Today we start a series leading up to Easter that we're calling why Jesus matters. And believe me, obviously he does. Uh but there but there are some good reasons why he does. And uh in the coming days, we're going to be exploring those. He was born as one of us is today. He fulfills Old Testament prophecies. Next week, he leads a perfect human life. He reveals the father's heart. He dies a sinner's death. He defeats death and offers new new life. That's Easter. The week after Easter, he forms a new community community of those who trust in and follow him. But today, we're looking at his entrance into our world uh as one of us to show uh why he matters. So, if you'll take your Bibles and turn to John chapter 1. John chapter 1 in the New Testament goes Matthew, Mark, Luke, and then John is the fourth gospel. We're going to read together um John chapter 1, the first 18 verses. I'll read it. You can follow along.

John writes, "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, 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." There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light but came to bear witness about the light. The true light which gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him. Yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness about him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, he who comes after me ranks before me because he was before me. For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The only God who is at the father's side. He has made him known. Let's take a minute and pray. Father, our prayer is very simple. We need eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to respond.

We need your spirit to work in our minds and hearts and lives as we hear your word. May we respond for our own good and your glory. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. So you know that no movie starts on time. If a movie is scheduled to start at, you know, like 6:30, uh you you know that you can be there about 6:45 and not miss a thing. And why is that? Well, because what what happens beforehand? the they're the previews or the trailers of of coming events. They're short snippets of some upcoming movie that that kind of gives you a peak of what that movie is about. And they're designed to arouse your curiosity and your desire, your to inflame your desire so you'll come back and watch the movie. Uh I I always want to be on time for those because I pass judgment on each one as they come. So, you know, you watch it and then I lean over to my wife Barb and whisper, "Yep, absolutely want to see that one." Or I'll say, "No way at all. Not a chance. If you're going, you're going to go without me. Um, not I'm not going to watch Weathering Heights." So, uh, or well, you know, I might I don't know. Maybe, uh, let's look at Rotten Tomatoes and we'll see what it what it what it says. That two to three minute preview trailer introduces me to the main characters, typically to the plot and the tension that it creates. And it's intended for me to want to see more. And that's exactly what's happening in these first 18 verses of the Gospel of John because it's a prologue. It is a preview of what's to come. And like any good trailer, it introduces us to the main character, to some of the tensions we'll find if we keep reading. And even though it only takes a minute and a half to two minutes to read, it uh previews everything that's to come and what's at stake, not only in the story itself, but in our lives as well. Now, this is the story of Jesus, but it's told like no other story in the Bible. There are three other stories or gospels of Jesus. There's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And the outline of the of the of the stories of Matthew, Mark, and Luke parallel each other. They tell tell it from the same perspective. And so they're called synoptic gospels. Sin s yn means together or the same, and optic means perspective or sight. And so synoptic means they're all from the same perspective. Matthew begins with a genealogy that connects Jesus with King David and Abraham. So it kind of puts him in the lineage of kings. Um Luke starts with the current events of the day surrounding the conception and birth of Jesus and you know it's the Christmas story. So the taxation decree of Caesar Augustus, the birth of John the Baptist, the governorship of Quirinius, uh the shepherds and the wise men, you know, you know it all. Mark uh wrote a gospel reflecting the preaching of the apostle Peter and he launches his story with the proclamation of John the Baptist to prepare the way of the Lord. So right off the bat uh you uh you see uh Jesus, you know, kind of mixing it up with everybody. But the fourth gospel begins very differently where no one else would uh expect it to begin. It begins at the very beginning. And so look at verse one in your Bible, chapter 1 verse one of uh of John. And it says, "In the beginning, in the beginning," and this really echoes the first sentence of the Bible uh itself in Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." And yet John is really imagining a time even before that, before the creation of all things. And it be it begins with when nothing else existed except God and his word. So John is going to introduce us to this very special person. This person who is himself God. And so that very first verse in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. That term word or in Greek uh it is logos. Logos simply means word but it can be the written word, the spoken word. Uh it can be the voice of someone. Here it's the word of God, God's word. And this would connect with both Jews and Greeks of John's day, though in very different ways. Greeks had a very different idea of God than Jews. But they realized that something was keeping the universe ticking. I mean something held it together and made it work consistently and reliably. And that something they called the logos, the word. And they conceived it as sort of a reason for our existence. Um it it they they thought that it was some universal principle of life. It wasn't really personal. It's sort of like a force or a reason. Um, but Jews knew better. Jews realized that the logos, the word was God himself and behind the creation was a creator who also sustained it with his very word. And so in the Psalms, you'll read things like this. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made. Their story host by the breath of his mouth. He spoke and it came to be. he commanded and it stood firm. But what neither understood what what John clearly affirms is that the word wasn't just a divine voice. It was a person

that logos was a person and he was in the beginning with God. And the grammar of the Greek pictures not just association one with another but personality in a relationship. Literally it says he was face to face with God. So what you have is John saying in the beginning was God and God was the word and God but the but but that word was face to face with God. So you have God, you have the word. They're separate. They're face to face. Both are God. This would make any good Jew very nervous. One of the to die for convictions of every Jew is that there is only one true God. In fact, every time they assembled for worship, they recited this confession. Here, O Israel, it was called the shama, which means here. Here, O Israel, Yahweh is our God. Yahweh is one. Not two, not five, not multiple, but one. There is only one true and living God. And that's what one of the things that separated them from the polytheistic idoltors of the nations. And we're supposed to believe the same thing, that there really is only one true God. And everything else and everyone else is a pretender.

But there's a twist. God exists in at least two persons. He doesn't really explain it. He just testifies to it. And to be sure that we really understand what he's saying, he repeats it and reaffirms it. He says he, this word was in the beginning with God. So there's one God and two persons. Now, not incidentally. The rest of the New Testament insists that the Holy Spirit is also fully God, but you don't see that right here. So, God is triune. Three persons, one God. And notice what the word has done. Verse three, all things were made through him, which refers back to this logos, this word. And without him was not anything made that was made. And so he is the agent of creation. So John says it positively. All things were made through him. And then he and then he says it repeats it negatively to ensure we don't miss his point. Not anything made that was made. Uh and so the entire universe owes its existence to this word this person. So the philosopher will ask so why is there something rather than nothing at all? I mean where did everything come from? And John a answers the word. This person called the word who is God who is the agent of creation. That's why anything and everything exists. God created all things through him. So you could you could define God as anything that isn't created because everything is created except for God and God created everything else. We we kind of look at that and we say, "Oh yeah, sure. Sure, I understand that. But let that sink in. I mean, he created our whole planet. He created Neptune. Wow. Really? This is a a picture of a a a similar galaxy to ours. We We're in the Milky Way galaxy. This is a different one, but it's an awful lot like it. It's called a platter galaxy, and it's spinning rapidly. in ours, the solar system that we're in would be in the lower left hand corner. And so let's say I got in uh got in a uh IAP UFO, you know, a um you know uh a rocket and I let's say I'm going to go uh across our solar system and I'm going to go really fast. I'm going to go 186,000 m per second, the speed of light, which means that one beam of light that fast could travel all the way around the circumference of the Earth in a tenth of a second. That's pretty amazing. So, let's say I can go 186,000 m per second. The speed of light I get in and bam, I'm off. And how fast it with I mean, how how long would it take me for me to go from one side of our galaxy to the other? A day. A week, keep going. A month, a year, 10 years. The answer is a 100,000 years.

Wow, that is big.

Who created that?

the Horsehead Nebula, if you could see it, uh could contain many of our galaxies. And yet, I turn around and I I I think about that and then I think about the the the majesty of something like a Bengal tiger. I'm walking uh on a on a dock uh off the coast of Washington State and I look under it and I see I see this thing floating by pulsating this jellyfish in all of its glory. I I look at and I can see a crab that looks very different than the jellyfish. Both were created by somebody of of amazing creativity and intelligence. You look at a an owl in flight or an octopus. How many how many hearts does an octopus have? Yes. Three. Three. What color is its blood? Blue. Who thought that up? It's an accident. No. No. From our sun to a to a sunset, everything is shouting the design of the creator.

It all came into being, says John, through this word, this person. Now notice verse 14.

And the word became flesh, became human, and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. In other words, not only is he God and the agent of creation of all things, he is the God man, truly God and truly man. Now you say, now wait a minute. Are you really saying that some Middle Eastern guy with sandals and a robe is the reason that the planet Jupiter exists or the horsehead nebula or the octopus or the internal workings of a cell? I mean, really. I'm No, I'm not saying that. John is saying that and I I believe and agree with him. The idea may be too familiar to be shocking, but but if you if you think about it, this is what it's saying. God became human. The creator became a creature. In fact, John describes it this way that he dwelt among us. Now, literally, it says he pitched his tent among us. To the Greek mind, it would just simply mean that he lived among us as one of us. But the to the Jew, it had a very special and uh and more uh deeper meaning. It it means uh it means to tent or to to tabernacle. That's the word. And it refers to the tent of meeting that that God set up when Israel was being formed as a nation and they were wandering around in the wilderness for 40 years. And it was the place where they would come to worship and meet with God in that tabernacle. And they would hear from God and they would learn about God. And God's glory in the form of clouds and light filled and covered the tent. That same glory later on uh that signified God's presence was visible when the temple uh was being built in Jerusalem. That same glory that that that visibly departed due to the disobedience of the people shortly before Israel was taken uh captive to Babylon. That was God's glory. But but the ancient prophet says that someday that glory is going to be different. Zechariah says, "Sing and rejoice, oh daughter of Zion, for behold, I come." Who's speaking? Well, the Lord is speaking. "And I will dwell in your midst, declares the Lord, in a different way than any other than they they they expected. Not just, you know, in the foggy ethereal God is everywhere." No, no, no. I'm going to come to you. And the implication is that he's going to come as a person and live among us. But this time when God reveals himself in his glory, he does so as a human being. As one of us, John says his glory we have seen. We have seen his glory. That word uh we have seen is the the word the Can you say that? The Say it again. That sounds strangely reminiscent of another word. Oh, theater. And really that's what that word means. It means uh to behold, to watch the story unfold, to stare at, to watch closely, to observe. And John says that the glory that we observed, that we watched was in the form of grace and truth. this blend of speaking and living as no one else ever has. We know that grace is receiving what we don't deserve. God's undeserved favor and love. And John says we saw it in spades with with Jesus in his coming. He got close to us. He patiently answered our questions. He put up with our foolishness and our complacency, our pettiness, and our ignorance. He returned insults and criticism with mercy and love. He He was moved with compassion. He didn't push people away. He brought them in. In the end, he washed the feet of the ambitious and he died for the guilty. No one was like him.

He is the only son from the father. Our translation says other versions translated as um the only begotten which kind of makes you think okay but but he didn't really he there's never been a time when he wasn't so he didn't kind of come into being. Um it refers the phrase refers not to his uniqueness uh not not his birth if you will. So um however you translate it, the point is very clear that this person that he's talking about that John is introducing us to is unique. So who is this unique person? He's God. He's the agent of creation. He's the God man and he is Jesus the Christ. Verse 17, for the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. And this is the first time John introduces the word by his human name, Jesus. If you were to turn in the in the very back of of the Gospel of John where John is kind of summarizing everything up, you would read these words in chapter 20 30 and 31 where he kind of tips his hand and he says, "What am I doing? What is this all about?" This is what it's all about. 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 Christ, the son of God, and by believing you may have life in his name. He is the Christ. Now, you would never say Steve the Walker. Why not? Well, because Walker is my surname, my family name. You might say Steve the pastor. You might say Steve the Elder, Steve the teacher, or Steve the idiot, but not Steve the Walker because it's not a title or a position. It's just my surname. But Christ is not a surname. Jesus Christ. Joseph is, you know, son of Joseph and Mary Christ. uh his brothers Jimmy and Johnny Christ. They're all picnicking at the Christ family reunion, you know. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It is the title of one unique person in all of the history of the world that was predicted to come and set all things right. He would represent God and redeem man. In the Hebrew language, he was referred to as the Messiah. uh literally it means the anointed one. In the Greek language he was referred to as the Christ which also means the anointed one. So John is saying Jesus is that Messiah, that anointed one, that Christ, the predicted one to come to set all things right. Now let me just take a moment and make it very clear what we believe as Christians and what we don't believe. Allow allow me to explain is without trying to prove everything. Let me just explain what the Bible affirms and denies. Well, clearly there is just one God. Not, you know, not many, not one main God and junior junior God. There is just one God. And he evidences himself in three persons. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit. In John's prologue, you're introduced really only just to the father and the son, but the spirit is introduced later in the second half of the gospel of John with all the characteristics of God. Now, uh some have thought that that God shows up in different forms or modes. And so, a guy by by the name of Sibelius um in the 3rd century taught that God is in heaven as the father. And then he decided to come as a man, Jesus, and then he left and returned as the Holy Spirit. He sort he kind of shapeshifted. Uh he changed changed forms or modes depending on what he wanted to do. That is not Christianity. That isn't what the Bible teaches. And the and the church fathers quickly condemned that and affirmed that the father is not the son and the father is not the spirit and the son is not the spirit and the spirit is not the father and so on. Uh and there are three separate persons but they share and make up one god. You say how is that? How does that possible? Well, there's nothing like god in all of creation. And so it's understandable that we might have difficulty understanding him. But make no mistake, that is exactly what John is insisting here and what the New Testament teaches. The father and the son share equally as God, but the son reveals the father and is distinct from him. You say, "Well, how can that be, Steve?" Well, I don't know.

go outside, look up at night, and you can see when you see the the Milky Way spread across the sky, you're really looking through that platter of a galaxy, and you're looking on the side, and you say, "Well, okay. What's beyond that galaxy?" Well, other other galaxies. Okay. All right. Yeah. What's beyond those galaxies? Well, more and more galaxies and stars. Okay. What's beyond those stars? I don't know. Space. Right. Right. Okay. the space. What's beyond the space? I I I don't know. Yeah. You don't, do you? Yeah. It because you cannot conceive of it going on forever and ever. It's got to end somewhere. But if it ends, what is there a wall there? What's on the other side of the wall? So, we can't really we can't we can't understand we can't conceive of it going on forever, but we can't conceive of it ending either. You know why? Because we have these little little teeny human brains. It's really and and if we can't even figure out and grasp our own creation,

how are we expect expecting to really grasp the one who made all of creation? He's bigger than that.

Okay. So why did he come? Well, he came first to illuminate truth and dispel darkness. Verses 4 and 5, 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. In other words, his very life, his existence is sort of like light in a very dark place. It illuminates all there is so that we see for the very first time very clearly. We can see God clearly. We see ourselves clearly represents truth and understanding and life. Darkness is picturing the opposite. Ignorance and foolishness and death. And where light invades and and and any area dispels darkness by its very nature or presence. And it's and John says the darkness has not overcome it. That word overcome literally just means to grasp. It It can mean to grasp mentally that they didn't understand the light. It can mean to grasp in order to control that they couldn't control him. They couldn't put him down because the darkness has invaded people even religious leaders. Uh John says they neither understood Jesus nor could could they really control him. And John will point out that the rejection of the creator is not just stupid, it's evil.

And they learned what we experience as well today that you come close to Jesus and you should be prepared to be exposed and to see things with unnerving clarity.

He came to illuminate truth and dispel darkness. And he came to give new birth into God's family. Verses 12 and 13. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. So the coming of the creator into his own creation was was not only the hinge for all of human history. God comes but God is the author is you know that he's writing himself into our story as well that it that it's that personal he becomes the pivot point for every single human being alive. This new and fresh relationship with God is forged when we receive him when we accept him into our lives. And it's as revolutionary John says as being born a second time. We we we are born into his family. We become part of God's family. He claims us as his as his own. And such a change in ourselves in our relationship with God never could have happened uh simply because we were born into the right family born of blood or because we willed it to happen. you know, the will of the flesh, he says, or by the pronouncement of the proper authority figure, which probably refers to the h uh the husband's uh naming and claiming of an infant within the first few weeks of life in in Roman society. And if they didn't do that, if a father didn't do it, then they'd take the the baby and he wouldn't be part of the family and they would let it die, expose it, let it die. And John is saying that nothing humanly speaking can accomplish this new birth, this experience of the new birth that God requires. It's it's a sheer miracle and it's entirely the result of the creative power of the word in our lives. He came to give new birth into God's family. And when you and I hear this basic Christian message of the gospel that Christ died in our place for our guilt, was raised from the dead and forgiveness, total forgiveness and new life is is given as a gift to those who admit their need. They repent and they put their full faith and confidence in Christ. When you believe that, you pass from death to life. You are adopted into God's family. You have a new new start. You're not the same person you once were. And it isn't because of what you did.

It's because of what Christ did. He came to give a new birth into God's family. And he came to reveal God so you would see God clearly. Verse 14, the second part of verse 14 says, "The word was full of grace and truth." Um then verse 17, the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the father's sight. He has made him known. So the Mosaic law was really good. It was true. It revealed God's heart and mind and intentions. And God gave the law to Israel through Moses and it spoke very clearly. But the law is sort of like a pen and ink drawing of God. But Jesus is like the actual person sitting across from you. God come in the flesh. So you watch him, you listen to him, you pour your heart out to him, you see how he reacts. Because when you are seeing him, you are seeing God. Wow. Really? Yes. Really? So how did people respond to him? Well, throughout the Gospel of John, you get this sense of that you're you're kind of watching people make up their minds about Jesus. You you get the idea that a trial of some sort is going on with testimony being given and questions being asked and evidence being considered and because that's exactly what's happening. And the point of a testimony is to reach a verdict. What are you going to do with Jesus? That's the question. How are you going to respond to him? And that's why John the Baptist plays such an important part in these first 18 verses. He's the first of many witnesses called to testify specifically about who Jesus is. Leon Morris um is a commentator um and uh and scholar and he makes this statement. Testimony is a serious matter and it it is required to substantiate the truth of a matter. witness establishes truth. It does more. It commits a man. If I take my stand in the witness box and testify that such and such is the truth of the matter, I'm no longer neutral. I've committed myself. John lets us see that there are those like John the Baptist who have committed themselves by their witness to Christ. So what are the you know what what witnesses are taking their stand here? Um well, one is uh John the Baptist who's testifying to Jesus identity. And so in verse 6, he says, "There's a man sent from God whose name was John." This is a different John than the writer. This is John the Baptist. Just to clarify, he John the Baptist came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the He was not the light. He came to bear witness about the light. The true light which gives light to everyone was coming into the world. And then verse 18 uh sorry verse 15 John bore witness about him and cried out this was he of whom I said he who comes after me ranks before me because he was before me. So Jesus is truly human but he's far more. He's no mere man. He is truly God and truly man. He's the light of the world. And even though he was born as a man after John the Baptist, he existed before John the Baptist. And John wants us to put our faith and trust in him so that we would believe in Jesus just like he did.

And John the Apostle testifies to Jesus gifts, what Jesus offers. Verse 16, for from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. That Jesus exudes the grace of God. And there there never seems to be not enough if you will. It comes from his inexhaustible fullness. And in our lives, testifies John, when his grace is exhausted by our need, he replaces it with fresh grace. Grace upon grace. So wave upon wave of his goodness and limitless grace renews and refreshes and forgives and empowers us. Grace in Christ knows no interruptions, no limits, no ending. It's wave upon wave of his goodness and grace. So we think sometimes, you know, you don't realize what I've done. You don't realize how bad it's been. You don't realize the things that come up in my mind, the guilt and the shame and all those things. And and John would say, "You have no idea how great the grace of Christ is." That wave upon wave will come to you at your point of need and forgiveness and healing will come to you.

Your sin, your guilt, your weakness will never exhaust the grace of Christ. You want grace, come to Jesus. Come to Jesus.

Well, Jesus by his very presence engendered two pivotal responses.

Receptivity on one hand and resistance on the other.

So,

ignorance and rejection was one possible response to Jesus. Verse 5 says, "The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not understood or overcome it." He," and then uh down to verse 10, "he was in the world and the world was made through him. Yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him." In other words, his own creation didn't recognize him. His own people, the Jews, in the homeland that he created for them, Israel, they didn't welcome him. indifference, hostility, anger, hatred, it all marked their responses to him. They rejected him. They literally crucified him. No one would really believe that if if God came near, we would want to push him away, to reject him, and maybe even get rid of him, to kill him. But but the truth is, some did, many did, and some still do today. But not all.

Some respond with belief and acceptance. And so verse seven, he John came as a witness to bear witness about their light that all might believe through him. Belief. They put their faith and trust in him. Verse 12, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, in who he was and what he did, he gave the right to become children of God. And so John tells us to look for those who accepted Jesus, who believed in Jesus, who believed in his name as the pages turn in the Gospel of John. And he says, "Consider them carefully, their testimony, and follow their lead or example." Because in the end, there's only two responses in all in in all of humankind. There's ignorance, reject, and rejection or belief in acceptance. And Jesus is the dividing line between the two. Those are the responses not only made in the moment but lived out the rest of our lives. Okay. So, does Jesus matter? Well, he's the most important person you will ever meet. More hangs in the balance now and forever because of who he is and what he has done than anything or anyone else in your life. And John is testifying that this is a preview to all that follows in your life. He's telling us the truth. This is a story that began before time and continues even this morning as we're speaking. We're part of that story. It's the story between God, about God and man, about light and darkness, about ignorance and truth, about good and evil, about life and death, and about your verdict of Jesus and God's verdict of you about what you do with Jesus. Jesus is your light and your life. And that's why Jesus matters. Let's pray.

Jesus, you are the Lord. You are God, our creator and Savior. And you reveal you reveal the Father's glory.

And you understand what it means to be us human. We have believed the testimony that you've given us. We have gladly received your gifts of new birth and inexhaustible grace that we need desperately today. Thank you for all you are and all that you have done. Our hearts trust in you. Father, we pray in Jesus name.