A Copernican Revolution

So it is the last Sunday of the year, our very last time coming together in this building under the word of God.

Scientifically, what it means for it to be the end of the year is that this little space rock that we float on has done one full lap around the sun and gone back to where it started.

It's the end of another year.

But humans didn't always believe that last bit.

Humans didn't always believe that the earth moved around the sun.

For the longest time, geocentrism was the dominant belief across the planet, which means that earth is the center of the solar system.

Geocentrists believed that the earth is unmoved and fixed, and the sun and all the planets revolve around the earth.

And it wasn't until the year 1543 that Nicholas Copernicus, who was an astronomer and a mathematician, published his heliocentrism hypothesis.

Heliocentrism is from the Greek helios meaning sun.

Copernicus hypothesized that maybe the earth is not the center of the solar system, but the sun is, and that the sun is the fixed point around which all the planets move.

They called it the Copernican Revolution, because it changed human history.

It changed the way that we human beings think about ourselves and our place in this solar system and in this universe.

The Copernican Revolution.

Well, we are today at the end of the year.

And as we've already done today, at the end of the year, we typically look back on the year that was, and we reflect on, did we achieve our resolutions?

And then we look ahead to next year, and we start to plan our resolutions for the next year.

And I think it's an interesting time for us to reflect on the year that was and the year that is coming, what our life is orbiting around.

When we make these plans for next year, these resolutions, these things we want to achieve, what is the fixed point that all of our life is orbiting around?

That's really a key part of what we're thinking about in the next year.

And I want to put it to you this morning that we need a Copernican Revolution.

Life oriented not around the sun, S-U-N, but the sun, S-O-N.

That's sort of the metaphor that we're going to be working with today.

I want to compel you to see today from scripture that there is no better life that a human being can live than a life that is orbiting around the Son of God, Jesus.

We're in our last week of this One John series.

We've called it Christmas Light Singular.

This is the sixth message in the series.

And if you missed any of the previous messages, they're all available on the website or the podcast.

In E1, Sermon number one, we looked at incarnate.

One John one verse one.

That which was from the beginning, which we've seen, we've looked at, we've heard, we've touched has appeared.

Jesus is the Word made flesh.

In E2, we looked at God is light.

In Him there is no darkness.

E3, I preached on do not love the world.

It was a dictionary sermon.

We had a lot of definitions.

We looked at defining what the world is, what love is, and what it means to pass away or remain.

Last Sunday morning, if you were here, we looked at the scripture that says the Son of God appeared to destroy the devil's work.

And then on Christmas Day, Wednesday, we looked at the message that God is love.

God is love was Christmas Day, which brings us to today.

Our final message in the One John series, this message is titled, A Copernican Revolution.

I've found One John to be quite interesting.

Quite an interesting letter to read.

What about you?

In my private reading, I've been reading One John a few times between the sermons.

And one thing that has really struck me is how different One John is to virtually all of the other New Testament letters.

When you read a letter by, say, Paul, Paul wrote 13 of the letters, it's like, hi, my name's Paul, to the church in whatever.

Grace and peace to you.

And then he just builds his argument, A plus B plus C, therefore D.

It's so logical and linear, and yet you come to the letter of 1 John, and it's like a tornado has hit John's brain.

It's cyclical, is the letter of 1 John, revolving, orbiting around these three themes, light, life and love.

When you read 1 John, it's this whirlpool surrounding these themes of light and life and love.

So I want to show us today and help us to see that we need a Copernican revolution.

All of us to orient our lives around the sun, S-O-N, and that will mean for us a life of light, life and love.

So firstly, a Copernican revolution of light.

One of the key themes that John deals with in the letter of 1 John is light.

This week, I had some fun and surveyed the New Testament, for every time the phrase God is mm appears.

So not the father is or Jesus is or the Lord is, but specifically God is mm.

And these are the answers that came up.

God is one, God is truthful, God is spirit, God is faithful, God is just, God is a consuming fire, God is love, and God is light.

1 John 1 verse 5, this is the message we've heard from him and declare to you, God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.

We looked at this verse, this idea that God is light, in the second message of this series, so we're gonna be quite brief.

But God is not law, God is light.

That was a big idea from that message.

We're gonna look today at what it means for us to live in the light, to be orbiting around the Son of God in a life of light.

So let me read the passage, the full passage briefly.

This is the message we've heard from him and declare to you, God is light.

In him there is no darkness at all.

If we claim to have fellowship with him, and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.

But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

In the blood of Jesus, his son purifies us from all sin.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

God is light.

Light is a somewhat abstract metaphor, I think.

When John uses it, you sort of might wonder, what specifically does he mean by light?

Of course, there's light and darkness, but that just provides to like a pair of opposites.

But when we try and understand what John means by light, it's helpful to look at the synonyms in the passage that John uses for light.

And what we see is John connects this idea of light to truth, openness, confession and vulnerability.

When John talks about the light, he's talking about the light of truth and of openness.

And we see this same thing in the Gospel of John in chapter 3.

This is the verdict John says, light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

And again, we ask, okay, what does light mean?

What's light and darkness?

Verse 20, everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.

But whoever lives by the truth, and hold on to that, lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

So for John, when he talks about light, he means truth, confession, openness, and vulnerability.

That's what John means by connecting light with truth.

And Paul actually does the same thing in Ephesians 5.

Paul says for you, he's talking to the church in Ephesus, you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.

Live as children of the light, for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth.

And find out what pleases the Lord.

Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

It's shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.

But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.

Across the New Testament, from John to Paul to different authors, light as a metaphor is connected with truth, openness, and confession.

And so, when John says in verse 7, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, then two things happen.

We have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us from all sin.

And this right here is just the mind-boggling truth of the gospel, that for us to come into the light, to be who we really are, to show God the darkness that is inside us, because of the truth of the gospel, the light does not destroy us, but it purifies us.

And we find healing when we step into the light, only because Jesus took the darkness on himself.

Mel Noble sent me this song two weeks ago by Taya, who's formerly part of Hillsong here in Sydney, called Come Into the Light.

And we won't play it today, but write it down and listen to it when you go home.

We've already had the sort of top 100 songs of the year thing.

This song is climbing up my list already.

That's how many times I've listened to it.

The song says in the chorus, come into the light and you will find a Saviour, gentle and lowly, waiting on the other side.

He will meet you gladly over and over with loving kindness in his eyes.

And I was just like mind boggled by this truth that because of what Jesus has done, the light is not something to be scared of, but something that purifies us and makes us whole.

That's what it is for us to live a life of light, is to know that if we confess our sin, as John says, he is faithful and just and will purify us, and he will forgive us.

So what does it mean for you to come into the light?

Especially as we think of next year, we think of our resolutions, the things we want to do, the people we want to be.

What does it mean to live a life of light?

I have been thinking about this, and I find it hard.

I like to be creative in different ways, and one of my favorite ways is through photography.

And if you talk to a photographer, they'll tell you it's all about light.

I mean, photography literally means light drawing or light writing.

Photography is someone who deals with light.

And yet in photography, you don't want too much light, but you want the right amount of light.

And in fact, you want to play with the light and darkness.

So for me, I find, in a sense, darkness more creative.

And yet what is true photographically is not true spiritually.

Nothing good grows in the dark.

Even though as an artist, you're painting with light and dark, when it comes to the spiritual life with God, nothing good grows in the dark.

And yet in the Gospel, we find the message that if we step into the light, He will forgive us and purify us.

So how do you need to come in to the light?

Jesus said in John 8 to the Jews who believed in Him, Jesus said, if you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples, then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

That's what the light does.

The light of truth sets us free.

So we need a Copernican revolution of light.

We need to orient our lives around the Son of God and it will be a life of light.

Secondly, a Copernican revolution of love.

Actually, it's thirdly, because we are going to come back and tackle life last.

Thirdly, we need a Copernican revolution of love.

Throughout the letter of 1 John, love is a key that he keeps coming back to.

Speaking of coming back to things, let's go back to the list of God is.

This is all the times that God is appears in the New Testament.

God is one, God is truthful, God is spirit.

God is faithful, God is just, God is a consuming fire, God is light, and God is love.

1 John 4, 8, Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

And then verse 16 says it again, God is love.

Whoever lives in love lives in him, lives in God and God in them.

Now, again, we'll be really brief, because we literally just looked at this idea on Wednesday, God is love.

But again, love is a massive word for John.

Remember, John's letter is not linear.

It's not step by step.

It's like a whirlpool, a tornado.

And one of the key bits of wind in the tornado, if I can push the metaphor, is love.

The word love in Greek is agape, and it appears 52 times in this short letter.

That's one time for every week of the year.

52 times the word love appears.

Love is central to the life of what it means to follow Jesus.

Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself.

Paul says the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5 begins with love.

Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

At the end of that great chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians, Paul says, these three remain faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.

At NorthernLife, our first core value is known and loved.

Love is central to the life of a disciple of Jesus.

And we know this.

We just looked at this on Wednesday.

So I'm going to stop talking about love, and I'll tell you a quick story about love.

On November 26, 2022, I got engaged.

She said yes, which was great.

A little under two months later, I found myself standing in Ancient Corinth, which is in Greece, at late in the night, and I recorded this video.

I'm standing in Ancient Corinth at one of the few churches in the village now, in Greek Orthodox Church, and behind me is a pillar that has the words of 1 Corinthians 13 that Paul wrote to this exact place.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.

And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind.

Love is not jealous or boastful.

It is not arrogant or rude.

Love does not insist on its own way.

It is not irritable or resentful.

It does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.

1 Corinthians 13.

It was quite a powerful moment for myself and Jack and the others who were there.

I remember feeling, I was alone at that point in our trip reading the words of 1 Corinthians 13, having just got engaged like a month and a half before, and missing my fiance and thinking about getting married, and feeling the weight of love.

As I read these words, love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast.

These are heavy words that describe what love is.

And I started to feel sort of heavy, laden by the weight of love that I was going to be committing myself to in six months.

And almost anxious, thinking how could I possibly love my future wife like this?

How could I possibly have a love that is patient and kind?

And then as I sat there in front of this pillar in this Greek Orthodox Church, in ancient Corinth, I remembered the scripture that Jess quoted, 1 John 4.19, we love because he first loved us.

1 Corinthians 13 is not primarily about the love that you and I are to show out of our great empathy for other people.

It's primarily about the love that has been shown to us by God, that God is patient with us and God is kind to us.

And so I kind of received that as such a gift in that moment in ancient Corinth, that the only love that we have is the love that he first showed us.

And that like a mirror, we are to receive the love of God and then reflect it outwards.

And I found that that sort of set me free, that God is love and he will love through me.

And he'll do that to all of us.

We need a Copernican revolution of love.

So, what do you, as you think about the next year, the year to come, where are you called to pick up the costly weight of love?

Remember, John said that this is love that Jesus laid down his life.

Love, as we defined it a few weeks ago, is to give of the self for the good of the other.

How are we called to become people of love?

Firstly, we need a Copernican revolution of light.

Thirdly, we need a Copernican revolution of love.

And now, secondly, but also finally, we need a Copernican revolution of life.

I've saved this word for last because I think it's the most important.

And now finally, we come to the passage that Helen read for us.

1 John 5 verse 12.

Whoever has the son has life.

Whoever does not have the son of God does not have life.

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

Again life is I think the third of these words that orbit around the letter of 1 John as he reflects in a sort of whirlpool way on these three themes of light, life and love.

Life is the central word that he dwells on, John.

In fact, John says the reason he wrote the letter, the reason 1 John exists in our Bibles and the reason that we're talking about it right now is because he wrote it for the reason of life.

Verse 13 says, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

John wrote his letter that we may know that he has life.

And even cooler than that, not only the letter of John, but the gospel of John, John 20 verse 30.

John writes, Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book, the gospel of John.

But these are written.

John wrote his gospel so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Life is so central to why John writes his gospel and his letter.

So what is this life?

In one sense, every one of us in this room is alive.

And yet, John says if you don't have the Son, you don't have life.

And I'm not sure that every person in this room trusts in Jesus and has received his life.

So what kind of life are we talking about?

I remember in Bible College a couple of years ago, I took a subject studying the gospel of John.

And this was by now quite a few years ago, but one of the main things that I remember from that class, that the lecturer just like drilled into us, is this idea that across the writings of John, life is never something God gives apart from himself.

As though God could give you life and then God could step back and you would be fine and you'd have life forever.

Instead, all throughout the gospel of John and the letter of John, life is in God himself.

If you don't have God, you don't have life.

And so when God gives life, he gives himself.

And that's what the scripture says, that whoever has the son, Jesus, has life.

And whoever does not have the son does not have life because there's no life apart from God.

And I'll always remember that kind of idea.

There is no life apart from God because God is life.

Jesus said in John 17, this is probably my favorite scripture to quote of all time.

Now, this is eternal life.

And I always love to pause here because I just think of the millions of lives that have been lost, trying to find the answer to that question.

The quest for the Holy Grail.

People spend their entire life seeking eternal life, seeking life that would not end.

And Jesus says, this is eternal life.

And I think the ears of all of humanity are tuned to Jesus right now.

That they know you.

The only true God in Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Life is to know God.

Life is in, with, for, through, by, and to God.

That's what life is.

CS.

Lewis, famously in his book, Mere Christianity, talked about two different types of life that are in the Bible.

One English word, life, has two Greek words, bios and zoe.

Bios life is this.

It's biological.

That's where we get that word from.

It's cells which die and then get regenerated, but ultimately this bios life is decaying.

But zoe is the life of God.

Spiritual life, eternal life, both in terms of the quality of eternality and the quantity of eternality.

So Lewis talked about these two kinds of life, bios life and zoe life.

And he said this, a man who changed from having bios to having zoe would have gone through as big a change as a statue, which changed from being a carved stone to being a real man.

And that's precisely what Christianity is about.

The world is a great sculptor's shop.

We are the statues, and there's a rumor going around the shop that some of us are someday going to come to life.

That's cool.

He's talking about two kinds of life.

And the Copernican revolution for us is to realize that the story of the Bible, in the story of the Bible, the zoe life of God infuses and transforms the bios life.

Life is to know God in the midst of this stuff, in the midst of the brokenness and the pain that we go through.

To know God is life.

We have this conception which is probably fading now, thanks to the work of scholars like NT Wright and others.

We have this conception that when we die, we go to the cloudy kingdom with naked babies with wings who fly and play harps, and we eat Philadelphia cheese for all eternity.

That's kind of the popular consensus of what heaven is.

But that's so far from the picture of the Bible.

The picture of the Bible is not that we have a bios life, and we live and we live and we live and we live and we die, and then we get the zoe life, the eternal life with God.

The vision of the Bible is that the zoe life of God comes into us now, that our biological life, the day-to-day stuff of what it means to be a human in late 2024, is infused with the life of God.

Dallas Willard called it the with God life.

And I love that, but only this week, I realized it's a tautology, which means saying the same thing twice, like saying a true fact.

It's like a fact is true, or saying a safe haven.

To say with God life is a tautology, because with God, there is only life, and life is only with God.

So to say with God life is a beautiful poetic thing, which I would get tattooed if I wanted to get a tattoo of anything.

The with God life is strictly saying the same thing twice.

There is no life without God.

And with God, there is only life.

And so we need a Copernican revolution.

As our year ends and the new one starts, we need a Copernican revolution of life.

And what that means is that we, this community of faith in Hornsby and online, are infused with the life of God.

That means architects and teachers and nurses and pastors and readers and mothers and fathers infused with the life of God running in them and coming out through them.

That would change our world.

That would change Hornsby.

That would change our city.

And that's the vision of the Bible.

The life of God entering life now.

And that is what it is to know God.

So as this sermon ends, as the year ends, we reflect on the things which shaped 2024 for us.

The thing that our life was orbiting around.

As we look forward to the new year, 2025 coming on Wednesday, we reflect around what are we going to base our life on?

What are we going to build our life on?

What habits, what commitments, what person are we going to build our life on?

This is the invitation of 1 John as we come to the end of reading the letter of 1 John.

The invitation is to orbit all of life around the sun, S-O-N.

That as we look into the next year, we would have no other fixed anchor point, no other cornerstone but God himself in his son, Jesus.

And that means a life of light, life, and love.

In 1543, Nicholas Copernicus' revolution changed all of human history.

It changed the way that we thought about our place in the universe.

Earth revolves around the sun.

But in 2025, let's have a different sort of Copernican revolution.

Life around the sun, S-O-N.

That is what the world needs most.

That's what I need most.

And you need most.

What our church needs most is all of us drawn into the gravitational pull of the Son of God, that we would live in Him, through Him, and for Him.

We need a Copernican revolution.

So let me pray, and then we'll worship together.

Father, we thank you for this letter that we've worked through the past five weeks.

We thank you for our capacity to read it and to understand it and to ask questions.

And today, as we come to the end of 1 John, and also the end of a year's worth of sermons, we pray that you would draw us closer to yourself.

We thank you that because of what our Lord Jesus did when He died on the cross and rose again, that we can approach you with confidence to receive grace and mercy.

We thank you that the light for us is not a light that destroys us, but a light that purifies us.

And so I pray for all of us, for us individually and then as a community of faith, that you would draw us closer to yourself, that we would orbit all of our life around the sun, that we would live a life of light and true life and love.

All because you first loved us.

So receive our grateful praise now, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.

‍