I'm speaking this morning on
my favorite subject. I'm bringing a message on the
person and work and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'll be
with you for about 28 and a half minutes, and I'm going to spend
28 and a half minutes talking about Him. The Apostle Paul said
we preach Christ and Him crucified. He said, God forbid that I should
glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And again
to that city of Corinth, he declared, I am determined to know nothing
among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. My only disappointment
is this. My only disappointment in life
is that I'm not able to preach. the glorious gospel of Jesus
Christ as I'd like to preach it. Just not able. I wish that
I could. I wish that God would give me
a hearing in this day and let me declare with the liberty and
power that I covet the glory and beauty of the person, our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Here's the best news that ear
can ever hear, and yet so few. are interested in it, the best
news, good news, glad tidings. And yet so few are interested
at all. Here's the greatest treasure,
the unspeakable gift God called, unspeakable gift. Such a treasure
of such value is called unspeakable, unexplainable, unspeakable gift
of God. And yet so few value it at all,
see no beauty at all in him. And then here's the song of songs,
the song of songs, the very glory of God and the theme of heaven,
worthy is the Lamb, the very theme of heaven, and yet it's
unknown to most of God's creation. And here, my friend, is hope
for the hopeless, and here is mercy for the miserable, and
here is grace for the guilty, and here is love for the unlovely.
And yet it means so little to most people and remains a mystery
to the majority of this world's population. In John 1, 14, listen
to this verse. I'm going to preach from this
verse today and stay as close as I can to this one verse of
Scripture. If you'd like to turn in your Bibles and follow with
me, it's found in the first chapter of John, the very first chapter
of the Gospel of John. The verse is 14. It says, and the Word was made flesh,
and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the
only begotten of the Father, full of grace and full of truth."
You know what my prayer is? My prayer, very solemnly and
sincerely, is this. Lord, give us ears to hear and
give us eyes to see and a heart to understand and a tongue to
tell this glory of God that's beheld in the face of the Lord
Jesus Christ. I'm going to take this verse
of Scripture and just break it down almost word for word. and deal with it, I hope, quite
fully in this message today. So you listen now, and follow
in your Bibles, John 1, verse 14. It says, the first two words,
the Word, the Word was made flesh. John opens his book with the
statement, in the beginning, verse 1, you see it, in the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Now, we're talking about Word.
The word Word. See, the Word was made flesh.
The Word. And then back there in verse
1, John said in the beginning was the Word. Who is this Word? Capital W-O-R-D. Who is this
Word? It's our Lord Jesus Christ. Do
you understand that? We're not talking about in the
beginning was the Bible. We're talking about in the beginning
was a person. And he's called the Word of God. He's called
in the Scripture the Water of Life. He's called by some very
beautiful but common terms. He's called the Water of Life.
He's called the Bread of Life. All these things are central.
He's called the Door. He's called the Way, the Truth,
and the Life. And here He's called the Word,
the Word of God. He is the Word of God. Now, why
is He called the Word? Why is Jesus Christ called the
Word? In the beginning was the Word. Why didn't it say in the
beginning was Jesus Christ? Well, he's called the Word of
God because he is the revelation of God. He is the communication
of God. He is that prophet who reveals
God. You see, my friends, the heavens
declare the glory of God. The firmament showeth his handiwork.
You can see the power and might and wisdom of God in a whole
lot of things. And then conscience reveals unto
us the holiness of God. The fool has said in his heart
there's no God. Every man has a light that lights
him, that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. There's
some knowledge of God that can be received from nature and from
the skies and the heavens and the earth and the things that
are made and even our consciences. But to know God, God must speak. And God speaks with words, just
like you and I speak with words. Words are vehicles of thought.
Words convey unto us thoughts. Words convey unto us feelings. Words convey unto us purposes.
You look at a person and say, I'm going to do this. And the
only way he knows you're going to do it is for you to tell him.
So God speaks. That's how God reveals himself.
He speaks. And he speaks through Christ.
Christ is the Word of God. Do you see what I'm saying? Our
Lord said this, No man knoweth the Father, but the Son, and
he to whom the Son will reveal him. That's the reason Christ
said, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. He that hath
heard me heard the Father. The words that I speak are not
my words, they're the words of him that sent me. And the works
that I do are not my works, but the works of him that sent me."
Christ is not meaning by that that he and the Father are not
one and the same. He's simply saying that you look
at me, you're looking at God. God is revealed in Christ, so
He's the Word of God. You understand that? He's the
revelation, He is the communication, He is that prophet, and the only
way anybody can know anything about the thoughts of God, the
ways of God, the will of God, the redemption of God, the purpose
of God, the plan of God, is to hear Jesus Christ, because He's
the Word of God. So you'll never know anything
about me unless I tell you. If I choose to clam up and never
speak another word as long as I live, nobody's going to know
what I'm thinking or what I'm planning or what I've got on
my mind. I'll never tell them. And I'm
telling you this, God Almighty speaks and He speaks through
Christ. That's why He's called the Word of God. And He says,
in the beginning. You see, everything starts with
God. The Bible starts that way, in the beginning. In the beginning,
God. And in the beginning was the
Word. And the Word was with God. You have there the Trinity. We're
going to get into that in a few moments. And the Word was with
God and the Word was God. Every revelation of God in the
Old Testament is an appearance of Christ. And all things were
made by him. All things were made through
him, by him, and for his glory. And without him was not anything
made that was made. We understand, listen, that the
worlds were framed by what? The Word of God. That's Hebrews
1. We understand, by faith we understand, that the worlds were
made by the Word of God. Now that's Christ, you see? All
right, look at our verse again. The Word, the Word, that's God
in human flesh, was made flesh. Now let me show you from the
Scriptures a fact. A man said to me just a little while ago,
this is one of the most difficult things to preach. Men do not believe it. It's impossible
to convince anyone that Jesus Christ is God. I'm not saying
he's a messenger of God, though he is. I'm not saying he's one
who comes in the name of God, though he is. I'm not saying
he's an ambassador of God, though he is. But he is God himself. I'm going to show you that fact
from the Word of God. God became a man. The Scripture said God
was in Christ. reconciling the world unto himself,
but perhaps the strongest verses in the Old Testament are these.
Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son, and I
shall call his name Immanuel, God with us. And then in Isaiah
9, 6, unto us a child is born, a son is given, his name shall
be called, government on his shoulders, name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father. Now listen to this. In 1 Timothy
3.16, without controversy, without debate or argument, grave is
the mystery of godliness. What is the mystery of godliness?
He tells you. God was manifested in the flesh. God was manifested, God was revealed,
God was displayed in the flesh. I don't know why we find it so
difficult for God to become a man. I know it's a great miracle.
It's a wonder of wonders. But if God can make a man of
flesh in his own image, why can't God reveal his image in a man
of flesh? Why not? You see what I'm saying? God became a man. If God chooses
to sit on a throne, he'll sit on a throne. If God chooses to
use the earth as a footstool, he'll use the earth as a footstool.
If God chooses to inhabit the body of a man, he'll inhabit
the body of a man. Nothing is impossible with God
in keeping with his holiness and justice and truth. And great
is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. That's what it says. Scene of
the angels. justified in the Spirit, preached
to the Gentiles, and believed on in the world. That is the
mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh.
So here we have, look at that verse again, the Word. That's
Jesus Christ, the Word. The Word was made flesh. Made
flesh. Behold, here's the great mystery
of mysteries. Here's the great miracle of all
miracles, incarnation. God Almighty, in His eternal
purpose to save, God Almighty, in his infinite love for sinners,
God Almighty, in his infinite grace and mercy, chose to take
upon himself the flesh of a man. And he became a man, bone of
our bone and flesh of our flesh. He was numbered with the transgressors.
He was identified with us. He's not ashamed to call us brethren. He took on himself the very likeness
of sinful flesh. The great miracle is that God
did not take upon himself the nature of angels. He didn't take
upon himself the nature of unfallen Adam, but God Almighty waited
to take upon himself the nature of man in his corruption, man
in his depravity, man in his utter sinfulness. Almighty God
was identified with us in our lowest depths of corruption and
depravity. What a miracle! He became flesh. The Word, who was with God, was
God, and all things were made by him, the Word, the communication
of God, God himself, was made flesh. Now watch it, he was made
flesh. He was made God deliberately,
the Scripture says in Galatians 4, but when the fullness of time
was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under
the law. God prepared that body. God prepared
that dwelling place, God prepared that habitation. That was not
the product of Adam's seed, that God made him flesh. And then
what's the next line? Let's go verse, word by word.
The word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Dwelt among us. Now, the word here is the word
God was made flesh and tabernacled among us. He tabernacled among
us. Can you imagine a little, I know
you can't imagine much, I can't either, of the glory of the tabernacle
in the wilderness? Right in the center of the encampment
of Israel was a tabernacle, a tent. And on the outside it looked
just like any ordinary tent. It looked like all the rest of
the tents. If you had been up in the air on a high mountain
looking down on that encampment and you saw all these tents of
skin and goat skin and badger skin, you would have paid a great
deal of attention to that tent in the center of the camp with
the white fence around it, except the white fence might have caught
your eye. It was badger skin. It looked just like any other
tent. And when Jesus Christ came to this earth, he looked just
like any other man. In fact, those people said, well,
is not this Joseph's son? Do we not know his mother and
brothers and sisters? Is not this the carpenter? Can
any good thing come out of Nazareth? They called him a winebibber,
a gluttonous man, a friend of sinners. There was no beauty
about him that we should desire him, no comeliness. We hid as
it were our faces from him. He looked like any other son
of Adam. The difference was on the inside.
And I'll tell you, when you look at that tabernacle out there
in the wilderness with its badger skin covering, and it looked
like any other tent, but when you opened the veil and walked
in, the very shekinah The glory of God filled that place. God
was present there, the gold, the silver, the white linen,
the purity, the beauty, the incense burning, the candles, the seven
candlesticks burning. There you have the greater glory
of God revealed between the cherubim on the mercy seat, so so that
a man couldn't even approach thereunto without an atonement,
without a blood sacrifice, or the very presence and glory of
God would have blinded him. And that's what I'm saying about
Jesus Christ, who tabernacled among us. He looked like any
other man, but he knew no sin. He had no sin. He is God. Perfect love, perfect righteousness,
perfect truth, perfect holiness, everything. You see, the greater
glory of Israel was the tabernacle. And the greater glory of the
tabernacle was the Holy of Holies, and the greater glory of the
Holy of Holies was the mercy seat, for there was the Shekinah
glory of God. There God met men, and there
men met God. And I'm telling you this, Jesus
of Nazareth, though he looks ordinary and common on the And
though they despised him and rejected him as a man of sorrows
acquainted with grief, he's God in human flesh. And if you ever
meet God, you'll meet him in Christ. And if God ever meets
you, he'll meet you in Christ. If God ever deals with you in
mercy, he'll deal with you in mercy on the basis of that man,
Jesus Christ. Christ is our tabernacle. In
him, God meets men in mercy. My friend, I'm telling you the
truth. You can walk all the aisles you
want to and cry and pray at all the mourners' benches. get baptized
by all the Baptist preachers and sprinkled by the Methodists
and confirmed by the Catholics and you can take your sacraments
and your Lord's table and communion and do your good works and make
your professions and decisions but I'm telling you God meets
men in the tabernacle at the mercy seat on the basis of the
blood and that's the blood of the Lamb called the atonement
and I'm telling you it says the word was made flesh and tabernacled
among us. That's where you do business
with God. And you do business on God's
terms, in God's way, at God's time, through God's man, Jesus
Christ. That's so. That's so. I've got nothing to gain by lying
to you. I'm not building any monuments
to myself. I'm trying to tell you the truth about God. Now
watch the third thing. It says the Word was made flesh
And he dwelt among us, and we, and we beheld his glory." We,
think about it, we, what a favored people, what a blessed people.
Blessed are your eyes, Christ said, they see, and blessed are
your ears, for they hear. Blessed are your hearts, they
understand. Oh, my friends, have you beheld him? I'm not talking
about we read about him or just heard about him. I'm talking
about this. Paul said, the glory of God,
the very glory of God is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ.
And he that seeth the Son and believeth on him hath everlasting
life. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. And by God opening our eyes,
we beheld. You don't see this by nature.
Our Lord said, Peter, whom do men say that I am? He said, well,
they say you this, that, and the other. Well, whom do you
say that I am? Peter said, you're the Christ. You're the Christ. You're the tabernacle. You're
the mercy seat. You're the atonement. You're
the altar. You're the high priest. You're the mediator. You're all
things. And he said, flesh and blood didn't reveal that to you,
but my Father which is in heaven. Have you beheld his glory? His
glory? What is this glory of God that
we see in the face of Christ Jesus? What's the glory of His
holiness? Christ knew no sin. It's the glory of His love. Greater
love hath no man than this. It's the glory of His justice.
He spared not His own Son. It's the glory of His law. Christ
came not to destroy it, but to fulfill it. It's the glory of
His wisdom that God may be just and justify. It's the glory of
his power. They say even the waves are subject
to this man. What manner of man is this that
even the wind obeys his voice? It's the glory of his life. The
grave could not contain him. It's the glory of God's truth.
He shall not fail. Had you beheld God's glory in
the face of Christ Jesus, God's glory, my friends, is not in
your denomination. It's not in your temple, tabernacle,
or cathedral. We build these monstrosities.
put big crosses on top of them and shine lights on them and
shine lights through our pretty thin glass windows, and we think
we're showing the glory of God. The glory of God is not seen
in those old buildings that will someday come down. The glory
of God, the indestructible, infinite glory of God is revealed in Christ
our Lord. be good for us if some of these
places had burned down. They really would. And then we
could worship God and quit worshiping our tabernacles and temples and
creeds and laws and standards and preachers and all these organizations
and quit talking about what we're doing for God and start talking
about what God's done for us, if anything at all. All right,
read this. Listen. The Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. His glory, not our
glory. Not the glory of our forefathers,
but his glory. And what is his glory? It's the
glory of the only begotten of the Father. I know the difficulty
we're faced in trying to comprehend the Trinity. If we could comprehend
God, we'd be God. But I'm telling you, God is one,
and yet he's three in one. You say, you just can't believe
both. I don't know why not. I don't know why not. I believe
Jesus Christ is God and Jesus Christ is a man. He's the God-man. And I believe God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. I surely do. There are
too many scriptures which teach this. God said when he created
man, he said, let us make man. Who's he talking to? Let us make
man in our image. I didn't go too far in school,
but I know that's plural. I know that's not singular. And
then I read this at the baptism of Christ. The father spoke from
heaven, said, this is my son. And the Holy Spirit descended
in the form of a dove. At the transfiguration of Christ,
the father spoke, said, this is my son. Hear ye him. And in
the promise of the Spirit, our Lord said, I will pray the Father,
and He'll send you another comforter of the Spirit. And John said
in 1 John, there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father,
the Word, and the Spirit. And our Lord Jesus said, He that
has seen me has seen the Father. And God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto Himself. And the second Adam is the Lord
from heaven. Now that's clear to me. Is that
clear to you? There's a Trinity. I can't explain
it, I'm not going to try to, but I see in the face of Christ
the glory of the Father. That's right, the glory of the
Father. All right, now let's close with this. The Word was
made flesh, condescended to become a man, and dwelt actually tabernacled
among us. We saw God in human flesh. And
we beheld, we did, ourselves, with eyes of faith, his glory. Not ours, his. He has the glory
for everything he did. His glory. The glory as of the
only begotten of the Father, full of grace. Full of grace. Full. Watch this word, full.
In verse 16 it says, and of his fullness. Have we all received
grace for grace, fullness, my friend, full of grace and truth? Nowhere at no time can you speak
of anything or anybody containing all fullness. Nothing does except
Christ. All fullness. In Him dwelleth
all the fullness of God. What are we saying? All that
God requires, all that God is, all that God commands, All that
God expects. All that God gives. All that
the sinner wants. All that the sinner needs. All
that the sinner lacks. All fullness is in Jesus Christ. That's the only place it is.
Only place. There are other places where
God's manifest a part of himself, a portion of himself. His benefits
are blessing, but in Christ, all of it. All things. All fullness. There's a fullness
of deity. All fullness of deity. There's a fullness of love. There's
a fullness of holiness. There's a fullness of power.
He's able to save to the uttermost. There's a fullness of life. I'm
come that they might have life. All that you need is in Christ.
Nothing needs to be added to Christ. He says, in Him dwelleth
all fullness, and you're complete in Him. The fullness of truth.
He said, I am the truth. He didn't say, I am true. He
said, I'm the truth. All of it. All of it. All of
it. Christ is the fullness of victory.
Thanks be unto God who gives us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the fullness of strength.
He's the fullness of heaven. When the thief on the cross said,
remember me when you come in your kingdom? He didn't say,
I'll go make a place for you up there. He said, you'll be
with me. That's heaven, you see. When
we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father,
full, totally full of all grace, all fullness. What kind of grace? Well, the old tabernacle was
full of love. Christ is full of grace. No sinner
too great for him to save, no sin too black for him to wash.
No guilt too heavy for him to bear, he's full of grace. He
delights to show mercy. He says, come ye sinners poor
and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore, Jesus ready, stands
to save you, full of pity, love and power. Come ye weary, heavy
laden, bruised and mangled by the fall, if you wait till you're
better, you'll never come at all. Let not conscience make
you linger, nor fitness fondly dream. All the fitness he requires
is to feel your need of him, because he's full. He's full
of grace and he's full of truth. The old tabernacle was full of
types. Christ our Lord is truth embodied, full of it. You don't need to know anything
but Christ. You don't need to have anything but Christ. He's
full of the truth of God's purpose, the truth of God's justice, the
truth of God's love, the truth of God's promise, and the truth
of God's glory. You never read a verse as important
as this verse. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth. All I need, all I
need, Jesus Christ is all I need.