Human Insufficiency vs Christ's Sufficiency - An overview of the miracles in the Gospel of John

1:33For those of you who have gone ahead and you go to chapter 4, verses 13 and 14, right between verses 13 and 14, right, all of John 1 through 4 goes here. Okay? Luke, chapter 4, between verses 13 and 14. Luke chapter 4, between verses 13 and 14. When the devil had finished every temptation, he left him until an opportune time. Right there, after that verse, all of John 1 through 4 goes here. And then he comes into Galilee. I think it's helpful to get the big picture of where we are in the narrative. John has given us an insight into the early ministry of Jesus that the other gospel writers do not give us. But I want to take some time to look at the big picture. The big picture. And specifically as it relates to the miracles that we come to in the Gospel of John. What was John's purpose for writing about the miracles that he selected? He was very careful in what he chose, and he had a reason. For putting these specific miracles in there, he's communicating something. And my question is: what is John's purpose for the miracles? And so, what I want to do today is give you an overview of the miracles of John. We're going to come out of the galley, go up on the ship, look at the lookout point, and look at these miracles. He gives us seven of them, or actually seven, eight, nine, depending on how you count them. We'll look at seven, and then there's the miracle of his resurrection, which would be eight, and then there's the miracle of the great catch, which would be nine. But we're going to look at the seven in his public ministry.

3:44But I also want you to turn again to John chapter 20. And this is another verse I want you to mark in your Bible. John chapter 20, verse 30 and 31, because here John tells us what his ultimate purpose for recording these miracles are, or was. John chapter 20, verse 30, therefore, encircle these, highlight it, whatever you need to do. Therefore, many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that. Believing, you may have life in his name.

4:34So, John wants you to see the credentials of Jesus that qualify him and him alone as Earth's Messiah. He's the only one sufficient enough to be Earth's Messiah. Messiah, the concept of Messiah is a little different than maybe our concept of king. You see, the Messiah is somebody who can actually do something for his people. Our earthly kings, they need their people to do something for them, right? It's our taxes that make a kingdom strong. It is our young men and our young women who can defend the king. So, in many ways, in our earthly systems, our kingdoms are built upon people who can support and make the king strong. But the whole concept of Messiah is different. The Messiah is one who makes his people strong. And so, what John shows us is that Jesus is the only one that has ever crossed the horizon of the earth that has the credentials to be the Messiah, to be what humanity truly needs.

5:55And so, what he does is he, these miracles. Miracles are credentials. Each miracle exposes a basic human insufficiency set against Christ's all-sufficiency. So there is a human insufficiency versus Christ's sufficiency. And John wants you and me to see the valuable gift that God has given us in his Son. And I hope after you spend some time this morning hearing the words that come out of the pages of John that you'll come away with a greater appreciation of the valuable gift that we have in his Son. Well, just if you do a word study on the words that are used to describe miracles in the New Testament, there are three words that really come to the surface that you must pay attention to. The first is the word that we translate wonder. Wonder. Teros. It's the idea to marvel at something. A wonder is something so unusual that it arouses close observation. It gets your attention. So with any miracle, there is the wonder that leaves the people dazzled, the wonder that astonishes or stuns people. That's the idea of wonder. But this aspect of the miracle is not. The emphasis in John's gospel at all, because only one time he uses this word. We looked at it last time in verse 44 and 48. Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe. So, this isn't John's emphasis on the idea of miracles.

7:50There's a second word, dunamis. We think of dynamite when you hear that. It's the idea to produce a strong effect. It's the idea of strength, ability, capability, and it refers to those supernatural manifestations of power when they're pertaining to miracles. So, in any miracle, there is this effective power that's at work: the power to silence the forces of nature, the power to heal a broken body, or the power to bring sanity to a deranged mind or tormented mind, or the power to bring comfort to an aching heart. A good example of the way this word is used in the other Gospels is in Mark chapter 5. You remember the woman with the blood flow issue. She comes, she's pushing her way through the crowd, she touches Jesus' garment, and immediately, verse 30, Mark chapter 5, Jesus perceived in himself that power had proceeded from him, and he turned around. But power, that's the idea. What's interesting is John does not use this word at all to refer to miracles. So, John, when you do a study of what miracles are to John, he's not interested in communicating the astonishment of the masses or the raw power of Jesus. He's got something else in mind. He uses the word sign. Sign.

9:30And what a sign is, it serves as a pointer to something else. It's a distinguishing mark, a characteristic. And this miracle is a sign that points to something else. And he heavily uses this word. He's interested in what the sign or what the miracle reveals about man or what the miracle reveals about God and especially God's Son. Now, we shouldn't have a hard time understanding this. We see signs all the time, right? I've got a danger bridge out sign up there. Now, what is that communicating? What is the idea that the person who designed this sign had in mind?

10:24Trouble ahead, right? I mean, does he want you going, wow, look at that font? Isn't that cool? I like the white square, diamond, whatever you want to call it, around. I love the red color. It's arresting. It's great. Is that what the producer of this sign had in mind? No, he doesn't want you just to gawk at the sign. What does he want you to do? Understand what it's saying, right? Picture you see in this one. I love this one. Bridge out eight feet ahead.

11:00Now, so picture yourself driving 60 miles an hour down the road and you see this sign, bridge out, eight feet ahead. I mean, what do you do? I mean, wow, now what kind of an engineer would design a sign like that? You know, you go right off the edge, right? I mean, probably, I guess if you see a sign like this, what do you do? You gas it and just hope you can make it over, right?

11:23But we understand this whole concept of signs, right? You've seen this. This is a sign, right? What is this? It's a fuel gauge, right? You see them all the time on your... Anybody drives? And what is this one particularly telling you? You're about out of gas, right? Pay attention. You're about out of gas. Now, here's another sign taken out in the desert, probably crossing California and Arizona, right? Next gas station, 111 miles. Here's another gas sign that says just ahead, gas, right? These signs are communicating something about your condition. You need to pay attention to both of them, right? You don't want to get stuck out in the desert because you're out of gas. The one tells you there's gas just ahead, so we understand that, right? Signs. They tell us, they point to something else. They're not just to draw attention to themselves. Well, that's exactly the way John uses miracles. They are signs that point to a greater reality. And failure to properly read the signs ends in catastrophe. And that's what John is spelling out and how he's arranging his gospel. So the message this morning is an encouragement for you to not miss the warning signs and the blessing signs in life. They're all around us. And as I said earlier, each miracle in John's Gospel is a sign that points to a greater reality than itself. It reveals something of man's insufficiency and Christ's sufficiency. And so what I want to do this morning is give you an overview of the signs of in John. And this will take us up out of the galley and Onto the deck, and let us see where we've been and where we're going and what John is doing. And then we'll get back into the galley and start in chapter five, hopefully next week, just marching through. But first, I want you to see the big picture, and second, I want you to see the all-sufficiency of Christ. I want you to see the sufficiency of Christ so that you will come to Him in every situation and every season of life. He is all-sufficient. That is what John is telling us.

14:06So, there's the sufficiency that's revealed in each miracle. But there's also collectively, if you take the signs as a whole, they point to one supreme reality. One supreme reality. And I want you to leave here today understanding what that supreme reality is. So, let's just get started. I want to look at an overview of the miracles in the Gospel of John. Well, the first one is water into wine. We saw that in chapter 2. We can just turn there, and I'm just, I'll just, we're going to go through these fairly quickly. But in John chapter 2, you remember the situation.

14:51There's an insufficiency of man to even handle the routine demands of life. Remember, there's a wedding planned. And guess what? They run out of wine. And then Jesus, what does he do? Fill the water pots, transforms the water into wine. But this reveals something about an insufficiency in man. And I don't want you to miss this. It reveals this inability within man to even handle the routine demands of life. The routine demands and daily aspects of life, right? I mean, this is a pathetic picture, really. A pathetic picture of human insufficiency. This is something as basic as serving guests something to drink.

15:44I mean, this is a wedding, right? Planning to get drinks to your guests is something pretty normal. It's just a normal demand of life. But somehow something went wrong. Though they had planned, there was substantial planning, substantial effort, but somehow something went wrong, right? I think we can all relate. I mean, you set out to do great things, and inevitably, lately, it's been hard for me to drive across town with the way my cars keep breaking down, right? And there is this insufficiency. I think we can all relate.

16:21Sometimes we don't answer the emails we want to get. Sometimes we don't respond to things that we know we should. We plan something. Something and it just totally doesn't go the way we plan. There's all these kind of little things in life that come up that just knock the wind out of us. We're not masters of even the little details in life. I remember this, and you've heard me tell the story before, but this is such a picture of our human insufficiency.

16:51My family was at an attraction in Florida. My family was a lot younger then. And we go to this one Florida attraction, and afterwards we leave and we get back to the car and we realize we're missing one of our kids. So we're like, how could we do this? So we go running back to the gate. We get there. And of course, my wife's frantic to some degree about, I can't believe we left her. And this attendant comes out and says, Are you missing two kids?

17:27And Nancy and I look at each other. Well, let's take a look at them, you know? Oh, yeah, we're missing two kids. Yes, these are ours, you know. But that's us, right? We are insufficient to even take care of the routine issues of life, right? We are dependent even on the small things of life. I think James chapter 4 says something about this. Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit. Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that. But here you see the sufficiency of Christ, right? He is able and willing to help even in the little details of life. I mean, Jesus' gift to the bride and groom protected them from public embarrassment, but it reveals something about Christ. Even the small details, such as having enough drink for your guests, is not too small for Christ.

18:42You know, if you look at our lives, what are our lives? They're filled with a bunch of small details, aren't they, right? The vast majority of our lives amounts to nothing more than a series of little demands of everyday life. I'll tell you, it comforts my heart to know, just knowing that there is someone out there who knows about my tiny affairs is comforting. But not only does he know about these tiny affairs, but he's interested in our affairs. And not only is he interested, but he's willing to help. And not only is he willing to help, he's able to help. What a gift to have such a person in your life. And the Father knew we needed. Such. So, what do we do? We come to him. Come to him with every day, issues of life. You will find him sufficient.

19:42Second miracle, chapter 4, we looked at this last time: the healing of the official son. You remember, this official come, his son is at the, he has a sick child near death. We see this loving father come who cannot provide for the life and the well-being of his little boy. And what this miracle shows us is that man is insufficient or man is helpless in the face of sickness and disease, right? We know that. But more than that, it's our inability to help those who are facing sickness and disease and issues, right? There's this paralysis, this inability for those, for us to help those we love.

20:39I think every parent can relate to this, right? It's a father's desire, he desired the well-being of his son, his little boy, as he said. I mean, parental love is strong. It is so strong that it hurts sometimes. And every parent knows. What I'm talking about. You desire the well-being of your child, but you are painfully aware of your inability to provide life, to provide health, to provide well-being, to provide even protection, a good spouse, right? You want that one. Happiness, but especially their eternal security, their eternal salvation. You realize I want all this for my children, but I am completely inadequate, insufficient to give it. I can't.

21:33You know, if I could give my child one thing, it would be, I want you to have the favor of God. But I can't turn the favor of God. But I can't ask him, right? I can ask him to show his favor, to cause his face to shine upon person. Well, that's exactly what this father did. And you see, the sufficiency of Christ here. Look at verse 50, chapter 4. What does he say? Jesus said to go, your son lives. Go, your son lives.

22:13Jesus healed the child. But make sure you don't miss this. He didn't heal the child for the child's sake alone, did he? He healed the child for the father's sake and the child's sake. Right? Jesus was moved by the cry of a loving Father. And listen, if Jesus is interested in healing a person's physical body, which we know is here today and gone tomorrow, how much more is he interested in healing the soul of those you love?

22:58Pray for those you love. Jesus is sufficient to give life to those we love. There isn't anyone else you can go to to affect their eternal well-being. You see, it's when we come to the end of ourselves like this man that we're ready to truly pray for somebody else. God is ready to hear far more than we're ready to pray. Well, Christ is concerned not only about the little details in your life, but he's concerned about the loves of your heart.

23:36I find it interesting that on Wednesday nights, if you come up here and pray with us, you'll find a lot of times we're praying for people we don't even know, or I don't even know. Why do I spend a lot of my time up here praying for people I don't even know? It's because they're loved ones of somebody I do know. And much of our prayer meeting is about people we don't even know. But we know the people that loved him. So come, come to him on behalf of those you love. He is sufficient. He is sufficient. Take it to another miracle, chapter 5. We haven't looked at this, but we're going to look at this. And this is the healing of the sick man, Bethesda. And this deals with, again, another insufficiency of man. It deals with our helplessness in the face of sickness and disease, like the last one, but this time it shows us our paralysis even to receive the cure. You remember John chapter 5? You look there, it opens with the man by a pool of water, and this pool of water is occasionally stirred by an angel, and the first person into the water would be healed of whatever condition he or she had. And then listen to this sick man's words in verses 7, 5, 7. The sick man answered him, Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. But while I am coming, another steps down before me. Sad picture of humanity, isn't it? The remedy can come all the way from heaven, but the man couldn't even span the final inches to receive the cure. And such was both his physical and his spiritual condition. But then, look at verse 8. Jesus said to him, get up, pick up your palate, and walk.

25:37See, Jesus overcame this man's inability to get to the cure, didn't he? He made a house call, this physician did. He brought the remedy to the man that was completely helpless. Of course, he did this on the Sabbath, and this is going to cause a lot of controversy, but he gave the man rest from his sickness on the Sabbath. And this is what he does. You know, it is good for us to recognize our helplessness, even to receive the cure. I see this all the time with people that I'm dealing with, and can lay the truth out before a person, and the inability of a person to even receive the truth and to even heal themselves, or to even accept it themselves, or even to heal their relationships, even if the truth and what they need to do and what they need to be is right there before them. Sometimes it's difficult, if not impossible, for us to receive the cure.

26:43You know, one of the saddest, the saddest moment in Jewish history was this time when the Jews rejected their Messiah. They had the cure for all their problems right there in their midst. And they wouldn't let Jesus heal them. Luke 19, 41 says it well. When Jesus approached Jerusalem, he saw the city and he wept over it. And then he says, This, if you had known this day, even you, the things which would make for peace, but now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another because you did not recognize the time of your visitation. I came. The cure for the nation was right there.

27:52But in their paralysis, their spiritual, hard-hearted paralysis, they did not receive it. Well, the cure for all of your insufficiencies is right before you, is being proclaimed to you today. Don't be like those who missed it. And that's what John is saying to you. That's what the Spirit of God is saying to you through the Apostle John. Let's go to the next one. There is, you get to chapter 6, and you get to this incredible feeding of the flesh. 5,000, one of the few events that is recorded in all four gospels. And what this reveals about the insufficiency of man is that man and man's resources are completely barren to even supply ourselves with the necessary food.

28:51Right? It opens with this crowd of hungry people, and Jesus says, feed them. Philip says this in verse 7: 200 denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, for everyone to receive even a little. One of his disciples, Andrew Simon Peter's brother, said to him, There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these for so many people? You know, even today, right, with all the advances that we have made in agriculture and distribution, much of our world still lives within that daily pang of hunger, don't they?

29:32No. But Christ's sufficiency is that he is the bread of life. And following this is going to be the big discourse on the bread of life. In fact, the way John arranges these miracles, it's interesting to note that he does a miracle involving water. And then there will be this teaching upon you must be born of the water in the Spirit. There will be this whole concept. Of living water. And then you'll come here and you'll see this feeding of the 5,000, and then Jesus will talk about himself as the bread of heaven. And you go on to chapter 9: a blind man is going to be healed, and Jesus is going to talk about himself as being the light of the world. Chapter 11, Lazarus is going to be raised from the dead, and Jesus is going to speak about that he is the resurrection and the life. And you see these parallels. It's interesting. Just put your finger there and go back to John chapter 1. I want you to see another verse that you really need to circle and highlight. And that is chapter 1, verse 18.

30:47No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, he has explained him. Circle that. Because not only does he provide miracles, but then he teaches about the significance of those miracles. And he explains God. He explains what he is doing. And that's how he has arranged this pattern of doing a miracle and then talking about it or discoursing on it. Miracle discourse, miracle discourse, miracle discourse. See that pattern throughout John. I like this. He fed everybody. And then it's interesting that he is the bread of life. He not only supplies man's physical sustenance, but he goes on to make it plain that he is what God has given for the spiritual sustenance of mankind.

31:43I love this promise. I mean, who could listen to this, Matthew 6:31? Do not worry then, saying what we will eat, what we will drink, or what we will wear for clothing, for the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, but your Father in heaven knows that you need all these things. Who can make such a promise? Don't worry. Don't worry about what you're going to eat. I mean, that's so different from the advice I give my children, right?

32:09I've got this phobia that my kids are going to turn out lazy. Okay, so that shows up in a lot of our routine at home. You know, get to work. You know, I mean, if they're not working hard enough, you know, my exhortation is: look, if you don't work hard enough, you know what you're going to do? You're going to have a wife one day, and you're going to watch her starve before your eyes because you weren't able to keep a job down, and you're going to watch your kids waste away and die. So get to work, you know.

32:36But listen to Jesus. You know, don't worry about what you're going to eat. Seek first the kingdom of God. Now, careful, it is virtuous to work hard, you know, for the kingdom of God. That is, it honors God to work hard. So I'll be. But listen to He's saying, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. I mean, what that's An incredible promise. It's like, I know what you need.

33:05I know how to take care of it. I have put you here. I can take care of you. Seek me. Find me. I am the bread of life. I can take care of you physically, but more importantly, I can take care of you spiritually. I'm going to take care of you. Seek me. What a promise. And listen, he understands what his people need, and he is able and willing to provide it in abundance. So let's go to the fifth miracle. There's this, within chapter 6, there's this little interlude beginning in verse 15 and 20, going verse 21. And he walks on the water. This says something about man's insufficiency, and that is our helplessness in the face of the forces of the natural elements of the world in which we live, right? We're helpless.

34:01This body is pretty helpless. We need protection from the elements. And even with all of our advancements and all of our warning systems, we're still powerless over some of the most basic forces of nature, right? A few years ago, you saw a city in Japan wiped out in a matter of minutes after a big tsunami comes through. You can look at that: earthquakes, floods, winds. I mean, yesterday I was standing outside and I thought, man, I've got some rain here. This is incredible, man. And then this lightning bolt, I'm telling you, it must have, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but it was very close to where I was. I'm going to go inside, you know. But, I mean, here's Christ's sufficiency: He walks on water, he is Lord over the forces that govern the environment in which man has to live. He's Lord over those things. Listen, the guys in the boat were afraid, and they had the boat. Jesus didn't even have a life jacket, okay?

35:04He's Lord. He knows how to provide not only for man's body and man's soul, but he knows how to take care of the environment in which man has to live, right? Every people needs a right environment to flourish in. A kingdom needs space, needs the right environment. Jesus is able to take care of the right environment for people. Look at that: Lord of the body, Lord of the soul, Lord of the realm man has to live in. Keep going. Get to chapter 9. You see the healing of the blind man at Siloam. Again, this speaks of our helplessness in the face of sickness and disease, but this time it deals with our inability to perceive the world around us. Okay, here's a man, verse. 1 as he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. Okay?

36:06And then look at verse 5. Jesus reveals himself as the light of the world. Verse 5: While I am in the world, I am the light of the world. And when he had said this, he spat on the ground, made clay of the spittle, and applied it to the clay to his eyes, and said to him, Go wash in the pool of Siloam. So he went away and washed, and he came back seeing. You see, Jesus is able to provide man the physical faculties to correctly see the physical world. But he's more than just a doctor of the eyes. He is a doctor of the spiritual eyes. He is able to give man spiritual faculties to understand spiritual truth. You remember early on we talked about what is light? Light's nothing more than a medium which brings the viewer in contact with the view. And this is what Christ is: he is someone who can bring us in view of God or to be able to see God.

37:15I mean, listen, do you want to understand your world? Do you want to understand the universe? Do you want to understand God? Do you want to understand yourself? Do you want to understand the things to come? Then come to Jesus and ask him to open your eyes. Eyes, and he will instruct you. He will show you. He's the one who allows people to see things as they really are. So he is the one who is sufficient for us to see and perceive the world as it really is, and to see and perceive God as he really is. There isn't anyone else out there that can do that. There isn't anyone else that can make God known.

37:59Seven, seventh miracle, we come to the raising of Lazarus in chapter 11. And this speaks of our insufficiency before our ultimate enemy, and that is death, right? No matter who we are, death has mastery over us. No one can defy death for any substantial amount of time. Spend a lot of money trying to avoid it, but it comes. Our bodies decline, our bodies die, and our bodies decay. In verse 39 of chapter 11, Jesus says, Remove the stone. And Martha, the sister, says to him, Lord, by this time there will be a stench, for he has been dead for many days. So that's man in all his glory, right? I don't care from the highest to the lowest. After a few days, they stink.

38:54So much for the glory of man. And this is Christ. He's able to give our. Life. He is the resurrection and the life. Look at what he says in verse 43. When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. And Jesus said, Unbind him and let him go. Don't worry about the stench. This one's alive.

39:25And this is what he said in verse 25: I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even if he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? That's what he says. I mean, look across the pages of history, search high and low, and you will not find anywhere one with this kind of authority. You don't even have a pretender, okay? But the question is: who is this man?

39:58And what is he doing raising people from the dead? That's the sign. What is it pointing to? And how does this impact me? What is the reality? What is the sign? What is this reality that this sign is pointing to? Well, listen, there is one who has demonstrated the power and the desire to raise a person, a dead person, from the grave. Okay? There's one who's demonstrated that power. And the desire. And listen, if he can raise one, he can raise them all.

40:37So understand, there is coming a resurrection. We know that this life is not all there is. He is the one appointed to judge. It's coming. Don't miss this sign. But there's also something else, another reality that this points to: that there is a citizenship of a completely different kind. There is a people group that dwells apart. You will see your loved ones again who are in Christ. Not just simply because God wants to comfort you, but because you belong to a special category of people that will not be reckoned among the nations.

41:22That's what this resurrection speaks about. Let's keep going. Then there's Jesus' resurrection, the ultimate sign. And this points out the insufficiency of man in a unique way. You see, we have a complete inability to have an enduring kingdom. Okay? The kings of the people and the peoples themselves die. We have no enduring king. They stink after a few days, right? We have hardly ever produced a leader that can. Significantly governed for more than 50 years. Kings and peoples come and go.

42:07In fact, any student of history knows the transience of the human condition and the political order. No matter how great a kingdom becomes, eventually its central power will break down and a new one will take its place. But Christ has the ability to have an eternal kingdom. He is master over death. He lives forever. And he is able to raise his people. So both king and people forever. He knows how to take care of them physically and spiritually. He's Lord over their environment.

42:50He is Lord in every sense. So when he says in John 14:1, Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And when he says these things, we should believe it.

43:22And we should live our lives daily, knowing that this day is coming. And this is how it impacts us. It points us to a coming reality. I could say a lot more on this. I just want to bring this to a close. But what John is showing us is that Jesus is the all-sufficient one. This is a gospel that speaks of Christ's sufficiency for you in every aspect and for his people. The water into wine speaks of his sufficiency for all the little details of life. Healing the official son speaks of Christ is sufficient to provide for our loved ones.

44:12Beyond, the healing of the sick man in chapter 5 is that he is sufficient to help our helplessness. The feeding of the 5,000, that he is sufficient for physical and spiritual sustenance. The walking on the water in chapter 6, he is sufficient to take care of the environment in which man has to live. The healing of the blind man at Siloam is sufficient to give physical and spiritual insight. The raising of Lazarus in chapter 11, he is sufficient to raise our decaying bodies from the dead and fit us for permanent habitation in a new body. And then Jesus' resurrection in chapter 20 speaks of his ability to reign forever.

45:00What does all this mean? Well, for starters, we should come to him because he is the only one who has the credentials to truly be a Messiah that can take care of his people. But there is more. It's always that question: why? Why would anyone want to do all of this for humanity? Sometimes I read the news and even the local news, and I get upset with some of the horrible things that people will do to each other.

45:30And yet, here is this one who's willing to do all this for humanity. Ask why. What's in it for him? Why does he do this? What is John wanting to communicate to us? When you take all of these miracles collectively, what do all of these signs point to? What's the supreme reality behind it all? And it's so simple, we miss it so much. The answer is: God loves people. God loves you. That's the message of John. God loves you.

46:14And this, the supreme reality is that this all-sufficient person is given to you as a gift of love from your Heavenly Father because you love him. That and because he loves you. John 3:16 says it, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. Do you believe that such a Messiah exists? Do you believe that Jesus is that Messiah? Well, you have two extreme options, don't you? One, you can disbelieve and dishonor him and call him a liar. You've got that option. And the other option is to believe.

47:12To believe something so wonderful that is beyond comprehension. And that's really the only place, the only options we have. Disbelieve and dishonor, or believe and honor, and live in light of a reality that's so great and beyond human comprehension. I pray that you will believe. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, again we come to you confessing our helplessness, even if the truth is set before us. We confess our helplessness to even reach out, perceive, and grasp. And so we ask you today to Be to open our eyes, open our hearts, draw us to you. Father, help us, help our unbelief. But, Father, indeed, as we are honest before the pages of Scripture, we see that this is who Christ is. This is who your word reveals him to be, and this is your loving gift to us.

48:24It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.