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Sabbath School 4th Quarter 2024: Themes in the Gospel of John

Mark Finley

01 Signs That Point the Way

1 of the things that excites me every single week is to teach my Sabbath school class.

And I get great joy of sharing thoughts about the Sabbath school lesson with each of you each week.

This quarter, we're going to study the Gospel of John with different themes in the Gospel.

Let's pray as we enter into this exciting study for today.

Father in heaven, thank you for the opportunity of studying your word.

Thank you for the inspired word of God that inspires our lives.

As we study, open our eyes to see truth in your word, open our ears to hear the moving of your spirit, open our hearts to love your word, and open our minds to know and understand your word.

In the gospel of John, we come to the end of that gospel and the gospel tells us itself the purpose of John's writing.

In fact, Jesus is speaking in John 20, verse 27 and 28, he talks about to Thomas and he says, "'Reach your finger here and look at my hands "'and reach your hand here and put it into my side.

The last sentences in this chapter are encouraging our belief.

And when you come to the end of the very book of John, the scripture says, in fact, it's our memory verse for today's lesson.

And you'll find it in John chapter 20, verse 30 and 31.

The memory verse says this, and truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

So what is the purpose of the book of John?

And the purpose is that believing you may have life.

So the teachings of Christ and the miracles of Christ are focused on giving us confidence in Jesus so we can believe.

There are 7 signs in the gospel of John or 7 great miracles.

We jump into this book in John chapter 2.

John chapter 1 outlines the fact that Jesus indeed is the divine Son of God.

We'll study that in more detail in another lesson.

But the author jumps right into the first of these 7 signs that demonstrate that Christ indeed is divine.

Jesus is at the wedding feast of Cana of Galilee.

As he's there in that small village, there's a great celebration going on, weddings are scenes of festivity and joy and happiness, And so as this festivity goes on, the host is serving them the customary wine that would take place at a Jewish wedding.

Jesus and his disciples and his mother are there.

Ellen White makes an interesting statement in which she says it is in the social relations that Christianity comes in contact with the world.

He went where people were so he could lead them to where he was.

And during this wedding feast, the host becomes terribly embarrassed.

Now let's suppose that your daughter was getting married in a Seventh-day Adventist church.

And let's suppose that the president of the general conference and I were gonna be there.

And let's suppose that we came in and we were absolutely famished and hungry because we had a long journey.

We're standing in line for the vegetarian sandwiches and to eat the potato salad and the beans and that wonderful plant-based vegetarian meal.

And 1 of the people in charge comes and says to us, we are so sorry, Pastor Wilson, so sorry, Pastor Finley, we ran out of food.

This is what happened at the wedding feast of King of Galilee.

And 1 of the things that this story tells us is that Jesus is concerned about people who are socially embarrassed, that he meets their social needs.

Now, as you come to John chapter 2, and we read this story, John the second chapter, starting with verse 1.

On the third day, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there.

Now, both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding.

And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine.

Jesus said to her, woman, what does that concern have to do with me?

The mother said to the servants, whatever he says to you, do it.

Now there were set 6 water pots of stone, according to the manner of the purification of the Jews, containing 20 or 30 gallons apiece.

And Jesus said, fill the water pots with water.

When they taste it, the water is turned to wine.

Now there's a couple things in this story.

Secondly, Jesus is concerned about when we get embarrassed and he wants to alleviate that social embarrassment.

Somebody always says to me, Pastor Mark, did Jesus create a fermented drink wine?

The Greek word for wine is winos, and it can mean the fermented juice of the grape or the unfermented juice of the grape.

This could not possibly have been the fermented juice of the grape.

Notice in verse 6, it says, there were 6 water pots of stone according to purification of the Jews, 20 to 30 gallons a piece.

Well, if there are 20 gallons, 6 times 20, if there were 6 water pots, 6 times 20 is 120 to 180 gallons.

Well, this is a small village, maybe 200, 250.

Wait a minute, if you got 120, 180 gallons of wine there, if they drink it and drink it and drink it, why, they're gonna certainly get drunk and drunk and drunk, right?

Some guy drives an ox cart off the road, breaks his legs, some guy goes off with these consciences at half-mast, his conscience is defiled, and he goes off with somebody else's wife.

Certainly Jesus would not have created a fermented drink of that quantity or of any quantity that would have gotten people drunk to perform heinous acts.

Some guy gets angry because he drinks the wine, and somebody else commits immoral acts, and somebody else can't drive his oxen.

But there's something much deeper here that I wanna show you that when I first discovered this, it was amazing to me.

On the third day, when you think of the third day, this is the first miracle Christ performed.

Destroy this body and in 3 days I'll raise it up again.

On the cross of Calvary there is a wedding.

Sinners separated from God are now united to Christ again.

Cana of Galilee, Cana was a city of wickedness.

Just in the first verse, Jesus' mother, standing at the cross, Jesus' mother watching the agony of Christ at the cross, where he turns the water of Judaism into the wine of the gospel.

Jesus said, I'll not drink this wine, this cup with you until I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.

And Jesus says, this is the covenant of my blood.

So the last supper in which you have the unfermented juice of the grape, because you can't have fermented juice because fermentation is a sign of sin.

So this is the story of the cross in the first miracle.

02 Signs of Divinity

Welcome back to another exciting lesson in the Gospel of John.

Remember, we studied about that last time, but I want to reemphasize it again.

When John's gospel ends in John chapter 20, verse 30 and 31, he says this, truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.

But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

What is the entire purpose of the book of John?

John tells us, John in effect says, the purpose of my book is to record miracles, signs, teachings of Jesus so that you can believe.

So in the second lesson in our series, we read about signs of divinity.

Father in heaven, as we study these signs of divinity, we pray that you would speak to our hearts.

We pray that These signs would deeply impress us once again, that Jesus is the divine son of God and help us believing to have eternal life through Christ our Lord.

When you come to Sabbath afternoon, there's a statement in the first sentence that when I read it, it really struck me because it is the paraphrase of a statement that Ellen White makes.

The statement is this, first paragraph under the Sabbath afternoon's lesson, the Bible is clear that Jesus Christ is the eternal son of God, 1 with the father, underived and uncreated.

So it was not that Christ came forth from the Father at some time as some would teach, but it's rather that Jesus existed with the Father from all eternity.

Because if Jesus didn't exist with the Father from all eternity, he cannot give us eternal life.

Because if Christ was brought forth at a point of time, that would mean that he didn't exist longer than he existed.

Because look, if he came forth at this point of time, eternity in the past is greater than the point of time to the future.

So if Christ doesn't have eternal life, he can't give it to us.

So he must have existed with the Father from all eternity.

Our paragraph goes on to say, thus Jesus has always existed and there never was a time when he didn't exist.

Though Jesus came to this world and took upon himself our humanity, he always kept his divinity.

And he reveals that he is the divine Christ.

So we look at signs of that divinity in our lesson today.

We'll look at the feeding of the 5, 000, the healing of the blind man, and the raising of Lazarus.

So let's jump right into it in Sunday's lesson.

Jesus is preaching and he preaches all day.

So it must have been probably 12000 people or more.

And as Christ is speaking all day, 1 of his disciples comes to him and says, Lord, we better send these folk away because they're gonna be hungry.

And I can just imagine there were peasants in that crowd.

There were artisans in that crowd and tax collectors and Pharisees and farmers and sheepherders.

And there were children in the crowd and playing and women in the crowd.

And and you can almost hear the disciples saying to Jesus, send them away.

And the temptation is to say, oh, let somebody else do it.

Or let the mission, lay activities leader do it.

Or let the general conference do it, or let the union do it, or let the division do it, or let the conference, or let somebody else do it.

And Jesus says, to you, to me, give you them to eat.

Share the bread of eternal life with that husband that doesn't know Christ, with that neighbor that doesn't know Christ, with that relative that doesn't know Christ, that working associate that doesn't know Christ.

He says, a 200 penny worth, 200 days wages of bread is not sufficient that everybody could have something to eat.

And Simon Peter hears it, rather Andrew, Simon Peter's brother hears Philip.

And he said, there's a little boy here, he has 5 loaves and 2 fishes, but what are they among so many?

He said, all you have we need, but we need all you have.

Little in the hands of Jesus is much small in the hands of Jesus is great.

Jesus takes hold of the loaves and fishes.

He prays to the father, he begins to distributing them and little in the hands of Jesus as much.

And they feed those thousands and thousands of people.

With the blessing of God, the little you have as much.

You might say, Lord, I can never witness for you.

I can never share the bread of life with others.

Give what you have to Jesus because little in the hands of Jesus as much.

But somebody says, you know, Lord, my health is almost gone.

Give the health you have back to Jesus and make a decision that you're gonna live in harmony with the laws of health to the best of your ability.

I'm not suggesting you always will be miraculously healed, but I will suggest that a little in the hands of Jesus as much when you give him what you have, he can do something with it.

Somebody said the love in my marriage is gone.

I just have a little love left to give it to Jesus.

Let him multiply it like he did the loaves and the fishes.

So Jesus multiplies those loaves and fishes.

When we give our lives to Jesus and give the little we have to him, he multiplies it.

And in this miracle, it shows that Christ is divine.

It shows that Christ can do a lot with a little, if we give it to him.

And when you come to the end of this story, there is enough left over.

There's 12 baskets there that are left over.

Gather up the fragments that remain, Jesus says.

And they gathered them up and they filled 12 baskets.

But if you go to the corollary reading in the desire of ages, it does tell you.

It says they went home and they were so excited with those loaves and fishes that some people, obviously you couldn't get 12, 000 people to all take a little bit home, but many of them did.

And they took it home and they said, this is a miracle.

03 The Backstory: The Prologue

The Gospel of John is our study for this quarter.

And you'll recall from our first and second lesson that the great theme of the Gospel of John is that these things have been written, according to John 20, verse 31, that you might believe.

So every lesson focuses on the miracles of Christ, the teachings of Christ, the personality of Christ, the humanity and divinity of Christ so that we can believe.

This week's lesson, we delve into John 1, verses 1 to 14.

Father in heaven, thank you for the opportunity to study your word.

Thank you that your word speaks to our hearts, touches our lives, transforms us.

We pray that the mighty power of your word would speak to us as we study it in this lesson in Christ's name, amen.

The title of the lesson is the backstory, the prologue.

A prologue is something that introduces the entire theme of the book.

So in John chapter 1, we find Christ set forth as the divine Son of God, the 1 that was with the Father from eternity.

We find Christ set forth as creator in chapter 1.

We find Christ set forth as the 1 that lights every human being, illuminates everyone's consciousness that comes into the world.

John chapter 1, we find Christ as Redeemer and that his greatest glory would be the glory of the cross.

So John chapter 1 sets the theme of belief for the entire book.

We go into Sunday's lesson and it talks about the divine logos.

We'll take a look at what that is, but let's go to John 1, verses 1 to 5.

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

All things were made through him and without him nothing was made that was made.

In him was life and the life was the light of man.

And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it.

So let's look at those verses, phrase by phrase together and see what we can get out of them.

Notice it says in the beginning was the word.

When you think of the phrase in the beginning, what do you think about?

Genesis 1, verse 1, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, in the beginning.

So this hearkens back to creation, pointing forward, forth the fact that Jesus is eternal and the eternal creator.

The word was with God and the word was God.

You might ask the question, how could he be with God and how could he be God?

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are 3 distinct persons in the Godhead.

Now that doesn't mean the 3 are in 1, like the Catholic idea, the Trinity, where 3 beings are in 1 God.

The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Spirit is eternal.

The Father is all-knowing, the Son is all-knowing in his eternity before coming to man, coming in his humanity, and the Holy Spirit is all-knowing.

The Father is all-powerful, the Son is all-powerful, the Holy Spirit is all-powerful.

So, scripture teaches the concept of the Godhead, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit united together.

So here, John 1.1 clearly points out that Christ, the Word, is God.

Now, notice that emphasis on the word, the word.

Verse 2, he was in the beginning with God.

The Greek word for This is logos, and we get the word logical from it.

It comes from some from Greek philosophy, but the author of our lesson defines this logos.

You find the definition in Monday's lesson.

You'll find it about, oh, 4 paragraphs down.

It says, in the Gospel of John, the Logos represents the eternal God who enters time and space, who speaks, acts, and interrelates with humans on a personal level.

The eternal God became a human being, 1 of us.

So here, when John says the word, the logos became flesh, Christ, the incarnate word, Christ, the eternal word, Christ that was 1 with the Father from eternity, dwelt in human flesh.

Now we're gonna look at that a little bit later as I explore some more on Monday's lesson, but there are a couple of the things on Sundays that I wanna pick up with you.

Notice it says here, all things were made through him.

He spoke and earth was carpeted with living green and sun, moon and stars appeared.

So the all-powerful Christ, all things were made through him.

And if they were, he certainly can take care of our lives as the all-powerful creator, and certainly can transform us.

So when you come to Jesus, you receive life and he lights up your life.

He gives you meaning and purpose in your emptiness.

You see this theme all the way through John, light and darkness, light and darkness.

The believers follow light, Unbelievers follow darkness.

That man was sent from God, whose name was John.

This man came for a witness, to bear witness to the light, that all through him might believe.

He was not the light, but was sent to bear witness to the light.

That was the true light, which gives light to every man who comes into the world.

So Jesus is really the true light that lights every man that comes into the world.

It means that every person that's born, the light of Christ's love, grace, and truth through the Holy Spirit is working in their life.

If they yield to that light, if they do not resist that light, they are drawn to Christ and the Savior.

If they do not yield to it, if they resist it, if they rebel against it, They go the way of unbelief.

So yielding to the inner workings of the Holy Spirit, the light draws us to Jesus.

Resisting it draws us the opposite direction to unbelief.

Now notice in John chapter 1, we're looking now at Monday's lesson titled, The Word Became Flesh.

We'll let your eyes drop down to verse 14.

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Sabbath School 4th Quarter 2024: Themes in the Gospel of John

10 The Way, the Truth, and the Life

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