for this Christmas season in John chapter 1, and hopefully you remember the way that we've broken down this beautiful prologue of this gospel, as we have been looking at what John tells us about the incarnation that we celebrate this time of year, And verses 1 to 5 talk to us about the subject of the Incarnation, that is, the Divine Word, Jesus Christ, His identity as the One who is taking on flesh. In verses 6 to 8, we looked at the witness to the Incarnation, and that's the ministry of John the Baptist, preparing the way for Christ. And last time we were looking at the response to the Incarnation in verses 9 to 13, actually two responses. As our Lord enters the world, some reject, others receive, and those still are the only two possible options. When we ask the bigger question, What was the point of all of this? What was the purpose that Jesus had, that God the Father had, in the Incarnation? That actually is where all of this has been heading, and we come to the climax of the passage in verses 14 to 18, as John tells us what is the purpose of the Incarnation. That's our title for the message this morning. And when you ask the question, what is the purpose of the Incarnation, actually the Bible gives many different and complementary answers. There was no one single purpose. It actually was designed to accomplish many things in the plan of God. But John is targeting one purpose. He is focused on one issue, and you'll see that very clearly as we read now the text, verses 14 to 18. 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. And 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. And as we look back at those verses, I want to highlight a few expressions. Verse 14 talks about that we're becoming flesh and dwelling among us, and we have seen something as He was walking around living among us, God incarnate. We have seen something. And then verse 17 makes the comment that in the coming of Christ what came to full light, to full visibility, to full experience, was the grace and truth of God. And then verse 18 says that to capture everything, what is going on in the Incarnation is that Christ has made God known to human beings. All of those expressions, we have seen His glory, grace and truth came, He made Him known, all of them in one way or another have to do with God revealing Himself to us. That's how we would express the purpose. According to John, what God's purpose was in becoming man, among many other things. This was about God making himself known. God not leaving us in the dark. God declaring truth to us, and particularly truth about his own character and his own heart and his own salvation. This was all about God revealing himself. And somebody might say, why is it so important that God would reveal himself? Why is that such a big deal? Why is it such an important purpose that it's the purpose that John chooses to highlight of many things he could have said? Let me try to illustrate it for you this way, why it's such a big deal. Maybe you had this experience where there was somebody that you really looked up to and somebody you really wanted to meet, but it was impossible. There really was no way for that interaction or that relationship to happen because that person was so high up above you socially. You would say about them, they are out of my league or I am out of their league. I just don't belong in the same circle. We don't have any way or means by which we would even be in the same room together. They don't even know I exist. Maybe it would be something as simple when you were in college. There was a boy or a girl that you really wanted to meet, but they were so high up in the pecking order or whatever you might call it that they just really didn't give you any attention. Or maybe it's a musician or a sports figure or an author or a politician, somebody you look up to, somebody in whose life you're interested, and you wish for at least some kind of communication with them, and maybe even a personal relationship, but they were so far up above you, there was no way that that would have happened. The only way it could have happened is if they had taken the initiative to communicate with you. If they had taken the first step to lower themselves to your level in order to make some kind of communication possible. And it's something like, maybe you read about this week, a young lady by the name of Shelby in Detroit, who, because she's such a giver, I suppose, and just really likes to be an encouragement to people, had participated numbers of time in online gift exchanges. and you sign up through the Reddit system, you put a little bit of information there about yourself and about what you like and what is going on in your life, and the computer randomly matches you up with somebody, and they have the opportunity, we would say, I don't know what words they would use, we would say it would be a blessing to you, and they have this secret Santa. at this time of the year. And people are sending and receiving gifts, and it's from people from all parts of the country, somebody you've never met before. And this lady, she actually has participated in this kind of thing a lot of times. This was her 95th gift exchange to participate in. And guess what happened this year? One of the other people that has participated in the Secret Santa program, his name is Bill Gates, since 2013, he has taken a part in that anonymous gift exchange just to be nice to people. And he ended up with her name and her profile. And she got an 81-pound box at the local FedEx store. that had written on it the number 95, and he wanted to recognize her for being such a generous and a kind person, and that thing was filled with all kinds of things that he, in looking at, or his people, in looking at her profile, figured out she would enjoy. There were all kinds of memorabilia from movies that she liked, and video games she enjoyed, or all kind of Oreo cookies. There were toys for her cat. And the thing that touched her the most was that he made a donation to the American Heart Association in honor, in memory of her mother, who had passed away this past year. She talked in her profile about what a difficult year she had had, including the death of her mother, and Bill Gates said, I know no gift will ever make up for losing someone so important to you, but I hope you and your family find your new normal this holiday season." And you can go online and watch videos of how excited and touched this lady was that somebody who was in such a high status that she would have no way of connecting with, just out of the kindness of his heart, sent her this gift and gave this donation condescending to communicate to somebody who really had no hope or expectation. Now that is impressive to us, but it's just a tiny analogy to what we're looking at as we consider what's happening in the Incarnation. When you ask what are the prospects of humanity for actually enjoying a personal relationship with God, the barriers are immense. The separation is unbridgeable by us. And here are some of the differences that keep us in such a faraway position. God really, he is in a league all by himself and we have no hope of gaining access to him. Here are some of the differences. He's a spirit. We can't see into the spirit realm. We are creatures, though we are spirit and body. Our spirits are attached to a body, and all we can see is that which is physical, not that which is spiritual. We are creatures of sight and sense and touch and sound. We think about the Lord and we say, in addition to that difference, He has so many big things to be in charge of, to oversee, that there is plenty to keep Him, as it were, busy. Why would He take the time or be concerned about me, insignificant and lowly as I am? Furthermore, God has no needs. He is independent. He was fine and happy within the Trinity for the eons of eternity before creation. He doesn't need us. Why would He be interested in me? And the greatest problem of all is that I have actually rebelled against Him, and the human race has been running away from God from almost the beginning of time. He is holy, and we are sinful. And so you have all these barriers, all of these separations that keep us from having a relationship with the one for whom we were created and with the one who alone has the capacity to satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart. And actually the Bible says that given our sin, even though we need God and we have some sense of need for Him and even desire for Him, we don't seek Him. If you did try to seek Him, you would have so much going against you. And here, especially, you would be in a position that if there is any hope for any contact, for any communication, He would have to be the one to take the initiative graciously in order to establish contact. And that is precisely what the Bible says God has done. In fact, it started very early in human history, almost as early as sin. As soon as Adam and Eve rebelled, the Lord could have judged him and his wife immediately. He could have done away with them and started all over again, but he did not. What the Lord chose to do is to come down to the garden to speak to man, just like he had done before. And even though some of the words he spoke were difficult words, words of conviction and confrontation and words of curse, we understand that his ultimate intent in those words was actually to restore man, to redeem man. He was speaking to man with the purpose of reestablishing a relationship. And from that point on, The story of the entire Bible is a story of God condescending Himself and doing whatever is necessary, working in order to communicate, working in order to talk to people. He is a speaking, a self-revealing God. And you and I may struggle when we think about God and our place in His world, because so often to us and to our feelings it appears that God is silent and uninterested and unlistening to our prayers, perhaps, and uncommunicative. And we, on a human level, are frustrated with individuals who won't talk to us, and we're tempted to think that God is that way, sort of closing himself off and isolating himself, not wanting contact. But when you read the story of Scripture and when you look around, the reality is that throughout history, God has been shouting to get our attention. And here are some of the ways. He has been shouting to the entire human race through creation. He has been speaking to us through the conviction of our conscience. There have been times in history when God has actually come down in a physical form, as he did with Moses in the burning bush. Some people in history actually heard a voice from God like Samuel did. Other people were given the privilege of hearing from God through a dream or vision like Joseph and Daniel. At times the Lord sent angels to convey messages to human beings. And he has commissioned on top of that a host of prophets and apostles to convey his word to people. And that was a long time ago, but God was so intent that future generations like ourselves would have access to his speech that he made sure that much of it ended up in writing in a form accessible to human beings broadly. We call it the Bible, and throughout human history for thousands of years, God has preserved written scripture so that we can hear from him. And in addition to that, He has called and raised up preachers and pastors and teachers and other spiritual leaders for the purpose of talking to us, for the purpose of proclaiming His truth to us. God is a speaking God. The question is, are we listening to what He has to say? Are we approaching Him through the means through which He has been speaking to us? And God is so serious about talking to human beings, about revealing Himself in order to reconnect and reestablish a relationship that one day He did the unimaginable. He actually became a human being. He took on a physical form. He didn't cease to be spirit in essence, but he added to himself a form that we actually could see with our eyes. A living, breathing man who could speak to other men directly like human beings do. And that is the message of our text today, and that is the purpose that John is focusing on. It is a message of love, and a message of hope, and a message of encouragement. It is a message that invites us to listen to the speaking God. It is a message that challenges us as to whether we are listening to Him. And as we consider what John has to say, we can summarize all of this about God revealing himself in human form in four propositions that I want to share with you this morning. First of all, as we look at verse 14, here's what's going on in the Incarnation. In Christ, God powerfully manifested his presence through a weak human being. That's a starting point. That's foundational. In Christ, God powerfully manifested his presence through a weak human being. That is what is taught when, in verse 14, John writes that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Here John uses that title for Christ, the Word, the Logos. And the last time he used it, he used it in order to give us the identity of the Messiah and to make the point that this one being born is divine. He is the creator of everything. He is God in essence. And that was an amazing enough thought, but now he adds to it that that divine word became flesh. United himself with flesh. Think about your skin. That's what flesh is describing. It's talking about the entirety of your human body, which has certain capacities and certain things you can do, but it also is associated with limitations and with weaknesses and certain things you cannot do and certain things you suffer. Think about, in this fallen world, all that goes along with having a human body, flesh. Christ subjected himself to all of that, whether it was hunger, or thirst, or tiredness, or temptation, or sickness, or suffering, or tears, or ultimately death. Those are normal human experiences that go along with having a body. And there were several things I listed there, but think about one, the one about being tired. Maybe you're like me, that after this week, you need a vacation from your vacation. And you're exhausted from traveling or whatever it is you did over the last few days. It's a humbling thought to think that Jesus felt that way, too, that the divine Word so associated himself with our flesh that he got tired and he had to sleep. And sometimes he fell asleep when people were looking for him to act. This was part of what was going on in his self-limitation, manifesting his presence through a weak human being. And yet there is a paradox here. Not just the point about a weak human being, but the point about the presence being manifested, the presence of God in that weak form. He lived among men. He dwelt among us, the text says. And that is a very specific term that is connected with what Joseph read for us earlier in the service. Actually, this passage alludes to the book of Exodus several times, and this is the first time. The verb translated dwelt is related to a noun that in the Greek translation of the Old Testament is regularly used for what we call the tabernacle. It was a tent, it was a temporary structure that could be taken down and put back up, and it was made of all kinds of different materials that the Lord ordained. Wood and gold and curtains of different kinds of fabric. That special tent, very carefully designed. was pitched whenever Israel would stop her travels. It would be taken up when it was time to move on. This was so important to them because it was God's house in the middle of their camp. It was the place where He manifested His personal presence. It was a place where they could access Him by the offering of sacrifices. It was the place where they could actually see Him, in a sense, because it was over that place that you would see that pillar of cloud and that pillar of fire by night. And it's by design that that very terminology is now used for what God did in Christ. He came in order to dwell among us, just like he set up his tent among the people of Israel. Christ tabernacled with men. He was the ultimate divine tent to which the other one was pointing. Do you see the paradox in that? Here was Jesus, a man of flesh, A man beset by all of those weaknesses and limitations, a man debilitated to the point where he actually was killed, and yet what was going on in that flesh was the bringing of the presence of deity directly into the realm of humanity. In this case, it was not like what you saw back in the tabernacle. It wasn't something so obviously divine, like a pillar of fire. Nor was it that God, His special presence, limited itself to that little room we call the Holy of Holies, and only one person could go in there, and only one time of year, and following very special rituals. Here he was in weakness, and yet walking around in and through that weakness was the presence of God accessible to human beings. That combination of majesty on the one hand, and of weakness on the other hand, superseded all other revelations of God. And it shows us just how interested God is in relating to us. It shows us just how much he cares about us in our weakness, that he would be willing to do that, and it elevates the value of what we have in Jesus. And the absolute necessity of paying attention to what this God in the flesh is communicating. Are we listening? Somebody says, yeah, well, that was a long time ago. And I live in 2000, almost 20 now, and I can't see Jesus walking around. How do I know that that actually happened? How do I know that I can trust the message about it? Well, read on and you'll see one of the ways that God desires to use to assure us of that. It's a point that is designed to strengthen our faith as we move on here. I've already made the point that in Christ God powerfully manifested his presence through a weak human being, and now we find this. In Christ, number two, God convincingly demonstrated his glory to historic human witnesses. Now that's a mouthful, let me say it again. In Christ, God convincingly demonstrated his glory to historic human witnesses. Notice how the passage goes on after it says he became flesh and dwelt among us. It says, and we have seen his glory. there were people who actually saw it with their own eyes. You know, back in Exodus, chapter 33, was read for us earlier, Moses' prayer was, Lord, please show me your glory. He wanted some kind of visible manifestation that would assure his heart that God, in fact, was with them and would stay with them He wanted some vision of God's glory, and God chose to answer that prayer. He saw and He heard some amazing things. And yet here were these apostles in the New Testament, and with their physical eyes, they saw something even better. They use that same glory terminology. John says, we have seen His glory. Glory is of the only Son from the Father. Now let's stop there for a moment. Even the verb that is used here, to see, we have seen. is designed to make a point. Moses' experience on that mountain was pretty short. How long he was up there and actually got to see and hear all that, it probably just took less than a minute for the Lord to pass by and to speak out his name and those attributes of him. This is not a passing glance here. This term foreseeing refers to close observation. And these individuals had about three years that they could spend with this man. hour after hour, day after day, night after night, beholding the glory of the Word. And through the course of those years, they became, as eyewitnesses, more and more convinced that what they were seeing was not just a human being. that they were seeing the very glory of God, the perfections of deity, the brilliance and wisdom and power of the Creator manifesting itself through that human being. Sometimes they did see something like Moses' witness. You're going to read in the Gospels about what we call the transfiguration. And it looks a lot like Exodus chapter 34. And there was a physical brilliance that a few of them got to see. Where they did not see that, there were plenty of other indications of glory. There were miracles that were designed to manifest the glory of God in Christ. There was the evidence of deity and the wisdom and the authority of the teachings of Jesus. And this is what the Apostle Peter, a little bit later, I'm going to read from chapter 6 of John, this is what he was talking about when he says, You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God. And what he's getting at there is that, yes, there were things they saw, some supernatural, some obvious signs, but there was something about the character of his words that inherently communicated eternal life, and that witnessed to the divine nature of Christ as the Holy One of God. And so there were all these ways that they could witness glory in flesh. And yet when you ask how did Jesus describe really the greatest manifestation of his glory, you are up against another profound paradox. Later on in this gospel as Jesus is approaching his death and he's preparing his disciples, He makes this comment, he says, the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. That's that same glory terminology. He's talking about the cross, he's talking about his death, he's talking about his flesh going to be torn apart and bleeding and dying. He expires on that cross. And yet he says this is the highest way that God is revealing himself to people through me, that I'm willing to undergo that kind of suffering to work out redemption, the cross is the greatest revelation of the glory of God. And over time, as the disciples reflected on everything that had happened, everything surrounding the crucifixion, the betrayal that led to it, the physical suffering, the spiritual agony, the love and the patience that went on, and the power of the resurrection that put it all to an end and brought him back to life, they could not help as eyewitnesses to confess that through those events they had actually seen God with their eyes, mightily showing himself through the events of the cross. And as John talks about this, he goes on and he says, we have seen His glory. Glory is of the only Son from the Father. That translation is probably a little different from what you're used to. You may be used to it saying the only begotten from the Father. And so I want to take a moment to talk about that. When that word only begotten is used, It clearly can be talking about somehow Jesus or Christ, the Godhead, the second member of the Godhead, coming into existence. Or God the Father somehow spiritually or physically creating the second member of the Godhead. What is it talking about when it describes him with that expression, that word in Greek, monogenes, only begotten? There are times when that is not used in a literal sense of the only physically born child. In fact, in Hebrews 11, verse 17, the same word is used to describe Isaac. as the quote-unquote only begotten of Abraham. The fact is that Abraham had other children. He had multiple sons. Isaac was not his only one. And the point is not that he was the only one ever, the only one in existence, but the only one in a particular sense. We would say he is unique as a son. He has a special place. In the case of Isaac, he's unique because of the miraculous circumstances that brought him into this world. He's unique because it's through him that the covenant promises are going to move on. He's unique because he had the highest place in the love of Abraham. And he is an only son in those ways, not that it speaks to his being born necessarily. That's not really the point. The point is he is one of a kind as a son. And the same could be said about Christ. The fact is that in other senses, God has many children or many sons. But when the disciples looked at Christ, they could tell this is unlike any other kind of divine sonship out there. There's only one of a kind, like Him. He has a unique father-son sort of relationship with God. In fact, it is so unique that they come to conclude He actually shares the very nature of God. He is God Himself in the flesh. Unique in that sense. And it wasn't just the disciples who saw it. Verse 15 reminds us about John the Baptist and how John bore witness, not only that Jesus was the Messiah, but that they were something so unusual, he says, this one existed before I did. We know that John was born several months on earth before Christ. And yet John says he actually was around before me. He is another witness to the unique sonship of Christ. And all of this is by way of confirming historically, of not just asserting these astounding claims about Christ, but saying there were people at a certain point in time who actually saw this. They're writing this record as eyewitnesses. God convincingly demonstrated His glory through Christ to those witnesses. That emphasis is designed, again, to confirm just how serious God is about us, so many generations later, receiving truth from Him and being able to enjoy a relationship to Him. Not just that He came and He took on flesh and He subjected Himself to those limitations and He died. but that he coordinated everything through these eyewitnesses who wrote this down. This is how serious he was, that 2,000 years later we have the record of these eyewitnesses. Are we listening, given all of the effort that the Lord has put into that? Number three, as we go on. In Christ, God climactically displayed his covenant loyalty in human history. There was the presence through the weak human being, there were the eyewitnesses who saw it, and what did they see? They saw the ultimate, the highest display of God's covenant loyalty that there ever has been in history. If you were to look back on all of history, and you would see all the blessings that God's people have received, ultimately, verse 16 says that it is flowing to them and to us from the bounty of the Word, and it uses the word grace to describe it. In other words, these things are gifts. These things are not things that inherently we have a right to or we could demand or expect God to do. And you can look at all human history, which is what he is describing there in verse 16 and verse 17, and put it this way, that from the fullness or the bounty of Christ the Word, all of us have received grace upon grace. And I want to talk about the wording of that expression as well. When you hear that expression, grace upon grace, you kind of imagine a big pile of things. Where you have one layer of grace, it's kind of like putting paint on the wall. and somebody comes along and does another coat on top of it, and somebody comes along and puts another coat on top of it, and this thing's just piling high. The word translated upon doesn't really give that idea that it's just this building thing, one thing on top of another. It's actually the word that normally would be translated in the place of or instead of. There were past manifestations of God's grace, and along comes another, and it's like you're piling up, but the point is, it's actually replacing what came before. And it's getting better the more it goes along. And one layer of grace comes, and it was great for the purpose it had at that time, but another one takes its place, and it's even greater. And as you look at the whole experience of humanity, In ourselves, you would just say it is sin and rebellion on top of sin and rebellion. From God's standpoint, here's what's happening. The way he's treated the whole human race. Here's a whole chunk of history. And here's what I did. And it was all a gift. And now here's another time in history. And that's done away with. And now there's a whole other and better layer of grace taking its place. And it keeps getting greater and it keeps getting better. And you say, well, is there an illustration to make that clearer to me? How can I see? What are these phases of grace? Well, notice that verse 17 begins with the word for. And he says, let me explain this thing about grace replacing grace. Here's how it works. Let me elaborate. For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. You've got to keep that connected with verse 16. And I say that because we tend to put grace and Moses in different categories. As though it was all law before and there was no grace and now it's all grace and there's no law. Yes, there was an emphasis on law here and that had a gracious purpose to it. But even the law was a manifestation of grace. It was one of those earlier phases of grace. You realize the grace that was inherent in the law. What was the law? It was God talking to people. God didn't have to talk to that nation. And God didn't talk to most of the nations. He passed them over. It was a special sign of His favor that He chose to meet with them on Mount Sinai. That He gave them that tabernacle. That He taught them His ways. That He provided the sacrifices through which they could approach Him, and in faith, in His own provision, could experience forgiveness. It was a manifestation of grace that he gave them those rules that were designed to keep them out of trouble and designed to create a just society and designed to show them how to love your neighbor. The law was actually a manifestation of God's grace. And even the fact that God gave it to them to show them they couldn't fulfill it so that they would put their hope in Him and not their own performance and ultimately look ahead to Christ, that was gracious too. God put them through that part, that sort of negative part of the law, because of grace, because He was pushing them toward Christ. The point is, everything, even the law, was a display of grace. And they had that huge opportunity, and now we have, as I say, the climactic display of grace. And when he says grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, in the flow of thought, what that's saying is it came to its highest expression in Christ. It came to its fullest manifestation and clarity in Christ. In fact, to put those two words together, grace and truth, is probably parallel to what the Old Testament often does when it combines God's covenant loyalty and God's truthfulness or His faithfulness. These are reflecting the idea that God not only is a gracious God, but He is faithful to His promises. In the Old Testament, there was plenty of proof that God was faithful that way, but all of that came to its full realization in Jesus Christ. The world had to wait a long time for the flowering of God's covenant loyalty, for that greatest manifestation of His commitment to be gracious to people. But it did not have to wait forever. There came a point in time when Christ came and with him came the greatest display of grace and truth, the ultimate demonstration that God is loyal to the promises that he made to Abraham. And here's one of the great things we celebrate at Christmas. We celebrate that we live in this age of grace instead of that earlier age of grace. that all these things have reached the clearest form, that we have such a better understanding of how all these things fit together, that we are able to understand the place of the law in the plan of God, and that we're able to look back on, instead of look forward to, the full expression of God's grace and His Messiah. What we're talking about at Christmas is the fulfillment of the covenant promises that had only begun in Old Testament times. And it ought to be for us the chief demonstration that God can be trusted. Looking here at how God in Christ was revealing himself and manifesting himself. And what it's saying now is that when he did that, it proved that he was committed to us and gonna fulfill all his promises. If you and I, I shouldn't say if, I should say when you and I are tempted to doubt God. When we struggle to believe, is he really committed to me? Is he really committed to the things he's promised to me? This text says, go back to Christmas. sink your teeth into this highest form of God's faithfulness. So committed was he that he took on flesh and lived among us. And the more convinced you and I are of the faithfulness of God, the more inclined we will be to listen to him. He's still speaking, he's still making promises, he's still calling out to us. And finally, as we come to the last verse, verse 18, in Christ, God clearly revealed himself through a uniquely qualified spokesman. In Christ, God clearly revealed himself through a uniquely qualified spokesman. Verse 18, it summarizes and it brings to a peak everything that this prologue has been saying. No one has ever seen God. People like Moses, people like Isaiah, people like Ezekiel saw like little bits and pieces of the character of God. Nobody ever saw the fullness of it. And yet he says that Christ has made God known. The incarnation changed that reality that nobody ever saw, the full display of God's glory. Christ actually came in order to change that. Now, there are some challenges about this verse, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it, but let me make a few comments. Once again, we have that same expression, only begotten. that is showing up here. We also have the expression translated, no one has ever seen God, the only God, where you're probably used to saying the only son or the only begotten, right? There is a textual challenge here. What we're looking at reflected in our version is the oldest reading And I want to read it to you from another translation, the Net Bible, that I think explains well what we ought to make of this. No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made him known. And what that language is designed to do is to at once uphold the divine character of Christ, right? himself God, the only one himself God, but also that he is distinct from the Father in the Trinity, and that he has this intimate relationship with Him. The point being that if anybody can be trusted... to give you accurate information about who God is. It's Christ because He is God Himself, and He is in closest intimate connection with God. And if anybody you can look to to understand who God is and how to be right with Him, He is the one who is most and best qualified. And He came with those qualifications to make God known. And that'll be the last word that we focus in on here. That's the word from which in seminary circles we get the word exegesis from. It has to do with bringing something out, leading out its meaning, making it clear and plain. That's what Christ has done. And He can do that because He is God Himself in the flesh. And so, does anybody here want to know God? Do you want to know God? This text is assuring you God's not hiding from you. God's not over there closing Himself off in some little room by Himself to where you have to really work hard and really prove yourself to Him and really strain to get some kind of information and sort of yank it out of Him. He's not hiding. He's not holding back. This passage has shown you the great lengths to which he has actually gone to reveal himself to us. He was so intent on making himself known that he became a man in the person of Jesus Christ. And so John would urge us, you want to know God? He says, look at Jesus and you'll see God. Listen to Jesus and you'll hear God. You're not going to hear a voice from heaven, audibly, like those witnesses did, their unique experiences, but you're going to hear God just the same, just as accurately. What's been recorded here is God's own self-revelation. And so, as we come to apply this to our lives. As we ask ourselves, well, as I want to know God, there is this barrier of sin. One of the things that Jesus is going to proclaim to you is the way of forgiveness. You want to know how your sin can be forgiven so you can come to know God. He's going to proclaim that to you. He's going to explain about His substitutionary death. He's going to explain how He put down His life for yours as that ultimate display of grace. You want to know forgiveness from God, look to Christ, listen to Him. I hope that that is, and I think it is, the experience of most of us here already. We understand that. But here we are, and what we struggle with is not our forgiveness so much, it is our sanctification. It is dealing with our indwelling sin, our flesh. It is wrestling against the effects that remain in us of sin. You say, well, how does the incarnation relate to my sanctification? You remember that key text on sanctification in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18? Here's what it says you need to do to be sanctified. not come up with some formula. It doesn't even say memorize verses or pray. All it says is look. It says we all with an unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord. That's what we're talking about, the glory of God in Christ. The more you and I, this is a great thought as we enter a new year, the more you and I ponder, fill our minds with, direct our attention to the perfections of Jesus Christ, the more you and I are going to find that that pattern of his life leaves its imprint on us. That is sanctification. It is the same thing we're talking about here. It is getting a clearer glimpse of the glory of God in Christ.