The Gospel of John is a majestic book. Cyril, one of the Greek fathers who lived and served in the fifth century of the church, wrote these words about the Gospel of John. He said, the book of John surpasses wonder itself. By it, we reach for subjects which are beyond human comprehension. The book of John, of course, is one of four Gospels which we have, but it is not like the first three that confront us as we turn in God's Word. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are sometimes referred to as the synoptics, and by that we mean that they, in large part, record the same events, yet from their own vantage point. The Gospel of John records some scenes from the life of Christ which are not recorded in the prior three Gospels and yet are not organized in the same intent with which those three wrote. The gospel of John is laid out with the specific intent to present to us one person, Jesus Christ. and to encounter him not from the events of his life on earth, but to frame the way that we think about him, and to organize the way that we might come to know him and know him more. J.C. Ryle, who was a bishop in the 19th century, wrote these words about the gospel of John. The contents that are unique to John's gospel are among the most precious possessions in all the Church of Christ. Some of you have been to Rome, or some of you may go to Rome in your lifetime, and perhaps you will go to that great place, St. Peter's Square, and walk through the halls and see the art that is hung there, and maybe some of you will see fragments of wood that are claimed to be shards from the cross of Christ. bits of the nails that are purported to have pierced the Lord Jesus' hands. And Rome would tell you that these are among the most precious possessions of the Church of Christ. My friends, the words that have been read to us today, these words that are before you on the printed page that describe for us who Jesus Christ is are far more precious than any bits of wood that have ever been on the surface of this earth. They are more precious than all of the gold that lies in all of the banks on the surface of this globe. They are more precious than all of the power that resides in Washington DC or any place else. because the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was, and who is, and who is to come forever, Lord, is the greatest thing that has ever been told to man. And it is before us today, and it will be before us in the course of this book for weeks to come. As we come to know the Gospel of John, perhaps it would just help us to have some sense of the book as a whole, and the way that the whole book unfolds. It has been described as a book in two parts, and the first part has been called the Book of Signs, and that spans from the first chapter in the 19th verse, which we will come to next week, all the way through the end of the 12th chapter of this book. In this part, called the Book of Signs, the Lord Jesus identifies himself powerfully by performing signs, by turning jars of water that were intended to wash feet and wash utensils into the best wine that man has tasted in his life, raising the dead, healing the lame and the blind, feeding thousands. And all of these signs are intended not just to tell us that the Lord Jesus is God, and not just to cause us to stop dead in our tracks at the feats of strength and power that he performed, but to tell us about something far more significant that he has come to do. He has come to raise all of us who are dead in our trespasses and sins. He has come to all of us who are spiritually blind and cannot see Him, cannot behold Him with our soul, and to enable us to embrace Him and take hold of Him by faith so that we might come to live with Him forever. The second half of the book is sometimes referred to as the Book of Glory, and that runs from chapter 13 to the 20th chapter. And here, of course, we encounter the Lord Jesus as he bids farewell to the Twelve, and then as he is taken out and to the garden where he will weep and pray and beg that the cup would pass from him. And then as he is seized in that place and arrested by his hands bound and taken to his trial, where the only one who has ever lived, who has earned no guilt for sin, then is burdened with the guilt of sinful man. and taken to his cross, where he is crucified and then is removed and buried dead in the tomb. And on the third day, raised again in the power of the Spirit. And then John concludes with this triumphant scene in which the Lord Jesus is raised up from the earth. Well, all this is not alone. What is revealed to us in the Gospel of John, but the Lord Jesus also reveals himself by seven I Am statements that are sprinkled, as it were, from chapter 6 through chapter 14. The Lord Jesus says he is the bread of life, he is the light of the world, he is the good shepherd, he is the true vine, and so on. And by each of these names, the Lord Jesus intends to tell us what he is like and what it is like for us to come to live with him, to abide with him, as he will tell us, to walk with him. The Gospel of John is a personal book. It's not a book that is designed to fill our heads. It is a book that is designed to open our eyes to see Jesus Christ more. It is a book that is designed to unveil our heart so that by encountering the Lord Jesus by this book, we might come to have our hearts filled with more of him. But the whole book is introduced and is summarized in chapter 1 verses 1 through 18. Two weeks ago, if you were here, the sermon had quite a lot to say about the glory of Christ. And some of you may have sat in the pew that day or perhaps gone home and scratched your heads and thought, he didn't tell me very much at all. I'm left wondering more now as I leave the church than I was when I arrived. What is the glory of Christ? What does it really mean for me to behold the glory of God in the face of Christ? Well, contrary to the way it might appear, there is some thought behind the sermon series that are preached from this pulpit and in this church. And the intent there was to tee up this. Because as we come to see Jesus Christ in these weeks from the Gospel of John, the prayer behind it is that week by week by week by week, you might behold him more and more. as you sit in these pews, you might have the thought dawn upon you, of course, by the power of the Spirit himself as he works with his word, that it might cause you to say, oh, that's who Jesus is. For those of you who feel perhaps from time to time as though you are far from Christ, as you encounter him in the nearness of his word, that you might leave this place and say, oh, I feel as though I am more with him now than I have been before. And isn't he so good? My friends, that's my prayer for all of us as we begin this series in this book, that our church and our lives would come to encounter what John puts before us today. The fullness of Christ. Today, what John sets before us is the fullness of Christ presented in five ways. Yes, this sermon has five points, but they're not long points, I promise. the fullness of Christ presented in at least five ways. And the first way is this, from verse one, the Lord Jesus is eternal. Did you see that in verse one with these first four words? In the beginning was. That is to say, Genesis 1-1, when God said, and when God did the very first act of creating this world, which we know, before that second, there already was. What was there? There was God. He was there before the foundations of the earth, God who dwells in eternity past. Jesus already was before the very first thing was. which means that the word that John presents to us is not a thing, it is a who. The Lord Jesus existed, he has always been, and there has never been a time when the Son of God was not That is why God gave his church songs to sing and to worship God in this way, by telling him back what is true of him as he has revealed himself. The Psalms say this time and time again. 93 verse two, you, O Lord, speaking of the Son of God, are from everlasting, everlasting past to everlasting future. future, and you, God, shall outlast all things, just as you have been from before all things. Psalm 102 and verse 12, you, O Lord, are enthroned forever. Before there was a throne, you, O God, have always been, and you, the Son of God, have always been at the Father's right hand, dwelling in the fullness of God. And John, of course, will say as he comes to his 17th chapter in the 5th verse that the Son had glory with the Father before the world was. Verse three tells us that he is the creator of all things in the positive sense, and then it flips the script and it tells us negatively, and there is not one thing that the Son of God has not made. Wow. Is that how you think about Jesus Christ? We who are so bound by time, it is so hard for us to think of what it means for the Son to be outside of time and for Him to outlast all things that we have known in our entire life. My friends, do you sometimes fear and fret that the things that you love most in life will not last? And so you tighten your grip upon them more and more just to enjoy them while you can. Jesus comes and he says, I have come to satisfy your heart and soul with all that I am. And you don't have to cling to me because I'm not going anywhere. Cling to me because I am yours forevermore. The second thing that John tells us is this, the fullness of Christ is described to us in that He is divine. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God. He was not a thing that dwelt with God, but he is himself very God of very God. He is uncreated, which means he cannot change. It is incapable for the Son of God to change. Because he dwells outside of time and space, he cannot be effected by time or space. The Son is of the same essence as the Father, which means the Son in His being is not lesser than the Father is. Both are fully God with the Spirit. And you see, John 1, 1 comes right alongside Genesis 1, 1. On the one hand, in thee be was God, and on the second hand, in the beginning was the Word. The intent here is to put the words God and the word Word side by side to tell us that the Word of God is fully God. The Son has always been nothing less than perfect God. We just need to be aware of this in the way that we speak. Sometimes we refer to the Father as being God, and then we turn to speak about the Son. And we need to always refresh our prayers by reminding ourselves that the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Spirit is God, and all three are distinct persons of the one full Godhead, and dwell all in perfect glory and power. The third thing that John tells us is that the Word is distinct from the Father. He tells us that the Word was with God the Father. And that word with needs to be expounded just a bit for us. It is the Greek word pros, which can sometimes be Translated as with or alongside, the son is at the father's right hand. He has always been with father. But in a second way, the son or the word is pros father, as to say towards or facing or directing himself towards. If we could say it this way, the son of The Father's glory is beheld in the face of the Son. The face of the Son shines because it beholds the glory of the Father's face. The glory of the Son is the glory of the Father, and the face of the Son has always been directed towards the face of the Father. What was the Lord Jesus up to before the foundation of the world? What was the Son doing before the world was made? he was enjoying fellowship with Father and with Spirit. The son's heart was fully satisfied with the love of the Father, and he dwelt in the joy of the Spirit. And because the Word of God has this relation with the Father and the Spirit, he is fully qualified to bring you and me into that same relationship with the Father and with the Spirit. Does that make sense? In a way it does not make sense to our finite minds. What does that mean for the three persons of the Godhead to be one and yet to exist in personal distinction from each other and yet to have their hearts, if we could use that word, filled to the full with the fellowship of each other? But the Lord Jesus tells us that here because, of course, that is the pattern that He is bringing you into and the relationship that you have with God. That you might come to know the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit, and to have your heart satisfied with joy by comprehending them, by contemplating them, by knowing that you belong to them and that you will always be if you belong to Christ in the fellowship of Father, Son, and Spirit. My friends, that's why you were made. You were made to be satisfied with God and to be satisfied in relationship with God. Sometimes we speak of hell as being a place that is the absence of the presence of God, but that is not true. God is fully present in hell. He's there as judge. But what heaven is like is to be in the fullness of the presence of God, yet not with Father as judge, but with Father as Father, in love, because the Son has redeemed us and has united us to the Father's love. Heaven is a place of eternal joy. Do you long for that place? Do you long for that joy? Do you long to have foretastes of that joy now as we worship God here? To be satisfied with all that you were made to be infinitely satisfied with? Well, he's left his notes. The sermon is off track. The fourth point is this. The fullness of God is shown to us in that the Son is the Word. He is depicted for us here as the Logos, as the Word of God. Augustine, in reflecting on this and what it means for the Son to be the Word of God, says that the Son is the Logos in two senses. First, in the sense that He is in eternal to the Godhead, and because the Son fully knows and understands God and knows all that it is to be God, then in the second sense, the Son is the one alone qualified to represent and to reveal externally, as the Word, the fullness of God. No human mind can comprehend the fullness of God. And yet, verse 18 tells us that the Son of God, who has seen the Father and the fullness of God, because the Word is the only God who is at the Father's side, He makes Him known. You want to know God? Come to know Jesus Christ. If you don't know Jesus Christ, there is no way to know God. There is no God outside of Christ. There is no knowledge of God outside of Him. We have to come and to bend our knees and as it were to be crucified with Christ before we can come to know any sense of who God is. My friend, are you in Christ? Or do you think that you have come to know a bit about God by another way outside of Him? I invite you to humble yourself today and say, there's no way that I can come to know God but by the Word, Jesus Christ. And in the fifth way then, Verse 14, the Lord Jesus is the Word who has become flesh. The fullness of God is shown to us in His incarnation. Of course, we have already said that the second that the Lord Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary was not His first