The Word

All right, well good morning and welcome to The Chapel. If you're a guest with us here this morning, we wanna say a special welcome to you. We are glad that you are here with us this morning, and I'm glad to be here with you opening up God's word. We're gonna be looking in the book of John chapter one this morning, book of John chapter one, verses one and two and 14. We're skipping a couple because there is a lot of things going on in this passage, and we wanna focus in on one thing as we are continuing in our advent series that we're calling, "Heaven Come to Earth." And we're taking a look at the fact that when we celebrate Christmas, what we are celebrating is heaven coming to earth, not in the form of a place, but in the form of a person, in the form of the person, Jesus Christ. And so we're gonna be looking at John chapter one verses one and two and 14 this morning. Why don't you go ahead and read along with me in your copy of God's word? It says, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. 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. People say weird things sometimes, right? You ever experience anyone just kind of saying something weird to you and you're just kinda like, what is that supposed to mean? I don't know what that means. I have lived in two very different places in the United States. I'm from New Orleans, which is a very different place from anywhere else in the world. But I've been living here in Buffalo for the past 10 years. And if you've spent any time in different regions of the United States, what you might come to learn is sometimes people use words in one region one way, and they use it a different way in another region. For instance, up here, you guys say, you guys, first of all, right? We say y'all, it's easier, it's better, you'll figure it out, you'll figure it out. But y'all like to call certain kinds of drinks pop, right? I go to your house or you come to my house and you say, can you give me a pop? And what I hear is that you want me to smack you like a pop, you know? That's what a pop is down south, right? In the south we just call it all Coke. If I go to your house and I ask you for a Coke, you might go and grab a Coca-Cola. But the proper response is, well, what kind do you want? Do you want a root beer? You want a Dr. Pepper, right? Like, or do you want a coke? We just call it all Coke. But it might be a little confusing to you. When I was in college, I had to take a public speaking class, and I went to college in New Orleans, okay? And so the professor one day, he asked all the out of towners in the room, what are some weird things you've heard people say in New Orleans that you've never heard anyone say anywhere else? I learned a lot about the way I talk that day. I learned a lot of things that I thought were perfectly normal, that apparently nobody else in the world says. For instance, I learned that the big green fruit that you make guacamole with is not an alligator pear, it's an avocado. I've heard of an avocado before, didn't know what it was. Apparently it's an alligator pear. In New Orleans, we don't say what's up or we don't say, how you doing? We say, hey, where you at? Where you at John? Where you at Abby? Or we might say, Hey, what you saying Krista? What you saying, Doug? That's the way that we say, what's up? But if I said to you, Hey, where you at, Tony? You would say, I'm in the 10th row, right? Like, you're looking at me, why are you asking me that? Or if I said, "Hey, what'd you say, John?" You might say, "I didn't say anything. I didn't even know you were standing there," right? It's just kind of funny things we say. In New Orleans, that middle section of a two-way road that you're not supposed to drive on, you're just supposed to use it as a turning lane, it's not a median, it's a neutral ground. And it makes sense if you think about it, it's neutral, right? Like either side can use it. In New Orleans, we don't watch TV, we look at it, what you doing, Dan? I'm looking at the TV. What's it doing? Why are you, why are you looking at it? Is it dancing? If I want to order a hamburger or a sandwich with all the stuff on it, I say I want it dressed. It doesn't mean I want it coming with a shirt and pants on it, it means I want lettuce and tomato and whatnot. And last of all, when we go to the store, we don't buy groceries, we go to the store to make groceries. And I don't know where that one comes from. That one really, it doesn't even make sense to us, but it's just what we say. Now, there's plenty more that I could give you here, I will end with this. Something that a lot of people not from New Orleans think that we say is they think we call it nolance. We don't call it nolance. If you say that to someone from New Orleans, they might give you a pop, if you know what I mean, all right? People use weird words sometimes, or at least words that make perfect sense to someone, say from New Orleans, but they don't really make much sense to you. And you have kind of two options when you come into this kind of situation. You can either just let it go by and just be like, I don't know what this guy's talking about, but I'm just gonna let that one go, right? Or you can dig in and just kinda be like, what are you saying? What does that mean? And that's what we want to do with John's choice of words here for a minute. Surely when we were reading the passage, you notice that John uses kind of a strange way to talk about Jesus, right? The Bible gives many names to Jesus, we actually just sang a couple of them, we think on a few of them. When Christmastime rolls around, especially names like the Son of David, like the Prince of Peace, wonderful counselor, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, all things that are very obvious, you can read 'em and just kind of figure out what they mean. And then you have John 1:1 he calls Jesus the word, the word. What does that mean? Like we know what a word is, right? It's what I'm using right now to communicate with you. But a word is not a person, why would he call him the word? When John calls Jesus the word, he's recalling a few concepts to the minds of his hearers. To his Greek audience, he is communicating this idea of the one who is behind everything. He uses this word logos in the Greek and, and Greek philosophy understood this as some underlying principle or, or something that is behind everything. Something you can't see, but it's the reason for all of existence. And to them, John is saying, I know the one who is unseen, I know the one who is the reason for all of existence, and I wanna show him to you. But even more than that, when he uses this word, he's bringing his hearers back, especially his Jewish hearers back to the Old Testament. He's bringing them back to this idea of the word of God. In the Old Testament, the word of God is how God communicates about himself to his people. It's how he communicates about himself to his people. And the word of God in the Old Testament is often tied to his revelation of himself, revealing himself, and it's tied to his salvation for his people. And so John wants us to understand that Jesus is God's ultimate communication of who he is to us. It's his ultimate communication of who he is to his people. He is not only telling us, but he is showing us in the flesh, in person who he is. And he wants us to understand that Jesus is God's salvation who has come to us. It's not just that he has given us salvation, it's that salvation has come to us and it's come in the person of Jesus Christ. Though he dwelt in heaven for eternity past, as we're gonna look at today, he has stepped into creation. There came a point in time where the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. And I want us to see today that heaven came to earth in the form of a person, not in the form of a place, but in the form of a person. And we find hope in the fact that he has come and he has brought life and salvation with him. So we're gonna look at these couple of verses in John and we're gonna take a look at who Jesus is and what he brought with him when the word became flesh. First of all, what I want us to see is that the word has eternal life. The word has eternal life. In the first part of verse one, we learned that the word existed from the beginning. Look at what it says, "In the beginning was the word." He has existed from the beginning, before he was born on earth as a man. And before the entire world was made, before all things, the word was there. John is calling us back to Genesis 1:1. If you remember that, it starts with, in the beginning, God. Here, John says, in the beginning was the word. And what he is saying is that for as long as God the Father has been, the word has been. For whatever God the Father was there for, the word was there for. He did not come into being at some point, there was no point in eternity past where the word did not exist. There was no point where he was created by anyone at any time, He has lived for eternity past. And look at what verse three tells us. If we read one more verse here, it says, all things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made. That means that he has life within himself. Nobody gives it to him. He is not dependent on anyone else for life, we are, right? We are dependent on our parents for life. Even more than that, we are dependent on God for life. But the word is not dependent on anyone. He has life within himself, it has not been given to him, He is the one who gives it to others. And because the word has eternal life, when he was made flesh, the word brought eternal life to us. The word brought eternal life to us. When the word became flesh and he dwelt among us, he brought all of who he is with him. See, when John says that the word became flesh, it doesn't mean that he changed from one thing into another, like a caterpillar turns into a butterfly or anything like that, He is saying that the word remained the word, but he took into himself humanity. He remained fully God, and yet he also became fully man. Verses four and five tell us this, "In Him was life. That life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it." When we look to Jesus, we find life. When we look to Jesus, we see the light of the world, the light that is not of this world, it's from heaven, but it shines into the world and it shines into the darkness and it shines into our lives. When we look to Jesus, it changes the way we see the world because a lot of times our eyes can kind of get used to the darkness, right? We've been in it for so long that our eyes might not even notice just how dark it is any more. But when someone shines light in the darkness, then we start to see all the things that we have been missing and we start to see the emptiness of the things that we have been looking to, the things that have been right in front of our face. We need the light to shine in the darkness for us to even realize just how dark it is. A couple weeks ago, I was in my kitchen and I looked up and I noticed that one of the light bulbs or the light in there has two bulbs and one of them was out. And I just kinda said, how long has this light bulb been out for? I didn't even know at that point. And so I went, I got a light bulb and I changed it, and all of a sudden, I could see my kitchen a whole lot better. That light bulb must have been out for weeks, maybe even months, and I just didn't even notice how dark it was in there. My eyes got used to it, it didn't bother me at all. But once I put the other light in there and it started shining into the kitchen, all of a sudden I started finding things that I've been looking for for a long time, right? And I noticed that I really needed to clean the kitchen, I didn't even notice just how bad it was until I got that other light bulb in there. And Jesus does the same thing, He shines into the darkness. And when we see His light shining in the darkness, that's when we really realize just how dark the darkness of the world is. But looking to Jesus also changes the way that you see yourself. It doesn't just change the way that we see the world, it changes the way that we see ourselves. Because when we look to the word who is with God and who was God, who became flesh and made his dwelling among us, when we look to the one who stepped out of heaven and stepped into the world, he gives us an outside perspective of who we are. And sometimes we need an outside perspective to really see ourselves for who we truly are. You can look in a mirror every single day and miss things about yourself. Sometimes you need an outside perspective to see it. Between the time that I brought my ministry to an end at my last church and coming to this church had a little time in between and we took a little bit of a sabbatical and I decided that this was a great time to go ahead and try to grow my hair out one last time, right? And just kinda see what happens. See if it's worth trying out anymore. And so I grew it out for about two months. And we were on a trip right before my time started here. And I told my wife, Krista, I was like, Hey, can you call your friend who cuts hair and, and just when we get back from the trip, she can just kind of trim it up, give it a little shape, make it look like it's something, I don't know, like a, like a normal haircut. And she said, sure, yeah, I'll do it. Well, on the last day of our trip, I was bending down to help my five-year-old who was having some trouble with her shoes. And she said, dad, I don't like to look at the top of your head 'cause there's not so many hairs on it. And I said, Krista, cancel the appointment. It's done, experiment's over. And Krista came in and she said, I did like three days ago, just, I already canceled it a long time ago. I just didn't have the heart to tell you, I didn't know how to say it to you. And so the five-year-old, she's the one who can say it, but they brought some perspective to me, some outside perspective that I apparently really desperately needed about myself. And that's what we need sometimes, we need some outside perspective. Jesus is the light of the world who shows us not only light in the darkness, but how dark the darkness really is. But he's also the heavenly perspective who shows us who we really are. He shows us our sin, He shows us our need for a savior. He shows us who God created us to be, He created us in the image of God. He created us sinless, He created us as his representative. And Jesus shows us that we have fallen away, that we are sinners in need of a savior. And he shows us the darkness that's in our own souls outside of Christ. When we look to Jesus, the life and the light of the world, we see our need for a savior. But the great thing is he doesn't just show us our need, He is the one who meets that need. He is the one who shines light in the darkness, He is the one who gives life. He is the one who is the solution to the problem. He doesn't just show us what we need, He gives it to us. He brings it with him when he steps into the world and he became flesh. The Bible shows us that all of us, all of us were born spiritually dead, separated from God, bound for eternity, separated from God, but the word became flesh in order to give us life. He became flesh in order to give us life. And when we trust in Jesus, God breathes spiritual life into us. He breathes light into the darkness of our souls. And he actually changes us in such a way that Jesus says, you are now the light of the world because I live in you. And so you can shine light into the darkness as well. Jesus shows us what we need, but he gives us what we need as well. He gives us life, and he gives us hope as we live in a world that is still full of darkness. He gives us hope of eternity with God. And friends, when we have that hope, we no longer have to live looking to the things of the world for life. We no longer have to live looking to the things of the world for life. We no longer have to live selfishly, thinking that if I can just get what I want all the time, that that's what's gonna give me life. We no longer have to live to get more and just hoarding all our stuff, but we can actually become a blessing to people. We can actually be a generous people and we no longer have to live in the sins and the addictions that once held us back. But Jesus gives us the power to say no to those things. He gives us the power to turn to him and live in his spirit and walk in his spirit. Jesus gives us life and he makes it new. Lemme just ask you a question. How many people in here, there's a lot of people in here. How many people in here have a life story of a life changed by Jesus? Go ahead and raise your hands. Take a look around, just take a look around for a minute. Jesus gives life when we trust in him. He gives new life, He gives abundant life, and he gives eternal life. Because when the word who has eternal life became flesh, and he dwelt among us, he brought eternal life with him to give it to us. He brought eternal life to give to those who trust in him. He was born that we may have life. But there's more here that John tells us in this first verse. We saw that the word has eternal life and that he brought eternal life with him. But secondly, we see that the word has eternal fellowship with the Father. The word has eternal fellowship with the Father. Second part of verse one here, it says, "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God." For eternity past, he was with God. So there's two people here that John is talking about, there's two people. And as the passage goes on, we find out that the two people are God, the Father, and God the Son, that the word is God the Son. And we're still keeping Genesis 1 in mind here, because when God created people, he created the first people Adam and Eve, he created them in relationship with God. He created them in right relationship with himself. But the word, the word had an even closer relationship with the Father that went back from eternity past. It never began, it just always was. He has that eternal fellowship with him. Further, Adam and Eve lost that fellowship with the Father through their sin. And by way we have lost it as well because of our sin. But the word has eternal fellowship with him. It has never been lost, it's never been broken. Now, as people, our greatest need is to be reconciled to God, that's our greatest need to have a relationship with him again. Because when Adam and Eve sin, sin came into our lives as well, and we lost that relationship, all humanity has lost that relationship with him. But when the word became flesh, the word brought eternal fellowship with the Father to us. The word brought eternal fellowship with the Father to us. Now, if the word didn't have that fellowship, he couldn't bring it to us, right? Because you can't invite someone into a relationship that you are not in, right? Like I can invite you into a relationship that I have with someone, right? I can call you up and I can say, "Hey, I'm going to get some wings with a friend, why don't you come along?" I love for you to join us and meet this friend of mine and come into our friendship. But I can't invite you into a, I cannot invite you into a relationship with Josh Allen because believe it or not, I don't have a relationship with Josh Allen. And if I tried to do that, he might not take so kindly to it, right? He wouldn't know who I am, He wouldn't care about who you are. He would be calling his little security guy, I assume he has, I don't know. And he would get me bounced out of the place. But Jesus has eternal fellowship with God the father. And Jesus brings that fellowship with him to us. Jesus has eternal fellowship with God the Father. And Jesus brings that fellowship with him to us. But here's the thing is that he doesn't just give us any old relationship, He doesn't just bring us into a friendship with God, He brings us in as his children. He brings us in as sons and daughters. He invites us in as children of God. And here's the good news that we find with this. It's that we have a God who's not a far off God, he's not a God who doesn't care. He's not a God who is unrelational, He's not a God that is holding people at a distance, in fact, it's us who hold him at a distance, right? He doesn't hold us at a distance. When we stepped away from him by our sin, he steps toward us and he enters in, in order that we might come back into relationship with him. In order that he can bring us back into that relationship. He has done the work. But the question I have for you is, are you walking in that fellowship? Are you walking in that fellowship? If you're a believer, are you walking in it daily or do you take it for granted? Because a lot of times we can rest in that fact that we, we now have this relationship with God, but we can tend to take it for granted and we can neglect it. It's not that we lose the relationship. Once we become children of God, we can never lose that, he doesn't let go of that He holds onto us. But we can tend to live sometimes as though we are neglecting it. We can live sometimes as though he's not near to us. We can live sometimes as though he's not the most important relationship or the most important thing in our lives. We don't seek to know him more daily through prayer and through His word, we're just kinda okay with where we're at. We don't seek to follow after him in our actions and what we do day to day, we're not really worried about it. But when you dwell on this truth, when you dwell on this truth that Jesus left his father's side in order to bring us into right relationship with him, it should warm our hearts to him. It should warm our hearts in such a way that it draws us near to him. Because just like in any relationship, when you see another person's affection toward you, it draws your affections toward them, right? And when we see the affection of God to bring us in as children, it should draw our affections toward him. It should draw our hearts to seeing his great love for us and to want to walk closely with him. But you might be here today and not be a believer. You may have never put your trust in Jesus. And I want you to know, and I say this in love, but I need you to know that if you've never trusted in Jesus, then you actually don't have that relationship with God. You actually don't have fellowship with God. There are many who think they have a relationship with God just because they like God or they think they have a relationship with God because he's God and he created me, so of course I have a relationship with him. A lot of people think they have a relationship with God just because they see themselves as a good person. They do good things, or maybe you think you have a relationship with God because you pray, maybe you go to church sometimes, maybe you, whatever you do. But those aren't things that give us a relationship with God. The only way to have a relationship with God is by trusting in Jesus Christ. The only way to receive life is by giving our lives to him. You are not born in relationship with God, you cannot bring yourself into relationship with God. Jesus later in the book of John in chapter 14, he's going to say, "I am the way and the truth and the life. Nobody comes to the Father except through me." But the good news is, is that he came so that you can have a relationship with the Father. He came, he has done the work and he has done it for us. And he says, believe in me and I will give you life and salvation, I will make you children of God. If you've not placed your faith in Jesus, you don't have a right relationship with God. But he says, believe in me, and you can. Others of you might think you could never have a relationship with God. You've just done too much, right? I'm just too, I'm too far gone, God would never accept me, God would never bring me in, He could never see me as a child. But here's the thing is that it's not based on you. And it's not based on who you are or what you have done. Or maybe you're here today and you're not thinking that about yourself, but you're thinking that about somebody else. No, they're too far gone. They could never be a child of God. And what that reveals about you is how highly you think about yourself and how unright your thinking is. How wrong, that's the word, not unright, how wrong your thinking is about salvation. It's not about who we are, it's about who God is and it's about what he has done. And it's about the word becoming flesh in order to die for our sins and raise from the dead in order to give us new life and eternal fellowship with the Father. Jesus came to give it to us. And he lets us enter in when we trust in him. And we see in verse one, we saw that the word has eternal life and the word has eternal fellowship with the Father. And he came to bring us that fellowship. But last of all, what we see is that the word is eternal God himself, the word is the eternal God himself. At the end of verse one, we finally see, in the beginning was the Word and the word was with God, and the word was God. The word was God, He both was with God, so he's a different person, but also it says He was God, He's the same being. And I know it's difficult concept to grasp because there is nothing else in all the universe like God. And that's good news, right? That's good news that we serve a God, that there is nothing else out there like him. And we can't make any analogies, we can't make any comparisons. We can't look to anything to enlighten our minds how to, how to see this rightly, but it is basic to Christianity that God is three persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Each person is equally and eternally God, and yet there is one God, all three in one. We call it the the doctrine of the Trinity. That he is three in one and the word is the eternal God himself. And when the word became flesh, the word brought the revelation of God himself to us. He brought the revelation of God himself to us. Take a look at verse 18. No one has ever seen God. The only God who is at the Father side, He has made him known. If you've ever wondered, why does God keep himself hidden? People ask this question sometimes like He's God, why doesn't he just show himself? Well, the answer is He has, He has shown himself. He's shown himself in Jesus Christ, we can look to Him. If you've ever wondered what God is like, what it would look like for God to live on earth, he's done it in Jesus Christ. And we can look to him. Later in the book of John in chapter 14, in verse nine, or sorry, in verse eight, Philip ask Jesus, he says, "Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us." And Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long and you still don't know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me, has seen the Father, How can you say, show us the Father. Hebrews 1 tells us that he is the exact imprint in the very nature of God. We can look to Jesus and see who God is because God himself has come to us when the word became flesh. He has come to us when the word became flesh. He is the creator who has become the created. He is the infinite who has become finite. He is the eternal who entered into time. He is the Almighty who took on the weakness of humanity. And he's the unseen God who's been made seen. That is the Jesus that we sing to, that is the Jesus who we worship, that is the Jesus who saves us, that is the Jesus that we celebrate at Christmas and that we worship all year long. That is the word who became flesh. See, heaven has come to earth, but it hasn't yet come in the form of a place, it came in the form of a person. And that's the even better place to start y'all. Because he came in the form of a person, and that person is the very center of heaven. He is the best part of heaven. And yet we also find hope in the fact that one day, one day he's going to return. And when he returns, he is going to bring all of heaven with him. Heaven is going to come to earth in all of its fullness. When he returns, he will bring all of heaven with Him and we will get the person within the place. And the light will no longer shine in the darkness because there will be no more darkness for it to shine into, it will completely overtake it. The darkness will be put away once and for all. And all there will be is the light of the word shining all around us. And he will reign over all of it with perfect peace and perfect justice and perfect love. And we will stand face to face with him. And our faith will be made sight. And we find in Revelation 21 that when heaven comes to earth in its fullness, what we began to see with the word becoming flesh, and he dwelt among us, it will be coming in full. Look at what Revelation chapter 21:3-4 says, it says, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man." That means this is the eternal state. It never is not again, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. And he will dwell with them and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. And neither shall there be mourning nor crying, nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away. The darkness is gone and the light is shining through, that will be the state of our eternity. And it's all because 2000 years ago, the word became flesh. And he dwelt among us, and he brought salvation to us. He brought life to those who will trust in him eternal life. He brought eternal fellowship with the Father to those who will trust in him. And he brings us the best part of heaven. He brings us the best part of eternity himself, God, and we will be face to face with him. And that gives us hope as we live in a world full of darkness, a hope that allows us to live with joy, even in the hardship, a hope that allows us to fight the sin that still tempts us day to day, a hope that is better than all the world has to offer. And we can have it because the word became flesh. He dwelt among us, He lived a perfect life, He took our sin on himself, and he paid the price for it at the cross. And then he rose to life again on the third day. He defeated sin, He defeated death, He defeated darkness, and that's why he came. He came in order to bring us into salvation. This Christmas, I want you to let these words land on your heart. The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. I want you to think and dwell on that. I want you to let those words sink into your heart this Christmas. And remember that Jesus is God the Son who has stepped into creation. He has come to earth, He has brought to us life and fellowship in the very presence of God. He has shined the light into the darkness. And for all who trust in him, he says, I've shined the light into your life and I want you to shine it into all the world. And I want you to take advantage of that this Christmas. I want you to take advantage of being around your friends and your family members and your whoever. And I want you to shine the light of Jesus into their life. And I want you to tell them of the word who became flesh. Let's live the life that he has given us. A life of salvation, a life of fellowship with him, a life of light in the darkness. Let's go ahead and bow our heads and close our eyes. I'm gonna close this out in prayer here in just a minute, but I wanna invite you, if you've never trusted in Jesus before, you've never come into that relationship with God. You've never come into salvation, into life, eternal life. Jesus says, come and trust in me. You cannot give yourself those things, but I have them and I give them to all who trust in me. And I wanna invite you this morning, if you have never trusted in Jesus, come and receive life from him. Come and receive salvation. Come and receive relationship with God for eternity. Maybe you're here this morning and you realize you just, you haven't been walking in that fellowship with God and that close fellowship, you've been taking it for granted. I want you to come up also and talk to one of these prayer partners that are gonna be up here at the end when we close out and wanna invite you to take them and, and let them pray with you and talk with them, they'd be glad to help you along in that and to pray for you and to connect you with others. God, I pray that you would move by your spirit in all of us today. Lord, shine your light into our lives. Show us Lord, the things that maybe we, we haven't given to you today. Give us life by your spirit. Give us that light so that we can see those things and we can turn them over to you. I pray for all here, Lord, who've never trusted in you. They've never seen the light of your goodness. I pray that you would show it to them today, that you would move in their hearts, that they would trust in you. Lord, I pray over this church that we would be a light in the world. A light who shows who you are, Lord, a light who points people to you, the true light of the world that shines into the darkness. Lord, teach us to be that kind of church. Teach us to be that kind of people. We love you, Lord, it's in Jesus name I pray, Amen.