Jesus, the Word of God

[0:00] Good to be with you all again for the first Sunday of Advent. We are taking a short break from our sermon series in the book of Exodus, and we're going to explore the Gospel of John for six weeks.

[0:11] So we'll look at Jesus as the Word of God, that's today, and then Jesus as the Lamb of God, Jesus as the Son of God, Jesus as the Christ of God, and the Light of God, and the Bread of God on Christmas Day.

[0:24] So I look forward to going through the Gospel of John with you all. So, and then we're going to be in John 1 today, so if you have your Bibles, if you don't have a Bible, please raise your hand, and we'll have some of our greeters bring you a copy of the Bible you can use while you're here.

[0:40] It looks like you guys all have one. So the Gospel of John in the New Testament, after the Gospel of Luke, before the book of Acts, Gospel of John, chapter 1, verses 1 to 18.

[0:53] Let me pray for the reading and preaching of God's Word. Heavenly Father, we humble ourselves before your Word.

[1:14] Exalt your Son, Jesus Christ, the Word of God. Strike as anew with a sense of wonder before the Word made flesh.

[1:39] God who took on human infirmities. Jesus who took our sins and nailed them to the cross.

[1:58] Fix our eyes on Jesus this morning as we incline our hearts and ears to you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

[2:12] If you're able, please stand with me for the reading of God's Word from John 1, 1 to 18. I'll read it out loud for us. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

[2:35] He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.

[2:46] In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

[2:59] There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through Him.

[3:10] He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

[3:23] He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him.

[3:38] 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.

[3:56] 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.

[4:13] 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.

[4:26] 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.

[4:38] No one has ever seen God. The only God who is at the Father's side, He has made Him known.

[4:49] This is God's holy and authoritative word. Please be seated. There's some famous first sentences of novels that I think many of you would recognize.

[5:09] If I were to say, It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. See some knowing faces. Before I finish that sentence, many of you already identified that as the first line of Charles Dickens' famous novel, A Tale of Two Cities.

[5:28] But no first words are more famous or influential than the first words of the Bible. from the book of Genesis, In the beginning.

[5:40] It then tells the beginning of how the world as we know it came to be, how God created it all simply by speaking with the word of His mouth. The Gospel of John begins with the same exact words, In the beginning.

[5:56] And John intends for us to hear echoes of Genesis 1.1. It's a very ambitious first line for a book. Unlike the Gospel of Mark, which begins with the public ministry of Jesus, or the Gospel of Matthew and Luke, which begin with the birth of Jesus, John goes all the way back to the creation of the world.

[6:20] In fact, he goes even further back. He takes us to the time before creation. Pre-existence. The absolute beginning. Where all there was, was God.

[6:34] Genesis 1.1 said, In the beginning, God. John 1.1 says, In the beginning, the Word. This is John's version of the Christmas story.

[6:47] And he wants us to grasp the cosmic scale of this story. Forget for a moment the sentimentality of a baby in a manger and the pageantry of the three magi.

[7:00] Though those are all important and significant. John's taking us all the way back when nothing else existed. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

[7:13] John's teaching us in this passage that Jesus Christ is the Word who was made flesh to make God known to us. So I'm going to first talk about the Word, and then a witness, and then the Word that, the world that did not know him, and the Word made flesh that makes God known.

[7:31] So we're going to follow that in turn as we go through this passage. So we have to ask the question at first, what is the Word? Because the verse one begins, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

[7:44] John is not speaking of words of human languages that we use to form sentences. The word, which in Greek is logos, is the word from which we get the English word logic, generally refers to an inner thought, something like reason, or even science, and it played an important part of the conceptual world of Greek philosophies.

[8:09] The Stoics and Platonists, for example, they all understood the Word as the rational principle, the animating principle that undergirds and governs the entire universe and constitutes its essence.

[8:23] So it's a very loaded word in its context. However, that's not the end of it. John is aware of the fact that the Word is a buzzword in his day, but his understanding of the Word is not shaped primarily by the Greek philosophies.

[8:39] Rather, he's using the Word, the concept, as a starting point, but then he is reorienting the Word toward the Bible's definition of the Word by connecting it to Genesis.

[8:52] The Word in the Old Testament and in the book of Genesis is God's speech, the divine self-expression or self-disclosure, God revealing himself by his speech to us.

[9:07] In Genesis 1, God creates by his Word. He speaks light, darkness, sky, earth, land, sea, and all the creatures into being through his Word. It says in Genesis 1, 1-3, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

[9:23] The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, and God said, let there be light, and there was light.

[9:37] So God creates by his Word. But God also reveals himself by his Word. And so if you look at the prophets, it's like Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, they often say this phrase, the Word of the Lord came to me.

[9:54] The Word revealing the Lord God himself to human beings. And finally, God saves his people also by the same Word. Psalm 107.20 says, he sent out his Word and healed them and delivered them from their destruction.

[10:12] The Word delivers God's people. In short, the Word of God is God's powerful self-expression in creation, revelation, and salvation. Everything there is to know about God, we know by his Word.

[10:26] God reveals himself by his Word. We cannot know God apart from his Word. So, so far, that's pretty straightforward.

[10:38] But then in verse 1, it tells us something that is absolutely mind-blowing. It says that this Word was with God. So the Word is a being that is distinct from God, which is why we can say that he was with God.

[10:51] So it implies fellowship. He was with God. And yet, John tells us in the clause that immediately follows that the Word was God. God, right? This doesn't mean that the Word is another God or a part of another God or one of the gods.

[11:07] In the syntax here, this underlying the English translation, the word God in the Greek is actually fronted for emphasis. So it actually says God the Word was. The structure of verses 1 to 2 highlight this clause.

[11:21] You look at verse 1, it says the first part, in the beginning, the Word was with God. And then at verse 2, likewise says, he was in the beginning with God. They're mirroring phrases. And they sandwich this central clause to highlight it.

[11:35] The Word was God. That's what it's emphasizing. The very Word, the very God that the Word was with, the Word was that very God.

[11:47] The Word was with God, yet that selfsame Word was God. We're so familiar with this. This is so mind-blowing.

[11:57] The Edmund Clowney, a theologian, puts it memorably. He says, the Word was with God, God's eternal fellow. The Word was God, God's own self.

[12:10] To the Jewish mind, try to think about this from a Jewish perspective, they have been for generations, for thousands of years, drilled into their heads.

[12:21] The Lord is God, and the Lord is one. There's no God besides the Lord. And then to bring this truth, further revelation, to His people, saying that this Word of God was God.

[12:41] The Word was with God, and the Word was God. It shatters their reality, transforms their theology profoundly. This is the first building block of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, which our church is named after.

[12:55] It is a foundational doctrine. The doctrine of the Trinity states that there is one God, only one God, but in three persons, the Father, Son, and Spirit.

[13:05] They are distinct, yet inseparable, three and one. And we see here the Father's relationship with God, the Son, His Word. And then we also saw reference to the Spirit when I read earlier from Genesis 1, 1-3.

[13:18] The Spirit of God is hovering over the waters as God the Father speaks, and the Word brings all creation into being. Psalm 33, verse 6 says, By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of His mouth.

[13:33] The word breath here is the same word that is translated often as Spirit. So God speaks, and His Word, carried forth by the breath of God, brings all of creation into being.

[13:45] The Trinity is not a human invention, it's what we have come up with to make sense of what God has revealed to us in history and in the Word of God.

[13:57] So the Word is a person within the triune Godhead, and the Word of God was not made by God in the beginning, He was God, and as verse 2 reiterates, He was in the beginning with God, already at the very beginning, before anything else was created, the Word was there with God.

[14:15] So the Word was not created, everything was created through the Word. Look with me at verse 3. It says, All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.

[14:27] The totality of all of creation exists through the Word. All things, anything, there's not a thing we see in this universe from the smallest particles that make up the atom to the sun, from the caterpillar to the eagle that soars the heavens.

[14:46] Fire, water, human beings, angelic beings, black holes, the galaxies, nothing visible or invisible in the entire cosmos was created, came to exist apart from the Word of God.

[15:02] That's why Colossians 1, 16 and 17 calls Jesus the firstborn of all creation, the Word of God, the firstborn of all creation. Not in the sense that He was the first thing that was created, but in that He was the one by whom all things were created.

[15:18] He is the first mover, the originator. Colossians explains it further, for by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through Him and for Him and He is before all things and in Him all things hold together.

[15:42] Everything you see and cannot see was created through the Word and for the Word. He's the goal of creation. The Word is the instrument of creation, the reason for being of all creation.

[15:55] Why we exist, why all creation exists, it's Jesus, the Word. He precedes all things and sustains all things.

[16:06] So John is describing how measurelessly vast the Word of God is, who's with God. This is cosmic in scale.

[16:19] And the verses 4 to 5 continue, in Him was life, and the life was the light of man. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

[16:34] Later in John, John 5, 26, Jesus also says that as the Father has life in Himself, that He has granted the Son also to have life in Himself.

[16:46] So this is pointing to Jesus' self-existence as the Word of God, what theologians call the aseity of God, meaning that God has no origin or source apart from Himself.

[16:58] He is self-originating. Because everything we see around us, every life that we see has a beginning at some point in time. It has a source in something else or someone else, but not the Word of God.

[17:10] The Word of God does not have a source it comes from. The Word has life in Himself, like light that makes life possible on earth. All that is life and not death in this world.

[17:22] All that we would describe as life, all that we describe as light, all that comes from Jesus, the Word of God. And in the Gospel of John, I don't think probably most of you are not here when we went through the Gospel of John some years ago now, but John uses the motif of light and life extensively throughout the Gospel.

[17:44] And he tends to use those words with double meaning. So he's not only referring literally to light and to life, physical life, he's referring also to spiritual light.

[17:56] God's illuminating, enlightening light and he's referring to spiritual life, eternal life, resurrection life. Despite all the evil that you see in the world, despite all the darkness and all the death that you see in the world that's ravaging this world, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

[18:19] That's the word. And then in verses six to eight, John digresses briefly to tell us about a witness of the word. He writes, there was a man sent from God whose name was John.

[18:33] He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light but came to bear witness about the light. John being mentioned here is not the apostle John who wrote the gospel of John but John the Baptist and three times, so if you look at verses one to five, it repeats the word God in conjunction with the word but here, in stark contrast in verse six, it says, there was a man sent from God.

[19:05] So the word was with God and the word was God and the word was with God in the beginning but John is a man. So there's a contrast. John was not God and if that wasn't clear and if that weren't clear enough, John makes it even more explicit.

[19:20] He says, John was not the light. It's like, imagine introducing a speaker to a podium and then talking about all the things he's not.

[19:32] He's like, yeah, John is not the light. you know, John's just a man and he's a, he's, but he is a witness. How many times, the word is repeated three times, witness, so that we make no mistake about who John was and what his purpose was.

[19:55] John's function is preparatory and transitory. He makes way for the true light and he bears witness about that light as great a prophet John was and there was no greater prophet.

[20:12] He is no Jesus. He is not the word. He is not the savior of the world. He is not the light of the world. Mistaking John for these things would be like mistaking a guest at the wedding who is merely there as a witness for the bridegroom himself.

[20:33] John actually uses that very metaphor to describe himself in John 3 when John's disciples observe that all of John's previous followers are flocking to Jesus on the other side.

[20:49] John, and then they bring it up to John. Hey, can you do something about this? Look at, they're all going to that guy, to Jesus. And then John says, I am not the Christ. The one who has the bride is the bridegroom.

[21:03] The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete.

[21:14] He must increase, but I must decrease. John is saying, I'm just a witness at the wedding. I'm just here to see, celebrate.

[21:30] Jesus is the bridegroom. And God's people are his bride. It is my joy to see them united to one another.

[21:41] Jesus must increase, I must decrease. And later in verse 15 of our passage, this also gives us a snippet of the witness that John bore about Jesus. He says, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me ranks before me because he was before me.

[21:58] Jesus came after John in terms of time and space in the physical world because John was born before, some months before Jesus was. And John began his ministry before Jesus did.

[22:10] So he was before Jesus in this sense and yet Jesus was before John because why? Verse one told us he was in the beginning with God.

[22:21] Jesus is the eternal word, the God, the word of God himself and he was right there in the beginning and so John, on the other hand, is just over 30 years old and John never existed before he was born.

[22:37] And so John is way outranked by Jesus and he knew this so he bore witness to Jesus. isn't it so easy for us to forget this reality?

[22:49] Our mission in life is not to make much of ourselves, to promote ourselves, to bear witness to ourselves.

[23:02] Our Christian mission is to bear witness about Jesus. He is the eternal word. God, we're just heralds, messengers. We mailmen, relay a message to proclaim a message.

[23:20] Jesus is the light of the world. We're just satellites, moons, revolving around him and we have light only insofar as we are reflecting off of his light, the light of the world.

[23:33] So what is your posture in life? Is your posture in life what's in it for me? What does this local church have to offer me?

[23:48] What does this job opportunity have for me? What does the next five years in life have in store for me? What am I going to do with my life?

[23:59] What if instead of asking what's in it for me, we ask what's in it for Jesus? What does Jesus want to do with the life that he has given me?

[24:11] The world does not need more of me. The world needs more of Jesus. Jesus is the only light that can help people see. Jesus is the only life that can make people who are dead alive again.

[24:29] Missing two Sundays in a row because of COVID was a really helpful reminder for me. This church is not my church.

[24:42] It is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Even the pastor is not the bridegroom. He's just the guest at the wedding.

[24:53] starting in verse 9. John tells us about how the word came into the world and how he was received.

[25:04] He says in verses 9 to 10, the true light which gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him and yet the world did not know him.

[25:18] It's tragic. The repetition of the word world highlights the irony of the world's failure to recognize the word of God. The word is the true light.

[25:29] He came into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him and yet the world did not know him. Remember that nothing in this world came to be without, apart from, the word of God.

[25:41] Everything in this world is upheld and sustained by the word of God and yet the world did not know the word when the word was right here in the world.

[25:53] Imagine a person with two functioning eyes who can see everything. The faces of loved ones, the elegantly trailing plants in some of your houses, the assortment of colorful, you know, fruits in a bowl, the golden brown of a well-cooked turkey.

[26:11] He could see everything. And then we ask him, hey, so do you know what light is? Do you know where the light is coming from?

[26:22] How you're seeing all this? And then he says, no, I've never heard of it. I don't know what light is. Even though it is by the very light that he's seeing everything that he's seeing.

[26:34] I don't know what the light is. That's what the people of this world were like. The word of God who brought them into existence came into the world but they did not recognize him.

[26:48] The situation gets even more dire in verse 11. It says, he came to his own and his own people did not receive him. The word of God came into his own people, Israel, the Jews, the nation chosen as God's special possession among all the nations of the world in the Old Testament.

[27:07] The people whom God saved from their slavery in Egypt and brought forth through the Red Sea and brought into the promised land of Canaan flowing with, richly with milk and honey.

[27:18] Surely they would recognize the word even if all the other nations failed to. But tragically, it says, their own, his own people did not receive him.

[27:31] Dementia is such a grievous condition because it's not only debilitating for the person who is affected, but it also deprives that person's loved ones, all this person's family members of the shared memories and the relational connections that they had with the person.

[27:50] A demented man might say to his own mother, I feel like I should know you, but I have no idea who you are.

[28:01] This is obviously heart-rending for the mother. I gave birth to you. I changed your diapers.

[28:13] I carried you in my arms. I sang songs to you. I brought you to church with me. I walked you to school. Do you not remember me? Verse 11 is tragic in an even worse way.

[28:29] It says, he came to his own. And his own people did not receive him. I created you out of nothing.

[28:41] I brought you forth into this world. I chose you as my own when you were a nobody. I saved you by my mighty hand and nursed you to health and fed you in the wilderness and brought you into the rich promised land.

[28:57] And yet, when I came into the world, you did not recognize me. But though the world did not know him and his own people did not receive him, not all rejected him.

[29:15] Verses 12 to 13 say this, 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.

[29:33] It tells us what does it mean to receive the word instead of rejecting the word. What does that look like? It tells us right here. It means to believe in his name. The name of Jesus represents his person.

[29:47] So to believe in his name is to believe in who he is, who he claimed to be, and all that he did in his life here on earth. To believe that Jesus is the son of God, the Christ, the Messiah, the risen, resurrected Lord.

[30:04] To believe in Jesus is to entrust yourself to him, to renounce all your other allegiances and to say, I pledge allegiance to Jesus as my Lord and as my King.

[30:15] To those who do this, it says in verse 12, Jesus, he gave the right to become children of God. Faith in Jesus Christ is not what earns the right to become children of God.

[30:30] Faith in and of itself is not meritorious. Faith does not qualify us to be children of God any more than, you know, me believing that I am royalty makes me a prince.

[30:47] But Jesus, who was, who has the authority to bestow such honor, gives, he gives the right to become children of God to those who put their faith in him.

[30:58] For this reason, those who become children of God, it says, are born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. We have a lot of babies in the church.

[31:11] Babies are born of blood and flesh. It's not pretty when they're born. When a man and a woman engage in reproductive acts, a child is born.

[31:22] A human child is born. But a child of God is born, not through procreation, but through new creation.

[31:33] Only God can create. A child of man is born of the will of man, but a child of God is born of the will of God. It is not ultimately the will of man, my decision, that makes us children of God.

[31:49] It is ultimately the will of God that makes us children of God. No one belongs to the family of God by birthright, not even the Jews. Only Jesus can bestow that right and he bestows it freely only to those who receive him and believe in his name.

[32:07] But what is his name? Right? Up to this point, John hasn't told us he told us John's name. He hasn't told us the name of the word.

[32:18] He says, believe in the word, believe in his name, but what's his name? He tells us in verses 14 to 17, the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory.

[32:33] 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.

[32:46] 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.

[32:59] Jesus is the word that became flesh and dwelt among us. Instead of letting this familiar phrase just go in one ear and go out the other, just let it sink in for a minute.

[33:13] The word became flesh and dwelt among us. The word of God as we were reading in our assurance of pardon and in confession of sin, the word of God that stands forever.

[33:35] Human flesh is but grass. Grass withers and flower fades but the word of our God stands forever but that word that stands forever became flesh which is like grass that withers away.

[33:53] The word that was with God and was God in eternity past became a man in a particular point in space time. It's crazy. It's like the author of a book like entering the book as its principal character.

[34:13] It's like an architect of a building somehow becoming the very foundation of the building. It's strange and mysterious and yet it is real.

[34:29] It is true. It happened in human history. And this word became flesh and dwelt among us. More literally it says that the word pitched a tent among us or tabernacled among us.

[34:43] It's the same word that's used to refer to the tabernacle in the Old Testament. The tent of God where God dwelled made his presence known to his people. And so we are learning in John 1 that the tabernacle of the Old Testament was meant to foreshadow, meant to point to the reality of Jesus.

[35:00] that Jesus was God's ultimate plan all along to fulfill his plan from the beginning to dwell among his own people. That has been God's plan from the beginning.

[35:12] Not to create us and leave us alone, to run on our own, but to dwell among us. Unlike the so-called gods of paganism who dwelled in distant, lofty mountains, our God chose to dwell among us, to know our weaknesses, to experience our infirmities.

[35:36] Think about this. Jesus knew what it was like to soil his diaper. Jesus knew what it was like to walk around in sandals on a hot, dusty day and come home with his feet coated black with dust.

[35:55] He knew what it was like to have blisters on his hands. Jesus knew the hunger that we feel when we don't eat for a while or for one hour.

[36:14] Jesus knew the pain of weeping at the loss of a loved one. Do you feel that God is aloof from your pain and suffering?

[36:34] Do you feel that God doesn't understand how hard it is for you to resist the allures of sin? Do you feel overwhelmed by how broken and dark this world seems to be?

[36:49] Are you losing hope for your future, for the future of your children? Do you feel that God doesn't know? God doesn't understand. This is God's answer in his word.

[37:01] He says, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. He knows what it's like to be in our shoes.

[37:14] He knows what it's like to feel what you feel. And because he was tempted and yet he never sinned, he's experienced the fullness of that temptation like we haven't.

[37:30] Jesus became like us and dwelt among us so that none of us can ever point to him and say, you just don't understand. And this word became flesh and dwelt among us not only so that we might know that he understands us and that he can save us but so that in Jesus we might know what God truly is like.

[37:56] So that in Jesus we might behold God's glory. Verse 14 tells us we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the father full of grace and truth.

[38:08] And that verse is paralleled by verse 14, I mean verse 18. Verse 14 and 18 parallel each other. Verse 14 says Jesus is the only son from the father. Verse 18 says Jesus is the only God who is at the father's side who has made the father known.

[38:22] Jesus is the only God from the father's side because he is the only son from the father. God grants all those who believe in Jesus' name the right to become children of God.

[38:34] However, Jesus is in a class of his own. He is unique. He is the only son from the father. God is God and we are not.

[38:46] We're only human. But Jesus is the God man. He is fully God but also fully man. He is the only son from the father. One who is eternally begotten of the father and therefore shares the father's divine nature.

[39:01] Every man and woman because we are creating the image of God in some way reveals something about God. But none of us can capture the glory of God. God. The image of God stamped upon us has been marred by our own sin so that no one can truly get to know God the father by just looking at us.

[39:24] Only Jesus can reveal God the father like that. No one has ever seen God. Right? It says in verse 18. No one has ever seen God. And yet later in John 14 9 Jesus says to his disciples whoever has seen me has seen the father.

[39:40] Why? Because he is the only God who is at the father's side who makes him known. Because Jesus and the father are one. Until Jesus came the worshippers of God could never avail themselves of an image, an idol, an artistic representation of God because the second of the ten commandments prohibited as we saw in recent weeks.

[40:05] They longed to see God, to picture God but they never could. But Colossians 3 15 tells us that Jesus is the image of the invisible God.

[40:16] Jesus is the invisible God made visible. Word made flesh. Until Jesus came the people of God could only worship him from afar.

[40:27] Once a year they could enter into the most holy place within the temple, the very throne room of God. And not anyone and not everyone, only one person, the high priest alone.

[40:38] God made a sacrifice for his own sins beforehand. But now we don't need a temple. We don't even need a temple because we have Jesus.

[40:52] God in the flesh who dwelt among us, who made a once and for all sacrifice for our sins. in order to grasp the staggering implications of this, of what Jesus, who Jesus is and what he's done, we need to go back to Exodus 33, 18 to 23.

[41:10] There Moses asks God, please show me your glory. And God replies, I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim you before you my name, the Lord.

[41:24] But you cannot see my face. For man shall not see me and live. And you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.

[41:35] And then later in Exodus 34, 5 to 7, the Lord passes by Moses and shows him his back. And the Lord proclaims his glory. The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

[41:50] The essence of God's glory and goodness, who he is, can be boiled down to those two attributes, steadfast love and faithfulness. Over and over again, throughout the scriptures, those two words are used as summary descriptions of what God is like, what his characteristics are like, what his attributes are like.

[42:14] So he says in Psalm 36, verse 5, your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. A love that does not fluctuate like the waves of the sea, but rather is constant and immovable like bedrock.

[42:36] A love that does not vary or change depending on the circumstances based on the performance of the object of love and affection, but rather an unchanging, steadfast love.

[42:46] Fickleness is not an attribute of God. That is a human attribute. The Lord is instead characterized by faithfulness, which means the Lord is always true.

[42:59] He's always true to who he is. He is, to his gracious and merciful nature. The Lord is reliable. He is faithful. He is true. Do you want to know what the Lord our God is like?

[43:12] He is abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. That's who he is like. But even Moses did not get to behold the fullness of God's glory.

[43:25] He did not get a glimpse of the face of God. His face was hidden. He only saw his back. But Jesus, Jesus reveals the glorious splendor of God's steadfast love and faithfulness.

[43:38] We know this because John tells us, he says in verse 14, that Jesus is full of grace and truth. And again, in verses 16 and 17, Jesus is from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace.

[43:52] The first grace is the law given to us through Moses, and the second grace is the grace and truth that came through Jesus Christ. Two times, this pair of words, grace and truth, describe what Jesus is like, and he's full of it.

[44:09] And those two words are John's Greek rendering of the Hebrew words, steadfast love and faithfulness. Do you want to see the face of God?

[44:23] Look to Jesus who is full of grace and truth. That's why I love reading the Gospels. And I've been watching, it's not the Gospels, it's not a substitute, but I've been watching Chosen with my oldest.

[44:41] And I love introducing her to Jesus through the Gospels, because in the Gospels you meet our Savior, what he was like, how he dealt with tax collectors and lepers and sinners.

[44:56] And in the way he lived and the way he spoke and the way he died and the way he was raised, we see God in his glory full of grace and truth toward us.

[45:14] And in the Gospel of John there is one place in particular where John tells us God's glory is seen in all its glory, all its fullness. goodness. It's not where you might expect it.

[45:30] But it says in John 12, 23, that Jesus is glorified, his glory is most seen when he is hanging on the cross, laying down his life for us.

[45:41] That's the glory that John points to, not when he is transfigured, not when he is ascending.

[45:55] You want to see the glory of God? You want to see the fullness of God's steadfast love and faithfulness? You want to see the face of God in his grace and truth?

[46:07] Look nowhere else. Turn to the cross of Jesus. Look at how love poured out on the cross. Look at how he laid down his life that we might live.

[46:19] Look at how the word of God was made flesh and he poured his blood. That's where you see the face of God. That's where you see the glory of God.

[46:35] For God who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

[46:52] We see the glory of God in the face of Jesus because Jesus is the word who was made flesh to make God known to us. Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray.

[47:04] Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, you did not have to become man.

[47:34] you could have come as a son of God in all his terrifying glory to consume all of us sinners.

[47:49] and yet you came to reveal your glory in the fullness of grace and truth.

[48:00] Fullness of your love, your faithfulness. Lord Jesus, please help us to know you and remember you rightly, that we might relate to you rightly.

[48:14] Especially this Advent season, remind us, remind us of the peculiar glory of the Son of God displayed on the cross.

[48:24] His life, death, resurrection. His life, death, resurrection. Thank you.

[48:41] We love you. Jesus name. We pray. Amen.