John 21:20–25

0:00 Well, we've got to just acknowledge the gigantic elephant in the room, don't we? That was an amazing game yesterday, wasn't it? I mean, it was a nail-biter at certain points. Nobody was quite sure who was going to pull it out. You had the back-and-forth, several different lead changes. But when push came to shove, we brought it home and clinched the conference championship. why what we oh you thought I was talking about Louisville I was talking about the Yale Bulldogs but but but seriously I I'm happy to give props to the to the Louisville Cardinals good game to good game to them too you know I genuinely I've watched both of those games at the same time they were both at noon and so I was flipping back and forth on my YouTube TV on the phone I watched them both. And for real, I genuinely think that if everything were clicking, like if Plummer was

1:03 on point and if Jaws and Thrash were both fully healthy and all the rest, I genuinely think that the Louisville Cardinals might be able to give some competition to the Bulldogs. Sadly, we'll never know. You know, it was five weeks ago or so that Jeff Brom and the coaching staff at the University of Louisville first started getting asked about the ACC Conference Championship. First time, you know, five weeks ago, as the winds kept kind of coming in, those questions became more and more frequent. And what you would notice if you listen to the press conferences was that Braum would frequently answer those questions with one of two answers.

1:45 And those two answers began to sort of filter through the entire program so that even if students, if players were asked about the conference championship, they would give one of these two answers. The first one that you heard several times was Braum and other players answering the question about the championship with a line like, when you get distracted by that kind of thing, that's when you lose. When you get distracted by that kind of thing, that's when you lose. The other thing that you would hear again and again and again is that Louisville intended to play what they called a one-game season.

2:23 You heard it over and over again. We're going to play a one-game season. The idea of which was that our focus is not going to be on the ACC championship game, which is three, four, five weeks away. Our focus is going to be on the game that's right in front of us because when your eyes start getting distracted by other things, that's when you lose. He's right. And lots of people who have played sports or run races or whatever else have talked about that very thing. When you get distracted, that's when you lose. But it's when you are single-mindedly focused on the main thing that's right in front of you, that's when things start clicking and that's when things start going well.

3:02 Well, it's that kind of single-mindedness, it's that kind of avoidance of distraction that I want to talk to you about today as we finish up our study of the entire Gospel of John. So let me invite you to take a Bible and turn over to page 907. We're going to be right there at the end of 907, and then we're going to flip over to 908. We're going to be looking at John chapter 21, verses 20 through 25. This is the very end of the book. And this time we're not just ending a series in John with a plan to come back to it next fall.

3:33 We are ending the series in John. We've been at this for eight years now, looking at a section of John every fall. And so we finally come to these last few sections of the book, basically where Jesus and Peter are having a short but pointed conversation about both Peter and then in our text today about the Apostle John himself. So we've been looking for the last few weeks at chapter 21. You might want to let your eyes kind of fall over chapter 21. 21 forms a kind of epilogue to the book.

4:04 I think we've said that a few times. Try to have that in your mind right now. It sort of wraps up some loose ends. It gives us some, you know, a little extra information about some of the people who've been involved in these events. it even, in certain kind of veiled ways, it gets less veiled today, but in veiled ways kind of points us forward in some ways to the future, to what Jesus wants from his disciples as time goes on and after he ascends into heaven. So in a certain way, looking forward to the future, wrapping up some loose ends, giving you information, all that, it really does work kind of like a, you know, a post-credits scene in a Marvel movie, if any of y'all are still watching those movies anyway.

4:41 The whole of chapter 21, it takes place after the main part of the action is done. It just wraps things up. The whole thing takes place on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Starts with Jesus giving his disciples this miraculous catch of fish. That's sort of 1 through 14. That's what's going on there. Then you get, starting in verse 15 and going all the way through 19, you get this exchange with Peter about what's going to happen with him where Jesus first reinstates him after his three denials of Jesus and then tells him what's going to happen to him in the future.

5:11 Really kind of recommissions Peter after his fall in chapter 18. Well, now starting in verse 20, the book turns to one more conversation that Jesus has with Peter. And this time, that conversation is not so much about Peter as about one of his fellow disciples, the Apostle Paul, or the John, sorry, who wrote this book. So let's read about this conversation that Jesus has with Peter. Starting in verse 20 of chapter 21. Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them.

5:46 The one who also had leaned back against him during the supper. And had said, Lord, who is it that is going to betray you? When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, Lord, what about this man? And Jesus said to him, if it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me. so the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die yet jesus did not say to him that he was not to die but if it is my will that he remain until i come what is that to you this is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things and who has written these things and we know that his testimony is true now there are also 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 books that would be written. It's an interesting little text, isn't it? It's an interesting exchange that takes place between Jesus and Peter, right? I mean, you kind of get, you really kind of get one last rebuke that Peter takes on the chin before the book is over. You have to wonder if

6:47 that was deliberate on John's part. Let's just hold Peter up one more time to get slapped by Jesus, right? But it's interesting in another sense, too, because after all this that he's written about, Twenty-one and three-quarters chapters, why does John choose to end this book with essentially a story about himself? And besides that, this book has been full of Jesus doing just incredible stuff. He does incredible signs. He does miracles. He makes incredible claims about himself.

7:19 He's basically, through the whole book, showing and proving himself to be the Christ, the Son of the living God. And now the whole book, when you come right down to the end of it, is going to end like this? and there's nothing miraculous there's nothing incredible about it it's an interesting little conversation and an interesting rebuke of Peter but it's just a conversation where Peter asks what's going to happen to John and Jesus says really it's none of your business I mean honestly why do that why end your book with something that is really interesting for not being all that interesting. What's the point of it? Well, that's a good question. So good, in fact, that plenty of Christians have thought that, well, this section must have been added by somebody else decades or centuries later. That's been a case that people have made about it. They've said, you know, look, the book really must have ended. John must have ended his book originally, maybe with Jesus telling Peter to follow me. Maybe that was the end that was supposed to launch the age of the church.

8:22 follow me, right? Or even maybe the book was supposed to end back at the end of chapter 20 with Thomas's statement that you, Jesus, are my Lord and my God, and then John ends it with there were a whole bunch of other signs, but these are written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, and by believing have life in his name. Doesn't that seem like a better ending? This, people have said, just doesn't make sense. But I want to try to convince you this morning that it actually does make sense. There's a reason John ends his book with this story and that this story has a purpose that, again, turns our eyes to the future, to the next chapter of the story of Jesus' people.

9:03 We'll talk about that as we go through the sermon. Let's just look at it, though. Structurally, this passage has several different parts to it. It kind of comes in rapid fire. You've got the story proper in verses 20 through 22, right? That's it. 21 and 22. That's the whole story. It's very short. Then in 23, you have what is really a kind of parenthetical statement that basically warns you to pay close attention to what Jesus said. Because if you blur your eyes and just insert this or take this out or change the angle of it just a little bit, you can wind up with falsehood. And John wants to remind you, keep your eyes closely on what Jesus actually said and don't import stuff of your own. Then you've got these two concluding statements in 24 and 25. One of them, verse 24, is about the trustworthiness of John himself as the author of the book, right? And then you've got another in 25 reflecting on the works of Jesus over time. And he says, if they were all to be written, I suppose the whole world couldn't contain them. But back to

10:04 the question we asked a minute ago, why is this passage here? I mean, what's it doing at the end of the book here? I told you that I think there's a purpose for it. I think there's a reason for it. It's not surprising. Everything that John does is done for a reason. I mean, we've been saying from the very beginning of this whole series on the book of John, going back eight years and I think something like 85 sermons, we've been saying just about every sermon that John has not written this book just to write down facts about history. He's not just keeping a chronological log. It's not even necessarily in chronological order all the time. He puts it in theological categories sometimes. He's writing with a purpose. And it's been to convince you, the reader, to believe in Jesus Christ. Well, now, I think in chapter 21, after he said that at the end of chapter 20, all of these signs have been written so that you may believe in Christ. I think in 21, the purpose changes a little bit. It's not so much getting you to look at Jesus and understand who he is. It's almost as if by the end of chapter 20, that's supposed to have happened in you. You're supposed to understand that Jesus is the Christ. You're supposed to have life in his name. And then 21

11:07 is meant to launch you into the future. Now that you know this about Jesus, what are you supposed to do? 21 turns to what Jesus wants from his people now that they believe in him. I mean, we saw that impulse in the miraculous catch of fish, right? That was a picture of the gathering in of the elect from the nations. We saw it in Jesus's commission to Peter to feed his sheep, to teach them, to shepherd them. You see, in both of those cases, evangelize the lost, feed my people.

11:38 In both of those cases, it's answering the question, now that we believe in Jesus, what do we do? And the answer comes back in those first two sections. You evangelize and you teach. Go into the world and make disciples, teaching them to obey. You build the church, it's essentially the Great Commission, just done in a kind of symbolic fashion, rather than straight out like it is in Matthew. You evangelize and you teach. And now, I think what's going on, starting in verse 20, is that these last few verses are just putting one last shove on that command, on that great commission, and saying, essentially, evangelize and teach.

12:20 Build the church and make sure you stay single-mindedly focused on that task. Don't get distracted. Just follow Jesus. That's what it's doing. So, main idea, if you're a Christian, if you're a Christian, you serve the incarnate Son of God. So, press on single-mindedly to the end. If you're a Christian, you serve the incarnate Son of God. It's incredible.

12:51 You don't just serve a boss. You don't just serve a God that's a way off there that nobody's ever going to see and nobody has ever seen. No, you serve the incarnate Son of God. It's incredible. So stay single-mindedly focused to the end. We're going to look at this text, and it's kind of two main parts. So first you've got the story and this little explanation sentence, 20 to 23. That's what we're going to look at. And the message in those verses, 20 to 23, to Peter is essentially, don't get distracted. That's what Jesus tells him.

13:21 Don't get distracted. And then these closing verses, 24, 25, which are really functioning to do a couple of things. They're establishing John as a reliable witness to all of these things that he's written about. And then the very last verse is pointing your eyes back to Jesus himself. So two points to the sermon, which function to turn our eyes to the future mission of the church and its Lord. Number one, don't get distracted. Don't get distracted. Number two, because you serve the incarnate Son of God.

13:53 Number one, don't get distracted. Two, because you serve the incarnate Son of God. You see the logic of that, right? I mean, you can say it both ways. You can say, listen, Christian, remember that you serve the incarnate Son of God. Therefore, don't get distracted. Or you can say it the other way. Don't get distracted because you serve the incarnate Son of God. But the logic is the same, right? The fact that we serve Jesus Christ, the fact that our lives are being driven by our devotion to Jesus Christ means that nothing else is worthy of our single-minded devotion.

14:30 Now, there are things in life that are worthy of our devotion, but all of those have to be brought in order. They all have to be brought in line to our single-minded goal, which is to serve the incarnate Son of God. Don't get distracted. Even the stuff in your life that's good, even the stuff that God has called you to, if you put too much focus on it, if it becomes the driving factor in your life, it can become a distraction that will take your eyes off Jesus. That's not what you want. What you want as a Christian is for your eyes to be on Christ, for your goal to be serving him, and then as you plow forward toward the new heavens and the new earth where Jesus is standing waiting on you, all of those other things will be pulled along in your wake and they'll line up.

15:11 That's what we're talking about. Don't get distracted because you serve the incarnate Son of God. Keep things in line. So point number one, let's look at it. Don't get distracted. That is the title of point one because that is exactly what happens to Peter here in these verses. I mean, if you remember from last week, basically what had happened five minutes earlier, three minutes earlier, something like that, is that Jesus had confronted Peter in front of all the other disciples probably about his denial of Jesus. This time when more than any other time in his life, Peter fell into sin.

15:44 He fell into denying that he even knew Jesus. And three minutes before our text, Jesus had lovingly, compassionately reinstated him as a faithful apostle. Reinstated him even in a leadership role among the apostles and said, You're going to be a faithful pastor. Feed my sheep. Tend my lambs. Tend my sheep. And three minutes later, Peter's already distracted. He turns back and his mind starts to wander to what is going to happen to some other disciple.

16:24 I mean, that's understandable in a certain way. You look up at verse 19, the very end of it. After saying this, he said to him, follow me. I mean, obviously that follow me there has some deep theological significance, right? Peter, like all of us, is to follow Jesus in discipleship. That's the main meaning of that follow me. But the question is, maybe that follow me has a less theological meaning of just also, you know, come on, let's take a walk. Because by the time you get to verse 20 there, they're no longer sitting around the charcoal campfire.

16:56 They're walking along the beach on the Sea of Galilee. And Peter, as they walk along, turns back to see this one that's called there the one whom Jesus loved, the disciple whom Jesus loved. And he's following. Then he goes on to further identify this one whom Jesus loved. If you look at verse 20 there, he's also called there the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and had said, Lord, who is it that is going to betray you? That happened back in chapter 13. There are a few things to say here, a few kind of questions to untangle.

17:30 First of all, we've noticed several times as we've studied the book of John that there's one particular disciple who's identified like this. And it happens four or five different times. He's the disciple whom Jesus loved. And what we've concluded as we've kind of gone through the book, we've sort of cheated a little bit as we've gone through the book, but what we've kind of concluded is that that's John himself. The disciple whom Jesus loved is the one who wrote this book. Now, up until right now, that hasn't been completely beyond doubt. And in fact, people have argued about it a lot.

18:01 Who is the disciple whom Jesus loved? And there have been lots of different answers given. Most people come into the conclusion that it's John, But they come to that conclusion, not from data in the early part of the book. They come to it actually from this paragraph right here. This is the passage where he finally reveals that it's him. And it's actually down in verse 24. So turn the page and look at that. He just identifies himself. This is the disciple who is right now bearing witness about these things. And who has written this book, these things. And we know that his testimony is true.

18:33 So that sort of seals it. That puts the lock on it. The disciple whom Jesus loved, the disciple who leaned back against Jesus to ask who was going to betray him. That disciple is John the Apostle. Okay, so that mystery is solved and it seems pretty watertight to me. It's John. But here's another one. Why does John spend all this space to identify himself not just as the disciple Jesus loved, but with this very particular thing that happened? that he laid his head on Jesus' chest at the Last Supper and said, Lord, who is it that's going to betray you?

19:10 Why is that there? I mean, the beloved disciple, the disciple whom Jesus loved, did a lot of stuff in this book. I mean, he could have identified himself by saying, you know, this is the disciple whom Jesus loved, the one who stayed in the boat to bring the fish in when Peter jumped into the water to go chase Jesus, right? He could have said a lot of things about himself, but he chooses that one. Why? Well, it's probably doing a couple of things. It's not entirely clear, but it's probably doing a couple of things. It's reminding us, if you cast your mind back to the story in chapter 13, it's reminding us that John had a close, close friendship with Jesus.

19:47 Likely, at least it looks this way, closer than any of the other disciples, except maybe Peter himself. So John was present for everything. He saw everything. He saw the anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane. He saw the transfiguration. He was at the foot of the cross. You remember all the other disciples scattered, but there was John at the foot of the cross so that Jesus could give care of his mother to him. He was there for everything. He saw everything, and that becomes really important for what he's doing in verse 24.

20:19 We'll talk about that later. It's also reminding us not only that John was close to Jesus, intimate with Jesus in friendship and seeing everything. It reminds us of that, but it also reminds us that he had a close relationship with Peter. I mean, you remember why John laid his head over on Jesus' breast, right? You remember why? It's because Jesus had just dropped the bomb in the middle of dinner that somebody was going to betray him. And then this conversation starts, well, is it me? Is it me? Is it me? And then Peter from across the table somehow motions to John.

20:51 He makes some kind of gesture to John to say, ask him who it is, right? And then John lays back and says, Lord, who's going to betray you, right? So Peter and John were in cahoots in that whole deal. They were working together. And what that tells us is that they were friends. They had the kind of relationship where Peter could just like make some sort of hand signal, you know, and John knew exactly what he was talking about, right? It's like they were finishing each other's sentences. They were close friends. And part of what that's doing is reminding you in this very subtle way, which seems to mark this whole chapter, it's reminding you that there is no rift between John and Peter.

21:26 Even after this conversation, even after everything that's happened in 21, there's no rift between them. They are the closest of friends, and they're locked arm in arm in this mission that Jesus has given to them. I mean, it's not clear, if you look at verse 20, why John is following in the first place. I mean, maybe he just saw Peter and Jesus walking down the beach, and he thought, I'm going to go with him, right? It was a natural thing. Peter and John and James were together most of the time, and so maybe he just thought, I'm going to go. But when Peter turns around and sees him, he says this in 21, look at it.

21:58 He says, when Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, Lord, what about this man? What about this man? Why does he do that? Why does he ask that question? What is he trying to get at with that question? Well, you remember from last week, just a few minutes earlier, Jesus had finished telling Peter that following Jesus was going to mean for Peter that his life was going to end with him stretching out his arms involuntarily, which meant to be crucified. In other words, Peter was going to spend his entire life calling in the elect, pastoring them, and then his life was going to end in the most violent of ways with him, like Jesus, being nailed to a cross until he was dead.

22:40 That was his path in life. And so now Peter's wondering, okay, Jesus, if you've told me what my path is going to be in life, calling in the elect, pastoring the sheep, and then being stretched out on a cross to die, If you can tell me what's going to happen to me, what's going to happen with him? Will you tell me his future too? And Jesus' answer is pretty sharp. Jesus said to him, verse 22, If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me. I mean, essentially, he just tells Peter straight up, It's none of your business what's going to happen to him.

23:18 It's none of your business what my plan is for him, what the path is that I've laid out for him, if I want him to keep on living until I come back the second time, what does that have to do with you, Peter? Your job is to follow me, to faithfully walk the road that I've set before you. Oh my goodness. What a critical lesson that is for us as Christians. Because we get so interested in the path that God has set out for other people that we lose our faithfulness on the road he set out for us.

23:58 It is a critical lesson. Like what you tell your kids, keep your hands to yourself. That's what Jesus is telling Peter. Peter, keep your eyes on yourself, buddy. Keep your eyes on yourself. Don't worry about what's going to happen to John. Don't worry about what's going to happen to these other nine disciples. You worry about yourself. It's a critical lesson. It's one we need to be reminded of again and again as we live our lives in following Jesus. Which is probably why John puts it in such a prominent place here at the end of his book.

24:29 So it's worth thinking about this for a little bit. Think about it. The Bible teaches us that God is sovereign over every minute, every second, every nanosecond of our lives. Everything that happens to us is planned by him in advance from before the foundation of the world. which means that God has different paths planned for each of his people. And our job as individual Christians is to walk those paths faithfully, whatever those paths happen to be. In other words, to fulfill the work that God has planned for each of us to do and not get distracted by worrying about others.

25:04 Look, here's how it kind of fits together. Every Christian, everybody who names the name of Jesus, lives under the banner and the command of the Great Commission. every single one of us, you are to go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to obey everything that I've commanded you and baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We all live under the banner of the Great Commission. Another way to put it is that we all live under the command, follow me. We're all, each one of us, called by the king to be about the work of proclaiming the gospel and making disciples, but within that and under it, even though the Great Commission may stand as a banner over the lives of all Christians within that and under it there are different paths that God appoints to each of us in different areas of service and those are sometimes winding paths and they're different they're diverse yours is not going to be the same as mine mine is not going to be the same as hers it's all going to be different in God's sovereign providence I mean think about some of the

26:09 differences that John flags even here in this text. And we're going to look at one that's in last week's text too. I mean, John seems to be at pains to compare and contrast himself and Peter in these texts. And his lesson seems to be we, Peter and John, are very different people. We have very different paths that the Lord has laid out in front of us. And yet both of us live under the banner of follow me. He seems to be at pains to flag that out. So for example, if you look back up to what Jesus says to Peter in verse 18, even in telling him that he's going to be crucified, Jesus recognizes that, for example, there's a difference between youth and old age. There just is. There's a difference between being a young man or a young woman and an old man or an old woman. There's a difference between being young and old and middle-aged also. Jesus recognizes that. I mean, think about it. When you're young, when you're 16, 17, 18 years old, you got the whole world in

27:15 front of you, right? You got energy and vision and dreams. You want to accomplish stuff and you want to accomplish it now. I mean, we old people make fun of that sometimes, partly because we envy that energy and that vision. But there's glory in it. There's glory in that kind of youthful energy. And Jesus doesn't in any way whatsoever look down on that. There's glory in, for example, having a youthful desire to take the gospel to the nations right now. To just say, you know what, I'm dropping everything this semester or this year, and I'm getting on a plane, and I'm going to take the gospel to some nation somewhere. There's glory in that. And there's glory in having the energy and the time and the freedom to do it.

27:59 As you get older, of course, that changes. Life tends to fill up with responsibilities and obligations. And the thing is, the Bible honors that too. It honors it a lot. Those of you who have some gray hair coming in, you know who you are, and so do I. The Bible calls that gray hair a crown of honor for you. The Bible honors old age. All you've got to do is read Ecclesiastes, and you'll see that. But the point is that the path of discipleship doesn't look the same at every stage of life, and it's not meant to look the same.

28:31 Young people are meant to be free of obligation and full of energy so they can take the gospel to the nations. Older people are meant to be full up with obligations and responsibilities for teaching the next generation of people who are going to come along. We grow, we age, we get married, and we have children, And God is pleased with every stage of that. The question, though, is whether at every stage our mind remains singularly focused on the great command, follow me.

29:07 Or whether it gets distracted by other things. So if you're young, are you following him? Or is your life getting burned up and wasted on things that don't really matter? If you're older, if you're middle-aged, or if you're older, are you following him? Are you obeying that great banner command, follow me? Or are you wasting your life on things that don't really matter? Or maybe even in pining for the days when you were young. Look, life moves. It moves at exactly the same pace for every single human being.

29:43 You know, when every single human being has hit 40 years of age, precisely 40 years after they were born. We all get the same amount of time. Life moves. It changes. The paths that God puts us on are winding. The challenge is to make sure that at whatever stage you're in, through every twist and turn, you're following him and doing everything that you do for his glory.

30:15 And there's something else here. There's another way that John seems to be at pains to contrast himself and Peter. God not only uses people in various stages of life, he also uses different people who have utterly different personalities. I mean, think about Peter and John here. Even this chapter seems to be working really hard to show us how different they were. They were utterly different in their personalities, and that's a point that's been made over and over again in the book. I mean, think about Peter. Think about who he is and what he does. He's a man of action.

30:48 Not really very much thought. He doesn't tend to think before he acts. It's just something happens and he reacts to it. So when Jesus asks, who do you say that I am? Around the campfire that night, all the disciples are sitting there very thoughtfully. And Peter just blurts it out. You are the Christ, the son of the living God. And he gets it right. When the soldiers come to arrest Jesus, what does Peter do? He draws the sword and cuts off a guy's ear. I mean, even here, when he recognizes Jesus calling to him from the shore, he's out on the boat. What does he do? He girds up his loins and jumps in the ocean.

31:19 I mean, that's not somebody thinking about it very hard before he does it. He's a man of action. He's a shoot first, aim later kind of guy. And praise God, sometimes he gets it right. John is utterly different. John doesn't draw the sword. He doesn't blurt out answers. He thinks, and he thinks hard, and then he speaks judiciously. He stays in the boat and helps bring the fish in because that's his duty as a fisherman. He's probably the one that counted them when they got back to the shore.

31:52 They're completely different. And yet God uses both of them. Friends, that's true of us too as Christians. It's true of us as a church. There are introverts and extroverts in here. There are thinkers and there are doers. There are people who shoot first and aim later and there are other people that aim so long you think they're never gonna shoot. Every single one of us though has been made exactly as God wants us to fulfill his purposes in and through us. Now, does that mean that your personality is perfect?

32:26 I mean, does that mean you can just, you know, say whatever you want to, act however you want to and say, you know what, that's the way God made me. God made me abrasive. I have no filter. God didn't make me with a filter. I tell it like it is. It's just my personality. Is that what that means? No, of course not. Your personality has been affected by the fall like everything else, and always you have to do the work of molding it according to the fruits of the Spirit. But what it does mean is that you shouldn't look at somebody else who has certain gifts that you think you want and say, look, you know, I can really see how God would use him for the furtherance of his kingdom. I can see how she's going to be a benefit to the kingdom of God, but I just don't see how God's going to use me.

33:08 I'm too whatever for God to use me. No, friend, don't ever, don't ever think that. Don't ever think that. This is the whole image of the body that Paul uses. There are going to be mouths in the church, for better or worse. There are going to be eyes in the church, for better or worse. There are going to be fingers and toes and all the rest. And each part of the body has its place. They're all different, and yet God uses them all. God used Peter, right, the man of action.

33:40 He used John, the man of thought. He used Paul with all of his academic degrees, and Moses with his speech impairment. He used tiny little David to bring about his purposes, and he used enormous Samson to bring about his purpose. There's no personality that God can't and won't use, and part of the message of this text is to say to you, If I want her to have that personality, if I want him to have that kind of gifting, what is that to you?

34:12 You follow me. Even more, another thing. Not only does God use different stages of life and different personalities, at the highest level, he just calls his people to different roles. I mean, think about it. Peter's path, his role was initially to draw thousands of people into the kingdom and then to shepherd them as they gathered together into churches. That's what he did. And then his path was to have his life ended when he was killed on a cross as a martyr.

34:45 John's path was utterly different. Utterly different from that. John probably lived into his 90s. He probably died of old age. And to his dying day, the most important thing that he did, The greatest gift that he gave to the church of God was to bear eyewitness to the things that Jesus did and write them down. That's what he did. He bore eyewitnesses to the things that Jesus did and then he wrote them down. And that gave the Christian church a solid foundation to be established on. I mean, think about it.

35:16 Those two paths couldn't be more different. And yet God used both of them for the good of his people. He used Peter's life in action and movement and energy and ultimately blood. And he used John's in quiet observation and thought and the scratch of a pen on parchment. Let me ask you a question. Action, energy, thousands brought in, blood at the end, or quiet contemplative thinking, writing on a piece of parchment, which of those lives is more valuable to the kingdom?

35:53 Which of those lives is more valuable to the kingdom? Which one of those men wasted their life? Neither one. They both followed Jesus. Look, here's the point. It is so easy to get distracted from following Jesus on whatever path he's put you on with whatever tools he's given you. It's so easy to get distracted from that by looking at the life stage or the personality or the role or the calling of somebody else and saying, man, I wish that was me.

36:28 I wish I was on that path and not this path. I wish I had those tools instead of these tools. But don't you see what John is saying here? Don't you see what Jesus is saying to Peter? That's a waste of time. You only have so much time in your life. Don't waste it wishing that God had put you on a different path. He puts you where you are for a purpose. Let God handle the other people. Your job is to follow him in whatever path he's put you on. I mean, don't you want that to be your legacy?

37:02 When all is said and done, when you've made your way from young man to middle-aged man to old man or young woman to middle-aged woman to old woman to dead man or woman, don't you want that to be your legacy? He followed Jesus. She followed Jesus. I don't know about you, but I think that would be an awesome thing to have on your gravestone. He followed Jesus. It would be so much better than the things we often look like we're aiming for in our lives. I mean, imagine on your gravestone.

37:34 He slayed people on Twitter. She attained her ideal weight. It's not so funny. He finally bought that car. She got that promotion. Oh, God forbid. God forbid that that's what anybody would want to write on our tombstones. Let it be, he followed Jesus. Look, I'm not saying, just like I said at the sort of beginning of the sermon, I'm not saying that other things in life are unimportant.

38:12 They're not, not always. We have to use some wisdom sometimes because there are certain things in life that are completely useless. or sinful even but not always but the problem is that even important things can become a distraction to us and they become a distraction to us when they become an end in themselves rather than a means of following and serving and proclaiming Jesus so getting a promotion at a job not necessarily a distraction unless the promotion is the thing that's driving your life and is the end in itself but if you want to get the promotion so that you can use that for some other end of following Jesus great that means it's falling in line it becomes a distraction when it becomes an end in itself I love this thing that Spurgeon says listen listen to this he says suppose someone should live give his life to fighting for the Baptist denomination when he dies men would say well he was a thorough Baptist and he fought well for his denomination but that would be a poor wreath

39:14 to lay on his coffin would you care to have a long Latin inscription on your tombstone recording the fact that you were always hammering away at some important doctrine on twitter the twitter part's not there I added that or would you wish your tombstone to have said there lies a man who brought a few Christian people into the faith with the deep spirituality of his teaching and that was all he did I covet and I think I am right in doing so the honor of having it said of me that man lived to snatch sinners like brands from the fire I hope some of you will have it said when you are gone that woman lived to bring her children to Christ that girl lived to talk to those she met with about the dear Savior who had been so precious to her and that she wished all others to enjoy the same blessing oh that each one of us might live to glorify God to be like an arrow shot from Christ's bow by his own pierced hand

40:15 to feel an impetus given to us to bear right on to the center of the target of the glory of God. Nothing pulling us aside either to be thought good or to be thought great or to be thought learned or to desire to gain honor or esteem among our fellow men but just to glorify God by the conversion of sinners through the Holy Spirit's blessing resting upon our labors. Amen. I mean, don't misunderstand him. Don't misunderstand me either. It's not that fighting for a denomination, for instance, like you mentioned at the front of it, isn't a good thing to do.

40:48 It's not that defending the doctrines of the faith is somehow unimportant. That's not his point. It's not my point. It's not Jesus' point. The point is that we should make sure that nothing, not even the important things in life are an end in themselves. They should all be in service of what Jesus has ultimately called us to do, and that is to glorify him by bringing the nations to bow their knee to him as Lord and Savior. So don't get distracted. That's the first thing. Here's the second thing. Don't get distracted because you serve the incarnate Son of God. Don't get distracted because you serve the incarnate Son of God.

41:21 Before we go on to the last two verses, 24-25, it's worth pausing to note verse 23 there. Apparently what happened is that these words of Jesus got around. And a rumor started that because Jesus said, if it's my will for him to remain until I come back, that John wasn't going to die. So here he takes a second to remind his readers to be very careful to focus on what Jesus actually said. He's saying, look at his words, right? He did not say that this disciple wasn't going to die. He didn't say that.

41:52 You're reading that in. You're importing that. You're assuming it and presuming it from other things. All he said was, if it's my will and it isn't necessarily that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You see what he's doing there? It's a really, really important lesson, actually, especially about how we read our Bibles. There is so much bad doctrine that comes from reading the Bible with blurry eyes.

42:24 You know what I mean by that? Where you just kind of look at the words, right? And there's a phrase that you kind of recognize from Sunday school in your childhood. And, oh, I remember that phrase. And if I pull it together with that phrase over there and stick it together, I can come up with this doctrine of whatever it is. We see some verse and we add a little here or we pull it out of its context and we wind up missing the point entirely. John's lesson there is stop doing that. Read the Bible carefully. Read it with clear eyes. Look at its context. Look at the actual words. Don't be pulled away by your presuppositions or the things you want to believe about God.

43:00 Well, the book ends with these two verses here, 24, 25. Let's look at them. First thing here to talk about is the fact that there's been quite a bit of argument, actually, among Christians as to who actually wrote these verses. So most of the problem comes from that phrase at the end of verse 24. We know that his testimony is true. So most people read, you know, they know that John's writing. They get through verse 23, no problem. Then they read, this is the disciple, and it's still John, right?

43:31 This is the disciple who's bearing witness about these things and who's written these things down. And then they get to that phrase, and we know that his testimony is true. And they're like, well, who's the we? I mean, John is an I. He's not a we. So who has busted in here at verse 24 and is now this plural, right? Who's the we? And also, does it really make sense for John to testify to the truth of his own testimony about Jesus? So if the we really is just an I, does it do any good for him to say, I know that this one's testimony is true?

44:04 In other words, I know that my testimony is true. Is that legit? Does that really make sense? And so people have thought, well, maybe, you know, maybe something else has happened here. Maybe, for example, when John finished his book, maybe the whole elder board at the church of Ephesus, where he was, signed the end of his book, right? And they say, after verse 23, this is the disciple who's bearing witness about these things and who has written these things. And we, the elders of his church, know that his testimony is true.

44:35 Maybe that's what happened. I don't think so, though. As I look at it, I really don't see any good reason to think that it was anyone other than John who wrote this verse. So there are a few reasons for that. For starters, if it was the elders or somebody else that wrote verse 24, it is then exceedingly strange that verse 25 reverts back to the I. Right? I suppose. That, why would the elders do that? Like, why would they do that? Or is it that, I don't know, John finished his book at verse 23.

45:08 The elders picked up the pen and said, you know, we know that this man's testimony is true. And John goes, wait, I forgot something. I suppose, is that what happened? I mean, you could build a case like that, but at that point, you're just sort of drawing straws, right? You're just, I mean, it's so complicated that you could just pretty much make up anything. You know, you could say, well, an alien came down and wrote the last, you know, it's just not plausible, right? It doesn't make sense. Also, as for those two problems I mentioned, the we and John testifying to himself, it turns out that if you look at John's writings, so not just the gospel, but also Revelation and 1st and 2nd and 3rd John, you look at all of his writings, it turns out that it's very common for whatever set of reasons for John to refer to himself as we.

45:51 He does it all the time. I'm not even gonna take the time to prove it. All you gotta do is just flip through 1st, 2nd, 3rd John and you'll see it everywhere. John refers to himself in the singular as we and he does it a lot. So that's not a problem. And as for swearing to the truth of his own testimony, I mean, that's not really a problem either, is it? I mean, John already did that exact thing in chapter 19, verse 35. You can go look at that if you're not convinced. He's already done that. I swear that this testimony is true. And besides that, you and I do that kind of thing literally all the time.

46:23 It is not weird. If you're ever given testimony in a court case, you gotta stand there and say, I swear to the hell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. Even when you're just trying to convince a friend of something, you say, look, I'm not lying to you. Or if you're 21, you say, no cap, bro. Or whatever. My point is John's just doing a very normal thing here. He's swearing that what he has said in this book is the truth. He's not making it up. I know that my testimony is true.

46:56 What he says in the rest of that verse is critically important too. And it's fascinating to me that he knew it was going to be important. So he says two things there. And he's very emphatic about them. Do you see them? First, he says that he was an eyewitness to all these things. This is the disciple who is currently right now bearing witness about these things. In other words, he's saying, I was an eyewitness to this stuff. I didn't just hear about this secondhand.

47:27 It's not just an oral tradition. I saw it with my own eyes. I'm not getting info from somebody else. Second thing he says is, not only was I an eyewitness to these things, but I wrote them down. I wrote them down. So this book isn't the result of, you know, stories from John circulating around the church community for a couple hundred years, and then somebody finally collates them and writes them down. That's not what happened. You don't have accruals of legend happening here. You don't have narrative inflation.

47:58 You don't have problems of transmission through multiple ears and mouths like that telephone game. You've played that, right? You whisper to one person and they whisper to the next and by the time it gets back to you, it's all messed up. There's nothing going on like that here. John is saying, I saw it and I wrote it down. I saw it and I wrote it. It's on paper. It's in stone. Friends, that's critically important for the Christian faith. It's critically important for the Christian faith in a way that it is not critically important for any other faith or religion in the history of the world.

48:33 And that is because the entire Christian faith rests 100% on events that happened in history. And if those events didn't happen, then the Christian faith falls. It's no good. It's off the table. Our whole faith, more than any other religion in the world, is dependent on certain things having happened. I mean, other religions of the world, they can stand. They can stand on an ethical system, on a body of teaching, on a philosophy of life.

49:07 It's not critically important that Gautama Buddha did this or that thing, or that he sat under that tree or walked in that forest. That's not critically important to the Buddhist faith. It's not critically important that Muhammad did certain things. What's critically important to those faiths is the ethical teaching. It's the philosophy of life. It's the way of thinking about Allah, right? Those are the things that are critically important to those faiths, not Christianity. Christianity cannot stand on its ethical system or its philosophy of life. Those things don't even make sense without the events.

49:39 The whole worldview rises or falls on whether or not these things actually happen. And John is telling us in the most certain terms, they did. happen, which doesn't just establish our faith as Christians. It does that. It establishes our faith as Christians. If you're a Christian, you can say, yeah, I'm a Christian because I know that these things happened. They happened in history. There are eyewitnesses that saw them, wrote them down, and those witnesses are reliable. It does that for you. It establishes your faith, but you know what else it does? If you're not a Christian, it also challenges you in your unbelief.

50:20 That's what facts do. That's what events do. If all we were talking about was a philosophy of life, a worldview, a way of thinking, an ethics system, you could basically look at that and say, yeah, I'm just not interested. You could ignore it. But when somebody comes to you and says, no, no, no, you don't understand. What we're saying is that a man got up from the dead. And at the end of your life, he is the one who's going to judge you and bring you to heaven or send you to hell. you may reject that but you can't ignore it because we're saying that's true it happened it's not just a way of thinking about the world Christianity is not just an ethical system it's not just a body of teaching it's a claim about the truth of the world you know I think so many Christians when we start to do apologetics when we start to do evangelism we basically spend all of our time playing defense against unbelievers right and basically what we

51:26 spend our time doing is trying to convince them in whatever way we can think of that it is okay intellectually for me to be a christian it's okay please don't judge me as being stupid or unthinking because i'm a christian intellectually there's just enough here that it's okay for me to be a christian we spend our time playing defense you know what we ought to be doing if you're here and you're not a Christian you know what I'm hoping to be doing with you right now is not just saying look it is okay please it is okay for me to be a Christian what I'm wanting to say to you is it is not okay for you not to be a Christian it's intellectually dishonest for you to not be a Christian it's you ignoring facts and I say that hard I understand that but it's true Christianity doesn't just rest on an appeal to believe if you want to it rests on a proclamation that these things have happened

52:26 and you need to recognize them and believe in them and trust in them and there's verse 25 here which wraps up the whole book it's a beautiful verse 24 presses on us the truth of these things And then 25 really casts our mind back over the things themselves. Now, there are also many other things that Jesus did. And were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

53:03 And it's a fitting end to the whole book, isn't it? It just works because what John is doing there is just turning your eyes one last time to Jesus. That's been his purpose for the whole book, to invite you to see Jesus. And now here at the end, he invites you to just cast your eyes back over that whole golden-lit mountain range of the things that Jesus did. So remember what he's shown you and taught you about Jesus. So I invite you to think back to the wedding at Cana, where Jesus turned the water into wine and announced that finally the kingdom that the nation of Israel had been waiting for was finally here and the wine was going to flow now.

53:40 I invite you to remember that midnight conversation with Nicodemus where Jesus taught about the necessity of being born again and taught about the mystery of the wind blowing and the Spirit's work of giving life. I invite you to think back to Jesus healing that paralytic by the pool of Bethesda where he taught us that he's a Savior who seeks out broken people and changes their lives right down to the very core. He invites us to remember too Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well where he showed himself to be the source of living water and to remember the feeding of the 5,000 where he showed himself to be the bread of life who gives spiritual nourishment in life.

54:24 Then there was Jesus' healing of the man born blind. Remember him? Quite the character, wasn't he? I don't know about your theological arguments. All I know is that I was blind and now I see. Jesus taught us that he's the light of the world who alone can break all the clouds of spiritual blindness and bring us to see the glories of heaven. And then he raised Lazarus from the dead. That moment when Jesus stood before the tomb and he wept and then he lifted up his eyes and his voice and he said, Lazarus, come out.

54:56 And death heard the voice of its king and its iron grip on humanity slipped just a little bit. Then the Last Supper, that same king, that same conqueror of death, humbly knelt and washed the feet of his disciples. He taught them that he was going to have to serve them to the uttermost. He was going to have to die for them. He was also teaching them that they ought to do the same thing for one another. Then there was Gethsemane, the sweat-like blood drops.

55:32 was Calvary itself, the crown of thorns, the nails, the sign that Pilate put on his cross where Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, gave himself to be crushed and broken in our place. And then on the third day, there was the glory of the empty tomb and the joy that must have flooded the disciples' faces when they looked finally into the face of their resurrected Lord. Friends, that's what John wants you to see.

56:06 That's where he wants your mind at the end of this book. That's what he wants you taken away from this study of his gospel. He doesn't want you to think about just a few little lessons that you learned to make your life better or to help you be a better Christian. No, he wants you to look full in the face of Jesus and fall down to your knees like Thomas and say, you are my Lord and my God. And then he wants you to stand up and follow him until the whole world is indeed filled with his glory.

56:43 Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus, we do look forward to the day when the whole earth will be filled with your glory like the waters cover the sea. Until that day, Father, we pray that you would help us to be faithful to your son. We pray that we would be faithful disciples of him, that we would follow him, whatever pathway you set us on, whatever role you have for us in this life. And Father, we pray that until the day we come to be safely home with you for all of eternity, we pray that our lives might speak well, not just of us, but most importantly of our Savior.

57:21 We pray all of that in the name of Jesus and to his honor and glory. Amen.