It's Jesus Series

Sermon: It’s Jesus

Series: The Gospel of John Part 1

Slide Introduction

Welcome! We're so glad you are joining us this morning.

We’re in a series where we are walking through the Gospel of John. And last week we laid the foundation for this series. We talked a little bit about who John is and his reason for writing this gospel.

And the whole reason why John wrote his Gospel is that we would believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah (the promised one), that He is the Son of God (that Jesus is God with some skin) and that when we place our trust, our belief in Him, we can have life.

Matter of fact, this was the verse we camped out on all last week:

Slide The disciples saw Jesus do many other miraculous signs in addition to the ones recorded in this book.

Basically, the disciples seen and heard Jesus do a lot of other amazing things, but John only included certain stories, certain miracles, and certain conversations so that we could believe.

Believe what? Look at the next verse…

Slide But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name. John 20:30-31 (NLT)

By believing in these two truths, that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah and that He is the Son of God, you will have life. And not just life in this present moment, but an eternal life with Him and all those that have placed their faith in Jesus Christ.

That was last week, that was the foundation we started on, and today we’re going to open the book of John and start in John 1. If you have your Bible or Bible App open them up to John 1

Today, we’re going to look at who Jesus is, and why did He come?

And so, let me give you a little background information on these verses…

These words that we read in John 1 are very beautiful and poetic in nature. In fact, some scholars believe that this prologue/intro right here might have been a poem or a hymn that early believers would have sung or recited.

And so, while this may be very poetic in nature, understand that it’s a very complex set of scripture.

John is going to show us that Jesus was fully human but He was also fully God. That even though Jesus took on humanity and lived like an ordinary man, he never stopped being God, he never stopped being the creator and sustainer of all things.

And here’s the thing, Jesus didn’t take advantage of those divine rights. He lived like an ordinary man, he faced the same kind of temptation that we face day in and day out.

He faced dishonesty, He faced doubt and pain, He faced greed and lust, He faced betrayal and unforgiveness, and yet He didn’t sin.

And so, yeah, he was God but he was also human. And so, Jesus can relate to us. He knows what you and I face day and day out, the only difference is He didn’t give in and He didn’t sin.

Which is a good thing, right? If Jesus had just given in one time, if He would have caved and crossed that line, then there would be no need for Him to go to the cross because He wouldn’t have been spotless. He would not have been the perfect sacrifice to take the sin of humanity.

And this is why John wrote this Gospel-to build our faith and confidence in Jesus Christ.

And so, let’s look at verse 1 of John 1…

Slide In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God.

John is having this back to the future moment, where he is echoing the word of Genesis 1:1, ‘In the beginning…’ stressing the fact, that the Word, the Word being Jesus, was there at creation.

But we see this shift to show that the Word had always been. That even before the creation story Jesus was there with the Father.

And what John is doing is he is laying the foundation for the deity of Christ. And this is completely different from the other three Gospel’s.

Matthew starts off with talking about the genealogy of Christ-showing that Jesus is a descendant of King David.

Mark just jumps right into the life of Jesus. He talks a little bit about John the Baptist and goes right into the ministry of Jesus. Mark doesn’t mess around.

Luke starts off with the Christmas story telling about the birth of the Savior.

And yet, John takes you way back before the beginning of time to tell us that Jesus was there.