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Christ Community Chapel is a church in Hudson, OH, that invites people to reimagine life because of Jesus. Learn more about us at ccchapel.com.
John 20:33–31
Now, Jesus did many other signs
in the presence of the disciples
which are not written in this book;
but these are written
so that you may believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that by believing
you may have life in his name.
Hey everybody,
good morning and welcome to CCC.
My name is Joe.
I'm one of the pastors here
and I'm glad you've come.
We have a theme for this year for 2026,
and our theme is simply More Life,
More Life.
We have taken it from what
Jesus says in John chapter ten.
I have come, they might have life
and have it more abundantly.
Jesus wants you to have more life.
Full, flourishing, abundant life.
What we want to do is by December
of this year, when we look back on 2026,
we want to
see that we experience more
of what Jesus promised than ever before.
That's our goal.
This week is the last week or our ten week
series.
We've been looking at
what Jesus says about himself,
and we're calling this series
I Am More because so many things
that Jesus said about himself began
with the
"I Am" phrase, and they're all outrageous.
They're all really over the top.
If you ever hear me or Pastor Zach
say any of these about ourselves,
you should run to the hills
because it is crazy.
Jesus says stuff like,
I am the good Shepherd.
I am the bread of life.
I am the light of the world.
I am the resurrection and the life.
I am the way, the truth and the life.
Last week I am the true vine.
All those statements
we find in the Gospel of John.
And here,
the passage we're going to look at today,
John tells us his purpose
for writing what he wrote.
This is what he says.
Now, Jesus did many other
signs in the presence of the disciples
which are not written in this book,
but these are written
so that you may believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that by believing
you may have life in his name.
John says something interesting
right there.
He just says, I left out a lot.
I left out a lot.
I've been very selective.
That's an understatement,
because the Gospel of John in my Bible
is 22 pages long.
That's it,
22 pages.
Put that in perspective.
Biography for Elvis Presley,
The Last Train to Memphis,
which is what they sell at Graceland.
Don't don't even ask me how I know that.
576 pages, 576 pages for Elvis
Presley, 22 pages for Jesus Christ.
But John
says,
I had a reason for writing what I wrote.
And those are my three points
that I want to cover.
What you can know, what you can
believe, what you can expect.
That's it.
What you can know, what you can believe,
what you can expect first,
what you can know.
So John is getting
to the end of his gospel,
and he's thinking back on all the time
that all the experiences he had
with Jesus.
And he's realizing
how much he has left out.
John chapter 20, he says it.
Then in chapter 21,
he closes the gospel with this.
Now there are many other things
that Jesus did
where every one of them to be written.
I suppose the world itself could not
contain the books that would be written.
It's ten.
All the world couldn't contain.
Now imagine
what one day with Jesus was like.
We have a sentence in the Gospels
that describes one day.
This is the only sentence,
this information we have about that day.
Jesus healed everyone that came to him.
That's it.
Can you imagine how many books
you could write on that day?
The another day,
right after the resurrection, where Jesus
is walking on a road
from Jerusalem to a mass,
that rode
Jerusalem to a mass is about seven miles.
And he comes across two disciples,
and he begins to talk with him.
What he what it says
is that during that walk
he explained
the whole Old Testament to them
and how the entire Old Testament
was all about Jesus.
Imagine
the pastor
Zach, does a thing called the deep dive.
He spends five hours there.
They're going through theology for this
last time it was in the the Holy Spirit.
Amazing stuff
and with all due respect to Zach,
wouldn't hold a candle to that seven mile
walk with Jesus.
And we don't have anything.
No one wrote that down yet.
There was a popular TV series
a few years ago, where Kiefer
Sutherland starred as an anti-terrorism
agent named Jack Bauer.
Anybody know the name of that?
24? Yeah, it was called 24
because every episode was one hour of
Jack Bauer's
life, 24 episodes in a season.
So every season was one full day, right?
Eight seasons.
That that was Jack Bauer.
Jesus. It would just be incredible
to have one full day.
But John says, I wrote 22 pages,
but I wrote it with a purpose,
and I wrote it with one thing in mind,
and that was to give you enough
so that you could believe.
And he says that
because he knows how human beings think.
I mean, most of us think, you know what?
It would be so much easier to believe.
It's so much easier to have faith
if if I could hear God
speak in an audible voice once
or see him do a real,
verifiable miracle, or.
Or if I experienced something
like Saul did on the road
to Damascus with lights and everything,
and what John says as I wrote 22 pages
so that you would have enough
and it's enough.
Jesus tells a story, a parable
where there's a rich man
who's in hell and he's talking to Abraham,
who's in heaven.
And at the end of their conversation,
the rich man says to Abraham,
please send someone to my five brothers
to warn them so they don't end up
here in hell.
And Abraham says, your
brothers have Moses,
have the law and the prophets.
And what what Abraham is saying is
your brothers have the Bible,
and the rich man says, yeah,
but that's not enough.
They won't believe just because of that.
But if someone comes to them
from the dead, then they'll believe.
And Jesus is telling this parable
and Jesus has Abraham say,
if they don't listen
to the law and the prophets, to Moses,
the prophets, neither will they believe.
If someone rises from the dead.
Ironic that Jesus is saying that
because Jesus
is the one who will rise from the dead.
What John says right
here, right at the end of 22, page two.
They wrote this for one reason.
It's so. It's enough for you to believe.
That's why whenever
somebody is interested in Christianity,
they want to know where to start.
In the Bible I always say read the Gospel
of John because that's why he wrote it.
And of course, then the
question is believe what?
And that brings me to the second point
is what you can believe.
So he says this in verse 31,
but these are written
so that you may believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that by believing
you may have life in his name.
First thing I want you to know
is he says, so that you may believe
faith is very personal,
but you have to believe it.
I don't know if this happens
with other professions now.
It happens to me if when I'm outside,
you know, in town, out in the wild,
and somebody comes up to me
and they ask me what I do,
and I say, oh, I'm a minister,
I can't tell you
how many times the next thing they say,
oh, oh, that's that.
My grandfather was a minister.
I don't know if that happens,
if you're a lawyer or a banker.
Happens to me all the time,
and I always get
the feeling they're trying to let me know
that they're covered.
You know, they're saying, you know,
I may not be very religious,
but it runs in my family.
It's like.
It's like,
I think faith is like high cholesterol.
It gets passed down from generation
to generation.
And I'm like, you know,
it doesn't work like that when
when you die, God's not going to ask you
what your grandfather did.
He's not going to ask you
how good a mom you were or
how good of a dad you were,
even what church you went to.
God's going to ask one question
what did you believe about Jesus?
I said
one question.
John says, I wrote these 22 pages
so you could believe two things
about Jesus.
The first is that Jesus is the Christ.
You need
to know Christ is not his surname.
You know, like I'm Joe Coffee.
It's not Jesus
Christ is not his last name.
Jesus is his name. Christ is his title.
Christ is the Greek word for Messiah,
Savior, Redeemer.
What John is saying is, I'm.
I wrote these things
so that you would know
that you have a messiah,
that you have a Savior.
And he starts right at the beginning.
And in chapter one,
one of the first stories he tells is John
the Baptist looking at Jesus,
pointing at him and saying, Behold
the Lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world.
The reason he says that behold,
the Lamb of God, who takes away
the sin of the world,
is that justice demands
that sin be paid for.
Our whole legal system is based on that,
that people are accountable
for what they do,
and if they do bad things,
it needs to be paid for.
Years ago, I saw an interview.
It's a really good interview.
Larry King Live Larry King was talking to
interviewing a man named David Brickner.
David was the president of Jews for Jesus.
He was talking about Jesus.
Larry King is Jewish.
And so Larry King ended up saying
at the end of the conversation, David,
are you saying that if I don't receive
Jesus as my Savior,
that I'm going to go to hell
and everything just stopped?
And there was silence of his waiting
for what?
David and David's answer was
one of the best answers I've ever heard.
He said, Larry,
I know that Jesus Christ paid for my sins.
I don't know who's going to pay for years.
That's such a great answer,
because what he was saying is, Larry,
you know, people need to be accountable.
You know, sin needs to be paid for.
Jesus came and paid for my sin.
Who's going to pay for your.
But then I'm going to give you a quick
flyby
of the Gospel of John
and all the things he tries to tell us,
so that we could believe that we have
Messiah.
Chapter two Jesus cleanses
the temple, makes the first prediction
of his resurrection.
Chapter two.
Chapter three.
He gives that world famous verse.
Jesus is the one who said, For God
so loved the world
that he gave his one
and only son, that whoever believes in him
should not perish
but have everlasting life.
Chapter four.
He spends time with the Samaritan woman.
She leaves.
She goes into town and she tells everyone,
come see a man who told me
everything I've ever done
and he loves me still.
Could he be the Messiah?
Could he be my Messiah?
Chapter five Jesus heals on the Sabbath,
and people begin to realize that
he calls himself the Lord of the Sabbath,
that he is making himself equal to God.
Chapter six Jesus feeds 5000 people
and then calls himself the bread of Life.
Chapter seven.
People were really struggling with Jesus
because they realized that he is more
than your ordinary prophet.
If there's such a thing
as an ordinary prophet.
Chapters eight and nine Jesus says,
I am the light of the world,
and any to prove it,
he heals a man who is born blind.
Chapter ten.
He calls himself
the good Shepherd, alluding to Psalm 23,
or that was chapter nine. Chapter ten.
No. Chapter ten, chapter 11.
He raises Lazarus from the dead,
and he says, this is just the beginning.
And he has that verse.
For he says, I am the resurrection
and the life.
He who believes in me,
though he die, yet shall he live.
Chapter 12 is Palm Sunday.
So chapter 12 all the way through
chapter 21, the last week of Jesus life.
And during those chapters we see Jesus
having the Last Supper with his disciples.
We institutes communion.
Judas betrays him. He's arrested.
He he's tried.
He's how he's hung on a cross.
He dies. He's buried.
He resurrects, appears to Mary Magdalene,
the disciples, Thomas More disciples.
All that John writes down
so that you would know
that Jesus came for you,
that Jesus on the cross paid for your sin.
And when he resurrected,
it was like a receipt
to make sure that you knew
that your sins had been paid for,
that when Jesus
said, For God so loved the world,
he was talking about, you,
that's the first thing.
The second thing John says is,
I've written all these things that
you would know that Jesus is the Christ,
that you have a Savior,
but that Jesus also is the Son of God.
That's why he wrote all the
I am statements.
That's
why they find those in the Gospel of John.
He's trying to say, listen,
he's trying to keep people from doing what
most people do, which is to say that
Jesus is a really good man,
a really good moral teacher.
And it's it's crazy
that they come to that conclusion.
I, I read this to you eight weeks ago,
in that sermon, but it's a quote from C.S.
Lewis, from his book Mere Christianity.
And I really like this quote.
So let me read it again.
C.S. Lewis says, I'm trying here
to prevent anyone saying the really
foolish thing that people and often
say about him, I'm ready to accept
Jesus as a great moral teacher,
but I don't accept his claim to be God.
That's the one thing we must not say.
A man who is merely a man
and said the sort of things Jesus said
would not be a great moral teacher.
He would either be a lunatic on the level
with a man who says
he's a poached egg,
or else he would be the devil of hell.
You must make your choice.
Either this man was and is the Son of God,
or else a mad man or something worse.
You can shut him up for a fool.
You can spit at him
and kill him as a demon, or
he can fall at his feet
and call him Lord and God.
But let us not come
with any patronizing nonsense
about his being a great human teacher.
He has not left that open to us.
He did not intend to.
If Jesus was the Son of God,
it means he has absolute authority.
It means when you look at Jesus,
you know what God is really like.
It means that his sacrifice
has infinite value.
It means to resist Jesus.
It's not just disagreement,
it's rebellion.
And to trust Jesus is not just belief.
It's coming home.
John says, I wrote these 22 pages
so that you would have enough
to believe two things about Jesus.
One, that he came for you
and that you have a Savior.
And two he is the Son of God,
and you can trust him with everything.
And that brings me to my third point,
which is what you can expect.
That's what he says.
But these things were written
that you may believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that by believing
you may have life in his name and word.
Life is the Greek word zoé,
which is quality of life.
It's like what you would think of
if you were on vacation at the beach
and had just a wonderful day, and you're
sitting at that on the deck of the beach,
looking at as the sun sets over the ocean
and you think to yourself, this,
this is living.
This is what life should be like.
That's Zoe.
What's interesting is that John writes
this at the end of his life.
He's the last living disciple,
and his life has been anything
but sitting on a on a deck,
looking out at a sunset
in the ocean after perfect days.
That's not what he's talking about.
It's like John comes
to the end of his life,
and he remembers back to John chapter
ten, where Jesus says,
I have come that they might have life
and have it more abundantly.
And John says, it's true, it's true.
You can have life
the way it was supposed to be,
because that's what I have lived.
I, when I watch TV, I channel surf
like all the time.
The remote control is one of the greatest
inventions in the world
for me.
It's the bane of my wife's existence.
She likes to see the end of shows for,
you know, closure.
I don't, so I'm channel surfing.
And I saw the other day
that, back to the future is looping back.
Back to the future is an old time
travel movie with Michael J. Fox.
And just if you don't know, I'm
going to tell you a little bit about it
that the time travel machine
is a Delorean car, but the mechanism
that gives the energy for time
travel is called the flux capacitor.
I know, I know too much about this movie.
I'm sorry.
All right,
but the flux capacitor in the movie,
the only the only thing
that will give it enough energy
to actually travel through time is either
plutonium or a bolt of lightning.
That's the whole
premise of back to the future one.
But at the end of the movie,
in order to tee up the sequel,
they have the professor fly
into Michael J.
Fox, his driveway,
and he's come from the future, and he's
made some adjustments to the Delorean,
and he opens it up and he opens the flux
capacitor and and Michael J.
Fox is worried about plutonium,
but the professor just starts
grabbing garbage and putting it into
the flux capacitor, banana peels
and coffee grounds and leaves and sticks.
Because the flux capacitor
can then take anything
and convert it into pure energy.
That's what John's talking about.
There are two ways to experience life
the way it's supposed to be lived
abundant life.
The first is to spend your whole life
chasing those those slivers of time,
those moments where everything seems like
it's perfect,
like everyone you love is healthy
and everything is going well,
and you're looking at a sunset
over the beach, and those things happen
just like a little tiny
drop on the tip of our tongue
to remind us of what heaven will be like.
The other way is to have something change
deep down in your soul,
so that every circumstance you go through
gets processed into pure life.
Into Zoe,
where everything that you experience
turns into love and joy and peace
and patience and goodness.
That's what John's talking about.
John says, I know what it is.
I know what Jesus was talking about.
You know what it is and what it is
is that Jesus has come for me,
that Jesus is the Son of God.
And there's a change
that has happened in my soul
and now expenses.
That's what I want.
That's what I that's what I want for you
at the end of 2026, for us
to look back and say something happened
deep down in our souls,
and for the first time, we began
to experience different circumstances,
circumstances that other people
that would not produce life
and other people produce life in me,
John says.
I wrote 22 pages
so you would know enough
so you could believe
that Jesus came for you.
He is your Messiah.
You could believe
that he is the Son of God
and that you could experience life,
life the way it was intended.
The life that you really, really want.
Would you pray with me,
father in heaven?
Thank you for, the Bible.
I am so grateful that you have
given us everything that we need.
And I know there are some here
that just like.
Man, I wish I had one thing more, but
John says Euro 22 pages and it's enough.
I pray for, everyone here
that we would all believe in our hearts
that Jesus is the Christ,
that Jesus is our Messiah, and that he's
the Son of God with authority
in every aspect of our lives.
And then I pray that you would
give us the life you promised.
Thank you.
Thanks for providing
such a wonderful Savior.
We pray this in his name.
Amen.