12th January 2025

Beyond New Year’s Resolutions

Passage: John 1:1, 1:14
Service Type:

Real transformation doesn’t come through New Year’s resolutions or geographical relocations—it comes through returning to Jesus Christ, Who is the true beginning. The eternal Word became flesh and dwelt among us, bringing God’s presence into our midst. When we face difficulties or seek a fresh start, the answer isn’t found in changing circumstances alone but in drawing near to Christ, Who is full of grace and truth, and allowing His Holy Spirit to work within us.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] I want to talk about new beginnings. It’s not exactly a New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day message, but a deeper truth. I’m glad Cameron mentioned about theology because I try to bring theology into all of our sermons, not to make it stuffy, but to bring out the truth of the scriptures. And one way we can know, get a way to handle what the scriptures teach is to see how it has been interpreted down through history. And there were some early councils. The early councils were very largely those drawn together by new Christians that have started up since Jesus went back to heaven. And they were evangelical councils. The later ones in history don’t always keep the same tack. But those early ones talked about Jesus. And some of the statements of the scriptures do take a lot of thinking through to get a grasp on them. And well, one I want to speak about this morning is new beginnings. And basically my message is, don’t put too much trust in

[00:01:17] New Year’s resolutions. If you look up in the internet, it’ll tell you that the reasons why many New Year’s resolutions fail. And they usually need to do with our lack of handling the whole scene, our lack of getting good habits established and all sorts of things in our humanity. But if you really want to find a new beginning, it’s actually a bad idea to think that it’s established by some decision that you just make. Or as some people often do, shifting to somewhere different. At the college where I taught over 20 years, and we had students come, some of them came from backgrounds which were not really very Christian at all. One fellow whom I shared a room with came from having come back to God through going to one of those science rooms. It’s a cult actually. But there he sought to find a fresh start with God. He wasn’t converted, but he came to believe the scriptures as he read them in this science group. And the more he stayed there,

[00:02:29] the more he realised that what they were teaching was wrong. And he came to college. He went through college, and he’s gone on, and he’s today working in Baptist churches and serves the Lord. And he’s someone who has stuck with. There are others who came to college, who’d come because of a bit of a a mess in their lives and they came to college to get it all together. They shared with me sometimes the rationale when you’ve made a bit of a mess, it really helps if you go somewhere different. What I discovered is that college has got its temptations as well, it’s got its stresses as well. Going into ministry creates its problems as well and sometimes people who went to get into the ministry to make a new start, they discover they make a mess and do you know

[00:03:20] what they do? They normally just go somewhere else because they’re thinking a new beginning will be created by a new place. I’ve got a burden this morning to tell you that there’s a deeper sense of new beginnings that is seen in the Christian truth. And if you’ve made a mess, don’t think to New Year’s resolution, don’t think that just shifting to Perth or going, that’s a nice city, I was born there, I shouldn’t say bad things about Perth, but don’t think that just a shift will make a new beginning. There is a deeper new beginning I’m talking about this morning that is what the scriptures present and actually what you need is to go back to the new beginning and that’s my

[00:04:14] message. We’ll put it up on the screen, I’ve got four points to help you remember, we’ll put it up on the screen, the first one and it is simply that in John chapter one there’s two statements or there’s actually three if you count them. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And I’m emphasizing the was because it’s about existing in the past in a continuous sense. In the beginning the Word was wasing, meaning it existed, it went on existing. And the Bible teaches that the very most ancient place you can go is to an infinite eternity of the past where there was a person and he’s called the word. Now the expression the word means out speaking, it means message, it means communication.

[00:05:21] And when we talk about our God the Bible teaches that there’s God the Father and there’s God the Son and there’s God the Holy Spirit, three persons in one God. It’s a mystery you can’t untangle in your head, it’s just something that the Bible teaches. And it’s talking here about the second of those three. We call him the second person of the Trinity, there’s three in our one God. In the beginning was the word. You know people have struggled with this understanding of our one God in three persons, not human persons, only one of them came down and became Jesus Christ and he took on humanity. And to do that he had to become born, but he always was. And it’s interesting that in trying to understand that the early coming together of the councils

[00:06:18] in the 300s and the Nicene Council for example, there was a man called Origen of Alexandria and he sought to explain how this is, that there’s this person who is with God and yet was God. In the beginning he was there, he’s always been there, he’s not someone created, he is an eternal being, but he’s called the Son and a son is called a son because there’s a father and it begs the understanding of, what’s the relationship between the father and the son? And this is not a part of the scriptures but in that Council of Nicaea, Origen of Alexandria got together a way of understanding somehow the relation of the father and the son. I’m reading to you a little bit now and in this he says, we believe in one God, the Father,

[00:07:22] the Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and all that is and is seen and unseen. We believe in our Lord Jesus Christ and so you can see, it’s on the screen now, so you can see we believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God. He’s quite alone as the only Son of God eternally that is. This one, eternally begotten of the Father. Now this little phrase, it’s written by a person in a creed and it’s caused a bit of angst around different theological circles, even in our Baptist Union we put this into at one stage the things that we all believe. Some people complained, this is all, no he’s not begotten, he always was. They just didn’t know this statement in the early creeds but how the first council interpreted Jesus always being there and yet he is the only Son of God. It was worded eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made. That was the point

[00:08:44] the creed was making, that Jesus was never a manufacturer of the Father. He always was, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the actual little word for with his face to face. Prost, the little word in the Greek means the Word was face to face with the Father. He always was there in eternity with the Father, begotten not made of one being with the Father. I think it’s a fairly good description though it is not a part of scripture, it’s a creed manufactured by some of the best understandings of the time back in the 300s. We have our trust and inspiration of the scriptures, we don’t believe the creeds are necessarily always true. But it’s not worth fighting about, it’s actually a good description trying to understand how this one, the eternal Word, the one that is the expression, the one that is the out speaking, the one who becomes the message from the Father. The word Logos is often meaning message, and Jesus

[00:09:57] is the one who was sent to take on humanity born in Christmas. There was a beginning, he always was in the beginning but there was beginning of his coming to earth and that’s what we’ve just been through as Christmas, because Christmas is the beginning of the unveiling of the great gospel of God promised before in the Old Testament but revealed in the coming of Jesus when Jesus came into the world that was the moment of the beginning of opportunity for us to be brought back right with God through Jesus. It was the beginning. My voice to say to you today don’t think you have to go somewhere else to make a new beginning. What you’ve got to do is get back to the beginning. Come back close to God. Come back close to Christ and you will find your new beginning that way. It’s actually a mistake to

[00:10:58] think that you can just take a new place of living and all your problems are gone because what you’ve discovered is the same old problems you had made you leave the previous place is what you find in the new one. But if you go back to the beginning in Jesus, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Well it’s interesting that these two statements that are here in John chapter 1 also follow on in John 1 and verse 14. And so if we turn to John 1.14, I’m actually doing an exegetical way of preaching from the Scriptures where you take statements that involve each other but they might be separated in the text. And John 1.1 and John 1.14 are like that. And when you put the two, three statements in John 1 together with

[00:11:59] the two statements or whatever it is in John 1.14, suddenly it all flashes together. And the Word became flesh. That’s talking about Jesus being born. Jesus the baby. He took on humanity and when the Scriptures talk about flesh, it’s talking about our humanity. It’s a bit of a metaphor. Sometimes when it uses the word flesh it just means what’s under the skin. There’s not very much undermine because I need to fatten up a bit. But flesh is also used in the Scriptures to mean what we are as humans. And it’s taken to mean what we are as humans in our fallen estate. And because of what happened at the beginning of time when people sin, there is within our humanity a bent to go the wrong way. There is an inability to always do what we know God says is right. And that’s why

[00:13:03] many people find themselves in a position of not being able to continue because they’ve made a mess. But the mess is actually an outworking of what is the sinfulness of our flesh. And the answer of the sinfulness of the flesh that the Bible presents is in the person of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. For after Jesus had finished his mission and returned to heaven and was crowned King of Kings and Lord of Lords, he and the Father sent the Holy Spirit to their believing disciples. The Holy Spirit to give you the capacity to be Christians. And there’s no such thing as being a successful Christian on the basis of how severely you dedicate yourself. I’ve often been to meetings and heard preachers calling on people to be dedicated or heard preachers coming to

[00:14:03] young people and saying you’ve got to, you know, do the discipleship. All true statements but they won’t answer the problem because the problem is that we have the flesh. And God, knowing that we needed a new beginning, sent his son to take on flesh. That’s what Jesus did by taking on humanity, becoming the God man. He didn’t stop being God but he started being human. And in that sense this son who was always with the Father and how did the, how did it, how was it worded in the creed, it says, begotten but not made. This one became begotten in another sense so that the Father could look down at the cradle in Bethlehem where little baby Jesus is and say this day he’s begotten a son. In his humanity coming into existence Jesus is begotten in a second sense. He’s begotten in an

[00:15:07] eternal sense that he’s the eternal begotten son, begotten and not made but he’s begotten also in the human sense that he’s taken on flesh and taken on what we are. And God the Father looks down from heaven and sees a son who’s also a human son as well as his divine son. That’s the beginning. The person of Jesus is the beginning and if you’re in a position where you need something to go better I’m telling you this morning to get back to the beginning but the beginning is an eternal beginning to do with Jesus and how he came into the world to create our salvation and he and his taking on humanity was a He might succor us humans that means help you know give us the nutrients give us the comfort give us the ability to continue that he might succor you as a Christian

[00:16:11] and if you found that you haven’t succeeded call out to God and say God I haven’t done very well he’s not why let me tell you he won’t be very surprised because he knows all of us that we are sinful people, and when you come to Christ, you know the forgiveness of sins, but you’re yet to learn how to trust the Holy Spirit to reproduce God’s walk in you, God’s power in you, to reproduce the life of Jesus now by His Spirit sent from heaven to indwell you. That’s why becoming a Christian is not only what you believe in your mind, not only the creeds that you follow not only the worship that you do, but being a Christian has an element that you need to receive the Holy Spirit into your very being. That happens when

[00:17:03] you first come to Christ or else it happens after you’ve tried to come to Christ, but it never worked. And if you’ve come to a place of desperation, read the book of Romans where our Apostle Paul went through such a desperation and the chapters in the middle tell of how he found he couldn’t get past the sinfulness in his flesh. A wretched man that I am, he said, who shall deliver me from this body of death? And he pictured himself as like in prison and what they used to do in the olden days is to get these awful prisoners and they’d chain them, take off their shirt and all, and they’d chain them back to back with a dead corpse. It was called the body of death and the worms and the rotten nuts ate through into their backs flesh and the prisoners would cry out that there was no

[00:17:57] deliverance from their bodies of death. And Paul likened that as a metaphor to what it is for us as Christians. He was a Christian, he became a Christian. He had been trying hard as a Jewish person to live well, but the sinfulness in the flesh got to him anyway and in desperation he cried, who shall deliver me from this body of death? Then that’s the end of that chapter and the next chapter he says, but thanks be unto God. We’re at the chapter turn that says, thanks be unto God. And he talks about what through Christ can happen because if you found yourself in a position of needing to make a new start, don’t think it’ll happen just because you swap your partner. It’ll happen because you just find a new job. Sometimes those things are necessary to do but they’re not the

[00:18:56] total pan answer for everything. It is go back to the beginning and the beginning is a person, the person who always was, the person who took on humanity and became your Savior and in his becoming your Savior he lived under the law and kept it and qualified to be a sacrifice on the cross for our sins. He rose again the third day and returned to heaven and has been made King of Kings and Lord of Lords and he sits at the right hand of the father to make intercession for you for me because he the beginning is your answer and right now in glory he’s praying for you the only thing you need to do is to run to him we actually have some music which talks this way I don’t know what the song is called but it talks about running to Jesus if you are in that position you don’t need to run

[00:20:03] to Timbukh too, you need to run to Jesus well as interesting how the passage goes on he took on flesh, the word became flesh my third point is that what he did when he took on flesh and it says it’s hard in the English to really pick it up it says he dwelt amongst us, the word became flesh and dwelt amongst us now Now that word dwelt tells a lot more than what our English translation dwelt gets across. It’s actually the word tabernackels and they were very used to tabernackels back then. Tabernackels were tenty affairs. Now I don’t know what your feelings are of going in a tent. My ones about going in a tent is it depends on who are in the other tents nearby and if you go to a beach and there’s a bunch of people all getting drunk and singing stupid

[00:21:03] songs I sometimes want to move my tent. Tents make you very accessible to the person near you but just on the other side if there’s someone very special it might be that you’re a young person and you go and there’s a bit of a hero figure that you love to follow around and there in the other tent. The tent next door to you is really close. The word tabernackel means to make a special tent. God asked the Israelites to do long before they got around to ever being told to get a temple and there were special instructions because inside the tent would be things that indicated the presence of God. God wanted whenever they went moving from one place, one geographical place to another,

[00:21:58] that they would take the tent with them. In fact he gave special instructions as to how the movement would be made. When they got to stand up and begin to follow as Moses or Aaron might be guiding them to go there was a certain order that they had to get themselves into them in their own tents and their own materials and all. But they had to be in these certain positions where the tabernackel that God created for his special arch and all was right in the middle. The middle not at the front, not at the back. The middle not at one side, nor the other, but right in the very middle. When they were to move onto the next place they always were to get up in a certain order

[00:22:44] so that the tabernacle of God stayed in the middle. It was an enormous sign of what God intended by him having a tabernacle to represent his presence because he always promised that he’d be with his people. And what you need when you’ve had a problem is the assurance of Jesus that he’s with you. And this word here, he dwelt amongst us, he came and tabernacle amongst us and the precedent of the Old Testament and how their tempting and shifting was that you keep the tabernacle in the middle of you. One of the dangers of people who’ve made a mess in one place and they go somewhere else

[00:23:25] is somehow not being tied down. They don’t make the same connections, they don’t make the same opportunity of worship and everything falls through you be staggered how many people I meet when I used to travel around as an itinerant evangelist and meet people who said, yes, when I was young I went to this church or that church, oh yes, but somehow I’ve had a job out here and there’s no one I know, and somehow they’ve just not managed to keep the tabernacle of God in mind. He dwelt amongst us. He tabernacle amongst us. It is that God wants to be with you. He is the beginning. Are you getting my point? Jesus is the beginning. You’d never get past needing to be close to the beginning in Jesus. The verse goes on to say, and we have seen His glory, the glories of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. The Old

[00:24:29] Testament readers knew that reference to when Moses asked to see God. God had him kept in the cleft of the rock, and God promised he’d pass on by. Well, he didn’t see very much. He saw some shadowy thing pass by, but he heard God pronounce a number of his names. But the final two in the Hebrew is the word for grace and the word for truth. When you look at a Greek translation of the Old Testament Hebrew, they take the word for grace and you know the word they put in there is agape, love. And when you read the New Testament and I’ve got you the English translation up on the screen, grace and truth, that’s agape. It’s the word for truth. These are the two deepest, most telling attributes of God himself. And when Jesus came to earth, He brought God with Him. He always was the begotten of the Father, God from God, Son from Father. And when Jesus comes to you, He brings the very depth of God with Him. He is, always will be, there isn’t any other beginnings

[00:25:50] than Jesus. And He’s full of love and truth, the type of love by the way that is full of grace, the type of truth that’s dependable and always stays the same. And one of the greatest things to do if you’ve made a mess is to cling to the things that stay the same, the grace and the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ. The word became flesh and He tabernacle amongst us. So no matter how flimsy may be your present dwelling, and that might be a metaphor of all sorts of circumstances you have. When you have a big tabernacle of the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ and He’s close to you, you know you’re back at the beginning. I hope you get my message. It’s a simple one today. The humanity of Jesus, Jesus with us, is one of the key understandings of what it is to be a Christian, to know the closeness of Christ and to rest in Him alone. Let me pray. Father I thank you this morning for these statements in two different verses. They’re separated by 13 other

[00:27:24] verses, but they sort of hinge together. And when we take them all together, John 1.1 and John 1.14, we see wherein lies the beginning. And I pray that you help us all to be people who go away from this service, intent on holding Jesus close, of letting ourselves rest in Him. Thanks be unto God, cried the Apostle Paul. When you use that metaphor of being chained with back to back with the body of death, thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. We give you praise in His name. Amen.

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