Good morning. Good to see everyone today. It's a blessing to be here. John chapter 1, in your Bibles please, John chapter 1. Before I started pastoring, whenever I'd have an opportunity to preach somewhere, it was a relatively simple matter to decide what to preach. I just had a handful of sermons and I'd pick one. But as a pastor now, everything is done in a series. And so you have to pray about it and look at it and say, what message can stand alone without having to know what went before it? And on Sunday mornings at our church, we've been in the Gospel of John and been in that book almost two years. And so I'm going back a little bit. I was looking through some old notes and reworked them a little bit for this morning's service. And I believe the Lord's given me some direction. And we'll be in John chapter 1, and we'll read the first three verses. Obviously, a very familiar passage of scripture. I'm sure many of you have it memorized. My three-year-old has it memorized. So if you don't, you better go ahead and memorize it. Important words of scripture, important truth. And let's go ahead and take a look at it. John chapter 1, and we'll read the first three verses. The Bible 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." If you're taking notes, I'll borrow my title from a title of a hymn and simply entitle the message, Our Great Savior. Our Great Savior. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for the honor and privilege to open your Word and speak it to your people. I pray today that the Holy Spirit would have his way in my heart as I preach, in the hearts of each of us as we hear and respond. I pray that Christ would be lifted up and magnified. Lord, if we don't accomplish anything else, that would be worthwhile. I pray that you'd be pleased with all that takes place in these next few moments. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. In the second century AD, a Greek philosopher who followed after the tradition of the famous philosopher Plato, read our text, these first three verses of the Gospel of John. And after reading these verses, he proclaimed, this barbarian hath comprised more stupendous stuff in three lines than we have done in all our discourses. What he was essentially saying is that he was amazed that someone unlearned and uneducated, a Galilean fisherman could write words of such profundity, words of such depth. He said that these verses contained more truth than all of the philosophic writings of all the Greek philosophers combined. And he was right. In the beginning was the Word. We would do well to stop and meditate on the great truth that we see before us. As we look here in John chapter 1, we find ourselves temporarily transported not to a manger in Bethlehem, not to the womb of a virgin, and no, not even to the beginning of creation. Rather, we find that the Gospel of John is the only book that begins before the beginning. I'd like to look at this passage this morning and simply point out several of the glorious truths that we can learn pertaining to the attributes of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And we'll get right into it for the sake of time. I don't want to beat around the bush. Let's see, what do we have this morning? First of all, in this passage, we see His preexistence. His preexistence. Notice it says, in the beginning was the Word. The phrase in the beginning is found 17 times in the Bible. Most of these times it is followed by the word of. For example, in the beginning of the first year of David's reign or in the beginning of the barley harvest. By my count, if I'm correct, there are four unique times that the phrase in the beginning is used without any qualifier, in the beginning of something. Only four times where the beginning stands alone. Two of them are here in our text, verse 1 and verse 2. Let me share with you the other two instances. The first one, as we all know, is Genesis 1-1. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. The other instance is found in Hebrews chapter 1, and it's in verse 10, and I'll read a few of the following verses. And thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thine hands. They shall perish, but thou remainest, and they shall wax old as doth a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed, but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail. You see, Genesis 1-1 and Hebrews 1 and verse 10 teach us plainly that God was in the beginning. John 1-1 tells us that Jesus was in the beginning. Let me be more specific, the Word was in the beginning. You may say, well, who's the Word? I gave it away there accidentally. But if you look down at verse 14, you will see the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. So obviously, when John writes about the Word, he is talking about a person specifically, our Lord Jesus Christ. So we see here that Jesus was in the beginning. So that begs the question, what beginning? The beginning of what? Well, you can take any beginning that you like and He was there. You can go back to the beginning of the nation of Israel and you will find that our Lord Jesus Christ was there and was involved. You can go back to the beginning of humanity and you will find that Jesus Christ was there and He was involved. You can go back to the beginning of the universe and you'll find that Jesus Christ was there And he was involved. But did you know that you can even go back to the beginning of time, and you'll find that he was there. For he created time itself. Because He preexisted all things, that tells us that He had no beginning. He has always been. Jesus was not created by the Father, for that would mark a beginning. And He is without beginning. He is in each beginning. One of those who defended the deity of Christ against the charges of Arianism at the Council of Nicaea said it this way, there never was when He was not. Did you know that each gospel writer begins his book with a particular event? Matthew begins with the royal human genealogy of Christ beginning at the beginning of humanity and going through Abraham specifically. Mark begins with the ministry of John the Baptist. Luke begins with the birth of John the Baptist. But John begins in eternity past. Because all throughout eternity past, Jesus has been. He did not begin at birth. He did not begin at conception. He always has been. In our text, in the beginning was the word. If you look that up in your Greek New Testament, you'll find that the word was is in the imperfect tense, which means it's a continual state of existence in the past. The word that's translated word is the word logos. You're familiar with that word. It refers to the entirety of the message as opposed to a specific word or a specific aspect. One writer put it this way, just as a word reveals an unseen thought, so Jesus the word reveals to us an unseen God. Not only has Jesus always been, He has always been the Word. He was and forever is the expression of God. He was the Word before the beginning. You see, the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons, they will tell you, oh, Jesus is a created being. He's greater than us, but He's created. That is simply not true. All created things have a beginning. But at every beginning, Jesus was already there. So we see his pre-existence. Secondly, we see his unity with the Father. His unity with the Father. We see, and it says, and the word was with God. That phrase could literally be translated, the word was face to face with God. That is to say that in all eternity past, the Father and the Son existed in a perpetual fellowship of unhindered and intimate delight. The Father and Son were ever inclined toward one another. Look down at verse 18. Jesus said, no man have seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared him in the bosom, a place of close, perfect fellowship, father and son, for all eternity past. John 17 in verse five, in his great high priestly prayer, Jesus said, and now, O father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. before the beginning, father and son in perfect, infinite glory. Down in verse 25 of John 17, he said, O righteous father, the world hath not known thee, but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. He said, I've always known you, my father. Now stop and think about that for just a moment. There's a number of things that we can learn from this truth other than being able to articulate fine points of theology. There's value in that, but there's also a practical application that we can take away from this. In eternity, Father and Son existed in perfect harmony and perfect fulfillment. There was no lack. There was no emptiness. We need to realize that God did not create you and me because He felt some emptiness inside of Him that needed to be filled and we fill an emptiness in God. Rather, God created us to fill our emptiness and to be glorified in us. But He doesn't need us. He doesn't lack. anything. If the Eternal Son can find absolute fulfillment in His relationship with the Father, and if the Father finds absolute fulfillment in His relationship with the Son, why should we, as finite, temporal creatures, seek fulfillment in any other source other than the person of our Lord Jesus Christ? Did you know that there is no relationship that could possibly exist that can fulfill you more than a relationship with our Lord? Many people don't understand that and they seek fulfillment and meaning and satisfaction in a relationship with a boyfriend or girlfriend or with their children or with friends and none of those can ever fill the emptiness in your heart that was designed to be filled by our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no thrill or emotion that can match the abiding joy that you find in the person of Christ. We can drink from many fountains. but there's only one that will truly satisfy. Let me share with you a third thing that we learn here from these verses. Not only do we see His preexistence and His unity with the Father, but speaking of our Lord, we also see thirdly, His deity. Very simple truths this morning, but very important for us to understand. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. We see His deity. Here we find one of the most clear declarations of the deity of Christ in all the scripture. Now, it's not the only declaration of the deity of Christ. It's all through scripture, especially in John. But John starts off, let there be no misunderstanding. In the beginning, the word was with God and the word was God. It is not enough for us to put Christ on a level comparable to the Father. We must recognize that as the Father is God, so the Son is God. He is Almighty God, Jehovah. He said, before Abraham was, I am. As he said later in this very Gospel in John 10 in verse 30, I and my Father are one. And he said in John 8, 58, as I just mentioned, before Abraham was, I am. Now, we see that in the Gospel of John, if you study it, and I hope you have, at least to some degree, you'll find that the deity of Christ is central to this book. That's John's goal, is to teach us that we may know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And it's important to know that the deity of Christ is vital, not only to this Gospel, It is vital to the gospel. The fact that Jesus Christ is God is absolutely vital to our salvation. Say, why is it so important that we hold to and affirm the deity of Christ? Now I know I'm preaching to the choir in a sense. I know that there's probably not a single person in the room who would doubt or deny the deity of Christ. But we need to recognize not only that it's true, but we need to understand why it's important that we believe it. Let me share with you four reasons. that the deity of Christ is important for us to understand and acknowledge. First of all, if Jesus is God, and he is, he lets us know what God is like. If you want to know what God is like, study the person of Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, we're told a little bit about what God is like. We get a glimpse of who God is. But Jesus said in John 14 in verse nine, he that hath seen me hath seen the Father. So if we wanna know who is God, what is he like, we would do well to examine the life of our Savior Jesus Christ, for he was and is Almighty God. He teaches us what God is like. Secondly, if Jesus is God, then God has always been like Jesus. Some people take the Old Testament and New Testament and overly divide them. And they look at the God of the Old Testament as though He's a different form than Jesus in the New Testament. And we read about judgment and wrath of God in the Old Testament. And if we're not careful, we will fall into the trap that many have to think that God the Father is a stern extractor of judgment, that He is the one ready to take vengeance at any moment, to throw down lightning bolts from heaven, and He's stern and harsh. Well, in the New Testament, we find Jesus is more meek and peaceful, and He persuades God the Father to love more and to be more patient and to be nicer to us as humans. But we need to recognize that if Jesus was eternally one with God the Father, and if He has eternally been God, then God has always been like Jesus. There is no contradiction between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. He's always been a God of holiness, and He's always been a God of love. He's always been a God of judgment, and yet He's also been a God of mercy. He's perfect and entire, and we see that in the person of Jesus Christ. A third reason Christ's deity is important If Jesus is God, then His death for sin is of infinite value. Because of His humanity and His sinlessness, His sacrifice was acceptable. Only a man could die for the sins of man. But because He is God, His sacrifice is infinite in value and in scope. Don't ever let anyone tell you that the atonement could be limited in any way. The blood that Jesus shed is precious blood because it is the blood of God. It is infinite in value. And so, the sacrificial death of the Son of God is sufficient for all because He is an infinite God. A fourth reason. that the deity of Christ is so important. If Jesus is God, and I touched on this earlier, if Jesus is God, then he alone is able to satisfy all the needs of the human heart. In Ephesians chapter 1, the Apostle Paul is praying for the church at Ephesus. And it's a very lengthy prayer. And let me share with you just a few verses from that prayer. He's praying for these believers and he says, I'm praying that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. Ephesians 1 17. that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with the fullness of God." To know Jesus is to know God, as we mentioned earlier, and to know God is to know the absolute source of all fulfillment and of all peace. The love of Christ passes knowledge. That is to say, we ought to be growing in our understanding of it and our appreciation of it, but we'll never fully grasp all that it means to be loved by God. You can search it out and study it for a thousand lifetimes, and you'll only scratch the surface. As a matter of fact, all of eternity will be occupied learning of the love of Christ. Colossians 2, 9 and verse 10, for in him, that is in Christ, dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. But Paul doesn't stop there. In verse 10, he says, and ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power. Now let's think about that for just a moment. All the fullness of God dwells bodily in Jesus Christ. That is to say, He is 100% God in every way. There has never been a moment in which He was not completely divine. As God, He possesses unlimited resources. His wisdom is limitless. His power never diminishes. His love is unwavering. His holiness is supreme. His glory is unsurpassed, and His authority is unquestionable. He dwells in light unto which no man may approach. He is altogether lovely. Colossians 1, 26 and 27. Expands on this in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily but listen to this it says Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations But is now manifest unto his saints to whom God would make known What is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles which is? Christ in you the hope of glory as profound and wonderful and glorious as it is to consider all of the glories of Christ. Consider the greatness of this mystery. Everything good and perfect is in Christ. He is completely God and yet within Him is all divinity and He, as God, is in you. And within you, who are saved, is all of Him. All of God is in Christ, and all of Christ is in you. Now please understand, that is not to say that if all of Him is in you, then none of Him can be in me. God is infinite and cannot be contained. In Him is all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. That does not mean that Father and Spirit do not possess any of the fullness of God. What it means is that within each of us who are saved dwells the perfect, holy God. Within me is the one who created me. The one who made all things. The one who hung the stars in the sky. The one who knows the hairs on our head. Almighty God is in you. Within you is the absolute source of all perfection. Within me is the one who possesses supremely unlimited resources. We do not serve a God who is far off. We serve a God who dwells within. We may engage in intimate fellowship with the God of the universe at any given moment because of Christ. Fourth, what do we see about Christ? I want to share a few more if time will allow. We see fourth, his immutability. His immutability. It says in verse two, the same was in the beginning with God. John is writing about Jesus Christ, the living word of God, and he tells us that the same word was in the beginning with God. It's important to understand that not only did Jesus exist in eternity past, but he was the same then as he is now. It is true that there was a point in time in which he took on humanity, but he has never changed in essence, in character, He has always been of the same quality and character as he is now. Hebrews 13, eight tells us Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and forever. You know, this world is changing around us so fast that it's difficult, if not impossible, to keep up with it. You go on vacation and you come back to things have changed, right? I mean, this world is changing. That is disturbing at times. It can make us feel insecure. And if this world is all that we had, we'd be of all men most miserable. The world is changing. There's no certainty, no stability. The world is like an ocean full of rapidly changing waves. But because Jesus never changes, we can rest in his strength and his character. When the sands of life shift around us, we can find help in the rock of ages. As he was for Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, so he is for each of us. The same Christ who spoke to Moses from the burning bush still speaks to us from the pages of scripture. He's immutable, he's unchanged. Then let me share with you one more. Fifth, we see that He is the creator of all. Verse three tells us, all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. He made all things. We could say, God the Father willed it, and Jesus the Son fulfilled it. It was the voice of Jesus that said, let there be light. Because Jesus is almighty creator. Hebrews 1, verses 1 and 2 tells us, God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom It is by the Son He made the worlds. 1 Corinthians 8, 6, But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him. The second part of verse 3, John 1, 3, emphasizes the truth of the first. All things were made by Him, that is, Jesus made it all, and without Him was not anything made that was made." We see that there are no exceptions. This once again emphasizes the fact that Jesus was not a created being. For if He was, as some would have you to believe, then verse 3 could not be true. The Jehovah's Witnesses manipulate verse 1 and they say, oh, the Word was just a God. But did you know that You can show them from their own Bible, verse three, and prove to them that Jesus is not a created being, that he is almighty God. So what are the ramifications of these three verses? These three verses simply and profoundly disprove a great deal of philosophies that are prevalent in our world today. Let me share with you a few of these implications. First of all, as we've seen, there is a God that refutes atheism. Psalm 19 verse 1 tells us, the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out throughout all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun. Which as a bridegroom, coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race, his going forth is from the end of the heaven and his circuit unto the ends of it, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. All creation speaks to the fact that there is a God. And in these simple verses, we see atheism refuted. Secondly, not only is there a God, we see that there is only one God. That refutes polytheism. Many would say, yes, I believe in God. Yes, I believe in Jesus. But they also believe in other gods. They place them all on the same level. Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Brahma, all one, all OK. Just find the path that you would choose. This cannot be, for we see that there is one God by which all things came into being. Colossians 1 in verse 16 tells us for by him were all things created that are in heaven that are in earth Visible and invisible whether there be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers all things were created by him and for him We see thirdly that this one true God created all things that refutes evolution The theory of evolution tells us that we cannot be exactly sure where life on earth came from, but it somehow evolved from non-living matter, somewhere back in the eons of time. Higher life forms have evolved from lower life forms. There are any number of reasons why this is ridiculous, and I don't see how anyone could be intellectually honest and believe in evolution. But here's what it comes down to. If there is a God, and there is, And if that God communicated with man, and He did, and if that communication from God tells us the origin of life, and it does, who are we to doubt and theorize as to the origin of life? Fourthly, we see that God is distinct from His creation, and that refutes pantheism. Creation speaks to us of God, but creation is not God. God is actively involved within His creation, that is called imminence, but He is not a part of His creation, nor is He bound by His creation. There are those who espouse the philosophy that nature is to be revered and honored. My wife was telling me the other day that she pulled up a video on YouTube for my son to watch of a farmer pulling down some trees on his farm. And in the comments section, there were people criticizing the farmer for tearing down a tree. That tree has life, who are you to tear down a tree? Romans 1 in verse 25 speaks to that philosophy. says, who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature more than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. Fifthly, we see that there was a beginning to creation that refutes materialism. Some would say this physical realm is all that there is and all there ever was and all that there ever will be. Secularism, materialism. Nothing could have preexisted matter, they say. But according to John 1, all matter was created by a direct act of Jesus Christ, by his word, and he preexisted all things. We see also, sixthly, there was a purpose to creation, and that refutes fatalism. So many view the world around us and the circumstances of life as just a matter of randomness. There's no purpose in life higher than deriving as much pleasure and satisfaction as possible. Whatever happens simply happens by blind chance and nothing can be done about it. But if John 1 is true, and it is, then indeed there is a purpose to life. As we read earlier in Colossians 1 16, all things were created by him and for him. Now, we briefly have considered several philosophies and we've seen that they cannot coexist with the reality of our Lord Jesus Christ. But you know, these philosophies can all kind of be lumped together and boiled down into one worldview. And essentially what we have is two conflicting worldviews. First, there is a worldview that accepts Jesus Christ as the authority and his word is absolute truth. And then you have a worldview that rejects Jesus Christ as the authority and does not accept his word as absolute truth. Now, let's think about this for a moment and take it just a step further. If one accepts the Christian worldview as revealed in John chapter one, then he must accept the fact that there are moral absolutes. Killing, adultery, theft, et cetera, must be morally wrong. But if one rejects the Christian worldview, he has no basis for moral absolutes. And so he is left with a sense of moral relativism. What is right for me may not be what is right for someone else. And you have no final authority. If one accepts the Christian worldview, now listen carefully and don't misunderstand what I say here, please. If one accepts the Christian worldview, then he will accept cultural diversity to the extent that it does not violate scripture. Differences in language, art, and tradition may be celebrated, but there is only one true God and one source of absolute truth. But if, on the other hand, one rejects the Christian worldview, then we have to accept multiculturalism, the idea that all cultures and all religions are equal. And we as Christians cannot embrace that. If one accepts the Christian worldview, then he will be an idealist. He will recognize that there are standards of right and wrong, and the end does not justify the means. But if one rejects a Christian worldview, he will become a pragmatist. Ethics are thrown out the window, and one can do whatever seems necessary in order to obtain the desired result. If one accepts a Christian worldview, then he has hope for the future. He can look forward to the promise of eternity in heaven. But if one rejects the Christian worldview, there's no hope of the future. And so we must look to the government to form a utopian society here on earth. The result of accepting a Christian worldview is accepting an eternal perspective on life. But the result of rejecting the Christian worldview is to embrace a temporal perspective on life, living for this life and the things of this world. Now in these verses, we've seen a great deal of truth, have we not? What should we take away from this? You know, many Christians are saved But the way they live out their life is not from this Christian worldview as described in John chapter one, but rather they embrace the view of this world and they live at odds with their own nature in Christ. We need to recognize that Jesus Christ, our glorious Savior, is indeed God in human flesh. And let us recognize that as God, He is the only source of all that is good. And so may we grow in our love for Him. May we worship Him in spirit and in truth. And may we each cultivate our personal relationship with Him because that matters more than anything else in this life. Heavenly Father, thank You for Your truth. Pray that You'd take it and seal it in our hearts. May we go forward responding according to Your will. In Jesus' name we pray.