Emmanuel | The Christmas Revelation (December 22nd, 2019) - Mike Armstrong

If you would be so great to grab uh your copy of God's word and uh get it open uh to John uh chapter one.

John chapter one, uh the first 18 verses you see there is where uh we are going to spend our time uh here this morning uh together.

Now um obviously uh one of the uh greatest things about uh the Christmas season is all the food that we get to eat this time of year.

Uh can I get an amen, right?

It is uh a glorious time of year for that alone, it seems.

And uh, you know, just uh last night actually, uh my family on my dad's side got together and uh the spread uh was obscene.

I think that's probably a good uh way of putting it.

Uh it was crazy how much food there was.

Well, I don't know if you would agree with me on this, but in my mind, uh one of the most uh criminally underrated uh food items that's sure to make an appearance at maybe a Christmas party, clearly it could be at any party, uh, is the three-layer dip.

I don't know if you're a fan of this.

I think I feel like I just heard a gross.

Uh we have nothing in common, whoever said that.

Um but uh you know the three-layer dip is, I mean, there's lots of different versions of this, but you know, you've got your kind of base layer of like it's like cream cheese, right?

Do people do like a cream cheese sour cream mix?

I don't know, that sounds weird to me, but I think that's what happens.

And then you've got usually like salsa, and then there's there's like pepper jack cheese or whatever over top of that.

I know you can put onions and tomatoes and all kinds uh of stuff like that on there.

Well, uh, just for fun, uh, this week I decided to do some very important research uh online uh to see like how far does this go?

Like how many layers of dip uh have people made?

So I started to kind of just plug numbers into the Google machine, right?

I was like, is there a seven layer dip?

Well, of course there's a seven layer dip.

And I just started adding eight, you know, nine is do we have a thirteen, right?

And I got all the way to the point where I think we got a picture of this, right?

Can we throw this up here?

This is the 35 layer taco dip, right?

This guy, the creator of this, is playing chess, right?

We're all playing checkers.

Um, this is crazy, this this dip.

I mean, absolutely wild.

And um, I don't think I would ever even really want to try that, to be perfectly honest.

Uh, that's a little bit too rich for me.

But uh now you are wondering, like, why are we talking about this?

Right?

Like, where is this guy going?

And you're right to wonder that.

Um, but it's um it's really because as you begin to delve into the the Christmas story is and what that's all about, you uh start to kind of gain this understanding that, well, there are a lot of layers to it.

Right, there's a lot of layers to the story, a lot of implications.

You know, sure, on one hand, you're like, yeah, it's about, you know, it's about a baby being born uh to a young Jewish uh couple.

But then as you, you know, kind of read on and you study and you hear some things about it, uh, you realize, okay, hang on, this is no uh ordinary birth, right?

With the scriptures tell us it was uh it was a virgin birth.

And then you start to kind of realize, well, you know, this is no ordinary baby, okay?

This is this is the son of God that we're talking about here, and you start wondering, like, well, what's what's that all about?

There's a lot to unpack with that.

And then and then you kind of have to ask yourself the question, you know, why is he here?

Like, what is he doing here?

You know, where where is this all headed?

What is the what is the point of all of this?

Okay, again, there's a lot of layers to unpack here when it comes to the Christmas story.

Well, John uh chapter one, the first 18 verses, it feels a little to me uh like that 35-layer taco dip, okay?

And that there is a lot going on here in the text when it comes to Christ entering his creation.

Okay, the Christmas story is obviously far more than simply about a child being born, right?

It's it's God revealing something uh truly glorious that has, again, the these eternal implications for every human he has ever made.

Okay, so this morning, uh what we're gonna do here is we're gonna dig in a little bit into uh some of these layers as we see them here in these verses and really see what the Christmas story reveals about our God and his plan for the world.

And so I'm looking forward to this.

We're gonna get into it here in just a second, but why don't you join me first and we'll just commit this time uh to the Lord.

God, we come before you now, and uh Lord, we're uh so thrilled to be able to celebrate uh the coming of our King.

Lord, we've sung about that.

We've even sung about what you would come to do.

You would come and die on the cross and pay the price that our sins deserve.

You would die the death that we deserve.

And Lord, you would do that as our substitute, Lord, you would do that in our place so that your act uh would satisfy the demands of God, Lord, and that through faith in you uh we could be made right with our uh Heavenly Father.

And so, God, we rejoice in these things, and as we start to dig into them a little bit here this morning, Father, I pray uh that you would teach us, that you would encourage us, that you would instruct our hearts, Lord.

I pray uh that as we uh open up your word as we do uh every week, God, that we would start to see and begin to take more ground in our hearts and just how awesome you are, Lord.

I pray that we would realize that uh we need you so desperately, Lord.

And I pray that as we open up your word, Lord, our hearts would be humble and we would invite you to be our power and our strength.

Lord, I pray that you would move, you would work, you would save.

I pray that you would do that here today.

We pray all this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

So, in your notes here this morning, uh the Christmas story uh is the revelation of, well, a lot of things, right?

There's a lot of layers to this again.

Well, here's the first one uh that our Savior is God.

It's the revelation of that.

Now, personally, uh, I find our passage today to be uh one of the most uh theologically rich or or dense, if you will, weighty uh parts of the entire Bible.

I just find it to be that.

And uh I think we see uh that here in this uh first verse alone.

Take a look at it with me.

Uh it says here, uh in the beginning uh was the word.

In the beginning was the word.

Now, uh what's that about?

Okay, what's what's going on there?

Well, you see the word there, word.

Okay, you see it, it's capitalized, right?

It's the Greek word uh logos, okay, which means uh literally uh a thing uttered.

Okay, a thing uttered, that's what the word means.

Okay, so logos was a word uh commonly used uh in Greek literature by you know the Stoics and their philosophers as they you know tried to understand the kind of the origins of the created world, and uh and the Jews uh were very familiar with this word as well.

All right, they knew uh that by God's spoken word, okay, uh by his uttered word, the the universe itself was created.

Right?

They knew that.

And of course, uh we see all of that in Genesis uh chapter one, if you want to jot that down.

Okay, the Jews, on top of that, they understood that uh by God's word, he gave them the law, right?

And we know that uh as well.

He gave them the law uh through Moses, and it was written on uh the two stone tablets on uh on Mount Sinai.

Okay, there were also the Jews, they were very well aware of how God revealed himself and his will for their nations uh to the prophets.

Okay, we see all of that throughout uh the Old Testament.

Right now, here in verse one, when you see the word, okay, and it's capitalized, uh it is referring to the person of Jesus Christ.

Okay, meaning that Jesus is the He's the He's the living word of God.

Okay, He's God's word, He's God's message, God's will, God's God's revelation personified.

Okay?

Now, if we were unsure about that, if you're looking at that and you're like, are we sure that that's you know talking about Jesus?

How do we really know that?

Well, if you want to jump down to verse 14, it makes it abundantly clear when John says there, you see it, the word became flesh.

Okay, so it's clearly speaking uh about a person, and that person uh is Jesus Christ.

Okay, so John is saying here and and helping his his largely Gentile uh readers understand that that Jesus, okay, the person of Jesus is God's ultimate expression, right?

His word, you know, his complete revelation of God's message to all mankind.

Okay, Jesus is the word.

Now, if you look at the verse again, it says there, it says, in the beginning was the word, okay, and the word was with God, and then the word, notice, was God.

Man, you notice how there's just like there is a ton like jammed into that one sentence alone, right?

There's a lot.

Okay?

Now it's telling us that that in the in the very beginning uh was the word.

In the very beginning of time and and space and matter, which again gets our minds thinking back to, you know, what part in the Bible gets us thinking back to Genesis chapter one, right?

In the beginning, when God created everything.

It's a it says there at the very beginning of all of that, the word, okay, who we have established is is Jesus.

Uh he already existed.

He already existed, he already was.

In the beginning was the word, it says.

Okay, so Jesus, he's not he's not some created being, as some would have you uh try and understand, right?

The Jehovah's Witnesses are known for kind of taking this passage here and basically putting it into a blender, right?

Kind of rearranging words and kind of adding a couple of words here to make it sound like like Jesus was actually a created uh being.

We'll see even more about that and kind of speak to that here uh in just a moment, okay?

But but Jesus was not created.

Okay, rather he just always was.

Okay, that's the word we see there.

Okay, but if you keep going, again, just in that one line, then it says that he was with God.

Okay, so he was there from the beginning, in the beginning, and he was with God, which which gives us uh just a taste or just uh just a little bit of a glimpse into how our God is triune.

Okay, the doctrine of the Trinity is something uh that is revealed in the scriptures kind of progressively, it kind of gradually lets us in on what that is all about.

Okay, and so here though, we see uh two of the three uh distinct persons within the Godhead mentioned.

Okay, we see uh the Father and the Son.

Okay, but then notice it says that the Word, again, Jesus, uh was God.

Again, you see the layers to all of this in just one verse.

Okay, so when it tells us that Jesus um you know actually was God or is God, it again reveals another really critical part of the doctrine of the Trinity.

Okay, that being that each member of the Trinity is fully God, right?

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Okay, and then you combine that knowledge with what we know from a verse like Deuteronomy, uh Deuteronomy 6, verse 4, which says that God is one.

Deuteronomy 6:4

Right?

That's why we say that that that we call that's why we call God, we call the Trinity the the three and one.

Okay, when you when you kind of take all that, you come away from all of this with the understanding that our Savior, okay, Jesus Christ, the Word, already there in the beginning, existing with God the Father, actually is God Himself.

Right?

It says that the Word was God.

So, hey, do you think of your Savior as God?

Do you think of him like that?

You might be like, oh, that's kind of a weird question.

Of course I do.

Well, the reality is, of course, whether you do or not, he is.

Okay, because Jesus, he's not, he's not less than that, that's for sure.

He wasn't, you know, God's you know, cosmic errand boy, you know, as though he were, you know, some lesser being that was, you know, who was assigned a task to go and carry out.

Okay, he wasn't merely, you know, a good teacher, and that's all, you know, as as some uh have said, or or really any other lesser description that people have given him and placed on him over the centuries, right?

No, he was positively God.

I really like how simply um one theologian put it when referring to the nature of Jesus, he said, What God was, the word also was.

I love that.

So clear and so simple.

Okay, now verse two, right?

Crazy to think that we've only just worked our way through uh one verse already.

Don't worry, I'm gonna put the pedal to the floor here and we're gonna pick up the pace.

But here's what it says in verse two, follow along.

It says, He was in the beginning with God, all right?

So some repetition there for emphasis, but it also kind of gives you this sense and this idea of the intimacy of relationship that existed between the Father and the Son.

The thrust of the original language here carries the idea that they were in face-to-face kind of close-knit communion together, which is pretty amazing when you think about the salvation that we are extended through Jesus Christ and how we are invited to partake in this close-knit relationship with our Heavenly Father when we trust in Jesus Christ by faith.

We're invited into that, into that communion with him.

I mean, that is so amazing.

You know, verse 3.

Verse 3 says, All things were made through him, that's Jesus, and without him was not anything made that was made.

Okay, so this is saying that that Jesus, in no uncertain terms, he is the creator of all things.

Now you might be thinking, well, wait a second, isn't isn't God the creator?

Yes, yes, he is, right?

Jesus is God, right?

And all of this really lines up with what we see elsewhere in the scriptures.

I always think of Colossians chapter 1.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

We're gonna have this on the screen right here.

This is verses 15 and 16.

It says, He, this is Jesus again, right?

He is the image of the invisible God.

Okay, the firstborn of all creation.

You know, that's another verse right there where you know the the Jehovah's Witnesses like they like to kind of pounce all over that and they're like, aha! See, there it is.

He's he's created, he's he was born, right?

Firstborn over all creation.

And maybe you've even had those kind of that kind of dialogue before with Jehovah's Witnesses, as they've perhaps showed up to your house before.

But but really this is this is to miss the significance of what this verse is really saying.

When this when it says that, when it calls him the firstborn, it's not saying that he was created.

Rather, back in back in these ancient times, uh, the firstborn son of any family, they had all the rights and all the privileges and all the honor.

Right?

So the firstborn got like a like a double blessing of the inheritance from the father.

I used to throw this verse in my brother's face all the time.

My younger brother, I'm like, haha, right?

I am the one who is truly honored, right?

I think I maybe missed the point of all of that.

Okay, but really what this is saying is Jesus, Jesus is the firstborn in the sense that it's referring to his status, right?

It's referring to his status.

This is he he is great, he is he is above all else, he is he has all the authority, all of the all of the honor that is due to his name.

It's not saying that he was created.

Okay, so he's 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 or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him, Colossians says.

Okay, so you see here how how the Bible is very consistent, okay?

It's it's it's unwavering in its teaching that Jesus is in fact God.

Okay, now verse 4, let's continue.

Okay, verse 4 says, In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

Okay, now these are some themes that that John actually kind of expounds on throughout the uh the rest of his gospel, but but kind of simply put, he's saying here that Christ's life brings us light, and that it brings us spiritual enlightenment.

In other words, it brings us salvation.

His life, uh, through his life, life lived and life sacrificed, we are saved.

Now, verse 5 continues, says, the light shines in the darkness, so the darkness of our of our depravity, of our kind of moral filth and the darkness, it says there, our sin, has not overcome it.

Okay, so our our darkness, our sin has not overcome him, it has not overcome his light, it has not overcome his saving grace.

Okay, that is that is glorious news uh for you and I.

Okay, so again, as as we read these uh verses here today through the lens of the Christmas story as we are, it's unmistakable.

Okay, that the the word, okay, the Lagos, that's that's Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, uh, he's divine.

Right?

Our Savior is God.

And our Savior God has decided, as Philippians 2 says, we're gonna have this on the screen for you too.

Philippians 2 shows us that that though he was in the form of God, meaning that that he actually was, he actually is God, he did not he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.

Okay, that's not talking about how the father's better than the son.

That's not what it means by equality there.

It's just meaning that he decided that that all of those those rights and those privileges that he had as as as part of the Trinity, he decided not to not to hold on to that.

It was a thing not to be grasped, and so the the verse continues.

It says, but he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, and then here's Christmas right here, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form.

Again, I think John 1.14, right?

The word became flesh.

Being found in human form, he himself he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

I mean, what a what a revelation the Christmas story is to us.

Right?

Jesus was not just you know some guy who you know led an uprising.

Okay, he wasn't, you know, he wasn't you know just some guy who started a you know a cult movement.

He wasn't some you know angel-like, you know, created being with some supernatural powers given to him by a higher being.

No, it wasn't any of those things.

He was and is the God of the universe, right?

Here in human form on a mission to redeem.

So, hey, listen.

As you start to absorb that in your heart and in your mind, and that starts to affect how you kind of live and think and and breathe, as you absorb the reality that Jesus is God, I think it should really get us kind of pondering some things.

We'll have these three things on the screen for you.

Okay, the reality that Jesus is God uh tells you that his love for you uh is enormous.

Right?

It is so enormous.

I mean, have you ever stopped to kind of think about just the you know the the amount of of sin that God has had to endure uh since the fall of man, right?

Since Genesis.

Right?

You think about I mean even think about the sin that's just represented in this room alone from the last week.

Okay?

You think about that, and and if we could like pile that up, that would be that would be a very big pile.

Then you add that to all sin for for all time, and you think about what God has endured by by depraved humanity from the very beginning.

I mean, you and I, we we couldn't honestly blame him if he just decided to go, right, and just flick us off the face of the universe and say, forget it.

I am done with this, I am crumpling it up, I am throwing it, I am, I am walking away.

But of course, God did not do that.

And it is because of his love that he did not do that, right?

He loves us, he loved you and I enough to actually enter into the fray here, to come into our lives, to come into our world and clean up our mess, right?

To to to to forgive us and and to make us holy.

Right?

That shouts, that that screams of the enormity of God's love for you.

Okay, don't forget that.

Don't doubt that, don't don't think that God doesn't love you.

He does, the scriptures scream.

Of it constantly.

Right?

The reality that Jesus is God tells you that his love for you is enormous.

It also tells you that he's powerful enough to save you.

He's powerful enough to save.

Right?

If Jesus is strong enough to create the universe, as we've already read from a number of different passages here this morning, he did that just simply by speaking, right?

By through his spoken word.

If you know if he's powerful enough to raise himself from the dead, do you realize that he actually did that himself?

All three members of the Trinity were involved in the raising of Jesus on the third day.

In John chapter 2 and in John chapter 10, it actually tells that, it shows us that's where we find out that Jesus himself did that.

John 2 · chapter mention John 10 · chapter mention

If he's powerful enough to do those things, guess what?

He's powerful enough to save you and I.

That his light can't outshine it and overcome it.

Right?

He does.

I don't know who needs to hear that here this morning.

Some of you are like, I'm way too far gone for the Lord to ever want to save me.

Incorrect.

That is such a lie.

Don't believe it.

Christ came and Christ died to save you.

Maybe you're a Christian here today and you've been discouraged and you're kind of thinking through just kind of the mess of your own sin, and it feels like some days it feels like it's getting worse.

And it feels like you're just you're really struggling, you're having a hard time with this, and you can really doubt that God is powerful enough to, you know, yeah, I get a sense that I've been justified, but is he gonna sanctify me?

Is he gonna transform me?

Is he gonna forge Christ's character in me?

The answer is yes, yes, he is, and yes, he will.

He promises to, he is powerful enough to save you, he's powerful enough to sanctify you.

Lastly, here, that Jesus is God, tells you and I that he's worthy of all of our trust.

He's worthy of all of it.

If your trust in him is maybe on shaky ground these days, remind your heart, okay, that your Savior is God Almighty.

Right?

He's not even a touch less than that.

Right?

Not even a bit.

Right, which makes him worthy of all of our trust.

Right?

If you sense that the Lord is pressing you on something and you need to take a step here, you can trust him with that.

Right?

He is he is God, he can handle your trust.

Would you do that by faith?

Ask, invite him to add, like, Lord, help me in this.

Help me in my unbelief, help me in my weak faith.

He's worthy of your trust.

He always has been, and he always will be.

All right.

The Christmas story is the revelation that our Savior is God, and He's here to make us His own.

And we see this starting in verse 6 and along through some of the verses that follow there.

Follow along with me in verse 6.

It says, There was a man sent from God whose name was John.

Okay, this is referring again to John the Baptist.

Okay, he came as a witness to bear witness about the light, that's Jesus, that all might believe through him.

He, this is John again, was not the light.

Okay, there was some you know kind of a cult following that John himself uh gathered, and I mean even the Apostle Paul years later had to, you know, spoke to some of them, and and people were very, very quick to kind of elevate John.

But it's, you know, uh John and John's gospel here tells us that John the Baptist, he's not the light, it says.

Hey, but he came to bear witness about the light.

Okay, so clearly John the Baptist, who again we've we've spoken about quite a bit here actually in the last couple of weeks alone, he came to point people uh to the coming Christ.

John's role was to prepare people for the Messiah so that as verse 7 says, take a look, all might believe through him.

Okay, that we'd all believe in Jesus for salvation.

Okay, so John the Baptist and and many others before him, the prophets, right, they were simply forerunners to Christ, right?

And that their their ministries paved the way for him to come by by getting people's hearts ready for the Messiah.

Or as one pastor put it, as I heard when referring to John, it says, uh he said, Jesus is the light.

Uh John merely reflected it.

Okay, now verse 9, take a look at that.

Okay, the true light, again, that's Jesus, which gives light to everyone, okay, meaning that salvation through Christ is for everyone who believes.

Okay.

He was coming into the world, referring, of course, to his birth.

Now keep going, verse 10.

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, or of him being the creator, yet the world did not know him.

He came to his own.

Okay, this is speaking directly of the Jews, right?

Of the Israelites.

He came to his his own people.

They were the people to whom the Messiah was promised.

Okay, he came to his own, and his own people did not receive him, it says.

Okay, they by and large uh rejected him.

They they did not see that he was the one whom the scriptures pointed to uh all along.

And they, of course, we know we we talk about this at Easter, they had him uh killed.

Okay, but now take a look at verse 12, and this is just so key here, this is so huge.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right.

Okay, I love that word.

The uh that word right means like power uh or authority.

He gave the right to become children of God.

Okay, meaning that that he adopts us into uh his family.

He gave us the right to become children of God who were born, okay, born spiritually, that is, not of blood.

Okay, so so because salvation is entirely a work of Jesus Christ that that he did, okay, we are we are not uh born again due to our ethnicity, due to our bloodline.

Okay, so so we are, you know, salvation is available to all.

You don't have to be you don't have to be Jewish uh to be to be saved.

Salvation is uh is global, okay?

Okay, so we're born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, it says, nor of the will of man.

Okay, so we're not born again uh based on you know our our our merits, okay, based on the you know the strength of our flesh, the you know the the intensity of our will to save ourselves, right?

It doesn't work that way.

You know, no uh no effort on your part, none, no moral behavior will ever get that done.

Salvation is not by works, and that is really what this is is telling us here.

Rather, it says that we are born of who?

Of God.

That's what verse 13 says.

He gives us spiritual rebirth, he saves those who receive him, those who believe in his name, right, in what he accomplished for us.

Right?

So to all who do this, it says that he makes us uh his own.

Right?

So he brings us now into, as he gathers us into his spiritual family.

He gives us the full rights of sonship.

We become children of God, right?

Welcomed into the family with with open arms, right?

The moment that we receive Christ as Lord, the moment we trust him by faith, right?

We're strangers, we're we're enemies uh no longer.

What an unreal layer to all of this, to the Christmas story that we see here.

Right?

It's it's the revelation that after Jesus was born, he would go on to do absolutely everything required to satisfy God's demands for us.

He did it for us, right?

And and he made a people like us, us who are so unworthy, uh, his very own.

Now, what this incredible revelation flies in the face of for you and I is just that debilitating condemnation that you and I tend to carry around with us on a daily basis.

Right?

Do you have that voice kind of gnawing in the back of your mind and in your soul?

Right?

Satan gets his hand in on that as well.

He's called the you know the great accuser, right?

He's there to accuse you and get you get you thinking that you're worthless.

Right?

Satan wants to get you thinking that you're garbage and our flesh can kind of tell us that as well, that we're so far beyond repair and there is no hope for us.

That is the condemnation that that we often carry around, right?

And Satan is, again, he he he does this as well, and he tries to get us to kind of think that our our only recourse is, you know, I I've got to try and improve myself.

Right?

And so we we kind of chase after what the world offers us in a way that I can kind of heal myself and make myself full and and whole and and complete.

Satan will try and get you going off that round uh down that path.

Or as Christians, he'll try and try and get you to be real legalistic about all of this and try and convince you that that you're only worthy of God's love if if your works are of a high quality.

Right?

If I, you know, as long as I read my Bible every day this week, then then I'm kind of proving myself uh to God.

But what happens when we don't have a good week in you know reading the scriptures?

Right?

We're down on ourselves and we condemn ourselves, and you know, God must not really love me.

Okay, but the Christmas story crushes all of that, right?

It it dismantles all of it because it because it heralds the gospel, right, which which demolishes Satan's lies, which demolishes our our our flesh's lies and and attacks that condemnation that so easily nips at our heels.

Right?

It tells us that Jesus, Jesus purchased our salvation for us, right?

He gives you light, he gives you his life, right?

He graciously gives you the right to become a child of God.

Right?

So for you and I, let's not work for this here, right?

That that's exhausting and it's fruitless.

Don't don't work for it.

Don't try and earn it, it's been earned for you.

Don't don't believe that it's not possible.

It is possible.

In fact, it's it's done.

It was done at Calvary, it was done when he rose from the grave.

Rather, receive it, the verse says here.

Believe in his name.

He came here and he did what he did to make you his own.

It's the greatest act of love that the world's ever seen.

I mean, nothing, nothing touches it.

Alright, so the Christmas story, it's a revelation that our Savior is God, and he's here to make us his own in a display of marvelous glory, and that's the final thing here this morning.

And we see that uh starting in verse 14.

We've seen this verse a couple times already this morning, but it says there, and the word became flesh.

And the divine word takes on human form.

This is Emmanuel, right?

This is this is God with us.

He says the word became flesh and and dwelt among us.

Okay, that word, that word dwelt there literally means uh pitched his tent.

It's like God came down as Jesus and and set up a tent among us.

He he tabbered and uh tabernacled with us, he entered into uh our human experience, he fully grintegrated himself uh into life as as a man.

Okay, he says that he dwelt among us, and we, that's that's Christ's followers.

I love this, we have seen his glory.

Now, how have we how have we seen his glory?

How have we seen that displayed?

Okay, well, well, it says there that we've seen his glory, glory as of the only son, or one of a kind son, literally that saying, uh the of the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Right?

So there it is right there.

You see it in the in the verse, right?

God's glory is is is seen, it is it is displayed in the fact that that Jesus came as a as a spectacle, as as an exhibition of grace and truth.

You ever think of it that way?

He came full of of both.

Okay, Jesus is God's word, God's message, God's revelation that grace exists for sinners.

Right?

That is it, that is incredible news.

That is news that you and I absolutely need to hear.

Right?

Jesus is God's word, he's God's message, God's revelation of the truth that salvation is found in his name.

Right?

This is God's marvelous glory on display through the person of Jesus Christ.

This is the this is the gospel.

This is what the Christmas story reveals to you and I, to a to a shattered and broken world, absolutely desperate for this good news.

Right?

This is what John the Baptist pointed people towards and was getting people ready for.

And we see that in verse 15.

We pick it up there, right?

John bore 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 as in greater than me.

Right?

For for from his fullness we have all received, look at it, grace upon grace.

For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Now, in this here, John is not, he's not demeaning the law, okay, when he says that the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

It's just to say that the law is unable to save.

Right?

Obeying God in your own merits, that's that's never gonna draw you closer, that's never gonna get you closer to them, that's never gonna save you.

Right?

That the law was not intended to be, you know, given to us, that we would see a list of rules and say, well, as long as you as long as you follow it pretty good, maybe you'll get into heaven.

That's not the point of that.

The law, really kind of simply put, the law shows us how holy God is.

Right?

It shows us what the standard is.

And then it tells us kind of sickeningly that we fall so far short of it.

Right?

We can't possibly obey this.

I I'm a disaster.

I'm I'm a complete mess.

Okay, so the law just simply points out our desperate need of saving.

Okay, now finally, verse 18.

Okay, another example here of God's marvelous glory displayed.

Look what it says.

It says, No one has ever seen God.

Okay, meaning that no one's ever seen him fully or or or completely.

Okay, you might kind of think back to Exodus.

Again, I mentioned a little bit earlier, but about how you think about Moses and how Moses is up on the mountain and and and he, you know, asks, I want to see your glory, show me your glory.

And and and so God kind of hid him in the rock because he's like, My my glory, you you can't look at me and live.

I am far too holy, I am far uh too pure and awesome for mere mortals to be able to look at and and survive.

I mean, that's how awesome God is.

And so he like hides them in the crack of this rock.

Like, literally, did he do that?

Yeah, like he literally did that.

And then he like he kind of turned them around and and and and and Moses saw his back as God passed by.

And because of that, Moses actually shone with the radiance of God's glory and and really kind of freaked everybody out when he came down uh off the mountain, okay?

Because that's really what it's saying here.

It's like no one has seen God, not in his full, complete display here.

Okay, God's too wonderful to be seen by mortal people again.

Okay, so no one's ever seen him.

Keep going.

The only God, okay, literally, again, that's saying one of a kind God, it's referring to Jesus, who is at the Father's side, okay, he has made him known.

Okay, so through Jesus, we can now know who God is.

We can now know what he is like.

Again, Jesus is the revelation, he's the word, right?

He's the he's the explanation of God to the entire world.

Right?

That's who he is.

Christ has made him known, verse 18 says.

We can know his love, we can know his grace, we can know his truth, we can know his, you know, the marvelous glory of God Almighty.

It's all displayed powerfully, brilliantly through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

This is the revelation that the Christmas story ushers into our existence.

If you are a follower of Jesus here this morning, you have seen his glory.

Right?

And that in that the truth that you were once lost in sin had been mercifully revealed to you.

Right?

The blinders came off, the blindfold came off, and you and you realized your state before God, and I am, I am sinful and and and I am broken, and I need rescuing.

And of course, Christ is that rescue, and you want, and you trusted him for your salvation.

And in that moment, your sins, they were they were washed away as you trusted him by faith.

Right?

Christ's holiness was given to you, transferred to your account, right?

Right standing with God was restored to you.

We in Christ have all received grace upon grace.

Listen, church, remember that this week.

We're like three days away from Christmas here.

And much has been said already in our series about how our focus can get off of everything that we're talking about and on to all the things of this world.

Do not forget the glory of God.

Revel in it.

Revel in his glory that he's displayed to you through the birth of his son.

Listen, I want to pray for you right now.

Let's pray together.

We're gonna sing this out loud.

We're gonna sing it in our joy and our gratitude to our Savior.

Let's pray.

God, we thank you again for this time together to just uh start to work our way through some of these verses, Lord, and remind our souls that uh, Lord, shamefully get so distracted and so caught up in fleshy things, so caught up in things that are just way less important than this.

And so, God, I pray that you would shake our souls with this.

I pray that we would see that you are strong, that you were good, that you were awesome.

I pray that we would we would see that your glory is on display through something as seemingly simple, really, as just a baby being born.

God, I pray that we would take time to kind of think deep deeply on these things.

And Lord, I pray that you would transform our hearts through it, Lord, that you would give us a greater love for Jesus, that we would recognize your love for us and be so stirred to love you more, so stirred to love this world more, to take the good news of the gospel and share it with people who are lost and needy.

And God, I pray that as we sing now, Lord, we would um we would just be filled with joy.

Pray that we would be filled with just peace, knowing that that is what you came and that is what you brought us.

Lord, we thank you for these things in Christ's name.