Behold the Living Word

Jackie Hill Perry: Hey Saints, how are you? I heard about 275 of you. I said, “Hey Saints, how are you?” Praise the Lord 

My name is Jackie, and I live in Atlanta with my husband Preston. Shout out to all seventeen of you over there. We've been married, I think, eleven years now. At this point it feels like fifteen. We have four children. The Lord just decided to save me and give me a gift to communicate and teach His Word. So that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna get straight to it. And thank you Miss Nancy. I don't know where you are. I can't see. I need my glasses. Thank you for having me. Thank you Robert. And all the people, thank you all for loving Jesus and all the things. Let's get to the Bible.

I've always really enjoyed how the Bible begins. Because even though the Lord saved me in 2008, I didn't start in Genesis. I didn't start in Exodus. I definitely was not about to start in Lamentations. When I got saved and wanted to figure it out where I should start in the Scripture? I started in Matthew. That seemed like a safe book. But personally, I didn't have too much fun over there because I just wasn't expecting all the parables. I just didn't know what to do with that. It was about sixteen parables a chapter, and so I just moved on. I know God's Word is God breathed, but I just at the time, I didn’t like it. I love it now. 

So eventually, I found myself in John, and while I was in John, I stayed there for a few months. I didn't know why, but it was something about the book of John that really struck me, that really captivated me. I think it might have been a very simple thing. I think when I read the book of John, I saw God.

At some point I decided to get out of John to go backwards—past Luke, past Mark, past Matthew, past Malachi, past Zechariah and the rest of them, until I ended up eventually finding myself at the beginning, in Genesis. 

The Bible began in a way that I didn't expect because I guess I thought that the book that reveals God would start a little crazy or something. I thought that it would at least give me a description of the Lord acting like Zeus—you know, throwing lightning bolts into the sky and throwing the sun into the thing, and then scattering stars, and taking His physical hands making dirt and water and light and things to just start this Bible party off right. But when I read Genesis 1, none of that happened, because none of that happened, Hermeneutics 101. It said this, 

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (Gen. 1:1–3) 

I think what's so enjoyable about those two sentences is that we are given a glimpse of what God's word can do. At that time, when I didn't know anything about cross-referencing, I had no idea that the book I just spent all this time in, the book of John, that he was building upon Genesis when he was writing his letter. I wasn't trained yet to see the similarities between the two and how John chapter 1 is clueing us to the beginning of Scripture when John says, “In the beginning . . .” 

But there's a difference because Genesis 1 goes on to talk about the created order being generated by the word of God. And John decides to talk about a word too, but this . . . I'll just read it. He says: 

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. (John 1:1–3) 

I mean, I love that because John is telling us that there is a Word that was there before Genesis 1 was written, before the sun was made, before the stars were born, before time was a thing, this Word was here. This Word is therefore eternal. This Word is also with God, as in near Him, as in alongside, as in, in relationship with God . . . and yet distinct from Him. 

And this Word was distinct from God and God all at the same time. And everything that was made—like the sun, like the stars, like the earth, like Adam and Eve and everything else—has its origin in this Word. 

When you read stuff like that, you can't help but step back and say, “John, sir, who is this Word? 'Cause I would like to meet Him.” Thankfully, he tells us in John chapter 1, verse 14, when he 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.

Tonight, we are going to behold the Word. Tonight, we are going to behold Jesus: 

• the Jesus who was in the beginning 
• the Jesus who was with God 
• the Jesus who is God 
• the Jesus through whom the heavens and the earth were created 
• the Jesus who became flesh and dwelt among us
• the Jesus who is full of grace and truth 

Let's pray, Lord, we thank You. We thank You for Your Word. We thank You that Your Word has power. We thank You that Your Word works. We thank You that Your Word reveals to us Your Son so that we would behold Him and believe Him and have life in His name. We pray that Your Holy Spirit would be active in the room, that You would convict where necessary, where You would confront where necessary, that You would renew minds and open and soften hearts.

I pray, God, that You would help us see You, help us love You, help us delight in You, help us know You. I pray even that You would give us energy to receive Your Word. I pray that You would give us humility to receive Your Word. I pray that You would just help us to respond to Your Word. Help me to communicate Your Word. We love You for all that you have done for us. In Christ Jesus' name, Amen. 

When I started seminary a few years ago, the very first class I took was called Theological Research and Writing, which is basically a class for anybody that wants to write a paper that doesn't sound stupid. Literally. In that class, we spent a lot of time on the idea of a thesis statement—how to develop a thesis statement and how to identify a thesis statement. A thesis statement is a short statement that communicates the main argument or point that someone is trying to make. 

What I appreciate about John is that his thesis is not that hard to find. When you open up John and flip to chapter 20, he tells us the entire point of this book that he's writing. He says, 

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book [thesis]; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (vv. 30–31) 

In other words, every verse, every chapter, every story is written to help you behold Christ as He is and not as we would prefer Him to be, so that we would believe and have life in Him. Whereas Matthew begins his book with a genealogy and Mark begins his book with a prophecy and Luke begins his book with a greeting to Theophilus; John begins his book with insight into the nature of Christ. He says that Christ is the Word who was in the beginning with God, and who is God, meaning: He is the Logos. He is the Word. 

I think that can seem odd to conceptualize a person as a word. We handle words all day long. We text, we email, we talk, and we read. Words are a central part of the human experience. And we all know what we know about words is that words are a means of communication. Even now I am using words to communicate God's Word to you. 

The older I get, the more I realize that words communicate ideas, yes, but words have additional uses too. Words help me understand the nature of the person that's talking to me. Words tell you something about the person that spoke them. 

For example, if you lie to me, you might not be a liar-liar, but you're definitely a liar. I ain't gonna say you're a liar-liar, you're just a liar. And that's because if the words you spoke to me were not true, your dishonest words revealed that you're a dishonest person. This means that words have a revelatory function. 

I bring that up because the whole point of John's letter, remember, is that you would behold, that you would see Christ. The whole point of this talk is that you would behold, that you would see Christ. The whole point of this conference is that you would get back in your Word so you can see Christ. 

So how does communicating Christ as the Word accomplish that task? This is how, because when you read that God said, “Let there be light.” God used a sentence to create the sun, meaning God didn't need hands and tools and resources to make anything. He just used words and His words had the effectual power to make something out of nothing.

When you read that by the Word of the Lord, the heavens are made, do you see anything? Yes, you see God. God's words reveal God's nature. So imagine being a Christian in John's day and opening the scroll to read that not only was the Word in the beginning with God or how the Word was God, but that the Word took on flesh and dwelt among them. What would you think that means? 

 

It would mean that the Word, which represents God's self-revelation, has not come to us now through a prophet, or has not come to us now through a vision, or has not come to us now through a dream. But God's ultimate revelation has now come to us in the person of Jesus Christ. He is the Word that makes God's nature known in creation. A commentator said:

When the Word became flesh, God became man. The Bible says that no one has ever seen God. God the only Son who is at the Father's side, He has made Him known. 

I haven't taken any Greek classes yet. So I don't know a whole lot of that, but what I do know is that “may be known” in the Greek is the same word we get the term “exegesis” from. I love sitting under the sermons where somebody gets a hold of a text that I wanna see, that I wanna understand. And I love when people don't hide God's words from me. I love when people don't hinder the meaning from me. They don't get in the way of its glory by twisting it or misinterpreting it. They simply explain what is there in the text, making what is there known. Why? So I can see it. They exegete God's Word so we can see something that we did not have the ability to see before. 

So when the Word says that no one has ever seen God, but that Jesus has made Him known, it is saying that Jesus is the exegesis of God. If you want to see God, if you want to know God, if you want to behold God, if you want to understand God, then look at Christ. He is the One who explains God. 

The text says the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. John is not only hinting at Genesis in this passage, but now he is moving us into Exodus. We can know this again by looking at original languages. We can figure this out by setting aside the English for a second and peering at the Greek, which communicates that when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, it means that the Word became flesh and pitched His tent. The word was “tabernacle” among us. 

Remember Exodus chapter 25, for example, where God said to Moses, “And let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst” (v. 8). The tabernacle represented a place where the human and the divine could meet up. Whereas Exodus 25 was a shadow, Christ Himself is the substance; He is the tabernacle. He is the temple. He is the sanctuary where divinity and humanity unite.

This all sounds good and great and worthy of worship, but it should also be shocking. 'Cause as you reflect on the nature of the Word, it would actually be a little bit helpful to consider the nature of the people the Word decided to dwell with. Look at verse 10 of John chapter 1. 

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. (vv. 9–11) 

How is it that the same person that made everyone can take on flesh, live on the earth, and no one notices? That the one who made everyone and everything is not known by the people He made, nor is He received by the people who had the promises and the prophecies and the covenants that prepared the way.” 

It is this reality that God came into the world and nobody cared, that is an indictment on the human condition? The angelic hosts had to look down and be befuddled that the King was walking with sinners and nobody bowed. It was because they couldn't see. Even the demons couldn't help but recognize that the God of glory was there. But neither Gentiles nor Israel saw Him as worthy of not merely their attention, but their worship. 

The question we’ve got to ask is why? It's because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. A fundamental aspect of the sinful nature is blindness. 

Do you remember when you were blind? When the Word of God was preached to you and it didn't move you. When the gospel was heard, and it didn't change you? When you sat in church and lifted up your hands to worship, but your heart was very far from Him? 

I remember when I was eighteen. It was probably a year before my conversion. I was at a party or graduation party for a friend and, you know, I was in sin. I was just very high. I was just high out of my mind And at some point during the party, another friend that I knew in school, I knew her when she was in the world, I knew what she was ratchet, I knew when she was doing whatever she wanted to do. She got up randomly to tell her testimony. Why she chose the graduation party?

She started to talk about God and what He did in her life. As she did, she started to cry. And I genuinely remember sitting there staring at her confused, because I went to church growing up a little bit. I heard about Jesus. I had gotten baptized—just 'cause I said I wanted to, not 'cause I repented. I knew John 3:16. I knew all the stuff, so I wasn't an atheist. I wasn't opposed to hearing about God. I just couldn't make sense or understand how God meant so much to a person that just talking about Him made them weep. 

There wasn't anything in me that resonated with her worship. There was no place in my heart that had that kind of love. If she would have gotten up and just started boasting about sex or about weed or about rebellion or about pride or about anger, I wouldn't have been so confused, because she would have been boasting about what I actually loved. But when she made it her business to lift up the glory of Christ, I couldn't make sense of it because I couldn't see glory. 

I was blind. 

When the Word became flesh and dwelt among sinners, they did not receive Him, because they did not have the eyes to see. They did not have the ears to hear. And this is the condition of every single person that is born after Adam. We are all born blind because the Scripture says that the enemy has blinded the minds of unbelievers where they cannot see the gospel in the face of Jesus Christ until God in His mercy speaks the same word over us that He spoke in Genesis. When you believed in Christ, when you received Him by faith, it was not by way of reason. You did not think your way into salvation. 

When you believed in Christ, it wasn't because you were born of noble birth or because your parents were Christian. It is because God saw you swallowed up by darkness and decided to say, “Let there be light.” And then, suddenly there was! You no longer looked at sex or your body or your job or your Bible or education or marriage the same because your eyes were open to the God who has always loved you. 

It is His divine initiative and salvation through the means of granting light that makes it possible for any of us to be called a child of God. Wherein now, now we see Him as good, as faithful, and as God.

He says it in verse 14. 

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. 

Who is the we John is referencing? Well, it's the apostles, the disciples, those who were eyewitnesses of Christ while He was on earth. He says that they didn't just see Christ, but glory, a glory in Christ that made manifest God as being full, abounding in grace and truth. 

Again, John is hinting at the Old Testament here in Exodus 33. Moses asked God a question. He said, “Please show me your glory, glory being the manifestation of God's splendor and God's beauty and God's greatness.” Glory is a revelation. So Moses wants to see something that God has to reveal. That's why he asked, “Please show me Your glory.” God tells him that he can't see his face because if he did, he wouldn't live. So He will put him in the cleft of a rock, cover him with His hand while His glory passes by. 

The Bible says that Moses went up to Mount Sinai and the Lord descended in the cloud and proclaimed His glory. He said He is the Lord, the gracious and merciful God who is slow to anger and, catch this, abounding and steadfast love and faithfulness. What does that have to do with John? 

Well, when the Lord reveals Himself as a God who was abounding and steadfast love and faithfulness, it is likely that John is summarizing both terms when he says that Jesus is full of grace and truth. Grace being a summary of the Hebrew term hesed, which communicates the Lord's love and kindness. Truth being a rendering of the Hebrew term emet, which reveals the Lord's reliability. 

So when Moses heard the Lord proclaim Himself as one who abounds in steadfast love, and then we got Jesus coming on the scene, turning water to wine to cover some people's shame. We got Jesus coming on the scene, healing broken bodies. We got Jesus coming on the scene and raising the dead and eventually dying for sinners. They were seeing the Lord's steadfast love in Christ.

When Moses heard the Lord proclaim Himself as abounding and faithfulness and Jesus comes preaching that He is the way, the truth and the life. They were seeing the Lord's faithfulness, which is to say what Moses only heard while in the cleft of a rock, John and the disciples have now seen in the incarnate Word of God. When they saw Jesus, they saw God's glory . . . but not everybody did. 

Not everybody saw what John saw. Not everybody understood what John heard. 

• To some, the Word was not in the beginning with God. He was just Mary's son. 
• To some, He was not the exegesis of God. He was just a prophet. 
• To others, the Word was not with God but a man who actually needed Satan's help to cast out demons. 
• To others, the Word was not God at all. He was a sinner. 

It is possible to see Jesus and not behold Him. It is possible to be around Jesus and not notice glory. It is this very blindness that is the reason He died. 

How else could he have been crucified? Paul said in 1 Corinthians, if they had understood God's divine wisdom, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (2:8). So my question to us is, what do you think is happening when we sin against Him? 

When we do bad things with our bodies or bad things to our neighbors online or bad things in marriage or in friendship; when we watch what we shouldn't and love what we shouldn't and enjoy what we were commanded to put to death, it is possible maybe potentially that somewhere in us we have stopped beholding glory. He has become for us something less than the Lord of glory.

We see that God / man on that cross. We are so used to discussing it that we forget that it was our sin that brought Him there. Not just John, not just Peter, not just Matthew, not just Mark, not just Andrew or his brother. It was not just their sin, but mine. My sin is the reason for the nails in His hand. Your sin is the cause for the crown on His head. 

So I think to help us reorient ourselves around the cross, I think to help us think on what is true and what is worthy of praise, I think it will be helpful, simply put for us to behold Him again. 

Let's see Him—Jesus who was in the beginning with God, behold Him. Jesus who is God, behold Him. 

All things were made through him [and for Him] and without him was not anything made that was made. (John 1:3)

Jesus who is God who took on flesh and dwelt among us, behold Him.

Jesus who revealed the glory of God's nature, being full of grace and truth, behold Him. 

Behold Him when He heals in a home. 

Behold Him when He opens up the scroll and says that He has been anointed to proclaim good news to the poor. 

Behold Him in the wilderness being tempted but victorious. 

Behold Him at table with sinners. 

Behold Him on mountains in prayer. 

Behold Him as the man of sorrows acquainted with grief. 

Behold Him as He breaks the bread and pours the wine. 

Behold Him as faithful.

Behold Him as true. 

Behold Him as the way since no man can come to the Father except through Him. 

Behold Him as the suffering servant. 

I don't know if you see Him yet, so I'll keep going. There He is in the garden, asking the Father to take the cup. That cup that had God's wrath for our sin in it. The Word who was in the beginning with God was about to be forsaken by God. 

The Word who was in the beginning with God was in the Garden of Gethsemane reckoning with the fact that He was about to be forsaken by the God that He was always with—behold His love.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). 

Behold Him as He becomes the propitiation for our sins, absorbing the wrath of God—so what we get is righteousness by faith.

Behold Him drinking the whole cup.

Behold Him paying the full price. 

Behold Him saying, “It is finished.” 

Behold, behold the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. 

Behold Him who is the resurrection and the life. 

Behold Him who has conquered the grave. 

Behold Him who was in the form of God but did not count quality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied Himself. 

Behold Him who has humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 

Behold Him who was highly exalted. 

Behold Him, the name that should be in our mouths. 

Behold Him who has the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus, at the name of Jesus, at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (see Phil. 2:10–11).

Do you see Him yet? 

We are so easily distracted. We are so fascinated by the world. We are so caught up in things that cannot change us and people that cannot save us and things that will not deliver us and personalities that did not die for us. 

But what would happen if we behold Him? 

What would happen when you are in pain and you behold Him? 

What would happen when you are frustrated and you behold Him? 

What would happen when you are betrayed and you behold Him?

What happens when you have a besetting sin that makes you believe that the blood doesn't still work, but you chose to behold Him? 

What happens when God has called you to a ministry where people want you to preach everything but Jesus and you have to remember that my job, my mission is to preach the gospel so that people would behold Him? 

What happens when you are weary in prayer? You must behold Him. 

What happens when you start losing your eyesight? You must behold Him.

What happens when your body breaks down? You behold Him.

What happens when you lose people? You behold Him.

Why do you think you were made? Why do you think you were created if not to behold Him? 

I believe the Lord wants to take us back to the main thing—which is to behold Him. 

There's a passage in John after Jesus is risen from the dead. The disciples see Him in a room. And they go and tell one of the other disciples, Thomas, that they just saw the Lord, and Thomas doesn't believe it. 

Thomas says, “You know, that's all good and all. He was like, well . . . I need to see Him to believe you. I need to see the nails in His hands. I need to see all the stuff.” And Jesus shows up in the room a few days later. And He says to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands. And put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve but believe.” 

Thomas answered Him—this is the thesis statement of John—”My Lord and my God!”

Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29)

A metaphor for belief in the Scriptures is the act of seeing Him. I don't know what church context you come from. I don't know what denomination you are familiar with, but I just want to create an opportunity for us to beg God to help us see Him again. Because where we are lacking sight is revelation of where we lack faith. 

We need the Holy Spirit to help us have faith. We need the Holy Spirit to make all the Scripture that we know, something that we believe, more than we quote. We need the Holy Spirit to go to work on us so that we would be faithful, so that we would love Him with all of our heart, with all of our soul, and so that we would know our neighbor, or so that we can love our neighbors and ourselves. 

This is not a conference just to come to and leave and be the same. We will remain the same if we don't behold Him. We need mercy. We need the Holy Spirit to do what only He can do. So the altar is open. 

I don't know the last time you got on your face, but sometimes you have to be desperate in your body so your heart can remember what you are called to do, which is to surrender. The altar is open for you to just simply say, “God help me believe. I am struggling in my marriage. I am struggling in my campus. I am struggling in my mind. And I need your help to believe.”

I will pray over you and I hope you respond to what the Holy Spirit is saying.

God of glory we love You, and we thank You that You have loved us first. I pray God that You would have mercy. I pray God that yYou would open up our eyes so that we would see You. I pray God that You would humble our hearts so that we would behold You. 

I pray for those of us who are weary in well-doing help; them see You. I pray those for those who are enslaved to sin that they would recognize the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and Your gospel. 

I pray that every hardened heart would be softened. I pray that every blind eye would be open. I pray that every deaf ear that they would hear You call. 

I pray even now that those who have resisted Your Word by suppressing the truth about their own unrighteousness that You would summon them, that they would follow You. And that from this day forth they would take up the cross and deny themselves. 

I pray that we would deny ourselves. I pray that we would not be self-centered. I pray that we would not be self-oriented. I pray that we would have the mind that is in Christ Jesus who did not count equality with God the thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself and took on the form of a servant. I pray that You would make us a servant. I pray that You would make us obedient. I pray that You would make us lovers of God and not lovers of self. 

I pray for those who have addictions that they would see You, that they would see that You are worthy of their loyalty, that You are worthy of their time, that You are worthy of their affections. I pray for everyone who is a slave of sexual sin and in leadership, I pray that they would repent and believe the gospel again. I pray for those who are slaves to shame, that they would no longer believe the lie of the evil one, but they would believe that there is no condemnation for all those who believe in Christ Jesus. 

I pray that we would believe in Christ Jesus, that we would not preach or believe any other gospel than what the disciples and what the apostles have written.

God, I think of the disciples who were filled with the Holy Spirit. To do Your work, You filled them again, not as though they needed another Holy Spirit or another infilling, but it was fresh power, fresh anointing to do what You called them to do. I pray for boldness in this room. I pray for courage in this room. I pray for everyone who was afraid to be faithful out loud. I pray that You would help us to tell the truth and shame the devil. But I also pray that You would give us a compassion to tell the truth with a spirit of gentleness and respect.

I pray that we would not believe that we can tell the truth and hate our neighbor at the same time. I pray that You would soften our hearts to the way we love people. I pray for this nation that we would love people like You love people. I pray that You would raise up Christians that don't just love truth but love people. 

To Him who was able to keep us from stumbling and to present us faultless and blameless before His glorious presence with great joy, we behold You.

We thank You for all that You have done for us in Christ Jesus. I pray that under the sound of worship in the midst of community after leaning into Your Word that Your Holy Spirit would do work, that You would grant miracles in this room, and that our lives will be changed forever—not because we did anything special, but because we beheld the glory of the Son. 

We love You, and we thank You, in Christ Jesus, amen.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV.