Well, good evening. Compass Huntington Beach. It's great to be with you tonight. And I bring you greetings from Idaho and Compass Bible Church, Treasure Valley. And I just want to thank you for your prayers for our church and to let you know that God is on the move, even in Idaho, and God is building his church there. And you guys remember when you sent out Compass Long Beach earlier this year? Well, in two weeks from tomorrow, we are going to be having a service in Idaho commissioning. We are Compass Bible Church Treasure Valley; we're going to be commissioning Compass Bible Church South Valley, which is going to be going out, and they're going to be having their first services on March, the first of 2026. So, please pray for us in Idaho, pray for this new church. It's going to be meeting in a city you've never heard of, called Kuna, Idaho, Kuna High School. So be praying for that church, that God would continue to build this church, and just what God has done here in Long Beach, that we would see that in Idaho, as well. We would love for you guys to be praying for that, but I'm not here to talk to you about that. This is, I have the honor, this is my second time I've been able to preach to you guys this year, for which I'm just so grateful for. And obviously, I was called to preach this weekend for a specific purpose, with this being my dad's last weekend, after 35 years in full time ministry. But if you're here tonight and you're like, well, I don't know your dad, and I don't know who you are, I've got good news. I'm not here primarily to talk about me. I'm not here to talk about my dad. I actually want to talk a little bit about you, and I want you to think about your own life. I'm here because somebody is retiring. We're reflecting. We're looking back on how God has used them over the years. I want you to project a little bit forward in your own life, because someday, maybe you'll be retiring from whatever God has called you to do with your life. And there will be a time or an event where people come and gather and they reflect on what your career, what your calling has meant to them. Maybe you'll even reflect, what have I actually done with my life? Have I made a difference? And whether you have a retirement or not, what's nice about retirement is you can hear the nice things other people say about you. Well, someday we're all going to have a funeral, and people are going to come and gather and reflect on your life. What are they going to think about? What will you be remembered for? And as you think about that, some of you, you aspire to have an impact that outlives me. Some of you, perhaps, think it's already too late for that. There's no hope that I'm ever going to have an impact outside of my own life that lives beyond me. And maybe some of you, you desire that, but you know well, if things continue like they are now, it's probably not going to be the kind of legacy that I would want to leave behind.
I want you to think, and I want you to see tonight, that the ultimate hope to live a transformed life that is going to not just transform your own life, but have an effect in transforming the lives of other people around you, that hope isn't going to be found in you, that hope is not going to be found in me, that hope's not going to be found in anybody else you know. Any example maybe that you have, that hope can be found in one place, and that's in the glory of Jesus Christ. And that's what I want you to focus on tonight. The key to you living a transformed life that leads to an impact in others’ is whether or not you've really seen received and are sharing the glory of Jesus Christ. Please take your Bibles with me and open them up to John, chapter 1. John, chapter 1. And we just celebrated Christmas. You could think of this as a Christmas text. It often is read at Christmas time. And while the gospels of Matthew or Luke give a more traditional account that tells you about the shepherds and the wise men and then the birth of Christ in Bethlehem, this looks at the birth of Christ from a more theological lens here in John, chapter 1. And so, I want to invite you to stand for the reading of God's Word tonight as we look at John, chapter 1, verses 14 through 16. Please follow along as I read it. John 1:14-16 says,
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.
This is the word of the Lord. You may go ahead and be seated. But if you look at these three verses, there's a very simple outline that you could see. It's all about the glory of Christ. In verse 14, we want to see the glory. Verse 15 makes us think about sharing the glory as we look at the example of John the Baptist. And then in verse 16, receiving the glory. So see it, share it, receive it. And we're going to take that a little bit out of order, because verse 15 is a parenthetical phrase, and there we're going to come back to that at the beginning. But first we want to look at verse 14, and we want to see the glory of Christ.
Now, verse 14 is this incredible moment in the Gospel of John. It's not just saying that a baby was born at Christmas time. It's saying this there was a baby born, and there was no baby like this ever before, and there will never be a baby like this ever again, because the Word became flesh. Now this is a dramatic moment in the book, because maybe you've seen this in movies where there's a character that everyone starts talking about, and there's this build up, and then finally there's a dramatic entrance of the character onto the scene that's a little bit like what's going on here in John 1:14 because the Word he's been talking about “the Word since the very beginning of the book. Go back to verse 1, and we see what is this Word that he's talking about in verse 14. It says, there “In the beginning was the Word.” So, the word didn't have a beginning, because the Word was already there in the beginning. And then it goes on to say, “and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And if you've ever asked the question, where do we get this idea of the Trinity from that? There is one God in three persons, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. I haven't found the word Trinity in my Bible. Where do we get this idea from? And there are a lot of cults and false religions that reject this idea. But you need to see, well, it's actually all over the Bible. And one great example is right here in John 1, because we see a distinction, “the Word was with God.” And we also see unity, “and the Word was God.” And so, we see God, one in essence, but three in person. One God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And we see that there in John 1. And what we see, well, the God the Son, the Word, what did he do? Verse 3, “All things were made through him.” And in case you didn't get it the first time, “and without him was not anything made that was made.”
So, here's the flow chart. Was it made? Yes, then Jesus made it. The Word made it. That's what John is writing here in John 1, and even more than that, he is the source of all life. Verse 4, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” And all of that then builds up to this moment where, if you were scratching your head, saying, who is the Word? What is the Word? What is this talking about? Verse 14 helps make it very clear who he's talking about. He's talking about Jesus Christ, “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” That's the dramatic reveal, if you didn't catch it until now. Now it's clear I'm talking about Jesus, the Messiah in verse 14. And so, then it says something very incredible. It says, “And the Word became flesh.” Now, I know you guys at Compass HB know your Bibles. You guys have got this thing called Scripture of the Day, and so you're reading your Bible regularly. And so, you probably know when the Bible uses the word “flesh,” does it usually have a positive connotation or a negative connotation? Negative. It's not usually a great word. And so, this is not in any way, because we know from the Bible saying that Jesus was sinful in any way, but John is intentionally using a strong word. He doesn't just say and the Word took on a body, or the Word became human. “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” That is a statement that should stop us in our tracks, if we're really paying attention to everything that John has been saying, the Eternal One who was already there in the beginning, stepped into time, the One who created everything was conceived, the infinite in the pinprick of a baby inside of his mother, the One who created all things, was born as a baby in a manger in Bethlehem.
What an incredible thing is this. And we often talk about the deity of Christ, and even in maybe in evangelistic conversations, you're wrestling with people who struggle to admit or believe the deity of Christ. And we see the Bible speak to that. We see the early Christians had to deal with that same problem. But one issue that they also had to deal with, that maybe we don't feel like we come across as much today, is convincing people that totally accepted the deity of Christ, but they didn't think he actually became human, that they didn't accept the humanity of Christ. And here John is making the point emphatically, no, “The Word became flesh,” fully God and fully man.
Now, this may sound a little academic as we get here into verse 14, but as we keep going, you will see this is not some abstract idea. When you really get this, it will change your whole life because of what we see in the Incarnate Word. And it says that “he dwelt among us.” You could literally translate that “he pitched his tent among us.” Now in Idaho, when we talk about pitching tents, we think about going camping in the summertime in the mountains. That's what everybody loves to do in Idaho. That's not what he's talking about here, right? I read that in Idaho, people start thinking about, you know, by the river in the summer. You read this in the first century, especially in a Jewish context, and you start thinking about a tent. You know, what they were thinking of? They were thinking about a specific tent. You've probably heard of it before. It's the Tabernacle. That's what they're thinking of. And think about Exodus. They construct the Tabernacle according to the design that God gave to Moses. And when they do it as God told them to do it, what happens? The glory of God comes and shows up in this visible way and fills the place. Well now, the glory of God is showing up once again, in a tent, but not in some cloud over the tabernacle. It's showing itself in the Word Jesus Christ, born into this world, and we have, it says, seen his glory. Now, the Bible says that God dwells in unapproachable light. We can't see him, but this is telling us, in Christ, we have seen the glory of God. Verse 18 says no one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side. He has made him known that we see the glory of God in Jesus Christ. And even in verse 14, when it talks about the “only Son,” or maybe your Bible says “Only Begotten.” It's not really trying to get at where Jesus came from. It's stressing his uniqueness, that Jesus is one of a kind.
This same word is used to describe Isaac as the only son of Abraham. And those of you that really know your Bibles, are stopping and saying, wait a minute, Isaac wasn't the only son of Abraham. There was this guy named Ishmael. There were other sons later. But the point of it is Isaac was a one-of-a-kind son. He was the son of the promise. He was unique. In that sense, Jesus, he is unique. There is no one like him. Never has been, never will be. And in Jesus, we see the glory of God, full of grace and truth.
Now this begs a very important question, and this is where I hope you start to see this isn't you know, some theological knowledge you can go impress people with. This should change your life. What does the glory of God look like? What does it look like? Think. Now to answer that question, I want you to go back to Exodus with me. Go to Exodus, chapter 34, and let's think about that. What does the glory of God look like? Go to Exodus 34:6-7. And to set the scene, it's a scene you might remember from the Old Testament, after the golden calf, where they worshiped idols. And God even says, Moses, I'm going to wipe him out and start over with you. And Moses pleads with God to relent, and calls upon God according to his character. And so, God relents of the disaster. And Moses, in the wake of all of that, says to God, please show me your glory. And God tells him, you cannot see my face, for a man shall not see me and live. So, God says, okay, Moses, I'm going to hide you in the cleft of a rock, and my glory is going to pass before you, and I'll let you get a peek of the back of my glory, is how it goes. And then what I want you to notice is okay, when that happens, what do we see? What do we learn about what the glory of God looks like? Now look at chapter 34, verses 6 and 7 says, “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.” All right, did you catch that? What does the glory of God look like?
Okay, what I want you to notice there is the text does not emphasize anything visual. It doesn't describe the colors or the shape or anything about the glory of God. What's emphasized is his character. What is God really like? And when we think about John 1, and it says we have seen the glory of God in Jesus Christ, what does it emphasize there? His character, full of grace and truth. Now look again at the end of verse 6 in Exodus 34. It uses a different phrase, “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” And if you read just about any commentary on John 1, it makes a connection between this idea “full of grace and truth” and this idea “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” You’ve got “full” and “abounding”; you've got grace which pairs with steadfast love, and you've got truth pairing with faithfulness, the glory of God. What does it look like? Full of grace and truth is what the Bible would emphasize. What does the glory of God look like? He's abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. And those are things you need to not just know, those really are the truths upon which you need to base your whole life.
Point number one this evening: “Build your life on Christ's steadfast love and faithfulness.” Build your life on Christ's steadfast love and faithfulness. Do you want to live a transformed life? Do you want to live a life that God's going to use then to impact others? Then you need to build your life on those realities, the deity of Christ, the humanity of Christ. This isn't just some interesting fact. This isn't some interesting statistic. I like watching sports. Maybe you do, too, and sometimes you're watching and the commentator comes on and, well, here's an interesting thing: this is the first team that's come back from this far behind this many times in this state. And you're like, okay, that's kind of random, but that's cool, I guess. And unfortunately, I think that's what some people think. Oh, Jesus was the first person to be fully God and fully man. This is way more than an interesting stat, friends. This is a reality that should change your life.
And this does get me thinking. Even as I was preparing for this specific weekend, I was thinking of something I've heard my dad say so many times. And as I was thinking about that, I was studying this text in John 1, and I was like, it's right here in John 1, because over the years, I've heard my dad ask, especially when people like, okay, you've got three sons, and now they're all pastors. People like, come up to my dad, and they're like, so, can you tell us the secret? Like, what parenting secret did you unlock to make that happen? What's the secret sauce that you found? Can you share the recipe with us? And all the time, I hear my dad respond the same way. He's like, well, there's no secret. It's certainly not that I'm perfect. But in all my years, I've learned two things, God is gracious and his word is true.
You build your life on those realities. And do you see how those are right there in John 1? Jesus Christ, what is he? He's full of grace and truth. Do you see how those realities are right there in Exodus 34? He is abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. That's how you need to live. Do you see how much of the Christian life really comes down to whether you believe that about God or not, a faithful life that's going to impact others? Comes down to a whole lot of moments where you have to decide, okay, if I really believe that Jesus is full of grace and truth, what would I do right now?
It comes down to a whole life of okay, what will my attitude be in this situation? If I really believe that God is abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, you start to let those realities shape your thoughts, shape your feelings, shape your attitudes, shape your actions. Your life is going to change so much, so it's going to be contagious. People are going to start to see what's up with you. Why are you living the way you're living? Because I believe God's gracious, and I believe his word is true. And maybe you think, how can I know that? That sounds really good, but life is hard. Things are difficult. How can I know? What can you give me as a sign that that's what God really is?
Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, that's the sign that God gave you. If you doubt, is God really gracious? How can I know if he's really full of steadfast love? “God so loved the world that he gave,” Philippians 2. When it calls us to live a life of love and it's calling us to have the same mindset of love, it's saying you see this most clearly in Jesus Christ, who, even though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God, a thing to be grasped. But He humbled himself, taking the form of a servant. The Incarnation of Jesus Christ is not a subtraction equation, like some people think. Well, what parts of his deity did he subtract? He didn't. It's an addition equation. He added humanity. That was a humbling thing, as he says in John, “Father restore me to the glory I had with you before the world was made.” He stepped out of that and into this broken world. And that also answers one of the most important questions you may ever ask, one of the most important questions. Maybe you'll help people walk through, people often look out at the world, and unfortunately, we do see so much suffering in our world. But some people look at that suffering and then they say, well, and especially when that suffering hits close to home, and they say, Where's God in all of this? And the implication often in the question, how they ask it is God is nowhere to be found. But that couldn't be further from the truth. Where is God in all of this? Emmanuel. What does that mean? God with us. How do we know that Jesus came into the world? God didn't just stand up there and say, wow, look at all that suffering. Tough for them. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and came to seek and to save the lost.
That's where God is in the midst of a broken world full of suffering. How can I know that God is really gracious? How can I know that he's abounding in steadfast love? The Word became flesh. But then also maybe, if you struggle with, well, how do I know that God's word is true? How do I know that he is faithful? 2 Corinthians 1 tells us all the promises of God find their yes in Jesus Christ. How do I know God's Word is true? How do I know that he's faithful? The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And so, you let those realities obviously, we walk by faith, not by sight. We may not always see or feel those things at all times, but we believe even when I don't feel it, I know that's who God is.
That's what the glory of God looks like. So, I'm going to base everything that I do off of that. That is a great philosophy for parenting. God is gracious and his Word is true. One of the biggest problems for Christian parents is they're dominated by fear. What if this happens or what if my kid makes a friend like that? Or what about me? What if I do something wrong? Well, I believe God's grace is more powerful than all of that, and I believe that God's Word is true. I'm not going to get caught up in every fad, every trend. I'm going to base my parenting on the timeless wisdom of the Word of God. Do you see how believing this is critical through the most difficult things that any of us will have to deal with, the trials, the suffering, in those moments, it's so critical for you to see God is full of grace. He's full of truth, and even in my pain, he's with me. And how do I know that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us? Or as we think about ministry, we're all called.
You may not all be called to be pastors, but we're all called to be Christians. You're all called to make disciples. Is that easy, or is that difficult? It's very difficult. Next time you should say “difficult” louder, because it really is. It really is difficult. How are sinners like you and me ever going to make disciples? God is full of grace and truth. He is gracious and his Word is true, and that's what even though ministry can be hard, even though there can be setbacks, even though you can pour into someone and they walk away from the faith, even though sometimes you realize, oh, man, I didn't handle that as well as I should have. What gives you the motivation? What gives you the strength to get up and to seek to make disciples another day? God is abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, and I really believe that those truths, and you believing those truths, those are the building blocks of a faithful life. Those are the building blocks of a transformed life that leads to transformation, not just in yourself, but in other people.
Now, how do we receive those things? Let's go back to John, chapter 1. Now that's who Jesus is. But how do I receive of those things? Because that's what it talks about, especially in verse 16, “For from his fullness, we have all received…” time out. Have we? Have we all received from his fullness? What does it mean to receive of his fullness? How do I receive of his fullness? That is a critical question, and to answer it, let's go on a very brief tour of some parts of the Gospel of John. To answer that question, let's start for there in verse 16 of chapter 1. Just go back to verse 12, it says, “But to all who did receive him,” there's that same phrase. Okay, here's a new phrase. “Believed in his name he gave the right to become children of God.” Okay, so receiving him, according to this verse, seems to be the same thing as believing, believing in his name. Okay. What does that mean? Let's turn now to a verse you've all heard before, John 3:16. Just flip over a couple pages to the right in your Bible, go to John 3:16. You know that verse. But let's look at some really important verses that come after that. It says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him,” there's that same idea again, “should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
Okay, so there we see the positive response is believing in him, the negative response is not believing in him. But why in the world would somebody not believe in Jesus? Verse 19 helps us understand that, “And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” Okay, this is very important. Why don't people believe in Jesus? Because they love the darkness more than the light, because, hey, wait, there's still some sin that I'm holding on to, and I know that to believe in Jesus would require me to let go of that it. Might even require me to confess that. No, I'm not doing that. So, I'm going to keep holding on to my sin instead of believing in Christ. And look down at verse 36, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not believe” wait. I said that almost by accident. That's what you expect it to say, whoever does not believe, but that's not what it says. “Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” There we see the opposite of believing is I'm not obeying. I don't want to turn from my sin. I don't want to let go of control of my life to actually follow and obey Christ.
One more stop in this tour of the Gospel of John, go to chapter 12. John, chapter 12, verse 37. Now this is really at the end of Jesus' public ministry in the Gospel of John. After this passage, it's going to go to him in private with his disciples in the upper room. And so, it's wrapping up Jesus' ministry. And it says, “Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, 38 so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: ‘Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’ Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, ‘He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.” Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. Nevertheless, many, even of the authorities, believed in him.
And here now, we see one last concept we need to understand, we see that there is a kind of belief in Christ that doesn't actually equal saving faith. Many of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God. So now we start to see that the picture, what does it mean to receive Christ? It really I see such a glory in Jesus Christ. I see that he is full of grace and truth, that if it comes down to him or anybody else, I'm going with him. And if it comes down to him or my sin, I'm going with him. I believe him so much so that I'm turning away from myself, from my sin, to follow him.
When my dad became a Christian, when people evangelized him on his college campus and shared the gospel with him, they explained it this way. They said, to follow Christ means that from now on, Jesus Christ calls the shots in your life. That's what it means to believe in his name. I'm letting go of my sin. I'm letting go of my love for the glory that comes from man, and, Jesus, you're calling the shots, and there's no one better qualified. You're full of grace and truth. You're abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Real belief is so much more than oh, I believe this really happened. I believe Jesus really was born. I believe he really died and rose again. It's I see in the person of Christ such a glory that I am compelled to turn from my darkness, to turn from seeking the glory of others, and then to actively trust in Christ. The Bible has two words to describe that that it uses all throughout the New Testament, John, the Baptist, Jesus, the Apostles, and those words are “repentance and faith.”
Write them down with point number two: “Receive Christ's grace through repentance and faith.” Receive Christ's grace through repentance and faith. To repent means to turn, and faith means to trust. I'm turning from myself, my sin, the way of the world, the glory that comes from man. And I'm trusting in Christ. He's full of grace and truth. I want to follow him. I want him to be my leader. I need him to be my savior. Now back in John, chapter 1, what is it that we receive? It says, it's a beautiful word there. It's from “his fullness.” He is full of grace and truth. And so, when we trust in Christ, we don't just get part of him, we receive of his fullness. And then it describes there at the end of that verse, with this beautiful phrase, “grace upon grace.” Now what does that mean? Some say, and you might even see a footnote in your Bible that it could be translated “grace in the place of grace,” and they would connect it with verse 17, saying, “For the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” So, God gave us his grace through the Law, but now he's given us grace through Jesus Christ, and while there's some truth to that, because, as Paul writes in Romans 7, “the law is good, the law is holy.” We don't want to say something negative about the Law. In that sense, I'm not convinced that that's what he's getting at. I think, as many writers would affirm of this, this is speaking this phrase “grace upon grace.” It's giving us a picture of abundance, even of a superabundance, a never ending supply of grace that when you turn from your sin and trust in Christ, it's not like all right, here's a deposit of grace. Take that. Be careful with that. Don't use too much of it too quickly. No, it's a never-ending supply of grace.
One of my dad's favorite candies, what I observed growing up, was the Snickers bar. In fact, in his illustrious high school and college golf career, he would convince the guys that worked the snack shack after the ninth hole, hey, you need to start putting Snickers bars in the freezer so that when somebody's coming through on a hot day playing golf, they can get a frozen Snickers. Maybe you should try that. That's not the Bible teaching; that's just a free thing that might make your life a little better. Now, I like a Snickers bar. Who doesn't like a Snickers bar? But as a kid, it wasn't my favorite, because I would look at a Snickers bar and be like, it's good, but it's not big enough, right? It's like, three bites and it's gone. I want something more than that. And another thing with my family, our tradition at Thanksgiving, we'd go with our grandpa. He would take us to a fancy Thanksgiving buffet, and one of the staple desserts there at the buffet was a chocolate fountain. Now, as a little kid, now we're talking, I'm thinking, we're no three bites and you're done. You just go back for more and more and more. And I know every analogy breaks down. I know eventually that there's not more chocolate, but let's just imagine this is like Willy Wonka stuff, and it's connected to a river of chocolate. How do you think about the grace of God? Then there's a lot of Christians that think about the grace of God, like I used to think about a Snickers bar. It's good, I just don't know if it's enough. I don't know if it'll get me through all the trials in my life. This thing is really hard, this relationship is really difficult, this illness is so brutal, is God's grace. I'm going to have three bites, and then I'm not going to have any more grace left. Or do you see God's grace as a never-ending supply, grace upon grace? When you go through a trial, do you think, oh, man, I just used up a lot of grace. I don't know if there's going to be enough left. Or do you realize there's grace for every trial you'll go through? There's grace for every sin, and when you understand that, it doesn't become a license to sin, it actually becomes a powerful motivator not to sin.
Do you believe that there's grace enough for you to live a life of holiness and purity that pleases the Lord in this world? Do you think there's enough grace for all of that, or are you worried it's going to run out? The Bible tells us the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning, great is your faithfulness. That's what the Bible says. Do you believe that about the grace of God and, more importantly, have you received it? Have you received the grace of God in Jesus Christ, by turning from your sins and putting your trust in Christ?
I had a unique situation growing up because me and my brothers, we went to this tiny Christian School in San Antonio, Texas called believers Academy, about 175 students from kindergarten all the way through 12th grade. I was the valedictorian of a class of six. Okay, so it was unique, because I'm a punk fifth grader, but I'm going to school every day with my brother Bobby, who's a senior in high school, and his senior year, revival started breaking out among the juniors and seniors in this tiny Christian School on like literally, almost a godforsaken road. It was literally the road that people would go and dump their furniture on. I was there in San Antonio last summer with some people from Idaho, a lot of the Compass. We came together for a national equipped conference, and I took them to show them the church and the school I grew up at, and still, literally, on that road were couches and mattresses. Still to this day, that's where we were going, but revival was breaking out, and in my fifth and sixth grade classroom, one day, we're working on our math problems, and in walks my brother Bobby with his friend Matt. And next thing I know, they're addressing the class, and Matt is sharing his testimony, and he's talking about, yeah, I've been at a Christian school, I've gone to church, I've played the game. Everyone thinks I'm a good kid, but I actually just got saved because I went to something at my church. And they were talking about what it really means to repent, what it really means to follow Christ, and they were talking about how if you're still holding on to your own sin, that's not real Biblical Christianity, that's not real repentance. And as he was sharing his story, the Holy Spirit was convicting me, hey, he's talking about you, too. You see, I was a pastor's kid, and I can't remember a moment in my life where I would say I don't believe Christ, there has never been a moment where I wouldn't affirm Jesus was real. He died, He rose again. I would always have affirmed those as facts. But here's the thing for me as a kid, growing up in a Christian school, being a good Christian kid was pretty much the path of least resistance. For me, at church on Sunday, then at the same campus for school five days out of the week. Being a good Christian kid was kind of the way to avoid trouble, but I knew in my heart that when it came down to God's way or my way, I would take my way every time. I knew I hadn't confessed my sin. I knew I hadn't turned from that, and the Holy Spirit convicted me of that that day. And where did I go? Well, the other unique thing about school, because it met at the church we attended, my dad was always there. I went to my dad's office to talk to him about what I was feeling that day, to talk about the conviction and my need to repent of my sin. And my dad talked to me. He prayed with me. But what I remember, and maybe some of you need to hear today, is not what he said in that moment, it was what he told me the next morning. I think I was doing the chore of unloading the dishwasher the next morning on that January day in 1998 and he said, then you remember what we talked about yesterday? And he said, Repentance isn't just something you do once now, it's what you do every single day of your life. And you need to understand that repentance and faith aren't something you do to get in the door of Christianity. Those are like the keys in which you unlock every door in the house. That's how you live the whole rest of your life. Every day, I'm turning from my sin, and even as I grow in a Christian, I'm going to realize and see sin I didn't even know was there before. I'm going to keep turning away from that, and every day, more and more, I'm going to trust and affirm the steadfast love and faithfulness of God. That's how I'm going to live my life.
Have you received the fullness of Christ by turning from your sin and trusting in Christ, and then are you continuing to walk in that day by day every day, turning from sin, trusting in Christ, seeing there's more grace? It's all sufficient. It's never ending. Now, all of this grace, all of this goodness, it's not something that you're meant merely to share or merely to enjoy for yourself. It's something you are meant to share. So, let's go back to John 1 now and look at the verse we skipped over. It's in parentheses there. It's kind of an aside. Going back to a character, he brought up a witness, he already mentioned a guy named John. And this isn't John who wrote the Gospel. According to John, this is the guy we know as John the Baptist. And in verse 15, it's talking about how John bore witness about Jesus, pointing people to him. And he said he who comes after me ranks before me. Jesus is more important than me. Why? Well, this is interesting because he was before me. Now, if you really know your Christmas story in Luke, chapter 1, you know, wait a minute, John the Baptist is roughly six months older than Jesus. I think that's because John the Baptist knew what Jesus would later affirm when the Pharisees challenged him, saying, “You're saying Abraham saw your day? How do you know Abraham that you're not even fifty yet? And Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Because, you see, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was already there. John the Baptist knew that he was before me. Jesus was preexistent. He is eternal. He's more important than me. And so, John's mission was not anything about himself. His mission was to point people to the glory of Christ.
Point number three: “Spend your life pointing people to Christ.” Spend your life pointing people to Christ. That's what you want to do. You want to spend your life not making a big deal about yourself. You want to spend your life saying, hey guys, I found a never-ending supply of grace and truth. It's Jesus. Let me tell you about him. Let me show you about him. That's what you want to do. One of the most famous sayings of John the Baptist was “He must increase, I must decrease.” And later on, in verse 27 he says that “This one who comes after me, the strap of his sandal I'm not worthy to untie.” That's how great Jesus is. In fact, he was so convinced of Jesus, in verse 29 he's pointing people to Jesus, saying, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” And he was so committed to this that John the Baptist takes guys that were his disciples and say, hey, stop being my disciples. Go be this guy's disciple. Go follow Jesus. He's more important than me. He ranks before me. I'm not even worthy to untie his shoes. That's how great he is. John the Baptist was the opposite of so much of the entitlement we see in our world. Unfortunately, so much of the entitlement we see even in the church, that people feel like I'm entitled to serve God in some important way that John the Baptist knew no one can receive anything from God unless it's given to him. The fact that I get to do anything to serve Christ is an incredible gift. And one image that John uses that we can even relate to today to describe his role with Christ. He describes himself. He compares himself to a groomsman. We understand that today, if you leave a wedding and all you and your wife are talking about on the drive home is one of the groomsmen. Something went wrong at the wedding. They're not supposed to be the focus. It's not their party. It's about the groom. It's about the bride. That's where the focus should be.
Do you realize that this life is not your party? This life is not about you. Even we could go so far to say that when your life is done, if all anybody is talking about is you, something has gone wrong, people should be talking about the groom. People should be talking about the bride. If we want to mix our metaphors here, right? You're kind of an all-purpose wedding party person, right? I'm here to support the groom, Jesus Christ, but I'm also here to serve his bride, the Church, and at the end of my life, if I'm forgotten, that's fine, as long as the groom was glorified and the bride was built up. That's what I want to spend my life doing. This needs to be at the center of everything in your life. You may not be called to be a pastor, but what has God called you to? Are you committed to doing that work in a way that displays that you really believe in a god that's full of grace and truth? What is your family situation? Are you just raising kids to be successful and make sure they can get a job someday, or are you passionate? I need the next generation to know that God really is abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, and that's so true. They can build their lives upon those realities, that's what you should want to know.
At one time in college, my dad was at church with some of his friends. And some of his friends were, you know, football players at the University of Southern California. You know, that was USC football in the 70s. Was kind of, kind of a big deal. And one of his friends was there, and his parents were there at church, and he was introducing him to his friends, and he pointed, hey, this guy, he's an All American from over here. And this guy, he's just starting on the offensive line. And this is Bruce. He's just a guy. And my dad will probably be the first to tell you, yeah, he's just a guy. And guess what? So are you. And the point of your life is not so much what people are going to think about you when it's over. The question you need to be asking is, when your life is over, what are people going to think about Jesus Christ? And the most important thing about you is, what of Christ do other people see in you? And if you want to, when all is said and done, be able to look back and say, like Paul, I have fought the good fight, I've kept the faith, I've finished the race, then you better build your life on the same realities that we see revealed here in John 1. God is gracious. His Word is true. Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word is full of grace and truth. The Lord, the Lord is abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. That's who he is. Let's pray together.
Father in heaven. We thank you for this evening, even just this special occasion. We thank you for an example of faithful ministry, even as we remember these last 35 years of my dad's ministry, and even many here think of his ministry at Compass Huntington Beach and now Compass Long Beach, God we thank you for faithful examples that we see your Word even instructs us to remember and imitate our leaders. But God, the best thing we see in good leaders is how they've pointed us to you, because there is not any one of us that can act like we ourselves are full of grace and truth, that's only Jesus Christ. He is the one that has come to reveal the glory of God. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is the one we want, the one we need, the one we adore. God. I pray that everyone here tonight would see the glory of Christ, that everyone here would receive it through repentance and faith, and that everyone would share it. That would be the mission of everyone's life here at this church tonight. May we all be strengthened by what we have seen from John 1 tonight, and it's in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.