Welcome And Series Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome and thanks for joining us on this episode of the Midweek Podcast, brought to you by a Fresh Wind Church. Each week our team brings you new content to help you take steps towards Jesus and discover more in Christ. Today's episode is hosted by Pastor Ryan.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Hey, welcome back to the Midweek Podcast. Pastor Ryan joined again this week with Pastor Tim. Last week we had a little bit of a special uh addition, Tim. Joy hopped on the podcast with me, and we got to recap the Mother's Day sermon and then also kick off our brand new series, Signs and Glory, and uh taking a look at the Gospel of John. And so uh week one was a lot of overview on John, and then you dove into the prologue, uh, the first 18 verses in uh in John, and I remember you looking at me being like, What have you done to me?

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Right. Well, I had 30 minutes to cover it. It's only 18 verses. You think that would be enough. You would think it would be enough. But it I don't know if you knew it or not, and we want to be um we're we're trying to get uh John done in uh one summer, and we're gonna get hung up. We we know we are. There's gonna be some things that take a little extra time, but we wanted to uh get started in a way that would facilitate us getting through the book uh by the time we start um preaching our series sermon when school comes back in. So uh John is a pretty exciting thing to preach out of. The problem is the first 18 verses in John have uh seven. I didn't even know there was seven. I thought there was like five, but seven doctrinal statements that uh really um are are really the backbone of Christendom, Christianity. And uh those first eighteen uh verses, as I said Sunday, are uh theologically thick. And um, you just we read over it quickly and and and we we skip a lot of things that get said in there. John didn't do this on accident. This was I

Why John Starts At The Beginning

SPEAKER_02 2:30

want you to know what you are about to learn, and it is deep.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Just uh the opening in the beginning was the word, and and you you were diving into that on Sunday. Just how much meaning John's packing into to that, you know, just that small little phrase to open up his gospel. And I I liked how you you said, you know, he doesn't even start at you know John's birth, he goes all the way back to the very beginning, before there was the word was there.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Right. And that's I I think that's important. One of the things I put um in my opening was that um the word, that actual phrase is something that uh if you were Jewish you'd be familiar with it in the old testament. And they had a they had a debate. They they're who is this? Because this word doesn't act like you know, a voice in your head. This word walks a person outside, this word touches a guy's face. Who is this word? And um so there were back in uh uh right when they uh put the uh Talmud together. I was looking for that word. Uh the Jewish Talmud together, they were they were already arguing whether there was two powers in heaven. And it's something uh because of Christianity they kind of veered away from and uh because they wanted to know who this guy was. Ezekiel in in Ezekiel, and he sees his uh vision, he sees a son of man sitting on the throne. It looks like a human, is what he said. Daniel said, uh, there's a man riding on the clouds. Um it looks like a human. And that is something that um the Jews didn't have a a hard time with you know God showing up in a human form to do a specific thing. They didn't have and they understood that that's just like I think the term we would use, an avatar, and um, and then God is in heaven and he's just running this thing down there. And I think we all we all watched enough movies that we kind of figure all that out, but that's in in Greek terminology and Roman terminology, nobody had a problem with that, that God was um in the heavens, but then he could show up in a form. Um and so there there was no problem with that, but this this form that kept showing up, kept um reacting like he was Yahweh. And um just different things when Moses was in the wanted God to walk by him and and someone put him in the cleft of the rock. Well, that was God, yeah. But God was walking by him while the other one was put him in the cleft of the rock. So the Jews have been struggling with this kind of stuff for a long time, and it was good to have a sermon where we could kind of pull that out and say, look, the word was doing stuff in the old testament, and that was Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Yeah, there's this if you just read through scripture, it's real easy to get to the New Testament and think, oh, this is when Jesus came on the scene, and John's like, nah, he's been around a while. Yeah. And one of the things that I loved about the Sermon on Sunday is it really reminds us is as people who study scripture, read the read the word, we can't do it on autopilot. You know, like you gotta pay attention because these guys is they're you know, this is inspired word of God, it's useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training, and wretched, all those things. And they're very intentional when they're saying this. And so the word of the Lord spoke, and then he took me outside, and you're like, on Sunday, you're like, Well, who took him outside? Well, the word, right? Wait, I thought, wasn't that did he hear it? Was it a vision? Was it a dream? No, it he took him outside, right? And if you're just reading on autopilot, it's just so easy to skim past that.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

Well, it's it's part of our vernacular because we use um when we hear the term the word of the Lord came to me, we we we've seen it in movies, we've read about it in books, and in us, it's I'm schizophrenic and I I heard a voice. That's what we're thinking. Um, but that's not what's happening, and it did happen in the old testament that way, but in some of the the um situations you we find ourselves in in the old testament, it's actually a person. Like, I didn't know if you knew this or not, but even when Samuel was uh living with Eli, he was serving in the temple just as a little boy. And uh the scripture says the word of the Lord hadn't come often. And when you when you see the word of the Lord hasn't come often, you're like Jesus hadn't showed up in a while back then. You know, Eli was crooked, his sons were crooked, and then Samuel shows up, and Eli's training him to be a priest and a prophet, and uh suddenly at least he had enough brains, Eli said. Next time um you hear that voice calling, you say, I am here, but then we see um

The Word In The Old Testament

SPEAKER_02 8:20

that word um manifest himself right there in front of Samuel. So that's another one. I didn't add that into the well, I had it in the sermon, but I thought uh two's good enough. We can't go, can't add another one to it.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

Ryan gave me 18 verses, I gotta get them all in. Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

So the doctrine of the Trinity right there in the beginning was the word, was Jesus, and the word was with God, and the word was God.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

There's again, just another thing to dive into here, but there's this I idea going around. I mean, I I've heard more people bring this up, and just in the past couple years, and I think it surfaces every every so often, but this idea that you know Jesus never claimed to be God, scripture never elevates him to that point, and you're like it's it's right here. Yeah. Um, let alone his other statements. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father, I and the Father are one. I mean, over and over again, it it's clear, but we we get this idea, and you know, I think we read something on on the internet or we hear some guy in a YouTube video say something and it sounds good. And it's easy to just run off with that idea and be like, oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

Sounds intelligent is the problem. And I think that's what um messes a lot of us up is you know, we wanna we want to deal with the intelligent people who really kind of know what's going on, and when they say something like that, you're like, oh well, my pastor don't know what he's talking about.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

And uh we we brought this up on the podcast a while ago. Remember that one guy he was on with uh oh, was it Joe Rogan? And he talked about, you know, I studied Greek or whatever Hebrew for all these years, and Wes Huff got on there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

It's like uh some guy told uh Joe Rogan that he spent 13 years teaching himself to speak ancient Hebrew, and then Wes Huff got on there. And you know, that sounds wow, that guy was disciplined and amazing. Yeah. And Wes Huff got on and says, that's just a two-semester course in just about any any seminary degree. So it's it's um be careful what you what you see on there, because what they want to do is they want to crush the idea of the Trinity that Jesus was just a man. He wasn't who he claims to be, what John claims he is. And I I think uh the beginning of John 1 1, there there's every religion has to deal with John 1 1. They have to do something, they have to change the wording. Um I think the Hoba Jehovah's Witness changed it in the beginning was the word, and word was a God, and instead of with God, or the word was God. They they gotta mess that up because they they don't want Jesus to be the incarnate Christ. If you if Jesus is not God, uh then Christianity falls apart uh from the get-go. And uh that's what they that's what they want to happen. They want to say that Jesus was a a good teacher and and and I think it was um C. S. Lewis, he's the one that said, look, he's either a liar or he's crazy, lunatic, or he's God.

unknown 12:00

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

And uh yeah, he said liar, lunatic, or lord. Oh, and yeah, he's a whole lot better than we are at this point.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

We gotta we got, you know, three points. They gotta have the start with the same letter. He's a pastor's pastor.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Yeah. So and and that's pretty important. So, right away, number one, the first doctrinal statement we get into in those first 18 verses is the Trinity, which is the mystery, uh, trying to understand how God is. And he's not um he's not like you, who's a son, but he's also a father, and he's also a husband. That's not what they're talking about here. Three distinct persons

Trinity Claims And Online Myths

SPEAKER_02 12:45

in one essence. And uh that's that's the mystery of the Trinity, and and uh I love it starting out in the first verse. Here, let me lay this on you so that you're not just jogging down the street, you're carrying 50 pounds.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Yeah, Paul's like, I wish you guys could could mature so that I can give you some meat or something. You know, I gotta keep feeding you this milk. And John's like, no, we're gonna we're going right to the deep end here, man. In the beginning was the word, he was with God, he was God, and then he moves right from the the doctrine of Trinity, bam, right to the doctrine of creation. Everything was created by him, through him, nothing that's been created, you know, wasn't that wasn't created from him. He just lays it all out there, and you're like, John, dude, let me above water catch my breath. And he's like, No, in the first three verses, he's already got two doctrinal statements laid out here.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

I think it's I think it's great too. I think we forget that Jesus was the one who said, Let there be light. You know, um Genesis chapter one lays it out for us, and and we think because it's the old testament, we just say God, and we forget that Jesus was there, and then John just reveals to us that he was the creative power, he was the one who created, and that doesn't take anything away from the Father, uh, because they're both God, they're both the same essence. Um, but it reminds us that the guy we call our Savior, our Lord, our uh the Bible calls him a brother, uh the firstborn of many brethren. He's our um friend, you know, we're a friend of God. And at the same time, he is our creator, he spoke us into existence, he spoke life. There was no life as we know it, no soul, no eternal being uh with reason yet until he spoke it. And uh so the doctrine of creation is uh right there, smacks you in the face. Um matter is not eternal, everything that exists owes its origin to the Son of God. Now, so when we say God created us, um we get kind of Sunday schoolish, but no, he created the laws of ph physics, he created the uh black hole in the center of our galaxy, he created it all. There's uh uh I was watching a video on uh Ion the the moon around Jupiter and how it's um it's frozen because it's so far from the sun, but at the same time it's it's uh volcanoes are erupting all the way to where we can see it with the telescope. It's crazy what's going on there, and Jesus created that. And we forget who we're dealing with when we're uh because he became relatable to us, you know, and we forget that he is God.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

That's so good. Um three verses in, two doctrines down, and then we move on to the doctrine

Creation And Jesus As Creator

SPEAKER_01 16:10

of incarnation, um, which yeah, man, it's like John, what are we writing here, man? Is this are you telling me a story? Is this a you know uh your doctoral you know thesis? The you know what what is happening here? And he's like, we're gonna lay this thing out. And John 1.14, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. This idea that that God came and took on the flesh, he became a man like like us. Um what other god in history? You know, there's so much of every other religion, is all the stuff that we can do to try to relate to that God and and get that God's attention, and and then ours is like, no, I'm gonna come and I'm gonna be like you.

SPEAKER_02 17:03

And I'm gonna relate to you. Um it's it's huge. So let's just think about this. We're on three. We're in three doctrines, and uh we're in 14 verses. I could preach on the Trinity, take me four weeks. Take me four weeks. One on the Father, one on the Son, one on the Holy Spirit, and one to bring them all together. Wrap it up. So that's a that's a month in the first verse. Yeah. Okay. And then secondly, creation. Well, if we're going to talk about creation, we got to go all the way back to creation. So we'd have to probably split that up in the first um half of creation, the second half of creation, then creating mankind, and then the fact that Jesus, he was the one walking in the garden when he showed up and said, Hey, Adam, where are you? They were hiding from Jesus. And we, you know, and so uh there's another month right there, and then we just get right into the incarnation, fully God and fully human at the same time, which takes a few weeks to explain. So if you're reading through John today and you say, Well, we're just moving right through, you probably need to uh pick up a uh uh commentary uh to ride along with it, because this this is thick, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. He that word dwelt means tabernacled. He pitched his tent with us, and that you know, to the Jews of that time, they're looking straight back to uh the tabernacle

Incarnation And A God With Flesh

SPEAKER_02 18:51

where God's presence was. And that's what he's telling the Jews, his presence was here, and he goes on to say in just a minute that we walked with him, we saw him, we experienced him. Not not like we did in um the desert in the Old Testament where we weren't allowed in that room or we would die. You know, this was he came, and we got to lay hands on him, we got to touch him and eat with him, and I mean that's huge. And then on the Greek uh side, dwelt or tent, Paul uses that that same term when he likes, I want to get rid of my old tent and put on my new tent and get after it, you know, and that's that's the way they begin to phrase the idea of us uh having a body. We've got to go back to C. S. Lewis again. He says, You don't um you don't have a soul. You have a body, you are a soul. And uh that's a that's a distinction that comes right out of the doctrine of incarnation. And uh so uh Jesus took on flesh and dwelt among us, but he took it on forever. He's always gonna be a human being now. Yeah, he's never not gonna be human, he'll always be God, fully God in the Trinity, but he'll be a human doing that. And I think that's something that we it slips our mind a little bit when we think that uh he has this resurrection body and we are gonna be like that. Whatever that is, I have a class where we punch at it and poke at it with a stick and and try to set it on fire and try to freeze it, but we can't figure it out. But we're gonna be whatever that is for eternity, just like him.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

No, I read this uh statistic, I guess, one time um recently, and it said that more and more Christians are identifying as spiritual but not religious. And so there's this increase in I want to do spiritual things, I just don't want to have to show up anywhere. Right. You know, and I this whole idea of like the body, um it's kind of fallen out of favor, you know. Uh AI agents are becoming more and more and more popular. Um you can get an AI girlfriend, you can get an AI counselor, you can get an AI therapist. Um, we we you know was it Facebook tried to do the whole metaverse thing. I don't know if that took off like they thought it was, but this whole idea, you know, we're just gonna show up in these virtual spaces, we don't gotta be anywhere anymore. But man, I think there's there's a lot of that in us where it's like we're moving further and further away from that kind of human interaction and becoming more and more reclusive and secluded. And it's not new, right? This whole idea that like I I'm interested in spiritual things, but I don't Want to have to be there to do it all. I mean, 2,000 years ago, you know, Paul and those they're preaching at the Gnostics, like, hey, this is yeah, no. And it the whole same thing. Everything physical is bad, everything spiritual is good. And I mean that we we're seeing that come back around. That let's just get rid of all this and we'll do it all, you know, in the metaverse or whatever you want to call it.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

Yeah. In Japan, it's not even a it's it's the culture, you know, to stay away from people. I was watching this uh uh girl in China, and she's flipped her life around, and I guess a lot of young people are, and they are sleeping in the daytime, getting up at four, and staying up all night, so there's less people, so she doesn't have to talk to anybody. And I thought, okay, she's just creepy, that's not a big deal. But she goes into a restaurant, she goes into a restaurant that is all separated, one seat for one person, there's walls around the sides of you and in front of you. You have your own hot plate in front of you, and they give you the food. You don't even get to look at them. It comes through a slot after you order it on your phone, and you cook it and eat right there alone. And these are these are the restaurants in China. Um that that is we are getting into a weird place. Social anxiety has turned into a plague.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Right. And so you you you take all that and say, okay, you know, the body's dirty, the body's bad, we we gotta get rid of this. Um and so we live in this, you know, either this metaverse or the spiritual realm or where everything's spiritualized, but and if if that's where you go, and I mean the whole kind of point of of Gnosticism, then if a body's bad, a God who takes on a body is pretty embarrassing. You know, if that's where we're going, and the big distinction here is Jesus is saying, I'm not that. I'm gonna come and I'm gonna take this thing on. And you were talking in the sermon on Sunday, like there's only one thing that could have paid the ultimate price. An idea can't die for you, you know. It took a body, it took a man to come.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

And we forget, we're we're these doctrines are tied together, the doctrine of creation and the doctrine of incarnation. He created man, and what did he say? This is very good, and I'm gonna prove it to you because I'm gonna be one too. This is how much I love it. Um, so don't get caught up in that uh transhumanism. I don't, my body's not gonna define me or whatever. Well, if you're a Christian, your body's gonna live forever. So um, and you're gonna live right along there with Christ, too. So let's uh let's be grateful for the creation he's given us. And I don't have a great one. My knees hurt and my hips hurt, and um, it wants to lay in bed a whole lot longer than it should, and it doesn't want to go to bed on time. It it's a fight. But one day, one day, I'm gonna be like him.

unknown 25:34

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

And I'll still have a body, but I'll be like him.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Next

Revelation And Jesus Explains God

SPEAKER_01 25:40

one, doctrine of revelation. I think this is one that you were like, ooh, man, pulling that out right out of here, out of John.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Yeah. I you know the problem with with when people are discussing God is he's unrelatable. And um I don't I remember you gotta pull it right out of Exodus where he's like, you guys come on up to the mountain. You know, I want to talk to you. And they're like, uh no. Moses, you go, you you go and come back and tell us what he said. Because he says, he says, come up to the mountain, but don't touch the mountain or you'll die. Don't let your goats get on the mountain, they'll die too. But come right up here, and they're like, No.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

And like a little bit of a buffer zone, actually.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

Yeah, let's let's get some guys out there with those little things that they got at the movie theater to keep us from getting too close. But I think um we have a desire to not know our God. Um, because then we feel like we can misunderstand when we understand completely, and then we can say, Well, I didn't die. I didn't know. I didn't know. Um but it's bliss, right? Yeah, Jesus comes down and says, No, we're not playing that game. I am going to be the God, the infinite creator God, and I'm gonna walk among you. And that John positions uh Jesus as the ultimate statement of who God is. If you want to know what the Father is like, look at me. This is what he's like, because we're the same. And uh man, it's just it's huge. The Greek word for declared, because he says, No one has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, he has declared him, is the word that pastors use all the time. It's exegesis. Um, well, the the root is I can't say the root, it's uh like exegestapo or something like that. I don't think gestapo. Something like that. Something like that. But in other words, exegesis is how do I interpret the scripture? And Jesus is literally interpreting or explaining the father to us. That's what that's what John is saying. He interprets the father for you. So you want to know what was going on in the old testament? Look at Jesus, because the father is not any different than he is, because they're the same.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Well, that was Jesus' problem with the disciples, right? They're like, well, just show us the father. And he's like, How long do you guys have to be with me before you get this? Right. If you've seen me, you've seen the father. I interpret him, I explain, I show the father to you. If you've seen me, you want to know the father, know me. You want to see him, watch me. You want to follow him, follow after me. That man. This is a huge idea. And I mean, right? It Jesus would. I mean, it's one of the main reasons the religious leaders wanted to crucify him, right? He claims to be God. He says God is his father. We're gonna talk more about that in as we go through John. Um, I was just reading through it. I'm trying to read through the the whole book every single week during this series. So I'm trying to get through the book of John uh 17 times over the the course of this series. Um, I just hit that part today.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

Um have you read it from um that group of Bibles we bought that with no bibliothca? Man, it is it is great, it flows so much better without it being broken up into um sermonizing pieces. He knows what I mean because he's a pastor, you know. When you're reading the Bible as a pastor, you get hung up on titles and uh words and uh repeated words and things because you're taught from the beginning, these how you build a sermon. You grab a hold of those things and you build the sermon around it. And uh, but when you take all the um paraphernalia out and you just got the words there, it it reads, it is.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

I'll have to pull that out and do that during the series is read it, read it in that that version. Man, I so years ago, for if you don't know what we're talking about, I think it's a set uh series of books. Um I think it was called Bibliotheka, and I think it was on Kickstarter or something, and I saw this guy doing this thing, and I bought you and I both a copy of those books. They've largely sat on my bookshelf, but I love them. They're pretty. The guy did an amazing job when he put them together. One of my kids wanted to read them, and I was like, listen, you read this in the house at this desk, you don't take it anywhere. Then I went and I got in my wife's van and I saw it laying on the floor of the passenger side of the van. What? I about went ballistic.

SPEAKER_02 31:00

You bought me that stuff and I have hidden it, and I put a handkerchief over it so it wouldn't get dust on it.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

I found it on the living floor of the van. I sent a picture to my boys. I was like, are you kidding me? I'm gonna have to pull it out and uh I'll read it in that version too.

SPEAKER_02 31:19

Um

Salvation By Faith And Adoption

SPEAKER_02 31:20

so where are we at? We did four, right? Uh four.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

You said that there was seven. What's next?

SPEAKER_02 31:25

Uh the doctrine of soteriology. Uh John contrasts those in these first 18 verses, uh, who reject Christ and those who receive him. He's mapping out how a person enters the family of God. He says it in uh verses 12. He says, To them he gave the right to become the children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God, born of God. Now, when we get into John chapter 3, probably one of the most famous chapters in the Bible, John three, sixteen, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever would believe in him would not perish but have everlasting life. And that is John is already laying the groundwork for the foundation of salvation through faith alone, by faith, by believing in his name. Now, the two most important um scriptures, uh, I think in John chapter three, as far as soteriology, is John chapter three, verses sixteen, which I just quoted, and then three thirty-six, because they go together. The one who believes, this is what 36 says, the one who believes in the sun has eternal life. John says right here in the prologue, we're gonna get to this. This is what salvation is. The one who believes in the sun has eternal life, but the one who rejects the sun will not see life. Instead, the wrath of God remains on him. And we we need to remember um John is gonna he's talking about signs and glory. And he's he's given us this preclude. Uh that's not the word I'm looking for. Give me the word. It's not in there. There's a big hole. There's a big hole in my brain right now. I'm trying to figure out where you're going. Yeah, he's he's letting us know up front that Jesus is gonna be the answer um to our sin problem, our salvation problem, and that those who believe on him, whatever you think that means, but your belief, your faith in Jesus is going to change your relationship with God. If you believe and you receive, you will not be rejected. And uh and you will not be under God's wrath anymore. Right here in I mean the prologue before we even get started. Um so what do we get out of that? Salvation is by faith. It and what happens when we believe? We're adopted, we become part of the family, not part of the army of light or however you want to look at it. No, you are going to be brought adopted into the family to the point that you um you are an heir with Jesus. Whoever Jesus is, and we got into that, he's he's the creator God, he's he's the God all over the old testament, he's the one who came. Whoever he is, we're gonna be co-heirs with him. And that's what God is actually offering people. I think we all we see is okay, and you know, I won't have to pay for my sins. That's all we see. And he's like, No, you're gonna be an heir to something that you can't even imagine. So that's five soteriology.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

You know, in I think it's uh Hebrews, um, right? Well, everybody by grace, uh it was um oh gosh, Martin Luther. No, Romans, not Hebrews, Romans. He comes I'm getting all these mixed up in my head. Uh you've been hanging around me too long. For real. There's that hole that you were talking about. You got that, you got you got that black hole. Yeah, it sucks me right in. Um, Luther, he comes to that, you know, you are saved by grace. This is not of yourself. And so he comes up with this whole, and we're saved by grace through faith. Um, and it changed everything for him. John here is saying that. Right. I mean, he you he gave them the right to be children of God to those who believe in his name, who were not, or who were born not of blood, nor the flesh of the will, nor of the will of man, but of God. He's just laying it out. Human effort had nothing to do with this. This is born of God. God did this. And who did he do it for? To those who believe in his name. What is God's will that you would believe? You're we're gonna get to that in John 2. What does God want from you? He wants you to believe in the Son that He sent. That's what God wants. And if you'll do it, He'll adopt you as His child. You will be a child of God.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

But that's that it's not over there. It's just the beginning. Right. It's just

General Revelation And Common Grace

SPEAKER_02 37:00

the beginning of what He's gonna reveal to you. Number six, uh, the doctrine of general revelation and common grace. Now, this is something um uh that you kick around in the seminary, doesn't show up uh much, but what it's talking about is someone who doesn't know God, will God give them grace or common grace if they're out in the ocean and um they're stuck in a raft and they say, God, I don't know if you're there, but please save me. Does God listen to that? Um this is the doctrine of common grace. And then there's the doctrine of general revelation, which is the same thing, and we get it out of John um 1, 4, and 9. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. For us to even understand, uh, Romans 1 says you can look up into the sky and see that there's something going on, and we we got it going on right now. We have um here in our culture this struggle of look what we found in our DNA. Okay, this this has got it's a code. Somebody has to write a code, you know. Um, so how many times does um uh crab walk on the beach and and accidentally in some way says um I love my wife Joy in the sand on the beach? No, someone walking along with reason and intelligence has to use those letters to write that code that as we walk by we can understand. Uh, Ryan loves his wife. He's just trying to get points. But this is uh my wife actually did that to me last vacation. We were down in Florida and we were way up on the 14th floor, and she wrote this big old message out to me because I was up there on the balcony and I didn't see it. So, and I didn't even get a chance to lie about it, you know. She goes, Did you see me on the beach? I said, Yeah. She goes, Well, what did you think? And I'm like, You look great. She goes, No, when I wrote in the sand. And uh so fail. It was a it was a bad fail, right? But um he gave every my man the ability to see the light to see him as he came into the world. And uh that's that is something that is argued about a lot, you know. Uh, but I believe that every man can see the light of Jesus and he has to choose whether to receive it or reject it. Um the core truth is all human reason and conscience and life are sustained by the word, by Jesus, giving every person a baseline awareness of truth and existence.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

That's why Paul said man's without excuse.

SPEAKER_02 40:09

Right. We have you know, we want to believe they want to believe in Gnosticism and you know the spiritual part is the good part and the body is the bad part, and all these different things that come up in this argument. And John right here in the first 18 verses is saying the only reason you even think about that is because Jesus brought the light into the world. That's the only way you can reason it, you know? So um let's start uh let's start

Law Versus Grace And The Cross

SPEAKER_02 40:45

number seven. The doctrine of law versus great. Grace. Great.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

It's great. Law versus great.

SPEAKER_02 40:55

So, and this starts right, the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. That is, that is well, expound on that a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

We needed the law, right? The law was good. Uh Jesus said, I didn't come to um to abolish it, but to fulfill it. The law was a good gift, it exposed our our need. We needed a savior, we needed someone to come and to to rescue us, and we wouldn't have known that without the law. Paul goes on to talk a lot about that. We needed the law to show us just how sinful we were, how, how messed up we had really gotten ourselves. And and so we have this the law here that shows us that. And the law was given through Moses, but it was never God's ultimate aim. There was something coming, and and grace and truth came came through Jesus, is how John says it. And so Jesus comes to to fulfill that law and all the things that the law was trying to get us to do, and and teach us how to be right with God and how to get back into good standing with God. You know, every day I'd have to bring another sacrifice, and I'd have to do this thing, and so and if I did this, now I had to do this. And Jesus came and he said, I'm going to die once for all time. He fulfills everything that the law was pointing to and died the death that we deserve to die, right? And now we get to live under that grace.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

Yeah, it it's an octopus. It it's got these tentacles that go out everywhere. This doctrine of law versus grace. Paul said that um the law was our taskmaster, it was just showing us our human need. We needed a savior, and divine favor and mercy show up in a person, the word in Jesus. That's right. And uh I don't I don't think we understand it because we don't have a full complex theory around it or thinking around it, not theory, but thinking. Uh, we got to understand that everyone who had died up until the time of Jesus uh went to the place of the dead. They didn't go to heaven, they weren't in the presence of God, they couldn't be there because they were sinful. Yeah, but they had faith. They didn't didn't uh Abraham believe and they counted his faith? Yes, that is true. But that faith he had had not shown up in the person of Jesus yet. So there was a paradise and there was a Hades part of the place of the dead. And if you were in faith, like Abraham was, you were on the paradise side. And if you weren't in faith, now only God is complex enough to know who's who and where they should go. But when Jesus died on the cross, he went and sat. The captives free because he became the faith that they had already. Um, that's not the same for us. We choose to believe in him, and that faith saves us, but that faith hadn't shown up yet. And when it shows up, he goes down to paradise and he sets the captives free.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

Well, Peter talks about that, right? Um he read it, it's like he's preaching to the dead. What is happening here? Right. Man, when Jesus was in the tomb, he was busy, man. He's like, I have to go. There's some people. Abraham, Moses, Noah, you know, all these guys, I gotta go set them free.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

Right.

SPEAKER_01 44:40

Let's let's go. Um they they they were waiting on this, right? Um God was gonna send his son.

SPEAKER_02 44:48

His um nobody could be in the presence of the Father until sin was taken care of, and it was taken care of in the person of Jesus Christ once for all time.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

This coming Sunday, uh, we're actually gonna take a look. John the Baptist Jesus shows up on the scene and he says, Look, the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. Picks it up and carries it off. It changed everything. Yeah. It changed everything.

SPEAKER_02 45:22

It should lead us to praise him is what it should do. And I think when we talk about Trinitarianism, creation, Christology, Revelation, soteriology, and covenant theology within just a couple paragraphs, I think we're overwhelmed. Um but that whole I I just I take this uh when he says grace upon grace and just all these doctrine. When we say doctrines, everybody's like, okay, that's that's the stuff nobody wants to learn about the Bible. No, doctrines are the grace of God placed on you. And and he describes Jesus as grace upon grace, as sitting on the beach and wave after wave after wave of grace coming on you. That's John chapter 1, um verses 1 through 18. It's just wave after wave. Every one of these doctrines is just more grace. He's just pouring on us. So drink it in.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

Drink it in.

Practical Next Steps And Wrap Up

SPEAKER_01 46:30

Well, what a what a start to John, right? Uh we're only two sermons into this series, introduction and then the prologue, the first 18 verses, and covering a lot of of really foundational truth uh for the Christian life. And I want to encourage you guys, um, you know, show up on Sundays for sure. If you can't be in person, you definitely need to go back, watch it on demand. And then if you haven't, you know, made the midweek podcast a big part of your weekly routine. I would encourage you to do it at least through this series. Um, because there's, as you can see, seven of these core doctrines. Like, how am I gonna fit that in a 30, 35 minute sermon?

SPEAKER_02 47:13

Um speaking of that, um, I stayed in my lane and I skied behind the boat, is what I told the first service. I'm trying to just try to ski behind the boat because there's so much to cover, and I'm not gonna get out in the waves. And the second service, then and we don't care if they sit there all day, but um but we got to get the first we'd love for you to come to the second service. So uh the first service, we got to get people out of there in the parking lot empty so the next group can come in, and that's a great problem to have. One day um we won't have that problem, but I just want everybody to know that I was done on time. So I'm the next the next passage of scriptures. Um there's a lot going on. So we'll see how Pastor Ryan does this coming week. I'm excited to be here. I'm I think I'm gonna have a stopwatch, and I'm gonna click it on the time. Um, but just what we've shown you here today, seven doctrines are mentioned here in the first 18 verses of the Bible, first in first 18 verses of John. So this is this is a thick book. It's gonna talk about things, it's gonna take every one of these things and express them in many ways. And uh just like Jesus is the exegesis of the Father, we want you to um have a great interpretation of what's going on in John because it is it is for you. That's right. It is for you to know. And so pick up a commentary if you want to, uh, a commentary on John. Um pick up a book about John the Baptist because we're gonna talk about him. Um there's uh well, there's a lot of things going on, and uh John is he's showing you signs and glory all the way through, and we want you to revel in that grace upon grace.

SPEAKER_01 49:12

Yep, definitely join us on Sundays, tune into the midweek podcast where we can dive into the the stuff that kind of got left on the cutting room floor, but we'll save it for here. Uh, we want to cram as much into the series as as we can. Good CSB study Bible or ESV study Bible, something like that wouldn't would help. If commentary sounds overwhelming, get you a good study Bible as you read through it.

SPEAKER_02 49:35

Commentaries are overwhelming. They are.

SPEAKER_01 49:37

They they definitely especially some of those guys, they're like, I'm smart and I'm gonna prove it to you.

SPEAKER_02 49:42

Yeah, and they prove it, man.

SPEAKER_01 49:44

I'm like, where did he get that from? I just want to know what dictionary he was pulling from. I'm like, I gotta have a dictionary just to get through your commentary.

SPEAKER_03 49:52

Right.

SPEAKER_01 49:52

Um, but there's there's so much here. Um we'll we'll do our best to to break it down for you for for you each week.

SPEAKER_02 50:00

We'll try to catch things like these seven doctrines that were mentioned in the uh prelude, um, so that you you can figure out how rich this book really is. Um it's not just another gospel. Okay, this is the one uh where John is is revealing to you who Jesus really is, not just his history or what happened or what he taught. He wants you to know him personally. And that's what this entire book is about is you knowing him and knowing that you can know him. Um so we can talk about it all night, but

Prayer And Closing Announcements

SPEAKER_02 50:40

you better you better pray and get us out of it.

SPEAKER_01 50:42

Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much uh for this book. And Lord, just how much we've already learned in just uh a couple weeks. And Lord, I'm I'm excited about what you're gonna continue to teach and reveal to us uh over the next um I guess 15, 16 weeks to go. And uh Lord, you have you have done all of this so that we can we can be adopted and become children of God. Um you took on flesh. Um we can't even comprehend what all that means. Um why you would do it. What was it about us that you would go through all of this? But Lord, we're grateful. And I thank you so much for Jesus. I thank you that he came, that he paid the price we could never pay, so that we could know him. By knowing him, we could know you, and that we could one day be like him and reign as co-heir with Christ. Um, Lord, what a what a glorious day that's gonna be. And so, Father, I just uh pray that you continue to lead and guide us as we go through this series in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen and amen.

SPEAKER_00 51:51

Thanks again for joining us for this episode of the Midweek Podcast. We'd love to hear from you. Let us know how God is using this resource in your life or send any podcast questions or topic ideas to podcast at a freshwind.org. If you would like to support this ministry financially and help us continue offering new resources that equip you to discover more in Christ, simply text any amount to the number 84321. We're so grateful for your support. Make sure to tune in next week for a brand new episode of the Midweek Podcast. Be blessed and have a great week.