NOVEMBER 24, 2024 "The Christ, The Son of God" John 20:30-31

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Today we're going to be in John, chapter 20.

John 20 · chapter mention

John, chapter 20, verses 30 and 31.

John 20:30

Just two verses today and 31.

Just two verses today, and you may say hot dog mom.

As we turn to John 20 and 21, just let me remind you that just these couple of verses and it's verses that that you're probably tired of me saying Almost every Sunday I at least refer to these verses.

Refer to them because they are.

They are John's purpose in writing the gospel.

And and as we come to them, while we have covered them in the past, I want us to cover them again today.

And what I want us to do, because it's John's purpose, even though we've talked extensively about it, I don't want us just to skip over it.

Now that we've come to these two verses in the passage, I want us to unpack those a little bit more, to dive deeper into them, to see what John is saying, to see what John is doing here.

John, in this passage he provided his purpose for writing the gospel and how he would accomplish this purpose.

And as we explore John's purpose for writing, we can see that Jesus is the Christ who died for us, to give us life, and that we must then believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and find life in his name.

So, if you're able this morning, if you will please stand with me as we give honor to the reading of God's word in these two verses John, chapter 20, verses 30 and 31.

John 20:30

John writes this 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 that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Let's pray together, god, we are so thankful.

We are so thankful for this book, we are so thankful for the gospel of John, we are so thankful for all of scripture.

And, god, we pray that, as we dive into your word, that you will change our lives, spirit, that you will move us and lead us in all truth.

We love you, we praise you, jesus, it's in your wonderful name that we pray.

Amen, you may be seated.

So, as we look at this book, as we look at these two verses today, and understand that this is John's purpose, before we answer the question that we're trying to get to today, there's a couple of things that we need to do here that we need to understand about this.

What John is writing for us to do is he is writing so that we would believe, so that we would believe we say that word a lot.

What do we mean when we say that word, this word that we get?

Believe from this verb In John's gospel, believe from this verb In John's gospel?

John never uses this word as a noun.

It's never a noun, it's never found in its noun form, which, if we usually would translate that with the word faith.

But John never uses the noun form of this word in his gospel.

But 96 times, 96 times, he uses this word in its verbal form.

Adam Harwood, who wrote a book called Christian Theology.

He alludes to the fact that John, he never intended for faith or belief or to believe to be a concept of Christianity.

It is something we live out day by day by day.

So so when we look at this word, what do we mean by to believe?

And we've talked about this, we've talked about this over and over.

But but there's two aspects of believing.

The two aspects are faith and repentance, and these two aspects are two sides of one coin.

Imagine for a moment you have a quarter.

If I had a quarter and I took that quarter and I split it so you had a heads and a tails side.

I could not use that quarter anywhere because, guess what, no longer it's a quarter.

To have a quarter, it had to be together.

And for us to believe, it's the same idea faith and repentance go together.

In believing they go together, it's like two sides of one coin.

Without with, without one, you can't have believe.

So it takes both of these going together to make this happen.

And so let's take a moment and look at what faith is.

We misuse this word a lot of times in our society today.

Faith is not an irrational, it's not an an an irrational thing that we, that we hold to, we, we we use this a lot like believe, even when there's no reason to believe.

Let me give you an example.

My sophomore year in high school at South Pontotoc, we had meet the cougar night, and schools still have this now, and so it was a night where set aside, where we would call the football players out and we would come out and fans had the opportunity to see the players do the same for the band and the cheerleaders.

The difference is and I don't know if schools do it much today still, but we would have a scrimmage after Meet, the Cougar Night.

Now, granted, it was just a glorified practice under the lights.

It really wasn't much more than that, but it was under the lights and so it was fun, and so we had our practice this year.

And after practice I don't remember and listen, it was a glorified practice we ran sprints with people up in the stands watching us.

Now, a couple of things with that One, I was embarrassed about how slow I was running, but two also could you imagine sitting in the stands and going what are we doing here?

But anyway, it happened After we ran sprints, though I remember I don't know why, so I remember I don't know why, but our team came together in a huddle and just got excited.

Maybe we were excited that we didn't have to run any more sprints, I don't know, but there was this excitement that built up and it just built and it built and it escalated and it became a frenzy Again.

Not real sure why, but there was this just frenzied excitement that carried over into the locker room.

And I remember being in the locker room and just everybody going crazy and a lot of shouting and yelling and excitement.

And you're just going, what in the world is happening?

And I remember one of our seniors this year caught my brother who had just graduated the year before.

But he caught my brother and he got right up in his face and he said go ahead and buy your tickets to Jackson.

We're going to state.

And while I appreciate the excitement, I appreciate the enthusiasm, honestly, I appreciate the confidence, let me give you the reality of the situation.

We were a 2-8 team and one of the toughest divisions in the state.

This is how bad we were.

I was the starting quarterback.

It was not good.

To believe at that moment was not real faith.

That was more irrational.

It was an irrational concept in our mind.

That is not what John is calling us to when he calls us to believe.

Wayne Grudem, in his book called Systematic Theology, he identifies three aspects of faith, of true faith, of biblical faith.

The first aspect of this is understanding the facts of the gospel, the facts of the gospel.

To believe, we have to have an understanding about the gospel as it has been presented to us in scripture.

We have to understand that Jesus lived, that he came, that he lived, that he died, that he arose.

We have to understand those facts.

The second part of this is we have to become into agreement with those facts.

We have to agree that this happened.

And the third aspect of this that Grudem identifies is we have to trust.

We have to trust that word is probably better identifies in our society today.

What faith is?

It's a trust that Jesus is our Savior.

John, in his gospel he uses several words to identify this.

In John 3, 16, he writes this for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in Jesus, whoever believes in Jesus here the concept is or not the concept, the fact of belief is this is that we come into Jesus.

In John 6 and 7, john writes these words where Jesus says come to me.

Believing and having faith would be coming to Jesus.

And so faith and belief is not an irrational concept that we are longing for, it is a trust.

It is a trust that what is presented to us in the gospel an agreement with this and then a trust in giving our lives over to that, to coming into Jesus and coming to Jesus.

On the other side of that coin we have repentance.

Repentance is very similar.

Repentance is like faith, like trust.

It is a hearing and understanding the facts of the gospel.

It is an agreement with the gospel and it is a trust, but while faith is a trusting in God and turning towards him and coming to him, repentance is a turning away from.

Repentance is a turning away from sin.

Repentance is more than I'm sorry.

Repentance is more than just having bad feelings about a sin that we've committed.

Repentance is a turning away from that life and turning towards God in faith, and you can see this just in the illustration.

You've seen me do it several times on the stage.

I will probably do it a whole bunch.

You'll probably get tired of me seeing me do this, but you can see how it's two sides of one coin.

If we are living our life, as Paul says, dead in our trespasses and sins, we are enemies of God, and if God is over here, we are walking away from God.

But when we believe and we have faith and repentance, it's a simultaneous turning away and turning to.

We believe, and John is writing so that we would believe.

Well, what does he want us to believe, though?

He wants us to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God.

John is writing so that the readers of this gospel would believe that Jesus is the anointed one, that he is the promised Messiah, that he is the one that Israel and, even though they don't understand it and don't know it, the whole world is anticipating his arrival.

Jesus is, is that one who is anointed, who is set aside for a purpose, who is coming so that he could live and die and rise so that we can have life?

And at the very beginning, at the outset of John's gospel, in John chapter one, verses one through four, john lays out right at the very beginning who Jesus is.

He says this in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through him and without him was not anything made.

That was made In him was life and the life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

John, at the beginning of his gospel, is writing that Jesus is the word and he was with God and he was God and he was with God in the beginning and nothing was made that was made without Jesus.

He is the Christ, the son of God, and John is writing this gospel so that we would believe, that we would come into, that we would trust that we would, that we would turn to this and turn away from our sin and believe that he is the Christ, the son of God.

So the question that we want to answer today, then, is how did John try to accomplish his purpose?

If this is his purpose, if this is what he is wanting for us to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God how did he set out to accomplish this purpose?

Well, he tells us.

He says 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 these are written.

So, in order for us to understand what we are supposed to believe, we really need to go back and look at the whole gospel and you say, oh no, we're here all day, no, but if he says these signs have been written, let's just take some snapshots then and look back at the signs.

There were seven signs that Jesus performed in the eyes of the disciples that John wrote about in this book.

There are seven that would point us to and help us to believe that Jesus is the Christ.

The first of these signs is found in John, chapter 2, verses 1 through 11.

John 2:1–11

This is the sign when Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding in Cana.

If you go back and you read this, we won't read all these passages.

I challenge you to write these down to go back and read them yourself this afternoon.

Maybe go back and read them when you have some time with your family this week to sit down.

Maybe you sit down with your family and read through these passages together.

But the first sign that we see Jesus perform was was turning water into wine at the wedding at Cana and when we went through this passage years ago.

This is the question that keeps coming to my mind why, if this is the first sign to get people to believe that Jesus is the Christ look, I'm not Jesus and believe me, I believe he knows better than me, but if it were me, I mean I would be making something explode, I would be looking for something big, but but no, the first sign was that he turned water into wine at a wedding.

Why?

Well, I think what Jesus was doing here is you find, in his conversation with his mother at this wedding that relationships were about to change, and the most important relationship that Jesus knew and the most important relationship that we can know is the relationship with the Father.

And so what Jesus did is he took these pots that were made for external purification, that the Jews would go and these rites that they would go through to purify themselves.

But it was all external and he took these pots, these purification pots, and he created wine in those, and I think the picture is so beautiful to say you know what your external purification does you no good, because the most important relationship is that with the Father and what you need is an internal purification and that is coming because Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

The second miracle that we see that he performed is down in chapter 4.

Verses 46 through 54.

In this miracle, what Jesus does is he heals a Roman official son.

Jesus had gone to Jerusalem.

In chapter two, he cleansed the temple.

He came back, he was there.

In chapter three, he came.

In chapter four, he was on his way home, went through Samaria.

Finally, at the end of chapter four, he comes back to Galilee, where his family was, where all these people were, and and they come and they greet him because of the sign, because of they had seen what he did in Jerusalem when he cleansed the temple.

They had seen that and they were all amazed by that.

And so they gathered around Jesus.

But the question that we had to answer that day was were they gathering around him because they believed him to be the Christ?

Or were they gathering around him because they believed him to be the Christ, or were they gathering around him because they just thought he was a man of God?

And in the midst of this questions, this Roman official, probably a Roman centurion, comes to Jesus and he says my son is about to die.

And Jesus said what have I to do with you?

He said you can heal him.

And Jesus said go, go, he's healed.

And we know this man believed.

Do you know how we know he believed?

He left, he didn't plead anymore, he left, he turned and walking home.

Scripture tells us on his way home, his servants come to meet him and they say your son is getting better.

And he says when did it happen?

And he knew that the fever left his son.

The same time, jesus said go, he's going to be okay.

And we see that Jesus came and he has power over sickness, even from a distance.

And we see that he came and he healed not just a Jewish child but a Roman child, because salvation was for more than just the Jews, it was for all of us.

He is the Christ, the son of God.

The third sign that we see is in chapter five, when he healed a man who had been an invalid for 38 years.

For 38 years he had laid beside the pool of Bethesda waiting to go in and waiting to be healed.

And Jesus saw him and said hey, do you want to be healed?

And he said I have nobody to put me in the water.

And Jesus said arise, take up your bed and walk.

And the man believed.

You know how?

I know he arose and he took up his bed and he walked.

And what we see here, what we find and learn in this sign, is that Jesus again has power over illness.

But we also see that he is Lord of the Sabbath, because the Jews came and said why are you carrying your bed on the Sabbath?

You shouldn't be doing work.

And he said the guy who healed me told me to.

And they said somebody healed you on the Sabbath.

How dare they?

So they found Jesus and they said what right you shouldn't be healing on the Sabbath and Jesus told him.

He said look, my father is working until now and so am I.

He is Lord of the Sabbath.

Not only that, we see that he is lord over sin because he he sees the man.

He finds the man later and he says hey, go and sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.

Jesus didn't just heal the man, he forgave the man because he has power over sin, because he is the Christ, the son of God.

In chapter 6, we see Jesus feeding the multitudes, just like the Israelites had been in the wilderness with Moses.

And they were in the wilderness and they were hungry and they were helpless.

And Moses cried out to God and God sent them manna.

Here in Matthew, chapter 6, jesus is in the wilderness with people and he is teaching them, and they are hungry and there is no food to be had.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

And so Jesus says what the disciples come and say what are we going to do?

And they find five loaves and two fish.

And Jesus prayed and thanked God for it.

But God didn't have to send manna, because Moses prayed, because God was right there with them, and he thanked God and he divided the bread and he divided the fish, and not only did he feed all the people there, but he had leftovers, because he is the Christ, the son of God, greater than the greatest Israelite that they knew.

Later on in that chapter we find, we find the next sign where the disciples, they get into the boat and they go and cross the sea.

And as they are crossing the sea, a storm comes and the wind blows and they get so afraid.

And then they look up and they see this figure walking on the water and it's Jesus.

And in this sign, in this miracle, we see once again the omnipotence of Jesus.

Yes, he has power over sin, we've seen that.

He has power over sickness, we've seen that.

But, oh my stars, he also has power over nature, because here he is walking on the water.

Now, I say it like that because so often we just pass over that.

Yeah, jesus walked on the water, he walked on water.

And not only do we see the omnipotence of Jesus, but we see the omniscience of them, because from a distance, he knew what the disciples were thinking and they were afraid, thinking it was a ghost.

And so Jesus called out to them and said do not be afraid, it is I, because he is the Christ, the son of God.

Then, in chapter 9, jesus healed a man born blind.

He had been blind his whole life.

Remember.

His disciples came to him and they said Jesus, is he blind because of his sin or his disciples sin?

And what we saw in this is is that Jesus taught that good theology does not begin with what man wants.

Good theology begins with God.

He also teaches with good.

Good works don't begin with just what we want to happen.

Good works begin with God and what he is doing.

And we also saw in this miracle that the Pharisees were missing it.

They were so set in their traditions, they were so set in their own self-righteousness they had already closed their minds to Jesus.

And they were missing this man who healed a man who was born blind.

They were missing the Christ, the Son of God.

The last sign that we see is in chapter 11.

When Jesus called Lazarus out of the grave, his friend Lazarus was dead.

Hear me.

His friend Lazarus was D-E-A-D dead For four days.

Even to the point that when Jesus went to the tomb and told him to roll the stone away, they said Jesus, don't do it.

King James Version.

Lord, he stinketh, but Jesus thanked the father and said Lazarus, come forth, and he came out of the grave.

Jesus not only has power over sickness and illness and over nature, jesus has power over death itself because he is the Christ, the son of God.

And John wrote so that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God and by believing we find life in his name real quickly.

I think we can understand what he means by finding life in his name Real quickly.

I think we can understand what he means by finding life in his name by looking at seven I am statements, seven I am statements that Jesus has made throughout this gospel.

The first one is in chapter six.

He said I am the bread of life.

And Jesus said I am the bread of life because, just like we need bread for nourishment, we need bread to survive.

We need bread to live.

Jesus said spiritually, you need me to live.

There is no life without me.

The second I am statement is he said I am the light of the world.

Here's why because life can only be found in the light.

Listen, in the darkness.

We think we have life, life in the darkness.

We are convinced that what we are living is life in the world around us.

They will tell you, the world around us, even even if they're not evil.

The world will tell us this is what life is and this is what it looks like.

But that's life in darkness and and it's not really life.

Life is found in the light of the world and Jesus is saying come to the light of the world so that you may find life.

Jesus said I am the door of the sheep, because the only way to find that light and to walk in that light is to walk through him, through his death and burial and resurrection, to enter into a relationship with the Father and find light and find life.

He is the door of the sheep and he is the only way.

He also says I am the good shepherd.

We know he is the good shepherd because it tells us he laid down his life for the sheep.

He wants to give us food, he wants to give us nourishment, he wants to give us light and he wants to give us life.

And he wants to give us all those things because he is the good shepherd and he loves providing for us.

He said I am the resurrection and the life because we are dead in our trespasses and sins, but Jesus, jesus gives us life because he is the resurrection and life.

Because of his death and burial and resurrection we can be raised to walk in newness of life.

He is the resurrection and life.

He says I am the way and the truth and the life because we think we know the way, we think we know the truth, but without Christ, without entering the door, without leaning on the good shepherd, listen, we only know darkness, we know false ways and we know false truths.

But Jesus Christ is the way and the truth and when we lean on him we find the life.

And finally he says I am the vine, because it is only in Jesus, because he is the only source of life.

John wrote so that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and find life in his name.

Interestingly, one thing I want to point out to you this morning is this throughout this gospel, people denied that Jesus was the Christ.

The Jewish leadership, they denied that Jesus is the Christ and, interesting to me, it seems like the only thing that they would have to do to prove that he is not the Christ is to prove that he didn't perform these miracles.

Here's the problem.

Not one time did they deny the miracles.

They only denied the way that he did them.

They couldn't deny what he had done because he did them and he did them and John wrote about them so that we would believe.

My challenge for you this morning is stop trying to figure out reasons to disbelieve and look.

Look into the light of the world, believe and find life.

I'm going to pray for us and we're going to enter into a time of invitation.

Listen, if you have never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, if you have never repented and placed your faith in Him, oh, let today be the day of salvation, because you are not living the life that you were sent to live.

Know Him today.

If you have, yet you are not walking in Him.

I pray that this morning you will repent and you will turn and walk in him this morning.

If you're looking for a church home, we would love to have you here at DeSoto Hills.

If you have a decision that you need to make, as we stand in just a moment and sing, we invite you to come make that decision believe that he is the Christ, the Son of God, and find life in his name.

Thanks for listening to this week's sermon.

If you have any questions for our pastor, feel free to reach out at desotohillscom.