And the Word Became Flesh...

Welcome to this week's message from the church at Chelsea Westover.

Our core values are vibrant worship, intimate fellowship, fulfilling service, and clear biblical truth.

We pray that this message changes your life.

Let's tune in to today's message and see what God has in store for you.

All right.

Well, I am very excited to be able to share with y'all what I believe God's put on my heart this morning.

As we do go into the holiday season, I guess you could call it, as we get to uh where we're going into Christmas, we we came home from a week um in South Carolina.

Last night we uh got in, or yesterday afternoon we got in um and were able to uh spend a week there with with Cassie's family.

We do that once a year.

We go and uh spend some time with her parents and her sister and siblings and things like that.

So uh but as we uh drove back in uh to our neighborhood that we've lived at for a couple of weeks now, um they're still learning where to turn and everything.

But as we drove back in, all of the trees along the side, there's a bunch of Bradford pear trees that are that line the neighborhood as we drive in, and they didn't have any leaves on them anymore.

And so we were like, oh my goodness, they're all gone.

And so, and then as we drive in, we start to see the people have decorated for Christmas, and then we think, oh my goodness, we've got to decorate for Christmas.

But then as as we start to see that all of the decorations, you start to you feel the little chill in the air.

And even this morning, for me, something about the overcast weather kind of reminds me of winter and Christmas time, as as you start to have shorter days and it's darker outside, and and you get kind of excited about that.

And so as I was starting to think about what I would share, what what would I uh if if God put something on my heart, what would I share with with this church body on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, as we make that transition from you know Turkey and dressing to to snowmen and Santa Claus and gifts and pretty trees and all of that.

And I started to think about the Nativity story.

I mean, of course, we all think about uh as we get closer to uh the holiday time, the the story of Christ.

And I'm really excited to hear um Pastor Danny's sermon on Mary Did You Know, and that's that's one of that's probably my favorite Christmas song uh by Mark Lowry.

If you haven't heard it, I'm sure you'll hear it over the course of this holiday season here at church.

Um but to think about the different the different gospels.

We we do have four gospels, as I'm sure most of you know, that we have Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

And in in school, they taught me that that was those are the synoptic gospels.

That most of those gospels are um, I think it's about 90% of those they share.

So for instance, Matthew tells a lot of the same stories that Mark and Luke did.

And those gospels were written a lot earlier.

They were written shortly after the time of Christ, somewhere between, most people say, between 8040 and 8070, something in that range that Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written.

But John, see, I like John.

You're about to see my bias.

John's my favorite gospel because I feel like John he fills in the blanks because he wrote his sometime between 8075 and 80 100.

So I feel like he let Matthew, Mark, and Luke kind of tell their part of the story.

And um what was that uh that old news broadcaster?

I remember I was a broadcast communication.

Was it him?

And here's the rest of the story.

That's what he used to say.

Paul Harvey, yes.

I couldn't remember who they taught me in in school, but with broadcast communication.

I just remember they said, and that was the guy that said, and here's the rest of the story.

And I feel like that's what John does, because 90% of his gospel is unique.

He tells very little about what the rest of them did, and even the parts that he did share the same story, he put his different spin on it.

And so I really like the Gospel of John because of this way that he tells his nativity story, the way that he starts it off.

Because it's not the same.

It doesn't talk about, uh, for instance, Matthew does the genealogy and he starts to lay out the proof that Jesus was from the line of David, just like he had to be to fulfill prophecy.

And then as we go a little bit further, uh, we all know that Luke, I know at our house, it as I was growing up, that's what was one of our traditions was that on Christmas Eve, my mom was going to read a Christmas book.

Most of the time it was Gift of the Magi.

I think that was her favorite.

And so she would read that.

And then my dad would read from the Bible, from Luke, the story of the Nativity.

And Luke does that.

Luke lays out very um detailed explanation of the birth of Jesus, um, them going, the innkeeper, you know, all the stuff that you know about the nativity.

And Luke tells that, but John takes this completely different approach.

And so we're gonna start today.

We're going to uh jump in, we're gonna read the first what I like to do is I I like to read through the first the verses that we're gonna preach, and then we're just gonna kind of digest them a little bit.

Um, so we're gonna start in John 1 1, just right at the beginning of the book of John, and we're just gonna read through these verses today.

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 not anything was made.

In him was life, and the life was the light of the men.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness is 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, and all might believe through him.

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

The true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made through him.

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

John bore witness about him, cried out, This is was he of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.

And 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.

Let us pray.

God, I pray that you would use your words.

We're about to talk about your word, the word.

God, I pray that you would use the words that you've put in my heart to bless us, to enlighten us.

God, I pray that you would open the eyes of our hearts and we may be enlightened and we may truly hear what you want us to hear this morning.

God, we love you and we thank you.

In your since precious name, I pray.

Amen.

All right.

We're gonna we're gonna skip through the obvious here.

Who is the word?

Jesus is the word.

Okay, so we're gonna talk about who Jesus is.

That's what this is, that's what this is.

That's what John's first chapter was.

He wanted to tell us who Jesus was.

Just like Luke wanted to tell us, okay, Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, and the angels came in the highest, and they sang, and the shepherds were like, whoa, we got to go see this Jesus.

And so they ran off to see Jesus.

And then a couple of years later, the wise men came and they were presenting these gifts before Jesus, and everybody that's who he was.

They were telling about the birth of Jesus.

Just like if at this point I would tell of the birth of James or Jude in the next couple of years.

I'm telling who they are by telling who what their life is.

And so that's the same thing that Matthew did.

Matthew told who Jesus was.

Jesus was of the line of David, which is very important to fulfill the prophecies.

And so as he went through this, John took a different spin.

John said, Well, they've covered who he was from the line of David, and they've covered the angels, and they've covered the story of John the Baptist, and they've covered all these things, but here's the rest of the story.

And he starts to dive into this.

In the beginning was the word.

And you'll notice in your Bible there, more than likely, the word, word, the word, word, is capitalized.

And it's because that's the Greek letter, the Greek word for Lagos.

I remember when I first told Pastor Danny what I was planning on preaching on from John 1.1, he said, in the beginning was Lagos.

And it's because that word is word.

But what John did here was so neat because he didn't take this, he didn't take this different approach to word.

He took kind of a poetic and very theological way.

Because you see, what what God's word is effective.

When God speaks, things come to life.

We see that in Genesis 1:1.

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning was God.

In the beginning, and God created the heavens and the earth.

So he spoke, and things came to life.

So what we see is that when God speaks, things come into being.

And by his speech, we see here, with in the beginning was the Lagos, He has this personal connection with His people.

Because you see, with with our beliefs and our faith, that's different than any other thing.

Because one, we have a living and active God.

And two, our God has a personal relationship with us.

Because God speaks to us, we have this intimate and personal relationship with Him.

And so it's important that we see that that when He speaks, things come into being.

But when we have this personal connection with Him.

So we're going to look at, we've got three questions today that we're going to dive into.

And I've skipped ahead a little bit.

We've got three questions.

Who was the Word?

We've got the question of what does the Word do?

And how do we respond to the Word?

So let's dive right into that first question.

Who is the Word?

Right there at the beginning.

The first, your first blank, He is eternal.

The Word is eternal.

And we see that, just like we saw, in the beginning was the Word.

Those are the same characters that you will find at the beginning of the Bible.

Right here at the beginning of John, it's the same in Genesis 1.1.

In the beginning.

Which implies, because the beginning, there was nothing before that.

Correct?

I mean, it's it's a little bit hard.

There was nothing before the beginning.

So in the beginning was the word.

He's eternal, just like God is eternal.

He operates outside of this time that we've created.

But one of the things my mother-in-law gave me for Christmas, just as we celebrated this past week, was a watch.

And it's it's kind of different getting used to a watch on your wrist again, but I hadn't had one in a long time, but it got so cumbersome trying to find where my phone was all the time.

Now I'm probably gonna lose my phone.

But because I won't have a that's what I use for my watch.

But it's kind of cumbersome, but it's nice at the same time to be able to, oh yeah, okay, okay.

And I kept doing that as we were driving back, and kids are screaming in the backseat and going, oh my goodness, are we ever gonna make it back?

Because we've got this thing of time.

And even going, James, oh, when are we gonna be there?

Oh, when are we gonna be there?

Oh, when are we gonna be there?

And I'm thinking, buddy, I don't know, but it's not quick enough.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

It's six hours, and we're at like 5.55 now.

So we're gonna be there soon.

Um, so but but we've got this thing that we've created of this time, and Jesus has always been, and he always will be.

Look at this, uh look at Revelation 1.4.

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come.

He is present, he was past tense, and he is to come future.

There's no other gaps there.

We've covered the basis that he was, he is, and he is to come.

There's no gaps there.

You you see that, right?

We have covered it.

We've covered the spectrum.

There's no other blanks where, oh, well, he wasn't here.

Oh, okay.

Well, we we found a spot.

There's nothing there.

It's completely timeless.

He's eternal.

And let me show you where that's that's in important here.

Isaiah 40 in verse 8.

The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of God will stand forever.

There's nothing that will ever overtake the word.

Nothing can overtake the word.

Because in the beginning was the word.

And if he's in the beginning, he was and he is and he is to come.

And because of those things, he cannot be overtaken, because we see that truth in Isaiah 48.

The grass withers and the flowers fade, but that's one of the things I'm trying to teach the youth when we dive into these scriptures on Wednesday night.

You got to look at things like the articles and the conjunctions and uh one of the things.

Let's see if they do it.

When you run into therefore, what do you do?

What's the therefore therefore?

Those type things.

What is the therefore therefore?

But when you see but it's the opposite.

The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of the Lord will stand forever.

And who do we see is the word?

Jesus.

Amen.

Look at the next uh the next point there.

He is in fellowship.

He is in fellowship.

Look there.

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

Now that's that's you know, in our in our Christian circles, we can kind of get into that.

The word was with God.

What does that mean to be with God?

And as you start to look, that that fellowship, he's in constant fellowship.

And the first thing, I'm I'm a big movie lover.

Is anybody else movie lovers?

I'm a big movie lover.

I just it's just how God made me, I guess.

I love movies.

But the first thing that popped in my head was from the uh the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Anyone familiar?

I know it's a book first, but come on.

I mean, let's be honest.

It's a movie.

It's a better movie than book.

Actually, it's not.

I I've read the books too.

But the fellowship of the ring was the first part of that book, or that that group of books that Tolkien wrote.

And so the Fellowship of the Ring, and I started to think about how was that group of people, you know, the it was an elf and a man and a dwarf and a wizard and four hobbits, and they they've all come together, even though there was there was a lot of hatred between their different groups, there was tension, there was pride, there were all of these things, but they came together to be this one group around that ring.

It was a very distinct relationship that they had.

And so when you look at this word, this fellowship, that the word was with God, there's this distinct personality that you see between Christ, the Word, and God.

There's this interesting connection that comes.

But what we don't want to miss is that there's that connection and that fellowship that he desires with us, too.

See, we're not outside of the fellowship.

It's not this click, it's this distinct relationship and personality that he desires with each one of us just like he had it with his son.

Because see, he wants that, he desires that.

And if we miss that, if we miss that, that in the beginning was the word, the word was with God.

Look at first John 1 1 through 3.

1 John 1 1 through 3.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life.

The life was manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim it to you the eternal life which was with the Father, and he made manifest to us.

That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.

So you see that we're brought into that fellowship.

That there's it's already there because we see the word was with God.

There is a fellowship there, but based on this in John 1 or 1 John, we're brought into that, and we're a part of that distinct relationship that God has with the Son.

First Corinthians 8, 6.

Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom we all things, and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things, and though whom we exist.

We exist because of Christ.

Just like we just saw, that in the beginning was the word.

We are created through him, and by him, and for him.

The last part of that first verse.

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

He is God.

And it is imperative that we do not miss that point.

Because in order for him to be Savior, he had to be God.

Because for for someone to come and just give their life as a ransom, that's not the way that it worked.

Because what what in in the uh the Old Testament, when it got to the point when it was the uh the day of atonement, and we had to actually uh bring a you had to judge your sins.

How good were you the past year?

And you had to decide, okay, this year I was pretty bad, so I'm gonna have to bring a goat this year.

And I was pretty good, so I think I'll bring a quail this year.

But it had to be a perfect item.

It had to be a spotless lamb.

You couldn't bring the lamb that, oh well, we can't use that wool anyways, because it's kind of it's kind of spotty and ratty, and we just don't really want to use that.

It couldn't be the the sheep that you're like, oh yeah, yeah, that one broke its leg last year.

Now we're gonna have to keep up with that.

So it had to be a perfect offering.

We see that even all the way back to uh the story of Cain and Abel.

The one brought their best and one brought the leftovers.

And we see that as we come through, that we we have to recognize it had to be perfect.

So it couldn't just be anybody, it had to be a perfect body.

It had to be Christ, it had to be God.

Because we're incapable.

We're incapable of living this perfect life.

And so for us to just say, well, this could have been anybody to come and just ransom us from our sins, it just had to be a person.

It had to be a person.

No, it had to be a perfect person.

And for there to be a perfect person, it had to be God.

Because none is good, no, not one.

Only God is good.

And so for us to do that, there's two verses in Colossians.

That's my favorite epistle.

You're all just getting a lot of my favorite stuff.

But Colossians 2.9, for in him the whole fullness of the deity dwells bodily.

Colossians 1.19.

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

Was pleased to dwell.

So you see, we've got we've got this man, this body, this person, and the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in him.

You see, it was God.

And it wasn't because it we, oh, we think it probably should be, or well, it has to be that way.

It was pleased to be that way.

And that's connection was with us.

Because in order for this whole atonement story to happen, for this great picture that God was painting, for that to come to pass, it had to be that way.

So God was pleased to put his holiness, his perfection, in a man, so that we could have that atonement, that we could have that grace.

He is unchanging.

Man, I wish I was unchanging.

Sometimes I need to change and I don't.

He is unchanging.

Look at John 1 2.

The next verse.

He was in the beginning with God.

He was in the beginning with God.

He does not change.

Hebrews 13 8.

Do you know it?

I know you know it.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

He does not change.

Malachi 3.6, for I do not change, declares the Lord.

I do not change.

His promises are the same yesterday, today, and forever.

He does not change.

So the same little infant that was born, as we enter the Christmas season and you see the little, in our house, the little willow tree nativity set with the little baby that's curled up in Mary's arms.

He didn't change.

He was the same from the creation of the world to that little infant to the man that was hanging on the cross.

He was the same.

He is the same.

Don't you wish you could ever not change?

Like get back to my weight when I was playing baseball and running high school track.

That'd be nice.

That'd be real nice.

Don't get mad.

There's like five or six gray hairs that are showing up over here.

And I'm thinking, what in the world?

What is that?

I thought I was supposed to still be.

I don't know.

It's it's kind of going away quick.

At least you have some.

At least I've got some still.

You're right.

At least I do still have some.

That's that's Thanksgiving.

That's thankfulness.

Yeah.

Um but but you see, God doesn't change.

So all of these things that we see in our life, in our own personalities, in our own spiritual walks that we wish that we either could or wouldn't change.

See, all of that perfection never changes.

Because he is the same yesterday and today and forever.

He's creator.

He's creator, just like we talked about before, that God's word is effective.

When he speaks, things come into being.

Look at there at verse 3.

All things were made through him, and without him was not anything that was made.

Nothing is made without God.

Nothing is made without Christ.

Amen.

Look at Psalm 33, 6.

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and the breath of his mouth all their host.

Colossians 1, 15 and 16, there's Colossian again.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him, and don't miss this word, and for him.

They were made through him.

Yes, we know he is creator, but why were we created?

We are created for him.

Just like all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell for us.

You see here, all things were created for him.

And why is that reason?

He is life.

He is life.

In him was life.

And the life was the light of men.

He creates life.

We know he creates things.

He created the heavens and the earth.

He separated the oceans.

But when he took the dust from the earth, it says that he breathed life into his lungs.

He created life.

Now we can see that as even Cassie is expecting.

And we'll go next week to do another ultrasound and find out the gender.

And we're excited as we come up on Christmas and see that.

But that's life.

But think about the life he creates right here.

That he's created in this room, that he's created in your heart and in my heart.

That he breathed life.

Don't steal my thunder, dear.

Because when he does create that life, he gives us life.

But he gives us life more abundant.

More abundant life.

I love the way that Mark Lowry says that.

He said, if I had to describe what abundant would mean, it wouldn't be uh the Christian life wouldn't be uh exciting or or sad or depressing or or energizing or or passionate, he said, even though it's been all of those things.

He said, I think I would describe it as interesting.

You start to think, interesting.

You know, that's I mean, he's a comedian.

That's kind of funny how he would say that word.

When you think about it, it is.

Who wants a boring life?

Who wants to just do the same thing every single day?

I mean, I'm I'm not gonna tread in these waters too long because that's just not who I am.

But that football game last night was interesting.

It was.

It wasn't boring.

That's what I'm telling.

I that's what I told my parents when they got here.

I was like, that's it's not a it's not a um it a couple of years ago, Alabama football was just it was fun to watch because we were just blowing everybody out of the water.

But it got to the point where it was just kind of like uh, okay, change the channel.

Man, I wasn't changing no channel last night.

That was fun to watch.

It was a fun football game, just like the Florida State game.

Man, I was hoping they'd get beat.

But as you're watching these games, nobody wants to watch something that's boring.

You want to do something that's interesting, that's exciting.

And that's what we have with this life in Christ, this life that he's giving us.

It's life, but life more abundant.

Look, Psalm 107, 20.

He sent out his word and healed them, and he delivered them from their destruction.

John, uh 1 John 5, 11 and 12.

And this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life, and this life in his son.

Whoever has the son has life.

Whoever does not have the son of God does not have life.

It's an either-or.

It's not a it's not a you get to kind of pick.

If you have the son, you have life.

If you don't, you don't have life.

There's no gray area here.

It's black and white.

Very easy to tell the difference.

He laid it out right there.

In this last part, we're going to skip to John 1 14.

And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

And we have seen his glory, and the glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

He is man.

That's the part that we focused on here at Christmas, that he is man.

He came as a little baby and was born.

He breathed life into his lungs.

They had to cut the umbilical cord.

He had a belly button.

He cried.

I know we we always sing silent night, and somebody I heard somebody say one time, I'm pretty sure that wasn't a silent night.

No, it probably wasn't.

I've been home with two newborns before.

It was not a silent night.

I don't know who was maybe they maybe they weren't a parent yet or something.

I don't know.

But but when you hear silent night, it wasn't.

He cried.

You know that there were times when when he he tripped coming in the front door of the house and he scuffed his knee.

And he needed, he needed a mom or a dad to kiss it, make it feel better.

No, I mean he he had he had issues.

I'm sure that there were there were times as he was growing up that somebody said something that might have hurt his feelings.

Made fun of his hair.

I mean, it was these different things that happened.

We even see when Lazarus died, the shortest book, the shortest book, the shortest verse in the Bible, that Jesus wept.

He cried.

He was sad.

His friend died.

He was upset about it.

He was a man.

Philippians 2, 6 through 7.

Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God, a thing to be grasped.

But he emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men.

A servant.

The same one that was there in the beginning, that breathed life into Adam's lungs, that spoke the moon and the stars into existence.

Became a servant in the form of a man.

And why?

What does the word do?

The word gives light.

1 John 1 9.

Or I'm sorry, John 1 9.

The true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world.

Was coming.

1 John 1 5 through 7.

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

When we were driving down 20, we left after church last week.

And so by the time we got home and got stuff loaded up and everybody in car seats and all that stuff, it was about Atlanta and it was starting to get dark.

And I don't know if you've ever been down 20 past Atlanta.

Anybody that travels.

It is a big stretch of nothing.

The only thing you pass is the exit to go to Athens.

You don't even pass Athens, you just pass the exit to go to Athens.

And it's just a whole lot of nothing.

And so that was the first time in a long time we've ever driven that stretch when it was dark.

And I mean, I'm talking dark.

Georgia Power doesn't even put streetlights out there, it's just dark.

And so as you're driving and you've got your headlights on, and you there weren't a lot of people on the road that night.

But you could see for just nothing.

But then you see the headlights of the car kind of shooting out there.

And it reminded me of that commercial.

I don't know if I don't even know what the commercial is.

It's probably some eye drops or something.

But that one that says that the human eyes can see a candle like 10 football fields away or something like that.

Isn't that unbelievable?

I don't know if that's more of a credit to light or our eyesight.

But think about that.

Because when light exists, even from that far away, when light exists, it cuts through the darkness.

Darkness cannot exist when light is present.

It can't.

The definition of darkness is the absence of light.

It's not when there's only a little bit of light, or you know, there's still some there, but it's kind of sorta.

It's darkness is the absence of light.

When you're absent from school, you're not there.

You're not kind of there.

You're just not there.

When you call into work, you're not not there.

Darkness is the absence of light.

So look what we have there.

This applies to our hearts too.

Our hearts are dark, they're black.

But when Jesus comes in, the light of men, he overtakes that darkness.

Because what is the definition of darkness?

The absence of light.

So when light's there, what do you have no more?

Darkness.

There's no more darkness when light is present.

So when Jesus, the light of men, comes into our hearts, that's what we have.

So we have light.

And when you have the Son of God, you have life.

The word adopts.

See what kind of love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are.

So as we're living our life, as we're going through our steps and our our lives and our work, our school, our families, our jobs, whatever the case is, that as we're there, we're the presence of light.

And where there is light, darkness can't exist.

Darkness will always be cut by light.

The word adopts.

We see that we we are adopted children of God.

We've known a few people in our life that have adopted.

And it's so much fun to see kind of that that progression.

We had a family at our um at our firm former church in Kalera that they went, and it was actually about this time last year that they were there.

I know y'all were probably even praying for them as well, because um I know for a time Samantha was over there helping with their other two um kids as they were trying to go through the adoption process in Ukraine.

And it was just so much turmoil and so much all of that stuff.

But I remember one of the things that um that Ronnie, he had to come back at one point.

And there was some issues with the different paperwork, and Ronnie's job told him, hey, you got to come back, or you're not gonna have a job waiting on you.

And so he had to come back until he waited on those final papers to be signed.

But I remember I'll never forget what somebody told us that Julia said.

And as they were going through that process and all the turmoil and everything, she looked at Ronnie and she said, I'm not leaving without my daughter.

She said, I'm not going anywhere without my daughter.

See, that's the same type of love, that's the same type of care.

That God looks at us and asks, He said, I'm not leaving without my kids.

There's no way I'm going anywhere without them.

And they adopted, he adopted us.

He chose us.

They went over there to the Ukraine and they picked out Eliana and they said, You're ours.

You're ours.

And I'm not going anywhere without you.

See, that's what he did for us.

He took us.

He said, I'm not going anywhere without you.

You're coming with me.

It doesn't matter how bad it gets, it doesn't matter how ugly it gets, you're coming with me.

John 1 14.

And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory.

Glory as of the Son, from the Father, full of grace and truth.

I want to read you a little excerpt before we dive any further than that from Exodus, all the way in Exodus 33.

For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, and I and your people?

It is not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, and I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth.

And the Lord said to Moses, This very thing that you have spoken, I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.

Moses said, Please show me your glory.

And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim before you my name, the Lord, and I will be gracious to you, to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

But he said, You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.

And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by, I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.

Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.

His glory is everywhere.

That's why I asked Benji if he would sing that song for us.

Um Your Grace Finds Me.

So I heard that last last week on the way to church, I think, is when I heard it.

I was already thinking and preparing for this message, and I was thinking, that's what it is.

His grace is everywhere, his glory is everywhere.

In a newborn's cry, at the weeping of a grave, at a wedding, in the mountains, in the valleys.

His grace finds us because his glory is everywhere.

We can see Christ in everything.

This word gives us grace.

Paul, will you put the lyrics of your grace finds me back up there?

Sorry to throw a curveball on you on your first day.

It's there in the newborn cry.

There in the light of every sunshine.

It's there in the shadows of this life.

Your great grace.

It's there on the mountaintop.

It's there in the everyday and the mundane.

It's there in the sorrow and the dancing.

Your great grace.

It's there from or it's there on the wedding day.

It's there in the weeping at the graveside.

It's there in the very breath we breathe.

It's the same for the rich and the poor.

It's the same for the saint and the sinner.

And it's enough for the whole wide world.

Your great grace.

From the creation to the cross.

From the cross into eternity.

It's everywhere.

It's everywhere.

It's his grace.

It finds us.

His grace finds us.

Look at Ephesians 1, 4 through 6.

Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love, he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

So what do we do with that?

It's his grace.

His grace finds us, his grace is there.

Look at John 1.18.

No one has ever seen God.

The only God who is at the Father's side.

No one has ever seen God.

And look there.

Are the youth paying attention to that?

What's right after that?

Tyler, tell me what's right after that.

No one has ever seen God.

It's a semicolon.

It's a semicolon, which means what?

We talked about this a couple weeks ago.

You break the sentence up, you start a new sentence.

No one has ever seen God and go to the New sentence.

The only God who is at the Father's side has made him known.

That's the Nativity story.

It's that we've got this story of grace and of truth and who Jesus was.

But look at that last part because it's about to go into the story of John the Baptist.

We're done with the Nativity story.

The only God who is at the Father's side, He has made Him known.

Comes right after no one has ever seen God.

No one's ever seen God.

No one's ever seen God.

But that God has made him known.

So what's our response?

What's our response?

He's made him known.

He's here.

He's made him known.

He's introduced you.

We're one of the things that we've been trying to teach James is that he's he's more of he's he's shy.

He's more of, I know you wouldn't believe it, some of you definitely wouldn't.

Um he's definitely come out of his shell, but there for a while, he was very shy.

He didn't, he didn't he didn't like even even seeing some of Cassie's family that he hadn't seen in you know a year, 18 months, it was it was hard for him because he was kind of in the shell.

He didn't really want to, when you walk into a house with 30 people and they're oh, you know, he was shy, he was reserved.

But we've been trying to tell him, you know, when somebody talks to you, when somebody speaks to you, you speak back, you respond to them.

You know, that's that's rude.

I mean, you don't have to do a lot, but you know, shake their hand, give them a five, smile, wave, say, don't not acknowledge them.

Say something to them.

So, in that same way, when somebody has made themselves known to you, you've got to respond.

You respond in one way or the other.

So, with that being said, just a couple of chapters later, from where we are right now, most popular verse in all the Bible.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.

And whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

That's it.

You can't you can't get any more basic than that.

He's made himself known.

So how are you going to respond?

Thanks again for tuning into this week's message.

We pray that your life has been changed.

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