[00:00:00] Hello, Merry Christmas. I'm going to be reading from Mike chapter 4 of the book.
[00:00:16] Yeah, amazing book. For all the people's walk, each in the name of its God, but we will walk in the name of the Lord, our God forever and ever.
[00:00:28] So this verse was just I think it's a good reminder to walk with Jesus and no matter what other people may say that he is the Lord and we are and we have to walk with him because he is the one and only true God.
[00:00:48] Thank you very much.
[00:00:51] Today we're going to be in John chapter 1 of verse 1 to 18 and Mary, Mary, Merry Christmas.
[00:01:02] That's John chapter 1 of verse 1 to 18.
[00:01:05] I was talking about Terence earlier that I often have a great difficulty teaching Jesus baby in the manger kind of Christmas.
[00:01:20] It's not that it isn't a beautiful picture. It's so much more interested in the bookings of what happens around that because that's what we live through right now as the aftermath.
[00:01:30] And I like reading about it, I like teaching from it around Christmas time. So this is sort of no different but but I felt led to this for a number of reasons.
[00:01:44] This is a season where we can enjoy the people that are close to us.
[00:01:51] We can enjoy the people that are around us with family, friends but it's also a season where we recognize there are also people that are far away.
[00:02:00] And sometimes those people that are far away can be geographically really close.
[00:02:07] So this idea of being far away and yet so close, it reminded me of one of my favorite songs, which I want to recite the whole thing but this idea of
[00:02:17] Stay with me, the spirit now found, stay in the light would be enough far away so close.
[00:02:26] And if we're honest with ourselves, if we're really really honest with ourselves, there have been moments where God himself has felt far away and yet so close.
[00:02:42] Or we ourselves have been far away from him knowing that he is so close. However, you want to look to the words that I think we're honest with ourselves, we've gone through a seasons that way.
[00:02:53] And so we're going to talk through versus one to eighteen in John, then the first chapter of John.
[00:03:00] And essentially about how Jesus was not received and yet he is all important to us.
[00:03:09] versus one to two. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
[00:03:21] There's no direct mention of Jesus here. We don't read him by name.
[00:03:27] And if you're an ancient reader, if you are someone who is originally hearing this, you wouldn't have Jesus as a go-to to fill in the blanks here.
[00:03:35] Yet John keeps drawing us back towards this. He harkens back to the very beginning from Genesis 1-1 in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
[00:03:45] Now if I read this again in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
[00:03:57] John takes us back there to the eternity past. If you were to go back to the very beginning before it all began, the word was there.
[00:04:08] This word actually has an ancient Greek name. It's called Logos.
[00:04:14] And the Greeks thought about it in a little bit of a different way but still quite as honoring.
[00:04:19] It's a kind of a cool concept because in the Jewish mindset, they believe that God was fully represented by His Word.
[00:04:29] So this was an important concept to them but in the Greek it meant logic, supreme reason, that there was an order and a structure to all things.
[00:04:39] And this logos would be represented. Logos was the Creator.
[00:04:44] So John is speaking to both Jewish people and to Greek people in ways that they can hear and ways that they can understand and drawing them together,
[00:04:53] just show us that Jesus is the Word. He's real. He can be connected with anyone. Anyone connect can connect with Jesus.
[00:05:05] And he was there in the beginning as he is here now.
[00:05:09] Verse 1 again in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. This is actually pretty deep.
[00:05:17] The word Logos is God. The Word is Jesus Christ. Jesus is God.
[00:05:24] Jesus is not the Father yet He is with God. This gives us the whole doctrine of the Trinity. This is important for us to consider.
[00:05:34] Father, Son and the Holy Spirit equally God, and yet distinct in their personalities and their personhood.
[00:05:44] We believe in God in three persons. And because of that we look to Jesus, not just as the Brohug love guy, right?
[00:05:55] A lot of people want to look at him as the buddy Jesus. There's a movie called Dogma that came out years ago. I do not recommend you watch it.
[00:06:02] But there was one funny moment where they had a statue of the buddy Jesus. It was kind of winking and going, figure guns, you know.
[00:06:09] And it downed Jesus a bit. It made him less somehow with the way that they were looking at because Jesus is the Word. The Word was God was with God from the very beginning.
[00:06:24] He is God and at the same time, Jesus is with God. Verse 3 to 5, all things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made.
[00:06:37] In him was life and the life was the light of men, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness shall not overcome it.
[00:06:45] The Word created everything. And if we're working together here, we're trying to be on the same page. You can see John is pointing everyone. Everyone who had read everyone who had listened that Jesus is the Word.
[00:07:01] And then in him is light and life. Life is created by Jesus. Light is the property and the principle is created by Jesus.
[00:07:14] Whatever life there is in this world, whatever light there may be in this world, it will come back from Jesus.
[00:07:23] And something that I don't like to think about that often, but it does come to mind when thinking about the reality of heaven and the reality of hell is that if God has created all things and we know He has. If He has created light, if He has created life, if He has created the birds and the bees, the grass, the moss, the trees, all of creation.
[00:07:50] Then wouldn't the place that wants to be absent from Him be absent of all His creation as well?
[00:07:58] All the things that are beautiful, light and life hell would be opposite and completely devoid of that beauty and that life.
[00:08:07] Jesus is our light and the author of life.
[00:08:13] And so when we think about that, it brings a bit of a sobering reality that we have to consider because Christmas time isn't just about the gifts, the tree or saturdayly, how do we want to think about the tree?
[00:08:28] It is just all of these things that we celebrate here.
[00:08:32] It's about redemption ripping through the surface of time with a cry of a tiny baby.
[00:08:39] Nothing would ever be the same, nothing ever was the same when Jesus was born unto this world, the author of light.
[00:08:49] And He came for a very specific reason which we're going to talk about.
[00:08:53] But it also means, part of the sobering reality is that if a person is without Jesus, they are in death and darkness.
[00:09:03] That's not a message a lot of people like to talk about these days, but it's an honest one.
[00:09:09] If Jesus is light and life, then without Him is death and darkness.
[00:09:16] And that should put a stir in our hearts for those who are seen far away and so close.
[00:09:23] That we pray for them, we speak the truth to them.
[00:09:28] You know, if I came in earlier and it was just kind of warming up and we're sitting there talking to him and I thought, you know, this may be the only time I see him.
[00:09:35] So I said, who is Jesus to you? All these my Lord and Savior told me what church He goes to, that was great.
[00:09:41] Right, but I'm starting to think that way a little bit more now. I may have never seen this person again.
[00:09:46] I want to find out who Jesus is to them.
[00:09:49] Jesus is light in life and away from Him is death and darkness.
[00:09:54] If you're a good person that doesn't matter if you are without Jesus.
[00:09:59] But the beauty of this is even though the darkness struggles against that truth, it will never overcome the light.
[00:10:10] It will never overcome the light.
[00:10:13] The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
[00:10:18] That is a hope that we can cling to, that regardless of how dark this world gets, regardless of what these next years may contain for the church that will be divisive and dark.
[00:10:30] It will not overcome the light of the gospel. It will not overcome the author of light.
[00:10:35] Jesus will not be silenced. Even if we are for a moment.
[00:10:44] There's a sixth to ten.
[00:10:46] There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him.
[00:10:54] He was not the light but came to bear witness about the light.
[00:10:58] The true light which gives light to everyone was coming into the world.
[00:11:02] He was in the world and the world has made through him, yet the world did not know him.
[00:11:08] So there's some important points here.
[00:11:11] John, the Baptist, bore witness to the light so that all would believe in Jesus.
[00:11:17] Are we being that light to our world around us now?
[00:11:22] Are we bearing witness to people about Jesus knowing that we're not the light?
[00:11:28] We can't radiate from ourselves but he can radiate through us.
[00:11:33] John was not the light but he was able to show people.
[00:11:38] So the courage that we need to have is for the challenge of showing people that this next year would be a year of us burning brightly for Jesus.
[00:11:52] Isn't it weird though that we're born into this world with a natural fear of darkness?
[00:11:59] Nobody had to teach that to me.
[00:12:01] And I might have talked about this before but in one of the homes that I grew up in,
[00:12:06] there was like this pantry way with a washer and dryer and a winter the outside.
[00:12:13] And the funny thing is you'd open that door and you just knew something was scaring about there.
[00:12:18] There's something, you know, I don't know what it was.
[00:12:21] It was dark and when I turned on the light there was like brief moment where something just went like this.
[00:12:27] And your heart would do it and I couldn't quite bring myself to walk in the floor so it's straddle.
[00:12:33] Whatever I could possibly to swing like a monkey kind of moving across.
[00:12:37] So my feet didn't have to touch the ground and when they did, I tried to bolt out the door as quickly as possible.
[00:12:42] That was what the light was on when I was a kid.
[00:12:44] Nobody taught me that.
[00:12:46] I had a natural fear of the dark because I knew there was things scaring about in there.
[00:12:50] We're born with that.
[00:12:52] We need the light to shine in our lives.
[00:12:55] Right? We need the lights turned on.
[00:12:57] And we need to show other people how they can turn the light onto because there are things scaring in the dark.
[00:13:04] Shouldn't we all want to run to the light?
[00:13:07] I have sometimes when I'm talking with people about the Lord or I'm in a situation where even this morning is like, you know,
[00:13:12] and you're just kind of saying shouldn't people just want to rush to church?
[00:13:16] Shouldn't people want to rush to the light?
[00:13:18] Shouldn't this be something like we're lost to a flame?
[00:13:21] We just want we have to be near it.
[00:13:23] But that's not the way it is in the world.
[00:13:26] The light that God gave, it has in one way or another touched everyone.
[00:13:31] Any sense of morality, any goodness in the world I believe has come somewhere from God.
[00:13:39] But the problem is people reject it. They don't acknowledge Him.
[00:13:42] They think it's their own morality, their own goodness.
[00:13:45] But I don't believe that's to be capable of that.
[00:13:48] Not without Him.
[00:13:52] When Jesus came into the world He created and when logos came from heaven and earth,
[00:13:56] the reaction was to not know who He was.
[00:14:00] When Jesus was born there were people around him.
[00:14:03] The story that we read, that beautiful story about Jesus being born,
[00:14:07] it was of hope, a light guiding people that knew who He was that we're expected in waiting.
[00:14:13] The reality is, isn't just a couple of decades,
[00:14:16] the world was going to reject this man.
[00:14:20] They would not recognize Him as the Savior.
[00:14:23] See, it's easy to accept a baby who does not challenge you.
[00:14:27] Right? It's easy to accept something that we can look and put upon and say,
[00:14:32] this baby will do wonderful things.
[00:14:35] So long as it doesn't make me change.
[00:14:38] But when it's a full grown man,
[00:14:41] and he starts talking about ultimately the end of the world.
[00:14:45] Right? He starts talking about there's one way to the Father, and it's through Him.
[00:14:50] That gets uncomfortable for some.
[00:14:53] He was the light that was turned on in the long-droom of the world
[00:14:57] and the spiders were scattering.
[00:14:59] And that was uncomfortable for some.
[00:15:02] So they rejected him.
[00:15:04] The creator came to the created and they did not recognize who He was.
[00:15:12] We're made in His image.
[00:15:14] We're attracted to light and life, and yet we found a way to reject Him.
[00:15:19] And if you're like me, you can look back the first century and say,
[00:15:22] you've simple things right.
[00:15:24] Get what we do that as well.
[00:15:27] We find ways of rejecting His light that shines in our life.
[00:15:31] We find ways of rejecting Him all the time.
[00:15:35] We find ways of pushing off the things that He would have us do
[00:15:39] in His own way.
[00:15:42] He's our own people, and His own people did not receive Him.
[00:15:47] Great.
[00:15:49] Experts, people are way smarter than I am, can figure this out a lot more,
[00:15:52] but that whole phrase, He came to His own.
[00:15:55] It actually can be boiled down to that He came home.
[00:16:01] Okay?
[00:16:02] Think about that.
[00:16:03] You go home and your own people don't recognize Him.
[00:16:07] Imagine walking into family dinner.
[00:16:10] Right?
[00:16:11] Your family, your people that should know who you are, and they're like, sorry.
[00:16:16] Who are you?
[00:16:17] What do you do here?
[00:16:19] That would probably rock your heart a little, wouldn't it?
[00:16:23] Imagine Jesus, the author of light, creator, our creator, not being accepted by the people He created.
[00:16:31] It would be challenging, say at least,
[00:16:35] Jesus was rejected by religious leadership, by the political establishment.
[00:16:41] He was rejected time and time again throughout His worldly moments.
[00:16:46] He was rejected and not recognized for who He was.
[00:16:49] I always found this confusing, especially when it became a Christian.
[00:16:52] I'm thinking, shouldn't you like the religious people say, look at Jesus, say, finally?
[00:16:57] Right?
[00:16:58] So I don't understand why they rejected Him.
[00:17:00] I was all throughout their tests, wouldn't they kind of look and say, yes, He came.
[00:17:04] They didn't because they didn't recognize Him.
[00:17:07] Because the light was uncomfortable.
[00:17:11] And I agree that this, I look at it and I say, is everything lost?
[00:17:15] The world seems so dark.
[00:17:18] Everything seems to be getting so much worse.
[00:17:21] Is everything lost?
[00:17:22] Do we just give up hope?
[00:17:25] No.
[00:17:27] Versus 12 to 13.
[00:17:29] But who, to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name?
[00:17:34] He gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood,
[00:17:39] nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
[00:17:44] Not everyone rejected Him.
[00:17:48] We don't have to reject Him.
[00:17:51] The words that really stuck out to me, the ones that I think are probably well.
[00:17:56] I'm going to say arguably for myself anyways, most beautiful in this.
[00:18:00] Now there words to all.
[00:18:03] You can be one of the all right now.
[00:18:06] And you may think, well, I already know Jesus.
[00:18:09] You don't have to have an absence of Jesus in your life to feel far away from Him.
[00:18:14] Because some of us, like I said before, if we're honest with ourselves, we've had those seasons,
[00:18:19] where He's been so close and yet far away.
[00:18:24] You can receive Jesus now by putting your faith in Him.
[00:18:27] You can come back home to Him.
[00:18:30] You can pinch a tent with Him.
[00:18:32] You can have Him dwell in Your heart, and if you've known Him for decades and decades and
[00:18:37] take it's good for you.
[00:18:39] You can dust off the shoulders and you can receive Him a new.
[00:18:44] By simply turning around and seeing how close He really is, because it doesn't not the great
[00:18:50] life of the world that God has far away.
[00:18:54] We don't think of Him as so close, but it's a wide open invitation.
[00:19:01] The words to all do not mean to some, to all.
[00:19:07] Even if the world doesn't know Him, He gives us this gift of choice.
[00:19:12] We have to choose whether we receive Jesus, whether we reject Him.
[00:19:18] We have to make that choice, because even believers can reject Him by keeping Him at arms length.
[00:19:25] I believe in you on my own terms.
[00:19:28] That's rejecting Him.
[00:19:29] I will do anything you say so long as you don't tell me to go here.
[00:19:33] Do this or with those people.
[00:19:35] That's rejecting Him.
[00:19:37] I will do anything but listen to that person.
[00:19:40] That's right.
[00:19:41] I will do anything but listen to you Lord.
[00:19:44] I won't read your Bible.
[00:19:45] I won't let it dwell in my heart.
[00:19:47] That's rejecting Him.
[00:19:48] And yet this is so easy for us to do.
[00:19:51] I'll really confess by daily devotions.
[00:19:53] I haven't done it in the next six days.
[00:19:55] You know?
[00:19:56] And it's, and I can make up all the excuses in the world.
[00:19:59] Ultimately, I did not choose to make the time.
[00:20:03] That's my fault.
[00:20:05] Not His.
[00:20:08] But you can be counted as His family.
[00:20:11] In this time, in the season, on this day,
[00:20:13] when we really want to think about family as this lovely thing that is so close,
[00:20:17] we can be counted in His family.
[00:20:20] He created us all but we can become His children
[00:20:24] when we put our faith in Him, when we receive Him.
[00:20:28] We become His children and away, he becomes our spiritual father.
[00:20:33] And if you're like me and you haven't had the greatest physical earth father,
[00:20:37] example, that is a comfort beyond words.
[00:20:41] It really is that we can be His children.
[00:20:45] But it's not a change you and I can make on our own.
[00:20:49] It's not a checklist of things just to, you know,
[00:20:52] make sure we're doing or not doing.
[00:20:54] It's not a set of rules.
[00:20:56] It's a change that has to happen in our hearts
[00:20:59] from the inside out that make us a new and different person.
[00:21:05] Verse 13 says, who are born, not of blood,
[00:21:08] nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of men, but of God.
[00:21:12] God doesn't invite us to a self-help program.
[00:21:15] I'm not against self-help programs, but you're not invited to one in His world.
[00:21:20] You are invited to be the part of His family.
[00:21:23] Come to Him and receive Jesus and you will be transformed from the inside out
[00:21:29] that isn't something we can do on our own.
[00:21:32] It is the book we can read.
[00:21:34] It's rather a life and a light that can shine.
[00:21:39] God's not into surface change.
[00:21:42] He's not into just kind of changing the paint, right?
[00:21:45] He wants to rewile us, me and sound out.
[00:21:49] And only He can do it.
[00:21:52] Verse 14 to 18, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us
[00:21:58] and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only son from the Father, full of grace
[00:22:03] and truth.
[00:22:04] John bore witness about Him and cried out.
[00:22:07] This was of whom I He of whom I said, He who comes after me,
[00:22:11] ranks before me because He was before me.
[00:22:14] For from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace for the law
[00:22:19] was given through Moses.
[00:22:20] Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
[00:22:22] No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side.
[00:22:26] He has made him known.
[00:22:29] The word came to earth and human form and walked among us.
[00:22:34] I'm going to read that again.
[00:22:39] The word came to earth in human form and walked among us.
[00:22:46] Jesus, the word, the author of light and life, walked among us.
[00:22:52] God added flesh to His deity,
[00:22:55] walked as a man among us.
[00:22:59] This is what's known as the incarnation.
[00:23:02] This is what Christmas is about.
[00:23:04] It isn't about all of the things that we'll hear in some kind of marketing campaign.
[00:23:10] It's God becoming flesh.
[00:23:12] God became flesh in Jesus.
[00:23:15] And He dwelt among us.
[00:23:18] This word dwelt can also mean to pitch a tent among your people.
[00:23:24] So think about it this way.
[00:23:27] There's some cruel parallels that John is doing.
[00:23:29] Remember in the audience he's talking to is very familiar with what we've known as the Old Testament.
[00:23:34] Because back in Exodus, God told his people to pitch a tent that would be a meeting place between man and God.
[00:23:42] Okay?
[00:23:44] That this would be a special place.
[00:23:46] And here, God in flesh came and dwelt,
[00:23:50] pitched a tent among his people to be a meeting place.
[00:23:54] But Jesus is our one mediator.
[00:23:58] He is our one way to the Father.
[00:24:01] In a way we don't fully understand in words,
[00:24:05] He is also God.
[00:24:07] God has come close to you in Jesus Christ.
[00:24:14] Whenever you're feeling, oh God, it feels far away.
[00:24:17] It's usually our issues that get in the way of them.
[00:24:22] God came close to us through Jesus Christ.
[00:24:26] The greatest love letter known in the history of mankind is the Bible,
[00:24:33] because it's a story of a Father bringing his children home.
[00:24:36] So much so that He sent His one son to come and be born into a poor family,
[00:24:44] into a backwater town, not to a palace, not to riches, but came to die on a cross,
[00:24:50] to pay the price for the sin that you and I burned,
[00:24:54] and even do today.
[00:24:57] This meeting place is Jesus Christ.
[00:25:00] This meeting place between God and man is Jesus Christ.
[00:25:05] We cannot have light and life without the author.
[00:25:10] We can deny Him.
[00:25:14] We can keep Him at our own's length.
[00:25:17] We can reject Him, but it does not remove the reality of His truth.
[00:25:22] You don't have to struggle to find Him.
[00:25:25] He came to find you.
[00:25:27] He came to you.
[00:25:28] A lot of people stressed out about finding God.
[00:25:30] They freak out.
[00:25:31] They go to program after program.
[00:25:32] They travel a little world trying to seek Him.
[00:25:34] The reality is, he's here right now.
[00:25:37] And if you want to know Him on a deeper level, it's about seeing, yes.
[00:25:42] And if you have never met Him before,
[00:25:45] it's just simply about saying, yes.
[00:25:47] We may think He's far away, but He really, He's so close to you right now.
[00:25:54] Come to Him.
[00:25:59] Trust in who He is.
[00:26:01] Trust that He is God.
[00:26:04] And the one who made the sacrifice for you.
[00:26:07] The one who died on the cross for you and me.
[00:26:10] We may think that this whole message has been about people who don't know about Jesus,
[00:26:15] but you know, quite frankly, I think it's for people who do as well.
[00:26:19] Because we keep Him in arms length, a comfortable distance,
[00:26:23] so often that we reject Him, just like the religious did at one point.
[00:26:29] Let's not reject Him any longer.
[00:26:32] Let's not ruin it by thinking at Christmas is about something different.
[00:26:38] It is about the incarnation of God becoming flesh.
[00:26:44] Would you just for a moment, bookshelf your feelings?
[00:26:54] Put them on the back burner for just a moment.
[00:26:58] And just accept that the author of Light and Life had a purpose in coming here.
[00:27:05] And that purpose was Your and My soul.
[00:27:11] And we can find freedom, we can find forgiveness, and grace, and peace through Jesus Christ.
[00:27:18] He has come near to you.
[00:27:21] And if you're feeling Him near today, please don't reject Him.
[00:27:26] Because you may have found ways to push Him away.
[00:27:29] You may have become really, really good at keeping God at arms length,
[00:27:34] but that is not His desire.
[00:27:36] He has not to be kept it far away.
[00:27:40] He's to be brought so close.
[00:27:43] Let's pray.
