Ann Graham Lotz, introducing today's Living in the Light. God allows us to go into some situations or some circumstances. He can paint us into a corner so that we can see what He can do for us. And what do you do? You just pray and watch Him open up the Red Sea.
He can make a way where there is no way. You're listening to Living in the Light with Bible teacher Ann Graham Lotz. Today's message is titled, The Priority of the Holy Spirit, Jesus. And Anne will be teaching on the four aspects of the incarnation of God. In today's message, she'll give us insight to the first two from this magnificent passage found in the beginning of the Gospel of John.
Here's Anne. You know, our politically correct culture wants to strike the name of Jesus from government buildings and from government functions and from the marketplace, from public discourse, from boardrooms and classrooms and courtrooms and makes you sort of wonder, what are they so afraid of? You know, you can say just about anything in our society, but just don't name the name of Jesus. Why? Who is he?
So I'm so glad you asked because I want to tell you who he is. He's the son of God and he's the son of man. He's the lion and he's the lamb. He is the alpha and he's the omega. He's the originator and he's the terminator.
He is the creator and he's the savior. He's the cornerstone and he's the stumbling stone. He's the bright and morning star and he's the sun who rises with healing in his wings. He's the crucified Messiah. He's the risen Lord.
He is the servant leader. He is the king of kings. He is the baby of Bethlehem and he's the miracle of the ages. He is the incarnation of God's greatness and God's gospel and God's glory and God's grace. And he is the priority of the Holy Spirit.
Isn't he magnificent? Open your Bibles to John chapter one. And I want to read you our text. It's the first 18 verses of John's gospel.
Some people think this is perhaps the pinnacle of all of scripture. And certainly it's magnificent. And I'll try to read it carefully. and then we'll go through and pull out the characteristics of Jesus that are in this passage because he is the incarnation of God. That means God made visible, okay?
So in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. in him was life and that life was the light of men.
The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness is not understood or overcome it. There came a man who was sent from God. His name was John, speaking of John the Baptist. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light.
He came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world And though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, children not born of natural descent, nor of human decision or of a husband's will, but born of God.
The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. and we've seen his glory, the glory of the one and only, and I like the King James better, the glory of the only begotten son who came from the father full of grace and truth. Verse 16, from the fullness of his grace, we've all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God, the one and only, the only begotten son who is at the father's side has made him known.
What a magnificent passage. And there are four aspects of the incarnation of God in this passage that I want to point out to you. He is the incarnation of God's greatness. He's the incarnation of God's gospel. He's the incarnation of God's glory.
And he's the incarnation of God's grace.
So let's begin as we consider the fact that he's the incarnation of God's greatness. The greatness of God's person. We see his eternity in verse 1 in the beginning. not from the beginning. In the beginning of everything, time and space and human history and anything that ever was, Jesus was already there.
So he is eternal. And it says, was the word. And that's the Greek, as I understand it, is logos. And logos means the outward expression of the mind and will that controls the universe.
So Jesus, the incarnation of God, is the outward expression of the mind and will that controls the universe, except I think we can take it farther than that because Jesus says in Matthew that out of the heart the mouth speaks.
So if Jesus is the living word of God, if he's the word of God, then he's the expression also of God's heart.
So Jesus is the outward expression of the mind and the will and the heart that controls the universe.
so do you want to know what God thinks about you you want to know how God feels about you then you just look at Jesus Jesus is expression of God's mind and God's will and God's heart he was the word and not only is he eternal but we see his equality when it says the word was with God and the little preposition with means there were two of them implies there's more than one. We know our God is one, but he is three in one. In this particular case, speaking of Jesus, he was eye to eye with God, face to face. You know, there's no difference. They're equally supreme, equally sovereign equal in personality equal in power And he with God In chapter one of Genesis remember God said let us create man in our image the plural pronouns if you notice the very next verse.
So God created man in his image, he created he, him, singular, and referring to the Trinity, that our God is more than one, he is three and one, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.
So we see his eternity, we see his equality, and I'm going to put in, in verse 2, his constancy. This is the King James that says that the same was in the beginning. And I'm sorry the other translations have dropped that out because it's very meaningful when it says he's the same in the beginning, meaning that when he came to Bethlehem, he didn't go through a personality change. That Jesus is the same in the beginning, in the creation, as he was to Abraham, as he was to Moses, as he was to David, as he was to Elijah, as he was to Paul and Peter, and as he was when he taught his disciples, as he was when he was caught up to heaven, as he will be when we see him and he comes back to receive us to himself. He is the same, the same yesterday, today, and forever.
There was no personality change.
So that begs the question to me, if he's the same yesterday and today and forever, and if Noah could know him as a refuge from the storm, and if Moses could know him as the bondage breaker, and if Abraham could know him as his friend, and David know him as a shepherd, and Elijah know him in his power, and Isaiah know him in his glory, and Peter know him in his forgiveness and Paul know him in his grace. And why can't I know him like that? What makes you think you can't know him like that? Have you ever stopped to think? And I stopped to think maybe years ago when I was first teaching the scripture, I was teaching Genesis and came across Abraham.
And three times in scripture, God says, Abraham is my friend. Abraham didn't say God was his friend. God said, Abraham's my friend. And I stopped and I thought about that. And I said, you know, if God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and if Abraham could know him in a relationship that God identified as a friendship, then why can't I know him like that?
God hasn't changed.
So if I don't know him like that, there's nothing wrong with God. There must be something wrong with me. And I set out on our pilgrimage to know God better today than I did yesterday, better tomorrow than I do today. It's a journey of getting to know him as I read the word, I apply the word, I live it out. I experience him in my life and get to know him.
Nobody's going to know him fully until we see him face to face, right? But I want to grow in my knowledge of him and I want to know him like those Old Testament saints did. If they could know him like that, then so can you and so can I. He's the same as he was in the beginning. And I would just challenge, I guess to take up that aim for yourself, that you would choose to know God in a relationship that he would identify one day as a friendship.
It requires time, effort, time spent with him, obedience, you know, but it's the most wonderful journey you will ever embark on. It gets better and better and better until one day our faith is going to be sight and we're going to see him face to face.
So Jesus is the incarnation of the greatness of his person, the greatness of his power. In verse three, through him, all things were made without him. Nothing was made that has been made. Colossians one says that by him, through him, for him, everything was made that is made everything. He is the creator of it all.
So Genesis chapter one, verse one, God created the heavens and the earth. Verse two, the spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep. Verse three, and God said, and you have that little phrase, and God said, let there be light and there was. And all the way through Genesis one, there's that phrase, and God said, that's the word going forth. That's not nouns and pronouns.
John is saying that's the pre-incarnate son of God. That's Jesus before Bethlehem, by him, for him, through him. Everything was created that was created. He is the creator of big things. Our sun is big enough for 1.2 million earths to fit into it.
And that still leaves room for 4.3 million moons. I don't understand all that, but... The sun is the nearest star. The next nearest star is five times larger than our sun. Our galaxy has 100 billion stars.
I don't know who counted, but they say there are over 100 billion galaxies. and I think they're still finding them out there. And the Bible says that Jesus hung every single one in space and he knows them all by name. That's big. And he created small things.
All of our memory brain cells would fit into a one-half-inch cube. I think as I get older, my cube is shrinking. Our heart beats 800 million times in a lifespan. the wires that connect the information centers in the human brain if you stretch them out end to end would stretch to the moon and back that's tiny small and he's creative snowflakes no two of which are the same diamonds and dust and dinosaurs and raindrops and sweat drops and dew drops and blood drops and you and me and none of us are the same. He's so creative.
So he's the incarnation of the greatness of God's power, the creator of everything.
So how will you know his power if all you ever do is what you're comfortable with? You stay in your comfort zone. you never get out of the boat to walk on the water there's some things that God allows us to go into some situations or some circumstances he can paint us into a corner so that we can see what he can do for us It's like, you know, having the mountains on one side and the desert on the other side and here comes Pharaoh's arm and you've got the Red Sea in front of you. And what do you do? You just pray and watch him open up the Red Sea.
He can make a way where there is no way. He's the God of the impossible.
So I love the fact that he is actively involved, created big things and small things and things outside the box. And so I don't know what big thing you're facing. I don't know what small thing is irritating you. I don't know if you need some sort of creativity for some project you're working on, but oh, just turn to the Lord. Ask him to be himself to you.
If he could do it in the beginning, he can do it today for you and me.
So he's the incarnation of God's greatness, the greatness of his person, his power, his purpose. In verse four, his purpose is to give us life. In him was life, that's physical life. In Genesis chapter one, verse 26, he said, let us create man in our image. And then in chapter two, verse seven, he breathed his own life into Adam and Adam became a living being.
So Adam received his breath from the pre-incarnate son of God. and then Adam passed that to his children and his children passed it to their children. Their children passed it to their children. Generation after generation after generation until it comes to you and it comes to me. Our very breath comes from the pre-incarnate son of God.
He has given us life. And listen to me, it almost makes me angry and actually it does because evolutionists will tell you that we didn't come that way. They don't have any explanation for the beginning of life, where life comes from, but they say, you know, maybe an amoeba in some prehistoric pool, and then we just evolved and we came in. And what they're saying is that you're an accident. You're a mistake.
That your life has come from nothing. It's going nowhere. It means nothing. You can just live the way you choose because, you know, it just is meaningless. It's what you get out of this life that counts.
And haven't the, sorry, the abortionists bought into that when they say that the baby is a mistake. And I won't even quote what that politician said last week about an abortion. And it just grieves me, makes me angry actually. Because it's such a contradiction to what the Bible teaches. That there is a God up in heaven who loves you.
And he created you for the purpose of knowing him in a personal permanent relationship. He wants to bless you. And the evolutionists say we came from whatever.
So don't buy into it. Jesus, one of his purposes is to give us life. And I'll tell you something, one day every single person who's been given life, and that's everybody who's born into the human race, is going to stand before the one from whom their life came and give an account to how they spent that life. That's a solemn thing, isn't it? That's why we want to live our lives so that they count.
Live our lives for him.
So would you thank God for your physical life and then live it every day expressing your gratitude to him for the life he's given you. And life can be hard, and I know that. But sometimes it's when we're in the prison and we're chained and we've got stripes on our back, you know, just in a really hard place. And we start to praise him and we look up and we discover him in a way we wouldn't. Whatever that situation was that put us there, if that hadn't happened.
So thank him for the life that he's given you and the experiences in your life that you have of knowing him in a deeper way. His purpose is to give us not only physical life, but spiritual life. In verse 4, that life was the light of men. Ephesians chapter 2 says that we are born alive physically, but we're born spiritually dead. That we're like dead men walking in our trespasses and sins.
We have no ability to please God. We can't do anything that's eternally significant. We're spiritually speaking. We are nothing. Have no power to have a relationship with God, to understand God.
Romans 3.23 says we're all born in sin, separated from God. Romans 6.23 says the wages of sin is death, which means separation from God. We're all born of the human race as sinners, and as sinners, we're spiritually dead. That's what Ephesians says. They're all dead men walking.
Jesus came to give us abundant life, not just physical life, but spiritual life, a personal relationship with God now, heaven when we die, but life. And I feel like our culture, you know, they look for life and experience of life and satisfaction and fulfillment in pleasure and travel and clothes and houses and cars and sports and position and reputation and sex and all of these other things and they all come up empty. They have to have more and more and more and more because it doesn't satisfy in the long term. It's the spiritual life that we're looking for that only Jesus offers. It's that living water that quenches that thirst.
So he's come to give us physical life and he's come to give us spiritual life, but he's also come to give us light. And in verse five, the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness is not understood or overcome it. The light is stronger than the darkness, and the light reveals the darkness.
So I just define darkness as anything that not light right So if light is truth and righteousness and goodness wisdom then darkness is deception and foolishness, evil, wickedness, sinfulness. It's the opposite of the light. And so the light reveals the darkness. And if you want to know if something's right or wrong, you just turn on the light.
So my mother was years ago having dinner next to the head of Scotland Yard in London, and he was head of counterfeit department. And she asked him, she said, I guess you spent all of your time studying counterfeits. And he said, oh no, Mrs. Graham, I spent all of my time studying the real thing. That way when a counterfeit crosses my desk, I can spot it.
And if you want to know if things are right or wrong, then read your Bible. Turn on the light. If you want to know what your view should be on homosexuality, if you want to know what your view should be on gay marriage, if you want to know what your view should be on transgender things, if you want to know what your view should be on abortion, turn on the light. Read the word, okay? Read the word.
Turn on the light. The light reveals the darkness. I think that's one reason they don't want the Bible in schools. They don't want it out in the marketplace. They're so afraid of the light because the light reveals the darkness.
And this is something else interesting I thought of this past week when, you know, when I was growing up, our culture was compatible with Christian faith. And so people went to church, even programs on TV, you'd see families praying. And so light, if I brought a candle in here, it wouldn't show up that much because it's sort of diffused by the light. But then as you turn the lights off in here, that candle gets stronger and stronger and it becomes more apparent. There's a bigger contrast between it and what's around it.
And God hasn't changed his view on those social issues I just mentioned. And I haven't changed my view on those things because the Bible is clear on those things. But as our world gets darker and darker, then the contrast gets greater and greater. And, you know, we're persecuted, criticized, marginalized, whatever, but we haven't changed. This is the same that we were talking about when I was growing up, even 10 years ago.
And then as the world gets darker, then the light is revealed, and it makes somebody living in darkness uncomfortable. But Jesus came to give us light. And the light reveals the darkness and it reigns over the darkness. It's stronger than the darkness. Using that illustration of a little candle again, maybe this is silly, but if I went in the back into a closet that's dark and I filled up a paper bag with darkness and I brought it out here and opened up the paper bag, nothing would happen.
The darkness would evaporate. But if I turn off all the lights and light a candle and put the candle here, up into the last row you could see the candle flame. because light is stronger than darkness. And I want you to remember that when it comes to your witness. Because when you share your faith, you share a verse, or you tell somebody about God's word, or tell somebody what God has done for you in Jesus, and that witness is stronger than you know.
Don't sell yourself short. And it's not yourself. It's the light that's stronger than the darkness. And they may not like it, and they may push back, and they may resent it, but the light penetrates. And it penetrates through your testimony.
Verses six to eight is a description of John the Baptist, and I won't read it, but John the Baptist was so powerful in his witness. People thought he was the light, but he wasn't. Just a clear, strong witness.
So go ahead and share your faith and share with people that don't know Jesus and just turn on the light. The light penetrates the darkness through your testimony, and it penetrates the darkness through the truth. Verse 9, he is the true light that gives light to every man that was coming into the world. And he's the true light for every man. You might want to underline that.
There are not different gods for different cultures and different nations and different races. There is one true light for every man. It doesn't matter if you're American or you're African or you're Russian or you're Asian or you're Australian or you're Mexican, if you're Israeli, if you're Arab, he's the true light for every man.
Now here's Anne with this final word. There's a beautiful Puritan prayer recorded in the little volume, Valley of Vision, entitled The Precious Blood. Let me read some of it. Before thy cross I kneel and see the heinousness of my sin, my iniquity that caused thee to be made a curse, the evil that excites the severity of divine wrath. Show me the enormity of my guilt by the crown of thorns, the pierced hands and feet, the bruised body, the dying cries.
Thy blood is the blood of incarnate God. It's worth infinite, its value beyond all thought. Infinite must be the evil and guilt that demands such a price. Yet thy compassions yearn over me. Thy heart hastens to my rescue.
Thy love endured my curse. Thy mercy bore my deserved stripes. Let me walk humbly in the lowest depths of humiliation, bathed in thy blood, tender of conscience, triumphing gloriously as an heir of salvation. Amen. Praise God.
Not only does he save sinners like me, but he gives us victory over sin through our Lord Jesus Christ. Living in the Light is a weekly study in God's Word with teacher and author Ann Gramlotz Learn to listen to His voice then start making the choice to keep on going and believing and trusting who God is Go to anngramlotz.org Take advantage of the many helpful free resources to get you started Join us again for Living in the Light
