December 15, 2024 | Fullness in Frailty

Transcript

Introduction: Fullness and Emptiness

How many things in our world feel empty? I don’t mean that they feel empty the very first time you try them. I don’t mean that they always feel as empty as they could feel. I mean, how many things do you think, this is it! This is the one that’s going to satisfy me, that’s going to fulfill me. I’ve got this figured out. And you get a little bit down the road and it’s empty. Or at least it’s not everything you thought it would be.

That could be as simple as that meal you thought was amazing. You know, we’re hungry the next day, amazingly enough. I’ve had a few meals I thought I wasn’t gonna need to eat for a week. But you know, it never works that way.

How many things in our world happen because we feel empty? A whole lot of bad things come. I started trying to list and I thought there’s more than I can list. We’re empty, we want something, so we lie to try and get it. We’re not satisfied with what we have, maybe even with what we need. We feel empty, so we steal. We feel empty and we think, that person is getting all the attention and the credit, so we envy. We covet. We feel empty and we want to control what’s around us, so we manipulate. Or we abuse.

Now of course, some things happen because we feel empty and we’re driven to try to do something that is, is good. We try to accomplish a goal. So not everything are what we would think of as bad results. But if you’re motivated to accomplish something because you feel empty inside, it’s miserable because it’s never enough and it never really satisfies.

Or we could flip it around. Instead of talking about emptiness, let’s talk about fulfillment. That’s the opposite. And so we say things like, I’m just not feeling really fulfilled with my job, or my relationships, my opportunities. We’re sensing a kind of emptiness and it’s, it’s driving us to something.

Now does God sometimes drive us that way? Does he guide us sometimes by saying, This doesn’t feel like what I’m really meant to be doing and it doesn’t feel fulfilling. And so he leads us somewhere else. Sure. In a few weeks, we’re going to come back and we’ll talk more about that. But there was a man, some of you might know this name, famous inspirational speaker, Tony Robbins said this success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure.

He understood that the success wasn’t really the point and that you could have success and not feel full. You could have success and feel empty. You could have success without fulfillment.

So what would it be like if you knew someone who had no emptiness? What would that person be like? If you said, every time I’m around them, like, none of these things that are motivated by emptiness describe them. They just seem full of contentment and peace and love and joy, patience, and you might recognize that list.

What would it be like if you felt that, if you never felt the slightest bit of emptiness?

Christmas and The Fullness of Christ

In John chapter one, we get this incredible prologue. We could talk for weeks on only the section, first 18 verses that we’re going to talk about, but I want to draw your attention to one thought, and then we’re going to take some time to meditate really, how Christmas relates to this particular passage of Scripture.

Because John 1 begins talking about the Word, he gets to verse 14 and he says, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. That’s Christmas. Jesus took on flesh. We use the word incarnation. He took on human form. And He lived and walked on this earth. And we get to verse 16 and this phrase, I hope this phrase will stick in your mind. I hope for the rest of Christmas, this phrase bounces around your head.

Actually for the rest of your life, but we’ll say Christmas. Verse 16, for from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace.

These words are used of Jesus other places. Colossians says, In him the whole fullness of God dwells bodily. You want to know what kind of fullness? That kind of fullness. Colossians 1 says, In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. Or Romans 15 uses this phrase, The fullness of the blessing of Christ. We could flip that around for John and say, The blessing of the fullness of Christ.

Because Jesus had no emptiness. And from his fullness, we receive grace. So here’s what the plan for this morning, as we go through this text, I want you to think, what does this tell you about the fullness of Jesus? And that matters for you because John says, you receive grace from the fullness of Jesus.

So everything we can see about fullness of Jesus is supposed to be grace or favor or help for you. And you won’t really grasp the grace God has for you at Christmas without seeing the fullness of Jesus. That’s what verse 16 says. His grace for you and His fullness are linked. So I want to pray one more time before we look at that.

Prayer of Ephesians 3

I I want to pray the words of Ephesians 3. God, my prayer for us this morning. Like Paul prayed for the Ephesians is that we would know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. That we would be filled with all the fullness of God. Those are big huge requests and things that it seems like we almost couldn’t even do. And we can’t in ourselves. But you have demonstrated your love you’ve told us about your fullness, so come by your Spirit and work in each of our hearts, give us grace as we see your fullness, Jesus. In your name, Amen.

Reading of John 1:1-18

I’m gonna read beginning in verse 1 of John. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.

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. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

The true light, which gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him. Yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

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 for the law was given through Moses.

Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The only God who is at the Father’s side. He has made him known.

A Divine Fullness

So this morning we’re just going to take little snapshots of the fullness of Christ from this text. The first thing is that this is a divine fullness. It’s not the kind of fullness that you could have after a good meal. It’s not the kind of fullness humans could conjure up. It’s not the person who says, this is what I’m living life for and I’ve achieved it. There’s a kind of fullness in that this is not that.

This is beyond that. This is a divine fullness. It’s divine because it starts with He’s, He’s eternal. In the beginning, the Word, the Eternal Son, always existed.

He had no beginning. There was never a time when the Word did not exist. Now, in our modern world, there are things about Christianity that people will often struggle to believe. Sometimes, in, in more secular sections maybe of the country, people will scoff at them. Whether that’s the idea that God became human, or the virgin birth, or the feeding of the 5, 000. There are many things.

Sometimes people scoff at them, but often, especially in a post Christian influenced United States, like where we live, often what happens is people don’t scoff at it, they just say, I’m not sure I can believe these things, so I’m going to subtract some of these ideas out of Christianity, and still have a good system to live with.

Well, that’s really not what Christianity offers. That’s not what scripture puts before you. It’s not a set of decent ideas if you take out all the supernatural stuff. It’s either supernatural and true and miraculous and from God, or it’s not really worth having at all.

And besides that, that’s not really how secular thinking comes about anyway. It’s not like people say, we’ll just take out the miraculous and keep all the Christian things. Really, secular thinking starts with an alternate set of faith beliefs. An alternate set of things that you would say, I believe that’s true and I can’t prove it. Whether that has to do with morality, whether that has to do with origin or destiny or meaning or purpose or anything like that. Our culture will tell you your choices are, believe the common sense stuff everybody believes, or add to it spiritual things.

That’s not the choice. The choice is, believe what God has revealed in Scripture, which includes miraculous things, or accept an alternate faith. That’s really what the choice is.

So these ideas, these truths, like we look at in John 1, when we talk about, like The word both was distinct from God and yet he was God. So that’s what we call the Trinity. When we talk about the incarnation, when we talk about the virgin birth, these are not optional additions to Christianity or optional additions if you happen to want to include them. They’re part of what God reveals in scripture. This is truth. This is the Christianity that God gives you here.

And you’re not going to know the fullness of grace found in Jesus. If you try to take out all the miraculous things. And that’s the whole point of what we’re doing. As we go through, we could say a million things about this text, but the point is his fullness gives you grace upon grace upon grace. If you look at Jesus and say now all that stuff about the word and eternally existing, I don’t think that makes any sense. But Jesus says, love your neighbor. I’ll take that one. You won’t see all the grace that Jesus actually has to give to you because you’re ignoring the fullness of Jesus.

So in every way you can imagine, this is divine, infinite fullness. So take a moment and think, what is it like for Jesus to have infinite power and wisdom?

I want you to imagine something you really hope is true in 10 years. Whatever it is. Now, you may have plans for how you’re going to try to have that happen, but you can’t guarantee it. You don’t have the power. Not only that, if we were to back up, there probably were some things you would have said maybe five years ago, you’d say, I hope that happens in 10 years. And now you’re like, I’m so glad that didn’t happen the way I wanted it to.

Now, what Jesus has, His fullness is such that His power and His wisdom, He not only knows the absolute best things to happen in ten years and a hundred years and a million years, but He can bring them about.

That’s part of His fullness. And if you see His fullness, His divine fullness, that’s grace to me because I don’t have to rely on myself to work it all out. I can trust the one who has infinite power and wisdom.

Infinitely Full Goodness

What about infinitely full goodness? I tried to think of a way to give an example for that and I can’t. Other than Jesus. To think of someone who has such fullness in his goodness that you could explore every little section of who he is and never find anything that’s not fully good.

In our best days, we’re nowhere near that.

But if you see his fullness of his goodness, that’s grace to you. Because then when you come to Jesus, you aren’t wondering what’s around the corner. Have I irritated him enough that now I’m going to find the part that’s not good? No. Because you see his fullness.

He uses this phrase in verse four, in him was life and the life was the light of men. We could talk about fullness of like existence. He doesn’t depend on anybody else. I prayed earlier, God, you gave us breath this morning. None of you consciously sustained your life last night. And every one of you is dependent on oxygen. You’re dependent on a heart that’s beating and a brain that’s functioning and all of these things that you don’t consciously do anything about.

We are all dependent. We don’t have life in ourselves. In Jesus was life, the fullness that says He is not dependent on anything else for existence.

Yes, it can be hard sometimes to believe some of the claims of Christianity. The virgin birth, miracles, Jesus walking on water, feeding the 5, 000. And it can sound like, are these kids stories? I mean, is this real? It can be hard to believe that. It can be hard to believe God offers a free gift of salvation.

You say, no, surely not. I have to earn it somehow.

Maybe the miracle that’s hardest for some of us to believe, it can be hard to believe that God can actually change you. Some of you have tried to change enough times that you think, I don’t know if that can ever happen.

It can be hard to believe all that, but if you can wrap your head around this and believe this, the rest of it becomes a whole lot easier. God himself took on human form. God himself came and walked on this earth. If you can believe that almighty God did that, well, of course he can rise from the dead. He made life in the first place.

Of course he can feed the 5, 000. He made the fish in the first place. Of course he can walk on water. Of course he can bring life in a virgin’s womb because he made life in the first place. If God came, and that’s what we point to at Christmas, that’s what Christmas songs that you hear sung out by all kinds of people who don’t believe in Jesus, that’s what they say, actually.

Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see. Hail the incarnate deity.

If you can wrap your mind around the fact that God took on himself human form and he laid in Mary’s arms, Sleeping and crying and wriggling around because he couldn’t roll over yet. And learning to walk, needing to be fed and changed. If you can wrap your head around the fact, however much we can get it in our small minds that God did that, the rest of these things aren’t that difficult to understand.

In fact, J. I. Packer wrote this in his book, Knowing God. If Jesus had been no more than a very remarkable godly man, the difficulties in believing what the New Testament tells us about his life would be mountainous. But if Jesus was the same person as the Eternal Word, the Father’s agent in creation, it’s no wonder if fresh acts of creative power marked his coming into this world and his life in it and his exit from it.

It is not strange that he, the author of life, should rise from the dead. Hear this phrase. If he was truly God the Son, it is much more startling that he should die than that he should rise again. If we get the incarnation, the resurrection’s not a problem. The death is the surprising thing. Because this is Jesus fullness.

And I think Often, we take a teaspoon of Jesus’s fullness, and we kind of taste it and try it, and go like, nah, it’s not really worth anything. But that’s because we only looked at this much.

So what else does this text tell us about his fullness?

His Fullness is a Meaninful Fullness

His fullness is a meaningful fullness. He calls him the Word. Think about that. Why do we use words? We use words to communicate something. Words are vehicles of, of meaning. Since God spoke at the beginning and created, and since He continues to speak, and since Jesus is His Word, we don’t live in a world where we think, is it meaningless? Is it pointless?

No, instead, we know there’s meaning in the universe. We take that for granted so many times. There, there was a famous psychiatrist, Carl Jung, said this, the least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it. He had all kinds of things wrong, but one thing he had right, meaning is important.

And when this text starts with, in the beginning was the word, this is a communicated, meaningful fullness in Jesus, your life. This is not overstatement. Your life has meaning because Jesus is the Word. Your life has purpose. You don’t have to live through life trying to just make up your own meaning and hope it turns out okay.

Now if somebody comes and is able to give you real meaning or purpose, I call that grace. So, from his fullness, his meaningful fullness, we have received grace.

A Creative Fullness

How about creative fullness? Verse three said All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made. There’s gonna be multiple things throughout this that we’re gonna go through of how Jesus creates, how his creative power or fullness is seen there.

It says all things were made through him. Jesus is not like a creative force. It’s not Star Wars. It’s a person who acted and made these things. All things were made through him. I don’t know if, if some of you may not have seen this phrase. Some of you I know have, especially some of you younger ones, who would say, when they’re talking about like an athlete, they’ll say something like, he is him.

Like, what is that? I don’t even know. Right. He’s him. Meaning he’s the star. He’s the guy you got to pay attention to. He’s the one that’s really going to accomplish stuff, right? His fullness is that Jesus is him. He’s the one that you are to focus on. The one who is the center of absolutely everything. It says all things were made by him and without him nothing was made that was made.

That means Jesus wasn’t made because he made everything that was made.

An Overcoming Fullness

But notice in verse five, The light shines in the darkness. Now we go back to Genesis, right? And the first thing that’s created, let there be light. A word speaks and there’s light. There’s creative power that brings about this light. Well, that light overcomes the darkness. Jesus fullness is an overcoming fullness.

If you think about, I used an example of eating a good meal. And it can feel satisfying, right? But have you ever had something else that feels dark and difficult so much that even the meal you really love doesn’t taste good? The darkness overcomes this fullness and you say, I just don’t even want to eat it.

This is saying that Jesus’s fullness never works like that. The darkness cannot overcome that fullness of Jesus. No, Jesus’s fullness is an overcoming fullness. You see, we chase after fullness and all these other things, but we always find there’s a little bit of emptiness that sneaks in somewhere, doesn’t it?

A little bit of dissatisfaction. Leonard Cohen, songwriter, said this, There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. I don’t think he meant it the way that we’re using it this morning, but it’s a great phrase. You can chase success. You can chase control. You can chase approval. You can chase pleasures. You can chase anything you want to pick. And you can say, This is going to fulfill me. I will solve my emptiness this way. No, you won’t. Number one. But let’s just pretend it works for a while.

You’re going to find there’s a crack in it. And the thing that shines through that crack is light. It’s Jesus saying, no, this won’t actually fulfill you, and you catch a little glimpse of his fullness. Something out there will fulfill me. What is it? I don’t know, but it’s just a glimpse of light, and then you see Jesus.

Another celebrity said, I wish people could experience rich, uh, luxury and fame, so that they would know it’s not everything.

If we had that guy here and compared bank accounts, I’m quite confident he would win most, at least against most of us. But he knew there’s always a crack in it. And there’s a light that shines through that. It’s the overcoming light of the fullness of Jesus. That’s how that light shines. And this morning, if, if there’s anything in your life that you can see, I’ve been chasing this so that I won’t be empty.

And you can see a little crack in it. Maybe that’s just, I’ve been chasing this and it’s working, but I don’t know if it’ll work forever.

Maybe it’s a bigger crack than that. Whatever it is, if you can see that crack and see there’s something better, that’s God’s grace to you. That’s a glimpse of the fullness of Christ that gives you grace because you say, This isn’t going to satisfy me. Only something else can. Jesus.

The Light of a Revealing Fullness

Light is, is revealing fullness.

So verse 9, The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. The true light. If you want to know the truth about reality, you have to know it in reference to Jesus. You can know all kinds of facts, and you can know pieces of it, but if you want it in a way that will give you fulfillment, and not emptiness, you have to know it in reference to Jesus.

Humility-Producing Fullness

This is Humility producing fullness. Verse seven and eight. He writes about a guy we’d probably all love to meet, John the Baptist. It’s not the John who wrote the book, different John. But instead of praising John the Baptist as, Oh, he’s full and he’s so great. He says, No, he came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him.

He was not the light but came to bear witness about the light. Jesus’s fullness created humility in John the Baptist. And John said, He is so great, I’m not worthy to even untie His shoes. He needs to increase, I’m going to decrease. And if you see the fullness of Jesus, the more you see it, the more it creates humility in you.

That’s part of His fullness. And when He creates humility in you, that’s grace. So verse 16, from His fullness we have all received grace. By the way, that’s, that’s an idiom that you could say, grace upon grace upon grace upon grace upon grace upon grace upon grace upon grace. It’s not like, here’s a limit, there’s two of them and we’re good.

No, he’s saying, if you see the fullness of Jesus, God’s grace comes to you through it over and over and over and over and over and over and over. And it’s not going to stop. In verse 12 and 13, it’s the grace of new life. His fullness, we see who He is, and it says to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

A Rejected Fullness

But it’s also rejected fullness. We’ll come back to that in a second. How can it be so wonderful and be rejected at the same time? We’ll come back to that in just a second. But those who He knew. Those who were supposed to know Him, He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him.

An Accessible Fullness

Now all of that is grand and glorious, that it’s divine, it’s creative, it’s powerful, it’s wise, it’s good fullness, it produces humility, it reveals truth, it overcomes darkness, like, oh, that’s great and good. But if it only stayed out there, it’d be a great theory.

But sometimes, somebody who hasn’t walked in your shoes may have lots of wisdom to offer, but you feel like, I can’t really come to you. Take, for example, someone, maybe this describes you, but pretend it doesn’t for a minute. Take someone who was born into a family with tons of money, inherited a whole lot of money, They may be really wise about how to use their money.

Some of us who don’t have that experience, we might be comfortable going to them, but we also might say, and they started on third base. How am I supposed to figure out how can they help me? Do they really know what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck and say, how do I deal with this? See, sometimes if somebody hasn’t walked in your shoes, it’s hard to go to them.

You don’t feel like they’re accessible for your problems. But the fullness of Jesus is an accessible fullness. That’s what verse 14 says. The word became flesh and dwelt among us.

The word Jesus didn’t come to be God minus something. He was God, but now taking on himself all that it meant to be human. From the simple things like what it is to be hungry and not be able to turn over as a baby, to the things like dealing with betrayal of friends, physical pain, emotional struggles, hunger, tiredness, to be misunderstood.

In all of his glorious fullness, Jesus came and walked in our shoes. Which means that the fullness of God, because of Jesus coming down, the fullness of God is accessible to us. That’s mind blowing.

By all rights, it shouldn’t be accessible to us. But God, in His grace, He came and He took on Himself humanity, so that when we celebrate Christmas, the baby born at Bethlehem is truly human and truly God. It’s incredible.

A Glorious Fullness

It’s accessible. It’s also glorious. We’ve seen his glory, his infinite value. What makes things valuable? Good things that are rare are valuable, right? Well, what if you have the glory as of the only Son from the Father, the one of a kind Son? So all these things we just talked about, Or obviously to have infinite power and wisdom and goodness. All that’s, that’s a good thing. And there’s only one. Infinite value, infinite glory.

By the way, that’s why it creates humility, because when you see his glory and how valuable he is, you realize nothing I have to offer can measure up. We’re like children coming with draw hand drawn money to say, can I buy something.

You go, this just isn’t going to work. Because nothing we have can measure up. So when you see His glorious fullness, it creates humility. That’s also why it is a rejected fullness sometimes, because John says later that people love the glory that came from man rather than the glory that came from God.

They saw Jesus and they saw, He’s incredible, but I don’t want that. I want my own glory. That’s why it’s both of those things, because it is a glorious fullness.

Fullness Full of Grace

Now, if we could go and we could take, we could take every one of these and just meditate on it and think it’s eternal fullness, divine fullness, creative fullness, overcoming fullness, revealing fullness, humility, producing fullness, new life, creating fullness, accessible fullness, infinitely glorious fullness.

We could do all of those and we might think this is wonderful, but it’s kind of like Niagara Falls is wonderful, but I’m not going to go swimming in it. Like great, good, that’s amazing. Is it safe?

You get verse 17. The law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. This is grace saturated fullness. You’re not going to drown in this fullness. You’re going to be blessed. And if you continue to know the fullness of Christ, there is no piece of his fullness that is not saturated with grace for you.

You’ll never know anything about Jesus. That’s not covered with grace for his people.

Fullness Full of Truth

Grace and truth come through Jesus Christ. So it’s grace, but truth, the fullness he gives isn’t the kind of flattery that ignores reality. For example, Oprah Winfrey once said, the more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.

That’s just flattery.

The more you see how wonderfully great you are, The better you’ll feel. That’s just flattery. Jesus doesn’t do that. The message of Scripture is not Jesus coming and saying, You are so wonderfully full. It’s Him coming and saying, I am so wonderfully full. Now come drink of my fullness and receive grace.

And it’s so good because when we hear messages like that, the more you celebrate yourself, the better off you’ll be. Our hearts cry out, I’m not that good. We might not admit it, we might, but we know deep down, I’m not that good, I am not wonderful, I am not the fullness of all of these good things. I need something else to give me fullness.

My fullness is not enough, and the cracks in my fullness shine through. But the message of hope at Christmas for you is that everywhere you see those cracks that say this fullness is not enough, this fullness is not enough, I’m not enough, but Jesus is enough. That’s the fullness of Jesus and grace and truth flow through it.

What Do You Do With the Incarnation?

So what do you do with the incarnation? With this reality you say the fullness of God came and took on flesh. What are you supposed to do with it? Well, we can, we can puzzle over it and like, how does that work exactly? And, and what was his experience like when he learned and grew in favor and stature, and we can puzzle over all the intellectual problems, which is fine to do and a way for you to work, to love God with your mind, but you will run out of what your mind can grasp.

You’ll hit the end, but the new Testament doesn’t talk about the incarnation like that. What it does over and over is say. The incarnation demonstrates the incredibly grace filled love of God for you, so worship Him. This Christmas, that should be our response to the incarnation. God took on flesh and He loved you enough to take on flesh so that He would die.

So bow before Him and praise Him for how good He is. That’s what the incarnation is all about. And I’ll tell you, not because I say so, 'cause John said so, because God said so, ultimately. If you seek the fullness of Jesus this Christmas, you will find grace after grace, after grace poured out in your life.

And Jesus’s fullness is enough to meet every bit of emptiness you feel.

I just wanna ask you to take a moment and just bow before him. Respond to the truth of John, and ask God to help you to see the fullness of Christ and to receive His grace through it.