APR 30 2023 | The Gospel of John S1E3

Sea Change Church · The Gospel of John S1E3 · "The Gospel of John" · April 30, 2023
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

The gospel of John chapter one, verses 14 through 18, The 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. John testifies concerning him. He cries out saying, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.

From the fullness of his grace, we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God, the one and only who is at the father's side has made him known. This is the word of the Lord. Morning Again. We are in episode five of season one of the Gospel of John and uh, and a sermon called Life in the Middle. And uh, if you have your Bibles open up to John chapter one, verse 14 through 18.

I was on a men's Bible study yesterday, call from a guy back in Brooklyn, a a new brother I met back in Brooklyn, got invited to this study on Zoom. It was fantastic. It was so good. And uh, my friend said, Brownsville, Brooklyn, uh, Frankie is his name. And uh, they were going around and giving their highs and lows for the week.

And they said, how'd your week go? He said, oh, Monday was a testimony. Monday was a testimony. But he says, uh, Tuesday, Thursday, the rest of the week was blessed. And I thought, I'd never heard that before. It was a testimony. It means you got a story behind it that you want to tell. We're gonna be looking at this idea of what a testimony is and uh, how God uses a testimony.

The testimony that is you to make a difference in the world, to make a difference wherever you go, wherever you pitch tent in this life and in this place. If you go right now to John, uh, to verse 15, take a look at that real quick. We're talking about John the Baptist, written by John the Apostle. And it says, John does what he testifies concerning what concerning him.

Let's just stop right there. His whole life, the whole purpose of John the Baptist was to testify concerning Jesus to tell a story. We all tell a story, right? We take our words and our words are formed into a story. Oftentimes, the way we live our life is formed into a story. Sometimes just the look on our face is formed into a story. I can come home, my wife knows where I'm at, just boom, she just takes a look at my face.

Verse 14, there's a couple words I want you to circle. Go to verse 14. It says, the word that's Jesus, remember became circle, became flesh and made his dwelling circle made his dwelling among us. This is important because we know that, that this is cosmological, right? This first chapter of John is this cosmological thing.

He didn't start out with Jesus and I we're roasting some fish at the campfire. That's how a lot of the gospels start. He started different than that. He started with some cosmology. He started with something that was beyond us, something ethereal, something e existential. He started with this concept of the word, the word as we'll See in a moment being logas, which means everything that could ever be said about God, he start was God.

That Jesus was everything that could ever be said and he was God. And it says here that the word did something. The word went from something that was existential, ethereal in God's mind perhaps. And it actually became something. And this is important because what we see with John the Baptist is John the Baptist took his understanding of the word and he became something.

He became a revelator. He became a testier. And what we take, what God has given us and what we artes in an a way of an artesian crafted into shapes our lives, right? So we see here that there's two words became and made, I wanna say that I looked up became, it's a word you wouldn't really look up normally, but it just struck me.

And it says, to become something means to bring something into existence. I love that because if Jesus would've just stayed the word right there floating out in the ether, out with the stars and out beyond the, this dimension and the dimension in which he lives and the place in which he dwells, how could we ever understand him? But he became, that's an important word for us because we are always in the process of becoming, you are becoming something. You're becoming more joyful, you're becoming less joyful, you're becoming more content, you're becoming less content, you're be becoming whatever.

Oftentimes we begin to craft together. Now you're, you're saying, well sometimes it just happens. Well, not according to this scripture, because it says something became, it came into existence and it says, if you continue on in that verse, the word became flesh and did what made. Made is the work of a craftsman. Made is the work of an artesian made is the work that says take something that was ethereal, it became something into existence and then it was made, it was turned into something.

God wants to take your life and he wants to infuse it with him. He wants to let become real to you and then he wants you to make something. I wanna say it takes two components to make something or multiple. If you have a piece of straw and you give it to somebody, you cannot make a piece of straw. I mean, maybe you could grow it, but a piece of straw is just a piece of straw.

But if you have multiple pieces of straw, you can make a basket, you can make a hat. What I'm saying is that God is wants us to take the existence that is him. And he wants us to take all those components and turn it into something so that you can become perhaps like John a revelator and a testifier. You see, Monday for Frankie was a testimony and he had a testimony that he could tell, but he said Tuesday was blessed. Now, I didn't get into all of the pieces of what happened between Monday and Tuesday, but something good happened because there was a transition and a shift.

So this is really important. Let's look at that verse again. It says in verse 14, the word, the word became flesh and made is dwelling among us. We're gonna look at that word dwelling here in a second. I think it's so important. This is super easy. This is super practical. If you want your life to become something that is of substance, we need to be near the word.

We know that you cannot testify about something you did not see. You cannot witness something you did not see. And so spending time with the word and in the word and the word that is God in prayer or whatever those spiritual goals that you might have for the year actually becomes something that exists for us. And then what do we do?

Do we hide it away or do we begin to, to turn it into something? We take that bit of peace, we take that bit of courage and we craft it into something. That's what God did in order to become known. Go to the end of this passage. You can go to verse 18. No one's ever seen God. Why? Because he's in the ether, right? He's in the cos, he's in the cosmos.

He's beyond the cosmos. But there's those key transition words in this scripture. God, the one and only who is at the father's side. That's Jesus. It just called Jesus God. And the one and only who is at the father's side has done what made him known. We're in the business of making Jesus known. We're in the business of making Jesus famous. I was walking into somewhere, I realized how much I walk into places where I just want my space.

I walk in head down, don't want to be bothered, don't show up in the presence. I don't show up on mission. I don't show up having something to offer. And sometimes you gotta break me out of the, of the shell of my, my own sol, you know, solemnity, my own solitude where I just get into this head space where I'm not making anything of the things that God has given me.

It says the word became flesh and it made his dwelling among us. Let's look at three key words in this passage. You got the word word. If you go to verse 14, you can circle the word word, think it's in there more than just in verse 14. But it's all throughout this passage. Then we have the word flesh became what? What did it become? Became flesh and blood. That's you, right?

Flesh and bud. That something that was ethereal became fleshy, but something tangible, something that someone could touch. I believe that the future of the church that ha in, in a world that has a, a spirit, a, a, a spiritual epidemic going on right now, people just are losing sense. The spirit, the, the future of the church is in personal connection.

In an AI world, it is actually a hug, it's a handshake, it's eye to eye, it's voice to voice. It's in the presence of one another that we're gonna make a make a difference. Because in that way we make a dwelling. And so we see a couple words, word, flesh and dwells. Those are three important words. The word logos, log os I already gave you an understanding of what that means.

It's everything that could ever be said. It is just a word. And when God formed an action into a saying, something created right? He said the word said something. He said, what in genesis? Let there be what light. And there was light. Words are so important as you give testimony. See, on Monday, Frankie said, I had a testimony, Monday was a testimony, but then he gave presence to it as he spoke. And words are so important.

Words have the power. It says, of life and death. What are you creating? What are you creating with your words and the culture and the things that you say. So it says a word in second Corinthians three, two through three. I don't think you have this, I think I added it late when it talks about words and it talks about tablets and it talks about the message of Jesus and you being a testifier and only you know, if you're a tester, you're testifying to something, guaranteed you're testifying to something as you become a testifier.

Second Corinthians three, two through three says this, for you are our epistle. That means you're our letter written in our hearts known and read by all men. That's key. You're gonna be read, people are gonna read you when you walk around, they're gonna read you if you're all hard. And you know, you know if dower or if you're alive, spend some time with Jesus this week. And all of a sudden I, I thought to myself, I need to re after the dream summit.

I gotta get three spiritual goals for my Christian life. I I just gotta, I have to do spiritual disciplines. It's not just enough to show up to Tuesday prayer and all the things I I do cuz I have to or whatever it is. So I said I wanna read through the entire Bible. I wanna kinda listen to it. I'm gonna read through the entire Bible this year.

I'm gonna spend an hour a day in quiet time like I used to do, just sitting with the Lord and I'm gonna rebuild my prayer life with my family. So they don't know it yet. They don't know that third one yet. I'm gonna, I'm gonna have a meeting. I'm gonna say I'm gonna be here every day, every week at this time, just like my friends in Brooklyn were doing.

And I'm gonna be here and my family can show up if they want. I'm gonna invite them, but I'm gonna be there and I'm gonna show up. Those are the three things that I want to do. And it says that. He says, um, you were known by when I did that, all of a sudden it changed how I was, it changed my being. I walked out all of a sudden I wasn't like this.

I was like this cuz I wanted to make a difference. Why? Because the word had become known to me. And with that I wanted to testify to it. Let's keep going. It says it is read by all clearly. You are an epistle of Christ ministered by us written not with ink, but by the spirit of the living God. Not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of what? Flesh is the word SARCs that is of the heart.

That you're a story that is being written with your flesh, right? It's being written with your words. That the scripture says that word flesh is SARCs. That's a Greek word. And that means it becomes tangible. It comes into existence. The way which you use your flesh to where you walk, where you go, what you say, how you use your tongue, how you use your eyes, how you use your words. That's how things become tangible.

The future of Jesus Christ. And it's always, it's the past as well. The future of the church is tangible. The future of the church is actually us making a difference one person at a time. So that word's fl flesh. And then the next word, this is interesting, it says dwells among us. I'm gonna look at two different types of the use of the word dwells.

But if you go to verse 14, the word became what? So this ethereal thing became flesh and then it made something. What did it make? It made his dwelling among us. He made his dwelling among us. The word there is skinna, skin means skin, okay? Skeo means skin. That word dwelling means that he, he, he became skin among us. But it's different than the word of dwelling that is used after Christ raises from the dead for us. And I'll show the difference there, but it means actually that he became a tent.

And that word skeena all often means tent or tabernacle. That he came and tented among us. And then if you go on, when you look at that tent, go to verse 14, excuse me, uh, uh, there it is. Verse 16. No one has ever seen God, but the, but God, the one and only who is at the father's side has made him known that he has made known when he puts his tent among us. And so that's what God did.

God is constantly moving close. Let me ask this question. Where are you putting your tent? Where you put your tent matters. I told you I hate camping, right? I told you my favorite camp spot is the Hilton. That's my favorite camp spot mine. But it says he dwelled among us. And then we saw it says, what did we see? We saw his, there it is. Verse 14. That's the one I was looking for halfway.

And then because of his dwelling, his tenting among us, we have seen his glory. I wanna show you a picture of an individual tent right now that is showing its glory in the midst of the darkness. They have a picture of it up there, Al there it is. That's what Jesus did. See, that darkness you see out there in the way out there in the stars, you see some glory above that is shining. But in the midst of the darkness, Jesus made his tent among us and that tent had glory within it.

And he tented and dwelled among us. When you park your car and the way you park, your car matters, right? I don't know if you're like me, but he gets Costco and get upset. Angry Trader Joe's parking lot. I hate it. Well, Phoebe's better. Um, I I I have blown the, the, the, the testimony parked in my car. I dunno about you. Where are you? Park, where are you? You have a tent and everywhere you go, you pitch that tent, you see what happens. And when a community starts to be changed, the next picture starts to happen. Boom.

Now there's three of us. Yesterday I was with my brothers on the, on the zoom call. They were all over there at the country. They were in Atlanta, they were in Texas. I was just getting encouraged. All of a sudden I realized there's other people that care about the things that I care about from all different types. We're all different types of people.

It was awesome, but each one of us was doing that somewhere. So you're pitching your tent somewhere and you're testifying somewhere and the glory of God will be revealed if we have the ability to actually make it into something. See, if you have the Holy Spirit within you, the spirit of God dwells within you. But what are you making it into?

Because you can hide that says don't hide your bushel, uh, under a, under a lamp. Is that what it said? Something like that. Some King James version always get mixed up with bushels. And I don't really know what a bushel is, but basically Jesus says, don't hide your lights. Are you hiding your light? Are we a testifier? The future of the world is believers who know God that are making their dwelling among others and showing the glory of God.

Like that you can take that picture off Skeena skeena, you make your tent. I would say where there is no dwelling, there is no glory, where there is no dwelling, there is no glory. And how do we bring glory? You bring glory oftentimes by just speaking it out. You hear this saying, you know, hey, um, share Christ always and sometimes use words.

Well that's great. I love that one. But I think it's sometimes an excuse to not ever say anything like it is a tabernacle of testimony. If you go back to numbers one 50, this is not in your notes, but I want you to, you can look it up later. In numbers one 50 when talking about the tabernacle of God, that was in the Old Testament, it called it the tabernacle.

It's called the tabernacle of testimony. Not just the tabernacle with God dwells, which it is not just a a tent where Moses would go into, it's a tabernacle that's saying something and it has a testimony and it says, we have seen his glory. And when Jesus tabernacles with us, what does he say in verse 14 right there. And we have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only who came from where? From the Father full of what?

Grace and truth we have seen His glory. I wrote, well, there is no dwelling, there's no glory. Where are you dwelling? Wherever you go, you're gonna pitch your tent there. You pitch it at home, you pitch it wherever you go at the school board where you're a part of, wherever you go. And we speak truth in those places and we bring glory to God in those places as we see him. Go to verse 14 again. It says that then Christ in verse 14, we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only who came from the Father full circle, full of what? Two things. Grace and truth, full of grace and truth. What I, what I what I love about Jesus is when Jesus shows up, he shows up loaded right?

Not like loaded, but either shows up ready to go. That was kind of funny. He shows up with fullness. When Jesus shows up, Jesus shows up in a fullness. He doesn't show up with half of what he needs. There is no lack in Jesus. He shows up with a fullness. And what is interesting in this passage is it says that Jesus shows up with two things. Now he could show up with a lot of different things, right?

It says he showed up with what? Grace and truth. Now it could have said beauty and power, it could have said awesomeness and silence. It could have, there's all these different words that it could have used, but for one reason or another, it says he shows up with grace and truth. I think grace is there for a reason. I think it's especially important as we testify in a dark world bringing glory to God that we get that order right? You see, we cannot understand anything that God has to give us without grace.

He can't show up with, with, with something that we can't understand. Well, he tried to do that. And he goes on to say that the law came through Moses, right? That was all truth. You see the law was all truth. And it says, but we couldn't. We couldn't. We couldn't comprehend it. We couldn't do it. So what does Jesus come? He comes in, he flips the order, and Jesus comes with grace. We gotta be careful. We're not just people of truth.

Gotta be real careful. We're not people of just truth. Hey, I got truth. You can choke on some truth if you want to go Old Testament on people, you can do that. But there's gonna be no way in which they can, they can do it. They can't live according to that truth. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one shall come unto the Father but through me.

But he got there from grace. You see, he came in a fullness of grace. When you see Jesus and that tent, when you're camping for your tent, you go to re ei spiritual r ei, realize that there is an unlimited amount that God has for you. And so many of us live in lack, right? We live in a lack mentality. But when Jesus shows up, when we invite Jesus and the skinna who wants to live among us even further than that, he shows up in a fullness.

And we need to have that mentality. We gotta show up to wherever we're going, wherever place you are with a fullness that says God, he is bringing that in grace and in truth, Jesus arrives in a fullness of grace and truth. Now we have John the Baptist. Now there's this bit right here in verse 15 where it's actually in parentheses. So the the verse actually goes, it's verse 14, and then it should skip to verse uh, 16.

But there's this little bit in the middle. And if you look at it in most Bible, it's in parentheses, it's kind of just thrown in there. But if you were gonna study the passage systematically, it actually needs to go 14, 16. But they threw that in there for a reason in the midst of all this like breakdown of fullness and truth and like we're under the hood, right? John, you are a, you are a spiritual biblical mechanic.

If you are in John chapter one, like we've got the carburetor out right now, we're looking at this. But then there's this verse about just real people, verse 15 that I really can relate to. And it says this in verse 15. John does what? He testifies concerning what Him. And he cries out. Mm. He cries out saying, this is he whom I said has come before me and has surpassed me because he was before me, says he was the one who comes after me and has surpassed me because he was before me. What John is saying here is first of all, he's crying out.

I love that he's crying, he's desperate, he's desperate. Desperate to tell people about Jesus. And somewhere in between, Jesus being the word, who who was existing before the earth was ever made in this ethereal place. And somewhere between after him where he's gonna be in heaven and we're gonna be be with him stands John a testifier.

For some reason, God has chosen us to be the bridge that does what? That cries out. Where and where does John cry out? Cries out in the wilderness. Maybe you feel like you're in the wilderness, maybe feel they're all alone. Just the wild animals around you trying to survive. But in the midst of that, John cries out and because of his crying out, people flocked to him. That was interesting.

People actually went into the wilderness to find John because something he was saying, something he was doing was so intriguing that he began to baptize people in that place. Matter of fact, he even baptizes Jesus. And in between all the theology is this picture of you. You see, you could have been in the Bible, all of us could have been in the Bible.

Bible is just real. People doing real things. Do we want to cry out? Are we desperate to cry out? Are we just trying to survive? And there's seasons of just trying to survive, but he's desperate and it says that blessing. Go to verse 16. I love this from the fullness of his grace. Because remember, it's grace, first truth. Second, we've all received what one blessing after another for that law came through Moses. Grace and truth came from Jesus, that Jesus is in.

He wants to come in abundance to your life. It might not be the blessing that you want sometimes, but if we put ourselves in his presence, we let him tabernacle among us and within us as we'll. See in just a moment that he has a fullness to give you what you need. In that moment. We have been abundantly blessed because there is no lack in God.

We tend to live in lack. I was talking to somebody about celebrate recovery this week and they said, uh, one of the leaders of it somewhere else, and he said one of the, the issues with addiction that causes addiction is a fear of lack. That if you stop using this substance, you won't have what you need to survive. He said, there's just a fear of lack. Addiction is a fear of lack.

I've never thought about it that way of just like, Hey, there's this thing. I need this. I can't make it without this. Anxiety is the same way. Anxiety is a fear of lack. I'm not gonna have what I have, what I need to survive in this place. Not living in a belief and a faith that God comes in fullness and he wants you to testify to that fullness of who he is. You see, the blessing originates from the grace and it happens where we inhabit.

Go to verse 18. No one ever ever seen God, but the God, the one and only who is at the father's side has done what made him known. John the Baptist wanted to make Jesus famous. You know, sometimes all, all we wanted is just a few more Instagram hits, want the other soccer dads to think we're cool. I don't know. Whatever the thing is we go for.

But what John was about was making Jesus famous, making Jesus famous. In the midst of that, by coming to earth and dwelling in flesh among us, God the father has been made known. Now here's what's interesting. We're gonna, I told you that word dwelling skeena, uh, originally when you saw that was like in the tent and in the flesh.

If we go now to first Corinthians three 16, there's another use of that word dwelling and it speaks differently and uses the word flesh when it talks about this middle space that John was living in and the place that you were now living in, it says in, in one Corinthians three 16, don't you know that you yourselves are what God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in your midst.

And by that dwell word, that dwell word is . That means he doesn't dwell in around you in a skin tent near you. It means that you've become the tent, you've become the skin. And now he has moved his glory into you. Show that picture again if you would al the single tent, you see, you've become the skin of God. You have become the incarnate.

It says he became flesh. And you know what? He did it again when he opened up the way that the spirit of God no longer willing to just dwell among us and around us wants to live within you. You see, that's the whole plan of the gospel. To get closer and closer. He spoke a word to you. He gave you a a, a, the Bible and God's word so you could understand him and you could understand him in your mind.

And then he was made incarnate and dwelt near us and we saw him and we saw his glory, but it wasn't close enough for God. You see, for God wants to dwell within us, he wants to be one with you. This is the image of marriage and why he created the metaphor of marriage to create, to show that oneness, that closeness and that going from the skinna to the . The means that you understand that picture and you say, I am the tent. I am the very skin of God. I am not God, but I am the skin of God and he dwells in and I am desperate to testify.

Now here's the closing and here's the challenge. Where are you pitching your tent? And when you pitch your tent, when you go different places, what is the purpose of everywhere that you are going, of everything that you are seeing, of everything that you are do doing. Because when we spend time with the word, the word that became the word that became flesh within us, all of a sudden we, we see his glory and that glory which dwells within us begins to become a burning tent, a burning fire within the tent of our lives.

And that's how we make a difference. Show the next picture, if you would, of the tents. You see, this is us. This is us. This is who we have to be. If the world is going to be changed through Jesus Christ, this is who we have.