He Has Made Him Known: His Mission

Paul writes in Philippians chapter 2 that Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

But instead he made himself nothing.

He took on the form of a servant and he was born in the likeness of men.

This is Paul's version of the word became flesh.

That's how he describes it.

Of course this is amazing, astonishing, mysterious news.

The Christian belief that God became a human being.

The incarnation is the fancy word we use.

This belief is phenomenal.

It's full of wonder and mystery and it's impossible to fully kind of wrap our minds around.

What this means.

But it's true.

And at the same time as we imagine this truth that God became a human being.

That the word became flesh.

It just begs the question doesn't it?

Why in the world would God do that?

Why would he come?

Why did the eternal son forever in glorious relationship with his father become the human Jesus of Nazareth?

Why?

Why?

Why?

Why?

Why?

Well the goal of this morning's time is to answer that why.

See the word became flesh on purpose.

God has.

This was a highly calculated and aimed incarnation.

God has a mission in entering his creation.

Here it is.

Here's why God came.

God became a man so that man can know God.

God became a man so that man can know God.

The word became flesh so that you and I could truly know who God is.

And by knowing God receive eternal life.

God became a man so that man can know God.

So that's the short answer.

Now we get to explore that together from John chapter 1 this morning.

John 1 · chapter mention

If you haven't opened a Bible yet I'd invite you there.

If the black hardcover ESV is in the pews.

You can find it I think on 1052.

Is the page number?

We'll be looking at what David just read for us.

We're going to proceed by looking at three aspects this morning of this mission of Jesus.

Three aspects.

The backdrop.

The essence.

And the climax.

First the backdrop.

Before we get too far into this mission.

We need to see what John is doing.

He's setting the stage for us in chapter 1 of his gospel.

And he's making at least two.

There's more we could say.

But two that I want to focus on.

Two humongous truth claims.

Two audacious, bold, emphatic claims.

That set everything else in motion from here.

The first is that there's a hero.

He's introduced right in the first verse.

And Billy talked about who this person was last week.

The word.

But then the second truth claim is there's a problem.

There's a really, really, really big, fundamental, universal human problem.

So John identifies who the hero is.

And he identifies the problem that the hero has come to solve.

This hero, right from the beginning of John's gospel, we see all kinds of amazing things.

He's in the beginning.

He's in the beginning with God.

Because he is God.

Everything that was created was created through the word.

Through this hero of our story.

And he has this intimate and unique and personal loving relationship with the father.

Forever.

This word in verse 4 we see has life in himself.

He doesn't need anybody to give him life because he himself possesses life.

Self-sustaining existence forever and ever and ever.

And we see Jesus making these claims throughout the book.

I am the bread of life, he says.

I am the resurrection and the life.

I am the way, the truth, and the life.

John chapter 14 verse 6.

John 14:6

But not just what the word was like then, but verse 14.

He became flesh.

And has dwelt among us.

The word comes down.

He enters into the creation that he created.

And not just comes down, he was sent.

Purposely by the father.

So we're in the season of Advent.

Advent.

This time when we reflect on the baby in the manger.

That we reflect on the word made flesh.

And we do this year after year after year.

And if you've been in church a while, you know.

Come December, you can guarantee a couple things.

Christmas music on the radio.

And in church, you're going to learn about the baby in the manger.

So how do we approach this season year after year after year?

And have it be fresh.

How can we keep this from being just the thing that we do this time of year?

Because there's something so beautiful and wonderful that year by year,

we have this opportunity to remember this in a fresh and wonderful and exciting way.

So let me just offer a suggestion about how each of us can do this.

I'm stealing an answer from our life group on Thursday night.

Because we were talking about something different.

But the help that I received is, I want to pass it on in this same regard.

We talked about slowing down.

We talked about when we're dealing with discouragement or just difficulties in life,

that one of the ways that we can kind of snap ourselves out of it is by just slowing down.

Kind of putting the phone on silent, stepping away from life,

you know, maybe cutting a thing or two out of the calendar and just slowing down.

I think in this season of Advent, that's exactly what each of us need to do

in order to have this season fresh and exciting and wonderful.

Let me just encourage all of us this morning to do that.

Take some time where you leave your phone in a drawer

and maybe instead of going through the drive-thru of Starbucks,

you go inside and you find a place to sit and just open to John 1.

And just pray.

All you need to do is pray for the Holy Spirit to help you see how wonderful and good Jesus is.

There is, I cannot remember a single time when I prayed that, that God didn't answer that prayer.

Because He wants us to know His Son.

He wants us to know Jesus in this season of Advent.

And marvel anew at the baby in the manger, who is Emmanuel, who is the Savior of the world.

So that's the hero.

That's the person that John is introducing us to.

But the other part of the backdrop that I want to make sure we see

is that John introduces this fundamental and universal human problem.

No one's exempt from this problem.

All of us are facing this problem.

And John's way of putting it is, we do not know God.

We don't know who He is.

And John just kind of lays this on over and over and over again.

If you look at chapter 1, look in verse 5.

John talks about darkness.

And he doesn't just mean, oh, we need a light switch to kind of see where we're going in the dark.

But he introduces darkness as the spiritual reality, this evil that's against the purposes of God.

And Jesus, being the light, shines into that.

And the darkness does not overcome the true light.

There's a problem.

We're blind.

We're in the dark.

We don't know God.

We can't understand who He is.

On in verse 10, John continues.

He says that this Word created the world.

And He was in the world.

And the world didn't know Him.

It says that Jesus came and kind of knocked the world upside its head.

And the world didn't know Him.

And not just that in verse 11, we see that He came to His own people.

And His own people.

Those who most clearly should have understood who He was and why He was coming,

they did not receive Him.

And John's raising all of this to show the problem.

He keeps going.

In verse 13, he says that flesh and blood, human will, have no help in becoming children of God.

So, contrary to popular opinion, we don't start out God's children and then just kind of get to heaven

simply because we're born into this world.

In fact, we have no ability to become God's children, John says in verse 13.

And this whole thing climaxes in verse 18 where John says,

no one has ever seen God.

In one sense, he just means God's invisible.

He's spirit.

We can't see Him.

But we see at the end of that verse that there is one, the only God who is at the Father's side,

who has made Him known.

So, it's not just simply that God's invisible.

He's not known.

He's not comprehended.

He's not understood.

And this, according to John, is the fundamental human problem.

We don't know God.

This plays out over and over again in John's Gospel.

We see a man in chapter 3 named Nicodemus, who's one of the religious leaders of Israel,

come to Jesus at night.

Jesus says, unless you're born again, you can't see the kingdom of God.

In chapter 14, Jesus says, nobody comes to the Father except through me.

He goes on to repeatedly explain that the reason why people reject Him is that they don't know the Father.

They don't know God, so they reject Jesus.

Over and over in John's Gospel, we see this.

One of the clearest places is in chapter 16, verse 2, where Jesus says,

hey, a time's coming.

He's talking to His disciples the week before He dies, and He says,

the time's coming when whoever kills you will think that he is offering service to God.

And they'll do these things because they have not known the Father nor Me.

This adds flavor to our problem, doesn't it?

There's something not just that God has to come,

but there's something preventing us from understanding who He is.

This light that comes into the world, this Word made flesh, is offensive.

That's why His own people don't just not receive Him, they crucify Him.

Because He's so offensive to them.

And yet, John says, the problem is we don't know God.

And He comes, and we don't know Him, and we reject Him.

Over and over again, that's the problem that John presents.

Elsewhere in our Bibles, we might see it as talking about, like in Paul,

that we're dead in trespasses and sins.

There's this sin problem that we have.

I'm not denying any of that, but the way John couches it and explores it

is through this relationship.

It's broken, it's non-existent, we don't know God.

That's why we're in the mess we're in.

Well, you can probably guess what Jesus' mission is then, right?

I mean, this is, I feel like I don't even have to say it,

but I want to, just so we're all on the same page, right?

The essence of Jesus' mission, this is point two,

the essence of Jesus' mission is so that man can know God.

That's why Jesus came, to make God known.

To reveal the Father.

And to mend what is broken by sin.

The baby in a manger is making the invisible visible.

The unknown, known.

The unknowable, knowable.

Jesus' mission is to solve our greatest problem.

We do not know God.

But Jesus makes him known.

In the prologue of John that we're looking at,

chapter 1, 1 to 18, John says it in a few different ways.

One, in verse 9, he says that the true light

that enlightens everyone,

that gives light to everyone,

is coming, right?

Jesus is illuminating the spiritual realities

about who God is

and about the condition of our own lives and hearts

apart from him.

In verse 12, it says that Jesus alone,

not flesh and blood,

not the will of man,

but Jesus alone gives the right

to become children of God.

So apart from Jesus,

we're not children of God, it says.

Jesus.

And then in verse 18 again,

it's that Jesus makes God known.

Jesus makes God known.

And John is very clear.

Jesus isn't one of many people

who makes God known.

He's not one of many ways to know God,

but he is the way to know God.

And apart from him,

we cannot know God.

This is one of the major reasons

why John records these seven statements of Jesus

about who he is.

Jesus, over and over through John's gospel,

one of his main ways of describing his mission is,

this is who I am.

These are exclusive claims.

Jesus saying,

I am the only way to come to a knowledge of

and enter into a relationship with God.

I'm the bread of life.

I'm the light of the world.

I am the door for the sheep.

I am the good shepherd.

I am the resurrection and the life.

I am the way, the truth, and the life.

I am the true vine.

And as a bonus,

in chapter 8,

before Abraham was,

I am.

And these statements of Jesus

come with this call

to receive him as he is

and as he claims to be.

to believe that Jesus,

when he makes the claim

that he is the only way to know God,

to say,

I believe that

and I want to know everything I can about Jesus

because to know Jesus

is to know God

because Jesus is God.

He alone can make God known.

And along with this call

to respond in that way,

to put our faith and our trust in Jesus,

to believe in him for eternal life,

is this accompanying promise

that all who believe

will not perish

but have everlasting life.

We see it played out again

in these same statements.

If you eat the bread of life,

you will not die.

If you follow the light of the world,

you will have the light of life.

If you enter by the door,

you will be saved

and find pasture

because the good shepherd

lays down his life

for the sheep,

for their lives.

If you believe the resurrection

and the life,

you will never die.

He is the way,

the truth,

and the life

and if you come to him,

you will come to the Father.

And in chapter 15,

he says,

I'm the true vine.

If you abide in me

and I in you,

you will have life

for apart from me,

you can do nothing.

Jesus is the only one

who can make God known

because he is God

and he has come in human flesh

to make God known.

That's his mission.

That's his purpose

in taking on flesh.

All other people

and religions

and everyone else

who claims that they have

another way to know God,

they are either thieves

or liars.

Only Jesus

makes God known.

John says that, right?

No one has ever seen God.

No one.

But the only God

who is at the Father's side,

he has made him known.

You can know God

through Jesus.

That's the claim of John.

It's the claim of this book

called the Bible.

The Word became flesh.

God became a man

so that man can know God.

So church,

let's keep delighting

in this truth,

this Advent season.

We can truly know

and understand

and be in relationship

with God

because Jesus

has made him known.

But we know

the story doesn't end there

with his birth.

Though the incarnation

of God,

the Word becoming flesh,

was certainly costly,

certainly amazing

and wonderful

and a truth

that we need to declare

and celebrate,

it was only a piece

of his mission.

We must always remember

where Jesus is going.

Where his mission

climaxes.

Jesus' mission

to make God known

climaxes at the cross.

when the Son of God

was crucified

in the place of sinners.

This seems like

such a bizarre statement

on the surface.

If you think about it.

How in the world

can God's Savior

be killed

on a cross?

how does that

save anybody?

How can a crucified man

be the Messiah,

the Savior of the world?

But John's been preparing us

for this all along.

That he's shown

so many examples

in this gospel

of people

who just misunderstand Jesus.

That we should get

to this point

where the full revelation

of God

at the cross

comes into full view

in the gospel

and we should go

I don't need to be

I don't need to misunderstand.

I can know

that this is truly

who God is.

Unlike Nicodemus

who sits there

scratching his head

saying

how can I be

how can I crawl back

into my mom's womb

and be born again?

Or the Samaritan woman

at the well

saying sir

how can you give me

this water of life

you don't even have a bucket

to drop into the well?

Crowds of disciples

hearing Jesus say

I'm the bread of life

saying

how can this man

give us his flesh to eat?

Right?

All these people

over and over

who misunderstand God.

And Paul says

that the word of the cross

is folly

to those who are perishing.

Right?

How does this make sense?

That God would die?

And yet that's exactly

what happens.

And it's this very claim

in chapter 8 verse 28

that Jesus highlights

and points out

for his disciples.

And for those listening

who will end up

crucifying him

he says this

when you have lifted up

the son of man

so in that same way

he's talking about himself

and he's talking about the cross

when you have lifted up

the son of man

when you've hung me

on the cross

then you will know

that I am

and that I do nothing

on my own authority

but speak just as

the father taught me.

The cross

validates

everything that Jesus

said about himself

and if we reduce that down

the cross

is the place

and the conclusion

that Jesus makes God known.

as Nicodemus

scratches his head

Jesus tells him

truly truly

I say to you

it was necessary

that the son of man

be lifted up

that whoever believes in him

may have eternal life.

It's because the problem

goes so deep

friends.

see the picture

that John paints

is not

of these

really God-fearing

individuals

kind of just sitting

going oh

if God would just

show up

and reveal himself

we'd love to follow him.

History continues

to repeat itself

that God sends

messengers

and says

this is what I'm like.

People kill

his prophets

they crucify his son

and they continue

to martyr his bride.

Because the problem

goes so deep

and yet

Jesus is the only way

that we can know God.

In an intimate

gathering of disciples

chapter 14

one of them

Philip says

kind of please

he pleads with Jesus

he says

just show us the Father

and it's going to be

enough for us.

And Jesus says

Philip

have I been with you

so long?

If you've seen me

you've seen the Father.

Do you not believe

that I am in the Father

and the Father

is in me?

The Son of Man

must be lifted up

to divine necessity

to crucify Jesus.

To cast out

the ruler

of this world

to defeat

the problem

of evil

and sin

and death

put all people

on notice.

Believe

in God's Messiah

or perish

in your sins.

To showcase

God's righteousness

in his holy

hatred

for sin.

And to teach

sinners

how far

reaching

his love

is.

For God

so loved

the world

that he gave

his only Son

that whoever

believes in him

would not perish

but have

everlasting life.

That's the mission

of Jesus

isn't it?

To secure

eternal life

for all who believe.

And what is

this eternal life?

eternal life?

John 17

John 17:3

verse 3

And this is

eternal life

that they know

you

the only

true God

and Jesus

Christ

whom you have

sent.

Eternal life

is knowing God.

You see how

this all

connects?

Jesus' mission

he came

to make God

known.

Knowing God

is eternal

life.

God

became a man

and died

on a cross

so that man

could know God

and find

eternal life.

All who believe

in this

will not perish

in their sin

but have eternal

life.

They will know

the one true

God

because they

know Jesus

Christ

the one

God

sent.

Jesus says

I and the

Father

am one.

I'm in the

Father

the Father

is in me

if you've

seen me

you've seen

the Father.

Jesus alone

makes God

known

because Jesus

alone is God

and he's come

to make

God known.

That's his

mission.

That's why

he came.

So how do we

respond?

I just want to

offer two ways

for us to

respond to

this.

First way

is to

celebrate

him.

Celebrate

this unique

person

who alone

is able to

offer eternal

life.

Who alone

is able to

help us

know God

truly.

So we

worship and

adore him

this season

of Advent

and every

season.

I recognize

in that

it requires

different

strategies

and procedures

for different

folks in the

room.

Right?

If you're in

the room

today and

you don't

know Jesus

you can't

celebrate him

until you

come to

him and

receive his

offer of

eternal life

and forgiveness

of your

sins.

He offers

this freely.

It's why he

came as a

mission that

he had from

the beginning.

But you

must come to

him and

believe in

him.

He's the

only way you

can know

God.

And any

other way

that you're

trying to

know God

will fail.

No one's

seen God.

The only

God at the

Father's side

has made

him known.

But then

for the rest

of us to

celebrate Jesus

means we've

got to get

him before

our face.

We've got to

understand who

he is and

we've got to

get him

before our

eyes.

The way

this has been

looking for

me this

week, I

have this

fantastic

ability to

take all of

my problems

and put them

under a

microscope and

magnify them

and just stare

through the lens

of this microscope

and just stare

at my problems.

Oh, the problem

is so terrible.

I'm guessing

some of you

can relate to

this.

But that's

never going to

get me to

celebrate Jesus

today or any

day, is it?

I've got to

get my eye

from squinting

into this

little teeny

microscopic

device and

step back and

lift my gaze

up and see

this delightful,

glorious,

wonderful Savior

who dwarfs

every problem

I have.

That's the

fight of faith

I'm engaged

in to celebrate

him now.

So that's

the first

response,

celebrate him.

The second

way that we

respond to

this mission

of Jesus

is to join

him.

After Jesus

is resurrected

in chapter 20

verse 21,

he says this

to his

disciples,

As the

Father has

sent me,

even so I

am sending

you.

See, the

mission of

Jesus doesn't

stop when

Jesus goes

up to

heaven.

Certainly

he has

died and

been raised

to offer

eternal life

and salvation

and his

mission continues

through his

people.

To gather

his sheep,

those who

will hear

his voice

and respond

to him

and come

in and find

pasture in

life.

That mission

to continue

uniting a

people in

his name

for his

glory.

He sent

us into

this time,

to this

place,

for his

glory,

to be on

mission with

him.

The season

of Advent,

when we

ponder the

baby in the

manger,

is such a

good time

to either

for the

first time

kindle,

or for

the 50th

time,

rekindle

joining

Jesus on

this

mission.

Chapter

1,

verse 14

doesn't

say,

the word

became

flesh and

dwelt

nearby us.

The word

became flesh

and dwelt

among us.

Let us

be like

that too.

Though we

acknowledge that

mission is

hard, it

can be

messy and

scary.

I was just

talking about

it before

service.

There was a

way we were

trying to

help somebody

and it

didn't work

out so

well.

But it

requires

proximity, it

requires risk

taking, that

face-to-face

relationship that

Jesus makes

God known

because he's

among the

people.

We have

one such

opportunity

coming up on

Christmas Eve

that Mike

announced earlier.

We're going to

gather in this

building as a

church and

we're going to

prepare food and

we're going to

feed a

community of

anybody who

wants to

come.

But more than

that, we want

to join together

to be God's

sent ones who

are on mission

to say, Jesus

is the only way

to God.

He's the only

way you can

know him.

And if you

know him, then

you truly do

know God and

you have eternal

life in him.

Let's not just

aim all of our

energy at that

one event and

that one

time, right?

Let's commit

as a church,

wherever we're

at, whether

we've been

doing this and

you're like,

okay, here we

go again, or

you need this

encouragement and

this push.

Let's continue

joining Jesus in

this season and

every single

season.

Joining his

mission to

make God

known by

making Jesus

known.

Declaring to

our friends,

our neighbors,

our family,

our coworkers,

this glorious

news that God

became a man so

that man can

know God.

Let's pray.

Father God, I

just thank and

praise you for

your word.

Spirit, would

you help us

grasp this

incredible news

that Jesus

reveals the

Father because

the Father is in

Jesus and

Jesus is in the

Father.

Help us to

celebrate our

Lord and Savior

this Advent

season and help

us to join him

in this mission.

God, accomplish

much through our

efforts and be

glorified through

our celebration.

I give you all

the thanks, all

the praise, all

the glory, praying

only through

Jesus, our

Lord, our

God.

Amen.