SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
12/13/2015 7:55 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Witnesses of The Incarnation
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 1:15-16
Message of the verses: “15 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.’" 16 For of His fullness we have
all received, and grace upon grace.”
We
are now going back to talk about John the Baptist because John the apostle
again talks about him in verses 15-16.
He does this in order to keep with his purpose in writing the gospel “but
these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the
Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name (John 20:31).” John brings in other witnesses to the truth
about the divine, preexistent, incarnate Word, the Lord Jesus Christ. We first saw John the Baptist who said the
following about Jesus” “6 There came a man sent from God, whose name was John.
7 He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe
through him. 8 He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light. 9
There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man
(John 1:6-9).” We also will see much
more about John the Baptist starting in verse 19 of this chapter and also in
chapter three as we see him continue to be a witness of who Jesus Christ
is. MacArthur writes “Here the apostle
John merely summarizes it. John the
Baptist, of course, had died long before this gospel was written.” What we are
seeing in verses 15-16 is the words of John the Baptist. Remember we spoke of there being a John the
Baptist cult when we studied in more detain verse eight a while ago. MacArthur
goes on to write on this subject by saying “So as he did in verse 8, the
apostle notes John the Baptist’s inferiority to Christ—this time in the
Baptist’s own words. In contrast to some
of his followers, he understood clearly and accepted gladly his subordinate
role.”
We
will have some more quotes from John MacArthur’s sermon from March 8, 1970 that
go along with these verses: “Now he
says, "John the Baptist bore witness of Christ, I'm not the only guy and
he cried, John the Baptist, loudly and proudly announced Christ." What did
he say? He said, "This was He of whom I spoke, He that come after me is
preferred before me for He was before me." You say, "What is
that?" Well John says He that cometh after me. What do you mean, John?
See, John the Baptist was born first before Jesus was, right? John the Baptist
started his public ministry before Jesus did. Consequently John the Baptist had
a little group of followers, he had a little John the Baptist Cult that we
talked about last week and John's trying to counteract this a little bit so he
says, "Now listen, I know I was born before Jesus, I know I started my
ministry before Jesus, but Jesus is God, He's been around from eternity."
That's what he said. "He cometh after me is preferred before me for
He...what?...for He was before me." That's a pretty sweeping statement.
“Now he brings the testimony of all believers in verse 16, "And of His fullness have...how many received?...all received." That's fantastic..."and grace upon grace." You say, "What is that saying?" That's saying this, if you're a believer you have the fullness of Christ. You say, "I do? What does that mean?" Well let's analyze it. Colossians 2:19 says this, "In Him...that is Christ...dwells all the fullness of the godhead." All that is God is in Christ. Now watch this. "All that is in Christ is in us." Pretty good.
“You say, "But I'm so inadequate."
Listen, we go around and we think we're so inadequate, do you realize that you
as a believer have the fullness of Jesus Christ and He has the fullness of the
godhead? God didn't say, "Now go live the Christian life and see if you
can find some of the resources. Hunt them up." When Christ came into your
life He planted in you all that is God's. Fantastic. You know what Peter says,
he says, "We have all things that pertain to life and godliness."
Isn't that unbelievable? We have all the things that pertain to life and
godliness, we don't lack anything...nothing. Except as James says the wisdom to
know what we've got. It's all there, all the fullness of Christ is mine. Do you
know what that says? That says because Christ is in me my resources are
inexhaustible.
“You say, "But you don't know my
problems?" Well I may not know your problems but I know Christ. And He
doesn't have any problems. You say, "But you don't understand what I'm
going through." No, maybe I don't but I know what He went through and I
know He knows the way. You have all of His fullness...all of it. There's no
reason for a Christian to feel inadequate. It's all yours.
“And then he adds, and I love this at the end of verse 16, he says, "And grace for grace." You know what that is? Grace in the place of grace. When grace goes grace comes, it's just like this...it's like the waves on the ocean, one wave rolls in and right away comes another one, more grace and more grace. Ephesians 2, I think it's about verse 7, he says, Paul says that God is going to show unto us the riches of His grace throughout all the ages. Have you ever thought about grace? God's gracious love just keeps coming like the ocean, it just never stops. You know one thing, there's no such thing as stale grace. I mean, well, God was gracious to me two weeks ago and I'm still trying to thrive on it. No, no. Grace upon grace upon grace...you just get flooded with grace. And if you don't recognize it, that's not God's fault, it's not that the grace isn't there, it's that you would rather court your misery than express it in grace. And so we see God's grace as grace and the place of grace, grace upon grace, constant flowing of grace.
“You say, "Well why does God keep it coming
like that?" I'll tell you why, because for one second if grace
stopped...humph...you're done. When God turns off grace, He's left with law and
you've broken law and that means hell. And that's why Paul says in Romans
chapter 5 verse 2, "In this grace in which we...what?...stand." You
know, as I told you before, we live in a bubble of grace. And if there ever was
a moment when grace didn't come, we would be done because it only takes one sin
to make a sinner, one sin not under grace does it. And so God just keeps the
grace rolling in like the waves and grace in place of grace, and all the
fullness of God. You see a slight contrast between the believer and the
unbeliever? Empty, purposeless, meaningless, void, vague, no resources and the
believer, the whole fullness of God. Fantastic. I don't know how to put it in
words but I can feel it, can you? It's a reality.”
Well these last quotes speak of the grace upon
grace and when I was listening to this a couple of days ago I wanted to make
sure that I added these quotes to this section when I got to it as there is
some good things there to remember about grace and also John the Baptist’s
witness to Jesus Christ. O that we all
should be as bold as John the Baptist.
As stated the last verse speaks of the witness of
believer: MacArthur writes “Then John
called on the testimony of believers, including himself and ‘all’ who ‘have
received’ the ‘fullness’ of blessing from the one who is ‘full of grace and
truth’ (v. 14). Because in Christ ‘all
the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form’ (Col. 2:9), He provides for all
His people’s needs. That abundant supply
will never be exhausted or diminished; ‘grace’ will continually follow ‘grace’
in a limitless, never-ending flow.”
12/13/2015 8:27 AM 12/13/2015 7:17 PM
So we have seen two witnesses of the incarnation of
Jesus Christ in these two verse, John the Baptist, and then witness of
believers including John the Apostle.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: Just as
John the Apostle and John the Baptist were witnesses to the incarnation of
Jesus Christ, it is important for me to have this same desire to tell others
about the incarnation of Jesus Christ so that those the Lord brings onto my
path will hear the truth, that is that God became man and lived on this earth
for 33 years, that He was eternal God and also a man and that He died on the
cross for the sins of those who will come to Him in repentance and be saved
from their sins which He paid for on the cross.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Think about the things that I am learning as I study the book of John so that I can be able to pass the information on to others.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Beelzebub” (Luke 11:15).
Today’s Bible question: “Who said ‘We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write?’”
Answer in our next SD.
12/13/2015 7:24 PM
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