29th December 2025

29th December 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (John 1:1-5)


Message (Alan Burke) 


Now I know what you’re thinking, “Weren’t we in John 1 last week” and yes we were. This is a passage is so crammed that the depts and the wonder of it we could spend months on and never even skim the surface of so yes we are back this week on 1 John but we are going to look at it from a slightly different angel. 


So let me ask you how do you communicate with those around you? As I write this I’m just off the phone to the funeral directors and while I was on to him I was trying to communicate to my wains to “SHUT UP” while I was on the phone by having my finger over lips and miming “shh”. They had been quiet all afternoon and then as soon as the phone goes they all want to talk to me in that moment. We communicate in different ways, through words written and spoke, if you could see my face right now it might communicate to you how I’m feeling or show to you all I want is my bed. 


The Lord our God has communicated his existence to us in creation, he has left all without excuse, as Romans 1 reminds us; “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” (Rom 1:20) but he has also has revealed himself through his word as Hebrews 1 reminds us “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.” (Heb 1:1-2). 


Here in John he alludes to the opening of the book of Genesis as he says in the beginning was the word. What we have here with the opening words of John’s gospel takes us back to the beginning, we have a clear statement not only of the pre-existance of Jesus but also his absolute deity as we are told, not only was the “Word with God”; but "the Word was with God”. Few passages assert the preexistence and deity of Christ more clearly than these opening verses of John’s gospel.


It was through the Word, through Jesus Christ that the heavens and the earth was made. He is the agent of creation, he is the one that everything was made through, nothing that has been created was made apart from him. John at the very start of this gospel takes us outside space and time, to before the beginning and confronts us with whom the one this gospel account is about, the is the one through whom all things were made, the one in whom is life and light. He wants to leave us his readers in no doubt that the same Jesus, the preexistent Jesus is the truth that he now speaks off and what is crucial for them to know and understand is that Jesus of which he speaks off is life and that life is the light of men (Jn 1:4). 


The life is the divine nature itself. John wants his readers, he wants us, all of us to know that the Christian message, that life itself, is to be found in the Word, that is Jesus Christ, that same word that John himself had heard, that he had seen, that he had looked upon, that he had touched (John 20:24-29). He is the one who has come into this world of darkness as the light, a world that has been under the control of the evil one, the Devil, it is a world where people although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened (Rom 1:21). The coming of the light into the darkness of this world, where people are futile in their thinking, their foolish hearts have been darkened by sin and the light has come an the light has not and will not be overcome. Our saviour has triumphed even when the darkness seemed to have overcome the light as Jesus hung on the cross he rose, defeating death and through him we have the victory and will one day will dwell in the light of his presence (Rev 21:23)


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q57 Which is the fourth commandment?
A. The fourth commandment is, Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it.
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