He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.
The world did not recognize him.
For us as Americans when we use the word recognize, we generally use it in the sense of identification. “I was driving to Costco and this quickly car passed me up. I took a look at who was driving and I recognized the driver was my wife behind the wheel.” We see recognition as being able to identify who a person is.
Over the years I have had a number of folks come up to me and ask me, “Are you Dana Carvey?” Apparently some people see some kind of resemblance between me and Dana Carvey. You may remember, Dana Carvey is an comedian who spent some time on the show ‘Saturday Night Live’ and was famous for his character ‘The Church Lady’ and for his impersonations of George Bush, Gerald Ford and Ross Perot. Usually, people see me as Dana Carvey at a wedding reception after they have had a little too much to drink.
A person will approach me and say, “Hey! Has anyone ever told you, you look just like Dana Carvey! Are you Dana Carvey?” When I assure them I am not Dana Carvey, but that I am in fact the pastor who just preformed the wedding they were at a short time ago, they always respond, “Oh, OK, I’m sorry…..Hey, Dana, can you do one of your impersonations like the Church Lady or president Bush?” I always take that as my signal to say good bye and leave the wedding reception.
They think they recognize the identity of Dana Carvey, but alas, they never consider the questions, “Why would Dana Carvey be at a wedding reception in Anchorage Alaska?” or, “Why in the world would Dana Carvey preform a wedding in Anchorage Alaska?”
Certainly, part of recognition is to identify, but identification is only one quarter of what full recognition is. Here in our Scripture this morning, when verse 10 tells us that the world did not recognize Jesus, our Scripture is speaking of much more than proper identification. You see, being able to identify who Jesus is, is only part of the picture. If we are only able to identify who Jesus is, we are only one quarter correct, we are only one quarter the way to where we need to be.
If I say, “I know who Jesus is, Jesus is the Son of God.” We are expressing only identification and identification expresses understanding of the facts, but it does not express any kind of belief. Identity is a start. We have to be able to identify who Jesus is, if we are going to be able to be a follower of Jesus Christ, if we can’t identify who Jesus is, how can we follow him?
Yet, again, identity is only a start.
I can correctly identify who Jesus is, but still have no faith. I can correctly identify who Jesus is but still have no understanding beyond the facts. I can correctly identify who Jesus is and fool myself into thinking I have faith, when I only have a cognitive ability to analyze the facts correctly.
What is true recognition of Jesus Christ? To truly recognize Jesus we need to be able to do the following: Identify who Jesus is; Acknowledge who Jesus is; Approve of who Jesus is; and Give Tribute to Jesus, for who he is.
Identify, Acknowledge, Approve, Give Tribute.
For you and I to recognize Jesus we need to be able to do these four things: Identify, Acknowledge, Approve, Give Tribute. Without doing these four things, we are not truly recognizing who Jesus is.
Take a look at your bibles. See there in verse 10 of John chapter one, John uses the word ‘world’ three times in this verse. Now, the first two times John uses the word ‘world’ John means the physical world, he means the planet earth, terra firma, the third rock from the sun. But, the third time John uses the word ‘world’ we see in the original Greek that John means the people who came in contact with Jesus.
So John is not speaking of some abstract encounter, some general societal attribute or some general encyclopedic knowledge, no, John is speaking of an intimate encounter with Jesus. John tells us that these are people came into contact with Jesus and somehow, they did not recognize who Jesus is.
John is saying that we, that is you and I, we can have an encounter with Jesus, and not recognize who he is. Remember, this recognition is more than identity, it is an intimate personal encounter of full recognition.
We see in verse 10, that the equivalent of not recognizing Jesus is rejection. Now remember, full recognition means we have to Identify, Acknowledge, Approve, and Give Tribute to Jesus. Anything less than that is rejection. In other words, partial recognition of Jesus Christ is still rejection of Jesus Christ. Only full recognition of Jesus, is acceptance of Jesus.
See, in verse 11 we see the phrase, “He came to that which was his own,” see that there? A better translation of the phrase would be, “He came home.” Verse 11 means that Jesus came home where people should have known him. This phrase indicates that Jesus came to his possession, Jesus came to what was always and forever his. It is like he came home to the house he had always owned, but none of his neighbors recognized him.
Not knowing Jesus is more than an identity issue, here in verse 11 it says that they refused him by not receiving him. The neighbors knew who Jesus was, but they refused to acknowledge him. Not knowing Jesus was refusing to acknowledge him.
They saw Jesus come home, they could even identify him, but they refused to take the next step, they refused to acknowledge Jesus. What they are doing was refusing to acknowledge the authority of Jesus. By not recognizing the authority of Jesus, they refuse Jesus.
With us, all of us here in this room, we can say we know who Jesus is. We can list a long list of facts and figures about him, we can even quote extensive scriptures about Jesus, but unless we take the next step and acknowledge who Jesus is, we reject Jesus. Even with all the facts about Jesus intellectually in our grasp, if we reject the authority of Jesus in our lives, we reject Jesus.
Here is an example from my life.
When I was a pastor in Texas, in addition to working at my church, I worked with the Synod. The Synod is a regional body that attempts to coordinate larger ministry concerns in the region. In this particular case the region was Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. I was in charge of the communication division for the Synod. The communication division had four areas of concern: web pages, conference calls, video promotion and a newspaper. This newspaper had a circulation of over 90,000 and was published about every six weeks. It was about the size of our local paper here and so it was constantly updating. I had an editor and several writers that produced the paper.
Well, we had a meeting at the plant that printed our paper in Dallas. I had the newspaper editor and several of the writers with me at this meeting. We were looking at several options to improve the paper from paper quality to color saturation. As the meeting progressed throughout the day, I noticed that though there were about twelve people at the meeting, the printing plant manager only spoke to me. The printing plant manager only asked me questions, the printing plant manager only would listen to my comments.
Why was the printing plant manager acting this way? The printing plant manager was acting this way because he recognized that I was the only one in the room that had the authority to make a financial decision. See, it didn’t matter if the writers wanted more color in the paper, and it didn’t matter if the editor wanted a heavier quality of paper, the writers and the editors couldn’t spend a dime - I was the only one with the authority to spend more money on the printing of the paper, so the printing plant manager focused only on me.
This man recognized not only who I was, but this man also recognized the authority I was given. In the same way, we need to not only recognize who Jesus is, but we also need to recognize Jesus’ authority over our life.
What about us? How do we in a practical way, know if we are recognizing the authority of Jesus in our life? Well, it is really pretty simple, how you live your life is evidence of your acknowledgment of the authority of Jesus in your life. If your life is under your full control, then you have not acknowledged the authority of Jesus in your life. On the other hand, if you are maturing spiritually and your control of your life is diminishing, then you have acknowledged, in a practical way, the authority of Jesus Christ in your life.
Ok. So we need to Identify Jesus and then acknowledge the authority of Jesus over us, but even more, we need to approve of who Jesus is. In other words we need to officially endorse Jesus for who he is.
Now I am not getting political here, but hear this example for what it is. I can identify Obama as president and I can acknowledge the authority that Obama has a president, but if I do not approve of Obama as president, then I am not really recognizing Obama for who he is.
This is the same with Jesus Christ. I can Identify Jesus for who he is; I can acknowledge Jesus’ authority, but if I do not approve of Jesus - then I do not recognize him.
At that meeting at the printing plant we decided to use a heavier paper for the newspaper. Moving up to better paper meant that we could afford to print less pages. We had a higher quality paper, but there would be less pages to print on. This meant in practical terms that everyone had less space in which to publish their articles. Most people understood and worked within the guidelines, however, I had two writers who refused to comply with the reduced space, and the Texas Presbyterian Historical Society also refused to comply.
The writers were easy to deal with, I gave them the boot and replaced them with two other writers, but the Texas Presbyterian Historical Society, that was a different matter. The Texas Presbyterian Historical Society had been given two full pages in the newspaper for eternity. The society demanded I keep their two full pages or else…..When I refused to reinstate their space, they informed me that they had contacted all their members and a letter writing campaign was now in force to remove me as chair of the communication division in the Synod. My name and reputation was about to be ruined by the Texas Presbyterian Historical Society.
It was a brutal campaign. The Synod received a total of three letters denouncing me as chair.
So in response, I removed the Texas Presbyterian Historical Society from the paper for one issue.
By the next issue the Texas Presbyterian Historical Society identified me as chair of the Synod Communication division, they recognized my authority over the paper and officially approved of me being the chair. Plus, they gave me a box of fabulous Texas pecan candy. Everyone was happy.
In terms of Jesus, John is warning us. No lip service, no insincere statements, no superficial compliance - we must be real, we must respond from the heart. If we do not officially approve of who Jesus is, then we do not recognize him.
In the middle of verse 12, we see the phrase “to those who believed in his name.” Now, for us a name is a label - “what’s his name?” It is a label of differentiation. My name Peter isn’t who I am, for us as Americans, it is a label to identify me from other people. This was not so in the ancient world. A name stood for more than a label, a name stood for whole personality. Recognizing Jesus isn’t just differentiating his name from all other names as holy, it is a form of commitment - and this brings us to our last point of recognition of who Jesus is - paying tribute.
We can identify Jesus, acknowledge his authority and we can also approve of who he is, but if we do not pay Jesus tribute, we are one step short of full recognition of Jesus in our lives.
To pay tribute to Jesus is to acclaim Jesus, to commend Jesus, to praise Jesus - but more than that, in practical everyday terms in is to offer all of who we are to Jesus. You see real recognition of Jesus is isn’t just intellectual identification, nor is it witnessing his authority, or is it approval of what great things he has done, real recognition of Jesus is leaving control of my own life behind, and giving that control over to Jesus - without this final step, we fool ourselves, we only offer lip service to Jesus.
To offer tribute to Jesus is to offer the only thing we honestly own.
We imagine that we own houses, vehicles, clothes, sports equipment, camping equipment, hunting equipment, fishing equipment, oh, and that fantastic iPhone. But, the truth is we have only one thing at our birth, and only one thing upon our death - and that is our one and only life.
Full recognition of Jesus Christ is to offer our very life to him. How do we do this? Verse twelve and thirteen give us insight on how this is done, they give us insight on how to offer tribute to Jesus Christ.
Notice that many did not recognize Jesus, but all is not lost, some do recognize Jesus.
See there in verse twelve the phrase, “all who received him.” This is difficult phrase to render, especially in the Greek, and the reason for this difficulty is that it is an Aramaic saying, one that Jesus says himself uses the majority of the 21 times it is seen in the Gospels. It is a very direct form, placing emphasis on the receivers. What this phrase does is highlight the right of those who respond to Jesus.
Listen. Receive Jesus, receive Jesus and gain your spiritual right.
Now this right is not of power, no it is nothing like that. See, the reception of Jesus gives us a change of status, and that change of status is this: It is a passing of death into life. It is the passing of death into life.
Once you were headed for death, once your destiny was death, but, upon recognition of Jesus, that is, full recognition of Jesus, your destiny is now life, eternal life. Once you thought you had control of your life and were headed for death, now Jesus has control of your life, and you are headed for life.
John tells us that when we recognize Jesus fully were are granted the right to become children of God. Carefully notice that John does not say the typical thing that would be said. Typically the phrase ‘sons of God’ would be used, but instead John uses the term children. John purposely uses the term children because it stresses participation in a relationship with God as opposed to the rights of sonship. John tells us this right is not a distant, formal right, no, instead it is a familial, intimate right.
Then in verse 13 John further explains the meaning of this right. If you place your finger there at verse 13 you can follow along and see what John is describing here. John tells us we are not born of natural decent, this literally means born of blood, in other words, we are not born humanly speaking, instead we are born by the Holy Spirit. John is speaking not of human birth, John is speaking of something far greater, spiritual birth.
We are also not born of human decision, it is not our will that makes us children of God, it is the will of God that makes us children of God. God approaches us first, God offers us the gift of life - all we need do is respond.
Further, we are not born of a husband’s will, here the Greek in context it means that we are not born out of weakness, instead we are born out a great strength. Our spiritual birth is not a sign that we are weak, it is a sign of our power - through the person of Jesus Christ.
We are not born in any of these ways, we are born of God. This being born of God is closely linked with the idea of possession….It is a self abandoning faith. All I am, I give to you Lord Jesus.
See, in verse 14, John tells us that the Word became flesh, John says it as bluntly as he possibly can, flesh. Jesus was no phantom, Jesus was no avatar, Jesus was no demigod, Jesus was no mere prophet, Jesus is fully God / fully human.
Jesus came and dwelt among us. John describes Jesus setting up a tabernacle or a large tent. Jesus arrives, and with full force strikes his stake into the ground. The image John is creating in one of the Exodus where God was in the midst of the people. Jesus is here, and he is here to stay.
Have you, will you recognize Jesus for who he is.
More than simply Identification;
More than Acknowledgment;
More than Approval,
We need to Give Tribute to Jesus, give over to Jesus the only thing we have ever had to give - our lives.
Will you pray with me?
