Glory Revealed - John 1:1-18 - February 22, 2026

Matthew Poole: Thank you, Mike and the team, that was great. Thank you for serving us and leading us to the Lord and helping prepare our hearts for God to speak. We need God to speak this morning, desperate for him. Thank you. Let's pray for God's help. Heavenly Father, we are grateful that you are a speaking God and you don't speak begrudgingly. We don't have to twist your arm this morning for you to speak. You speak out of passion and out of desire and out of love and out of care for us, God. So thank you, God, for your willingness to speak to us this morning. And we ask too, God, that you would also be willing by your grace to open up the ears of our hearts to hear. Help us to hear God. Help us to hear your voice speaking to us and uniquely in the text this morning, help us to hear and behold your son, Jesus. You have spoken in ages past through the prophets, but in the last days you have spoken to us through your Son. God, would your word be clear? Would your word be powerful? would bear fruit in our midst for the glory of Jesus and the good of our souls forever and ever. And it's in your name that we pray, amen. One of the many challenges with social media, one of many, is that social media can distort reality for us, our perception of reality. So what can often happen is you go on your favorite platform, Instagram or whatever, and you're seeing pictures of what people have chosen to paste on there for the world to see. And most people are not choosing to paste on there the bad parts of their lives. They're pasting the good parts. Maybe I'm not trying to be too critical, but we're pasting the fake part, right? Just the surface, sort of a plastic veneer to guard the world from seeing what's really going on. not saying that's always the case. I'm just saying in general, this is what happens. And an effect of that on us that are perusing and scrolling is that we start to see a disconnect, we feel a disconnect between what's being presented in our experience and we start thinking, well, there must be something wrong with me. And you start kind of imagining. Well, I'm on the outside looking in, out in the rain, looking through the glass, everybody's on the inside having a party, having fun, having a blast, the sun, the rays are just shining down on everybody else except for me. And I'm alone in the struggle. Maybe you're coming in here this morning thinking you are alone in the struggle. I wanna welcome you to a room full of strugglers. We are all on the struggle bus this morning. And anybody who says that they're not is lying to you or they are self-deceived. Every single person in this room is aching and groaning. Not one of us have graduated from the groan of this life. If we're honest and we're listening, this life is filled with misery and chaos. misery. The examples are many. I they're way out in the world, global conflict, all the way down to what's happening in our closest of relationships. Relational conflict everywhere. Financial strain, emotional, mental health challenges, minds and brains that don't work the way they're supposed to work, depression that won't leave, anxiety that just keeps gnawing at us. Our bodies don't work the way they're supposed to. There's sickness, diseases of all types. There's loss. Loss, loss of friends, loss of loved ones. All of that culminating in the dark, deep, black shadow of death that is just hanging over all of us. This world is filled with It's miserable. creation itself is groaning. This is not the way it's supposed to be. It's not the way it's supposed to be. And every one of us feels it and we know it whether or not we can say it and give articulation to it. And this is a type of slavery. Why? Because we are powerless to do anything on our own to get out of it. That's slavery. We are being controlled by powers and forces that are too great for us. Cannot escape the groaning of this world. and the groaning of our own hearts. That's our condition this morning. And the question is, are we doomed? Is there any hope? Are we just to expect this chaos and darkness and blackness to just keep on keeping on? Is there any hope to escape misery into something like joy and peace? Is the ache ever going to go? John has a word for us this morning to answer this exact question. Darkness does not win. There is an end to the ache of our souls. We're spend the rest of this year in the book of John as he unpacks this for us. Today we're looking at the prologue of John which in many ways is His full summary of where we're going, he's not gonna spell out every detail, but he's touching on all the themes this morning. So in some way, we're charting through the whole book this morning. It was John's message for us. Let's listen in. Let's listen in to the answer that John has and it might be pretty surprising. First thing that we see here this morning is the nature of the word. He starts, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. the nature of the word. It's interesting that John begins with word. He's calling this person the word, and why? What a strange way to refer to somebody. Well, if we think about words, we use words to do what? Express ourselves, to communicate ourselves. So there's a communication happening that John wants us tuning into. There's an expression, somebody that John wants us tuning into. The word is also pointing us back to creation in the creation account in Genesis that there is a new creation on the horizon. Just as God spoke in the beginning and created the heavens, so now he is speaking again in a creative, powerful, redemptive way. Before he jumps there, he wants to ground us in the nature. And there's three P's that one scholar brought out that are helpful alliteration for what John is doing here in this first verse. First verse, the first aspect here is the pre-existence of the word. So there's pre-existence, there is presence, and there's the person of the word. The pre-existence of the word is that it's always been. He's locating it in time, in time eternity past. This word. has always been pre-existent. We love our superheroes and one of my favorite things, we also love the origin stories, right? Superman, Batman, they'll have an origin story. Spider-Man, we love the origin stories. The word does not have one. Muhammad, Buddha, these Confucius, these other leaders of religions in this world, they have origin stories. You can trace it. This word has no origin story. He's pre-existent, eternal. The word also has a presence here, presence in relationship with God. The word was with God. In relationship, in presence. And finally, the word was a person, in person. It's not just with God, but the word was God. Fully God. In essence. So, we see here out the gate, John is saying something about this word, this self-expression that God is doing prior to creation in eternity to pass. There is this word, enjoying a perfect communion relationship with God and in essence, God himself. Then this word begins to move and act. See that in verse two. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him. and without him was not anything 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 has not overcome it. The word creates. Life happens. Life happens because life is in the Word. He's not creating something tangential to him like the power source is out from him, that life is somewhere outside of his hymn and he's building and creating it. No, he is life. Life is in the Word and so he can create life. This life is also a type of light. John is. constantly using metaphors and mixing metaphors and putting metaphors in layers and he's doing that now. He's saying this type of life that he's creating is a type of light that's shining into the darkness. There's a physical life, there's a physical light and there is a spiritual life and a spiritual light and this word is bringing that into existence. He also was given a head nod to conflict. This isn't happening easily. There is conflict. There is war here. That's why he says the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. This is conflict terms. Light is invading the darkness, the darkness does not overcome it. The light conquers. The light is powerful and piercing and conquers. It cannot be stopped. This morning, the light of this word cannot be stopped in our dark world and cannot be stopped in our dark hearts. Praise God, this light is powerful. If we fear the dark powers, let us receive a new perspective on light. Light shines and darkness cannot stop it. Praise God. So this light is coming, it's bringing life, it's bringing flourishing, a new type of creation. How does that happen though? It's not automatic for us. It's not automatic. It hinges upon a response. If we want in here, it hinges on a response. That's the second thing we see. Second section here is a response to the word. So we've seen the nature of the word, but now it demands a response. Verse six, there was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light. That all might believe through him. He's witnessing about this light so that people would believe in this light. John was not the light, verse eight, but he came to bear witness about the light. He's a prophet, he's the last of the prophets before the actual light comes. Verse nine, the true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. Creator God is coming into the world. Our maker is coming. The one who hung the stars in place is coming. The one who fashioned us in the womb is coming. Roll out the red carpet, Receive him. What a fanfare. What a fanfare it is when we receive a president or ambassador or somebody from a country. How great that would be. How great is the fanfare or should the fanfare be when the God of the universe comes? be a big fanfare. It's not what happens. Verse 10. He was in the world and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. and not recognizing him, they didn't even recognize him. We don't recognize him, we reject him. And this rejection is not a casual, oh, I'm just not seeing him. It's not casual and I'm just missing it, it's hostile. It's a hostile rejection. There he is, there's darkness, it's all reversed. There's darkness, we are light, get the darkness out of here, let's crucify him so it's filled with a fierce hatred and animosity. This is the rejection of our creator. Don't want him. Showed up to the wrong place. This is our kingdom. How dare he? Remove him. Let's extinguish. they murder him, put him to death on a brutal cross. He's rejected. Verse 12. to all who did receive him. who believed in his name. He gave the right to become children of God. He gave the right to become children of God by believing in Him, just by believing in His name. That is how we get the right to become children of God adopted into God's family. And what a blessing this is. This is the pinnacle of blessing here that John is articulating for us. God is coming in the flesh. What a wonder. What's the great benefit for us? We become children of God. It's the greatest benefit. What a great benefit, and we get in on the eternal, rich fellowship between the Father and the Son. We get in on that as children of God. We get in on forgiveness and mercy. We get in on eternal delight that the God, our Father has over us. We have assurance, we have hope. Our hearts are beating now. as the children of God for our Father, for His glory. Spirit of God comes into us, gives us new life. Praise God, we get family, we get to be with one another, other children, a sense of belonging and acceptance, and on and on it goes. And maybe the greatest, we get to enjoy God and his favor forever with the people of God. What a wonder, as children of God, we are in forever sealed. Nothing can come against it. Nothing can snatch us out of his hand. Nothing can remove the adoption papers, sealed in blood. We are his, eternally. that we may enjoy him and forever receive his goodness. That's what John would say later in another one of his letters, in first time he says, how great the Father's love is that we should be called children of God. And so we are. John can't get over it. Neither should we. How great, how unthinkable, what? Children of God, our job. is to receive the incarnate word of God, to receive the light of God, the testimony of God in this word, and be born again. But John also wants to make clear that this doesn't happen because we are the source of it. This happens because God in His sovereignty and power and free grace gives it to us. John's very clear here. No baby comes into a family without prior activity, without others before, right? Same thing spiritually. No baby comes into existence and to this family without another acting on its behalf. This is what John wants to make clear. He continues in verse 13, who were born, these children who do have to receive, you have to receive the light, you have to say yes to it. When that happens, you're born again, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. God's will. God is giving you birth. We look back and we say, God, you have done this forever and always. God will get all the glory and we get the benefits. That's how it will be forever. You will never trace it back and say, well look there, God, look what I did to receive it. No. As Galatians says, you do that, you destroy the gospel, and it's a false gospel. God will not have that, he will not share his glory with another, and if we think we're gonna drop one penny into earning our salvation, we are wrong, and we do not know the gospel. God says, I will have my glory, and I'm choosing to give you free grace. Praise God. So we must receive, but apart from his initiating and gracious activity, there's no reception. We're just going to continue to say no. Right? Otherwise you can look into yourself and be like, well at some point I decided to all of a sudden, out of nowhere, apprehend that Jesus Christ is the light of God. And all of a sudden, he's the most prized thing I've ever put my eyes on. That doesn't happen out of nowhere. That happens because God reveals him in our hearts by his spirit. This is what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, 6, tying these things together. He says, God who said, let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. If you behold Jesus Christ today and you say, It's glorious, He's glorious. That happened because God showed His light, shone His light into your heart. And we say thank you. Thank you, God. We must say yes to it, not reject it, all to his praise, but then what? Then what? We receive it and then we become revelers. Revelers in the glory of God. And this is where John, I think, begins to move us next. Verse 14. It's on the backside of our reception. and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory. We have seen it. We testify to it. 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. So as children, we, like John, are now witnesses to this light and to this glory, we've seen it. We have seen the glory of God revealed to us and into our hearts. The Word became flesh. We see that now. The incomprehensible reality that the eternal one who created all and holds the heavens, these Millions of galaxies in the span of his hand, he confines himself to a single human being as a baby. What a wonder that is. The eternal one, now locked into space and time, entering in. What a wonder. And then John says, he says this verb here, dwelt among us, which is an interesting choice of words, and this word dwell is the same word for tabernacle. He tabernacled among us. He comes in human form and he tabernacles among us, which tabernacle has everything to do with the presence of God in the Old Testament. Tabernacle and temple is where the spirit of God resides. It's like one scholar says, he says it's like there's one phone booth on the entire planet and it's in the temple. One phone booth. We've lost, we lose some of the sense of that because we live in an age when God is mediating to all believers everywhere through the Spirit of God. through Christ in glory, but there was a time when God would only mediate his presence to this earth through one spot. There was one phone booth on planet earth where you could go to talk to God. And it was a bit scary to go there. Because if you mess up, you're consumed. But that's the meeting place. God meets with people in the temple, one spot. And John is saying, This word becomes flesh and tabernacles among us. The temple of God begins walking around and eating and drinking and having parties and being with people and sleeping and getting tired. He's among us as a human. The full revelation then is through this person, this word, fully God, fully man, and full of grace and truth. That's what he is. He's full of grace and truth. This is the glory that John wants us beholding. Verse 16, for from his fullness, we have all received. There again there's reception language. We have received. We have received what. Grace upon grace. Grace upon grace, he continues his argument for. Trying to get us to understand grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Finally, John reveals everything. This is the first time he's actually used Jesus Christ. Up to this point, it's just God. You see what he's doing. He is progressively revealing to us who God is. Who is God? What is God like? And here he is, the self-expression of God, the exact representation, as Hebrews would put it, the full communication of God and his full communication to us is Jesus the Christ in which and upon who gives us grace upon grace. This is the full communication of the Godhead to us through his son. There might be some hesitation, right? you imagine the Godhead showing up, God's presence showing up in the Son, this Holy One, what is going to happen? This Holy One is coming and you can almost expect not grace, right? We have these HGTV shows that we all like to watch and there's always the big reveal. So there's some, some build, some project, some renovation, and they take the people and they have to send them away, go somewhere and we're gonna work on your house and you're gonna come back and there's the big episode or the big finale at the end of episode and everybody's chanting move the bus or whatever, the big reveal, right? What's it gonna be like? What is it? Are we gonna hate the house and we'll sell it, we'll move somewhere else. Are we gonna love it? There's anticipation there. This is like what God has been doing throughout time. This is the big reveal. It's the big reveal. What is God like when finally, just move the bus. Let us see. Let us see in all the glory. And here he is in human form, full of grace and truth, giving us grace upon grace. This is in direct contrast to the law. If we would have thought, or if we sometimes think, maybe even today, well, he's just gonna judge me because he's so holy and I'm such a sinner. Well, this is the point. This is the point of why he's coming to get glory as he gives you grace, not judgment. That's why John talks about the law here. This is in direct contrast to the law. The law is about doing. Grace is about receiving. They're polar opposites. They're polar opposites. In law, you earn. In grace, you receive as a gift. Polar opposites. The law says do this and live. Grace says receive this and live. The problem with us, the problem is with us, it's not with the law, let's be clear, God's law is perfect, good, holy, and just. The problem is with us, that we have failed the law and we deserve what the law says. Separation from God and judgment forever and ever. That's what the law condemns us there in our sin. That's good and right, nothing wrong with God. Fault is with us, so what's demanded then is God has to come in and help us. Because we can't get ourselves out of this. can't get out, I mean we're just enslaved to our depravity. Our hearts don't beat for God, we are wicked on every spectrum. But this is the beauty, the gospel. Listen how Paul says in Galatians four times, some of these things together. He says Galatians four, four. In the fullness of time, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law. So he's submitting himself to the very law that condemns us. He's saying, I'm going in. to redeem those under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. Sons and daughters are sons, sons in the sense to saying we all have the highest privileges of the Son, Jesus Christ. All the privileges that are given to us through him. To redeem us, okay, so he's going into the law to redeem us where redemption has to do with purchase and buyback. There's a cost here. Our adoption wasn't cheap. Grace is free. It's not free to the one. In it cost everything. Our redemption cost the blood of the word of God himself. That's what it cost. That was his labor for us. You just pause here at such a breathtaking gospel message. The creator has existed forever, who is life, willingly, out of love for you and I, goes and dies. Life dies. He became the forsaken that you and I might be accepted. He became the enemy that you and I might become the friend. He endured the wrath of God that we might receive the delight of God. While we could not get out from underneath the law, God could do it by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, so we'd condemn sin in the flesh. in order that we might be the righteousness of God. What he's saying there is he's gonna be a loving, righteous substitute. If we can't get out of it, God says, I'll take their place. I'll take their place so that your justice is satisfied, that the law stays complete, good, righteous, holy, and I will show how much we love these people. Justice satisfied, love displayed, redemption accomplished. people of God. Grace upon grace. Scandalous, mind-blowing grace that none of us in this room deserve. Listen to Packer as he comments on adoption, the scandalous nature of this, the free grace nature of this. He says, in the ancient world, adoption was a practice ordinarily confined to the childless well-to-do. Its subjects, as he said earlier, were not normally infants as today, but they were young adults who had shown themselves fit and able to carry on a family name in a worthy way. In this case, however, God adopts us out of free love. Not because our character and our record show us worthy to bear his name, but despite that fact, that they show the very opposite. We are not fit for a place in God's family. The idea of his loving and exalting us sinners as he loves and has exalted the Lord Jesus, it sounds ludicrous and wild. Yet that and nothing less than that is what our adoption means. Adoption, by its very nature, he continues, is an act of free kindness. to the person adopted. If you become a father by adopting a son or a daughter, you do so because you choose to, not because you were bound to. Similarly, God adopts because he chooses to. He had no duty to do so. He need not have done anything about our sins except punish us as we deserve, but he loved us. He loved us, so he redeemed us, forgave us, took us as his sons and daughters, and gave himself to us as our father. What is God like? What is the big reveal like? He's like this, a father full of glory who delights to adopt children into his family through the grace of his perfect son dying in their place. That's what God is like. He's like Jesus. full of grace and full of truth. This is what John's gospel is trying to get us to see. This is what God is trying to get us to see. Trying to get us to see this and this is where John then returns as he closes his prologue, verse 18. No one has ever seen God. God, the only son who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. This is the big reveal. God reveals himself and his glory through the grace of the Son. The word of God is spoken in the son. It's come. There's not another word coming. It is Christ. Are you a rejecter or are you a receiver this morning? Those are the two responses that this text demands. Are you gonna reject the revelation of God and his son dying in your place and rising from the dead? Are you gonna reject that or are you going to receive it? If you are on the rejector spectrum this morning, give up the fight. Give up the fight and quit running from your God who made you and who loves you. There's nothing to fear in running into his arms. Doesn't matter the weight of guilt, shame, crippling, whatever that you're going through, your God waits for you. He wants you to receive him this morning. John 3, 16 would later say that we all know, for God so loved the world. He so loved you, you, that he gave his only son. Whoever would believe in him would not perish but have everlasting life. He didn't come here to judge the world, he came here to save the world, to save you. Will you receive the testimony? Don't perish. Don't perish this morning. And why do tomorrow what you can do right now? to receive Jesus Christ and have your sins forgiven and enjoy adoption forever into the family of God. And for us receivers, may we keep believing. May we keep on believing and not stop believing and may we never get over the wonder of our adoption. May we revel in it as the glory of God to us in his grace. May we be strengthened today in hope and the promises of God. May we be strengthened even now while we do still groan in this awful world. We groan, yes we do, but we groan as a people of God with hope. We groan in hope knowing that one day, church, the groan will stop. The ache will be over. It will be over. And we will get new bodies, as Romans 8 even says, we're groaning for the full redemption, our full adoption, the redemption of our bodies. The ache is gonna be over because we will be made completely new, resurrected in the Lord's presence with the people of God, where our eyes and our hearts, as far as they see and search and explore, they don't find darkness and chaos, they find righteousness and peace and glory in the presence of God. That's where we're going, that is our hope this morning. And it's in this hope that we are saved. May we press on. May we press on, church. Press on in faith, press on in hope. And let's press on with joy. Let's press on like John the Baptist, witnessing to the light that has come. Witnessing that this world is not the end of the story. That there's a better one coming with a better king who removes us out of the kingdom of darkness and our slavery to all of our sin and gives us the kingdom of, God gives us the kingdom in his son. How great. the Father's love is for us, that we should be called children of God. And so we are. Let's pray. Father, thank you for grace upon grace. that you would come into this dark world, that you would come even into our dark hearts on a rescuing mission to live the life we could never live and to pay the penalty, to bring us to yourself, to purchase us for yourself. to be that people that you did see on the other side of that cross when you said it was for the joy set before him that he endured the cross. That joy was the people of God, the family of God forever and ever. This was in your sights, Lord Jesus, as you died on that cross. We are recipients now and forever of that, thank you. God help us this morning to be in awe of grace. to not get over the wonder that our dad is God and our nature is the Spirit of God. that now there's not just a single phone booth somewhere. We are mediators of the very presence of God as children of God. Lord, we are your witnesses, we are your lights that you are sending us out into the world, fellowshipping even now, tasting our future glory as a community of faith and living on mission that the nations might be glad that the misery of this world, God, would be met with hope, with redeeming love. God, empower us, comfort us in our trials. You're there, and it might even just be in those trials as our most choice moment by your providence, but it's in those moments that we can uniquely testify. Lord, you let the trials come into our lives, and as children of God, we get to hold out and shine like stars the word of God. Yeah, we're going through brokenness and chaos. but we're heading to a city whose maker, founder is God. May that strengthen us Lord. And let's pray even now Lord. For anybody in this room that's just never received, may they know right now, God you're not asking for anyone to jump through hoops this morning. There's no temple gymnastics we gotta do to get into the presence of God. No, the presence of God has come for us. It shines just like the sun rays. We don't do anything to receive the sun basking its light down on us. God, may those this morning, they've never received Christ, may they just receive you like light shining in a dark place. Say yes to it. Maybe even now. Father, may your forgiveness and mercy rain down upon us. May we all collectively say yes to the testimony of God in the word made flesh. giving us grace. They thought, the enemy thought, that if we could just put him up on a cross, we would extinguish the light. the enemy didn't know was that as the light of Christ got extinguished on the cross, grace was coming. The light was shining all the greater, all the brighter. It didn't extinguish Christ. It propelled him in his mission. God, we thank you this morning. Do your work in us. Cultivate rich, deep, everlasting joy, unspeakable. and your son Jesus. In his name we pray, amen.