- So why no story of Jesus’ birth in the Gospel of John?
- Actually the story is there, with a message that echos through the whole book, and speaks deeply to us even today!
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Sermon Slides - John’s version of the Christmas Story (which is usually missed)
Week 1: Prophecies
and Preparations
for Jesus’s Coming
- Preparation of the World
- Prophecies from Genesis to Malachi
- Focus on Isaiah
Week 2: God Takes a Human Body
- The Messy Line of Jesus
- Historical setting of the world Jesus was born into
- The Reason why God took on a human body
1. Jesus came “from above”
Goal for today
- To hear John’s telling of the story
and to feel its power
John’s teaching in 5 Steps
5. Now Jesus sends us!
4. So we need to depend totally on Jesus
3. Jesus totally depended on power “from above”
2. We must be born “from above”
1. Jesus came “from above”
John 1:1–18
1. Jesus came “from above”
John’s teaching in 5 Steps
5. Now Jesus sends us!
4. So we need to depend totally on Jesus
3. Jesus totally depended on power “from above”
2. We must be born “from above”
1. Jesus came “from above”
2. We must be born “from above”
anothen “from above” or “again”?
Elsewhere in John:
- John 3:31 He who comes anothen [from above or again] is over all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is over all.
- John 19:11 Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you anothen [from above or again].”
- John 19:23 Jesus’ garment woven anothen “from the top”
John 1
- 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 humans, but of God.
John 3:1–19
- Now there was man, a Pharisee named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council.
- This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”
- Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born from above he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
- Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
- Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
- That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
- Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’
- If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
- No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven—the Son of Man.
- And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
- that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
- For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
- For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him.
- Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
- Now this is the basis for judging: that the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil.
based on ESV & NET Bibles with some changes by AMF
3. Jesus constantly depended on power “from above”
John 4:34, 5:30, 36 & 6:38
- Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to complete his work.
- I can do nothing on my own initiative. Just as I hear, I judge, and my judgement is just, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of the one who sent me.
- “But I have a testimony greater than that from John. For the deeds that the Father has assigned me to complete—the deeds I am now doing—testify about me that the Father has sent me.
- For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.
4. We need to depend on Jesus, just as Jesus did on the Father
John 6
- So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”
- They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
- Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves.
- No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
John 6 cont’d
- Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.
- I am the bread of life.
- Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.
- This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.
- I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
John 6 cont’d
- As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.
John 15
- “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.
5. Now Jesus sends us!
John 17
- Just as you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.
- And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
- I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
- that they will all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. I pray that they will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me.
- The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,
- I in them and you in me—that they may be completely one, so that the world will know that you sent me, and you have loved them just as you have loved me.
John’s teaching in 5 Steps
5. Now Jesus sends us!
4. So we need to depend totally on Jesus
3. Jesus totally depended on power “from above”
2. We must be born “from above”
1. Jesus came “from above”
Updated on 2022-12-11 by Andrew Fountain
