In this first message from a series of New Testament book surveys, Scott Brown looks at the four gospels, examining their main themes and teachings.
Matthew
As you read the Gospel of Matthew, you will see how God keeps His promises. Jesus is the promised Messiah of the Old Testament. Over and over again, Matthew refers to the ministry of Jesus to show how the Old Testament was fulfilled.
Mark
The Gospel of Mark focuses on stories which reveal the life and the perspectives of Jesus. In Mark, Christ is the Servant King. Ray Stedman summarizes it this way: Christ is the servant who rules and the ruler who serves. He serves and rules by preaching, teaching, and healing. The book is fast-paced and full of action. Mark allocates much of his Gospel to the last weeks of Jesus’ life, particularly the last seven days in Jerusalem.
Luke
The Gospel of Luke presents Jesus in His humanity as “the Son of Man.” He illustrates Christ’s compassion for the broken by recording more miracles than any other Gospel writer. Luke sees Jesus as the one who came to “seek and save the lost” and the one who came to minister to the sick and poor while resisting the proud and the self-sufficient. Christ’s tenderheartedness is displayed by Luke demonstrating how He healed the brokenhearted and saved the outcast. Luke was a historian and as such he provides a more sequential account of the life of Jesus than any of the other Gospel writers.
John
The focus of John’s Gospel is to prove the deity of Jesus Christ and to identify various facets of His glory. The beauty of the imagery describing Jesus is perhaps why so many recommend John for unbelievers to get to know Jesus. He is called “Life” thirty-two times in this Gospel. John’s disclosure of Jesus hangs upon seven miracle narratives which he uses to explain the power and glory of Jesus Christ. John’s purpose is clearly stated. He writes so that his readers might believe in Jesus.
So, you know, one hour on Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that's pretty rough, isn't it? That is pretty rough. Well, I hope this will at least give some kind of overview and a sense of it. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the sending of your Son, for the giving of your Word.
Oh Lord, we praise you for the beauty of it, and I pray that you would help us to somehow see more of you in our time here in the next few minutes. Amen. OK, so this is a survey of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And of course, these are the four gospels. And these gospels explain through four different personalities, through four different perspectives, what is the center of history?
And that is God sending His Son, Jesus Christ, as the Savior of the world. This is the greatest event in history. The world has not been able to get over it. It's constantly written about, constantly thought about, constantly celebrated, constantly worshipped, all over the world. It's unstoppable.
No government, no philosophy has been able to stop the power of this gospel. And you find in these four gospels, the center piece is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He's the greatest man who ever walked on the earth. He did things that nobody else ever did. He healed a blind man and everybody said, that's never happened before.
It's never happened. And the purpose of history is defined by his saving power. God sent his son to rescue a bride composed of sinners who rebelled, who cared nothing for truth, who cared nothing for love. And He reached down and he captured them. The Bible is the story of, and all of history is the story of the rescue of a bride.
If you want to understand history you can't unless you understand the purpose of history. The purpose of history is to provide a context where God saves sinners. He rescues a bride for a wedding supper and a celebration that extends throughout all eternity. So when we come to the Gospels that's what we're coming to. It's this declaration of what God has done.
Now there are four Gospels, and I want to introduce you to a word you probably heard, synoptic. The synoptic Gospels. There are three gospels that are called synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The word synoptic means to see together. They have a commonality about them.
They're similar, whereas John is dissimilar. John comes from a different perspective. So you have these three gospels that are very similar in their historical layout, in the things that they cover, and John is very, very different. In John you see the beauty and the power and the superiority of Jesus Christ the Son of God. In Mark you know you find a man who was a disciple and a friend of Peter and In Luke you find the companion of Paul, the traveler.
In Matthew you have a converted tax collector. So all of these Gospels are written from a different perspective through different personalities. They don't contradict one another. Luke is more historically sequential than the other Gospel writers, and so they are all designed to be harmonized. In this library are several harmonies of the Gospels, and where there's an attempt to string together the sequence of events in the Gospels.
Not always, you know, perfectly understood, but you can see a sequence in the historical progress of the Gospels. So let's start with Matthew first. What's the theme of Matthew? The theme of Matthew is Jesus Christ is the promised Messiah. And Matthew breaks a 400-year silence where the prophets were not speaking.
Malachi was the last prophet to speak and now Matthew records the next prophet after Malachi, John the Baptist. And Matthew transitions us from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant. The New Covenant is a binding agreement between two parties. The Old Covenant was the very same. And God is concerned with continuity between the Old and the New.
And you see the continuity between the Old and the New very clearly in Matthew when you read it. And the Gospel of Matthew is the second longest gospel. It's very systematic. It's a very detailed account of the life of Jesus. It was probably the first gospel that was penned, perhaps around 50 AD.
But it's a gospel that is filled with wonder. On every page You see the Lord Jesus Christ and His superior life. I had the privilege of preaching through the Gospel of Matthew about almost three years ago. It was such a treat to be able to go through Matthew and see how he documents the beauty of the life of Jesus Christ, how he, you know, explains the message of Christ and lays out the whole mission of Jesus Christ. Now, the author is Matthew, and Matthew is a tax collector, and if you go to Matthew chapter 9, beginning in verse 9, you see what happened to Matthew.
I think it's significant that this gospel was written by a man like Matthew. Matthew is just going about his business on a certain day. No plan and what happened? Jesus Christ crosses his path. And everything changes after that.
In Matthew 9, 9 we read, As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. Jesus was just passing by and a man was just doing his job and everything changes. Jesus calls this man, the Lord says, follow me and so he arose and followed him And this began a life of obedience in Matthew. He followed Jesus Christ. He fulfilled what the word disciple means.
A disciple is a follower. And Matthew became a disciple. Now, his whole career path was altered. Everything changed. And the first thing that he does seemingly is He wants to spread the joy.
So, in verse 10 in chapter 9, that Jesus is sitting at a table in His house, and Matthew's invited all these tax collectors to come and be with Jesus Christ. And so, he uses his home. He takes the resources that God gave him and brings his friends together and he has a feast. But the Pharisees are disgusted. Matthew is happy.
The Pharisees are not happy at all. And the Pharisees say, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus heard it. And He answered the question. The question was directed to Matthew, but Jesus answered the question, and He said, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
But go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice, for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." So Matthew is a tax collector, and God turns him into a gospel writer and everything changes. Instead of keeping notations for who owes what, he's writing down who came to save who and it's such a beautiful story. The audience are Jews that's very clear Matthew quotes the Old Testament the 62 times more than any other gospel writer there are 262 other illusions or verbal parallels to the Old Testament so claims R.T. France who's one of the great commentators on the Gospel of Matthew.
Matthew uses the phrase, Kingdom of Heaven. That's a Jewish phrase. He's using that phrase because everybody knows what that means. Matthew shows us how to use the Old Testament because he's constantly quoting from the Old Testament. In fact, he quotes from almost every single Old Testament book.
There's debate today about how you interpret the Old Testament. Matthew shows you how. There are dozens and dozens of case studies for how you should interpret the Old Testament and here's how you interpret it Interpret it the way Jesus interpreted it. Whatever you call your view. I don't care what you call it But however you interpret the Old Testament Make sure you interpret the Old Testament the same way that Jesus interpreted it, the same way that the Apostle Paul and the other writers of Scripture.
The Old Testament is valuable and it should be interpreted the way that Jesus Christ interpreted it. One of the most prominent and beautiful places that you see the Old Testament law interpreted is on the Sermon on the Mount, because in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus does an exposition of law. He shows you how to interpret the law, And in those three chapters, in chapters 5-7 of Matthew, is a marvelous paradigm for how you should interpret the Old Testament. There are many key verses in Matthew. I've itemized some of them.
I like to just identify Matthew 5, verse 2 to verse 12, where you have the Beatitudes. The Sermon on the Mount is a towering, beautiful, extremely practical passage of scripture. It can lead you through any storm in life. It can lead you through troubles and relationships in life. It can help you to understand when to keep your mouth shut, when to extend your hand to those who are needy, how to deal with an enemy.
It's just remarkably practical. But the Lord Jesus is sitting on a hillside and He opened His mouth and He taught them saying, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And he uses that word blessed, which means happy. The kingdom of heaven is about happiness. That's what it is.
If the kingdom of heaven has come near, happiness is going to come near. You can always know the kingdom of heaven is near. And so that's why he says, happy are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. In other words, happy are those who are not rich and fat in their spirit and think that they are really something. You're only happy when you know how needy you are.
And he says, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. He's talking about those who mourn over their sins. You can't be happy until you mourn over your sin. And then he says, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Meekness means power under control.
Meekness is not weakness. Meekness is not mousiness at all. Meekness is a spirit that's under the control of God and it's a spirit that presents itself as under the control of God. It's actually a mighty spirit. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake.
Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven." Jesus Christ is the Son of God who teaches sinful human beings to be happy and Matthew states it so beautifully And you know the Lord Jesus Christ was the happiest of all the disciples. If you were walking with Jesus you would marvel at how happy he was. Hebrews 1 9 says, you have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above all your companions. So picture the twelve disciples walking around you know meeting people and doing what they were doing.
Jesus was always the happiest guy in the room, always. And so he's teaching his disciples what his kingdom is all about and happiness is really the center of it. So this is recorded near the beginning of the gospel, but you know going to the end to Matthew chapter 28 the Lord Jesus Christ finally speaks to his disciples for the last time and he says, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." So in the Great Commission, Jesus declares several things.
First of all, that He's going to finish His work. All authority has been given to Him, and nothing can stay His hand. That should be the most encouraging thing you'll ever hear, is that Jesus Christ has all authority. The One who has all authority is the most loving person in the universe and he loves you and he's rescued you he's redeemed you he's called you his sons he's made you a co-ep fellow heir He's poured out his grace He's declared that the work that he began in you he'll finish and so he says all authority has been given to me And then He commands them to go and make disciples of all the nations. In other words, to make followers of Jesus Christ.
And to baptize them into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and then to teach them to observe all the things that He commanded. So the disciples are commanded to have a teaching ministry, but for what? To teach everybody to obey Jesus. To teach people to obey the words of Jesus. And what are the words of Jesus?
Well, the words of Jesus are found in the Bible. Every word of the Bible is a word of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the word of God. Jesus Christ himself wrote the Bible. He spoke it and he wrote it.
And so from Genesis to Revelation, we're called to obey. God wants an obedient church. And the Great Commission makes that very, very clear. You know, there are so many lessons in the Gospel of Matthew. Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven as it is at hand.
That's perhaps the most pivotal message for all the world, that is how a person enters into the Kingdom of Heaven. That Christ was crucified, He died, He was buried and He rose again, and that He calls His disciples, His followers, to go and make more disciples. Those are the big lessons from the Gospel of Matthew. You know, as you read through the Gospel of Matthew, you want to look for various themes. The Kingdom of Heaven, the authority of Jesus Christ, the compassion of Jesus Christ.
He's always going about healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, speaking the truth. He's not afraid of conflict and he speaks beautiful words. His prophecies are fulfilled. The consequences of rejecting His kingship are declared. He cries out to the Jews, Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets.
He says, because you've rejected me, you'll be found desolate. So all through Matthew you'll find this theme of just how devastating it is to reject God. There's an emphasis on his transforming power. There's an emphasis on the law of God and how to dissect it. There are two really primary themes.
Ethics, how to live, and eschatology, how to live forever. Those are the two great themes in the Gospel of Matthew. So there's Matthew. It's such a marvelous testimony. Let's now go to Mark and we'll take a look at Mark.
Now Mark is the simplest gospel, it's the shortest gospel and it's because of that probably it's the most translated gospel. When translators, when evangelists go into cultures that don't have the Bible in their language, most of the time the first thing they translate is Mark. Because the whole gospel is there, it's terse, it's short, and They're able to get through The translation quicker. There are only 16 chapters. You can read it in a session doesn't take that long to read the entire Gospel of Matthew of Mark The theme is the mission of Jesus Christ.
Mark omits Jesus' ancestry and a lot of historical details. He jets directly to the things that Jesus was doing. There are no parables in the Gospel of Mark. The focus is on the narratives, the storyline that reveal the life and the perspective of Jesus Christ. Christ is the servant, Christ is the king at the same time.
These two qualities of Jesus Christ are set side by side and they are interwoven throughout the Gospel. Ray Stedman has a commentary set on the Gospel of Mark and he has titled one of them, The Ruler Who Serves, and the other one, The Servant Who rules. And that really does state it very clearly. And He serves and He rules by preaching and by teaching and by healing. And one of the things I love about the Gospel of Mark is it's just full of healing and Jesus has authority over demons, he has authority over sickness, he has authority over death, he has authority over inanimate objects, Jesus Christ has authority over everything and He's always beautifying everything He touches.
And so the Lord Jesus Christ is presented as the healer, as the one who delivers people from their burdens and their troubles physically, spiritually, he destroys the work of the demonic powers. He is the one who heals and he saves. And that's one of the one of the wonderful things about reading the Gospel of Mark is that it's just it's so fast-paced he just takes you from one moment one incident where somebody's being delivered you know people are just being delivered on every page in the Gospel of Mark. Why? Because that's what Jesus does to people.
He delivers them. He delivers them from their fears. He delivers them from their terrible patterns. He comes to people just as they are and he takes them to places that they've never been before. And Mark is a beautiful expression of that.
The narrative runs very, very quickly and it's full of action that really illustrates what James said. Faith without works is dead. And you see Jesus Christ, He's so full of works. You know, just meditating on the works, the marvelous, fast-paced life that you find in the Gospel of Mark just should help us to think of how careful, how diligent we should be to heal and save and to seek and save the lost, just like Jesus Christ did. Now there's a word that appears in the Gospel of Mark regularly and it's the word, Euthos, and it means immediately because a narrative, a story will end and then there's the word immediately and then that story will end and then the word immediately he does something else and immediately he did this and immediately he did this and immediately he did this and one of the neat things about Mark is that there are certain sections where it's really really clear that you've seen an entire day in the life of Jesus, from sunup to sundown, or maybe two or three days, strung together.
Who is this written to? It was written to the Gentiles. There's not much Jewish baggage in this. And by the way, Mark has an emphasis, and his emphasis is on the last weeks of Jesus' life, particularly Jesus' last seven days in Jerusalem. These moments in the life of Jesus loomed large in Mark's experience.
And Mark, you know, who was Mark? Well, Barnabas was Mark's cousin. According to Acts chapter 12 verse 12, Mark's mother had a large house where believers gathered, right there in Jerusalem. And Mark went with the Apostle Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey. But something happened.
We don't know what happened. But Mark left early. It doesn't sound good, but it's not really explained. But then when it came time for the second missionary journey, guess what happened? Paul didn't want to take him.
We don't know if it was related to his, you know, possibly bailing out, leaving early in the first missionary journey or not. But Paul objected and wouldn't allow him to come. So there was a separation between Barnabas and Paul. And they kind of went their separate ways. But 12 years later, near the end of Paul's life, he writes of Mark in Acts 13.
He says, Mark is useful to me. If there was a broken relationship or something or a loss of confidence that Paul had on Mark, it was restored. Maybe 12 years later. But we don't know all the details, but you do see this disagreement that Paul and Barnabas had over Mark. And, you know, it illustrates that that does happen in the true Church of Jesus Christ.
There are disagreements. Some of those disagreements separate people. We always grieve over those things, and I think we should, but let's be realistic. These are the kinds of things that can happen in a sinful world where men see things differently as a result of various weaknesses that they have. Again, you find the same theme in Mark as you do in Matthew, repent and believe in the Gospel.
You run across this beautiful phrase, Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath you know the phrase take up your cross and Follow him. It's hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven All things are possible with God These are some of the great statements that you'll find in the Gospel of Mark. It's just such a beautiful and helpful gospel. So let's now go to Luke and see what we find in Luke. Luke is the longest book in the New Testament.
Luke comprises 14% of the entire New Testament. The theme in Luke is a historical account of Christ's earthly ministry. But one of the things that is really remarkable about Luke is his tenderness. Luke has concern for the poor regularly. He has concern for women.
He has concern for children. He writes about the sick. He has a tenderness and affection for those who are on the low echelons of society. This is why you read in Luke that Jesus is a friend of sinners who came to seek and save the lost. The lost, the sick, the poor, the children, the women, at the same time makes it very clear that Jesus resists the proud and the self-sufficient.
Turn over to Luke chapter 4, one of my favorite passages of scripture, one that really gripped me when I was young. And we encountered this when we went through Isaiah. But the Lord Jesus Christ, in Luke chapter 4, beginning in verse 18, The scene is that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the synagogue on the Sabbath day and He stands up and He reads and somebody handed him the prophet Isaiah. And so he opened the book, and then he found a certain place in Isaiah. He was looking for a certain place.
And he found these words, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And then he closed the book and he gave it back to the attendant, and he sat down. And everybody was looking at him, and then he said to them, today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. And Luke is making sure that we understand the tenderheartedness of Jesus Christ on the one hand, but also that He is proclaiming himself to be the Son of God who has been given all authority, that he is the fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophets, and he is the fulfillment of Isaiah 61 where this prophecy of the Messiah is catalogued.
And so, Luke wants us to know that Jesus Christ is the promised Messiah. And this beautiful and dramatic scene there in the synagogue just illustrates it. But Jesus is proclaiming his love for the poor and the downtrodden, the brokenhearted. You know, Jesus loves the brokenhearted. You know, anybody who's ever found themselves brokenhearted needs to recognize who their greatest friend is.
It's Jesus Christ. Draw near to him. You know he says, I am gentle and humble in heart and in me you'll find rest for your souls. And so this is the Jesus that Luke knows. Now, by the way, Luke was not an eyewitness.
He got his information from other people. From Peter, from the women, he says, and also from people who are with Jesus. Luke is the Gospel writer that didn't know Jesus personally. He talked to his disciples. He interviewed them and he learned what happened.
And he arranged the timeline in what most people think is the most faithful, historical, sequential timeline of Jesus' life. So here's what you get in Luke. You get the Good Samaritan, the guy that gets beat up by a bunch of thugs and left for dead. And the religious people walk around him, but it's the irreligious person that comes and takes care of him. You have the story of the prodigal son.
You have this son who goes out and he destroys his life. The boy comes back as a man and what does the father do? He embraces him. In that story you get Jesus Christ's compassion for those who return after destroying their lives. You have the story of Zacchaeus, that rich man, that tax collector, who he got so desperate he climbed a tree.
And Jesus said, come down. And they ate together that night. You have the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. One of the things you also notice about Luke is that he gives a very special place to women in His gospel. You'll read about some of the most remarkable women in history and women should be very careful to examine women in the Bible and men should pay attention to the tenderness and the detail that God brings out regarding women.
You'll run across Elizabeth. You'll run across Mary. Anna, Martha, Mary of Bethany. Also, what's unique about Luke is that you get the childhood of Jesus that you don't get anywhere else. And so you find these scenes of Jesus submitting to his father and mother, but also being in his father's house wanting to sit at the feet of the great teachers of the day.
Jesus Christ learning from the great teachers of the day. It's such a remarkable section. Luke is a Gentile. He's the only Gentile writer of the Gospels, by the way. He speaks Greek.
When he quotes the Old Testament, he quotes from the Septuagint, which is the Greek Old Testament. And he's a physician. Luke the physician. Maybe this is why you see so much of his compassion. He became a physician.
A lot of people become physicians because they actually have compassion for people. Sometimes they lose it in the midst of what it takes to get there and the money that's involved. But many people become physicians. They really want to do something good for people. They want to be involved in caring for people and improving their physical state.
So here he's a physician. You can read about that in Colossians 4, 10-14. Luke was highly educated. There are different reasons we think he was highly educated. One reason is that Luke uses 800 words that aren't used in any of the other gospels.
He had a different language and a different background that formed the structure of his language. He uses more sophisticated language and broader. He seems to know a lot about a lot of things. And even medical knowledge. A book was actually written that goes through Luke's use of language regarding healing people and being a physician.
So he's educated. He was a historian. Of course he wrote Luke and Acts. Luke and Acts should be read together. We separate them, but they should be read together.
He was a traveler. We know that he traveled with the Apostle Paul at least three times. He was on the road with Paul. Luke gives us also the most complete account of Jesus' birth and the historical surroundings. That's why when it comes to Christmas time, everybody goes to Luke.
Because there's just an enormous amount of words that explain the birth of Jesus Christ, the celebration, the exaltation of the angels, glory to God in the highest and you have the shepherds and the stars and the wise men and all this is in Luke. Luke is very careful to establish the history in its sequence. And so he gives this very complete account of Jesus' birth. So there's Luke. Luke the historian, Luke the traveler, Luke the physician.
Now we come to the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John is very special to me. It was in the reading of the Gospel of John that my heart changed. And so even today when I hear something out of the Gospel of John, I'll tear up. I will, because I remember.
I remember when I first heard those things, and it completely unraveled me. They were so beautiful to me. And John is different. He's not one of the synoptic Gospels. Remember, synoptic, to see together.
Well, John is very different. He approaches things very differently. When I read John, I see a man full of emotion, full of love. He's the apostle of love, without question. He sees the love of God and explains it like no other Gospel writer does.
And I'm not saying that other Gospel writers don't declare the love of God that's in Christ, but John seems to have a very special way. There are no parables in the Gospel of John. In contrast to Matthew, lots of parables. You know, there are seven miracles in the Gospel of John and five of them aren't recorded by any of the other Gospel writers. John is picking out different things.
The Gospel writers' personality and God's sovereign hand, they're attracted to different things in the life of Jesus. So That's why John is different. He's different because he's different. And he writes differently and he emphasizes different things. But what do you get in the Gospel of John?
You get the first miracle that Jesus performed, turning water into wine at a wedding. Isn't that amazing? Why did Jesus Christ choose a wedding as the context of his first miracle? And why would He take water and turn it into wine? And why would it be said of Him that He brings out the best of last?
Because this is the kingdom of Jesus Christ. His whole kingdom is about a wedding. It's about the rescue of a bride and bringing her into a home and then giving her the best wine, but not just the best wine. Wine is better and better and better and the best wine is last. You think Jesus Christ is sweet now.
You ain't seen nothing yet. That's the message. Jesus turns water into wine. You find the healing of the nobleman's son and the recognition of Jesus Christ's authority over space, over long distances. Jesus doesn't need to touch you to heal you, He can heal you from a million miles away if He wants to.
You have the feeding of the five thousand in the Gospel of John, in John 6. You have Jesus walking on the water in John 6, 16-21. This is a really amazing story. You have the healing of a blind man. Why is it that so many blind people get healed?
Because Jesus is trying to tell us something. He makes blind people see. And He gives a physical illustration of what He does spiritually. Every single healing of Jesus is an illustration of what He does spiritually. The lame.
He makes the lame walk. He makes the blind see. These are just dramatic physical illustrations of what Jesus Christ does in your soul. He takes all the lame parts of you and He brings them to life. You know, we are a lame people.
People use that term, you know, that was lame. Well, we all know what that means, but we're filled with lameness in our souls, and Jesus Christ comes and He gives us life. He makes the lame walk. So if somebody says to you, you are lame, all you have to do is say, yes I know, but my Savior, my Savior makes the lame walk. What about you?
And you have the raising of Lazarus, this man that had been dead, stinking dead. It's an illustration of what God does to your soul. You're dead. You're stinking dead. And you're not in need of reformation, you're in need of resurrection and you are dead.
In John, Jesus is the Word made flesh. It's also no surprise or no coincidence that Jesus is life 32 times in John. Life. Jesus Christ is life. He's the way, the truth, and the life.
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. So Jesus Christ is life. He brings life to your dying soul. He puts a spark of life that just keeps on growing in you. And because He is the life.
You have the seven I AM statements which are so unforgettable. I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger and he who believes in me shall never thirst. That's John 6.35. I am the light of the world, He who follows me shall not walk in darkness but have the light of life." That's John 8 12.
I am the door. If anyone enters by me he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. John 10 9. I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd gives his life for the sheep.
John 10 11. I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, Though he may die, he shall live. John 11 25. I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father but through me. John 14 verse 6. I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser. John 15, 1. So, they're just such riches in beauty.
I remember reading the I AM statements and I just couldn't believe what I was reading. And in my soul, I knew it was true. Because light had shined in the darkness. And the darkness could not comprehend it. So John is just full of marvelous things.
The Upper Room Discourse, one of the finest sections in all the Bible, John 13 through 17, is so worthy to meditate on. The whole theme is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. John was the disciple whom Jesus loved. We don't know what all that means, but John says that he was the disciple that Jesus loved. John experienced the love of Jesus Christ.
He felt loved by Jesus Christ. He was the brother of James. He was one of the sons of thunder. He was of such a character that Jesus, when he was hanging on the cross, did the most astonishing thing. He's on the cross, and John is down below him, and his mother is there.
And he turns to his mother and says, Behold your son. And he turns to John and says, Behold your mother. And he put his mother under John's care. I think it really is part of the divine plan that God would always have a woman under protection, the protection of a man ahead. And even on the cross Jesus Christ is taking care of his mother, making sure that she has a protector.
And the Bible says she went home and stayed at his house. She was cared for. She had a home even though her son had passed. John wrote the three epistles of John, 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John. And he wrote the book of Revelation.
And he was a pastor in the city of Ephesus. He was a pastor of the church of Ephesus. A city of great immorality and idolatry, tumult. There was a fantastic riot in the city of Ephesus when the Apostle Paul went through. Where there's a stadium 16, 000 or 20, 000 people just screaming great as Artemis of the Ephesians and they almost tore Paul to bits.
But he was a pastor there. Paul says they fought with beasts in Ephesus. So while John was a tender-hearted pastor who knew the love of Jesus Christ, who was the disciple that Jesus loved, who had this pathos, this emotion, this connection, this love for Jesus Christ. Even so, he probably wasn't a wimp. He was in a pretty tough city, and he brought the love of Jesus Christ into that city and he made it clear that Jesus Christ was the bread of life.
So there you have it you have the four Gospels written by four different men with different perspectives, all really saying the same thing, that there never has been and there never will be any one more beautiful, more good, more powerful than Jesus Christ. I want to make it very clear that Jesus Christ heals and saves. He heals the broken hearted, He heals your soul and He'll heal your body. And He will take you to heaven. And He will give you the happiness that cannot be broken.
Because He is the King of the kingdom of happiness. Happy are you when you know that King.