G'day, everyone.

Dave here.

Welcome back to stories of a faithful God for kids.

I'm so glad you've come back because today we're starting a new series and it's gonna be

a cracker.

We're gonna have a look at John's gospel.

John was one of the disciples of Jesus.

He watched Jesus for three years.

He saw and heard amazing things and then he wrote them down for us in his gospel.

Before we get into that though, let me ask you a question.

How can you know God? I mean, he's invisible, right?

How do you know he's even there? If he is there, how can you know what he's

like? Imagine if someone came up to you, pointed to

the air and said, oh, see this here? That's my invisible friend.

He's as tall as the moon.

He's got purple freckles and 18 noses.

He's from the planet sparshod, which is invisible as well.

He's got tiny legs but really big muscles.

If you make him angry, he'll make you sit in

his ear while he counts to 1 billion.

Oh, and he really likes to eat doughnuts.

What would you do if someone said that? I suspect most of us wouldn't believe them.

But how could we know for certain? Wed probably want some proof or evidence that

this thing is really there, right? Well, what about God?

Hes invisible, so how can we know him? Wheres the proof?

Thankfully, theres really great proof we really can know God.

To find out how, get ready to listen because its time for our next episode of stories of a

faithful God for kids.

Picture the earth as a big ball of water

floating through space.

There's no sun or moon.

There aren't any stars.

There's no land and the water has no life.

And then God speaks.

He says, let there be light.

And light bursts out to shine on the earth.

God speaks again and again and each time he

says his words, something new happens.

God is so powerful that even things that don't

exist obey his word.

You might have read about that at the

beginning of the Bible.

It starts with the words in the beginning.

Strangely, when John sits down to write his gospel, he starts with exactly the same words.

In the beginning he says that in the beginning there was the word.

That's a strange thing to say.

But he must be talking about God's word,

right? Because before God made anything, there was

only God.

Actually, though, John uses the word word as a

kind of nickname for Jesus.

He uses it to describe Jesus.

And as he describes the word Jesus, he tells us some amazing things.

First, he tells us that the word Jesus was with God and is God.

What? How can he be both with God and be God?

I mean, I'm not with me, I just am me.

But Jesus, the word is with God, and at the

same time he is God.

Woo.

John also says that Jesus is God the son.

There's God the father and God the son, which

means there must be two gods, right? Because I know how to add up.

And one plus one is two.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So there must be two gods.

What? There's not two gods?

No, the Bible tells us that there's only one God.

So John's telling us that in God the one God, there's God the father and God the son.

Jesus the father is fully God.

He's not half a God.

He's fully God, and Jesus is fully God.

He isn't half a God either.

To make it even more complicated later, John will tell us about God the Holy spirit.

He's fully God too.

The fancy word for this is the Trinity.

It means there's only one God.

He's always one and always three.

He's never not three, and he's never not one.

Sometimes you see him as three.

The son speaks to the father who sends the spirit.

Sometimes you see him as one, but he's always one and always three.

Is your mind blown yet? Well, John tells us something else amazing

about Jesus.

He says in verse three of chapter one, all

things were made through him.

Nothing was made without him.

All things, everything was made through Jesus.

That's why John's given him the nickname the

word.

Because God made the world through his words.

And he made it all through Jesus.

Through Jesus he made everything, including

cats and dogs, worms, ducks, eagles, pigeons, whales, coral, jellyfish and flies.

Nostrils, hair, fingernails, skin.

Clouds, waves, leaves, the tallest trees, and

the tiniest plants, the sun, moon and stars, the rain and fog, all the ants in the world,

and even, even your belly button.

It was all made through Jesus.

Who's God the sun.

I'd love to hear what you really like that

Jesus made.

In the show notes.

I'll put a link to a survey where you can say what your favorite part of the world that God

made through Jesus is.

I'll leave it there for a week and then I'll

read out the answers next week on another episode.

Now, everything we've said so far, that Jesus was with God and is God that he's God the son,

that everything was made through him.

It's all great, but it's all still invisible.

The next thing John tells us though, changes all of that.

He says, jesus, God the Son came into the world, the invisible God, got a human body.

All of a sudden people could see him.

Sometimes people ask, can we see God?

And part of the answer is, well you can't at the moment, but if you lived at the right

time, you could have.

John was one of the people who saw him.

In verse 14 he says the word, that's Jesus.

The word, became a man and lived among us.

This is amazing.

Jesus isn't like us.

We started in our mum's tummies, but he's always been there.

God's always been there, but very kindly.

Jesus came to earth to become a human like us.

That means he had to be born like us.

He had to grow up like us.

For the first time he had hair and a nose and even a belly button.

Thats why when people like John first met Jesus they didnt realize that he was God.

They just thought he was a human.

A pretty great human, but nothing more than a

human.

As they watched him though and listened to

him, they came to see that there was far more to him.

He is human, fully human and fully God at the same time.

One of the things that's so great about this is that by getting to know Jesus, we can get

to know God.

The faithful God, the glorious God.

Jesus shows us what God is really like.

So in verse 18, John says, no man has ever

seen God, but God, the only son, is very close to the father, and the sun has shown us what

God is like.

If you want to know God, you need to get to

know Jesus.

Jesus is God in the flesh.

I should say though, that not everyone who met Jesus liked him or accepted him.

Not everyone thought he was God.

Most people gave up on him.

John actually tells us about that in verse ten.

He says the world was made through him, but the world did not know him.

How sad is that? Jesus put on a body and came to this world,

that he'd made the people he'd made and they didn't believe who he was.

Even more amazingly, he came to the Israelites who were also called the Jews, God's people

from the Old Testament, the people who knew the most about him, but even they didn't like

him.

John says in verse eleven that his own people

did not accept him.

It's so sad.

But.

But even though that's generally true, that

people in the world who weren't jewish and also jewish people didn't accept Jesus, it's

not the full story because actually, there were people from the Jews and the rest of the

world who did accept him.

And for those people, Jesus did something

amazing.

He gave them something amazing.

Jesus made them full members of the royal family of the universe.

That's right.

He brings them into God's royal family.

Let me read to you what John says in verse twelve.

He says, but some people did accept him.

They believed in him.

To them, he gave the right to become children of God.

Last year I was a teacher in the school where my kids go.

And one day in the playground my daughter came up to me and asked me for some money to buy

something and I gave it to her.

Now there are hundreds of kids at that school,

and if any of the other kids who aren't my children came and asked me for money, I would

have said no, you need to ask your parents.

But because it was my daughter, my family

member who asked, I gave it to her.

When you're in a family, there are special

things that you get just because you're in that family.

No one outside of the family can get them.

It's very special to be in a family.

We're not naturally a part of God's family.

We're made by God, but that doesn't make us

his family.

Jesus, on the other hand, is the son of

goddess.

Hes always been the son of God.

He has a relationship with God the father.

Thats perfect.

How amazing then that even though we dont naturally belong to that family, if we believe

in Jesus, if we trust him as God the son, then he invites us to be children of God as well.

Its especially amazing when you think that this is the greatest, most powerful, most

wonderful, most spectacular family in all the universe.

This is the biggest news in the world.

There's no bigger present that anyone could

have knowing God, being brought into the family of God all through Jesus.

John tells us all this at the start of his book about Jesus.

He wants us to believe it.

In fact, right near the end of the book he

tells us that he wrote it all down so that we would believe in Jesus and that if we believe

in Jesus, we'll have life forever.

But he doesn't just tell us these big ideas

about Jesus, he also tells us about the things he saw and heard from Jesus, the things that

convinced him that Jesus really is God.

He's going to tell us the most amazing things,

the most wonderful things, things that will help us to know God through Jesus.

But that's a story for next time.

Well, I hope you enjoyed our first episode in

John's gospel.

Don't forget to click on the link in the show

notes and fill in the survey where you can tell me some of your favourite things that God

made through Jesus adults if you're finding these shows really helpful, I'm so glad.

I'd really appreciate it if you can support me financially by providing some money each

month.

Ive only been able to make the shows so far

with the generous support of other people who can see the value of this, so if youre willing

and able to help in that way, id really appreciate it.

Dont forget to let other people know about the show.

Tell them that weve started a new series and also to check out the older series as well.

And also please rate and review the show on your app.

That would be really great.

Thanks everyone.

Bye for now.