The Who and What of the Gospel of John

Well take your Bible this morning and turn with me to the Gospel of John and I want you to go to the Gospel of John chapter 20. Chapter 20. We will not start in chapter 1 verse 1 until next week, but you know that we are starting this morning our anticipated series in the Gospel of John. Now the Gospel of John is not to be confused with the other writings by John. You should know, I hope that you know, that John also wrote 1 John, 2 John, 3 John. Those books close to the end of the Word of God and he also wrote Revelation.

A lot of people, especially people who have just gotten saved, maybe they weren't raised in the church, might confuse the Gospel of John with those other writings, 1, 2, and 3 John. Now you should know my approach by now and what I mean by that is I'm going to give you an introductory message as we get into a book. I like that habit. I think that we need to get some background. I think that we need to get some common understanding before we get into the text. I think I started doing this when we started in the book of 1st Timothy. If you can remember I taught an introductory message called the Who of 1st Timothy.

Now this morning's message is going to be familiar to that same pattern, familiar in title, but it's going to be slightly different and I think you'll see what I mean when we get into the message. Now before we get into the text, John chapter 20, and before we get into the heart of the message, I want to give us some introductory information. I want to give us some information about the Gospel of John that I think will help us and it'll help you more than maybe you know. Now the book of John obviously is one of the Gospels, but it is not what's called a part of the synoptic Gospels. Now the synoptic Gospels are Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

Now some of you might not have ever come across that term synoptic or synoptic Gospels and I'm not trying to bore you with particular language, but there is a reason behind this. Now the definition of a synoptic Gospel is this. The term synoptic means seeing all things or seeing things together, seeing things in a similar fashion. Now applied to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell the story of Jesus in a very similar fashion. They tell the story of Jesus in a very similar fashion. They include many of the same stories and it is in very much the same order and they use familiar language.

I guess I can say it like this. These are similar Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They are the synoptic Gospels. This term meaning they see the events the same or very much the same. And now John is unique because John does not fit into that category. John is separate although he is telling the story of Christ. Now what are some of the differences? What are some of the differences? John does not give us any of the parables that are familiar to us. We know that Matthew gives us a lot of the parables and so does Luke. John gives us no list of the disciples. John does not give us a record of the birth and the baptism of Christ.

There are many more differences in the Gospel of John. As a matter of fact, I ran across some statistical information. 90% of the Gospel of John is not found in the synoptic Gospels. 90%. Now is there a problem with that? What does that mean to you? What does that mean to me? Can that kind of information help us? No, there's not a problem with that.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they tell a similar story but John has a different purpose and that can mean a lot to us because when we engage in the study of the life of Christ, we're automatically going to go to the Gospels and if you do know in your own Bible study that John will give us information that Matthew, Mark, and Luke do not give, you will understand really where to go to get you information. You will also understand that when you're in Matthew, you can cross reference over in the Luke very easily.

You can go back and forth between those synoptic Gospels but John gives us some rich and unique information that is all about exalting the living Lord Jesus Christ as Brother Keith has already said. Now we see that the Gospel of John is not one of the synoptic Gospels but what about this word Gospel? Most of us understand what this word means especially if we've been in church very long. This word Gospel in the original it basically means good news or it means to announce good news. So what do we see? John is giving us good news. So I guess in summary I can say it like this. John's gospel is good news.

It is an announcement of good news but it's just different than the other Gospels and we need to know that because again when we're studying the Word of God, when we're looking at the life of Christ, we understand that John gives us other information that we definitely need that Matthew and Mark and Luke don't give us and I do think that's important. Now also it's important so I want us to see that in our book studies when we take a book and we go through chapter and verse I have tried to help us see the theme of each of the books. What I mean by theme? There is a theme that goes through all of the books of the Bible.

Sometimes there is a main theme and then there are other themes that come along behind it but the theme verse for the Gospel of John is John chapter 20 verses 30 through 31. Look at your scripture with me. Look at the Word. What does it say? Many other signs therefore Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book. Let me pause there for a minute. Basically what John says is this. There are a lot of other things that Jesus did that we did not record.

As a matter of fact, all of the books of the world couldn't record all of the things that Christ did but here John gets into the theme, the heart of the message, all the way through the book but verse 31, "These have been written that you may believe that Christ or Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that believing you may have life in His name." So what do we see here? This is the theme of the book. It's all about Christ. It's all about Christ being Messiah. Christ being the Son of God. John is exalting Christ and this is the theme verse and this is going to be the central teaching and the central message throughout the book.

The major theme is Christ and His deity. Now to be honest with you as I've been wrangling with this for quite some time, I really wanted to call the theme "believe." Go back to that text. Two times in verse 31 what does he say? "But these things or these things have been written that you may believe," he says it one time, "that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that believing the second time you may have life in His name." Well I don't think that it's wise to use that as the theme. Why? Because that makes man the center of it.

I think the primary theme is Christ, His deity, that He was and is the promised Messiah, but in my opinion the secondary theme would be belief and I think that you're going to see that as we get into the heart of the message this morning. Now I'm going to put on the screen the title of the message and the title of the series and this is something that I have really wrestled with really the few weeks that I had been studying and to be honest with you I borrowed the title series from Warren Wiersby, the Bible commentator.

As he starts off his commentary on the gospel of John, he simply says it like this, "Christ the Son of God, believe and live." And I think that really does capture the theme of the book and that is our message series. Now again in following our pattern that I think we've established, the title of the message is "The Who and the What of the Gospel of John" and we're going to explore four things this morning you see on the screen. The who, who wrote the book, also the who, who is the book written to. Number three, what was the book about and then number four, what was the purpose.

You'll have plenty of time to write those four major truths down or questions down as we proceed into the message. So let's explore these questions and we're going to refer to some other places in Scripture so you be patient with me but where our stopping or our starting point is the theme verse here in chapter 20. So number one, who wrote the book? Who wrote this gospel account? Now John does not identify himself as the writer of this book a lot like Paul does. We know Paul's habit. We've gone through 1 Timothy, we're over halfway through 2 Timothy and Paul assigns his name to his writing.

Right at the beginning of those two books what do we see? Paul, Paul an apostle. He's identifying himself but the early church presented the author as John. They presented this author that we have accepted all through the years as John and clear testimony is given. Now this might seem strange to you. Two generations from John. Let me explain what I mean. We've got lots of church history that has been documented. We've got lots of writing from some of the early church fathers. Some of them more famous than others but there was a first century Christian who was very famous and his name was Polycarp. Now Polycarp was a disciple of John.

John discipled him. John saw that he was a faithful man and he poured into him and yet then Polycarp had a disciple himself and in that disciple that Polycarp had, that individual, his name was Arrhenius, in his writing he identifies John as the author of this book. So why is that important? That is important because we see that that first century church they knew that it was John that had written this book. Now but who was John? John the word John and the name John is used all throughout the New Testament. This is John the brother of James or the sons of Zebedee. Remember they were Simon Peter's fishing partners.

If you would turn with me to the left in your Bible to Luke chapter 5. The Luke chapter 5 and I want to show you this. Luke chapter 5 and verse 10. This is when Jesus is calling his disciples and he's calling Simon Peter and he's calling James and John. And what does it say? I'll start with verse 8. "But when Simon Peter saw this he fell at Jesus feet and he said to part for me, 'I am a sinful man.'" This is a conversion account of Peter. "For amazement had seized him and all of his companions because of the great catch of fish." But then what does it say? "James and John the sons of Zebedee who were partners with Simon.

And Jesus said to Simon, 'Do not fear from now on you will catch men.' And when they had brought their boats to the land they left everything and they followed him." What are we seeing? This is John. John the brother of James, the sons of Zebedee who were the partners of Simon Peter. They were in that fishing boat, in that fishing business. John was one of the twelve. He was later designated as an apostle. This is the John who gave us first John, second John, third John, as well as the book of Revelation. This same John was the only apostle to have lived a long life although he was banished in exile to the island of Padmas.

What am I showing you? Who wrote the book? This is one of the twelve. We see that indicated in Luke chapter 5. I like some information that John MacArthur gives. He gives a list of information that proves who John was. I'm not going to give you all of that information. As a matter of fact I took a little bit of it and I added to it. You can write this down for your own study. First I want you to see that he was a Jew. John, this apostle, this disciple, he was a Jew. How do we know that? Because of his writing we see that he was extremely familiar with Jewish life. Matter of fact this comes out in some of this teaching.

Let me give you an example. In John chapter 4 when the disciples had gone to buy food, Jesus is in some area. He's dealing with that particular woman and the disciples come along and they show just how Jewish they are because they were an amazement for two things. Number one he was talking to a woman. Number two he was talking to a Samaritan. What am I trying to show you? John shows us that from a Jewish perspective. He was a Jew and there are a lot of other instances in the gospel of John that show us that he writes from a Jewish perspective. Second we see that he was an eyewitness.

John gives us very specific details about the life of Christ. He was the last living eyewitness as a matter of fact. Third we see that he was an apostle. He was an apostle. He gave intimate information about the 12 disciples. I hope you understand that the 12 disciples were later designated as apostles and the life and the function of the early church came from their ministry. And John was one of these disciples who were later designated as apostles. But this is what I added to MacArthur's information. Fourth he was the disciple that Jesus loved.

I know I'm asking you to do some flipping around but if you would go back to John chapter 20 or excuse me John 21 and what do we see? We see in that text what this was the disciple that Jesus loved. Many times through the scriptures we see that he had a very close relationship with the Living Lord. As a matter of fact he went places that others did not go and he heard things that others did not hear. What do we see right here in this verse? Peter turning around verse 21 of chapter 20 saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them the one who also had leaned back on his breast at the supper. What do we see?

John had a unique relationship with Jesus. What is all this telling us? This is the man, the apostle, the disciple that wrote this book. Now what is the significance of knowing who wrote the book? You know there are a lot of people when you get into this kind of information to be honest with you they'll just say so what? What does that have to do with me? What does that have to do with you? Why would we need to get this? John was an earlier follower he was one of the twelve and he was one of the church fathers.

He was an eyewitness to all that Christ did and he was a very credible eyewitness and the early church attested to the validity of John as the author and to his account that he gives us. Now how does this help us? An accurate account of the life of Jesus is very much needed. It's needed for you and it's needed for me and John gives us this but what else is noteworthy? What do I really want you to see about this who wrote the book? I want you to see that John loved Jesus and Jesus loved John. Listen church these two things go together to make up what is called true Bible Christianity.

This might sound confusing to you there are a lot of people on the face of the earth they say that they love God and they say that they believe that they don't know God. They say they believe in Jesus but they don't know Christ. They say that they believe but they don't follow Christ it's in word only but what we see in this is that John had a unique relationship with Christ. All of the disciples did they were in a loving relationship with him but what I want you to see is he loved Christ. Christ loved him.

They were in a loving relationship with one another and I know that some people have brought that down and in song today and it just sounds so warm and fuzzy. Christ was his Lord and see that's extremely important for us to see that because the Bible says that there are many people who will stand before the Lord one day and they'll say I believed you Lord I followed you I did all these things for you and he'll say depart from me you are a worker of iniquity I never knew you. Matthew 7 21 John doesn't fit that category. He loved the Lord and the Lord loved him and he had a unique relationship with him so that's who wrote the book.

This apostle that we are going to learn a lot about. Number two I want you to see who was the book written to. Who was this book written to? Now if you study the book you will see that John has two audiences and this is pretty easy Jew and Gentile. John did not write to a specific audience. He was writing to the church in general and the church was comprised of Jews and Gentiles. There is no specific audience that is addressed a lot like Paul's writing. Remember Paul writes first and second Timothy to what? To Timothy and to what?

That Ephesian church but Timothy is identified as the specific receiver of that writing but we see throughout the book that John writes to Jew and to Gentile. Warren Riersby gives some evidence that he is writing to a Gentile audience and that John does interpret a lot of Jewish customs and words for the readers. I like that. Let me ask you a question could that help us? It definitely can because there are a lot of things that are Jewish that come from that Jewish culture and that come from that Jewish time that we might not understand and what do we see? We see John interpret some of that for those Gentile readers.

Basically what John is saying is I know you're not going to understand that because you're not Jewish. You didn't come from where we have come from so let me help you a little bit and in doing that we see truth. We see another layer sometimes layer upon layer come to light for us. Also there was that Jewish audience. John presents Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. What is he saying? He's saying listen Jewish brothers let me show you Jesus is the fulfillment of all that the prophets have been saying for hundreds of years. I'll give you an example the famous I am statements.

All of them would have sounded so real to those Jews who would have listened because they had Old Testament connotations. They had an Old Testament backing if I can say it like that. So what do we see? He's writing the Jew and he's writing the Gentile and see audience means a lot because see somehow if we can get into the shoes of the audience if we can understand just a little bit about the audience we can understand why the Lord is giving us information in a book. We've learned that with Timothy. Over and over Paul gives him certain specific instruction why because he was that young man struggling in that church and in that ministry call.

So I think that audience who the book was written to does help us. Third or main truth number three I want us to see what is the book about? What is this book about? Now in giving us the theme I'm really giving you a lot of that information. The Gospel of John is about Jesus Christ. It's about Christ Jesus as the Son of God. It's about Christ Jesus deity. Now the other Gospels do not present Jesus in this manner. They don't present him quite like John does. Now let me contrast John with the other Gospels to help you see this. First I want you to notice or know that Matthew is about showing the Jewishness of Jesus. Let me explain what I mean.

Matthew's audience was predominantly Jewish. So Matthew his main overall goal was listen my fellow Jews I want to show you that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies so therefore I'm just going to show you just how Jewish Jesus is. That's why Matthew starts off his letter with the genealogy of Jesus. What is he doing? Let me show you that Jesus is a true Jew. Second Mark is about showing Jesus as a suffering servant. Mark is the shortest of all of the Gospels but Mark his primary goal is to show that Christ did suffer. Third Luke is about showing Jesus in his humanity.

You might not know this but Luke shows Jesus doing a lot of things that seem very human. Luke gives us the temptation of Jesus. None of the other Gospels do. Luke gives us many accounts of Jesus praying. What is Luke trying to do? He's trying to show us yes he's God but he was 100% man as well but yet John is all about showing Jesus in his deity. That's why John presupposes time at the beginning of the book by saying in the beginning was what? The Word and the Word was God. That is all about Christ so what is John doing? Matthew says let me give you his genealogy but John says no let me show you he is God because he always has been.

See that little contrast helps us see what this book is about and we must see the emphasis that John places on the deity of Christ the Son of God. Let me give you an example. Remember the story in John chapter 3 when Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night? What does Nicodemus say? He says clearly we know you are from God we know you are from God because of the great miracles that you're doing but what does Jesus do? Jesus cuts right to the chase and he basically says you're lost and you need salvation and I can give it to you. What is he saying? I'm God. Jesus, John is showing us that Jesus is God. Now what does that mean for us today?

In our culture Jesus is recognized as a prophet by many. He's recognized as a holy man by many and he's recognized as a way but is he recognized as God? In our pluralistic society that has to be so accepting of everybody else's view what has happened is culture looks at Jesus as a way but yet there are so many other ways and yet what culture does is culture takes Christ and just lumps him in with all of the other religions and says well Jesus is just a way like all of these other ways but yet that's not what John teaches. John teaches that Jesus is God.

So what John does is John steps up in the culture and says no he is not like all of these other false teachers he's God in the flesh and that's what the book is about and that does mean something for us today because we need people today who would desperately stand up in the marketplace who are desperately stand up wherever God puts them and takes them and say no Jesus is God. I'm afraid you'll make a lot of enemies but so did John. Then the fourth thing I want us to see is what is the purpose? What is John's purpose? We must see that each book of the Bible has a purpose. Have we not seen the purpose?

First and Second Timothy have we not seen the purpose in the book of James as we have just gotten through with that book? There is a purpose in each book of the Bible and John has a purpose in writing. These men did not just write to make themselves feel better. No there was a purpose. You know Paul's purposes are very obvious because he's so wordy. He gives his opinion. You know he hears about this particular church and he hears about their problems and their false teaching and the leadership issues and what does he do?

He just grabs something and he begins to write and he begins to pour out his heart and he has purpose from beginning to end. Although there are times when Paul might pause and just give this great appraise and testimony about how God saved him but his clear purpose. See that's what we see here in John's writing. Do we not see that in the book of Revelation? I was doing some reading on my own just personal devotional time. The seven churches at Revelation. Every letter to the church had purpose. They all had issue with the exception of two and yet what does John do? I know your mistakes.

Jesus is saying I know where you are in sin and I know what you're doing right. There's purpose and that's what we see with John and there are two purposes with the gospel of John and I really want you to get these. The first purpose is apologetic. The first purpose is apologetic. We see that in John chapter 20. I'd like you to go back there. I want you to be familiar with this verse. Verse 31. What does he say? If you think about it you will see that this is apologetic in nature. He says but these have been written. What is he saying? All that I have put on paper that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God.

This is apologetic. Now some of you might say what does that word apologetic mean? Does it mean to be I'm sorry? No that's not what that means. Apologetics is defending a position using a systematic argument. It is making a case for a position with information. This is what John is doing. John is the last living link to the Lord Jesus Christ. John is an eyewitness and John is writing down what the Spirit of God leads him to write and what he is doing is he is taking an apologetic stance. I know what I saw. I know who Christ was. I know who Christ is but these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ.

He is the Son of God. John is making his case. It is a systematic argument that Jesus was and is the Son of God. Now can this help you and me? It definitely can. We come across people in our culture all day long who will believe the lives of the world and that is that Jesus is a way. Jesus is not a way. He's the Christ the Son of the Living God and John can help us because as we witness we can sit down with people and we can say let me tell you about who Jesus really is and who really he really was because we can go right to the book of John. He is very apologetic. The second purpose is evangelistic. Evangelistic. John is about evangelizing.

Go back to verse 31. "But these all that I've written have been written that you may believe," there's that word, "believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing you may have life in his name." That is nothing more than evangelize. Evangelizing. Evangelism. You know when I was in India with Luke a year ago when we would go out and we would witness in the villages and preach they called it gospelizing. I never heard that term. Gospelizing. What are they saying? We're taking the good news. We're evangelizing. I like how John MacArthur helps to see this. He says John used the verb to believe which is what we see in verse 31.

John used the word to believe nearly 100 times more than twice as much as the synoptic gospels emphasizing that those who savingly believe in Jesus will receive eternal life. Now you know why I was tempted to say that the theme is belief. That's the purpose. John is writing that those who are reading if they weren't evangelized, if they weren't evangelized, they would be evangelized. Now how could this help you and me? This is a very evangelistic book and it would equip us and it will enable us to go and evangelize.

As a matter of fact there are a lot of people, a lot of ministers in the life of the church that when someone's dealing with salvation, when they're praying and examining themselves, they will recommend that seeking non-believer to go into the Gospel of John because it is so evangelistic. So those are the two purposes that John had in mind and we get that right out of this theme verse verse 31 in chapter 2. It is apologetic and it is evangelistic. But you know I thought about another way that this could help us today. Don't we need this in our own families? Aren't we praying for so many people who need Christ?

I think we need a fresh breath of an evangelistic heart and an evangelistic ability to be able to witness to our children, our own children, and to witness to our mothers and our fathers and our sisters and our brothers, those that we do see sinking down as well as the culture. But don't we need a fresh wind to evangelize in the life of the church today? Because so many churches are distracted from true evangelism by so many gimmicks. I call them dog and pony shows. You know a lot of churches, they'll say if you have sporting events that that'll win the lost. That doesn't work.

A lot of churches, they'll tell you that if you have great entertainments in the life of the church, that'll win the lost. That doesn't work either. A lot of churches will tell you, "Well if we'll just have a big church and we all have a big church, well everybody can feel comfortable because they can find somebody just like themselves." Well then that'll reach the loss. That doesn't work either. A lot of people go the opposite direction and they want the antithesis of this and they say, "Well we want a small church because the churches in the Scriptures were small." Well a small church doesn't work either.

A lot of people, they believe that their doctrine and their theology will save. Let me tell you, you can have your doctrine just right. You can have your theology just right. But let me tell you, you can die and go to hell with that doctrine and that theology and yet that won't save. There are a lot of churches that they have their theological positions just right. They worry so much that their doctrine is perfect. They can't reach people for Christ. Proper education won't save them. What am I trying to show you? It's only Christ. Now many of the things I mentioned are good. What I mean by that is I am for proper education.

I am for proper theology. I am for proper doctrine and I really don't care if the Lord causes us to be small or large. That's His work. But what am I trying to show you? A lot of churches and a lot of people get sidetracked by these things and we need a fresh wind to blow in our hearts and our minds to help us see that it is Christ and Christ alone who saves and what we see in the Gospel of John is one of His purposes is evangelistic. And all of these things that we can lean on and trust on. See what it does is when we study a book like this, it just knocks all the props out from under us. You know what I mean by props?

We can prop ourselves up by so many things but yet the Gospel of John, we needed to come knock away all of our props until we get to the point where we look up and we say, "Lord, I'm not trusting in anything but You. Lord, You're the one that can save. You're the one that can breathe new life into a dead and depraved individual. It's only You." And so I desperately, definitely think that we desperately need the message of John. Now as I begin to conclude, I want to give you my approach how I'm going to approach this book.

I was doing some reading the past few weeks from an author that I'm familiar with and I do not agree with everything that he says and some of his positions but he's very good at dividing the text. He's an old English Bible commentator named A.W. Pink and he had a quote in the beginning of his commentary on John and I like it but I'm going to add to it as well. He says, "Our aim is to open up the Scriptures in such a way that the reader would be able to enter into the meaning of what God has recorded for our learning in this part of this Holy Word and to edify those who are members of the household of faith." I don't want to bore you.

I don't want to weigh you down with heavy definitions. I don't want to weigh you down to the point where you walk out and say, "So what?" I like what what Pink says. He says, "It is supposed to come to those who are a part of the household of faith and to open up our eyes to the understanding of the Word and that we would be edified." And so my goal, my purpose, is to edify you as we come into the book of John. What I mean by edify is that you would learn and grace and knowledge. You would understand evangelism. You would see Christ in a new way. That you would just learn.

You would drink from this rich well and that would grow you and mold you and change you. It would change your thinking. It would equip you to touch the lost and it would help you to see Christ in a new way. Look, if all you do is see Christ in a new way, that's enough. That's life-changing enough. So I want to see you edified. But in adding to what Pink said, I want to evangelize. If there is one here that's never trusted in Christ, they've never been born from above, as we're going to see in John chapter 3. If there is one here that needs to be born by the wonderful Spirit of God, I hope and pray that through this they would be evangelized.

But yet I want to evangelize through you. I wanted you to be equipped to be able to go and speak to that son or go and speak to that daughter or to that neighbor or to that father or to that mother, the ones that we've been praying for for so long. So that's my purpose. Now I want to give you some practical instruction and in that at the end I will tell you a story and we'll close. Practically I would encourage you to take notes. Someone from the church last night texted me yesterday and said, "Are we starting John? Do I need a new notebook?" I said, "Yes." You need that heart. I encourage you to take notes.

That becomes a well from which you can go back and drink because your mind is falling. You will forget. I encourage you to come with notebook in hand and pen in hand. I encourage you to have your Bible. And I want to encourage you, I know some of you are zealous to read, and I want to encourage you not necessarily to go look at what someone else says about the book of John. I want to encourage you to go straight to the source, straight to the Gospel of John. Maybe take more than one translation. I encourage you to have a solid translation, the English Standard version, or the New American Standard, the New King James as well.

The King James is okay. I just, I struggle with some of the words to be honest with you. Maybe even take one of the modern translations. I don't recommend them, many of them, for your main study Bible, but I'll never forget in a seminary class that I had one time. They assigned us to read books with several translations, and what that did for me was it helped me to understand. It just kept, it marinated my heart and my mind with the words of God. So I encourage you to be diligent in reading the Gospel of John, maybe with two or three translations, to help you get all that John is trying to say. But I want to encourage you in your approach.

Usually my habit is on Sunday mornings is to text Luke, our friend Luke, who goes to India, and when he's in the States I usually text him and ask him where he's preaching today. I like to know where he's preaching. I try to pray for him, encourage you. And I guess in our texting back and forth as I was finishing up, I told him that I was starting in John and finished in James, and he was telling me, and I don't have time to go back and research it for myself, he was telling me about how he had read how John, the environment of when John wrote this book. The Ephesian believers knew that he was the last living link to the Lord.

All of the other disciples were gone, but John, he was old in his life, and they were urging him because so many false teachers and so many false theologies were encroaching in the life of the church, and they were encouraging John to write. And he was telling me that church tradition says that those Ephesian Christians began to pray and fast, and they prayed and fasted, and after that period of time of prayer and fasting, the Spirit of God moved on John, and John gave us this wonderful book.

And I guess what I want to say to you is maybe we would be like those Ephesians, that we would pray and we would fast and God would open up this book to our hearts. Because listen, it's all about Christ, and Christ is all we need. If we get Christ, that's sufficient, and if we get Christ, he will answer our problems, answer our questions, help us in our problems, and he will equip us to be the people he wants us to be. Amen. So the title of the message this morning is "The Who and the What of the Gospel of John," and we're just getting started in our series, "Christ the Son of God, Believe and Live." Let's pray.