The extraordinary poem hidden in the first 18 verses of John

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Speaker: 
Andrew Fountain
Date: 
Sun, 2019-09-08

Download a PDF of the handout here: John 1 handout

  • Be impacted by the power and the beauty of this painting of Jesus at the beginning of John. My Jesus, God from all eternity, came down to earth as a human so that I might have new life.

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Sermon Outline - The extraordinary poem hidden in the first 18 verses of John

Goal:
To be impacted by the power and the beauty
of the painting of Jesus
at the beginning of John.

  • In our educated, organized minds, we want the truth laid out in 7 simple steps
    • “Give it to me as a logical system!”
  • But what the Bible often gives us is a Michelangelo painting
  • We get frustrated because it is not as organized as we would like it to be
  • But it is so much better to hear what God is saying to us in his own terms, rather than deciding how we want him to speak.

Today

  1. Explain what we are doing
  2. Work through the passage, verse by verse
  3. Ask how we should respond to it

The Gospel of John is like a pool,

shallow enough around the edge for a child to play,

but so deep that no diver can reach the bottom.
author unknown

Themes in John

  1. The life of God has come down to earth, so we can partake in the divine
  2. This life is received by faith—believing in Jesus. How does that happen?
  • to summarize:
    • Jesus is “from above”
    • If we are to be part of what he is doing, we must have some of this “from above-ness” in us
    • This present world is on it’s way out. It’s like a building that is condemned, but not yet demolished.

How should we respond to it?

  1. Jesus came that we could be “born of God”
    Grasp the difference between the Old and the New
    What is From Below and what is From Above
    Live with a focus on the New, not the Old
  2. Think of how precious Jesus is to you.
    He has come from the Father’s side, to you
    So that you might have his life

Updated on 2019-09-01 by Andrew Fountain