The God Who Came To Give Us Life // The Coming Of The Messiah

Bible Reading

Today’s reading is from John 1 verse 1 to 18. Hear the Word of the Lord,

“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 were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 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 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, yet the world did not know him. 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. 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, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) 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. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”

This is the Word of the Lord.

Well, a good morning, a very good morning to you all and a warm welcome to Christ Church Midrand. Thank you for joining us this morning as we have a pre-recorded sermon. My name is David, if in case you are new to Christ Church Midrand, and I’m one of the ministers here at the church.

Can you believe it? This is the last sermon for 2020. What a year this has been. It has been a challenge for many of us. It’s felt like we’ve been punched in the stomach consistently, and yet, in spite of all of it, there’s many things to give thanks to God for. There’s never been a better time than now to consider God and turn to him. Now, before we turn to him in his Word, I just want to warn you this morning that the sermon has a bit of a Christmas theme. And I know we are out of Christmas. I know we’re anticipating Friday 11 o’clock as we usher in the new year, but I also know that you don’t have your Christmas decorations down, so we can still talk about Christmas. I know that Food Lovers still has the gammon on their shelves, and so Christmas is still up in the air. So, I decided to continue with that theme of Christmas.

And this morning, I want us to think about the difference that Jesus brings to our lives. The difference that Jesus brings, and the title of today’s message is, “The God who came to give us life.” “The God who came to give us life.”

And so, as we get into God’s Word, I hope that you’ll have that passage open to us: John chapter one. I’m going to pray for us and I’m going to pray for God to help us as we hear from him, and as we find encouragement from his Word. So, let’s bow our heads, wherever you are, as we pray to God.

Father, thank you for your goodness. Thank you that you have been with us throughout this year, that, although we’ve faced many challenges, we can look to you and find hope in you. And I pray that this sermon would be a message of hope to somebody who might be hopeless, to rekindle our affection for Jesus, and to live and anticipate the hope for life for 2021. Please help us as we get into your Word. Please assist me to speak with clarity and with conviction. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen and amen.

A Life Of Brokenness

And so, 2010 – that’s 10 years ago – was quite a special year for me in so many ways. I still remember, it was my first year on the plane as I landed onto Cape Town, which was going to be my home for the next three years. I still remember the excitement of starting a new journey as a Bible college student. A friend of ours came to pick us up from the airport and we took the Mitchell’s Plain route and we drove next to the sea for quite some time. I still remember looking through the window, seeing the wind and smelling, from the car, the ocean. It smelled fresh and it smelled like new beginnings. This was to be my home for the next three years.

I remember for the three years I was there, one of the most memorable times was the hike up Lion’s Head. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. The most beautiful sunset on top of Lion’s Head. On this particular occasion, we saw the sun setting on the one side and the moon rising on the other. As we came down from Lion’s head, you looked through (it was quite dark at this time of the night), and I could see over Cape Town – the sea of lights that covered the city. It was the most breath-taking thing ever. Although I’m afraid of heights, I would say that those were, that those (were) the most memorable time of being in Cape Town. It was the “Instagramable” – what I call the “Instagramable” – side of Cape Town.

Now, you may not know this, but there is another side to Cape Town: the real side of Cape Town. And if, (I don’t know if you ever thought of it,) if you look at those lights as you, in any city, every single light represents something. Every single light represents that there’s people living there who need to see. There’s people who live there, who need the light to see, as it is dark. So, every light is a representative of someone’s brother, someone’s mum, a spouse, a colleague. Every light represents a migrant worker who’s come into Cape Town looking for a better life. Every light represents a young man who’s working in the navy or a young man who’s probably not working, who’s got rich parents, who went to Bishops and who’s living off of his parents. Every light represents an accountant who’s climbing up the corporate ladder.

And if you were to zoom into those people’s lives, no doubt, I think you will experience and see a lot of brokenness that those people experience. You’ll see, no doubt, if you zoom into their lives, a lot of racial divisions, economic injustices, all sorts of immorality in Cape Town.

If you had to zoom into and google drop into Muizenberg’s streets and walk through those streets, in back in those days, you will see prostitutes and pimps on Church street, drug addicts and drug houses. There was this building called the “Don Pepe” building. You’ll see mothers raising their kids on their own. In fact, it was a life of brokenness. On the one event, one evening, I remember hearing gunshots just outside and close to where our residence and an older man had shot a homeless person just outside of a supermarket and life went on as if nothing had happened. On one occasion, we saw a 30-year-old guy beating up his girlfriend and when we approached him and challenged him, he said, “No it’s okay, it’s fine guys, there’s no need to worry. This is my girlfriend.” Almost saying that it’s okay what I’m doing because she belongs to me.

If you were to zoom into people’s lives who live in any city, you’ll see that there’s loneliness, there’s abuse, there’s depression and poverty, injustice of all sorts of types, dysfunctional families and on and on and on the list goes. Not the kind of sight that you want to put on Instagram, is it? Or show to any of the visitors who would come to Cape Town.

You see, Cape Town, like Joburg or like any other place in this country, is a place filled with brokenness and darkness. South Africans, just like any other people living on this planet called earth, live with this determination to remove God from the picture. And because this is impossible to do, we are determined to live as though this was true, to live as though it was true that we can take God out of the picture and live proper lives.

Our World Versus The World Jesus Came Into

Now this picture that I’m describing to you, this picture of the real world that you and I live in, is not so far off from the picture of the world that Jesus came into, a world that Jesus was born into. The same things that are happening now, were happening in the time of Jesus. In the time of Jesus, there were social injustices, there were politicians stealing money from the poor to enrich themselves, and there was abuse, there was people abusing, there were people abusing power. There was a lot of immorality, hatred, and pain. It was a world of darkness. Yes, it had signs of life about it: signs of economic activity, signs of laughter and joy, yes, those things were there, but it was a place without true life, well at least, (that) the life that God had intended for us to live.

And so, in the opening chapter of John, this account of the life of Jesus, the Gospel according to John, John wants us to know that the Christian story is a story of God, a God who came to give us life. It is a story… he wants us to know that the Christian story is about the God who came to give us life. That the same God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” is the same God who broke into our world and who came to give us the life – the life that we were intended to live. Let me say that again, because that’s the main point and the main takeaway of our text today: that the same God who said, “Let life shine out of darkness,” broke into our darkness, giving us the life that we were intended to live.

So, if you’re following, if you’re taking notes wherever you are, those would be also, that will be also our structure. Number one, we’re going to see the God of the Christian story, the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness.” That’s our first point. The second thing we’re going to see is that this same God broke into our darkness. He broke into our darkness. The third thing and the last thing we will see is that he came to give us life, the life that we were intended to live.

The God Of The Christian Story

John opens up his book, his account of the life of Jesus, with these words. I’m going to read from verses 1 to 3. I hope you’re still following.

“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 were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:1-3)

John gets right into it here, in these few verses. You see, all the other accounts of the life of Jesus: Matthew, Mark and Luke, do not begin this way. All the other accounts begin with Jesus in a manger, down in the dusty streets of Bethlehem, but John doesn’t do that. John doesn’t give us this picture of, “Away in a manger, no crib for his bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head.” He gets right into it here, in these first few verses. He takes us back to the beginning of the Christian story. He takes us back to Genesis 1. And he says that this same God in Genesis 1, is, is the same God that we see revealed in the Lord Jesus. He does what theologians called theology or rather Christology from above. All the other gospels, all the other accounts of the life of Jesus do Christology from below. In other words, they begin with a meek and mild Jesus, and they lead us to (the) point. They point us out to the fact that this Jesus is God. But John does the opposite. He does Christology from above. He tells us that Jesus is God. Jesus was there in Genesis 1 and notice the words there, “in the beginning…” These words have echoes of Genesis 1. Let me read for us Genesis 1. If you have your Bibles, turn to Genesis 1, the beginning of the Christian story. It says, and now again I’m going to read three verses,

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said (listen to this), “Let there be light,” and there was light.” Genesis 3:1-3)

Verse 4,

“And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.” (Genesis 1:4)

And you see at the very beginning, we see this picture of the God who says, “Let there be light.” A God who brings chaos, or rather, order out of chaos. The God who orders his world for human flourishing. He orders his world in such a way that human beings are at the pinnacle of his creation.

Now, notice verse 3, that this same God brings (verse 3 of Genesis) he brings light out of darkness. Now the key thing, and the theologians point us to, when you read Genesis is that (there’s many things that are happening there) but the one thing we are meant to pick up from Genesis 1, is that God makes his dwelling among his people. Eden is set up like some kind of temple, where God dwells with his people and his people dwell with him. One of the key things that we pick up from this garden imagery is God dwells among human beings.

And it has to be a garden, you see, because you will know, maybe you don’t know, that in the ancient world, their lives were not like our lives. It was tough. They didn’t have Joburg water to irrigate their crops. You couldn’t pop into Food Lovers Market to go buy some food. So, life was hard going. It was an agrarian society, and they didn’t have Joburg water to irrigate their crops. It was hard to come across water. So, a garden, a place where there was a lot of (crop) crops, where it was flourishing, was only reserved for kings or the gods. The place where the gods would be, would be a place of abundance. A place like a garden, where life was said to be. God’s presence in Eden was a picture of abundance and provision. It was a good life. That is what we see in Genesis 1. And this good life, human beings were meant to live in Eden and to take the same good life and spread it across the world. They were meant to take the life of Eden and distribute it and export it to the rest of the world. This is God’s original plan as we read in Genesis, (plan) Genesis 1.

But we human beings had other plans. We would see it fit that, “Man, I don’t think God’s way is correct. I think we should take matters into our own hands and live as we (saw, we see, please,) see fit.” Genesis 3, the beginning of the Christian story, tells us that, he tells us that humanity wanted to create their own order, wanted to order the world in the way that they wanted, and so, that was the introduction of human rebellion.

And I don’t know if you know this, but no matter who you are, no matter where you come from, no matter where you might be listening this morning… You might be listening in exile in Cape Town -good luck with swimming at the beach! You might be listening in Indonesia. Apparently there’s some people joining us from there. You might be listening from the UK or right here in Midrand. Wherever you are, whoever you are, whether black, white, or Indian, whether you are educated or not educated, rich or poor, middle class, upper middle class or working class, gen z, millennial, baby boomers, or whatever category Martin fits into. Whoever you are, you and I have this one thing in common: we are determined, and we have this relentless determination, to live our lives as if God was not in the picture. To live our lives and to determine life on our own terms. We want to call the shots and to be in charge of our lives and we are drawn, all of us, to what John calls “the darkness.” Darkness is a rejection of God.

And you and I, when we reject God, we see in Genesis chapter 3 that God chucks these people away from his presence and the whole of the Christian story is actually about God restoring his presence with his people. He restores his presence with his people. He doesn’t come up with plan B. No, we see that in the Old Testament, in the tabernacle, the Old Testament becomes the mobile Eden. The tabernacle, if you had to read the (architect) architecture of the tabernacle, it was (and) it had a lot of garden imagery. It was to be a mobile Eden – a place where God would dwell with his people and among his people, filled with garden imagery. And as they conquer the Promised Land and as they enter the Promised Land after the time of David, Solomon builds a temple and the temple there was to be a place where God would once again dwell with his people. Again, the interesting thing that you see there in the temple, is that it is filled with garden imagery. It is a place where God establishes his presence. And as you continue to read the Christian story, as Jesus steps into the picture, we hear these words from John chapter 1 verse 14. And John says,

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us…” (1 John 1:14)

The term that John uses, the term “dwell” is actually the term which means “to tabernacle” – to pitch a tent among his people. It is an allusion to the Old Testament time when God pitched his tent among his people. So, in other words, John says as Jesus stepped into the picture, it was God establishing his presence once again, fully and in a better way through Jesus, that when we look at Jesus, we would see what it means to live with God with us, with God among us.

I like how a hip-hop group that is called Beautiful Eulogy put it. They put it so, so beautifully. They said,

“Who is God that establishes dominion over minions and is
moved with creativity and decides to makes men in the image
of him. With His words we created and rather than having
an understanding of gratitude we became envious and we
hated him. And since God is compassionate, he condescended
and become like us as a representative. Sent for the purpose
to make atonement for his own elect and connect the
most wrecked of men to throne room of the divine architect.
And so the ineffable unapproachable God who invented space
and the human heart invaded space to reach the depths of
human hearts.” (Satellite Kite – Beautiful Eulogy)

These are beautiful words, isn’t it, that described to us the Christian story that the same God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” broke into our darkness.

Jesus Broke Into Our Darkness

That leads us to what our second point is: John explains to us that God in Jesus broke into our darkness. John writes this concerning Jesus. Have a look at verse 4 if you still have your Bibles open,

“In him (that is, in Jesus) was life and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:4)

Now, one of the reasons I love John’s gospel, there’s reasons why I like the different gospels, because they write differently, but one of the reasons I love John’s gospel is that he writes like a guy from Rustenburg. And what I mean about that is, that he uses everyday, tangible language to explain the profound mysteries and profound realities of what God came to do. In our passage he uses the picture of light and darkness to explain who Jesus is and what he has come to do in our world. Notice in verse 4 that Jesus is the light, and this light is the opposite of darkness. Light means life as God has intended it to be. If you read John’s gospel, throughout you notice that John uses the word “life” and “eternal life” interchangeably. Eternal life is what Jesus came to bring about. I wonder this morning what you think about, what pops into your head, when you think about eternal life? I wonder what you think of?

Now, a couple of years ago, as I started ministry here at Christ Church Midrand, I had the privilege of teaching 12-year-olds the Bible. And one of the things that I’ll do with every new class is that we think about eternal life, and what eternal life means. And what I would do, I’ll do this exercise with them. I’d hand them pieces of paper and a pen, and I’ll say to them, “Please draw for me what you think Heaven looks like. Please draw for me what you think eternity will look like or eternal life.” And without fail, every single one of them would draw flying angels, and all sorts of weird and wonderful things.

And I think often when adults think about eternal life, we often have a similar picture. A picture that we got out of a cartoon series or a movie, it often pops into our heads, that’s what eternal life or Heaven would look like. But there’s so much more to this life, this eternal life, than what we often think. A New Testament scholar by the name of Bob, Robert Yarbroug, put it like this: he defines eternal life this way. He says, “It’s the divinely bestowed gift of blessedness in God’s presence that endures without end.” Let me say that again. “A divinely bestowed gift of blessedness in God’s presence that endures without end. This relates especially to the quality of life in this age and to both the quality and duration of life in the age to come.” In other words, eternal life or life or light is being in the presence of God and receiving from God the kind of life that you and I were intended to live. A good quality of life, the good life, it is the kind of life that begins here and now, and not just when we die, but that goes on for all of eternity.

The Darkness In Our World

So that is the light that John is talking about. This light that Jesus came to bring, and this light is the opposite or rather the opposite of this light is obviously darkness. Verse 5,

“The light shines in the darkness, (verse 5) the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:5)

When John refers to darkness, he’s referring to the evil in our world, the evil that I described when I spoke about the city of Cape Town and the city of Joburg. And not just evil, but determination to live in ignorance of God, not knowing God. Chapter 3 verse 19, John describes this darkness this way, he says,

^“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” (John 3:19)

That is a picture of darkness. That is a picture of the world that you and I live in, 2020 in a corona-stricken world. You see, the world is full of darkness. Things are not okay. And the saddest thing is that you and I cannot do anything to sort out this darkness that we find ourselves in. There is no hope for you and I.

But the Bible message and the Christian story is that there is hope, and the hope of our world comes outside of this world. In fact, as you read on in chapter one, you see that verses 6 and 7, we’re introduced to this crazy man called John the Baptizer. And John the Baptizer is crazy, and he lives in the wild, he eats a whole lot of weird stuff, and he came telling people, and reminding them that they’re living in darkness, and the true light was coming. He called people to turn away from their sins and their rebellions and align themselves with this light that was coming into the world. That was the message of John’s gospel: that Jesus was coming, that true light was coming, and that they ought to repent, change their way of life and their way of rebellion, and turn to God as their only king and the one who calls the shots in their lives. See, Jesus came into our life. True lights broke into our darkness.

An African theologian put it this way, Augustine, he says,

“Man’s maker was made man that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast; that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey; that Truth might be accused of false witnesses, the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Foundation be suspended on wood; that Strength might grow weak; that the Healer might be wounded; that Life might die.” (Saint Augustine of Hippo)

That is the difference that Jesus came to bring to us. That is the God of the Christian story, that this God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” came and broke into our darkness. And as you read throughout the gospel, you realize that when we speak about, whenever we speak about darkness and light, we’re not speaking about conceptual things. When Jesus steps into the picture, we see him embodying what it means to be light. We see him interacting with sinful people a people with a broken past, with a sexual history that is, that is atrocious. We see him interacting with corrupt politicians. We see him speaking truth to power and challenging religious people to not think that religion is the way out of darkness. We see him healing blind people and we see him giving us a taste of what it means to be in the presence of God. We see him casting out demons. Although in John’s gospel there is not a lot of that, in the other gospels we see him casting out demons to prove that he has power and has come to bring light into darkness. We see him almost turning the society upside down, bringing God’s presence to us, and turning the world upside down. That is the picture of light breaking into a world just like ours.

I like this book, if you want to buy a book, there’s one called “The Hidden Christmas. It’s by a guy called Tim Keller, one of my favourite pastors. And he speaks about this idea of Jesus bringing light into our world and shining in darkness. And this is what he has to say. He says that,

“Jesus is the light (and maybe you’ve heard this quote before) because he brings a new life to us to replace our spiritual deadness, because he shows us the truth that heals our spiritual blindness, and because he is the beauty that breaks our addiction to money, sex and power.” (The Hidden Christmas – Tim Keller)

Listen to this, because I think these are the most powerful words, and I saw them on the Gospel Coalition Africa website, as well on their Instagram,

“He is the light for us when all other lights go out. He’s the light for us when all other lights go out.” (The Hidden Christmas – Tim Keller)

The same God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” broke into our darkness and he came to give us light. He came to give us the life that you and I were intended to live. Which brings us to our third and final point: that he came to give us life.

Jesus Came To Give Us Life

See, often you and I can look at (our) the state of our world, the state of our cities, we can cast our minds onto our works spaces and you can just be so excited that, “Man, at least I don’t have to interact with those back-biting people at the office. At least I can just zoom mute them on a zoom call.” Perhaps you look at your workplace and you think of those selfish, those greedy colleagues and you think, “Man, they will never change. There is no hope for them.” Maybe sometimes you’re not just looking outside there. Maybe you look into your own life and your own struggle and grappling with sin, and you just think to yourself, “Man, I’ll never change. There is no hope to my porn addiction. There is no hope to my addiction to alcohol. There is no hope to this endless toil that I’m having to feel.” Sometimes, maybe you watch news 24 (some of us should watch the news less because it brings us to dark places), sometimes we look at the news and you think to yourself, “Man, this is such a dark place. There is no hope.”

Well, I would agree with you. Yes, it is a dark place, but the message of Christmas would remind us that the story, there’s more to the story than that. That light has come into our world, that the story doesn’t end there. Jesus came to restore the presence of God into our lives. He came to bring us close to God and it makes all of the difference. He came to do so even when it cost him everything. Think of Jesus in all his glory, that he would come to live among us. That he will come to breathe the very breath that he created. That we, his creatures, would mock him, would reject him and continue to reject him, continue to want to live lives in our own terms, to such a point that we nailed him and crucified him on the cross. And the cross is a picture of ultimate darkness, ultimate rejection of God. Yet this same Jesus still came, and he came to break the bonds of sinful human behaviour. He came to break the bonds of darkness in our lives, and that at Christmas time we are reminded at this time of the year that no matter how dark things can get, Christmas’ message reminds us that true light came into our world.

Therefore, you and I can have hope. You and I can have hope. No matter how dark 2020 has been for you, there is a hope that comes outside of this world. True light broke into our world.

Now, that doesn’t minimize our problems. That doesn’t solve all of our issues. That doesn’t give answers to why our lives are the way they are, but it gives us a hope that you and I can cling to. And, man, it is times like this where we, more than anything, need something to hold on to – a hope to hold on to and that hope is Jesus. That hope came outside of this world, broke into this world, into our mess, into our brokenness to give us hope, that when we turn to Jesus, we can anchor our lives on this light that broke into our darkness.

And I want to end off with these words, as I ask you the question: is that the kind of God that you worship? Is that the God that you worship? Let me end with this word from the same song, Beautiful Eulogy, by the way. You should get them. You should stream their music. It’s filled with solid theological lyrics put to good rhythms. This is what they say about this light that broke into our world. They say,

“…intangible unseen light made visible to human
sight through the incarnation and life of Christ. Fulfilling
the promise, faithful and flawless, the Son of God, living
among the Godless and lawless lost in sins darkness.
But he would shine regardless, of mankind’s infection and
blind perception, rebellion and rejection. (Satellite Kite – Beautiful Eulogy)

Jesus broke into our darkness. Jesus broke into your darkness and my darkness so that you and I can live with a true sense of hope. And this is the hope that I want you to live with, as you look back at 2020 and as you look forward to the coming year. And that we don’t know what it would bring, but there is a hope to cling to. Let me pray for us.

Father, we thank you. We thank you, not because things are okay, we thank you because you despite our mess, despite our brokenness, you came, you came and broke into our world. You came to break the curse of sin through your life and obedience through your death on the cross. You broke the powers of darkness, nailing them to your cross. And you came back to life, and you proved to us that, indeed, you are the true light. The darkness cannot overcome you and it never did. So, I do pray that we would finish this year with a sense of hope, a sense of trust, that indeed you are the true light and that where all other lights fail, you are the only light that we can hold on to. I pray for someone who’s not a Christian, that as they listen in, they would want to make you the boss of their lives, that you take charge and direct the courses of their lives. Help us, we pray. Aid us and, as we go into the new year, that we would cling to Christ, now more than ever. This we pray in his name, and for our good. Amen and amen.