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December 21, 2008
John 1:14
Exordium: Last Sunday we closed on the note of likening the Virgin birth of Christ to our entrance into the new life we have in Him. How kind of the Lord to pattern His birth in such a way that we can understand our new life by grasping how the Virgin birth. It was entirely God’s idea and His work- and the only human element was Mary’s simple agreement, “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)
What a remarkable way to teach us. The Christmas story which seems so simple and beautiful is actually a profound lesson in many aspects of our faith, but especially our regeneration, our rebirth. For example, it points to the enormity of problem of our sin: How much it took to overcome the guilt, the problem, the penalty of sin; How much the story illustrates for us the depth and persistence of the love of God for His people, that He would do all this – preparing for centuries and governing human history so all things would be ready for the Advent of the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Do you see all that was required to accomplish our spiritual rebirth?
Explication: That is what verse 14, our text today, is about. Right after saying that “He came to His own and they did not receive Him – But all that did receive Him are born of God.” Then we read, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
Each one of these phrases describes one of the ways God met the requirements of the new birth for us.
I. THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH
The “Word” is described in the first 13 verses and we have learned about Him in the last three weeks. The Word is the Son of God, who has always been with God – in the bosom f the Father, and is Himself God. He is the second Person of the Trinity; it is He who comes forth willing to be the Saviour from sin and to do all that is necessary to be redeemed.
How much it involved! He must exchange infinity for the finite, Spirit for flesh (the very word is tainted with sin and speaks of weakness, frailty, infirmity, mortality). Yet He was willing to so limit Himself to prepare to undergo great suffering, so great was the divine love for us.
He did not change into flesh. (He is no Superman disguised as Clark Kent.) This is the eternal God, in His second Person, assuming the very flesh which He Himself created and taking it permanently. He carries that human nature with Him now. Even in Heaven at the right hand of God, He is the God/man. Our human nature is in the highest heaven – going ahead of us to greet the dead in Christ and welcome them home.
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December 14, 2008
John 1:10-12
Exordium: Let’s look at the beginnings of Christmas through John’s eyes and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He starts from eternity and shows us God from everlasting, cherishing His Son in His bosom, and in Him He sees and loves all those on whom He has set His love, and purposed to make them part of His Kingdom.
Gradually John introduces the coming of the light into a dark world, slowly so that our eyes will not be blinded. He shows us the preparation for the entrance of the Light of the world. “There was a man sent from God” – a man to point to the light, a man named John the Baptist.
Explication: Verses 10-13 of this first chapter summarize all that we have seen in the first two weeks of this group of messages. They bring us to the entrance of the Incarnate God/man into the world. Even here it is very gradual, gathering up these amazing statements the way the sea gathers up its strength to advance the tide along the shore. Here the most important event in history is unfolded. Everything depends for us on understanding it.
First, John describes:
I. THE WORD IN THE WORLD
“He was in the world.” That is the Pre-Christmas Christ. He was active in the world from the beginning. Ever since creation all the way to his incarnation and birth He was in the world. He gave the gift of reason and conscience and the testimony of His handiwork in nature to all who entered the world through birth.
After the fall into sin and death, He immediately began the plan of salvation. He separated the human family into two: those who would be His people and those who would be left without His special revelation and allowed to go live without His Word.
His own people were to be made ready to recognize and receive Him when He comes to deliver them from their sin and make of them a royal kingdom. Those who were without His special revelation, (that outside the witness of nature) He would use to show the utter bankruptcy of the human family without the Word of God being given to them.
All this time He was in the world preparing His people by the word of the prophets, by acts of worship and sacrifice, by the ministry of the priesthood, so they would be a people prepared – to know the Messiah when they would see Him.
The world where He walked was His world. He made the ground He walked on. The elements of the world acknowledged Him as their architect.
The sky provided a star to lead the magi.
The seas were ready to support Him when He would walk to His troubled disciples during the storm.
The lilies were ready to display His creative genius and His love of beauty.
The earth was ready to quake when He suffered on the cross.
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December 7, 2008
John 1:6-8
EXORDIUM: Last week we opened this wonderful book of John with the first five verses they set the stage for the birth of our Lord into His world. You will remember has He is given to us as the everlasting One. If we can imagine back into history as far as we can go, we will discover that He is already there. He has always been there. You will recall how He said, “Before Abraham was, I am.”
We spoke together about His part in the creation of all that is – and that He is the source of life – all life – in the world and that light itself, meaning knowledge and insight, has its origin in Him.
But at verse 5 is there a problem. The matter of light causes John to speak also of the darkness. “Yes the Light shines, but it shines in darkness.”
It is this fact that gives rise to advent of John the Baptist.
I. BECAUSE OF DARKNESS, A WITNESS TO THE LIGHT IS NEEDED
Darkness has crept in through the prince of darkness, who entered and caused our first parents to sin. He is the father of lies which resist the truth. Darkness in the Bible means doubt, unbelief, rebellion, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, selfishness – all of the attributes of the one who is the prince of darkness.
The darkness has made its way into the human heart-into our hearts. It exists not only in the world, but also within our very selves.
Darkness is life without God; the life of the world when it is organized apart from the Lord who made it. Darkness is not simply the absence of light, but a positive opposition to the light, a concerted effort to stifle the light. Darkness has its own character. It does not comprehend the light, that is, understand it, and yet it cannot overpower it. It is an opponent but it cannot overcome light.
Ask any minister of the Gospel who is doing battle day by day in the trenches of building a church, any prison chaplain who looks through bars or plate glass to deal with a hardened criminal, any missionary who fights religions of superstition and fear all day, if darkness has a force of its own.
Such a force requires God’s response – God’s “counterforce” – something that will point out the light in the midst of the darkness that surrounds it. For 400 years, no prophet’s voice had been heard, though there was always a remnant of faithful souls waiting for the promised Messiah to come.
Then God broke the silence – He sent a man. The works of God are always prepared and introduced gradually, slowly, and “hiddenly” until the right moment, and then they appear suddenly. Suddenly John the Baptist appeared as a “Godsent” one.
John had spent his life in the desert, in sacred loneliness, waiting for the call; studying and going deeply into the holy laws of God, and waiting for the call to express the image that was burning in his soul. Until he could wait no longer.
Then it was given to him to recognize the long-promised Saviour. He was at hand. The kingdom was near. The Master was ready to announce His new realm to a world starved for spiritual truth and life. His name, “John” means grace – since he is a gift to the world and to the church.
The Word of God is coming very near. It just needs to be pointed to and preached and believed. John is the man to do it. He is sent for that. It is a great thing when God gets hold of a person so thoroughly that He can thrust him into the world wherever He chooses.
II. JOHN CAME AS A WITNESS Read the rest of this entry »
November 2, 2008
John 16:33
Exordium: These are the last words of the Lord Jesus. Tomorrow would be the end of His days on earth. Here, with His disciples, He sums up His life and especially His teachings in the Upper room, which constitute the last three chapters of this part of the Book of John. He leaves them with a terrific present and a powerful warning and a great promise.
Explication: These are His closing words to them, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”When Luther read these words, he wrote to his friend Philip. “These words should be carried from Rome to Jerusalem upon one’s knees.”
Jesus outlines here the two spheres of the Christian’s life and thought: IN ME and IN THE WORLD. Any other kind of Christian life will be abnormal and unbalanced. Here is God’s balance: this is the mind of Christ about the life we are to live in this world.
What a great present He gives as a going away gift by which to remember Him. Peace. He wants His followers and us to have His peace, the very peace which was His to be in us as well. That peace is an inner blessedness, a fruit of the Holy Spirit in us. It is a light within, strength, comfort, support, favor, the unction of the Spirit, purification of the heart of the recipient of this peace.
What does Jesus teach us about His peace, this marvelous present He has for us? Read the rest of this entry »
October 26, 2008
John 12:32
Exordium: This appears to be a time to worry. It has become a national reaction to the strange turns of the world in these days. But Christ calls His own people away from that anxious place. We are different from our neighbors, because we learn from Scripture that worry is a sin against the loving care of the Heavenly Father.
Worry has an active imagination-we are continually crossing streams that do not exist. Worry over money is as fatal to spiritual fruitfulness as is gloating over wealth.
There is a holy freedom for cares. This is not the light-minded carelessness of those who do not think about tomorrow. There is a Christian care that impels us to prayer and at the same time moves us to effort. We want to find that middle path between anxious care and over-negligence. The goal is a holy freedom from care-and only Christ can give us that!
Explication: Where does worry come from? Its root is fear. That is why Jesus says to us here “Fear not, little flock it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Have any warmer, more encouraging words been spoken than these from the lips of our beloved Lord Jesus?
I. CHRIST CUTS THE ROOT OF FEAR
By His command. Here is the Lord of Heaven telling us, “don’t go there.” Over and over again He warns His own about being afraid. He said this even before He was incarnate when He appeared as the Angel of the Lord to Old Testament people. His first words would always be, “don’t be afraid.”
Then when He walked among us in the days of His flesh he kept repeating “Fear not, don’t be afraid.” As His disciples struggled against the storm, He came to them walking on the water. “It is I, be not afraid.”
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July 27, 2008
John 16:5-15
Exordium: In this passage our Lord Jesus makes a momentous promise to His disciples and to us who follow him as well. He is about to leave them as far as His bodily presence goes, but He tells them (and us) that He will send a Helper to them who will do even more for them than He did while He was with them in the flesh.
The Word “helper” which Jesus uses is paraclete in the Greek, it means one who so teaches others as to delight them in His teaching-a comforter. This, of course, is the Holy Spirit whom He did send as He promised on the day of Pentecost. He was poured out in fullness then and remains with us at work the world even now.
But how do we have fellowship with this third Person of the Trinity? We have already seen the particular communion we have with the Heavenly Father is love and with the Lord Jesus is grace. In what way does the Holy Spirit hold personal intimate communion with the Christian in his or her daily walk with God?
By being that essential friend which every soul requires. That one who delights us with His teaching and His comfort.
Explication: The work of the paraclete is divided into two parts: The comforting work and the saving and sanctifying work. We confine ourselves this morning to this first part. It is in this ministry that the believer has the particular communion with the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit lives in the regenerated heart after He has saved that person. There He carries out His comforting work in the person by repeated acts of helping. The Helper, the essential friend, does this in several different ways, by a series of acts, each differing from the other, though all are connected as parts of a whole.
Comforting work does not mean just soothing words or thoughts but teachings and specific acts that help the person along the way. That is what comfort means: com=together with, and fort = courage and practical help. That is our essential friend, the Holy Spirit, the Helper. Read the rest of this entry »
John 20:20
Easter, March 23, 2008
Exordium: Usually on Easter morning the preacher takes the morning of that first Easter day and describes the glad surprise and blessing of the Lord’s rising from the dead. But I will depart from tradition and speak of Easter Evening because there the factuality and the meaning of Christ’s rising from the dead are summarized very well for us.
Explication: It is twilight in the Upper Room. They are lighting the lamps in the city and in the building. The doors are shut –tight, against any hostility left over from excitement. The disciples of Jesus are huddled together. They have been busy talking together since morning, trying to understand what has happened. Peter and John have the floor most of the day, describing very carefully what they saw early that same morning.
And then there stands the Master Himself, the One about whom they have been speaking. He passed into the room somehow. He did not come through the bolted doors.
Their experience tells us so much – and brings us close to the fact and the significance of the Easter miracle. The Holy Spirit sums it up for us in verse 19 and 20 of chapter 20.
“Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them. “Peace be with you.” And He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.” What struck the disciples in this moment?
THEY WERE STRUCK WITH THE REALITY OF THE RISEN CHRIST
