I hope so. I love reading. If I could find a job with pay me just to sit and read books that would be a good job. If you're not a reader, I probably can't convince you to be one, but books change your life. When I read a book, a nonfiction book, I should say, when I read a book, whether it's academic or theological or if it's nonfiction, I look for a sentence or two somewhere in the preface, somewhere in the introduction. It tells me, this is what this book is about. This is why this book is being written. I do a fair amount of writing for publication. I have done, I still do a little mostly for a company called a Livingstone Company. Livingstone Corporation. If you're seeing the life application Bible materials, that's theirs and I've been privileged to be a part of a number of those. Written one book and contributed to dozens and dozens of others for them. When they ask me to write on a project, they will say for you, they will say, here's what the project is. Here's what it's for. Here's what we're asking you to do. Here's how many words. They tell me the word limit and preachers. I think they feel like they have to tell us to stop. Then the most important piece of information of all, here's what will pay you. Then I decide, okay, maybe I can do that. This is incidental, but I'm going to give a quick commercial. The most recent thing that they've come out with that I've got a report of is called the Teen Apologetics Bible. This is marvelous. Absolutely marvelous for anybody as a teenager or maybe not a teenager in terms of helping you know the Bible and defend your faith. This is my personal copy. You can't have it, but you can look at it after the service if you want. When I read a book or if I'm writing for something, I want to know what are we trying, what is the author trying to accomplish? What is the big idea for which this book is being written? Let me give you a couple of examples. Robert Weber's book, Ancient Future Faith, highly recommended to you. The late great Dr. Weber was at the time of his death probably the most knowledgeable man in the English-speaking world about worship across the board. Ancient Future Faith, the fundamental concern of this book is to find points of contact between classical Christianity and postmodern thought. He did. The book called Imagine a Vision for Christians in the Arts recommended to me by Dottie Green. I don't see Dottie, but when Dottie Green recommends something to me about the arts, I take it very seriously. Great book, Steve Turner writes, the aim of this book abbreviated a little bit is that Christians who are artists will feel valued, encouraged, inspired, and emboldened. And he accomplishes his objective. Another book I'd recommend to you, The Soul of Science, Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy, to describe highlights in the growth of science, both before and after the scientific revolution took place. If you're kind of a scientific ignoramus like me, this is a great book for us. Can you handle one more? This is a book called The God Gene, G-E-N-E, The God Gene, as in genetics by Dean Hamer. He set out to try to find out basically is our belief in God hardwired into our brains. Here's his purpose statement. I propose that spirituality has a biological mechanism akin to bird song, albeit a far more complex and nuanced one, that we have a genetic predisposition for spiritual belief that is expressed in response to and shaped by personal experience in the cultural environment. Shorthand, is God all in our heads? Is God simply in your head? He takes 215 pages, and you want to know does he make his argument? Does he make his case? I have to say, in all honesty, not even close. You don't even come close. Took him 215 pages to miss the target. I said one more. Here's the last one. John chapter 20 verses 30 and 31. This is a John's purpose statement for the gospel. Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of His disciples which are not recorded in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, as we come to this point in the service where we look into your word, your written word, I ask again that you would annoy me now to preach your word to your people and those who are not yet your people. For your honor and your glory, for the building up of the body of Christ, for those who know you, and for those who don't know you yet, who might be here this morning or listening to this on the Internet, that you would show forth the all sufficiency of Christ in His name, I pray. Amen. This will be the final sermon in the gospel of John. You know, I started this series in John February of 2008. Yeah, I know time flies. Now I've taken breaks here and there to address this topic or that. We've done a couple short series a few times I've been out and had pinch hitters, but this is, believe it or not, the 84th sermon I will have preached to the gospel of John, number 84. You say, well, that's a lot. 21 chapters. You math majors can figure out. That's about four per chapter. I'll tell you this. The preacher in me wishes I would have preached twice as many. I had to cover so many things so fast, but I know that congregations have an attention span to. And so I'm wrapping up the study of the book of John this morning, 84 sermons. And now we look because a couple of weeks ago when I went to this passage, I didn't really cover these verses at all. Look at John's purpose statement. Why did John write this gospel? And why did he write what he did? Why did he include some things in his gospel? And none of the other gospel writers included. And why did he even have some things in his gospel? All the other gospel writers, Matthew, Mark and Luke included. This is not a biography. Gospel is not a biography. A gospel is a totally separate genre of literature. They had to invent the term gospel, which means good news. I had to invent that for these writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. John doesn't know anything about Jesus' birth or his childhood. John picks up his story of Jesus in the three-year public ministry. He spends about half of his gospel, about half of it, talking about the last 10 days to two weeks of Jesus' earthly ministry. From chapter 13 on, it's nothing but the final night, and then the day of the crucifixion and the resurrection, and then the final breakfast by the shore of Galilee. There are things that John doesn't write about. And I asked the question, why? He was part of that inner three. Peter James and John saw and experienced some things that the other gospel writers didn't. Luke tells us about John being there when Jesus raised from the dead, Jairus's daughter. John didn't talk about that. John was one of the three up on that high mountain at the transfiguration when Jesus shown as bright as the sun. John does not write about that. John doesn't talk about being one of the inner three there in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter James and John. I asked him why? Why did John not include those things in his gospel? Two reasons I think the first is just humility. John's just humble. He doesn't include himself in that. Let me tell you this. This has been me. If I were John, I would have worked that stuff into every chapter, every corner, every conversation, every apostles gathering, every church conference. I remember that time up there in the mountain. Peter James, Jesus, me. I would have talked about it all the time. John doesn't do that. And humility, John knows it's not about him. It's not about him. Like John the Baptist, his namesake, John the gospel writer knew what John the Baptist said back in chapter 3 in verse 30. He must increase. I must decrease. John got it. When I talk about humility, I always think of a story that Teddy Roosevelt's daughter, Alice, told about him. President Roosevelt, her dad, she said was the most egotistical man she ever known. He said if he went to a christening, he wanted to be the baby. If he went to a wedding, he wanted to be the bride. If he went to a funeral, he wanted to be the corpse. He always wanted to be the center of attention. But she said that late at night in the White House, he walked out back to the Rose Garden. He'd stare up at the stars for a while. And then he would say to whoever was there attending him. He'd say, I feel sufficiently small now. I think I can go to sleep. Humility, restrains John, in terms of what he would write. John Flaville, 17th century pastor, Puritan, also president. That's a three point sermon right there. Isn't it a pastor of Puritan and a president here? I go make a note here to work that one and do that. John Flaville wrote this, they that know God will be humble. They know themselves cannot be proud. And John knew both his God and himself. So humility restrains him in terms of what he would write. But also his focus. John's focus. He includes the things that he does because he wants people to believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. John organized his gospel basically around seven miracles or what he would call a testing signs. Remember these? Jesus turned the water into wine at the wedding in Cano Galilee. When he heals a man paralyzed for 38 years by the pool there in Thessada, feeding on the 5,000, walking on the water, healing of a man born blind, raising Lazarus from the tomb. And then that miraculous catch of fish who looked at the last couple weeks. And then he tells us there were so many other miracles, so many other authenticating signs that if they were written down the world themselves could not contain all the books. John writes the things that he writes. These things are written he says so that you would believe. That's why he includes what he includes is why he doesn't include what he doesn't include. Matthew writes his gospel to present Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. Mark writes his gospel answer the question who is Jesus? Luke writes his gospel, let me just quote him. To provide an orderly account so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. But John writes that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in his name. His purpose is evangelism. Does this mean that there's really nothing in John's gospel for those of us who are already Christians? He's writing to evangelize. Is it all for non-Christians? Nothing for hardly. Think of the things and this is basically just review of John's gospel. Think of the things we have seen and learned in John's gospel that we would get nowhere else. Nothing else with those first 18 verses, what we call the prologue. One Greek sentence. In Arche and Halagas, Cai Halagas and Prostanteon, Cai Halagas and Feon. I'm not speaking in tongues. That's John one, one in Greek. We translated it in the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God. You understand that one sentence? Set off theological and philosophical shockwaves throughout the ancient world and it emanates out to this very day. The word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld this glory, glories of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. The law we got through Moses, grace and truth that come through us to Jesus the Christ. John's gospel gives us that. John's gospel gives us, you must be born again. How impoverished would our theology and our evangelism be? Had John not told us about the encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus. Nicodemus, you're a Pharisee, you're a teacher of the people and don't you know? You gotta be born again, Nicodemus. How that has changed the world forward. Think of all the I AMS. I AM the bread of life. I AM the living water. I AM the vine. You are the branches. I'm the gateway into the sheepfold. I AM the good shepherd and I know my sheep. Before Abraham was, I AM. John's gospel gives us those. I AM the Father are one. They picked up stones to stone him for blasphemy, claiming to be God. We get the doctrine of the Holy Spirit more fully developed in John's gospel than in the others. And then John 17, the great high priestly prayer, spent seven weeks just X and G and G's and high priestly prayer. There's great content for the Christian here. And there's this urgent appeal for the non-Christian. Do you get that brothers and sisters, great content for the Christian, great appeal for the non-Christian. That's a great model for us right here, right now Sunday mornings. Plus this, what is more edifying for a Christian than to hear the stories of how other people came to faith in Christ? I still get such a thrill every year when I go to the youth for Christ banquet. And hear the stories of those young people, how God found them where they were and what they were and called them to Himself. And I'm reminded of how God saved sinners, the most unlikely, including me, and just a thrill to me. And I'm built up and I've encouraged, past week, I met a man along with a few others in the church. I met a man by the name of James Abraham. James Abraham is easily one of the top five most evangelistically minded people I have ever met. That man lives and breathes evangelism. He gets up in the morning saying, okay, God, who can I lead to Christ today? He is so focused. Now I want to tell you, I don't agree with everything James believes. And I don't agree with all of his methods. He doesn't care. But I'm still on you. I don't agree with everything he says. I don't agree with everything he does. Now he goes about it. But I really admire his focus and his passion for the lost. We're going to talk more about how we can be better advanced. The Presbyterians are great about some things. The evangelism is not on that list, folks. So I keep urging us to pray and invite and to share your story of how you came to know Christ with somebody else. We're going to be meeting to talk more about that. If you're interested in knowing how you can lead people to Christ, see Bob is asked to go out to the service today. We'll have a follow-up meeting and we'll talk more about how we can absorb a little bit of that passion and that focus. John writes for the edification of Christian, but he writes primarily for the conversion of non-Christians. I want to give you one other thing. I've talked about this before, but this is so crucial that you get this. What is worship for? Well, there's a debate in the church. A lot of people say, well, where should this for Christians? This is where we come to be instructed and to be built up and to be edified. That's okay. That's a good thing to do. Other people, including a number of other churches that are just growing by looking at the scene, bursting at the seams. They said, no, worship Sunday morning for evangelism. That's your best shot at getting non-Christians to come here and hear the gospel. Sunday morning for evangelism. That's okay too. I'm going to say, it's non-original thought with me. I'm going to say they're both wrong. worship is not for the Christian. It's not for the non-Christian. So who's worship for them? worship is for God. This is for God Almighty. Our number one goal in worship on Sunday morning, group worship, is to bring glory to God Almighty. So nothing for us? Oh no. On Sunday mornings, or whenever we gather for worship, we gather to bring glory to the God who by His grace saves the non-Christian and by His grace builds up the Christian. And if we'll remember to get our priorities straight, to glorify God who saves the non-Christian and identifies the Christian, there's something there for everybody. Everybody can come and be benefited by that. And God is pleased. And that is what corporate worship is for ladies and gentlemen. You're not the audience here. You're not an audience. You're not my audience. You're the congregation. You might fellow participants in worship. My audience sits in heaven. And the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, looks at each of us. This is my part of the service to offer up to Him this message for His glory and for your edification, for an appeal to non-Christians. But we worship God together as participants in worship. And we leave this place. It's not that I like the sermon. Of course you did. It's not how I like the music. Of course it was great. When you leave this place, the question is, do we give God all we got? Do we leave it all in sanctuary? Do we worship in the Spirit in truth? That's the question. So why are you having most preacher for lunch today? Just remember, I'm not the issue. We are. Do we glorify God? I got three things I want to say. I'm going to say I'm so quickly here. I'm a Presbyterian and I've got to be three. Here we go. John says, Jesus is the Christ. Hebrew, Messiah. So we get the word Messiah. Greek, Christos. So we get the word Christ. It's an anointed one. Christ was not Jesus's last name. If he had owned a home and he didn't, he went by and in your chariot or your donkey, it wouldn't have said Christ on his mailbox. He would have been known as Jesus, Bar Joseph. Jesus Son of Joseph. Christ was his title. Christ is his title. Matthew 16, Jesus in the disciples, accessory of Philippi. Boys, who do you say that I am? Well, some say you're Elijah, some say you're John the Baptist. But who do you say I am? And Peter said, you're the Christ, you're the Son of the living God. That's who you are, Jesus. You're the anointed one as it was then with the 12 accessory of Philippi. So it is today with us here now Miami with everybody else who hear this defining issue is who do you say he is? Who do you say he is? Believe in God. Fine. Believe in Jesus. You divide the house. You divide the house. You Christians think your way is the only way. It's not my way. There's nothing to do with me. When Jesus says John 146, I am the way the truth in the life. And nobody comes to the father but by me. It's Jesus saying, and not me. See the true words false. And we're saying it's true. I go back to President Bush's first inaugural address. He had a pastor in the African American man in Kirby John Colwell from Houston, give the invocation. And when Kirby John Colwell concluded his invocation, he said, I make my prayer in the name that is above all other names, even Jesus the Christ. Amen. And boy to the controversy swirl around that one. Who do we say he is? Let me just say this. If you're visiting here today, I'm so glad you're here. If you're listening to this on the internet and you attend any church that does not say he's the Christ, the living God, the Son of the living God. And he is the way the truth in the life. And no man comes to the father but by him. If you attend a church that says anything else, run. Don't walk. Get out of that church and get to one that believes the Bible believes that Jesus is the way because that's who he says he is. He's either right or wrong. I'm getting some amen. I'm liking this. You know you're encouraging me. You know that. Get those handkerchiefs out and say, go on, preach it, go on. Help him. No helping lords. We stand. Listen, whatever the church you go to, I don't care if it's a million dollar cathedral with plexiglass pulpit and gold plated stuff everywhere. When you stand before God, he's not going to ask you about your church membership. He's not going to ask you about your church's fixtures or how big it was or whether they had a television ministry. Question is who do you say he is? And if you don't say anything other than, he's my Lord and Savior Jesus who laid down his life as an Italian sacrifice for my sense. Wrong answers. Wrong answers. Son of God. John says, he's the Christ, he's the Son of God. So the Jews were looking for their Messiah to be a great man, a great leader. The man who had come as the returning concrete king, get rid of the detested Romans and get them out of Jerusalem, out of Israel and lead Israel back to its former glory. They were looking for their Messiah to be a great man and a deliverer. But some of God, God incarnate, they weren't looking for that. That's why when Jesus came making those claims, they always make them a bad and they were off their game. They weren't ready for that. God incarnate, God in the flesh, the word becoming flesh. I'll give you one word for it. Mystery. Mystery. Council at Chalson on 451 AD gave us the classic formulation for who Jesus is. He is one person with two natures, human and divine, without mixture, confusion, separation or division. You understand that? Please come explain it to me because I don't, but I believe it. I believe it. The human and divine, if you want a big word for it, the fianthropic nature of who Jesus is, human and divine together. Mr. Confession, chapter 8 says this about him, so that two whole perfect and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood were inseparably joined together in one person without conversion, composition or confusion. I just go back to calling him a mystery. Andrew asked me about this one day, he was reading something in the Bible and he was like, how did that work? He could be human, divine, one at the same time. I said, well, son, that's a very deep theological conundrum. It has to do with his conosis and the hypostatic, he is very hard to express to people who are not theologically astute, like I am. And Andrew said, you don't really know, do you? Kids, and I said, not a clue, son, not a clue. I don't have a clue how it worked. It's a mystery, but I believe it to be true. Bruce Shelley in his book, Christian Theology and Plain Language, says this, among the Jews, there's so many turns up a man who goes about talking as if he is God. Now let's get this clear, among the pantheists or the Easterners, like the Indians, anyone might say he was part of God or one with God. There would be nothing very odd about that. But this man, since he was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God, God in their language, the being outside the world who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else. And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human beings. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. I'm sure what John meant to say was that by believing in his name, that you may be a good person, and not be bad, that you may avoid certain sins and embrace doing certain good things. I'm sure what he meant to say was that he may be a five-point Calvinist and go to a Presbyterian church. I'm sure what he meant to say was, these things are written so you may tithe. No, he meant on that one. No, what he said was, they're written. I believe in all those things, believe me. They're written so that you may believe that he is the Christ, the Son of God, that by believing you may have life in his name. Let me share my heart with you. I mean, I tried to every Sunday, but let me really let you in for a second here. There's a classic model or paradigm in preaching, homiletics, the study of preaching. You have to get good vocabulary this morning. I hope you're writing down these words to impress your friends and neighbors tomorrow. Preaching words taught every sermon ought to have certain parts of explanation, certain parts of illustration, certain parts of application. And I believe that all my heart, who am I to question that? And yet I want to say that in a lot of evangelical preaching and especially in reformed camp folks, talk about us. I think we're missing something. I think that's first, second, and third base. I think what we're missing to bring at home is simply motivation. But you're not just supposed to leave here knowing more, but you're supposed to be here wanting to be more like Jesus. Okay, that's great. I understand it. Okay, you've illustrated for me. Okay, I know how I can apply it. But do I want to? Am I... My ammunition is simply this. When you leave this place, you just ought to be different from having encountered the living God and the risen Christ. The abiding and indwelling Holy Spirit. When we leave this place, having been in the presence of God Almighty and having been together with his family, with his children, with our brothers and sisters in Christ, we ought to be different and not just have our left brains fed and activated, but our whole mind and our hearts and our wills and our hands and our feet, activated to want to be more like Jesus, not just no more about Him. When I pronounce for you all the benediction every Sunday, the last thing I say to you is, live the life. It's not just a cute phrase I found that I liked and thought it sounded good. I'm saying to you and I'm saying to me, let's take what we've gotten here this morning and take it out there and be different between now and next Sunday. We'll come back in here on Sunday. We'll share together our successes and we'll weep together over our failures and we'll encourage one another in Christ's name and we'll do it again. We're offered all up to the Lord and He'll meet us in this place and we'll be different people, right? We'll be in here together. Jonathan Edwards has been a great mentor to me 250 years or so after his death. He says this, I go out to preach with two propositions in mind. First, every person ought to give his life to Christ. Second, whether or not anybody else does, I will give my life to Christ. Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters and my friends, new acquaintances here this morning. I'm here this morning for this simple reason that is a teenager. I met Jesus and He changed my life. My heart, my soul, my mind, my will. That's the only reason I'm here today. I'm not even better than you. I'm not even smarter than you. I'm not even better. Well, I'm better looking at some of you, but that doesn't mean a lot. I'm not here because I'm anything more or less than interested. I'm here because Jesus has changed my life. And I would leave you with the question this morning, have you encountered the risen Christ? Has He changed your heart, your mind, your will, your soul, the way He has mind? Have you received the payment Christ made on the cross for you? Have you received that payment into your heart? So when you stand before God, you will say, as I will, not that I'm a preacher, that's not impressed. Not that I'm a Presbyterian or a member of a church, but I've done some good things. I've gone to seminary a couple of times. Not even that I've been a faithful and loving husband to my wife. You know, devoted father to my children, tried to be a good son to my mother and my father. All those things are great. God's not going to be interested in any of those things when I stand before Him. He's going to ask me, do you know Jesus is your golden Savior? And then I would ask you this morning as I conclude, do you know Jesus is your golden Savior? Have you received the payment He made on the cross for your sins? If so, you and I are brothers and sisters in Christ and will be together forever in heaven with Him. And if not, the admonition of the warning of John the Baptist rings clear for us this morning. Whoever believes in the sun has eternal life. Whoever rejects us and will not see life for God's wrath remains on Him. Folks, everybody lives forever. The only question is location. You will live forever with God or without Him. About once a year and I dust off and I repeat one of the most well-known quotes of C.S. Lewis from Dear Christianity. C.S. Lewis says this, when I'm trying to prevent here, with someone saying the really foolish thing people sometimes say about Him, I'm ready to accept Him as a great moral teacher but not as the Son of God. This is the one thing we must not say. A man who claimed to be God but wasn't. He's either a lunatic on the level of a man who says he has a poached egg or else a liar or something far worse. He can shut him up as a fool. You can hiss at Him as a demon. You can murder Him on a cross or you can fall at His feet and call Him Savior and Lord. But let us not come to Him with any patronizing nonsense about Him being a great moral teacher. He has not left that option open to us. He did not intend to. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, I have with all the earnestness I possess presented to my friends, my brothers and my sisters, to those who are here this morning or listening to this sermon on the Internet. As plain as I can, their need to receive Christ's Lord. My prayer this morning is that if there is a person hearing this message, a man, a woman or a young person who has never yielded his heart and his mind as will to Christ's Lord that this would be the day, he would let that saving message come home. That he or she would receive Christ and the payment made for him on the cross. This will be the day they will allow him to become a son of a libanard and enter into eternal life in his name. And I pray in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you for being here this morning. Thank you for hearing this message. As you leave today, I have copies of an article by the name of Dr. James Voices called how to become a Christian. I'd love to give a copy this to you. If you'd like to talk more about what I said this one with me or one of the other elders, let us know what we're here for. We'll be glad to sit and talk with you. Right now I'd ask you to receive the Lord's benediction. Go now in the love of God the Father, the grace and mercy of God the Son, the fellowship and companionship of God, the Holy Spirit, and live the life, amen.