Thank you, Church, may be seated,
find in your copy of the scriptures, John chapter one, the gospel
of John chapter one. Brother Barnes read out of Psalms
15 or 14, excuse me, this morning or this afternoon. We'll see that again, so if you
turn there, you can stick your finger there, we'll turn back
there. John, chapter one. I will read
the first 18 verses and we're going to talk some. No, I'm not going to preach all
that, I promise. In the beginning was the word
and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the
beginning with God. All things were made through
him and without him was not anything made that was made in him was
life. And the life was the light of
men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has
not overcome it. There was a man sent from God whose name was
John. He came as a witness to bear
witness about the light that all might believe through him.
He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. 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 the children of God, who were born
not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man,
but of God. And the Word became flesh and
dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory. Glory as of the only
son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 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. For
from the fullness we have received grace upon grace. The law was
given through Moses. Grace and truth came through
Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, the only God. who is
at the Father's side, he has made him known. Let me pray. Lord, there is no justice to
the time we have today to talk about this text as it would take
literally six months to deal with it, as
it has in our study of John. But Father, by your grace and
mercy, would you communicate to us that which you've placed
on my heart to share and to teach us as a people that we might
grow into worshipers who would worship fully, fully in the fullness
of all your glory, who is in Completeness in Jesus Christ. Lord, give us the fullness of
your Spirit. Fill us with all your fullness,
that we might know the fullness of your glory, that we might
feel the fullness of your presence. And Lord, that we would see,
not just look and see, but see the fullness of Christ, who is
your image. that we would look at this Advent
season, that we would see this Christmas season as something
that is not just commercial or historical, but, Father, that
it would be divine, as we reflect upon the birth of the Son whom
you sent to save the souls of your church. And we pray this
in the name of Christ, who is our everlasting King, the King
of glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. For the next four Sundays, we
will be looking at a series that I have entitled, I guess probably
should have thought this through a little more, but the horrors
of Christmas. I've seen a lot of churches,
you know, the love of Christmas and the glory of Christmas and
the truth of Christmas, and I've preached those things before.
And but what I want to do this time is I want us to look at
the reality of what the coming of Christ really is. And that the advent of the Lord
God, Jesus Christ, is not just something to just superficially
feel good about and talk about and have little happy thoughts
about, but we should see the gravity and the seriousness and
the horror of what it meant for God to become truly man. As we look at Christmas historically,
we could talk about all of the reasons that it became a holiday. We could look at the church and
how they tries to seize pagan holidays, the winter solstice.
We could talk about the historicity of things like that. We could
look at how maybe the church should even be involved in Christmas.
And that's your that's your decision. If that's what you don't want
to celebrate, it is fine with me as it is fine with me. If
you want to wrap up your dog and give it away for Christmas
and And all sorts of things, if you want to enjoy the holiday,
fine, it's a holiday. Has no bearing on your faith,
has no bearing on your worship, it has no bearing on the gospel.
As a matter of fact, it is not even commanded of the scripture
of the church in scripture to celebrate the birth of Christ.
But it is commanded, as we just sang, as we will practice, it
is commanded for us to remember the death of Christ. and the
resurrection of Christ as we prepare to sit around the table
of the king and all of glory for all of ever as Jesus, the
Lord God of all creation, who gives us life in himself, sits
and serves us for all of eternity as our forever king. And so I believe that the church
historically may not have been the devil's doing, but the church
historically, as Christ filled people have decided and attempted
to make the holiday of Christmas about Christ. One must ask ourselves, do we
focus on Christ at Christmas? In order to focus on Christ,
we must first realize the essence of who Christ is. We must understand
that the union of himself as deity to humanity in person and
in essence and in presence is no easy feat to grasp. It's no small thing to just wrap
our mind around and then go get a cheeseburger. It's something
that will gravely, deeply bog us into the depths of majesty
and divinity in such a way that we cannot move and at times we
cannot breathe. And I would pray for you, church,
that if you have never been breathless about the thoughts of God, the
gospel that you've never been breathed life into. And maybe you say, well, I have been
breathless, I have been in awe, but I haven't been there in a
long time, it may be because you're in sin. And you do not focus and eat
daily on the bread that gave you life, who is Jesus Christ,
the living word of God. The central message of Jesus,
such should be the central message of Christmas, is indeed that
Jesus the Christ is coming and Jesus the Christ has come and
Jesus the Christ is coming again. And he came the first time and
he will come again in order to effect perfect salvation for
his people, that none should be lost that are given to him,
that he came and perfectly gave to the Father's will that which
the Father sent him to do, which was to seek and save every lost
one who are his sheep. Jesus is not a failure. Jesus
is not this professional fool that came and tried his best.
He came and accomplished all that he came to do. His life
and his death and his resurrection fully affect salvation for all
who believe by faith. And this is not going to be an
issue of distinction. It's not going to be an issue
of discrimination for all have fallen short of the glory of
God. And the focus of Christ that
the season of Christmas that bears his name should be about
the salvation of a people who are unable and unwilling to be
saved. That's the central message of
Christmas. Not gifts, not discontentment, not family, not anything, but
Christ and him crucified. That's why I believe Christmas
is a horrible time. It should be a grave time for
us as Christians, that we look at the seriousness of the depravity
of our soul and the wickedness of our heart, and we realize
that we've been transformed by the majesty of God's grace toward
us and that Christ has bore the penalty of that which is owed
to us. And therefore, he came and was born as a person so that
he could pay the penalty of sin that was owed to God the Father. We like the cross, but not at
Christmas. We like the cradle at Christmas. A bouncy cradle versus a bloody
cross. Jesus came to save a people. And in order to truly save them,
God had to radically intervene. And amazingly, God intervened
before he created the first man. He intervened before there was
anything to behold his glory. He intervened before there was
even an angel in heaven. The message of Christ is salvation.
And so I tell you, one of the poorest Christmases that there
is no Christ in it. One of the horrors of Christmas
in the American church is that there is no Jesus in it. There
is no gospel in it. There is no Christ in Christmas. There's no Christ in Easter.
There's no Christ in Sunday or Saturday or Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday. There's no Christ in July 4th.
There's no Christ in any of it. And we just flippantly go, oh,
thankful we talked about Thanksgiving last week. Actually, contentment. And so I would suggest to you,
as we begin this series today, that if there's any other message
centering around Christ than the gospel, it is not, it is
not true. It is a false gospel. It is an
abomination. It is not something that we could
just go, oh, that's just nice. It's not nice. False gospel is
not nice because they're sweet about it. There's two things that you need
to know going into this month. You need to understand two terms. You might want to write this
down. We learn as we worship so we can eat and grow. You don't
eat, you die. Church. First is you need to
understand the word or the term incarnation. That's when Jesus,
the forever God man, divine in all of his fullness, took on
another nature. in completion with his divine
nature and was born through a womb that he created. That's the incarnation,
Jesus was born through a woman in the world. And there's another
term that you need to understand called the hypo age, lapio static
union. Hypostatic union. Hypostasis. It's a big word. It's not very
scary, but we don't know how else to call it. But here's what
it means. It means that in reality, God and man, as Jesus Christ,
are perfectly united in one person. Jesus was not a full human being
with a little bit of God in him. And Jesus was not a human being
possessed by God. And Jesus wasn't partially a
man and fully God. He was fully human being, born
of a woman in the world. And he was fully God in the fullness
of all deity, every aspect of the fullness of everything that
God is, is Jesus. And that is salvation. And that's
the point that I hope to help you see today. You cannot just
believe about Jesus. You must see the fullness of
who God is. Jesus says in John's gospel, this is eternal life,
that they know you, the one true God and the son whom you have
sent. The only way to have eternal life is to know the fullness
of God fully, who is Jesus Christ. Jesus has two distinct natures. He is only one person. And these
natures are inseparable. He doesn't turn one on and then
the other one and work in the man and work in the God and a
little bit of divine. He's fully God and fully man
all the time. You might think, who cares? Beloved, if you don't care. You don't know Christ. You're not growing. You're not
learning. How are you worshipping Jesus
as this cute little baby who came to murder himself for you? Soldier after soldier, officer
after officer, father after father, mother after mother, throw themselves
in the line of fire to save people. They can't give you grace with
God and peace with God. They can't make you holy. Only
Christ can make you holy. And this is one of the most debated
issues historically in the church since the time of Jesus. The
Gnostics fall about it. Galatians was written on this.
Thessalonians was written in some sense it has a little more
there. Revelation talks about it. We see all throughout scripture
where Paul and the apostles are defending the deity and the personhood
of Jesus as a human, as the God-man. Because without him being fully
God and fully man, he's nothing. He's just another guy walking
around, stirring up trouble, and he'll be down in the history
books, and he has no salvation for you. In Nicaea, the Council of Nicaea
in 325. Let me give you a church history
lesson just on this. There's five councils that dealt
with the divinity of Christ in certain aspects. First, and what
does that mean? That means the heads of certain
churches in certain regions came together and said, we've got
to nail this down because these false teachers are making us
sick. And this doctrine is so important, anybody who doesn't
agree with it, we don't recognize them as brothers. Sound familiar?
Paul says that to the Corinthian church, if no one recognizes
my authority and does not believe the words that I write as absolute,
that they are not a brother. Paul writes to the Galatians
churches, if anyone comes to you teaching anything other than
what we've already taught to you, if I come back with a different
story or an angel comes before you with a different story, forever
be anathemas, a curse cut off. That's strong. It's not like,
well, just worry about him, folks. Just don't invite him for supper.
He said they're accursed. Because of Masia, they declared
that Jesus Christ is, was the same stuff as God, the father. The fullness of his glory, the
fullness of the father. Where do we get that? Colossians
1, John 1, Hebrews 1. It's not that they make it up,
but they wanted to nail it down that Jesus was of the same substance
in the same essence. Why? Because the Aryans in that
day were teaching something about Jesus. They were saying Jesus
was indeed divinely orchestrated. He indeed was divine and he had
divine attributes, but he was a lesser God. He was a little
God. He was a created being. He was
the first of all creation. And He came and began to do great
works in the name of the Father. And He came out. Does that sound
familiar? It's the exact doctrine that
Jehovah's Witnesses believe today. And the Council of Nicaea dealt
specifically with that. They said Jesus is fully God. He is the creator of all things.
He is the same out of God, begot Him. He is. And then in 381, that's in 325
and 381, the first, uh, council of Constantinople. They took
what the Nacian council said, and then they said, now let's,
let's pound it out. We so firmly believe this let's
be redundant. And then they added this, I quote,
God, Jesus is God from God, light from light, true God from true
God. And then in 431, the council
of Ephesus. They lay the foundation for the
virgin birth. Friends, there are professing
evangelicals, professing Protestants in the churches today who have
masses, millions of followers, and they teach a false doctrine
that Jesus is indeed not born of a virgin. The Council of Ephesus
in 431 said he must have been born of a virgin. The scripture
teaches he's born of a virgin. He has to be born of a virgin,
lest he be the descendant of man through whom all are dead
in Adam. And by the way, The mother of
Jesus in this world is Mary. It wasn't Catholic. It wasn't
Roman Catholic. They just wanted to say, we believe
the scripture says she's divinely given the child, as it teaches
in Luke's gospel. The Council of Chalcedon in 451. It says Christ has two natures
distinctly. They wanted to go a step further,
which are divine, the God nature, and human, the man nature. These
natures are distinct. but they're one person. Not God is one and man is another,
and then Jesus is the alien hybrid of the two. Jesus is fully God
and he's fully man, but he's one person. I quote, the two
natures stand, quote, without confusion, without change or
separation or division. Greg Johnson, the St. Louis Center
for Christian Studies, says that Jesus was not merely a human
cadaver animated by God. He was fully human. He was fully
body. And he had a full soul. He is
God and man, not God and body. And then the Constantinople in
553, the second ecumenical council affirmed all the other four councils,
and they added, quote, one of the Trinity has suffered for
us. In other words, the God-man died,
not just the man Jesus. But God died. God experienced
death. He tasted it. Christ is one person
with two natures. They do not separate. They do
not work independently of each other. Jesus' human nature and
divine nature work together, and they are inseparable, though
they are distinct. Now, you might say, I didn't
really want to hear all that. You need to hear that, Church. You may not realize it, but this
same stuff is under attack right now. Well, this is just theology and
doctrine. These are academic pursuits.
They are not. They affect whether or not you
can worship the one true God. Doctrine means teachings, theology
means the study of who God is. Are we not supposed to meditate
on his word? Are we not supposed to know his riches as new and
his mercies new every day? Are we not supposed to grow in
the depths of the knowledge of the mercies of God? Are we not
supposed to teach others Christ? That's not the way you've learned
Christ, Paul says to the Ephesians. So what? Well, here's what. So
what salvation is at the heart of things. This is why I believe
that Christmas is so horror filled for several reasons in that we,
the church, fail and we fail and fail and fail to see. And
we keep seeing just a little baby who loves us and martyred
himself for us. And it is a horror that we don't
look at Christ in the way that the scripture teaches him. It's
also a horror that God became one of us. In order to certainly
save us. In other words, I believe it's
horrible that the God of creation had to subject himself to being
part of the creation in order to save it. Why do you say that? I don't
know, was Jesus jolly in the garden of Gethsemane? He prayed so hard with so much
angst that the blood, the capillaries in his skin burst and he bled,
he sweated blood. So let's look at three things.
Out of and from John 1. First, understand the horror
of mankind. Understand the holiness of God.
And I want us to understand the humility of Christ. In Psalm 59, the psalmist writes,
For there is no truth in their mouth. Their inmost self is destruction. Their throat is an open grave.
They flatter with their tongue. Brother Barnes, as he read Psalm
14, the fool says in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt. They do abominable deeds. There
is none who does good. The Lord, listen to this church,
the Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man to see
if there are any who understand, who seek after God. And then
they have all turned aside. They all have together become
corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one. Have
they no knowledge? All the evil doers who eat up
my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the Lord. There
they are in great terror, for God is with the generation of
the righteous, you who shame the plans of the poor, but the
Lord is his refuge. Oh, that salvation for Israel
would come out of Zion. When the Lord restores the fortunes
of his people, let Jacob rejoice and be glad. Have you ever heard
that before today? You have. In Romans chapter three. Where Paul says in verse 20,
for by works of the law, no human will be justified in his sight,
through the law comes the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness
of God has been manifested apart the law, although the law and
the prophets bear witness to it. the righteousness of God
through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there
is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through
the redemption that is in Christ, whom God put forth because what
as propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. Friends, mankind is wicked. Mankind The reality of who we
are as human beings, let's just think of some adjectives. Sinful,
wicked, depraved, dead, destroyed, rebellious, evil, prideful, envious,
jealous, heartless, idolatrous. And so if that's what man looks
like, Now, we need to see what God looks like. We know what
God looks like. See, because man is in direct opposition to
the nature of God, namely his holiness. Therefore, God, listen
to this church, is good and just and righteous to effect wrath
upon every human being. Why is God so good? Because he
saved me. What if he didn't? He's still
good. Be careful. Be careful. God is wonderfully glorious to
pour his wrath upon all the earth. He is wonderfully miraculous
and righteous and holy and is always good, even if you never
have ever saved one person. But. God has love toward us. Why? Because he wants to. His unmerited favor and undeserving
gift. And it's not even required on
God's part. Do you hear that? Salvation is
not required of God. Of course, of course, of course,
he doesn't need saving. No, he doesn't need to save. His nature doesn't demand that
he save people who are wicked. It's only His mercy, His pleasure. In Ephesians 2. And you were dead
in your trespasses and sin in which you once walked, following
the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the
air and the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.
Verse three, among whom you all once live in the passions of
our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the desires of
the mind. And we're by nature, children of wrath, like the rest
of mankind. But God, verse four, Ephesians
two, four. But God being rich in mercy,
because of the great love with which he loved us, made us, or
even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive with
Christ. By grace you have been saved
and raised us up and seated us with him in the heavenly places
in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the
immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ
Jesus. Why did God save sinners? So that he could be praised. Because he's worthy of being
praised. Why do we celebrate the coming
of Christ so that we can praise the Father for sending his Son
to take our dead on the cross that we might live? The humility of Christ. Oh, how I want to just Prince
John 1. But today I want to use John
1 to show you a few things. When I say preach, I mean, just
verse one would take us several weeks. So what you're going to
get today is it's almost like here's a menu, three, two, one,
and we close it. I want you to focus, church. In the beginning was the word.
The word was with God and the word was God. Who is Christ? Who is Christ? Well, we could
come with a list that is ineffable, unknowable, unreachable, never
ending. And we would learn that Christ
is God. Christ is our creator. Christ
is the Messiah. Christ is Lord. Christ is worship.
Christ is the ruler. Christ is the redeemer. Christ
is the fullness of God. But here in this text, in John
1.1, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God
and the Word was God. This past tense of looking at
what John is saying wants us to point to a time before there
was time. And we need to see fully. As Proverbs teaches in chapter
8, when you hear these words, when he established the heavens,
I was there. When he drew a circle on the
face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he
established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to
the sea its limit so that the waters might not transgress his
command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then
I was beside him like a master workman, and I was daily his
delight, rejoicing before him always. Think of that when you hear John
1.1. Before there was anything but
God, the cosmos or the world or the existence of just God
Himself, He delighted fully in the Son who was with Him. So what does it mean to Be the
word. Well, this is where I say we
could get bogged down. Let me just give it to you real
quick. The word, as we know, we speak and we hear words. And
if I say things with words, you hear what I want you to hear.
Or in some sense, if I'm being honest, you hear that which is
truly of my desire or of my mind. You hear the word. In the beginning
was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. And so now we see the word. The
word is what reflects The nature of God and what reveals the plan
of God. The word is that which was in
the beginning and together they were there. And so in essence, then Jesus
reflects, God reflects his own desires and his own decrees,
and he was reflecting these decrees to his own ears before there
was anything to hear it. in the beginning. And then today,
God reveals his desires and decrees through the Son who was there
with him in the beginning, who is the Word, and the Word was
God. The Word is fully divine. Jesus Christ is the Creator,
God, and He has come to open our eyes to tell us His Word. I'd like to translate this this way.
He, in the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was face to face with God. And look what else we see there
in John, verse three, all things were made through him and without
him was not anything made that was made in him was life and
the life was the light of men purposely past tense. The light
shines in the darkness and the darkness is not overcome it.
So here we see the reflection, no pun intended, of God and his
decree. Then there is something created
that God wants to see him. And he says that there is light
there. And so this light That all has
been made by the word and the word, as we'll see in just a
moment, is Jesus Christ. So the word is divine and he's
reflecting through creation, he's reflecting and shining through
his desire, but most importantly, the word and the light together
make visible who he is. And so we're going to see in
the sense of salvation what the incarnation means to you. As
a Christian. Here's the fullness of all God,
the fullness of God, creating all things. Jesus is the creator. And then we see that he came. First, there was a man sent from
God, his name was John talking about John the Baptist. He was
not the light. He came to bear witness about
the light that all might believe him or believe through him. He
was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
Verse nine, 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.
And let's talk about it for a minute. The world is created, the light
is the life of men. What does this mean? Well, let's
look in the sense here that it says that in him was life. It didn't say through him. In him was life. And you say,
well, what's the life? And the life was the light of
men. In verse five, the light shines
in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. Now look
in John 5, 26. You hear these words, for as
the father has life in himself, so he has granted the son also
to have life in himself. John 6, 48, Jesus says, I am
the bread of life. In John 6, 53, Jesus said to
them, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh
of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. In John 11, 25, speaking to Martha,
he says these words, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever
believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. Do you see
that? So the fullness of Christmas,
if you will, is about the horrible reality that the God of the universe
is becoming like a creation so that he can suffer so that he
might save a people who don't even love him. Who have rejected him through
unbelief for all history. And the life. Of Christ is not
through him, though we do have life through Christ. We certainly
have life in Christ. Let's continue. This light is
not for men, as we see there. There was a man sent from God.
This light is life is the light of men. And this man who is John
is not the light. He just came to bear witness
about it. Christ is being told by John
the Baptist. Beautiful story. I think two
thirds, two teachers ago we touched on that. It might've been a question
about why was John the Baptist the one who baptized Jesus? Christ alone is the light. He
is the bringer of life. And you might think, well, what
is life? Life is when I'm breathing. Life is when I'm walking. Life
is sort of subjective, if you will. No. Yes, life comes to
the creation. Yes. But here it's not talking
about physical life in the sense of existence. It's talking about
spiritual life. In the sense that all men who
are now dead and blind in darkness because of unbelief have been
given the light of God in Christ, and He alone will overcome the
darkness. Life is rebirth. That's what John is arguing here.
The coming of Christ, being born substitutionary atonement, Jesus
took our place to make us at one with God. That's what that
means. How would Jesus, how would God take our place if he were
not born of us? Jesus used the term the son of
man more than any term. To define himself. Everyone who has spiritual life
must get it from the light of Christ. Light is given to all. Look at
this, verse nine, the true light, which gives light to everyone
who is coming into the world. What does that mean? That means
that when we are sharing Christ, we are signing light. Christ
stood at the precipice of history and he walked the streets of
Palestine in the first century. He walked in the cities and he
declared himself to be the light of God. He declared himself to
be the light of the world. He declared himself to be the
bread of life. He says all thirst or hunger come to me, come to
me. He stood in front of the masses
and he said, all of you follow me. And they followed him to
Capernaum. And they said, Rabbi, teacher. Oh, great one. When did you come
here? And Jesus says, you come after
me not because of who I am, but because of what I gave you. Don't
labor for the bread that perishes, but labor for the bread that
endures to eternal life. I am the bread that comes down
to heaven to give life to all men. Jesus is the light which
gives light to everyone who is coming into the world. The gospel
is not hidden, Church. Christmas, if we're going to
celebrate Christ, is about this. It's about the light of the gospel. And I can't think of this without
St. Corinthians 4 coming to pass in my head, in my mind, where
Paul, as he's talking, he says, If our gospel is veiled,
it is only veiled to those who are perishing, for the God of
this world has blinded the eyes of unbelievers to keep them from
seeing the light of the glory of God in Christ. So therefore,
he keeps on talking. For God, who said, Let light
shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give us the
knowledge, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. So we preach the gospel. And men are without excuse, for
God has made himself known. There's a general light that's
in the world, but the special light, the specific light of
rebirth comes through hearing the gospel. Church, you may want to get fired
up with some good motivation, but I choose to fill you up. with the fullness of the gospel. And preaching should be redundant
to you. This is what carries me so crazily
in talking with so many people. And you think about preparation
of sermon. You know what preparation of
sermons are? Face worship. What do I mean by that? Worshipping
the face of Christ. That's that's what sermon preparation
is. Because the message never changes. And from the beginning to the
end, the gospel is the same, and it's why God in the beginning
created all that he did to show the Christ. And it's why history
has been recorded through the Old Testament. It's why the gospels
have been recorded to show us the gospel, to show us the light
of God. What about those who do not see?
He was in the world that He made, verse 10, and yet the world did
not know Him. Not just the world, but to His
own. Those who knew of Him, who were
anticipating Him, did not know Him when He said, Here I am. Why? Because of unbelief. Unbelief. Unbelief is darkness. Unbelief is blindness. But as
we just saw just a few verses before, he came, the light came. And it shines. Where does it
shine? Does the light shine into the
light? You ever turn on a flashlight in the daytime and you do this
because you don't know if it's on and you blind yourself? You don't see light shining in
light. Light shines for the purpose of dispelling darkness. You can't
see when the electricity's out. You don't want to fall down the
stairs to see the light. You see the stairs. You see where
to go. And the light of Christ shines in the darkness. What
does the darkness do? The darkness is where we are
when we're not in Christ, who is the life of men. The darkness
is where we start when we are conceived, blinded. Except, of
course, for one that we know of, Jesus the Christ. Unbelief is blindness. We cannot
see. And blind people, even when the
light is shining, cannot see the light. See this, church.
This is what Christmas is about. This is what the coming of Jesus
Christ is, is that we're blind and even when the light is shining,
we cannot see it. So something happens supernaturally
and divinely powerfully to help us see that which cannot be seen.
What is it? The light, the darkness, The
light is shining in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome
it. His own did not receive him,
but verse 12, but to all who did receive him. What's the difference
between those people? Unbelievers hate the light. Where
do you get that? John 3, Nicodemus. Jesus talking
to Nicodemus. And this is the judgment. This
is the foundation of John 3.16, by the way. This is what undergirds
the reality of what it means. For God loved the world in this
way, that he gave his only Son, the only Son that he had, that
all the believing ones would have life, and all the unbelieving
ones have not life. For they fail to be believing
in the one Son, Jesus Christ, and this is the judgment. That light has come into the
world, but people love the darkness rather than the light because
Their works are evil and they do not come to the light, lest
their works be exposed. But all who come to the light
do so that it may be clearly seen that their works have been
carried out in God. That is what we see here in John
one. The difference between those
who are not in Christ and those who are in Christ is that those
who are not in Christ hate the light. They don't want to see
it. They don't want to hear it. And
they cannot see it. Even when they see, they cannot
see. But the good news of Jesus Christ
advent of his coming is that The darkness will not overcome
the light. So when God shines the light of the gospel in the
heart that is good, be very careful what you hear here. Because their heart has been
made good. It sees. How can a heart be made
good? By the grace of God. Through
the hearing of the gospel. Light is effective for those
who believe, who receive as testimony, and the result of hearing and
receiving is eternal life. But what is the cause of the
hearing and receiving? They've been born again. Nicodemus
comes to Jesus and says, I see you. You are God. Jesus says,
you can't see me. Nicodemus in all of his glory,
this pharisaical training, part of the Sanhedrin. I'm of the
kingdom of heaven. Jesus says you can't even enter
the kingdom of heaven unless you are born of the Spirit, born
of heaven, born from a God. You must be born again. You have
to be born again. How am I supposed to do that,
Jesus? I'll do it, Jesus says. How do I receive? How do I know
that you trust fully in that? I've done it, Nicodemus. Your
hope is in me, not in you believing me. It's hope in me. Who I am,
what I've done, what I'm doing, this is the gospel. But to all who did receive him,
Church, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the
children of God who were born. not of blood, nor the will of
the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God." And what's John
saying? It don't matter who your daddy
is. No matter how many Christians are in your family, how long
you've been in church, it doesn't matter how holy your people are,
how right you live, how much Bible you read, how often you
pray. And all this stuff has no effect
on you being born again. You can do it all and stand in
judgment because you're guilty. It doesn't matter who your daddy
is. It doesn't matter the will of your flesh. It doesn't matter
what you desire. It doesn't matter that you really
want to walk like the rich young ruler in righteousness and follow
me and do ministry. That doesn't make you right with
God. Nor the will of the flesh, nor the
will of man. It doesn't matter what you choose.
It doesn't matter you say, I follow you, Jesus. People say that all
the time. They fall away. We're following
Jesus. We're following Jesus. We're
following Jesus. What are you going to do, Jesus?
Give me this. Give me that. Oh, I'm just so thankful that
I'm walking with you. I'm so glad that I'm not as big
a sinner as I used to be. I'm so glad that by faith I received
you. Oh, glory, glory, glory. And then all of a sudden Jesus
says, you need to eat of me alone. And the multitudes went, what?
You mean you're it? You're the prize? You bearded,
footless, short little ugly Palestinian man, you are the prize of God? No, thank you. How sweet and awful is the place
we sang last week? Some people would rather starve
than come. It is not the will of man. And
the Greek there, the head, the choice. Choose all you want to. You better choose to follow Christ.
But you better be born again, too. How? Who are born not of blood,
nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but the will
of God. How does that work? How does the will of God save
people? Verse 14. And the word became flesh. And it dwelt among us. And we
have seen his glory. Glory as of the only Son from
the Father, full of grace and truth. And from His fullness
we all receive grace upon grace. From Moses we receive the law. Grace and truth came through
Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, the
only God, but He who is at His side makes Him known. Friends,
that's the gospel. Salvation is not a process of
working through certain things. Salvation is a process in that
which God is doing to affect your holiness and that He's already
done to affect your justification. That means just like just as
if you'd never sinned. And then He continues to work
out your salvation to affect your holiness as you're sanctified. Do not be deceived, Christian. Unless you see the light of the
glory of God and understand and fully desire and see a transformation,
do you see? But even then, you cannot put
your hope and your faith in your transformation. You put your
hope and your faith in Christ. We work out our salvation with
fear and trembling, and we trust fully in that which God is doing
to affect salvation. Oh, God, would Christmas be something
different if we actually thought about how to make this a holiday?
It's not necessarily a holiday, is it? It's work. Do you know what it means to
receive grace upon grace? Why repeat that, Church? Because it's worth repeating. But specifically, we get the law from Moses, but
grace and truth from Jesus Christ. who is fully God in the beginning,
created me, then became like me in that He took on human flesh
to take my place, to put on Himself my sin, and to take the full
wrath that was deserved by me on Himself. And then to purpose fully before
the world began that through the hearing of the gospel, He
would save me. and that I would be His. And that is grace. Charity upon
charity upon charity. Mercy upon mercy upon mercy. It's because that's all we have. That's why part of what we stand
for in our Protestantism, if you will, in the five solas of
the Reformation is sola gratia, by grace alone. Grace upon grace
upon grace. And I could preach to you about
how you ought to do stuff and give you some tools on how you
can make it work. But here's how you make it work.
You trust in the grace of God. And you worship through the grace
of God and you live by the grace of God and you trust in the grace
of God because he sovereignly, supernaturally and powerfully
has overcome your blindness and your darkness and your unbelief.
And he's made you alive in Christ by taking all that you deserve
and putting it on Christ and crushing him and destroying him
and bringing judgment and the fullness of the wrath of God. Last drop! And now we're free. You believe
that. You trust in that. That's what
God has done for you, beloved. Jolly old Saint Nicholas has
got a thing or two to learn. We're rocking around the Christmas
tree. Friends, that gospel is a rock of offense for most people.
It's the only thing that's going to save you. It's the only thing
that's going to keep your marriage together. It's the only thing
that's going to keep you joyful in the midst of death. It's the
only thing that's going to give you hope. It's the only thing
that's going to make you powerful. It's the only thing that's going
to fill you with the Spirit of God. It's the only thing that's going to
take you to the end as you stand spotless as the bride of Jesus
who died to save your soul. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission of sin. Scripture says that the blood
of goats and bulls, God does not desire. It was just a shadow
to point to that which was to come, which is the Lamb of God
who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus is that Lamb, the
only worthy, sinless, perfect man. who is fully the fullness
of God, who shed his blood willfully on the cross, drink in remembrance
of the blood of Christ.