Jesus, the Word of God: Many people sense there must be something more to life, but what could it be? There once was an ambitious, hot-tempered young man named John whose life was dramatically changed by his friend, Jesus. John came to believe the new life he found — a real life, an eternal life, a life to the full — is available for all who believe. And this is what John’s gospel is all about. Real life is found by faith in Jesus’ name. Recorded on Jul 2, 2023, on John 1:1-18 by Pastor David Parks.
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Finding Life in Jesus’ Name is a sermon series on the gospel according to John in the Bible. Have you ever felt unsatisfied with your life? Or, even when things were going well, something was still missing? Many people sense there must be something more. But what?? John, one of the closest friends of Jesus, believed that Jesus came into the world so that we may have life and have it to the full. Jesus turned John’s life upside down, and John claims this new life — marked by God’s power, presence, and purpose — is available for all who believe.
Sermon Transcript
So today, we have the privilege of starting a new annual theme for our preaching ministry, that is: Finding Life in Jesus’ Name. Now normally, we’d have a selection of sermon series under this one annual theme from the Old and New Testaments in the Bible, but this year, we’re going to do something a little different. For almost the whole next year, we’re going to slowly (chapter by chapter and verse by verse) work through the gospel according to John. This morning, I have the task of introducing this whole series, but we’ll also jump into the beginning, or the prologue as it’s usually called, which John uses as an introduction to his gospel. So, as we kick off this new theme, you might be wondering what John is all about and why we should care about what he has to say today. And those are good questions, but I’d like to start with a few questions for you. How do you feel about your life? Have you ever felt unsatisfied with your life? Or, even when things were going well, that something was still missing? I know I’ve had those questions over the years. Not that good things haven’t happened; certainly, many good things have happened in my life. But still, many people sense there must be something more to life, but what could it be? Well, a long time ago now, there was a man named John who was one of the closest friends of Jesus. John was an ambitious and hot-tempered young man when he started following Jesus. So much so that Jesus called John and his brother James the “Sons of Thunder.” At one point, John wanted to call down fire from heaven to destroy a city that wasn’t very receptive to their message. He was ready to fight for the kingdom of God. But by the end of his long life, John became known as the Apostle of love. It really seems as if everything about his life had changed. He saw himself no longer with the hungry ambition to sit at Jesus’ right or left hand in glory but simply as the disciple that Jesus loved. And he came to believe that God was not only loving as part of his character but that God himself is love. And he came to believe and teach that the main marker of a Christian, the most important thing that distinguishes the life of a disciple of Jesus, is their love for one another. If you grew up with John and met him later in life, you’d wonder, “How did this happen?” Well, how did John experience this kind of radical change in his life? It was Jesus. Jesus turned John’s life upside-down. Jesus set him on a different path and walked with him until John understood and believed that Jesus came into the world so that we may have a new life, an eternal life, and have it to the full. Of course, this is what Jesus does. So why should we care about what he has to say today? Because John claims that the new life that he found — a life marked by God’s power/presence/purpose — is available for all who believe, even for us today. And this is what John’s gospel is all about: it’s about who Jesus is, what God has done and is doing through him, and the reality of the new/eternal/full life that is possible when we believe. Whether you’ve been a Christian your whole life or you’re just starting to think about becoming a Christian, this series will help you better see the kind of life that is found in Jesus’ name. If you have a Bible/app, please take it and open it to John 1:1. We’ll put the Scripture up on the screens for you as well, but we’ll read through the prologue first, unpacking it as we go, and then I’ll close with just one takeaway for you. Let’s jump in.
John 1:1-3 (NIV), “1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” Let’s pause here. So John very intentionally starts his gospel with the words “In the beginning…” For the Jewish members of his audience, and for us today who are familiar with the OT, this should immediately bring to mind how Moses starts the book of Genesis: “In the beginning…God created the heavens and the earth.” So, by using the same phrase to start his gospel account, John is basically saying with the coming of Jesus, we have a new Genesis, a new beginning, God is doing something new. So, echoing Genesis, John says that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, but then he says the Word was God. And it’s not just that God spoke in Genesis when God said, “‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” But that the word that God spoke was somehow with God while simultaneously being God himself. This is unusual, right? What does John mean by this? The next clue is that John says this Word was a he. “He was with God in the beginning.” And it was through him that all things were made. So, who is this Word? Who is he? We’ll find more clues as we continue in the prologue. Look back at v. 4.
John 1:4-9 (NIV), “4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.” Ok! Let’s pause again. So John is writing as an old man in the latter half of the first century. And he’s most likely writing from the city of Ephesus in modern Turkey. According to church history, John was the bishop of Ephesus at the end of his life. But we can see here one of the unique aspects of how John writes. He started out with this theme of the Word of God and then seemed to mix his metaphors by introducing the theme of light and darkness. But just wait! As we’ll see as we work through his gospel, John stacks up one picture on top of another. Why does he do this? We just finished a series on the life of the Apostle Paul, and Paul writes in a very different style compared to John. Especially in his letter to the Romans, Paul writes almost like a lawyer building a case, laying out clear arguments which build on each other, almost in a bullet-point style. Paul uses hardly any illustrations when he writes; he gets right to the point. John, on the other hand, has a very different style. The same Holy Spirit inspired both men, but the Spirit always uses the personalities of the human authors. And John seems much more artistic to me than Paul. I think of John’s gospel as an art museum. I went to a lot of museums when I was a kid, and usually, an art museum assembles collections/exhibits under one unifying theme. It could be a collection of works from a particular artist or maybe a variety of artists from a particular culture or artistic movement. But as you walk through the collection, you see that there are many different pictures, some large, taking up your whole field of view, while others are small, requiring you to come close and carefully examine them, or you’ll miss something important. Some works might have bright colors and bold lines, while others might be softer and are more impressionistic. Yet all these different works give you a little different perspective on the theme of the whole collection. And this is how John writes. For John, the whole gallery is about Jesus. But John gives us many different portraits/images to help us see this one Jesus from different angles and different perspectives. So Jesus is the word of God; he’s the light of the world. Jesus is so many things. Throughout his gospel, John gives us many different metaphors, he gives us seven signs of his glory, he gives us seven “I AM” statements, he gives us several long sections of Jesus’ teaching, and more — all to help us understand who this man is and what kind of life he offers. One minor note before we continue is that the man named John who he refers to here is not the author, the Apostle John, but John the Baptist, a prophet who was sent by God to prepare the way for the coming of Jesus. We’ll hear more from him next week as we consider what it means for Jesus to be the Lamb of God. Let’s continue with v. 10.
John 1:10-13 (NIV), “10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” So here, John introduces one of the major implications of the person and work of Jesus for us. Just as there is a new Genesis/beginning in Jesus, the Word of God, there is also a new covenant, a new relationship with God that is now possible through Jesus. He came to his own, John says, meaning the Jewish people, the biological family of Abraham, and yet, he was crucified because, by and large, his own people did not receive him. Significant portions of John are spent discussing this fact as people wrestled with who Jesus really was and what he was claiming to do. However, for all who did receive him, and this is significant — for all who believed in his name (this is faith) — Jesus gave them the right to become children of God, men and women who become sons and daughters of God. As we saw in Paul’s ministry, this went beyond the people of Israel to include the Gentiles or non-Jewish peoples all around the world. We see this in Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4 and elsewhere. God the Father is forming a family, not by biology or a certain ancestry, but by faith in Jesus. A major part of finding life in Jesus’ name is realizing what life is like when God is your Father in heaven and you are his child. We’ll see this throughout John’s gospel, but Jesus will make this point in his conversation with Nicodemus in John 3 and later in his high priestly prayer in John 17. But let’s finish the prologue starting with v. 14.
John 1:14-18 (NIV), “14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ ”) 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” So verse 14 is one of the most important Christological statements (or statements about Christ) in the Bible. Remember, John started his gospel saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Now here, he says, “The Word [this Word who was God] became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” In other words, the God who is the creator, the maker of the heavens and the earth, became a man, a living, breathing human being, who John knew; he was an eyewitness to all of this. Now, it’s hard to catch in the English, but in the Greek, John literally says that the Word became flesh and tabernacled with us. This is the verb form of the same word for the tabernacle or tent of meeting that God established as part of his covenant with Israel through Moses at Mount Sinai. The Tabernacle was the place where God’s power and presence dwelled among his people. This was the place where Moses would meet and speak with God, where offerings were made in worship of God and to atone for the sin of the people. Throughout the Bible, God shares his heart that he wants to be with us; he wants to be our God and for us to be his people. But because of sin, we are separated from God. Even with the tabernacle in the OT, the presence of God among a sinful people seemed to be more of a threat than a comfort at many points in their history. But one of the great themes of John’s gospel is that Jesus is the true Tabernacle/temple. He is the place where God dwells with his people. He is the place where God’s truth is not only spoken but is fully embodied. This means if you look at Jesus, you see God, and if you listen to Jesus, you hear God. And only in Jesus can we ultimately know God the Father. Even though no sinful human being has ever seen the fullness of God, for they could not see God and live, John says that Jesus, the one and only Son (who, John wants to be clear, is also God), has made the Father known to us. Again, we’ll see this throughout John’s gospel, but especially in John 14 when Jesus says that, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” So, with all this here in the prologue, John introduces many of the themes of his gospel. And I didn’t want to spend too much time today on any one theme because we will spend much more time in the weeks and months ahead on these things. Today, it’s like we’re standing in the foyer of the gallery and looking at the map of the exhibit that John has curated for us. My takeaway for you today is this: Real life is found by faith in Jesus’ name. Now, understand I haven’t proven that to you. It will take the whole series to show how this is true. But according to John, real life, that is, the life of God the Father, the life of a child of God, the life of heaven, real/eternal/full life, is found by faith in Jesus’ name. That is, this life is found by believing and trusting in the person and work of Jesus, the Son of God, the Word of God, the Messiah, the King, the I AM, and so much more. John found this life, and it changed everything about him. It changed a son of thunder into the Apostle of love. It changed his past, present, and future because Jesus changes everything. But for many of us today, and for many of our friends and family members and other people in this broken world, life seems so unsatisfying, so difficult. It feels like something’s missing. I think I notice it most when things seem to be going relatively well, but there’s still this sense that there must be something more. What we need is we need the Word of God to speak; we need him to come into our lives in flesh and blood and to make his dwelling among us. We need the light of the world. In short, we need Jesus. And whether it is our need to come to faith in Jesus for the first time, or it’s our need to grow in our understanding of who Jesus is, what God has done and is doing through him, or to grow in our understanding of what faith in his name means, this is what this gospel is all about. Real life is found by faith in Jesus’ name. So would you join me as we walk through this gallery, and take in all the different images/portraits that John has collected, and ask this question: Do you believe? Let us pray.