I want to say two things. First of all, my wife is not with me, and I rejoice. My wife is not with me, and I rejoice. Now, they're actually connected, but not in the way that you thought. I'm very sad that my wife is not with me at worship today. I love my wife, and it's great to have her as my life companion. But I rejoice because she's somewhere else today. She had invested five to 10 years in the life of this young woman who did not know Christ, did not know the gospel. And in the course of time, as my wife spent time with her, would visit with her, would have meals with her, she came to profess Christ. And this morning, this morning, she's joining the church. She's going to profess her faith in another PCA church. in our denomination. And my wife emailed me earlier in the week. She said, do you mind if I go? I said, sure. I said, I rejoice. I rejoice. You know, and it's a reminder that the fields are still white for harvest. The fields are still white for harvest, and we should never, never give up. We keep praying for loved ones. We keep praying for friends. But until the Lord comes that second time, that second Advent, the fields are still white for harvest. There is probably at least one more sheep to be added to the flock. And so my wife is not with me, and I'm very sad about that. But I rejoice that she's somewhere else at a great occasion to hear a young woman, Professor Faith, enjoying the Church of Christ. Let me send my greetings to you all on Zoom. I'm sorry you're not here, but your fellowship, like our fellowship, is with the Father and with the Son. And even though we're not close in distance, we love you and miss you and look forward to the day, Lord willing, in this life, when we'll be back together again as one body. So with that, please stand for the reading of God's Word. It comes from John. John's Gospel, chapter 1, verses 1 to 18. Let me pray for our time. Our Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word. And Father, we ask that You would fulfill the words that Tom has just spoken from Your Word, that the things he said about the power of Your Word and the way that we should come, that both these things would be fulfilled, that we might see Jesus. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Hear the Word of God from John chapter 1, verses 1 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 the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen His glory, glorious, 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 and 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. Well, if you've been doing the math over the last few weeks when I've preached, I preach three sermons on two verses. And if we do the math again, if we do John's prologue, that's 27 sermons, which would take us into June if I was here every week. And that's not my goal. I don't plan to go at that rate. But there is a method to what I'm doing here. I think you'll understand this when I say this, that Martin Luther had a quote one time regarding temptation. He says, you can't keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair. Great quote. There are going to be temptations in the world, but we don't have to allow them to sink in and come to sin. And I would say as someone who's been a part of the Reformed community for a long time and who appreciates the many glorious truths that the Reformation have brought to light, the solas of the Reformation or the doctrines of grace, we have these glorious birds flying over our head, these doctrines, but often they don't land. For one reason or another, they don't land in our minds where we rethink our God and our Lord, or where our affections are not affected by them. And part of it is sin, but part of it is we live a busy life. And this is the most fast-paced life maybe in the history of the world, I don't know. And so there's a benefit to slowing down so that they really can nest, that these glorious truths of Scripture can nest in our minds and transform our minds, as we're called to have them transformed, and to transform our hearts, that we would have new affections. Not affections for sin, but affections for holiness and for God's glory. And so in that way, I think there's some benefit to slowing down. I don't want to slow down too much, because then you fall asleep and you lose interest. But I think there's help in slowing down and thinking about these glorious truths and doctrines from the scriptures, that they might have that good effect upon us. Just another illustration, I think it was this past week, we had these incredible rains. And often in the past, there's been parts ground, there hasn't been rain for a long time, then it just pours very quickly and that's it. And people say, I wish we just had a soaking rain where it really comes down along the lines of what Tom read from Isaiah and nourishes the soil. And I think the same thing is true here, that as we slow down to consider some of these truths, that it might really encourage us and build us up in our most holy faith. And so that's part of my reasoning for this pace. But I'm not saying I'm going to do 27 sermons on John's prologue. So this morning, I'd just like for us to start to consider John's prologue. And I just have three points. The first one is, what is a prologue? It's good for us to have an idea of what that really means. Second, what is John seeking to accomplish in his prologue? And then third and finally, the uniqueness and significance of John's prologue, particularly how he traces Jesus' past. That last one again, the uniqueness and significance of John's prologue, particularly how he traces Jesus' past. And so first, what is a prologue? It's not a common word. We don't throw that word around a lot. I don't think my children ever use that word. But one definition is a preliminary discourse, a preface or introductory part of a discourse, poem, or novel, or an introductory speech, often in verse, calling attention to the theme of a play. And I think with John's gospel, what we do is we get this introductory writing with the themes that we'll find all throughout John's gospel. He starts off his gospel touching on these themes that he'll give particular instances of as we go through his gospel. And so it's sort of like a highlight of what is to come. It helps bring them to light in a particular way. It's like, get ready. You're going to hear about these things as you read through the rest of my gospel. And so that's number one. Point number one. We're already done with number one. My second point is, what is John seeking to accomplish in his prologue? What's his goal? We've already talked about his purpose statement. And we'll look at that a little bit. But what is he trying to seek to accomplish in his prologue? And I found this one great definition or glorious words by D.A. Carson, who has a wonderful commentary on the book of John. And he says this. He says, the prologue is a foyer To the rest of the fourth gospel, as John's gospel is often called, simultaneously drawing the reader in and introducing the major themes, many of the central thematic words of this gospel are first introduced in these verses. Life, light, witness, true in the sense of genuine or ultimate, world, glory, truth. But supremely, the prologue summarizes how the word, which was with God in the very beginning, came into time, history, tangibility, in other words, how the Son of God was sent into the world to become the Jesus of history so that the glory and grace of God might be uniquely and perfectly disclosed. The rest of the book is nothing other than an expansion of this theme. Wonderful words. What a great way to summarize what this prologue is to do. And the prologue in and of itself is glorious. It has weighty issues. It has weighty sayings. And as we, Lord willing, move through the book of John, we'll see this in more particulars. But we get an overview of what John wants to say as he goes on through his gospel. And as you read through the gospel on your own, you'll see, you'll hear, you'll hear these things and they'll echo his prologue. You'll see these themes carried out over and over again throughout John's gospel. So with that, we're done with point two. And my third point is what is the uniqueness and significance of John's prologue, particularly how he traces Jesus's past. And right from the beginning, We have some unique words from John in his gospel, in this prologue. And it's interesting to see how it's different than the other gospels in the scriptures. Mark records a beginning, but it is the beginning of Jesus' public ministry. It is a type of beginning, but it's the beginning of Jesus' public ministry. And from there on, you feel like you're running, as Mark talks about what Jesus did and all those things. Matthew and Mark record genealogies of Jesus' human ancestry, with Matthew highlighting, right from the start, Jesus' significance with the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham. And as we looked at the purpose statement of John's Gospel, we saw how important it is to think about his Gospel in terms of his history, of Israel's history, of the Jewish history, because they were the stewards of the history of redemption, but even the history of mankind in the world, above all other nations. And so when we hear son of David, son of Abraham, it echoes back to promises from God, declarations of God that had already been spoken. And again, in a sense, if I can say this kind of in a worldly way, it's where Matthew has him checking off the boxes. Yes, he is the son of David. He is the king who will sit on the throne forever. Yes, he is the seed of Abraham who will be a blessing to all the nations. And so when he gives us his gospel, it's like bright lights flashing back to the Old Testament. It's like, wow, all this time and God fulfilled this. And the answer is absolutely. Absolutely. But Luke even goes further. He goes all the way back to Adam, at least. And he checks off another box. Because as Adam was, he was a son of Adam, he was also a son of Eve. He was the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent. And so we see in these Gospels this glorious lineage of Christ as a human being. the man who was fully man and and John will go on not only in his prologue but in the scriptures in his gospel to show that he took on human flesh eventually. But that's not where he starts. That's not where he starts. His prologue starts off, "'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.'" Now for anybody in the world who wasn't an Israelite, those words, what does that mean? We talk about the beginnings of things. What's the difference? But once again, it echoes back to the past, but way back, way back to the Book of Genesis. Genesis 1, 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The Book of Beginnings, where we see the created order coming into being. A glorious account that the Jews had, they were the stewards of. that told about how God created the world. And as Genesis 1 expands, it goes on and goes all the way down, how God created the world and all the other things that He creates. And so now we have the testimony of the other Gospels that demonstrate His humanity and His lineage according to His line. But now with John, we see this is no ordinary man. He has no ordinary beginning or origins. Just by the simple fact that he was there at the beginning of creation means he was preexistent, that he was before the created order. He was not yet in the flesh as he would eventually be, but he was already preexistent with the Father and with the Holy Spirit. And John, again, will tell us shortly that this is who he is. He's the one that took on flesh. human flesh so that he would become fully God and fully man. And this is our Jesus. This is our Lord. And so again, we need to let this cultivate our thoughts about who our Lord is. He's not like every other man. And I assume we know that. But do we know how far back his His lineage goes before the foundation of the world, before anything we've ever seen with our own eyes. He was. He'll even say at one point in John's gospel, before Abraham, I was, or I am. And we see this supported by other scriptures in the New Testament. In Colossians 1, 15-21, Paul says, He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. That this Lord Jesus is not just the Savior of Israel. He is the Savior of the world, the Savior of the world, because He created the world. And all the world is accountable to Him. And as all the world fell in Adam, the second Adam is the Savior of the whole world, meaning every tribe and every nation, not just Israel, but all nationalities, all people groups, one Savior. In Luke 24 we have that glorious passage. I love this passage because Jesus preaches himself from the Old Testament. I've tried to calculate how long did this sermon go on that Jesus preached. I think it's like seven hours. I have to redo the math. But he spoke of himself, not from the New Testament, from the Old Testament. Passage after passage after passage. I'm sure Isaiah was a big part of it. Maybe Isaiah 53, which is probably one of the most preeminent passages speaking of Christ in the Old Testament. But I wonder too, there's other passages as well. Proverbs 8, 22 to 31, where we hear about wisdom. We hear about wisdom. It says, the Lord possessed me, and there's a footnote in your Bible that says fathered. The Lord fathered me at the beginning of His work, the first of His acts of old. Ages ago I was set up at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths, I was brought forth. When there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth. Before he had made the earth with its fields and the first of the dust of the world, when he established the heavens, I was there. When he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made the firm skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limits so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him like a master workman, and I was daily his delight. rejoicing before Him always, rejoicing in His inhabited world, and delighting in the children of men." What a glorious passage. This must allude to our Lord in His pre-flesh days. Before the creation of the world, He was there. In 1 Corinthians 1.30, Paul says, in regards to wisdom, he's talking about the matter of wisdom, man's wisdom and God's wisdom. And it says, and because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification, redemption. That Jesus is our right, is our wisdom. And that these passages I've read so far keep supporting this matter. that this is the Jesus who is our Savior. Now there's another passage in the Old Testament, and I wonder if Jesus spoke to the two men on the road to Emmaus about this passage. I haven't heard it much connected with Jesus, but I don't see how it cannot be, because it seems to echo so much of who He was and His character. If you remember in the book of Job up to chapter 38, Job is in incredible suffering. Suffering so much that when his friends come, they're in abhorrence as they look at him and they start to weep. I don't know if you've ever had a situation like that. You've seen a loved one or a friend who their car accident or whatever has been of such a degree that it makes you weep. And Job is in this intense pain, and you hear him speaking out of his anguish. And the friends say, you must have sinned because innocent people don't suffer. And here's Job knowing, as far as he knew before God, that he was not suffering for his sin. It wasn't on account of sinning. You could see how how godly he was at the beginning of that book, that he would even go and make sacrifices for his children just in case, just in case they had sinned. What a great father. What a great role model for us as fathers. And then finally, there's silence. And it says this in verses 1 to 13 of chapter 38. Then the Lord answered Job out of the world went and said, Who is it that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man, and I will question you, and you make it known to me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know. Or who stretched out the line upon it? On what were the bases sunk? And who laid its cornerstone, when the morning star sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who shut the seed with doors, when it burst out of the womb, when I made clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed limits for it, echoing the verses I just read, and said, bars and doors, and said, thus far you shall come and no farther. And here shall your proud waves be stayed. Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth?' And so God is saying to Job, were you there? Were you there? With the implied answer, no, I was not there. I was not there. I was not there. And Job, a godly man, would eventually say, I'm going to shut my mouth. I spoke about things I didn't know. And God goes on and He talks about the created order. He talks about His power. But what's amazing is, isn't this reflecting the Proverbs passage? Isn't this exactly what we just said, this talking about Jesus? And I'd say, yes, it is. Yes, it is. We have Job in this incredible pain. I mean, to think about, if you read the book of Job, he's not just reading it like you and I can read it in good health at times. He's in anguish saying these things. And you know how hard it is when you're in pain and you're tormented by thoughts on top of it. And he has to say, no, I wasn't there. I overspoke. And God says you spoke well. He tells the friends that Job spoke well, he spoke right. But it's amazing that when we see our Savior on the cross, as John continues on through his gospel, and we come to the crucifixion of Christ, in any of the gospels, and Jesus cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He doesn't get this line of questioning. He doesn't get this line of questioning because he could say, yes, Father, I was there. You know I was there. I delighted in you and you delighted in me. And the question is, why didn't God do this for Jesus? His beloved son in whom he was well pleased. We know it. John the Baptist heard it himself. John and James and Peter heard it with the addition of, listen to him. Why didn't Jesus get this line of questioning? He could have said, yes, Father, you know. Because he was there. He was the Father's delight, and he delighted in the Father. But when Jesus comes to accomplish this great work we see at the end of John's Gospel, this one who had been with the Father from the beginning, who was with God, the Father, but he was also God, the Son. At that point, God turns his face away. Because as Tom reminded us earlier, he was sin for us. Our sin was being judged. That Jesus was receiving what every sin deserves on the cross. And so to answer Job, the question of Job, Where does wisdom come from? Well, obviously it's from God, and Paul says it's Jesus. But not only that, we answer the question in the book of Job about the suffering. Job's friends say, you only suffer if you sin, basically. And Job knew that he wasn't suffering for his sin, but it was building up, building up, building up. It's like, how can this be? And what God was doing, I think, he was giving them a little bit of light of the gospel, that there would come this innocent man, this innocent God-man of himself, a holy, righteous God-man. And he would suffer. He would suffer not for his sins, but for the sins of his people. And so can an innocent man suffer? Absolutely. And it's through him that justice has been satisfied. It's through him that justice has been satisfied. God is just and the justifier, the one who has faith in Christ. That was it. That's the payment. Jesus, Jesus alone. Paul will later talk about he's beside himself because he realizes one has died for all. He was driven by this. He realized it was all done in Christ. Christ is the only hope. He's the only hope for mankind. He's the only savior of the world because he really paid the penalty for sin that was due to us. And so we get the conclusion of Job in the person of Jesus Christ. Yes, an innocent man can suffer who hasn't sinned of himself. Praise be to God, he did for our sakes. He who knew no sin became sin for us. Never to die again. And the writer to the Hebrews talks about the sacrificial system that the Jews had to follow that was repetitive over and over again. And pointed though to the reality of Jesus as the spotless lamb of God. that he had no sin. And there was a greater altar, not made with the hands of man, up in glory. The glory that Jesus left to take on human flesh and live in this sinful world and bear injustice and bear our sins. And he went to heaven with that as the sacrifice, as the high priest, as the sacrifice. And it was accepted in the heavens, above the earth, in the sense of the realms. It was in the ultimate altar. It was received and accepted and verified by His resurrection from the dead. And that is our Gospel. That is our Gospel. It's been accepted. It is final. But we find ourselves, as we've been talking about, in the first advent of Christ and the second advent of Christ. The first advent was such of a glorious nature in some sense. The day of rest had to change from the last day of the week to the first day. We're in a new era. We're in between the two advents of Christ. But there's a way of thinking when we're in this era that's different than the pre First Advent. Because time is limited. It's the work of Christ that becomes preeminent for us now. It's the glory of Christ that becomes preeminent. We have something to declare to the world of the glorious Savior. That is the message. He's come. He's paid the penalty. Everybody in the world, every nation, not just Israel, not just the, all the nations are guilty before God. And God sent his only begotten son to be the savior of the world. And he did it. He did it. And as Tom alluded, we do come and we do confess our sins. And that's a gift from the Lord too. My dear mother died, I've said before, when I was six years old, she died of cancer. Cancer is a very deadly disease. It can be a very deadly disease. But it's a wonderful thing to be able to catch it early, to get all of it. And in this process, as we come repetitively, Lord's Day after Lord's Day, or day after day, and we confess our sins to the Lord, it's like, He's taken away the cancer. He's taking away the corruption and replacing it with Christ and with life. So that even in our confessions, even though there's humility, we're humble, we're brought low, it's like the poison's being removed. It's a wonderful thing to know your sins. When I was in the second grade, I was in a brand new school. Everything was new, and I wasn't a Christian, I had an eraser in my classroom. Do you know what a chalkboard is? I know we have whiteboards now. But there was this, we had chalkboards and it was brand new eraser. I thought, I don't know what I was thinking. I just stole it. I stole the eraser. And where did I hide it? I stuffed it in my sock. In God's providence that day for PE, we did the balance beam. where you have to walk across the balance beam. And what is the PE teacher looking at as you're walking across the balance beam? He's looking at your feet. And he says, Hollidge, what is wrong with your ankle? Had to confess I stole the eraser. Had to talk to my dad. But what a mercy. The Lord, even then, even though I wasn't a believer, and I didn't become a believer right after that, He didn't let me go on in my sin. He brought it to light. And that's a mercy. It's always good. I know it's painful. I know it's hard. It's humiliating. But in the best sense. Because God has better plans for us. To make us holy, like His beloved Son. Now, the last thing I'll say in terms of application here, you know, I think sometimes we're timid in speaking of Christ. I know I'm tempted to be timid. For whatever reason, again, I'm sure there's sin involved, but part of it, we don't think it through enough. If you had a neighbor who had cancer and you had the cure for cancer, or you had a neighbor who had COVID and you had the cure for COVID, would you hide it from them? Wouldn't you say, hey, I got this. I got the answer. I got the solution. And yet for some reason we become timid as though it's not relevant to them. But see the word of God blows it out of the water because he's the God of the world who sent his son as the savior of the world. And so there's no tribe or nation that does not need to hear this. There is no one who is so wicked that he should not hear this. I can't remember if I mentioned this to your congregation, but there was an article, there was something on the news about this man in Texas who had killed, they think, 90 some women. And I started thinking, I wonder if he killed anybody around here, because it was like across the United States. And within a week or so, I saw that a Prince George's County officer went down and spoke to this man. And he gave in great detail this woman he had met at Union Station in D.C. and killed somewhere along my path between Bowie and here. Now, it's atrocious. His sin is heinous. But I thought, I wonder if anybody's going to share the gospel with them. You know, we think, ah, it's horrible. And that's, we've got to be really careful in the church. We kind of do this us, them thing. And we are holy. We're called to be holy. I'm not negating that at all. It's our glory. It's our calling. But if we think somebody's too bad, we've really missed it. You know, I, I would be willing to go down and talk to this man of Christ. You know, think about the Apostle Paul, persecuting the church, glad to see Christians die, but God had other plans. I know there were unique means how he brought them to himself, but we have to rethink who our God is in the gospel. So we shouldn't be timid. We need wisdom. Sometimes it's time to talk. Sometimes it's time to pray. Sometimes it's time to do both. But this is the privilege we have as God's people. He has brought us out of darkness into His marvelous light. And there's more to come until He comes again. And so may God grant us to have great confidence and courage of the depth of this salvation that was established before the foundation of the world, that this Lord Jesus was there at the beginning. Let me close with these words from Ephesians. that gives us a synopsis of our salvation in Christ. Ephesians 1, 3-10. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him, in Christ, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth. All of this was planned. and decided upon before the foundation of the world, before the incarnation of Christ. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, your word which sheds light upon all things in which the darkness has not overcome. We ask that the truth of your word would enlighten our souls, enlighten our minds to think rightly, that we would have our minds transformed. And that it would also have the heat effect of warming our hearts, warming our hearts towards you and your son and the Holy Spirit, warming our hearts towards one another in the body of Christ, and warming our hearts even, Father, to love our enemies, whether they receive Christ or not in this life. We pray all this in Jesus' name, Amen.