The Blessings of Grace
John • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 5 viewsThree blessings of the Grace of God coming into the world through Jesus Christ
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The Blessings of Grace John 1:14-18
The Blessings of Grace John 1:14-18
If we could read the opening chapters of our Bible, the book of Genesis as though we were reading for the very first time. We would see just how fantastic the world is. Because it is there that we read the refrain, “God saw all that He made and it was very good.”
You see everything God created in the beginning was perfect. The creatures He made to fly through the air, were good. The universe was good. The earth was good. The animals that walked the earth were good. His creation was perfect.
And Adam and Eve were the prototype man and woman. They stood as the king and queen over all creation- perfect in health, unfallen.
Along with their physical perfection they had a perfect relationship with God. The Bible tells us they walked with God in the garden during the cool of the day. They walked unclothed and innocent before God and each other.
What a beautiful picture that is for us. All of us long for what Adam and Eve had. We long to be restored from the effects of sin on the world. Sin brought us sickness and disease, hell and death.
I never want to minimize the drama that took place in the garden, but as much as we learn about sin in the opening chapters of our Bible, we learn that much more about grace in the gospel of John.
Grace is God reaching out to us in our sin, and I believe the best way to understand grace, is to contrast it with what was lost in the garden.
It is important we understand that grace is the conduit for all of God’s blessings.
Grace is God’s answer to sin. It is the remedy to fix what is broken and correct is wrong.
When my daughter was little I coached her softball team, and I would pitch batting practice to the girls.
There was one little girl that was so frail she could barely swing a bat. So, I just keep pitching to her until she hit the ball.
At strike four I told the girls in the field to be patient with her. At strike five I said, “choke up on the bat.” Strike six, “keep your eye on the ball.” Strike seven I said, “you can do it don’t give up.”
Finally, at strike fifteen she connected and hit it over everyone’s head. Her eyes got real big and I said, “run.” Not one of those girls on her team even tried to get her out. All of us cheered her on.
That is grace. God never allows us to fail. He picks us up when we fall down. No matter how many mistakes you make, God is for us He is not against us.
That is the subject of this great passage this morning. The blessings of God’s grace came into the world through Jesus Christ.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John testified about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’ ”
For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.
For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.
No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.
In our passage this morning we come to a major turning point in the gospel of John. John has been introducing us to Jesus since Vs. 1.
And in case you missed it, there have been no angels appearing in this story. No babies born in a manger. No Magi from the East coming to the little town of Bethlehem.
John takes us deeper. He takes us behind the scenes to explain what these events mean and why they are taking place in the world. He says, “The Word was made flesh.”
He has already told us, this Word is the eternal God, the Creator of the world, and now he tells us it was made flesh. It has come into the world. The Word has become a man.
He still has not told us this Word is Jesus. He saves that until verse 17, as though he is keeping us in suspense.
But we already know who he is talking about. We might not understand the incarnation, how God could become a man and yet remain fully God, but we understand Jesus.
We understand that He came into the world because God loves us and wanted to make away for us to be with Him in heaven. We understand That Jesus came so we could be forgiven and free. He was the manifestation of God’s grace poured out on the world.
Grace is defined as God’s unmerited favor given to those who don’t deserve it, and we definitely don’t deserve it. Yet God gave it to us in the form of His Son.
I want to show you the three blessings of Grace I see in this passage. The three blessings of the grace of God brought into the world through Jesus Christ.
First, It Was A Grace we could See, VS. 14 “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”
John tells us at a moment in time and a place in history, the Son of God became a man. He came to the earth in the person of Jesus Christ.
The birth of the Lord Jesus Christ was unique, because when any other child is born it is the creation of a new life, one that never existed before. But when Jesus was born, it was not the creation of a new life at all. It was the coming into this world of a person who had existed from all eternity.
This was something new. Something the world had never known. It’s no wonder the angels appeared to the shepherds in the hills of Judea singing, “Glory to God in the Highest, Peace on earth and good will toward man.”
The grace of God had come into the world in the form of a person we could see. God wasn’t some distant landlord that didn’t care about us and what we were going through but He was personal and present.
Now in Vs. 14 John could have said, “The Word became a man” or the Word took on a human body.” But He uses the word “flesh” here because it is jarring.
The word “flesh” in the bible depicts weakness and sin. And it is staggering to think that the God of the universe would show up clothed in weakness.
But John uses the word “flesh” because he wants us to know Jesus didn’t just appear to be a man, but He really was a man. He took on the full human nature, except for sin.
From the moment Jesus entered into the world, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, He would never cease to be man again. We call this the miracle of the incarnation. Jesus Christ is forever, fully God and forever fully man.
Vs. 14 says “The word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” The word”dwelt”John uses here is the Greek word “Tabernacle.” And he uses that word because he is connected this back to the story of the children of Israel in the Old Testament.
God dwelled in the tabernacle among the people while they were in the wilderness. It was a place they could see the glory of God.
In the same way, John is saying, Jesus is the glory of God we can see. His glory has come into the world to tabernacle among the men. He is Emanuel, God with us.
What is interesting is God was always been with us, but now John says, “He came in a way we could physically see Him.”
Notice the second part of Vs. 14. “and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
John says, “we saw His glory.” In other words, I’m not the only one, others have seen Him too. We are not making this up, this is not a figment of our imagination.
He echoes this same thought in 1 John 1:1–4
What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life—
and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us—
what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.
These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete.
What John is saying is; we have walked with Him. We have talked with Him. We have seen Him with our eyes and touched Him with our hands, and I am telling you this so that you can believe and have faith that these things are real and true.
When John looked at Jesus, He knew he was looking at God. The glory of God was exuding from His life and John stood right in his very presence.
Let me ask you this are you experiencing the glory of God in your life. You might not be able to see Jesus the way that John did, but today we see Jesus in one another.
When we come to church we should be able to see Jesus in each other. God’s people are to be the embodiment of grace.
We are to be living examples of God’s love, peace, joy, kindness, gentleness and self-control. And we are to share that with each other in a way that grace is physically seen in the world.
The first blessing of the grace of God is, it was a grace we could see.
The second blessing is; It was A Grace Everyone would Receive,
John 1:16 “For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.”
Notice John says, “we have all recieved it.” There are no distinctions, no one left out. Everyone benefits from the grace of God in Jesus Christ.
God’s grace flowed out to the world from the cross, and now the whole world lives in the era of grace.
Even those who reject Jesus benefit from His grace. God’s love and forgiveness has been made available. Anyone who will call upon the name of Jesus can be saved.
It doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter what you have done. God ‘s grace is offered to everyone.
Now there will come a day, for each one of us, when the era of grace will be over. We will meet the Lord and be judged on the merits of the life we have lived, or by the work of Jesus Christ.
The Bible says, “It is appointed once for man to die and then the judgment.” But, God has given each one of us this moment to choose. No one will ever be able to stand before God and say, I didn’t have a choice.
The proof of God’s love for us came to the world in the fullness of Christ. Every believer can testify to this truth.
The word fullness means that He is the sum total of all that God is. In Jesus dwells all the wisdom, righteousness, and redemption of God.
But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption,
All that Christ is, the very fullness of His being, is given to us who believe through the fruit of the Holy Spirit. In Him we are made complete.
Vs. 16 says, “From His fulness we have all recieved grace upon grace” That means, there is enough grace to meet all our needs, no matter the circumstances.
There is one blessing that leads to another, and His mercies are new every day. Everyday there is a fresh new experience of grace in the life of a believer.
In the Bible the word grace means so much more than what it has come to mean in the English language.
When we talk about grace we think of a person who moves with eloquence. Or an act of kindness is called gracious.
But for the early Christians they looked at what God had done for man and grace took on a much deeper meaning. He saved sinners who rebelled against Him. He showed favor to those who didn’t deserve His favor.
Grace became the kindness and love of God that was given to His enemies. The greatest example of grace was when Jesus hung on the cross and He looked out at those who were crucifying Him and He said, “Father forgive them for they no not what they do.”
That’s grace and no other word can express the heart of God like it. The difference between mans grace and God’s grace is, we are kind to our friends and the people we think deserve it, but God’s loving kindness came to a world that did not deserve it.
The first blessing of the grace of God is, it was a grace we could see. The second is; it was a grace everyone would receive.
The third blessing is; It was a grace that would set us free, John 1:17 “For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.”
For thousands of years the only way a man could be made right with God was by keeping the Law of Moses. God gave Moses the law on Mount Sinai and it involved much more than the Ten Commandments.
There were over 630 laws and commands that we had to keep. There were laws telling us; when to wash, when to sacrifice, what to eat, what to wear, and who we could marry. There were rules and regulations that governed every aspect of life.
If you were guilty of breaking just one of the laws you were guilty of breaking the whole law. When we come to the New Testament we are told that no man could keep the law, it was impossible to keep.
But why would God give us a law He knew we couldn’t keep?
He did it to show us we need Jesus. He did it to show us we can’t be a good enough person or work hard enough to please God. We need grace.
Grace is the great contradiction to law.
The law was given on a mountain that burned and quaked but grace was born in a quiet manger.
The law teaches us that we are sinners but grace teaches us we are loved.
The law demands righteousness from men but grace brings righteousness to men.
The law sentences the living to die but grace brings the dead to life.
The law speaks of what we must do for God but grace speaks of what Christ has done for us.
Grace is God’s gift to us in Jesus Christ and it set us free from the rules and standards of God that we cannot possibly live up to.
Colossians 2:14 “having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”
Ephesians 2:8–9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
We no longer work to please God we simply trust and believe.
Conclusion
There was a local business owner opening his shop one morning when he noticed a boy walking down the street with an old rusty bird cage. As the boy got closer he noticed there were a couple of pigeons fluttering in the cage.
He asked the boy, “where did you get those pigeons? And the boy said, I trapped them in the field out back. And the man said, “What are you going to do with them? The boy said, Mister, I got an old tomcat at home that’s gonna tear these pigeons apart.
The man said, “will you sell me the pigeons? The boy said, “you don’t want these old dirty pigeons mister, they ain’t good for nothing.” And the man said, “I’ll give you twenty bucks for the cage and the pigeons.” The boy said, “sure, here you go mister,” and he took his twenty bucks and ran away.
Each one of us are just like those pigeons, we are on our way to certain death and destruction and the grace of purchased us with the blood of Jesus that we might be saved.
