Grace and Truth

Intro

For our family, going to theme parks is a matter of competing approaches

Me? I am the simple guy - park and take just my ID, one credit card and my phone and go

Kim wants to make sure every possibility is accounted for (especially when the kids were little and we needed to take a stroller into the park), but now with usually with a backpack

This backpack has a built in cooler, so we can have a dozen bottles of water

But then I start going through the backpack and see what else is in there

Portable fan in case it is too hot

Flip flops in case we go on a water ride or it rains heavily

Bag of snacks

On and on and on

Put this thing on my back, and it’s like trudging through the parks with 50 pounds on my back!

We either have to take turns carrying the backpack or call ahead to make an appointment with the chiropractor!

Now is any of the stuff in the backpack bad? No, clearly not

But for me, I feel like I can be more present because I am less encumbered by the extras

As we get into our verses for tonight, I want us to see how encumbered we can become by all the other stuff we pursue to bring us life, when it is Jesus who has promised us the abundant life

Transition

Before we get to the passage, let me remind us where we are in our new series

Last week we began a new series entitled Encounters with Jesus

We saw how John tells us exactly why he wrote his gospel

That we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God

That by believing, we will have life in his name

Next week will start us into the one-on-one encounters people have with Jesus in the gospel of John by looking at John the Baptist’s encounter with Jesus

Tonight, we want to ask: What does it mean that “we will have life in his name”?

What is this life that Jesus came to bring?

John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Other translations:

“I came to bring them life, and far more life than before.” (JB Phillips)

“I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.” (MSG)

Abundantly, overflowing, more life than before, more and better life than you ever dreamed of

Who doesn’t want that? Who says no to that?

And, importantly, that’s not the future!

Sometimes it’s easy for us to think that is purely talking about heaven and some distant point in the future

But it is present, right now you can have that kind of life!

And we find the grounding of that abundant life in our text here tonight from John 1, verses 14-18

Scripture Reading: John 1:14-18

John 1:14–18 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.’ ”) 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.

Pray

Grace and Truth

The idea of the intersection of grace and truth provides so much room for discussion

We could look at the idea of grace without truth or truth without grace

Grace, without truth, can be weak, passive, and enabling… and, honestly, ceases to actually be grace

Truth, without grace, can be cruel and oppressive

In other words, grace without truth can enable sin; truth without grace can crush

But in Jesus, they unite perfectly

We could look at significance of us, as those being made into the image of Christ, called to be people living with both grace and truth

This is the foundation of one our core values as a church, Conviction with Compassion, as we seek to hold firmly to the truth but gentleness to hurting people

But want instead to focus specifically on what happens when we encounter Jesus, the one who came full of grace and truth

What does that do in our lives?

How does that bring us the life that is promised throughout the gospel of John?

Grace and Truth Chart

Before I start, need to preface that this is not original to me

This is my adaptation of something I learned from one pastor who learned it from another

Step through the chart

To help us get to that, what I would like to do is start with a fill in the blank statement

“My life has to include _______”

How would you fill in that statement?

Family / Money / Job / Education / Love / Etc

Now, those are good things… even more, they are God-created things

But with whatever you fill in that blank, there are two options

Option 1: you have that thing

Option 2: you don’t have that thing

But whether you have it or not, it is a very unstable place

One of my former professors used to say that “balance is nothing more than momentary synchronicity”

We can try and stay balanced but it just won’t work

And, even if you have that thing, what if you lose it? What if something happens and it goes away?

Have it —> Pride —> Arrogance —> Disdain

Don’t have it —> Fear —> Anxiety —> Envy

Jesus, Full of Grace and Truth

Let’s go back then to what our passage says

John 1:14 “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 1:16–17 “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.”

“Full of grace and truth”

“Received grace upon grace”

“Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ”

So, let’s go back and ask, “What would happen if we, you and I, encounter Jesus?”

Grace and Truth Chart, Part 2

Step through the chart

Foundation is Christ

Truth —> Humble

Grace —> Secure

Life Abundant

So let’s go back to the questions we opened with:

What does it mean that “we will have life in his name?”

What is this life that Jesus came to bring?

We spend our whole lives filling in the blank to the statement

“My life has to include ______”

Sometimes they are with destructive things, such as drugs or alcohol

Often with things that, in and of themselves, can be really good like family or a good job

But regardless, when we need those things, we are going to be stuck in a fruitless chase to get them

We will get prideful when we have that thing

We will be anxious when we don’t have that thing

And, at the end of the day, that thing will let us down

Because idols - and that is what they become - cannot fulfill

If you want the life that life abundant, that better life than you ever dreamed of, it will not be marked by the pursuit of those things

Life in Jesus

Thomas Chalmers wrote a really amazing article entitled “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection”

The idea of the article is that idols can’t be eliminated, they must be replaced

For our purposes, we need to change what it is that we are filling in the blank with

And we need to fill in the blank with something bigger and greater than any of those other things

If you are filling in the blank with anything of than the love of Jesus, you will never experience the life for which God truly designed you

Instead, we can encounter Jesus

We can fill in the blank with the love of Jesus

We can build our life on the firm foundation that is the love of Jesus

We, sinful people, get stuck in the never-ending attempt to balance the board in the pursuit of the things we have to have hoping, wrongly, that they will bring us life

When right in front of us is an encounter with Jesus, the One who can give the life we all so deeply desire

Life in Jesus by Believing in Jesus

As we said last week, it’s not enough to merely encounter Jesus

We are then called to believe

Believe that

As we have already seen, Jesus forms humility and security in us as we encounter his grace and truth

Jesus reveals the glory of God

John 1:14 “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.”

Jesus makes the Father known to us

John 1:18 “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”

And Jesus, the one who gives grace upon grace as it says in verse 16, is able to give that grace because he gave his own life for us, the very people who are trying to fill our lives with everything else

Jesus did not just teach grace and truth

Jesus is grace and truth

In truth, Jesus exposes our sin and guilt

And in grace, Jesus took that sin and guilt upon himself

It is the truth of Jesus that humbles us, and the grace of Jesus that secures us

That we, the church, the people of God, may declare that we are the blood bought possession of Jesus

Conclusion

Maybe tonight you know that you have been trying to fill in the blank with everything but Jesus

I invite you tonight to encounter Jesus, encounter the love of Jesus, encounter grace upon grace

Acknowledge that all those other things you were pursuing failed and came up short

And acknowledge that the life you desire can only be found in Jesus

Or maybe tonight you know that even though you have believed in Jesus, you are tempted to add one other thing into that blank

My life has to include the love of Jesus and a good family

My life has to include the love of Jesus and a good job, or money, or sex, or whatever

We all do that - we all try and add other things in

We struggle to believe in the goodness of Jesus and that he will give us that abundant, better-than-we-dreamed-of life

Tonight, confess again that those things aren’t working, and turn again to the goodness and love of Jesus

Tonight, receive grace upon grace from the One who is the Truth

Because the life he longs for you - the life he will give you - is better than the one you could even dream for yourself

I started tonight with the silly story about the backpack we carry around the parks

But doesn’t that resemble our lives?

We weigh ourselves down with all these pursuits and possessions that we have to have, while Jesus is calling us to lay down our idols to follow him

When we do, we discover the lighter, freer, abundant, better-than-we-dreamed-of life that only Jesus can give

Not an easy life, not a hardship-free life, but a joyful life that finds Jesus is all you have ever needed

Pray