So, yeah, we're going to do things just a little bit differently today. I'm, I'm, I'm just so excited because before we came here a few years ago, I don't know if you know this, but Genesis Church was having a hard time. Genesis Church of Wayne was having a hard time. And we just had a couple little kids, just, just like two. And what you're going to see this morning, I have no idea how many is going to be up here. I would not, I might be a little bit loud. It's all in my head. I wouldn't be surprised if we have 20, 30 kids in here today, and it's just going to be a blessing. So I hope that you're blessed by it.

But before we do, we want to open our Bibles. We want to look at God's Word and see what He has to say for us. And so if you have a Bible, let's go to John chapter one — that's in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. If you don't have a Bible and you want one, if you raise your hand, we've got— that's right, John, we've got several — you raise your hand and we'll get you a copy of a Bible right here. We've got one. Anyone else need one? Right here, another. Great. Yeah, we want, we want you to keep those. If you can, you can put them back on the window sill if you have one at home or if you don't, just take it and we have plenty more.

Okay. If you want to use your phone, there are a lot of good websites to use. I like Biblehub.com, Biblehub.com. I read from the ESV when I do, so that'll help you get where we are. But that's a great website, a lot of free things on there. But we want everybody to be looking at your own copy of the Word of God this morning, John chapter one.

God, we pray that as we open up your Word, that you would speak to us through it and that we would see the blessing that you've given us and that it would change how we live our lives. In your name we pray, amen.

We are in a series on the greatest gift, and that's very appropriate for this time of year because we've got a bunch of little kids who are just excited about Christmas, about the gifts that we're going to get. And God has given us the greatest gift of all when He gave us His Son. With Jesus Christ, we have everything that we need.

And so today what I want to do is talk about — we've talked the last several weeks over Advent about the gift. I want to talk about how it's supposed to change us. You know what I mean? I want you and me to live our lives like what God has done for us matters, like the gift that He's given us matters.

And so what I want to do is, I really want to aim at three different groups of people. I want to aim first at the people who — you're walking with Christ right now, you're following Him and you're passionate and you're excited about God. What can you possibly gain from this? Here's what I want you to do. And while we're talking about having a changed life in Jesus, I want you to think about what's going really well and what do you need to work on more? I want you to search your heart and say, God, what do you need me to change in me?

And then there's another group of people who maybe you're a believer, but you're kind of in that spot where, you know what I mean? It's just not really living it out, not really walking like you should. But here's what I want to challenge you to do. I want to challenge you to get started. I want to challenge you to get serious about what it is that you believe and get serious about living out your faith.

And then the last group of people is maybe you've never started walking with Christ at all. Maybe you've got no relationship with Him. I want you to start. That's what I want from you today. I want you to search yourself. If you're following, I want you to search yourself and find where can you improve. If you're already walking, but you're not really doing it that seriously, I want you to get serious. And if you've never done it before, I want you to start.

And so what I want to do is show you the main thing that I want from you is to let God's gift change your life. Let God's gift just totally change your life. We're going to do it in John chapter one.

There is the man who wrote this. It was a disciple of Jesus. He was a disciple of John the Baptist, and then he became a disciple of Jesus. And his goal is to convince us that Jesus is the Son of God and that believing in Him, you can have eternal life. He wants us to know that. And so he introduces it, John chapter one. We're going to focus on verses 12 and 13, but just to give you some context of how we got here, John starts his book out saying, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

What he wants you to know — he's given this name Word. If you look at it in verse 14, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." He's talking about Jesus. Jesus is God is what he's saying all the way back at the very beginning of everything. Jesus is there. He didn't just jump into existence at the incarnation. That little picture there, that's not the start of his life. He was already there because he is fully God. He's just also fully man.

And he goes on to say that there's nothing in creation that exists that Jesus didn't make. And when it was ready and it was time for him to come into the world, he sent a forerunner, John the Baptist, to go and tell everybody this. Look at verse nine: "The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own. He came into the world. He came into creation, and creation didn't know him. He came to his own." That's the Jewish people. "And his own did not receive him."

But now here's the verse I want you to pay attention to. "To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, children who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

Let's talk about that. I want to break this in verses 12 and 13 into two parts. I want to break it into two parts, and I want to show you two different ways that you can live out your life, that you can let God's gift change your life.

The first one is that it starts. It starts when you receive Jesus. And, again, I'm talking to people who, maybe you're walking well with Christ and you've already received him, but that's an ongoing thing. You are saved once. That's done. That's over with. You are a believer in Christ, and when you die, you are completely assured that his finished work is applied to you, and you're going to be with him when you die. But you still have to receive him every day. It's still an ongoing relationship.

And so, what the first thing is, it starts when you receive Jesus. That's something that John had done. Does anybody remember who was John's brother? James. Who said James? You said James? Good job. It takes some bravery to speak out, doesn't it? Because you're like, what if I'm wrong? No, it's exactly right. James and John. And what was their nickname? Anybody remember that? Sons of Thunder. That's right. The Sons of Thunder.

I have a James and a John, and when they were little, we had it on their door. Sons of Thunder in here. And they live like that, too. And that's how John was. But John was kind of wild. I mean, he got the nickname because one day they were walking through this town, and the people there didn't receive Jesus, and John and his brother were like, "Jesus, you want us to call down fire? And burn all these people up? Let's bring this to a conclusion." And Jesus is like, "You have no idea what I'm doing here." You are the Sons of Thunder.

By the end of his ministry, by the end of Jesus' ministry, there's this picture of John, and he's at a table with Jesus, along with, you've seen the famous painting, The Last Supper. They're all sitting there, and John refers to himself as the one that Jesus loved. And it's a very tender picture. John has his head resting on Jesus. And this guy who had gone from being a son of thunder, who wants to call down fire to burn people up, is now this guy who, because he knows Jesus and because he has a relationship with Jesus, his life is so changed. He's the one that Jesus loved.

I see myself as one that Jesus just loves. And I think he didn't, it doesn't mean that he doesn't love other people. I know from a firsthand, personal account, though, he does love me. That's what John is saying to these people. He knew a lot of people who had received Jesus, and he had seen how well it had gone for them. And he knew some other people. Well, you saw him there in verses 10 and 11. The world did not know him, and his world did not receive him. They didn't receive Jesus, and look how it went.

What was the difference? What does it mean to receive Jesus? See, he had seen some of that, and I think we see that in our day, too, where you look at Jesus and you say, "Well, you know, he's a pretty good guy. He's a good rabbi, somebody that he's got some wise teachings, and I think we should follow him and see what he has to say." And so there are people who go through that process of following after, accepting Jesus, but never actually receiving him. For instance, Judas Iscariot was one. Judas accepted Jesus. When Jesus came, Judas was like, "Oh, yeah, I believe in you. I'm going to follow you." But over time, you see that his belief wasn't exactly a reception of Jesus. It was different than that, because by the end, he ended up rejecting him completely.

What the word means is to want something. You have to want it to receive it in this Bible term and what this is saying. What it made me think of, so we just got in the mail. My wife's mom sent us a package of Christmas gifts. It was nice, you know, a nice big box, and you open it up, and there's a bunch of other boxes in there, and everybody's tearing through it and having a good time and opening our presents, and we're on the phone and celebrating, and we're blessed. But that gift was received by some other people before it was received by me. She had to take that down to the post office, and the postman who worked there, well, he received the gift, but it wasn't his, and there was no relational thing attached to it. And so to him, he just took it, and he did nothing with it. It meant nothing to him, and he passed it on to the next person who dealt with it the same way and so on until it got to where it was supposed to go, until it got to the person where there was a relationship with the person.

And we didn't receive it as, "Oh, good, a box," and set it down. We said, "Oh, Mimi sent us a gift," and we tear it open, and we see what's in there. Do you see the difference? That's what it means to receive Jesus, and what it is is we receive him specifically. And so it's not just religion, and it's not just a better life. It's not just doctrine, and it's not just Christmas. We are receiving the Son of God who was the Word who became flesh. I receive you. I want you to be a part of my life.

And so what I want to ask you to think about is when we talk about receiving the gift of Christ, God's gift to us, are you more like the mailman, or are you more like family? Which one do you get closer to? I want you to receive him. How do I do that, though? What does that look like?

Well, what he says in John 1, verse 12, he says, "To all who did receive him, who did what?" Look at your Bibles. Believed. Thank you. Who believed in his name. To believe in his name. I believe that Jesus is who he says that he is, and this is really important. Belief is important. It's very important to the Gospels, and it's very important to Jesus. In the book of John, Jesus talks about belief repeatedly. But one that stands out to me from chapter 8 is he says, "If you do not believe, you will indeed perish in your sins."

Just stop and think about that for a minute. If you don't believe, if you don't trust me, if you don't receive me, if you're trying to go to God and deal with your problems and your sins on your own, apart from me, you will most certainly perish in your sins. Because God is a holy God. God cannot allow sin. He can't be in the presence of sin. He must deal with it. And so Jesus says, if you don't believe, you'll most certainly perish.

But then, on the other hand, he also says in John chapter 3, in the famous passage where he's talking to Nicodemus, "For God so loved the world," he says that anyone who believes will not perish. If you don't believe, you will perish. If you do believe, you won't perish. And blessed are they, he says, how does he say it? "Who have not seen and yet believe." Blessed, that's us. Jesus is making a promise. If you don't believe, you'll perish. If you do believe, you won't. Blessed are you if you believe. That's his word to you. And so what he's trying to get us to do is to believe.

But what does that look like? Like, what does that mean to believe? I think it can be kind of nuanced a little bit. For instance, I believe, I don't know this because I can't see, but in my stocking, I believe there are some socks. I believe that's what I'm going to get. Well, that's kind of a hunch. All right? That's not necessarily belief. It's not the kind of belief we're talking about.

You could also say something like, I believe that if you look at history, you'll find a guy who was, now we know him as Saint Nick. He went around and he was giving gifts to little kids and everybody liked him so much they gave him that name and he became the influence for Santa Claus. I believe that. That's good. That's a historical fact. It's just absolutely true. It's still not exactly what we're talking about when we talk about believe in Jesus.

What do we mean when we say that we're going to believe in Jesus? Well, this might interest you, but the Greek word that John uses for believe is the same word that gives us our English word for faith. It's the exact same word. He uses the same one over and over. And it's a verb. Does anybody remember from Hebrews chapter 11 what faith is? Uh-huh. That's right. I get it all mixed up too. I don't remember. It's the conviction of things not seen and the assurance of things hoped for. The conviction, the conviction of things you haven't seen.

So we get this idea that faith is like, you know, just almost like hope. But faith is actually a verb thing you can do. It's something that you can hold on to. You say, look, it's the evidence of things not seen. I know for a fact that my Redeemer lives and I know that Jesus was born into the world and that he came to die for my sins and that he was raised from the dead and he's ascended and he's coming back. I have conviction of something that I can't see. It's the evidence by the way I live my life. That's how you know what faith is.

How do you live? Do you believe that this is happening? Because if you do, it's going to affect who you are. It's going to affect how you think. It's going to affect how you treat people. It is going to affect the way that you live. And so what John is saying is, I want you to not just believe in the deity and the death of Jesus Christ, but I want you to believe that he is going to return in such a way that you commit your life to him. I want you to yield him.

In fact, the NEB, the New English Bible, translates verse 12 like this: "To those who have yielded him their allegiance." Where are you on that? How are you doing on that? So you saints who are walking well with Christ and you're just loving him, can you search yourself and see where am I not completely yielding over to Christ? What am I holding on to that's not allowing me to let God's gift change my life so that I can say, I'm really receiving him today? And if you're not walking that well, but you are a believer, how can you change? What's this speaking? What's this saying to you? And if you are not yet a believer, you can be. Because everything that I'm saying is just for you too. Jesus died for you as well. He came for you as well. Have you believed? And do you believe in Jesus this way?

The other thing that I want to talk to you about — so we're going to let God's gift change our life. It starts when you receive Jesus and then once you receive him, you start to reflect him. That's the next thing. You start to reflect him.

Did you know that we are not naturally children of God? A lot of times people will say, well, you know, everyone is God's children. And I think that's not necessarily untrue. All of us are created by God and all of us are created in God's image. But actually, it's not true that every person is considered God's child. You read John chapter 8 and you see that. People are saying, well, you know, this is our father. And Jesus says, no, your father is the devil. And you know that it's the devil because you want to do the things that you see your father do. And so you find yourself acting like and embracing the things that are not of God.

In their case, it was murder and lies and stuff like that. But anything, anytime you find yourself living in a state where you're constantly, always inviting that kind of stuff into your life when you're rejecting the things of God and you're living your own way, Jesus says, man, that's not how God's children act. The way your parents are affects how you are, good or bad, right? And I want to be careful in this part because there are a lot of people who haven't had great examples in their parents. And I think that that's actually, in this instance, not so bad because we can compare the two. This is what it's supposed to be. This is the ideal when we look at God and look how short we tend to fall. Our parents have fallen. But when things are going right, it's such a good example of what God does with us and how our relationship with him is.

For instance, when I was a kid, my dad was, he was into karate and mixed martial arts. He absolutely loved it. He was pretty good at it too. He loved Bruce Lee. And so guess what we watched? Oh yeah, we watched a lot of Bruce Lee. Anybody ever see Enter the Dragon? I'd get my little red marker and I'd put my three little, ooh, you know, make all the sounds. And oh, I love Bruce Lee because my dad loved Bruce Lee. He loved Bill "Superfoot" Wallace. You know, he'd get his foot up there real fast and I'd practice my kicks getting him up there. I didn't know who Bill Wallace was. I didn't care. But my dad liked him and so I did. I took on the same interests as my dad.

And that's what Jesus is saying to these people is you're going to follow the example that you see in your parents and you're going to follow the love that your family has. And it kind of leaves you, if you're like, well, I mean, if I'm a child of Satan, geez, that's harsh and that's awful. Jesus was saying that not because he was judging them and, you know, you people are terrible. It's because you can change families. You can join my family and I want to make this offer to you to be saved. But without that, it's kind of hopeless. It's kind of powerless.

But what Jesus is actually talking about here is what we call the doctrine of adoption. Adoption. It's a little bit different than what we think. When we think of adoption, we think of a little kid who doesn't have parents and so he needs some kind of guardian to get him through until he's 18. And you know, you might, it's bigger than that. You become part of the family and all. But it was different in the ancient world. It wasn't necessarily those circumstances. For instance, you could be adopted by someone else who was younger than you. Did you know that? That's kind of strange. Why would you need someone younger than you to adopt you? Well, because adoption wasn't about guardianship entirely. It was also about legal standing. And so there were actually some Roman emperors — Marcus Aurelius was one of them, Octavius was one of them — who they took on a different name after they were adopted and they joined, essentially legally, another family.

When you do that, any debts that you owe the family, guess what happens to those debts? Hmm. That kind of sounds like the gospel, doesn't it? They get canceled because you're part of the family now. You don't owe any debts to these people. The father of this house, the patriarch of this house, you don't owe him anything because you're with him now. And so your debt there is canceled. You get a new name now. You get to take on our name and when you go out in public, you represent us. When you have dealings with the court, it's in representation of us. Everything now has changed about your life.

And so you could come in and you could say, okay, I've had this servant. He's been working for our family. I mean, I grew up. He was already a servant in our household before I was born. And now I'm 25 years old or whatever and this guy's in his 60s. You know what I want to do? I love him so much. I want to adopt him. I want to make him part of our family so that he can join us and so he can have all the benefits we have and he's no longer going to be a servant. And that's what Jesus is saying happens with us. He says, I want to give you a new name. I want to cancel all your family debts. I want to give you a new voice and a new identity and I want you to know that you belong here.

And so what I want you to do is reflect our family. I want you to be a voice for our family. You can let God's gift change your life. It starts with receiving Jesus and then recognizing this is where I come from. This is my genealogy. I belong to God. I can live just like him.

To those people, John says, look at verse 12 again. "To all who did receive him and believed in his name, he gave the right." He gave the right just like that servant who was waiting on some kind of familial connection. "I'm going to give you the right." That is what Jesus has done for us who were born not of blood. And so it's not about genealogy. It's not about who your parents were. It's not of the will of the flesh. And so it's not — that's a hard, this is a really hard passage to translate. But steak — meat — that's the flesh. When you skin an animal, when you take the skin off and what you see there, that's the flesh, it's that inner being, it's that inner sight. It's almost like who I want to be. Oh, it's not of blood. It's not of who I wanted to be and it's not of any plan that I could devise, not of any religion that I could take on. It's not of anything about me. My childhood, my connection to God is of God. He has made me free. He has made me new.

Isn't this a blessing? God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life because you will be born again. And you're born into a new family. You have a new father. Christ, God our Father, Christ our brother, all who live and love are thine. You know that one? Christ our brother. He's not ashamed to call us His brothers and His sisters because we have received Him. He has canceled out our debts and He has adopted us into His family and now we have the right.

Not the joy. That's interesting. It is joyful. But it doesn't say to those who believed in Him He gave the joy of becoming children of God. It doesn't say of the honor. It doesn't give the honor of becoming children of God. It says He gave the right. How does that affect the way that you live? How does that show up as a reflection in your life?

If you have your Bibles, I want you to turn to the right. We're going to go almost to the end to the book of 1 John. It's a letter written by the same guy. So if you end up turning too far, you'll go all the way to Revelation. That's the last one. Right before that is one little page called Jude. And then you're in 3 John, 2 John, 1 John. So just all the way to the back and then make your way to the 1 John.

Chapter 3, I want to see how He writes this in another place to different people to tell them how they can reflect Christ and God as being their sons. 1 John, chapter 3, verse 1: "See what kind of love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God. And so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Beloved, we are God's children now and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when He appears we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure."

Look at some of the things that He says here. See what kind of love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God. We got a new name. Who are you? I'm a child of God. I know that I have a Father who is in heaven. Look what else it says. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. So, number one, I have a new name. Number two, I'm separated from the world. I'm different. This is what God wants for me. That I should live a life that is different and separated from the world. So much so that the world doesn't even recognize who I am. The world doesn't know who I am because, well, I'm not the same. I have a different kind of family and I have different kind of values.

Beloved, we are God's children and what we will be has not yet appeared but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him. Hmm. We are now God's children. Right now. Can you imagine being that slave? You come in or a servant or whoever. You come in one day and the son, he's there, he's all excited and he's like, "Hey man, I've done something real special." "What have you done?" "We're going to make you part of the family." "I'm going to adopt you." "Serious?" "You're going to adopt me?" "Actually, I've already done it. All your debts, you know that debt you owed? It's gone. You don't owe us anything anymore. You're completely forgiven."

What God is telling us, what Jesus is telling us through this book is that now you are called sons of God. Right now, your debts are completely forgiven. And so what does this look like? Well, it looks like in a Christian life, the way that we reflect these things, the fact that I have a new name and the fact that I'm separated, in reflection, I submit to a new authority. I'm not going to keep doing the things that I was doing. I'm going to live a different way now.

And in regard to the fact that my debts are canceled and the fact that I have been accepted as an heir and that this is happening right now, that God would love me so much He would draw me into His family and He would forgive me. He went to great ends. We talked about last week in Philippians 2. How do I reflect that? Man, I can be the same way. I can be forgiving back. I can be so willing to let other people's debts go and to treat them like family and to show them love because look at the depths that He went to for me.

It also reflects in the way that we're secure. How many of you are here this morning? I don't need a show of hands, but how many of you are here this morning and you just lack a little security in your knowledge with God? How many of you are here this morning and you're just like, you know, but I've done this thing so many times and I don't know if I can just go back to God repeatedly again and again and keep asking for forgiveness when I keep, I did it yesterday and the day before and the day before and I've already done it twice today. How do you treat your kids? If you being evil know how to give your children good gifts, how much more your heavenly Father who is perfect? If you love your kids so much that nothing they do can ever push them away from you to the point that you're just like, no, I don't ever want to see you again. Your kids can hurt you. Your kids can make your life hard and you just keep putting up with it because it's your kid.

If you're lacking security today, I want you to come back to this verse. Beloved, we are God's children now. We are God's children now and here's the thing. Here's what God sees. What we will be has not yet appeared. God has faith in you too that he knows in his own work, "I'm going to finish what I started in you." You're going to be a completed project. What you will be isn't what you are right now. You ever have to think about that with your kids? It's not always going to be this way. I'm going to keep changing you. And so the way we reflect that is that we just have security. God's my God. God's my Father and he's never going to give me up.

And then the last one in verse 3, "Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure." How do you reflect that? By working on purity. "God, I want to be like you. If it's good, I want it. And if it's not, I don't."

So here's what we're going to do next. The kids are about to come in in just a minute. But before they do — and you know the stuff they're going to do, it's all cute and everything, it's going to be a good time — but I want you to remember the story that they're telling is the same story we're talking about right now. God came into the world to change your life. If you will receive Jesus, you can reflect him.

And maybe for some of you, like I said at the beginning, you've not really started that. It's not been something that you have done. I want to give you an opportunity right now. We're not going to have anybody come up or anything, but I want to give you an opportunity right now to just pray right where you are. "Jesus, I want to receive you. I choose to believe in your name, and I want to be a part of your family. Will you forgive me? And will you give me a new name?" If that's you, if you're praying that right now, I want you to see me after. Because I'd like to walk you through it. I'm not going to embarrass you. We're not going to have you come up front and, you know, make you give a speech or anything. I just want to talk to you. I just want to know, what are you thinking and how can I help you?

And if you're a believer here today and you're already following and you've got some prayer requests after this, and you're just like, you know, I really want to, or if you just haven't prayed, you know, look, I agree. Here's what I've learned about God's faithfulness. Come and talk to me. I want to hear back from you, okay? Let's just take this moment right now. I'm going to pray, and then we're going to have our kids come in, and then you come see me if you need to.

Jesus, we thank you that you came into the world, and we thank you for the opportunity to reflect you. I pray that you would be glorified in what's about to happen. I pray that you will speak to people's hearts, and God, that the gospel would penetrate so that we can see changed lives. In your name we pray. Amen.

Subject: December 21, 2025 - The Gift That Changes Your Life (John 1:12-13 - John Shearhart)

Dear Genesis Boyne (Genesis Church Boyne City),

I hope you're reflecting on how God's greatest gift—His Son—was given not just to admire, but to start and actually change our lives.

On Sunday we opened John 1:12–13 and talked about two simple movements: it starts when you receive Jesus—really receive Him, not just treat Him like a package that passes through—and then it shows as we reflect Him because we've been adopted into God's family. Receiving means believing in His name, yielding our allegiance, and living out that faith; adoption means debts canceled, a new name, security, and a new way of life. Whether you're walking well, drifting, or have never begun, the call is the same—search your heart, get serious, or start.

So here's my encouragement this week: if you're following Jesus, ask God what you're still holding back and surrender that one thing; if you've been lukewarm, begin with small, concrete steps—read John 1, pray for faith, and get into fellowship; and if you've never received Him, pray right now to receive Jesus and then please reach out to me—I want to walk with you quietly and personally through that next step.

Blessings,
Genesis Boyne (Genesis Church Boyne City) Team