Christ is Life Podcast

Well, last week, we began a Christmas sermon series that we're calling God became flesh, and we're really just looking at the first 18 verses in the Gospel of John. We opened up last week by looking at John chapter one, verses one through three, and today we're just going to look at two verses, John, four and five, where John's going to talk a lot about life and light. But even though it's only two verses, and he's going to focus in on only those two particular things, there's going to be a lot that he has to say to us today that is very relevant to our lives in this world today. Because I know that some of you are just flat out tired of the darkness that you see and that you experience in this world. I know that you're tired of dealing with and experiencing the darkness in your own life, where you're battling some of the demons and various struggles and sin struggles that maybe keep surfacing and popping up in your life over and over again. I know that many of you during a holiday season are just down right. You're just feeling empty and depressed and passive and have a lack of drive and and purpose, and maybe just don't really feel close to God during this time because of something that you're experiencing, a situation or a circumstance or something that's going on in your family, or just the stress and the busyness of all of the season, even though it's the holidays, many of us experience darkness during this particular season. But the thing is, is that what John has to say to us in just these verses today, I believe, brings hope into each and every one of those situations. And so before we dive in though to those two verses that we're going to look at, I just want to remind you quickly what we looked at last week, so we see it in context. We see verses four and five within the context and the flow of what it is that John was actually saying. You may remember this if you were here last week, but this is the way that John started off. He said in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, He was with God in the beginning. One of the things that we highlighted, we won't spend a lot of time on it, but word is a reference to Jesus. Here. We know that later on in John, He says that the Word was made flesh came to dwell among us, and so it's a reference to Jesus. But he used the Greek word logos. He didn't say Jesus logos, which is translated word here, and it's kind of a word that John used to make sure that he was capturing the attention of both the Greek reader and the Jewish reader, because they would have both recognized this logos, or the word, this term that he used, that both the Jewish and Greek reader would have understood that the logos was like the starting point of all things. The Greek reader would have thought of the Logos as this principle or this, this rationalizing force behind all things. And so when John starts off this way, for for them, John was saying that the Logos is not some force, it's not some creative energy, but it's a person, and his name is Jesus. He was making sure that they understood that that's who Jesus was. The Jewish reader would have been familiar with the word things like Psalm 33 where the psalmist declares, by the Word of the Lord, the heavens were made. And so if a Jewish reader was reading this, and he says, In the beginning, he's going back to creation and knows that things were spoken into existence by God. Then they would understand that John was trying to say, Oh, he's making the implication that Jesus, that he's referring to, is God. He's making sure that we don't miss that. That's who he is. And of course, that's what he goes on to say. He says, In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God. We talked about how that word with means toward he faced God. He was in a face to face relationship with God, but at the same time, the Word was God. He was both a distinct person, but God one essence. And we talked a little bit about the Trinity that we just finished singing about a moment ago, that God is a father and a son and the Holy Spirit three distinct persons, but one God, one essence. And that's one of the things we begin to see here. Jesus as the word the logos, was not a created being. He may have been born into this world, but he didn't come into being in that particular moment, he just took on an additional nature, because he was the one responsible for creating all things. That's what John makes sure that we know. Niche through Him, through the logos, through Jesus, the Word, all things were made, John says, and without him, nothing was made that has been known. Aid again, Jesus wasn't a created being. He was the one responsible for all of creation. He was the agent of creation. It's not a principle, it's not a force, not a creative energy, that caused all things to be created. It's a personal God, a personal God who existed outside the bounds of time, an eternal being who created all things in John is putting a name to this logos, to this creator. And so this is the context that's leading into what John is about to say and what we are looking at today. Here's how John continues in him, in the logos, in the word in Jesus was life, he says, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, John says, and the darkness has not overcome it. The word that John uses here, oh my I guess I gotta do this, the word that John uses here that's translated life two different times. Is the Greek word Zoe, and that says a lot about the choice that this word is that John chose to use, because there's a couple of other terms that he could have used that can also be translated life. John could have used the word bios, which is where we get our word biology from. So he could be saying that in the word was bios, this physical aspect of life, and that that would have been true too. I mean, he was being born into this world as as a human being with the human nature. But that's not the word that he used. He could have used the word Suke, or, as you can kind of see with this first part of it, psyche. You might think like psychology. It's where we get our word psychology from. And so sometimes this can be translated life, other times you might see it translated soul, but it's the aspect of life that's like our personality, right? It's the emotional aspect of life. It's the the mental, the thinking aspect of life. Again, our our personality. When you describe someone's personality, sometimes you say, man, they're just full of life, right? And so you could use these particular words to describe those. And Jesus, being born as a human certainly had that as well. But again, that's not the word that John uses here. He doesn't say that in Jesus, in the logos was bios, or in Jesus was Sukey. He says, in Jesus was Zoe. Zoe life. The word Zoe refers to the UN created, eternal life of God, self existing. Life of God. Sometimes it's talked about in terms of spirit life or spiritual life, but it also refers to quality of life. It's the absolute fullness that belongs to and comes only from God. It's life that is abundant, life that's active, life that is vigorous. But even goes beyond that, because it can also refer to the moral aspect of life, the quality of life that speaks to the moral aspect of life. So life in essence. Zoe, life is good. It's all that is right. It's all that is moral. And this is an important concept that John wants to make sure that we don't miss. The reason I know it's an important con concept is because John uses this Greek word Zoe 36 times in his Gospel, it is only used seven times in Matthew, four times in Mark, and six times in Luke. And so if it's only used this time in the three other gospels that are also written about Jesus and John uses it 36 times, then you get the ask, the idea that this is obviously something that is very important to John, and that was important to him, and he wants to make sure that you and I don't miss as well. And so Jesus was Zoe life. John's communicating that he's writing that about him here, but then later on, John actually also records Jesus as saying that about himself. It wasn't just the testimony of John. Here's a couple of examples. John 1125 when Jesus is talking to to Martha, he says, I am the resurrection and the ZOE life in John 14, six, when he's answering Philip, he says, I am the Way, the Truth and the ZOE life. And notice both times he uses the definite article, the He doesn't say, I am a Zoe life. I am the ZOE life, the one and only. Zoe life. Life. This is important, because Jesus is not saying there's anyone like me. I am distinct in this way. And so when we even think about, I mean, the Christmas season, we're, we're decorating, we have all of this stuff. And during Christmas we see manger scenes, and we're, we're thinking of the the baby Jesus being born in a manger. And when, when we do though, we don't want to miss the fact that this tiny little baby that was born in a manger was the ZOE life itself. He was the uncreated self, existing, eternal life, the source of all life, the fullness of life. He was life in and of itself, not just
BIOS life, not just Sukey life, but Zoe life. And so again, John says in him was Zoe. But he goes on and says that Zoe life was the light of all mankind. So this Zoe life that Jesus possesses, that is in and of himself, also leads to him being the light of all mankind, the Fauci, Greek word used here that's translated light the Fauci of all man kind. Now, what does that mean, though, to say that the ZOE life of Jesus was the light the Fauci of all mankind? Well, let's think about light and some of the things that we see in scripture for a moment. If you've read your Old Testament at all, then you would know that light is a common way of referring to God. I don't have time to take you through a number of passages this morning. Let me just show you two quick ones. Psalm 27 one says The Lord is my light in my salvation. Psalm 36 nine combines the idea of what John is saying here about life and light. Look at this. The Psalmist even says, Old Testament with you is the fountain of life in your light. We see light. And so when we think about the Old Testament and what they're saying there about who God is. And then John uses this term as well. Then one of the things we gotta realize is that John is saying that Jesus is God. He's just another allusion to him being God. But once again, just like John mentioned Jesus, about Jesus being the life, the ZOE life. And then he records Jesus is going on to say that he is the life himself. He does the same thing with light. Later on in John 812, Jesus says one of again, seven, I am statements that we see in the book of John, I am the light of the world. So Jesus didn't just say, I am the life. I am the light of the world. Again, definite article, the light, not a light that has come into this world of many lights. I am the light. Now, when he says this, the people that were around him, the religious leaders, got upset. You go on and read chapter eight, they begin to challenge Jesus. Why? Why would they challenge Jesus when he says that he's the light of the world? Because they understood the light references to be God in the Old Testament, and that he was claiming here, that he was, in fact, God, and so this is what John is trying to communicate here. This is who Jesus is, and as God, again, he is the life and He is the light of the world. Now this isn't the only place again that we see this. We even see this imagery when we're talking about Jesus being born into this world. This is a verse Isaiah nine two that we hear a lot quoted around Christmas time, and for good reason, because it's actually a prophecy about Jesus, this child that would be born, this Messiah that was to come, the anointed one that was to come and and rescue God's people. And this is what it says. It says the people walking in darkness have seen a great light on those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned. And so this imagery that we get of Jesus being born as a baby, picturing him in the manger scene, that he is a light that was being born into this people among this people we're walking in darkness. He was a light that had dawned in the middle of this dark world. World and again, not a light, the light, as Jesus proclaimed in the Gospel of John as well. And so this is the perspective that we begin to see about Jesus being the life and Jesus being the light. Now to truly understand it, though, I think we need to dive a little bit deeper in to darkness, though, because he's mentioning darkness, and he mentions deep darkness even. And so as we're talking about light, we also have this imagery of darkness. Now, if you go back and look and read through the Bible, you'll see that that darkness was actually an allusion to a couple of different things, or several different things to denote different things. I'll mention four right here. When you're talking about darkness in the Bible, it could refer to death, it often refers to sin, it could refer to ignorance, and it could even refer to separation. And so when Isaiah even makes a statement about people who are walking in darkness, then it could be a reference to people walking in death, walking in spiritual death, people walking in sin, in behaviors that are destructive and not good for them, things that go against God's holiness and His will and His best for our lives. People walking in darkness is often a reference to walking in ignorance, not understanding the truth and the reality of the situations and circumstances around them, the the world, even who God is, all of the above, and then, then finally, to be walking in darkness. Could be referring to walking in separation from God, walking in our flesh, away from him, as a matter of fact, again, even referencing this time that Jesus would be born into the world, and talking about it in Luke and in Matthew. And now that we're talking about it in John is often described as a dark period. I mean, you see it here, it's it's people living in darkness and all of those things. Well, even when you look at the Bible and you finish Malachi, and then you open it up into Matthew, there was 400 years there of silence, this dark period, this this time of separation, where it felt like God just disappeared. And so they were walking in separation and darkness. God had not been among them. This is what we're talking about when he's saying people walking in darkness, a land of deep darkness, this this light,
this light has dawned into these things. And so when we talk about Jesus being born into this world as the light means he came to deal with death, means that he came to deal with the darkness of sin. He came to deal with the darkness of ignorance. He came to deal with the darkness of separation. This is the reason that he was being born into this world, right? You think about it's a dark darkness, and then the light comes in. Then there's no more separation. He's here. He's Emmanuel. He's God with them. The light had been in the darkness now, right? The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among them. God was no longer being silent. He was speaking that Jesus walking in and amongst their midst, was talking to them and involved in a relationship with them. This was Jesus, God in the flesh. And so that's one aspect that we see him being born into this world and beginning to to deal with already, is this aspect of darkness from separation. And as we continue to go on, you'll see he deals with that even more in each one of our lives. But when we think about Emmanuel, about John, the word becoming flesh and dwelling among us, and in dealing with Okay, now he's here, and dealing with that aspect of darkness, it also leads to another aspect of darkness, and that's that of ignorance. When you think about Jesus being the light born into this darkness, then light reveals things. Jesus as the light was revealing the truth about God. People were walking in ignorance about who it was that he is, or who he was at the time. As a matter of fact, we'll look at this in John, chapter one, verse 18, to be the very last verse that we look at in the PROLOG at the end of this series. But let me just read to you what he says there. John says, no one has ever seen God but the one and only Son, the word the logos, Jesus, who is Himself God and is in closest relationship with. Father, here's what he says. Has made him known. If you want to see God, if you want to know exactly who God is, then look to Jesus as the light of the world. He came to reveal God. When they heard Jesus speak. They were hearing what the words of God. When they saw Jesus in action, they were seeing the actions of God. When they were seeing his personality, they were seeing the character of God. They were no longer walking in darkness of ignorance. He was making himself known to them, and he makes himself known to us, as you and I read through the Gospels and the pages of Scripture, he does the same thing. He reveals as the light. He turns the lights on in our minds to help us see we're walking in darkness until that point, but then he turns the lights on to help us see who he really is. But the light doesn't just deal with the separation aspect of darkness. It doesn't just deal with the ignorance aspect of darkness. It came to deal with the sin aspect of darkness. And the reason that the light has to do that is because, let's be honest, sometimes,
a lot of times,
maybe all the time. For some people, up until this point, don't even know when they're walking in sin. Don't know when you're walking in darkness, because you don't know what it really even is right, the ultimate right and the ultimate wrong. I mean, again, when we think about the decisions that we make we often look out into the world and we see what everybody else in the world is talking about and what it is that they're doing. And so we're going, well, if everybody else is doing it, it must be the right thing to do. And so we just do that. Or we feel certain things on the inside, and we go, well, it feels like this is what I want to do. And if I feel this way, then it must be the right thing to do. And so we just do whatever it is that we feel and we think it's the right thing to do. We don't know that it's wrong. And so Jesus, as the light comes to expose the darkness, if you will, Jesus reveals sin to us, and he does that through His grace, because he's gracious to us. He begins to show us our faults. He needs to reveal the truth about our sin and our sin nature and how it separates us from a holy and a perfect God, because if he didn't turn the lights on for us in that area, if we didn't see it, then we wouldn't know it, and we would know that we're what it is that we're missing out on. So Jesus turns the lights on for us to to reveal that these are the things that are true about us, and that we're separated from a holy and a perfect God, which of course, leads us in this last area, spiritually dead. It's the state that we are all in because of our sin and our sin nature. And so when we're talking about walking in darkness, we're again talking about walking in spiritual death, which is what happened the moment that sin entered this world when, when the Bible says that Adam and Eve experienced death, they didn't lose their bios life, they didn't lose their suitcase life, but they lost in the garden was their Zoe life. They lost the very Zoe life of God that they had access to in a spiritual union with Him. Let's see if we can. We can picture it kind of in
in this way. We'll just go with that.
We often kind of talk about God, again, as a Trinity, as God the Father and of God the Son and of God the Spirit, right? Again, three distinct persons, but one God, all right? And so, this is the ZOE life. I mean, this is it, the uncreated, eternal life of this is life itself, right here. And in John chapter one, what does he say in the beginning? Was the Word, and the Word was with God, toward God, face to face relationship with him. But he wasn't just with God. He was God. All right? He exists in a face to face relationship as one essence. He just this is who he is, right? And before the beginning of time, this was the ZOE life of God, just here, there was no created matter, right? But then in verse three, so in the beginning was the Word. And the Word was God. The word is with God. Verse three, what does he say? He. Through Him or by Him, all things were created. And so there was this moment when all of a sudden, there was this created matter, where God, the Logos, the word, the agent of creation, Jesus, the one who is life itself, spoke things into existence from nothing, and all of a sudden, in the beginning, Now was this time this created matter that began to exist. Of course, one of the things that he created was us, right? And so we often talk about this in this particular way, because this is what we just referenced in those three Greek words, God, Jesus, the agent of creation, created us with a body, which is what our BIOS life, the physical aspect of life. He created us with a soul, which is what our Suke life that we just talked about, where we have emotions and a mind and a will, where we make choices, but he also created us spirit beings. God himself is Spirit, and we are made in His image. So we are spirit beings at the very core of who we are. Now, we were created spirit beings, because we were meant to be in union with capital S, Holy Spirit here, who is the what Zoe life. And so if we're in union with the capital S spirit, the one who is Zoe, then this is our Zoe life. This was Adam and Eve the moment that he created them, BIOS life, Sukey life, and they were experiencing the ZOE life of God walking with him in the garden. Of course, we're told that instead of relying on the the Tree of Life, relying on God Himself, the ZOE life of God. They took matters into their own hands. They they tried to find life through the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and sin entered into the world. It was a choice that they made to sin, and so it impacted them all the way to the core of their being. And all of a sudden out in the world was darkness, right? God had said, Let there be light. There was light, but now there was darkness. People were beginning to walk in darkness. What does that mean? Well, look at all the aspects that we talked about earlier. So, so now we're talking about sin, sin, the separation, the the darkness. Now we're talking about separation. So there's no life. God who's holy and perfect can't be in union with sin. He's a just God, and must punish sin. And so where we had life, where there was all of this experience of abundant and full and complete life. Now there is death, where there was light, the light of the world that we were experiencing, the life and the light of the world. Now there's darkness at the very core of our being. There is a sin nature that you and I deal with, that influences our mind and our emotions and will, and we are walking in separation from God, all these things that we experience that we talked about just a moment ago. So you can see the situation radically changed. But then when John it says, In the beginning, was the word of the Word, and the Word was God, and where was with God, and then later on, he's gonna say the word what became flesh. And so the word left the glory and riches of heaven and was born into this world. The Zoe, the one who is life itself, was born into this world. And John says that his life, his Zoe life, was the light of all mankind in this dark world that you and I are living in and we're living in in the moment. And he, as the one who was Zoe life, who had no sins to pay for himself, ultimately came so that he could take all of our sins to the cross. So let's this is you and I. Jesus is here, right? We're seeing the very life of God. We were ignorant. He's revealing God to us, and then he reveals to us that this is our problem, right? This is what God does as the light, as the light, he reveals God. He reveals our problem. We don't know this. All we're doing when we're walking through this world is we're using our body to look out into the world and see what everybody else is doing. And so we're just doing it. We're doing what it is that we feel and whatever we think is right, and all of our choices, but the whole time. We know there's something, even though it may feel that way, at the very core of our being, there's an emptiness there. There's a life that's never fulfilling, that's never satisfying. And we we experience this depth of depression or darkness or just emptiness, this void, this hole that is there we can't ever seem to really grasp or feel because we don't know it. We're walking in darkness. We're ignorant. But the Zoe, life and light reveals to us our situation, that we're walking in darkness, that we have sin at the core of our being. It's impacted us. We're separated from God, who we were meant to have life with. Once he reveals that that is our problem. Then, as the light of the world, He reveals what he did about it, which was taking all of our sins to the cross upon himself because he didn't have any to pay the penalty himself. Of course, he died for all of those and was buried. But the Bible says that He was raised from the dead and defeating the power of sin and death forever, and then ascended back to heaven. The Bible scripture communicates to us now that this forgiveness that He purchased for us on the cross is available to us, this Zoe life that we were missing and we're always created to have is available to us once again because of what Jesus, the Word, who was in the beginning, came and was born into this world, and ultimately did through the cross for us. And he even reveals that he has to turn the lights on for you to see that this is my problem. This is the solution. And then the solution is the way that we receive it and have it applied to our lives, is to put our faith and trust in him to receive it as a gift. In the moment that we do, the moment we say yes to Jesus finished work on the cross by putting our faith and trust in Him, is the moment that everything begins to change, because what he accomplished on the cross gets applied to us. And so then all of a sudden, our sins are completely for given we no longer have a sin nature. And then there's by the Spirit Jesus, the one who is the Zoe, life comes to dwell back in us here. And so now what was once death is now life, what was once darkness, is now light. We are beginning to finally experience the ZOE Life in the Light that we were always meant to have. Now we'll still experience in this fallen and dark world that we live in the effects of sin in our bodies and and through our emotions and the things we're thinking and sometimes the choices that we make, but we have this new nature where you were united to the ZOE life of God. And so no matter what happens to us in this dark world, you and I still have and get to experience the ZOE life of God. Why? Because here's what John would go on to write later. John didn't just write the Gospel of John. He went on and wrote some epistles, First John and Second John and Third John. And in First John, he just declares it. So simply write here, whoever has the Son has. And he uses this word, Greek word, not Zoe. You have Zoe life. Whoever does not have the Son does not have he couldn't make it any more clear than that, if you've put your faith and trust in Jesus for salvation, you have Zoe life, the fullness, the completeness of life. If you haven't, this is the reality of the situation that you're in, and as the light of the world, he wants to make sure you don't miss that you see the truth you don't have life. That's why you can never be ultimately satisfied.
Can never find complete fulfillment.
So I think the application is fairly simple, quite honestly, for it whenever we see it this way, if the Holy Spirit is illuminating these truths to help us see it from the word and from who he is, that he's the life and light of the world and the dark situation that we're in, and the one who has him has life, the one who doesn't doesn't have life. Then, if this is you, then the application for you is to walk into the light. Today. If you're walking in darkness, you're walking in sin, you're walking in spiritual death, you're you're walking in separation from God, then you walk into the light as you receive His free gift of salvation, so that then this becomes true of you today, before you ever walk out of these doors, you can have life. This can be the description of you. You have the sun and you have Zoe life, the very core of your being. For those of us who have made that choice and received Jesus. This is free gift. It's to first of all know that you can't experience the ZOE life of God that you already have. If you didn't know you had it, it could be in there all along. I didn't even know I had it. How am I going to experience it? Well, you know now, if you didn't before you walked into here, you know now that you have it, but then to walk by faith that it's true, because there's going to be days you don't feel like it's true. It's not your experience. Satan's going to allow us to put our mind and our focus on the situations and circumstances and go it doesn't feel like there's a fullness and abundance of life. And so I don't really guess I have it well again, he wants to renew our mind to the truth of what we do have so that we can walk in and experience it, no matter what our situations and circumstances are.
Some of you, as we mentioned earlier,
are walking in
darkness, not the sense that we talked about necessarily earlier, but just this throughout the holidays, there's this sense of separation that you feel. There's an emptiness. There's you experience. You're feeling the darkness in our world. Maybe there are certain sins, struggles and things that you're dealing with, and you're feeling and experiencing the darkness in that way. Maybe there's just something out of your control that's going on. I mean, I went to visit someone in the hospital this week, a member of our congregation, who has cancer, and someone who's not old, I mean, in their mid 40s, I'm guessing, and and just full of life, and all of a sudden walking through it, and her family's walking through it, and she's lost her hair, and there's so many things that they're experiencing the darkness of this world. But as I visited with her, I couldn't escape that there was this Zoe life deep within her, because she was talking about, yeah, I guess you've noticed that I lost my hair. I mean, she it looked like my me, right? He's like, That's just hair. And she began to talk about, there's so many other things. I mean, yeah, make such a big deal out about all of these things, but, but the way she talked about it, even though there's these tough things she's gone through, she was like, I I have this. So we light. It made me think of this the way that he he ends the verse we didn't spend a lot of time on it was this In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness. The darkness has not overcome it. Jesus was born into this world. Is the light. Satan tried to extinguish that light by crucifying Him. Jesus overcame even death. He could not the darkness could not overcome the light of the world, and never will. Which means, if the light dwells in us, the darkness can't overcome you, either. And that's the experience I got with this person that I was visiting in the hospital, while the darkness and walking in the darkness of the ugliness of cancer and the sin and all the stuff it causes in our bodies and in this world that we live in has not overcome the ZOE life that dwells within her. She was experiencing it even in that moment, just so thankful for what she has and that there's no way can overcome her. And that can be your experience too, no matter what you're going through, separation, relationally, sin struggles any of the above. If you've said yes to Jesus, you have the ZOE life of God, and if you haven't, you can have it today, if you'll just receive it by faith. I want to give you an opportunity to do that right now, as we close in this time of prayer, you.