“How to Find the Way Home.”
OKAY - Do you want to do some theology?
John 1:1-14
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
It’s a dark night and even though your car headlights are on and shining brightly, you notice how dark it is outside: it’s a dark night.
You have been driving through the night, a long way from your home, but you will soon be home.
Even after your long drive ends and you reach your home tired and needing a good rest, you know that the only way you will be able to see the familiar things you love, as they really are, will be the next morning in the light of day. Somehow things will be better in the morning.
You may be carrying the weight of the world on your mind tonight, but things will be better in the morning.
The whole Bible pictures us as being in the darkness, a long way from home. Christians call home ‘heaven.’
I want you to consider this message about “How to Find the Way Home.”
There is something primeval about John’s use of the words “in the beginning” because as a Jew he was very much aware of and indeed immersed in the Jewish understanding of the beginning.
Everything begins with God: “in the beginning God,” Genesis 1:1.
So here he recalls that primeval truth and God gives him additional revelation about Christ: “In the beginning was the Word…” (John 1:1)
Where we read ‘Word’ in English, it comes from the Greek word ‘Logos,’ the expression of information, is in this case about God. For the ‘Logos’ or the ‘Word’ is God, says the Apostle John.
If you study anthropology, you want to find out about man and if you study theology you discover things about God. So the dictionary says of this passage that in theology: “the divine word or reason incarnate in Jesus Christ. (John 1:1–14.)” (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/logos)
The ‘logy’ part of these words, anthropology and theology, and many other scientific words like ‘biology,’ come from the Greek word ‘logos’ or ‘word.’
The ‘logos’ part of a word in English indicates ‘the study of’ or “matter under consideration.”
So ‘Theos’ and ‘logos,’ make up the word ‘theology.’
And here John embarks on a study of God: theology.
Who is God? The One who expresses knowledge about Himself.
He is the One who reveals Himself:
“In the beginning was the Word.”
God reveals Himself through His Divine Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Word of God. Verse 2 says, “He was in the beginning with God.”
He embodies the expression of who God is. So if you want to know who God is, look to Jesus!
“I came to Jesus as I was,
Weary and worn, and sad;
I found in Him a resting place,
And He has made me glad.” Says hymn writer Horatius Bonar.
Secondly, says the Apostle, Christ is Creator: Verse 3 “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.”
Christ is the mediator of creation as well as salvation.
Where is God? Verse 1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
I thought that what I learned about Genesis chapters 1-11 at Bible College would always be a problem to me. I was so confused. But later in life I came to understand that God in His Word never lies or deceives us or leaves us with confusion as the teaching of men can often do. (I Cor 1:20-21).
John Bunyan warned of Mr Worldly Wiseman “In modern parlance, Mr.Worldly-Wiseman would be the equivalent of a liberal pastor who scorned the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ as taught in the Bible and preached social reform based upon evolutionary advance and moral influence.” (http://www.bunyanministries.org/pp_commentary/05_com%20_christian_encounters_worldly.pdf)
Jesus and John, Moses and Paul, Isaiah and Peter and all the Prophets and Apostles and indeed the Pharisees believed in Genesis as history. The dogma of an exceedingly ancient Earth was foreign to them as it was to the church for thousands of years.
It is only recently, in the last 160 years, that God has once again been slapped in the face and believers told “You will not surely die.” and “Has God indeed said?” (Genesis 3:1, 4) or "Has God really said that?"
What we know about God is truth from God, revelation from God, not given to us through myths and ancient loosely interpreted stories. The Apostle Peter said (2 Pet 1:16) “For we did not follow cunningly devised fables (myths) when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty.”
“In the beginning was the word…”
John reminds us that God is eternal. His word stands firm. It was God who was there at the beginning of all created things. So He is always present.
God is here right now because, being God, He is omnipresent, everywhere at once.
God is here, revealing Himself to you, right now.
How can I know about God?
Better, how can I know God? Is that even possible?
The fact that we can ask such questions says a lot.
If we were born already knowing God, humankind would not be asking “how can I know God?” and “where will I find Him?” There would not be all the religions and religious speculation in the world if we naturally knew God and were friends with God.
The Apostle John explains that by nature we are in darkness like the rest of the world: 4 “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”
The darkness is the darkness of the world without Christ. Living within that world is to experience darkness. In that darkness there is no light or life. 9 “That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.”
In John 3:19 God says “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”
At which point did men love darkness?
When did they begin to need the light of God?
From the beginning of the world after the Fall. Again you have to have faith in God’s word in Genesis 1-11 to accept this.
If we know God, if we see the light, we have life, for Christ is the Light of the world, he says, and the light gives life to men.
“I heard the voice of Jesus say,
‘I am this dark world’s Light,’
Look unto Me, thy morn shall rise,
And all thy day be bright.” (Church Hymnary 410, verse 3, Horatius Bonar 1808-1889)
6 “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. (The Baptiser) 7 This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, (Jesus Christ) that all through him might believe. (That is, believers)
8 He (John) was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.”
‘It’s not about me,’ says John the Baptiser. “I am here to tell you about Jesus Christ.”
9 “That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. 10 He (Jesus Christ) was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.”
‘Ginowsko’ is the Greek word used here and means 'to know' and here it is explained that the world had no perception of Christ, did not understand or comprehend Who and what God was or what Christ had come among them for.
Knowing God is to know or experience life as it should be: John 17:3 “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
Verse 11: “He came to His own, (His own people, the Jews) and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right (‘exousia:’ the power or the authority) to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 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 beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
So what we need is a revelation of God that tells us who Jesus is and thus tells us who God is because Jesus shows us God.
So if you want to know who God is, look to Jesus!
“I looked to Jesus, and I found
In Him my Star, my Sun;
And in that light of life I’ll walk,
Till travelling days are done.” (Church Hymnary 410 verse 3, Horatius Bonar 1808-1889)
The way John the Apostle uses the words ‘believe’ and ‘receive’ are not exactly the same in meaning but they are close to it.
If you believe in Christ, you receive Him.
If you receive Christ, you believe in Him.
“If I eat sausages on Tuesday, when it is a Tuesday I eat sausages.”
But clearly my reference to ‘Tuesdays’ and ‘sausages’ are two different things.
Tuesday is a day of the week.
Sausages are the things I eat on that day.
But that is why I believe that ‘believing’ and ‘receiving’ are spoken of in a particular way here in John’s Gospel.
There have always been those who believe in God.
There have always been those who believe in Jesus Christ. But there have always been those among them who have not received Jesus Christ!
Just as Tuesdays are not sausages, believing does not always result in receiving Christ.
Just as I may miss eating sausages some Tuesdays, some people miss receiving Christ.
How can you say that?
Well, Mark 2:15, 5:24 for example, tells us that there were many who followed Jesus but in John 6:66 it tells us: “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.”
Because they were offended by Jesus’ explanation about the bread, that they would ‘eat His flesh and drink His blood,’ they stopped following Him. You can read about it in John 6: 22-59.
So who were those who trusted Jesus then and who are they now?
What characteristic do believers have that makes them Christians?
Love, is the primary characteristic but what do they all have before that love can begin and grow in their lives?
What is noticeable about them?
They had to be those who, as Jesus said, understood spiritually, “everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.” (John 6:45)
6:40 “And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
There is clearly a difference between believing that Jesus Christ exists and receiving Him personally.
There is clearly a difference between believing in Jesus Christ and believing Him according to the Bible.
Those who ‘see’ Him as the Bible understands seeing, “everyone who sees the Son” as John says in chapter 6, are those who once they have ‘seen Him,’ understand Him to be who He claims to be and they believe in Him.
They are the ones who embrace or receive Him into their lives.
The Bridge Illustration
Suppose I go on a long walk. I am on holiday and being unfamiliar with my surroundings I discover that I need to cross a bridge to get back home. You can find that is the case in lots of places.
You may not have started off knowing you would need to cross a bridge to get home, but you find on your way back you do…(There is such a bridge near where I live.)
Anyway, I come up to the bridge and look at it.
I understand the purpose and ability of the bridge to hold me up if I want to cross it to get home safely.
If I get on to the bridge, I believe something very important.
I believe the bridge will hold me up above the water or the road or railway below.
If I look at the bridge and say: “Yes I believe in the bridges’ ability to hold me up safely when I step on to it,” yet I do not step on to the bridge when I really need to cross it to get home, I do not believe in the bridge!
If I do not step on the bridge, I do not believe in the bridge!
I do not believe in the way that Jesus understands ‘believe.’
I do not believe in the way Jesus means me to ‘believe,’ and teaches about believing in Him.
You need to stop believing the old way and start believing the new way, in order to get home.
Just like me needing to actively get on to that bridge, you need to actively rely on Jesus Christ to get you home.
John 1: 11 “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
John says that the reason people do not believe, as God calls them to believe, is that they use human wisdom to try to work out the Christian life. So that is why Paul says:
I Corinthians 1:18-258 “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.’ 20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.”
Jesus and Paul are in complete agreement. Verse 22 “For Jews request a sign, (as Jesus found in John 6:30) and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”
So you are in good company if you just believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and take Him at His word. Indeed, you are commended by Jesus Himself and His Apostles.
“He who believes in me will never perish but have everlasting life.” (John 6:47). AMEN.
