A World That Knows Him | Sermon 09/04/2022

Apologia Utah

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Please turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter 1. John chapter 1.

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We're going to be in verses 6 through 13 tonight. John chapter 1.

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That's after Luke, before the book of Acts. John 1.

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And the title of this sermon today, church, is A World That Knows Him. A World That Knows Him.

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So starting in verse 6 of chapter 1, hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true

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God. There came a man sent from God, whose name was John.

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He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him.

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He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. There was the true light which coming into the world enlightens every man.

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He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him.

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He came to his own, and those who were his own did not receive him.

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But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God.

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Even to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

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Thus ending the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's pray quickly, guys, let's pray.

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Father, please bless the message today. Lord, please speak through me. Let me decrease and you increase.

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God, would you be amongst your people today? Would you help us to focus on your word?

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God, please edify your people, grow us, strengthen us. Lord, please help me to speak in a way that is helpful, and let it be clear, and let it always be true.

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I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So, last week, if you were with us, we considered verses 1 through 5 in the

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Gospel according to John. We saw how the word was always from eternity, even from before the beginning.

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He was prostantheon, which means face -to -face, intimately with the

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Father from time infinity. And it said in verse 1, He was

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God. He has deity, the Word. He has the nature of God.

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And John wrote that the Word is the Creator God as well. We saw that in verse 3.

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All things that have come into being have come into being through Him. And it said nothing that has been made has been made apart from Him.

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The logos, as I said, which is the Word, He is in a whole other category.

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He is outside all that has been made. It said that He is the light and the life.

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In Him are all things necessary to create and put life into creatures.

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He breathes life into man and woman. And what we will continue to find throughout our text and the sermon today are more hints that the

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Word, the light, is the Creator God. He spoke this world into existence and the

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Lord called it good as we know in Genesis 1 and 2, but somewhere along the way, darkness came in, crept into the light.

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Shadow appeared at the fall of man in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

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A curse spread across the earth.

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What was once fruitful and abundant would now take much work. It would become much more tedious.

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What was easier would be more painful and laborious, especially for women in childbearing, it says.

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And it says the woman's leading of the man to try the fruit would continue to be all women's temptation to usurp their husband's authority as given by a role from God.

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Ecclesiastes confirms what occurred in the garden as the preacher says,

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God made man upright, but man sought out many devices. God made man upright, but man sought out many devices to sin.

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Adam then had sons, Cain and Abel. The genealogy, the start of an earthly family, began.

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Very quickly, Cain's jealousy of God's favor upon Abel's sacrifice and offering brought death to this genealogy.

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The line received a sever there at Abel's murder.

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Cain was to wander the earth, but a new son came to restore the line. Seth. And eventually down the line,

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Noah was born. But by this time, the darkness that infiltrated the light spread even further.

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It says in Genesis 6, then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of His heart was only evil continually.

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It said the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth and He was grieved to His heart.

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However, Noah was upright. Noah was upright, it says. And Noah would be chosen to repopulate the earth.

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And as for the wicked genealogy of all other people, it would be wiped out.

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But as soon as the flood subsided, it was clear that the darkness survived the drowning.

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The darkness remained. And from then on, a war of genealogies would persist until a line of lines, a royal line, would come.

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A royal lineage. Many of our kind sought to sever the royal line over the thousands of years leading up to His arrival, but it couldn't be stopped.

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The royal line would come. No one could sever it. All humanity is of a fallen line, but there is one of a line outside of the darkness.

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And He has come to restore a people to something new. To something new.

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And John is going to show us that in our text today, he's going to show us something unimaginable and unfathomable.

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Something that has occurred with the light called the Word. And it has changed things forever.

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Forever are things changed because of this coming light. So let's see what happened.

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Go to v. 6, 7 and 8. Thank you. It says, There came a man sent from God whose name was

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John. He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him.

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He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. This whole time, the prologue has been introducing the invisible.

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It's been introducing God into the world of the visible. The ultimate place from which the

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Word came is eternity. With God as He was God, it said.

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But now a new introduction is made. Someone other than the logos, someone other than the

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Word is brought to the prologue. A man. He is sent from God and His name is

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John. Interestingly, just like all the other Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the synoptic

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Gospels, even the book of Acts, all begin Jesus' public ministry with the witness of John the

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Baptist. They all start that way, which is very interesting. But this section isn't quite the beginning of the

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Lord's earthly ministry. This is showing us a different angle of the calling of John the

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Baptist. Verses 1 -5 have shown us of the hidden realities of this existence that in the beginning was the

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Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and all that has been created has been created by that Word and nothing that has come into being has come into being apart from Him, that He is the light and life of all men, that He came and He came to His people.

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And we see this kind of other side of this life. We see that God has always been there.

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Jesus has always been there as the Word. So we have a glimpse into the time before the world was.

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Then we saw how the world and by whom the world was created. But now we are thrust back in to our reality of time and space.

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There came a man sent from God. There came into being, which if you remember last week, there are the two verbs that I told you to remember.

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There was ein and then there was egeneto. Ein means with no point of reference, something that always was, and that was always used in reference to Jesus, the

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Word. He always was with no beginning. But then every time something that is created is mentioned,

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John uses the word egeneto. And that's literally the word that is used here when it says there came a man.

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That could actually be there came into being a man sent from God.

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This is a created man. And this is meant to be a stark difference from the

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Word from Jesus. Referring to Jesus is that verb ein.

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He is eternal. This man is egeneto. He has a beginning.

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And from our previous verses, that demonstrates to us that the Word made this man.

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This man was created through the Word and by the Word, Jesus. Uncreated made created.

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Uncreated versus created. John is trying to show us the difference.

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As far as his nature goes, it says anthropos. He is a man. Only a man.

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Compared to Jesus who is kaitheos enhalagos. He is

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God. God. The Word was God. Jesus has deity while this man, although sent from God, which is absolutely tremendous, this man is not

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God. He doesn't have deity. And by the use of his words here,

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John is trying to stress that one has origin while the other who we previously spoke about has no origin.

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But still, this man was sent from God. This man was sent from God.

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John the Baptist has divine authorization here. It is not an authorization of his own, but it is given to him for this task.

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He has been entrusted or charged to testify of the Word. God has commissioned and sent only a select man throughout the

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Bible. Let me remind you of a few. Exodus 3 .10 Therefore, come now and I will send you

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Moses to Pharaoh so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.

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So God sent Moses. Isaiah 6 .8 -9 Then I heard the voice of the

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Lord saying, Whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then Isaiah said,

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Here I am, send me. And the Lord said, Go and tell this people.

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And finally, Jeremiah 1 .4 -8 It says, Now the word of the

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Lord came to me saying, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born,

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I consecrated you. I have appointed you a prophet to the nations. Then I said,

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Alas, Lord God, behold, I do not know how to speak because I am a youth. But the Lord said to me, Do not say

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I am a youth, because everywhere I send you, you shall go, and all that I command you, you shall speak.

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Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord. So we have these moments of God commissioning and sending these men to do these extraordinary tasks.

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John the Baptist is to go ahead of the light. He is to announce it and prepare the hearts of the people to have a right and ready reception of the light.

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Be ready. John is to herald and call out and run before the King's procession.

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The King is way off in the distance. And John the Baptist is to run ahead as the forerunner and proclaim,

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Hear me now, people of this world, people of darkness, a great light is coming.

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Be ready. For at His coming, His light will shine on all dark things.

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Be ready. That is what John is supposed to do. And when a king would send out a messenger to carry and deliver the royal message, he would choose someone who is dependable, loyal, and of good character.

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That although the king was absent, the messenger would be a representative or ambassador while the king was absent.

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In his stead, his word in a way is the king's word. It was given to him.

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It says in v. 7, John the Baptist came as a witness to testify about the light. There are 18 times in this

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Gospel we see the name John. And believe it or not, if you watched or were here for the first sermon, you would see that John the

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Apostle who wrote this Gospel never mentions himself by name. All 18 times the name

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John is used, it's only used in reference to John the Baptist. Only him.

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Now, one might say there's not much detail about John the Baptist here, and I would agree. He's going to get into much more detail about John in a little bit, but there are two things to consider with John's brief introduction here.

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First, the prologue, which is v. 1 -18. It's called the Prologue of John. It is all about the

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Word. It is all about the Word, the logos. Its focal point is completely and totally the

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Son of God. The second thing, at this point in the

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Gospel account, the point of mentioning John is not really to be about him per se, but on his task.

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John is mentioned here because of his task sent from God to testify of the

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Word, of the light. Just as this man John, his task, as he is sent from God to testify about the light, so also the apostle

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John's aim is to testify about the light. That's their concern.

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There will be more said about John, but right now the author is not so much concerned with minute historic details or descriptions of John the

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Baptist. Right now, John the Apostle is concerned with salvation history.

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How did salvation come about in this world? That's his aim here. That the

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Word is eternal, was always with God and is God, and that Word gave life and light in His creation, but now

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He will enter His creation. The Creator will enter

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His creation. And John the

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Baptist will be the one to introduce the world to Him. That's His witness. That's His mission.

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And once again, verse 7, He agoneto, as a martyrian, to martyriese, that is,

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He came into being as a witness again to show He is different than the Word Jesus.

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He is created. He came as a martyrian, a witness who will bear testimony of the truth.

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One lexicon gives the meaning as this of what He will do to provide information about a person or an event concerning which the speaker has direct knowledge to witness.

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He was created and sent by God to act as a witness and bear His witness to truths that God gave

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Him about the light. John the Baptist's purpose wasn't as though God needed him though.

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It's that the people needed him. We needed

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John to come even as a forerunner so that all might believe through Him.

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That's what it says. To testify about the light so that all might believe through Him.

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But where did John get all this knowledge? How was he able to recognize

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Jesus when Jesus came walking towards him? How did he know Him to be the Messiah?

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How did he even understand His position as the forerunner? And that's kind of the sent from God portion that we don't know.

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A knowledge, a message was given him, a task by the orders of the

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King, and he heard them and he was to give them. By inspiration of the

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Holy Spirit, he was given them to give to others. And the object of his mission is the light.

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It is the light. And to witness isn't the end or full purpose of his mission.

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It's that all might believe through him. And that's his supreme objective.

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We're going to see the very local ministry of John the Baptist towards the end of chapter 1. But the author's point is that all who have believed have been impacted by John the

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Baptist's ministry in the scope of salvation history. That means even you.

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We've all been in some way impacted by John the Baptist coming and heralding the first Gospel message that the

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King is coming. You, church, have a connection to John the Baptist. He is the last of the old covenant prophets.

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He's the last old covenant prophet pointing people to the

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Savior and to a newer and better covenant. John's objective.

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All who have come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ have a connection all the way back to him. And he was the first to point out

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Jesus. He says, look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

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John said that first. He may be an important witness, but the thing to remember is he's only a witness.

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And he would want me to say this now. John would want you to know he is only a witness and that he was appointed for this by God, but if any other man were appointed as forerunner,

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John would just be an ordinary guy and he'd want you to know that. The greatness of John the

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Baptist is displayed because of the greatness of the light of the One who He comes to bring the message about.

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And the same goes for us. I said it in our beginning. I said we are special because Christ is special.

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So let's move to v. 9. It says,

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There was the true light which coming into the world enlightens every man.

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There was the true light coming into the world which enlightens every man.

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And there it is again. Ein. It's so anticlimactic in English.

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The word was. But you have to understand in the Greek, the word ein again has no point of origin, no point of reference.

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It means from all the way back as far as can be, this has occurred. There's no point of origin.

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There forever ago was the true light. The true light has always been there.

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John continues to stress the words eternality. And true here is alathinos, which means real or genuine, voracious, opposing what is untrue.

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And that word true, alathinos, is applied to worshipers in John.

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God wants true worshipers. There is the true bread that comes from heaven.

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There is the true vine in John 15. And he even uses this word to apply it to himself.

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There is the true God in John 7 .25 and 17 .3.

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Now, other people, other religions of this world might try to claim to be of the light.

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Some men may try to say that they are the light. They might try to say that they are

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God. Or look, this is God right here. This is God right here. But it says here there's only one true light.

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There's only one light. He is the true one. And the true light does what

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His Word says while false gods or false Christs try to appear to be light, and they will go against the

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Word of God. It's like trying to say a flashlight or a candle or even the sun are the true light.

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There's no way they're the true light. Because it said again in verses 1 -5, it says the light and life are in Jesus the

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Word. It comes from Him. So there can be false lights.

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False gods. I could call a flashlight the life and light of men, but it would of course be blasphemous.

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But it wouldn't even come close to being the same thing. Jesuses that are written in books, either written by atheists or Mormons or Jehovah's Witness or Muslims or Jews or anyone, anyone could write the name

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Jesus and say it's the true Jesus. They could say it's the true light simply because it's written in a book.

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And they call it Jesus. But that wouldn't necessarily make it the true light Jesus.

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Right now Jesus is sitting on His throne. He's ruling and reigning. And the

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Jesus who is ruling and reigning now is none other than the Jesus who has revealed and disclosed

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Himself in the Holy Scriptures. So that if something says or has it written in a book and says this is

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Jesus, but it goes against what the Holy Scriptures say, His Word, because He is the Logos. He is the

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Word. And He is the true light. And if it says that, but it goes against that Word, it is false.

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It is false. The Jesus in heaven right now is the

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Jesus of Scriptures. One point of John's might also be that the law and God's wisdom,

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God's revelation give light, but Jesus is the authentic and ultimate light.

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You have the law of God, wisdom, general revelation, these things, they give light in some aspect, but Jesus is the ultimate light.

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Those things have light because He is the true light. God's greatest manifestation of Himself is in the light that which came into the world.

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We're going to see that. It says it enlightens every man. Enlightened is typically how this word is translated in the

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Greek Septuagint, that is the Greek Old Testament. But the word enlightenment has definitely caught a bad rap in the last couple hundred years.

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Enlightenment, right? In the Greek, fotidze, can have different meanings.

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It can mean illumined, it can mean enlightened, it can mean simply to give light to something or bring something to light.

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It may be that Jesus came, the light arrived and has shone on every man simply by His appearance.

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It could mean that. Some are changed by that light and some are not. Or it could be that the true light came in the incarnation, in the appearance of Jesus, and shined not on every man without exception, but shined on every man without distinction.

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It could mean that. It could mean that men and women of every type,

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Jew, Gentile, Greek, barbarian, slave, free, man, woman, every type of sort of human will be saved without distinction.

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It says it enlightens every man. Or, it could be that the light shined on every man in a salvific way, which would then point to universalism and say that the light came and saved every single person that ever was and ever will be, but that would go against much of the rest of Scripture, so we have to reject that.

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How could He enlighten those who in just a little bit He'll say didn't receive the light?

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So, there you go. It may be like in 1 Corinthians 4 -5, where at His coming,

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He will bring light to all things that are hidden in the darkness. And that light kind of goes along with John 3.

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These go together. Verses 19 -21, it says this, This is the judgment that the light has come into the world, and men love the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil.

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For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed, but he who practices the truth comes to the light so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.

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I think although there are some principles to a common light or a common benevolence on all men, that sort of light though was there even before the true light came into the world.

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Before Jesus even appeared, there seemed to be some goodness and grace given to all people, even wicked people.

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It rains on the just and the unjust. Even wicked people are having babies. A lot of them are killing them.

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But a lot of wicked people even have babies. They have blessings come into their lives. Is that the light?

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But that was before His appearance. So, enlightens every man ultimately points to the true light's arrival into a dark world.

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The emphasis would be on that phrase coming into the world.

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At the incarnation of Jesus, light shined on all men and it continues to to this day.

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The light is shining. But many run and hide so that their deeds won't be exposed while others receive inner illumination and are taken out of darkness.

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As one theologian said, the true light shines upon every man whether that man sees it or not.

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Go to verses 10 and 11. It says, He was in the world and the world was made through Him and the world did not know

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Him. He came to His own and those who were His own did not receive

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Him. Now, some of you who study

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John in a very focused way, you might have already noticed it.

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Verse 10 has what's called a tripartite structure.

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Tripartite, which means if you remember verse 1, there was in the beginning was the

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Word. The Word was with God and the Word was

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God. Verse 1 had three parts. Tripartite. Now, verse 10 has

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He was in the world and the world was made through Him and the world did not know

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Him. It also has a tripartite structure. So what this is to show is a distinction between the two.

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What it's supposed to show us is something called transcendence and imminence.

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Let me expound on that. There's essentially between verse 1 and verse 10 this glorious tension between these two things.

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That Jesus is transcendent. He is above all things. He is superior to all things.

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He is above His creation. He is God. He is omnipotent. He is omniscient. He is omnipresent.

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He is God. I mean, goodness! God! He is above all things. And then that is in verse 1, and then you get to verse 10 and you have this moment where God is in flesh and He was in the world and the world was made through Him and the world did not know

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Him. And so that is the word imminent. And that's with an A. That is not to be confused with imminent, which means to say something is forthcoming, something's about to happen.

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Imminent means that God Himself, although transcendent, is perceivable and knowable and graspable.

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You can touch God. He is Jesus Christ. You can know God. He is Jesus Christ. That is the glorious tension between verse 1 and verse 10.

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Almost in many ways like the hypostatic union, He is totally God and He is totally man. This glorious tension that we can know

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God, that He is Emmanuel, God with us. It is unfathomable.

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He was in the cosmos. That is the world. He was in the cosmos and the cosmos agoneto through Him and the cosmos did not know

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Him. Now every time the world is used in verse 10, the question is does that mean the same thing?

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Is world always the same thing? Definitely not. In the Bible, cosmos or world can mean a variety of things.

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Cosmos or world is used 78 times in the Gospel of John. Five times more than Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

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It can mean the physical universe. It can mean fallen humanity and fallen creation.

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But here's something that you don't hear all the time. The world can also, not in a negative way, but in a more neutral or neuter way, cosmos can be what's called anthropomorphic.

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Anthropomorphic or anthropomorphisms are simply things that we assign human qualities or human traits to something that is not human.

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That's what it is. So, something intimate, something human is being assigned to especially the last clause of verse 10, and the world did not know

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Him. There's personalness to that. The world did not know Him. It doesn't simply mean the universe didn't know

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Him. It's this personal world didn't know Him. Humanity didn't know

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Him. Because there's a sense in which the personal world is where God is putting most of His attention.

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And of course, I'm speaking in human terms. God doesn't need to put more focus or emphasis on something or the other.

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He's omniscient. He's omnipresent. I already said that. But for our own grasp and our own articulation, it's easy for us to understand that there's something about this humanity, this world, that God is putting more attention to.

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People who are made in His image and likeness, He's working with them and among them.

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Probably more so than the dust that blows around on Mars. God is more interactive with us in that sense.

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We're going to see more uses of Kosmos and John, but it may be even three different uses in this verse.

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Or at least two. I think at least two, but it could be the word, the light was in the physical earth.

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He was in the physical earth. And the universe and all things were made through Him.

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That would be the second clause. And the personal world of humanity did not know Him. So it's possible three different ways there.

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So despite making the world and its inhabitants, the people did not know Him. And this is not simply an intellectual knowledge of Him.

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This is know Him, like in the Old Testament sense, in an intimate sense, the way the

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Jews, the Israelites knew their God and they obeyed Him and they followed Him and they loved

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Him. At least until, of course, they were going through cycles of apostasy and idolatry.

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But there comes with knowing a sense of obedience, of following. They didn't recognize or respond to Him.

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Those could be other ways to say they did not know Him. One commentator states, it was not that the world failed to perceive of His existence, it was not that the world failed to perceive of His existence, but that the world failed to relate with humble obedience and trust to Christ.

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He came to the world, but the world did not know

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Him. Now, in all the world, who should

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He come to and they know Him? Who should the Messiah come to and they know

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Him and expect Him and are anticipating Him? Who should

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He come to and they receive Him? Right? That's the question. The Son of God came in law.

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He came in prophecy. He came in wisdom, deeds of deliverance, judgment and mercy and glorious theophanies.

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The Son of God has come in many ways, but now in the greatest self -disclosure of God, the

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Word, the Son of God, the light came to His own, but they did not receive

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Him and they did not know Him. In Isaiah 65, they are called an obstinate people.

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They're stubborn. In Jeremiah 7, they are called stiff -necked.

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Do you know what stiff -necked means? Stiff -necked simply means that of course,

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Israel and those of the ancient Near East were what's called an agrarian society and an agrarian culture.

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That means that they would grow crops for their living.

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And so during that time, they didn't have plows or tractors or anything like that.

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And so what they did have were what were called beasts of burden. They had donkeys.

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They had horses. They had oxen. They had these beasts of burden that they would use to till the land or plow or anything like that.

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And what would happen is where this stiff -necked word comes from is it's pointing to a donkey or a horse or an ox that when pulled by the reins of its owner would stiff -neck.

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It wouldn't move. It wouldn't move its neck. They'd try to pull the donkey and the donkey would be stubborn and just stay there like that.

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So that's where the word stiff -necked comes from. Just completely obstinate. Not bending.

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Not moving in any way. And that's the image of the people whom Jesus came to in the first century.

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Verse 11 says, "...He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him." And the word own is used twice here.

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Verse 11, "...He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive

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Him." And the first one, "...He came to His own," is in the neuter.

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And those who were His own did not receive Him is in the masculine in the gender of Greek.

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And you might be like, man, you're getting too technical for me today, Pastor Wade. What I want to say is there's something significant about the two different owns here.

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And I know last sermon and today is a little bit more technical, but really the Greek speaks to the truths that we see here so much.

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Now what's happening, you could say the first phrase, which is in the neuter, could basically show that the

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Creator came to a creation. It's neutral. Whereas the second part of that verse would be more personal, more intimate.

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And those who were His own, it's in the masculine, those who were His own, they did not receive

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Him. So we're talking about a creation that rejects its

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Creator, and then the second part of the verse is a people who reject their God. It becomes gradually more personal in the verse.

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And this sort of intimacy that increases in this verse parallels the intimacy that has increased for us with God.

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We see that with God appearing in the tabernacle in Shekinah glory and being in the midst of His people.

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But at the incarnation, at the appearance of Jesus, the relational intimacy between God and man increased many times over in the appearance of Jesus.

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And then of course, the Holy Spirit comes. The Helper would come. And now the Holy Spirit indwells

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His people. The Holy Spirit indwells you if you are in Christ. And what that means is more than ever,

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God is more personal with you now than even back then when He created the world. There's this gradual intimacy.

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And you, church, are waiting for the day at the full realization, at the consummation of all things, when you will see your

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Savior face to face. You will embrace Him. You will come before Him.

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You will be before your God. And the glorious aspect of it all, of course, we talk with LDS, and it's simply our context.

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I don't mean to bash on LDS or anything like that. We love so many of them. We want to share the truth with them.

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But their hope is to become a god and become worshiped one day when you get down to the bare roots of it all.

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But our desire is to have closeness with God that we've never had before.

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We're going to have intimacy with God in such a greater capacity, at a greater degree.

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Mary got to sit at the feet of Jesus and hear Him speak while Martha was running around.

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You're going to sit at the feet of Jesus. It's going to be glorious. John, in the subtle uses of his word choices, is trying to build up that intimacy and closeness with God.

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In fact, the rest of the Gospel of John is going to increase in intimacy with Jesus until the very last chapter.

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It's very, very much designed that way. But we see here the creation rejects its

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Creator, and the people of God reject their God. Now go to our final verses of our passage today.

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Verses 12 and 13. We are about to witness some glorious truths here, church.

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It says, "...but as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

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So although verses 10 and 11 looked dire for the people of this world, in verses 12 and 13 we see hope now.

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There's been a shift essentially in the prologue in these verses in a sense.

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We've been taken from eternity past where the Word has always been to now the creation of the world where the

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Word was creating, and then we see the dire news that the creation and creatures have rejected the

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Word, but now we see a glimpse of the heart of the Gospel here in these verses. Despite the sweeping statement of unbelieving

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Israel in the Old Testament, there was what? Although there was always this unbelieving majority, there was what?

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A believing remnant. There has been a remnant, a small population amongst the people of God who have always been faithful to Him.

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This remnant theology. And one day, that remnant is to be innumerable.

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The faithful remnant would start out small. And then it would be as big as the sand on the seashore as the stars in the sky.

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That is the promise of God. The remnant would become the church.

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And we have seen a creation reject its Creator and people reject their God, but now the incredible thing is the

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Creator will then make a new creation. The Creator will make a new creation.

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And God will gather a new people for His own possession. I don't mean creation in that universe or even earth way.

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I mean that God is going to make a new creation. Jesus will make a new creation in that He will make a people for His own possession.

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The Creator isn't done. He will make something new. He will make something new in you.

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He's made something new in many of you. In v. 11, there are those who didn't believe in Him, but now in v.

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12, there are people who received Him. They welcomed

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His coming with rejoicing and glee and praise and awe. So what does it look like to receive

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Him? This light. The Word. Jesus. Those who give loyalty to the

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Word, those who trust in Him fully, those who believe in His claims and they believe

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His promises and they confess Him with thanksgiving and they receive Him, those are those who know

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Him and receive Him. And the Word, the light, He didamai.

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He gave them something that they didn't previously possess. That is the Word. But as many as received

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Him, to them He gave. And that word means He gave them something they didn't have before.

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He gave them the exousion. He gave them the right. He gave them the ownership, sometimes used for power or authority.

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He gave them the right to become children of God. The context is familial.

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An inheritance. God, the logos, Jesus, is the source of these benefits and He's the one who gives this right away.

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He gives the right. Ultimately, this is a new status for you and for me.

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And this glorious and incomprehensible new status is to become the children of God.

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Tekna is used here for children. And huios is the word for son.

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I bring that up because in the letters to the Galatians, Paul says that we have adoption as sons of God.

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Huios. But John intentionally uses Tekna here and not huios.

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Because just like everything John does, he's trying to show a distinction between Jesus the

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Word and everything else. And so what John is trying to show is there is only one eternally loved huios of God.

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There is only one eternal Son of God. And so he uses Tekna.

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The Tekna of God. And I suspect the other reason sons isn't used here is because it's often used for sometimes mature young men who are coming into adulthood.

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So John wants to specifically use children. And Tekna means like little children.

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Someone like this little guy right here. Little children. Little Luther right there. He's going to stand up and wave

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I think. That's what Tekna is. A little child.

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Small children. Those with weakness. Those with complete dependence on their parents.

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And of course, children that have full trust. John uses children intentionally here.

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This is supposed to demonstrate more love, more affection toward us. God would take sinners enslaved to our sin, hell -bent on rebellion against Him, and He would make us then children.

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He would make us children. And this is infinitely grander than any story that tells of the poor orphan child that finds loving parents.

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This is the best story. This is the most glorious story of one who has a rotten life because they are rotten, and then they get glories.

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Adoption is far beyond anything that we have ever deserved. These verses detail what's called the doctrine of adoption.

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The doctrine of adoption of us. We deserve disownment and desertion, but He gave the right to become children of God.

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You and I were headed to a place where no father could comfort us or protect us.

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You and I were headed to that evil place where the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched, but now we are secure for all eternity.

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We are protected by a Father for all eternity. And He says He will never leave us nor forsake us.

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He is never to leave you. That is to say, if you have had a Father in your lifetime who has once left you, you have a

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Father now, you have a God who will never leave you. You were adopted in, and you will never be discarded.

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You will never be turned away. You are His forever now. But there's something more amazing.

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There's something even wonderfully amazing about this word, become. Become the children of God.

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This word, become, has the same root word as agonetto, as the came into being.

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Ginnomai is the root word. And so, these things are tied together. This is purposeful.

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Remember, the Creator is making a new creation and God is creating a new people for Himself.

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And that's what this is pointing to. And so all who receive

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Him and believe in Him come into being as children of God. They will become children of God.

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They will become something that they weren't, and now they are. This, by the way, goes against people who say that every single person in the world is a child of God.

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I don't mean to sound impolite or anything, but everyone in this world, whoever was and whoever will be, is a son or daughter of Adam.

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But you have to be given the right to become a child of God. So when people of varying beliefs, of varying religions, say we're all children of God, no, only through Jesus did

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He give us the right to become children of God. This isn't an inherent right.

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This is a given right. Something foreign has been given to us.

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And it says to those who believe in His name, if you believe in His name, you will be adopted.

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But what name? What name? So far in the

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Gospel according to John, verses 1 -13, we have no other names except the

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Word, the Light, the Life. John is going to spend the entire

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Gospel sharing with you the name. He's going to build you up and show you the name.

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And that's why at almost the conclusion of this Gospel in chapter 20, John writes, and we went over this a couple sermons ago, it says, but these things have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the

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Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name. John is setting up the reader to want to know everything about the

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Word, including discovering His name. He's hooking us here.

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Who is this? Believe in whose name? Tell me, John. Who do

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I have to believe in to receive the right to become children of God? And it's not that you simply have to believe in the name

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Jesus and you'll be adopted into the heavenly family. Well, I believe in Jesus' name.

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I believe there is Jesus. The name is in reference to personhood.

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If you believe in the name of someone, you believe in that person. Remember, he says you will be hated because of my name.

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They're not hated simply because there's a name Jesus out there. They're connected to all that Jesus did.

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It says that the name of Jesus, every knee will bow. Wow, a name is said, and everyone in the whole world will bow.

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No, it's not simply because of a name. It's because of what's behind the name. A name is more than just a label for an individual.

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It represents who they are in totality. All their deeds. All their works.

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So that if I were to say Christopher Columbus, a lot of you are probably thinking of a man that sailed to the

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Americas. Right? You think of his deeds. You think of his works. If I were to say to you the name

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Judas Iscariot, you wouldn't just think of an abstract name.

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You would think that's the man that betrayed Jesus our Lord. Right?

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You would think of what he did. If I were to say the name Martin Luther, you might think of the reformer who nailed the 95

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Theses of the Reformation onto the castle doors of Wittenberg. Believing in Jesus' name is to believe in all that He's accomplished.

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All that He's done. In verse 12, received Him and believe in His name are bookends.

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They are bookends in a sense to describing the same transformation.

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Believe in Him and know Him. When one understands that they have no light in themselves, that they walk in darkness, that they are of an evil world and its ways and cannot escape it, that apart from the merits and work of the

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Word God, the Son of God, that they would be condemned to hell forever, when they believe in and receive

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Christ, they get recreated. They get born again. They get into a new status and likeness of child of God.

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It's a change. Verse 13 details more what takes place when one becomes a child of God.

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It says, who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

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And so, He mentions techna of God, children of God, and now

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He mentions birth. That makes sense. Small children, birth, they are related.

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And this birth, according to this verse, can only be of God and from God.

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And so we are given three negative statements first. Look at that. Three negative statements in verse 13.

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Birth from God is not of blood. Birth from God is not of blood.

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Blood was considered in ancient times to be where the life force was in the blood.

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And the word blood here is actually in the plural. Who were born not of bloods.

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And what that could mean is a husband and wife's two bloods becoming one blood.

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You can't become a child of God being born of bloods. Birth from God is not of the desires of human intercourse, the natural functions for human procreation or what

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He calls the flesh, will not achieve the birth of God that He gives.

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Being born into the Jewish heritage does nothing now, by the way. Race and natural birthright are now irrelevant to spiritual birth.

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Because it's not being born of some sort of bloodline.

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There is no supreme bloodline. There is only the children of God and the children of wrath now.

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That's what the Bible describes. Nor of the will of man points to human volition or human choice.

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The birth of God doesn't come by human choice. This kind of birth God will give to those who receive and believe, and it will not be of human biology, it will not be of human sexuality, and it won't be of human will.

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That's what those three negative statements are saying. This birth and all the aspects of it will be of God and His will and His choice.

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And this also demonstrates the sovereignty of God and salvation. He didn't need your permission to create you and He doesn't need your permission to recreate you.

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If He wants to give you grace, He will give you grace, and He will bestow it upon you as He wills and desires.

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That's what we see here. It's not of the will of any man, it's of the will of God. It's of God.

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New birth is an act of God and nothing else. I also thought what was fascinating here is the last one, it says the will of man.

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That is actually the Greek word for husband as well. And so what that could point to is it's not the will of the head of household.

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It's not the will of the patriarch of the family anymore. And what that means is that God will be the patriarch.

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God will be the head of household over this new family. He is the head over the church.

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Christ, and you have that language. That's one of Christ's titles. He is the head over the body. So God is the husband.

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Jesus is the husband of this new bride. He is head or father over these new children.

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So I'm wrapping up here, by the way. The point is to this sermon, the point is to this text, there's now been a shift in your genealogy if you're in Christ, because this is a new creation.

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This is a new foundation. And it removes all others. The Creator does

01:03:09

His creating work again. And I told you last week that the synoptic

01:03:15

Gospels Matthew and Luke show Jesus' earthly genealogies.

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Do you remember that? And you can remember it in Matthew. It says, you know, and so -and -so begot so -and -so, and so -and -so begot this person, and Jesse and David and begot this person,

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Jehoshaphat, and all these really awesome names. And that's where all of you go first to look for your next child.

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And you go, yeah, okay, I'll skip over Jehoshaphat. Okay, Joshua.

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So there's these genealogies right at the beginning. But what

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John, I told you, shows us, especially in verses 1 -5, in the beginning was the Word, and the

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Word was with God, and the Word was God. He's showing who the Son of God is. He's giving us the spiritual genealogy.

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That's what John's pursuit was. He is the spiritual genealogy of from where Jesus the

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God -man has come from. Right? But now we receive a new genealogy.

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We receive a new ancestry. Ours is replaced, and it begins again as a result of our adoption into the sons and daughters of God.

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It's no longer about being American or whatever race you are. Whatever race, whatever heritage, whatever legacy, whatever you are, whatever country you're from, wherever your family has come from, even if you're a son or daughter of Adam at the very basic level of it all, that is now changed in Christ.

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You're a child of God. All who you are and all who you will ever be now is a child of God.

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Your new birthright is eternal life, not eternal death. And there will forever be the

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Creator and creature distinction. That much is clear from the beginning of John 1.

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I have to say that in this context, what we gain here is adoption. What we gain here is to become children of God.

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What we don't see here, what is foreign to the text is becoming a God. I have to say that in this context.

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But we don't want to remove the fact that we are now heirs.

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Paul says in Titus 3, heirs of eternal life, we now get to live where God dwells.

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We now get to enjoy Him forever and all the glories of heaven He has for us. That is true.

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I don't want to diminish it. It's going to be amazing. So that when you close your eyes for the last time on this earth, when this body wastes away and fades away, you will open them to eternal life.

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And that is sure. That if it were to happen today, if you are in Christ, you are a child of God, and you will be with your

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Father. That is certain. That is more certain than anything in this world. If you are in Christ, the light has transferred us out of that dark lineage, that evil line that has been around from the time of the crafty serpent in the garden.

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He has given us a new lineage, a new genealogy, a new ancestry. He has made us born again, and now we are in the line of the light.

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You are in the line of the light. The blessed genealogy. So we praise the

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Lord. We praise the Lord. It could never have been done by us, but He did it.

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The call then, the response is to receive Him, to know Him, and to believe in His name.

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That's what we see here. Receive Him, know Him, and believe in His name.

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And if that's not you today, I just want you to know you'll not be able to become a child of God any other way.

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That much is true. You cannot be born again by the blood, by the will of the flesh, or by your own desire.

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You, my friend, if that details you, throw yourself at the mercy of God.

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And this adoption, this children of God, has always been the desire of our

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God. He wants this. Christ restores to Himself a people that sin stole away.

01:07:57

When you think about it, God has always desired to walk amongst His people in the cool of the day, and sin stole that away.

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And a day is coming where you will walk in the cool of the garden with your God, and He's always wanted a people for His own possession.

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And through Christ, He gets a people. He receives them, and He receives it by the adoption through Christ.

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Christ at this very moment is making a world that knows Him. Christ is making a world that knows

01:08:30

Him. And He won't fail in making Himself known. And He'll use, by God's grace, you and me to do that.

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It won't be by our wills, it won't be by our might, but it will be by God. And so just to tie it back to John the

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Baptist, just like him, we are witnesses, we are ambassadors of a new world, of a new creation, of a new family.

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So, just as he was sent from God, you too, church, have been sent from God to go and tell the world, to come before the world, that the

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King is coming again. The King will return. Be ready. The King is returning.

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Hear now the Gospel. Hear now the good news of that King. Amen? Let's pray.

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Father, please bless the message that went out. Please encourage Your people. Edify them, Lord. And God, fill us with hearts of gratitude.

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Let us walk out of this place, Lord, just being totally mystified that You would send

01:09:51

Your one and only Son, who's been God from all eternity, and You would make

01:09:57

Him knowable and perceivable and graspable, and He would be our personal

01:10:03

Savior, and we would be saved so that we can be with You forever.

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God, I praise You for that. We thank You for that. If anyone doesn't know that,

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Lord, today, if someone doesn't know that or receive that or believe in His name today,

01:10:22

Lord, please convict them. Regenerate them. Show them the truth that You are the true light,

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Jesus. And only by You does the light conquer the darkness.