Grace with a Face: Jesus

ME

Calipari Experience Pic

*Wear tag from event

and show pic*

Back in 2015 Josh Cimala told me that he had an extra pass to something called "The John Calipari Fantasy Experience"

He wanted to know if I wanted to go with him to the Joe Craft Center to eat a meal, watch the UK Men's Basketball team in a private practice, and meet the team afterwards.

Being a huge UK fan my entire life and actually being named after a UK player, there was NO WAY I was turning this offer down. My family would have disowned me!

Now if you follow College Basketball, you know that the 2014-2015 UK team was maybe the most talented college team of all time.

6 players from this team were drafted into the NBA that following summer, and a few more played in the league.

Watching these guys on tv, I knew they were REALLY good.

But watching them play 20 feet away, I understood just how incredibly talented they were.

Our guards the Harrison twins hit so many 3's in a row I lost count.

Karl Anthony Towns and Willie Cauley Stein, our big men, looked like they were playing on 7 ft rims.

This team was so good that Devin Booker, who is now a top 20 player in the NBA, didn't even start for them.

(Although maybe if he would have then we wouldn't have lost to Wisconsin in the Final 4... or if the referees knew what a shot clock or a foul was… not bitter about that at all!)

But the thing that stood out to me the most was this: even the shortest guy on this team was a few inches taller than me.

And some guys made me look like a child:

*KAT and PK pic*

Karl Anthony Towns was about 20 years old in this picture, and I was 32.

But as you can see I'm tiny next to this guy. He's 6"11 and I ain't!

I also got to meet Coach Cal, and although he said some words in practice that pastors don't approve of, he was genuine, down-to-earth, and kind with each one of us.

I thought I knew how good this team was, but being up close and watching them perfect their craft, I saw how great they really were...

WE

*title slide*

Many of us have admired someone from a distance and found out that they were even more impressive than what we thought once we met them.

And others, well, we met them and weren’t so impressed.

Maybe those people left a bad taste in our mouths.

It could be a coach, famous musician, actor or actress, or someone else famous that you look up to.

Think back on what kind of impression that person made on you.

Hard to forget, isn’t it?

GOD

A man named John couldn’t forget the impression left on him by a person named Jesus.

Many had told the story of Jesus, the lessons taught, the miracles that happened, the way He lived and died and lived again.

But as he looked back around 60 years since he walked and talked with Jesus of Nazareth, John is still amazed at all that has happened.

John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, is the last of the 12 disciples still alive at this point, and He gives the readers of the letter now known as the Gospel of John an incredible picture, a picture unlike any other, of exactly who Jesus is:

John 1:14–18 NIV

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ ”) Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

Heaven & Earth Collide

John 1:14a (The Message)

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.

For centuries, God’s presence was only found in the temple. God was thought of as being far away from ordinary people, and only Jewish priests could enter into His presence.

But John says here that the Word became flesh and lived among us.

So what does he mean by “the Word?”

John 1:1–3 NCV

In the beginning there was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were made by him, and nothing was made without him.

When he says The Word, or LOGOS, John is talking about Jesus.

Jesus- who has always existed, is God, and created everything.

That same Jesus, the Logos, came to live among us, as one of us.

Because God’s presence couldn’t be hidden away in a temple, distant and far from the people He loves.

When the Word became flesh, heaven and earth collided in the God-Man Jesus Christ.

The Logos became Immanuel:

Matthew 1:23 NCV

“The virgin will be pregnant. She will have a son, and they will name him Immanuel,” which means “God is with us.”

God’s Glory

John 1:14 (NCV)

We saw his glory—the glory that belongs to the only Son of the Father—and he was full of grace and truth.

The people who saw Jesus as a man were first-hand witnesses to the glory of God displayed through Jesus Christ.

*Show Manger scene w/quote:*

Ammonius: How did we behold his glory? We beheld it through the star of the magi, the angels, the shepherds, Anna, Simeon, Gabriel, the miraculous birth of the Virgin, the voice of the Father who witnessed to him, the Spirit descending upon him and many other divine signs and healings.

The way that Jesus was born, the way He taught, healed, lived and loved others showed them that without a doubt God’s glory was displayed among them.

But nothing showed the glory of God quite like the way He died for them:

*Show Cross w/quote:*

For we admire him not only because of the miracles but also because of the sufferings.

the handwriting of our sins was nailed to the cross....

-Chrysostom

One-of-a Kind

John 1:18 The Message

No one has ever seen God, not so much as a glimpse. This one-of-a-kind God-Expression, who exists at the very heart of the Father, has made him plain as day.

Moses wanted to see God’s glory, but only got to see God’s back.

Jews for hundreds of years waited for the chance to see God among us:

The Heroes of the faith waited to see God’s glory:

Abel - First Martyr in the Bible. ...

Enoch - The Man Who Walked With God. ...

Noah - A Righteous Man. ...

Abraham - Father of the Jewish Nation.

Sarah - Mother of the Jewish Nation.

Isaac - Father of Esau and Jacob.

Jacob - Father of the 12 Tribes of Israel. ...

Joseph-Interpreter of dreams

Hebrews 11:13 NIV

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.

The hope that mankind had waited for since the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden had finally come.

Colossians 1:19 ESV

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,

Title Slide

GOD WITH US

The Moravians were the first Protestants (believers in Jesus to split off from the Catholic Church-Over 100 years before Martin Luther began the Protestant Reformation)

Most Christians in America are Protestants today, including Nazarenes.

*Show "Behold The Man” Painting*

Moravian founder Count Zinzendorf who came to Christ in an art gallery in Dusseldorf, Germany while looking at this painting of Christ on the cross that had the inscription, "I did this for thee. What hast thou done for me?"

The picture had been painted by Dominic Feti, an artist three hundred years before the time of the Count.

When Feti had finished his first sketch of the face of the Redeemer, he called in his landlady’s young daughter and asked her who she thought it was. The girl looked at it and said, "It is a good man." The painter knew that he had failed.

He destroyed the first sketch and, after praying for greater skill, finished a second. Again he called the little girl in and asked her to tell him whom she thought the face represented. This time the girl said that she thought it looked like a great sufferer. Again the painter knew that he had failed, and again he destroyed the sketch he had made.

After meditation and prayer, he made a third sketch. When it was finished, he called the girl in a third time and asked her who it was. Looking at the portrait, the girl exclaimed, "It is the Lord!"

That alone makes the coming of Christ meaningful to the world--not that a good man came, not that a wise teacher came, not that a great sufferer came, but that God came--Immanuel, God with us.

GOD’S GIFT OF GRACE HAS A NAME AND A FACE: JESUS CHRIST

YOU

TITLE SLIDE

As you gather with your families this weekend to eat, exchange presents like socks, clothes that don’t fit and whatever you find last minute when you leave here, remember that the greatest gift that ever was, is and ever will be is salvation through Jesus Christ.

This child, born in the humblest of ways, grew and died for your sins so that you could be free to live for Him.

WE

Hark! The Herald Verse 4:

Come, desire of nations, come

Fix in us thy humble home.

For every believer in Jesus Christ, a Holy God has taken residence among us and is making us holy through the transformation of new birth.

Could you imagine if we lived every day with the understanding that Christ is making us Holy as He is?

How would it affect our families, friends and co-workers?

TITLE SLIDE

*ACTS OF ILLUMINATION*- Ask volunteers to come up to the front*

The first candle symbolizes hope and is called the "Prophet’s Candle." The prophets of the Old Testament, especially Isaiah, waited in hope for the Messiah’s arrival. The purple color symbolizes royalty, repentance, and fasting. 

The second candle represents faith and is called "Bethlehem’s Candle." Micah had foretold that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, which is also the birthplace of King David. The second candle is also purple to symbolize preparation for the coming king.

The third candle symbolizes joy and is called the "Shepherd’s Candle." To the shepherd’s great joy, the angels announced that Jesus came for humble, unimportant people like them, too. This candle is colored pink to represent joyfulness and rejoicing.

The fourth candle represents peace and is called the "Angel’s Candle." The angels announced that Jesus came to bring peace--He came to bring people close to God and to each other again. This color is also purple to represent the culmination of love through the Messiah.

The fifth candle represents light and purity and is called "Christ’s candle." This candle is white to represent pure light and victory

As the light from this candle is spread around the room, may we remember this:

In a world that is anything but holy, the Holy Spirit of the Almighty God, this pure light of Jesus Christ can flow through us and change the world, one person at a time.

*Remind people to put candles in metal bins at the back of the auditorium*