So, thank you. Good morning. We're going to
start our second service with Aadhaar Singha, Aadhaar Hardback,
number 15. Brethren, we have met to worship,
number 15. Brethren, we have met to worship
and adore the Lord our God. Will you pray with all your power
while we try to preach the word? All is vain unless the spirit
of the Holy One comes down. Brethren, pray in holy manna. We'll be showered all around. Brethren, see poor sinners round
you slumbering on the brink of woe. Death is coming, hell is
moving, can you bear to let them go? See our fathers and our mothers
and our children sinking down. Brethren, pray in holy manna,
we'll be showered all around. Sisters, will you join and help
us? Moses' sister aided him. Will you help the trembling mourners
who are struggling hard with sin? Tell them all about the
Savior. Tell them that He will be found. Sisters prayin', holy manna will
be showered all around. Let us love our God supremely,
let us love each other too. ? Let us love and pray for sinners
? ? Till our God makes all things new ? ? Then he'll call us home
to heaven ? ? At his table we'll sit down ? ? Christ will garden
himself and serve us ? ? With sweet manna all around ? Our second hymn will be number
46, O for a Thousand Tongues, 46. Oh, for a thousand tongues to
sing my great Redeemer's praise, the glories of my God and King,
the triumphs of His grace. My gracious Master and my God,
assist me to proclaim, spread through all the earth abroad,
the honors of Thy name. Jesus, the name that charms our
fears, that bids our sorrows cease. Tis music in the sinner's
ears, tis life and health and peace. He breaks the power of
cancelled sin, He sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the
foulest clean, His blood availed for me. Hear Him, ye deaf, His
praise ye dumb, Your lucid tongues employ. Be blind, behold, your
Saviour come, And leap, ye lame, for joy. Glory to God in praise
and love, Be ever, ever given, Thank you. You may be seated. I would like to read Isaiah 53.
Isaiah 53, but I want to start in chapter 52, verse 10. Chapter 52, verse 10. The Lord hath made bare his holy
arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth
shall see the salvation of our God. Depart ye, depart ye, go
ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing. Go ye out of the
midst of her, be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.
For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight, for
the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be
your reward. Behold, my servant shall deal
prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled,
and be very high. As many were astonished at thee,
his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more
than the sons of men. So shall he sprinkle many nations,
the kings shall shut their mouths at him, for that which had not
been told them shall they see, and that which they had not heard
shall they consider. Who hath believed our report,
and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow
up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness,
and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire
him. He is despised and rejected of
men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and as we hid as
it were our faces from him, he was despised and we esteemed
him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows, yet, We did esteem him stricken, smitten
of God, and afflicted, but he was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and with his stripes, we are healed. All we like sheep
have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way. The Lord hath laid on him the
iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth
not his mouth. He was taken from prison and
from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he
was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression
of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the
wicked and with the rich in his death, because he had done no
violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased
the Lord to bruise him, he hath put him to grief. When thou shalt
make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he
shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper
in his hand. He shall see the travail of his
soul, and shall be satisfied. And by his knowledge shall my
righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities,
Therefore, will I divide him a portion with the great and
he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he had poured
out his soul unto death and he was numbered with the transgressors
and he bear the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. Our merciful father, we thank
you for allowing us to come together as a local assembly Father, will
you remember us in this day? We thank you, Lord, that we can
hear the gospel proclaimed to us from week to week. And Father,
will you go before us? And will you help us as we go
forward also with this location and as a local assembly? Father,
we know that with you all things are possible. Continue, Lord,
to give us what is necessary, whether it's financial or the
physical building, And also remember Brother Eric, where he comes
before us each time. Remember him, Lord, as he hopes
to declare the gospel to us once again this morning. Pour out
your spirit upon him and also upon us. Father, we thank you
that you have provided a full and a complete salvation for
sinners. This is our only hope. And Father, be with those that
perhaps are struggling Perhaps they are struggling, whether
or not they are indeed saved. Father, remember them and make
things clear and plain unto them that they may also rejoice in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, strengthen our faith
today. Without you, we can do nothing. Remember our loved ones. You know all their situations,
some of them very far away. But Father, all things are in
your hands. and will you call them out of
nature's darkness into your marvelous light. Remember us, Lord, be
with all your servants wherever they labor, for Jesus' sake alone,
amen. All right, thank you, Joe. All right, this morning, I want
to look with you at the Gospel of John. We'll begin there in
John. And this book is a very personal
account of our Lord given to us by the beloved disciple, John,
whom the Lord loved. And you've probably heard, you
know, in the book of John that it's a, you know, there's seven
distinct miracles and it's a book of pointing out these different
miracles than what we've seen necessarily in the other Gospels. And the other Gospels were very
much focused on the parables that the Lord gives to his disciples. And rather than those parables
that are so well laid out there in what's called the synoptic
gospels, synoptic meaning like synchronous, that they're very
similar to one another in their layout and what they provide
or bring, what we notice in John is that he records these intimate
discourses of our Lord with the people, more so than what we
see recorded in the other gospels. In these discourses, as we read
what our Lord was speaking to the people, we find that what
He's conveying to us, what He's revealing to us, is that salvation
is spiritual. It's spiritual in nature. It's not of this flesh. And you'll see that as we go
through What he reveals to the people, it's a spiritual salvation. It's a work of the living God
for his people. It's not something they do for
themselves, but something that God must do for his people. And so this hope that we have
of our salvation, it's not based on cold, dead religion. dead religious service and and
just doing things as as Church, right? It's nothing like that,
but rather it's one of warmth and fellowship of love, joy,
and peace with our God. And this is all fixed for us
in Christ. Our hope, our life is founded
upon the Lord and Jesus Christ, and we're told that He dwells
in our hearts by faith, and in Him we're rooted and grounded
in love, which is a picture of what John will later reveal how
that Christ said He's the vine, and we are the branches, and
we're fixed in Him. We're connected to Christ. If
we're His, we're fixed to the vine, and God is love, and that's
how we're rooted and grounded in love, and we're fixed in Christ. He's our anchor of the soul.
He's the reason why we're not blown around with every wind
of doctrine and every new teaching of man. And so I just want to
give a brief overview of a few of the chapters of what I mean
by these discourses. And then, of course, as we go,
we'll get into them more. But we know that the first two
chapters They're given to us to show and to reveal to us that
this is indeed the promised Christ. This is the one of whom all the
prophets spoke. All the way back to the promise
given in the garden which Moses recorded for us and what he said
to the people. to the psalmist of Israel, David,
and the prophets, they all spoke of Christ's coming. And this
word is given that we should know that this is indeed the
promised Christ, and that He is the Son of God who created
all things, including us, including us. This is our God speaking
to us. whether we believe Him or not, that He is God. This
is our God speaking to us this morning in His Word, through
His Word, through the Son of God. And we see here in these
first chapters, the Lord will confirm for us that this is God
and He'll commission the Savior before our eyes. And we see that
John the Baptist came and he led the way, he was sent of God
to prepare the way to prepare the people for the coming of
the Savior, and that the disciples are there called in these early
chapters here. And actually a lot of time is
spent with John before John the Baptist was put into prison.
If you notice in the other Gospels, John the Baptist was put in prison
pretty quickly in those Gospels. I think Mark is in chapter one,
if I'm not mistaken, and it happens very early on in their accounts,
but in John, it goes a ways before John the Baptist is put into
prison. So he's dealing with, he's uncovering some things earlier
in the ministry of Christ. And then we know chapter three,
all right? And chapter three really begins
that, what I'm talking about in these discourses of what our
Lord is just speaking and teaching and saying to us, right? He was
speaking to Nicodemus, and he reveals to Nicodemus that our
salvation is one of a spiritual birth, a spiritual birth. He said to Nicodemus, ye must
be born again. Nicodemus had come to him as
a teacher in Israel, and he says, we know that you're of God because
no man could do the things that you do. But even with that understanding,
that natural understanding that Nicodemus had, it wasn't spiritual. know the truth, and so Christ
said, ye must be born again. And so we see there how our Lord
begins to reveal the truth of our salvation, the hope of our
salvation, that I need to be born of the Spirit. And we find
when we look at his words, it's not as man teaches. We were,
I was taught anyway, that that that spiritual birth, being born
again, was something I did. I got myself saved by my confession
of Christ, right? By me asking the Lord to be my
Lord and Savior. That's how man puts it. But Christ
said, you must be born again. No man can see the kingdom of
God except he's born again. Meaning that, how are we going
to call upon the Lord and confess Him and believe Him unless we
are born of the Spirit already? And by teaching it's something
that we do for ourselves to get ourselves saved, that's saying
it's of the flesh. And Christ in this word, this
very talking to Nicodemus here is telling us it's a spiritual
work. And verse six actually says,
that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born
of the spirit is spirit. And it's a spiritual birth that
Christ is speaking of. And it's not something that we
elect or choose for ourselves any more than our first fleshly
birth is of our choosing and electing ourselves to that. It's
a work of God to bring us forth in the flesh, and it's a work
of God to bring us forth spiritually. It's his work for us, all right? And so then as we go through,
we see in chapter four, Christ is revealing to us that God is
spirit. We think, naturally, that by
the things we do or don't do, we're worshiping God, and that
God is pleased with our doing of certain things, or not doing
other things, or doing them a certain way. But the Lord tells us God
is a spirit, and them that worship him must worship him in spirit
and in truth. And that's not something that
we know by nature. So He reveals that to us and
He shows us that He is the life-giving Savior, not us. We don't work
for our salvation. We don't create righteousness
for ourselves through our works under the law or our goodness
or philosophies of man. He's telling us plainly that
He must give life to us. Otherwise, we have no life. We
don't even know who this God is because He's spirit and we're
flesh. naturally, we don't know him.
And he said to this woman at the well in John 4 verse 10,
he said, he said, if thou knewest the gift of God and who it is
that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked
of him and he would have given thee living water. And so we
don't know who the Savior is. We don't know who God is or how
to worship or approach God, except He reveals this to us. And just like that Samaritan
woman who didn't recognize Him, who didn't know who He was, that's
us by nature. We don't recognize Him or know
who He is. He might be a good man. He might
be a signpost or a guidestone, a prophet. He might even be called
God, but we don't see Him as the true Savior of our souls.
He's just a component. By nature, man sees Him as just
another piece in the puzzle of salvation, but the believer who
is born of God and has His Spirit beholds and can see that He is
my salvation. He's everything. I'm nothing
apart from Him and I don't know who the Lord is. And then in
chapter five, he begins, he's talking to the Pharisees, right? He's in Jerusalem, speaking to
these leaders there in the church, and he's revealing to them that
God's ways are very, very different from our ways. We come in a very
natural way to serve the Lord. We think it's through order,
sitting and standing and singing hymns and doing church-like things,
or things that we've come to understand to be of church. seeking
to be justified by God, by their works under the law. They thought,
by the law, they would make themselves righteous, God would behold their
righteousness, and justify them, and say, you are just, you are
good, well done, come on in to my everlasting kingdom. But Christ
has shown, no, that's not how you're justified. God's not gonna
justify any man by their works. We're justified only those who
are perfect, righteous, holy, without spot or blemish, having
not a single sin, a single stain of sin are justified by God. And he's showing us, he's stripping
down man that we should know that we are sinners before God,
that we're not perfect, that we don't measure up to the perfect
righteousness of holy God. And so God's not going to receive
us based on our works and instead he condemns the will of man and
the works of man, and he shows that man is in utter bondage. He's shut up in a prison of darkness,
he's bound in sin, and he's blind, can't even see the light of God,
except Christ come and open the prison door, shine His light
in upon the sinner, and draw them out of that death and that
bondage that they're in. And I say that in chapter 5 because
he says in John 5 verse 40, speaking to those religious Pharisees,
he said, and ye will not come unto me that ye might have life.
And man loves to boast of his free will, thinking that at any
time he can just confess Christ and get himself saved. And the
Lord's saying, you won't come to me. If you don't believe now
when you hear it, how are you going to believe another day. How are you going to believe
when you need to believe, if you even are given that opportunity
to know that it's your last breath that you're about to take? And
so the Lord's saying, you don't have a free will, your will is
in bondage, it's in darkness, and left to yourselves, you will
not come unto me. And then we go to chapter six,
right, and our Lord is just pouring out all the spiritual teaching
that that typically you know when we just read the scriptures
we're just going through them and just you know trying to finish
up the chapter and get through to the next thing but the Lord
is revealing continually the spiritual nature of our salvation
and he's showing these people who had come to him right their
bellies were hungry again they had eaten the day before the
Lord fed them and they located where he went to on the sea and
they got over to him and they wanted him because this man can
make bread. I mean they knew he was something
special but they were seeking him because their bellies were
hungry and they wanted to be fed. They weren't seeking him
because This is the Messiah. He's our salvation, not at all.
And so the Lord says, I'm the bread that comes from heaven. I'm the one who nourishes your
souls. I'm the one who gives spiritual
life, and I'll feed that inner man. I'll feed that spiritual
man that I've created in my people. You'll feed upon me and delight
in me. We're told there, John 6, verse
66 there at the end, that from that time, when he began to speak
spiritually, right? They were happy to serve him
as long as it was fleshly, but as soon as he revealed the spirit
of the word of God, from that time, many of his disciples went
back and walked no more with him. And so the Lord separated
out his people by that spiritual word. He separated the sheep
from, or the goats out from the sheep there. And we see that
they counted themselves unworthy of eternal life. Now, what do
I mean by that? That they counted themselves
unworthy of eternal life. Because that's what man does
when left to himself. All men count themselves unworthy,
because no man will hear it. No man will come to the Lord. And that confirms what he said
in John 6, 44 and 45. No man can come unto me, except
the Father which hath sent me draw him, and I will raise him
up at the last day. And, you know, you might think,
well, wait a minute, they were there. Didn't they come to him
the first time? Yeah, but as soon as he revealed
the spirit, the spiritual truth of his word, they left. They
departed from him, showing that they were offended in him, they
didn't understand, and they wanted no part of him. And so they left. And that proves what God says. None of us are gonna come to
him except the Father which hath sent him draw us to him. And it says, it's written in
the Prophets, verse 45, they shall be all taught of God. Every
man therefore that hath heard and hath learned of the Father
cometh unto me. And so the Lord's teaching us.
He's revealing to us in this word that he's the one who will
teach his people. Many will hear, many are called,
but few are chosen. Many hear the word of God, the
cry of our God in salvation going out, but it's to those people
that He loves and ordained to eternal life, those that He chose
and elected for people in Himself and in His Son, they are chosen. They'll hear and they believe.
I don't have to ask you you know, believe, do you believe on the
Lord? I mean, I can ask you, do you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ? But those who hear, it's not something they have to, it's
not a work they have to do, they already believe. The Spirit's
already revealed to them that this is the truth. This is salvation. Christ is all, he's my Savior. Lord, I believe. Help thou mine
unbelief. And so the Lord, the Lord reveals
this word to us. And there's many, many such discourses
that the Lord gives throughout the book of John. I didn't even
notice it. I didn't even think about that.
I always understood it in different ways. we see here how the Lord
is so graciously revealing to us the spiritual nature of our
salvation and he says even later on we'll see when he's talking
to the disciples as he's about to go and suffer and die in their
place for them he tells them those spiritual words about he
is the vine and we're the branches and our life is fixed in him
and we draw our the sap of His love and His gospel from Him.
It's all flowing from Him, our Savior. And so, what do these
chapters do? What do these teachings, these
talks, these discourses of our Lord, what do they do? Well,
they endear Him to us. We're drawn to Him because of
the love that He has. He confirms to us that God is
love. Why should we hear it? And others, countless others
don't hear. And still continue to trust in
their religious works. And why do you believe and have
a hope that our God saves in His Son by grace? And that He's
provided everything. We love our Savior for doing
this work for us. we're given to know the care
and the love that He really does have for you. That when you're
troubled, you may cast all your care upon Him, knowing that He
careth for you. And that He'll never leave us
to the enemy to have His way with us without that grace for
that hour, to endure and to remain faithful to our God. We'll never
be forsaken the way He was forsaken for us. The Lord will reveal here in
the Word, He shows us His Godhead as well as His humanity and we'll
see the Savior that our God has provided to bring into union, man and God. First in Himself, right? He is
the God-man where He took upon Him flesh, 100% God, 100% man. Fully God as though we were not
man and fully man as though we were not God. is the God-man
mediator, not only in himself, but in bringing and reconciling
us sinners to Holy God, to make us to have that fellowship and
that union with Him. So I titled the message, The
Gospel of John, and we'll just look at a little bit of verse
1 here with you this morning, that you see this based on what
I've already said about these discourses, and I think you'll
see how it goes together nicely, but tradition says that John
wrote this gospel at the request of his close brethren, of his
close friends and dear brethren. They asked him to write this
gospel down, and it's believed that it was written after, later
than the other gospels. Some say maybe it was before,
but it seems largely that it was written after the other gospels.
We see now that his focus was indeed different than what the
other evangelists focused on at the time. And also another
thing, Matthew and Luke especially, they detail the humanity of Christ. They highlight his genealogy,
his lineage, and his birth. They speak to those things. But
John, he opens the gospel differently. And he focuses heavily on the
divinity of Christ, that he is the son of God, that he is God. And it was likely done to dispel
the errors that were creeping into the church, even during
the time of the apostles, right? They had many errors that they
were fighting against already, right? Even while the apostles
were there themselves. And, you know, men like, I mean,
there's men like Ebion and Cyrenthes, I guess, these were saying that
Christ's beginning was when he was born and that he assumed
these qualities later on. But John shows us, no, he's eternal
God. He ever was with the Father and
is God. He's one with God and he is of
the Godhead. So John declares him to be the
second person in the Trinity. And he says he's the Word of
God. Verse 1 says, John 1, 1, in the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. Now those words there, in the
beginning, that's a direct quote from what? Genesis 1, 1, right? In the beginning, God created
the heaven and the earth. So what is this beginning? Is
this the beginning of eternity? Right, in the beginning of eternity?
Well, no, that doesn't even make any logical sense because eternity
is eternity. It has no beginning and it has
no end, you know, and that's a... I remember when my oldest
daughter, when she first... when that hit her around three
or four and she was wrestling with that and her body was physically
shaking at the thought of eternity, like she just couldn't even hardly
comprehend eternity and really, I don't know if we ever comprehend
it, we just accept it eventually that, okay, Lord, you say it
is and I'm a creature of time, but you have no beginning and
no end. And so what is this beginning then? Well, it's the beginning
of the manifestation of God's purpose and grace toward us in
Christ. When God created the heaven and
the earth, it was for the purpose of revealing himself. in the
person of Christ to do good for a people that he loved. That's
the beginning that he's speaking of. It all began there in Christ
creating the heaven and the earth for this very purpose. And so
it starts with the word, right? And what do words do? They're thoughts. They convey,
they're vehicles to convey expression and to help us understand what
what we mean, what we're thinking, how we're feeling, right? It
helps us to speak of these things so that we know each other, right? And this is what our Savior does. God's communicating with us through
the Son. And that's why you can see, wow,
you know, when you see He's the Word of God, and then John's
focus as these discourses where we know and learn that our God's
showing us it's a spiritual salvation, it's a spiritual work. Hear my words, that he's the
word of God teaching us, revealing to us. He's the divine revealer,
right? He's the one who reveals God
to us and it's through his gospel word that makes us to know these
things and helps us to realize it's not by my works, it's not
a physical salvation, it's a spiritual work that God does. grace and
so it's look down at John 1 18 John 1 18 says no man have seen
God at any time the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of
the Father he hath declared he's declaring to him and I don't
you know that we know actually that's not just with audible
words and it's not just with the written word and it's not
just the preached word But He, by His spiritual power, opens
our understanding. That's how we have faith. We
didn't have faith, and then we heard the Word, and by His grace,
one day we heard it, and we believed, and we confessed that Christ
is our Savior. He divinely reveals that by His
by His power. We see that in the Scriptures
in Luke 24 verse 45 it says, "...then opened He their understanding
that they might understand the Scriptures." But He communicated
that. He is the Word of God. He's the
one who makes us to know what we know and believe about our
God and what He's done for us. He's revealed in the word as
the final word of God. We don't have prophets today
giving new revelation. There's no prophets here giving
new revelation about the truth of our God and what he's done.
It says in Hebrews 1 verse 1 and 2, God who at sundry times and
in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the
prophets. But hath in these last days spoken
unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things,
by whom also he made the worlds." And that's why we don't listen
to others who claim to be prophets and men sent of God with new
revelation. We don't listen to these other
sects that claim to be Christian, but have new revelation beyond
what the Lord gave through Christ. and revealed to the apostles
as they wrote that word, being eyewitnesses and being commissioned
directly by the Lord, that's the word we have and read. And from there, by the Spirit,
we preach. We pray, we're preaching the
gospel to the people because we're saved through that divine
word of our Savior. So there's not new revelation,
not new divine revelation. We may understand certain things, even ourselves from what we came
to, but it's all the Lord, it's all written, it's all recorded
here, and it's all revealed in the person of Christ through
the gospel. And then we're told in the scriptures
that he's the whole alphabet of God. In Revelation 1, verse
8, he says, I am the alpha and the omega. That's the Greek alphabet. I am the A and the Z. beginning
and the ending sayeth the Lord which is right which is everything
in between a and z which was and which is to come the Almighty
and what he's saying is everything God has to say to us it's revealed
in Christ he's the whole alphabet of that heavenly Language that
we don't know apart from him, but it's all communicated to
us through that alphabet, right? We have an alphabet in the English
language. Well, there's a heavenly language and it's Christ He's
the Alpha and the Omega the A to Z Everything you need to know
about God is revealed in Christ fully He's everything that we
need for salvation and ever will be everything that we need. All
right, so John says in the beginning was the Word and and the Word
was with God. So what he's saying is that he's
a distinct personality in the Godhead, from the Father. He's
distinct from the Spirit. He's the Son of God, the second
person there in the Trinity. Two scriptures that show this
nicely or well is 1st John 5, 7 which says, there are three
that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy
Ghost, and these three are one. All right, and then we have another
one in Matthew 28, 19. Go ye therefore and teach all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost. All right, so when John says
there, the word was with God, we see that he's with the Father,
he is God, and he's distinct in personality from the Father
and from the Holy Spirit. Proverbs 8.30 says, then, or
speaking of the wisdom of God, which is the word of God, he
says, then I was by him as one brought up with him, and I was
daily his delight, rejoicing always before Him. And so the
Son, who is the Word of God, is eternal, ever was with the
Father, who has no beginning and no end. He is the second
person of the Trinity. Then John says at the end of
1.1, he says, and the Word was God. In other words, the name,
we use the name God, the term God, and it means any one of
of the persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, or the Holy
Ghost, right? The Word was God. Hebrews 1.8
says, but unto the Son he saith, thy throne, O God, is forever
and ever, right? And Christ said, he that hath
seen me hath seen the Father. And he said in another place,
I and my Father are one. So he is, he's God, he's fully
God. He is the son of God in the Trinity,
the Trinity of God. And so, but notice one, well,
one difference here is look down at verse 14. And I think this confirms that the
word is very God himself, because verse 14 says, and the word was
made flesh. Now, when speaking of His humanity,
it says the Word was made flesh, but nowhere does it say the Word
was made God. Because the Word is God. He is the Word of God. He wasn't
made God. He wasn't commissioned God. He
wasn't changed to be God. He is one with God. He is God Himself. We just see
that difference there in verse 14, when it speaks of his flesh,
he was made flesh, but he wasn't made God, he is God. He is the
son of God there. Alright, and so that's why he's
called in the scriptures, Emmanuel, God with us. Alright, and he's
called the mighty God, and here he's called God, the word was
God. Alright, and so This is done,
John does this because we are to recognize him and to hear
what he says, that he is the revelation of God. He's telling
us the truth. He's telling us what we need
to know. We know what we are apart from him. We might be religious,
we might not be very religious, but either way, we're in darkness
and deadness and cut off from the true and living God. But
in Christ, we have life. He's the divine revelation of
God. He's the divine revealer. What He speaks, He reveals to
us through His Word, and He reveals to us through opening our understanding
by His power and glory through the Gospel. It all goes back to what He's
revealed to us in His Word. And so the word says, God who
commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined
in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He's the one by whom we know. So I pray that we remember those
words, that what we see here in the gospel of John is through
these words, that this grace of our God, he's revealing to
us what we must hear. and what we will hear if indeed
we are His, and He'll give us faith to believe. It's not an
act that we have to force ourselves to do. We hear these truths,
and by His power, He gives us faith to believe. Lord, this
is Your Son, and this is Your salvation, and He's the one whom
You sent to save Your people. Lord, I believe. Help me to see
your work and what that has been done for me and to believe, to
believe what you've revealed in your word. So I pray the Lord
will bless that word to your hearts and that we'll rejoice
to see these spiritual truths traced out for us in John. All right. Let's pray and then
we'll have the Lord's Supper. Our gracious Lord, we thank you,
Father, for your grace In your word, we thank you for sending
your son. Lord, we don't see the importance
of Christ until you make us to see that not only is he isn't
a part of salvation, he is salvation. He's all our salvation. And by
him and in him alone, we know the true and living God. Help
us, Father. For you know that we are weak,
we are flesh, and naturally, just carnal and have no light
or life in us. But Lord, you say in your word
that Christ is the light of God. He is the light of men and the
life of men. And Lord, we ask that you would
reveal him in us and that you would reveal that faith which
you give to your people, fixed in your son, Jesus Christ. Lord, help us to hear. It's in
Christ's name we pray and give thanks. Amen. All right. Let's, um, I have an announcement
to make before I'll have Levi and Ken, if you guys can hand
out the elements there, but I have an announcement. So I was asked
by sister Melinda to be baptized. So, uh, in a couple of weeks,
probably early December, we'll, um, we'll, what I like to do
is just meet in Joe's barn. We'll have services here on Sunday.
And then we'll retire to them. And it'd be nice to have a meal
together. We can do it in that first week there. And it could
be the second week. It doesn't matter. We'll just
do it then. And we'll have the service there in the barn. He
has a nice tub for it. And he can heat it up. So even
if it's a little chilly there, we can make it work. And then
if you guys are OK, it'd be nice to have a, sorry to just ask
you. publicly like that, but it's
okay if we could have it earlier. All right. Okay, good. Good.
And then we could have a meal together after that way. So thank
you very much for opening your home. I appreciate it. So, all
right, so we're thankful and, you know, if the Lord has laid
that on your heart, you know, certainly talk to me and we can
have, you know, anyone else who hasn't been baptized that wants
to be baptized, just let me know and then we can talk and see
about that. All right. So if you guys wouldn't
mind coming up, Levi. And Levi, if you'd pray, and
then we can hand out the elements. Lord, we're very thankful to
be here today, Lord. Just assembled once again by your grace, Lord, with a desire
to see your son lifted up, Lord, and a desire for you Bless our
hearts, Lord, encourage us in him alone. Lord, we pray that
you would bless this time of communion and time of fellowship
afterwards, Lord, that we can rejoice and be comforted once
again. Amen, we pray. Are you able to hear me okay
without this on? Yeah, okay. Because I was just
going to read it and we'll take it together, but I'm going to
read from Mark. That's why I don't want to chew
on the thing. It's a little different
than how we sometimes do it. Okay, so I'll be in Mark 14. And I'm just going to first begin
with verse 27 and 28 actually in Mark 14. We read in, this is after they
took the supper, but it makes a good point for us to hear,
Jesus saith unto them, all ye shall be offended because of
me this night. For it is written, I will smite
the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered. But after that
I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee. And you know,
these men that partook of the Lord's supper here that took
of the bread and the wine. It wasn't because in their flesh
they're righteous, not because they're such good men and workers
of good deeds and righteousness. They're sinners. And I read that
because we're sinners and we need His grace too. And we don't
take this because we are so good and because we've made ourselves
worthy. We partake of this in hope because
of the Lord Jesus Christ and what He's done for us. And He's
our hope. And we feed upon Him the bread
and the wine. As He said, those words are spiritual. And we look to Him and have confidence
in Him. So that's why we take this, being
sinners, being forgiven sinners. Sinners who have hope in Christ,
alright? So verse 22 says, And as they
did eat, Jesus took bread and blessed and break it and gave
to them and said, take, eat, this is my body. And he took, verse 23, the cup,
and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they
all drank of it. And he said unto them, this is
my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many. Verily
I say unto you, I will drink no more the fruit of the vine
until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God. Lord, we're thankful for your
grace and mercy that you've richly shown to us in your son through
by redeeming us with his blood to put away our sin and the stain
and the corruption of sin and to deliver us, setting us free
and giving us life by your spirit. Father, we pray that you would
comfort our hearts and strengthen and encourage us in the new man
and bless us with your spirit to love and to serve one another,
rejoicing in the hope that you've given to us, whether in trial
or tribulation or not, but that you would be glorified in all
things. It's in Christ's name we pray
and give thanks. Amen. All right, it says, and when
they had sung a hymn, They went out into the Mount of Olives,
so Brother, if you'll close this in a hymn. Our closing hymn will be number
103, the hardback 103, One Day. One day when heaven was filled
with His praises, one day when sin was as black as could be,
Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin, dwelt among men, my
example is He. Living, He loved me. Dying, He saved me. Buried, He carried my sins far
away. Rising, He justified freely forever. One day, He's coming, O glorious
day. One day they led Him up Kavori's
mountain, One day they nailed Him to die on the tree. Suffering anguish, despised and
rejected, Bearing our sins, my Redeemer is He. Living, He loved
me. Dying, He saved me. Buried, He carried my sins far
away. Rising, He justified freely forever. One day He's coming, O glorious
day. One day they left Him alone in
the garden. One day He rested from suffering
free. Angels came down o'er His tomb
to keep vigil. Hope of the hopeless, my Savior
is He. Living, He loved me. Dying, He saved me. Buried, He carried my sins far
away. Rising, He justified freely forever. One day He's coming, O glorious
day. One day the grave could conceal
him no longer. One day the stone rolled away
from the door. Then he arose over death he had
conquered. Now is ascended my Lord evermore. Living, He loved me. Dying, He saved me. Buried, He carried my sins far
away. Rising, He justified freely forever. One day, He's coming, O glorious
day. One day the trumpet will sound
for His coming. One day the skies with His glory
will shine. Wonderful day, my beloved one's
bringing. Glorious Savior, this Jesus is
mine. Living, He loved me. Dying, He saved me. Buried, He carried my sins far
away. Rising, He justified freely forever. One day, He's coming, O glorious
day. I know. I'm going to have fun at home.