So there's this popular quote from John MacArthur about counterfeits. I don't know if you've ever heard this before. You probably have. He writes this. He says, federal agents don't learn to spot counterfeit money by studying counterfeits. They study the genuine bills until they master the look of the real thing. Then they see the bogus money and they recognize it. Have you ever run across that quote before? All right. So I decided to look that up, find out where that quote came from, and then I found an old blog that was dedicated to putting this to the test. Tim Challies wondered if it was actually true. So he's a pastor up in Toronto, and he called up the Bank of Canada, and he went and got his own personal lesson. And it turns out that MacArthur is right. They taught him four techniques, all involving a genuine bill. So what they had to do is they had to touch it, they had to tilt it, They had to look through it and they had to look at it. So first you touch the bill to see if it has the right texture, see if it has the right weight, the right width, the right feel, okay, because counterfeits. sometimes mess that up. Next, you kind of tilt it so that you can spot this holographic stripe that's only detectable at an angle. Now, we're talking about the silly Monopoly money that Weird Al calls Canadian money here. So American Money might have a little bit different stuff on it, but okay, this little holographic thing that they put in there. Then you hold the bill up into the light so that you look through it so that you can find the ghost-like watermark. of the main portrait on the bill, and then finally you just look at the bill to detect the fine line painting and the background colors that belong to that particular denomination. In other words, when you get to know the real thing, including understanding the very difficult to replicate parts of the bill, Then, as Challies says, identifying the genuine from fraudulent can be done with great accuracy, even on the basis of only a small amount of training. So there's a book that came out fairly recently called Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? The writer's name is Matthew Richard, and he identifies 12 counterfeit Christs. So he calls them the mascot, The option among many, the good teacher, the therapist, the giver of bling, I like that one, the national patriot, the social justice warrior, the moral example, the new Moses, the mystical friend, the feminized, and the teddy bear. And those are all so well-named that they don't really need any further explanation, okay? probably you can figure out kind of Jesus as those are just from what they're called. But in the early church, it was very much the same, okay? Counterfeits were of major concern and the churches came together to figure out what they should do with views like Jesus being merely human but adopted by the Father, or Jesus being two-thirds human and one-third divine, or the view that Jesus was the first created being, the belief that Jesus only appeared to have a physical body, the idea that Christ's divinity dominates his humanity, or that Jesus had two natures but only one will, or the sharp distinction between the two natures of Christ so that they're really not one person. Or the idea that Jesus was never divine at all. Or the teaching that Christ is really just the Father and the Spirit and there are no distinct persons. Or the view that Jesus is one of three gods. A whole bunch of different Christological heresies that they had to deal with. The fact is there are many Jesuses out there that are masquerading as the real thing. Fooling people like trickster gods into believing a lie and people happily allow it. And this has been happening since the very beginning. The apostle writes this in 2 Corinthians. He says, if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, you put up with it readily enough. Clearly, there's nothing new under the sun. Now, all times and places are not as bad as they could be in this way. I've seen a lot of change for the worse with regard to this in my own lifetime. And many of you would say the same thing. And in some ways, I think we're returning to the wild, wild west of the early church as it regards the person of Christ and so many other things. A time where there was no religious dogma and every man believed what is right in his own eyes. Now, somebody has called this in our day, they called it the heretical imperative. That means It is necessary for Christians to be heretics these days. And another person says, this is where Sheila-ism pervades. Yeah, what is Shelahism? So this is a religion named after one Shelah Larson, and she actually named it this, herself. She famously said this, I believe in God. I'm not religious fanatic. I can't remember the last time I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way. It's Shelahism. These are her words. Just my own little voice. It's just try to love yourself and be gentle with yourself. You know, I guess, take care of each other. I think you would want us to take care of each other. That's it. Sheila-ism. Now she doesn't mention Jesus in particular. And this is, as we've seen a moment ago, the very same thing people do with him. Just make him out to be whatever you want. And getting him wrong is at the heart of all other mistakes, misunderstandings, or deliberate twistings, or heresies that undermine all true religion. And so simply put, what I'm gonna say to you here is that Jesus, Christ is the key to all true religion. Okay? Now with all of this looming as a background, I want to take five or so weeks to preach a sermon series on, here's the drum roll, because a lot of you have been asking, where are you going to go next? What book? And honestly, I haven't decided on a book yet. But since we're between the Psalms and something else, I decided I think I want to do a short little series. And what I want to do a series on is Jesus Christ. I don't want to look much at the counterfeits propagated by cults and false religions, and frankly, by a hundred million or so Shelahs out there. Because how could I really do justice to that anyway? And besides, what would be the positive pastoral value of just telling you all the things that are wrong out there? What I want to get at is the real thing, so that you can identify the genuine from the fraudulent, even with just a small amount of training. Most of you have had a lot of training. But as important as that kind of a task can be on an apologetic level, frankly, I want to do this for a much more basic reason. I've spent the past 15 or so years trying to understand this person on a professional level, as a pastor, so that I can present him to you. But really, it hasn't been for professional reasons that I have done this. It's for personal reasons. Because I want to know Christ better. And I want you to know Him better. And that's why I want to do this. It was really strange. I was thinking about doing a different series. I told one of you this already this morning. And then, this was like a week ago, I woke up. like one of those daisy foggy things, you know? And I was dreaming about preaching about Jesus. And then I kind of went back to sleep and I woke up again and all these thoughts kept running through my mind. And this has never happened to me before. And so I said, well, maybe I should listen. So that's how this sermon series came about. Somebody, one of my Reformed pastor friends said, man, you're turning like all mystical on us. Okay, I'm fine with that, if this is what it turns to, okay? So I've never done this in a concentrated sermon series like I hope to do in the next few weeks. And I hope you will benefit from it, even as I pray that you will come to see that this really is the purpose of preaching, of why we gather together, and of why we're Christians. I mean, even the name, right? Christians. So I ran across a relevant quote this week. This is the quote. Quote, the secret to Christian living is absolutely basic. Jesus Christ for me is the key to my justification. Jesus Christ in me is the key to my growth and grace and Christian progress, but it is Jesus Christ from beginning to end. That sounds like something that you find in the middle of a very long opening statement to the most messed up church in the New Testament. A statement that gets at the heart of all the other things that can distract us, vie for our affection and our attention, or tempt us to stumble in this life. The Apostle Paul said this, I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. So that's kind of the launching pad verse for this series. Now for today, I only want to look at the first part of this question. I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ. Rich Mullins put it this way in a song many years ago. Everybody I know says they need just one thing. And what they really mean is that they need just one thing more. Save me from those things that might distract me. Please take them away and purify my heart. Who have I in heaven but you, Jesus? And what better could I hope to find down here on earth? My one thing, you're my one thing, and the pure in heart shall see God. So this then is the deeper purpose behind this short series of sermons. Not merely that you will learn to recognize Jesus, but that through the study you will come to see that you have before you a treasure that is worth more than all the gold in the world. So that you can say with the psalmist, whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire but you. And with the wise man, you are more precious than jewels and nothing I desire can compare with her. And with the apostle, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord. Christ alone, that's the call of the Reformation, isn't it? But so that you can know him better and what this means when you confess him and shout him from the rooftops, here's how I'm going to do this. I'm gonna go in a series of five W questions that we have in English. Who, what, where, when, and why. Each question is going to fill a sermon. My prayer is that by the end, you will both know him better and know why you have given him or must give him everything in your life. So let's get started. Today we're going to look at the who question. As Stan said, Jesus asked this question, who do you say that I am? And that's what I hope to answer this morning. Who is this Jesus? The answer to this is the necessary beginning for anybody wishing to know why Christians have worshiped him for 2,000 years. But it's also necessary for understanding why his worship goes back way farther than that in time. Indeed, it is necessary for understanding why you must worship him, too. So we'll start with something that the Heavenly Father says to him not once, but twice, He says, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. The first time that this is said is at Jesus' baptism, the beginning of his ministry. The second time is at his transfiguration, just a very short time before he headed to Jerusalem to see the end of his life in his mortal flesh. In other words, this statement made by the Heavenly Father is a bookend of Jesus' entire ministry in his recorded life. Therefore, it seems to me proper to start with something like this. It's obviously important because this is the only thing the Father directly says anywhere in the Gospels as far as I can tell. And He says it twice. So the key phrase is that He is the Beloved Son of the Heavenly Father. So I'm going to talk about this word Beloved for a minute. It's really quite interesting. It's the well-known word agape. Okay, we all know agape means love. But another form of that word is found in Genesis 22 too, in the Septuagint. This is that famous story where Abraham has to take Isaac to the mountain to sacrifice him, okay? And in that verse, it translates this word that means only, okay? In Hebrew, Isaac is Abraham's only son, whom you love. But in the Greek, this becomes simply the beloved son. And of course, this story is like one of the highlights of the entire Old Testament in terms of its being typologically charged, being about foreshadowing the work of Christ. And it's well known in the New Testament too, because in Hebrews, it quotes that very verse. But this time, only and beloved becomes only begotten. It's very strange how there's this change. So what's going on is there's a circulation of ideas around this beloved son thing. That he is the beloved son, that he is the one of a kind son, and that he is the only begotten son. And the words are interchangeable. Now, of course, you know about the only begotten son. It's in probably the most famous verse in the Bible, John 3.16. John uses this term four times, only begotten. And in the second of these four instances, he's not called the only begotten son, but the only begotten God. We read that this morning in John 1.18. And so the apostles understood something about Jesus, that he is both the beloved, unique, only begotten son of the Father, and that he is the only God at the Father's side. And so he is equal to him in all things. Now, this is the point where nearly every single cult and Christological heresy goes astray. Right here at the start, because in just these few short verses and ideas, we have seen that Jesus Christ is the unique Son of the Heavenly Father, equal to Him even in divinity. To put that more simply, the claim is that Jesus is God in the flesh. And so the third of those four uses, the Word became flesh, or this would actually be the first of them, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen His glory, glory of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. So it will not do to make Jesus anything less than the very God of very God, if you want to be biblical about it. And if that is true, since there's only one God and you are not him, then what happened when Jesus came here was totally unique in all the world. Never before had it been done, never again will it be, kind of. This is called pregnant pause, kind of. What do you mean kind of? So some right at that point might hear those words and think big time trouble when you're talking about such a lofty vital topic as the incarnation. But since we're talking about the who question today, I want to make something abundantly clear to you all. This something is actually fuzzy and foggy at best in the minds of most Christians. In fact, some Christians see so little of it, or anything else of value for that matter, that they are now calling for, as one popular evangelical preacher is right now doing, For things like this, quote, I am convinced for the sake of this generation and the next generation, we have to rethink our apologetic as Christians. And the less we depend on the Old Testament to prop up the New Testament faith, the better because of where we are in the culture. Did you hear what I just said? This come from Andy Stanley. And he's one of millions of Christians who have literally no idea what the Old Testament even is, or why it exists, or more importantly, who it is about. But this is something he, quote, desperately is trying to help people understand. That is, not the Old Testament, he's not trying to help them understand that, but why we don't need the Old Testament. Never mind that the New Testament itself tells us that these very same scriptures, quote, bear witness about me, the me being Jesus. Never mind that literally every single claim made about Jesus in the New Testament is grounded or rooted or planted or quoted or alluded or echoed in the Old Testament. So what's with that uh-oh that I said a minute ago? Okay, I said when Jesus came here, it was totally unique in all the world. Never before had it been done, never again will it be, kind of. Kind of what? So I wasn't referring to another incarnation of Jesus or anything like that, or anyone else. And by incarnation, I want you to hear what we mean by this word, okay? The word itself means an act of being made flesh. But what kind of flesh? It's human flesh, carnal flesh, incarnation. You hear that similarity? Carnal is the word that means physical, human, mortal. What I'm saying is that in the incarnation of Jesus, God coming as a human, this is totally unique in all the history of the world. But his coming, that is his coming to earth, well that actually isn't unique at all, at least to the second person of the Holy Trinity. You see, he came here many, many times in the Old Testament. He just didn't come as a human. You see the difference? He did not come as one born of a woman in the Old Testament. Rather, he came as the most important and major character of the entire Old Testament. He came as the angel of the Lord. So, the question again this morning is, who is Jesus? In the Old Testament, this is kind of the half of the sermon here and then we'll talk about the New Testament in a bit. In the Old Testament, Jesus is the angel of the Lord. That means, first of all, he existed prior to the New Testament. And this is also understood in what we have seen a minute ago, because in Jesus being the only begotten, it means that his begetting is unique. It's unlike any other who is begotten. We're all begotten. Jesus isn't begotten like we are, but he is begotten in some way. Okay? So the point is, he is eternally begotten. That's how the church has answered this question. Jesus has always existed. He never came into being, but he was eternally begotten of the Father. And we'll see more of this as we go along. So the first time that the angel comes by that name in the Old Testament is really interesting. Who would you think it would be to? Maybe Abraham? No? It's to Hagar, the outcast woman, and he comes by a spring of water. Okay, she's there by water and the angel comes up to her. And that story reminds me very much of when the Lord Jesus came to another outcast woman, a Samaritan whom he met by a well. Isn't that interesting? He's the same yesterday and today. And in that story, it says the angel of the Lord found her, and he started to speak to her face to face. And he then made a promise to her, and that promise is replicated in the very next chapter when it says, the Lord said, I will multiply your offspring. Well, that's what the angel is saying to Hagar here. And amazingly, and this is something that nearly all who read the story of Hagar miss, The text simply calls the angel, at various points, Yahweh. Not just the angel of the Lord, but simply the Lord. It says, Yahweh who spoke to her. Why would it say this? It's because what Genesis is doing here in this story is it's setting up what will become the norm throughout the rest of the Old Testament. Though again, almost nobody bothers to actually read and think about what the text is saying. That is, throughout the patriarchal narratives, when it says the angel of the Lord in one place, in the very next place it will simply say the Lord. It shortens it. This happens nearly every time the angel shows up. For example, in Genesis 18, where we learn that three men come to Abram, two of these men are called angels later in the story, okay, when they move down to Sodom and Gomorrah, but meanwhile, there's a third man who starts to make similar promises of children to Sarah, and she begins to laugh, and it says, but Yahweh heard it. And then Yahweh and Abraham start having this conversation together over how many people will it take for Yahweh to spare the wicked cities. Abraham isn't talking to the father, he's talking to the angel of the Lord, to Yahweh. See, in good writing at some point it becomes redundant to keep saying the same thing over and over again. At some point the angel language just becomes assumed and it often just drops out so that sometimes all he is called is Yahweh or some other things that we'll see here in a few minutes as well. But nevertheless, the angel is around constantly. So I said that in that story he's called a man. Well, how can you call the angel a man? Doesn't that mean that in fact the incarnation isn't unique? And therefore that the angel of the Lord teaching that he is the second person is dangerous and heretical? You see what I'm getting at here? How can we call the angel a man and say that the incarnation is unique? Well, I will answer that in a second, but I wanna say this. Whatever the answer to that question is, If you bother to read, whatever the answer to that question is, the scripture is crystal clear about who this angel is, and if you bother to read the text, you'll understand that. And nearly every church father, and almost all the reformers, read it this very way. So if you have a tough question about Jesus, okay, don't let the question keep you from reading the text just because you don't know the answer. All right? But I think we can explain it. The angel is never called Adam man. He is called a more generic word, Ish man. So there's a story when Jacob wrestles with a man. Remember, that's what he's called in that story. During the night, and it says he prevailed. But who is this man? Well, if you go flip over to the prophet Hosea, he says, Jacob strove with God, he strove with the angel and prevailed. So how in the world could this be possible? It's because the angel of Yahweh is Yahweh. But how in the world could that even be? Well, it's the same way Jesus can be both the Son of God and God. In fact, as the Sodom story comes to its kind of climax, there's a verse that actually tells us that there are two Yahwehs. One of them's in heaven, and one of them's on the earth, and the one on the earth calls to the one in heaven who sends fire and sulfur to destroy the town. Genesis 19, 24. Go have fun with it. Unlike Mr. Stanley, who apparently sees no apologetic value in this or any other Old Testament passage, I've discovered through a lot of research on this verse, because it's such a fascinating verse, that nearly every church father of any repute used that verse to talk about Jesus as a second Yahweh in the Old Testament. And in fact, many reformers and Puritans were still aware of it, and they used it in their day, even though it's mostly been neglected in our own. But as I've thought about this, it's like what an incredible glorious truth, and one that fits right into the New Testament's theology about Jesus. The Yahweh of the Old Testament is distinguishable in a Godhead. There's one God, but there's plural Yahwehs. And yet, while one of them is Yahweh, he's also the angel of Yahweh, or as the Jews sometimes called him, lesser Yahweh. So he's right there in plain sight in the Old Testament, and you can make an argument that he's literally on every single page, and not merely in prophecy, but actually in person. So how would that not help you know who Jesus is? What would taking this idea that Jesus is throughout the Old Testament, what would this do? For the many people who are confused and wrong-headed about things like God in Christ or the evil God of the Old Testament, right? And the loving Jesus of the New Testament. Or this idea that Jesus kind of just somehow sprang onto the scene in the New Testament. Or any idea that tries to separate things that God does in the old from the things Jesus does and says in the new. And you can just keep going on with that kind of thing. So I want to look at what Yahweh means for a minute. It's that word in all caps, LORD, that you see thousands of times in your Old Testaments. I think that just learning the name can help you know more about who Jesus is. The word is explained to Moses by none other than the angel of the Lord. who told Moses the meaning from the burning bush. The burning bush story, it's remarkable to me how many people fail to realize that the angel is the one speaking to Moses. He says, I am who I am, when Moses asks his name. And right here you begin to see hints that Jesus is eternal, that he didn't come into being. He simply is, he always is. Because that's what the name means. Please do not miss this. The second person is the one saying this to Moses, because it is the angel calling himself this. It's into that theology that the famous I am's of John's gospel have to be understood. When Jesus makes a claim like, I am the good shepherd, He is hearkening back to the name of God and to places like Psalm 23 where it says, Yahweh is my shepherd. You see, he's claiming to be the God who never changes, who's the same yesterday, today and forever. And therefore, since he's a shepherd, you as his sheep can know that he loves you and lays down his life for you. This other name is given to this angel, that is to Jesus. Hagar gives him a name. She calls him Elroy, the God who sees me. She specifically calls this angel God, uses that language, Elohim, and uses this name, El, to do it, Elroy. This name tells you that Jesus is omniscient. He knows all things and he sees all things. When Jacob wrestles with him, he asks his name, and the angel says, why do you ask my name? He doesn't give him an answer. But you go to the book of Judges, and Samson's father sees him, and he asks the very same question that Jacob does, and the angel says, well, why do you ask my name? Seeing it is wonderful. He adds a little bit to it. So wonderful becomes the name. This becomes the very name of Messiah in the prophecy of Isaiah, wonderful counselor. Okay, which curiously in the Septuagint it becomes angel of the great council. It's all wrapped up together. In other words, Jesus again. You think about the word wonderful. Okay, to have a name like wonderful means that you are full of wonder, that awe is attributed to you, that you are glorious and powerful. How incredible that people devalue the name of Jesus so much in our culture and in the church. Beloved, He is wonderful. Have you personally seen Him as wonderful in your own life? If we were to take other names that are given to Yahweh in the Old Testament, they would include things like this, Elyon. Elyon means God Most High. Think about this verse in Luke. Who is this who even forgives sins? You see, that's something only the Most High can do. There's a word that means faithful God, Amon. Hebrews, Christ is faithful over God's house. The word Emet is the God of truth. What does Jesus say? I am the way, the truth, and the life. Another name is El Tzaddik. It means the righteous God. John says we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. The word El Shaddai, you've heard that many times, translated almighty. Very often in the Bible, might mean the God of the mountain. Jesus regularly goes to mountains to teach and show that he is divine. There's a word that El Deot, it means the God of knowledge. It's what they said to Jesus, Lord, you know all things. El-Kavod is the God of glory. John says, we've seen his glory. Glory as of the only son from the father. El-Kadosh is the holy God. What does Peter say? Honor Christ the Lord as holy. El-Shammayim is the God of heaven. What does Jesus say? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the son of man. El-Kanun is the gracious God. What does John say? Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Yahweh Shalom is the God of peace. What does Jesus say? Or what does it say? Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. Are you getting the point? Emmanuel means God with us. In all of these things, when people read the Old Testament, what doesn't come into their mind when they read these terms? It's Jesus, and I don't understand it. And yet that's the point of every one of these verses hearkening back to who Jesus is in the Old Testament. These claims are telling you that he is the God of the Old Testament. And what do they tell you specifically? Well, they tell you about his infinitely superior, incomparable, unchangeable, uncreated, incomprehensible nature. And so those words are teaching you. And they're also teaching you about His perfect, infinitely superior moral excellence. The very idea of God's nature is totally beyond understanding. And the names are trying to get at that. He knows all, He sees all, He is at all times. He's the most high of heaven and earth and nothing compares to Him. But he's also pure and perfect in all that he does. He's full of truth, faithfulness, holiness, and glory, and goodness. He is a good God, he's not evil, he is not wicked, he's not mean, he's not capricious. And it is the same Jesus who many people know this truth so well when they read the New Testament, it's the same one who's in the Old Testament. He's the same God. Now, as I said, all of these things are applied to Jesus in the New Testament, even as they are to Yahweh, who cannot be separated from the angel of Yahweh. And therefore, they teach you about his nature and his moral excellence. His nature. And to be taught about God is to be taught about Christ, and vice versa. And why is that? It's because Christ is the perfect image, the exact representation of God to man. And the place that you first learn about this from start to finish, from first chapter to last of it, is what we call the Old Testament. And without it, you have no foundation for any of the claims that are made about Christ in the New Testament. But with this understanding, suddenly you see the God of the Old Testament is Jesus Christ, and he is the main character in its entire story. He is not merely there in prophecy and type, but in person. And I pray that this truth would once more captivate the minds of God's people, like it did some of my heroes of old, like Irenaeus and Justin, when they were defending the faith with these very same things. But here's what I want to say, kind of transitioning to the New Testament. As incredible and glorious as all of that is, and if you've never heard that teaching before, you know You know, you're maybe kind of freaking out right now, and if you have heard this teaching before, you can remember what it was like when you first started hearing it. As glorious as all that is, okay, this teaching us, teaching us humans about God, okay, it's the last name that I want to focus on here for the rest of our time. It's Emmanuel, God with us. Now, when Isaiah gives that language, it's a prophecy, okay? He will be God with us. He will be Emmanuel, okay? And this will be in a way that he wasn't in the Old Testament. There's much that I'm gonna say about this in coming weeks, but for now, I only wanna keep focusing on the who question. So who is Jesus in the New Testament? The most important thing, the unique thing, the single greatest fact in the New Testament and of all world history is that the God of heaven came down to earth, not as an angel who is seen rarely and by few people, but as a man, as a son of Adam, and was seen by everyone because he actually became one of us. Now in a statement that's reminiscent of the way that the Bank of Canada taught Chalies to inspect real money, listen to how John begins his letter. That which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and touched with our hands. It's like he's inspecting the money, isn't it? concerning the word of life. The life was made manifest and we have seen it and we testify to it and we proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. So that's how the letter begins and it talks about the very same thing that John does in the opening of the gospel. He talks about the word. The word. This is not an accident. Nor is it some tangent, nor is it some apologetic against Gnosticism. No, the Word of God is simply another name for the angel of God. The Word of God often comes in visions in the Old Testament. Some of you kind of are reading through the book we're studying on Saturday mornings in the men's group and we were talking a little bit about this yesterday. The Word is seen in visions. We've talked about that before. How can this be? It's because the word of the Lord could be seen, not merely heard. And so sometimes it just uses word rather than angel. But now the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we've seen his glory, the glory of the only son of the Father. You hear that? I've given that verse already today because it's so important to understanding who Jesus is. In fact, the entire prologue of John simply drips with Old Testament language for the angel. Did you know that? Not just the word. It speaks about the glory in John chapter 1. It calls Jesus the glory. We've seen his glory. Listen to what Ezekiel says about this. And above the expanse over their heads was like the likeness of a throne, and the appearance of sapphire, and seated above the likeness of the throne was the likeness with a human appearance. And two verses later, that becomes the likeness of the glory of the Lord. Zechariah sees two angels that are talking to one another, and one of them says, I will be the glory in her midst. It's a prophecy about the coming of Christ. It's another term in John 1, it's the term name. To all who did receive him who believed in his name, it says. Okay, so when people read this, in fact, I want you to go and look at this John for a minute. Go to John 1, 11. I want you to think about the logic of this. Jesus is the creator. He's talking about creation, when is creation? Way early, okay? And he talks about John Baptist for a minute, and he goes back and he says, he talks about the true light in verse nine. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming in the world. Now, what's that referred to? It refers to Jesus coming in the flesh. But he was in the world, do you see that? And the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He was already there. He came to his own people who did not receive him. What people is that? It's not talking about the apostles and the disciples. It's talking about the children of Israel in the Old Testament. But some of them did receive him and they believed in his name. David, Abraham, Moses. And to all who did receive him, he gave the right to become children of God. And you see, it's the name there that's being picked out. To all who did receive him who believed in his name, And it's after that that he says, but now the word has become flesh. And we've all seen him. And I'm gonna tell you for the rest of this book about what that means. Okay, the name is language for the Old Testament and the angel. Behold, I send an angel before you. Pay careful attention and obey him in his voice. Do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your sins, for my name is in him. Isaiah says, Behold, the name of the Lord comes from afar, burning with his anger. And in thick rising smoke, his lips are full of fury. His tongue is a devouring fire. Whose tongue? The name. But now the angel, the word, the glory, the name. This is what John is getting at here in the first 13 verses. But now he's been made flesh. The point of these terms and more is that Jesus is the same God who came to his people in the Old Testament, but now the great difference, the thing that makes it all infinitely greater than before is that he came as one of us, and we stand in awe of it. And as we're going to see in coming weeks, we are saved and have hope and life because of that. Not because he was an angel, but because he became a man. All of this began in the womb of a young virgin Jewish girl named Mary, And I was thinking, if you were to compare any one person in terms of who Rome talks about compared to Protestants, without question, the one with the biggest discrepancy of times mentioned, okay, it would be Mary, the mother of God, as Elizabeth called her, mother of my Lord. And sometimes I think we talk too little of Mary. But the solution isn't to see that Mary is so great that somehow she's sinless. or a perpetual virgin, or becomes queen of heaven, or co-redemptix, or something like this. Rather, she is important because it is through her, with the help of no human male, that the Christ was born into this world. God chose Mary by grace. The Holy Spirit overshadowed her by grace. Her gift is utterly unique. There's no other woman that's had that gift. But it is the virgin birth, not the mother of it, that becomes the first thing. Isn't it? Humanly speaking, that tells us who Jesus is. He's born of a virgin. That's incredible. We've said it so many times, we don't even think about it anymore. This man was born of a virgin woman. Everything else rests upon that. That includes his sinless life on planet Earth. He was tempted in every way you are, but without sin. He's the spotless lamb of God, Peter says. He did the impossible and he obeyed the law perfectly, of which you have fallen short. Sometimes Jesus is thought to be a good man. You know, that's what a lot of people say, oh, he's a good man, he's a good guy. And Jesus was a good man. He was a moral example, people say he's a moral example. He is a moral example, but he's not, Just one of many moral examples. He's the perfect moral example of how the law of God is to be kept. This is because he's more than a good man. He's the only good man. Do you remember what Jesus himself said? Why do you call me good? No one is good. No one is good except God alone. And all this is true because he is God and not merely man. He has no biological father, and the virgin birth is necessary because he is God. And with all the false Jesuses out there, you need therefore to understand some things. He's often said to be a great teacher, but he's more than a great teacher. He's a great teacher, yeah, he's more than that. He's often thought to be a great healer, but he's more than a great healer. Jews wanted him to be a national hero, but he didn't come to meet their temporal expectations by taking the throne and defeating Rome. Jesus is king, but he's also God, and his kingdom is not of this world. He's said to be a man of love. How often do we hear that? But this love is otherworldly, and it belongs to a different age and a different place, even though it intrudes upon us here and now by the Holy Spirit. Jesus isn't here just to teach you or make you well or make you feel good about yourself. He came to show what true love is and to make it possible that you could be freed from the shackles of sin and death by taking your sin at the cross. And anyone who hears these words by God's grace will be saved and respond to them in faith. And the question is, if you hear all this stuff about who Jesus is, is have you done this? It says, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. And we have seen the only begotten today, the beloved, the unique, the begotten. We've just talked about love. And because the son is loved perfectly by the father, he knows what perfect love is. But the context of that love in John 3, 16, man, people hardly ever quote this. It's his death on the cross. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should have eternal life. What do the verses right before that say? As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the son of man must be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world. You see, this is love. Not that we have loved God, but that God loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation of our sins. What do all wrong views of Jesus do? They do two things. They belittle him, and they raise us up in our own minds. They attack his true person. They either make him less God, or they make him less human. And in doing so, they either bring him down to our level, or they make him more unlike us, because he wasn't really one of us after all. Give me a break, that's not possible. And so therefore, he couldn't actually do the things that a man had to do in order to save us. And we're going to look more at that with the what question next week. For now, my prayer is that you're able to see more of who Jesus is. He's the only beloved and begotten Son of the Heavenly Father. He's utterly unique in eternity past. He's very God of very God. And in this, he has perfect glory in heaven. Speaking of his own impending death and resurrection, He himself prays this, the glory that I had with you before the world existed, bring that back to me when I'm raised from the dead. And because he's glorious for that alone and because he's eternal and God in eternity past, for that alone he's to be worshipped and adored. But Jesus entered time and space and speaking all things into existence, he then breathed life into a man and he spoke with him and he gave him a law gave him a helpmate. He gave him clothing after they sinned. In the days of Abraham, he came to this man in a foreign land. He led him in a promised land where he made a people to be his own treasured possession. And they knew him, and they saw him, and they talked to him, and they believed upon him. And many didn't receive him. But then after all this, the unthinkable, the impossible, he became one of us. The Lord Jesus took human flesh, added a new nature to himself. He added our nature. And in doing so, he became the perfect mediator, the perfect intercessor, the perfect everything that you need to be made right with God. That's who Jesus is. And I pray you will see him for who he is and not who you want him to be. and that your faith would be put only in him, because he's the only way to the Father, because he's the only one who is the perfect image of God, and he's the only one who's able to send the Holy Spirit to give you life. May these words about who Jesus is be the beginning of much new life for all his people. Let's pray together. Lord, we need to compose ourselves and consider the glories that are before us. As the word is proclaimed, the very word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. We're going to see in the coming weeks much more about him if you permit it. And why it is that he is such a focus for us, but even here I think we've seen that he is glorious and he is God. And I would pray, Lord, that you would convict every single person in this room that Jesus is the only one who can lead us to the Father because he's the only man who is God. He's the only way, the truth, and the life because he is God in the flesh. He's eternal God. And we're sitting here surrounded with eternal realities that are flying all around us. And we need to grasp these things. And we can only do that by your Holy Spirit. But Lord, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit. The Father sent the Holy Spirit so that we would be convicted and know what truth is. And you tell us that your word, when it goes out, it's powerful. And it's powerful to save many people, and I would ask that you would do that today. For the young and old alike who do not know Christ, draw them to yourself, Lord. Help them to see the glories of Jesus. Help them to see he's the eternal being, his divine nature, his moral purity and excellence, his goodness, his kindness. Help them to see that he's the God of the Old Testament who judges sin and does not let it pass. But help them to see that Jesus is kind and today is the day of salvation and you're still holding out your grace to anyone who would trust in Christ alone. My prayer for your people, Lord, is that you would cause these words to sanctify them, to fall more in love with Christ, to know the love that he has for them, that you would comfort them when they fall away and then when they go astray and that you would lead them back by the good shepherd who is the Lord Jesus that David himself knew and talked about and sang about. Father, great and glorious things. We thank you for sending your son. And I would pray that his name would be glorified and magnified in your church and by all your people. And we ask you hear our prayer in the great glorious name of Jesus Christ. Amen.