Being Born
Download MP3If you would, I invite you to open your Bibles to the gospel of John. Also want to encourage you in the the welcome room, we have these miniature gospel of John's. Feel free to pick up one of these for free if you'll go to somebody who is not a Christian and walk through this with them. But we would love for you to grab these. It's a great tool for evangelism.
Joel Brooks:And I was struck at just how important what we've been looking at is I don't know if you all have read the news or anything this morning, but right before I came down here from my office I read about the latest mass, execution of Christians in Egypt. And, the video was just released and 1 by 1 each Christian was given the chance to recant and if they did not, they were executed. And it goes over and over and over. And as we're singing, on this hope we are secure as long as Christ alive, we shall endure. Just hit me.
Joel Brooks:And also what we've been looking at in the gospel of John, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. The darkness will never put out the light of Jesus. It will not. And so it's important that we come to grip with these words and we are shaped by these words. And that the light of Jesus shines into our hearts and shines into this world.
Joel Brooks:And so if you would read with me, I'm gonna begin reading in verse 5 and we'll go through 18. The light shines in the darkness. 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.
Joel Brooks:He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light which enlightens 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 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.
Joel Brooks: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. John bore witness about him and cried, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me. And from his fullness, we have received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Joel Brooks:No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side. He has made him known. Pray with me. Our father, we now ask that through this word, the living word would come and do his work in our lives through your spirit. Lord, that he would bring about real change, that he would spring forth new light, that the light of the gospel would indeed shine into our hearts, exposing sin and yet at the same time bringing conviction in life.
Joel Brooks:Lord, nobody here needs to hear from me. My words are death, but your words are life. And so now in this moment at this time, I ask that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen. In the 19 twenties, C. S. Lewis and J. R.
Joel Brooks:R. Tolkien, they were both professors at Oxford. They both had a love for literature and this led them to become fast friends. Despite the fact that Tolkien was a Christian and CS Lewis was a staunch atheist. They used to go on walks all the time and they would discuss literature and one of the times that they went on a walk, Tolkien began a conversation and walked Lewis through his love for fairy tales and legends.
Joel Brooks:Tolkien explained how he loved these stories, but more than just being loved by them, he found himself moved by them And probably nobody on earth had ever studied more about these legends than Tolkien had. And one of the things he pointed out was all of these great myths and legends and stories, they they shared a common theme. And the theme was this, there would be a clear good, and then there would be a clear evil that needed to be stopped. And the whole land was usually under the spell of of this evil or this darkness, and the spell needed to be broken. And so a hero needed to come or or usually it was a king who needed to come and to get rid of this evil and break the spell.
Joel Brooks:Often this king was was gone. And because the king was gone, that's why the evil would be about and people were longing for the return of this hero, this king. They looked forward to the day when he would return and the land would be filled with light and with joy. Now many, many tales have this basic plot line. Stories like King Arthur, Robin Hood, even stories like Cinderella or Snow White or Rapunzel.
Joel Brooks:You know, they're all about the damsel in a dire situation. Evil has come upon them and they're they're longing and waiting for this prince, this hero to come and to set things right. Now interestingly enough, critics in the in the fifties and the sixties, they thought that these stories would go away because of the rise of what we would call moral relativism. Because during this time, since people no longer saw a clear right and a clear wrong, they would no longer be drawn to stories that depict clear right and wrong, clear light and clear darkness. And of course, all these critics were wrong.
Joel Brooks:These stories have continued to explode. A matter of fact, during that time, we had the the birth of the great westerns, the American westerns, with Clint Eastwood and John Wayne. And every one of those movies had the same plot line. In which there was a town, in which an evil descended on the town, and a hero would need it from outside. Go through all the westerns.
Joel Brooks:All of the heroes come from outside the town. And they come in to set things right, often at a great expense to themselves. Often at a great expense to themselves. Still today, we have books all being written with these popular themes. All of the great fantasy books share this theme.
Joel Brooks:Things like books like Dune or Lord of the Rings, even Harry Potter, Star Wars in my day, The Matrix. They all have this theme of it's an evil land and we need this savior to come. Now now, Tolkien, he's explaining the commonality of all of these stories. And he's saying that these stories never went out of style and they never will go out of style because they all share a common underlying truth to them that resonates with everyone. And, Lewis is listening to this.
Joel Brooks:He says, you know what? I think you're right. Because I love those tales too. And I even find myself being moved by them. And so then, Tolkien explains Christianity.
Joel Brooks:And he says, you know, Christianity follows the same plot line. How we believe the world was once perfect, but it has since come under an evil spell. The land is now cursed and we need a savior to come and to make things right. We believe our savior came in Jesus and he is coming again. And when Lewis heard this, he responded, I think you're right.
Joel Brooks:Not that he believed it, but he said, I think you're right in Christianity. Christianity does follow that plot line. You know, it must also speak to this same underlying truth that all the other stories share. And it's here that Tolkien said, no, no, not at all. Said Jesus is the truth.
Joel Brooks:He is the underlying truth to which all of these stories point. He is the underlying reality of all of these. The reason that we are drawn to these stories, the reason that we are moved by them is because of the truth of Jesus. His story is the climatic story in all of history, and it's the story that's deeply embedded in every human heart. The world is in bondage.
Joel Brooks:It's under a curse. When we look around and we see oppression, we see injustice, we see sickness and death. Deep down, we know the world should not be this way. It's not meant to be this way. And we can feel it in our bones and we're longing for the return of somebody to come and to make things right.
Joel Brooks:We're longing for Jesus. This is what John writes about in his opening prologue. When he says, the word became flesh, saying legend became true, myth became fact. Our creator and our king really did break into this world to make things right. That's why these stories resonate with us.
Joel Brooks:There is no more staggering statement in the bible than the word became flesh. God became human. God didn't just dress up like one of us. He actually became one of us in order to break the spell, cast out the evil, make the world right again. Make us right again.
Joel Brooks:And the rest of this great gospel is going to unpack what it means that God became flesh and He dwelt among us. I wanna begin just by walking through this section verse by verse. And I want us to carefully savor over every word because every word in this section is important. That said, I'm skipping over 6 through 8 because I'm gonna look at John the Baptist next week. Look at verse 9.
Joel Brooks:The true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world. John says that Jesus is the true light, that at least to some degree has shown on everyone. Now the question immediately arises, well what does John mean by this? That this light is enlightening everyone. And I think there's a couple of things here.
Joel Brooks:First off he is not saying that every person comes to believe in Jesus because he will say the opposite of that in the next verse. So what I think he means by this is that everybody at least has some general knowledge about Jesus through his role as creator. This is what Paul talks about in Romans 1 when Paul says these words. God's invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made so that people are without excuse. So to this point, John has just told us that Jesus has made absolutely everything, everything made by Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And when we look around, we see his handiwork. And so in our hearts, as we're looking around at this, we know that there is a God, that there is a logos, there is a reason or a rationale behind all of these things. Our things. Our heart testifies to that. But I would say even more than just the testimony of nature, I believe that God has put eternity in our hearts.
Joel Brooks:There's still the echo of Eden in there And this is why we love those fairy tales. We love those myths. We love those legends because it resonates with us. This is why many of you, I have this conversation over and over, like, what talking about when you came to know the Lord, you don't quite say it this way, but but you're saying, you know what? Everything was so new, yet it was so familiar when I heard the gospel.
Joel Brooks:It was like I I never seen it before, but it's it's yet I always had believed it and longed for it. It's like you were remembering something that was long lost. And I think God has put this eternity in our hearts. The second half of verse 9 says John says that this light was coming into the world. The picture is one of the sun beginning to rise and just casting out its first rays of light, gradually warming the land.
Joel Brooks:And of course, as the light goes, light or life grows with it. The author of Hebrews, he talks about it this way. It says long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. And the prophets were the the first little lights, rays of light in the morning, but now Jesus is the noonday sun.
Joel Brooks:He's the brightness of God. Verse 10 and 11, 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. This is a great tragedy. A few weeks back, the president of the United States, he came and he visited Birmingham.
Joel Brooks:A lot of you know this because the airport closed down. I-sixty 5 closed down. People were lining up the streets just to catch a glimpse of the limousine as it passed by. That's what we do when, you know, a sense of royalty comes into town. Yet when the creator of all things came there was no parade there were no trumpets there was no welcoming party instead he had to be born in a barn, laid in a manger.
Joel Brooks:The one who currently sustains and holds everything together. We couldn't even find room for him. And this birth was just the very beginning of his rejection, which culminated, of course, in his execution. People who would not even be able to take a breath apart from the command of Jesus, They use their very breath to curse him. That is how much we rejected him.
Joel Brooks:So Jesus, he became human, but as a whole, humans did not welcome him. But then verse 12 tells us that some did. Some did. Verse 12. But to all who did receive Him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
Joel Brooks:So not everybody rejects Jesus. There are some people who come to believe in Jesus, some who come to welcome him. Now this word belief here, believe is it is a foundational word, a defining word in Christianity. It's at the very heart of who we are as a people. A matter of fact, we call ourselves believers.
Joel Brooks:That's who we are. We are we are believers. We're not saved by works. We're not saved by any effort we make, no matter how extraordinary. We are saved by faith.
Joel Brooks:Simply our belief in Jesus. Now there's a couple of things you need to know about how John is going to use the word belief throughout this gospel. 1, he uses it over and over again, but never will he attach to it any adjective or any adverb ever. It is simply belief. You're not gonna read about somebody really believing in Jesus, or somebody having an incredible faith in Jesus.
Joel Brooks:It's just a call to simply believe. As Timothy Keller has often said, it is not the amount of faith or belief we have. It is the object of our faith. And our object of our faith is Jesus and that saves. Whoever believes in his name shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Joel Brooks:Now this is more than an intellectual belief. John says that we believe into Jesus. Verse 12 says, believed in his name. Literally it's into his name. And over and over again John is gonna add the words into after believe.
Joel Brooks:You believe into. And this means more than an intellectual understanding. To believe into somebody or something would mean you trust or you treasure this. You know if you really like a TV show, alright, if you really like a TV show, you would say that you're into it. You know, are you really into, you know, Lost or something like that?
Joel Brooks:Yeah. I just I went to Netflix. I binge watched 6 hours. Wasted my life. God help us.
Joel Brooks:But you you you would say, I'm into it. Are you into it? You know, and if you're into it, then you have something you could talk about and get really excited about. You're into this this show. And this means that you enjoy this, you're being shaped by this.
Joel Brooks:You love to talk about this. In some way, this has become a reality in your life. Maybe if you just started exercising and you've gone a little overboard, people start going, oh you're really into exercising. Meaning you really enjoy it. It's becoming a defining reality in your life.
Joel Brooks:John is saying this is what our belief in Jesus is like. We believe into him.
Jeffrey Heine:This is
Joel Brooks:a belief that transforms us. It shapes us. It changes the way we live, the way we talk. And he says, for those who do believe, he gave the right to become children of God. Those who were not born of blood nor the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Joel Brooks:Now last week, I mentioned that John does not have what we would call birth narrative. The other gospels do but he does not. He does have a birth narrative about our rebirth. He does describe how we have become children of God. To become a Christian, one has to become reborn.
Joel Brooks:Now please hear me. I know, as I look out here, I know we have a number of people who are not Christians. And and are here because they're curious about the faith and just wanting to learn more. And so I wanna be very clear about this. Christianity is not turning over a new leaf and trying to become a better person.
Joel Brooks:Christianity is not, you know, a renewed commitment to, to live a moral life or to go to church. Christianity is being reborn. It's new life being put into you and so you become an entirely new person. You see the bible describes your condition apart from Christ as being spiritually dead. Completely dead.
Joel Brooks:And so in order to get out of this deadness, this lifelessness, this meaninglessness, God has to come and you have to be born again. And so when Jesus came to us, he spoke life into us. He resurrects us, he makes us children of God. And as John is thinking about these things, it's gonna come up over and over again. He will never get over this, that he is a child of God.
Joel Brooks:You read this in all of his letters. In 1st John 3, see what kind of love the father has given to us that we should be called children of God. You will never get over this. This is his identity and this should be your identity as well. Your identity is not being a single or being married or in being a parent.
Joel Brooks:It's not in your work or your profession. It's not in anything you do. It's not in your status. It is not in your wealth. Your identity is that you are a child of God.
Joel Brooks:And that becomes a all shaping consuming reality for you, In which you see all of life through that lens that you are now a child of God and you should never get over that. Ever. 13, it unpacks this in a way that is, stunningly beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Look at look at me again in verse 13.
Joel Brooks:I get really excited when I read through this. I hope you do too. Who were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. Alright. How many of you here remember your birth?
Joel Brooks:Any of you remember it? Any of you have anything to do with your birth whatsoever? No. You didn't have any say into it. It's just something that happened to you.
Joel Brooks:Alright? Whether you wanted it or not, you were going to be born. Alright? That's what how we are born physically and spiritually. It's the same way.
Joel Brooks:John uses 3 phrases to unpack this spiritual birth. First he says, not of blood. Some of your bibles might read not of human descent, which really describes the meaning of the phrase not of blood. Basically meaning, this birth does not have any human origins. You're not a Christian because your parents were Christians.
Joel Brooks:Had nothing to do with this. Had no human origins, not of blood. Then he says, nor of the will of the flesh. Some of your Bibles might say, or of human decision. Same thing.
Joel Brooks:Our birth did not spring from some internal desire that we had to really be born. We didn't will this to happen. There's even in here in this context the notion of a sexual desire here because sexual desire is what leads to having children. It's the will of the flesh. But here, our desire had nothing to do with it.
Joel Brooks:Next, he says, nor of the will of a man. Literally it reads, nor of the will of a husband. Once again if you think of a natural birth, a husband is required. A man is required, but not in spiritual birth. Now get this.
Joel Brooks:What what John is describing here is the virgin birth of Jesus. It's what he's describing. He is saying that when Jesus came into this world, he was born of a virgin. He was not the result of human descent, the will of the flesh, the result of sexual desire. He was certainly not born because of any husband.
Joel Brooks:He was born of a virgin. Man had nothing to do with it. And John is saying your spiritual birth is the same way. Your spiritual birth is a virgin birth. Another way of putting this is when Jesus comes to us, He always comes to us through virgin birth.
Joel Brooks:We didn't will it, we didn't ask for it, we didn't seek for it, we didn't have anything to do with it. What happened to us is that the Holy Spirit overshadowed us and conceived in us new life and caused us to be born again. We came to believe we were not born of blood nor the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but of God but of God. Once again, you get one of those other great contraction buts in the bible. Reminds me of Ephesians 2, and you were dead in your trespasses and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.
Joel Brooks:But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, He made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. That's describing the virgin birth of your salvation. So what does it look like? What does it look like when one comes to believe in Jesus and is given new life, when the Holy Spirit quickens that person and they come to believe.
Joel Brooks:If you become a Christian, what should you expect? And we read this in verse 16. And from his fullness, we have all received grace and from to another grace. It's it's like ocean waves, never ending ocean waves in which grace hits you and then more grace hits you and then more and God's grace never runs out. This verse here is translated grace upon grace and that's a good translation.
Joel Brooks:But literally, it says grace instead of grace. Grace instead of grace. And if you're going, that's that's why the translators didn't interpret it. Grace instead of grace. Because it it means the main thrust behind it is grace upon grace.
Joel Brooks:But but I think we lose a little something if we don't understand this grace instead of grace. Grace instead of grace, it certainly means grace upon grace, but it has the idea of this. Every grace that comes upon us is different than the former grace. It's it's always a new type of grace replacing this this old grace. We're constantly receiving different types of graces in which no 2 look alike.
Joel Brooks:And so sometimes this grace is gonna come to you like this. God allows your baby to sleep an extra hour. You're like, grace. I get I get some sleep and that's one type of grace. You know what another type of grace is?
Joel Brooks:Is when your baby stays up all night, but God gives you the grace and he gives you strength to get through it. 2 different types of grace. Sometimes grace comes in the form of of you getting a new job or maybe a pay raise. Other times a grace comes to you in the form of you don't get that. You're in dire need of money but you find out that Jesus is enough.
Joel Brooks:Both graces. Different types of graces. And as a Christian, we come to to know that everything that comes from God is a grace to us, but no 2 look alike. But he is constantly giving grace and grace in all different forms, and he is sufficient in that. Wave after wave.
Joel Brooks:Now the ultimate grace is Jesus. Verse 17 18. Be honest, y'all didn't think we'd get this far, did you? I can read your mind. For the law was given through Moses.
Joel Brooks:Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side. He has made him known. A lot of times people read into verse 17 the word, but. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Joel Brooks:There is no but there. As we saw through our study of Exodus, grace was all in the law. The law was a form of God's grace. It even says that here, the law was given. It was a gift through Moses.
Joel Brooks:And now, grace and truth have come through Jesus. And this word grace, these words grace and truth, they have a definitive article. Meaning they're the grace and the truth. So yes, grace was there with Moses, but now the ultimate grace, the ultimate truth has come in Jesus. Moses caught a glimpse of God and that was a grace.
Joel Brooks:We see the face of God and Jesus. That is the grace and the truth. How I want us to end our sermon and then during this time is I want us to take time to pray. We've got the time to do this. I want us to pray through a number of things.
Joel Brooks:1, I want us to pray for belief For those who don't know Jesus, don't really understand Christianity, maybe you could take some time simply to to a vulnerable cry out to God to reveal himself to you. And maybe allow you to see him. For those who are Christians, pray that you would believe more and more the gospel and that your identity would be that you are a child of God. Pray for a willingness to receive God's grace no matter how it looks, no matter how it comes. And then maybe we could take time to thank God for his coming to us, that he has become human in order to save us in the world that he created.
Joel Brooks:So this is how I want us to pray. If y'all would just break up into groups, maybe, you know
