Believe and Live

Well, good morning. It's wonderful to be back. Worship. Thankful for the live stream and all the work that Steve puts into it, but as compared to being here with you, it is rather quite lame. But it is very helpful for people that cannot leave the house, and I know that. But it just makes me appreciate all the more being with God's people in their presence, in the presence of our Lord together.

So I'm thankful to be here. I ask that you would open up your Bible to John chapter 20. To John chapter 20. And we'll spend time in verses 30 and 31 this morning. Oh, we are beginning a very large book of the New Testament now, the Gospel of John. It's one of the largest books in the New Testament. and anytime you're in such a large book like this there is a danger of getting lost in detail anytime you're in a big book of the bible trying to study it and go through it there is always a danger to get lost in details to be to lose the forest for the trees or to lose the painting for the paintbrush strokes what i mean is that there's all these beautiful details that are around us in the word, and we can just kind of get lost with each one and not know where to put each of the detail.

And it's like losing the forest for the trees. You see all the beautiful little individual trees, and there's so much of it that you forget that there's a whole beautiful forest set before you, or a painting. You can forget that there is a painting there in front of you as you get lost in the brush strokes. And so, as we begin this gospel, this very large book of the New Testament, I am aware of the danger of getting lost in detail.

So reading and hearing the preaching can become dull, boring, and lifeless affair. Whenever you are getting hit with detail after detail without seeing the bigger picture, this can all become a very lifeless affair. In fact, if you're going to be honest with yourself, I think every Christian has experienced a time when they're trying to study scripture.

And if they're going to be honest with themselves, all they really did was read detail after detail after detail, story after story after story, verse after verse after verse. And they didn't make anything of a holistic value of it. There is no larger picture. It's just detail after detail. They got lost in it, and actually their study, if they were going to be honest with themselves, was quite dull and boring.

In fact, perhaps some of you perhaps are in that state as a Christian as you consider your time alone with the Lord or even hearing the preaching. All you really have been doing is going through the motions of the details, and it has left your time with the Lord in private study or listening to preaching. rather lifeless and dull. And what's so tragic about that danger that's really in front of all of us is what the scriptures are really meant to be and to do.

Jeremiah 15, 16 says, Your words were found and I ate them and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart for I am called by your name, O Lord, God of hosts. You see, to Jeremiah, the words of God was a great joy to behold. Or Psalm 119, 103, how sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. I remember being a new Christian even before I was a true Christian just thinking that the word of God is boring.

It's not sweet to the taste. And as we traverse our Christian lives, we can fall back into such a mindset as we get lost in the details. And instead of with Jeremiah, with the psalmist, say it's sweet like honey, wonderful joy in my heart. Instead, it can fall lifeless and dull to our spirits. Psalm 19.10 says, More to be desired is your word than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey, and the drippings on the honeycomb.

How often, instead, we find other things of this life much sweeter than spending time with our Lord. And so what I want to press upon us is, why does this happen? How can we fall into this state? As an unbeliever, you have no taste for the Word of God. You have no desire to read it. But as a believer, we can fall so quickly into this mindset that the Word of God, although with much power and beauty and tastes sweet as honey, yet it is lifeless upon my soul.

Why does this happen? It's all the more frustrating when you realize that the beauty of the Word and everything that it's supposed to unleash for you as a believer. I think the start to remedy this common problem within the life of the Christian is to know the main point of the book that you're in. A very good direction to take when you're getting lost in the detail after detail, detail, detail, detail, and you don't know how to get out and it all just seems so lifeless to you, is to stop and to know what is the main point of this book, of this verse, of this chapter I'm in.

And then add the details that you are receiving to that main point as it creates that beautiful picture in your eyes again. And we will see with John here what this main point is. We going to start with the Gospel of John to see what is his main point of this Gospel So when we go through the details these next several months we will attach it to that main point And so there's a beautiful picture before us with each of the details instead of getting lost in those details.

And what we are going to see, the main point of John, is that he does not want us to be passive with the text, but to be very active with the text. And so that is a further solidifier to stop it from being a lifeless thing instead of a life-filled thing. And so not only is it important for us to get the main point of the text so the details can be attached to that main point but we see that John's main point in his gospel is that you would not be caught being passive with the text but being active with the text.

Now what do I mean by that? Let me put a little bit of flesh on that real quick. What it means to be passive versus active. There is a big football game that's going to happen tonight, I believe. Since my team didn't make it, I don't care at all, and I'm still a little bitter about that, that my Detroit Lions didn't make it. They are the better team in the league.

Believe that. But all of us, well, most of us who's going to watch it, because I have to turn it on, I guess, None of us are going to be active as we're watching this game. We are all going to be extremely passive. We have no influence, nothing at all in the game, other than to simply passively watch it go on. Sometimes when me and my boys are about to watch a game, before it starts, I always joke around and say, hey, you guys need to start focusing on the game that we're about to watch.

You've got to really start focusing, get your head in the game, as if that will matter at all about the outcome of the game. I'm acting like they could be active in it somehow, but really we're just a bunch of passive buffoons watching this sports game. It is a passive affair. The people playing the Super Bowl, that's an active affair for them. They are active in that game.

So what I'm saying here is that John's main point in the gospel, as we'll see, is he does not want you, oh Christian, to be passive with the word of God to where it becomes dull to your spirit, but is said to be active in the unfolding affair. And this will transform our reading and listening from being dull, boring, lifeless, to vibrant, exciting, full of life as we follow the main point which causes us to be very active with the word of God. So here is John's main point for his book.

Let us read it together. John chapter 20, verses 30 and 31. The apostle writes, Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, in this gospel. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing that you will have life in his name. Let us pray.

Oh Father, I thank you for your word. Lord, it truly is sweeter than honey. It truly is better to be, more to be desired than anything else in this world to have your word, to know your word, and to apply your word. Oh God in heaven, as we struggle with sin in this life far too often, we become a passive participant in your word and we wonder why the beauty of it, the taste of it, it becomes dull to our spirits.

Oh, may we learn from John and his gospel here to be active in the word of Christ, to be active with the Lord, and for our belief into him to amount to life in him. Not starting in eternity, but starting today. Oh, Lord, may we be reminded of that foundational Christian truth, and may we find it all joy to meditate on it and to apply it to our lives.

We thank you and praise you in the name of Jesus Christ, our risen Lord, for he's done the work and we praise you for that. Amen. Okay, so we come to John's main point here. John chapter 20, verse 31, it's his main point and it's right at the end of his gospel. Right at the end of his gospel, he says his main point. And I know you're thinking, wait, this is chapter 20, there's a whole other chapter in chapter 21.

And that's because chapter 21 is kind of like that end credits scene in movies. You know what I'm saying? You're watching a movie, and I learned this as a young boy, is that when you're watching a movie and the credits come up, don't you dare turn off the movie. Because there could be that random scene at the end of the credit, and sometimes it's very important to the actual story.

And so if you shut it off, you miss that whole end credits scene. Well, chapter 21 is like John's end credit scene. Chapter 20, where we're at right now, verse 30 and 31, is the end of the gospel. The curtains have closed. The credits are coming up or down. And then all of a sudden, the curtains open back up and there's one final scene of chapter 21.

Now, we'll get to the significance of it and everything once we get there. But nevertheless, it's just important to know that the main point of the gospel, His thesis statement is found here at the end of his main body of the gospel of John in chapter 20, verses 30 and 31. And notice he says in verse 30, Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book.

You see, John's gospel is made up of two halves. the first half chapters 1 through 11 he talks about seven main signs or seven signs of Jesus that Jesus does to show that he is the promised Christ Messiah to come seven signs to reveal that and it surrounded with teaching all dispersed through there And then the second half verses 12 through 21 is all about his sign of his death and resurrection, which, again, is pointing to who he says he is as Christ Messiah, Son of God. And so John is saying, yeah, there's seven signs in the first half, there's that main sign of his death and resurrection in the second, I could have filled this book with just countless signs of Jesus if I really wanted to. In fact, he says in the end scene chapter, in chapter 21, or after credits scene, he says in chapter 21, the very last verse of the whole book, he says in chapter 21, verse 25, now there are also many other signs that Jesus did, or 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.

So what he's saying there is there's literally unlimited amount of things that Jesus did when he walked this earth. And if I were to write all of it down, there wouldn't be enough pages in this world to contain all that he did. In other words, there could be endless detail, he says, endless trees in that forest, endless brush strokes of the painting if I really wanted to.

But, he says in verse 31 of John chapter 20, he says, but these are written so that. Before we move on from that, it's important to see that John says, I could have given you unlimited signs that he did, but I wrote these particular ones for a particular reason. By the way, the whole Bible is like this. We tend to think the Bible is actually a big book. it really isn't a big book.

If you think about it, this covers the span of thousands of years. And it's really not that big. This is large font, too. If this was small font, it would be much smaller. And so it's actually not a very big book because the Bible is not interested in exhausting every detail they could give you. And the writer, John, writing his gospel, he's like, I'm not interested in exhausting every detail that Jesus did.

That's not why I wrote. I'm not here to give you endless detail of what he did. But instead, I wrote what I did for a particular message I'm trying to convey to you, for you to hold on to, grab hold of, so it penetrates your heart. Everything I said, every sign, is pointed to this particular message that I'm underlining. So, by the way, his message is the same message of the entire Bible.

Very similar message. So if you do not know what that main point is in the Gospel of John, if you don't know it, then you're going to get lost in detail. You're going to get lost in the transmission. You're not going to be able to point it and put it on where the detail belongs in this great painting that he's providing. You're going to get lost. And it's going to start becoming dull.

One point after another point, one verse after another verse, one teaching after another teaching, another miracle there, another miracle there. And it becomes just a dull affair. if you don't know that main message that John is conveying and you don't know where to put these details that he's saying for that main message it will lose its message tenacity so how vital it is for us to settle our hearts and minds upon that as we then go through the details so the picture unfolds for us but at any time Especially right now, the particular issue that I'm talking about. If you're struggling right now, and there's people in this room struggling with dull time with the Lord.

It's such a common problem. You're not the only one. And if you're struggling with that, I haven't read the scriptures. I've read it before. It's just lifeless to me. You're saying that ahead.

You're not saying it out loud because you've got to look like a good Christian. But if you're struggling with that right now, one of the things that will help you a lot is where you're at in the text. you got to ask yourself why is this text here what's the message being said above it that can attach it to it and that's one step in the right direction for the scriptures to stop being dull to you and once we convey what that message is that main point it's it's the next step but it's vital it's important for you to always be challenging yourself don't just be passive as you read these text you got to ask yourself what is the main point here and how does this verse attach itself to it it'll do wonders to your study so what is the main point what is the main point he says there's endless details i could have given but i gave you these signs here for the purpose these are written so that and he gets to his main point in verse 31 he says that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. That is the main purpose why he wrote John, is that you would believe, that's the first part, who Jesus is, the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you would receive life in his name.

That's the three major reasons, or the three reasons that make up that main reason why he wrote the Gospel of John. And so you need to grab hold of this as you go through the details. That you may believe who Jesus is and by believing receive life in him. So let's start with the first one. You may believe. You may believe.

John wrote this Gospel so that you, right there, that are sitting in the pew, would believe. Now let me tell you, believe here is not a passive affair. He's not using the word as the world likes to use it today as if it some kind of passive belief that has no meat or potatoes with it no action involved with it We hear this from the world all the time You can believe whatever you want just don act on it That doesn't make any sense.

The Bible knows not any kind of belief like that. In fact, you naturally don't think of believing like that either, right? You don't act like that either. Your belief always influences your action. If you're about to leave for work in the morning and you believe that the weather is going to be very crummy, lots of snow, you're going to act differently as you leave for work.

You might leave earlier. You're going to be more careful. You're going to be more cautious. Your belief in what the weather is like is going to cause you to act differently on the road and throughout the whole day. If you believe that it's going to be a light drizzle as you leave your house, you may pick up an umbrella. I don't for some reason.

I don't know why. I never use umbrellas and I always regret it. But you might. If you believe that there's going to be 10 feet of snow that day, your belief might even transform to saying, I'm not even going to go out. My general belief that is, if my ice scraper has to come out, I stay in. It's the best way to act.

You know, I spent almost 30 years in Michigan. I deserve an early retirement, is what I say. But the point that I'm getting to is that belief always affects your actions. What you believe will always transform your actions. But yet we are told by the world that you can believe and have no actions that come with it. Or really, our preaching can be like that too.

It's just fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, fact, pray, go home. And that's not what the Word of God desires to do. It does not desire to fill your head with facts, facts, facts, like a history book. That's not what the Word of God is trying to do. That's not what belief is. It's not just simply passive believing certain facts about Christ.

Facts are interesting. They're needed. It's good. But if those facts eventually do not translate to a changed life, then it's useless. What use is there knowing that my commute to work the next morning is going to be very difficult because it's snowed five inches if you don't leave earlier and drive safer? That belief means nothing then.

So when we read here that the purpose of John writing this gospel is for you to believe, you cannot believe the lie of Satan that this is a passive belief of just simply assenting to facts and say, okay, I agree with that, I agree with that, and that's all it ever does. If I was not interested in such fickle, if we came in and called it belief, belief always denotes a change of behavior. Furthermore, belief always, well, belief, the behavior change, the potency of the behavior change change is dependent upon the potency of what you believe in.

Do you get what I'm saying there? Let me say it one more time. That we're saying belief always changes your behavior. And the potency, the largest, the bigness, or whatever it is of what you believe, if it's the bigger it is, the more you're going to change your behavior. Right? So if I think that it's, if I know that there's wind coming, it gets windy around here a lot.

If I think that there's wind coming, I'm going to go outside and maybe see what isn't tied down or weighed down and I'm going to do that so it doesn't get blown away. Unless if it's my kids toys who they knew they should have done that and I'm like well this is going to be a good lesson for them. I'm going to let that sucker go and say hey guys look at that.

I don't always. I've done that once I think. But the point is if there's wind I'll go and make sure. But what if I hear that there's an F3 tornado heading my way? Am I just going to go around and be like okay what things could be lofted out of here? It's going to It's going to look a lot different.

My behavior change is going to be more dramatic. I'm going to run somewhere in my house where I think is safest. I'm going to do dramatic things, run to the Smith's place or whatever I heard. That's where we're all supposed to go. But the point is that the thing that you believe in, the more potent it is, the more potent your behavior change is going to be.

A little bit of wind, I'm going to do a little bit different to make sure things are... F3 tornado, my behavior change is going to be more potent. and so here we see that John saying I write this so you believe believe is not just mental assent to where it has no change in your behavior believe is it has change in your behavior how dramatic is that behavior change well how potent is the thing that John's telling you to believe in how potent is it we're about to get to that in a second but we're going to see it is a very potent belief system that is bigger than anything else that you'll ever believe in this world. Before we get to that point and move on, I want to highlight the fact, and I've seen this before a lot, of this idea that the Bible is not about you.

The Bible is not about you. And I remember Matt Chandler, he used to be the Reformed People's guy, and now he's kind of a little bit of a goofball. But I remember he said that. He went to a conference where it had a bunch of people that typically like to look at the scriptures. It's all about them, right? They're David and Goliath is their problems.

And so Chandler says, the Bible's not about you. It's about Jesus. Amen. Amen. The Bible is about Jesus. It's not primarily about you.

But we can't just put a period there. The Bible is about you. The Bible is interested in you. The Bible is about Jesus. But then it tells you to believe upon this Jesus. and that belief is not simple okay I believe he was a man 2,000 years ago walked around and went back up to be with God that's not the belief that John has in mind it is a dramatic, a potent belief that changes your behavior always.

So let me get to that point. I've already introduced it. I had to give that off my chest. The Bible is about you. Don't ever read the text thinking this has anything to do with me. I know that's not what Chandler was saying, but you need to read the text saying this is about Jesus and it is intimately about me.

So he said that belief is always going to change your behavior. The extent of that changed behavior is dependent upon the potency of that belief. So how potent is our belief? Oh, Christian, well, look what he says going on in verse 31, that you may believe is my main point of this gospel, that, and here's the belief, here's the potency of the belief, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

Now, again, temptation is to limit this, right? Okay, believe, okay, mentally assent, okay. I believe. I'm good. Or the temptation is to limit the potency of what we believe. That Jesus is Jesus Christ.

And we'll think that Christ is Jesus' last name, and so if we believe that he's Jesus Christ, we're good. But what we must understand here, and what John has in mind as he's writing here, is there is nothing more potent to believe than that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. There is nothing more potent that you'll believe in this lifetime than the true person or the true nature of who Jesus is, the Christ, the Son of God.

Christ is not Jesus' last name, but a title given to him by God Almighty. Christ means the anointed one, the chosen one, And he is the anointed one, the chosen one of all of history. All of history. All of creation is all about pointing the finger, glorifying, saying, look at this anointed one. Look at the Christ. Look at the Son of God.

God himself taking on flesh. And as clear as the scriptures make our great sin problem, it makes just as clear that the one would come from God to take care of our sin problem. This is the one, anointed by God, the promised one, who would take care of all of your problems, all of your issues. It is him. So we're not just simply called on to believe in Caesar, believe that Caesar was the first emperor of Rome, George Washington was the first president of the United States, Donald Trump is our president now it's so much more than that we're talking about this is the center of creation universe of everything amounts to this person here Jesus Christ, Jesus the Christ Jesus God's very son and he has came to take care of all your problems it's the evolution of scripture right it begins with the greatest problem of your life that is sin and then right away in the garden there's this promise that there's one to come the anointed one to come who will war against sin and satan and his reign of sin that's what the scriptures began and it's all development from that that in the garden the greatest problem of our life happened in which sin entered satan started to rule with his sin in his kingdom.

And then God says in the garden, there's one who will come who will fight Satan and end his reign. So all of creation, everything is about this Christ, this son of God who would do what was promised from old. When the tears were still in our first parents' eyes because of the sin Satan tempted them to, God was making a promise of his coming Christ, the Christ, the anointed one, the chosen one, his own son to come and make war against Satan and his reign of sin.

Genesis 3.15, I will put enmity between you, Satan, and the woman, and between her offspring, the Christ, and your offspring. The Christ shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. That has been the whole story of scripture, all about him. so the scripture develops into this promise of anointed one who would come and wage war against satan and his reign of sin we get a taste of that in psalm 2 listen to it listen to the one who is anointed by god god's son himself who wages wars against god's enemies listen to that that main thrust of this psalm why do the nations rage and the people's plot in vain the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the lord and against his anointed one his Christ, saying, let us burst their bonds apart, that is God and his Christ.

Let us cast away their cords from us. Let us break away from their authority. He who sits in the heavens laughs at them. The Lord holds them all in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify his enemies in his fury, saying, as for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. I will tell the decree the lord said to me you are my son this king says today i begotten you ask of me and i'll make the nations of your heritage the ends of the earth your possession and you shall break them with the rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter vessel so therefore behold oh kings be wise be warned O rulers of the earth Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling Kiss the Son of God lest he be angry and you perish in the way for his wrath is quickly kindled.

Blessed are all who take refuge in him. The point that I get in at here is that all scripture, all of creation, it's all attesting to the fact that there is a chosen one to come who will make war against Satan, against his enemies, and end their reign of sin. And then when Jesus comes, we expect some scary general who comes and starts lobbing off heads.

But he comes as a conquering warrior, but he conquers the sin of his people, and he becomes their delight because of his rescue of the sin and terror. In fact, we read this in Luke 4, 16 through 21. At the very beginning of Jesus' ministry, he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up. That's Jesus. And as he was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day and he stood up to read.

And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll, found the place where it was written. Isaiah wrote, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me. There's that word anointed again to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty, freedom to the captives, and the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who have been oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the tenant, and said, I'm the one who has fulfilled this passage. What he's saying is, I'm the one who has came to bring liberty and freedom to my people, to no longer be oppressed by the enemies of God, that is Satan and his terror of sin. I have come to take care of that sin problem. So John is writing his gospel for you to have potent belief upon this Christ here.

The Christ. The chosen one. The anointed one. The promised one. The very son of God himself. God himself taken on flesh.

Who came to wage war against your sin. And your greatest enemy that is Satan. to wage war against the greatest issue in your life, which is your sin. So that's why we say, when John says to believe, he means a very potent belief, because he's saying, believe upon the greatest, potent, most biggest, greatest thing you could ever believe upon. Believe upon the Christ, the Lord of history.

Therefore, there is no more potent behavior shift that comes with our belief than the one, the belief that comes in Jesus. If we're talking about a windstorm and our behavior change versus an F10 tornado and our behavior change, we're talking about a belief in the most potent thing you could ever believe upon and it ought to then amount in a very potent behavior change as you believe upon this Messiah. and what is that potent behavior change what is that potent behavior change is does jesus come and say just give me obedience you moron does he say just obey me already does he say as a harsh with his eyebrows all furled man you're an idiot just obey me is that just what we see in scripture what we see in scripture as he says i have come to take care of your sin to free you to give you liberty so that you may have life, which is what John gets to in chapter 20, verse 31. I've written these signs so that you will believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, potent belief.

And so that looks like a very potent behavior shift of that by believing you may have life in his name, life in Jesus. Think about it. If you're being held captive, in a home by someone, your life is going to look very dark, dreary, bad. But when someone comes and gets rid of your captor, sets you free, all of a sudden your life is no longer going to look like a captive that's stuck in a house, kidnapped.

Your life is going to look like freedom. It's going to be beautiful. You're not going to stay in the basement, tied up. You're going to go and be free. We must understand that Jesus Christ came to set the captives free. He came to do war against sin and the reign of sin.

He comes and he sets his captives free so that they have the freedom to live a life following him now, no longer a captive to the captor, Satan himself. And so the potency of your behavior, your belief, looks like a behavior of life, of freedom, no longer living in sin no longer doing the things of the flesh it looks like a different life of beauty living for your Savior. You have been freed if you believed upon this Jesus.

This belief in Christ is potent and it looks like a life of freedom to live for the Lord. This is what it means to have life in the name of Christ, the Son of God. To no longer live in sin that held you as a slave, but to live for Jesus who sets you free. So as you are reading the Bible, as you're reading the Gospel of John, as we study it together, we are not just learning fun facts about Jesus, but we are learning about our Savior who has set us free and enables us now to live in that freedom today Then we grab hold of that in the gospel and we say okay I can apply this today and live for him today And when this is happening as a cycle in your time with the Lord and the preaching of the word, as you are just hungry, give me these truths about Jesus, what he has done as the son of God, as Christ, I want to live in freedom to him. all of a sudden you're studying, you're listening it becomes beautiful it becomes full of life it becomes vibrant far from being a passive affair as you are confronted with the Jesus of the Bible there is a call to have an act of faith that changes your life each day the one who has set you free by your belief upon him will then set you free to live a life like that today so these are the major questions we need to ask ourselves as we work through the signs that John and his gospel writes and the teaching that surrounds it, we need to ask ourselves what is this telling me about true belief what is this, because that's again part of the main point of why he wrote this we need to ask ourselves, as we're looking at the detail instead of getting lost in it, where it's just like okay he did this, he did that he said this, he said that.

We need to be challenging ourselves. What is this telling me about true belief? Because John is very quick or very consistent in contrasting that with false belief. And we're going to get, we're going to see that right away. There's a true belief and there's a false belief. And so we need to ask ourselves, what is this telling me?

What is this detail in the gospel of John telling me about true belief? Then we need to ask ourselves, how does this reveal Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God? How is this revealing who Jesus is to me? How is this revealing who Jesus is? And then we need to ask ourselves, how does this reveal the life that is found in truly believing upon this true Jesus that I'm seeing in scripture?

How does this describe the life that is found in believing upon him? Because that's, again, the main point why John's writing. What does this tell me about true belief? What is this revealing about Jesus who I need to truly believe in? And how does this reveal the life I can have truly in him? So how can that then change my life today?

And that's the final question we need to ask ourselves. And that's what you need to be asking yourself all the time as you're reading scripture. That's what we need to be asking ourselves all the time as we are receiving the word and preaching. So just real quick, running low on time let's just take the first sign that we're going to come across the first sign we're going to see in the Gospel of John is when Jesus turns the water into wine when Jesus turns the water into wine and so we need to ask ourselves those same questions, right? what does this tell me about true belief versus false belief? what does this tell me about Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God? how is this revealing that to me? and what does this reveal about the life I can have if I truly believe upon him? how can that change my life today? the fact that Jesus turns water into wine proves that he is true God and the Christ of history there's not too many people who can do that of their own ability of power Jesus is revealing himself as the God man and changing the water into wine but it's not just so that everyone can be like oh great we ran out of wine at this wedding now we have wine that's that's you're missing it if that's all you're seeing there.

Jesus is saying something very particular about his kingdom. Without me, Jesus says, it's like heaven, no happiness, no joy, no life. Don't expect this world to give you any happiness, joy, and life ultimately without me. But with me, it's like you have an abundance of wine. Now when I say that, I don't mean drunkenness and all the curses that come with that.

I mean in the scriptures, wine is thought of as adding salt to life, joy and happiness. The bare minimum is water. You'll survive off water, but wine gives you joy and happiness, right? It's like adding salt to your food. So what Jesus is saying is that you have no reason to have happiness and joy without me, but when you believe upon me, I can offer you true longing, true lasting joy and happiness.

So as you're reading that text as an unbeliever, you say, yeah, I'm always longing, I'm always searching, I never am fulfilled, I need to go to the one who actually can provide fulfillment and joy and happiness. Whereas a believer, you can challenge yourself, if Jesus offers me true joy and contentment and happiness, why am I so depressed? Why is my dinner table not filled with laughter?

Why is it filled with me being a cranky father instead of a father who's joyful at the table. Because I believe upon the one who can give unlimited joy of happiness of wine. So why am I acting like an ogre? And then I can challenge myself from there. Reorientate my life on this one who offers these good things of life. Instead of just passively reading and saying, okay, he turns water into wine, and then I go off and I be a grump for the rest of the day.

Feeding the 5,000. Feeding the 5,000. Is that like a cool parlor trick? Jesus is like, look what I can do. I can feed 5,000 people, probably up to 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 people with just one meal. That's pretty cool, isn't it?

It's so much more than that. you gotta understand that this life will leave you hungry and broken that this this world is destitute because of sin it will never provide you all the things you are looking for ever And what Jesus is saying, I can. I can provide you abundantly with food. Even though you're in a dry and weary land where there is no water, there is no drink, I will give you everything your heart longs for, if you believe upon me and trust upon me.

So then, as a Christian, I'm looking at that, and I'm saying, why am I murmuring and complaining when the world doesn't provide me everything I want it to, as if God's, like, confused by that? Why am I not anticipating the fact that this world will let me down, but Jesus lets that happen so he can stand as the one who won't? Instead of murmuring and complaining about the things that this world's not offering to me, I ought to say, yes, but Jesus is the one who provides me everything, despite the fact that I'm in a dry and weary land. he gives me food in abundance and it's proven itself it's most potent whenever I feel like the world has let me down the most and instead what can happen is we just murmur and complain when the world lets us down the most instead of saying there's a reason for that it's because Jesus is the one who offers you food and wine and drink and joy and fulfillment by his ministry and of course the great sign of his death and resurrection what's the whole point of that?

Because this is Jesus coming and saying, I am warring against Satan and his reign of sin. It will have no more power anymore because I have brought all the evil and the sin of my people upon myself. And I've paid it with my death and I rose again to new life. And that life is yours when you believe upon him. So you say, there is no power of sin over me anymore.

The dominion of sin is done away with. My heart has been transferred or transformed because of what Christ has done on the cross and his resurrection. So I do not need to be a slave to this sin anymore. I do not need to be a slave to these things anymore. Instead, there is victory to be had because my Lord has raised on the third day. We have the main point of John here before us. and every detail becomes, this is why I wrote it, so that you would believe who Jesus is and have life in his name and everything you attach to that, and then you apply it to your life and it changes your life for that day.

All of a sudden, your time with the Lord is beautiful, wonderful, full of life. Usually it's not just one or the other. As Christians, we're like, yeah, I have times of that. There's times where I don't. It's usually not one or the other. If you're an unbeliever, you don't know what this is.

Repent and believe upon Jesus, and this is offered to you. As a Christian, we struggle. It's somewhere in between of this refreshing time with the Lord. But John is calling you to have total refreshment in the Lord here, to look and believe upon Jesus and receive life in his name, the potency there. So let's look to these details. instead of getting lost in them losing the forest for the tree losing the painting for the paintbrush strokes let us grab hold of each detail and refresh ourselves in them and add it to this beautiful painting of our Lord Jesus Christ the kingdom that he's brought and the life that we have in him because of what he has done let us pray Father, thank you for Jesus Christ our Lord I thank you God that we do not need to live under the reign of Satan any longer.

But because the truth, even right here, what we see in John, is held out before us, we can turn away from those sins that do not refresh us and find refreshment in the forgiveness of the wounds and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. O God in heaven, let us challenge ourselves as believers to constantly be bringing every detail of the scriptures, all the Bible and including where we're at now in John let it all point to this beautiful picture that John's painting that Jesus is the Christ the promised one to come the son of God who has all power and authority under him and he uses it to end sin forever so may we believe upon this Christ and live in his name that is no longer live in sin but make it all pleasure to us to actually turn away from sin and live for the Lord instead. Oh, this is life indeed.

Oh God in heaven, for those Christians who have forgotten this and they have wandered off the path of righteousness, of practicing righteousness, would you even call them back now? Would you cause them to see that their time with the Lord has not been pleasant for some time? and would they hear the beckoning of the Lord Jesus Christ even now saying to them, return, oh weak sinner, and I'll give you rest. Lord, for those who have never believed upon Jesus in any kind of way that is true belief that results in a righteousness and a walking in this righteousness, oh, would you even cause them to see that their sins don't amount to anything that's worthy of their pursuits.

But only Jesus is worthy of that. So cause them to even turn away from it now and to follow Jesus Christ, our Lord. Thank you for how you are teaching us these things in this gospel. And may it be our joy to apply it each week, each Lord's Day, each time we study, to see the life that comes forth from living for the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you, God. Amen.