In the Beginning

Welcome to the Gospel and Life podcast.

Many of us often focus on the big moments in Jesus' life. His birth, death, and resurrection. But how would your understanding of Jesus' change if you took a closer look at what he did and said throughout his life on earth?

“Today, Tim Keller explores why Jesus' everyday experiences are essential for understanding”

who he is and how they invite us to have a deeper trust in him. [MUSIC] The Scripture reading this morning is from John chapter 1, verses 1 through 14. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him, all things were made without him, nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 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 testify concerning that light so that through him all might believe.

He himself was not the light. He came only as a witness to the light.

“The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.”

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name. He gave the right to become children of God. Children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, or a husband's will, but

born of God. The word became flesh, and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory. The glory of the one and only son who came from the father full of grace and truth. The word of the Lord. Now Christmas is the time of the year in which we as a church observe and think about

the birth of Jesus. Lent is the time in which we think about the meaning of the death of Jesus. Traditionally, in the church year, the season between Christmas and Lent, not as well known as season, but has got a name, it's called epiphany. Epiphany means looking not at the birth of Jesus or the death of Jesus, but at the life

of Jesus, what he said, what he did, and you can't really understand the real Jesus.

“If you only look at his birth and his death, you must also look at his words and his deeds”

during his life. And that's what we're going to do for the next two months. And we're going to take one particular gospel, the gospel of John, and we're going to look at the words and deeds of Jesus in his life between his birth and his death. Now we start today with John chapter 1, the prologue, one of the most rich and famous parts

of the Bible.

And in some ways it takes a pressure off a preacher because preacher is always feel like

I've got to give the people, I got to pull out all the great stuff that's in this text, but this is one of those times in which there's too much great stuff to pull out. I couldn't possibly get it all. And so I would just like to give you a top level view of it by just outlining it and looking at the three main parts, and therefore the three main points, look at diverse versus one

to four is about a claim, a radical, amazing claim. Versus five to eleven is about the rejection of that claim. And then verses 12 to 14 is the answer to the objections to the claim. So you have the claim, you have the rejection of the claim, and we have the answers to the objections to and the rejection of the claim, and let's just walk through it like that.

First of all, the first four verses very famous constitute a claim, and it's a claim

about the word. There's five things we're told about the word. First of all, the word is a person, it's personal, notice he, the word he, secondly, the word was divine, the word was God. Thirdly, we're not just talking about a divine-ish kind of person, but this is a person

were made without him, nothing was made that has been made, which means everything that

has a beginning found a beginning in him, which means he's without beginning. So we have a person, it's a divine person, it's a uncreated divine person, the source of all life in him was life. Not just he got life or has life in him was life, all life comes from him. And last thing we learned is all the way at the bottom, for actually in verse 14, it becomes

very clear that this is Jesus Christ. The word became flesh and well among us and we beheld his glory. Now, we could obviously spend five hours, five days, five weeks, maybe five years, taking each of those five claims and pulling them out. But what's really significant is the word word.

Is the fact that John uses this very interesting and unusual way of describing Jesus Christ, because he says in the beginning was the word, Jesus is the word. Because he wrote in Greek, the Greek word that he used here was logos. In the beginning was the logos, Jesus Christ was the logos, the logos became flesh. Now, John deliberately used a word here that had an enormous amount of freight, enormous

amount of cultural, linguistic, and philosophical freight.

“He deliberately used it and the only way we're going to understand what it means and why”

he used it and what a radical claim is is if we get some background. Now, you have to start with the Greek philosophers, because the Greek philosophers came up with this idea of a logos. They looked at nature and you know what they saw? They saw balance, they saw harmony, they saw an order in nature, and they posited that there

was a spiritual cosmic principle of order behind it. So here's one philosophy book. It says the logos for the Greeks, this is the philosophy book, was the impersonal harmonious divine structure of the cosmos as a whole. So behind the order in the balance of nature was the logos.

And the word logos, of course, didn't just mean word. It has a broader semantic range than our word word. The logos means purpose or reason, logic, reason for life. In other words, when they say we believe the universe has a logo, that means that there's an absolute truth, there's a reason for its existence.

There's a meaning to things, a purpose to things. I think at the gist of this, this is pretty high, or you're getting kind of philosophical nose, believe I know I've got you up here. To get to the gist of this, I got to talk about our space heaters in our apartment. You know, a local law 11, every so often, they've got to do brick work on the front of

our building. So our building is going through local law 11. You've got these guys going up and down and knocking the bricks out and all that. And during the day, we are not allowed to turn our heaters on because it blows out on the guys.

So I don't know if any of you have looked at the thermometer recently. That can be a problem. So the building gives us space heaters.

Now, the space heaters always come with a set of directions and it's very important to read

the directions because you know what's in the directions, the logos of the space here.

“The design of the space here means that there's certain ways in which you need to use”

the space here. It was built in such a way. You must plug it into these sources, not these sources. You must put it over here, not over here. In other words, you have to use it.

Your use must be aligned with its design, with its reason for existence. It has to be aligned, your use has to be aligned with the things that it was designed to do. It's a reason for existence. If you do not use it in alignment with its logos at best, you will not get the value out

of it. At worst, you will burn down your place, it will be a disaster.

Now, here's what the Greek said.

What if the universe is a logos? What if life has a logos? What if there is a divine kind of order or structure, a kind of spiritual cosmic structure behind the universe, and that would mean that if we got our lives in alignment to it, if we aligned with that, our lives would go well, and if we didn't align with the way things

really are. If we didn't align with the logos, the reason for life of the universe, we would experience that the least at best would be a lack of contentment at worst we might burn our lives down. And so that's what they did.

“What they said is, that's what you have to do.”

You figure out what that logo says, and then you align with it.

with ultimate reality.

“I want my life to be aligned with the fabric of the universe, so I'm living along”

the grain of the universe as it were.

It's perfect sense, except nobody could completely agree on what it was. Stoics, now, by the word you right away, know what I'm going to say, the Greek Stoics believed that what it meant to align your life with the logos was to just accept everything that happened. You see, here's nature, whatever happens in nature is all right, and therefore you align

with it in a stoic cement, you accept everything, stiff upper lip, suffering, death, don't get to you, so that's one way to have a happy life, is you get absolutely aligned with the universe and what they meant by that was everything. Now, you had the Epicurians, you had a lot of other different approaches that said, no, no, no, no, no.

What it means to align with the universe is you just live to make this world a better place for the people who are coming later, and then you live on selfishly. The Epicurians said, no, no, no, you live selfishly, they said, the meaning of life is to find what makes you happy and do it.

“So people had these different approaches, you have to align with it, and then the earthquake.”

It was an earthquake in history, because a long comes John, and John says, oh, there is a logos, but it's not like anything you ever thought, you're looking for principles, you're looking for abstractions, you're looking for books of rules, he says, there is a logos, and it is the thing we are to live for, and the logos is our source of our design, but it's a person, not a principle.

This history book I was reading, a history philosophy book says this, this is written by a French philosophy professor, not a Christian, he says this, I'll start with the quote I already gave you. The logos for the Greeks was the impersonal harmonious, divine structure of the cosmos as a whole, but to the horror of the Greeks, Christians maintain that the logos, in other words,

the cosmic principle, was not the harmonious order of the world, but was a single unique personality, one outstanding individual, namely Christ, not a principle, but an actual person. If the heart of the universe was not impersonal, as the Greeks and Eastern religions believe, but a person, it meant that there was now an unprecedented emphasis on the idea and importance of love in human life.

But there is more, by resting its case upon a definition of the human person and an unprecedented idea of love, Christianity was to have an incalculable effect upon the history of ideas. To give one example it's quite clear that without this Christian reevaluation of the human

person, the philosophy of human rights, to which we subscribed today would never have

established itself, it's absolutely right. This philosophy professor is not a Christian, by the way, goes on and many others are the same thing. If you believe that the universe is essentially impersonal, then people don't really matter, but if you say the meaning of the universe is essentially personal, it comes from a person, a creator, then persons matter, and everyone has rights and dignity,

but here's the point. Here's the point. If you believe that the meaning of life, the reason for life, the logos, is basically an abstract principle, then how do you align

“with that? Only through you have to be smart because you have to do philosophical contemplation”

to figure out what it is, or you have to be scientific and you have to check out the order of nature, and you have to be strong because you've got to align with it, and you've got to be brilliant, you've got to be self-controlled. How elitist is that? What about the rest of us? But along comes Christianity and says, "No, no. There is a logos. Life is not a tale

by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing. There is a meaning to life, but do you want to align with the ultimate reality? You have to have a relationship with a person. You're author, you're creator, the progenitor of us all." And by having a personal relationship of love with him, you are aligned with the universe. That's revolutionary, and I only changed human thought, but of course, it swept the old Roman

Empire, and that was the claim. Do you see how revolutionary it was? Now, having said that, as great as that claim is, and as amazing as that claim is, and as much as it has actually left a permanent imprint on history, Western civilization, because of Christianity,

will always have a higher regard for persons than all other kinds of worldviews or background

civilizations, but the second part of this passage says that in spite of all that, there has been widespread rejection of this claim. In spite of all that, versus five to 11, says there's been widespread rejection of the idea that Jesus Christ is the logos, that he's the meaning of life,

talks about that. It says the true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

“He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.”

He came to that, which was his own, but his own did not receive him. So, this middle section is about the fact that by and large there has been rejection, a wise red rejection of the claim that Jesus is the logos. But to understand that rejection, we need to take a look at one really interesting verse, that some of you, if you're familiar with this passage, realize, often gets translated in different ways depending on the translation. It says the verses five,

the light shines in the darkness, and what does it say here? And the darkness is not overcoming. But you know there are other translations, let's say, the darkness has not understood it. The old King James Bible says, "The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not." And actually one of you, you might be here, what we read this during lessons

“and carols, and one of you in the choir actually came up to me afterwards and said, "Wait a minute,”

this morning it was read," it said, "The darkness is not overcoming, but I thought it was the darkness as not understood it." Now, the reason is because the word that John uses here again very deliberately is a word that is ambiguous. In fact, Don Carson, friend of mine who's written a commentary on the book of John, says about this verse in this word. He says, "This is a masterpiece of planned ambiguity." It's a masterpiece of planned ambiguity because the same word can mean

overcome and understand. So you can either fail to overcome something or fail to understand something. You say, "Well, they don't seem to be related." Well, think of the word master for a minute. What does it mean to master something? To master something might mean to overpower it, but it also can mean to what? To master something. To get it, to figure it out. And I would like you to think for a minute with me what this means is. It's the reasons

planned ambiguity. It means there's two different ways at least of rejecting Jesus Christ. One is to be overtly hostile to him and the other is just to not understand him. Either way, you've rejected him. It's to be overtly hostile or just to not comprehend or get him. Think maybe you do, but you don't. Let's take a look at those two. Jesus was the most influential man to ever walk the earth and his story has been told through books,

“movies and articles in hundreds of different ways. Can anything more be said about him?”

In his book, Jesus the King, Tim Keller journeys through the Gospel of Mark to reveal how the life of Jesus helps us make sense of our lives. Dr. Keller shows us how the story of Jesus is at once cosmic, historical and personal, calling each of us to take a fresh look at our relationship with God. During the month of March, we'll send you a copy of Jesus the King as our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in life share the transforming love of Christ with

people all over the world. So, request your copy today at gospelinlife.com/give. That's gospelinlife.com/give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Let's see how that's playing out now. I mean, John had what he was thinking about his

time, but it's planned out, it's played out over the years. How does it play out today? First of all,

of course, those of us who live in a place like New York City know there's lots of people, who just simply don't like, they're just hostile to the idea that Christianity is the truth, or that Jesus Christ is the absolute truth behind the universe. And even to the idea that there is an absolute truth, even to the idea that there is a logos. So, some people are trying to overcome that, that is to say, they're really, they're hostile to the idea that there even is absolute truth.

Christian Smith is a sociologist who has studied the religious moral and spiritual lives of young adults who live in America. Very interesting books. One of the books is called Souls, as a part of me, Souls in Transition, and one is called Lost in Transition. There's another book on teenagers called Souls, Souls Searching. Now, what he says is by talking to thousands and thousands of young adults about their moral views, he comes to the conclusion that they're moral views have

three characteristics, ready? Three characteristics. Now, listen to this. First of all, they have

very strong moral feelings. Young adults have very strong moral feelings, very much against injustice, against violation of rights, against every treaty anyone without fairness, against exploitation of the poor, not caring for the poor. So, first of all, they have very strong moral feelings. Number two,

to tell somebody else what's right or wrong for them. There's two aspects to that moral relativism.

They would say that morality is personal, personal, specific, and culturally relative, not that they would use those terms as a sociologist, but to say personal, personal, specific is to say, everyone has the right to determine what is right or wrong for them, and you don't have the right to tell somebody else what's right or wrong for them. Culturally relative is that every culture has its own set of more age and ethics, every culture, and your culture should not be telling

their culture that your culture is superior to theirs, that their cultural values are superior to your cultural values. So, first of all, they are strong moral feelings. Secondly, they are morally relative, they are moral relativists. And thirdly, they believe that morality is self-evident. Because if you ask a younger American, why is that wrong? You feel that that's wrong. Why is that

“wrong? They'll say, well, everybody knows it. Well, what are the reasons you believe that's wrong?”

Well, it's just, people know that, everybody know that. You just recognize it.

Now, the sociologist just took a look at these three things, and here's what they can include.

First of all, they can include that this is incredibly incoherent. And you know the way it comes out, they usually, they'll give a younger, listen, some of you, are in some of you aren't in this category of younger adults who live in America, but one of the questions they'll say is, hey, do you know about this country, this culture over here, where the husbands won't even let the wives drive? Women aren't even allowed to have a driver's license.

And you know about this other country over here, where husbands make women can't do this and they can't do that. Do you think that's right or wrong? It's wrong! Why is it wrong? That's their culture.

“Are you saying your culture is better than their culture?”

Total's crickets. And here's why it's incoherent. They as strong moral feelings, they have absolutely no basis for a program of justice. They have no basis on which they can say to somebody you're doing wrong. They have strong moral feelings, but have no way of carrying out any kind of program. It's totally incoherent. And secondly, they point out the sociologists say that these three views, strong moral feelings, moral relativism, and the idea that morality self-evident, which it isn't

by the way. They've already just agrees, not going to be self-evident. The thirdly, they say it's not only incoherent, it's inconsistent. And they point out that younger Americans, even though they feel very strongly, we shouldn't hurt the poor, we should care for the poor, are unbelievably consumeristic and selfish with the way they spend money on themselves. Well, that's a problem. Then that a problem? There's no

“absolute truth. That leads to being inconsistent and incoherent. So what do we do?”

Oh, well, we decide there is a logo. So there is absolute truth. And what do we do? We say, we're going to believe in absolute truth. Oh, yes. There are moral absolutes, and we're going to accept that, and we're going to embrace that, and we're going to bring our lives and alignment with that, and we're going to try to be really good persons. How's that work? And let me tell you how that works. Just to say, those are moral absolutes. There's the logos, and I'm going to live up to it.

It's oppressive. It's oppressive in two ways. It leads to oppression in two ways. Number one, it can either oppress you. It can crush you because you're trying so hard to live up according to it.

And you're never going to get there. And you're always hating yourself. You're always beating yourself

up on just not the person I should be. That's one way of aligning with the universe, but it doesn't work. So one way can be oppressive is that you can live up to it and not live up to it. And so you're, you know, you're oppressed on the inside. The other bad thing that can happen is you can live up to it. You might be one of those of elite people who actually can set your standards in the up to them. In which case, you're not oppressed on the inside. You become an oppressor.

In other words, you become a bigot. You become self-righteous. You become a Pharisee. You become someone who says, "Look, I'm good. Why can't you be suck it up?" I pulled myself together. I've kept myself out of jail. I've made a lot of money. You're poor. You're in jail. You're in this life. What's wrong with you? So you see, if you say, well, there is no logos. There's no moral absolutist. What have you got? Incoherence and inconsistency. So, all right, I'm going to align myself with the logos. There is a

logo, so I'm going to align with it. You have oppression. Either oppression on the inside or oppression through you on the outside. But that's not what Jesus is about. See, it's one thing to say, there is no logos. Another thing to say, well, there is a logos. But it was Jesus about moralism. See, to say, there is no logos as relativism. But to say, there is a logos and I'm

Verse 11, he came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. He came to his own,

but his own received him not. Why? Well, he was Jewish, right? He went to the Jews.

“And they rejected him. Why? Because they didn't comprehend him. They didn't get him. Why?”

Because he did these strange things. He hung out with prostitutes and with sinners. And then he said to the Pharisees, and they were very good people. They were aligned with the absolute truth. One place where Jesus looks at the Pharisees and said the prostitutes and the hormones get into heaven before you. They didn't get him. Because you see, he's not about obviously relativism. Jesus is not. If you're a relativist, you've rejected Jesus. But moralism

is also to reject Jesus. It's not to comprehend him. And that's understand what he's about. And before moving on to the last point, to show how we get out of this conundrum. May I say something very daring? Kind of daring. He's not like some of you said you haven't ever said this before, but it's still feels daring. Who are his own today?

“I mean, if we're talking about Jesus' own, who are the own who's his own today?”

It's us. It's us. It's the church. It's the people who say we're Christians. To what degree do we not get Jesus? To what degree do we not comprehend him? To what degree do we fall into moralism as opposed to understanding the gospel? To what degree are we places that we believe in absolute truth? But we are vehicles for oppression

that is oppression inside. People always feel in guilty and like I can never live up. We're outside.

Okay, now see the problem? Here's the solution. Let me just draw one, just for 90 seconds, what the problem is. On the one hand, you have one way of rejecting this claim, relativism. But the other way of rejecting is moralism. And we are stuck. And I'll tell you why. Our culture has rejected moralism. We don't like it. We don't like people saying they have the absolute truth. We've rejected that. And to put it in a little cultural context, let me just

those of you who are my age, those of you who, you know, your hair is not the same colors used to be. We grew up who are the bad people. If you grew up in America, who are the bad people? Who are the people trying to blow us up? Communists, right? And who are the communists? They didn't believe in God. All right, so religious people were the good people. And the people who didn't believe in God were

“the bad people. And that's what we grew up with. Okay. But a lot of you, whose life looks like”

your hair is what it was when you were born, you grew up with a very, very different situation. Who are the people trying to blow us up now? Religious fanatics. People who think they have the truth, and seeing, if you grew up with that shadow, you don't like religion, or you're scared of it, or anybody who believes too much. But we've just said, if you are, if you say, there is no logo. Somebody has to decide what is right around for you. Do you realize what that is?

Incoherence and inconsistency and no basis for a program of justice, it's a problem. But what's the other problem? Of course, is moralism. So what is there a way through? Is there a way forward? Is there a way to solve this problem? Yes, there has been for 2,000 years, it's called the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and it is beautifully, beautifully put in these last three verses. Memorably, famously, as good a three verses as you'd ever want to explain the Gospel.

To all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave right to become children of God, children born, not of natural descent, nor of human decision, or of a husband's will, but born of God. For the word became flesh, and it is dwelling among us, and we have seen His glory. Glory of the one and only son who came from the Father full of grace and truth.

Okay, first of all, let's just unpack this briefly, but carefully. First of all, it says,

not everybody's a child of God. It has to be received. See, this pushes against the popular idea that all human beings are God's children. Now, the Bible says in one sense that's true, Paul says in Acts 17, we are His offspring. In fact, he's talking to Greek philosophers, interestingly enough. Paul talks to the Greek philosophers, to the Stokes, the Epicurians, the people who were looking for the logos, and all. He says, we are His offspring, and in a sense,

because God created us, yes, just like, you know, Henry Ford is the father of the Model T, and God is our father in a sense that He's our creator, and He's produces. But the Bible, in general, does not say that God is your father, just because you've been born.

is so special in the Bible, it's a gift, how so. Well, if you are an employee, and you have a boss,

and you misbehave, what happens? The more you misbehave, the more your boss's, your boss's regard for you goes down, and eventually you lose your job. You know why? Because

“your job, your relationship with your boss is based on your performance, and a cost benefit analysis, right?”

I mean, not that your boss might not be sympathetic, but if you keep misbehaving, his regard goes down, her regard goes down for you, and eventually you lose your job because your relationship is based on your performance and cost benefit. But if you're a good father, and you've got some children,

and one of them really starts to misbehave, what happens? Your father's heart is more engaged.

Your father love is more intensified, you know why? Because your relationship between a child and a father is not based on performance, it's not a consumer relationship, it's not cost benefit, it is a covenant relationship, it is based on unconditional faithfulness and commitment. And what does that mean? If you don't have an appointment with the President of the United States,

“and you try to guide it to see him, you'll be stopped. If you don't have a appointment with the”

President of the United States, and you start running toward him, you'll be shot. In fact, even if you do have an appointment with the President of the United States, and you start running toward him, you'll probably be shot. But if he's your daddy, because you're his little boy, you're his little girl, you go right in. You don't have to have credentials, you don't have to be worth the President's time. Is it possible? I've relationship like that. With God, the author of the universe,

yes, a relationship is on grace. Why? How could that be? Here's how. The word became flesh, and dwelt among us. And again, it's amazing. John, when he's writing in Greek, he's being so careful, because the word that's there is, it says the word became flesh and tabernackled among us,

“tabernackled. What was the tabernackled? What was the temple? Do you know what it was?”

All around the world. There've always been temples. You know why? Because all human beings

instinctively sense that if there is a God, there's a gap. If there is a God, God is great, and we're small, God is perfect, and we're flawed. If there is a God, there's a gap, and temples replaces to bridge the gap. You had offerings, and you had sacrifices, and you atone for sin, and you sought to do everything you could to bridge the gap. You had priests who did it full time for you. But now we're told, Jesus becomes the tabernackled. Jesus

becomes the temple. He is the ultimate priest, because he's laid down the ultimate sacrifice. When he went to the cross, he died for our sins, and that means he's the temple. He gets rid of the need for temples, and we can become children by grace. Now, that is exactly what you need. You know what that is? We can't live without absolute, but we can't have an oppressive absolute. We need a non-epressive absolute. Okay, everybody? Write this down, memorize this. We need a non-epressive

absolute, and here it is. A man dying on the cross for your sins. A God of strength becoming weak and flesh. A man with life going to the cross and losing his life being the ultimate sacrifice, tabernackling. Becoming our temple. And if you see a man dying for his enemies, sacrificing his life for giving his enemies, that can't make you into an oppressive. On the one hand, that means I'm saved by grace. That won't crush me on the inside. On the other hand,

if I am saved by grace, it's only because I don't deserve it, and I can't feel superior to anybody. Also, that doesn't make me oppressor at anyone else. You say, "But haven't Christians been oppressors in the past?" Yes, only if they didn't comprehend it. See? Only if they didn't understand it. Only if they didn't get it. And the ones who did, the early Christians invented orphanages, invented hospitals. They didn't exist before. They stopped the infanticide of girls. They changed history.

Now you, you, comprehended. Get a relationship with a heart of reality, a love relationship, based on grace. And then go out and take your part in continuing to change history

of who Jesus Christ is. And we ask that you would help us to apply this to our lives. We want to be

“agents out there in the world. The world needs people who not only can help them find God and connect”

to you through Jesus Christ, but even if they don't believe the gospel, they need people around

who have been changed by the gospel. People who are not oppressors, who pour themselves out,

“even for their enemies and opponents the way that your son Jesus did. Oh, Father, please change”

us with the gospel. So the people can see that you sent your son. Help us to apply this to our

lives with always spirit and Jesus name we pray. Amen.

“Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the gospel and life podcast. If you'd like to see more people”

encouraged by the gospel center teaching and resources of this ministry, we invite you to consider becoming a gospel and life monthly partner. Your partnership connects people all over the world with the life giving power of Christ's love. To learn more, just visit gospelandlife.com/partner. That website again is gospelandlife.com/partner. Today's sermon was recorded in 2014. The sermon's in talks you hear on the gospel and life podcast were recorded between

1989 and 2017. Well, Dr. Keller was seen your pastor every deem of Presbyterian Church.