The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. We are finishing our series on the Gospel of John today, and over the course of like eight weeks prior to this, going through this gospel, we looked at different individuals and their struggles with who they were, and we have found the mistake it is to try to make your identity based on your moral track record, or on your religious rule-keeping, or on even your sincerity and authenticity, or anything on yourself, your ethnicity, your class. Today we're gonna finish, I think it all heads in this direction, we're finishing with the identity of someone in this gospel that's only not even named, and yet it's the author of the gospel. And he's only known by this, the one whom Jesus loved. Is that fascinating? It's intentional. It's intentional. Now most Christian scholars do believe this is the gospel of John, and so this is John who is the one who's called the one whom Jesus loved, or the beloved disciple. However, it's not in the text. It's the fact that early church fathers in the second century decided, or looked at all the evidence and said, yes, this was the Apostle John who wrote this book, and wrote letters first, second, and third John, etc. But there are other scholars who look at the information within the text itself, and have thought, maybe the author is Lazarus. Because it's in chapter 11 that this phrase first comes up, at the grave of Lazarus, where Jesus is weeping, and the person, they say, my how he loved him. It's the first person in this entire gospel, and it's after that that the phrase comes up again and again in the last chapters of the gospel of John, the disciple whom Jesus loved. Now regardless, I don't really care who the author is in one sense, right? But what I love is this is all we know. The one whom Jesus loved, that's the identity, and you can't have a better one than that. You cannot have a better identity than that. The one whom Jesus loved. So we're going to conclude the gospel, actually read the last few verses of the gospel today. It continues from last week when we looked at Peter, and how Jesus called him three times for the three times he denied Jesus. And now after that, Jesus calls Peter to follow him. And we read the rest of the letter of John, John chapter 21, starting at verse 20. And you can follow along, by the way, in the You version of the Bible app. There are notes, right? You've got them up already, girl. That's great. Okay, here we go. Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them. The one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and has said, Lord, who is it that is going to betray you? When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, Lord, what about this man? Jesus said to him, if it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me. So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but if it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true. Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the whole world itself could not contain the books that would be written. And so ends the Gospel of John. And from this text, we're going to learn these three things. What it means to be seeking your identity through comparisons, which we all fall into. Secondly, what it means to be the beloved. And thirdly, how we then bear witness. But first of all, seeking identity through comparisons, that's what Peter's doing here in this text. Jesus has just told him by the method he was going to die, as we found in the last text, that you're going to basically be crucified someday. And he had just installed him, reinstated him, recalled him to be his disciple, but then Peter turns around and says, what about this guy? You know? Lord, what about this man? And Jesus responds, if it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me. How easy it is for us to go, like, what about? Well, what, why is that happening? What, but, but, uh, how, right? Maybe it starts with sibling rivalry. I can still remember a time when I was a child, or two times, or five times, or 20 times. My brother and I were two years apart, and my parents decided to get us the same exact gift at Christmas. A BB gun. Kind of like the Red Rider one, you know? Yeah. But I had to wait until I was in, like, sixth grade to get that. And so then my brother was only in fourth grade to get that. And I thought, what is going on? What about? I'm the older one. Yeah. I'm the middle kid. Yeah. So comparing ourselves to other, um, man, I wrote, uh, read, uh, recently an article by Will Storr in the Observer, August 29th, 2021. It is w...