This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom Holliday. I want to welcome you to our daily drive time
devotion together, a study of the Gospel of John. Whether you're listening in
your iPod in your car or out walking or listening during a break or at lunch, I
am glad that you joined me for this incredible study.

We're going to have a great study together through this good news, the Gospel of
John. If you've been with us for one of these iPod Bible studies before, you
know that there are two simple goals for this study. First, understanding the
books of the Bible.

We're going to go through a chapter a week, about 10 minutes a day, the Gospel
of John and see the good news that God has for us. And then the second goal is a
sense of closeness to God, a sense of closeness to God that results in a
deepening confidence that he really can and he really will change your life.
We'll remind ourselves that we are close to God as we pray together at the end
of each of these daily studies.

As we launch into this study, the study of the Gospel of John, I'd start out by
asking you what kind of things you read the most. Maybe you read a lot of
bestsellers books, maybe you read a lot of the Wall Street Journal or maybe you
like to read People magazine or the newspaper. Truth of the matter is, we all
know that none of those things that we read have to offer us what John has to
offer.

This book, the Gospel of John, is the good news that can change my life, has
changed my life, and that can change your life and has changed your life. God's
purpose for our lives through the study of the Gospel of John is very simple,
belief. It's a Gospel.

It's the good news. It's all about belief. Now, a lot of times people ask, why
are there four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John?

Well, actually, there's only one Gospel, one good news, the fact that Jesus came
to save us, to rescue us from our separation from God. There's only one good
news, but there's four views of it that are given, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John. It's like a four eyewitness account, so you can see it from four different
directions, four different ways of seeing it.

And John, as you walk through this Gospel, you see it's a little bit different
than Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It gives sort of a selective snapshot approach.
John takes these pictures of what Jesus did and it's like he puts them in an
album and he places them just right so you can see the full color and really
look at the picture of what Jesus did.

He takes time with the events to really bring out the detail of the events. In
fact, I like to call them 3D pictures. There's three dimensions, the physical
life, the spiritual life, and eternal life.

And you see that running throughout the Gospel of John. That's why John's Gospel
is so different from the others, because he's bringing out the complete
dimensions of the physical and spiritual and eternal life and showing us the
true color of what God wants to do in our lives. Now, it's interesting, in the
Gospel of John, if you really want to understand why the book was written, you
have to look at the back of the book.

Sometimes you have to look at the back of a book to understand it, like a
mystery novel. You read the last page and you figure the whole thing out. Well,
John 20 is like a backdoor key to the Gospel of John.

In John 20, 31, he says, "I have written all of this in order that you might
believe. " That's the reason he wrote the book. That's the reason that he's
writing to you personally.

When you read through the Gospel of John, there's a lot of important words. The
word "light" is used 22 times. It's talked about a lot, the light that's come
into our world.

The word "world" is used a lot, 76 times, how God has changed the world. It's a
book that talks a lot about life. That word is used 38 times.

The word "love" is used 46 times. The word "witness" is used 22 times. But the
word "believe," the word "believe" is used in the Gospel of John 98 times.

It's a book about belief. It's a book to change your belief. It's a book to
strengthen your belief.

It's a book to empower your belief. Now, as we start this study on day one, I'd
just like to give you a quick overview of the book, of what we're going to be
looking forward to in our study together of this Gospel of John. An outline of
the Gospel of John, I'd put it in these parts.

Part one would be in the beginning. In the beginning is John 1, 1-18. We're
going to study that in tomorrow's study together.

In John 1, 1-18, we're told that in the beginning, in the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Now, it is interesting
that in John there's no genealogy, as there is in Matthew, for instance, a
genealogy of the parents of Jesus. Well, in the Gospel of John, John begins by
telling us that Jesus is God, and God doesn't need a genealogy.

It's in the beginning he talks about God. And then in John 1-18 to 12-50, you
see Jesus in the crowds. You see Jesus ministering to people and making a
difference.

In fact, as you walk through these chapters, there are seven signs, and seven I
ams, and seven people that really, as you see what Jesus is doing in the crowds,
really show how he ministers to people. The seven signs of the water to wine,
and the healing of a nobleman's son, and the healing of a man at Bethsaida, and
the feeding of the 5,000, walking on water, healing the blind man, raising of
Lazarus, these signs build, these miracles build one upon the other to show how
Jesus can make a difference in people's lives. In the midst of those signs,
there are these seven I am statements of Jesus that will come across together as
we study through this good news in the Gospel of John.

Jesus said, "I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the gate
that you enter through to find God.

I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way, the
truth, and the life.

I am the true vine. " Every time you read one of these statements about who
Jesus really is, you recognize what he can really do in your life. And as we
walk through the Gospel of John, we're going to talk together about these
statements.

It's interesting that in these chapters, chapter one, the last part of that
chapter, through chapter 12, there are also seven people that just seem to shine
out as encounters that Jesus had that make a difference in their lives. And we
see how he can make a difference in our lives. John the Baptist, Nicodemus, a
woman from Samaria, an official and his son, a man at Bethsaida, a man who was
born blind, a man by the name of Lazarus.

It's very interesting to me that in the Gospel of John, there are a lot of
personal interviews. There's sort of the talk show in one way of the Gospels.
You hear a lot of conversations.

Not the quick conversations like you'd see in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but long
drawn out conversations that Jesus has with people. And in that, you begin to
see some of the secrets of how he's able to work to change our lives, to make a
difference in daily life. So as you walk through the Gospel of John, part one in
the beginning is in chapter one.

Part two in the crowds, last part of chapter one through chapter 12. And then
part three I would call in the upper room. In the upper room is Jesus' private
ministry and his talk with his disciples the night before he went to die on the
cross.

It's chapters 13 to 17 of the Gospel of John. Incredible chapters, incredible
truth in these chapters as Jesus talks about what's really important the night
before he knows he's going to die. And then the fourth part of the Gospel of
John I would call in the darkness.

This is Jesus' arrest, his death, his betrayal, his burial, chapters 18 to 19.
Half of the Gospel of John is about the last week in Jesus' life. It's a book
that focuses on that last week.

The Gospel of John, the outline is in the beginning and then in the crowds and
then in the upper room and then in the darkness, but it ends with part five out
of the tomb. Jesus' resurrection, chapters 20 and 21. John emphasizes Jesus'
resurrection appearances, his personal appearances after the resurrection like
no one else.

His appearance to Mary Magdalene, "Tell my disciples," he said. His appearance
to Thomas, "Touch my hands," he said. His appearance to Simon Peter, "Feed my
sheep," he said.

Now don't forget as we talk about this Gospel of John that the author of the
book of John is one of the disciples whose lives were changed, radically changed
by Jesus Christ. And so when John talks about belief, it's personal. When he
talks about discipleship, it's personal.

When he talks about what Jesus did in the crowds, it is personal. What happened
in the upper room, it changed John's life. When he talks about what happened in
the darkness, he was there.

He was the disciple that was there at the cross and saw what happened. And when
he talks about Jesus coming out of the tomb, he was one of the disciples that
rushed to the tomb to see that it was empty. Everything that he writes is
personal.

And as you and I start a study together of this Gospel of John, I want it to be
personal for me. I want it to be personal for you. How God can personally change
the way that you believe.

You may never have believed in Jesus Christ. I don't mean by that that you don't
believe that he existed at one time. I mean by the word believe, trusted, relied
upon.

You may never have trusted him with your life, with your decisions, with your
direction. You may be still considering that, and that's why you're listening to
this. Or you may be someone who's believed in him for many months or even many,
many years.

Wherever you are in that journey, the truth is, as you walk through this Gospel
together with me, as we walk through it together and see what he has to say to
us about belief, he can change our faith. He can change the way we believe. He
can strengthen our faith.

And so as we look forward to this study together, I'd like to take a moment to
pray together right now and look forward to what he is going to do. And as we
pray, let's pray specifically that the Lord will use this study to deepen our
faith. In fact, specifically ask these things.

Ask that the life and the actions of Jesus, as you observe them, will make faith
seem more possible. You'll see how it could happen. And ask that you will feel
like you had that opportunity to sit down and have a personal conversation with
the Lord Jesus Christ about your life and your faith as you listen to others'
conversations.

And that that will make your faith more personal. And pray that studying the
miracles and the works of Jesus will make your faith more powerful. Pray that
looking at the words of Jesus will make your faith more practical, something
that you do and not just talk about.

And pray that focusing on the cross and the resurrection will make your faith
more passionate. True passion, spiritual passion. We do ask this, Jesus.

Possible and personal and powerful and practical and passionate faith. We ask
for this in Jesus' name, Amen. Join us tomorrow as we launch into this study.

We're going to be looking together at verses 1 to 18.