31st December 2025

31st December 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (John 1:6-13)


Message (Alan Burke)


A wee question, who was the last Old Testament Prophet? Of course you know the answer, John the Baptist. Now I remember hearing that answer and thinking to myself no, it’s not John, he’s in the New Testament isn’t he so it must be Malachi. Well actually it’s not Malachi it’s John even though we’re told of him in the New Testament. Here me out, John is the one who was sent by God to testify about the light and he is considered one of the last Old Testament prophets for he like the prophets recorded in the Old Testament was preparing the way for the one who would come, the promised one of God, the Christ the Word incarnate Jesus Christ. His ministry was s a bridge between the way in which God spoke and that he would now speak, for at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, (Heb 1:1-2). John was the last old Testament prophet he came to witness to testify all about Jesus Christ. 


As these verses continue we are told of how he came to bear witness about the light, the true light (v9), who was in the world (ie came incarnate through the virgin Mary, and the world although it was made through him did not recognise him. What is striking in this verse is that we are told how the world did not recognise him. Here the world is not speaking of creation but his creatures, those who bear his image. But the creator came and the world did not recognise him, it did not know him because it had rejected him, it did not receive Jesus as the Christ for they loved the world and the darkness. 


Even by his own people, who did not receive him. The wonder of such a rejection by the people of God of the promised one, of the one whom they had been waiting for is specially shocking. While some Jews did believe many did not, we see the rejection of Word of Jesus Christ repeated time and time again throughout the scriptures. Yet for all who received him, we are told, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, children born not of natural decent, nor of a human decision or a husband’s will but born of God. 


We don’t have time to get into this on Sunday but think of the comparison and contrast that is here made, between that of natural decent, human decision, husbands will, which each speak of how a child comes into the world, and then given to us is that of being born of God. There a contrast is made between how a child comes into the world and those who are born of God by work of the Holy Spirit. The work of the Holy Spirit is compared to the part our parents played by which we came into the world. 


None of us here (no matter how individualistic) for a second I hope anyway imagine that we were born because we decided to be, we made the conscious choice and decide to be born. This is a simple but too frequently over looked truth that the Lord here teaches us. It is not because we willed it to be, that we decided or chose it. Just as we do not enter into this world, born of a mother because we willed it, decided to be or chose it be. No, being born rests on the action of another, as in the case for natural birth it is the same for spiritual birth, and spiritual birth, being born of God all rests on the Holy Spirit’s action in us. What we must do, is believe in the Word Jesus Christ. If you believe in him through God’s power, through the second birth you can know that you have become a child of God, born again by the work of the Holy Spirt. For this is a supernatural work that is needed that comes through faith.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q59 Which day of the seven hath God appointed to be the weekly Sabbath?
A. From the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, God appointed the seventh day of the week to be the weekly Sabbath; and the first day of the week, ever since, to continue to the end of the world, which is the Christian Sabbath.
​