2.3.6 1.11.2026 John 1.14-18 A Definitive Disclosure

Start:

Entice: Last week at Caterpillar club we sang The B I B L E. Like Jesus Loves Me some of us have known that song our entire lives. We need to stand alone on the word of God, and we need to learn how to correctly interpret the word of God. My job is not just to tell the story but to teach you how to read the story of Jesus as it begins at Creation and works its way through Reconciliation to Consummation. Take 10 seconds to pause and just think about your favorite OT passages or Bible Stories, however you think of them, and share them with your neighbor. 

Engage: 5,4,3,2,1…Do you realize that those OT stories can be critical for understanding Jesus? They contain words, concepts, images, and symbols essential for making sense of the story of Jesus. I also want you to realize that there is a point at which the OT runs out of information that helps us. We need more. Not just more information or more words. We need the right information provided by the right Word. The Word who was in the presence of the Father who came in flesh to provide the final information that can bring us into the presence of the Father.

John 1:14–18 ESV

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. 15 (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.’ ”) 16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

Expand:  With this ending of the prologue to his Gospel John completes his story of how God takes on human flesh to save us. The images of LIGHT  and WORD imply illumination and communication. Today  John completes the picture by discussing God’s personal PARTICIPATION  in His world, an intervention that makes eternal salvation a possible reality. He uses OT concepts but makes them understandable to the most pagan of Gentiles. He uses familiar terms filled with a new meaning. Most importantly John tells us that along with illumination and general communication Jesus provides a full, final, complete, and saving disclosure of God for us.

Excite: What John does—assuming the whole OT as the why—is to provide a how, a when, and a where. A time and place where Jesus presents Himself as that final disclosure of God. 

Explore:

Jesus makes God present to us. 

Expand: In closing the prologue to his Gospel John invites us to consider three final images that help us to process what incarnation really means. 

Body of Sermon: The first image is the 

1 Encampment of God’s Glory.

Here, John recalls the story of building the tabernacle, and God’s glory entering it….

1.1 God in Flesh pitched His tent.

John 1:14 ESV

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory,…

1.2 God in Flesh provided His redemption:

John 1:14 ESV

14 …glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Full of Grace,

Full of Truth.

1.3 God in Flesh presented Himself to us.

John 1:15 ESV

15 (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.’ ”)

Next, we must understand that Jesus is an 

2 Exhibition of God’s Favor. 

That is, Jesus is the public display of God’s otherwise hidden Nature. John recalls the stories of Moses as lawgiver, and stories which demonstrate the inadequacy of the law…

2.1 Grace=the Gift of God’s Favor.

John 1:16 ESV

16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

In overwhelming supply.

In increasing abundance. 

2.2 Grace and truth granted by  the presence of Jesus.

John 1:17 ESV

17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Finally, We must accept that Jesus is the 

3 Explanation of God’s Nature.

John 1:18 ESV

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

Unlike recalling the tabernacle or the law of Moses this verse recalls nothing from the OT story…there are no corollaries. The incarnation marks a new beginning in God’s self-revelation. Where the OT story not only ends—but falls short—the Gospel, Jesus’ story brings closure not in more words, but in the uniquely  meaningful act of the Word becoming flesh.  

Remember…

3.1 Apart from Jesus God is universally inaccessible.

No one has seen God at any time.

3.2 In Jesus God is Himself born amongst us.

The unique “once-born” God, present before the Father…

3.3 Jesus comes to explain the God who is otherwise inaccessible.

What we cannot see He shows.

What we cannot hear He tells.

What we cannot access He brings. 

Shut Down

This is why we are Christian.

We are not vaguely “religious”, merely “spiritual”or just practitioners of some odd cultural belief systems.

Without Jesus we are all just reaching.

In Jesus: God reached for us.

And you can grasp His outstretched hand. You can accept His single, unique explanation of God. You can grasp His hands, which the rest of the Gospel story tells us are now nail-scarred because the final phase of His explanation of God is His sacrificial quest to redeem us through His own sacrifice.

The Word.

The Light.

The Disclosure.

That is our Jesus.

Do you choose to follow Him? To hear Him? To accept Him?