Not only was this past Sunday the official launch of our church, but it was the start of our first teaching series journeying through the gospel of John!
Whether you were able to make it out or not, I’d love to give you an overview of the series and intro into our teaching text for the first seven weeks.
John’s gospel is often referred to as “The Book of Signs”, and that is because the word “sign” appears 18 times throughout—way more than any other biblical book. That’s because the author—the Apostle John and the disciple of Jesus—wants to point us beyond Jesus’ teaching and miracles to a deeper meaning and purpose in his writing. (That is, after all, what signs do…they point to something beyond themselves!)
John states his purpose in writing about signs clearly at the conclusion of his book when he says in John 20:30-31…
“Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
The “signs” John often refers to are miraculous signs, like when Jesus turned water into wine, or when he opened the eyes of a blind man. But in this series, we are taking a bit of a different approach. That is, we are looking at interactions that Jesus had with people throughout the book that surfaced in them a longing for something more. These desires, or signposts as we are calling them, are universal longings present in all people in all cultures in all times that, while at best broken and unfulfilled in this world, ultimately point us to God as revealed in Jesus.
They are:
- Spirituality—Jesus, the Insider, and the Outsider (John 3 & 4)
- Freedom—Jesus & the crowds (John 8)
- Power—Jesus & the disciples (John 13)
- Love—Jesus & Lazarus (John 11)
- Justice—Jesus & Martha (John 11)
- Beauty—Jesus & Mary (John 12)
- Truth—Jesus & Pilate (John 18)
We would love to invite you to follow along each week first by joining us on Sundays at 10am, or by watching the messages later in the week.
You can also dive deeper with us by working through a few resources that inspired this teaching series:
- The Gospel of John (Duh!)
- Broken Signposts by NT Wright (Where we got the name and idea for the series!)
- Encounters With Jesus by Tim Keller (Encounters between Jesus and individuals in John’s Gospel)
One of my favorite parts of preaching is that “the teacher learns more than the student” and I am so impacted by my prep week to week, so I’m serious when I say that I am really forward to this series!
Looking forward to seeing you there,
John Antonucci