John 1:14--- Part IV

The Word Became Flesh and Made His Dwelling Among Us

  ¹⁴The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only,^[d]  who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.   

Prayer -  

Heavenly Father, we praise You because You fulfill Your word. And as we prepare to read Your words from the Bible, as You speak to us, we thank You that all those words are true. Heavenly Father, help us to hear and help us to apply those words to our lives this week and we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Scripture Readings -  

Did you know that in God’s Kingdom there is a dress code? The Bible tells about it in our Old Testament reading where it tells about “garments of salvation”. In Galatians we read that those who believe in Christ as Savior have the proper clothes because they are “clothed in Christ”.  And in chapter seven of Revelation those who are in God’s Kingdom are there because they have the right clothes on, the white robes of salvation. And Jesus tells a parable about a man about a wedding feast (heaven) getting tossed because he doesn’t have on the right clothes.

The white robe I wear symbolizes the heavenly dress code; it symbolizes that you have been clothed in Christ with a white robe of righteousness that covers sins if you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and  when God looks at you He sees the brilliant, the holiness, the white robe of Christ. All of you who believe in Jesus as your Savior and are trusting in Him for salvation have the proper clothes. God has given you the robe of righteousness; you are dressed appropriately for the Kingdom of Heaven. You will not be tossed out for not having the proper clothes because you have been clothed with Christ.  

Old Testament – Isaiah 61:10-11  I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.

Since we have been clothed with Christ and have the garments of salvation in God’s eyes, how do we live, what do we do as we wait for the Second Coming of Christ? What’s the plan? That question is answered in our Epistle lesson.

Epistle – 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24  Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil. May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May our whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it

The Holy Gospel is our advent theme, particularly John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” Today we get into the next portion, “We have seen the Lord’s glory.” This is the Christmas Story according to John’s perspective. He talks about the Second Person of the Trinity, the Word, or logos, who became flesh. 

Gospel – John 1:1,14-18  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.” From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.

Sermon –

John says in verse 14 of our Gospel lesson, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” And then he says, “We have seen his glory…” How do you like that line? Does it make you kind of envious? It used to make me envious when I would hear about it. Did you ever feel like saying, “Speak for yourself, John!” After all, John was there when Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, walked the face of the earth. He was actually there! He was in the boat on the Sea of Galilee when the storm came up and Jesus stood up and rebuked the wind and the waves and there was, I love these words, “a great calm”. The Bible tells us that the disciples were amazed and said, “Who is this that can command the wind and the waves.” John was there, he personally saw what Jesus could do; he saw the glory of Jesus - no wonder he could write that verse. But we weren’t there.

And another great miracle from the New Testament, feeding the five thousand.  John was there when over five thousand people were fed with just five loaves of bread and two fish; he actually took part of the bread and fish and handed it out to the five thousand. He saw it - no wonder he writes, “We’ve seen His glory.” Makes you envious doesn’t it? It does me!

And talk about seeing God’s glory – how about Transfiguration Mountain? When Jesus took Peter, James, and John up the mountain in Israel the door to the spirit world opened and they saw Jesus in His white robe in all His radiant glory. They saw God, they saw His power and   glory on Transfiguration Mountain. But we weren’t there, we didn’t see it.

But because God’s word is so powerful and can do anything, our goal for you today is that you walk out of those doors having seen right here and now the glory of God just as John did. Our goal is that as your week progresses, you will be in awe of that Savior, the Word made flesh for you, and that the glory of God would carry you through this week and through the tough times in life just as it did for John and the other disciples.

And to begin to see God’s glory, think about the thing that God absolutely hates. Of all the things in the world that God is displeased with, what does He absolutely hate the most?   Sin! Not only does God hate sin with a passion and a vengeance, but what is present in each and every one of us? Sin! And what do we do every day? Sin! So where does that leave us with God? Separated from Him, away from Him, out of His presence - in this life - and eternally! God is very clear on that; He says “Our sins have separated us from Him.”

Our greatest problem is that our sin needs to be forgiven and that’s where we begin to see the glory of God. If you can see that your sin separates you from God, which means burning forever in the fire of hell, then you can begin to see the glory of the Lord. Because God, who hates sin with a passion, left heaven and became flesh and blood, became a human being. John Chapter one tells us that in Jesus all the fullness of God dwells bodily. God came for sinful people like you and me.

I have here a cheap imitation crown. Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and He deserves a crown but He took the crown off of his head, was born as a baby, laid all His power and glory aside and exchanged the crown for a nail. He was nailed through both hands and both feet to the Cross to die and pay the thing He hates most – sin!

In human thinking we would say, “Why would anyone do that?” And this is where we begin to see God’s glory. He did it for you and me so that we would have forgiveness, so that He would never have to live apart from us. Dwell on that for a while because that’s where we see God’s glory. First and foremost, when John 1:14 talks about the Word being made flesh and dwelling among us, he’s saying that God would become human and give up His crown for a nail. It’s just incredible what God has done for us.

During this whole sermon series, one of the things I have repeatedly said is… “But it gets even better!!!” So try this one on for size -  we’ve seen God’s glory on the Cross, we’ve seen God’s glory in that He paid for sin;   we’ve seen God’s glory in that He’s pulled you toward Him by the power of the Holy Spirit; but let’s go back to calming the storm.

Have you ever prayed that God would just calm the storm? A week ago last Thursday at the school we saw the glory of God. It was about 60 degrees that day and it was raining like crazy. At staff prayer time about 8:00 in the morning, Sharon Cooper, our secretary who also does crossing guard duty, in summing up her prayer said, “And by the way, God, just one more thing since we can pray about anything - I don’t want to get soaked this morning while I’m on crossing guard duty. Could you just stop the rain?” Well, that was at 8:15. We went back to the office, looked out the window and on the horizon there was a blue sky inching its way up. By 8:23, blue sky was half-way up and by 8:30 the whole sky was blue, the sun was shining and the rain had stopped, at least over that little piece of property known as Trinity Christian School!

Sharon went out for crossing guard duty and didn’t get a drop of water on her. And unless we might think that is just a coincidence or simply good timing or anything else that people use to explain away things we’ve prayed about, at 8:45 the clouds started moving in and a few minutes later it was raining again! I was in the office, along with Susan and Sharon and we saw the glory of the Lord actually calming the storm just like John had seen on the Sea of Galilee in Mark Chapter 4.

And there are other examples. The Bible says that the result of feeding the five thousand was that the disciples saw God’s glory. Well haven’t we seen the same thing? Haven’t we seen how God takes our resources and multiplies them? We need to thank God for this time and time again because when we stop thanking God for this, we will be sunk! God will pull the plug out! We need to acknowledge before the world that we, as a country, just went through a tremendous economic crisis but God intervened and brought us through. And during that economic crisis, we here at Trinity ran a huge deficit as we do every year but you folks continued to tithe and, as a matter of fact, you even gave special offerings to keep this ministry going. And what happened? God multiplied your resources so that in a very tough economic year no one ended up homeless, no one went hungry, we can put oil in the oil tank and gas in the car because God has kept gas and oil prices down. He’s taken our resources and multiplied them, just like the feeding of the five thousand. And unless we think again that this is just coincidence, what did he do twice in the past year to show us that He can really stretch a buck? He took a $1 bill and turned it into $100 twice! We have seen God’s glory!

On Transfiguration Mountain God changed in appearance and He does the same thing every other week here at Trinity. He actually changes in appearance because the word, the logos, that describes God became flesh and blood. God who was in the burning bush, God who was in the pillar of fire leading Israel, God who was in the cloud in the Temple changes in appearance again.

When the Temple was dedicated, the cloud came into the Holy of Holies and God was present in the cloud. But He left the temple when Christ went to the Cross and paid for our sins and a Mosque is on the Temple Mount today. But who cares? That’s not where God dwells! He left when Christ went to the Cross; the curtain in the Temple that separated God from the people tore in two - and when God leaves who comes in? The pagans! So where is God’s Temple Mount now? In you, the believers. He dwells in believers who have confessed sin and believe that Jesus died and paid for them.

And it gets better literally because in Holy Communion that who became the logos, that who became flesh and blood said He’s not going to dwell in the burning bush anymore or the pillar of fire that led Israel, or in the cloud in the Temple, or in a human being, Jesus Christ, who went to heaven. According to His Word, He’s going to dwell among us. According to His Word, He changes in appearance again. He said, “This is my body, this is my blood”. God, who was in with under the burning bush; in with under the pillar of fire, in with under the cloud, in with under a man named Jesus comes to you in with under the bread and the wine in Holy Communion to dwell among us, to live within, to encamp within.

So let’s put this all together. In the bread and wine, Christ’s presence, a change in appearance comes to live literally in you because you swallowed the bread and wine in Holy Communion. Literally in you – that’s what the Bible says! This is incredible stuff! We have seen God’s glory! Look at how all the Scriptures, the Old Testament, the New Testament, the bread and wine, the appearance, the Word became flesh dwelling among us all fit together. It’s   like a hand in a glove! It fits perfectly! That’s what you have when you correctly interpret the Bible; everything fits together perfectly. And when we look at those constants we see the glory of God

So, have you seen God’s glory today? I get excited just thinking about it. I was excited all week just preparing for this! When John writes, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory…” that’s what carried the disciples through all the tough times, the persecutions and all the times they were beaten and in prison. Certainly the Holy Spirit, working through God’s Word carried them but the other thing that carried them is that they saw God’s glory. And for us, who knows what this season will bring. Your fruitcake may arrive with mold on it. And if that’s the only thing that happens, thank You, God. Or it may get worse. The Christmas tree may fall over and break all those ornaments that are so near and dear to you. Or the car could die and all the money you have been for Christmas presents has to go for car repair. Or you could get bad test results from the doctor. Or maybe even worse than that. But what’s going to carry you through? The fact that we have seen the glory of the Lord.  And let that glory cause you to be in jaw-dropping awe all week long. Amen.

Prayer -  

Heavenly Father, we are thankful that you have given us Your word and Your Word  made flesh. Through those words this morning we have seen Your glory. Thank you for revealing Yourself to us. And we pray this in Jesus’ Name. Amen