Jesus Is Worthy Of Worship Series

INTRODUCTION

• SLIDE #1

• Can you believe that it is almost Christmas time! Where did the year go?

• I love Christmas time; it is a wonderful time of the year for many reasons.

• We get to celebrate the birth of Jesus, we get to spend time with family, and we get to give and receive gifts!

• A big reason I love Christmas is that we have the opportunity to focus this holiday on Jesus. WE get the opportunities to tell people about our great Lord that we may not get at other times of the year.

• We have a lot of things trying to take the place of Jesus on Christmas.

• Christians need to know that Jesus is worthy of us trying to keep Him front and center all the time but especially on a holiday that is designed to celebrate His birth.

• During Christmas we see Jesus as a harmless cute baby in a manger. Jesus is far more than that.

• Over the next three weeks we are going to answer the question, “Why Is Jesus So Special?”

• Today I hope that we can see that Jesus is worthy of our worship. Jesus is not just some figure of history, He is not some mythical figure, and He is indeed someone special who deserves our worship.

• My prayer is that each of us will see Jesus as more than an ordinary baby, that we see Him for who He is and that we will allow Him to grow up.

• Let’s look to John 1:1-5. We will begin in verses 1-2

• SLIDE #2

• John 1:1-2(ESV) 1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God.

• Fist let us observe that…

• SLIDE #3

SERMON

Jesus is worthy of worship because…

I. Jesus is God! (1-2)

• As we look at verses 1-2 we will gain some important insights concerning why Jesus is so special.

• It is one thing to call someone God, but it is another thing to have some evidence of that claim and title.

• We see a couple of things concerning Jesus in these two verses.

• SLIDE #4

A. Jesus pre-existed with the Father.

• Notice the phrase “in the beginning” in verse 1.

• This is reminiscent of Genesis 1:1 where we are told that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

• The question is then “when is IN THE BEGINNING”?

• The phrase represents the starting point for time.

• There was eternity past, then creation marks time as we know it now and the second coming will mark eternity once again.

• God pre-existed time, He as some call Him, is the uncaused first cause.

• Before the heavens and earth were created, God existed.

• From verses 1-2 we see that Jesus, The Word was with God in the beginning making Him pre-existent also!

• We see from John 1:14 that the title, ‘the Word refers to Jesus.

• SLIDE #5

• John 1:14(ESV) 14And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

• The concept of the Word (logos) is one saturated with meaning for both Jews and Greeks.

• To the Greek philosophers, the logos was the impersonal, abstract principle of reason and order in the universe.

• It was in some sense a creative force, and also the source of wisdom. The average Greek may not have fully understood all the nuances of meaning with which the philosophers invested the term logos. Yet even to laymen the term would have signified one of the most important principles in the universe.

• To the Greeks John presented Jesus as the personification and embodiment of the logos.

• Unlike the Greek concept, however, Jesus was not an impersonal source, force, principle, or emanation. In Him, the true logos who was God became a man—a concept foreign to Greek thought. (John MacArthur Jr. Commentary)

• The title the Word was used in Jewish writings to refer to the Messiah. John employs this title to catch the attention of both the Jews and the philosophers.

• The WORD they had heard of will be explained to them and embodied by Jesus!

• SLIDE #6

• B. Jesus is co-equal with the Father.

• Verse 1 flat out tells us that the WORD WAS GOD, but earlier in the passage we seesomething in the original text that we miss in the English translations.

• The phrase “was with God” means far more than merely that the Word existed with God; it “[gives] the picture of two personal beings facing one another and engaging in intelligent discourse” (W. Robert Cook, The Theology of John [Chicago: Moody, 1979], 49).