Origin: The Definer of Out Worship, Hope, and Witness

Pray

Group Question 1:

It’s been a month since we’ve all been together. In order to catch up or get to know one another for the first time, take some time at your tables to talk about some of the highlights of your time around the holidays and what excites you about this next semester.

Set Up Series

We just spent an entire Christmas season celebrating the birth of the most incredible individual to ever walk the earth. This semester, we’ll be going through the Gospel of John together. I’ve been excited about this series for a really long time. As we go through John together I want us to use this opportunity to gaze afresh upon Him in His glory, whether for the first time or the hundredth time. My prayer for this series is that you would see Jesus as more beautiful than ever before. Even though we’ll be going through John throughout the semester, we won’t have enough time to touch on literally every verse in every chapter. We’ll cover a great deal of the book though, so here’s my encouragement for you. Read through the passage for the upcoming week. Meditate on it and come ready to hear it proclaimed. Maybe even make that your reading plan for your quiet times if you don’t already have a plan! Imagine what 4 months of meditating on the life of Jesus could do for you. We have a ton of speakers lined up for this semester and I’m so excited to hear from them!

With that being said, let’s dive in! To kick us off, I want us to reflect on this question at our tables:

Group Question 2:

Why do we love origin stories, whether in movies, products, or history? Why does knowing where something or someone came from help us understand it better? Why is it so important?

The Importance of Origins

Origins are deeply important to us and they inform our decisions every day; often more than we realize. When you step into a coffee shop, are you getting the ethiopian blend or the coffee from Madagascar? Or how many of you have heard someone criticizes a product because it was made in China? When you meet someone, what’s one of the first questions you ask them? “Where are you from?” How many of you are Apple loyalists? When it comes to trucks, many people are Chevy people or Ford people. We value certain brands and companies over others. Why? Because we care about origins and where things come from. Brand loyalty is nothing but caring about origins.

Many times, just looking at someone or something doesn’t tell us enough about the person or item. Many things may look the same, but it is only when you learn where they have come from that you can begin to get a deeper view into who they are or what they are like.

Coffee beans often look the same, but once you learn their origin, you can learn more about how they might taste, how they were produced, and a plethora of other information about them.

When you meet someone new, often times their appearance doesn't say much that's definitive or substantive about them. But get to know where they come from and what they've experienced and you can actually begin to know who they are. It's why we value stories so much. It's why community is so important because people who truly know your origins and story care about you most and can help you best.

Origin is deeply important to us.

Tonight, we’re going to be talking about the most important origin stories of all. Origin stories far better than the Star Wars prequels and far more fundamental to our lives. We’ll be looking at what the first 18 verses of John have to say about origin. So if you have your bibles with you, turn or tap with me to John chapter 1. As you turn there, let me give you the overview for tonight. We’ll be looking at what the first 18 verses of John tell us about how origin informs our worship, our hope, and our witness.

Origin of Our Worship

Let’s dive into our first point: how origin informs our worship

John the Baptist Vague Origin Story

As we begin, I want to tell you about the origin story of a man of unspeakable importance that will help us make sense of our entire passage for tonight. He lived about 2,000 years ago in the Middle East. Before he even leaves his mother's womb, the Bible is clear this man is special. He preaches to many, leads people to turn from their sins, has many followers, fulfills prophecy of the Old Testament, causes political strife in his day as He goes head to head with royalty, calls out the sins of leaders in his context, and dies a brutal and bloody undeserved death. His name is Jesus.

Just kidding. The man I'm intending to describe is John the Baptist.

From the outside he looks and sounds just like Jesus. But if we were to bow down and worship him we would be blasphemous and counted as heretics. While their origin stories may sound similar at first, they are vastly different in the end. Origin must inform our worship...eternity hangs in the balance.

So what are the origins of the 3 biggest things in existence: namely Jesus, humanity, and creation. John 1 tells us. Let’s start with Jesus.

Jesus’s Origin

Look with me at John 1:1-2

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”

Jesus Christ is the Word of God. What does that mean? What does it mean to be the Word of God? Isn’t the Bible also called the Word of God?

The Word, or logos in Greek, is revelation or knowledge. It’s where we get terms like biology or psychology. Theology, is the knowledge of God. Biology is the knowledge or revelation of organisms. Psychology is the revelation of the psyche. The Word of God then is the knowledge or the revelation of God. So when we say the Bible is the Word of God, we are saying that the Bible is revelation about God. It’s God’s revelation about Himself to us. But we wouldn’t say that the Bible is God, so we know that John isn’t talking about the Bible in this passage. The Bible doesn’t tell us everything about God. It is not a perfect representation of God, even if everything it says is true. But Jesus on the other hand is different. He is the perfect representation of God. Jesus is the perfect revelation of God to the world. Hebrews 1:3 tells us that Jesus is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” and Colossians 1:15 tells us that “He is the image of the invisible God.”

This falls right in line with what John says in verse 14 of chapter 1 when he says that Jesus has “glory as of the only Son from the Father.” (John 1:14b).

What John, Paul, the author of Hebrews, and all of the Bible are trying to tell us is that if you want to know what God is like look to Jesus. If you want to see and know God look to Jesus, which is why John 1:18 tells us that it is Jesus and Jesus alone who perfectly makes God known. Why? Because He is God!

What Does Jesus reveal to us about God?

Infinitely powerful

Eternal

Tender

Gracious

Perfect justice

Perfect wisdom

Perfect author and planner (prophecy and fulfillment)

The essence of love

And really, all of this is another way of saying another profound truth: because Jesus is God, He has no origin. There was never a time where Jesus didn’t exist. Jesus is self-existent. That separates Jesus from everything and everyone. It means that Jesus as God is fundamentally in a different class that everything else in creation, including humanity. In fact you can’t even put Him in a class.

John 1:4 tells us that in Jesus is life. Part of what that means is that everything else has life and existence only through Jesus.

This leads us to look at the origin of the other thing we mentioned: humanity and creation.

Origin of Humanity and Creation.

John 1:3-4 tells us about the origin of creation and humanity.

“All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”

Verses 9-10 further this point by saying,

“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.”

Hebrews 1 andColossians 1 both affirm the same truth, saying that God created the world through Jesus.

We even see this in Genesis 1 at the very beginning of the Bible. How did God create the world? He spoke creation into existence. He did it by His Word, namely Jesus. God created the world through Jesus.

So how does origin inform our worship? It tells us what to worship! We are not meant to worship created things. We’re meant to worship what’s uncreated, and what’s the only uncreated thing in all of the universe? God.

If we don’t get our origin stories right, then we will worship the wrong things. This is the definition of sin. It’s exactly what Paul talks about in Romans 1:25 when he says of humans,

“they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator”

When we get origins wrong and believe false origin stories, we worship what we were never meant to.

False Origin Stories

Origin changes how we respond to things.

Knowing where someone came from helps us see how we should respond to them. Think about stories such as The Princess Diaries, Aladdin, or even Lord of the Rings with Aragorn where kings and princesses are out amongst the common folk. Because they often deliberately disguise themselves as looking and being like the rest of the commoners, that's how people treat them. But once people realize they are talking to royalty, it immediately changes how they respond to them. They revere them in a way they wouldn't the average person because they now know the king or princess's origin story and that changes everything, including their response to them.

When we confuse origin stories, we are led into worshiping and revering the wrong things. We do this all of the time. We do this with boyfriends, girlfriends, jobs, money, popularity, physical comfort, sports stars and actors, food, and more. We can posit false origin stories that lead us to worship these things in our everyday lives. We can begin to believe these things will bring us ultimate peace and satisfaction and give to them attributes that only God possesses like infinite power, endless prestige, utmost importance, immutability or unchangeableness, a seeming eternal existence, and transcendence among other things. The irony is that the very things we give god-like origin stories to were intended to point to the very God we are robbing of worship. We can enjoy God's good creation in a way that doesn't require us to worship it. In fact, we can enjoy God's creation in such a way that actually brings with worship and glory. God did not give us husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, job, money, heroes, food, drink, friendship, and material goods to lead us into sin. He gave us these gifts to lead us to love Him more. John 1:3 is clear that everything in creation is from God when it says, “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made."

Satan and culture fool us by making us think that the only way to love someone or something truly is to worship them, or treat them as infallible, perfect, and the source of satisfaction. It may feel like true love and dedication to base your whole life and affections around someone or something you love, but in fact it's one of the least loving things you can do. We are meant to point people to God, not treat them like God. Humans are not meant to be worshipped. John is clear about this in our passage when he says in verses 6-8 that, “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.” Just to reiterate the point that even the great humans like John the Baptist aren’t meant to be worshiped, John the Baptist says in verse 15 that, “He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.”

We are not meant to worship humans or creation. We’re meant to worship God. But when we get our origin stories wrong, we worship the wrong things.

Group Question 3:

What false origin stories do you see yourself, others, or culture create that leads people to worship things that are not God?

Humans are from God: the beautiful tension of reality of humanity. We are made by God in His own image and therefore are deserving of the utmost dignity and respect. Every person we encounter deserves our respect. Yet, we ourselves are not God and are not worthy of worship. Instead we were made to testify to God and to worship Him.

Origin of Our Hope

Let’s move to our final two points. We’ve talked a lot about the origin of our worship, but in order to worship who we should with the passion we should, we must know the origin of our hope.

Hope is only necessary if there is the possibility of something better to come, the possibility of healing and restoration. And when we look out upon the world around us, it’s obvious that our world needs healing, and restoration. When we look out at the world around us and we can see the impact of years and years and years of sin and brokenness coming from humans worshipping creation. When we give into anger or malice and hurt others we worship what has been created, namely ourselves and desires. When we lie, we worship the created, namely ourselves and our comfort instead of God. When we look at pronography we worship the created namely ourselves and our satisfaction. The pain and brokenness of the world is the result of our worship of creatures rather than God the Creator. All across the world, over every religion and worldview, we try to work ourselves out of this predicament by our own strength and good deeds which does nothing but exalt ourselves and leads to more creature worship.

Think about the sins in your life right now that you can’t shake.

You try so hard, but no matter what, you can’t keep from doing them.

Just the thought of enjoying sin is sin (Explain). (Adultery example)

We are so blinded and dead in ourselves that without divine intervention we have no hope.

Group Question 4:

Why is it so much easier to trust in created things rather than the Creator? Why is it so much easier to trust in jobs, people, relationships, popularity, food, and more to satisfy us than God Himself? Why is it so easy to Sin and worship created things?

In order to see just lost blind we are in ourselves, we have to see just how drawn we are to sin and worshiping created things over the Creator.

When you first become a Christian, you begin to see sins you didn’t before but usually only the big sins. The longer you are a Christian, you see more and more sins (even sins of thought). We’ve had a light shine into our darkness and reveal that darkness. The longer you are a Christian, the more that darkness and mess is cleaned. The big things are cleaned and revealed first then the smallest cracks and creavaces.

Little kid cleaning, vs, grandma/mom cleaning. Kid just sees the big things. Grandma sees the littles details that need to be cleaned. Younger Christians, kids, have proclivities to stuff things in the closest We do the same with sin.

This week (hard pastoral care, seeing grandparents slip away on vacation). The world isn’t as it should be and no mere human can save us. On the surface the outlook could see helplessly dark.

Out of this darkness light shown in Jesus.

John 1:4-5 says, “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.”

How does this light shine into the darkness and lostness of the world?

John 1:14-16 tells us,

“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.”

Jesus Christ, truly God, left his throne of glory with the Father and became truly man. Jesus, the God-man, lived a perfect life, died the death we deserved to die, by being nailed to the cross, taking upon the punishment for our sin, and then rose from the dead 3 days later with victory over sin, Satan, death, and all of the powers of Hell. It is because of Him we have hope.

Out of his infinite fullness, he gives us grace upon grace by allowing us a way to escape the death of since and return to worshiping and loving God in eternity.

Jesus alone is the origin of our salvation and hope. In the words of Jonathan Edwards, “You bring nothing to your salvation except for the sin that made it necessary.”

Jesus doesn’t just give us hope for our salvation from sin, but also he makes possible the restoration of the world.

At the cross, Jesus secures not just our redemption, but the redemption of the whole world.

He made the world and will remake it again.

We brought death upon ourselves and the world through our sin and Jesus and he alone bring us life again so that we can worship God.. Verses 12-13 say, “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.”

Jesus is the origin of our worship and hope.

But not everyone receives Him. Much of the world is lost and dead in their sin. They are worshiping creation rather than the creator. They reject Jesus as creator and put other things in his place.

John 1:9-13 tells us, “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.”

Because people have not received Jesus and are blind to their need to Him, we Christians are called to witness about Him to the world.

This leads us to our final point: what is the origin of our witness.

Origin of Our Witness

Group Question 5:

How is it that you are witnessing about God? How are you making God known in the world?

John 1:6-8

“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.”

Replace our name with John.

Ask them to do it in their heads and use your name as an example:

“There was a man sent from God, whose name was Caleb. Caleb comes as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. Caleb is not the light, but comes to bear witness about the light.”

Witnessing is our calling and it is necessary. We must share the Gospel with the world.

Romans 10:13-15

For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

Verse 18

How is it that Jesus makes God known? He is the exact image of God. He is the perfect representation of God to the world. Humans are meant to make God known to the world as well. We were made in God’s image for the purpose. Because of sin, God’s image in us has been marred. When we are saved in Christ, Jesus remakes us into His image by the power of His Spirit. Our Christian lives are an exercise in becoming more like Jesus. The more we become like Jesus, the more we can make God known

You had to be there moments: Imagine trying to describe the Chiefs game last week to someone who hadn’t seen. You could tell them about the awful start to the game, maybe the worst I’ve seen in any game in years. The game has barely started and the Chiefs are already down 24 points. Then imagine telling then about the turn, in 3 minutes, the Chiefs erase a deficit of points that most teams never over come in a whole game. Imagine trying to describe for them the various plays and just how incredible that game was, not just in person, but statistically and in history. You could do a pretty good job of describing it all to them, but no matter how hard you tried to explain it all, it would never quite do it justice. They had to be there to really understand. We’ve all had times like that in our lives; “you had to be there moments”. Think about a moment or a memory of your life that stands out as incredible. Those stories where no matter how hard you try, you can never fully or adequately describe how incredible the experience was. Maybe you’ve had those experiences with friends. Maybe it was a roadtrip or some wild memory and you all get together with other buddies afterwards. The friends who weren’t there watch as you and the friends you experienced the memory with frantically and excitedly try to recount the story. When you recount that memory, many times, you can make the people who weren’t there wish and yearn that they could’ve been there to experience it with you. But no matter how hard you try to fully explain it all, you can never fully do the memory justice. Words fall short. But that doesn’t keep you from telling the story. The same is true for us as we witness to the light of Christ to the world. Words can never adequately describe his glory or what he’s done for us or what he means to us, but that shouldn’t keep us from telling others. And no matter how hard we try to explain the glory of Jesus and the Gospel adequately, we can never truly do it justice. People can’t fully understand the glory of the Gospel or of Jesus until they’ve experienced it with us. But we should make them deeply yearn and desire to experience it with us. Despite all of the similarities, here’s the difference between our “you had to be there moments” and our witness to Christ. No matter how well we describe our favorite moments, those moments have come and gone. No one we describe them to can go back and experience them with us. We say, “you had to be there” but the reality is that they can never be there with us. That’s not the case with the glory of Jesus and his Gospel. When the people we witness to place their faith in Jesus, they can experience what we’ve experienced in Jesus. They can understand the wonder of the Gospel and what it means for the world. They can experience the love of Jesus. They can join us in those experiences of Jesus, not just now, but forever. Our job as Christians, is to daily do our best, both in word and deed, to tell people of the glory of Jesus and His Gospel so that they desire with all of their heart to experience it with us. Our job is to daily tell people of our “you had to be there moments” with Jesus and then invite them to be there with us. Our words will never be able to do Jesus or the Gospel justice, but they don’t have to. We just have to do our best to describe it all, and then leave it up to the Holy Spirit to draw those around us into the glory of the Gospel with us. We should all sound like a group of friends that just got back from the greatest road trip ever and now we joyfully won’t stop telling the stories over and over again to our friends who weren’t there. If you’ve been around people like that, it’s actually fun to see their joy. It makes you wish you were there. And with Jesus, you can be.

Nanny Jesus Savior Story

I want to invite people into that joy. We get to invite people into that joy.

All created things are failing her, her memory, medicine, doctors, but Jesus never fails her.

Conclusion

Jesus is the origin of our worship, hope, and witness.

Pray