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; Receiving Jesus
Martin Wagner December 22, 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:This December we are looking at the story of Christmas in John's Gospel and if you've been here for the last two weeks, you've noticed that John's account is a bit different from the other Gospel writers. It's the same story, it's just told from a different perspective. Rather than a baby in a manger, rather than glad tidings from an angelic visitor and shepherds watching their flocks by night that we might be familiar with in John's gospel we have in the beginning was the Word. We start not when Caesar Augustus spoke to decree that a census should be taken. We start when the Lord God spoke to create all things by the word of His power. John's Christmas account has not zoomed in on one particular time and place in Judean history. We zoom out and we begin in all eternity past. John gives us a cosmic view of Christmas and it's been refreshing to think about the birth of Christ in ways, somewhat of a new thing for us to consider, and I know for me there are two things that have really stood out as we have looked at John. 1. First is that whatever our view of the glory of Jesus is, however glorious we believe that Jesus may be, that our view is not high enough. John reveals a Jesus with no beginning, with no end, who created all things and whom all life has found, who is the light that brings life. He is more glorious, he's holier than we could imagine. And the second truth that is ingrained in John 1 is that whatever we believe about Jesus's humility, that it isn't low enough. This holy and glorious God condescended and he came down to us. The eternal word, took on flesh Without ceasing to be what he was. He became what he was not Without ceasing to be God. He took on human flesh and subjected himself to all that it means to be a human being. He was tempted in every way, as we are, yet without sin. He was a man of sorrows who was well acquainted with grief. John 1 tells us at the same time that whatever our view of the glory of Jesus is, it's not high enough. Whatever our view of the humility of Jesus is, it's not low enough. And we see both of those things in our passage this morning.
Speaker 2:We're going to focus on verses 9 to 13. If you wanted a quick summary statement of what John's trying to say in John 1. We see it in these verses this morning. This, in many ways, is all the major themes that you see in John 1 are packed into these few verses. So hear God's word to us today.
Speaker 2:From John 1, verses 9 to 13. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him. Yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. The grass, withers and the flowers will all fade, but this is God's Word. It will stand forever and ever. Let's pray, lord. We pray that you would come and speak to us, that you would fill us with your Spirit as we consider this Word today. Open our eyes that we can see your glorious truths. Open our ears that we might hear the word of life. Capture the attention of our minds and hearts that we might behold the wondrous things in your word. Speak, o Lord, for your people are listening. Hear us and receive us. In Jesus' name, we pray, amen.
Speaker 2:A few years ago I went to see a concert of my favorite band from college. I didn't name the band in the early service and everyone asked me about it, so, at the risk of being judged at my favorite, there's nothing like music judgment from people. But the band is Guster, if you remember that, by my count it was at least the 10th Guster show that I had been to. I'm not a huge live music fan, so it's at least 10 times more than I've been to any other act. And when these guys took the stage my first impression was wow, they are old. And my second thought was wow, I must be old as well. And it wasn't just that they looked old, they played and they sang like they were old as well. The concert was part nostalgia and part secondhand embarrassment in what I was seeing.
Speaker 2:The end of the show, the lead singer was exhausted and intoxicated and he looks up and he says to the audience so lead singer was exhausted and intoxicated and he looks up and he says to the audience so this is what's going to happen In a second we're going to walk off the stage and we're going to pretend that the show is over and then you guys are going to cheer for a long time and beg for us to come out and then, like magic, in a few minutes we're going to appear and we're going to play an encore. And sure enough, they left. We cheered, they came back out, they played the hits and we went home. Their encore was assumed it was tired and it was predictable. It was nothing but just a pre-planned water break for them and a chance, if you wanted to beat the crowd, to get home.
Speaker 2:Encores in live music. They started when the music was so overwhelming, when the music was so grand that those who were listening insisted upon hearing more of it. It had real spontaneity. It had real spontaneity. It had real joy and excitement. Now it comes off as routine and expected.
Speaker 2:Too many times my experience of Christmas is like that concert. I know the story, I know the songs, I know there's an encore coming at the end and, like the college band that used to thrill me, what once was thrilling is now routine and rote. Perhaps that describes your experience of Christmas as well, but I don't think that guilting you about that is going to work. It's easy for me to stand up here and to list all of the grievances, for all of the ways that we have contributed to this problem through our materialism and our selfishness. It's easy for me to stand up here and say you need to be more grateful, you should be more excited this Christmas. But I don't think that guilting will bring about the change we want.
Speaker 2:Rather than guilt and shame over our lack of appreciation and our lack of appreciation and our lack of delight in what Christ has done for us, what I want us to do this morning is to simply look at the glory of Jesus as it's presented in this passage. I want us to behold Him as John writes about Him in this passage, and to trust the Spirit's work to move our hearts to joy and to wonder and to praise. So I want to look at this passage in three parts. First is revelation, second, rejection and third, receiving Jesus. So first, the revelation of Jesus, and in this first section I want us to think about the fact that we know God at all.
Speaker 2:We should not assume incredible fact that we know God at all. We take it for granted that we know things about who God is, that we know the character of the one who created us, that we actually know what His will is for our lives. We have no right to expect to know our Creator. There's nothing intrinsic, there's nothing that is assumed about a creature being able to know their Creator, and so if God is to be known at all, if we're to know anything about God, it is only because he voluntarily chooses to make Himself known. We see this in verse 9. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. There are aspects about who God is that can be seen by anyone just by looking around in the created order. Psalm 19 tells us that the heavens declare the glory of God, the sky proclaims His handiwork. Romans 1 tells us that God's invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, can be clearly perceived and explained to us. Everyone in all the world can look around and can determine that there is a God. There are certain attributes and aspects of God that he has chosen in his mercy to reveal to us in the world around us, but it's important that we remember that God is the one who chooses what and how he wants to reveal himself to us. We are not the ones who discover God. Every bit of knowledge we have about God is because God is gracious to reveal it to us. We are not detectives working in shifts trying to uncover new leads about God. God reveals Himself how and when he freely chooses to reveal Himself to us.
Speaker 2:Herman Bavink is a Dutch theologian in the 19th and 20th century. He says this in speaking about God we have no way to make God the object of our study and reflection Except he lets Himself be found. We cannot seek Him. Except he gives Himself. We cannot accept Him. As glorious as it is that God would create us that we might know Him, god was not content just to reveal Himself in creation Because, in the face of God's grace to us, we rebelled against Him. We rejected our gracious God's revelation of Himself and we decided to go our own way. And the chaos and pain and suffering of our rebellion that our rebellion brought into the world was so great that we could not fix what was broken, that we as human beings were not able to put right what was wrong in the world.
Speaker 2:This week I was with my grace group and we were celebrating Christmas together, and one of the guys in our group told a story about his job. He is an engineer at a new factory in town and he is designing and implementing processes for how this factory is going to work. In this case it is to produce Uncrustables. So the sanity of all the parents of young children in America depend upon this factory producing its prized product. And he told us a story about the night before he was summoned. In the middle of the night there was a problem on the factory, line one that could have ended up as a big problem. And so his team calls him and he doesn't answer. And they call him and he doesn't answer. And they continue to call until he picks up and he had to get out of bed and go fix the problem.
Speaker 2:The problem of an interrupted supply chain of Uncrustables was so big it threatened national security so much. It was so dire that the creator and designer of the process had to come fix what was wrong. Only someone who knew everything about that process could fix it. Only the one who designed the process could solve it. The message of Christmas is that humanity was so messed up. The situation was so dire that only the creator of humanity could put it right. Only the one who was there at creation could mend what was wrong. Only the one who has been appointed heir of all things, only the one who is the exact radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. Only the one who upholds the universe by the word of his power could fix us. Only the one who upholds the universe by the word of His power could fix us. Only the one who knows every molecule, every atom in all of creation, only the one who knows every hair on your head and all of your pain and all of your tears can put right what is wrong with you and me. And so God would not just reveal Himself in creation, he would reveal Himself finally and fully to us in His Son.
Speaker 2:This quote from Sinclair Ferguson was really helpful this week in kind of putting all of this together. He says this If your intellect has never been staggered by the reality of the incarnation, you don't understand what the incarnation means. It doesn't just mean that Jesus was a little baby. It means that the eternal, infinite, divine One, one worshipped by cherubim and seraphim, the Creator of all things, the sustainer of all things, infinite in His being, wisdom, power, majesty and glory, who, in a word, could dissolve the world that had sinned against Him, was willing to come into this world and to assume our flesh in order to become our Savior. A being who has no beginning or end, who has no shape, who has no physical substance, who is altogether other than we are and has created all things out of nothing. Who is altogether other than we are and has created all things out of nothing, yet has loved His fallen creation in such a way that he's been willing to not only come a part of it but to enter in it, in its tiniest form, in its embryonic form, in the conception and in the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's overwhelming, that's the great thing about the gospel. It's never done overwhelming. You Wave upon wave upon wave of worship and adoration. That's the great thing about the gospel it's never done overwhelming. You Wave upon wave upon wave of worship and adoration that God the Son should come for the likes of you and me. That is the miracle of Christmas, that God the Son should come for the likes of you and me. But yet, of course, our response to this revelation, this gracious revelation of God the Son, was one of wonder and love and praise. Right, it's not what we read, not our experience. And that leads us to our second point, the rejection of Jesus, verse 10,. He was in the world and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him. The glorious creator of the universe came down and we rejected him. He came to people who had been waiting on him for centuries and they crucified him.
Speaker 2:In my first semester of seminary, I was new to Birmingham and I needed a job, and my school paid us to volunteer at local non-profits, and so I chose to volunteer at the YMCA. My job was to re-rack the weights in the weight room and to clean the equipment. I was a terrible volunteer. It was a very boring job but a pretty casual working environment. And one day I was hanging out with our staff, the people, my co-workers. We were hanging out in the office talking, which is exactly the thing that management told us not to do. We were hanging out and I was sitting in an office chair, leaned back in the chair with my feet propped up on the desk, and then all of a sudden, an older man walks in and starts talking to us, and what I failed to notice was that everyone else, all of my co-workers in the room, quickly started looking busy and stopped talking and they left.
Speaker 2:I missed all of the clues and I started chatting up this guy with my feet propped up on the desk and we chatted for a minute or two and then, when he leaves, my co-workers return with this look of exasperation and they're like Martin, did you not know who you were talking to? That's the CEO of all of the YMCA in Birmingham. He is a big deal. You can't just prop your feet up when he comes to the office. That's our boss's boss's boss's boss. Needless to say, that was the last time that I interacted with Mr CEO, but that day I didn't know who I was dealing with. I thought that this was a guy that just wanted to chat. I didn't realize his status. I didn't recognize his importance to that organization. Yet here we have one of infinitely more importance than Mr YMCA, who has come down to us, and our response many times is just simply to kick up our feet. We have no clue.
Speaker 2:And that's what John is saying to us in John 1. Do you know the glory that has come down to you? Do you know the gift that is yours, the grace that is yours? In Christ, the God of the universe comes down and we reject Him. We reject the light of life, even though the world was made by that very light, the One who created the whole universe and the galaxies and the stars and planets without number, is contained in a little baby, yet we rejected Him. The hands that he formed struck Him. The voices that he breathed life into would yell, crucify Him. He created us, yet we rebelled against him. He comes for us and we received him not Over and over. In the face of God's grace to us. We reject him.
Speaker 2:Verse 12 begins with the word but the best news we have in this entire passage, one word that changes the entire passage. God would have been just and right to just end the story after verse 11. He would have been just to say I came and you rejected me and you will now get what you deserve. But, thanks be to God, the story does not end at verse 11. There is a verse 12. There's a part 3, point 3 of this sermon and that is receiving Jesus, and we see that in verses 12 and 13.
Speaker 2:These verses tell us that our problem is so bad, that the stain of sin and rebellion that we have is so bad that you and I need more than just a renovation, that we don't just need a behavior change. We need a new heart, we need a new birth in order to be right with God. John says those he gave the right to become children of God. Born not of flesh, but born of God. As we sing and hark, the herald angels sing. Born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth. Jesus was born that we might be reborn in him. But how is it that we get this new birth? John talks about the new birth that we all need to be born of God. How is it that we get this? There are three things about receiving Jesus that I want to point out as we close. The first thing that we see about believing and receiving Jesus is that it is simple and unqualified. If you look at verse 12, those first two phrases are parallel to all who did receive him and do all who believed in his name. Those two phrases are talking about the same thing. They're talking about the same act or event, and so believing and receiving Jesus is simple and unqualified.
Speaker 2:So it's interesting to study John's use of the word believe, the verb believe, in this gospel. It is the most important verb in the gospel John. By my count, john uses the verb believe 85 times in the span of this book. It occurs. In nearly every chapter, nearly every scene of the book, the verb believe occurs. In fact, believing is the whole goal of why John wrote this gospel. In chapter 20, verse 31, he says but these things are written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. John's whole goal for you in this gospel is for you to believe in Jesus.
Speaker 2:But what is even more interesting is that, of the 85 times that John uses the verb believe, it is never accompanied by an adverb. The verb is always alone, it is never modified, it is never intensified, it is never clarified. And so you're thinking what's the big deal? I did not come for a grammar lesson this morning. It's too close to Christmas, school is out for a few weeks. Why do we need to talk about adverbs? I think it's important because I think we miss actually what's going on in this passage if we don't understand what's going on. So I want to belabor the point a bit. What's the function of an adverb? An adverb gives more information about how, when, where, why and to what degree something happens.
Speaker 2:We often use adverbs to intensify a verb. You can recognize an adverb because it often ends in the letters L-Y. So think about it this way what's the difference between me saying I will be glad when they finish paving the new parking lot, difference between me saying that and saying I will be exceedingly, overwhelmingly, abundantly, tremendously, joyously glad when they finish paving the parking lot? I'm using adverbs to tell you to what extent I will be glad. There are no words ending in L-Y attached to the verb believe in John's gospel. We belabor it again.
Speaker 2:John never tells us that we are to completely believe. Belabor it again. John never tells us that we are to completely believe In the 85 times he used it. He never says that we are to fully believe or sincerely believe. John doesn't intensify the verb believe with words like lastingly, deeply, wholly, totally, genuinely, profoundly, authentically, exclusively, earnestly or seriously. Can you tell a consultant a thesaurus exclusively, earnestly or seriously? Can you tell a consultant a thesaurus? How does verse 12 change if you and I were to read it like this? But to all who sincerely believe and completely receive Him, he gave the right to become children of God. Adding the adverbs sincerely and completely is a way for us to make believing something that we do. It's a way of turning belief into a good work in which we are to perform.
Speaker 2:Belief and faith, as described in the Bible, point us to the object of our faith and not the strength or intensity of our faith. It is not the intensity or the sincerity of our faith that saves us. It is the object. It is the person of our faith that saves us. In this verse, john is saying look to Jesus. He is who you are receiving and believing. Do not look to the intensity or strength of your faith. Look outside of yourself, look to Christ. John is saying through faith alone, in Christ alone, you and I are made right with God. No adverbs allowed.
Speaker 2:One commentator said this believing in Jesus says it all, does it all, receives all that is given, does it all, receives all that is given and motivates all that issues from it and is as simple and concrete as the person of Jesus Christ who, like believing, needs no supplementation. Jesus did it all. Believing in him receives it all. To believe in Jesus is simple and unqualified. Faith alone, in Christ alone. We trust that we cannot save ourselves and we trust that Jesus can. But secondly, believing and receiving Jesus is a gift.
Speaker 2:Why does Jesus talk about our relationship to him in terms of a new birth. Think about what did you have to do with your birth. Did you decide to whom you would be born? Did you have anything to do with choosing your birthday or the manner of your birth? Did you choose your parents? Did you choose when and where you would be born? You had nothing to do with that. You and I were completely dependent upon the work of another and the same with our spiritual birth, our second birth. We have nothing to do with being born again.
Speaker 2:It's easy to miss in these verses, but John is telling us in these verses that our new birth precedes our belief. Our new birth precedes our receiving Jesus. Again, we're going to talk about verbs, so don't lose me here. Verse 12 and 13,. It doesn't read like this. It doesn't say to all who received Him, he gave the right to become children of God who were then born of God. It says to who were born of God we were reborn, given new life before we believed and received. In these two verses we have three major theological categories. We have regeneration, faith and adoption, and the order is vital for us to understand who we are and who God is. The logic of what John is saying is this the Spirit of God comes and regenerates our hearts. We are given the gift of new birth, and once we are born of God, we are able to believe and to receive Jesus. And when we put our faith in Him, we are then received as children of God, adopted into the family of God.
Speaker 2:If you were a Christian this morning, you had as much to do with your spiritual birth as you did your physical birth. If you were one who trusts in Christ, it is not because you and I were good detectives and we cracked the case and figured it out. It isn't because you had the right pedigree. John says it's not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor the will of man. You weren't a Christian because your parents and grandparents were Christians. They may have been instrumental and used of the Lord, but you are a Christian only because God gave you the gift of faith, the gift of new life. You're not a Christian because of an act of your will, but because you decided that you wanted to believe in Jesus. You're not a Christian because you're not an act of your will, because you decided that you wanted to believe in Jesus. You're not a Christian because you have the right resume of spiritual accomplishments. You were only a Christian because God was gracious to give you and I a new birth, and the last thing about believing and receiving Jesus is that it is open.
Speaker 2:Let's not get caught up in the deep theological truths and miss the fact that John says to us, to all who received him there is a universal invitation for everyone here this morning. Will you receive Jesus? Will you believe in him? Will you and I respond to John's invitation to us at the end of this book? Will you believe that Jesus is the Christ and that by believing in Him you may have life in His name? What this means is that it doesn't matter how bad you are. You can't be too bad or too sinful or too broken for Jesus. Only believe, only receive Him. As we like to say in our church sometimes, you can't be too bad for Jesus, but you can be too good for Him.
Speaker 2:Believing and receiving Jesus means coming to Him empty-handed. It means leaving your resume at the door. It means giving up on trusting in all the things that you thought would give you life and exchanging them for the only one who could actually give you life. The message of Christmas is that you and I cannot save ourselves, but that all who receive Jesus, all who believe in His name, that they are the children of God. Let's pray, lord. We give you thanks for this word to us, thank you that you are the one who has come to us, that you have sent your Son and revealed Him to us, and that he is freely available to us all. And so, lord, would we respond by believing and receiving what you have done for us. And, lord, we offer this to you in Jesus' name, amen.