Elevate - Close to the Savior - The Identity of Christ

The transcription discusses the Gospel of John and its unique perspective on Jesus. John, one of the twelve disciples, had a special relationship with Jesus and was present during significant events, such as the transfiguration. He was entrusted with the care of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and was described as the disciple whom Jesus loved. John's writings, including the Gospel of John, provide a different perspective on Jesus compared to the other gospels. The transcription then focuses on the importance of understanding who Jesus truly is, as misunderstandings can lead to grave consequences. John's Gospel emphasizes that Jesus is the revelation of God, and the passage in John 1:1-4 clarifies Jesus' divinity and the doctrine of the Trinity. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and life was the light of men. Church, I want you to know that Jesus Christ was present at creation. He participated in creation, and it was His life that was breathed into the nostrils of mankind to make us image-bearers of Him. Welcome to Elevate, the radio ministry of Authentic Life Church in Mobile, Alabama. We pray that it builds your faith, helps you to live the life of God that you've always wanted to live, and that it inspires you to be a fully devoted, authentic follower of Jesus Christ. Here's today's message from Neil DiQuatro. We're starting a new sermon series called Close to the Savior, A Study of John. You may wonder, why are we studying John? Well, there's a story, an account in the Bible that gives us a good idea of what's so special about John. So sort of imagine with me, if you're a fly on the wall, at the evening before the crucifixion, it's the final Passover that Jesus is celebrating with His disciples. And during that Passover, Jesus is washing their feet in that beautiful moment that we see recorded in the Gospels. All the disciples are around Him, the 12 disciples. But in that moment, Jesus says something that completely causes the record to skip, so to speak. Now, if you know anything about the disciples, they were young guys. They were still learning and growing and coming into maturity. And so they got into drama pretty quick, didn't they? Arguing about who gets to sit at Jesus' right hand, who's the greatest among them. They could get into drama pretty quickly. And so all of a sudden, Jesus drops this bomb by saying, Hey, by the way, boys, one of you is going to betray me. Imagine being in that room when that happens, and everyone starts looking around going, Who, me? Is it him? Right? Everybody wants to know. If you were there, you would want to know. Well, Peter typically would be the one to ask the question. At this point, he's probably sick of getting rebuked, right? For just saying stuff. So he decides not to. But the Bible records him motioning to John to ask Jesus. You see, they're all reclining together. But the Bible describes that John is reclining next to Jesus. Many would say that John often would have laid his head on Jesus' chest. He's the closest to him. And so Peter, wanting to know the answer, recognized who he thought would likely get the answer. It was John. So the Bible says, motions to him. Listen, there's nothing new under the sun. Just a bunch of boys acting silly. And Peter's like, oh, come on. You tell him. He likes you best. He'll tell you some emotions to him. And Jesus eventually gives them the answer. But what's interesting is the fact that they knew that that was the guy to ask. It speaks to something that's unique about his relationship, John's relationship with Jesus. I'd love to be the guy with a special relationship with Jesus. John's got a unique perspective there. So who is this John? Well, you know John's one of the twelve disciples. But he was also part of an inner core group of three disciples who were a bit closer than the rest. That's the way Jesus conducted his ministry. He had the masses, that he had the twelve that he could pull close. And then he had three that were even closer. And some think out of those three, John was even the closest. In fact, John was present at the transfiguration. Not the other disciples, just three of them. John was one where they saw Jesus transformed into his heavenly glory. And Moses and Elijah appeared. So John was a fly on the wall in those situations. The Bible describes him as the disciple that Jesus loved. He loved all the disciples. But it's saying that there was something special about that. You'll find it humorous that it's in the Gospel of John where he's described as the disciple whom Jesus loved. He was entrusted to take care of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Jesus is on the cross. He looks at John and says, take care of her. Something special about John. Paul says he was the pillar in the Jerusalem church. And of course, you know, he wrote the Gospel of John, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, and Revelation. So this is John. And John's writings as one who was close to the Savior. So now you understand our title. It demonstrates his unique perspective that he had on Jesus that sprang from the closeness he had. That's why the Gospel of John is so different than the three synoptic Gospels. And so we're going to study parts of all five books in this series. It would take us two years if we went verse by verse through every chapter. We'll study parts. And today we're going to start with the Gospel of John. And we're going to specifically over the next several weeks look at accounts that appear in this Gospel that don't appear anywhere else in the other Gospels, so we can get that perspective. So y'all ready to begin talking about John? All right. Well, the world has often confused who Jesus is. And John has helped us with this. The errors and misunderstanding who Jesus is has had grave consequences. And they range anywhere from having trouble in your relationship with God because you don't understand who Jesus is appropriately, all the way on the extreme side it creates heresies and even cult religions when you misunderstand who Jesus is. Because you see, Satan can't change the fact that Jesus lived, bled, died, conquered death. In fact, even historians now are saying, listen, we know he lived. We can't get away from that. All Satan can do is try to confuse us about who he is. About who he is. Not that he is, but who he is. Maybe today you misunderstand parts of Jesus that the Apostle John can clarify. But John knew intimately, intimately who Christ was. And he had something to say about this in the beginning of the Gospel of John. And when John starts his Gospel, he doesn't waste any time. I mean, he immediately comes in and drops the bomb. So our text is going to be today, the Gospel of John chapter 1, verses 1 through 17. But I'm going to read these verses as we go, instead of all at once like I like to do, because there's just a lot of verses to get through. But let's start. John 1, 1 through 4. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Does this sound familiar to us? He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. Through these first four verses, I want to point out that John shows us that Jesus is the revelation of God. Jesus is the revelation of God. This first point I'm going to make this morning, I'm going to dig in a little bit. I'm going to go slow because we've got to lay a foundation. So I'm going to sort of lean into teaching here some foundational things, because this passage forms the backbone to some of the most important things that we believe as Christians. And so John is making clear here that Jesus is without a doubt the incarnate revelation of God. Incarnate just means in the flesh. The in-flesh revelation of God. And in this verse, John is speaking of two different people. He says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. So there's two people that are being named. Well, we know who God is. Well, the Greek word for Word is a word we're all familiar with, which is logos. In English it's pronounced logos, and in Greek it's logos. This is a proper name. So logos can be used to describe a word, words, words that someone spoke or wrote down. But when it gets sort of a capital W, Word, it becomes a proper name. And it's not just a word, it becomes the Word. So we know John is saying that the Word is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Word. He's the logos. But verse 1 is incredibly important because it's the source of many heresies when misunderstood. And now and again you'll hear me talking about heresies and bad doctrine and bad theologies. Why? Because social media, it's all over the place. And it's confusing people. And we've got to some way to sort of back up and punt and get back to just some foundational teaching. So we, not always because we're learning something new, so that we can refresh ourselves and confidently find an error when we see it, and then help someone understand the truth and walk them through it. So sometimes we just have to go through the basics. But John makes his point explicitly clear so that no one misunderstands what he's saying. And he does this in this way. So in Koine Greek, that's the ancient Greek, Koine Greek, their sentence order doesn't matter a whole lot. So you can string their words together with subject, verb, predicate, and it can be in different orders and it still pretty much means the exact same thing. Now in English, it works differently. For example, the boy sat on the horse versus the horse sat on the boy. And the second version, we have a very unhappy boy and a really weird horse. So it changes everything. But it's not like that in Greek. But they can change the order around. Well, why would they do that? When they want to emphasize something. It's a really precise language. So when they want to emphasize something, they can change the order around. And this is exactly what John does to emphasize something he wants us to see. So here's how it reads in the original Greek. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. Not the Word was God. And that's a fine translation. But, and God was the Word. You see, he used the power of the Greek language to intentionally make clear what his chief point was. He's speaking of God. God was the Word. Jesus is God. No ancient Greek would have missed this point when he puts the word God first in this sentence. God was the Word. And it's from this scripture that we learn of the divinity of Jesus. And this is foundational to our doctrine of the Trinity. We know the Word and God aren't the same persons. But they are equal. Because they're part of the Godhead. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit equally together form the Godhead. How does that work? I can only give analogies. It's a bit of a mystery, but it's absolutely true and taught in scripture. So Jesus, though he's separate in a separate personhood, he is equally God with the Father. And so this is foundational. Why am I going through all of these basics? Because when you misunderstand that, we end up with false religions. And I'm going to give you two examples, and I don't give you these examples to be ungracious, but we have to tell the truth. So I say this with love, but Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism. Here's how they translate this text. The Word was with God, and the Word was a God. The Word was with God, and the Word was a God. Did you know that? A God. But what happens when you do that? Well, for Mormons, they now believe that Jesus was the spirit child of a heavenly Father and heavenly Mother, and Lucifer was Jesus' brother. Wow. Jehovah's Witnesses, they believe Jesus was created by God. He was originally the Archangel Michael, and He became the Messiah at His baptism. All because Jesus was a God. This can't be. This can't be the translation. How do I know that? Just a quick reminder of our own English grammar. We're all familiar with this definite and indefinite articles. So the definite article is the word, the. I go to a car dealership. The car. I want the car. That one and no other car. I want the car. Right? That's the definite article. The indefinite article is a car. It could mean any car. Right? But that's not what's being said. Well, I don't want an a car or any car. I want the car. That's a very different message. Well, why couldn't Greek be translated that way? Because Greek doesn't have an indefinite article. It doesn't exist. There's no a. There's no and. It's impossible to say, and the Word was a God, because they don't have a word for that. So you have to really work hard to make it say that. But there are people who have believed that from within the first 200 years of church history, different false ways of thinking, Arianism and other theologies such as that that have given birth to a lot of our modern cults and false religions that we have, all because they messed up on understanding that God and the Word were the same. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The best example I can think of in our modern culture would be this. If someone came to your house and started ordering you around, do this, do that. You don't know them, but do it. And you're like, on what authority are you asking me to do this? And should I obey you? If they say to you, I am a president, you must listen. That's not going to land really well. They might be the president of Algeria. Or, I don't know, Tanzania. Seeing a president doesn't matter. When they say, I am the president. I'm the president. I'm the commander in chief of the United States. I'm the president. You see how that totally changes the meaning? And then, yes, sir, absolutely. Whatever you say, you're in charge. And that's why John drives this point home and why I'm laying this foundation. Because John further drives the identity home in verses two through four when he says, he was in the beginning with God, not created by God. Notice that. He was in the beginning with God, not created by God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and life was the light of men. Church, I want you to know that Jesus Christ was present at creation. He participated in creation, and it was his life that was breathed into the nostrils of mankind to make us image bearers of him. It's this Jesus. Well, how did John come to know this? Because he was listening. John chapter four, verse six. Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. Think about that. From now on, you do know him, and you have seen him. Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us. Jesus said to him, you can imagine John is listening to Philip ask that question, and he's like, oh, yeah, show us. Show us the Father. And now we'll understand, John's watching this whole thing go down. And then in verse nine, Jesus said to him, I have been with you so long, and you still do not know me. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. It's as clear as can be. If you've seen Jesus, you've seen the Father. You see, John was listening. You see, somewhere along the line, John got the revelation. And because of that, it's the most important way he decided he could open up his gospel. Somewhere he got the revelation that this is not just a teacher. He is the teacher. Church, this is why we exalt him. This is why we make him famous. It's why we lift him up. It's why we submit to his lordship. It's why we trust him. It's why when Jesus says, take up your cross and follow me, we're like, yes, we'll do it, whatever the cost. Because we know who we serve. We're not just serving a God, but the God. The one and only true God. The Savior of the world. Praise God. Praise God. So John teaches us that Jesus is the revelation of God. Aren't you grateful for that? But he goes further and he tells us that Jesus is also the light of God. And now I'll pick up speed for the rest of these points. Chapter 1, verse 5, The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He's talking about John the Baptist, so don't get the Johns confused. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him. Wow, it's rich. Yet the world did not know him. He's saying the creator of the world showed up and didn't recognize him. Verse 11, He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did 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. Aren't you glad that you believe on his name? So John compares Jesus here to light. But once again, do you see that John's concerned about people confusing his identity? That whole passage is all about, hey, he's this guy, not that guy. John the Baptist was pretty cool, but that's not who we're talking about here. This guy is in a whole different league. He says, no, John was a light, but Jesus is the true light. And when this light shines on the world, we see in this passage that one of two things happens, and I'm going to show you. Look at verse 11. It says, He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. It's a shame. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. You see, when the light shone on mankind, people either became children of God or they rejected God. You see, when light shines on people, people react in different ways. Some will run to the light, and some will run away from the light. Imagine if you heard a noise in the middle of the night in your shed. You'd be like, wow, it's making that racket. I need to go check on it. Your wife nudges you, you get up, grab the baseball bat, the Louisville Slugger, and you sneak out. You undo the lock. And what are you going to do? You know, you hear a noise in there. You want a surprise, find out what's going on. So you're going to unlock it. You're going to quickly open the door and turn the light on, right? You're going to turn the light on to see what's happening. Now, if it's your dog making the racket, what is that dumb dog going to do? He's going to sit down. His tail's going to start wagging. He's going to light up because now he recognizes you. He's probably going to run straight to you. But what if it's a bunch of rats or cockroaches? What do they do when the light goes on? They scatter. It's the perfect picture. Light makes people react in different ways. People either run to him and say, Lord and Master, it's good to see you. Or they hide from him if they're still walking in darkness. And I wonder if John got this idea of Jesus being the light from listening to Jesus' conversation with the Pharisees in John 8, verse 12. It records here Jesus saying this. Again, Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the light of the world. He got this idea somewhere. I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. And then later, Paul explicitly teaches that the light is found in Jesus. In 2 Corinthians 4, 6, here Paul says, For God, he said, let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts. It's let light shine out of darkness. They're talking about creation. This God, right, has now shone in our hearts. The Word was God, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. You see it now? It's one. He has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. How? In the face of Jesus. Isn't that good news, church? I love it. It's the gospel. Now, many of us have accepted Christ. They've accepted His light. And so we think we don't ever reject Christ because His light is shone on us. And we said yes to salvation. But what about when He shines after salvation into places in our life that we try to shield from Him? He's still the light of the world. He's still the light of the world. He still desires to shine light into darkness. And you've got a choice to make in that moment. You can run away and hold on to sin or dysfunction or anything it is, materialism, hatred, bitterness, whatever it is. You can hold on to it and run. Or you can look at Him straight in the eyes and say, My Master has come to set me free. You see, amen. So when Jesus shines light, He doesn't do it to condemn. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. I'm going to make this point even clearer on our final point here this morning. When Jesus comes, He's not saying, Bad, stop doing, you're a sinner, and you've got this addiction, and you've got this hang-up, and you've got this anger. And that's not what His light does. He shines light in a dark place because He's trying to set us free. He's trying to be our Master and to save us. So I want to encourage you, church, even though you've received Jesus' light, understand that He's always the light of the world. He's always shining in your heart. And what He does, don't be afraid. It might be difficult or uncomfortable. It may even be blinding. But recognize that your Master has come to set you free. That's why He turned the light on. So John teaches us that Jesus is the revelation of God, and He's the light of God. And finally, He helps us see that Jesus is the grace of God. And we're grateful for that. Let's go to chapter 1, verse 14-17. 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, John the Baptist, not our John, and cried out, This was He of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me, because He was before me. Verse 16, For from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace. Let me say that again, it's just a good verse. For from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. You see, John once again is making sure that there's no confusion on the identity of Christ. He does it again. I'm not talking about John the Baptist. I'm talking about this other guy. But if you zero in on verse 16-17, you see something powerful when John writes in verse 16, For from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, and grace and truth from Jesus Christ. What is this fullness John is talking about? Because it's from His fullness that we've received grace. What is this fullness John is reminding us yet again that Christ is not just a good, wise teacher. No, His earthly body is full of the entirety of God. There's a fullness. He's using this word to help him understand that Jesus may have an outward tent, but inside Him is the fullness of the deity. Because Jesus was fully man and fully God. John doesn't want anyone to confuse this. So he makes it clear. This is why Paul doubles down on what John says in Colossians when he writes, For in Him, in Jesus, the whole fullness of the deity dwells bodily. You see that word fullness again? That's the fullness. And what comes out of that fullness? God's grace. John describes this fullness as being the revelation of God's grace. This grace is the gospel. And then he contrasts this gospel with the law. I'm going to read it again. Verse 16, For from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses. The law came from another place. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. You see, grace isn't just something Jesus does. It's what He is. That's why we say that Jesus is the revelation of God's grace. Jesus embodies grace. When Jesus shows up, there's no longer the written code of commandments that we could never keep. We want to try. We love Him. We do our best. But when Jesus shows up, He gets rid of the written code, and He reveals to us the grace of God. But it's incarnate. The incarnate grace of God. This is why Paul says, It's by grace you have been saved. You have to understand that when he said that, it was revolutionary and even scandalous to some who spent their whole life trying to merit favor with God through deeds and works and actions. And Paul says, No, it's by grace. You could replace the word grace with Jesus, because Jesus is the revelation of that grace. It's by grace you've been saved. It's revolutionary. And so Jesus fulfilled the law in His grace, so now the law can be in its proper place. What does it do? Well, it points us to Christ. It makes us aware of our need for Christ. But it doesn't buy us favor with God. Only the free gift of grace makes us right with God. The word justification came up. The word justification came up. So I'm explaining it to them, because as you know, the word justification, the word that Paul uses, this is a Paul word, is a forensic word. It's a legal word. It's the kind of word you would have seen in a Greek court of law. And it gives you the picture of God, the judge, standing up with his gavel and smashing it on the table and saying, Not guilty. That's what justified means. You're not guilty anymore. And so I asked the teenagers, well, if the judge declares you not guilty, even when you are guilty, but he declares you as not guilty, because Jesus did the jail time for you on the cross, then what is our motivation not to sin? And I had to help them understand. First, it's love. We love Him. His grace is shown upon us. We love Him. We want to please Him. And we want to avoid the consequences of sin. James tells us that sin, when it's full grown, it gives birth to death. That's our reason for having the law. The law is still good. It still points us to Christ and recognizes our need for Him. There's good things there that please Him. But that's not the picture John wants us to have when we see the face of Jesus. He doesn't want us to see the written code. He doesn't want us to see the law. He wants us to see grace. He's saying, He's saying when you think of the face of Jesus, don't think law, because the law condemns and it kills and it says you're not good enough. But think grace. Why? Because Jesus is quite literally the grace of God embodied. Do you understand that? So when you are confronted by Jesus and you hit your wagon to Him, you're hitching your wagon to grace. There's no grace and law like Catholics, you know, well-intended, but I just think they're wrong. It's grace. It's good news. It's that good. Jesus is literally the grace of God. This is why Paul writes in Ephesians 2.8, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of your own doing. It is the gift of God. What is the gift of God? What is the gift of God here that Paul's talking about? The gift is the incarnate Jesus who left His throne, was born of a virgin, suffered under Pontius Pilate, and rose again on the third day and revealed the grace of God to us. Amen? Paul says it again in Titus 2.11, For the grace of God has appeared. You hear that? How did the grace of God appear? He didn't show up on the Mount Sinai again. I want you to see this about Jesus. That when you see Him, you can't see law, though the law is good. You have to see grace, because Paul says, For the grace of God appeared in the person of Jesus Christ, bringing salvation for all people. Church, when you look into the face of your Savior, do you see what John saw? In fact, let me ask you, what is it that you do see? Do you see law or grace? Do you see a disappointed father, because you can't measure up? Or do you see that one who loves you completely and paid the price for you, because they knew you couldn't measure up, and they accepted you and loved you anyways? Do you see the embodiment of God's grace when you look at the face of Jesus? Jesus is the revelation of God. He's the light of God. He's the light of God. And He's the grace of God. And it matters that we get the identity of Christ right in this confused generation. How many of you know that's true? We need to get it right, because sometimes we get off course. You know, sometimes we get off course. This is why it's so important to try not to to be legalistic. You know, to judge other people's freedoms and to have to be, you know, just let this unity reign over stuff and try to, you know, work your way to God. That's why Paul warns us about that all the time, because see, legalism and Jesus, they just don't mix really well. They just don't work together. I'm going to close with this passage here in Colossians 2, 8 through 10. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him, Christ, the whole fullness of the deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled with Him who is the head of all rule and authority. For in Christ, the whole fullness of the deity dwells bodily. Everything that God is has to be given to those who have put their faith in Christ. Everything. If that's true, and it is true, don't allow hollow philosophy and worldly thinking and bad doctrine and TikTok and Instagram and Facebook cloud your view of who Jesus really is. If there's a deception coming on our land, I promise you, it's not a deception that will discount the fact that Jesus lived and died. We know too much for that. He will try to twist and distort like has been done in the couple of examples I gave you of some other religions. Be wary ideas on social media that diminish Christ. You can't diminish Christ if you know He's God, because He's everything. You see, John knew who you think Christ is matters. Who you think Christ is matters. Don't be confused. If you get the who Christ is wrong, your whole walk with God goes wrong. Like an arrow pointed in slightly the wrong direction before you take off your shot, if it's a millimeter off now, a hundred yards out, it'll be five feet off. Right? It's a little off now. That'll be five feet off in the end. This is why John lays a rich, robust, powerful foundation for us. That's why he starts his gospel with very, very specific words. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and God was the word. Thank you for listening to Elevate. We pray that this message encouraged, inspired, and challenged you. Authentic Life Church is located at 3750 Michael Boulevard in Mobile, Alabama. Visit our website authenticlife.tv for more information about Authentic Life Church. To find out what we have going on or to make a donation, we'd love for you to join us on Sundays at 10 a.m. for our weekend service. We have excellent children's, nursery, and youth programs, so bring the family. Thanks again for listening to Elevate and may God bless you.