John 20:30–31

0:00 All right, we're going to take a little silent survey here, so I don't want you to actually raise your hand physically when I ask you these questions, because I don't really want to get into various conspiracy theories that you might or might not believe in. But I'm going to ask you if you believe that certain things happened, and I want you to mentally raise your hand. Again, not physically. You ready? Mentally raise your hand if you believe that Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March.

0:37 That's mostly everybody. I don't think I've ever heard a conspiracy theory that says Julius Caesar wasn't assassinated. Raise your hand mentally if you think George Washington was the first president of the United States. Okay. Raise your hand if you believe that people landed on the moon. What are you giggling about? Stop it. My guess is the vast majority of you mentally raise your hand on all three of those things. The vast majority of you believe that Caesar was assassinated. You believe that George Washington was the first president of the United States.

1:10 You believe that people landed on the moon. Now raise your hand mentally if you actually saw with your own eyes, not through a television, but with your own eyes, any of those three things happening. That would be basically none of you unless one of you is an astronaut that I don't know about. and landed on the moon in 1969. Raise, like physically raise your hand if that's you. Okay, just being, just, just being clear. Nobody in the room saw any of those three things happen. And yet you believe that Caesar was assassinated, George Washington was the first president, and that people landed on the moon.

1:45 You believe those things, but you believe it because other people saw it and told you about it. Well, that's exactly what we're talking about today. the importance of eyewitness testimony. Turn, if you've got a Bible, to John chapter 20. That's where we're going to be today. And shockingly, we're going to be looking at exactly two verses of John chapter 20. We're continuing this study of the book of John. We've been in it for the last few weeks. In fact, we've been in John for the last few years. Every fall, we've been coming back to the book of John, taking a chunk of it, two, three, four chapters, something like that.

2:20 And so I think this is the eighth year, eighth fall that we've been in John. And so for the last few weeks, we're making our way through these last two chapters of the book, and we've come to what most people understand to be kind of the proper ending of the book, the last two verses of chapter 20. I mean, obviously, there's one more chapter that's coming up. We're going to spend, you know, three, four, five weeks, something like that, in chapter 21. But chapter 21, most scholars understand it really to act as a kind of epilogue to the main body of the book.

2:51 I don't know if you're a reader of novels, but a lot of times the main action of a book will come to an end at the last chapter, and then you'll have a thing at the end called the epilogue, which is really just kind of tying up loose ends, telling you what happens to some of the characters in the future, maybe making a reference to something that happened earlier in the book. Epilogues do all kinds of things, but they're not really part of the main action of the book, and so it is here with John chapter 21. John, in that portion of his book, chapter 21, is just kind of wrapping up unfinished business.

3:21 But the real climax of the book comes in the passage that we studied last week, or two weeks ago, I guess, when Thomas, who's called Doubting Thomas, sees the wounds in Jesus' hands and sees the wound in his side and gives what winds up being the highest confession of Jesus' identity of anybody in the entire book. He says, my Lord and my God. It's a really fascinating confession. The highest thing that's said of Jesus in the whole book. Because that's what John has been driving at for the entire narrative.

3:53 He wants you, his reader, to understand not just that Jesus is king. Not just that he's the long-awaited Messiah that Israel has been waiting on for centuries. He wants you to believe that. But he wants you to believe something much, much greater. He wants you to believe what Thomas realized. That this long-awaited Messiah, this king, this Christ. is in fact God, the creator of the universe made flesh, the source of all life and goodness, made man. That's what he's been driving at from the very beginning. Even in the very first sentence of the book, he says, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory.

4:38 See, from start to finish, that's the purpose of the book. And every story, every teaching, every paragraph, has been driving toward that end of convincing you that Jesus really is God. Become man. So John brings the book to a climax and Thomas's confession, my Lord and my God, and then he ends the main part of his book by basically just telling us, his readers, in case we haven't picked up on it already, what his purpose has been throughout the entire thing. So look with me at the very end of chapter 20, verses 30 and 31, because John is as clear as he could possibly be here about why he's written this book.

5:17 Verse 30, 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. I mean, it's pretty straightforward, right? It's not often that you get a book, it's not often that you even get a book of the Bible that tells you exactly why it's been written, right? I mean, you can kind of suss it out, usually. You can look at Paul's letters, for instance, and you can kind of figure out, oh, the reason that Paul wrote was, you know, for this purpose or that purpose.

5:51 But it's not often in the Bible or anywhere else in literature that you get somebody just laying it out just like this. And it's pretty straightforward. John tells us that I haven't told you everything that Jesus did. There's a whole bunch of stuff that Jesus did that I haven't written down, but I wrote down the things that I did write down so that you would believe that he's the Christ, the Son of God, and so that you may have eternal life by believing in him. Okay, that's it. Sermon over. Let's go eat. I mean, it's really, I'm kidding about that. But it is really that simple.

6:25 Jesus did a lot of things that I didn't tell you about, but what I did tell you about, I told you so that you will believe in him and in the believing have life in his name. Now, look at the structure of this. It has a kind of logical structure, these two verses do. So, in verse 30, John says that there's a lot more I could have written about, right? So, Jesus did a whole lot of signs. I've given you some of them. And then in 31, he tells us the purpose for which he did, in fact, write what he wrote. So, the goal of it. I did this, so that. And what's that?

6:56 What's the goal? Well, it's a kind of, it's a sort of two-step, logically. He gives the purpose for which he wrote, and then he tells us the result that's going to come from that. You see that? The goal for which he wrote was so that we would believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And then he says what would be the result of that believing, and that is that we will have life in his name. Okay, now think about the terms that John is using there. I've written these things so that you will believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

7:32 Now, if you've been with us for long through this study of the book of John, all of those terms, Christ, Son of God, believing, and life, ought to be setting off all kinds of alarm bells in your head because these are the themes that John has been writing about from the very beginning. He's been trying to convince you of this from the very beginning, that Jesus is the King. That's what Christ means. That He is the Son of God. That He is God in the flesh. That believing in Him is the way to salvation. And that salvation actually is, in the final analysis, to have spiritual life.

8:05 He's been talking about these things from the very beginning of the book. So figuring out the main idea of this text is not hard at all. In fact, let me just pause before I give you what I think the main idea is. And you, again, mentally, just give it a shot. What do you think the main idea of these two little verses is? I'll give you like five seconds. Like really, don't just sit there with a blank mind. Like look down at it, think about it. What would you, if I put you on the spot and called you out, what would you say? The main idea of this text is, got it?

8:39 Okay, here's what I would say. I think the main idea, the thing that John is driving at is believe in Jesus and live. I think it's really that simple. Believe in Jesus and live. Normally, the way we would approach a text like this would be to do a few things. We would look at it and try to discern its structure. That's the first thing we would do. We'd talk about the meaning of the terms. And then we'd try to figure out how that verse or those verses apply to our lives. And we could do that with this one. We've already seen a structure in it, right?

9:09 There's something that John wrote in order to do, and that is to get us to believe. And then there's something that our believing does. So it's got a logical structure to it. We could look at that some more. We could talk about what it means that Jesus is the Christ. I could give you some biblical theological background to the idea of Messiahship, kingship, Christ. We could talk about how that relates to Jesus being the Son of God. We could talk about in John what life is and how believing logically leads to life. Why is faith so important in this whole thing?

9:41 We could do all of that sort of textual and logical and theological work. But honestly, we've kind of been doing that over and over throughout this book. And my guess is you have some idea of what Christ means and what Son of God means and what it means to believe and what life means. So I don't want to do that again. And there's actually another question here that I want to look into a little bit, and it has to do with what John says there in verse 30, that Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, but that these are written, the ones I've written, I've written so that you may believe.

10:17 So here's the question that I've got, and I want to kind of explore. today in our time together. Why did John pick the stories that he picked? Why did John pick the ones that he picked? I mean, he's straightforward about the fact that there was a lot to choose from. He had a wealth of material. He lived with Jesus and walked with Jesus for three years. He saw everything that Jesus did, and he could have used any number of events, any number of things that Jesus did. He had story after story after story that he could have told and yet he wrote down a few of those in order to try to convince us to believe.

11:00 Now that's interesting, isn't it? It's interesting that he had to pick. Because I think sometimes we can approach a book like this. I think we can approach a book like really any of the Gospels but sort of especially John because it's not really in chronological order tightly anyway. It's rough chronological order but it's not in a tight chronological order. And so I think we can approach a book like that and have this sense, well, John must have just kind of slapdash written down whatever came to mind, right? He must have just thought this was an interesting story and this one really blew my mind when it happened and this is one that I remember vividly and so I'm going to put it all in there because these are the things that I just sort of randomly remember.

11:37 But that's not the case at all. And John makes it clear right here in these two verses that that's not the case at all. John wrote with a purpose to get you to believe and so the stories that he writes down are chosen deliberately toward that end. Each one of them is meant to push you a little bit further down the track toward faith in Jesus. And so what I want to do is ask the question, why does he pick the stories that he picks? Well, in fact, what John does, and people have noticed this for the last 2,000 years, is that he organizes his entire book around seven of these signs that he's talking about.

12:16 They're miracles. That's what signs means. We'll talk a little bit more about that a little bit later on. But he organizes the book around seven signs or miracles, each of which, as they unfold through the story of the book, each of which tells us something new about Jesus the Messiah or about ourselves in relation to Jesus the Messiah. So the whole book is organized around these seven signs, each one revealing who Jesus is, and then weaving in and out of those signs and sort of swirling around them are seven witnesses who see those signs and then testify to who Jesus really is.

12:52 It's a very interesting way of organizing this book, and all of it, of course, is for the purpose of convincing you, like those witnesses were convinced, to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. So that's what I want to do this morning. It's a little unusual in that we're not just going to look at verses 30 and 31. We're actually going to kind of think about the sweep of the entire book and remember these things that John has written. So point number one, we're going to look at the signs, the seven signs. And then point number two, the witnesses. And my prayer, of course, is that as we do that, as we think about how these things are functioning, if you haven't already, you'll see Jesus for who he really is, and you'll believe, you'll trust, you'll put your faith in him, and you, like these people, will find life.

13:35 So point number one, I want to look and think about really the seven signs. And I want to think about it sort of logically. I want to think about how these things function. I want to think about what they are rather than just sort of taking you back to each one of the seven. We'll look at the seven, but I don't want to just expound each one of those. I want to think about how they organize together and how they logically fit and logically work. So you can see in verse 30, he says that Jesus did a lot of other signs in the presence of the disciples, but John didn't write them all down. He had a lot of material to choose from.

14:06 In fact, later in the book, if you just, if you turn over one page, he kind of makes this point again in the very last verse of the book, 21-25. He says, now there are also many other things that Jesus did. And were every one of them to be written, I suppose the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. So John had to do some picking and choosing. When he was deciding what to put into his book, he had to do some picking and choosing. So how did he pick and choose? Well, I think there's a few things to consider in that regard.

14:37 First of all, John was the last of the Gospels to be written. And in fact, several places, several times in the book, John seems to be aware of the other three Gospels. He'll make little references to a story that he knows is written in one of the others. Seems to have been the last one written. In fact, there's several places in the book where he seems to assume that you, the reader, are aware of Jesus and many of the things that he did. So a lot of times what you'll see in the book of John is him just kind of skipping over some of the more famous miracles, some of the more famous teachings that make their way into all three of the other Gospels.

15:12 It's as if John just thought, look, you've got this three other places. I don't need to tell it to you again. He just expects you to read those other Gospels too and learn from them what you need to learn. That's one thing that's motivating and sort of shaping the things that John picks and chooses. Second, this is really fascinating. It's fascinating that John seems to go out of his way to leave out stories which would tend to draw attention to himself. Now, that's interesting, isn't it?

15:44 He tends to leave out stories which would have tended to draw attention to himself. And the thing is, there were plenty of those stories that he could have included. Why is that? Well, one of the things we learn as we read the other Gospels is that John was part of the very innermost circle of disciples. Jesus had the 12, of course, right? But then he had an innermost group of disciples, three of them, in fact, who were often invited to be with Jesus for some of the most extraordinary stuff that happened in the entire story. And John was one of those people.

16:15 He was one of those three. It was Peter, James, and John who were invited to be with Jesus at some amazing things. So the raising of Jairus' daughter from the dead, for instance, is one place where Peter, James, and John were the only three disciples there. The transfiguration, did you realize that? There were only three disciples present at the transfiguration, Peter, James, and John. And even in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus takes all of the twelve into the, or the eleven at the time, I suppose, without Judas, takes the eleven into the garden, but then he takes Peter, James, and John deeper into the garden, and they're just a stone's throw away from where Jesus is sweating blood as he prays for this cup to pass from him.

16:53 They're the only three that would have seen and heard that prayer. And yet John leaves all those stories out. The raising of Jairus' daughter is not in the book. The transfiguration is not in the book. You get a little bit of a hint at it in chapter 1 when John says we've seen his glory. That's probably what he's talking about. He's probably talking about the transfiguration, but then maybe not because we also know from John that the word glory encompasses the whole event of Jesus' life and death and resurrection and ascension.

17:27 But he doesn't tell the story. Same with the Garden of Gethsemane. John just doesn't include it. Why? Well, we don't know. I mean, it would take a little bit of speculation to come up with a reason, but it's almost as if John is deliberately avoiding anything that would tend to put the spotlight on him and detract from his singular focus of putting attention on Jesus. His whole point is to turn your eyes to Jesus and if he keeps telling stories about himself, that goal is going to be undermined.

18:06 Friends, that's a great example for those of us who do or who want to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ regularly. The job of, and I know that's a lot of you. I mean, here in Louisville, Kentucky, right next to the largest seminary in the history of the world, there are a lot of you who aspire to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And what you need to understand is what John seems to have understood, which is that the job of the preacher is never, ever to bring attention to himself, but simply and solely to put the spotlight on Jesus.

18:41 No gimmicks, no light show, no spectacle. What I want to do week after week up here is stand here and do what I have to do to bring attention to Jesus. And then I want to sit down. That's it. But there's another thing, too, here. Notice there in verse 30 that John says that Jesus did many other signs. Not just things, right? He's more specific. He'll say things in chapter 21, the very last verse, verse 25.

19:13 He'll say things there, but not here. Here he specifies signs. He's putting special attention on these things he calls signs. Well, what are those? Well, they're miracles, right? But they're not just miracles. And so John doesn't use the normal, you know, Roman Greek word for miracle. Romans and Greeks knew what miracles were. They were kind of magic tricks. They were amazing things that shouldn't naturally happen and that generally drew attention to the person himself. It was just a kind of way to say this guy can do amazing things that your typical guy cannot do.

19:46 But John doesn't call them that. He calls them signs because they were something way more than just magic tricks that made you go, wow, this guy is something special. We'll talk about what that something more is in a second. But first, let's just talk a little bit about miracles. Let's just talk a little bit about miracles. Talk a little bit about, we'll talk about the significance of them being signs here in a minute. But I want to just talk first about the significance of these amazing things that happen throughout the story of Jesus.

20:20 John's argument here is that the signs that he tells you about ought to lead you to put your faith in Jesus. The signs that he tells you about, the miracles, the amazing things that he tells you about in his book, ought to lead you to understand that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Now, I know, I'm well aware that some people find this kind of argument just utterly unconvincing, right? It's just utterly unconvincing that Jesus' miracles, the accounts of the miracles, ought to lead you to believe in him.

20:51 But I think that the fact that we find that utterly unconvincing sometimes is mostly because people tend to rule out the possibility of miracles right from the start. We tend to begin with the presupposition that stories of miracles just have to be either legends or lies or hoaxes or something because supernatural stuff just does not happen. In fact, maybe you've told yourself that science, scientific method, the way we go about discovering realities about the world, maybe you've even convinced yourself that science has completely ruled out the possibility of miracles.

21:32 We live in a closed set. If there are mysteries out there, it's just because science hasn't answered those questions yet. And anything that's outside of that set, outside of that naturalistic closed box, is just ruled out of order right from the start. But before you shut the door and just say, look, science has ruled out miracles. They don't happen. Everything is natural. If there are any mysteries, science will figure it out eventually. Before you shut the door on miracles, let me at least give you a few things to think about. For one thing, it's just not true, friend, that science has ruled out the possibility of miracles.

22:10 It's just not true. I mean, how would science even do that? Even the most thoroughgoing naturalists in the world admit that science could never prove that there isn't a God. And if science can never prove that there isn't a God, if there is a God, then presumably that God could choose to intervene in the world any time he chooses. The way science could rule out supernatural miracles is to rule out the possibility of God, and that science cannot do.

22:48 So the question isn't really about miracles themselves, is it? It's not really a question of can supernatural things happen. The real question at the root of the whole thing is about God. Is there a God or is there not a God? And science simply just isn't equipped to answer that kind of question. It's the wrong tool for getting at that question. Besides that, I imagine that most people's natural skepticism about miracles, the natural thought that it just can't happen, supernatural things don't happen, the natural skepticism that you probably have when you hear about some miracle happening in the modern world.

23:28 I think that natural skepticism is probably more a product of our own limited experience than it is the result of any principled logical thinking. The reason we don't typically easily believe in miracles is mostly because we have very little experience of them. And in fact, we've kind of cut ourselves off because we assume that we're in this closed naturalistic system. We've actually cut ourselves off from the entire structure of spiritual reality that would make miracles thinkable in the first place.

24:01 Now think about it like this. Imagine that you have a guy that's, you know, let's say he's in the 15th century, right? Way before electricity, way before, you know, any kind of power or anything like that. You got a guy in the 15th century, and he lives on a tropical island right on the equator. And the temperature never gets below, you know, balmy 60 degrees or something like that in the summer. And let's say that a ship lands on that island, walks up to the guy, figures out the language, and finally says to him, my friend in my land up in Norway or whatever, water can turn into this thing that is as hard as a rock.

24:43 And the guy on the island in the 15th century who knows nothing about freezing or refrigeration or anything like that, He goes, that's crazy. Water is wet. Water is liquid. Water moves, right? It doesn't turn into a rock. There's nothing that you can do to turn water into a rock. And the guy from Norway would then say, well, I know that it's, I know that your experience is limited to what you can know, right? But I'm telling you, the fact that you've never seen this stuff called ice does not mean that ice doesn't exist.

25:15 It's just outside of your experience. if you've decided that miracles don't happen, that miracles can't happen, that the supernatural just is not a thing, can I just challenge you for a second? Maybe, maybe that's because you're living on a little island of naturalism and it's your experience that is limited. I can tell you right now, people who have experienced miracles, people who do know that they have happened, people who have experienced them for themselves, have no trouble believing in the supernatural at all.

25:57 Because their experience has been opened up to something else. Maybe what you need to do is open your mind just a little bit, open up that naturalistic box, and consider the possibility that reality, the whole of reality, is bigger and deeper and more beautiful and fascinating than you have ever imagined. but here's the other thing about miracles especially as jesus does them that's why john calls them signs he calls them signs because these displays of supernatural power are not just bare displays of power like signs do they point to something and you know that's what that's what signs are for right they they point to something so you walk out into the hallway here and you're going to find some signs that point you to various places in this church building, right? Sunday school is this way, the nursery is that way, children's ministry is that way, the church office is this way. It's a sign, and it's going to point you to something. It's going to tell you something

27:00 about reality. Well, that's why John calls these miracles signs, because they point to something. They're miracles that direct. They're miracles that speak. They're miracles that signify. Okay, so what do they signify? What do they point to? Well, they point to specific truths about who Jesus is and what Jesus has come to do. That's what they do. Every single one of the signs, every single one of the miracles in John's book points to something about who Jesus is and what Jesus has come to do.

27:31 So let me show you what I mean. I've already told you John records seven signs in his book, seven miracles, and in each one of them the point is way deeper than just Jesus can do really cool things. Every single one of those signs or miracles is pointing to who Jesus is and what he's come to do. So let me give them to you. First miracle in the book is Jesus turning water into wine, right, at the wedding in Cana. What is that? Do you remember that? That was years and years ago that we studied the water turning into wine in Cana. But do you remember what that was signifying? It wasn't just signifying that Jesus can do a cool thing to keep a party going, like turning water into wine and none of y'all losers can do that that's not all it's doing if you remember the details of the story you had six jewish purification jars that jesus said fill them up to the brim fill them up to the brim and then once the jewish purification jars were filled up signifying the jewish system of salvation being filled up to the brim bam jesus turns it all into wine no more just the water of sustenance

28:34 but the wine of celebration and the messianic new age. Do you see what Jesus was doing there? He was saying the old has been filled up to its brim, and now the new age of celebration and salvation has come. The messianic age is here. Second one was the healing of a nobleman's son in chapter 4. Do you remember Jesus does that from a distance? The nobleman comes up, says, come with me to my house and heal my son because he's sick. And Jesus says, you know, bam, your son is healed. And as the man is headed back to his home, And the servant meets him halfway and says, your son is healed at this hour.

29:05 And then the man realizes, oh, that was Jesus that did that. That's when my son was healed. And he comes to believe in Jesus. What's that saying? What's that signifying? It's signifying that the new wine of the messianic age, the great joy of the new age dawning is personal. And it's for us. It's not just something that's happening away out there that doesn't have anything to do with us. It has to do with that man and his son and you and me.

29:36 That's what it's signifying. Third miracle in chapter 5. Remember what that one is? It's the man that sat at the edge of the pool of Siloam and he would wait until the water stirred and then everybody would rush into the pool because the first person to get into the pool would be healed of their disease. But what was that guy's problem? He was lame and he tells Jesus straight up, I know that if I could get into the water first when the waters are roiled up that I could be healed of my lameness and my paralysis, but I have no one to help me get saved.

30:10 You see what that's pointing to? It's pointing to your and my helplessness to save ourselves and Jesus' ability to do it. The feeding of the 5,000. What's that all about? Not just that Jesus can make bread, but that Jesus can nourish us spiritually. What we need spiritually is the bread of life. Jesus himself. What about walking on the water?

30:41 Also in chapter 6. What does that say? That Jesus puts the sea. You remember what the sea signifies, right? The sea is the place of chaos. It's the place of death. It's the place of terror. It's the place of the sea monster, Leviathan, the serpent, the dragon, right? It's his abode. And what does Jesus do with the abode of the dragon, the place of chaos? He places it under his feet. He treads on the serpent. He crushes his head. He shows that he is the creator and ruler of all the cosmos, including the serpent himself.

31:14 The healing of the blind man in chapter 9, what's that all about? Is it just a medical miracle? Is that all it is? I mean, would it have been just as miraculous if Jesus healed his stubbed toe? No, it's signifying that you and I are spiritually blind and Jesus can take the blindness away. That's why he says in the wake of it, I am the light of the world. The last miracle, chapter 11, the raising of Lazarus from the dead. What's that telling you? It's telling you that you are as dead in your sins as Lazarus was dead in that tomb.

31:50 And you need the one who is the resurrection and the life to call your name and bring you to life. You see what's going on with all of those miracles, with all those signs? They're not just neat little party tricks that show you that Jesus is a cool guy to hang out with. Every single one of them is talking about who he is and who you are and what you need. And your utter helplessness to get it apart from Jesus. John wants you to understand that. As you read his book, as you think back on his book, that's what he wants you to understand.

32:24 He wants you to realize right here and right now that you are hopeless and helpless in your sins. You're as helpless as Lazarus was dead. You're as helpless as that guy trying to get into that water. And yet here standing before you this morning in this word is the resurrection and the life. The light of the world, the bread of life. I mean, don't you want that? Don't you want that? Don't you want to be brought to life spiritually? Aren't you tired of being spiritually dead?

32:57 He's right here. He's right in front of you. This gospel, this good news is right in front of you. And it doesn't take anything special to get it. You just say, Lord, I know that I'm that guy next to the pool. I know that I'm Lazarus, dead in my sins. There's nothing I can do to save myself. Nothing. But you're the resurrection and the life. You're the light of the world. You're the one who gave yourself so that my sins could be forgiven. and I'm trusting in you with everything I've got to save me. These things are written.

33:28 These things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by believing in him, have life in his name. That's why he wrote it. Don't turn away. Point number two, the witnesses. In and around all of these signs that John wrote about are witnesses who testify to the truth of who they have realized Jesus is. Look back at the text, 30 and 31, chapter 20, 30 and 31.

34:01 There's a particular logic to this text in the way John writes it. It's very important, but that is obscured a bit or entirely, excuse me, entirely really by the English translation. So as you read verse 30 there and as I see it here in my English Bible, It just says, now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, right? It's almost like it's a brand new thought. Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. But verse 30 actually begins in the Greek with the word, therefore.

34:36 Okay, now that's interesting, right? Because if it just started with now, that's kind of a signal that this is a brand new thought. It's sort of disconnected from what came before. But all of us know that any time you see that word, therefore, it's connecting it to what was before. And so your mind, once you realize that, therefore, Jesus did many other signs. You're like, wow, that's kind of a different deal. It's not a new thought. It's a thought that's connected at least back to just verse 29. Look at that. Jesus said to him, have you believed, Thomas, because you've seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

35:10 So you see the logic? And then he says, therefore, Jesus did many other signs. Do you see the logic of this thing? The logic seems to be blessed are those who believe without seeing. That's you and me, right? We are among those, among the millions, who have believed in Jesus without actually seeing these signs happen. Just like we never saw Caesar getting assassinated or George Washington getting inaugurated, right? We never saw that, but we believed it. We are among those who have seen or have not seen and yet who have believed. And then John says, therefore, you need to know that Jesus did many things in the presence of the disciples, including me, he says, and I've written them down so that you'll believe.

35:53 Blessed are those who believe without seeing, so I've written them down for you so that you can believe. It's an interesting logic, isn't it? The logic of Christian mission, like from minute one all the way through the last 2,000 years until the moments that you and I believed in Jesus, the logic of Christian mission is that certain people were eyewitnesses to Jesus, not everybody. Certain people were eyewitnesses to Jesus, and those eyewitnesses saw everything.

36:25 They experienced everything. They saw the miracles. They heard the teachings. They saw the events happen. They saw the life. They saw the death. They saw the resurrection of Jesus. There are certain people who saw all of that, And now, for the last 2,000 years, the expectation is that on the basis of listening to those eyewitnesses, everybody else is going to believe. That's the logic. So here's what I want you to see in that. There is not a single person here in this room who would say to you, I am a Christian because I have seen the resurrected Christ and am an eyewitness to his miracles.

37:10 Which takes a load off, doesn't it? Because if, you know, if there were certain people like that that were running around, I would have questions. I would just be like, Lord, why am I not one of those people? Right? And I would feel a little bit of righteousness in demanding of the Lord that he show me the risen Christ and show me some miracles. But once you realize that for the last 2,000 years, everyone, literally everyone who has become a Christian has done so on the basis of listening to eyewitnesses and not being one themselves.

37:43 You realize, oh, what right do I then have to demand that God do something special to convince me? Millions of people have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ without seeing him eye to eye, without witnessing the miracles. They've just believed the testimony. Now, straight up, I mean, I'll be honest, that's a bit of a hard sell. That I have to believe in something, especially as something as incredible as that Jesus is God and he got up from the dead.

38:13 I've got to believe that on the basis of eyewitness testimony from someone else. That's a hard sell to me. I think it's a hard sell to all of us, especially to us like hard-headed modern people who really want to see everything for ourselves. I mean, besides that, one of the reasons that we are so hard-headed is because we've gotten used to being lied to. We've gotten used to being jerked around and spun and deep-faked by people who want us to believe certain things in order to further their own agenda. So typically, we don't react very well or quickly to somebody saying, Trust me, I saw it with my own eyes.

38:55 But on the other hand, that also doesn't mean that we always reject eyewitness testimony, does it? You believe that Caesar was assassinated? You believe that Washington was inaugurated? You believe those things on the basis of eyewitness testimony? We don't disbelieve everything. We're not hard skeptics all the way down. We're just careful about what we believe.

39:27 And we're right to be. It's a very human thing to want to be careful about what you believe. And the thing is, here's what I think we miss a lot of times. The thing is, these eyewitnesses to Jesus were also careful about what they believed. I think it's far too easy to assume that because these people lived 2,000 years before we did and because they didn't have iPhones, that they were therefore gullible and primitive people. They weren't. I mean, think about Thomas, right?

39:59 Thomas was not going to believe unless he saw the scars for himself. Yeah, we can come to the Bible and assume we're more sophisticated, we're smarter than them. But that's just modernistic hubris talking. These people weren't gullible. They didn't jump into believing. It took time. They had to be convinced. And the thing is, it's not wrong for us to question them too. And ask questions like, you know, John, Peter, James, is it possible that you're lying to me?

40:36 Is it possible that what you call eyewitness testimony is actually just a hoax, like the kind I see on TikTok all the time? is it possible that your eyewitness testimony is is not so much testimony to a reality but it's just that you've been duped yourself and maybe you're not the perpetrator maybe you've been duped maybe your eyes played tricks on you maybe you didn't see what you really thought you saw it's fair to ask those kinds of questions of these eyewitnesses but but here's the thing these eyewitnesses to jesus's life and his miracles his death and his resurrection these eyewitnesses invite you to ask those questions of them. Are you lying to me?

41:18 Is this a hoax? Were you duped? They all invite you to ask those questions. And when you begin to ask those questions, what you're going to find is that they hold up without a scratch to that kind of scrutiny. They hold up to those kinds of questions. So let's just think about it for a minute. Let's just think about it. Were they duped into believing that Jesus rose from the dead? Were they just duped into it? So what would that even mean? I mean, it's an easy thing to say, right? You can kind of strut through life and just be like, no, I reject Christianity because I think the disciples were duped. I think they were mistaken. I don't think Jesus rose from the dead. They just said he did. I don't necessarily think they were lying about it.

41:57 They just got tricked. They got fooled. Their eyes were playing tricks on it. Maybe that's it. What would it mean for the disciples to have been fooled about the resurrection like that? So, through history, some people have said, well, maybe they just went to the wrong tomb. They made a mistake, right? They didn't know exactly where Joseph of Arimathea laid him. They went to the wrong tomb. They saw that it was empty, and then they got duped into thinking that Jesus rose from the dead. Why doesn't that work as an explanation?

42:33 Because the Romans knew where the tomb was. they put a seal on it and guards in front of it. And if the disciples just went to the wrong tomb, saw that it was empty, returned to town and started saying that Jesus was risen from the dead, they'd have hung Jesus' body on the city walls to put down that kind of movement. They didn't go to the wrong tomb. Maybe he was just not really dead, but just mostly dead, right? Got crucified, he swooned. It's called the swoon theory that explains what happened. But that doesn't make sense either. I mean, how does a man get crucified to the point of swooning, be put into and locked into a tomb for three days, somehow remove the stone himself, go to the disciples and convince them that he's risen from the dead?

43:16 If he survived the three days in the tomb, he'd be a pale reflection of what you would call King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Maybe they got duped because they just took the word of somebody else. Like somebody else came to them and said, He's risen from the dead, and they went, yay, right? Well, no. They all said, every single one of them said, I saw him. I touched him. I spent time with him. I ate with him. They all said, no, no, no, we didn't just take the word of somebody else.

43:49 We saw him. I mean, you start to think through it. You start to kind of think through clear eye, you know, when you put your clear eyes on the thing, and don't just kind of blur your eyes and walk through and say, well, they were duped. if you start thinking about the different ways that they might have been actually duped, you realize, no, no, no, no, there's really, there's no explanation that makes all of this make sense. They weren't fooled. It's not that nothing happened and they were fooled into thinking something did. No, something happened on that Sunday morning. And the question becomes, what was it?

44:21 They say it was the resurrection of Jesus. What do you say? Okay, were they lying? I mean, that's possible, right? I mean, all they had to do was get together and agree to swear up and down that Jesus was resurrected. And if they would just do that and do it for long enough, then they'd become rich and powerful figureheads of a worldwide church. If we can just hold on to this story. But the problem with that is that they didn't become rich and powerful figureheads of a worldwide church.

44:55 And they could have had no expectation that they were going to become that. I mean, far from it. In fact, 11 of the disciples were killed. And in horrible ways. Peter was killed by being crucified upside down. James had his head chopped off. One of them got pushed off the top of a really high building and crushed at the bottom of it. One of them, tradition says, was boiled in oil. John himself was killed in exile. And through all of that, through all of those gruesome martyrdoms, they all continued to insist that Jesus really did get up from the dead.

45:30 And that they saw it happen. That's powerful, powerful evidence that they weren't lying. Because, friend, you don't die for a lie. You don't get martyred for a hoax that you know is a hoax. If they were lying, one of them would have eventually said, this isn't working and I'm not getting my head chopped off for it. Jesus is dead. We made it all up. Not a single one of them did it.

46:03 So they weren't duped. They weren't lying. None of that makes sense. And if that's true, then I think the question comes to you, shouldn't you just believe them? Shouldn't you just believe them? Shouldn't you just believe their testimony that they really saw what they say they saw? It wasn't just the apostles either. John's book is organized around these seven signs, but also seven other witnesses who see who Jesus is and testify to that.

46:37 John, I'll just run through them really quickly. John the Baptist calls him the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Nathanael, one of the earliest disciples, calls Jesus the Son of God and the Messiah of Israel, The Samaritan woman at the well in chapter 4 testifies to him as being a prophet and also ultimately the Messiah who told her everything she ever knew about herself. The man born blind doesn't know what to think, but he says, Oh, look, I'm not getting into all this theological stuff with you. All I know is that once I was blind, but now I see. Simple testimony.

47:08 Martha confesses her faith in Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God. And the one who gives life, Thomas, declares Jesus to be my Lord and my God. And the seventh witness, of course, is God himself. First in a voice from heaven that says, Jesus says, Father, glorify my name. And a voice comes from heaven and says, I have glorified it and I will continue to glorify it again. And then in the resurrection itself. And God witnessed to the truth of what Jesus was saying by raising him from the dead.

47:42 Let me ask you a question. What else do you want? I mean it. Don't cross your eyes and blur your vision at that question. What else are you waiting on to say, okay, I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. What else do you need? All these people, all these people that we've been talking about from all walks of life, from all starting places, with all kinds of experience and presuppositions, wind up pointing to Jesus and saying, he's the real deal.

48:23 Millions of people throughout history have believed in Jesus on the basis of their eyewitness testimony. What else would you demand? Maybe you say, well, I'm just the kind of guy that's got to see it for myself. If I could just see the miracles for myself, if God would just have let me live then in order to see it, I would have believed. Well, I mean, maybe you would have. But I doubt it. I doubt it. Because there were plenty of people in the story of Jesus' life, in the events of Jesus' life, plenty of people that saw the miracles, plenty of people who saw what Jesus did and yet still didn't believe in him.

49:04 So the problem doesn't seem to be a problem of the eyes. It seems to be a problem of the heart. If you're digging your heels in against Jesus, even seeing a miracle isn't going to change that. You would find another reason not to believe. And besides, why are you asking God for special treatment that he has not given anybody in the last 2,000 years? There were a select few who he chose to be the eyewitnesses.

49:35 Everyone else, the millions, he expects to believe on the basis of their testimony. I mean, John couldn't be clearer. That's how it's supposed to work. I wrote these things down so that you will believe them and have life. And blessed are you, Jesus said in the verse right before it, if you believe without seeing. That's how it's supposed to work. So, friend, when the last day comes, you're not going to be able to look at God sitting on his judgment throne and say, the reason I didn't believe in your son is because I didn't see it for myself.

50:16 It's just not going to fly as an excuse because the answer is going to come back. All these millions believed on the basis of this eyewitness testimony. Why do you think you were something special? Maybe it's not that. Maybe it's not that you want to see the evidence. Maybe there's something else that you're waiting for is, I don't know, a certain feeling. Maybe you're not that familiar with religion and you just kind of have this sense that, well, this is religion after all.

50:50 And it's supposed to feel, isn't it? So when I get this feeling in my heart, whatever it feels like, then I'll believe. I mean, yeah, sure, once you know these things to be true, there are all kinds of emotions that get launched. There's joy, there's gratitude, there's worship, there's hope. But the first question of Christianity is not an internal emotional experience. It's not a question of feelings. It's a question of what is true.

51:21 What happened in history? It's a bare truth. Do you think Jesus rose from the dead or not? They say he did. What do you say? Friend, the answer to that question is not dependent at all on you feeling anything. It's just a matter of you looking at it with clear eyes and saying, yes, I believe, or no, I don't.

51:55 You know, if you're a Christian, too, if you've already said, yeah, I absolutely believe, it's a good thought, isn't it? That the truth of Christianity, and therefore the establishment of your eternity with Jesus doesn't rise or fall on your feelings. It's a good thing, isn't it? It's a good thought just to be reminded of that. Just because I'm feeling down today or because I'm not feeling very spiritual today, that that doesn't affect the reality of what has happened to me in Christ. It's a good feeling, isn't it? I love this quote from Charles Spurgeon, one of the great preachers in England in the 19th century, because he talks about just this very thing.

52:34 He says, if these things are true, so if it's true that Jesus is who he says he is and that he can do what he says he can do, if these things are true, then they are true whether your heart dances for joy or sinks in despair. Whatever becomes of our changeful feelings, Thank God facts are stubborn things and alter not. Experience cannot make a thing true and feelings cannot make a thing to be a lie. Over the head then of all the storms and turmoils and changes of my poor, weak, silly nature, there rises a rock that is higher than I, higher than all things, a rock which cannot be moved.

53:18 Let the storm rage as long as it will. Christ Jesus, the anointed son of God, died in the place instead of all who trust in him. I trust in him, and therefore I am saved. If he be indeed commissioned by God to save believers, and if he be himself God, pledged to save believers, then I, a believer, am as safe as the angels which surround the throne of God. Whatever I feel or do not feel, I am a saved man.

53:49 Since I heartily believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is anointed of the Lord to save his people. Amen. The facts, praise God, don't care about your feelings. Whether you're up or down today, whether you're feeling particularly spiritual or particularly not spiritual, let your heart grab onto this, that there rises above you higher than the highest heavens a rock which cannot be moved, and that is that Jesus Christ died to save sinners.

54:23 And if you believe in him, if you call on the Lord, then you are a saved man or woman. Rejoice in that. Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus, we thank you and we praise you that you are the rock that never changes, that the salvation that you won for us through your life and death and resurrection will never be revoked, it will never be changed, Your promises will never, ever be upended. Lord, your promise will forever stand that those who call on the name of the Lord will be saved, that whoever believes in you, in your Son, shall never perish but have everlasting life.

55:03 Lord, we thank you for these promises. We thank you that they are true regardless of what we feel about them. And Father, if there's anyone here in this room, anyone who doesn't yet believe in Jesus as Savior, we pray, oh God, that your Spirit would be about the work of giving them life, giving them the gift of faith so that they might come to you and find forgiveness. We pray all of this in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior, our Redeemer and friend. Amen.