The sermon by James Lundquist, titled 'Jesus is God,' focuses on the divinity of Jesus Christ as presented in John 1:1-5. Lundquist emphasizes that Jesus is eternal, distinct from the Father, yet one with God, underscoring the foundational Christian belief in the Trinity. The sermon highlights the unique presentation of Jesus' divinity in John's Gospel, noting the agreement among major Bible translations on this text's wording as a testament to its significance. Lundquist addresses the historical heresies of Arianism and modalism, affirming that Jesus was not created but is eternal and fully God. The sermon also explores the implications of Jesus being 'the Word,' linking it to God's creative power and the revelation of divine truth. Through this text, believers are encouraged to deepen their understanding of Jesus' nature and the importance of these truths for faith and salvation.

Our sermon text for today is John chapter 1 verses 1 and 2, but I'm going to read through 5. 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 nothing was made that was made in him was life and the life was the light of men and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it let's pray Oh Lord our God I pray that you would help us now to set aside distractions, to set aside the cares and thoughts of the world and focus on your word. Oh Lord, God, please show yourself mighty through this text.

Oh God, please show us Christ today. I pray that you would help James now as he brings this sermon, brings this text to us. God, please strengthen him. Help him to preach with the full authority of your word. Oh God, please bless this brother of ours.

In Jesus' name, Amen. We're in John 1, 1 and 2 today, lest you think we are going too fast. Next week we'll slow down and just do verse 3. And I've titled it, Jesus is God. Yes, we have the verse, in the beginning was the Word, and The word was with God, the word was God.

And in John's Gospel, we don't know who specifically he's talking about for a while, but we know. It's Jesus, because we have all of scripture. We know this is Jesus. I'm just stating it's Jesus, but I'm also going to try to prove John's point. He doesn't need much help in that.

We don't need much help in that, but we're going to go there. J.C. Ryle says, The things which are peculiar to John's Gospel are among the most precious possessions of the Church of Christ. No one of the four Gospel writers has given us such full statements about the divinity of Christ as we read in these pages." It is so true. We are going to be studying so much about the divinity of Christ, the deity of Christ, the godness of Christ, that Jesus is God.

That is the point of this text. Everything points to the final phrase in verse 1 that Jesus is God. You have Matthew that starts off with the genealogies. Love it. You have Luke starting off with John the Baptist, and there is a birth account in there.

Sorry, that's Mark. You have Luke starting off with the angel coming to Zacharias and then to Mary. Wonderful! Love it! John doesn't start that way.

By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, John starts off with, Jesus is God. And it shouldn't surprise us, John, who is one of the sons of thunder, would thunder forth from the very beginning that Jesus is God. Now the early church fathers said this of John 1. John 1 should be written in gold in every church. Just let that sink out.

We're not going to have the deacons go out and buy gold and write this on the church, but This should be written in our hearts as we're memorizing 1, 1-14. You're in gold territory here. It is so deep and at one point I'm going to say we can't comprehend the depth of this. But It is our job by the power of the Holy Spirit to try to understand as much as we can. And the rest say, God, you be praised for your glorious, eternal being.

Infinite being that we can't understand. We are heading into such a precious text that the foundations of Christianity stand. This text, verse one especially, all the major translations that Jason and I would use to prepare for a sermon that any really Bible believing church, evangelistic church, gospel church would use, they agree on every single word, every major translation. That is so rare. The New King James, the King James, ESV, NIV, NASB, they agree on every single word.

That is so rare. The translations don't agree a lot on the word they choose to use, but they still agree on the meaning. They may say, okay, I want to use this, and it may be that they're writing more for conversational or they're writing more literal. Some of that comes into it. But this golden text, it is amazing when you look at it, there's no variance.

That is God being kind to us, to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit saying, this is important, to get this right. And it should be no surprise that the cults and heresies get this verse wrong, and they rip it apart. And I'm going to talk a little bit like that. And so by God's grace, we have this agreement amongst all the translations that we would see as good and right and true and worthy of being used in a church and the cults would try to rip this apart and I'll talk a little bit about that today. John 20, 30 and 31, we will probably hear this every week or most weeks.

We'll hear this. John 20, 30, and 31. This is John's purpose statement for writing this book that we always need to have in our mind. And truly, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

There are two filters that every sermon we go through in John, we need to have on top of our mind. John 20 is one of them, is the purpose statement, and the filter we need to be having through everything we read here, every sermon we hear through this, is how does this help us see that Jesus is the only Redeemer? How does this help us see that believing in Jesus alone brings us life? Because it will. I'm just starting flat out with the basis, this is true.

Every word of the Bible is true therefore since John was inspired by the Holy Spirit every word is true every word should help us see that believing in Christ alone brings salvation we need that filter How does this help us and encourage us in our faith? How would this encourage anybody else to be drawn to the Savior? The second one is John 1, 1 through 5, where we are. That's why We're so slowing down through this. Well, one and two today, then three, then four and five.

We're slowing down through this. But the purpose statement here, or the statement that John makes in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. We need that filter every week. How is what John is writing helping us to see that Jesus was in the beginning?

Jesus was with God. Jesus is God. Let it strengthen us and encourage us and help us. As I've been studying this for the last couple weeks, it has been so helpful. I love Jesus more.

I see Jesus more wholly than I did before. I love the birth accounts. We all love the birth accounts, the birth narratives. But one thing that it does to me, and this is my fault, not God's fault for how he had it written, this is my fault. You go through Christmas and you think how cute, how nice, How fun, the emotion of it, family, this and that.

John says, remember Jesus is God. Have a higher view of Jesus. This is what's helped me to just increase my view of Jesus and make me smaller. That's what this has helped me do. So please pay attention to these simple truths that you may not know.

You may not have heard them. You may not remember hearing them. And I know there are those here that don't believe this truth. Because you have not confessed. That's my filter on whether you believe or not.

Have you confessed that Jesus Christ is God? And He is the only way, truth and life. But these are deep truths to help and strengthen our faith, to encourage us, to build us up. We're going to see in John 1 and 2 today just a fantastic progression of argument of John here. It's so concise, so profound, so logically, precisely put together.

It's amazing that the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is on full display here through John showing us the glory of Jesus. Now in these verses we're going to see that Jesus is eternal, Jesus is a distinct person from the Father, but one with the Father, and that Jesus is God. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, want to just put out there immediately how inadequate, how feeble, how finite our minds really are to fully comprehend these two verses. Our finite minds cannot.

And that's because you are the most holy, infinite, eternal God. God the Father, God the Word, God the Son, the Holy Spirit. One God. And we can't. And that's fine that we can't.

So we need your help to help us try to understand and listen. Try to understand and know our infinite God with these finite minds. That can only come through your help. Please help us. Make us to glorify you, O God.

To glorify you, O Christ, Holy Spirit. Please, with this time be used, help us to pay attention and to come out of this loving you more Christ, and would some even believe. Well thank you in Jesus name, amen. So I have this simply broken up by phrases, and in verse 2 by itself. And we start with, in the beginning was the Word.

So in verse 1, we have, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the first phrase we want to look at is, in the beginning was the Word. And I'm going to look at, in the beginning first, then was the Word, then I'm going to put them together. So in the beginning, we hear in the beginning that is an intentional link to make us think back to Genesis 1.1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Immediately John wants to get our attention linking what he's going to say to God. And what he's going to say is about God and in the beginning. This is important. Because in the beginning is the beginning of everything. The beginning before there were stars, before there were planets, before there were animals, before there were people, before there were angels.

We don't know exactly where in the past angels were created. It appears by scripture and some other places, Job and other places in Psalms, that the angels were created before the earth. We don't know for sure. But in the beginning before all creation is what we need to be thinking. Our limited minds, because we know Genesis 1 and we study Genesis 1, we think in the beginning we think, oh when earth was created.

Maybe, maybe the angels before that, I don't know. But we need to think in the beginning. We need to think, well there was a beginning of time, not the beginning of God. In the beginning when God made time. I mean try to fathom now.

There's a lot of things here to fountain, but God made time. He is infinite. Since God has no beginning, the beginning in the beginning is before anything was created. God is the first cause of all creation. And John is getting us right away to think of God the Creator.

God who was in the beginning. Now as we continue through the creation text, as John, as your thinkers go, as the thinkers that know Genesis, the Jews especially, start thinking, maybe also start thinking about who is the us and the hour in Genesis 1.26. Let us make God in our image according to our likeness. In the beginning, there's God, wait a second, there's an us and an our. See, John is also thinking about the Jews that he's writing to.

And the Jews are rightly thinking there's one God. There's one God and John is being loving, through the Holy Spirit, being loving to bring this progression and bring this gradual, yes in one verse three phrases, four phrases verse two, into, I'm bringing him around to this is one infinite God in three persons. He's just going to bring two right now, but then he'll bring three later. How the Trinity works. So in the beginning, then we have was the Word.

So why the Word to describe Jesus? We know it's Jesus. I'm not building up to revealing, it's Jesus. We know it's Jesus. So why the Word to describe Jesus?

Well, back to Genesis 1. How did God bring about creation? He spoke it into existence. Eight times in Genesis 1, it says, Then God said, then God said, now this is not that this was Jesus, it could have been Jesus that said it, but then God said, let us make man in our own image. Then God said, let there be the stars.

Then God said, then God said. Right, words. Psalm 33 verse six says, By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. You see this a lot throughout scripture where the writers give God physical human attributes. Now we know God is spirit.

He doesn't have a body like man. God is spirit. Jesus, who is fully God and fully man, has human characteristics, looks like he's flesh. We'll talk about that here in a little bit. Now this isn't saying that this word, isn't saying that it is Jesus, but it gets the readers of John start thinking about how, especially in the Old Testament, they're speaking.

God speaks, and by His word He creates, and by His mouth He speaks. The exact phrase, the word of the Lord, occurs 259 times in the Old Testament. That's the New King James. There's other variations of that I could have looked up. But 259 times the Word of the Lord, any student of the Old Testament, anybody just reading through the Old Testament would know the Word of the Lord comes up a lot.

The Word of the Lord, then God said. The Word of God, Then God said. The Word of the Lord came to Abraham. The Word of the Lord came to Moses. The Word of the Lord came to the prophets speaking the laws of God, the judgments of God, revealing who God is, speaking deliverance, redemption, and salvation.

Turn to Isaiah 55. Isaiah 55. Isaiah 55, 56, and continuing, about salvation. And Isaiah 55 is an invitation for salvation. An invitation to come to God.

An invitation to eternal life. Listen to some of these verses. 55 verse 1. Ho, everyone, come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come, buy, and eat. Yes, come, Buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Verse 6, Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. 8 and 9, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Verse 11, So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

For you shall go out with joy and be led out with peace. The mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorns shall come up the cypress tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree. And it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off." Verse 11, look at that. So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth.

How can you not think of the Savior? We know Isaiah 55 and 56 and much of Isaiah is directly talking about our Savior Jesus Christ. How can you not read this and say the Word going out, that is Jesus that's going out that will save people, redeem people to everlasting life, a covenant that will last forever. The Word of Jesus, the Word of God, it makes sense that John would make these direct connections to God and it's very helpful. So I mentioned especially helpful to the Jews in how he's making this progression because they believe in one God.

He's about to just shake everything up for them. But this was not written specifically for the Jews. What does John 20 say? These things are written that you may believe, that all people may believe. It's helpful to those that know the Old Testament and those that would be reading John.

And that's all they know. These are the words of life. Jesus is the Word of Life. There are lots of titles of God that John could have used to describe Jesus. They could have used as a title for Jesus and are used for Jesus elsewhere, many of them in John's Gospel.

John's the only one that uses this title for Jesus, but there's lots of other titles of God that John's used for Jesus, that others like shepherd, judge, holy one, we'll see light and life in the next couple weeks. Lord of the Sabbath, mighty God, Alpha and Omega, Redeemer, first, last, Savior, Lord of hosts, Lord of glory. John starts us off using the word. Jesus is the word. The first glimpse we get that John is talking about Jesus is in verse 14.

The name of Jesus doesn't happen for a while in John 1, but in verse 14 it says, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And the Word became flesh. As it makes a progression, we see that that Word that became flesh is Jesus.

John uses it in 1 John 1, 1 through 3. He talks about the Word of Life. In 1 John 1, 1-3, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon in our hands, have handled concerning the word of life. The life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father was manifested to us. That which we have seen and heard, we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.

And these things we write to you that your joy may be full. These things we write to you that you may believe. These things we write to you that your joy may be full. Your joy can only be full if you believe. Jesus is God.

In Revelation, John wrote the Gospel of John, the three epistles of John, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, and Revelation. In Revelation 18.13, he writes, He, that is Jesus, who he's talking about here, was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called the Word of God." There's no question who John's talking about. Jesus is the Word. Back in John 1, in verse 18, it says, Back in John 1, verse 18, it says, No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

So why Jesus being the Word? We know He's the Word. Why the Word? Because Jesus declares the truth of God. He declares the truth of God in His words and in His works.

Declare the truth of God in His perfect teaching and His perfect life, His perfect attributes. Hebrews 1, 1 and 2 says, God who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by his son." Why? Jesus called the word, he speaks to us. He speaks to us. I know there are several of us in the same camp.

I'm not a fan of red letters in the New Testament. As we talk about God, we talk about Jesus, and we're going to get to this. Jesus is one with God. The words of God are The words of Jesus are the words of the Holy Spirit. In many ways, this whole Bible could be red letters.

We know that. People have said that. But we need to really think that. I'm not against buying Bibles with red letters. But we need to really think about it.

That this is Jesus. And we'll get to it when we talk about the Trinity and perfect union. These are the words of Jesus of Christ. And He gave perfect teaching and perfect sermons helping explain and exposit the Old Testament better than any preaching you'll ever get. These are the words of God at transfiguration, at transfiguration where John was but doesn't record.

We know this from the other gospels. God says this, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him. Hear Him. Right back again.

What are we to hear of Him? Hear everything. He is God. Jesus is God. These are His words from Genesis to Revelation.

These and these only. We have no more revelation. These are His words that we know of. He has many more words I'm sure He has said throughout eternity, but these are the ones we know. These are the ones we trust.

These are the ones we believe. This is plenty. There's plenty of depth here that we will never mind. Jesus declares God to us. He demonstrates God to us.

He speaks to us through His word. And God commands us to hear Him. He speaks for God because He is God. So, in the beginning was the Word. Put that together.

In the beginning was the Word. Everything that was just said about God in the beginning we can apply to Jesus. The Word. Everything. Jesus was in the beginning.

He's eternal, already existing when creation came. You're in John 1, just glance at verse 3. Yes, we'll get there next week. But here's where John makes a progression to, yet Jesus was eternal before creation. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made." Think through that.

If Jesus was created, then this verse has to be wrong because nothing was made that was made through Jesus. Everything that was made was made through Jesus. That means Jesus has to be eternal. He has to be, which makes him God. When you look at verse 3, and Jason will bring that next week.

If you need more, look at Colossians 1. Sure, this will come up next week. He, Jesus, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things consist." I don't think there's more all things than everything and all creation that can be said in a couple verses to make us realize everything exists because of Jesus. Everything that was created was created because of Jesus.

That means Jesus was not created. Jesus must be eternal, Jesus must be God. Athanasius in the third century said this very concisely, there never was when he was not. There never was when Jesus was not. That right there hurts us.

Because we can't remember a time when we were not. But we can remember a time when our children were not. We can remember a time when other people's children were not. But that's what he said. And the reason why he got here is because of a heresy, a man Arius, that time that he was arguing with had this horrible heresy in the third century that Jesus was created and had a beginning and was almost like God.

In Athanasius, Godly man was coming along to fight that and push back on that and said, no, Look at John 1. You can't say that. And so from that heresy in the third century, we now have Mormonism and we have Jehovah's Witnesses. Let's say Jesus was created. That Jesus was a God, one of many gods.

When you think of the Mormon Jehovah's Witnesses, you need to think of them as polytheistic. You need to think of them as Buddhists and Hindus. And the Egyptians of the Old Testament and other places in the Old Testament, we see people that worship many gods. They do not worship the one true God of the Bible. They cannot.

If you worship many gods and you're saying there are more gods than one, therefore you cannot be worshiping the true God. Think of that of the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses. Not that they're close, they are far away. They're not even close. Think of them as Buddhists and Hindus.

We wouldn't say they're close to Christians, but that's where they are. Now there's no indication that this heresy was coming about at the time of John. We don't have that historically. But wow, are we so thankful that the Holy Spirit had John write this to help us now with these heresies. So logically, since without Jesus, nothing was made that was made, And all things are created by Jesus.

He is before all things. Jesus was not made. He is eternal. Therefore, He is God. He has to be God.

Hebrews 1, 10. Hebrews 1 is about Jesus. Know that. But it's quoting Psalm 102 about God. Intentionally linking, listen to this, intentionally linking Jesus and God together have to be one God for this to work.

Quote, Hebrews 1, 10, You Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. The Psalmist is definitely writing this about God. The writer of Hebrews definitely writing this about Jesus. They are one God. They created.

They were in the beginning. They were before time began. Jesus is the Word. In the beginning was the Word. Was is stated four times in these verses.

And what it's saying is, the Word existed. See, was, that form, that verb, was, means existed, was existing. In the beginning was the Word. In other words, from eternity was Jesus. Now, John continues this great progression with this next point.

The Word was with God. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. From eternity, Jesus existed with God. This means this is where we start down the road of Jesus is a distinct person from the Father and the Spirit. We'll bring the Trinity together here, but Jesus is a distinct person from the Father and the Spirit.

In 1 John 1, John says that he and others have seen and heard and touched Jesus. Seen and hearing, okay. Touched. Seen even. No one has seen God.

No one has seen God. They've seen Jesus. Jesus' spirit, you can't touch God, but you can touch flesh. Jesus is a distinct person from the Father. He is fully God, he is fully man, he is a distinct person.

John 1, 14, Jesus became flesh, not Jesus became God. He was flesh. There are people, the Gnostics, the Gnostics believe that Jesus wasn't in flesh and there are other heresies that Jesus wasn't in flesh. Here's my question, try telling Mary when she birthed Jesus that He was not flesh and blood. Alright?

Alright. He was fully flesh. Try telling Mary and John watching Him bleed on the cross that He wasn't flesh. Jesus was fully flesh. So we have here the first two persons of the Trinity being displayed to us.

There are three persons in perfect unity, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. John is just revealing two. This is powerful enough at this point. John will reveal the rest as we go on. Now, 2nd London Baptist Confession, Chapter 2 of God and the Holy Trinity helps us a little bit.

It helps us a lot to understand this. It does pack. Second London Baptist Confession is just our doctrinal statement. Good churches have a doctrinal statement, and they write it up. And we've said either we're just not smart enough or we don't want to put in the effort.

But People back in the 1600s, they went through this. This is our doctrinal statement. It is true. It is good. It is right.

And it's so based on scripture. Here's what they wrote of God and the Holy Trinity and is our doctrinal statement. In this divine and infinite being, there are three subsistences. The Father, the Word, or Son and Princes. They say the Word.

Listen to how much this definition is pulled from John 1. The Father, the Word, and Holy Spirit of one substance, power, and eternity, each having the whole divine essence, yet the essence undivided, all infinite without beginning. Therefore but one God who is not to be divided in nature and being." Yes, your mind, my mind cannot comprehend this, but it is true. And there's plenty of things in scripture that we can't comprehend, but are true. Can you really comprehend creation?

There is only God, who self-exist in eternity, that's tough enough. And then all of a sudden, he speaks, and there are stars, and there are planets, and there are animals, and there are people, there are galaxies, and with every year as technology advances we see just how big this universe is. Now maybe from movies or reading or thinking, we can imagine things just popping up because of illustrations and all that, but we don't know what actually happened at creation When all that all of a sudden existed, was there a big boom in all the universe? There was no light outside of God. All of a sudden there's light, and there's light sources outside of God.

It's just amazing. Can you really comprehend eternity? Do you believe that I can really fully comprehend the grace and mercy of redemption? That the perfect holy God, the Son, the Word had to become sin, taken on the wrath of God to pay our penalty for eternal hell. I'm going to come back to this in an application here, but can we really comprehend that?

That the Word with God is getting across to us that this was an intimate personal relationship that Jesus and God the Father had. In John 17, Jason and I will probably say this a lot, I look forward to getting to John 17, I look forward to getting to John 20. I look forward. But John 17, what we call Jesus' high priestly prayer. This was Jesus praying in Gethsemane.

This prayer between Him and the Father, when we get there, we need to be thinking, am I seeing something that I, should I really be here? Should I really be allowed to see this? This is such a holy moment, holy ground that we will be on and in and studying Jesus and God the Father together speaking. In verse 5 of chapter 17, Jesus is praying this, And now, O Father, glorify me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.

Jesus is about to go through the most agonizing, horrible death that anybody ever has gone through or will go through. We're not talking about the agony of being crucified. Many have gone through that. We're talking about the agony of the perfect Holy One becoming sin and taking on the wrath of God and dying, separating himself from God. My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

We need to think more about this perfect union that they had, and how much agony it took, and how much love for us it took for this to happen, for Him to separate and become sin. Jesus was looking forward in this prayer to the joint glory they, as God, would get for the mercy and grace of salvation. And He's looking forward to being completely back with the Father again. Having that glory, perfect glory restored. Jesus is eternal from eternity.

Jesus existed with God as distinct person, yet fully God. The next point, the Word was God. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Here we have really the conclusion to this great progression of argument that John has. In the beginning was Jesus.

Jesus is eternal. Jesus was with God. Jesus has existed eternally with God as a distinct person. Therefore, Jesus is God. He has to be.

He can be no other. Since the first two clauses are true, Jesus must be God. Jesus is God. Jesus is God. I know I say this, Gary and I say this often at the nursing home.

Just keep hammering it home. Who is Jesus? Jesus is God. Jesus is God. Jesus is God.

We must know this. We must believe this. And we must keep that in the front of our mind. Yes, He is Savior. Yes, He is Friend.

Yes, He's our Redeemer. Yes, He's a Creator. And He can be all these things because Jesus is God. It's simple but deep. Brethren, love the simplicity.

Don't stop at the simplicity. Love the depth. Meditate on it. Let this be on our minds, on our lips. If you're memorizing this, let it stay there and come back to this.

This is solid ground to be on to help us. Titus 2.13 help us know that the Word was God, Jesus is God. Titus 2.13, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1, 1, by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. And then of course we've got Thomas.

If those aren't clear enough, we have Thomas. If John's not clear enough, we have Thomas. He's Thomas after Jesus' resurrection. Thomas like, I believe when I see and touch. Jesus comes to him, and Thomas says to Jesus in John 20, My Lord and my God.

He wasn't just saying, My Lord, and then looking off to my God. No, he's looking at Jesus, My Lord. He's worshipping Jesus, my Lord and my God. Both titles are given to Jesus because Jesus is God. There were many works of God, of God that were done by Jesus.

Jesus created. Yeah, I talked about Him creating the world, but while here on earth, Jesus created. How did all those fish and loaves of bread come about to feed the 5, 000? How did that happen? He created.

I don't know if he made the fish grow more, the bread grow more, if it just appeared more. But he created. Nobody else was able to do that. He raised the dead. Jesus was worshiped.

Now, when angels, when angels appear, people would bow down before them. The angels say, no, no, no. Don't. Stand up. Do not be afraid.

But Jesus accepted worship and only God can accept worship. Jesus answers prayers. People would come to Him, appealing to Him, to heal their sick one. Right? That's a prayer.

Anytime someone was talking to Jesus, that was a prayer appealing to them, and Jesus would answer prayers. Jesus forgave sin. That one especially made people want to kill him because as soon as he says, your sins are forgiving you, Religious leaders say, hold on, only God can do that. You're claiming to be God. Now we want to kill you.

Come back to that. Now especially combining these two things, the word was with God and the word was God, combining these two things, having this on, helps us today fight against subellianism. Yes, a big word, subellianism. Another third century heretic that today is called modalism. Now this heresy denies the individual parts of the Trinity.

It denies that there's one God in three parts. God the Father, God the Son, God the Word, God the Holy Spirit. It denies that. What modalism says, and there's lots of people believe this today, and even some popular CCM singers, we can talk about it later, that believe this. And you wouldn't necessarily catch it in their songs or their lyrics, but when you know what they believe, then you catch it and you're like, I can't sing that, I can't go along with that, because they're not singing about the same God.

But what they're believing is there's one God who just shows himself in three different ways when he wants to. He can't be three people at the same time. This is like the analogy of water. Modalism is like the analogy of water. Water can be seen in three forms, a liquid, a vapor, and a solid ice.

But you can't see it in any of those forms at the same time. You can't see them all those at the same time. That's modalism. Right now there's again there's no indication that John was fighting this at that time, but once again we're thankful for the Holy Spirit in giving this to help us. But like I used analogy to explain modalism, here's an exhortation to all of us.

Do not, Do not, do not use any analogies to try to explain the Trinity. Any analogy you try to use is going to fail miserably, and it's going to fail in the form of a heresy. Because you can't. We can't use our finite minds and our limited resources of what we can imagine to explain the Trinity. It's one God, perfectly unified, three persons.

Here's where we should stand. Ryle says, We have no mental capacity to explain this. So instead of trying to explain this, use scripture. Your safety place is scripture. Here's your safety place.

John 10, 30. I and my father are one. We'll explain that. Jesus says, I and my Father are one. Well, explain that.

Jesus says, I and my Father are one. I believe it. It's true. He and God are one. John 14, 11.

Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me. Stay with Scripture. Don't try to go away from it. Don't try to think that you can outsmart Scripture, that you can outthink, that our finite minds can comprehend the infinite God. Just at times say, this is true.

Creation happened. Jesus raised from the dead. How? He's God. Jesus changed water and wine.

How? He's God. He created more fish and bread. He's God. He raised Lazarus.

How? He's God. Don't try. We see the Trinity acting together in creation. We've been there.

Let us make man. Let us make man. If Jesus was separate, like a God, or a separate God, or even like the molus, why would he say, let us? God the Father doesn't need them. Why would he come to me and say, let us?

Let us have a created being. Even the atom, let us, no, it's let us. They're working together jointly in creation, completely unified in all they do, all they say. We see the Trinity, so that's us working together as one. Now we see the Trinity working separate together at Jesus' baptism.

At Jesus' baptism you have Jesus being baptized, you have God the Father saying, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleasing. You have the Holy Spirit descending like a dove. You have God in three persons in one place. That's against the modalist. You say that can't happen.

Well, take them to scripture. Scripture is our safest place. You don't have to be a preacher, you don't have to be a great theologian. No scripture. Read, read, read, study, meditate, know that.

That is your safe place. Now there's one more title belonging to God that Jesus being God also has that needs to be talked about. It means when we say that Jesus is God, it's the title, I am. I am. We first see that in Exodus 3.

So in Exodus 3, Moses sees a burning bush that's not being consumed. So he goes to investigate, and God speaks to him out of it. Tell him to take off his sandals. He's on holy ground. And God speaks to him out of it.

And he's telling him what he's going to do. He's going to go free the people. Go free. Go free them. Deliver them.

God's going to do that. In Exodus 3, 13 and 14, it says, then Moses said to God, indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you and they say to me, what is his name? What shall I say to them? God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you.

I am. And in John 8, Jesus says, most assuredly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. And they took up stones to throw at him. So first thing, if Jesus wasn't flesh, who were they trying to stone? Jesus was in the flesh.

But why did they want to stone him then? He had done so many things because they recognized, I am identifies him as being God. And rightly so, in their minds, there's one God. How can this be God? And John's helping them see is, yes, you've been thinking about the Messiah wrong.

The Messiah is God. The Savior is God. The one that's going to come to redeem His people is God. And Jesus is God. And this was blasphemy to them, but this is hope to us.

Jesus being fully God and fully man gives us hope. This is the hope of the Gospel. Only Jesus could die and take on the sauerich sins and the wrath of God. This gives us great hope. Now in Gethsemane, When the religious leaders in Judas, the religious leaders' guard came to arrest Jesus in Gethsemane, in John 18, he says, I am He.

Literally that means I am. I am. And when Jesus spoke those words, I am, identifying Him as saying, I am God, what happened? Remember what happened to all the other people? They fell down.

They fell down. Now, I don't know how it happened. All right, we don't know what it looked like. The power, I don't know exactly how Jesus said it, but however He said it, whatever happened, The Holy Spirit made them fall down. Now what's this look like?

The religious leaders come, the guard come, disciples are there too, and everybody falls down who's left standing? Jesus, who is God. If you're looking afar off, What's that look like happening? They're worshiping God. They're worshiping Jesus.

They didn't intend that, I guarantee, right? We know they didn't intend to worship Jesus, but that's what it looked like. They weren't doing it, but that's what God made it look like. That's what God made them do. They had no choice.

Jesus was being taken by his own free will. They could not take him. When he identified himself as I AM, and they fell down. Verse 2, He was in the beginning with God. Next point, He was in the beginning with God.

This is repeating parts of verse 1 as a help to us. This is a help for us for infidels to make sure we connect Jesus with God. That Jesus is eternal, Jesus is with God. Jesus is God, He is eternal and distinct. Where verse 1 walks forward through the statements to get Jesus is God, verse 2 walks backwards to get to the center.

Jesus is God. The whole point of this, Jesus is God. In verse 1, it's walking through. In the beginning was the Word, was Jesus eternal? The Word, Jesus was with God, Jesus is God.

In verse 2, it's He, Jesus, was in the beginning, Jesus was eternal. He was in the beginning with God. He is God. Jesus is God. Everything points to Jesus being God.

That's the foundational truth and the filter for everything we look at in John. Jesus is God. Let it instruct us. Let it inform us. Let it help us.

Let it encourage us. Let it strengthen our faith, our belief. Jesus is God. We are believing in the one true God, the only name given among men whereby we must be saved believing in him and him alone brings eternal life. That's what we must believe, Jesus is God.

Repetitions that we see here in Scripture are used a lot, and mainly to get across the seriousness, the importance of the point. And just don't forget. Don't forget here, Jesus is God. I'm putting it at the very, the Holy Spirit's having John put it at the very beginning. Jesus is God.

Probably the most famous of all repetitions that we first see is Isaiah 6. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. Isaiah 6. Talking about who? God.

Holy, holy, holy. Three time repetition to make us understand just how utterly holy, holy, holy He is. When you think of Isaiah, you might say, about me? Sinful, sinful, sinful. How completely other than God I am, how completely other God is than me.

Now turn to Revelation 4 now. Revelation 4, Revelation 4 8 through 11, and verse 8, you're Revelation 4, 8-11, in verse 8, you're going to see a quote from Isaiah 6. Revelation 4 is talking about Jesus. Look at these words. Revelation 4, 8 through 11.

The four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they do not rest day or night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever and cast their crowns before the throne saying, You are worthy O Lord to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things and by your will they exist and were created. This is Jesus sitting on the throne. Only God is holy, holy, holy.

Only God is worshiped without rest day and night. Only God lives forever and ever. Only God created all things, Jesus is God. Think through this. This is heaven.

It's one thing for Jesus on earth to say He's God. But In heaven? Be sitting on a throne in God's most holy place? You think God's going to let anybody take His glory? Be worshipped instead of Him?

No way! Therefore, Jesus has to be God. God eternal. The second part of the Trinity. These creatures that are worshiping Jesus, Jesus created for the purpose of worship.

Jesus is God. Jesus is God. We must have such a high view of Jesus. We need a high, I need a higher view. That's one thing that stood out to me that, that yeah I know it, but these last two weeks it just came full circle, God forgive me.

Yes, I'm finite. I can make excuses. But Jesus, it's my sin. My sin doesn't show that I believe you are our most holy, holy, holy God. We help our higher view.

We love back to the birth narratives. We love those. But who created all that to happen? Who created the star to lead the wise men? Who created the wise men?

Who created the shepherd? Who created the angels? Who created Mary and Joseph? Who created the animals? Who created the person that made his swaddling clothes?

Or made the ability to craft that together? It was Jesus. We hear the birth narrative, and we hear anything, We've got to think more of Christ. Couple applications. The first one is really help from J.C.

Ryle. Know the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Know the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Know the exceeding sinfulness of sin. How do we get there from this text?

Listen to Mr. Ryle. Let us mark what kind of being the Redeemer of mankind must need be in order to provide eternal redemption for sinners. If no one less than the eternal God, the creator and preserver of all things, could take away the sin of the world, sin must be a far far more abominable thing in the sight of God than most men suppose. Sin must be far more abominable thing than we suppose.

Than I suppose, than you suppose. If it took this God eternal with God who is God, Jesus the Word, if it took Him, Holy, Holy, Holy, who creatures proclaimed night and day before Him, If it took Him to save us and all of His power to preserve us and to redeem us. How abominable must sin really be? And do we really think that? Please, no.

Don't end there with that thought. Let that thought instruct you, let it help you. Those that aren't in Christ, think on that. But it doesn't end there. Please know also, the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

We don't stop at the abominable sin. There are exceeding riches to have in Christ Jesus. In John 17, we see the complete fellowship Jesus desired with the Father, the agony in his prayer, knowing he was going to become sin and take on the full wrath of God when all He ever knew was perfect, unified glory with the Father from eternity. So see the exceeding sinfulness of sin, but also see the exceeding love Jesus had to redeem you. Brethren, pray that God would help you search your hearts and try your hearts and know if, no, know that there are sins.

Know if there be any wicked way, I'm not saying that the psalmist was wrong and the words he used, no way. But There is sin that we're not aware of. There's sin we are aware of. Church, let's earnestly pray and seek God to reveal sin. Search us and try us to know the wickedness that stills and dwells.

And repent. Please repent. Understand how a vulnerable sin is. And we'll get there the more we go through John by seeing how great Christ is. That He is God.

We see how holy and we see what it took for us to be saved. Which leads us to the second application. John 1.1 is true. You must believe. You must believe.

Don't wait until we get through John and say, well, did John make his case and prove John 20 is right? Don't wait. We may not get there. Jesus may come or you may die. 53 million people die a year.

About 1 and 1 half people die. Two people die a second. Don't wait! It is true. You must believe now.

John gets to this quickly in his Gospel in John 1.12, but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God to those who believe in his name. We may end John if the Lord doesn't return and he doesn't take your life. We may end John with everybody here believing. How wonderful would that be? That may happen.

Those that believe now or along the way, may your faith be strengthened. May you abide in Him more. May you be His disciple more. This is a prayer of mine every day. I know it is for Jason.

Pray for you every day. Pray for you by families. I go by row. It's the way I remember where people are. It's easy for me to remember.

I pray for you by name, your children by name. Those that I know haven't confessed. Those I know I believe I pray for their salvation. Those that I know are brethren because of the work of Jesus Christ. I pray for your strength, your faith, sanctification.

That you be encouraged that you would love God, that you would be able to examine your hearts. That we would love one another, encourage one another, be unified. These prayers for one another may be especially true throughout John. May John's desire be true for everyone that hears any sermon through John, that all may believe. Pray for Sovereign Redeemer Community Church.

Pray for Youngsville. Pray for any visitors that may come, people that may come throughout John that they would believe. Know that Jesus is the Christ, is the Messiah. And it could only be Jesus. Jesus is God.

Believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing in His name you may have life. Let's pray. Jesus, we proclaim that You are the Christ, that you are God. There is one God. We proclaim we don't understand the depths of this, but you are God.

Thank you God for giving us your Word. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for inspiring John and having him write this to help us. Jesus, may it be your will, through only your power and your work, that everyone here would believe, that those that have been saved, that you would strengthen us, that we would see you mighty, most holy, make much of you. We can never make too much of you, think of you too highly, make less of ourselves, and just see how just humble you had to be to save us. What a great work it took to save us and how awful sin is.

Thank you Jesus for your word. Thank you for loving us and caring for us. Thank you. In Jesus' name, Amen.