The Day That Changed The World

What this episode covers

Blank Outline Completed Outline gospel of john The day that changed the world, and it can change us, can’t it? I hope that’s your testimony this morning. Well, there’s no other place I would rather be this morning than right here, and I’m so glad you’re here. Although a close second, I watched early this morning a service from the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem. And Phil Tuttle, who’s the president of Walk Through the Bible, and we’ve gotten to know Phil as an acquaintance because he’s been at Maranatha many times. Phil Tuttle gave a great message, and how cool to celebrate the resurrection at the empty tomb. And as I listened to Phil, he did peek into the tomb, and he said it is still empty. So that is good news. The tomb is empty. Well, we’re going to spend maybe 35 minutes. I’m going to try to land the plane at about 11:20. If you get a little weary, start waving white hankies, and I’ll shorten it. But we’re going to think about the resurrection, obviously, and it’s the cornerstone truth of Christianity. Because without the resurrection, Christianity collapses like a house of cards. Without Christianity, there’s no truth of the resurrection. Without the resurrection of Jesus, we might as well stop meeting on Sundays, or maybe we’ll just meet and talk about current events. Maybe we’ll talk about the latest political scenery. That’d be a great way to have a church split, wouldn’t it? Next Sunday, we might as well just plan breakfast with the Easter Bunny, if Christ hasn’t risen. There’s always been doubters of the resurrection. There were doubters in Paul’s day. There was a religious Jewish sect called the Sadducees who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. And as somebody said, that’s why they are sad, you see, because they have no hope. When Paul preached on the resurrection in Acts chapter 17 at Mars Hill, the response of some of the religious elite and the higher-up echelon of the day was they mocked Paul when he spoke of the resurrection. And so, Paul addressed that in 1st Corinthians 15, and he says, how do some of you say there is no resurrection? He goes on to say, if there’s no resurrection, our preaching is useless, we’re liars because we’ve gone around telling everybody the tomb is empty, Christ has risen, our faith is futile, we’re still in our sins, we have no hope, and we’re lost. But in 1st Corinthians 15:20, Paul writes, that Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. So, this morning we’re going to think about some proclamations of Jesus from John, the Gospel of John, and look at four statements that Jesus made as we trace through the Gospel of John this morning. And let me just start by sharing a little background of the Gospel of John, because the Gospel of John is unique. We obviously have four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the synoptic Gospels. The word synoptic, that word optic, means to see, syn, the prefix s-y-n means to see with. And so, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the synoptic Gospel because much of their material is repetitive. In fact, they cover the same events. For instance, 90 percent of Mark’s Gospel is found in the book of Matthew. And 50 percent of Mark’s Gospel is found in Luke. But John is unique. 92 percent of John is not found elsewhere in the other three Gospels. And so, this morning we’re going to think about the proclamations of Jesus from the Gospel of John, and we’re going to look at four of them. And really the key thought is, who is Jesus? Jesus asked his disciples that question in Mark, Matthew chapter 16. They were up in Caesarea Philippi, and he asked the question, who do people say that I am? And so, the apostles and the disciples started to answer, some say you’re John the Baptist, some say you’re Elijah, some say you’re Jeremiah, some say you’re another prophet. And then he said, who do you say that I am? And of course, we kno

Distinct summary based on available episode metadata or transcript content.