It's All About Jesus

Well, folks, we did it! We have made it to the end of the book of John.

How many of you were here with us when we started John last September?

Not counting Christmas, we have taken over 30 Sundays to work our way through this book.

I hope God has used whatever portion of it you have been a part of to encourage and challenge you.

Before we move on, I wanted us to take a quick look back at some of the key themes John has outlined for us throughout the book.

Let’s go back to verses we said tell us John’s purpose in writing the book:

John 20:31 CSB

But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

As we look at four different themes John has shown us throughout this book, let me remind you of holds the whole book together: Just like life, it’s all about Jesus.

With all the applications we have looked at, this one rises to the top again and again: believe in Jesus and find life.

Eternal life, living forever with God, is found only through a trust and belief in Jesus.

We are going to jump around in the book some, so make sure you take out your Bible and follow along.

We are going to start in chapter 1, so go ahead and open there.

John gives us a unique look at who Jesus is from the very beginning of the book.

In chapter 1, he begins teaching that...

1) Jesus is the Son of God.

John opens the book talking about the Word, who we understand to be Jesus.

In 1:1, we read that the Word is himself God.

From the very beginning, he makes it clear that Jesus isn’t just some good teacher who did nice things.

That means we don’t respond to Jesus’s words like we would a TedTalk or like a quick video on TikTok or Facebook.

What Jesus says and what Jesus does matter because he is God!

When we jump down to verse 14, we see more incredible facts about Jesus.

Not only is he God, he is also referred to as the Son of God.

That doesn’t mean he is created or less than the Father—we already saw that in verse 1-2.

Instead, he is the person of the Godhead who made the invisible God visible.

He actually became flesh and walked around, and John saw him and touched him.

John said that Jesus is full of grace and truth.

Jesus accurately taught and demonstrated that who God is and what he is like. He showed us what grace is—not the grace of a dancer whose movements are fluid, but grace that means giving us what we don’t deserve.

Throughout the book, you see instances like the woman caught in adultery, where Jesus had every right to have her put to death.

However, in that moment, he extended grace and forgiveness to her.

That doesn’t mean he wasn’t truthful or just; he clearly upheld God’s law and showed us the standards of what God expects.

However, those who will truly trust in him and him alone for life will find the grace to become his children, adopted into his family (verses 12-13).

He is the God who created the universe, who said “I AM”, pointing to the divine name God had given his people, and showing that he was the Son of God.

Not only that, John also showed us that...

2) Jesus is the Messiah.

Shortly after God made people, we chose to rebel and do what we wanted instead of what he wanted.

Ever since then, God promised he was going to set it all back in order.

As the centuries passed, God became clearer, so his people knew that one day, there would be a special servant God would send.

He would be known as the Messiah, or the Christ.

As the book unfolds, John makes it clear that Jesus is the Messiah that they had been looking for.

He is the special servant God had promised to send to save his people.

One of the ways John points this out is through the miracles he records that Jesus did.

He turned water into wine at a wedding feast, symbolizing the joy that was coming with the arrival of God’s kingdom in a new way.

He healed the sick and even raised the dead.

There are times we see that Jesus even knew what was going on in people’s hearts.

Flip over to John 4 to see that.

Jesus and his disciples were traveling through an area most respectable Jews would have avoided.

Jesus not only goes straight through the rough part of the country, he also stops and talks one on one with a woman who had a less-than-reputable history.

As Jesus outlined for her details of her life that he couldn’t have known if he wasn’t a prophet, and as he taught her about the kingdom of God, she responded:

John 4:25–26 CSB

The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Jesus told her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”

Here, he clearly and unequivocally says that he is the Messiah. He is the one God promised to send to save his people.

There’s a problem with that, though.

You see, people had the wrong impression from the Old Testament that the Messiah was going to set up shop in Jerusalem right away and drive out the Romans and take over the world.

They were excited about that kind of Messiah.

What they didn’t understand, though, was there was something that had to happen to him first.

They didn’t realize that the Messiah would have to fulfill the pictures we see in places like:

Isaiah 53:5–6 CSB

But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds. We all went astray like sheep; we all have turned to our own way; and the Lord has punished him for the iniquity of us all.

John makes it clear through his miracles and his teaching that Jesus is in fact the Messiah.

As Jesus goes to the cross, he makes it clear that the Messiah had to suffer and die on our behalf.

Yes, one day, Jesus—the Son of God, the Messiah—will come back and set up his kingdom on earth in its fullest expression.

In his first coming, though, he was coming to save his people from their sins.

That’s not just the Jews, by the way—his people are anyone who will believe in his name and find life.

You see, that’s another key theme in John...

3) Jesus is life.

The reason we can find life in Jesus is because he himself is life.

We find that clearly when we look at John 11, where we see Jesus’s power over death itself.

His friend Lazarus had died and been dead for several days.

When Jesus finally shows up, he starts speaking with Lazarus’s sister Martha. He says this:

John 11:25–26 CSB

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Jesus demonstrated that he had the power to give life that day by raising Lazarus from the dead.

That was just an outward expression of the reality that Jesus give spiritual life to any who believe in him.

As we have seen, by the way, that word “believe” is more than just knowing facts about Jesus.

Instead, it is a trust in him that goes down into the core of who we are. With the deepest part of me, I am surrendering and trusting and believing in Jesus.

For those who do, Jesus gives life!

That’s what has given us hope at the funerals we have had for members of our church family the last few weeks.

Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and the people who have passed trusted in him, which means they are alive with him right now!

Although Jesus showed this with Lazarus, what truly proved that he was the life was that Sunday morning that John talks about in chapter 20, where Jesus rose from the grave.

He didn’t just bring someone else back to life; he defeated death and rose in a body that couldn’t ever die again.

John showed us that Jesus, the Son of God and the Messiah, is the source of spiritual life.

Have you come to that kind of belief in Jesus? The belief that surrenders your life and puts Jesus in charge?

Why not do that today?

Because, even with everything we have seen, John concludes the book by reminding us that...

4) Jesus is more.

Maybe you feel like we are just getting started and should go back and take an even deeper look at everything John has to say.

Perhaps you are on the other side and think we have beat this book to death and are ready to move on.

You might even be somewhere in-between and think we hit the “just right” Goldilocks timing.

Any way you cut it, I want to end our study by reminding you that there is so much more to Jesus than we could cover in 30-some weeks.

In fact, there is even more to Jesus than John could write.

Look back at 20:30

Now, flip over to the last two verses of the book 21:24-25.

Can’t you picture it? John was likely an older man when he wrote his gospel. Can you see him setting down the pen and looking out the window nearby as he thought about all the things that he didn’t include?

All the people he saw Jesus touch, all the things he heard Jesus teach, all the people Jesus had forgiven...

John told us enough to know that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that believing in him brings life.

However, God has given us more information about Jesus than just what John records.

All of the Bible whispers his name, whether it is an account from the Old Testament that highlights the need for a Savior or gives us a pattern of what one might look like, or whether it is a gospel in the New Testament that records his life and teaching or a letter that helps us understand what these things mean.

We won’t know all the stories John left out until we get to heaven, but we can keep growing to know and love and believe more deeply in Jesus, the Messiah and the Son of God.

As we do, we may see more and more that God is far better, far kinder, far more just, far more powerful, far more beautiful, and far more fearsome than we can comprehend. He is far more.

As we close our study in John, may God grant us the desire and ability to know Jesus better and better in the days to come.