We will turn over to the book of John tonight, the gospel of John. And we started this series just last week, starting into the gospel of John here. And we'll actually get to the verse tonight that gives us our title here, where it says that he dwelt among us. We'll get to that verse here through the message tonight. So last week, we really just got to All right, come on. We really just got to the first two verses there at the very, very beginning of the book, and short verses, but a lot in them, right? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the same was in the beginning with God. And this kind of starts the book out, but really we'll get through the rest of, I guess, what you could call the prologue to the Book of John. before it really gets to the narrative. It starts to give some important information and establish some truth and some doctrine here. And so the Gospel of John is just unique in its place, in the place that it holds, the place that it occupies in the Gospels, right? There's one Gospel, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There are four perspectives of that. Now, three of those perspectives are similar in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. We kind of went through a lot of this last week and call those the synoptic Gospels because they have a very similar viewpoint, cover a lot of the same events and the same topics and the same parables and the same miracles. And it's really very much more linearly biographical, I guess, of the life of Jesus Christ, whereas John takes a different approach, not that it's a different gospel and it's a different Christ, not that it's making up stories, but tends to focus in on some things that aren't covered in the other three gospel books, and tends to focus in on some very personal encounters the Lord Jesus Christ has tends to focus in on some aspects of the life and the character of Jesus Christ that the other three books don't cover in as great of a detail. And this becomes really, really an important book and a special book for that reason, and just unique in its place. And so the opening verses there that we looked at last week establish that Jesus is God. And he's referred to here by the name Word, the Word, capital W, the Word, and it becomes clear, it becomes clear through the rest of this chapter, of course, that the Word is Jesus Christ, and that this Word is made flesh. The Word is made flesh, and He dwelt among us, and we behold His glory. The glory is the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, right? That's what we're gonna get to here through the message tonight, but when he is called the word here in these first opening passage of John, it implies several things and it's implying that that of course it absolutely implies Christ's relation to the written Word, and that Jesus Christ is in relation to the written Word. He is the author of the Word of God. He is not just the author, but he is also the subject of the Scriptures. He is the meaning of the Scriptures. He is the fulfillment of the Scriptures. I actually went in a longer series kind of about that here some time ago, more than a year ago, and made that statement again and again and again that Jesus Christ is the author, the subject, the meaning, the fulfillment of scripture. And so when Jesus is referred to as the word, of course, there is an implication there and connotation to the scriptures in Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ is the embodiment and fulfillment of written scriptures, and also is pointing to the fact that Christ is the meaning of it all, not just the meaning of scripture, the meaning of everything, right? And Christ is all in all and everything that we strive for and hope for and worship in his person. These verses speak of the eternality of Christ, that Christ was, in the beginning, was the Word, that He was there in the beginning. Christ is not in the Godhead. He's not second-rate or third-rate, and there is no second-rate, third-rate. There is one God in three persons in the Godhead, referred to sometimes, we call it the Trinity. That's not a biblical word, and the biblical word is the Godhead, and that in the Godhead, there's the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, And those names are really given for our purposes, not to create some kind of hierarchy within the Godhead. that one is greater than the other, that one is in any way superior or supreme to the others, that one preexisted the others. Jesus is called the only begotten. He's even called that here in the passage we'll look at here tonight, the only begotten son, begotten of the father, but that does not mean that he was created by the father. And that can be sometimes confusing, but Jesus Christ is not, in the truest sense of the word, he's not the son of God in that he is, comes after God the Father in some way, nor is the Holy Spirit lesser than the Father or the Son, either one. They are three, all three in one, unified together, co-equal in their eternality, co-equal in their authority, co-equal in their power, character, attributes, their nature, every sense of the word. One is not less than the other. And in Jesus Christ, His eternality is established in this passage, His deity is established in this passage. His unity is established and affirmed. His unity with the Godhead, with the Father and the Holy Spirit affirmed in this passage. And so this is a very, very important passage of scripture here in John chapter 1. And I didn't want to rush through it at all, so we got through two verses last week, and we'll get through slightly more than that here this week. But this passage in John, the first really third or so of John chapter 1, which we'll cover the rest of here tonight down through verse 14, begins to draw down from the eternal and the spiritual and then bring it down into the temporal and the physical and the literal, right? It's taking, it's drawing from eternity past and when it talks about that which is the beginning, that which is everlasting, it is from time out of mind, it is from the beginningless past to the endless future, and really even so much more than we can truly comprehend about the eternality of God, when the beginning was, we can't even really begin to fathom that. But it draws from that beginningless past down to something that was a very real and timely event, the fullness of time. And in that fullness of time, He was made under woman, under the law, that he might redeem them that are under the law. It tells us in Galatians that he was brought forth in that way to a very real point in time and in history from God who is spiritual and eternal and he is omniscient and omnipresent and omnipotent and boundless. I mean, the Bible tells us that our God is so big. I mean, there's nothing in this universe that contains our God. Our God contains this universe. And God is not bound by space and by time and all those things. All of those things are contained within our God. And yet, Jesus is brought forth in a human vessel, human body, and brought down to this earth in the form first of, just like any of the rest of us, right? In the form of a brand new newborn baby and grows and progresses in his physical life just the way that you and I did and have. And it's an incredible thing. And so the Gospel of John is coming from the eternal and the spiritual and the unfathomable down to that which is temporal and physical. The Gospel of John does an important work in establishing the deity of Christ in relation to his human life. And really, this is why the Gospel of John starts here. It's why the Gospel of John starts all the way back in the beginning. And then summarizes that all in short order down to the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And establishes that God came down to earth as a man and came as a man. And it's really, and again, such an important passage of scripture, one that I think it's good for us to know and it's good for us to be familiar with it, be a good passage to memorize at some point in your life, have your kids memorize because it is such an important and unique passage of scripture in the word of God here. Now, the theme of the book, again, Is that a belief of faith? I think it was last week, said something like, of the 500 some times that the word, some form of the word believe is used throughout scriptures, full 20% of them, 100 plus time instances are found just in the Gospel of John. It's a pretty high concentration here. We're going to find the first of those here in our passage tonight also. But the theme throughout John and these things are written that you might believe on the Son of God. That's what it tells us in John chapter 20. That what is written, all the things that John could have written about, that the Holy Spirit could have led John to write about in the life of Jesus, in the ministry of Jesus, the things that were written were so that we would believe. And so that we could come to faith in Jesus Christ. And John is one of the most effective places to go to in scripture to convince the gainsayers and to convict the lost and to give the clear gospel of Jesus Christ in the face of unbelief. And we'll see that as we go through that. And so the belief in the deity of Christ is essential, but so is belief in his humanity and in his human life. That the Bible doesn't say he was simply made like flesh, it says the word became flesh and dwelt among us, that Jesus Christ is the only one who's ever been 100% of two things at once, 100% God and 100% man simultaneously. Math that we can't accomplish in our abilities, but Jesus Christ as God able to do that to be 100% man, yet 100% God simultaneously. And the doctrine of Christ has been attacked from both sides. Both his deity is attacked by some, his humanity is attacked by others, but to really attack either one is, had to have error in our beliefs on either side is truly detrimental to our faith and to what we believe about Christ and ultimately what we believe about salvation. And so we must be clear on this, and the Gospel of John is a great place to go to both in understanding the deity of Jesus Christ, but also the human nature that Jesus Christ took on also in his life. And so, John 1.1 says the Word was God, but John 1.14 says the Word was made flesh, and that's where we come to here tonight is the Word was made flesh. So let's read here, down through verse 14, and we'll jump into the notes, and there's an outline there on the back of the bulletin that you can work your way through as we go through the notes tonight. But it says there, I'll start in verse one again since it's short there. It says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light that all men through him might believe. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him. and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." And so, we turn our attention here to verses, verse three and the next few verses after that here tonight. And so we find here, the word was made flesh, Jesus is made flesh and really turned to this idea of the humanity of Jesus and the importance of his human life coming to this earth and what that all meant. And first, we find that Jesus Christ was integrally involved in the creative process, right? Jesus Christ as creator. The Bible establishes that in Genesis 1, Genesis 2, the creation story. It says, and God said, and God said, and God said. And Jesus is God. Right? And so then when it says here in John chapter 1, and it names Christ, as the creator. When Colossians chapter 1, and we'll probably look at that here in a minute, says that Christ created all things for his glory and for his honor, and by him all things consist. When it says that, it's not a contradiction. This is God created in Genesis 1 and 2, and it says Christ created in John chapter 1. It's correct, right? Because Jesus is God. Jesus is God. And this is what verses 1 and 2 were establishing. And then it says, by the continuation of that thought and of that principle that Christ, all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made. And man is, of course, included in that all things. And what's really special here is that it says that in him was life. And when the Bible's talking about life, it's not just talking about, sorry, this is not, I think my batteries are dying here. Come on. There you go, come on, great, good. Christ gives life, and this life that it's talking about, we think about life in a few different ways. It's talking about, Something more than just biological life. This is not what is being referred to. This is talking about something that is bigger than that. It's more than simple existence or consciousness, right? This is the principle and the purpose of life. that this is the eternality of life. This is not just the life that exists, the kind of the animal life or the plant life that exists. We can say that, you know, like I've got plants in my backyard. They're dying right now. I'm gonna water them or something. But, you know, those things are alive in some sense of the word. And yes, that life came from God. That's a biological plant life that came from God. My dog, you know, he walks around in the house, and he's got a spoiled existence. He's alive, but not in the same way that you and I are. He has life. He has existence. And God did something special when he created man, right? And he said, let us create man in our own image. And this is that God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became something different. He became a living soul. And so when the Bible is talking about, in him was life, sure, yeah, in the very general sense of it, as creator God, all of life, even down to the most basic sense of it, all life comes from God, but this is not the life that this passage is concerned with. The life that this passage is concerned with is that eternal life that God gave to every human soul that would walk this earth. That all came from God, and with that, there is an eternality to it. With that, there is a purpose to it. With that, there is a divine plan to that. Man is a living soul, a never-dying soul, an eternal being because of that life that Christ put into you, that he put into me, and because Christ gives that life. And because man fell away from that life that we were initially created with in Adam and Eve, and Adam and Eve fell away and passed on that sin nature, that fallen sin nature, that deadness in trespasses and in sins, spiritually speaking, then it is, again, Christ alone who can redeem that soul. Man can do nothing for that. So Christ gives life, and it also says there that in him was life, and that life, the life that he gives was the light of men, and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. And so, it does say there that, kind of obviously, if it doesn't come up, there it is. Christ gives us light, God gives light also. Now, just as the life was more than just the mirror simple existence or consciousness or whatever you may call it, this light is also more than merely natural light. Yes, in the beginning God said, let there be light. And there was light. And God did create physical light. And God has power over physical light. But it's more than that. This is, again, still speaking in spiritual terms. Spiritually speaking, throughout the Word of God, light is used as a picture for truth. It's often related to the Word of God because thy word is truth. Light is a picture of that which is true, that which is revelatory. And it says there that in him was life, and the life was the light of men. And it says that light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. Now that's kind of an an interesting turn of phrase there, that the darkness comprehended it not. And it kind of implies a few things, entails a few things. One that you kind of have to take a close look at because it's not using, it's not using the word comprehended in a way that we would tend to use it in our modern vocabulary. It still means this kind of the same thing, but it's just not kind of an expression that we would use. This is the darkness. comprehended not the light, right? It comprehended not the light. And we would think of comprehending something as to understand it, have a mental grasp of that. And it kind of does mean that, in fact, when you comprehend some information, you take hold of it, and maybe you even take hold of it easily or eagerly. And it kind of has that idea of taking hold of something and spiritual darkness that is out there did not take to the light. We know that the sinfulness of man's heart and the darkness and the depravity of man's heart does not eagerly take to the light of the gospel. That's the only hope that we have, but still, the sickness of sin and of pride in man's heart does not eagerly take to the gospel. Jesus, as we're going to find, He came into this world to be the light of the world, and His own received Him not, and He was rejected. Isaiah 53 says of Jesus Christ, He was despised and rejected of men. we hid as it were our faces from Him, right? We didn't, we didn't, as man, as the human race, we didn't, we didn't want Jesus. We didn't want His light. We didn't want His truth. We didn't want His gospel. We needed it, but we didn't want it. And it also means there to overpower, and thank God for this aspect of that, when it says the darkness comprehended it not. It also meant that the darkness could not snuff it out. Like there wasn't so much darkness that it swallowed up the light. And they say about, and I don't think anybody's really been able to prove any of these things. Sorry, I've got allergies and my nose is really itchy right now. I'm trying not to sneeze. Hope I don't sneeze. They said, I don't think they've been able to prove anything really about this, but they're talking about black holes. Black holes are so dense, they have such strong gravity that not even light can escape. I don't know, maybe that's true, I don't know. I think it's more of a theory at this point than anything else. But here we go, and sin is a big problem, right? And spiritual darkness is a big problem. It's not so big that it can swallow up all of the light. And so even though, the darkness doesn't want the light, it runs from the light. I mean, kind of in a kind of a figurative sense, that's what darkness does, is it runs from light, right? Really all darkness is, by some definition, is just an absence of light. You don't have like something that creates darkness. How do you create darkness? You just cut off the light source. But the darkness was not so great that it could not be overcome by the true light. And I like that expression that's found here in John chapter one, true light. There was a guy who came in, I don't know why I'm telling you this, was a guy who came and started a church out in New Mexico, but he was from somewhere, in the Southeast, and they got really like those Southeast guys, those Mountain Carolina guys, they like to name their churches cool. They named his church True Light Baptist Church. First time I ever heard of it, I was like, that's a great name for a church. And it was a very like North Carolina kind of thing to name your church. Out in New Mexico, it's kind of awesome. But it was the darkness couldn't overcome the true light, the light that was in Jesus Christ. We finally get to that, in the next few verses that the Bible actually capitalizes light because light now becomes yet again another epithet for Christ. It was talking specifically about Christ. Just as word is capitalized in the first few verses, light is capitalized a few verses later because now we are talking about that true light, Jesus Christ. In the proper sense of the word, that light is Jesus Christ. Christ gives light and he gives it in and of himself. Christ is the life and the light, and it is from him and it is in him. Find there also in the next few verses that the word, Christ, he calls to man. And thank God for that. And we'll see this in a couple of ways in which God calls to man. According to verse 9, again, I was referencing here just a moment ago, that light that Jesus was, it says, that was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. I want to spend just a second here on that verse because that's important. It says that the true light of Christ was something that was available and accessible and it was for every man. I mean, I don't really mess up some people's theology, I think, right? Because it says very, very clearly that that light came for every man. Now, is every man going to see the light? Is everyone going to receive the light? Of course, we even have in this passage that clearly that's not the case. But it is not a limitation by God or on God's part that some will not receive the truth. Some will not receive the true light and some will not receive eternal life. It says that that true light came, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Romans 1.20 says, the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. The Bible tells us in the book of Psalms that the heavens declare the glories of God, and the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork, and day into day uttereth speech, and night into night sings his praise, right? And we know from scriptures that there's an innate sense in man that knows that there is some something greater out there. If we can put a name on it, there is something that is God-like out there. And even in the deepest, darkest, most pagan places, most farthest removed from the influence of scriptures and influence of the Gospels, there is an understanding out there in their hearts that something bigger than us exists. And all of this came from somewhere But more clearly than that, more than just from that general call of general revelation through, just through creation, God has also been faithful and Christ has also been faithful to call to man in some very specific ways and through some very specific revelation. As mentioned here in verse six, it says, there was a man sent from God whose name was John, The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light that all men through him might believe. He was not that light, was sent to bear witness of that light. I'm gonna talk about John here, and we're gonna get into who John was more in future weeks here, because the next lengthy part of the passage goes into John and into his message before we really get to Jesus Christ. And so we won't spend a lot of time on John tonight, but John, understand who John was. John was a prophet. John was a prophet. And so my first thought here is, oh, come on. Pretty frustrating. Sorry about that. Through the witness of the prophets. God is called to man. Christ is called to man through the witness of the prophets. Jesus himself says of John, and again, we'll probably get into this in greater detail, that John was really essentially the greatest of the Old Testament prophets. And there were some good ones, right? Like we know there were some good Old Testament prophets. I mean, that's a really tall order for Christ to say that you were essentially the greatest of the Old Testament prophets. because there were some really good ones. But John, essentially what he represents here is the forerunner of Jesus Christ and he himself, his life, his ministry, an answer and a fulfillment to scripture and an answer and a fulfillment to prophecy itself, that John represented all of the culmination of prophecy and scripture and promise and covenant that had come before, essentially represents scripture. And kind of the culmination of that, he was the last and the greatest of the Old Testament prophets. The promises and prophecies of the Old Testament were a call to look for the Messiah. And John, being the last of those, was like, behold the Lamb of God. He actually like literally pointed to him, and a few people caught it, you know. Some of his disciples were like, oh, you mean that guy? Okay. That's the Messiah, right? But that's what all the prophets were doing, just most of them were doing it from hundreds of years in the past. And they were doing it through their recorded prophecy in scripture. But John was actually saying, behold, well, I'm not putting my daughter here. Behold the Lamb of God, you know, behold the Lamb of God, which taken away the sins of the world. So God calls two men. Through the scriptures, through the prophets, I really mean through the scriptures. Jesus says in not too many chapters forward from here in John chapter five, and he's saying to them, he says, search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, but they are they which testify of me. The scriptures are all about Christ. Scriptures are all about Christ. The Bible is God's love letter laying out redemption's story to us. Old Testament, all pointing forward to Christ. New Testament, all telling us about Christ and pointing back to Christ and telling us what we have in Christ. The Bible is all about Jesus Christ. And God calls to us out of the prophets, out of the scriptures, the written word calls men to Christ. And then we have another John, and that's kind of the second part of this in verse nine, that was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh in the world. He was in the world and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. But the story of two Johns here, there's John the Baptist. John the Apostle is writing about John the Baptist first, but also think about the, just kind of the, of the reality here of Apostle John writing the gospel here, and the books that he wrote. Who was John? He was kind of the other side of it, right? He was the front end of the New Testament, and one of the 12 apostles, 12 original apostles, and one of the ones who carried forward the work of Christ, and the work of the church after Christ, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. John was a witness of different kind. Now essentially his is part of the scriptures too, so I'm careful about that. I'm not saying the New Testament isn't scripture, but he's not a prophet. John was a prophet in that sense, that the Lord delivered his word through him, of course. But he was also a person-to-person witness, eyewitness of Jesus Christ. The apostles first and foremost, and the believers from Christ's ministry first and foremost, were eyewitnesses of his life and his ministry and his resurrection most of all, but he was one of those who went all over the place in the rest of his life declaring to others the good news of Jesus Christ. And that was something that Christ gave for his disciples to do. And the disciples were not just the ones who followed Jesus in a literal sense, in a physical sense, they saw the life of Jesus Christ, but it was, and the Bible's clear about this, everyone who would come after them and believe because of their word. That follows a 2,000-year-plus trail all the way to you and me, that God calls and uses his people down through the ages. I don't know if that didn't come up, through his people. God, Christ calls to us through the witness of His people. the faithful witness down through the ages. Yeah, it started with the apostles and with the 120 that were gathered together and the ones who were witnesses of his resurrection and witnesses of his ascension and the ones who were there gathered together in Acts chapter 2 praying when the Holy Ghost came and the Day of Pentecost and the explosion of salvations and adding to the church there at the Church of Jerusalem, and then eventually spread out from there to Judea and Samaria, and then from there to the uttermost parts of the earth, and so by the time you get about halfway into the Book of Acts, the gospel's now gone lots of places. It goes farther and farther and farther from there. What was God all the time? What was he using? He was using people to be witnesses, You know, I got saved because someone who got saved before me shared the gospel with me. Now, in my case, it happened to be my dad at a kitchen table, right? But someone led my dad to the Lord at some point, right? And my dad got saved as a kid. I think it was his grandfather that led him to Christ. Well, someone led my dad's grandfather to Christ. I have no idea, right? I have no idea who that was. But I know someone did, right? I know that Jesus Christ didn't knock him off a donkey like he did to Saul on the way to Damascus. Somebody told my dad's grandfather about Jesus Christ at some point in his life. And someone told that person, and someone told that person, and then someone, like, we can just keep going all the way back until we run into an apostle, I think. Because God always uses human instrumentality I mean, a lot of churches will meet throughout the week. I mean, I think it's probably an obvious statement to make. I mean, Jesus Christ is not gonna stand in anybody's pulpit this week and preach the gospel. It's gonna be a human being. And if anyone's going to share the gospel in our community with anybody else in this community, it's gonna be a human being. It's not gonna be an angel. It's not gonna be someone that God brings back from the dead. I guess that would still be a human. It would just be kind of remarkable. I mean, it's gonna be someone who's alive and breathing right now. And God uses his people to call other people. Christ sends forth his believers, his church, sends us forth to be his witnesses. And yeah, some will hear and accept. and probably more than will accept, will hear and reject, delay, whatever, call it whatever you will, but it'll be a rejection, at least in that moment, right? But the tragic thing is how many will never hear. And that's the tragedy, right, is how many will never hear. They don't have an opportunity to accept or reject. They just don't get that opportunity because they're never told. Therein, we read a few of those verses, and verses, he was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not, but as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, and so, Here, the word came to man, and here, we kind of bring it all down. We started all the way there in eternity, in time immemorial, you know, and in the spiritual, purely spiritual realm, and we bring it all the way down here to eternal God, and omnipotent God, and omniscient God, and omnipresent God, and he comes down to this earth, to a point in time, to a place in space, right? He comes down to be, comes down to his own. I think it's so interesting here, we come into his own in verse 11, he came into his own and his own received him not. And if you're like me, I think the initial reaction is, okay, well, he came to the Jews and the Jews rejected him. And yes, that's true. But his own were not just, the Jewish people, right? I mean, they were the family chosen from out of the the peoples of the earth way, way, way, way back in history because of the faith of their forefather, Abraham, and God began to make covenants and promises with them carried forward. But I mean, his own were all of those that he put into the breath of life and made living souls. I guess that's all of us, right? Yeah, so the Jewish people, by his human by human standards, right, the Jewish people of his own people, if you would, yeah, he came unto them and they received him not, they rejected him, but the whole world rejected him. You think about the fact they bring him to Pilate, and Pilate stands there with the full weight and authority of Caesar, well, who was Caesar? Caesar was the king of the world. Okay, he was the king of the world. And the king of the world, or on the authority of the king of the world, and certainly the king of the Gentile nations in the known world, on the authority of that king, Christ was crucified. The whole world rejected Christ. And And so when it says he came into his own and his own received him not, let's not exclude ourselves from that. And let's not exclude our forefathers personally from that. The Gentiles also rejected Christ. God in the person of Christ came to man because man could not come to God. And so just a simple thought here to close us out tonight. is that first the Son of God became a man. Kind of obvious what we've been talking about here through this, but Jesus became entirely man, entirely human while remaining entirely God at the same time. There's just some interesting statements, and a lot of these are found in the Gospel of John, so I'm looking at what we're going to get to them, and it'll be interesting to kind of dig into those a little bit, but it makes some statements here in the Gospels about how Jesus, though entirely man, still had the godlike attributes, the attributes of deity. I mean, he says that he knew, nobody had to tell him what was what was in man, because he knew all men, right? He knew what was in man, and he knew all men, and there's times where he knew their thoughts. I mean, I can try to read your facial expression, and I can try to read your body language, and I can try to perceive what's written between the lines of what you're actually saying to me, but I don't really know your thoughts. Jesus knew their thoughts, right? There were things that he speaks to the woman, the Samaritan woman at the well. And he says to her, yeah, you're right. You don't have a husband because you've had, what was it, five at the time or something? And he says, and the one you're with now is not your husband. And that's something that you just couldn't possibly know about somebody unless you were, I mean, I guess now, unless you were like social media stalking them or something. But I mean, he wasn't doing that, right? I mean, Jesus just knew it because he is God. So while he was in human flesh, I mean, he didn't set aside his deed. He didn't set aside his godly attributes and capabilities. It says that he dwelt among us. I'm gonna kind of skip around in this passage a little bit. It says the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. It literally means that he tabernacled among us, that he pitched a tent here in our midst. Now for him it was, he is much like the picture, we just finished doing this in Exodus, that tent of the tabernacle where the glory of God came down and filled that tabernacle is very much symbolic of the humanity, the incarnation of Jesus Christ. We kind of said that a little bit while we were studying Exodus was that it was symbolic of Jesus Christ taking on human flesh while remaining entirely God. And it says that we beheld his glory. Now, the word beheld is an interesting word when it's used in the Bible because it never means anything other than to literally see something in the flesh and see something physically. You don't behold something that is a, you know, That is, you don't behold a metaphor, you don't behold a figure of speech. It's not something that you just kind of understand or perceive mentally. When you behold something, you're literally able to see it with your eyes, but it means that you not just see it, but that you truly, you're captivated by it and you study it deeply and you investigate it. And it says of Jesus Christ that those who are around him and those who saw him physically, they were captivated by him and saw that he truly was who he claimed to be, the son of God. And Christ was full of grace and truth, and that he was the perfect embodiment of everything the Bible said we had fallen short of as the human race. And Jesus perfectly embodied every jot, every tittle of Scripture. There was not one point in the slightest degree to which Christ did not uphold the truth of God's Word, the grace of God in his life. And because Christ became, because the Son of God became a man, then of course man can become a son of God. Well, I wish it would work tonight. That man became a son of God. at receiving Christ by faith gives man, it says, the power to become the son of God. And it says in verse 12, as many as received him, the thing that he power to become the sons of God. Now, that word power, there's, you know, without getting off into the weeds here, there's two ways which the word power is used. In one sense of it, it literally means the, the energy or the ability, this means the authority or the right. This is speaking about that as many as received Him, to them gave He power or the right to become the Son of God. Now that is an astounding thought. We've been given the right to become the Son of God, as many as believe on his name, to as many as believe on his name. By receiving Christ by faith, we are given the right to become God's child. Now that's not a birthright, not our birthright. No one is born saved, no one is born destined to be saved because of who their family is, who their parents are, what their pedigree is. Some of us can I'm one of those who can say, like the psalmist, I have a goodly heritage. I've got Christian people, God-fearing people in my family tree as far back as we've been able to trace, and I can thank God for that. It did not mean that I was absolutely destined to come to Christ by faith, irrespective of my own personal choice. Now, it probably meant that I was gonna have a real good opportunity at it. I was going to be in church a whole bunch of times, so many more times before I could even remember that I've just never not been in church. I've heard the gospel just a thousand times by the time I was old enough to understand it. I could thank God for that, but that did not mean I was absolutely, without any personal choice of my own, going to be saved. to come to personal faith in Christ. This is not of blood, this is which we're born, not of blood. When it says that of blood, it is talking about literally of your lineage, of your heritage, nor of the will of the flesh. And so it wasn't a matter of self-effort. It wasn't a matter of working for it, earning it. It says not of the will of man. It wasn't someone's choice, some other person's choice. It wasn't, well, someone in the church that just said, okay, well, we want, this guy's gonna get saved, and so we're gonna make sure that we're gonna make that choice, right? We're gonna lay our hands on him and pray over him, and he's gonna be saved. No one can make that choice for somebody else. This is what is a work of God. It's all of a work of God, all according to the purpose and plan of God. Salvation is a spiritual birth, and it says that which we're born, born spiritually, and John is going to use that kind of terminology more than others of this terminology of spiritual birth and of regeneration here throughout this book. The salvation is a personal response of faith and belief on the, this is the name of Jesus Christ, even them that believe on his name, on the name would be kind of in a broader sense, the gospel, not just his name in Jesus, but I mean, what is attached to that name, who Jesus is, his identity, his identity as the Son of God and as the Savior of the world and the Lamb of God, which takes away the sins of the world, and that which we know to be true of him, faith in Jesus Christ and in his gospel. I know we can thank God here that eternal God in Jesus Christ came to this earth to become a like sinful man. He became man and he looked just like any one of the rest of us sinners. He just wasn't a sinner. He was holy God and he came to be the Lamb of God to take away our sins and we can certainly thank God for that. And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And keep going forward here in chapter one next week. I know it's a little bit late here, so we'll go ahead and close down and say a word of prayer here. You'll be dismissed.