The content of belief

[0:00] If you'd like to turn to John, so the last part of John chapter 20.

[0:30] So, if I can just summarize John 20 and then into 21, and as I do this, I'm going to read just a section of it, because it really matters.

[0:47] The resurrection has happened. Jesus appears to Mary. Jesus appears to his disciples, but of course, Thomas is not there.

[0:58] Um, eight days later, uh, Jesus does appear again, and Thomas is there that time. And then John says these words in verse 30 to 31.

[1:13] Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but the things that are written, 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.

[1:35] Without going into a sermon, I'd like just to read that again, because it can be, if you don't read it carefully, it can be read as though John is telling you to believe in Jesus, which is not what he's telling you to do.

[1:49] He's telling you something a little bit different. He said, now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but the things that are written so that you may believe, this is what you are to believe, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

[2:09] And then, by believing in that, you may have life in his name. So, it's not just about believing, it's rather about what to believe, which is important.

[2:19] After this, Jesus goes on to appear to his disciples again, and you have the little deja vu moment with Peter, which we will get to.

[2:31] But that's the reading, and that's the context in which it's in this morning. So, if you can keep your Bibles open there, that would be great. We're going to come back to that after we sing a song about the Lord speaking.

[2:45] Well, please find your way again to John 20, verses 30 to 31.

[3:10] And as you do, you'll notice that by way of introduction here now, that John is very concerned about the content of belief rather than the action of believing.

[3:24] Okay, I want you to think about that for a moment as we begin, because it really is the foundation to everything else that is said in John. The content of belief rather than just the action of believing.

[3:37] So, imagine it this way, a person saying, I believe in God, I believe God created the world, I believe God sent his son into the world, you know, I believe in Moses, I believe that there was an Abraham, I believe that all of these things.

[3:57] And then, you ask them the question, well, do you believe that belief will get you into glory? Well, some of us might be content with someone saying those kind of things.

[4:10] John isn't content. John understands it's not just the believing aspect. I believe in God and therefore I'll go to heaven, right? What's the difference between a person who believes in God and a person who believes in God?

[4:24] Well, for John, it's the content of their belief. John is very, very clear in these two verses that the things that lead to eternal life, verse 31, is that you believe that Jesus Christ, Jesus is the Christ and that he is the son of God.

[4:41] And by believing these things, you have life in his name. He doesn't say by believing that God created the world, you will have life, eternal life. He doesn't say that by believing that there was a Moses or that there was an Abraham or that there was a Noahic flood, a covenant and then a flood.

[5:00] No, he doesn't say any of that. He's absolutely exclusive to the Lord Jesus Christ. So, this gets to answer a lot of questions very, very quickly, especially with people like my dear old Nan who believes in God, who also believes she's a good person and cannot see for a moment while entrance into the kingdom of God is not possible for her.

[5:22] Well, John is saying it's not the believing that matters here as much as the content of what you're believing, which matters.

[5:33] So, John's gospel has this evangelistic edge to it in that by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will have life eternal.

[5:44] By trusting in Christ, you will have life eternal. But it has this edification side to it that he wants to educate what you are to believe.

[5:55] He doesn't want you just to believe because people can believe in a number of different things that don't actually lead to anything. So, it's not the believing that matters.

[6:07] It's rather the believing in the content of John's gospel that matters. That there is what leads to eternal life or life in his name.

[6:20] So, John is known as an evangelistic gospel like the others, John perhaps more so, but also John's gospel is known as the gospel that edifies the believer in the sense that some of the lessons in here are not found in Matthew, Mark, or Luke.

[6:37] And John's gospel is, though it has this evangelistic side to it, is probably the hardest to understand out of all of them. Yet, it does make clear who Jesus is, that he is the Christ, that he is the Son of God.

[6:52] And it does encourage you to believe in Jesus those things. Okay? You can believe a number of other things, but John says your belief is not where it ought to be unless you're actually believing these things about Jesus.

[7:08] Now, I've been around enough now, you know, being in my 40s, and you've been around, some of you, a lot longer than me. And you'll come across those people who will say they know the answer just to get you off their back.

[7:22] Yeah, yeah, I know. Okay? And we said to children, do you know how to do it? Yeah, I know how to do it. Okay? And you know that they don't know how to do it, but they want you to go away.

[7:34] And the reason I know that's true, because that's the very thing that I used to do. I knew that I could get someone off my back. Yeah, I know. I know what to do. Just leave me alone. Of course, they go away. I wouldn't have a clue, but at least they were not on my back for the next foreseeable future.

[7:50] John won't go away. John will say, what do you believe? And if you come back to him and say, yes, I believe, he'll go, in what? And he will not leave until you tell him.

[8:05] And the reason John will not leave is because he wants you to believe the right things about Jesus. He doesn't want you just to believe in Jesus as though he was a person who existed.

[8:17] He wants you to believe the right things about Jesus. So, the Gospel of John is a very mature gospel in that it matures believers very, very quickly if they pay attention to the words that are written here.

[8:34] John puts it this way.

[8:48] John puts it this way.

[8:58] Jesus came unto his own and his own wanted nothing to do with him. They received him not. So, John is making this point at the end of the book, but he makes it right at the very beginning.

[9:13] That God promised the Messiah and people have their own ideas of what the Messiah should look like and he shouldn't look like Jesus. Okay? That was the issue.

[9:24] We know what the kind of Messiah we want and it doesn't look or act like this person, Jesus Christ. And so, John's Gospel is literally a recording of everything that he's recording to show us these two things.

[9:41] That Jesus Christ, Jesus is the Christ and that he is the Son of God. John even says, I could have written tons more. I could have written so much more. But, okay, and it may be possible to speculate of what those things were, but John said it's not important.

[9:59] What's important are the things that I have written that you may believe these two things about Jesus and more, but these two things in particular. Why? Because by believing them, you will have life in his name.

[10:15] You will have life. There's the gift of life in the name of Jesus. So, John sits you down. He wants to have a long chat with you and he won't let you leave even if you've got an appointment to be elsewhere because the matters that he's discussing with you are of supreme importance.

[10:38] You could even say it is a matter of life and death. Your life or death. He wants you to have life in Jesus' name. And he knows how you will get it by believing these things about Jesus.

[10:54] Now, throughout the Gospel of John, one of the ways that we notice distinctive realities of Jesus is in the I am sayings.

[11:04] The Gospel of John is unique in that we have these I am sayings. And for any of us who've read the Old Testament will understand that that's an Old Testament reference, not just a New Testament reality.

[11:18] This is, John does this all the time. He expects you, he expects his readers to have understood the Old Testament. When he says things like, here is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, well, that makes sense to nobody apart from a Jew who understood that lands were used to deal with sin in the Old Testament.

[11:37] And here's Jesus, right? No explanation just expects you to know. Okay? So, John is expecting his readers to have read the Old Testament. Okay? He's unembarrassed about that.

[11:50] In other words, he's basically saying, look, most of you, if you were to pick up a book from the library, would begin at the beginning. Okay? It's not too much to ask, is it? I guess I'm asking you to do the same with God's Word, the Bible.

[12:03] Okay? Just begin at the beginning. Just start at the beginning and work your way through. And you'll see that when we get to statements like the Lamb of God, that I'm referring to Jesus, when we get to statements like I am, it shouldn't be difficult to understand that Jesus is God.

[12:22] Why? Because I am was the name given by God to Moses to go and tell the people of God who he was. Moses says, well, when I go back to them and tell them that you're going to rescue them, who shall I say sent me?

[12:38] And God says, tell them I am. I am who? No, just tell them I am. Okay?

[12:49] A little confusing, but this is God defining himself to, no, I am. All that is, I am. So when Jesus appears in the time that he does, and he starts coming up with these I am sayings, people's minds, at least if they know their Old Testament, should immediately go back to that encounter with God and Moses.

[13:11] That that is how God revealed himself to his people in the past. And here we have Jesus revealing himself to his people in the future, in his present, in exactly the same way.

[13:26] Figure it out, John says. It should be, it should, okay. If Jesus isn't God, then it's blasphemy. Okay? That's how strict that is.

[13:37] If Jesus isn't God, it's blasphemy. Blasphemy. So John leads us to these I am sayings by the very beginning by saying that Jesus is the Word who was with God and who was God.

[13:50] So right from the very beginning, any words that we hear coming out of the mouth of Jesus and the person of Jesus, we are to understand that he was there before creation, he was involved in creating the world, and he was not just with God, but he actually was God.

[14:10] We then go on to notice, if you get into chapter 5, that Jesus doesn't do anything of his own will. Okay? We don't get to find out anything other than what God wants us to know through Jesus.

[14:26] So Jesus says in chapter 5, I only do and I only say what I see the Father saying and doing. I don't do anything other than that. Which is another way of saying, I am the perfect reflection and representation of God.

[14:42] Okay? You want to know what God is like, this is what God is like. Now, of course, it's a little bit different because we're getting to know that this is what God is like in the flesh.

[14:54] Let it settle in. Let it settle in. That God, of the whole universe, who created the whole universe, who existed before anything else existed, came into this world into human form.

[15:10] Let it sink in. Let it sink in. Never lose sight of the fact that God visited this world in the person of Jesus Christ. Too often, we skim over it as though it wasn't a big deal.

[15:25] God came. God came in the person who said, I am. God came in the person who says, I only do what I see and hear my Father doing.

[15:36] And we don't have time this morning to go into the Trinity to explain why God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And here's the thing. Even if I did have the time and you had the patience to listen, at some point, I have to get to the point where I have to stop and just bow down and worship.

[15:54] Because I've run out of ways to explain it. Because you're trying to explain something that's so far above you in so many different ways. It's simply a case of taking it by faith, explaining it to the level that you can.

[16:09] But how can anybody ever imagine someone who's finite with a limited amount of words and a limited amount of illustrations and a limited amount of material things to draw on, explain God who is in any of those things?

[16:24] Okay, how can something limited explain the unlimited? How can something finite perfectly explain the infinite? How can that happen?

[16:35] So, any explanation that we have is limited to our own level of understanding. This is why we take God at his word by faith.

[16:47] And, of course, there's a maturity that we can have within that. But the reality is, at some point, we all have to simply bow down and worship. And that's how the story ends. Okay?

[16:59] The story ends not with people who don't believe having their questions answered. Okay? That's not how the story ends. The way the story ends is all of those people who have questions now about God and want them answered before they believe, don't get them answered on the day that God comes.

[17:16] They will simply bow the knee. That's all that happens. So, you can either do it now in the day of grace or there in the day of judgment. But it will come. It will come either way.

[17:30] Jesus reveals himself as God incarnate. In fact, he is God incarnate. He's not a manifestation of God on earth, as some people have taught.

[17:42] He is God himself in the flesh. Now, if you put these I am sayings together, God sayings together, they spell out a very clear message on the way to salvation.

[17:58] So, Jesus says, I am the bread of life, meaning that this is a spiritual bread, not just a physical bread. This is, as, you know, people in the Old Testament and New Testament would have understood, that bread is a key ingredient for keeping healthy, for keeping fed, and, you know, the bread in the wilderness.

[18:18] This is important. But Jesus is the spiritual bread that gives life, meaning that he is the giver and sustainer of life. He then goes on to say that I am the light of the world.

[18:30] And those who live in darkness just happen to like living in darkness. But I come along and I turn the light on. And when I turn the light on, those people who live in darkness can do two things.

[18:43] They can do two things. They can say, number one, get me out of here. Or they can say, turn the light back off. Okay? What does that mean? Well, imagine you're sat in a dungeon, okay?

[18:57] But you don't know that it's a dungeon. And there's a few things that you're finding of comfort there. And then one day, you don't know how long you've been down there, okay?

[19:07] Someone walks in and turns the light on. Now, you didn't even know there was a light in this dungeon. But the light gets turned on. And suddenly, you realize that the thing that you're taking comfort in is not a teddy bear.

[19:19] But it's actually this disgusting furry spider, whatever it may be. Now, you've got two things. There's only two reactions that you can do at that point. Reaction number one is, get me out of here.

[19:30] Get me as far away from this disgusting place as I can go. And please, take me out of here. Or, the only other option is, you can say, turn the light back off.

[19:42] Okay? And people in this world who live in darkness and sin, when Jesus comes in and turns the light on, okay, the things that they've tried to keep hidden, they know that they can only be kept hidden in the dark.

[19:55] Which means they have to put up with all the other stuff, but just turn the light off. People who don't want to repent will often change the subject. What are they doing? They're turning the light back off.

[20:07] Okay? You're turning the light on saying, that's wrong. And they're turning the light off saying, can we talk about something else? Okay? That's unrepentance. Repentance comes with the light.

[20:19] The light comes into the world and takes us out of darkness through repentance. Jesus says, I am the door, which means that he is the only way to salvation.

[20:31] Jesus says that I am the good shepherd, meaning that he is the only one who can lead us out of darkness, into the light that he is, and to God.

[20:42] And he is the only one who will lay down his life for his people. Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the life.

[20:52] Which means that it's a little bit tricky, but essentially he is the giver and sustainer of life. But it's more important than that, because in Romans 6 we learn that all sinners must die.

[21:05] It's a non-negotiable. All sinners must die. The reality of the gospel is that you can either die in Jesus with the prospect of resurrection, to new life, or you can die outside of Jesus with the prospect of only the judgment to face.

[21:25] Okay? All sinners are going to die. It's just where you do it. And so repentance brings us into the life of Christ, who dies in our place. But because there is no sin found in him, he rises from the death.

[21:39] Death cannot hold him. He's done nothing wrong. And as he rises from the dead, he takes everyone with him who belongs to him. So it's not the issue of how can I escape death.

[21:50] No one can escape death. The Christian cannot escape death. What they escape is the judgment through death. Okay? When Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the life, he's saying that anyone who believes in me will die, but they will rise.

[22:05] They will die, but they'll rise to new life. He goes on to say, I am the way, the truth, and the life, which is another way of saying, similar to the door, that Jesus Christ is the exclusive way to God.

[22:21] There is no other way to God the Father other than through Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God. No other way.

[22:32] He is the exclusive one. And I don't think as Christians, we ought to be embarrassed to say that. Okay? I get a little bit frustrated when occasionally the schools want to put on these multicultural faith things, or the universities want to put on these multicultural faith things, or even if someone told me that they did it in their workplace just the other day, this multicultural thing.

[22:56] And Christianity is up there on the shelf with all the others. No. No. I will not have a Christianity day when all days belong to the Lord.

[23:09] Okay? That exclusivity, I understand, can get us into trouble, but that's what John is saying. Go get yourself in trouble. But get yourself in trouble for all the right reasons, not for all the wrong reasons.

[23:23] Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Eventually, or the last one, he says, I am the true vine, which is that he is the one who represents us as the people of God before God.

[23:39] In John 15, we read that any branch in him that does not bear fruit is cut away and thrown into the fire, but branches are in him in order to produce fruit so that they may bring great glory to God.

[23:52] And by the way, if I can just touch on this, he is not indicating for a moment that John 15, the branches that are in Jesus that can then be cut away, that it's possible for a person to lose their salvation.

[24:07] That's not what's being taught. What's being taught there is the same as Hebrews 6. It's a covenantal kind of way where you get families in the church and their children come up through the church and even adults come up through the church.

[24:22] They enjoy all the blessings. They were perhaps baptized once. They took communion several times. But as the years go on, no fruit starts appearing in their lives and God cuts them away.

[24:33] They were part of Jesus in a covenantal way, but not in a salvific way. This is why I said John was a hard gospel to understand. The trouble that you have with John 15 is if you don't understand it in that way, you end up with a salvation that can be lost, which is clearly not possible.

[24:53] It's clearly not possible. And for any of you who want to speak to me about that afterwards, I'm more than willing to spend countless hours on that subject because it matters a great deal.

[25:06] In short, Jesus then is the only one who can give life. He's the only one who can bring us to the Father. He's the only one who can lay down his life for us, leading us out of darkness into the light.

[25:21] Salvation is entirely exclusive. Salvation is only found in Christ Jesus. It is the only way to be forgiven, reconciled, redeemed, and belong to God the Father.

[25:37] The only way is in him. So it's not surprising then that John, like the others, take us to the cross. And at the cross, we are meant to understand that God judges.

[25:51] That we live in a world where God judges. But John wants us to understand that God judges you in the cross of Christ.

[26:04] How do I escape the judgment to come? I escape it in the cross of Christ. I escape it by believing in him. In John 3, we have the words very, very clear.

[26:15] For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Okay, very, very clear. Super clear.

[26:27] Now, Nicodemus, this is told to Nicodemus. And Nicodemus is expected to understand this. Jesus is having a long conversation with him. He brings up about the serpent in the wilderness, which is a picture of the cross to come.

[26:42] That as you look to it, as you trust in what God has given you, that'll lead to your salvation. Nicodemus just doesn't get it. Very similar to when John says, behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

[26:56] He should have understood that Jesus is the Lamb of God. He's the one who lays down his life, doesn't have it laid down for him. Okay, if you take a sheep to the temple so that it can be sacrificed for your sins, you have to take it.

[27:12] You have to lay it down. You have to hold it there. And then the sacrifice takes place. Not so with Jesus. Jesus doesn't have any of that done to him. He is the Lamb of God who lays himself down.

[27:25] Okay? Not forced. Not with restraint. But lays down his life willingly. And anyone who looks to him, anyone who looks to Christ when he is high and lifted up, when he is exalted, will be saved.

[27:41] Okay? Trusting in what God is doing in Christ Jesus is how you get saved. Okay? Trusting in what God reveals in Christ Jesus, believing in that, is how a person is saved.

[27:57] Okay? So, essentially, through the whole book of John, he doesn't let you escape. He doesn't want you to go anywhere. Okay? You want to argue the future judgment with him? Go ahead. He's going to take you to the cross and tell you how to escape it.

[28:10] You want to argue the fact that Jesus was just a man and he isn't God? John's got answers for you. But at the end of the day, he's not going to argue with you. John is making a case to be received by faith.

[28:23] Okay? And again, I'm unashamedly to admit that it is by faith. Okay? God doesn't provide all the answers, and he can provide all the answers if he's expecting you to live by faith.

[28:37] Okay? If God says you're going to live by faith, then there has to be certain guidelines by which that comes to you. Here's a couple of examples, then, as we sort of begin to wrap this up.

[28:49] The first, of course, conversation. We could begin with the woman at the well, one of my favorite stories. The Syrophoenician woman, I think, is one of the best stories in the whole of the Gospels.

[29:00] But we're going to stick here with Thomas and Peter. Thomas wasn't there when Jesus first appeared. And Thomas is in such a doubtful state that he actually says, unless I see Jesus for myself, unless I get to put my hand into the side of Jesus, the side which he was pierced, I'm not going to believe.

[29:29] Adamant in his unbelief, or rather adamant in the thing that will actually lead him to believe. Okay? I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to believe until I actually see with my own eyes.

[29:43] Now, okay, it's not a problem for Thomas in the sense that Jesus turns up eight days later. But what if he didn't? Well, we have to go back to why John recorded the things that he did.

[29:57] And I think he records this incident with Thomas, not because of what Thomas was saying, but rather because of what Jesus was going to say next. Jesus says to Thomas, when Thomas gets to do exactly what he wanted to do, and he believes, he falls down on his knees and says, my Lord and my God.

[30:18] Thomas had no doubt whatsoever that Jesus was God. No doubt whatsoever. But then Jesus stops him and says, okay, great. But blessed are those who've never seen.

[30:32] In other words, blessed are those, Thomas, who never get to do what you have done and yet believe. Blessed are those who never get to, you know, see or do what you've just done and yet believe.

[30:47] Because they have eternal life. And John goes on to say that Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.

[30:59] But the things that are written are so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in his name. In other words, John is saying, look, to believe the word of God is the equivalent of putting your hand through the nail pierced, your finger through the nail pierced hand of Jesus.

[31:21] If you take what John is saying seriously in faith, the experience conviction that you receive is the same that you would have if you put your finger in the nail pierced hand of Jesus or your hand in his side.

[31:35] That's how convincing you will be when you believe in this word by faith. That's the conviction you will have. Okay, what about Peter?

[31:47] John, I feel sorry for Peter that we all love him, don't we? The first to walk on water, the first to say you are the Christ, but boy, did he know how to put his foot in it, okay?

[31:57] He was the disciple who could say everything right and in the next breath say everything wrong, okay? He just knew how to get, be the top boy in the class and then be the very worst.

[32:11] And we all know that Peter denied Jesus three times, and Jesus comes to Peter later in the day asking him three times, do you love me? Okay, I actually think that that's probably the last thing that Peter wanted to hear.

[32:26] I think Peter, being the kind of man that he was, probably wanted to hear Jesus tell him that he was loved three times. But Jesus doesn't do that. Jesus asks Peter if Peter loves Jesus.

[32:40] What's the point of that story? Well, the point of the story is this, that forget the mimetic rivalry just for a moment, though that that plays into it, you know, where the little girl says to Peter in the denial moment, aren't you a Galilean?

[32:54] In other words, you don't speak like us. In fact, you don't even look like us. You're not from around here, are you? What is the best way a Christian can hide in a world that is supposed against Jesus?

[33:06] What is the best way you can hide? Well, you just join the crowd. Keep your mouth shut, stum, and join the crowd. And when people point out to you and go, aren't you a follower of Jesus?

[33:20] Don't you go to that church up the road? Maybe a bit ago. That's what Peter was doing. The croc grows. Peter realizes what he has done.

[33:32] And this moment after the resurrection, he's still not the same. There's something happened to Peter where he's not the disciple that he was. There's something that's happened to Peter where he's not the man that he used to be when he was following Christ.

[33:46] Very similar to Moses. Something must have dramatically happened to Moses because Moses has said that in Egypt, he was a man mighty in words and deeds.

[33:57] Mighty in words and deeds. But when he comes before God and he's asked by God to go and speak to the people of Egypt, he says, I can't. I stutter my word. I can't. Something happened to Moses.

[34:08] Perhaps it was the fact that he killed a man. And something has happened to him that changed him. And it took God's grace to come to him, to bring him back, to restore him back to the man he ought to be.

[34:19] Well, the same with Peter. It's a deja vu moment. Peter's gone fishing. And his mates say, I will go with you. What a good witness, Peter.

[34:31] And so here comes the deja vu moment. For the second time, Jesus has to come down to the shore where Peter's in his boat with his nets and says, Peter, I thought we had this conversation before.

[34:44] Have I not called you to be a fisher of men? Have we not been through this already? And so for the second time, Jesus calls Peter out of the fishing boat, out of the fishing nets, and says, I've called you to be a fisher of men.

[34:59] Right. He doesn't effectively say that, but he goes on to say that about feeding my sheep. And the very words that I think Peter would have wanted to hear was Jesus said to him, Peter, I know you've messed up.

[35:09] I know you've messed up in a real big way. But do you know what, Peter? I love you. Okay? I think that if I had messed up, and I do mess up, you know, one of the things that I think I need to hear often is actually, Daniel, I've done it again.

[35:26] How many times? 18 years in the ministry and you're still making mistakes. Daniel, I love you. I think that would be nice. Jesus doesn't do that. Because I know where Jesus stands.

[35:39] I know that he loves. That's not the issue at hand. The issue at hand is not whether or not Jesus loves Peter. It's self-evident that Jesus loves Peter. What's questionable with Peter gone back fishing is whether or not Peter loves Jesus.

[35:56] And so Jesus comes to Peter and says, do you love me? Do you love me? Yeah, you know I love you. Do you love me? Yes, I love you.

[36:06] Then feed my sheep, feed my lambs. Let me finish with this. There's nothing better than to be restored.

[36:17] Lord. You know, we spoke and we prayed this morning about drifting. You know, I think the question for all of us here this morning is it's not questionable as to whether or not God loves you.

[36:32] I don't even think we should even raise that as a question. I think it's fairly solid and fair to say God loves you. It is a fair question, however, to put the question to you and say, well, what about you?

[36:44] Do you love God? Why does it matter? I'll give you an example and extra illustration as I finish. In Psalm 73, there's a man who's having a hard time, believes in God, but he sees a world that prospers.

[37:00] They do nothing right in God's eyes and yet they have everything. They have the houses, they have the cars, you know, they even have good health. He's just come out of hospital, he's struggling with his bills, and he's not having the best time of it at work and he can understand why God takes it easy on the people out there and makes it hard for him, you know, and so he starts complaining and he says to God, right, I'm not going to church anymore.

[37:26] That's the fact, you go read it for yourself, Psalm 73. So he leaves church and he's out, miserable with sin, wondering what's going on and it's only when he comes back into the congregation does he actually come to his senses.

[37:39] It's only when he comes back to worshipping God does he see things as it really ought to be. He recognizes that the people in the world with all their trappings, material blessings that they have, it's similar to someone winning the lottery in their dream.

[37:56] None of you are jealous of a person winning the lottery in their dream. Okay? None of you are jealous of that person. And yet many of you are jealous of people in the world who have everything.

[38:09] Do you not realize that the world's going to wake up when Christ returns? Do you not realize that the reality will actually kick in?

[38:20] But this is what that man says. He recognizes that if he, in his state, the way that he feels about God, the way that he feels about life, though miserable with sin, he recognizes that if he opens his mouth and starts speaking about the way he feels, then he will cause other believers in the congregation to stumble in exactly the same way he does.

[38:41] So he mans up and he keeps his big mouth shut. Okay? And then he gets himself back on track with the one who can only get him back on track, God.

[38:51] He comes back to the worship of God and realizes God hasn't changed. The question is not whether or not God loves me. The question was always whether or not I loved God.

[39:03] So John's gospel, if I can summarize this point as a final thought, is not only to evangelize the world to say that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation, but is to remind you who are already believers of what God has done for you.

[39:19] It shouldn't even be questioned whether or not God loves you. He loves you and he's proved it. Amen.