Better Than Justice - [John 1:15-18]

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You know, our society is fascinated with justice. We want to see, at least
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I do, the good guys win, the bad guys lose. In fact, if I go to a movie, notice
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I said that, if I go to a movie. If I go to a movie and the bad guys win, I just don't like that movie. I want to see the good guys win.
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Everybody does. And this week alone, we've seen really kind of all sorts of movements for justice.
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There are protests all around the country proclaiming their desire for economic justice, a more fair distribution of the wealth of this country, whatever that means.
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In Pennsylvania this week, a shocking scandal unfolded, ending the career of the most storied football coach in history.
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For me personally, before I was saved, justice was just really something that I clung to.
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Because as a police officer, I'd seen a lot of injustice, a lot of really bad things happen.
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When I left my former religion and was kind of in an agnostic phase, the one thing that really kept me going and thinking, you know what, there has to be a
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God for one reason. So that the really bad people get what they have coming.
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Not me certainly, but really, really bad people.
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And I had a list of really bad people who needed to be punished. I would look at sometimes what was determined in courts and I would think, that's not bad enough.
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That's not severe enough. They need more. Only God, I would reason with myself. Only God in the afterlife can give these people what they really deserve.
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And as Christians, we want to see justice reign. We want to see the people who do right rewarded and the people who do wrong punished.
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We want to see the innocent go free and we want to see the guilty go to prison.
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We want to see the weak protected and we want to see evildoers stopped.
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But there's one thing I can promise you that no one here wants this morning. No one wants this one thing.
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They don't want, you don't want what you deserve. I don't want what
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I deserve. No one woke up this morning and prayed this way.
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Lord, recompense me according to my deeds. Father, if I have done what is evil in your sight, unleash your holy fury upon me.
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Give me what I deserve. Can I see the hands of anybody who prayed like that this morning?
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I don't even think anybody in the overflow room prayed like that this morning. Why? Because as Christians, we understand we have done evil in the sight of God.
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We have sinned. We have fallen short of his perfection. For ourselves, we want what?
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Grace. We don't want justice. For those we love, for those outside of Christ, we don't think,
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God, I just wish that my brother, sister, father, mother, cousin, neighbor,
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I wish that person would just die and go to hell. We don't think that way. We pray for what?
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For their salvation. And even for those people that we consider to be the most vile, I remember a case several years ago where I was just like, you know what,
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I would throw the switch on that guy. I would totally throw the switch, but I said, I'd like to go preach the gospel first.
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We don't want anybody to go to hell because we understand how bad hell is. We know how terrible it is to fall into the hands of the living
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God. And I think it is fair to say, and I would invite you to open your Bibles to John chapter one this morning, it's going to be a double header of John today,
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John in the morning and John in the evening. I think it is fair to say that this gospel,
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John, is a presentation of the grace of God to sinners.
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And this morning we're going to see the introduction of this grace of God to those in need of grace.
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I'm going to kind of review a little bit to catch us up to where we are. But a few Sundays ago, a few Sunday nights ago, when only the elect were here,
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I said that this passage, it takes a minute to just kind of go through, the elect are laughing, a few
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Sunday nights ago, I said this passage, John one verses one to 18, belongs on the
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Mount Rushmore of Bible passages. If you could just chisel out a few onto a pure marble or granite,
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I guess it is, you know, side of a mountain, you would put this passage here. It's just about as gripping and exciting as the
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Bible gets. In fact, the night before, even though it was an evening service,
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I almost couldn't sleep because I was so well, I was excited, but I was also afraid because I didn't think
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I could get enough of it out during 45, 50 minutes, whatever. It's so good.
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And I wanted to express that. Just consider the truths that we see here in the first 14 verses.
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I'm going to read the first 14 verses, then just kind of summarize them briefly before we move on. John chapter one, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was
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God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made in him was life and the life was the light of men.
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The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
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There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He became or he came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him.
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He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone was coming into the world.
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He was in the world and the world was made through him. Yet the world did not know him.
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He came to his own people and 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 children of God who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.
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And the word became flesh and dwelled among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth.
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Now some truths that we can just take from Jesus. I don't have time to possibly even recap all this there, but just some truths that jump out about Jesus out of those first 14 verses.
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First Jesus is eternal. He has always existed. The verb tense in verse one makes that plain.
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It is indefinite with regard to time so that the tech, so that when the tech says in the beginning was the word, it means that Jesus, the word was there when time itself was created.
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Sometimes I think we forget that time is a creation of God. He is not captured within it.
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He exists outside of it. And yet, as we see here in this passage, he deemed to step into it.
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He decided to step into his creation into time. So Jesus always existed, existed also.
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Jesus is co -equal with the father that he was eternally with God. The father is clear in verses one and two, and the structure also points to their equality.
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Third truth, Jesus is the creator and not, and not a creature.
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All things, verse three says, were made through him, and listen, this is the part, and without him was not anything made that was made.
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If Jesus created everything without exception, then it stands to reason that if he was a creature, as some sub -Christian faiths would tell you, you have a contradiction.
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He can't be a creature and have created all things. There is no exception clause.
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All things except for himself. It doesn't say that. Another truth,
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Jesus is the sustainer of all life. Again, verse four, in him was life, not just spiritual life, but physical life.
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If Jesus Christ, if we looked at Colossians, we would see that he is the sustainer of everything that is.
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If Jesus took a day off, everything goes out of existence. Another truth,
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Jesus is the very embodiment of truth. Verse five, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
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We see a repeated theme in John one, that he is the light, that he is the truth. He is the very, he is the essence of truth, the substance of truth.
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He is truth. We see that again and again in John 14, six, he says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
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Another truth about him, he was rejected by the world, but particularly by the nation of Israel.
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He came to his own. As I said, when I preached through that, it refers to his own people, the
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Jewish people, and his own people did not receive him. Another truth,
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Jesus grants the right to become children of God in verses 12 and 13. It is him.
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He does that for those who believe in him. He gives them that right. Another truth,
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Jesus is fully divine, co -equal with the Father, and he is now also fully human.
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100 % God, 100 % man. That's what it means when it says, the word became flesh and dwelled among us.
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He didn't put off his divine nature. He stopped exercising some of his divine attributes, but he never stopped being
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God. Instead, he became 100 % God and 100 % man. Another truth,
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Jesus was perfect. Jesus was and is perfect, verse 14, and we have seen his glory.
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It's implied that he's perfect here. But the idea of seeing involves a prolonged inspection, like living under the microscope.
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And the idea here is, when John says this, he says, Jesus came and he lived among us, and we scrutinized his life.
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They lived with him day in and day out. He discipled them. There was an intensity involved in their relationship.
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If he had sinned, they would have known about it, but he never sinned. And not only did he never sin, but in the end, before he ascended, they saw his resurrected body.
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Another truth about Jesus is that it's here. Jesus is unique. Verse 14, it says that he's the only son, and that word, as I mentioned before, is monogamous.
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And it means that Jesus is the only one of his type. In fact, it's dangerous doing word studies, but if you were to break that up, mono meaning only, genus having to do with type, or genus, we would say, almost the same root word from which we get genetic.
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He's the only one with his DNA, as it were. And finally, the last truth about him, before we move on to today,
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Jesus is the very embodiment of God's demerited favor towards men.
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And I'm going to expand and explore that a little bit. Verse 14, it says that he was full of grace and truth, and we're going to look at that this morning.
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Let's read, let's continue on to verse 15. John bore witness about him.
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That's talking about John the Baptist. And cried out, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.
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For from his fullness, verse 16, we have all received grace upon grace.
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For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
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No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the father's side. He has made him known.
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Now this morning, I want to draw to your attention three truths, three truths drawn from this text so that you might marvel at the grace of God.
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This passage is, I think, absolutely amazing. The thrice holy God of the universe condescends to his creation with such grace, such loving kindness.
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There is no other passage in the Bible like the first 18 verses in the
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Gospel of John. What we are studying this morning is the culmination of the best news ever.
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God himself entering his creation, ultimately to redeem it. Gracious truth number one, the messenger of grace, the messenger of grace is sent.
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God sends the greatest mortal ever born. Verse 15, we see it.
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John bore witness about him. Now, how can I call John the
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Baptist the greatest mortal ever? Well, as I said before, a few weeks ago, and I'll say it again, I have a good source.
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Jesus himself. Listen to Matthew 11, 11. Truly, I say to you, among those born of women, there has arisen no one greater than John the
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Baptist. No one greater than John the Baptist. And, you know, to the Jewish mind, just think about what this means.
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Greater than David? Absolutely. Greater than Abraham?
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Yes. Greater than Moses? Yes. No one greater than John the
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Baptist. Back in verse 15 of John chapter 1, really the English fails to capture the verb there where it says
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John bore witness. It sounds like he stood up during a testimony meeting and said, I want to bear witness.
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And in fact, it's a present active verb, meaning John's entire ministry, really his entire adult life from the time he came out of the wilderness till the time he was beheaded, did what?
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It pointed, it bore witness, it testified of one thing, Jesus Christ.
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And this truth is even intensified by the next verb. John, it says, cried out.
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It's a perfect verb. So John the Apostle, John the
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Apostle, looking back at the ministry of John the Baptist says, I mean,
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John the Apostle, John the Baptist, summarize it by saying that the sum of his ministry was a continuous proclamation of Christ and it had ongoing results.
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That's perfect, meaning it had, it was a one -time event, but it's the summary of that one -time event, his ongoing ministry, and it has ongoing results.
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So what was it that John the Baptist was saying about Jesus? What was he testifying about? He said, this was he, this is a statement.
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This was he of whom I said, he who comes after me ranks before me because he was before me.
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Now that's kind of an odd saying. What does that mean? He who comes after me ranks before me.
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I mean, we, we don't, we don't talk like that. We understand that he's talking about Jesus, but what does that mean that he, he ranks before me?
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Well, in the ancient world, age was really prized and I miss those days. This is, those were good days.
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To be older than someone else was to be considered better than them, to be wiser, to be more respectable.
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That was the default position. If you were older than someone else, you were better.
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So by default, by custom, by the culture, the presumption would be that John the Baptist would be greater than Jesus.
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He was older than he was, about six months or so. By natural reason, by natural reasoning, we would expect to see someone who was in a place of honor where we would not expect to see someone in a place of honor pointing to someone else and saying, he's greater than I am.
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That's just not natural. We don't think like that. But John's gospel tells us the reason that Jesus ranked higher than he did, than John the
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Baptist did, because he was pre -existent. That's exactly what John the
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Baptist says here. And again and again in this narrative, the logos, the word
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Jesus is referred to in the past tense, but with an indefinite sense of time.
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A different tense is used of John the Baptist than it is even of Jesus. And it heightens our understanding of who
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Jesus is, that he is eternal. So John the Baptist says, listen, he outranks me because he existed before me, because he always existed, would be the implied sense of the
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Greek. John the
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Baptist, among his followers, had quite a reputation. So much so that some of the people thought
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Jesus might be some sort of resurrected version of the slain John the Baptist. But John himself was never confused.
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Listen to what Mark chapter 1, verses 7 and 8 says, John the Baptist speaking, he says, after me comes he who is mightier than I.
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The strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. And again, in the culture, one of the most degrading things you could do is to take care of someone's feet.
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We know that because when Jesus washed the feet of the disciples, it shocked everyone. And here's John the
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Baptist saying to an audience, he's saying, that this man who is younger than me, who by all rights should be considered less than me, is greater than me.
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In fact, he's so much greater that I'm not worthy to do the most degrading thing, to stoop down and untie his sandals.
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Verse 80 says, I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. John the
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Baptist knows what's going on. And in importance, John the Baptist knew that Jesus outranked him.
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And he wanted to assure those hearing him that even if they wanted to respect his age,
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John the Baptist's age, the preeminence of Jesus was consistent with that principle. Because Jesus had existed before he had.
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So this entire context, verse 1 on, completely eliminates any concept that Jesus existed with John the
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Baptist, you know, in some kind of nebulous preexistence or something.
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You know, Mormons say that, or it's often true that Mormons are accused of saying that Satan and Jesus are spirit brothers.
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You know, there's some kind of preexistence. Well, that's shocking. We don't, we hate that. But I mean, even to say that Jesus and John the
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Baptist were spirit brothers, which would seem, you know, in some minds to be okay, it's just wrong.
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The Greek could not be more clear here that Jesus Christ always existed. But our first point is that the messenger of grace,
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John the Baptist, is sent. He's sent to do what? To prepare the way for Christ.
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Grace is truth, number two. We have the fullness of grace in Christ.
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Look at verse 16. For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.
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Now, verse 15 is basically seen as a parenthetical comment where John takes a little detour, like he could put a little thing in there, a
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Steve Cooley -ism, but I digress. And then he goes back, you know, to what he was talking about. So, it's a digression.
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And if we leave it out for a moment, if we just leave verse 15 out, we'll see why. Listen to how this reads just going from 14 to 16.
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And the word became flesh and dwelled among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only
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Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.
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So, we see it is kind of a digression, a parenthetical thought. It's not wrong.
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It just kind of changes the subject a little bit, and then we get right back to it. So, fullness in verse 16, for from his fullness.
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It's an interesting word because it literally means superabundance. And it carries with it the idea that it is an inexhaustible supply.
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It would be as if, imagine that you had these days, this would be really sweet, imagine if you had a gold mine. And then if you could go out to that gold mine every day, even as the price of gold kept going up and up and up and up, and you could go down to that gold mine, you get a couple pounds of gold, come out and sell it, make your fortune.
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And then the next day do the same thing and never touch the amount of gold that's in there. That it was completely inexhaustible.
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And that's the idea here. From his fullness, that's how full this picture is. It's inexhaustible, cannot be diminished.
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And as a source of the grace of God, his demerited favor, and as a source of truth,
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Jesus is inexhaustible. That's fullness, that's the idea.
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Now, let me just go back and I want to explain this idea of demerited favor. Why don't I say unmerited favor?
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So many people say unmerited favor. Why demerited? Because unmerited means what?
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It means you just haven't earned it yet. But it kind of contains the idea that maybe you might.
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Maybe someday you might achieve this idea of merits and that you might get to where you actually deserve something.
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Demerited says this, and this is the picture of grace, because it's not a matter of maybe you'll get up to this level or not.
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Demerited says, you know what? Not only will you never get up to whatever level you imagine is needed, but it's quite the opposite.
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Whatever you think you have done for God, whatever you think you deserve, it's exactly the opposite.
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You don't deserve anything. What you deserve is His wrath. What you deserve is justice.
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What you deserve is the unvarnished fury of God.
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Everyone deserves but one thing, the everlasting, abiding, unyielding, and complete wrath of God.
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But you say, you know what? I've heard that God hates sin, but He loves sinners.
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Of course, that's often said without considering what the Bible actually says. We say this from this pulpit, but think about Psalm 5 .5.
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The psalmist writes, The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. Listen, talking about God, you love all evildoers.
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No. You are somewhat neutral to all evildoers, hopeful that they will turn from their wickedness.
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No. You hate all evildoers. And that word evildoers is a participle, meaning it is part of the warp and woof of their being.
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It is a habitual sin. They have no desire but to do anything but commit evil.
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God doesn't love those people. He hates them. That's not how evangelicalism portrays
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God, but that's how the Bible portrays Him. Now, we would admit that it's true that friendship with the world, we know this from 1
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John, friendship with the world is what? Enmity with God. And yet it's okay to be
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God's enemy and He's just going to love you anyway. Right? There's no problem there. You can hate
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God and He's just obligated to love you. Deuteronomy 5 verse 9 says this,
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I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.
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God is not neutral. God is not neutral. He never is portrayed as being neutral.
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But in sending God the Son to earth, the Father has given us grace greater than when
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He sent the greatest prophet of the Old Testament, John the Baptist, to earth. In addition to the fullness of grace we experience in Christ, we also have, look again at that verse 15, we also have grace says what?
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Grace, oh, it's 16. We have grace upon grace.
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It literally means though, grace instead of grace. Now there's a confusing phrase.
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We get grace in Christ instead of grace. Well, what's the grace we're placing?
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Well, look ahead to verse 17, for the law was given through Moses. The grace of Christ is replacing a grace called the law.
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You're sitting there going, wait a minute. I thought the law was bad. I thought the law was evil.
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I thought the law condemns. Well, the law might condemn, but it's not bad.
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In 1 Timothy 1, Paul writes that we know the law is good if one uses it lawfully. He explains that the law is good because it defines sin.
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It lays down the boundaries for us. So we know what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. And ultimately, what does that do?
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It leads us to the gospel. It leads us to an end to ourselves where we know that we're incapable of saving ourselves, that we're doomed apart from Christ.
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The law according to Paul in Galatians 3 .24 is our guardian, our schoolmaster, our tutor.
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It shepherds us. It leads us. It guides us. Again, it is not our savior, nor was it ever a means of salvation.
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Let me say that again. The law never saved anyone. The law never saved anyone.
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Why? Because no one could keep it. No mere mortal could keep it.
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Nobody in the Old Testament was saved by the law. So it was grace.
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It was a means of grace. It showed us our need of a savior. And so as the law, the grace of the law recedes, the grace of God in Christ replaces it in a fuller, more complete way.
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So why is it that we think about the law as being bad? Why do we think that the law kills?
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Why do we think of it as not gracious? Because we associate the law with what?
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Legalism, with a bunch of rules. Don't smoke, don't chew, don't go with girls who do, right?
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If I do X and I do Y and I do Z, then everybody will think I'm holy and I'll be right before God.
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It becomes external tests, external righteousness, looking for an appearance of righteousness, no matter,
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I mean, essentially, what did Jesus say to the Pharisees? Did he say, good job, you keep the law? They were whitewashed tombs, why?
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Because they made up all these rules so that they could puff themselves up. So we associate, in our minds, the law with legalism.
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But we can't confuse what people added onto the law with what the law actually was.
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But again, the law was never a means of earning favor. And I would say to everybody here this morning, even if you love the
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Lord, even if you are a Christian, you can never put God in your debt.
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You can never sit there and just think, well, you know what, I've got some goodwill in the bank. I've got some merit in the bank.
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I've got some favor. It doesn't matter how obedient you are, the
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Lord owes you nothing. Because on your best day, I wrote to somebody this week and I said, on my best day,
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I am a miserable wretch. And that's the truth. On your best day, where you just think, boy, you know,
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I'm coming to you, Lord, tonight to confess. And I can't think of, I really can't think of one sin
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I committed today. I can promise you one thing.
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You didn't love the Lord, your God, without your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And you didn't love your neighbor as yourself. Two commandments, and we can't even keep those.
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God gave the law, men created legalism. Why? Because it gives us comfort.
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Men create all manner of religions with all manner of rules. Why? Because if you just tell me what to do,
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I can do that. If you just tell me to believe and God doesn't grant me faith, I can't do that. So just give me a bunch of rules.
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There's safety and comfort in rules. I think many
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Christians get caught up in that. They wanna leave church, feeling like they've done their religious duty and now they can go about their lives, they're free.
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It's not external appearances, it's what's inside. And we know that intellectually, but practically,
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I think sometimes we fail that. So getting back to verse 17, we see that the law is replaced with the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. As I said before, what could be a better, more full exhibition of the grace of God towards sinners, his demerited favor, than sending the second.
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And by the way, I keep saying God the Father sent the Son, even though it's not in this passage, we know that from other passages.
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Jesus himself said that he did the will of who? The one who sent me.
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What could be a better display of the grace of God towards sinners than sending the second person of the
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Trinity, the eternal Son, to take up residence, to tabernacle literally among men?
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Nothing. What greater revelation of the truth could there be than the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in human form?
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None. Grace came through Moses. The law is a gracious gift from God.
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It is inherently good. It teaches us the perfection of God and our own sinfulness. Truth came through Moses.
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But Jesus is the truth, no mediator. He is the truth. He is the embodiment of truth.
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He is the full truth. Now consider for a moment John's audience, most of whom would be
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Jewish, and they would have, what kind of regard do you think for Moses? The highest regard.
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He wrote the first five books, the Torah. They would love Moses. And the apostle does not minimize
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Moses. He merely wants them to understand what Moses wrote, what he recorded, pointed to Christ.
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The law, for all of its benefits, pointed to Christ. The logos, the word, is not a representative of God.
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He's not merely a prophet of God. He is not a fallible man like Moses was. He is the living truth.
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He said he is the truth and not a messenger of the truth. So our first gracious truth, the messenger of grace is sent.
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Our second gracious truth, the fullness of grace in Christ. The full picture of the demerited favor of God embodied in the person of Christ.
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And our third gracious truth is the revelation of grace in Christ. Look at verse 18.
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No one has ever seen God. The only God who is at the father's side, he has made him known.
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No one has ever seen God. And people will come up and they'll say, well, what about Isaiah? Didn't he see God? Well, I think, first of all, you have to look at it and just say, well, he saw a vision.
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Was it, did Moses see God? Well, in Exodus, we don't have to turn there.
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I'll just read Exodus chapter 33, verses 20 to 23. But he being
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God said this, but you cannot see my face for man shall not see me and live.
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Well, that kind of puts a little asterisk next to all these appearances of God. Do people actually see
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God and live? And the answer is no, apparently. Verse 20 says that. So there never is an appearance of God where we could say, okay, there's no kind of explanation.
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This is an unvarnished visit with God. And yet the man lived. Verse 21 says this.
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And the Lord said, behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock. And while my glory passes by,
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I will put you in a cleft of the rock and I will cover you with my hand until I pass by. Then I will take away my hand and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen again and again and again.
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And we would see no matter how we looked at him in these theophanies, these appearances of God, in the
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Old Testament, we would always see some qualifier where nobody saw God directly.
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In fact, I would argue that most all of the sightings of God are what we would call Christophanies, that is visitations by the preexistent
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Jesus taking on some form or another, like when he wrestled with Jacob or when he appeared to the parents of Samson.
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But here's the point. Jesus was referred to here in this passage, in verse 18, as the only
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God. Again, read it carefully. No one has ever seen God. And the
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ESV does it well, I think here, semicolon. The only God who is at the father's side, he has made him known.
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The only God who is at the father's side, who is that? Well, it's Jesus. He's at the father's side and literally at the father's side would be translated as I think it does in the
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King James. It says, in the father's bosom and it's kind of an anachronistic, kind of Judaistic phrase there.
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Well, what does that mean? In the father's bosom. Well, again, let's just break down this whole phrase here.
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The only God. It's interesting because it's, again, we see that word monogamous, just as we did in verse 14.
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And it's a restatement that Jesus is one of a kind. And if we break it all down, again, we would see that he is the only one, the only one of his species, the only one of his type, the only one of his class.
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Jesus is alone, unique. Now, if you have the
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King James or the new King James, it might say the only begotten son. And again, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, there's a problem with that understanding begotten.
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First, it creates all manner of things in our head that is not correct. But secondly, that same word is used to talk about Isaac in Hebrews 11, verse 17, where it says
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Abraham's only begotten son, Isaac, when he offered him up. Well, there's a problem with that because what?
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Isaac wasn't the only son. So it doesn't mean begotten in the sense that we would think physically begotten.
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What it means is that he is unique, that he is the chosen one, that he is the perfect God's chosen vessel.
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And so in Hebrews, it's not Ishmael that's the son of promise, it's
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Isaac. So that's why Isaac is called the only son. And here,
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Jesus Christ is the only one in that he is the only one sent by God. He's the only one who is
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God. And he's the only God who has ever taken up human form in addition to being fully divine.
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Now, second, this phrase here, he's at the father's side or in the bosom. It pictures two things.
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It pictures a favored position. Jesus is said to here to be constantly permanently at the bosom of the father.
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It just means a place of prominence, a place of favor. In fact, at the last supper,
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John, the apostle, John, the beloved is, where does he rest? Where does he recline?
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He reclines on the bosom of Jesus. That would be in John 13, verses 23 to 25.
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So it's that idea of favor, of closeness, of that intimate bond between two really, when
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John calls himself the beloved apostle, I don't think he was just being, puffing himself up.
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Jesus had a special place for John. And so the father has a special place for the son.
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And so it's that picture of intimacy, of closeness. So no human being had ever seen
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God, but now in the singular person of Christ, fully God and fully man, present with man, yet forever in the bosom of the father, he has made him known.
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That verb there that to make known is the same, it's the noun form of the verb from which we get exegesis, exegete, to set forth in great detail, to expound.
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So in great detail, it would be fair to say that Christ reveals God to us. He exegetes
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God to us. He reveals God to us. These 18 verses are the ultimate disclosure of God himself.
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We don't live in the mystery of the Old Testament, knowing that a savior would come, but not knowing who he would be, not knowing exactly what he would be like.
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We need not wonder how loving God is. Jesus revealed that to us. He showed us the love of God for sinners where?
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On Calvary. All that we can know about God is revealed in his written word.
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We talked about that this morning, Deuteronomy 29, 29. The secret things of the Lord belong to the Lord, but the things revealed belong to us and our children forever.
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That's the written word. But think about what's revealed to us in the living word, his son, the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus reveals the father. You wanna know God? Well, you can't learn about God by studying
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Buddha. You can't learn about God by studying Ganesh. You can't learn about him by studying
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Allah. You can't learn about him any other way than by studying the Lord Jesus Christ.
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He is the revelation of the father. He is the revelation of God. What did the writer of Hebrews say in Hebrews 1?
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He said this, in these last days, he, the father has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things.
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Listen, the message of God, the father to us is what? Jesus Christ.
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He is the revelation. He is the exegesis as it were of God himself.
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So we've seen the messenger of grace is sent, John the
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Baptist, the fullness of grace in Christ, God sending the son to earth and the revelation of grace in Christ, how he reveals the father to us.
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There is, in my mind, there is nothing worse or more inexplicable than a joyless
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Christian. A Christian is somebody who just walks around and says, I have no joy. I'm depressed.
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I'm upset. I'm whatever. I tell myself all the time that I cannot be morose.
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I find myself, you know, wanting to listen to Barry Manilow or something and getting, I can't do that.
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Why? Because I need to remind myself of what I deserve and what
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God has given me instead. You know, I have a good friend who once called me his own personal
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Saul of Tarsus. I feel really good about that. No, I don't. But it's a good reminder.
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I think about that and I think it is true in this sense. I could have been Saul on the road to Damascus.
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I had a course set out for my life. I knew what I wanted to do and God changed everything.
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I deserve hell. Everyone here deserves hell.
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Go tell your neighbor. No. But I'm not gonna get justice. Those who believe in the
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Lord Jesus Christ are not going to get justice. I'm not gonna get what I deserve.
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That truth alone, when I think of what I wanted for my life and what
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God has given me instead, it's amazing. He didn't stop in merely saving me.
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That could have been enough. I could have been the thief on the cross. He didn't just grant me salvation, which would have been far more than anything
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I could ever imagine or deserve, but he granted me temporal blessings, earthly blessings. I mean,
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I think even now I've learned this little proverb and I love this proverb. The child of my child is twice my child.
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The greatest thing in life so far, other than being saved, is having grandkids. Pastor Mike sent this out this week.
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Listen to this, J .I. Packer. God does not owe it to anyone to stop justice from taking its course.
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He's not obligated to pity and to pardon. Grace is free because it is self -originated from God and proceeds from the one who was free not to be gracious.
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He's not obligated to give grace. Only when one realize that what decides each man's destiny is whether or not
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God resolves to save him from his sins and that this is a decision which
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God need not make in any single case, can one begin to grasp the biblical view of grace.
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How about you? Do you ever look at your life and thank God for where he has placed you? And even better, what lies beyond the grave?
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You know, after this, I tell people, you know, life is tough and then what happens? Well, you die. And if you're going to heaven, there's nothing better.
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We may have some regrets, but we don't fear death. Why? Because we know that there's better things beyond it.
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What is better than justice? Grace. Have you experienced it? Has it transformed you?
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Has it changed your outlook on life and death? If not, may
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I challenge you this morning? Can it be that you are a
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Christian and yet don't grasp the blessings that are yours because you will not face the judge of the universe without the covering of Christ.
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There is no greater blessing than that. Let me put it another way. If you're sad, struggling, depressed, if life seems to be one disappointment after another, one of two things is true.
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You are either not saved or you have permitted the temporary afflictions of life to block out one eternal truth.
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You belong to Christ. All of your sins are forgiven. Whether or not you can pay this month's bills, won't matter in heaven.
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Whether or not people treat you as they should, won't matter in heaven. Whether or not your car breaks down again, won't matter in heaven.
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It's easy to get focused on the mundane. This passage calls for us to remember the transcendent, the transcendent truth that our
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Lord Jesus Christ left his father's throne and came to his creation. He lived a perfect life so that those who believe on him might be made righteous.
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He died a substitutionary death so that those who believe on him might have all of their sins forgiven past, present, future.
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And he rose from the dead so that all who believe on him might have hope.
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Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, you are a gracious God indeed.
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One who extends your demerited favor to the lowliest man.
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One who causes us to be born again. One who is able to save to the uttermost those who rebel against him, those who hate him and have no desire for him.
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One who is able to transform, to change, to give us a new heart, to take out that heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh.
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To take what we once believed was good news. These temporal things that we so prize and to cause us to view them as what they are, rubbish, compared to knowing you.
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Father, we thank you for sending your son, Jesus Christ, to save wretches, to save the unworthy, to save those who could never earn heaven.
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Lord, we thank you even for the law, for it points to Christ, to our complete inability to please you in any way.
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Lord, even our motivations are wrong. God, would you just give us a desire, every moment of every day, to rejoice in all that you have given us, to think of our savior all the day long, to know that whatever may transpire now, you have granted us something that no one can ever take away, and that there's nothing of value that could ever compare to it.
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For any here who aren't saved this morning, I just pray that you would press these truths on them.
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Lord, if there's someone here thinking that they know you, but their lives don't match up,
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Lord, I just pray that you convict, that there would be just a heaviness of heart that you would send them strength, that they would be scurrying to your word.
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Lord, for the rest of the day today, and even as we come back tonight, I just pray that you would give us a desire to reflect on you and your goodness toward us.