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Yes, we are still in chapter one...when John was writing his book he intentionally started it with as much deep theology as possible to set the foundation for the rest of the book - you have my word that once we leave this chapter you will wish we were back here because we'll be at the end before long! The verse we see this week is John 1:45, which says: 'Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”'

I am sure that many of us are already aware of Jesus' knack for fulfilling prophecies; a couple of years ago I bought a big fat concordance, which included a list of prophecies fulfilled by Jesus - there are over 300! The thing is that we tend to take that so much for granted that I think we miss what is an enormous truth. The prophecies in the Old Testament had been sitting unfulfilled for hundreds of years before Jesus appeared - to John, having known all these prophecies and seen them come to pass in one man, writing these simple words must have been absolutely incredible!

I thought about taking a selection of Old Testament prophecies and seeing how Jesus fulfilled them but I do not think that we could do the truth of his fulfilling the Word justice - rather, I think it would be important for us to recognise these two key truths:

God is faithful to fulfil His promises

The first simple truth that we can conclude from this is that God is faithful to fulfil His promises - He gave many promises in the Old Testament about Jesus' coming, and he came as was promised! What we can learn from this is that if God has promised something in our lives then He is faithful to fulfil that too - if God has promised us a spouse, or a ministry, or financial stability, then we should rest in the faith that God will do it! Philippians 4:6-7 tells us to 'in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.' If we do this then the result is that 'the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.' So let us, with thanksgiving for God's promises, ask Him to do it - the result will be a peace that surpasses all understanding.

Our hope is secure

Secondly we can know the results of Jesus' life. When God made promises in the Old Testament He did not do it just for the sake of it; He, throughout the Old Testament, promised to do something and then promised the means by which He would do it. Jesus' perfect life and death on the cross are not just there as an example of how to live our lives - they are the fulfillment of a promise made by God to save His children! We who are Christians are the recipients of perhaps my lifeverse, 2 Corinthians 5:21 '[God] made [Jesus] who knew no sin to become sin for us, that in him we might become the righteousness of God'. The promise is that our sin has been removed and replaced with righteousness - is it not astounding that God's grace means that heaven, an eternity in God's presence, free from the presence of sin, is not a nice idea - it is a promise and is guaranteed! Jesus is our Saviour and deserves all our worship.

"Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life" from Tom Kelley

Winning in Christ Jesus