And if you would, find John chapter one. And as we've been saying here, we will start into a study here in the Gospel of John. And a great, you know, great book of the Bible. I know that it's familiar. Not often, not always are we treading in familiar waters. The Gospel of John will certainly be hope would be very familiar waters for us, at least we would think so. I've been reading here sometime before this, I've been reading in the book of John again, just in my, kind of my regular pattern of Bible reading, and things have been standing out to me that have never really stood out to me before, and I don't, I couldn't, I don't think I would venture a guess on how many times in my Christian life I've read through the book of John, And it's a book that has been remarked on by many as being simple enough for a child to understand and yet deep enough for the scholars and the educated and the philosophers to continually dig into and find deep waters. And it's such a unique book in that way that there is the simplicity that is in Jesus Christ and the simple truths of the gospel and the simple truths of a relationship with Christ found here in John, but also just deep, deep truth in there also. And as we progress through the Christian life, you know, hopefully we move from, you know, whatever point we are, we move to some deeper, stronger meat along the way. And so there would be a lot, something for everybody in this study, just because of the nature of the book. And of course, that is by God's design. That is something that could only come by the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit for the same book to be that both simple and complex at the same time. And a lot of things about the word of God and about our God in particular are both simple and complex at the same time. We'll kind of talk about a few of those things here tonight also. The spirit of the book of John is very, very personal in nature. Its character is very personal in nature. Jesus is presented in a very, very personal way. His encounters, more so than in the other Gospels, and there's many, many things by which we could take and compare to the other Gospel books, and we will do a little bit of that here tonight. But one of the things that's noteworthy, one of the things that's maybe a little bit obvious about the Gospel of John is that in John, Christ's encounters are very much one-on-one and personal in nature, and Christ is meeting their need, and it's such a special thing. And right there in chapter one, which we will not get to tonight. I'm fine with that. I'm signing on for the long haul. I hope that you will too. But we will dive into this tonight. And really we'll get to the first two verses really exclusively here tonight as we introduce the study of the book. Part of the reason why is not just because of how much is in these two short verses. There is quite a bit. But also I do want to give a little bit of context and background and comparative information before we really get into the notes and the text here tonight. But again, the Gospel of John is One of the most important books of the Bible, in fact, very often when the Bible is being translated into a new language, translators often start with the Gospel of John. or the Gospel of John in Romans, in a fairly Bibles-produced John Romans, and then the New Testament as a whole, and then work their way into the broader scope of the Bible of the whole Old Testament. But very often, even just to give something to work with, give missionaries and gospel preachers something to work with, they will start with the Gospel of John. and the Gospel of John is just so essential and important. And, of course, we understand that it is the fourth of the Gospel books in order, and to be very, very clear, there are not four Gospels. There is one Gospel, but there are four Gospel books, four perspectives on the Gospel of John is one of four. Now, the other three, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called by by scholars, they're called synoptic gospels. and not really a test question that you need to remember or anything, but what that does mean is synoptic means from the same viewpoint. And so there's a lot of similarity between Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the different lengths, and there's different details that are given. Obviously, there are different works and miracles and sermons that are recorded and things. There's a different viewpoint in all of those, but the viewpoint is pretty similar. from Matthew, Mark, and Luke. A lot of the content of those three books are shared across all three. Whereas, when you add John into it, there's very few things that are found across all four of the Gospels. We'll actually talk about the things that are found across the four Gospels, but It's believed, it's widely held that John was the fourth gospel book to be written. Matthew, Mark, and Luke already written, already widely in circulation. When the Lord led John to write his account of the gospel, it was not to write yet another synoptic gospel of Jesus Christ. That was already there, that was already well established by Two or three witnesses, right? That's a good thing, right? Two or three witnesses that well established the life and the ministry and the work of Jesus Christ. And so John's gospel comes in to provide a different look at the life of Jesus Christ. Again, somewhat of a more intimate look at the life of Jesus Christ. More of the personal conversations at length, right? The other Gospels record the words of Jesus Christ, but when it records long passages of the words of Jesus Christ, it's often public sermons that he preached. It's the Sermon on the Mount, which is Matthew 5, 6, and 7. You know, long, long stretch. But Jesus is preaching to the multitudes on the hillside. It is his discourse, his Olivet Discourse, where it's recorded in those books. Especially Matthew and Luke have a longer passage considered to be the Olivet Discourse. But he's preaching publicly at the Temple Mount, and he's preaching about the signs of the times, and he's preaching against the words. It's private conversations. It's his conversation with Nicodemus. You know, in the middle of the night, Nicodemus coming to him, asking him what he must do to be saved. It is his conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. It is the longer version of the final instructions that he gave to the apostles at the Last Supper, really starting in like chapter 13, through 17 is all just in that one setting. And so it gives a different viewpoint. And so it's significantly different in the details, both in what it includes and then what it leaves out. Now, the other three Gospels all pretty much, to a degree, mention the birth, baptism, the temptation, the 40-day, 40-night temptation of Christ, many of the same miracles, many of the same parables, the actual breaking of bread and passing of the cup at the Lord's Supper, which for all that John records of those things, it doesn't actually speak about his baptism. It'll actually speak about when he actually distributed the bread and the cup and called them his body and his blood. It takes a different tack when it gets to the Lord's Supper. It starts with the Lord girding himself and washing his apostles' feet. There's just a different viewpoint of those things. The Gospel of John doesn't focus in on Christ's prayer in Gethsemane. It focuses on his prayer in the upper room before they leave for Gethsemane. The Gospel of John doesn't focus on his ascension and on the Mount of Olives where he gives the Great Commission to all of them. It focuses in on a more personal and intimate commissioning that he gives to his disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. where he, particularly with Peter, challenges them to feed his sheep, and to feed his sheep, and to be faithful until the end. And so John's Gospel is unique in some of the things that it doesn't include from the other three Gospels, but then in some of the things that it does. There are seven miracles recorded in the Gospel of John. Six of those are unique to the Gospel of John. And the only one that is recorded in other Gospels is recorded in all three of them. It's one of the only thing that's found in all four Gospels all the way throughout. There are seven statements, seven really passages where the Lord makes an I am statement. And we're talking about, I am the good shepherd. I am the bread of life. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the true vine. I'm gonna miss a few if I try to name them all. But these kinds of statements that Christ makes about himself with clarity, they're not recorded in the other three gospels. There are unique testimonies given of Jesus Christ We get to hear from some other people about Jesus Christ in a way that we don't get to hear from them in the same way in other gospel books. And so, some of those similarities, some of those differences, the three synoptic gospels center mostly on Christ's ministry around the Sea of Galilee and around the region of Galilee. Yes, he does come down in Jerusalem, he goes back, comes down, goes back. Most of what takes place in John, and John was there for all of it, but John tends to focus in on the stories and the times and the events that took place in Jerusalem. And right there around the... In order to... Inside of the big cities and the big religious centers like Jerusalem. And so, Mark focuses more on Christ's ministry in Galilee and his origins from Nazareth and the fact that he was raised in a working class family. We use that, a middle class family. He actually was raised in a middle class family. Sorry. Because Mark presents Jesus Christ as the greatest servant of all. And so if, If Matthew is presenting Jesus Christ as the Messiah, the son of David, essentially the king of kings, then Mark is presenting Jesus Christ as the servant of all. Luke uses a name for Christ more in the gospel of Luke than anywhere else. Jesus is called the son of man. Luke focuses very much on the humanity of Jesus Christ. His genealogy goes all the way back to Adam. And to establish the fact that Jesus in his earthly life was 100% man, took on flesh, and dwelt among us. And the Gospel of Luke establishes the humanity of Jesus Christ, where John focuses on Christ's deity and his heavenly origin. And so that's why it starts right out of the gate. It starts with the verses that we'll look at here tonight. 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. And it's going to go on from there, and it's going to continue on down through at least verse 14 or so, where it's going to continue to make this case that Jesus is God, that Jesus is man, but he didn't begin, his life didn't begin when he was conceived in Mary's womb. His life didn't begin on this earth, His ministry didn't begin in Bethlehem or in Nazareth or anywhere else. It didn't begin in his baptism. Jesus always has been, because he is God, eternally God. The three synoptic gospels record what Jesus said and did, but John focuses on who he is. and goes to great lengths to show who, what Jesus, who he is in his character, who he is in his nature, who he's important that God gave us four different perspectives, three that are similar and one that is fairly unique into the character, the nature, and the personality and the work of our Savior. Writer John, of course, is John the Apostle, called John the Beloved. He is a brother of James. James, another apostle. Sons of a man named Zebedee. And it's perhaps, his mother is also named perhaps. His mother is the one named Salome. S-A-L-O-M-E, you'll see her named a couple of times in the Gospels. That is purported because at the crucifixion accounts, sometimes they just mention other ladies that are there, and then in another case, Zebedee's wife is named as being there, or the mother of Zebedee's children or something, it says something to that effect. And then in another place, a lady named Salome is named as being there, so perhaps Salome was their mother, but That's what we know, perhaps know about their background. John, with his brother, with his dad, Galilean fishermen, business partners, probably with Peter and Andrew. John was probably the youngest of the 12 apostles, the 12 original apostles, and he's called Even in this book, he's called the apostle whom Jesus loved, the very tender relationship with Jesus Christ. And we'll get to see a little bit of that as we go through this book. The purpose of John's book becomes very, very clear. John 1.12, you're right there, it says, 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. At the end of the book, and I'm gonna, I'll read it for you, and I'm gonna ask you to turn there, but not the very last chapter, but the second, the last verse of the second to last chapter. So John 20, 31 says, but these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name. the purpose of the Gospel of John is very, very clear that we would believe on Jesus Christ. In fact, a form of the word believe is found over a hundred times in the Gospel of John. Whether it's believe or believed or believeth or believing, over a hundred times that that word is found in this one book. And so that's quite a concentration. I know that doesn't sound like a lot when you're talking about 880 verses or something like 21 chapters, but that's quite a bit. That's quite a high concentration of the word, the form of the word believe in the entire book. I think throughout the rest of the book, there's only about 400 more times in the rest of the Bible where believe is used, a form of the word believe is used. And so for a full 20% of the times where the Bible says the word believe to be found here in just this one book is a very, very high concentration of that. And so the theme, the purpose of the book is very clear. It is to present faith, it is to present belief, it is to challenge people to stop believing in themselves and to stop believing in their vain religion, to stop believing in their heritage, their pedigree, and whatever it may be, and believe on Christ. And so we'll see that quite a bit. Now as we get in here again to our text, I'll finally get to our notes here tonight, And we don't have a lot of notes this evening, but as we'll see here, there we go. Sorry, Jesus is the word. I put through five, but we're not going to get through verse five. We're actually going to get through verse two or three. But we'll be looking here tonight first, just right back there to verse one. It says, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. And really, there's so much in that. That's not a long verse, but there's so much in this verse. And so we have here first that Jesus is the Word of God. In the beginning was the Word, capital W, and the Word, capital W, was with God, and the Word, capital W, was God. And Jesus is called the Word here. And that's kind of also unique to to John and to John's writings that Jesus is referred to as the word. Now, the word, sorry to be redundant like that, but this word comes from a Greek word, logos, and it means more, and I don't always want to go back to the Greek on these things, but there's an important distinction here to understand from this. It means more than just a unit of spoken language or written language. If we were going to say a word and we were going to be mentioning just a unit of spoken language or written language, then in Greek that wouldn't be logos, that would be lexis. You've maybe heard of a lexicon before. A lexicon is a collection of words in a given language. And somewhere between a concordance and a dictionary is what a lexicon is. And so this is not just saying that Jesus is a word of God, or even that he's just the words that God spoke through his word or something like that, but that Jesus is the logos. Now this was a term, the word that was used by both Jewish scholars and Greek philosophers in this day and age. So it's really kind of a unique thing that God does here through, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is he uses a term that was a matter of discourse, a matter of debate between the Jewish scholars of the Old Testament and the Greek philosophers who were talking about, they're trying to be, talking about these high-minded things and figuring out the way that the world works. To the Jewish scholars, they would often talk about God in relation to his word. They would talk about God and his attributes in relation to the attributes of his word. And to them, the word of God, literally the written scriptures of the word of God, were synonymous with God himself. And so when John says, in the beginning was the word, to the Jews, this means that the word really is God, just like they had thought, but not in a way that they thought it did. They thought, you know, of course they're going to deny Jesus Christ is the word, but he's making this point to them, I know he really was, and he really is the word of God, just like you had thought. And to the Greek philosophers, the word meant, Particularly the word Logos didn't just mean the word, but it meant the meaning, it meant the message, it meant the reason, the ultimate reason for a thing. And so when the Greeks read this, they say in the beginning was the word, was the Logos, was the word of God, and said the reason for everything is Jesus Christ. Jesus is everything. Jesus is all in all. In Jesus dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And so Jesus is the supreme reason, the ultimate reason for all things. That which was the logos is the opposite of that which is mythos. Sorry to use Greek at you here tonight, but mythos were stories and they were myths and they were important myths and they were even part of what was culturally important to a people and was kind of the foundational stories on which they built their their whole civilizational foundations, the mythos of the Greeks, you know, their mythologies and stuff like that. But, you know, also just the stories, as embellished as they were, of the great feats of war and of battle that their warriors in ages past had done, right? And we think about the battle of Thermopylae, right? Where the 300 Spartans stood against the hundreds of thousands of invading Persians. And now we don't know exactly how that battle went because of mythos. True story, parts of it, things about him, but that in itself is just something we talk about about George Washington. It kind of tells us something about how we think of him as an important figure and about how his character was developed along the way, but something that George Washington never did. The Gospel of John is not mythos. It's not a true story that has been embellished It is the truth, 100%. 100% true. And so the Logos, the word is the meaning, the message, the full expression or manifestation, the true and the ultimate purpose. And so when the Bible says, in the beginning was the word, it is saying, yes, the word of God, forever, oh Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. The spoken word of God and the written word of God, the great meaning of it all. He is the purpose, he is the central message of the whole human story, of the whole biblical story. And so, I thought I'd give you our couple of points here. Jesus is the message of the scripture. The whole scripture is written to bring man to Christ. to tell the story of how Christ is going to redeem mankind by his death, burial, and resurrection. Jesus is the message of the whole of scripture. All of that law that the Jewish scholars were hanging their hats on and they'd given their lives to study, he missed the point of because they didn't recognize Jesus when he came in fulfillment to all the things that they had studied, all the prophecies, all the covenants, all of the promises that have been made down through the years, Jesus was the message of the whole of Scripture. In John chapter 5 and verse 39, he's again speaking to the scholars, he's speaking to the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the chief priests and the scribes and those who knew the Scriptures like they knew the back of their own hands and he said, He says, search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me. The Bible is the story of Christ. Christ is the central message of the Word of God. The Bible is all about Jesus Christ. Not only is Jesus the message of the scriptures, he's also the manifestation of the scriptures. and that Jesus Christ was the living embodiment of the truth of scripture, Jesus came to fulfill the scriptures. Matthew in particular, but all of the gospel books speak of how Jesus Christ fulfilled scripture. Even times where Jesus said, he was speaking to someone, he says, but so that scripture can be fulfilled, I will this or that. I just read that today, where he was having a, Pilate was asking him questions and grilling him, he was putting him on trial, and Jesus said, but so that scripture will be fulfilled, this. Jesus was the full embodiment, the manifestation of scripture, that all of the truths and the principles, talks about that we should pursue after, that we should desire for ourselves. Jesus was the full embodiment of that. There's not a precept, a principle of the Word of God that Jesus did not only uphold, but that he upheld perfectly and exemplified perfectly in his life. Jesus is the Word of God. Not only that, it says there, it says in the beginning was the Word, it says then the Word was with God. A fundamental tenet of faith, but that God Also, as it says in Genesis 1-1, let us make man in our own image, that God speaks of himself in, to himself, and of himself, in the plural, that our God is one God, expressed in three distinct persons, but those three persons are not separate from each other, they're one God. Jesus Christ, and with God, the Father, but The principle here applies in the Spirit's relationship to both the Father and the Son as well. That word with, it says the word was with God. Excuse me. With, there is a preposition. Let's do some English here. Prepositions show relationship between two things. And so with implies a relationship, it implies distinction in relationship to one another. means that it's not one thing, the word, in this expression, the word is distinct from God, and yet he is with God. The Father is a separate and distinct person from the Son, the Spirit is a separate and distinct person from the Father and the Son. Our God is three, but our God is one, and he is three at the same time that he is one, and he is one at the same time that he is Three. And so here the trinity is established, that came up. The trinity is established. This was something that wasn't entirely clear in the Old Testament without the New Testament. It's very, very difficult to take the Old Testament by itself and establish the trinity. And we can do it understanding what we understand from the New Testament. We can go back and we can see the Trinity in the Old Testament. We absolutely can. But it's very hard to do without the New Testament. And John's Gospel and the opening passage of John's Gospel goes a long way to really establish early in the New Testament period that Jesus is God. And He is God with the Father. He is God with the Holy Spirit. And those three are one and one God unified in what the Bible calls the Godhead. We kind of call the Trinity, but what the Bible calls the Godhead. One God expressed in three persons, three distinct persons unified in one God. Again, this concept is beyond our comprehension to be one of three and maintaining that distinction, yet always unified into one, and never to be separate from God in the beginning, means that He is God also. That He is not a created entity It wasn't that Jehovah God, God the Father, was truly at the beginning, and the first thing He did was beget His Son and His Spirit, or divide Himself up. No, God's nature has always been a triune nature, that the Word has always been with God. It talks there about being in the beginning, it's speaking of that, eternal nature, that everlasting nature of Jesus Christ, of God himself, in all of his persons, that which is everlasting is from vanishing point to vanishing point, from time out of mind to time out of mind, from the beginningless past to the endless future. And that's really just how we think of it in human perspective. God doesn't exist on a linear timeline the way that we do. And God is so much more than that. We really, time and all that exists inside of our God. God has no beginning. He has no ending. And Jesus has no beginning and has no ending. He was not just, he did not just precede action. Jesus always has been, always will be. And so for the, the word for Jesus Christ, the word to be with God in the beginning means that he is God with God. And Jesus did not lose his deity by putting on humanity. He came to this earth and became 100% man. But he did not become Not 100% God. And again, Jesus, again, math, we can't do 100% of two things at the same time. Can you be 100% of anything? Of any two things at any time, right? You're either 100% or you're not, right? And Jesus is not 50% God, 50% man. He's 100% God, 100% man. Again, math that doesn't compute by our metrics here, but... His deity here is established in this short but important phrase there, the Word was with God. And the final phrase there in verse one says, and the Word was God. And again, this is where I'm gonna use some nuance here that he's not only the Son of God, but he is God the Son. And again, to kind of go back to this idea, and I know it's kind of compounding on what we've been talking about already, but neither the Son nor the Spirit is no less God than the Father. The word was God, from the beginning, was only in the sense, not that it's past tense, but that it always was the case from eternity past, that even in the beginning, Jesus always was God and with God in his divine nature. Son was not created, he was not born to God. I know the Bible calls him the only begotten. And again, some of the terminology that's used here when God the Father is called the Father and the Son is called the Son, and terms like begotten of the Father are used, that is only just to help us kind of understand their distinct roles and their three unique persons. But don't confuse that with a belief that God the Father created God the Son, or that God the Father created God the Spirit. They've always been in their triune nature, unified together as the Godhead. And so those names that are used there are for our own benefit as a way for us to begin to understand the nature of God and the relationship between the three persons of the Godhead. I just realized something. All of my blanks are the exact same word that you fill in. In all three of these, it's God every single time. That Jesus is God. That Jesus is God the Son, and therefore, I'm just very, very, and I wanted to make this statement very, very plainly, unequivocally that Jesus is God. A lot of the definition of, kind of the clinical definition, if you would, of a cult has to do with their belief about who Jesus is. If Jesus is God or not. If Jesus is... That's a no-doubter right there. Any religion, church, any system of beliefs that denies that Jesus is anything less than God, and anything less than eternally God, the way that John chapter 1 here teaches us is a cult. Jesus is God. He is co-equal with the Father and the Spirit, in his eternal existence, in his supreme power and authority, in his nature, in his character, in his attributes. Jesus is no more or less holy than the Father or the Holy Ghost. He is no less or more loving and gracious than the Father or the Holy Spirit. They are co-equal in all of their attributes, in all of their character. Why? Because they are one God. He's unified together with the Father. The three persons of the Trinity are constantly and continuously unified in the Godhead, in that one never acts independently of the other two, not truly. Jesus, in the flesh, walked among men, always in unity. communion and unification with the Father, with the Spirit. And there are times where, in particular, cases where all three kind of show up at the same time manifestly. The baptism of Jesus Christ in the other gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus is baptized. He is there bodily being baptized by John the Baptist, and the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus in the form of a dove, and the voice of God the Father says, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. There are times where they kind of manifestly show up in three different expressions at the same time, but one never really acts independently of the other. And this will be more, even from this book, from the study, that will prove that. When Jesus acts and when Jesus speaks, He doesn't act according to His own will, according to His own designs, His own plans. He is always in communion and in unification with the Father, with the Holy Spirit, in everything that He does. Jesus through those I am statements that he makes, and a few very overtly, and really in all of them, but in a few very overtly, he makes some I am statements in which he claims the self-existence of Jehovah God, the way that Jehovah claimed his self-existence before Moses in the wilderness when he said, I am that I am. A couple of those are recorded right here in John before Abraham was, I am. A shocking statement there, right? In the boldness of that claim to claim the nature and the self-existence and the supreme power of Jehovah. And yet he was not wrong to do that. I would be wrong to do that. Anyone else who's ever lived would be wrong to do that. Jesus Christ was absolutely truthful and accurate. We're familiar with Isaiah 7, 14, that the promise that's given all the way back then, that his name should be called Emmanuel, God with us. And Jesus fulfills that. Here, and really again back in chapter one in verse 14 says, the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. That God came, the word that is clearly established to be God, now is made flesh to dwell among men. Fulfillment of Isaiah 7, 14, that name Emmanuel over in Colossians. Some really important passages in Colossians. Colossians just, we've studied many, years in the past, probably Colossians is the most Christ-centric, Christ-centered of the Epistle books. A lot of great, great stuff about Christ in Colossians when you read it, you know, pay attention to that stuff. But in verse 14, speaking of Christ, "...for by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by him and for him, And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all the fullness dwell. Over in chapter two, still Colossians, chapter two, verse nine, it says, For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. that Jesus is God with us, that in his human life, in his incarnation, and he used a technical term, in his incarnation, that Jesus Christ embodied everything about God, and everything about the Word of God in his human life. Jesus, the Word, is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Jesus is the capital W word of God. That he is the meaning, the message, he is the great purpose, he is the ultimate reason for the scripture and for the whole story of the Bible. and the whole purpose of what we do for him as his believers, as his church. He is the Word of God. He is the Son of God. He is God the Son. And John makes an emphasis on this in a way, much more definite way,