Jesus came to show us the face of God. For all of us, God wants us to come to the place where we see Him face to face. But to do that, we need to put aside everything else – and in particular the baggage which so many of us have acquired along the way.
John 1:1-5
What does it mean when we call Jesus the Word? The word is something inside you and you want to express it to someone else. But when we call Jesus the Word, it goes way beyond the expression of a truth or idea. He is the expression of God – God Himself.
In these opening verses, John is shouting to us the fact that this Word is God. He is at pains to point out that the Word is God almighty. This is the word logos. The word had been around for hundreds of years. When the philosophers talked about the Word, they meant an impersonal force, the governing force of the cosmos. The Holy Spirit inspired John to say that the logos they philosophised about was God.
The philosophers could have retorted, “Call that impersonal force, God. That’s ok. But He’s still out there and we can’t get in touch with Him.” But in John 1:14, John drops in something earth-shattering – this God who you say can’t be known, took flesh and lived amongst us. This was God Himself, the God who created everything. In Him all things were created. Without Him, nothing was made.
John 1:14
Some people say the Word was a God. But the whole of these verses shout out the fact that this Word was God. When it says He was with God, it means He was face to face with God through all eternity. He was with God. All things were made by Him, because He was God. This is in striking similarly to Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
Jehovah the Son was very evident in the creation of the heavens and the earth. The Word was truly God. Now John shouts again:
John 1:14
He was truly man as well.
Why did He have to become flesh? Why could God not reveal Himself without becoming flesh?
1 Timothy 6:15-16
That’s why we can’t come to God – He dwells in a glory we can’t approach to. We can’t live in that light. Only Jesus has seen the Father.
Philippians 2:5-7
“Made Himself of no reputation” – the word means He emptied Himself, of His glory, of His equality with God, His place in heaven. That was the only way that God could reveal Himself to us.
And when it says the Word became flesh, it doesn’t mean He stopped being what He was before. I could become something else and stop being what I was. Lot’s wife became a pillar of salt, and was no longer his wife. On the other hand, Lot became a father, and yet remained Lot. And this latter is the sense of the Word becoming flesh. He did not stop being God.
So we have a man who is truly God. He didn’t stop being God, but was also a man – one person, two natures.
John 17:4-5
He emptied Himself of that glory. It’s one of the most wonderful things in the Gospel. In the hymn by Charles Wesley, ‘And can it be’ there are wonderful truths about God’s love for us, how Jesus died to set us free:
At the beginning of the hymn, Charles Wesley has caught some of the awesomeness of what God has done. God took on Himself the form of a servant, and died: “And can it be, that I should gain, an interest in the Saviour’s blood…” It’s amazing that we can be touched by the blood of the Saviour who died for us! Christ died “for me who Him to death pursued. Amazing love, how can it be!” Charles Wesley got so excited and he realised what God had done.
In Him was life and the life was the light of men, and the light shined in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. This is a litotes – it’s an understatement. There are several in the Scriptures. When Paul says he’s not ashamed of the Gospel, he’s saying he’s proud of it, it’s the most fantastic thing.
John says the darkness hated the light, killed Him, sent Him to the cross. The Bible says we were enemies of God.
How can the immortal die? Because the immortal took on immortality and came to earth to show the Father. Who can explore the plan of God. We can never understand it. The chief of all the angels cannot understand it. God didn’t die for them, but for you and me. They’ll never know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of this fantastic love. This wonderful God emptied Himself and it found you and me.
Jesus is the light that lights every man who comes into the world. They all reject Him – but to as many who received Him, He gave power to become sons of God. There are some that light touches.
Don’t forget what God has done for us. Some Christians think God dealt with everything at Calvary, and that was it. But what about when I go wrong now and mess up? The blood of Jesus is still effective today in cleansing us from all sin.
Just as the Word was face to face with God through all eternity, so He wants to bring us into that same relationship, which the Son has enjoyed through all eternity. We can come into that relationship when we are cleansed in the blood.
God the Son is Jehovah – truly God as well as truly man. From the beginning of Creation, He has always been there to reveal the Father to us.
Isaiah 6:1-3
Isaiah had hoped for so much. Israel had been in the spiritual doldrums. The Word of God was not being preached or lived. They were at a low ebb. Then King Uzziah came to the throne, and Isaiah hoped for so much, but the King went astray, and he died a leper. And then we have these words in chapter 6. “I saw the Lord – He was high, sitting on a throne, and his train filled the temple, and the seraphim cried “Holy, holy”. Isaiah had a wonderful vision of Jehovah.
Here John quotes from Isaiah:
John 12:39-41
Who did Isaiah see? He was high and lifted up, it was Jesus. It says, “Isaiah saw Him.” So many times in the Old Testament, Jehovah the Son was evident.
We see John preparing the way of the Lord – Jesus. And it echoes Isaiah in the Old Testament – “Prepare ye the way of Jehovah.”
We all need to come to the realisation that it is God Himself we are dealing with – not mere man.
I wonder how the disciples felt, as bit by bit they began to realise this was more than just a mere man. Peter said, “You’re the Christ, the Son of the living God.” They knew He was divine. And you might think they’d got it, but a few verses later, Peter starts to rebuke Him about going to Jerusalem. How can you do that to God?
At the moment we are talking about recognising God for who He is. In all our dealings, we need to know God is at work.
One nice story in John’s Gospel, is about when Jesus had to go through Samaria, because there was a Samaritan woman there, and the Almighty wanted to meet her. She had no idea she was about to come face to face with God. She knew what she was like. Her life was all wrong, and she knew it. We might be tempted to look at this story and think, if God could do it for her, He can do it for us – we’re not as bad as that. But we are – we’re just as bad!
More wonderful still, Jesus got there ahead of her and waited for her. We’re like ants on the face of the earth, and God knows each one of you intimately. God waited for the woman. Doesn’t it speak to you of His love for each one of us? He goes out of His way for each of us, waits until the time is right, and then speaks to us.
This woman had no idea who she was talking to. And as Christians we are often like that. You have no idea that it’s God who is doing something in your life. How do I know that you’ve lost sight of God sometimes? Because if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t behave the way you do. If we really knew it was God we were dealing with, we wouldn’t behave the way we do. He’s the omnipotent God, and He’s the one who deals with us every day. But we all get side-tracked.
When we go through trials, God does answer – even if it takes longer than we’d like. He’s not going to let you down. When He speaks into our situation, we know, because everything changes – all our bad attitudes, doubts and scepticism melt away. The things which once seemed so important become pale.
I want to look at the story of Job. He went through things that probably we’ll never go through. He was an upright man, and bad things happened, just as sometimes they happen to you. Almost the whole story of Job is taken up with the arguments between him and his friends. The arguments are boring – they just go round and round!
Job is not a story about the devil. Nor do I think it’s about the integrity of Job. He was a man of integrity, but I don’t think that’s the main thrust.
Recall what had happened. He had boils, he was full of sores, he’d lost his family, his wealth, everything. But he never lost his commitment to God. And I hope that’s true of us. Even in my stupidity, I knew God hadn’t left me. I knew he had an answer somewhere. I just couldn’t find it. Job was a man who knew that whatever was happening, God was not against him.
Job 19:25-26
Face to face with God. That is God’s agenda for us. But Job didn’t know what was about to happen. He gets a bit silly, saying he wants to sit down with God and sort things out.
Job 23:3
He was an upright man, but he’d got distracted. He was looking in the wrong place, just as we do sometimes, and he’d said, “God, you seem a long way away.”
Job 31:40
Don’t get into that position when you declare, “That’s it God – I have nothing else to say to you.”
After all that verse, chapters 38-41 are God speaking. And this is wonderful.
Job 38:1-41:34
“OK,” says God, “Job – you think you know best.”
God goes on to ask Job about all the wonders of creation, and where Job was when God made it all. But He didn’t answer any of Job’s questions. He wasn’t interested. Some people who are not Christians would say He was a cruel God. But our ways and thoughts aren’t His. When we go through trials, we come out shining like burnished gold. God wasn’t interested in Job’s questions, just as He isn’t in ours.
Now we get a weak and humiliated Job – “I said things I should never have said.”
Job 42:1-5
Job didn’t necessarily see God face to face. But we’re talking about seeing God in all His glory and wisdom. Job was sorry for being so stupid. He got misled. But when God comes on the scene, everything changes.
In terms of today’s Christians, Job would be one of us. He knew God. But he still had to come to the place at the end of it, and admit he’d said things he shouldn’t have said and thought things he shouldn’t have thought.
I can say this to you because I’ve been through it myself. It may be that some of us have to come to God and admit that we thought our arguments were right, but He wasn’t interested.
Seeing God face to face: is that what you want? I know it is.
Sunday, 22 February 2009
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