Turn your Bibles to John's Gospel, John Chapter 1. John's Gospel is different from the other three Gospels, which are often called the Synoptic Gospels, and John starts his Gospel off in a very different way, and then he gives sharp focus to a man named John the Baptist. John Chapter 1. John Chapter 1. Let me pick up the reading at verse 29. John 1.29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me. I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel. And John bore witness, I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and have borne witness. that this is the Son of God. Well, let's again look to the Lord. Father, we are thankful that we have a God that we know and that knows us. We'll never know you as you know us. You know us perfectly. You know everything about us. You know even the number of hairs upon our head. And we find comfort in that as your people because that means no matter what our trials in life, no matter what we face in life. You are never ignorant of those trials or those difficulties. You are one who always shows His grace and mercy. You are the good shepherd who takes care of His sheep. And we pray tonight that You would show even Your shepherding care by feeding us in those green pastures of truth. We pray, Lord, that You would teach us, that You would lead us and help us to better understand who your son is, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we pray this in his name. Amen. When we open up John's Gospel, we meet John the Baptist. And he first introduces himself, but in a very short or abbreviated way. It's sort of like a little handshake, if you look back. He is asked, is he the Christ? He says in verse 20, I am not the Christ. And then they ask him a few more questions. He answers with a simple no, and then again he says in verse 23, I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness. But he doesn't say a whole lot about himself, but when it comes to Jesus, John really likes to talk about Jesus. We see that right here in verse 29 and following. He's sort of like, The Apostle Paul, when you read the letters by the Apostle Paul, you see they are saturated with Jesus Christ theology and terminology. It's not a dry of dust kind of theology, but an experiential theology, because that man Paul knew Christ at a deep personal level. There's a difference, isn't there? between knowing about someone and actually knowing someone. But if you're a Christian, that should be one of your great ambitions in life, to know the Lord Jesus Christ more and more and more. And to know Him, we have to study our Bibles, because the Bible is about Jesus Christ. But you could ask the question, where do you begin? Well, you can begin where John began. You can begin with eternity. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. You could also begin with creation. That's what John also does. All things were made through him and by him. You could begin thinking about Jesus or looking at Jesus through the other Gospels which approach the life of Jesus from a chronological or a more historical manner. We see that in Matthew and Luke. They start, you could say, at point one, the point of conception. Both Gospels take us to Bethlehem and to the manger. There's another way you could study your Bible to get to know Christ. You could study your Bible from an Old Testament perspective. The Old Testament has Jesus, as someone has said, on every page. Tonight we want to study the Lord Jesus Christ, but I want to look at Him through a different lens, not the lens of eternity, Not the lens of history, not the lens of prophecy so much, but the lens of paradox. You say, what's paradox? Maybe you've never heard that word before. I'm sure many of you have, but let me give you the basic dictionary meaning. It's a play on words, a figure of speech. A paradox is a statement that seems contradictory or unbelievable. A paradox is a statement that seems contradictory or unbelievable. Here's a paradox. Nobody goes to that restaurant because it's always full. A jumbo shrimp is an oxymoron, but it's sort of a paradox as well. That's pretty ugly. That's a paradox. How can both things be true? Pretty ugly. And you will find paradoxical statements in your Bible. The Apostle Paul frequently used that kind of language. He described the Christian life and experience as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Having nothing, but possessing all things. Weak. I am weak, he says, but I am strong. And when you think of Christ, Christ Jesus, you come face to face with Many paradoxes, apparently contradictory statements, but both are true. Well, let me give you a few. I've got four, and we're going to do it rather briefly. This is a Lord's Supper meditation, so we do try to make things a little shorter. But Jesus Christ, number one, was ordinary but extraordinary. Second paradox, Jesus was the humblest servant, and yet the greatest master or the greatest king. Another paradox, Jesus at his weakest was at his strongest. Number four, Jesus, perfectly holy, was the greatest of sinners. Let's consider the paradoxes. First paradox, the Jesus of the Bible is both ordinary and extraordinary. When you think of something that is ordinary, you probably think of something that's normal, something that's not unusual, not all that special. Someone who is ordinary doesn't generally draw a whole lot of attention to himself. And the fact is, most of us are ordinary. In fact, you're extraordinarily ordinary. We all are. We all are. You often hear people say, I'm awesome. Well, you're really not. You're ordinary. We grew up in ordinary towns. We have ordinary jobs. We have ordinary friends. We live very ordinary lives. And that could be said about Jesus. He grew up in an ordinary town named Nazareth. He spent most of his life in that little hick town. He had an ordinary job. He worked with his hands as a carpenter. He went to an ordinary worship place, the local synagogue. For 30 years of his life, you could say it was as ordinary as ordinary could be. Luke in his gospel captures those ordinary years when it says, he grew in stature and in wisdom. If you had seen Jesus up close during those ordinary years, you would have said he looks like a very ordinary person. He was a man, fully man. He had all the The full humanity had the appearance of a man. He had the body of a man. He had the soul of a man. He had the mind of a man. Remember Pilate when he introduces Christ to the crowd? Behold the man. His body was shaped like your body. Hands and feet and eyes and ears. His human skeleton had as many bones as you have. What are they at birth? 270 and apparently As you get older, they decrease to 106 bones. If you saw Jesus, you wouldn't have been all that impressed. In fact, Isaiah the prophet, remember what he says about him? Isaiah 53, verse 2, he had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him. In other words, he wasn't all that impressive. He wasn't all that attractive. And he also possessed the limitations of man. He needed food. He got hungry. Remember, one of the first times we see Jesus in Matthew's Gospel is in that wilderness where he's fasting 40 days and 40 nights. He also needed rest. He needed sleep. On two occasions we find Jesus resting and sleeping. Once in the back of a boat on the Sea of Galilee. Once he rests at a well and asks the women for a drink of water. On one occasion Jesus even said, I don't know everything. He was ordinary. But that's half the truth. And you never want to teach half a truth as though it is the whole truth. Here's the other side of the equation. He was extraordinary. There was no one like Jesus. He was extraordinary in all different sorts of ways. He was extraordinarily gifted. People were amazed by his teaching and his preaching. You remember on one occasion someone who heard Jesus teach, they said, no one speaks like him. Remember the reaction that people often had to his preaching. They were awestruck by the fact that he preached not like the scribes. He preaches with authority. In all of the Gospels, you have words like this to describe people's response to this man, Jesus. They were amazed. They were astonished. They were flabbergasted. Matthew mentioned that twelve times. Luke in his Gospel has five different Greek words to capture the kind of amazement or the astonishment that people felt when they encountered Jesus. And it wasn't just his teaching and his preaching. They were astonished at his miracles. How could you not? He walked on water. He could stop a hurricane, a storm. He could heal any disease. So yes, he was ordinary, but he was also extraordinary. Think of this. He came into this world in an extraordinary way. He came by way of virgin birth. And he left this world in an extraordinary way, by an ascension. That's the first paradox. Jesus, ordinary and extraordinary. Second paradox, Jesus was the humblest servant and the greatest master or king. Again, that sounds contradictory, doesn't it? How can both be true? But they both are true. Turn, for example, to Mark chapter 10. Here we see Jesus, you could say the humble servant. Mark chapter 10, Jesus and his disciple friends are on their way to Jerusalem. This is for the last time. Jesus had gone up to Jerusalem on many occasions. He always went up to Jerusalem during the Passover. I think he's 30 years old, so he probably went up to the Passover feast probably 30 times. Many times with his own parents when he was growing up, but even after in adult years. But this is the last time that Jesus is taking this journey to Jerusalem, and he knows he's going to the cross. He even prophesies about it. Look at verse 33. It's about what's going to happen there in Jerusalem. He says, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him over to the Gentiles. They will mock Him and spit on Him, flog Him and kill Him. You really don't want to know about your death, do you? Do you want to know how you're going to die? Where you're going to die? When you're going to die? I don't think anyone wants to know that. Jesus knew. And he didn't just know in a vague sort of way. He knew down to the detail. Now, you would have thought, as he gives this prophecy, and he does it three times en route to Jerusalem, that that would have really impacted his disciple friends and maybe sent them into a kind of despair, at least a sense of sorrow and grief over what their Savior or what their friend Jesus would have to endure. But there's not a word here of sympathy. Not a word. Zip. Nothing. They're almost stone cold. You know the problem? It's pride. They're really only thinking of themselves here, and look what goes on here, two of them, They get pretty bold and daring, and they come to Jesus. Verse 35, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up and said to Him, Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask. They see Jesus as their servant, not as their master. And they said to Him, Grant to us to sit one at Your right hand, one at Your left, in glory. Did they really want to be famous? You've probably had situations in your own life when people say things or do things, You're almost stunned. Did they really say that? Do they really believe that about themselves? These guys are what you would call glory-hungry. They want greatness. They want to be great. I love the way Jesus responds. We can certainly learn from Jesus in any given situation. And he responds here with a very calm demeanor and very gracious in dealing with his disciple friends. He makes this a teaching moment and he gives them a lesson about true greatness. He says, true greatness is not determined by how many people serve you. True greatness isn't determined by your Twitter following. or how much money you have in the bank, or the size of your home. No, it's determined, Jesus, true greatness in my kingdom is determined by your servanthood, attitude, and behavior. And then he gives a personal example of humble service. Look at verse 45. For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for all. He's saying, in essence, I am the servant of servants. If you want to learn what a servant is, Look at me! And we see that, don't we? A little later on in John's Gospel, when you go up into the upper room, you can even turn and see for yourself John chapter 13. Jesus shows himself in a very practical way to be the servant of servants, the most humble of servants, the less than 24 hours from this point here in John chapter 13. He'll be taken captive in Gethsemane, brutally treated and crucified. But look what he's doing here. Look what he's doing. He's serving his disciple friend. John 13 verse 4. He rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garment, taking a towel, tied it around his waist. And he poured water into a basin, began to wash the disciples' feet into white, then with a towel that was wrapped around him. And you need to understand that feet washing in this culture was reserved for the lowest of slaves, Gentile slaves. Jewish slaves wouldn't even do it. And if there was no slave or servant in the household, guess what? You did it yourself. You cleaned your own feet. Make sense? Jesus doesn't do that. No servant around! Yet he drops to his knees and starts washing the dirty feet of his disciples. He's the greatest of servants. But again, remember, it's a paradoxical statement. Notice what he goes on to say here in verse 20 of the same chapter, John 13. He acknowledges himself to be the master. No sooner does he finished washing their dirty feet, and he asked the question, do you understand what I've done for you? You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. Same context. The word Lord carries the idea of ownership, of power and authority. They'd seen His power countless times. They'd seen Him walk in water. They saw Him raise men from the dead. They saw Him heal people of terrible deformities. Think of leprosy itself. Every one of those miracles, in a sense, was a trumpet blast saying, He's the greatest! No one greater. Remember the last, one of the last things our Lord says to His disciple friends before He ascends to heaven. It's found in Matthew 28. He says, All power and authority has been given to me. Paradox one, ordinary but extraordinary. Paradox two, the humblest servant and the greatest master or king. Paradox three, Jesus at his weakest was at his strongest. Jesus at his weakest was at his strongest. All four Gospels take us to the cross. They take us to that Passion Week, that last week of his life. The crucifixion comes into focus. And I'm sure you've read all about the crucifixion. It was the Roman Empire's way to show the world that they couldn't be pushed around. You didn't defy or challenge Caesar. And anybody who tried at any level to show they were a revolution or going to start up a revolution, they were often put on a cross. And that's probably who they are. Those two men on the cross, either side of Jesus, were not literal thieves. They were revolutionary guys. They started some kind of political tumult. And to get a guy on a cross, they would tie him to that cross, they would hoist it up, and he would be suspended upon this upright beam. And remember Jesus. He's been pretty beat up even before he gets to that cross. He had been scourged severely. And he had to even get someone to come along and help him carry that cross beam. It must have been hard just to see the man Jesus there as he goes to that cross in that other state of helplessness and powerlessness. And then they get him up on the cross. And remember, they're mocking him. They're ridiculing him. The crowd as they walk by, and the religious leaders, they even seize upon his powerlessness and say, you saved others. Why can't you even save yourself? You said you were going to destroy the temple and build it up in three days. If you're so strong, so mighty, so powerful, come down from the cross. Come down from the cross. Not that he couldn't have. But he doesn't last that long on the cross, does he? Most people who were crucified could be on that cross for days. Jesus is on the cross for six hours. Six hours. As weak as weak can be. But don't let appearances fool you. You've probably heard it said, you don't judge a book by its cover. You don't judge Jesus by his bloody, mangled body. Because Jesus was never, never stronger or mightier than when he was on the cross. Do you know that his greatest work was accomplished while he was on that cross? And we get a sense of it because there's one sinner at least who feels the mighty power of the Lord Jesus, that one thief, remember? He asked Jesus to show him mercy and Jesus says, today you will be with me in paradise. Jesus breaks into that man's life and conquers that rebel heart. So when he was at his weakest, he was most powerful and it wasn't just one sinner that he was saving while he was on that cross. The Bible tells us that the world, all of those that God had given him, the elects, were reconciled to him on that cross. There was that great work of reconciliation while he was on that cross. and something else that Jesus was doing while he was on that cross. You might want to turn and see this in Colossians chapter 2 because we don't often always think about this when we think of Jesus on the cross. But notice what the writer says here, what Paul says. He uses wartime language to describe the work of Jesus on the cross. Jesus was fighting that great fight with the devil himself. Colossians 2 verse 15, notice the language here. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them. When Jesus was on the cross, he was taking on the power of darkness. He was going up against the devil. Remember that prophecy way back in Genesis chapter 3 that talked about the double bruising. There will be a bruising of the heel of the seedless of the woman, but there will be a bruising of the head of the seedless serpent. Jesus is going to go into battle on that cross. Spurgeon describes it in his way, this wonderful graphic way. Listen to Spurgeon. Now must the son of man arise and gird on his sword. Darkness covers the battlefield like that of Egypt. It was a darkness which might be felt. One man, no more, one God, stands in battle array against thousands of principalities and powers. He is fighting for his people. The battle is so hot upon him, the dust so thick that he chokes with thirst and cries, At last the darkness is dispersed, the conqueror cries, it is finished. And now where are his enemies? They are all dead. There lies the king of terrors, pierced through with one of his own darts. There lies Satan with his head all bleeding, broken. As far as sin, it's cut into pieces and scattered to the winds of heaven. Jesus won. He was a conqueror on the cross and that's why as Christians we really don't have to be afraid of our enemy. Not the enemy called the devil because the scriptures say you can resist him and he will flee from you. We are overcomers even with respect to the world in our own sin. Death has lost its sting. Paradox one, Christ ordinary but extraordinary. Paradox 2, Christ the humblest servant, the greatest master. Paradox 3, Christ at his weakest, was at his strongest. And then paradox 4, the final paradox, Jesus Christ, perfectly holy, but the greatest of sinners. Jesus had a humanity like ours, right? We've already said that. But there's something very different about Jesus. Jesus had a humanity that was never marred, never scarred. never stained with personal sin. He possessed a sinless integrity, a sinless integrity. And that's why you find in Scripture often language to describe His blamelessness or that He was undefiled, that He was without sin. That's said by several of the Gospel writers and even of Paul himself. God gives a clear witness to His Son's perfection on the front end and the back end. Remember what He says? This is My Son. in whom I'm well pleased. He never, ever disappointed his father. But he's found guilty. He's found guilty in the human court of law, and you could even say he's found guilty in the divine court of law. He's punished as a transgressor, as a lawbreaker. The human court, at least the religious court, accuses him of blasphemy that the Roman court fudges along the way. Pilate says, I find no fault in him, but he goes to the cross and he's punished. And the worst of the punishment was not that which we see with our eyes, but that which we couldn't see with our eyes. It's divine punishment. And to understand why He's punished on that cross, you have to understand a crucial doctrine in the Bible. It's one that isn't very popular today, but it's called the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. That Jesus is there on that cross in our stead, in our place. He's dying there as a sinner, a representative sinner. To use the language of 2 Corinthians 5, He becomes sin for us. Or the Old Testament figure, He is the scapegoat. Isaiah the prophet uses that kind of substitutionary language, doesn't it? He was pierced for our transgression. He was bruised for our iniquities. That's what makes the cross. somewhat of a paradox. The most terrible, the most terrible tragedies. The most wondrous expression of love. And justice. But he goes to that cross voluntarily. He didn't have to go. He wasn't forced to go. He goes there voluntarily. He says, I lay down my life. You don't take it from me. And that's why you hear on the cross the roar of God's wrath. It is poured out upon His Son, not in little drabs and dribs, but a tsunami like wrath inundates Jesus when He's on the cross. The worst of the cross is that Jesus must face His Father in a way He's never faced His Father before. A Father who loved Him, now He sees a Father who is angry with Him. Someone has described it in this way. Never has the Son of Man seen the Father look at Him this way. The Son does not recognize His eyes flashing with fiery wrath and anger. Son of Man, why have you behaved so? Son of Man, why have you cheated? and lost it and stolen and gossiped? Why, son of man, have you murdered and overspent and fornicated and embezzled? How many times have you gotten drunk? How many times have you peddled drugs? How many times were you divorced without a cause? How many times did you refuse to worship me and worship idols? You see, Jesus, becomes the worst of sinners on the cross. The greatest adulterer, murderer, liar on the cross. Sin, our sin, every one of our sins gets imputed to Him. and God reckons him as a sinner. That's our Savior. That's why we come to the table to remember Him. This should be considered to be a great privilege and great delight to remember someone who loved us, who loved us so much that He gave Himself for us. Who better to remember than our Savior?