December 14, 2003

Service Theme – "Our God Cares about Us"

John 1:1-17

Jesus Became One of Us

  1. Introduction
    1. Illustration – Paul Tillich wrote, There is something surprising, unexpected about the appearance of salvation, something which contradicts pious opinions and intellectual demands. The mystery of salvation is the mystery of a child. A child is real, and not yet real, it is in history and not yet historical. It's nature is visible and invisible, it is here and not yet here. And just this is the character of salvation. Salvation has the nature of a child (as cited on eSermons.com).
    2. Context – For centuries Christians have had a hard time getting a grip on exactly who Jesus is, the Man Who is God. We handle either His divinity or His humanity well, but combining the two can be a bit confusing. Even more confusing are our attempts to figure out how the identity of Jesus factors into our daily lives. John 1:1-17 will help us to better understand this, so let’s read it together.
  1. Scripture Passage
    1. John 1:1-17 (from the New Living) – (NEW SLIDE) In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 He created everything there is. Nothing exists that he didn’t make. 4 Life itself was in him, and this life gives light to everyone. 5 The light shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. (NEW SLIDE) 6 God sent John the Baptist 7 to tell everyone about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. 8 John himself was not the light; he was only a witness to the light. 9 The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was going to come into the world. 10 But although the world was made through him, the world didn’t recognize him when he came. (NEW SLIDE) 11 Even in his own land and among his own people, he was not accepted. 12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. 13 They are reborn! This is not a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan—this rebirth comes from God. (NEW SLIDE) 14 So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father. 15 John pointed him out to the people. He shouted to the crowds, "This is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘Someone is coming who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before I did.’ " (NEW SLIDE) 16 We have all benefited from the rich blessings he brought to us—one gracious blessing after another. 17 For the law was given through Moses; God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ.
  1. The Word Became Flesh
    1. I first studied this passage in seminary. In fact, we spent fourteen weeks on these verses in Greek class. Then, for six months before I came here, I taught a Greek class in Sunday School using John chapter one. And almost three years ago I preached on this passage here at Sodaville. That Christmas Eve I spoke about Who the Word is – the identity of Jesus and how knowing Who He is impacts our lives. Today we’re going to look at Him from a bit less of a theological perspective and see how the fact that He became one of us can transform our lives.
    2. Tuesday I came across a powerful insight from Oswald Chambers. He wrote, Sin belongs to hell and the devil; I, as a child of God, belong to heaven and God. (NEW SLIDE) It is not a question of giving up sin, but of giving up my right to myself, my natural independence and self-assertiveness, and this is where the battle has to be fought. It is the things that are right and noble and good from the natural standpoint that keep us back from God’s best. To discern that natural virtues antagonize surrender to God, is to bring our soul into the centre of its greatest battle (My Utmost for His Highest, December 9). I began to understand something that John is trying to communicate to us: God didn’t settle for the good; He gave His best. And Jesus didn’t settle for the good; He gave His best. Bear with me for a minute.
    3. God knew that the world He created that was so good and blessed and wonderful had been hopelessly corrupted by sin. He had set up a good system – the offerings and sacrifices for sin at the temple in Jerusalem. But there was a problem with this system that God knew from the start – animal sacrifices could ritually atone for sin but could not change who a person was inside. There were many very devout Jews who followed God’s laws to the letter but were still not transformed from the inside out. Their love for God was sincere, and their commitment to Him unquestionable. But no lasting change on the inside could be effected by the law of sacrifice. That was the good.
    4. But God also had something that was the best in mind when He set up the sacrificial system. He knew that the system was only good, and He knew that He would have to do something totally different in order to bring the best into the world. He would have to make the perfect and once and for all sacrifice if the best, the transformation of the inside of a person, was to take place. God would have to send a part of Himself, His Son, to be that sacrifice.
    5. Jesus didn’t have to come. He is all-powerful and can do whatever He likes. (NEW SLIDE) Verse three says that nothing exists that He didn’t make. That’s power! But as long as that power stayed in heaven it did us no earthly good. So Jesus had to give His best. He had to come to earth, to become one of us. And that’s exactly what He did! Verse fourteen – So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. Jesus came to shine the light of His love on us and in us!
    6. Now, most of us know this stuff already. Basic theology. So the obvious question becomes, "So what?" "If I know all this stuff, what difference does it make for me here today?" First, look at verses twelve and thirteen – But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. 13 They are reborn! This is not a physical rebirth resulting from human passion or plan – this rebirth comes from God. What John is saying is that we are not simply handed our adoption papers. We become actual children of God when we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. But there’s more – we are reborn! Our legal status is not the only thing that changes – God begins transforming us from the inside out! That’s the best! That’s what the system of animal sacrifices could not do! Remember what Oswald Chambers wrote? Sin belongs to hell and the devil; I, as a child of God, belong to heaven and God. (NEW SLIDE) As long as sin controls our lives we belong to the devil, but as soon as we receive Christ we belong to God. And since God in His holiness cannot stand to be in the presence of sin, He begins to transform us so that the sin is removed from us. Remember what else Chambers wrote? It is not a question of giving up sin, but of giving up my right to myself, my natural independence and self-assertiveness, and this is where the battle has to be fought. That’s the key to allowing God to remove all sin from our hearts and lives – giving up our rights to ourselves, our natural independence, our self-assertiveness. And that’s tough!
    7. But the Word did not become flesh just to save us from our sins and to begin the transformation process. He gave Himself to do much more. Verses sixteen and seventeen – We have all benefited from the rich blessings he brought to us – one gracious blessing after another. 17 For the law was given through Moses; God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ. The Greek for verse sixteen says literally, "Because from the fullness of him we all received also grace upon grace." The Greek root for grace is "charis," and that is the English root for the word we use to describe a Christian movement called the "grace-filled ones" or Charismatics. The gracious blessing John is describing is the Holy Spirit, God’s transforming agent in our hearts and lives. (NEW SLIDE) We don’t have to settle for merely being enabled to hear God’s voice and respond to Him and have just a little bit of His Spirit in us, which is what happens when we are saved. We don’t have to settle for merely being God’s children in name only. We can become like Him. That’s why Jesus came – so that we can be reconciled to God and remade into His image. That’s powerful stuff.
    8. The problem is that we often live far below the level of our inheritance. We settle for hanging onto our rights, our independence, our self-assertiveness. We settle for the good, which is relationship with God through Jesus Christ, when we could be going after the best, being remade in God’s likeness. God begins that process when we receive His Son, but we can also slow or even halt the process. How? By hanging onto our good and forgetting about His best! It’s like the gift we talked about last week, all wrapped up and beautiful with a fantastic prize inside waiting to be opened. But all we do is look at the wrap. (NEW SLIDE) We have great hope just waiting to be fulfilled, but we allow ourselves to be satisfied with the hope and forget about it being fulfilled in our hearts and lives.
    9. I know what it’s like to be satisfied with the hope and forget about its fulfillment in my life. During those many years after God had called me into the ministry and I said no, I always hoped I could become a better person. I always hoped I could become the kind of person the Bible says we’re supposed to be like. I was saved and I prayed and read my Bible, but I knew there was something much bigger I was missing out on. Problem was that I knew that if I went after it I would have to follow God into the ministry, and there was no way I was going to do that! Getting up in front of people – forget it! Living the kind of life I knew ministers were supposed to live – no way could I ever be good enough to do that! Do you notice what all this was centered around? Me. It was all me. It wasn’t until I realized that it didn’t have to be all me that I was able to say yes. I began to realize that Jesus wanted to work in me and change me, that I didn’t have to change myself because that was His work. All I had to do was say yes and lay aside my rights, my independence and self-assertiveness. I realized that it was a process started when I asked His Spirit to fill me up and keep filling me up and to help me to keep saying yes to God and no to my own self. That’s what took me from a carnal Christian who had problems with his language and with extreme depression and with self-confidence to a man who’s maybe a bit more like Jesus and who can stand in front of people and preach. I still struggle with depression and with self-confidence, but God is helping me. I took the leap of faith because I had come to a crisis of faith, and He is working the rest. All because of the power of the Holy Spirit changing me from the inside out. The life-transforming power of the Holy Spirit is the prize in the box just waiting for us to open it.
    10. (NEW SLIDE) The Charismatics came on the scene during a time when the Reformed churches had all but forgotten about the Holy Spirit and His work, while we Wesleyans were striving to live by the power of the Spirit. Now I fear that we have become so afraid of being labeled Charismatic that we only allow the Holy Spirit to operate within our comfort zones. It breaks my heart to realize that Christ came to give us deep drinks of His fullness, while we settle for sipping at our own shallowness. As Oswald Chambers indicated, we are our own worst enemy.
    11. Remember the promise! Remember that God sent His best to us! Remember that the Word, God’s best, became one of us to show us that we can by the power of the Holy Spirit defeat our desire for ourselves and our rights and independence! Remember that we can truly live, starting right now! As Athanasius, the great fourth century defender of the faith, put it, (NEW SLIDE) He became what we are that He might make us what He is (as cited on PreachingToday.com). That, my friends, is the power and the promise of the Word Who became flesh and lived among us! That’s good news! No, that’s the best news!
    12. Illustration – Chuck Swindoll writes, Emmanuel. God with us. He who resided in Heaven, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and the Spirit, willingly descended into our world. He breathed our air, felt our pain, knew our sorrows, and died for our sins. He didn't come to frighten us, but to show us the way to warmth and safety (as cited on PreachingToday.com). He came to show us, but are we willing to follow? Are we willing to fight the battle over our rights, our independence, our self-assertiveness, and win by the power of the Holy Spirit? Are we willing to allow Him to begin the process of transforming us into His likeness, starting right now? As Chambers writes, (NEW SLIDE) Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence (My Utmost, December 9).
  1. Conclusion
    1. Please bow your heads and close your eyes. I don’t know where many of you are right now, but I know how miserable I was until I said yes to Jesus and allowed Him to begin that process of transformation in my heart and life. A crisis of faith caused this quantum leap for me, and it hasn’t been easy, but it’s been good. The hardest thing for me to do was to swallow my pride and go up front and pray and ask God to forgive me and to begin the process of making me like Him. But that’s what I had to do, and a physical act is what God is calling us to do today.
    2. I know it’s hard, but if right now you want to ask Jesus to forgive your selfishness and independence and to begin to transform you, please come forward. I realize that the altars are gone because of the play, but there’s plenty of room to stand or kneel up front. If you want to say no to yourself, and say yes to Jesus filling you with His Spirit and beginning to transform you into His likeness, come forward right now and pray.
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