to be here with you. It's great to see you and great singing. It's a real encouragement to worship the Lord with you and have unity in that. So, readings from our family, my family, to yours.
You only see me standing up here, but it's the work at home that makes this possible. It comes from the whole home, making time to study and all that. So, you also encourage me and encourage us. You bless us by being part of our extended Northbrook family, North brook Church family.
It seems like every family has their own version of crazy. And being a handsome Mary to a McDonald's, we just have our own things. Even the most functional and harmonious families, I think, maybe they even lean into it a bit more. So, I'm just trying to say that if you stick around long enough at Northbrook, it starts to feel like home.
I missed a couple of Sundays last year and I really felt that absence because I was sick and I really just noticed it. And even just one week, I think my spirit noticed that absence of this time of encouragement and spiritual nourishment. So, yeah, pray for those who are sick and not able to be here. So, it's January 28th and it's hard to believe that next week, the year will be around 10% done.
I don't know if you can tune this down a bit. I'm getting like a huge amount of bounce back here and it's messing with my head. Thank you. Yeah.
And I might yell, so you might have to pull back. If I can teach for 15 minutes and preach for 25, that would be a win and not cry. That would be good too. We'll see.
So, yeah, 10% done. That's like a lot. You know, 10% can be all the difference between a make or break situation. And to my mind, it's still the new year it just started.
And we've been like channeling that new year's energy at home sort of as a joke, almost like self-aware. Like, you get that new year's energy. People get that burst and all the gyms are packed for like a week and everyone's trying to eat better and revive some kind of hobby other than having a smartphone. You know what I'm talking about?
We're getting organized. We're getting in shape. We're going to save money. And we're going to be on time.
And we all kind of save these things. And then, anyways, so how's it going? It's almost over. But if God showed up to me and was like, kind of like he did for Solomon and said, all right, which one of these new year's resolutions do you want?
You pick one, I'll make it happen. And I would think I would say, I just don't want to get sick this year. Raise your hand if you were sick in 2023. And keep your hand up if you were just sick way too often and way too much.
I guess it's not as much as I was my experience. And I felt like I'm a missed people when they're not here. And I just feel like there's a lot of that going around. So for me, it can be really frustrating getting sick frequently.
Because there's nothing, usually it's a virus and there's really nothing in your power. There's nothing in the doctor's power to treat it. Antibiotics won't help. You just have to write it out.
And the best path forward is to rely on what God has designed and put into your body's immune system. And your immune system is an amazing system. But it doesn't feel amazing when what it's doing is giving you a fever in order to purge that virus out of you. And you're sick for three nights with fevers and your board of being in bed.
And you can't do anything to relieve your boredom because you're too weak. And to me that's frustrating because I like to do, I like to, when there's a problem, I want to do something about it. I want to have a way in order to do something. And thank the Lord for that vocal and sinus.
He made the science that made that possible. So, but I'll just skip my bad joke. Another thing about 2024 is it seems like the Lord could return any time. I check the news about once a week or less.
And sometimes it seems like the fig tree is getting greener and greener. Every time I look and if you don't get that, go read Matthew 24. And certainly Jesus could tear you for many more years. I'll just try and be ready either way.
But in January we all think about the year to come. And it's low hanging fruit so I'm going to address the year a little bit. It's like an easy framing narrative for public speaking. So just give me a break.
Yeah. So there's a verse here that I want to introduce because it's got a word in it. And it's relevant. It felt relevant.
Revelation 6, 8 says, I looked and don't freak out. This is scary verse. And I looked and behold the pale horse and his name that sat on him was death and hell followed him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth to kill with sword and hunger and with death and with beasts of the earth.
Now, again, don't freak out because we're still not in Daniel's 70th week. And what does this have to do with John? What it has to do with what I want to speak about is if you have some translations would put it like this, I looked up and saw a horse whose color was pale green like a corpse. And death was the name of its rider who was followed around by the grave.
And they were given authority over one fourth of the earth to kill with sword and famine and disease and wild animals. So depending on your translation, if you compare several translations, the word pale can also mean greenish. We get the word chloroform and the name Chloe from that same root word. So it's a greenish pale color.
And the word power here can also be translated as authority. The flavor of the word is like having dominion over, having jurisdiction, having mastery over, having the rights over something. It means ability and force and competency, but it also carries a sense of privilege or a sense of rulership. In my mind, it's like a vector.
I'm going to nerd out here for a sec. It's like a vector because there's both magnitude and direction. There's an element of control built into the word. And that's something God can do.
He has rights over everything. And like I said, we're still before the 70th week of Daniel now. So don't freak out or anything. But I love how the NIV puts Matthew 24, 6.
C to it that you are not learned. C to it that you are not learned. That's a command. And it's about not panicking or not getting thrown off when you look at the things that Jesus talks about in that chapter.
So I keep that word power in mind and enough messing around. Let's do the message as quickly as it can. So we're in the gospel of John because of this commentary. So I was reading this commentary because it's a good place to start when you have time to speak.
And I was reading it and I liked it. I liked the points that it was giving. So I thought it was worth sharing. And in the early chapters, it points out that John was really old when he authored four of the New Testament, John 5, I guess, John 1, 2, 3, and Revelation.
He was in his 80s or 90s probably, which is very unusual for that period of time to have someone lives into such an old age. And I've learned that fact before. In fact, John well has brought that up last week and breaking a bread. But I don't know if I ever really applied it for myself into a reading of John's gospel.
Warren's not here. But what are the first three rules of Bible interpretation? Hey, yeah. Context, context, context.
It seems awake. Part of the context of John's gospel is that it was probably written on. And this is all through the lens of history. So you can sprinkle probably in perhaps and we can't necessarily know for sure.
You can sprinkle that around in your mind. I'm just going to say things like as if they're for sure. But it's through the lens of history. There's no 100% certainty with that.
You know what I mean? Except for what's in Scripture. It's the context. The context is John the person and the life of John.
And the fact that John's gospel was written much later, that's part of the context. So step yourself into his shoes and think about what you know about John's personality from the Bible and think about his life and what he would have experienced. Most of it's not recorded. Even in the book of Acts where John is mentioned, he's just like standing behind Peter.
So we just don't know a ton about what he was up to. But you can kind of surmise that he had a very important role. And then later on he kind of took to writing. He would have been one of the elders of the church.
And his whole life of being in that position would have really shaped his experiences and shaped his writing. You think about what you see in the course of like 30 years of being an elder or a deacon or serving in the church. We saw that last week that verse in Acts when the deacons were being confirmed. Wherefore brethren look among you seven men of honest report full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom whom we may appoint over this business.
But we will give ourselves the 12th continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. So that's what John was up to because he was among that group giving himself continually to prayer and ministry of the word. His responsibility was primarily spiritual for all that time. And so there's three synoptic gospels as you know, synoptic meaning what from the same view.
And John is not one of those three synoptic gospels. The gospel of John contains a lot of different material. And it would make sense if this was on purpose, if this was deliberate, because John would have been very familiar with the other three gospels. They were written a long time before John was written.
So it's like intentionally supplementary. The witness of two or three is enough. Why write the same thing again when he feels called by the Holy Spirit to put some of the stuff into writing. And he would be writing to like a new generation as well, pretty much given the timelines that you can see here.
So context is important. Context changes how you interpret the author's intentions. And that's what we're after. We're after the original intent that the author put into the word.
So you have context, context, context. Let's dive into it and read John chapter 1, verses 1 to 13. And then just look at some thoughts in those verses. And yeah, so open your Bible to John if you have it, because you'll want to be able to look down as the verses go off the screen.
You'll still want to be able to read them. John 1-1, in the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him. And apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being. In him was life.
And the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness. And the darkness did not comprehend it. There came a man sent from John, whose name was John.
Excuse me. He came as a witness to testify about the light so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. There was the true light which coming into the world enlightens every man.
He was in the world and the world was made through him. And the world did not know him. He came to his own and those who were his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name.
Who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Let's pause there and let's pray, because I forgot to. And I feel like that's a good idea. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word.
We thank you for the truth. That's in it. I pray that you would enrich our lives from your word. And I pray that everything that happens this morning would be glorifying to your son.
And we worship you, Lord. And we thank you in Jesus name, amen. So check out verse 12 again. I like how the King James puts it.
I mean, I can't read it for the life of me, but the verses that ring in your head are usually the King James, if you're like me. Verse 12, but as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even them that believe on his name. So there's that word power again. The right here in this translation on the screen.
And you might have on your lap or on your phone another translation that might say authority to become power to become or the right to become. That word, I'm not like a super deep, you know, Greek word study dude, but there's two words that I looked at. There's power, exusia and power, don't worry about those. But I searched for every occurrence of the word power in the New Testament.
And I'd estimate that 95% of the time or more, it's one of those two words. And this word is exusia. And so this, as you can tell from the differences in translation, it means power, it means the right, and it means the authority. So there's an element of force and there's also an element of control, direction, rulership and that kind of thing.
Yeah, so like if you're reading the Bible in order, I always found that John 1 comes as like a huge surprise. Where else before is there this kind of like really deep and clear theology laid out, expositionally? I'm pretty sure you could pull it out of the Old Testament, but I don't believe that anywhere before this, it's like so clear, so intentional and so concise with the way that John weaves this together. So it's, but in reality, it's not a surprise in context, it's not a surprise at all, because this is a review, this is a synthesis of the rest of the Old Testament which came before John.
So like if you were to put the New Testament in order of like when the scrolls were written and when they were like published, you know, there's no published company, but if there was an chronological order of when they were written, John would be like near the end of the Bible. And that would change kind of how you approach it because John would have read like the Epistles and studied them in great detail because his like full-time ministry was to be in prayer and to minister in the Word and that's what it said in Acts, right? So to me that like clicked on some lights, maybe that doesn't do it for anyone else, but when I realized that it like it helped a lot because John 1 is so profound, almost don't know what to do with it and try to understand it and grapple with it, but it really to me it helped to consider the context. And it's so good that the Bible is consistent with itself, with itself, consistent with itself.
It's in fact litimerical. These verses and Colossians are remarkably consistent with John chapter 1. Colossians 1, 15, he is the image of the invisible God, first born of all creation, for by him all things were created both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together.
That is like almost like, you know, not even a cousin, this would be like a brother or sister in relation to John 1. They're saying like really the same thing. Jesus is God, we have Christ's deity and preeminence on display here. Jesus is God, Jesus created everything and he existed before this universe and in him there is life in him all things hold together.
In order to understand the weight of the gospel, we have to understand who Jesus is, not just a good man, not just a rabbi. Jesus is God himself. Jesus is deity himself. And this last part is so good.
In him, all things hold together. That is just so good. I like that a lot. You know, I want my mind to hold together, not to fall apart and that's a tough thing when you're a Hanson.
What did Toluse? He said, uh, sanity begins with salvation. I believe that. That's been my experience.
I know I want my mind to hold together. I want my heart to hold together. I want my marriage to hold together. I want my family to hold together.
I want my church to hold together. You think about all this splitting up that can happen in, in homes and churches. Sometimes sometimes the pressures and challenges of life can just cause people to crack up. But in him, all things hold together.
That just makes it so simple. I just have to make sure that my mind is in Christ, that my heart is in Christ, my marriage is Christ. And if it's all founded in Christ, all things hold together. There's so much security in him.
There's so much security in who he is, the image of the invisible God. There's such power in his person. Oh, and by the way, there's that same word power again. It's hidden here.
Maybe you found it. I'm trying not to get emotional. There's that same word power again. It's hiding in verse 16 as authorities.
And that helps us to kind of get the flavor of the word because it's often translated as authority or authorities. Excuse you. Um, in your mind, you might have this verse going, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. And so, because that's what, that's the King James powers.
And that's the exact same word as in John 1 12 powers or dominion. Like there's, there's, this is like authority. Authority works through enforcement and it works through decision making. Like, um, you know, if someone's a ruler, they have the right to make a decision.
And if they're the ruler, they have the right to enforce. They make the calls. And that's the sense of this word. It's both force and decision making.
So the light, the dark and accountability. Um, so if you have your Bible still open to John, it's going to be nice to be able to look down and compare. But John 1 agrees with Romans 1. Let's read this.
Romans 1 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all and godliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness because that which is known about God is evident within them. For God has made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made so that they're without excuse. So this, this agrees with John chapter 1.
And I love that without excuse. Actually, it's terrifying, but I like it. In order to accept the gospel, we have to give up on excuses. And I believe that God provides direct spiritual witness to every person that enters this world based on Romans 1 and John 1.
And because of that witness, everybody is accountable to God. Verse 9 in John chapter 1 says, that was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Or enlightens every person that enters the world. And it says in both here and in John, that the source of each person's conscience and the source of each person's innate ability to understand right and wrong and the feelings of guilt that come from sin come from the life that is in Jesus Christ.
Because in John chapter, or John verse 4, it's Christ's life that is the light. And in verse 9 and 10, that light enlightens the whole world and every person that comes into the world. This is very consistent. And this makes sense that it would be consistent because John would have read Romans chapter 1.
And it would have been like, man, this is like really great stuff, but it's coming from someone I don't know that well. And he's kind of has a crazy past. But you think about his life and how he transforms God, not John, how he God transforms people's lives. And as an elder of the early church, how many people would John have been shepherding and just guiding.
And it totally to me changes how to read the text because you think about the person. And it's easy to like, just like, especially for someone like me to lapse into like the analysis of like everything in the text. And like, your brain just kind of works that way. And like a math or analysis or balancing kind of thing.
But it's about people. It's about a person. It's a person who wrote it. And it's about people.
And it's about Christ, the person. Christ, the man who is God. Perfect. The perfect man and the perfect God in one being.
And you know, because of who Christ is, because of because of his being and because of his deity, there's no excuse. They're without excuse. There's no excuse. If we accept Christ's deity, if we accept that Jesus is God, we also have to accept our guilt.
And if we accept our guilt, we also have to accept that Jesus is God. There is no escaping it. All paths lead to this fact. Because we didn't set the price on our sin.
God did. And so there's no excuse. There's no escape from what happened. And there's no escape from that fact because God has set it.
The price of sin is his only, is one and only son crucified on a cross. And as if there could ever be an excuse for that, that happened because of sin. My sin. And your sin.
There could never be an excuse. So what's that thing Warren says sometimes? I was hoping he'd be here, but you know, pray for him. He might be watching online.
He's sick. Out sick. You know, you hate them. It's a time in the word and a time of worship.
He says, if you want to know how bad sin is, look at the cross. And if you want to know how good God is, look at the cross. We sang this morning, nailed upon goal, gothistry, faint and bleeding. Who is he?
Hands and feet so rudely torn, wreathed with crown of twisting thorn. Once he lived in heaven above, happy and his father's love, son of God, tis he, tis he on the cross at Calvary. I think of that song, the power of the cross. What a love.
What a cost. What a cost for Christ to hang on the cross because of sin. There is no excuse for anyone. All right.
So nearing the end, there's just like two more verses and we'll look at application and be done. I put up a couple of translations here so you can compare and I'll read the middle one. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God even to those who believe in his name. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God even to those who believe in his name.
I see in this verse maybe a little navigational challenge. I think we all want to get to become because being a child of God is a great position to be in. What's the saying? I'm a child of God, my future is bright.
I'm a child of God, my future is bright. If you hang around long enough in North Rockville, hear that again and again. And it's true. If you're a child of God, your future is bright regardless of the circumstances that life and the world throw at you.
But how do we get to the becoming part? There's three key words that I've emphasized there. Receive, become, and believe. And grammatically these words occur where they occur, but chronologically how does this work out in someone's life?
Let's think about it and try some different ways. Can we first become and then believe and then receive? No, I agree with you. That attitude is very common among unbelievers because the belief part hasn't happened yet.
We're stuck on becoming. And this is the pride of self. People say things like, once I make myself presentable to God, then I'll go to church. Or I'll figure it out my way.
Just give me some more time. I'll figure it out. And then I'll do all that God stuff after. The problem with trying to become anything spiritual before believing is that you're spiritually dead in your sins.
You have no power to become just as a dead person has no power. You can't become a child of God without believing in Christ. Okay, so we have to believe before we become. Can we believe and then become and then receive?
This was me and a lot of other believers, I think, who end up in a position where they think that believing alone is enough to become. I've always believed in God since I was very young. I believe God since Sunday school. Teacher said, God made the earth.
Teacher said, God made science. God made math. Okay, yeah. Made sense ever since I could think because there's evidence in creation and it's so clear.
Just like Roman says, there's evidence built into reality that we experience. It's all structured by the mind of God. And so that was obvious to me ever since I was really, really young. But ever since I was really young, I really, really struggled with becoming a child of God.
I believed in the Bible. I believed in God. I believed in right or wrong. And I really, really struggled with sin and with guilt and with self-worth because I had no power.
I hadn't received Christ personally. So I had no power. It's a personal transaction that has to be made. It's not enough just to believe.
Unless you receive Christ personally as a person, like I'm a person, he's a person and deal with Christ personally, do business in person and accept Christ like that. You'll never experience power over sin without receiving Christ, without receiving Him. I really believe that it's not enough to just believe and then become. Everyone who becomes a child of God also has to receive Him.
It's so clear. So first, do you believe in God and take him at his word, believe on his name. Then you receive Christ personally. It's not, he's not an idea, not a symbol.
It's not an idea or a symbol. You have to deal with Christ, the man on the cross in person. And then you become a child of God. And one thing I believe about children is that they have the right to grow.
It's their right. And I want to talk a bit about the power to become because I know there's lots of believers in here. And you've become a child of God. But if you're like me, you're also becoming a child of God.
You know what I'm saying? You're saved, but you're also being saved. There's still room to grow. There's still room to become more than what you are now.
And I've been discouraged before. And maybe there's just one person in this room who needs to be reminded that you have access to power. And you have access to authority. You have a sense of a right or an authority to become.
And I'm not saying there's no struggle. But God has given an element of control to us. Because he wants us to choose to worship him with our lives. These days are evil.
But how are you going to choose to spend the time you've been given? Are we going to redeem the time despite the evil? Or are we going to squander it? What ground can we gain for the glory of God at the end of this age?
Can we gain in our lives victory, victory over sin, victory over anxiety, victory over addiction, victory over your past, victory over depression, victory in the face of spiritual attack, victory in the face of temptation. It is possible with God. With humility and cooperation with God, you have power. You have authority to become wholeheartedly, head over heels, a child of God.
When has one person ever not been enough to shake this whole world? Read your bible. It's usually just one prophet, one person who says, I'll stand in the cap. I'll do it.
If you give your whole heart to God, he can surely use you for his glory. All right, hold it together. I don't know why. It's just you just have to accept who you are.
One last thing. What is a child of God? Really? What does that mean?
It's a bit of like a loaded phrase that you can just toss around without opening. Well, what does that mean? Well, here's one possibility of what it means. In 1 John, chapter 3, verse 2, beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not been revealed what we shall be.
That's probably true of a lot of us here. Now we are children of God. But what are we going to be? It has not yet been revealed fully.
But we know that when he shall be revealed, we shall be like him, Jesus, for we shall see him as he is face to face. So I don't know what's going to happen this year. There's not a lot of hope if you try to make projections based on available data. If you look out there, you're not going to get a hopeful expectation.
If you check the news, it's not going to give you hope. I can't be certain what's going to happen out there. I can't be certain that war will not spread. I can't be certain that diseases won't increase.
I can't be certain the economy will be any good at all. I don't know for certain what's going to happen in the world. But I know for certain who I am becoming. I know what's going to happen inside.
Who I am becoming more like. And how can I be so certain? John chapter 1 verse 13 says, of the children of God who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. If God stopped working on me, I would probably just stop growing.
But because I've received Christ, I've received the Holy Spirit inside of me and by the grace of God, with the help of God, and with the help of the church. I have power and you have power to become more like him. Gosh, it's 127 says, Christ in you, Christ in you, the hope of glory. You have that if you're a child of God.
So let's end with a song and I'll pray. And I'd like to sing Love Ran Red as we close. Look at that song time. I'll pray.
And the music people will come. We've chosen to do with your only son in order to make us able to have life. What a cost, Lord. We acknowledge our sin.
We acknowledge the debt and we acknowledge the glory of your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we thank you for salvation, Lord. We thank you for what you've given us. I pray, God, that you would help us every day to live in the light of that fact, in the light of these facts, and that you would strengthen us, guide us, Lord, make each life a continual prayer, a sweet cent that will be pleasing to you.
And we commit the rest of this week and to your hands and pray that you would bring us again safely and pray for anyone who's sick. That you would just assist the believers, Lord. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.