What We Believe....about Jesus

January 5, 2003

Title: What We Believe....about Jesus

Text: John 1:1-18; 1 John 1:1-3

Introduction

1. This morning we kicked off our new vision for 2003...

A. Christ 1st!

B. We want to put Jesus Christ 1st in our lives...

C. in our church...

D. in our families...

E. in every area of our lives.

2. Interestingly...

A. our series covering the Articles of Faith brings us to Article 2,

B. our doctrine of Jesus Christ.

3. It reads "We believe in Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Triune Godhead; that He was eternally one with the Father; that He became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and was born of the Virgin Mary, so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say the Godhead and manhood, are thus united in one Person very God and very man, the God-man. We believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and that He truly arose from the dead and took again His body, together with all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature, wherewith He ascended into heaven and is there engaged in intercession for us."

4. It’s a daunting task to try to adequately cover the importance of Jesus Christ in a paragraph in the Manual or in a single sermon.

A. Think of the millions of books that have been written about Jesus Christ...

B. and yet...it seems that we have hardly scratched the surface.

5. Tonight, we will try to highlight some of our beliefs about Jesus.

6. Read Text: John 1:1-18; 1 John 1:1-3

7. John wrote the the gospel that bears his name...

A. he also wrote the epistles that bear his name...

B. and he also wrote the book of Revelation

8. He didn’t write...like so many modern scholars....

A. based on his study...

B. and his understanding of Scripture...

9. John wrote as an eyewitness.

A. John was one of the 12 disciples...

i. He was one of the inner circle...

a. Peter,

b. James,

c. and John.

B. John had actually travelled with Jesus...

i. spent hour upon hour....

ii. day after day...

iii. for 3 years...

iv. listening to the teachings of Jesus first hand.

C. John saw the miracles of Jesus 1st hand.

i. John had literally touched Jesus...

ii. John had actually been touched by the hands of Jesus.

D. John saw how Jesus cared about ...

i. the poor...

ii. the sick...

iii. the foreigner...

E. John watched Jesus die on the cross.....

i. He assisted the other disciples in putting Jesus’ body into the tomb.

ii. John saw the empty tomb.

iii. John saw Jesus in His resurrected body.

F. John’s experiences with Jesus were so real...

i. that even when he was exiled on the Isle of Patmos...

a. alone...

b. lonely...

c. and suffering...

ii. his faith remained strong.

10. John’s experiences led him to write, in the Epistle of 1 John,

A. "That which was from the beginning,

B. which we have heard,

C. which we have seen with our eyes,

D. which we have looked at

E. and our hands have touched--

F. this we proclaim concerning the Word of life" 1 John 1:1 (NIV)

11. You can almost sense John’s awe at being a part of that...

A. In today’s language...he might have said...

B. "Hey you guys....

C. I was there...

D. I saw Him with my own 2 eyes....

E. I actually touched Him"

12. When we look at John’s Gospel....

A. we read a lot about Jesus that makes its way into our doctrine.

B. Let’s look at some of these...

Body

1. First of all, we believe that Jesus is God.

A. John 1:1 says, "the Word was God"

B. Here we see more about the triune nature of Jesus.

C. A Pastor and his wife were watching the 11-year-old daughter of some for their friends from India who were visiting int this country. The girl was curious about the Pastor and his family going to church one Sunday morning and she decided to go along and find out more about it. When they returned home from the Church, the Pastor asked her what she thought of the service. She said, "I don’t understand why the West Coast isn’t included too," The Pastor asked her what she meant...She said, "You know, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the whole East Coast."

D. There are many ways to look at the trinity...and I’ve shared some of them with you.

i. we talk about water having 3 forms...

a. solid...ice

b. liquid...water

c. gas...steam.

ii. I’ve also heard about the egg...

a. you have the egg shell,

b. the white

c. and the yolk.

E. Another one that I like...I compare it to my relationship to my family...