The Word Became Flesh

• Pray
• Text –  John 1:1-14

The Word Became Flesh

 

1)   In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2)   He was with God in the beginning.

3)   Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

4)   In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

5)   The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood^[a] it.

6)   There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John.

7)   He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe.

8)   He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

9)   The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.^[b]

10)   He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.

11)   He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

12)   Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—

13)   Children born not of natural descent,^[c] nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.  

14)   The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only,^[d] who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

 This time of year, we celebrate the coming of Jesus in the flesh, fully God and at the time of His coming and fully man. We celebrate Emmanuel - God with us. We should celebrate. Jesus is with us not only in the spirit world we can't see, but also in the physical, the touch and feel world you and I call reality. He's with us now as surely as He was that night in Bethlehem or that day at Golgotha or when He walked out of that tomb three days later!

John vs.1-14 tells us Jesus is God and the next verses tell us that He came to earth. Think about that...GOD CAME TO EARTH. God came to earth to fix a broken relationship with man. To re-establish His Kingdom on earth. To conquer sin and death - so that you and I, by trusting Emmanuel - God With Us as our Lord and Savior could have right standing with God.

When we consider that Jesus IS God and IS the Word, we know that we have access, through His Word  - the Bible, -  to The God Of The Universe. Through reading the Bible, thinking about what we read and prayer, Jesus will literally speak life changing wisdom into your life.

Takes more faith to believe than not to believe when you consider:

1.    Word of God 66 books written by 40 people. 2 Timothy 3:16 tells us all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness – The Bible agrees with itself – from cover to cover

·        In this day and age with fax and email I doubt if we could get 20 of our friends to totally agree on any one point let alone hundreds.

2.    The odds of the prophesy in The Bible that have been fulfilled the are about 17,000,000 to 1.The odds of unfulfilled prophesy in The Bible coming true are exponentially higher.

3.    History has proven – Hittite Empire - (mentioned only in Bible) A Hittite city has been uncovered by archeologist.

4.    Countless ruins and archeological discoveries confirm places and events mentioned in Bible. With these discoveries we confirm much of what is contained in the Bible. We have enough solid evidence that it becomes easy to accept by faith things we don't understand yet.

 Jhn 1:8,9; Jhn 8:12; Jhn 9:5; Jhn 12:35,46; Psa 84:11; Isa 35:4,5; Isa 42:6,7,16; Psa 49:6; Psa 60:1-3; Mal 4:2; Mat 4:16; Luk 1:78,79; Luk 2:32; Act 26:23; Eph 5:14; 1Jo 1:5-7; Rev 22:16

The Last Sacrifice

• Text: Mar 14:24 And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.
• Pray
• God demands blood in sacrifices – blood has to be involved

Hebrews 9:22-23 (New Living Translation) ²²And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. ²³ That is why the Tabernacle and everything in it, which were copies of things in heaven, had to be purified by the blood of animals. But the real things in heaven had to be purified with far better sacrifices than the blood of animals

• God set system of sacs. for children of Israel so they could stay in  relationship with Him. Sacrifices were  temp. until  He solved permanently disobedience prob. / Jesus. This system set in place as soon as man sinned  -  Gen. 3:9
  And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

a)  Goats, lambs, bulls, pigeons – remission of sins

Praise, food (grain) – worship / special ceremony, balance diet priests

b)   Circumcision – blood rite / signify God’s 1^st covenant : Gen. 17:10-11

c)   Heb 10:1-13 Message  Bible

1.    Jesus was last sac.

¹ The old system under the law of Moses was only a shadow, a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things themselves. The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship. ² If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared. ³ But instead, those sacrifices actually reminded them of their sins year after year. ⁴ For it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. ⁵ That is why, when Christ^[a] came into the world, he said to God, “You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings. But you have given me a body to offer”.
 ⁶ You were not pleased with burnt offerings or other offerings for sin.”
 ⁷ Then I said, ‘Look, I have come to do your will, O God—
      as is written about me in the Scriptures.’”^[b] 8 First, Christ said, “You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings or burnt offerings or other offerings for sin, nor were you pleased with them” (though they are required by the law of Moses). ⁹ Then he said, “Look, I have come to do your will.” He cancels the first covenant in order to put the second into effect. ¹⁰ For God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all time.¹¹ Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins. ¹² But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. ¹³

·        He pd. Price or debt for us – Colossians 2:11-15 (Message)

             ¹¹ When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature.^{[c] 12} For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. ¹³ You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. ¹⁴ He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ In this way, he disarmed^[d] the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.

·        Pd our ransom (definition) – redemption of prisoner or kidnapped person, redeem from punishment (set captives free)

Jesus called Lamb Of God – John 1:29, Ezekial  45:15,

Rev.7:10 (KJV)

 ¹⁰And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb

• Lambs always are sacrificed when mentioned in Bible

• Jesus’ call was to be the last sac. – to be redeemer – reconcile man back to God – Scripture on Blood Of Christ (at least 25 direct)

1. God can’t be around sin -
2. if God’s Kingdom in man’s heart, that man must accept perfect sac. Of Jesus and have Him (who knew no sin) live in them

a)            for gift to be complete, must be accepted

b)            a gift must be free – salvation is ; Eph 2:8,9

3. Shed blood of Jesus then washes away their sin – God made sure;

 John 3:16 – For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life,

Romans 8:38 NLT ³⁸ And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,^[a] neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.

Christ was the last sacrifice needed by God – he paid the price (forgiveness for our sins of the past, present and future

Psalm 1 - Contrast Of The Righteuos And Wicked

Psalms - The psalms are the production of various authors. "Only a portion of the Book of Psalms claims David as its author. Other inspired poets in successive generations added now one now another contribution to the sacred collection, and thus in the wisdom of Providence it more completely reflects every phase of human emotion and circumstances than it otherwise could." But it is especially to David and his contemporaries that we owe this precious book. In the "titles" of the psalms, the genuineness of which there is no sufficient reason to doubt, 73 are ascribed to David. Peter and John (acts 4:25) ascribe to him also the second psalm, which is one of the 48 that are anonymous. About two-thirds of the whole collection have been ascribed to David.

The whole collection extends over a period of about 1,000 years. There are in the New Testament 116 direct quotations from the Psalms.

The Psalms are divided, after the analogy of the Pentateuch, into five books, each closing with a doxology or benediction:

Pray – open meeting

·        The word Psalms for all practical purposes means praise song.

·        This is first psalm and it points out the reward of the righteous and the wicked.

·        The word righteous literally means right standing with God. – How do we get to have right standing with God? (HIS SON, Invite to be saved)

·        The Word Of God is called by the Psalmist David (73), a lamp unto my feet – it is our road - map

Psalm 1

 1 Blessed is the man
    who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
    or stand in the way of sinners
    or sit in the seat of mockers.

God always tells us what is good for us but at the same time, gives us the choice what to do, whether to follow His direction or not. In this verse, He uses the word “blessed” to imply what is good for us – but this verse also implies we have a choice.
Duet 6 : 7-9 - read
Josh 24:15 – read

 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
       and on his law he meditates day and night.

His Love for us is unconditional – His love is unconditional. His blessings, however, depend on us fulfilling a condition. Nothing but being obedient. - how? (meditate on His Word – all the time)  Read -Josh 1:8

^{Exodus 1:18-20  18} Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”¹⁹ The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.²⁰ So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous

Interesting to note that for God to further His Master Purpose – restoring His Kingdom on earth HIS end does seamingly justify the means. However, when looked at in the context of love (for humanity, His children – us, nothing is more important than His “kids”) it is consistent with his command of being under authority (civil, familial, workplace, etc).  He only does what is best for us. The Egyptians had the chance to follow just as all of humanity did.

Ex 2:23 & 24   23 Years passed, and the king of Egypt died. But the Israelites still groaned beneath their burden of slavery. They cried out for help, and their pleas for deliverance rose up to God. 24 God heard their cries and remembered his covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25 He looked down on the Israelites and felt deep concern for their welfare.

Also – GOD Always keeps His promises – in this case His covenant to 

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
       which yields its fruit in season
       and whose leaf does not wither.
       Whatever he does prospers.
    
 ·        God's children are so saturated with his grace, that whatever comes to them,                works and tends to their salvation as long as they are rooted in Him.

·        He want His children to “yield fruit” – work for The Kingdom

·        To be successful so as not to be discouraged

4       Not so the wicked!
       They are like chaff
       that the wind blows away.   

4 &5 dealt with equally here :  (read)Isaiah & 17Mat 3:12 

5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous            

          
 The idea here is that people who do not have right standing with God (righteousness, Gained by accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior) through His Son Jesus, will be discarded like the waste of harvesting wheat. 
Many times in the Word is the Kingdom and It’s principles likened to a harvest. – Mat 9:37 -38                                                   

6   For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
     but the way of the wicked will perish.

2 Tim 2:19 - read

·        We can know the lord by being / staying in HIS WORD everyday. Find a verse first thing every morning – learn it, write it down if you need to, lay the ground work to meditate on that verse 4 – 5 times in that day.

·        Do right! Plain and simple. Always keep your word, even if not convenient, always do what you say you are going to do – if not let that person know.

Prov 14:12 - read

• God’s Word is the road map
• Lean not to your own understanding – God is saying “ trust Me” – over and over again in HIS WORD – that is His plea to us – “trust Me”

Rom 6:21 - read

• God says to you and me, quit doing things your way,  know  Me, trust me even though My Ways don’t make sense to you or the world sometimes. Your ways only screw things up. Rely on me and I will give you  the /  My wisdom to make the right decisions,

And what happen then?  Josh 1:8 says we will be prosperous and successful.

It will not always be easy, opposition by friends, family, enemy -  (examples)                 When things going good car breakdown, pressure on marriage, finances etc. In the long run though, I have read the end of the book and we win!

How to have favor with The Lord

• Keep company with people who know God – when you ask advice get it from Godly people –

Meditate on the Word every day – get close to & know God – He longs to have fellowship with us. He thinks about us -        

 Psalm 8  says :  3 When I consider Your heavens, the work of your fingers,
          the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

                                        4 what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you  care for him?

Get to know God through prayer and reading The Word, do the right thing on purpose, help people (remember, He says that when we draw near to Him He will draw near to us). – He never changes, it is always up to us!