Dr. Gregg Marutzky:
Good morning, church.
Good morning.
Wow, it's a good crowd this morning.
Bunch of young, good-looking people right up front here, too.
Now smile at me.
Smile at me.
All right.
There, there's a, there's a, a c- a, some guests visiting here for the first time.
I met them this morning and I told them I'm gonna be looking at them, and s-
here they are, looking back, smiling.
Amen.
Come and See.
Written by the Apostle John.
That's our series, and the reason this is so important, I feel a
heavy burden in some ways, is because John was the beloved.
John felt the love of Jesus so strongly, and he was so in love with Jesus,
that he called himself the beloved.
Now, we know that Jesus was the one and only, the begotten
Son of Jesus, the beloved
of God, I mean.
Jesus was the beloved of God.
And you and I, there's a prayer called the beloved that eventually
even gets to us, and we're to claim that we're the beloved of God.
But the goal of this series is if Jes- if John was so in love with Jesus,
then hopefully after this series, we'll be so in love with Jesus, amen?
Yes.
Can you fall more in love with Jesus?
Yeah.
Yeah, we all can, and we should, and we want to.
And that's why we constantly strive in our relationship with God to give more and
more of our heart to Him, to understand His will, and to seek a relationship.
Not just to believe, not just to know the right things, not just to understand,
not to just have rationality or logic, but to truly have a connection with
God and a relationship with God.
Yeah.
There was a time when I was…
I became a Christian, I was connected to God, and I got baptized and I got my sins
forgiven, and that was such a relief.
Such a great feeling to be forgiven.
And it was such a great feeling to have the Holy Spirit and have power
to change, and I started changing some radical things in my life.
But then later on in my Christian life, I…
it just seemed like I was going through the motions, and I needed to fall
deeper in love with Jesus and with God.
And Jesus is my very best friend.
I love Jesus with all of my heart.
I need Jesus.
My…
I have two of my beloved here on the front row, my wife and my
daughter, one of my daughters.
And my daughter gave me a big hug this morning.
And I don't know why she did.
She must have thought I needed it.
But oh, it felt good.
And so as I'm thinking about beloved, I thought, "Oh, she's so beloved."
And my wife, it just shocks me sometimes that she still loves
me so deeply and loves me more, and that we have a good time.
I mean, we're such good friends, and we, we, uh, took a couple days and went
to the mountains on Monday and Tuesday.
And it was just so fun, 'cause when you're with your best friend,
I mean, it, everything's fun.
And, and just eating a breakfast sandwich a- at a, at a mountain cafe is fun, amen?
So but we need to start with just a little bit of fun, okay?
So I was looking up, and I wanna say things, uh, well this morning.
I wanna say them well, because when you don't say things well, then
you can get yourself in trouble.
And there were some translations of the scripture that weren't
done well and really gave some false meaning to the Bible.
Listen to this.
Uh, in, uh, 1832, uh, a certain Bible read when Rebecca came out of the
tent to meet Isaac, it's supposed to say that, uh, her and her damsels
came out to meet him, but it says her and her camels came out to meet him.
And another one, it says, uh, "If any man would come after me,
he must," uh, you know, uh, uh-
Uh, hate his own life, right?
And instead of life, it says, "Hate his wife."
Not good.
And another translation, 1716, says that we should sin no more.
Well, it didn't say that.
It said, "Sin s- sin on more."
Sin on more.
And another one, instead of, uh, uh, the King Charles translation, instead
of saying, "Thou shall not commit adultery," they left a word out.
"Thou shall commit adultery."
Ooh.
That's not a good one.
And then, uh, this one, nobody understood.
Uh, in the 16th century, a translation came out, says Jesus
was, was, bl- bless the peacemakers, and it said, "The placemakers."
I don't know what that means.
And then, uh, this is a funny one.
One translation came out in 1702, the Parable of the Vineyard, it
said, "The Parable of the Vinegar."
That, that was a funny one.
You know, you gotta be careful, especially as a preacher.
There was a preacher that, uh, his car broke down, and it was out in
front of a 7-Eleven, and he, uh, went in to, to call for some help.
That was before cell phones.
And, uh, a fellow was, was right outside and was, was asking for some help,
some money, and he recognized him.
And he says, "Frank, what's going on?
You were so successful.
You're so wealthy and so rich.
What's happened?"
He says, "Oh, I made some really bad investments.
I've lost everything."
And so, so he gave him some, some money and he said, "I wanna pray for you, and
I want you to go home, and I want you to just open up your Bible, let it fall
down, and put your finger down, and whatever it says, claim it and live it.
And I think God will bless you."
And so months later, he saw Frank again, and Frank was in this Gucci suit, and he
was looking all good and feeling all good.
And so the preacher went up to him.
He says, "Frank, it all turned around.
What happened?
What, what verse did you find?"
And he said, "I put my finger down," and it said, "Chapter 11."
If you know business, you know what that, the, the punchline there.
My a- my wife asked me, "What, what joke are you telling?"
She wants to screen them nowadays.
And, uh, she said, "Don't tell that.
I don't get it."
I told her and then she thought it was humor.
She still said, "Don't do it."
But let's dive in.
This is the commentary I'm gonna be using and the staff will be using as
we're preaching through the Gospels.
It's a concise commentary on the Gospel of John by the fore-
one of the very foremost, uh, scholars of the Gospel of John.
He wrote a commentary, very thick, very scholarly, in the Anchor Bible Series.
But, uh, this one, he's written a concise one, and it's really good.
Raymond Brown.
I read his commentary, uh, years ago, probably about 30 years ago, and
that's what, uh, caused me to start really pursuing the Gospel of John.
So I wanted to share that with you.
But in the beginning, in the beginning, in anchen, in anchen.
We know where that comes from, right?
In the beginning, God created.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth.
God created something from nothing.
So John begins his gospel, "In the beginning."
Why doesn't he do it like Matthew, Mark, and Luke?
Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us a, a, a genealogy story.
They tie Jesus into the history of the Jews and the history of, of, of people.
He really is giving us a genealogy.
He's tying it all the way back to creation and beyond creation.
That's right.
That Jesus has existed forever because He's God.
And so even though we read His birth story, that's just when He became
human, that's not when He became.
That's right.
Because He's always been in the beginning.
And so that's why people look at John, oh, my goodness, John is so audacious.
He starts with the beginning of the Bible.
I mean, h- h- why does he do that?
For a very good reason.
Because his audience is non-Christians.
His audience aren't people that believe in God.
His audience have a Roman and Greco culture, and they're very worldly.
And the, the Roman a- a- and Greek culture had so many temples and so many deities,
and they just worshiped everything they could see and everything they could
touch and everything they could create and everything they could make up.
And John wants them to worship and fall in love with who he's fallen
in love with, the eternal one.
That's right.
The eternal one, the true one, the greatest.
And so he starts out very boldly, "In the beginning."
And he says in verses one through five, "In the beginning was the Word-" The Word.
And in the Greek, this is Logos.
In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.
And He, and He shifts there He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made that without him nothing
was made that has been made.
In him was life, and that life was the light, the guide, the path, the direction,
the beauty, the heat, the energy of men.
The light shines in the darkness, in the wickedness, in the evil of
this world, but the darkness has not understood or overcome it.
Yes.
I mean, we could just stop there.
There's so much profundity there.
There's so much meaning.
There's so much depth that that tells us so much rich theology,
and there's books written just on these first five verses because
they have so much foundation for us.
But this morning I just wanna introduce the Gospel of John and
hopefully wet our appetite for all the coming attractions, right?
All the things that we're gonna see through the chapters.
But this idea of Jesus as the logos, let's dive into it just a little bit.
We won't spend a lot of time on it, 'cause we're gonna go in depth on Wednesday.
But in Greek philosophy, the logos was what everyone was pu- pursuing, what Plato
and Aristot- Aristotle and Heraclitus
was after.
The logos described the rational, the governing principles of the cosmos.
Logos was the knowledge to transcendence, to eternity, to
live forever, to know the answer.
All right?
So if you wanted to know the answer in the ancient world,
you sought and studied logos.
You became a Stoic or, or these different k- types of philosophies
tried to explain the logos to you.
In Jewish thought, the, uh, the Jewish writer Philo used the term and des-
used it to describe God's mediating power and active presence in creation,
and especially from Proverbs chapter 8, that the artist, the designer,
the actual Hebrew words there, uh, the designer of the universe.
And, and we know he's talking about Jesus now looking back, and we put
it in context, but at the time, Phi- Philo thought, well, the logos, that
creative power, has made the universe.
And then John makes it all clear for us just in these few verses, and he
says he applied the logos to Jesus, a transformed and impersonal philosophical
idea and force into a living, personal being who entered human history If your
faith, your religion, your beliefs just stay mental, stay in your head, it's not
really gonna help you, folks You need to connect Right You need to connect to God.
You need to connect to other people.
I, I pray for the young people because of all the screen time and the way
that they've been raised, w- They're, they're not, they, they're, they're
not as relational, people are saying.
Now, our kids are.
They're very relational.
They're always smiling at me and saying hi.
They're cool.
All right?
But that's probably 'cause they've been going to church and because
they've connected to God and connected Je- to Jesus, but that's not common.
In p- most places, you walk around, you see young people that
aren't talking to each other.
They're just looking at their phone.
Yeah.
And, and when I catch myself, like Cathy and I at a restaurant
and we're both looking at our phone, I think, "Uh, put it down.
Talk."
Mm-hmm.
"Be a good husband.
You know, connect.
You know how to do it, Greg.
You've even taught people to do it, so just remind yourself and do those things."
All right?
So this is a very important thing.
It's basically saying, I'll put in simple terms, Jesus is the bridge.
Amen.
He's the bridge- Yeah … between humans and God.
Yeah.
Between this world and the next, between the physical and the spiritual.
He's the bridge.
Yeah.
All right?
He's the bridge for you and me.
The religious word is priest.
He's the intermediary.
He's the interceder.
He's the one that inter- does intercession for us to connect to God.
He's the connection, and that's why it's so cool that he's the Logos, 'cause I
want connection with God, don't you?
Yes.
Yes, we do.
We want it.
We need it, 'cause we know that's where the power is.
We wanna be plugged in.
Don't you hate it when you turn on the light and it's not plugged in?
Yeah.
We, we moved into our house, and there's a light we haven't
even put into the plug yet.
It's behind the sectional.
We'll have to move the sectional out, so we just use the other lights.
And I told myself yesterday, "I need to get under there
and just plug in this lamp."
But I, we've lived there, what?
Two months?
Haven't done it yet.
Haven't done it.
If you wanna come over and help, come on over and help.
All right?
What a servant thing to do.
He goes on.
Jesus the Logos.
It means God is with us.
Guys, that's the greatest feeling in the world.
Yeah.
And it's the worst feeling in the world to be lost, for God not to be with you.
I became a Christian a- as a freshman in…
Well, I started seeking as a freshman in college.
I became a Christian as a sophomore in college 'cause that first year
of college beat me up, broke me.
And I remember a cold winter day, one evening coming out,
unfortunately of a bar- And just feeling so lost, so disconnected.
Not connected to my family, not connected to anyone.
And I was on the football team, and I was, I was in a fraternity, and I was
popular, but I wasn't connected to God, my source My energy, my hope, my salvation,
my forgiveness Yes And I started seeking.
God with us is so, such a blessing.
This is so good.
Jesus, the eternal Word, the logos means that Christ is divine reason
and divine wisdom as an expression of God who has existed forever
and became human in Jesus Christ.
On Wednesday night we're gonna talk about two of the, the great heresies
of Christianity, Aaronism and, uh, uh, Gnosticism, and they argued
over the deity of Jesus Christ.
If we can get it right, it's gonna keep us on track.
And a few of the scholars of the 1st century, I just wanna read this
real quick, some good stuff that, uh, what they thought about logos.
Justin Martyr says he was a philosopher, he turned Christian,
and he said, "The idea of logos is spermatikus, a seed-bearing word."
He argued that a seed of the divine logos was planted in all humans,
and ancient thinkers like Socrates and Plato grasped fragments of that
truth, but Jesus came and brought the entire logos in physical human form.
Irenaeus said that writing against Gnosticism, he claimed
the physical world was, was evil.
See, see, the, the, the ancients, they thought there was this dualism,
the, everything physical was evil and everything spiritual was good,
so it didn't matter what you did in the body because that's evil anyway.
And so, and that dualism mindset still is in our mindset today, all right?
That we can do whatever we want as long as we, we believe the right things
or have the right heart about things.
But Irenaeus used logos to prove the unity of God.
He explained that the Word who created the world is the exact same word who
redeemed it in the flesh, marrying creation and salvation, human and divine.
Can we get an amen?
Amen.
And Origen said he helped formalize the concept of eternal generation.
He explained that the Father did not create the logos at some point in
time, and, and that's one of the false teachings of the 1st century, that Jesus
was created, that he was an emanation.
That's Gnosticism.
But, uh, uh, he…
it's just like a light bulb that cannot exist without light.
God is a light bulb, and h- the light is Jesus.
The Father is eternally generating light in the Son.
It's good to read those ancient scholars to truly understand.
This idea of logos, guys, take a picture of this, if you will.
I'm not gonna spend much time on it, but as far as nature, instead
of a cosmic force, it's a person.
As, and as far as function, it, it, it, it's, it's an illustration.
It's not just a thought.
And materially, he became flesh, and he became relatable to be known
and loved and followed, and it's all throughout the Gospel of John.
Unless we understand this, we won't understand the Gospel of John.
Jesus' incarnation.
You know, as an early Christian, I was a cross man, and I still am.
I think the cross is the, the fulcrum of Christianity,
the turning point of history.
It's the most important event that's ever happened.
But the incarnation was pretty important, too.
Jesus becoming like me and like you, human.
The incarnation.
The eternal Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us.
This is 1 John 1 through 4.
His eternal existence, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God."
Deity, "The Word was God."
The Creator, "All things were made through the Logos," and then the
ultimate revelation that Jesus shows us the true message in human form.
You know, sometimes getting into the Greek is just showing off, all right?
Somebody studied Greek.
I studied it for two and a…
A year and a half, and so I know enough to be dangerous.
But there's a couple of words here in the first chapter of John that really
have made some stuff come alive for me.
The incarnation is the embodiment of God in human form in the person of Jesus.
The Word, Jesus, became flesh, sarx, and dwelt, tabernacle, Shekhinah,
which means pinched His tent among us.
We wouldn't know God unless Jesus pitched his tent here, camped out with us, came
and lived with us, and became like us.
In John 10:10, one of my favorite scriptures, "The thief comes only
to steal and kill and destroy, but I have come that they may have life
and may have it to half a tank."
That's not what it says.
That you may have life to the full.
You don't have to just exist.
You don't have to just settle for the life you have.
You can have abundant, thriving, prosperous life in Jesus Christ.
Amen?
Amen.
That's the promise of God.
Let's claim it, folks.
Let's claim it.
And then just a couple more verses from this, uh, chapter.
It's, uh, so good.
In J- John 1:14 is one of the key verses, one of the paradigm-setting,
uh, scriptures of the whole book.
"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling, his shekinah, among us.
He- we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only, the
begotten Son who came from the Father full of grace and truth."
Full of grace and truth.
You know what that means?
There's enough grace for you and me.
You're not gonna run out of grace, 'cause Jesus is full of grace.
He's overflowing with grace.
In fact, the, the Greek term is, is, is, uh, is, is, uh, is, uh, the idea
of it, of it being pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing, that Jesus'
grace is just overflowing from him, and his truth is just overflowing from him.
Haven't you been around some people like that?
Kindness just overflows from them.
Amen.
Happiness just overflows from them.
I know I'm not one of those people, but don't you love those people that are?
Yes.
All right?
That just, it just overflows from you.
You just wanna be around them some more.
You just wanna hang out with them.
Or, or people where humor just overflows from them, that everything
they say, you just crack up.
You, you act like a child again all of a sudden.
You just laugh so hard.
Some people just crack, crack you up.
It's, that's what it means, so full of grace and truth.
And w- 1:17 says, "For the law was given through Moses."
What's the law good for?
Romans 7 says it tells us what's right and wrong.
You gotta know what's right and wrong.
I want law.
I want truth.
I want r- you know- Amen … protection from evil.
I don't want people doing evil against me, and I don't want
to do evil against others.
So it's good to have law.
But grace and truth came through Jesus.
Yes.
You know, if you ever have been in a legalistic religion, you get
burned out quick- Yeah … just doing what's right, not doing what's wrong.
Yeah.
You know?
You need a religion where you connect- That's it … with that
bridge, where you become the beloved disciple, where you're so in love
with Jesus that you're connected.
It's not just legalistic.
It's not just doing what's right.
"Oh, I just want a better life."
We all want a better life.
Even non-Christians want a better life.
Yes.
But the way to get it is the connection.
The connection, the logos of God.
How do I know that?
Well, this next verse, it's a good one.
Says in verse 12 and 13, "Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who
believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, sons and
daughters of God, children born not of natural descent nor of human decision,"
not just 'cause you chose God, "or a husband's will," not just 'cause of the
family you're in, "but born of God."
And we're gonna have a little sermon on that in John chapter 3, being born again,
how awesome it is to be born again.
But this is just coming attractions.
This is just preview, but you get the right when you what?
Believe.
I believe, Lord.
Do you really believe?
Jesus was always challenging people when they started following Him.
Yeah.
Why are you following me?
Yeah.
You know?
And when His disciples say, "I believe," they…
He, "Do you really believe?
Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son
of Man has nowhere to lie down."
Do you really wanna follow?
Do you really believe?
Yeah.
We gotta get to that point when we are, we believe 'cause we're- Yeah
He's our beloved.
Yeah.
Because we love Him so much.
Yeah.
Not just 'cause we, we got the, the knowledge, but because
we got the relationship.
Yeah.
See, I got the relationship with the Lord.
I didn't think I'd make it, and with knowledge I wouldn't have just made it.
And I can say that 'cause I got a lot of knowledge.
But you're not gonna make it with knowledge only.
My knowledge has helped me, but it's my relationship with the Lord.
It's that bridge.
It's that connection.
That's that being born again.
Yeah.
And that renewal over and over again.
Good stuff.
What's He promising you?
What's the Gospel of John promising you guys?
Full life.
Abundant life.
If you don't have full life, then come to this series.
Because here's the promise.
We're gonna focus on Christ until we're just so in love and he's our beloved.
Yeah.
We're gonna focus on Christ.
We're, we're gonna g- we're gonna get rid of that guilty, shame, legalism in our
life, and just be connected to the Lord.
Amen?
Amen.
We're gonna be led by truth, not all the waves and philosophies and thoughts and…
coming at us from every direction.
We're gonna focus on what the God's word says- Yeah … and his truth.
Yeah.
And we're gonna let him love us and just like he loved John.
Yeah.
Just like he loved everybody he connected with in this gospel until we
feel that grace through and through.
Just a preview of coming attractions.
That's what all the first chapter is.
It's telling us what we're gonna see throughout the book.
And he first starts with logos here, and then secondly he says
that this is the life, that he's the life and the light of the world.
And then he says that, uh, he's the Lord.
One of the testimonies, witnesses in the first chapter says, "No one
has ever seen God, but the one and only Son who is himse- is himself
God, is in the closest relationship with the Father, has made him known."
Verse 23, and same thing the whole book of Hebrews tells us.
All right?
And then the Lamb of God.
Oh, I love this in verse 29.
"The next day, John saw Jesus," John the Baptist, "saw Jesus coming toward
him and said, 'Look, the Lamb of God who will take away the sins.'"
The whole book of Revelation is about the Lamb of God.
Who can take us away the sins of the world, the evil of the world?
And then all of a sudden, into the throne room comes the lamb.
The Lamb of God, and the, the figure there is this, this lamb and its wool is stained
with blood, the sacrificial lamb of God.
That's a huge thought right there.
And then he's a leader.
Says in Deuteronomy 18 and then in verse 45, "Philip found Nathanael and told him,
'We found the one Moses wrote about.'"
And what Moses says in Deuteronomy 18 is a prophet, the Prophet is gonna come.
The Messiah, the Chosen One will come.
On whom the prophets also wrote.
It's Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God.
You know what's gonna hit you somewhere along in your Christian life is,
"Oh, I'm glad I'm looking back.
I'm glad I didn't live in the time of the Old Covenant before Jesus came.
I'm sort of glad I wasn't there right when Jesus was alive,
because I w- might have missed it.
I might have not recognized that he was the Son of God.
I'm so glad I've, I'm now looking back in hindsight and see who Jesus
really is, the Prophet, the One, the Messiah, the Chosen One, the lovely
One, the King of Israel, the Rabbi."
He says in verse 49, "Then Nan- Nathanael declared, 'Rabbi, you are the Son of God.
You're the King of Israel.
I have seen and I testify that this is God's Chosen One.'"
I hope that's what you get out of the Gospel of John.
I hope you fall so in love with him.
I hope you see all these things, and you believe with all of your heart.
I believe with all of my heart.
When I made my confession of faith, I believed it with all my heart, and
I still believe it with all my heart.
I still believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God- Yes … and
God raised him from the dead.
I still want Jesus to be Lord of my life.
I don't wanna be mastered by anything, by any sin, by any possession, by anybody.
I'm in love with the Lord.
Amen.
Amen?
Amen.
And then just to, to give you a, a few points in, uh, uh, Signs Point
to God, so throughout this book, we're gonna be pointing to God.
In John 2, the water to wine, all these seven miracles.
In John 4, when he get…
the nobleman gets…
huh, son gets healed.
In John 5, the, the paralytic healed.
John 6, the multitude fed.
John 6, the walking on water.
John 9, the blind man healed.
John 11, Lazarus, the big one, resurrection.
And then the seven I Am stories.
You've heard series on this.
We're gonna hit on this stuff, but we don't wanna miss the
point, that Jesus is the beloved.
The seven statements, "I'm bread, I'm light, I'm door, I'm gate, I'm
shepherd, I'm resurrection, I'm way, truth, and life, and I'm the vine."
And then don't miss the seven sermons.
Oh, we like the signs, we like the metaphors, and in fact, in John, he
has these metaphors and these signs and these, these miracles instead of parables.
Isn't that interesting?
Matthew, Mark, and Luke have parables.
In this gospel, we don't have parables.
We have these other things.
But in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, he had sermons, and in John, he has sermons.
He has seven of them.
Be born again, be true worshipers, be true disciples, bear fruit.
You're gonna get the Paraclete.
Be unified, and last of all, follow me.
We'll look at all this stuff.
But the…
This is the theme verse, not the theme verse, but this
is the purpose of the book.
But I, I hope I've helped you see that it's a little
deeper than just these words.
Says in John 21:30-31, "Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of
his disciples," a lot of miracles, "which are not recorded in this book.
But these are written that you and I may believe."
Believe what?
That Jesus is the Messiah, the Chosen One, the Anointed One, the greatest.
Yes.
The Son of God.
It will make all the difference in your life.
Yeah.
And that by believing, you may have what?
Life.
Amen.
Any good preacher wants good for his, his flock.
I want us to have abundant life.
I, I love doing the Gospel of John 'cause I believe in this promise, and I believe
that God gives it to us if we find Him.
And there's a simple outline I made years ago that I still…
I've seen what all the scholars' outlines are and everything, but I like mine,
one I made when I was just in love with the Lord as a young Christian.
You know, all my learning hasn't made me mad and crazy.
This is my outline: John 1 through to chapter 4, Jesus is the Son of God.
John 5 through chapter 12, Jesus is Lord.
John 13 through 17, what is a true disciple?
And then John 18 through 21, the Passion of Christ, the Cross of Christ.
Why?
So we'll be full.
That's His promise.
So that's a big burden for us preachers up here to give you, that in, at
the end of 12 weeks, you'll be full.
But God's good, and you'll be full.
God bless.
Amen.