Alliance Christian Church
November 2 2025

      • 2 Corinthians 9:7GS-NETBIBLE

  • Holy Forever
  • I Just Came to Praise the Lord
  • Since Jesus Came into My Heart

  • Origin Stories

    Introduction
    I want you to think for a minute about origin stories
    If I asked you to “Tell me your life’s story” tell me your story and what about you makes you “you” Where would you start?
    I’m guessing a lot of you would start in a lot of different places
    If I were going to tell you my story, I might go back to my 20’s.
    When I was a non believer, before I knew God, and I might tell you the story of how God found me, and molded and shaped the events of my life that got me into ministry.
    I might go back even further, I might go back to when I was a 17 year old kid who had a crush on one of the girls in choir class, and how we eventually started dating, and then Got married, and had kids, and built a life together.
    Maybe I might go back even further, and talk about how I grew up as a coal miner’s kid, and how my parents valued hard work over anything else, and how that made me appreciate hard work.
    Or maybe I might go back even further than that, before I was even born, and talk about how my Mom had had a rough marriage, and was a single mom to my sister, and at one point lived in her car and worked 3 jobs just to buy food for her daughter, but she managed to get out of that life, and marry my Dad, and create a stable environment. And how She taught me not to ever take anything for granted.
    Where an origin story starts matters,
    Because it shapes the way we think about the life of that person.
    And this is especially true when we think about Jesus.
    We’re going to begin a series on the Book of John this morning. And with your permission, I would like to break this sermon up into three parts. First I want to talk about how John frames the origin story of Jesus. And why that matters.
    I would like to talk about why John wrote this gospel in the first place, what was the big idea that he was trying to get across.
    And then I would like to give you a sneak peak into how the rest of this series is going to Go, and sort of give you a broad overview of the entire book of John.
    These three ideas are related to each other in some ways, but in other ways, they’re kind of distinct unique ideas.
    And so this morning I want you to mentally prepare for getting 3 mini sermons in a row, as we kick off our series on the book of john.
    Sermon 1: Origin stories.
    If you have your Bible, I would like you to turn with me first to the Book of Mark, chapter 1
    Mark 1:4–9 NIV
    And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.
    Mark then kicks off his story of Jesus.
    For Mark, the origin story of jesus begins with his baptism. It begins with John the Baptist out in the wilderness, calling people to repent, and eating bugs, and preparing the way for Jesus’ ministry.
    Mark is all about Action. Mark is all about telling you what happened next. And so mark begins the origin story of Jesus right as the action is getting started.
    Luke, on the other hand, goes back a little bit further.
    Luke 1:5–7 NIV
    In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old.
    Luke was a doctor, luke was about Facts. Luke was all about Chronology.
    Luke was all about the timeline, and giving an orderly account.
    And also luke was very concerned with where Jesus fits within the context of the larger roman world.
    So it makes sense to us that Luke’s origin story of jesus is going to go back and tell you who was the king of judah at the time, who was the emperor or rome at the time. How did the birth of John the baptist come about, how did the birth of Jesus come about.
    Same person, same story about his life, but where you begin the story shapes how you view it.
    Matthew Does something a little differing.
    Matthew 1:1 NIV
    This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:
    And then he lists all of the decendents of Abraham, all the way until Jesus.
    Matthew is really concerned with how Jesus fulfilsthe covenant promises that God made to Abraham and david.
    Matthew makes sure to reference all of the Jewish kings in his geneaology, and throughout his gospel he’s constantly telling us how what Jesus did fulfilled the old testament scriptures.
    Which is why for matthew, the origin story goes back not to the birth of Jesus, but all the way back to the covenant that God made with Abraham, and the jewish people.
    And you would think, well you can’t really tell the story of the Jewish messiah, the king that God promised to the Jewish people, you can’t really go back much farther than that, can you?
    Before Abraham, there were no “God’s people”
    I mean I suppose you could go back to Adam and eve?
    John takes the story of Jesus even farther back.
    John 1:1 NIV
    In the beginning ...
    Genesis 1:1 NIV
    In the beginning...
    In the first three words of the book of John, John is immediately signaling to us as the reader that the origin story of Jesus goes back eternally.
    Before anything even came into existence.
    Genesis 1:2 NIV
    Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
    That’s when the story of Jesus Begins.
    The full verse, John 1:1, goes like this. This is probably one of those verses that if you’ve been around christianity for a minute, you probably memorized at one point or another. John Writes.
    John 1:1 NIV
    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
    I want us to take a moment, on this verse. Because I think it’s one of those verses that Christians who have been Christians for a long time will mistakenly think that everyone understands.
    I’ve heard Christians quote this one verse, and act like the people they are quoting it to are just going to understand exactly what it means.
    And then what happens is, new Christians come along, and someone says, hey, john 1 1 says in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was god. See, makes perfect sense.
    And then those Christians are like, “Well I don’t understand it, and I’m too embarrassed to ask what it means, and so I guess I’m just going to pretend.
    And then they grow and mature in their faith, and they start quoting it to other new Christians.
    I could be wrong, But I suspect that there are a lot of Christians out there who at this point might be a little bit too embarrassed to ask the question.
    It’s kind of like when you meet someone, and you forget their name. But then you’ve spent enough time with them that at a certain point it’s too embarrassing to ask them their name. And you reach that sort of point of no return, where you don’t feel comfortable asking.
    And you don’t want to ask someone else, because you don’t want them to know that you haven’t forgotten their name.
    And you spend the next several months just introducing them to people, hoping that they will eventually say their own name.
    I feel like it might be like that, but with a Bible verse.
    so if John 1 1 makes sense to you, great. If it doesn’t, I’m going to explain it, And you don’t need to ever have to tell anyone, your secret is safe with me, I got your back.
    John says the phrase, in the first line of his account of the Gospel,
    In the Beginning was the Word.
    And our modern English Bible’s capitalize the word “Word” here usually.
    And as we keep going into the next couple of verses, we’re going to notice that John uses the personal pronoun “He” to describe the word.
    “HE” was in the beginning with God. Through HIM all things were made.
    Now, normally, when we use a pronoun to describe the word “Word” You and I would say “It” But john chooses to use “He.”
    And as we get into verse 14, he makes it a little more clear who “The Word” Is. He says
    John 1:14 NIV
    The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
    So the first thing you need to know is that the word “Word” is a word that John is using to describe Jesus. Jesus is the “Word” of God.
    Now let’s dig a little deeper here.
    Genesis 1:1 NIV
    In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
    How did God create the heavens and the earth?
    He spoke. He spoke the world into existence.
    Genesis 1:3 NIV
    And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
    verse 6, and God said
    Verse 9 And God said
    Verse 14 And God Said...
    God’s word brought everything into existence.
    John is equating the Word of God, creating all things, with Jesus.
    The words we speak have a very unique quality. They are a product of our mind and our will.
    It’s a very etherial, concept to sort of wrap our minds around, but the thoughts we think produce the words we speak, and they are uniquely ours.
    And Because God creates all things with his Word, and Jesus is his word, what John is really getting at here is the fact that Jesus is the creative force through which God Created all things.
    John 1:1 NIV
    ...and the Word was with God...
    And in the greek language, there are different words for “With” which describe various levels of closeness. The one John uses here is the one that describes the closest possible relationship.
    Think about how close you are with your own words, with your own thoughts. Your own actions.
    It’s not like you can ever really be separated from your own words. It’s the most intimate closeness that you can have.
    And then John says
    John 1:1 NIV
    ...and the Word was God.
    What John is trying to articulate here is the idea that Jesus is simultaneously distinct from God...and equal to god. He is God, and he is also distinct and seperate from God the father.
    It’s ok if that doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t have to make sense.
    Probably a more accurate translation of “The word was God” Would be something like.
    “What God was, the Word was” Which is probably even more confusing, but the idea is, every conceivable attribute of God that you can think of also applies to Jesus.
    If God is immortal, Jesus is imortal. If God is eternal, Jesus is eternal. If God is all knowing, Jesus is all knowing. If God is all good, Jesus is All good.
    They’re made out of the same “Stuff” The same “Essence”
    John takes origin story of Jesus all the way back to before the creation of the world, and asserts to you that Jesus is in fact, fully God. And he existed before time began.
    —
    Here’s what we’re going to have to do.
    There is enough material here, that we could spend the next 12 weeks going through the first 18 verses of the Book of John.
    We’re not going to do that. I think moving forward, I might roll the first 18 verses into a bible study, where we can sit down and really chew on what John has to say here.
    And we’re going to roll into part 2 of the message, which is “Why John wrote it”
    —
    A little bit of background.
    While John was writing this gospel, he was the last living eye witness of Jesus. He was an elder at a church in ephesus, and it appears that he was actually an elder over several churches.
    We know this, because he wrote letters around the same time that he wrote this gospel. He’s the only author in the New Testament who we have multiple different genre’s from We have a gospel from John, we have three letters, and we have a book of prophecy. So that gives us a really unique look into who John was.
    And as John was the last living eye witness of Christ, at the same time, there began to be some major divisions in the churches over who exactly Jesus was.
    And really, it came from two different sides. You had on one side, the Jewish community—remember the early Christians were much more like a “Branch” of judaism, than a whole unique religion—the jewish believers who were still worshipping in the synagogue were denying the fact that Jesus was the Messiah. The son of God.
    They denied the idea that he was anything more than just a rabbi who had some good teachings.
    And in fact, they had even begun, around the time John was writing this, to officially excommunicate Jewish Christians from the Synagogue.
    This was a big deal. Because these Jewish Christians had to make a choice.
    for the longest time, they could still be jewish, and still follow the torah, and the faith that they had followed all their life, but they had a believe of Jesus as the messiah along with it.
    Judaism and Christianity were extremely compatible with one another. Because Christianity grew out of the Jewish faith.
    And the rabbis and pharisees in the synagogues were drawing a line in the sand and saying “No, we do not belive that Jesus is the Jewish messiah, we do not believe he was the son of God, and if you believe that you are no longer allowed to worship in the synagogue.
    On the other side of the pendulum, you had gentile believers who believed that Jesus was the son of God. they believed that Jesus was the messiah.
    however, they denied the idea that he came in the flesh. That he was actually human.
    They believed that Jesus was like a spirit, or an angel, or a sort of hologram. that was really convincing.
    But he didn’t actually have flesh and bone.
    And again, you have to think about the fact that John is the last surviving eye witness.
    In the early days of the church, there were tons of people who could testify , oh ,no Jesus was very much human. He wasn’t a spirit, he wasn’t a ghost.
    He was a real live flesh and bones person who literally really died.
    but as those witnesses are no longer around, traditions and stories start to grow, people start coming up with their own ideas of who THEY think that jesus was.
    And it’s kind of up to John to prove that Jesus really was both fully God, and fully human.
    So at the very end of his book, he writes
    John 20:31 NIV
    But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
    Jesus is the Christ, the messiah, the king of israel,
    The son of god.
    And that by believing you may have life in his name.
    And so really, we can think about the entire book of John as being an account written by an eye witness who was very close to Jesus, declaring once and for all the facts, the truth about who Jesus really was.
    —-
    Part 3. And this is where it’s going to get fun.
    the big themes that run through The book of John.
    One of the things that is fascinating about John, is that it was written, in the original languages, at a very easy to read reading level.
    If you think about books today, we might say “This was written at a 9th grade reading level. This was written at a college reading level.
    Obviously they didn’t have “grades” the same way we have grades in our culture, but if you were going to draw a parallel, the book of John was written at the equivalent of like a 3rd grade reading level.
    When people go to a seminary, and they learn biblical greek, one of the first books they learn to read is the book of John. Because it’s very easy to follow.
    He uses simple vocabulary, he uses nice short simple sentences.
    It’s honestly like reading the ancient greek version of a children’s book.
    Because he wanted this book to be accessible to anyone.
    but, at the same time, it is one of the most theologically rich and deep books of the entire bible.
    You could read through John over and over and over again, and you will always find something new. Because he wrote it with so many layers and so many nuances, and so many rich theological concepts.
    One of John’s favorite theological themes was the theme of the number 7.
    If you’ve been around the Bible for any length of time, you probably know that the number 7 is a really important bible number.
    It represents completeness, and wholeness, it represents God, and holiness.
    God created the earth in 7 days, the isrealites marched around Jericho for 7 days.
    And here’s how I want you to think about the number 7 in the Bible.
    FIrst off, here’s how I don’t want you to think about the number 7 in the bible. Or the number 12, or 40 or any other Bible number.
    I don’t want you to think of it like it’s some sort of hidden code.
    There’s people out there who are like, ahah, if you take every seventh letter of the book of genesis, and you use a decoder ring, you get the secret name of the arcangel michael
    and the date that the rapture is going to happen. .I’ve cracked the code.
    No. Don’t do that. The bible doesn’t work that way, nobody in the ancient world ever thought the Bible worked that way. Just don’t.
    Rather, I want you to think of numbers in the Bible in the same way we in our modern culture might think about certain numbers. 13 for example.
    Whether you believe in superstitions or not, and I don’t , 13 is a number that represents Bad luck.
    Friday the 13th, is a “bad luck day”
    And you don’t have to believe in it to understand that in art and culture and media this number means bad luck.
    and so if you’re reading a novel, if you’re watching a movie and the number 13 keeps popping up again and again… it’s meant to be a signal to you the reader that something unlucky is about to happen.
    Bad things come in threes is another one you might have heard.
    Or Lucky number 7. In our modern culture, the number 7 is a number of “luck”
    These are things taht are baked into our culture, and purpusefully put in stories, and art, and advertisements, and they are meant for you to sort of implicitely understand what they represent.
    An ancient Jewish and Christian culture, the number 7 did exactly that. 7 was meant to implicitly remind you of god, of wholeness, of completeness, of holiness.
    And so one of the things that John does in his gospel, is he sprinkles the number 7 all throughout it.
    For example. Jesus performs 7 different miracles leading up to his arrest and crucifixion. John calls them “signs” 7 signs of Jesus.
    Jesus makes 7 different I AM statements. I am the Bread of life, I am the light of the world, I am the good shepherd.
    7 different times Jesus simply says the phrase “I AM” with no word after it. Here he’s calling back to the book of Exodus when Moses asks God at the burning bush, Who should I say that you are, and God says
    my name is “I AM:
    7 different times where jesus talks about his “Hour”
    My hour has not yet come. It isn’t yet my Hour to glorify God yet.
    7 different people who John specifically says “Testify” about Jesus, and who he is.
    7 different festivals or feasts that Jesus attends.
    7 different conversations that Jesus has with his opponents.
    And to put the cherry on top, if you were paying attention to that list, there are in total 7 different groups of 7 things.
    And they are scattered all throughout his Gospel.
    And so as we go through the book of John, we are going to identify all of the different sevens that exist in John’s gospel, and talk about what they mean.
    —-
    Final note.
    What we believe about Jesus really matters.
    John is very adamant in his gospel account that we believe the truth about who Jesus is.
    It’s why when you become a Christian, one of the things you do is make a confession of your belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
    And I know that most of you already have a fairly good grasp on who jesus is. He’s the lord of your life, he’s the savior, he’s the messiah, he’s the son of God. He’s your savior.
    Or maybe you don’t. That’s ok.
    Whether we know him or not, I want us to spend the next several weeks getting to know who Jesus is. Getting to know the Truth about who Jesus is.
    And even if you already know who He is, I want you to spend the next several weeks with me in the book of John Falling in love with Jesus all over again.

      • Mark 1:4–9NIRV

      • Luke 1:5–7NIRV

      • Matthew 1:1NIRV

      • John 1:1NIRV

      • Genesis 1:1NIRV

      • Genesis 1:2NIRV

      • John 1:1NIRV

      • John 1:14NIRV

      • Genesis 1:1NIRV

      • Genesis 1:3NIRV

      • John 1:1NIRV

      • John 1:1NIRV

      • John 20:31NIRV

  • At Calvary
  • Come As You Are
  • He Is Lord
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