In the Beginning was the Word
Download MP3Invite you to open your bibles to John chapter 1. If you want to put a finger in Genesis 1 as well, you could do that. This afternoon we begin a new series on the gospel of John. And although this is only 20 chapters, there's only 20 chapters in John, because it's so theologically rich, we will still be in John this time next year. It's gonna take us a while to get through it.
Joel Brooks:So John chapter 1 and also Genesis chapter 1, we'll begin reading in Genesis. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light, and there was light.
Joel Brooks:John, chapter 1. 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.
Joel Brooks:The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. Pray with me. Our father, we thank you for your word. We pray right now that you would use your word to show us who you are. So that we might see you more fully, be drawn into your beauty, and gladly layer down let our lives down at your feet.
Joel Brooks:Father, I pray that through your spirit now you would open up our hearts and our minds that we might understand the things that we are about to hear. And I pray that in this moment, my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus, amen. It's hard to know where to begin when you're starting a new series, especially a series on a book like John.
Joel Brooks:So I thought it might be best for me to simply explain what a gospel is. A gospel is what I would call a biographical sermon, A biographical sermon. It's a biography. It's about a person, but it's a biography that is told in such a way to teach us something and to bring us to a point of decision. So we have 4 gospels in our bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and each one of these gospels was written in such a way, not just to tell the life of Jesus, but to tell the life of Jesus in a certain way and to highlight certain teachings, certain theology, in order to bring you to a point of decision.
Joel Brooks:And so John, why was John written? Well, John himself, he actually tells us the purpose for his gospel. He tells us in the last two verses of this book in which we read this. Now Jesus did many other things 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.
Joel Brooks:So the primary purpose of this gospel is to produce belief, belief that Jesus is the Christ, that Jesus is the Son of God, and in believing in this, you might have life. And so this gospel was written to unbelievers to bring them to faith, but it was also written for believers in order to strengthen their faith in order that they might have life until the end. So that's what a gospel is, and that's why John wrote this gospel. But who exactly is John that we should listen to him? Well, John himself was a disciple of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:He was the youngest of the disciples, and he was one of Jesus' closest friends. Jesus, you know, he had 12 disciples, but he had this inner ring of disciples which was Peter, James and John, and a case could be made that John was the closest of any of them to Jesus. John's gonna refer to himself 5 times in this gospel as the one whom Jesus loved. He was the one whom Jesus loved. And John was the only disciple that was at the cross when Jesus died.
Joel Brooks:And this was probably also, it was certainly because of his affection for Christ, but it was also because he was probably so young that he wouldn't be arrested. You needed to be a certain age at this time to be arrested. And so he was young. He was one of the disciples. He was one of Jesus's closest friends.
Joel Brooks:And it was even to John when it was there at the cross that Jesus said, behold your son. And he said this to his mom and then he said to John, John, behold your mother. And he the of Jesus. And this comes through when you're reading through this gospel. It's obvious that the person who wrote it was an eyewitness to the things that Jesus did, and he got to hear the things that Jesus taught.
Joel Brooks:And this person, after having seen these things and after having heard these things, there is no doubt in his mind who Jesus is. Jesus is the son of God, and he wanted to write this out so that we might not have any doubt either. So let's look at John 1 verse 1. Read it with me again. It says, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.
Joel Brooks:Now these opening words are without doubt, the most theologically packed words in the Bible. This is the most theologically packed verse in the Bible. And so I've just got to confess, there was a part of me when we were trying to decide if we're gonna go through John or not, if that was gonna be our next series, because I've been wanting to teach through John for a while. But my my only hiccup and hesitation was the opening prologue, because it's just scary. Any of you wanna switch places right now and try to do this verse justice?
Joel Brooks:You you you can't do it justice. And so after I emailed the church that, we were going to be going through the gospel of John, I got this email response back concerning the prologue, the verse we just read. And, it was such an encouragement. It said, John's prologue ranks with and above the greatest works of art and literature ever created by man for good reason, since it's God breathed. It demands more of the reader than anything in scripture, but at the same time, it stays remarkably grounded and accessible, and it challenges Paul for containing the most remarkable theological and ontological insights ever pinned.
Joel Brooks:So no pressure. I appreciate emails like that. So just so you know, I know I'm going to fail as I teach this, but you know what? I'm going to teach this. And so as we look at verse 1, notice right off the bat, John is different from the 3 other gospels.
Joel Brooks:He doesn't begin with a genealogy, or he doesn't begin with a birth narrative. And this is remarkable if you consider Mary, Jesus's mother is likely living with John. And if she's anything like most mothers, she likes telling the birth story over and over, which you've earned it. Okay? You've earned it.
Joel Brooks:You're allowed to tell birth narratives over and over. But but John has got this information at his disposal. He's got the inside scoop, and he completely leaves it out. That's not where he wants to begin this gospel. Instead, he begins with the words, in the beginning, parking back to Genesis, the opening words of the Bible when God says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Joel Brooks:And so like Genesis, John is telling the story about creation. He's telling us about the very, very beginning, and he says in the beginning was the word. Now this word, spoiler alert, this word is Jesus. Okay. You don't find out later until verse 17, but I don't want to leave you hanging.
Joel Brooks:Jesus is the word. So it's in the beginning was the son of God. In the beginning was Jesus. So there was never a time that Jesus did not exist. So if you go back to the beginning of it all, go back 14,000,000,000 years or so, and you're gonna find Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Then if you go back 5 minutes past that, you're gonna find Jesus. If you go back a 1000 years past that, you're gonna find Jesus. There was never a time in which Jesus did not exist. And so right off the bat, John gives us this information because he wants to stun us with who God is, with who Jesus is. He doesn't want us to, to to walk us through Jesus's life, you know, slowly painting the picture, having the information build until finally at the end you have the big reveal.
Joel Brooks:He doesn't wanna do that. The very start, he wants you to know who Jesus is. He is God and he has always been. And you know what? You cannot understand this gospel unless you always keep that in mind.
Joel Brooks:In every encounter Jesus has, in everything he teaches, we want to have this understanding that Jesus is the Son of God before that. So Jesus is God and everything begins with Him. Now, one of the reasons that John wants to kind of just stun us and hit us in the head right at the start with the fact that Jesus is God is because there was a change happening within the church during this time. Right after Jesus resurrected and he ascended, there was not a doubt in any Christian's mind, in anybody who belonged to the church, no doubt whatsoever that Jesus was God because they were witnesses. They they saw Jesus do the miracles.
Joel Brooks:They saw Jesus raise people from the dead. They saw Jesus make blind people see, lame people walk, deaf people hear. They saw Jesus calm a storm with just a word. They saw all of these miracles happen and then they see the the walking Jesus Jesus resurrected and walking around saying, touch my hands, see the wounds, let me eat fish. So they see him risen from the dead and ascended.
Joel Brooks:So there is no doubt whatsoever that Jesus was God. And so the the questions that the early church wrestled with was never about the godhood of Jesus. What they wrestled with was this. Do you think Jesus was really human? I mean, there's no way he could be human and actually did do all of those things.
Joel Brooks:And so they actually were wrestling with the idea that maybe Jesus just kinda put on flesh kinda like one puts on a costume, but he wasn't really human. He just kinda put on the costume of human like we would do, you know, on Halloween. I was, I was Indiana Jones for Halloween, you know, and I dressed up like Harrison Ford, but nobody would really mistake me for Harrison Ford. And people are looking at Jesus and they're saying, nice try pretending to be human, but we know who you are. You're God.
Joel Brooks:And that's what the early church thought and that's what they were wrestling with. But then, years go by and these witnesses die. John's still alive because he was such a young disciple at the time. But as these witnesses die off, a new question rises. Was Jesus really God?
Joel Brooks:I mean, really, was was he really God? Maybe he was just a great prophet. Maybe he was just a great teacher. Maybe he was a special messenger of God, perhaps even somewhat divine. But really, was he fully God?
Joel Brooks:And so John is addressing this new question that is arising in the church. And I think this is one of the reasons that we love John so much in the 21st century, because this is the questions we wrestle with. I mean have you ever once picked up a Newsweek or a Time Magazine and it's had a phrase, was Jesus human? I mean no. It's always was Jesus God.
Joel Brooks:Of course Jesus was human, we all assume, but we wrestle with, but was he really God? And John says, absolutely. In the beginning was the word, and the beginning was Jesus. Now why does he use this name, word, the word? Of all the names that John has at his disposal, he picks this really unusual term, the word or the logos in Greek.
Joel Brooks:In the beginning was the logos, and and this is a really loaded term. And what John is doing by using this word is he's using it as a bridge word. It's a term that the the Jewish people would have been familiar with and it's a term that the Greeks would have been familiar with, and although they were different a little bit, they had enough overlap to where he was thinking, I can use this word to describe Jesus. So for the Greek, the logos or the word, it was used by stoic philosophers and it simply meant the rationale or the the reasoning behind life, the reason for life. So the stoics, these philosophers, they look around at creation and they would think well, something had to be behind this all.
Joel Brooks:It's too orderly. It's obviously made. And so they would say there's some great reasoning or rationale behind all of creation, and they would call this thing the logos. And they all disagreed as to what this logos was, but they knew there had to be a logos. And if there was no logos, they knew that their life was meaningless.
Joel Brooks:If you remember a few weeks ago, I told you the story about how I got to meet with that UAB, doctor who was an atheist, and she was very upfront meaninglessness of your existence? To which, to her credit, she answered, you're right. I must accept that my existence is meaningless. Because if you do believe that you're there's no rationale behind it, there's no reasoning behind it, you're simply the product of an accidental collision of atoms or gene mutations, then you have to realize you have no purpose. The Greeks didn't accept that.
Joel Brooks:They said there is a rationale. There is a reason. We don't know what it is, but we're gonna call it the logos. And if we could just understand what this logos is, then we would really understand what our purpose is in life. And think of it this way.
Joel Brooks:If, if you gave me a blender, let's just say you gave me a blender, but I didn't know what a blender was. Alright? And so I have this thing that you've given me, and I'm like, what what is this? I could use it for whatever. I could use it for a door stop.
Joel Brooks:You know, I could use a blender as a door stop, and it would work as a door stop. I could use it as a paperweight, and it would work as a paperweight. Maybe I could use it as a giant mug, you know, and drink from it. I I could find purposes for it, but really, I wouldn't find the the real purpose behind it unless I knew what the rationale for creating it was, why this thing was made. And if I knew why it was made, it would unlock its potential for me.
Joel Brooks:And so the Greeks understood this. They need to know why we were made. What was the reasoning for it all? What's the logos? And John says, it's Jesus.
Joel Brooks:He is the reason you're alive and he is the reason for living. So if you want to be more than a door stop, if you wanna be more than a paperweight, you need to come to grips with who Jesus is. Now the Jewish understanding of the word is it's related but it's different. The Jewish people saw the word of God as God's creative power. So you see this in Genesis where God speaks and creation happens.
Joel Brooks:So God says, let there be light and explosion, billions upon billions and billions of stars. There is light just at his word. And so John picks up this theme, and you know, in verse 3 when he says all things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made. Everything that was created was created by the word of God. And there wasn't a Jew alive who would disagree with this, but then John takes it one step further.
Joel Brooks:He says, you know what? That word is really a person. It's not just a word. That word is a person and that person is Jesus. So Jesus is the spoken word of God.
Joel Brooks:It's the spoken word of God. Or another way of saying this is Jesus is the all powerful communication of God. So by calling Jesus the word, John is he's pulling 2 things in and he is saying that we wouldn't be here apart from Jesus. We cannot know God apart from Jesus and we have no meaning apart from Jesus. He is simply the word.
Joel Brooks:He's the perfect communication of God. You know, modern man is always looking for this concrete argument to prove that God exists. Any of you all were Any of you philosophy majors in college? Any of you? How'd that work out for you?
Joel Brooks:Is it good? Alright. It's a good major. You know, hard a little hard to find a job. When when I was in college, most of the philosophy majors, most of them were atheists.
Joel Brooks:Or philosophy, sorry, professors were atheists. The physics professors, chemistry professors, the biology professors, most of them had no problem what so ever believing in God because they saw the rationale, the reasoning behind it all. But the philosophy professors, they they they couldn't do this because they couldn't find that one watertight argument that absolutely proved God's existence. And perhaps you're here today as a skeptic of Christianity or a skeptic of any organized religion because you have yet to come across that one concrete watertight argument proving that he exists. And what the bible teaches us is that there isn't a water tight full proof argument.
Joel Brooks:What God does is he sends us a concrete watertight person. He sends a person, not an argument. So if you want to know that there is a God, you look to Jesus. And if you wanna know who God is, you look to Jesus. And so what John is gonna do over and over in this gospel is he's gonna keep saying, look at Jesus, look at Jesus, look at Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Because when you look at Jesus, you will come to believe and to know God. He is the perfect communication of God. We read about this at our opening scripture when we read through Hebrews. Hebrews 1 says this, Long ago at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
Joel Brooks:He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. So philosophers want the perfect argument that there is a God and John says, nope. There's the perfect person. Scientists are always looking for that one simple all unifying theory or equation that explains the universe. John said there is no equation.
Joel Brooks:What there is is a person. The person of Jesus. Alright, back to verse 1. I already know what you're thinking. Oh my goodness.
Joel Brooks:We are still in verse 1. It's gonna take us 15, 20 years. Be patient. We we will pick up the pace some. Alright, the pace is gonna increase a little bit.
Joel Brooks:You know, you gotta take some time here. So in the beginning was the word. The word was with God. With God. This word with means facing or towards.
Joel Brooks:So Jesus has always been facing God. He has always been towards Him. He has always been in God's presence. But even more than that, we read next in the word was God. So Jesus is both facing God and He is also God.
Joel Brooks:He is a distinct person from God, yet He is also God. Are any of you all confused at this point? Any of you? If you're not, then you you weren't listening because you you should be confused at this point. Because really what John is doing in just a a few words is he's beginning to unpack the trinity.
Joel Brooks:In just a few words, he's saying God exists in persons. And we see 2 of these persons here. We'll be introduced to the Holy Spirit later, but he exists in persons. And this is a profound mystery, And we've been singing about it this afternoon. That God exists eternally as 3 persons in perfect relationship to one another.
Joel Brooks:This is what we mean when we, we say that all familiar Christian phrase, God is love. God is love. What we mean by that is God exists as 3 persons loving one another, in unbroken fellowship with one another, in a perfect relationship with one another, and constant communication with one another. God is love. Alright, verse 3.
Joel Brooks:Verse 3. All things were made through him, and Without him was not anything made that was made. This is what Paul expounds on in Colossians 1 when he says, 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. Verse 4.
Joel Brooks:In him was life, and the life was the light of men. Now today, you're gonna be taught that life stemmed from some kind of matter, from some kind of physical matter. First, there was matter and then there was life. Christianity reverses this. Says no.
Joel Brooks:First there was life. And because of this life, there then became matter. But all this matter springs from the life that was there in God. Life has always been a part of God and this life then went forth into us. Verse 5.
Joel Brooks:The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. I love this verse because of the just the way John presents this. Up to this point every verb you have in here has been in the imperfect or past tense. It's something that has happened in the past. But here you get your 1st present tense verb, shines.
Joel Brooks:When it says, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. The light of Jesus shines and it keeps shining. Ever since time began, there's been forces at work. Satan has tried to snuff out this light. But in the midst of the darkness, boom, let there be light.
Joel Brooks:There is light. But then satan has continually tried to snuff it out, continually tried to put it out and he has failed. And John most certainly has in mind the crucifixion here. It's the time when satan thought, finally I have put this thing out, because he had the light beaten, flogged, crucified, dead, not just dead, but then he took the light and he put it in a tomb and then he sealed up the tomb and then he guarded the tomb thinking finally I've gotten rid of the light. I have put it in ultimate darkness.
Joel Brooks:And John says, but the light shines on. Nothing can snuff out the light. Death itself cannot snuff it out. Jesus is the light of the world and this light will shine on forever and ever and ever. And this theme of light is going to become one of the dominant themes going all throughout the book of John.
Joel Brooks:This light shines on. So my prayer for us as we begin this study in John and as we go through it in the next year or so, is that you will come to a greater understanding of this light. You will see this light more clearly and that you will come to believe and believing you might have life. Pray with me. Our father, we thank you for your word.
Joel Brooks:I keep thinking of the phrase, oh, the depths, oh, the depths. And I feel like we are just, we just got a toe into the shallow waters. And Lord, you're calling us into the deep. And so I pray that you would keep drawing us in to a greater and deeper understanding of who you are. Lord, I ask that these words would have their effect.
Joel Brooks:They would stun us as we look at them and we think through the incredible implications of what we just read. Jesus, we thank you that you are the perfect communication of God. You are the reason for living. And if there's anybody who doubts this, God, I ask that you begin drawing them to yourself. And I ask that through this study of John, we would come to see Jesus more clearly.
Joel Brooks:And Jesus, we pray this in your name. Amen.
