Introduction:
John 17:3 - And this is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
John 1:18 - No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.
3 Things Jesus Has Revealed About Himself:
- Who is Jesus? He is God . (John 1:1-3)
- Why did Jesus come to earth? To give Life . (John 1:4-13)
- What is Jesus like? He is full of Grace and Truth . (John 1:14-18)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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01:10-01:14
Grab your Bibles, please, and open up to John 1.
01:15-01:20
We are kicking off a new ministry year, as we do the first Sunday of October.
01:21-01:26
And our theme this year is "Knowing Jesus." John 1.
01:27-01:33
Our theme this year is "Knowing Jesus." And I can't think of a better theme for our church.
01:33-01:36
Not just knowing about Jesus.
01:36-01:39
That's why the word "about" is slashed through.
01:40-01:45
I mean, sure, there's benefit in knowing about Jesus, but that's not the endgame.
01:46-01:51
Knowing about Jesus is a step to the endgame, which is knowing Jesus.
01:52-01:56
Like, well, is this semantics, Jeff? What are we doing here?
01:56-02:02
What's the difference between knowing about Jesus and knowing Jesus?
02:02-02:05
What's the difference?" And the answer answers everything.
02:06-02:08
I want you to just imagine this scenario with me.
02:08-02:17
Imagine there's this young single guy that's attending this large church, and he sees a beautiful single girl.
02:18-02:24
And he's like, "Hold the phone. Who is that?" Never seen her before, but one of his friends knows who she is.
02:25-02:30
And he says, "Hey, can you tell me about her?" And his friend says, "Oh yeah, I can tell you about her.
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She loves the Lord. She loves missions. She loves working with children.
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She loves traveling. She loves Steelers football.
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She loves to watch cheesy comedy movies.
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Now this young single guy, in hearing this, let me ask you, is that enough for him?
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Is he going to walk away from that going, "Well, okay, that's all I need to know. Thank you very much." And he's done. Is that it? Is that enough? Obviously not.
02:55-02:57
Because now he knows about her.
02:58-03:04
And now that he knows about her, that makes him want to know her, right?
03:05-03:08
"I want to meet her!" Do you see the difference?
03:09-03:15
The Gospel of John is written to take us from knowing about Jesus to knowing Jesus.
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Like the illustration with this young single guy.
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Knowing about Jesus or the facts, that's going to lead you to wanting to know Jesus personally even more.
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And that's the whole theme of John, you know.
03:33-03:44
The God of the universe has revealed Himself by coming into this world as a man, Jesus Christ, to save you and to have a personal relationship with you.
03:44-03:50
In fact, Jesus said it this way in John 17, verse 3, Jesus was in the garden and He was praying.
03:50-03:53
But I want you to see one of the things that Jesus said while He was praying.
03:54-04:01
He said, "And this is eternal life." Like, whoa, whoa, your ears better perk up here.
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What is eternal life?
04:03-04:04
Look at what Jesus says eternal life is.
04:05-04:08
"This is eternal life, that they may..." What's it say?
04:09-04:20
"Know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent." You know, when you think about it, that's about the boldest statement a human being can make.
04:20-04:28
To say, "You can personally know the Almighty." Like, well, how in the world is that possible?
04:29-04:39
Well, John 1:18 says, "No one has ever seen God." The only God who is at the Father's side, He has made Him known.
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And that's a fundamental truth that's going to drive this whole series in John.
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There's only one way that we can know God.
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He has to make Himself known.
04:50-04:54
And the great news, according to this verse, is that He has.
04:55-04:58
And He's done it in the most personal way possible.
04:59-05:01
He showed up, and He introduced Himself.
05:02-05:05
So John 1, we're going to be looking at the first 18 verses today.
05:05-05:09
The title of the message, if you're taking notes, I want you to jot some things down.
05:10-05:16
"He has made Himself known." We're just going to look at three things Jesus Christ has revealed about Himself.
05:16-05:19
Therefore, three things that Jesus Christ has revealed about God.
05:19-05:30
Alright? We're going to be answering three questions, and the first question is this, "Who is Jesus?" And the answer you're going to see very clearly in the text, "He is God." He is God.
05:30-05:40
Luke 1-3 says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." He was in the beginning with God.
05:41-05:47
All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
05:47-05:49
Who is Jesus? He is God.
05:49-05:56
Notice how John starts out under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, "in the beginning." Does that sound familiar? Where have you heard that phrase before?
05:56-05:58
"In the beginning." Where have you heard that before?
05:59-06:00
Genesis 1, right?
06:00-06:05
He says, "In the beginning was the Word." The Word was with God and the Word was God.
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Why did he choose the word "Word"?
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Well, there are a lot of reasons, but specifically to the Jews, the word "word" has major significance.
06:15-06:30
Because when you read the Old Testament, you see, "The word of the Lord came to this prophet," or, "The word of the Lord came to that prophet." And you know when you read the Old Testament that God is very serious about His word.
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That's why at Harvest Bible Chapel, we are very serious about God's word.
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Because He is.
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Why is God so serious about the Word?
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Why are we so serious about the Word of God?
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Well, let me ask you, what is the purpose of words?
06:45-06:46
What's the purpose of words?
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Words are to communicate something, right?
06:50-06:59
That's why John uses the word "Word." He doesn't say, "In the beginning was the thought, and the thought was with God, and the thought was God." He doesn't say that.
07:00-07:14
He doesn't say "deed." "In the beginning was the deed, and the deed was with God, and the deed was God." Very specifically, He uses the word "Word." Because "Word" is something that's deliberately used to convey information to another person.
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We're going to see in a couple moments in verse 17 that this Word has a name.
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The name is Jesus Christ.
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Jesus is His name. Christ isn't His last name, by the way.
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It's a title. It means Messiah, the Anointed One, the One Promised.
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But Jesus is God's communication to man. He's a living, breathing Word.
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You see, this is where cults get all messed up, and how they evaluate this question, "Who is Jesus Christ?" Depending on which cult you ask, some people say, "Well, Jesus was just a prophet." Some cults say, "Jesus was Satan's brother." Or, "He was an angel." Or, "He was this advanced human." And they all deny what Jesus has very clearly revealed about Himself.
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Do you see that? He was with God and was God.
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He is God and is with God at the same time.
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You're like, "All right, Pastor Jeff, we'll explain that one." Are you ready? I can't. I cannot explain that.
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That statement cannot be explained.
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If I said to you, "Yesterday, I was with my friend Nathaniel, And I was my friend Nathaniel.
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You'd be like, "Were you drinking with Nathaniel?" That statement doesn't make any sense.
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How can you be with somebody and be somebody at the same time?
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It makes no human sense.
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And the truth is, it can't make sense to us. Why?
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Because here's the thing, church.
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From the minute you were born, you've only ever known two things in your life.
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That's time and space. Right?
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We can't fathom an existence outside of time and space.
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What would it be like to live in existence where space isn't a thing?
09:02-09:04
We have no idea because that's all we've ever known.
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What about time? What would it be like to live in existence outside of time?
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I have no idea because the only thing I've ever known is time and space.
09:15-09:18
Well, you see, God lives outside of time and space.
09:18-09:25
He lives a level of existence that doesn't make sense to a finite mind bound in time and space.
09:26-09:33
So, can I logically explain how Jesus is with God and He is God at the same time? I can't.
09:33-09:40
The only thing that's logical is that we should have an inability to explain a God who lives outside of time and space.
09:41-09:43
This is just what the Bible says.
09:43-09:49
I guess it's kind of ironic that the only thing that makes sense is that a God like that can't make sense to us.
09:50-09:52
But this is how He's revealed Himself.
09:52-09:58
Someone once said that God created man in His own image, and then man returned the favor.
09:58-10:01
And that's why the Word is so important.
10:01-10:12
That's why when you come to Harvest Bible Chapel, we're like, "What does the Word say?" And the messages come from the Word, because it's not up to us to define God, because He's revealed Himself.
10:13-10:15
But that sure doesn't stop us from trying, does it?
10:15-10:16
People want to redefine God.
10:16-10:19
People want to make God in their own image.
10:19-10:22
People say things like, "Well, God just forgives everyone.
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It doesn't matter about Jesus.
10:25-10:26
None of that stuff really matters.
10:26-10:32
God just forgives everyone." Or people say, "You know, God would never allow anyone to go to hell.
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That's not God." Or, "God wants to make me wealthy.
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That's God.
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That's God's mission is to make me wealthy." And none of those things have been revealed to us in His Word.
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You see, in the Word, the written Word, which talks about the living Word, Jesus Christ, when Jesus came into the earth, God was saying, "This is who I am.
10:54-11:07
I'm not like this, and I'm not like that. I am this." And the clear teaching of the Bible in the Old Testament, throughout John, as we will see, and throughout the New Testament, is Jesus is God.
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And we preach Him, and we worship Him, and we celebrate Him as nothing lesser than that.
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He is God.
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Who is Jesus? He is God.
11:17-11:20
The second question, why did Jesus come to earth?
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The answer is, to give life.
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Look at verse 4.
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It says, "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men." First of all, "In Him was life," meaning Jesus didn't get life from someone else.
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He's actually the source of life.
11:38-11:44
But then he says, this is an interesting statement, he says, "The life was the light of men." What's he talking about here?
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Listen very closely.
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What he's saying is, Jesus is not only the end, He's the means to the end.
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What do you mean by that?
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Here's what I mean.
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The Bible says that Jesus is the good shepherd, right?
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He's the good shepherd.
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At the same time, Jesus is also the door to the sheepfold.
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He's the shepherd and the door at the same time.
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Jesus, the Bible says, is the Lamb of God.
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He sacrificed Himself to take away our sin.
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You know, the Bible says that Jesus Christ is also, at the same time, the High Priest who offers the sacrifice on the cross.
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He's the Lamb and the Priest at the same time.
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And in the same way, here, Jesus Christ not only is the life, but He is the light that leads us to the life.
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Because the world is full of darkness and death.
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Have you noticed?
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The world is a dark and dying and dead place.
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And Jesus came to give life, but at the same time He's the light that leads to the life.
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Further explanation, look at verse 5.
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"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." When Jesus arrived on the earth, it was like God turned the lights on.
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shedding light on truths about who is God, who is man, what is sin.
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And this light forced the darkness of sin and ignorance away.
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He says the light cannot be overcome by the darkness.
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It never gets so dark that the darkness smothers light, right?
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You've never been to a cavern or a cave so dark that you strike a match and the darkness just sucks up the light because it's so dark.
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My little match can't overpower it.
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That's a scientific impossibility.
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That's also true about Jesus Christ.
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This world is a dark place, but I'm telling you, the darkness can't overcome the light of Jesus Christ.
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And if you want a preview for what that looks like, we spent the entire last year in the book of Revelation, all the sermons are online, go listen this afternoon.
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But the darkness will not overcome.
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Light always wins.
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He says, "There was a man sent from God whose name was John." This is talking about John the Baptist, not the John who wrote this Gospel.
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He says, "He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him.
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He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
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The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world." So he mentions John the Baptist, A key figure prophesied in the Old Testament, in the book of Isaiah, in the book of Malachi, and we're going to talk about him more in a minute.
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But verse 9 reminds us that Jesus Christ is the only light.
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Only Jesus Christ can truly enlighten someone.
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So the only way, the only way that you can truly help someone is by pointing them to Jesus Christ.
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The only way you are able to truly help someone is to point them to Jesus Christ.
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As a pastor, I do counseling.
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And I tell people straight up front, there's only one type of counseling that I do, and it's biblical counseling.
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Like, what's biblical counseling?
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Well, biblical counseling is only for believers.
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I don't do secular counseling.
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And I thought about that some more, and I really, I can't.
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I can't do secular counseling.
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And then I thought about it more.
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Now, you know what? I won't.
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I won't do secular counseling. Why?
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Because it doesn't help.
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Oh, sure, it might be the pain pill that makes you feel better for a couple hours.
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It might be the Band-Aid that you put on cancer.
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But secular counseling doesn't really help.
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The only type of counseling I do is biblical counseling.
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So the only people that I am really able to counsel are Christians, people who are born again, who have the Word of God as their authority.
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Because the only way I can truly help someone is by pointing to the light that is Jesus Christ.
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You're like, "Wait a second, Pastor Jeff, that sounds awfully narrow-minded.
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I mean, what if somebody comes to you for counseling, and they're not a believer in Jesus Christ, what do you tell them?
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What do you think I tell them?
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"Yeah, I tell them about Jesus, and I tell them up front, 'Look, I can't help you.
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I can't help you, but I know somebody that can, and his name is Jesus Christ, and he's been helping people for like 2,000 years now, and he can transform you, and he can change you.
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Go to Jesus Christ. I can't help you, but I can point you to somebody who can, because he's the one that can enlighten." Look at verse 10. It says, "He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him.
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He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him." These are some of the saddest verses in the Bible when you think about it.
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Here, God Almighty, the Creator of everything, showed up to His creation.
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He shows up, and they didn't recognize Him.
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That's not sad enough. It says, "He came to His own." Who were His own? It's Israel, right?
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Ever since creation, God promised Israel that the Messiah was coming.
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The Messiah is coming.
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And there's all these writings in the Old Testament describing Him, and what He's going to be like, and what He's going to do.
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And Israel had centuries and centuries and centuries of prophecies and promises of the coming Messiah, and He's here!
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And Israel didn't recognize Him. It's sad.
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And you're like, "Well, mission failure then, right?" No. Look at verse 12. It says, "But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God." This is how the light leads to life.
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To those who received Him, those who believed in His name, those are synonyms, really.
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To receive Jesus Christ is to believe in His name.
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And when you believe in His name, that is receiving Jesus Christ.
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And when you truly receive Christ, He gives you the right to become what?
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What does your Bible say? He gives you the right to become what?
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He gives you the right to become religious.
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Is that what your Bible says? That's what some people think it says.
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For those who received Him, He gives you the right to become a church member.
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That's not what it says either.
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It says He gives you the right to become a child of God.
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See, this is about a personal relationship, not about religion.
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It's about a personal relationship.
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A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from somebody.
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I don't know how they found me online or whatever.
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They're like, "Hey, I want to have a wedding.
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"Me and my fiance wanna have a wedding." And Justin smiling, "You were part of this, right?" And they're like, "I wanna have a wedding, "but I don't want it to be religious." I'm like, "Awesome, "because I don't want it to be religious either." And I replied like, "Look, we're not about religion "at our church, we're about a transforming relationship "with Jesus Christ, and I would love to tell you about that." There's a huge difference.
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She didn't email me back after I said that.
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And sometimes it's hard to not take things personally, but I didn't.
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But here's the point, do you see it in the text?
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What God wants for you is not religion.
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What God wants for you is a relationship.
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Like, well, what kind of relationship does he want?
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Did you see that?
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A child of God.
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And if you have a child, you know how deep that relationship is between parent and child, right?
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And you're like, I don't have any children, Pastor Jeff.
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Do you have a parent?
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How many people in here had parents at one point?
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How many of us have parents?
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Okay, we established that.
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You get the closeness of the relationship.
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And isn't it awesome that God Almighty says, "I want to be your Father." That's the kind of relationship I want with you.
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Look at verse 13, it says, "Who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." In other words, you become a child of God, not in the usual ways that someone becomes a child.
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It's a work of God.
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He says, "You don't become a child of God from blood." Meaning, no offense, It doesn't matter how great of a Christian your grandmama was.
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Your grandmama might have been the greatest saint walking the earth in her day, but that does nothing for your walk.
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That does nothing for your salvation. Nothing!
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You're not going to stand before the Lord someday, and the Lord's like, "Oh, your grandma was who?
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Well, let's fetch her up here!" It's not about that. It's not blood.
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You don't become a child of God by a will of the flesh.
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Meaning, hear this, It's not even a personal act on your part that makes you a child of God.
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You don't walk in and say, "Huh, those baptisms were interesting.
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Well, you know what? Today I'm making myself a child of God.
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Today I am born againing myself." He says it's not the will of man, meaning it's not the act of another person.
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Like me and the elders get together and we just get in your face and like, "Guess what? Today you are a child of God!" They're like, "Well, the elder said it, so I guess I'm a child of God." No, no, no, it's not the will of man.
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How do you become a child of God?
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He says, look again, verse 13, "Born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God." This is a work of God.
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Hear this, as much as you may want to, you cannot, you cannot, you cannot make someone receive eternal life in Jesus Christ.
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You can't do it.
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Believe me, there are times I wish that I could put somebody in a headlock and drag them to the baptistry.
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And you are giving your life to Christ today, man!
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You can't do it. You can't do it by your will.
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I can't do it by my will. This is a work of God.
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Parents, you can't force your children to love Jesus Christ.
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In our last Next Generation Prayer Meeting, we were praying for the salvation of our children and the children in this church.
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We can't do it.
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No matter how many times they go to harvest kids, no matter how many times they sit in youth group, we can't make someone become a child of God.
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Like, "Well, if I can't do it, what is my part?" Well, prayer, obviously. This is a spiritual thing.
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Prayer. And remember I said we were going to talk about John the Baptist again?
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Our job is just like John the Baptist's job.
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We saw in verse 7.
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To bear witness about the light. Right?
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That's our job.
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See, John the Baptist totally got it.
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The guy was mega popular, but he's like, "I'm not the light." Jesus Christ is the light. Follow Him. Go to Him. Believe in Him.
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I'm here to witness to Him. It's not me, it's Him.
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And that's how ministry works, by the way.
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Bearing witness about the light and pointing people to Jesus Christ.
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The light that leads to life.
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That's our job, church. Pointing to the light.
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Pointing people to the light. Directing people to the light.
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Do you know Jesus Christ? Do you know who He is? Do you know what He's done?
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Pointing people to the light. Taking people to Jesus Jesus deal with them, because that's why He came.
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And finally, we saw who is Jesus?
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Well, He's God.
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And what's His purpose?
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Well, He came to give life.
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Third question we see in the text.
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What's Jesus like?
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The answer is He's full of grace and truth.
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Look at verse 14.
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It says, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory." Glory as of the only Son from the Father, "Full of..." There it is. "Grace and truth." "The Word became flesh." That's the Christmas story.
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God became a man.
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Interestingly, he says, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." Literally, in the original language, it's "The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us." That's a weird way to say that.
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Well, when you go back to the Old Testament, you see Moses was instructed to build this tabernacle, This portable building that they tore down and carried with them and set back up.
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But part of the tabernacle is where they rested the Ark of the Covenant.
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And that's where God's unique presence was in the tabernacle.
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So if you were living in Old Testament Israel times and somebody came up to you and said, "Hey, where's God?" You'd point to the tabernacle.
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You'd be like, "He's there." That is where God's presence rests.
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You see, John says, "The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us." In other words, when Jesus was walking on the earth, where was God's unique presence?
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It was in a person.
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You point to Jesus Christ.
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There's God's presence. There's God right there.
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There He is. God is that man.
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You're like, "Okay, well, where's God's unique presence today?" The Bible says that our bodies, our hearts, are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
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God's unique presence today is in the heart of every believer through the power of His Holy Spirit.
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The Word became flesh and tabernacled.
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God's unique presence found in one person.
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John says, "We have seen His glory." John says, "We saw the glory of God when we looked on the sun." Man, what was that like?
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He tells us exactly what Jesus was like.
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He says, "Full of grace and truth." Full of grace and truth. Perfectly.
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Jesus was 100% perfectly gracious, and at the same time, He was 100% perfectly about the truth of God's Word.
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That's sort of hard for us to understand, right?
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Because as people, we're a little imbalanced, and we're a little lopsided there, aren't we?
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Some people are much grace and little truth.
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You're all about grace, not so fired up about the truth.
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What happens when you're much grace and little truth?
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Here's what happens - coddling.
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Never holding someone accountable.
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You enable sin.
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You ignore the transformation power of the gospel.
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We just overlook, "I'll just show grace, just show grace." "But the Bible says..." "We're just going to show them grace." That's lopsided.
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Is that you?
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Some people are much truth and little grace.
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What happens when you're much truth and little grace?
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You're harsh, right?
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Harsh.
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"There's no room for mistakes!
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Look, man, this is what the Bible says, man, and you violated that!" You come across very judgmental.
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"Who hears much truth and little grace." Once again, we point to the light of Jesus Christ because we're like, man, He was perfect.
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He had it all.
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He was full of grace, and He was full of truth, and it was never one at the expense of another.
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And John says, "That's what God is like." full of grace and full of truth." Verse 15, winding down here, "John bore witness about Him and cried out, 'This was He of whom I said, 'He who comes after Me ranks before Me because He was before Me.' And from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace.
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For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." No one has ever seen God.
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The only God who is at the Father's side, He has made Him known.
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Everything you need to know about God, everything, is found in Jesus Christ.
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He has made Him known.
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And that's where we're going this year as we go through the Gospel of John.
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We want to know God by knowing Jesus.
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And not just knowing about Jesus, but knowing Jesus.
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Because knowing God through knowing Jesus leads to transformation.
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Because it leads to new life.
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These three things in this prologue, these three statements about Jesus, permeate the entire book of John.
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You're going to see this with every message.
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You're going to see these three things, that Jesus is God.
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You're going to see that He came to give you eternal life.
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You're going to see that He's full of grace and truth.
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Amen, Pastor Jeff.
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You seem pretty confident about this stuff.
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How do you know that these things are true?
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Because He's made Himself known.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, we thank You for Your Word.
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How lost we would be without Your Word as we sit around and try to define who we think You are, but God, You've given us Your Word so that we would know exactly who You are.
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And You've shown up through the person of Jesus Christ to give us life full of grace and truth.
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Father, it's my prayer for myself and for this church that we move from knowing about Jesus to knowing Jesus.
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We move from facts on a piece of paper to personal relationship like a child with a father.
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Father, we know You're the only one that can do this.
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This is a spiritual matter.
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Father, we just lift this congregation up before You and ask, nothing for show, that we would genuinely and sincerely know Jesus Christ.
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It's in His glorious name that we pray. Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read John 1-18
What was your big take-away from this passage / sermon?
List the 3 things this prologue to John teaches about Jesus.
Jesus was full of grace and truth (John 1:14). Do you typically lean more towards grace or truth? Why?
Reread John 1:12-13. How do these verses affect how we view evangelism?
BREAKOUT
Pray for one another - specifically that we would grow in KNOWING JESUS this year at HBC.