Essential Truths - Jesus Christ, The Logos - February 3, 2019 Sermon for CATM
We are about 1/3rd of the way into our current teaching series on Essential Truths: The Triune God.
We have been exploring in some depth, over the past month or so, the nature of God, what the Trinity is, what the Bible reveals about Who God is.
We started with looking at God the Father, the fact that God is Spirit and God is a consuming Fire.
Then Pastor James Cheyne spoke about God the Father, that God is light. Then Pastor Arlene spoke, again about God the Father, that God is love.
Today we move to talking about the second person of the Trinity, God the Son. And since we like to go, when we can, in chronological order, today we going to talk about Jesus Christ,
and particularly what the Bible says about what Jesus was doing
BEFORE He became incarnate, before He came to us in the manger, before in Jesus God took on flesh and existed among us.
So we’re talking today about the pre-existence of Jesus. Let’s get started.
In the history of good ideas what do you think is the best idea that mankind has come up with?
End of slavery, Democracy, Free market, Equality for all/Feminism or Technology. These are all great ideas.
When I was growing up the very idea of having a personal computer in your home was unthinkable. Let alone the idea of having a mobile laptop computer to carry around with you. That was completely unimaginable.
If a personal laptop computer was incredibly unlikely, the idea of having a super computer that is so common that it’s just called a phone (show my phone) that gives you immediate access to all of the collective wisdom of mankind over all time, based just on how good your data or Wi-Fi signal is, was absolutely inconceivable.
Here’s a phone when I was growing up. (Show ancient phone, then 1970’s rotary phone).
We’re talking about the best ideas that humanity has ever come up with.
When it comes to ideas about philosophy, about life and about God, the ancient Greeks had something to offer.
As we think about this, I’m relying heavily on the thinking of William Barclay, a note Biblical scholar from the 20th century.
For the Greeks, their best idea was something they called the logos. For them, the Logos was divine wisdom.
In Greek it means two things--it means Word and it means Reason.
At the same point in history that the Greeks existed, the people of Israel also existed and were familiar with the all-powerful word of God: "God said, Let there be light; and there was light" (Gen.1:3).
The Greek was familiar with the idea of reason.
They looked at this world and he saw order. Night and day came with unfailing regularity.
The year kept its seasons; the stars and the planets moved in their paths; nature had her unchanging laws, like the law of gravity.
What produced this order, asked the Greeks?
The Greek answered without a pause: The Logos. For them that meant that the mind of God is responsible for the majestic order of the world.
The Greek-influenced thinker of that day went on: “What is it that gives man power to think, to reason and to know?
Again he answered unhesitatingly, The Logos, the mind of God, dwelling within a man makes him a thinking rational being.
Let’s stop and just note that Jesus and all the first disciples and first believers, many hundreds and then thousands, were Jewish.
But since the message of the gospel for not only for the Jewish people, that means it was for the gentiles, which was everybody else who wasn’t Jewish.
Those who were Jewish were influenced mostly by what we call the OT, and what they knew as the Hebrew Bible.
Those who were not Jewish were influenced by the thought of the Greeks, whose way of thinking impacted everybody else in the ancient world in the area of Palestine.
John. who wrote this gospel, jumped on this. He said to the Greeks, "All your lives you have been fascinated by this great, guiding, controlling mind of God.
I’ve got news for you. Really good, crazy good news: The mind of God has come to earth in the man Jesus. Look at him and you see what the mind and thought of God are like."
John taught that the logos is nothing less than God acting in the form of a man.
John declares that that is what Jesus enables us to do. He is reality come to earth. Jesus is the real light (Jn. 1:9); Jesus is the real bread (Jn. 6:32);
Jesus is the real vine (Jn. 15:1); to Jesus belongs the real judgment (Jn. 8:16). Jesus alone has reality in our world of shadows and imperfections.
The Greek term for “Word” is “Logos”; but Logos does not only mean word; it also means reason.
For John, and for all the great thinkers who made use of this idea, these two meanings were always closely intertwined.
Whenever they used Logos the twin ideas of the Word of God and the Reason of God were in their minds.
The Jews had a type of literature called The Wisdom Literature which was the concentrated wisdom of sages.
Wisdom has been, as it were, personified, and is thought of as the eternal agent and co-worker of God.
The most important passage of all is in Prov.8:22-31. In it we may specially note:
"The Lord created me (Wisdom is speaking) at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth; before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world. When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep; when he made firm the skies above; when he established the fountains of the deep; when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command; when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always" (Prov.8:22-30).
When we read that passage there is echo after echo of what John says of the word in John chapter 1.
Wisdom was eternal, it had that light-giving function, that creative power which John attributed to the Word, the Logos, with which he identified Jesus Christ.
The Greeks also noticed that a lot of things they observed were in a state of flux.
Things were changing from day to day and from moment to moment.
But if that’s right, why was life not complete chaos?
How can there be any sense in a world where there was constant flux and change?
Their answer was: all this change and flux was not haphazard; it was controlled and ordered, following a continuous pattern all the time;
and that which controlled the pattern was the Logos, the word, the reason of God.
The Logos was the principle of order under which the universe continued to exist.
The Greeks also asked: What was it that in us individually told us the difference between right and wrong?
What made us able to think and to reason and to recognize the truth when we saw it? To judge between right and wrong?
It was, they said, the Logos of God dwelling within him.
And the Greeks were amazed at the order of the world. Order always implies a mind. They asked: "What keeps the stars in their courses?
What makes the tides ebb and flow? What makes day and night? What brings the seasons round at their appointed times?"
And they answered; "All things are controlled by the Logos of God."
So the logos means the Word, the wisdom of God, it is Order out of chaos, it is Reason, or clear, rational thinking.
And our key passage today in from John chapter 1. Let’s look at it again:
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
So Jesus Christ is the Word. Again, in Greek the term for “Word” is Logos. With the background I’ve shared about the logos, when can begin to see some important things about Jesus.
And these important things about Jesus, Who He is and all that He has done and continues to do, these things about Jesus have a lot to do with why it is that
what’s normal in the life of a person who receives Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour and follows the way of Jesus is that that person moves toward a much better life.
Why is the experience of life different for a person who is in Christ?
Why does a person who receives Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour and follows the way of Jesus move toward a much better life?
Jesus Is the One who creates and brings ORDER out of chaos
Lots of folks say that the world in in disorder today.
There is a lot of chaos, and there is not much demonstrable wisdom in those who hold power.
That’s here in North America. That’s all over the world.
I would agree with that. But I’d also say that the problem closer to home is not out there.
It is in here. It is the tendency toward internal chaos that most if not all humans have.
I’ve spoken with a number of people recently about a big problem a lot of us share. I’ll put it in the first person: I’m am not a good friend to me.
I am not good to spend time with, alone in my head.
If I do, if I cut myself off from others who care about me, if I spend too much time thinking about anything without any other voices in the community speaking to me, I don’t do so well.
I’m not always such good company to myself.
Left on my own I can drift and somehow forget God or just let other thoughts overwhelm me.
It’s easily start to dwell on the saddest parts of my life: That my parents are dead. That my brother got taken way too early by cancer.
That some family members are really struggling. That I don’t know what’s coming in the future, and it’s likely not all good.
Those thoughts can lead quickly to a feeling of disorder, of fear. Of chaos on the inside.
And a lot of us have unhealthy places we can go when we’re hurting and fearful.
That’s when addiction and self-medicating but also self-destructive behaviour can occur.
Into the chaos of my mind, the voice of the One who orders all things, including our internal life, speaks. He speaks peace, deep peace - shalom - into my heart.
He does that through His Word - the Bible. He does that by His Spirit alive in me. The presence of Jesus in my life calms the storms in my life.
Whether they are just overcast, drizzly days or whether they are huge, turbulent hurricanes.
In Jesus I am brought by hand to the eye of the hurricane, where there is peace.
I’m with Jesus in the storm. That makes the storm, which I can’t stop and often can’t avoid, not a threat. Because Someone greater than the storm is with me.
When Jesus is present in your life, He calms the storms.
As you grow in Him and go through life and experience storms, and as you remember to invite Him into your pain and your fear, you find that He accepts the invitation and comes to you. And you have peace.
Jesus is the Word made flesh, the Logos, the One who creates order out of the chaos of our lives.
Jesus, the author of creation, of the seasons, of the reasons and rhythms of life.
He knows what the best rhythm of your life is and is restoring it to what it should be so you can lead an abundant life.
Because of the chaos I’ve mentioned, the rhythms of life can get out of whack. It can be crazy hard for some of us to fall asleep, or if we fall asleep to stay asleep.
The rhythm of work and rest that God wants to be in our lives gets messed up. And so we walk around half asleep, unable to have the presence of mind to BE present to others.
God has a purpose, a plan and a design for your life. And it’s good! Remember when Jesus said:
55John 10: 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
The healthiest rhythm for your life is when God’s purpose, plan and design for you are moving forward. Making progress. You’re here. You want to get here.
You want to get here because here is a better place. If it’s truly a better place, it’s what God wants for you.
Let’s try something. Let’s clap together.
Follow me as I speed up. As I slow down.
If you’re listening closely you’ll hear that we didn’t all start together. There was some confusion. Eventually most of us lined up the rhythm and were clapping together.
Jesus knows the rhythm that works for our lives us. He knows the pace, He knows us inside out, He sees the best picture of our lives and He leads us to it.
And when we stumble and we struggle to find the beat, when we lose concentration; when we can’t keep in step with His Spirit, He calls us back to the right rhythm of our lives.
He knows the pace, and by His grace and with more time and experience we learn to align with the pattern of life He wants for us.
In Jesus is the power to change.
The Logos is the power which puts sense into the world, the power which makes the world an order instead of a chaos, the power which set the world going and keeps it going in its perfect order.
The logos is a person. The logos is the Word made flesh.
The logos is Jesus, existing with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit in the divine dance, the perichoresis before anything that was made was made.
And that Life Giver, that world Creator, that Cosmos Maker comes to us and offers to put His power to use, to put that power to effect in our lives.
I experienced that power, when he broke through the dense wall of atheism, of unbelief and skepticism in my life that completely rejected any notion of God, and then brought me to a place of faith at the age of 17.
He altered my mind that was convinced that there was no objective value to anything, least of all myself.
He broke through 17 years of being steeped in a worldview, the worldview of my upbringing, that completely rejected any concept of God.
That worldview left me empty, but it was all I thought there was.
So Jesus put His power to work transforming ALL of my thinking and reorienting my life from nothingness and meaninglessness that was leading me to choose suicide, to living a life of faith, graced by His goodness at every turn.
Sustained by His love through every hardship and loss.
The pre-existing Logos, the Word made flesh, comes to me and comes to you. He comes as Jesus.
Not an idea, though He was content to dwell in the mind of people as the notion of the highest good, the greatest unifying principle. He was ok with being thought a philosophy rather than a person for a time.
But then He came and dwelled among us.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God
How about you? This Logos, this Word who was with God in the beginning and Who was God...He comes to each of us in this room today. And He comes gently. He comes with kindness. And He says:
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
And as He called the first disciples, He calls us to follow Him.
I have no idea where you are on the inside. I don’t know if you are following Jesus.
And if you’ve never turned to Jesus. If the gospel has never found a home in your life, I relate.
I relate to anyone who thinks that God cannot be real. Because that’s what I believed before I came to Jesus.
But what matters is that Jesus, the Word, the Logos, is waiting for you. He stands at the door and knocks. And like the picture here shows, the only way to open the door is from the inside.
To come to Jesus in faith is to repent of your sins, the things you’ve done that have hurt you AND offended God. Repent and place your trust in Jesus. Say to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief”. If you mean that, pray it.
“I believe that you died on the cross for my sins. I believe that you love me and you call me into relationship with you for now and all eternity. I receive you into my life as my God, my Lord and my Saviour”.
And I thank you that by your grace you make me a child of God, redeemed, born anew. I thank you Jesus for this love. Help me to grow in faith and to grow in love. In Jesus name. Amen.
