Why Christmas Matters

I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to John chapter 1 and hold your place at verse 1.

It is fortuitous in the providence of God that we find ourselves at this text this morning as we look forward to this

Wednesday again celebrating the traditional day of or observing the traditional day of the celebration of the incarnation.

And every year this time is marked by the familiar.

We often spend time with the same people, retelling the same stories, singing the same songs, eating the same food, watching the same movies, and doing the same activities as we have every other year.

Radio stations begin around Thanksgiving time playing 24 hours of Christmas music and anytime you want you can turn on a certain radio station and be bombarded with not necessarily great

Christmas music but at least something to do with the season. Certain television stations will play the same

Christmas movie for 24 hours straight and you can turn it on at any point and see the

Red Ryder BB gun story or those movies which are very common and very familiar and they are a part of the tradition of the season.

And I think that part of the reason why we are so given to the familiar is because it is in the familiar that we often find comfort.

We find comfort in consistency. We find comfort in tradition.

And there's really nothing wrong with that. There's something ingrained in us where we are comforted by things that we know and when something happens that we are not familiar with or something that is inconsistent, it strikes us.

It's odd to us. We don't seem to enjoy it as much when things are not as consistent and I was thinking this week just about how things have changed as I've gotten older and sometimes you long for those familiar times, those traditions of the past.

Well the reason why I'm talking this morning about the subject of tradition and consistency is because in keeping with the idea of consistency,

I want to say that this morning's message will probably contain very little that will be new to you.

In fact, if you are a person who has been a part of this church for any length of time, year, two years, three years, these will all be things you have probably heard me say or one of our other elders or teachers in this church say before.

Because we're going to be talking this morning about the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ and about the incarnation of God.

And these are subjects, again, which we have talked about on many occasions.

I've written a book on the Trinity, our academy classes teach on the doctrine and theology of God on many occasions, have talked about the

Trinity. I just finished a course on the early church, eight weeks, so we looked at the first four centuries of the church and how the church was debating and developing the doctrines which related to the divinity of Christ.

And I've given sermons on this very passage several times in the past. In fact,

I've walked through every word of our passage today in previous sermons.

So again, we are today engaging in the familiar. But what we mustn't do is we mustn't allow the familiar to cause us to lose our sense of awe and wonder of what it is we're studying.

Like the communion table, which we choose to participate in every

Lord's Day, it is possible that that can become common and it is possible that it can lose its sense of awe.

But only if we allow it to do so. Only if we allow familiarity to produce a sense of lackadaisicalness or familiarity to cause us to lose our sense of wonder will that happen.

So my encouragement to you this morning is as we engage in these sublime truths which we have heard over and over and over again, let us be moved in our hearts and in our minds toward a fresh, a fresh understanding, a, as it were, hearing for the first time.

Because what we are going to read in today's text is nothing less than astounding.

No matter how many times we read it, no matter how many times we study it, no matter how often we look at this text, it goes far beyond what the mind can comprehend.

It dives into the wondrous mystery of the incarnation and the nature of our triune

God. It leaves us, if we allow it, a sense of weightiness to which no other subject can even come close.

And I'm not saying all this to build up something that just needs to be built up.

This text by itself is already built up. I'm just reminding us, let us not allow the familiar to become the mundane.

But let us enter in again to our study of this text with the awe and reverence due to this text.

And with that being said, let's stand and read. And we're going to read verses 1 to 3, and then we are going to jump down to verse 14.

And so John begins the gospel that he wrote with these words.

In the beginning was the Word, and the

Word was with God, and the Word was

God. He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

And now we find our place at verse 14. And the

Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

And we have seen his glory, glorious of the only begotten

Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name, as we come to you, we come to you in and through, and for the sake of the name of the

Lord Jesus Christ. Father, as I seek to give an understanding of this passage, as I seek to proclaim the wondrous mysteries of the incarnation of the

Son of God, I pray right now, Lord, in this hour, that you would keep me from error.

For O Lord, I am a fallible man. I am capable of false teaching.

And for the sake of your name, for the sake of my conscience, for the sake of your people,

Lord, protect me from false teaching. I pray that you would open up the eyes, ears, and hearts of everyone listening to this sermon.

To the believer, Lord, I pray that this would be a review of something that is already known, but a freshness of awe regarding what is known.

But Lord, for the one who does not know these truths and has maybe struggled with these truths,

I pray, Lord, that today we would pinpoint the areas that need to be focused upon and that we would find this truth to be an everlasting and sublime reality.

And for the unbelievers, Lord, whether they be young or old, whether they be man or woman, child,

Lord, I pray that they would see who the Lord Jesus Christ is and that they would come to love him, that they would come to trust him, that they would repent of their sin of unbelief, and that they would trust in Christ today.

We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Last week, we began our new study.

As in our pulpit ministry, it is common and is our common practice to preach through books of the

Bible. Having just finished the book of 2 Corinthians, we are now making our way into the gospel of John.

And so, as is my tradition, as is my custom, last week, the first week that we look at a new book, we give an overview of the book and a context regarding the author, the purpose, and the theological insights that are contained in the book.

So if you were not here last week and you have not yet listened to the message, it would be a good thing for you to go back and listen to that so that you are caught up to speed on what this book is about, who wrote it, and the purpose for which it was written.

And as we noted last week, the book of John, the gospel of John, can be divided, subdivided into two main parts.

The first part, chapters 1 through 12, give us the ministry, the public ministry of the

Lord Jesus Christ. It is subdivided into seven specific miracles that John outlines throughout that first half of the book, and it culminates in the triumphal entry there in chapter 12.

Then beginning at chapter 13 and moving to chapter 17, John gives us the private exhortation of Christ to his apostles in the upper room, what we call the upper room discourse.

And then it culminates in this final moments of Jesus Christ being taken by force, led to the cross, nailed to the cross, where he gives up the ghost and provides an atonement for sin.

Then he is buried, and three days later rises from the grave. And so John's gospel in many ways mirrors the other gospels, and yet in other ways is completely different than the other gospels.

It mirrors the gospels in that there is no substantial change to the story of Christ.

There is no inconsistency or there is no contradiction between John's account and the other accounts, but yet there is a much different focus in John's account.

The other three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we call the synoptic gospels because their stories are very similar to one another.

Synoptic means to view together, and so we look at those gospels and we see a lot of the same stories told the same way and in essentially the same order.

But when we get to John's gospel, we see different stories. About 90 % of John's gospel is unique to John.

And so many of the stories that we become accustomed to in the other gospels are not found in John.

We read of John the Baptist, but not of Jesus' baptism. We read of Jesus' miracles, but we read not of his parables.

We read of the upper room, but not of the institution of the table. All of these things are interesting when we follow

John's gospel because we know John is focused upon the divinity of Christ, but there's no mention of the transfiguration.

So it's interesting to find in John's gospel things that we become accustomed to in the other gospels and yet missing in this gospel.

Not missing in the sense that they're somehow lost to time, but John chooses to focus on other areas of Christ's being, nature, and life.

And the main focus is given to us in what's known as John's prologue.

John's gospel has a prologue and an epilogue, meaning a part that comes before to set the stage, an overture for the book, and then it concludes with an epilogue, which is to draw everything to a conclusion and to tell us the purpose.

And the purpose, of course, we read last week was that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the

Son of God, and by believing, you may have life in his name.

And so over the next few weeks, it's going to be my job to unpack this tremendous epilogue, these first 18 verses of John's gospel, and to show that it is, in fact, the on -ramp or the overture to the entire letter.

And what's amazing about this prologue, these first 18 verses, is that they are intended in many ways to provide us a view of the relationship between Jesus and all other things.

In fact, if you were to simply outline the first 18 verses, you'll find it's one after the next, after the next, after the next of relationships.

His relationship to time, he was in the beginning. His relationship to divinity, he was with God and he was

God. His relationship to creation, all things were made through him and nothing that was made was not made by him.

His relationship to man, he is coming to the world and the world does not know him.

His relationship to John, John is his forerunner who comes before him.

His relationship to Israel, he came unto his own and his own did not receive him.

His relationship to the flesh, the word became flesh.

His relationship to Moses, the law came through Moses and grace and truth came through Jesus.

And his relationship to his purpose, he has come to give an exegesis of the father.

He has come to make him known. This is the prologue of John.

It's about how this person who John identifies as the word relates to all the other things both in heaven and on earth.

This outline, this prologue is all about this word.

And so we begin before we dive into the weeks ahead, we begin with what can only be described as the prologue of the prologue.

The on ramp to the on ramp and that is verse 1.

And we will unpack these tremendous truths and limit ourselves as much as we can only to these first three verses in verse 14.

And I will admit I'm not going to completely exegete verse 14 today, but only simply show how verse 14 brings together verses 1 to 3 into a culmination of what happens in time versus what happens outside of time.

And this is one of those times where, as it were, I truly wish

I were teaching a class because when

I preach and there is a distinction, preaching is teaching and oftentimes teaching involves preaching.

If you've ever watched Mike teach Sunday school, it dives into preaching. So it's there, but there is some distinction and you know me,

I am most happy when I'm in front of a board as I can then pull out the marker and draw connections and things.

I won't be doing that this morning and for some reason I've lost my connection even to my iPad so I won't even be able to put up my screens, but you can do that for me, can't you?

If I ask you for a screen? Thank you. Well, I'll tell you when. Okay. Actually, that one's fine.

Go back to it. You did good. We'll do that because we're going to walk through John 1 .1

and the lion's share of our time today is going to be spent in John 1 .1.

John 1 .1 is made up of three parts and therefore when studying or teaching through this first verse of John's gospel, it is often described as the three clauses and if you outline it, it's clause one, clause two, clause three or John 1 .1a,

John 1 .1b and John 1 .1c and the outline is as follows.

In the beginning was the word. That's John 1 .1a. That's the first clause and clause b, and the word was with God.

That's clause b and then the final clause 1 .1c and the word was

God and every single word of this passage deserves careful consideration.

In fact, of all the verses of the Bible, save possibly John 3 .16, this is one of those passages where literally when we study it, you can stop at every single word and talk about its significance.

Every preposition, every noun, every verb, all of these things culminate in this sublime and powerful awesome truth and so that is my intention today is to look at every word of John 1 .1

and to hopefully show why John has constructed it the way that he has, what truths he is intending to convey and how important these truths are to the

Christian faith. The first word that I want us to consider in this study is not the first word in the sentence because it is sometimes important before you begin looking at the sentence one word at a time to look at the word that is in the place of prominence in this passage and the word that is in the place of prominence in this passage is the word word.

The word word and that just sounds funny so this I'm going to use logos just because it's it'll help me when

I'm saying the word logos. This is the Greek word for our word and we use it all the time in English.

It makes its way into English in words like logic. That comes from logos.

It makes its way into all of the words that we use for studying things.

When we talk about biology that's the study logos of life bios anthropology that's the study of man anthropos and we can go through all of our ologies geology study of the earth or the ground right all of those things are with a root and then a suffix and the suffix is taken from this word logos but when we get to this word and we see it's used three times here and the beginning was the word that's the first time and the word was with God that's the second time and the word was

God that's the third time every in these three clauses they each center and focus upon the word giving us a different aspect of this word this logos we have to step back and ask ourselves why is it that John chooses to use logos in the opening passage of his text rather than simply using

Jesus because I don't know if any of you are going to disagree but the logos is

Jesus because in verse 14 it says the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory the glory of the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth that's obviously referring to the

Lord Jesus the second person of the Trinity the only begotten son of God that's the word we know who he is by the definition and we know that it's referring to he because verse two specifically says he was in the beginning so it goes from the somewhat nebulous word to the personal he immediately in verse two so why would

John use logos and he does why would

John use logos to refer to Jesus in this gospel and even in his epistles why would he use logos well if you know anything about commentaries you'll know that commentary writers love to speculate and there's probably not a subject that has been more speculated upon than the reason why

John chooses logos to define Jesus I think it's fair to say that much ink has been spilled and probably even more than is necessary over why

John chooses logos for Jesus I want to give you two thoughts for the use of logos for Christ and I want you to consider these from the two audiences which would have received

John's letter John writes to an audience of both

Hebrew and Hellenistic populations and the

Hebrew population would have certainly understood the word of God in the context of the

Old Testament scriptures what do we understand about the word of God from the Old Testament scriptures the word of God is associated with God's action in the world it's associated with his creation it's associated with his revelation it's associated with his redemption it's associated with his wisdom

Psalm 33 6 says by the word of the

Lord the heavens were made go back in your mind with me to Genesis what does

Genesis say God did to create the world that he mulled with his hands no he spoke with his word we call that the divine fiat and fiat is not a car well it was but that's the word fiat means the proclamation or decree the word the spoken word

God says let there be and there was and so logos and the mind of the

Hebrew who has the Hebrew scriptures who has read the Hebrew scriptures would hear the term word and as it applies to God would understand this is the revelation and the creative power and the exposure of God's self he is the word his word is him he speaks and it is it's related to his redemption

Psalm 107 verse 20 he sent his word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions it's related to his revelation what are the prophets often proceed their prophecies with thus sayeth the word the

Lord the word of the Lord to these people the word of the Lord to that people so within the

Hebrew culture there's an understanding of this idea of the word of God and what

John is doing is he's personalizing this word he's identifying this word as person and as I mentioned there is also the

Hellenistic culture Hellenistic simply meaning the Greek culture and within the

Greek culture there was somewhat of a different understanding of the logos the logos and Greek culture was associated with the rational principle that gives order and structure to the universe again this comes back to the way we use the word logos in the word logic when we say something is logical what do we mean it's rational when we say something is logical we're saying it it fits the mold of purpose and and right if we say something's illogical we're saying it's not right it doesn't make sense it's contradictory 600 years before Jesus a man by the name of Heraclitus identified the logos in Greek philosophy as that which underlied rational order and it was a force that gave the universe its structure it was the rational principle that ordered all things so when the

Hellenistic mind the Greek mind hears the word logos it looks at the world around it and it says yes we know the logos the logos is the reason why all things are orderly it's the reason why all things are rational in fact

I would point this out to you one of the greatest arguments for existence is that we live in a universe of order and not chaos we live in a universe that has rules we call them laws and these laws are immutable today water will freeze at the same temperature that it will freeze at tomorrow it will boil at the same temperature that it boils at tomorrow certain things are consistent throughout the universe and they're consistent for the purpose of giving us a universe that can be not only lived in and enjoyed but also understood and predicted

God's Word in Romans chapter 1 says it is that very order that tells us that God exists it says that the man who can look at the world and can see the world with its order and structure and all of its consistency and say there is no

God has suppressed the truth in unrighteousness isn't that what it says doesn't it say that when we look at the universe of the world through the we can know

God exists because of the things that have been made because there is logic and order in the universe and the

Greeks saw this law this order this logic as a as a force but John says it's not a force it's not some nebulous idea it's not like the

Star Wars fiction which says all things are run from the force where there's a positive force the good light of the force and the negative the dark of the force it's it's not as if that's the way the universe runs and by the way that's based on Eastern mysticism because they believe in a positive and a negative type of force that governs the universe they call it

Chi they say there's the positive Chi and the negative Chi and the goal is not for the positive to outweigh the negative but to balance the two to find a balance between the positive and the negative and this is why when you go to the person who puts the needles in your flesh and they're sticking those needles in your flesh they're saying what they're doing is they're trying to balance out this cosmic energy which exists inside of you beloved

John is speaking of the

Logos to his hearers and he's saying the Logos is not a force the

Logos the the the logical rational structural that brings all things together is not a thing he is a person which gives order to the universe is not a nebulous force he is a personal

God and so as John uses this word

Logos he is appealing both to those who know the word of the

God who exists and those who simply know of this word that is supposed to bring the rational out of the chaotic and he's saying all of this is in this person who we call the word but what do we know about this person what do we know about this word three things in this passage that we know one we know that he is pre -existent we see that in the first part of this verse the first clause in the beginning was the word now as I said every single word of this verse has meaning that is important the preposition in which is in Greek is easy because it's the same in it's spelled different epsilon new instead of I in but it's still said the same means the same and what's interesting is the original

Greek does not say in the beginning but rather it simply says in RK RK is the word for beginning but there's no definite article attached to the word beginning we include the definite article in the

English because it makes sense for us it would sound very odd if we simply said in beginning if we simply said in beginning that would be an odd way for us to translate this word and yet in the

Greek that's essentially what it says and by doing that by going immediately to RK from the preposition in in RK from the preposition to the point of the focus of the preposition which is

RK he's saying in beginning and you say what beginning what beginning is in view well beloved there are a lot of beginnings we could say the beginning of your life that was a beginning we could say the beginning of this church service that was a beginning we could say the beginning of the year coming next week we're going to celebrate the beginning of a new year throughout the

Bible we see the word beginning all through this is the beginning of this this is the beginning of that this is the beginning of the other but when the word in RK is used in this way without a qualifier without the article but rather simply in beginning it is identifying the beginning that needs no explanation it is identifying the beginning of all things where do we find that phrase

Genesis 1 1 and what's interesting about that and I hope you don't think this is

I hope you're with me on this I hope you I hope you don't find this boring this to me is some of the most exciting parts of the

Bible it's somewhat scholastic but it's still important to us because it drives our understanding of who this is it says in the beginning in the

Greek in RK in the Hebrew bear a sheath but here's the interesting bear a sheath is translated into Greek by the

Septuagint Septuagint the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible translated 200 years before Jesus how does the translators of the

Septuagint translate bear a sheath in RK so the way that the whole

Bible begins in RK in the beginning God created

John takes that same prepositional phrase in RK in the beginning what's the word he uses the phrase was remember

I said every word every single word of this verse is important because when we get to the word was we find ourselves with a use of a verb that is very important because the word was is what we call a be verb if you don't remember this from school a be verb is a verb that is intended to describe being is those are all be

I be I be I was I were I is all of these are it's all forms of that idea of being and the

Greek the word is a me Jesus will use a phrase throughout the gospel he'll say

I am that's present tense use of the verb

I am the way I am the truth I am the life but this form in the imperfect tense describes continuing action in the past reinforcing the idea that the word did not come into being in the beginning but rather that the word already was in the beginning that's the key it isn't saying in the beginning the word was made in fact there is a word for that the word you know my means to become and that's the word when it says the word became flesh you know my because that was an action that took place in time the word has not always been flesh but the word became flesh and dwelt among us but in the beginning the word did not become in the beginning the word already was this is speaking of his pre -existence and eternality in the beginning the word already was you understand there are those who argue that Jesus Christ the word of God was the first creation of God in fact next week

I'm going to reinforce this message by teaching a lesson it's a historical lesson so I hope you come back but I'm going to give a history lesson on what the major false teachings of Christ were in the first four centuries of the church from dosa tism to arianism to modalism all the way down to the monophysite heresy all of those things were different ways that Christ's nature has been misunderstood and corrected by the church those are important and one of the errors which is still held to in groups like the

Jehovah's Witnesses is that Jesus Christ has not always existed the word has not always existed but that he came into being in the beginning that God creates

Jesus and then he uses Jesus to create everything else if you read the

Jehovah's Witness translation of the Bible the New World translation they say that they say he created all other things because he himself is created they'll say he was created by the father and then he was used by the father to create all other things

John 1 1 does not support that assertion John 1 1 on the other hand supports that in the beginning the word already was y 'all

I am I'm not even through the first clause I just looked at the clock this is

I like this verse maybe I just have to finish tonight

I had planned on doing verses four and five tonight maybe maybe not John 1 1 in the beginning the word already was in the beginning was the word the second clause of John 1 1 and the word was with God I think

I say prostante on and the word was with God that phrase becomes for us something that must be considered beyond our comprehension but yet something that we are to believe because the

Bible says it because what that second clause of John 1 1 does and the word was with God what the second clause does is it distinguishes the word the logos from the chaos

God it distinguishes the word from God and yet in the third clause it's going to say and the word was

God a seeming contradiction and and and some could even consider it a contradiction if John didn't put them in the very same verse because one would seem to be opposed to the other how can someone someone and yet still be that one

I am convinced that the reason why false religions and cults exist regarding the nature of Jesus is because they try to fit their understanding of the nature of Christ into a mold which to them fits their understanding and this is beyond our understanding this is as we must hold a sublime truth that is mysterious and yet still true that is not to say we can't understand what it's saying but it is to say that we cannot fully comprehend all that it is saying because to take all of the truth of who

God is and put it into our feeble minds would be like taking the entire Atlantic Ocean and putting it inside of a

Lowe's bucket it just doesn't fit now that does not mean that we should not search out the truths that God has provided for us that doesn't mean we should abandon all things to the to the box of mystery and just say we have no idea no we can know what it is saying and what it's not saying but we cannot fully embrace everything in our mind because our minds become overwhelmed by the solemnity of the truth so when it says the word was with God it is denoting the relationship between the word and the divine the word and God and it is expressing an idea of both presence and fellowship so for a moment

I want you to consider this when I say someone is with someone else that doesn't always denote fellowship for instance if I go to an office building and I step on an elevator it can be rightly said that if there's another person in that elevator

I am with that person in the elevator but if I am not in fellowship with that person if I don't even know who that person is though I am with them presence

I am not with them in fellowship and so when this word with is used it is used along with a definite article which leads to the word chaos or they on in this sense it says he is prostate on which means that he is with in the idea not only of presence but also relationship with God very similarly when we read in the

Bible we read about men like Enoch what did he not do he walked with God it expresses relationship so what it's saying about the word it was saying it's saying in the first clause it is saying this word is pre -existent but it is also telling us that this word is in relationship with God now it's important at this point to define who this

God is when John uses the word chaos or the chaos is simply another construction of the same word when

John uses chaos he is speaking of the God of Israel he is speaking of the one true and living

God there are no other gods there are not micro gods and mini gods there are not we do not believe in a polytheistic

God we believe in one God and the Logos is in relationship with this one

God the Logos is in fellowship with this one God he is face to face with this one

God prostantion toward God or face to face with God this speaks of the distinction of the word and God but not separation just distinction now why would

I stress that because in a moment it's going to say the word was God this is why

I believe and I am convinced in my heart that understanding the doctrine of the

Trinity is absolutely essential to understanding what

John is referring to because only through the doctrine of the Trinity do we arrive at the conclusion that God is one in his essence but three and his person and these three persons co -equal co -eternal and distinct are able to share the being of God absolutely perfectly and be in fellowship with one another distinct from one another and yet not divided from one another this is what the

Trinity teaches there is one God there are three persons who are called

God these three persons are co -equal co -eternal distinct the word is with God because he's distinct and the third clause the word was

God I wish

I had a board because if there's ever been a verse that has been manhandled misused and mistreated it's the last phrase of John 1 1

John 1 1 C one of the ways that it is mishandled and misused is by those who say the word was a

God let me tell you what you can do with that you can call it whatever you want to call it it is baloney the word was a

God FF Bruce great commentator of Scripture said there's nothing proven by writing a

God other than your lack of understanding of Greek grammar actually what he said was they prove nothing by adding the indefinite article other than their ignorance of Greek grammar and as I said as I love to talk about grammar and talk about how words work together this final phrase is an interesting phrase all by itself it's a word that has two words and what are called the subject form or what's called the nominative case nominative in Greek is subject in English when we talk about the subject in the predicate we usually define subject and predicate by word order if I say the boy threw the ball what's the subject the boy but if I say the ball was thrown by the boy what then becomes the subject the ball it's the word order defines the subject and the predicate but in the

Greek language that's not how the construction works and the

Greek language the subject in the predicate of the sentence you can have two words that are both in the case of the subject but the focus or the subject is defined by the article and in this frame by the way article simply means the word the or a in English what do we have

V defines a definite article A defines an indefinite article so if I say

Dale he just dropped his head let me go to somebody else if I said

Dale you are that means that Dale is a man among other men he's a man indefinite article that does not exist in the

Greek language there is no indefinite article rather they have the definite article if I say

Dale you're the man the can be good or bad because if I mean you're the man

I've been looking for then that's not good but if I say you're the man that's positive but either way by using the definite article

I'm defining Dale as the only man to look at he's the man versus a man and the argument goes like this the

Greek says and God was the word and the word there has the definite article which makes it the subject which is why we put the subject at the beginning in English we say the word was

God and they said well the word God doesn't have the article so the word God needs an article and because it doesn't have the definite article it needs the indefinite article and I know some of you guys have already gone

I'm out don't go because the next time those people show up on crap upon your chamber door and they tell you

Jesus is not the God he is a God and here's where I'm gonna prove it because right here this is proof because you have to put the indefinite article there that's not correct because there's three ways to understand it now you can understand it quantitatively as the you can understand it quantitatively as a which is definite and indefinite or you can understand a noun as qualitatively and that's where if I said

Dale you are man because what I mean then

I'm speaking of your nature I'm not saying you're a man among other men and I'm not saying you're the man as opposed to other men but I'm saying you are man by nature and when the text says it is saying the word was

God by nature that is his quality that's the point the word is in fellowship with God and the word bears the nature of God that's what

John is accomplishing in this verse he's saying before everything existed the word already existed so he's outside of time and the word was in fellowship with God so he's in relation with the

God of the universe and he bears the nature of the God of the universe and why does he bear the nature of the

God of the universe because he is that God beloved the solemnity of this truth cannot be lost and understated or overstated it's it's completely fascinating to step back and say in the beginning was the word was with God and the word was

God and guess what guess what we know about that word he became flesh he took on flesh and dwelt among us

God walked on this earth because he took on flesh and tabernacled among us that's why we celebrate

I love the nativity story I love the story of Mary and Joseph going to Bethlehem I love the humility of the incarnation story where Jesus is born and laid in a feeding trough

I love the humility of the

God of all the universe coming into the world not through Kings chambers but through cattle stalls

I love the story of him being not bowed to by Kings but by shepherds

I love the story of angels making his birth known and wise men making their way to bring him gifts

I love those stories but the undergirding of those stories is that God became man the word became flesh that's why it all matters that's why we celebrate the word became flesh beloved that's worth celebrating

John's gospel focuses on three very important truths three very important words rather the word truth is all throughout

John's gospel the word love is all throughout

John's gospel and the word believe is all throughout

John's gospel Jesus said I am the truth

Jesus says love me and if you love me you'll do what you keep my commandments and he says whoever believes on me will have everlasting life friends that is my encouragement to you today he who is the word of God he who became flesh and dwelt among us he is the truth do you love him today have you placed your faith in him today if so you have every reason to celebrate but if not you have every reason to evaluate why why is it that I have not placed my faith in the one who came the word of God who became flesh and walked among us why have we not trusted in him if you have trusted in him we're gonna participate in the table you don't have to be a member of this church but you do have to be a member of the body of Christ and if you are a member of another church in good standing with that church if you are you are welcome to participate as we remember that body and blood he became flesh and that flesh was broken for us and that flesh is reminded to us in this bread and cup but if you're not a believer now is time for you to examine yourself and ask why

I've heard the truth of who Christ is oh well

I respond to him let us pray father may it be that now as we consider what it means to be unified with one another in communion and with this one who was the word made flesh may it be

O God that now our hearts are unified in the participation of communion as we consider every word of John 1 1 in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was