The Conversation

John 21.15-19

I’ve been a pastor for almost ten years now, and I’ve been a Christian for more than twice as long. And over that time I’ve come to realize that what we think the Christian life should look like is often quite different from what it actually is.

Here’s what we often imagine when we think of what the Christian life ought to look like. It’s not perfection, but a life that could be represented on a graph by a straight line moving progressively upwards. Smooth, straight—not perfect yet, but always going up.

Honestly, that’s not what the Christian life really looks like most of the time. What it usually looks like—or rather, what it feels like—is more like a spiky line on a graph. There’s progression, followed by moments or periods of struggle or outright failure, followed by more progression, then more struggle, and so on. We still move gradually upwards, but it’s not a straight line.

For some people, these spikes are more pronounced than for others—but we all have them.

The holier we become, the more we realize how unholy we actually are. The more like Christ we become, the more clearly we’re able to see just how pervasive sin is, and how much still remains to be changed.

This can be discouraging to us, particularly at a period like Christmas, because we can feel like the beautiful picture people paint at Christmas doesn’t apply to us.

This is our last message for the season of Advent. We always take one extra week after Christmas to reflect on why we’re doing this. If you remember, Advent is the period where we reflect on the people of Israel waiting for the coming of the Messiah. We do this, not just to remember Christ’s birth and be thankful for it, but to help us learn to wait for the day when the Messiah will return, rid the creation of sin and its effects, and bring us with him to live forever in a world without pain, without death, without grief or anger or fear.

In other words, there’s a reason why we read those passages in Revelation this morning: this is the day we’re waiting for. But often this can seem very theoretical to us, very abstract.

I’ve had conversations with multiple people this month that make me think that we would be well served, on this last Sunday of 2023, by speaking not directly about Christ’s return, but about the time in between—the time in which we find ourselves now, when we’re still waiting. Because a lot of Christians will hear a sermon on the second coming of Christ and feel doubt rather than encouragement, because given how their lives are going so far, they’re not sure they’re going to make it. You may not be sure you’ll make it—that you’ll be among those whom Christ will welcome into his kingdom.

So rather than panic about it, let’s sit in it for a little while. The last three weeks we’ve been in the beginning of John’s gospel, when John described Jesus Christ to us—God himself, the Creator of all things, our life and our light, who took on human flesh, lived our life and died our death.

It’s a beautiful picture, but imagine you were there to see Jesus in person, and you let him down, you betrayed him—in person. How would you feel to have Jesus look at you then? How might he react?

That precisely was the experience of the apostle Peter.

Peter: Background

Peter was a fisherman, a disciple called by Jesus to follow him early in his ministry. Of all the disciples, Peter was one of the most devoted, one of the most fervent, and certainly the most confident.

Toward the end of John’s gospel we see a lot of things coming to a head for Peter. In John 13, Jesus tells the disciples what’s going to happen soon—how he’ll be arrested and put on trial and killed. Peter, ever confident, says that he’ll follow Christ even to death, and Jesus says, “No you won’t—before dawn you’ll deny me three times.”

Which is exactly what happens. Jesus is arrested, he is taken before the high priest. Most of the disciples run away in fear. Peter follows from a distance, standing outside the house.

We see it in John 18. Those standing around with Peter recognize him and ask him if he’s one of his disciples. Peter is afraid, so he says no—three times, just like Jesus said.

We can of course understand Peter; he was afraid, and it’s normal to be afraid. Who among us could say with absolute certainty that we would do things differently?

But that’s not the issue. The issue is Peter’s heart. He had been sure that he was stronger than that. He was sure that even if everyone else left Jesus, he wouldn’t. In other words, he was prideful—he imagined himself stronger than he was, and was depending on his own strength to see him through.

We know what happened next. Jesus was crucified, all the disciples—including Peter—were absent at his crucifixion, all but one (John himself).

Jesus was buried, the disciples were in complete despair over it all. Clearly Jesus wasn’t the Messiah, the great King they thought he was.

But then, to everyone’s amazement—on the third day following his crucifixion, Jesus comes back to them. He is clearly the same man—they can recognize him, they can see the marks in his hands and feet—but he has been changed as well, resurrected and glorified, alive once again in a perfect body, freed from sickness and disease and death.

Think of the massive shift in perspective this would have caused. Already Jesus had surprised them time after time, with his teaching, by performing miracles, and even raising the dead. But the dead he raised were pretty much the same after their resurrections as before; this resurrection was different.

The Jesus standing before them now was the sign of something much bigger than a simple bodily resurrection in the future: he was the sign, not just of resurrection, but of renovation, renewal. And not just of one or two individual people, but of everyone and everything that belonged to God.

I imagine the days following Jesus’s resurrection must have been remarkably strange for the disciples. You know that feeling when you learn some bit of information that is so huge, you walk around in a daze, unable to see anything in the same way because of what you now know.

The Conversation (John 21.15-19)

Now—in the last chapter of John’s gospel, John 21, we see a very interesting story, probably my favorite story in this entire gospel, and this is where we’ll spend the rest of our time today. Some time after Christ’s resurrection, some of the disciples were together near the Sea of Tiberias, and Peter decides to go fishing. So they all go out in the boat together, they fish all night, they catch nothing. They’re coming back in to shore, and they see a guy on the shore who tells them to throw their nets over the right side of the boat.

So they do it, and suddenly the nets are overloaded with fish.

John recognizes that the guy on the shore isn’t just a guy, but it’s Jesus, so Peter jumps into the water and swims like a madman to see Jesus. (I would have loved to hear what Peter said when he got to him, all wet, out of breath, while his buddies struggled to haul to load of fish to the short.)

When they get there and they bring the fish in, Jesus cooks them breakfast. Already, this would have been incredible: the resurrected and glorified Son of God serving you breakfast! But then after breakfast, Jesus trains his sights on Peter, for what would surely become the most significant conversation of his life.

Let’s read it together—John 21.15-19:

15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. 18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” 19 (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”

Now this is a relatively simple story. Jesus asks Peter the same question three times, gets the same answer,  and gives a variation of the same command.

The question is, why did Jesus ask this question—“Do you love me?”—three times, and why was Peter grieved when he did?

Because that’s how many times Peter denied knowing him.

Jesus was subtly—but clearly—placing Peter directly in front of his own failure, in front of his own pride, in front of his own hypocrisy and sin.

Most of us know how that feels. All of us have disappointed someone. All of us have failed someone we love. All of us have hurt someone who trusted us. And if we’re Christians, we’re aware that all of us have failed God.

But sometimes, the knowledge that we’ve failed God can feel a little distant, like we’ve failed an idea or a principle rather than someone we love. So we need to try to put ourselves in Peter’s shoes here. He has walked with Jesus for the last three years. He has listened to him and observed him. He has had endless conversations with him, and been endlessly helped by him. Peter loves this man more than he loves anyone else in the whole world.

And now, Jesus is sitting across from him, reminding him none too subtly that Peter let him down. Peter responds to his questions the only way he knows how—“You know all things, Lord, you know that I love you”—and it feels a bit like when you try to say “I love you” after hurting your spouse, like you’re trying to say the thing that will make it better, when you know that nothing you can do in that moment will really make it better.

That’s the position Peter is in; that’s what he’s feeling.

It may seem cruel of Jesus to put Peter through this. Hadn’t he been punished enough during those three days when Jesus was dead? Why did he feel the need to rub his face in his failure?

It wasn’t for retribution; it wasn’t to punish Peter. Jesus is drawing Peter’s attention to his failure, and saying what he is saying, for Peter. Peter needed to know—not just in his head, but in his guts—that he would not “succeed” in being the perfect disciple he wanted to be. He would not get there under his own steam, and there would be bumps in the road.

And he needed to know that these bumps in the road didn’t mean he could no longer be a disciple of Christ.

Despite his failure, Jesus’s invitation still stands. On the heels of his questions, he also gives commands: “Feed my sheep. Take care of my sheep.” And most especially: “Follow me.”

Jesus is being very clear here. He is not expecting perfection from Peter. He’s expecting two things.

Firstly, he’s expecting dependance on God alone. That’s what the questions are for. “Do you love me?” “Do you love me?” “Do you love me?” Peter’s failure held up in front of his face, to remind him he cannot do this alone. He cannot love Jesus like he should, or follow Jesus like he should, on his own. He’s not strong enough on his own to get there. He needs God’s help.

Secondly, Jesus is expecting humble perseverance. This perseverance is humble because Peter must recognize that he needs God in order to do anything, and that he must depend on God to give him what he needs; and it is “perseverance” because if God gives Peter what he needs to do what God has called him to do, he has to do it.

This is the part a lot of people have a hard time understanding. By reminding Peter of his failure, and then giving Peter these commands, Jesus is pulling him up off the ground, and setting his feet back on the road: something Peter desperately needed at that point in time. But you can’t be set back on the road without first recognizing that you’ve left it. Jesus is telling Peter, essentially, “Despite your failures, despite your weaknesses, you must continue to do what I’ve called you to do. Feed my sheep. Feed my lambs. Follow me. You won’t get it perfect on your own, but God is here to give you what you need—and even if you fail, keep going. Do what you know to do. Keep going.”

We know what happened next. Peter is a changed man in the weeks and months that followed. He is confident, but it’s no longer the brash and self-centered confidence of a prideful man. He is confident in God’s ability to carry out his will (which is a very different thing).

Peter was not perfect. He made other mistakes. He still struggled with sin.

But he fed Jesus’s sheep. He and the others founded and cared for the church. He wasn’t perfect, but he persevered.

Conclusion

Some of you really need to hear this. You’re looking at these first five or ten or twenty years of your Christian life and you’re doubting yourselves. You’re wondering if God could ever really use you, if how you’ve begun is any indication.

But it doesn’t matter how you begin. It matters how you end.

Perfection is not the goal; perseverance is the goal, and God will help you persevere.

Some of you always feel out of place here because you look around and you imagine that everyone else is doing so much better than you. Some of them probably are; most of them aren’t. You can’t see that because you don’t know them well enough, but we’re all struggling to live for God. Living for God is by definition a struggle, because it goes against everything in our sinful nature.

OK, so people struggle. But you still feel out of place. Because you look around and you see all these smiling people, all these folks who seem genuinely happy to be here, while you’re barely keeping your head above water. You wonder if they’re faking it, or if you’re just missing something, or perhaps a combination of both.

Some of them might be faking it (I faked it for a long time). But I’ve come to learn that more often, that happiness is sincere. Maybe these people are happier in their Christian lives than you are.

If they are, it’s for one reason only. It’s not because they’re better than you, but rather because God has helped them to understand what he expects of them. It’s not perfection. Rather, it’s dependent perseverance, which always results in progress.

Perfection is the end goal, and we will get there, on that day when Christ returns and makes all things new, and rids the world of the effects of sin and death—everything we read during the worship service earlier. That’s where we’re going, but we’re not there yet. So for today, our marching orders are persevere, and progress.

That’s why happy Christians are happy (at least if they’re not deluded, and are happy for the right reasons). It’s because God has helped them understand what he expects of them, that the strength to persevere and to progress won’t come from them, but that they can depend on God to give them what they need to persevere and progress today.

So let me give you a bit of advice. Take a cue from what Jesus says to Peter. When he asks Peter three times if Peter loves him, he doesn’t command him to start a church that would become a global phenomenon and would still be continuing two thousand years later.

If Jesus had done that, Peter would have balked, because at that point in time, he wasn’t able to do that.

Jesus called him to a much smaller, very simple task: “Feed my sheep.” Peter, at that moment in his life, may not have been able to become the foundational apostle he would become. But he could take care of the people God had placed in his life.

You don’t need to concern yourself with what God will call you to do in twenty years, and whether or not you’re able to do it. You’re not, more than likely—at least not yet. All you need to concern yourself with is what he has placed in front of you today.

And you don’t need to compare yourself with where some other Christian may be today; they’re not you, and they’re not where you are.  All you need to do is keep your eyes fixed on where you’re going, and keep marching, slowly but steadily, in that direction.

This is just the beginning, and It doesn’t matter how we begin, but how we end.

All he expects of us is that we run our race, and finish our race, dependent on him, and persevering in his call on our lives.

And since we don’t know when the end will arrive for us, it must begin today.

Christmas: Grace and Truth

John 1.14-18

Today is an exceptional today, because of course today is Christmas Eve. We’re here to celebrate our Lord Jesus Christ, as we do every Sunday, but this Sunday is different, because we’re celebrating a particular aspect of our Lord Jesus Christ: we’re celebrating his coming.

Now, we have the kids with us this morning. Kids, I know you’ll find it difficult to sit still today, so I’m going to start with you, and I’m going to explain really quickly everything I’m going to say to your parents and your big brothers and sisters, so on the way home you can ask them questions and make sure they understand what I’ve said.

Raise your hands if you have a favorite character—a favorite princess, or a favorite superhero. So imagine how incredible it would be if I told you that Elsa or Anna (or Superman or Wonder Woman) was coming to your house this week? And that they weren’t just coming over for dinner, but that they were going to live in your house from now on?

Wouldn’t that be amazing? What would it be like to have breakfast with them, to play games with them, to talk to them? And to know that they would be living with you forever?

Well Jesus is way bigger, way more important, than Elsa or Anna or Superman—and that’s exactly what he’s done. He’s come to us, and he’s moved in, and he lives with us now, and forever.

In John 1.14-18, the apostle John ends his prologue by making explicit the things he had hinted to before: that the Son of God became flesh, full of grace and truth, in order to make God known.

The Son of God Became Flesh… (v. 14-15)

We remember that John has used several pictures since the beginning of the prologue—he’s talked about “life,” and “the light,” and “the Word”: that is, what God wanted his people to know about himself. John said that this “Word” wasn’t just a message God was sending, but it was God himself, the Creator of all things. And then John tells us the incredible news—which of course we’ve heard now, but imagine what it must have been like to learn this for the first time. V. 14:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Hold on—John said earlier that this “Word” was God; that he was eternal; that he created everything, including us. And now he says that the Word became flesh. That is, he took on a human form, became a human being, took on a human nature.

We’ve become numb to how huge this idea is, but imagine if Tom Cruise walked in through these doors this morning. You might agree with him, you might not, but his presence wouldn’t go unnoticed, and it wouldn’t leave us indifferent.

But even that wouldn’t be all that impressive, because even if it’s unlikely that Tom Cruise would come to our church this morning, it’s at least theoretically possible.

So rather, imagine if Nelson Mandela stepped out of history and walked through these doors. On top of being an incredible thing because of his significance to world culture, it should be impossible for him to be here, because he died ten years ago. What would our reaction be if it happened, and it really was Nelson Mandela sitting here?

The Word became flesh—God himself, the Creator of all things, became a human being. This is the most incredible thing to have ever happened in the history of the world.

And not only that, John says, The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. This is another callback to the Old Testament, like John did at the beginning of this chapter: the word he uses for “dwell” is the verb form of the word “tent” or “tabernacle.” In the book of Exodus, when God gives the law to the people, he has them build a big tent, called the tabernacle. In this tent, they will place the Ark of the Covenant, and that is where God’s presence dwelt with his people. If you wanted to go to God, you had to go to the tabernacle. The tent was transportable; they could take it down and put it back up as they moved from place to place. And every time they set up camp somewhere new, God’s presence would remain in the tabernacle once again.

But at this point in time, the tabernacle had been gone for a long time. The Ark of the Covenant was lost (at least until Indiana Jones found it again, haha). The temple had been pillaged more than once. The days in which God’s presence was visibly active amongst his people were long behind them.

At least until the Word became flesh. God himself, the second person of the Trinity, was born as a human baby named Jesus, and that baby grew up, and he lived an ordinary life amongst ordinary people. When God became a human being, he dwelt among his people. He became, in a manner of speaking, a new tabernacle—a place where the presence of God remained, because he was God. And he wasn’t far away or inaccessible: he dwelt among us. The apostles, who were spreading this good news throughout the Roman world, saw him. That’s what John says next: and we have seen his glory.

The phrase “we have seen his glory” can mean a lot of different things depending on what kind of “glory” you’re talking about. I remember once reading a review of a stand-up comic who gave a one-man show in San Francisco. The review was one simple sentence: “He was glorious.” Of course by that, the reviewer meant that this comic’s talent was incredibly impressive.

So we need to be specific: when John says that we have seen the glory of “the Word”, what glory is he talking about? John tells us: glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

To put it another way, the Word became flesh in order to show us who God is and what God is like. That’s what God’s glory is: it’s all of his attributes—his power, his wisdom, his goodness, his justice, all of it—made visible to the world. So it’s fairly obvious that if God wants to show us his glory, he’d make those attributes literally visible. And he did it by becoming a person. A person we could see and touch and listen to.

When you look at Jesus in the Bible, you see God. His glory is divine glory.

And John gives us another reminder of this in v. 15, when he speaks again of John the Baptist:

15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ”)

Remember what we saw in v. 1—In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word WAS God. John the Baptist is saying exactly that: even though he came before Jesus, Jesus is more important than him, because he’s always been here—he is God.

The Son of God became flesh, and he lived among human beings, and we beheld his glory—when we look at Jesus, we see God himself.

…Full of Grace and Truth… (v. 16-17)

But what precisely do we see when we see his glory? We see a lot of things, but there are two things John focuses on in particular. V. 16:

16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

So the first thing we see and receive when we see Christ is grace. Grace is a lot more than not getting the punishment we deserve. My dad used to make a very helpful comparison between two words we see a lot in the Bible: grace and mercy.

Here’s how he explained it—he explained it using noises. “Mercy” is when you deserve something bad, and you don’t get it. So the noise for “mercy” is: Whew!

“Grace” is when you don’t deserve something good, but you get something good anyway. So the noise for grace is: Wow!

Grace is—Wow! We deserved nothing from God but punishment for our rebellion against him. But only did we not receive his punishment, we received his goodness. We received his blessing. We received his grace.

And we didn’t just receive his grace; we received it from his fullness—grace UPON grace. It’s not as if God had to work really hard to convince himself to be kind to us. The most substantial grace you have ever received in your life is merely a drop in the bucket: we have received from his fullness, not from the tiny morsels of goodness he was able to scrape together.

So grace came through Christ, and the other thing that came through him was truth. V. 17—For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Now, John isn’t comparing and contrasting the law (like that’s the bad thing), and grace and truth (like they’re the good things). He’s talking about progression. The law God gave to his people was a picture of his perfect character and holiness—a picture his people could never live up to. So although they had a list of things they would need to see in order to see God’s character, they had never actually seen it, because no one had ever lived like that.

Until Christ.

The grace and truth that had always been in God, that had been described in the law of Moses, manifest themselves in Jesus Christ. Perfect grace, and perfect truth.

And you need both—because grace without truth causes some massive problems. Grace without truth makes a mockery of justice, because it ignores sin, or at least treats it like it’s no big deal.

God never gives grace at the expense of truth; he gives grace because of truth. The truth is that we are sinners, we need a Savior to take our place, and we need the Savior’s help to become more like him.

…To Make God Known (v. 18)

Jesus is that Savior. Jesus is God. Jesus brings grace and truth from his fullness. And he does it to make God known. V. 18:

No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

This is John’s concluding sentence for his prologue, and he says it as clearly as possible, just in case we hadn’t understood before.

God’s goal, since the very beginning, has always been to reveal himself—to show his glory to the world. Only God himself could manifest God’s character and holiness to us; only God himself could reveal himself to humans.

Jesus Christ is that God. He is able to reveal God’s character and holiness to us because he is God. He took on a human nature, lived a human life, in order to make God visible to human beings.

If you want to see God, you need to look at Jesus.

Conclusion

The picture in everyone’s minds at Christmas is the picture of the baby Jesus in the manger, sleeping peacefully. It is a beautiful picture—a picture of peace and happiness (new parents of healthy babies are almost always happy), and it’s a picture that naturally makes us feel restful.

But at Christmas we must remember that this picture is just the beginning. The baby in the manger grew up. As he grew, he lived a perfect, sinless life in a world full of sin. He ministered to those who needed him even though he didn’t need to do it—he didn’t have to teach or to heal or to speak to people no one else would speak to. He did those things to show us who God is.

Then he showed us even more of God: although he was without sin, he took our sin on himself and suffered the punishment we deserve, in our place. God did that, for us. GOD absorbed his own wrath against our sin, so that we wouldn’t have to. That is mercy—that is whew!

And he gave us his own perfect life, so that we would receive the reward, as if we were the ones who had lived without sin. He gave us eternal life, eternal joy, eternal peace, in a world without sin or sickness or death. Everything he deserves, and nothing we deserve. That is grace—that is wow!

Before such grace, how are we called to respond?

We are called to respond with truth—the same truth Christ came to proclaim. We are sinners, in need of a Savior, and this Savior has come. He has shone his light on us all, and we don’t want to be like those in the world who didn’t recognize him or receive him.

So we will confess our need of him, we will confess our sin, we will accept his forgiveness, and we will follow him. We will become more like him. We will not take his grace for granted, but recognize it as costly.

And for such a grace, we will be infinitely thankful.

It is the only response that makes sense.

I don’t know where you are this morning, what kind of questions or doubts you’ve brought with you, or what you’re looking for. But in all honesty, it doesn’t matter. Every situation and every doubt and every pain and every joy is changed by this simple truth: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory.

Let us come to him this morning, and humbly receive his grace.

The True Light

John 1.6-13

Light changes us.

We’ve all heard of seasonal affective disorder, that thing many people have that makes them depressed and exhausted during the dark winter months. If you know someone like that—first of all—give them a gift and buy them one of those lamps that simulate UV light, to help trick their brains into thinking the sun is out for longer. (I got one for Loanne a few years ago, they really do help.) And secondly, watch what happens to them when spring rolls into summer, and the days get longer, and the weather gets clearer.

The change that comes over them is often staggering. They’re happier, they’ve got more energy, there’s a spring in their step…

Light doesn’t just help us see; it actually does change us.

This year during Advent we’re focusing on John’s prologue to his gospel, where he introduces us to Jesus Christ. If you remember last week, we saw the first five verses of John 1, where John presented Jesus first as “the Word”, God himself, the perfect expression of God’s person and character. He told us that Jesus is the Creator of all things. He told us that in him was life, and that life was the light of men. The “life” he was talking about is physical life (because Christ is the Creator of all things), but most especially spiritual life; and the “light” is light that does two things—it exposes, and it illuminates. We’ll get back into that again today.

The Herald of the Light (v. 6-9)

Let’s pick up where we left off, in v. 6. We start with a bit of an aside, but John has a reason for it. (In today’s English manuscript I’m using the Christian Standard Bible.)

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. 9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

So this may be confusing, but the “John” mentioned in v. 6 is not the “John” who is writing this gospel. The man writing this gospel is the apostle John, and in v. 6 he’s talking about John the Baptist.

John the Baptist was actually Jesus’s second cousin, the son of Mary’s cousin Elizabeth. John was the last of the great prophets, whose job it was to proclaim God’s will to his people.

This was actually a very big deal, because there had been no prophets in Israel for four hundred years. So John’s coming made massive waves. He was a bit of a weirdo (as the prophets often were): he lived in the desert, wore animal skins and ate bugs—he was the kind of guy you’d avoid if you passed him on the street.

But God sent John with a purpose, and gave him the power to accomplish that purpose—when John spoke, people listened. What he spoke of was repentance: that is, God’s call that people turn away from their rebellion against God, their sin, and obey God. John baptized those who repented for the forgiveness of their sins.

That often struck me as odd when I read about John as a young man. I’d been told that Jesus came to save us from our sins, by taking those sins away. But it seemed to me like, before Jesus even got a chance to do that, John was already there offering repentance—as if it was another, different way of being saved from sin.

Of course, that’s not what was happening. John was preaching a baptism of repentance because he was getting the people ready for Jesus—as he says in v. 23, “I am a voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Make straight the way of the Lord,—just as Isaiah the prophet said.” Before anyone will accept the salvation Christ offers, they have to believe they need saving. John was putting their sin in front of their eyes, showing them that it is not possible to continue in that sin, but that God is willing to forgive. And how would that forgiveness come, once and for all? Through Jesus Christ.

All this is to say that John the Baptist was pointing to the light, but he wasn’t the light himself. As we see in v. 9: The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

There’s one more important thing to note in v. 9: John says that this “true light” that is in Christ “gives light to everyone.” Everyone. Light shines indiscriminately. If you turn on a light in a dark room, anything it comes into contact with is illuminated. Unless you’re a black hole, you can’t not be affected by light.

Every time someone shares the good news of Jesus Christ, his light shines on the people who hear it, whether they want it to or not. The question isn’t whether or not the light shines on you; it does. The question is rather, how do you respond to that light?

The Rejection of the Light (v. 10-11)

There are only two possible ways, two possible responses. The first of those responses is rejection.

V. 10:

10 He was in the world, and the world was created through him, and yet the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

Usually when the Bible talks about “the world” in the sense of “the people of the world,” it’s referring to those people who don’t belong to God, who aren’t members of his own people—and that’s what John’s doing here too. Although the world was created by Christ, the people of the world don’t recognize their Creator.

But John is saying this, not just to say how bad the world is, but also to accentuate an even more surprising point: the world rejected him, but that’s not all. Members of his own people rejected him too.

Jesus was born a Jew, to a Jewish family. And by and large—with the exception of a small handful of people before his death—the Jews rejected Jesus. They called out for his death. Now thankfully this didn’t remain the case (the first several thousand people to believe in him were mostly Jews), but you would think that the one group likely to accept the Jewish Messiah would be the Jews themselves.

But no. The world rejected him, and his own people rejected him. The question is, why?

We briefly talked about it last week. We see it a little later, in chapter 3, verse 20, when Jesus says that everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. The light shows us what we really are, so we naturally reject it. We saw this multiple times when we were in the book of Romans: we are all sinners, we all naturally reject God, so we all naturally stay away from the light. We don’t naturally like to hear someone share the message of the gospel, because the first thing we find out in that message is that we’re guilty before God, and no one wants to hear that.

You can see this happening if you keep reading Jesus’s story. Nearly every time Jesus taught, you had some people who were interested, and some who believed (we’ll get to them in a second). But you also had plenty of people in the crowds who were going, “Nope—sorry, I’m out.” His teaching was shedding light on their own sin and their own inconsistencies, and they didn’t like it. So they called him a blasphemer, and ultimately they killed him for it.

Anyone who has shared the gospel with several people knows this is the case. You’ll get as many rejections as you do interested conversations—sometimes even more. Even when you just try to talk about what the Bible says about other things, people reject it. As long as you just talk about the love of God and the grace of God, people can usually get on board with that, or at least appreciate that you’re saying something nice. But if you’re going to be faithful to the Bible, that can’t be all you talk about. And the second you start putting your finger on more specific issues—issues of what God says is best for us, what he calls sin and what he calls righteousness—that conversation often gets shut down pretty quickly.

He was in the world, and the world was created through him, and yet the world did not recognize him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

The Transformation of the Light (v. 12-13)

Naturally, this is the response every one of us have. So v. 10-11 shouldn’t be surprising.

What should surprise us is that some people did receive him. Some people do. Many people, in fact. And I’d suggest that the real question we should be asking is not, Why don’t more people receive Christ? but rather, why does anyone receive Christ? If we are all naturally sinners who resist the light, what makes someone want to go towards Christ, rather than run away from him?

That is the question John answers in v. 12-13.

12 But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name, 13 who were born, not of natural descent, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God.

We’ll need to do a bit of work here, because this part of the passage is tricky.

I said before that the light that shines through Christ exposes. It exposes us for what we really are, it exposes sin for what it really is.

But that’s not all it does. The light also illuminates, and those whom it illuminates are transformed. They become children of God.

How does this happen? What are the steps in this process?

We see the first two in v. 12: to all who did receive him; to those who believe in his name. That’s what we need to do to be declared children of God.

But why do we believe in him and receive him, rather than reject him? We see that in v. 13: because we were born of God. Not because we were born into a certain family, not because we were born into a certain culture, not because our parents decided they wanted to have kids. If we believe in him and receive him, it’s because we were born of God.

Now if that sounds confusing to you, you’re not alone. Just a couple chapters later, in chapter 3, we see Jesus speaking with a religious leader named Nicodemus, and he’s talking about this very subject. The first thing we see Jesus say, in John 3.3, is:

“Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus’s response is excellent, because it’s so human—it’s exactly the kind of thing any normal person would ask. He says (v. 4):

“How can anyone be born when he is old?… Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?”

Gold star for Nicodemus—that’s a great question. So Jesus goes on to explain that he’s not talking about physical birth, but spiritual birth. He says (3.8):

The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

In other words, babies who are born don’t understand how they were born, and they certainly don’t decide to be born. The decisive element of our birth escapes us; it’s something that happens to us, not something we participate in.

In the same way, being born of God is his work, not ours. We don’t understand it, we can’t predict it, we can’t make it happen—it’s something he does in us. We hear the truth of the gospel—the light of Jesus “shines” on us—and that light changes us. It transforms us from the inside out. We might even try to resist it, but if God chooses to shine that light on us, we can’t help but be changed. We may not understand it, we may not even be comfortable with it, but once it happens, we can’t deny it.

That was my experience. I realized that I believed in God at work one day. I had a job when I was nineteen, silk-screening t-shirts, and I worked in an old barn in the middle of the woods. I was out there all by myself one day, listening to music, and suddenly I just realized: I can’t deny that I believe in God. I’d tried to deny it for a long while, but I realized that I couldn’t—although I couldn’t wrap my brain around it, I believed this was true.

But I wasn’t happy about it. Not at first. So I tried to just ignore it—to go about my life, to ignore that little voice in my head saying that I needed God and Jesus really had done all this for me. I did that for almost two years. But finally, I couldn’t do it any more. So finally, I did what I should have done years earlier and I started to read my Bible. I started to take it seriously. And I realized that not only I couldn’t resist the life he was calling me to, I wanted to live that life. I wanted to be his child.

So finally, I gave in, and I accepted him.

When God causes us to be born again, when the Holy Spirit gives us new life in him, we may try to find a million ways around it, but sooner or later we’ll realize we’ve only got one possibility that will satisfy us, only one option that seems remotely plausible. And that is to believe in him and receive him.

If God gives us life in Christ, it always ends that way. It’s what we refer to as irresistible grace. If God shines his light in our hearts, we will believe in him, and we will receive him.

And those who believe in him, those who receive him, are given the right to be called children of God. And in case you’re wondering, the formal way this happens is through baptism: those who are born again place their faith in Christ and receive his salvation, and they say it. They profess their faith in Christ. At that point, the church baptizes them, as a symbol and a seal of that truth. Baptism doesn’t save, but it formalizes the truth that this person has been saved. Baptism is the moment at which the new believer declares before the church, and the church officially recognizes, that this new birth has happened to them.

What’s The Point?

Now, you might be wondering what the point of all this theological rigamarole is.

Here’s the point—here’s the big thing John wants us to see, and it is absolutely vital to understand. John wants it to be crystal clear that if we are saved, if we have been forgiven for our sins, if we belong to God and look forward to eternal life in him, that is entirely God’s doing.

We don’t think often enough about how incredible this is. Nothing that we’ve seen today was an obligation for God. He didn’t have to send John the Baptist to prepare the people for Christ’s coming. He didn’t have to send Jesus Christ: the true light that gives light to everyone. Christ didn’t have to come into the world; he didn’t have to come to his own people, only to be rejected by them. He didn’t have to cause us to be born of God, to be born again.

God owes us absolutely nothing.

Christ didn’t have to give us the perfect life he lived.

He didn’t have to take our sins on himself and be punished in our place.

He doesn’t have to be our advocate before the Father.

He doesn’t have to intercede for us, he doesn’t have to care for us, he doesn’t have to live in us by his Spirit, he doesn’t have to grant us a single spiritual blessing. None of that is an obligation.

God did this, and he still does this, because he is just that good.

The point of this entire prologue, which we’ll conclude next week, is to use very simple and beautiful language to overwhelm us with God’s goodness.

Conclusion

Preachers usually like to end sermons with what’s called an application—it’s the part where we talk about how we as people are called to respond to the text we’ve read, because all Scripture drives us to a response.

In short, after reading the Bible, people want to know, Okay—so what do I do?

The thing is, sometimes we don’t do anything. Sometimes the Bible simply calls us to sit under its weight, to see, to realize the immensity of what God has told us. In those cases, the only proper response is to pray that God would help us do that. And how we pray will depend on who we are.

Some of you here haven’t yet been born again; you haven’t been born of God. You don’t believe in him, you haven’t received him. And this might be the first time some of you have been exposed to these things.

But if you’re here today, if you’ve spend the last few minutes listening, that probably means that at the very least, you’re looking for something. So here’s what I’d invite you to do. We’re going to put a prayer up on the screen; it’s a prayer for those who are still asking questions. We’ll leave it up for a few minutes; I’d invite you to just read that prayer, and make it your own—actually speak to God, and ask him to convince you of the truth that he really is as good as he says he is. Ask him to change your heart, and to convince you.

Some of you—and what I’m going to say may come as a bit of a shock—have been born again, some of you have been born of God…but you don’t know it yet. You might suspect that something is going on in you, but you haven’t yet recognized that God has done something in you that you can’t undo. You haven’t yet admitted to yourselves and to God that you actually do believe. You haven’t verbally professed faith in him, you haven’t actively received him.

If this is you, the second prayer is for you: it’s a prayer of faith. I’d invite you to do the same thing I said before: if you want to receive him, pray this prayer and make it your own. Place your trust in Christ, and tell him you’re doing it. Ask him to forgive you for your sin, to help you turn away from that sin and follow him. There’s nothing else we must do to be saved.

But a lot of us here are probably in a slightly different situation. You believe in him, and you have received him…but you’ve spent so much time in church that these realities don’t really do anything to you anymore. You’re used to the truth of the gospel, to the point where you’ve almost become hardened to it.

Over the next few moments, I’d invite you to keep your Bibles open and read over John 1.1-13 again. Ask God to stir your heart again, that you might not take for granted his incredible goodness to you.

And still others here are absolutely overwhelmed by God’s goodness. You’ve read these words and you can hardly contain yourselves.

If that’s you, spend some time simply thanking God for his goodness, and for the fact that you feel the weight of it. Then I’d encourage you to ask him to help you—to keep seeing it, to keep feeling it, and then to help others see and feel the weight of his goodness for us as well.

We’re going to spend the next few moments in silence before God, after which we’ll pray and take Communion.

Jesus Is...

John 1.1-5

Not far from here, on the rue Saint-Denis, there’s a cool little place called the Musée des illusions. Basically it’s a museum filled with nothing but optical and auditory illusions, and it’s endlessly fun to see how easily your mind plays tricks on you and convinces you that you’re seeing one thing when in fact you’re seeing another.

It’s fun, but it’s also a little unsettling, to see how inaccurate our perception often is. And if that’s true for something as clear and objective as vision, how true must it be for things that are less tangible, like our way of looking at the world around us and really understanding what’s happening?

It might be surprising to know that this is one of the reasons why we celebrate Advent. We celebrate Advent because we want to celebrate seeing the world rightly.

Advent is a Latin word that means “coming”. It’s the period in the year when we reflect on Christ’s coming, but before that, on what it was to wait for his coming. God’s people waited for centuries to see the fulfillment of his promise to send them a Savior—and we’re waiting too. We’re waiting for that same Savior to return. So we need to learn how to wait.

But our waiting is much easier than that of the people of Israel, because he’s already come once, so we know what to look forward to. And for all the joys of heaven that are promised to us, the main joy we look forward to isn’t the joy of perfect health, or eternal life, or perfect peace. The main joy we’re waiting for—the source of every other joy we will enjoy forever—isn’t a thing at all, but a person.

So we’re going to spend the next few weeks thinking about the person whom we celebrate at Christmas: Jesus Christ. We’ll be doing this in the first chapter of John’s gospel, the prologue in which John explains in great depth exactly who Jesus Christ is, and why he is worthy of being celebrated.

And very simply, in today’s passage, John 1.1-5, we see four things: Jesus is God, Jesus is Creator, Jesus is Life, and Jesus is Light.

Jesus Is God (v. 1-2)

When John writes his gospel, he’s writing to a mixed audience. It’s clear that he’s writing both to Jews and Gentiles, because he often takes time to explain Jewish customs, or translates terms from Aramaic to Greek. He intentionally begins his gospel by speaking to his readers in a way they will all understand—although for different reasons, depending on who they are.

V. 1:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God.

So let’s think about how Jews would read this for a minute. The Old Testament was the Bible the Jews had at this point in time, and if you know the Old Testament at all, you might be familiar with its very first verse, Genesis 1.1, which says, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. So this is an obvious callback to the very first verse in the Bible: In the beginning, God did something—and we’ll get to that in a second.

But first: why “the Word”? In the beginning was “the Word”.

John is doing more than one thing at the same time, which he will do over and over in this gospel. If you’ve never read the gospel of John, it’s a fascinating book, because on the surface it’s not a difficult book to understand. Jesus says some hard things, but usually what he’s saying and what he’s doing is clear. But with almost every passage in this book, if you take a harder look, and study it a bit more deeply, you realize that there’s a lot more going on underneath the surface. John’s often doing several different things at once when he writes.

And that’s what he’s doing here.

He speaks of “The Word”, first of all, because the Jews would have been familiar with this idea. The main way God always spoke to his people in the Old Testament was that he spoke to them. He spoke to Abraham, he spoke to Moses, he spoke through the prophets. Speaking of “God’s Word” was a way of referring to the message God wanted to send to his people: what God wanted them to see and know about him.

But this term wasn’t only significant for the Jews.

For the Greeks, it meant something too, though it was something different. At the time, there was a concept in Greek philosophy called the “logos”, which translated is, “the Word.” For them, “the Word” was an impersonal principle of Reason that gave order to the universe. It was the force driving everything in existence, the animating energy behind all things.

Now of course John doesn’t mean it in this way— “the Word”, for John, isn’t impersonal at all, but very personal—but since he’s writing to a mixed audience which would include both Jews and Greeks, he decides to reappropriate these ideas, common to both groups and summed up in the same word, and deepen it.

To the Jews, he says, “God’s Word isn’t just an expression of God’s wisdom or his will; God’s Word, as I’m using the term, is God himself.”

To the Greeks, he says, “You’ve heard of the Word. But this ‘Word’ that you imagine gave order to the universe is in fact much deeper, much greater, than you think.”

Now I’m going to skip ahead a minute just to clarify where John is going, because we won’t get there for a couple weeks. In v. 14 and 17, John says this:

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth… 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

In this prologue, John wants it to be clear that when he speaks about “the Word”, he’s not talking about a message, and he’s not talking about an impersonal force: he’s talking about Jesus Christ.

So when John says, “In the beginning was the Word,” he’s saying that beginning in the very first verse of the Bible, Genesis 1.1, when he says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” Jesus was there. The Word was with God.

And he goes even further; not only was the Word with God; the Word was God.

Jesus Christ is God himself.

Now of course if you think about this even for a moment, you’ll run up against a logical problem: how can Jesus be both with God, and God? I don’t say “I’m with myself,” I say, “I am myself.” The Bible says that God sent Jesus Christ; how can Jesus Christ be sent by God, and yet still be God himself?

It’s a tricky question, and one that doesn’t have an easy answer.

Basically, it’s this. God is one God, and this one true God has for all eternity manifested himself in three distinct persons: the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. The Father is not the Son; the Son is not the Father; the Spirit is neither the Son, nor the Father. But at the same time, the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God.

Do you follow me? Yeah, neither do I.

And that’s okay—we don’t need to understand how that’s possible, but the Bible clearly says that not only is it possible, it’s true.

That’s the concept that John is introducing here. This “Word” is eternal; in the beginning (that is, before the creation of the world), the Word was with God—and not only that, the Word was God. The Son has always been with God, and the Son has always been God. Jesus Christ is God. That’s the first thing we see here.

Jesus Is Creator (v. 3)

The second thing is an extension of the first, and it’s another callback to the creation story in Genesis 1. V. 3:

3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Every single thing that has ever existed or will ever exist owes its existence to Jesus Christ—why? Because he made it all.

To put it another way, when we read Genesis 1, and we see God say, “Let there be light,” Jesus is the one who turned the light on. When God says, “Let the dry land appear” out of the water, Jesus is the one who made the dry land appear. When God says, “Let there be animals of all kinds, on land and in the water,” Jesus is the one who made the animals. When God says, “Let us make man in our own image,” Jesus is the one who made the first man and the first woman.

Everything that exists—including you and me—was made by Jesus Christ.

One of the things we celebrate at Christmas is the fact that the Son of God came to earth in human form, as a human baby. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and the virgin Mary carried him in her womb for nine months.

Think about this for a minute. For nine months, Jesus is a fetus, growing in the womb of a young woman he himself created. When he’s born, he’s delivered by a young woman through a process he himself designed. When she changes him for the first time, the hands that change him are hands that he himself made.

The Creator God comes to live amongst his creation—even to be dependent on his creation to live. It’s the most incredible event in human history.

And not only did Jesus Christ make all things; he maintains all things. Hebrews 1.3 says,

[Christ] is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

EVERYTHING. From the greatest to the smallest, from the most significant to the most mundane. The first time Mary nursed him, she could do it because Christ was telling her body to make milk.

If your heart is still beating in your chest (and I presume that it is), that heart beats because Jesus is telling it to beat. If the world is still turning on its axis, it’s because Jesus is telling it to turn. When the sun rose this morning, it’s because Jesus told it to rise.

Jesus Is Life (v. 4a)

The fact that all things were made through Christ brings us to an obvious truth—not only did he create all things, not only does he continue to maintain his creation, but he brings life to that creation. V. 4:

4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

Now there are obviously two aspects to this verse, and we’ll look at them separately. First: in him was life.

A minute ago we said that Christ sustains the world he created. And he does this indiscriminately: he sustains our lives, but he also sustains plants and animals and mountains and oceans. Every human being that has life has it through Christ, and Christ does not demand that we believe in him to keep our hearts beating.

But there is another life that he brings, and it is mainly this life John is referring to here. (It’s this life to which he will return over and over in this gospel.)

We can see what he’s talking about by looking at its opposite, which we also see early in the book of Genesis. If you remember, in chapter 2, God creates human beings, and he tells them they can eat from any tree that he has created except for one. He says in Genesis 2.17: “…of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Now of course that’s not immediately true: Adam and Eve continued to live long after they ate from that tree. But in the moment when they disobeyed God by eating from the tree, they suffered a different kind of death: a spiritual death—a poison which changed everything about them, and everyone who would come after them.

Here’s what we need to see: Jesus’s coming is the antidote to that poison. It was the reversal of that spiritual death.

Paul said it this way in Ephesians 2.1-2a, 4-5:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked… 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ…

Christ gives us life. He keeps our hearts beating, he keeps our lungs beating. But he was already doing that before he took on a human nature; he did that from the very beginning of creation.

When he came to this earth as a human being, he came to make us fully alive. Not just physically alive, but totally and eternally alive. Outside of faith in Christ there is temporary survival—but there is no true life outside of him.

Real life—the real, abundant life Jesus promises—is only found in him.

Part of that life is, simply put, salvation. It is the gift that Christ gave us, by living a perfect life and being punished in our place for our sins, and giving us his life so that we can be declared righteous by God and live eternally with him. That is the life he has promised us, for all eternity, when he returns: life in a world where there is no death, no sickness, no pain, no mourning, but only joy and peace in him, forever.

Jesus Is Light (v. 4b-5)

But that can seem awfully ethereal to us, can’t it? It’s hard to even imagine it, much less benefit from it today. And that’s why I said that this eternal life is only part of the life that we find in Christ.

The other part—the part John focuses on in this passage—is very much for today: it is the ability to see the world rightly, as God sees it.

V. 4 again:

4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

So again, this is a callback to the creation narrative—the first thing God says at creation is, Let there be light. And Christ makes the light.

But again, that’s not all he is doing. This isn’t just a reminder that Jesus is God the Creator. There is a reason John uses the word “light” to describe Jesus, as we see again and again in his gospel, and the reason is obvious.

A couple years ago we were on vacation near Bordeaux, and one day we went to a corn maze with the whole family. It was great fun: we found our way through, there were some puzzles to solve, it was great. Now we also had tickets to come back later on and do the maze again at night. So Jack and I did that. It was a very different experience, doing that maze after the sun had set. It was pitch black—we were in the middle of nowhere—and all I had was the little flashlight on my phone. It was a little unsettling.

There’s a reason why kids are afraid of the dark: you never know what can be hiding in the shadows when it’s dark. But whatever scared us at night doesn’t usually scare us so badly in the day, because the sun illuminates everything, and shows us what’s there.

Or think of it this way. We’ve all had the experience of walking through the house in the middle of the night, and seeing something that looks exactly like a person standing near us. We jump, we spin around, we turn on the light, and with the light on we see that it was really just a coat hanging from the coat rack.

Light shows us the world as it actually is.

The Bible reminds us over and over again that we do not see well. And it’s not just because we have poor vision; we don’t see well, mainly, because left to ourselves we are walking in darkness (figuratively speaking). Ever since the first man and woman rebelled against God and sin entered into the world,  every human being that came after has had something like spiritual cataracts. We can see the world, but we don’t see it well; sin covers our eyes, keeping us from seeing the world as it is. Not only that, but the world itself has been corrupted by sin, plunged into darkness. On our own, we’re like people with cataracts trying to find our way through a corn maze in the middle of the night with no light.

And that is why the coming of Jesus Christ is so significant. The promise of a Savior is the promise of light. Eight centuries before Christ came, the prophet Isaiah wrote this prophecy (Isaiah 9.2, 6-7):

2   The people who walked in darkness

have seen a great light;

those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,

on them has light shone…

6  For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given;

and the government shall be upon his shoulder,

and his name shall be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

7  Of the increase of his government and of peace

there will be no end,

on the throne of David and over his kingdom,

to establish it and to uphold it

with justice and with righteousness

from this time forth and forevermore.

God promised light in the darkness. Light to show us the world as it really is. And he said that when this light came, it would not come in the form of mysticism; it wouldn’t come in the form of vague philosophy; it wouldn’t come in the form of an intense feeling or an emotional experience or intellectual rigor. He said that when the light came, it would come in the form of a King. A King whose goal is not to amass wealth and power for himself, but to establish justice and peace, to care for the people under his reign. A King both good enough to show his people the right way to live, the way he created them to live, and a King who is powerful enough to keep the darkness at bay.

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

(The word translated “overcome” in the ESV is most often used to convey understanding or acceptance, as in the French: les ténèbres ne l’ont pas accueillie, or in an alternative note in the NIV: the darkness has not understood it.)

This is a truth many of us have a hard time with. We like the idea of illumination. We like the thought that we are able to see things as they are. But we don’t like the truth of the Bible, that in order to see things as they are, in order to be “illuminated,” we have to submit to a King. Jesus will later say (in John 3.19) that left to their own devices, people love the darkness rather than the light, because their works are evil, and the light exposes that evil. The light that allows us to see the world as it is also forces us to see ourselves as we are.

So we have a choice—a choice not dissimilar to that given to many characters in many stories throughout history. Seeing things as they are might be frightening, because we may not like what we see, at least at first.

But we still want to see, because we all know deep down that seeing things as they are is better than continuing in the darkness of ignorance. So if we want to see things as we are, there is only one place we can go.

If you want to see things as they really are, look at Jesus. He is the light that shines in the darkness. Much of Jesus’s teaching in the gospels consists of Jesus correcting misconceptions about the world. We remember the Sermon on the Mount, the number of times he said, “You’ve heard it said that… But I say to you, the problem is even deeper than that. You think one thing is going on, when in fact there’s a lot more to it.” If you want to see the world rightly, look at Jesus.

If you want to see yourselves rightly, look at Jesus. The image that always comes to mind when I think of this is a bit crude, but I think it’s appropriate; it’s the idea of quality control. When you’re making something, you need to take stock of how well the work is going; that’s quality control. The foundation of all quality control is the established standard of what the thing you’re making should be. There is a norm you are meant to adhere to, and it’s by comparing the thing to that norm that you can know how it’s going.

Well, the standard of humanity’s quality control is Jesus Christ. The standard we had to follow was first given by God in his law, and then Jesus came and showed us that the Law was even more demanding than the people of Israel had imagined.

He is the only human being who has never sinned, who is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature (Hebrews 1.3). So it is only in comparison to Christ that we can see what we are truly like. We might think we’re “good people”—but how does that idea stack up next to the perfect standard Jesus sets? Not very well: no human being who has ever lived will pass that quality control. We need something else. We need a Savior to right our wrongs.

And a Savior is exactly what God sent, in the person of Jesus Christ. Which tells us what kind of a God he is. If you want to see the world rightly, look at Jesus. If you want to see yourselves rightly, look at Jesus. And if you want to see God rightly, look at Jesus.

This God is a God of perfect righteousness and perfect justice. He would have been right to punish every human being throughout history for our rebellion against him, for all eternity. But that’s not what he did. He sent his Son, the light into the darkness, holiness into sin, life into death, so that he might take the punishment instead of his people.

The reason we talk about sin so much in the church is not to make us feel bad; it’s not to show us how horribly wicked we all are. The reason we talk about sin so much is to remind us how incredibly good God is. He didn’t have to show us this grace. He didn’t have to redeem and reclaim and forgive people he created.

But he did, because he is good. He is life, and he is light. Light cannot do anything but shine.

So the fundamental call on each and every one of us today is to turn our eyes toward Jesus.

Maybe this morning you’re doubting whether you can come to him or not. You can; that’s why Jesus came. Look to him.

Maybe you’re reading this text and realizing you have taken his grace horribly for granted, treating it as normal when it is anything but. Look to Jesus; remember the gift he is.

Maybe you’re reading this text and you’re simply overwhelmed by God’s goodness to us in Christ. If that’s you, you’re where you need to be. Keep looking.

No matter where we are, no matter what’s happening in our lives, this is our call. Look to Jesus—God himself, our Creator, our life, and our light.

Elders

1 Timothy 3.1-7

As you may or may not know, last week we had a general assembly in the church, where we sat down with our members and discussed important things going on in the life of the church. And of course there was a lot to talk about.

But one of the most important things—even more important than the change of venue—was the discussion of a man going through the process of being trained and assessed to become an elder in the church. The man in question is Eduardo, whom most of you know. We wanted to clarify where we were in the process with Eduardo, and what our plans were going forward.

As you know we finished our series in Paul’s letter to the Romans last week, and we’ll be going into our Advent series next week; we had a week in the schedule where we weren’t sure what to do. So the elders decided that it would be a good idea to jump on the subject we just addressed in the assembly last week, and take some time to teach on eldership—in other words, to talk about what an elder is, what we do, what you should expect of us and how you should respond to us. And by extension, what you should be keeping an eye out for in Eduardo over the next few months.

Now there’s a whole lot I’d like to say this morning that I don’t have time to say—particularly regarding our position on men and women in leadership in the church. If you’ve been coming to the church for a while you know our position. We believe that in almost every aspect of the life of the church men and women can and should serve equally: we need the gifts that every member of the body of Christ brings to the table, and we cannot only grow if we have the men on one side and the women on the other. That’s why we have women deacons (like Phoebe, whom we saw two weeks ago in Romans 16), women who serve in the church counsel, women who hold positions of responsibility in every area of ministry in the church.

There is only one role in the church that God, in the Bible, explicitly reserves for certain, qualified men—and that is the role of elder, or overseer, as it is translated here. There are a lot of places on our website where we talk about this—if you have any questions you can go to our sermon series on 1 Timothy or the series called “Distinctives,” in which we cover this subject at length.

But to give you a five-second summary: the Bible is clear that God desires for the initiative for leadership in the church and in the home to be taken by men who live their lives sacrificially, in the image of the man Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who gave himself for his people. He is the model, and that model is made visible when a godly man sacrifices himself for the good of his church, for the good of his family, to help them become holy as Christ is holy.

That is the goal, and if you want to know more about that, like I said, there are plenty of resources on our website.

But that’s not the subject we’d like to talk about today. We’d like to get into the details of what an elder should look like—what should characterize an elder in the church. Before we see that, however, we need to take a moment to define exactly what it is an elder does.

What do elders do?

In today’s passage Paul doesn’t lay out all the details of an elder’s tasks, but we do know from other places in the Bible what the elders are called to do.

Firstly, Paul summarizes the responsibilities of elders a little later in this same book, in 1 Timothy 5.17:

Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.

There are a lot of things we can see just here, but briefly, and first of all, elders rule, or govern, the church. This means it is their responsibility to lead the church in the way the Bible would have them lead it. The elders are the ones responsible for the spiritual health of the church: for making decisions related to that spiritual health, for exercising church discipline, and praying for the Spirit’s wisdom to guide the church faithfully.

Secondly, elders preach and teach. It is their responsibility to preach the whole counsel of God to the people under their care. This is why at Église Connexion you’ll hear lots of different voices in lots of different contexts, but the preaching of the Word during corporate worship is always done by an elder or by someone in training to become an elder.

Next, it is their responsibility to care for the church of God. Paul says to the church in Ephesus (in Acts 20.28):

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

This is why, although we are all called to care for one another in the church, there are many cases in which the elders will be called to exercise a particular care towards our members, particularly in regards to spiritual matters. We can’t solve every problem, but we are called to pay careful attention to you, to care for the church that Christ has obtained with his own blood.

And the Bible also tells us how elders should do all this. In Luke 22.26, Jesus says,

Let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves.

In 2 Corinthians 13.10 Paul says that God gave him authority over the church for building up and not for tearing down. So the authority God gives to pastors or elders in the church is a servant authority: it is not an authority which allows the pastors to dominate those in the church, but rather which will free them to serve them out of love.

The elders have a responsibility before God to do these things, and it is an incredibly serious responsibility. The author of the letter to the Hebrews tells the Hebrew churches (Hebrews 13.17),

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.

That reality is a weighty and frightening thing for an elder to shoulder. So given the seriousness of this call, the question we’re asking today is, how do we know that a man is fit to do this work?

What are the qualifications for elders?

V. 1:

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.

So first off, this term “overseer” is synonymous with what Paul means when he says “elder” or “pastor.” In Acts 20.17-35, Paul refers to the elders of the church of Ephesus as “overseers.” In 1 Peter 5.1-2, elders are encouraged to “shepherd” the flock of God, which is of course the role of a pastor. J.B. Lightfoot wrote, “It is a fact now generally recognized by theologians of all shades of opinion, that in the language of the New Testament the same officer in the Church is called indifferently ‘bishop [overseer]’ (Gk. episkopos) and ‘elder’ or ‘presbyter’ (Gk. presbyteros).”

Secondly, many people who feel called to the pastorship hesitate to move forward with it for fear of appearing arrogant or prideful. But Paul encourages us to realize that it’s not a bad thing to aspire to this office: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.

But there is a big “but”—simply aspiring to the office of overseer is not enough. There are conditions. Every man who is elected to the role of elder must meet certain criteria. These are the characteristics that I was evaluated on when I went through assessment by Acts 29 before planting this church; these are the characteristics that Paul and Arnaud and Joe were evaluated on; these are the criteria we are assessing now in Eduardo. So what are the criteria?

2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach…

This is a kind of summary term for everything that follows; it basically means that this man should be free of major character flaws that would be damaging for the church. It doesn’t mean he’s perfect—no one is, not even Paul—but he should be known for living a godly life.

…the husband of one wife…

Now, he’s not just referring to polygamy here—he’s not saying, for example, that as long as you only have one wife, you can do what you want with her and with your own heart and mind.

A modern equivalent of this term would be to say that he is a “one-woman man.” His heart and his mind are entirely devoted to his wife. She is his standard of beauty, inside and out, which means he’s not going to be looking around at other women like a farmer at an agricultural forum looking at cows. He’s a one-woman man.

(So what about single guys? Arnaud isn’t married. Eduardo isn’t married. Even if you’re not married, remember this: most of you probably will be one day, and when you are, that woman is your woman. You will have no other. So single men are exhorted to guard your heart and mind carefully, as if they were already married; God calls you to only have eyes for the woman he will give you.)

…sober-minded…

This word speaks to the emotional life of the man. He’s a man who is not easily excitable, not easily provoked, but rather is poised enough to be led by the Spirit, and not his emotions.

…self-controlled…

This means that he should be able to focus, to not be easily distracted. He should be able to control his mind, control his tongue, control his behavior, to reflect the Spirit’s work in his heart.

…respectable…

This means that his life is well-ordered; it’s not characterized by chaos. Have you ever known someone whose car was always a mess, who’s always late, whose conversations are always rushed, who always seems to be thinking about a million things at the same time, who’s just generally disordered? This is one area where I struggle (ask my wife). It’s not easy to respect a guy like that.

To be respectable means that this guy has a good handle on his priorities, to the point that other people can see that even if he’s not perfect, he’s able to bear the weight and complexities of his life, which means he can bear the complexities of the church he’s called to lead.

…hospitable…

I’ll admit that this word bothers me, because it’s the qualification I have the hardest time with. I’m naturally clumsy on the social front, quite shy, and I have a hard time speaking to people I don’t know. I’m getting better, but it’s a struggle.

One thing reassures me, though, and that’s Jesus’s own behavior. Jesus didn’t necessarily seek out everyone—it’s just not possible—but he never refused anyone who came to him. It is this welcome that is most important, it seems to me. Whoever it is, whatever the need, the elder must welcome everyone the best he can, without playing favorites.

…able to teach…

Every elder should be able to teach. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that every elder will preach on a regular basis; but every elder should be able to teach. And this doesn’t necessarily mean teaching by standing up in front of people and laying out a sermon. My first boss was Philip Moore, who taught me immensely in informal settings: by inviting me and my wife to come to his house and watch him interact with his wife and kids, or by talking me through the gospel implications of whatever situation I was going through. Being able to teach means being able to sit down with someone and say, “Now how does the gospel come to bear on this situation?”, and being able to answer that question.

…not a drunkard…

So this is someone who isn’t addicted to outside influences—whether alcohol, or drugs, or entertainment, or whatever. God gives us good things that can be release valves for us—playing with our kids, playing sports, whatever… But our main release, our main need, our only addiction, if I could put it that way, should be Christ, and Christ alone.

…not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome…

It’s amazing to see how many men are prone to ridiculous outbursts of anger. Now, I believe this extends to not just violence done with our hands, but also with our mouths. Remember what Paul said to the Ephesians (4.29)?

29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

This is the kind of man he’s referring to. This kind of man can sit down with an unruly person, or wife, or child, and rather than reacting on his anger, can help that person see the root of his sin. He is gentle. His goal is not to beat down, but to help the person in front of him.

…not a lover of money…

This is another kind of addiction, and there are few things that will ruin a man more quickly than a love of money. Why? Because it shows where his treasure is. Jesus said in Matthew 6.19-21,

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Next, v. 4:

4 He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 5 for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?

He knows how to love his wife as Christ loved the church; he knows how to sacrifice for her and provide for her; and he knows how to raise his children well.

Now, I believe this is more than merely being able to keep your kids in line. I believe it because of what Paul said in Ephesians 6.4:

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

In other words, kids may well obey their parents, but the kind of obedience we’re working for is joyful obedience, glad submission.

I’ll never forget one of the greatest lessons in parenting I’ve ever learned. A couple years ago we were hanging out with some. We were walking to the park with them, and one of the kids (he must have been six or seven at the time) kept on running when Del, the dad, said to stop. Finally Del had to raise his voice a little to get his attention, and the kid threw a tantrum. And what Del did was amazing.

He squatted down in front of his son, calmed him down and said, “Jeth, do you think God loves you?” (This got my attention—it was not the kind of question I would have thought to ask a six-year-old in that context.)

Jeth said, Yes.

“Do you think God knows what’s best for you?” Yes.

“Who did God give you as a daddy?” You.

“Okay. So I want you to think about this. When you throw a tantrum because daddy told you not to run, you’re basically telling God he made a mistake and gave you a bad daddy, a daddy who tells you not to run because he doesn’t want you to be happy. God gave me to you as your daddy because you need someone to take care of you, to help you learn what’s dangerous and what’s safe. And when you throw a tantrum when I tell you not to do something, you’re saying that I’m wrong to tell you no, and that God was wrong to give you a daddy like me.”

(Jeth was very quiet—you could tell he was thinking this through carefully.)

Del said, “Now, is that what you really think? That God gave you a bad daddy?” He didn’t say anything, just shook his head.

“So how can you show God that he was right, that you know he gave you a good daddy who loves you and wants you to be safe?” I can obey you.

Now, Del could have simply said, “Don’t run because I said so!” and then spanked his son. But he didn’t; he took the time to explain to his son what was at the root of his sin, and directed his gaze to Christ. He is not provoking his children to anger; but rather he is bringing them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. He is keeping his children submissive, with dignity; he managed his household well.

6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil.

So it’s obvious (at least I hope it is) that an elder should be a converted Christian who manifests evidence of his faith in Christ. What he should not be is a recent convert. John Stott writes, “Although the modern western custom of ordaining people in their twenties straight from college has much to commend it, it also has its dangers, if they have had insufficient time since conversion to put down roots and to grow up in Christ.”

The danger, according to Paul, is pride: that he may become puffed up with conceit. This pride was the reason why Satan rebelled against God, so if we continue in that pride we may well share in his consequence, and prove the reality (or no) of our faith. An elder should be mature enough in his faith to have grown in humility, and to have proven that humility in the way he interacts with other Christians: he should have shown that his desire is not to further his own interests, but those of others.

7 Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.

Lastly, an elder must have a good reputation with people outside the church. We all represent the gospel to the world around us, and the pastors even more so. If they fall into disgrace, at least in the eyes of outsiders, so does the gospel. This is the snare of the devil—he works tirelessly to discredit the gospel in the eyes of unbelievers, and this is one of the main ways in which he does it.

Now you may or may not have noticed this, but if you go back through the list of qualifications Paul gives here, they are of a very particular sort. With only one exception, they concern the elder’s character. Only one qualification—the ability to teach—has anything to do with the man’s competency. Every other thing we see here concerns his holiness, his character, the way he lives.

This is shockingly counter-cultural, because it means that, according to the Word of God, holiness is more important than skill. Godly character is more important than talent. A church would be better off with an elder who has few visible skills, but who is holy, than with an elder who is incredibly skilled, knowledgeable and talented, but who doesn’t live in obedience to God. Incompetence is preferable to sinfulness.

Why does God want qualified elders?

So those are the things we look for in potential elders; it is on that basis that we assess them. Now, I’d like to take a step back for a moment and consider not only what the qualifications are, but rather the fact that God gives qualifications in the first place. This is not a role anyone can simply assume; biblically, no one can simply assert authority over the church to lead it.

The fact that Paul gives qualifications for eldership is incredibly significant.

First of all, it means that God wants the church protected—everyone in the church. The fact that there are qualifications for eldership means that you, ladies, are protected. Paul never suggests that women should generally submit to men. When we hear a word like “submission” used to speak about women, we hate it, because we’ve seen how often women have been abused by irresponsible, prideful, cruel men.

Paul shares our concern. This is why these qualifications concern the man’s character, and not his skill: if Paul is going to tell anyone to submit to a man, he wants to make it absolutely, crystal clear that this man should be a man worth following. And he wants it to be clear that the other men in the congregation submit to the elders in the exact same way.

Secondly, God wants the church to approve. The fact that there are qualifications means that an elder should not merely be called by God to this responsibility, but he should be elected and approved by the church.

Think of God’s grace in this: you, the church, are never expected to simply take a man’s word for it that it really is God calling him to be an elder. I’m sorry, but the fact that you may feel a calling on your life doesn’t mean that your calling is legitimate—you might be wrong! It may not be God calling you to this work, but simply your own ego!

And one of the safeguards God puts in place to make sure someone doesn’t lead the church by a mistaken calling, by pure charisma, just because he wants to, is this list of qualifications. You may say you’re called—great! Prove it. You are still subject to the church, who should be able to examine your life and see whether or not you’re actually equipped to do the work. So elders in Christian churches are not merely called, but elected and approved by the church.

Next, God wants the church holy. In 1 Peter 5.3, Peter tells the elders of the churches,

Do not domineer over those in your charge, but be examples to the flock.

So both men and women, this is for you. You may have heard everything I said about the qualifications for elders, and thought they don’t concern you because you’re not a pastor, and maybe you have no intention of ever being a pastor.

That’s just not the case—these things do concern you. The elders of the church are not merely leaders, but are meant to be examples for the Christians in their church to follow. In other words, our qualifications are your qualifications too. With the exception of the ability to teach, the qualifications listed here are not related to talent or ability, but to character. And those character traits are things God calls us all to.

What does God call you to do?

First of all, expect much of your elders. These qualifications are quite specific, and they don’t so much describe things the elders are to do, so much as what kind of men we should be. So hold us to this high standard; expect us to be this kind of man.

Second, pray for your elders and their families. The weight on your elders is immense: it is their responsibility to guide and direct and care for and teach all the people under their care. It’s a lot to take home with you. And inevitably, some of this burden will fall on our wives. Our kids will have to sacrifice their daddies on many weekends and evenings. The elders need your prayer; the elder candidates need your prayer; their wives need your prayer; their children need your prayer.

Third, trust your elders. This list of qualifications for elders is quite extensive, and like I said, they have very little to do with actual ability. The qualifications listed here are, for the most part, character traits, and this is telling. The Bible places a higher premium on obedience than skill; a man who is uncharismatic and unskilled, but who resembles Christ and is mature in his faith, is better equipped to lead the church of Christ than the most charismatic and skilled orator who doesn’t resemble Christ. So if the candidates for eldership have been found to meet these qualifications, then you can trust them. By their lives, they prove that they know the Word of God and are equipped to lead.

Fourth, submit to your elders. I’ll say it again: if the men who are appointed as elders are the kind of men Paul describes here, and if they faithfully do all that the Bible calls the elders to do, the people in their congregation will have nothing to say. They’ll have no complaints, and no desire to undermine their authority; they’ll be thankful for it, and gladly support it.

God is not calling us to dominate or to selfishly manipulate you; rather, he calls us to serve you and work for you. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1.24,

Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.

If your elders live in a way which is contrary to the qualifications God has given for them, then their leadership should be called into question; but if they live according to these qualifications, it is easy to submit to such a man.

One more thing. Trust God to lead your church well. Ultimately it is no one elder, or any group of elders, who leads the church, but Christ. The buck does not stop with us; Christ is the head of the church, not the elders. And this is our ultimate assurance. Men, no matter how qualified they are, are imperfect, and even the best of elders will do their work imperfectly. But Christ is perfect, and he is the head of the church, and he always leads perfectly. God remains 100% sovereign over his church, and he is a good God, so you have nothing to worry about. We will sometimes make mistakes, but he never does.