Alright, brethren, let's turn
to John chapter 1. I want to talk to you on the subject
of godliness being the fullness of truth and grace. Godliness
being the fullness of truth and grace. When Christ gives us of His fullness,
when He gives us truth, That is righteousness, when He makes
us righteous, the whole word truth in Him, righteous in Him,
and He gives us grace. Born of the Spirit, the fruit
of grace, grace is. When He does this, we are made
godly, we are in godliness. And I am going to show you what
this godliness consists of at the end of the message, First,
I want to talk about how He is the fullness of truth and grace,
the fullness of righteousness and grace. He says here in verse
14, the Word was made flesh. Job prophesied saying, I know
that my Redeemer liveth and He shall stand at the latter day
upon the earth. Job prophesied about this, about
Christ coming in the flesh. Verse 14, and He dwelt or tabernacled
among us. You know, the tabernacle in the
wilderness had the Shekinah glory in it, and it pictured Christ. Here's Christ, the true tabernacle,
with all His glory. Christ has come, a high priest
of good things, to come by a greater and more perfect tabernacle,
not made with hands, not of this building. He came in the flesh.
He's the true tabernacle. He's what the Old Testament tabernacle
pictured. Verse 14 says, and we beheld
His glory the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.
You remember the Urim and the Thummim, lights and perfections
that the priest wore? And the Shekinah glory that was
a mysterious brightness of God's glory that shined in the tabernacle? Well, it pictured Christ. Here's
Christ, the glory of God, the only begotten of the Father.
And when it says here, glory as of the only begotten of the
Father, Only begotten is a mysterious thing. I don't know how to declare
that, except in verse 15, I think it's what he's declaring. He
says, John, bear witness of him, cried saying, this was he of
whom I spake. He that cometh after me is preferred
before me. He's the begotten. He's the one
that was gotten before. He was before. He's the one who
was in the beginning, was with God, and is God. That's who He
is the only begotten, the only Son that was not created is Christ. He is the Son of God. Verse 18
says, No man had seen God at any time. The only begotten Son,
which is in the bosom of the Father, He had declared Him.
Even when He was in the earth, He was in the bosom of the Father,
meaning He is one with the Father, equal with the Father, one with
Him. Now remember how Moses, when he saw his glory, the Lord
said, I'm going to show you my back parts. He said, you can't
see my face, you see my back parts. That word back parts is
a word that has something to do with time. Not just a bodily
part, but with time. And what Moses saw when he saw
God's glory, he saw the back part of that dispensation. He
saw Christ A shadow of Christ come in the flesh and beheld
the glory. He saw the back part of that
dispensation which is the beginning of the new dispensation of grace
when Christ came and we see His glory in His face now. Now verse
14, let's read this again. He says, He dwelt among us and
we beheld His glory full of grace and truth and of His, verse 16,
and of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses,
but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Now, first of all, Christ
is full of grace and truth. The word truth means righteousness.
He's full of truth and full of grace and righteousness. He is
grace and truth in person. He's grace and righteousness
in person. Everything our Savior is in His
person is grace and truth. And everything He thought, everything
He did, everything He spoke was full of grace and truth. Grace and righteousness. Everything
He did. But we see that grace and that
truth in full glory on the cross. On the cross. The purpose, think
about the Son of God, who is Spirit, taking human flesh, what
was the purpose of that? In 2 Corinthians 5.19 it says,
God was in Christ, reconciling the world of his elect unto himself,
not imputing our trespasses to us. The purpose of God coming
in human flesh is God was in Christ. and He was reconciling
His elect to Himself. He was not imputing our transgressions
to us, our trespasses to us. How did He not impute sin to
us when we were sin? Because by Christ taking a body,
He hath made Him sin for us who knew no sin. He took the sin
of His people and made Christ bear that sin and He imputed
sin to Christ in our place. And so he did that to make us
the righteousness, the truth of God in him. Our text says
we saw his glory full of grace and truth. There's the truth,
the glory of the truth on the cross, the glory of righteousness.
He established truth. He established righteousness.
And that's where we see the fullness of it. And he established us
in truth, in righteousness, his elect right there on the cross.
So he's grace and truth. Now, secondly, of His fullness
have all God's elect received grace and truth. Read verse 16,
and of His fullness have all we received and grace for grace. Now I want you to notice verse
14 says, we saw Him full of grace and truth. And then in verse
17, he says, the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth
came by Jesus Christ. But in verse 16, Where's the
word truth? He says, of His fullness have
all we received and we received grace. When He says there, of His fullness
have all we received, He's talking about righteousness. He's talking
about there we received truth from Him. We received righteousness
from Him. He is the fullness of our righteousness. The law was given by Moses. But
grace and truth came by Christ. Notice it doesn't say that grace
and truth were given by Christ. It says grace and truth came
by Jesus Christ. He is the grace and truth. He
came and established grace and truth. Now truth means righteousness. Grace means peace. So when you
read this, you could read it the same as Psalm 85.10. Mercy
and truth are met together in Him. He's calling mercy here
grace and truth. Mercy and truth are met together
in Christ. Grace and truth met together
in Christ. Righteousness and peace kissed
each other. Righteousness is truth. Peace
is grace. Grace and truth kissed each other
in Christ. You get what I'm saying? They
met there in him. Now the law was given by Moses,
but no truth, no righteousness was given by Moses. No fulfillment
of the law. And you and I being sinners,
just because Moses gave the law, we couldn't fulfill it. We couldn't
establish truth. We couldn't establish righteousness.
So all that came by Moses was he gave a law. He gave it to
declare us guilty. He gave it to show us our sin,
but no righteousness, no truth came by that law. We couldn't
establish it. But truth, righteousness came by Christ Jesus. He fulfilled
the law in righteousness. He established truth by keeping
the law. You know, on the cross, the righteousness
of the law is love. The truth of the law is love,
perfect love, not just this sentimental thing we call love, perfect love.
And on the cross, We see truth established, perfect righteousness
established because Christ loved God, His Father, and His people
more than Himself. He laid down His life for us. And doing so, He justified it. He established righteousness.
He established truth. And so truth came by Christ.
Righteousness came by Christ. He established it. And grace
came by Christ. What He was doing for us in coming
was grace. In going to the cross for us,
that was grace. In establishing truth for us,
that was grace. And then in coming and telling
us this truth, that's grace. And when He gives you faith,
when He comes with His gospel, He comes in grace declaring Christ
the truth, declaring He's your righteousness. And He speaks
into the heart of His elect and He makes us know He's truth,
He's our truth. And because He made you true,
He imputes truth to you, He imputes righteousness to you, and that's
grace. That's you receiving unmerited
free favor from Him. Now, why does He give us that
grace? He says He gives us grace for
grace. He gives us grace for grace. Verse 16, Of His fullness have
all we received, That is, we receive truth, we receive righteousness
from His fullness and grace for grace. Grace for grace. So in the new birth, through
God-given faith, He declares you're righteous. He gives you
righteousness and declares you're righteous. You've been established
in truth. You've established the truth
of the law. We're not trying, you know, the world is guilting
people into into trying to establish the law and trying to keep the
law. Believer, I'm not trying to compel you to try to keep
the law. I'm telling you, if you believe
on Christ, you've already kept the law, and you can't break
the law. The law is established, that's
what truth is, that's what righteousness is. You've kept the law, you've
established it perfectly with no sin, and God says, well done. Now that's in Christ, that's
in Christ. But He gives us grace too, and
when He says He gives us grace, of His fullness, we receive grace
for grace. When He gives you grace, when
you're born again, He gives you grace's. He gives you graces. He creates you anew. There is
a new man created. That we might be gracious as
we preach Christ the truth. It is grace for grace. It is
grace for going forth and preaching Christ the truth and being gracious
to sinners who oppose themselves. Being gracious to one another
when we sin and stumble and fall so that we do everything necessary
to keep the gospel preached to not disrupt the peace of it so
that we can all focus on Christ being declared. It's grace for
grace. He gives you grace in your heart
for the purpose of you being gracious to one another to keep
Christ the truth proclaimed. You get that? You get what I'm
saying? Now the grace He gives you is the fruit of the Spirit.
Paul tells us in Galatians 5.22, the fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance,
self-control. And against such there is no
law. When he says against such there is no law, that means that
in you, believer, in the new man, there is a righteous, a
true man. And he is holy. And there is
no law against him. Because he is full of this fruit.
He is full of grace. And there is no law against grace.
And that tells you what it says, the fruit of the spirits, love,
joy, peace, all these fruits, these fruits of grace. That means,
and he says there's no law against it. That's telling you there
is a new man created in you that's righteous and holy. It's Christ
in you, the hope of glory. It's not of you, it's of his
fullness. We're united with him. Remember he said, Father, you're
in me and I'm in them that they may be made perfect in one. That's the end goal. We're going
to be perfectly righteous and holy in the end in body, soul,
and spirit. Right now, in our spirit, in
our new man, we already are. But it's of Christ, it's Christ
united with us, it's of His fullness. But do you get what I'm saying?
Grace is the fruit of the Spirit. Grace is love, joy, long-suffering,
patience. All of these things He gives
us. And He gives it for grace. Now notice it doesn't say, He
doesn't give you truth for truth. It doesn't say of His fullness
we receive truth for truth. If He said that, He would be
saying, I've given you righteousness so you go forth now and you try
to compel other men to be righteous. Or you go forth now and you try
to establish yourself in righteousness. He didn't give us truth for truth. He didn't give us righteousness
so that we can go forth and try to establish ourselves in righteousness.
That's done. He gave us grace for going forth
and preaching Christ the truth, being gracious to sinners, gracious
to one another, so He can establish them in truth through God-given
faith. You see, we're not called on to judge other sinners. He's
the judge. Our Redeemer, all judgment is
His. Think about it. He's the judge. who himself came down off the
bench, put himself in place of the guilty, sentenced himself
to death, bore the justice of God in our place, established
this injustice and now passes the verdict and says, he's back
on the bench and he passes the verdict and says, now you're
righteous. That is a true judge, isn't it? That's a righteous
judge that did all that for us. And see, we go forth in grace
preaching Christ the truth. He gives us grace for that purpose,
for grace. We go forth preaching the truth.
And the scripture says, Isaiah 2 verse 4 says, He shall judge
among the nations. He shall. That's what He's doing
when the gospel is going forth. He's judging among the nations.
And shall rebuke many people. He makes the gospel go forth
and He, the Judge, Christ the Judge, He rebukes you about your
own self-righteousness and your own thinking you've established
yourself in truth. He rebukes you. And doing so,
He gives you faith to receive Him as your only righteousness. And you know what the result
is? It says, and He gives grace for grace. It says He'll judge
and He'll rebuke and they shall. He gives grace for grace. He
says, they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears
into pruning hooks, and nations shall not lift up sword against
nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. Wherever he gives
a believer a new heart. He judges you, He rebukes you,
He teaches you, you're not establishing righteousness, I'm your righteousness,
I'm the truth, now you're righteous. And when He does that, He gives
you grace for grace and you destroy your weapons of war and you quit
trying to fight with men and justify yourself and make yourself
appear righteous and now you're gracious to sinners. You declare
to them, I'm just a sinner. I'm just a guilty sinner in myself.
He's truth. Believe on Him. He's true. The
weapons of our warfare are not carnal. We've taken our spears
and our swords and we're not using them anymore. We're not
waging war against flesh with flesh anymore. Now we're using
grace for grace because of what He's given us. Paul's put it
this way. He said, Under me, who am less
than the least of all saints, is this grace given. Here is
grace for grace. He said to me, the least of all
saints is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles
the unsearchable riches of Christ. That I should preach the unsearchable
riches of the truth of Him who is our righteousness. Are you
following me? Are you following me? He said,
and the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith
and love. He gave me faith and he gave
me grace. He gave me love, which is in
Christ Jesus. He said to us, my grace is sufficient
for you. He never stops giving you grace
for grace. and we start getting lifted up in pride, why does
the judge rebuke us and make us grind our spear into powder? Why does he do that to us? Because
he's only going to use weaklings. He's going to use sinners who
have no power, no truth in ourselves, no grace in ourselves, just sinners. And he makes you see my grace
is sufficient for you. My strength is going to be made
perfect. It's going to be made manifest
through your weakness. You don't see many rich, many
noble, many mighty. You know what that means? You
don't find people who are mighty and rich and noble in their own
works of righteousness in his church. But what do you find? Nothings and nobodies. Weaklings. who He's made righteous, who
He's given grace so that you're gracious to one another. So we
can't boast about anything. We can't boast about establishing
truth. We can't boast about being gracious.
It's all of His fullness. It's all of His fullness. Now,
what I want you to get from that, He continually reminds us when
we're brethren here and when we stumble and fall, some brother
is overtaken. And our righteous judge reminds
you, that brother is truth. That brother is righteous. In
Christ, he's righteous. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect is God that justifies. He justified
him. He's righteous. He reminds you
of that. If we really got that, if we really understood that,
we would never charge one another again. Because God says, He basically
essentially said, who's going to charge you? I justified Him. And what does He do with that?
He gives you grace to be gracious. To restore and cover and help. Why? What's the purpose of that?
Why do you want to overlook a brother's sin? Why not go to the scripture
and isolate some scriptures so you can be mean as a stake to
him and justify yourself for doing it? Why not do that? Because
the King rebukes me from that and gives me grace not to do
that. And when he does it, he does it so that you won't rip
the baby apart. He does it so that the baby stays
together. And when you love the baby, you
don't want to divide the baby. You don't want to cut the baby
in half. You want the body to stay together so the gospel goes
forth and we continue hearing the truth. That's why he does
it. He gives you Christ your righteousness so you're not guilty.
And he gives you and your brethren grace for being gracious to one
another. Now, go with me over to 1 Timothy
chapter 3. This is what I got really excited
about. This is one of those things when you see it, your heart just
overflows. And I want to show you that when
we receive of His fullness, when He gives us truth, when He makes
you know you are righteous in Him and He gives you grace, He's
given us all things that pertain to life and godliness. In other
words, when He's done this work, He's made you godly. It won't
ever be undone. You're in godliness. You are
godly. Now, I went to this verse to
support the word was made flesh. Because you know, you read that
verse and then you go to 1 Timothy 3.16 to support that. Without
controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest
in the flesh. But listen, read that first part
again. Without controversy, great is
the mystery of godliness. He's about to tell us what godliness
really is. This is what godliness really
is. And you remember, it's the mystery
of God. You remember Paul said the mystery is revealed to you
by Christ in you. And this is what happens when
Christ is formed in a sinner, and He made you to look to Him
for righteousness, and He created these fruits of grace in your
heart. This is what godliness is. We see it in what Christ
did, and we see it in what He makes us. Let me show you. You
see, here it is. God was manifest in the flesh.
Oh, let me say this first. The word godliness, that's a word very few people
know what it means. But the word, there's four different
Greek words for godliness. The word used right here means
the whole duty of every kind toward God and men is godliness. The whole duty of our duty toward
God and man is godliness. Now I want you to see, we have
been perfectly godly in Christ by Christ. And with Him in you,
in the new man, you're godly. Now let me show you what it is.
God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen
of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the
world, received up into glory. That right there, brethren, is
our total duty toward God and men, our whole life right there.
Now what does all that mean? Godliness is God manifest in
the flesh. The Son of God entered a body
in a perfect, holy, human nature. God and man in one in perfection. And in the new birth, that's
exactly what happens. Christ enters in Spirit, the
Son of God enters in Spirit and creates a perfectly holy new
man within you. God and man perfectly united
in one in that new man. Alright? Godliness is being justified
in the Spirit. Christ was in the Spirit. He
was in the Spirit. Always in the Spirit. The Spirit
was upon Him without measure. He was justified in the Spirit
at His birth. He was justified in the Spirit
when God spoke from heaven at His baptism on the Mount of Transfiguration. He was justified in the Spirit
when He finished the work and declared it's finished and commended
His Spirit to the Father. He was justified in the Spirit
when He rose again for our justification. Justified in the Spirit, declaring
He is the Righteous One, the Truth, who established truth.
And when He brings you to believe on Him, when He's formed in you
and God is manifest in your flesh, He creates a new man in you that's
perfectly holy, brings you to faith in Christ, you're justified
in the Spirit. You're justified in the Spirit.
We're worshipped in the Spirit, we're led of the Spirit, we're
justified in the Spirit. Remember Romans 8, if you're
born of Him and the Spirit of Christ abides in you, you're
not in the flesh anymore, you're in the Spirit. Believer, you're
in the spirit. It's not something we do, it's
something he does. You're in the spirit and you're
justified of the spirit. Alright? Scene of angels. The
law requires witnesses. You have to have two or three
witnesses. You can't just... You got two people that are... One saying one committed the
crime, the other saying the other committed the crime. Neither
one of them is going to be credible witnesses. They got a dog in
the fight. You've got to have two or three more witnesses to
be able to back up. Well, the angels are the witnesses. The angels are the witnesses.
They saw what Christ did. And they glorified Him in heaven
for what He did. And they rejoiced in what He
did. And then whenever you're born of Him, and that new man
is created, and you're justified in spirit, Scripture says angels
desire to look into Christ's work in the midst of His church.
They delight to look into this. And you know what it said, when
he brings one of his lost sheep, there's joy in heaven over one
sinner that repents. More than 99 that need no repentance.
The angels rejoice. They bear witness of Christ's
work and how he's made you godly when he brings you to him. And they watch over you like
they watched over him. Remember, he was strengthened
by an angel. You're strengthened, kept, watched over. Now look,
the next thing. Preached unto the Gentiles. The
word Gentiles means the world. Christ went about preaching,
and He's the gospelly priest. And then He sent Paul, but beyond
the Jews, into the world to preach the gospel. This is godliness.
This is our full duty to God and men, is to preach Christ
and Him crucified. And when He's done His work in
you, He sends you forth. Here we are, and our purpose
in life is to preach this gospel to one another and to this whole
world. That's our purpose. Believed on in the world. Christ
was believed on in the world. He gave sinners faith to believe
Him. And when He gives us of His fullness, He gives us truth,
makes us behold His truth, and brings us to believe on Him,
He gives us grace to believe. And we believe on Him. and we're
to continue believing on Him. Faith in Christ is not a one-time
thing. Godliness, He makes you continue
walking by faith, believing on Him. And as you go forth into
the world preaching Him, He brings others to believe on Him through
this gospel. Received up into glory. When
Christ finished His work, He was received up into glory and
the whole church, all the elect, The mysterious body of Christ
sat down in him, at God's right hand. And now you and I are in
this earth, he's given us this duty in godliness to preach his
name, to believe on him, to walk by faith. And as he's doing this
work, when we finished our work here for him, individually, and
when the last elect child is called, we're received up into
glory, just like he was. Now brethren, that's the mystery
of godliness. That's godliness that this world
does not understand. They think there's got to be
more to it than that. It's true holiness. That's the
whole duty toward God and men. It's all in Christ, it's all
through Christ, and it's all to Christ's glory. Every bit
of it. He did it all for us in perfection. And then he brings
you into the fullness of it, of his fullness. And when we're
born of the Spirit of Christ, Peter said he gives you all things
that pertain to life and godliness. These things we just read about.
A new holy nature, we worship God, we're justified in spirit.
glorified by angels, we go forth preaching Christ in the world,
we continue believing on Christ, and He brings others to believe
on Him, and at last we're received up into glory. Look over at 1
Timothy 4 and look at verse 7. Now you can understand what Paul
is saying right here. He told Timothy, verse 7, to
refuse profane and old wives' fables and exercise thyself unto
godliness. What's he calling profane and
old wise fables? Everything this self-righteous
world is preaching. That's what he's referring to
right there. Why? Because they're telling you something
else is godliness. He says you exercise yourself
under godliness for bodily exercise that they're promoting profits
very little. But godliness This thing worked
by Christ of His fullness is profitable unto all things, having
this promise, life that now is and life which is to come. This
is godliness. Look at 1 Timothy 6 and verse
3. If any man teach otherwise and
consent not to wholesome words, even to the words of our Lord
Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness,
The doctrine which is according to God is what I'm declaring
to you right here today. This is what I've been declaring
to you. This is godliness. If a man is preaching something
else's godliness, he's telling something you do is godliness.
He's proud, knowing nothing, doting about questions and strifes
of words, whereof cometh envy and strife and railings and evil
surmisings and perverse disputings of men. of corrupt minds, destitute
of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness." Did that
not just describe the whole religious world? Everything he just said
describes the whole religious world. They think gain is godliness,
getting more members in, building a bigger church, everything more
and it's all about your works and so it's all about pride and
knowing nothing and questions and strifes of words and all
it produces is envy and strife and railings and evil surmisings
and perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, destitute of
the truth. That's what religion without
Christ is. Now watch this. From such withdraw
thyself. But godliness with contentment
is great gain. Having Christ give us of his
fullness truth and righteousness and do all these things that
godliness is, bring us into this godliness, giving us all things
that pertain to life and godliness. When he does that, You're content
with Christ. I don't need anything else. And
I'm content with what he gives me in this life. I'm content
with his work he's doing in his church. What he's doing's right
and I'm content with it, aren't you? That's great gain. That's great gain. For we brought
nothing in this world. You and I aren't contributing.
What are we gonna contribute? Just what we brought into this
world, nothing. We brought nothing into this
world, it's certain we can carry nothing out, so having food and
raiment. See, godliness, the whole duty
of man is preaching Him, being gracious to sinners, waiting
on Him to work this in other sinners. That's the whole duty
of man. And so He says, don't make your life to be about food
and raiment, about stuff. Just be content with what He's
given you and go forth in godliness. This is our whole duty to preach
Christ as truth and all grace and righteousness comes from
Him. And when this work is done and He's used us and He's finished
with our particular, what He would have us do in this life,
He'll receive us up in the glory. We didn't bring anything in this
world, but we're going out with a whole lot more than we brought
in. We're going out with His righteousness and His grace.
That's godliness. I hope you got that. Let's go
to the Lord in prayer. Father, thank you for this word.
Lord, make us forget what religion has taught us. Lord, please make
us forget all the things that false religion does. Make us
forget the histories. the ideals we have of what we
think religion is. Make us hear your word. Make
us see that everything is of Christ's fullness. He's our truth
and he's our grace. He's the one who gives us all
things that pertain to godliness and make us follow him and be
content to do His work, to preach His gospel, and to give to the
fervents of it, and to make this our life. And Father, make us
content, make us to be content with Christ and make us content
with whatever temporal things you give us in this life. Make
us content with our brethren. Make us be gracious to one another
and gracious to sinners who hate our gospel. They're not opposing
us, they're opposing themselves. Make us be patient and gracious
and teach them and wait on you to work. Lord, how we do thank
you for this mercy, this truth, this grace that you've given.
Everything is of your fullness. We thank you, Father. In Christ's
name, amen.