G'day.

Welcome back to stories of a faithful God.

I'm Dave Whittingham, your host.

I hope you've enjoyed the couple of bonus

episodes that we've had recently.

Just a quick correction from my discussion

with Andy.

I said there that I thought maybe a quarter of

the world's population were in the roman empire around Jesus time.

It was actually more like a fifth of the world's population, but that's still a lot of

people.

Today we're launching into a brand new series,

hearing about the life of Jesus from John's gospel.

Before we get into that, let me ask you a question.

How do you know God? How do you find out about him?

How do you discover what he's like? Lots of people claim to know God or a God or

lots of gods.

They have all sorts of different ideas.

Some see God as a distant power or force, not really personal, just kind of out there.

Some people think there are lots of gods.

Sometimes they're a force for good and

sometimes they're a force for evil.

Some people say that all religions tell us

something about God, and you've got to try and sort of stitch the information together.

Some people, of course, say there's no goddess.

With so many different ideas out there, is it really possible to know God?

The apostle John, living in the first century in various parts of the roman empire, has a

very strong answer.

He says, yes, you definitely can know God.

You can know him really well.

You can know him truly and personally.

John's not really the sort of guy to creep up on an idea.

Right from his first paragraph, he's telling you what he thinks, and then he tells you all

the way through his gospel, and then he tells you at the very end as well.

Very simply, he's saying, you know God through the man Jesus.

Now, he doesn't want you to take that at face value.

He's not like Muhammad who went into a cave, came out and said, God spoke to me.

You have to believe me or else.

No. John's like an expert lawyer making a case

in court.

He has witnesses, he has evidence.

He isn't just trying to tell you.

He's trying to convince you.

If you're already a follower of Jesus, John wants to convince you to stick with him.

If you aren't yet a follower of Jesus, he wants to convince you that Jesus is worth it.

And he's doing that because he's convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is the

only way to know God.

He's the only way to know the love of God.

He's the only way to have the true life that only God can give.

As we go, there are some things John's going to tell us that are really simple.

A five year old could understand what he's saying.

There are other things where he's not going to spell it all out for us.

He wants us to think carefully about what Jesus says.

He invites us to follow and trust Jesus, knowing that even if we don't have all the

answers yet, Jesus does, and he's faithful.

So follow along and listen.

And so let's hear what Jesus has to say.

Let's hear the evidence that John offers us.

As I present to you our next episode of stories of a faithful goddess.

Where do you start a great story? The simplest place to start is in the

beginning.

That's certainly where the Bible as a whole

starts, in Genesis, chapter one, verse one.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and

the earth.

As you read on, you discover how God created

the world.

He did it with words.

He spoke words, and the universe was obedient to his word.

John starts his gospel in the beginning in exactly the same place as Genesis.

That's pretty strange for a biography.

I've read lots of biographies, and they often

start by giving you some information about what happened before their subject was born,

what the world was like, what forces were at play.

But I've never read a biography of anyone else where it starts by going back to the creation

of the world.

That's exactly what John does, though.

In chapter one, verse one, he says, in the beginning.

In the beginning was the word.

Strange way to start.

Presumably he's talking about the word that God spoke to create the world.

Except then he starts to talk about the word as though it's a person.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God.

How strange.

But surely he's just chosen to speak in a kind

of poetic way.

Surely no one was actually with God before

he'd created everything.

He must be saying that God's words were with

him, just like my words are with me and your words are with you.

Except then he says something even in the beginning was the word, and the word was with

God, and the word was God.

How can this word be with God and actually be

God? I'm not with myself.

I'm just here.

But just so we don't miss the point, John

tells us again in verse two, he was with God in the beginning.

Okay, so this word is someone, someone who's both with God and is God at the same time.

Then John tells us that this word, this person, is how God created the world.

In verse three, he says all things were created through him.

And apart from him, not one thing was created that has been created.

Hmm.

Everything through him.

Nothing without him.

So beautiful.

Sunsets.

Lemons.

Clouds.

Rainforests.

Tree frogs.

Dust.

Nuclear reactions that power the stars.

Gravity.

Black holes.

Trees.

Koalas.

Antelope.

Eyelashes.

Dogs.

Sand.

Mussels.

Whales.

DNA.

Sunfish.

Dinosaurs.

Pigs.

Wind.

Rain.

Snow.

Warmth.

Heat.

Fire.

Ice.

Day and night.

The land and the oceans.

The vast reaches of outer space and the tiny microbes that live in your gut.

It was all made through this word.

Who was with God and who is God?

All this teeming, vibrant life was given by God through this word.

John says in verse four.

In him was life and that life was the light of

men.

Have you ever been afraid in the dark where

the sounds are amplified, the unknown and the unseen grow in your imagination, the power of

whatever's out there feels Overwhelming.

And then the light comes on and the darkness

loses its power.

The truth of what's really out there is

revealed reality, not your imagination, comes into sharp focus.

John's saying this word, this person who is with God and is God, who's our life, he's the

light in a dark world.

A powerful light, not a candle that flickers

and goes out.

Verse five says that light shines in the

darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.

He's like the powerful lighthouse that withstands the waves and the storms and the

darkness of a moonless night and guides you home to safety.

This is John's remarkable introduction to Jesus.

He doesn't want us to miss the point to think that we're just dealing with your average

everyday human.

This Jesus is God and was with God in the

beginning.

Everything was made through him.

All life comes from him and in him we can know the truth.

Those are some pretty big claims.

And so the apostle John introduces us to his

first witness, another John, John the Baptist.

He wants to state right up front that this

John comes from some pretty hefty authority.

He's been sent from God.

God sent him specifically as a witness to give testimony about this person, this word, this

light.

So the apostle tells us in verse six there was

a man sent from God whose name was John.

He came as a witness to testify about the

light so that all might believe through him.

He was not the light, but he came to testify

about the light.

The true light that gives light to everyone

was coming into the world.

So first we'll see John the Baptist, then

we'll see this light.

Now, if these claims about Jesus are

unexpected, then so is how people react to him.

If Jesus really was with God in the beginning, if he really is God, then surely people would

be pretty excited about him coming into the world.

I mean, how many people have said, if only God would appear right here in front of me, then

I'd believe him? The apostle John says that actually, that

isn't how things played out in verse ten, he says he was in the world and the world was

created through him, and yet the world did not recognize him.

Isn't that devastating? Our creator arrives on our doorstep and people

say, who is this guy? And then John says in verse eleven, he came to

his own, and his own people did not receive him.

By that he means that Jesus came to the Jews, the Israelites, the race that God had created

from the offspring of Abraham, the people who God had revealed himself to at the exodus, the

nation who'd been given God's law and God's grace and God's temple and God's word.

Now this God shows up and they say, yeah, there's no room for you here.

So many people rejected this light.

But John says some didn't.

Some received him.

Accepted him, welcomed him.

And to those who did, regardless of whether they were jewish or not, Jesus gave them

something astounding, a privilege and honour that we could never get ourselves.

In verse twelve, we're told, but to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be

children of God.

To those who believe in his name, who were

born not of natural descent or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

Isn't adoption a remarkable thing? I have four children, and my children were

born into rights and privileges with me that no one else on the whole planet has.

There are things that I reserve exclusively for them.

But if I were to adopt someone, I'd be saying all those rights and privileges now belong to

you as well.

You've been brought inside the family.

You're on equal footing with the other children.

It isn't something you can buy or work for.

No one has a right to it.

Adoption is something that's given, and Jesus gives that to everyone who welcomes him.

Not adoption into any regular family.

Not even adoption into a rich and powerful

family.

No. He gives adoption into God's family.

How does John know all this? Well, he tells us in verse 14, he says, the

word became flesh and dwelt among us.

We observed his glory.

In other words, the apostle John is a witness himself.

He saw Jesus in the flesh.

He saw God in the flesh.

He observed his glory with his own eyes.

He says, we observed his glory, the glory as

the one and only son from the father, full of grace and truth.

He's seen this.

This is a new category he's introducing here.

He's saying, jesus is the son of the father.

He is God, the father is God.

They're both the one God, but they're also father and son.

My sons are a bit like me, but Jesus is perfectly like his father, full of grace and

truth.

You can trust him.

How remarkable that God's only son would willingly invite others into the family as

fellow children of goddess.

John the Baptist backs up the testimony of

John the apostle.

In verse 15, he talks about how great Jesus

is.

He says, this was the one of whom I said, the

one coming after me ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.

If you haven't got the message yet, the apostle wants us to know that this is really,

really big.

It's really, really great.

It's really kind of God.

John talks about how kind God was in the Old

Testament by giving the law to the Israelites through Moses, a law that pointed to Jesus and

predicted Jesus.

He says, now, on top of that grace and amazing

kindness in the Old Testament, we get grace and truth from Jesus the Christ.

And then he finishes his opening by making the point we started with that.

The way you get to know God is through Jesus.

The reason is Jesus is God in the flesh, God

the Son who was with God in the beginning and is God at the same time.

He says in verse 18 that no one has ever seen God.

And if you know the second half of Exodus, you'll know that the closest anyone ever came

to seeing God was Moses.

But he was only able to see the tail end of

God's glory after God had already passed by.

In Jesus, though, we have something even

better than what Moses got.

John says, and I'm reading from the ESV just

for this verse.

He says, no one has ever seen God, the only

God who is at the father's side.

He has made him known.

So that's John's introduction to Jesus.

And for those of us who are really familiar

with it, it's worth reflecting on just how weird and radical it is.

Whether you think about it from a human perspective or a God perspective, these claims

are world changing.

The Old Testament is adamant that there is

only one goddess in deuteronomy, chapter six, verse four, it says, listen, Israel, the Lord

our God, the Lord is one.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart,

with all your soul and with all your strength.

In other words, you should have undivided love

because there is only one God.

You don't give some love to this God and some

to another.

There's only one.

So give him all your love.

John's not disagreeing with that.

He's saying there is only one God and yet our understanding of that one God needs to expand

somehow within that God.

There's God the father and he's fully God and

there's God the son and he's fully God.

They're not half a God each, they're both

fully the one God.

Later on in the gospel we'll hear about the

Holy Spirit who's also God.

This is so strange.

It's what we call the Trinity.

It's strange but it's amazing because if Jesus

isn't fully God, then he can't fully reveal God.

My children can reflect some aspects of me but they don't reflect me fully.

Jesus though, reflects his father fully because they're both the one God.

From a human perspective, this is also really strange.

The Old Testament is really clear that although humans have been given a special

position in creation, made in the image of God ruling under God, nevertheless we are still

creation, where lumps of clay that the creator has chosen to give life to the first sin of

Adam and Eve and every sin since was to try and become God to take his place.

Now John's saying me and some other people got to see this human Jesus and we've come to

believe that he is God.

This isn't a claim that Jesus is a good

teacher or guru or gentle doctor.

This is either the worst of lies and deception

or it's true.

John doesn't shy away from this, he doesn't

whisper it in an embarrassed sort of way, he's shouting it from the rooftops because by

believing it, by believing and trusting in Jesus we can know God, we can have true life

from goddess, we can be adopted into the family of God.

In the rest of the gospel John's going to take us on a journey.

He's going to show us the sorts of things that he saw.

He's going to show us the evidence and the testimony proving who Jesus is so that in

Jesus we can have life.

Having finished this spectacular introduction,

John kicks off his story with the testimony of his first witness, John the Baptist.

The apostle doesnt give us all the human background of the Baptist.

Its enough to know that hes been sent from God.

Hes obviously become famous enough though to attract the attention of the religious leaders

in Jerusalem, the apostle says that the Jews sent priests and Levites to ask who he is.

Now, before we go any further, I think we need to hit pause and deal with an issue that's

going to come up lots of times.

That is John's use of the term Jews.

In one sense, it seems pretty obvious what it means.

It means jewish people, descendants of Abraham, the children of Israel from the Old

Testament.

Except John actually uses it in a bunch of

different ways.

Sometimes it means the Jews as a whole.

Sometimes he's referring specifically to the jewish people who live in and around Jerusalem

in the roman province of Judea.

A very basic description of the geography is

that you have Judea in the south, around Jerusalem, in the north, around Lake Galilee.

You've got the region of Galilee where lots of Jews live as well.

In fact, it's where Jesus lives a lot of the time.

In between, you have Samaria.

The Samaritans are not Jews, or they're kind

of half Jews.

But there's a lot of anger between the Jews

and the Samaritans.

Sometimes John uses Jews to mean all jewish

people everywhere.

Sometimes he uses it to mean the jewish

leaders.

Later on in the gospel, though, more and more

it comes to mean the people who oppose Jesus and have him killed.

And that's where a lot of people today get a bit worried.

They think that John's anti semitic, he's a jew hater, and he's encouraging followers of

Jesus to hate the Jews as well, because they killed Jesus.

I think that's completely wrong.

I mean, almost all the goodies in the book,

for want of a better term, are jewish as well.

Jesus, John the Baptist, all the twelve

disciples, which includes John the apostle himself.

There's no way he's writing off all jewish people everywhere, because otherwise his call

for everyone to follow Jesus would make no sense.

Jesus is a jew instead.

We should think about it in the categories

he's already given us in his introduction.

Remember, he said back in verse ten, he said

he was in the world, and the world was created through him.

And yet the world did not recognize him.

He came to his own, and his own people did not

receive him.

But to all who did receive him, he gave them

the right to be children of God.

In other words, everyone in the world should

recognise Jesus as their creator.

But they didn't.

Even if they didn't, though, you'd assume that his own people, the Israelites, the Jews,

would accept him.

There are so many more reasons for them to

accept him.

But again they as a generalisation didnt

accept him either.

Does that mean no one accepted him?

No as well.

See people from both groups have accepted him.

They didnt do it based on their religious or ethnic grouping though they did it regardless

of that.

They follow Jesus in opposition to their group

of origin.

So there are jewish Christians and australian

Christians and american Christians and african and asian and european Christians, which is

really significant.

It says to us, don't get locked in to what our

culture says about Jesus.

Our culture rejects Jesus, but our commitment

to Jesus should be far more significant than our commitment to our culture.

Anyway, thats a long way of saying Johns not anti semitic.

So the Jews in Jerusalem send some priests and Levites to ask John who are you?

And John gives testimony or evidence.

First in verse 20 he says well im not the

messiah or Christ.

Messiah and Christ are the same word just in

different languages.

It means the anointed one, a person who's been

anointed for a particular role.

The Old Testament had promised that an

anointed king would come and save his people.

And John's being really clear.

He's saying that's not me.

So they ask him if he's Elijah, the great

prophet from the Old Testament who never actually died.

God had whisked him up to heaven in a chariot of fire.

And in the last book of the Old Testament in Malachi, it says that Elijah will come before

the great day of judgment.

And Johns like nope, im not that guy either.

So then they ask if hes the prophet back in Deuteronomy, chapter 18, verse 15, God had

promised that hed raise up a prophet like Moses to lead his people.

So maybe that prophets finally come.

But again John's like no, not me.

So finally, possibly getting a little frustrated, they ask in verse 22, who are you?

Then we need to give an answer to those who sent us.

What can you tell us about yourself? Now if John had said yes, he is one of those

people already mentioned, that would have been pretty earth shattering.

But who he does say he is is no less amazing.

To explain who he is, he quotes from Isaiah,

the prophet in the Old Testament.

In verse 23 he says, I am a voice of one

crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord.

Just as Isaiah the prophet said, why is that so amazing?

It's because of who he's getting people ready for.

He is getting people ready to meet the Lord Yahweh, God himself.

In Isaiah chapter 40, verse four we are told this about when God comes.

It says every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be levelled.

The uneven ground will become smooth, and the rough places are plain.

And the glory of the Lord will appear, and all humanity together will see it.

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Now remember what the apostle John told us in

the introduction.

In verse 14, he said, the word became flesh

and dwelt among us.

We observed his glory, the glory as the one

and only son from the father, full of grace and truth.

John the Baptist and the apostle John are both saying, you're about to see the glory of God.

The questioners, though, seem to miss the significance of what John's saying.

Some of them have been sent by the Pharisees, a particular group of religious leaders, and

they don't seem willing to budge from the categories they've already used.

They think because John doesn't fit these categories that we've asked about, he mustn't

have any proper authority.

In verse 25, they ask him, why then do you

baptize if you aren't the messiah or Elijah or the prophet?

Since they seem to have completely missed the point, John tries to rephrase it on their

terms.

They're worried about authority.

So John's like, okay, let's talk about authority, because what I'm doing is nothing

compared to the authority of the one who's coming.

In verse 26, he says, I baptize with water.

Someone stands among you, but you don't know

him.

He's the one coming after me, whose sandal

strap I'm not worthy to untie.

See what he's doing?

They keep asking about him, but he keeps trying to draw their attention away from him

and onto the one who's coming.

He's saying, I'm not the main story here,

guys.

You need to start looking for the one who's

coming next.

To wrap up this discussion, the apostle John

throws in a little geographical note.

In verse 28, he says all this happened in

Bethany, across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

And you might think, huh, well, that's interesting.

It doesn't mean anything to me, but nice to know.

But of course, John doesnt waste words.

Hes putting this here for a reason.

This is the start of the story and its happening in an area called Bethany, far away

from Jerusalem.

In chapter eleven of this gospel, Jesus is

going to do his final and most spectacular miracle at another town called Bethany, and

that one is really close to Jerusalem.

Everything that happens between the two

Bethanies is going to show us who Jesus is, but it's also going to result in the Jews

wanting to put Jesus to death, he came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

It's the next day.

John looks up and he sees Jesus coming towards

him.

And because he's faithfully doing the job that

God sent him to do, he's quick to point him out.

In verse 29, he says to the people around him, look, the lamb of God who takes away the sin

of the world.

Right from the beginning, we've been given a

clue about where this story is going to lead in the Old Testament.

In Isaiah, chapter 53, from verse seven, we read this about the man who's a lamb.

It says, he was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth.

Like a lamb led to the slaughter, and like a sheep silent before her shearers, he did not

open his mouth.

He was taken away because of oppression and

judgment, and who considered his fate, for he was cut off from the land of the living.

He was struck because of my people's rebellion.

That last line is the key.

The reason he'll be killed is because of other

people's rebellion.

Earlier, in Isaiah 53 five, it says, but he

was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities.

Punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds.

If sin is when humans try to steal God's position, it's quite remarkable that God the

Son would become a human to take the punishment for our sin and so bring us into

the family of goddesse.

The grace and mercy and kindness of him doing

that is astounding.

John the Baptist also says, this is the one

that I told you about.

After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me

because he existed before me.

I didn't know him, but I came baptizing with

water so that he might be revealed to Israel.

And John testified, I saw the spirit

descending from heaven like a dove, and he rested on him.

I didnt know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water told me, the one you see

the spirit descending and resting on, he is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

I have seen and testified that this is the son of God, and with that his job is done.

John the Baptist was considered a great man.

Crowds had flocked to him.

The jewish leaders were asking if he was the Christ.

But he's like, don't look at me.

I've just come to point to someone else.

And having done that, he can fade away into the background.

So the next day, John's walking along with a couple of his disciples.

And it's like they've kind of missed the point.

So he sees Jesus, and again he says to them in verse 36, look, the lamb of God.

This time the disciples get it.

They turn away from John and start following

Jesus.

And that is virtually the last we hear from

John the Baptist.

He's mentioned a few more times, but each time

it's highlighting how Jesus is the much more important one.

And so we read from verse 38.

When Jesus turned and noticed them following

him, he asked them to, what are you looking for?

They said to him, rabbi, which means, teacher, where are you staying?

Come and you'll see.

He replied.

So they went and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day.

It was about four in the afternoon.

What they were looking for was Jesus.

They don't know yet where that'll lead.

They don't know what sort of impact that's

going to have on their lives.

But they recognized that John had been sent

from God, and he said that Jesus was the great one to come, and so they just knew that they

had to be around him.

That kicks off a sort of chain reaction.

The news about Jesus starts to spread pretty quickly.

One of these two disciples is called Andrew, and he has a brother called Simon, soon to be

known as Simon Peter.

Before Andrew goes off to Jesus house, he runs

and finds Simon and tells him the good news.

In verse 41, he says, we have found the

messiah or Christ.

And he brings Simon to Jesus.

When they get there, Jesus shows a sort of miraculous insight into people.

Before they know him, he knows them.

And so the apostle John tells us in verse 42,

when Jesus saw him, he said, you are Simon, son of John.

You will be called Cephas, which is translated Peter.

Just two different languages there.

The next day, Jesus shows that same knowledge

of people again.

He's about to leave for Galilee, but before he

does, he finds a guy named Philip and tells him, follow me.

Jesus knows exactly who to get.

Philip's pretty excited.

And so, just like Andrew did with Simon, Philip runs off and finds his mate called

Nathaniel.

And this is where we get the first kind of

gear crunch.

For a moment, things seem to go wrong.

In verse 45, we're told Philip found Nathaniel and told him, we've found the one Moses wrote

about in the law, and so did the prophets.

Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.

Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Nathaniel asked him to.

Sometimes you get friendly rivalries between cities and sport teams and schools.

Sometimes, though, there's unfriendly rivalry.

There's that city or that team or that school

that everyone loves to hate.

And it feels like that's what Nathaniel's

saying about Nazareth.

But Philip pushes him and says, come and see.

And so Nathaniel goes with him.

When they get to Jesus, it feels like Jesus is

a lot more generous with Nathanael than Nathaniel had been to him.

Jesus says to him in verse 47, here truly is an israelite in whom there is no deceit.

That seems like a pretty nice compliment.

Nathaniel is not going to be wooed by nice

words, though.

He asks, how do you know me?

And Jesus replies, with miraculous knowledge about Nathaniels movements.

He says, before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.

Nathaniel's amazed.

He's astounded that Jesus somehow knows

something that there's no way he could know.

Suddenly all his skepticism falls away.

He accepts what Philip said about Jesus, that he really is the one that Moses and the

prophets wrote about, or in other words, that the Old Testament talks about.

He says to Jesus, rabbi, which means teacher, Rabbi, you are the son of God.

You are the king of Israel.

And Jesus is like, whoa, you think that's a

neat trick? That's nothing compared to what you're going

to see.

He tells Nathaniel in verse 51, truly, I tell

you, you'll see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of

man.

That sounds pretty great.

Now I've told that little interaction between Jesus and Nathaniel in quite a straightforward

way.

And John's telling us in quite a

straightforward way, he's recounting the events.

And at the time I think Nathaniel might have said that's pretty much all there is to it.

And yet all through John's gospel, John invites us to dig a little deeper.

He invites us to see that often more is going on than the people involved realise.

Not Jesus.

He knows exactly what's going on, but the

others around him, they don't get it until much later.

If we want to understand this interaction further, we need to recognize that if Jesus is

the one who the Old Testament is pointing to, then we should expect to see lots of clues in

the Old Testament helping us understand what Jesus is doing and saying.

So let's rewind and go back over this little interaction with our Old Testament.

Glasses on the okay.

Philip runs off and finds Nathanael and says,

we found the one Moses wrote about in the law and so did the prophets, Jesus, the son of

Joseph from Nazareth.

To which Nathaniel replies, can anything good

come out of Nazareth? As well as being a sort of dismissive comment,

it actually raises a very real concern.

The one who Moses and the prophets wrote about

the Christ or Messiah, he's meant to come from Bethlehem.

In Matthew's gospel, we read about how the Magi come looking for the one born king of the

Jews.

The priests go and check their Old Testament,

they come back and they say, well, he must be in Bethlehem.

So how can someone from Nazareth possibly be the Christ?

The simple answer, of course, is that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, just like the

scriptures said, but was then raised in Nazareth.

And you have to read Matthew's gospel to find out why.

John doesn't tell us that, though there's a couple of times where he seems to hint at it

with a kind of twinkle in his eye.

At the end of his gospel, he tells us that

other people have written about Jesus again, inviting us to dig deeper and go and check

them out so you can hear more of the story.

He's convinced, though, that even without that

knowledge, there's enough information to see that Jesus is the Christ.

For now, there's this question hanging about whether Jesus really does fulfil the Old

Testament.

Nathaniel rocks up and Jesus says those nice

words here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.

There's an Old Testament irony here because Jacob of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob fame, the

one whose name was changed to Israel and gave his name to the nation, he was full of deceit.

The one who the Israelites are named after was a trickster from birth.

And yet God was able to use him and change him and make him a new man with a new name.

But to have an Israelite in whom there's no deceit, that's pretty amazing.

What's Jesus saying? Is he saying that Nathaniel doesn't sin?

Actually, it's quite the opposite.

In Psalm 32, verse two, we're told how joyful

is a person whom the Lord does not charge with iniquity and in whose spirit is no deceit.

In context, the person who has no deceit isn't someone who doesn't sin.

It's someone who doesn't lie to themselves and others about their sin.

Someone whos honest enough to acknowledge their sin to God, recognise their evil and ask

for forgiveness.

The reason theyre joyful is that God forgives

them.

John himself later on writes a letter which we

call one John.

And in one John, chapter one, verse nine and

ten, he says, if we say we have no sin, were deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in

us, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to

cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And thats exactly what happens.

In Psalm 32, King David says that when he was silent and didnt acknowledge his sin, things

were awful.

But when he was honest and confessed his sin,

God forgave him.

So for Nathaniel, in whom there's no deceit,

it means he's honest with God and with himself.

He's willing and ready to confess his sin.

And so it's perfect for him to come to the

lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

He's coming to exactly the right person, even though he hasn't realized it yet.

Then Jesus makes his rather cryptic comment about seeing Nathanael under a fig tree.

And I don't doubt at all that Nathaniel was under a fig tree when Philip found him.

And yet being under a fig tree is full of rich symbolism.

In the Old Testament, when an Israelite is able to rest under his own fig tree, it's a

sign of blessing, a sign that they're at rest and peace in the land God's given them.

So often they weren't at rest not because God failed, but because they did.

Too often they preferred sin over trusting their faithful God.

And so their fig trees dried up and their vines rotted.

There was war and strife and suffering.

In the second last book of the Old Testament,

though, in Zechariah, God tells them about a coming time, a time when he'll send his

servant and on that day he'll forgive all their sins.

The people will truly be able to rest and enjoy the richness of God's blessing.

In Zechariah three, nine, God says, I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single

day.

In that day, declares the Lord of hosts, every

one of you will invite his neighbour to come under his vine and under his fig tree.

And so back in John we have Nathanael, a man in whom there's no deceit, who wants to be

forgiven for his sin.

And he's been under a fig tree like on the day

when sins are forgiven.

These are signs that the servants come.

The king has arrived.

Which then makes sense of what Nathaniel calls

Jesus.

He says, rabbi, you are the son of God.

You are the king of Israel.

Son of God is a title for the king of Israel,

the promised Christ who was coming, Jesus is that king, the one who'd come to forgive sin,

to give peace to his people, to be the true God appointed leader of his people.

Which is what Jesus refers to in his final cryptic words to Nathaniel in verse 50.

He says, do you believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree?

You will see greater things than this.

Then he said, truly I tell you, you will see

heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man.

A long time before this, Jacob, who was later named Israel, was sleeping and dreaming.

And in his dream he saw a ladder or staircase with angels going up and down to and from

heaven.

God appeared to Jacob and affirmed that he

would be with him, bless him and protect him.

Now Jesus is saying that he's the new Jacob,

the new Israel.

Nathaniel and the other disciples are going to

see signs that prove that God is really with him.

In fact, the first of those signs is just about to happen.

It's a day of celebration, a data party.

We're in Cana, a village in Galilee.

In fact, it's the village that Nathaniel comes from and there's a wedding going on.

Jesus mum is there and Jesus and his disciples have been invited as well.

During the wedding, disaster strikes.

The wine runs out.

In this culture, that's a source of deep shame and embarrassment.

For the moment it seems like only a very few people know the horrible secret.

But how long can that last? Jesus Mother comes to Jesus and tells him that

the wines run out.

She seems to be expecting him to find a

solution, not a miraculous one, though.

He hasn't actually done any miracles yet.

So why would anyone expect one? Jesus reply to her seems abrupt in English.

It feels almost rude.

In the original language it probably isnt

rude, but its not all hugs and kisses either.

Its like Jesus put some distance between

himself and Mary.

In chapter two, verse four we what has this

concern of yours to do with me, woman? Jesus asked.

My hour has not yet come.

This is the first mention of Jesus hour.

An hour is coming, a moment in time.

A time when Jesus will fully complete what

he's come to do, when his glory will be revealed, when his kingship will be seen.

But it's not that time yet.

Mary, his mother, presumably doesn't think

she's actually asking such a big request.

She just wants the wine issue dealt with.

Again, though, Jesus is saying more than people expect or understand.

It happens all the time in John's gospel.

And again Jesus is hinting back to the Old

Testament because it said that when the Christ comes, when he arrives to forgive sin and

bring peace and prosperity, as well as people resting under fig trees, one of the signs will

be an abundance of wine, a fruitful harvest.

Amos chapter nine, verse 13 says this.

Look.

The days are coming.

This is the Lord's declaration.

When the ploughman will overtake the reaper

and the one who treads grapes, the sower of seed, the mountains will drip with sweet wine

and all the hills will flow with it.

I will restore the fortunes of my people,

Israel.

They will rebuild and occupied ruined cities,

plant vineyards and drink their wine, make gardens and eat their produce.

I will plant them on their land and they will never again be uprooted from the land I've

given them.

The Lord your God has spoken.

It's a time of joy and restoration and peace, and Jesus is saying, it isn't quite time for

me to make that happen yet.

Mary's not really thinking about any of that.

She's just thinking about the problem at hand.

And she could be offended by Jesus response.

He hasn't responded as a dutiful son, but that's because as great as it was for Mary to

be his earthly mother, she has no authority over him.

She, like all the rest of humanity, needs to come to him.

In faith, Jesus is driven by the mission of his heavenly Father, not his earthly mother.

Thankfully, Mary doesn't give up as a good disciple.

She does have faith that Jesus can deal with the situation even if she doesn't know how.

She says to the servants, do whatever he tells you.

Now, John tells us that there are six stone water jars there which are for jewish

purification.

They'd be used to make things ceremonially

clean, and each one contains 20 to 30 gallons, or somewhere between 75 and 110 litres.

Thats room for a lot of water.

Its so sad that it would all be used for such

a useless task.

Theres no way that water can make a person

clean from sin.

To do that youd need someone who can forgive

sin and cleanse you from unrighteousness.

Anyway, Jesus tells the servants to fill the

jars with water, which they do right up to the brim, possibly as much as 700 litres of water.

Then in verse eight, Jesus says, now draw some out and take it to the head waiter.

And again they do it.

Who knows what they're thinking at this point.

I mean, I've been to plenty of parties and although you can always get a cup of water if

you want one, it's generally not what's on offer.

It isnt exactly considered a party drink.

They carry the cup across the room to the head

waiter.

They gingerly hand it over, waiting for the

outburst thats sure to come.

He raises it to his lips, he takes a sip, and

then, instead of breaking out into anger at this insult, his face breaks out into a smile.

This is how John describes it from verse nine.

When the head waiter tasted the water after it

had become wine, he did not know where it came from, though the servants who'd drawn the

water knew.

He called the groom and told him.

Everyone sets out the fine wine first, then after people are drunk, the inferior.

But you have kept the fine wine until now.

Jesus has turned water, useless water that was

going to be used for a useless task, into perhaps 700 litres or 180 gallons of the most

delicious wine they've had at the wedding.

Not because he wants to make them drunk.

The Bible speaks strongly in other places against drunkenness.

Rather, he's made more wine than it's possible for them to drink, especially when you think

that they always added water to wine before they drunk it.

So these 700 leaders would go much further than that.

Jesus has given a huge abundance blessing upon blessing, the sweetest of gifts, a taste of

heavenly blessing.

Although this isn't Jesus hour to display his

full glory, yet to bring in the great end time shower of joy and happiness, it's a hint of

what's coming.

In fact, it's enough of a hint for his

disciples to more firmly believe and trust him.

If they had any doubts before, if any of them were wavering, not now.

John tells us in verse eleven, Jesus did this, the first of his signs.

In Cana of Galilee.

He revealed his glory and his disciples

believed in him.

This is the first of his signs, but it won't

be the last.

John's going to tell us about seven signs in

the first half of the gospel and one big one in the second half.

The signs point to who Jesus is.

John wants us to know and believe and trust

who Jesus is.

Near the end of his gospel, he tells us why

he's writing in chapter 20, verses 30 and 31.

He says Jesus performed many other signs in

the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book, but these are written so

that you may believe that Jesus is the messiah, the son of God, and that by believing

you may have life in his name.

Do you believe there are more signs to come to

help you continue believing or to convince you to start believing?

But that's a story for next time.

Thanks everyone for your patience.

While I took a few weeks to get ready for this series and also work on a few other projects

which we'll talk about in the next few months, it's been really good to start to get into

John.

Each time I look at John's gospel, I see new

and wonderful things.

And so I'm looking forward to seeing what we

discover over the next few weeks.

I want to let people know that if you'd like

me to come to your church or your event to speak, whether that be preaching or speaking

to the kids or anything like that, then I would love to come.

Please get in contact through the website and we'll discuss more information about that.

Please let people know that we've got a new series going, John's Gospel.

We're getting into it now.

If they haven't heard about the podcast,

either this one or the stories of a faithful God for kids, then please let them know so

that they can be encouraged and strengthened.

Even if they're not a Christian yet, then they

can find out more about the God of the Bible.

Bye for now.

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