Today in America someone is paying to have billboards erected that say, “Jesus is not God.” I don’t know what your response to this is, but I, for one, am outraged over it. This is not just an attack on Christianity, but an attack on Jesus Christ Himself. I like the photo I saw of a man who had climbed the billboard and was painting over the word “NOT.” People may deny Jesus, but that will not negate the fact that He is God. People may deny Jesus, but His is the only name governments ban, cultures mock, demons fear, and persecuted believers cling to with their lives. “You don’t silence a name unless it carries power.” In this series of messages we have already estabilished: 1) The reality of God - that He is. 2) That the Bible is the divinely inspired and inerrant Word of God. So today we are going to go to God’s Word and see that it tells us that Jesus is God. All 4 of the Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - present Jesus to us, but John’s account of the life of Christ is different. The book John was the last of the “Gospels” to be written. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called “Synoptic Gospels.” (SYNOPTIC = providing a general view or summary; to see together. It describes something comprehensive and unified.) They contain many of the same accounts and teachings as John but are presented from a different angle. Yet, each is fully inspired by the Lord. In John’s account of the life of Christ we see a side of our Lord the others do not show. John was a part of what is called the “inner circle,” those few disciples that were with the Lord during some of His most intimate moments. Matthew 17:1-2: “And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart (2) And was transfigured before them . . . ” (APART = by themselves; privately.) Matthew recorded this event, but according to vv. 1-2 he was not with them. Where was he? Based on vv. 14, 16 he apparently was left at the base of the mountain. “14 And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, (16) And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.” Mark 14:32-34: “And they came to a place which was named Gethsemane: and he saith to his disciples, Sit ye here, while I shall pray. (33) And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy; (34) And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch.” John is referred to as the disciple the Lord loved - John 19:26: “When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son!” John is the only one of the apostles to record the Lord’s final words -- John 19:30: “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.” So John gives us 21 chapters that present different facets of the divine character of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the first chapter, John paints a picture of Jesus as the Word of God. That is the image we will focus on today. First, John tells us that . . .

I. JESUS IS THE PRE-EXISTENT WORD -- VV. 1-3.

II. JESUS IS THE PERSONALIZED WORD -- VS. 14.

III. JESUS IS THE PROCLAIMING WORD -- VS. 18.