WEBVTT 00:00:00.621 --> 00:00:06.448 I'd like you to turn with me in your Bibles to the book of John, john's Gospel, chapter 1. 00:00:06.448 --> 00:00:09.323 John's Gospel, chapter 1. 00:00:09.323 --> 00:00:17.307 And I will introduce our series here in a moment. 00:00:17.307 --> 00:00:26.251 But John 1, beginning in verse 1, the first three verses of the Gospel according to John. 00:00:26.251 --> 00:00:35.871 If you don't know these verses, these are some of the most fantastic statements in the entire Word of God about our lovely Lord Jesus. 00:00:35.871 --> 00:00:47.014 In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. 00:00:47.014 --> 00:00:51.789 He was in the beginning with God. 00:00:51.789 --> 00:01:03.112 All things were made through Him and without Him was not anything made that was made. 00:01:03.112 --> 00:01:18.474 Let's read verse 1 again In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. 00:01:18.474 --> 00:01:27.370 Father, i just bow my mind and heart before the incredible revelation of these verses. 00:01:27.370 --> 00:01:36.460 We sang it this morning, lord, that You are everything to us, and these verses certainly say that and more So. 00:01:36.460 --> 00:01:49.230 I pray this morning that Trinity would be taken by God's Spirit and grace to the heart and core of the revelation of the person, of the Lord Jesus. 00:01:49.230 --> 00:02:03.471 We pray that Jesus would become larger and larger on our scope, that He in His all of His glory and magnificence would be known to every man or woman. 00:02:03.471 --> 00:02:11.866 And at the end of these days, when we're done looking at this chapter, we would say, indeed, that He is everything we need. 00:02:11.866 --> 00:02:17.751 So now, lord, open our eyes to behold wonderful things in Your Word. 00:02:17.751 --> 00:02:23.730 We ask it in Jesus' name, and everyone said Amen. 00:02:27.084 --> 00:02:29.067 I read a story that really blessed me. 00:02:29.067 --> 00:02:32.712 That is a good way to begin this time. 00:02:32.712 --> 00:02:48.712 In John's Gospel, peter Lewis tells the incredible story of being in a small Welsh congregation one summer morning When he and the entire congregation witnessed an incredible event in that remote spot. 00:02:48.712 --> 00:03:01.848 Wherever they were and I can't remember the area in Wales they had gathered to actually listen to a very distinguished preacher who was well known in the district And, as Lewis reports it, the service was very ordinary that day. 00:03:01.848 --> 00:03:08.931 But how the preacher closed that service, he said, was far from ordinary. 00:03:10.941 --> 00:03:21.610 Now, as the sermon was coming to an end, the preacher, he said, leaned over the pulpit and asked if he could end the sermon with a personal testimony. 00:03:21.610 --> 00:03:27.610 And this is what he said, quote when I was a boy of about 12, i had a great hero. 00:03:27.610 --> 00:03:40.911 My hero was a local sportsman who achieved the rare distinction of gaining a cap in rugby for playing for his country and who played cricket to county standard. 00:03:40.911 --> 00:03:54.491 I so admired this man that I papered the walls of my bedroom with press cuttings and photographs of him and love to talk and hear about his exploits on the field. 00:03:54.491 --> 00:03:57.205 He was my great hero. 00:03:57.205 --> 00:04:03.531 Then, when I was 14, i actually got to know my hero personally. 00:04:03.531 --> 00:04:08.090 He was a keen angler and I used to go fishing with him. 00:04:08.090 --> 00:04:18.889 On those occasions I was able to observe him from an entirely different viewpoint and got to know the man and not merely the image. 00:04:18.889 --> 00:04:41.850 At this point the preacher paused, looked closely at his congregation, shook his head slowly from side to side and, with an air of considerable authority, said in emphatic tones and the nearer I got to my hero, the smaller he became. 00:04:41.850 --> 00:04:56.372 In a few sentences he sketched the young boy's disillusionment as he discovered the true character of the man whose public image had so captivated him. 00:04:57.079 --> 00:05:05.303 No doubt everyone in the congregation that morning recognized the experience and sympathized with the preacher. 00:05:05.303 --> 00:05:14.721 But a tenet as they now were, we were hardly prepared for what followed Eventually. 00:05:14.721 --> 00:05:22.004 In a rising voice and with arms outstretched, voice breaking with emotion, he cried out. 00:05:22.004 --> 00:05:33.149 But God eventually led that downcast schoolboy to a new hero And I have walked with my Jesus for 35 years now. 00:05:33.149 --> 00:05:38.451 In that time I have often disappointed him, but he has never disappointed me. 00:05:38.451 --> 00:05:45.867 I have got to know him better and the nearer I get, the bigger he becomes. 00:05:53.240 --> 00:05:57.716 I'm sure many of us in this room can relate to what that preacher said. 00:05:57.716 --> 00:06:22.750 That I certainly can, because this coming Wednesday I will have been a disciple of Jesus for 40 years And in that entire time that I have come to know him, i stand here and tell you that the more I know him intimately, the bigger he has become, and I believe that is the experience of all that know him. 00:06:22.750 --> 00:06:35.593 Unlike so many so-called human heroes who, the closer we get to, the smaller they become, because we witness their quirks and their sins and their blemishes. 00:06:35.593 --> 00:07:10.545 The closer we get to Jesus, the bigger he becomes, for the simple reason, folks, he has no quirks or sins or blemishes, and for 2,000 years Jesus Christ has rightfully occupied the highest place no one else ever occupies in the church, and he occupies it not because the church decided he deserves it, but because Jesus himself insisted on holding that place. 00:07:12.959 --> 00:07:24.632 Are you aware that during Jesus' earthly ministry he kept saying things about himself that are either the height of presumption or else the absolute truth. 00:07:24.632 --> 00:07:38.423 In fact, you could say it this way Paul did not preach Paul, peter did not preach Peter, but Jesus Christ preached Jesus Christ, and all through his earthly ministry. 00:07:38.423 --> 00:07:43.211 He said things like come unto me, believe in me. 00:07:43.211 --> 00:07:46.904 I am the way, the truth and the life. 00:07:46.904 --> 00:07:55.923 Except you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins, and for that reason. 00:07:55.923 --> 00:08:05.108 That's why the one thing we can't do with Jesus is set him among the various religious teachers throughout human history. 00:08:05.108 --> 00:08:10.173 That's the one thing you cannot do with the man Jesus of Nazareth. 00:08:11.137 --> 00:08:15.971 I love the way CS Lewis said it in his incredible way. 00:08:15.971 --> 00:08:17.346 No one could say it like Lewis. 00:08:17.346 --> 00:08:25.487 He said, quote people often say I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. 00:08:25.487 --> 00:08:29.684 That is the one thing we must not say. 00:08:29.684 --> 00:08:39.409 A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. 00:08:39.409 --> 00:08:48.352 He would either be a lunatic on a level with a man who says he's a poached egg, or else he would be the devil of hell. 00:08:48.352 --> 00:08:57.437 You must make your choice Either this man was and is the Son of God, or else a madman or something else. 00:08:57.437 --> 00:09:07.135 You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. 00:09:07.135 --> 00:09:13.738 But do not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. 00:09:13.738 --> 00:09:17.113 He has not left that open to us. 00:09:17.113 --> 00:09:20.008 I wish I had said that. 00:09:20.008 --> 00:09:22.335 I take that back. 00:09:22.335 --> 00:09:31.890 I wish I had thought that Now we've been engaged for many weeks in a study of the nature and attributes of God called a God worth knowing. 00:09:32.304 --> 00:09:40.504 And this month of November we actually continue that series, but turn our attention solely upon the Lord Jesus. 00:09:40.504 --> 00:09:48.594 And I want to preach four messages to you in the month of November, all from this first chapter of the Gospel of John. 00:09:48.594 --> 00:09:51.754 Next week I will talk to you about the incarnate Word. 00:09:51.754 --> 00:09:57.677 The following week I will talk to you about the crucified Word and finally, the Word proclaimed. 00:09:57.677 --> 00:10:03.738 But this morning I want us to focus on the eternal Word. 00:10:03.738 --> 00:10:14.298 And, by the way, in December we will continue to look at the Lord Jesus as we unpack the events surrounding his glorious birth in celebration of Christmas. 00:10:14.504 --> 00:10:19.115 But here this morning we start where we must. 00:10:19.115 --> 00:10:27.716 We start where John starts not with the babe of Bethlehem, as important as that is. 00:10:27.716 --> 00:10:34.278 You see, matthew and Luke tell us about Christmas and we thank God for their accounts. 00:10:34.278 --> 00:10:41.097 I love the stories of the Nativity of Jesus from Matthew's Gospel and from Luke's Gospel. 00:10:41.097 --> 00:10:47.005 And Mark starts not with the birth of Jesus but with the beginning of his Galilee and ministry. 00:10:47.005 --> 00:10:51.115 Almost a year into the ministry of Jesus is where Mark begins his account. 00:10:51.115 --> 00:11:00.217 But John starts where none of us would ever start when thinking about Jesus of Naples. 00:11:01.384 --> 00:11:12.255 Because for the majority of us, the place where we start in terms of our thinking about Jesus is in his role as Savior. 00:11:12.255 --> 00:11:18.596 And we are right to do so because we are sinners in need of reconciliation. 00:11:18.596 --> 00:11:31.495 So it is right for us to think of Jesus properly as our glorious Savior, the only one who could reconcile God and man, and he did so through the work of the cross and his resurrection. 00:11:31.495 --> 00:11:44.076 What could be sweeter to us than the knowledge that Jesus of Nazareth came to seek and to save that which is lost and to redeem them by his death? 00:11:44.076 --> 00:11:59.399 But there is a problem if you start there and never move beyond that, because it is possible to think of Jesus only in terms of our need as sinners and nothing more. 00:11:59.399 --> 00:12:10.633 Now don't misunderstand me this morning I am not, god forbid, diminishing the work of the cross, and we now, as sinners, reconciled to God through the cross. 00:12:10.633 --> 00:12:11.755 Never forget it. 00:12:13.404 --> 00:12:20.746 Yet John's prologue, which is his first 18 verses, generally believed to serve as a prologue to his whole gospel. 00:12:20.746 --> 00:12:36.345 John's prologue forces us to realize that if we really want to understand Jesus of Nazareth properly, we must not ask the question who is Jesus to us? 00:12:36.345 --> 00:12:48.235 But first, who is Jesus to God, who is Jesus in terms of his Father? 00:12:48.235 --> 00:13:03.807 That's why these words of John's gospel are so vitally important, because they tell us that the man, jesus, born of a virgin in Bethlehem, existed in eternity path. 00:13:03.807 --> 00:13:16.263 Now I need to tell you something that you at least need to know if you've never known this, and that is it is believed that John wrote this gospel entirely, and especially the prologue, the first 18 verses. 00:13:16.263 --> 00:13:25.133 He wrote it that way because many heresies were abounding in the first century church in Asia when he wrote these words. 00:13:25.173 --> 00:13:43.864 There were a lot of false teachings and distortions being spread in Asia Minor and throughout the early church about the person of Jesus, and one common heresy which is still around under new names is that Jesus wasn't the eternal Son of God, the Christ. 00:13:43.864 --> 00:13:45.933 He was just a man. 00:13:45.933 --> 00:13:59.964 But when he was born at Bethlehem, the spirit of the Christ came on Jesus and for 33 years the spirit of Jesus, or the spirit of the Christ, animated Jesus of Nazareth. 00:13:59.964 --> 00:14:01.614 And these heretics. 00:14:01.614 --> 00:14:13.984 Many of them were under a brand of teaching known as Gnosticisms, or they were Gnostic, and they taught that when Jesus died, the spirit of the Christ left him. 00:14:13.984 --> 00:14:22.654 So he was a mere man endowed with the spirit of Christ at his birth and then, when he died, the spirit of Christ left him and returned. 00:14:22.654 --> 00:14:52.620 And John's gospel, among other things primarily, was written to refute this, but especially the prologue, the first 18 verses, because John is telling us here that, far from being just a man endowed with the spirit of Christ, john wants us to know, jesus didn't get his beginning at Bethlehem, when he was born of a virgin. 00:14:52.620 --> 00:15:00.501 Jesus Christ existed eternally in the Godhead before time began. 00:15:00.501 --> 00:15:04.009 That's how the prologue begins. 00:15:04.029 --> 00:15:07.559 You've heard these words, all of us have read them. 00:15:07.559 --> 00:15:16.580 John starts his prologue in the beginning and when I read that, i suddenly think of what? 00:15:16.580 --> 00:15:17.902 What book do I think of? 00:15:17.902 --> 00:15:28.072 when I read the words in the beginning, i think of the book of Genesis, the creation story, but John isn't referring to that beginning. 00:15:28.072 --> 00:15:31.880 John isn't referring to the beginning of creation. 00:15:31.880 --> 00:15:38.077 He's telling us that there is something that predates creation itself. 00:15:38.077 --> 00:15:55.163 What John is referring to in the prologue is not the beginning when God first created, but that which existed even before creation and that which not only existed before creation, but church, that which governed creation itself. 00:15:55.163 --> 00:16:04.278 In fact, if you don't understand the Godhead, you won't understand creation and why God brought into being this material universe. 00:16:04.278 --> 00:16:17.673 You know, when I read this week again and again and again, trying to get ready for this Sunday, i realized that many stories start, you know, with the words once upon a time. 00:16:17.673 --> 00:16:39.171 But really John starts with this phrase once before time, because John is telling us that there was a moment and Genesis tells us this as well when nothing existed and the Word of God spoke it into existence, so that out of nothing everything comes. 00:16:39.171 --> 00:16:46.269 The technical term in theology is ex nihilo from nothing, everything by the creative Word of God. 00:16:46.269 --> 00:16:53.903 Yet that's not the beginning John is referring to when he talks about Jesus Christ. 00:16:53.903 --> 00:16:59.240 He is talking about that which predates time. 00:16:59.280 --> 00:17:02.831 Now you may be here this morning and saying that's interesting, but why do I need to know that? 00:17:02.831 --> 00:17:08.661 This isn't merely mystical, this is pastoral. 00:17:08.661 --> 00:17:13.211 Look at what John calls Jesus. 00:17:13.211 --> 00:17:15.797 Look at the phrase that he uses. 00:17:15.797 --> 00:17:20.125 In the beginning was the Word. 00:17:20.125 --> 00:17:28.784 Now, i'm speaking this morning to you and I'm part of you and you're a Western, modern Christian congregation. 00:17:28.784 --> 00:17:35.122 Honestly speaking, what comes to mind when you hear the phrase the Word? 00:17:35.122 --> 00:17:36.865 What do you think of first? 00:17:36.865 --> 00:17:45.954 Most of us would hold up our Bibles, and you are right to do so, because this is the infallible, inerrant Word of God. 00:17:45.954 --> 00:17:49.541 But that is not what John is referring to. 00:17:49.541 --> 00:17:55.875 He calls Jesus the Word, and John is not referring to the Bible, god's Word written. 00:17:55.875 --> 00:18:07.480 He's talking about something that predates Scripture, but when we hear the phrase Word, we automatically think of the Bible. 00:18:07.480 --> 00:18:14.095 Now there's a lot of debate as to where John got this phrase the Word. 00:18:14.095 --> 00:18:20.171 It is the Greek word logos, and there is so much been written. 00:18:20.171 --> 00:18:26.324 There are volumes that have been written on why John refers to Jesus Christ as the Word. 00:18:29.670 --> 00:18:48.788 Some say it was borrowed from the Greek world, because the Greeks had this idea that behind everything that can be seen, there is the ultimate wisdom or the ultimate reason, and behind that and for the Greeks, it wasn't a person, it was the ultimate wisdom. 00:18:48.788 --> 00:18:55.663 They said, behind the physical and tangible universe there is this divine reason. 00:18:55.663 --> 00:18:57.707 But they never personalized it. 00:18:57.707 --> 00:19:04.805 And then along came the Hebrews And they had a similar idea. 00:19:04.805 --> 00:19:09.916 They had a Hebrew word, memrah, which was word. 00:19:09.916 --> 00:19:26.395 But the Hebrew people went beyond the Greeks because they thought about it and said wait a minute, if you have behind everything that is visible, if you have thought, then you must have a thinker. 00:19:26.395 --> 00:19:31.968 You can't just have impersonal reason or wisdom. 00:19:31.968 --> 00:19:32.869 Where there's thought there is a thinker. 00:19:32.869 --> 00:19:53.468 And so for the Hebrews, this idea of the word ultimate wisdom, reason behind everything created, was not impersonal, it was personal, which is why the Hebrews had statements like this The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. 00:19:53.468 --> 00:20:05.195 Because for the Hebrews the logos was not an impersonal reason or wisdom or force, it was a person. 00:20:06.678 --> 00:20:16.193 Now there's a simpler way to grasp why John is referring here to the word or Christ as the word. 00:20:16.193 --> 00:20:18.057 There's a simpler reason. 00:20:18.057 --> 00:20:19.461 Let me demonstrate it this morning. 00:20:19.461 --> 00:20:21.253 I'm thinking of the word right now. 00:20:21.253 --> 00:20:26.856 Would you please tell me what it is And we could start guessing. 00:20:26.856 --> 00:20:29.020 And we'll be here till 2041. 00:20:29.020 --> 00:20:31.325 Come on, tell me what my word is. 00:20:31.325 --> 00:20:36.236 Will someone please tell me what my word is? 00:20:36.236 --> 00:20:41.190 No one can, because thought is invisible. 00:20:41.190 --> 00:20:56.588 You don't know what I'm thinking And you could guess, and perhaps in several years of trying, but no one knows still what I'm thinking, because thought is in the realm of the invisible. 00:20:56.588 --> 00:20:59.679 But the moment I speak it, what happens? 00:20:59.679 --> 00:21:01.563 And, by the way, here was my word lunch. 00:21:01.563 --> 00:21:05.509 Can you tell what I'm thinking about? 00:21:05.509 --> 00:21:11.704 I'm thinking of Sylvia back there in all the good food, lunch. 00:21:11.704 --> 00:21:15.993 And the moment I spoke the word lunch, what happens? 00:21:15.993 --> 00:21:20.546 Everyone suddenly gets it. 00:21:20.546 --> 00:21:22.509 Intangible. 00:21:22.509 --> 00:21:24.393 Thought becomes real. 00:21:24.393 --> 00:21:27.940 You know what I was thinking. 00:21:31.384 --> 00:21:44.385 John is telling us something profound and absolutely essential about the second person of the divine trinity, and it is what word is to thought? 00:21:44.385 --> 00:21:47.851 Jesus Christ is to God. 00:21:47.851 --> 00:21:52.722 In fact, paul will say it a little different, similar vein. 00:21:52.722 --> 00:21:59.071 He is the image of the invisible God. 00:21:59.071 --> 00:22:10.452 John and Paul are telling us the same thing No one can ever know God apart from the word who reveals him? 00:22:10.452 --> 00:22:21.027 Listen to Paul again He is the image of the what, the invisible God. 00:22:22.528 --> 00:22:41.426 Now you might be sitting here and thinking, yes, once Jesus was born of a virgin, once Mary brought him into this world at Bethlehem, that's when he began to reveal God. 00:22:41.426 --> 00:22:47.960 But that's not what John is saying in his opening verse. 00:22:47.960 --> 00:23:11.449 He's not saying that Jesus began to reveal God when he was born of a virgin in Bethlehem, john, he is telling us that no one has ever known God at any time, apart from the word, which is the only way that God can ever be known. 00:23:11.449 --> 00:23:15.861 In fact, i think I have it on the screen In a few verses. 00:23:15.861 --> 00:23:31.280 John will say it this way Look up at the screens, you'll see John 1.18, and he says it this way No one has ever seen God, the only God and some of the margin of your Bibles will say the only Son. 00:23:31.761 --> 00:23:40.240 It's talking about the Son No one has ever seen God, the only Son who is at the Father's side. 00:23:40.240 --> 00:23:43.684 He has made him known. 00:23:43.684 --> 00:24:11.718 Wow, that means, if that's true, that throughout the entire Old Testament era, when men saw God guess folks who they really were seeing The Word who reveals the Father, who is at the Father's side, he alone has always been the one to make Him known. 00:24:11.718 --> 00:24:27.828 That means, by the way, that when we were the life of Moses and all the events in chapter 33, where Moses cried out show me your glory, and God put him in a rock, moses saw the back parts of God as God passed by. 00:24:27.828 --> 00:24:32.181 But guess who he was looking upon God the Son. 00:24:32.181 --> 00:24:50.823 And one evidence of that that blows my mind is in Isaiah, and we spent two or three weeks in Isaiah 6, isaiah saw God sitting on a throne high and lifted up with all the seraphim around him, and Isaiah cried out woe is me, i'm ruined. 00:24:50.823 --> 00:25:02.207 And when John records Isaiah 6 in the 12th chapter of John's gospel, guess who Isaiah said. 00:25:02.207 --> 00:25:07.459 Guess who John says Isaiah saw when he saw the Lord high and lifted up on a throne. 00:25:07.459 --> 00:25:20.922 John 12, john includes a little phrase Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. 00:25:24.665 --> 00:25:38.994 John 1.18, along with John 1.1, tells us that from eternity past, god has only had one means of revealing himself. 00:25:38.994 --> 00:25:47.731 Now he tells us that before creation there was this person called the Word. 00:25:47.731 --> 00:25:55.003 But then look at the next phrase, and the Word was with God. 00:25:55.003 --> 00:26:02.480 And I love that phrase because it now clues us in that there's more than one person in the Godhead. 00:26:02.480 --> 00:26:04.686 We may have concluded that this was the Godhead. 00:26:04.686 --> 00:26:11.336 John 1.1, in the beginning was the Word, but now we are told there is at least two people in the Godhead. 00:26:11.336 --> 00:26:20.021 We will know shortly, of course in Scripture that there's actually three, but we know of two right now There's God and there's the Word. 00:26:20.021 --> 00:26:24.229 And John says that the Word was with God. 00:26:24.229 --> 00:26:31.295 And in the Bible, in Greek, this phrase is a lot more expressive than just he's with God. 00:26:31.295 --> 00:26:45.238 The literal Greek reads the Word was right beside God, and that means more than the Word was just standing there next to God. 00:26:45.238 --> 00:26:49.625 It speaks of interpersonal relationship. 00:26:49.625 --> 00:26:57.003 In the beginning was the Word, but this Word had a relationship with God in the Godhead. 00:26:57.003 --> 00:27:04.064 And this phrase right beside God implies something much more than physical proximity. 00:27:04.064 --> 00:27:11.244 It's not he's not saying he's just physically standing there next to God, but it's talking about intimacy. 00:27:12.728 --> 00:27:17.882 I have a question tonight this morning Where does the idea of fellowship come from? 00:27:17.882 --> 00:27:26.482 Where did the idea of fellowship of persons intimately involved in sharing life together? 00:27:26.482 --> 00:27:30.637 It started right here in eternity in the past, in the Godhead. 00:27:30.637 --> 00:27:35.690 That's, who invented fellowship? 00:27:35.690 --> 00:27:37.554 God invented fellowship. 00:27:37.554 --> 00:27:42.086 I had somebody say once I asked the question what was God doing before he created? 00:27:42.086 --> 00:27:43.816 and somebody said he was bored. 00:27:43.816 --> 00:27:48.002 How many discern? 00:27:48.002 --> 00:27:49.325 that's not the right answer. 00:27:49.325 --> 00:28:03.431 But right here we are given a glimpse of what existed before creation itself the Word right beside God. 00:28:03.431 --> 00:28:09.807 It is the optimum Word that describes how the Father and Son relate together in the Godhead. 00:28:10.087 --> 00:28:17.325 By the way, church life is not a bunch of people getting together just to have services and do religious duty. 00:28:17.325 --> 00:28:40.642 Church life is men and women who are partaking of the life of the Godhead, who understand that as the Godhead fellowships together, they are brought together into the miracle of mystery of fellowship, so that what we experience called church life is an extension of the fellowship that is going on between the members of the Godhead in the Godhead. 00:28:40.642 --> 00:28:53.420 Wow, so if your relationship with the church is you dart into a service, sit in the back, look at the back of someone's head only and go home and don't get involved, that's not church life. 00:28:53.420 --> 00:28:56.165 Church life is intimately more. 00:28:56.165 --> 00:29:04.066 It is being involved with people, it is experiencing the extension of the Godhead in your relationships. 00:29:04.066 --> 00:29:10.527 Here's how John writes about it In the prologue to his first letter. 00:29:10.728 --> 00:29:15.601 First, john, he says quote that which we have seen and heard. 00:29:15.601 --> 00:29:27.047 We proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and His Son, jesus Christ. 00:29:27.047 --> 00:29:42.813 Get a picture of this In the beginning was the word the only one who can reveal the Father, and he was right beside God from eternity past, intimately experiencing fellowship with God. 00:29:42.813 --> 00:29:45.259 There's a picture of this in the book of Proverbs. 00:29:45.259 --> 00:29:48.886 It's one of my favorites, proverbs 8. 00:29:50.730 --> 00:29:58.286 And Solomon's talking about wisdom and then, all of a sudden, solomon personifies wisdom. 00:29:58.286 --> 00:30:04.288 Whoever this wisdom is, it's a person, not just impersonal reason or wisdom. 00:30:04.288 --> 00:30:05.652 And listen to what he says. 00:30:05.652 --> 00:30:08.719 I think we're picking it up in verse 22. 00:30:08.719 --> 00:30:17.961 He says the Lord possessed me at the beginning of His work, the first of His acts of old Ages ago. 00:30:17.961 --> 00:30:24.897 I was set up at the first, before the beginning of the earth, when there were no depths. 00:30:24.897 --> 00:30:32.204 I was brought forth when there were no springs abounding with water, before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills. 00:30:32.204 --> 00:30:41.407 I was brought forth before He made the earth with its fields or the first dust of the dust of the world, when He established the heavens. 00:30:41.407 --> 00:30:42.457 I was there. 00:30:42.457 --> 00:31:15.106 When He established the foundations of the deep, when He assigned to the sea its limit so that the waters might not transgress His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside Him like a master workman and I was daily His delight, rejoicing before Him, always rejoicing in His inhabited world and delighting in the children of men. 00:31:15.106 --> 00:31:16.569 Look at that phrase. 00:31:16.569 --> 00:31:19.298 Then I was beside Him. 00:31:19.298 --> 00:31:28.422 That's exactly the idea in the Greek phrase in John 1.1, and the word was right beside God. 00:31:28.422 --> 00:31:34.476 I was beside Him like a master workman and I was daily His delight. 00:31:34.635 --> 00:31:46.304 We are getting here, folks, glimpses, snapshots into the eternal relationship between the Father and the eternal Logos. 00:31:46.304 --> 00:32:00.416 Not only do we learn that there are at least two people in the Godhead from verse 1 of John 1.1, but we learn that they were sharing this incredible relationship called fellowship. 00:32:00.416 --> 00:32:09.496 And what we learn also is the word is a distinct personality in fellowship with God. 00:32:09.496 --> 00:32:11.278 But John goes further. 00:32:11.278 --> 00:32:12.540 We're not done. 00:32:12.540 --> 00:32:19.215 In the beginning was the word and the word was right beside God. 00:32:19.215 --> 00:32:25.318 And finally, this morning we'll end on this note and the word was God. 00:32:28.383 --> 00:32:37.924 Lest we should think that this one called the word was sort of a secondary or lesser being than God. 00:32:37.924 --> 00:32:47.382 Notice, it doesn't say he was made God, as it will state next week when it comes to John 1.14,. 00:32:47.382 --> 00:32:51.571 The word was made or became flesh and blood. 00:32:51.571 --> 00:32:52.844 It doesn't say that. 00:32:52.844 --> 00:33:16.029 It states without any exemption, he was with God, but he was God, very God of God in the highest sense, as evident by some of his names, such as Isaiah, calling him wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace. 00:33:16.029 --> 00:33:19.681 He is the word. 00:33:19.681 --> 00:33:32.041 He was always besides God and he is God of God's, lord of Lord, light of light. 00:33:32.041 --> 00:33:44.313 He is, in substance and essence, god, possessing all the attributes of divinity. 00:33:44.313 --> 00:34:08.425 You know, if you read the New World translation which is I hope you don't it's the Jehovah Witness translation they read it this way In the beginning it was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was a small g God, wrong error. 00:34:11.842 --> 00:34:24.612 Oh, they admit that Jesus was a God, but in the same way that human beings are gods, he's not the almighty God of Scripture, but a lesser God. 00:34:24.612 --> 00:34:39.882 But that is wrong, not only grammatically, it is wrong biblically, for Scripture asserts without any hesitation that Jesus of Nazareth is the word of the Father, very God of God's Himself. 00:34:39.882 --> 00:34:44.947 So you have all these statements brought together. 00:34:44.947 --> 00:34:47.244 Let's review them for a minute. 00:34:47.244 --> 00:35:13.670 Before creation, there was a person known as the word, the embodiment of all wisdom and reason, and he is more than impersonal thought or reason, though, because he's standing right beside God as a distinct person, in fellowship with him from the beginning. 00:35:13.670 --> 00:35:20.771 The one who is right beside him, in fellowship with him from eternity. 00:35:20.771 --> 00:35:28.451 Past is not only the one who has perfect fellowship with him, but he is not a lesser being. 00:35:28.451 --> 00:35:34.469 He himself is very God of God's and Lord of Lord's. 00:35:36.500 --> 00:35:52.686 And so where we start in John is with this incredible revelation that if we want to know Jesus properly, we can't just start with our knowledge of him as a Savior, although we all must start there if we're going to be saved. 00:35:52.686 --> 00:36:16.425 John takes us further back into the ages upon ages before and tells us that he who predates eternity or creation, who is from eternity, is therefore the head of creation and the very God of God's. 00:36:16.425 --> 00:36:20.632 You see, john goes on to say all things were made by him. 00:36:20.632 --> 00:36:38.402 Unless you understand the words relationship to God, you will never understand creation, because Jesus not only is with the Father as the Word, but he is the creative agent by which everything in heaven and earth was brought into existence. 00:36:38.402 --> 00:36:59.063 Now we are going to start next week with those incredible words This is my favorite section of John 1, and the word became flesh and took on the characteristics of a human being. 00:36:59.063 --> 00:37:05.369 But before we can get there, we have to start where John has taken us this morning. 00:37:05.369 --> 00:37:11.728 He is the eternal Word of the Father, and there's a reason John starts there. 00:37:11.728 --> 00:37:14.628 Again, it's not mystical, it's pastoral. 00:37:15.059 --> 00:37:19.324 Folks, we don't make Jesus have the highest place in the universe. 00:37:19.324 --> 00:37:21.487 He already does. 00:37:21.487 --> 00:37:31.668 People are always talking about you got to make Jesus Lord. 00:37:31.668 --> 00:37:32.965 You got to make Jesus Lord. 00:37:32.965 --> 00:37:33.945 I understand what they mean. 00:37:33.945 --> 00:37:41.090 You have to live a life of obedience, but you don't start making Jesus Lord by a human work that we have to do. 00:37:41.090 --> 00:37:47.152 You start by having your eyes opened to the Father, showing you who he already is. 00:37:47.152 --> 00:37:50.505 He is the Lord of glory, he is the eternal Word. 00:37:50.505 --> 00:37:53.909 He is the one through whom the universe was spawned. 00:37:53.909 --> 00:38:13.581 And it's when you understand the centrality, the supremacy, the glory of the Son of God from eternity past that you begin to understand that you were created not so he would fulfill all your needs and benefits, but you were created to bring him glory and reflect his image. 00:38:18.820 --> 00:38:27.175 The New Testament is not about what we get, though God knows what we get is amazing in the grace of God. 00:38:27.224 --> 00:38:39.757 The New Testament is about the place the Father has given to the Son and what he gets by having a church of redeemed men and women whom he has called and transformed. 00:38:39.757 --> 00:38:40.989 It's what he gets. 00:38:40.989 --> 00:38:47.155 He does have the highest place in the universe And if you didn't know that before, john 1-1 should tell it. 00:38:47.155 --> 00:38:55.458 You see, john's philosophy is what predates time, is supreme and central. 00:38:55.458 --> 00:39:01.898 It's not merely it happened before time, it is before time and it governs time. 00:39:01.898 --> 00:39:04.431 It's what history is about. 00:39:04.431 --> 00:39:14.494 History is about the unfolding of the ages so that more and more are brought into the kingdom and Jesus Christ gets more and more glory. 00:39:14.494 --> 00:39:25.197 Last week we will talk about how that happened, when the Word became flesh and blood. 00:39:28.164 --> 00:39:35.798 But this morning I want you to relish, as I bring this to a close. 00:39:35.798 --> 00:39:46.059 I want you to relish and glorify God for the place he has given to the Son in the divine economy. 00:39:46.059 --> 00:39:51.452 I have a question Is Jesus that to you this morning? 00:39:51.452 --> 00:40:02.835 So many of us have grown up since childhood with Christmas stories and thank God for Christmas, and I love the story and we will unpack it here in December. 00:40:02.835 --> 00:40:13.893 But start where John starts this morning, in the beginning, before all, before time, before creation. 00:40:13.893 --> 00:40:22.552 The Word, the one right beside God, the one who is God. 00:40:22.552 --> 00:40:26.032 Someone asked me do you worship Jesus Christ? 00:40:26.032 --> 00:40:30.429 My answer emphatically was yes, i worship him. 00:40:30.429 --> 00:40:33.030 He is very God of God's. 00:40:33.030 --> 00:40:39.077 He's not only my Savior, he's the means, the one, the agent through whom God reveals himself. 00:40:39.077 --> 00:40:42.137 He is glorious beyond words.