In the beginning, before all time, the Word existed face to face with God the Father. This Word, the eternal Son, is Himself God, and through Him, all things were created. He is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact imprint of His nature, upholding the universe by His power. In these last days, God has spoken definitively through His Son, Jesus, who offers us a share in His inheritance and salvation to all who come to Him.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:01] Nostalgia is not what it used to be. I’m nostalgic about nostalgia. My little red car, it’s getting fixed up at the moment, so I’m looking forward to, in a week or so, of having it going well again. However, they told me, those mechanics, that it’s done so many kilometres that I shouldn’t expect too much, and I was a bit surprised at that, but I was told that the car makers, they don’t really want to put the effort in in getting cars fixed. Normally, these days, they’re just wanting to sell you another one. Now, that’s different from how it used to be because there’s something about old cars that’s rather wonderful. Back in my young day, I had a dream of owning a Holden, an FJ Holden. Put your hand up if you know what an FJ Holden is. Oh, I’ve got some… Well, he’s a mechanic over there,

[00:01:12] but the rest of you, your reason is that you remember those days. And my dad is the one who taught me how to speed. And my mother used to say to him, as he started the journey if we went for a trip, to go slow, go slow, and we found out later that she had to say that because he always went real fast at the beginning of the journey because he had to gradually slow down all the way through to keep her quiet. But he used to drive an FJ Holden. His work brought him the second hand FJ Holden to drive. And he used to take me when we were on our own. I’d be sitting in the left front seat and he taught me how to race the other cars off at the lights because it was light, six-cylinder, and the other cars were old, Austin, heavy-bodied things, you know, cars like that.

[00:02:08] And those were the days, though, when cars lasted. So as the decades rolled around, I had in my ambition to one day own an FJ Holden. And now I’ve got a little car. It’s only 11 years old. But they tell me it’s really too old to be expecting too much because the company wants to sell you a new one, not get the old ones still going. And they don’t make them the same. As a matter of fact, the window you’ve got to wind down to go to McDonald’s, in my little red car, doesn’t go up and down. And they told me it’s because they just use the stuffs inside that make it rotate and go up and down their glass. And they break down. They expect them to. Nostalgia is not what it used to be. And in the case of cars, I like the older days better when the cars, you could get them.

[00:03:04] And as a matter of fact, I’ve got a good friend who gets old cars. He’s got a Pontiac GTO. He’s got a little Mini Cooper S. He has them in his country place. And it’s a real… And he’s inviting me to join the idea and get some old car. But you’ve got to be careful. You’ve got to find a good old car. And, well, that’s what’s been going on in my life. I don’t know about yours. But I also like some of the older ways to do things. Not because I think I’m old-fashioned, but because sometimes they’re better. And just because something’s old doesn’t mean that it’s not the best. As a matter of fact, there are some places in the Bible that take us back to the beginning of where Christianity comes from. We’ve got a verse on the screen at the moment that’s talking about in the beginning.

[00:04:02] It’s talking about something to do with God that has to do with the beginning. Now, I understand that God is taught by the Bible to be eternal. That means he has no beginning. He has no end. He’s eternal. So what is this in the beginning that John’s Gospel in Chapter 1 is talking to us about? He’s going to talk to us about something that was in existence eternally too, like the Father, like the Son. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was is not that it ever had a start. It’s that it was in existence when the beginning happens. Now, what is that beginning? Well, our Bible, of course, has got a very famous part to it. It’s Genesis 1, verse 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And so there is God dealing with beginnings, and that’s what the Bible is all about,

[00:05:06] the beginning of the creation of the world in which we live, and, of course, the creation of us as human beings. We have a beginning, and at the moment in eternity that our beginning and the world’s beginning came into a happening was, existed, the Word. And it’s telling us about the eternality that started our beginnings with this, whatever the Word is. Now, interestingly, this famous passage in the beginning of the Gospel of John, a very spiritual Gospel that’s different from all the others, about 90% of its material, you can’t read and mark, you know, and the others. There’s a good lot of different stuff that’s in the Gospel of John. He’s not trying to get everything included that was relevant. He’s just got a spiritual journey to bring us through. And it begins by letting us know where our beginning was,

[00:06:15] and that where is in whatever is the Word. Now, it goes on to say, the Word was with God. This is a very interesting statement that our English language does not bring out as well as the Greek does. The reason I say that is this Word is, that was was-ing. It was in its continued existence at the moment of the beginning. This Word was with God. And how the Greek language in which the New Testament was mostly written is a language where the little word with could be done in different ways. One way would be to put the sort of with you have when you’re walking along with your son. And you’re alongside, and if he’s a little one, then you might hold his hand. He’s with you. But you’re going along together like that. The little word was that’s used here is where the two persons being talked about are turned face to face.

[00:07:24] It’s actually the word pros that means towards. The Word was face to face with God. Now, who is God will be the Father. and the word we’re learning bit by bit was the Son. And the Son in the beginning was another eternal personage. I’m not sure what to say. I was going to say person, but you might think human person. And you might think, well, wasn’t God a person? Well, we have only one God, but our one God, the Scriptures teach, very hard to really get used to this, but the Scriptures teach our one God was in three persons. So unified that they’re one God but three persons. And this word, it’s actually the Son, we’ll learn, the Son and the Father, they were face to face. It’s a description of a fellowship. The was-ing that the Son did with the Father was face to face. In the beginning, out of that relationship

[00:08:46] sprang the beginning of all of the things. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. Our one eternal God in three persons in the beginning created everything. Started history. This is the beginning of history. Some translations of the Bible will talk about that beginning as being described by saying before all time. And you’ll find some translations of this, John 1, verse 1, we’ll word it, not in the beginning, but before all time. It’s a way to get across somehow that this is the beginning of what we now have as our counted time. and the Bible is underlining something that’s very historical something that will mark the beginning it’ll always have been the beginning doesn’t matter how far future time takes us this will always be the beginning and God has underlined it in the gospel of John

[00:09:50] this very spiritual gospel as the start of what that gospel says because God is not worried about keeping our concentration on something right back then. Maybe he’s somebody who preserves his love of that original time. God isn’t afraid of people thinking that’s nostalgic to talk about the beginnings. It isn’t. In the beginning was the word and the word was face to face with God. That’s God the Father. And the word was God. Here a mysterious understanding that these personages, you know, I don’t know what to call them, the free persons of the Trinity, they equally are God and was God. And at the beginning, the one that was face to face with the Father was God too. Not to make three gods, but three persons of the one God. Do you know that the Jewish people actually had in the revelation,

[00:11:03] their revelation through the prophets, they had God talking to them and telling them about this very truth and they made it a part of the major statement of what is the Jewish religion. And this idea that they had was talking about how you can understand the very essence of the difference between the Jewish religion and the rest of the religions of the day. And they called it the Shema. I didn’t know what that word meant. I’ve heard it many times in theology studies. But the Shema was a Jewish prayer almost in which they recited the very essence of what it is they believed. Hear, O Israel. I think the Shema is the call to hear. Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God is one. Now that’s how it reads in some of our Bibles. Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God is one. But if you translate it from the original Hebrew,

[00:12:13] Hear, O Israel. And it’s the Lord’s. Because the one word for our one God is Elohim. And when you learn Hebrew in the Hebrew class, the him part makes it plural. So if you were to be literal in translation, you say, Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God’s. But then so that we don’t travel off target, the next word is is and not are. The Lord our God’s plural is singular. And the final one is the word one. Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God’s is one. Now some people think that means that the entity of God is a solo worker. One God, one person, all on his own. But the verse is saying just the opposite. The one also can mean unified, a unity. The oneness of our one gods is that they’re one. And you will never understand the Trinity, which in theology courses you teach it as, you’ll never understand it fully

[00:13:40] because it’s beyond the grasp of our minds what our one God is in three persons. You want some proof? The three persons are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And this one who is our eternal Father has eternally had a son. Let me say that again. This eternal Father eternally had a son. And so some of the creeds down through church history have worded it this way, that the Son is begotten, meaning he’s produced by the Father, but not created. He didn’t come along. As human birth, there’s always some trail of human procreation and creation that’s happened. God’s involved in that too, but that’s because we are all, we begin life. But the Son always was with the Father, face to face, always, always, always. He was God in essence. And the Bible speaks of the three persons of the Trinity as eternally our one God

[00:15:05] includes the Holy Spirit. He’s the third person of the Trinity. How is this borne out in our scriptures? Because in the very important spots that talk about God, they’ll introduce them as Father and Son and Holy Spirit, but it treats them as equals. The order may be put in the text in the order of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I think that’s appropriate because the very nature of Father is that He is the one from whom the others eternally are sprung. I don’t know how to say it, but can you understand it, that our Father has always had a Son? He would have not been prior to that a Father if it had been that the Son got created. The Son’s not the first created thing. The Son is the one who is first over creation. He is the one who owns the creation. The Son is the one who is heir to the Father but it’s not because

[00:16:08] He suddenly came into existence. It is because the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. The beginning, the moment of the creation of the world. It was the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and you can find that everything that God does is always done and there’s a father involved, the son is involved, the spirit is involved that creation moment speaks not only of the fact that it’s through the son that the whole world was created and it also tells us that the spirit hovered over the face of the waters when the whole thing that was being made had all the order and design yet it was in chaos the wording actually says but the spirit hovered over the face of the waters he was having that care as an eagle does over its nest he was having that care over the waters

[00:17:03] because God was going to bring about the rest of the creation and the spirit was there overseeing it all all things were made through him and without him oh you could underline that in your mind without him That’s Jesus. Oh, I’ve introduced something else I’ll have to tell you in a minute. But the eternal Son, Jesus, who Jesus was the one that he became, but the eternal Son, without him, was not anything made that was made. The Father might have willed it, the Spirit might have hovered and helped in it, but the Son was one not missing from creation, but he is actually the agent of creation of the Father. He’s actually someone who brings into actual happenstance of that which the Father wills. When God the Father wants to speak, it’s often the speaking that’s done through the Son,

[00:18:07] which is why he’s called the Word. In the beginning was the Word. It means the out-speakingness of the Trinity. Jesus, the eternal Son who becomes Jesus, He’s the one who speaks on God’s behalf. He’s the one who brings the message so that we call the Word of God. And this passage says, Jesus is he. 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 were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men, people. It is Jesus who in the spiritual sense is the life and light for us. He was that before he became Jesus. That is one of the most fantastic passages of the Bible. Do you know that the philosophers talk about God

[00:19:21] and try and get some explanation for why here in this spot in the scripture he’s called the Word. And the actual Greek word for Word is logos. And so there have arisen down through history a number of logos ways of thinking, logos philosophies. And one philosophy, for example, well, I could quote a number of different ones, but if you were to take Aristotle, he had four aspects of logosing that the Word does. And he believed that there was a sense of those four things, and if I can remember them, the last one is the actual authorship or the vehicle through which it’s created. The second to last one has to do, I think, with the design that’s put into it. The third to last one, that’s the second, has to do with the very form of that. And the first one has to do with the decision.

[00:20:38] I might not have got them right, but there’s four ways Aristotle says that there is a way in which the logos was being logosing and making it all things. Other people, philosophers back in history had other ideas, and one other idea which I think you don’t, because just because they’re philosophers, and the Bible does say that by wisdom they knew not God, they didn’t get it all right, but it didn’t mean that they got everything absolutely wrong either. Another philosopher had the idea of what this logos, it became what’s called a logos philosophy or a logos idea that he thought that the idea because the word logos is also used of an expression or a speech or an idea that he had thought that the idea of the sun being the logos is that he was someone who was a sort of representative paradigm

[00:21:36] or someone who was the very plan of how it’s all going to work. He was the essence of the understanding that helps us grasp the rest. And if you have the logos in your mind, you can look at the world and understand it all. Now that’s actually very close to what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that it is by knowing Christ you can know all things, you can understand this world. If you do not know Christ, the world is a mystery to you. You know parts of it that amaze you. Those parts you do see will make you, point you toward the existence of a deity, but you can’t really understand it. But when you come to know Christ, you have a paradigm, you have a principle of interpretation that you can use to understand all that you see.

[00:22:33] It’s amazing when you see someone come to know the Lord Jesus as their Savior, they’re coming to know the word. They begin to see and understand an explanation of all things. Human society is understood. When you know Jesus, spirituality becomes open to you to have a spiritual discernment. The more you go deeper in knowing Jesus, the more you can understand the spiritual world around you. if you don’t know Jesus you just see a human representation of what’s there. You look at the church and you might see some of the people things and you might see some of the social things. You might even see some of the physical things but you’re blind to the real truth that’s before you because unless you know Jesus your eyes are not open to the reality of what is the church

[00:23:21] and what is the reality of the spiritual world but when you come to know Jesus, when you know Him you have the paradigm within your spirit and heart and mind to understand all things. The Bible teaches that when we know Christ, we’ve got a capacity to know all things. And that’s part of the Christian life as you gradually grow in understanding and knowledge as you go deeper and deeper in knowing Christ. He’s the word. He’s the expression of God. Now, let’s see how the Bible backs up this idea of Jesus being the word. Would you turn, please, to the book of Hebrews? We’ve read the first four verses of the Gospel of John and now the first four verses in Hebrews chapter 1. And there’s something very interesting about the fact of the progressive revelation of our word down through the years from what we learned

[00:24:20] in the Old Testament. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. From that moment, we come now to this here. Long ago and at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. Now, it’s interesting. In the home group, one of the home groups I was at during the week, they were looking at the book of Jonah and establishing that they were reading it there and someone commented that this is the word of God or they commented it was the scripture. It’s how we know they had great trust in how they were commenting on why we’re looking at it. But in actual fact, it wasn’t the word of God that’s actually telling you of something that happened which now later written up has become a part of the word of God. But what’s the word of God in the very first verse of Jonah 1

[00:25:10] is that the Lord spoke to Jonah. And in chapter 3, I think it is, the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. And so the word of the Lord is a bespeaking of God. It’s actually coming from Christ who’s always been the expression of the Trinity. He’s the spokesperson, if you like, of the Trinity. It is Jesus who speaks, that makes our scriptures. He’s the voice behind every statement. He’s the flavour right through every book. He’s the fragrance of what you understand is coming to you when you’re given a Bible and you read it and something in your heart when you’re a Christian says that’s him. He’s speaking to me through this, the word. We call this the word of God. It’s because it’s Jesus speaking to you. And this passage tells us in these last days he has spoken to us, verse 2, by his son.

[00:26:07] Because the son has the role of being the outspeaking of the Trinity, the outspeaking of God. The son is the one who has come and how he’s outspeaking in a way that’s novel is something new, is that he’s taken on humanity and stepped into our fellowship of humanity. He stepped into our history, born in the original Christmas times, whatever that date was, I don’t know, but he was born and came into our history and he was seen by people. He came with humanity as well as being the eternal word. And this one, the son, in these last days, God has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. It’s rehearsing again that he was there at creation. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature

[00:27:05] and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. Boy, would I have read that again. You know, what was bringing to me was a sermon about the word of his power. There is no greater power in this world of ours than when Jesus speaks. Where does he have his speaking to be found? Right here. It doesn’t just mean that he’s a book. It doesn’t just mean that there are words on paper. There is a personage who’s the eternal out-speaking of the Godhead who speaks to you through this book. That’s why we call it the word of God. After making purification for our sins, this is what he did to be the heart of what is the gospel revelation. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty and high. You know, Jesus came into the world. He taught. He exampled. He kept the law.

[00:28:16] He went to the cross and he died for our sins. He was buried. He rose again and after appearing for 40 days, he returned to heaven and was crowned king of kings and lord of lords. And there he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name that he has inherited, the name of Jesus. Jesus is more excellent than theirs. Now, I want to speak about that name, the name that he’s been given, given in his humanity as well as his deity because as he becomes incarnate, he’s called. His father probably was the one that said, your name will be Jesus. The name means God is our saviour. The name means all that he was going to accomplish by how he died for our sins and rose again and went to heaven and presented his death as a sufficient payment for all of our sins

[00:29:31] that we might have a free forgiveness. He’s the one who comes now by his Holy Spirit, the agency of the Spirit representing him, to convict us of our need to come to him as saviour, to ask him to be our personal lord and saviour. He gets us so converted to become a Christian that we get in the door and we share in his inheritance. Listen to that. Part of his taking on humanity is that we might have a way, a vehicle, a door, I don’t know how to word it, to share in his inheritance. He is inherited more excellent than all the angels and he’s opened the window, opened the door, outstretched the hand of welcome and call for all who’d come and take him as lord and saviour to share with him in what he’s accomplished for humanity in coming and becoming one of us, inviting us to accept his inheritance.

[00:30:47] Are you in the door with Jesus yet? Or do you await that moment of suddenly realising that you’ve been bidden, you’ve been called, you’ve been requested to trust him as your own personal lord and saviour? You might only be a prayer away from trusting Jesus as your saviour and this morning he might be asking you to consider doing it here and now. What a glorious four verses Hebrews 1-4 is alongside John’s Gospel verses 1-4. Four verses beginning in John and four verses beginning in Hebrews but Hebrews is underlining how all of the previous prophetic wordings coming and helping the Jewish people take nation’s stance, people to come toward God and know him as best they could. Now the new covenant is the result of Jesus and how he died and rose and went back to heaven and through having sacrificed his blood

[00:32:04] opened the door for us to be in a new covenant with God where we belong to him and he belongs to us and Jesus becomes the focal point of all that he did to allow that, of all that he does to call you to that, of all that he will be in helping you step by step along that way. It’s why John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress. The start of which is when someone comes to the cross and the burden of sin falls off their back and then they start the Pilgrim way eventually to get to glory. That’s the Christian life but it’s the life that’s lived with Jesus. Jesus, could you hear it at our songs? Jesus is why we’re here, to worship him and praise him. Jesus is how we’re able to be here and to join the praise because we’re able to find him as our own personal saviour. It’s a fantastic thing. This one, Jesus. Look at verse 3.

[00:33:11] He’s a radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. Do you think he’s got the strength to look after you? He’s not going to have a department that makes humanity break down and can’t be fixed. That’s what I’ve been up to tell you this morning. God is not one. To make a humanity, that’s the product. Let you go and purchase it or get involved with it and then it breaks down and they tell you it’s too old. You’re never too old to find Jesus. You’re never too hopelessly lost in guilt not to be forgiven by Jesus. His blood is all that you need. His forgiveness can be yours today. And if there’s any uncertainty as to whether you’re his, you go home and get down by your bed and say, Jesus, I am thankful that you came and that you did what you did

[00:34:27] to give me life and please let me have it now. Or if your case is that you’re not sure whether you’ve got it because you made a mess of your first attempt, ask him to forgive you and cleanse you and help you. He’s always ready to give you a fresh start. Do that alongside your bed and then do something else. Come and tell me. I will be encouraged to know that someone found the Saviour. In the beginning was, was the Word. This one that’s face to face with the Father. This one who is the heir of all things. This one who’s the last out speaking of the Father. He doesn’t need to speak anymore. In these last days he’s spoken to us in his Son and you can come to the Son and know all that he has in the purification of your sins and all of the help he gives you from his terrific seat is at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

[00:35:40] He will save you. His saving power is from uttermost to uttermost. The Bible describes just how capable he is to save to the uttermost anybody who will come to him. Do that today. Let’s pray. Oh Lord Jesus how wonderful you are how amazing you’ve always been the eternal Word you’ve always been the communicator of the Father being the Son and you have been the one last of all in the revelation from heaven that has the Father spoken to us in his Son. May there be some who discover the Son today we ask in Jesus’ name. amen.