It is. It is. Okay. Thank you.
All right. Let's uh, let's pray. Thank you Lord for this time. We can come this morning to look at the scriptures and to think about the Lord Jesus our Savior.
Thank you Father for Him. And I thank you Lord that uh, sorry, thank you that we can come and um, look into your word, have it speak to our hearts and that we may be drawn closer to the one who gave Himself for us. Thank you in Jesus name, amen. I'm not sure why that amp was buzzing behind me, but that totally distracted me too.
So I'm uh, I'd ask you pray as I go through this because I am feeling distracted this morning, very much so. And uh, I can appreciate your prayers. So pray that it's the word of God that speaks to us not whatever I attempt to say. Um, let's take a life of its own.
Okay. So we're gonna, I'm just, what I've been doing is taking some uh, some kind of greetings from the gospel of John. Uh, I've been reading through a number of times I've read through the gospel of John consecutively. Um, it's been a real real blessing to read through John.
Um, the last time we look at John, uh, we looked at the fact that uh, the purpose of the book is actually given at the end of the book. John writes in John chapter, um, twenty, first thirty and thirty one. He says, now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. So we looked at John as far as the gospel of John goes.
It's unique. It's different from the other three gospels. Uh, the key word in the gospel of John is, is belief. It's approximately 98 times depending on the translation that you use.
Um, John intended for his audience to be the whole world. Uh, it's written, uh, other gospels are written to Gentiles or to Jews or to, to different people groups. This one is written, the gospel of John seems to be written and focused on the whole world. John focuses on who the Lord Jesus is.
He presents him as the Son of God. Matthew focused on what Jesus said, Mark focused on what the Lord Jesus did, Luke focuses on what power Lord Jesus felt, and John focuses on who the Lord Jesus was. It's, it's very unique in its presentation. Jesus Christ is presented as God himself and human body.
And John starts this book, this, this gospel with the words in the beginning, just as the, the total of scriptures do in Genesis chapter one verse one. Matthew and Luke go back to the beginnings of his genealogy, but John goes back to the very beginnings before time even began. I'd like to read a couple of scriptures as we, as we start. First, I'd like to read in, um, Micah chapter five and verse two.
Micah chapter five verse two, it says, but as for you, Bethlehem, a path, a path of a, uh, too little to be among the clans of Judah, for one will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel. His going forths are from long ago, from days of eternity. Also turn with me to Hebrews chapter one before we read our text for this morning. Hebrews chapter one, it says, God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets, and in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world.
And he, that's the son, is the radiance of his glory, of God's glory, and the exact representation of his nature, and upholds all things by the words, by the word of his power. When he had made purification for sins, or sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. So, that was passage of speak of the Lord Jesus Christ as somebody who not only was seen on this earth, but had beginnings that were not beginnings. That goes back before time even began.
So, this morning, I'd like to look in John chapter one and read verses one to five. John chapter one verses one to five. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through him, I'm sorry, all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. I'd like to also read this from the New Living Translation, the NLT.
It says in the beginning, the word, capital W word, already existed. He was with God, and he was God. He was in the beginning with God. He created everything there is.
Nothing exists that he didn't make. Life itself was in him, and this life gives light to everyone. The light shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. So, if I try to think of, but this day is going kind of crazy on me here.
I don't know why, but everything's happening. Things falling apart, buzzing and beeping and all that stuff. So, if I start thinking about what's most important, maybe you could give me some email, throw some of the most important words in the world. Stop.
Stop. Okay. All right. There's a good word.
What is it? What are some of the most important words that we use? Love. I knew that would come out.
Truth. There we go. What is it? Success.
Making it. Those are health, health, health, health, both. I guess if you've got a right something going on in a desert island with sticks, it's going to be like health. If you have enough, it'll be help.
Sorry. Thank you. Okay. The scriptures speak here.
It says in the beginning was the word. A particular word as the most important. The word. And it says the word was with God, and the word was God.
Matthew shows Jesus as he came through Abraham and through David and says that the Messiah is the promised one from the Old Testament. You read down in Matthew's Gospel chapter 1 to 17. Mark shows that he came from Nazareth. Luke shows that he came from Adam, demonstrating that Jesus was a man, a perfect man, but he came from Adam.
John shows that Jesus came from heaven and demonstrates that Jesus is God. In fact, his name is the word. As if there's no other word that matters. There's no other word that's more important or even close to importance as the word.
John makes it clear that the word was not just the beginning, but he was the beginning of the beginning. He demonstrates to us that the word is actually a person. He was there in the beginning before anything was. It sounds an awful lot like Genesis chapter 1, verse 1.
When you're reading Genesis chapter 1, verse 1, in the beginning, God. So God was there, created the heaven and the earth. Here we read, in the beginning was the word. That bold is mine.
It's not in the text in the scriptures. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. You see, when you say something in the beginning was, it means it already existed.
He already existed when the beginning started. Jesus Christ is eternal. His existence goes way back to forever. He's never not existed.
So in the beginning, at that moment in time, when all things were created, when the very first thing was created, in the beginning was the word already there. He goes back to eternity. The word, word, in the Jewish world, they're explained to God by his word. His word was responsible for everything.
The rabbis often refer to God in terms of his word. They spoke of God himself as the word of God. There's an example of this found in some ancient Hebrew editions of the Old Testament. In Exodus chapter 19, verse 17, it says Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God.
It says Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet the word of God. Meaning God himself was referred to as the word. In the mind of the ancient Jews, the phrase word of God could be used to refer to God himself. In the Greek, Logos is the word for word.
This spoke of order in the universe and the ordering of principle on the presence, the wisdom of all of things that steered everything in the universe. The power that puts sense into the world and the order of the world takes things from chaotic to order. That's Logos, the word. John brought this together and described Jesus Christ as the word.
We read that he was with God, first of all. Which really means face to face, intimately associated with God. He was intimately there with God, always. Separate from the Father, but in intimate fellowship with Him.
There were individuals in the Godhead. Jesus gave up this intimacy with the Father to come to this earth, to die for our sins. We read that in John 17 verse 5. It says that he was God.
That's to say that he is the very God of heaven, Jesus Christ. To say anything less than that is blasphemy. To say that he was a son of God, but not God himself is wrong. It's an error.
We read in 2 John verse 7. We read in Galatians 1 verse 6 and we read in John 1, 10 to 11. We read these words. I'm going to just read John 1, 10 to 11.
He says he was in the world and the world was made through him. Yet the world did not know him. He came to his own people and his own people did not receive him. He was in the world.
He made the world. The world was made through him. Who made the world? God.
Jesus Christ made the world. Therefore, he is God. He was in the beginning with God. It makes a distinct point that the Father is distinct from the Son and the Son is distinct from the Father.
Yet they are equal, even though they are separate persons. Now I'm going to go down a little side note here because they will come to your door. They will. You're going to meet them at a bus stop.
I'm going to skip this part, but I thought, no, I need to mention this. If you meet your host witnesses, watchtower, whatever they might want to call themselves. I notice they set up at the bus stop in Col Harbor. They're there every Saturday when I come in to men's study.
They set up every day at lunch hours down at Victoria Park, across from public gardens with a little booth of literature. They live on my street. They come to my door, and they probably come to your door. What they're going to do is deny that Jesus Christ is God.
That is a gross error. That is an error from the pit of hell. That is a lie. They will propagate that lie as long as they exist.
Their goal is to have you believe that Jesus Christ is not God, and that's out of glass for me. They use a translation called the New World Translation. Interesting. Any other translation that I can buy will list the scholars in the front of the translation as to who was involved with the translation, the NIV, the New American Standard, the ESV, all of these.
You can find out who the translators were. They like to keep them anonymous so that they don't get worshiped themselves. Interesting. They don't even want to put their own credibility on the line for this.
But they will come to your door and they will try to convince you that Jesus Christ is not God. So here's my question to you. Would you be able to stand up against that and tell them and convince them from the scriptures that Jesus Christ is God? Are you able to do that?
Yes. I hope you are. I really hope you are because it's very, very dangerous doctrine, and it's spreading like crazy, and they're aggressive, and they're everywhere, and they're denying that Jesus Christ is God. What they say in the translation of this verse, it says in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God.
So far, aren't we? Same. And the word was A, small G, God. A God.
They're saying he was just a God, one of men, but small G, God. That's a problem. Because the Bible tells me he is the God of heaven who created all things. And only if he is the God of heaven who created all things could he die for sinful man to take away my sins.
If he is just a God that somebody formulated or made up and he had a beginning in Bethlehem, and that was it. He didn't exist before that and all that stuff. Then when he died for my sins on the cross, I was bogus. It means nothing.
He is the God of heaven, the Creator God, the One who made you who formed you, who formed all things, is holy, completely holy God. He is the One who died for you. You see, there's a real problem with this whole idea that he is just A God. And I did go through and look, and here's some translators what they've said.
One says this is a grossly misleading translation. It is neither scholarly nor reasonable. The translate John 1-1, the word was A God. But all of the scholars in the world, as far as we know, none have translated this verse as the Jehovah's Witnesses have done it.
This guy actually put his name on it, Julius Manley. A God would be totally indefensible, says F.F. Bruce. I can assure you that the rendering in which the Jehovah's Witnesses give John 1-1 is not held by any reputable Greek scholar.
The Jehovah's Witness people, evidence, and abysmal ignorance are the basic tenets of Greek grammar in their mistranslation. See, they tell you that that's the way it actually translates from the Greek. They're lying. It's wrong.
There is no manuscripts out there anywhere to translate it that way. They made it up. The deliberate distortion of the truth by this sect has seen in their New Testament translations, John 1-1, as translated the word, was A God, a translation which is grammatically impossible. It's abundantly clear that a sect can translate the New Testament like this is intellectually dishonest, as William Barkley.
I think you need to know that. I think you need to know that when you come to this passage, this is one that defines who Jesus Christ is. And you need to be able to defend the fact that Jesus Christ is God the Son, because they will come to your door and they will try to argue this point with you. That was my soundtrack, but I think it's important.
The word, Jesus Christ, in verse 3 is the creator of everything. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. The Greek word, all things, means what? All things.
There, you guys are Greek scholars, I didn't realize, but you understand that all things means all things. It means anything. The entirety. Everything was made by him.
Every star, every grain of sand, every human being. You know, I went over to the hospital a few weeks ago, and I saw the smallest human being I've ever seen in my life. You could hold little baby Luis in your hand. And I looked and I thought, that's the working of God.
Fifthly and wonderfully made. That is what Jesus Christ has done. He has made every single thing. Every star, every galaxy, every droplet of water, every cycle that brings the water back to us when it goes up into the sky and evaporates and all of that.
He's done all of that. Jesus Christ is the creator of all things. It says the word created, all things that were created. Therefore, he himself is an uncreated being.
The Apostle Paul wrote in Colossians 1 verse 16, he says, for by him, I believe he made this with the text for your message a couple of weeks ago, one of the texts, for by him, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him, all things hold together. From the molecular to the astronomical, it all falls to the most, the furthest most distant cosmic reaches of the universe. It is all been made by him. It is all held together by him.
He is the word and the word made all things. Genesis 1 verse 1, God said, instead of created all things, in this verse, in John Christ is said to have created all things. So the same spirit that spoke in Moses and spoke in this apostle and said that Christ and the one, he is the God of heaven and he has made all things. He is the image of God, says in Colossians chapter 1 verse 14.
In Revelation chapter 4 verse 11, I took this from the NLT, it says, you are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power for you have created everything, it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created. The whole purpose of all of the creation is for the pleasure and honor of God. He is the goal of creation and the source of creation, and ultimately, he is the Redeemer of all mankind. The word, I apologize, this might be a little washed out and small, but that is okay.
It says in John chapter 1 verse 4 to 5, in him was life and the life was the light of men, the light that shines into the darkness or the light that shines into darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. You know, it is funny that all the darkness in the world can be overcome by the light of one candle. Life is so powerful. Life is amazingly powerful.
I remember one time I still do, I have this watch that sometimes if I am in bed and the room is completely dark, I turn my arm a certain way, just a little light, just a number of the time, come on, but it brightens up the whole room, I am thinking I hope I didn't wake up, just by moving my arm and this little tiny light lights up all the darkness in the room. It is amazing. In him it says, was life and the life was the light of men. The light shines in darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
I think I have to have it myself in the last little bit there. In him was life, in him was life. It says in the NLT, in him was life and life was the light of mankind. He was the world for life here and we spoke of this the last time, is Zoe.
Z-O-E is the Greek word. It is spiritual life, eternal life, a quality of life and this word is used 54 times in the gospel of John. It is the life of God. The word is the source of all life, whether it is biological life but it is not just biological life, it is the principle of life.
It is the life principle that the Greeks refer to, not bios which is just biological life. It is eternal life, it is spiritual life. In the NLT it says, in him was life and the life is the light of mankind. This life is the light of man, spiritual light as well as natural light.
He is light. The life is light. He illuminates. He shines 21 times in the gospel of John, you read of light.
You see we read life because we were all born dead. Ephesians chapter 2 tells us that. It said that we were dead in our trespasses and sin. We were born in that condition.
Every one of you were born DLA, spiritually dead when you were born. From the very first moment. There is no spiritual life in you. He is the life.
He is the one that can give you life. He is the one who has come to give us life. It says in this verse that in him was life and the life was the light of mankind. It says that it cannot be overcome or darkness cannot comprehend it.
It is not an easy word to translate but it means that the darkness existed on the face of the deep at the very beginning. What is the very first thing that God created? Light. Let there be light.
The world was shrouded in darkness and God said let there be light and light came and shone forth. We were born in darkness. We were born dead. The first creation, darkness, was on the face of the deep and then God called light into being.
The new creation. It says in Colossians chapter 1 that he has translated us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his son, the kingdom of light. It affects everyone. And then we read also of the state of this world that even though Jesus Christ came to give light to mankind, men prefer darkness because their deeds are evil.
We see that all around us. We live in a dark world. It is getting darker. Actually we talked about this yesterday in our men's study.
We were talking about the conditions of the world around us. And people love darkness. They seem to love sin and more and more. But the Lord Jesus Christ came to bring light and salvation to you and I.
Finally we read in, okay, I just didn't change verse 14. Verse 14. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory as of the only son from the Father full of grace and truth.
The word became flesh and dwelt among us. We've been thinking about the Lord Jesus Christ as the light. It's so amazing to think of him as the Creator, as the one who always existed, as the one who made all things, the one who holds all things together. And you often think, well, yes, that's God.
He's often heaven. He made all things and he just kind of keeps everything going and working. But this says, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. I think this is one of the most significant miracles of all scripture.
That the God of heaven, the word, would become flesh, become a human being and live among us. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. It's a struggling statement when you think of it. It's an amazing thing.
The word, the God of heaven becoming flesh and living among the men he created. He became a man. He had a human body. He had a human nature.
And I would say that next to the resurrection of the dead that he did, that being born of a virgin, the son of God, is the greatest miracle of all time. The ancient Jews had a hard time accepting that God could come and be in human form. John wrote to them the word of God became flesh and dwelt among us. And here's the interesting part.
He became flesh for you. He became flesh for me. God chose, come close to you in Jesus Christ. You didn't have to struggle and go and find him.
A lot of religions do that. Go on and search. Go on a quest. Try to find God.
He found us. He came here to us. He came to you. Some people think if I go from place to place and try to find God, and I'll just continue on in the search, but they end up staying in a place where they don't find God.
But he came to us. Jesus Christ entered into this world through the Virgin Mary, through the Virgin birth of a young woman. Given by the Holy Spirit, the God of heaven, pure, undefiled, sinless, why? So he could go to a cross and die for you.
He dwelt among us. When I said he dwelt among us, it's like he pitched his tent with us, is what it is. Tabernacle is the word. He came and he dwelt among us.
This whole idea of God coming and living in Israel with the people is an amazing thing. He became flesh so that he had a body. That body that one day will be put on a cross. We spoke with us extensively this morning at the Lord's Supper.
This body that would go to a cross to die, to take your sins. Pay the full penalty for your sins so you could be forgiven. And to give you Zollei life, to give you eternal life, everlasting life. In the scriptures it says in John chapter 1 verse 12 it says that he came to his own, verse 11 says he came to his own people, and they did not receive him.
But to all who receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God. There's that word believe again. 4,500 in the strong's concordance. If you want to look at that, I keep coming across it.
I have a little Bible with the strong's numbers in 4,500, 4,500, 4,500. So I had that one memorized. I can't remember my own phone number, but I remember the 4,500 is the strong's number for believe. If you believe in him, you'll have life, Zollei life, eternal life, a quality of life that surpasses all other life.
That's why God came as the word Jesus Christ. That's why the word became flesh and dwelt among us. He came to give you life, eternal life, and you can have this simply by believing on his name, simply by believing that he is the one who came to die for you, to take your sins away, and you can have life. If you don't know him, this could be your greatest Christmas ever, by simply trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, by simply putting your faith in the one who came from heaven, the creator of all things, to die on a cross in a human body, to bear your sins that you might be saved.
If you haven't trusted them, I hope you do today. If you want to talk to somebody about it, somebody who can even explain it more clearly than I can, there are many here who will. Talk to some of the ladies, talk to some of the gentlemen, talk to some of the young people. They will help you and point you to Jesus Christ.
Father, thank you. This morning, we're amazed when we think of the word becoming flesh and dwelling among us. We are amazed just as we think of who the word is. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.
He was with God in the beginning. All things were made by him. Nothing was made that wasn't made by him. Father, this majesty, this great word, we are told, became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.
Father, I pray that if there's somebody here today who has never come to know the Lord Jesus as their Savior, as we sing this closing song, that they will think upon these things. May you impress upon their heart that the one who came from heaven came for them came to die for their sins, that they may be forgiven and free from the burden of sin. We thank you for the Lord Jesus. We thank you for His majesty, for His sustaining power that holds all things together.
But most of all we come, we thank you because He's our Savior. He's the one who died from me. Thank you in His precious name. Amen.