident, or someone being pulled over, or anytime there’s more than one or two cop cars.

It’s not that everyone wants to stop and help, most people just want to get an inside scoop on what’s going on.

If we can’t see it for ourselves, then we want to talk to someone who was there, or someone who has some insider knowledge.

If we can’t talk to someone, we’ll check the news or social media feeds to see if someone we know has some input.

And we all know that if it’s on facebook, it has to be true.

That’s the rule.

If someone came running up to you and blurted out, “I’m about to tell you something big, and you have to believe me!” You’re going to listen very carefully to whatever is said next.

I always find it funny when someone gets ahold of me and says, “Dude, you are not going to believe this!”

I feel like saying, “Okay, then don’t tell me.”

But in all seriousness, when we know there is something important to hear, we ought to listen up.

Interestingly enough, John tells us at the end of his Gospel, that he’s written specifically that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

Over the next couple of months, we will be diving deeply into John’s gospel.

Together, we’ll study the testimony that John wrote, and we’ll look at the reasons John gives us to believe in Christ, the Son.

If you would, lets look, together, at John 20:30-31.

As you turn there, let me explain.

As we begin this new series, we will be looking at the Gospel of John and seeing Jesus presented as the Son of God.

The other three gospels, known as the synoptics, each give us a picture of Christ.

Matthew presents Christ as the King, Mark presents Jesus as the Suffering Servant, Luke presents Jesus as the Son of Man.

Each shares a similar pattern of stories, miracles, parables, and other teachings.

John’s gospel is clearly different in that he wrote with specific events and teachings in mind, he shares a lot of theology, and he explains a lot of the Jewish understandings so that the greek or gentile readers wouldn’t miss the significance of what was being shared.

Over the time we spend together this morning, we’re going to understand why we are studying this book, and why now.

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s look at the purpose passage together, then touch on some key words.

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Jesus did many other signs.

By the time we get to John 20, there have been 7 critical signs shared, an eighth with the resurrection of Christ.

John 20:30 tells us that Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not included in this particular book.

In fact, just one chapter over, in John 21:25, John tells us “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.”

John was specific about which signs were included in his gospel.

So we have to ask ourselves, why these signs then?

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These are written so that you may believe.

The seven signs John includes in his gospel are as follows (You don’t have to take notes on this, because we’ll come back to them over the next few weeks):

John 2:1-11 – Turning water to wine

John 4:46-54 – Healing of a royal official’s son (sickness)

John 5:1-15 – Healing at the pool of Bethesda (paralyzed)

John 6:5-14 – Feeding of the 5,000

John 6:16-24 – Walking on water

John 9:1-7 – Healing of a blind man

John 11:1-45 – Raising of Lazarus from the dead

Notice a progression from changing water into wine to raising a dead man back to life?

He starts with the impersonal and ends with the deeply personal.

These signs are mostly unique though, in that 6 of them only appear in John’s Gospel.

After Jesus cleansed the Temple in John 2, there is an interesting conversation between Him and the religious leaders:

John 2:18-22 “18 So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?”

19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

20 The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”

21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body.

22 When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.”

Jesus was telling the Jews that He was the Temple that would be destroyed, and raised back up.

Many didn’t see it, in fact His own disciples didn’t understand until the resurrection happened.

But what about you today?

Are you receiving it on good authority that Christ is alive?

Are you trusting in death and resurrection to cleanse you from your sins?

Thankfully the authority we are receiving these truths from didn’t stop at seven signs.

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John compiled several lists of seven.

John uses lists of seven as a literary tool throughout his writings.

It’s not a coincidence that he does this, however.

John is using a strategic technique to get the reader’s attention, and make the content more memorable.

Just in the Gospel of John we have seven witnesses, feasts, signs, statements.

Later in the book of Revelation we find the number seven used more there than any of the other New Testament books combined with seven churches, candlesticks, angels, seals, trumpets, bowls, and more.

John was able to group things together in such a way that they are easily remembered, and therefore his teaching sticks with us a little better.

If we remember it, we will have an easier time believing it.

And we have each of these things on good authority knowing that all Scripture is divinely inspired or breathed out.

So, again, I ask, “Why is it that we are studying this book?”

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Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God

Dear friends, why did John write this Gospel, and why do we need to hear it so badly?

Because John is presenting Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah; that He is the Son of God, and by believing in Him we may have life in His name.

Our society tells us that the youngest generations are desperately searching for something authentic, but Scripture tells us that none are righteous and none are seeking after God.

So much of what we see being pushed into our world is not the truth of the Gospel at all.

Much like the later years of the First Century, the recent years of the Twenty-First Century have been jam packed with false ideas about Jesus.

Images of Christ have been shaped more by popular ideas, movements, and religions of the day than by Scripture.

Of course, there are certainly many false Christs and false gospels put forth in the statements of various other cults, spiritual movements, or world religions.

But there are also false ideas of Christ in the church as well.

One might ask, “How? or Where?”

The truth is that wherever there are imperfect and sinful people, just like us, there will be distorted views of Jesus.

Do we believe that?

Do we see that in our own hearts?

We must believe that theology matters, and how we choose to speak about, teach, or present Jesus is of vital importance.

Now, you and I must also be careful because we may not be confessing a false Jesus simply because we've adopted some heretical teaching.

It could be the result of an incomplete knowledge or faith, as we talked about with John last week.

It could be that you've accepted things about Jesus that come from tradition, TV, or pop-culture but not God's word.