A wealthy fisherman by the Sea of Galilee watches his sons come home less and less often, and asks uneasily: who is this Jesus they have followed? Years later one of those sons, the last living eyewitness, sits down to answer that question for a young church, and he begins not in Bethlehem but before the world began (John 1). The sermon shows why the darkness in your life is always secondary to the light that came first, and what it means that God pitched his tent right next to you. Listen, and answer for yourself who this Jesus is to you today.
Discussion questions
For your small group or for personal reflection after the sermon.
- John begins his Gospel with "In the beginning was the Word," not with Bethlehem and the manger. What parallels to the creation story in Genesis do you notice in John 1:1-18, and what was he trying to say through them?
- John was the last living apostle, writing to a church made up of both Jews and Greeks. How do these circumstances help you understand why he stresses so strongly that the Word was God and that everything came into being through Him?
- The speaker emphasized that Jesus is not a repair plan, because He came first and darkness is always secondary. How does the truth that darkness never has the final word change the way you see fear, sin, or suffering?
- According to the sermon, people respond to the light in three ways: they fail to recognize it, they reject it, or they receive it and long for it in their lives. What do you think makes someone prefer to stay in the darkness?
- The Word literally "pitched His tent among us," like God in the tent of meeting in the wilderness. How does the picture of Jesus as a neighbor living across the street change the way you imagine God?
- In what specific area of your life this week do you need to invite Jesus in as a God who is near rather than far away, and who is He to you today?
