Mike Bickle emphasizes the unique purposes of the four Gospels, illustrating how each Gospel presents a distinct portrait of Jesus tailored to different audiences: Matthew to the Jews as the Son of David, Mark to the Romans as the Servant, Luke to the Greeks as the Son of Man, and John to all believers as the Son of God. He highlights the beauty of Jesus and the intentionality of the Holy Spirit in crafting these narratives to deepen our understanding of Christ's nature and mission. Bickle encourages a treasure hunt for the nuances in each Gospel that reveal the multifaceted beauty of Jesus, urging listeners to engage with the Scriptures to see Him more clearly.

Well when I think of this next 9 or 10 months of part 1 and part 2 of studies in the life of Christ, the promise that I think of most, I don't have on the notes, but I quote it all the time, is Isaiah 33 verse 17. Isaiah 33 verse 17, it's an end time promise that the Messiah, Jesus, His beauty would be seen by the people of God. I mean what a remarkable reality that God has promised that the beauty of the King would be seen. The scripture says your eyes will see the beauty of the King and that passage is in context to the generation the Lord returns. So when I think of this class personally, as a student and a teacher, I am thinking of the beauty of Jesus on every single incident in His life. I'm not just thinking history, I'm not just thinking theology, I am thinking those two. I'm not just thinking practical application but I'm thinking of beauty, delight, savoring, my heart being awed, my heart being enlarged by who this man is. Because this is the man that we love. This is the man that loves us and He's right now at the right hand of the Father. This is no ordinary man. Beautiful. We love Him, He loves us. He reigns forever and He's at the Father's right hand right now. Well this first session was going to take a kind of just a quick overview. We're going to look at the four Gospels and answer the question, why? Why are there four Gospels? And the simple answer is that each Gospel has a distinct unique purpose in God's economy. That the Holy Spirit is so masterful as the great divine author of these four books. And each one of the authors, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, they were inspired by the Holy Spirit in a way that was beyond even what they could fully grasp. Because the Holy Spirit was putting into print a portrait of the face of Jesus. Now in each of the four Gospels there's many things in common, but there's many things that are very distinct and unique to that very Gospel. And the reason we want to know this, because we are alerted to understand the context more clearly. And when we're alerted to the context, the specific context. Like Matthew was writing to the Jewish people, not everybody, but particularly to the Jewish. Mark is writing to the Romans. Luke to the Greeks. John to all believers in all generations. And there's many more distinctives, but just those simple things help us to see the context of each of these incidents, that we would bring those details together to get a more complete picture of what the Holy Spirit is saying. Each Gospel I have here in paragraph eight has a unique purpose. Even though all four of them are brought together to give us the greater picture, still it's not a complete biography of Jesus. There is so much of Him that was not recorded even in these four portraits. But there's so much that we see if we bring these four portraits together and we catch the differences and we catch the context of why it was written and who it was written to. And as we study this more carefully and put these together, these details, the treasure hunt into the beauty of Jesus, it becomes more glorious and more fascinating as we come to more and more discoveries of who He is. Now I have written at the very bottom of page one here, down at the very, like a footnote, A.W. Pink wrote a book called Why the Four Gospels. And we have a PDF file on the website where the whole book, it's not very long, maybe 100 pages or so, I don't know, not very long, but that's the book that I've drawn from heavily in this class, I mean in this one session. He took the book of a man named Andrew Junks and took his writing and then he added to it and I've taken both of them. And what I'm wanting to do is alert you to this book because I want to stir your interest in the fact that the Gospels are common but very distinct and different. Let's get a snapshot. Paragraph B. In the Gospel of Matthew, again many things overlap, but even the incidences that overlap have very distinct nuances that are true to the purpose of that particular Gospel. Matthew for instance, it clearly is written to the Jewish people in a very specific, unique way and it presents Jesus as the Son of David. And therefore as the Son of David, an emphasis unique to Matthew, you don't find this emphasis in the other three Gospels, is that Jesus as the King of Israel. I mean the very beginning of Matthew, the wise man, right there in the very magic chapter 2, they're coming to Jerusalem and they said, who is this born King of the Jews? That's the context of the book. That very sentence gives us a key to where that book is going. Mark is quite different. It doesn't focus on Jesus as the Son of David like Matthew does, but rather Jesus as the Servant of God. He's the perfect workman. He's the one who took the form of a servant. He gives us insight into the personality of the Trinity. The Trinity the Gospel of Mark focuses not just on His power and His deeds, but on His servant heart. And again the early church fathers, they said Mark was writing to the Romans and Luke to the Greeks, Matthew to the Jews and John to believers. Particularly to believers. I mean the others are to believers as well, but they're to people in general beyond that. Paragraph D, Luke is different. It doesn't focus on the Son of David, but rather on the Son of Man. That is the unique focus and distinct, it's on purpose. The humanity of Jesus and His connection to the human race and the human struggle is highlighted more than in the other four Gospels. Jesus is set forth as connected to the human race and His connection to the human race. But in contrast, because He's the perfect human, and then John, He is set forth as the Son of God. And the point of emphasis is His deity. So in Matthew we have the Son of David, in Luke the Son of Man, in John the Son of God, and in Mark the perfect servant. The servant leader. The perfect workman who shows forth the personality of the Trinity in all that he does. Look at Roman numeral two. This gives us confirmation that the Holy Spirit is very intentional about showing four faces of Jesus. Meaning this isn't a new idea that some theologians came up with recently. This is something the church fathers have promoted from the very beginning of church history. But long before that around the throne of God there are four living creatures around the throne of God. And they have a particular face. And these four living creatures they cry holy, holy, holy and they worship God night and day. And they're the closest to the very throne of God. And these living creatures are a reflection of God's personality. And these four faces of the four living creatures again give confirmation that the Holy Spirit, His authorship of the four gospels, He's intentional about bringing four faces of God into focus. It says in Revelation chapter four, the first living creature a lion. The second like a calf or oxen. Some translations say oxen. The third a man and the fourth an eagle. Paragraph B, Matthew corresponds with the face of the lion, the king. Mark the face of the calf or the oxen, the servant. Luke the face of the man. And John the face of the eagle, the bird that flies the highest of all others. It soars into the heavens. And there's a clear correspondence of the four faces of the living creatures and the four faces of Jesus and the gospels. Again, each of the gospels carry a lot of things in common, but they have a very clear distinction. And if we get it, we read that gospel with that context in mind, with that lens, so to speak, that paradigm we're reading it and we'll gain more understanding if we know the context that Jesus, the Holy Spirit is actually aiming at revealing Jesus, the king to the Jews when we read the book of Matthew. Again, then we compare them all together, all four gospels, just the treasure hunt becomes glorious, becomes deeper. It's pleasurable. So I find so much delight in this and the discovery of nuances about him and different angles of his beauty that I'd never seen before. And of course this is endless. Roman numeral three, one of the most common pictures in the Old Testament of the Messiah, a prophetic picture, is the Messiah prophesied as the branch of the Lord. That's the way that the Messiah was described, the symbol or the word picture, the branch of the Lord. And there's quite a few reasons for that and I don't want to go into that right now. But it's one of the most common Old Testament pictures and symbols of the Messiah. Probably the only one I know more common would be the lamb or the sacrifice would even be a more common picture of the Messiah, the lamb that was offered. But let's look at this. There's, I'm going to bring four of these prophecies of the branch of the Lord. These are Old Testament. They're hundreds of years before Jesus would become a man and walk on the earth. And I believe there's a clear correspondence of these four, of these prophecies of the branch of the Lord, the coming Messiah, with the four faces of Jesus in the Gospel, with the four faces of the living creatures around the throne. Jeremiah 23, the Lord says, I'll raise up a branch of righteousness. He'll be a king. And this is a correspondence to the Gospel of Matthew where the kingship of Jesus is emphasized. Zechariah 3, the Lord says, I'll bring forth my servant, the branch. The branch isn't only a king, but the branch is the servant of the Lord. He's the one who took upon the form of a servant, emptied himself of his divine privileges and took upon the form of man. But he wasn't just a servant while he was on the earth. That is the heart of God from eternity past. This is so glorious that God is not just powerful and wise. At the very core of God's personality, He is a servant. Isn't that amazing that the God of Genesis 1, the uncreated eternal God has a servant's heart? Because when we look at the history of the powerful kings and monarchs in history, most of them were evil, evil men who had no interest in serving anybody but themselves. But the most high, at his very core, is a servant. Zechariah 6, paragraph C, the man, his name is the branch of the Lord. There's a human dimension. He's not just a king, but he identifies with the human struggle and human need in the most intimate way. Now in the Old Testament, you know, the prophets are comparing the prophecies and, you know, the devout in the Old Testament. They're trying to put together this composite picture of the Messiah, the branch of the Lord. And oh, I love this one, Isaiah 4. I like them all. The branch of the Lord. He shall be seen in His beauty and His glory. He's glorious beyond any comprehension. He's not just a king. He's a king with a servant's heart. He's not just a king with a servant's heart. He's human and He understands the human struggle and He fully identifies with humans and He loves humans. But He's not just human. He's glorious. He's beautiful. He's God Himself. Beloved, this is the story that the Holy Spirit has brought us into. This is who we are and what we're about. We're about interfacing with this beautiful man, the man we love, who's at the right hand of the Father, who loves us. Top of page 2. We'll just take a quick look. We won't cover all these notes even. I want you to leave with an idea of like, oh, I want to go get more of this. And again, the book by A.W. Pinkett lays it out in far more detail. I want to encourage some of you to go further than A.W. Pink went on this. Look together because what Pink did is he took the different incidences like, you know, many things like the feeding of the 5,000 or when Jesus healed this person or that person. He compares them together and found all these different details that were different from one gospel to the other. But the thing that is remarkable is Matthew has the same focus, a predictable distinct focus time after time as does Mark and Luke and John. Well again, just to repeat, so you get this clear in your mind in the gospel of Matthew, the highlight is the son of David. Jesus, the son of David, not the son of man, not the son of God. He is those. But in Matthew, it's the son of David because as the son of David, he is the heir. He is the rightful heir to the throne of Israel. Because God promised it would be David's son. Many prophecies in the Old Testament. Paragraph B, Matthew is written, I mean wrote with the Jewish people in mind. Now again, we all read it and appreciate it, but he's writing from a Jewish perspective. He presents Jesus as the man that fulfilled the Old Testament prophets, far more than Mark, Luke and John do. Matthew says he quotes the Old Testament and says, this man fulfilled that prophecy. Here in paragraph B, the word fulfilled in reference to Old Testament prophecy happens 15 times. There's more quotations of the Old Testament in Matthew than the other three gospels, Mark, Luke and John combined together. This is not an accident. The Holy Spirit orchestrated this. Paragraph D, the very opening sentence of Matthew gives us, the very big first sentence gives us a key to the whole book. Look at Matthew 1, verse 1. The genealogy of Jesus Christ. The son of David. The son of Abraham. And it goes on until about verse 16, giving all of these generations, one after the other. But what I want you to notice here in verse 1, that by the Holy Spirit and His guidance, Matthew says he's the son of David first and the son of Abraham. Well Abraham lived a thousand years before David. David was far after Abraham and all the rest of the genealogy is in chronological order except for the first one. Because the Holy Spirit is saying, when you read the gospel of Matthew, you're looking at the Messiah through the lens of His promises as King, as the son of David. And all the kings, there's 14 kings that are mentioned in His genealogy, but only one of the kings is actually given the title of King in this genealogy and that's David. And the Holy Spirit gives him that title twice. So the point being, the Holy Spirit is making it really clear when you read Matthew, I'm going to reveal the kingship of the Jewish Messiah who fulfilled the prophecies that is the hope of Israel. That's a particular context. Now not everything in the book is that, but that's the primary storyline in the book. Luke, that's not the storyline of Luke. Luke honors that and agrees with it, but Mark and Luke and John have a bit of a different story that is emphasized. I mean the main story is clear and is in unity in all four gospels. That Jesus is God and He came to the earth and took upon Himself the form of man and bore our sin and is the compassionate leader with the power of God and we're saved by grace. That storyline is clear. Paragraph E, David, the son of David connects Jesus with the throne of Israel. The son of Abraham connects Jesus with the land of Israel because the land was first promised to Abraham. Paragraph F, as I started with already, I mean I already mentioned this, when the book of Matthew opens with the wise men coming in to Jerusalem saying we're looking for the king. They didn't say we're looking for a savior. They said we're looking for the king of the Jews. Luke, it's exactly opposite. When the angels appear to the shepherds, it says a savior is born. It didn't say a king is born, it said a savior is born because Luke is focusing on Jesus' humanity and again he's writing with a view to touching the folks in a Greek culture. They were looking for a savior and they were looking to understand God's purpose for man. Paragraph G, Matthew is the only one that makes the point that Jesus said I'm sending you to the lost sheep of Israel. Mark, Luke and John don't quote that command of Jesus. It's still a true command but they've got a different focus in their gospel. Only Matthew mentions the seven parables of the kingdom. The other ones don't mention these parables. These are how the kingdom functions. Matthew chapter 13, paragraph I, only Matthew highlights Jesus sitting on the throne of glory, ruling the earth and the millennial kingdom for a thousand years after his return. The other gospels don't mention the throne of glory but Matthew, it's in accordance with the purpose the Holy Spirit gave him to show forth the king in his glory. Well paragraph J, only Matthew gives the parable of the wedding feast that arranged a marriage for the king's son. Now the king in this is the father and the king's son is Jesus and of course the king's son becomes king. That's how the story unfolds. Paragraph K, Matthew is the only one that gives the seven fold rebuke to the Jewish leaders. Why didn't Mark and Luke rebuke the Jewish leaders? Well they had a different focus for their gospel. As we go through this week by week I'll be pointing out these things but I wanted you to give the, I want you to have the kind of a road map before we begin the journey so it makes sense. Turn to the top of page three. Now we're going to look at Mark. Again the A.W. Pink book, the PDF file, it gives up so much more detail. It is so fascinating. I read line by line. I've read it some years ago and read it again recently and I just loved it. I just, my heart was exploding. So I'm taking about ten percent of that book and sharing it here. It is beautiful. And I know you're, you got a lot of other classes and a lot of busy things to do but that's a book you want to sneak away and get some time and just go wow. The Gospel of Mark. It's not the son of David and Jesus the king but it's the servant of God. Again the servant leadership. The core value and personality of not just Jesus but of the entire Trinity. God the Father, Son and Spirit. At the very core the Father is a servant. This is fantastic beyond measure. That the Father, the Genesis one God is a servant. That'd have to be talked into it. But he's running his kingdom through the paradigm of a servant leadership and he's raising up and honoring that which embraces servant leadership. And of course Jesus the king, he'll lead this way. And the Holy Spirit is the epitome. You know forever the Father and Son are in focus and the Holy Spirit's behind the scenes so to speak. But he's as much God as the Father and the Son. But he's just as happy drawing everyone's attention to the Father and Son and no one drawing attention to him because he's profoundly at the core a servant. Forever this is his role. We say Holy Spirit we want all of you. He goes I'm coming to you as the great servant and guess what I'm going to do to you. I'm going to transform you into the very perspective of servant leadership. To where it makes sense to you for your own life. So we want more of the Holy Spirit. This is where he's going to lead us. Into a deeper servant leadership reality. Paragraph A. Well this explains why Mark doesn't have a genealogy. I mean Matthew has this genealogy that goes back to David and Abraham. Mark has none. Where's the big genealogy? There's no story of the virgin birth and the angels and the manger and the wise men. There's no Christmas scene. Nothing. Mark get with it. There's none of these stories. No genealogy. Nothing. And the Lord would, I believe the Holy Spirit would say yeah because in the storyline of a servant that's not important. The servant is here to serve others. There's many details that are not in Mark that are in the others. Because those parts of Jesus' life, his supernatural conception and birth and Jesus in the temple when he's twelve and the angels appearing and then he fled from Herod and went down to Egypt and came back up to Nazareth and all these things. That is not necessary because a servant doesn't have a biography. A servant lets go of his own thing and is fully engaged in the Master's work and the Master's purpose. Now Jesus is the King. That's Matthew. But in Mark he's the servant that is fully engaged in the Father's will and in serving God's will and bringing God's blessing and power to the people. It's interesting that as the servant there's more miracles in Mark than any of the other ones. There's more power demonstrations delivering people. And of course because Mark was written with the Romans in view, the Romans viewed, I mean they honored power. And there's more miracles. But again by the Holy Spirit's leadership it's miracles from a servant's heart to show God's desire to strengthen, deliver and help his people. Paragraph B, very different than Matthew, Mark has no rebuke of the Pharisees. There's no mention of Jesus cleansing the temple like in the other Gospels. Many of the divine titles in Matthew, Luke and John aren't in Mark. There's no mention of Jesus the King in an honorable way. He's only called the Son of David one time the entire Gospel where he's called the Son of David over and over again in Matthew. These Jewish elements that we're so familiar with that are in Matthew, a little bit in Luke and a little bit in John, but mostly in Matthew, they're not in Mark almost at all. Because again a servant, he's not concerned with his genealogy and story. He's concerned with being absorbed with the will of his master. Paragraph C, Mark begins abruptly. I mean it gets right to it. You know in Matthew there's three chapters. There's a genealogy in three full long chapters of the story of the birth and the infancy. Luke, three long chapters. John, very different. It goes to in the beginning was God. It doesn't go to human ancestry. It goes to God uncreated in eternity past. But Mark skips all of it. Gets right to the task of serving and the ministry of Jesus. Now one thing that's impossible to miss and A.W. Pink does a brilliant job pulling this out. He spends a couple of pages on this. But I just wanted to just note it to you because we're going to note it throughout the course. Is that there's several words in Mark. I'm only going to mention one or two that show up over and over and over again. You can't miss them. And the reason they show up over and over and over again because they have a purpose. They're supposed to be seen and understood. And it's the word immediately. Forty times the word or the equivalent of immediately is in the gospel of Mark. Jesus immediately goes here. He immediately does that. This word shows up over and over and you hardly see it anywhere else in the other gospels. Like this is odd. Why would Mark say this over and over? Did he have something about that word? No. The Holy Spirit was leading him. In Jesus the servant there was no reluctance. No delay. No drawing back when he did the Father's work. He was energetic. There was urgency. There was a promptness. There was an instant response to him. I mean in him to the Father's will. And of course when we see that what the Holy Spirit is saying to us is that we would marvel and delight in this facet of the beauty of Jesus. But the Holy Spirit is saying this is what I'm working in you as well. A quick response of obedience. Not a hesitant long wrestling match but an instant response to the will of God. Not three months or three years later after five wrestling matches with the Lord and he ambushed us and boxed us in and took away all of our options. And so we said yes we'll do it. You know Winston Churchill said such a clever quote. You may like it you may not but I love it. I think of this within our spiritual lives but Winston Churchill said he goes the Americans, you know Winston Churchill the Prime Minister of England during World War II in the 1940s. He said the Americans always do what's right after they've exhausted every other option. So he said the Americans always do what's right you know and the English are aghast. Pause one two three after they've exhausted every other option. And there's a kind of believer that always does right after they've exhausted every other option. And the Holy Spirit is saying I don't want to wrestle with you. I will because I love you. But just be warned I'm older than you so I can tell you this. Jesus is state champion wrestler plus some. He's the best. He's going to win I promise you. Not just because he's strong. He is. Not just because he's smart. He's really smart because he loves you more than you love you. And he'll box us in. Ambush us. Hem us in. Take options away. He says you will really be glad when you see the whole picture that I hemmed you in on this. But what he's really after is that we would have this servant response immediately. No delay. No reluctance. No wrestling. No drawing back. I don't mean an impetuous about issues that we don't have clear wisdom on. But I mean when the wisdom is clear in moral issues in our life and other issues. Immediately response. Immediate servanthood. Roman numeral six. Well there's so much more in the A.W. Pink book on Mark. But I'm just giving you a snapshot to kind of stir up your appetite for this to get you to say man you know I don't know if I'll get to it right away. But boy I'm going to read that book. I'm going to go deep on that. That's what I'm trying to do in this first session. And it gives us a grid when we look at these different incidences in Jesus' life. And we'll see three or four angles on the same event. It's marvelous. We'll do many of those throughout the course. This fall and this spring. Doing part one and part two on the life of Christ. Paragraph six. I mean Roman numeral six. The Gospel of Luke. Now here it's not the son of David but it's the son of man. Written to the Greeks. It's what the church early church fathers said. The idea is Jesus is humanity. It's not the son of David. Not the son of God. But he's connecting with the human reality. The human struggle. He has sympathy it says in Hebrews chapter two. In Hebrews chapter four he's a sympathetic high priest. He understands the human plight. He has tenderness because he was. He walked on the earth with a physical body. He says I get it. I really do get it. So he looks at us with understanding and sympathy. Because of this assignment of the Holy Spirit to Luke to write a portrait of Jesus with the face of a man. You know the four living creatures. One had the face of a man. Or the branch of the Lord. One of them focused on the man. The branch of the Lord. The human. Not an angel. He's not only God but he's human. Fully human. And because of this angle or because of this assignment of the Holy Spirit to Luke we see many things in Luke's story of Jesus that the others don't have. Because they're bringing the human dimension into the story. Paragraph B. We see the fullest account of his supernatural conception and birth. I mean the whole drama of Elizabeth and John the Baptist's mother. And all that's involved in that. And how you know the wise man came and the angels appeared etc. But it's interesting the genealogy in Luke doesn't go just to David and Abraham. It goes all the way back to Adam. Why did the genealogy not stop at Abraham and David the Jewish fathers? Because the Holy Spirit was saying no no. We're showing the Messiah as identified with the whole human race. He's going all the way back to Abraham. He's the son of Abraham. I mean of Adam. All the way back to the garden. In the gospel of Luke it's the only time he's called the friend of sinners. And there's quite a few portraits of Jesus. Incidences. I mean they're real stories. Real events. But they magnify his friendship. I mean magnify him as a friend of sinners. Gospel of Luke far beyond the others show him as a man of prayer. Because in the human partnership with God there's a prayer dynamic that's central. And over and over in Luke the Messiah revealed in his humanity the emphasis of prayer. The value of it. Parables on it. Teaching. Examples of it. Over and over in the gospel of Luke. Paragraph C. In the gospel of Luke Jesus is seen as subject to human circumstances. All kinds of them. He's seeking to save the lost. I mean Luke 15 I have there. That's the prodigal son. The lost coin. The lost sheep. The lost son. Luke 15. He's going after the lost. That's in Luke. That's not in the other ones. The other gospels. In Luke he weeps over Jerusalem. In Luke there's a surprising amount of times where he goes in homes and has food with people. Eating is emphasized in Luke. Even when Jesus comes back in a resurrected body in Luke he eats with them. But if you study Luke that's not surprising. It would surprise you if he did it in the other gospels. But why is he seen eating throughout the gospel of Luke? Because his humanity is being emphasized and his relationship to the human race. And another thing that Luke emphasizes beyond the others is Jesus' role or the role of women I would say. Not just in Jesus' ministry that He touched in but in Jesus' team. Luke goes out of His way. That's probably not the best way to say it. Luke was led by the Holy Spirit. The better way to say it. To show the value that women had in Jesus' team and in His ministry. Because again He's writing to the Greek culture and mindset and He's writing to magnify the humanity of Jesus. Paragraph D. Only in Luke is the place of Jesus' death by a Greek or Gentile name but a Greek name Calvary. That's the Greek name. Golgotha is the Aramaic name or the Aramaic Hebrew it's Golgotha. But the Greek name is Calvary and that's the one that we're familiar with. And the inscription over Jesus on the cross only in Luke. This is the King of the Jews is written in Greek, Latin and Hebrew. In other words there's an international scope that the other Gospels don't highlight this point. Because it's not within the scope of what the Holy Spirit called the other Gospels to say. Paragraph E. Only in Luke is the story or the parable of the Good Samaritan. When the angels appeared. Paragraph F. To the shepherds the angels said a Savior is born. Not a king, a Savior. But in Matthew when the wise men came they were looking for a king not a Savior. The angels were talking about a Savior not a king. Now the angels knew He was the King but the point of Luke's Gospel was the Savior dimension. Top of page 4. Again as I'm going through this I'm just thinking of where this is just the beginning of the beginning of this glorious subject. So again I want to stir you up to go read that book. Again you might not be able to get to it in the near future because of the load of your study and all that you've got going on. But just note to self that's a gold mine book you want to develop. Well the Gospel of John presents Jesus not as the Son of David, not as the Son of Man but as the Son of God. The Gospel of John is very different because Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the Synoptic Gospels. Everyone say Synoptic. Look at your neighbor and say Synoptic. I want you to get that term. Some of you already got it. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, John they're the Synoptic Gospels. They are very similar. But John is entirely different. It's unique because it's not showing the Son of David, the Son of Man, or the servant. I mean a little bit here and there. And there's little flashes of all of these faces in each Gospel, little flashes. But each Gospel has a primary theme. John is the high and the deep mysteries of Jesus' relationship to the Father and the Father's relationship to Him and Jesus' spiritual connection with the people of God in a spiritual way. Not just in compassion that He's meeting their needs but He's interfacing with their heart by the Holy Spirit in the deepest way. He's abiding in us and we're abiding in Him. It's not so much compassion and power but it's deep interaction with the human heart at the most profound spiritual levels that last forever. That's John in a way that Matthew, Mark, and Luke don't hardly touch at all. Again not one Gospel has the truth. Even the four of them together is not a complete biography. Because John even said in John 21, he goes, if all the things that Jesus did were written in books, the earth couldn't contain all the books it would need to capture every incident in Jesus' life. There's so much beyond the four Gospels. But again what a great start. And we'll be reading these Gospels a million years from now in the resurrection. These Gospels are a part of the eternal canonized Scripture. They're the eternal Word of God. Well in Matthew 1, Jesus is traced back to David and to Abraham and all the leaders of Israel. In Luke, He's traced clear back to Adam. Mark, there is no genealogy. He's a servant. He's not concerned with the servant's genealogy. John, whoa. In the beginning, Jesus, the Word, He's God. Like whoa, this is really different than the stable and the wise man. This is a whole different portrait. But all of them are true. In the beginning was the Word, speaking of Jesus. And the Word or Jesus is God is the idea. He was in the beginning with God, meaning the Father. He's with the Father in the beginning. God the Father is uncreated. There is never a time He did not exist. For a finite mind to grasp that is beyond our comprehension. Somebody says, I can't buy that. I go, just humble yourself. You got a little peanut brain like we have? The greatest brain in human history is a peanut compared to the stars. Look up there. Humble yourself. Don't imagine you're going to grasp all the mysteries of the One that spoke the stars into being. Billions, billions, billions of stars beyond measure. And men strut around and say, well I don't really. And I go, hey, go slow. Just really go slow right now. You know it was Augustine, one of the great fathers, like the fourth century B.C., one of the most famous theologians in history. Augustine was going to, the story goes, I've read it several different versions of this story. Augustine was going to write a thesis on the Trinity, God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. How it's three distinct persons but one God. Total unity, uncreated God, perfectly equal. Different roles but totally equal. One reality, one essential God in three persons. And because there was confusion about it, so Augustine was walking on the beach and he was considered to be the greatest theologian of his day. And even, you know, 1,500 years later, still considered that, one of the great ones. And he was praying and the Lord spoke to him. He said, my son, you see that shell? Go pick it up. And he picked up a seashell. And he brings it before the Lord. Yes, I mean the brilliant theologian. And the Lord whispered in his heart, empty the ocean with that seashell. Well God, I can't empty the ocean. It's the Mediterranean Sea. I can't empty the ocean with a seashell. And the Lord spoke, neither shall the small seashell of your mind empty the ocean of my being. He said, humble yourself. Behold your God. So Augustine, you know, some version, again I've heard several versions of that story. Uncreated God, the Father. The Son is uncreated. He, verse 2, was in the beginning with God, meaning with the Father. All things were made through Jesus, second person of the Trinity. Wow, now that's a genealogy. John's genealogy is very different than the others. Paragraph B, as the son of David and as the son of man, that's Matthew and Luke, we see his connection to the earth, to people. As the son of God, we see his connection to the Father in heaven and his spiritual union with his people. The spiritual union is emphasized in John far beyond the others. Paragraph C, the theme of the deity of Jesus is central to the gospel of John. There's nowhere in the Bible that shows the deity of Jesus in greater clarity than the gospel of John. This is really important because so many believers, I'm talking about believers, are drifting from the truth today. In my opinion, it's an opinion, that the clear prophecies in the scripture about an end time falling away, again there's an end time great harvest too, there's an end time gathering and an end time falling away happening simultaneously over some decades. In my opinion, the end time falling away has already begun. The amount of believers, I've said this over the years, that in the last ten years that were fervent just ten short years ago, that are living in open compromise with no troubled conscience about it, just thinking, well, you know, I don't know, I don't really go for all that stuff in the Bible anymore. I love God my own way. It's like, love God your own way? Whoa, whoa, whoa. We love God in God's way. We're not buying that rhetoric that we're loving God in our way. There's a king. He's God. He's a creator. He has all authority. It's his way. We want to love him his way. Yeah, we do it in weakness. We do it flawed. We're broken. But we're still aiming to love God God's way. And in the grace of God and his generosity, he carries us along. But we're aiming to do it his way. A lot of them say, well, you know, I'm not really into the deity of Jesus anymore. That is kind of ridiculous if you think about it. I've heard these kind of things. I mean, even well-known preachers and others say, you know, the scripture, there's such, it's modern day, you know, there's kind of a post-modern way now, and we don't know if the scriptures really meant what they mean for today. And all of this, these, uh, this whole dialogue and conversation, it's not just in America, it's the whole earth. It's going on all over the cultures of the earth. It's not unique to America, but it's hit the earth by storm in the last 10 years. It didn't begin then, but it's really going fast. And one of the big debatable kind of intellectual, pseudo-intellectual arguments is, you know, I'm really love Jesus and I love his salvation, but I don't really do the full, that he's fully God. I'm not really going there. But if he's not fully God, then he's a liar and deceiver. He can't be our savior and tell us he's God if he's lying. You know, it was C.S. Lewis who wrote a couple chapters. I don't know if it was a book. I read it in college. I can't remember if it was a book or it's a couple of chapters in a book called Jesus, Lord, lunatic or liar. Does anybody know? Is that a book or anyway, it's very famous. Remember in the seventies, we're all reading it. C.S. Lewis, one of the great writers in modern times said, Jesus is the Lord. He's a lunatic or he's a liar. He's either God and he's telling the truth. He's Lord or he's not God, but he didn't know it. He's a lunatic or he's not God. And he knew it all the time. He's a incredibly dangerous liar. He's one of the three. There's no other option. He either is God and he knows it. He's not God and he's a lunatic because he thinks he is or he's not God. He's tricking the human race, but it can't be not God and be savior, but there's a whole rhetoric going on where he's my savior. But I mean, he's a great example. No, no, that's completely illogical. He's not God. He's a liar, a serious liar. He's allowed all of history. I mean the 2000 years to have all of these conflicts and it's not even true. Beloved, I have good news for you. He is God and he is Lord and there is no room for the pseudo intellectual that's got a mind like a little seashell that's going to empty the ocean of God with their brilliant intellect, even with social media backing them up and Google. Take all the Google, all the social media, get it all together. It's still, I got my mind is a little seashell to the ocean of God's being. One of the unwavering tenants of faith. Jesus is God. The Bible is the authoritative word of God. And I don't mean we get mean about it, but we're bold and we're clear and our hearts delight. We have confidence. We have joy and where we're unsure. We talked to the Holy Spirit. We don't talk to Google and social media. We open the Bible and say, Holy Spirit, tell me how does this work? We need to have the right conversation with the right person, with the great teacher. The reason I say that, well, I mean this room here, we're already in unity, but I'm saying when you go out someday, you're, well you already are being hit with it out there. Many believers are distancing themselves and drawing away from this truth of Jesus as deity and the infallibility of the, and the authority of scripture. Beloved, that is what Paul the apostle said, the devil appearing as an angel of light. That's a doctrine of demons. And because we love people, we don't want to do the pseudo intellectual double flatter each other. We want to say, Hey, look up there. Look how big the stars are. Look at your resume. Come on, let's get down on our knees, open our Bibles and humble ourself before the beautiful God. Well, in the gospel of John, I have a bit written here and of course you can read the gospel of John, but over and over his deity is affirmed. Look at paragraph D, 35 times Jesus calls God my father. And the scripture makes it clear in John 5, 18, the Pharisees said, if you call God your father, you're calling yourself equal to God. They understood what that meant. Jesus said that at 35 times in John seven people, paragraph E affirm his deity paragraph G. I have a number of divine titles that are only in John. Meaning John is the book on deep spiritual union of people with Jesus and Jesus says deep relationship as God with the father and the son, that fellowship within the Trinity. I'm going to give you one last thing. I'm going to have the worship team come up. Paragraph H. This is, we're going to look at a bunch of these kinds of examples. I just give you one kind of leave you with this in the Sabbath controversies, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They all have Sabbath controversies. What I mean is Jesus does something on the side, but by the way, he did it on purpose. He got up right next to the leaders, checked his watch to make sure it was Saturday, healed somebody on purpose. He wanted the conversation brought to the surface. What an action he had caught. He did it on purpose. And it's interesting that in Matthew 12, when the great controversy at the Sabbath, me, they said, you're a deceiver. You're in the Sabbath doing this work. The argument Jesus made in Matthew 12 and Matthew, he said, Hey, there's one greater than the Sabbath here. I'm your King. I'm greater than the Sabbath and I'm greater than the temple. Me, the King, Matthew, Mark, the servant, they brought up the argument. He said, no, no, you don't understand the Sabbath was made for man. He didn't talk about he was greater than Sabbath and Mark, the servant gospel. He goes, no, the Sabbath was for man. It was to help man. It was to serve Luke. He heals a woman that's been bound 18 years by a demon. They said the Sabbath, you can't heal the Sabbath. He appeals to compassion because that's what Luke's about. He goes, how can we let this woman 18 years bound by a devil, not be released as a child of Abraham. His argument about the Sabbath was about compassion and Luke, but in John, look at verse 17, chapter five, same argument. And he appeals to a higher authority to do works of mercy on the Sabbath. He goes, you think that it's wrong for me to do the Sabbath? He goes, let me tell you what's happening. It's my father working on the Sabbath and me and him are working together. And they were so enraged because he made himself equal to God. That's how he answered the Sabbath controversy. So in Matthew, he appealed to his kingship and Mark, his servanthood and Luke, his compassion. And in John, same argument, same debate. He appeals to his deity. These kinds of nuances happen incident after incident, right through the gospels. We're going to ask the Holy spirit to just absolutely ravish our hearts with discoveries of the beauty of this man that we love. Amen. Let's stand father. Here we are. We love you all. We say that we love you. Holy spirit. Here we are. Lord, we want to respond to you. We want to receive from you these next few moments. We love you. You are the man we love. He is God. Jesus is the Lord. Jesus is the Lord. Every knee we bow. Every tongue we shout. Jesus is the Lord. Jesus is the Lord. Every eye will see the coming of the King. Jesus is the Lord. Jesus is the Lord. Every knee we bow. Every tongue we shout. Jesus is the Lord. Jesus is the Lord. Every eye will see the coming of the King. Jesus is the Lord. Jesus is the Lord. Every knee we bow. Every tongue we shout. Jesus is the Lord. Jesus is the Lord. Every eye will see the coming of the King. Jesus is the Lord. Jesus is the Lord. Every knee we bow. Every tongue we shout. Jesus is the Lord. Jesus is the Lord. Every eye will see the coming of the King. Jesus is the Lord. Jesus is the Lord. Jesus is the Lord. I want to invite you to come on up. I want to ask the Holy Spirit to make this a night of renewal. A night of confirmation. A night where there's a, like an iron is dropped in the ground. Goes in deep like a stake. Don't be embarrassed if you say, I'm just not sure. I'm just not, I'm kind of losing my way on some of these things. I need to get a new clarity. I want to invite you to come up. There's nothing wrong with being in that honest place. Others of you, you're just saying, I'm just being hit by the enemy. I just want the Holy Spirit to touch me tonight. I love Him, but for renewal. If you're a new student here, maybe you've been around a long time. There's times I need renewal. I've been teaching the Bible for years and going to prayer meetings, and I need moments of renewal, sometimes more than others. And if you're in that place, don't feel negative or shy about that. Just say, yeah, I do. We're always in need of these things. Holy Spirit, I'm going to invite the ministry team to come up. I'm also going to invite anybody in leadership, in our mission space, I hope you, in our friendship groups. If you're a leader, go ahead and come on up and join us. Lord, here we are. God, I ask for clarity right now, clarity. I ask for the eyes of the understanding to open by the Spirit, not by human arguments. The eyes of our understanding to be strong. I ask for a night of renewal tonight by the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, you said you would be my teacher. I'm a teaching from you, Holy Spirit, not from a man. Come and touch our hearts. Let us see you as you really are. Give us eyes to see. Let us see the King, the Son of David. Let us see the Son of Man. Let us see the Son of God. Let us see Him. Let us see Him. Holy Spirit, Lord, we just ask for the fire of God to be released in this room. All over this room, we just invite the Holy Spirit's presence like fire. Come, Lord. Fire. Lord, come like a baptism of fire tonight. Holy Spirit, breathe across this room like fire all over the room, I ask. Set people aflame. Stir on the inside. Burn on the inside now. God, I ask for prophetic dreams tonight. I ask for an increase of the prophetic spirit in this spiritual family. An increase on Friday night of the prophetic spirit when we gather before you. In our friendship room, in our cross room. Lord, release your glory. Burn on the inside. Burn on the inside. Burn with the Lord. Release your fire tonight. Set me aflame. Oh, that I would love you more fully. Beautiful God, that we would love you. Burn with the Lord. Spirit, stir. Burn on the inside tonight. Lord, even tonight in dreams. Lord, visit the night watch tonight by the spirit of burning as they stand in the house of the Lord. Those in their beds or those standing in the prayer room. Visit with fire tonight, I ask. Lord, I ask you to heal bodies tonight, just sovereignly across this room. Heal people that are physically struggling. Lord, you know who they are. I ask for a spirit of glory. I ask for financial miracles in people's lives tonight. That tonight would be a beginning of financial miracles. God, I ask for supernatural provision economically. Make a way where there is no way. And the Lord says, I'm going to make a way where there is not a way. In the lives of various ones. I'm going to show you my direction for your life. The fog will lift. The clarity will come. Stay focused on me. Authority is yours. Lord, you move with the sound of our voice and our cry, our worship. Move in power tonight. Lord, our cries for more people. You move with the sound of our prayer, our voice. Oh, we love you, Jesus. You move with the sound of our voice. Would you move with the sound of our voice? There is a desperate cry. I ask for deliverance from breakthrough. Freedom from demonic torment. From demonic bodies tonight. You move with the sound of our voice. Would you move with the sound of our voice? I got the sound of our voice. Would you move with the sound of our voice? I break the power of fear. I break the spirit of fear and torment. Pain, emotional pain, torment in the mind. Would you move with the sound of our voice? Would you move with the sound of our voice? Set me away. Set me away. I got you, Lord. Set me away. Send me on to burn with your, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood, send me on to burn with your blood