Immanuel, The Gift of His Presence: Revealing

My friends, in Christ alone let us hear the word of the Lord for

us this morning. And the Word became flesh and

dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the

only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John bore witness about him and cried out.

This was He of whom I said, He who comes at before me, 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, God the only Son who is at the

Father's side. He has made him known, and this

is the word of the Lord. Dear Lord, we do give you thanks

and praise once again for Your word.

And we ask that you would take it, shape it, mold our hearts

with it, We pray in your Son's name.

Amen. Please be seated.

So how do you get to know somebody?

How do you develop a relationship with somebody?

This is fairly you can immediately jump to some obvious

things. You watch what they do, as we

all know why our actions speak very loudly about who we are.

So, and if you're going to develop a relationship with

somebody, you watch what they do.

You of course talk with other people that might know them.

The idea that somebody else would have some insight into

somebody that you're getting to know, that's obviously very

helpful and very important. The idea of connecting with

other people across the board, a great way of getting to know

somebody. But I think most of us would

naturally assume and appropriately so, that if you

want to get to know somebody, you got to spend time with them,

spend time with them, ask them questions, talk with them,

listen to them, share common thoughts and ideas.

That's a natural part of how we get to know somebody.

How do you get to know? One of the perks of my job is

that I get to meet a lot of people.

Folks are often interested in in having me meet their family

members or visitors or friends or something along those lines.

So I get to meet a lot of different people.

And one of the things that you do right off the bat is you try

to find some common ground, because some common ground is

going to help develop the initiative.

And it's again, it's fairly easy for me because a lot of people

that I meet are connected with church or interested in church

or something like that. So immediately whenever we start

talking, we develop a common bond around what church do you

go to or do you have a church background or something along

those lines? Or we talk about Pittsburgh, or

we talk about the Steelers or something along.

We quickly find some kind of a common ground in order to

develop and build upon a relationship with.

About two years ago, this church sent Kelly and I over to the

Central African Republic, where we were speakers at a missionary

conference. And of course it was my interest

to get. When we got over there, I wanted

to get to know some of the people from Central African

Republic. So we talked with them.

We got to know the CAR. That's how we're going to

nickname it. Wanted to get to know the folks

from the CAR. The problem was there was almost

no connecting spot for me. I didn't speak any of the

languages that they spoke. They didn't speak English, at

least not very well. All the cultural experiences

that we might share in common, we didn't have in common.

There was very little connecting spot.

There was very little upon which we could build upon in order to

develop a relationship. And when Kelly and I were over

there for two years, two years, two weeks, and during that time

it felt like 2 years. During that time, we of course,

wanted to get to know people and by God's blessing, the church

leaders took the initiative to invite us over to their home.

And they had to be incredibly accommodating to us because we

didn't know what we were doing. We didn't know how to interact

when we were over there. They were very gracious to us

because we made some social faux pas.

We, they were took time to explain to us what the food was.

They took time to show us around the house.

They took time to show us their family, all the things that were

necessary for us if we were going to build any kind of a

connecting spot, any kind of a relationship at all.

And it was all possible, made possible, simply because the CAR

people went way out of their way to accommodate themselves to our

limitations. We were incredibly limited and

they went out of their way to accommodate themselves.

And if they had not, we would never have developed any kind of

a relationship at all with the people that are there.

We're in the middle of our Advent series, and the Advent

series is, of course, focusing upon Emmanuel, God with us, God

coming and dwelling with us. And specifically we're looking

at what are the gifts that we get from His presence, from the

fact that God is present here or the God has come to earth in

human form. What are some of the gifts that

we receive because of His presence, His Emmanuel with us?

And last week, if you were here with us, we looked at the very

first part of the text in which I read here for us, verse 14.

If you have John chapter 1 open for you, we're going to flip

John 1 · chapter mention

through a couple different texts, but having John one open

will probably be the best way for you to go.

Verse 14 and the word became flesh.

And here we're talking about that incarnation that that

marvel that that utterly and totally unique action that God

has taken in all creation where God himself takes on human form.

That's what incarnation means. He took upon himself flesh.

This is God coming to dwell with us.

God came, became flesh and dwelt among us.

And last week we looked at that idea of tabernacling, the fact

that God not just lived here among us, but he desired to be

among us, that that was the desire of his heart to

Tabernacle to be with us. In that regard, we have seen his

glory, the glory as of the only Son.

Today what I want to do is I want to look at a separate idea

of that comes from the gift of his tabernacling with us, the

Emmanuel God with us. And that's the idea of God

revealing himself, the revelation of God.

This is the notion of a doctrine of divine accommodation.

The doctrine of a divine accommodation is very similar to

what the CAR folks did with Kelly and I.

They accepted our weaknesses. They accepted our limitations.

They were gracious when we made mistakes, and they lowered

themselves. They humiliated themselves.

They acted humble before us in lowering themselves so that they

could communicate with us on our level.

This is precisely what the Lord does in Emmanuel.

This is one of the gifts of His revelation dwelling with us.

Take a look at verse 18 if you would.

Verse 18. No one has ever seen God.

Now this is just a statement of reality.

No one has ever seen God, period, full stop.

God, the only Son who is at the Father's side, He has made Him

known. Now I need to step aside just

for a second and say this. That right wrapped into this

verse and wrapped into what we're going to be talking about

today is the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity describes the

relationship in the one God of the three persons, the Father,

Son, and Holy Spirit. Normally in a setting like this,

my guess is that you along with me, whenever you come across the

idea of the Trinity, that our best defense is simply to say,

well, that's a mystery. That's something beyond us.

Luckily, we don't have to understand it.

We're just going to pass it by. I think that's a bit of a

mistake. Now, today's not the day in

which we're going to tackle the doctrine of the Trinity, but the

doctrine of the Trinity cannot be ignored by God's people

because God has taken the time to reveal it to us once again.

If he has taken his time to show us something of himself, it is

incumbent upon us to try to understand it, to embrace it.

And so this is an encouragement to you that you would encourage

us, the leadership of the church, that we need a Bible

study, we need a Sunday school class, we need an evening

teaching. We need something so that we can

help understand what the Scriptures do tell us about the

Trinity. It's woven here into this

understanding of this passage. And we can't.

We're going to have to do what we always do, just say, well,

OK, it's out there. But it's given to us to

understand, at least to embrace. And so I'm encouraging you to

encourage us to pursue the doctrine of the Trinity here

within this church because we have to.

It's biblical. It is the way our Lord has

revealed himself to us. No one has ever seen the God

that's true. But God, the only Son who's at

the Father's side, he has made him known.

Now the the very end of that sentence, you've got preposition

or pronouns that toss themselves out here.

What are we saying? That he, the Son of God, has

made him the Father known. The Son has made the Father

known. Listen to what we're

articulating here, that one of the benefits, one of the

blessings, the the gifts of Emmanuel, God being with us, is

that he reveals to us God the Father, God the Son.

Being present here reveals to us God the Father.

Now the problem the, the, the reality is that for many of us,

we don't recognize what a marvelous action on God's part

that really is, because we tend to think that getting to know

God is similar to getting to know each other.

OK, We have all these connections.

We have all these connecting spots.

We're a part of the Hebron church.

We're all connected by living close to Pittsburgh.

I can understand most of your jobs.

You can understand most of my job.

We can kind of talk. We, I see your family, you see

my family. There's all these connecting

spots. And so it's easy for us to make

these relation, to build a relationship together.

And for many of us, we tend to think that God is just somebody

else like that, that it's easy for us to make a relationship

with God. All we do is have to build on

all of the connecting spots, completely forgetting that we

hold so much more in common with the people from CAR than we ever

possibly do with God himself. Imagine what we're talking

about. We are talking about a creature,

somebody who is created, somebody who is finite and very

definition thinking that it's easy to develop a relationship

with somebody who is infinite, somebody who is eternal,

somebody who is all knowing and all-encompassing, somebody who

is the creator. We should be astounded at the

arrogance that we have to think that we can easily build a

relationship with a being like that if it were not for the

doctrine of divine accommodation where God Himself accommodates

Himself to our weakness, to our limitations, to our brokenness,

By what? Emmanuel coming and dwelling

here on earth with His people because He has done so.

Now we've talked before about the purpose of the incarnation.

The purpose of the incarnation is the ultimately leads to the

cross of Jesus Christ. It's wonderful that we were

brought to this passage of Scripture by the song we just

sang because it touches on the whole incarnation and it leads

us to the cross of Jesus Christ, the salvation of our souls.

Absolutely the center core purpose of the incarnation.

But you can't deny the side benefits of the incarnation.

And one of them here is this beautiful picture that God

reveals himself. He accommodates himself to our

lowliness by coming to us, dwelling with us, and then what?

Making him known, making God known to us.

There's the idea that in every human being there's a yearning

for God. Now, I know some people would

deny this, but it's an anthropologically proven,

demonstratable evidence. And of course, biblically and

theologically we see that to be true.

Every person in some format or another yearns for God.

John Calvin, the theologian called it the sense of

divinitatus, That is, the sense of the divine that built into

every person. There's a sense a yearning for

God. Saint Augustine talked about a

hole in our hearts, a God shaped vacuum in every human being that

can only be filled properly spoken by God.

And yet that God shaped toll in every heart is yearning to be

filled with something. And everybody reaches out for

something. Even the atheist ultimately, I

believe has a yearning for God, although they might deny God's

existence. All of us have this yearning for

the Lord, and here we see in the midst of the redemptive history,

the story that brings us salvation, the incarnation of

Jesus Christ. We have that wonderful

accommodation of God to fill that very void.

The idea of our salvation is built a course upon the cross of

Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for our sin.

All that is true, but it is not a doctrine that we are supposed

to not know. It is an experience that we are

supposed to walk in each of our lives.

And that's only possible when we know the one who has sent it,

when we know God himself. And so the beauty of this text

tells us that the coming of Jesus Christ, one of the great

gifts of his presence dwelling with us is that we actually get

to see God himself. We do get to see God himself.

The the great challenge here, the opening of this verse.

No one has ever seen God realize that no one has ever seen God.

But the Son has revealed the Father to each and every one of

us. Now that revelation comes, I

think with three understandings, 3 aspects to it.

One, its fullness. Two, it's continual in nature.

And three, it's uniqueness, it's fullness, the fullness.

This is what the passage that Jerry read for us, that he

commented on and that Sue commented on the peace of God

that is built into there. I'm interested in the part where

Phillip says to Jesus, he says Jesus says something that's very

pious and and that frankly, I would expect Jesus would Philip

probably said it with the expectation that Philip would

pat him on the back and say, oh, very good job.

But that's not what he does. Philip says to him, Jesus, just

show us the father and that's enough for us.

You know, this is one of these hyper spiritual religious guys.

Look at how wonderful I am. Just show us the father Jesus,

and that's good enough for us. And I suspect he kind of

expected to be applauded by by by Jesus wife Philip.

That's a great question. That's a great desire.

That's the yearning. That's that that God shaped

vacuum within your heart. Yes, you want to see Jesus, but

that's not how Jesus responds, is it?

Look at how Jesus responds in chapter 14 verses 910.

When whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

How can you say show us the father?

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in

me? The fullness of seeing God is

found in Jesus Christ. The fullness of seeing God is

found in Jesus Christ, and it's what is what is seen.

If you want to see the love of Jesus Christ, sorry.

If you want to see the love of God, look to Jesus Christ.

If you want to see the wrath of God, look to Jesus Christ.

If you want to see the righteousness of God, look to

Jesus Christ. If you want to see the mercy of

God, If you want to see the goodness of God, the compassion

of God, the peace of God, the comfort of our God, if you want

to see our God, look to Jesus Christ.

The fullness, everything that is there is seen in the fullness of

Jesus Christ. That's what Jesus is

articulating. That's what John is saying here

at the end, that he has revealed him to us so that we can see not

a little bit of Jesus, not a little bit of God, not the parts

that we want to see, not things that we need to supplement.

And that is the damning danger that confronts every one of us.

The damning danger is simply this that will say, yeah, Jesus

is good at showing me some parts about God, but I need something

more. I need something else.

I need something clearer. I need something that scratches

my itch. I need something that satisfies

me. And over and over again the

scripture says the only thing that you need is Jesus Christ.

The danger of saying Jesus plus Jesus and something else is

completely debunked by this. Where Peter where, where Philip

is addressed and Philip says we just want to see the Father and

Jesus says look at me. That is the only response that

each and every one of us can possibly have.

Look to Jesus Christ. Now that's great for Philip,

that's great for the disciples. They had Jesus Christ.

They had Christ before them. What about us?

What about us 2000 years later? And the great scriptural witness

is that that revelatory work of Jesus Christ where He reveals to

us God the Father is ongoing today.

It still goes on even today, the ongoing work of the continual

work of the revelation of our God.

Look at John 14 verses 16 through 17.

John 14:16–17

Jesus says, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you

another helper who will be with you forever, even the spirit of

truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees

him nor knows him. But you know him, for he dwells

in you, and he will be with you. The revelation of God for

Jesus's disciples has not stopped.

It's an ongoing work. It's a continual thing that

happens for each and every one of us today.

And it happens why and how through the Word of God.

And so we have the Spirit of God speaking through the Word of God

amidst the people of God. That shows us the Son of God,

whereby we can see the character of our God.

Wow, that was really good. Let's see if we can do that

again. How did I start it?

The Spirit of God using the Word of God amidst the people of God,

revealing the Son of God so that we might see the character of

God. Wow, that's really good.

I got to try to remember that in the next next time.

The continual work of the Holy Spirit in each of our lives is

something that is available and open to each and every believer.

Every follower of the Lord is blessed with the Holy Spirit.

Whose intent? What is the Spirit sent to do?

This is in John 14 and John 16. The Holy Spirit is to tell us

and to show us Jesus Christ and one of the great blessings of

the presence of Jesus Christ. Is to reveal to us the

character, the purpose, the love of God, the Father for each and

every one of us, the fullness of God, the continual revelation of

God, and finally the unique revelation of God, the unique

showing of who we are in Jesus Christ.

Look at John chapter 10. I am the Father, are one, Jesus

John 10 · chapter mention

says, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in

me and that I am in the Father. The reality is, is there's that

great hole that exists in every believer, in every created human

being, that great vacuum that can only be filled by God, can

only be filled by Jesus Christ. The exclusive nature of our

coming to know God is bound up in Jesus Christ and in him

alone. People don't like hearing that.

People don't like being confronted with an exclusive

option like that, an exclusive choice.

And yet the reality of the Scriptures are that we find

Jesus Christ not by taking a little bit of this and a little

bit of this idea and a little bit of this and a little, but we

find Jesus Christ. We find God the Father in Jesus

Christ and in Him alone. So what?

So I know in a group this size that there are people who do not

know the Lord, who are not following Jesus Christ.

There is but one way to know God.

There is but one way to salvation.

There is but one way truth in the life, and that is in Jesus

Christ and in Him alone. And if you are outside of the

faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, then there is a straightforward

step for you to take at this point, and that is to bow your

head and to say Jesus Christ. Reveal the Father to me.

I know that I am desperately in need of Him.

Show Him to me. That's what it means if you are

separated from Jesus Christ, to hear this word, to hear the fact

that Jesus has revealed the Father to us.

There is but one option for those who do not know Him, and

that is to turn to Him. Dear Lord, I do know that there

are people here that are present that do not know you at this

time. Please call them to yourself.

Speak powerfully to them, open your, open them up to your way

and your love. We pray.

But what about all of those who do know Jesus Christ And they

come here to this place. And we have a reality that there

are so many folks that go through the ritual of coming to

church that have lost that fervor, that have lost the

passion. They, they remember what it was

like last week or last month or last year or last decade.

They remember their passion. They know what it's like to

follow Jesus Christ. And it has fallen off for them.

Now they come here because it's something they're supposed to

do. It's a club in which they belong

to. There is but one response and

that is to look to Jesus Christ. It is through him that you will

experience the, the, the fervor, the passion that you're yearning

for. That doesn't come by ramping

yourself up. That doesn't come by doing more

things. That comes by looking at Jesus

Christ because by looking at Him, we see God.

There is but one option for you and that's the look to Jesus

Christ. Dear Lord, and fought in heaven.

We know that there are so many of us here that are yearning

again to see you more clearly, to know you more faithfully.

And we know that that only comes through the love and care of

Jesus Christ. Reveal him to us more clearly

that we might see you and that we might again feel that passion

and that fervor of following after you.

And there are many of us that experience that passion and know

that fervor and know what it means to follow the Lord.

What does it say to us? Never ever, ever stop looking at

Christ. Christ is where your life is.

Christ is where you're, you're where the revelation of God is.

Never cease looking at Jesus Christ.

Great God in heaven, we pray that you would indeed work

powerfully in our hearts to reveal to us yourself through

Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, who taught us to pray

together, saying, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy

name, thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in

heaven. Give us this day Our Daily

Bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors and

lead us not in temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine

is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.