with you today, I know it's a bit unexpected, but I'm grateful to the Lord for this opportunity to be with you again, to exposit the Word of God to you. So if you could please rise with me. We're gonna go through Exodus 33 before we go to John. Turn with me to Exodus 33. It's our complimentary passage from verses 17. into chapter 34, and the reason why I'm doing this is because the event of Moses' intercession for his people, his covenant intercession for a people who had just committed a heinous sin of idolatry, is what we're going to focus on 1 in 14 through 18. John is going to reveal our memories, what God has already revealed to us in the first time of Christ, which is Moses. So let us read from verse 17 and on. And the Lord said to Moses, this very thing you have spoken, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name. Moses said, please show me your glory. And he said, I hope my goodness pass before you. And. The Lord. Who am I will be great and will show mercy. But. See me and. I mean, where you shall stand on the rock. Well, my glory passes by or put the class. you with my hand I have passed by then I will take away my hand and you shall see my back but my face shall not be seen the Lord said for yourself two tablets of stone like the first and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke be ready by the morning and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain No one shall come up with you and let be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite the mountain. So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. He rose early in the morning on Mount Sinai as the Lord commanded him and took in his hand two tablets of stone. The Lord descended on the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the father, the mother, the children, the third and fourth generation. bowed his head before the earth and worshiped. And he said, Now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people. And pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance. Keeping that in your memory, let us turn now to John, verses 14 through 18. Again, the themes of seeing the glory of God, beholding the presence of God, God revealing His name. Now here John gives us what it means to behold Christ's glory that has come in the flesh. Let us read. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen His glory. Gloria is 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. From His fullness, we have all received grace. 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. Let us pray. Our God in heaven. Oh, how we celebrate this season. This season that your son became flesh. and that the great distance between you and your people was finally closed by the indwelling of your glory in the person of Jesus Christ, who will forever be God and man for our sins. Help us, Lord. Remind us, Lord. Kindle our hearts, warm our souls, so we can remember the great distance that we've lost. The great gift that is Jesus Christ. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. How can we grow in our appreciation How can we settle our hearts, settle our affections, our desires, only on Christ? You know, oftentimes that distress is sold to us. Every time we open our phones, it's another controversy after controversy, where panic and dissatisfaction are the tools to keep us scrolling mindlessly on our phones. What's the next news on Twitter, right? And it's always about the next thing and the next thing and the next thing because there is no satisfaction. All of us are constantly tempted to shift our eyes away from Christ and replace Him with anything that is created. If we're honest with ourselves, brothers and sisters, we know that we can get bored of the gospel. Right, children? we can get bored of the gospel. Yes, this Jesus that died on a cross so that we could have eternal life. I've heard it. I sing it. I got it. But do we? Have we truly understood the weight of Jesus Christ? the God-man, the eternal begotten Son of God coming into existence in flesh. The one who was born into existence has become benevolent for your sake. Is that something that we've grown tired of? Born of? We're not so different from children, right? Every Christmas it's another present. You open it up. Great for five minutes. Where's the next one? Right? Every year is the same thing. But if we're honest with ourselves as adults, we also do the same thing. Every day that we wake up and answer the call to go into the world as the chosen people of God to shine his light, we are often distracted by different things that somehow convince us that Christ's glory isn't compelling. So John wants to bring us to his prologue. This is John chapter one to remind us, to give us some memory that this is not just some event where God becomes man. OK, no, it's full of memory. It's full of history. And we're going to see this in verses 14, through 18. And there's five different points that I'm going to try to do as best as I can through these verses. In verse 14 we're going to see the incarnation of the Word. How meaningful that is keeping Exodus 33 and 34 in our minds. In verse 15 we're going to see the testimony of John the Baptist. In verse 16 the fullness of grace received. In verse 17 we're going to see mediators in comparison. And then in 18, Christ, the perfect image of the invisible God. So John begins his prologue with an allusion to Genesis. And in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. In the Greek, it's actually towards God. to think of all that God has done from the book of Genesis that Jesus was the very means through which all things were created and whole together. Jesus was, from the beginning, the very means by which all things were created. But in this section, he moves the imagery to the tabernacle. It moves from Genesis 1 and the creative narratives into what it means that Moses was able to cross into the presence of God for his people, and yet not able to see God. Because seeing requires dwelling. And the dwelling of God requires holiness. And how can God's dwelling remain with a sinful people? See, Moses pleaded with God because they were sinners. The people he represented were sinners. God would say, I'll be with you, Moses, but I'm not going to be with them. I'll go with you. And Moses says, no, you go with us. Not because there was anything good in the people. But because you promised, you promised you were going to dwell with your people. You promised that you and I and us will be your nation. And we will shine the light to all nations by your dwelling. And yet with all the intercession, you see, his backside, he hears the name proclaimed. And we see him to the ground and worship by hearing the very name of God proclaimed. How so full of grace and truth he is. So now John begins in verse 14. What does he say here? And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. He's giving you the cues. This is what it means that God has dwelt among us. In Greek, it's literally the tent among us. What does that mean? The tent in Exodus, the glory that rests on the tent has come. He is with us. He is for us. And look what he says next. And we have seen his glory. Notice from verses 14 and 18. That's the whole theme. That's the whole theme between verses 14 and 18. Seeing, beholding the glory of God. He begins that verse pointing us to the fact that Moses could not see the fullness that John. He is the begotten son of God. It cannot be the spirit or the father who Because this is His eternal nature. He is begotten from the Father. And so the Son becomes flesh on our behalf. And we continue here. The only Son from the Father full of grace and truth. Notice Exodus 33 there. The glory full of grace and truth is the very name of God that Moses hears proclaimed. full of grace, truth, steadfast love, and faithfulness. John bore witness of him, verse 15, and we're gonna move on because I don't have this space enough for me to continue with my points. So verse 15, John cries. bearing witness to him, this is, was he of whom I said, he comes after me, ranks before me, because he was before me. When he says crying out, it's in the perfect tense in the Greek. What does that mean? That it has ongoing action to the reader. Every time you open your Bible and you read how John is bearing witness, he's saying, I'm crying out. It should have an impact on you. He cried out, this was he of whom I said. He loves to play with this. He who was has come after, but he was before me. He loves that. John loves to play with your idea of if he's God, how can he become man? And if he's man, how can he remain God? He loves that. Why? Because it's the great mystery of God that's being revealed to us in the flesh. And it cannot simply be solved with logical categories. Because this is the God who made us. This is the God of whom logic depends on. And His knowledge is comprehensive. You and I barely know ourselves. We barely know how to think. You barely know the sin that is in us. And yet God in his great sovereign power and mystery, John is crying out as a prophet would cry out. Often the prophets in the Bible, it uses this crying out word all the time. Why? Because what he has to say has infinite meaning. So in the perfect tense, constantly crying out throughout history. This is the Son of God and He dwells among us. Let that shake the very soul of mankind. Come beneath. Verse 16, for from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace. What is John trying to get at with the fullness? First again, Exodus, the fullness of this glory has come. What did Moses see? He only saw partial glory. And the glory he came and delivered to his people was a fading glory. But yet now the fullness has come to His people. The fullness now dwells within you. How do we know this? Past this text, Jesus Christ gives His life on the cross. And with His perfect sacrifice, You know how earth-shattering that is? that God would dwell amongst His people, not dependent on walls or a temple in a specific place, but that you are the very temple of God, that you have received the fullness of the presence of God, that you have access to the throne of God through prayer and intercession wherever you are. That's earth-shattering news. That's life-changing news. News that the Old Testament, they looked ahead of. The Old Testament says, concede and rejoice. You and I get to live in it. You and I get to behold glory. of Christ through His Word and through the accompany of His Spirit. That's the fullness that we have received and that we've all received. When the Gospel of John was being written in the early church, there was a heresy called Gnosticism. And in summary, all that means is there was a philosophy that liked to draw dichotomies between the flesh and what is spiritual, but more than that, it was a philosophy that attracted because of its secret knowledge. There's a class of people who are more spiritual than anybody else. And while that was something that was going on in the early church, I think the principle applies to us constantly. Why? Because if we're Christian, right, that means everybody gets access, the same access to the same knowledge in the Word of God. There is no division. In some, you know, the smarter you are, the more intellectual that you are, the more you understand. For the feeble-minded, you're never gonna reach them. But Christianity, the fullness is for everyone. The fullness of the presence of God is received by everyone. And then grace upon grace, that word in the Greek, upon, anti, is not always antithetical, but can be used in the place of grace, or grace upon grace. What is it doing there? That the grace that the Old Testament saints received by the giving of the law, is now fulfilled in the coming of Christ. Because it is Christ who fulfills that law on your behalf. And so an insurmountable amount of grace is given to the church because Jesus Christ, the law-fulfiller, has done what God considers to be holy and perfect and good and consistently good. And for His righteous life, You get grace upon grace. You get access to the presence of God. You get to be indwelt by the Spirit of God. And wherever His church goes, so goes the presence of God. Grace upon grace. 17, for the law was given through Moses. Grace came through Jesus Christ. We see the mediators being in comparison here, right? Moses came, the law, both the giving of the law and the coming of grace, they are both part of the covenant of grace. Let's get this straight. When man fell in the garden, that was it. One sin, you're banished from the presence of God. Following that is just grace. God being steadfast, love, faithful love, unfailing love, even in His giving of His law, He condescends to His people. He finds a way to dwell with His people through a sinful mediation. It is all grace. The coming of Christ surpasses the giving of the law from Moses. It is Jesus now that the fullness of grace and truth is revealed. Because now your sin has been dealt with, and you can understand what it means that God dwells with you. That you can experience the Kingdom of Life as God has mercy on you, forgives you day in, day out, as you are inconsistently holy. Yet God is gracious to forgive you and welcome you back, not because His holiness comes out, excluded, but because His holiness has been dealt with, Jesus is crushed so that you might have life. The law came through Moses. Grace and truth comes through Christ. And look at this, while the gracious, the giving of the law, the text says the giving of the law, maintains that distance between God and man. When God gives the law, he's like, okay, there's two, here's the law. I'm here, that's grace. I could destroy you, but I'm here. Here's the law. What does it mean? The coming of Christ. Coming grace. The law was given through Moses. Him across that distance for. With God and that man, Jesus. On your. End of all things, Jesus will still remain the man who intercedes between you and God. And you will see God, see Christ. In verse 18, finally, Christ, the perfect image of the invisible God. What does it say? No one has ever seen God. We saw this in Exodus, right? Moses only saw the backside. But now John is beholding God. And what does he say? The only God who is at the Father's side. In the Greek, that's at the bosom of God. What does that mean? Like this, like you would hold your son or your daughter. This is where Jesus comes from. He is at the bosom of God the Father. Like his prologue says in the beginning, the word was with God. That word means toward God. as a child is toward his parent in the bosom. Jesus is never going other directions like you and I, right? How often do we, like I said at the beginning, are distracted, bored, looking elsewhere, even as sons and daughters of God who have been resurrected from death, sin, from our sin. We still look sideways, right? We're still kind of like, yeah, amen. What's the next video, right? But Jesus, there's no looking to the left or to the right. It's constantly. His affections, his desires settled on God. That's who Jesus is. And he is the one, what does it say at the end? No one's ever seen God. The only God was at his father's side. He has made him known. So you and I know God. You know, in the Bible is often demeaning intimate knowledge. It's not just intellectual or informational. It's deep personal knowledge. And Jesus Christ comes to make the Father deeply known through his word. by the indwelling of his Holy Spirit. And you get to return to the mountain of God every Sunday to hear the word preached as a child would hear the words of their father. That's what it means. that Jesus Christ has taken on flesh. That's the gift of Christmas. This is how we can appreciate this gift when we pray. How often do we pray? How often are we reading our Bibles? How often are we meditating on what God has revealed to be our history? How often are we taken over by the problems of the modern day? as if we can come up with solutions, when the reality is, is that when we settle on the Bible, when we look towards God's word, distractions have no power. And when the people of God settle on God's word, the presence of God continues to extend his kingdom through his church. So read your Bibles, have the gospel tasted, at the table and understand the riches of God's grace that has been given to you and live in it day in and day out through the power of the Holy Spirit. Let's pray. God in heaven, we thank you because you have given us the greatest gift Your Son, Jesus Christ, who was from before all things, through whom you created all things and hold all things together. That very Word that was before all things has come and is man forever on our behalf. And we come to you with thanksgivings for what we celebrate every Christmas season. We remember our history. We remember how far off we were as a people. And yet Jesus, when the fullness of time came, became man to die on a cross and to save us to the uttermost. And we thank you this morning. In Christ's name we pray.