• http://lockwoodchurch.org/media (Listening time: 31:47)

Imagine you are an actor, who has moved to Los Angeles, is sharing an apartment with four other people, working odd jobs, and waiting for your big break. One day your agent calls. A famous director is looking for someone to play a role in his new major motion picture. The audition is at 3:00.

So, you call your part-time employer, tell him you’re going to miss work today, and you go in for the audition. You’re given a script with the lines: “Don’t even think about it. Please. Please. You’ll ruin everything.”

You ask, “So what is this scene about?” and are told, “The Director isn’t telling anyone. Just do your best.”

You don’t know if your character is a scientist, working in a lab with highly explosive material or a spouse whose partner has threatened to file for divorce. How can you know how to act if you don’t know the story? That is the same kind of problem many people have in trying to live as a Jesus-follower: They don’t know what story they’re in. Our text will help us understand our story. This message is based on John 1:1-18, and is meant to open the new series, Allow Me to Introduce Myself: Jesus. Each week of the series, we will be introduced to a truth about Jesus from the Gospel of John, revealed in Jesus’s fascinating “I Am” statements.