The Gospel of John chapter 1.
Go there with me. John chapter 1. It's amazing
how that John 1, Colossians 1, Ephesians 1, all these scriptures go together
because It all speaks of our Lord Jesus Christ. It begins
and ends with Him. He's the beginning and the ending.
First and the last. The author and the finisher of
the faith. John chapter 1, verses 14 through 18. The Word was made
flesh and dwelt among us. We beheld His glory. The glory
as of the only begotten of the Father. Full of grace and truth. Now John, bear witness of him,
cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake. Now John cried
this. He's shouting this to everyone
that could hear it. He that cometh after me is preferred
before me, for he was before me. And of his fullness of all
we received, grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses,
but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man had seen God at
any time. The only begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father, had declared Him. He had declared
Him. Grace and truth. That's the Lord
Jesus Christ. Speaking of Him. This is a clear
and concise declaration of who Christ is. God. Very clear to
God's people. That He was God. Is God. Manifest
in the flesh. And it speaks of Him being full
of grace and truth. We were talking earlier about
the blasphemy of man. And there are millions all over
who pray a prayer to a woman named Mary. And they call her
Mother of God, full of grace and truth. And that's blasphemy. We receive nothing from her but
everything from Christ. He's the one whom Scripture says
is full of grace and truth. And he's the one whom God has
put all fullness in, the only mediator between God and man,
the man, Christ Jesus, not a woman, the man, Christ Jesus. And we
pray to the Father in His name, not hers, not anyone's name,
but the only name given among men, under heaven, given among
men, whereby we must be saved. The name of Jesus Christ, our
Lord. He's the one full of grace and
truth. And John goes on to say, and
we've received grace, everything we've received. It's grace for
grace. All the grace of God is in and
through Jesus Christ. Okay? The grace of God, the mercy
of God, the truth of God, the salvation of God, the forgiveness
of God, the redemption of God, the reconciliation of God is
by Jesus Christ. Did you love that in Colossians
1? He said, by Him. By Him, I say,
in case you didn't hear me the first time. By Him. Him. And we're going to be singing
in glory unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins
in His own blood. Unto Him be all honor and glory
and praise for grace and truth. Now this sums up the Gospel. And you've got to begin though
where John began. Telling us who Christ is and
why He came. to appreciate the grace of God.
You see, by grace you save. And that means it's a gift. You've heard this description of grace, that grace
is getting what we don't deserve. God giving to us what we didn't
earn, what we didn't deserve. It's not works. It's grace. It is works, but it's not ours.
It's Christ's works, you see. We're redeemed. We're accepted
because of what Christ did for us. We're going to triumph through
the works of His hands, His works of righteousness for us, okay?
And God gives those to His people. God imputes those, reckons those
to His people. Grace for His grace. Our Lord
graciously came down here to do what he did for his people. Not all people, but his people.
By grace you saved. So in order to really appreciate
what has been given us and what God has done for us and what
Christ has done for us, you've got to understand who he was,
who he became, what He did when He came here, who He did it for. It says in verse 10, He was in
the world, the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him
not. The Creator came to His earth. Surely you would think
His creatures would honor Him and praise Him and thank Him
for coming and just bow down and worship Him and thank Him
for everything because everything we have comes from His gracious
hands. Surely His creature will be glad
to see Him and give Him all honor and praise and glory. No. He
came to His own and His own received Him not. As a matter of fact,
they rejected Him. They rejected Him. We did reject
Him. We all did. I don't know when
the Lord revealed Himself to you, but what were you doing
before you did that? Were you worshiping God? Were
you thanking God? Were you thinking about God?
Did you ever give God a thought? Did you take credit for anything
you'd ever done? Did you ever have any pride?
Do you have any pride? In order to appreciate the gospel
of God's sovereign grace and mercy through Jesus Christ, you've
got to understand who it was that came. God. Why did he come? What is man that thou art mindful
of him? Huh? Why did he come? And a son
of man that he would visit him. Why did he come? He came down
here for this purpose. To seek and to save the law.
To save sinners. Faithful saying, Christ came
into the world to save sinners. Who? What kind of sinners? The ones that killed him. The
ones that hated him. The ones that never gave him
a thought. How long would you put up with
a dog that you fed and he growled at you and bit you every chance
he got? Huh? How long? That's all mankind,
okay? But God. Amen. And Christ came down here,
and what He did to reconcile His people to God, to reconcile
some of these bad creatures, was take the blame, take all
of their sin, take all their iniquity upon Himself, and go
before God and say, don't kill them, kill me. Don't pour your
wrath out upon them. Pour it out on me. Spare them. Don't spare me. That's grace, you see. That grace
you see. Not an offer? No, no. If God
offered it, every single person would reject it. Don't want it. Don't need it. And that's what
people do, still. It was an act of God. Mercy of
God. Grace of God. This is the truth. The truth, grace and truth go
together. Mercy and truth, grace and peace,
righteousness and peace, they all go together and they're all
in Christ. The truth is the gospel. And you're saved by hearing the
truth. No one is saved apart from hearing the truth. Look
at Ephesians 1 with me. You read with me Colossians 1,
but look at Ephesians 1. It sounds just like Colossians
1. But in Ephesians 1, and this
is why God's people love these scriptures so much, love God's
truth. They love salvation by sovereign
mercy and grace because they know what they were. They know who Christ is, God,
manifest in the flesh. And they're amazed by His grace.
We sing that song, Amazing Grace, that saved a wretch like me. Do you know they've changed that?
Modern man has changed that from wretch to saved a one like me. And it goes on in Ephesians 1
to say, verse 1, grace, peace from God the Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. And it goes on to tell what all
God has done through Christ. Blessed be God who chose us in
Christ before the foundation of the world, predestinated us,
adopted us by Jesus Christ, because he would, good pleasure is his
will. Verse 6, to the praise of his glory, he's accepted us
in Christ. Verse 7, redeemed us by the blood
of Christ. We have grace and peace through
His blood, forgiven us for Christ's sake. See that? It's all according
to the riches of His grace. He made known unto us this mystery,
this purpose of His. Verse 10, gathered us together
in Christ to the praise of the glory of His grace. We have an
inheritance. An inheritance is because someone
died. You don't deserve an inheritance.
He didn't work for and earn anything that you inherit. Somebody else
did. That's what Christ did. And it says, we're to the praise
of His glory. And verse 13 says, in whom you
trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.
And he received the word of truth. Peter said this. Turn over to
First Peter with me. First Peter, chapter one. You
see, no one's saved apart from hearing the truth. What is the
truth? It's the gospel. What is the
gospel? The gospel is God's sovereign
mercy and grace. He's electing love, mercy, and
grace in Christ Jesus, which was given God's people in Christ
before the world began. That's it in a nutshell. He saved
us and called us with a holy calling. It was given us in Christ
before the world began. And Christ came for those rebels
and died for them and lived for them and satisfied God's law
for them and died on the cross to pay for their rebellion against
God. And the Holy Spirit comes in
time through the preaching of the gospel, the Word, the truth.
They all hear the truth. They all hear the truth of who
God is, holy, holy, holy, what they are, worthless sinners.
Don't deserve a chance to be saved. They all hear of who Christ
is, the Holy One of God, the beloved Son of God, sent by God
with a purpose for God's glory, for the salvation of His people.
And He did all that work by Himself to the praise of the glory of
Him, His work. And God sends the Holy Spirit
in time with this truth to convict them of their sin bow their knee
to Christ and give them heart, faith in Christ and love for
the truth. And from then on and from throughout
eternity, they're going to be singing the praise of the glory
of His sovereign grace. 1 Peter 1. Peter said this, and he started
out by elect, elect, sprinkled by the blood. Grace, verse 2,
and peace. Blessed be God. You see, it's
all the same. Blessed be God, according to
His abundant mercy, who had begotten us the lively hope by Jesus Christ. And go on down, it says in verse
22, you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through
the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Verse 23, born again by the Word
of God. Verse 25, and this is the Word
which by the Gospel is preached unto you. Nobody saved apart
from hearing the truth. And the truth is, God's sovereign
mercy and sovereign grace in Christ. Salvation is by grace. Go to Exodus chapter 33 with
me. Exodus 33. Exodus 33. Now this is quoted in Romans
9. Paul said this in Romans 9. Another
passage which all of God's people love. And Moses said to God,
verse 12, Moses said unto the Lord, you said you're going to
bring up this people, and not let me know whom thou wilt send
with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name. God, you
said you know me by name, and I found grace in thy sight. I
pray thee. If I have found grace in thy
sight, show me thy way, that I may know thee. If I have found
grace in thy sight, show me thy way. I want to know you. And
down in verse 17, the Lord said, I will do this thing. Thou hast
found grace in my sight, and I know thee. For whom he did
foreknow, he did predestinate. You know, some people actually
don't like that term predestined. They don't know God. Because
that's the truth. God's people love the truth. All of it. And it begins with
God's foreknowledge or election of the people, choosing the people,
and His predestination of them to be His children. If He didn't
do that, They won't be, okay? And gave them to Christ, whom
he predestinated, he called by the gospel. They all hear this
gospel, the word of truth. Everything I'm telling you right
now. Paul said this in 2 Thessalonians, you're bound to give thanks to
God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath
from the beginning chosen you. And false religion says choose
Jesus. That's a lie. Anybody that's
ever chosen Jesus is lost. All of God's people know. And
it's not doctrine people. It's His program. And it's your salvation. If you chose Him, you might reject
Him later. Right? If somebody talked you
into choosing Him, somebody later on might talk you into rejecting
Him. But now if He chose you, And he said, you're mine. And
he put you in his covenant and put your name in his book. Ain't
nobody can do anything about that. Not even you. Don't you
like that? Who wouldn't like that? I tell
you who wouldn't like that. Self-righteous person. A person who likes their goodness
and their morality and their religion and likes how they've
let Him into their heart and all that and likes to tell people
about it. Oh, how I love Jesus. John called himself the disciple
whom Jesus loved. Paul, he said, I'm less than
the least. I'm not fit to be called a disciple
of Him. Exodus 33, now so Moses said,
asked the Lord, he said, I beseech you, verse 18, show me thy glory. Didn't Paul say, I want to know
Him. I want to know the true God.
You know, Isaiah 59 says, none call it
the truth. None call it the truth. Tell
me the truth. Have you ever had anybody come up to you and say,
would you tell me the truth about God? Would you tell me the truth,
what God's Word says about salvation? Just who is Jesus Christ? Would
you tell me the truth? And we wouldn't either, but God
in sovereign mercy said, I'm going to tell you the truth.
I'm going to give you a love of the truth. I'm going to give
you an understanding of the truth. I'm going to put the truth in
you, which is Christ. Show me thy glory. I want to
know you, like Paul said. All right, here's what God said
in verse 19. I will make all my goodness pass
before them. All the goodness of God. Has
the Lord been good to you? Has the Lord been gracious to
you? Has everything you have by His
grace been given to you? How much have you been given
by God? Do you not attribute everything
you are and everything you know and everything you have to God
and every bad thing to you? Do you not? Paul said, by the
grace of God I am what I am. Know what I know. Have what I
have. Oh my goodness. What do you consider
the greatest goodness of God to you? Let me ask you, come
on, ask yourself an honest question. What do you consider the greatest
goodness that God has ever shown you, the greatest thing God has
ever given to you, done for you? What is it? Would you mind telling
me? Paul said, to the praise of the glory of
His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted into beloved. that God has given us this unspeakable
gift, a knowledge of Christ. I'd love to cry. See what all
Christ has done for us. Alright, this follows with this
goodness of God. All the goodness of God really
is in Christ. Good news. Gospel. Alright, look
at verse 19. He says, I will proclaim the
name of the Lord before them. Who's speaking here? God. Who? Who is this? In a minute he's going to tell
you, there's a place by me and I'm going to come down and stand
beside you. Who is this speaking? Who has always spoken to man?
Christ. He's the Word. He's the Word. Now here's what he said, I will
proclaim the name of the Lord before thee. Who is that? Who
is Lord? That the name of Jesus every
knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord. He's Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ. Jehovah. That's the name is Jehovah. Who's Jehovah? Jesus Christ. Jehovah Sidkenu, Jehovah Raha,
Jehovah Rapa, Jehovah Nisi, Jehovah Shalom, Jehovah Yisrael, Lord
our Peace, Lord our Banner, Lord our Righteous, Lord... He's all
these things. He's made unto us. Of God are you in Christ
who's made unto you all these things. And you know it. That's
the truth. And he goes on to say, now, I
will be gracious. I'm going to give to those that
don't deserve it. I'm going to save those that
aren't worth saving. I'm going to choose those that
would never choose me. I'm going to choose those that
rejected me. I'm going to give them a righteousness
they don't want, don't have, and can't produce. I'm going
to give it to them. I'm going to put it on them. I'm going to make them understand.
I'm going to give them this understanding. I will be gracious. Isn't this
something? God says, this is what I will
do. I will be gracious. God is gracious. God is the God
of all grace. And he said, he declared the
decree. I will be gracious. Oh, how gracious. To whom I will be gracious. Sovereign
gracious. Well, we get the term sovereign.
Grace reigns, isn't it? The word sovereign is not in
the Bible. Well, the whole truth is God
reigns sovereign. Lord over all. Does as He will
with whom He will. Now, here's what it says. I will.
I will. This is where salvation started,
and this is where it ends. God's will. If God willed your
salvation, He will save you. I will. He said, I will be gracious
to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy. That's kindness. That's not giving us what we
desire. That's sparing us what we ought
to give us. I will show mercy. on whom I will show mercy. See,
mercy is sovereign. And he went on to say, you can't
see my face, and no man see me and live. And the Lord said,
there's a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock. All through the Scriptures he
keeps talking about a rock. A rock, a rock, a rock. That
rock is Christ. And it says, you're going to
stand upon this rock and come to pass, for my glory passeth
by, I'll put thee in the cleft of the rock. Rock of ages, cleft
of that. And I'll cover thee with my hand
while I pass by. And so it happened. He came down.
He stood by him. The Lord came down, stood with
him, and declared the name of the Lord. Lord God, gracious,
merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth. Truth. You know, Jacob summed
it up. Jacob. He said, Lord, I'm not
worthy of the least of all Thy mercies. I'm not waiting. And all the truth that you've
shown me. No one's saved apart from the
truth. No one knows God except through
the truth. Look at our text in John 1. So
he says, Christ is all the fullness of God, full of grace and truth. Didn't he say, I am the way,
the truth, and the life? John bore witness of him, said,
He that cometh after me is preferred before me. John, you know, was
a true witness because he witnessed of Christ. And John was a true
man sent by God. He didn't want people to know
him at all. He wanted them to know Christ, follow Christ. And
what did John say about himself? I'm a nothing, I'm a nobody,
I'm a voice, that's all I am. He said, he must increase, I
must decrease. I'm a nobody. Paul one time said,
who is Paul? Who is Apollos? Nobodies, nothings,
Christ is all. And so he says in verse 16, of
his fullness, John is shouting this. John cried. Modern religions don't, shouldn't
have, nope, shouldn't shout, shouldn't holler. John did. And he said, of his fullness
have all we receive, speaking to God's people, and grace for
grace. Everything we are and have is
by his grace. And he went on to say, now verse
17, the law was given by Moses. Who gave the law? One time the
Pharisees said that. Moses. We have Moses. He said,
Moses didn't give you that. My father gave it to him. Christ
is the author of love. But anyway, Moses declared it. But grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. Grace and truth. One more scripture
I want you to turn to. I'm going to close. Romans chapter
3. And I had Romans chapter 3, I had hundreds written down,
Romans 3, Romans 5, about the law. It says, Moses, the law
was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Now anybody, anybody who thinks
that they're keeping God's law and God is pleased with them
because they're keeping God's law, doesn't know God, and I
don't care how moral they are, I don't care how righteous they
may seem, how sincere they are, they don't know God, they don't
know the law, and God will cast them out of his presence of death.
And there are lots of people like that. You know that? And
people still keeping Saturday, the Sabbath, that's the seventh
day Adventist. They don't know Jesus Christ.
He's our Sabbath. We don't worship a day. We don't
keep the law. You understand that? Paul, who
thought he kept the law, said, you desire to be under the law,
you don't know it. He said, I thought I knew the
law. He knew the letter of the law. He said, when the law came,
here it is, in Romans 3, he says in verse 17, the way of peace
they've not known. There's no fear of God before
their eyes. They love Jesus. Jesus Christ was the lawgiver.
He will by no means clear the guilty. And to offend in one
point, you should be guilty of the law. Right? That's the truth. You know that.
You know that, don't you? Every person in here knows that.
Does it matter? If righteousness come by the
law, Jesus Christ died in vain. Read on. Now, we know. Who knows? We know, don't we, sister? That
whatsoever things the law saith, it saith to them that are under
the law that every mouth may be stopped. And all the world
become guilty before God. Why was the law given? For us
to live by and become moral and righteous and quit all our sinning
and all that so that God be pleased with us and take us to heaven,
all this law keeping? No, it wasn't. No, it wasn't. The law was given to show the
exceeding sinfulness of sin. That's what Paul wrote all through
this This is Roman. And our Lord, when He came on
the Sermon on the Mount, He magnified the Lord. He said, You've heard
it said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill. He said, If you're angry, you've
killed. The only reason you didn't is
God kept you from it. If you'd lived back in the old
days, everybody strapping a gun on their side, you'd have killed
that person you're angry. Guilty for thinking it. That's what God said. And it's
true, isn't it? And he went on to say, verse 23, all have sinned.
So, the law is spiritually set. God looks on the heart. The law
is spiritual. The law demands perfection in
thought as well as deed. In motive as well in action. Right? And God looks on the heart. So,
read on with it. But the law says it's guilty.
Therefore, by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified
in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. That's
why God wrote the law. You cannot preach the gospel
without saying, and you were dead in sin, rebels against God. You may have been law keepers,
but you're self-righteous, just religious, and God saw through
it all. But now, the righteousness of God, without the law, holiness,
acceptance with God, being accepted by God without you keeping the
law. Somebody kept it. Jesus Christ. You know that. Don't you, John? Don't you, Patrick? You know,
Polly? Don't you know that? Does it matter? You're not going to give Jesus
Christ all the glory unless you know that. You're not going to
give God all the glory unless you know that. But he ought to
send you to hell because you've broken every law. Every day,
Every hour. And it's only the mercy and grace
of God in Jesus Christ, that God saves you for Christ's sake. That's why. And if He left us
alone, we'd all have sinned. But verse 22, and this is not
a misprint, is it? Is it, Brother Ed? It's written
all through the King James Bible. The righteousness of God is by
faith of Jesus Christ. He came down as a man to live
by faith. The just shall live by faith.
The just one. I represent you. The second Adam
came and lived by faith perfectly. He honored God. He believed God. He walked according to God's
perfect law. Jesus Christ lived according
to the law. And God was well pleased for
his righteousness sake. And he said, this is my beloved
son in whom I am well pleased. Hear him. Go to him. He's the one I accept. And I'll
accept you in Him. There's not a person in here
that knows that salvation is in Christ completely, of His
fullness. Have all we receive His fullness,
full of grace and truth. How did we receive this? He emptied
Himself. He came down here full of grace,
full of righteousness, full of love to God and all that, and
emptied Himself. Gave that to us. What are we
full of by nature? He's full of grace and truth.
What are we full of? Sin. He's full of truth. What are we full of? We were
born speaking lies. But God gave us His righteousness. and gave him, emptied him, stripped
him, emptied him, and filled him with our sin. And God laid
on him the iniquity of us all and killed his son in our stead. Every single person whom God
chose, whom God loves, whom God purposed to save, knows the truth. The truth as it is in Jesus.
That man who came, we're saved by a man, Jesus Christ. He wasn't
just a man. He's the God of heaven, Lord,
full of grace and truth. And of His fullness have we received
grace for grace. Oh, how gracious our God is being.
John, let's sing in closing. What? 236. There's but one song
to sing. Amazing grace. Number 236.