The Divine Story of Jesus and You: Introducing the Word

Sermon Quick Summary
             We are continuing our miniseries “The Divine Story of Jesus and You.” Last week, Dr. Stan Long started this series by exploring essential elements of God’s story including the opportunity to interview God through God’s self-revelation in scripture. Jesus asked the Disciples two key questions: (1) what do the people of the world say about Jesus, with a multitude of answers. (2) Then in each of the gospels Jesus asked the disciples who do you say that Jesus is? The disciple Peter responded that Jesus is the Christ of God (See Matthew 16:16, Mark 8:29, Luke 9:20, and John 6:69). This series explores these two key questions: Who is Jesus? In what ways does Jesus affect our world and us today? In this series, we are utilizing a booklet covering the life and teachings of Jesus based on scripture, spanning from the birth and childhood of Jesus to His last 40 days. This booklet is available for free at www.plusnothing.com.
            Jesus is an unavoidable figure in history. To do justice to any evaluation of Jesus, one must listen to those who walked with Jesus and knew Jesus personally. This booklet gives us the primary documents to understand who Jesus is. Through this series, we will discover afresh who Jesus is and examine how Jesus intersects with our story both personally and for society as a whole.
            The scripture text for today from John 1:1-18 is a prologue that introduces the main themes and foreshadows events that are to follow. It is vital to grasp the life and teachings of Jesus. The central figure, Jesus, is the WORD. The WORD is the crucial figure to understand the world, God, truth, grace, darkness, light, and becoming a child of God in reconciliation and right relationship with God and neighbors. The WORD is the key to our life journey.  

The Word logos in the Greek is logic, message, communication
           " ¹In the beginning, before the earth was made, the Word was there. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was there with God in the beginning. ³ Everything was made through him, and nothing was made without him. ⁴ In him there was life, and that life was a light for the people of the world. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not defeated[c] it.” (John 1:1-5 ESV).
            This scripture introduces the WORD and describes his relationship to the World, to God, to life itself, to people of the world, to darkness and to the ultimate victory of the WORD.  There is much to explore here. Let’s begin with the term, WORD. Why is this the term used here? The Greek word is Logos. It is related to Logic, order or meaning. Logos captures ideas like expression, communication, and message. So, here we have a message about the meaning and order of life. The first sentence reads “Before the world began, the Word was there.” Clearly the WORD preceded the world. The WORD existed before the world began. The WORD is preeminent to everything the world is or ever will be. Before, during and after the universe exists, the WORD is there offering LIFE.
            The scripture tells us The WORD was with God. God and the WORD are companions in an intimate relationship. But more than that: the WORD was God. God and the WORD are the same. So, Jesus, the WORD is alongside God. The WORD Jesus Christ also is deity. The WORD expands one’s understanding of GOD. He is present with God in the beginning. Neither of them precedes the other. We begin to see the intimacy and unity between GOD and the WORD. The Trinity begins to emerge.
            The WORD and God are present together before everything else. Further, the scripture says everything was made through Him and nothing was made without Him. The WORD was the source, the means, the vehicle by which all creation came about. Through the instrumentality of the WORD all creation sprung into existence. This echoes the creation story in Genesis 1. The very WORD of God created everything. God spoke and it was so. God expressed Himself and life and all the universes came into being.
            The WORD possessed LIFE. In Him was life and that life was a light for the people of the world. He was the very fountainhead of all that is life, the very source of LIFE. All that life is comes from the WORD; all our vitality, all meaning, all beauty is from the WORD. So, we see that The WORD gave shape to the world and provided the meaning and significance of all of life.
            In this world, we experience both light and darkness. Light reveals things. It makes things visible. Light provides warmth. It enables growth. When light is present, we can see clearly. The path forward is illuminated. It is the good path, the safe path, and the secure path. In darkness one cannot see. Things are obscured, not visible. One can stumble, lose the path, lose one’s way, experience harm in the darkness. The joyful truth is the Light (the WORD) shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot defeat it. The interplay between light and darkness (good and evil) has an order to it. Light penetrates darkness, and Light pierces through darkness. Darkness hides from the Light. Light is stronger than darkness. Goodness, Light, and God are the ultimate victors. The darkness in this world cannot defeat life. The WORD is powerful. It achieves what God purposes. God has the final word, and evil will not ultimately win. We pray that the LORD opens our hearts to receive these realities.

John the Baptist proclaims the true light
                “⁶There was a man named John, who was sent by God. ⁷ He came to tell people about the light. Through him all people could hear about the light and believe. ⁸ John was not the light. But he came to tell people about the light. ⁹ The true light was coming into the world. This is the true light that gives light to all people” (John 1:6-8 ESV).
            This scripture moves from the broad heavenly sphere to the concrete world of people in time and space. The eternal perspective from the first paragraph shifts to our human experience. We meet the person of John. What is his role? He tells people about the Light.
            John the Baptist is the one God selected to announce the Light.  He is God’s instrument.
            John is not the Light but his purpose was to tell people of the Light. John’s role is a prophecy in the written in the biblical book of Isaiah. John is the voice of one crying in the wilderness, making straight the way for the coming of the LORD. John’s message was to tell all people about the Light so that all people might believe in the Light.
            Jesus Christ, the WORD, is the one who came into the world and is the true Light that illuminates everything. He makes clear what is good and what is evil. He shows what is twisted and what is straight. He unveils the thoughts and intents of everyone’s heart. He alone grasps what lies within everyone’s motives. He shows the good path and reveals when one goes astray. The WORD is a Light to show the way and to keep one from missing the path.

Acceptance and Rejection 
                “¹⁰ The Word was already in the world. The world was made through him, but the world did not know him. ¹¹ He came to the world that was his own. And his own people did not accept him. ¹² But some people did accept him. They believed in him, and he gave them the right to become children of God. ¹³ They became God’s children, but not in the way babies are usually born. It was not because of any human desire or plan. They were born from God himself” (John 1:10-13 ESV).
            Moving from the true Light, this scripture now shifts back to the vocabulary of the WORD.
Here the Word's relationship to the world is addressed. He made the world. He was in the world. He came to the world. Yet, though He made the world, and the world was His own (both the whole world and his special people the Jews), He was not received by the world. He wasn’t accepted. There was resistance to the true Light.
            Broadly, this is true, but not all people rejected Him. Some people accepted Him. They did so by seeing the Light and believing in Him. And with this acceptance and belief, some people became children of God. This was a special right granted them by the action of God Himself. Thus, becoming a child of God is not a natural thing like the birth of a human child. It was not a function of desiring it or planning for it. No. This was a unique gift from God Himself. These children of God were given their new birth by the action of God alone.
But, as we shall see in the rest of the story, being a child of God doesn’t make you better or superior to others. It does make you more accountable because you are more exposed to the Light. To have intimacy with God as a child in His family, one has privileges and responsibilities. This is both a blessing and a burden. We bear the family name of God, and we are God’s hands and feet in the fallen world.

John the Baptist proclaims the pre-existent WORD in flesh
            “¹⁴ The Word became a man and lived among us. We saw his divine greatness—the greatness that belongs to the only Son of the Father. The Word was full of grace and truth. ¹⁵ John told people about him. He said loudly, “This is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘the one who is coming after me is greater than I am, because he was living before I was even born’” (John 1:14-15 ESV).
            Verses 14 and 15 illuminate the WORD’s relationship to the World and all humanity. He became a man. The pre-existent Word, who created all things, became intimately involved in this world. He took on human flesh and blood. He lived among us experiencing all that human life has to offer, its hopes and dreams, its joys and heartaches, its beauty and its wounds. ‘He lived among us’ literally means He made His tabernacle among us.  The tabernacle was the place to meet God. It was where the glory of the Lord resided. In similar fashion, The WORD became a man who encounters God; we experience God’s glory. The WORD became flesh, and the fullness of God dwelt within.
            In so doing the WORD revealed the greatness that belongs to God alone. The WORD becoming flesh showed the world, that is, all humanity how great God is. This uniqueness is expressed as the only Son of the Father. He lived the best life ever lived!

The WORD Jesus Christ is grace and truth in character of God
                “¹⁶ Yes, the Word was full of grace and truth, and from him we all received one blessing after another. ¹⁷ That is, the law was given to us through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. The only Son is the one who has shown us what God is like. He is himself God and is very close to the Father” (John 1:16-18 ESV).
            The WORD is Jesus Christ.  His character is Grace and Truth. The world received one blessing after another. In the human drama, the WORD fulfills the Law given through Moses, opens the door to salvation, demonstrates the character of God, and is the visible display of the invisible God. The WORD is the unique Son who reveals God, and the WORD is Himself divinity.

Application of following the life and words of Jesus for you, me, and our world today
            Humans struggle regularly with foundational questions about life. How did the world begin? Where did we come from? What is the meaning of life? Is the world just a random chaotic accident, a cosmic joke; or is there some design, some purpose to living? Is there a moral structure in the Universe or is this world devoid of any sense of right and wrong? Is life just a struggle for the survival of the fittest? Does lust for power make it right or is there an ultimate sense of justice in the world?
            Because the WORD, Jesus Christ, was made flesh, we are offered some answers to these ultimate questions. The world and all that is within it came from the utterance of God, the WORD. All of life stems from the WORD. This world is not a byproduct of random chance plus nothing. There is purpose in creation. God is active in this world. The veil of darkness is all around but darkness doesn’t have the last word. The victory ultimately is from the LIGHT. The very WORD of God, who is LIGHT, dispels darkness. This is true in the long run and shows itself eventually in our world today.
            Our society struggles today to come to terms with truth.  We, as a nation, live in denial. We only see what we want to see. We take in some of the light BUT deny the full light. The full truth is too much for us. It challenges us beyond our willingness to see. Instead, we each have our own truth which we guard vigorously. It is difficult for us to open the aperture to see beyond what we are comfortable knowing. We can’t readily acknowledge the broader truths if they don’t fit our tribal understanding. We insulate ourselves from listening or knowing realities which are expressed by those outside of our preconceived notions. It is hard to face our history. Our corporate past sins are painful to face: Injustices not following the life and teaching of Jesus include how we destroyed indigenous peoples. Slavery’s aftermath dehumanizes all of us. We demonize our neighbors who are different.  We perpetuate these ugly stains in our political dialogue these days when we do not follow the life and words of Jesus. We resist the life and teaching of Jesus who granted dignity to the marginalized, including immigrants. We also deny the truth when we fail to see the transformations our society has made to overcome these dark realities.  Our world is neither black nor white. Reality is greyer than we are comfortable to know. We need grace in full measure to face the truth about ourselves and our part in the darkness. We need Jesus Christ, full of grace and truth, to be able to see ourselves in the mirror, repent, turn away from our sin, and follow scripture by not blaming one another.
            We need Amazing Grace. This is the grace that John Newton experienced and wrote about in his hymn titled “Amazing Grace.” John Newton, who lived in the 18th century, was once the captain of slave ships. He made at least 6 different voyages across the Atlantic delivering slaves. John Newton eventually saw the evil of this trade and turned into an abolitionist. He became a compelling witness to stop this horrible enterprise. His writings played a significant part along with William Wilberforce to eventually have the English Parliament make the slave trade illegal.  His song captures the truth that we all need to be saved from the darkness impacting us. Jesus Christ is the WORD who cleanses us from our darkness and shows us the light.  Discover Jesus Christ anew in the pages of this booklet. He will enable you to face the truth and live under His grace.

Big Picture: Come into the life so you may have light in the WORD
            These scriptures paint a picture of the Incarnate WORD. It presents Jesus as the eternal, preexistent, and now incarnate Word. Jesus is the one-of-a-kind Son of God the Father, which means that he is God. The prologue foreshadows that God’s revelation and redemption is in and through Jesus. These scriptures also introduce many of the major themes developed later in the Gospel story of Jesus of Nazareth: (1) Jesus as the life, the light, and the truth, (2) believers as God’s children, and (3) the reality of the world’s rejection of Jesus.
            You may not have given much though who Jesus is. Or you may have firmly developed perspectives on Jesus. You may be a lifelong believer in the Christian faith. Or you may come from years of skepticism, rejecting any notion of Jesus being God in the Flesh. Whatever your starting perception, you are invited to examine Jesus of Nazareth anew in this series of messages “The Divine Story of Jesus and You.”

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS INCLUDING FAMILY GROUPS
Sermon Quick Summary
-For your personal unique life journey, who is Jesus for you?
-In what ways would the life and words of Jesus impact our society as a whole?
The Word logos in the Greek is logic, message, communication
-Why is the term for WORD an expression of logical personality that can be a timeless eternity, not limited to a particular moment in time?
-How does the scripture affirm the WORD’s preexistence, the WORD’s distinctiveness, and the WORD’S deity?
John the Baptist proclaims the true light
-In what ways are you the forerunner pointing people to the WORD, Jesus, the true light with the opportunity of turning back to God?
Acceptance and Rejection
-As a born again disciple of Christ, why do you face privileges and blessings as well as a burden of additional responsibilities?
John the Baptist proclaims the pre-existent WORD in flesh
In what way does the pre-existent WORD as creator the physical in practical terms represent the full expression of grace and truth, with preexistence over the physical, not just the spiritual?
Application of following the life and words of Jesus for you, me, and our world today
-Why is the WORD, the life and words of Jesus, allowing us to perceive directly God’s attitude towards humans and God’s purpose for them beyond what can be perceived by ordinary senses?
-How should we face the challenges of action in nonviolent resistance pursuing love and justice by following the model of the life and words of Jesus?
Big Picture: Come into the life so you may have light in the WORD
-In what ways can we be light in the midst of darkness in this fallen world?