So, if this is your first Sunday here, you picked an amazing first Sunday to be here. And if you're here in attendance today, you've picked an amazing first or week to show up, I guess. , I'm going to be fired up during this message cuz I get to be nerdy today. And I'm super excited to be nerdy. We are kicking off a message series called Who is Jesus.

And here's the big idea. In a world where everybody can make up their own version of truth of what is true, what is marriage, what is gender, what is right, what is wrong, a lot of people will make up their own definition to fit their personal agenda on who Jesus is. And what I want to do is come under the authority of scripture and look at at scripture and answer this question of who is Jesus.

And so we're going to be in this series going all the way up until Easter. And what this series is is it's an apologetics series through the Gospel of John. Okay, so we got to get some groundwork here first.

What is an apologetic. Okay, this is kind of a churchy word. So I want to I want to define it for you.

An apologetic is not an apology. Okay, we're not apologizing for something, but rather we're building up a case where we're building up a defense for the gospel. And what an apologetic is is it's you building up a case for Christ to present to the world.

And so, , if I can frame it a different way, it's kind of like, , if you, , knew where a buried treasure was and you didn't, , you wanted somebody to know about it. You wanted somebody to know how to get to that buried treasure, you would draw them out a map so they don't get lost. That's simply what an apologetic is.

Is it's our way of helping people answer some really big questions in life without getting lost. First Peter says, "Always be prepared. " Destination. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.

And so what we want to do is answer some of these big questions, but speak the truth in love with gentleness and respect and prepare ourselves to give this case for Christ as we defend Jesus in the world. Secondly, we're doing this through the Gospel of John. So we're going to take the first 11 chapters and go through the Gospel of John from now until Easter. , this is my one of my favorite books in the Bible. And so I'm so excited to be doing this.

And if you're like, "Hey, what about the second half of John. " Guess what. We're going to start out 2027 in the second half of John.

So, you got to stick around for a very long time if you want to hear me get through the whole Gospel of John. , but this is just an exciting book to read because John is known as the disciple whom Jesus loved. What a name, right. Like to get that kind of brag. Peter kind of like races him for that title.

That's a story for another day that we'll get there. But it's a really cool gospel because what you're going to see is that there's this this recording from John of all of these miracles that Jesus is performing, right. And what what we're going to see is that John records all of these statements that Jesus says about himself.

Maybe you've heard these before. They're called the I am statements. And we'll see a bunch of these as we go through the first 11 chapters. We'll see things like I am the bread of life. I am the son of God.

We'll see all of these themes come out. But the other thing that John does in his gospel is he portrays all of the people's confusion and division and hate towards who Jesus is. And we know nothing about that today, right.

No, but we do. And so we can kind of relate to these statements that Jesus is giving about himself and the claims from people who are following him and then the confusion of questions that is left kind of in the dust. But what is awesome about the book of John is I don't really need to take a lot of time communicating the gospel of John's purpose because John actually states the purpose of his book clearly.

In chapter 20 in verse 31 John writes in the writes the purpose of his book. He says, "But these are written, these words in this gospel are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God, and that by believing you may you may destination have life in his name. " And so the heartbeat of this series is for you to all know who Jesus is so that you might have life in his name. And so, are we ready to do this.

We ready to answer some big questions. I'm ready to get some angry emails. Today's really big question, , and I told you I get to be nerdy this morning.

I love when I get to be nerdy. Today's big question is, does believing in Jesus require rejecting science. Does believing in Jesus require rejecting science.

To do this, we're going to do what we do every week and open up the word of God. It's on page 911. We're going to start out John chapter 1 in the beginning there.

By the way, couple of things. If you don't have a Bible, take this with you. You're going to need it. It's going to answer all your big questions in life. Number two, if you have a pencil and something to write with or a phone, write it down, okay.

Because God is going to speak to you through this message series. And if you're somebody who struggles with some of these doubts, you're going to be able to read into these things for yourself. And if you're somebody who has a family member, a friend, a co-orker, somebody who struggles with some of these things, you're going to want to go back and kind of look and explore these things for yourself. But before we get to reading the Gospel of John, we have to do one more bit of groundwork. And that's by talking about science as a whole.

, and I need to be very clear about this. I need you to hear me on this. Today is not about answering every scientific question that there is.

Unless you want to be here for like two weeks cuz I got lots of arsenal, but I'm not going to give it all to you. But what today is about is it's about asking whether science actually removes the need for Jesus or points to Jesus. And before we look at that, you and I need to have an honest conversation about how we are conditioned to learn. I kind of think about it like this.

Each of you had classes in school in in elementary, middle school, high school, even in college that taught you to look at who, what, where, why, when, and learn about these things. I kind of made like a diagram of it. And so you might have had like an art or a history class that dealt with the who, okay.

Who made it. How did it get created. And you had a philosophy class where they asked all of the big questions in life from Aristotle to all of the big thinkers of the different times and they would ask why.

Why did this come to be. Why is the human condition like this. And then there was science.

Now science deals with the how. It's all of the ologies, biology, astrology, psychology. And what happens is is as we get deeper into these questions is we find oursel in this gray area. And so as an example, I'll just pull one from last week. We talked about Mount Rushmore a ton last week.

It wasn't the main point of the message, but it was in there. And if I were to look at Mount Rushmore through this lens, I would say history tells us the who. It says Dan Robinson was the one who architected this whole thing, put it all together.

Why is because they wanted a national landmark and South Dakota wanted to be put on the map. And how did they do it. They did it with dynamite carving tools and 400 people. So you see, we have a framework for answering some of those big questions.

But listen, as we get deeper into these questions, then we start to find ourselves in the gray area. So, wait a minute. Who who put the black hills there.

Who put this mountain here for this to be created. And how was this formed. As we start to get deeper into those questions, that's where a lot of people find themselves in this gray area where belief in Jesus and science seem on the surface like they're at ends with each other.

And what Pew Research tells us is they they did a poll, they did a survey and they find that 59% of Americans, so you either are somebody or you know somebody who is like this, who in general say that science is often in conflict with God and that that leads to their overall unbelief. And so people get hung up in this gray area. But I want you to see through scripture that everything in this gray area is pointing to Jesus.

All right, we ready to open up scripture. I didn't get too nerdy on you yet, right. Okay, we'll get there. , all right.

So, in the beginning, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning. Through him all things were made.

Without him, nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. I want to pause here because as we look at this, we're going to look at one of the first really big scientific kind of hang-ups that people bring into this argument, which is creation science.

And what we see here in the Gospel of John is he's pointing to creation science, pointing to Jesus. Now, just a little bit here, John starts out his gospel showing you that since the beginning, Jesus was there. Where does this phrase, in the beginning, come from. Okay, it's okay to talk back.

It's the very first sentence in Genesis, in the beginning. And John is taking those words and he's echoing them to show that in the beginning, Jesus's life did not start at the birth of his of like the Christmas story, but he was there in the beginning. In the beginning was the word. And this is an awesome awesome thing to get really nerdy about. In the beginning was the word.

Now, two things about this. What did God do in Genesis. Because he's echoing Genesis.

He spoke things into existence by his word. He said, "Let there be light. " And there was light.

He said, "Let there be birds. Let there be fish. Let there be land. Let there be sea.

" It was spoken by his word. Now, even cooler, when we look into the original language of the book of John, which is Greek, we see that I'm going to say the word word a lot here. Just come with me, okay. We see that the word word it actually translates to this word called logos.

Okay, logos carries way more weight to it. And we need to get the Greek weight to this word cuz logos actually kind of translates to an indisputable word, an indisputable reason. So it's kind of like I will take you at your word. Okay, we have a reason to believe.

It's almost like an apologetic, right. So let me read this again. In the beginning was the indisputable reason and the reason was with God and the reason was God. Do you see how that kind of impacts and I'm not changing the verbiage of of scripture here. I just want you to see that John is trying to show something so much deeper than just saying in the beginning was a word.

No, it's in the beginning. There was a reason for the beginning and there is a reason that Jesus was in this beginning. And our culture, what we what we love to do is is weaponize some of this creation and put it against Jesus.

Perhaps one of the biggest arguments for creation science is that of Charles Darwin's evolution theory. And what Darwin does with his evolution theory is he takes really good assumptions and he shows that over time this life was built one small step at a time like adding parts to a machine and that machine kind of working at each stage and thriving and developing. But if you read further into Darwin's work, he says in his book on the origin of species, he says this quote, and I'm going to read it to you, and I want you to just listen to this quote.

He says, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive slight modifications, my theory, which is the evolution theory, would absolutely break down. " Okay, this is what he says. And when Darwin was doing all of this research, we need to keep in mind that he did not have the resources that we have in 2025. He didn't have the technology.

He didn't have the the knowledge that we have about different cellular buildup and different things. And some would argue that if Darwin had the amount of resources that we have today, he might come to a different conclusion. Now, when you read further into creation science as a whole, here's what I'm going to tell you as a whole, that science is always catching up to Jesus. Whether whatever science you're looking at, you're seeing that over time when there is this theory or this this work on how something came to be, you will start to learn that all of those things over time have came closer to Jesus and what is written and recorded in this book rather than further from. And there's been so many theories about how life came to be, how how we were evolved from random matter under the right chemicals and the right circumstances.

But either way, whatever evolution theory that you want to argue, even every creation needs a creator. And so we look to Jesus as that creator. An apologetics professor described it like this.

He said, ", think about, , you're going to bake a cake or you want a cake and magically all of the ingredients showed up. They were all measured up and they all appeared in your oven. " He says, "No, there has to be intentionality. There is a baker. There is somebody who has measured out everything and put it under the right circumstances at the right time.

" Can I just remind you about the beauty of your creation for just a second. Have you ever like looked at one of those baby apps before. Watch how your baby grows in the womb over time and and like it it compares it to the size of the fruit.

But like all of these different things are coming and developing that at 7 months inside of the mother's womb, the baby already has these individual unique fingerprints. Yours are not like anybody else's. There's about 400 gallons of blood that pumps through your kidneys every day.

If we were to take and unravel your small intestines, they're 25 feet long. Your brain sends messages at a rate of 240 miles an hour. That's why I talk so fast.

And your brain's storage capacity, listen to this. This this gives me hope. Your brain's storage capacity is virtually unlimited.

It can reach a storage capacity of up to 8 billion 86 billion neurons. And each of those neurons can can form other neurons which can kind of equal out to about a quadrillion different neurons. But all of you just forgot what I said. So I I don't know what proof that is. But my point is you are beautifully and wonderfully made.

There was a purpose for your being and there was a creator behind your creation. And this all of this points to Jesus. The big idea is that creation science always points to a creator and his name is Jesus.

Now, we could sit and we could dissect all of these different theories and we could nerd out about them and and I would love to nerd out about some of them. But what happens is when we look at creation science and that that argument kind of goes goes down a little bit, we then turn our attention outwards and kind of zoom out to this astrology like science which is looking out instead of looking in. And so let's read, let's continue in in John we're in verse 5.

It says this, "And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There is a man sent from God whose name was John. " Now, he's talking about John the Baptist, by the way, who we'll talk about next week, okay. He's not talking about himself. He says, "There's this man who's coming whose name was John.

He came as a witness to testify concerning the light so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light. He came only to witness the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

He was in the world and through the world was made through him. The world did not recognize him. He can he came to that which was his own.

But he did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive them to choose who to believe in his name, he gave them the right to become children of God. Children born not of natural descent nor of human decision or of husband's will but born of God.

So here what we see is John is illustrating this very personal God. And we're seeing him echo some of his language about creation that we because we were created by God on purpose for a purpose. He gave us this gift of Jesus so that through him through Jesus we may become children of God. And he uses this this idea of light to kind of illustrate this.

He makes a reflection and a reference to Genesis where God said, "Let there be light. " This was a physical light that came into the world. It'd be like if we turned on the light switch right now and and all these bright house lights came on. It is a physical light.

But now John is bringing it deeper than that because John is bringing it to the spiritual light which is Jesus that you and I have a tendency and are prone to walk in darkness but Jesus is that light. And we need both in order for survival. We need both in this life as we find and follow Jesus.

Now, one of the biggest struggles that people have is when they look at the vastness of our galaxy. They look at the stars and think of all of the the theories that are out there about different, I don't know, like aliens and the big bang theory and all of these big ideas. They would think, what are the chances that all of this would point to a creator. Now, I just want to share with you a really cool story.

I'm going to be having resources throughout this this this series. And one of my favorites to give is if you are a parent in this room or a grandparent in this room, I highly recommend these devotional books by Louis Gigglio. They are there's two of them and my son and I have gone through both of them and each one of them shares a story about creation science or astrology science all pointing to Jesus and it's a really cool resource. I'll have a bunch of resources by the way available throughout this series. But one of the stories that one of these books tell is just so cool.

It's in 1992 they discovered a new galaxy and they were looking at this galaxy through the most advanced scope that they had at the time. And in 1992 they were asking a lot of big questions as they looked out into the world about hey is is Jesus is is God the creator of all of this. And the scientist who was asking those questions was one on the team that discovered this galaxy.

This is what he saw the first time that they looked through the scope. Anybody see something unique there. It's a cross.

And this is just a an example. And we can show example after example of all of these scientists over time who have studied creation who have looked at the vastness of of creation here on Earth. But then the vastness out in the sky in the stars and the galaxies and seeing that everything still points to a creator.

Everything still points to God. And so the big idea is this is while the universe feels big. While everything out here feels big, that God is still personal. That God is still personal. Scientists have noted and have actually studied the creation of our world of Earth and they said that it would be about 10,000 trillion trillion trillion chance to allow life on here on Earth and it's it's many scientists will say that's a precision that is so precise that it would be virtually impossible by chance.

Okay, let's zoom it back into you. Do you know that there was about a one in4 trillion chance, that's one in four trillion chance that you would have been born. That your unique DNA would have been put together for you to be born in such a time as this.

And that there are 250 births every couple of minutes. Do you know how many babies have been born as I've been speaking up here. There's been a lot of babies born. There was one born this week.

, but but it's just to show that God has this amazing personal plan. Okay, have I gotten nerdy enough on you today. Can I get nerdier.

>> Okay, let's talk about Avengers for a second. So, my favorite movie of all time is Avengers Endgame. Okay, if you haven't seen it, I'm going to spoil it for you. You're late to the party. Go watch it.

, I love the Avengers series and Endgame builds up to this big climactic moment for all of the heroes and just a little bit of backstory. There's this bad guy, his name's Thanos. He's going to take away 50% of all of the universe by the snap of a finger. And he does it in this movie called Infinity War. He goes and he takes away half of everything everything in existence.

And then in Endgame, the idea is we're going to bring everything back. And what's really interesting is at the very end of Infinity War, the heroes kind of give Thanos the win. And what's cool about it is if you've seen the movie, there's this guy named Doctor Strange who can see into the future. And he he looks at all of the different possibilities and he looks at Iron Man and he says, "There's one possibility. There's only one in millions and millions and millions of possibilities that this will work out.

And so five years pass and they go back in Endgame and and they're trying to undo everything that's been done, all of the evil of taking away half of existence. And so they go back and there's this big climactic moment fight between Iron Man and Thanos. Am I making you want to go home and watch it. And so there's this big moment, this big climactic moment where Iron Man is is just about defeated by Thanos and then he looks over at Doctor Strange.

You remember the scene if you've seen it. He looks over at him and he gives him this one possibility. And what does he do.

He goes over there. He takes the gauntlet. I am Iron Man. And then he he sacrifices himself.

Now, if you see the connection here, do you see the connection here that the odds were against the heroes the whole time, but yet they send somebody to save out of sacrifice. And this is what Jesus did for you. This is the Jesus that this is the Jesus that we need to know.

The one that came willingly into existence to say, "I'm going to sacrifice so that they could have life. " If you don't believe me, look at verse 14. Look what it says.

The word, the reason, became flesh and made his dwelling among us. God was fully human and fully man and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son who came from the father full of grace and truth. John had this amazing gift of being able to write this gospel after the fact of all of his experience with Jesus.

Can you imagine if at the end of your life you get to write down all of your experience that you've had growing closer to Jesus. That is what John is doing. And that is what science does for each and every one of us. This is your big takeaway for today. Science is not the enemy.

It is not the enemy. When we talk about science and faith in Jesus, it is our ally. Science is good.

Looking at the mystery and the hows of life is good. And it's not designed to disprove God, but it's our limited way of describing an unlimited and personal God. And that God is Jesus.

And again, what I'm saying is the coolest part about this is you get a personal relationship with the creator of the universe. Do you know how amazing that is. Can I just nerd out one more time. If I I remember sitting in the movie theater watching Endgame for my very first time. I was like a kid in a candy store.

Like it was so cool, right. And I got really nerdy about going and watching all of the behind the scenes, how it was made, how it was created, what were what were they doing during this scene, what how did they create that scene. But you know what I didn't have.

I didn't have a relationship with the directors or the writers or the actors. I wasn't in those rooms. I didn't get a writing of how it happened or why it happened.

But guess what. We get that about the world. We get that in our personal relationship with Jesus. And so if you're somebody in here who's been maybe hung up on some of the hows of life, some of these big questions like, "How did this come to be.

" or or how do I know that this is real or how do I get through something. Maybe your hang-up hasn't been how it's created, but how a loving God could could could send some of the evil into the world. We're going to look at some of those questions, too.

But I want to encourage you before we get deeper into this how apologetics series, you need to start with who this personal relationship that you can have with Jesus, the creator of the world there from the beginning of the creation. You get that personal relationship with Jesus. And so I want to give you a moment to respond to this. So, would you just, this is something we do at at Destination, just bow your eye your head and close your eyes just to have a moment with with Jesus.

I'll invite the worship team up and I just want you to reflect on this. Reflect on some of the questions of how that maybe you've gotten hung up on in the past or maybe you have somebody in your life right now who's just been struggling through a how kind of question. And maybe for you describing to them Jesus or maybe for you who are here this morning, you don't need to start with the how, but you need to start with the who. And that who is Jesus.

This man named Jesus who came into the world, who gave his life so that you could have abundant life here on earth and eternal life in heaven. He came for you and created you on purpose for a purpose. Beautifully and wonderfully made for such a time as this.

This is the Jesus that wants a relationship with you. And so if you're here today and you're just like, I want to know this Jesus. I want to quit getting hung up on the how.

I want to quit getting hung up on reasons and trying to do my own study. I just want to know. I want that personal relationship with Jesus. If that's you, would you just raise your hand in this moment just in a moment of boldness with everybody's eyes closed, heads bowed so I know who I'm praying for. You're somebody who needs to say yes to Jesus.

And for the rest of us, maybe we have somebody in our life or maybe we've never tackled some of these big questions. And I think the invitation to you is to grow this morning to say, "Yes, I want to grow beyond my limited knowledge of an unlimited God. I want to know the answer to some of these questions.

And I know that getting that answer requires me having this relationship with Jesus, digging into my word, digging into some of the questions and doubts that I might have. So, I want to pray for you as you do that. God, thank you for everybody in this room. Thank you that we could nerd out together and look at some of these deeper questions. And God, while it feels like some of these scientific issues are placed against you, we see that science is always pointing towards you.

So God, we thank you. We thank you for being so personal. God, we thank you for being so creative. God, we thank you for the ways that you've uniquely created and designed every single person in this room. May us look at the beauty of your creation today.

Whether it's in another person, in a kid, in the sun in the sky, or the snow on the ground, and just say, "Thank you, Lord. Thank you for your creation in Jesus name.