The following is a sermon preached at the First Presbyterian Church of Jackson, Mississippi. This morning we are continuing our Advent meditations on the prologue to the gospel of John, and we come today to the central section, verses 10 through 12. If you would take a Bible in hand and turn there with me, please, you'll find that on page 886. These verses offer profound teaching packaged in a very simple contrast. First, in verses 10 and 11, there is a shocking rejection. The world rejects Jesus. And I suspect that we ought all to feel far more scandalized by the wrongness of that especially when we meet it in our own hearts today than we typically do. A shocking rejection. And then secondly, by contrast, in verses 12 and 13, there is a saving reception. Despite the rejection of the world, some people receive Jesus by faith, and John tells us about the privileges and blessings that come to us when we do. So there's a contrast, a shocking rejection, a saving reception. Before we look at them, let's bow our heads and ask for the Lord's help, and then we'll read His Word together. Let us all pray. Lord our God, would you now, by the illumination of the Holy Spirit, give us understanding? Let the light of the world, the Lord Jesus, shine His saving light into all our hearts, for the glory and praise of your name. Amen. John chapter 1 at the tenth verse, this is the Word of God. He, Jesus, the Word, the Light, He was in the world, and the world was made through Him. Yet the world did not know Him, He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him. But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Amen. Now, it's not polite to talk about unwelcome guests at Christmas, but it happens, doesn't it, unwelcome guests? Crazy Uncle Joe who invites himself over and won't leave. The friends who arrived 40 minutes before the time on the invitation and you're not ready yet. Yesterday, I saw a video clip of a family putting up their Christmas tree in Louisiana, only to find a rat living in the branches and there was mortal combat between the rat and the family cat. If you haven't put your tree up yet, you might wanna check. For unwelcome guests living in the branches, unwelcome Christmas guests is a thing. The irony of John 1, 10 and 11, the first part of our passage, is that Jesus Christ himself was the original and likely the most unwelcome Christmas guest in history. Would you look at the text with me, chapter 1, verses 10 and 11? John, remember, has called Jesus the Word and the Light who was coming into the world. But then he tells us he was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. So here, first of all, is a shocking rejection. Jesus Christ was not welcome. You'll notice, John says first, that Jesus is the creative Lord, come into His own creation only to be dismissed by it. one by whom all things were made, and without whom was not anything made that has been made." He stepped, as it were, personally into the world that he made, taking into union with himself, the eternal God taking into union with himself, the human nature born of the Virgin who wrapped Him in swaddling cloths and laid Him in a manger and called His name Jesus. The Creator came into the world as a creature, but the world that He made into which He was born remained ignorant of His presence, uncaring, unengaged, disinterested. When John says the world did not know Him, he means The world misidentified him, misconstrued the meaning of his arrival. If it took any notice, it saw only a peasant girl having her first child in the obscurity of a tiny provincial backwater of the Roman Empire. Who would care about that baby? Who cares for him? There's nothing special about him at all. For the most part, we find plenty to be amazed at in the world that Jesus made, don't we? But when he himself came into that world, John says we had no real interest in him. Paul Beasley Murray says that, quote, in some ways, the reaction of the world to Jesus is a bit like a concert audience rapturously applauding the performance of some immensely moving symphony or concerto, and yet refusing to give any credit to the composer as he comes on stage to take a bow. We quite like the world that he made, but we don't particularly care for the one who made it. We like the symphony, we don't care to recognize the composer. It is shocking, isn't it? Jesus is the creative Lord, come into his own creation, only to be dismissed by it. But what's worse, John says, is that Jesus is also the covenant Lord, come to his own people, only to be rejected by them. And here the scandal builds to a crescendo, doesn't it? Look again at verse 11. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. The Greek here is interesting. His own, in the first part of verse 11, translates the word idia, which is a neuter plural. So it means he literally, he came to his own things. It's neuter, so it's his own things. All this stuff of the world is his by rights. It all belongs to him. He is literally lord of all that he surveys. But then look at the second clause. John speaks now about his own people. That phrase there, that English phrase, actually translates to the same single Greek words only now it's a masculine plural. Not idia, neuter, but idioi, masculine plural. He came to his own people. So, Jesus, who owns all things as its Maker and Lords, stands uniquely related to a specific group of human beings to whom he came that first Christmas. Now, John might mean nothing more by that than that like his mother Mary, whose genetics he shared, Jesus was Jewish. But that's hardly a startling truth, is it? And given the parallel here between verses 10 and verse 11, John clearly intends something much more significant. The Jewish people into which he was born are his own, not simply by lineal descent and genetic inheritance. They are his own because he is their covenant lord. He is the one who led Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees. He called Moses and named himself the Great I Am in the burning bush. He brought the Israelites out of Egypt and guided them in the wilderness by the cloud and fiery pillar. He led them into the land of Canaan and gave them victory over their enemies. He was the heir of all the covenant promises. He was the seed of the woman who crushed the serpent's head. He is the seed of Abraham, in whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed. He is the seed of David, who shall reign from his father's throne forever. He was the one of whom all the prophets spoke, the shoot from the stump of Jesse, the wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. He came that first Christmas, not merely as a Jewish child born in the heartland of his people. He came as their covenant Lord, for whose arrival they had all been waiting for centuries. And here he is now, come at last to his own people, the ignorant pagan world. They may have cared nothing for his birth, shrugged and yawned at his appearing, but surely not his own covenant people. They had the Scriptures. the history, the temple, the priesthoods. God had shown them again and again His own faithfulness and love to them, keeping all His promises, sending His Word to them by the prophets. Surely they, surely they would embrace Him now that He has come. But, says John, He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him. He wasn't welcome And it's not just that they didn't quite connect all the dots, trace the prophetic details correctly, do the math, and arrive at the right conclusions. In fact, do you remember when the wise men arrived in search of Christ? They called at the palace and spoke with Herod, and Herod gathered the Bible scholars. and asked, where would Messiah be born? And they quote the Scriptures accurately and correctly to Herod. He will be born in Bethlehem. But instead of immediately hastening to bow before the Messiah, the newborn King, you remember Herod plotted his execution by sentencing all the infant boys to death. They knew the Scriptures. They had the information. It wasn't ignorance that led to their rejection of Jesus Christ. It was something much deeper and much darker, wasn't it? The reason people don't want Jesus isn't that they don't yet have all the facts. It's that our hearts are turned in rebellion against our Creator and the Lord of the covenants. Of all people, the Jews ought to have embraced Jesus Christ gladly. They were the covenant people. They had the Scriptures. They knew so much about their coming Messiah, and yet when He arrived, they wanted nothing to do with Him. They denied Him, condemned Him, crucified Him. And we need to feel the shock and the scandal of that rejection, especially when we meet it in ourselves and in others to this day, particularly when they have been raised in the church. After all, they, too, know all the facts. They've heard the Scriptures. It's not an information problem. It's a heart problem. Later on in John's Gospel in chapter 3 at verse 19, John will tell us plainly why both the pagan world and the covenant people did not receive Jesus Christ. Here's the reason. The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. John wants us to feel the wrongness of the human rejection of Jesus Christ, our Creator and our covenant Lord. We love the darkness rather than the light. If we're going to understand what Christmas really means, why Jesus really came, it has to start not just with getting the facts straight about Him. That's important. We must have that, but we need more. We need repentance. because our problem isn't intellectual in the end. That's what this passage is telling us, isn't it? Our problem is moral and spiritual. It's a heart problem. We are against God, opposed to Christ, rebelling against the light. We love our sin. We love the darkness rather than the light. We don't want to bend the knee to the mastery of King Jesus. John is holding up a mirror for us here. I wonder if you can see yourself in it. Neither the world of Gentile pagans nor the covenant people of scripturally aware Jews wanted Jesus Christ. That's everybody, by the way. That's the human race in total, isn't it? That's me and you. We are sinners in the sight of God, justly deserving His displeasure and without hope, save in His sovereign mercy. Sin blinds our eyes. Our hearts are dead in our trespasses and sins. We love the darkness rather than the light. Do you feel the wrongness, the shock, the scandal of our rejection of Him, Jesus Christ? He is God the mighty Maker. He is the Lord of covenant love. He came into His own world, born among His own people, and we refused Him and rejected Him and condemned Him. The next two verses will explain something of the privilege and blessedness enjoyed by those who do receive Jesus Christ. But before we can enjoy those blessings and privileges, we have to own the reality of our traitorous hearts. Perhaps the place to start is to ask God right now today, to ask Him to awaken in you a fresh sense of the scandal and shock of your own sin. Ask Him to make you feel the wrongness of your rebellion against Him until you begin to be appalled at yourself. How could I do that, think that, say that against the One who made me, who was born as one of us, that infant in the womb of the Virgin and laid in a manger and was crucified for me and my deliverance? How can I live this way, be this way, still, so glibly, without a second thought, turned so readily still to selfishness and lust and anger and greed and pride and laziness. Again and again I'll sing His praises on Sunday and then live as I please the rest of the week long. How is it possible? Oh, God, Help me to hate the reality of my sin, to be appalled at it till I turn from it and run with it to Jesus Christ for pardon and for peace. There's no hope any other way. And so, first, there is the shock of rejection. The shock of rejection. John wants you to feel it. Look at your own heart. and be appalled and grieve and repent." The shock of rejection. But then look at verses 12 and 13, and notice there's also a saving reception. not everybody rejected Jesus. John writes in verse 12, all who did receive Him who believed in His name. He writes about those who received Him and believed in His name. Now, just linger here for a moment, because this is really important. Alongside the negative act of turning from our sin, there must also be this positive act of turning to Jesus Christ. Both are necessary. Alongside repentance, there must also always be faith. All faith that really saves repents, and all true repentance flees to Jesus Christ for mercy and for pardon. And if you look at the first part of verse 12, I want you to see how John helps us understand an essential characteristic of authentic saving faith. It's not just knowing facts about Jesus, nor is it merely assenting to those facts and acknowledging them to be reliable and true. Saving faith is more. Notice this language in the text. Saving faith receives Christ. And in the second part of John's phrase, we are helped to understand what that means. Look again at verse 12. John says they received Him. That is, they believed in His name. Or even more literally, John uses a construction that means they believed into His name. Saving faith brings us into personal union and fellowship with Jesus Christ. We receive Him. Question 87 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism echoes Jordan's language here beautifully when it defines the faith that will save us as a saving grace whereby we receive and rest upon Jesus Christ alone for salvation as He has offered to us in the gospel. The faith that saves is not inherited from your mom and dad. It isn't embraced because it is culturally normal. It isn't a promise that you make before the church because others somehow expect it of you. The faith that saves is like hands that get a hold of Jesus Christ for ourselves. It rests on Him to rescue us. It connects us to Him for a righteousness that we do not possess, that He possesses, that we might find acceptance and peace with God because of who He is and what He has done. We're joined to Christ, united to Christ. We believe into Christ. We receive Christ and rest upon Christ when we come to trust in Him. And so, first, John wants us to recoil in horror at our rejection of Jesus, and then he wants us to turn to the Lord Jesus in repentance and in true faith, receiving Him for our own. One more thing about verse 12, our version translates the opening words as, but to all who did receive Him. I think a better translation actually says something more like, as many as received Him. In other words, there's an implicit offer and promise. in that turn of phrase. As many as receive Jesus, as many as believe into Him, as many as want Him for their Savior, as many as come to Him, this many, John says, he will assuredly deliver and forgive and save forever. No one ever came to Jesus looking for pardon and peace, to be turned away. As many as receive Him, as many as believe in Him, if you receive Him, if you believe in Him, He will be your Savior and your Lord. He's being offered to you here, held out as a life ring in a raging storm-tossed ocean, you are going down, you're sinking fast. Take Him! Take Him! Come to Him. Call out to Him. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. Well, what happens when you do? What does the text say? What happens when you receive Him by believing on His name? What happens? You become, John says, you become a child of God. Did you know that in the United States babies are least likely to be born on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, or New Year's Day? There are 30 to 40 percent fewer births on those days than on the most popular days of the year. The reason, of course, is obvious, neither the expectant mothers nor the doctors who will deliver their babies want to be in the delivery room over the holidays, and so they don't schedule deliveries on that day. And the result is that nowadays, Christmas babies are really rather rare things. But of course, when Mary had Jesus, there wasn't a Christmas day yet. There was no delivery room, no OBGYN avoiding scheduling Mary's first delivery on a day when he wants to be home eating a Christmas feast and opening presents with his family. No, no, that first Christmas, it was just Mary and Joseph in a stable making do on an unremarkable day just like any other. And while we rightly celebrate the wonder of what happened that first Christmas, In verses 12 and 13, notice this, John isn't only talking about Jesus' birth anymore, is he? He's actually talking about our birth too, our new birth, our second birth. Look how he puts it, first in verse 12. There's a legal component to this, isn't there? When we repent of our sin and trust in Jesus, believing into His name, John says he gives the right to become children of God. We are adopted into the family of God. He gives us the right, the legal standing child of God. Remember, John says we believe into the name of Jesus. We're given the right to the family name. That's what happens when we adopt a child today, isn't it? Our name becomes their name, and they're now entitled legally to the same rights and privileges as any child naturally born into the family. Well, in the court of heaven, when you believe in Jesus Christ, the record of your sin is obliterated. It's as if your old self, your old name, is expunged from heaven's record. And all that remains now is the name, the record of Jesus Christ into whom you have believed, under whose righteousness you are hidden. The righteousness of Christ overwrites the old records, and you are accepted now as a child of God with all the rights and privileges that your new status brings you. But unlike in a human adoption, When we become the children of God, it is much more than merely an act of legal transfer. We could have the courts change the surname of a child so that she now has our surname. That's possible. What's not possible is to change her genetic inheritance. She might have the family name, but she can't have the family DNA if she's been adopted. But when we become Christians, we do get the new name, but we also get a new nature. Our spiritual DNA is rewritten. Do you see how John makes that point precisely in verses 12 and 13? Jesus gives those who believe the right the legal right to become children of God, but they are children, notice, who are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. There's a fundamental spiritual change in the constitution of a human being that takes place when he or she is brought to trust for themselves in Christ alone for salvation. She is born again. born, notice the language John uses, not of blood. That is to say, not by consequence of blood descent or pedigree. Your salvation is not a right you possess simply because of your family name. You might be a third- or fourth-generation Presbyterian. child of this church, and there are many great and wonderful blessings that you possess in consequence of those facts. But if you stand before God in the final judgment, armed with nothing but your family name, however illustrious that name might be, you will find the gates of heaven closed forever to you. Our heavenly citizenship must be secured by other means than merely our family pedigree. So if you're a Christian, your spiritual life comes not of blood, but neither is it a consequence, John says, of the will of the flesh. That is, it's not yours in consequence of your own decision or strength or power acting in your own interest. You do not cause yourself to be born again. You don't convert yourself. It's not in your power to secure new birth whenever you wish it. No, no, listen, there are no self-made children of God. You don't, you can't save you. New life is not of blood, nor is it of the will of the flesh, nor, John says thirdly, is it of the will of man. If you're a Christian today, it's not because somebody else made you one, required you to be one, expected you to be one. No one can manipulate you into the new birth. No one can persuade you into the new birth or compel you to become a child of God. There are no levers of human power that can cause a person to be born again. There's only one source of new spiritual life. We must be born of God. It is His gift. Have you been born of God? Have you? I'm not sure there's a more fundamental or important question that you will ever have to answer than that. Are you born again? You must be born again. The great beauty of the Christian gospel is that having come into the world as one of us, Jesus Christ the Creator, the covenant Lord, against whom we all have so terribly offended, nevertheless offers to sinners like us the legal right to adoption into the family of God and a supernatural change of nature that makes us into children of God. He gives the great gift of the new birth. That's why later in the New Testament when John writes his first letter and he touches on this topic, he can hardly contain himself. He almost sings, behold, what manner of love the Father has given to us that we, wretched sinners, we should be called the children of God. There is no greater privilege than this, to be a child of the living God through faith in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. I wish I had time to stop here and unpack the glories of our adoption. Just for your encouragement as we close, I want to merely name the three of the principal blessings that are yours, believer in Jesus. having been adopted into His family. Just for your encouragement, three things your sonship gives you. Number one, adoption and new birth give us communion, because God is your Father now. He hears you when you talk to Him. Matthew 6, 6, when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Abba, Father's ears are always open to you now, child of God. You can draw near to Him with confidence and boldness, because you have been adopted and born again. Communion. Secondly, adoption and new birth gives us correction. because God is your Father now. He will discipline you in love so that you learn to live like the child of God you really are. Hebrews 12, 7, it is for discipline that you are to endure. God is treating you as sons. Verse 10, our earthly fathers disciplined us for a short time, it seemed best to them, but God disciplines us for our good that we may share His holiness. Never forget, believer in Jesus, that painful, providential discipline, however sore it may be in your life, is a token of Abba, Father's love. God is treating you as His child, disciplining you that you might be like Jesus Christ. He loves you. One of the great privileges of your adoption is your Father's correction, communion correction, and finally, adoption and new birth give us care. Because He is your Father now, He will provide for your earthly life and for the life to come. Matthew 6, 13, do not be anxious, saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles, that is the unbelieving world, seek after these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you also, because you are His child now. You are under the relentless, comprehensive, perfect watch-care of Abba Father, and He will never fail to provide for you. What a gift. What a gift we've been given in our adoption into the family of God. Do you see it? Do you feel its gravity and beauty and worth? We have the Father's communion and correction and care. All this He gives us, not because of blood or pedigree, because of the will of the flesh as if we made this happen to ourselves, not because of the will of man as if someone else did this to us. No, we enjoy those blessings because we are born of God. He has done it. It's all a gift. And so let me end simply by asking you, which best describes you? Which side of this contrast do you find yourself on? Are you among those who persist in the shocking scandal of rejection? Creatures who deny their creative Lord who made them and came and dwelt among them, covenant breakers who reject their covenant Lord who nevertheless has spoken to them, pleading with them by His holy Word? Will you be among those who receive Him savingly, who believe into His name, to whom the Lord Jesus gives the right to be called children of God, born of God, with access to the Father's communion and correction and care? The choice is set before you. May the Lord help you to answer and indeed to trust in Christ for yourself. this Christmas, let's pray. Our Father, we bless You that You call sinners by the gospel into Your Son, Jesus Christ. And in union with Him, we are changed forever, made children of God, born of God. Grant, O Lord, that we may prize those great privileges more highly than we have. Forgive us for living as though we were not your children, living as though we were yet children of the dark rather than of the light, and how we pray for those here, especially our Father, for the covenant children of this church, who have enjoyed such great privileges, who know the information, all the facts, but whose hearts still remain cold and distant to you. Grant, O Lord, that today they might repent and receive Christ, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.