Jesus Christ Revealed

Grace Fellowship Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

00:15

I want to begin today by sharing a story of an encounter that I had a number of years ago.

00:21

I think Noah, you wouldn't remember this, you were maybe like three or four months old. But one weekday,

00:27

I think it was a weekday morning, mid -morning, I was upstairs getting ready for an afternoon shift at work, and I heard the doorbell ring, and Nicole made her way to the door, and so I didn't think much of it, just carried on with my day.

00:40

But as she greeted the guests that were at her front door, I might have been shaving or brushing my teeth,

00:46

I leaned in and strained to hear what the conversation was about, and I heard this exchange of introductions, and I thought was probably just a door -to -door salesperson or something, and carried on with whatever it was that I was doing to prepare for work.

01:01

And as the conversation advanced, and I listened in, I heard the topic of the conversation move from pleasantries to Bible prophecy and the kingdom of Jehovah.

01:13

And I knew as soon as I heard those words, that's right Matt, the fateful day had arrived.

01:20

A lot of people don't look forward to visits from the Jehovah's Witnesses, but it was a welcome visit, it was a visit that we had been waiting a long time for, and so I eagerly wrapped up whatever it was that I was doing, and made my way downstairs, and greeted our guests, probably really abruptly and excitedly, maybe something they're not used to as Jehovah's Witnesses coming to the door, and we had them in, and over the course of the next several hours, our pleasant conversation, even about Bible prophecy, as it often does, morphed into a debate about the divinity of Jesus Christ.

01:56

So that is, whether or not Jesus is God. And I argued that Jesus was, without a doubt,

02:06

God in human flesh. That Jesus was, when he came to the earth, both fully God and fully man, in perfect union in one hypostasis, what they call the hypostatic union, that fully

02:18

God, fully man, in one, that was Jesus Christ. They disagreed, they argued that Jesus was

02:25

Michael the Archangel, that he wasn't God, but he was a mere created being. I don't know, what do you think about that, kids?

02:32

No, okay, that's just testing. And so, as we sat in our dining room, around the kitchen table, the conversation centered on this singular question,

02:42

Who is Jesus Christ? Who is Jesus Christ? And so that's what we're going to consider today.

02:48

Who is Jesus Christ? And I don't know if you've had the Jehovah's Witnesses over at your house before, but I'll be honest, it didn't go at all the way that I was expecting it would.

02:56

I had always pictured in my mind that when we'd have the Jehovah's Witnesses out over, I would be ready,

03:02

I'd put my Bible on the kitchen table, I'd open to a series of irrefutable texts, and scales would fall from their eyes, there would be repentance, there would be faith, and rejoicing around the table with new brothers and sisters in Christ.

03:16

But that isn't at all how it went. I would bring up a text, and they would counter it with another.

03:22

They would bring up an obscure passage that I wasn't even acquainted with, and stump me with something from that text, and then they would take passages that were very familiar, very dear to me, and they would turn them upside down on their heads.

03:37

And so at the end of the conversation, rather than feeling a sense of righteousness, I don't want to have a smug sense of satisfaction, but a righteous sense of satisfaction,

03:46

I was instead feeling ill -equipped and unprepared. I wasn't ready to clearly, convincingly, compellingly, and biblically, most importantly, defend the identity, the spiritual identity of Jesus Christ as it's plainly revealed in the

04:05

Bible. So this was, I knew immediately after they left, I became an instant

04:10

Bible scholar on some of these things, because it was an apologetic failure on my part that betrayed my superficial understanding of the deity of Christ.

04:20

And not only did I not have an adequate grasp of this doctrine to share with others, or to oppose false teaching, but I didn't have the ability to appreciate and to enjoy.

04:36

I know I'm not talking to Jehovah's Witnesses today, so this is what I want for you. The ability to appreciate and to enjoy having a rock -solid,

04:49

Scripture -informed understanding of who Jesus Christ really is.

04:55

Who He really is. So, I don't know about you, if the Jehovah's Witnesses were to knock on your door today, and in that same conversation were to morph into the deity of Christ, the divinity of Christ, would you be ready to have that conversation?

05:12

And if they don't come, do you still have the knowledge, this is probably more important, do you have the knowledge, do you have the confidence in your understanding of Scripture that will fuel your joy and your devotion to God by having an unwavering confidence in the true identity of Christ, of who

05:36

Christ really is? Well, as we look through John 1 today,

05:42

I think we're going to get some very beneficial help. I've gone through this text so many times,

05:48

I love this text, and I hope to share some little nuggets that will be of help to you as we consider this.

05:56

If you haven't read the Gospel of John before, I'm sure actually looking out that everyone here has read the

06:01

Gospel of John before, it is a very unique account compared to the Synoptic Gospels.

06:06

The Synoptic Gospels are those that we get from Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and then

06:12

John in and of itself is a very special gospel. It doesn't so much concern itself with an orderly account or a biography of Christ's life, but really the evangelist

06:25

John was looking at explaining, of laying out before his readers who it was that Jesus Christ really is.

06:34

So if you like church history, Clement of Alexandria, he was a theologian in the 2nd century, he summed up the

06:41

Gospel of John in one really nice, succinct saying that I found helpful.

06:46

He says that John was led by the Holy Spirit to compose a spiritual gospel.

06:53

So Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all Spirit -inspired, he's not denying that, but it's far more biographical.

07:00

And he says John was led to write a spiritual gospel. And John says, he gives us his motive for writing in John 20, 31, he says that the

07:10

Gospel is written, in verse 31, that you may believe. That word believe appears in the

07:16

Gospel 98 times. You may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the

07:21

Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. And so today we're going to look at verses 1 to 18, what people often call the prologue of the

07:32

Gospel of John. And what I want us to do here is to see that the identity, the true spiritual identity of Christ is plainly, plainly revealed.

07:44

Some try to obscure it, but it's plainly revealed. John leaves no room for doubt, Jesus Christ is

07:50

God incarnate. He's God incarnate, he is God the creator of all things.

07:56

If you have your notes, you'll see these are kind of the points that we're going to follow. The creator of all things, he's

08:02

God the rejected Messiah, and he's God the Savior of all who receive him by faith.

08:09

And so if we can grasp that this afternoon, not only will it help us to counter cults, if those

08:14

Jehovah's Witnesses come this afternoon, you'll be ready, or at least more ready. But not only that, but I trust it's going to increase our joy, our love, our devotion, our confidence in Christ.

08:28

It's going to firmly anchor us in who he is and what Scripture says, who Scripture says that he is.

08:35

So let's look, we'll look first at John chapter 1, verses 1 to 4. And I'll let the cat out of the bag.

08:42

The first thing that we're going to see here is Jesus Christ is God eternal, the creator of all things.

08:48

And so our passage begins. Kids, I want you to pay attention because I'm going to quiz you here. Our passage begins in verse 1 like this.

08:56

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the

09:02

Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

09:10

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

09:17

So our passage begins with these three words. In the beginning. So kids, do you remember, can you think of anywhere else in all the

09:26

Bible where a sentence starts with those words? Genesis. Genesis. Do you know the chapter and verse?

09:32

Maybe Scarlet? Chapter 1, verse 1. Okay, well, Noah got that one, but we'll give you another chance,

09:37

Scarlet. But that's exactly right. The very first three words in our

09:43

Bibles, Genesis 1, chapter 1, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

09:50

And these words are central to everything that John is going to say. He didn't do this by accident, but John is using those words from Genesis 1 -1 to start his book.

10:01

He writes, In the beginning. And what John is doing, he begins his book by transporting us back to the very beginning of time and space.

10:14

And so when he says, In the beginning, he uses the Greek expression, N -R -K. N -R -K.

10:20

That's where we get our English word archaeology from. R -K. So the very origins of time, when creation was just a thought in the mind of God, there

10:32

God was. There this word was. In the beginning. In that void was the word.

10:39

The word was already there at the very origins. And here

10:46

John uses the most forceful language. If you're not familiar with the cultural context of this, this might be helpful.

10:53

John uses the most forceful language that he can muster. Even if we find John's language now to be a little bit daunting and confusing at times,

11:02

I admit that even reading this passage over as I began to prepare, I thought, he's going a million directions all at once.

11:11

But the language that John uses here, in the beginning, was the word. Though confusing to some, it would have been very, very clear to John's contemporaries.

11:22

So here, John introduces us to the word. He uses the Greek word logos.

11:28

That's where we get the word logo from. Logos. And the logos was pregnant with meaning in that first century amongst the

11:39

Christians, amongst the Gentiles, amongst the Jews. To the Gentiles, the logos represented, if you can look this up, the rational force by which everything existed.

11:53

So everything in all the world, the Greek philosophers believed, came by the logos. So the

11:59

Greek Stoics, there was no God, no God, no power above the word or the logos.

12:05

And then to the Jews, the logos represented the powerful word of God in creation.

12:12

So if you've ever read, Lucy, if you've ever read Genesis chapter one, or if you have ever heard it read, it says, and God said, and there was light.

12:21

And God said, and there was sky. And God said, and there was land. And there were oceans, and plants, and animals, and man.

12:30

Everything came by God's powerful word. Everything came by what God had said.

12:37

And the Jews also understood that the word was God's divine self -disclosure of himself.

12:44

Everything the Jews knew about God came through the word of God. And so, as John writes, both to Jews and Gentiles, this is packed with meaning.

12:54

In the beginning was the logos. Now, who is this logos? We know the answer, but I'm just going to keep you in suspense a little longer.

13:02

Who is this logos? He says, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was

13:10

God. He was with God in the beginning. So, if there was any doubt left about what

13:19

John's getting at, he sets the record straight. Whoever this word is, notice he uses in verse 2, he, so it's a masculine pronoun.

13:29

He is none other than God himself. And John provides us with a bit of nuance here. And these are the building blocks for the

13:36

Trinity. You have God, N -R -K, before anything.

13:41

You have God who is with God. And you have God who is God. Now, if people are confused by the

13:49

Trinity, then they're going to be confused by this. But if you understand the Trinity, this makes perfect sense, that God can both be with God, and that God is

13:55

God. So, we see the building blocks here. And so, we can recognize, if we just understand initially, that before anything was made, the word was there.

14:08

To the Gentiles, the word, there was nothing, there was no God above the Logos. To the

14:13

Jews, the Logos was the self -disclosure of God. And if we're really honest, if anyone's really intellectually honest, it is impossible even to look at the first two verses of John 1 and deny the deity of Christ.

14:29

Unless, of course, you deny John's gospel, or you change it.

14:35

And so, we know our friends from the Jehovah's Witnesses, our visitors at the door, they have their own version of the

14:41

Bible. That is how they get around this issue, is they must change it in order for it to be palatable to their theology.

14:51

And so, if I were to give you the New World Translation, it would be, I find it really hard to use the word translation, as I described that book, the

15:00

New World something. If I were to give you that, and you were to turn to John 1 .1, it would say there, in the beginning was the

15:07

Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a

15:13

God. And so, what they do is, they seek to minimize Christ by taking away his preeminence, by stripping away his divinity, but there's a problem there.

15:27

And I want you to remember this, if the Jehovah's Witnesses ever come to your door, that's not what the original text of John 1 .1

15:33

says. If you were to go back to the Greek manuscripts, you can pull it up on your phone,

15:40

Blue Letter Bible app is one where you can do it, and you can look at it with them, word for word.

15:48

And what it says, if we were to look at the Greek text, is this, in the beginning was the

15:53

Word, and the Word was with God, and, word for word, using the wooden

15:59

Greek, and God was the Word. Not a God was the Word, but God was the

16:05

Word. So, it reads, kaitheos, and God, enologos, was the

16:11

Word, and God was the Word. Now, some Jehovah's Witnesses will pick up and say, ah, but the

16:17

Greek grammar, it's missing this one particle, or participle, at the beginning of the

16:24

Word. And you can say, and if you can remember this Colwell's Rule, Colwell's Rule dictates that when it's missing the participle prior to the noun, the context dictates the meaning, and therefore, even within Greek grammar,

16:41

God was the Word stands. So, there's no way around it. But if there was any doubt,

16:47

John gives us more context in verses three and four. So, he says, all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

16:57

So, nothing was made apart from this Word. Visible, invisible, spiritual, natural, thrones, authorities, dominions, nothing was made.

17:13

And so, it begs the question, and maybe I'll say this, when you think about God, when

17:18

I think about God, one of the defining characteristics of God is that if you're the source of life, if you're the source of all things, if nothing was made before you, and everything that came to be is from you, that is the essence of what it means to be

17:34

God. And so, the Word is God. So, I haven't kept you in suspense,

17:41

I don't think, but I'll ask the question. Maybe I'll ask, I'm not sure if Scarlet's paying attention now, but Scarlet, who do you think the

17:49

Word is? And the Word was with God, and the

17:55

Word was God. The Word was God, yeah. Can you think of maybe one person in the

18:01

Trinity it could have been? God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

18:09

God. God the Son. That's the right answer. At least partway there.

18:15

But the Word was God the Son. Everything, small and great, visible, invisible thrones, rulers, authorities, everything was created by God the

18:29

Son. And we see in verse 14, that it's pointed out here, in verse 14,

18:35

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only

18:42

Son, from the Father, full of grace and truth. And then in verse 17,

18:49

For the law was given through Moses, see that same grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

18:58

No one has ever seen God the only God who is at the Father's side. He has made

19:04

Him known. So we see that the Word is

19:09

God and the Word is Jesus. Jesus Christ is

19:14

God. This is fundamental to John's Gospel. If we were doing a study through the

19:20

Gospel of John, I would point out to you that this is the matter of first importance.

19:26

As John writes his letter, the very first thing that he wants to get off his chest is that Jesus Christ is

19:31

God incarnate. One commentator of John 1 says this, John intends that the whole of his

19:38

Gospel be read in light of this one verse. The deeds and words of Jesus are the deeds and words of God.

19:48

And if this be not true, the book is blasphemous. And so if Christ is not

19:56

God, then the Book of John, the Gospel of John does not belong in our

20:01

Bibles. It is that clear. We could go through the seven signs that he does, the seven

20:08

I Am statements before Abraham was I Am. We won't go through all of that, but that is

20:15

John's central theme. Now, up to this point, some people might say, Shane, you're preaching to the choir.

20:21

We all know this. We don't need to talk about this anymore. But unfortunately, it's not the case.

20:28

It's just not the case. It might be the case amongst most of us in this room, but I looked at a study last year,

20:35

Ligonier Ministries. If you know R .C. Sproul, he's part of Ligonier Ministries or vice versa. And they did a study in the

20:41

U .S. in 2020, and they asked first the general public, they asked the general public, is

20:47

Jesus Christ God? And two -thirds of the respondents said either no, he isn't, or they did not know if he was

20:56

God. So at least 66 % of the general population would, at a basic level, deny the deity of Christ.

21:03

And I think if you were to do a cross -section of Canadians, I think that would even be far worse just with the biblical illiteracy in Canada.

21:11

And so for the purpose of evangelism, it's good to know, it's good to be able to articulate who

21:17

Christ is, that Christ is God. But I'll tell you something that should really raise our alarm bells.

21:24

When they put the same question to professing Bible -believing

21:29

Christians, so they're talking to people who read their Bibles, or at least claim to. They're talking to people who claim to go to church.

21:36

They're talking to people who are Christians, evangelical Christians. One -third of those people, 34 % exactly, when asked if Jesus is

21:47

God, stated, no, or I don't know. So if we were to go, hop in the

21:55

Shalafu's van and drive around the city of Edmonton and look at all the churches in Edmonton, you'd say that one -third of the churches that we see are filled with people who both profess

22:10

Christ as Lord and who deny everything that he is.

22:16

And so we need to teach this in the church. We need to teach the whole counsel of God.

22:25

Because to deny that Christ is God, to deny his deity, it isn't a small detail.

22:32

It's a denial of the gospel. That's the core of the gospel message, that in Jesus Christ, God was present, that he was living, that he was dying, that he was raising, that he was defeating, that he was reconciling the world to himself.

22:49

That is the gospel, that God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ.

22:56

And so to deny the deity of Christ is to deny the clear teaching of the Bible, and it's to deny the gospel.

23:04

And we could, if you're interested, ask me afterwards. I'll give you a whole handful of texts.

23:10

I'll give you two handfuls of texts that teach this, just a few. Romans 9, verse 5.

23:16

Paul says, speaking of the Jews, theirs are the patriarchs, and from them, as he's talking about the

23:21

Jews, is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised.

23:30

Amen. Colossians 2 .9, Paul exclaims, for in Christ all the fullness of deity lives in bodily form.

23:38

In 2 Peter 1 .1, Peter writes, this faith was given to you because of the justice and fairness of Jesus Christ, our

23:47

God and Savior. We have Hebrews 1 that we read, Psalm 45 .7,

23:53

Psalm 110 .1, Isaiah 9 .6, Daniel 7, 13 and 14, and a whole host of other.

24:02

And yet there are people that go to church, that profess Christ as Lord, that do not understand this doctrine.

24:11

And why is that? Two reasons. I mentioned one already. I think there's a dangerous lack of biblical doctrinal teaching in the church.

24:23

And so people are not given this knowledge. They should be finding it for themselves, but they're also not being taught it in Scripture.

24:32

And I think the other reason is what we find as we continue looking through the text. So let's look at verse 5.

24:39

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was

24:45

John. 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.

24:55

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, yet the world did not know him.

25:04

He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. I'm going to read verse 11 one more time.

25:13

He came to his own, and his own did not receive him.

25:19

So in this brief prologue, the word light is mentioned seven times, and we're introduced to John the

25:24

Baptist, who's to bear witness to this light. And one perceptive brother asked the question, who needs someone to tell you when the light has been turned on?

25:36

You know, if I were to go to the back room and turn the lights off, and then turn them on again, who would we have to tell that the lights have been on?

25:44

Well, if a person is blind, then you need to be told that the lights have been turned on.

25:50

And so John the Baptist came as a forerunner of Christ, not to a spiritually alert and receptive people, but to a dark, a depraved, a spiritually blind world.

26:01

He came to a people who were, as it says in Ephesians 2, dead in their trespasses and sins.

26:07

And you were dead. And he summoned their attention, not to himself, but to Christ, in order that they may see the light.

26:15

They might see Christ. They might believe in him. They might receive their creator. And even when

26:22

Christ came as the blinding light of the sun at dawn, they did not perceive it.

26:29

That's why God sent this forerunner. Instead of receiving him, in fact, they rejected him.

26:36

And so if you see in your handout, that second point, Jesus Christ is God made visible, yet rejected by men.

26:45

This is a major theme of John's gospel, that Jesus is continuously misunderstood and mistreated by his people.

26:54

We're told in verse 5, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

27:01

And it begs the question, what was there to understand, perhaps, about this light?

27:08

Why did John have to come? How was it that Christ was the light of the world?

27:18

First of all, in Christ, we see this, that Christ is the one who radiates the pure light of moral perfection.

27:26

So in a word, he is impeccable. You hear about the doctrine of impeccability.

27:32

That means he was without sin. He is holy. He is the holy one of Israel.

27:38

In 2nd and verse 9, it tells us that he is the true light that gives light to every man.

27:46

So Jesus is the source of illumination. He illumines the minds of men, that we might see ourselves aright, that we might see the world aright, but specifically, that we would see

27:59

God aright. I remember when I was a child, it was just after the

28:04

Edmonton tornado. And so it was perfect for an anxious child like me at that time.

28:11

And whenever big thunderstorms would roll in, our power was much less reliable, and it would go out.

28:18

We lived in the country, and because the tornado had just hit, we spent a lot of the 80s in the basement when there were thunderstorms.

28:26

And so we'd go to the basement, and the lights would go out, and as an anxious child, it was very unsettling.

28:32

But I remember it was such a good thing, such a comfort to me. My mom would light candles around the basement, and you'd be able to see.

28:42

You'd be able to see around. You wouldn't be falling over yourself in this dark, damp basement in the midst of this big thunderstorm.

28:52

And like a candle in the darkest of nights, Jesus Christ came as a guiding light, just like that light in the basement, to help us see, and to help us see

29:04

God specifically, the illumination, the revelation of God himself.

29:10

It's in Jesus Christ, when people talk about the character of God, the attributes of God, the nature of God, it's in Jesus Christ that we most clearly see the character, the attributes, and the person of God, Emmanuel, God with us.

29:27

To drive this point home, if we look at verse 18, John writes this. He says, It's from that phrase, if you're a theology geek like me, it's from that phrase in verse 18 that we get the word exegesis.

29:48

If you're talking about doing a biblical study, doing good exegesis, we get it from verse 18.

29:54

That word, or that expression, made him known, is the word exegeomai.

30:00

So it means the act of interpreting or explaining. And so Jesus came as a light into a darkened and confused world, we're told, to exegete the

30:12

Godhead. So the first one to do exegesis wasn't a theologian, it was Jesus Christ, and he was exegeting who it is that God is.

30:21

He's explaining who is God. We're told in Colossians 1 .15, he is the image of the invisible

30:29

God. And yet he wasn't understood. He wasn't received.

30:35

We know he was rejected. He's still rejected today. He was rejected by the Arians in the third century.

30:42

He was rejected by the Jehovah's Witnesses, and he's been rejected every other time in between. Now why is that?

30:49

If Jesus Christ is God, and he came in flesh, there was someone to bear witness to this light, why in the world was he rejected?

31:01

If you have your Bibles open to John 1, flip them over to John 3, verses 19 and 20.

31:08

This will tell us why. And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather than the light.

31:20

Because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

31:31

And so this is why the Jews and the Gentiles and the Jehovah's Witnesses and all of fallen humanity did not, and still do not now, receive

31:42

Jesus Christ. It's not primarily... It is a teaching issue. It is a

31:47

Bible reading issue. But it's not primarily those things. It is a sin issue.

31:53

It is a rebellion issue. When the Jehovah's Witnesses come to your door denying

31:59

Christ, it's not just because they're Jehovah's Witnesses, it's because they're sinners, like every other man, woman, and child in the world.

32:07

It's because the deeds of fallen men are only continually evil, and they love this evil.

32:14

And it might seem harsh to the world, but the natural man, when you talk to the average person on the street, their words might say one thing.

32:21

The natural man does not deny Christ. The natural man hates Christ.

32:27

Hates Christ. It says that in John 3. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light.

32:40

So Christ the God -man, in John 1, came to his own creatures. He lived, as it says in Hebrews 1, 3, as the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.

32:54

And what did humanity do to him? I'm going to get really personal. What did we do to him?

33:02

How did we receive him? Children, maybe

33:08

Noah or Elise, how did humanity receive Jesus? Did we welcome him with a red carpet?

33:18

No. What did the world do? They killed him, right?

33:24

We did not worship. We did not marvel. We killed him. We killed the word of God.

33:30

We killed the light of the world. We killed the source of all life. We killed the Son of God.

33:36

And the blood of Jesus Christ is on the hands of every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth.

33:44

Now you might say, Shane, if I was there 2 ,000 years ago, you know when people talk about if you could travel to any time period in the history of the world, and some people say, well,

33:56

I would travel back to the time of Christ. I say, I would have loved that, but I wouldn't want to be there because I know, at least in my fallen condition, what

34:05

I would have been doing there. If you're a Christian today, it might not be true of you.

34:13

Praise God. It might not be true of you that you would have killed Christ then. But prior to coming to Christ, you're self -deceived if you'd say that you would act any differently than many of the people did then.

34:26

Listen how Paul describes all of humanity, all of us, at least prior to Christ saving us.

34:33

Romans 3, verse 10. This is a description of your heart, of my heart, at least in its unregenerate form.

34:45

None is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God.

34:51

Usually amongst professing Christians, we can all find agreement there. Well, sure, no one's good, right?

34:57

I mean, we're all sinners. But listen to what Paul says. All have turned aside.

35:02

Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave.

35:08

It's starting to get offensive. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips.

35:15

Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood.

35:21

In their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.

35:27

There is no fear of God before their eyes. In our unsaved form, the old shame would have been right there with the

35:41

Jews saying, crucify him. The old Amy, the old

35:47

Roxanna, the old Paul. The murderous actions of those first century men and women were not distinct and removed and separate from us.

35:58

They are representative of who we are, who we were before Christ came.

36:05

The same hearts that nailed Jesus Christ to the cross are the same hearts that were found, or may still be found, in us.

36:14

So it begs the question. God the Son, God the Word, came to the world that he had made.

36:20

The world rejected him. What will God do? This is good news for us.

36:27

This is good news for Jehovah's Witnesses. What will God do?

36:32

He came to his own and we did not receive him. But instead, the world beat him and put him to death by the most gruesome means of execution imagined in the world.

36:46

And the blood of Christ is on our hands. What will God do? It's beyond fathoming.

36:57

He will save us. He will save us.

37:04

Here we see that Jesus Christ is God the creator. He's God made visible and rejected and he is

37:11

Jesus Christ, God, the only Savior of sinners. The only

37:18

Savior of sinners. Isaiah 43, verse 10. Before me no God was formed.

37:25

You see a similarity in the language. Nor will there be one after me. I, even I, am the

37:30

Lord, and apart from me there is no Savior. God the

37:37

Son humbled himself. He came down not only with full knowledge that he would be rejected by men, but it was his plan from before the foundation of the world, anarchy, before even the world was made.

37:53

And it strains the mind to consider this, but as God the Son, as Jesus Christ, hung on that cross in our place, he not only endured the wrath of men, but the just wrath of God for those vile creatures, for us vile creatures.

38:16

In Galatians it says that he became a curse. In 2 Corinthians 5, he became sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

38:27

Even 600 years before Christ came, Isaiah said this. He prophesied in Isaiah 53, 10.

38:33

Yet it was the will, it was the will of the Lord to crush him.

38:40

He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days.

38:48

The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied.

38:57

By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous.

39:06

And he shall bear their iniquities. That's what theologians called the great exchange, that when

39:15

God the Son came, even though he wasn't recognized by the world, he would not have been recognized by us, even though he was rejected by the world, on that cross, he took the wrath that we deserve.

39:28

That cup in the garden, when he said, Father, if it be your will, let this cup pass from me, that was the just wrath of God that we deserve.

39:38

That was the judgment we deserve. And on that cross, Christ took our cup.

39:44

He, as one person has said, he drank our hell. And by faith, as John lays out here, by receiving him and by believing in his name, not only does he take our sin, but he gives us his righteousness.

40:01

You might have heard me say this before, but I've been out street preaching with brothers and sisters, brothers primarily,

40:08

I should say, and at one time I heard a brother say, if you believe in the

40:13

Lord Jesus Christ, you will be justified. It will be just as if you never sinned.

40:20

And that sounded really nice, until I started thinking about it. To be justified is even more than that.

40:27

It's even more than a clean record. To be justified is this. Picture a bank account.

40:34

You have a bank account and you're in debt. You know, 10 ,000 talents, 40 ,000 years,

40:41

I'm not sure, I can't remember how many years it was, but thousands of years in labor that it's going to take for you to pay off that debt.

40:49

Christ does not come and simply pay off the debt and you have a balance now of zero.

40:56

Christ comes. The sin of man for the righteousness of God.

41:03

He doesn't just level the account. He fills that account to full.

41:10

I remember telling the students this when we did our campus ministry. They love this idea because they're all poor, but it's like taking your debit card and putting it in the bank machine and emptying out all the money that the bank has and you put back the card in and you check the balance and the balance is still nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine.

41:32

It never ends. It's the righteousness of God for the sin of man.

41:39

How do we avail ourselves of this righteousness? Verse 11, he came to his own.

41:46

His own people did not receive him, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God.

42:01

It's by receiving him. That's not just a mental ascent, but it's receiving the master and the maker.

42:10

It is a submission to him. It's saying, I recognize

42:16

Christ. You're not just a man. You're not just an angel.

42:22

You are God. You are my God. You are my master. You are my maker.

42:29

And it's by believing in him for a full and a free forgiveness.

42:35

Again, not just the fact of his death, not just the fact of his resurrection, but who he is and what he has done, the person and the work of Christ, all of it.

42:46

Saying, Lord, take all my sin. My only merit, my only hope is in you.

42:54

In verses 16 and 17, I love this line. We're called Grace Fellowship Church.

43:00

And I think about this line often when I think about the name of this church. For from his fullness we have all received, this is verse 16, grace upon grace.

43:12

For the law, the law and all of its demands, the law that was given to silence us, to shut our mouths, the law was given through Moses, the good law, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

43:29

What does it mean that through his fullness we have all received grace upon grace?

43:37

What does that mean, grace upon grace? I remember some of you know,

43:44

Roxanne and Paul, you were over just a few days ago and heard Nicole talking about how much she loves

43:49

Hawaii and just the blessing that it's been to go there with our in -laws who are able to afford much nicer holidays than we can.

43:58

And a few years ago we were on a family trip to Hawaii and we stayed in this suite literally right next to the ocean.

44:08

You know, you could go out the back door and huck a rock into the ocean, right there on the ocean.

44:13

And it was almost overwhelming, just the beauty and the sound and everything that was there.

44:19

And one of the neatest things that I found is that you could go to bed and as you went to bed, you'd hear the crashing of the waves on the shore, that whoosh, whoosh, and it would put you to sleep.

44:36

And when you'd wake up in the morning, what would you be woken up with? But the sound of those waves, whoosh, day, night, whether you're awake, whether you're asleep.

44:48

Tomorrow, Lord willing, they're going to be there. They were there a hundred years ago, those waves crashing on the beach a thousand years ago.

44:57

Ever since the flood of Noah, those waves have been crashing on that beach.

45:04

And when you stand out on the beach and you look out at the water, you see a wave and then another wave and then another wave and another wave and another wave and they're all lining up.

45:18

And just as one wave crests and crashes on the beach, whoosh, it moves towards the ocean and it's consumed by another wave.

45:29

And that, in my mind, is the best way to describe grace upon grace.

45:36

Looking out there as far as the eye can see. Brothers and sisters, we deserve wrath. We deserve judgment.

45:44

We can look down our noses at the Jehovah's Witnesses, but the only reason why

45:49

I'm here and not standing on someone's doorstep spouting that is because the grace of God in the

45:55

Lord Jesus Christ. And even though all of us deserve wrath in Jesus Christ, that is all that is left for us.

46:05

Grace upon grace upon grace, blessing after blessing.

46:13

I'll finish with these words, Romans 8, 31. What then shall we say to these things?

46:20

If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

46:36

This is what grace upon grace looks like. Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?

46:42

Who will bring any charge against you, brothers or sisters? It is

46:48

God who justifies. If it was an angel that worked to justify us, we'd be hooped.

46:57

If it was me that came to justify you, we would be hooped. But if it's

47:02

God, who is to condemn?

47:09

Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

47:21

And I'll add, even now. So there is no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus, only grace upon grace.