What Has Changed?
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
It’s interesting being a Pastor at a church that has existed for longer than I’ve been alive. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to meet a lot of you last week and I’m extremely interested in hearing stories of this church’s history. Last Sunday I met Nancy Werner, one of our founding members. I met Elizabeth who is young enough to have come here as a baby. I met Pastor Marple last Tuesday, who gave me advice and shared with me what it was like to Pastor many of you.
The bottom line is so many of you are used to this place, and I mean place. Some of you can remember when the organ over there was played, or when we worshipped in the Franklin building instead of our “new” sanctuary.
A lot of times we visit a place we knew as adults and will say “wow, it’s just like I remember it”. Maybe this church is that way for you, and I know someone like me messes that all up.
But often you’ll go to a place like an old school or your childhood home, which hasn’t changed at all and you’ll say “I remember it being so much bigger”.
The answer isn’t that it has changed, but you have.
When it comes to God, there is an undeniable fact of scripture- God does not change. That is the immutability of God.
Now that doesn’t make much sense, does it? Clearly the OT God and NT God reflect a change in the heart of God, or maybe it’s a different God altogether.
So if God hasn’t changed, what has? The Gospel has changed us.
1. Children of Grace
1. Children of Grace
John 1:12–13 (ESV)
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.
Customer service conversation
Yet! Mankind are not by default children of God. We are made in the image of God, but we are not by default sons of God, much like Ishmael and Isaac. Yet even so, God is kind
Romans 8:13–17 (ESV)
For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
“Adoption is the highest privilege that the gospel offers. Higher than justification. To be right with God the Judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is greater.” Charles Spurgeon
“The Christian is a person who has come to know God as his Father. He is like a king who, after a day of battle, returns to his castle and takes off his armor, puts aside his royal robe, and is called ‘Daddy’ by his children.” J.I. Packer
2. By Grace He was Made Flesh
2. By Grace He was Made Flesh
John 1:14–15 (ESV)
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.’ ”)
The order of events is important here. Jesus “became flesh” but that isn’t quite the same as how you or I were born. John says as much here by quoting the older cousin of Jesus, John the Baptist “he was before me”. This is some very precise language, it shouldn’t be missed: God became flesh
Encountering John: The Gospel in Historical, Literary, and Theological Perspective Why the Incarnation? Reflections on a Crucial Doctrine
1. Jesus’s incarnation: Founded on the conventional Greek dualism between matter (considered evil) and spirit (alone considered good), gnosticism judged it impossible for God (who is spirit) to take on evil matter; thus the gnostic did not acknowledge Jesus as “come in the flesh” (cf. 1 John 4:1–3; 2 John 7).
2. Human sinfulness: The body was considered to be the prison of the soul, a prison that could, however, be escaped through spiritual communion with the divine; gnostics claimed in effect “to be without sin” (1 John 1:8, 10).
Our faith is incarnational. We don’t believe that spirit and flesh are originally opposed to one another, rather that mankind was corrupted, indeed dead in sin, yet God isn’t just redeeming our souls: He is coming to redeem our hearts, our souls, our spirit and even our flesh. Your body is made in the image of God- when He comes to reconcile all things, He is even reconciling creation itself which includes our literal bodies. Heaven is not a metaphor- it is a physical place and we will have physical (glorified) bodies.
Reference Jesus’ resurrected glorified body.
But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.
Exalting Jesus in John If Jesus Did Not Become a Man, He Could Not Die
The crucial significance of the cradle at Bethlehem lies in its place in the sequence of steps down that led the Son of God to the cross of Calvary, and we do not understand it till we see it in this context … the taking of manhood by the Son is set before us in a way which shows us how we should ever view it—not simply as a marvel of nature, but rather as a wonder of grace. (Knowing God, 58–59)
Exalting Jesus in John If Jesus Did Not Become a Man, He Could Not Die
The incarnation is amazing because of why God became man: so he could die for our sin. He renounced the glory due him, becoming poor, so that through his poverty we might become rich.
3. By His Grace, God is Known
3. By His Grace, God is Known
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.
Grace Upon Grace
Grace Upon Grace
This grace upon grace- is like grace on top of grace. All of humanity like we mentioned earlier are recipients of God’s grace.
God has always loved
“If you’re the kind of person who says, I don’t like the God of the OT, you haven’t read it carefully enough! “
After all, look at Adam and Eve who being warned after eating that should surely die that day.
To quote R.C. Sproul, “And instead of dying, that day, he lived another day, and was clothed in his nakedness by pure grace.”
God didn’t start being gracious at the Cross. Every living soul on the planet is an object of incredible grace. The world is coming to an end soon. You and I look forward to the day the trumpets call and we see our Lord face to face. Yet the fact that it hasn’t happened yet is an act of incredible grace
Invitation
Invitation
God is Seen
God is Seen
No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”
It should be notable that Jesus doesn’t show us any aspect of God that was not already in Scripture, but He does clarify all of them.
The difference is that between a penpal who tells you what they look like, what they are like and then seeing and indeed LIVING with that person.
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
The world guessed at , and the jewish people knew the attributes of God. We knew about His power, His patience, His loving-kindness, His grace, His mercy. We heard all these things from prophets of old. But now in Jesus, everything changed not because God changed- but we did. John writes in v14 “we have SEEN His glory”!
Do you see Him today?
