Epistle Reading Colossians 1:13-20

The Word (2.14.16) 1

13For he has rescued us from the dominion of darknessand brought us into the kingdomof the Son he loves,14in whom we have redemption,the forgiveness of sins.

15The Son is the imageof the invisible God,the firstbornover all creation.16For in him all things were created:things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;all things have been created through him and for him.17He is before all things,and in him all things hold together.18And he is the headof the body, the church;he is the beginning and the firstbornfrom among the dead,so that in everything he might have the supremacy.19For God was pleasedto have all his fullness dwell in him,20and through him to reconcileto himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven,by making peacethrough his blood,shed on the cross.

Gospel Reading John 1:1-5
In the beginning was the Word,and the Word was with God,and the Word was God.2He was with God in the beginning.3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.4In him was life, and that life was the lightof all mankind.5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcomeit.

I come from a family of nicknames! My mother had many of them at her disposal when trying to get the attention of me and my brother. From thing 1 and thing 2 to little Lord Fauntleroy, the variety and number of them seemed endless.
This tradition has continued into our family. Billy is our monkey because we cannot seem to keep him from crawling all over everything and Elijah is E-Bear because he is so much like an adorable cuddly teddy bear, at least we think so. One of the reasons I love nicknames so much is because they reveal something about someone's character. I do not think anyone has as many nicknames in the bible as Jesus. He is called the lamb of God, Wonderful Counselor, Emmanuel, the great I AM, and the list could go on. This morning we are beginning our Lent series on the gospel of John and in the first chapter of John we find a name for Jesus that is not found anywhere else in scripture.
John opens his gospel by referring to Jesus as "The Word." John's gospel is unique in many ways. First, it was the last of the gospels to be written. The other three were written 10-20 years after Jesus' resurrection whereas John was written 50-60 years afterward. Matthew, Luke, and Mark, often referred to as the synoptic gospels, focus on what Jesus did. Obviously there are some areas that talk about who Jesus is but they are mainly simple narratives of what He did. John is much more about who Jesus is. While John talks about things that Jesus does, he spends more time talking about who Jesus is, and the theological implications. It is for this reason that one of the early church fathers, Clement of Alexandra, calls John "The Spiritual Gospel."
During this lent, my challenge to us is to read through the entire gospel starting with chapter 1 this week. In this chapter, particularly in the first 14 verses, we find many of the major themes of the whole gospel. While considering the major themes of light and life we are going to spend the rest of our time examining this unique way of referring to Jesus. Specifically, what does it mean to refer to Jesus as 'The Word?' All of our answers are going to begin with the letter 'c' to help us remember.
First, Jesus being the Word refers to His cosmic significance.
It is not by accident that John begins his gospel with the words "In the beginning was the Word." What other very famous book begins almost in the exact same way? That's right, Genesis 1:1 reads, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." John goes on to write that everything that has been made has been made through Him. Put plainly, Jesus is God. Not just some moral teacher, person that does good deeds and encourages others to do so, not just a prophet, not just a religious teacher, He is the ground of all existence!
Paul puts it this way, "For in him all things were created:things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;all things have been created through him and for him.He is before all things,and in him all things hold together." Did you hear that? Not only did He create everything but everything is held together by Him! The Greek word that is translated as 'word' in reference to Jesus is Logos and is where we get the word logic. In other words He is the reason or logic behind all creation. The amazing thing is that this ground of all existence is not just an idea, impersonal force, or set of rules, but a person that we can know. Jesus' taking on flesh is going to be the focus of the next sermon. This morning we are going to focus on His divine nature.
What implications can we draw from the cosmic nature of the "Word?" First, because Jesus is involved in all of creation He should be Lord of all of our lives. Who here has heard the phrase 'Sunday morning Christian?'I know I have. Because Jesus is the reason, cause, and sustainer of all of life, we should not contain Him to one hour on Sunday morning. Being a believer in Christ reorders every area of our lives!Russell Moore puts it well in an article for Christianity Todayin writing: "For too long, we've called unbelievers to 'invite Jesus into your life.' Jesus doesn't want to be in your life. Your life is a wreck. Jesus calls you into His life. And His life isn't boring or purposeless or static. It's wild and exhilarating and unpredictable." Being invited into His life, our lives gain new eternally significant meaning.
Second, if Jesus has supremacy in all things as Paul tells the Colossians our loyalty and love for Him ought to have supremacy. Our devotion to a political party, our country, and, even our own family needs to be second to that of Christ Jesus. That last one is always the toughest for me. I don't mind forsaking political party or even country for the sake of Christ, but my family? However, Jesus says that anyone who loves mother, father, brother, sister, or child more than Him is not worthy of Him. I wrestled with this until I realized that I cannot be the father, husband, son, and brother I am called to be unless my first loyalty, my first love,is Christ. While I will fail my family, and, to a much smaller degree, they will fail me, Christ never fails us. If He is our rock He will hold us together, far better than I ever could!
So if Jesus being the "Word" shows the cosmic reach of His power and authority, how can we know the proper way to respond to that? Our next 'c' is that Jesus being the Word means that He is a communicating God, He is not silent, but speaks to us.
One of the ways in which John's gospel is different from the other three is in how He communicates His message to us. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus seems to call people to follow Him whereas in John's gospel, He calls people to believe in Him. Both of these things are very important, and I think feed into each other. The more we believe in Christ the more we want to follow Him, the more we follow Him the deeper our belief becomes. However, throughout John the Word calls us to believe in Him. In fact a little later in the prologue, verse 12, John says the Jesus gives those who believe in Him the right to be children of God!
So what does this belief mean? The Greek word for 'believe' is the same as to have 'faith' and to 'trust.' There are two dimensions to this. First, it requires intellectual accent. In other words we have to acknowledge the truth of Jesus being the eternal Word of God. This comes from an honest evaluation of the evidence and an honest evaluation of ourselves. We have to look at ourselves and ask, if I am not fully committed to this truth is it because I have genuine intellectual objections or do I just not want to give up control. Those are two different things right? God can keep giving us evidence but it will not matter if there is part of us that does not want it to be true.
The second aspect is trust. So who do we ultimately trust in? This is not a blind faith but rather a trust in what we have good reasons to believe. I often use the analogy of having faith in Brittany, my wife. I trust her because I have good reasons to. It is not as if I do not have any evidence to have faith in her. I cannot prove through mathematical formula that she has the best interests our children and our family in mind but that does not mean my faith is somehow diminished in her. That faith radically affects how I live. How I interact with her, how I interact with others in relationship to her. In the same way, if we truly believe, if we truly trust, in Christ it will affect every area of our lives! As we go through the gospel of John whenever we come upon Jesus calling us to believe in Him I do not want us to think Jesus is simply calling us to intellectually agree with Him. Instead, He is calling us to trust in Him. Which will inevitably result in behavior. After all, if we have faith, or trust, in a doctor we will follow the doctor's prescription.
So as the great physician communicates His prescription to us, what will it look like? It will be one of His light conquering the darkness all around us. Our final 'c' is conquering.
John puts it this way "In him was life, and that life was the lightof all mankind.The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcomeit." We live in such darkness don't we. We turn on the news and hear about war torn countries, terror attacks, and unspeakable violence all over the world. Sometimes we do not have to look that far. In our own communities, crime, drugs, poverty seem more common than they ought to be. Even in our own lives we so often see darkness. Death of a loved one, the loss of a job, a horrible addiction, the list could go on. One has to wonder is there any end in sight?
The Word shines light into these circumstances and no darkness can overcome it. There are at least two interesting things about understanding Jesus as the light overcoming the darkness. First, light brings clarity and comfort. After we turn on a light in a dark room we don't have to grope around in the dark. In the same way the more we trust in the Word the more clarity our lives will have. There will still be pain and difficulty but He will guide us in how we can be bearers of His light in the midst of those difficult situations.
Part of that clarity is having a clear vision of the outcome, that's the second interesting observation about the Word being the light that has overcome the darkness. When we flip a light switch on in a dark room do we see the darkness putting up a fight? Of course not, the light's victory is certain. Jesus Christ, the Word of God, has conquered and is conquering all darkness. The church is meant to be an embassy of His kingdom of light here on earth. An embassy that shows everyone that whatever darkness we are facing Jesus can conquer it. The darkness of addiction, Jesus will conquer it, the darkness of broken relationships, Jesus will conquer it, the darkness of a past we regret, Jesus will conquer it, the darkness of death itself, Jesus will conquer it. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we cannot out sin God's grace, and the outside world cannot snuff out His light. Often times the darkness seems victorious, I know, but it's only temporary.
Malcolm Muggeridge puts it this way "We look back on history and what do we see? Empires rising and falling, revolutions and counter-revolutions, wealth accumulated and wealth dispersed. Shakespeare speaks of ‘the rise and fall of great ones that ebb and flow with the moon.’I’ve heard a crazed, cracked Austrian proclaim to the world the establishment of a German Reich that would last a thousand years; an Italian clown announce that he would restart the calendar to begin his own assumption of power. I’ve seen America wealthier and in terms of weaponry, more powerful than the rest of the world put together, so that Americans, had they so desired, could have outdone an Alexander or a Caesar in the range and scale of their conquests. All in one lifetime. All gone with the wind. Hitler and Mussolini dead, remembered only in infamy. Stalin a forbidden name in the regime he helped found and dominate for some three decades. America haunted by fears of running out of those precious fluids that keep her motorways roaring, and the smog settling. All in one lifetime, all gone with the wind. Behind the debris of these self-styled, sullen supermen and imperial diplomatists, there stands the gigantic figure of one person, because of whom, by whom, in whom, and through whom alone mankind might still survive. The person of Jesus Christ." By believing in Him we can be bearers of the light of the Word of God, in whom and through whom we will conquer the darkness.
As we go through the gospel of John may our trust in the name that is above every name increase. Because in Word of God we find a cosmic reality made personal, the incomprehensible communicate to us, and the light of the world conquer all darkness!
Let us pray: Loving Father, You send us Your son, the Word, to be the light of the world, help us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, go into a world that is often dark and lost to bear that light!
Receive this blessing and benediction: Let us go forth with our ears open to hear the Word, hearts open to obey the Word, and feet ready to follow the Word wherever He may lead us!