Faith Presbyterian Church - Birmingham
At Faith Presbyterian Church we are seeking to exalt Jesus Christ the King and to exhibit and extend his Kingdom through worship, community, and mission.
Faith Presbyterian Church - Birmingham
John 1:1-14; Jesus: Life and Light
Jason Sterling December 15, 2024 Faith Presbyterian Church Birmingham, AL
Bulletin
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The following message is from Faith Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Join us on Sundays for our 8, 15, and 11 am worship services. For more information, visit us online at faith-pcaorg or download the Faith PCA app. Thank you for tuning in to Faith's podcast ministry.
Speaker 2:If you have a copy of God's Word, turn with me to John, chapter 1. John, chapter 1, the Gospel of John. It'll be printed in your bulletin as well. This morning You'll see the full passage there John 1, 1 through 14. We're going to print that for the next couple of weeks just to give you the context. But we've been slowly making our way during Advent through John, chapter 1, verses 1 through 14. And this morning we're going to continue to do that. We're going to take a couple more verses and our goal really, in hope, is that God, through His Spirit, through the preaching of His Word, would capture our hearts with the beauty and glory of Jesus during a season that's normally filled with busyness and all sorts of stuff that wants to crowd Jesus out and keep us from seeing his glory. So our prayer is that God would just show us Jesus and that we would encounter him each and every Sunday here through Advent.
Speaker 2:The Gospel of John is very interesting because it starts different than the other Gospels. Maybe you know if you're familiar with the Gospels. Luke and Matthew start with the traditional Christmas story. They start with the birth narrative. John does not. John helps us to understand the meaning of Christmas and the glory of Jesus by taking us way back to the beginning of creation, in Genesis, chapter 1. So, with that in mind, follow along with me.
Speaker 2:I'll read verses 1 through 5 this morning. This is God's Word. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made. That was made In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. Let's pray and ask for the Holy Spirit to help us this morning. Please pray with me. Father, we are here this morning not because we're good. We're here because we're yours and you know everyone here. You brought us here. You know what's in our hearts, you know the fears, you know the loneliness, you know the secrets, you know the sin, you know the things that wake us up at two in the morning. You know our failures, you know our boredom, you know our loneliness, what worries us. And I'm asking you I can't do this. Only you can do this I'm asking that, through your spirit, that you take this word and that you would give each person something, something that they can walk out of here with, that would give them hope, that would encourage their soul and that would magnify Jesus in their life. And so come Jesus and do that through a story, in a time of year where we're familiar, perhaps, with these passages, surprise us, make it fresh, in Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 2:I saw a video recently one of these videos I'm sure you've seen before of a military dad coming home from Afghanistan. And he's coming home to surprise in this particular video, to surprise his young daughter who's three or four years old. And they have an idea and he and his wife get together and he they wrap him up in this refrigerator box and put wrapping paper on it and put a big bow on it and putting it, put it out on the front porch. And the mom's in on this and she walks by and she's like whoa, look at this huge gift that someone sent us on this porch. And you know the daughter, the young girl, she's all excited, she's beside herself and they let's go open the gift. And she goes and she takes, starts unwrapping this refrigerator box piece by piece, so much that you're thinking this guy's going to suffocate if they don't get to it. They finally get to it. Out pops Dad and the little girl screams Daddy at the top of her lungs. But she is moving backwards and she's stunned. She almost does not know what to do. She falls over the steps behind her on the front porch. The embrace, the joy, the shock of what was delivered was not a thing. It was a person. It was her daddy, who loved her deeply. And I begin that way because the meaning of Christmas is God's gift to the world and it's not a thing. God's gift to the world is a person, the person of Jesus, who loves you deeply. Everything that God wants to say to the world is wrapped up in a person, the person of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:Last week we looked at just one verse and we established that Jesus was God in the flesh, that Jesus is the word that is talked about in this passage. And then we asked questions and just worked that out in our lives and talked about what that meant for us. Today, this morning, we're going to look at a few more verses. We're going to look at verses 3 through 5. And again, we're going to learn about Jesus and we're going to see what these verses teach us about Jesus, and we will see that they teach us that Jesus is Lord number one, if you're taking notes. Number two Jesus is life. Third Jesus is light. Jesus is Lord, life, light. That's where we're headed.
Speaker 2:Let's look at our first heading Jesus is Lord. Look at verse 3. This is an astounding verse. All things were made through him. Who's the him, the word, who we know is Jesus, and to make sure we don't miss that, john says and apart from him, not one single thing was made. And so a couple of thoughts. One Jesus is eternal. We think Jesus popped on the scene in a manger in Bethlehem. No, jesus has always been. Jesus was with God, the Father, as the living word at creation, making it very clear that Jesus is the creator. Jesus is or was the agent of all God's creation, without exception. God's word in Genesis 1 is the word in John, chapter 1. That's mind-blowing and that is so rich.
Speaker 2:And we could take this lots of different directions, but we want to lean in towards application and ask yes, great theology, but so what? What does that mean for us? This morning? Again, lots of application, but one thing I think that truth of God or Jesus being creator is that it resets our perspective on life and on our lives. Particularly, it re-centers us and resets our worldview, because it reminds us that life is not about us, that Jesus is creator and we are creature, and so he created you, he created the world, which means that we exist for him. And you hear that you might sound well, that sounds really. That's obvious, yes, but we can't miss that foundational truth of life because if we miss that, then it leads and it often does it leads to a very distorted view of the world and it leads to a very dysfunctional life. For example, if you try to put yourself in the center of your life and the world, it leads to dysfunction.
Speaker 2:Think about relationships. What happens in your relationships when you act as if you're the only person in the relationship and your relationship is only and always about you? How does that go? That doesn't go over very well. Does it that actually destroys the relationship? Or what happens when you get consumed and you get obsessed with yourself? Well, you start to then constantly compare yourself to other people. You're always worried and fearful of what other people think about you. You always feel lesser, like you're never quite enough and never really measure up, and it leads to this downward spiral in your life. Or what happens when you ignore God's Word and you use all of God's creation that he made, the gifts that he gives you for yourself? So what happens when you use marriage and money and sex and work however you want? Well, it blows up your life. Why? Well, because Jesus says life is about him and it's meant to be lived with him at the center, not you at the center. A few weeks ago maybe you had this experience as well, but whatever day it was when it got really cold, maybe down into the teens.
Speaker 2:I should have done this earlier. I've been thinking I need to get my battery checked. It's about time. You know where this is headed. I get up that morning, car won't start, so I get it started, get the battery checked. The battery, of course, is dead. I need a new one. So they take out the old battery, put in the new. Battery, of course, is dead, I need a new one. So they take out the old battery, put in the new battery, and then I start the car. Things are working fine. Maybe I forget about this every single time.
Speaker 2:Then I go to turn on the radio and the radio doesn't work. It's asking for a four-digit radio code. So what do I do? I immediately, instinctively, reach for the owner's manual. Why? Because the people who designed the car and created the car know exactly what to do. They know exactly how the car works. They know how the radio works. They know the code to get the radio working properly.
Speaker 2:Jesus, or in John, chapter 1, jesus, is the owner's manual for the world and for your life. He made it, he made you, he knows how the world works, he knows how you work. And so if you want to live, if you want to flourish in this world, you follow Jesus and keep Jesus at the center of your life, because he knows how life works best. And maybe this morning you're here and your life's not working very well, maybe you feel like you're running from Jesus or rebelling against Jesus, or maybe you feel like your life or family is a mess and it feels like it is going off the rails and you're wondering if it can be redeemed, fixed and healed. And in that moment, when we feel those things and bump up against those things in our life, the temptation is not to grab the owner's manual, but, in our pride, the temptation is to look at ourselves and say I've got to figure this out. And so we immediately don't. We we go to.
Speaker 2:I got to work harder, I got to come up with a better plan. I got to get my act together. I got to find a program that will help me get back on track. Those things, of course, are not bad. Those are good things and helpful things. However, the problem is what? You're turning right back inward and depending upon yourself and putting yourself at the center again. The other problem is that those things won't ultimately fix you and redeem you. Only Jesus can fix you, because Jesus is the one who knows you and created you. The plan and the program, then, is to start and end with Jesus, to come to him because he is your creator and designer. At the very heart of Christmas is that Jesus is your creator and he has come into this world to recreate, to redeem and restore what sin has broken in the world and what sin has broken in your life. That's at the heart of Christmas and what Jesus came in the world to do.
Speaker 2:Secondly, jesus is life. Look at verse 4. In him, jesus meaning Jesus, was life. That word life is a theme that goes all the way through the book of John. It's a very important theme. It shows up 36 times in this gospel more than any other gospel and it, of course, is referring to physical life we're just talking about him being the creator and biological life, but even more so and especially, it's referring to spiritual life and eternal life. John, chapter 3, verse 35,. Whoever believes in Jesus has eternal life. And we got verses like that all the way through the gospel of John.
Speaker 2:You see, the Bible says that every person, when they're born because the way you're created is looking for life somewhere. It's how you're wired. Everyone's looking for life in someone or something. You're looking for something to tell you that you're enough, that you're okay and that you matter. Why? Well, because, deep down, because of sin. You and I know instinctively as well, deep down in our souls, that something is not right about us.
Speaker 2:And instead of looking to Jesus for life and identity and to justify us, we typically oftentimes lean into self-justification. We try to self-justify, lean into self-justification, we try to self-justify and we'll look to anything and everything in order to self-justify, to tell us that we're okay. We count steps, we count calories, we count our heart rate or track our heart rate, or we track our sleep, or we track our followers on social media or we post something and we obsessively look back to see how many people have liked it or how many views we get on a particular thing. We change our behavior based on different groups of people. We look to our work, we look to all of those things and we're shouting and begging like, tell me I'm okay, tell me I'm enough. And pastors do it too.
Speaker 2:I found myself yesterday, preparing for this sermon, thinking if this is good enough, then I will be enough. And so I'm crafting every little thing and I'm like what am I doing? You see, I'm trying to justify, through the writing of this and whatever it is that you get and how you respond and what you think of me. We do it in every single way. We're trying to prove to ourselves and to other people that we matter and that we're worthy and that we're lovable and valuable. And what happens when we do those sorts of things? We inevitably fail. We realize that we're not enough on our own. And so what do we do? Well, we start to spin, don't we? And we spin into self-hatred, we beat ourselves up, we start in the shame cycle and feel like a failure, and then we move in immediately thinking again okay, I got to try harder then to prove that I'm enough, and we get back on the treadmill and the cycle starts again. Friends, that is not life, that is not gospel, that's not Jesus, that's not good news, that's religion, and it leads to death and misery and a joyless life.
Speaker 2:I read an article about bowling. Someone sent me recently about a story that happened with a guy by the name of Bill Fong and bowling. People think that what bowlers are after professional bowlers? They're after a score of 300, 12 consecutive strikes. But they will tell you, professional bowlers, that that's actually not it. They're not after a perfect game. They're after a perfect game. They're after a perfect series, three consecutive perfect games, which is 36 strikes in a row, and only 36 people since they started keeping up with this in the world have ever done this.
Speaker 2:And on this random Monday night, a guy by the name of Bill Fong, plano, Texas, shows up at the bowling alley, just like he does every Monday night with his bowling team, and he starts bowling and he's off to a fast and furious start. Strike, strike, strike, perfect game. People are going crazy. His team's going crazy. Second game he's in the zone. Strike, strike, strike. He's crushing it. Another perfect game, third game.
Speaker 2:The article says he feels like he was floating. He's strike, again, strike and he gets to the fifth frame and now he feels numb. The sixth frame a crowd is starting to gather in the bowling alley and this is becoming a thing. People have their phones out. Social media has picked it up. They're streaming it on social media. People are going crazy.
Speaker 2:He's sweating and starting to get dizzy. But he steps up, strike, strike and he goes into the final frame, the 36th frame. He wipes off the ball, he lets it go and the 10th pin wobbles but stays up and people are devastated and Bill Fong is devastated. He says again, the room was still spinning. He goes home, he starts throwing up, he gets very sick, he's dizzy, he's still spinning. He finally decides to call the EMTs. They come and they rush him to the ER. He's having a stroke that would have killed him if he had not called for help. Why? Pressure, pressure, performance, the stress from the bowling, and that moment was literally killing him. And the article says, looking back, he realizes he was actually having the stroke during most of the last match.
Speaker 2:And I tell you that story to tell you, friends, that's what religion feels like. That's what it looks like when you try to justify yourself. That's what it feels like when you try to save yourself. It feels like pressure. It feels like trying to be perfect. It feels competitive. It feels like everyone is watching you, waiting for you to mess up, waiting for you to blow it and make a mistake. And where does it lead? It leads to stress and misery and spiritual death.
Speaker 2:John 1, on the other hand, says Jesus is life, because Jesus has done it all. Jesus has done it all. He has done everything necessary to justify you and to make you right before a holy God. He lived for you, he died for you, he took your sin and shame. He forgives you, he rose again for you and because of Jesus you can really and truly live.
Speaker 2:Jesus and the gospel frees you up to relax. It frees you up to actually laugh at yourself, to admit that you made a mistake, because in the gospel you're free to fail. It frees you up not to take yourself too seriously. It frees you up to admit take yourself too seriously. It frees you up to admit that no, I'm not enough. Jesus is the one who makes me enough. It's in the gospel that the pressure's off, you see, because you don't have to prove yourself anymore, because Jesus, in his righteousness, in the only eyes that really matter, in the eyes of God, you are enough, you see. That's why Christmas is such good news, because Christmas, through Christmas, through the coming of Jesus, god says you can stop, you can rest. You don't have to justify yourself anymore, you don't have to work your way up to me, you don't have to prove yourself. I have come down to justify you and to give rest for your souls and to give you life and to give it to you abundantly.
Speaker 2:John, chapter 10, verse 10. Lastly, jesus is light. So Jesus is Lord, life and light. Let's look at verse 5. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. The implication here, obviously, is that the world is a dark place. The implication here, obviously, is that the world is a dark place. I don't have to prove that to you, I don't think. Just look around, you'll see that the world is a dark place. Jesus, on the other hand, john, chapter 8, again, this lights another theme that goes all the way through the book of John. In John 8, jesus says I am the light of the world and whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will live and have the light of life.
Speaker 2:One of the things about light we can say several things about light, but one of the things light does is it reveals and it makes the path clear. And you know this from walking in a dark room you can't see. A little bit of light helps you to navigate through the room. If you're camping and you're in the middle of the woods and you can't see, a little bit of light helps you to see your way home and helps you to find the right path that you need to walk. In a similar way, jesus as the light of the world. He helps us to see ourselves clearly. He helps us to see the world clearly, especially our spiritual foolishness and darkness. And Jesus as the light of the world helps us to see that our deepest problem and the world's deepest problem, it's not the economy. It's the economy, it's not our health care system, it's not our relationships, it's not our work problems, it's not our health. No, the Bible says the deepest problem and Jesus reveals this that our deepest problem is that sin has broken our relationship with God. And Jesus also reveals as the light that the problem's not just out there, that the main problem is actually in here, inside each of our hearts. The problem is us. We need light. We need light to come. We need light to chase away the darkness and overcome the darkness in us and to show us the way home and the way out. And John 1 says that Jesus is that light, the light that shines into the darkness and shows us the way home.
Speaker 2:You might remember this this has been years ago but the Chilean miners that were stuck 2,000 feet under the ground. It captured the world. People were glued to their TVs and it was a desperate situation. There were 33 men that were trapped in the main tunnel and this mine had collapsed and sealed off all the exits. They were in survival mode and they ended up digging a communication tunnel so that they could pass things back and forth and communicate with the miners with hopes of saving them. And then there was also a tunnel that they were going to put this capsule in and put it, you know, run it down into the mine and bring them out, a few people at a time. It was a desperate situation. They needed someone's help. They weren't sure this was going to work, but it actually worked. In October 13th of 2010, they started to emerge one by one and they're high-fiving, they're clapping, they're cheering First a grandfather, then a 44-year-old who was planning his wedding, and then a 19-year-old, and on and on. They all had different stories, but they all had been rescued and they all depended and trusted on someone else to save them. And they're being interviewed, you can imagine. And no one being interviewed said anything to the effect of we had it. You know, I got it. All I needed was a different drill or a new drill and we could have found our way out eventually. No, they all stared straight at a stone tomb long enough and reached a unanimous opinion that we need help and we need someone to penetrate this world and into the world and to pull us out. And that's what we need to.
Speaker 2:Christmas is a very sentimental time. It's a very joyful and fun time, but Christmas, when you really think about it, is also pretty jarring, because Christmas makes you face your condition. It makes you face your sin and see how desperate you are. It makes you face the darkness and see how desperate you are. It makes you face the darkness and it tells you that your darkness is so bad that God had to take on flesh and come down into the world and pull you out and rescue you. How did Jesus do it? Well, through darkness. Through entering into the darkness, through being crucified on a cross, and the beauty of Christmas is that that is how far Jesus is willing to go. He's willing to give his life in order to rescue you and to bring the light of salvation into your life and into the world.
Speaker 2:There's a scene I'll close with this at the last battle on the Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis, and in this scene Tyrion, lord Diggory and Queen Lucy are being pressed by their enemies and they end up in this stable and one world turns into another world when they go into this stable. And Tyrion hasn't been in different worlds, and so it surprises him when he goes in and this stable becomes another world. And so Tyrion says you know that the stable seen from within and the stable seen from without are two different places. And Lord Diggory says yes, and its inside is actually bigger than its outside. And then Queen Lucy, who's drawing on the Christmas story here, says yes, in our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world, and, friends, that's the message of John 1.
Speaker 2:That's the message of Christmas, that a stable once had something inside of it that is bigger than our whole world, because it had Jesus inside of it. Jesus, who was everything God wanted to say in a person. That stable had Jesus inside of it, the Lord, the life and the light. Will you come to that, jesus, this morning? That's an invitation. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the good news of Christmas that you loved us enough to come, get us and rescue us out of the darkness. Would you forgive us for the ways that we try to rescue ourselves instead of turning and trusting in you? And I pray that you would give us the humility to see the darkness in our own hearts so that we can run to you in celebration for what you've done, and I pray that that good news would enable us to rejoice and find joy this Christmas season. Thank you In Jesus' name, amen.