Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / May 22, 2016 | Route 66 - John

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May 22, 2016 | Route 66 - John · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Good morning.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: How are you?
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: This is Topeka Bible Church, and we care a lot about the Bible, putting the Bible in people's hands all across the world, and the granddaddy of all those organizations that do that is the Gideons.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: And today, I've got a friend of mine here, Don.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Would you come on up?
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Washburn Rural lost a great teacher when he stepped down, retired, but we're glad we have you here.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us about the Gideons, man.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I will.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: We serve an awesome God.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 55.11 says, um, Isaiah 55.11 does say, um.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm having a brain cramp.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: My word will not return void.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and it will accomplish its intended purpose.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is only the third time I've done this today, so um.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't really understand that scripture until I became a Gideon.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And uh uh one of the ways I know that is the testimony of Darren.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Darren was uh um rejected by his girlfriend.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: He was underperforming in college, his parents were putting a lot of pressure on him, and frankly, Darren felt like he was underperforming in life.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't want to make contact with any eye contact with anybody on campus, so he's walking with his head down.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And because he was walking with his head down, he noticed a little green book in a trash can, and he bent down and picked it up, and it was a New Testament.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you have to understand that first the Gideon had to give that testament to a student, and then the student had to throw that testament in the first trash can that they saw, and then Darren had to be walking with his head down in order to see the testament that changed his life.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Most of you guys know who the Gideons are.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're professional men and our wives whose task is very much like the task of this church, which is to win people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and we do it by putting Bibles everywhere: hotels, motels, doctors' offices, hospitals, rest homes, and Gideons give Bibles to everyone.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: One Gideon, one Bible in one hand.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how many of you guys have sighed after Jim has told a joke, but in the time it took you to sigh, Gideon's had given out three testaments.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: This year we passed over our two billionth testament handed out.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so um i it it's an amazing, amazing ministry.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um in India, there was a young man who uh was underachieving in his life.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: His two older siblings were really good in school.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: And in India, there's a lot of pressure to be academically successful, and he wasn't.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: He liked cricket and he didn't do so well in school.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And his parents were putting a lot of pressure.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: So one day he went to his chemistry class and he had a Ziploc bag, and he took everything that said poison and he poured it into that bag, and he zipped it up and he took it home and he put it in a water glass and he drank it.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the next time Robbie woke up, he was in a hospital with IVs in.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: His mom was sitting there by his side, you know, barely conscious.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: A couple days later, a man walked in.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Robbie still to this day doesn't know how he got into the hospital room.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: But while he was there, he pulled out a Little Testament and read to him the book of John.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And in John 14, 19, Robbie kind of hangs on this verse.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: 14.19 it says, Because I live, you will also.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so Ravi Zacharias, who many of you know is one of the greatest apologists of the Christian faith today, became a Christian.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here today to ask you to do four things.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: The first is to pray for the Gideon ministry.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: 300,000 men and women around the uh the country and in more than 200 countries, uh, who are so many of them serving in places a lot more dangerous than Topeka, Kansas, where even handing out a scripture could lead to being incarcerated or even killed.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: So pray for them.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Also, pray for the funds that we need.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Last year we had to suspend distributions in India because the demand was greater than the funds we had available.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: To Gideon, that's a giant embarrassment.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: That we were not able to give the funds that would have put a Bible in everyone who wanted one's hands.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: So pray for our ability to raise those funds.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um the third, the second thing you could do is to use the Gideon Card program.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: The Gideon Card rack is out there in the windows, and you can just send a card and dedicate Bibles uh to that person uh as well.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, you can do all this stuff online as well.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Third, you can be a member.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: We need members.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a professional man, uh you don't have to do what I do, which is get up in front of churches and and speak.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: You can um you can just carry a box of Bibles across the campus or even pay your dues, because that pays the administrative costs of our ministry.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And lastly, of course, you can give.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: 100 percent of what you give goes to the purchase of Bibles.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Gideons pay all the administrative costs.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: We do all that.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: We don't raise money any other way than asking churches to join us in this ministry.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: There'll be Gideons in the back around the exits, even a Gideon auxiliary member, my wife, uh, to collect any donations you have.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not prepared to give today, that's okay.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's an envelope in the insert.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can send a check to us then.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh this church has always been so gracious uh with their generous with their gifts and also their time.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: I thank you for allowing us to come here today.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jim.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, buddy.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Do be generous uh to the Gideons, we love them.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: And okay, I'm gonna start with a joke.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: And if you just shy after the joke, three Bibles.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: But if you laugh out loud, ten.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Ten.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Could lead someone to Christ.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: So the story goes like this the farmer's got a sick calf, so he calls the veterinarian.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: So the veterinarian comes out to the farm and he checks the nose of the calf, he feels the nose, he sticks the thermometer in to find out that he checks the eyes and sofa.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: He says, sure enough, you do have a sick calf, this calf can hardly move.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I'll tell you what, I've got the solution.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a white pill here.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: If you give the calf this white pill, almost always works 99% of the time.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: This will cure what your calf's got.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if there's as an off chance, tiny little chance that it won't work, so you give the pill, if so, you give the calf this red pill.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Red pill, total miracle drug, this will completely solve it.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Two weeks later, the veterinarian sees the farmer.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: He says, How did it go with a calf?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Farmer says, Doc, you wouldn't believe it.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: After you left, I gave the calf the white pill.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: It worked.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Calf went crazy, jumped straight up in the air, busted through the barn door, broke down three fences, jumped over a fourth.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Doc said, Wow, that's amazing.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Doc, he said, if I hadn't had the presence of mind to take the red pill myself, I'd have never caught him.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Bibles, Bibles, Bible.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: You just gave out like 25, 30 Bibles across the room.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for that.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the point of that story, it's more than just a joke.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: The point of that story is there's some things that actually require a miracle infusion to have work.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: There's some things that you simply cannot find, simply can't, it's kind of a help, let's say, that you can't simply get unless you have some sort of a miracle drug.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the Gospel of John sort of tells us about this drug.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: The theme of the Gospel of John, that's our stop this morning along Route 66, is Jesus is the life-giving God.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I hear this book saying to us, get a life this morning.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Get a life.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that thing that you need, which you cannot achieve by yourself, is life, according to this book.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: You say to me, Jim, I have a life.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I say, Well, maybe you do, maybe you don't.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about that.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: This afternoon, uh uh, as every Sunday afternoon, I think it's NBC showing a golf tournament, as they begin to show the golf tournament, they don't start down where Gary Woodland and the others are putting.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: They start with sort of a good year blimp view.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: So they looked at all of those holes so you can see how they link together.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's why they call it a golf links.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I want to do right now with the Gospel of John, which is the most theological of all of the Gospels, one of the most theological books in the Bible.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: So we need to sort of take a Goodyear blimp view back up so I can tell you how amazing this book is.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: You've got a study sheet that was in your bulletin.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to just start off by commenting that there are two books in the Bible which, in my view, at least in the New Testament, rise above all the others.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: The Gospel of John and the Epistle to the Romans.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, Martin Luther once called this book, uh John, he called it the most tender, the most uh genuine, the most uh unique, the chief gospel.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then he said this: he said, if a tyrant were able to eliminate all of the Bibles, all of the copies of Scripture on earth, but one copy, a single copy of the Epistle to the Romans and the Gospel of John remained, Christianity would be saved.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: I agree with that, and it's why over the span of my time in this pulpit, I have uh uh the series that I, the book series that I've done on the Gospel of John and on the epistle to Romans were both by far my longest series, 160 messages uh for both of those uh series.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that's because I believe that this gospel and the epistle to the Romans are really, really critical.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I want you to listen carefully.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I've told you at the beginning already that I think the theme of this book, uh the most important theme, is the theme of life, and that's a very sort of millennial theme.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's a hot theme.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's a word that we like today.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's a word that for years we've liked.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's the name sort of of a TV channel, the life channel, of an insurance company, of a magazine.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Life is something we really care about.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: And when a teenager rebelling against her mom yells at her, she just might say, I want to live.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Day after tomorrow, I take a group of 46 over to Israel and a bit of slang over there for people who want to really live, who want to have fun.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: A slang over there that's hot right now is la soat qhayim, to make life.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: And when they want to say, I really want to have a good time, they say, I want to make what?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: I want to make life.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: But you're familiar with that, Chaim.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: You've heard of L Chayim, right?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: You've seen Fiddler on the Roof, perhaps, and they toast each other and they sing that song, what?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: L'Chayam to life.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Say that with me.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Lachhayam.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Say it again.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Lachaim, spit a little bit from the back of your throat when you when you say that.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm I'm watering the first two rows, even right now.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: But listen, you may want to know that word because according to Jewish tradition, an ancient Jewish tradition, by the way, this word Lachaim has been a toast for 2,000 years since the days of Jesus.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And according to tradition, on the Jewish tradition, on the future day when there is a feast in heaven, God and his people, for the Jews believe that there is, yes, a feast in heaven, at the end of that wedding feast, we call it the marriage supper of the Lamb.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of that feast, according to Jewish rabbinic tradition, God will go to his wine cellar, I just made that part of it up, and he will get wine bottles which he has saved since the dawn of creation.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: The best wine in that you could ever imagine.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: He will bring that out, and he will pour the wine, and all of those who are heading into eternal life will stand up, raise our glasses, toast each other, and say, What?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Lachayam to life.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: So you want to be there when that happens.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the book, therefore, about life.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: But the Gospel of John, you need to understand, uh, is different from the other three.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: You say, Well, yeah, that's been one of your themes for the last three messages.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: A number of people have told me they appreciate how we've distinguished Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, these are the four different writers.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: When kids ask you, why do we have four gospels, not one?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: You can tell them, well, there are sort of four different faces of Jesus, all of them accurate from different perspectives.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: In Matthew, we said Jesus was the Messiah King, Mark, the suffering servant.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Luke showed us Jesus is the Savior man who came to seek and to save the lost.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: And John tells us he's none other than the life-giving God.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: But John is not just one of four.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: John is sort of the green apple next to three red apples.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: He's the maverick gospel.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: There are so many differences between John and the other three Gospels.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: We call the other three Gospels the synoptic gospels.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Sin means with, optic means to see.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: They see things with each other.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: But John, so many differences, you can check those out on the front of your study sheet.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: But some of the differences I'd like to put up for you on the screen, in a summary.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: Matthew written to Jews, Mark to Romans, Luke to Greeks, John to the world, and also especially the Jews, but to the world.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Special feature of Matthew is those five sermons, such as the Sermon on the Mount.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Mark, the miracles, Luke, the parables, John has seven signs.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: You say, what's a sign?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's just a miracle.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: The other gospels would call it a miracle, but for John, these seven special miracles are signposts that point to something in Jesus' identity.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: So he calls them signs or special miracles that point to something about Jesus' deity or what he can give us.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: The tone of them is different as well.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Sort of the musical tone of Matthew is prophetic as he quotes loads of verses from the Old Testament.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Mark is practical, Luke historical, John.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: Though it's the easiest Greek in the New Testament, if you learn Greek, this will be the first book you read.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: But it's in some ways the deepest.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's the most spiritual or theological.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: He says, What would you recommend?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'd say, well, as a young pastor, I think you've got to wait a little while before tackling John, or you might put your people to sleep.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: John seems simple, but it's the most theological, the most spiritual.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's why some of you are falling asleep already.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: So because John is just thick and it's deep stuff.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Who is Jesus?
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: According to Matthew, he's the king, the Jewish, the messianic king.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Mark, servant, Luke, perfect man.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: John, he's God's son.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: Why did he come?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he came to rule, says Matthew.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, and he also came, says Mark, to serve, not to be served, but to serve and give his life a ransom for many.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Luke, to save us.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: John, he came to give us life.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: In the back of your study sheet, I've tried to summarize the whole book in one sentence, which I'd like you to say out loud with me.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: It goes like this: Jesus is God in the flesh, he came to give life through his death to all who will believe in him.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: So say that with me out loud, would you right now?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is God in the flesh who came to give life through his death to all who will believe in him.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: Let me take that in sort of four uh four lumps and explain how you see it in this book and what difference that should make for you.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, Jesus is God in the flesh.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: You do not find this statement anything like this in any of the other Gospels.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Matthew and Luke, as you know, start off with Jesus being born.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Mark starts off with him casting demons out in a wilderness.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: John goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Let's backtrack.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Let's rewind all the way to creation.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: And the same was in the beginning with God.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: All things were made by him.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Without him is not anything made that was made.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Placing Jesus, the word, way back, that's just so different.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: It shows that he's God in the flesh.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Let me throw in an interesting biblical illustration.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you remember, but in Ezekiel and in Revelation, you have these four animals that are around God.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's like God, God, you know, have uh, you know, he picked uh uh uh four animals to be around his throne.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: We we know in Revelation 4:8, the four living creatures he calls them, each one having six wings, full of eyes.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: They're really weird, they're really strange, they're really freaky, but they're all exactly the same except for their faces, right?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: And the face of one is like the face of a man, face of another is like the face of a calf, face of another is like the face of a lion, and the face of the other is like the face of an eagle.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Now, ever since the early days of the church, uh, church field said, Well, there's four animals and there's four gospels, and we see similarities between them.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: Now, which of the gospels would you connect with which animals?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's sort of like that game, you know, where they get you in a room and they say, What animal would you like to be?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: And you say, I'm not playing this game.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: I hate this game.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: So, well, most people down through the years, since Jerome and Augustine have connected Matthew as sort of the human gospel.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus comes down to be a the Jewish king.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Mark as the lion gospel, which starts with Jesus being tempted in the wilderness where lions are roaring.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: Luke, Jesus is a calf because his first and last chapters are in the temple where the calves are being sacrificed.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: John, everyone agrees on John.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: They may disagree about the others, but John is an eagle.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because John starts us off in the sky with Jesus being God looking down on creation.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: That was just God, was I right about that?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Is God I hear a little noise, I hear a little beep going off.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: God's telling me, Jim, I'm not sure you're right on that.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll work on that during the week.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that's right.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: God, Jesus.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: So by the way, when you look in ancient paintings and you see gospel, every time you see Gospel of John or the Apostle John, you will oftentimes see an eagle by his foot or something.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you find this theme of John showing Jesus being God in the flesh throughout the book.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Let me just quickly go through some of the verses, okay?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: And the word became flesh.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's John 1, 14.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: This word, which was Jesus before time began, he became flesh.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: John 8, uh, a dialogue with the Pharisees.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus says to them shockingly, your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: He saw it and was glad.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: You're not even 50 years old yet, and you've seen Abraham.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says to them in words which are blasphemous, unless he is God, he says, Verily, verily I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Notice the way he says that.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't say, I lived before Abraham.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Before Abraham was, I am.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Just so that they'll remember that when Moses asked God, what's your name, Exodus 3, God said, My name is I am.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: So Jesus here is claiming, and he does throughout this book, Yeshua, or Jesus is claiming to be all that Yahweh was in the Old Testament.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: I am the bread of life, I'm the light of the world, I'm the door of the sheep, I'm the good shepherd, I'm the resurrection, I'm the way, the truth, and the life, I'm the true vine.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is making this astounding claim to be God.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: And just so you know for sure that this astounding claim is being made, he put John puts it at the end of his book, where Thomas, remember the doubting?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thomas says, unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, put my hand into his side, I won't believe.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, Go ahead.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: Thomas does, looks up and says, My Lord and my God.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: So this leaves you with a decision do you really believe that Jesus is God?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: Or you believe he was a great man or something else, if you certainly, if you're not sure about that.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you go to university in America today, you certainly are not going to come out and believe what half of Americans believe that Jesus is God.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because certainly 90% of the religion professors across our country would say, no, what Jesus was was a social revolutionary.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: And depending on what revolutions you like, then you determine, for instance, Elizabeth Schlusler, who's one of the two probably foremost uh Jesus scholars in the country, she's at Harvard, she would say Jesus was a social revolutionary fighting against the male patriarchy of his day.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: If you're John Dominic Crosson, probably the most famous one, University of Chicago, he would say Jesus is this peasant social revolutionary who is fighting against uh both the religious and the political establishment of his day by giving away free meals and free healings, you know.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so you're kind of reminded, by the way, of that funny old statement that the Lord made us in his image, and we've been returning the favor ever since.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: We sort of see Jesus, see the Lord as being whoever we really are inside.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: If we have a social cause, that's who Jesus was.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: John says, and by the way, you can't hold those views and think that the Gospel of John is legitimate, so they don't.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: But you have to make that decision.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just theological hair splitting, right?
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you think that Jesus was just a man, if you think like Crosson does, that he was a peasant, a poor social radical who ends up dying with his body cast in the gutter to be devoured by wild dogs, if you believe that Jesus was a good man, social revolutionary, and that's it, you don't have a savior.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can't have one man die for the sins of everyone.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: The chasm between God and man is so great, it must be bridged by someone who is both God and man, right?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: So that's just simple logic, besides being the obvious biblical teaching.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: And this was so controversial, however, in the first few hundred years of the church that finally, with this debate going on and early Jehovah's Witnesses, kind of a joke, they call Arius was his name, a bishop back in those days said, no, Jesus is not fully God, he's just this sort of the top angel.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, they called together a council where 318 bishops got together in this city in what we call Turkey and Nicaea, and they argued over this.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: Is Jesus fully God or is he just a man who partakes of a little bit of divinity, something special, and they assembled and they came up with a creed and they voted on it and so forth, and they voted 316 to 2 that Arius was a heretic, and they did it in these famous words, which I'd like you to say after me, which state as clearly as you can state that they believe Jesus is God.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: Say these with me.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: He is God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, of the very same substance as the Father.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: See how they guarded it in every possible way.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: Big argument was is he similar substance or the very same substance?
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where they disagree.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: So you have just you have just recited really the oldest church creed, very, very famous.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope you agree with me that Jesus is fully God and fully man.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: Not to say that you completely understand how he can be both fully God and fully man.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: My son, who's presently pastoring, preaching across town at Grace Bible, his name is Craig, grew up in this church.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he uh we always used to sit about where Hank's sitting right now.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Our family just sat right there, which meant that when Craig was exactly this was this is the month that he did this, he was uh three years and eight months along, and he's holding up two of his favorite things, a bat, which he didn't use to hit balls but hit people, and Uno cards.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: So he's sitting there in the pew, and it's in the morning, and he is so totally bored.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: He's sitting on this other side of Melody, and they're singing, and there's announcements and so forth, and he and he's and so he turns and he starts examining the stained glass windows.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden, he grabs his mother's face and he points her face over toward the stained glass.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm speaking in the Mulvane building here, and there's a stained glass window of Jesus standing at the door and knocking.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden he leans up to Melody's ear, but in a whisper that's so loud that about ten rows on both sides can hear.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Bomby, there's Jesus, there's Jesus, there's Jesus.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: But where's God?
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: At this point, what you do as parents is you always go, We'll talk to you about it afterwards.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, always, that was our line, okay?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: But then, so we'll talk about it, but then he keeps on looking around.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: He gets to that window over there where there's a window over here where Jesus is the shepherd and he's holding a sheep, and maybe remembering that we'd told him at night, don't bother us when you get scared, memorize the Lord is my shepherd, and just stay in bed.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: But so anyway, he grabs hold of her face and he points it at that window and he says, Mommy, there's God.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: And Melody makes a big mistake.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: She says, No, that's actually Jesus.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: And Craig says, No, that's God.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: Cross my heart.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: Cross my heart.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: So uh his theology, his theology is still pretty bad.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: No, he's developed, he's developed over the years, and now he believes, I am sure, in Johannine theology, which is that when you have seen me, says Jesus, you have seen the Father.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: One God, three persons, Jesus, both fully God and fully man.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus, therefore, is God in the flesh, who came, according to John, to give us life.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: To give us life.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: Now that word life is unfortunately so rich and so thick that we get confused thinking it's shallower or simpler than it is.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: But once in a while, like for instance, with the popular sign and bumper sticker these days, I want to live, not just survive, we have a doorway into the richness of the meaning of the word life in this book, where it means something more than just physical life.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: And this book speaks of a kind of life that is rich and full.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: In the Backstage Pass, which is advertised this morning, the welcome class.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: We explained to people that our theme verse here at Topeka Bible Church is John 10.10.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: I've come that they might have life and might have it abundantly.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: That is, there is a kind of life, Jesus says, which you can receive, but then can grow more and more.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: It can get bigger, thicker, richer, and more abundant.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: And this kind of life apparently is not the typical life of earth.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: It is life that inhabits heaven.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: It is the life of God, it is the life that inhabited Jesus Christ.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: In him was life, John says.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: John 1.4.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: And the life was the light of men.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if you don't think about the the depth, the richness of this word, then as you see the word life used in our culture, you can perhaps be mistaken for thinking you've seen it all.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: For instance, when Discovery Channel decided to run a 10-week series, excellent series on nature, and they wanted millions of Americans to watch, they did a couple of things.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: They got Oprah to be the MC, but they also entitled it Life, knowing that that's just a really catchy term.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: I would guess, however, that too many people watching that show failed to realize that the life in this show is just a small percentage of the life of the universe, or even the meaning of the word life.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: This show is about natural life.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: And Assias Lewis explains so clearly in his book, Mere Christianity, there are two Greek words which must be distinguished for us to understand this word life clearly.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's the word bios, which represents biological life, bios from which we get the word biology or biography.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: This is natural life, the life that inhabits animals and plants and humans.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: It is temporary life.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: It must continually, you know, be um be uh, you know, you simply must continue to subsidize this life with air and with water and with food, or else it will decline and eventually die.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: But there is, as Lewis said, another word used, the primary word in the Gospel of John, and that is the Greek word zoe.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes a child today is called Zoe.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that's spiritual life.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's the life of heaven, the life of God.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's life that resides in the spirit, that's life that is not temporary, that doesn't run down, that doesn't require regular uh food and water.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: It does get renewed by the Holy Spirit, but it is an eternal life, a special kind of a life.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: And Lewis was always at pains to try to explain to people that all of us had bios, all of us had a biological life, all of us on earth, but that life's only a pale shadow of the kind of life that God wants for all of us to live, which is his life, the life that inhabited heaven and inhabited Jesus Christ.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so to explain that, Lewis would hide that as a metaphor in some of his stories.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: For example, in his Narnia tales, he has a white witch controlling the world of Narnia, who turns some of the animals into statues.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: And Lewis wanted to let us know that everyone on earth today is, in a sense, a statue.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: When it comes to Zoe life, we're frozen.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: Our hearts are frozen, they need thought.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Our hearts are very hard.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: But what happens, you know, in that story is, as you know, Aslan, who represents the Lord, comes along and he breathes, he breathes his life onto uh here, Mr.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: Tumnes.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: And Mr.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Tumnis comes alive.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: And Lewis explained elsewhere that the distinction between a statue and a living person represented by that statue is the same difference between a person who simply has BIS, who desperately needs to be animated by the Zoe life of God.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: So listen, as you read the word life in this book, you need to think Jesus is the God who came in the flesh to give us this kind of special life.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why he was lifted up, so that everyone who believes may have Zoe, eternal life in him.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: And he who believes in the Son, John 3.36, has Zoe life.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: And he who doesn't believe the Son shall not see Zoe.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: But the wrath of God abides on him.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I tell you the truth, Jesus said.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: Those who hear me and believe in God who sent me have eternal life, Zoe life.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: They'll never be condemned, but have already passed from death into life.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: How can you be dead if you have Bios?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, because you only have animal life.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have eternal, spiritual, new age life.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus stands and says, I'm the resurrection and the Zoe.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: You need to come to me.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is the kind of life that you and I need to have.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so I ask you, I ask you earlier, what do you think about Jesus when you think of him?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think of a social revolutionary or a great man, or do you realize he was God of very God?
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: And now I ask you, how's your life?
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: How are you doing with your life today?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: I know you want to do more than survive.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: You want to really live.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: God offers you through his purpose, through Jesus.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: The God who came in the flesh, he offers you this kind of life.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now, of course, he gave us this life through his death that required his death in our place to give us this life.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that, of course, is one of the themes of all of these life verses, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: Keyword gave.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: Gave that word which means to give up unto death.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus Himself said, I lay down my life for the sheep.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: He laid down his life that we might live.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: Praise the Savior.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: Praise the Savior.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: Praise the Savior, Jesus Christ.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, Jesus is God in the flesh who came to give life through his death to all who will believe in him.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is really important, that word believe.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now, when you and I explain to people how to become Christians to children, we often use other words.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: We often say you need to receive Jesus or you need to open the door of your heart to come in.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: But 98 times in this book, the word used by God is believe.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: The word used, the word receive is used one time here in John 1.12, but to all who receive him, and then quickly, quickly, John defines it, those who believed in his name.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: He gave the right to become children of God.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: For God so loved the world that he gave that whoever believes in him.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, and the the townspeople in Samaria come and they say to the woman at the well, We believe now, not because of you, for we've heard Jesus ourselves, and we know he's indeed the Savior of the world.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: We have Jesus saying, He who believes in me will never thirst.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: And in John chapter 7, whoever believes in me, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: This word, believe.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: The man born blind comes to Jesus.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: Who is he, Lord, that I might believe?
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, It's me.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: You've both seen him, and it's he who's talking with you.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Lord, what did he say?
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I believe, and he worshipped him.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so when he gets to the end of his book, John tries to make this abundantly clear that the one requirement that God makes is that you believe.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in his name.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: The world divides up generally between, I don't know, Hispanic, Caucasian, African American.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: The world sometimes, the economic world divides up between white collar, blue work, blue collar, rich, poor, but all of the distinctions between people that the world makes, John does not care about.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: The one distinction John cares about is who has life, Zoe life, and who doesn't.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: Who's a believer and who's not a believer.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things I love about Topeka Bible is the fact that we support so many missionaries that we regularly get to hear exciting stories.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: And just this last month, for example, there's a story from Morocco from our missionary there, an Arab who came to Christ, Boazza, Boaz and Ruth are their names.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: And he was down in Morocco visiting an underground Christian marriage seminar down there this year.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: And a guy comes up to him and says, I heard your voice, I recognize your voice, I think.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: Are you on the radio?
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: And Boaz said, Yes, who are you?
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: Boaz lives up in Spain, sends down radio programs and TV programs for North African Muslims and so forth.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: And the guy says, My name is Mossine, M-O-H-S-I-N.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: Boaza said, Hold it, Mossine, you and I used to write 10 years ago, and then all of a sudden you were seeking, you were trying to figure out about Jesus, and you suddenly stopped replying to my letters.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: The guy says, I was accused of murder.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: I've been in jail, in prison ever since, and they just found the real killer, and finally, after nine years let me out.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: But in prison, he said, I got hold of a radio and secretly listened to your radio program, and I came to Christ.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: I love hearing stories like that.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: I love hearing stories from our Jews for Jesus friends in Israel just a few weeks ago.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: Dan Sarod, who's spoken here, who I'll see here in a week or so, uh, you know, wrote about Elisha, an Israeli soldier, you know, who's on the front lines who contacted him and said, You know, I've been hearing things and I'd like to talk with you about Jesus.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: And Elisha just trusted Christ as his savior just in the last several weeks, and three other women as well.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: I love those stories.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: I love reading the stories Christianity today.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: Every year runs a funny, at least it's kind of a humorous, top ten conversion stories of the year, it's called.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of funny.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: And they say the stories that have come to us most often this year.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the stories in their in the in the website, the guy right in the middle is a convicted felon, you know, a uh uh scary, really scary guy who came to Christ.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: The woman on the top left there is a French atheist, you know, a brilliant woman who came to Christ.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the woman on the top right is uh is a Fox News uh commentator who who in this last year, you know, going to Redeemer Presbyterian, you know, fought against it, fought against a strong agnostic, but came to Christ.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, the fellow right below her here, uh, was born in Lawrence, Kansas as a Taiwanese Buddhist, and and he came to Christ and on and on.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: He's one of a fellow in the middle and the far left, comes from the very tribe of Muhammad himself, knows the Quran by heart.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: Ever since he was age five, came, just came to Christ.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: Love these stories about these people who come to realize that Jesus, Jesus himself, was God in the flesh who came to give life, who came to give life to all who will believe in him, to all who will believe in him.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so I hear this morning God saying to you and to me, get a life, won't you?
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: Get a life while you still can.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: While you still can.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: One day there's coming a wedding feast, and I'd like you to stand with me at the end and cry out Lachim, Lachim to life.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so I ask you, do you have that life?
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know this Jesus who is God in the flesh?
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have the kind of life that you'd like?
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: I know you want to do more than survive.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: I know you want to live.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, Jesus is God in the flesh.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: He came to give that kind of Zoe life to all who will believe in him.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: Will you do that?
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you've never done that, if you have friends who need to do that, talk to them about this.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's absolutely urgent.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: Let's close in prayer.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: Heavenly Father, thank you for this message about life and about Jesus.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: We love this book and we love you.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: And we love this amazing thing that you've done for us in the person of your son who came from heaven to give us this remarkable, this unbelievable gift of life.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.