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.
I Want to Know God (John 1:1–3):
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The REALITY: Jesus is GOD.
Colossians 2:9 – For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.
Zechariah 12:10 – And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced…
Acts 20:28 – Pay careful attention to yourselves... to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.
Hebrews 1:2 – But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
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The RESPONSE: FAITH in Jesus.
Hebrews 11:6 – And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
How Can I Grow in Knowing Jesus?
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CONFESS with your mouth.
Romans 10:9 – If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
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HEAR the Word.
Romans 10:17 – So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
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KEEP His commandments.
John 15:10 – If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.
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Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:41-00:42
Stegosaurus.
00:45-00:47
Nobody asks, so I'm just going to tell you.
00:49-00:50
Game show host.
00:52-00:52
And gray.
00:54-00:57
Oh, oh, and what I want for Christmas.
01:02-01:04
I just want to know God.
01:09-01:18
Did you ever ask for something like for Christmas or whatever and somebody got you the generic version?
01:18-01:20
Has that ever happened to anybody else?
01:20-01:24
Show of hands, you wanted something and you got the generic version?
01:26-01:27
That happened to me when I was a kid.
01:28-01:33
When I was a kid, they came out with this wacky thing.
01:33-01:34
It was called a pogo ball.
01:35-01:37
How many people, show of hands, remember the pogo balls?
01:38-01:47
Okay, a few of you, one person in the first service did, or about half of the first service's attendants, remembers what a pogo ball was.
01:47-01:52
If you don't know, just imagine like a snowman with the head cut off.
01:52-01:54
It was that kind of shape, right?
01:56-02:05
And it had this hard plastic like ring that went in between these two like balls, right?
02:05-02:07
That were kind of fused together.
02:07-02:14
And you were supposed to like stand on the plastic disc and squeeze your feet on the top ball.
02:15-02:19
And then you would bounce on the pogo ball.
02:19-02:27
And the pogo ball would let you jump almost as high as you could jump if you weren't on a pogo ball.
02:31-02:33
But it was the hot item the one year.
02:34-02:36
And I wanted a pogo ball.
02:37-02:39
You know what my parents got me?
02:41-02:42
The Saturn ball.
02:46-02:51
Pogo balls, generic cousin, the Saturn ball.
02:55-03:03
And not only was it actually not fun to use, but my family was making fun of me when I did use it.
03:03-03:08
When I would jump on it, they'd be like, Here we go on our Saturn ball, our Saturn ball, our Saturn ball.
03:09-03:10
And that really hurt my feelings.
03:11-03:17
So the Saturn ball got thrown into a closet and it's probably still there until today.
03:19-03:28
But look, I know we've had this conversation before, but there's just some things you can't go generic, right?
03:28-03:38
Like ketchup, Pop-Tarts, Oreos, the generic's not the same.
03:41-03:44
Don't try to tell me that it is because you're just lying to yourself.
03:47-03:55
But nothing has been made more generic than God.
03:57-04:03
We live in a culture that is okay with the generic concept of God.
04:05-04:10
But when you get specific, people get squirrely about that.
04:12-04:20
You're like, when people say, "God bless America, "God bless America." Yeah, you can ask, "Well, which God?
04:22-04:42
"Do you mean the God of the Bible, "the one who created us, the one who judges sin, "the one who commands us to repent and believe, "the one who calls us to live our lives "according to his wisdom?" And it's like, "Oh no, not that God." But we're just okay with the generic concept.
04:42-04:48
But you see, the problem with that line of thinking is God isn't a generic concept.
04:50-04:54
In fact, God's not a concept at all.
04:56-04:57
God is a person.
05:00-05:26
God is a specific person. And as we enter into the Christmas season, you know, we know the Christmas story from Matthew and from Luke, right? We know that version of the Christmas story well with the census and Bethlehem and Mary and Joseph and angels and shepherds and mangers and the star and the magi and...
05:26-05:34
Well, Matthew and Luke sort of tell the story of the incarnation like looking over people's shoulders, right?
05:34-05:39
But we're going to be looking at the gospel of John because his Christmas story is a little different.
05:40-05:44
In John's Christmas story, we are looking over God's shoulder.
05:47-05:49
That's really the theme of the whole book of John.
05:51-06:08
We studied this some years back, but the theme of John is this, the God of the universe has revealed Himself by coming into this world as a man to not just save you, but to have a relationship with you.
06:10-06:15
The God wants you to know Him.
06:20-06:23
In fact, this is what Jesus Christ was praying.
06:24-06:43
John 17.3, Jesus said, "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent." Eternal life.
06:45-06:53
more important than eternal life because you are either going to live forever with God or you're going to die forever apart from God.
06:56-06:57
So what do you want for Christmas?
07:02-07:04
Top of your list should be eternal life.
07:06-07:10
And according to Jesus, that comes from knowing Him, from knowing God.
07:11-07:21
And I do have to remind you that knowing about God is not the same as actually knowing God.
07:21-07:29
You realize those are two completely different concepts, knowing about God and knowing God, not the same.
07:30-07:31
Think of it this way.
07:31-07:46
Imagine a young man comes to church, a single man, and he's been coming here for a while when all of a sudden one day he notices there is a beautiful young single woman.
07:48-07:56
And he's like, "I don't think I met her, but who is that?" But he gets his friend, he's like, "Hey, find out who that girl is." Right?
07:56-08:02
And his friend comes back with the information and he says, "Oh, you asked about that girl.
08:03-08:03
Here's what I know.
08:04-08:06
She loves missions, right?
08:06-08:08
And she loves working with children.
08:09-08:15
She enjoys traveling and get this, she's a big Steelers fan.
08:18-08:20
But she also loves rom-coms.
08:23-08:37
Now, if this friend goes back to the dude and gives this report on what this woman is like, do you think this man would be like, all right, now that I have the information about her, I am satisfied, thank you.
08:38-08:38
That is all.
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Is that the end of the story?
08:44-08:51
No, you see, now that he knows about her, that makes him all the more want to know her personally.
08:52-08:55
You see, that's how it is with God.
08:55-08:57
That's how it is with Jesus Christ.
08:58-09:05
The more you know about Him, the more you want to know Him personally.
09:08-09:10
The fact should lead you to the relationship.
09:12-09:14
Well, how do I know God personally?
09:14-09:20
Well, John 1:18 tells us that no one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side.
09:21-09:22
He has made him known.
09:23-09:32
And folks, this is a fundamental truth, that the only way that we can know God is he has to make himself known.
09:33-09:42
And that's what we celebrate every Christmas, that God has made Himself known because He did it in the most personal way possible.
09:42-09:45
He showed up and introduced Himself.
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So look at John 1, picking up in verse 1.
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We're just gonna look at the first three verses today.
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And this might feel more like a Bible study than a sermon, but these are important truths that we gotta wrestle down here.
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John 1 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.
10:19-10:26
All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
10:31-10:39
Notice that John, in introducing our Lord, He's using this word, word, a lot.
10:39-10:42
Why does he use the word, word?
10:44-10:53
Well, he doesn't really explain that, but I promise you that the audience that he wrote to in the first century would have known exactly what he was talking about.
10:54-10:59
'Cause John primarily would have been writing to the Greeks and the Jews.
11:00-11:20
And the word, word in the Greek is logos, and to the Greeks that Logos was like this impersonal force, this impersonal energy source, because the Greek philosophers were like, look, all of this had to come from somewhere.
11:21-11:23
You know, the world didn't happen by accident.
11:24-11:32
There has to be some force out there that it's behind the structure of the earth and all logic and reason.
11:32-11:39
And they had this idea, it was an impersonal force, and they called it the word, the logos.
11:41-11:47
And see, so John is writing to the Greeks, and he goes, "Hey, you guys talk about the logos, right?
11:48-11:49
"Did you know the logos is a person?
11:51-11:53
"It's not a thing, it's a person.
11:54-12:11
"It's a person that was with God, "it's a person that was God, "and it's a person," according to John 1:14, that became flesh and dwelt among us." So that's how the Greeks would have heard this.
12:11-12:13
You know how the Jews would have heard this?
12:14-12:15
I mean, probably you don't have to guess, right?
12:16-12:24
When the Jews would have heard the word "word," what would they have thought of?
12:26-12:30
They immediately would have thought of the law and the prophets, what we call the Old Testament.
12:31-12:35
You see, you go through the Old Testament over and over and over.
12:35-12:46
The word of the Lord came to the word of the Lord came to the word of the Lord came to that all of the law and the prophets, it's it's known as the word of God.
12:48-12:51
So the Jews would have picked up on this concept immediately.
12:52-12:55
Oh, you know what the purpose of words is?
12:57-12:58
Words are to communicate something.
12:59-13:10
Words are to be deliberately chosen and used to convey information to another person.
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That's what John is saying to the Jews.
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The Word became flesh.
13:18-13:22
Jesus Christ is God's communication to man.
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a living, breathing word.
13:29-13:37
So, God isn't some impersonal force.
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God's not a generic concept.
13:43-13:48
According to God's word, He is a person.
13:49-13:56
And He has revealed who exactly He is in Jesus.
13:58-13:59
Let's just pause for a second.
13:59-14:06
I'm going to ask that you would pray for me as we do this little study together that I would accurately represent God's Word.
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Let me pray for you to have a heart open to receive this absolutely essential truth that God is teaching us today.
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So let's pray.
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Father in heaven, we live in a culture that is fine to think of you in general terms, but to call you a person, a father, the sovereign of the universe, it's tough for some people to grasp.
14:43-15:00
And I just pray, Father, today, especially over these next few minutes, that we would really have our hearts and minds open to what it is that Your Word wants to teach us about the way that You've revealed Yourself through Your Son. It's in Jesus' name that we pray.
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Amen.
15:03-15:12
So on your outline, I want you to write some things down. I want to know God. Here's where it starts, number one, the reality.
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This is the reality.
15:15-15:16
Jesus is God.
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Jesus is God.
15:21-15:22
Let's look at these verses here.
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Look at verse one again.
15:23-15:34
He says, "In the beginning was the Word, "and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." In the beginning, does that sound familiar at all?
15:35-15:37
That phrase, in the beginning, where have we heard that?
15:39-15:40
Genesis 1, 1, right?
15:40-15:42
That's how the whole Bible starts.
15:43-15:46
And John is starting in the same place.
15:46-15:55
John is saying, by saying in the beginning, John is saying before anything was created, the Word existed.
15:57-16:00
The Word, and notice he says two things about the Word.
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First of all, the Word was with God.
16:08-16:11
And secondly, the word was God.
16:14-16:17
First of all, let's talk about the word was God.
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This claim is nothing less than Jesus Christ is almighty God.
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This is all through the New Testament, all right?
16:26-16:38
If we were to just do a Bible study today, looking at the verses of the New Testament that talk about Jesus being God, we would be here long after the snow melted, okay?
16:38-16:43
But the New Testament is so full of this truth.
16:43-17:00
Like for example, Colossians 2.9 says, "For in Him, in Jesus, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily." Most concise statement of Jesus' deity is probably right here in John 1.14.
17:00-17:08
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 grace and truth.
17:09-17:17
The Word became flesh and dwelt, dwelt, that word dwelt in the Greek is the word tabernacled.
17:17-17:21
The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.
17:23-17:24
You heard of the tabernacle?
17:25-17:41
In the Old Testament, it was this portable structure that as Moses was leading the Israelites out of Egypt, God told Moses to build this structure and it had this tent with the holy place and the holy of holies.
17:41-17:47
And this was the place where God's unique presence dwelt among his people.
17:49-18:08
So when John says the word became flesh and tabernacled among us, if you were in the Old Testament times, if you lived with Old Testament Israel He said, "Hey, can you point to the place "where God's unique presence lives on the earth?" You would point to the building, the tabernacle.
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You would say, "Yeah, God's unique presence "on earth is right there." Fast forward to 2025, right now, if I were to say, "Can you point to the place "where God's unique presence dwells on earth?" Where would you point?
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It's right here, right?
18:24-18:29
Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
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temple was just the permanent version of the tabernacle.
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This is where God lives.
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This is God's unique presence here.
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So what John is saying in John 1:14 is for about 33 years of earth's history, when you would ask, "Where is God's unique presence on the earth?" You'd point to a man, and that man's name is Jesus Christ.
18:52-18:54
You would point to him and say, "Right there.
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That man is the unique presence of God on the earth.
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This is where he is.
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All right?
19:04-19:07
Jesus is not an exalted angel.
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Jesus is not some special enlightened human.
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According to this verse, Jesus is the God.
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And every false religion denies this, by the way.
19:27-19:45
And I can just tell you personally, you would be shocked at how many times I've had to have this conversation with people over the course of my ministry, but people who actually say, "Jesus never said He was God." You heard that argument?
19:46-19:48
"Jesus never said it." What the argument is this.
19:49-19:51
That's something the church kind of came up with.
19:52-20:21
You know, we kind of, like some religions like us, we sort of hitched that idea onto Jesus, but Jesus himself, they say, "Oh, if you study the words of Jesus, he never said he was God." Well, do you remember back in Exodus chapter three, God called Moses through the burning bush.
20:22-20:25
You know, you're gonna lead my people out of Egypt.
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You're gonna lead them to the promised land.
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And do you remember Moses says to God, "Well, what if Israel asks who sent me?
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What if Israel is like, what is his name?" Do you remember in that moment, God told Moses what his name is.
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You remember?
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God told Moses his name is I Am, who I am.
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That's God's name.
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His name is I Am.
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I love that.
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God didn't say to Moses, "My name is I Was." Like Moses, like, "What's your name?" And God's like, "Moses, I Was.
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"Oh Moses, you should have seen me back in high school.
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"Oh Moses, I was so good looking "and I was such a good athlete.
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"Back in the day Moses, back in the day "I was really something." No, he's not the I was.
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But nor did God tell Moses that he's the I will be.
21:33-21:33
Right?
21:34-21:52
Like Moses is like, "What's your name?" And God's like, "Well Moses, you tell the Israelites, "I might not be nothing special now, but I'm taking my vitamins and I'm drinking my milk and I'm doing my palates and I'm jumping on my pogo ball and someday, someday I'm going to be something great.
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I will be. God's not the I was and He's not the I will be. God is, He is I am.
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From eternity past, He is infinite, majestic holiness. He is the I am.
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and in eternity future, He will still be infinite, majestic holiness.
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He is the I Am.
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You're like, well, what does that have to do with Jesus?
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Because Jesus repeatedly claimed that He is the I Am.
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It's all through the Gospel of John, what, like seven times.
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I am the bread of life.
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I am the light of the world.
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I am the way and the truth and the life.
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I am the good shepherd.
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I am the door." All through Jesus made this claim.
22:45-23:04
John chapter 8, Jesus said, "Before Abraham was, I am." John chapter 10, Jesus said, "I and the Father are one." And in that moment, the Jews picked up stones, they were going to kill him for saying that.
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And Jesus says, "I did a lot of good works.
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For which of them are you going to stone me?" And they said, "Oh, no.
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You're making yourself out to be God the way you're talking." You see, they knew exactly what He was saying.
23:19-23:35
They knew exactly what He meant when He said, "I and the Father are one." Oh, and by the way, not only does the Bible say that Jesus is God, did you know that the The Bible also says that God is Jesus.
23:37-23:40
Here's what I mean, look at Zechariah 12, 10.
23:40-23:43
This is before the incarnation, the Christmas story.
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This is before the baby in the manger story.
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This is Old Testament.
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Look at what God says.
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God says, "And I will pour out on the house of David "and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, "a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, "so that when they look on me, "On him whom they have pierced." Do you see how God identifies himself?
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He identifies himself as the one who was pierced, and who was the one that was pierced?
24:11-24:13
It's Jesus Christ on the cross.
24:13-24:14
Do you see that?
24:16-24:17
Do a little word study there.
24:17-24:19
That's exactly what he's saying.
24:20-24:23
They will look on the one whom they've stabbed, right?
24:24-24:25
It's also in the New Testament.
24:26-24:27
God is Jesus.
24:28-24:30
Look at Acts 20, for example.
24:32-24:42
Paul says to the Ephesian elders, "Pay careful attention to yourselves to care for the church of God, which He obtained with His own blood." Who bought the church with His blood?
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He says God.
24:46-25:00
You're like, "I thought it was Jesus that shed His blood." Paul's saying that as Jesus shed His blood, that was God obtaining the church with His own blood.
25:02-25:06
So Jesus is God, yes, and the Bible also says that God is Jesus.
25:07-25:12
The Word was God, but the Bible also says here that the Word was with God.
25:13-25:16
The Word was with God.
25:20-25:28
In case you missed it, in case you didn't quite catch it in verse one, verse two, he just says the exact same thing.
25:28-25:31
He was in the beginning with God.
25:31-25:40
So somehow Jesus is God, but being with God, somehow he is distinct from the Father.
25:44-25:54
Yeah, like if I said to you, Yeah, yesterday I was with my buddy, Nathaniel, and I was my buddy, Nathaniel.
25:56-26:01
You would say, were you and Nathaniel smoking something?
26:01-26:02
Like what was going on there?
26:03-26:05
That doesn't make sense, does it?
26:06-26:10
How can you be with somebody and be somebody at the same time?
26:10-26:16
But that's exactly what the Bible says about Jesus and his relationship with God.
26:17-26:22
He's not only God, but He's also with God.
26:26-26:29
And people want that explained all the time.
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We get, Pastor Taylor had that, well, a couple weeks ago, the little children's back there had like a Q&A thing with him.
26:37-26:40
And wasn't that one of the questions they were asking about the Trinity?
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And look, do you wanna know about the Trinity?
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Here's the reality.
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Nobody can figure that out.
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That's the truth.
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You can't do it.
26:52-26:58
Because from the moment you were born, you've only ever known two things in your life.
26:58-27:00
Your whole life, you've only ever known two things.
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And that's time and space.
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You can't fathom an existence outside of time and space.
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This is where we are.
27:10-27:15
And now we have a God who lives and exists and rules outside of time and space.
27:16-27:18
God is not bound by time and space.
27:19-27:23
And somehow we think that we're going to be able to explain everything about Him.
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Here's what I know.
27:31-27:33
The Word was with God and the Word was God.
27:34-27:35
The Bible says God exists.
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He's one God, but He exists as three persons, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
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Jesus is eternal, but distinct, and you don't have to explain it to believe it, okay?
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I can't explain to you how my car works, but I believe that it does when I get in and drive it.
27:56-27:57
All right, look at verse three.
27:59-28:10
He says, "All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made." Okay, this is just theology 101.
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It's all through the Old Testament.
28:12-28:14
God is creator.
28:14-28:24
And John here is saying Jesus is God, he's with God, and then John takes another step and says Jesus is creator, he made all things.
28:25-28:34
And somehow, again, the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all involved in creation at the same time.
28:35-28:36
You're like, can you explain that?
28:36-28:38
I just told you I could not explain that.
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But somehow God the Father created through God the Son, and the Genesis tells us that the Spirit of God hovered above the waters.
28:50-28:52
All three members of the Trinity were involved.
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And somehow Jesus is the agent of creation.
28:56-29:14
The Bible says in Hebrews 1:2 that, "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." Through whom he created the world.
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That's all John's saying here in verse 3.
29:20-29:23
Every living thing gets life from something else.
29:24-29:27
A tree, your dog, a woodpecker, you.
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You got life from something else.
29:30-29:37
The only person who has never received life from someone else is God Himself.
29:38-29:39
That's what John's saying.
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Since Jesus already existed before creation, and because Jesus didn't get His life from something else, then He must be God.
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Those are the biblical facts about Jesus.
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And listen, even if you're sitting here today or listening to the podcast later or whatever, even if you don't agree with that, can we take an honest look at what the Bible says and stop trying to twist it?
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"Oh, it doesn't really say that." The Bible overwhelmingly says that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh.
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That's the truth that you have to reckon with.
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He is God.
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So if you want to know God, number two, the response.
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The response.
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You want to know God?
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The response is faith in Jesus.
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The reality is Jesus is God.
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The response is we have to have faith in Jesus.
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You see, God took the initiative.
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God did His part in revealing Himself as Jesus, so the question is, "What's my part in knowing Him?" It's faith.
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Faith is the only way to know God.
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Oh, and speaking of generic, not only do people use the name of God in a generic sense, but you'll find that people use the concept of faith in a generic sense.
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There is a true biblical sense and definition of faith, but we live in a culture that just throws that word "faith" around all the time and uses it in all kinds of ways.
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Here's what I mean.
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Some people use faith like it means wishful thinking.
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Faith is just wishful thinking.
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Like, "Well, I just kind of have faith "that everything's gonna work out." Like, what does that even mean?
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For some people, they think faith is just the way of the ignorant.
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Like, "Well, you believe in science, "or you believe in faith, rather.
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"I believe in science, and they're condescending.
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You're just some backwoods redneck.
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You're ignorant.
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I believe in science, but you have your little fairy tale faith.
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And still other people look at faith as some kind of ambiguous spirituality.
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You hear people say, "I'm a person of faith." Do you know who else is a person of faith?
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Literally everybody.
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Everybody believes in something.
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What is your faith in?
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Because you can have faith in the wrong thing.
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So listen, my friends, God is not a generic concept, and neither is faith.
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Faith is a specific disposition towards a specific person.
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That's why Hebrews 11:6 says, "Without faith, impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God," that's the knowing God piece, "whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him." It starts with obviously an acknowledgment of His existence, but it doesn't stop there.
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You have to seek Him.
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You have a responsibility.
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took the initiative, he revealed himself in Jesus, what is my responsibility in this relationship?
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Or how can I grow in knowing Jesus? I want you to jot these three things down. How can I grow in knowing Jesus? Letter A, you have to confess with your mouth. Romans 10.9 says, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
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And you are not going to grow in your relationship with Him if you don't have one to begin with.
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So have you made that confession?
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Do you believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sins, that He rose from the dead to give you eternal life?
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Do you believe that?
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People have this idea that, "Well, we're all children of God in the creative sense, yes, but not in the adoptive sense." Yes, we do all have a relationship with Jesus.
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The question is, do you have a good relationship with Him or a bad relationship with Him?
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You have to confess with your mouth.
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It has to start there, letter B.
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You have to hear the Word.
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You have to hear the Word.
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Romans 10:17 says, "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ." The only way your faith grows is through the Word of God.
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Because this is the only truly reliable source of information about Jesus because this is the source of information that was given to us by God.
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You have to be in the Word if you're going to know Jesus.
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Any relationship involves time and communication.
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And some people, they spend no time in His Word, no time praying His Word, and reading and studying and meditating, and they spend no time at all in the Word, and then they wonder why they feel so distant.
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Relationships grow when time is spent together.
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You need to prioritize spending time and praying the Word of God.
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And finally, letter C, "Keep His commandments." Keep His commandments.
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Jesus says in John 15.10, "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love." That's how you abide.
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It's through obedience.
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Now listen, if you're a Christian and you're in sin, sin is not going to end your relationship with Jesus, but you're obviously going to feel distant from God if you have unrepentant sin.
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Any area of disobedience in your life that you refuse to deal with, you're gonna feel distant, and that's not on God, that's on you.
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God hasn't gone anywhere.
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You have.
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So what is it in your life right now that you're like, I know, I know that this is what God wants me to stop doing or maybe something God wants you to start doing, but you know exactly what it is.
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You need to turn from that sin.
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You need to obey whatever Jesus is calling you to, and you're going to enjoy the freedom that repentance brings in your walk with Christ.
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This is what keeps people from coming to Christ in the first place, by the way.
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Jesus will take you just as you are, but he won't leave you that way.
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Jesus wants to transform you.
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He wants to change you.
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And some people just don't want to be changed.
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Keep His commandments.
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The Word became flesh.
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God became a man.
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Our worship team will come back up.
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You know, I came to Christ when I was 20.
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And it's an amazing thing to grow up in a church as a kid, and all those days, all those years sitting in the church, how little I really understood.
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But when I was led to Christ, this whole new world, right?
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And I remember I was trying to understand, and I had this Bible that my parents got me.
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You know, some Bibles have the little story inserts, little devotional things, like kind of built into the Bible.
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Well, this Bible had those, and it had this story in it.
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And the story goes something like this.
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There was this farmer and his wife, it was Christmas Eve, and the farmer's wife was going to church.
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And she asked her husband if he wanted to go with her.
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He goes, "No, I don't get that church stuff.
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"It doesn't, that makes no sense to me.
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"I'm not interested at all, but you go have fun." Well, she went to church, and while he was home, he saw that there were birds trying to get into his barn.
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This really bad deep freeze came over, kind of like what happened here.
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And these birds were trying to get in the barn, seeking shelter from the cold.
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The farmer says, "Well, I can help those birds." So he goes, "I'll just go out and open the door and let them in the barn.
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And when he went out there, you know what birds do, right?
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They just kind of scattered everywhere.
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The farmer's like, "Well, that sure didn't help anything." So he thought, "Well, maybe if I just leave breadcrumbs, "I can like guide them in there somehow." Didn't work.
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No matter what the farmer did, he couldn't get the birds into the barn to get shelter.
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And as the story goes, I don't think it's a true story, but as the story goes, he stood and looked out the kitchen window and he saw the birds back flying around the outside of the barn, not able to get in.
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And the farmer thought to himself, "Those birds are going to die.
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And as badly as I want to save them, I don't know how I can get them in the barn." But then the farmer had a thought.
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The farmer thought, "You know, if I could become a bird for like five minutes, I could approach them, they wouldn't be scared of me, I could speak their language, and I could and show them the way that they could be saved.
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And right when he had the thought, the story goes, off in the distance he heard the church's bells ringing.
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And that's when it connected.
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It's a dumb story.
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Admittedly, what I've got to tell you as a young Christian, When I read that, that's what made everything click for me.
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Yes, that's the purpose of the incarnation.
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That God became one of us to save us.
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So what do you want for Christmas?
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I wanna know God.
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Not the generic knockoff, but the real person.
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Because knowing God is eternal life.
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We're going to have our elders and members of our prayer team up front here.
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And in just a moment, Ashley's going to sing a song over you to have a good old-fashioned altar call.
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You can stay in your seat, you can pray right where you are.
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But I want you to know there's people that are up here that would love to pray with you and for you.
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So as Ashley sings over you, we're going to invite you to come.
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Maybe there's somebody here that today you're like, "You know what?
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"I don't really know God, I know about Him, but I don't really have a relationship with Him.
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Today's the day.
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Today's the day that you can go from knowing about God to knowing God.
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So please come.
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Our Father in Heaven, we thank You for the way that You have demonstrated Your holiness and love by taking on flesh and blood.
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Father, I pray against all of the distractions.
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It's that time of year that there's more to do than we have time to do.
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And there's so many things We're just vying for our attention.
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Father, I pray that we would take a real close examination at the person of Jesus Christ and examine our own hearts.
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Are we truly walking with Him?
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Do we truly have a relationship with Him that we're spending time together and knowing and growing?
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Or are we just churchgoers?
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Father I thank You.
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You've revealed Your heart.
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You want us to know You.
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You've done everything.
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And have just simply called us to receive what You have accomplished.
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Father, thank You.
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We praise You and ask that You would continue to manifest Your goodness and presence in us by the power of Your Spirit through the wisdom of Your Word.
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We praise You in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
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Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read John 1:1-3
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Why do you think the deity of Jesus is denied by so many cults? Why is that such a common point of contention?
How would you explain the Trinity to a 7 year old?
Define “faith”. Why do you think faith is the God-ordained way of knowing Him?
What’s your favorite dinosaur?
Breakout
Pray for one another.