Always

God with Us Always John 1:1-18 Pastor Pat Damiani December 22, 2019 NOTE: This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript. For this sermon series, I am also indebted to Life Church and Pastor Craig Groeschel, who have provided some of the ideas that shaped this message and who have also provided graphics and other supporting materials at no charge. [Video] Good morning and welcome to the final week of our current series – God with Us. This series is based on this familiar passage from Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus. Will you read it out loud with me: All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). (Matthew 1:22–23 ESV) During this series, we’re looking at different seasons of life and how God is with us during those times. In week 1, we discovered that God is with us in the valleys and we developed this main idea: We may enjoy God on the mountaintops, but we get to know Him intimately in the valleys Two weeks ago, we saw how God is with us in the wilderness and we developed this main idea: Your deepest need becomes a gift when it drives you to depend on God Last week, we looked at how God is with us in the storms of life and developed this idea: Never allow the presence of a storm cause you to doubt the presence of God Today we’re going to wrap up this series by focusing on how the event that we celebrate this time of year – the birth of Jesus – assures us that God is with us always. We have a theological term that describes this event: incarnation. While I know that many of you are familiar with that term, perhaps it is new to some of you. So we’re going to take some time this morning to describe what it means and, even more importantly, why it is the proof that God is with us always. It’s interesting to me that over the past few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to think a lot about the incarnation in a number of different settings, most of which had absolutely nothing to do with the preparation of this message. But even after all the time I’ve spent thinking about the birth of Jesus, I had a hard time putting those thoughts into the right words to communicate its significance to you. So I went to my “go to” source for information on Christianity and the Bible – Wikipedia. I mean after all if it’s on the internet it has to be true, right? Now Wikipedia has apparently updated its entry on Incarnation recently, so it doesn’t read exactly like this now, but here is how they defined the incarnation before some of those updates: In Christian theology, the doctrine of the incarnation holds that Jesus, the preexistent divine logos and the second hypostasis of the Trinity, God the Son, and the Son of the Father, taking on human body and human nature, was made flesh, conceived in the womb of Mary the Theotokos. The doctrine of the incarnation then entails that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human, two natures joined in hypostatic union. After that definition, there really isn’t a whole lot more to say about the incarnation is there? You all understand that, right? So let’s go ahead and pray and take our offering and go home. I am far from being an expert theologian, but I have had a fair amount of Biblical education and training and I can’t tell you what most of that definition means. So if you get it, you are certainly much more intelligent and educated than I am, which is certainly possible. But for the rest of us, I came across another explanation of the incarnation that speaks to me much better, and I’m going to guess that is probably true for most of us here this morning. God could have shouted His love from heaven. Instead he showed it to us on earth. In order to explore this idea further, we’re going to look at the opening words of John’s gospel account. [Read John 1:1-18] John begins his gospel account with words that bring to mind the opening words of the Bible – “In the beginning…”. In a moment we’ll see the significance of that. And then he begins to write about “the Word”. Some of you may know that “word” is the translation of the underlying Greek word “logos”. And one of the reasons that I read all the way to verse 18 just a moment ago was so that we could see that John is clearly using that term to refer to Jesus. But why would John do that? Why wouldn’t he just use the name Jesus here? Clearly John uses the term “Word” here to communicate something important about Jesus. In the culture of John’s day, the idea of the “logos” had important connotations to both Greeks and Jews. The Greeks used the term “logos” to describe an impersonal force which gave life and meaning to the universe. So to the Greeks, John presents Jesus as a personal being who embodies the concept of their concept of the “logos”. For the Jews, the “word of the Lord” was an important theme in the Old Testament. There, the word of God was an expression of His divine power and wisdom. By His Word, God created the world – thus the use of the words “In the beginning…” as the opening words of both Genesis and John’s gospel. It was also by His word that God made covenants with His people and gave His law and revealed his plans to the prophets. So to the Jews, John presents Jesus as the embodiment of divine power and revelation. Using the word “logos” also helps us to understand the idea we developed earlier. When God wanted to express His love to those He had created, He didn’t just shout it from heaven. Instead He showed us that love on earth by sending His Son, who was God’s personal message of love, hope, forgiveness and salvation. In verse 1, John tells us that from the beginning, this “logos” “was with God” and “was God”. All three times that the verb “was” is used in verse 1, it is in the imperfect tense, which is very significant here. The imperfect tense describes a continuing action in the past. So the idea here is that Jesus always was with God and was God. He did not suddenly become God at a certain point in time because He always was God. You’ll note than John also uses that same imperfect tense in verse 2 where he repeats the idea that the Word was with God in the beginning. This idea that Jesus had always been God is confirmed in verse 3, where John reveals that He, along with God the Father created all things. That is significant because it confirms the fact that Jesus is not a created being. Although the rest of the passage is important and there is much we could learn from it, I want us to now skip down to verse 14 because it will help us to further develop today’s main idea. There we read that the Word “became flesh”. It is significant that verb “became” is in what is known as the aorist tense. An aorist verb is used to describe something that happened at one point in time in the past. It differs from the imperfect tense that Paul used in verse 1 and 2 because it is not a continuing action. So at a particular point in time, the Word, Jesus, became flesh. That is why the birth of Jesus is so significant. Jesus, who always was, is and will be 100% God, took on a body of flesh that first Christmas and became 100% man as well. He didn’t cease to be God, although as Paul tells us in Philippians 2, He did willingly lay aside some of HIs divine attributes while he lived here on earth. So, and this is absolutely crucial for our salvation, Jesus was and continues to be, 100% God and 100% man at the same time. I don’t fully understand how that works. If you do, I’d love to talk to you after our gathering today. But there is no doubt that is exactly what John is teaching us here, so even though I don’t totally understand it, I do believe it. Jesus had to be a man in order to die for our sins. The penalty for sin requires suffering in body and soul and the shedding of blood. And only a human can do those things. Only a human can die physically. We also see in Hebrews that not only did Jesus share in our human nature, but as a man, He also identifies with us in the suffering that comes as a result of sin in this world, even though He never sinned personally. Jesus had to be God in order to satisfy God’s wrath. No human could ever bear the weight of God’s judgment for our sins. Only as God could Jesus bring a sacrifice of such infinite and eternal value that it would serve to satisfy God’s wrath. And only as God was it possible for Jesus to impute His righteousness to us so that we might be able to stand before a holy God. We also see here in verse 14 that Jesus “dwelt among us”. John uses an unusual word here. He could have merely said that Jesus came to “live” among us. But instead he uses a verb that literally means to “pitch a tent” or to “tabernacle”. It is the same word used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament to describe the tabernacle, the portable tent where God manifest His presence up until the time the more permanent temple was eventually built by King Solomon. By using that term, John is not saying that Jesus’ humanity was temporary, but rather that His time here on earth was. Jesus is still fully human today. He ascended to heaven in a physical body and He is going to return to this earth again one day physically. I think Eugene Peterson captures the essence of this verse very well in his Message paraphrase: The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. (John 1:14 The Message) Or, as we said earlier… God could have shouted His love from heaven. Instead he showed it to us on earth. When God wanted us to know just how much He loves us, he didn’t just shout it from heaven or even send a messenger down to earth to tell us that. Instead, He came to earth in the body of a man to show us firsthand just how much He loves us. But, you may be asking at this point, didn’t Jesus return to the Father after His resurrection? So how can you say that God is with us always? That’s a fair question, but it is actually very easy to answer. Shortly before His death, Jesus was speaking to His disciples and preparing them for the time when He would no longer be with them physically. If you still have your Bibles open. Go ahead and turn to John chapter 14. Jesus begins the conversation here by telling His disciples that He was going to leave them to go prepare a permanent home for them and that one day He would return to take them to be with Him there for eternity. He then has conversations with Thomas and Phillip where He reinforces the truth that He is God in the flesh and that therefore He is the only way to God. He also reminds then that because they have seen Him and been with Him that they have in essence seen the Father. Then in verse 16, He explains how He is going to continue to be present with them – and with us – in the meantime: And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. (John 14:16–17 ESV) Even though Jesus is no longer physically present with us here on this earth, every person who has become His disciple by putting their faith in Him now has the Holy Spirit dwelling permanently in us. The word that is translated “dwells” here is a different verb than John used back in chapter 1. This verb means to remain, to stay, or to abide. And it is also in the present tense, which means that it is a continuing action. It is something that is happening right now and will continue to happen. I’ve often heard for Christians who long to experience the physical presence of Jesus, just like His disciples did while he was on the earth. But we actually have something much better. While Jesus was on this earth, He was limited by His humanity to being in one place at one time. So not even His closest disciples like Peter, James and John had Him present all the time. But the Holy Spirit does not have those same limitations. He dwells permanently in the life of every believer and so God is literally with His children every moment of every day. Now do you understand how we can know without a doubt that God is with us always? God could have shouted His love from heaven. Instead he showed it to us on earth. When you receive a gift from someone else, what is the proper response? We thank the other person for the gift, right? And many times we might even write a thank you note for that gift. The gift that was brought to us that first Christmas, the presence of Jesus is without a doubt the best present ever. It is a gift that we still enjoy today because when Jesus ascended to the Father, He left us with the permanent gift of the presence of the Holy Spirit. So here’s how we’re going to respond to God today. In just a moment all of you are going to be given a thank you card, including the kids. I’ve intentionally kept the sermon much shorter today so that you’ll have time to write a thank you card to Jesus for coming to this earth to show us the love of God and for sending us the Holy Spirit so that we can know that God is with us always. When you’re done writing your card, if you’re physically able we invite you to come to the front and deposit your card in the box at the front. If you have an offering you may also bring that with you and put it in the offering plate. During this time, our Elders will be available if you would like to pray with one of us or have us pray for you. If you’re not able to bring your card or your offering up to the front, just raise your hand and someone from our hospitality team will take it up front for you. For the last four weeks, we have seen that God is with us. Not only is He with us on the mountaintops, but He is with us in the valleys and in the wilderness and in the storms. In fact, He is with us always. That is what Christmas is all about.