Christmas in July- John 1:1-14

So please turn to John somewhere in amongst those Gospels at the beginning of the New Testament.

Okay, so we're reading from John 1 from verse 1 to 14.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made.

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify

concerning that light, so that through him all might believe.

He himself was not the light. He came only as a witness to the light.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him,

the world did not recognize him.

He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name,

he gave the right to become children of God, children born not of natural descent,

nor of human decision or a husband's will.

Father, full of grace and truth. If you'd like an outline of the message,

it's on the QR code in front of you.

And if not, then you have the app, it's on that as well. And you'll be able

to see a message outline that happens with that.

That happens every week, by the way. you might be able to pick that up.

I'm not proud of it in any way, shape or form.

And I had a very difficult time speaking to my kids, Tyler, who's up the back

and Cody, that they actually should read books.

Now, Tyler become a reader of all time. I don't know whether he still reads

books now or he just thinks I've read the first 500 and I don't need to read anymore. I don't know.

But he used to read a book almost every week about that, wasn't it,

Susan, something close to that.

Just massively into reading it. But I'm not proud of it.

I never actually completed a book at all in school.

None. I just read the intro, skipped to the end of every book and basically

faked my way through every exam that ever existed.

Not proud, but it actually works.

Don't want to tell kids that. If you're a student here, I realize that you should

have been out and you probably didn't need to listen to that,

but it actually works because if you've got a good book or a good essay,

you read the intro, you read the end, and you kind of get the bits,

like the intro should tell you about what's going to be contained within the

book and the end should give a summary of what a good picture of what's going to be at the end of it.

Now, however, while I well and truly have got past my school life,

my school days, there are still some books that I'm reading where I'm so excited

to get to the last page that I just, I know that I skipped.

Now the problem with audio books, you've got to go all the way to the end of

it, you know, and you kind of, you think, well, that's not really worth it.

So I'll just listen to the whole lot.

I listen to audio books all the time when I go now.

And every time I get in the car with Susan, she's got some book happening,

but you know, you want to get to the end of it. You want to get to the last page.

You want to find out the riddle, the problem is solved or how the story makes

sense at the end of it, you know, did the butler really do it sort of thing.

Now, I'm not suggesting that you don't read the book of John and just read the

first chapter that we've just read and then go to the last chapter,

but really it does make a whole lot of sense because he introduces every theme

that's going to happen within the book of John in that first chapter.

And right at the end of it, he tells us his purpose, the reason why he wrote it in the first place.

If you want to know, So, you know, this is like a bit of a, what do you call

it, like a killer, like, you know, sorry, yeah, don't listen, but listen.

John 20, 31 says that these things are written to you. What are these things?

Well, it's the whole of the book of John.

These things are written to you that you may believe in Jesus Christ,

the son of God, and that by believing in him, you may have life in his name.

If you want to know, as I said, what these things are, well,

you'll have to just read the book or come to church every week. Maybe I suggest both.

John's good news or the gospel, which is the good news, is a select material

from him to provide his reader with evidence that Jesus is the unique saviour

of this world. He's the Christ.

He's the Messiah, the one who came to save this world. He is the son of God

so that they or we might believe in him and have eternal life through him.

That's the reason why John wrote the book. And he introduces it.

It must be really in some ways we have to read the whole of John through that purpose.

We need to constantly be framing our reading of John. on, in fact,

the whole Bible really in the great plan of God, that Jesus the Saviour is coming

into the world, a world living in darkness.

He switched on the light so that through the illumination that he provides,

we might see the Saviour, a world that's spiritually dead through Jesus might

have life, not just a better way of living, but true life now and for all eternity.

A world that was without grace, without abundant kindness of any kind,

destined to live without truly knowing their maker.

But through Jesus, we can know God, not just head knowledge about knowing about

God, but have a living, active, relational knowledge of God.

Isn't that good news? You want to flip to the end, don't you? So why am I reading this?

So that you might believe and you might have eternal life.

Sounds like a Christmas story, doesn't it? That's why I started,

John, in July because it's Christmas in July and that's the reason why we have mince pies out there.

I said to Susan, go down the shop and buy anything Christmas and no plum pudding,

Christmas cake would just sit out there and nobody would eat it.

And so Christmas, you know, we've got mince pies out there and the Christmas

tables. Of course, it is the Christmas story.

And John launches into that story of Jesus coming into the world,

that good news of Jesus coming into the world by, first of all,

establishing who came into the world. Who is Jesus?

And here's the spoiler alert.

Jesus is the Son of God. The name above all names.

Australians, we often shorten names for convenience sake. Cody become Codes. Tyler becomes Ty.

Jennifer becomes Jen. Philip becomes Phil. Susan becomes Sue or Susie or whatever.

Jocelyn signs her name Jocelyn.

Don't you? Well, at the end of every one, every tech that you send me, I always say J-O-C.

Andrew becomes Andy, Jacqueline becomes Jack, except she doesn't like Jack.

Don't call Jacqueline Jack. And when all else fails, we have the great Aussie flattener, mate.

Seven mate comes out, or love, which you can't really say that anymore,

so don't say that, but mate, which some might say it speaks a lot about Australian

culture, layback culture than it ever does about name shortening.

But whatever that is. But what's in a name?

People are often identified by their achievements of how they act.

Superman was fighting for the truth and justice in the American way.

Muhammad Ali, if you remember him, he says, I am the greatest,

the greatest boxer who ever lived.

Bob the Builder, if you remember him, we can fix it.

Yes, we can. He becomes the greatest repairman of all time. And Wonder Woman,

so long as life remains, there is always hope.

And so long as there is hope, there can be victory.

Great. But what's in the name of Jesus?

It's more than what Jesus did or what he stood for. It's his whole person.

See, in antiquity, your name represented you, your person,

not just something which superficially identified you as different from somebody

else, but a name that identified you was your character, was your substance,

was exactly who you were.

And so John talks about the name of Jesus and he says, in the beginning was

the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

And as you read verses 1 to 14, we obviously have Jesus is the word.

And then he goes and identifies some things about Jesus that might right up

front, laying right on the table.

First of all, he says, in his absolute being, he is God.

He's there before creation ever started. He was there in the beginning when the heavens was framed.

Christ was there. Jesus was there. When the earth was made, Christ was there.

In fact, Hebrews tells us that through him, all things were made.

And through him, he sustains all things. When Adam and Eve were formed,

Christ was there. When Noah got in the boat, Christ was there.

When Israel was born as a nation, Christ was there.

When New South Wales beat Queensland, Christ was there.

Before the beginning, true. He was equally there when Queensland beat New South

Wales in game one, but we won't go into that.

One of the dangers about celebrating the birth of Christ at Christmastime as

we mistakenly think that Jesus' existence began in a manger.

It didn't. And John 1 tells us differently. It says that Jesus was there in the beginning.

He was there and he was equal with God in form and expression,

every part of him with the Father.

And we call this the triune God was there, or in big theological language,

which is good to start the Gospels that way.

Is the Trinity, perfect union, perfect in relationship, perfect in spirit,

his pre-existence and his relational.

This is so important as we look at what Jesus means for us, how he gives us

life and he gives us the light of this world,

that he is not just bringing something into this world where we're separate from him.

No, he's relational. He's together with us.

You know how you can be with somebody and not really be with them.

You've probably seen pictures of it all the time. I remember I was standing

at a station going somewhere, wherever it was.

I think it was to a rugby game and I was standing on Homebush station and I

looked at it and I pointed out the person I was with that every single person was on the phone.

Every person on the whole of the station. And we're looking around and say,

is there one person who's not on the phone? Except for us.

One person on the phone? No, every single person's on the phone.

And no doubt they're standing next to the person they're traveling with.

You know, you can be with somebody, but not really be with them.

Verse 1 says, the word was with God. In case there's any thoughts that Christ

was somehow a disinterested observer or he was some kind of angel of God,

verse 1 says he was with God.

He was with God in purpose. He was with God in creation.

He was with God in planning the universe and everything in it. He was with God.

When God looked over his creation and declared that everything that he made

was good, Christ was with him there, nodding in agreement.

But he's not only just with God, it tells us in the beginning was the word,

the word was with God, the word what was God. He's God.

Jesus is God. His deity is absolutely pronounced at the very beginning of John's gospel.

If you want to know how you can have eternal life in his name and how you can

have eternal life forever and you can be free from your sin,

it's because he is God. The word was God.

Here we come to the deep truths of God's word that Jesus was not only God,

he is God, that people may have doubted his divinity over the years,

but his deity of Christ is fundamental to Christianity.

There are many individuals who deny Christ.

Many of them will knock on your front door of a weekend and they interpret these

verses instead of in the beginning he was the word, the word was with God,

the word was God. They say, oh no, the word was a God.

Apart from having absolutely no idea on Greek construction, they're wrong.

Jesus right throughout the Bible talks about how he is God. He says, I am the father of one.

He didn't just simply mean we're one in agreement. For example,

like we're all in agreement that mushrooms are food, or we're all in agreement

that rhythmic gymnastics is actually a sport.

For those who don't know just talk to susan at

the end of it now they were one and now

we know that the three are one but for some who don't understand that jesus

is god apart from not understanding really how a sentence works within the greek

structure let's get all practical if jesus wasn't god well then we're still

sinners and we have not been saved from our sin.

So in the name of this Jesus that John introduces, it's more than just an identifier.

It's more than, oh, that's Jesus there and someone else is over there.

In his being, in his unique union with the Father, in his actual deity being

fully God, he introduces this Jesus that we're going to be looking at over this time.

How does this go back to the purpose of John? Well, the name that Christianity

professes, Jesus Christ, is not just a prophet or a good guy or even some divinely

appointed person or a God, one of many. He is the almighty.

He's the all powerful. He is the eternal God.

And if we grab hold of this, this will not only affect our brain and how we

think about it, but it will affect every area of our life. life,

it will massively affect our prayer life because it is in Jesus' name we pray.

Now, in Jesus' name we pray isn't just the end of a prayer time where now you

can open up your eyes at the end of it.

It's not an incantation of some time that if we don't pray in Jesus' name,

using the words in Jesus' name, well, then the prayer won't be answered. It's nothing like that.

No, we We acknowledge that we are praying to the eternal God.

That we sit under his sovereignty.

In other words, we are under his will because he organizes all of life, all of creation.

He sustains it. He runs it.

So if we're going to pray to anybody, pray to them through Jesus,

through the one that is God.

And we recognize that it's only through him that we can ever realize a personal

conversation with the Father.

So not only does it affect our prayer life, but it affects every single aspect

of our life, the way that we walk with him.

And the reason why is because if he is sovereign, if he is God,

if he is Lord, then he has every right to input into our life.

What does it say in Romans? If you confess that Jesus is Lord,

and if you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

We don't decide to make him Lord. He is Lord.

He's lord of all we simply acknowledge his rightful place as lord over our life,

so not only will it affect our prayer life it will affect the way that we actually

view life that he is our lord and he governs us he guides us he directs us we

follow him wherever he would like to go it will affect our worship of him as

we realize that god is worthy of our praise apart from any interaction that we have had with him,

or even how we feel,

he is worthy of our praise.

We praise God for who he is, and we thank God for what he has done.

God is certainly worthy of our praise because of who he is. Now, that's just one verse.

Now, before you think, strike, he read 14 verses, and we're going to get to

Easter before we even and start Christmas.

I'm going to fly through the other things. The reason why is because John unpacks

it right throughout the rest of the book.

So while you might think, oh, we started at the end and then we got to the end.

No, we're going to unpack some stuff and he's going to be part of it,

but I'm going to fly through some parts of it now.

John's aim is not only to outline who Jesus is, but also to expand through that

good news about what he has done.

It's to present Jesus as the the savior of humanity, as the Messiah,

the Lord, the one, the name in which we can truly know God.

And like I mentioned, not just know about him in our mind, but truly know him.

This is Jesus' prayer in John. He says, my prayer is not for them alone, Jesus prays.

I pray also for those who believe in me through their message,

the apostle's message, that all of them may be one father, just as you are in

me and I am in you, may they also be in us.

So that the world may believe that you have sent me.

Then we get to verse 4, this great transitional point.

And it's not just a transitional point in the argument of John,

as you read and you look at your Bible.

It's a transition point in all of history.

And it's, of course, the one we focus on in Christmastime, but should be part

of our worship every day, that Christ the Eternal,

he was present in creation before all of history, but there is a time in history

where his eternal presence would be made flesh.

This was the light of men coming to illuminate us. It's that aha moment.

It's that moment where creation says, this is God, and God made himself known through Jesus.

Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 to 4 also starts with that kind of way where you

Hebrews 1:1–4

don't necessarily have to read through the whole of Hebrews.

We just get chapter 1, but I encourage you to do that. In the past,

God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and at various ways.

But in these last days, as he has spoken to us through his son or in his son

or by his son, whom he appointed heir of all things and through whom he made the universe.

The son, Jesus, is the radiance of God's glory.

He's the exact representation of his being. He sustains all things by his powerful word.

That is the one who came to this world so that we might know him.

It's kind of like the uniqueness of those really bad shows

we have samsung tv we we bought a samsung tv through cody and and we have it

on there but it came with samsung plus which means you've got so many junk channels

that you can just spend the whole of your life watching television and never

go out of the room and one of the junk channel channels that i like to watch is undercover boss,

and uh it's like where this big boss of a big huge corporation goes in undercover

everyone Everyone knows who he is, probably, or she is.

And they go in there and then they try to unpack their business or their corporation

so that they can make things better with the workers and make better circumstances.

See, these bosses, these big corporate bosses don't normally associate with average workers.

Some politicians, you never see. They just go ahead and just do whatever they're

doing in the political world and you never see people. But at time of election,

they try to get to know every single voter that there is out there.

There are some ministers that you never see and will never visit you.

There was a minister in England that actually dug a channel,

a tunnel, from his study to the pulpit.

And then when he finished the sermon, he would just go back,

like going into the bat cave.

He'd go into the tunnel and back to his rectory. And no one would ever see him

during the week. So he'd just come out and appear in the pulpit.

Not so the almighty God. He entered this world and one of the greatest mysteries

of all time is why would he do that?

Why would he lower himself to come into this world as a human and take on the

limitations of humanity and partake in the pain and the suffering of human existence?

Why would he do that? Why would he allow himself to be mocked?

Why would he allow himself to be ridiculed by his own created beings who did

not even acknowledge him for who he was.

It wasn't a sleight of hand. It wasn't a trick. While Christ was God,

he wasn't just 50% God, 50% him. He was all God and all man.

As one commentator, John Gill, put it this way, Christ remained what he was

and became what he was not.

So united as to be one person and

and this union can never be

dissolved and is and this foundation

is all of christ's words and all of christ's actions and that is who he is and

john fills all that out in one of his letters in first john chapter one one

tells us this that which was from the beginning that which we have heard which

we have seen with our own eyes which we have looked upon with our own hands,

we have handled the word of life.

Because John wrote, in the beginning was the word, the word was with God,

the word was God. He was there in the beginning.

And now he says, we have looked upon the word of life and handled it.

Human life was one in purpose and one in example. That was his life.

He showed us humanity and the way that how it could have been and it should have been.

Had sin not corrupted our world and corrupted us, and he came so that we might have eternal life.

And as I mentioned before, he came to turn the light switch on so that we might

see, and we might see truth and the absolute kindness of God through him.

Now, we're going to look at these in a few details. But in Jesus is life.

This life was the light of all mankind, verse 4 says.

And where John says in him was life, he uses this special word that defines

a special kind of life, not just physical life or human consciousness.

He uses a word that means the spiritual life of us, the eternal life of us.

It's the word that Jesus used when he said, a thief comes to steal and kill

and destroy, but I have come that you may have life life and you may have it to the full.

It's a special kind of not only kind of life, but a quality of life,

a quality of personal union, an intimate connection, or what we would call fellowship

with God, which is a big Christian word.

Intimate connection would probably be a better one to use.

He says this in chapter 17 of John. Now, this is eternal life.

Might know you, God, the only true God and Jesus whom you have sent. That's true life.

Death as we know it is not ceasing to exist, but a change in our situations. Humans live forever.

So life cannot mean that if you believe in Jesus, you will live forever.

But if you don't believe in Jesus, you don't because everyone lives forever.

But it does mean that Jesus gives us a spiritual life, that apart from him,

you'll have spiritual death, which means that you will not be with God.

Romans says the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.

So obviously it's not talking about physical death.

We all die for a sin, but spiritual life is life with him.

Ephesians 2 tells us this, as for you, you were dead in your transgressions.

Obviously you were still alive like living

on this earth but because of his great love for us god who is rich in mercy

made us alive with christ even though you were dead in your transgressions it

is by grace you have been saved spiritual life life that gives humanity meaning and direction.

Unlike animals we were created to know god personally to commune with him and

to experience his direction in our life, but he's not only life, he illuminates.

We know him. For the more you get to know someone, the more you truly know them. Isn't that right?

I was talking to Peter this morning. He's running some weddings coming up,

and I'm sure that he's going to give some pre-marriage counseling or pre-marriage

advice, or I don't know what you really call it nowadays, but pre-marriage something.

Really all that you're doing within that pre-marriage counseling is trying to

get them to know each other in certain facets of married life that's going to really matter.

Like if you leave the toilet seat up or down, or if you leave dirty dishes in the sink.

I mean, things that really matter and cause great arguments in life.

You know, and I know if you're married, that there's no way on the wide planet

that when you stand there and you say, I do in front of somebody at the altar

in front of the celebrant, that you really know the person.

You get to know them over your whole life. And I'm still getting to know Susan.

Susan's still getting to know me. In fact, if she actually knew me before she

stood and said, I do, it might've been a different result.

But when you're standing at the altar, you don't get this this aha moment.

Now I know her completely.

And as we become Christians and we get to know Jesus and we get to know God

through Jesus, it is not as if we're going to have this aha moment.

Certainly the things that maybe in our mind might have clarity,

but we'll start that journey of getting to know him.

And why? Because he wants to be known.

He's not unknowable.

He wants to be known. He's able to be known.

Our intimate relationship with Christ as Christians will grow more and more

as we start to know him, as we start to get to know him.

He illuminates us. He's the light. He turns the switch on, but it's not like,

oh, here's everything to be seen.

No, No, we're able to, through our mind, be able to see him more and more.

We're not shut off from his promises. We know Christ who is that radiance,

the one that turns on that switch.

But it's not like a light switch, like I mentioned, where the whole world's

person is this penetrating light like the sun.

It's a radiation that so permeates us to bring us into a knowledge of God and

bring growth and nourishment and sustenance in our life with him we know that darkness brings death.

Who have lived in countries where we've got past the darkest hour now and we're

getting lighter and lighter every morning.

And my dogs keep on telling me earlier and earlier that they need to get up.

But what happens is that if you go to places like Finland, where Susan's from,

and she talks about how people sometimes go nuts within the Finnish world because

it's just dark nonstop forever.

Now I haven't been to Finland, but I've been to Scotland where in winter,

the sun kind of kind of came up a little bit and then went down again straight away.

It's kind of like dawn for the whole of the day and then it goes dark again.

I can't imagine what it'd be like if the sun actually didn't come up and you didn't get light.

It eventually would confuse you. You wouldn't have a clue what's going on.

Well, what God does is brings us life.

In other words, he stops the confusion of living in a sinful,

fallen world so that we might know what's going on.

We might know what's happening with him.

That's what he brings. So God came to show us life and light and he became flesh.

In verse 14, the word became flesh and he made his dwelling amongst us.

In other words, he came and pitched his tent so that we might hang out with him.

We have seen the glory, the glory of the one and only who came from the father

full of grace and full of truth.

And he he made his dwelling amongst us.

How did Jesus come? Well, it's full of truth.

We understand him and we understand life the way that life should be known.

And he turns on that switch so that we can understand the way that it really should be.

But not only the way that it should be, the switch is turned on so we know the way we are.

We can travel throughout life and think we're pretty much decent people. We're going well.

We're on good pathways. We don't do anything that's particularly wrong.

But he came along and said, well, no, the truth is this, is that you haven't

loved God with all your heart and you haven't loved your neighbor as yourself.

And when you stand before a holy God and when you stand before Jesus,

we know what's called in theological logical

term he exegetes our living

before him we he unpacks it

we see the details of our life and how many decisions that we make is self are

selfish and we don't and we don't have concern for everybody that's around it's

that mission of truth that he came not only so that we would sit there and realize

who we are but we also might understand the salvation we need from him.

Has ever seen God, but God, the one and only, John chapter one says,

who is at the father's side and has made him known.

We see God for who he is, the truth of God, and we see the truth of us.

But we also see the truth of salvation because in chapter 40,

he says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

And no one comes to that father God, but through me.

And if you really knew me, you would know my father as well.

So from now on, you do know him and you have seen him and you know the truth of God.

But he not only reveals the truth, he reveals our sinfulness, as I said.

But here's the sad news of that passage.

Even though God reveals himself to people in our world, even though the light

has been turned on, some people just refuse to to look at it.

And there's two responses, isn't there?

He came, the light came to every man or every person who was coming into the world.

He was in the world and though the world was made through him,

the world didn't recognize him.

He came to that which was his own, the Jewish people, but his own didn't receive him.

So Jesus is who, regardless of how we respond to him, and that doesn't make

your response unimportant to him because he wants you to respond.

In fact, He came so that you will respond. He came so that you might believe.

But the incredible, tragic irony of it all is that God visited his creatures

who were designed to know him, but they didn't even recognize him.

He visited his chosen people, the Jewish people, that the Messiah had come and

he fulfilled hundreds of prophecies just by his coming, but they didn't receive him.

But here's the great news. Not everyone responded that way.

Some responded differently, and he gave them the right to become children of

God, part of his own family.

And we're reminded again of the purpose of John's gospel and the purpose of

that Christmas story, aren't we?

Yet all who receive him, to all who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

The one and only pre-existent one

before all time the one who was in perfect union with

the god the father the one who is in fact god god when we least deserve it revealed

himself to us his grace he walked the earth his love he saved us and john wraps it up like this.

For God so loved the world, the ones that rejected him, the ones who were living

in darkness, the ones who did not have life.

He so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes

in him should not perish but have eternal life with him.

He didn't come to this world, it says, to condemn the world.

He came to save it. He came to save you.

He came to save me and in the message of John and the purpose of John,

he came so that all who believe would not perish but have eternal life. Let's pray.

That just whets our appetite, Lord, to see you in John.

And as also many signs would come out of how you are God and the reason why

you came and will come out right throughout the pages of your book.

I pray, Lord, that we have hearts that would listen.

I understand, Lord, that you wrote these things. John wrote these things down

under your guidance and your direction so that we might believe in you and have

eternal life in your name.

So I pray, Lord, that you would open up our eyes and open up our heart.

And for those who are already Christians, who already know you,

I pray, Lord, that we begin to know you more and that our relationship will

deepen as we get to know you.

And for those who have not started a relationship with you, I pray,

Lord, that they would take the first step and say, I want to know you, I want to know you more.

And then we begin to unpack that as we look at Jesus.