Face to Face with God
Public Meeting Week 2 Semester 1 2023
If you want to know someone, you can’t just look at the car they drive or the stuff they put out on verge day. You can’t just look through their Facebook history. Commenting on someone’s Instagram post from 2 years ago doesn’t make you friends. That just makes you a stalker. The only way to get to know someone is to meet them and talk to them. And you’ll only know as much as they are willing to open up to you.
Our passage in John 1 tells us the same thing about God. How do we know God? If you want to know God, God has to reveal himself to you. And the Bible tells us God did that in the person of Jesus Christ.
Jesus makes God known
I’m going to go pretty quick but happy to take questions after if there’s something from the passage that you’re unsure about.
1 In the beginning was the Word,
We don’t realise how significant this is. In the beginning was the Word, not the force, not chaos, not potential energy, not karma. It’s the Word. And if there’s a word, there’s a speaker of the word. Somebody spoke. Words are not a natural phenomenon. And so we read on.
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God.
The Word is a He. Not an It. There is a personhood to God. In other words, God is not an object we can examine under a microscope or a force in the universe we can detect in a lab. God is a He, not an It. Trying to prove God exists is like trying to know my neighbour by measuring how many bedrooms there are in their house. It doesn’t work. God exists as a He. He speaks. He talks. He listens. He hears us when we’re laughing and He sees us when we’re crying. He notices the things we go through and he knows how you’re actually going on the inside.
3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
That includes you. We are not the products of chance. Where and when we were born, with what gender or body type or personality, nothing about you is random. Can you see how much value Christianity bestows on the individual? Would you rather have something limited edition hand-made or something mass produced in a factory somewhere just one in a conveyor belt of millions exactly the same?
And don’t think that God created the world and then kind of stepped back and it just keeps itself going. Like a watchmaker. No. God is still actively and intimately involved. Look at verse 6.
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
God sends witnesses. Not just John the Baptist. The 12 apostles, then the early Christians followed by 2000 years of Christians from different languages, cultures, religious background. Even the person sitting next to you right now. Think about it, if you are a Christian today, you are a witness of God here in ECU. Witness to what?
9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
I’m not going to assume everyone here is a Christian, but if you are, this is why God has put you at ECU. Yes to get a degree and who knows even a girlfriend or boyfriend. But primarily, in the eternal scheme of things, you are here to be a witness. How do we do that?
14 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. 15 (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.’”) 16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.
Jesus makes God known. So if we want people to know God, we have to introduce Jesus to them. It’s actually not that hard. Look at verse 15. John cried “this was he of whom I said…” Let me tell you about a friend of mine. That’s what we want to help you do here at ECU.