The Fullness of the Incarnation (John 1:14-16; Colossians 2:9-10)

If you're able, would you please stand for the reading of God's

Word on this first Sunday of Advent?

I'll be reading from two different books in the New

Testament, first the Gospel of John and then Paul's letter to

the Colossians. This is John chapter 1,

John 1 · chapter mention

beginning in verse 14. 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 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 who is at the Father's side.

He has made him known. Now Colossians chapter 2,

Colossians 2 · chapter mention

beginning with verse 8, Paul writes, See to it that no one

takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to

human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the

world, and not according to Christ.

For in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells a bodily, and you

have been filled in Him who is the head of all rule and

authority. This is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated. Well, today is the first Sunday

of Advent, and as we begin the season of Advent together, it's

probably important that we know what the word Advent actually

means. Advent comes from the Latin word

Vinny simply means coming. So Advent is more than just

waiting for the arrival of Christmas Day.

Advent is a season where we wait for the coming of Jesus Christ.

And no matter your age, whether you're a child this morning or

you're an adult who's a child at heart, the truth is waiting is

hard, isn't it? Nobody likes to wait.

Waiting takes discipline. Waiting requires patience.

And so if Christmas is a feast in so many ways, Advent is a

fast. Advent is a fast that invites us

to wait, a fast that calls us to confront the reality that this

side of the return of Jesus. Our entire lives are one long

season of Advent because every one of us is waiting, longing

for the turn of Jesus to come again and make all things new.

We confront this waiting when we experience the hardship,

difficulty, and disappointment of life.

When we face the darkness in the world around us, the darkness of

our own sin. We know what it means to wait

for the coming of Christ. As we enter into this season of

Christmas, for so many of us it's not only a season of joy,

but the season of an intense sorrow and grief when we feel

most profoundly the loss of somebody we've dearly loved is

no longer with us. And in that moment, we're

waiting. We're waiting for Christ to come

again. Advent invites us to fast to

stop and to wait, and great anticipation for Christ to heal

all that has been broken and to make new all that has been lost.

But Advent is not just a time of waiting and looking forward.

As we wait and as we long for the return of Jesus, we look

back on his first Advent and there we find the fullness of

God come down to us in a Manger. As we look forward and wait for

the future coming of Jesus, we look back on his first Advent

and the fullness of His incarnation.

Since 325AD, Christians all over the world have used the words of

the Nicene Creed to confess what we believe about the incarnation

of Jesus, to consider the incarnation of Jesus as one of

the essentials of the Christian faith.

The Nicene Creed says we believe and 1 Lord Jesus Christ, the

only begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before

all worlds, God of God, light of light, very God of very God.

With these words, the Nicene Creed teaches us that it is

essential to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that

he is God Incarnate, fully God and fully man.

That is the doctrine of the incarnation.

It's essential to what we believe is Christians that we

believe that Jesus not only is the Son of God, but he has God

become flesh, the one who has come down to dwell with us.

And it is the fullness of the incarnation that is the focus of

our sermon series this season of Advent.

Apostle Paul describes this fullness.

The book of Colossians, Colossians 2 verse 9, he writes

Colossians 2:9

for in Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.

In his gospel, the apostle John uses similar language.

This is John 1 verse 16. For from his fullness we've all

John 1:16

received grace upon grace. And so this morning as we begin

the first Sunday of Advent, we're going to begin in the book

of John and the book of Colossians.

And together we're going to see the fullness of the incarnation

of Jesus Christ in three ways. The first is this.

In the incarnation of Jesus, we see the fullness of the glory of

God. Once you would look with me.

The Gospel of John, chapter one, verse 14.

John tells us that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

If you've grown up around Christianity or grown up going

to church around Christmas time, odds are you've heard this verse

before. Christians all over the world

are reciting this verse. John 114.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

But the problem When words become familiar to us as they

begin to lose the depth of their meaning, they go in one ear and

out the other. And we never stopped long enough

to really consider what is it that these words actually mean.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Well over a year ago we preached through the Gospel of John and

you're with us for that series. You may remember that the word

word here and John 114 is the Greek word, the original

language of the New Testament, the Greek word Lagos.

Now the word Lagos is borrowed from Greek philosophy.

The Lagos was the highest form of transcendence.

The idea was if you can think of a being or a force that is

higher than any other, that thing, whether or not you call

it God, is the Logos. It was known as divine wisdom.

Why is John using it in the Bible?

Well, John was writing to a bunch of Greek Jewish people.

He knew his audience. He knew that not only were many

of them Jewish, but they were influenced by Greek philosophy.

And So what John is saying to them and to all of us who now

read it 2000 years later, is that whatever it is that you

call God, whether you call him Yahweh, the one true God, or you

conceive of the highest form of existence, the Lagos, whatever

that thing is, John is here to tell all of us.

This is what the one true God is really like.

And if you want to know who God is, look no further that his

Son, Jesus Christ, the one who has come down to us and the

fullness of his incarnation. John says the word became flesh

and dwelt among us. That word flesh is an also an

interesting word. John could have said the word

became human, or the word took on a body, or the word came

down, but no, John says the word took on flesh.

In other words, John is using the highest and loftiest speech

that he could try to put together to describe God in all

of the ways he might be conceived.

And he's saying that transcendent God took on flesh

that which you can touch and feel and even smell when it gets

dirty. John is putting together 2 words

that have no business to be together.

This is the paradox of the incarnation.

The Word became flesh. The transcendent became

imminent. That which is eternal somehow

became temporal. The very God who spoke the

universe into existence became a baby born in a Manger.

This is what we profess as Christians, and it's essential

to the Gospel. John doesn't stop there.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

The Word dwell is unique to John.

He's the only one who used it in the entire New Testament.

He uses it here, the Gospel of John.

He also uses it in the Book of Revelation.

The word literally means Tabernacle.

The word became flesh and tabernacled among us.

Now, to our modern ears, that sounds very strange.

What in the world is John talking about?

But to his first listeners, they would have immediately known

what John was saying. See, in the background of his

gospel is the story of the people of God throughout the Old

Testament, and particularly here in John's prologue in the

introduction of his gospel. And the background is the book

of Exodus. We have a Bible.

I want you to get out the book of Exodus this morning.

If you don't have a Bible, you can take the Blue Pew Bible in

front of you. That's our gift to you.

Please take it home with you. Turn to the book of Exodus.

That's the second book of the Bible, the second book of the

Old Testament. Now I want you to turn to Exodus

Exodus 25:8

25, verse 8 for the first hearers of John's gospel.

They would have heard the Word became flesh and tabernacled

among us. They would have immediately

thought of Exodus 25. This is verse 8.

God says, and let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in

their midst. Exactly as I show you concerning

the pattern of the Tabernacle and of all of its furniture, so

you shall make it. Now.

The Tabernacle was the precursor to the temple.

It was the place, as the people of God wandered in the darkness

of the wilderness. It's where God dwelled in all of

His glory with His people. And there were very specific

instructions given to the construction of the Tabernacle.

You can think of it as a very ornate tint.

Yesterday we were making our way up from Thanksgiving holiday

with my family in Waco up the highway, and I saw, I don't

think my family did. They were too busy seeing all of

the Bucky signs. But I think out of my corner of

my eye I saw a circus tent. And what's amazing about a

really good circus tent is how amazing and ornate they're able

to make it, and all the things are able to fit inside.

It feels like a permanent structure.

The Tabernacle was that and so much more.

It was built for the glory of God to dwell with his people.

And in the story of Exodus, as God dwelled with his people

after bringing them out of Egypt, rescuing them from

slavery, and being present as all of His glory with them,

leading them through the wilderness.

What we see over and over again in the story of Exodus is not

their gratitude, it's not their worship, but it's the rebellion.

Even after all that God did for his people, the book of Exodus

tells us the people of God rebelled against him.

They didn't trust that God will fulfill his promises.

And they took all of their gold and they melted it down, and

they made the statue of a calf, and they bowed down in front of

it and worshipped it instead of God.

Now that might sound ridiculous to us, but the truth is, you and

I rebel against God every single day.

And even though He has brought us out of the slavery of sin

over and over again, every day we go right back to it.

And though you and I'm not might not worship golden calves, but

we worship ourselves and other people and everything around us.

You and I are no different. We are rebels too.

And what we see in the story of Exodus as God meets rebels with

his glory and with His grace. As the story continues, Exodus

33, Moses goes up to Mount Sinai to plead for God's mercy on his

people. Verse 18, Moses goes to God and

says, please show me your glory. And God says, I will make all of

my goodness pass before you and proclaim before you my name, the

Lord. And I will be gracious to whom I

will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show

mercy. But he said, You cannot see my

face, for man shall not see me and live.

And the Lord said, Behold, there's a place by me where you

shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by, I'll

put you in the cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with

my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand,

and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.

But God is telling Moses is that he can only give Moses a glimpse

of his glory because no man in our sin can stand in the

presence of God's glory and live.

So Moses isn't allowed to see the face of God in the face of

his glory and its fullness. He's only allowed to see his

back and just catch a glimpse. I can't preach on this or even

think about this passage without thinking about Raiders of the

Lost Ark. And if you've seen the movie,

you know what I'm talking about. Towards the end where the Nazis

finally have the Ark of the Covenant, they decide it's going

to be a great idea to open the Ark.

There is a 9 or 10 year old little boy.

I can never Unsee their faces melting off as the Ark of the

Covenant is opened. It's almost cheesy when you see

it. It's complete silliness compared

to what God is telling Moses. No one can see the fullness of

his glory and live. So what does any of this have to

do with Advent? What does it have to do with the

Gospel of John? And what does it have to do with

the incarnation? The Word became flesh and

tabernacled among us. The first hearers of John's

gospel would have heard this. The fullness of God's glory no

longer resides in a tent, but it resides in a person, and his

name is Jesus Christ. This is why John goes on and

says this. And we have seen His glory,

glory as the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth

in the person of Jesus Christ. We behold the fullness of the

glory of God. We are not hidden in the cleft

of a rock or hidden by the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

And though we stand before the throne of God as sinners, we

stand beholding the fullness of God's glory.

Apostle Paul put it this way, 2nd Corinthians 4 verse 6 For

God who said let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our

hearts to give the light of the glory of God in the face of

Jesus Christ. Moses was not allowed to see the

face of God, but in the incarnation of Jesus we behold

in his face the fullness of God's glory second.

In the incarnation of Jesus, not only does he see the fullness of

God's glory, but we receive the fullness of His grace.

Look with me at verse 16. John goes on.

He says, for from his fullness we've all received grace upon

grace. That is, from the fullness of

the incarnation of God and the person of Jesus, we've all

received grace upon grace. Now there's two ways to

understand that. One is in terms of abundance,

all of us in Jesus Christ, this great gift that God would come

down to us. The thing that separates

Christianity from every other religion, that's not about us

working our way to God, but God coming down to us in his grace

is grace and abundance. It's grace upon grace.

It's grace that never runs out. It's grace that meets us in

every sin that we have committed, every sin that we

will commit. Grace upon grace upon grace.

But you can also understand that phrase quite literally as a

grace in place of a grace that has already been given.

Now, what does that mean? Well again I think Exodus is in

the background and helps us understand what John is talking

about. He goes on in verse 17 he says

for the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came from

Jesus Christ. John is showing us that Jesus

was born, that he was Incarnate. Not an historical vacuum, but

Jesus Christ was first born in a Manger as the fulfillment of all

of Old Testament prophecy in history, and he's connecting the

dots between the incarnation of Jesus and the grace that God has

already given us in the law. You see, the law of God was

given to us by the grace of God. Now, that might sound

contradictory to you. Let me show you what I mean.

When the people of God rebelled and formed a golden calf and

worshipped it, Moses was so angry that he took the first

tablets of the law of God, and he threw them down and they

broke. And after he went up to the

mountain, Mount Sinai, and pleaded for mercy, and God spoke

His mercy over His people, he then made a new set of tablets.

It was grace. Rather than destroy his people

for breaking the law, quite literally, God gave the law to

them. Again, we're told in Exodus 34,

Exodus 34:4

verse 4. So Moses cut 2 tablets of stone

like the first, and he rose early in the morning and went up

on Mount Sinai. And the Lord had commanded him

and took his hand. 2 tablets of stone.

The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and

proclaimed the name of the Lord, listened to his name.

The Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord.

The Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and

abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

God graciously gave them the law again, and then he declared His

covenant name over His people, a name of grace and mercy.

All of this happened after the golden calf, after His people

rebelled. This is good news for us because

just like the people in the Exodus, we are rebels too.

And God has given us, in the fullness of the incarnation,

grace in place of a grace that was already given by His grace,

He already has given us the law. And now in the gift of his Son

Jesus Christ, he's given us the grace of fulfilling the law.

You see, because Christ came not to destroy the law, but to

fulfill the law, to fulfill the law on our behalf, because the

truth is none of us can keep it and every one of us breaks it

every single day. And so God gave us grace in

place of grace. He not only gave us the law, but

in Jesus He gave us the fulfillment of the law.

And This is why the incarnation matters.

Apostle Paul put it this way, Romans 8 verse 3.

Romans 8:3

For God has done with the Law, weakened by the flesh, could not

do by sending His own Son and the likeness of sinful flesh,

and for sin He condemns sin in the flesh and order that the

righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us.

The incarnation is essential to Christianity because without the

incarnation there can be no gospel.

If Jesus Christ did not take on flesh, then our sin could not

have been condemned in His flesh on the cross.

Without the Manger there can be no cross, because without Jesus

taking on our human frailty, He could not have died a real

death. But in the fullness of the

incarnation, Jesus Christ died a real death in our place.

He shed real blood to make atonement for our sin.

And listen to this on the third day, His real body rose from the

dead to be the first fruits of our own resurrection.

And everyone who believes in him would live for him and with him

forever. The incarnation is essential not

simply because it's one of the list of things you have to

believe in order to call yourself a Christian now.

The incarnation is essential. Without Christ coming down to us

in the fullness of deity and the fullness of humanity, there can

be no salvation. And so this Christmas, just like

we do every single year, we'll tell the story of the Manger

over and over and over again. And as we retell the Christmas

story, it invites all of us to truly ask the question, what is

it that we actually believe? That's the third and final

thing. The Incarnation shows us the

fullness of truth. John goes on verse 18.

He says no one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the

Father's side. He has made him known word only.

Here is the same word that we get only begotten from what we

profess in the Nicene Creed, that Jesus is the only begotten

Son of God. When we say that, we're not

saying that Christ is simply the only child of God the Father.

Of course He is, but we use the word only in saying He is the

only one like him. He's unique.

How? Well, John tells at the

beginning of verse 18, no one has ever seen God except in the

person of Jesus. You see, in the face of Jesus,

we not only see the glory of God, but we see the truth of who

God is. And not only do we see that God

is true, but in the incarnation we see that God can be trusted.

And as we enter into the Advent season, we need to be reminded

that our God can be trusted. As we confront the darkness

around us, confront the darkness of our own sin.

We asked a question along with a psalmist.

How long, O Lord? And we wait for the coming of

Jesus Christ to return. In the incarnation.

We're reminded that he has already come.

And surely, as he has already come to us, he will come again.

He can be trusted. And again in the Exodus we see

that God is trustworthy. He's got God cave the law not as

a set of rules, but as a covenant Exodus 3410 as he gave

the law he said, behold, I'm making a covenant before all

your people. I will do marvels such as not

has been created in all of earth or in any nation and all the

people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord for it

is an awesome thing that I will do with you.

God made a promise to do something that we would marvel

at, and every promise finds its yes and Amen in the incarnation

of Jesus Christ. Not only is He true, but He can

be trusted. Apostle Paul puts it this way.

Colossians 2 verse 8. See to it that no one takes you

Colossians 2:8

captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human

tradition, according to elemental spirits of the world,

and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of

Deity dwells bodily. Notice the context of Paul's

teaching on the incarnation in Christ.

The whole fullness of Deity dwells bodily.

Why does that matter? So that no one would take our

minds captive by empty philosophy and vain teaching.

In other words, in the incarnation of Jesus, we see

that Christianity is not just another truth among many truths.

It's not a philosophy. It's not a set of principles.

It is not a man made religion. No, Christianity is the true

story of God coming down to us and the person of Jesus Christ.

And one day he will come again. And so this Advent, make

yourselves ready. May we prepare ourselves for the

coming of Jesus. And as we wait, may we receive

grace upon grace, setting our hearts and our minds and our

gaze on the face of Jesus, seeing that not only is he true,

but he can be trusted as we long for the day.

And Christ will come again, and all of the fullness of this

glory, and we will stand before His glory, face to face forever,

world without Him. Let me pray.

Father in Heaven, we ask that in this season of Advent you would

help us to wait with patience, but also to wait with hope,

longing for the day when you, Christ, will come again, but

also to wait by remembering that you, Christ, have already come.

Come to us now, even as we leave this place and go to our

families and our neighborhoods, and as we work and walk through

the season of Advent until Christmas Day, we pray that you

would teach us to wait. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.

Let's stand and sing.