John 1: God's Word Gives You the Power to Become

Introduction

“God still speaks.” For the preacher at Église Lille Métropole, this series title is not a question but a statement: “Even today, in 2026, God still speaks.” He does not necessarily speak in an audible voice, but God has a message for each person, including the one who is visiting for the first time.

One week after the launch of the series, this message asks a simple question: why does God want to speak to us? There are many answers, but the preacher highlights one: God speaks to us so that we can become. The title of the message says it in a few words: the power to become. The central text is John 1:12.

He then answers a personal question, “What kind of person am I becoming?”, and offers two ways to let God’s word work on your future: refuse to believe that everything is already decided, and take a step toward what God is calling you to become.

Outline of the message

1. From the very first page, God speaks

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Everything came about through his word, so much so that we can say: “in the beginning God spoke and the world came to be.”
After Adam and Eve’s wrong choice, they realize they are naked. “When we feel ashamed, we hide.” Even then, God goes looking by his word for those who are hiding, with this question: “Where are you?”
“When God asks a question, it is not to get information. It is to enter into relationship with the person.”
God speaks to Abraham, Moses and David, calls prophets and teaches his people. The high point is the coming of Jesus, the eternal Word: the Word became flesh. Even today, God takes the initiative to speak.

2. Why does God want to speak to us?

To enter into relationship with us: if I want to connect with someone, on a platform, in the street or at home, I start by speaking to them.
To make himself known: “Through his word, God reveals his heart.” Talk with someone for an hour and you will know what interests them and what they are passionate about.
To shed light on our choices.
And above all, to make us become. “We are all people in the process of becoming.” The way we think, love, react and carry out our responsibilities can be directly shaped by the word of God.
It is a creative principle: “As soon as God speaks over the world, over a situation, over a person, a new reality appears.” This principle was not reserved for the old covenant.

3. John 1:12: the power to become a child of God

“But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become God’s children, to those who believe in his name.” The preacher pauses on the word power: “the word is strong and the word is fitting.”
There is an instant reality: whoever welcomes Jesus becomes a new creation and a child of God. This is the miracle of the new birth.
But the verse goes further. This word gives the power to become the child of God you are called to become, the unique person God has planned. We do not all have the same calling or the same destiny, and God has prepared good works for each of us.
For that, I need this word to reach me regularly. His key sentence: “When God speaks, my life takes shape.”
At 60, he preaches this with more conviction than he did 20 or 40 years ago: “He has spoken many times, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, 5 years ago, and every time he speaks, I keep becoming who I am meant to be.”

4. Refusing to believe that everything is already decided

First answer: expose “the trap of fatalism.” Whether you have lived through a lot or are just entering adulthood, you may tell yourself: “Whatever I do, it’s all decided anyway.”
Fatalism has its own language: “I am like this and I will stay like this,” “At my age, people don’t change,” “It’s my character, you have to take me as I am,” “In our family, we are all like that.”
The consequence: what I constantly feel becomes my permanent identity, and I no longer bring to God the areas that need to be transformed. “I don’t have to put up with what I don’t like in myself.” Sometimes we are our own obstacles to our destiny.
In 1998, France beat Brazil 3-0 to win the World Cup, and the sportswear sponsor’s slogan was everywhere: “Victory is within us.” The preacher turns the phrase around: if victory is within us, defeat can be within us too, and keep us from going further.
Fatalism often takes the form of a family inheritance: “In my family, nobody knows how to express their feelings,” “We never ask for forgiveness,” “I’m like my mother or my father, I always want to control everything. And you see, pastor, you can’t change who you are.” These things act like a law we can no longer budge.

5. Ezekiel 18: you are not condemned to repeat

God challenges the idea that our family history decides our whole story. Israel repeated a proverb handed down from generation to generation: “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”
In other words: you are suffering today, and it is no surprise, since your parents made bad choices and you have to bear the consequences.
The next verse is powerful: “As I live,” says the Lord Yahweh, “you shall not use this proverb any more in Israel.” The Lord takes a stand: children will not pay for the faults of their parents, nor parents for those of their children.
This does not mean that family wounds have no consequences. They can run deep and sometimes call for support. “But we are not condemned to repeat them.” With God’s grace, you can learn another way of living and pass on something different to your children and grandchildren.
“My story explains some of my difficulties. That is certain, it is undeniable, but it does not decide my future on its own.”
God wants to speak over your anger, your resentment, your shyness, your guilt. “When he speaks, it is not to accuse, it is not to make you feel guilty, but when he speaks, he opens a future before you.”

6. Taking a step: responding when the word puts its finger on an area

Second answer: take a step toward what God is calling me to become. “I am co-responsible for my future.” Taking the first step means coming to him with the areas that need to be transformed.
God’s word points out our inner dysfunctions with unimaginable precision, through preaching, through a song, through reading the Bible. “When I read the Bible, the Bible reads me.”
Hebrews 4:12: the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. It brings to light what is happening deep inside us, down to our thoughts and motives. It is then up to me to respond.
In a synagogue, a man has a withered hand. The preacher points out that the text does not say so, but he imagines this man hiding his hand in his sleeve, because in those days a disability was seen as a shame for the family.
Jesus says to him: “Stand up,” and then “Stretch out your hand.” The man does not ask which hand he means: he knows. When the word is precise, we know what God is referring to.
The man obeys and stretches out his hand. Jesus does not expose him to add shame, but to heal him. “Every time God calls me out through his word, it is not to hold my head under water,” it is because if he brings what has been uncovered to God, God has the power to change him.

7. Bringing to God what I know I need to change

There are also things I do not need to discover: I already know them. “I know that sometimes my words can hurt. I know that I avoid certain conversations. I know that I am holding on to resentment.”
What do I do with this realization? Justify myself, condemn myself, lose heart? Or come to God: “Lord, here is an area where I need you to teach me, to transform me.”
The prodigal son, at rock bottom, comes to his senses. Be careful, the preacher warns, some forms of introspection are dangerous: if it only serves to draw up a balance sheet, it drags you down. Done with honesty and truth, it should push you toward the Father.
The son comes back with a shrunken future: “I am no more worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants.” This is not a lesser job, the preacher explains, but he starts from far away: a co-heir with his brother of an extraordinary future, he limits his own horizon.
The father answers: “My son.” There is more here than pride: I love you so much that I tell you that you are still my son, and I do not want to shrink the outlook of your destiny. He was dead, spiritually dead, dead to his family, and “was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” He came back with the realization of what he had become; his father opened for him a future beyond what he could imagine.
In conclusion, back to John 1:12: the journey begins with receiving Jesus and believing in his name. The word of God is not a book of magic to recite. But to those who believe, it gives the power to become. “I don’t have to stay who I am.”
The message ends with a call: come out of your hiding place, drop the masks, hold out your hand before God. Whatever fortress holds you in, family inheritance, character trait, fear or shyness, the word of God has the power to bring it down “stone by stone.”

Key takeaways

God still speaks today, and he speaks to enter into relationship, to make himself known and to make us become.
“When God speaks, my life takes shape.” John 1:12 describes an instant birth, but also a becoming that continues throughout life.
Fatalism has its own language and its own inheritance, but your story does not decide your future on its own (Ezekiel 18).
You are co-responsible for your future: respond when the word puts its finger on an area, and bring to God what you already know needs to change.
When God uncovers something, it is never to humiliate: as with the man with the withered hand and the prodigal son, he opens a future wider than the one you imagined.

Personal application

What kind of person are you becoming, in the way you think, love and react?
Which sentence from the language of fatalism do you repeat to yourself: “I’m just like that,” “at my age people don’t change,” “in our family we’re all like that”?
What family inheritance, anger, silence, resentment or need for control, would you like not to pass on to those who come after you?
What “hand” are you still hiding in your sleeve, that God invites you to stretch out before him?
Like the prodigal son, have you shrunk your future? What does the Father want to say to you again about your identity as a son or daughter?

Verses cited

Frequently asked questions

What does “the power to become children of God” mean in John 1:12?

Whoever welcomes Jesus and believes in him instantly becomes a child of God: this is the new birth. But the preacher stresses that this verse goes further. The word of God gives the power to become, day after day, the child of God and the unique person you are called to be. For that, it has to reach you regularly.

Does my family history decide my future?

No. In Ezekiel 18, God declares that Israel will no longer use the proverb “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” Family wounds have consequences and may call for support, but we are not condemned to repeat them. “My story explains some of my difficulties, but it does not decide my future on its own.”

How can I take part in my own transformation?

The preacher calls himself “co-responsible” for his future. He suggests two steps: respond when the word of God puts its finger on a specific area, like the man with the withered hand who stretches out his hand, and bring to God what you already know needs to change, like the prodigal son who returns to his father.