If you're able, would you please stand for the reading of God's
Word on this first Sunday of Advent?
I'll be reading from two different books in the New
Testament, first the Gospel of John and then Paul's letter to
the Colossians. This is John chapter 1,
beginning in verse 14. And the Word became flesh and
dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only
Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John bore witness about him and cried out.
This was he of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before
me, because He was before me. For from his fullness we have
all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through
Moses. Grace and truth came through
Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, the
only God who is at the Father's side.
He has made him known. Now Colossians chapter 2,
beginning with verse 8, Paul writes, See to it that no one
takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to
human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the
world, and not according to Christ.
For in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells a bodily, and you
have been filled in Him who is the head of all rule and
authority. This is the word of the Lord.
You may be seated. Well, today is the first Sunday
of Advent, and as we begin the season of Advent together, it's
probably important that we know what the word Advent actually
means. Advent comes from the Latin word
Vinny simply means coming. So Advent is more than just
waiting for the arrival of Christmas Day.
Advent is a season where we wait for the coming of Jesus Christ.
And no matter your age, whether you're a child this morning or
you're an adult who's a child at heart, the truth is waiting is
hard, isn't it? Nobody likes to wait.
Waiting takes discipline. Waiting requires patience.
And so if Christmas is a feast in so many ways, Advent is a
fast. Advent is a fast that invites us
to wait, a fast that calls us to confront the reality that this
side of the return of Jesus. Our entire lives are one long
season of Advent because every one of us is waiting, longing
for the turn of Jesus to come again and make all things new.
We confront this waiting when we experience the hardship,
difficulty, and disappointment of life.
When we face the darkness in the world around us, the darkness of
our own sin. We know what it means to wait
for the coming of Christ. As we enter into this season of
Christmas, for so many of us it's not only a season of joy,
but the season of an intense sorrow and grief when we feel
most profoundly the loss of somebody we've dearly loved is
no longer with us. And in that moment, we're
waiting. We're waiting for Christ to come
again. Advent invites us to fast to
stop and to wait, and great anticipation for Christ to heal
all that has been broken and to make new all that has been lost.
But Advent is not just a time of waiting and looking forward.
As we wait and as we long for the return of Jesus, we look
back on his first Advent and there we find the fullness of
God come down to us in a Manger. As we look forward and wait for
the future coming of Jesus, we look back on his first Advent
and the fullness of His incarnation.
Since 325AD, Christians all over the world have used the words of
the Nicene Creed to confess what we believe about the incarnation
of Jesus, to consider the incarnation of Jesus as one of
the essentials of the Christian faith.
The Nicene Creed says we believe and 1 Lord Jesus Christ, the
only begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before
all worlds, God of God, light of light, very God of very God.
With these words, the Nicene Creed teaches us that it is
essential to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that
he is God Incarnate, fully God and fully man.
That is the doctrine of the incarnation.
It's essential to what we believe is Christians that we
believe that Jesus not only is the Son of God, but he has God
become flesh, the one who has come down to dwell with us.
And it is the fullness of the incarnation that is the focus of
our sermon series this season of Advent.
Apostle Paul describes this fullness.
The book of Colossians, Colossians 2 verse 9, he writes
for in Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.
In his gospel, the apostle John uses similar language.
This is John 1 verse 16. For from his fullness we've all
received grace upon grace. And so this morning as we begin
the first Sunday of Advent, we're going to begin in the book
of John and the book of Colossians.
And together we're going to see the fullness of the incarnation
of Jesus Christ in three ways. The first is this.
In the incarnation of Jesus, we see the fullness of the glory of
God. Once you would look with me.
The Gospel of John, chapter one, verse 14.
John tells us that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
If you've grown up around Christianity or grown up going
to church around Christmas time, odds are you've heard this verse
before. Christians all over the world
are reciting this verse. John 114.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
But the problem When words become familiar to us as they
begin to lose the depth of their meaning, they go in one ear and
out the other. And we never stopped long enough
to really consider what is it that these words actually mean.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Well over a year ago we preached through the Gospel of John and
you're with us for that series. You may remember that the word
word here and John 114 is the Greek word, the original
language of the New Testament, the Greek word Lagos.
Now the word Lagos is borrowed from Greek philosophy.
The Lagos was the highest form of transcendence.
The idea was if you can think of a being or a force that is
higher than any other, that thing, whether or not you call
it God, is the Logos. It was known as divine wisdom.
Why is John using it in the Bible?
Well, John was writing to a bunch of Greek Jewish people.
He knew his audience. He knew that not only were many
of them Jewish, but they were influenced by Greek philosophy.
And So what John is saying to them and to all of us who now
read it 2000 years later, is that whatever it is that you
call God, whether you call him Yahweh, the one true God, or you
conceive of the highest form of existence, the Lagos, whatever
that thing is, John is here to tell all of us.
This is what the one true God is really like.
And if you want to know who God is, look no further that his
Son, Jesus Christ, the one who has come down to us and the
fullness of his incarnation. John says the word became flesh
and dwelt among us. That word flesh is an also an
interesting word. John could have said the word
became human, or the word took on a body, or the word came
down, but no, John says the word took on flesh.
In other words, John is using the highest and loftiest speech
that he could try to put together to describe God in all
of the ways he might be conceived.
And he's saying that transcendent God took on flesh
that which you can touch and feel and even smell when it gets
dirty. John is putting together 2 words
that have no business to be together.
This is the paradox of the incarnation.
The Word became flesh. The transcendent became
imminent. That which is eternal somehow
became temporal. The very God who spoke the
universe into existence became a baby born in a Manger.
This is what we profess as Christians, and it's essential
to the Gospel. John doesn't stop there.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
The Word dwell is unique to John.
He's the only one who used it in the entire New Testament.
He uses it here, the Gospel of John.
He also uses it in the Book of Revelation.
The word literally means Tabernacle.
The word became flesh and tabernacled among us.
Now, to our modern ears, that sounds very strange.
What in the world is John talking about?
But to his first listeners, they would have immediately known
what John was saying. See, in the background of his
gospel is the story of the people of God throughout the Old
Testament, and particularly here in John's prologue in the
introduction of his gospel. And the background is the book
of Exodus. We have a Bible.
I want you to get out the book of Exodus this morning.
If you don't have a Bible, you can take the Blue Pew Bible in
front of you. That's our gift to you.
Please take it home with you. Turn to the book of Exodus.
That's the second book of the Bible, the second book of the
Old Testament. Now I want you to turn to Exodus
25, verse 8 for the first hearers of John's gospel.
They would have heard the Word became flesh and tabernacled
among us. They would have immediately
thought of Exodus 25. This is verse 8.
God says, and let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in
their midst. Exactly as I show you concerning
the pattern of the Tabernacle and of all of its furniture, so
you shall make it. Now.
The Tabernacle was the precursor to the temple.
It was the place, as the people of God wandered in the darkness
of the wilderness. It's where God dwelled in all of
His glory with His people. And there were very specific
instructions given to the construction of the Tabernacle.
You can think of it as a very ornate tint.
Yesterday we were making our way up from Thanksgiving holiday
with my family in Waco up the highway, and I saw, I don't
think my family did. They were too busy seeing all of
the Bucky signs. But I think out of my corner of
my eye I saw a circus tent. And what's amazing about a
really good circus tent is how amazing and ornate they're able
to make it, and all the things are able to fit inside.
It feels like a permanent structure.
The Tabernacle was that and so much more.
It was built for the glory of God to dwell with his people.
And in the story of Exodus, as God dwelled with his people
after bringing them out of Egypt, rescuing them from
slavery, and being present as all of His glory with them,
leading them through the wilderness.
What we see over and over again in the story of Exodus is not
their gratitude, it's not their worship, but it's the rebellion.
Even after all that God did for his people, the book of Exodus
tells us the people of God rebelled against him.
They didn't trust that God will fulfill his promises.
And they took all of their gold and they melted it down, and
they made the statue of a calf, and they bowed down in front of
it and worshipped it instead of God.
Now that might sound ridiculous to us, but the truth is, you and
I rebel against God every single day.
And even though He has brought us out of the slavery of sin
over and over again, every day we go right back to it.
And though you and I'm not might not worship golden calves, but
we worship ourselves and other people and everything around us.
You and I are no different. We are rebels too.
And what we see in the story of Exodus as God meets rebels with
his glory and with His grace. As the story continues, Exodus
33, Moses goes up to Mount Sinai to plead for God's mercy on his
people. Verse 18, Moses goes to God and
says, please show me your glory. And God says, I will make all of
my goodness pass before you and proclaim before you my name, the
Lord. And I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show
mercy. But he said, You cannot see my
face, for man shall not see me and live.
And the Lord said, Behold, there's a place by me where you
shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by, I'll
put you in the cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with
my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand,
and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.
But God is telling Moses is that he can only give Moses a glimpse
of his glory because no man in our sin can stand in the
presence of God's glory and live.
So Moses isn't allowed to see the face of God in the face of
his glory and its fullness. He's only allowed to see his
back and just catch a glimpse. I can't preach on this or even
think about this passage without thinking about Raiders of the
Lost Ark. And if you've seen the movie,
you know what I'm talking about. Towards the end where the Nazis
finally have the Ark of the Covenant, they decide it's going
to be a great idea to open the Ark.
There is a 9 or 10 year old little boy.
I can never Unsee their faces melting off as the Ark of the
Covenant is opened. It's almost cheesy when you see
it. It's complete silliness compared
to what God is telling Moses. No one can see the fullness of
his glory and live. So what does any of this have to
do with Advent? What does it have to do with the
Gospel of John? And what does it have to do with
the incarnation? The Word became flesh and
tabernacled among us. The first hearers of John's
gospel would have heard this. The fullness of God's glory no
longer resides in a tent, but it resides in a person, and his
name is Jesus Christ. This is why John goes on and
says this. And we have seen His glory,
glory as the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth
in the person of Jesus Christ. We behold the fullness of the
glory of God. We are not hidden in the cleft
of a rock or hidden by the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
And though we stand before the throne of God as sinners, we
stand beholding the fullness of God's glory.
Apostle Paul put it this way, 2nd Corinthians 4 verse 6 For
God who said let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our
hearts to give the light of the glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ. Moses was not allowed to see the
face of God, but in the incarnation of Jesus we behold
in his face the fullness of God's glory second.
In the incarnation of Jesus, not only does he see the fullness of
God's glory, but we receive the fullness of His grace.
Look with me at verse 16. John goes on.
He says, for from his fullness we've all received grace upon
grace. That is, from the fullness of
the incarnation of God and the person of Jesus, we've all
received grace upon grace. Now there's two ways to
understand that. One is in terms of abundance,
all of us in Jesus Christ, this great gift that God would come
down to us. The thing that separates
Christianity from every other religion, that's not about us
working our way to God, but God coming down to us in his grace
is grace and abundance. It's grace upon grace.
It's grace that never runs out. It's grace that meets us in
every sin that we have committed, every sin that we
will commit. Grace upon grace upon grace.
But you can also understand that phrase quite literally as a
grace in place of a grace that has already been given.
Now, what does that mean? Well again I think Exodus is in
the background and helps us understand what John is talking
about. He goes on in verse 17 he says
for the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came from
Jesus Christ. John is showing us that Jesus
was born, that he was Incarnate. Not an historical vacuum, but
Jesus Christ was first born in a Manger as the fulfillment of all
of Old Testament prophecy in history, and he's connecting the
dots between the incarnation of Jesus and the grace that God has
already given us in the law. You see, the law of God was
given to us by the grace of God. Now, that might sound
contradictory to you. Let me show you what I mean.
When the people of God rebelled and formed a golden calf and
worshipped it, Moses was so angry that he took the first
tablets of the law of God, and he threw them down and they
broke. And after he went up to the
mountain, Mount Sinai, and pleaded for mercy, and God spoke
His mercy over His people, he then made a new set of tablets.
It was grace. Rather than destroy his people
for breaking the law, quite literally, God gave the law to
them. Again, we're told in Exodus 34,
verse 4. So Moses cut 2 tablets of stone
like the first, and he rose early in the morning and went up
on Mount Sinai. And the Lord had commanded him
and took his hand. 2 tablets of stone.
The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and
proclaimed the name of the Lord, listened to his name.
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord.
The Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and
abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
God graciously gave them the law again, and then he declared His
covenant name over His people, a name of grace and mercy.
All of this happened after the golden calf, after His people
rebelled. This is good news for us because
just like the people in the Exodus, we are rebels too.
And God has given us, in the fullness of the incarnation,
grace in place of a grace that was already given by His grace,
He already has given us the law. And now in the gift of his Son
Jesus Christ, he's given us the grace of fulfilling the law.
You see, because Christ came not to destroy the law, but to
fulfill the law, to fulfill the law on our behalf, because the
truth is none of us can keep it and every one of us breaks it
every single day. And so God gave us grace in
place of grace. He not only gave us the law, but
in Jesus He gave us the fulfillment of the law.
And This is why the incarnation matters.
Apostle Paul put it this way, Romans 8 verse 3.
For God has done with the Law, weakened by the flesh, could not
do by sending His own Son and the likeness of sinful flesh,
and for sin He condemns sin in the flesh and order that the
righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us.
The incarnation is essential to Christianity because without the
incarnation there can be no gospel.
If Jesus Christ did not take on flesh, then our sin could not
have been condemned in His flesh on the cross.
Without the Manger there can be no cross, because without Jesus
taking on our human frailty, He could not have died a real
death. But in the fullness of the
incarnation, Jesus Christ died a real death in our place.
He shed real blood to make atonement for our sin.
And listen to this on the third day, His real body rose from the
dead to be the first fruits of our own resurrection.
And everyone who believes in him would live for him and with him
forever. The incarnation is essential not
simply because it's one of the list of things you have to
believe in order to call yourself a Christian now.
The incarnation is essential. Without Christ coming down to us
in the fullness of deity and the fullness of humanity, there can
be no salvation. And so this Christmas, just like
we do every single year, we'll tell the story of the Manger
over and over and over again. And as we retell the Christmas
story, it invites all of us to truly ask the question, what is
it that we actually believe? That's the third and final
thing. The Incarnation shows us the
fullness of truth. John goes on verse 18.
He says no one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the
Father's side. He has made him known word only.
Here is the same word that we get only begotten from what we
profess in the Nicene Creed, that Jesus is the only begotten
Son of God. When we say that, we're not
saying that Christ is simply the only child of God the Father.
Of course He is, but we use the word only in saying He is the
only one like him. He's unique.
How? Well, John tells at the
beginning of verse 18, no one has ever seen God except in the
person of Jesus. You see, in the face of Jesus,
we not only see the glory of God, but we see the truth of who
God is. And not only do we see that God
is true, but in the incarnation we see that God can be trusted.
And as we enter into the Advent season, we need to be reminded
that our God can be trusted. As we confront the darkness
around us, confront the darkness of our own sin.
We asked a question along with a psalmist.
How long, O Lord? And we wait for the coming of
Jesus Christ to return. In the incarnation.
We're reminded that he has already come.
And surely, as he has already come to us, he will come again.
He can be trusted. And again in the Exodus we see
that God is trustworthy. He's got God cave the law not as
a set of rules, but as a covenant Exodus 3410 as he gave
the law he said, behold, I'm making a covenant before all
your people. I will do marvels such as not
has been created in all of earth or in any nation and all the
people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord for it
is an awesome thing that I will do with you.
God made a promise to do something that we would marvel
at, and every promise finds its yes and Amen in the incarnation
of Jesus Christ. Not only is He true, but He can
be trusted. Apostle Paul puts it this way.
Colossians 2 verse 8. See to it that no one takes you
captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human
tradition, according to elemental spirits of the world,
and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of
Deity dwells bodily. Notice the context of Paul's
teaching on the incarnation in Christ.
The whole fullness of Deity dwells bodily.
Why does that matter? So that no one would take our
minds captive by empty philosophy and vain teaching.
In other words, in the incarnation of Jesus, we see
that Christianity is not just another truth among many truths.
It's not a philosophy. It's not a set of principles.
It is not a man made religion. No, Christianity is the true
story of God coming down to us and the person of Jesus Christ.
And one day he will come again. And so this Advent, make
yourselves ready. May we prepare ourselves for the
coming of Jesus. And as we wait, may we receive
grace upon grace, setting our hearts and our minds and our
gaze on the face of Jesus, seeing that not only is he true,
but he can be trusted as we long for the day.
And Christ will come again, and all of the fullness of this
glory, and we will stand before His glory, face to face forever,
world without Him. Let me pray.
Father in Heaven, we ask that in this season of Advent you would
help us to wait with patience, but also to wait with hope,
longing for the day when you, Christ, will come again, but
also to wait by remembering that you, Christ, have already come.
Come to us now, even as we leave this place and go to our
families and our neighborhoods, and as we work and walk through
the season of Advent until Christmas Day, we pray that you
would teach us to wait. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.
Let's stand and sing.