Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

John 1:10-13

I am not sure how many of you are familiar with the short story of Rip Van Winkle.

Essentially it is a story of man who hated work, but was truly a great neighbor.

He was always ready to lend a helping hand and was rather liked by everyone in the town.

They all knew him and they all liked him.

But despite this commendable quality, he did not manage his farm and was not committing himself to profitable work.

He was lazy and would spend his time fishing and gossiping with other men in the city.

One day, he goes with his dog wolf into the mountains and meets a stranger there.

He helps the stranger carry a keg up the mountain to a gathering and makes company with them.

He eventually falls asleep on the mountain and wakes up with a foot long beard, a rusted rifle, and a really sore back.

He had fallen asleep for 20 years.

When he went back into town, and no one in town recognizes him.

When he goes home, it is falling apart and his own dog does not recognize him.

Nobody really believed he was who he was or his story until an old man, the oldest one of the town recognizes and confirms his identity.

He goes on to live with his daughter and continues on his lazy ways.

It is rather a entertaining short story and I can imagine it would be incredibly frustrating to wake up in a different time.

To wake up and have no one know you, that would frustrating, scary, and depressing.

Everything you knew has changed or is replaced, and everyone who knew you either has left or grown older and are skeptical of your identity.

Although this is a fictitious story, we read of a similar thing happening.

Christ comes and he came to his own.

To his own people and they did not receive him.

He came into the very world that he had created and, as John describes it, “yet the world did not recognize Him.”

How unfortunate that is.

Because there in their midst was God incarnate.

God Himself who had taken on the flesh was among them.

The one who had redeemed His own many times as recorded in the Old Testament or in those days, had been told to them by their ancestors.

And they did not recognize Him.

That should not be lost on us.

We can rejoice in verses 12 and 13, but we must also understand that context of it.

When His own people did not receive Him, others were given the right, not just the privilege, but the right to be children of God.

Body

We have a bit of bad news first, then we see some good news.

And you would think that the people would receive Jesus though.

When you read verses 6-9, what you get is an expectancy.

A feeling of anxiety that you are waiting for something good, but it is not there yet.

You know one of my best friends just got engaged recently and he kinda told me how nervous he was about popping the question and it was all building up inside him.

But it was not for nothing, he was wanting and desiring a good thing.

He wanted her to say yes.

And when the day finally came and he asked her and she said yes, it was just joy.

A beautiful joy for him and for me.

I could not be more happy for him, I love him so much.

And here we read of the Israelites and you go through the Old Testament and you have an anxiety building up as well.

They are waiting for the Messiah.

The Savior.

The one who, by the promise of Abraham, would be a blessing to all nations.

The one, by the promise of David, would reign forever.

The cloud rider in Daniel and the anointed eternal, Immanuel.

They are waiting.

And John comes into the scene and they think, this man might be him, and he says no (vs 8) “He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light.

The true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.”

What good news!

And then he comes!

And we read in verse 10 and 11, somber words.

He is not recognized.

He is not received he is not accepted.

And it is ironic isn’t it.

Illustration: You know if you were to go to Joe Myers Mazda just down the road, and imagine you are Joe Myers and you start to inspect things… and they do not recognize you.

And Jesus...He did not come to a world not created by Him, not that any exist.

We see that it was created through Him and yet, he goes unrecognized.

And he did not come to strangers and say here I am.

It says He went to “His own” and they did not receive Him!

He was not warmly welcomed or greeted with joy.

We get the picture of Peter in Acts 12, led out of prison by the spirit and he goes to His people who are praying for him!

13 He knocked at the door in the gateway, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer.

14 She recognized Peter’s voice, and because of her joy, she did not open the gate but ran in and announced that Peter was standing at the gateway.

15 “You’re crazy!” they told her.

But she kept insisting that it was true.

Then they said, “It’s his angel!” 16 Peter, however, kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astounded.

They did not believe and you’re thinking what is going on.

At least they recognized Peter finally and let him in.

How much more should Jesus have been received!

Instead, they rejected him, they despised him, they killed him.

The prophet Isaiah (53:3) expressed it poignantly, “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”

And while the Jews had rejected Him, many received him, and it was to them that he gave them the right to be called children of God!

How do we get it?

What do we have to do? Well there are four approaches that John gives in verse 13

You must be born into it.

Is there some sort of special physical birth that can help you?

Do some people just have it in their DNA.

You know I have always wanted to have 20/20 vision.

But i just do not, I have to wear contacts or glasses and without them I cannot see, but there are some who don’t need any glasses.

Is that the same thing with salvation?

Do we have to be born with that special secret genetic gene?

No.

It is not by blood or birth.

Will of the flesh

Does having a desire for it work?

No, not even that.

You can desire a lot of things, but it does not mean you will get it.

John Bunyan in his very last sermon preached on this text.

On this point he said

‘It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.’

There is willing and running, and yet to no purpose (Rom 9:16).

Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, have not obtained it (v 30).

Here, I do not understand, as if the apostle had denied a virtuous course of life to be the way to heaven; but that a man without grace, though he have natural gifts, yet he shall not obtain privilege to go to heaven, and be the son of God.

Though a man without grace may have a will to be saved, yet he cannot have that will God’s way.

Nature, it cannot know any thing but the things of nature—the things of God knows no man but by the Spirit of God; unless the Spirit of God be in you, it will leave you on this side the gates of heaven.

Will of man or Self-Determination

You must work for it.