05/19/26

John 1:13-18

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We'll be back in first and John 1. We're going to pick up in verse number 12. John 1, verse number 12. I don't know how far we'll go, but we'll go till the Lord says I see it. But um let's uh let's start in a word of prayer and uh and we'll dig right in tonight. Dear God, I love you. I thank you, God, for this day you've given us, Lord. I thank you for the hands that prepared this food, the hands that's a part of every bit of this, Lord God. And I Lord, I just want to lift up every man and boy that's in this room right now. God, we come in here to fellowship. We come in here to dig close to you. And right now, God, I just pray you'll help us to put things away. God, let's put our work away. Let's put all the worries away. And Father God, I just pray right now that we'll just search for the way, and that's you, God. Lord God, I just pray that, as I always do, God, I pray I decrease and you increase, Lord. The words out of my mouth will be of you. God, I don't want nothing to be about us. I want it all to be about you, God. That's what John was here to teach us in this word, God, is how good you were to us. Lord, help us to see it tonight. Help us to see your word tonight, God, I pray. In Christ's name. Amen. We'll start in verse number 11. We'll jump right through verse number 12. He said, and we finished up in verse number 11 last week. It said, He came unto his own, and his own received him not. He was right there in front of who that who needed him. The ones that knew him. They knew of him. Same thing we could say in our own lives tonight. We know of him. Okay? Most of you've been at church a lot of your life. You know of him. You know the right things to say, you know the right things to do, you know the right things to attend, you know of him. But my prayer tonight is that God speaks through us and that we'll we'll know more than just know of him. That that as much as we used to desire, as much as I used to desire to play baseball, that was that was my thing. I would stay out in the yard until I had to come in to eat because I just loved it so much. I love to play ball. I love that. My hope is that my desire for Christ one day will be as much as my desire was to play that ball, to play that sport, to do that thing. And we all have different things. Some of yours was fishing, some of it's hunting, some of it's just to get relaxation. I don't know. But what God's saying is, I want you to want me. I want you to want me more than anything else in your life. More than you want to eat, more than you want an awesome home, a great family, a great job. He says, I want you to want me. And that's what he's saying. And that's what he's saying. And he's trying to tell us, and he was trying to tell his own people, the Jews, that listen, you don't even know, you don't even want me. The thing that you've been looking for, that you've all heard about in the Old Testament, the thing that you've been reading about, that the Messiah that's coming, here he is. And you don't even want him. And many times we walk in a church service and the spirit's there, but you don't want it. I'll be honest with you. I walked in the church service and I didn't want it because I was scared of what he might make me do. Scared of what he might call you to. And what God said, man, get out of the way. Get out of your way so I can be the way. Is what he's saying to us tonight. But he says in verse number 12, he says, but as many as received him. But as many as received him. And that makes me to pause right there and say, you know what? Knowing him and knowing him is two different things. We can know about him. We can know about him all we want to. It's kind of like y'all were sitting in those chairs tonight. And you're sitting in those chairs, and you sit down in this sofa, you sit down in these chairs. You put faith in that chair to hold you up. And what Jesus Christ is saying, listen, I want you to quit standing beside the chair. I want you to let the chair be me. And I want you to sit down and trust by faith that, man, I'm going to hold you up. I'm going to be your way. I'm going to be your truth. I'm going to be the thing that you can count on. He said, I'm going to be the way, the truth, and the life. He said, listen, the life that you're chasing, it's me. That's what I want you to do. I want you to chase me, and I'll be enough for you. All the other stuff that you chase, that's fine if we love things. We love to go fishing, we love to go hunting. We love to do things. But he's saying, I want you to know that I am enough. Those things are just extracurricular activities. That's just icing on the cake, so to speak. But what he's saying right there, he says, man, I'm enough for you. But the question to that the God asked to you and I tonight, he said, I'm enough to you, but is he enough for you? When he asks you that question and he looks you in the eyes, he's standing face to face with Christ, is he enough for you? Because we like a bunch of stuff, don't we? We like a bunch of toys, a bunch of things. Nothing wrong with him. As long as that doesn't take precedence over Jesus Christ. So the question is, let's go back to the chair for a minute. The question is, have you truly ever sit in a chair? Are you just sitting, are you just standing beside it wondering if he'll really do what he said he'll do? You say, Matt, I'm here on a Tuesday night. You know I love Jesus. I I've done been to church Sunday. I'm coming Tuesday, man. I know I'm saved. Dude, don't don't trace, don't, don't trust just because, and we're gonna see this in the next couple verses, just because what you did all your life's enough. Have you just put your hand on the chair and you're just propping on on it? Or if you sit down in the chair and say, Jesus Christ, I trust you and everything I've got, you are him to me. I'm gonna sit in the chair. I'm gonna accept you. I'm gonna receive you unto myself. That's what he's saying right here. But look at the next part of this verse, man. This hit me today, and this was good. But as many as received him, to them gave he power. Here's what it says now, to become the sons of God. He gave you the power to become the sons of God, but what you do with the power is up to you. He said, I've give you the plug to plug into the power source, but it's up to you if you really want what I've got for you. What he's saying is, man, I've give every man in this room the power to be an example for Jesus Christ. I've give you that power. But man, you've got to do something with it. You've got to do something with the power, understanding that he's given you all the abilities to be able to win people to Jesus Christ. You come up with all the excuses in the world. Miles knows I give him a fit all the time about coming up with excuses. I tell him he's on the second book right now making excuses. We just play around about that because he's always wanting to tell us an excuse. But and we just play around about it all the time at the house. But it's the truth many times. We want to make excuses why we didn't plug into the source. Hey, we can use somebody at church, or we can just use somebody at your home, or you can use whatever you want to why you're not plugged into the source that you ought to. Listen, there ain't nobody gonna stand before Jesus Christ holding your hand one day, man. It's just gonna be you and Jesus. So don't blame nobody else because you ain't plugged into the source. What Jesus Christ is saying right now, it's up to you if you want the power. It's up to you if you're gonna be what God's called you to be. Because he ain't called you to be nothing. He ain't called us to be nothing. He's called us to be salt and light to this world that's corrupt and dirty and without flavor. Oh, you can go out to the world and get you some flavor. You can get all kinds of flavors. And I'll be honest with you, some of them flavors today, man, they just crazy flavors. You just thought you had a bad flavor when you used to get a suicide drink when you went to Burger King and got you a happy meal, and I mean McDonald's or Burger King got you that happy meal or that cheeseburger, and then you go through there and get that suicide, and then there's all kinds of stuff. There's all kinds of stuff in that world you can go get. But they ain't all kind of stuff that gives you the power that Jesus Christ can give you. He gives you the power to be the sons of God. He gives you the power to be a child of the king and to walk around and tell people who you are. Let's just think about this for a minute. Let's just think about. Alright, one of my idols coming up in baseball was Tom Glavin. Number 47 for the Atlanta Braves. He was bad to the bone. Left-handed picture. I thought the world of him. But if I could say that Tom Glavin, man, he was part of my family, I'd want to brag about it. Because, man, he was just good. He was just good. Alright? So I want you to think about who your hero was in life, whoever it was. So if you knew that you were part of his family, wouldn't you brag about it? But Jesus Christ said, you can be a child of the king, man. Do you want to brag about it? And that's what he's saying, man. Do you want to brag on him? Brag about what he's done in your life. Brag about how he's, man, he's brought you through some hard times. Brag about that. He showed you there's a smooth road in front of a rough road you've been on. Brag about that, Brother Tracy, when you felt you was on in the valley, man, he showed you there was a mountaintop to drag forth. He showed us those things that that's worth bragging about. I bet if one of these boys went out and scored 30 in a game, they want to brag about that. How good they are. Can I tell you, man, he scored more than 30? Man, he got up out the grave. For you and I, man. They ain't nobody gonna be the. As I hear, and I listen to these boys all the time talking about who's the goat, who's the greatest of all time. All these these basketball, because my boys is in the basketball talking about this. And you know the debate. That's LeBron or Michael Jordan, here we go, you know. And they get the debate, and here we go. Can I tell you, they'll never compare to Jesus Christ. Never. As good as they were at basketball, they never compare. Never compare to what he is, what he was, and what he is to be. And he's talking about Jews and Gentiles. That they believe on his name. Because the Jews weren't ready to believe on Jesus. They was ready just to believe in the Mosaic law. And we're gonna see this in a couple verses, but what he's saying right here is just to believe on the name of Jesus Christ. Romans 10, 9, if you'll confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Just believe on that name. That he is who he says he is. It says in verse number 13. Which were born. Which were born. See, they had something happen right there. If you're gonna be a child of the king, you've got to be born of the king. You can't be born of flesh and blood or the will of the flesh. What he's saying right there to me is, listen, your status or your stature, who who grandma was in the church and how great granddaddy was of a preacher, that ain't gonna get you to heaven. What he's saying is, it don't matter what what you were born into. It don't matter how great a royal family you've been, it don't matter how many times and how much your family give to the church or how long you've been going to the church or any of that stuff. That doesn't matter. What matters is you've born you've been born of God. That you've been born of Jesus Christ, that God has changed your life, that you have turned your life over to Him and said, Okay, Lord, here I am, seeing me. Here I am, use me. And it's not something that you think you've done. Because I'll be honest with you, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter what you did when you were six or sixteen or forty six. It don't matter how many times you've walked down an aisle, took a preacher by the hand, and said, I want to be saved. I don't care how many times you've done it and how many times you've been dunked in the water, until you've accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, until you've been born of God and understand that you've got to put yourself away. You can be nothing anymore without Jesus Christ. Listen, you're headed for a devil's hell. That's just the truth. You've got to be born of God. And what hit me today when I was reading this thing, it said, not by the will of the flesh. And I want you to think about this. There's people going to die and go to the devil's hell because they don't understand what these four words mean. Be born of the flesh. That's fine. I'm sorry, I can't count. But there's some people. Listen, if God's right if God's shaking your head right now, if he's got you by the ear shaking your head, just listen to him for a second. You can't make that decision. You can't make that decision to ask Jesus Christ. I mean, you can make that decision to ask Jesus Christ to come in your life and save you, but you can't make that decision to just wake up or be at a church service one day and say, okay, I need to be saved. I want to be saved. You've got to be drawn by the Spirit. You've got to be drawn by God to save you. And it can't be something say, okay, I just don't want to die. Listen, you've got to be born of God. You've got to die to yourself so you can gain Jesus Christ. And that's what he's teaching us right there. That's what he's trying to make us understand. Man, don't live off what you did when you were a child. Live off what that Jesus Christ has come into your life and saved you. And if he's never done it, it'd be a good night. It'd be a good night. And then it's just like he switched his gears. It's crazy the way John wrote this. It's just like he switches gears in verse number 14, and all of a sudden it says, and the word was made flesh. You remember back in one, you remember back in John 1.1, when he said in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Wait a minute now. Now we go to verse 14. And the Word, so God, the Word was made flesh. So God showed Himself, the second part of the Trinity right there, that God is Jesus Christ, was Jesus Christ, and always will be Jesus Christ. That's who he is. And that's what he's showing us right there. He became flesh. Jesus came down to show us. And I got to thinking about this thing when I was reading a study, and when he said right there, and the word was made flesh, why? I got to ask him why, Lord, did you? He said, because there's gonna be people like you, Mac, that says, Lord, I can't do it. Lord, there's no way I can get through this situation. God, there's no way that I'll be able to make it. God, I can't do this. Kind of like that, he didn't, who was it? Uh Moses in the Old Testament. He said, But I'm not of eloquent speech. I can't do it, God. I believe Jesus Christ came down to show us there is a way. He showed us that, listen, there is a way. I've showed you that there is a way that you can get through this. There is a way that you can make it through this. I've showed you, I've paved this path, I've showed you this. And he came to show us, man, who he was. And he became flesh and dwelt among us. Man, would that not be an awesome time? But so many times, what happened? So many times in this in this text, in these four gospels, you'll read and you'll understand that so many times Jesus' cross was right there and they just didn't get it. So it makes me wonder, what if we lived in that day? Would we be as uh passive as we are with some things about Christ now? Probably. Probably be just as passive. There goes Jesus again. Not knowing that he's just gonna be with him for a little while. And then he's gonna be gone. Man, we got Jesus Christ every day and we take it for granted. We take it for an end knowing that, man, he's just one, he's just one, he's just one voice away that we can talk to him. I'll be honest, we took him for we take him for granted. Because we know he'll be there because he is who he says he is, because he's just he's fixing to show us about his grace and his mercy. He's so good to us, and we don't deserve it. Ain't a man in this room deserves it. As good as you might think you are, and your mama told you you was great and good, and you ain't. You messed up too. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father. We beheld his glory. What I see there is he said, Man, we watched how great he was. We watched how great he was. You remember when you you was like 18 and you thought you were so great, like at everything? Like you was great at winning your wife over, you was great at playing ball, you was great at all these things. You you thought you were great. And you thought that everybody just beheld your glory. I was like, man, he's just awesome. And now look at you now. You're not great anymore, okay? She tells you you're great every Father's Day or every anniversary just to make you smile a little bit. You ain't great. You done got old. Amen. She still tells me I'm great. Amen. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father. They understood there was something special about him. Same thing God's saying to you and I. You've got to understand there's something special about Jesus Christ. He's not what people paint the picture of. He's not just some humble, weak person that people paint this picture of this humble, weak Jesus. He's a loving, great father that does anything for his children. That's who he is. And they beheld his glory. They seen how great he was. That's what they did. Look what it says in the last part of this. Full, full of grace and truth. See, you say, well, why did he put that in? And I mean, I had to dig and dig and dig, trying to figure out why did you say this at the end? Full of grace and truth. Why don't you say he was full of grace? But to say he was full of grace and truth, because see, you've got to understand who we're talking to. So when all those Jews were living according to the Mosaic law. So every time, it's kind of like, it's kind of like my kids probably think sometimes daddy's just waiting to catch me do something wrong. Because it's like daddy's always on my butt. Okay? That's probably what they think sometimes. And I probably am, okay? A little bit too much. But what he's saying right there, it's kind of like they were always getting told they did something wrong. It's kind of like the Pharisees was right walking around with a tablet trying to say, You did it wrong, Hagen. Scratch. Brent, you did it wrong. You got you got to go back, you got to confess. You've got to kill something. Something's got to be sacrificed. That's what's got to happen. Waiting, but Jesus Christ said no. I've come full of grace. I've come full of grace to show you, you know what? I died for this. I died for this. Full of grace and of truth. And I shared this a few weeks ago. And I'm learning this the older I get as a daddy. I haven't arrived yet, and my kids will attest to you, but sometimes it don't take a tongue lashing to get a tongue lashing. Sometimes it's just being in a different way. I mean, sometimes we lose our mind. Sometimes we get loud. We get frustrated. Get, I guess you could say the word amplified. Anybody? But sometimes God said, I want you to just show some grace. Because I want you to think about the grace that I showed you. Because there ain't a man in here that does not that deserves heaven. But God's grace. He showed us that grace. He's full of it. Verse 15. I think I'm going to get two more verses, I think. John bear witness of him. Talking about John the Baptist now. We got one John, John the son of Zebedee, that's writing this, John. But now we're talking about John the Baptist here. So we need to make sure we don't, it can get confusing if you ain't, if you ain't really staying focused on this. So John bear witness of him. And he cried saying, This was he of whom I spake. See, John seen the real man. John sit back and seen the real Jesus. They don't nobody know you any better than your family, right? They can see the real you. They can see the you when you ain't got a Bible in your hand. They can see the you when it ain't you on Sunday. They can see the you that's on Friday evening. They can see the you that's on Tuesday afternoon when you ain't here. See, they can see that. John's seen who Jesus was, and he's seen the same man every day. If that's one thing that the Lord can say to you and I is be who you are at all times. Be the same on Sunday mornings as you are on Friday afternoon. Be that person that people look at and say, man, that is an example of salt and light, and that's who I want to be like. Be that example. And then he says, John bear witness of him and cried, saying that he of whom I spake, he that cometh after me is preferred before me. For he was before me. If you ain't careful, that right there will mess you up. He said, He that come after me is preferred before me, for he was before me. See, John was six months older than him. But he's saying he come before me. What he's saying is he always was. He was from the beginning. He said, before I was conceived, Jesus Christ was who he was. And I get so excited reading the story, and I read it last week about how John the Baptist he leaped in his mother's womb, excited that Jesus Christ was being born of a virgin Mary. He was so excited. He was just leaping for joy, knowing that the King of Kings and the Lord of Lord, he's fixing to show up on the scene. And I'm not going to be anything, I'm just going to tell people about him. In verse 16. And his fullness have all we received. Grace for grace. His fullness. Remember we talked, and I give a thing that the Lord gave me from A to Z. That's what he's saying right here to me. That's what I see, what the Lord's saying to me. And his fullness have we all received. The fullness from who he is to who he's going to be, to everything in between. The A to Z, everything who Jesus Christ is, it's right there. Then it says, and his fullness all we've received, and grace for grace. You say, okay, how do you get grace for grace? Because when Jesus Christ died and was buried, and three days later he arose, when God sees you now, he sees his son, Jesus, and that is the grace that surpasses all understanding, that you don't understand, I don't understand. But he sees grace and he shows grace. That's who Jesus Christ is. And that grace just shows up, man. That Jesus Christ just stood in there. He stood in the gap for you and I. He became that grace for you. He became that propitiation. That's what he did, the payment that satisfies. That's what he did for you and I. He became that grace that we don't deserve. None of us deserve it. But that's what he is for you and I. I'm going to go one more. Actually, I might go two more. I might break a record in that, huh? Verse 17. It's going to be hard. For the law was given by Moses. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. It's not saying that there was no grace in the Mosaic law. Because every time there was a sin committed, what had to happen? They had to be a sacrifice. They had to be a sacrifice shown. But when Jesus Christ came on the scene, he said, there's no more. You don't have to go into a box and talk to a man anymore. He said, Oh, you can go into a room now and you can talk to the man, Jesus Christ. You don't need that. The veil was torn. It's torn from top to bottom because we don't need that anymore. All we need is come to Jesus Christ now. That's what he's saying to you and I. And he said, He is the grace and the truth. He is the one that showed us grace when we didn't deserve it, and he's the truth that we can bank on the rest of our lives. That's who he is. That's who Jesus Christ is for you and I. And verse number 18, and I'm done. No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared to him. That verse right there paints one picture for me, and that is trust. No man hath seen God in any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. What it says right there in the last part of that, those last four words, he hath declared him. What he says, I'm the truth, and I told you who I am. I see it. You don't need to add to it, you just need to trust in it. You need to trust that he is who he says he is. He said, I am the truth. I am the life. The way, the truth, and the life. That's what he said. And we need to trust that Jesus Christ is who he says he is. And he is. Anybody got anything else tonight? If not, we're gonna we're gonna stop right there. We'll pray. And uh we'll fellowship for a little while. Let's pray. Lord, we love you. We thank you, God, for your word tonight, Lord. Lord God, you sent your son Jesus to show us how to live this life. Just as you said in verse number 14, as the word become flesh and you dwelt among us, you showed us how to live that life. You've showed us how to live life itself and live it with you, God. Lord Jesus, as we go through this place tonight, as we leave this place tonight, as we go wherever you've called us to be tomorrow, God, I pray that we lead their desiring to be that salt and light you've called us to be. Lord, help us to put all our faith in you and not in our circumstances. I pray. I love you, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.