Introduction to John's Gospel

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John, chapter one in verse one, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
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He was in the beginning with God.
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All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made in him was life and the life was the light of men.
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The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
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John, there was a man sent from God whose name was John.
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He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him.
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He was not the light that came to bear witness about the light.
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The true light, which enlightens everyone was coming into the world.
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He was in the world and the world was made through him.
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Yet the world did not know him.
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He came to his own and his own people did not receive him.
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But through all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
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And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
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And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth.
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John bore witness about him and cried out, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me ranks before me because he was before me.
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And from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace for the law was given through Moses grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
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No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the father's side.
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He has made him known.
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And so I mentioned that the gospel of John is quite different from the other three gospels in several different ways.
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The Matthew, Mark, and Luke, what are referred to as the Synoptic Gospels, begin with background information about Jesus, typically his lineage, his birth.
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John doesn't start there.
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As you heard from the reading here, he starts at an entirely different point.
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He goes way farther back than the incarnation of Christ.
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He goes all the way back to the beginning of time and really even before time as we know it began.
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He also skips over a lot of the biographical information that most of the other gospels give.
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And so there's a reason for this.
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Throughout the gospel of John, we're going to see that he's consistently advancing a theme.
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John's whole gospel points to this one thing, the deity of Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ is not only the son of God, but that he is God.
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John tells us in no uncertain terms that Jesus is the son of God and is God incarnate, but why? And here's the point I don't want you to miss tonight.
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So from the very start, I want you to look quickly at John chapter 20, because John describes himself the purpose of this gospel.
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In John chapter 20, verses 30 through 31, he says, Therefore, many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book.
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But these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.
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And so we see two distinct purposes that are unfolded in John's gospel.
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The first purpose is evangelism.
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John tells us that Jesus is God because it matters in terms of how we are to share the gospel.
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When we share the good news about Jesus Christ, the people who hear that from us have to come to one of three decisions.
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These are these were made famous by C.S.
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Lewis.
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He said that based upon what was claimed about Jesus in the Bible, he's one of three things.
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He's either a liar, he's a lunatic or he's Lord.
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And so as we present the gospel, people have to face that decision.
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And to this end, we find John presenting the gospel over and over in various ways in his in his gospel.
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He uses a word believe over 100 times.
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And in the gospel of John, and that's about twice as much as in any other gospel.
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And so it's very clear that he's trying to get across a message that's evangelistic in nature.
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There are many people who deny that Jesus is God throughout the ages.
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Most notably in our time, we're familiar with the Jehovah's Witnesses and various other groups who would deny that Jesus is actually God.
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And so this is a very common point where heresies begin in denying who Jesus really was.
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And for us to properly evangelize, to share the gospel, we have to know who it is we're sharing about.
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The second purpose for John's assertion of the deity of Jesus is apologetic in nature, and it's really tied in with the first.
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There's not a huge difference.
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If Jesus is not truly God, then our Bible, our religion, everything we believe is essentially worthless.
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We're going to see as we continue working through this gospel that John very diligently makes a defense for the faith.
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He frequently, frequently will take an aside to explain something.
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He'll explain Jewish customs and things that we might not be familiar with, which which tells us that he had a broad audience in mind when he wrote this gospel.
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For this reason, the gospel of John has been recognized as one of the most theological or spiritual of the gospels.
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And what it does is continues to set Christ in the highest place of exaltation, where he belongs as the one who has revealed God to the world.
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He is the one through whom we may have life and the one by whom we are made righteous.
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This high view of Jesus Christ is missing in so many ways today in churches all across the land.
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And even in our minds, sometimes we just we don't stop to consider who Jesus Christ really was.
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And so it's important that we set this in stone in our hearts and our minds.
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We live in a time where people are more than willing.
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Most people will admit that Jesus was a real person, that he was historically a factual person that lived.
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Some people will admit that he was a good teacher.
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They'll call him a prophet.
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Though some will even admit that he did great things.
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He did miracles that we can't explain.
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But what people won't allow is that he is God incarnate.
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And that he will be the one that will judge them for their sins, that they are held accountable.
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People don't want to hear about that, Jesus.
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But if we're if we as believers are to know the God that we claim to serve, the fullest and most complete revelation of that God to us is in Jesus himself.
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So we must look to him and know him to know God.
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And so with that, let's look to the text and we're going to just work through one verse at a time.
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And I don't know how far we'll make it tonight, but we're going to start with the first five verses here.
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I'm going to read it again just to get it fresh in our memory.
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It says, In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
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He was in the beginning with God.
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All things came into being through him.
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And apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being.
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In him was life and the life was the light of men.
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The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it.
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So the first thing we see from this text is that Jesus was preexistent before the world was created.
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And so John goes all the way back to the beginning of time in a verse that should remind us of another verse in the Bible.
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In the beginning, where do we where else do we read those words in the Bible? All the way back in Genesis chapter one.
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Right.
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The creation account begins with in the beginning.
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And so he uses that to tell us what? That Jesus Christ was there from the very beginning.
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In the beginning was the word.
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It doesn't say that in the beginning the word was created.
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It says that in the beginning was the word.
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Many false religions teach that Jesus was a created being.
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Mormonism teaches that he was a spirit brother of Lucifer.
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Jehovah's Witnesses teach that he wasn't truly God.
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But he is God.
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He's eternally existent and he's the great uncaused cause.
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That's the first thing this text asserts with all authority that in the beginning was the word.
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And so I want to look at that phrase, the word, and see really what it means, because it's it's unique to this passage of Scripture in terms of referring to Christ.
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But it's a title that's very full of meaning.
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In the Greek, it's halagos is what it's referred to, and the hot part of that is a definite article.
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Actually, it's an article.
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They don't have a definite article, but the use of that article tells us that he's referring to a specific person, not just a concept or an idea.
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We know that person to be Jesus.
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But how do we know that? Well, we know that because when we read the rest of this chapter, look what it says down in verse 14.
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And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
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And we saw his glory.
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Glory as of the only begotten from the father, full of grace and truth.
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Who else could that be but the son of God? So we're clear when he says the word, we know he's referring to Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity.
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But what does the title mean? The word itself would have carried significance to the original readers of this gospel.
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The Jews and the Gentiles, the Jews and Greeks who were contemporaries of this time, would have known this word and had meaning to it.
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The Jews would have certainly thought back to creation in the Old Testament, where several times the word of God is referred to, especially through the Proverbs.
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We hear the word of God or the wisdom of God.
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In contrast, the Greek philosophers of the day use this term to describe the impersonal idea of divine reason or divine wisdom.
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In other words, they believe there was some power that drove all things.
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They weren't sure who exactly it was, but they use this word to describe it.
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And so this term would have been very familiar to them and had significance.
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It kind of reminds me of Paul at the Areopagus when he comes along and he sees all of the different statues and idols and he sees the one to the unknown God and he proclaims to them, the God, the unknown God, let me tell you who he is.
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Both Paul and John did something unique in trying to share the gospel.
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They took terms and context and things that the people already knew and pointed them to God through those things.
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So what does he really mean when he calls Jesus the word? Well, think about something for a minute.
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I want you to take a thought in your mind.
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Think of anything, anything at all.
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I'm looking at a room of people who all have some thought in their mind right now, but I have no way of knowing what that is.
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I could guess.
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But until you put that thought into words and say something to me, I can't really conceive of it.
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And so likewise, in a sense, when he calls Jesus the word of God.
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Jesus is the revelation of God to us in him and through him, we see who God is.
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He is truly the fullness of the revelation of God.
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While in the Old Testament, God had revealed himself through shadows and signs and types, Christ came to earth and was a complete revelation of God.
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By knowing Christ, we come to know the character of God, who he is, what he does and how he does it.
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This concept is actually expressed very clearly in Hebrews chapter one.
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And if you'll turn there, I'm going to refer to it a couple of times.
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So Hebrews chapter one, the first two verses of Hebrews explain this in a really clear way.
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It says, God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways in these last days has spoken to us in his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world.
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That's going to tie direct that last portion is going to tie in as well.
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But God has spoken to us through his son, Jesus Christ, by his coming to earth and living.
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We have an example in every way of the character and nature of God and who he is.
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So let's continue in the verse.
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The first part says in the beginning was the word.
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What is the second second clause there say? It says in the word was with God.
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And so while this tells us that the father and the son were both together, more than that, it also tells us something else, that they were two distinct persons.
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It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense if I said I was with myself.
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That sentence wouldn't really mean anything.
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And so when he says that the word was with God, he's telling us not only did they abide together, but also they were two distinct persons.
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And so really, the doctrine of the Trinity is on display here in a great way.
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And we won't have time to really fully go into that.
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But what does it tell us? If we consider this in light of the rest of Scripture, we know what happened.
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Jesus came to earth.
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He lived a sinless life.
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He died at the cross.
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He was raised again.
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If we consider this passage in light of the rest of Scripture, it tells us just how great a sacrifice he made.
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Just how far he humbled himself, that he was fully God, eternally coexistent with the father and the Holy Spirit abiding together.
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Philippians 2 tells us that he existed in the form of God, but did not regard equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond servant and being made in the likeness of men.
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He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
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And so this word of God, Jesus Christ, who was fully God, humbled himself to become a man, to die on a cross for our sins.
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We say that and I really don't know if we stop and think about that.
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Do you really grasp the magnitude of what that means? Because I think often we don't, I don't think we really realize that God humbled himself to become a man to save us.
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What great love Jesus has shown to us as fallen men and humbling himself to live as a man.
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He was abiding eternally with the father, yet willingly humbled himself to become a man.
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He came and was subjected to all the same trials and temptations that we face, yet he did not sin.
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I want you to think about that the next time you start to feel self-righteous and you think about how bad other people are and how terrible this world we live in is.
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And it is, don't get me wrong.
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But if we as shameful sinners grow weary of this world around us, how much more did the very God of the universe who came to save us from sin, bear that great burden as he walked among the darkness to make a way for our salvation? How dare we become self-righteous? And so in the last portion of verse one, he establishes that Jesus is God in no uncertain terms.
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In the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the word was God.
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Not the word became God, but the word was God, always has been, always will be.
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The Greek's important here again, I don't want to kill you guys with Greek, but there's an important distinction at the end of this verse.
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It uses the term for God, which is theos, but it doesn't use the article.
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And so when the article is not used, that means rather than pointing to a specific person of the Trinity, it's referring to the essence or the being of God.
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And so it's saying that Jesus is God fully in every way, just as the Father is God and just as the Holy Spirit is God.
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And so this is the Jesus that John attempts to put on display throughout the rest of his gospel.
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And we'll continue to see the magnitude and the high view that John ascribes to Christ.
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And it should be the same high view that we hold as believers.
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Look into verse two.
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He says he was in the beginning with God.
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And it really reiterates in a sense, but also adds force to what he's already said.
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So I won't spend a whole lot of time there, but he is, again, in no uncertain terms, affirming that Jesus is God.
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In verse three, says all things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made.
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Jesus was not only present at the beginning.
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He was the very agent of creation.
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And every time we read the Genesis account where it says God said, let there be and it was and it was good.
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We see Christ at work.
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The whole story of the Bible from the very beginning points to Christ.
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He's the preeminent one.
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He's the agent of creation that we see in Genesis.
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Throughout the Old Testament, we see him as the angel of the Lord.
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And then finally, in the New Testament, we see him as the once for all sacrifice made for sin.
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He's in view again.
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We mentioned Hebrews chapter one earlier.
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Verse three continues the thought of Christ and creation and says that he's the one who upholds the universe by the world, the word of his power.
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So the word of God, the son of God, is powerful, bringing about not only creation, but also sustaining all things.
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Jesus is given a place of exaltation and honor throughout scripture.
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He should receive the same from us.
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How high is our view of Christ in verses four and five? He continues discussing this in him was life and the life was the light of men.
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The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it.
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These verses introduce us to a theme that will run throughout the rest of the gospel.
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So keep this in your mind as we go through the next six, eight, ten months, this is going to recur.
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Jesus is described as the light and the one who gives life the light.
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There is actually a title for Christ.
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Truly, Jesus is the light for those of us who live in the darkness and we're doomed to darkness apart from him.
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But what is the opposite of the light? It's darkness, which represents not only evil, but the whole of this fallen world and the sin that's overcome it.
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But it says that Christ is the source of all life.
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He's the life giver in creation, as we've already seen, just as he's the one who gives life to the sinner who's dead to the new birth.
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And so when John refers to Jesus as the light, in one sense, he's referring to his holiness and his purity, which both stood in stark contrast to the darkness and the sinfulness of the world he came into.
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When Christ came to earth and lived as a man, his his divine light shone forth as an example for us as believers.
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He's the light for our path and a lamp for our feet.
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We know how we're to live because he was an example for us.
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As believers in Christ were called to be holy, Christ displayed this force in every way as he walked upon the earth, living without sin.
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At the end of verse five, it says the light shines in the darkness and the darkness is not overcome it or comprehended it.
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This is an area where Bible translators have struggled to ascertain the exact meaning of this word in just the very early stages of my study of Greek.
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I found out very quickly that it's not always as cut and dry as we would like it to be.
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There's a there's a I have a newfound respect for the translators because sometimes there's a lot of context involved in understanding.
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And so there's still a big disagreement about exactly what this word means.
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If it's comprehend as it's translated in the New American Standard Bible, then we would understand it to represent what we already know to be true, that through Christ, that though Christ, the true son of God, came to earth to bring salvation, many people misunderstood him and rejected him.
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Even the disciples were often confused.
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They expected Jesus to establish his earthly reign by the sword.
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Others just couldn't see how this humble man could be the Messiah because their expectations about him were entirely wrong.
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Now, if we translate it as overcome as the ESV and I believe that King James does, it's still true, but it points to an entirely different reality.
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We know that the darkness did not, nor could it ever overcome the light.
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Christ was not the victim of the cross.
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Rather, he was a humble servant doing the will of the father, willingly laying down his life for the sins of the elect.
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Martin Luther referred to this concept in the Heidelberg disputation.
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He set up a dichotomy between the theology of glory.
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Which is that theology that arises from man's natural conception of who God ought to be, as opposed to the theology of the cross.
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You know, the cross is truly baffling to a natural man.
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And I think this is another one of those things that we often overlook.
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We don't really stop to think about this.
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It makes no sense to man that God Almighty, full of power, worthy of all glory, would humble himself and suffer and die to save those he created who rebelled against him.
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Think about what any earthly king do that it baffles the human mind.
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The cross is foolishness to the lost and the light that is the life of men.
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Jesus Christ has not been understood by any man apart from the work of the Holy Spirit.
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So let's move on in verses six through eight.
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He turns his attention to John the Baptist and he says, There came a man sent from God whose name was John.
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He came as a witness to testify about the light so that all might believe through him.
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He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light.
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And so after John has established who Christ is and in pretty grand fashion, he switches gears to tell us about the one who was sent to proclaim the coming Christ.
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And the most notable thing about this passage is one that I think we often overlook.
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In fact, it's very easy to do.
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The fact that there was even a need for someone to proclaim what was coming is a pretty sad condemnation of the world.
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How truly blinded are the hearts of men? The great and majestic God of the universe comes into the world and they couldn't even see it.
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Imagine somebody walks outside at noon, looks up to the sky and says, Nothing.
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They're blinded to the sun, but there was a need for one to proclaim his coming because we're all blinded by sin.
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And just as John the Baptist was sent to testify about the light that all might believe through him, so are we.
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It is our great responsibility to proclaim the gospel for all men.
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And it's one that we've failed at miserably.
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The American church has spent the last 50 or so years, maybe even longer than that, focused on any number of things besides the gospel.
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They've missed the truth of verse number eight, where he says he was not the light, but he came to testify about the light.
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So many churches today and so many Christians are more than willing to tell us about all the great things they have to offer.
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Got a great church, great programs.
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It's a lot of fun.
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These churches put on million dollar productions that would make many rock concerts look like kids play.
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Big lights, smoke machines, exciting, engaging speakers, five ways to make your life better, 10 ways to heal your marriage, your best life now and all kinds of other garbage.
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But who's proclaiming the gospel? Because that's why we're here.
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That's the point.
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The great calling of each and every believer is to proclaim Christ.
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Understand, if you're sitting here tonight and you're a believer, it is your mission to proclaim the gospel just because you're not a preacher, just because you don't stand in the pulpit or teach a Sunday school class does not excuse any of us.
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Let's look on in verses nine through 13.
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It says there was the true light which coming into the world enlightens every man.
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He was in the world and the world was made through him and the world did not know him.
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He came to his own and those who were his own did not receive him.
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But as many as received him, so then he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man.
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So this portion of the passage continues to expound on the tragedy of the previous section, that despite the fact that Jesus Christ, very God, the true light of the world came to the world to save it.
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He was rejected.
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When John says that the true light enlightens every man, we should understand he's proclaiming the universal responsibility of mankind.
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The truth of God is on display through all creation and through the conscience of man.
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But instead of drawing closer to God or seeking after God, we know that man constantly rebels.
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In fact, if we look ahead just a few chapters into John chapter three and verse 19, it says, the light is coming to the world and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
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That's the problem with your secret sensitive church.
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People love the darkness.
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They don't want to find the light.
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Only by the Holy Spirit working upon the heart of an unbeliever do they turn.
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And so our job is to proclaim the gospel.
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John tells us that the very God who was in the world and created the world was ignored, overlooked and rejected, says he came to his own.
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Who's he referring to there? Well, in one sense, the whole world was his own, right? He did create the world.
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He's established that pretty clearly in this passage.
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But more specifically, he came to his people, the Israelites, and was rejected by them.
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He was the promised Messiah.
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They waited for it speculatively, but he didn't fulfill their expectations.
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And so instead, they shunned him.
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And instead of accepting him, they crucified him.
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And so it's been a long swath of bad news here.
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All the way back from, you know, verse nine that people denied Christ, but it does turn.
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We see good news in chapter 12 or in verse 12.
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Sorry, we see that not all people rejected him.
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There were some who believed.
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Says in verse 12 that those who received him were given the right to become children of God.
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This is the gift of salvation that we proclaim to all people.
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Believe in the name of Jesus Christ and be saved.
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Repent and believe.
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We're going to see that throughout this book as well.
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We know that this does not mean just mere intellectual sin, for that's a heresy, but rather a belief that leads to repentance.
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And John continues to explain in this passage the source of this salvation or how it can occur.
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We know man is totally depraved.
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That's been taught from this pulpit more times than I can count.
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And it's the truth and bears repeating because people tend to forget it.
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And depraved man can do nothing to please God of his own accord.
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Romans 311 says no one seeks God.
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Again, your seeker sensitive church doesn't work.
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So if none seek God, how can anyone believe in him? Well, verse 13 clarifies for saying those who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
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See, it's not from a natural birth as if being born into a family of believers makes you saved or being born an Israelite.
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Right.
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Not all Israelites.
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It's not by our will that we become believers either.
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How could we will ourselves will ourselves to salvation when we're eternally bound to sin? If all we can do is sin all day, every day, how can we suddenly turn from death to life of our own accord? We are morally unable to seek God, but rather the verse tells us at the very end that it is of God we are born.
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God sovereignly acts in salvation.
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If it was our choosing, then we would have something to boast about.
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But Scripture is very clear that we have nothing to boast of because salvation is of the Lord.
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It's a work performed by God and not man.
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And so despite the vast rejection of Christ when he came to earth, we see that there are those who are saved by God.
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There's a remnant and we'll actually see this dichotomy as a guide to the rest of John's gospel.
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He's going to spend the first 12 chapters dealing with those who've rejected Christ.
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And then in chapter 13, there's a turn and the remainder of the gospel of John will focus on those who've received Christ.
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And so we'll follow that through as we flesh this out over the next weeks.
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But as we draw to a close, I want you to consider a couple of things.
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I want you to consider Christ, the son of God.
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Not in the way we may have conceived him in our minds, but as John has presented him here.
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Each and every one of us was created through him and we owe all glory and honor to him.
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But we've all failed and sin miserably and we continue in our sin apart from him.
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But Christ didn't leave us in our fallen state.
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Rather, he humbled himself to make a way for salvation.
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He died to pay the price for sin.
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And we're all called to repent and believe in him for salvation.
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If you're here tonight and you haven't done that, I would urge you repent of your sins and believe in Christ for salvation.
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If you're here and you're a believer, I would encourage you to consider Christ the one who is fully God and fully man.
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And remember not only what he has done for you, but his position of exaltation.
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He's our great high priest and worthy of all our praise.
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He's our example and our strength.
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And we're to live after the example he's placed before us.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you again for this opportunity tonight.