Jesus, the pre-existent Christ

Well, good evening you guys. I am happy to be with you all, I love you guys. Tonight, we are kicking off our series for the semester. It is called “knowing Jesus,” But before we can really get into our lesson, it might feel a little scattered. I need to explain some of the reason why, and introduce a couple of new things we will be doing this semester. So first, why are we doing a series about “knowing Jesus?” I am so glad you asked…

Read Matthew 16:13-20

1) Why would Jesus ask his disciples what other people say about him?

Jesus knows that there are many false stories swirling in the culture around them about who he is; stories that could easily invade their own thoughts. So, Jesus asks his disciples to name those false stories, knowing they will inevitably pale in comparison to the true story. Jesus ultimately cares most about their answer to the one question which truly matters: “who do YOU say that I am?”

2) What truth about Jesus did Peter declare and Jesus proclaimed as the foundation of his church? What is so significant about this truth? The truth is that Jesus is the Christ. This was so significant because it is declaring Jesus as the one for whom God’s people had been waiting. Jesus is the promised king, the prophesied savior, the root of Jesse, the suffering servant. He is the one to whom all the Old Testament was pointing.

3) Why does “knowing Jesus” matter?

Knowing Jesus is the first step to believing in Jesus which is the only way to salvation. Our desire is not to simply know about Jesus, but to know him - to be changed by him. In John 10:27, Jesus says his sheep follow him because they know his voice. Our prayer is that, through this study, we would come to know Jesus - the true Jesus - and would be changed by that truth.

That is what we all need, and it is the most valuable thing we could give to you. Our theme verses will be Philippians 3:8 & 9 in the NLT which says

8 Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ 9 and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith.

We will be memorizing this over the course of the semester together as a youth group. Along with saying these two verses every week. We are going to ask and answer 4 specific questions about the core of Christianity, because we believe that you ought to know and be able to articulate the very most important parts of our faith. So let’s rehearse the Gospel together.

REHEARSING THE GOSPEL

1. What does gospel mean?

Good news.

2. What’s the good news?

Jesus died for us, to make us whole, and rose again to defeat sin and death.

3. Why did He die for your sins?

So that I can have abundant life in relationship with Him now and forever.

4. What is grace?

God’s undeserved love for sinners.

Throughout this series we will be studying a passage and learning about a specific attribute of Jesus. Tonight we will be parking ourselves in John 1. So everybody crank out your Bibles and the title of our lesson is Jesus, our pre-existent Christ. Now initially you might think, “what in the world does pre-existent mean???” Well, I am so glad you asked. It literally means that something “existed before existence.” So, spoiler alert, before there was anything, there was something, actually, there was someone. And His Name is Jesus.

Part of what we want you guys to start doing this semester, is being able to dig into you Bible more, and we want to help you with that, because you can sit still and listen to me talk about the Bible for 30 minutes and walk out of here not knowing how to go find the truth yourself. We believe that the Bible is true and has answers for many of our questions, but how is the Bible supposed to answer our questions, if we don’t ask the Bible questions. So, to start off, I want everyone to grab a piece of paper and a pen, and get a Bible. You guys are going to find a spot, by yourself, and read through John 1:1-18, and try to fill out some of the questions on your sheet. There is no shame if you need help finding where this part of the Bible is, or if you are stumped by a couple of the Questions. We aren’t looking for your Bible skills to be perfect, we just wanna give you a good start. I am going to set a timer, and whenever the timer goes off, we will all come back and talk through some of it.

Questions:

1) According to John 1:1-2, who/what was in the beginning with God?

The Word/He.

2) What two things does John say are true about the Word in verse 3?

1) All things were made through Him and, 2) without Him nothing was made.

3) What does John say was “in Him” in verse 4, and how does John describe it?

In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.

4) What adjective is used to describe the light in verse 9?

The “true” light.

5) Who did Jesus give the right to become children of God in verse 12?

Those who received Him by believing in his name.

6) What did the Word do, according to verse 14?

He became flesh and dwelt among us.

7) What was the Word/Jesus full of in verse 14?

Grace and truth

8) Who does it say that the Son/Jesus is in verse 18?

He is Himself God.

So what?!!!

I think we can learn 5 things from this.

1. Jesus is Eternal.

2. Jesus is fully the Creator God, riff on how in the creation story God calls you very good.

3. Jesus is also fully man.

4. True life and light is only found in Jesus (John 10:10 “life to the full”)

5. Jesus is the only way to become a child of God.