Answers Bible Curriculum: Lesson 4 - Jesus in the Gospels

Lord, we thank you so much for just being our God. Creating us and giving us life. And Lord, we thank you so much for sending us the Savior, this King, this servant, this redeemer. our Savior at times called the Son of God, the Son of Man.

So many titles that reveal to us who he is and what he has done. We ask that you would, give us a deeper knowledge this morning of who Christ is and also help us by your spirit to grow in our worship and the application of Christ to our lives. fill us this morning as we look at your word in Christ's name, we, we pray. Amen.

My wife and I had an anniversary April 8th, 23 years. And we haven't done this for a while, but we sat down and we watched our anniversary videos. We have 2 videos. And it was just really interesting to see how much we had forgotten, but also like the different perspectives you got from each one of the videos.

One of them was taken by one of our former elders who is now with the Lord, a guy named Bob Bell. Who remembers Bob Bell? A couple of you guys. He's about, he was about 6'8.

he used to be like in the police force and then went as a missionary to Haiti. And so when he's walking around with a video camera, it's like he's looking down over the heads of everybody. But then also he wasn't super technological, so there was many times during the video that morning where he just didn't know, he didn't turn off the camera. And so he's just walking around and he goes into the groomsmen room and you can hear me with the groomsmen talking, then he goes into the bride's room and so you get this interesting perspective of the camera being on when nobody thinks the camera's on.

And and then it was just amazing looking around seeing how many people that had passed away since our weddings, how many people are with the Lord. Mr. Cantrell was there, Esther Moore, Vernon Anderson, who played the organ, has gone to be with the Lord. so it was really interesting to see that perspective and then one of Katie's cousins took a video.

And we got a completely different angle and different perspective. And then if you were just to talk to Katie and now about that day and about our honeymoon and everything like that, you're gonna get a certain perspective from me. And then when you talk to Katie, it's like a totally different angle as far as the things that we emphasize. all of these things are true, but you're gonna hear different parts of the tale depending on what you watch and, and who you listen to.

And the same is true when we come to the To the gospels, the Lord in His providence and His wisdom has given us 4 different gospels as Dan was introducing last week, which are not biographies, right? They're not necessarily biographies, they are gospel is actually a genre of literature. So let's, let's just do a, just a short little review. Last week, Dan showed you guys this chart of what's common and what's different in each gospel, and you'll see down there in the Gospel of John has the most amount of unique material that doesn't show up in the other gospels, 8% overlaps.

And then Mark has the most amount of common material but the least amount of unique material. so that's, it's interesting. Arthur Pink, again, a quote from last week, just as a course in architecture enables the student to discern the subtle distinctions between the Ionic, Gothic, and Corinthian styles, distinctions which are lost upon the uninstructed. So the exquisite perfections of the four Gospels are unnoticed and unknown by those who see in them nothing more than four biographies of Christ.

It's really good, good quote. I don't know anything about Gothic or Corinthian or Ionic architecture. But neither did I know a ton about the uniqueness of the gospels when I was younger, but once you begin to study them and see what the purpose is, you'll see different flavors and sides come out of Christ. so again, a gospel is not a biography, it's actually a unique genre.

Where each writer is picking up a theological theme normally and then going after those particular scenes in Christ's life to develop that theological theme. Many of the gospels do follow a chronological order, but sometimes certain scenes are not put in chronological order but in order to develop that particular theme. And you'll notice that sometimes with, with a certain story where it doesn't give a time indicator, it'll just say, almost like if you guys were here last week for the sermon on 2 Samuel 21.

There's no time indicator on the front end of that narrative that tells us where we're supposed to play this in David's life.

It just says, in the days of David. And so you're meant to take this is, this is a story purposely put at the end of this book in order to develop something for a theological reason and the author doesn't even tell you where in the days of David, the whole issue of the Gibeonites occurred and you have that type of thing will happen with the with the gospels as, as well. How would you guys answer this que this question? What is the difference between a contradiction and a corroboration?

Alongside and Not O Totally. Totally, yeah. So, I don't know if Dan talked about this last week or if it was just in my email, but if we were to imagine some 4-car pileup right here on the 91 East around Blaine Street and a, a news article wrote about that, and then another article from another paper talked about how that it was on the 60, no, see, 91. How do we do this?

No, 215 South. One article says 215 South. The other one says 60 East, one says Blaine Street, the other one says near Third Street. They're in two different papers.

Those papers get buried and 2000 years later, people uncover these papers and are reading about this four-car pileup on either the 60 East or the 215 south, either near Blaine or near Third, which one's wrong and which one's right. They're both right because we know living right in this area that at least right here close to the church, the 60 East and the 215 South are the same freeway. And right there at the Blaine exit, it's called the Blaine slash Third exit because if you go right, you're going on 3rd.

If you go east, you're going on Blaine.

So we know that, and so many of the quote unquote contradictions that have been claimed in the Bible are exactly that. Is there nothing more than we moderns don't understand the, the topography or something about the language, and then the more and more we learn, the more and more we realize that there is a corroboration, not just in the Gospels, but in the Bible in general. so again, so different purposes and vantage points support the whole. So, let's go ahead and open up to Matthew.

What we're gonna do is we're gonna look at the four books. And so you guys have a handout where you can fill in some of this material as we move along. You've got like 4 different quadrants on one of the handouts that you grabbed, hopefully on the back that says Matthew, and then we're gonna look at some passages of Matthew and then we're gonna fill that in. At the end of each.

section, I'm gonna show you guys a little movie clip. I don't normally do this, but I got on a movie clip kick this week. wanted to show some of the different perspectives that are out there on, the way the gospels can be portrayed either through video or song. Or what have you.

So let's start in Matthew. We're gonna read Matthew 11 1st. And then we're gonna look at a, a couple other passages, ask some questions, the passages. So Matthew starts off in verse one, the Book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David.

The son of Abraham. So how does Matthew open up his gospel? How does he introduce Christ in this first verse? What are some titles that you see?

Yeah, Justice. Good. OK. So we've got son of David, son of Abraham.

What would be significant about connecting him to Abraham? Yeah, so you got the promises, Abrahamic covenant. What's significant about connecting him to David? Say it again.

Yes, exactly. So there's a royal line there. the Jewish nation had been looking for the son of David, as we're gonna see as, as Matthew develops his gospel. He's gonna use and point us out to this kingship concept, really throughout the gospel.

In fact, Let's go ahead and look, let's look at several different passages together. Let's look at 9:27. We're gonna be doing a ton of Bible turning, so just either get your fingers ready for your electronic phone or your Bible phone. you, you're.

Page Bible. So Matthew 9:27. oops, I flipped over to Mark. When Jesus departed from there, two blind men followed him, crying out and saying, Son of David, have mercy.

On us. Let's look at 12:23. And all the multitude were amazed and said, could this be whom? The son of David.

1522. We'll probably just finish with this one. And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David, my daughter is severely demon possessed. In several different places.

throughout the book of Matthew, we see this title. A son of David. David is, in the Old Testament, he is referred to as the anointed one, but there was one coming, that was going to come back to the throne of David, as it were, and, and at this time, the Jews are looking for the son of David, this king that would come. In their minds that would rescue them from the Romans and take the royal throne.

And so we have lots of people asking the question or at least or even calling him. The son of David. Let's turn back to chapter 2 of Matthew, same, same book. And let's read verse 1 to 6 around the birth.

We see in verse 1, now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, where is he who has been born what? King of the Jews, for we have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him. and so you, and then there, there's this quote from the Old Testament verse 6, but you, Bethlehem, and the land of Judea are not the least among the rulers of Judah, for out of you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people.

Israel.

So from the very birth of Christ, Matthew is pointing out that he's being called a king, he's fulfilling prophecy. In fact, in the, in the book of Matthew, we see over 60 different quotes from the Old Testament, trying to draw this connection. Between Christ or Jesus and the Old Testament Messiah or anointed one. In fact, let's, let's look at Matthew 3:2 and a couple of other passages.

Matthew 3:2, we see a phrase that pops up for the first time where Jesus, actually John the Baptist says, repent. For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And then you see this again in 4:17. The kingdom of heaven is at hand.

You guys see it in 7:21. You guys turn over there. The, the same phrase shows up all over the place. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven.

We see kingdom of heaven, the way that we should probably read this is, is the kingdom that is owned by heaven or the kingdom belonging to heaven. it's, it sounds contradictory, but the, the way that most Bible teachers and theologians would see the kingdom of heaven concept, it's heaven's rule over the earth. Heaven's rule over the earth would be the concept of the kingdom of heaven. So, in, in Matthew's Gospel, we've got 60 different quotes from the Old Testament.

We've got him being referred to as the son of David, as a king. And there's this rulership of heaven over the earth. It's mentioned in time. And time again.

Because there are so many quotes from the Old Testament, what do you think the Matthew, who do you think Matthew has in mind as far as his readership, his original readers? Yeah, yeah, Jewish readers is probably the, the intent, at least originally, is Matthew's trying to build this case. He goes all the way back, he develops the genealogy, he keeps making this connection between Christ and Old Testament prophecy, referring to him as the son of David, and so on. And so it seems that, probably a key theme, not the only theme, but it seems like an overarching The arc or theme in the book of Matthew is that Jesus is the king, the expected son of David.

so again, this is one slant, one perspective. So I wanna show a video that isn't, it isn't, It doesn't point directly at the, at the, only the Gospel of Matthew. What it does is it develops the kings of the Old Testament. That's another thing I've been on this kick lately of trying to memorize the kings of the Old Testament cause I can normally only remember the really bad ones like Jeroboam and Vanessa and Ahab, and then everybody else I forget.

and so I found this song that develops all the kings of the Old Testament and I love the way it brings everything to Christ. At the end, which is what the Book of Matthew does, it talks about this kingship, but it, it brings everything to Christ. So, this is partially to try to influence you to want to go back and listen to the song later and maybe try to memorize the kings of the Old Testament with me, but also to, to point us to Christ. So let's see if we can, this is what you would fill in for your, quadrant there in Matthew, King of the Jews, a Jewish audience.

Several of the terms son of David. Kingdom of heaven. So on and so forth. I'll come back to that if you guys aren't able to write all that down.

Can you guys see it or is it small for you? Little small. I'll come back to it. What do you think?

that's pretty awesome to me. I, I just love the way it builds up to Christ. There's also a thing I found, you guys might already know about this stuff. I'm just always behind the times, but it's called YouTube Repeater.

Anybody already know about that? It's a website where you can go and you can specify what seconds of video you want repeated. And so literally, like I would take each section of the Kings like an eight-second clips and like repeat it while I'm working in my office like over and over and over and over and over where if anybody's in my office, they're driving them crazy, but I just hoping it seeps in. It's called YouTube Repeater.

Yeah, yeah, just the 8 good ones. Yeah. If all you guys just want to do is just get the 8 good ones, you'll be cool. that really kinda, I think helps us see where Matthew is going.

You've got this history of mostly bad kingdoms, right? And with all this, all these promises from Abraham and David and these great promises that end up just not working out in the Old Testament, it could be pretty depressing until you realize Jesus is the king of kings. He was perfect, King of kings, and he's the ultimate king that we're looking, looking to. Anybody want, need me to go back to that other slide on Matthew?

OK. Let's try that. So this is a So Jesus is the king of the Jews, audience, Jewish. And then the terms there are Son of David, you got prophecies of a king, kingdom of heaven.

And he is called King of the Jews, both at his birth and also his death. So that give you, again. Not a biographical sketch, but more of a gospel sketch. Of Christ From the book of Matthew.

We're gonna come back to Matthew here in a little bit. is an author. Remember, he was a tax collector who Follows Christ, right? So he becomes one of the.

The followers, the disciples of Christ. So let's go to, let's go to Mark now. Let me make sure I skip by our video. OK, so on Mark.

We've got, Mark has the most common material with all the other material. And there seems to be A real emphasis. On just a compassion on the multitudes that seems to come out of the book of Mark, Jesus just having compassion. And we'll look, we'll look at some of the passages here in a second, but just on the idea of compassion, I don't know about you, but, growing up in Southern California as a SoCal American.

I don't know that the default that was passed on to me was a compassion for the multitudes. Kinda like, the way I was raised is kinda like you're on the freeway with mom and dad, and it's like, these idiots, all these people, son, whatever you do, don't work in retail because you'll have to work in the public. the worst job you could possibly have is if you have to work with the multitudes or the public, right? Stay out of the public sector, make sure you're working in the private sector so you don't have to work with all the idiots, right?

Did anybody else grow up like that? That's just the way I was raised, is people are idiots, except for me, right? Except for the people that we hang out, everybody else. are idiots.

But what you get from Christ is this compassion for the multitudes. he's off trying to get by himself to pray or he's with his disciples. All of a sudden, all these people gather around and he has compassion. On the multitudes.

How did he demonstrate this compassion? Let's look at Mark. Let's look at several different passages. We're gonna start Mark 1:40.

We'll just do a quick. Fly by here. Now a leper came to him imploring him, kneeling down to him and saying to him, If you are willing, you can make me clean. Then Jesus moved with compassion, stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, I am willing to be cleansed.

As soon as he had spoken immediately, the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. let's look over at 6:33. And 34, the same book. But the multitude saw them departing, and many knew him.

And ran there on foot from all the cities. They arrived before them and came to gather to him. And Jesus, when he had came out, saw the multitudes and was moved with compassion for them because they were like sheep, not having a shepherd. So he began to teach them many things.

So this is when Jesus was actually trying to get away from the multitudes, go get alone with his disciples. All of a sudden, thousands of people show up. I don't know about you, but my attitude would have been. Great.

I've just spent all this time with the multitudes. I'm trying to get a little bit of peace and quiet here. They run around and, and they get to the shore before we get there on a boat. can you guys just leave us alone for a little while?

But Jesus looks out and he has compassion on the multitudes and begins to teach them. Let's look at 8. Versus 1 to 3. In those days, the multitudes being very great, having nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples to him and said to them, I have compassion on the multitude because they have now continued with me 3 days and have nothing to eat.

And if I send them away hungry to their houses, they will faint on their way, for some of them have come from afar. And so we see here, how did Jesus demonstrate his compassion? Well, he cleanses a leper. He teaches the people, he teaches them as a shepherd, and he feeds, he feeds them.

Another thing that we see, and we're not gonna look at all these verses, but if you look up there at Mark 1:10, 112, 1820, so on and so forth, Mark is very, fond of this adverb immediately. It's like something happens immediately and then immediately, the idea that you get is you're reading through the book of Mark. It's just a really quick blow by blow. He's going from one scene to the next very quickly.

These aren't like slow scene changes. It's like boom, moves very, very quickly. but let's look at, at one other verse before we look at a video. So 10:45.

Seems to be. A real key passage. In the book. This is right after there's like the, the whole scene of everybody arguing about who's gonna be the greatest and so on and so forth.

And then in verse 45, for even the Son of Man did not come to to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many. This is, this is huge. When people are expecting the son of David or the king to come, they weren't really expecting a guy to come and say, hey, by the way, I did not come to be served. I've come to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many.

And so he's spoken of as the suffering servant in the book of Mark. Also the Son of Man seems to be a title that is attributed to him many times through the book. I'm gonna show a video that I actually bought just for this class this week. it's more of an, an anime type of approach, just an overview of this, it's called The Son of Man.

Many of the scenes here, it's, it's wordless. Many of the scenes do come from Mark, although they kinda throw in a couple from A couple of other gospels, but this gives you like the big picture of Mark, I think without words. So, let's Check this out and then we'll go back to that. That one slide that I just skipped.

What do you think of that? it was just a cool summary. Of the Gospel, the book of Mark. showing again a different perspective, no words at all, but if the gospel story, man, it's just, it's amazing how different artists can can really tell the, the story of the gospel from a different perspective.

In Christ as the Son of Man and as the suffering servant. Let's go back to those fill-ins real quick. So here I would, probably the, the way to summarize would be suffering servant. This book does seem to be, have Gentiles and Jews in mind, just because there's, there's less quotes from the Old Testament and we didn't have time to get to this, but there are some places where there's certain Jewish customs that are explained.

And so that would seem to indicate a little bit more of a gentile audience. Emphasis, key terms, compassion, immediately servant pop up a lot in this book. Let's look at another. Inspired perspective from the book of Luke.

So Luke, as many of you probably already know, is an associate. Of Paul, he's a physician. And And so he brings his, his own take again, being,. Set aside by the Lord for this purpose, and yet the Lord using all of Luke's personality.

Let's, let's take a look at Luke 5. I think we'll just look at this section together. One of the things that you seem to get In the book of Luke. There's a lot of emphasis that he brings out in Christ's life is Christ's association with sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes.

Luke focuses a lot on the conflict between Pharisees, the religious establishment, and those that are outcast. And so one of the places you see that. is in Luke chapter 5 verse 27. And following, we're gonna read 27 down to 32.

This is where Matthew, Levi actually gets called to the Lord. After these things, he went out and saw a tax collector, Levi sitting at the tax office and he said to him, follow me. so he left all, rose up and followed him. Then Levi gave him a great feast in his house, and there were a great number of tax collectors and others who sat down with him.

And their scribes and, and Pharisees complained against his disciples, saying, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? Jesus answered and said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And this seems to be a, Luke, as he's, as an associate of Paul and he's looking back upon Christ's life and the material available at his hand, seems to really assemble a lot of that type of material underneath the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that Christ was out to help sinners, those who were sick as it were, and not those who think they're well.

In fact, this is something I've been using more and more in my evangelism is is, is describing sin as this disease and sickness, that Christ is the cure and that Jesus, by the way, is the only one that was born with an immunity to our sickness.

He was born and was completely immune, while all of us have been contaminated, and he walked amongst the contaminated souls of this earth who have the sickness called sin. And he should have never died because he never got sick, right? He never got sick with sin, but he died willingly in order to bring us the cure if we would receive it by faith. And so that seems to really come out.

Turn real quick to Luke 18. In Luke 18, you've got the the Pharisee and the tax collector. Where Jesus tells the, the parable or the story, two men, verse 10, went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, another tax collector. The Pharisee stood, prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector, I fast twice a week, give tithes.

Of all that I possess, and the tax collector standing afar off without even so much as raise his eyes to heaven. But beat his breast, saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you this man went down to his home justified., rather than the other, for everyone exalts himself, be humbled, and he humbles himself will be exalted. So, Again, in, in some of the gospel, there's, there's, there's not always a time indicator.

We're not always sure when these particular stories were told. some people think that Jesus may have had Levi or Matthew in mind when he told this particular parable, we don't know. But the clip I'm gonna show you postulates the idea that this does have to do with Levi. And again, I'm, I'm willing to allow for, artistic license.

I don't think that this movie clip that I'm showing you is the Bible, but I think it does a good job trying to portray Christ in the book of Luke. And so, let's go ahead. Actually, I'll just show you this first. So, I think that probably the, the idea that comes out is redeemer of mankind in general, not just, it's not just a Gospel to the Jews.

This is Redeemer of mankind. It's a probably more of a Gentile audience. Luke does a lot of explaining of Jewish customs in his gospel. And you see him interacting with sinners, and he is called Son of Man frequently throughout this gospel.

So, always interacting with sinners. So this particular, there are so many good movies that have come out over the last 10 years or so on Christ and so this is just a short clip. About Christ's calling of Levi. Oh, I love that clip.

That's, has anybody seen that movie, The Son of God? Have you seen it? Man, there's just so many killer movies coming out that do a really good job. Of portraying the Lord.

Or different, Bible characters, there's it's a. Can be a real encouragement. So the In the book of Luke that that flavor. Of Of just Christ's compassion and reaching out to the poor and the despised or the outcasts really comes out.

So let, let me just clarify, what are we saying in that? Are we saying that kinda like in, in literature, like, like these days, if you, if you go watch a movie, anybody seen Unbroken? OK. So, a movie like that might start off saying Based on true events, what does that mean?

That's Hollywood speak for, we're making a lot up here for the sake of the story, but it has its basis in some reality, right? one of my favorite movies is The Rookie. I don't know if you guys have ever seen The Rookie about the left-handed pitcher who's a baseball coach and, and they, they do a fair job with that, but when you actually read some of the actual story, they take quite a few liberties. And so sometimes if I don't want to get overly disappointed, I just won't read the history.

Because then you get disappointed. but that's not what's going on with the gospels. The gospels are taking material that actually happened. It's not just based upon real events.

These are real events that underneath the inspiration of the Holy Spirit are assembled in this gospel genre to make a theological point. And so one of the theological points that, that Luke is clearly trying to make is that Jesus is a friend of sinners. And so as he's, he's writing a gospel track, right? And trying to proclaim the gospel with his gospel tract.

To people that largely are not within the fold of Judaism and are wondering whether they can really be a part. these are people who, had been contaminated by sin, as it were, and Luke wants them to know that Jesus is a friend of sinners. Let's look at the final gospel. let's look at John.

And we'll just look at a few different passages here. John is the most unique. Of the gospels, and that's why it's not considered one of the synoptic gospels. When we say synoptic synoptic Gospels, we're talking about Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

We talked about John, it's its own deal. You've got the disciple whom Jesus loved, who is pro, he's writing fairly late in the first century. And the way his gospel gets developed, it seems pretty clear that he doesn't want to just cover all the material that the church had been reading in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. He wants to give an inside scoop of a lot of the goings on in some of these private conversations that he had been teaching about, no doubt verbally, but had not yet been put to pen and paper underneath the inspirational Holy Spirit.

So, let's look at a couple of different passages. Let's look at John. 17. We're gonna read through a bunch of different verses.

17. This man came for a witness to bear witness of the light that all through him might Believe. Verse 12, same chapter, but as many as received him to those he gave the right to become the children of God, Receive him, to them, he gave the right to become the children of God to those who believe in His name. Let's look over at John 3:15, this famous passage.

Whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. Look at verse 18, He who believes in Him is not condemned. He who does not believe is condemned already. And look at John 17, the high priestly prayer.

Up until this gospel, we did not have at least written knowledge. In the church of this prayer. In verse one, we have Christ praying to his father, he says, Father, the hour has come, glorify your Son, that your Son may also be glorified, as you have given him authority over all flesh that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him. And this is eternal life that they may know you and the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent, I have glorified you.

On the earth, I have finished the work which you have given me to do, and now, oh Father, glorify me with Yourself. with the glory that I had with you before the world was. So what's, one of the words or concepts that we find, at least in, in these passages that we've been reading? What's like one of the Big concepts or themes.

Say it again. Yeah, you've got eternal life is a big one. There's this desire, John's clearly writing his gospel that people would have eternal life. What else?

Yeah, belief. So that people would have eternal life through belief that they would become his child, that they would come. Into the light. you've also got this concept in the first chapter of Christ, existing before the world was, as we see in chapter 17.

He is called many times the Son of God. you have the word believe over 100 times. in this book, there does seem to be a, perhaps a broader audience, in this book, both Jewish and Gentile perhaps. So, a lot of people assign an overarching theme of this book would be Christ is the Son of God, based upon the way it begins, what you have like in chapter 17 with the high priestly prayer.

words like eternal, eternal life or belief, Son of God comes out. So this is, so just another look at, at Christ from a disciple that is called the disciple whom Jesus loved, yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah Totally, yeah, when he says things like, before Abraham was, I am, yeah, definitely.

Yeah, there's an emphasis on the deity of Christ in chapter one. Also when Thomas basically says, my Lord and my God, see yeah, there's a lot of emphasis on the deity of Christ, in In this book. And so you have these, these 4, different. viewpoints of Christ.

And it's, it's interesting with the book of John, to have this, the disciple, he's one of the 12, which is a big deal, but he's not just one of the 12, he's one of the 3 who saw the transfiguration of Christ. But he's not just one of the three, he refers to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved. And he doesn't just refer to himself in that way. Peter does as well, or seems to acknowledge that.

And I've been doing this whole thing lately on that topic too, the disciple whom Jesus loved. What does that mean? What does that mean for us? I'm hoping at some point to preach at you guys on that.

or, or who is it? CH Spurgeon has a really killer sermon on the disciple whom Jesus loved. If you wanna get a preview, go read Spurgeon. He's better than anything I could say anyway, so.

We're gonna look at one final clip here that comes from the movie, The Gospel of John. I don't know if any of you guys have seen that. And one of the big scenes in that movie is John chapter 11, the raising of Lazarus. So we'll, we'll take a look at that and we'll close things, close, close things up.

OK, it gives me goosebumps. I don't know, for me like. Sometimes when I come across a passage afresh in the, in the text. I'll go try to find some clip of it to help me.

Yeah, I've been reading the Bible in earnest since I was 14 and sometimes if you're not careful, it turns into Charlie Brown's teacher. yeah, I read this a million times. Yeah, yeah, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Yeah, I've heard that a million times.

You sometimes forget what a big deal this is. This doesn't happen every day, right? This establishes Christ as the Christ and as God. and it was after this event happened that just crazy things start going on, right?

Both with people who are believing and also with the Jews that decide rather than believe the evidence of Christ's deity, we're gonna try to kill him now and kill Lazarus. So, and this, this gets spelled out by John, the deity of Christ, the Son of God is power, that he is the resurrection and the life. and nobody brings that out other than John. And so we see.

just I, I think the Lord's wisdom. in giving us gospels, not just like one biographical tale, biographical tale. So in the last two lessons, we've talked a lot about the four gospels that reveal the life of our Savior while he walking the earth. What has been the most helpful piece of information you have gathered and how's it helpful to you?

Any ideas? We're getting close to being out of time, but What's, what's stuck out to you, the last couple of weeks? Let's take one or two responses. Say it again.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Yeah, I used to teach junior high. I'm very comfortable just standing up here silently.

Somebody give me one, yeah. Disciples. Yeah. Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, so just the way each author focusing on different things. We have compassion on one side, but Matthew's got this burden to demonstrate fulfillment of prophecy. so yeah, that's great. we've also talked about four different titles, the King of the Jews, Suffering servant, Redeemer, Son of God.

You guys could think about that. this is the one, the question that's most interesting to me, I think, is how can knowing that each of the gospels has a slightly different audience of mind. In a different way to highlight who Jesus is, help you as you seek to share the gospel and make disciples. I think we can be instructed by the fact that the Holy Spirit gave us 4 different gospels that all have a unique approach in our own evangelism.

it's not always gonna be the same thing. sometimes you're evangelizing a young person who grew up in the church, they, they know all the right answers. They can tell you all the answers to the Bible questions. You've gotta, you've gotta hit them with a different angle.

Sometimes you're talking to people who have just, they don't know anything about the Bible other than maybe what they've seen on the History Channel. so it, it can kinda, I think it can encourage us, to be willing to take different approaches, maybe think about which of the four gospels would fit the particular, Evangelism. Don't be afraid to, as you guys are having your, your Bible time, your quiet times during the week. Don't be afraid just to use what you've been reading in the Bible to share with unbelievers.

I, after a baseball game yesterday that my son had, went out with one of our coaches who I've been trying to talk to about the Lord for a long time, and, I just started to talk to him about the 10 lepers. And how that Christ healed 10 and only 1 came back that was grateful, and how that so many of us, we breathe in God's air, we drink God's food every day, but we don't think to give him the credit. And I just, so I just shared with them what I've learned in the word, I think on Friday.

That was my gospel witness that day.

So you can just take what you're reading in the Bible and just share it with someone. You just really never know how the Lord will just take one verse or one thought to awaken a conscience. think about your own life and your own testimony. I know some of the big renewals in my life have happened like from a phrase of a verse.

Right? All of a sudden, the Holy Spirit just opens my eyes. And so you guys, you don't have to like preach the 66 books of the Bible to, to see somebody get saved. Sometimes it's just sharing, just a, just a short phrase.

the Lord can use that. OK, so let's go ahead and pray we're about 10:06. If you guys wanna, check out those links, I'll see if I can send them out to you guys this week. I hope you guys enjoyed that.

I don't know, that's, it's a little Sometimes I'll get home from a day of study. And. And I'll sit around with the family and show them these little Bible clips. I watched in relationship to my Bible reading.

That'll be our Bible time. And there's so many good ones these days, especially for the little guys. Like when I get real long-winded during our Bible times, I look over at my, my son's just kinda like playing with his little toys, it's hard to tell if he's paying attention, but if I throw on like a little 3-minute Bible or 5-minute Bible clip of what I've been trying to explain, then he's like watching and he understands now and Now he knows what a leper is. I'm sitting here, was it last night?

I think it was last night. I was like, going through the 10 lepers and I said, Samuel, what is a leper? And he goes, oh yeah, lepers, they take care of sheep. I'm all, oh no, no, no, that's a shepherd.

A leper is somebody whose fingers fall off when they're, he's like, hey. Anyway, let's go ahead and pray and then if you guys have questions, you can come on up. Lord, thank you so much for this time for us to just look at the gospels together. Thank you for your wisdom and giving us different angles and takes on the real events of Christ and His life.

We pray, Lord, that you help us to grow in our worship of Him and, and like Levi, that we would just be reminded of, of our sin and yet how that you reached out to us. May we continually be humbled before you, knowing that Lord, as we humble ourselves before you, you will exalt us, and yet you are also a God that will demote the proud. And so help us by your grace to walk in humility and fall at your feet on a daily basis like the one leper and give you thanks. we pray, Father, that you be with us as we worship you this morning in song and hearing your word preached.

We thank you in Christ's name. Amen.