The Word Became Flesh Series

To love you more dearly

And to follow you more nearly

Day by day… amen

AND GUYS – if you really make that your daily prayer… God will answer… AND - you will be transformed in 2005!

Last week in our effort to know Christ more fully we began to unpack… some of the titles and names that we find for Jesus in the New Testament. AND – last Sunday we spent some time unpacking the title ‘Son of God.’ AND – as we unpacked the title, ‘Son of God’ we removed any doubt whatsoever, that this world and our enemy may have put in our minds about Jesus being God… BY - by looking at;

1. What other people said about Jesus

2. What He said about Himself

3. (AND) – by looking at what Jesus did…

• Accepted worship

• Performed miracles

• Fulfilled prophecies

• Rose from the dead

• Spoke words like no else ever has

• Changed History

[Tim…] – the Jesus that you; Love, Follow, Serve, Sing to and worship… the Jesus who said that He is your savior, your friend, that He loves you and will always be with you - is huge, is holy, is mighty… IS – God! AND – because He is God… Jesus can deliver what He promised; He will do what He said; He can guard what you have entrusted to Him.

THIS MORNING - we are going to look at the title for Jesus that we find in the first chapter of John’s Gospel… ‘The Word Became Flesh…” UNDERSTAND - though Jesus was fully God when He walked this earth… HE – was also fully human; He was flesh and He was blood… Jesus was a man.

AND – that’s why I showed the video clip of the scene in garden a few minutes ago…. I showed it; to help us (get past the blond haired blue eyed Jesus with a halo over His head) and see Jesus as he really was…. AS - a man… AND - In the garden we see the humanity of Jesus in bold and vivid color. Those were real tears and real drops of blood… AND – that was real pain, real doubt and real fear… NO - there was no perfectly kept blond haired, blue eyed, halo wearing Jesus in the garden…(saw that famous painting yesterday) INSTEAD – there was a man… struggling intensely over what lay ahead….

Fully God… YET – fully man….

The first point in your notes this morning is;

We Know Jesus Was A Man

AND – we know that he was a man for at least 2 reasons… FIRST

Because Scripture Reveals It…

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth… (John 1:1,14)

When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. – Phil 2:7,8

Because God’s children are human beings--made of flesh and blood--Jesus also became flesh and blood… it was necessary for Jesus to be in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, - Hebrews 2:14,17

the Word was with God The Word became flesh

Jesus was deity YET Jesus became human

Jesus… became flesh and blood

Fully God… YET – fully man….

AND LISTEN – IF that’s a hard concept for you to wrap your brain around… Don’t fell alone. BECAUSE - people have wrestled with this truth for 2,000 years. IN FACT - there were a group of wrestlers in the first century who basically threw in the towel on this God-Man thing… AND – simply denied that Jesus was a man… YOU SEE - they taught that he only appeared to be a man. WELL – the apostle John takes on this faulty thinking as he opens up his first letter…