John 9

Intro: introduce self English and Japanese Hajimemashite, Hawado Ben tomoshimasu Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu John is written by the apostle John who also wrote the three letters of 123 John and the book of Revelation. He most likely lived longer than any other apostle because tradition tells us, the Romans tried to kill him for his faith by boiling him alive but failed and their superstitions would not allow them to try again after he survived, so he ended up imprisoned on the island of Patmos instead of being martyred. John most likely wrote his gospel sometime between 60 and 90 AD when he was older but not at the end of his life. It seems he most likely was writing it to gentile Christians who already had basic understanding and faith in Jesus but needed that faith reinforced The book is not really chronologically put together and seems to show that's it's readers will not have a strong understanding of the Old Testament, hence the Gentiles. It is, however, structured in such a way as to show that Jesus was supernatural in his powers, life, ministry and death and John's one thesis is that you must believe in this one Son of God, Jesus, who came from the father. He does this intentionally to prove his point he is making in the book and purpose he wrote it. He specifically tells us the purpose of the gospel of John in John 20:31 “…but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” This is why I have described as the purpose of our study in the book of John as “knowing and sharing Jesus”. By really examining the claims John puts forth about Jesus, we find out who he really is, and when we come to believe in him, know him, we will want to do what everyone we meet in John does when they meet Jesus, they tell others about him. We will start off with the first 5 verses of John today. Let’s Read John 1:1-5 (READ IT) 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. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 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. Let’s Pray (PRAY) The first 18 verses have been described as poetry and as a hymn. This passage along with Colossians 1 and Hebrews 1 is one of three great New Testament passages describing the nature of Jesus Christ. In this whole passage, John moves us to his culminating thought in verse 14 that "the word became flesh and dwelled among us and we beheld his glory", and it's interesting that instead of introducing Christ by starting with John the Baptist like Mark or the story of his birth like Matthew and Luke he goes back even further to the beginning. While the other gospel writers focused the same as we do on a persons history, background and physical life, John is at the very beginning making some much bigger claims about this man we know called Jesus. John in these first 5 verses gives us 6 important truths about Jesus that set the stage for how we will come to see Jesus in this gospel. The first three are all in the first verse. 1. Jesus life existed before birth outside of time and space...in the beginning. Verse 1 tells us “1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” There is another verse that starts with In the Beginning and that is Genesis 1:1, “In the Beginning, God created the Heaven’s and the earth.” Where we are introduced to the one revealed as the only supreme God and deity in Scripture, the God who revealed himself to Moses as I AM, meaning that He is everything and anything that can be, was, or will be. The same God who said as his first command in the law that you will have NO other gods before me! John introduces this person he reveals as the Word, in New Testament Greek, LOGOS, in Japanese, Gen. It is used by John in connection with the Old Testament way that often God is revealed when we see the concept of "the word of the lord", and instead of viewing it in Greek, Japanese, or English that meaning in Hebrew is what is mostly being conveyed here. The Word is how God reveals himself, and Jesus is going to be revealed as the perfect revelation of God to mankind. By opening with "in the beginning" John is clearly tying this Word, revealed later as Jesus Christ, directly to the same eternal existence as God the Father. -Jesus the man had a human beginning in a manger -Jesus the eternal son of God, destined to be our Messiah, existed before being a baby. -He is eternal, forever existing, since God is eternal as Scripture tells us. 2. The Word, Jesus, has a distinct separate identity from God. Jesus portrayed as the Son of God is not just God found in the Old Testament taking a different form. He is a distinct person with personality of his own. Verse one makes the first statement that he, the Word, is “with” God. If you are with someone you are separate from them. -with my wife or a friend, means I am not my wife or my friend. There is a view of God which falsely says that God is one God and that he takes various forms or modes as the father, the son, or the Holy Spirit, but it seems pretty clear here that John is conveying that the Word is distinct and separate from God the Father. But then so that he is very clear about the nature of this Word, Jesus, John adds one more truth in this first verse that is really mind blowing, since he just said God the father was distinct from the Word. 3. Jesus is also God. What an incredible introduction to Jesus just in this one verse...a man that all John's readers will either be familiar with or be introduced to. A man who John introduces by saying that he eternally existed before being born, was a distinct person who was present with the God of creation, and now that separate person who will be seen walking around as a human and dying is God himself. If you have ever tried to really understand how this works, it is impossible. We have given it a name and a theological construct called the Trinity- three distinct persons who share one Divine essence or deity. Three persons in one and the same God. That may describe what the Bible declares to be true but that doesn't truly explain how it works. The bottom line is this: to truly know and accept Jesus, you have to accept him as God. Not as prophet, moral person, angel, lesser deity. He is God. 4. Jesus is the creator of Life Now we come to verses 2-3 that basically reiterate and amplify verse 1. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. Our life only exists because of this man, this God-man, whose earthly name is Jesus, who John is revealing as the Word. Because what John is telling us here is that the Jesus who is God himself and has always existed is also responsible for us being here. It was through the Son of God, the Word, that God created the universe. As part of that universe, Genesis tells us that God created the first human beings where all of us can genetically trace our beginnings. The first part of verse 4 is showing us that as well when it says, “ In him was life” The New Living Translation words this as, “The Word gave life to everything that was created.” Genesis 2:7 tells us about the creation of man when it says, “the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” Now, I can’t begin to really understand or adequately explain to you exactly how Jesus, the Son of God was involved in that process, but John tells us that as a one of the three persons of God, he was intimately involved in the process of the universe coming into existence and that first human being becoming a living soul. The first part of verse 4 teaches us that the Word, Jesus, brought life to what God had created; therefore our very existence is due to his work as the creator. This teaching is significant, though, not simply because of our physical existence, but also through the spiritual life that is offered through Jesus Christ. You see while John was clearly putting Jesus Christ back at the beginning of time and showing him as an integral part of the creation process, John’s goal is to show that Jesus is the only way to true eternal spiritual life. In John 14:6, Jesus states that, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” That life that Jesus is talking about in John 14:6 is not the physical life that we experience on this earth. That would make no sense with his audience already being born and living their human lives. The life he is talking about is spiritual, one that is lived in existence with God the Father. Jesus is saying that he is the only way to experience that true spiritual life. Think for a moment just what a bold and controversial statement this is on the part of Jesus and John as he describes him. John says that he is the only source of real life physical and spiritual; and Jesus himself claimed that only he could provide the spiritual connection to our Creator that people are seeking. That means that any other means to reaching that life are invalid and meaningless and take us to a different destination than actually knowing the God who created everything we see and experience in our lives. Most people around the world and here in Japan are practicing lots of different rituals and following many different teachings trying to have a spiritual life being lived in relationship to God as they understand him. Unfortunately, no matter how much sincerity may be behind those practices, apart from Jesus Christ, the actions and devotion are without meaning. So right at the beginning of introducing Jesus, John wants us to understand that Jesus Christ is the source of all life here on earth, physical and spiritual, and that apart from him, you may have physical life, but you cannot have spiritual life. 5. Jesus’ life is available to all. The second part of verse 4 is key to understanding the spiritual life that Christ offers and why his death is important. It tells us that his life brought light to everyone - that is every man, woman and child who has ever lived past, present and future. But what is the light, and how can all of us see that same light? Light throughout the Scripture is contrasted with darkness to show the stark contrast between the holiness and purity of God and the dishonoring of God and failing to live in his purity, which is called sin. In John, the apostle John intentionally uses light to show God’s revelation of his love through Christ penetrating through the darkness of sin. In John 8:12, we read, “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’” In John 9:5 Jesus says, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” and then in John 12:46, Jesus says again, “I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.” I know that this may not translate as well into Japanese, but Erik Raymond, the pastor of Emmaus Bible Church in the United States put it well when he said that “the beauty of the gospel is that while we were infinitely sinful we were also unfathomably loved”. The light that we are introduced to is the incredible love that sees beyond our failure and our dishonoring of our creator and provided for us a path to forgiveness and true spiritual life. Romans 5:8 simply tells us that, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Christ’s death is what makes Jesus’ eternal spiritual life available to all of us. The reason is that when he died, he died as the absolutely pure and sinless sacrifice on our behalf for our sin and failure to honor God and his commands. The first part of the Bible, the Old Testament shows us a system of animal sacrifices that were used to demonstrate faith in a coming perfect sacrifice for sin. The sacrifice and payment for sin had to be of the same type as the one who committed the sin and failed to keep God’s commandments - this means it had to be a human sacrifice. The problem is that we are all sinners. The only solution was God, who can not sin, who by his nature must bring honor to himself, to become human and live a sinless life. That is why John goes through great lengths to establish that Jesus was God come in the flesh – God-man in one – because that is the only way he could also live and commit no sin. So, Christ’s death makes the light of salvation and true spiritual life available to everyone. 6. Jesus’ life cannot be destroyed Now John closes his opening remarks with the verse we will end on today, verse 5 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. Jesus came to earth as God in the flesh to give each of us the opportunity to experience real eternal spiritual life, because each of us in born and lives in a world clouded in the darkness of sin and denying the God who created us. The way he did it, though, was not expected even though it had been prophesied over and over again in the Old Testament. Instead of proclaiming his rightful authority as God and creator, he humbly died as a perfect sacrifice to pay the price for the sin and dishonoring of God that all of us have done. For a period of time, it seemed that darkness had overcome the light and put it out completely. But how could the all powerful God who claimed to bring spiritual life truly be able to do that if he himself died. That is the truly amazing truth we celebrate at Easter, that this man, Jesus, did not stay dead. While Satan orchestrated the forces of evil to destroy the life of humanity's savior, God intended all along that that death would destroy Satan's power for all time. He did that by conquering the grave which Satan thought had ended his salvation plan and extinguished his light. In reality, it was really the beginning. Although many have tried to deny Jesus' resurrection over the years since, the life of John and his other followers prove his rising from the dead. For their faith in a risen Lord and Savior, they willingly were beaten, stoned, imprisoned, whipped and killed in order to tell other people the good news that Jesus Christ died and rose again to free us from our sin and spiritual death and give us holiness and spiritual life. John himself was boiled alive and miraculously survived before dying in exile for his faith. You don't sacrifice your life for a cause in that way unless what you have witnessed is truly real, and Christ's death and resurrection was real and changed the world and can change your life. They were willing to die to take that light…that message of salvation through Jesus Christ around the world. In fact, By about AD 90, during the reign of Emperor Keiko there is some evidence that the message of salvation through Jesus Christ had reached even the shores of Japan and that there were believers here in ancient Japan. Many throughout history have tried to destroy the followers of Christ and his message, whether it was the Roman Empire, the Tokugawa Shogunate, Communism or Fundamentalist Islam today. And through it all, the light of Jesus Christ is still alive here in Japan and around the world. Today his light is showing you the path to true spiritual life and out of the death sentence from sinning and dishonoring God. It is by putting your faith, your trust for your life and future in Jesus Christ as the one who died as a sacrifice for your sin. Will you accept him by faith today?