Introduction:
In Genesis one we read that after creating the heavens and the earth, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). The heavens were good. The earth was good. The animals on the earth, and in the sky, and in the sea were good. The first humans, Adam and Eve, were in a perfect relationship with God and with one another. The world and everything in it was in perfect health and harmony. There was no conflict among man and beasts, between man and woman, or between God and His creation. Everything was as it should be. Unfortunately, we all know that it did not stay that way.
After sin entered the world in Genesis 3, when Satan successfully tempted Adam and Eve to doubt God’s goodness and break covenant with Him, this beautifully unspoiled creation was lost. Sin broke the world in more ways than we realize. Millennia have come and gone since the fall, but we are still physically, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually marred by sin. Ultimately, because of sin, death entered into our world. Because we have all broken covenant with the Lord of Life, the scripture tells us that “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27) Sadly, many of us who have only known the world as broken, have begun to believe that this is just the way the world is.
The good news is that God did not leave us in our brokenness. Just as Genesis 3 marked the dark turning point in our history, so does John 1 mark the beginning of the great redemption and restoration. I am going to begin our message this morning by reading John 1:1-18. We will specifically be focusing on verses 14-17 this morning, but I want you to see how God’s Word introduces Jesus in John’s Gospel as one who existed before the fall, who participated in the good creation, and who has entered into the fallen world to redeem and restore through Grace and Truth.
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 were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
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.
John 1:1-18, ESV
There is so much we could focus on in these verses, but for the last couple of weeks we have been learning about God’s Grace. This morning I want to focus on the fact that the ultimate expression of Grace is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. In Christ we see God as a friend to sinners. In Christ we see the greatness of God’s love on display in the gospel, the good news of Christ. John tells us in verse 14 that:
” 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 1:14, ESV
What does this mean? John is saying that during his time with Jesus, during his earthly ministry, John saw more than just a reflection of God’s glory. He was seeing God himself, even if he struggled to fully understand it at the time. The love we see in the life and ministry of Jesus is the love of God on display for us. Jesus was not more gracious or more loving than God the Father, nor did he teach us anything that contradicted God in any way. In the past God had revealed himself through signs, miracles, and the prophets – but Christ was God revealing himself in the form of a man. Christ was always in perfect step with God, and so if we want to know what God is like we look to Christ. This morning I want to specifically focus on those two aspects of God’s Glory seen in Christ, namely the ways in which he embodied Grace and Truth.
Abundant Grace
John 1:16 tells us that “For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace” (ESV), or as another translation put it “From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another” (NLT). When Paul wrote about the fullness or abundance of Christ, he wrote “in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body” (Colossians 2:9, ESV). Put these two verses together and you get the inescapable truth that the grace, and mercy, and love we see pouring out from Jesus is the heart of God overflowing with love for you and for me.
God’s presence is inseparable from His love, and grace is the way God’s love is made available to sinners like you and me. If you want to see God, look to Christ who overflows with abundant grace. Christ did not come to give us just enough grace to get us started. He did not come to give us a salvation that is ninety percent grace and ten percent works. If our need for grace was a coffee mug, his grace would be the Atlantic Ocean. You can’t overstate it, because any words or illustrations we might conjure up will pale in comparison.
Let us just take a minute this morning to count our blessings. Let’s count all the ways God has shown us grace upon grace, granting us good things that we did not earn ourselves. Let’s begin with the fact that we were born at all, life itself is a gift that we were simply given. Do you have eyes to see the beauty of the world around us? Even in a fallen world, there is more beauty than we could ever take in. Do you have ears to hear? Even in a world marred by sin, there is beautiful music and laughter. God did not need to make us with nostrils to smell or taste buds on our tongue, but he did and he filled the world with beautiful aromas and delicious foods to taste and to share with one another. Think of all the good people in your life. God put people around you who love you, who care about you, and who you get to share your life with. Isn’t that a wonderful gift? These are good things that make life so enjoyable, but we often take them for granted until they are taken away from us.
There are countless scientific studies that have shown that gratitude and a thankful mindset do wonders for your mental and physical health, but they fall short of being able to answer the obvious question that follows: Who should we be grateful too? To whom should we give thanks? I think our fallen bodies and fallen minds are still wired not only to enjoy God’s grace, but to live lives of gratefulness and thanksgiving. It really is a sad thing to realize that life is a gift, but to never know the giver. That is one of the joys of our faith, we not only enjoy the gifts of creation but we also get to enjoy a life giving relationship with the Creator.
I strongly encourage you to take a minute, not just to realize how many good gifts you receive every day, but also to realize that each gift of grace is a gift from God. It is an overflowing of His grace and an expression of His love for you. What sinners deserve is death, but God still gives us unmerited life and abundant grace for however many years we may live. How then can we ever say that God is not good to us?
Now there are implications to this truth. It is not just a nice thought to reflect on, but it should shape the way we see others. If everything we have is grace, shouldn’t we also be gracious toward one another? Listen to how Jesus taught us to live in response to these truths:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matthew 5:43-47, ESV
What is Jesus saying here? He points out that God does not just reserve his gifts of grace for those who do good. He gives grace to both the righteous and the unjust, on both the evil and the good. If that bothers you then I would venture to guess that you don’t realize just how often you fall into the unjust and evil categories. The point Jesus is making is that if God who is perfect can be kind to those who do not deserve kindness, why can’t we do the same?
So far we have really only been talking about common grace. It is good to remember just how many gifts we take for granted, and to remember that this life alone is more than we deserve. At the same time, God’s love and grace is not limited to a few short years on earth. His love is so great, that it can only be satisfied by an eternity of unending grace upon grace. Because of sin, we need a special grace to enter our lives. This is where the beauty of the Gospel, the good news of God’s amazing grace, begins to shine!
As we learned in Genesis three, sin and death separate us from the fullness of God’s love and grace. Thankfully that is not the end of the story. God sent Jesus into the world to overcome sin and death on our behalf. God stepped into our world, took on flesh and blood, lived the perfect life we could not live, died on a cross in our place carrying our sin and guilt, rose from the grave in victory over sin and death, and He is now in heaven making intercession for us. Listen to how the Apostle Paul explains this over-abundant grace:
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Romans 5:1-2, ESV
Think about this, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. The grace of Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege and peace. Because of Jesus, we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory in the resurrection. Death is no longer the end of God’s grace for us, it is just a stepping stone into greater glory!
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Romans 5:6-11, ESV
Paul doesn’t mix words. He tells us that we are completely and utterly helpless to save ourselves. At the same time, God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. Jesus experienced the full weight of sin and death in order to give us new life, even though we were actively rebelling against him. If God was so gracious to us when we were his enemies, won’t He be even more gracious to us now that we have been made children of God through Christ.
For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 5:19-21, ESV
Pay special attention to verse twenty. Even as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant. That’s the super-abundant grace we’ve been talking about. There was a time when sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead! We have been given the right to stand with God and receive eternal life through Jesus Christ!
Earlier I quoted Paul’s letter to the Colossians where he wrote that in Christ was the fullness of God in human body (Colossians 2:9). The very next verse reads “So you also are complete through your union with Christ…” (Colossians 2:10a). Whatever we lacked because of sin is filled to the brim with grace because of Christ at work in us through the Holy Spirit. This change in us isn’t just to prepare us for eternity with God, it is also meant to transform our lives here and now.
“When the grace of God enters our life and we allow it to become transcendent, our lives become rich and overflowing. We enjoy the creation about us and those closest to us. We begin to live as we are supposed to live. Part of the discarded image of God begins to be restored in our lives… The more grace we appropriate, the more grace we receive. And the more we do with that grace, the more we receive.“
R. Kent Hughes
What I find so interesting is that along with the abundant grace of Christ comes life transforming truth.
Transforming Truth
In John 1:14 and in John 1:17, the apostle John presents grace and truth together. Jesus revealed the heart of God in a way that many struggled to understand, in fact many still struggle to understand Christ. Many make the mistake of trying to fit Christ into their worldview instead of basing their worldview on Christ.
Let’s not forget that Jesus is God. He made the world and knows it better than any created thing ever could:
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 were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
John 1:1-3, ESV
What Jesus reveals to us about God’s love and grace is not just a fanciful idea or a philosophical theory. He speaks on these matters with authority as the eternal Son of God. To agree with Christ is to understand reality, and to disagree with Christ is to live in a fantasy world of man’s imagination.
In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
John 1:4-5, ESV
Jesus not only gives us eternal life, but also truth to live by. There was a time when men were spiritually blinded by the darkness of sin and death. But we live in an age of light. Christ has come, the truth of the gospel is being made known in all corners of the world, and salvation is available to all who will repent and believe the Good News. The darkness has a good PR team, but contrary to popular belief, it its hold on the world. Every day more people come to saving faith in Christ, and every day the kingdom of darkness is forced to retreat a little further. Light has broken in and it is ever expanding outward and onward – in Jerusalem, Judea, and to the ends of the Earth! God’s saving grace, made available through Christ, is slowly but surely reclaiming the world that was once lost and without hope.
There is certainly a lot left to be done, but as we look at the challenges ahead let’s not forget how far we have come. The church began with a small group of men and women in an upper room in Jerusalem, and now we are a global faith numbering in the billions. We may feel the darkness lash out at us more and more as the day draws near, but those are the lashes of a wounded and dying beast that knows it is destined to be slain by Christ when he returns in Glory to reclaim His creation once and for all. Don’t let the lies of Satan convince you that all is lost, when victory is just around the corner. There will be setbacks, and obstacles, and sorrows along the way, but it is an upward hill we climb to glory. And the journey along the way is full of grace upon grace, if we will only open our eyes to see.
Conclusion:
The truth is that life with God really is full of grace upon grace, and because of Christ, God’s grace towards us extends beyond this life and ever onward into eternity. We who know this truth, who have experienced God’s grace, do not have to play the world’s games. We don’t have to buy into despair because our hope is in the Lord. We who see grace in every moment can extend grace to those around us who need it so badly. We who know the truth that saves souls can become blessed messengers of peace to those who are still at war with God in their hearts. If this seems out of reach, know that with Christ all things are possible. We will not master this overnight, but if we seek the Lord will grow into it more and more each day. The same Christ who gave us life, who took on flesh and died to pay our guilt, who rose from the grave to give us victory, and who is with us even now through the Holy Spirit – He will be with you all along the way.
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