In The Beginning - Word Series

Sermon Date 02-13-2011 In The Beginning Word (Chuck Gohn)

The book of John, chapter 1. We are going to be looking at the first 18 verses. As we look at these 18 verses, what we want to be reminded of is the first 18 verses are known as the prologue to the gospel of John. A prologue is basically an introduction that kind of sets the themes for what John will be talking about in the later chapters. As we read through this, I want you to see if you can maybe identify some of those key themes that will come in the later chapters. I will be reading from the New International Version. (Scripture read here.)

What words did you hear? What are some of the words that jumped off the page that may indicate some of the themes that are coming down the road? Light. Word. Life. Darkness. Grace. Child. Born. Belief. These are the key themes that are coming down the road that you may have heard as you listened to that prologue of John. What you didn’t hear was the Christmas story. Some of the other gospels begin with the Christmas story. The story of baby Jesus and the three kings and no room at the inn and that sort of thing. It is not that John didn’t think the Christmas story is not important. It is not that he thought it was unnecessary. He thinks it is very important. In John’s gospel, instead of putting the emphasis on who Jesus was as a historical figure, he wants to put the emphasis on who Jesus is for all eternity right now and forever. John emphasis is that the readers might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. By believing, you would have life in his name. You say, Chuck, how do you know that? I say I cheated a little bit and I jumped back to the end of the book in chapter 20 where he writes “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” That is the purpose of John writing that book. We are going to be going through the entire book of John over the next several months. Although I would like to spend a lot of time on a lot of verses, unfortunately I don’t have enough time to do that, but we will read through the entire book of John. I think it is a good idea to periodically study through an entire book because some people never read through an entire book or letter in the Bible. Some of you were here several years ago when I went through the book of Ephesians and maybe a year or so ago when I went through the book of Nehemiah. I think it is good to periodically go through one of the gospel stories, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. That is where we really get to know Jesus. Why did you pick John? I say because I like the book of John. More importantly, John does a good job of convicting people to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. In a church like this, I cannot assume that everybody who comes in here has the belief in Jesus as the Son of God and more importantly that they have accepted Jesus as their Lord. Periodically, it is a good idea for myself and Chris and to a certain extent Debbie with the music to present the gospel. What better way to present the gospel than simply go through the gospel of John. For some of you who have been here for years or been a Christian for years, you may think I am already a Christian I know enough about Jesus. I would say maybe going through the book of John is going to fill in some gaps in your thinking and possibly may even convert some of you. Not necessarily convert you into a Christian or convert your belief system but maybe convert your view of God from a low view to a high view. We can be Christians for so long that our view of God starts diminishing and going down. Pretty soon what happens is the name of Jesus is just the same as it is other names. John or Bill or Jesus. Sometimes we just need some help lifting up the name of Jesus because we are told as Christians to lift the name of Jesus high like we sang in that song. Some of you are good at lifting the names of Steelers players. You have a jersey with the name of your favorite Steeler. I don’t see anybody coming in with a jersey that says Jesus. We lift the name of Steelers high that probably shouldn’t be lifted too high, but yet we won’t lift the name of Jesus high. That is what we are going to do over the next several months; try to figure out how to lift the name of Jesus a little bit higher to raise your view of Jesus.