The Word: John Talk 1 (1:1-5)

0:00 So, Al's already set up our new series really well, this new series in John's Gospel, but I think it's important for us to begin with the question, why are we going into John's Gospel at this time, as this church? It's not simply because it's Al's favorite book of the Bible and he asked, that's not the case. It's much deeper than that, but really at the heart of that is a picture. Matt, would you mind putting up the picture of the sewer, if that's okay? A lot of you remember this from a talk I gave a few months back when we did the series on building gospel bridges. I spoke and Phil Knox and a couple of others did as well. And that idea of us scattering seeds of hope, that we would be sewers who would be filling our bags with seed with the word of God, and then we would be going out with that word and scattering it generously wherever we get the opportunity, knowing that the power is not in us, in our skills or our abilities, but is found within the word. And so that is really the heart of why we are doing this.

1:06 We want to be those scatterers of seeds of hope. Our strategy for witness, and that's a big word in John's gospel, actually our strategy for witness, our strategy for evangelism here is a very simple one. It's not about big evangelists. It's not about big events. it is about every single member being equipped and being encouraged and being prayed for to go out and scatter those seeds of hope and so what that's what we want to do here within these walls we want to be filling our bags full of that seed ready to go out and then within our home groups or small groups or if you're not in those ones perhaps you're a student and you're in cu up in Belfast or something like that, whatever your sort of smaller stuff is, we want there to be little engine rooms of prayer and little engine rooms of encouragement for each other to actually be going and doing that, creating a culture of that, making that front and center of who we are and what we're praying for and what we're anticipating and so on. That's what we're keen to do. That is our vision.

2:13 That's what we want to see at the heart of this church. And that's what we want to see coming out of this teaching series. That's what we're keen to do. And of course, some of you will be aware, little sort of, I suppose, support strands of that. One of them has been the 321 course where we invite people to come along with us to look at God's word. Another one is the word one-to-one, which again is inviting somebody to have a coffee with you and so on and look at God's word. And both 321 and word one-to-one are totally focused on John's gospel. They are centered on John's gospel.

2:49 And that raises a question, why are they centered on John's gospel? And I think the answer to that is that arguably John's gospel account is the clearest and the most profound response to the central question of history. A question that C.S. Lewis puts this way in a title to his essay, what are we to make of Jesus Christ? What are we to make of Jesus Christ? And Al's already told us that John himself is crystal clear about that and about the purpose of his gospel. And he read the verse at the end of chapter 20, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. So the answer to why John is very much to do with filling those bags full of seed to be able to go out.

3:50 It's not just to feed ourselves. It is to feed ourselves to go out and be active as witnesses in the world. And over the next seven weeks, we're going to take our time just to go through this first movement in John's gospel, running from chapter 1, verse 1, up to chapter 2, verse 12, at the end of the story of the wedding in Canaan. And we're going to just take our time going through that very slowly. And then from chapter 2, verse 13 onwards, John organizes, John arranges his narrative according to different journeys that Jesus makes to Jerusalem. So what we're going to do over the next however many years it takes, maybe once or twice a year, we're going to come back to John again. We're going to organize our series around those journeys, and we're going to work through this so that we continue to build ourselves up with this gospel. So let's begin then.

4:47 This account of Jesus, written by, as many of you know his beloved friend, his close disciple, John, written by John towards the end of his life, probably while he was in Ephesus, and written later than the other three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And let's see then what he's got to say to us, even just in these first five verses this morning, when it comes to the question, what are we to make of Jesus Christ? Here are those verses. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

5:39 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Each of the gospel writers begin their gospel accounts in a different place with a different beginning. You remember back to the series we did on Matthew. I remember that that gospel account starts with a family tree of Jesus' genealogy. It's a warts and all genealogy, but that's where Matthew begins. Luke begins with the unbelieving priest in the temple, Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. And that's where he chooses to begin. And then Mark begins with what he calls, these are the opening words, the beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.

6:25 And for him, the beginning of the good news starts with the story of the sending of the messenger, the forerunner, John the Baptist. So those three all start in those places. Maybe an interesting little question to discuss tomorrow night or whatever night your home groups meet. Why do you think they do start there? Why do you think they start in different places? It's not accidental. It's not random. It's very purposeful.

6:51 And so is John's. In the beginning was the word. Perhaps John had read Mark's and thought, well, he's talking about in the beginning, but actually, Mark, the beginning goes way, way, way further back than that. And so very obviously, very intentionally, John takes the opening lyric of Genesis and appropriates it for his own account. Nobody could miss that. Drawing his readers back to before the creation of the world. In the beginning, remember Genesis, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty.

7:27 Darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, remember that phrase. And God said, let there be light. And there was light. and that's followed by that repeated phrase as God creates and God says and God says over and over again. John then is taking us back to when God created the universe from nothing solely by the power of his spoken word. But John doesn't say in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. John says, in the beginning was the word.

8:14 So the word was there before the creation of the word. Therefore, the obvious question for us to ask at the beginning of this series is, what does John mean when he talks about the word? What is the claim that John is making here? And as we think that through, we've got to recognize that John, of course, was a Jew, But he was a Jew who was writing this gospel account in the international language of the day, in Koine Greek. And the word that he uses here, as many of us again will know, is the Greek word logos, translated here in English as the word. Now, of course, we all know how a particular word can be understood differently across various cultures and various contexts. So, if I said to you, I was watching my son play football yesterday, that word football might be different depending on where you're from.

9:14 So if I said to most people here, in your mind's eye, you would picture a grass pitch with 22 players on it, 11 from each side, kicking a spherical ball of air around, and there's a goal mouth at each end, and they're trying to kick it over the line into the goal mouth. That's what you would picture in your mind's eye. But if I said to my American friend who was watching my son playing football yesterday, that would be a totally different picture for them. They would picture helmets and shoulder pads and people running with an egg-shaped ball or throwing an egg-shaped ball. And out of the dozens of players in the teams, only two people out of the teams are actually allowed to kick the ball. But yet, they have the audacity to call it football. Or if I was talking to you and you were from Australia, for example, Again, the word football would have a different connotation. You would probably picture, well, I certainly do anyway.

10:09 Lots of men in short shorts, magnificent mullets, superb moustaches, knocking seven bells out of each other, and the ball seems incidental to the game altogether. And so that's where the different contexts, the different cultures, we can have a different perspective on a word. And John knows that as he uses this word logos here. It's going to mean something different to his Greek readers, to his Greek listeners, than it is to his Jewish ones. I think it's important for us then to understand what the background to that word would have been for both those audiences. So let's start with the Greek background, the Greek understanding of logos, going back as far as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. He observed all of the order in the physical universe, and he used logos to express the idea of that, this unifying principle of the cosmos, this rational order, what he called the controlling wisdom that people needed to try to perceive, and then they needed to try to listen to.

11:25 The Stoics then, who came later, picked up on this, and they developed it. They talked about about virtue lying in an attempt to align one's inner reason with this cosmic logos, whatever they thought it was. And then later, others would come along and they would say, there's no such thing as this logos. Or they would say, yes, it might be there, but there's no way that we are capable of perceiving it. So we've got a choice and here are the choices. You might as well choose to live, like the Epicureans suggested, with pleasure as your goal. Sound familiar at all to modern ears? Or you might choose to live according to the assumption that, yes, there is such a principle out there, even if you can't really perceive it.

12:17 So, for example, later Stoicism became seeking to live in an upright way, and as a responsible citizen, compassionately, justly. even though they couldn't really perceive what that tangible logos was that they were talking about they just assumed that so into the greek audience then can we see what john is saying to them he is saying there is such a logos there is something behind that order that you perceive in the universe and it has been there since the very beginning. There is something to align your inner reason and rationality to. There is rational communication to listen to. But the twist on your thinking is this, the logos, the word is not a principle, is not an abstraction. The logos is a person. It's a person to be perceived, to be known, to be listened to, even a person to be followed and loved. He, John says, was with God in the beginning.

13:33 Let me then, John, ascend as readers and listeners, let me invite you into fresh thinking. Let me invite you into finding out not what, but who this word, who this logos is. That is a person. And of course, in the rest of the prologue, he's going to describe how this person breaks into history. It breaks into humanity. And then the rest of the gospel tells us who he is and what he's like. So that's the Greek-influenced understanding. But just like the word football is understood differently between people from here and people from America, so logos, our word, carried a very different meaning to the Jews.

14:22 And all of that depth of that meaning we can find within the Old Testament scriptures. So what did they hear? What was their background with this word, logos, the word? And I would really encourage you to maybe, If you get the opportunity, go and do a little study on that for yourself. There are many treasures on earth in the Old Testament about that. But let me get you started. Let me get the ball rolling for you. So we've already mentioned those words and God said in Genesis 1.

14:53 Surely the Jews would have picked up on that. Jews would have associated God's word in the Old Testament with his powerful action. with his powerful self-expression, particularly in creation, in that Genesis account, but also in his revelation of himself, of his character, and also in his deliverance, in his salvation of his people. So on hearing the word, they might have been reminded of, for example, Psalm 33. By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth, for he spoke and it came to be. John's saying to these Jewish readers, that word of the Lord, that's a he, that's a person. Or they might have thought of Psalm 107. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and he saved them from their distress.

15:50 He sent out his word and healed them. He rescued them from the grave. The word, again, John is saying to these Jewish readers, a person. Or what about Isaiah 55? So as my word that goes out from my mouth, it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. When we read John's gospel, we find that's a perfect description of the word. The person. And maybe as they began to realize what John was trying to say to them, they might have been reminded about wisdom being represented as a person in Proverbs.

16:34 Proverbs 8, for example, let me give you a little excerpt. And listen to the parallels here between this and John 1. I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above and fixed securely the fountains of the deep, when he gave the sea its boundary so the waters would not overstep his command, and when he marked out the foundation of the earth, then I was constantly at his side. I love this bit. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind. So what John is saying to his Jewish readers and listeners is this staggering claim that all these descriptions of God's word in the Old Testament, they are descriptions of a person. A person who has always existed.

17:38 You could go back and back and back in time, and you would never find a time when the word has not existed. He was with God. It's really important here to understand that. He was a distinct person. The Greek word for with is used to describe people in intimate relationship. That Proverbs quote represents just that. So in the beginning, when the darkness was over the surface of the deep, when the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters, the person of the Word was there with God. As we see, as we go through the gospel, John amends the language of God and the Word to father and son.

18:23 So in the beginning, the word, the son, was there with God, the father. Creation came out of loving relationship. Loving relationship came first. Loving relationship is ultimate reality and that is massively, crucially important for us to understand who God is. I love evangelism resources that start with the Trinity before they start with creation because that's the order. But not only was the word with God, John claims, but the word was God. Not simply with God, not simply was God, but both together.

19:17 The word was God. The word has always shared fully in the divine nature. He is not a created being. He has always existed and he has always existed as God. We're not saying this isn't hard to get your head around, but this is the reality that John is painting. So when we sing those words, God, the uncreated one, the author of salvation, we are singing them to and about the word and God, the Father and Son. What God was, the Word was. What God is, the Word is.

19:56 And this is crucial for the rest of the account because John's going to write about 15,000 words giving an account of the words and the deeds and the signs of the Word of the Son of Jesus. And his readers need to be absolutely clear that his claim is that this Logos' words and actions and signs are the words and actions and signs of God. The word was with God. The word was God. A staggering claim. The claim that will take the word to the cross. Think of John 8. Jesus saying to the people around him, before Abraham was, I am.

20:51 That didn't go down well. They picked up stones to try to kill him. But that's the claim. In the beginning was the word. The word was with God. And the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. John goes on then, through him all things were made.

21:10 Without him nothing was made. that has been made. And that takes us back again to the and God said of Genesis 1 or the by the word of the Lord, the heavens were made of Psalm 33 or by wisdom, the Lord laid the earth's foundation. The word is God's agent in creation. The author of every created thing. The greatest, most magnificent mountain or ocean. and the intricacy in behind your eye. The author of all of that.

21:51 And he is the author of all life, which means he is the author of my life and it means he is the author of yours. In him was life and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. John continues that theme of light and darkness next week. So we're going to park that till then. and we'll come back to that then. But let me just focus here just briefly on in him was life. There is a single source of all created life, all life.

22:26 And the word, the sun, is that source. Again, a staggering claim. So we'll pick up on the light and the darkness next week. but let's now just for the last few minutes that we have, let's take a breath and let's think through the implications of what we've heard so far. And let's think through the implications of that very much around the questions, the key questions of life, the question of meaning and purpose. What is the meaning of life? Is there any? But then also the question of authority.

23:04 Who do we give the reins of our lives to? Do we hold onto them for ourselves? Or do we hand them over to someone else? And why would we do that? Those sorts of questions. And let's think about that for ourselves. But let's also think about that, going back to what I was saying at the start, in terms of the connections with people's lives that we're talking to. Because these are the key questions that this is addressing, that John's gospel here, that these verses are addressing.

23:34 These are connection points and discussions and conversations we can have with them. So let's try and think this through for ourselves. So first of all, how do these verses speak into the meaning of life? Well, think back to the Greek philosophers musings on the logos. This impersonal force of rationality behind the physical universe, this impersonal principle of controlling wisdom that they talked about trying to seek and perceive and listen to and align one's inner reason with, John takes their perception of logos and he challenges it. He says, yes, meaning can be found in the logos. Yes, it is wise and virtuous to align your inner reason and life to the logos. But as we've talked about already, the logos is not a mysterious principle.

24:21 It is a revealed person. The spoken word of God, the communication of God, the revelation of God. God has revealed himself in the word, in the son, in Jesus. And so the question of the meaning of life might be a philosophical one coming from you, but the answer to it is not a philosophical answer. The answer is a relational one. The answer is a person. The answer's found in that personal logos into the relationship that he invites us into. If Jesus is who John claims he is, here's what John's saying, there is ultimate meaning to life.

25:15 But the only place that you're going to find that ultimate meaning is in him, in the word. That's a very different message than our modern secular culture, where the high-level narrative is that life is ultimately meaningless at that highest level. And if we have a desire within us for that ultimate meaning, well, I'm afraid that's just misplaced and hollow. And what we're left with is to create our own meaning for our own individual lives. We have to construct it for ourselves. or in other terms, we have to be the author of our own story. And let's be honest, and we've got to be honest about this, that many people I talk to, they seem pretty okay with that. A lot of people do, especially when life is going well.

26:13 So Thomas Nagel, the American philosopher in the final chapter of a little book that he has called, what does it all mean? And a brief introduction to philosophy, he seems pretty chipper about all this. He says, even if life as a whole is meaningless, and that's what he says it is, perhaps there's nothing to worry about. Perhaps we can recognize it and just go on as before. But the reality is, yes, there might be some people like Thomas Nagel, but a lot of people, That is not a satisfactory answer to the longings in their heart, to the way that they've been wired. And the problem is then, we're seeing that. We're seeing that so much. We're reading about it.

27:06 We're hearing about it. Especially in younger people. as the writer and podcaster Justin Brarley stated in a recent article, talking about the meaning crisis coming out from hyper-individualism. He says this, Now a generation of millennials and Gen Zs, or Gen Zs, whichever way you want to take it, exhausted by the demands of constant self-invention, are looking for a better story to make sense of their life. It might sound quite good to have this idea of being able to be the author of your own story or construct your own meaning, but when we actually think about it, the fragility of that is awful. The meaning that you can construct could be taken away in a moment by a diagnosis this week. The meaning that you can construct could be taken away by a capricious boss this week. The meaning that you've constructed in life could be taken away by your own stupidity this week.

28:07 And the house of cards comes falling down and everything you've sought to construct disappears. But the word, the son of God has that better story. In fact, he is that better story where meaning can be found that is absolutely safe and secure in him. meaning actually that adds more luster to the meaning of all those other things in life. And so we as witnesses to the word have that better story to live out and have that better story to offer as witnesses to a watching world who are looking for that. And that's a great place for these verses to intersect with your conversations with people. So that's the question of meaning.

29:01 Then what about the question of authority then, which can't be disentangled actually from the question of meaning. John's claim is that ultimate meaning is to be found in relationship with the word, in relationship with Jesus. But the mode of that relationship is crucial. If the word is the one through whom all things were made, if he is the source of life and that life is the light of all mankind, then he is the author of life itself and he is the author of my life and he's the author of yours. And if that life is to flourish, if that life is to fulfill its authored potential, its created purpose, then the authority of that life needs to be handed over to the author. Not as a guru, Not as a sage, not as one of many wise voices, but as the voice. That's why we're to come to him as Lord.

30:10 A number of years ago, I made a little purchase on a whim. Fire a picture up of the little thing I bought. I bought this, it's called a Marconi phone radiogrammer or something along those lines. I think I'd seen, I think it was Stephen Hamill's actually, and really liked it and thought I was going to buy one. And I thought I would put this in a little room in our house and I would buy some old vinyl and I would sort of sit in there and listen to old records and read sort of esoteric books or something along those lines. That sort of picture was in my mind. However, I thought I'd made a good purchase of this, but I brought it home. Turns out that one of the speakers was totally wrecked.

30:48 It only had mono sound, tinny sound. It was terrible. It's horrible to listen to. And it's sat in that room now for the guts of a decade, and it's never played any music whatsoever. Now, does it have a purpose? Yes, it has a purpose. It is a glorified sideboard. And it has photo frames on it, and it has plants on it, and that sort of thing.

31:12 It has a lot of dust on it as well. This one isn't mine. I just couldn't be bothered clearing it. But this is a picture of the internet. So does it have a purpose? Yes, it does. Some sort of purpose, but is it flourishing in its authored potential? Absolutely not.

31:33 I've got the operator's instructions here, and let me tell you that it is not fulfilling any of these, not fulfilling any of the potential of why it was made in the first place. And so, I'm sure you get my point. If the word is the author of life, then it makes sense that we let go of deciding what is best for our own lives and making up our own meaning and our own purpose and hand that authority over to him so that we might flourish and fulfill our potential according to the one who brought us into being. And so if the word, the word, the revelation of God, the communication of God has something to say to us on why we're here, and he does, well, surely we need to listen to him and follow him. If the word's got stuff to say on how to relate to God or how to relate to one another, and he does, then surely it makes sense to listen to him and follow him and align our inner rationality with the logos. If he's got stuff to say on how we're to respond to injustice or how we're to use our money or on the purpose and the boundaries of our sexuality. And he does.

32:59 Surely it makes sense to listen to and follow him. My little image of my Marconi phone thing, it's not done any harm. But there are ways to go against the design which do all sorts of harm to us. the word has come in his own words in John 10 that his sheep those who follow him may have life and may have it to the full true freedom true freedom John's claim is it's found in listening to and following him so what are we to make of Jesus Christ this is john's answer so far in the first five verses there is a lot more to be said but hopefully we can see some of those points of connection with our own lives and with those the lives of those people we seek to bear witness to sort of questions we can bring up the sort of conversations we can discuss but of course many of us sitting here this morning we've already made our mind up on what are we to make of Jesus Christ. So let me, as we go out into the week ahead, narrow this down for us a little bit and ask you to consider this question. What am I to make of Jesus Christ in the week that I'm about to walk into?

34:31 The chorus of the song that we're going to sing shortly in response has these words. Here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down. Here I am to say that you're my God. You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful to me. These words capture the posture of what it looks like to step into the fullness of that life, that the word who was there in the beginning, the word who was with God, and the word who was God, offers to us in him. And so as I look to the week ahead that I have, the tasks that I have to complete, the relationships that I'm part of,

35:27 the anxieties in my mind, all these different things, all the minutiae of my life. What does it look like to step into that fullness? I think these words help us by choosing to worship him, not other idols that tempt my heart. By choosing to bow down to him, to humble myself before him, the one who humbled himself for me and give him the author of my life authority over my life this week in all of those things not deciding that i know better but listening to his words trust me and doing just that with the smallest and the biggest thing By choosing to say you, the living God, the source of life and light, the one who was there in the beginning are my God and I will look for my meaning and I will look for my purpose and I will look for my light and my joy in my relationship with you.

36:42 And all of the other aspects of my life will find their meaning coming out of the meaning that I find in you and in the relationship that I get to enjoy with you, the Logos, the Word, the Son, Jesus Christ. Let's pray together as the band come back. Lord Jesus, we are here to worship you, the one who deserves our worship. We are here to bow down, to humble ourselves before you, to hand over the things that are in our minds and our hearts now for the week ahead, for the month ahead, for the year ahead. We're here to say that you are our God.

37:45 And we are all in on you for what our lives are about, for their meaning, for their purpose, for their fullness. We seek it all in you and you alone. Help us simply to grasp the wonder of who you are as the Word who was with God, the Word who was God. To grasp the wonder of the fact that we have such meaning and purpose that is absolutely secure in you. And that we might grasp again something of the, just of the kindness, of the generosity of your authority in our lives, that idea of this easy yoke.

38:44 Thank you for your love for us. Thank you that you have broken into history, into humanity for us. Give us a fresh perspective on that, we pray, as we go into the weeks that you have for us. And for those here who might not know you, and they're pondering these questions of life and what it's about and its meaning, and maybe their houses of cards have begun to dismantle and they're asking these questions. Well, may they come face to face with the living word, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and may they find the answers. Find life in all its fullness in him. And we ask this in his name.

39:41 Amen. Amen.