Well, it's a joy to be with you this morning. under unusual circumstances, and yet God's Word is not held back in any way. And I'm very grateful for Christ Reformed accommodating this great pulpit out here, outside the building, to bring you God's Word this morning. And we should be very encouraged that God, even in the midst of this kind of craziness, we're still here to hear the Word of the living God. And so let me pray for our time. If you're able, please stand for the reading of God's Word. I'm not sure exactly who's hearing me, but please stand for the reading of God's Word. I'll pray for our time, then I'll read our passage this morning. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word, Your Word that is above all words, the Word that gives life. through your Son, Jesus Christ. And so now we ask that you would bless us with your Holy Spirit, that we might see clearly your Son, Jesus Christ, and seeing him, might believe in him, as the Apostle John has written this gospel for us. We pray all this in Jesus' name, amen. Hear the word of the Lord from John chapter one, verses one to 18. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 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. John bore witness about him and cried out, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me ranks before me because he was before me. For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace in truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side. He has made him known. Amen. Please be seated. As I was preparing this week, I was thinking about the idea of communication. As I went to seminary over a number of years, I traveled the Washington Beltway back and forth at odd times, in times, and I would notice how certain people wouldn't use their blinker. They didn't communicate to me where they were going. Or sometimes they put their left blinker on and they would go to the right. And that happened more than once. It's like, I don't know what they're trying to tell me. And really, using your blinker is just a very simple way of communicating to your neighbors on the road what you're going to do, so you can give them a heads up and let them know what you're about. And yet, even in simple things as driving, that doesn't seem to happen. And yet, when I think about God as the communicator, as I spend time in His Word, I realize that His Word is much more clear than I had thought it was. that pretty much anyone can read it and over time and repetitiveness can come to grasp the major themes of scripture. That God is the ultimate communicator and he communicates to us in the way that he sees best. And so, as we look at John's Gospel, John, we know his purpose, that it's for us to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing we might have life in his name. And as we start off John's Gospel, we talked about this prologue, this introduction that he gives us. And the introduction in one sense is a generalization that's built on particulars. And we're going to get there in just a second. But one of my engineering brothers from the congregation wanted to know, what's the structure? of John's prologue. And that's a great question. So I looked into it with more depth. And it's a very unique structure. John's prologue, verses 1 to 18, is a very unique structure. And the structure is called chiastic structure. It's not a word that we use very much, and it's probably not a form of literary device that we're familiar with in ordinary ways. And yet it is a very prevalent structure that God has been pleased to use in the Old Testament, but also in the New Testament. Now, there's been some concern with some people that everybody's trying to, they find a chiasm everywhere. And we have to be very careful to make sure that there really is some structure that's chiastic. But let me explain what a chiasm is. A chiasm, if you take the letter X, and in the Greek the letter is chi, and you split it down the middle, You have half of an X, basically. It's like an arrow, almost. And the way a chiasm works is that you have A, and then you have A prime. And then you have B, and then you have B prime. And you keep working your way to the center or the point. Sometimes there's two parallel structures, and sometimes there's just one point. And so I've seen a couple of different structures. And I'm going to give you what I think is the structure. And I'm not going to elaborate on it today, because I think it needs to be further explained. I hope in two weeks we'll start to work through the chiasm itself. But for right now, I want to give you the outline. so that you can look at it. And as you read through the prologue over the next week or two, that you might consider, is this really the structure that's there? And I think you'll find that it is. And I'll try to give my reasons for it in two weeks. But let me at least start to begin to give you the structure. And so it's going to be an unusual outline, because we don't usually do AA prime. We do ABCD. But I'm going to give it to you with A, A' and then BB' to the point which I think will be verses 10 to 13. So if you're taking notes, here we go. A is John 1, 1 to 2. A is John 1, 1 to 2. And that correlates in that chiastic structure to verse 18 of chapter 1. A prime is verse 118. And that's the first part of our chiastic structure. And then as we move towards the point, the next one is B, and B is verses three to four of chapter one. One, three to four. And that correlates with B prime, which is one, 16 to 17. One, 16 to 17. And then we move on to C as we get towards that point. And those are verses one, five to eight. Chapter one, verses five to eight. And C prime is chapter one, verse 15. One, 15. I know it's a lot of numbers and hopefully we'll get more familiar with these as we go along. And then we get to D. D is verse 1-9. 1-9 is D. And then again matching up with it is D' which is verse 1-14. 1-14. And then finally we come to what I think is the center of the whole chiastic structure, the point, and that would be the verses 1-10-13. 1, 10-13, and we find here in these verses, I think this whole point that John keeps hammering about us believing, he demonstrates that there's this There's a two-sided thing that happens when the gospel comes forth. There's those who reject Christ who turn away from Christ, and there's those who, in God's grace, come to believe in Him and, in believing, have life in His name. So the point of this whole chiasm, verses 10 to 13, let me just read them to have them before our eyes. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and yet the world did not know Him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. that these people who come to receive Jesus, who believe in his name, become children of God. And that's the center point of John's prologue, but it's also the center point of his gospel, and the center point of what he wants us to do in the end in his purpose statement. Not that we would just have Bible knowledge. but that we would receive Jesus as he really is, which his name tells us, the Messiah, the one to come, the anointed one from God, and that by receiving him and believing in him, we might have life in his name. And so that's the structure, and what I will try to do when we come together next, or even ahead of time, is to make available for you that same outline so you can look at it and have it on a piece of paper in front of you. But that's the structure that I see in this prologue. And it's a wonderful, wonderful structure when you see the correlations. And as you read through that yourself, see if you can figure out, how do these connect? How does A connect with A prime? How does B connect with B prime? And so on as we move towards that center point of E. And so that's really the first thing I wanted to leave you with this morning as we move through John's prologue. I said last week that if I preach the same amount of sermons that I did on John's purpose statement, it'd be 27 sermons. It's not going to be that many. But it might be three to six, because it's so important to see the foundation of what John is going to tell us in the particulars as he goes through the rest of his gospel with his eyewitness accounts, the things that he saw with his own eyes, the things that he's heard with his own ears. And so the first thing this morning really was just to give you that that structure so that you may have it kind of firmly rooted in your thinking as you read through John's prologue. The second thing I want to do is to have some considerations of John's prologue, some thoughts, general thoughts that might help us to look at John's prologue from a different angle that might give us more insight into what he is doing and why it is so important. And so the first of these considerations, or A, is that John in his prologue gives us general truths that are related to particular incidences in his gospel. that John gives us general truths that are connected to particular instances in his Gospel. That the words of his prologue are built upon his eyewitness accounts of his hearing Jesus, seeing Jesus, and any other information the Holy Spirit may have made available to John, so that he can give us a comprehensive mini-Gospel, in a sense, in his prologue. and just in a very simple way, that John built his prologue upon his eyewitness accounts. And that's very important, that they're tethered, they're tied to reality. He's just not making flowery statements. He's just not trying to put some grandiose ideas out there, but that they're totally connected and tethered to reality, to historical events that he saw along with Peter and James, the most privileged of the apostles, but others as well, the other apostles as well at times. And so his prologue is a general gospel of sorts, a general accounting of what he has seen and heard, the major themes of what he's going to convey to us throughout the rest of the gospel. So that's A. B, I think it's important for us to know that John is not just relating facts as they happened. It's not like a telegraph where something happens and somebody communicates it to somebody else and communicates it to somebody else. But as I've said recently, the dust had to settle. Lots of things were seen. Lots of things were heard. But the correlations of those data points were uncertain at first. And we see this throughout John's gospel. He'll give us instances where he acknowledges, we didn't understand what was going on when it happened. But when the dust settled, When we saw certain other events, it started to come to light. We started to understand what was going on. And I think last week, I compared it to the National Transportation Safety Board. These people come in to a plane crash or a train wreck or some other transportation disaster. And they have data points. They look at things as they are, how they've fallen out. And they have to do measurements and try to look at the physics of what may have happened. And they really can't speak wisely or thoughtfully until they do their observation of the facts as they do their measurements. And then they're really able to speak knowledgeably about what has happened as they try to reenact what has happened. You know, we know that they have those black boxes, which give a lot of information on certain situations, but they also have to kind of reenact what happened as they look at the lay of the land, sadly. But for the Gospel, it's these wonderful, wonderful accounts of what Jesus said and what Jesus did, his miracles, that John is like, let me think about this. And as things settled, he was able to give a knowledgeable, accurate accounting of what Jesus was really about. We see this in a number of places, but I want to give you one example. I want to tie it to one of the passages in John's Gospel. In John 2, 18 to 22, we read this. This is where Jesus is with the Jews and talking about the destruction of the temple. It says, So the Jews said to him, What sign do you show us for doing these things? Jesus answered them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews then said, it has taken 46 years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days? And then John has this qualifying statement. But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, this future point of enlightenment for John, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. At the time, they didn't get it. But when Jesus was raised from the dead, it's like, oh, remember what he said? It's true. And we see this all throughout scripture. We see it in Luke 24 in a big way where they have to be reminded of what the scriptures had already said, but they couldn't put the pieces together. And so when John writes his gospel, he acknowledges in his gospel, we didn't get it at the time. But over time, the pieces started to fit together. And if I could just offer a word of application, that's just like us. We know certain Bible verses, or we know certain Bible passages from Genesis to Revelation, and yet we don't know yet perfectly how do they fit together? How do all these pieces of the glorious puzzle of God's plan of redemption in Jesus Christ, how do they fit in there? And I'm still, along with everybody else, trying to see more meticulously how do they fit And so we shouldn't be surprised if we know A, B, and C, but we don't know the correlation. We know the data points of A, B, and C, but we don't know the correlation yet. And yet over time, as we spend time in the word, the correlations will come. It's like, oh, I get it now. I know why he said that. And so don't be discouraged. I, as I read through the Word this week, I just thought, I feel like I'm a baby. There's so much here. And yet everything that we learn in the Scripture is true, but we're trying to have greater understanding, the greater connectivity of the parts to the whole, which is the glorious picture of Jesus Christ. And so John speaks from generals to particulars, and that he had to write his gospel after the dust had settled, in a sense. And then C, John couldn't have written his prologue without his eyewitness accounts. John couldn't have written his gospel without his eyewitness accounts or his data points, or his data points. John was a unique appointed witness. He was a witness with the other 11. They had unique privileges. They saw unique things. And as I've said before, James and John and Peter had even more particular privileges. They were all there on the Mount of Transfiguration. They heard the voice of the Father saying, this is my son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. A very, very unique situation. And as I mentioned last week, they couldn't talk about it until Jesus was raised from the dead. And I think during that time, they had to work through it. They had this information, like, what does that mean? What does it mean that the heavens were opened, in a sense, and the Father is speaking to us about His Son? And again, I think it was in time, it was like, oh, oh, He sent His Son into the world, His beloved Son from heaven. He sends Him into the world to be the Savior of the world. And yet it took time for that to sink in. It took time for them to really have a full understanding of the force of that. We know that John, along with Peter, were unique witnesses in John's Gospel. Again, to tie it to reality, to tie it to truth in John's Gospel, chapter 15, verses 26 to 27, it says, but when the Helper comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning. You have been with me from the beginning. And in the book of Acts, we see the qualifications for an apostle. They had to be there from the baptism of John until Christ ascending into glory. And so John had this unique privilege and responsibility He is an authoritative witness. When we listen to John, we're listening to God's spokesperson in a very particular and unique way. But the Apostle Peter also had this calling. In 2 Peter 1.16-21, we get an account of his unique privilege. Peter says, for we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He wasn't just saying idle words. but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was born to him from the majestic glory, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this voice born from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart. Knowing this, first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. John will tell us in his Gospel of an account with John the Baptist, and John the Baptist says, I'm not even in the same league with Jesus. That Jesus has been given the Spirit of God without measure. And that's a pretty telling statement. The prophets, in a sense, were like playing the game red light, green light. Whenever God did not speak, they were not to speak. But when God spoke to them, they were to speak. Now some of you, I know my older friends have probably played this game. I don't know if they still play it. The younger folks play this, where red light you stop, green light you go. And so the prophets were like that. They weren't able just to say whatever. That would be horrible. That would be blasphemous. But Jesus was given the spirit without measure. He was the word incarnate. So everything he said was absolute truth. Absolute truth. So far above the prophets. So far above the prophets who had a limit. They had a limit. As glorious as their words were, they were limited. But not Jesus's. And John and the other apostles saw and heard what Jesus did. They had access. an incredible measure to the wonderful words that Jesus spoke, those words that declared and proved that he had the spirit without measure. Every word that came off his tongue was true and accurate and would be fulfilled in one way or another. And so it's so important that we remember that John's calling is an eyewitness, tethers everything he said to reality. And to deny John is to deny the reality of the incarnation, a horrible, blasphemous idea. But he did come, and John did see him, and he did report it in his gospel. And that's what we have there, this glorious record of what God had done, sending his son the ultimate communication of who God was and who was God himself, a glorious, glorious gift from God. But even more than that, and this is D, John couldn't have written his prologue if God hadn't acted in history. You have to have something to observe. And what did John and Peter and James and the others observe? They observed God acting in history, His sending His Son into the world. His Son who was with Him in heaven, His beloved Son, He sends Him into the world. And everything changes. That this is what they had eyewitness accounts of. God's actions. You can't make a report of something that doesn't happen. And yet they reported on what God had done. We see this so wonderfully and gloriously summed up in John 3.16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Doesn't it echo John's purpose statement? But even more so we see that God so loved the world, the world that was in darkness, the world that were rebels. He's going to send his son into the world. God is acting outside of ourselves. We didn't bring him here. God sent him at his own initiative. He could have left us all to perish, but he didn't. He sent his son into the world, not to judge the world, because the world was already under the judgment of God, under the wrath of God, as aliens, as those who were God's enemies. And yet he sends his son into the world to save a people for himself, where he would go to the cross and bear the penalty that was due to them in his own body, take upon himself the wrath that we deserve. And so we ought to glory and rejoice that God is a God who works in history, and he continues to work in history. But the most important thing is that he sent his son into the world, this glorious reality, who took on human flesh, as John will tell us in his prologue. Oops, there's a little breeze out here. F, everything in John's prologue, including John the Baptist's coming, was prophesied and brought to pass by God. Everything in John's prologue, including the Baptist's coming, was prophesied and brought to pass by God. It began with God. It ended with God. This glorious reality of how God works in salvation. Now we see, as I mentioned, we see John the Baptist coming. This is so important, that John would be the forerunner of the Messiah. And we read about this in Malachi 4.5, at the end of Malachi. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes, and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. that John was getting them ready for the Messiah. He had this high privileged place, and Jesus says that he's the greatest of all the Old Testament prophets. More so, more so than Moses, more so than David, more so than Abraham. And the question is, why is he so important? You know, and this is going to sound really kind of crass or silly, but I think it's sort of like when you're a lead-up band to the major act. There's a privilege. In 1976, I saw Elvis Presley in a concert. And there's bands that would lead up to his performance. And I assume the higher on the ranking, you got closer to the real performance. And then you got Elvis. But there's a sense in which John the Baptist, he had the privilege of being the forerunner of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And so he had this great, great privilege as he came ahead of time that was prophesied 400 years earlier. And here he comes. And when he comes, people are asking him questions. Are you the Christ? No. Are you Elijah? No. Are you the prophet? No. And all those terms have great significance. Are you the anointed one? No, I'm not. Are you Elijah, the Elijah that we read of in the Old Testament? No. I'm like him, but I'm not him. And then it says, are you the prophet? Are you the prophet like Moses? No. It's like, well, if you're not any of those guys, who are you? And then he tells him who he is. He says, I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie. That John was his forerunning person before the coming of the Lord, prophesied 400 years earlier. And in the fullness of time, he comes. And he fulfills his calling, and he even dies for his calling. That He is like His Lord. He is like many of the apostles who would die in faithful service to the Lord. And yet He had the privilege of being the one who would say, this is Him. When I baptized Him, the Holy Spirit came upon Him. And we know this is the Messiah. But that's not the only time that God has worked in history according to his faithful word. In Genesis 15, 12-14, God is making a covenant with Abraham. And it says, As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abraham, and, behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. Then the Lord said to Abraham, Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on that nation that they serve, and afterward they will come out with great possessions." God had prophesied to Abraham what was to come about 400 years later. And so when God hears the cries of His people, and He sends Moses as a type of Christ to be a deliverer, we read this in Exodus 12, 33-41. The Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste, for they said, We shall all be dead. So the people took their dough before it was leavened and kneading bowls being bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders. The people of Israel also had done as Moses told them for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians." They came out with those great possessions that Abraham said they would. So that they let them have what they asked. What an amazing thing. These people who are, they're driving them out because of the hand of God. Thus they plundered the Egyptians. And the people of Israel journeyed from Ramses to Succoth, about 600,000 men on foot, beside women and children. A mixed multitude also went up with them, and very much livestock, both flocks and herds. And they baked on leaven cakes of the dough that they had brought out of Egypt. For it was not leaven, because they were thrushed out of Egypt. and could not wait, nor had they any prepared provisions for themselves. And then we hear this faithful word that follows this passage here. It says, the time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years, and at the end of 430 years, on that very day, all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. God had told Abraham, sort of in a general way, 400 years. It was 430 years according to this, but 400 years. To the very day of 430, they left. The word of God was absolutely fulfilled. The word that he had spoken to Abraham 400 years earlier came to pass in time. And God's perfect, perfect timing plan. And yet we see the same thing in the sending of his son. It's God's timetable, it's God's schedule, but it's always perfect. In Galatians 4, 4-5, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. In the fullness of time. The time schedule is God's. We see this, too, with Christ's return. It's all up to God. The Son says, the Father knows. We know it will be time. And when it's time, He's going to come. And as we think about Advent, this time of the year, that's the first Advent. But there's a glorious completion, and that's the second Advent. And it's perfectly according to God's timing, His sovereign timing. But don't we have a hard time with time schedules? Who would have thought I'd be out here preaching outside the building today? The Lord did. Did it affect anything really? Not really. We're still hearing the preached word. We're still worshiping our great God. But it's God's timetable. And I think about this in terms of COVID. You know, I think we get weighed down with the whole COVID matter when we feel like there's more and more and more restrictions. And yet, if we take it from God's perspective, this is momentary light affliction. Now, you might want to throw rocks at me right now. Momentary light affliction. How can I say that? Well, you know, those aren't my words, initially. They're the Apostle Paul's. And when I was here a couple weeks ago and I preached about Paul's thorn in the flesh, okay, I'm almost at the end here. When I preached about Paul's thorn in the flesh, I neglected to bring to your eyes something very important. He talked about his being, having the 40 lashes minus one. And if Paul was to show you his back, it would be horrific. And when you think that he didn't experience that just once, but he did it multiple times, that those wounds were reopened, and reopened, and reopened, it's Paul who says, momentary light affliction. And so, as hard as it is, we need to get the word of God's perspective on what's going on now. God has his purposes. God has His purposes, and they're being perfectly fulfilled, but it calls for patient endurance. Patient endurance in the God who has orchestrated all things so far, and will continue to orchestrate them, and will send His Son, and He will come to collect those who are waiting for Him. And so I'll close with this, as John is so adamant and so concerned that we might believe in his son, the question is, where are you today in that belief? It might be weak, but it's real. But there's a call to grow. Or maybe you don't believe, and now is the day for you to call upon the Lord, because there will be a day when it will be too late. And so think about, where is your faith in relation to all these wonderful truths that we've