Now in Flesh Appearing
December 6, 2020
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
Scripture Reading
John 1:1-18
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
14 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. 15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) 16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.
Before we begin looking at our passage, I want to slow down and make two announcements, both good announcements. Now, I’ll say this: the announcements have nothing to do with Covid, elections, racial tensions, or anything else that’s been controversial in 2020. Both announcements are related to good news about our staff.
First, Ben Bechtel has run a great race here at church for the last eighteen months, and he’s going to get some time to rest. In the summer of 2019, one of our lead pastors transitioned to a new church, and in the process, Ben took on way more responsibility. In addition, he’s been getting his seminary degree from an excellent school in Philly for the last four years. Ben is about to graduate with his master’s in divinity, which requires around a hundred hours of graduate-level classes. It’s a huge deal. Also, he and his wife are about to have their first child. So, you won’t see him around for the first month or so of next year except for at youth group—and that’s a good thing. When you train for a marathon and run a marathon, you don’t start training the next day. You rest. If you don’t rest, you get injured. We want Ben to rest.
Related to Ben’s time of rest, when he comes back, his job title will be different. That leads to the second announcement. Rather than the Associate Pastor of Youth Ministry and Music, he’ll be the Associate Pastor of Outreach and Music. That means oversight of student ministries from sixth grade through college-aged will change.
Now, I think what I’m about to say is good news, but if you don’t like change, you might not hear it that way at first. But I’d love for you to hear me out. Starting this winter we are hiring a new, full-time Director of Student Ministries and Communications. I’ll explain.
In this year’s budget, we had money to hire a half-time Director of Student Ministries. But we never hired a person for that role, even though it was in the budget. We paused for reasons that are likely very obvious; there was, after all, a global crisis. But we also paused for other reasons. When we began to ask potential hires about taking the role of part-time Director of Student Ministries, we realized that for most people, they needed the job to be a full-time job. Working forty hours in one place and then doing youth ministry for another twenty hours didn’t seem feasible, even when a person desperately wanted to make it work. Also, we heard from several parents that the idea of a part-time Youth Director was not nearly as attractive to them as someone working full-time. That makes sense to me.
All of this added up to the decision to approach the finance team about the possibility to hire a full-time position instead of a part-time one, which they gave to us, the pastor-elders of the church. We’ve only grown as a church since the pandemic, so it makes sense to me that what felt like a good idea one year ago, as the need only got larger, that the role could also get larger. To concretely explain why I think this change is good, let me put it like this. For the last eight years, whoever was the current staff person leading youth ministry has only done it as about 25% of his job, so some weeks seven hours on youth ministry and others perhaps fifteen hours. Starting in early next year, someone will work with the young men and women of our church thirty hours a week: discipleship, meetings, visiting schools, hosting youth events, all of that has the potential to increase the quality of our youth ministry.
And for those of you who are like me, who appreciate the way we currently do youth group at our church—a mix of fun and games but also a large, healthy dose of gospel and Bible and small group discussion—we don’t see that changing.
I’d love to tell you who we are hiring. And I plan to tell you next week—we hope. But the person we are hiring is currently informing his employer, and we don’t want to mess up that timeline because we really like this person, and we really like where he currently works. I hope you can appreciate that. I know it feels as though I’m trying to pull a Netflix-cliffhanger to keep you in suspense. I assure you that I am not doing that for any other reason than it’s what has to be done. For what it’s worth, beyond being the lead pastor of our church, I have two children in the youth group myself, and as much as I want Ben to be their youth pastor, I’m excited about this change.
Now, I’m almost on page four of my sermon manuscript. And I haven’t preached anything resembling a sermon yet. But I’m going to, and I’ll let you know there are only eight pages. To re-enter that preaching mindset, let’s pray one more time. “Dear Heavenly Father . . .”
The Meaning of Advent
Last week marked the first week of Advent. Advent means coming or arrival. It’s the time that Christians throughout the world focus on the arrival of Jesus—his arrival as a baby, his arrival into our hearts by faith, and his future, glorious second arrival. At our church this year during Advent we are preaching series we’re calling “Immanuel: How God Gives Us Himself.” Immanuel is a Hebrew word in the Bible that means God with us. When we sing “O come, o come, Emmanuel,” we ask God to come be with us.
Each week in the series, we are taking a passage that speaks to each aspect of Advent. Last week, Ben talked about the promise of Advent through the Old Testament Scriptures, as well as the Advent of Jesus as a baby. That’s where we’ll keep going this morning. Next week, we’ll look at the second Advent, the Advent of God into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, and finally, the Sunday before Christmas we’ll look at the promise of the final Advent, the coming of God to be with us at the end of time.
John’s “Tour” of Jesus
A moment ago, we heard John 1 read. Perhaps as you listened to the passage you had trouble keeping up with all the ideas tossed around. The language is simple—there are no difficult words (unlike the genealogy last week). But the meaning is complex and rich and jumbled. We read of beginnings, of the Word of God being with God and in fact God himself; we read of light, of life, received, believe, grace and truth, Word becoming flesh, grace upon grace, and so much more. If someone gave me a piece of writing with all that activity on the page, I might encourage the author to pick one metaphor and stay with it. But God knew what he was doing when he inspired John to write this passage. I think if John were here, and we asked him, Why did you pack your introduction so full?, he’d nod his head and say, “Stay with me.” By that, he’d mean that he has twenty-one more chapters to unpack all the imagery in the first few verses.
I’ll put it like this. Years ago, my wife and I went on a Segway tour in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We were on vacation with my extended family, and my father bought Brooke and me the tour. A Segway is one of those scooter looking things, except the wheels are on the sides, and you lean where you want it to go. As you lean forward, a gyroscope inside compensates with the speed of the wheels for how far you lean forward. The further you lean, the faster you go.
Reading John 1, you get the feeling that you’re on a Segway tour of who Jesus is, and John has leaned all the way forward. But he’s done that because, after this initial lap, John slows down and gives you a much longer tour of Jesus, one story and one chapter at a time.
Well, we don’t have that time this morning. We’re not taking the full tour of the gospel of John. But what can we notice about Jesus, even if the passage unfolds quickly?
Why Do We Adore Jesus?
1) We adore Jesus because he was because Jesus is no mere man. In vv. 1–3 we read,
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
Jesus was and is God, and not a mere man. We see that contrast highlighted explicitly in vv. 6–8.
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
So, there’s the one who is the light (the Word who is with God and is God), and then, in contrast, there is a man who was sent from God. He, the author goes out of his way to highlight, was not the light. He’s a witness, a reflector of the light. It’s like saying there is the moon and there is the sun. The moon looks bright, but it ain’t the light. And any light or heat or life the moon has comes from the sun. The first thing to notice about Jesus is that we adore him because he was no mere man.
2) We also adore Jesus because the Light and Life are powerful. Look at v. 5.
5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
You have this little itty-bitty candle in the corner of a room. Everything else is pitch black. And you can take a blanket to smother the light with the darkness, but when you do, the candle—this candle—catches the blanket on fire. You don’t overcome this light; this light overcomes you (cf. lighting candles on Christmas Eve). We adore Jesus because his light and life are powerful.
3) We adore Jesus because his grace is free. John introduces us to the theme of believing and receiving, and what we call new birth, and the free gift of Jesus. I’ll read vv. 11–13 again.
11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
I’ve always thought that v. 11 was one of the saddest verses in the New Testament. He came to his own, but his own people did not receive him. I once stood in the airport waiting for a soldier named Jason to come home from Iraq. My son and I went to greet him. As much as Jason wanted to see me, we were not mainly who Jason came home to see. I knew Jason from church and had discipled him, and it was going to be good to see him back home, but he was not there to see me; he was there to see his own family. And when he came down the escalator in his fatigues, everyone went nuts—hugs and tears with his family and wife and his son who was born while he was away.
Jason came to his own, and his own received him. Here, in v. 11, we read the pre-existing creator of the world, comes to his world, and he’s not greeted. He’s ignored by some and mocked by others. Perhaps that’s what you’ve done your whole life. It can change this morning. To all who receive him, to those who believe in his name, he gives the right to become children of God. That’s a wonderful Advent Christmas promise.
You don’t have to have a perfect religious pedigree to know Jesus. You can be the son of a pagan father, and the son of a Jewish grandfather, and a Muslim great-grandfather, and an atheist great-great-grandfather (and that would be a crazy family tree, one full of spiritual whiplash), but if you see your need for Jesus and receive him, you become a true child of God. That is grace upon grace. So we adore Jesus.
4) Finally, we adore Jesus because of his proximity to us and his perfect representation of the Father. Look at vv. 14 and 18.
14 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. . . . 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
Earlier, I said Jesus wasn’t a mere man. But he did become a man. The Word of God who was in the beginning and was with God and was God, became a man, the God-man. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” That word for dwell is the word for tent. Jesus took on flesh and pitched his tent among us. He didn’t come down to live in a castle but in a tent—among us. And if you’ve seen Jesus, John tells us, then you’ve seen God.
That’s John’s quick tour of who Jesus, his tour of why we should adore him. As we close, I wonder if some of us feel like that’s all interesting stuff, but why does adoring Jesus matter? It’s a good question.
People Are Starving for God
A few weeks ago I read to you from one of my favorite books on pastoral ministry by one of my favorite authors, The Imperfect Pastor by Zack Eswine. I want to read to you again, this time from one of my favorite books about preaching. I want to read it because it relates to what we’ve been talking about this morning. The book The Supremacy of God in Preaching by long-time pastor John Piper. I’ve read it at least five times. Here’s how the first two pages of the book go . . .
People are starving for the greatness of God. But most of them would not give this diagnosis of their troubled lives. The majesty of God is an unknown cure. There are far more popular prescriptions on the market, but the benefit of any other remedy is brief and shallow. Preaching that does not have the aroma of God’s greatness may entertain for a season, but it will not touch the hidden cry of the soul: “Show me thy glory!”
Years ago during the January prayer week at our church, I decided to preach on the holiness of God from Isaiah 6. I resolved on the first Sunday of the year to unfold the vision of God’s holiness found in the first four verses of that chapter:
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”
And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.
So I preached on the holiness of God and did my best to display the majesty and glory of such a great and holy God. I gave not one word of application to the lives of our people. Application is essential in the normal course of preaching, but I felt led that day to make a test: Would the passionate portrayal of the greatness of God in and of itself meet the needs of people?
I didn’t realize that not long before this Sunday one of the young families of our church discovered that their child was being sexually abused by a close relative. It was incredibly traumatic. They were there that Sunday morning and sat under that message. I wonder how many advisers to us pastors today would have said, “Pastor Piper, can’t you see your people are hurting? Can’t you come down out of the heavens and get practical?” “Don’t you realize what kind of people sit in front of you on Sunday?” Some weeks later I learned the story. The husband took me aside one Sunday after a service. “John, these have been the hardest months of our lives. Do you know what has gotten me through? The vision of the greatness of God’s holiness that you gave me the first week of January. It has been the rock we could stand on.
The greatness and the glory of God are relevant. It does not matter if surveys turn up a list of perceived needs that does not include the supreme greatness of the sovereign God of grace. That is the deepest need. Our people are starving for God.
(The Supremacy of God in Preaching, pp. 15–16)
We sang a few moments ago about adoring Jesus. “O come let us adore him, o come let us adore him, o come let us adore him, Christ the Lord.” What I want to say to you, is that adoring Jesus on Sunday morning is practical for Monday morning.
I’ll mention just one way knowing the power and life and light and grace of Jesus on Sunday matters for Monday. Adoring Jesus on Sunday helps you know that you don’t have to be the savior this Christmas. You don’t have to fix everyone’s problems. You don’t have to pull off the perfect holiday event. You just point to the savior you adore.
In vv. 6, 8 we read, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. . . . He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.” John the Baptist was great, but his job was to point to Jesus, not be Jesus. In v. 20, when people asked John who he was, he said emphatically, “I am not the Christ.” Adoring Jesus as the Christ on Sunday helps you not try to be him on Monday.
This week, I ran out of gas. I wish that were just a metaphor, but I literally ran out of gas. On my way to work, I had thought I could go to the post office and then to the gas station. Apparently, I needed to go to the gas station before I went to the post office. I felt like I was seventeen years old again. I made the call of shame. “Sweetie, can you bring me some gas?” which precedes the “filling of shame” where you stand by the side of the road and communicate to every passing car, “Yes, I’m a grown man, but I did totally run out of gas.”
I suspect many of you are out of gas—not literally but metaphorically. This morning I give you the encouragement that you are not the Christ. But you can know the Christ because of the first Advent, because he delights in drawing near.
I’ll invite the music team to lead us in a few songs. Let’s pray. . .
