Sermon

Who Jesus Was Before the World Was Ever Created (No Ads)

Evangelical Bible Church

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  1. Welcome back to the Bible Stories. You may notice there

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  8. keep these Bible Stories going. Before the earth had a shape,

  9. Jesus was there with God, sharing a life and a

  10. love that had no beginning. When the Apostle John sat

  11. down to write about Jesus, he did not start with

  12. the manger. He reached back before creation itself, and he

  13. chose a strange and beautiful title for Jesus. He called

  14. him The Word. Listen to how his gospel opens. In

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

  16. and the Word was God. John chapter 1 verse 1

    John 1:1

  17. Notice what John does not say. He does not say

  18. the Word came into being in the beginning. He says

  19. that when the beginning happened, the Word already was. Whatever

  20. moment you point to as the start of everything, Jesus

  21. was already there before it, fully alive, fully God, already

  22. at the Father's side. Why did John call him the Word?

  23. because a word is how you reveal what is inside you.

  24. Your thoughts are hidden until you speak them, and Jesus

  25. is how God speaks himself into the open. He is

  26. the way the invisible God makes himself known. When God

  27. wanted to say who he really is, he did not

  28. send a message. He sent his Son. And this word

  29. was not only with God. John says the word was God.

  30. This is not a lesser being, a helper, or a

  31. creature that God made first and used to make everything else.

  32. This is God himself, one with the Father, sharing the

  33. same life from all eternity. Look closely at that little phrase,

  34. with God. It tells us that before the world existed,

  35. Jesus was not alone in some cold and empty silence.

  36. He was with someone. There was closeness. There was a

  37. face turned toward him and a voice that loved him.

  38. When we try to imagine eternity past, we tend to

  39. picture blank space and nothing else. But the truth is

  40. warmer than that. Before there was a world, there was fellowship.

  41. There was a Father and a Son who had never

  42. been apart, who had never had a moment of distance

  43. between them. Jesus did not step out of loneliness to

  44. make us. He stepped out of love, and He made

  45. us to bring us into it. Then John writes, The

  46. Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. John 1.14

  47. The One who had no beginning took on a body

  48. that could grow tired. The One who spoke galaxies into

  49. existence learned to speak His first words as a child

  50. in a small town. The Eternal Word wrapped Himself in

  51. skin and bone and came to live on the street

  52. where we live. Think about the size of that. The

  53. oldest being in existence, the one who was there before

  54. there was a there, came close enough to be held.

  55. He did not stay far away and shout instructions from heaven.

  56. He came near. He came as one of us. And

  57. he did it because the people he made were worth

  58. coming for. We often imagine that before creation there was

  59. only emptiness, a cold, silent nothing. But that is not

  60. the picture the Bible gives us. Before there was a world,

  61. there was already love. There was a father and there

  62. was a son, and between them flowed a love so

  63. full and so old that it had never once been interrupted.

  64. We know this because of something Jesus prayed on the

  65. last night of his life. In just a few hours,

  66. he would be arrested. Soon after, he would be beaten

  67. and nailed to a cross. He knew all of it

  68. was coming. And in that heavy moment he lifted his

  69. eyes to heaven and prayed a prayer no ordinary man

  70. could ever pray. He said, And now, Father, glorify me

  71. in your presence with the glory I had with you

  72. before the world began. John chapter 17 verse 5 Notice

    John 17:5

  73. what he is really saying. Jesus was not asking for

  74. a glory he hoped to earn. He was asking to

  75. return to a glory he already owned before the world began.

  76. He was remembering out loud a life he had lived

  77. with the Father before there was a single day on

  78. the calendar of time. No prophet ever prayed like this.

  79. Moses never asked to be restored to a place he

  80. held before the universe. David never longed for a throne

  81. he sat on before creation. Only someone who was truly there,

  82. awake and present with the Father in eternity, could pray

  83. those words and mean them. But he did not stop there.

  84. In the same prayer, he said something that reaches all

  85. the way down to you. He said, The glory you

  86. have given me, because you loved me before the creation

  87. of the world. John chapter 17 verse 24 The Father

    John 17:24

  88. loved the Son before the creation of the world. Love

  89. did not start when the world began. Love was already there,

  90. older than the light. And that changes how we understand

  91. everything that comes after. When this same Jesus later gave

  92. himself for us, he was not learning how to love

  93. for the first time. He was doing on a cross

  94. what he had been doing forever. He was loving God.

  95. This is why you can trust what happened at the cross.

  96. It was not a sudden change of heart in God,

  97. a moment when a distant and angry ruler was finally

  98. talked into being kind. The love poured out. There was

  99. the same love that had been flowing between the Father

  100. and the Son since before the first morning. It did

  101. not appear out of nowhere. It spilled over. The cross

  102. was not the beginning of God's love for you. It

  103. was that ancient love finally becoming visible in a way

  104. you could see and touch and never doubt again. If

  105. you have spent your life feeling that love is something

  106. you have to win, something fragile that could be taken

  107. away the moment you disappoint someone, then hear this. The

  108. love at the center of the universe is not fragile.

  109. It is not new. It was there before the world,

  110. and it is strong enough to hold you now. And

  111. this is the love he invites you into. On that

  112. same night, Jesus prayed that the people the Father had

  113. given him would be with him and would see his glory.

  114. He did not want to keep that ancient love to himself.

  115. He wanted to open the circle and bring us in.

  116. The love that existed before creation is not a treasure

  117. locked away in heaven where you can only look at

  118. it from a distance. It is a home with an

  119. open door, and the Eternal Son is the one standing

  120. in the doorway, calling you by name. There is a

  121. mistake people make about Jesus, and it is an easy

  122. one to fall into. They imagine him as the first

  123. and greatest thing God ever made. a creature above all

  124. other creatures, but still a creature, with a starting point

  125. somewhere back in the far distance. The Bible will not

  126. let that idea stand. Jesus is not the top of

  127. the list of created things. He is the one who

  128. made the list. Everything that was ever created came through him.

  129. Listen to how Paul describes him. For in him all

  130. things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible

  131. and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities,

  132. all things have been created through him and for him.

  133. Colossians chapter 1 verse 16 All things, not most things,

    Colossians 1:16

  134. not everything except himself, the seas and the mountains, the

  135. stars you cannot count, the tiny hidden life inside a

  136. single drop of water, the angels in heaven, and the

  137. very kings and powers that would one day put him

  138. on trial. He made all of it. And Paul adds

  139. a phrase that we should never rush past. All things

  140. were created for him. The world was not only made

  141. by him, it was made for him. You were made

  142. for him. The colors of a sunset that no painter

  143. has ever quite captured came out of his mind. The

  144. sound of the sea, the shape of a mountain, the

  145. song of a bird you have heard a thousand times

  146. without thinking about it, all of it was his idea first.

  147. He designed the human eye that lets you read these words.

  148. He set the sun at the exact distance that lets

  149. us live. Every good and beautiful thing you have ever

  150. loved is a small echo of the one who dreamed

  151. it up before there was anyone to enjoy it. And

  152. the same hands that hung the stars would one day

  153. be small enough to curl around a mother's finger. That

  154. is the mystery we are walking toward. Then Paul says

  155. something even more staggering. He is before all things, and

  156. in him all things hold together. Colossians chapter 1 verse

    Colossians 1:17

  157. 17 says, He is before all things, which means he

  158. came before them in time and stands above them in rank.

  159. And in him all things hold together, which means he

  160. is not a clockmaker who wound up the world and

  161. walked away. At this very second, the world is holding

  162. together because he is holding it. The same is true

  163. of your life. On the days when everything feels like

  164. it is falling apart, the deepest truth is that you

  165. are still held. The one who made you has not

  166. let go. Some people stumble here because Paul also calls

  167. Jesus the firstborn over all creation, and they hear the

  168. word firstborn and think it must mean he was the

  169. first thing God created. But that is not what the

  170. word meant to the people who first read it. In

  171. that world, to be the firstborn was to be the heir,

  172. the one who held the highest place and inherited everything

  173. the father owned. It was a word about honor and rank,

  174. not about being born on a certain day. When Paul

  175. calls Jesus the firstborn over all creation, he is not

  176. putting Jesus inside the list of created things. He is

  177. placing him above all of it as the rightful heir

  178. of everything that exists. The very next breath makes it

  179. plain because Paul says that in him all things were created.

  180. You cannot be one of the created things and also

  181. be the one who created all of them. Jesus is

  182. the maker, not the made. the writer of Hebrews, says

  183. it in one breathtaking line. He calls the sun the

  184. radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being,

  185. sustaining all things by his powerful word. Hebrews 1.3 Radiance

  186. is not separate from the light it comes from. You

  187. cannot pull the brightness away from the sun and set

  188. it in another room. The sun shines out from the

  189. Father the way light shines from the sun, always there,

  190. never apart, never made. That is who was there before

  191. the world, not a beginner, not a creature waiting to

  192. be born. the maker himself, shining, holding everything, and one

  193. day choosing to enter the very world his own hands

  194. had formed. And because he was there before everything, he

  195. will still be there after everything. In the last book

  196. of the Bible, the risen Jesus says of himself, I

  197. am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last,

  198. the beginning and the end. Revelation chapter 22, verse 13.

    Revelation 22:13

  199. Those were the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet,

  200. his way of saying that he holds both ends of

  201. the whole story in his hands. He was there before

  202. the first day dawned, and he will be standing when

  203. the last day closes. Everything that has a beginning and

  204. an end lives inside his life, and his life has neither.

  205. So there is no season of yours he is late for,

  206. and no ending you can reach that is beyond him.

  207. The one who opened the story is also the one

  208. waiting at the end of it. There is a moment,

  209. long before Bethlehem, where the Eternal Sun leaves a fingerprint

  210. on the pages of the Old Testament, and it happens

  211. in the middle of a desert, in front of a

  212. burning bush. Moses was an old shepherd then, far from

  213. the palace where he had grown up, hiding from a

  214. past he could not fix. He was tending someone else's

  215. sheep in the wilderness when he saw a bush that

  216. was on fire but was not burning up. The flames rose,

  217. but the branches stayed green. And out of the fire

  218. a voice called his name. Moses was told to take

  219. off his sandals because the ground he stood on was holy.

  220. Then God gave Moses a mission to set his people free.

  221. But Moses was afraid. He asked the most important question

  222. a person can ask. When they ask me, who sent me,

  223. what is your name? And God answered with a name

  224. that has echoed for thousands of years. God said to Moses,

  225. I am who I am. This is what you are

  226. to say to the Israelites. I am has sent me

  227. to you. Exodus chapter 3 verse 14. I am, not

    Exodus 3:14

  228. I was, not I will be, I am. It is

  229. the name of the one who simply is, who depends

  230. on nothing, who never began and will never end. To

  231. the people of Israel this name became so holy that

  232. in time they would not even say it out loud.

  233. When a reader came to it on the scroll, he

  234. would stop and say the word for Lord instead, so

  235. that the sacred name would never fall carelessly off his lips.

  236. That is how much weight this name carried. It was

  237. the name above every name, and it belonged to God alone. Now,

  238. travel forward across the centuries to a crowded temple courtyard.

  239. Jesus is standing among the religious leaders, and they are

  240. arguing with him. They cannot understand how this man, not

  241. yet fifty years old, could talk as if he had

  242. known Abraham, who had died almost two thousand years before.

  243. And Jesus answers them with a sentence that changed the

  244. temperature of the room in an instant. Very truly I

  245. tell you, Jesus answered, Before Abraham was born, I am.

  246. John chapter 8 verse 58. He did not say, Before

    John 8:58

  247. Abraham I was alive. He said, I am. He reached

  248. back and took the name from the burning bush and

  249. laid it on himself. The leaders understood him perfectly. That

  250. is why the moment turned so tense so quickly. They

  251. knew he was claiming to be the God who spoke

  252. to Moses out of the fire, the same voice, the

  253. same name, the same one who had no beginning. Think

  254. about what it cost him to say those words. He

  255. knew that claiming that name in that place could get

  256. him killed, and before long it would. He said it

  257. anyway because it was true. He was not borrowing a

  258. title that did not belong to him. He was quietly

  259. telling them what he had always known about himself. Before

  260. Abraham took his first step of faith, before Abraham was

  261. even born, Jesus already was. He had watched Abraham's whole

  262. life from the inside of eternity. He was there when

  263. the promise was first made. He was there through every

  264. generation that followed. Standing in that courtyard was the one

  265. who had been present at every moment of the story

  266. they thought they knew so well. And here is the

  267. tender part of it. The God whose name means I am,

  268. the God so holy that people were afraid to say

  269. his name out loud, chose to walk among ordinary people,

  270. to eat at their tables, to touch the sick, and

  271. to let children climb into his lap. The name that

  272. once thundered out of a burning bush now spoke gently

  273. to tired fishermen and forgiven sinners. Holiness came near without

  274. losing any of its greatness. That is who Jesus was

  275. before the world, and that is who he still is.

  276. The prophet Micah wrote about the coming of Jesus long

  277. before he was born, and he pointed to a small

  278. and forgotten town. He said the ruler of Israel would

  279. come out of Bethlehem, a place too little to matter

  280. to anyone. But then Micah added a line that opens

  281. a window into eternity. He wrote that this ruler's origins

  282. are from of old, from ancient times. Micah chapter 5

    Micah 5:2

  283. verse 2. The child born in that small town was

  284. not new. His beginnings reached back before beginnings existed. And

  285. that raises the most humbling question in the whole story.

  286. If Jesus already had everything, all glory, all worship, all

  287. the fullness of God, then why would he ever come

  288. down into a world like ours? Paul answers that question

  289. with words that should bring every proud heart to its knees.

  290. He writes of Jesus, who, being in very nature God,

  291. did not consider equality with God something to be used

  292. to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by

  293. taking the very nature of a servant, being made in

  294. human likeness. Philippians chapter 2, verses 6 and 7. He

    Philippians 2:6

  295. made himself nothing. He did not lose his divine nature,

  296. but he laid aside the comfort and the glory of it.

  297. He set down the crown, not because it was taken

  298. from him, but because he chose to. Try to feel

  299. the distance he traveled. The one who was worshipped by

  300. countless angels became a baby who could not lift his

  301. own head. The one who never grew tired learned what

  302. it was to be exhausted. The one who fed every

  303. living thing had to be fed at his mother's side

  304. the one who had spoken every language into being had

  305. to be taught how to say his first words He

  306. did not arrive shining with power. He arrived small, poor,

  307. and dependent, wrapped in cloth in a place where animals

  308. were kept. Why would he do this? Why would the

  309. maker of everything become the smallest and most fragile thing

  310. in his own creation? There is only one answer that fits,

  311. and it is not a reason of logic. It is

  312. a reason of love. He came down because we could

  313. not climb up. He entered our weakness because that is

  314. where we were trapped, and he was not willing to

  315. leave us there alone. And notice that he did not

  316. come down halfway. he did not stop at being a

  317. king in a palace or a great teacher admired by

  318. crowds he went all the way down he was born

  319. to poor parents in a borrowed space laid in the

  320. place where animals fed He grew up in a town

  321. so small that people joked nothing good could come from it.

  322. He worked with his hands. He knew hunger and thirst

  323. and sore feet at the end of a long day.

  324. The maker of the human body chose to live inside

  325. one with all its limits and aches so that there

  326. would be no part of your life he could not understand.

  327. When you are weak, he knows what weakness feels like

  328. from the inside. When you are worn down, he has

  329. been there. He did not study our suffering from a

  330. safe distance. He entered it. This is the heart of

  331. the whole gospel. We do not worship a good man

  332. who slowly became something like a god. We worship the

  333. eternal God who freely became a man. He did not

  334. rise to us from below. He came down to us

  335. from above. and the road he took, from the glory

  336. he had before the world all the way to a

  337. cross on a hill, is the longest and most loving

  338. journey ever made. Now we come to the part of

  339. this that reaches right into your own life, into the

  340. fear and the tiredness you may be carrying even as

  341. you listen. The Bible says something about Jesus that quietly

  342. includes you in a story older than the world. Peter

  343. writes that Christ was chosen before the creation of the world,

  344. but was revealed in these last times for your sake.

  345. 1 Peter 1.20 Before the creation of the world and

  346. for your sake. The plan to send the Son was

  347. not a rescue thrown together at the last minute when

  348. things went wrong. It was in the heart of God

  349. before there was a single human being to save. Before

  350. you drew your first breath, your rescue was already settled

  351. in eternity. Think about what that means for the weight

  352. you carry. You may feel like your life is small

  353. and unnoticed, one quiet person among billions. But the eternal

  354. Son of God did not overlook you when he made

  355. the world. He was not too busy with the stars

  356. to think about you. You were not lost in the crowd.

  357. The love that held the Father and the Son before

  358. creation is the same love that reached forward through all

  359. of time to find you exactly where you are. Maybe

  360. you are afraid of what is ahead, maybe your body

  361. is not what it used to be, and each year

  362. feels more uncertain than the last. The one who was

  363. before all things is not aging with you. He is

  364. not worried about your future because he was already standing

  365. at the end of it before it began. You are

  366. walking toward a God who is already there. Maybe you

  367. are ashamed of something in your past, something you have

  368. never fully told anyone. Hear this clearly. The Jesus who

  369. knew you before the world began knew about that too.

  370. He saw all of it before he ever made you,

  371. and he still chose to come, still chose the manger,

  372. still chose the cross. His coming was not a mistake

  373. he would take back if he had known the real you.

  374. He always knew the real you, and he came anyway.

  375. Maybe you are simply tired, not tired in your body only,

  376. but tired in the deep places, worn down by years

  377. of carrying things that never seem to get lighter. You

  378. wonder some mornings if you have the strength to keep going.

  379. If that is you, remember who has been holding you

  380. all along. The one who never grows weary, the one

  381. who was strong before the world had strength, has been

  382. carrying you through every season you thought you were surviving

  383. on your own. Your strength was never the thing keeping

  384. you here. His was, and he does not run out.

  385. And maybe, more than anything, you are simply lonely. You

  386. long to be known and to belong somewhere. This is

  387. the promise that meets you there. You are already known,

  388. more deeply and more truly than any person on earth

  389. could ever know you, and you have been known that

  390. way from before the foundation of the world. You do

  391. not have to earn a place. There has always been

  392. a place for you in the heart of the one

  393. who made you. There is a strange freedom in learning this.

  394. So much of our striving comes from the fear that

  395. we must make ourselves worth loving before anyone will stay.

  396. We perform. We hide our flaws. We try to be

  397. impressive enough that no one will leave. But you cannot

  398. make the Eternal Son love you more than He already does,

  399. and you cannot make Him love you less. His love

  400. for you was full and finished before you ever did

  401. a single thing, right or wrong. That means you can

  402. stop performing for Him, you can come to Him with

  403. empty hands and a tired heart, exactly as you are tonight,

  404. and be received. The one who has held the universe

  405. together since before time began is more than able to

  406. hold you. So who was Jesus before the world was

  407. ever created? He was the Word who had no beginning.

  408. He was the Son held in the Father's love before time.

  409. He was the Maker through whom everything came to be,

  410. and the one who holds it all together still. He

  411. was the great I Am who once spoke from the

  412. fire and later spoke from a manger. He was and

  413. is and always will be fully God. But he did

  414. not stay far away with all of that greatness. He

  415. came near. He became small enough to hold, poor enough

  416. to understand your struggles, and human enough to die in

  417. your place. He crossed the whole distance from eternity to

  418. a cross, and he did it because he loved you

  419. before you existed. If you have been carrying the fear

  420. that you are alone, that you are behind, that you

  421. are too broken or too old or too far gone,

  422. let this ancient truth quiet that fear tonight. You were

  423. loved before the world began. You are held right now

  424. by the same hands that made the stars, and you

  425. are welcomed, not because of anything you have done, but

  426. because of who he has always been— You do not

  427. have to have the right words. You do not have

  428. to fix yourself first. You can simply come, just as

  429. you are, to the one who has been waiting for

  430. you since before there was a world to wait in.

  431. Come in out of the cold. Sit down. You are

  432. known here. You are loved here. And the God who

  433. was there before the beginning will walk with you all

  434. the way to the end. And when the hard days come,

  435. and they will come, you can hold on to this.

  436. The one who loves you is not new to your

  437. life and easily discouraged by it. He is older than

  438. your troubles and stronger than your fears. He was not

  439. shaken when the world began, and he will not be

  440. shaken by whatever you are facing now. Nothing that happens

  441. to you today lands on a God who is caught

  442. off guard. He saw it before he made the world,

  443. and he is already there on the other side of it,

  444. waiting for you with the same love he has always had.

  445. You are walking through your life held by hands that

  446. have never once let go of anything they made. So

  447. the next time you feel small or forgotten or unsure

  448. whether your life has counted for anything, remember who was

  449. there before the world began. Remember that he made it

  450. with you in mind. Remember that he stepped down into

  451. it to find you. And remember that the story of

  452. the Eternal Son is not a story about a distant

  453. time long ago. It is the story of how deeply

  454. and how long you have been loved. May the Eternal Son,

  455. who was there before the world was made, meet you

  456. today with the love that has no beginning and no end.

  457. If this video helped you grow deeper in God's Word,

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