- Today we're starting
a brand new series entitled Bystander, John
and the Rabbi from Nazareth. And for the next few
weeks we are gonna journey with John as he
journedy with Jesus but before we jump
into the narrative, before we jump
into the narrative in terms of Jesus
interacting with people and Jesus' preaching
and teaching, we have to begin by
addressing attention that the gospel
writer John addresses throughout his gospel. Perhaps the two
most misunderstood and perhaps the two
most misused words in all of religion, but
specifically Christianity, are these two words. The words faith and
the word believe. Now for just a second,
setting religion and theology aside,
setting all religion and theology aside
for just a moment, we all know what
those two words mean. We know what those
words mean at home. We know what those words
mean in the marketplace. We know what those words mean
in every other area of culture but for some reason
they get hijacked when they get dropped
into theological context. In the real world
where we all work and where we play and
where we have friends, we believe based on evidence. In other words, you make
decisions about what you believe or don't believe
based on evidence. What you see. What you read. And we also decide
what we believe based on our confidence
in the person delivering the information. When you were a kid, you were taught that eight
times eight equals 64 but I bet none of you went home and lined up eight
rows of eight things and went one, two,
three, four, five. Why? Because you had confidence
in your teacher. So there's a couple of ways that we come to believe things. Evidence. What we see, what we
read, what we hear. And based on our
confidence in the person that's, you know, telling us
whatever the information is. Now from time to time there's conflicting information, right? You get two different
pieces of information and you're not sure
what to believe. For example, and this
may be the most important question that I ask all day. Is coffee still good for us? (congregation laughing)
Is coffee still good for us? Yes or no? Is it still good for us? Yes, okay. Because I grew up thinking
if you have six cups of coffee a day you
live six years longer. Then I learned that
it was not six, you live six years
longer, not six cups. Anyway, then there was all
this research that said oh, no, no, no, coffee's
bad for you. So I have a cognitive bias. It's where I just decided I'm
just not gonna listen to that. I'm only gonna listen
to the information, it's called confirmation bias, that you only listen
to the information that confirms what
you already believe. So when it comes to coffee, I only pay attention
to the research that confirms what I
already wanna believe and that coffee's
good for us, right? And we all struggle
with confirmation bias. But the point is this, all of you, in your
real world experience and in the real world, we all know what it means
to believe something. We all know what it means
to have faith in something. And what we're gonna discover
in this series together, Bystander, is that when
it comes to those words, they do not, this
is so important. In fact, you won't even
believe this, some of you. They do not take
on special meaning when they are dropped within
the context of Christianity. Religious faith, this
is what's so strange. Religious faith and
belief are often divorced from reason and
confused with hope. We all know what
hope is as well. But for some reason, and
I don't really know why, when it comes to Christianity
or religion in general, when it comes to these words, they kind of take on
a life of their own and they get
divorced from reason and they become more like hope. Well I hope he shows up. Well did he show
up last time, no. Did he show up the
time before that? No. But I hope he shows up. And that's hope and
it's good to have hope. But hope and belief
or hope and confidence are two different things. So unfortunately, when
it comes to Christianity, some of you, some of us grew
up hearing things like this. Well, you just have to believe. You just have to believe. And if you're from the
south, it went like this. You just have to
believe, brother. (congregation laughing) You just gotta believe, brother. You just gotta take
it by faith, sister. Come on. You need to have, and
somebody's even told you this, you need to have more faith. Which is kind of a silly thing, in fact, that
phrase doesn't even make sense in the real world. Because you either believe
something or you don't. I mean, there's a time when you're trying to
figure stuff out, but when it comes
to Christianity, you know, you just have to
take it by faith, sister. John, the gospel writer John, you know what his
response to this would be? It would be really? Says who? If you were to ask Peter
who followed Jesus, really? Says who? If you were to ask
Jesus, is this true? He would say really,
where did you get that? You don't find that in
the teaching of Jesus. You don't find that
in the New Testament. Again, I don't know
exactly where it came from. Maybe that doesn't matter. But as we journey with Jesus
through the gospel of John, we are gonna discover an
entirely different paradigm. In fact, I love what my
friend Frank Turek says, Frank does, he lectures and
debates on university campuses all over the place. In fact, he will
step into the arena with anyone that'll step
into the arena with him. He's debated in several
of the new atheists. He's a brilliant guy. And here's what he says. Frank says this. The reason so many people are easily talked out
of Christianity is because they were never talked into it in
the first place. That the reason students, the reason college graduates, the reason singles, the
reason senior adults, it doesn't matter, the reason people are
often times and so easily talked out of Christianity, is because they were never
talked into it to begin with. They were just told well
you just have to believe. And perhaps, that's
what you were told. And you believed. Because you were young
enough to just believe the Sunday school
teacher or the parent or the grandparent or
the pastor who said you just have to believe. And then you grew up. And someone talked
you out of it. Because no one had ever
talked you into it. You read a book and the
author talked you out of it because no one had ever
talked you into it. You heard a lecture,
you saw a debate, and someone talked you out of it because no one
ever took the time to talk you into it. And John, who wrote
the gospel of John, in fact, John has a last name. Did you know John
had a last name? Yeah, here's his last name. His name is John
Zebedeeson, okay? John Zebedeeson because
in the New Testament, I thought that was funny, okay? (congregation laughing) Thank you. And in the, I'm
glad you, anyway, in the New Testament
he is introduced to us as John, the son of anybody? Zebedee, yeah. John the son of Zebedee. So in our world we would
call him John Zebedeeson. And John Zebedeeson, or
John, you finally got it. (congregation laughing) So exciting. I work so hard on these things. Anyway.
(congregation laughing) Here's what John, son of
Zebedee, would tell you. He would tell you I
did not follow Jesus because of faith. I did not follow Jesus
because of faith. I didn't just take
it by faith, brother. I didn't you just have
to believe sister. John did not choose
to follow Jesus because of faith and
he would caution you against that as well. And if the only reason
you're following Jesus is because somebody said
you just gotta believe, hey, I've got some good news. There's more to it than that. And I've got some great news, you need to pay attention to
what's more to it than that, otherwise somebody
may come along and talk you out of something that no one ever took the
time to talk you into. As we're about to discover, there is an enormous difference. There is a big, big
difference between by faith and because of faith. The Apostle John, as he'd
be later known in history, the Apostle John left his
father's fishing business to follow Jesus
because of what he saw, not because of faith. In fact, he outlived
most of his friends. By the time John dictates, we doubt he wrote this because of the kind
of Greek it's in. He dictated this
document that would later be called the Gospel of John. By the time he'd done this, the Apostle Paul was dead, the Apostle Peter was dead. Probably all of his
friends were dead. He was the last,
the lone survivor as it relates to the apostles, the people who followed Jesus, the closest followers of Jesus. And apparently somebody
finally got to John and said John, you gotta
document this stuff. You're the last guy standing. And we still don't
know your story. I mean we have Peter's story, 'cause Martin gave it to us. We have Matthew's
story, you know, Luke thoroughly investigated
all these things. But John, we've heard you teach. You've gotta document this. You were an eyewitness. You were an ear witness. You need to document this. And so he did. And again, it came down to
us through the tradition called Gospel of John or the
good news according to John. But here's the cool thing
about the Gospel of John. John was not content,
this is so important. John was not content to
simply tell us what happened. John tells us why it happened and why he wants us
to know it happened. And at the very end
of his gospel account, he gives us a purpose
statement or a thesis. Remember in college or
maybe even high school, you had to write a paper, you
had to have a thesis statement or here's the big idea. And on our term papers you
had to put it up front. Here's the big idea, here's the thesis. Well John saved his
thesis statement or his purpose statement to
the very end of the gospel. So I'm gonna read this to
you, this is at the end, then we're gonna go
back to the beginning and look and then journey
with John with Jesus. But here's the
purpose statement. He says hey, if you miss at all of if you're wondering
why I wrote this or if you're wondering
what the point of this is, here it is. He said this, Jesus,
he wrote this. Jesus performed
many other signs. And we're gonna come
back to that word, so hang onto it. Jesus performed many other signs in the presence
of His disciples. In other words, this wasn't
somewhere where no one saw. Which are not
recorded in this book. And this book does not
refer to the Bible. This book refers to the
document that John was writing. So John says look, you're
about, you've come to my end of my account of
the life of Jesus and I've told you a
lot of things He said, but He said a lot more. I've explained a lot
of things He did, but He did a lot more. But I have chosen
these specific things that I refer to as signs
and here's why I chose these particular events. You ready for this? Here it is. But these, these signs,
these are written and it's a little Greek term, it's called henna,
it's a connector. A henna clause means
purpose or result. He said the purpose for me
writing what I've written is not so simply
that you'll know what Jesus did and
know what Jesus said, but these are written
that you may believe. I want you to believe, but I'm not content saying well just believe, brother. You gotta take it
by faith, sister. He says no, no, no. I want you to journey with me
and my experience with Jesus and my hope is that
you will experience through my experience, Jesus in such a way that
you will be convinced that He is who He claims to be. He's not simply telling
us what to believe. He's building a case as to
why we should believe it. Because John did not embrace
this crazy idea of faith or belief that just kind of
hangs out there by itself. But believe what? He's very specific. He said here's what I
want you to believe. I want you to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. But he goes beyond that
because there's a result to placing your faith
in Jesus as your savior. There's a result
in understanding that Jesus is the
Jewish Messiah. And that by believing, by
placing your faith in Him, you might have life in His name. In other words, the
sequence that brought John to the point where
he believed Jesus was who Jesus claimed to be, the sequence that
brought him to faith is the very same sequence
he's gonna lay out in his gospel that we know
as the gospel of John. And it goes basically like this. He's gonna tell us
there were events. And as it turned out, they
weren't just random events. They were signs that
pointed to something. And those signs
pointed to something in such a way that
they served as evidence and because of the evidence, because of what I saw, because of what I heard, I decided I believe that Jesus is who He claimed to be. And when I began to
believe Jesus was who He claimed to be
based on the evidence, the signs and the events, then I place my trust in Him. And here's why this
is so important. John doesn't begin with
I place my trust in Jesus and I hoped it
would all work out. In fact, throughout
his gospel account and Matthew and
Mark's and Luke's, what we find with
these disciples or the apostles is
that they believed, then they disbelieved. And they believed, and
then they weren't so sure. Because they weren't
easy to convince. They didn't believe
in superstition. They were trying
to sort this out and in the end, it wasn't
faith that moved them. It wasn't faith
that convinced them. It was what they saw and it was what they heard. And here's his thinking. If this is good enough for me. I'm hoping it's
good enough for you. If this was the sequence
that convinced me, I hope it's a sequence that
will convince you as well. So what he does in
the gospel of John, he's not just giving
us random events and random conversations
with Jesus. He organizes his entire account around what he calls signs. Seven signs. He organizes the whole thing
around these seven signs. Now, we're gonna look in
this series at all seven, but here's something interesting before we jump
into the first one. It's interesting that
John chooses the term sign rather than the term miracle. And this is so important and
this was so easily confused even by modern Christians. The supernatural acts of Jesus, the supernatural
events of Jesus, the healings, the
walking on water, all those things, the
supernatural acts of Jesus were not random acts of kindness and He wasn't just showing off. They weren't just
random acts of kindness and He wasn't just showing off. These were signs, and
John realized that. These were signs that
pointed to something and specifically
what they pointed to was Jesus' identity. Now it's easy to get
enamored with the signs and it's easy to get
enamored with miracles, especially when you
need one, right? But John knew that
was a mistake. And throughout his
gospel, he makes it clear. Hey, these miracles
aren't daily occurrences for the sake of
daily occurrences. These miracles have
a specific purpose. And their purpose
is to point people to the identity of Jesus. So he does his
best in this gospel to help us not become
enamored with the miraculous, but to become enamored
with the person that the miraculous pointed to. Any questions so far? Good, okay. So let's jump in. Sign number one, every
single person listening, every single person watching, already knows this
one, probably. And the interesting
thing is this, this very first sign
was so well known, as we're about to discover, that when John
tells us the story, he doesn't even
tell us the miracle because he assumes
everybody reading his gospel already knows about it. Now why would he assume that? Here's why, this
is so important. Because by the time
he documented it, it was such a part of
the Christian teaching and Christian preaching. It had been such a
part of it for so long, he almost doesn't even have
to give us the punchline. Christians, by this
time, are like oh yeah, you remember the one about? Oh yeah, I remember
the one about, right? The first sign is
turning water to wine. And this is the only
one that rhymes. The first sign is water to wine, it's the only one that rhymes. Okay, so here we go. John chapter two,
we're jumping right in. On the third day, a
wedding took place in Cana in Galilee way,
way, way north of Jerusalem. And Jesus' mother was there. All this detail
because these aren't once upon a time fairy tales. These are things that
actually occurred. Now what we find out
later in this account is that Mary was a part
of the hosting committee for this wedding or perhaps
she was part of the group that did the catering. We don't know exactly. But she had a very
specific responsibility as we discover as
the story goes on. And Jesus, and Jesus
and His disciples had also been invited
to the wedding. Which means John, who
gives this account, was actually there. Now, as you may have heard, wedding celebrations
in those days went on for days
and days and days. They were very expensive events. And so that's what sets
up what happens next and that's why
what happened next was such a catastrophe
even though it would be a similar catastrophe
if something like this happened at your
daughter or your son or perhaps at your wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to Him, they have no more wine. So they run out of wine. This would be like
running out of dessert or you know, they go
back for wedding cake, there's no more wedding cake. Or there's no more punch or there's no more wine. You know, whatever there
is going on at your wedding that everybody expected and suddenly there's
no more of it. And you're the host. Or you're in charge of catering. Or perhaps you're the mother
or the father of the bride or the groom and
suddenly it's just, this is a very
embarrassing moment. And so this is the part
where we all have questions and we don't have answers. She turns to Jesus. She knew that in a crisis, she could call upon or lean into her very resourceful son. It's like she knew He could
do something about that. Which it just makes
you so curious. Like what was it like
to grow up with Jesus? You know, you didn't run
to the grocery store. (congregation laughing) You just turned to
your son and said son, could you, however you do that, get me some of that. I'm just gonna turn
around, I won't even look. I don't know, I don't know. But somehow she knew it
was okay to turn to Jesus in a crisis and anyway, and so Jesus responds like this, it's a little offensive. He says woman. (congregation laughing) Do not try that at home. (congregation laughing) And do not say well,
I'm just quoting Jesus. No.
(congregation laughing) Now this is actually the
right translation of the word, but we miss what's behind it. It would be more like if He
said to his mom, my lady. It's like He's in
a formal context and He didn't wanna
say mom, you know, or, I can't do that
thing women do. Mom, He's not gonna do that. (congregation laughing) That was a terrible
illustration. Anyway, so He doesn't say mom. So it's like He kind
of keeps it formal. Maybe He meant to
be funny, my lady. And then He asks this question, this is so cool. He says my lady, or woman, why do you involve me? Jesus replied, my
hour has not yet come. Mom, I've come to save
the world, not weddings. (congregation laughing) Okay? This was not how I planned
to go public, okay? This wasn't gonna be how
I came out to the world, okay, this is not
very Messianic, right? This reminded me, when I
was studying this week, this reminded me of a
situation not too long ago when my mother in law, who's
actually here with us today, so you know I'm
not making this up, my mother in law
called and she asked me to speak at the Christian
Women's Club in Dublin, Georgia. We need a speaker, we
need you to come speak at the Christian Women's
Club in Dublin, Georgia. And my first thought was,
well that's not what I do. But I did. (congregation laughing) Because of who asked, right? So Mary, I think she just
smiles and says whatever. She turns to the
servants and she says you just do whatever
He tells you and then she just walks off. (congregation laughing) Because after all,
she's the mom, right? She can do this. Now, what's so cool, and this is why John saw this. Because when you read
the story you think what kind of sign is that? It's kind of the most random, He didn't heal anybody, didn't really help anybody. Why would John start
here and what is the significance of this? And I don't know when
it dawned on John. Maybe Jesus, you know,
spelled it out later. Maybe John just put
two and two together or maybe as an old man, when they said John,
you gotta document your time in the life of Jesus and he thought back
and he remembered this and maybe as an old
man, it dawned on him, oh my goodness, this
was the perfect way, this was the perfect way
for Jesus to step into His role as Messiah and Savior. This was the perfect
introduction. And even though the
wedding guests never knew what happened
because they never understood that
there was a miracle right there in their midst. But John seemed to know
that for us future readers, this was the
perfect introduction to the message in the
ministry of Jesus. The story goes on
and here's when that begins to make sense. Nearby stood six
stone water jars. The kind used by the Jews
for ceremonial washing, each holding from
20 to 30 gallons. So this was a family
who was somewhat wealthy that was hosting
this and they were good Jewish men and women and the Jewish law and the
first century application of Jewish law demanded that Jews do certain kinds of washings before they do certain things to stay ceremonially clean. You had to wash your hands and sometimes you had
to wash to your elbows. There's all kinds of
different traditions that told people how to wash. So these, you can imagine, these are really
large stone jars and they're sitting there and they're sitting there empty. But, and here's the
significance of this, these are icons. These stone, these
stone or clay jars are icons of the covenant
and the traditions that Jesus had come to replace. That Jesus decided,
this is so brilliant. Jesus decides to go public. I don't know if He
decided in the moment or this was all prearranged, but Jesus decides to go public by using something that
would soon be replaced to point to what would
soon be put in place. That God's temporary,
we've talked about this. That God's temporary covenant
with the nation of Israel, that God's temporary
arrangement with Israel, established at Mount
Sinai, was disappearing. It was coming to an end. When it was given,
it was perfect. When it was given, it was way,
way, way ahead of its time. But it had a timer on it. And that covenant was
slowly coming to an end and these jars represented
the entire sacrificial system. And Jesus decides
to use this moment to illustrate something that
nobody there would understand. It was so under the radar, but it was so significant. God's temporary arrangement
was disappearing and something new had come, because someone new
was on the scene. The story continues. Jesus, the text says Jesus
said to the servants, fill the jars with water
because they were empty. So they filled them to the brim. I love what FF Bruce says. FF Bruce died a few years ago. He was a British
theologian that wrote commentaries and
in his commentary he says this about this
particular incident. He said this. He said the water that
they poured into these empty vessels, the water
provided for purification as laid down by the
Jewish law and custom, stands for the whole ancient
order of Jewish ceremony, which Christ was to replace
with something better. So there's all
this foreshadowing. It was the perfect
introduction to his ministry. He says fill up the empty jars. Fill them up with water as
they were normally used. And then something's
going to happen and they are going
to do something they have never done before. The old is passing away. Behold, something new,
someone new, has come. Then, the text goes on, then he told them,
now draw some out and take it to the
master of the banquet. Now the master of the banquet was the head waiter, basically, who was responsible
for what was served and when it was served
and who got served first. The text says that they did so and when the master of the
banquet tasted the water, now if you didn't
know this story, you didn't know how it ended, you would think oh no, they're taking him what
he expects to be wine and he's gonna drink it and it's just gonna be water. But again, John never even
tells us a miracle took place because John assumes
everybody who's heard this, like do I really
need to put this in? I guess I should because
it's so significant in terms of the beginning. But everybody knows
how this one ends. So here's how he writes it. They did so and the
master of the banquet tasted the water that had
been turned into wine, he just assumes everybody knows. Like oh, yeah, we know
it turned into wine. He doesn't even
state the miracle. But he did not realize, he did not realize
where it had come from. The head waiter didn't. Though the servants who had
drawn the water, they knew. Then he called the bridegroom
aside and he said this. He said this is amazing. You've done something
very unusual. I've never seen
this done before. Everyone usually brings
out the choice wine first and then the cheaper
wine after the guests have too much to drink. By the time they're
a little drunk, they don't care
what it tastes like. So everybody starts with
the, you know, the fine wine. Oh, this is so great. By the end of the night,
by the end of the week, they don't care,
they don't know. He said but you,
this is so powerful. But you, but you have
saved the best till now. And God had as well. Because the sacrificial system set the stage for the
new that was coming just as the original wine set the table for the better
wine that was to come later in the wedding feast. In the same way, God,
through the nation of Israel, His people, established
a covenant that would set up the world to
expect one to come after, to fulfill that covenant. So that when John the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan River says to the people
gathered there from all of Judea
and all of Jerusalem, thousands of people
potentially, behold, the Lamb of God who comes to
take away the sin of the world. There was a context
that made sense. Every Jewish person
there knew exactly what that pointed to. This was the original
wine that set up the coming of the new
and the better wine. And so Jesus uses
this kind of metaphor. He creates an illustration right there at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee
to say to the world, even though the
world at that time wouldn't understand,
something new has come. Something better has come. There was nothing wrong
with what came before, but what came before
was there to establish what is happening now. In other words, this
was more than a miracle. This was a sign. It pointed to
something and somebody but nobody would fully
understand it until later. The story wraps up like this. What Jesus did here
in Cana of Galilee was the first,
chapter two, John, he says we're getting
this thing started. It was the first of the signs through which He
revealed His glory and His disciples,
don't miss this part, and His disciples
believed in Him. There's a little, there's
a little connector word attached to the
Greek word for belief. They place their trust in Him. But here's the question. Why did they believe in Him? Because He got them
together and said come on guys, believe, come on. Believe, you can do it. Just have faith, sister. Just have faith, brother. Just gotta believe. No. The reason they
believed is because there was a reason to believe. So from the very outset, John and his gospel
establishes this paradigm and we're gonna
find it throughout. Because never once has
anybody asked to believe without there being evidence or without there
being confidence in the person who
brings the information. After this, the text says, he went down from Capernaum
with his mother and brothers. By the way, Mary had many
children after Jesus. Went with mother and
brothers and His disciples and there they
stayed for a few days and so it begins. This is so cool. Now here's the thing. 'Cause I know if
you're tracking along, you've gotta have some questions and we all do. And here's the thing. Unlike John, and unlike Peter, but let's just stick with John, unlike John, our faith in
Jesus does not come by seeing. Now you may disagree. You may say Andy, no, no, no. Let me tell you what. I didn't believe in God, I didn't believe
Jesus was anybody and then I saw something
and now I believe. Well I'm so glad that
happened for you. Or you say Andy,
I met this couple and they were so fantastic and I realize they had
this extraordinary faith and I wanted faith like them. And they sat down with me
and that's when I began to believe and I think
that's fantastic. Sometimes people come to faith because of something they see. But for most people, we don't come to faith
by seeing like John saw. We come to faith by hearing. But we're not asked
to just believe. We're not required
to take it by faith. We are invited. This is what makes
Christianity so significant and so different. We are invited to
believe what happened, we're invited to
believe what happened based on the testimony
of the people who were actually there. People like John. In fact, John came away from
his experience with Jesus and looking back, even
though there was blood shed and heartbreak and perhaps
the city of Jerusalem had been destroyed and
10s of 1000s of Jews had been carted off and sold
in the Roman slave markets. We don't know exactly
when he wrote this. But we know that the
Apostle Peter was dead, the Apostle Paul was dead. Again, he was probably
the last apostle left. And in spite of all that, because of what he saw, not because of what he believed, because of what he'd heard, not simply because he had faith, he arrives at this
conclusion that has echoed throughout the
generations because he's the one who brought
us these famous words. He said because
of what I've seen and because of what I've heard, I'm convinced that
God so loved the world that He gave His
one and only Son. That whoever, wait
John, okay John. You mean whoever you know? Whoever, okay John,
there's gonna be some horrible things that
happen in the future. That whoever places
their faith in Him would not be lost to God. Would not perish, but would receive eternal life. Okay, John, how can
you say such a thing? He would say because
of what I saw, because of my experience
with the rabbi of Nazareth. He was convinced, and whether
you're convinced or not, this should settle in. This should make you think. That's why he wrote it. He was convinced that the word, the logas, the God, he was convinced that
the word became flesh and He said and he made
his dwelling among us. And us isn't we us. Us was him and his friends us. He says I'm just
telling you what I saw, I'm telling you what I concluded based on what I heard and saw. That God, don't ask
me to explain it. God made His dwelling with us. And we have seen His glory, the glory of the
one and only Son who came from the Father
full of grace and truth. And I, I was just
a simple fisherman. I was just a bystander. But I thought what
happened was so important I wanted to document
my experience for you and for
future generations. But not simply so that you
would know what happened. No, it's way bigger than that. I wrote these things with
a specific purpose in mind. These things I have
chosen to document, these conversations
I've chosen to document, these events I've
chosen to document, these are written
that you may believe that Jesus is the
Messiah, the Son of God, and that once you believe
that you, like me, might have life in His name. Before this series is over, we're gonna go through
all the seven signs. It's gonna be so much
fun, so much narrative, so much conversation,
so much new stuff. My prayer is that before
this series is over, as we move from sign to sign, my hope is that
you would believe and that you would have
life in His name as well. But not because you
took it by faith. But because you
took it from John, an eyewitness to the life
and the ministry of Jesus. You have not been required, you have not even been invited
to believe and believe. You've not been
called to follow Jesus because of faith. It is way, way, way
better than that. And if you were
talked out of it, because you were
never talked into it, don't miss part
two of Bystander.
