Let's take our Bibles and turn
to the book of John, the book of John, the gospel. Let's ask the Lord's blessing. Our Father, how wonderful it
is to be able to call upon You and to know that in all things,
Lord, You've been so merciful to us. You've given us hope and
peace and comfort. We thank You for another day
that we can come together and just sit and listen and hear
the Word of God. We pray that You would bless
it. Lord, bless it to our understanding. calls us to hear, calls us to
understand, calls us to rejoice. Lord, if this is nothing more
than just a time to take up, an amount of a couple of hours,
Lord, we've just met for no reason. But, oh, if you bless this Word,
our heart, and our heart rejoices and burns as the heart of those
two on the road to Emmaus. Lord, teach us for Christ's sake. Amen. The last time we looked in this
blessed book, we looked at verse 14. The Word was made flesh. God, the Word. God, the Son. God, the Word. God joined Himself
to human nature. He who is deity, Almighty God
took to Himself true human body, a human body and a reasonable
soul. Now when I say a reasonable soul,
this is what I mean. beyond what we possess, except he had no sin. A body,
a soul. All the glory, the fullness of
the Godhead. All that God Almighty is. the fullness of the Godhead. I mean, when you stop and think,
everything that can be said, everything that is set forth,
all the being, everything, all that God Almighty is, joined Himself to flesh." He relinquished nothing of His
deity, but joining Himself to flesh, He now was not half God, half man. He was God Almighty, the man. The God-man, he now is that which
is one person. I mean, we speak, and the word
was made flesh, as if we understand that. Great is the mystery of
godliness. God was manifested in the flesh. He's one person. He's one person. God-man. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. He tabernacled. Pitched His tent. And John said,
and we beheld His glory. The glory as of the only begotten
of the Father. John said, we saw Him. We saw
Him. We saw Him experience frailty. and fatigue. I saw him. John said, I saw him get hungry.
I saw him get thirsty. I saw him bleed. I saw nails. I saw him put nails through his
hands, through his feet. I saw a Roman soldier pierce
his side. He bled. Water and blood came
forth. I saw him. But I saw Him transfigured. I was with Him on the Mount of
Transfiguration. I was looking at Him. And His
face radiated. Brighter than the noonday sun.
His clothes just glowed. I saw Him heal the sick and raise
the dead. We were with him. We had talked about going with
him, you know, since he was going to go on to Jerusalem. He said,
well, let's just go with him so we can die with him. And we
came to the tomb of Lazarus. And he said, remove the stone. And he said, Lazarus, come forth. And he said, Lazarus came walking
out of that grave. He was dead. He had been dead
four days. And he got up and he walked out. We beheld his glory. Full of grace and truth. All of the grace of God. The
fullness of the grace of God. All that God Almighty would do in graciousness, that's
Him. He's full of grace, full of truth. No man speaks as this man. The truth of God. This is what
God demands. This is what God's provided.
Here's the truth right there. What's He going to take? There
He is. Let's look at verse 15 to 18
this morning. John, bear witness of Him. That was John's calling of obedience.
John, bear witness of Him. And that's the ministry of every
preacher that Almighty God has called. That is the preacher's
calling. God calls a man to preach. That preacher is not a social
worker. He's not a politician. Preachers
are called to bear witness of Christ. That's their job. That's their calling. That's
their duty. That's their life. That is their
love. That is what they do. They are
witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said, Romans 1, 1-4, Paul,
a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated under
the gospel of God which He had promised afore by His prophets
in the Holy Scriptures concerning His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord,
which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh
and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the
Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. John, bear witness
of Him." That's what he did. That's all he did. That's what
he was called to do. That's all he could do. That's
all he had a heart to do. What do you do? I'm a witness
of Jesus Christ. That's what God's called me to
do. The Scripture said, he cried saying, This was he of whom I
spake, he that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he
was before me. John was six months older, humanly
speaking, than the Lord Jesus Christ. He was born to his mother
by his mother, Elizabeth, six months before the Lord Jesus
Christ came forth from the womb of a virgin. So John, humanly
speaking, six months older, that's why he says, this was he of whom
I spake, he that cometh after me. Humanly speaking, the Lord
Jesus Christ came after John. John rightly declared, He was
born after me in this world, but He's been before me because
He's eternally existed. He has preeminence. He's preferred
before me. And of His fullness, verse 16,
have all We received, and grace for grace of His fullness have
all we. Who are the we there? Well, just
look back at verse 12. But as many as received Him.
That's who the we are. As many as received Him. Those
that were born, verse 13, not of blood, not of heritage, not
of the blood of bulls and goats, not of circumcision, not of natural
generation. Those that received Him, they
weren't born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of
the will of man, but of God. That's who we are, of His fullness. have all we received. He's the abundance, all deity, all glory, all sufficiency. And of His fullness, all that God Almighty is, of
His fullness, He's the fullness of the Godhead. And of His fullness,
what is He? God. He's God. Where else do you go? Where else
do you explain from that? Here He is, the Savior, the Redeemer,
the Mediator, our Advocate, our High Priest, all that God Almighty
has purposed eternally to do, to give, to bestow, to show of His fullness. Have we? Have all we received? He's life. He is life. We receive life. Peace. Peace with God. Can you imagine?
not at war with Almighty God. He's the Prince of Peace, the
fullness. Joy is Word. All that we have for
now, eternity. The fullness of His fullness
have all we received. And grace for grace. Grace upon grace. Abundant grace, favor upon favor, mercy upon
mercy, just abounding and abounding and abounding. I mean, you just
where do you where do you end in the grace for grace? What has he done for me? What
has he not done for me? I've got my heart comforted. My soul is settled. My joy is full. I'm at peace
with God. I don't understand it. I believe
it. I can't perceive the depth of
it. Grace for grace. Grace upon grace. The law was given by Moses, but
grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The law, that which God
righteously demanded of man. The law is the expression of
God's character. The law is the expression of
God's heart, His demand. Right, holiness, justice, good. The law that demands obedience,
and it's inflexible. in its claims and never remit
any of its penalty. The law is right. But it could never show mercy.
The law could never show mercy. The soul that sinned is going
to die. That law that testified to God's
righteousness by the law is the knowledge of sin. That law was
given. by Moses, given through Moses. It wasn't Moses' law. It was given by Moses. God's law. There's the demand. All but grace and truth came
by Jesus Christ. Moses said this is what God demands. All but the graciousness of God.
and the truth of God that came by the Lord Jesus Christ, came into this world in all that
was demanded of God's people, all that was demanded of all
men for those that God everlastingly loves. Here's God Almighty for
them. The Lord Jesus Christ obeying
for them. And it's God Almighty watching
over. God knows who are His. Almighty
God knew who the Lord Jesus Christ was living for. I know my sheep. I live for my sheep. He has,
as a man, obeyed perfectly God's law as a man,
true man, flesh, human nature. Absolutely. He knew the law of
God. He loved the law of God. He obeyed the law of God. There's
the grace of God. All that was demanded of me,
all that was demanded of all of His people, there He established
Their righteousness and their righteousness is Him. He is our
righteousness, robed in Him, clothed in Him. And here's God
Almighty doing that which He demands. And in Christ, we've
obeyed God because God has imputed, charged to our account, all that
Christ has done and fulfilled. When He died upon that cross,
He was dying under the penalty of the law. Made sin for us, he who knew
no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
He's lived for us. He died for us. established the
law. He was the end of the law for
righteousness to everyone that believeth. He obeyed God's law. There's
our obedience. He died for the sheep. I lay down my life for the sheep.
And there, under the penalty of God's law, he satisfied it. Lived, died. He that eats my flesh and drinks
my blood." That's what he's saying is, he that believes what I did
for my people. He that believes what I did in
dying for my people. He that eats of me, eats of my
flesh, drinks of my blood. Grace and truth. He came and set forth. If you want to know what God
Almighty demands, look at the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what
God demands. What does God demand for eternal
life? Look at Him. That's what God
demands. What does God demand for obedience? Look at Him. You want to know
how obedient do you have to be? Look at Him. What does God demand? Look at
the truth right there. There's the truth. That's Him.
There's the grace of God. There's the truth of God. Grace
and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man, verse 18, has seen God
at any time. The only begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. No man, not Abraham, Not Moses,
not David. No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is
in. He never left His place in the Godhead. It's an amazing
thing. Never left that union with the
Father and the Spirit. No man has seen God at any time,
the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father. He
has declared Him. He has told Him out, unveiled
Him. As I said before, you look at
Him and you realize that He is, He is the grace of God, He is
the truth of God. You cannot have one without the
other. To reject one is to reject the other, grace and truth. One
would say, well, I possess the grace of God. God's been gracious
to me. Do you possess the truth of God,
the truth of Christ himself, the gospel of God in Christ,
free grace? Sovereign grace, all of grace,
that's truth. That's the truth. That's the
believing on Him who is the truth. I'm the way. I'm the truth. I'm
the life. Grace and truth. Someone say, I believe the truth
of God. I believe in sovereign grace.
I believe in five points of Calvinism. I believe in man's total depravity.
I believe all of those doctrines. I believe the truth of God. Let me ask you this. Has His grace been evidenced
in your heart? Do you possess a heart that will
forsake all for Him? I believe the truth of God. Is
the grace of God evident? Grace and truth. You can't have
one without the other. Forsake one, you forsake the
other. Someone says, I don't believe. I believe God's been
merciful to me. I believe God's been gracious
to me. But I don't believe that. I don't believe that stuff of
God's sovereignty. I don't believe that. That's the truth. That's the
record of Him who hath believed our report. The report, the truth
of Christ in the written word can't be separated from the truth
of Him who is the eternal truth. This word bears witness of Him. You can't separate truth, written
truth, from He who is the truth. You can't do it. You just can't. Grace and truth. No man. seen the Father at any time,
the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he
hath declared Him." May the Lord bless these words to our heart
for Christ's sake and for our good. Amen.