Guest Speaker | Pastor Harry Saylor | Sunday Service

I'm going to ask my dad to come to the stage this morning, and he's going to share the word of God with us, church.

You put your hands together for him as he comes this morning.

Love you.

Thank you so much.

Y'all are so kind.

It's always a delight for Sandra and I to be here with CLC.

We're in Nashville, but I want you to know this is our home.

That's right, it really is.

You know, it's kind of a cool thing in life to live long enough for your son to become your pastor.

And then he becomes your counselor.

Then he becomes your boss.

No, I just I honor uh I honor my son and his wife and what the Lord's doing here among you all and uh what what's happening.

And so we just we just bless that.

And it's always having my daughter and son-in-law and friends that we pastored for years here, and uh so we're just delighted to be here today.

Um, you know, there's just too much temptation to go in too many different directions right now.

I think one of the things that we need to realize, we we're we keep talking about uh see God do something amazing.

I actually believe it's in the process.

I think God's doing amazing things right now.

I think there's a spiritual hunger in the earth that probably I haven't seen uh for 50 years.

I believe that.

I believe there's a real hunger among the younger generation uh to see God do some amazing things, and he is.

You know, what we don't realize is there is a sweeping power of the Holy Spirit around the world, and people are receiving Christ, they're also receiving the Holy Spirit, and uh so there's it's just amazing things.

Now, turn to John.

I gotta start where I need to start in John chapter one.

I just want to go there and start there.

Uh this is gonna be a little bit different.

The temptation, of course, is Palm Sunday to talk about that.

I'm gonna I'm gonna leave that uh for uh your pastor and and leadership on that.

I actually want to look at some verses.

There's there these verses we pass over.

Uh John's Gospel is one of my favorite gospels.

I, you know, of course, that's the one I'm reading from.

It's always a favorite.

But John's Gospel is different than the other three Gospels.

The other three Gospels start at a different place.

John's Gospel starts before time.

The other three starts in time, but John's Gospel starts before time and introduces what's coming in time.

In fact, so let's look at John 1, verse 1.

John 1:1

It says this in the beginning was the word, the logos.

The word was with God, the word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through him, and without him nothing was 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 did not comprehend it.

Now let's look down uh at verse 14.

And the word again became flesh.

We really need to let that settle in.

And the word became flesh.

We know that when John's writing up here in the first three verses, when he's talking about the word, we know that word that he is talking about and who that is.

And then he says, and the word became flesh.

I get I get caught up in this, in the fact, and we've talked about God this morning and and the immensity of God, the greatness of God, but you know what?

God is amazing in the minuscule.

He is able to do things in the microscopic world.

We and we need to know that this great big God that we serve was willing to become small.

Because that's the only way he could fit into us.

Hello?

This magnificent God that is omnipotent, ompresent, omniscient, knowing all everywhere, all is able to become small.

That's free, that's not in my notes.

So the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

So, Father, thank you for your word, Holy Spirit.

You are the author, and we're asking you to speak to our hearts together.

May there be a release of your power in this room or a continued release of your power to do the work that only you can.

Not in my hands, not in my mouth, not in my mind, but in yours, Lord.

I ask you to work today in Jesus' name.

Amen.

There's a phrase that has captured me.

I actually, I think the last time I was here, I quoted it from A.

W.

Tozer, and it's just kind of kept me.

Uh I can't get away from it.

I don't think I should get away from it.

But Tozer said this the most important thing about you is what comes to mind when you think about God.

I want to say that again.

It's really, really big.

The most important thing about you is what comes into your mind when you think about God.

Because that determines everything else about your life.

In fact, the our view of God actually determines our worship, it determines the way that we live.

Everything.

So, and I I believe this, I've been doing this a long time, as you can tell.

Selah.

Been at this a few years, and the one thing that I am hungry and want to know more of is that my view of God would become greater than it's ever been.

How many would be in that category this morning?

Why?

Because that view of God determines everything else.

And I think for the most part, even though we, you know, we we do we do good.

The worship was wonderful this morning, and we do pretty good about that.

But when we get outside the door, when we get in our car, when we get at home, or we're in the hospital, or or we're in someplace else, how's my view of God then?

So David said this.

I love this.

David said in Psalm 34, 3, which I love the Psalm, he said, Oh magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.

Now the question is, how are we gonna make God bigger?

The truth is that, and I want you to get this, God is in all things yet contained by no thing.

God is in all things, yet contained by no thing.

So how are we gonna make him any bigger?

And David is saying here, magnify the Lord.

Magnify.

How do we make God bigger?

How do we magnify?

It's interesting here.

I just read to you, John said it this way.

He said, All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made.

He made everything.

Not only that, Hebrews 1:3 says this: that he holds all things together by the word of his power.

Hebrews 1:3

Hebrews 11 says this, by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God.

Get this by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of the things which are visible.

In other words, it's the invisible things.

I was reading the other day and ran across a little article, and it and and this is I'm gonna get in trouble here because I'm sure we got a lot of smart people in this room, and I'm not necessarily qualified.

Anybody ever talked about something that you weren't qualified to talk about?

Okay, good.

So I'm in the right place.

That physicists, and they and you guys know this.

Y'all know about subatomic particles, don't you?

Everybody in here's got a good thing on.

I think Harrison yesterday was having a conversation and talking about metallurgicals and and different kinds of stuff like this.

And my daughter said, Did you get that?

No.

But everything is made up.

You know, you you are made up of some subatomic particles.

Everything is made up of that.

All of us are made up of that.

What you're sitting on is made up of subatomical particles that are what?

They're invisible.

You can't see them.

But here's so here's the thing.

So the writer is saying you gotta understand that God takes the things that are invisible and by his word makes them visible.

So that the things that appear, they didn't, how many knows that chair that Logan sitting on didn't come from the chair that Kate's sitting on?

No, but no, no, it didn't originate from that.

It it it it you gotta get where I'm going here.

I'm going somewhere.

But when God releases his word, the things that are not, the things that are seen were not made of the things which do appear.

There's something else happening now.

So when I got to looking at this and considering this, I'm thinking about the Lord and magnifying his name and and seeing how amazing God is.

How many would agree with me?

God's amazing.

And and and I got got to thinking about years ago, I'm gonna go way, way back to the church mothers that used to sing a song.

Now I can't sing, I can't dance, and I'm not, I don't jump too high either.

But they used to sing a song.

Some of you might, I really need a I need I need a B3 Hammond right now to do this right.

Uh quick sidebar.

I'm speaking one night at regeneration.

They put my mic on like this.

So I'm down in the front, the worship team's up here, and they're worshiping, they're singing, and and uh and and and doing an amazing job until they start hearing something in their inn ears.

And then all of a sudden they realize, what's that sound?

The sound man mistakenly had me in their inn ears, and all of a sudden they're up there pulling them things out.

Of course, I didn't know about that.

Afterwards, they said we couldn't figure out what had happened because what had happened was Harry can't sing.

That's what had happened.

But here, so I'm going out on a limb here.

So how many's gonna help me here?

I'm gonna try over here.

Hammi's gonna help me over here.

Y'all help me?

Come, uh, thank you for whoever that was.

The Lord bless you.

So here's a the church mothers, the church, old church mothers used to sing a song that went something like this.

He's so high, you can't get he's so high, come on, you can't get over it.

He's so low, come on, come on, church.

He's so high, you can't get over it.

He's so low.

Y'all doing good.

I like this one.

He's so wide, come on now.

So let's do it now.

He's so high, come on, said he's so low, he's so wide.

You must come in at the door.

How many believe that this morning?

I said, how many believes that this morning?

He is, he is, but so here's the deal.

So I'm talking about that.

I'm I'm just I'm I'm I'm just kind of dancing around here a little bit where I really want to get to.

How then, how then do we get to see him greater than we've ever seen him?

Well, David said magnify.

The best thing I can think of to answer that is if you put him under a microscope.

How many knows that a microscope doesn't make anything bigger?

What it what does it do?

It makes you see it bigger.

It makes you see it greater.

So this morning, the I'm gonna go not to the to the to the triumphal entry, I'm gonna go to another entry, which I think is the most important entry of all entries.

I want to talk about the incarnation.

I want to talk about the word that became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory as of the only begotten of the Father.

Now, here's why this is important.

I'm gonna say this: without the incarnation, Christianity collapses.

In fact, I'm gonna make this statement that the incarnation makes the cross possible.

Without the incarnation, there's no cross.

I'm I'm and I realize when I was writing down some of these notes, I'm thinking, you know that next Sunday is resurrection.

And resurrection obviously is a is a victory, but I'm gonna suggest to you today that the greatest miracle is not resurrection.

I'm gonna suggest to you that the greatest miracle is the incarnation.

And you say, why would you say that?

Because the incarnation makes every other miracle possible.

Without the incarnation, there is no miracles.

Without the incarnation, there's no cross, without the incarnation, there's no resurrection.

The fact that God, are you hearing the word became flesh, he had to come and become human.

In fact, here's some thoughts for you.

Jesus is so much man that he could be born of a woman, yet so much God that he is begotten of the Father.

Jesus had to be so much God, it's hard to believe he's a man, yet so much man, it's hard to believe he's a God.

I want you to hear, and and I love this.

He has to be enough God to save me, but he has to be enough man to relate to me.

Do you hear what I'm saying?

It's not a, it can't be an either or.

He had to be this.

He had to be on one side, fully, or not one side, in incorporate, a fully God and a fully man in order for the cross to come, for redemption to be, for resurrection, for eternal life.

He had to come in.

He that is eternal came in time so that I in time could move into eternal.

Fact, he had to be, I love this.

He had to be so much man that he could have compassion on 5,000 hungry people, but he also had to be so much God that he could take a little boy's lunch and feed them.

He has to be so much man, he could cry at his best friend's funeral, and then four days later, cry Lazarus come forth and he comes out of the grave.

I'm telling you, it is in this is not an idea.

We look past the incarnation.

I'm telling you, the mystery of the ages is wrapped up in the wisdom of God that He said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take on the sin of the world, and I tell you how I'm gonna do it.

I'm gonna do it with a baby.

Sometimes we think about how big the devil is.

God said, I can whip him with a baby.

Are you hearing what I'm saying?

I can I can take him out with a baby.

David said it like this.

He said, I love it.

In Psalm 8, he's talking and he said, How excellent is your name, O Lord.

You have exalted your glory above the heaven, and out of the mouth of babes and servant, sucking infants, nursing infants, you have ordained strength.

Why?

Because of your enemy.

What are you gonna do with him?

Because I will silence the enemy in the Avenger with a baby.

And then he says, I love this.

Then he says, When I consider the works of your hand, or the works of your fingers, the sun and the moon, and that you have ordained, then he says, This, what is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you visit him?

You have crowned him with glory and honor.

Are you hearing me?

You've crowned him with glory and honor.

You have crowned, you have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands.

You've put everything under his feet.

It doesn't matter if it's a beast, it's a bird, it's a fish.

He said, I've given dominion over all of that.

How did he do it?

He did it with a baby.

I'm sorry.

I get loud.

I can't, but listen, listen, listen, listen.

He would be so much, he had to be so much man, he could fall asleep in the back of a boat, but so much God that he could get up and say, Peace be still and the storm stop.

Are you hearing me?

I'm talking about the God man.

I'm talking about the incarnation.

I'm talking about the plan of God that He said, I'm gonna do this with a seed.

I'm gonna do it with my seed.

Again, here I am.

I'm I'm I'm I'm out out on a limb.

I've never met uh George Mendel, but he uh let me see.

I wrote that down so I don't forget it.

So here's what it says Mendel's law of genetics, Mendel's law of genetics says this we are the sum of our parents.

We are the pro they are our progenitors, we're the sum of their essence.

So we've got father and a and God has prepared a human body through Mary, and we've got them coming together in one.

My God, what an an and you think, well, that's pretty cool.

But do you know what happens when you get born again?

That same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead comes in a human body.

Are you hearing what I'm saying today?

I'm telling you, he can take a seed and destroy the enemy.

And he can in your life as well.

Let me just come back here.

I'm kind of enjoying myself.

I don't know.

He had to be so much man that he could suffer and die on a cross.

Yet so much God.

Three days later.

Y'all gonna celebrate that next Sunday.

Three days later, he becomes the firstborn from the dead.

The implications of the incarnation are absolutely incredible.

I said to you, and I'm gonna say it again because I think it's so important.

The greatest miracle is not the resurrection, it is the incarnation.

Because in the incarnation, it makes every other miracle possible.

I felt this strong in my word or in my heart this morning as a word today.

So when Mary said to Gabriel, how in the world is this, how can this be?

How many's ever asked, how could it be?

I said, how many's ever asked over here, how could it be?

How can this be?

And I love I love it.

I love it.

Gabriel, I I I'm wondering if Gabriel did one of those things like with God with God, nothing is impossible.

Somebody needs to hear that in this room right now.

I don't know where you're at and what's going on.

With God, wait a minute.

If God can become human, I want you to think about it.

The creator moves into creation, the eternal moves into time, the spirit takes on a body.

Are you hearing what I'm saying?

This was the mystery that was hidden, Paul said, from ages to ages.

If that can happen, and we're celebrating the day that it did happen, then what could happen today?

I like what the church fathers said uh about this.

Athanasia, one of the church fathers who's a part of the council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D.

They were trying to figure, they were still trying to figure out was this, was he this, was he that?

And they come to the conclusion, he is fully God, fully man, without contradiction, without distinguishing, without separation.

He is both in one.

And Athanasius made this statement: God became man so that man might become like God.

Not God, but like God.

What does it mean?

It means literally.

And I the older I get, the really better I like this.

You ain't never dying.

You're already eternal.

I'm gonna say that again.

If you're over 70, you ought to appreciate that.

When you realize that the eternal, the eternal now, not not will be, you're eternal now.

The eternal steps in time and changes everything.

So I can't that I can't see that time back there.

But I think I see where I'm at.

I'm gonna land here.

I believe there's somebody in this room that flat out God wants to do a miracle for this morning.

I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna hype you, I'm not gonna do any of that.

Flat out.

I think that was the word in the word today.

Is this that the incarnation not only makes uh the cross possible, the incarnation makes your miracle possible today?

How many believes today?

Can you believe for today?

I might if I could get uh somebody to the piano or that would be wonderful.

Thank okay, I see somebody move.

Can you make that sound like an organ?

Are you gonna try to do that?

We get uh he's so high, come on, I said he's so high, come on, he's so high, come on, he's so high that I can't get over him.

Come on, he's so high that I can't get over him, he's so low, come on, I can't get around him, he's so wide, so low I can't get under him, so wide I can't get around him.

He's doing it, you're doing it.

How many beliefs he's that big this morning?

I'm telling you, there is a miracle in this house right now.

There's a miracle in this house right now.

I think there's multiple miracles, multiple miracles.

I would never take liberty on my on my son because I'm I'm I'm submitted to him.

But if there is an area on your body right now that you need a touch of God, I just want you to put your hand on.

We're not gonna make him big shoulders.

Put your hand on.

There's an area.

Come on right now.

If there's an area, right now, all across this room, all across this room, right now.

So, Father, you're you you you you declared it.

You declared it.

When you sent your son, when you deposited your seed, when you became human and divine, the miracle, the miracle of that moment, may that same miracle power, that same miraculous power right now, right now, Father, I speak it in the name of Jesus, that same miraculous power now, in the name of Jesus, to heal, to make whole, even now, Lord, to do a work.

Yeah, I'm talking in areas of hearts and lives in Jesus' name, Father.

Jesus, I thank you right now for healing, but much more than that.

I thank you right now for the deposit of your life to save.

You may be in this room right now.

You ought to put your hand over your heart and say, Jesus, I receive you today.

I receive this life, I receive you as my savior.

In Jesus' name.

I'm gonna turn it over to Pastor.

But I'm declaring right now, if you believe, if you believe what I just said was true in your life, would you just give him some honor and praise?

I'm gonna ask you to stand with me where you are this morning.

I'm gonna ask my prayer team to join me to my right and to my left.

And I think we would miss an opportunity if we did not take a moment to respond to the word that has been spoken over our lives today.

Miracles are in the house this morning, and if you need a miracle in your life, physically, emotionally, spiritually, relationally, you need God to show up in a situation in your life.

It's something that's not right, something that is broken, something that is amiss, something that is not on track.

And you need God to show up.

How many of you guys know?

We all need God to show up mightily in our lives.

Worship team is gonna lead us in a song here this morning before we dismiss, and I'm gonna ask you to take a step of faith today.

I said it a moment ago.

It's impossible for God not to respond to faith.

And you need God to do a miracle in your life, whatever that looks like.

I'm gonna ask you to move even now and join with one of our prayer team members right now.

Just move out of your seat.

If you need a financial miracle in your life, you need a physical miracle in your life, there's a relationship that's not right, there's a relationship that's that's broken, that you need God to heal.

I want you to take a step of faith.

People are already moving.

Don't leave this place the same way in which you came.

You can leave different because of the power of the incarnation.

If you need vision in your life, things are cloudy, you don't know what the future looks like, you don't know what direction you need to go.

God's in the house to provide vision for your future.

Come on, let's just worship here in this moment.