The decade of the 80s is just about to end, just a few hours now, and what an amazing way it comes to an end, with events unfolding especially in the last few weeks and months that no one could have predicted ten years ago. If you could ask God for anything, what would you ask Him for? If you could ask Him for insight and understanding as to what was going to happen in the 90s, would you ask Him for that?
I'm not sure that I would want to know ahead of time what's going to happen in the next decade. Maybe you're different than I am, but I'm willing to take one day at a time. That's about all I can handle. But it would be interesting to be able to ask God for that sort of thing, wouldn't it? I'll end my talk with a friend. The man Moses in the Old Testament conversed with God that way.
Exodus chapter 33, if you'll turn there please, tells us that there was a tent called the Tent of the Meeting that Moses used to set up before the tabernacle was constructed. It was away from the people of Israel, but they could see where it was. And every day, Moses and his servant Joshua, along with him, would go out to the Tent of the Meeting. And there at that tent, God would descend and speak to Moses in such an intimate way as is described as a friend with a friend.
In Exodus chapter 33, the last part of the chapter, Moses asked something of God which was bold on his part. You're not bold if you think of a friend talking with a friend. For as they conversed one afternoon, in verse 18, Moses said, I pray thee, show me thy glory. Show me thy glory. Moses was saying, God, I see you here in this pillar of cloud. But as we have gotten to know each other, I really desire to see you in your essence.
And God said to Moses, I myself will make all my goodness pass before you. Notice as God begins to describe the essence of his person, the word that he chooses to use is my goodness. You and I serve a God who is good. And he says, I will 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 me and live.
Now, God doesn't have a face like you and I have a face. God is spirit. So God is using human language here to describe to Moses what it would be like to look upon his essence. He says, Moses, you cannot look upon me in my essence. You cannot do that and live. And the Lord said, behold, 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 you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by.
Then I will take my hand away and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen. This was a way of saying, Moses, you cannot look directly at the essence of my glory. So therefore I will protect you. I will, as it were, put my hand over you there in the cleft of the rock, but after I have passed by, I will take my hand away for a moment and let you see the afterglow of my glory.
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. Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness and truth.
Now it is particularly that last phrase in verse 6 that I'm interested in, abounding in loving kindness and truth, because that is the Old Testament equivalent to the phrase that we find in the Gospel of John that says, full of grace and truth. The same God who appeared to Moses is the Lord Jesus Christ who is full of grace and truth.
I'd like for you to turn now to the Gospel of John, the first chapter, as we look at the text for today, and think about the coming of Christ, or using the title that John uses of him in these first 18 verses, the Word, the Logos of God. In his coming, John tells us as he concludes this first bit of his Gospel, in the coming of the Word, he fulfilled his work, and John tells us what he did. In the first place, he dispensed the fullness of grace, verse 16.
That fullness is described in verse 14, the phrase we've already referred to. It's a direct link to verse 14. Verse 15 actually is parenthetical, the witness of John. We go from this phrase, the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth, right to verse 16 that says, for of his fullness we have all received. The word fullness means completeness. It means in the first place that our Lord is so filled with grace and truth that no more of it could be his than already is his.
He is complete. The apostle Paul uses this same word in writing to the Colossians, and he says, for it pleased the Father to make all the fullness to dwell in Christ. Goes on to say, for all the fullness of the deity dwells in him bodily, or dwells in his body, is another way to put it. The fullness. It refers to all that God is, is in Christ. In Jesus Christ there is nothing lacking. He is the fullness of all that God is, as well as all that man is.
John says we all, that would embrace us today who have believed on Christ, he says we all have received of his fullness. Out of his fullness the Lord gave to us that which we most have needed, and that is his grace. God's favor. God's intervention on our behalf, when what we deserved was his wrath and judgment. John says here that there is no exhaustion of this grace of God. There is no limit to the depths of its resources.
He puts it this way, grace upon grace, or grace instead of grace, or grace in place of grace. The idea is it's constant provision and availability to us. He is saying there is never a hint of any insufficiency, or any economy on God's part, it's fullness of grace constantly given to us. The language pictures the action of a wave. This last summer our family was privileged to spend a few days on the Atlantic coast down in Florida. And oh, I tell you we enjoyed the ocean, we always do.
Many of you have been to the ocean, and there you have gotten into the water, and you have felt the waves hit your legs, and then as you walked out further eventually it gets up to your chest. You can put out your arms and walk just a little further, and the waves begin to carry you as they come in. And you hit the sand, and then the next wave comes and you go up with it, and you are not touching the bottom, and then you go down with the next wave, and then up again and down.
I don't mean to make you seasick if you are prone to that, but that's the idea isn't it? Just one wave after another. We were there on a stormy couple of days. The storm was out at sea, but it brought some great waves into the shore. Waves that allowed us to only go out so far, it just wore us out. We tried to beat the waves down. We would run against them and push against them and try to stop the waves, but oh, how futile that is. Why? Because that's just the action of the ocean.
The waves are there always. There's no way that we can stop them. There's no exhaustion of the waves, though we become exhausted. And so it is with the grace of God. One wave after another of the grace of God ministering to us. Never to be exhausted, though we may grow weary and tired, it is always there. And as it were, we may put out our arms and rest upon the waves of God's grace as it carries us along. To draw upon this grace that Jesus Christ has brought is not to deplete it.
To draw upon that grace is not to diminish it whatsoever. For those waves of His grace have hidden springs in His divine nature that constantly replenish the ocean of His kindness. Dr. Edwin Bloom writes, the Christian life is the constant reception of one evidence of God's grace replacing another. We sinners need this kind of grace, don't we? What we deserve is the judgment of God because of our sin. And in fact, the one who rejects the grace of God will experience the wrath of God.
In fact, the Bible says that to reject Jesus Christ is to have the wrath of God already abiding upon you. But to believe in Him and to receive Him means to partake of this grace of God, the grace that gives to us what we do not deserve, that is, forgiveness of all of our sins and eternal life, which means purpose here now in this world and being with Christ forever. We do not deserve that, but that's the fullness of the grace that Jesus brought.
When we have trusted Him, there is one wave that follows the first and then a third and fourth. Someone may ask you sometime, have you received the second blessing, which is an old terminology of Arminian theology. The fact is that those of us who know Jesus Christ have received not just the second but the third and the tenth and the hundredth and the thousandth blessing. Just wave upon wave of God's goodness and grace has come to us. You can be foolish like we were in our games at the ocean.
You can try to outrun the waves. You can try to beat them down. You can try to see if you can outlast them, the fact is that you can't. It's possible for you and for me to become exhausted as we strive to live the Christian life in our own strength, as we try to live up to our own little standards and rules or someone else's that they impose on us. We can get exhausted doing that sort of thing, but God's grace is there and oh, if we'll just rest upon God's grace, it will carry us.
Of His fullness, we have all received one wave of grace after another. When the word came, He dispensed the fullness of grace. That grace is available to you today. It's available to you to save you from your sin. It's available to you if you are saved to carry you through this life, through the rest of 89, these hours that are to come, and into 1990. God's grace is there and available to carry you on for whatever lies ahead.
Then we see that not only did the word dispense the grace of God, but He also displaced the law of Moses, verse 17. John brings into antithesis here. The law and grace and truth. Do you notice that? The law was given through Moses. Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. John is here stating that the law has been displaced by something that is better. As good as the law was for its purpose, the fact is that it could not bring sinners any righteousness.
It could not make them right with God. But in His coming, Jesus Christ has fully exposed grace and truth. Grace and truth that were only intimated in the law. Through His coming, the Son of God has made it possible for us to be right with God. The law was given that sin might be exposed. God never gave it to be a solution for man's predicament. God gave the law in order that it might reveal man's predicament, that he's a sinner in need of a Savior and cannot save himself.
The law demands righteousness of sinners, a righteousness that sinners cannot produce themselves. But the weakness of the law is that it could not provide for deliverance from its own condemnation. It could not provide pardon. It did provide types and shadows of the full redemption that was to come, but it never was able to bring about the reality of it. It wasn't designed for that. The solution to man's predicament is found in the grace and truth that were realized through Jesus Christ.
For through Him we have the fullness of deliverance and pardon. He satisfied the righteous demands of the law when He died upon the cross of Calvary. There He made available to sinners who could not meet the righteous demands of the law His grace, so that by believing in Him, sinners might receive grace from God and be declared right with God by that act of faith. The law was given through Moses. He was the mediator of it, but grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.
If God dealt with us only by grace, it would be dishonest. If God dealt with us only by truth, it would be disastrous. But because God has dealt with us by grace and truth, it means deliverance for the sinner. A deliverance that you can enjoy and know today. That brings us to the third aspect of the work of the Word that He accomplished. He dispensed the fullness of grace. He displaced the law of Moses, bringing the fullness of grace and truth to us.
And we notice in verse 18 that He disclosed the nature of deity. God is spirit, and therefore God is invisible to the physical perceptions of man. He cannot be seen with the eye. He cannot be tested in the science laboratory. God is immortal and invisible. And Paul writing to Timothy says one further thing. Speaking of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, he says, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light. That ought to take you in your mind back to Moses again.
Where God said, Moses, you cannot see my face. God dwells in unapproachable light. He goes on to say, whom no man has seen nor can see. Why? Because God is spirit. The essence of deity has never been seen by man. Even God's friend, Moses, was able to see only his afterglow. Ah, someone says, but didn't Isaiah say, my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty? Yes, Isaiah did say that. But Isaiah did not see the essence of God. Isaiah saw what is called a theophany.
That means an appearance of God. That is, God manifested himself in such a way that Isaiah was able to see him, but it wasn't the essence of God's glory that Isaiah saw. He saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up. He says his train, that is his robe, filled the temple. That was an appearance of God. Ezekiel had a similar experience, though a different vision.
Daniel, however, had a similar vision when in chapter 7 of his book he says that he saw the ancient of days, and he pictures the form of a human that was more than human, who was sitting upon a throne of great glory. In that vision, again, Daniel saw a theophany, a gracious appearance of God, but Daniel did not see the essence of the glory of God.
A theophany was only a temporary thing, and it was visible to the human who saw it only to underscore revelation that was given, usually verbal revelation that God gave. God's nature, though it has never been seen in its essence, has been manifested to us permanently in the person of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That which we cannot look at and live, that which is unapproachable to us in our humaneness, the essence of God has been explained to us in Jesus Christ.
We might compare it to the ultraviolet or infrared rays of light. Our eyes are not sensitive to see light that is ultraviolet or infrared. How then are we able to know that it is beyond theory? How do we know that it exists? Well, because we do have such things as spectroscopes or photographic plates which are able to catch those rays of light and reveal them to us. Likewise, our eyes cannot see the glory of God, but the glory of God has been fully exposed to us in Jesus Christ.
He is described in verse 18 as the only begotten God. Now there are some ancient manuscripts that also read the only begotten Son. It doesn't really affect the meaning of the verse, whichever reading that one accepts. The oldest of the manuscripts have the reading that's used in the version I have before me, the New American Standard. The only begotten God. This is a strong affirmation of the deity of Jesus Christ.
For the one who is called the only begotten from the Father, the Word, in verse 14, and who is named in verse 17 as Jesus Christ, is the one who is called in verse 18 the only begotten God. I remind you that we said last week that begotten does not have anything to do with generation or the beginning of something. It's a word that describes the nature of something. It means that he is the unique expression of God, manifestation of God, the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father.
That's an interesting expression that doesn't really relate well to our day, but it was very meaningful in the day in which John used these words. In fact, it's an expression that he uses of himself later in this same gospel when he describes his leaning upon Jesus' bosom at the Last Supper. He was the one next to Jesus in that reclining position as they would sit at one of their meals. It was a place of closest fellowship. It was the place of greatest intimacy and dearness.
It says regarding Jesus that he is in the bosom of the Father. Notice it doesn't say he was, but he is, expressing the continuous aspect of this. That while he was on the earth and even now, he is in the bosom of the Father. That is, he is in the place of dearest affection to the Heavenly Father. It is an elaboration upon what John said earlier when he said in the beginning was the word and the word was with God.
Now John says what I mean is he's in the place of deepest affection in the bosom of the Father. That's what it means to be with God, he says. Regarding this one who is the only begotten God, he says, he has explained God. We find here a word that is familiar to some people today. It's the word exegesis or the verb exegete. That's the Greek word explained. What I attempt to do as your pastor and as the teacher here in this church is to exegete the scriptures.
That is to explain what they mean to us and to apply that then to our lives. That's exactly the thought here that the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the word coming into the world exegeted God. The God who as yet has never been seen by human eyes in his essence. John writes again in the first epistle that he pins, no man has seen God at any time. That was 60 years or so after the Lord Jesus had been with him and gone back to heaven. No man has seen God at any time. That is still true today.
I think it's a question mark as to whether even in eternity to come, we the glorified saints of God will actually be able to look upon the essence of the glory of God. That's a question mark. It's debated back and forth. But though we have never looked upon him, we have received an explanation, a full accounting of what God is like in the person of Christ. The same word used to explain here is used in Luke and then again in the book of Acts written by Luke and it's translated, narrated.
Those disciples who were on the road to Emmaus, you remember, to whom the risen Lord appeared then went back to the city of Jerusalem after Jesus had gone away from them and narrated to them, exegeted to them what had happened on that road as they sat down to eat in their little house. So what it's saying here is that as Jesus came into the world in his life and in his teaching and in the miracles that he did, he narrated what God is like.
He led God forth as it were in a way that we could perceive and understand. If God were to appear in this auditorium today in the essence of his nature, his being, we would not be able to comprehend him and besides that we wouldn't have long to try.
Therefore when the Son came into the world, he brought God forth, he led him forth in such a manner that when we look at him, the Son, we can say in truth that we have seen God, that we've come to understand what God is like in his nature because of what Jesus said and what he did and how he lived. And so he accomplished his work. He dispensed the fullness of grace because of his cross death at Calvary. The floodgates of God's grace were opened and it pours forth from an endless reservoir.
And you and I may come to that grace and receive of it grace upon grace upon grace. And apart from that grace we have no hope. So why delay? Why neglect? Why refuse it? It's free. One may come in the simplicity of faith and say, oh Jesus Christ, Son of God, I am a sinner and worthy but I receive you and I receive the grace of God for my sins. Give to me eternal life.
That first wave of grace hits you and it's followed by another wave and another wave not to knock you down like the waves of the ocean but to lift you up and carry you along through life, grace upon grace. He has displaced the law of Moses. So no longer does the law condemn us who have come to Christ. The law no longer demands our death because our death has already been paid in what Jesus did at the cross. Now we have the fullness of grace and truth through Jesus.
And also the word disclosed the nature of deity so that you and I can know what God is like. So that when God said to Moses, I will show you all my goodness, we know now that God was telling the truth because he is good. That doesn't mean that God doesn't become angry. The Bible says that God is angry with sinners every day. It doesn't mean that God doesn't hate because God hates sin. It doesn't mean that God won't condemn.
He will condemn all of those who refuse the gift of salvation that he has provided. But even those things flow ultimately out of his goodness. God is so good that in that new heaven and new earth that is coming, he wants only goodness to dwell. And those of us who have come to Christ and received him will be able to enjoy that goodness forever. What does all of this mean to us? Well let me say in the first place that it means you can know God yourself. You can know God in Jesus Christ.
There is no legitimate agnostic. An agnostic is really a dishonest person. One cannot say that he is unable to know whether there is a God. It is honest to say I refuse God. It is honest to say I don't want to believe in God. But it is dishonest to say one cannot know God. Because God has made himself known. And you can know God as he really is. Not God as you have imagined him to be, or God as some teacher or some group has told you he is, but God as he really is.
If you will study the life of Jesus Christ, you can know God. And you, you can draw upon his grace for forgiveness of your sins and deliverance from them. For whatever shortcoming or need you are experiencing in your life, you can draw upon his grace. And may I say in closing that you are responsible for doing both of those things. For knowing God and drawing upon his grace. Because God's revelation in his son leaves the sinner without excuse.
God's gift of grace in his son, however, provides for sinners without exception. You may feel that you have gone too far. That there is no way that God could reach out or down to where you are. That there has been too much that has gone on in your life. Too much water under the bridge. You're beyond the realm of hope, my friend. That is a lie. You today, if you sense the wooing of God upon your heart can come to know him. You can draw upon the fullness of his grace.
God's revelation in his son leaves you without excuse. But the gift of grace in his son provides for you without exception. Whosoever will may come and receive of that grace. And I invite you to do it today. Those of us who know Christ, we stand upon the doorway of a new year and a new decade. What a special opportunity God has given to us to walk into the future that we cannot see or know, but with our hand firmly planted in the hand of God.
The God who has revealed himself in the coming of the word and who has made it possible for us not only to know him, but also to walk with him and to experience the fullness of all of his gifts for us. What a special privilege that is. If we would do that, then we must yield our all to him. We must be sure that as we come into this new year, we can honestly say, oh Lord, I have walked with you in the past and known your blessing.
And now as I take a step into the new decade by your grace, I desire to renew that walk with you and to give you all that I am and to take your hand firmly in mind and to draw upon that grace that you've made available. What a privilege God has given to us. May none of us lose it, but take of it and enter into the fullness of it. Let's pray. There's a little chorus that we've sung in months past. I think many of you know it and others of you can pick it up easily.
It simply says, Christ is all I need. Christ is all I need. Christ is all I need. All I need. Christ is all I need. Christ is all I need. All I need. Lord I pray that we will understand the meaning of what we've just sung. That as we enter into a new year in a few hours, we will not be drawing upon our own bankrupt accounts. We will be drawing upon the fullness of the grace that you have brought in your coming.
May that grace purge and cleanse our lives, make us a holy people, an obedient people, so that we might experience the lifting power of the waves of the grace that flow by us in your kindness. Thank you for coming, Lord Jesus. Thank you for coming. Thank you for accomplishing your blessed work that we might be saved. And then walk through life with you and one day enter into your glorious presence. Amen.