Dennis Tuuri

# John 1 – The Incarnation and Mission

Sermon text is found in the Gospel of John. John chapter 1. This Advent season, we’ve been going through the four gospels. Today is the fourth and final Sunday of Advent. So we’ll look at John 1 and its presentation of the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. We will read verses 1 through 18. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

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 nothing was made that was made. In him was life and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. This man came for a witness to bear witness of the light that all through him might believe. He was not that light but was sent to bear witness of that light.

That was the true light which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him and the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness of him and cried out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for he was before me.’” And of his fullness we have all received grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this wonderful opening of the Gospel of John. We thank you, Father, for this wonderful time of year when we put all of our lives into perspective and rejoice before you for sending forth the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for this wonderful season. Bless us now by an understanding of your word, the Gospel of John, as it relates to us who are called as John was to be witnesses of the light. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated. You know, Christmas can be one of the most depressing times of the year, so they say. And hopefully what we’ve done is we’ve looked at these four gospel accounts is we’ve sort of put the things of life in perspective by looking at the results of the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ—fulfilling the past, moving us into the future, creating community, and then in today’s gospel, the gospel of John—the gospel particularly of mission, of being sent. Seeing that our relationship to Christ is one not just of being inside the body of Christ but moving outward, taking the message of the light that others might come in.

These are the four dimensions that we’ve talked about and they kind of relate to the advent candles. We looked at the past in Matthew’s gospel, emphasizing fulfillment. The word “fulfilled” is used over and over again in Matthew’s gospel, and it starts that way with the long genealogy and left in Babylon. And then we move to the future on that timeline, going from left to right at the advent candle. We looked at Mark’s gospel and Jesus conquers as the king right away. There’s no story of his nativity, but rather he is immediately seen as a king and proclaimed that way.

In Luke, we go back to a discussion of the nativity and a wonderful presentation in the context of friends and family. So we use the gospel of Luke to talk about community. Today, the inside of the implications of the coming of Jesus Christ for us in John’s gospel is all about, as I said, being sent. If the word “fulfilled” is used over and over again in Matthew’s gospel, the word “immediately” is used more times than any other gospel in the Gospel of Mark, even though it’s much shorter, of course. And in John’s gospel, the thing that is preeminent is this word “sent,” used many more times than the other gospels. And we saw it right in the prologue and we’ll talk about that.

You know, hopefully what we do here is, you know, all the expectations we place on Christmas and the gifts we give and the gifts we like and the community that we’re involved with, etc., they always fall a little short of what we hope to have, really. And that’s because really the expectation and the songs that we sing at Christmas time speak of something far greater than just the times in which we live. And they place these things in perspective and hopefully in a perspective that causes us to rejoice.

We had a misspelling, I think, in the order of worship that “to us a song is given,” and Elder Wilson turned to me and said, “Well, he is a song, isn’t he?” And he is a song. And it’s good to come together and to sing the songs and to hear the instruments accompany us at this time of year, particularly to remind ourselves of the truth—the great news that Christmas is in the context of the world and the belief, the hope that it is great news to us personally as well.

People get all upset about gift giving. I went to the mall a couple of times this last week. I think it’s wonderful that these malls are jam-packed full of people, and most of them are there thinking of somebody else. And this is probably the one time of the year when the thoughts of people are so much turned to their loved ones.

Yeah, it’s become maybe somewhat commercial, but you know, in a way that’s just because people really want to express love and consideration for others. So don’t be kind of a Grinch. Don’t let people steal the joy of Christmas from you. Rejoice in the wonderful truths.

Now, humanism can become an idol to us, and that’s what it frequently is in our day and age. But it only can become an idol because Jesus has taken care of our relationship to the Father. Our whole concern since the coming of Jesus Christ is the second person of God. And so that’s whom we have to deal with. And we’re looking at the gospel descriptions that in a way all the Old Testament focus are fulfilled in the gospel accounts, and all the epistles are reflection on the life of the Savior as seen in those gospel accounts.

So I want to take a very brief look this morning at the gospel of John. Our focus then will be outward, as our focus was inward with community in Luke. Now it’s outward—this missional perspective. And this is given to us right in this wonderful, beautiful prologue.

I want to begin by talking about this prologue and sort of looking a little bit at a cycle that we can kind of see. There’s a cycle of three, I think we can see, three revelations of Christ, and then a response to that, or a failure of response to that, or a proper response to that on the part of man.

So I want to talk first about the four gospels and specifically this gospel. The effects of the incarnation of Jesus Christ are discussed in this set. And if you look at John 1, hopefully you’re there in your scriptures. So turn to John one if you’re not still there, and we’ll run through just a brief overview of this prologue.

The first cycle of these—this kind of spiral nature of the revelation of John—are the first five verses. And in these first five verses we have a declaration of the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ and also that he is the Creator. So a declaration of who God is. And this declaration is given as an effect on mankind. In verse four we read that in him was life and he was the light of men. So first, something about Jesus, Creator, eternal God, and then it describes Jesus having an effect upon man. And then it describes a the response of mankind to him.

And in verse 5, that response is darkness. What’s the result of this declaration of who Jesus is? And then specifically as it relates to men, verse 5: the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it. The darkness did not overtake it. So the description of mankind as darkness here, the fallen state of mankind, is rather complete.

And so the first cycle of the revelation of Christ in John’s gospel—Jesus going to mankind—is darkness. But the darkness can’t conquer, cannot overtake the light. And so the light continues to shine. But man’s first response is darkness.

The second cycle begins in verse six. And here we see right away the idea of sentness. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. This man came for a witness to bear witness of that light. So, you know, right away the declaration of who Jesus is in the second cycle of these—first the prologue—is established by men. A man like you or I is sent by God to bear witness of the light, okay?

And so we have this declaration now of the light of Jesus Christ in verses 6 to 8. John was not that light but was sent to bear witness of that light. And then the implications of this: This was the true light which gives light to every man coming into the world. So Jesus is the light, and now again, just like in the first cycle, he shines, comes to men, they have darkness. He’s in the world, and now the response then of this effect of the light, the Lord Jesus Christ in the world, verse 10.

He was in the world. The world was made through him. And the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right, the power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name. Who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, but of the will of—not of the will of man but of God.

So now, you know, the declaration again is that Jesus is the light. But the message now is carried by one who is sent. And the end result of that effect on man is not total darkness—that can’t overcome the light—but now we see two humanities, two responses: the world and his own don’t receive him, but as many as receive him, he makes them powerful children of God. That’s the intent of the verse. He doesn’t give them the right—they get to choose or not. No, he gives them the power to act out their lives as children of God.

So now we have a two-fold result of the coming of the light presented in this gospel. And as I said, that coming is portrayed through one who is sent on mission to speak about Jesus.

The third cycle begins in verse 14. And here we have a the first specific reference to incarnation. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory. So the Word becomes flesh. He is incarnated. And so we have this declaration of the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ as the tabernacling God. He tabernacled amongst us is what maybe a better translation might be. Dwelt, tabernacled. And then this effect on mankind is they behold his glory.

We beheld his glory. The glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. So we behold his glory. And then man’s response is given in verses 17 and 18.

We see again John bore witness of him. In verse 15, cried out saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for he was before me.’” And of his fullness we have all received grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth—grace and truth comes through Jesus Christ. So the effect now: we began with the effect of this declaration being darkness, not comprehending it, not overcoming the light. And then in the second cycle, you know, we’ve got two kinds of people—those that receive him and those that don’t. And in the third cycle, we don’t see reference to the darkness.

We don’t see reference to those that don’t receive him. All we see is that we receive glory for glory, of his fullness. We have all received grace for grace.

So as so many cycles in the scriptures do, they begin with an antithetical spin—there’s antithesis between God and fallen mankind—but they end with the antithesis dissolved in the conversion of mankind. So what we have portrayed in John’s gospel at the very prologue is a positive movement of history toward the conversion of the nations.

Something we’ve seen, you know, described in prophetic language in the other three gospels and described in various ways. But here we have this wonderfully profound statement of the coming, the incarnation of Christ, the message being sent out through others, and the end result of that moving the world from total darkness trying to combat him, to then division, and then finally, by the end, the only people that are left, so to speak, worth speaking of are those who are going from grace to grace.

So we have this wonderful news at the beginning of John’s gospel that the result of the Father sending the Son into the world, the result of the incarnation, is nothing short of the conversion of mankind.

So a very positive message given if we see these cycles the way they’re doing. They’re cycling up. It’s saying the same thing. There’s a declaration of Jesus Christ. It has an effect on mankind, and the end result is first, you know, the darkness—can it overcome the light? The second is division. But the third is mankind being seen as going from grace to grace.

So we have this wonderful Christmas victorious message that our Christmas carols are filled with, phrased in a way that is in its own unique, John sort of way: sublime, profound, simple, and yet incredibly profound. At the base of everything is this revelation of Jesus Christ at the incarnation. This is what is the basis for what is described clearly as a new creation.

We know that John’s gospel ends with Jesus breathing on the disciples just like Adam received the breath of God. We know it ends with Jesus and a woman in a garden, the same way that the first mankind, the first son of God, Adam, right? That’s what he’s called in the gospel—son of God. Adam is he who fell. But in the second creation, Jesus Christ is there. He’s first. He’s mistaken for the gardener. Well, he is the gardener. He is the greater gardener. He’s the greater Adam. He’s the second Adam.

And what has happened is what we celebrate—what is so incredible that we can’t hardly believe it, but what we celebrate every Christmas time in the incarnation—is the victory of God in the context of his world. The redemption of the world. He came to save the world, not to judge the world. Judging the world is part of that process. There’s division in the middle of the three cycles, but the end result is the saving of the world through the work of the one who is sent by God.

The effect of the incarnation in this gospel is clearly described—although poetically described—as being the salvation of the world, the advance of humankind in that message.

Now, there’s a vehicle by which this is accomplished, and it’s already been hinted at here. We’ve already seen that there was a man who was sent to bear witness. And so my second point—the first point is that the incarnation has this incredibly victorious cast to it in the prologue to John’s gospel that we just read.

But there’s great comfort there as well. We didn’t read the last couple of verses, but I should read those before we move to our second point. If I…yes. Verse 18: No one has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father. He has declared him. So the description here is that Jesus is in the bosom of the Father. What it means is he’s always moving nearer to the Father.

And in the gospel of John, he exegetes. The word “declare” there is the same word that becomes our word “exegesis” in scripture—to draw out the meaning of something. So John’s gospel is the Son exegeting the Father, and the Father is being revealed to… He’s already, you know, the sending of his Son who is in wonderful Father-Son relationship in the Trinity. Of course, Jesus is always moving closer to the Father.

This has the effect of redeeming the sons of men, so to speak. So, you know, the Father sends the Son, and as a result, he reaches to his sons in the broader sense of the term—in humankind—to bring them into relationship with him. You know, so this is a wonderful climax—that not just is there moving from grace to grace, but there’s moving from grace to grace in the context of relationship in the Trinity, in our families, in the church. And this is the wonderful truth that the prologue of John’s gospel culminates with.

And as I said, second point here is that this is accomplished through sending. Over and over again, in the gospel of John, Jesus says “I’ve been sent by the Father. I’ve been sent by the Father.” This word “sent” is used here more than any other gospel account. John is the missional gospel, right? It’s the gospel that shows the mission of the church being fulfilled, the mission of the Father fulfilled in the sending of the Son. And not just in the sending of the Son, we read in various places that we’re those sent ones as well.

We saw it in the prologue in verse 6. There was a man, John, who was sent by God, sent by Jesus to be a witness of the light. And so this idea of sending in chapter 13 of the gospel…sorry, I couldn’t find Post-it notes yesterday, so I tried to fold pages over and that never works all that great. In fact, it didn’t work at all apparently. Well, I’ll just turn to it. Look at chapter 13, yes. Chapter 13, verse 20.

Most assuredly, Jesus says, “I say to you, he who receives whom I send receives me. He who receives me receives him who sent me.” So there it is in summation form. The Father has sent the Son. In John’s gospel, the Son sends us. And if you receive the ambassadors of the Lord Jesus Christ, you receive him. And if you receive him, you’re receiving the Father. It all goes back to the Father in John’s gospel.

And the point of this in terms of our application today is that we’re stressing in this fourth Sunday going outward—that there’s an inward dimension to the church. Certainly, recreation of community in the life of the church. But we’re a group that are gathered together to be sent. At the end of this service, you are sent out. You go away. You go into the world. And this sending is absolutely critical in John’s gospel.

Turn to chapter 17. Chapter 17. And look at verse 18 of chapter 17. And Jesus is praying to the Father. He says, “Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so also I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes, I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified by the truth.” So he says that as the Father sent him—as he’s praying to the Father before his crucifixion and resurrection—he’s saying that he has also sent them into the world.

And then in John chapter 20, we read that the same day, in verse 19, look at verse 19 in chapter 20. And this is after the resurrection. This is one of his resurrection appearances. This is the evening of the first day of the week. Verse 19. Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands in his side.

Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you. As the Father has sent me, I also send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

So over and over again, Jesus describes himself in the Gospel of John as the one who has been sent. And several times he says that as I have been sent by the Father, I am sending you into the world. And he says it in the context of his gospel ministry. He says it in his priestly prayer for his flock before his betrayal and death. And he says it in his resurrection appearance ministry, moving toward his resurrection. And then in his resurrection, he says this over and over again—that he’s the one who sends us.

Now, when it said that they were gathered together in John chapter 20, it doesn’t say the apostles, it says the disciples. So, you know, I think the obvious reference throughout the gospel of John is not restricted—this sending sense—to just the pastors of the church. I think it means that’s who we are as disciples of Jesus Christ. If you’re one of those powerful children of God, sons of God, as a result of his the will of God causing you to be born again, then you’ve been birthed as one who is in the image of the Savior. You’re a Christian.

And as a Christian, you’re to see yourself as sent into the world. The end result of salvation is not just your personal well-being. It is that—don’t want to miss that—you’ve been saved from hell, from damnation. Praise God. Nothing can take that away from you. But beyond that, you see, you’re called not just to rejoice in that and wait around for that to happen, for you to go to your eternal destination.

You have been called as a sent one of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s how this gospel—that’s what it focuses on—is this outward message that we’re sent into the broader world. So every man who has been enlightened by the Lord Jesus Christ is sent on mission for him. How are men enlightened? They’re brought light. And in Philippians, we’re called the lightbearers of God. So we shine as light in the midst of a dark world.

The darkness couldn’t comprehend, overpower the light. And by the end of the cycle, the light overpowers the darkness. How does it happen? Philippians says it happens by you, not by me. It doesn’t happen by bringing people into the church. I mean, that’s part of what occurs—is bringing them into the worship of God. That’s the end result of shining in the midst of darkness. But that begins with you going into the world as ambassadors for the Lord Jesus Christ.

It means that when you talk to your neighbors and your friends, your associations that you already have in the world, you live explicitly as those who have a missional sense and purpose to their lives. You think of yourselves as a sent one from the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s part of the great Christmas message. And actually, in John’s gospel, it’s absolutely tied to the idea of the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is incarnated. He’s the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, capital I. But we could say that you are incarnated sons of God as well, or children of God, little i. But you are the living flesh embodiment of the witness of Jesus Christ and the lightbearing capacity of men, and you have an obligation to go into this world in mission, your obligation to be a sent one.

Now, Jesus throughout the gospel—this is what happens. And let’s turn to John chapter 4 to see how this works out in the life of Jesus. We’re sent. So number one: the incarnation results in the conversion of the world. Number two: this conversion happens as a result of Christians being sent into the world as Jesus was sent from the Father. And number three: we’re sent to people that we wouldn’t necessarily normally want to hang out with. That’s what the point is in John chapter 4.

You know the story in John chapter 4. Turn there, please. John chapter 4. This is the woman at the well in Samaria. And we read in verse 5: He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from his journey, sat thus by the well.

Several times it’s mentioned here that this is Jacob’s well. What’s Jacob’s well? Well, if we know the story of Jacob, it’s not the same well where he met his wife, but that’s what happens in Genesis. That’s where Jacob met his wife—was at a well. That’s where Abraham sent his servant to get a wife for Isaac. He gets her at the well. Moses meets his wife at the well. So we expect to see, you know, a romantic relationship ensue here. But it’s a strange relationship that happens.

A woman of Samaria comes to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to him, “How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.”

Now, the point is obvious. You’ve heard this a million times, but it’s important for you to recognize it in the context of John’s gospel. You’re to be sent ones. And Jesus was the sent one. And how he was sent is how you’re to be sent. It’s not just Jesus here. We know his disciples come along with him. They’ll show up in a couple of minutes. They’re off buying food. So it’s not as if Jesus restricts this kind of mission for himself.

In fact, Jesus then tells his disciples at the end of this whole encounter, “Look, we’ve got work to do. The fields are white for harvest. You should be doing what I’m doing. You should see yourselves as sent ones across comfortable lines for you.” There were two boundaries that were being crossed by Jesus. One, as the woman points out, the relationship with Samaritans. You know, Samaritans are an outcast people, and there are people, you know, in the context of our culture that are sort of outcast people. And Jesus went to those areas. He didn’t hold back.

So Jesus goes out on his missional being-sent perspective. He goes to places where men wouldn’t normally want to go because it was offensive to them. And secondly, he has an individual conversation with a woman. And as the story points out, this is a woman who has a great deal of sexual sin as her history. We could almost say she’s, you know, a very loose woman. She’s living with a man that she’s not married to. She’s had a number of husbands, so to speak.

And Jesus enters into conversation with her. Who does Jesus marry at this well? He marries a prostitute, we could say, right? But it isn’t just her. Because once that interaction and dialogue between Jesus and the woman happens, then what happens is she runs and tells the whole village. They come back, and the whole village converts. And they say, “We know now after hearing from Jesus—not just from what you’ve said, woman—we know he’s the Savior of the world.”

John’s gospel is being fulfilled in this wonderful incident that’s portrayed to us, where Jesus doesn’t come to his own. He goes to somebody outside of his own. And those people that are outside of his own, who are in darkness—it doesn’t stop them. In fact, they—the world is converted, and they declare that Jesus is the Savior of the whole world. That’s the way this wonderful story in John chapter 4 culminates, all because Jesus was sent by the Father across lines that were uncomfortable for most people to cross at that time.

You know, we’ve talked a lot about—I use this verse a lot though—a verse in here where he says, you know, “Well, my food is to do the will of my Father in heaven and to finish the work he’s given me to do.” And we can take that out of its context, which I do frequently, and I think it’s fine. We’ve got a lot of work to do. Part of our work is finishing our workdays and vocation. We’ve got tasks to do. But understand that the first application of what Jesus is saying is that his very life consists of it. “My food is”—life, “my food is to do the will of my Father in heaven and to finish the work.” And what is the work he’s doing? He’s being sent missionally to people that are otherwise uncomfortable to hang out with. That’s the work of Jesus.

Our very food—we’re going to get have a meal with Jesus here, and I think he wants us to remember at that meal that our food—we are nourished to the degree that we would be the sent people of God, crossing boundaries of comfortlessness to us, to reach out to people that are despised, rejected, looked down upon by Christian culture, and to interact in dialogue with those people.

Now, Jesus Christ doesn’t, you know, hold back the truth from this woman. He shows us the way to reach out, to enter into conversation and dialogue with people that we’re sent into the darkness to. But he also shows us the way to do that which is not compromising the truth. He brings her to a conviction of her sins. His discussion isn’t just like hanging out with people to hang out with them. He interacts with her and dialogues with her to the end that he would speak the truth to her.

I saw a Mark Driscoll video, and he said, you know, it’s kind of like you’ve got two hands and you’ve got doctrine in one hand—or truth—and in the other hand you’ve got mission, right? Or you’ve got context, you’ve got the setting or the environment. And so some people hold the doctrine—hold both ends are closed. So our doctrines are held on too tightly, but so are our traditions and our culture. So it doesn’t allow us to reach out to people outside of our own culture.

Other people, he said, their hands are both open. So they’re reaching out missionally as sent ones, but they’re reaching out in a way that gives away the doctrine too. And not giving it away in the sense of giving it to people, but you know, it’s up for grabs. There’s no fixed doctrine.

Jesus Christ tightly holds on to the truth of God’s word even as he opens his hand to receive and to interact with people who are not normally interacted with or dialogued with.

So John chapter 4 is a reminder to us of the very way that the sent ones are to work. They work across lines of comfort to reach out to those who would normally not be in our comfort factor. So Jesus wants us to recognize that we’re the sent ones. This is how the world will be converted. And as we’re sent, we have to go to situations that will be uncomfortable for us.

Now, you know, you have to be careful here. Some young men, some older men—if they go out and hang out with a woman individually, talking with her, interacting with her, and she’s sexually promiscuous, they’re going to be tempted to sin. Don’t do that then. Don’t do that. But Jesus says, if you have mature Christian perspective and if you can avoid the sin, don’t worry about, you know, moving into cultures that are uncomfortable for you. You do that now anyway.

We all have different associations and friendships typically, but the point is, in those conversations, are we missionally using them to speak to the light of the Lord Jesus Christ and the truth of his gospel?

So Jesus moves transculturally, across cultures as it were. He goes from the Jewish culture into the Samaritan culture. He moves from a culture that didn’t want men and women discussing things individually, and he doesn’t listen to that taboo. He breaks out of that. He goes as a sent one and has dialogue with a woman and brings it to her sin. He holds the truth of the gospel. He holds the principles of what he believes in at the same time as his methods are open.

And we’ve said this, and you know there, now we’ve said as well, that there is diversity in the body of Christ. There are some people in a church that are really good at doing this, and others just aren’t. That’s okay. We don’t—the way your sent will be in a particular way. You probably have got friends now, associations now with people. Those are the ones you should talk to. Some people have different callings.

So I’m not trying to say everybody has to go cross-culturally and break out from your particular culture. Don’t go looking for some strange situation necessarily, but I’m saying that be comfortable as empowered sons of God to bear witness to Jesus Christ, even if that bearing witness may be in a setting where other Christians are going to look at you and say, “Is he doing…?” Because that’s what happened to Jesus. The disciples said that. They came up and said, you know, “What’s going on here? What is he talking to her about?” It bothered them that he was talking to a Samaritan and to a woman.

And Jesus’s response is, “This is what we’re supposed to be doing. We’re sent ones. The harvest is, you know, the fields are white for harvest. It’s the very purpose of our lives is to be sent ones for God. When God stops sending you is when he takes you home. But until he takes you home, until Jesus returns or until you die, you’re a sent one of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what John’s gospel culminates in. We have a missional perspective.”

Notice, by the way, that this is distinguished from trying to be—being a sent one doesn’t try to bring everybody into church. That’s eventually where they end up at is the worship of God. But it starts with us moving outside of the church, outside of Christian culture, to other cultures, to other sorts of people as lightbearers to the Lord Jesus Christ, bearing witness to Christ as sent ones. So this isn’t trying to draw all kinds of people into the church. It’s not program oriented. It’s not demographic oriented. It’s oriented to a sense of us being a missional church who desire to go out and, you know, across cultural boundaries to speak the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ as sent ones.

Now, Jesus says that they’re to be—they’re sent ones cross-culturally to outsiders. But we also saw in that prayer in John 17, “Where did Jesus send them? I am sending you into the world.” He said, okay, so, you know, first the gospel triumphs. The incarnation is victorious in history. Second, it happens by the sent ones who were sent by Jesus. Third, the sent ones cross comfort lines. And fourth, the sent ones actually are to go into the world, the world.

And so this again is a broader context than just going cross-culturally to the Samaritans. Now, the whole world is to be converted as we saw a couple of weeks ago. God says in the prophets that Assyria is his people. Egypt is his people. How does that happen? He doesn’t destroy Assyria and Egypt at the end of the day. He converts them. He brings all the nations to his holy hill. How does that happen? By sending his people into the world.

So now we’re talking about people not just that are, like, arm’s length from Christians. Now we’re talking about total non-Christians, totally reject the worship of God, aren’t worshiping on the wrong mountain as the woman was at the wrong place. Now I’m talking about people who don’t worship at all. And Paul is the best example of this as he goes to Athens. Paul studies the culture of the context that he’s going to, right? He’s in Athens. He spends some time walking around the city. He gets to know what’s happening in that particular part of the world.

That pagan part of—this is totally pagan aria now. This isn’t Samaria anymore. It’s not Kansas anymore. Now we’re in Athens in the height of Diana worship and the height of pagan worship. And what Paul does is the same thing we should do if we’ve got friends who are not just nominally Christian or sort of Christian, but who are really out there—associations at work or in our neighborhood—who are really out there in the world.

Jesus says you’re sent to them too. And if you’re sent to them, that means you’re sent there to bear witness to Jesus Christ. And if you’re going to bear witness to people, you have to know how they hear, you speak. Paul wanted to understand what the Athenians believed. He wanted to know their language. Paul listened when he went to Athens. He looks, listens. What’s going on? What is this culture about? How do they communicate? So that when it became his time to bear witness to the truth at the Areopagus, then he can speak to them in a way that impacts their lives.

Paul doesn’t quote a lot of the Old Testament scriptures. What he does is he addresses their particular form of idolatry in their language of the time. He uses one of their own slogans from one of their idolatrous gods or monument. So if we’re going to be sent into the world, it means that we have to learn to listen to our non-Christian, pagan friends, understand what makes them tick, understand why they’re doing the things they’re doing, how they are idolatrous, right?

That’s what Paul did. “You’re being idolatrous,” but he knew how it was affecting them, what particular form of idolatry they were engaged in, and he brings them to a consciousness of that. “You don’t know who God is. That’s your form of idolatry. I’m going to tell you who he is.” And so people in the world—everybody has this idolatrous nature of some sort. And it’s our job with our friends, with our neighbors, with the context that we already have, to listen to them, not just to reject them, not to go and talk about the substitutionary atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ and vicarious substitution and the points of Calvinism.

There’ll be a time for that. But as Christians, we’ve got a specialized vocabulary that people have no idea what we’re saying. Leonard Cohen had a song years ago, and he said, “When they said repent, I wonder what they meant.” When we tell people to repent of their sins, they don’t know what we’re talking about.

Now, you know, everybody knows God. Everybody knows the truth. But don’t forget that they’ve layered it over with a lot of layers of self-deception. They are actively suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. They’re no longer able to communicate truth. So you have to sort of figure out what their communication is, listen to them, understand the culture so that then you can speak—as Jesus did to the Samaritan woman, as Paul does to the men in the world at Athens—to speak to them in a way that will actually communicate truth to them.

This takes time. Paul spent some time walking around Athens getting to know the culture. We were discussing movies this morning in our young adults class—us and what kind of movies are good to watch, what kinds are bad to watch. You know, so often I think that we’re so concerned about what might impact us negatively, we don’t end up watching movies that would help us to understand what the culture is like and what people are like so that we can then discuss with them their particular forms of idolatry.

God says that we’re sent ones into the world. Jesus prayed this very thing—praying for us to be sent into the world and to be able to do that effectively, not just to say we fulfilled the mission and went out there and talked to somebody and communicated in a way that they had no idea what we were talking about. No, we want to communicate effectively, bringing the light of Jesus Christ. To do that, we have to know something of our culture.

Now, there are movies that some of you shouldn’t watch. There are books you shouldn’t read. There are images in your mind that it might create that would be bad for you. Fine. But if but most of us, that isn’t true.

Years ago, R.J. Rushdoony said, there was a study that was done about the Japanese brainwashing tactics in World War II. And according to Rushdoony, what the Japanese would do when they took an American prisoner—they’d ask them if they believed in the Bible, were they a Christian, and do they believe in the free market? And if their answer to both those was yes, then they’d be put under heavy guard. They wouldn’t indoctrinate them. They wouldn’t brainwash them. But if their answer to those things was no, well then, they have them in a lightly guarded village, indoctrination class. They’d use some techniques on them, mostly just teaching them, though. And they would brainwash people.

The point is, if we’ve raised strong Christian children for the Lord Jesus Christ, if we know the scriptures, if we’re solid in our commitment to Jesus Christ, we should not believe that we’re going to be tainted somehow by walking into the world trying to understand the culture.

Now, Paul was moved to anger by the Athenians, right? So again, there’s a ditch on either road here. I’m not saying enjoy what this culture is doing and its sinfulness and paganness. Be offended by it. Be properly offended, but don’t as a result of the offense turn on your heel and walk away from it. This is what God wants you to do—is to save this particular culture that we’re living in now.

So in order to be those kind of people, we do have to understand something about this world, something about idolatry and particular people, etc. We’re going to have to talk to people that are really not just uncomfortable to us, but absolutely kind of disgusting to us. And in doing that, we’re fulfilling our obligation to be witnesses, to understand what they’re saying, to go with a sense of loving our neighbor.

God says we’re supposed to love our neighbor. Do you know your neighbor? Not just do you know his name, but do you know your neighbor’s propensities to sin? Do you know them well enough why? What’s motivating them to that sin? How can you answer that motivation with the answer of the gospel? And at the same time, bring them to repentance, as Paul did to the Athenians and Jesus did to the Samaritan woman?

We’re called to love our neighbor. And this is what we have to do. A part of loving our neighbor is going and diagnosing their problem so that we can then bring the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to bear upon them. Egypt is my people. Assyria, the work of my hands, God says. Don’t pull back from them because they disgust you. Go to them. They’re my people. I’m saving these people by sending people out in the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ to speak with these folks.

So the gospel—the incarnation is effective and victorious. The gospel is effective and victorious through the secondary means of being sent. We are sent across cultural lines that are difficult for us to cross over. And we’re actually sent into the world itself, the Bible says.

And so we move in terms of those that have kind of aberrant forms of Christianity. And we also, like Paul, go to the Athenians that are absolute idolaters and pagan people. And we bring the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the way it’s going to work. Across the world, the world becomes more and more the recipients. The world goes from grace to grace as the sent ones of Jesus Christ take the message of the incarnation.

The message of Christmas is the light actually overpowers the darkness. And by the end of the three-fold cycle in the prologue, there is no darkness. And how that’s accomplished is by this overall message of John, over and over and over again: Sent, sent, sent, sent, sent.

We always mention this, you know, that Jesus breathes on the disciples and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and it’s a wonderful picture of second creation. But again, there—look at the context. I made reference to this earlier. But turn to John chapter 20. Turn again to John chapter 20.

This is the day of the resurrection. Says the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews. Now that’s the setup, okay? Jesus is coming to them, and he wants us to know that when Jesus comes to them, they’re locked up inside of a room because of fear.

Now, if we understand the message of John’s gospel, we remember that Jesus just prayed for these guys and he was sending them into the world. He is going to send them into Samaria and he’s sending them everywhere. Why are they locked up in this room where they’re fearful? And Jesus comes to them in the midst of this locked up place. He came and stood in the midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

He doesn’t chide them for their fearfulness, but he puts them at peace. Peace be with you. It’s okay. He’s saying, when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. And then his disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you. As the Father has sent me, I also send you.”

So he comes in a convicting way by reminding them. He doesn’t say how horrible they are with their fearfulness. He answers their fearfulness with peace. And then he instructs them: Well, you know, the door shouldn’t be locked and you shouldn’t be gathered here all the time. The point is, I’ve assembled you together to send you out into the world. And the thing that’s preventing you from being sent out, the text tells us explicitly, is fear.

It’s fear that gets in the way of us being missional in our perspective to the world. Now, not always. Sometimes it’s arrogance. Sometimes it’s phariseism and pride. But I think more often than not, for us, we’re like these disciples. We’re fearful. What’s going to be the impact of the world upon us, upon our wives, our husbands? What are they going to do if they go to some of these places? And upon our children, we’re fearful.

And there’s a proper sense of caution that you must have as a Christian householder. You don’t want to expose your children to horribly sinful influences, of course not. You do have to guard them. But by guarding them, the best way to guard our children is to raise them with a strong ability to know who they are, to know the Lord Jesus Christ, to know the teachings of scripture, and know that we hold those things very tightly in our hand.

And that way of guarding them protects them because they’re going to go into that world with or without us, eventually, anyway. So God wants us to be able to prepare ourselves, even our children at some point in time, for mission, to go into the world. And the way to accomplish that is to recognize that our fear keeps us from doing the very thing that Jesus Christ said we’re supposed to do—to be sent in missionary work.

And then it’s in this context then that the very next thing it says is “Receive the Holy Spirit.” “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you remit the sins of any, they are retained.” So this is where the new creation imagery of Jesus breathing on them and having them receive the Holy Spirit. This is that imagery. So the gospel begins with Genesis, the new creation, new Genesis. It moves to the end where you’ve got a new set of Adams receiving the Holy Spirit, right?

The imagery is obvious, but look at the context. Why are we given new life in the person and work of Jesus Christ? Why do we enjoy that wonderful second birth that we sang about earlier? Jesus came to save us from our sins. But what does it mean to be saved from our sins? It doesn’t mean dog paddling until eternity. It means that in spite of our fears, Jesus is moving us to be a sent people outside of the church.

Jesus comes to us today. We’re gathered within the four walls of the church. As I said, Jerusalem has walls in the book of Revelation. It’s well defined as a city. It is a community. It has gates, but they’re not locked, are they? The gates are always open. It says in the book of Revelation, the church has doors, but the doors are open so that we can move out of those doors into the world in a missional perspective for the Lord Jesus Christ.

We can move out, you know, not holding our cultural context so tightly, giving them up and holding our doctrine tightly, but ministering that doctrine as we’re sent into the world. This is the very purpose of the new birth. This is the very purpose of us being new men and women.

Jesus does this in the midst of a locked worship service where the disciples are gathered still in fear because of the Jews. Jesus comes to us today. This is the Lord’s day. This is the first day of the week. We celebrate the advent of Jesus Christ. He comes to the world. We pray for his advent in our lives every day, but we pray particularly for his advent in the Lord’s service. He draws close to us to be near us. And he says to us, “Peace be with you.”

Christmas means that all the trials, difficulties, troubles that you can think of, they’ve all been satisfied. All the hopes and fears are met in Christ and met in the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, met in his coming to you today. He says to you today, “Christmas peace be upon you. You know, you may not have joy in the particular circumstances of your life, but if you understand what I am doing,” Jesus said, “I am conquering the world, and I’m doing it through sending out lightbearers of me. I’m doing it through you.”

And we say, “Well, not us. We don’t do too good at that stuff. We’re kind of fearful. We don’t want to go to the wrong places, and we kind of hate those people anyway.” And Jesus says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” That Holy Spirit is the spirit of being a sent one, having a missional perspective, that we’re a gathered people for the very purpose at the end of this day to be sent out.

The “Nunc Dimittis”—the last of the four great Christmas songs—we’ll sing it at the end of our service. It’s Jesus says, “Now get out of here. And I mean it. Nice being here. Lots of fun, but I’ve got work. I’m at the Mount of Transfiguration, right? They’re up there. ‘Oh, this is great. Let’s just stay here forever. Man, this is good. We’ll do family camp. We’ll have a week of this.’ But at the end of the week, Jesus says, ‘Get out of here. Go back to your homes. Go to your neighborhoods. Go to your places of work. Go to the places I’ve already sent you, and go with a sense of mission and purpose. Go outward, bringing the message of Jesus Christ—not, you know, the message of American Christianity.

We want to remove ourselves from the contextual boundaries that have nothing necessarily to do with our real lives as Christians that prevent us, through fear or through prejudice, from reaching out to other people. That’s what Jesus did. He stopped in Samaria. He had a woman give him a drink. It was a well where marriages are associated with. He doesn’t, you know, it doesn’t bother him. May bother the people around him. It didn’t bother Jesus.

And in fact, what is he doing? He’s doing the very work of the Father by speaking to her and bringing her, through that encounter, to a confession of her sin and repentance. Not just her—she becomes a sent one as well. He sends her to the village, and the whole village comes back at the end of that scene and proclaims, “This is the Savior of the world.”

That’s the great message of Christmas. May the Lord Jesus Christ’s spirit breathe upon us today, empower us to be the sent people out into this world this week and for the rest of our lives.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for the wonderful imagery of the sent ones in the gospel of John. We thank you, Father, for the victory of the coming of Jesus Christ, that his incarnation means nothing short of the conversion of the world. Thank you that the means for that are the ones that you sent into this world. Thank you for sending us across areas where it would be difficult for us, where we’re uncomfortable, and more than that, sending us into the darkest places of the world.

Help us, Lord God, to reject limitations on what we do that are culturally bound and not bound by your scriptures. Help us to read the scriptures afresh, not through eyes that are prejudiced by our culture so much, but what they really say about mission and purpose and being sent. Thank you, Father, for the work of Paul. Thank you for the work of our Savior. Thank you for his disciples and for the wonderful message that we’re to be victorious.

Help us, Lord God, be delivered from our fears as we are your people going into this world with the light of Jesus. Give us a sense of joy today then as we rejoice in what has happened in the incarnation of our Savior and what happens as we take his life with us in the power of the Spirit outward. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.