The Word Became Flesh (John 1:6-18)

We're gonna be in John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

We're gonna be starting in verse 6, but we're gonna read from verse 1 because it's all flowing in together, and we'll be going through verse 18.

So if you are able, please stand with me as we read God's Word.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was with God in the beginning.

All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.

In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John.

He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him.

He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was created through him, and yet the world did not recognize him.

He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not of natural descent, or the will of the flesh, or the will of man, but of God.

The Lord became flesh and dwelt among us, and we observed his glory, the glory as of the only one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John testified concerning him and exclaimed, This was the one of whom I said, the one coming after me, ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.

Indeed, we have all received grace upon grace from his fullness.

For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

No one has ever seen God, the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is at the Father's side, he has revealed him.

Lord, I thank you so much for today.

I thank you for your word.

I ask that you would fill me with your spirit to teach your word, that you would fill the hearers with your spirit to rightly divide.

I ask that we would fall more and more in love with Jesus as we study this and be glorified in your name.

Amen.

Alright, go ahead and have a seat.

So there's something that's going to be coming up multiple times in this passage, and that is the concept of a witness or of testifying.

And so just right up front, though, we're jumping into verse 6, but verse 1 through 18 is largely one big chunk, but there is so much in there that if we tried to do it all at once, um, it'd be long.

Really, really long, even by my standards.

And so with that, we've took we've cut it up into two, but I really recommend uh going back and listening to last week's message on the website if you have not been able to hear it, because there's a lot going into that, especially as it pertains to the word and the light and that imagery.

So, but with that, what is a witness?

What makes a witness a witness?

This sounds like a trick question, but it's not.

If you'll I'll put it this way if you have a courtroom and there's a trial going on, they get people to come in to testify who actually saw what happened.

That is, in and of itself, the biggest, most important part of a witness is they were there.

They saw it, they heard it, they experienced it.

Even more so back in these days, because uh back in the time that John is writing this, they could not pull cell phone records, they could not have videotape to enter in as evidence, it's just witnesses, and that is why it is so important throughout scripture and it was established in the Torah and is utilized throughout that to have multiple witnesses to actually collaborate and corroborate evidence in that.

You can't just have one person come in, and that witness must have actually been there.

And I'm gonna use this as an example, and I had to use nobody in modern day, because if I use a modern day famous person, I don't care who it is, someone's gonna get upset.

So, with that, back from when I was a kid, one of the most famous people on the earth was Michael Jordan.

Michael Jordan goes into a courtroom, points to the defendant, and says, He's guilty, I know it, it's obvious, it's totally guilty.

Well, just because he is of great renown does not mean that that is admissible as evidence in court.

It is on Twitter, it's not in the courtroom.

And so, with that, it's very, very important because they would go, like, well, that's cool, and please sign something, but you're not a witness.

You weren't there.

You didn't see it, you didn't hear it, and just because you are of importance does not mean that you have anything to say here.

Why on earth am I saying this?

Because one of the big things that John is working through here is giving testimony and giving witnesses who were there, who saw it, who saw it go down, who experienced it firsthand, and he's trying to establish multiple witnesses to bring home his thesis.

So, having that said, we're going to throw up a verse that came up last week that I'm totally stealing, John 20, 31, which is these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

You can think of this as a sort of thesis that he is trying to bring witnesses forth to collaborate on and corroborate that information.

These are written so you may, number one, here, believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.

Believing that Jesus is the Messiah, that's the Hebrew word that is equivalent with Christ, the Greek word, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

The evidence of who Jesus is and what that means for us who believe in him.

So, having that said, this is the foundation we're laying here, what we're looking for.

And here John is going to start bringing forth witnesses to give testimony for that claim.

We'll go back to that in a moment.

So we're starting in verse 6.

And it says, There was a man sent from God whose name was John.

So, first of all, who's John?

Because the book's called John.

And he's talking about John.

Is he talking in third person?

Or, like, that would be kind of fun, awkward.

Or is he talking about someone else?

John here that he is bringing up in verse 6 is John the Baptist, or better yet, John the Baptizer in that idea, the one who is known throughout the epistles as John the Baptist.

John, the one who wrote the book, is one of the apostles, the disciples of Jesus, the one Jesus loved.

So, two different Johns.

And we really quickly skipped over a very, very important thing that none of us can really say.

Sent, a man sent from God.

That's a big statement right out of the gate.

If somebody comes to you and says, I have been sent from God, you go, oh, that's good to know.

That's not something that is a normal thing to bring out.

But why is John saying that?

Because John the Baptist was sent from God.

Now we're not going to be able to do a full expose on John the Baptist, but think about this for a minute.

He was born miraculously, not like Jesus miraculously, not immaculate conception.

He was born but to parents of old age who were long past the age of childbirth.

He had a specific calling on his life.

And that calling here, uh best way I can demonstrate this is in Luke 1, 16 through 17.

He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God.

He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the disobedient to the understanding of the righteous to make ready for the Lord a prepared people.

If we had more time, we would jump into Isaiah, we would jump into Malachi to talk about the calling of John the Baptist as the forerunner of the Messiah, the one paving the way, declaring that the Messiah is coming.

So when it says here there's a man sent from God whose name was John, this is not somebody who was delusional or somebody who was really enlightened or really educated.

It was somebody that God divinely called to where it's said here that in Scripture that he was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb.

That's a big deal.

Not a whole lot of that coming on coming through in the course of human history.

So who is John?

Continuing in verse 7, he came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him.

This is part one of John the Baptist's testimony we have in this passage.

He came as a witness to testify.

Witness, testify, are the exact same words, just one in noun form, one in Greek form.

In English, it'd be like he came as a witness to witness.

And we actually have a slide for this word because of how much it comes up in these passages.

So the first word is the noun for Marturia.

37 times in Scripture, in New Testament completely, 37 times.

14 of those 37 times are in the Gospel of John.

If you add first, second, and third John in Revelation, which are all of John's writings, 30 out of 37 of the times that the word witness as a noun here, martyria, in scripture, is all in John's writings.

So this is a big deal to John.

This is a big deal to what he is writing, and why we're laying this foundation with that.

What does that mean?

Here's some definitions of that word.

What one testifies, a testimony.

So in a legal sense of a testimony before a judge, in a historical sense, of the testimony of a historian, in an ethical sense of testimony concerning one's character, in a predominantly dogmatic sense, respecting matters relating to the truth of Christianity, one of the testimony establishing the Messiahship and divinity of Jesus.

And I think that last definition really pertains to scripture and not Greek life, but that's not the point.

So here, this word is what is a testimony?

It is a witness.

It is a testimony.

And that sounds like duh, but that's the problem with John.

When we went through the uh epistle so far, Paul had this really great way of taking a Greek word that was very precise theologically, and make and we have to go, what does that even mean?

What does propitiation mean?

We don't use that in everyday sense.

John was a fisherman, and the words that he uses are very common words that he is co-opting for very specific uh purposes here, and that's why sometimes we're looking at these words where before we would look at words that were really odd words, and here with John, it's these are very common words that he's using a very specific purpose.

Now we're looking at the verb form marture, 76 times in the New Testament completely, 43 of those 76 in the Gospel of John, 47 times in John's writings, if you add 1, 2nd, 3 John, and Revelation.

So in John's writing, 47 out of 76, this word was used.

What does that mean to be a witness, to bear witness, to testify, to affirm, that one has seen or heard or experienced something, or that he knows it because taught by divine revelation or inspiration.

That one largely pertaining to Paul in that scenario.

So these words combine that to be sprinkled throughout the Gospel of John.

He wants to provide witnesses to testify a testimony of what they have firsthand experienced.

And why am I making a big deal out of this?

Because honestly, we can very easily become numb to these things and go, well, yeah, Jesus.

That's the answer.

Move on.

But these are things that are a big deal.

We're getting first hand witnesses called to the divinity of Jesus.

And that's what we're talking about in this passage.

So, what did John come as?

He came as a witness to testify.

He came as a witness to witness about the light.

And that word the light we talked about a lot last week, but it's this idea of that which in verse 5 shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

He's tying these words together: the light and here.

He's witnessing about that.

John is a testifier about the light.

Why?

What's the purpose?

Why would he bother doing that?

So that all might believe through him.

The purpose of his testimony is so people would believe.

That sounds like a duh.

Again, that's obvious.

That's what you do.

You provide a credible witness so that people would be persuaded by that witness.

But that's the whole point of this.

His witness not just believes that what he says is true, but believe in the light as the Savior, which we'll talk about in a minute.

The purpose of his testimony is belief.

Another weird thing with this, believe, very common word.

Is that one of the most Christianese words you can like pull up with that?

So that is 98 times that word comes up, pistuho, in the Gospel of John, which is 40% of the whole New Testament.

So one book has 40% of the word belief.

So we tend to read John and go, okay, here's a story about this, and here's a really long thing.

And why is chapter 6 so long?

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

And then we have these other things that are going on, and crucifixion and resurrection, awesome.

But it's like John is pleading with the hearer to see his witnesses and therefore believe in something.

And that's what's so important.

And that ties back to that main verse, John 20, 31, that is written so that you would, believing you would have life in his name.

So John was sent by God.

He was sent by God for what?

As a witness.

For what purpose?

So that you would believe.

And the final little information we get about John, he was not the light.

But he came to testify about the light.

And John will say this later in this chapter.

He will say, I'm not the Messiah in 120.

So this is it.

John is an interesting character because he had a huge following in his day.

People came out to the wilderness.

He was a weird dude.

And people came out to the wilderness to be baptized him and to follow him.

And his entire ministry was to not draw them to him, to build his brand, but to point to Jesus.

To the point that later in this book, when they're saying, John, all of your disciples are going after, are leaving you and going after Jesus.

And he's like, Yes! We win! And that's not normal behavior.

Imagine, in that sense, in our day and age, the influencers who build this calling not to idolize themselves, but something else.

Yeah, I can't imagine it either.

But with that in mind, this is an important thing that he was not the one.

Even though he was sent from God, he was sent to shine the spotlight on the light.

So, what do we learn about this light?

Verse 9.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

We talked about this a little last week, and we'll talk about it more in a little bit.

But John could have gone straight to the word Messiah here.

And all the Jewish audience would have been like, I'm on board, I understand what you're saying, there we go.

But he keeps calling him the word.

He keeps calling him the light.

Those are very Greek concepts.

So, like it was talked about very well last week.

John is not simply trying to speak just to the Jews, but to all.

He's widening his gaze for this message.

So, here the light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

So the light gift is for all.

It's not just exclusive to Israel.

And this will come into play in John 8, verse 12, when he's Jesus spoke to them again: I am the light of the world, and anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness, but have the light of life.

John 8:12

The light gives the light to all who receive it.

It's not an exclusive thing.

And then in verse 10, oh, verse 9, he was coming into the world, that light.

If I say I am going to go into the kitchen, do you automatically assume at that point that I am not in the kitchen?

Yeah, because otherwise you'd be like, dude, you're there.

You're not going into there.

We lived in the south for a little while, so we would say, I'm fixing to go that way, and you'd be like, but uh with that, he's he was coming into the world.

He's going to come into the world, and then in verse 10, we see it.

He was in the world.

This is the testimony, the transition of there.

The world was created through him.

So this light that John is speaking of was in the world, and the world was created through him.

And once again, we go, well, yeah, it's Jesus.

Duh.

We already have the answers to the test here.

But the original the readers originally may not have had that.

And so John is laying forth this testimony and this case here.

The world was created through him, and that ties back to John 1.3.

All things were created through him.

So the word, the light, is the source of creation.

The world was created through him, and yet the world did not recognize him.

Which is crazy.

That he created all of us.

He created humankind.

And humankind did not recognize him.

At first, you can think of it in this picture of being in an art gallery, seeing an amazing painting, and the artist is standing right there, and they have no idea who that is because they're busy worshiping the painting.

But is deeper than that.

Because we are the painting that he created.

And it would be so crazy to think about a painting not being able to recognize the very brush strokes that make us his.

And that's what we're identifying here.

Jesus coming into a place where his own creation does not do that.

His draw, like his poem, does not recognize the meter he favors, that image that he has placed in us as we are made in his image.

So continuing forward, he came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

So there's a special mention here.

He came to his own, his own being the Jewish people here, and they did not receive him.

Why was this mentioned here?

Why was this important?

Because the promise of the Messiah was given through Israel.

So he came as the Messiah to Israel, but they did not recognize him as such.

They did not look at him and go, clearly that's him, despite having the whole context of the law and the prophets to refer to.

So the creator, the light created the world, but it didn't recognize him.

His own masterpiece did not recognize that he made them.

And his own people did not identify him as the purpose to which he was called.

Verse 12, but to all who did receive him, he gave the right to be children of God to those who believe in his name, who were born, not of natural descent, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God.

So his own people didn't receive him, but to all who did receive him, and once again, there's a contrast and a juxtaposition.

His own people, Israel, did not initially receive him, but anybody who did, he gave the right to be children of God.

Once again, we've been to church a lot, and we go, yeah, that be us.

That's cool.

That's a really big deal in the context of what we're reading, in the context of the readers and the people in there.

And a nice little Easter egg in here, children of God, is going to be used in John 11 to refer not to Jews but to Gentiles.

Kind of interesting.

There is going to be one of the Jewish leaders who accidentally prophesies about the coming Savior.

Sorry, dude.

And uh he says that it's expedient for one man to die for all.

Don't you realize that?

And what he's trying to say is we got to get rid of this guy for the sake of all.

But what he's really accidentally saying.

Is that Jesus is the Savior who would die for all.

And then John gives us this parenthetical statement.

He didn't realize he was prophesying that that would be for the people, and not only that, but all the children of God who were scattered abroad.

So it's interesting that John again is going to take that word and make it not just for Jews but for Gentiles, which we're very accustomed to.

It's a big deal back then.

So he gave them the right to be children of God.

What does it take to have the authority for the light to give someone the right to be children of God?

Ownership.

Yes, exactly.

Ownership, 100%.

It's his, so he has a right to do that.

If I, this is an example, this is creepy, and I would never do this.

A random kid in children's ministry said, This child's now yours.

You'd be like, no, it's no, they're not.

That doesn't work that way.

But if somebody actually signs over for adoption, that actually they have the authority to do that in that sense.

So, because it's theirs, and they go through the proper channels with that.

So the light here has the authority, I like that word, to make people children of God.

How?

Well, continuing on, to those who believe in his name.

Believing in his name.

Not lineage, not nepotism, it's not just who your parents are, not by your own strength and force of will, but through belief.

And this is a big deal again, because throughout this we have the idea of the law, and when they're piling their traditions on the law, they are perpetually narrowing the path to heaven.

Here's what the law says.

We're gonna get narrower and say, okay, yeah, I know that it says that, but you really gotta do this.

You really gotta do this.

This is the extension of that.

And trying to narrow who can be called a child of God.

And Jesus is blowing that wide open and saying, for anybody who believes, it doesn't matter who your let what your lineage is, it doesn't matter what tribe you belong to or if you belong to that.

It doesn't matter if you're a Jew or a Gentile.

That's a very, very big deal here.

Because it's based not on natural descent, the will of the flesh, the will of man.

It's based on belief in his name.

Does anybody not have the physical ability to believe in something?

Like it's not like you go out, yeah, I just don't have those wires, I can't do it.

Sorry.

It's available to all who are willing to do so, but it involves a receiving, which we'll talk about in a moment.

And that belief ties back to John's witness in verse 7.

He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him.

Sounds like a lot of repetition because John is intentionally repeating this to try to layer this so thick that we cannot possibly miss what he's trying to say.

So, what is the result?

They were born of God.

That's also a big deal.

That's also a quite a claim to make.

Only God can allow people to be born of God, to be called children of God.

So, and this wording is again to be born again or born of God.

Those are very Christianese words that we think are scattered constantly throughout Scripture.

It's almost exclusively in John's writings.

1 Peter, he kind of steals it once, but Peter.

We'll get to him later.

But with that, 1 John and John 3 is the big one.

In this book, he's going to be talking to Nicodemus.

And he's going to be giving them information.

He's going to get information saying, You need to be born again.

And one of the teachers of Israel is like, What the heck are you talking about?

I don't know what that means.

How can that possibly happen?

So throughout John 3, born again, born again, born of God, and also in 1 John.

So for an example, 1 John 5, 1A, everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.

Belief, born of God.

We make it so complicated.

And yet, John is trying to tell us, belief that Jesus is the Christ, that's the Greek word for Messiah, has been born of God.

It is God alone who gets to decide these things.

It's his stuff.

And he created it, he owns it, he has authority over it, the whole world, and he has in his sovereignty chosen for all of this to happen through his son, the light, the word.

And that's where we get to in verse 14.

The word became flesh and dwelt among us.

The word obviously going back to verse 1 of this chapter in the beginning was the word.

The word was with God, the word was God.

Very Greek concept.

He is co-opting here to speak of the Laga, speak of Jesus.

Became flesh and dwelt among us.

Big deal.

Kind of blows the minds of both Jew and Gentile alike.

So, because um, and we observe his glory, the glory is one and the only son and the full father.

The Greeks kind of have no problem in their mythology with P with offspring being born of gods.

But they're jerks, self-centered, um uh capricious, backstabbing.

Kind of sounds like the people who thought them up.

But Israel, on the other hand, will have a hard time grasping that God would become flesh and dwell among us, because he lives as a cloud.

In the temple, cannot look upon his presence lest you die.

And here, the word becoming flesh and dwelling among them.

Dwelt among us.

Who's us?

Well, John is the author.

So John and Company, the apostles.

So we have our second witness here, the witness of the apostles.

The word became flesh and dwelt among us.

And here's the first hand thing that makes him a credible witness.

We observed his glory.

The glory as of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Now we heard about that, we studied it.

Our traditions have confirmed it.

We observed with our abals.

So this is noteworthy because God is in the flesh, and I made this joke last time, I'm going to say it again.

How can God be in the flesh and yet still be God?

That's a great question for Pastor Chris next week.

So yes, exactly.

But the becoming flesh and dwelling among us wasn't just becoming flesh and being distant, inaccessible, dwelling among them.

How many times at this point in time does he get to slip through a crowd because he's not actually all that identifiable or remarkable?

And we observe his glory.

The glory as of the one and only Son from the Father.

So his glory is observable.

Whereas in the Old Testament, his glory was a pillar of fire, a pillar of cloud, a cloud filling a temple or covering a mountain.

The glory is a man.

Jesus.

Not John, Jesus.

And the glory as of the one and only Son from the Father.

I'm sure there's a spot in John where we know that phrase, one and only Son.

It kind of sounds like only begotten Son.

Yes, John 3.16.

God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son.

Whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

I don't even know what translation that is, but I can't unmemorize it in whatever that was.

So see us be that, and you're good.

The only son from the Father.

Very normal word, right?

Father.

Very common Greek word.

Here's a crazy thing.

That word, father, but her is in the Gospel of John specifically pertaining to God, God the Father, a hundred and fourteen times.

And in the rest of the whole New Testament, 139 times.

So kind of almost close-ish to half.

If you throw in all the writings of John, 1 John, 2nd John, 3rd John, and Revelation, 134 times in John's writing, he refers to God as the Father compared to 119 other times.

If you ever thought teaching is glamorous, one day you should be there for when we have the spreadsheets and we're doing word studies.

It ain't glamorous.

So, with that, yes, but that's important because this word is a very common word we would otherwise miss because it's so normal.

Where as sanctification stands out in Paul's writing, things like that, father does not necessarily accept John is hammering this home through the whole book that Jesus is the Son and God is the Father.

And not only is God the Father of the Son, Jesus, but Jesus gives all who believe in him the right to call God their Father as well, not because they are Israelites as their father God, but through belief in Jesus.

So he is full of grace and truth.

That word full means full, full.

Of course, that can mean different things too, you know, depending on who that is.

Sometimes kids think full means I just poured half of it on the counter after it filled the cup.

Sometimes that's like this much is full.

So, but full here.

He is full of what?

Full of grace and truth.

There is an intersection here that once again, as we as good church people are like, well, yeah, of course.

But this is very, very important and it's a very big deal because it is grace and it is truth intersecting through the Son, which we know to happen on the cross.

Truth, the righteous standard of God being carried out and fulfilled and not violated.

Grace, the punishment for the violation of that being put upon his son, and therefore his righteousness being imputed to us as he pays for our unrighteousness on the cross.

So full of grace and truth is a big deal because it is reconciling the problem of sin in the person of Jesus.

Which is amazing.

So verse 15, we jump back into John.

John testified concerning him and said, This is the one whom I said, the one coming after me breaks ahead of me, because he existed before me.

And I have a quick slide for that.

Here's the witness of John the Baptist altogether.

Calling his first witness.

He was a man sent from God.

We saw in verses 6 through 8.

He came as a witness to testify about the light.

The purpose was so that all might believe through him, and he was not the light.

And he said about the word, the one coming after me ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.

The one coming after him was before him and ranks ahead of him.

That is madness, especially because biologically, John the Baptist was born before Jesus.

So that is, what does that all mean?

It ties into eternality here.

Even though John was physically born on earth after, I mean Jesus was born physically on earth after John, he came before him from eternity.

And this jumps into John 1.27, which we'll go over soon, when John is saying, He's the one coming after me, whose sandal strap I'm not worthy to untie, he being Jesus.

So John says, Hey, that's the guy I was talking about when I was talking about this, pointing to the word.

And at this point in time, the people who have not heard this before is going, Who is the word?

Who is the light?

What is he talking about?

What's going on?

Well, here's what we have happen here.

In verse 16, we have all received grace upon grace from his fullness.

We have all received grace upon grace from his fullness.

There's that word full again.

Imagine a vessel, like a bathtub, so full it is spilling out its contents.

What is its contents?

What are its contents?

Grace upon grace.

Spilling out from this vessel.

And what does that say about the vessel?

And what does that say about the gift?

Number one, that the vessel contains that and dispenses that, and number two, that the gift is available for all who will receive it.

There is enough for everyone.

Grace upon grace, overabundant, spilling out and over.

For the law, verse 17, was given through Moses.

Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

We have a juxtaposition here.

From the word, grace upon grace was received, but the law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

And that is the huge reveal we have thus far on this book.

That Jesus is the Christ.

The Word.

The light.

The Savior, the Son of God.

And we go, well, you know, I was expecting Jesus.

But for the original people listening to this, that's a big reveal.

That suddenly, ta-da! Everything we're talking about here points to the man Jesus.

All of our witnesses point to the man Jesus.

Jesus the Christ.

Could have been Messiah.

It's Christ, the Greek word, that decided to go through and highlight there.

And as I'm rounding the corner here on the word, we have one more slide that shows this testimony of the word Jesus, the Son of God, all put together.

The word who is the light, who is the Messiah, the Christ, who is Jesus, who is the Son of God.

He became flesh.

He dwelt among us.

The testimony, we observe his glory.

And that glory as the only one and only Son from the Father.

Full of grace and truth.

And we have received grace upon grace from his fullness.

The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through the man Jesus Christ, making that juxtaposition.

The standard came through Moses, to which we have our bloodline, our lineage, and our religious adherence.

However, the solution to that, truth and grace being reconciled, come through Jesus.

And then he wraps up here.

No one has ever seen God, the one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father's side, he has revealed him.

So that's that rounds out our testimony of the word here.

So he makes this statement that the Jews in the audience would affirm no one has ever seen God.

Well, yeah, of course.

He's unapproachable.

You can't see him and live.

Even in the wilderness, those who wanted to see him, he basically shielded them from it, and they saw an aspect of him without actually being able to see him.

The one and only Son, and just in case there was any confusion, who is himself God, and is at the Father's side, he has revealed him.

So the Son is God.

He's not just an offspring of God that the Greeks would go, well, yeah, of course, that he is a son of God, that's fine, but now he's a demicod.

No, he is himself God.

He is at the Father's side, together, not separated and alienated.

And he has been revealed by God.

All of this here, information, I am hoping that most of you are like, well, yeah, duh.

That's kind of the point.

If in this passage we came up with something that was mind-blowing and you hadn't heard before, I'd be a little concerned about that.

That's problematic.

But what John is doing is laying the foundation from 1 through 18 for the whole book of John and giving this whole idea that Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, who is God, is the word, is the light, is the one who gives the right to be children of God for those who believe in him.

Whether that is Jew, whether that is Gentile, anybody who believes in him.

And that is a very big deal here.

Because, like I said, we like to complicate how that looks.

And then we also like to become inoculated to the mind-blowing aspect of the gospel and go, yeah, I know, I understand that.

But what about now?

What does that mean about what's going on in my life?

This should continue to fill our hearts to overflowing with wonder for what he does.

So, with that, we should be looking through the Gospel of John for number one, revealing of who Jesus is.

Number two, witnesses declaring that and pointing back to him.

And then number three, what does this mean for us?

And what have we become numb to in these things?

So we can go, yep, God, done or whatever.

So, and also, what have we tried to uh overcomplicate in that whole process?

There is a beauty in the fact that salvation comes through confession and belief and faith in Jesus alone, who is the Son of God, who is the Savior, who has offered sacrifice on our behalf, although he was perfect, lived a perfect life, died as a criminal, taking our sin upon him, so we could receive his righteousness reckoned to us from the Father, thus reconciling grace and truth.

And so, for anybody who has not heard that often or has become known to it or whatever, understand that there is no path to God, to being right with God, except through Jesus.

And it's as simple as Jesus, as confession and belief and faith turning to him, receiving that gift upon that.

So, having that said, may we continue to look for those ways where God blows our minds on who Jesus is, where the witnesses point to him, confirming that, and for guarding against things that we may have become numb to.

And we're also going to pray for as well for any of you who have not received that gift.

Let's pray now.

Lord, I thank you so much for today.

I thank you for your word.

I thank you that it is good and right.

I thank you for the firsthand witnesses of your goodness, the first hand witnesses of your Godhead, and that our author here is one of the people who saw you transfigured on the mountain.

I thank you for the witness of John the Baptist who points not to himself, but rather to Jesus as the one.

And I ask, Lord, that you would be glorified, that you would reinvigorate the dead things in our hearts, the things that have gone numb, the things that have gone cold, re-reignite those.

Let us continue to fall more and more in love with you as we study this book.

For those of you who, for those who have not put their faith in you, Lord, I ask that your spirit would work on their hearts, that by your spirit you would convict and also uh drive to the goodness of the cross and the mercy that can be found there and the life, and that they would be uh willing and uh excited to put their hope in you through faith in Jesus alone.

Be glorified in your name.

Amen.