Jesus

Text: John 1:1-3, Title: Jesus, Date/Place: NRBC, 9/18/11, AM

A. Opening illustration: signing a job description of marriage, before you know someone. But after some time, you can’t wait to commit to spend the rest of your life committed to one person.

Background to passage: John was the last gospel written (nearly the last NT book written) by the last living disciple of Jesus. Very different from the other three, and it is steeped in the message of Jesus. So this is what’s known as the prologue of John’s gospel. It is where he introduces Jesus to the world, the Greek and Roman world in particular. One theologian said that these are definitely some of the most important words ever written. There is definitely a powerful link between “knowledge of” and “affection for;” as well as between “affection for” and “commitment to.” My prayer is that all of us as individuals, but together as the church at New River would grow in our commitment to Him, which requires our love for Him, which flows from our knowledge of Him and all His beauty and glory. “…the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that composes the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech. She can never escape the self-disclosure of her witness concerning God.” –Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy

B. Main thought: we must fall in love with Jesus

A. Preexistent, Eternal, Creative Power, & Central (v. 1)

1. John begins with terminology that would have immediately brought anyone who knew the OT back to Gen 1:1. For the Greek and Roman, the Word would have been the inanimate force or wisdom or rationale that governs the universe. John says that in the beginning He “kept on being” or “continued to be.” This is clear language of preexistence. He existed before time existed, so He is timeless and eternal. He has no beginning or end, never a time when he was not. He was the vehicle by which God created time. The Word was the creative force or power, or the breath of God. Christ’s power is that of the intentions and force of God the Father. And know that John makes Jesus the center of everything.

2. Rev 1:8, Jer 32:17, 27,

3. Illustration: “Left to ourselves we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms. We want to get Him where we can use Him, or at least know where He is when we need Him. We want a God we can in some measure control. We need the feeling of security that comes from knowing what God is like…” –Tozer, “I have a picture in my mind of the majesty of Christ like the sun at the center of the solar system of your life. The massive sun, 333,000 times the mass of the earth, holds all the planets in orbit, even little Pluto, 3.6 billion miles away. So it is with the supremacy of Christ in your life. All the planets of your life—your sexuality and desires, your commitments and beliefs, your aspirations and dreams, your attitudes and convictions, your habits and disciplines, your solitude and relationships, your labor and leisure, your thinking and feeling—all the planets of your life are held in orbit by the greatness and gravity and blazing brightness of the supremacy of Jesus Christ at the center of your life. And if he ceases to be the bright, blazing, satisfying beauty at the center of your life, the planets will fly into confusion, and a hundred things will be out of control, and sooner or later they will crash into destruction.” -Piper

4. We don’t even have a category from an uncreated thing. Nothing to compare it to, nothing that we can imagine it’s like. Everything in our experience has a beginning and or end. You serve a God and you can’t fully explain or understand. You can know all you need to know, but know that God is so much more that even the bible commends him to be. Know that He is incomprehensible. Not so much in the fact of what He has said of Himself, but of what He has not said. There is nothing too difficult for Him to make, sustain, or deliver (which by the way, is another connotation of this word). He is preeminent in your home, marriage, job, finances, hobbies, thoughts, worship, parenting, serving. He is the Sun in the midst of your solar system. And don’t just feel “He is not the center of mine, and he should be,” let me assure you, we all feel that way. But feel “I truly desire that He would be” for that’s where true joy is found—actual desiring Him to be your Sun holding all your planets in place. Know that He would be the best Sun, and your life would best reflect this biblical model, best honor Christ, best sufficiency, best minister to others, fullest joy, fullest peace, fullest satisfaction, the best everything, fulfilling your created purpose. Long for Him, don’t just feel bad about it.