8-4-19 Grace-Tucson Sermon

John 1:1-14

Joys for Our Journeys 5

Pastor Ron Koehler

Grace—Tucson, AZ

August 4, 2019

The Journey from Heaven to Earth In the name of Jesus Christ, who came to this world in order to save it, dear friends, So far this summer, we have heard about journeys undertaken by God’s people of the past—out of the Garden of Eden, to a Promised Land, into the land of Egypt, the Exodus out of the land of Egypt. These have helped us to think about aspects of our journey through this life and the promises of God we have that are similar to the ones the people on those journeys received from the Lord.

Today, however, we change directions and consider a journey we cannot relate to at all! It is unlike any trip we could ever take. We can’t fully understand it or explain it— even though we absolutely believe it. It is awesome and wonderful. It is such a favorite bit of history that we recount many details of it for several weeks at the end of every calendar year. We sing songs about it and the radio plays songs about it from Thanksgiving until the end of December. And I’m only scratching the surface, because we—and people all over the world—celebrate that journey like we celebrate nothing else! It is The Journey from Heaven to Earth taken by God’s one and only Son. And just like so many businesses who celebrate a “Christmas in July” sale, here we are celebrating Christmas in the middle of our summer, in 100+ degree temperatures, while Christmas lights and decorations are still snugly stored away in closets and attics, and well before greedy merchandizers have begun to set up their way-too-soon store displays for the season itself.

But we have a nobler purpose than marketers and retailers! This is no gimmick! And it’s not about what we can get out of it. It’s about what we already have because of it.

As we continue to think about biblical journeys, we want to take this morning to talk about the amazing, one-of-a-kind trip taken by Jesus as he left heaven and came to earth on a spiritual rescue mission.

To help us think about this trip of Jesus, the Holy Spirit inspired the apostle John to write the words of our Gospel lesson today. As John began his history of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, he explained who Jesus is, where he came from, and what his journey from heaven to earth accomplished.

Who Jesus Is In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him everything was made, and without him not one thing was made that has been made. In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind. The light is shining in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man, sent from God, whose name was John. He came as an eyewitness to testify about the light so that everyone would believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light.

Though many people don’t believe the Bible to be God’s Word, it is harder to find people who don’t think that Jesus was a real person. Though some say that he was simply a teacher, some say a prophet, some even say a man who became God, and

therefore an example for us to follow. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Unitarians all hold some view of Jesus like this, along with many people who are not religious at all.

But by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, John tells us something very different. He uses the title, “The Word,” and a little later identifies The Word as Jesus. Do the first words of Genesis (the first words of the Bible) jump into your mind when you hear John say, In the beginning was the Word? In the beginning, before creation, Jesus—the Word— existed. Then he explains that Jesus was God all the way back then. But not just thousands of years before John put ink on papyrus! John is saying that Jesus is the eternal God, along with the Father (noted here) and the Holy Spirit (whom John talks about later in this gospel)! As true God, Jesus was involved in the creation of the world—nothing happened without him.

If you have never visited a certain place or met a particular person, but someone you know has visited that place or has met that person, they can tell you all about them so that you know how beautiful that national park is or how charming that city or what a really nice lady she is. They use words to convey those things to you.

Jesus is The Word; he is how we truly know God, whom we have never seen because we have never been to heaven. At times before Jesus was born into this world, he even stepped into his creation as the Angel of the LORD and brought a message from God. Certainly during his earthly life, he taught many people about God. Even today, as the words of the gospels are read and heard, Jesus still speaks as The Word and we learn what God is like, what he has done, and what he is yet to do. John continues to explain after our lesson for today, that Jesus has made God known to us.

This is also why Jesus is called The Life. As Jesus—The Word—is active, the Holy Spirit works in hearts and people come into a relationship with God. They not only have physical life then, but spiritual life, which is really the kind of life John emphasizes here and throughout his gospel. Just as light and physical life go together, the light of Jesus shining in a sin-darkened world brings life to it.

When the time had fully come, when all things were just as God planned them to be, he sent John the Baptist to testify, to proclaim, that spiritual life comes through the One who is The Light. God’s purpose in doing it this way is declared here: so that everyone would believe. The Light was coming into the world so that all people could know him and find eternal life in him.

Where Jesus Came From 9

The real light that shines on everyone was coming into the world.

14 The Word became flesh and dwelled among us.

And so, a great journey was undertaken—one that we cannot fully fathom! The real light that shines on everyone was coming into the world. And then, the Word became flesh and dwelled among us. The eternal Word, this Light and Life, this Creator and true God, Jesus, journeyed from heaven to earth!

How do we even think about this?! Every image we have in Scripture as God tells us about heaven is that the direction is up. God’s dwelling place is pictured as beyond our sky, where the birds fly, and beyond outer space where galaxies are set and stars shine. I realize that this is God conveying divine truths in words and images that we can comprehend and that the reality is far more difficult to grasp, but what God is saying is that he is waaaaaaay out there! There is a great distance between us and his throne in heaven. No matter how advanced our space travel becomes, we will never take a trip in spacecraft and locate heaven. That kind of journey will never take place.

And it all doesn’t even work that way!

But the distance or the type of supernatural barrier that must be overcome for a trip from heaven to earth is not even the biggest mystery. And, after all, as true God, Jesus can do what we can’t do. The most mind-blowing things about this journey of Jesus are these: 1. That the Word—true God—took on human flesh, becoming both true God and true man in one person. We call that his incarnation.

2. AND the reason he did it—because since Adam and Even fell into sin, God made a promise of undeserved love to people who had no hope of heaven without him. This promise was elaborated on over the centuries as God used his prophets to alert people to the signs that would precede the journey of the Savior to this world.

You can’t understand either of those things and I can’t either! God leaves heaven to live in all of this?! God makes a journey that requires travelling in the “vehicle” of a mother’s womb for nine months and making an unceremonious landing in an animal’s feeding trough?! God arrives in this world in the dark of the night in a little town out in an animal shelter as a tiny, baby human?! The all-knowing and all-powerful God is confined to this little body and must grow and learn like any other person, keeping in check those divine qualities much of the time?! The incarnation, God taking on human flesh, is a divine mystery that we are left to marvel at.

And he did this why? Because we—all of us, every person—by nature reject the idea of God…and rebel against everything he says…and commit actions he hates…and say words he despises…and think things that are abhorrent to him. And in this condition not one person would ever live with God in heaven. But God loves us all—the whole world of us—and wants us to be with him. That love is so undeserved and incomprehensible to us. It makes no sense to us because we are not holy and righteous and don’t think that way at all. But this great love is why Jesus set out on this journey. This is why the Word became flesh and dwelled among us.

What Jesus’ Journey Accomplished He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not recognize him. He came to what was his own, yet his own people did not accept him. But to all who did receive him, to those who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. They were born, not of blood, or of the desire of the flesh, or of a husband’s will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and dwelled among us. We have seen his glory, the glory he has as the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

And so he came. He was born and grew and eventually John the Baptist pointed him out to the crowds, telling them to look at him, the one who was the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. Already then, the people were told that Jesus would be that sacrifice the prophets spoke of, who would offer his life in payment for their sin.

That is exactly what Jesus did. After years of teaching people about God and eternal life in heaven by faith in him, Jesus willingly went to the cross where he offered his perfectly-lived life as that sacrifice for all sin. And then, in power and glory, he was raised to life. He conquered death and provided a promise: because I live, you also will live (John 14:19).

So what did this journey of Jesus from heaven to earth accomplish? Well, John tells us that the world did not recognize him. Even his own people did not accept him. The reaction of some then to this journey of Christ is the same reaction it gets now. Many people just don’t believe it. Even at Christmas, it is treated as a nice story that many merely tolerate in songs and on cards and TV specials. They’ll buy all sorts of Christmas presents, but don’t buy the story at all.

But some did receive him as their Savior then, and we are evidence that this still happens today. Some believed in this journey from heaven to earth and who it was that took that trip for sinners. Some believe today, and they are children of God by faith in Jesus.

And lest we think we are somehow better than those who reject Jesus, John reminds us that those who believe do not have that faith because they are in a certain family, or that they decided to believe. They have faith because God made them spiritually alive.

The Bible makes this clear in so many places—we cannot choose God. The Holy Spirit works through the Word to bring the light of salvation to the hearts of sinful people.

It is only by God’s grace that we believe in this journey from heaven to earth made by Jesus. It is only by God’s grace that we believe John’s words here that tell us who Jesus is…and where he came from…and what his journey accomplished. So you see, our summertime Christmas is no gimmick. It is simply a chance to think about the journey Christ made for us and to remember what we have because he made that trip: forgiveness for our sins and a journey ahead of us as well—to heaven to be with our Savior. But that’s a journey to talk about on another day!

May the joy and wonder of Christmas remain with you today and every day until you stand before the One who made a one-of-a kind journey from heaven to earth because he loved you. Amen.

Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.