Why God Became a Man

You You You I would like to ask you, for this discussion of what Christmas is really about, because it's about the person of Christ, and why he is calm, why is God becoming man, why the word became flesh. First one is John, chapter 1, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being. being. In him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There came a man, said from God, whose name was John. He came for a witness that he might bear witness of the light, that all might believe through him.

He was not the light, but came that he might bear witness of the light. There was the true light which coming into the world enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own, and those who were his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name. He were born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the word became flesh, and dwelt among us. And we beheld as glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness of him and cried out, saying, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me has a higher rank than for he existed before me.

For of his fullness we have all received and grace upon grace, for the law was given through Moses, grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No man has seen God at any time, the only begotten God who was in the bosom of the Father, he has explained him. Remember this is John the Apostle who had lived with Jesus, and was his Apostle for three and a half years, lived with him, saw him, heard him, and observed him. And now sixty years later he writes this book and talks about himself along with the other Apostles observing, seeing the life of God being manifest in this person. In fact, in this text here we see I think in one of the most unambiguous ways, almost a shocking way of expressing the message of Christmas and that is found in the words the word became flesh.

Now you can see here there's a parallel between John chapter one and Genesis one. If you're a Bible reader you know that there are many parallels here. The John is pointing us back to Genesis and the original creation when God manifested himself through a word, his word of creation, his word that said, let there be light and there was light. And now he tells us that God has again manifested himself in the far greater way in the person of his son. What I like us to do in this passage is see John's answer to this question. We could have asked the question why Christmas the question is why did God become man? Why did God do this? Why was it in the purpose? In fact the Bible tells us that this was God's purpose from before the foundation of the world that Christ would come at this point in history, at this point in the flow of redemptive history and come.

The word became flesh for four reasons in this text and verses 14 through 8K. I want to give these to you first of all so you can be thinking of them as we look through the text. First of all he came the word became flesh so that we could behold his glory. Secondly John says the word became flesh so that we could receive his fullness. Third he says the word became flesh so that we could experience his excellence. And finally he says the word became flesh so that we could understand our Father. This is really what Christmas is about. The reason that we feel such a push to give gifts to one another is that Jesus has shown us as well as teaching us that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

God manifested his heart in the sending of Jesus Christ. Notice the connection here as I said between this passage in Genesis 1. The universe comes into existence through the word of God. God says let there be lie and there was lie and now the word who created the universe comes in flesh and dwells among us. Throughout the Old Testament this expression the word of the Lord is used over and over again. The word of the Lord came to them. God manifested himself through the word of the Lord and now the person who is the word of the Lord comes on the scene. This is the supreme revelation of God we are told. Last week we looked at Hebrews chapter 1 the first word verses of Hebrews and we saw that this is the ultimate final complete word of God to man.

The person of his son. The word God's very self-expression. It was both God and man has come and he has unveiled the reality of God to us. God become flesh. He dawned our humanity. He cored himself in real humanity. As Paul says in it, Romans chapter 8, he came in the likeness of sinful flesh. Why did he do it? Why would God stoop? Why would the God who sent it the right hand of the Father and all of his glory pour himself out in this way and become a man to stoop so low that he would come and dwell among us? There are several verbal clues or cues in this text that point us back to the Old Testament. In fact when you read the New Testament it's always written in light of the Old Testament. The book of Romans tells us that we have to interpret the scriptures according to the analogy of the faith, the analogy of what has already been revealed to us in the Word of God.

When the apostles preached the gospel in the early church, the scriptures that they preached were the Old Testament. It was the Hebrew scriptures from Genesis to Malachi. That was the church's scriptures until we have received the New Testament to make that complete. But as they preached these scriptures, they unveiled the truth and the reality of who Jesus Christ is. They preached the gospel through that revelation. But that revelation points to this very one that we are looking at this morning when the Word became flesh and God became man. Everything that the Old Testament pointed to was fulfilled in him and he dwelt among us. Quite literally that word dwelt among us means he pitched his topical or he lived in his tent among us.

Why would John use such an expression concerning Jesus stay upon the earth that he pitched his topical that he dwelt in a tent while he was here for 33 and a half years? What is John referring to? Well the readers in the first century when they read this at the end of the first century, they knew exactly what John was referring to because they were familiar with the Old Testament. This is a word right out of the Old Testament when God dwelt among his people as they carried on their wilderness journey and a rock is made of it in the Old Testament text. In the book of Exodus, God gives them specific detailed instructions of how they are to build his tent in which he is going to dwell among them.

This morning you sang the words Emmanuel several times and that word Emmanuel means God with us. God among us. That's what God told, that's what Isaiah told Ahaz that was going to happen that God was going to come and dwell among us. His name is going to be called Emmanuel, God with us. He's going to come and tabernacle among us on the Old Testament when God gave all these instructions. He uses this very word that's used here, the Old Testament, the equivalent of it, of dwelling in a tent. He tabernacled among them and God traveled with them throughout their wilderness journey and you'll remember the Old Testament account that this is what set them apart from all the nations is that their God dwelt among them and they could see a physical manifestation of God in his tabernacle, in his tent and every time the presence of God moved, they moved the tent.

That was the signal for them to pack up and move on. It's when God moved out of his tent and moved to another place and then the people of Israel would pack everything up and they would move and follow this presence of God and now John says in a much greater way, in fact the way in which that pointed to ultimately in the person of Jesus Christ, God has chosen to dwell among us people in a more astonishing way and yet a much more personal way in the word become flesh. This one who he identifies as the creator of all things, the one who actually spoke the words, let there be light, God the Son has now come to dwell among us people. He has tinted out among us. Why would he do this? Why would the word come and tabernacle among men?

Notice what he says in verses 14 and 15. He says and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory. Gorgeous have the only gotten from the Father full of grace and truth. John bore witness of him and cried out saying this was he of whom I said he who comes after me as a higher rank than I for he has existed before me. Here John says he dwelt among us. He tinted out among us. He came close to us so that we could behold his glory and you have another connection. Another word that points us back to the Old Testament and God's dealings with his people as they travel throughout the wilderness. It was pointing to this ultimate fulfillment which was the person of Jesus Christ. This Hebrew word that's translated to dwell is shakhan.

You probably have heard of this word in the form of shakhana. It's actually a post biblical word but the shakhana glory of God was a picture of God dwelling among his people in manifest glory. You can imagine what it was like for the children of Israel. If you've read the account you know they had great doubts as they got out into the wilderness. Two million people moving around out in the wilderness and Moses leading them. How are they going to be fed? They're going to be taken care of. How are they going to get enough water to drink to survive? Would you like to be in charge of a camping trip like that? And as they wander around their great hope and trust that they kept having trouble with was to trust in the presence of the living God.

And what God did for them was a magnificent thing. He actually manifested His presence in a physical way, the shakhana glory of God. He dwelt among them in a way that they could see Him. In the daytime they saw a pillar of cloud and at night they saw a pillar of fire. They could look out of their tent and they could see God dwelling right there among them. Wouldn't that be a wonderful thing? To know that He was with you, that He was going to care for you. The book of 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul says that was none other than Jesus Christ. He was the rock who followed us. He was the rock out of which the water came. He was a God who cared for them in the wilderness and He is the God who was among us.

He's a God who dwells among His people. And John says He came and dwelt among us so that we could see His glory, this visible manifestation of God. John is saying is that God manifested Himself most clearly, not in the shakhana glory of the Old Testament, but when the Word become flesh and dwelt among us, the incarnate Word, the Word, the God Himself, the Son of God who came and became a man and they could touch Him. They could look at Him. They could gaze upon Him. They saw God in their midst. This Word became a man and He says, and we beheld His glory. We beheld the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ. That too comes right out of the Old Testament account of Israel moving throughout the wilderness with the presence of God among them, the visible presence, the visible manifestation of God's self-disclosure.

He was the one who manifested His glory. But notice this, it is the glory of the only begotten, literally the one and only, the only person who could manifest the glory of God was God the Son, the kind of glory that was displayed in this incarnate Word is the kind of glory that a father would grant only his one and only loved Son. And the Son comes and He manifests the glory of God among them. And notice how He expresses what they saw. He was full of grace and truth. He was full of grace and truth. That's the kind of glory He manifested. The glory He manifested was full of grace and truth. It was glory that they could see in His life, in His words, in His actions. Turn with me back to Exodus chapter 33.

And notice this parallel, Exodus chapter 33. You are probably familiar with this passage, if I want to tell you the background. Moses is quite discouraged. And the people have failed big time. They created an idol to worship instead of waiting upon the living God. And so Moses is fed up. And God is fed up. And so God says to Moses, I'm going to send you on your way and I'm going to send my angel before you, but I'm not going to go up in your presence. Because if I go up in your midst, I might destroy you all. Imagine what it would be like to have a physical physical manifestation of God dwelling in your house and on your job. And in your car when you drove down the road, what if you could see the visible presence of Almighty God right there?

God says to him, I'm going to send you up. My presence is not going to go with you. And notice in verse 16, Moses responds, here's a wise man. He says, for how then can it be known that I have found favor and I cite, I and I people? Is it not by that going with us that we, I and I people may be distinguished from all the other peoples who are upon the face of the earth? Moses is saying the only thing that sets us apart from the nations is the fact that you are with us, that you are manifesting with us. If you could have had a helicopter and got up high enough to see over that entire land, you would know who the people of God were. Because they had the manifest presence of God, the chicana glory of God right there in the midst of them.

Every time they set up camp, they set up their tents all around the center where God dwelt. And now God says, I'm not going with you. And Moses says, you have to go with us. In fact, he says in verse 15, if I presence does not go with us, then don't leave us up from here. Just leave us here. Because we can't go anywhere without you. Verse 17, and the Lord God said to Moses, I will also do this thing of which you have spoken for you have found favor in my sight. And I have known you by name. Then Moses said, I pray thee. Show me that glory. Now it's interesting because he's seen the glory of God. He has seen the chicana glory, but he wants to see something more. He wants to see up close the glory of God.

He wants his heart to show me in a deeper way. And he said, I myself will make all the goodness pass before you. And we'll proclaim the name of the Lord before you. And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion. But he said, you cannot see my face for no man can see my face and live. You see, that's where that expression comes from. Not from that rock and roll song that says no one can see my face and live. This is the God of the universe who says this. No one can see my face and live. And then the Lord said, be hall, there is a place by me and you shall stand there on the rock. And it will come about while my glory is passing by that I will put my, I will put you in the club of the rock and I will cover you with my hand until I tap fast by.

This is probably the same rock where Elijah stood and God put his hand over that opening with Elijah because he was showing Elijah the same thing. You know, I think this is the common need that we have. If you notice in the Christian life, you can go along so and since no manifest presence of God in your life and you begin to change the way that you live, your values change and your perception changes and your goals change. Everything changes. Moses knew that he needed to see God up close because he was leading an obstinate people, two million of them. It was a difficult job because they were complaining all the time about him and about God. And God says, I'm going to show you myself. Verse 23, then I will take my hand away and you shall see my back, my afterglow quite literally.

But in my face, you shall not be seen. And then notice down in verse 5 of chapter 34, and the Lord descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the name of the Lord. And then the Lord passed by. Wow, this would be, I've thought about this. Imagine if you were calling upon the name of the Lord and the Lord actually showed up visibly. That would style you, wouldn't it? And he begins to call upon the name of the Lord. The Lord passes by in front of him and proclaims the Lord. Here is God proclaiming his own name. Yahweh, Yahweh, Elohim, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth. There's our words, loving kindness and truth. This is God's self-evaluation.

This is what God thinks of himself. He is full of loving kindness and truth. This word, loving kindness is the key word in the Old Testament for God's love for his covenant people. His said, his loving kindness, his stubborn love, his covenant love. It's the kind of love that doesn't weaken through trials and stress. It's the kind of love that gets stronger. It's covenant love. It's the kind of love that a man's supposed to have for his wife because he is entered into covenant marriage with her. It reflects the glory of God. God is full of loving kindness. He is stubbornly loving his children and truth. The deeper word in that truth means he is steadfast. You can count on him. He's the same yesterday, today and forever.

He'll never change. You change. Sometimes you're red hot for God and sometimes you're as cold as an iceberg and you're not even thinking of him but he never changes. He is commitment to us is unchangeable and John says this one that we be held, that we were with for three and a half years, that we camped out with. We watched him and we listened to him and we watched him feed the multitude and we watched him raise the the dead and heal the sick. We watched him say people and he was full of grace and truth, loving kindness and truth. That is the nature of the goodness of the glory of God. That's what God is like. God is full of grace and truth and that's what Jesus unveiled to us. When you go to the New Testament, when you read the gospel accounts, when you immerse yourself in these gospels and you read and you read and you read and you investigate and you have your heart open and your eyes open, you'll begin to see his loving kindness and truth.

You'll begin to see that this really is the God who has come in the flesh and who has dwelt among us and he is full of grace and truth. That's John's way of summing up the same ideas. The glory that was revealed to Moses when the Lord passed in front of him and he sounded his name before him, revealed that God's goodness is characterized by grace and truth. What a God this is, this holy God. He is full of grace and truth and all who turned him, all who flee to him find grace and truth. How did they see this glory in Jesus? Did he shine or glow at one point he did on the amount of transfiguration and three of them saw him and they saw his garments begin to shine. They saw something physically happen right before their eyes, but most of the apostles didn't see this and yet they saw that he was full of grace and truth.

What did they see? On the second chapter, the same book of John, John says what they saw was what he did. They saw his miracle. They saw him heal the sick. They saw his gentleness with people. They saw him preach the truth. They saw him confront the religious hypocrites. That's how they saw the glory of God. But ultimately, John says his glory was manifested at the cross, at his resurrection, at his exaltation, and when he poured out the spirit, he has manifested the fact that he is full of grace and truth. You know what? When you immerse yourself in this gospel account, when you come to the New Testament and you buried yourself in these words, you begin to get a deep understanding that this Jesus that we serve is full of grace and truth.

That's the most important thing about his relationship to you is the kind of character that he has. I know a little bit about your character because I'm one of you. I know how inconsistent you can be. I know how you can be full of faith one time and full of doubt the next. But I can tell you this, what's important is he's full of grace and truth and he's able to transform us. We have seen his glory, John says. We've seen his glory. I mean, think about this. This is what's important about this to John is, understand this. This is the same person who spoke in Genesis 1. This is the God of the universe. This is the creator and sustainer of all things. And this is the one who has become flesh. This is no emanation of God.

This is some lesser God. This isn't just a great man of God. This is God, the creator and sustainer of all things, who has come. And notice in verse 15, he grounds the glory of the incarnate word in a concrete individual that was pointed out by John the Baptist. John the Baptist said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He identified him as the one that John the Apostle is writing about. There's no doubt in our minds that it is Jesus of Nazareth who is the Christ, who is the word become flesh. We would be held as glory. And why would God do that so we could worship him? So that we could worship him. Jesus says in John 4 in spirit and in truth. We can respond to God now in worship in a way that the Old Testament saints couldn't.

They went to the temple. They went through a Levitical priesthood. They offered sacrifices. They burned incense. They went into a holy place. They had to go to a place that had been set apart for worship. But we enter into a holy place every time we lift our hearts and our minds up to the third heaven and worship this risen Christ. And the veil through which we go, the writer Hebrew says, is his flesh. In other words, Jesus came and he brought God close to us. And then when he went back to the father, he took us close to him. And so we can enter into his presence. I don't need a Levitical priest to enter into the Holy of Holies because Jesus has paved the way. We can worship him because he has unveiled himself in his glory.

But notice the second reason in verse 16 that he is common. The words become flesh. It is so that we could receive his fullness. That's quite a statement that you could receive the fullness of God. This is the word that the Apostle Paul uses in Colossians to refer to Christ that the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in him. He was full deity. And John says, he came. God came and flesh so that we could receive his fullness. We could participate in his fullness. Notice in verse 16, for his fullness, we have received in grace upon grace. Grace upon grace. There's a song I've never been able to find, but I heard in the radio one time. If you ever hear this song, you know what I get it for me. The line goes like this.

Grace upon grace like waves on a shore. Always enough, always more. That's how it is, isn't it? But he has something very specific in mind here that this grace instead of grace that came through Jesus Christ. He's telling us in verse 16 that it's not enough that we behold his glory. He wants us to receive it. Literally, he says, because out of his fullness, we have received in grace instead of grace. The because or the full or that begins, verse 16 takes us back to verse 14, where he says, he is full of grace and truth. And he says, in verse 16, because he is full of grace and truth of his fullness, we have received in grace upon grace. You see, because Jesus is full of grace and truth, you can't have a relationship with him without receiving grace.

You can't have a relationship without coming to be filled up with a grace and truth that is his out of his fullness, out of this fullness, out of this storehouse of grace and truth is glory. All the fullness was pleased to dwell in Jesus Christ and he pours it out on us. Isn't that amazing? The Old Testament says that God, the fullness of God, or the New Testament says, the fullness of God has poured out into Jesus Christ. The God was pleased for the fullness to dwell in him in Philippians 2. It says, he poured it out to us and for us. The Father poured it in and the Son pours it out. You know what our responsibility is? Drink. That's what Jesus said. John 7, 37, drink. He has fullness of grace and truth and you can drink from this well, from this fountain.

In fact, he says in John 7, Jesus says that if you believe on him out of your belly, we'll flow rivers of living water. You'll have a well within you. Remember when he was in John chapter 4, a couple chapters after this, he is talking to the woman at the well in Psycar, the Samaritan woman, and he asked her for a drink because he's there. He doesn't have anything to get water with. And so he asked her, she would give him a drink and she's quite surprised about that because Jewish men didn't talk to women in public and they especially would never speak to a Samaritan woman. And yet Jesus speaks to her and now he does he speak to her. But he makes a request of her. The God of the universe, the word become flesh, makes a request of this Samaritan woman, this outcast, who said five husbands and note telling how many other men, the man she's living with now is not her husband.

She's considered probably to be the lowest person on the moral scale in Psycar. And yet Jesus asked her a request. Amazing to me, he didn't tell her how she had to start living. He didn't tell her how to solve her divorce remarriage problem. He said to her, give me a drink. And she wants to know why he would do that. Why would he ask her this? Seeing that he's a Jew and she's a Samaritan woman. And then Jesus tells her, if you knew who I was and you were to ask me, I could give you living water. Now that expression, living water actually meant fresh water. In the year of that woman, she thought he meant I can go so far down deep into this well that I can get fresh water that's right out of the spring.

And she says, well, how can you do that? You don't have anything to draw water with. He says, what I'm talking about is something that I can put inside of you and you will never thirst again. Well, you are drinking of this water, you will never thirst again. This water that Jesus is speaking about is his very life that's going to be manifest and made available to us through the residence of the Holy Spirit within us, that we can drink from this well. The amazing thing to me is that we have the well within us and we drink so little. That's one thing you ought to be drunk on is eternal life. It's one thing that you should drink from so much that you appear to be drunk in the way you look at the world.

That's what the apostles were like. That's what the early church was like, the early disciples of Jesus Christ. It was as though they were crazy. That's what people said about them. They lost their mind. Remember, that's what Pilate said to Paul, this much learning has made you mad. You've lost your mind. That's what it appears like when you have soul satisfaction of drinking from this well. And John says, this is why the word became flesh so that we could receive of his fullness. Jesus once said, a seed as long as it is alone remains alone. As long as it doesn't, it's out of the soil, but it has to first be put into the soil and die. And once it has died, he said, then it will have a crop that will grow up from it.

And he said in the same way, until I die, I cannot give my life to you. Until I give my life for you, I can't give my life to you. If you were to notice in John 1, when it says as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God. The word right means want. And what he is saying is, what John is saying is, those who received him during his earthly ministry before he died in the cross, he gave him the promise that they would become children of God. But it wasn't until he died, until the seed died and was put in the ground. It wasn't until he went back to the Father and poured out his spirit that they actually experienced this promise and became children of God and they received the very fullness of Christ who came to live within them.

You know, that's what you've received. As we celebrate Christmas as believers, don't forget that little baby that we celebrate his birth has died on a cross and the fullness of the word made flesh. This glory of the one who is full of grace and truth has been poured out within your soul that he's living in you and there's a well within you that you can drink from. And the world is going, help your sculptor looking everywhere for solutions for their problems and their deepest needs, you have a well within you. And he wants you to drink from the well. That's your responsibility is to drink. You have to read Thomas the Kimpus sometime, imitation of Christ. You have to read something like that and listen to a fanatic.

All we wanted to do was to drink from this well. Maybe we should reevaluate our lives a bit. Maybe as we face this new year and as we plan to live our lives in 2002, maybe we really should learn how to drink from this well. Discipline ourselves to godliness and discover what it really means to receive of his fullness. The word tabernacle among us so that we could behold his glory and receive his fullness. And then in verse 17 he says so that we could experience his excellence. Notice this. The law was given through Moses. What a wonderful gift that was, the law. A manifestation of the character of God, the glory of God, to a people in a particular historical setting. He says the law was given through Moses.

Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. From Christ's fullness, we've always seen grace instead of grace. What does that mean that we have received grace instead of grace? Verse 17 is the explanation of it. This is the explanation, verse 17. The law was given through Moses, grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. The grace and truth that came through Jesus Christ is what replaces this earlier display of God's grace. The law was given by grace. But now we've received grace in place of grace. We've received a greater demonstration of grace in the person of Jesus Christ. The covenant of law was a gracious gift from God. But the covenant that Jesus has brought to us through his death, bail and resurrection.

This one who is full of grace and truth that's embodied in him and characterizes this covenant that we have entered into. John magnifies this fresh grace coming in Jesus Christ. The Old Testament scripture pointed to Jesus. Everything in the Old Testament points to him and is fulfilled in him. He came and he fulfilled those things towards which the Old Testament was pointed. The prophesied of Christ. Jesus says in Matthew 11 that throughout the Old Covenant, right up through John the Baptist, they spoke of Christ. They were Old Covenant prophets. But now a new covenant has come through Christ. Jesus has arrived and he has displaced and replaced the Old Covenant. We've received grace instead of grace.

The law was continually pointing to Jesus pointing to what it was predicting and he came and he fulfilled those predictions. And now we've entered into a new covenant, a covenant characterized by the life of Jesus Christ. Both the law and the word made flesh sprang from the fullness of the word, but now we have a fuller expression of it. It was Jesus Christ who met, it was God the Son, the pre-incarnate Christ, who met Moses on Mount Sinai and manifested his glory there and gave him the law. But now he doesn't give us the glory through an intermediary. He comes himself and he manifests his grace and truth and he gives himself to us. So the word tabernacle among us so that we could behold his glory and receive his fullness, experience his excellence and then finally in verse 18 he says so that we could understand the Father.

This amazes me and Paul says in the book of Galatians that not only has God redeemed you from the curse of the law, not only has he justified you but he has adopted you. He's made you his child when you believed on him and not only did that but he sent the Holy Spirit to live within you and confirmed to your heart that you are a child of God. I think your parents can understand that. You want your children to know that you are their parent and that you love them and that you are committed to them but that's just a small imperfect reflection of the truth of this God that we serve and who is our Father. That he wanted us to know him as Father. He wants to understand him and notice what he says in verse 18, no man has seen God at any time.

The only begotten God who was in the bosom of the Father, he has explained him. No one has seen God at any time and you wonder, wait a minute, I've read the Old Testament. Hasn't there been some people? Haven't there been some people who have seen God? Didn't Moses see God in Exodus 33? Well, it tells us there that he saw the afterglow of God as a divine glory passed by. He saw him as he passed out the door. You've seen things like that. You've seen people pass by. You didn't really see who it was but they cut your attention out of the corner of your eye. It was like that. He saw a glimpse of God passing by and that's since the Old Testament says he had a face-to-face relationship with him. He saw the form of the Lord, so to speak.

Isaiah saw and didn't he in the temple? When he went into the temple and as the Lord appears there before him, he says that the train of his robe was filling the temple and Isaiah so struck with the presence of Jehovah that he cries out and says, I am a man of unclean lips, roll with me. But in the text it says what he saw was the hymn of the robe of Jehovah, just the hymn. The testimony of the Old Testament in the New as well is that for a sinful human being to see God would bring death and so God came to us in a man in Jesus and they didn't die. John writes in the opening of his little pistol, first John, he says, we touched him with our hands and we looked at him with our eyes. We gazed at him and he says it in such a way that it's as though he is saying we touched him and it's like I can still feel him.

We looked at him and I can still see that vision in my eyes. He had such impact on our lives. They saw God. There's a song about the woman who comes in and washes the feet of Jesus. I forget exactly how the line goes but it says something about she was holding God in her hands. Think of that. She wept over his feet and washed his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. She was holding God. This is what has come to impress the Apostle John as he writes this letter 60 years after the fact that it was God coming the flesh that we saw. Someone has explained God that no man could see. You see that? The only God in God who was in the brism of the Father, he has explained him. Someone has explained God.

You ever try to get somebody to explain to you the Trinity? Could you explain to me the Trinity? How is this that God is three and God is one? It's hard to do, isn't it? We search for all kinds of analogies but who can explain God? God? That's who? Jesus can explain God and that's what he did. The only begotten God, the God who became a man. The first born of the Father, he has explained God. He is brought him close. He has made God known. The word explained here is quite literally in the Greek, exe-Jesus. Exe-Jesus is a word that means to go up to a text and to draw out its meaning. What John is saying is that Jesus has drawn out the meaning of God so that we can understand God. You want to understand God?

Do you then look at Jesus Christ? Examine Him. Do a study of Jesus Christ. We have a God breathe the count. Four of them of his life and ministry, death and battle and resurrection. When you go to those books, you have an inspired account of who Jesus really is. And when you understand Jesus, you'll understand God. That's what Jesus said. I've been so long with you that you don't understand that if you've seen me, you have seen the Father. You think you should be in the book? You think you should be coming to this God-breathed book and in the power of the Holy Spirit, trusting in the Spirit to open your eyes and help you to understand this book that was given to the Church of Jesus Christ, not to the clergy, not to the Magisterium, not to the scholars, not to the Academy, to the people of God.

There is not one book written in the New Testament that was written to a scholar, not one. Not one book in the New Testament that was written to a seminary. Not one book in the New Testament was written to the clergy. Well, I take that back. It was written to the clergy because that's what you are. You're the clergy going to the first Peter. You're God's allotment. This book was written to the churches, to people like you. It's your book. It belongs to you. It doesn't belong to the seminary. It belongs to the church. We are the foundation of the truth. Now, I'm saying this because I want to shame you into making a commitment in your heart to spend time in this book that has been given to you as your possession.

You own it. It's yours as the people of God. It doesn't belong to preachers. Any more than it belongs to you. And in this book, God made flesh. The word come in the flesh is revealed to you and you can discover who God really is. Now, it's a scary thing because I'm telling you he's not who you think he is. There's a lot of things you think about God that just aren't true. You know that? And see, that's what a lot of people want to stay away from the Bible because when you start reading it and you just start discovering that God is not like you thought he was. It's sometimes easier just to say that dumb and happy. Instead of discovering who this God is and what he's calling me to be and do. He's calling on your life as so much greater and higher and more magnificent than you could ever imagine.

What he's really called you to do is so much more grand than the things that you are pursuing right now, typically. He's called you to an eternal lofty work. Maybe it's being a carpenter who lives out his life according to the principles of the kingdom. He's a carpenter like Jesus would be a carpenter like Jesus was a carpenter or maybe it's a business administrator who doesn't administrative business according to the principles of the kingdom like Jesus would. He's called you to something grand but you'll never discover what it is until you start eating this book. That's the way the Bible puts it. You have to eat it. You have to drink from him and you have to eat these words. I don't think you have problem understanding what that means.

I don't think anybody is going to go home and start eating the pages from their new King James. You know what the word means, don't you? When Jeremiah said he ate the book, you have to take these words in. You have to dwell on them. You need to commit yourself to 2002. You are going to immerse yourself in the Word of God and let him change you and let him use you like he really wants to. The Word pitched his tent among us. Notice this. I just want to show you these applications. He did this so that we could behold his glory because he wants us to worship in spirit and in truth. We can worship in a cafeteria in a high school because we worship in spirit and in truth. We don't have to have a building with stained glasses in order to worship.

I'm not saying anything wrong with that. I'm saying we don't have to have that. We could worship in a field. We could worship in the park. He wants us to worship in spirit and in truth in response to who he really is. Have you ever noticed that worship always is instigated by God? It is always initiated by God because we would never worship God if he did not unveil himself to us. If he didn't reveal himself to us, we wouldn't worship him. Has he revealed himself? Has he gone to much trouble to unveil who he really is so that he would worship him? Oh, just the incarnation. Just the virgin birth. Just the life of 33 and a half years on this earth where he didn't have a place to lay his head. Just to the cross.

Just suffering in darkness on the cross in order to be a substitute for your sin, becoming sin for you. Just three days in the grave. Just the resurrection and the ascension and the pouring out of the spirit. You think he's really interested in you knowing who he is. If thinking wants you to pay attention to his self-disclosure in Christ, sure, because he wants you to worship him in spirit and in truth. He wants your worship to reflect the fact that you actually understand who he is. He wants the way that we worship as his people to display and reveal that we understand who he is. He's not a Republican or a Democrat. He's the God of the universe. God come in the flesh full of grace and truth.

Secondly, he did this so we could receive his fullness so that we would drink and never thirst again. It's interesting in that in John 4, when Jesus speaks to the woman, he says, if you are drinking of this water, you will never thirst again. You'll satisfy your deepest thirst if you will be drinking from this life. It's what he's talking about. The eternal life that he places in every believer. If you will drink from this life, you will never be thirsty. You'll never have self-esteem problems as you drink from this well. Because once you've come to understand that God esteems you, what does it matter about what other people think of you? If he esteems you enough to send his son and to pay this awful price for you and to put his life in you so that you could know him and then he did this so we could experience his excellence and that means that we stand in grace.

I love that expression in Romans 5. It means that we are inspired in grace. Our life is circumscribed by grace. God deals with us in grace. All of his dealings with his people are manifestations of his loving kindness and grace. Even his severe mercies, even when it's painful, even when things go badly, even when we're hurting, it's a manifestation of his grace. Even when you don't get what you want, he's dealing with you in grace. Elijah asked him once for something he wanted so bad and he pleaded with God to give it to him and God didn't give it to him because of his grace. He wanted God to kill him and God didn't do it because he had a higher purpose and a greater gift to give him. He wants us to stand in grace and to walk in gratitude, to live our lives in response to this grace in which we stand.

And then finally, so that we could understand our Father and therefore live as sons and daughters of God, not orphans or slaves or religious practitioners, but sons of God who have refrigerator rights. You know what that's like? You've got a kid who doesn't live at home anymore. He comes over and he thinks he could open your refrigerator and eat anything in there. One of them right there, that's how he is. I had some cookies given to me the other day and he ate them before they got to my house. And the other reason he does that is because I'm his father. God wants you to know he's your father. Every one of you have rested your faith in Christ. So we pass out those gifts around the Christmas tree.

Understand this is a manifestation of the spirit of Jesus. It is more blessed to give than receive because that's what God has done. He's given himself. He's poured himself out for us, the person of Jesus. Let's pray. My Father, how we thank you for Christmas. We thank you for the celebration when the world is simply trying to make another billion dollars on another commercial holiday. We are celebrating the greatest gift that has ever been given. You've given your son. The word became flesh in 12th of my house and we beheld his glory for grace and truth. Oh God, we pray that we live through these next few days and we talk to people about Christmas. What's going on in our lives that you would help us to tell them the truth about what fills our hearts with joy.

Jesus is the joy of Christmas and we thank you for that in his name.