Shownotes
If God is invisible, how can you know he's really there? What if he came down to earth and actually became a human? As we start this new series in John's Gospel, we hear how God the Son did something amazing that would change the world forever.
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Transcripts
G'day, everyone.
Speaker:Dave here.
Speaker:Welcome back to stories of a faithful God for kids.
Speaker:I'm so glad you've come back because today we're starting a new series and it's gonna be
Speaker:a cracker.
Speaker:We're gonna have a look at John's gospel.
Speaker:John was one of the disciples of Jesus.
Speaker:He watched Jesus for three years.
Speaker:He saw and heard amazing things and then he wrote them down for us in his gospel.
Speaker:Before we get into that though, let me ask you a question.
Speaker:How can you know God? I mean, he's invisible, right?
Speaker:How do you know he's even there? If he is there, how can you know what he's
Speaker:like? Imagine if someone came up to you, pointed to
Speaker:the air and said, oh, see this here? That's my invisible friend.
Speaker:He's as tall as the moon.
Speaker:He's got purple freckles and 18 noses.
Speaker:He's from the planet sparshod, which is invisible as well.
Speaker:He's got tiny legs but really big muscles.
Speaker:If you make him angry, he'll make you sit in
Speaker:his ear while he counts to 1 billion.
Speaker:Oh, and he really likes to eat doughnuts.
Speaker:What would you do if someone said that? I suspect most of us wouldn't believe them.
Speaker:But how could we know for certain? Wed probably want some proof or evidence that
Speaker:this thing is really there, right? Well, what about God?
Speaker:Hes invisible, so how can we know him? Wheres the proof?
Speaker:Thankfully, theres really great proof we really can know God.
Speaker:To find out how, get ready to listen because its time for our next episode of stories of a
Speaker:faithful God for kids.
Speaker:Picture the earth as a big ball of water
Speaker:floating through space.
Speaker:There's no sun or moon.
Speaker:There aren't any stars.
Speaker:There's no land and the water has no life.
Speaker:And then God speaks.
Speaker:He says, let there be light.
Speaker:And light bursts out to shine on the earth.
Speaker:God speaks again and again and each time he
Speaker:says his words, something new happens.
Speaker:God is so powerful that even things that don't
Speaker:exist obey his word.
Speaker:You might have read about that at the
Speaker:beginning of the Bible.
Speaker:It starts with the words in the beginning.
Speaker:Strangely, when John sits down to write his gospel, he starts with exactly the same words.
Speaker:In the beginning he says that in the beginning there was the word.
Speaker:That's a strange thing to say.
Speaker:But he must be talking about God's word,
Speaker:right? Because before God made anything, there was
Speaker:only God.
Speaker:Actually, though, John uses the word word as a
Speaker:kind of nickname for Jesus.
Speaker:He uses it to describe Jesus.
Speaker:And as he describes the word Jesus, he tells us some amazing things.
Speaker:First, he tells us that the word Jesus was with God and is God.
Speaker:What? How can he be both with God and be God?
Speaker:I mean, I'm not with me, I just am me.
Speaker:But Jesus, the word is with God, and at the
Speaker:same time he is God.
Speaker:Woo.
Speaker:John also says that Jesus is God the son.
Speaker:There's God the father and God the son, which
Speaker:means there must be two gods, right? Because I know how to add up.
Speaker:And one plus one is two.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:So there must be two gods.
Speaker:What? There's not two gods?
Speaker:No, the Bible tells us that there's only one God.
Speaker:So John's telling us that in God the one God, there's God the father and God the son.
Speaker:Jesus the father is fully God.
Speaker:He's not half a God.
Speaker:He's fully God, and Jesus is fully God.
Speaker:He isn't half a God either.
Speaker:To make it even more complicated later, John will tell us about God the Holy spirit.
Speaker:He's fully God too.
Speaker:The fancy word for this is the Trinity.
Speaker:It means there's only one God.
Speaker:He's always one and always three.
Speaker:He's never not three, and he's never not one.
Speaker:Sometimes you see him as three.
Speaker:The son speaks to the father who sends the spirit.
Speaker:Sometimes you see him as one, but he's always one and always three.
Speaker:Is your mind blown yet? Well, John tells us something else amazing
Speaker:about Jesus.
Speaker:He says in verse three of chapter one, all
Speaker:things were made through him.
Speaker:Nothing was made without him.
Speaker:All things, everything was made through Jesus.
Speaker:That's why John's given him the nickname the
Speaker:word.
Speaker:Because God made the world through his words.
Speaker:And he made it all through Jesus.
Speaker:Through Jesus he made everything, including
Speaker:cats and dogs, worms, ducks, eagles, pigeons, whales, coral, jellyfish and flies.
Speaker:Nostrils, hair, fingernails, skin.
Speaker:Clouds, waves, leaves, the tallest trees, and
Speaker:the tiniest plants, the sun, moon and stars, the rain and fog, all the ants in the world,
Speaker:and even, even your belly button.
Speaker:It was all made through Jesus.
Speaker:Who's God the sun.
Speaker:I'd love to hear what you really like that
Speaker:Jesus made.
Speaker:In the show notes.
Speaker:I'll put a link to a survey where you can say what your favorite part of the world that God
Speaker:made through Jesus is.
Speaker:I'll leave it there for a week and then I'll
Speaker:read out the answers next week on another episode.
Speaker:Now, everything we've said so far, that Jesus was with God and is God that he's God the son,
Speaker:that everything was made through him.
Speaker:It's all great, but it's all still invisible.
Speaker:The next thing John tells us though, changes all of that.
Speaker:He says, jesus, God the Son came into the world, the invisible God, got a human body.
Speaker:All of a sudden people could see him.
Speaker:Sometimes people ask, can we see God?
Speaker:And part of the answer is, well you can't at the moment, but if you lived at the right
Speaker:time, you could have.
Speaker:John was one of the people who saw him.
Speaker:In verse 14 he says the word, that's Jesus.
Speaker:The word, became a man and lived among us.
Speaker:This is amazing.
Speaker:Jesus isn't like us.
Speaker:We started in our mum's tummies, but he's always been there.
Speaker:God's always been there, but very kindly.
Speaker:Jesus came to earth to become a human like us.
Speaker:That means he had to be born like us.
Speaker:He had to grow up like us.
Speaker:For the first time he had hair and a nose and even a belly button.
Speaker:Thats why when people like John first met Jesus they didnt realize that he was God.
Speaker:They just thought he was a human.
Speaker:A pretty great human, but nothing more than a
Speaker:human.
Speaker:As they watched him though and listened to
Speaker:him, they came to see that there was far more to him.
Speaker:He is human, fully human and fully God at the same time.
Speaker:One of the things that's so great about this is that by getting to know Jesus, we can get
Speaker:to know God.
Speaker:The faithful God, the glorious God.
Speaker:Jesus shows us what God is really like.
Speaker:So in verse 18, John says, no man has ever
Speaker:seen God, but God, the only son, is very close to the father, and the sun has shown us what
Speaker:God is like.
Speaker:If you want to know God, you need to get to
Speaker:know Jesus.
Speaker:Jesus is God in the flesh.
Speaker:I should say though, that not everyone who met Jesus liked him or accepted him.
Speaker:Not everyone thought he was God.
Speaker:Most people gave up on him.
Speaker:John actually tells us about that in verse ten.
Speaker:He says the world was made through him, but the world did not know him.
Speaker:How sad is that? Jesus put on a body and came to this world,
Speaker:that he'd made the people he'd made and they didn't believe who he was.
Speaker:Even more amazingly, he came to the Israelites who were also called the Jews, God's people
Speaker:from the Old Testament, the people who knew the most about him, but even they didn't like
Speaker:him.
Speaker:John says in verse eleven that his own people
Speaker:did not accept him.
Speaker:It's so sad.
Speaker:But.
Speaker:But even though that's generally true, that
Speaker:people in the world who weren't jewish and also jewish people didn't accept Jesus, it's
Speaker:not the full story because actually, there were people from the Jews and the rest of the
Speaker:world who did accept him.
Speaker:And for those people, Jesus did something
Speaker:amazing.
Speaker:He gave them something amazing.
Speaker:Jesus made them full members of the royal family of the universe.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:He brings them into God's royal family.
Speaker:Let me read to you what John says in verse twelve.
Speaker:He says, but some people did accept him.
Speaker:They believed in him.
Speaker:To them, he gave the right to become children of God.
Speaker:Last year I was a teacher in the school where my kids go.
Speaker:And one day in the playground my daughter came up to me and asked me for some money to buy
Speaker:something and I gave it to her.
Speaker:Now there are hundreds of kids at that school,
Speaker:and if any of the other kids who aren't my children came and asked me for money, I would
Speaker:have said no, you need to ask your parents.
Speaker:But because it was my daughter, my family
Speaker:member who asked, I gave it to her.
Speaker:When you're in a family, there are special
Speaker:things that you get just because you're in that family.
Speaker:No one outside of the family can get them.
Speaker:It's very special to be in a family.
Speaker:We're not naturally a part of God's family.
Speaker:We're made by God, but that doesn't make us
Speaker:his family.
Speaker:Jesus, on the other hand, is the son of
Speaker:goddess.
Speaker:Hes always been the son of God.
Speaker:He has a relationship with God the father.
Speaker:Thats perfect.
Speaker:How amazing then that even though we dont naturally belong to that family, if we believe
Speaker:in Jesus, if we trust him as God the son, then he invites us to be children of God as well.
Speaker:Its especially amazing when you think that this is the greatest, most powerful, most
Speaker:wonderful, most spectacular family in all the universe.
Speaker:This is the biggest news in the world.
Speaker:There's no bigger present that anyone could
Speaker:have knowing God, being brought into the family of God all through Jesus.
Speaker:John tells us all this at the start of his book about Jesus.
Speaker:He wants us to believe it.
Speaker:In fact, right near the end of the book he
Speaker:tells us that he wrote it all down so that we would believe in Jesus and that if we believe
Speaker:in Jesus, we'll have life forever.
Speaker:But he doesn't just tell us these big ideas
Speaker:about Jesus, he also tells us about the things he saw and heard from Jesus, the things that
Speaker:convinced him that Jesus really is God.
Speaker:He's going to tell us the most amazing things,
Speaker:the most wonderful things, things that will help us to know God through Jesus.
Speaker:But that's a story for next time.
Speaker:Well, I hope you enjoyed our first episode in
Speaker:John's gospel.
Speaker:Don't forget to click on the link in the show
Speaker:notes and fill in the survey where you can tell me some of your favourite things that God
Speaker:made through Jesus adults if you're finding these shows really helpful, I'm so glad.
Speaker:I'd really appreciate it if you can support me financially by providing some money each
Speaker:month.
Speaker:Ive only been able to make the shows so far
Speaker:with the generous support of other people who can see the value of this, so if youre willing
Speaker:and able to help in that way, id really appreciate it.
Speaker:Dont forget to let other people know about the show.
Speaker:Tell them that weve started a new series and also to check out the older series as well.
Speaker:And also please rate and review the show on your app.
Speaker:That would be really great.
Speaker:Thanks everyone.
Speaker:Bye for now.
