Jesus The Messiah
Notes
Transcript
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. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. 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 the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ”)
For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
There are a lot of Christian quotes that I’ve heard that really make you think. But there is one quote that should do more than make you think it is such a profound truth it should literally shape your life.
What comes to our mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us. -Tozer
I would take that even further and say what we know about the person and work of Jesus will ultimately shape what comes to our mind when we think about God.
At the very core of how we perceive, understand and feel about God is our understanding of the truth of who Jesus is. And not just any Jesus but the Jesus of the bible.
I say not just any Jesus but the Jesus of the bible because there are many religions that 100% believe in Jesus, but sadly their interpretation of who Jesus is has them on a crash course with an eternity void of His presence.
So why do think we’re here in John’s Gospel? Because the two most important things we can do as your pastors is make sure you understand the person and work of Jesus and the good news of His Gospel. I believe everything else in your Christian walk is hinged on those two things.
We want you to have a deep, intimate, loving relationship with God the father. Having that hinges on your understanding of the person and work of Jesus and the good news of His Gospel.
We want you to have a Spirit led life that produces good fruit. That also hinges on your understanding of the person and work of Jesus and the good news of His Gospel.
RC Sproul said he believes John’s overriding goal, throughout his gospel, was to make a case for the identity of Christ.
In John’s own words he said...
but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
I think one of the most profound descriptions of the importance of knowing Christ comes from Paul in his letter to the Colossians.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
Tony got us rolling last week with a great foundation for who the Jesus of the bible is and the good news of His Gospel. Today’s verses are filled with much of the same great insights into the person and work of Jesus.
Let’s dive in!
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. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
I won’t spend a ton of time on this section but what we see here is that the text turns our attention for a moment from Jesus to a man called John the Baptist.
Tony will fill us in a lot more on John the Baptist, his mission and his ministry next week.
God sent John to tell us about an important decision we need to make.
He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him.
John the Baptist is a new person in this Gospel, but he is not the author of this Gospel. That is the apostle John. John the Baptist appears on the scene to relay a message from God about Jesus, and it contains the call for a decision: What will you do with Jesus? Hopefully the answer is repent and believe.
John is on the stand to share his testimony about the light. How many people have you ever told about light? Imagine giving someone a tour of your home. How many times did you have to say after turning on a light switch, “You probably didn’t notice it, but let me point out that there’s now light in this room.” They did not need to be told about the light. They could see it. Why did John need to tell people about the light?
A. W. Pink answers that like this:
When the sun is shining in all its beauty, who are the ones unconscious of the fact? Who needs to be told it is shining? The blind! How tragic, then, when we read that God sent John to “bear witness of the light.”
How heart breaking that there should be any need for this! How solemn the statement that men have to be told “the light” is now in their midst.
I wonder if God ever thought I gave you all these abilities and you’re not using them for the right reason.
• Jesus made our eyes, yet we refused to see his glory.
• Jesus made our ears, yet we refused to listen to his words.
• Jesus made our heads, yet we refused to bow before him.
John the Baptist came to bare witness about Christ, and as disciples of Jesus we are to do the same thing.
If you are hearing this an you are in Christ you have a testimony. Use that story of what Jesus has done in your life to point people to him while giving him all the glory.
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.
Disheartening conversations. Division within the body of Christ. Concern for my families safety in this crazy world. Family members facing heart-wrenching trials. Friends suffering physically, emotionally, spiritually. Strained relationships. And those are just my more immediate concerns.
There’s the global persecution of Christians, terrorism, natural disasters, mass shootings, and more.
Has anyone else felt like the darkness might just consume you lately?
If you answered yes to that you now know another one of the reasons we find it so vitally important that know and fall deeply in love with the person and finished work of Jesus.
Because it is in His light that we can find warmth from the cold of the worlds darkness.
Jesus is referred to as “the true light, which gives light to everyone”.
In the midst of the enveloping darkness we find peace in Christ because...
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Yet when the true light came into the world, the world didn’t recognize him, nor his own people receive him.
Why did the majority of people reject Jesus?
John tells us:
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
People may have loved the darkness, but the darkness couldn’t overcome the light. Jesus didn’t come in vain. Look how today’s passage continues.
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 the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
Think about it like this Jesus was not just ignored by the world in general.
He came to his own people, and they did not receive him. God had chosen a special people for himself—the Jews. He had made a covenant with them and promised a Messiah who would come and deliver them from their sins. When Jesus arrived, they were seeking their Messiah, but they rejected him, the one promised and sent by God.
Even in the Jews’ rejection of Jesus, God was at work. God used it to usher in the salvation of the Gentiles.
But the truth remains that the rejection of Jesus—whether it was the Jews two thousand years ago or someone today— it leaves a person in sin without a Savior.
No one else can bring you salvation. No other light can pierce the darkness of your sin. Don’t turn your back on him, hoping your own good works will be enough—they won’t.
The only way some we are able to receive him is by “believing” in his name. This is the key term in the Gospel of John, a term we find nearly one hundred times throughout the book. If we’re to receive Jesus Christ, we must completely rely on him.
When we receive Jesus by believing in him, we become “children of God” (v. 12). We, who were dead in our trespasses and sin, are now brought into the family of God.
The picture scripture paints of what God does in our lives beautiful and staggering all at the same time.
Spiritually dead, decaying into eternal separation. Made alive again in Christ.
Born into sin. Not a sinner because we sin. A sinner because it’s our very nature of who we are.
Born again, born of the spirit. A newness of life.
Because of Jesus, we who deserve death are now made to share in God’s inheritance as his children. We don’t deserve this. We could never say, “I have given myself the right to be called a child of God.” Only Jesus can do it.
He has the authority to declare that sinners, enemies of God like us, are now fully accepted children of the Father.
Do you see now how this one decision to receive Christ completely defines our lives? Our lives are radically altered by our position in the family of God.
You guys we don’t need to fear the future because we are going to the Father’s house.
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
We can stop worrying about whether our needs on this earth will be met because our Father gives good gifts to his children.
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
Surrounded by the darkness of this world, Jesus transformed children of darkness into children of light. He gave us a beautiful promise.
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
The light of Life. A light that brings warmth, comfort, and growth.
John goes on to say
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ”) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
Again we have another section that we could spend six weeks on but our goal is to lay a solid foundation that you guys can build on by exploring John’s gospel deeper.
Pastor Tony last week showed us that Word capital W that is used here and verse one is referring to Jesus. If you didn’t hear that message I recommend hoping on our Facebook page and giving that a listen.
For the sake of time and simply because I don’t need to reprove everything Tony has already taught I’m not going to touch much on who the Word is referring to. But rather try and expound what the Word(Jesus) has done.
In a small manger in Bethlehem the eternal Son of God became a man. We can hold to this truth— the incarnation—even if we cannot comprehend all it means. We can trust that Jesus has always existed (v. 1, he was in the beginning) and that there was a definite point in human history when he was born as a baby (v. 14, he became flesh).
Why would the eternal, preexistent God become this baby cradled in the arms of a young woman?
The purpose of the Incarnation was not to taste food or to feel sorrow. The Son of God came in the flesh in order to be the Savior of mankind. A there are many reasons but here are some of the basics.
First, it was necessary to be born “under the law”
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,
All of us have failed to fulfill God’s Law. Christ came in the flesh, under the Law, to fulfill the Law on our behalf .
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
In Galatians Paul said the word became flesh in order...
to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
Second, it was necessary for the Savior to shed His blood for the forgiveness of sins.
Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
A blood sacrifice, of course, requires a body of flesh and blood. And this was God’s plan for the Incarnation:
Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me;
Without the Incarnation, Christ could not really die, and the cross is meaningless.
No big deal why didn’t just anyone jump up on the cross and handle business for all of mankind. Well not only because of we’re honest nobody would make that decision, and even if they did they wouldn’t fit the bill of a sinless sacrifice.
with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
God did an incredible work in sending His only begotten Son into the world and providing us with a salvation we do not deserve.
Praise God for that moment in which “the Word became flesh.” We are now redeemed...
So in the beginning I shared the quote. What comes to our mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us by AW Tozer. The I said I would take that even further and say what we know about the person and work of Jesus will ultimately shape what comes to our mind when we think about God.
For us to understand who Jesus is we must first understand who we are. That comes back to knowing the gospel. We are all sinners who fall short of the glory of God. That’s bad news. But the good news is we have a God who is rich in mercy and sent his only son. A son named Jesus who is full of grace and truth.
What does that mean for us that have received him?
For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.
Not knowing the one true Jesus is both tragic and dangerous. Just look at anyone trapped in a works based religion. They try to earn their rebellious lives back into God’s favor. Impossible without Jesus showering us with grace upon grace.
Look at people caught up in the scam of the prosperity gospel. God wants me healthy and wealthy but only after I give every last penny that I have. Just saying that out loud has me like you’d have to be a fool to believe that non-sense.
But outside of Christ, being blind to Light of the world. We can’t see that if he does want us healthy it’s because of grace upon grace. Nothing we have a hand in.
Have you ever woke up in the dead of night and the day’s poor choices flood your mind? The guilt, the heaviness, and the pain make you question if God will ever get tired of your issues? Yet, He gives us grace upon grace—something we will never truly comprehend on this side of heaven.
Before I gave my life to Christ, I questioned how anyone could love someone like me. The hopelessness and regret try to shroud me in a cavern of darkness. Yet, the incredible light of God’s love illuminated His priceless gifts of mercy, forgiveness, and grace.
Now do you see how important it is to know, and love and walk in relationship with the Jesus of the bible is? If not, if it’s still a bit blurry let me leave you with this.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Christ Died For Us!
Let’s pray.
