Episode Transcript
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Well, my friends, let's turn
to the gospel of John. You can
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turn in your bibles or simply turn
your attention. At least turn your attention
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to John Chapter One. John Chapter
One, I'm going to be preaching versus
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fourteen through eighteen, but I think
I'll go ahead and read from the beginning
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again. So let's give our attention
to God's word now. John One,
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beginning at verse one. In the
beginning was the word, and the word
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was with God, and the word
was God. He was in the beginning
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with God. All things were made
through him and without him was not anything
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made. That was made in him
was life, and the life was the
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light of men. The light shines
in the darkness and the darkness has not
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overcome it. There was a man
sent from God whose name was John.
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He came as a witness, to
bear witness about the light that all might
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believe through him. He was not
the light, but came to bear witness
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about the light, the true light
which enlightens everyone, was coming into the
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world. He was in the world
and the world was made through him.
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Yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his
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own people did not receive him,
but to all who did receive him,
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who believed in his name. He
gave the right to become children of God,
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who were born not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh,
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nor of the will of man,
but of God. And the word
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became flesh and dwelt among us,
and we have seen his glory. Glory
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is of the only son from the
father, full of grace and truth.
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John bore witness about him and cried
out. This was he of whom I
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said, he who comes after me
ranks before me, because he was before
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me and from his fullness we have
all received grace upon grace, for the
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law was given through Moses. Grace
and truth came through Jesus Christ. No
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one has ever seen God, the
only God, who is at the father's
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side. He has made him known. May God bless his word, the
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revelation of his son to us.
He may be seated. So John Chapter
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One, verses fourteen through eighteen,
the focus of the sermon this morning.
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John begins a new section giving us
some kind of background information after introducing a
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John The baptist. He's teaching us. He's teaching us about Jesus and who
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who he is. But that background
information doesn't mean that it's unimportant. In
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the other words, John Begins to
tell us about John and then he takes
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a second to contrast John with Jesus. But that doesn't mean that the focus
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of this book is all about John. Indeed, it is the Gospel about
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Jesus. This is Jesus's biography,
and this is important to understand because the
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things that are said here, the
things that are impressed upon our hearts,
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are very, very important. Even
these first few words and the word became
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flesh are specifically singled out throughout the
Bible and in particular in the writings of
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John, as essential, as critical, as even a whole sum summary of
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of our faith. And so we
want to think about that this morning.
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What does it mean that the word
became flesh? What is John The evangelist
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telling us about Jesus? Why is
that so important? Happily, this coincides
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nicely with Christmastime, or as we
come close to Christmas and we think about
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the incarnation. What does it mean
that the word, this word that he
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introduced at the beginning of the book, as from the beginning, as with
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God, as one as as God, this word who has life and light,
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this word who is divine? What
does it mean that that word,
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this son of God, became flesh? That's what we will think about this
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morning and hopefully to all our benefit. So first an essential doctrine. Right,
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listen to what John says in First
John, Chapter Four, verse two.
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He says by this you know the
spirit of God. Every spirit that
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confesses that Jesus Christ has come in
the flesh is from God. All right.
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So this is the test that John
Applies. He says, if you
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want to know as somebody's truly of
God, if they truly have the spirit
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of God or not. He asked
this. Do they confess that Jesus Christ
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has come in the flesh? Do
they confess this thing that we have written
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here in our text this morning,
that the word became flesh? He says
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a similar thing in one seven,
for many deceivers have gone out into the
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world. This is in second John, one seven, for many deceivers have
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gone out into the world, those
who do not confess the coming of Jesus
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Christ in the flesh. Such a
one is the deceiver and the Anti Christ.
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Right. So this is a very, very important doctrine to affirm a
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to confess the one who confesses this
is a Christian, one who has the
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spirit of God. The one who
refuses to confess this is a deceiver and
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an anti Christ. John says the
word became flesh. So at this point
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you should be saying to yourself,
I better make sure I understand this,
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I better make sure that I can
confess this now. There are so many
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ways in which people have gone wrong
with this doctrine. Jesus, for example,
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did not cease being God or divine
when he became flesh, but he
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took on flesh, he added it. I'm Jesus didn't change substances in a
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way, lose his divinity and become
humanity. People have made other errors.
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People have said that Jesus was simply
pretending to be flesh or seem to be
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flesh or taught to be flesh.
All of these are not true. I'm
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no, Jesus is divine and was
divine, as we read in the last
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verse of John. Here, he
says, the only God. Speaking of
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Jesus, who is at the father's
side, he has made him known.
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This one who was from the beginning, didn't lose his divinity but instead revealed
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divinity in his humanity. These that
things are important and and worthy of study.
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I won't go through all the various
heresies and problems, but it is
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worth your time to think about the
many ways in which we can err but
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the truth. My main point here
is that this truth is fundamental. It's
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sums up our faith, even that
the word became flesh. Why? Because
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it establishes a very deep connection with
the rest of God's self, revelation,
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the ways that God has revealed himself
in the world. This passage, the
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word became flesh connects what is happening
here. When she in Jesus is incarnation,
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all the way back to all the
way back to the way God revealed
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himself with Adam, the way that
God made himself at in his image.
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John also points out that this is
connected with Moses. Jesus is incarnation brings
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something that teaches us about how we'd
are understand God's Cold Covenant with Moses and
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those people there. Indeed, later
on in John We will learn that this
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revelation of Christ in the flesh also
has to do with God's covenant with David,
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that this likeness of coming one,
this one who came as a son
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of David, and the likeness of
man is important for us understanding as covenant
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with David as well. We can
go through all the covenants of scripture,
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all the various promises that God has
made, and in see in each one
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how Jesus is coming in the flesh
fulfills these things, reveals these things,
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makes the promises that God has made
a come to life. Jesus is coming
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in the flesh is the fulfillment of
these promises, fulfillment of expectations and hopes,
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things that God has been saying since
the very beginning, when he promised
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eve even one who would come and
crush the head of the serpent, not
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to mention Jesus coming into the flesh
is how we become sons of God.
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The scriptures testify. Our relationship to
God is dependent upon Jesus's relationship with our
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humanity. Hebrews reminds us he didn't
come and become like an angel, he
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became like man. That's a very
significant a thing to wonder and behold.
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So you can see, then,
why John says that those who reject this
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singular truth that Jesus Christ came in
the flesh aren't even Christians. How can
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you be a Christian when you reject
the thing to which all the scriptures are
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pointing to? How can you be
a Christian when you reject the one,
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the or the are the thing that
is essential for our very salvation? To
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reject that, to reject that,
the word became flesh, rejects all the
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things that come with it. It
leaves history open, it leaves promises unfilled,
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it makes the cross meaningless and it
makes God absent, because it's in
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Jesus Christ coming in the flesh that
we have our Emmanuel, which means God
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with us. It's Jesus is coming
in the flesh that brings us God's presence.
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So I see now that I've already
wandered into point two, which is
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why is this so important? Right. So my first point was supposed to
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be that this is an essential doctrine. Right. Why is it essential?
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Why is it so important? Forgive
me if I repeat myself a little bit
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here. The result of Jesus is
incarnation, is his presence. This is
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what John gets at. Listen to
what he says in verse fourteen. The
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word became flesh. Right, there's
the doctrine and then he explains that.
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He opens that up a little bit, he says, and dwelt among us
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and we have seen his glory.
So those two things are the ways in
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which John helps us understand. What
does it mean that the word became flesh?
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First, he dwelt among us and
second we have seen his glory.
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In the next words, John then
describes that glory when he says glory is
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of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth, and
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then, picking up in Verse Sixteen, from this fullness we have all received
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grace upon grace, this Jesus.
He has made the invisible God known.
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You might remember the one of our
hymns that we sing, immortal, invisible
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God, only wise, immortal,
invisible God only wise, in light,
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ineccessible, hid from our eyes,
most blessed, most glorious, the ancient
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of days, Almighty, victorious,
thy Great Name. We praise this him
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testifies the fact that we are when
we praise God, we are praising him
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whom we cannot see, him whose
light, as he knows it in himself,
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is so glorious, so blessed,
so wonderful, it's inaccessible, except
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for the fact, or rather,
we could say, but it's also true,
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that this one who no one has
seen, has been revealed in the
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sun, this lot, this one
who dwells in light, inaccessible has revealed
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himself, as we say in then
I seen creed in Christ, who is
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very god of Very God, light
of light, as John says here.
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He is. He came into the
world as the light, and the light
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shines in the darkness and the darkness
has not overcome it. But what does
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this mean? Jesus took on flesh
for a lot of important reasons. First,
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Timothy tells us, to bring about
the further rail revelation of God.
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Jesus took on flesh so that God
would fulfill the dividict covenant in the Sun.
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Romans three, so that the sun
could be borne under the law.
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Galatians for for so that the Sun
could obey the law. Philippians two,
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seven through eight and yet be condemned
by it. Romans eight three. He
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became flesh so that he, in
the place of those who were flesh,
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he could take on and defeat the
power of death and the devil. Hebrews
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to fourteen. He became flesh to
give us light. John Six hundred and
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fifty one. He became flesh to
make us holy and blameless. Before God,
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Coloshians one hundred and twenty two.
These are all the reasons and is,
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or rather these are some of the
reasons, that Jesus took on flesh
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to become like us, to take
sin upon himself so that he could remove
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sin from us and make us holly
and blameless for God. But I want
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to point out to you that the
reason John Focuses on here is something even
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different from that. It's another reason
and a reason. I'll say to you,
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beloved, we, and I include
myself in this, have been,
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I think, our forgetting far too
much. We need to change this.
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What does John say? The reason
he gives here, and there are other
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reasons which I just read, but
the reason he gives here for the importance
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of the incarnation is that the dwelt
among us and we have seen his glory,
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in other words, the presence of
God, even the sight of God,
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is significant. This word dwelt among
US evokes images of pitching one's tent
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in a place. Perhaps you've heard
this before, that this word, and
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it's true, is used in the
Old Testament, of God dwelling with his
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people in the Tabernacle. It's sort
of putting your stakes down of being in
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a place. It evokes all that
imagery and all those promises of God saying
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I will be your God and you
will be my people, and not just
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those promises but the specific building of
the Tabernacle and then the temple after that.
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This word dwells is not merely sort
of being around, but all that
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Old Testament imagery of God leading his
people, protecting his people, being present
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with them, is contained here in
this word references to the Tabernacle. The
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Old Testament teach us that the place
where God pitched his tent was where he
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was to be sought, where he
was to be found. It was called,
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for example, the tent of meeting. Right. It's where Moses would
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go to meet with God. It's
where the presence of the Lord was.
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Listen to Psalm Twenty six eight.
Oh Lord, I love the habitation of
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your house and the place where Your
glory dwells. Right. There was something
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about the presence of God, not
simply the things God did, but just
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the fact that he was there that
made David Long to be in the Lord's
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House. Another words. That great
list and all those verses I read before
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have tell us a lot of things
about the things that the Lord does is
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for us as part of his presence, and that's true and wonderful and we
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give God glorious praise for all of
those. But what I want to emphasize
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this morning is let us not forget
what John Emphasizes here, that simply the
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fact that he is with us is
wonderful, just his presence. Again,
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here's Psalm Twenty six eight. Oh
Lord, I love the habitation of your
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house and the place where Your glory
dwells. Why does he love the place
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where his glory dwells? Because that's
where the Lord is. Sometimes we forget
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this. Right we think so much
about the wonderful things of heaven that we
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forget that the most important, the
most wonderful thing of the Kingdom of God
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is God himself. It's not the
beauty of the the streets, it's not
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the communion of the saints, it's
not the magnificence of the angels or peace
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from enemies. Are All of those
wonderful things, but the most important,
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the thing from which all those flows, is simply being with God, knowing
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him, intimacy with him, even, as John says here, seeing him,
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seeing him and the word became flesh
and he dwelt among us, he
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tabernacled among us and we have seen
his glory. To See the glory of
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God is a big thing in theology. This has been sometimes called the visio
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day or the beatific vision, the
vision of God. It's a truth often
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taught in scripture and has been often
confessed by the church, but too frequently
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neglected today. Let me just ask
you this very plainly and very simply.
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Be Honest with yourselves. How would
you like to see God? Would you
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like to see God, to actually
see God? I've wondered often. Would
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I be less likely to sin against
God if I was more aware of his
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presence, if I actually saw him? I think they answers probably yes.
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What I feel closer to him?
What I feel safe to him? I
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don't see how these kinds of things
can be denied, because it's absolutely true
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of common human experience that we are
emotionally closer to that which is physically present.
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least it's often true to those things
which are visibly present. When a
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child who is standing right in front
of his mother needs consoling, what does
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she do? She draws him close, she holds his face and looks at
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him, even though he's two feet
away, she brings him even closer.
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When the Prodigal's father write the story
of the Prodigal son, when the father,
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or the Prodigal Son's father, saw
him at a distance, what did
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he do? He ran to greet
him, to see him, to be
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close to him. Wasn't it a
blessing to be able to walk with God
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in the presence, in his presence
in the Garden of Eden? and wasn't
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it a curse to be separated from
that and to be banished from the garden?
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Throughout the Psalms David is everywhere desiring
to be in God's house, to
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behold his face. And what does
Paul say? Paul speaks of his own
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experience in ours as well, and
First Corinthians five six, when he says
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while we are at home in the
body, we are away from the Lord.
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It is jot. It is,
as John says, a blessed thing
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to believe without seeing. He'll say
this in John Two Thousand and twenty nine,
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to know God without him being near. And this is our course for
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life right now. As Paul says
in Second Corinthians and eighteen, we look
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not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen.
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That's where we're looking, to what
we can't see, for the things
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that are seen are transient, but
for the things that but the things that
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are unseen, are eternal. Right, we set our faith and our hope
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and our our our sight on something
that we can't see, but yet we
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want to see it. There's still
that desire in us, isn't there?
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Paul says in First Corinthians three hundred
and twelve. For now we see in
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a mirror, dimly, but then
face to face. Now I know in
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part, then I shall know fully, even as I have already been fully
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known. Is that amazing? Paul
saying that he has been seen by God
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in a way that he hasn't yet
realized himself in the other direction, partially
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but not fully. But yet Paul
holds out hope that one day he will
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see God and know God in a
new way. Or here John's words and
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first John Three two. Beloved,
we are God's children now. Don't doubt
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that. I added that. And
sorry, beloved. We are God's children
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now, and what and what we
will be has not yet appeared. But
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we know that when he appears we
shall be like him, because we shall
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see him as he is. Do
you see? This hope of seeing God
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is not some kind of unholy hope
in you that needs to be suppressed and
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push down and driven away, because
faith is good, faith is good,
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and God is good and he is
preserving us now and he is giving us
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what we need now. Don't forget
that, though we are away from the
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Lord. The Lord spent many chapters
in the gospel of John and in his
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time in his earthly ministry, telling
his disciples don't worry that I'll be away
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from you, because you will have
my Holy Spirit, who will bless you
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and give you and unite you to
me. But those, those things are
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true. That doesn't deny the fact
that there's a longing in us for something
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more, a desire in us to
see, to see God. If you
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are a Christian Chin, then this
is your hope, and it's okay,
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it's a good thing. Even you
might sing, for example, the words
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of Psalm Twenty seven, four through
six. One thing I have asked of
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the Lord that aught that that will
I seek after, that I may dwell
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in the House of the Lord all
the days of my life to gaze upon
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the beauty of the Lord and to
inquire in his temple, for he will
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hide me in his shelter. In
the day of trouble, he will conceal
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me under the cover of his tent. He will lift me high upon a
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rock, and now my head shall
be lifted up above my enemies all around
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me, and I will offer,
in his tent, sacrifices with shouts of
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joy. I will sing and make
melody to the Lord. All of these
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consequences. Why? Because he is
with the Lord, even gazing at his
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beauty, the Lord's presence, in
other words, the sight of the Lord,
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gives us beauty, knowledge, protection, honor, joy and satisfaction.
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These things are all anticipated and enjoyed
in the old covenant, but something further
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is promised in the new, as
we read in his Echiel, thirty seven,
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twenty seven through twenty eight, my
dwelling place shall be with them.
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I will be their God and they
will be my people. The Nation's will
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know that I am the Lord who
sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in
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their midst forever. So with all
of this, do you see, then,
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why it's any essential doctrine and the
core of our hope that we're that
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what John says here, and the
word became flesh and he dwelt among us
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and we have seen his glory.
That's amazing. It's the fulfillment of this
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promise of Ezekiel. It's the beginning
of the hope of David to dwell or
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to gaze upon the beauty of the
Lord. This is what it means that
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the word became flesh, and this
is why it is so important to us,
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because it is the beginning of the
end. It is the beginning of
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this fulfillment that one day we will
be with God and we will see him
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and he will dwell with us.
Now, this word to see can mean
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different things. Often it means to
gaze intently at something with wonder. Sometimes,
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though, it can mean to be
a spectator, like at a sport
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or something like that. It can
also mean to see sort of in ones
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in the mind's eye, kind of
perceiving something beyond what is seen. And
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all of these things are true of
Jesus and People's various reactions to him,
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isn't it? There are people who
see his signs and his miracles and go
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wow, and they gaze at them
and they behold them. They see Jesus
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the Son of God and the flesh, and they say, who is this?
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Is that true of you? Do
you behold the glory of God in
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the signs and the miracles in the
words of Jesus, or are you a
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mere spectator, standing back or interested, but for you to walk away at
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any moment? Or are you one
who looks and sees and wonders and beholds
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these things and yet also sees beyond
them to something greater, not merely marveling
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at the miracles in the words of
Jesus, but beholding them with faith?
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One of the amazing things that the
Bible promises is that one day these these
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various forms of sight, particularly the
first and the third, this beholding the
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glories of God but then also hoping
in them, trusting them and enjoying them,
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will come together. Remember Stephen as
he was being a martyred dying for
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the faith. We reenacts seven fifty
five, and he was full of the
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Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and
saw the glory of God and Jesus Standing
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at the right hand of God.
What Stephen saw there's what you will see,
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you will enjoy, but the glory
of Christ is not always too easy
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to see for us disciples, because
though the incarnation is beautiful and secure and
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splendid, it's manifested in suffering,
and so while it's really essential, there's
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kind of a paradox, isn't there? Remember when Jesus Talks About Being Glorified
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Righte this Word Glory, in John
Twelve, for example, or John Thirteen
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or John Seventeen, he talks about
it in light of his crucifixion. He
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says the hour has come for the
son of man to be glorified, and
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we might expect to see what Stephen
saw right this shining radiance of God,
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of Jesus standing at the right hand
of the father. And yet that's not
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what happened, not yet anyway.
What did the disciples see at the glorification
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of Jesus Christ, the hour of
his glory? They saw him in the
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flesh, with his arms on a
cross and a crown of thorns on his
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head, suffering and dying, the
wrath of God being poured out on him.
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How do we understand this? How
we explain it? Well, Jesus
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gives a little parable in John Twelve
to help us understand one sentence. parable
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truly, I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls into the
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earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much
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fruit. Once perceived that the Cross
is where the glory of God he comes
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and how it comes, this message
becomes a very powerful one because it is
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the message of the Gospel. Peter
says in Second Peter One Sixteen. For
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we did not follow cleverly devised mythsts
when we made too known to you the
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power and coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ, but we were eye witnesses of
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His Majesty, and not just his
a majesty, not just His Majesty when
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he ascended up into heaven, but
is a majesty when he ascended up on
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to the cross as well. He
was a king there. Kaloshin says that.
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Jesus says he was nailed to the
Cross, set aside to the record
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of legal demands that stood against us, and he put to open shame the
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devil and all of his minions,
all these rulers and powers and authorities were
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put to open shame when he conquered
them as he hung there on the cross.
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This is very important and brings me
to my third and, I think,
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final point, which is this glory
that is revealed is revealed in a
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very particular way. The glory of
God can come in the power of the
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law, can come in the power
of judgment and make us tremble with fear
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as the glory of the Lord comes
and shines upon us. We would say
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with Isaiah, wo is me,
I am a man of unclean lips and
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a people of Unclean Lips. Curse
upon me, destroy me, I'm going
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to be annihilated. I am undone. That's not what David was hoping for
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when he says pleasures forevermore. I
desire a case on the beauty of the
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Lord. Isaiah is saying in a
sense, but he doesn't say get me
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out of here, but because there's
no aught necessary, really an option.
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But he understood that the consequences of
the glory of God was his undoing in
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his sin. But that's not how
Jesus comes. He doesn't come in the
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power of the law. He doesn't
come as another Moses, as John says
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in seventeen, for the law was
given through Moses. Grace and truth came
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through Jesus Christ or, as he
says in Verse Fourteen, This glory,
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this one of a kind son from
the father. He is full of grace
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and truth, and from this fullness
we have all received grace upon grace.
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The scriptures testify to us that we
cannot see God without holiness. This hope
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we have, this desire that we
have, requires holiness. That's what Hebrews
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says. The Psalms say this too. Who can ascend the Holy Hill of
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the Lord? Who can be and
dwell in his presence? The one who
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has clean hands and a pure heart, or, as Austin preached to us
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a few weeks ago, from the
beatitudes. We can't enjoy the sight of
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the Lord unless we are clean.
Blessed are the pure of heart, for
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they shall see God. There is
a requirement here. There's something contingent that
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that gaps are dad, that gaps
of this conclusion that we want to be
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able to see God and know him
and be intimate with him. But the
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thing that fills the gap, the
thing that makes it glorious and good for
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us, is grace. Jesus is
come in a new way, in a
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better way, in a gracious way. This greatly affects us here and now.
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Interestingly, this way that John Speaks
grace upon grace is used. This
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sort of the construction that he uses
is used in other parts of the Old
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Testament and New Testament. The sort
of the grammatical construction that he uses here
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reminds us of the many other places
it's found where we read things like this
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and I for a too eye,
or a tooth for a tooth, an
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ox for an ox, a beast
for a beast. Throughout the Bible this
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construction usually reminds us of the law, these phrases about fairness and justice,
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about the penalty for disobedience and righteousness
and all of these kind of requirements.
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But here, in this place,
as he makes this contrast with Moses,
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he says it's different. It's no
longer an eye for an eye, a
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tooth for a tooth, is Jesus
says, but it's grace upon grace.
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It's not fairness anymore, it's not
justice, but something something different, something
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we didn't deserve. And that's how
the glory of God is revealed. John
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will tell us that this truth,
of his glory will give us worship,
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freedom, the things of God,
life, the spirit and many other things.
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That's what's attached to the truth,
that's what's attached to the glory,
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and it's why, my friends,
it's so sad at the end of the
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story when pilot asks what is truth
when it's standing right in front of him,
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this truth that is light and life, this truth that is salvation,
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this truth that is the graciousness of
God that brings the presence of God to
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us. It's right in front of
him and he says, what is truth?
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Don't ask that question. Instead,
believe in the truth that is right
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in front of you. Don't be
mere spectators and gawkers at the glory of
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God when he has revealed it and
Jesus on the cross, when he promises
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to you that in Christ you can
see God by faith now, but by
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sight when he comes. This affects
us here and now, Paul says in
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Second Corinthians three eighteen. And we
all, with unveiled face, beholding the
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glory of God. Our being right
now are being transformed into the same image,
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from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord
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who is the spirit. Can Corresponds
to what's John is saying about grace upon
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grace. As we behold the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ,
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we are being transformed. Right here, right now, we experience the
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presence of God. The spirit is
in us, testifying that we are his
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sons and his daughters. It helps
us to understand not only the future but
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also the present. As Paul says, these sufferings that we face now do
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not even begin to compare to the
eternal weight of glory that will be revealed
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to us. Beloved. We often
think about the things of God, his
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blessings, the things that he provides
for us, and they are many,
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00:39:30.579 --> 00:39:35.739
but do not forget God himself.
When you think about the heavenly city,
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00:39:35.860 --> 00:39:40.849
don't forget about its chief inhabitant and
your hope of being close to him,
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00:39:42.690 --> 00:39:49.690
drawn into him, present with him, being transformed even to his image,
412
00:39:49.730 --> 00:39:53.840
or even, as Peter says,
very strongly, sharing in his divinity.
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00:39:58.320 --> 00:40:00.559
We often think about the things of
God, but forget him and himself.
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00:40:02.760 --> 00:40:07.630
Do you want to see something beautiful? Do you want to see something powerful?
415
00:40:08.750 --> 00:40:15.150
Do you want to see something glorious
and to be known by him in
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00:40:15.389 --> 00:40:22.539
love, then put your faith in
Jesus, whom the apostles saw and gazed
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00:40:22.659 --> 00:40:29.059
upon the glory of God and the
grace that came in him and yet belongs
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00:40:29.139 --> 00:40:32.619
to us all because, as he
says in Verse Sixteen, from his fullness,
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00:40:34.420 --> 00:40:40.929
not just the apostles but we all
have received grace upon grace. Let
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00:40:40.969 --> 00:40:42.369
us pray
