This is the Truth Network. This is the Truth Network. Welcome to the broadcast ministry of Finding Purpose with Russ Andrews, where we seek to glorify God by making him known and guiding others towards their true purpose in life. No one is here by chance. God put us here for a reason.
And the most important thing we can do is discover his plan for us and commit ourselves to it. Keep listening as we learn from the Bible how to live wisely in God's world, which is the first step towards finding your purpose. All right, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for this wonderful night. Thank you for these men coming here.
They could be doing umpteen other things, and I thank you, Lord, that they're here. And Lord, I thank you for the time that I got to spend with you in my office this week working on chapter 1 of the Gospel of John. And I pray, Lord, that the words you've given me, that you would just anoint them. I pray, Lord, that I would decrease, that they would see you and not me. And your word promises that when your word goes forth, it will accomplish the purpose for which you intend.
and it will not return void. And I know that's going to happen tonight. And so, Lord, may your word go forth and may it touch the hearts of everyone in here and change it from the inside out. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Okay, take your Bibles and open up to John chapter one. Tonight's message is entitled. Who do you say I am? We're going to look at Verses 1 through 5 and then verse 14.
Now, the most important question, man, that you will ever have to answer in this life is this. Who do you say Jesus is? This is essentially the question that echoes in the conscience of every single human being. Did you know that? Who is Jesus?
Who is this man from the little town of Nazareth? who changed the course of history, who altered the dating of our calendar, About whom countless thousands upon thousands of books and commentaries and articles have been written. Who gave sight to the blind, who healed the leper, and who walked on water. And he forgave sinners. Let me ask you a question.
I'm looking at each one of you, okay? Who do you say Jesus is? Have you thought about that? In October of 2018, I had the privilege of traveling to Israel with a group of about 30 people, and we called our trip. Finding purpose in the Holy Land.
One day, our bus, it was the second day we were there. We went up through the west side along the Mediterranean Sea, and then we ended up going over to the Sea of Galilee, spent one night there, and then the next day we took a bus. There were about 30 of us on the bus, which I thought was going to be the least fun thing of the trip. And it was one of the most fun things because we were playing Motown and beach music and worship songs. But anyway, we went up north of Caesarea Philippi to.
To a place Mount Hermon. And when we were there, Lebanon was right here. Literally, it's that narrow at the top, if you look at a map. Lebanon is here, and Syria is here, and we're right up at the very tip of it where the slopes of Mount Hermon are. And when we stood there, we got the bus and walked up to the mountain, to the bottom of it.
And there were several images of gods, such as Pan, Echo, Zeus, and Nemesis, that were carved into the slopes of Mount Hermon. And we just stood there. Um looking at that. And you couldn't believe it. They had all these false idols, but they did.
So during the first century, this was a very pagan religious area.
Now, in Matthew chapter 16, verses 13 through 18, we find Jesus standing in the exact spot where we were standing. And he looked at his disciples.
So he's standing there, Mount Hermon is behind him. He's got 12 disciples in front of him. And he looks at them and he asks them a very probing question. Who do people say? The Son of Man is.
And they replied, Some say John the Baptist. Others say Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. And then he looked at them and said, But what about you? Who do you say I am? And Simon Peter, who was always the first one to do anything, he was impulsive like me.
He said, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus replied to Peter, Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. It's very interesting. That when Jesus uttered those words, the gates of Hades will not overcome the church, he was standing right in front of a cave that was believed to be an entrance to the dark underworld.
And I think it's interesting that he said that among all these idols. Who do you say I am? Who do you think Jesus is? Who do you say he is? Tonight, we're going to begin a two-year in-depth study of the Gospel of John.
John was the disciple who had the most intimate and personal relationship with Jesus more than any of the other 11. And this comes through in the Gospel. In his Gospel, He never mentions himself, but five times he refers to himself as the what? the disciple whom Jesus loved, At the Last Supper, John sat at the right side of Jesus. When Jesus was dying on the cross, he looked down at his mother and John and said, He said, Dear woman, talking to his mother, here's your son.
And to John, he said, Here's your mother. And from that time on, John took Mary into his home so that he could take care of her. Do you see how Jesus was looking out for his mother?
Well he's died on the cross. In the last chapter of John, seven of the disciples led by Peter decided they didn't know what to do, so they said, let's go fishing.
So they went out fishing. And early in the morning They see A man standing on the shore of Galilee. And it was Jesus, but the disciples did not recognize him.
So Jesus called out to them and he said, Friends, haven't you caught any fish? No, they answered. He said, well, throw your net out on the right side of the boat and you will find some. The viscous We're fishermen. They've been fishing all night.
Don't you think they might have said, well We've already been fishing out here all night, buddy. But anyway, they did. He said, they cast the net out on the right side of the boat, and when they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. And in that moment, The disciple whom Jesus loved was recognized Jesus and he said to Peter, It is the Lord. John wrote his gospel at the end of the first century around 85 to 90 AD.
Matthew, Mark, in Luke had already been written. And so John knew of the other Gospels, and he could have been actually teaching from them. Essentially to note That John's Gospel includes no genealogy of Jesus, no childhood details. No parables. Nothing about Jesus' temptation in the desert.
There's also no mention of the Transfiguration. or his commissioning of the disciples, or even his ascension into heaven.
So here's the question. Why did John write the Gospel of John? He wrote it for one major reason. To answer this question. Who is Jesus?
And this is the question that literally hangs in the air tonight. Who is Jesus? And right here in the first 18 verses, which is known as the prologue. John gives us the answer.
So tonight and next Tuesday We're going to look in detail at these 18 verses. And by the way, we could go for two months on these 18 verses, but I'm going to do the best I can to cover these 18 verses in two lectures.
So tonight, let's look at John verses 1 through 5 and verse 14.
So follow along with me. I'm reading from the 1985 translation of the NIV. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made.
Without him, nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it or overcome it. You can translate it anyway. The darkness is not understood it or overcome it.
And then look at verse 14. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
So, here's what I want to do tonight. I want to give you two of the most important aspects of Jesus' being. In other words, I want to give you the two most important aspects that define who He is. And here's the first one. Jesus is fully God.
You see, many people believe that Jesus was a great man or a great teacher, you know, someone that you should emulate. But They don't really believe that Jesus is God. In fact, it's surprising, but many ministers and seminary professors Shockingly. Do not believe that Jesus is really God in the flesh. Did you know that?
Why is this? Because as Paul explains in Second Corinthians chapter four, verses three and four. The gospel is veiled to those who are perished. And what does that mean? It's like a veil that has covered up so they cannot see or understand it, they're blind.
And then in verse 4. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 4 says, The God of this age, who's the God of this age? Satan has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel, of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
So Paul says that Jesus is the image of God.
Now in John's day Many of the Greek philosophers believed that there was an intelligent mind behind the creation of the world. John MacArthur writes, These intellectuals refer to this creative force as the word or the what? Lagos. You're going to learn a Greek word tonight. You're going to actually learn two.
Lagos. The Greek word a logos, that phrase, as the, the logos, is translated the word. The Jews also used Allagos to describe the word of God. MacArthur says the word of the Lord was the expression of divine power and wisdom.
So John takes this very important word. Lagas. And he used it four times in verses 1, 2, and 14. And he does this to get the attention of the Jews and the Greeks.
So I want you to listen carefully, men, to what John says about this creative force that these Greeks and intellectuals refer to as the Lagos. First, John says He writes that the Lagos was there in the beginning. In other words, this Lagos is eternal. In the beginning was the Lagos. The verb was And I'm not a great English.
Scholar, by any means. The verb was is in the imperfect tense, which implies continual action in the past, which reinforces the word's preexistence. In the beginning was the word. The word stands outside of time. The logos was there in the beginning because he has always existed.
So the logos is eternal. Secondly, John says the Lagos was there in the beginning with who? God Now this is getting itching. Think about it. It almost sounds like John is implying that there are two gods.
Look carefully at what John writes. Verse 1, In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Didn't it almost look like two?
R. C. Sproll says it much better than I can explain it.
So listen to what R. C. Sproll says. Here in verse 1, John 1.1, John echoes the opening words of the Old Testament: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. He says, This sentence, again, John 1, verse 1, in and of itself was enough to keep theologians busy for hundreds of years.
Because, on the one hand, the word is distinguished from God. But from a different perspective, the word is identified with God. This sentence, more than any other passage in Scripture, Is foundational for the church's confession of the doctrine of the Trinity, the belief that God is one in three persons. The Lagos was not only with God in the beginning, but the Logos was God. I love What we learned in Exodus chapter 3.
In Exodus chapter 3, the Lord speaks to Moses from a burning bush, and he commands him: remember, the Israelites had been enslaved in Egypt now for 400 years. And God hears their cries, and He's concerned for His people. And Moses, you know, grew up in the house of Pharaoh, but he's been living in the desert for 40 years.
So the Lord appears to Moses in a burning bush and he says, I want you to go back to Egypt. I want you to stand in front of Pharaoh and I want you to tell him, Let my people go. But before Moses was willing to do this, to return to Egypt. He wanted to know what to say to the Israelites when they asked him, well, who sent you? In other words, The Israelites would want to know Who gave Moses the authority to speak on their behalf?
So God spoke from that burning bush and he said to Moses, I am who I am. This is what you're to say the Israelites. I am as sent me to you. In other words, Moses' authority to stand before Pharaoh and demand that he let God's chosen people go came from God himself, who is the great I am. Are you with me?
So, if you fast forward to John chapter 8, here we find Jesus being confronted as he so often was by the religious Jews. And Jesus, in essence, claims that their father Abraham. had seen his day. And they think he's an idiot because Abraham lived about 2,000 years before Jesus was born. And so they said to Jesus, and you can almost see them mocking.
You're not yet 50 years old. And you've seen Abraham. And Jesus answered them, I tell you the truth.
Now when Jesus says, I tell you the truth, what should you do? Listen. Yeah. Before Abraham was born, I am. In essence, Jesus was saying.
It is the great I am who is speaking to you now. Just like you told the woman at the well. When she said Shows the Christ, and he said, I who speak to you am He. In essence, Jesus is The I am. And that's what John is trying to explain.
Scripture says that this, the Jews picked up stones to stone him. Do you know why?
Well first. Because he's claiming to be God. Liberal theologians say Jesus never claimed to be God.
Well, why did they pick up stones? Because they thought he was committing blasphemy by claiming to be God. Jesus was claiming to be the I am of the Old Testament, the very God who spoke to Moses from that burning bush. But John takes us even a little bit deeper. Not only was the law gust with God, Not only was the law gust God, But the Lagos did what?
Created all things. One of the greatest statements concerning the deity of Christ is found in Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 through 3. In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways. But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The sun is the radiance of God's glory.
In the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful what? Word. You see how closely Associated with the Lagos is the word.
So, those who say, My wife said this, you know, those people who say, Well, if I could only see God, I'd believe, well, you can't see God. When you see Jesus, you're seeing God.
So are you beginning to understand who this Logos is? The Lagos was there in the beginning. The Lagos was with God. The Logos was God. The Lagos made all things.
Without Him, nothing was made that has been made. When you look up into the universe through a telescope, you see what was created by the Lagos.
Now what else does he tell us about this Lagos?
Well look at verses 4 and 5 again. He says, in him that is in the Lagos was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it or overcome it. Listen. The Lagos is the embodiment of life.
In the beginning, Follow me now. The Lagos said, Let there be light. In the beginning, the Lagos breathed life into the first man, and he, Adam, became a living soul. By the way, did you know that you're not a body with a soul. You are soul with a body.
It's that soul that's going to live forever. As the Bible was being written over 1,500 years by about 40 different men in three different languages. The Lagos breathed live men. into the word of God. That's what this Bible is.
It's the Word of God. 2 Timothy 2:16 says about this Bible. All scriptures, what? God breathed. He breathed his life into these pages, man.
Okay. This book, The Bible. contains the living words of God that are infused with His power. and are able to produce faith in your heart. If you read them and believe them.
But you must first pick it up and read it. That's what Augustine did. He heard some kids singing, just pick it up and read it. And he picked it up and began to read the Bible, and his life was changed. The Lagos, as the embodiment of life, conveys eternal life, men, to all who believe in the Lagos in Him.
Because he's the giver of life. Do you want to live? Do you want to experience life? I'm talking about in the here and now. To wake up in the morning and you just feel alive.
Do you want to know that when you die, you're going to step into heaven? because you have eternal life. When the Lord gives you eternal life, it's a present tense condition. When you have eternal life, you have it. You are an eternal being.
In John 14, 6, Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the what? And the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. In John 10, 28, Jesus says about his sheep, I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can snatch them out of my hand.
When I was about 10 years old and I read John 3:16, it says, What does this say? For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son. that whoever believes in him shall not perish. But have eternal life. You know, I wasn't that bright, but I said, you know, I I don't think I want to perish.
I think I'll take eternal life. And I just came with the faith of a child. In John 4, 13 and 14, Jesus told the woman at the well, I love this story, we'll get there in a few weeks. is standing by a well And Jesus says to her, And she was a great sinner, like we all are. He said, everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.
But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. And this is what you feel if you're a Christian. You feel this life in you. Have you ever drunk from the well of the Lagos?
Let me tell you something. Look up here. There's no water like it. Amen.
By being in this Bible study, you are drinking from the Lagos. who is life-giving. When you pray and then read His Word. study guys there for you to take home and get alone with God. and read the Bible.
And look up the cross reference, and God will speak to you if you ask Him. It's a living book. Revelation 22:17. This is how the Bible ends with an invitation. The Spirit and the bride say, Come, and let him who hears say come.
Whoever is thirsty, Are you thirsty tonight? Whoever is thirsty, let him come. And whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life. Tonight you're here. You have come.
All you have to do now is drink. Not only is the Lagos the embodiment of life. But the Lagos is the light of men. You know, physically, you cannot separate light and life. Without the light of the sun, everything on planet Earth.
people and plants would die very quickly. That sun goes out. How long has that sun been burning? Right, good wow. Photosynthesis is the process by which plants absorb water, sunlight, and carbon dioxide to generate oxygen.
Everybody, take a breath.
Okay, there you go. That's life, life-giving. It comes from this process of photosynthesis. When a man's soul drinks the living water, It absorbs the light of God's Word. Spiritual photosynthesis begins to take place within him.
As you trust the Lagos, Faith is born within you. That's how it works. This is what it means to be saved. If this is why Jesus told Nicodemus that you what? You must be born again if you want to not only see the kingdom of God, but to enter it.
I mean you've got to be born again. When's the last time you heard that in church? You cannot separate the Lagos from His Word. His Word contains light and life. And when you shine the light of His Word into the darkness of a human heart, it produces two consequences.
Number one, The darkness flees. Imagine that. If you've got some darkness in your heart, and even a Christian can have darkness, because if you sin, The heart's full of darkness. But what happens if you repent? And begin to read the Bible, it's like taking a floodlight and shining God's light into your heart.
and the darkness just evaporates. And you go to bed at night. with no guilt and no shame, and sleep like a baby. The darkness cannot overcome the light of God's word. It has no choice but to turn and run.
Secondly, the darkness does not understand the light. This truth points to the spiritual reality. That men, if you don't have the indwelling Holy Spirit, who is the source of light, you cannot comprehend spiritual matters. I know men that have gone through Bible studies like this. year in year out.
And for some reason, they never have. Come to Jesus to be saved. And they just still don't get it. 1 Corinthians 2.14 says, The man without the spirit. Who's the man without the spirit?
The non-believer, the man without the Spirit means he has not been born again, does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him. And he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned. I remember um trying to teach my sister math. And she just could not get it. And I was not a g patient teacher.
What do you mean you don't understand that 2 plus 2 is a 4? But you know, when you teach a child, and finally they take two marbles and two more marbles, and you put four over here, two plus two equals four, they say, oh, I see that. That's what happens when you're born again. You begin to see and understand spiritual matters. That's one of the tests.
In 1 John to know. If you're really saved. Do you understand spiritual matters? And by the way, This is why so many of your unbelieving friends do not understand what you're talking about. When you tell them things like, Well, I was born again, or I placed my trust in Jesus, and I know He's given me eternity.
When you talk about the Bible, they just think, What are you talking about? They don't get it. And that's because they're spiritually blind. And this is why we try to get men into a Bible study and began a Bible teaching church.
so they can be exposed to the light and life of God's Word. Romans 10:17 says, Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message. And the matches heard Through the word of Christ, the Bible, guys. There's no other book like it in the world. When a man opens up God's Word and begins to read it with a seeking heart and a seeking mind, God always reveals Himself.
Then a man must trust in and believe God's word. That's what it means to surrender, to believe.
So let me ask you. Don't respond, but just think about this in your mind. Have you experienced what I'm talking about? Have you experienced these streams of living water flowing within you? Do you have this peace that passes all understanding?
When I look at my past life, It's an absolute miracle that I can go to bed at night It hath no guilt.
Okay. No guilt. No shame. Have you allowed the light of God's Word to penetrate your heart? If not, keep reading your Bible and open up your heart to the light of the law of God.
And this brings us back to our question: who is Jesus?
Well, the key lies in understanding. Who this Logos is. And John gives us an amazing clue in verse 14.
So let's go there. Verse 14. The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father full of grace and truth.
So I said at the beginning There are two aspects, men, that you must believe about Jesus. First, Jesus is fully God. And second, Jesus is fully what? Mayn. In other words, Jesus is the God-man.
He's 100% God. And hearts that man. And this is beyond our understanding.
However, this is the clear teaching of Scripture. Therefore, we must accept it as a truth. Just like the Trinity. Can anybody explain the Trinity? No.
But we accept it because it's taught in Scripture. When we get to heaven, we'll understand all these things clearly. John makes it clear that the menu is That Jesus is the Lagos when He says that He became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus Is the logos in the sense that he communicates to us who God is. In other words, he's the word.
When God sent Jesus into the world, He wanted to communicate to the world who He is. Jesus is the Word. Moreover, God took on human flesh when He sent His Son, the second person of the Trinity, to dwell among us. It's God. I was taught in seminary.
Then whenever God manifests himself in the flesh, it's always through the second person of the Trinity.
So even in the Old Testament, you see these, they're called Christophanies or Theophanies, is appearances of the pre-incarnate Christ in the Old Testament. Don't have time to get into that, but that's what's going on.
So I believe that when it says God walked in the garden with Adam, I think it was the pre-incarnate Christ, the Lagos. When the baby Jesus was born to the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem, It was God lying in a manger.
Now, there's one more Greek word I want you to learn tonight, okay? And I can tell you I'm not a Greek scholar. But I did love Greek in seminary. It just makes the word come alive. In verse 14, The word from which we get made his dwelling is Eskenosin.
Can you pronounce that? Eskenosen. Don't worry about it.
So a better translation is this. The word became flesh and tabernacled among us. Oh, the word became flesh and lived in a tent among us.
So the logos. Became flesh, and he tabernacled among us. What does that point us back to? It points us back to the Old Testament, where God told Moses to build a tabernacle. It was a tent.
And God dwelt in the Holy of Holies within that tent, the tabernacle. And whenever they wandered through the desert for 40 years, they had that tent of meeting where God would meet with the high priest. And so that high priest became the mediator between God and the people, and between the people and God.
So, John is comparing Jesus to that tabernacle. Two thousand years ago. When the logos became flesh, Jesus became our tabernacle. That is the locus or central point. of God's presence among men.
In other words, Where Christ is. Goddess. Colossians 2:9 confirms this truth about Jesus. For in Christ, all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form. Did you hear that?
In bodily form. Jesus lived in a tent among us. What do we learn from this?
Well, if you go to in Corinthians, I don't remember the exact passage, but Paul compares our bodies to a tent as opposed to a house or a permanent dwelling. And one day, guys, we're going to do what? die and our tent will collapse. And when the Lord returns, Our collapsed tent is going to be resurrected. And we receive our permanent Supernatural, glorious.
imperishable body that will last forever. And that's the way we'll live in heaven.
So what happens? To our soul when we die, and we're waiting for the resurrection. The Bible doesn't really tell you, except we know that to be absent from the body is to be present with who? The Lord. The thief on the cross went immediately into the presence of God.
And so we believe that our souls will be encapsulated in a temporary body, but the Bible's not clear on that. The Bible doesn't answer everything, okay? We do know this: when you die, you go to be with the Lord in heaven as a Christian. Um And when the resurrection occurs, Our bodies will be raised from the ground. It reconstituted into this wonderful body.
And we see Jesus in 1 John 3:2 says, We will be like him. Are y'all looking forward to that day when you get a permanent body? It's got a full hit of hair on it.
So, man, I want to leave you with this thought as we close. Who is Jesus? By the way, make this point before I answer that question. Jesus, when he became a man, you think about this, he's God. He comes to earth and he gets a tent.
Just like us, a body that is hungry, thirsty. Experiences fatigue, sickness. Even death. And when he arose from the grave, He received his New body. That's why Mary Magdalene didn't recognize him.
That's why they didn't recognize him when he was on the Sea of Galilee. I think something about his changed. And when he ascended into heaven, maybe it became more glorious. But the bottom line is: Jesus today in heaven is in what. Condition.
Spirit or body? It's actually both. He has a spiritual body. But when you get to heaven You will be able to shake his hand. We will sit down and we will eat with him, and guess what?
We will drink wine with him.
Sorry, Baptist, but that's what we're going to do when we get to heaven. And I'm a Baptist. There are going to be a lot of uncomfortable Baptists for a few minutes until they taste that wine. Then they're going, gosh, is this what I missed all those years? We'll exit that out of the uh recording.
So, back to who is Jesus?
Well, Jesus is God, and Jesus is a man. God sent Jesus into this world that we might know God personally. And that's why He created us. You know that? He wants to know you personally, He wants you to know Him.
And that's why He became a man. Jesus said, No one comes to the Father except through me. He said, When you have seen me, you've seen the Father. And he said, I and the Father are one.
So let me ask you something. Who would like to know Jesus personally? Raise your hand. Who would like to know Jesus more intimately than you do tonight? Raise your hand.
How do you do that? You read the Gospel of John, and you ask the Lord to speak to you when you read it, and to transfer. He will transform your life, man. And if you walk in obedience to Him, this is important. If you walk in obedience to Him and He makes you more and more holy, it doesn't mean you're perfect, but you're becoming more like Him.
That's when life here on planet Earth becomes really good. You experience happiness and joy like you've never known. It doesn't mean you won't go through difficulties. It won't mean that you don't experience moments of sadness. I mean, if one of my sons dies, one of my grandchildren, I'm going to be very sad.
But the Lord's going to be there with me. Would you rather go through something like that with God or without Him? Because you're gonna go through some difficulties. But I want to go through difficulties With him. When I grew up in the town of Bethel, which is about an hour and a half Which where are we?
In that direction, in that east. Joe Nutt could never figure out direction. Do y'all remember that? Yeah. Um anyway.
Grew up in the little town of Bethel. It was great, like growing up in Mayberry. My mother, some of you know this, introduced me to her Savior. And she gave me a copy of the J.B. Phillips paraphrase of the New Testament.
And I began to read through the Gospels as a young teenager when I was. 12, 13, 14. And most nights before I got into bed, I would get down. I'm not bragging or telling you what I did. I'd get down on my knees and pray.
And I felt like Jesus was in the room with me. Guess what? He was. My faith was born. In my bedroom.
Reading the Bible. That's where it happens, guys. When you get along with God. And the more I read the Bible, the more my faith grew. When I consider my relationship with the Lord, I think about the hymn we started out with in the garden.
I asked Stefan to play that hymn because I want to tell you the story behind that hymn. It was written in 1912 by Austin Miles, who was a pharmacist, but his hobby was photography. And he back in the days, he had a dark room. You guys probably know what a dark room is, but that's where they would process develop film. He found his dark room perfect for developing not just photographs, but his devotional life.
In its privacy and strange blue glow, Miles would read his Bible in total privacy. One day In March of 1912, while waiting for some film to develop, he opened the Bible to his favorite passage in the Bible, which is John chapter 20: the story of the first Easter. And he literally said, As I read it that day, I seemed to be part of the scene. It was like he was having a vision. My hands were resting on the Bible while I stared at the light blue wall.
As the light faded, I seemed to be standing at the entrance of a garden, looking down at a gently winding path shaded by olive branches. A woman in white With her head bowed. hand clasping her throat as if to choke back her sobs, walked slowly into the shadows. It was Mary. Mary Magdalene.
As she came to the tomb upon which she placed her hand, she bent over to look in and then hurried away. John in flowing robe appeared, looking at the tomb. Then came Peter, who entered the tomb, followed by John. Remember they raced to the tomb? As they departed, Mary reappeared, leaning her head upon her arm at the tomb.
She wept. Turning to herself, She saw Jesus standing.
So did I, he writes. I knew it was he. She knelt before him with her arms outstretched and looking into his face cried Rabboni, which means teacher. I awakened in full light, gripping my Bible, with muscles tense and nerves vibrating under the inspiration of this vision. I wrote as quickly as the words would be formed, the poem exactly as we sang it tonight.
That same evening, I wrote the music. My wife wants this at a funeral. I come to the garden alone. While the dew is still on the roses, And the voice I hear falling on my ear, The Son of God discloses. Guys, when you read the Bible.
The voice you will hear. The Son of God will disclose it to you. and help you to understand what you're reading and you'll sense God speaking to you. And then you'll begin to experience this in your life. And he walks with me.
And he talks with me. And he tells me I'm his own. And the joy we share as we tarry there. none other has ever known. This was my experience as a young boy.
And it's been my experience most of my life, except when I went to UNC Chapel Hill. He walks with me. He's been walking with me for over 60 years. And he talks with me. And he tells me, Russ, you're mine.
And the joy we share in my office each morning. There's nothing like it. And this could be your experience. But you can't let this book collect dust. You got to open it up, and what you do in the morning, guys.
He said, Get alone. He was in the privacy of his dark room. You need to be in the privacy of some room somewhere, either in your house or your office, shut the door. And open up the Bible, and before you read it, say, Lord. Please speak to me.
Let me know that you hear me. Let me know that you know me. And Lord. If I don't belong to you yet. Please receive me.
Enter your kingdom. Just like the thief on the cross, and he'll say, I will. He never turns anyone down. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word.
Thank you for this men. I pray to God that they will walk with you and talk with you. Every day as we study John this year, it's in your name that I pray. Amen.
All right guys, I'll see you next week. You've been listening to Finding Purpose with Russ Andrews. This broadcast is made possible because of the prayers and financial gifts of listeners like you. If you want to learn more about our ministry or support us as we reach others with God-centered Bible teaching, please visit us at findingpurpose.net.
