Title: The Infinite Word
Scripture: John 1:1-5
Speaker: Nate Pickowicz
I love that some of our most famous, popular Christmas hymns are just loaded with theology. And I was even thinking about the the text we're going to be in today and just the second verse of Come All Ye Faithful just really resonates. And it's it's wonderful that we get to sing Nicene Christology in our hymns.
So it's a wonderful thing as we approach the Christmas week, as we tend to every year, we consider the meaning of Christmas. And there's a lot of discussion about this time of year for believers talking about the true meaning of Christmas, because for so many of us in the West, Christmas is about gifts and traditions and food and family. That's how most people approach these holidays.
It's about old time stories that we retell over and over again. So often they almost take on a mythical quality to them. It really becomes all about this story of the journey to Bethlehem and the star in the sky and the baby in the manger and the shepherds in the field and the wise men from afar.
And then somewhere along the way in our culture, we've sort of infused now Santa Claus and Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and Charlie Brown. And it's a wonderful life and Elf on the Shelf and all these wonderful things that we've infused into these stories. And we don't want anyone to touch our holiday fun.
But as Christians, we understand that the events of Christmas are inspired by an even greater story. There's nothing wrong with having fun for the holidays. But ultimately, when we talk about what this holiday really means, I believe that it's up to Christians to reclaim and to repurpose our understanding of this, because it is ultimately the greatest story, the greatest event in human history.
It's the story of God coming to earth to save his people. But before we even look at the event, which we're going to look more at on Christmas Eve, we're going to we want to spend some time getting our arms around the magnitude of the incarnation. And I've been pondering this for months now.
I've been sort of my brain has been living in some of these verses and some of these concepts. And so I'm personally very excited to spend this time in the Bible with you today. Why was the birth of Jesus so earth shattering? We need to consider this as we consider Christmas.
And I believe it's because this is something that's never happened before. It hasn't happened since, and it will never happen again. It is a one time unique event.
At some point in time, a very specific point in time, the infinite became finite. Spirit took on flesh. God became a man.
But in order to behold the wonder of such an event, we must first look at who Jesus is. And not just as we understand him in the stories, but who he is. According to Scripture, who he is in truth.
Who is this infinite being that came to earth, wrapped in the body of a baby? To my mind, there's no better place to go than the Gospel of John. And so if you have your copy of Scripture, go to John chapter one, the Gospel of John. Now, John is the fourth gospel written sometime at the end of the first century.
And its purpose is to really supplement or even enhance the work that was written down by Matthew, Mark and Luke. Those are called synoptic gospels, same view, synoptic. So those are very similar stories that kind of elaborate on each other.
But John is sort of in a category by himself. He doesn't use all the same material. He tells different stories about Jesus's life and ministry.
He elaborates on those events. And he includes much in his gospel that is absent of the others. And his is actually more of a theological gospel.
You get to see what Jesus said and did read Matthew, Mark, Luke. But we really want to know who he is theologically, eternally in his deity. We really want to look at John, whereas Matthew and Luke, for example, they bring us into Jesus's earthly genealogy.
And both of those, Matthew and Luke, record the birth narrative. There is no birth narrative in John. But John includes a very different aspect of Jesus's origin.
He talks about the person of Jesus Christ in terms of his existence in all of eternity. And that's what we're going to focus today in John chapter one verses one through five here. John one in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him. And apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being.
In him was life and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it. Now, this prologue here in the beginning of the gospel goes all the way to verse 18.
There is quite a bit to this prologue. And we're not going to focus on all of the verses in terms of our exposition today. But I do want to spend some time camping out in these first five here.
And I want to look at this together. He starts with this phrase in the beginning. Now, in the beginning are probably some of the most famous words in all of the Bible.
Even non-believers understand that where that phrase comes from. It goes back to Genesis one one where we read in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Of course, using this phrase here, John is making a he's making a connection.
He's creating a link and he's sending a clear message with his gospel that he's about to make statements about origins and about God. Origins and God, because that's what Moses does in Genesis. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
But here, John is writing in the beginning was the word. There's a few things to note here about this. Whereas Genesis goes on to show that God is doing something in the beginning.
He's already at work in the beginning. Right. John, however, showcases the existence of a being who already was there in the beginning.
Well, who is this pre-existent being? John identifies him as the word, the word. Well, who or what is this? The Greek word translated word is the word Logos, Logos in the Greek. Now, this concept of the word or the Logos is foreign to modern years.
We don't have very many discussions about this concept of the word and it's piqued the curiosity of many students. And it would have piqued the curiosity of early readers as well. To the Jews, the concept of the word of God was significant in terms of understanding the act of creation, creation.
Because in Genesis, we literally see that it is by the spoken word of God that all things came into being. If you were to read Genesis one all the way through, you would see this six times in Genesis one alone. We read the phrase and God said, and there was over and over again.
So the very word of God is the vehicle by which he commands all things to obey him and to exist. We see this during even the earthly ministry of Jesus, where he calms the storm, he flattens the sea by only one word. He just says, he stands up in the boat and he says, hush, be still.
And everything stops. The storm stops raging and everything becomes quiet and calm to the absolute horror and shock of the disciples. Who is this who's sitting in our boat with us, who gives a word to the wind and the seas and they obey him? Creation obeys when the word of God is spoken.
But the word of God is a repeated theme in the Old Testament. It showcases many aspects of God's character and God's nature. Every time we see this concept of the word of God, there's a lot bound up in it.
I want to just give you just a sample of these to kind of frame your thinking here about the word of God in the Old Testament. Number one, God's word is his creative power. God's word is his creative power.
Psalm 33, six, by the word of the Lord, the heavens were made and by the breath of his mouth, all their hosts. Number two, God's word is his authority. Psalm 147, 15, he sends forth his command to the earth.
His word runs very swiftly. It's by his word he commands all things. Number three, God's word is his provision and his deliverance.
Isaiah 55, 11, my word, he says, goes forth from my mouth and it will not return to me empty without accomplishing what I desire and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. In other words, when he says something's going to happen, it's going to happen. He's not going to say something and have it come back to him undone.
God's word is his provision and his deliverance. Number four, God's word is his revelation, his self-disclosure. Jeremiah experienced this when he declared, the word of the Lord came to me.
It came to me. Now, you could say that's a figurative way of saying God talked to him. But I believe that when Jeremiah is talking about this, there's something of God's self-revelation coming to him.
When God's word came, he received it as being God himself. Number five, God's word is his judgment. Jeremiah 23, 29, the Bible says, is not my word like fire declares the Lord and like a hammer which shatters a rock.
When God speaks, judgments go forth. Number six, God's word is his mercy, his compassion. And his salvation.
Psalm 107, 20, he sent his word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions. And so even when we chop only a small piece off of the iceberg, so to speak, we see that the word of God is the self-expression of the very essence and the very nature and the very power of God. This isn't just about a word.
It's about his divine word. And the Jews would have had a concept in their minds for that. They would have understood that language.
But what about the Gentiles? What about the Greeks? Because again, John's writing to an audience that's pretty mixed here. There would have been a lot of non-Jewish people reading his gospel. Would they have understood this Logos? Well, in the 6th century BC, there was an Ephesian philosopher named Heraclitus.
And he believed that everything in the universe was in a state of constant flux, always changing, always erratic. And we feel like that in our own lives sometimes. We understand the idea of flux and change and chaos.
He used an illustration of water in a river, the illustration of a river. And the illustration is this, that if you were to put your foot or your finger into a river, you cannot step into the same place twice. As soon as the river passes by it, it's new water.
It's gone. It's changed. So that was his idea.
You can't step your foot in, take it back out, and step in the exact same place. It will never happen. And so in the same way, always changing like the river, so is everything else in the world, in the cosmos, changing.
Everything is in flux. Everything is in motion, erratic and changing. However, Heraclitus figured, the answer to all of this, the order to the chaos, the control of the uncontrollable, was this concept of logos.
Because this word logos, it can mean word, but it can also mean reason. It can mean wisdom. And so the whole universe is kept in check in order by the logos, the word, the reason of God.
Fast forward to right before the time of Jesus, there was a philosopher named Philo. And Philo took that idea from Heraclitus and he ran with it. And he streamlined this philosophy, writing extensively on this concept of the divine logos.
Even though this Greek concept of logos is relatively abstract, it was pervasive in the culture. Secular Greeks talked about the logos in the same way that many people today talk about a higher power referring to God. It's very similar.
This concept, this higher power, this logos, this word, this reason, it's abstract, it's faceless, it's nameless, it's mysteriously transcendent. But all the Greeks knew is that everything in the world, all creation, all the universe, all reality, was guided and directed by this divine logos. And so when John, in verse 14, says, And the word, the logos, became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth, that would have blown their minds.
What do you mean the logos, the wisdom of God, the reason of God, the infinite, the abstract? What do you mean that that became flesh and dwelt among us? And so we understand that John is very wise and very calculated with how he uses these words in his gospel, using this universal term to talk about God's self-disclosure to human beings. It would have made sense, again, to the Jews, it would have made sense to the Greeks and the Gentiles. And so we read here, in verse 1 here, this concept of this divine word, this divine logos, and it says here, in the beginning, was the word.
At the time of creation, the word was already in existence. We don't have a birth date here. He's uncreated, He's infinite, He's eternal.
And so the divine logos is preexistent. Now, we could get very technical and say, well, just because something is older than creation doesn't mean it's eternal. But you have to recognize, when you're reading the scriptures and you read these kinds of phrases, before the ages, before the world, before the creation, before all these things, it's meant to be a timestamp of eternity.
God Himself is called the Ancient of Days. This is all speaking of the preexistence and the eternality and the infinitude of God. But then we read here, not only was the word in the beginning already, but the word was with God, with God.
The Greek phrase, proston theos, or theon, is with God, was with God. It indicates a closeness. It indicates an intimacy with God.
One scholar, William Hendrickson, quotes it this way. He renders the phrase, the word was face to face with God. Another translator sees this as being two personal beings facing one another, engaging in intellectual discourse.
And so you have this imagery of these two beings sitting opposite one another in this elongated discourse that has gone on for eternity. And so not only is the word a distinct person who is alongside God, he's with God in an intimate relationship, an eternal relationship. Now we start to see this logos is being elevated even grander than we might have thought before.
And so the question is, what kind of being would be able to exist in a close, intimate relationship with an infinite and holy God? Well, the Bible is very clear about this in many places. The only one who's able to do such a thing would be God Himself. And that's what John says next.
Not only was the word preexistent in the beginning, but the word was with God. And then he says, and the word was God. And so not only preexistent and infinite, not only engage in intimacy with God, but also sharing in the very nature and essence of God.
Verse two emphasizes this remarkable truth, but also elaborates that John is assigning here a personal pronoun. Because earlier in verse one, we just see this concept of the word, but then in verse two, it says of the word he. He was in the beginning.
We don't have an impersonal force here. We don't have some higher power with no face on it. We don't have just something in the ether.
We have a being, a person, a he who was in the beginning with God. Who is this infinite divine person who is preexistent, eternal, intimate with God and possessing all of his nature? Well, I'm not going to keep you hanging because you know the answer who this is. Verse 17, John tells us, and he juxtaposes Moses and Jesus here for the law was given through Moses.
But then he says, grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. So this is all about Jesus Christ. The one we worship, the one we serve, the one we celebrate.
It's all about Jesus now. In fact, this is the one one of the key passages here that we understand is teaching about the deity of Christ. Of course, once this is revealed to us, we go to places like Colossians 115 that says that he talking about Jesus, he is the image of the invisible God.
Or Hebrews 1 3, he is the radiance of his glory and exact representation of his nature. John would later record the words of Jesus in a vision in Revelation 1 8, where he declares, I am the Alpha and the Omega, who is and who was and who is to come, the almighty. Jesus is saying this about himself.
Remarkable, remarkable. Even in John 14, when the disciples are trying to understand who he is and one of the disciples says to him, Oh, Lord, show us the father and it will be enough for us. And you can almost see Jesus sort of face palming here and say, have I not been long with you, brother? He says, if you've seen me, you've seen the father.
Don't you know that I am in the father and the father is in me? Later on in John 10, verse 30, he says, I and the father are one. He doesn't mean one in terms of the exact same person, but we're one. We're together.
We're united in perfection. I'm trying to formulate this understanding of the person of Christ, the council of Nicaea, who we've already sung some of their doctrinal statements in our hymns this morning, which is wonderful. We read in the council of Nicaea, they issued a statement called the Nicene Creed in the late or early fourth century.
The Nicene Creed includes this phrase, speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, calling him the only begotten son of God, begotten of the father before all worlds, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the father by whom all things were made. Does that sound like something we just sang? It's the same idea, same phrase. And so this concept of the word, the divine word in John one is infinite.
He's intimate with the father. He is God himself. He's divine.
And then we understand this concept that he's consubstantial. He's of the same substance or of the same essence of God. What does that mean? Of all the Godness that God possesses, the son possesses that Godness as well.
He is God of God. Very God or truly God of truly God. Remarkable theology here.
And I'll tell you, so many people miss this. So many people are so eager to go to the birth narrative. And don't get me wrong, we're going there.
I want to be there. But we don't. Jesus doesn't come into existence at the birth narrative.
He is preexistent here and has always been. We don't have a concept. I think sometimes when we speak about these things, infinite and eternal and preexistent, we don't have a concept because all we understand is a clock.
We only understand time. A hundred years is a relatively long time. A hundred years is a long time when you're younger.
As you get closer, a hundred years doesn't seem so long. But for us, a thousand years, oh, that's a long time. Ten thousand years, oh, that's just a fable.
But what if I were to say billions upon billions upon billions of years doesn't even touch the preexistence of Christ? We don't we don't have a concept for this. It's so abstract, it feels foolish, but it's remarkably true. And so we see that not only was the second person here with God in the beginning, he's personally also active in the creation.
Look at verse three. Now we read all things came into being through him. And apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being.
And so, verse three, there are two parallel statements here. He says the same thing twice, but in an inverse. He says here, all things came into being by him.
Again, the word, the divine word, the logos of God. The word created everything. In fact, that's what Hebrews one, two says that it was through Christ that God made the world.
He is the agent of creation. Or as we read in Colossians 116, for by him, all things were created both in heaven, in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible. Where the thrones, dominions or rulers or authorities, the Bible says all things have been created by him and for him.
He didn't just create it and let it go and say, well, my creation has gone out and maybe I'll see it again. He created everything and said, this is mine. This is for me.
He possesses all creative authority and ownership. And then John says, all things came into being by him again. This is the inverse parallel.
Apart from him, nothing has come into being that has come into being. And so to reiterate here, Christ is the sole creator. There are no other gods at work.
It's not like the the Greek and Roman deities where one God did this and there's the God of the sun and the God of the moon and the God of war and the God of love. And no, there's no other competing gods. There's no other forces at work.
There is one true divine creator. And nothing came into existence apart from him. Everything that is is here because of him.
Jesus Christ as the word is the creator, the sustainer, the owner of all things. And not just things, but also life itself. Look at verse four.
It says, in him was life and the life was the light of men. These twin themes, if you read John's gospel and also John's letters, these themes of life and light are dominant in his writing. But they're also dominant in Jesus's teaching too.
How do we understand the origin of life? Again, these are great mysteries, aren't they? It's a mystery even to us right now. I mean, with everything that we know, everything we've learned about life and science and technology and everything, we don't really understand the origin of the divine spark that gives life. We're very, very good at taking life away, but we cannot seem to impart new life.
We can even play with this whole thing of resuscitating and kind of bringing back to life someone who was formerly alive and then dead. We can bring them back within a small window of time, but we don't know how to look at an inanimate object and bring life into it and make it a living being. We can't do that.
We don't know how, we're not able to do it. When someone or something dies, where does that life go? Why can we not get it back? Scientists and philosophers are stumped by this. But John gives us a peek behind the curtain here.
He tells us that in him, the word Christ, in him was life. Now, certainly as the creator, Christ is responsible for making all biological life. The Greek word is bios, refers to physical life, biological life.
But John uses a different word here. He doesn't use the word bios, talking about physical life. He uses the word zoe, which of course can mean existence, but it refers also to spiritual life.
Spiritual life, the life that is inside of each one of us. And not just alive because neurons are firing and blood is pumping through your heart, but alive because of some kind of vibrancy in the soul. And we understand this.
You understand the exuberance of life. You understand the radiance of the human spirit. You understand the weightiness of passion and emotion and the power of love.
You know that life isn't just the fact that you have a pulse. That's not life. Life is more than this.
We understand this. And this is why it's so amazing when Jesus says in John 5, 26, for just as the father has life in himself, even so he gave the son to the son also to have life in himself. He doesn't just mean that the son's alive.
No, he means that life is in him, that he possesses it, that he owns it. Jesus elsewhere in John 11, 25, as he's just about to resurrect Lazarus after the fourth day in the grave, he's far past when someone could revive a person. The Bible says that he was even smelling in the grave.
He was already decomposing. And Jesus goes, and what's his method of getting Lazarus out of the grave? By the way, does he go in and start CPR? They roll back the stone. He stands at the mouth of the cave and he says, Lazarus, come forth.
The word. The word speaks the word and life comes forward. I mean, it's just everywhere, isn't it? Read your Bible and see these themes.
They're repeated over and over and over again. It's like it's staring us in the face. It's remarkable.
But Jesus says to Martha, after losing her brother, he says to her, I am the resurrection and the life. I am the life. And I want you to note the context here, the meaning.
Not just existence, not just reanimation to life, or even resurrection to eternal life, but I am the very life itself. It's not merely that Jesus can wave a hand and perform some kind of divine magic trick and bring people back from the dead. That's not what this is.
It's saying that he himself is the source of life and existence, and he's able to infuse that life into the lifeless. The Bible teaches that God breathes life into the nostrils of the first human being. It was out of the lungs of the Lord that we have breath.
Remarkable. John 14, 6. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And no man comes to the father but through me.
And so anyone who wants to find life, again, not just a pulse. If you want life, true life, eternal life, vibrant life, if you want life, you have to go to the source of life itself. You have to go to Christ, the divine word.
Verse 4, again, in him was life. And then John adds, and the life was the light of men. This is a wonderful phrase here.
Again, more than a heartbeat, more than breathing, more than electrical signals in the brain here. We're talking about the divine spark that flickers in the heart of every human being. And we understand this, don't we? This idea of the life being the light of men.
We even have a phrase. When an influential person dies, we like to say this, a light has gone out. You've heard that before, haven't you? A light has gone out in the world.
But because we know, they didn't just die. There was something about the spark inside of them. The personality, the intellect, the persona of who they are, that light is gone.
And so we have a concept, even in our minds, even apart from Scripture, of the brilliance of human life, or as John calls it, the light of men. It's this kind of life that resides in Jesus. He is the source of this light of men.
It's almost as if we are candles, and he is the unquenchable fire that enlightens all of us. I mean, it's not a coincidence here that we're lighting candles here and this idea of having a source of light that goes to something else, as difficult as they are to light this year, it seems. We're going to get new candles next year.
But you understand the concept that there's this source, this light, this power that emanates and everything else is enlightened by it. And it's interesting because John speaks to this in John 1 verse 9. He says, there was the true light which has come into the world and enlightens every man. And so not only is Jesus the source of life, he is the true light himself.
Again, verse 5, the light, talking about Jesus, the Word, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it. Again, scientists have many working theories about light. We believe that light is made up of particles called photons and they travel in waves.
At least that's the most recent working theory. But there's much about light that we don't understand. We do understand, however, that it is a powerful force.
It's probably the most powerful thing. Darkness, on the other hand, is not a force. Darkness is merely the absence of light.
Because light can accomplish much. Light can make hidden or what's hidden visible. Light can bring heat.
Light can make what is dim bright. Light can make what is dull radiant. Light does many things.
And the Bible uses this light as a metaphor, symbolizing revelation, illumination, understanding, purity, goodness. Jesus declares in John 8, 12, I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have, look at that, possess, have the light of life.
He claims to be the source of light and life. Furthermore, 1 John 1, 5, we read that God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. And so Jesus, who is the light, shines in the midst of darkness.
And not just physical darkness, spiritual darkness as well. The light, the true light, shines in the midst of barrenness and emptiness and nothingness. The true light shines in the midst of wickedness and sin and evil, in the midst of secrecy and shame.
He shines in the darkness. Yet remember that the darkness has nothing on the light. In fact, the darkness cannot comprehend it.
As the New American Standard translates, katalambano literally means to lay hold of or to seize. Some have translated this overtake, overcome, comprehend. But the big idea here is that it can't hold it down.
Darkness can't master the light. It can't control the light. It can't defeat the light.
Darkness has no power over light. But yet, that tends not to be our experience sometimes. There are times when we feel like we're living in a world of increasing darkness.
And it feels like it's creeping in on us. The light seems to be growing dimmer and dimmer. As nations fall, immorality erodes, and culture seems to be crumbling in many cases.
We see the emergence of wickedness and evil, violence and corruption, selfishness, and it just seems to press in on us. The good old days are gone, we tend to think, don't we? It's a sad commentary when we look back on the 80s as the good old days. But don't we think that way? Doesn't it feel like it's just going down and down and down? I'm not trying to be a pessimist here, but we do have eyes to see what's going on in the world.
And yet, in the midst of all of that, we tend to be fooled into thinking that darkness and evil will eventually win. That darkness will just continue to spread until the whole world is consumed. But we have to remember, believers, that darkness has an expiration date.
Because the light is coming. And that's what John tells us. Look at verse 6. There came 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. There was the true light which coming into the world enlightens every man.
He was in the world and the world was made through him. And the world did not know him. He came to his own.
And those who were his own did not receive him, but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. It's this point here that John's prologue, which feels very abstract at the beginning, enters into the human timeline. Now we're talking about a very specific point in history.
We see a glimpse here of John the Baptist, the forerunner to Jesus. And then we're told that this true light here is coming into the world. He would come into the world he created.
He would come to the people he created at a very specific time, to a very specific place. And the question is, well, how did he come? How did this divine light, this creator of all things, this word eternal, how did this person come to us? Did he come as a pillar of fire like he did with the Israelites? Did he come like a whirlwind like he did with Elijah? Did he come in the wind? Did he come in a glory cloud? Did he come as an apparition, as a heavenly vision? Not at all. Rather, he came in the most inconceivable, ignoble, unassuming, unexpected way.
He came to earth as a man. Verse 14, The word became flesh and dwelt among us. And he says that we saw his glory.
Glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. Now we have the miracle of the incarnation. And this is the greatest miracle that's ever occurred.
Scholars have called this the miracle of miracles. And yet we know that he didn't just come into the world just to live here, like he was looking for some new place to be. He wasn't on vacation.
He wasn't here on a sightseeing tour. He came to earth for a very specific purpose. What did the angel tell Joseph? He came to save his people from their sins.
He came to give his life. The one who embodies life and light came to give his life and suffered death to bring us life and light. Even that truth is almost incomprehensible.
And again, we repeat it so many times. I fear that it can lose its power. It can lose its significance.
We sing these amazing songs with robust and beautiful theology. And there's the danger that this could become rote. We just rehearse it so much it loses its meaning.
And so, brothers and sisters, ponder, consider these things. When you sing the songs and read the stories and read the narratives and do your devotionals and recite these prayers that we pray, which are good. When we do all of these exercises, as we will do, consider the magnitude of this.
That this eternal, infallible, divine, amazing Word of God would condescend to come and take on the bounds of our sinful flesh, even though He Himself is not sinful. But He came, as the Bible says in Romans 8, in the likeness of sinful flesh. He came here and looked just like us.
If Jesus were to walk in the room incarnate right now and sit down, you wouldn't recognize Him. Didn't look anything different than us. And yet, we understand that there is a wonderful union of these two natures.
The divine and the human together in one perfect person. The God-man, Jesus, who came to earth, was born in the manger, the lowest place He could be. Lived in poverty and squalor in a very unassuming region of Israel.
Did not have a place to lay His head in terms of grandeur, kingdom. He wasn't rich, He wasn't wealthy, and yet He owned all things. He walked among us, He taught, He lived with us.
And then at a certain point, when He was 33 years old, He went to the cross and He died in the place of sinners. And in a few days, we're going to look at the events of this coming, this event where He does show up in Bethlehem. And we're going to see this miraculous birth to this Virgin Mary in Bethlehem.
And we're going to see how this ultimate wonder of it all is not merely about the birth of a baby, but rather eternal God coming into the earth, into the world to save His people. It's a remarkable thing. And so I would exhort you, if you are here today and you're not a Christian, if you don't know Jesus, if you're here for Christmas because somebody invited you, or maybe you've been here a long time and you still have not put your hope and your faith and your trust in Jesus as Savior.
If you feel like there's a deadness in you that you long for life, and you're looking everywhere else in the world to try to find it and you can't, it's because you're looking in the wrong place. In Him is life. In Him is the light of all people.
Turn away from your sins. Put your trust in Jesus Christ who gave His life for you. And the Bible says that you will have eternal life.
He will give you grace. He will give you mercy. He will give you a new life, not even just spiritually now, but He will give you eternal life forever to come.
There'll be no tears to cry, no aches and pains, no sin or bondage, only life and light in His name. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You.
We thank You for just this wonderful prologue in John's gospel. Lord, on some level, I feel like we could just live here even longer and ponder the truth of these verses and try to comprehend the incomprehensible. And Lord, when we read these verses, we're not just reading about some mythical Bible story.
You're not just a character in a book. You are the true and living God. And You came to give us life.
And You came to offer Yourself as a sacrifice. And Lord, there are so many people who are hurting right now. They're lost and dying in sin, and they need to be born again.
But Lord, even for Your people who are hurting and suffering, either through sickness or just their bodies are breaking down and wasting away, or maybe they're at odds with people that they love and care about. Maybe they're being persecuted by injustice or just wickedness. Lord, whatever it may be, I pray that You would bring life and light to Your people.
That You would minister truth and grace to us today. That we would forget and sort of not mind and think about just all that is in the world. But we would fix our eyes on You, who the Bible says is the author and perfecter of our faith.
That our gaze, our mind, our focus would be on the true light. That You would shine in our lives today. And we would draw near to You, fixing our hope on You.
Lord, apart from You, we have nothing. But in You, we have all things. Glorify Yourself through us today.
In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen.