Glorious Grace

Background

If we have not had the pleasure of meeting my name is John colunga

I have the pleasure of serving as a Staff Pastor with New Day Church

I have the privilidge of bringing todays message

It is the Second message in our Christmas Series called Among Us

We are continuing todays messge from John chapter 1

John is written by the apostle and disciple John

Not John the Baptist

John the disciple writes this gospel that is different from the other gospels

John writes his book in a way that seeks to magnify Jesus as the Messiah, Christ, King, Savior

John 20:31 “but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

What I love about the gospel of John is that it uses sharp contrasts (Light/darkness - love and hatred - above and below - life and death - truth and false)

Last week we talked about Jesus and how he is God

He has always existed and was at the beginning of creation

He came to earth willingly fully man and fully God

Jesus was God incarnate

Jesus walked this earth and was tempted as man is

He hungered as man does

But Jesus overcame every tempatation

That is why he is the light for all men

That is why he is the savior from the punishment of our sins

And that while darkness may seem great, big scary, the darkness cannot overcome the light that is Jesus

And so Jesus had a mission here on earth

We will see it in todays text as we continue in John 1 starting from verse 14

John 1:14-18 “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ”) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”

Have you ever noticed when a kid gets obsessed with a character, theme, or hobby?

For girls it might be princesses, (Elsa from frozen), or Barbie,

For boys it might be cars, dinosaurs, or spiderman

And its like their whole revolves around being this character or playing with this character

This leads to mutiple toys, pajamas, t-shirts, bedding, wallpaper, games, etc.

For me it was baseball - I loved everything baseball - games, baseball cards, Bible Baseball

Everything was about baseball and I was obsessed with it

I dont know about you but as I read this text, I can hear Johns obsession with Jesus

John couldnt believe that he got to walk, follow, witness, and serve with Jesus

He couldn’t believe that he got travel and live with Jesus

And with all the conversations and the lessons that he learned from Jesus,

John even describes himself as the “one whom Jesus loved”

So John continues chapter 1 which is like a prologue and says,

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

The greek word for the word in our text today is Logos, the divine logic: the Word.

Plato the philosopher said said, “It may be that some day there will come forth from God a Word, a Logos, who will reveal all mysteries and make everything plain.”

John seizes on this word and says, “Listen, you Greeks, the very thing that has most occupied your philosophical thought and about which you have been writing for centuries—the Logos of God … has come to earth as a man and we have seen him.”

Richard D. Phillips, John, ed. Richard D. Phillips, Philip Graham Ryken, and Daniel M. Doriani, 1st ed., vol. 1, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2014), 11.

Can you believe that The Word, Jesus who is God - dwelt among us?

Dwelt among me? Dwelt among sinners? Dwelt among corruption, pain, and darkness?

Dwelt - can also mean “to pitch a tent”

We find in the Old Testament that God would fill the tabernacle inside the tent that Israel set up

The tent was pitched and torn down as the Israelites traveled

God led them with a cloud and when he came among them he dwelt in the tabernacle inside the tent

Now this is God made flesh, God incarnate

And he soujourns with the disciples amongst the people

And as he came, because he is God, he was displaying the glory of God

And so John writes here that he has seen his glory

John mentions the word glory 18 times in chapters 1-17

John knows a lot about God’s glory as he was also part of the transfiguration of Jesus

Matthew 17:1-8 “And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.” And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.”

This is paralelled with Moses asking God to see his glory

Exodus 33:18-23 “Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” 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 a 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.””

God told Moses that I cant show you my full glory but you can see my back

Anytime God is somewhat seen he is revealed in a bright glow, or light

We could be tempted to say that that light is God’s glory

But while the brightness is displaying his glory it isn’t the full picture of what it is

It is in the Old Testament that we find God’s glory to be intrinsic

God’s glory is part of his nature

And because it is part of his nature, his glory is made up of all of his attributes and characteristics

His perfect essence is glory

And so this glory was Jesus who while on earth displayed the glory of God

He displayed God’s glory through his character and with his actions

The disciples witnessed God’s love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control,

They witnessed justice, humility, and servanthood

Who Jesus was, was God’s glory as the Son of God on full display

And it was seen not just by his character but by his actions

Keep reading in John and in chapter 2 Jesus does his first public miracle of turning water into wine

If you remember they ran out of wine and the

What does John say about this?

John 2:11 “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.”

The disciples were witnessing the glory of God through Jesus

Every miracle Jesus performed was a disply of God’s power and glory

Time and time again Jesus used this power and glory to show mercy and love to others but also to bring glory to himself as God

That there would be no mistake that Jesus was God and was sent by God the Father

John ends verse 14 that Jesus was full of grace and truth

He was full of grace that God chose him to be sent as the propitiation for our sins

Jesus would extend the grace of God to his people and call on all to be saved

All the while, being truth

Being the true word of God - the author of life - the designer of life - the objective, non-negotiable, perfect, truth

John the Baptist as he was preparing the way identifies Jesus by saying that although Jesus was born after him, Jesus was existing before John the Baptist was born and so Jesus is greater than him

John the disciple echos John the Baptist to give more weight to the truth that Jesus is the fullness of grace and truth

Jesus the Gift

We have recieved grace upon grace because God’s grace brought us Jesus and through Jesus’ grace we can one day experience the full glory of God

The law in the Old Testament acted like a guardian for the Israelites

To keep them on the straight and narrow

They still had to have faith in God and the promise of Jesus

But their faith should be followed up by works that shows that they follow God

Their actions did not save them in the old testament - but their bondage to obedience was evidence of their faith and trust in God

And then God sent Jesus!

And because Jesus came full of grace and truth

We are no longer bondaged to obedience but freed to love

God loved us first by sending Jesus who had to die for our sins

Jesus lovingly and willingly went to the cross

Because Jesus conquered sin and death and arose on the third day,

We are freed from any bondage of the law

This is grace upon grace upon grace

In case you arent fully aware - Grace is unmerrited favor

We the people, the world, every human being alive has done nothing to earn or deserve God’s love

Our daily sins are evidences that we are imperfect

But God, full of grace and even more grace gifts us Jesus

The previous time of grace was that of Moses, who gave God’s people “the law.” This was also a gift from the preexistent Word, as hinted at in 1:16–17, but it was a temporary blessing, meant to be replaced by a greater gift (cf. Gal 3:21–4:7). This greater gift is the full expression of “God’s unfailing love and faithfulness,” and it “came through Jesus Christ.”

You know all of the Christian sayings around Christmas

Jesus is the reason for the season

Dont take the Christ out of Christmas

No gift is greater than the gift of Jesus

These are often used over and over again and we can become complacent because of them

But lets not forget that God willingly made Jesus known to us

John ends with - No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”

John Calvin writes - When he says that “no one has seen God,” we must not understand him to refer to the outward perception of the bodily eye; for he means generally, that as God “dwells in inaccessible light,” he cannot be known but in Christ, who is his lively image.

Craig S. Farmer et al., eds., John 1–12: New Testament, vol. IV, Reformation Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014), 36.

Jesus is the image of God

If that is true, if Jesus is the living Word who reveals God to us, then his coming is the most important thing ever to happen in this world.

And if Jesus is the Divine and Saving Word, then nothing is more important for us than our relationship to him.

Richard D. Phillips, John, ed. Richard D. Phillips, Philip Graham Ryken, and Daniel M. Doriani, 1st ed., vol. 1, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2014), 13.

My exhortaion for us today is for us to remember that Jesus was Gods gift to us and that there is nothing more important than to be in relationship with him

In my relationship with him, I see his providence, I see his grace, I see his mercy, I see his love, I see his faithfulness, I see his kindness, goodness, patience,

And just as the law was evidence that Israelites were following God, so my actions of love will show that I am following Jesus

As God loves me in this way - so I will love him and others as commanded and modled by Jesus

How will you grow in your relationship with Jesus this Christmas season?

I have been convicted recently about evangelism - mostly that I need to do more of it

I am talking about detailed gospel presenation

I have been trying to do servant evangelism - Where I serve someone and if they ask why I did what I did, I tell them that I am showing the love of God to others

That is my springboard to talk about God and ask them questions

Sometimes I get to share the full gospel and sometimes I get hung up on answering a specific question

More often than not they do not come to faith but I am not worried about the outcome, I leave that to God

I focus on planting a seed of truth in that persons life that I pray God would water by someone else

This Christmas season, many people need seeds of truth

Many people need to know Jesus

About his divinity, his grace, his glory,

We the church need to be sharing and displaying these things

To be a light of Joy this Christmas season

It is hard to do when your relationship with him isn’t right

Dont delay, treasure the gift of Jesus and continue to grow in him

Today, maybe you’ve never accepted the gift that is Jesus

You maybe have felt unworthy of goodness

Youve felt like your drowning in your burdens

Jesus came to give you grace