A New Beginning

A New Beginning

Many people search for a new beginning. When life goes wrong, when we regret our past, we hope for new circumstance. Jesus is the only true way to a new beginning. In fact the coming of Jesus Christ changed our history whether for better, as we accept Him, or for worse if we reject Him. This is a sermon on redemption.

John 1:1-18

John 1:1-18 is about "A New Beginning" Simply and briefly, that with the coming of our Lord, God begins a new, and in fact, final stage in His redemptive plan. God had been working throughout history to redeem His people, this is what we call "redemptive history." And "redemptive history" began after the Fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve in the Garden. He began then to be gracious in redeeming a people for His own namesake. He continued it through a totally depraved world, bring only 8 people through the Flood to repopulate the earth. He continued this plan through Abraham, a pagan living in a land of utter idolatry. He continued it through Israel, a stiff-necked and stubborn people, who almost immediately after seeing God's great redeeming act, the Exodus, tested the LORD and worshipped the golden calf. He continued it through a divided, idolatrous, and unworthy nation during the days of the kings. He continued it in the Captivity in Babylon and through the rebuilding of the Second Temple in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah.

But now!, John says God is beginning anew!! All that has gone before was Gods gracious purpose throughout history, but it was incomplete. For it is only complete in Christ! As Christ says in Psalm 40:7, "Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of Me." As He says in John 5:39 to the Pharisees, "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me." Beloved in the Lord, with the coming of Christ, God ends the old order of things. Hebrews 1:1-2 teaches this as well, "God who in a partial way spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets has in the last of these days spoken to us in the Son." And in Hebrews 3:5-6 where Moses was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things to come; but Christ as Son over His house. And the beloved Apostle shows that God has begun a new beginning in redemptive history with three major themes in 1:1-18.

1. This New Beginning Surpasses the First Creation (1-5, 9-13)

Look at these comparisons of John 1 and Genesis 1.

"In the beginning God" (Gen 1:1) "In the beginning was the Word" (Jn 1:1).

"Created the heavens and the earth" (Gen 1:1) ñ "All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made" (Jn 1:3), "He was in the world, and the world was made through Him" (Jn 1:10).

"Then God said, Let there be light; and there was light" (Gen 1:3) "And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it" (1:5), "The true Light, which gives light to every man, was coming into the world" (Jn 1:9).

"Then God said, Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures" (Gen 1:20) "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men" (Jn 1:4). "Then God said, Let Us make man in Our image according to Our likeness" (Gen 1:26a) "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God" (Jn 1:12).

A. Christ is the Head of the New Beginning/Creation (1-3, 10)

By drawing from Genesis 1, John wants to show us how in Christ this new beginning is even more glorious. As we read in Genesis 1:3 and elsewhere, God created all things by His word: "Then God said." We are also taught this in Psalm 33:6, 9: "By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations." So it was by means of, through, God is word that He created. Now theologians have tried to grasp this for centuries, but somehow beyond our comprehension that "word" which God spoke to create was Jesus Christ, the Word who was in the beginning, who was God, and who was with God. Even more basic than the fact that John 1:1-3 says that Christ is God, and that Christ is the Creator is the affirmation that Christ is the Head of a new creation, a new beginning.

B. Christ is the Light of the New Beginning/Creation (5, 9)