Old Testament temple housed the place where God lived in the earth.
Solomon built and dedicated the temple….He asked the question “but will God really dwell on
the earth?
1 Kings 8:27
This is the question that I would like you to ask yourself and I will also answer that question
today.
“Will God Really Dwell on the Earth?”
The tabernacle and the temple became the symbol of the place that god occupied
People having a particular place that they could go to ad assembly to meet God.
Isaiah prophesied Isaiah 7:14
Then we come to the New Testament and we find God dwelling on the earth in the person of
Jesus. John 1:15 word became flesh.
Tabernacles with us
Incarnation of Christ dwelling within us
This story of such an individual that it takes 4 different writers to pin the life of Christ.
Matthew Mark Luke and John—-table of contents
Why are there 4writers.
Not one can express His glory, majesty and express image of His father!
Illustrations: A Quartet – it is like the Holy Spirit is the director of a string quartet
Harlem Quartet
1. Bass 2. Tenor 3. Alto 4. Soprano
Matthew Mark Luke and John are singing there parts and the Holy Spirit is directing and you
hear 4 voices but it sounds like one voice or four instruments but they sound like one.
A compass – it is like the Holy Spirit is the red magnetic needle pointing
1. North 2. South 3. East 4. West
The director of the Holy Spirit getting four different views from Matthew Mark Luke and John
but when the gospels is being read it s like you are walking the dust roads of Nazareth or
fishing in the Sea of Galilee
I love the gospel of John, it is usually the Gospel that I point new believers to read first.
Matthew’s gospel was written for Jewish people. Where we find the word fulfilled or that it
might be fulfilled. It was written to help the Jewish people see all of the Old Testament
prophesies being fulfilled.
Mark’s gospel was written more to a Roman audience. It is a gospel of action. It moves quickly
and has lots of actions. It about doing and getting the job done in a short amount of time.
Luke seems to be writing to the gentile audience. He is a Greek physician. He has more
medical references to healings and miracles. His scholarly insight gives more detail to most
of the highlights. Speaking more of the perfect manhood of Jesus.
To other Greek philosophers, they would have wanted that perspective as all the Greek gods
where mostly very manly.
John’s gospel does not seem to be just the Jews, just the Romans, or just the Greeks. It seems
that John’s gospel audience is the world. Speaks of Jesus of the son of God or God himself.
Matthew is what Jesus said
Mark is what He did
Luke is how He felt
John is who He was
Matthew Mark and Luke are what we call the synoptic or similar gospels like a snap shot. A
trio.
John is very different in his approach more like a study portrait.
“We beheld His glory’ John 1:14
John goes further in the genealogy of Jesus than any other gospel
John 1:1-8
This Gospel was written by ….John… his name does not appear in the gospel as the writer
Verse 6 we have a mention of John but that is not the author
How do we know he wrote it? Irenaeus said so. Irenaeus was ordained by Polycarp who was
ordained by John.
It would be like me ordaining Bro. Cody Johnson and one day I’m gone and Bro. Cody quotes
Bro. Podaras. Yet he never met him but everyone knows that Bro. Podaras was my teacher.
In his own writings he calls himself the “disciple who Jesus loved”
John is part of the inner circle. Peter James and John…the core.
Jarius daughter, transfiguration, garden of Gethesame
John was the first apostle at the tomb, he stayed at the cross until he died, Jesus sends his
mother Mary home with John.
John writes about himself outrunning Peter,
One of the sons of Zebedee who was the other….James they had been in the fishing business
with their father. They were partners with another set of brother around the Sea of Galilee Peter
and Andrew.
Jesus called them a nickname sons of Bernegees aka sons of thunder. Was that because of
who there father was or how they acted? Well both Mark 3:17
Luke 9:54 call down fire
Mark 10:35, 37 sets on your left and right…..others mad:41
John seems to have two sides. He is better known as the beloved, the one that writes about
love, the one that everyone wants to be around unlike Peter or Thomas.
Illustration: I’m considered the person that’s good to everyone… Well ask MY wife and son
how tough I am on them. Get me and Bro Sean on the basketball court in our heyday, me
playing QB at Ashbrook, or wrestling 145 and 156
But the Lord worked on me…i have sought His spirit more than anything
In 3.5 years they went from sons of thunder to sons of tender
He laid his head on the chest of Jesus
John 1:1 the word…
Matthew begins with Abraham
Luke begins with Adam
But John goes even further back to tell us that before anything other than God the father Jesus
was!…. In the beginning like the book of Genesis
The word…not a person but the logos…Jews would never use the name of God. But
Adonia…some would use memoir. Which means the word
Logos from the Greek philosophers thought about the order of principles.
What came first the chicken or the egg? You may not know but you know one was
first,,, the word, the description.
What it will be is before what it is!
You have a copy of the logos in your lap or on your phone. But would you not rather have Him
in your heart.
You can meet the word today. You can meet who was first! Amen
