Who Is This Jesus?

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I invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the first chapter of the Gospel of John.
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I want to begin again by saying Merry Christmas to everyone.
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I hope that through the hustle and the bustle of the season, we have not forgotten that it is in fact the birth of Jesus Christ that we are celebrating this season.
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I know that that has fallen out of vogue in many areas, in many places around the country.
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It is not even appropriate for some to say Merry Christmas.
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They find the words to be offensive.
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And it seems also that the message itself, even among those who are saying Merry Christmas, it seems that the message itself is often overshadowed by the activities and the gifts and the decorations and the food and the parties.
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And those are the niceties that surround the season, but they are certainly not the reason why we celebrate.
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We don't celebrate because of the parties or the decorations or the gifts.
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We celebrate because of the birth of Jesus Christ.
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And I know there's a lot of people who want to make an issue about the fact, well, Jesus wasn't really born on December 25th.
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That date is a date that was used by the Christians to commemorate the birth of Christ, but that wasn't the real date He was born.
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And I think that at some point, while that is true, I think at some point we need to just understand this is the day that we have set aside to celebrate that important event.
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And it is a day in which we remind ourselves about the blessing of the Incarnation, something that deserves more than a once a year treatment in our theological studies.
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The value of the Incarnation, the value of God becoming man and taking on Himself flesh is beyond measure as to how much we ought to be studying that.
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So I think it's valuable that we take this time every year to remind ourselves of that important truth.
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As many of you know, I tend to, on the Sunday preceding Christmas, at least this has been my tradition over the years, not necessarily to preach the manger narratives, the birth narratives of Christ, but instead I have chosen in the years past and again this year to speak from John chapter 1.
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And again, it is because while I believe that the manger narrative is important and I believe that the nativity scene and all of the value that goes into the situation that happened, and tomorrow night at our Christmas Eve service I will be engaging the subject of the decree of Caesar and the decree of God and how God's decree was what brought about the decree of Caesar, which brought about Jesus being born as the prophet had predicted to be born in Bethlehem.
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But this morning we look at what I consider to be the even more important subject, the subject of the Incarnation.
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So I encourage you now to stand.
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We are going to read one verse from John chapter 1.
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We are going to read verse 14.
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And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
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And we have seen His glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
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Our Father and our God, as we seek to understand this text in John in relationship to the entire prologue of John, I pray, O God, that You would open up the hearts of the people to understand.
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I pray that You would keep me from error, as I am certainly fallible and capable of preaching error.
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I pray that Your Word would be the very centerpiece of our study, that we would focus upon it, that it would be where we draw our theology, where we would draw our doxology, where we would draw our very practical living.
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O Lord, let Your Word be that lamp unto our feet and light unto our path as we study it together.
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In Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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There are certain things that are impossible to do.
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It's impossible to carry the contents of the ocean in a single bucket.
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It's impossible to contain the sands of Egypt in a single hourglass.
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Likewise, when speaking on the Gospel of John and what we call the prologue of John, I face a similar impossibility.
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It would be impossible for me to take the entire weight and power of this section of Scripture and condense it down into one sermon.
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There is just too much theological meat that it is not even prudent to make such an attempt.
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Truth be told, this passage could and has deserved a lifetime of study and reflection.
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So today, I am not seeking to give an exhaustive sermon on all of the theological points of John chapter 1, but instead I am going to focus in on some of the particular areas of importance regarding the subject of who is Jesus.
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We've asked three questions during this series so far.
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We have asked the first question, which was why did Jesus come? And we talked about how Adam had brought death into the world and Christ came to bring life.
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Christ is the last Adam.
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That was our first message.
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And then last week, we asked the question, how did Jesus come? And we talked about the virgin birth and the value of that important teaching and that important doctrine, which is a reality.
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Jesus was born of a virgin.
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Tomorrow night, we will be looking at when did Jesus come.
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He came at the appointed time, the time that God had commanded.
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But today, we ask the simple question, who is this Jesus? Who is this one that we are asking all these questions about? Who is this one that we care enough to ask, why did he come? How did he come? When did he come? Who is this Jesus? Well, we are going to examine again the first few verses of the Gospel of John and we are going to center in on verse 14.
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We are going to begin by looking at the miracle of the word.
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Look at verse 14 with me.
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It says again, and the word became flesh.
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Now, we can stop there.
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That is a complete thought.
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It goes on to say more about this word becoming flesh, which we will deal with in a moment.
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But let's just stop right there at that statement.
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The word became flesh.
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Well, what is in reference there? Who is in reference there when it talks about the word? Well, the answer to that question takes us back to the very beginning of the Gospel of John, if you look in verse 1.
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It says in verse 1, in the beginning was the word.
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This is a very unique description of Jesus Christ.
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It is one that only John uses to describe Jesus Christ.
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In fact, he uses it later.
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If you go through the letters of John, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, and you read through those letters, you will notice he references Jesus again as the word.
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He speaks of Jesus as the divine logos in the Greek.
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You will often hear that term.
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A lot of times that term is used for ministries, logos ministries.
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There is even Bible software that you can get for your computer called Logos.
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And it is referencing this particular verse, this particular reference to Jesus, as being called the word of God.
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Interestingly enough, if you look at this in Latin, the word that is used in Latin is sermon.
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Sermon is where we get the word sermon.
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It is interesting if you think how a person might understand Jesus as the sermon of God.
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Jesus is the one who explains God to us.
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He is the one that, just like I stand up and I speak to you the word of God, Jesus is the very flesh speaking to us as God.
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He is the sermon of God.
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He is the word of God.
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And it says here, in the beginning was the word.
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Something important to consider about that statement, in the beginning was the word, is that it is specifically referencing the fact that in the beginning he was already there.
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In fact, the construction of the language, that is what is being said.
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The New English translation, one of my favorite translations, because it has a textual critical apparatus in it so you can actually look at the textual variations right there in the text, the New English translation.
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In the New English translation it actually reads, in the beginning the word already was.
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And I like that translation because that is the reference here.
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In the beginning, some people I think have this idea that Jesus came into being in Bethlehem.
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Beloved, there is nothing so far removed from the true doctrine of Christianity than to think that Jesus came into being in Bethlehem.
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That is a falsehood.
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But then I think there are others who think that Jesus came into being at the beginning of the world.
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No, that would be just as false.
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In fact, that is the teaching of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
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They believe that Jesus is the greatest and highest of Jehovah's creation, but that he is still part of the created order.
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He was the first created being, and that is the teaching of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
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So they would see this, in the beginning was the word, and they would say, yes, this is when the word was created.
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No, wrong, false.
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This text is telling us that in the beginning the word already was.
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The word already existed.
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This person who is Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, already was in the beginning.
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And then in the second part of John 1, it tells us something else about that word.
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It says, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.
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Beloved, outside of a Trinitarian understanding of God, there is no way to understand that phrase.
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Outside of a Trinitarian understanding of God, that God is one in essence, but three in person.
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And beloved, I've heard so many people try to explain that, and try to make analogies of the Trinity, and my only admonition is stop trying to find an analogy.
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Well, God's like water.
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He's ice, and He's solid, and He's liquid, and He's gas.
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No, that's modalism.
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That is not a reference to the doctrine of the Trinity.
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Well, it helps my children understand.
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No, it doesn't, because you're teaching them modalism.
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It doesn't help them understand.
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If you're going to teach your children about the doctrine of the Trinity, teach them that God is one in essence, and three in person.
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Teach them actually what the doctrine is.
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It's so important that we be able to define what it is we believe about God, and the very foundation.
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This is why Islam is so popular with so many people now, because they don't have to jump the hurdle of the Trinity.
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The Trinity is a difficult doctrine, especially if we don't even attempt to understand it.
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But see, in Islam, they have a Unitarian view of God, that He is absolutely one, that Jesus was simply a prophet, a mere Rasul, a simple prophet, less than Muhammad, but like in too many other prophets.
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But the idea that God is one in essence, but three in person, is such a valuable doctrine, because it is the foundation and heart of what we believe about Jesus Christ.
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And without it, we could not understand John 1.1.
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Because how can Jesus be with God and be God at the same time, apart from that doctrine? He is with the Father, who is God, and at the same time, He is God.
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This is how we understand that doctrine.
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And it goes on to say, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
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He was in the beginning with God.
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He was there.
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He did not come into being, but all things came into being through Him.
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Look at verse 3.
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All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
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You see, it is so important to John that he expressed to us who Christ is.
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First, he gives us this statement about Christ being God and being with God, and then he says, and everything that was created was created through Him.
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This One who was called the Word is God.
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So now, understanding those first few verses, understanding those first few statements about the Word, we now go back to verse 14, and it gives it new life.
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Because now when we go back to verse 14, and it says, and the Word, who is the Word? The Word is God.
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It is the second person of the Trinity.
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He is the One who is both with God and is God.
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And the Word became...
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The word there in the Greek is genomai.
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It means He was made flesh.
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And I like the fact that it uses the word flesh there.
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It doesn't say He was made a man or became a man.
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It says He became flesh.
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Sarch is the Greek for flesh.
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It would have been fine had they used anthropoi, man, that the word became man.
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But John did not use the word man.
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He used the word flesh.
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Because wrapped up in sarch, wrapped up in flesh, is something more.
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In some places, sarch describes the flesh of man as being the debased part of His being.
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Romans 8 actually calls the flesh itself sinful, in that it is the origin of so much of our sinfulness, our weakness, our temptation comes from what? The flesh, the world, and the devil, right? We've talked about that.
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That's where our temptations come from.
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Jesus didn't take upon Himself sin, but He did take upon Himself flesh.
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And in that one act of taking upon Himself flesh, He underwent the greatest act of humiliation that has ever been undergone by any person in the history of the world.
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Christ humiliated Himself by being God, and yet taking on flesh.
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Philippians 2, the great Carmen Christi, Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing.
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Taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
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Not only did He humiliate Himself, humble Himself by becoming a man, but in becoming a man, He was born in the most humble of conditions, being laid in a manger.
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He lived in the most humblest of life.
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He owned nothing.
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No property.
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He went about as an itinerant minister, and then He died the most shameful of deaths.
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The death on a cross.
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The Bible says, Cursed is the one who is hung on a tree.
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So Christ's life is humiliation from beginning to end, which He took for us.
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He who was the Word, He who was God, became flesh, so that He, in that humiliation, could represent us to God.
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It is so valuable for our own theology that we have a right understanding of who Christ is.
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Let's look back at John 1.14, because it not only says, and the Word became flesh, it also says, and dwelt among us.
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Made His tent among us.
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He came and lived among us.
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Now, the us in context here, John is speaking specifically of those people who have seen Jesus Christ, those people who have actually lived in the time in which they would have actually been a part of the ministry of Christ.
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We know that because he goes on to say, and we have seen His glory.
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Beloved, what an amazing concept that is to even consider the fact that there were eyes laid on the very One who was God in the flesh.
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This was not some mystery man who nobody ever saw and nobody ever talked about until he was dead.
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This is a man who walked among his people, lived among his people, ministered among his people, brought healing and ministry and love and counseling and prayer and the Word to his people.
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Christ shepherded His people during those three years of ministry.
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Christ lived among those people.
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He dwelt among those people.
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And those people beheld His glory.
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One of the reasons why we are so confident that Jesus Christ is who He is is because of those witnesses.
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I say this all the time.
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I remind people all the time.
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We believe in Christ because of the witnesses who saw Him.
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Jesus never wrote anything that we have record of.
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The only thing that we have record of is those who saw Him and wrote down what they saw under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but it was still them writing.
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It was them who saw Him.
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And it was they who we trust.
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Why do we trust them? Why do we trust these people who simply saw a man do miraculous things? And haven't there been in the however many thousand years of human history, haven't there been many myths and legends? Why then do we trust this one group of Jewish people at the beginning of the first century? Why do we trust that they told the truth? That there was a man born of a virgin.
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That there was a man who lived a sinless life.
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There was a man who was crucified on the cross and three days later rose from the dead.
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Why do we trust them? Because they saw Him.
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They beheld His glory.
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And they went to their deaths proclaiming the reality of Christ.
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Beloved, there are many people who will die for a cause, but there is no one who will die for a lie.
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And every one of these men who saw Christ died a martyr's death outside of John, who we are not certain as to how he passed.
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But we know Peter died a martyr's death.
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The one who would not stand for Jesus on the night of His crucifixion not many years later offered Himself up for His own crucifixion because of His faith in Christ.
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Christ tabernacled with His people.
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He lived with His people.
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And through that, they beheld His glory and they stood for Him until the very end.
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Why did they stand for Him? Why did they go to their deaths for Him? Beloved, it's right here in verse 14.
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And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory.
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What glory did they see? Glory as of the only Son from the Father full of grace and truth.
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That's what they saw.
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That's what Peter saw.
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Jesus says, who do the people say that I am? Who do the people say that I am? Some say that you are Elijah.
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Some say that you are one of the prophets.
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Some say that you are John the Baptist reincarnated.
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Who do you say that I am? And without hesitation, Peter, you are the Son of the living God.
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And Jesus said, it was not flesh which has revealed this to you, but My Father in Heaven has revealed this to you.
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Those disciples beheld the glory of God.
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They beheld that this was the Son of God.
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John, of course, being one of the few who got to go up on the Mount of Transfiguration and literally see the glory of God shine on Jesus Christ.
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So when he says, we beheld His glory, He certainly did.
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And beloved, we continue to behold His glory today.
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No, we don't see Jesus in the flesh.
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We don't get to see Him in the manger as the shepherds did.
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We don't get to see Him as a two-year-old boy as the wise men did.
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We don't get to see Him as an itinerant minister going about preaching the Gospel as the disciples did.
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But we do see Christ because we see His church still 2,000 years later, living on as He said it would when He says, the gates of hell will not prevail against the church which I build.
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He says, I will build My church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
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Beloved, we see the Lord's glory every time the people of the Lord are gathered.
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We see the Lord's glory every time He is praised and He is brought to us through His Word.
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The words of those who saw Him with their eyes give us the ability to see Him with our heart.
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And beloved, I pray for all of you this morning.
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I pray that your heart's eyes can see Christ.
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Can see the One who came to be that sacrifice, to give Himself fully and completely through that humiliation for us.
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The very Son of God born into the world who brought salvation with Him.
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And beloved, if you know not that salvation, if you know not Christ, I pray for you as well.
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I pray that God would open your heart to see your sin, to see your need for a Savior, and to see that Jesus Christ is the only Savior which God has given to man.
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To Him be glory forever and ever.
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Amen.
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Bless you.
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Father God, we thank You for this opportunity to again examine Your Word, to again hear it proclaimed, to consider the reality of the Word becoming flesh, dwelling among us, beholding the glory of the only Son of God.
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Father, give us an excitement this Christmas.
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Give us a desire to draw close to You through this time, this special time of worship.
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Thank You for everyone here, and I pray especially, Lord, for those who know not Christ, that You would use this time to convict their hearts and draw them close by Your love and Your grace.
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In Jesus' name we pray and for His sake.
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Amen.
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Beloved, we come now to our time for prayer.
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If you need to pray, please come as we stand and sing.