WEBVTT 00:00:00.681 --> 00:00:05.919 So if you have your Bible you can open to the Gospel of John, the Gospel of John, chapter 1. 00:00:05.919 --> 00:00:19.262 Last week I started us in a series in John 1 and we kind of had part 1 last week of this thing that we're calling. 00:00:19.262 --> 00:00:26.568 As I was referring to the book, I called it a biography of Jesus and I said the first story, part 1, so this week is part 2. 00:00:26.568 --> 00:00:30.585 And do you have the sermon slides? 00:00:30.585 --> 00:00:31.469 Oh yeah, they do. 00:00:31.469 --> 00:00:42.368 Okay, good, I wasn't sure because I forgot to check that they actually got over to that computer, but there they are and so I'm continuing, kind of that first section. 00:00:42.368 --> 00:00:53.689 Now, the first section of the Gospel of John, chapter 1, really goes through verse 18, 16 or 18, depending on where exactly you divide it. 00:00:53.689 --> 00:01:04.620 But there is a lot there and you'll see today as we go into this text that there's a lot there and we're not going to be able to drill down and dig into every little detail that's there. 00:01:04.620 --> 00:01:10.712 But my prayer is that we would keep sight of the big picture of what is going on. 00:01:10.712 --> 00:01:28.114 And so I just want to remind you of the big picture in the whole story, the whole biography of Jesus that we have here, where people write stories to give a specific flavor or a specific way of looking at things. 00:01:28.114 --> 00:01:31.025 And John's reason for writing this Gospel? 00:01:31.025 --> 00:01:57.365 He tells us that it is that you as a reader, or anyone me as a reader that we will believe that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the one who was said beforehand that he would come as the anointed one, the one who would save, that he would come so that you would believe that Jesus is the Messiah and that you would believe that not just that he is the Messiah, but specifically that you would believe that he is the Son of God. 00:01:57.365 --> 00:01:59.325 This is found in John, chapter 20. 00:01:59.325 --> 00:02:00.128 You don't need to turn there. 00:02:00.128 --> 00:02:13.973 I'm just reminding you where it is that you would believe that Jesus is the promised Messiah and the Son of God and that when you believe that you, by believing, would have life in his name. 00:02:13.973 --> 00:02:22.447 I mentioned that as I was referring to the song that we sang about his name and I even was asked about the name last week. 00:02:22.447 --> 00:02:44.162 I'm not going to go real deep in the idea of his name today, but I just want to point out that that phrase in his name some variation of having salvation in his name, being saved in his name, some variation of that is in the Gospel of John, a lot like a hundred times or something like that. 00:02:44.162 --> 00:02:59.462 It's something that we're going to touch on in many of the sermons to come, and one of these sermons coming up, we will dig deep into that concept of what it means to be saved in his name. 00:02:59.462 --> 00:03:18.349 But that is the purpose of this book that we would have life in his name by believing who Jesus is, that he is the Messiah, that he is the Son of God, and last week we started by looking at the first five verses of chapter one. 00:03:18.349 --> 00:03:27.348 In those five verses I'm not going to rehash everything, but there were two metaphors that the author uses to describe Jesus. 00:03:27.348 --> 00:03:35.187 Now, calling them metaphors does not make them not true, but they are word pictures to help us understand who Jesus is. 00:03:35.187 --> 00:03:45.824 These metaphors are Jesus is referred to as the Word and the Light, the Word and the Light, and we saw that. 00:03:45.864 --> 00:03:46.705 The Word. 00:03:46.705 --> 00:03:49.811 Who is Jesus? 00:03:49.811 --> 00:03:52.074 He was in the beginning. 00:03:52.074 --> 00:04:08.183 We talked about that as being before the creation, and so Jesus, the Word which God created through the Word, through a Word, got spoke, and creation was that. 00:04:08.183 --> 00:04:19.713 Jesus was in the beginning and he was with God and he was, in fact God as well, and those are said as two separate statements. 00:04:19.713 --> 00:04:24.495 That in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. 00:04:24.495 --> 00:04:30.165 And so Jesus was in the beginning and he is Creator God. 00:04:30.165 --> 00:04:31.007 That's kind of. 00:04:31.028 --> 00:04:42.178 The key takeaway of that first section is that Jesus is Creator God, who has not been overcome by darkness, because in him is life and light. 00:04:42.178 --> 00:04:49.019 And then light is that second metaphor which is going to be continued on in today's passage. 00:04:49.019 --> 00:04:50.790 So we're going to continue. 00:04:50.790 --> 00:04:59.185 The author is going to tell us about specifically this next metaphor and he'll return to the word metaphor in a little bit. 00:04:59.185 --> 00:05:02.555 But look with me where we ended. 00:05:02.555 --> 00:05:11.165 I'm going to read those last two verses, verses four and five from last week, because they flow into where we are this week. 00:05:11.165 --> 00:05:14.165 So it said in him was life. 00:05:14.165 --> 00:05:19.656 So in Jesus was life and the life was the light of men. 00:05:19.656 --> 00:05:24.185 The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. 00:05:24.185 --> 00:05:26.810 So the world is a dark place. 00:05:26.810 --> 00:05:33.185 Darkness is representative of sinfulness, of a broken world around us. 00:05:33.185 --> 00:06:02.185 We look around us and we see a world that is filled with suffering, that is filled with hurt, and that Jesus is life, which is kind of the opposite of that darkness, of that death, and that life is the light that is in us and basically that anything good that happens in this world, anything that we do, that's good, it's not us, it's actually the light that is within us, so much so that the darkness has not overcome it. 00:06:02.185 --> 00:06:06.105 The world has not become completely devoid of goodness. 00:06:06.105 --> 00:06:13.185 There is some goodness in the world because of the light of Christ, and Christ has not been defeated by the darkness. 00:06:13.185 --> 00:06:15.610 So that's where we left off. 00:06:15.831 --> 00:06:19.057 And then the passage continues in verse 6. 00:06:19.057 --> 00:06:24.144 It says there was a man sent from God whose name was John. 00:06:24.144 --> 00:06:31.165 Now, that man named John is not the author of this book. 00:06:31.165 --> 00:06:34.875 We believe that the author of this book is the apostle John. 00:06:34.875 --> 00:06:44.860 But the John being referred to here is John, who we refer to as John the Baptist, a different person referred to in the Bible. 00:06:44.860 --> 00:06:49.165 And so there was this man who was sent from God whose name was John. 00:06:49.165 --> 00:06:57.658 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light that all might be lived through him. 00:06:57.658 --> 00:07:06.579 So John came, and it says that he was not the light, but he came to bear witness about the light. 00:07:06.579 --> 00:07:16.879 So John came not to be the Savior, not to be the anointed one, not to be the Christ, but to point to him. 00:07:16.879 --> 00:07:20.144 He came not to be the light, but to bear the light. 00:07:20.144 --> 00:07:25.084 He was a light bearer, and we'll use that phrase throughout this sermon. 00:07:25.084 --> 00:07:27.173 We'll use that phrase light bearer. 00:07:27.173 --> 00:07:29.165 You see what is a light bearer? 00:07:29.165 --> 00:07:30.728 Just real briefly. 00:07:30.769 --> 00:07:32.896 We'd kind of step out of the text and think about it. 00:07:32.896 --> 00:07:40.185 So I want you to imagine for a moment that you are hiking through the woods at night, in the dark. 00:07:40.185 --> 00:07:47.797 Okay, I want you to imagine that you're doing that and maybe you didn't really plan really well, but thankfully you have a flashlight, just one. 00:07:47.797 --> 00:07:52.156 One time I was hiking in the woods and it got dark and we didn't have even one flashlight. 00:07:52.156 --> 00:07:57.165 Thankfully we had a cell phone that was low on battery, but we were able to kind of eventually get our way out. 00:07:57.165 --> 00:08:03.047 We had to go off trail and go through a whole field and it was pretty scary, anyway. 00:08:03.047 --> 00:08:14.165 So I want you to imagine that you didn't plan real well, but you do have one flashlight and you pull it out and the person who carries that flashlight, they're the light bearer, right, they're the ones that hold the light. 00:08:14.906 --> 00:08:27.654 And so I want you to think about it and I want you to imagine that you're maybe a family with a husband, a wife, a teenager and a young child who wants to bear the light more than anyone in that group. 00:08:27.654 --> 00:08:34.184 The young child right, you know the four-year-old, the five-year-old I can't hold the flashlight, can I hold the flashlight? 00:08:34.184 --> 00:08:38.015 And it's like, fine, hold the flashlight. 00:08:38.015 --> 00:08:40.490 And so the light bearer has a job. 00:08:40.490 --> 00:08:43.677 Right, it's supposed to shine the light forward where you're going. 00:08:43.677 --> 00:08:48.184 Well, when you hand the four-year-old the flashlight, all of a sudden, ooh, look at the trees. 00:08:48.184 --> 00:08:49.393 Ooh, look at my feet. 00:08:49.393 --> 00:08:50.561 Ooh, look at my face. 00:08:50.561 --> 00:08:53.368 Right, and it's like there's a reason. 00:08:53.368 --> 00:09:01.059 You don't give the job of the light bearer to the four-year-old, because the four-year-old needs to grow up. 00:09:01.059 --> 00:09:09.184 So you give the job of being the light bearer to someone responsible, someone who can handle that task. 00:09:09.950 --> 00:09:12.184 Well, that's just generally about what a light bearer is. 00:09:12.184 --> 00:09:17.164 It's someone who carries light so that things can be seen. 00:09:17.164 --> 00:09:18.970 It's for a purpose. 00:09:18.970 --> 00:09:21.076 You don't just carry the light for fun. 00:09:21.076 --> 00:09:25.125 There's a purpose behind carrying or behind bearing the light. 00:09:25.125 --> 00:09:37.041 Now, john was a light bearer and it says here that he was a light bearer so that all might believe through him. 00:09:37.041 --> 00:09:40.774 That's the reason for him bearing the light. 00:09:41.245 --> 00:09:59.332 Now, before we go forward, I want to remind you and some of you may not have been there for this, and that's okay but during Advent, I preached a sermon on John the Baptist and we talked about his mission and one of the things we talked about John the Baptist, who we're talking about again here. 00:09:59.332 --> 00:10:06.043 We talked about his mission and we talked about the fact that his mission is the same as our mission, and that's still true here. 00:10:06.043 --> 00:10:34.184 You see, john was sent ahead to be a light bearer before Jesus, to show people the way, to show people that they were lost, that they needed a Savior, and that is still our job today, and so that's something that I want you to hear for yourself, if you're here and you're a Christian, if you're a follower of Jesus, that you are called to bear the light so that others will believe. 00:10:34.184 --> 00:10:36.184 That's what we've been called to. 00:10:36.184 --> 00:10:59.837 Now, that's not like the main point of this text, but I want to point out that the mission that John had been sent to do is still the mission that carries over to us, because, even though this isn't a big point of this part of this in John, this will be a theme that continues, and you will see that as we go forward, that we are called to be light bearers as well. 00:10:59.837 --> 00:11:03.100 Let's go forward, let's keep going. 00:11:03.159 --> 00:11:04.164 Let's look at verse 9. 00:11:04.164 --> 00:11:11.724 Now, when we get into this section starting in verse 9, this is where we really start to see a lot. 00:11:11.724 --> 00:11:15.129 There there is a lot of truth. 00:11:15.129 --> 00:11:20.038 There is a lot sometimes that's hard for us to understand. 00:11:20.038 --> 00:11:35.164 There's things that theologically just take a lot of explanation and we need to understand them, and we could divide that up into a bunch of sermons and we could be in John 1 for the next six months. 00:11:35.164 --> 00:11:37.184 But that's not the path we're taking. 00:11:37.184 --> 00:11:40.851 So I'll try to address them as we go through. 00:11:40.851 --> 00:11:48.065 But my hope in all of this is that you continue to see the big picture of John, of what we're doing here. 00:11:48.149 --> 00:11:56.541 So so here we are, right after John, who is not the light, and now it refers to in verse 9, the true light. 00:11:56.541 --> 00:12:12.984 So the true light which is Jesus, the true light which gives light to everyone, at this point in the passage, obviously we know more than this, but at this point in the passage, all we really know about the light is that he is Creator, god from the beginning. 00:12:12.984 --> 00:12:15.254 That's all we know so far from the passage. 00:12:15.254 --> 00:12:21.413 We don't know anything that came later, but this is what we hear in this place. 00:12:21.413 --> 00:12:28.125 It says that the true light Creator God, which gives light to everyone, was going to do something. 00:12:28.125 --> 00:12:29.650 What does it say there? 00:12:29.650 --> 00:12:34.577 He was coming into the world. 00:12:34.577 --> 00:12:40.544 Right, the light Creator God was coming into the world. 00:12:40.544 --> 00:12:41.871 It says, verse 10,. 00:12:41.871 --> 00:12:52.255 He was in the world and the world was made through Him, so he created it and then he entered into that creation. 00:12:52.255 --> 00:12:56.582 He was before it, yet now he is coming down into it. 00:12:58.750 --> 00:13:05.062 It says he came, or the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him. 00:13:05.062 --> 00:13:10.522 He came to His own, the people that he had been cultivating and preparing. 00:13:10.522 --> 00:13:14.758 He came to His own and His own people did not receive Him. 00:13:14.758 --> 00:13:17.102 So he came and he was not received. 00:13:17.102 --> 00:13:28.543 People did not recognize that he was Creator, that he is, who is about to be revealed as God the Son and who has already been revealed as God the Son. 00:13:28.543 --> 00:13:34.980 They did not recognize Him, but some people did right. 00:13:34.980 --> 00:13:37.105 Jesus had followers. 00:13:37.429 --> 00:13:42.702 It wasn't that the whole world didn't recognize Him or that none of His own recognized Him. 00:13:42.702 --> 00:13:44.272 There were some who did. 00:13:44.272 --> 00:13:53.565 John the Apostle, the one who we believe wrote this book is among those who did, who recognized Him, who followed Him. 00:13:53.565 --> 00:14:11.004 And so right now we're about to have a profound statement, and this is a profound statement that goes forward in the Gospel of John and is carried through as a theme. 00:14:11.004 --> 00:14:14.375 He says but to all who did receive Him. 00:14:14.375 --> 00:14:19.953 So the world didn't receive Him, his own people didn't receive Him, but some people received Him. 00:14:19.953 --> 00:14:39.082 To all who did receive Him, who believed in His name Remember that's the goal of this book that you would believe in His name To all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, he gave the right to become children of God. 00:14:39.082 --> 00:14:43.874 He gave the right to become children of God. 00:14:44.774 --> 00:14:51.043 That's not a casually used word right there in our English Bibles. 00:14:51.043 --> 00:15:07.765 The implication of this is that it is not simply just a you know, it's not some little change of state, but it is actually a change in who you are at the core. 00:15:07.765 --> 00:15:13.836 You see, who we are at our core is unworthy. 00:15:13.836 --> 00:15:22.105 When we sing the song that he's worthy of every song we could ever sing, we are utterly unworthy. 00:15:22.105 --> 00:15:35.306 We do not deserve to be called a child of God, yet through Christ, when we I'm going to use the word in the text here receive. 00:15:35.306 --> 00:15:37.653 When we receive Him. 00:15:37.653 --> 00:15:42.461 What that means is we believe in His name. 00:15:42.461 --> 00:15:44.284 That means we receive the truth. 00:15:44.284 --> 00:15:55.325 The truth of who Jesus is has been given to us and we take it and we say, yes, I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. 00:15:55.325 --> 00:16:05.923 When we receive that truth, when it becomes ours, when we internalize it, we have now been given the right to become children of God. 00:16:05.923 --> 00:16:13.755 That means we can't be denied, we can't be disowned. 00:16:13.755 --> 00:16:26.375 We now stand by right, as sons and daughters of Almighty God, creator of the universe, and that that is profound. 00:16:30.850 --> 00:16:33.357 Then it goes on to describe how all this happens. 00:16:33.357 --> 00:16:46.590 It says verse 13, who were born not of blood, meaning not of physical flesh, nor of the will of the flesh. 00:16:46.590 --> 00:16:51.339 So it's you're not born, meaning made a child of God. 00:16:51.339 --> 00:16:53.082 Right, children are born. 00:16:53.082 --> 00:16:55.513 Okay, children are born one way or another. 00:16:55.513 --> 00:17:00.423 My two children are here and they were born of blood. 00:17:00.423 --> 00:17:07.500 You're not a child of God by birthright. 00:17:07.500 --> 00:17:10.251 That's not the case. 00:17:10.251 --> 00:17:14.582 There were many in Jesus' day who believed that they were children of God by birthright. 00:17:14.582 --> 00:17:17.334 But that's not this. 00:17:17.334 --> 00:17:19.881 No, you're not a child of God by birthright. 00:17:19.881 --> 00:17:23.599 You're not a child of God by the will of the flesh. 00:17:23.769 --> 00:17:44.673 In a moment, we're going to read something that reminds us of the law that was given, and some people might say well, I am right, because I've followed the law, I've been perfect, I've done everything I was supposed to do and where I've failed, I've made the appropriate sacrifices and therefore, my goodness is enough. 00:17:44.673 --> 00:17:46.897 I have the will of my flesh. 00:17:46.897 --> 00:17:49.903 I've desired it, pursued it and done what I needed to do. 00:17:49.903 --> 00:17:52.334 Therefore, I have the right to be a child of God. 00:17:52.334 --> 00:17:56.180 No, no, that's not true. 00:17:56.180 --> 00:17:58.964 That is not how you are a child of God. 00:17:58.964 --> 00:18:09.344 You're not born of, it's not of blood, it's not of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 00:18:09.344 --> 00:18:18.560 You see, you become a child of God because of what Christ did. 00:18:18.560 --> 00:18:25.577 That means, yes, we turn and we do what it says. 00:18:25.577 --> 00:18:28.143 Here we receive the truth of who God is. 00:18:28.690 --> 00:18:48.490 But even that act of reception, that is the grace of God in our lives, the fact that we can call ourselves children of God, has nothing to do with how good we are, has nothing to do with where we were born, has nothing to do with how long we've spent in church, has nothing to do with the fact that we've been baptized. 00:18:48.490 --> 00:18:50.213 It has nothing to do with any of that. 00:18:50.213 --> 00:18:57.219 Not that all of those things might not be good in their own ways, but the fact that we're children of God doesn't have anything to do with that. 00:18:57.219 --> 00:19:03.279 The fact that we're children of God is completely of the grace and mercy and goodness of God. 00:19:03.279 --> 00:19:27.237 And so, as we think of that, before we move on to the next section of verses, I want to return to this idea of these lightbearers, because as lightbearers, we have a job, and so the lightbearers have a job to do. 00:19:27.237 --> 00:19:31.743 I pointed out earlier, our job is to have that same mission that John the Baptist had. 00:19:31.743 --> 00:19:43.239 But the theological truth that I want you to realize as you think about your job as a lightbearer, as you go forward, is that the results are up to God. 00:19:43.239 --> 00:19:53.392 The light bearers have a job, but the results are up to God, because God is the one who does the work of grace in hearts and lives. 00:19:53.392 --> 00:19:56.170 It's not up to you, it's not up to me. 00:19:56.170 --> 00:19:58.660 It doesn't mean we're not called to be faithful light bearers. 00:19:58.660 --> 00:20:01.445 It doesn't mean oh yeah, well, give me the light. 00:20:01.445 --> 00:20:03.932 I'm going to act like the four-year-old and shine the light on my face. 00:20:03.932 --> 00:20:11.573 No, we have a responsibility, but the one who makes the light effective is God. 00:20:14.063 --> 00:20:18.092 Let's go through these last few verses here, 14 through 18. 00:20:18.092 --> 00:20:22.250 And let's look how this passage finishes out. 00:20:22.250 --> 00:20:42.095 So we left off in the last passages saying that the light was coming into the world, right, and so now he's going to return from the light metaphor and go back to the word metaphor and get much more particular, of kind of how. 00:20:42.095 --> 00:20:50.153 Now some of the other Gospels focus a lot more on the physical aspects of the birth and all of that. 00:20:50.153 --> 00:20:59.615 Let's read here in verse 14, how the word came into the world. 00:20:59.615 --> 00:21:04.951 It says and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. 00:21:06.181 --> 00:21:32.412 Now I want to pause there and explore that, because here's something where, as Christians, we have a lot of statements about this and those statements are perhaps true, in fact the statements that I will repeat, I would say are true, but a lot of times we miss the point of what's being said here. 00:21:32.412 --> 00:21:45.195 Specifically, we are saying that God, the Son Jesus, who existed in eternity past, so he existed before the creation, and he is the Creator. 00:21:45.195 --> 00:21:52.915 We are saying that he as the word in this text he became man. 00:21:52.915 --> 00:21:57.631 It says he became flesh and dwelt among us. 00:21:57.631 --> 00:21:59.640 So he was the Creator. 00:21:59.640 --> 00:22:04.660 He took on flesh and he came into this world to live with us. 00:22:04.980 --> 00:22:11.173 And here is where we say the truth, but we miss the point. 00:22:11.173 --> 00:22:15.388 And I'm going to say the truth in a certain way that we say it as Christians. 00:22:15.388 --> 00:22:19.008 We might say it often and it's true, but it misses the point. 00:22:19.008 --> 00:22:25.790 We will say something like well, because he is fully God and he is also fully man. 00:22:25.790 --> 00:22:27.433 That means he's 100% God. 00:22:27.433 --> 00:22:29.286 He comes into this world, he takes on flesh. 00:22:29.286 --> 00:22:31.295 Now he's 100% man. 00:22:31.295 --> 00:22:32.660 He's not any less God. 00:22:32.660 --> 00:22:34.487 He's not any less man. 00:22:34.487 --> 00:22:36.598 He's 100%, 100%. 00:22:36.598 --> 00:22:42.028 You add those together but you still only have one being, a 100% being of who. 00:22:42.028 --> 00:22:46.984 He is both completely man and completely God, and that's true. 00:22:46.984 --> 00:23:04.352 That's a good understanding of the precision of the text, the broader text, the scriptures, but that's not the point of what's going on here. 00:23:05.020 --> 00:23:09.230 Here is what is important when we say the word became flesh and dwelt among us. 00:23:09.230 --> 00:23:14.869 So there's a couple things that John is emphasizing and these are going to carry on throughout the book. 00:23:14.869 --> 00:23:16.653 So these are important. 00:23:16.653 --> 00:23:23.640 So, as the word he is the creator, that means he is fully God. 00:23:23.640 --> 00:23:27.640 That means that he has the authority that God has. 00:23:27.640 --> 00:23:30.660 That means that he has the nature of who God is. 00:23:30.660 --> 00:24:04.547 That means that he is of infinite nature, that he is of infinite value, that he is good, that all of the characteristics that we would use to describe God apply to him, and so his nature is that of God, meaning that he is perfect, that he will not fail, that when he tells you something, when he makes a statement, it will come to pass, it is true, so he is trustworthy. 00:24:04.547 --> 00:24:10.619 That means that everything that we say about God, we can say about Jesus, and it is true and it is reliable. 00:24:10.619 --> 00:24:18.012 That's the important part about the fact that John is presenting him as the word in this text. 00:24:18.012 --> 00:24:25.984 But then it's also equally important that he became flesh. 00:24:25.984 --> 00:24:28.507 It doesn't say he just became flesh. 00:24:28.527 --> 00:24:29.367 What's the next phrase? 00:24:29.367 --> 00:24:32.912 And he dwelt among us. 00:24:32.912 --> 00:24:34.814 That means he lived with us. 00:24:34.814 --> 00:24:38.198 That word dwelt actually you may have heard this. 00:24:38.198 --> 00:24:39.200 It can also be. 00:24:39.200 --> 00:24:43.744 It's the same kind of root word that we would use to say tabernacle. 00:24:43.744 --> 00:24:46.826 Like you could say, he tabernacled amongst us. 00:24:47.288 --> 00:25:08.663 If you know your Old Testament, you know that when God's people came out of Egypt and they were headed for the promised land, that they carried with them the Ark of the Covenant and around that they would set up this tabernacle, this tent, as they journeyed. 00:25:08.663 --> 00:25:13.911 And it was the idea there is that the presence of God remained with them. 00:25:13.911 --> 00:25:23.040 Eventually, eventually, they built a temple right and God's presence, his unique presence, was there at that place. 00:25:23.040 --> 00:25:28.067 Well, jesus came and he tabernacled with us. 00:25:28.067 --> 00:25:35.692 That means that now the unique presence of God on earth is with us, is in and through us. 00:25:36.173 --> 00:25:52.702 So not only that, but by dwelling among us and this becomes important by dwelling among us and by being one of us, by being fully human, he is now subject to what we are as flesh and blood. 00:25:52.702 --> 00:25:54.866 That means he got hungry. 00:25:54.866 --> 00:25:59.011 That means when you're hungry, jesus has experienced that physical hunger. 00:25:59.011 --> 00:26:06.520 Perhaps I would suggest he knows that physical hunger better than any of us, with the whole fasting for 40 days thing. 00:26:06.520 --> 00:26:10.894 I've never done that, sorry. 00:26:10.894 --> 00:26:17.849 So he's fully man, he's experienced what we've experienced. 00:26:17.849 --> 00:26:21.773 But he is also vulnerable as a man. 00:26:21.773 --> 00:26:23.476 That means he is able. 00:26:23.476 --> 00:26:28.621 Because he is now flesh and blood, he is able to die. 00:26:28.621 --> 00:26:32.067 Okay, that's important. 00:26:32.887 --> 00:26:47.682 Obviously, in this text it hasn't been revealed fully why that's important, but it is important that he is able to die, as John will go on to reveal, because he died in our place. 00:26:47.682 --> 00:26:56.153 He died to achieve victory over the darkness that's referred to in this passage. 00:26:56.153 --> 00:26:59.836 He died so that we could have salvation. 00:26:59.836 --> 00:27:06.662 His death is what enables us to become children of God. 00:27:06.662 --> 00:27:26.441 So without becoming fully man, without becoming actual flesh and blood, he couldn't have taken on him death, which was necessary for the completion of God's plan to redeem lost mankind. 00:27:26.441 --> 00:27:31.528 So the word became flesh and dwelt among us. 00:27:31.528 --> 00:27:41.641 We have seen his glory, glory as the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 00:27:41.641 --> 00:27:52.635 So he came and by coming he has revealed to us God in a special and unique way, a way that God had not been revealed previously. 00:27:52.635 --> 00:28:01.744 So by Jesus dwelling with us, god is revealed full of grace and truth. 00:28:02.006 --> 00:28:05.192 Jesus comes bearing a message of grace and truth. 00:28:05.192 --> 00:28:07.936 Then it says that we have a parenthetical there in verse 15. 00:28:07.936 --> 00:28:10.162 It says John bore witness about him. 00:28:10.162 --> 00:28:11.483 So that was John's job. 00:28:11.483 --> 00:28:17.713 He came to kind of take the stand and testify who Jesus was. 00:28:17.713 --> 00:28:26.387 It says John bore witness about him and cried out this was he of whom I said you see, john had come. 00:28:26.448 --> 00:28:38.093 And before Jesus was publicly revealed, john was saying the Messiah is coming and he was telling people hey, he's coming, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. 00:28:38.093 --> 00:28:42.744 That was the message that Jesus is coming, though not by name. 00:28:42.744 --> 00:28:54.744 And then when Jesus does come, he says this is he of whom I said he who comes after me ranks before me because he was before me. 00:28:54.744 --> 00:28:56.369 So what did he say? 00:28:56.369 --> 00:28:58.577 He said the one who comes after me. 00:28:58.577 --> 00:29:00.744 And Jesus was born about six months after John the Baptist. 00:29:02.006 --> 00:29:04.348 So, humanly speaking, who's older? 00:29:04.348 --> 00:29:11.458 Well, john is older than Jesus, but he says no, he ranks before me. 00:29:11.458 --> 00:29:14.701 So that's rank, so he is higher. 00:29:14.701 --> 00:29:20.474 But it's more than just rank, it's also because he was before me. 00:29:20.474 --> 00:29:25.704 So, in the context of this broader, this whole passage, how long has he been before him? 00:29:25.704 --> 00:29:30.711 Well, since the very beginning, he was before everybody. 00:29:31.251 --> 00:29:36.417 You see, jesus is, jesus is first. 00:29:36.417 --> 00:29:43.646 And so he ranks before John and he says this is the one who I told you was coming, this is the Messiah. 00:29:43.646 --> 00:29:53.441 Everything that I said is fulfilled in him, and it says verse 16, for from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. 00:29:53.441 --> 00:30:00.256 Because of who Jesus is, as the word, as Creator, god, because of everything that he has done. 00:30:00.256 --> 00:30:05.744 We have received grace upon grace more than we could imagine, more than we deserve. 00:30:06.184 --> 00:30:16.917 We have received so much, for the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 00:30:16.917 --> 00:30:27.537 I don't want to just wash over that because this is important, so I referred to it before. 00:30:27.537 --> 00:30:30.942 But Moses was given the law. 00:30:30.942 --> 00:30:32.744 We call it the Ten Commandments. 00:30:32.744 --> 00:30:35.971 You could also talk about the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. 00:30:35.971 --> 00:30:43.684 There was instruction for living that was given to Moses, that was passed on. 00:30:43.684 --> 00:30:50.438 You know these commandments are not going to list them all Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness. 00:30:50.438 --> 00:30:54.009 We say it in King James English thou shalt not. 00:30:54.009 --> 00:30:55.652 Because you know it so well. 00:30:55.652 --> 00:30:57.855 We know the Ten Commandments. 00:30:57.855 --> 00:31:16.605 We know these laws that were given and it says the law was given through Moses, but, contrasted with that, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, not that the law was not true, but that it was not a truth that gave grace. 00:31:16.605 --> 00:31:20.191 The law was not given to give us grace. 00:31:20.191 --> 00:31:25.098 The law was given to show us our need for grace. 00:31:25.098 --> 00:31:33.338 And you see, remember, this is all in this context, so don't forget the things that we've already said. 00:31:34.306 --> 00:31:37.771 But what is the word here that dwells among us? 00:31:37.771 --> 00:31:42.259 He is a revelation, the most complete revelation of God. 00:31:42.259 --> 00:31:44.704 In fact, he is a complete revelation of God. 00:31:44.704 --> 00:31:59.684 Not that understanding Jesus on a human level lets us know everything that there is to know about God, but it is complete in the sense that it is absolutely everything we need for life, revealed in Christ. 00:31:59.684 --> 00:32:04.531 Christ is the revelation of God in a unique way. 00:32:04.531 --> 00:32:07.615 Now God has been revealed in other ways. 00:32:07.615 --> 00:32:10.500 Right, he was revealed to Moses uniquely. 00:32:10.500 --> 00:32:20.326 There was the burning bush, but then there was also the time when Moses was taken and put in the cleft of the rock and the presence of God passed before him and he couldn't even look. 00:32:20.365 --> 00:32:32.002 And then afterwards, moses was glowing, right when he had the unique revelation of God, where, where the prophet Isaiah is exposed to what it basically amounts to the tale of God's garment. 00:32:32.002 --> 00:32:34.013 And what does Isaiah say? 00:32:34.013 --> 00:32:35.336 He's like, I am undone. 00:32:35.336 --> 00:32:37.883 He basically says, hey, you might as well kill me. 00:32:37.883 --> 00:32:42.319 Now I can't even be close to the presence of God. 00:32:42.319 --> 00:32:46.410 That's death and that's what it means. 00:32:46.410 --> 00:32:54.967 Like God has not been revealed fully, his glory has not been revealed. 00:32:54.967 --> 00:32:56.390 But here, what do we have? 00:32:56.390 --> 00:33:06.974 We have this grace upon grace, that what has been given, we have seen glory, as the glory of the only son from the Father, verse 14. 00:33:06.974 --> 00:33:12.067 And so in verse 18, he says no one has ever seen God. 00:33:12.067 --> 00:33:16.053 Right, no one has ever seen God. 00:33:16.053 --> 00:33:18.737 At least that was true. 00:33:18.737 --> 00:33:25.865 You see, god had not ever, up to this point, been seen. 00:33:25.865 --> 00:33:34.182 And this doesn't mean that the way that Moses was sheltered or whatever is undone. 00:33:34.182 --> 00:33:43.711 But listen, in contrast to Moses, for example, this is no one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side. 00:33:43.711 --> 00:33:46.935 He has made him know. 00:33:46.935 --> 00:33:52.744 So, yeah, there are still ways in which no one has ever seen God. 00:33:52.744 --> 00:34:00.849 Jesus is being presented in this passage as the complete revelation of who God is. 00:34:00.849 --> 00:34:02.092 Why? 00:34:02.092 --> 00:34:11.485 Because he not only was with God, but he is God, and that is the. 00:34:12.347 --> 00:34:25.478 This portion of John, of the Gospel of John, is often referred to as the prologue, because this section is important to understanding what is to come. 00:34:25.478 --> 00:34:37.565 I heard my son talking to Hudson before church saying before you watch this movie, watch this show, because if you don't watch the show first, you can't understand. 00:34:37.565 --> 00:34:44.557 I don't know the multiverse and variance and I don't know what he was talking about, but maybe I do know what he was talking about. 00:34:44.557 --> 00:34:48.153 But the point is you have to watch this before you see, before you see the rest. 00:34:48.153 --> 00:35:02.980 This is referred to as the prologue, because upon the truths that are revealed in this text and there's a lot that just got dumped on us in a good way, these truths, upon these truths the rest of the Gospel of John stands. 00:35:02.980 --> 00:35:21.965 And so it is by these truths that John is able to confidently say in John 20 that that his purpose in writing this is so that you would believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you would have life in his name. 00:35:25.130 --> 00:35:48.632 You see, the Gospel of John is called a Gospel, not just because, hey, we like that, we like that word, but because it contains the revelation of who Jesus is, what he came to do and how we can have life in his name. 00:35:48.632 --> 00:36:03.224 The word Gospel means good news, and so that light that we have I've already said we were called to bear it is a light that gives life. 00:36:03.224 --> 00:36:13.420 It is a light that is, that reveals grace, it is a light that makes God known. 00:36:13.420 --> 00:36:46.141 So when we to use the word here receive the truth of who Christ is, and then we carry that truth and we give it to others and we tell others about who Jesus is, we are bearing a light that reveals God, that makes him known and bestows grace upon the hearer, so they too can be called the children of God, that they too can have the right to be the children of God. 00:36:48.289 --> 00:36:57.905 So, as we think through all of John 1, 1 through 18, the big takeaways are who is Jesus? 00:36:57.905 --> 00:37:00.673 Well, he is Creator, god. 00:37:00.673 --> 00:37:27.092 He came into this world and took on flesh and he did all of that so that we could be called the children of God, so that we would not just be called that but we would have that by right, because through Christ our adoption as children of God has been bought and paid for by him. 00:37:27.092 --> 00:37:30.358 We have confidence. 00:37:30.358 --> 00:37:55.443 So that means that as we go and seek to be faithful to this call that was put on John the Baptist that we say is on us as well, as light bearers, as we go out and try to bear that light, we can have a confidence that whatever happens in that doing, in that action, that we are secure in God, that we have confidence and faith in him. 00:37:56.525 --> 00:38:07.974 And so my prayer for us as a kind of new congregation but also obviously not new congregation, because most of us have been together for quite a while now. 00:38:07.974 --> 00:38:30.715 But my prayer for continuing on in John is that, as we go through John, that we would have revealed to us more and more who Jesus is, so that we could sing that he is worthy of every song we could sing and we know more and more and more why he really is worthy. 00:38:30.715 --> 00:38:47.117 And so that is my prayer for us, and that as Jesus is revealed to us through the Gospel of John and we understand more and more who God is through that, that that would transform our and shape our lives. 00:38:47.117 --> 00:38:58.139 Just as John gives instruction as we go through, and so that would be my prayer that we would see that and that it would change us and shape us and be foundational to who we are.