The gravity of this time is not lost on me. This is quite a blessing and an honor and a privilege. And just this whole time and the gift you’ve given me of that sign that’s hung outside of your office, that means a lot. And it is an honor, it is a high calling, and it is a heavy responsibility. And not one that I take lightly, but one that I am eager and look forward to. seeking to fulfill.

So as we begin this new year, and as we begin this new chapter of ministry here at Fellowship Baptist Church, it is my privilege to begin this time by saying, please turn with me in your Bibles to the Gospel of John. As you step into the pulpit, I’m reminded of the words of the great reformer and great preacher, John Knox, who preached a long time, he preached his whole life, and he said, Satan has never once caused me fear, but I tremble every time I step into the pulpit. And that is true, and it is my job, my calling to bring to you God’s word, and that’s always going to be my aim. I am not up here to give you my opinions or my thoughts or my own personal anything. I’m here to teach you and bring you and preach to you what God’s word says.

And we are beginning this morning a study in the gospel of John. So with the time we have left this morning, I would like to give a bit of an introduction into what is it that we are going to be diving into in the gospel of John. What is the gospel of John? We are going to, again, begin this series next week. We’ll start with John 1.1, and we’ll walk through this book verse by verse, and that will take quite a while. It’ll take several years to go through the Gospel of John, and that’s what we will do. We’ll do some different things in the evenings and other times, but in the Sunday mornings for the foreseeable future, we’re gonna be in the Gospel of John.

So as we think about a book like the Gospel of John, as many of you well know, it is one of the four gospel accounts, one of the four books that tell us about the life of Jesus Christ. We have Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and then we have this book of John. And as I’m sure you also well know, all of scripture has Jesus Christ as its theme and as its hero. All of scripture points us to Jesus Christ, who he is and what he came to do. That’s not to say that every single passage of scripture is specifically talking about Jesus himself, but all of scripture in one way or another is pointing us to the coming of Christ. The gospels tell us explicitly or specifically what Jesus came to do, who he was, the details of his life, and what he came to do.

Each one of the gospel accounts has its own purpose. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are what are called the synoptic gospels because they are similar. John also is a gospel, but it is a bit different. And we have all of scripture pointing us to what these gospel books record for us. Even the Old Testament points us to Christ. And Jesus tells us that here in the gospel of John. In John chapter 5, verse 39, if you want to flip over to John 5. John 5 is a significant passage in the gospel of John, and it really is where Jesus begins to tell people publicly that he is the son of God. And when people are having a hard time with this, when they’re pushing back on him about this claim that he’s making, he says this in John 5, 39, to the Pharisees who know their Bible as well as anybody, the Old Testament, the scriptures they had.

In verse 39, he says, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. It is these that bear witness about me. It is the Old Testament that bears witness about Christ, that Christ was coming. And a few verses later, in verses 46 and 47, it says, for if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? The scriptures all point us to the person and work of Jesus Christ. And nowhere in all of scripture do we have a clearer picture of who Jesus Christ is than in the gospels. So we’re gonna go through a couple different aspects of the introduction to John this morning. And number one, we’re gonna talk about what is the gospel of John? What is it? What is this book that we have that we will be studying over the coming years? Well, the gospels are really their own category of literature.

There have been those who’ve tried to categorize them as whether they’re biographies or histories or what they are. Well, they’re not strictly just a biography, although they do contain facts about who Jesus was and they tell the story of his life. And then they’re not strictly a history. because there’s more in them than just historical facts. It doesn’t just list off all the facts about the time of Jesus’ life. They’re not just sermons or teachings, although they contain those things. But the Gospels are meant to tell us who Jesus was and to tell us the message he came to bring.

And again, each of the Gospels tells us a different aspect of who Jesus is, and they’re from four different perspectives. They give us different details. The first three, again, are Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and those are synoptic gospels. That means we are to see them together. They complement each other very closely because they’re very similar. They tell a lot of the same stories with similar details. But John is not considered a synoptic gospel, and it’s because it’s so different. John is so different from the other three gospels.

All four contain a mixture of narrative and history and conversations that Jesus had. But John’s gospel contains more conversations that Jesus had than any of the other gospels do. They contain more discourse than all the other books. And we hear more of Jesus’ own words and conversations in John. And interestingly, unlike the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, John’s gospel doesn’t contain any parables. There’s no end times discourses or discussions. There’s no accounts of Jesus casting out demons. There’s no accounts of him healing lepers. There’s no list of the 12 apostles, and there’s no account of the Lord’s Supper. All things we find in the other gospels, but that are not in John’s gospel.

John doesn’t record Jesus’ birth, his baptism, his transfiguration, his temptation, his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, or his ascension. But more than 90% of what is found in the Gospel of John is unique to John. John had a story to tell. John had his own perspective that he needed us to understand. John is unique. And we need to keep a few things in mind when we think about how the other three Gospels compare with the Gospel of John. The differences we see are not contradictions.

Nothing in John contradicts what’s in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And the differences between the Gospels should not be exaggerated. John and the rest of the Gospels all present Jesus Christ as the Son of Man and Israel’s Messiah. They also present Him as the Son of God, God in human flesh. All four Gospels present Jesus as the Savior. The one who came to save his people from their sins. The one who died a sacrificial death on the cross and rose from the dead. The Holy Spirit inspired each of these writers to write exactly what they did. And each of these accounts compliment and supplement each other to give us a full picture of everything God wanted us to know about the man, Christ Jesus. And as we focus in on this gospel account, and we know what it is now, one of the questions that faces us is, who wrote it?

So number two, who wrote the Gospel of John? Well, we know the book by the name John. And that’s because it is who the church has always agreed upon as the author. But there have been those who have raised the question because In the book of John, he never names himself as the author of the book. There is no “John, the apostle of Jesus Christ to whoever.” He doesn’t sign his name like some of the other books of the Bible have. For example, when Paul writes, he usually puts his name in it. But we do have strong evidence that it is, in fact, John who wrote this book. John, the brother of James, the apostle of Jesus Christ.

Well, first we have the witness from history. We have those who knew John. Irenaeus was early in church history. He was born in the year 130 and lived to about 200. So it was not long after John wrote this book. And he was the first person to specifically name John as the author. In his book, Against Heresies, Irenaeus said afterwards, so after the other gospels, John, the disciple of the Lord, who had leaned upon his breast, did himself publish a gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia. And what makes that a specifically strong evidence for the author of this book is that Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp, and Polycarp was a disciple of John.

So they knew John. They knew this was the guy, and he’s the one that wrote it. And there are many other sources from that time. both Christian sources and even non-Christian heretical sources, and they all agree that John wrote the Gospel of John. So there’s very strong evidence from history, and if that was all we had, it would be very strong, but that’s not all we have. Because even though John doesn’t sign his name in the book, in the Gospel of John, there’s a lot of evidence that it’s got to be John. It’s got to be John that wrote it. And we know from many of the details that are in this book, that the author had to be a few certain things.

For example, he had to be a Jew from the region of Palestine because he knew things that only a Palestinian Jew would know. For example, there’s locations that are discussed in John that only until recent archaeological discoveries did anybody even know they were there. For example, the two different towns named Bethany, the Pool of Bethesda, the Pool of Siloam, and the Ravine of Kidron, all of those places were virtually unknown to history until archeological discoveries found them and supported exactly what John said. So it had to be somebody who was there, who knew, had firsthand knowledge. He also had detailed knowledge of the temple.

In fact, one commenter by the name of Leon Morris said this. It’s not easy to think of a reason why any early Christian other than John himself should have completely omitted all mention of such a prominent apostle. And what he’s saying there is the fact that John doesn’t name himself. If it was anybody else writing other than John, they would have named John. But the fact that he doesn’t even name himself gives us strong proof that it has to be John. But as we see in this gospel, and we’ll see as we go through it, instead of using his own name, John refers to himself as the one whom Jesus loved, the disciple whom Jesus loved.

Turn with me to John chapter 21. John chapter 21, and this is the strongest evidence we have that it is John who wrote this. Even though he’s careful not to name himself, he really gives himself away. in this section, John 21, verses 20 through 25. John 21, starting in verse 20, he says this, Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved. So there’s that reference there. So saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them. The one who also had leaned back on his bosom at the supper and said, Lord, Who is the one who betrays you? So Peter, seeing him, said to Jesus, Lord, and what about this man? And Jesus said unto him, if I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me. Therefore, this saying went out among the brothers that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but only, if I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? This is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things and wrote these things. And we know that his witness is true. And there are many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written one after the other, I suppose that not even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

So you have an interesting, interaction here. And it really doesn’t make sense unless you know the history of the church directly following the time of Jesus and the time that John lived in. Here you have Peter talking about one of these disciples who’s unnamed, but we can put together the clues that it’s John. And apparently there was a rumor going around that Jesus told John he wouldn’t die. And you know from the time of writing of this book that at this time, John was probably the only living disciple, the only living apostle. All the rest had been killed. And so the rumor was going around that, well, look, Jesus must have said John wouldn’t die because he’s the only one who’s not dead. But John clarifies. Jesus said, if I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? And people took that as a promise that, well, John, you’re not gonna die.

But John clarifies in the next verse, the saying went out among the brothers that this disciple would not die. But that’s not what Jesus said. Jesus did not say to him that he would not die. He only said, if I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? He basically said, Peter, it’s none of your business. It’s none of your business whether or not John lives or dies. You follow me. Don’t worry about John. Worry about Jesus. And then we see the following verse, verse 24. This is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his witness is true. At that time, The rumors going around, everyone knew they were talking about John.

So John doesn’t have to sign his name because the first people that would read this book would know exactly who he’s talking about. that this is the disciple, the one that this rumor is about. This is the disciple who wrote these things. This is the disciple who bears witness to these things. And we can go on and on with different arguments as to the authorship of the book. And every commentary has discussions about it, and they’re about 60 pages long, and they’re a giant waste of your time. Because you read them, and you read them, and you read them, and you get to the end, and they say, well, none of this is very conclusive. So actually, it is John that wrote the book. So thank you for all of that. paper that you wasted, to talk about John is the author of John. So we know who wrote it.

But who was John? Who is this one? Who is this apostle, this disciple of Christ whom Jesus loved? And knowing that will help us understand what is in this book. John had a brother. He was the younger of the two sons of Zebedee. James and John are almost always listed together, and James is always named first, which suggests that he is the elder brother, and they are sons of Zebedee. Zebedee, their father, he was a wealthy fisherman. He had a good business. And he was a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee. He owned his own boat and hired servants. We see that in Mark chapter one, verse 20. It says, and immediately he called them, meaning the sons of Zebedee. And they left their father, Zebedee, in the boat with the hired servants and they went away to follow him. So that’s where John comes from.

We also know that John’s mother was named Salome. We find that in Mark 15 and Matthew 27. And she’s a woman who’s mentioned several times in the ministry of Jesus. She was one who contributed financially to Jesus’s ministry. And there’s some evidence, although it’s not super clear, but she could have been the sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus. There are many who suggest that and some different references that kind of allude to a very close relationship there. And if so, John could have been Jesus’s cousin.

And as we see John first appear in his own gospel in John chapter one, we see that he was a disciple of John the Baptist. This one who wrote the book of John was originally a disciple of John the Baptist. So turn to John chapter one, right to the beginning of the book. And you see John’s first mention of himself here, starting in verse 35.

John one, verse 35, It says, on the next day, John was standing with two of his disciples. That John is John the Baptist, but he’s talking about two of his disciples. And he looked at Jesus as he walked and he said, behold, the Lamb of God. And the two disciples heard him speak and followed Jesus. And when Jesus turned and noticed them following, he said to them, what do you seek? And they said to him, rabbi, which translated means teacher. Where are you staying? And he said to them, come and you will see. So they came and they saw where he was staying, and they stayed with them that day. It was about the 10th hour. One of the two who heard John speak followed him. It was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.

So he names one of the disciples and leaves the other one unnamed. Another hint that John’s speaking of himself. So John, one of the three closest friends of Jesus, along with James, his brother, and Peter, another fisherman, They are mentioned a lot in the Gospels, that they are close to Jesus very frequently.

And according to tradition, John spent the last decades of his life in Ephesus, overseeing churches in that region. And he wrote the three epistles that we studied in the last few years, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John. But then toward the end of his life, John being persecuted by the rulers of Rome, was banished to the Isle of Patmos. And it was there that he received the vision of the Lord Jesus Christ and he wrote the book of Revelation. So this is the one who wrote this book. This is who John is.

And despite his reputation as the apostle of love, John had a very fiery personality. He was a very passionate man. Jesus named John and his brother James, the sons of thunder. And they lived up to that name. At one point, when a Samaritan town rejected Jesus in Luke 9, in verse 54, the brothers say, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them? And Jesus says, relax, that’s not your business. And interestingly, in all of the gospels, there’s only one time where John acted and spoke alone and another disciples not named with him.

And there is in Luke 9, verse 49, a few verses earlier, and he says, master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow along with us. So that’s John. He is ready to fight for the Lord. He was a fiery guy. And as we introduced the letters of John a few years ago, I read a story about John’s passionate reputation. Even after the Lord had ascended to heaven, as John was pastoring churches and raising up men to follow after him, he had students of his own. And one of his students, Polycarp, tells a story about John, kind of gives us a picture into what he was like. John had no time for false teachers. And in this story, Polycarp says this, John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe in Ephesus and perceiving that Cyrenthias, the heretic, was inside, he rushed out of the bathhouse without bathing and exclaimed, let us fly, lest even the bathhouse fall down, because Cyrenthias, the enemy of the truth, is inside. That was John.

John was passionate. He was on fire for the Lord, you could say. He loved the Lord Jesus more than anything, which brings us to the reason why John wrote this gospel. Number four, why did John write this gospel? Unlike almost every other book in the Bible, with the exception of probably Luke and maybe Acts, John tells us exactly why he wrote. Theological themes that are in the book of John, you could look at the I am sayings or the different signs of John. But John tells us specifically. This is why I wrote this book. This is why I’m writing to you. And so therefore, everything we read in the pages of John’s gospel, everything we will study as we go through John’s gospel, everything he says. Is driving at this very purpose, and that’s found in John chapter 20.

So flip over to John 20. The very last verse of John 20, verse 31. And we’ll start at 30. Therefore, many other signs Jesus also did in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. He’s almost explaining why his gospel is not like Matthew, Mark, and Luke. There’s many other things I could have included. But verse 31, but these, Everything he’s written in John, but these have been 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. John’s purpose is apologetic. He wants you to believe some truths, that Jesus is the Christ. He’s making that argument, that he’s the son of God. He’s making that argument too.

But John’s gospel is also evangelistic, because he doesn’t just want you to know those facts. He wants you to believe, and to believe so that you might have life in his name. So there’s three things John wants you to know. And again, everything that we read in this book falls under this purpose.

That first, John wants you to know Jesus is the Christ. He is the Messiah. He is the one that was promised in the Old Testament. The one who would come and save his people by bearing their punishment. by taking the wrath of God in their place, just like it was promised. In Isaiah 53, verses three through five, it says, he was despised and forsaken of man, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And like one from whom men hid their face, he was despised and we did not esteem him. Surely our griefs he himself bore and our sorrows he carried, yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken. smitten of God and afflicted. But he was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. And the chastening of our peace fell upon him. By his wounds we are healed. That is the Messiah. In the New Testament, that word is Christ. the chosen one who would come and bear the punishment of his people. This is the Messiah, the Christ, the one that John wants you to know.

And secondly, he wants you to know that Jesus is the very Son of God. He always has been the Son of God. He is the eternal Son of God. Right from the very first verse of the book, John tells us this. In John chapter one, Verses 1 through 5, where we’ll begin next week. 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 came into being through Him, and apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines into the darkness and the darkness did not overtake it. And not only that, this one John is speaking of in verse 14, the word, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. We beheld his glory, glories of the only begotten of the father. He is the son of God. He always has been the son of God.

In this truth, the Sonship of Christ, being the Son of God is something that we’ll explore in depth later on in this series because this is a main theme of this book and you have to understand what all of that entails in order to understand John’s message here. We’ll do a series later on in the fall on the Son of God. But not only has He always been the Son of God, one with the Father. He became flesh. The Son of God came. He came for us. John wants you to know Him. He wants you to know Him so that number three in His purpose, you will believe and have life in His name.

Which is why he tells us in John chapter three, Verses 16 through 18. This is the mission statement of the Son of God. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He who believes in him is not judged. He who does not believe has been judged already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. John wants us to know his friend, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. and He wants us to believe and be saved from our sin and have eternal life with Him in His name.

John wants us to know that everyone who believes in Jesus will receive eternal life. John reveals to us Jesus as the eternal word, the Messiah and the Son of God. The one who, through his death and resurrection, brought salvation to mankind. And he wants us to believe because there is two reactions or responses to the coming of Christ. You either accept and believe and have eternal life in his name or you reject him. and you stay in your state of condemnation.

So the question for you this morning, as we are introducing this book and its purpose, do you know Him? Do you believe in Him? If you do not know Him, you need to come to Him today and confess you’re a sinner just like the rest of us. and believe that He is the Christ, the one who came to pay the penalty of our sin. You need to trust that He is your Savior, and the payment that you owed has been paid, so that one day you can stand before the Father, clothed in the righteousness of His Son.

I’m excited to begin this study in the gospel of John, and I hope that you’ll all be here as we walk through this book verse by verse. Most of all, I want you to know who Jesus is, and believe in who he is, and that believing you will have life in his name.

Let’s stand and close in a word of prayer this morning. Our Father in heaven, we are humbled by the gospel of John, by this book that you’ve given us so that we can know Christ. I pray that if there are any here this morning who do not yet know Christ, that they would see their need for him, that they would know that their sin separates them from you and places them under the wrath that they deserve. But by believing in Christ, that wrath can be averted. That wrath can be turned away from us and onto him. We thank you for who you are. We thank you for being a good and loving God that has revealed all of this to us in your word. We pray that we would understand it. And now as we come to the Lord’s table, that we would remember why it is that we are the people that you’ve called us to be, and what he’s done for us in paying our penalty on the cross and taking your wrath. We thank you for who you are. We pray all of this in Christ’s name. Amen.