Why Jesus Is More Than a Teacher
Jeremy MacDonald · Tidal Church Moncton · June 29, 2025 · What Do the Miracles of Jesus Mean? series
Jeremy MacDonald opens a summer series in John's Gospel, centring on John 1:1-18 and John 20. He shows that Jesus is far more than a good teacher: He is the eternal Word who became human and lives among us.
More from Jeremy MacDonald · The What Do the Miracles of Jesus Mean? series
Topics: Faith, Discipleship, Worship
Transcript
[0:00] Ten minutes ago, we sang a song about Jesus, "What a Beautiful Name It Is," Jesus. And if you're a church person, and if you've been at this church for any length of time or churches like this, in some ways it doesn't feel odd or weird to sing a song like that about Jesus Christ my King. But if you're not a church person or if you've got some doubts or some questions, it's kind of a, it's kind of like, "What's going on there? What a beautiful name, you know, Jesus." Like, what's the relationship or what's the connection with this Jesus character that we're supposed to have? And if you're, especially if you're not here in the room, which you are, so this doesn't count, but think about the people that are not church people at all.
[0:49] People in your family that are disconnected or that are far from God. If they wander in and they hear a song, "What a Beautiful Name It Is," Jesus. It's a bit of a, like, I don't know. It feels, maybe it's a bit far off for some of those folks to consider singing something like that. Because Jesus, although when we gather in this way, and we obviously talk about Jesus, not everybody has the same understanding or expectation or belief in who this person is. And from a cultural perspective, I mean, this has been the case for many years. Some of you, you know, you've maybe heard the, the famous Gandhi quote, "I like your Christ, but I don't like your Christians." You know, you hear people even online talking about Jesus in different ways.
[1:34] And as people kind of come to understand who this character Jesus is, it shapes and adjusts how they live their life and what they do. And I think it comes back to kind of a bigger question that a lot of people wrestle with in our day and age. And it's kind of one that I want us to journey with, at least for today. And that's simply this: is Jesus a good teacher? Because for a lot of people in our world today, they would say, "That's Jesus. He was a moral teacher. He was maybe, you know, a rabbi, maybe He's a historical figure," they go back, but they kind of almost like camp and say, "That's the end of it." In fact, they might have asked the question a bit different. You know, "Is Jesus just a good teacher?" And lots of people in our world would be like, "Yeah, that's the extent of it." If you go a little further, if you go a little bit deeper, if you go a little bit to like this point of singing a song about His beautiful name, that's a little bit much.
[2:27] He's just there as a good teacher. And the reason people often think that, and maybe the reason that you might think that is because a lot of folks assume that our faith, the faith of Christians that comes from 2000 years ago, has kind of transmitted in a particular way, a little bit like the telephone game. How many people remember the telephone game? Remember playing the telephone game? Oh, we got some young hands and we got some old hands, I won't say which is which, but the game's been around for a while. I didn't check to see how long it's been going. I remember playing it growing up, and it was so fun in youth group to play it because it meant that I got to be closer to the girls. So that was great. But you remember, if you don't know the telephone game, the way it works, it's very simple. The way it works is there's a person on the front end and they get handed, maybe it's a card or maybe the, you know, the leader explains, the line is, "I only dance when there's thunder."
[3:17] And then they have to share it to the next person quietly in their ear. And then they share it, and then they share it, and then they share it. And at the end, you ask the person, "What did you hear?" And you get something like, "I hold hands with three plumbers," which I know some plumbers, you don't hold their hands. But from like a faith perspective, you know, you do something maybe if you're in a church and it's something like the Bible verse, "Be still and know that I'm God." And then it gets handed down and it ends up being something like, "Be grilled and throw ham at Todd." Which I know Todd's here in the room. Todd Elliot, a little bit of grilled ham, ham, Todd, you'd like that? That's all right. I've been at your place. We could have some good barbecue. Okay? But the point is, it's maybe more of like a religious thing instead of being cheeky. And kind of the rhyming, people kind of assume that from a faith perspective, it started 2000 years ago, got handed over the generations and has turned into something different.
[4:08] So it's not about the rhyme, but it's about the idea has changed over time. And so instead of "Be still and know that I'm God," you get something like, "In the stillness, you can feel the presence of the universe." Or if you go to, again, people that you know, or friends, they might think, actually, it's almost like it was reversed. It actually started 2000 years ago. This bigger truth, "In the stillness, you can feel the presence of the universe." And over time as it gets handed down, people, you know, use it to get more power, or they change the words, and you end up with this line that we have in our Bible today. And the idea is that maybe, and again, this might be you, it might be the people that, you know, they think that Jesus, maybe He was a good teacher, but people have kind of messed it up along the lines.
[4:57] Like the way that we think about Jesus is more dictated by the last 2000 years and people tinkering with it and the game of telephone happening, and that we get this kind of disrupted misinformation view of who He is or who He was. And so for the next 10 weeks, we're walking into this series about the miracles of Jesus. We're gonna talk about Jesus Himself. How can we be sure? How can we know that the way that we talk about Him is actually true, is actually real, is actually about who He is? If we ask the question, "Was Jesus just a good teacher?" How would we know that our answer is the right one? And interestingly, these days, there's so many more people in this conversation that are really thoughtful, that are actually experts in this kind of thing that can help us understand how this works.
[5:52] One of which is now my new claim to fame, that I'm like one degree connected to him, is a guy by the name of Wes Huff. And so Wes Huff is a Christian guy. He is out of Toronto, outside of Toronto. He works with Apologetics Canada. And Wes was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast, talking about faith stuff and a wild guy to listen to because he understands the nature of how we've ended up being able to open up the Christian Bible and where these stories come from and the way that Wes would describe it. And just a couple weeks ago, I was facilitating this university course, and Wes was a guest lecturer, and he was walking us through this particular chart that helps you, and to me, understand that when you think about the telephone game these days, it's actually completely different.
[6:38] When we think about faith, we're actually going all the way back to where that first message came out, and we're hearing that message the way that Wes would describe it as he's explaining a little bit from the New Testament's perspective. He'd say, back in 1611, when the King James Version was first translated, or, sorry, first published, wasn't the first English Bible, but it was obviously a very, the popular one. They were working with about 31 manuscripts, we think, and the earliest collection of manuscripts of the texts were all the way back, which is great, from a thousand AD. The difference is these days when you open up your Bible, you are reading from somebody's translation and they're pulling from 5,000 or more manuscripts, dating all the way back to the second century. These days when we talk about Jesus, we don't have to worry about the transmission over the generations because we can go back and actually hear from the very beginning, from the people that were with Him, the people that actually heard Jesus talk, the words that He spoke, and the things that He was revealing about Himself.
[7:45] When we ask ourselves, and when you ask yourself, and you should ask yourself this question, is Jesus just a good teacher? You can know the response comes from somebody who actually knows the answer. And so what we'll do for today and for the next few weeks through the summer is we're gonna hear from John that wrote the fourth Gospel. There's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. John's Gospel's a little bit different than the other three. It seems like we kind of think that this John was, maybe some years after, maybe some years after than the other three Gospel accounts. He's kind of seeing the way that the message of Jesus has spread around the Mediterranean rim. He's seeing what's happening in terms of the persecution, and he wants to clarify and give people an answer to this question, although not hyper specifically, but he wants to do something really particular when talking about Jesus.
[8:44] John actually gives us 21 chapters in his Gospel. And at the end of the 20th chapter, he gives the thesis statement, the point of why he would go to all the work to write these things down. And we think that John is the same. John that is one of the disciples, the one that was with Mary after the crucifixion, the one that, again, was in the midst of all of these stories, writing firsthand account, and checking with his friends that journeyed along with Jesus for a few years, the John that would become a leader in the early church. And the John that when he writes about Jesus wants you and me to understand something pretty specifically. This is where we'll be for 10 weeks, and for John over the next 10 weeks, as we, as a church, go through his Gospel, we should understand that he clarifies what this is about.
[9:32] He says, "The disciples saw Jesus do many other miraculous signs." And miraculous signs is a feature of John's Gospel. It's why this series is called, What Do the Miracles of Jesus Really Mean? Because when John writes about a miracle, he's actually writing something really particular, trying to reveal a part of Jesus's story. And there's a lot packed into each of the miraculous signs, the signs and wonders of Jesus. And so John says, he says, "The many other signs are in addition to the ones recorded in this book," because it's a historical document, there's three years of ministry, not all of it could be packed in. So John picks and chooses so that we could understand and know something about Jesus. And he says, "These are written for this purpose so that you may." And when he says you, he's of course writing to his audience, but in this Gospel account, he's actually writing to the Christians, surely in that first century, but to the Christians passed throughout the centuries.
[10:36] And so in so many ways, you listening are a recipient of John's Gospel as he anticipated it, spreading across the world and across time so that so that you and me may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. And thirdly, that by believing in Him, you will have life by the power of His name." And so when we sing about the name of Jesus, we're hearkening to these kinds of texts that talk about the powerful name of Jesus and who Jesus is. It's revealing a portion of who Jesus is and what He's all about.
[11:23] And it's why, you know, sometimes when they do, you know, research in our country or North America, and they ask people like, do you believe in God? Yeah, most people will say they believe in God. That's not really that impressive. The demons believed in God. The question is, who do you really believe in? What do you believe about Him? And what are the results of that belief? And what does that actually do for you and the world? And for John, it's very specific and it's very particular. And for John, he's trying to unpack and show you and to show me parts about who Jesus is. 'Cause if we understand more about who Jesus is, it changes the nature of how we live our lives. It changes our reality. It changes the people that we, how we interact with the people around us. Everything adjusts when we understand who Jesus is, the miracles of Jesus, they mean something for you and for me.
[12:15] And together we discover Gary Burge, the one of the commentators on this book. There's a lot of different researchers and commentaries on the Book of John. And he explains that each section of the fourth Gospel, the Gospel of John, contributes to this central theme, the appearance of the Son of God into human history and explaining more about the actual audience. It's written for Christians who already knowing the rudiments of Christ's life and Christian truth, now wish to go further. And so, hey, if you're here and you don't believe in Jesus in any way, shape or form, we're still glad that you're here. You're welcome to be here. You're always welcome to be here. We think this is the best place to be. But you should know that when we open these texts, we know, that you've got hesitations. And that's okay. This is a chance for those of us that claim Christ as our King to go that one step further.
[13:04] When we open the Gospel of John, we hope you'll sign on along the way. You can do that any Sunday. You can do that anytime here. You can come forward at the end. You can pray, you can receive Christ. But the point is that when we open these texts, we know it's gonna help us. John knows it's gonna help you. and me grow deeper in our faith and understanding of Jesus. Now, one last thing before we dive right in is I wanna give you a picture, an actual sort of picture of the Gospel of John, because sometimes, I grew up in church, you know, I've been a Christian, you know, most of my life. And so those pre-5-year-old years, they were really rough though, before I came to Christ. And so what happens is that sometimes we get to, like, do our devotional stuff, you know, you're reading, you know, the Daily Bread or whatever it might be.
[13:50] And so sometimes we get, like, the snippets, which are not bad. I love the snippets of the Scriptures, but sometimes we miss what is happening in the whole of the document. And so, you know, the Gospel of John is a whole document written in one giant chunk. And for John, he's showing and walking through a couple of big themes. I just wanna show this so you just get a sense, because over this summer, hopefully you'll come along for the journey and read through the Gospel of John, maybe even a couple of times, and you'll catch some of the larger themes, the things that he's doing. And so this is too hard for you to see. Let's kind of split it a little bit. But it's just to see that it's in one chunk. John's doing kind of two big-picture things. He's doing, in the first half, traditionally called, in church history, the Book of Signs, chapters 1 through 12, and then the Book of Glory, 13 through 20, is about the crucifixion.
[14:36] It's about the lead-in, and the Book of Glory is about revealing the glory of God. There's this massive theme of the light breaking into the darkness. You'll see that, but that the glory of God comes through as a part of the resurrection. There's so many important things happening there. But for the summer, we're gonna look through these signs, these signs that point to who Jesus is. And what John will do is he'll actually unpack, and we'll kind of get a sense of this over the next few weeks. There's, like, the institutions of Judaism, and there's the festivals of Judaism. And because so many of those early Christians were coming from their Jewish faith, he's gonna show how that rich heritage is actually fulfilled and unpacked by Jesus. And so these things that they would've expected to be the way that God spoke or worked in their world.
[15:26] John is gonna show how Christ brings new meaning and shows a part of His character. And so Gary Burge would write, this is from his commentary, that in each of these, the institutions, the festivals, these symbols, these signs that we'll discover, he's replacing some Jewish symbol with abundance, with Messianic abundance, the water becomes living water, the water from the festival, the manna becomes the story of bringing the feeding of the 5,000. It's not just a miracle of the fact that Jesus can host a big party. It's like, yeah, that's awesome, and He's miraculous. What a cool thing to have happen. But He's saying something even more bigger. That's not it. You know, it's something more significant. There's something about "I'm the bread of life," and we kind of have to understand and walk around it and see how this shapes and changes our understanding of Jesus.
[16:18] And so if we ask the question, is Jesus just a good teacher? I mean, the answer, if you went to John who actually knew Jesus and wrote all sorts of things about Him, he would say, I don't fully understand the question. Are you not hearing me? Because I want to show you the parts, the places, the power of this God, and it will change everything about your reality. And this is where you and me wander in and get to discover and to learn and to look to new facets of who Jesus is. He's more than just a good teacher. He's a great teacher. Of course, He's the teacher, but there's so much more going on and there's so much more going on in the Gospel of John.
[17:04] So let's start us off in the first part of John. We read this. This is Greek. So if you've got the gift of tongues or you can speak Greek, you'll catch along. But I know you don't necessarily know Greek. I don't really know it that well. I did a couple of semesters in school and I forgot most of it, but I wanted to show you this because these two things you can, and I can see they're similar, obviously, they're the exact same. What's happening here? And I just want to kind of point out a few things along the way. If you didn't think you're gonna learn ancient Greek today, hey, welcome to the club. Is this gonna be fun? Maybe, I don't know. I get excited, and since I got the mic, you gotta be excited too. Okay, so this part down here is John 1, and this is, "In the beginning was the Word." That's what's gonna be in your English translation or something similar.
[17:52] The logos, we're gonna cover that in a second, but in the beginning was the Word. Now, the interesting thing to note about this is this top section is Genesis 1:1. Now, Genesis wasn't originally written in Greek, but when John is penning his Gospel of Jesus, he is likely, we think because of all the documentation, writing in ancient Greek. He would've had access to his Jewish texts in what was called the Septuagint, the Greek translation of Genesis. And when you look at the Greek translation in Genesis, you get, of course, the same thing. The same thing in Genesis at the beginning is the story. In the beginning, God created. And I don't wanna draw too much of a tight connection here, but the point, I think, and you'll see this as John starts to unpack in the very beginning of his Gospel, he's tying the story of Jesus all the way to the very beginning.
[18:47] That it's not even for John that there, he's picking up the telephone midstream. He actually wants you as the reader. He wants me as a Christian to realize what Jesus was doing, who Jesus was. Let's pick up and catch the fact that Jesus is tied to the very beginning of all time. That the story of God throughout humanity is one where God always is reaching out and trying to bring people closer and back into relationship with Him. And Jesus is this ultimate fulfillment, but it's sparked by John 1:1, which reads in English, let's take a look. In the beginning, the Word already existed. The Word being Jesus. We know this from the context as he, continues to explain the Word, the logos, is Jesus, already existed.
[19:35] The Word was with God, and the Word was God. This piece, where for Christians, we have this Trinity, this doctrine of the Trinity. The idea that Jesus is both fully human, but also fully God. That God is three persons in one. It's mysterious. It's hard to explain. It defies all of our categories. And we have a picture, an image of it coming through here. In the beginning of John, the Word was God. He existed, Jesus, in the beginning with God. And God created everything through Him, and nothing was created except through Him. There's so much richness here. We're gonna keep rolling 'cause I wanna make a couple of other points though. But come back to that, wrestle with it. Read it and read other people that have wrestled with this idea because it's so profound and shapes and changes our understanding. Was Jesus just a good teacher right from the start?
[20:29] He's so much more. The Word gave life. Remember, in John 20, gives life, life gave, gives life to everything that was created. And His life brought light to everyone, the light. And in John's Gospel, there's this, this profound, like, interplay between the light and the darkness. And for some people, and even some people today, there's this sense of, like, good and evil fighting each other. But John positions it very different right from the start. This isn't really a battle, this isn't really a fight. It's like there's no, it's like a no contest. It's almost embarrassing that the darkness would come up against the light because of what happens. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. There's never a point where the darkness wins.
[21:15] The darkness is always going to be pierced by the light. And Jesus is, and as we'll discover, the Light of the world. You know, interestingly, our prayer team is led by Brian and Debbie. And this is, I don't even know if Debbie would remember this, but a few years back, my wife and I were talking with her, just, you know, our kids were experiencing some nightmares at night. And we're trying to figure out, like, how do we pray for them in the middle of the night when they're waking up? And, you know, it's difficult. I mean, as a kid, I mean, as an adult, you have a nightmare and it's terrifying. And I'll never forget what she said, because as much as the nighttime can feel like the darkness is crowding in, and this might be for some of you too, and you get that nightmare, and it feels like everything is just dark in front of you, she said, look for where Jesus is, because Jesus doesn't leave those of us that have looked to Him.
[22:11] And if you can look for Jesus, He is the light, and He will break through that darkness. And so we started praying for our kids in the midst of that, and trying to encourage and teach them, look for Jesus, when you feel like the darkness is crowding in, the light of Christ can never be extinguished. And so look for Him and find Him. But something else is happening here. As John's talking about who Jesus is, he uses this language of the logos, this Greek word. And what he's doing is he's trying to tie in these ideas from his culture. He's helping, and maybe not tying in, that's a wrong way to say it, but he's recognizing that for those in his day and age, it wasn't necessarily like, it was like a belief in God, although surely everybody believed in some type of God figure.
[23:01] But in those days, the logos was actually what people put their faith and trust in. It was defined a bit differently. In fact, Wes Olmsted says this about it, you know, the Stoics, which was around this time, you know, the logos was the rational principle by which everything existed. Gnostic thought the logos was viewed as both the creator and the revealer. And even, you know, a Jewish philosopher from Alexandria, Philo, he argued that God formed the universe through the logos. And so for John, he's like, "Hey, you know, this understanding of how the world works, let me clarify for you. All of that exists in the person of Jesus. You know, what you think about how the world is like this big thing and how there's this rational, all of that stuff is because of this human being."
[23:46] And we know that because John actually explains it. He explains in verse 14, he says the Word, the logos that is kind of in the ether, as the conversation people expect it, the logos becomes human. The logos actually becomes a human. And he uses a crass word here that is hard to kind of fully translate. But in some translations, and maybe in your Bible, it might say, you know, the Word became flesh. If you know, like, you know, those words that are just kinda like they grate you or like they cause you, like, ooh, like something was moist. Like, ooh, don't say that. You know, He was flesh. It's like, ooh, that's a little bit crass. But what John is trying to explain is that all of those things that you would expect, the rational thought of the world, these big ideas, they become a human being.
[24:32] Like an actual individual that took on human characteristics. That was a baby that had to wake up as a young adult that had to, you know, wipe His eyes out and had to use the bathroom. Like, flesh is not this high and lofty idea. It's this down to earth thing that God was up to in our midst. Don Carson, one of the commentators, he says this about the verse says, if the evangelist John had said only that the eternal Word assumed manhood or adopted a form of a body, the reader steeped in popular dualism of the Hellenistic world might have missed the point. You might miss the idea of, like, this, you know, good versus evil, yin yang thing. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's so much bigger than that. It's so much different than that.
[25:18] There's something really important going on that we should not miss. And often, sometimes our world even misses it today. John 1:14. So we come back to that. The Word became flesh and made His home among us, made His home among us, again, is a hard one to kind of fully translate because what John is doing is he's tying back to the story of God from Exodus. And so to kind of understand the connection point, the word here he is using is like, that the flesh, you know, tabernacle among us, this tabernacle of, like, pitch to tent, like set up shop, but like a physical space among us. And you'll see why this is important in just a second. But that's kind of the essence of what's happening there. And, you know, Jesus, He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness, and the rest of the verse reads like this, and we've seen His glory.
[26:09] That is the glory of the Father's one and only Son. And what John is doing here is, I wanna highlight just kind of three things for you, because this is a direct connection to the story and Exodus. So, you know, think about the tent. Remember that His love and faithfulness, that's Jesus. And that we've seen His glory. All of those themes for John's audience, and you're now the audience, are Him hearkening back to the story of God from earlier in the story of Israel. And so if you go all the way back to Moses and Moses being, you know, the one leading the Israelites out of Egypt, and there's all of that whole story, you can now watch it on Netflix. And so, like, it's like fascinating and like there's the, you know, the red, the water and all the Egyptians die, and then they're wandering around the wilderness.
[26:55] Like, this is the story of the faithfulness of God pulling His people back to Him. And this is what we get out of the Exodus narrative. In Exodus 33, Moses used to take a tent and he would pitch it outside the camp. And what was this about? As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay in the entrance while the Lord spoke with Moses. Because in those days, the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire at night, that was the Spirit of God. You could actually look to it and you'd say, "There it is. That's what we're following, and we'll stop when it stops and we'll go when it goes." And when it comes down into the tent, it was signifying this opportunity for God to be physically present with His people.
[27:43] And John says, Jesus is taking that tent and putting it among you and putting it among me. The God of the universe is actually physically present with you and with me. It's a complete change of understanding and expectation of who the gods are and who they would be. And how do you get to know if they're angry with me or not? And in this instance, He's like, "Well, He's right there. His tent is right there in your midst." John goes on, or sorry, in Exodus, it goes on. And again, just to pick this up in verse 18, Moses said, "Now show me Your glory," asking God to show him His glory.
[28:29] And this is what happens. And it's a fascinating narrative, but God passes in front of Moses. He doesn't see Him fully 'cause he would die, 'cause it's so, you know, profound. And God proclaims, "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness." And with this in mind, we go to John 1:14. "The Word became flesh and pitched His tent among us, full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen His glory." This is the work of God in our midst. This is the story where John is trying to help you and me understand who this Jesus really is. It's the same God from then that's working in our world today.
[29:17] It's an opportunity for us to look and to see and to experience the power of God in our midst. And from this, John will explain, "From His abundance, we have all received one gracious blessing after another, for the law was given through Moses, but God's unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ." And finally he says, "No one has ever seen God, but the unique one who is himself God is near to the Father's heart, and He has revealed God to us." So if you ask the question, is Jesus just a good teacher? I mean, if you ask the one that knew Jesus, if you talk to John, which you are doing as you open up that text and you're reading his words, he would laugh and say, "No, He's not just a good teacher."
[30:10] Jesus is the God that you can see. He's the God that is with you. He's the God that knows you. He's the God that understands what you're going through. He's the God who has parts of His character that have yet to be revealed to you because it takes a lifetime of seeking after Him where we can experience and know different parts of Him. This is a God who is way more than a good teacher and way better than a good teacher. And even though it'll be a beautiful 10 weeks for us to go through and discover these different miracles and discover what they mean and how they reveal parts of who Jesus is, even then, there's still a lifetime that we could spend going through this Gospel and understanding and discovering new pieces of who Jesus is and what He's up to in your life and in my life and in our world today.
[31:04] But my suggestion to you and to me is to take John's words seriously when he says that he's written these things so that you may continue to believe. Because, friends, this isn't just a once and done kind of checkbox of, "Hey, I know who Jesus is and I'm done with that." No. If we would allow these words to roll through our lives, they'll reshape us and change us, and we'll discover more about this Jesus that for so many of you, you've given your life to. And so that's why for the next 10 weeks we've offered, and in case you haven't caught on or heard, we do have a devotional book. This is a custom devotional book tied directly to this particular series.
[31:53] The person that put it together, Abby, is the one that helped pull together a bunch of the research for each week of the series that we use to make sure that we're, as we go through the text, that we're doing it faithfully. And so each week there's a few devotions that you can do to go a little further, to go further in this faith in Jesus. And if you would spend some time, you can use this, you can just read the Gospel of John. These are available on your way out today, and we asked for 10 bucks because they're just so that we can recoup the cost. But hey, if you need a copy and you can't afford a copy, let me know. I'll get you a copy or a digital one if you'd like. But the point is that you would take time beyond just this moment to discover who this Jesus is.
[32:38] And I'll speak just as I'm not like super old, but I'm like medium old, I guess. I'm almost like, I'm 38, so it's like in two years I start getting old, I think is how it goes. I don't really know. But the point is that I'm fascinated as a 38-year-old person that's been a Christian forever, that as I go through these texts, even in preparation for today and reading the first part of John, how I'm learning and discovering parts about Jesus and what He's doing in our world today, that is reshaping me now. And so I don't know what it's like to be a 80-year-old or a 90-year-old that's been reading the Scriptures for their entire life, but I would guess it's probably the same, that there's opportunities for God to shape us and mold us and help us to discover new things about Him.
[33:31] And for that reason, I would encourage you to take John seriously. Jesus is more than just a good teacher and He's worth discovering new things about each and every day. The second thing, as we kind of come in for a close here, is that we've used this series as a means of walking through that first part of John, the Book of Signs, the miracles of Jesus. We'll unpack, like, the wedding miracle next week, which is wild. And then I'll be back in the week after. And you know, I was working on it this last week, this other miracle about a healing from afar. And it's like, oh man, there's so much about these miracles that reveal something about Jesus. I think, you know, people that desperately need to hear that story.
[34:17] And so, you know, we have these invite cards. You can also get those as you go out today. And what they do is they show you each of the weeks, kind of like the tagline or the title for each week of the series, kind of the question that we're wrestling with. And so when you think about like, is Jesus just a good teacher? Like there's lots of people that, that's an honest question that they might wrestle with. And so we are trying to find ways to give you a tool so that you could pray honestly and sincerely for the people that you know who need to hear about Jesus. And then you've got something specific that you could take one of those invite cards and you could actually hand them and say, "Hey, I'd love to sit with you. Hey, I know you're going through, maybe it's somebody with a tough time. I'd love to for you. I think this could be helpful for you. You know, hey, I think they're talking about something that, you know, could be valuable to for you at our church this summer."
[35:05] And so to use that as an extension of what God has kind of called you to, to place you in your neighborhood and in your community or in your workplace or wherever it is to go the distance, to do whatever it takes to bring people closer to God. My kids got a, we got an invite, actually, we came back, we were in Shediac, was it last night or the night before? And there was a church that came by and they left an invite in our mailbox. And I mean, we love church. And so my kids were like, "Oh yeah, this is, this is, we know about this one. And then we got a friend going to there and, and can we, should we go?" Like, it becomes a conversation. And I'm like, "Well, we have a church." But I mean, I like that church too. It's great. We're all in the same thing together, but the power of an invitation was all of a sudden we were talking about something based off of just that one card.
[35:55] All that to say, if you would do the work of holding onto those things and prayerfully ask God to lead you, I think this summer could be profound for your faith, but also for the faith of so many others. And so let me pray for you and pray for me as we come in for a close here. And when I'm done, our lead Pastor Jim is going to come and he will close our service off, and we've got a bit of a celebration for one of our team members that he'll tell you about. But for right now, let me pray for us. Heavenly Father, You are so kind that we could open up these texts that aren't from a game of telephone, but that they're actually all the way from the very beginning. The fact that John would take the time and, you know, the cost that it would've had on his life or journey, the way that he would've to save up in order to write these things down or to buy whatever the tools he needed for it.
[36:49] And all that was going on, the chaoticness of it. And for You to preserve these texts for so long that we could open them and discover who You are, we just say thanks. And then, Lord, as we get a chance to discover more about Your miracles, but even more than that, the way that You wanna work in our world today, would Your Spirit guide us? Would You challenge all of us? Would You challenge me as I open the Scriptures this week as we open the Scriptures this week and dive a little deeper? God, would You shape our hearts so that we would be the people that You would have us to be, the things that You were doing and starting 2,000 years ago, that it would be true in this day, and that, God, we could bring this message of hope to the people around us?
[37:41] Would You put those people in our minds? Would we pray for those people? Would their stories be such that we would know that they're meant to intersect with Your story as we do all of these things, would we do it through the matchless name of Jesus, the beautiful name of Jesus, the powerful name of Jesus, amen.