He Came: Christmas Series | He Came to show His Glory (December 24th, 2017) - Mike Armstrong

All right, amen.

Well, hey, you can go ahead and uh take your seats right now.

And if you have a copy of God's Word, whether that's the old school paper version or the E version on your phone, if you would grab that and turn in your Bible to John's Gospel.

We're gonna be working through uh some of the first verses here in chapter one.

Now, if you are new to our church, or maybe you're visiting with us today, first of all, again, hopefully it's clear.

Welcome.

We're really glad that you're here today.

Um, but probably what ended up happening for you as you probably spent the first sort of few minutes as you know you were coming into the pr kind of into the property here, uh, just you know, sort of taking it all in.

Right?

You're you're absorbing with your eyes, and maybe it started in the parking lot as you were driving in.

You're like, oh, they got some kind of flag set up out there, and then there's some signage just out front.

And then you walked in through the doors there, and you're you know, you're looking at the the displays that we have kind of set up in the lobby, and oh, okay, what's what's written on those displays?

And you're you know looking through the lobby there and kind of getting your bearings and and noticing that you know there's the the coffee area over there for after the service and and you know where the where the washrooms in case I need to make a quick exit or something like that, right?

It's always good to have that sort of thing uh figured out.

And then maybe you probably you know, I mean you walked into this room and you're like, oh, okay, so this is what a this is what a high school cafeteria looks like when you convert it into uh into a church worship center.

Now, if you notice, if you're if you're not new to our church, if this is your church home or you've come a number of times, you notice they don't notice any of those things anymore?

You just sort of walk in, you're like, okay, yeah, whatever, and you've noticed it, it's it doesn't it doesn't strike you anymore.

And you probably are just going to, you know, wherever you're serving, or you're you know, you're going for those people and and saying hi and uh or introducing yourself to new people, but you're not exactly taking in uh your environment.

Except when you walk in here today, it's a little bit of a different setup, right?

We have a couple of screens and and a little bit more of uh, I guess a Christmassy look, okay, for today.

Now, um now all of those things that you are noticing when you come uh into this school for the very first time and you're absorbing it uh for the very first time is really all of it is a form of communication.

It's a form of communication.

We you know, we've set up everything around here very intentionally to show or to display who we are as a church.

Right?

So out there again in the lobby, you're looking at you know some of the things that we've written down.

And hopefully you're seeing, you'll see it on your way out for sure, because it's kind of on the back of one of the signs.

You're seeing what our mission is.

Our mission as our church is to make disciples, to bring glory to God through that.

There's a there's a big display out there with uh some of our core values and our four pillars, and we're a we're a church that's about the word of God, we're about we're about worship and lifting high the name of Jesus and worship, we're about we're about prayer, we're about bold evangelism, we're about all these things.

Our foundation is Jesus Christ.

And so you're reading all those things, and you're okay, okay, this is what this is what Harvest Bible Chapel is about.

You're noticing that, oh, there's a there's a sign for Harvest Kids, and I know that all the kids are in the service here today with us, which is so great.

Welcome kids.

Okay, but normally on our just kind of a regular Sunday, you know, our kids are kind of down the hallway, and so you're looking at all of that.

And and again, as you come in here on the screens before the service started, you're seeing announcements scrolling and all of that.

And even as I was up here just a few minutes ago, more announcements kind of scrolling in behind me.

All of it, all of it, okay, is to is to reveal very important and pertinent information to you.

It's to display who we are as a church and again what we're all about.

Now, why mention this?

Right?

Why mention this at all?

Well, because Christmas is a display.

Have you thought of it like that before?

Christmas is a display.

It's it's Jesus coming in a display of glory.

He's coming in a display of glory.

See, he came to communicate, to to reveal, to show you and I uh some incredibly important things about God, some things that he wants you to know.

Okay, things about himself that have, uh don't make light of this.

It has it has an eternal impact, eternal significance on you and I.

Some important things.

And so we've been building up to these verses that we're gonna look at today.

We're gonna be looking at John chapter 1, verses 14 to 18, and we're gonna read through all of this now.

John 1:14–18

We're gonna start in verse 1.

This is where we started two weeks ago in our series, He Came.

And so, why don't you follow along with me?

If you don't have a Bible, don't sweat it.

It's all gonna be up on the screens for you.

All right, this is what it says.

It says, 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 he 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 then here are the verses that we're focusing in on today.

And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John, 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.

No one has ever seen God, the only God, who is at the Father's side.

He has made him known.

Let's pray.

God, we thank you for this epic passage, Lord, that we've had the privilege to open up and study and look at.

And Lord, I pray that far more than a bunch of intellectual learning that we would glean from this, Lord, I pray that we would have that we would have uh changed hearts.

Lord, we pray that our um the way we live, the way we think, the way we feel, everything, Lord, would would come to bear uh on these scriptures.

These scriptures would come to bear on our very lives.

And so, Father, I pray that as we study this amazing uh section of Scripture, Lord, and look at it through the lens of the virgin birth and how you came as a child, Lord.

We've been singing about all of that, Lord.

I pray that we would be shaken by this.

Lord, I pray that that we, the church, Lord, as we, you know, so many of us have heard these verses and read these verses so many times, Lord, I pray that we would not get bored of them, Lord.

Would you forgive us when we do just feel uh so unmoved by these things, Lord?

By your spirit, would you move in us and encourage us in this and stir this up, Lord?

I pray that if there is anyone here who does not know you, I pray that today would be the day of salvation.

Lord, we pray that today uh would be the day uh that true life, the light of the world, Lord, would save.

And so, God, as we study these things, as we look at these things, be honored, be glorified.

We pray all of this in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, well, if you want to follow along in your notes at our church, we give out these bulletins.

You're probably handed one on your way in.

And inside there is a little kind of an insert and gives you the sermon outline.

It's gonna be on the screen as well.

But if you're kind of a note taker and like to jot down things, uh, here we go.

Here's the first one.

You ready for this?

Christmas is Jesus coming in a display of glory.

Coming in a display of glory to demonstrate grace and truth.

To demonstrate grace and truth.

Take a look at verse 14 here.

We're just gonna work our way through these four verses, uh, and then we've got some more worship.

All right, here's what it says.

It says, and the word.

Okay, stop right there.

And the word.

Now, two weeks ago, as we started out this series and looked at the first verse uh in John chapter one, we talked about that word word.

Okay, we talked about that, and we know that that word, uh literally the word there in the Greek is the word logos.

Okay, it's the word logos.

And of course, it was introduced uh earlier in verse one and how it means literally means a thing uttered.

Okay, so think about words spoken, that kind of thing.

And so God's people, they were familiar with this.

Okay, they were familiar with the idea of logos and all of that.

Okay, they knew that that God revealed himself to them uh by speaking, by the a thing uttered.

And so he spoke, and by his word, a creation came into existence.

We see that back in Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

All right, he um by his word, God communicated to the Old Testament prophets, we see it all through there.

He communicated his will for his people, the the Jewish nations.

He did that by his word.

So here in verse 14, when you see the word word and it's capitalized there, it's got a capitalized W, hey, it's referring to the person of Jesus Christ.

It's referring to him.

Jesus is the living word of God.

All right, he's the living word of God.

He's he's God's word, he's God's message personified, come to us.

He's God's ultimate expression of his word, his message to humanity.

Now, now keep going here.

Okay, what else does it say?

It says, and the word became flesh.

Right?

The word became flesh, and he and he dwelt among us, uh, the verses uh say there.

And it's telling us how how Jesus, who is God, okay, this is another thing that we talked about just a couple of weeks ago, so we're not gonna spend a ton of time on all of this, all right?

But Jesus is the second member of the Trinity, right?

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

So God is one, eternally existing in three persons.

In February, we're gonna really get into all that and unpack all of it, okay?

But God exists as God the Father, as God the Son, and as God the Holy Spirit.

And so it's saying here that God came to the earth that he created in human form.

That's what it means by God in the flesh.

So Jesus, the word, is God incarnate.

If you want to use like a kind of a theological term there, okay, God in the flesh.

That is who Jesus is.

And simply put, listen, that's what Christmas is.

Okay, that's what Christmas is all about.

As exciting as it may be for a lot of us here, kids, I'm sure you're a little bit excited maybe for opening some gifts.

Maybe that's for you, you know, tonight or tomorrow morning.

You get up at like two in the morning and bring much grief to your parents for all of that.

And, you know, we're excited to gather with family and you know, eat lots of food and drink lots of coffee and do all of that.

As exciting as some of that stuff may be, I'm I'm excited about that after a good night's sleep, of course.

Okay, but as exciting as as that might be, okay, that is not what Christmas actually is.

Okay, Christmas is not that.

When we're celebrating trees and presents and all of that kind of, that's a that's the world's just that's the world's holiday.

That's really what that is, but that's not what Christmas is, according to the scripture.

The Bible tells us that Christmas is about how God Himself, okay, God Himself, full of glory, right?

Full of full of splendor and power and and majesty and all of that, he came down and he dwelt among us.

That's what our verse says there.

That word dwelt.

I love that word.

That verse, that word is so good.

It literally means, it literally means to live in a tent.

It literally means to live in a tent or or to tabernacle is that word dwelt there.

Okay, and what it's what it's getting at here, what that communicates and lets us know is that God came as Jesus Christ in the flesh to come live among us.

That's what our God did.

So God's not like the you know, the celebrity or the athlete or the politician who, you know, just you know, kind of come uh, you know, comes to a social gala because their publicist said they need to be there.

You know, they kind of swoop in, fly in, and you know, shake some hands and and kisses some babies and takes some pictures with people and you know and and and then you know collects the appearance fee and then gone, right?

Gone.

Jesus, Jesus isn't like that.

Our God is not like that.

He doesn't just kind of swoop in and be like, hey, creation, and then out of here, I'm gone.

He comes to actually dwell with us, he comes to live with us.

God plants himself here.

He he came with the with the ultimate commitment in mind.

He came to like roll up his sleeves and move towards us in relationship.

That's what our God did.

And and of course, he did, he did that.

He secures a relationship uh with us ultimately by by dying for our sin.

That's the exact thing that we celebrate uh at Easter.

I mean, all of that, it just tells us an awful lot about the heart and the commitment uh of our God to us.

Okay, and that God became flesh and and dwelt among us.

That's that's really a progression uh of God's of God's dwelling and God's revelation to man.

Okay, in the in the old testament, okay, in the old testament, his his presence dwelt among the people in the tabernacle.

You remember this as they as they set up the tent, and you remember the the Ark of the Covenant and all of that, and and God's God's nation, the the Jews, they had this all together, and that was that wasn't just a symbol of God's presence, that was actually God's presence with his people.

And of course, that that continued as the temple was built and God's presence dwelt in the temple, the temple that uh that Solomon built.

Okay, and then we see here, of course, in our verses that that it's in the person of Jesus Christ that he dwells among us.

God actually uh comes in the flesh, and then eventually, as the the New Testament teaches, as you kind of go through all of that, he dwells among us here as his church.

And every time we gather, we know that the Lord is present and the Lord is here in a powerful and in a unique, in a special way.

And then, and then also as we see in the New Testament, God actually dwells in the hearts of believers, right?

He dwells with us, those who trust him as Savior.

We are now the temple of the Holy Spirit.

And if you like to jot down references for all of that, what I said, you can jot down 1 Corinthians uh 3 and 6, and that tells you all about it.

Now keep going here.

Okay, John's been building to this.

Okay, and we have seen his glory, it says.

His glory, right?

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

Love that.

And then he says this, he goes back to John the Baptist.

We spent a lot of time talking about John the Baptist just last week.

He says, John bore witness about him.

We know that that John came to set the stage for the Messiah, and the Messiah was going to come, and and John's mission, John's purpose in life was to prepare people for that and let them know that they had sin in their lives, and they needed to repent, and they needed to get ready for the one who would come and ultimately take all of their sin away.

So he says, 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.

Now, when it says that we have seen his glory, when we have seen his glory, that's a that's a powerful line right there.

It's a powerful line.

And what it means there, it's talking about how we have seen the manifest presence of God.

We've seen the manifest presence of God in the person of Jesus Christ.

That is that is who we have seen, meaning that God has shown himself to us.

He has He has revealed Himself to us, He's made it, He's made it clear, He's made it, He's made it obvious, it's it's it's noticeable, right?

He has come to us and we have seen Him through Jesus.

All right, so when God came as the the baby in the manger, and you know, our kids recited that story for us today through Luke chapter 2, and you know, as Jesus grew and he began his his earthly ministry, and as he healed the sick, and as he you know raised the dead, and he served the lowly and he trained and discipled his followers and as he suffered and as he was tortured and as he died and as he rose again.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

Listen, all of it, all of it was God putting on display who he is and what he is all about and what we need.

That is what he is doing.

And all of that is something that each person must come to grips with.

Who Jesus is.

When we think about the manger and we think about the baby, and we think about the swaddling cloths and just the humility of that.

You know, we don't often think of it as this amazing display of glory, but it was, and it was really just the beginning for all that Jesus would do.

Right?

And John's John here, what he says in his verse is is one of the ways that we see his glory is in the demonstration, in Jesus' demonstration of grace and truth.

Grace and truth.

Christ came to to reveal, first of all, the truth about us.

And can I be like just really blunt about all of that?

Okay, the truth about us is not pretty.

Okay, it's not pretty.

Romans chapter three, it just kind of like lays it bare for us.

I'm gonna read it for us here.

This is what it says.

It paints a bleak picture of you and I.

It says, none is righteous, no, not one.

No one understands, no one seeks for God.

All have turned aside.

Together they have become worthless.

Now you might be thinking, well, hold on a second, that doesn't really like like build up my self-esteem, right?

And my and my self-confidence, right?

Exactly.

Right?

Self-esteem, pride, all of that self-confidence where we look to ourselves, our inner strength, all of that is the problem.

Right?

We've all got pride, and that is the issue, and we need that pride forgiven.

We need that pride, that that that that hard hardness on our hearts crushed and broken.

And and so we have to understand that this is not, it's not pretty.

But listen, Paul's not done here in Romans chapter 3.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

He says, No one is good, not even one.

Not even one.

Their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to deceive.

The the venom of asps, snake, it is under their lips, their their mouth is is full of curses and bitterness, their feet are sh are swift to shed blood, and their paths are ruin and misery, and and the way of peace they have not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Okay, your sin, my sin, it completely contaminates us spiritually.

Do you know that?

Do you understand that?

That's the truth.

That's the truth about this.

We're we're tainted, we're we're we're broken individuals, we're a broken people.

We are we are we are are broken and warped spiritually speaking, and and Jesus, he comes and he just tells us straight up about all of this.

He he delivers the truth when we when we so desperately need it.

Now, listen, is it pleasant to hear that about ourselves?

Not at all.

Right?

It's awful to hear that and and all of that.

But listen, if we if we didn't hear the truth, we would just be fooled into thinking into believing a lie.

We would just think, I'm fine, you're fine, we're all fine, and you know, nothing really matters, and just do whatever we want, and you know, God, whoever he is, whatever he is, if he even is, right?

It's just do it.

Listen, that's God doesn't leave us in that kind of a position.

Jesus came full of truth.

He came to tell you and I that that sin is real, it has ruined us spiritually, it has broken all chance of relationship with your Maker, with the God of heaven.

Your sin is killing you.

Jesus comes to tell us that hell is very real, it is awful, it is weeping, it is gnashing of teeth, it is all of those things, and that is where we're all headed, apart from Jesus Christ.

Merry Christmas, right?

Right?

But that's really it.

That's the truth.

But here's the other amazing thing.

It also says that he came full of grace.

He came full of grace.

He shows us that while the truth is that we are, you know, desperately lost and we can't find our way back, that we are broken and can't fix ourselves, that our hearts are warped and we can't possibly straighten ourselves out again.

Guess what?

He can, he can.

That is the glorious reality of the gospel.

He may.

Made a way to rescue the lost, the broken, the the warp sinners of which you and I are all in that camp.

And it's through his sacrifice on the cross.

That's what Jesus did.

He does it all by grace.

You and I, we simply receive it.

We receive the gift of salvation.

We don't earn it.

We don't deserve it, that's for sure.

We don't do anything to contribute to any of it.

We have been forgiven by grace.

We are healed by grace.

It is unmerited and it is glorious.

That is what Jesus came to reveal.

That is what's on display, his grace and his truth.

Listen, if you do not know Jesus Christ as your Savior, would you please consider very carefully, very seriously the words that I have read and the things that I have said?

That Christmas is this awesome display of God's glory that Christ demonstrates through all of that grace and truth.

He came full of it.

It's all of it together.

He's not truth heavy.

He's not just swinging a hammer or a sword at us or something like that, but then kind of light on the grace piece, all right?

He's also not just, you know, swinging the grace piece heavily.

It's like all light and fluffy, and then there's no truth about where we're going and what's really happening and the danger of sin and all of that.

No, he came full of both, full of both, and we need him to be that.

Right?

And when you think about it, it really is glorious.

It's incredible.

And so again, I challenge you, think through this.

Consider very carefully your eternity.

Consider where are you going?

Consider your sin.

Consider that Jesus Christ wants to forgive you for all of it.

And that he has already made a way for you to be healed, to be, to be cleansed.

And that was through his son, Jesus Christ on the cross.

Christmas was the inauguration of all of that.

And he would ultimately come as a sacrifice for you and for I to unite, to reconcile us with our God.

If we would just admit our sinfulness, if we would just be like, yeah, Lord, I am broken and I am a mess, and I trust that what you did on the cross pays the price that my sins, the debts that my sins accumulated, if you would just do that, if you would admit that from the heart between you and God, you're saved.

And so I put that before you for you to consider.

Here's what else Christmas shows us Jesus came to do.

In a display of glory, he came to carry out our redemption.

Alright, verse 16, take a look at this here.

He says, For from his fullness we have all received, I love this, grace upon grace.

How great is that?

Right?

So we receive more grace, more kindness, more love, and more mercy than we can ever even earn or deserve for sure, but that we can ever even imagine.

The Lord just keeps pouring it out on us.

Grace upon grace.

And then he says this, verse 17, for the law was given through Moses.

Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

And so what you see here is that God's plan of redemption was ultimately fulfilled.

It was ultimately carried out through Christ.

Okay, the Old Testament tells us very plainly, very clearly in Genesis that humanity, we went off the rails.

We went completely sideways in the Garden of Eden.

And a lot of us here would be familiar with that story and how Adam and Eve rebelled against their holy God and their creator and their maker, that that awesome relationship, that that perfect, you know, no barriers in the way relationship that they had they got to enjoy with God in the garden.

They sacrificed all of that to selfishly get what they wanted and to disobey the Lord.

And what that what ended up happening is that it corrupted their human nature.

Okay, now the downside for all of us is that we all inherit that.

Adam and Eve were the very first humans and ultimately our original parents.

Right?

But God promised, this is so amazing.

Back in Genesis chapter 3, as he is doling out consequences and punishment to Adam and Eve, he states it right in there.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

It's so amazing.

He he promises and he hints that he will save.

He will save.

I know this is a mess right now, Adam and Eve.

I know that this is gonna be, you know, humanity is gonna be a disaster after all of this.

But listen, I'm coming for you.

I'm gonna save.

And it and he hints there as to Eve's offspring, and that's a reference to Jesus, that Jesus would come and he would make right all of our wrongs.

But before he came, okay, because he might be like, well, why didn't you just send Jesus like the next day or like that afternoon?

Right?

Like that would have been kind of convenient for us.

Why all this, like, you know, living in the trenches of our sin?

Why all, you know, why all the pain and why all the hurt and the suffering and all of that?

Well, because we're, I don't know, thick-headed, I guess.

Maybe that's the best way of putting it.

Right?

He knew, okay, God knew that that mankind needed to, desperately needed, okay, to comprehend just how evil we are, just how broken and and and lost, just how bad our sin problem really was.

And so what he did was through Moses, our verse tells us, I mean, take a look at it there.

It says that he gave people the law.

He gave people the law.

And so the law, what was that?

Well, that was a set of very comprehensive rules.

You can you can look at that in in mostly Deuteronomy and and and Leviticus, really, Leviticus and Deuteronomy if you'd like.

And those, that that list of comprehensive rules communicated and really it displayed what God's standard actually is.

That's what the law was.

It was a display of all of that.

His expectations on you and I, and the expectation is what?

Moral perfection.

Right?

If we're gonna go back to where it was when I originally created the world and and Adam and Eve, we gotta go back to sinless.

The standard is perfection if I'm gonna be in a relationship with the creation that I love.

And so the intention of the law was to help you and I realize something.

You know what that was?

To realize, uh-oh, I'm toast.

Right?

That's the point of the law, to help us recognize, like, man, these these rules, these standards that I see in the scriptures, the Ten Commandments, and then all of that kind of fleshed out throughout Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

It's we're supposed to realize, man, those things are so far out of reach.

That's a standard that I I can't possibly attain or meet or or live up to.

I can't possibly not lie, for example.

Right?

I I've lied.

You've we've we've all told a lie on some level multiple times.

We've already transgressed and and and and become lawbreakers.

All of us have done that thoroughly, incredibly.

We've done it a million times.

And so God gave the law to Moses to show us just how dead in the water our sin makes us morally and spiritually.

To help and to help us get to that place where where uh we sense our our desperation about the problem and and and recognize that that I can't fix this within myself.

I'm morally corrupt.

I'm broken, I can't possibly live up to this.

And and it's to help us yearn from our hearts, from the depth in our souls, for someone to come and save, someone to right all of the wrongs, to to do what I couldn't, to live the perfect life, to pay the price for my sins, the sins that I have willingly and continually done over and over and over again.

That we would yearn for the cleansing of our hearts, that we would long for the relationship with God to be fixed for us because we are powerless.

We are powerless to fix the problem of our sin.

And so that's exactly what God did.

That's what he did.

And that's why it says that grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

He's the one who carried out the redemption that the law made us realize we needed.

So again, have you yielded your life to Jesus Christ?

Have you done it?

Have you trusted him as Savior?

Now you might be thinking, well, Cole, coming on a little strong, Pastor.

Yeah, of course I am.

That's the whole point of all of this.

Right?

If it's just like a bunch of fluffy songs we're singing, and you know, a bunch of you know lights hanging on trees and all that, we have missed the mark.

Christmas has gone over our heads, and we have we have failed to grasp the most important thing in the world.

Have you have you yielded yielded to Jesus Christ?

Is he your Lord?

Is he your savior?

Listen, that is what Christmas is driving you towards, to accepting him, to, to trusting him.

It's God coming to you, man, coming to you to redeem and to save and to heal.

He came humbly as a child, and that was that was over 2,000 years ago.

But listen, it was to save you.

It was to save you, to carry out your redemption.

Here's the last thing.

Christmas is Jesus coming in a display of glory to show us what God is like, to show us what God is like.

Verse 18.

Take a look at this.

It says, No one, no one has ever seen God.

No one has ever seen God.

Okay, so so that no one has ever seen God.

What it's saying is face to face, right?

In all of his splendor and all of his majesty, and nothing held back.

No one has ever seen God face to face for a couple of reasons.

One, uh God is invisible, right?

God is invisible.

First Timothy 1, verse 17 says this to the king of the ages, immortal, invisible, okay, the only God be honor and glory forever and ever.

1 Timothy 1:17

Okay, and then B, no one has ever seen God because for sinful creatures to even look upon a God so holy, so pure, so awesome would just bring instant death.

That's what it would do.

Exodus 33 tells us that.

It says, You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.

That is the glory of God.

That is the awesomeness, the power, the majesty, the perfection, the holiness, the purity of God.

He's so perfect, he's so without blemish that he cannot be seen in all of his glory and splendor by creatures as unholy as we are, without us being just so overwhelmed by all that and so overcome by his awesomeness that we just immediately drop dead.

Right?

That is that is an incredible thing to just try and wrap your head around and to try and comprehend the greatness of our God.

Okay, but Colossians 1:15 is what it tells us.

Colossians 1:15

It says that He, that's Jesus, is the image of the invisible God.

Through Jesus, God has revealed what he is like.

He's revealed what he's like.

And that's why it says here in verse 18, the only God who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.

He has made him known.

Another translation, I like this too, it says that he has explained him.

He has explained him.

God the Son is the explanation of God the Father, in the sense that Jesus describes, He illuminates, He enlightens us as to who God is and what he is like.

You know, a lot of people out there, of course, and many within the church have a lot of misconceptions about God and who he is and what he's like.

Some of us think that he is he's cruel, we think that he's a kind of a vicious taskmaster just cracking the whip on us continually, and he's always disappointed in us and always upset with us, and or that he's distant, that he that he's this aloof God, or he's just a you know cosmic, you know, force, but there's no there's no personality.

He's not a him, he's not a person, he's not personal at all.

We think that.

We think, you know, we think these kinds of things about God.

Some of us in the church, we just think that God is a genie and he should be answering every desire that I would ever have.

And why is he not fixing my brokenness?

He is there to answer all of my prayers, however I want, whenever I want.

Right?

We think this about God, and and this is not what he is.

We see here in in John chapter one that God is glorious.

God is glorious, he's our all-powerful creator, he's the true light that that overcomes our you know the darkness of our of our sin.

He's he's passionately on mission to save you and I from death, from spiritual death.

He's he wants to save us from an eternity in hell.

Because again, we can't do it ourselves.

It's why he came.

It's why we're here.

It's what Christmas really is.

So listen, I'm gonna pray.

I'm gonna pray for us.

And let me do one more challenge here.

If you don't know Jesus as Savior, can I just say, can you can you just talk to the person that you came with today?

Ask them about it.

Ask them, what's it what's that guy talking about?

You know, why is he getting so fired up about this?

You know, or or come talk to somebody here before you leave today.

Because nothing is more important than you recognizing why Jesus came.

And he came for you.