We've learned now over the last
eight weeks, this is week nine in this gospel, and as you see,
we're not rushing, we're taking our time, we're looking at the
depth of what is taught here by this evangelist, John. And we're beginning to see that,
as I've said, it is the outline of the entire gospel. Do not
forget, as we hear these sermons from every week, that the purpose
of this writing is that we may know and see Christ, and we may
believe on His name. And by believing, we may have
eternal life, John 20, 31. So if we hear the gospel and
we, by the power of the Spirit, are born anew, then we can, by
faith, believe And as we've seen already, it is a absolute sovereign
work of God. There's many arguments, many
things that come out of John's gospel by the cults, by false
religion, by worldly church. And oftentimes when we teach
the scripture correctly, what happens is that people who don't
agree with it, they hear what we say and they go, well, that's
just mean. That's just mean it's mean for
you to say that Jesus is the only way to God. How dare you
say what is and what is not dogmatic? Or some people say, well, that's
just not the Jesus that I know, it's not the one that that I
was taught as a child, that Jesus of the Bible that you teach. Some people would say, well,
you know, church and what we do as a church is different.
You know, every church does different things. And, you know, that's
your interpretation of that text. And the list could go on. We
could talk about objections to truth for the next six hours
and we would just then be getting our index done of all the different
things that people say that they don't agree with or the reasons
that they don't. Well, a loving God would not
be, or Jesus could not be this, or the gospel is not that, or
I am the one who chooses my own destiny. And friends, it's not our purpose
here as we come as the church, as those who profess to be redeemed
by the blood of the Lamb, to sit here and argue with the world
or to be prepared to argue with the world, for there is no argument
devised of humanity that could ever bring life into the mind
and the heart and the soul of a dead man. There is no debate
nor an apologetic that could actually expressly turn death
into life. It's a fool's errand as we spend
countless hours demonstrating our cognitive ability in our
academic pursuits of knowing all of the jots and the tittles
of terminology and argumentation and debating, thinking that it
will have any effect on the heart of a dead man. For it is the
foolishness of Christ and His gospel that is so amazingly glorious,
as we'll see this morning, It is the work of God through which
He does not care if anyone seems to think that it is absolutely
magnificent. Much like the people of Babel
in that day in the Old Testament, where the wisdom of man collectively
is a mighty thing, they thought it very true that they should
erect something that shows their own glory, even if it touches
the God of heaven. Let us meet God and show him
we can ascend. Jesus himself says no one can
ascend except the one who has descended. You cannot get to
heaven unless you originated there. And unless you have forgotten,
we do not believe that we originated from heaven. We are a creator. I mean, we are a creature of
the creator. That's a sound bite that'll get
you in trouble. We are a creature of the Creator. Men will argue, some of you in
your very thoughts this morning will argue with the essence of
Jesus Christ because, not that you want to disagree, but you
will be in conflict. It will rub in such a way that
it will cause dissension. It will cause a dichotomy in
your mind where you feel like, well, there's a fork in the road,
where shall I go? Well, go to the truth. Quit laboring over
ways to make our own ideals work and accept the truth as what
it is and let the Lord and His power by the Spirit show us and
reveal us all truth. Salvation is of God alone. No
matter how eloquently or poorly we manage to bark out the gospel,
no matter how passionately we may debate and plead with someone
to see that the Bible is true, that the Bible is historic, that
the Bible is archaeologically significant, that the manuscript
evidence is insurmountable, it does not matter. Believing in
the evidence of Scripture does not make one born of God. But God in His simple way, when
we say what is written in this text to the ears of people, God
in His power wakes them up. He saves them by His grace. And
they believe, and they hunger, and they desire intimacy. Have you ever wondered why God
established the assembly? The church is the assembly. There
is no such thing as a church that is confined on a property.
There is no such thing as a place that's called a church. If you
say, I go to that church, you are ignorant. For the church
is only the gathered of God, you see. That is where our gathering
takes place. That is where the church meets.
This has been a department store, a shoe store, a bra store, a
wig shop. Now it is a empty spot where
the church can gather. If the Lord sees fit to let us
grow, we'll look for something bigger as the days go on. Or
we'll put balcony seats or swings. Then the children won't run around,
they'll just be happy. But ultimately, We've gathered
here as the church. And it seems odd that even culture
can take what God does mysteriously and turn it into something so
man centered. Why did God see it in his wisdom to assemble
his people? Because when we come to faith in Jesus Christ, we
have been called out of darkness. When we come to faith in Jesus
Christ, we have been snatched out of the domain of darkness.
We are, to quote the apostles, no longer of this world. We are just in it. And now we
find ourselves sojourners in a foreign land. We look at the
life that we live and we say, we don't fit in anymore. Friends,
a believer that fits in with the world is an unbeliever. A believer that is equally acceptant
of wickedness in his own life. I fear for him. At the same time,
many people can stand in righteousness and say, look at my morality
and look at my ways and look at the way I walk. And yet they
can be still dead in their sins. Because the sin of unbelief and
self-righteousness is just plainly unbelief. But God has seen it fit in His
wisdom to call a people. And we gather together as often
as we can because we no longer are accepted by the world. We
no longer fit in to the norms of society. We no longer can
satisfy the hunger of our souls. We want more of Christ. We want
more knowledge. We want more intimacy. Because
see, salvation is intimacy. And intimacy is the work of God. And the work of God is supernatural
in the lives of His people. And nothing can stop it. Nothing
can change it. And nothing can take it away.
Even the Old Testament saints who had no idea the fullness
of the glory of God in Christ Jesus and what it actually meant,
but yet they believed that God alone would provide the absolute
sacrifice for their sin and that He would atone for them. And even David in his wickedness,
in his adultery, in his lusts, in his murder and deceit, was
a man after God's own heart. because God had sealed him with
the Holy Spirit, which is the sign of the covenant for the
church. And the Lord kept David, and
David worshipped God. Beloved, I want to ask this question,
and I don't want an indictment to come upon you in your answer,
but let the Lord be true. Is your desire to assemble as
God's people an irresistible desire? Or is there something else in
life that would much better occupy our time? I don't know about
you, but I would have to die before I missed an assembly. I just feel that way. Do you
feel that way? I said in 2001, March of 2001,
in front of 800 parishioners, congregants, that if Jesus Christ,
and we had a large stage and we had big rooms on both sides,
I said, if Jesus Christ paid us a visit today, and said he would be over here
in this baptismal preparation room or the choir room here.
And he'd stay as long as people stood in line. I fear then the culture in which
we live, that he would just leave because no one would be there. You know, people are like, well,
how? I said, I just feel that way. I'm talking about my emotions
and my feelings, like a Hallmark card. But the truth is, evidenced by
the way our culture establishes what they call church, and the
hunger which we do not see, people have for the truth of Scripture,
and the intimacy which is not found amongst the assemblies
of our day, speaking of us by the Lord's grace, where we can meet with Christ
together in Christ's people, where the Spirit of God tunes
us supernaturally and spontaneously to have an affection that is
beyond this world, that is greater than that of our own blood. By that own evidence, I believe
that many congregations would just walk away. Because of a date, because of
a conflict, because of a pain in my belly. Beloved, my prayer is that the
word of God becomes such a necessity for you that you would forget
to eat. What causes us to forget to eat food? Construction. When you're on
scaffold, you don't eat food. You don't go to the bathroom
either. Sports. Sometimes we're engaged, we're
playing a game. There's a lot of break, we gotta
go potty. I mean, you know, you just, you don't do that. Sickness.
You don't eat when you're sick sometimes. Depends on the illness. Death in the family. Sometimes
you, but not around here, boy, they'll feed you if anything
else. But there are things that we do with our time that engage
us so much to the core of our intimacy, to the core of our
cognitive focus that we forget sometimes to eat. Beloved, has
the word of God ever done that for you? Have you ever been engaged
in scripture to the point that you skipped a vital issue like
food? Have you ever just been so enamored
with intimacy with Christ and his word that you didn't even
want to go to work? I'm not saying you skip out on
work because nobody does that. But have you ever wanted to?
Have you ever just been in the assembly and thought, man, is
it over already? When most of the world looks
at the clock, alright, we've got two jokes, a story, Bible
reading, prayer, kid's sermon, we're out of here. Let's start
a stopwatch. What kind of time is revealed
with the interest of God for his people when he set himself
apart from glory and became one of us? Oh, the agony of intimacy. It's agonizing. And I think that's
one thing that causes the enemy to pursue us in such a way that
we don't feel like we can give it because we don't have enough
time. We don't have enough interests.
We don't have enough of ourselves to give anymore. But friends,
by the power of God and his word, we will be a people that exemplify
his glory. And that's the reason Christ
came. That's the reason the gospel
came to you, is that he would be glorified in his redemption. And the glory of God for us satisfies
us the most. Start in verse 9 and let's go
down through verse 18. John 1. 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, and His own people did not receive
Him. But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name,
He gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of
blood, nor of the will of what? of the flesh, nor of the will
of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and
dwelt among us And we have seen the glory, His glory, the glory
as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John
bore witness about Him and cried out, He, this was He of whom
I said, He who comes after me ranks before me because He was
before me. For from His fullness, We have
all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through
Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever
seen God, the only God. He who is at the Father's side
has made Him known. Let's pray. Father, may You do
miraculous things in our hearts this morning. Father, would You
draw our attention to Your Word. Lord, would you guard my mouth
that I might not speak in error? And would you guard our hearts
that we might see truth? Father, take away every temptation
to go somewhere else in our mind this morning. And by your power
and for your glory, focus us on you. Father, I pray that our
children, even if they sit and draw, Lord, that they would hear
the words that are spoken to them this day, that the mighty
God of heaven came to earth as a man to reveal His glory and
the redemption of His people. In Jesus' name, Amen. Last week we looked at the incarnation
that is Jesus coming to earth through the created person of
Mary. The wound that He created. God, the Son, came to earth and
became a human. He took on humanity, but He did
not escape divinity. Jesus' divine nature as God and
Jesus' human nature as man were together in union, but not twisted
up to become one new thing, but separate. We saw the intimacy
of God in the Incarnation. Friends, this is a an amazing
thing. We often talk about the love
of God in culture, world religion, and we and many people look at
the love of God and the fact that God gives them something.
God gives me happiness. God gives me health. God gives
me financial security. God gives me jobs or God gives
me a house or God gives me relationships. And friends, God is the giver
of those things, but that is not the point of God's intimacy. For even when those things fail,
there is intimacy with God and God's intimacy goes greater beyond
the temporal gifts and the temporal pleasures and the temporal things
that oftentimes, even as good gifts, we as humans make them
idols. And covetousness sets in. and
anxiety sets in. If I could just have, or if I
could just do, if I could just become, beloved, the God of heaven
has stepped down with us, and He is intimate with us, and He
has lived with us, and He has never left us, even though He
no longer lives in a human flesh at this time on this earth. The intimacy of God through Jesus
Christ is that God was present with His people. Jesus wasn't
a conduit through which God worked. Jesus was not a spokesperson
for God. Jesus was not a prophet like
Moses or Jeremiah or Isaiah. He wasn't an evangelist like
John the Baptist. He wasn't an apostle like John
and James and Paul. He was God. And He was here. And He reached into this world
and He became part of this world. And we know why. So that He would
live a life that we are commanded to live. But we will not and
we cannot because of sin. And Jesus then took the cross
and died so that we could live. The intimacy of God is that he
has come to us. And the Bible teaches that we
have seen His glory. We have beheld His glory. And today that's what I really
want to talk about is the glory of God in Jesus Christ. And this
probably is, I could talk for a long time on this issue, but
it will be spent over the next few years seeing more and more
of what John is trying to explain here and outline. So we will
just do a precursor look at the glory of God today. Two thoughts
about Jesus Christ and His incarnation. Jesus Christ, as He was seen
in His earthly ministry, by everyone was a human being. There was
not one digit, one fingernail, one molecule of Jesus' body that
was not human. Every aspect of His life was
human. He got hungry, He had to eat. He was thirsty, He had
to drink. He had to use the restroom. He
had to sleep or He would not make it. And there are times
that we see in the New Testament where God, the Holy Spirit, would
empower Jesus in His humanity to endure certain things and
to go 40 days without food and all sorts of things. But Jesus
was, in all fullness, always a human being in His earthly
ministry. Fully human. John reiterates this. He came
into the world as a flesh. He uses the term flesh He didn't
say as a person, because a person by definition is a respectable
thing. You have a personality, it's unique, you are a person,
you are somebody. But flesh, everywhere in the
New Testament we see the word flesh, it's a bad thing. The
flesh is evil, the flesh is against the Lord, the natural man is
hostile. God the Son came as flesh. Not
as the mere image of flesh, not as an illusion of flesh, He was
a human being. The God of the universe had to,
in vitro, spend 10 months, experience the pangs of labor,
whatever it does to the child, I don't know. Experience being nursed and fed
and changed and taught to talk and walk. The Scripture says
that Jesus was taught obedience. He never disobeyed, but He learned
obedience. That He grew in stature. He grew
in understanding of the Scripture. Some people forget that Joseph
and Mary raised Jesus in the Word of God. They taught Him
Scripture. At the age of 30, God revealed
to the world who Jesus really was. This is my beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased." And that moment at the baptismal
rivers of Jordan, when John the baptizer put Jesus under the
water, and He came out of the water that all Scripture would
be fulfilled, for baptism is a ritual of Judaism that symbolizes
the cleansing and the preparation for ministry. If you didn't know
that. Peter's account says that many
heard the voice from heaven. John's account said many heard
the voice from heaven. They saw the dove, they saw the
spirit rather, that's like, that's a simile, like a dove descend
upon Jesus Christ. So right there at the Jordan
River, here is the God of the universe in three persons. The Father speaking, the Son
in baptismal waters, and the Spirit descending. The next time someone tells you
that the Trinity is a Nicenean concoction of the 4th century,
tell them to read John's Gospel, which points to Genesis 1, which
shows us the Trinity there also. You cannot argue people into
believing that. Not only was Jesus fully human, Jesus Christ
was revealed by the Father. And the revelation of Jesus was
the revelation of God. And the only people, see church,
we can teach this to ourselves, the only people, the only people
who could see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ were
those who believe. And the only ones who would believe
and hear me are the elect. Glory We've said the word. We've used the term. We talk
about it all the time. A people for His glory, by His
grace. That's who we are. That's what
every church is. We are grace, truth church. There's a Baptist in there and
there's a sovereign before it, but we don't use all that. Grace, truth. It comes from this
text. Because nothing centrally epitomizes
the body of Christ like this verse. It is the reason for which
Christ came. It is the presence of Christ
as He came. It is the power of Christ in His coming to create
a people for Himself and for His glory. And we might say, well, what
is it glory? What does it mean? What is it supposed to show us? Let's take a stab at it. In Psalm 29.9, we see these words.
You don't have to turn there, it'll be very quick. But the
voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth, and the glory of
the Lord strips the forests bare. And in His temple, all the people
cry, glory. Have you ever cried glory? I
mean, there have been people in my life who have used that
term as an explicative expression of excitement or praise. Glory! But we look at it in that
way now as we see some of these charlatans, right? We meet them
on the street and they've got a word from God and they just
say glory. They don't even know what it means. What does it mean
to say glory? Well, the scripture shows us that it can mean praise.
Jesus says in John 5 that I did not receive glory from men. What does that mean? That we
can glory in certain things. We can ascribe glory to certain
things. We can say, oh, that is glorious. And we just observe
and behold and we're overwhelmed. Sometimes as humans, we give
glory to things that are really not glorious. They may be grand,
they may be beautiful, but they're not glorious. Having traveled
the country from coast to coast nine times in a car, I've seen
a lot of glorious things. The first trip, it's like, oh,
we never get there. Oh, let's look at that. Oh, let's look
at that. Second trip, it's like, oh, remember that? Look how beautiful.
Third trip, who cares? Let's get to Claxton. There's the Grand Canyon. Who
cares? Look at that mountain. I'm driving at night. I don't
want to be distracted. Let's go. That's not glory. That's a glimpse
of something that's grand, and then when we're used to it, we
just drive on by. We don't notice the things that are right here
in our peripheral. We don't notice that which is on our desk. Where
are my keys? I don't know. They're on the
desk. Where? On the desk. Where? We can't see them. And
somebody goes, oh yeah, where are my glasses? They're on my
head. We miss it. Friends, we're not
gonna miss glory. We're not gonna miss the glory
of God when we see it. We behold it when we observe it. It can mean praise. It means
also, according to Deuteronomy 5, the visible presence of God,
where these words, the Lord spoke to all your assembly at the mountain
out of the midst of fire, the cloud and the thick darkness
with a loud voice. And he added no more. And he
wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me, Moses
speaking, where the glory of God was manifested on Mount Sinai.
as a tempest. We see that in the latter part
of Hebrews. We haven't come to that mountain.
We've come to the mount of celebration. We've come to Jesus and to a
new covenant that is better and speaks better than the blood
of Abel. Friends, glory can mean praise. Glory can mean the visible
presence of God. And I hope you're seeing the
pattern here that Jesus encompasses both of those already. It can mean the revealing of
the divine nature and the essence of Christ. In John 2.11, after
the wedding feast, and He did a miracle there by turning the
water into wine. And it says there, there are
many, this is the first of His signs that He did in Galilee.
And manifested His glory and His disciples believed in Him.
Glory is also seen as a desired thing for men. In John chapter
12, it says that many believed in Jesus, but they did dare not
confess Him, for they loved the glory that came from men rather
than the glory that comes from God. And sometimes men can desire
to see the glory of God. That's Moses in Exodus 33. He
says to God, please show me your glory. I mean, imagine the glory of
God in the tempest, the glory of God in the thunderous voice,
the glory of God in revealing himself through miracles. The
scripture says that when the Israelites were traveling, they
would look behind them and the glory of God would be manifested
in a tornado, a cloud. And what was it made of at night?
Fire. I mean, a tornado is a very,
very bad thing. It's a horrifying experience. Some of us have been
through them. But imagine it on fire. Could this get any worse? Sure. Moses says, I want to see it.
Moses had seen an ocean part. Moses had seen the plagues on
Egypt. Moses had seen the firstborn of every man and beast die. And
Moses says, I want to see your glory, God. Moses had heard from
God and gotten the law, but he says, I want to see your glory,
God. Moses had been given a stick to command the king. And through
all of the words of God, miraculous things happened, but Moses says,
I want to see your glory, God. What was Moses looking for? He
wanted to look God straight in the face and see the fullness
of his essence. He wanted to know every part
of God's being. He wanted to see God in such
a way that he could close his eyes and understand the glorious
nature of this divine being. He wanted to see God in his fullest. And what does God say? You can't
look upon my glory. You cannot see my holiness. You
cannot see the fullness of my beauty. You cannot handle it.
Your wicked heart could not imagine it. Think of the contrast there
with Moses versus what Adam and Eve had in the garden where they
walked with God in the cool of the day in His body. And they saw Him and they still
fell to the serpent's lie. Moses wanted and desired to see
the glory of God. And glory is deserved by God,
it's ascribed only to God, and it's used to describe the view
of God. Stephen saw it at his martyrdom. He saw it. In Acts chapter 7, when they
were accusing and convicting Stephen of blasphemy, wrongly,
they lied. He preached about the glory of
God as shadows throughout the Old Testament. And then He proclaimed
to them the glory of God through Jesus Christ. And then He says,
and you have killed Him. The light of the glory of God
was shining before you. Stephen was teaching, this is
not his words, but this is the essence of what he was trying
to say. The light of the glory of God was shining before you,
and you snuffed it out, for it shined on your iniquities, it
shined on your false religion, it shined on your self-righteousness,
and it shined on your human selfishness and self-glory. And you killed
it. But behold, when the stones was
taking the blood from His head and His bones were being broken
by the weight of them. The Scripture says He looks up
and says, Behold, I see the glory of God. I see the glory of God and the
Son, Jesus the Christ, standing to the right side of the Father.
Wow! And do you know what they did
when He said that? They put Him to death. The glory of God is the descriptive
and revelation of the essence of God's full view and His full
disclosure. And the Bible says here, and
we have seen His glory, Jesus Christ, who is God, the logos,
chen logos, became flesh. We've seen it. And we all desire
to see it as God's people today. Friends, we see it when we look
at this text. And the Spirit of God opens our eyes to see.
And we long, and we pray, and we hold fast to the confession
of our hope that the glory of God is ours. That we've been
promised the truth of intimacy with God. As God became intimate
with us, we are now eternally intimate with Him. Because the
work of redemption is complete. It's done. It's finished. Jesus reveals this glory. And
it shines through His humanity. It shines through His flesh.
What other man could claim the glory of God shines through me?
No one. But Jesus, in all of His humanity,
when He ate, and when He drank, and when He spoke, and when He
prayed, and where He went, and what He looked at, and how He
listened, displayed the glory of God fully. All the places where the shadow
of God's glory was considered and contemplated and yearned
for and beheld was certain and sure because Christ in all of
His fullness has revealed the glory of God to us. Let's look
at that for a moment. And the Word became flesh and
dwelled among us and we have seen His glory. Glory as of the
only Son from the Father. as of the only son from the father.
Some people would say, well, we're all God's children, but
we are not like Christ. It is a damnable heresy to say
we are little Christs, that we are little gods. We are a creature
and God has put his affection on us and we are redeemed. And do you know why we're learning
this today? so that our all would just be
silent. We should say, what am I going
to say about that? What am I going to do about this? This glorious
revelation of God through Jesus Christ. What shall I say? Nothing.
There's nothing to say. What shall we add? What commentary
shall be composed with the prose of men to extrapolate the excellencies
of God? Nothing. Are you listening? We are not like Jesus in Sonship. He is the only begotten Son of
God. He is the only one who carries
the name of God. He is the only one who carries
the nature of God. He is the only one who fully
represents the glory of God. He is the only one who is divine.
He is the only one who is God. And what this is supposed to
show us is that Jesus was not just a man who was sent by God
to reflect His glory. He is God sent as a man to reveal
His glory. This means that Jesus Christ
was eternally the Son. He was eternally the Son of God. This is my beloved Son. with
whom I am well pleased." He was given by the Father. What is
it that the Scripture says? To have life in Himself, John
5. God the Father gives life to
God the Son. And He has the power, as Jesus would
say, to Pilate, to lay down His life, and He has the power to
take it up again. He is given all divine prerogative. Everything that is said about
who God is, Jesus is. Everything that is said about
that is due God is due to Jesus Christ. Every power, every attribute,
every minute detail of His essence belongs to Christ. For Christ
is the only Son sent to reveal the glory of God. This is intimate. But you might
ask, how was God's glory most revealed? Was it the way Jesus
looked? The way His hair was fixed? The
tunic that He wore? The brand of sandals that He
adorned His feet? No. It was the fact that Jesus
came to become flesh for one reason. That God would be glorified
in the redemption of His people. Now we're talking about us. Are
you a child of God? Do you trust in the Gospel of
Jesus? Are you trusting in the One who
justified you? Are you trusting and believing
that Jesus Christ and everything that He is and everything that
He's done is the only hope that you have for eternity? Are you
holding fast to the confession of your hope
in Jesus Christ? See, the assembly on the Lord's Day is not for
us to to do anything but hear these things and learn these
things and be reminded of these things, that our intimacy with
Christ is solidified, and that our worship of Christ is exalted
and glorified, and that our intimacy with each other, listen, our
intimacy with each other as we gather together as often as possible
is God-honoring, as we give glory to God together. I don't know
about you, church, But there's nobody standing on a stage in
heaven. There's no worship leader, there's
no preacher. There's no deacon, there's no
usher, there's no greeter, there's no children's church pastor,
there's no youth pastor, there's no diaper pastor, there's nothing. All of us stand together as one
body and we worship the only one who is center stage and he
is Jesus Christ. and forever He teaches, and forever
we ascribe worth to His glory, and forever we are satisfied
together. We as the church are to practice
that today, and tomorrow, and the next day. Intimacy as a people is a direct,
glorying, passionate example of what God is preparing us for
forever. We don't go to church. We are
the church. God's glory is most visible then
in the redemption of His people. The essence of God's most desired
end is what? What is the chief end of man,
as the confession would ask? To give glory to God and enjoy
Him forever. What is the most... What is the
central affection of God? Himself, His glory. It says, He loves the Son without
measure, for the Son displays His glory. God's ultimate end
is His glory to be revealed. And the scripture is teaching
us here that God's glory is revealed most perfectly in Jesus Christ,
who came and revealed Himself as a lamb to be killed. Because all of the wisdom of
God saw fit to take the place for those who are condemned.
See, this is the good news of Jesus. And without mercy, without
intimacy, without God condescending into this earth and snatching
people out of condemnation, there would be no hope for us, beloved.
Do not rest easily in ignoring the glorious and beautiful grace
of God through Jesus Christ. Do not set it aside as just some
beauty of Christendom to remind yourself that that's a true fact.
But beloved, every moment of your day, praise God for His
grace that you can stand firm and believe that Jesus is your
Redeemer. And we might say, well, boy,
that's a lot to say out of a half of a sentence. There's a lot
more there. The next phrase actually teaches
us exactly what I'm saying. The fullness of God's glory is
seen in Jesus Christ because we have seen it. And we see it
as the only Son from the Father. The only manifestation of God
to His people is Jesus, Hebrews 1, Colossians. But what is the
fullness of Jesus? Look at that. The latter part
of verse 14. Jesus Christ, it's not talking
about the Father there, it's talking about Jesus the Son,
is full of grace and full of truth. Jesus, the glory of God beheld,
the only begotten of the Father, is full of grace and truth. So in His fullness, if you look
down a little bit, what does it say? Verse 16, for from His
fullness we have all received grace upon grace. And then the contrast, for the
law was given through Moses, grace and truth through Jesus
Christ. With the law you cannot see God,
though Paul would say in Romans 3 it bears witness to Him and
His righteousness, that the righteousness of God is displayed apart from
the law, through Jesus coming to atone for sinners. And to
pay the debt for a particular people. Not every person. Every person in the world is
not saved. Nor can they be. But yet our gospel goes out to
all the world. Because only through the proclamation
of the work of God can one come to faith. It is how God calls
His people. And it comes with a strict warning.
If you believe in Christ, you have everlasting life. But if
you are not believing, you are condemned already. Because you
have not believed on Jesus Christ. Grace is in the presence of Jesus
Christ. Because He came to earth is an
act of grace. Because He decided to step out
of glory and become a human being is an act of grace. As I've said
already several times, He condescended into this world. Did He have
to do that? Yes, if He wanted to forgive
a people. Why? For what man, but God becoming
man, can satisfy the holy requirements of the law of God, which is His
righteousness? And what man, except the one
who fulfills all the holiness of God in obedience, can actually
be a substitute sacrifice for death? Jesus Christ is the only one.
Not only is it grace seen in the presence of Jesus Christ,
but most perfectly, grace is seen in the purpose of Jesus
Christ. Paul would say to Timothy that Christ came to save sinners,
of which I am the foremost. See, it is not Paul who caused
God to save him. It is not Paul's zeal that God
said, I could use a man like that. It is not Paul that did
anything to cause God to put favor upon him. But Paul himself
confesses that God, before the foundations of the world, purposed
to call him as an apostle for the salvation of the Gentiles. That's you and I, beloved. That's
us. That's us. So God's grace is
seen in Jesus Christ and His purpose. His grace to love sinners. The redemption of His people.
And the message and the action of the gospel. But He doesn't
just say He's full of grace. He also says He's full of truth. And this means that Jesus Christ
is the truth. He is the truth. What does that mean? Just like
Jesus would tell the woman from Sachar in John chapter 4 says, The day is coming and is now
here when the Father will be seeking worshipers who worship
Him in what? Spirit and in truth. And a lot of times people say,
well, the truth is that Jesus taught the truth. That's correct.
That's part of it. Everything Jesus says is truth.
But what does Jesus say? Jesus says, I am the truth. In other words, Jesus comes in
grace and Jesus comes in truth. And you might think, as I said
in the beginning, a lot of people say, well, that's your interpretation
of this. No, it's what it says in the grammar, right there.
You can't take six words out of 5,000 and say, that's what
it means. You got to read them all. You
got to put them all together. A sentence is incoherent without
the rest of it. It's called language. And the truth that Jesus is,
is the fullness of the glory of God, and that everything that
Jesus shows is the revelation of God to humanity. That means
there's no more shadows. That's why Judaism is a false
religion. The people of Israel worship
a false God. They do not worship the God of
Scripture. They worship a false God, for the God of Scripture
is Jesus Christ. They worship the devil. Jesus
said it himself, your father is Satan. Don't have sympathy for Israel
when they worship the devil and calling God Jehovah. Have a burden and pray for their
salvation. Not their nationalism, their eternal life. The very scripture has obliterated
parts of Isaiah because it points to Jesus. And their religious
leaders do not want their people to read it. Because just as in the days of
Jesus, when Jesus, who is the truth, came, all the shadows
that pointed to Him were finished. And friends, if I have an empire
that makes me glorious to you, And the bridegroom comes and
I'm a nobody. To keep you from worshiping me,
God would have to take my head from my body. Sound familiar? God took the head of John the
Baptist so that the bridegroom could get the bride. Israel has been looking at their
self-righteousness and their ways since the beginning. Jesus is the truth. No more shadows. No more temporary precepts. No
more following after the law. He is the real. The true has
come. The end is here. Behold the kingdom
of God before you. Look deep into the glory of Jesus
Christ. There is no other way. There
is no other message. There is no other purpose. There
is no other philosophy of man through which man is saved and
God is glorified. It is only through the sending
of the Son, Jesus, and the revelation of Jesus Christ to us through
the Apostles, which is now the written Word, whereby we can
have salvation and whereby we can have God can be glorified
and we can see the glory of God. God's glory is visible in the
person of Jesus Christ to the fullest. He's fully revealed. Look at verse 15 quickly. It
says, John bore witness about Him and cried out, This was He
of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me, because
He was before me. This is to point us back to the
reality that Jesus Christ is eternally the Son. He is not
just come into being through His birth, but He has always
been. Verse 16, we see something amazing, which I will speak more
on next week. And it says, from the fullness
of Jesus, the glory of God is revealed. So from the fullness
of Christ, who comes with grace and truth,
we have all received grace upon grace. In that chain, and you've
heard me do this before, it's supposed to give the reader this
mindset. We have all received grace upon grace, upon grace,
upon grace, upon grace, upon grace, until you get tired of
it. Because when this grace is gone, this grace replaces it,
and this grace replaces it. It's supposed to give the connotation
that this grace is replacing this grace, and it's always grace.
What does that mean for you, church? That means that nothing
you bring, nothing you add, is effectual unto salvation. And
nothing that you have, except what God has given you in His
giftedness, for your redemption, matters. Nothing. You cannot get your life right,
you cannot keep it right. It is about the grace of God
alone. And the idea of free will, and
the idea of fairness, it spits in the face of God. It slaps
grace out of the hand of God. God is not saying, here is my
grace. and we just slap it away? It cannot happen. Who can slap
the hand of God? Jesus says no one can come to
the Father except the Father. Give Him to me and all that the
Father give me do come to me and all that do come to me I
will never cast away. Are you mad? No, I'm excited. Because
there's a foundation there that roots you to Christ and nothing
can snatch you away. You want to be joyful? There's
your joy. You want to be happy? There it
is. You want to be fulfilled in the midst of death? It's the
only word that will give it to you. Because if you or I continue
to look into the mirror and say, oh, how am I doing? We fail. Even as believers, every act
of obedience is never going to measure up to righteousness.
Every following after Christ, every precept of the New Testament,
every encouragement, every rebuke, no matter how well we do it,
for how long, it will never amount to righteousness. It will never
amount to righteousness. Because Jesus Christ, the fullness
of the glory of God, is our righteousness. He is our righteousness. It is
all of God. Verse 17 shows us that it is
not of the law. but grace. Through Moses we receive
the law, but through Jesus Christ we receive grace and truth. It came through Jesus. It's not
the law that satisfies God's judgment. It is the righteousness
of Jesus who obeyed fully and fulfilled the law of God in whom
we find ourselves righteous. God doesn't make us righteous,
He declares us righteous because of the work of Jesus Christ.
Beloved, we are saints, but we are not saints because we live
saintly lives. We are not saints because we
live with a heart that is so good that it constantly exudes
glory that reflects Jesus. We are saints because Jesus Christ
has called us that. But one day, beloved, we will
see him face to face. One day we will see him face
to face. And verse 18 says that no one's
ever seen him. No one's ever seen God until this time, see. But the one who was at his father's
side has made him known. The one God, Jesus Christ is,
and Jesus Christ has made him known. for your salvation, for
his glory. Do you know God? Do you know
Jesus? If you do not know Jesus, you
do not know God. No matter how serious, no matter
how religious, no matter how often you pray or how much you
give or how much poor people you help, God is not impressed
by benevolence. God is not impressed by the prayers
that we pray. God is not impressed by the moving
of our emotions in the songs that we sing. Matter of fact,
all of worship that we see in the scripture is commanded to
be of sound mind and solid truth, not feeling at all, ever. Grace upon grace upon grace is
the redemption of God found through the perfect gospel of Jesus Christ,
whereby He paid perfectly for the sins of those who are the
children of God, those who will believe, and those who by faith
are justified. That is you I pray. The gospel
of Jesus Christ is not a plan of God for the human race in
toto. The gospel of Jesus Christ is
a certain and effectual redemption for a particular people. And when we find ourselves in
the hand of God, we celebrate. We celebrate. To the praise of
what? His glorious grace. You notice
we don't even praise God for eternal life. We don't even find
ourselves praising God that He's saved us from our sins. I mean,
we do, but the end result is, thank you God for your grace.
Because we're so overwhelmed by the truth of the gospel that
we're unable to see anything but the glory of God through
it. And that's what John's showing us here. God be glorified in
your gospel. God be glorified in your people. God be glorified in your grace. We go to all the nations and
preach to all peoples the command to believe on Jesus Christ alone
for salvation, for he has accomplished it all. He has finished the work. It is done. Let's pray. We worship you, father, for your
glory, for your beauty, for your steadfast love, for your patience, kindness and
mercy. Father, we would not know these
things about you had you not sent Jesus the Son into this
earth to show us these things. And we praise you for this. And
I pray, Lord, As we close this time of teaching and preaching,
that each one of us are reflecting and looking and praying. And Father, I pray that you would
bring to life some who may not be born again today. That you would save our children,
Father. That you would bring them into
light and fellowship with you through Jesus Christ. that your
glorious grace may be praised. And Lord, put in us a desire
and a passion to seek after your glory in everything, which would mean that we seek
after Christ. And give us the sense spiritually, not naturally,
but spiritually to know that you will equip us to do so. And father, even as we run this
race, it is not how we run the race that matters. It's who's
run the race before us. And it is Jesus Christ whom we
follow and whom we trust and whom we believe by faith alone. We exalt you as redeemed in Jesus
name. Amen.