The Greatest Gift of Grace

Introduction

<<READ vv9-13>>

<<PRAY>>

When I was a kid, I remember these commercials where a TV crew would follow an elderly man in a neat suit walking up a driveway to knock on a door. The second the folks came to the door and answered it, they looked and saw the man, they saw the thing in his hands, and they reacted with astonishment and joy. His name was Ed McMahon, and his face was instantly recognizable to millions of Americans at the time. He was the announcer for the Tonight Show. To have a celebrity show up at your door might be cause for surprise, but it was what he brought that made them more than just surprised.

Ed McMahon was also the spokesman for a contest with a million dollar grand prize, and if you opened your door and saw Ed McMahon standing there, holding a giant cardboard check for a million dollars, you knew you were one of the grand prize winners. The look on the winners’ faces was a combination of shock, surprise, joy, and that question, “Could it really be? ME?”

Sometimes, we arrive at Christmas season and we forget that the central truth of the manger is that God Himself, infinite, perfect, holy, righteous, almighty, glorious, chose to come here, to give us a much greater gift than any amount of money. He chose to come to redeem us. Us.

He’s not a celebrity walking up a cracked suburban driveway. He’s the righteous LORD coming in the form of a servant to a rebellious, darkened world.

And He came with a gift that goes beyond all comparison. The greatest gift of grace.

If we really understand the arrival of Jesus on Christmas, it will inspire such astonishment and joy that we would wonder, “Could it really be? He came to US?” As we look at verses 9-13, ask yourself:

Q. What makes the birth of Jesus so astonishing?

I. Rejoice! The Light came to His rebellious world (vv9-11)

Two weeks ago, we spent time talking through what John means when he refers to the Word. He says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”

This is John’s way of introducing us to the Biblical idea that there is one God, eternally existing as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Word is how John talks about God the Son before He took on a human nature for our salvation.

Verses 4-8 tell us that the Word is the source of life for all people, and he calls that life light. Everything was made through the Word, and every living thing was given life by the Word.

Verse 9 says “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.”

As “the true light,” He is the authentic, original light.

Think of the sun and the moon. The moon has light, but only because the sun gives it. On a full moon, you can go outside and see fairly well. But the sun remains the “true” light, the authentic source of that light. Destroy the moon, and the sun still shines. Block the sun, and you have a new moon, because the moon can only reflect what the sun shines on it.

Now, think about what this verse says. The eternal Word, the Creator of all things, the Life Himself, was coming into the world.

What an astonishing statement!

“was coming into the world” points back to the way the Jews of the day thought about the Messiah. They called the Messiah “the one who is to come,” or “the coming one,” using this same phrase.

If you read the Advent readings for this week, you read many of the verses that the Jews looked back to when they talked about the Coming One.

In Deuteronomy 18, Moses told Israel to expect a prophet like himself one day, and in fact He would be a prophet greater than Moses or any other prophet.

In Genesis 49, and 2 Samuel 6 and 7 you read God’s promise to send a KING from the line of Judah through David, but unlike any mere human king, his throne would remain forever

Psalm 110 told them that the Messiah would be a priest, but unlike their Levitical priesthood, he would be an eternal priest whose ministry would remain forever

Daniel 7:13-14 said that the Son of Man would come to us with a kingdom that would never pass away.

Micah 5:2-5 tells us that the Coming One was to come from Bethelehem, but that His origin is “from of old, from ancient days.” His strength would be the strength of the LORD, and His majesty would be the name of the LORD, “and he shall be their peace.”

The prophets were telling us that God’s Messiah would be both the Son of David and the Creator of David. The Son of God and the Son of Man. The Word made flesh. The KING of Glory and the Suffering Servant.

Psalm 118:26 ESV

26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord.

This is what it means when we read, “The true light, which gives light to everyone, HE WAS THE ONE COMING to the world.”

And notice how the world responded. <<READ v10>>

But He came anyway.

Don’t let that slip past you when you read this. Most of the time, when I have read this verse, I’ve thought, “oh, what a tragedy, that the world didn’t recognize him.” And that’s true.

But the point here is that He came anyway. He knew exactly what the world would do. He knew that they would not receive Him. He is the Eternal Word, who MADE every one of them - how could He not know? But He came anyway.

APPLICATION:

So our first application point today is to rejoice.

Consider the promises that God made, to come to His world that He knew would reject Him, to save a people for Himself.

This is the greatest gift of grace - that the Light would come into the world. This world that He made - His own world - that He created and called “Very Good,” that we plunged into darkness and death, He came anyway.

Consider the depth of your own darkness for just a moment - there are things that some men do and then wish they could undo. Knowing they cannot undo them, they wish they could forget them. They drown their pasts in drink and pleasure.

There are some who embrace the darkness and pretend it’s the light. They rename sins virtues, they blaspheme against God’s Word and call it freedom.

It should come as no surprise to us that when the Light came, He was rejected, because He is not at all what humanity would have made if they designed God for themselves. We would not have created a god that judged us guilty.

We would not have created a God who both made humanity and declared what we were made for. Instead, we would create a god who tells us, "You do you.” We would have created a god that punishes our enemies and rewards our most arbitrary and erratic desires.

In short, we would make the sun revolve around the moon.

We would not have created a God who became man, to die in our place to give us eternal life.

We know this, because the gods of the nations are never like the One who was rejected by the world He made. The gods of the nations enshrine their own values. The gods of our age - wealth for its own sake, leisure without rules or limits, sex without morality, absolute selfishness outside our inner circle, the right to do nothing I don’t want to do, these are the kinds of gods we make.

They demand sacrifices from us, and so often, we gladly give them. The love of money demands we pay for it in anxiety, ruthlessness, and stinginess. The worship of leisure demands we pay for it in ten tithes of our time. The idol of modern sexuality is appeased only by the burnt offering of broken trust, broken marriages, and broken homes.

And the Light came to this rebellious world anyway.

Romans 5:6–8 ESV

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Rejoice. As the words of the old carol, “O Holy Night” tell it:

Long lay the world in sin and error, pining // Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth // A thrill of hope! The weary world rejoices // For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Maybe you remember, two months ago in Nehemiah 8, “the joy of the LORD is your strength”

I said at that time that JOY isn’t just happiness. JOY is when God’s FAVOR overcomes something else.

So consider the fact that the LIGHT came to a world He knew would reject Him, and rejoice.

A more modern Christmas song by Matt Papa and Matt Boswell begins:

Come behold the wondrous myst'ry // In the dawning of the King

He the theme of heaven's praises // Robed in frail humanity

In our longing in our darkness // Now the light of life has come

Look to Christ who condescended // Took on flesh to ransom us

II. Reflect: The Light came to destroy the darkness (vv9-11)

Look at verses 9-11 again with me <<READ vv9-11>>

Why did the Light come? To destroy the darkness.

John 12:46 ESV

46 I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.

And as it was prophesied in

Isaiah 9:2 ESV

2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.

Isaiah 9:6–7 ESV

6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Consider how much this tells us about the God who made us: His zeal - His unstoppable commitment to that which He loves - that’s the motivation behind the Light coming into this world.

Reflect on Christmas. God so loved the world. This is not merely a tender love; it is a fierce love. It is zeal. The flip side of His love for His world is His conquering wrath against anything that would enslave it. TRUE love is deadly to the enemy of its beloved.

The baby in the manger is the warrior, the conqueror, the destroyer of darkness. This is the arrival of the Champion to the field of battle. But Light does not do battle with darkness. It destroys it.

Hebrews 2:14–15 ESV

14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

It is the darkness-destroying power of the Light that explains how, in a world that rejected Him, there could be any who would receive Him, and this brings us to verses 12-13 and our third point:

III. Receive the Light as LORD - He is the gift of grace (vv12-13)

If the world did not recognize Him, if His own people did not receive Him, how can anyone be saved from the darkness of sin and death?

No one had a better starting point than the Jewish people. They were the ones with the Covenants, the promises, the Scriptures, the prophets. The pages of the Gospels are full of Pharisees and Sadducees coming to Jesus to test Him. He answers in ways that astonish them into silence, but they will not believe. He heals their neighbors before their eyes, but they will not believe.

If anyone could be rescued by being born in the right place or the right time, nobody was better situated than the Jews of His day.

Those with the best apparent chance turn away, and this is why it is such good news that He came as a conquering light. He did not merely point us to safety; He came to break the chains of our own making, the chains of our chosen sins, and bring us home to God as children.

As

Galatians 4:4–7 ESV

4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

But the question remains: What does it mean to receive Him? And how is it relevant to you this Christmas?

Look back at John 1:5 with me again. <<READ 1:5>>

“Overcome” in verse 5, and “receive” in verse 11 are related to the word “receive” in verse 12, but with a prefix added that nuances the meaning. The word translated “overcome” is like receiving someone the way a defensive line receives a running back. The darkness has never been able to wrap up Light and take it down.

The word translated “receive” in verse 11 is like a teacher receiving a visiting colleague.

In John 3, when the Pharisee Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night, he tries to lay out the parameters of the conversation, sort of establish the pecking order. He says, “We know you’re a teacher who has come from God, since nobody could do these things you’re doing otherwise.” WE Pharisees are the approved teachers, so let me put my arm around your shoulder and help you figure out how to live in these uncertain times.”

This is what the Pharisees tried to do with Jesus in Luke 7 and 14, when they invite Jesus into their homes as a guest, but when He refuses to know His place as they understand it, they reject Him.

Then they try the defensive line approach. In Matthew 22, first the Pharisees try to entangle Jesus in His words, but they can’t; immediately the Sadducees step in to try to wrap Him up, but they can’t overcome Him.

The only way to receive Him is to receive Him as LORD. The word “receive” in verse 12 is the simplest form of the word. When you pare away all the extra stuff, the implications, the nuance, the subtleties; when you stop trying to receive Him the way you want to or not at all; John says that those who receive Him are the ones who believe in His NAME.

The rest of the New Testament helps us see that to believe in His Name is to believe that Jesus is the Christ - the promised savior, and that He is LORD - He is YHWH made flesh. The only way to receive Him is to believe that He is the One who made you, who loves you, who willingly died as the atoning sacrifice for your sins, who rose on the third day for your justification.

Look at the end of verse 12. Those who receive Him by believing in His NAME are given the right to become children of God.

This is the greatest gift of grace. It is given, not earned. No one is a child of God by default, not in the way that John means. We must first be rescued.

But John doesn’t say that those who believe are given a chance to become children of God. He says they’re given the right to become children of God. Their status has been permanently altered from enslaved enemy to beloved, redeemed, treasured, legitimate son or daughter.

Verse 13 makes sure we understand that salvation is not something we accomplish. We don’t collaborate in our redemption. It is a new birth. Believers aren’t born into God’s family because of who their parents are, they don’t become children of God through natural desire or an act of human striving. Parents, you can’t decide it for your kids; husbands, you can’t decide it for your wives. Even the human will cannot make you born again. Believers are born of God.

V9 says that the true light which gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He kept His promise. Christmas is the day that God Incarnate was born of Mary, so that by faith in His death and resurrection you could be born of God.

Concluding APPLICATION

First, if you have never received Jesus as the LORD, today is the day the light breaks through. Don’t wait another moment. Rejoice in the fact He came to His rebellious world, in spite of its rebellion, to redeem you, and receive Him as LORD. Say to Him, “You are LORD. I’ve been a rebel in the dark my whole life, but I believe you came to destroy the darkness of sin & death. I believe that you are the Christ, the savior who died and rose again to redeem your world. Redeem me, Lord. I’m yours.”

YOU WILL BE a child of God in that very instant

Galatians 4:4–7 ESV

4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

For those who have received Christ as LORD, the best application for this text today is another word to go with Rejoice, Reflect, Receive. That word is:

REMEMBER. Remember what Jesus rescued you from, and remember how He did it. Rejoice once again that He loved you so much that in spite of our rebellion, He came anyway.

Reflect on the darkness that He came to destroy, and reflect on how He continues to shine His Light into your heart to transform you

And as we turn to the Lord’s Table together, I encourage you to realize that because you are a child of God by faith in Jesus, you are no longer a slave to the darkness, no longer a slave even to the Law. He invites you to His table as a son, a daughter.

REMEMBER who it is that you have received. He is the LIGHT. He is the LORD. He is the LAMB of God who takes away the sins of the world.