The Incarnate Word

John chapter 1, verse 1.

John 1:1

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

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.

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 was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.

He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,

who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

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 is he who was 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.

And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him,

Who are you?

The word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

I'm still trying to figure this out.

That's a famous passage you just read from John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

And it goes in the face of something that people in Western civilization have been hearing for a while.

For example, Ludwig Feuerbach claimed that God is a human invention, this German atheistic philosopher.

Karl Marx said that God is an opiate for the masses.

Sigmund Freud said that God is an illusion, a figment of the human imagination.

And Friedrich Nietzsche declared that God is dead.

These priests of atheism, so to speak, they boldly proposed what they called the secularization hypothesis,

which claimed that as the world advanced, as societies progressed,

that through modernization and rationalization that they would become increasingly e-religious,

that God would be no longer needed.

However, the reverse has happened.

In 1900, that's actually the year Nietzsche died, the man who declared that God is dead,

there were 8 million Christians in Africa.

Now there are 335 million Christians in Africa.

The Pew report documented that in 2010, there were 2.2 billion Christians in the world,

which was at the time 31% of the world population,

the largest numerical growth that Christianity has ever seen.

And in case you dismiss these statistics saying that, you know what,

that's just in the third world countries, in Africa and Asia, that's where the growth is happening.

In parts of the world where the world is actually, society is progressing and advancing,

that kind of growth is nowhere to be seen.

In case you say that here, the Gallup World Poll,

which surveyed more than a million people in 163 nations,

says 81% of people claim to belong to an organized religious faith.

74% say that religion is the important part of their daily lives.

You see, in only a few countries in the world, actually, the number of atheists exceeds 5%.

Not only that, in every part of the world, and seemingly, the parts where Christianity had been receding,

people are increasingly looking to and turning to more unconventional kinds of spiritual answers.

For example, in Russia and France, there are more occult healers than there are actual medical doctors.

38% of the French believe in astrology.

35% of the Swiss agree that some fortune tellers can really foresee the future.

As C.S. Lewis once said,

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him

than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word darkness on the walls of his cell.

It seems that the light of God simply cannot be blotted out.

No matter what these people would tell us,

that we do not need God,

the advanced civilizations have no need for God,

people everywhere seem to be crying out for God,

searching for God.

Then how should we seek God?

How can we know God?

How can we know which faith and religion is true?

And in order to find out,

we're going to embark on a new sermon series starting today

from the Gospel of John entitled,

Jesus, the Son of God.

And Gospel, the word Gospel, simply means good news.

It refers to the good news of the person and work of Jesus Christ.

And there are four Gospels in the Bible,

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John,

and John is the last one that was written around 80 AD.

And it's explicitly written to answer that question.

How can we know God?

You see this in chapter 20, verses 30 to 31.

John writes this.

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples

which are not written in this book.

These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ,

the Son of God,

and that by believing you may have life in His name.

That's the purpose of the Gospel of John,

the explicit purpose.

And if you read that, you might say,

well, that's not what you would call an objective history, is it?

Well, he's Christian.

He has an agenda.

He wants to convert people.

He wants people to believe it.

So how can we believe that what he's telling us is true?

So someone might say that in the modern era.

However, there's a biblical scholar named Richard Baucom

who wrote a groundbreaking book called Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.

And in it, he documents the fact that in the ancient world,

the eyewitnesses were considered the best

and the most reliable form of historical writers.

And the reason why they thought that is because, you know what,

it's the people that care the most deeply about their subject

who are going to make the most painstaking effort

to preserve the details of that subject.

In the same way, if someone were to come and say,

I want to write a biography about you,

you wouldn't want a detached and disinterested bystander

from somewhere that has no relationship with you whatsoever

to write that biography.

No, you would want someone that knows you intimately.

You would want someone that actually cares about the details of your life

to write that biography.

That person would take the pains

to make sure to preserve those details.

In the same way, for that reason, the ancient writers,

the writers of the Bible were eyewitnesses

and we were interested in preserving the details of Jesus' life

precisely because they cared.

And for that reason, they wrote this with the intention

that it would be a trustworthy account

that people can see and believe in.

So now that's what we're going into in the Gospel of John.

It's a reliable account.

It's an eyewitness account.

We have four different ones all attesting to the same Jesus Christ.

Yes, it's not disinterested, nor is it uninterested,

but it's an invested, trustworthy eyewitness account

of what happened to Jesus.

And he doesn't brush over things and hide things.

He includes even the embarrassing details about himself and others.

He includes difficult and controversial saying

that would have been very expedient to leave out.

These are signs that show that this is a reliable account.

And so then I want to ask all of you to ask that question

as we go through the series together

and as we go through the sermon today.

Who is Jesus Christ?

And then consider the weighty implications of that answer

that the Gospel provides.

So we begin today in John 1, chapter 1, verses 1 to 18,

which is the prologue of the Gospel.

It really contains in seed form everything

that John talks about throughout the book.

All the major themes that he covers in the book

are introduced here in this prologue.

And John's main point is this,

that in order to know God,

we must believe in Jesus Christ,

the incarnate Word of God,

who is the ultimate disclosure of God Himself.

In order to know God,

we must believe in Jesus Christ,

who is the ultimate disclosure of God Himself.

And I will unpack that first by talking about the Word of God,

and then secondly about the light of God,

and then lastly about the glory of God.

So you can follow along with me,

verses 1 to 3.

In verse 1 it begins,

In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God.

In the beginning.

Anybody who has tried to read the Bible,

usually they begin in the beginning.

So they open the book of Genesis,

and if you've done that,

you're probably familiar with that phrase.

In the beginning.

That's how the whole Bible begins.

It begins with creation.

In Genesis 1.1 it says,

In the beginning God created.

Here in John 1.1 it says,

In the beginning was the Word.

And you can feel the kind of weight of this passage

in the way John wrote it.

Because he intentionally uses repetition and rhythm

to produce this kind of dignity in this passage.

So read with me as I go through verses 1 to 3.

In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through him,

and without him was not anything made that was made.

Do you hear that rhythm?

The cadence of this passage tells you

that John did not write this haphazardly.

He understood precisely the weight of what he was writing,

and he wants to communicate an important truth

that we do not miss with this deliberate wording and phrasing.

And this beginning of the Gospel

is very different from the rest of the Gospel.

Because Mark, if you look at it,

it begins with the public ministry of Jesus.

It begins with him starting his ministry.

Matthew and Luke begin with the infancy of councils.

It begins with the birth of Christ.

But John here,

he goes all the way back,

before creation,

to the time of the pre-existent,

eternal Word that exists.

So for the moment,

forget the sentimentality of a baby in a manger,

and the pageantry of the three magi coming,

John's taking us all the way back to the Word,

pre-existent Word from the very beginning,

before nothing else existed.

In that beginning was the Word.

And the Word was with God,

and the Word was God.

What that means is there was never a time

when the Word was not.

Before anything else came to be,

the Word was.

And what is the Word?

John's not speaking, of course,

of a word that we write,

or a word that we speak.

So the Greek word,

the word is logos,

which is the word from which we get the English word logic.

And in the Greek culture at the time,

it referred to an inner thought,

something like reason,

or you could even call it a science,

or you could call it,

and this was a really popular concept

among the Greek philosophies at the time.

So Stoics and the Platonists,

they all talked about the logos.

They believed that that was the rational principle,

the animating principle,

that undergird the universe,

that drove the universe.

And that's what they thought this logos was.

But John here is not simply adopting that meaning.

He knew that that was a buzzword,

so he uses that as a bridge

to connect to the culture that he's in,

but that's not the primary background for this word.

Because the primary background for this word

is actually the Bible.

Because if you look at the Old Testament,

the word is God's speech.

Look at Genesis 1, 1-3,

and you can turn with me if you'd like,

but I'll read it for you here.

It said,

In the beginning,

God created the heavens and the earth.

The earth was without form and void,

and darkness was over the face of the deep.

And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

And God said,

Let there be light,

and there was light.

God creates by his speech,

by his word.

He creates.

God also reveals himself by his word.

So that's why in the prophets,

if you look at Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel,

they say things like,

The word of the Lord came to me.

So God creates by his word,

and God reveals himself by his word.

And finally,

God also saves by his word.

Psalm 107.20 says,

He sent out his word,

and healed them,

and delivered them from their destruction.

So the word,

then,

is a really powerful concept.

In short,

it's God's powerful self-expression

in creation,

revelation,

and salvation.

That's what the word is.

Right?

So,

so far,

so good.

So you continue,

but if you continue reading verse 1,

it tells us something that is absolutely mind-blowing.

Look with me.

In verse 1.

In the beginning was the word,

and the word was with God,

and the word was God.

So the word was with God.

What does that mean?

Because the word is God's speech.

It has a personality.

It's with God.

It's distinct from God,

yet it's with him.

It's in his presence.

And the word with conveys a kind of relationship,

a fellowship.

This word was with him.

He's in relationship with him.

Now,

not only that,

but if you read the next clause,

it says the word was God.

That's even more mind-blowing.

Right?

Because if this word was with God,

how can this word be God?

Right?

But that's exactly what it's saying.

In fact,

that phrase is,

the order,

the syntax has God,

the word God in the front for emphasis.

So it actually should be something like,

God was the word.

The word was that same God,

that in the beginning was,

the word that was with,

the God that the word was with,

it's that,

the word is that same God.

So a theologian,

Edmund Clowney puts it really memorably.

He says,

the word was with God.

He was God's eternal fellow.

And the word also was God,

God's own self.

Now,

that doesn't mean that this God,

this word is another God,

or a part of God,

or a second God.

Rather,

this word was that same God,

yet he was distinct from that God.

He had his own person.

This is the building block

of the doctrine of the Trinity,

which our church is named after.

Because we see in the biblical data

that God is one,

that there's only one God,

yet there are three persons.

The Father,

the Son,

and the Holy Spirit.

And we don't see the Holy Spirit

explicitly mentioned here,

but he's also implied here,

and later John makes it more explicit.

Because if you look at Psalm,

it talks about how God creates

by his word,

and by the breath of God,

he makes it,

he beautifies it.

And so if that's the case,

then the word of God

is carried forth by the breath of God.

And the same word breath

can also be translated spirit.

So here we see the Trinity

and actually in creation,

in Genesis,

and that's what John's getting at here.

So if,

that's what,

so why is this important for us right now?

Because if John's going to tell us later

about the incarnation,

about how this word became flesh,

but we can't grasp

the momentousness of that event

unless we understand

the cosmic,

eternal significance of God's word.

That this word was God.

He's part of the triune God,

and we existed from before time began.

And this eternal word is also light.

It's the light of God.

So follow along with me,

verses four to five.

In him was life,

and the life was the light of man.

And the light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness has not overcome it.

Later in John chapter 5, 26,

John 5 · chapter mention

he says that the Father has life in himself,

in the same way he has granted it to the Son

to have life in himself.

So to have life in oneself,

it's pointing to self-existence.

That God exists on his own.

He's not derived from something.

He doesn't originate from something or somewhere.

He has his own existence,

which is different from everything else in creation.

We all have a derivative existence.

We get our existence from God.

We have a source.

We originate from somewhere.

But this word,

this light of God,

is like God.

He has life in himself.

He has life.

And this life is the light of man.

So light and life are contives

that show up prominently in the Gospel of John.

And as we will see throughout,

John has a tendency to use words with double meaning.

So he uses light both in the sense of

the light that illuminates the physical world

and the spiritual light that reveals God to people

and drives out darkness.

In the same way,

he uses the word life

to refer to the life that animates the physical world,

but also to the spiritual life,

the resurrection life,

that brings spiritually dead to life.

And then we have this little excursus

about John the Baptist.

And the reason why John talks about John the Baptist

is because he serves as a literary foil

to highlight this even more special importance of Christ.

That this powerful and holy prophet,

this John the Baptist,

he was not the true light.

He was just a witness, John says.

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 was not the light,

but came to bear witness about the light.

That's John's function.

He serves to highlight as a contrast

Christ's importance,

surpassing importance and greatness.

And this true light that John the Baptist bore witness to

came into the world.

Please follow on with me,

verses 9 to 11.

The true light,

which gives light to everyone,

was coming into the world.

He was in the world,

and the world was made through him.

Yet the world did not know him.

He came to his own,

and his own people did not receive him.

Can you hear the tinge of sadness

and the irony in that verse?

That his own people did not receive him.

The world he created did not know him,

recognize him.

Several years ago, actually,

it's almost a decade ago now,

but the Washington Post conducted an experiment

where they asked Joshua Bell.

I don't know if you guys know about him.

He's a world-renowned violinist,

and he plays a $4 million Stradivarius violin.

And they hired him to go to a metro stop,

a subway station in Washington, D.C.,

to play.

He put a baseball cap on.

He was incognito.

He played just like a normal busker,

and he played for 45 minutes.

And the experiment was designed

to test people's public taste,

their priorities,

what people will do.

Will beauty transcend

the bustling subway station?

The result was very disappointing.

Of the 1,097 people,

1,097 people that passed by,

only a few stopped to listen.

And Bell made a whopping total

of $32.17.

Despite the fact that just three days earlier,

he had packed out Boston Symphony Hall,

where he played the exact same repertoire,

and each seat, the ordinary seat,

went for $100.

And only one person actually recognized who he was.

So this is really sad.

What was going on?

We don't know.

We could think about it,

and maybe the people were just so busy,

so caught up in the everyday hustle and bustle,

they just didn't have time to stop to listen.

Maybe the people had become so desensitized

in pop culture or through music,

they don't know how to appreciate transcendent music.

So they just walked right by.

Maybe people had become jaded.

They've seen so many mediocre buskers

in that exact same spot,

they assumed,

oh, just another busker,

and walked by.

We don't know what happened.

But you see,

what John's talking about here in this passage

is even more tragic than that.

Verses 9-11,

Because the true light,

which gives light to everyone,

the light of mankind,

it came into the world,

and when he was in the world,

the world was made through him,

yet the world did not know him.

The world that he himself created

did not recognize him.

And he came to his own people,

the people for his own possession,

people that he chose for himself,

and his own people did not receive him.

There are many people who continue to live

in ignorance of their maker.

It could be the same reasons.

Maybe they're just too busy

to hustle and bustle of life,

to stop and ponder eternal things.

Maybe they have become desensitized

to the pleasures of this world.

They don't recognize a true good,

eternal good and beauty when they see it.

Perhaps it's,

they've been jaded

to see so many religions,

so many people claiming to have the answer,

so many people claiming to be the savior,

that they have learned to tune these things out.

But I want to urge you this morning,

if you do not know God,

if you do not have a relationship with God,

don't leave this place today

until you consider the weight

of the claim of this passage,

that the maker,

the word,

became flesh,

became into the world.

verses 12 to 13 say this,

but to all who did receive him,

who believed in his name,

he gave the right

to become the children of God,

who were born not of blood,

nor of the will of the flesh,

nor of the will of man,

but of God.

The true light is offering himself to you.

Simply receive him

and believe in his name, right?

The name of someone

is not just the name

as we would talk about,

like Shakespeare would say,

oh, what's in the name?

A rose called by another name

would be smelled just as sweet, right?

But no,

in antiquity,

in the Bible times,

name stands for the whole personality

and character of the person.

So when he tells us

to believe in someone's name,

it's saying,

entrust yourself to that person.

Believe in that person.

And so Psalm 21, 20, verse 1 says,

May the name of God of Jacob

protect you, right?

Believe in the name of Christ.

And it is God who gives us

the right to become

the children of God, right?

We do not possess that right by default.

It is not our right

to claim for ourselves.

We do not deserve

to be saved by God.

We do not deserve

to be in his presence.

We do not deserve

to become the children of God.

But it is God himself,

he's the subject,

who gives us the right

to become the children of God

when we receive him,

when we believe him.

And this is,

no amount of human effort

can save us.

And that's what

the verse 13 is getting.

Not of blood,

nor of the will of the flesh,

nor of the will of man,

but of God.

Man and woman can get together,

they can procreate,

they can have babies, right?

But no biological process

can make us children of God.

Nothing do,

nothing that we do.

We can't become

children of God

through marriage,

we can't become

children of God

through procreation.

The only way

we can become

children of God

is by faith.

Receiving and believing

in this word,

the Son of God.

Now then,

we're asking at this point,

we have kind of

revealed it to you already,

but John had been

building this anticipation

up to this point.

He says,

so what's his name?

Tell me to believe his name.

Who is this person?

The word,

preexistent word

that came into the world,

the light of all mankind,

who is this person?

Verses 14 to 17

give us the answers.

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.

Jesus Christ

is his name.

The man that was born

as a baby

2,000 years ago,

the man that walked

the earth

2,000 years ago,

he is the word,

that preexistent

eternal word

made flesh.

And we can know God

and we can encounter God

precisely because

this word of God,

the self-disclosure

of God

became flesh

and dwelt

among us.

And that's a staggering

claim that we can

just,

because we hear it

maybe every Christmas season,

we forget

the importance of that

and how amazing

this is.

But think about

the word

became flesh.

The Greek philosophers

could not imagine

such a thing.

The word became

the flesh

that we can touch

and see

and hear

and this word

dwelled among us.

More literally translated,

that means he pitched

a tent among us.

And the tent

refers to the tabernacle,

the tent of meeting

in the Old Testament

during the time of Moses

where God's presence

dwelt

and where people

could come

to encounter God,

to meet with God.

And this tent,

that tent

in the Old Testament,

that tabernacle

was just a shadow

of the reality

and it was pointing

to Jesus Christ

who would come

as the word incarnate,

who would become

this word in flesh

that dwelled among us,

that pitched a tent

among us.

The implications

of this

are so wonderful.

The God

that we serve,

the God

that we have

is not

a distant God

like the gods

of Greek mythology

who dwell

in a distant mountain

somewhere

on Mount Olympus.

Rather,

this God we have

is a God

that came into the world.

He took on our flesh

and dwelled among us.

And because of that,

he knows all of our weaknesses

and he's experienced

all of our infirmities.

The king of all

knows what it's like

to feel a backache

after a hard day's work.

He had dirt

under his fingers.

The Lord of life

experienced grief

and indignation.

The creator

of all things

was rejected

by his creatures.

He became

like us

and dwelled

among us

so that

at no one

at any point

of their life

can say to him

and point his finger

at him and say,

you simply don't

understand.

No one

can say that

because this God

came to dwell

among us,

became flesh,

pitched his tent,

in our midst.

And because

the word

that was with God

and that word

that was God

became flesh

and dwelled among us,

verse 14 continues,

we have seen

his glory.

Glory as of the only

son from the father

full of grace

and truth.

See,

the glory that John

and the others saw

was of the only

son of the father.

You see,

in some way,

we could say that God

is the father

of all people

because he's

the creator,

right?

But no one

is a son

like Jesus Christ,

the word,

because he's made,

he's cut from the same

cloth,

he's of the same

nature as God

the father.

He's fully God

and yet he took on

flesh and he became

fully man.

And in so doing,

he didn't lose

his deity,

but became

simultaneously fully

God and fully man.

And for that reason,

because as a result

of that,

in all of history,

Jesus Christ

is the only God,

the only son

that can reveal

the fullness

of God's glory

to us.

And at the same time,

he is the only man

that can fully relate

to humanity.

That's our intermediary.

That's our God

and Savior,

Jesus Christ.

And verse 14

describes God's glory

more in detail.

He says that it was

full of grace

and truth.

Such a wonderful expression

that his glory

is full of grace

and truth.

And that's an allusion

to Exodus 33,

18 to 23.

Where Moses says to God,

please show me

your glory.

Right?

And then God replies,

I will make all my goodness

pass before you

and will proclaim

before you my name,

the Lord.

And I will be gracious

to whom I will be gracious

and will show mercy

on whom I will show mercy.

But you cannot see my face,

for man,

you shall not see me

and live.

Behold,

there is a place by me

where you shall stand

on the rock

and while my glory

passes by,

I will put you

in a cleft of the rock

and I will cover you

with my hand

until I pass by.

Then I will take away

my hand

and you shall see

my back,

but my face

shall not be seen.

Right?

And then later,

Exodus 34

recounts what actually

happened when God's glory,

his goodness,

passed by

in front of Moses.

It says,

the Lord descended

in the cloud

and stood with him there

and proclaimed

the name of the Lord.

You see the parallel.

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,

keeping steadfast love

for thousands,

forgiving iniquity

and transgression

and sin,

but who will by no means

clear the guilty,

visiting the iniquity

of the fathers

on the children

and the children's children

to the third

and the fourth generation.

Moses asks

to see God's glory

and God obliges

by letting his goodness

pass before him.

So sometimes,

a lot of times,

Christians talk about

God's glory,

but we don't really know

exactly what it is,

but the glory is referred,

it's a summary,

really summary attributes

of all of God's goodness.

And so when we glorify God,

we're displaying

that goodness

and we're saying,

we're appreciating

that goodness.

of God.

And so,

and how is this

described in this passage?

The two primary characteristics

of God's glory

from Exodus we learn

is steadfast love

and faithfulness.

And these two words

occur repeatedly

throughout the entire

Old Testament

to describe God.

And these two words,

the Hebrew word

translated into Greek

is what John

is getting at,

grace and truth.

Steadfast love

and faithfulness.

And steadfast love

means something like

loving kindness.

It refers to

a covenantal love.

And we have a hard time

understanding

what that's like

nowadays

because we see

very few examples

of covenantal love.

Rather,

we see contractual love.

We see love

as contract

rather than love

as covenant.

So,

a contract

at the heart of it

is the idea

of individual happiness

and fulfillment.

I will be

in this relationship

with you

and I will love you

as long as

you fulfill my needs

and as long as

you make me happy.

That's a contract

relationship.

Covenantal love,

which is what marriage

is supposed to be,

is at the heart of it

is constancy

and sacrifice.

The other person

is the center,

not oneself.

That's a covenantal

relationship.

That's why

in marriage vows,

traditionally we say,

I take you

to be my lawfully

wedded wife,

to have and to hold

from this day forward,

for better,

for worse,

for richer,

for poorer,

in sickness and health

until death

do us a part.

That's covenantal love.

Enduring love.

And that's why

often I find people

crying during the vows.

Because they,

it's moving

to think

someone would commit

to that,

to you.

Right?

But nowadays,

marriage is treated

more like a contract,

so people get divorced

for all kinds

of flimsy reasons.

Like,

oh,

I just don't love

that person anymore.

Oh,

we're just drifting apart.

Or that all-encompassing

but just vague phrase,

we have irreconcilable

differences.

In that kind of culture,

the marriage vow

should be,

I take you

to be my lawfully

wedded wife,

to have and to hold,

until you get poor,

sick,

or simply don't

make me happy.

Right?

Where is the love

in that?

Where is the covenant

in that?

But God's love

toward us

is not like that.

It's a covenantal love.

It's an enduring love.

It's a gracious love.

And that's the,

that's the concept

that the New Testament

idea of grace

also covers as well.

Grace means

unmerited favor.

It means that God

bestows his favor

on us

and he loves us

even though we

never deserved it.

We never merited it.

And for that reason,

there's nothing to be

gained by him

in loving us.

Rather he,

even though all we have

done is to besmirch

his glory

and spurn his approach,

yet he shows us

grace,

unmerited favor.

That's covenantal love,

steadfast love

God has toward us.

And faithfulness

or truth,

that's,

that's the other

twin attribute

of God's glory.

It means truth,

meaning that

not only what is

true to reality,

but also that God

is true to his character.

That he will never

do anything

that is contrary

to his character.

He is a holy God,

he is a just God,

and he will never

deviate from

his holiness

and his justice.

It's unchanging.

Unchanging,

he is stable,

he is firm,

he is faithful

and true.

That's what that means.

Read along in verses

16 to 17

what he says

about this grace.

For from his fullness,

this fullness of Christ,

we have all received

grace upon grace.

For the law was given

through Moses,

grace and truth

came through Jesus Christ.

This is not contrasting

the law

and the grace

and truth

that came through

Jesus Christ.

Whether it's saying

that the law

was one expression

of God's grace

and now we have

grace upon grace

that we perceive

that fulfills

that earlier grace

in Christ,

the grace and truth

of Christ.

And the Son of God,

Jesus Christ,

imperfectly embodies

the grace and truth,

the steadfast love

and faithfulness

of God.

Now,

up to this point,

we would have been

warranted in thinking

that this glory

that Christ has

was just blazing out

wherever he went.

Everybody could see it,

but that's actually

not the case

if we read through

the Gospel of John.

We see that a lot

of people don't see

this glory.

In fact,

Jesus reveals

this glory

a little bit at a time

through the signs

that he does.

So,

chapter 2,

verse 11 says

that Jesus Christ

performed signs

to manifest

his glory.

It's like an elementary

school experiment

that we do

of trying to look

at the sun

and stare at the sun.

You can't obviously

look directly at the sun

where we can permanently

damage our eyes

and become even blind

possibly.

So,

you poke a little hole

with a pencil

through an index card,

put it pointed at the sun.

You don't look

through the hole,

but you put another

index card

about three,

four feet down

and you look

at the reflection

and you can see

the sun.

That's actually

a great way

to absorb an eclipse

or whatever you want

to do.

So,

in that kind of a way,

Jesus reveals

his glory

in ways that we

can experience it

without,

because if we see

the face of God

like we read earlier,

we would perish.

His glory is that

blazing and consuming

and powerful.

So,

Jesus reveals

God's glory

through the signs

that he does.

But you see,

in the Gospel of John,

the signs and miracles

do show God's glory,

but the signs

are not the most

prominent place

where God's glory

is displayed.

The glory of the incarnation

is not confined

to the birth of Christ.

It is chiefly displayed

in the death

of Christ.

So,

John 12,

23 says,

the cross

is the place,

John 12,

the cross

is the place

where Christ

is glorified,

paradoxically.

When Christ

is lifted up

onto the cross,

he is lifted up

in the eyes

of the world,

in the eyes of God,

he is glorified.

That's what John

writes in the Gospel.

That's the climax

of Christ

and the display

of his glory.

And why is that?

Why is the cross

this death machine,

this execution,

why is that the place

where God's glory

is most displayed?

Because that's the place

where God's steadfast love,

his unmerited grace,

and his unyielding truth

toward fickle sinners

come together.

God's covenant love,

gracious love

toward sinners,

and God's faithfulness

to his character,

his holiness,

and justice

collide together

at the cross.

God is holy and just,

so he must punish

the rebels that we are,

the sinners that we are,

so he must uphold

his character,

he must be true

to his character,

he must be faithful

to his character,

yet God is merciful

and gracious,

and he longs

to forgive us

and to save us.

So the proverbial,

you know,

unstoppable force

here meets

an immovable object.

And what results

is this paradoxical beauty

of the cross of Christ,

where the fountain

of life thirsts,

where the beautiful king

of the universe

is treated like a slave,

where the Holy One

bears the sins

of the world,

where the healer

of the world

is wounded

for our sake,

where God,

the Lord of life,

dies,

so that we might live.

That, my friends,

is the gospel,

the good news

of Jesus Christ,

and that's why

it is on that cross

the glory of God,

the grace and truth

of God

are most brilliantly

displayed for us.

So let me remind you

with that truth,

what verse 12 to 13 said.

Do you know this God?

Not just that you've heard of Him.

Not just that you know about Him.

Do you know this God?

Do you know this Jesus Christ?

Did you receive Him?

Do you believe in Him?

That's the most important question

we have to answer

in this life.

So I urge you,

don't listen to this this morning

and then hurry off

as if nothing happened.

In order to know God,

we must believe in Jesus Christ

who is the ultimate disclosure

of God Himself.

Let's pray together.

God, we are amazed

that you would reveal

yourself to us.

We are amazed

that you would stoop down

to the squalor of sin,

the despair of death

to raise us up.

Thank you for offering

your Son to us.

Let us now believe,

receive,

and live in light

of this one.