The Prologue

If it seems like I'm glowing this morning, It's not because of the new shampoo or anything or skin lotion that the pastoral staff and I have, spent the last week at the Shepherd's conference at Grace Community Church, and the theme of the conference was we preach Christ. And over the course of from Tuesday to Friday, we spent about 15 sessions there at the conference listening to the message from Messages from some of the foremost expositors in our world today as they were just holding forth and preaching.

The glories of Christ, the person of Christ, and the work of Christ, to us, and it was a, a blessing for us to be able to be at this conference, and I know that in the months to come, we'll be, seeking to bless you from the overflow of what we were able to experience at this wonderful, conference. But I say that partly also to say I'm very happy to know that in the sermon this morning that our guest speaker is gonna be delivering, we will be having Christ held forth for us.

once again from John chapter one. And before he comes this morning, he's asked me if I could read John chapter 1, verses 1 through 18, to you. So let me have you turn in your Bibles to, John chapter 1 so that we can read these verses together. John chapter.

One, beginning in verse one, John 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. All things came into being through him, and apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There came a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify about the light so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light.

There was the true light. Which coming into the world enlightens every man. He was in the world and the world was made through him and the world did not know him. He came to his own and those who were his own did not receive him.

But as many as received him, to them, he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name. 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 saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testified about him and cried out, saying, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for he existed before me.

For of His fullness we have all received and grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has explained him.

Troy Lambert, who is our speaker this morning, needs little introduction to many of you. He's preached and taught from the cornerstone pulpit on a, a number of occasions over the years and we've always appreciated. His ministry. Troy is the executive producer of Haven today, a Christian radio program that is heard on 650 stations across North America.

He's also a member and a teacher at the Reformed Baptist Church of Riverside, which is a sister church that we have Great appreciation for. Troy and his wife, Melissa have been married for almost 12 years and they have 3 young children. What I love most about this brother is that he's a lover of Jesus Christ. He gets the gospel.

He's passionate about the gospel and that passion for Christ, that passion for the gospel. is evident in every message that I've ever heard, this brother, deliver. So I happily commend this brother to you all today, and Troy, why don't you come and open God's word to us this morning and let's give our brother a warm cornerstone welcome. Do a little mic check here.

Am I on? Great. Well, it's a privilege to be here and I think I can adjust this pulp if I remember right. Maybe I'll be careful not to do that.

I, I marveled when I saw Milton this morning. I said, I forgot how tall you are. He said it's just hills. That's not my joke, that's it.

you can stay in John one because as your pastor just said, that's where we're gonna be looking this morning, at the prologue and, don't worry, this prologue would take months to actually eat through week after week. It's so rich, it's so beautiful. My hope is just to give, an overview of some of the, the big themes, the the motifs, that are found in, in John chapter one. And, As, Pastor Milton just said, I do work for Haven today.

Some of you may remember it if I say Haven of Rest. It's been around since 1934. It had the quartet and Shipmate Bob and, ahoy there Shipmates, eight bells and all's well. if you listen to some of the older programs, they're actually fantastic.

I'm sure there was a time when I was younger I would said, oh these are hokey, but the organ playing, the quartet and I've anchored my soul on the haven of rest. It's, it's actually wonderful to listen to these old programs and the one, the, the, the wonderful aspect of being a part of this organization that's going to be 83 years old this month. Is that it's always been all about Jesus. That's our tagline.

Charles Morris, our speaker and president will often say, I'm sharing the great story that's all about Jesus. And I can't tell you what a privilege it is to serve at a ministry that is all about Jesus. for those of you who attend Cornerstone, where I go, Reformed Baptist, it is all about Jesus. And sadly we see in the world the distractions and the, the, the story that's being told wrong even within the evangelical or so-called evangelical communities.

we've forgotten who Christ is and why he came and, and how that affects us today and in fact those are really the three broad points that I, I want to cover today. and that's just within the evangelical world. If you look across the world, the world is constantly trying to figure out why we are here. Now there's been a lie for the past 150 years ago say it's all chance.

It just happened. There's nothing behind it. But thinking people look at the world and go, hmm, really? It just all happened?

Nothing or something came from nothing, well, that just is a contradiction to reason. And so I always find it humorous and yet sad when I come across stories, where humanity tries to tell them a story. for example, one idea that's been floated recently is that perhaps we are all just part of a computer simulation. The New Yorker magazine just this last week, echoing an article they had this past June.

said, maybe we are living in a computer simulation and the proof is the Oscar bungle that happened week before last that The winner is La La Land. Actually, no, it's not. and they said that's proof that something's being manipulated beyond our control. they say the the, the unforgettable ending of the Super Bowl last month, or actually, yeah, last month with the Patriots coming back from a deficit no one thought anybody could come back in the Super Bowl and they did.

that's proof that this is just strange. Things like this just don't happen. And they even bring up Donald Trump's surprising win to a lot of people within the media. Shocked that he won.

All of this shows that some architect or engineer, some programmer is dropping in strange events to see how this simulation might respond and, and, and act out to it. And Even David Chalmers, he's one of the philosophers at NYU said that all of these strange events that happen in life prove that we're in some computer simulation. and if, if I were not reading from The New Yorker, I would think I was reading from The Onion, some satire magazine, because many of us have seen The Matrix, we know what that is like.

And, and yet it's man struggling to make sense of the world that they see.

From DNA to the universe, you see order, you see design, you see something fantastic. In fact, that's what Paul says, Romans one says that all of creation testifies of our glorious God. None of us are without excuse. the fool says in his heart that there is no God.

And so even us born naturally in our sins, born naturally opposed to God, There's still an element that we have to try to weave together some narrative to figure out this life. And yet, as we just heard, John one begins with a prologue. Most stories begin with a prologue. In fact, if you, look right here behind me, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, the music begins and then the backstory begins to roll and we get, oh.

So this is what's gonna, this is what has happened just before I dive into the action. And in many ways, that's what John is doing. He, he basically saying before I get into the action that I saw firsthand. I saw Jesus heal people.

I saw Jesus raise people from the dead. I saw Jesus, I heard Jesus speak words that I'd never heard uttered before. Before I show you all this and tell you all this, let me give you a little bit of a backstory. Let me set this up for you.

Let me tell you who Jesus is and, and why he came, what his purpose was, and, and how this really benefits you. And that's what this, this prologue is. That's what this backstory is and I was very excited, as I was a couple of years ago up at Regent College, Regent University in British Columbia for, Charles invited a few of us up there and we spent some time going through the book of John and the professor who's also a pastor at First Baptist in Vancouver, there right downtown Vancouver, he basically in 5 days in, 3 hours a day took us through John.

And it was beautiful.

It was sweeping. I think it's important to go verse by verse and to really chew, but sometimes it's nice to hit that 30,000 ft. height and see the overlay of the land. I like to do that when I'm in an airplane looking out and go, oh, OK, so that's where the Rockies are ending and there's where the prairies are beginning.

OK, it makes a little sense now. and so John really in the prologue is giving us a sweeping overview, if you will, we call it the prologue. In some ways for you musical fans, it's an overture. We hear motifs, we hear themes that we're going to echo throughout the rest of the gospel, and so I was just listening to it last night.

If you listen to the overture of Mary Poppins, it's got about 5 or 6 of the themes like, oh, there's Chim Chimmarie and oh there's Feed the Birds and where, and, and then in the movie where, oh I'm familiar with this already. I'm already used to this. This is important that they're setting these things up for me. I think one of the most striking things and you guys as a church have been going through the Book of Genesis is that John 1:1.

And Genesis 1:1 begin very similar, don't they? In the beginning. Now Genesis, in the beginning, God. Because before there was a beginning, God was there.

He's eternal. He's always been, always will be. And then John sets up for us here in John 1:1. In the beginning was the word.

And the word was with God and any Jew listening to this was like, well, of course, because God was there in the beginning. And then John drops the big, the big mic, if you will. The Word was God. In the beginning was the Word, the Words with God and the Word was God.

that just ripple effects upon people's hearts as they heard that. And so it's no surprise that John writing primarily to a, a, a Jewish audience here that they would go, oh my goodness, I, I think I know, I know where you're headed. I, I know what you're, you're talking about here. so this morning, I really want to look at this backstory.

And as I said, we're going to be looking at who Jesus is, what his purposes, and, and how that affects us, how's it, how his incarnation affects us. Now, if you look at the structure of John 1:1 verses 1 through 18, it's It appears that it's written as a chasm, which if you're familiar with Hebrew poetry is just a form of parallelism, reverse parallelism. Here's a, a very simple one here behind me. John 16:28, Jesus said, I came from the Father and have come into the world.

And now I'm leaving the world and going to the Father. You see how they parallel. They also build towards a point and then they back away from that point, if you will. They, they're in some ways it's almost a mirror reflection here of what's going on.

Now, Doctor Culpepper, many years ago, in fact, you can think of the chiasm as like an arch where you have two great feet that build towards an apex. Doctor Culpepper breaks down and this is like overwhelming to even look at you're like, wait a second, what's going on here? He looks at this mirror as it builds towards verses 12, 1 through 12 is building towards the apex of the arch and then 12 through 18 are, are coming back down the other side of the arch. If you look at it this way, this is a simpler way of looking at it.

Don't worry, don't, please don't try to write this down. There's a lot of details. I just want to show how they reflect each other. Now sometimes that mirror might not be exactly what's on the other side, but it's very similar in theme.

And what I've done for the sake of time this morning is just really kinda boil down the three main areas of this point. as you see here verses 1 and 2 and verses 18, in fact, we just, I just said verses, verse 1, but if you look over at verse 18, It says, no one has ever seen God, the only God who was at the Father's side, who has made him known. There is some correlation there, that at the beginning, Jesus was with God and Jesus was God. And then in verse 18, it's just reaffirming once again, Jesus was with God.

He, and, and he is manifesting, if you will. He's showing God to us, the very incarnation of God. and so that is, I, I think pretty interesting to look at. I, I gave you the gateway arch once again there.

So if, if verses 1 and 2 and verses 18 are the feet of this great arch, they're pointing towards the apex or if you will, the thesis, the main point at the center. Now that's different for us. We're all, almost all of us here come from a Western way of thinking. The Greeks didn't think like the Hebrews.

The Greeks went A plus B equals C. I'm gonna prove my point to you. A good, a good, a good orator would say I'm gonna give you my points up front and I'm going to follow that path building towards the main point. We're just, that's the way we're programmed.

We're linear in the way we're thinking. Eastern way of thinking is not as linear. Often it's more cyclical or as, as this Hebrew chaism, this chiastic form. It, it is building to the point that is in the middle and then if you will, it reaffirms the points that they were building towards.

That's a lot to absorb. But let's, let's dive in to motif number 1 and I'm using that because of Music. I love music. and I love listening to classical composers that will go just here and there, all of a sudden there's just a, oh my goodness, that is like from movement number 2 and now here it is again in movement number 5 and I heard that in the overture.

It's beautiful. It's artistic. John, I really do feel was probably naturally artistic. If you read through it, the way he describes things, he, he's not just a reporter like Luke, the Doctor Luke who's given the facts.

John like not embellishes but he makes it richer. He's just that sometimes God created us all very unique, and I think John is an artist in that way. And he is truly telling the greatest story ever told, a very real story, the narrative of mankind and the narrative of who Jesus is. So we see in motif 1 verses 1 and 2 and verses 18, that in the beginning, was the word, the Word was with God and the Word was God.

And there's no mistake here. His audience knew exactly what he was doing, what he was comparing to there. John being led by the Holy Spirit is saying the logos, the word already existed before anything you ever knew. Before those hills were created, before these trees were created, before anything, before you were born, before your parents and grandparents.

Jesus existed. William Hendrick Hendrickson says this is another way of saying that he existed from all eternity. and yet John doesn't remain cryptic. I think most Jews in his time would have got what John was saying, but John goes a step further and makes it very clear.

That the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And through the Word, Everything we know was created. John continues to explain this. And it makes sense now that Jews would have thought it was blasphemous.

A man cannot be in the presence of God. What are you talking about? And so John says on the other side of the chasm in verse 18, if you look there, no one has ever seen God. The only God who is at the Father's side, he, Jesus, has made him known.

And yet, as clear as this can be, Heretics from the first century to today will deny the divinity of who Jesus was. I just, a couple of weeks ago I was in a conversation with some Mormons out on the street as we were doing some work in our, my mom's house and got into a conversation and they, they said, well, we'd love to talk to you sometime when you're not busy. We're just sharing a non-denominational message about Jesus Christ. Oh, it, it struck my heart.

No, I'm sorry. That is not, your message is not non-denominational, it's heretical and I, and in a loving way, I took 5 minutes to just expound John 1 to them and I said there's no way you can argue that out. The article isn't missing, it's not added in, it's there in the Greek and I assured them I was not a Greek scholar, but there are great Greek resources there. We can look at the manuscripts.

It wasn't added in. It's very clear that Jesus is God. Yet verse one makes this clear. There's no way around it.

So remember that the prologue was meant to help us throughout the rest of the gospel. Does John just throw this out and never come back to it again? Do we have Jesus actually saying things that people in his day would have said, Hold on a second here. What are you talking about?

If you want to, you can flip there, but you don't have to. I'll read it for you here. In John 8:558. Remember when Jesus was speaking to a group, the Pharisees were there, and he says, truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.

I heard that's great. We don't have to struggle with the understanding here. Because the prologue makes it clear, Jesus was there in the beginning. And so when he says to a group of people as he's speaking, hey, listen, before Abraham was, I am.

In fact, Abraham looked forward to my day. We can understand now why rocks were picked up to stone him. this is blasphemy. This is horrendous that a man would say he was before Abraham and now we read in the prologue, we're reminded prologue that it makes sense because he was God.

Or how about John 17:5. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world existed. Thanks to this overture, we have a better understanding of what that means. We don't have to go, what do you mean before the world existed, you shared it in the glory of God.

No one shares in God's glory. God is jealous of his glory. Isaiah makes that very clear. Well, this overture gives us a better understanding.

I like what Martin Luther, the reformer who this year we are celebrating the 500th anniversary of his nailing the 99 thesis on the 95 theses, sorry, on the Wittenberg door. He says, in considering these things about Jesus, it is a peculiar doctrine. It is foreign and strange to reason. And particularly to the worldly wise.

No man can accept it unless his heart has been touched and opened by the Holy Spirit. And Martin Luther's very right there. It is true. this is why a philosopher at NYU it's going, well I gotta figure something out.

Maybe we're in a computer simulation. That makes more sense than Jesus being God. It's tragic to say. But it takes the Holy Spirit to open our hearts to see this beautiful, peculiar truth, doctrine as Luther said.

But make no mistake, the original language is very clear. John is very clear. The word was in the beginning, the Word was with God, the Word was God, and the Word, we'll get to in a moment here in verse 14. What?

Became flesh, dwelt among us, showed us the very glory of God. So now we have a little bit of a background of who Jesus is. Let's, let's quickly move forward here to motif number 2. What Jesus' purpose is.

I hesitate to say that John 1 clearly defines all of Christ's purpose. You need to study all of the Old and New Testament. We need to see the plan of redemption from the fall of Adam and Eve until the marriage, feast of the Lamb in Revel at the end of Revelation. Christ's purpose is grand.

It's big. But John is zeroing in on a point that matters to humanity. Lost humanity, fallen humanity, broken humanity. And it reminds us, if you look at this, verses 3 and 5 teach that through Jesus, everything that we know was created.

Jesus, the word gave life to the world. And then on the other side of this cham, this arch, the mirror if you will, verses 16 and 17. Teaches that Jesus brings grace and truth. There's no mistake that there is a reminder.

That Christ in his, in his, divinity created the world. That's echoed over and over. Paul echoes that even in the beginning of Colossians, the world was created through Christ and that life as we know it was created through Christ. He is the life giver.

The very flesh that we have. That is how God the Father created the world through His Son Jesus. And yet Isn't it fascinating to see? That this role of creator in the original creation, now fallen, he comes as the redeemer to create new hearts in his people.

He breathes into our dead hearts life. And he speaks into those hearts, truth and grace and brothers and sisters, doesn't that just resonate? We were once dead. And this savior came and one day woke us up.

Some of us have stories where it's like, I didn't, I did not even think about God. And then bam, the lights turned on. I saw my sin, I saw my savior. What is going on?

Others, we probably describe it more of a process like I knew, but I, I didn't understand. I was working, a lot of that, that's us who grew up in the church and trying to sort things through. But at some point in our lives, it becomes very clear. That something's going on.

I'm alive. I care about God, I care about Jesus, I care about my sin, I hate my sin. Well, that's Jesus breathing life into your dead souls. If we pause and think about this statement that John's writing, then the, the people in the first century, both Jew and Greek, would be like, what are you talking about?

You not only claim that Jesus was God, but that he is with God face to face. And like Luther, it sounds crazy. This man who's barely 30. What?

But then John says that everything that we experience, everything that we see and taste and feel and smell and touch, all five of our senses experience that God created everything through the word. John continues and says that, what does it say in Genesis one, that God said, Let there be light, let there be plants, let there be animals. He spoke things into existence through his word. And John continues in verse 3, echoing Moses, echoing Genesis 1, God said, God spoke.

God used words to create. And quickly, you can look there at verses 4 and 5, we see that he created life, that he shone light into darkness. And now it is as if John is giving us a peek behind the curtain. I know my kids like to ask, how was, how was this made?

How, why does this happen? John is unveiling the curtain a little bit for us. This is how it went down. This is why those words were so powerful.

So for the Jew, it's blasphemous to say that a man. would be doing something that God, we know God did this. But to the Greek mind, who would have been reading this as well. In their minds, it's curious.

It's wrong, but it's curious because Jesus, I'm sorry, John uses a very unique word for Jesus. He calls him, we, we say the word, the Greek word is logos and there were two or three different strains of thought about what the logos was. a philosopher, Greek philosophers, said that the logos is the rational principle in the universe. once again, we see that mankind looks and sees there's something unique here.

But because of our sinfulness, we don't, we don't give God the glory. We, we try to sort through it. So the logos is a rational principle. The Stoics would have said, this logos helps maintain order.

I guess since I made a Star Wars reference at the beginning here, it's a force in some way. It's impersonal. You can't say I know the logos, but I see the logos work. I see it hold things together.

And so John is saying though. like Paul at Mars Hills. Let me tell you about the logos. You, you're not, you're not dumb.

You're smart people. You see that there is some order here. Let me tell you about the locus. This logos.

He existed with God. He was God. He was face to face with God. And then that word became flesh, and that word is Jesus.

He's both God and man. There's a commentator named Leslie Nubian. He, he, he says it like this, the creative word of God is God, for none but God can create. The revealing word is none other than God, for none but God can reveal God.

Jesus is the one who is God's word, who is God, and who was with God from before time was. The creation and life and light that all came through the word in the beginning of time, and are now coming into the world to recreate mankind, if you will. This is Jesus The Creator and now the re-creator, the one who's taking hearts and changing them. He's giving spiritual life to his followers.

He's shining light into the darkness of our hearts. So whether you're of a Jewish mindset or a Greek mindset, a legalistic or a laissez-faire mindset. The reality is that when we look at the prologue here, The word brings life. The word brings grace and truth.

And when that arrives. It's stunning It's shocking. For from his fullness, verse 16, we have all received grace upon grace, for the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. I heard your pastor emphasize grace upon grace, and I always marvel at that too.

There's that artistic holy spirit inspired imagination of John. I don't wanna just say grace, grace upon grace. What a statement. If grace is getting the opposite of what you deserve, then John wants you and me to understand that those who know Jesus have entered into an unbelievable position.

Though through the law given by Moses, Israel was given a good gift. We can't discount the law. But the Bible makes it very clear the law could never give life. It could never regenerate.

In fact, it could never be kept. It was always convicting, teaching, pointing. Towards the Messiah. So when the author of Hebrews says in Hebrew 10, It says that the law was a shadow of the good things to come, but it could never make anyone perfect.

And Paul tells the Galatians that it was a custodian, it's a good word, until Christ came. For the Jews reading this gospel, once again, this is another offense. Moses was their guy. they're children of Abraham, but man, we love Moses.

He's the greatest of all prophets. He gave us the law. God never gave anybody in the world anything, but he gave us the law, and then, he wrote those on stone for us. He put them on 10 commandments and we're special because of this.

It's powerful. An entire culture and religion revolving around these 10 commandments and then as they were expounded upon in, in Deuteronomy and Leviticus and throughout the Old Testament, thinking through these things. David singing the law of the Lord is good. We can't despise the law.

It shows us perfection. But being imperfect people. It overwhelms us. So, we need to remember here.

That this overture, this prologue, throughout the rest of the book, we're going to see Jesus battling a false idea that had really come into Pharisaical teaching, that if one was good enough, God would accept him. If one aspired to be as good as me, a Pharisee. You might be on the right path by God's providence we heard earlier, even in that song that we sang. the Pharisee looking to God and saying, look at all I have done.

Surely, God, I'm your man, right? And yet we see such a contrast between those who are humbled before God who really see their sin. But throughout John, we see Jesus battling this false idea that the law could make one right with God, if it was kept. That's what the Pharisees were preaching.

They had added to. The plan of redemption. They had stopped looking to God for true forgiveness. Were they even reading David, Psalm 51.

A broken contrite heart before God. Did David bring anything to God but his sin? Oh, if you read through Psalm 51, there is a repentant sinner, not a penitent sinner, but a repentant sinner, one that says, I've got nothing but my sin to give you. the difference, right?

Penitent is almost like the Pharisee. I know I've made some mistakes, but I've made up for them. I did this, this and this, but now I've done this, this, this good. It's karma.

It's, it's the world idea that we can add to our own favor before God. We can add to our own record. So Jesus battles this idea all throughout John. And we see here in the prologue.

That salvation is not by works. The law could never save. Jesus came and kept that law perfectly for us. And just as Jesus created life out of nothing, he would create spiritual life out of dead hearts.

He floods our hearts with grace upon grace. And this grace flows from the Spirit into the believer's life. This grace allows us to love and serve God and in return, love and serve others. As Jesus says, that is the essence of what the law is.

Love your Lord God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. As grace flows into and out of our lives, it frees us. To die to ourselves and to live for Christ. But even as we live out the gospel, And this is where it starts to get dangerous.

And we have to look back to why Jesus came. We have to be careful because often we start patting ourselves as Christians on the back, right? We easily fall back into being Pharisees. There's a, a, a, a teacher, a late teacher now, he's gone to be with the Lord, but he often referred to himself as a recovering Pharisee.

If we could admit that a little bit more to ourselves, we, we, it's a good reminder. We're all recovering Pharisees. We all thought we could be good enough for God in one form or the other. But as grace flows into our lives, it frees us to let that go.

We never could earn merit with God. The scriptures alone teach that we are saved by grace alone, by faith alone, through Christ alone. And though we benefit from this, we read here in the prologue that it is all for the glory of God alone. Those are the five solas of the Reformation.

A lot of times people ask me because I go to a, a church that has reformed in its title. Reformed, what does this mean? Were you once crooked? A guy actually asked me that once.

And I said actually, you're a lot closer to the truth. We were all crooked. We'd all gone astray. We'd all gone each into our own way.

And yet scripture teaches. That faith comes. By simply believing in Jesus. In Christ alone, we are saved.

Through faith alone. Through Christ alone For the glory of God alone. And that's why I said earlier, sometimes we go, well, what is the purpose of Christ? Ultimately, the purpose of Christ is to bring glory to his father, is to bring glory to God.

That's the ultimate purpose and I guess that is safe to say that is our ultimate purpose. What is man's chief end? Amen. To know God and to, to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

So John mentions this in verse 14, if you look there. He says, flip over. The word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. Now, I'm gonna skip over a section here, but I just want to point out that in verses 6 and 8 and verses 15, John reminds us about John the Baptist.

And whenever I used to read the prologue, I used to think, I, I didn't really think this, but I always just wondered why all of a sudden do you keep bringing John the Baptist back up here. I know he's important, but It just seemed like a speed bump to this great story about Jesus. When you look at this chasm, it makes sense that he's echo, it's like he echoes a theme here and then it's echoed again later. It's echoed, it's said here and then it's echoed later and he's just really, if you look at this chiatic structure here, he's just saying, John, remember John came and, and told of this one who would come and then the echo.

Remember John said that he was going to come. John was the forebear, if you will., to, to prepare, literally, the, the platform for Christ. it is another fascinating aspect to ponder this too. John is the last Old Testament prophet.

From John, we move now to our great prophet, our final prophet. How many false religions are out there in this world? I can think of two off top of my mind that would say, oh, but now there's another prophet. There's another word God wants to say to us.

No, Jesus is that final prophet. he is our prophet, priest, and king. And yet John the Baptist here is that last one too, if you will, he got to hand the baton to Jesus. And this idea sets up our next parallel, our final parallel.

If we know who are in, if you will, in the motif, we see who Jesus is and his divinity, and we've heard about his purpose for coming to the world. Now we see finally a motif 3. How Jesus' incarnation actually affects mankind. And John makes it very clear, right at the beginning, in verses 9 and 11, that the world And the Jews rejected Jesus.

John says his own people, making it a lot more personal. The world and his own people rejected him. And yet on this other side of the arch of this Chiism John says, but the elect, all who believe in him. will be saved.

They accept him. What's the difference here? Why do some reject and why do some accept? Jesus indeed came to the world, but the world did not know him.

His own people did not receive him. You could picture John being a little older as he wrote this ins with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, just pondering this. Because he himself was a Jew. How, how is this though that our people are not accepting him, that he's Jesus, he's the Messiah, the promised one.

I, I've seen it all, I've, I've heard it all. It's true. Jesus, the light, the word came into the world. The one who was in the beginning with God and was God, the one who created everything that we know, the light into darkness, the word into flesh.

As that professor and pastor I mentioned earlier, Doctor Gerald Johnson says, he describes Jesus as the exigent of God. No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side. But Jesus had. And Jesus comes to the world and exegets.

He spells out who God is for us. He's more than just an icon. to put it in modern words, he's more than just a selfie. It would just be a picture He is God of God.

He was the fulfillment of the prophecy of Emmanuel, God with us fully flesh, fully the word, fully man, fully God. And we see that there is a very clear new covenant fulfillment here from Ezekiel 37. My dwelling place also will be with them, and I will be their God and they will be my people. This must be true of Jesus, or he cannot be our savior and mediator.

No created creature could absorb God's eternal wrath for humanity's rebellion against God. We know it was Christ's perfect sacrifice. He was the propitiation for our sins. And so this truth is rather shocking.

And it demonstrates great grace. We deserve wrath, but we get Christ's righteousness and love. Jesus doesn't deserve wrath, and he takes our punishment. But we see these two pictures here.

Jesus clearly shows there are two responses to this truth. There are those who do not accept him. They, they reject. Him and why he came.

And then there are those like many of us here today who accept him. John makes it very clear there's no middle ground. There's no one who can say. I don't embrace Christ as, as God, but boy, he had some really good things to say.

there's no neutral ground. As Christ said Himself, you're there for me or you're against me. William Hendrickson writes the Jew was very slow to learn that in the new dispensation, there are no special privileges based upon physical relationships. And John is keenly aware of this Jewish trait, as he indicated again, indicates again and again in this book.

The shadows and types that the prophets of the Old Testament foretold of Jesus. We're now here. Jesus is not in a shadow, he's shining light. Jesus is not a type of what's to come.

He is what was prophesized. The new covenant was here, out of the shadows and into the glorious light. John and his fellow disciples saw it. They beheld it.

And it no longer mattered. What bloodline you were from anymore. In fact, if you look at the apex. Of this motif.

What verses 1 through 11 and now verses 18 through 13 point towards John says, but to all who did receive him. who believed in his name, who gave, he gave the right to become children of God. Doesn't matter how hard you try, doesn't matter if you're one of Abraham's physical bloodline. It simply matters.

Who you put your trust in. All who did receive him. who believed in Jesus' name. Now, this does sound very familiar.

I'll quickly give you a, a, the, the where this shows up several times in the Gospel of John. kids, John 3:16. Does that sound familiar? What is, where, what, how does this motif echo in the John 3:16?

Whosoever believes in Jesus, right? For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, and whosoever believes shall not perish but have everlasting life. That sounds very familiar. John 6:40, for it is my Father's will that everyone who looks to the sun and believes in Him shall have eternal life.

John 11:25, Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live and shall have eternal life. Amen. John reminds us here.

That this belief is not based, as I said, on blood or flesh or our will, or our good deeds, or our good works. This is one of the fantastic, beautiful themes of grace that we see in the gospel. DA Carson writes, the rest of the gospel is much concerned to spell out who the real children of God are, who truly are the children of Abraham, which people received the Spirit and are born again. We see very clearly it is a gift of God.

The Spirit must move Jesus. Oh sorry, the Spirit must move. Jesus later explains in John 3, a heart must be born again. Not as the Pharisee said, what do I have to climb back up into my mom and be born again?

Because they're all about the flesh. They're all about the bloodline and I guarantee you those Pharisees would have found a way. I don't sorry. A heart must be born again.

And Jesus says in John 3, John reminds us here right at the beginning in John 1. It is from above. It is by the spirit. The good news is that God is calling and that he is saving.

He is making the most unlikely of people to be his children. I stand here and testify of that. The more you grow in grace. The more you see how really wretched you are.

If you'd asked me when I was 25 years old, almost 20 years ago, I can't believe it. are you a good guy? I would have said, well, I'm a sinner. But inside of us, yeah, but, I'm a pretty good guy.

I don't cheat or steal or lie or cuss or drink and, it, by God's grace, he shows us more of our sin and, and more of our need for Jesus daily. So when the spirit moves and change our hearts, our nature changes from that of an orphan to that of a son or a daughter of God. So, when our hearts have been changed, our affections begin to well up within us for Christ and who he is. That he is the word, he is the light, he is the life.

He is the Messiah. Paul explained it to the Romans in Romans 8 like this, the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. As I bring this to a conclusion this morning.

I have a couple of questions I'd like you to just ponder, to think about. Do you marvel at the truth? That there are some fallen humans, sinful humans that are now called children of God. Cause that is a marvelous thought.

Are you astonished that the Spirit would tell us That you're one of God's children. That he testifies to you of this. Are you a child of God today? I asked this question hesitantly because I know at any given time, any one of us can struggle with this.

Oh, the devil. He's like a, he is an evil advocate who's prowling around. Oh my goodness, he can lie to us. You just did that, Troy, and you call yourself a children, a child of God.

You're foolish. You're presumptive. Yeah, sure, you've walked with the Lord for 3 decades. I doubt it.

We all can struggle with assurance. But let me encourage you not to struggle in your mind. That's where I have failed. I go around and around in my mind.

But struggle with the Lord. Run to Jesus. Ask the Holy Spirit, oh, Holy Spirit, testify to me that I am your child. Show me in your word, show me in your presence that I am your child.

Paul explains that the Spirit testifies this truth to us. And John explains in John 3, that when the Spirit moves, he gives the power to believe and to see Jesus for who he truly is. Sometimes we just need to lift our heads out of the malaise called the world smog. We live in a smog, in a fog.

Sometimes we have to climb that mountain. I'm not talking about earning salvation, but I'm, what I'm saying is we have to move towards God and say, Lord, I need to see you. I need to see your glory. I need to be reminded of who you are.

We don't have the strength to climb a mountain. It's just crying out to him. Show us, teach us, reveal to us, remind us of who we are. John explains in our text this morning that the true children of God saw God's glory in Jesus.

Do you see who Jesus is and what he came to do? Do you believe he is who he claimed to be? And has the power to rescue you from your sins. Then Particularly even young people here today who might be wrestling with this.

I encourage you, repent. Simply turn to Jesus. Trust him with your sin. He is able to remove it all.

Trust him that he can forgive you. Today is the day of salvation. Run to him, not from him. If you're struggling with doubt this morning, run to Jesus.

Don't run from him. I've seen too many stories of people who go, I wanna sort this out. So I'm gonna isolate myself from God's great means of fellowship, God's great means of his word. And go sort through it on some mountain on a hill and contemplate my navel.

And they struggle. They struggle. Doubts, assurance can sometimes be like gnats. But we need to run to Jesus, who can deal with those things, who wants to deal with those things, and wants to deal with your sin and wants to deal and wants to shine his light and his glory to you.

And dear Christians, let me encourage you with this last thought. We need to remember. That we have been given the right to be called children of God. Now, humans in and of themselves cannot demand anything of God.

We can't stand before God and say, it's my right, God. We have no rights before God. We stand convicted as sinners before him and his holy law. But when he, through Jesus Christ and God the Father through Jesus Christ rescues us, when he adopts us, when we are cleansed of our sinning as we remembered through communion this morning.

We are now children of the Most High God. I'm gonna repeat that again because we don't marinate in that truth enough. Brother, sister, through Jesus Christ, we are children. We're siblings today of the Most High God.

In Christ, you are 100% accepted by your heavenly Father. You are no longer an orphan and this adoption is not just, OK, you can be my stable boy. All right, you can be my, broom lady and you can sweep up after me. He brings us to his table.

He feeds us his choicest of foods. He floods us with his goodness. He even says, You don't have to refer to me just as God or as Father. Some of us had stern fathers perhaps, and we hear that word.

Paul gives us that word in Romans 8. Call me daddy. I am your dad And those of you who had sweet relationships with your father, you had a hint. of what it's like to have a good, loving relationship with a dad, with one who, when you were young, you called him daddy.

God wants to be that and more. He is that and more if you are in Christ. So remember, the cost of Jesus, he came down from heaven. From being in the presence of God.

To bring us up. He loved us first so that we might love him and others. He served us first, so that we might serve him and others. And no matter how long you've walked with Christ, 5, 1550 years, you today are just as needy for Jesus as you were the first day you cried out to him for salvation.

Today you need the gospel, today you need the grace that only Jesus can give. Today you need to be reminded of who your father is and how much he loves you, how much he cares for you. That is the beauty of the gospel that we preach to ourselves daily. He wants to break us of our independent ways.

But he wants us to no longer live as orphans. May we see what love the Father has given us. As John would write in another epistle, just marveling about this truth that we are called children of God. See what love the Father has given to us, that we Sinful Hetty.

Jealous, vindictive, revengeful, hateful people. Might now be called children of God. He has given that privilege to us. If you're a child of God today, oh, rejoice, keep rejoicing and keep repenting, keep turning back to Jesus.

And if you're not a child of God, then repent. And start rejoicing. We were made to know him. We were made to glorify Him.

We were made to enjoy him forever. And we were able to do that through our great Savior Jesus Christ, who was in the beginning. With God, who was God, who came and shined forth the glory of God. John saw it.

Peter talks about seeing it. And we get to through his word. See it exposed into our hearts. Hallelujah.

Amen. What a savior. Would you pray with me? Lord God, our great Father, our Abba, we come to you this morning through our Savior Jesus Christ.

Oh Lord God, thank you for your word, for your truth. We pray today that you would shine your light into our hearts. Lord, that grace upon grace would abound in our souls, and that I might spill out into our lives, Lord, as we seek to love and serve you, Lord, and love and serve others. We can't do this on our own.

But Lord, we're so thankful that we are not asked to do it on our own. We're not orphans. That you, Father, call us your children, and that Jesus even asked you to send a helper, the Holy Spirit. Who not only reminds us of who we are in Christ, who we are as your children, but gives us the power, the desire to live in a way that brings glory to your name.

Not trying to add, as Pastor Milton said a moment ago, an iota to our standing, because Christ did that for us. But seeking to rest in Christ, seeking to have that truth. Live out in our lives to bring glory to your name. Lord, we, come to you at the end of this service at a gratitude, thankful for what you did in Jesus, and many of us here today even want to show our gratitude by giving back to you, Lord.

So we pray that you bless this offering. Lord, not as a Pharisee trying to earn favor standing before you, but perhaps even as a widow. With not much, but knowing that you have given us everything. And so out of a heart of gratitude, we want to give back to you, to your kingdom, to see it grow and expand.

Lord, that other orphans might be called your children. And Lord, we ask all of this in your great name, Jesus. Amen.