Thank you for reading that, Jeff. Last minute notice, but I appreciate that.
And get my notes. Ready here?
Good morning, everybody, on this Last Sunday of the year 2024.
And… Merry Christmas as well.
And…
It's a big day in Wisconsin today, isn't it? A really big day. All my family's here. And we have others here too. Ted's family is here. Juanis's mom is here. So what a nice gathering we have this morning.
But I have to be honest with you. I really never thought I would be here this morning.
Not that I was… thinking I might be sick or was looking for some other excuse not to speak this morning.
I just never thought any of us would be here. See your 2024.
I've been… thinking this for quite a few years, actually. In fact, when my son was born and 1985.
Sorry, Seth. Gave away your age there, but… Carmen and I would think… We take a look at the world around us and we'd think.
No way is he ever going to get a driver's license. We don't have to worry about that. The Lord's going to come way before that.
Two years later, my daughter Shayla comes. I'm like… Yep, she's not going to drive either. There's no way my little girl is going to drive a car. Lord's going to come before that.
And then in… In 1994.
My daughter came. Stacy. And I was like.
None of them are going to drive, but especially not Stacy. That's way too long in the future. It's just… Not going to happen.
And then… Spencer came along. And I thought… For the sake of the world, he can't drive.
Actually, he's a really good driver. So you just had to put that in. So with each child, Carmen and I had these thoughts. And we did not… Or it's not that we didn't love our children.
And thoroughly enjoy raising them and watching them grow into men and women of God.
We just didn't think the Lord would tarry much longer and maybe some of you can relate to that.
In fact, maybe some of you younger folks here heard your parents say this. I know my kids did.
And now not only are they all driving. But they all have kids.
I've got eight grandkids with one on the way. And I would have never thought that was going to happen. But praise the Lord.
Just want to be clear. It wasn't that we didn't want our kids to drive.
You guys know that. But we live in anticipation of when Our Lord returns and we say with John in Revelations, even so. Come Lord Jesus. When we look around us, we see what the shape the world is in, we think.
He's got to come. And with that said, you might be wondering how that relates to the text that I had Jeffrey this morning. And hopefully by the end of my message You'll understand and the dots will be connected.
When Fred first asked me back in November to speak. I knew that this was going to be the passage that I would speak on. It was heavy on my heart then.
When… Juanus spoke last month about… our hearts and… whether we have given the Lord our whole hearts. It got me thinking Why is it so hard to give them our whole heart?
Why would I allow the world to occupy any space? In my heart, because compared to the Lord Jesus.
The world has nothing to offer me. And before I get any further into my text, I want to just pray.
Heavenly Father, we do thank you for your great love for us.
I love that. We do not deserve. You sent your only begotten Son to die on that cross for us, and we thank you, Father. We thank you that We have life.
Through him eternal life, and we thank you. Father, I just pray that… The message that you have laid on my heart will ring true this morning that you give me liberty in your word and that we will all be encouraged this morning as I have been encouraged in my study.
We give you thanks in Jesus name. Amen. So the first 18 verses… of John's gospel.
Are basically the introduction to the book of John or the prelude to the book of John.
John's a different book than the other three gospels. The other three gospels are synoptic gospels, which talk about Jesus's life here on earth.
And his earthly ministry and his teachings and parables and miracles.
Whereas John is more concerned about the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ.
His heavenly aspect in giving evidence that of that fact.
John's Gospel is a revelation of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, the one whom We receive eternal life.
In fact, in chapter 20 and verse… 31.
John gives us the reason for his writing of this gospel.
And in chapter 20, verse 31, He says… So that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing You may have life in his name.
And that sums up why John wrote his gospel. It's really a evangelistic gospel.
Telling us who Jesus is. And why it's important that we… believe in Him.
John begins his gospel. In verse 1 of chapter 1 verse 1 with this incredible statement. In the beginning was the word.
And the word was with God. And the word was God.
Where do we begin in a statement like that? Where do we begin?
To unpack this verse. Well, maybe we should begin with the first three words. In the beginning.
In the beginning. Not the beginning of the word or of God because God is eternal.
And we know from this verse that the word is eternal too. So he has no starting point.
Eternity. There is no beginning in eternity. So this beginning that John is talking about is Genesis 1.1.
In the beginning, God created the And that's where we are starting here.
Was in the beginning with God. And when we… Look at Genesis 1.1.
And I just want to add in here that I am reading from a New Bible this morning, so if it takes me a little bit longer to get to… Where I'm looking at it's because it's a brand new Bible that I got for Christmas from my wife.
So I figured I better use it. We celebrated Christmas two days ago.
So I've had, let's see. Yep, two days ago. So I've had this for two days and I had to change it from the King James to the legacy standard Bible by John MacArthur and So, but I do enjoy the version. When I first got it, I thought, well, I better stick to the King James.
I read this and I thought, nope, I'm going with the… Legacy Bibles. So thank you, Carmen.
And so anyway, in John or in Genesis 1, 1, we see in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface.
Then God said, God. Let there be light.
So here we see with the spoken word, God said, let there be light And there was light.
And then this… This phrase then God said.
Happens in verses… I get it.
Catch that in my notes, but it happens in
Versus… Well, three of what we just read, verses 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, and 24. They all begin with, then God said.
And… We have a change in that in verse 26.
It says, then God said, but instead of saying. Let there be, God said… Let us make man in our image.
So he is definitely talking to someone there, and it is the word.
The Lord Jesus Christ, the word that is with God in the beginning.
The word here, of course, is logos. Or logos and it is a greek word And… getting ahead of myself in the notes because I was planning to read this morning but that Greek word Logos is… defined in the dictionary as a term or a statement that
Means… the spoken word.
Or… The… I'm sorry. Let me find… Find this here in my notes. Yeah, it is a Greek word that means divine wisdom, reason.
So it is a spoken word. And that's the word that we're talking here. It's Logos here.
So we see that we see that we see that. The Word was in the beginning with God as God John states in his… In his opening sentence here in his John 1.1.
So the word was… with God.
In the beginning was the word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And that is an incredible statement because not only was the word with God.
But the word was God. So there are two people present here.
But they are one entity. And the word, the Lord Jesus Christ, is from eternity past with the Father. So he has been with the Father for all eternity.
And that's incredible to think of. He had that close relationship with the Father. He was never separated from the Father's presence.
He was always… fellowshipping with the Father.
And it's obvious he was He was in the beginning. John states that again in verse 2. He was in the beginning with God. So right after he says, and the word was God, then he says he was in the beginning of
With God. He restates that. And then here is the evidence that he was in the beginning. All things came into being through him and apart from him nothing came into being.
That has come into being. So we see that. The Lord, the word was with God in the beginning, and that is when God the beginning is… creation here.
And…
I'm sorry. Carmen told me this was going to happen, that I'd lose my place in my notes. And I did. But I do have them marked.
That didn't help. So anyway… In verses 1 through 18, I said that they are a prologue.
The book of John. And in the same manner, the Old Testament is really a prologue to the New Testament. And as Fred told us this morning, I wrote that there are over 300 prophecies in the Old Testament that prophesy about the Lord.
And because I wasn't sure exactly how many. Now I know that there are 365 or 366 that Fred mentioned this morning.
But they were all fulfilled. In John's… First, first, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.
And the word was God. He fulfilled prophecy When he came into this world and he came into this world It's an amazing thing. And in verse 4, it says, in him was life.
And the life was the light of men. This life that he has in him is not just a normal life. It is that He is life himself.
And the… John… I don't know how I'm going to find this.
In…
John. 526.
In John 5, 26. We see that…
That… We read here that for just as the Father has life in himself.
Even so, he gave to the Son. Also to have life in himself.
And that life that is in himself, he is free to give as well. And that's how we get our life. In him, we have life.
And without him, there would be no life because he himself is life.
And that's an amazing thing to think about too. And that life is the light of men.
So with that life that he gives us. He gives us light that we… might understand. Light in Scripture is a term for truth.
And that light that he gives us is the truth and the light of men is the light that illumines our life.
It gives life to our hearts. It enlightens our hearts, and it is the truth.
John 1.9. States, there was the true light which coming into the world enlightens everyone.
And what a… wonderful thing that is that we have life through him, through the Word, through the eternal One.
The uncreated one. And we have light. He gives us light to light to cast out the darkness in our lives that we might have light to see the truth.
He says in here that the light
That darkness did not overtake it. And most of you know I'm a retired airline pilot.
And at the end of… my career the last few years.
Gosh, I guess it was the last 13 years of my career at United Airlines. I flew international flights and I would fly over the Atlantic Ocean And over South America.
And on these trips, why not this looks up. South America. And on these trips, we get our flight plan And in our flight plan.
There would always be a… percentage of moonlight that we would have for that flight.
Anybody want to guess why there's a percentage of moonlight that we'd have?
Because if there is no moon. And there's no light in the Atlantic Ocean below you and there's no light over South America, at least the routes we went.
There might be some, but there were no lights in the jungle, in the forests of Brazil and South America.
If there was no moonlight, it was pitch black. It really was. It's incredible. So we could turn off all our lights in the cockpit.
And we couldn't even see the guy next to you. He had three feet away. It was that black.
But if we turn on just a little light, a backlight for one of our instruments.
We could see again. We could see the instruments. We could see the guy next to you and everything, just that little light. And the darkness couldn't overcome it.
But here we have the Lord Jesus Christ. And the light that he gives us overcomes even the darkest darkness in our lives.
That light of his love. That light that comes from him, of his life that he gives us overcomes the all the darkness that we will ever… come across. And I can't really… explain any better how… dark it is up there when you're flying.
But it just struck me that The light of the Lord just can break through even the darkest darkness of our lives.
If we turn to Ephesians. Or I'm sorry, Ephesians 5.
See if I got my… thing here, right?
Paul here in ephesians 5.8 says, for you were formerly… Darkness.
But now you are the light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light, for the fruit of that light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth.
So we see here that the light that we get from the Lord Jesus Christ is consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth. And Paul says we are to walk in that light.
And I think that's really important to remember that we we walk in that light.
In Ephesians 5, 9, well, I read that.
In 1 Peter 2.9. Peter takes it further and he says, but you are a chosen family, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.
Of people for God's own possession. Why? So that you may proclaim the excellency of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
And then in 2 Corinthians 4, 6, we read, for God who said.
Light will shine out of darkness is the one who has shown in our hearts.
The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
What a wonderful thing it is to… have that light in our lives.
And to know… the the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The one who… became flesh and dwelt among us.
John 1.14 says, And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten from the Father.
Full of grace and truth. So what should our response be to the knowledge that Christ the word who was with God in the beginning.
Is God. Who was, as John 14 tells us, the word that became flesh. What is our response?
To that. I gave that little… funny introduction before about my kids not driving and I've been thinking about that because I was thinking about how the lord views the world.
316, which we all know says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
That whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
God's soul loves the world. And I was thinking, well, my… anticipation of God's coming, which isn't bad. I mean, Revelation's I believe it's 2120 says, even so come lord jesus So we anticipate his coming.
But while we're anticipating his coming, we shouldn't be sitting around dwelling on that coming.
Because God so loved the world. And then… 2 Peter.
Bear with me while I… turn to.
2 Peter 3.
Verse, let's see, I'll start in… In verse, well, verse 9.
The Lord is not slow. About his promise, as some consider slowness, but is patient towards you.
Not willing for any to perish. But for all to come to repentance.
And that really should be our attitude as well. We should be more worried about others that haven't come to know the Lord Jesus Christ yet, then we should be worried about when he is coming.
Because he is not slow in his promise, but long-suffering. He wants everybody.
To come to know the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That really… really struck me.
When I was thinking about this. And how in Luke 5, 31 and 32.
We read that Jesus says that that… When the Pharisees were questioning him.
In verse… 531.
Jesus says.
Matthew, Luke, I'm in Matthew. Sorry. Anyway, it's a familiar verse, I'm sure.
You all have heard it, but I just want to repeat this verse in 521, Jesus says.
When the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is the one who speaks… I'm sorry, 31. And Jesus answered them.
And said, it is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
And… In 1 Corinthians 6, 11, and 13, Paul says, and such were some of you.
We are all, we all were in that darkness before we had the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there are family members and friends that are still in that darkness that need to hear the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that need that word in their lives to lighten their lives as well.
And…
I was years ago when we lived in California, I was out playing golf one day and This was back… Probably right around the time My son was born right in the 80s, the early 80s. And I was playing golf in
Really, when I'm out playing golf, I guess I'm thinking more about my golf game.
Than I am about Sharing Christ.
And… So I'm out playing golf and I… in between the ninth In the 10th hole, we go in, we take a break, and I'm taking a break and a gentleman walks in and He looks at me and he says.
You're a Christian, aren't you? And he turns around and walks out, and I'm like.
What was that? And I never saw him again. I went out to see if I could see him. I never saw him again. He just came in and he said to me, you're a Christian, aren't you?
And I thought… I'm playing golf.
I'm not sure. How he saw that.
And I actually thought of the verse in Hebrews that it says, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.
For by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. And I thought.
Was he telling me to start acting like a believer even while I'm playing golf?
And I really think that's just what he was doing. He's like… Let your light shine.
Let the light of the Lord Jesus shine through you. So that you can be effective for Christ for eternity in someone else's life.
And that hasn't been easy for me.
To remember that. And so When I was studying for this message, it really rang home. And I'm… I don't do New Year's resolutions.
And since I don't do them, I don't make them either.
But if I was to make a New Year's resolution. This one I honestly want to do.
And that is to let my light The light of Christ Jesus shined through me to others so that others can see Christ in me and come to know the one whom to know is life eternal.
And I took that from a brother of ours who passed away a few years ago, who was an elder here, Frank Brown.
And I love that. That they can come to know the one whom to know is life eternal.
And it's for our good, too. Because the Lord is waiting for the Lord is waiting for those who come to know him. He's long suffering.
Not desiring that any should perish. And that should be our attitude as well.
So… I just want to say as believers that we should be living the light of Christ in goodness, righteousness, and truth so that others can see his light shining through us. And if you're here today and you don't know the word who became flesh?
And have not received or believed in his name. I urge you.
To do that today while it's still called today. Thank you for listening.
This morning we sang. Jim said he'd like to sing, What Child Is This?
I believe. I would like to sing verse 2 over in closing.
So we can do it. Acapella and maybe Jim could start us out again.
606.