1 John 1:1-14 Put the Christ Back in Christmas: Or God on Earth

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak is preaching from his series, Correcting Christmas Clichés. Let's listen in.

Good morning to everybody. Welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here, and I heard a little bit of applause there. We did make it through the Song of Songs in time for our Thanksgiving service last week.

How many of you are kind of glad, just a little bit of a breath of fresh air that that's over.

With?

Anybody?

I am.

But on the flip side, I think it was a good series. I really did appreciate it. And last week, by the way, I really appreciated and enjoyed the Thanksgiving service that we had. But also just to point out that last week marked four years.

It was the 2017 Thanksgiving service was our very first service in this building. So we have now officially been in here for over four years this week. So praising God for the way that he has led in our church history and the way that he has brought us here to this place.

His faithfulness is really amazing to us, and it's particularly because it's so undeserved. We know we don't deserve his favor. We don't deserve it. And yet he has been so kind to us. I see that undeserved faithfulness corporately in the way that he has worked in the history of our church, but also individually in the thankfulness that was given last week and in the way that he works with us on an individual level, person by person.

We all can testify that he has indeed blessed us in many ways. And this week we begin a short sermon series for the month of December. I'm calling it Correcting Christmas Clichés. Try to say that 10 times fast and it turns into a tongue twister, Correcting Christmas Clichés.

It's going to be 2022 before we know it. How many of you already know that? Like, it's just, I mean, snap your finger, this month is gone, right? And yet in the coming month, we're going to participate in some traditions.

Our minds will carry us down some well-worn pathways. We will sing some familiar songs. And this is going to be my 48th Christmas. That means I have had over 40 years of forming thoughts and feelings and traditions and ideas surrounding Christmas.

How many of you know what I mean? You've been around this, you've been around the sun a few times. And those of you that have been around the sun for a few times, you get into some well-worn.

Pathways.

You get into some mindsets and some thinking and even the way that you feel this time of.

The year.

And some people are really Christmas people and some people aren't. And particularly the UPS drivers here are not particularly Christmas people. You talk with them and they're like, this is not a fun season.

So much of human tradition can be captured in our clichés and in the uncontested ways that we talk about things, the uncontested ways that we view things. We get in a form and then we just think that's the way it is.

My goal in this series is not to just merely be contrary to prevailing views, but rather my goal is to lift up our eyes from the tendency we all have. And I believe this is to a person here, we have a tendency to take epic and cosmic things and minimize them.

We have a tendency to take these glorious and amazing truths and turn them into a jingle or make them a slogan or make them a cliché. If the cliché metaphor during this series doesn't speak to you, then I'd encourage you to just scrap it.

It's just a framework that I put upon the series to basically kind of guide some of the structure or whatever. But we're going to be walking through text over the next four weeks and I'd encourage you to really camp there.

Really focus on the text that we're talking about. Even if you're kind of like, I don't know how this cliché works in this metaphor. That's not a cliché I've ever said or whatever. Let that go and let the text speak to you during these next four weeks.

Because I'm convinced that within these passages, within these texts, we will find encouragement to think right thoughts, but not just right thoughts, but to even have right feelings about the right things this year.

This morning I have one place that I want us to focus our attention. One main big idea, one main big thought. I want us to think deeply about incarnation. But not only that, I hope that by the end of this message you at least have the fuel, you at least have a location to go in the text of scripture to feel deeply about incarnation.

Not just think about it, but to feel about it. To feel wonder and awe about God in flesh. Now much of Christian subculture over recent years has rallied around a call to put Christ back into Christmas.

How many of you ever heard that? Put the Christ back in Christmas. But I would suggest that this battle cry misunderstands to some degree both Christ and Christmas. Trying to get our cashier to say Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays is not a hill to.

Die on folks.

But waging war in our own souls, waging war in our own souls over awe and wonder of God breathing air, being born among us, walking the hills around Palestine, I believe that is a hill worth dying on.

We need to come face to face with God on earth, God with us. The word became flesh and he dwelt among us. So let's open our Bibles to John 1, 1 through 14. Again, John, the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verses 1 through 14.

And let's take on John's really rare and strange Christmas message.

A little different than the other Gospels.

God's holy and precious word. Exactly what God wants us to hear this morning. John 1, 1 through 14 says this, in the beginning was the word. And the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light but came to bear witness about the light.

The true light which gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but.

Of God.

And the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory. Glory as of the only son from the father full of grace and truth.

Let's pray.

Father, I thank you so much for what really amounts to an epic and cosmic text here. We know the Christmas story and I think all of us in this room could say it by heart. We know about mangers. We might struggle with pronouncing Quirinius but we know about his governorship and that it was in his days.

We know about angels singing in fields and shepherds and magi and all of that. And Father, I confess that this can become so common this time of the year. It can just be another cycle, another trip around the sun, another reflection, another busy season, another way to divert away from the bad crummy weather and the gray skies.

And we'll be on into 2022 before we know it and moving on into a new year. And Father, I pray that you would help us to pause this morning, to allow this text to wash over us in new and fresh light, to allow incarnation to drop our jaws in awe and wonder.

An awe and wonder that cannot in any way be reserved for one season, one particular month of the year, but one that ought to change us and be reflected in our hearts and lives all year long. Father, I thank you for the opportunity we have to sing songs now and these are going to be some familiar songs and some that are not, but I pray that you would receive them as worship to you.

I pray that you would allow us even through these Christmas songs, the seasonal songs that we sing, to reflect deeply about how awesome you are, how glorious, how worthy.

Of our worship you are.

Thank you for salvation in your son and it's in his name that I pray, amen. Yeah, go ahead and be seated and big thanks to Dave and the band for leading us in worship. I just, I love that last song, there's just something about the thought of him reigning forever and ever that it just gets me, gets me in the gizzard.

So I just love that, love that song and how many of you are just looking forward to the reign of Jesus Christ? Like him having his final say in all things, I look forward to that day. I want to encourage you during the rest of our time together to make yourself comfortable if at any time you need to get up and get more coffee or juicer or water back there.

Looks like all the donut holes are gone, so hopefully you enjoyed those. If you need to get up and stretch out or use the restrooms, those are out the double doors down the hallway on the left hand side for those of you that aren't from around here.

But keep your Bibles open to John 1, 1 through 14. I'm going to walk us through that and it's not going to make a lot of sense, you're going to be like, what's the outline? That is the outline, we're going to walk through it verse by verse, so you'll see that as we go if you have it open in front of you.

I want to start off with just an illustration, imagine that you sit down with your family or some friends, the popcorn has popped and you're ready to watch the musical Hamilton. Now how many of you have seen Hamilton?

Okay I think a lot of you have seen Hamilton, how many of you enjoyed Hamilton? Okay now how many of you are going to be thinking about Hamilton the rest of the time that I'm here singing those songs in your head?

Okay, so a lot of us enjoyed Hamilton and so I know that the illustration will strike a lot of us, but as you settle in for popcorn with your friends or family, somebody in the crowd says, I wish we could just put the Lin-Manuel Miranda back in Hamilton.

I wish we could just put him back in there, like I just wish we had more Lin-Manuel Miranda in that. What would you think? You'd be like, what? What are you talking about? For those of you that are unaware, you're not going to get it, those of you who know Hamilton probably got it right away, Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the script.

He wrote the songs and he performs in it as the lead role, okay? So to put the Lin-Manuel Miranda back in Hamilton is kind of like a bit strange. My point in this illustration is that it would be pedantic and silly to suggest that Lin-Manuel Miranda needs to be put back into something he created that has his fingerprint everywhere and in which he actually is the main actor.

Do we think about Christmas rightly when we think about the phrase, put Christ back into Christmas? I would suggest to you that we do not think rightly about the majesty, the grandeur, or the mind-melting mystery of incarnation with that phrase.

Instead, I think we turn to some level of misguided culture war when we say that. Do we really expect an unbelieving cashier at Target to really get Christ? Do we expect them to say with any meaning or any significance, Merry Christmas?

Do we expect there to be any real flavor in that, any real understanding, any real passion? And further, what do they need? Well, they need the gospel. They need the gospel from us, not any level of scorn or culture war against them.

What they need is they need the truth. And so loving them would be the right key, but why would we be upset that they have no framework of understanding? Why would we put that out there as the world? And some of you are going, well, that's not my shtick.

I've never used that cliche. I've never used that phrase. Well, great. Then just listen to the text and marinate in the idea of incarnation. But further, I would suggest to you, for believers, we don't need to put Christ back into Christmas either.

We need to stand rather in jaw-dropping awe of the incarnation that we already know. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. Emmanuel means God with us. We just sang it a few times here. And he came and he pitched his tent among us.

He came to stay at our place for 33 years. We don't need to put Jesus anywhere. We need to only recognize that he willingly put himself here. I hope that this passage rattles us away from small-minded views of Christmas this morning.

The starting point of the gospel, according to John, does indeed have Christmas in its.

Scope.

The coming of Christ is his purview. That's what he's trying to communicate to us in these first 14 verses. But there is no manger. There are no shepherds mentioned. There's no Quirinius as governor. There's no census.

And that's all because he leaves that up to the other guys. He's like, Matthew, Mark, Luke, you can handle that. He steps back to take in a larger, breathtaking vision to express to us what's really going on in that manger 2 ,000 years ago.

He doesn't merely step back, but he steps way back to the beginning. The beginning. What beginning? The beginning of matter. The beginning of space. The beginning of time. The beginning of all things.

In that beginning, he starts off with, like as in the Genesis 1 -1 beginning. And in that beginning, there was the Word. Now we're introduced right away to a conundrum and a mystery. If you haven't read this passage before, if this was your first reading, you might pause at verse 1 and be stymied.

It says the Word was with God and the Word was God. Sometimes it doesn't do to merely pause on a confusing passage. How many of you ever had it where you're reading a book and you're like, I don't agree with that?

And then two paragraphs later, you're like, okay, I agree with that. It makes more sense after you get a little more context and you keep pressing on. Well, to pause here doesn't help. Sometimes we need to keep reading and we find that our answers come later.

If we stop at verse 1, what I'm getting at, and we exert enough mental energy trying to figure out what John is saying, I don't believe we'd get it. I don't think we'd ever come to understanding of this passage if we stop and just analyze verse 1.

What is the Word?

Why did the translators of the ESV decide to capitalize it? How could it be, how could this Word, whatever it is, be both with God and simultaneously.

Be God?

That's a conundrum, right? But the start of verse 2, if you just press ahead a little bit further, you begin to see an unfolding of who is the Word, and really what is the Word and then really who. Because verse 2 right from the beginning lets us know that we are not looking for a what is the Word, we are looking for a who is the Word.

It says, he was in the beginning with God. So the Word is at least personal, the pronoun is personal, it's he. It's described by that masculine pronoun he. We see that all things were made through him and nothing exists that wasn't made with his agency.

In other words, he was the agent, the one who was an active participant in all creation. And this, of course, I just want to clarify, removes him, removes the Word from the creation itself. He could not be a created being and have verse 3 be true.

If nothing was made without him, then he could not have been made. But further we zero in on the identity of the Word by finding that life is in him. The whole passage is designed to explain who is the Word and it is the location of life.

That life in him is the light of mankind. In other words, John is stating here what he explains more explicitly, you can jot this reference down in John 17 .3. John 17 .3 he expands on this idea of the life and the light and what is this life that was coming into the world, he says, this is eternal life, John 17 .3.

This is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. What's he getting at here? Permanent, unending, eternal life is wrapped up in this Word. Life the way it was made to be in the garden before the fall is wrapped up in the Word who alone has it to re-offer to us, to bring us back to it.

The light is that which visually reveals the truth and so when you see that the life and it was the light of men. In the darkness we think we discern the stranger in the corner of our bedroom when we wake up until the lights are turned on and we realize it's just our bathrobe, right?

You ever have that experience where, I mean, in the darkness things look a little different than they do when they're exposed to the truth of the light. The light of the world is in opposition to the darkness of sin and corruption.

The truth of God coming into the world through this Word and the darkness will not overcome that life-giving light. Further, the Word, it says in the text, had a herald, a man named John who is known as the baptizer.

He was sent from God. He came as a witness about the light so that all might believe that the light was coming from God, that it was not just some other source. John the baptizer was not the light but he came to bear witness about the light, he says.

And therefore the light is like a spotlight on the life available in the Word. He alone is the source of any new life and he shines a spotlight on that eternal forever life that humanity once had in the garden but lost through rebellion against our Creator.

The true light, the true truth-revealing light was coming into the world according to John. This is still the same Word, life, light in verses 9 through 11. And of course we are getting more and more evidence of course in the text that he's speaking about Jesus.

How many already knew it was about Jesus? You already knew that, right? Because this Word, life, light was coming into the world and he came into the world, the very world that was made through him, yet the world did not even recognize him.

And according to verse 11, he came to his own people and his own people rejected him. I can't think of anything that says rejection quite like crucifixion, right? Does that look like rejection? I think it does.

But verse 12 holds out glorious hope that some will indeed receive him. And the glorious gift to anyone who receives him is found in verse 12. All who received him and believed in his name, they are given the right to become children of God.

They are brought into the family through the Word, life, light. He brings those who accept him and trust in his name under the protective umbrella of.

God.

And this life that is offered through the Word comes about by a supernatural birth, the text says. It is not a birth by blood relatives. It isn't something that can be brought through human will or through human effort.

No, that's not how we are saved. It's not by flesh and not by our pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps and our obedience and our church attendance and our giving and all of that kind of stuff, but rather the new birth comes by the will of God, according to the text.

And of course, all of this is building up to the revelation of the Word in verse 14. The text has been meant to be a long building introduction to the one who stands off stage. He's off stage and the text is telling us more and more detail about who this one is until it becomes abundantly clear in verse 14.

We read his credentials. We don't really find out his clear identity until verse 14. The Word. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory. Glory as of the only Son from the Father.

The Word is the Son. The Word is the one who brings the fullness of grace and truth from the Father. The Word is the one who became flesh and pitched his tent among us. The Word, of course, is Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God.

So let's go back over the text and refresh our minds with this passage and what it's really telling us. It clearly tells us about the cosmic grandeur of the one we celebrate this season. And this is going to take the form of eight observations about Jesus from this text.

So here we go. Here's number one. Jesus was with God in the beginning. Jesus was with God there in the beginning. By calling him the Word, Jesus is tapping into both two things, both Greek philosophy as well as ancient Judaism.

Probably more emphasis on ancient Judaism because that's where John was raised. That's his background. But he also seems to use a category that was quite common in Greek philosophy as well. But let's think about the Jewish aspect of it first.

How did God create in Genesis 1? What did he do in order to create?

He spoke, right?

He said, let there be light, and there was light. How many of you think those are some powerful words? Those are some really, really powerful words.

Let there be light, and boom, light appears.

Like when God speaks, his words have power to accomplish that which he sends them out.

To do.

He said, let there be light, and there was light, and that's tying into this idea of.

The Word.

Now, in Greek philosophy, the word logos there is the Greek word for word, logos. And logos was a central activating principle in the world. Much like we might say, and I'm not equating it with fate, I'm just telling you that what goes on in your mind when you hear the word fate is the same idea of what would go on in a Greek philosopher's head when you said logos, a big picture kind of thing.

Nobody uses the word fate without tying themselves to some bigger principle of what's going on in the world, what's really going on in the universe. Do you know what I'm talking about? If I were to say to my wife, fate brought us together, I mean something more than we.

Met at a basketball game.

How many of you know that by using the word fate, I've just ramped it up a level? That's what logos would be to a Greek philosopher. It's the idea of there's a big picture operating principle going on in the world, and John ties in with that.

Not only is it God's powerful word to accomplish that which he sets out to do, but he is the activating principle in all things, over all things, so that Jesus is here being called God's active expression.

In three areas that I think John had in mind, he is the active expression of God in creation, in revelation of himself, and in salvation, how we can be reunited with him. Jesus is the center of all of that.

He's the center of creation, he's the center of understanding who God is, revelation, and he's the center of our salvation, of bringing restoration to a fallen and broken human race. Like we send out our words from us to accomplish stuff, how many of you expect a response or something to be done because you send an email, or a text?

We don't send out words without an intention, we don't send out words without hoping something is accomplished. Well, God always gets his stuff done, and so too did God send out Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, to accomplish his will and his work in the world.

So Jesus was with God in the beginning. The second thing is that Jesus was the agent of creation. Our Lord, I want you to think about this for just a moment, our Lord, our Savior, our King, our hope, is also our creator.

He was active in those six days recorded for us in Genesis. He made galaxies, and molecules, and metals, and noble gases, water with all of its very strange properties, stars, and all life. Just throw that as a caveat on the end, all life.

Let that sink in. Either this is true, or John was a liar, and you can throw the whole message into question. Is Jesus our creator? Text says yes. And John is saying something so radical here that by the time we get to verse 14, our jaws should drop more than merely a few weeks of the year.

The creator, the Son of God through whom all things were made became flesh and dwelt among.

Us. Church, that is astonishing.

That is mind-melting. The creator came and took on flesh. And once we truly understand this incarnation and we use the word Christmas for that, we will recognize that Jesus is not merely one thing to plug back into our traditions.

He's the whole thing. The third thing that I observe about Jesus in this text is that Jesus possesses within himself the life. Now we're all alive this morning. How many of you would admit that you're alive right now?

Some of you are not. Have I preached you to death?

Or is that a...

No, we're all alive this morning, and so it can rightly be said that we all have life within us. So what makes this unique? John is clearly stating something more than that Jesus is merely alive. He possesses and offers a unique type of life, a unique quality of life.

As I mentioned, John 17 3 says that eternal life is to know God the Father and God the.

Son.

What he possesses in himself is a life that is the true light that pushes back the darkness. The true life that allows the restoration of humanity, that allows us to have an eternal restoration with him the way that he intended it to be in the beginning.

How many of you just kind of think back to the garden and go, man, if Adam and Eve had just not messed up, golly, if I could just go back in a time machine and just slap that fruit out of her hand, come diving in just at the last second, no.

How many of you would love to do that? Just get that out of the way and just be like, no, you don't know what you're doing, wars,.

Catastrophe, everything, don't do it.

Jesus possesses in himself the life of restoration, the life that fixes the death problem. How many of you just say, death has haunted me for a while.

It's coming.

It's on the way. We know that, and I mean, maybe this last two years we've become more and more familiar with the feelings that like, hey, I'm probably not going to last forever. It's a problem for us.

It's a reality for us. It's an enemy for us, and Jesus possesses the victory over it. The fourth thing that we see in the text about Jesus' observation, Jesus is the light that is shining against the darkness.

He is the light. Now, we have a lot of little, little tiny lights and the little tiny candles that we like to light. Some of them are medical information. Some of them are hope and statistics. Some of them are our jobs or our bank accounts or our 401Ks.

We have these little lights that are chintzy, and how many of you know they can blow out easy? Do you know what I'm talking about? We place our hope in all of these kinds of things, but there is a light that is shining.

Against the darkness.

There is one answer. The light is shining. I want you to see that in the text. The light is shining, active. Jesus isn't waiting for you to put him back into Christmas. He can do just fine without you.

He is shining.

The only thing on us, church, is to open our eyes to see him in the glorious life and light that he brings, that he has.

He's there.

He's holding it. We have that to offer to the world around us.

That's all.

Just open your eyes to see it and let it change you, let it move you, let it change the way you feel this season. Here is hope for our concerns. In this text is hope for our concerns for a culture that seems intent on burning the whole tent down.

Do you know what I'm talking about? It doesn't seem like our culture wants to burn the whole thing down. It does. It seems like it's moving in that direction. It seems like there's intention behind it.

But the light keeps shining. And though the darkness is real, it will not overcome him. It won't overcome him. He keeps shining life and light and life and light and life and light. And you know what?

He wants to use you in that. He wants to use you this season in that. If you would just open your eyes to behold his glory and let that move you. The problem is a lot of times we don't get moved first.

We're used to it. We're inoculated to it. And so there's no beating in our chest for the gospel. There's no beating in our chest for this incarnate son of God come to rescue us. And instead we're okay just kind of doing this as maybe I'll survive this Christmas season.

I think that a lot of us have that attitude and wants us to thrive in this. He wants to use us. He wants to spread life and light through us if we would just open our eyes. The fifth observation that was Jesus is the light that is shining against the darkness.

The fifth is that Jesus had a herald to witness to the world. This is significant primarily in the reason that in this epic scope all of a sudden John the Baptist is mentioned and then he disappears again.

I think that that's significant in here just for a very short reason. It isn't just Jesus merely saying, I came from God, follow me. There have been people who have done that down through the ages and you've got cults and strange things and people even gone to their death for a cult leader.

But John the Baptizer came in fulfillment of prophecy to show Old Testament prophecy being fulfilled in this event to bear witness that Jesus is indeed the light of God that has come into the world. The sixth observation is that Jesus faced rejection.

We know that he came on a mission and I remember for years I kind of went through, back when I sat where you sit and I had a pastor who was up here talking, I was like, why can he never settle on Christmas?

Why does he always have to go to Easter? Why does he always go to the cross? Why can't we just talk about Christmas? Anybody ever feel that way? Like, Don, why are you going to talk about the death of Christ here?

Aren't we talking about his birth? But it matters because he came on a mission and I get it now. His arrival is glorious in itself but it is even compounded in awe and wonder when we consider why he came and that's why we talk about it.

We talk about it all the time. We talk about it in all texts of scripture. We talk about it in all seasons because he came to die for you and me. The son of man came to die as a ransom for many, his own words.

He said, this is the reason I came. This is the reason I was born, to die a ransom for many. Verse 10 states this in unsettling terms though. The way that the text here says it, it unsettles me. He came into the world.

Think about it. He came into the world, the very world that he crafted. He made it yet the world didn't know him. And further, he was rejected by the world that he made. Like an episode of Undercover Boss has gone very wrong, right?

They reject the boss and they basically kick him out of the company and it's like, wait.

A second.

But I'm the boss.

Just kidding.

Here.

There's the reveal.

I'm the boss.

No, you're out.

There's a short list of people, a short list of people, but you can look it up, people who were killed by their own inventions. Little known fact is that the owner of Segway came to his demise on the edge of a cliff when his Segway that he was riding misfired and went off the cliff.