The Fullness of Glory
Notes
Transcript
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John testified about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’ ”
For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.
For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.
No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.
Introduction
Today marks the beginning of the season of Advent, and for each week until Christmas churches all over the world focus on one of four aspects of the Gospel. Hope, peace, joy, and love. And so today we’re looking at hope.
What is your hope this Christmas? Are you looking forward to the Christmas carols? Or the Christmas turkey? I used to always look forward to the gifts under the Christmas tree.
And this morning we come to what some call the single most important sentence ever written in the history of language. That’s in John 1:14, 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. This morning, we’re going to unlock this sentence and unleash the hope of the Gospel upon our church. And we’re going to do so by unpacking two keywords. And they are the words ‘full,’ and ‘glory.’ And what we’re going to see is that the fullness of glory that belongs to Jesus is our hope, the hope for our church, and the hope of the world.
Full (pleres)
Full (pleres)
The Greek word for full is ‘pleres,’ meaning ‘full,’ ‘filled up,’ or ‘complete.’ And the Apostle John uses this word to describes the glory of Jesus. He is full of grace and full of truth. There is no lack of either.
What does it mean to be full of grace? It means to have full of love and mercy and forgiveness.
What about being full of truth? To be full of truth means to be just, to be fair, to hold no lies and to hold all people accountable.
Now, imagine if Jesus came, and He wasn’t full of grace, but full of truth? A judge without mercy.
and he wasn’t full of truth? He’d be nothing special. He’d be like every other god in the picture book of religions. Why do I say that?
Every religion tries to balance the scales of grace and truth. But none of them do. If you look at every false god out there, you’ll see that they get something right, and something wrong.
The doctrine of karma in Buddhism and Hinduism gets it right when it says that what goes around comes around. Good deeds bring blessings. Bad deeds have bad consequences. It’s full of truth, but it’s not full of grace. And, by the way, Santa Claus is like this too. He’s got a list of naughty and nice.
On the flipside, there’s a massive group of so-called Christians that call themselves universalists. And they say that all people will go to heaven. It doesn’t matter if you repent or not. That sounds nice isn’t it? They get it right when they say that God desires for all to be saved. But the unrepentant among them are in for a unpleasant shock on judgement day. It’s so full of grace, but not full of truth.
Jesus is different. His glory is full of grace and truth. More than anyone else in the Bible, He taught about the cost of sin and the fiery pits of hell. The Judge of all the earth doesn’t miss a thing. That’s fullness of truth. What about the fullness of grace? That’s where the incarnation comes in.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
The Word became flesh. The Son of God, born out of fullness of grace, to pay the cost of sin and uphold righteousness and justice in the fullness of truth.
So if anyone asks you, how do you know Jesus is God? You can say to them, the glory of Jesus is full of grace and truth. Every other religion, every other god has one or the other, but none are full of both.
That’s why it says in John 1:17
For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.
The Law of Moses sets out the truth, but the law in and of itself couldn’t save. And so the Word became flesh, in the fullness of grace, to die on the cross, in the fullness of truth and justice. Jesus didn’t make our sins disappear, but bore it upon Himself. And you better believe that the Judge of all the earth will not let any sin go unpaid. Jesus came once for salvation, and He’s coming back for judgement.
“Let the one who does wrong, still do wrong; and the one who is filthy, still be filthy; and let the one who is righteous, still practice righteousness; and the one who is holy, still keep himself holy.”
“Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done.
God doesn’t compromise. He is full of grace, and full of truth. That is the glory as of the only begotten from the Father. There is none like Him. There is no god beside him. There is no lack in Him. There is no flaw of character, nor moral failing nor hypocrisy in Him. He is Jesus Christ, the only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. So that we could live. The fullness of glory is our only hope.
Glory (doxa)
Glory (doxa)
The Greek word for glory is doxa, which means ‘brightness’ or ‘splendor.’ So you might describe a sunset as glorious. Glory is a dazzling radiance that floods your heart with beauty and sinks heavily into your soul.
And the Hebrew word for glory is kabod, which means ‘heavy.’ And it doesn’t seem to overlap with the idea of splendor until you look at it as an action word. To glorify. In Greek it’s doxazo.
If you glorify something, you make it heavier. Not in weight, but in significance. If you glorify someone, you make others see how outstanding, how special, how good that person is. And what you’re doing is you’re making the person heavier in the hearts and opinions of others.
And we can see this clearly when Moses prayed to God, “Show me Your glory.” How does God respond?
Then Moses said, “I pray You, show me Your glory!”
And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.”
And God said I will make all My glory– no, that’s not what He said. I will make all My goodness pass before you.
Why goodness? Because the glory of God lies in the fact that He is so so good. He is full of grace and truth. And that means that He is above all other gods. There is no darkness in Him.
And the Bible shows us that the glory of God is never separate from the presence or closeness of God. Wherever God is, His glory is also.
If you recall in the Old Testament, the tabernacle and the temple were places filled with the Shekinah glory of God.
Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
They were His dwelling place. And if God’s dwelling place is filled with His glory, then so is the church, and so is this sanctuary.
So then, can you see His glory? The Apostle John wrote that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory. But we weren’t there back then. How can we see His glory? The answer is in John 17.
“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word;
“I do not ask on behalf of these alone.” That’s His disciples. “But for those also who believe in Me through their word.” Who’s He talking about? That’s you and me. Can you see that? And how are we going to believe in Him? Through the written word of the apostles. That’s what we’re doing right now.
So let me ask you again, can you see His glory? How? Through the preaching of the Gospel. And if the Gospel is proclaimed, His glory is revealed. And if His glory is revealed, then His presence is unleashed. That’s the blessing of Immanuel. God with us.
“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Jesus is where His glory is. And His glory is where His Gospel is preached. And I pray that Zion Church continues to be a church that proclaims the Gospel so that Singapore and the rest of the world will see the fullness of glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Conclusion: Let us host the glory of God
Conclusion: Let us host the glory of God
For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.
For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.
It says that we have all received from His fullness. And what have we received? We have received the fullness of His glory. The fullness of grace and the fullness of truth, all of it has become ours. See what Jesus says as He’s praying for us.
“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one;
That’s why we gather here every week. To grow in the fullness of glory. To grow in the fullness of grace, and to grow in fullness of truth. That’s what we’re doing when we listen to sermons and bible studies. They make God weigh heavier and heavier in our hearts. And that’s what it means to worship God. To welcome the presence of God into our hearts, and to host the glory of the Lord in our church.
that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,
so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
What does this mean? This means that our worship services incarnate the blessing of Immanuel. God with us. God dwelling among us.
So as a church we need to reflect on our worship. What if Jesus really showed up for every service? Would we do anything differently? And if so, why aren’t we doing that now? God’s Word is proclaimed at every service, be it Lord’s Day, Wednesday, or Saturday. That means that God’s is there.
Are we perhaps shooting ourselves in the foot by taking worship service lightly? If you’re talking to someone and they whip out their phone to start replying messages, they’re saying you’re lightweight. You don’t matter much. Do we do the same to God?
And the glory of God will not dwell in such a church for long.
Then the glory of the Lord departed from the threshold of the temple and stood over the cherubim.
That is exactly what Satan wants for Zion Church. He wants us to take God lightly, to do anything else but pay attention to the Word of God. To be anywhere else except church on the appointed service times.
in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
The blessing of Immanuel means that we don’t get to take the things of church lightly. So can we try to worship in reverence and the fear of the Lord? ot because we’re better than before, but because God is heavier than before.
And here’s the thing. The most imporant thing about a church isn’t the size of its building or the size of the congregation. What matters the most is the worshipful attitude of each believer.
Solomon’s temple was destroyed not long after the glory of the Lord departed. And when the temple was rebuilt by Zerubbabel, it was much smaller, and much less magnificent. But God said that its glory would be greater.
‘The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘and in this place I will give peace,’ declares the Lord of hosts.”
Why? Because that’s the temple that Jesus enters in His earthly ministry. So it doesn’t matter how beautiful our sanctuary is. It doesn’t matter whether the sanctuary is full or empty. The only thing that matters is whether the people feel the weight of God’s glory.
That’s why we must not take our duties in church lightly. And we must not take worship service lightly. Worship service is the time that we are being transformed from glory to glory.
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
So let’s prepare ourselves each week to behold the fullness of glory. Let’s make it on time for service or practice. Let’s not take the things of God with a casual attitude. And I pray that as we grow in our worship, God will be more and more heavy in our hearts, and we will be more and more filled with the glory of Christ Jesus our Lord.