Jesus, the Incarnation of God

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in John chapter 1. And if you haven’t been with us the last few weeks, we’ve been going through John chapter 1 and looking at what he has to say about the birth of Christ, the coming of Christ. John is different from Matthew and Luke. Matthew and Luke, like the story I just told them out of the book of Luke, they explain how Jesus got here.

They explain how he came. Matthew talks about his birth and talks about up to the time of the wise men. Luke talks about his birth and the shepherds.

And they both explain how he came to be in Bethlehem and the manger and all of that. The whole story we’re familiar with. John, on the other hand, explains why Jesus came.

He explains why Jesus came. And we’ve been looking through here for several weeks at some of the different things it talks about. And we’ve looked at several verses.

This morning, I just want to focus in on one verse, which is verse 14. And it said, And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Now John has gone through this entire first chapter explaining why Jesus came, and he’s talked about how Jesus was the creator.

See, a lot of times we think of Jesus being sort of a second-class citizen in heaven, if you will. that God the Father created everything and Jesus came along later. But the Bible teaches us in so many areas that Jesus was there all along.

He was part of creation. He did the work of creating. He was part of that.

If you go back to Genesis chapter 1 when God says, let us make man in our own image, Jesus was part of the us and the our that was there. The Bible says nothing was created without him. John says here, nothing was created without him.

It talks about him being the creator of all things. And John also talks about him being the redeemer of all things. That creation that he made fell into sin, and then it was up to Jesus to come in and deal with the problem of sin.

John talks about how John the Baptist, not the same one who wrote this, but John the Baptist came along and prepared the way for Jesus. And what he’s saying, what John the Apostle who wrote this is saying, is that Jesus was the fulfillment of all of these prophecies of the Old Testament. And you can turn to practically any page in the Old Testament.

And somewhere in there you can see a picture of Jesus Christ, or you can see a prophecy of Jesus Christ, of the Messiah, and what John the Apostle is saying, that by John the Baptist coming and preparing the way, like it was foretold in Malachi and Isaiah, that Jesus was the fulfillment of all these things that God had been trying to tell his people for 4,000 years. God spent 4,000 years preparing the people for Jesus coming. I know the preparation and work that Charla goes through when any of y’all or my parents are coming by the house, although you couldn’t have told it yesterday because it looked like Christmas sort of threw up in our living room, but we couldn’t keep up with the mess.

But I know the preparation she goes through, as important as y’all are, that she goes through when y’all are coming, or my parents or somebody like that. If the Queen of England was coming to our house, I think she’d probably spend a year in preparation for the Queen of England to come visit. Wouldn’t that be a sign of her coming to seminary?

As important as she is, and think of the most important person you can think of, and if they came to visit my house, how long would I prepare? God spent 4,000 years preparing people for Jesus’ coming, and John talks about that. He talks about how he was rejected by his own people.

The people that he, they weren’t the only ones he came to save, but he came to save the Jews first. And God chose the Jews to be his chosen people that they would bring his Messiah into the world. So that then he could be the Savior of all people. And yet those who should have understood him best were the quickest to say, no, he doesn’t fit with our expectations.

And there are a lot of people in our world today who still reject Jesus and who still reject God because of what they think he’s about. they think Jesus is about these rules and these regulations and Jesus is about squashing you if you’re having a good time and I totally missed the point of who Jesus was and the Jews were the first and certainly not the last though to reject Jesus because he wasn’t what they thought he was. But then we get to verse 14 after John has just told us that even though his own people rejected him there were some there were still a few and there still are some today who receive him by faith and because of the work that God does, not because of anything we do on our own, but because of the work that God does, they receive him by faith and they’re adopted as his children.

Right after that, he tells us in verse 14 that the word was made flesh. This word that he’s been talking about all through chapter one is Jesus and the word was made flesh. The whole point of this message this morning, as far as why Jesus came, looking at verse 14 comes down to what we need so often.

It’s to know that somebody cares. We have a tendency as human beings to be afraid of being abandoned. To be afraid of being alone.

As much as I like quiet time and peace and quiet and sometimes I just need to get away by myself, there are other times that I need to be around people. And I think most of us fall somewhere on that spectrum. I don’t know too many people who just say, I want to be totally alone all the time.

Most of us would go crazy. Most of us are afraid of just being abandoned and left alone. And that was true of the Israelites 3,500 years ago when they were wandering around in the wilderness, and they kept asking Moses, why did God bring us out here into the wilderness just to let us die?

Why didn’t he leave us in Egypt? They really thought, after all the miracles they saw, they thought God had abandoned them. They were scared to death that God was just going to leave them in the wilderness.

It was true then, and it’s true today. We’re afraid of being left alone. And a lot of us fear being abandoned by God.

A lot of people in our world feel like they have been abandoned by God. God doesn’t care about me. God doesn’t think about me.

God doesn’t love me. I’m not important to God. He doesn’t notice me.

After all the things I’ve done, or I’m not as good as so-and-so, or I’m not as important, God doesn’t care about me. I’m here on my own. And we can sometimes feel like we’ve been abandoned by God.

As individuals, as a nation like the Israelites, as a church, we can sometimes trick ourselves into thinking that God’s abandoned us despite his promise to never leave us or forsake us. But we have a saying as humans that talk is cheap. We want to see evidence.

We want to see proof. You can tell me you love me all day, but if you don’t show it by your actions, it doesn’t mean anything. Well, folks, God doesn’t just talk about loving us.

He doesn’t just talk about caring about us. He proved it. He showed it.

It says here in verse 14, the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. God could have just sent Jesus straight from heaven to die on the cross and that would have been enough to save us. As long as he was God in human flesh and he came and he had no sin of his own and was nailed to the cross, he could have shed his blood and died for us at any time.

But Jesus came and willingly lived on this earth among us and went through all the stuff that we go through. I feel like somebody asked me about this this week. It might have been Wednesday night.

I don’t know. But something about that and why. And I had to think for a minute, and the answer that I came to was, you know, the Bible says that he was tempted in every way that we are except without sin.

He went through all the stuff that we go through. All the pain, all the hurt, all the joy, all the fear, everything that we experience. He went through it and experienced firsthand what it was like to be us because God cares about us.

Because God cares about his people. Think about it. He went through as a baby being weaned and wanting milk and not being able to have milk and I’ve weaned children off the bottle and they don’t like that.

None of us probably remember that experience of our own but we might remember it with our children. They don’t like that. They want the bottle.

They want the pacifier. They want whatever it is. He went through that.

the baby teeth fallen out he went through that pain and that suffering the skinned knees he went through it the growing pains he went through it the teenage years God forbid we should ever have to go through that again he went through it heartbreak and rejection and betrayal by friends he went through everything and he didn’t do it just for fun it wasn’t a science experiment he did it because he loves us the word was made flesh and dwelt among us He was one of us. God put on human flesh and became one of us. And we beheld his glory.

The glory is the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And even while he was one of us, he never stopped being God. This is one of the great mysteries and one of the great paradoxes of the Christian faith, that he was fully God and at the same time fully human.

He never stopped being God. Even as he was going through all the stuff that we go through, He never lost sight of his mission and his reason for being here, which was to save us from our sins. All the temptations that we go through, he never gave in to them.

All the things that plague us on a daily basis, and he never sinned. The Bible says that there’s, I believe in the book of Isaiah chapter 53, that there’s nothing physical about him that would have distinguished him, that would have made him stand out. People weren’t attracted to him because he was the supermodel of his day.

People weren’t attracted to him because of his charisma necessarily. But they saw the way he lived and they heard the things that he taught. We beheld his glory as of the only begotten of the Father.

Because he was the only begotten of the Father. Because he was the Son of God in human flesh. Who stepped out of heaven into time and space and dwelt among us.

After 4,000 years of God promising a Messiah and a Savior, Jesus came to be born as a tiny baby so that he could walk among us, so that he could live among us, and so that he could die for us. God was under no obligation to ask for anything. God doesn’t owe me a thing.

Sometimes I get mad, God, why did that happen? God, why do I have to go? I don’t know that I’m mad at God.

I’m probably just mad at the situation. But I complain to God quite frequently. God, why did you let me go through this?

God, why is my day going like this? And I have to stop and remind myself what I preach so many times. and that’s one of the worst things about being a preacher is when your own words come back to haunt you God doesn’t owe me a thing except death and separation from him in hell and quite frankly I don’t want what God owes me and I’m glad he doesn’t give it God didn’t owe me salvation God didn’t owe you salvation or forgiveness any of it but God loved us God made promises to his people to deal with the problem of sin even though we didn’t deserve it even though they didn’t deserve it and with all the wickedness that we’ve committed in our lives, with all the sin and the evil that went on in Israel, God could have looked at them, could have looked at us, and said, forget you people, I’m done with this.

And he would have been absolutely justified in doing so. But God’s a God who keeps his promises. And if he says, I will never leave you or forsake you, then you can take never to the bank.

And he backed up his words. When God the Son put on human flesh, and came to live among us, and came to be one of us, and came to die for us. See, God didn’t just say, I love you.

God didn’t just say, I care about you. God didn’t just say, I haven’t forgotten you. God didn’t just say, I won’t abandon you.

He backed it up with his son. I love y’all. I hope you know that.

I hope you know it’s not just words. But I’m not sure there’s anybody in here I’d sacrifice my child for. I hope that doesn’t make you mad at me.

Hopefully, as parents, you feel the same way. I love you preacher but I’m not giving my child for you. I don’t know there might be some days you’d want to.

Depending on how they act. No. We know what it means to love our children.

I can’t imagine. I have convictions and I have principles and there are things that I would die for. I can’t think of anything that I would send my children to die for.

God told you he loved you. God told you he’d never leave you. And that he cared about you.

and that he’d make a way for you to be with him in heaven. He didn’t just say it. He backed it up by sending his son.

And in those times that you might feel abandoned by God, whether it’s how you feel every morning when you wake up because of the stuff that’s happened in life, you feel like God’s just, God forgot about me a long time ago. Or whether it’s every once in a while in a situation, a moment of weakness, you feel like God, I feel like God doesn’t even notice me. We have ample evidence to the contrary.

God loved you and cared about you enough. that he gave you his son. And folks, that’s what makes Christmas so incredible.

I mean, the story of the virgin birth is incredible, and I believe it’s the story of them going to Bethlehem and the star and the shepherds and the angels singing to the shepherds. It’s all incredible. But what makes that story really so incredible is who that baby was, that he was the son of God and what he came to do, which was to put on flesh and dwell among us and to represent God and to be God in human flesh among us and to die.

And his death, when he was there nailed to the cross and shed his blood and took responsibility for my sins and yours, every time we’ve disobeyed God, every time God said do this and we didn’t do it, every time God said don’t do that and we did it anyway, Jesus took responsibility for that, for me and for you. He was nailed to the cross and he shed his blood so he could be punished in our place. And because of what he did, because of what that baby came here to do and grew up to do, our sins have already been paid for.

They’ve already been punished because the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And now God looks at those sins and says they’ve been pardoned. They’ve been punished.

All we have to do is accept the pardon that he offers. If we were facing the death penalty for a crime we’d committed and the governor or the president offered us a pardon, why wouldn’t we take it? If somebody else said, yeah, I’ll take the death penalty for that, and they’d already taken the death penalty.

And the governor says it’s been paid for. You just have to sign here and accept the pardon. Why wouldn’t we?

Folks, Jesus died for your sins. And then to prove that he could, he rose again three days later. We talk about Jesus at home and Madeline says, but he’s dead.

She’s got the crucifixion story done, just not the resurrection story yet. We’re working on that. And Benjamin says, well, not anymore.

He only used to be dead. Folks, that’s the great news. This little baby was born for us, to die for us, to pay for our sins, and to rise again from the dead just to prove that he could do it.

Folks, if you ever, if you ever feel like God has forgotten all about you, he’s given you plenty of reason to believe otherwise.