The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, according to John, the first chapter, beginning at verse 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made, that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. And verse 14, and the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. The glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, thanks be to the Lord. Let us pray together. Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for a time to celebrate and give thanks. Thank you for the time to remember yet again that you have not left us in the midst of darkness. You have not hidden behind a veil of uncertainty or of unknowing, but you have come and spoken and beyond speaking. You have manifested yourself in our midst. Please, O God, give us all of these people here, grace to understand how extraordinarily significant this is. Come by your spirit. Drive home to us. That your word is indispensable, and that we, because we have it, have a light for our paths, we ask in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. There's a good bit in this service today that has to do with the Word of God that stresses the Word of God, the sermon title, the indispensability of the Word, directs our attention to the Word, but the prayers that we were encouraged to pray this morning do the same thing. There is talk there about God delivering us from false doctrine, from parasy and sism, from hardness of heart and contempt of the Word. Then there is this petition that it might please God to give all people an increase of grace to hear and receive your Word so that the fruits of the Spirit might be born. In April of 1521, April of 1521, I like things that happen in April. I was born in April. In April of 1521, Martin Luther appeared before kings and princes and church officials. He was summoned to a little village, village called Worms, and he was called to defend his writings, and he was asked if he would reject what he had written. Then his first appearance before that assembly was April 17, 1521. I was born in April 17, 1951. There's something poetic in this, maybe only to me, but there's something poetic in this. He appeared for the first time on April 17. I knew that his opinions were contrary to the established teaching of the church. He knew that at numerous points he was out of accord, and when he made his first appearance on April 17, he begged for 24 hours to reconsider, to rethink and to pray. He was given 24 hours, and when he appeared the next day, and nobody really knows whether he was composed or decomposed. Nobody really knows if he played the role of valiant warrior, or if in some measure he was cowering before these kings and princes and church officials. Nobody really knows, but whatever his countenance, whatever his demeanor he offered, the famous statement which summarizes one of the great truths recovered at the time of the Reformation. When asked if he would recant his writings, Luther said, unless I am convinced by sacred scripture or evident reason, I cannot recant, I will not recant. My conscience is held captive to the word of God, to go against scripture, to go against conscience, to go against what the conscience dictates based upon being informed by the word of God, to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, God helped me. The Reformation was a work of revival in the church of Jesus Christ, it was a work of reform, and at the center of that work of reform was what we have come to understand is as a solo scripture, the scriptures alone in Luther's day. The question was, what is the final authority in matters of faith, what were to believe and practice, what were to do, what is the final court of appeal, is it the scriptures alone, or is it the scriptures as interpreted and taught by the church? By popes and by councils, by doctors of theology, who have contradicted each other, Luther said, and who have evidently erred. Luther understood, I think, as much existentially as he understood philosophically and theologically, that it must be the scriptures alone, which are our final court of appeal in matters of faith and practice. So in Luther's day, the question was, what is the final court of appeal, is it the scriptures alone, or is it the church and the scriptures, but our day is very different from Luther's day. And as I asked you last year on Reformation Sunday, I'd like to ask you again this question, where would we be without our bibles, where would we be without our bibles, where would we be without the scriptures? For Luther and for all of the people of his day, the authority of scripture was not really in question, the question is whether or not there was another authority alongside the scriptures, but in our day, the question of authority, any absolute, any final authority, any court of appeal, is the big and final primary question. Where would we be without our bibles, let me ask you if I could to use your imaginations for just a minute. Let me ask you to use your imaginations, let me suggest to you this kind of an image, let's suppose that this group of people in this room, those of us here are the only people in the world, that there has been some cosmos-wide catastrophe, some earth-wide catastrophe. And we are all that are left, and beyond this catastrophe, we're all suffering a kind of corporate amnesia, we have no memory, we have irrational faculties, but we have no memory, and beyond no memory, we have no books, we have no libraries, we have no textbooks of theology, no philosophies. It's just us, we're all alone, no memory and no books, and we look at one another, and we wonder, don't we? We wonder, we ask questions, we are human beings, we have our rational faculties, and so we begin asking questions, and we wonder what has happened, and we wonder where we are, and we wonder where we are going. And this person over here raises questions about what is good, or what is right, or what is just, and begins to express some things about what is good, or what is right, or what is just, and then another person over here begs to differ with this person over here, and then yet a third person says, well, it seems to me that we're in this dispute about what is good, or right, or what is just, and in a situation like that, it would seem, wouldn't it? That those who agree, the majority of people who agree with a particular opinion, those people would be the right ones, and all of us would have to go with that opinion, wouldn't we? Wouldn't the majority rule, the person who is the most reasonable, the person who makes the most sense, the person who can argue the most eloquently, the person who can be the most persuasive, that person, or that group of people would certainly persuade others in the group, to believe that what they understand to be good and right and just, would in fact be good and right and just, and the rest of us would have to acquiesce until yet a fourth person stands up and says, aha, but I have power, I have some power over you, and by this power, whether a gun, or some other form of physical force, I will constrain the whole group to acquiesce to my judgments about what is good, or what is right, or what is just. People would raise questions because we are human beings about the existence of truth, or God, or life here, or life after here, and the question, the question then emerges in all of these different discussions and conversations, the question is, who will determine what is good, or what is right, or what is just, who will determine whether God exists? And if he does what he has like, who will determine, who will be the final arbiter? Where is the final court of appeal about whether or not God exists, what he might be like, whether there is a life after this life? You see, it's a closed system that I'm encouraging you to envision, and we are left with our opinions, and our abilities to persuade or our abilities to coerce in a situation like that. Who is the final arbiter of these disputes you see? What is at the center of Christian faith? What is central feature of Christianity? Is that this is not a closed system? We are not left alone with our opinions. What is central to the teaching of Christianity, what is the central feature of Christian faith, is that God himself has not remained veiled and hidden from view, he is not shrouded in the mist, he communicates, he reveals himself. If he has spoken into this world, he has spoken. Folks, I want to suggest to you that with your neighbors and friends and any who might be seekers, this is extraordinarily important. For us, for many of us, it goes without saying. It's one of those things that goes without saying, but you know what the problem is with things that go without saying. They go without saying, and they must be thought about and they must be said that God has spoken into this world of ours. He has revealed himself, he has described himself, he has said this is good, this is just, this is what is right. And your world, your neighborhoods, your businesses, your friends need to know that God has spoken. It's all throughout the scriptures. We've been looking at it in Genesis 1, and I'm going to race you through the scriptures at this point. We've been looking at it in Genesis 1, how is it that the rules exist, how is it that all of this complexity and beauty and order and symmetry and color and wonder, how is it that it all exists? God spoke it into existence. God said, let there be light and there was light. God said, let there be a greater light to govern the day and a lesser light to govern the night. And it was so. Throughout Genesis 1, God speaks, and then into Genesis 2, God not only speaks the world into existence, not only creates the world by the word of His power, but He communicates with the man and the woman, those whom He has created in His own image. He communicates with them. He speaks to them. He gives them a word by which they are to regulate their lives. And if they follow that word, what is the promise? The promise is life. You will know life and not death. If you violate the word, you will know death and not life. He speaks to them. He interacts with them. He communicates with them. And you see it all throughout the Old Testament. God not only speaks in the creation. He not only speaks to the man and the woman, but this speaking lays the foundation for His continual speaking in the law and in the prophets. Look at Exodus chapter 4. After God has revealed Himself to Moses and spoken to Moses, declared His name to Moses, revealed His personal name to Moses. That's what you find in Exodus 3. You don't have God distant and removed and shouting at Moses from a distance through a trumpet. You have him present in the midst of a bush and a voice communicates in words in language that can be understood by Moses and a personal name accompanies that speech. I am an email person face to face. After that communication and after calling Moses to be his representative to go as a type of Christ to deliver His people, Moses objects. Verse 10 of chapter 4. Moses said to the Lord, oh my Lord, I am not eloquent. Neither before nor since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue. I am in articulate it. I stutter. So the Lord said to him, who has made man's mouth? Or who makes the mute the deaf the seeing or the blind? Have not I the Lord. Now therefore go and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say. Look at Ezekiel chapter 2. Moses and Ezekiel serve as paradigms for the prophetic office chapter 3 of Ezekiel. After Ezekiel has seen the glory of God in the heavens, just as Moses saw the glory of God in the burning bush. God speaks to Ezekiel chapter 3. Verse 1. Moreover, he said to me, son of man, eat what you find. Consume what you find. Why do people eat? People eat to sustain their lives. Son of man, eat what you find. Eat this scroll and go. Speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth and he caused me to eat that scroll. He forced fed me. He said to me, son of man, feed your belly and fill your stomach with this scroll that I give you so I ate. And it was in my mouth like honey in its sweetness. God speaks. God reveals himself. God revealed himself in the creation by his word which continues to declare his glory. Psalm 19. The heavens are telling of the glory of God. The earth proclaims his handy work. Night to night, pours forth speech. Not just in the works of his hands. He spoke to Adam and to Eve. He communicated with them personally using language they could understand, revealing his personal name. And then he speaks to Moses and he gives to Moses his word. And he speaks to Ezekiel and he gives to Ezekiel his word and what are they to do with that word? They are to be the mouthpiece of God and they are to speak that word to the people of God so that the people might do what Ezekiel did. Consume it and live by it. Find that their lives are sustained. Their lives are ordered. Their lives begin to be characterized by life. God doesn't remain shrouded in the mist. Kidding behind the veil. God speaks and then finally God speaks in Jesus Christ. In the beginning, John uses a very hebraic phrase in the first words of his gospel. It takes you right back to Genesis 1. It connects what God did in the creation with what God does in redemption and at the center of his work of creation and the center of his work of redemption is the word and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and that word spoke the word being the word incarnate. The remarkable thing, go back to that image that I encourage you to think about that we're alone in this room. What a remarkable thing if God would speak into this room but what a yet more remarkable thing if God himself should come into this room and stand before you and reveal himself. That's what John argues that God did. God has not only spoken into this world but God has come into the midst of this world and that word which became flesh and which dwelt among us is very clearly, very evidently from the grammar of the first three verses God himself incarnate. The little preposition with is an extraordinarily significant preposition. It literally means or suggests to be face to face with in the beginning was the word and the word was face to face with God and indeed the word was God. And Jesus coming into the world John says reveals the glory of the Father. Jesus is the fulfillment of Moses who stood face to face and because he stood face to face with God his glory was expressed in the countenance of his face. When Moses came down from the mountain, he revealed God's glory and so brilliant was it that it terrified the Israelites. Jesus is the fulfillment of that. We have beheld his glory glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth. Look, it's not a closed system. What is the import of all of this? What is the significance of all of this? It means that I don't have to wander in the darkness. Folks, I don't have to wander in the darkness. I don't have to stumble around in the mist. I have a lamp for my feet, a light for my path. It means that there are answers because God who is infinite and eternal and unchanging in his being wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth. God is behind everything that exists and so there are answers. Why is there in me this longing for justice? Why is it that when I see an injustice something cries out that justice be served? What God has said gives me an answer to that question. I am made in his image. He is just. I have a sense because I am in his image of what is just. To be sure it is distorted, it is twisted. It needs to be reformed and reshaped and that reformation and reshaping occurs as the word and the spirit come together and effect that change so that I have a right understanding of what is just. But what is inescapable and what is undeniable is that I have a sense of justice. Why are people so preoccupied with John Bonnet Ramsey? For years because something somewhere unjust occurs. Why is it that I have this sense of beauty? Why is it that though it is not at all easy to say this in our culture? Why is it that there is something on the inside of me that wants to cry out and say there are some things that are beautiful and there are some things which are ugly and malformed and it is not a matter of personal preference because I made in the image of God. And he is supremely beautiful and because I made in his image I have a sense for what is beautiful. Now, love for him. Why beloved people? Why is it that I experience grief when my father dies? When my husband dies, when my child dies, this is why I experience grief. I experience grief because I am not a cosmic accident and the scriptures tell me that I am a man and I am made in the image of God and I was made for life not death. I was made for permanence not transcendency. I was made for union not disium and when I experience grief in the face of tragedy or pain or sickness experience them because I am a man, made in the image of God, not an accident to the product, the fortunate product, the lucky product of matter plus time and randomness. Why do I long for the things I long for? Why do I experience the things that I experience? The Bible tells me why this last Friday I had the good fortune of digging out an old book written by an old who is now dead friend. I read the book by Francis Schaefer. He is there and he is not silent and I contrasted that book with a novel by Samuel Beckett waiting for Godot. And if you know the novel, you know that Godot never comes. People wait but he never speaks. He never arrives and so you don't know whether he is there or not, not so for you people. He is there. He is not silent because he is there and because he is not silent. I understand not only why I long for the things I long for, why I experience the things that I experience but because he is there and he is not silent. I believe him when he says, when this mortal puts on immortality, when this corruptible puts on in corruption, then we'll be swallowed up in victory, death and then we'll be fulfilled the saying that is spoken. Where, O death is your victory. Where, O grave, is your sting. Thanks be to God. He is spoken. Let us pray together. We bless and praise you, most glorious Lord, that into our world you have spoken and into our world you have come. We praise you for the words of John who says that those things which we have seen and heard which our hands have handled concerning the word of life we declare unto you. Lord Jesus, be with these your people. In the midst of the circumstances of their lives may they know that you are there. You are not silent. And would you, oh God, we pray again, take your word. Let us seal it to our hearts, reform and reshape us by it that we might reflect your glory in this dark, dark world. We ask in Jesus name. Amen. Lord is good to you, his people. Bring to the Lord those things which our he is, bring to him your tithes and your offerings.