Sermon Central
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Welcoming Jesus To Your Neighborhood
Contributed by Vinnie Cappetta on May 14, 2006 (message contributor)
Summary: Jesus has moved into your sub-division. The challenge is to introduce Him to everyone else. Are you up for the challenge?
Welcoming Jesus into Your Neighborhood
Pinnacle of this passage
v.14 Word became human and lived here among us!
We know Jesus. We love Jesus and have a relationship with Him. His light benefits us in so many ways. The challenge we have is how to share that light with others (the people in our neighborhood).
Are we sharing the light we have with others?
Through the incarnation, Jesus literally moved into our neighborhood (earth) and wants us to introduce Him to the people we know.
Since the beginning of time, God has been communicating and sharing His light with us humans.
v.1 WORD=Jesus
The word “word” in the Greek language is Logos. Jesus is God’s LOGO or communication to us. God sent us a logo or an image of what He is like when He sent Jesus into the world.
Since the beginning, God’s been talking to us.
God spoke each day to Adam in the Garden of Eden. Contrast that with what the serpent did with Eve. The serpent attacked everything that God had communicated to the first couple. The Evil one always attacks God’s communication to us.
What has God been communicating?
v.4 He has been communicating to us about Jesus: Life was in Him; His life gives light
Creator: He (Jesus) created your neighbors and knows what they need.
In John 10, Jesus said,
“My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.”
Do your neighbors want life in all its fullness?
“But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”
Jesus brings life but he also bring light.
v.5 light shines through the darkness and the darkness can never extinguish it.
Paul said that he could be chained up and imprisoned but the Word of God cannot be chained.
I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.
So if this life is so desirable and this light is so effective, then how do we go about sharing it?
*TELL PEOPLE ABOUT THE LIGHT
John the Baptist was a witness (Marturia); so are you
A witness has a testimony; so do you
“I don’t know what to say to someone.”
A witness isn’t allowed to talk about what he doesn’t know. Just say what you know. You know what to say! You are the only one who knows your own testimony. Share it with others.
And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying (LOGOS) of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did.
Jesus is God’s LOGOS, and you have a LOGOS (saying: a testimony).
John the Baptist didn’t tell about things he didn’t know; he told what he knew. It was a simple message. What do you know?
*LOOK FOR THE LIGHT IN OTHERS
v.9 Christ gives light to everyone
The Spirit draws people to Christ. Jesus said, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.”
What light do you see in others?
What evidence do you see of God’s work in their lives?
We think we have to do the all the talking but it’s about listening.
*POINT OUT THE LIGHT IN OTHERS
v.10 though He made the world, world didn’t recognize Him.
Imagine that feeling for Jesus-coming to world and having it reject Him.
Imagine the feeling people will have at the end of time when they are confronted with the fact that they rejected the light they were given.
Part of our job to help people recognize Jesus working in their lives.
When you see the light in someone’s life, you should point it out.
Emmaus Road: just after resurrection, two walking with Jesus, didn’t know him, hearts burned within them. They didn’t recognize Jesus.
If one of them would have pointed out the fact that his heart was burning within him, the other might have recognized that it was Jesus.
Who is your companion on Emmaus Road; are you doing all that you can to help him find Jesus?
*POINT OUT THE BENEFITS OF ACCEPTING THE LIGHT
v.11 Came to his own, his own didn’t accept Him
v.12 For those who do accept Him, He gives power (right, authority, jurisdiction) to become children of God
Rebirth from God
v. 14 Jesus pitched His tent among us
Jesus was born into our neighborhood so that we could be born into His neighborhood!
B/c He is in the neighborhood, v.14 we get to see His glory.
Transfiguration: Peter, James, John
Seeing His glory brought humility to Peter
Humility shown by John the Baptist: “Someone far greater than I is coming”
