Welcome to the Daily Disciple Podcast, where we seek daily to be with and to become like Jesus, our teacher. Good morning everyone, this is Travis and welcome to the Daily Together on Mission Podcast. I looked this morning and I think we're on episode 345 or something like that, so we've been spending Monday through Thursday together for almost two years and started this podcast during the beginning of the pandemic and intended to end it as we resumed large gatherings once vaccinations were available to anyone that wanted them. But I started getting reports of people being incredibly enriched by the podcast and people were saying things to me like Travis, I've never spent ten days in a row with Jesus in the morning.
I've never spent 22 days with Jesus in a row in the morning. I've never spent 300 days with Jesus in a row in the morning and it's great. And so I just started thinking about, well, maybe this podcast is a rhythm that we can be and start a conversation with Jesus and enjoy him throughout the day because honestly, and this refers to yesterday's podcast, that's eternal life, knowing God and Jesus Christ, whom he sent and engaging in the adventure and the journey and the conversational relationship with Jesus, so good morning. It's great to be with everybody.
It really is. Turn to John, Chapter 20, the very end, not the very end, but almost the very end of the Gospel of John. And this is the last podcast that we're going to do at least for a little while in the Gospel of John. And I think I'm going to title this podcast Poetry because John is a poet.
And there are not many things that are clear in the Gospel of John. Actually, I wouldn't want to put it that way. There are some things that are a bit obscure and a bit deep and things we have to look and look and look and eventually we will see in the Gospel of John. That's what I meant, but other things are quite clear.
And what I'm about to talk about, I think John intended to be quite clear. And one of the reasons why we don't notice this is because we're not as into numbers and numerology as if for a century Jew would have been. But as you probably know, the number six is the number of incomplete. Incompletion.
There needs to be a completion. There needs to be a fulfillment. It's the number of man. It's six.
It's incomplete. And the number of completion, of course, is seven. And John, in his poetic portrait of Jesus, loves. The number seven, because what he wants to say is that God has made promises and God has kept and fulfilled his promises in Jesus and by the power of the Spirit.
What God intended to do in his world has been complete and Jesus is finished, is complete. So the number seven is absolutely everywhere. So the title of this podcast is Poetry or a poetic portrait of fulfillment. So let's jump in.
We're going to go to John chapter 20 and John's landing a plane, which I've said before is an image that John never would have used in the first century. But chapter 20 verse 30, Jesus performed many other signs. We'll come back to that. Many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not recorded in this book.
In this book, we only get seven. But Jesus performed many other signs which are not recorded in this book. But these signs, these seven are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the King, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. That's incredible.
Signs, belief, life. And if we've been reading John and enjoying his poetry and the portrait he gives us, this is a great consummation to it. Signs, Jesus, Messiah, Son of God, and life in his name. So John begins in chapter one with seven titles for Jesus.
And he puts this in an incredible narrative where Jesus is encountering John the Baptist, encountering Peter and Andrew, and Daniel and so forth in chapter one, but maybe you've never counted, but in chapter one. And you can look this up, Jesus gives or John gives us seven titles for Jesus. Behold the Lamb of God, right? They found the Messiah, who is the Christ, the one that Moses wrote about, and that was written about in the prophets.
Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph, the King of Israel. And on and on it goes, there are seven titles, read John chapter one slowly, and mark down every time you see a title for Jesus, you will find seven, because Jesus is the complete one. He's the one that's fulfilled, and so these seven titles, each meaning a certain thing, culminate in the reality that he is the fulfillment or the completion of the hopes of Israel and the plan of God. And then in chapter two, we pick things up.
And from chapter two to chapter 18, we have 14 IM statements. I AM statements. 14, which of course is two sets of seven. For example, in chapter 10, as we all know, Jesus says, I AM the good shepherd.
That is one of six IM statements that are followed by a certain designation about who Jesus is and what he's about. Seven IM statements with a description of who Jesus is. And as you read chapter two through eighteen, you can find those seven, but then there's another set of seven. Seven IM statements with no description after them.
It's just, I AM in the midst of the story. My favorite is in chapter 18, where the soldiers come and arrest Jesus, and Jesus says, I AM he, and the soldiers just fall back because of the sheer power of his presence. So there's between chapters two and eighteen, there are 14 IM statements, two sets of seven, obviously to flag the completion, the fulfillment of who Jesus is, and all of these seven set the stage for the main thread of sevens. So in chapter two, through chapter 22, we get seven signs.
Signs are miraculous things that point to who Jesus is. So Jesus turns the water into wine as the first sign. And John says, this is the first sign that Jesus did to prove that he was Messiah. The second sign is when Jesus, oh, gosh, is the healing of the pool.
No, it's the healing of the official son. That's the second sign. And Jesus says, this is the second sign performed after coming from Judea to Galilee. And then you've got the healing of the pool.
You've got the feeding of the five thousand. You have the healing of the man born blind. You have the raising of Lazarus from the dead. And that's number six.
And then we get this long narrative without a sign. And we're wondering, wait a minute, John, I thought you were really into sevens. The raising of the Lazarus was six. I've been counting.
What's going on? What's happening? And we're reading and we're reading and we're reading. And then we find in chapter 20 on the morning of the first day of the week, right?
The tomb is empty. And so God has raised his son from the dead. Jesus is the resurrection of the life. Jesus is the seventh sign, the fulfillment, the one that brings God's plan to completion.
The resurrection is the seventh sign. And then, and we started here. We're going to end here. John 20, verse 30, Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not in this book.
But these are written, these seven signs are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. So be it. We'll talk soon. Thanks for listening to the daily disciple podcast.
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