Latest / Heart Check Podcast / Bible Study with Pastor Los | The Gospel of John (1:1-2)

Transcript

Bible Study with Pastor Los | The Gospel of John (1:1-2) · Heart Check Podcast

• 0:14
  What's up everybody? Welcome back to Heart Check
• 0:16
  podcast. I'm your host, Pastelos.
• 0:20
  Yeah, let's go. And I'm so excited to be back
• 0:23
  with you guys. We're going to be beginning a
• 0:25
  new series. If you remember our series not
• 0:28
  too long ago titled Christianity one-on-one, we kind of went
• 0:30
  through the basic Christian things to know and to learn.
• 0:36
  If you are new to the faith or if you want to know more about
• 0:39
  what Christianity is, we did a series through there.
• 0:41
  But within one of the series, we had one titled How to Read the
• 0:44
  Bible. And do you guys remember the
• 0:45
  challenge I gave you? What was it?
• 0:48
  Do you remember? It's like we're on Blue's Clues.
• 0:50
  I'm trying to see the audiences answer.
• 0:52
  Oh my goodness, corny. But do you remember?
• 0:54
  The challenge I gave you was to read through the Gospel of John?
• 0:58
  And so I thought it'd be cool to start a series where we walk
• 1:01
  together through the Gospel of John chunk by chunk, that we
• 1:05
  exegete the passage together, that we dive into the word of
• 1:08
  God with one another because we believe that the word of God
• 1:11
  will never come back void. That the word of God is alive
• 1:14
  and active and sharper than A2 edged sword, that it pierces
• 1:17
  through our hearts, cuts through joint and marrow, that it
• 1:19
  convicts us, that it transforms us, that it helps us be more
• 1:23
  like Jesus. So I thought it'd be cool to
• 1:25
  read through the Gospel of John together.
• 1:27
  So we're going to be beginning that today and we're going to
• 1:29
  spend however many weeks to go chunk by chunk through the
• 1:32
  Gospel of John with one another. So I'm super excited about this.
• 1:36
  Thank you for joining me today. If you have not subscribed yet,
• 1:39
  please described below, but I want to talk a little bit before
• 1:42
  we jump into the 2 verses we're going to read today.
• 1:46
  The Gospel of John is the last gospel to be written by the
• 1:50
  apostle John, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, where the gospels written
• 1:54
  before John and those 3 gospels are considered the synoptic
• 1:57
  gospels. And you're probably wondering
• 1:59
  what a synoptic means Synoptic Synoptic just means see
• 2:03
  together. So they were the three that kind
• 2:06
  of wrote their gospels off of one another, that they're very
• 2:08
  similar, that they share similar things, but still have specific
• 2:12
  purpose to each of them. The Gospel of John is a little
• 2:15
  different than the other three. Really.
• 2:18
  I like to word it this way. Matthew, Mark, and Luke is
• 2:21
  really showing us what Jesus did and what Jesus said.
• 2:25
  But the Gospel of John is really teaching us who Jesus is.
• 2:30
  That's the purpose of the Gospel of John.
• 2:31
  John is trying to reveal to his audience, to the ones who are
• 2:35
  going to read this for future believers in 2026, which is
• 2:38
  pretty incredible, incredible 2000 years later, that John was
• 2:42
  going to teach us who Jesus is because it's so important for us
• 2:46
  to know who Christ is, why he came, who he is, how we can be
• 2:52
  more like him. And so the Gospel of John is
• 2:55
  with that focus. And so I love how John starts
• 2:58
  his gospel. I've always thought when John
• 3:00
  received this from the Holy Spirit, when he wrote it down, I
• 3:02
  know he had to sit back a little bit and just be like, that is
• 3:05
  straight fire because it is. And so we're going to sit on
• 3:09
  that today. And these are going to be kind
• 3:11
  of a Bible study breakdown to one another.
• 3:13
  These videos will be a little bit more shorter and compact, so
• 3:15
  we can kind of walk through this together.
• 3:17
  So John begins his gospel like this and we're going to read
• 3:22
  verses one through 2 and I'm reading in NLT if you'd like to
• 3:25
  follow along with me. John says this in the beginning,
• 3:28
  the Word already existed. The Word was with God and the
• 3:33
  Word was God. Verse 2, He existed in the
• 3:37
  beginning with God. So John begins his gospel with a
• 3:43
  monumental, pivotal, pivotal, impactful, powerful statement
• 3:50
  that he is making to begin his gospel that we are learning.
• 3:55
  And remember, gospel just means good news.
• 3:57
  This is the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ that he
• 4:01
  came, he lived a perfect life that you and I couldn't live,
• 4:03
  that he died a death for our sins that you and I deserved.
• 4:07
  And three days later he rose from the grave.
• 4:08
  And anybody who puts their faith in Jesus will receive eternal
• 4:12
  life. And so this gospel that John is
• 4:15
  writing of the the ministry and life of Jesus, he begins with a
• 4:20
  very important aspect of Christ that we have to believe if we
• 4:27
  are saying we're followers of Jesus.
• 4:29
  He says in the beginning the word already existed.
• 4:34
  So you may be asking who is the word in capital W as it is in
• 4:39
  the Bible? If you're reading it right now,
• 4:40
  it's a capital W word. The word is Jesus.
• 4:44
  And John is trying to emphasize he's essentially writing that
• 4:48
  before there was anything, Jesus was, before anything existed,
• 4:55
  Jesus was. This is why Jesus is described
• 4:58
  as the alpha and the Omega. He's the beginning and he's the
• 5:02
  end. And so this is very important
• 5:05
  because as you may be seeing online, there is people who are
• 5:09
  trying to argue against Jesus's divinity, Jesus being God.
• 5:15
  And so as you see my thumbnail, Jesus is God.
• 5:19
  This is an essential biblical truth that we have to agree upon
• 5:24
  to be brothers and sisters in Christ.
• 5:27
  And I want you to hear this, my brothers and sisters.
• 5:29
  There is people in this world right now who are leading
• 5:32
  churches, denominations, beliefs that are saying they're
• 5:35
  Christian and they don't believe that Jesus is God, that he's
• 5:40
  fully God and fully man. And so John is breaking this
• 5:45
  down right in the beginning of his gospel that he's refuting
• 5:49
  that heresy that he's saying no, no, no, in the beginning the
• 5:51
  Word already existed. Jesus already existed.
• 5:53
  The word was with God and the word Jesus was God in the
• 5:59
  beginning, he existed. He existed in the beginning
• 6:03
  before anything was he was with God and he was God.
• 6:06
  This is also describing the beauty of the Trinity, that you
• 6:10
  had God as a relational God in the beginning, God the Father,
• 6:14
  God the Son, and God the Spirit. 3 and 1 all together from the
• 6:19
  the beginning they were there and they were working as one.
• 6:22
  This is incredible and this is powerful but something I wanted
• 6:26
  to touch on 1st also within this was when we hear that word word
• 6:31
  described in verse one. That word is a very big thing
• 6:38
  that John is utilizing, that this would have meant something
• 6:42
  to both Jews and Greeks, that when Jewish people and Greek
• 6:46
  people read that word being described as Jesus, this would
• 6:50
  have meant a lot to them. Maybe for us, we read that and
• 6:53
  we just read oh, word and we're equating it to or English word
• 6:57
  word. But this Greek word that's being
• 7:00
  used actually translates to logos.
• 7:03
  And what logos meant was this had deep roots for Jewish and
• 7:08
  Greek people. They would have understood when
• 7:11
  they read this, the original audience, when John made this
• 7:14
  bold statement that Jesus is the word, that would have hit them
• 7:20
  like a ton of bricks, that it would have cut through their
• 7:23
  false theology, that it would have pierced through their
• 7:25
  hearts, that it would have made a very bold statement for who
• 7:30
  Jesus was. And that's why I think it's
• 7:32
  incredible that John begins his gospel this way, because the
• 7:36
  Jews and the Greeks would have understood plainly what he was
• 7:39
  saying. He was saying to the ancient
• 7:42
  Jews the word of God. They used it to refer to God
• 7:46
  himself. And so John's saying in the
• 7:50
  beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was
• 7:53
  God, that this is Jesus, Jesus is God himself, Jesus is God,
• 7:59
  that the word of God is Jesus, God in flesh, God born of a
• 8:03
  virgin, that God came to be with us, Emmanuel.
• 8:08
  And so for the Greeks, though, Logos was the power that set the
• 8:13
  world in perfect order and kept it going in perfect order.
• 8:18
  So the chaos that even has deep roots within the Jewish culture,
• 8:22
  that Jewish people believe, you know, when God created the
• 8:26
  world, that he spoke it into motion, that he spoke the world
• 8:30
  into existence, that it was just chaos, that the waters
• 8:33
  represented chaos, but God brought it into order.
• 8:37
  And John is saying, yeah, who brought it into order was Jesus.
• 8:41
  Jesus was the logos. He was the power behind bringing
• 8:45
  this world into order from the chaos.
• 8:49
  And what does that kind of remind you of?
• 8:51
  I love this because Paul re emphasizes this point that John
• 8:55
  makes in John one, one through 2.
• 8:58
  And Paul says in Colossians 115 through 17, Christ is the
• 9:02
  visible image of the invisible God.
• 9:05
  He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all
• 9:10
  creation. Again, Jesus is the visible
• 9:13
  image of the invisible God. God is spirit.
• 9:17
  We can't physically see God. We can't see God anyways because
• 9:21
  of his glory that we that are Isaiah 6 says my unclean lips,
• 9:25
  woe is me when he is even near God.
• 9:29
  That God's glory, we can't even look at God.
• 9:31
  That there's that there's angels in the throne room that have
• 9:34
  wings that cover their faces 'cause they can't even look at
• 9:37
  God. And these, these are
• 9:38
  supernatural beings. But Jesus, God in flesh, allowed
• 9:45
  us to be in relation with God in a physical way.
• 9:49
  That Jesus was God in flesh, that he was the visible image of
• 9:53
  the invisible God, that he existed before anything was
• 9:57
  created and he is supreme over all creation.
• 10:01
  And Paul says for through him God created everything in the
• 10:03
  heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can't see
• 10:07
  such as Thrones, kingdoms, rulers and authorities in the
• 10:11
  unseen world. Again, Paul hits this point.
• 10:14
  Everything was created through him and for him He existed
• 10:18
  before anything else and he holds all creation together.
• 10:23
  What was the logos again, the power that set the world into
• 10:27
  perfect order and kept the perfect order going.
• 10:31
  This is Jesus. This is such a powerful point
• 10:36
  for John to start his gospel message.
• 10:39
  And so when we read through the word of God, I hope this excites
• 10:42
  you that this is God's breathed out word, that it teaches us so
• 10:47
  much about him and who he is. And that's why I'm excited to
• 10:50
  dive through this with you. No, today that the faith you
• 10:55
  have in Jesus is what saves you. It's what transforms you.
• 11:00
  It's the the the power of God that raised Jesus from the dead.
• 11:05
  It's the power of God that brought order to this world,
• 11:08
  that created everything in it. You and me, the plants, the
• 11:12
  mountains, the rivers, the lakes, all the incredible things
• 11:16
  we see in this world was created by him.
• 11:21
  And so Jesus is the Word. He existed before anything, and
• 11:25
  he will always exist. He is the great I am.
• 11:29
  Jesus is God, point blank period.
• 11:33
  And so I pray for you today that when you hear anybody speak
• 11:37
  against that truth, they are not speaking biblical truth that
• 11:42
  Jesus is the Word and Jesus is God, that Jesus is the distinct
• 11:47
  person within the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the
• 11:50
  Spirit. 3 and 1. I love you guys.
• 11:54
  I can't wait till next time when we dive even more into the
• 11:57
  gospel. John, I pray that you have an
• 12:00
  insatiable appetite for God's word, that this just encourages
• 12:03
  you to dive more into it and to learn more about who Jesus is.
• 12:08
  Until next time, let me pray for y'all so we can get a body here.
• 12:12
  Lord Jesus, we love you. Lord Jesus, we thank you for who
• 12:16
  you are. And God, I pray that as we dive
• 12:18
  into your word, that we really sit on it, that we don't just
• 12:21
  rush through it, that we really go verse by verse to learn about
• 12:25
  who you are so we can be more like you, So we can represent
• 12:28
  you, so we can preach you, so we can teach you to the ends of the
• 12:32
  earth. For those who are hopeless to
• 12:34
  find hope in the God who created them and has purpose for them
• 12:37
  and loves them and wants a relationship with them.
• 12:40
  I love you. I thank you.
• 12:42
  And I pray all this in the powerful name of Jesus, Amen.
• 12:44
  I love you guys, God bless.