John 1:1-5
January 24, 2021
preached by Pastor Doug Cooper
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Time of Reflection Quotations

“Our greatest desire, greater than even the desire for happiness, is that our lives mean something. This desire for meaning is the originating impulse of story. We tell stories because we hope to find or create significant connections between things. Stories link past, present, and future in a way that tells us where we have been . . . where we are, and where we could be going. Our stories teach us that there is a place for us, that we fit”

~ Daniel Taylor (1948-present), American author and professor

“It is significant that God does not present us with salvation in the form of an abstract truth, or a precise definition or a catchy slogan, but as story… Story is an invitation to participate, first through our imagination and then, if we will, by faith, with our total lives in response to God.”

“When we submit our lives to what we read in scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories, but our stories in God’s. God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves. ”

~ Eugene Peterson (1932-2018), pastor, scholar and author

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

~ Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

“The gospel is not just the illustration (even the best illustration) of an idea. It is the story of actions by which the human situation is irreversibly changed.”

~ Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), British author and theologian

“My security as a Christian does not reside in the strength of my faith but in the indestructibility of my Savior.”

~ Sinclair B. Ferguson (1948-present), professor, author and speaker

Sermon Passage

John 1:1-5 (NASB)

¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. ⁴ In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. ⁵ The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.