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[0:00] other parts of scripture as well. Let me just read again John 1 14 and Luke 252. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we've seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth. And then 252 of Luke and Jesus in keest in wisdom and in stature and in favour with God and man. Now these verses are fascinating and they're incredibly important because they're getting us to think about things that are absolutely crucial to the Christian faith but are maybe things that are sometimes a challenge for us to think about and to grapple with. In these verses we're being taught about two massive things. Number one, we're being taught about how the infinite, unsearchable, unmeasurable God reveals himself and meets us. And the second thing we're being taught about is how God the Son becomes one of us and just like us, he needs to learn and grow. So John 1 14 is speaking about the eternal word becoming flesh. Luke 2 52 is talking about a 12 year old boy growing up and both of them are referring to the same person. And that really is capturing the miracle and the mystery of the incarnation of the fact that Jesus has become one of us. And so we find ourselves thinking okay how does all that fit together? How does John 1 14 and Luke 2 52 the fact that the eternal God the Son has become flesh and a wee boy has to grow up and learn. How can that be the same person? How does it all fit together? And then realizing it after an incredibly busy week we've managed to pick one of the most complicated subjects that we could have for a Sunday evening.

[2:16] But stuff it, let's just go for it and I'm sure we'll hopefully get something from it. How does all of that fit together? How do these two passages combine? Well I think a key part of the answer lies in the relationship between Jesus and the Bible. And so that's our title and that's what we're thinking about Jesus and his Bible. And to think about all of this together we're going to go on a journey and this is the journey that we're going to take. We're going to go from eternity to history to maturity to Calvary to community to Monday morning. So we start here in eternity. When you see the phrase the word of God the word of God what do you think of?

[3:06] What immediately comes to mind? Well I think the common answer would be the Bible. We'll always say the Bible is the word of God. That's absolutely true. Maybe in particular as you think about the Bible you might think about prophecy because there are lots of times in the Bible when it would say people like Isaiah and Jeremiah would say hear the word of the Lord or the word of the Lord came to such and such a prophet. Or maybe you might think about preaching because all of our sermons the purpose of them is to herald and proclaim the word of God. All of these are true but when you see that phrase the word of God more than anything else we should be thinking about Jesus Christ. Or even more accurately we should be thinking God the Son. When you hear the phrase the word of God we should be thinking God the Son. Now this is where we need to think about the very being and nature of God and that's why our journey starts here in eternity. The fundamental nature of God as revealed in scripture is that he is one God three Persians father son and Holy Spirit what we would call the Trinity. I've just realized in my slide I had it written much more neatly in actual writing but anyway too late now. Father Son Holy Spirit the Trinity one substance one power one eternity that three in one God is the absolute of all reality and from eternity until eternity

[4:45] God has been and will always be Father Son and Holy Spirit. Now God that God is utterly above us bigger greater higher more immense more profound than we could ever fully take in and and if you stop even for a moment and compare us with the God who is so big and glorious and majestic we realize how tiny we are in comparison to the infinity of his power glory and majesty and it's so easy to think you know God's just beyond us he's beyond what we can know and many people have come to that conclusion they thought well there might be a God we can't know him he's just a million miles away out there but that's not true because humans can gain a knowledge of God but the foundational and fundamental reason why that can happen is because God has revealed himself to us and that's a core truth of the Christian faith God has revealed himself to us without that revelation from God we would know nothing so we can't go and find God ourselves instead we can only discover him because he's revealing himself to us and with that revelation knowledge of God becomes possible. Now if we go back to thinking about the Trinity

[6:16] Father Son and Holy Spirit here they are on the screen as you know each of these Father Son and Holy Spirit all equally and fully God they all share the same nature but they are distinct as well so that means that there's things that are unique to each certain things that only apply to each so the Father is only the Father is Father only the Son is Son only the Spirit proceeds from both Father and Son so there's certain aspects of each certain things that are unique to each person in the Trinity and what that means that when it comes to what God does when it comes to the activities that God engages in there's oftentimes in scripture that the emphasis will fall onto one either the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit so in terms of God doing stuff it's all done in unity but if you like the the agency through which that purpose is accomplished scripture will often emphasize and direct towards one of the three persons and another station that theologians have used to help describe that is to think about your own mind so we all have one mind but within our minds there are distinct aspects to that mind and depending on what we're doing the emphasis will fall on the different aspects of our mind so for example if you give me a maths problem or an engineering problem then I'm going to think if you ask me to recount what I did last week I'm going to remember and if you give me a choice that I need to make then I'm going to exercise my will so cognitive thinking remembering choosing through my will they're all different aspects of the functioning of the one mind the emphasis will fall on different ones at different times that's a small a limited but still a kind of slightly helpful illustration of the fact that in certain aspects of who God is and of what God does the emphasis will fall to one of these

[8:19] Father Son or Holy Spirit now the reason I'm saying this is because when it comes to God revealing himself to us the emphasis falls on one of these and the emphasis lies here on the Son it is in other words it's in terms of revealing God when it comes to God revealing himself to us the emphasis falls in the Son in other words it's primarily God the Son's job to reveal God to reveal God as a whole and the Bible use is a key term to describe and to describe that role if you like it's a kind of job title for God the Son in terms of that revealing work what is the term that the Bible use it's the term the word so the Bible calls God the Son the word and in doing so is placing emphasis on the fact that the Son is the one through whom

[9:29] God is revealed and so you see that for example in John 1 1 in the beginning was the word the word was with God the word was God every time that phrase is used it's referring to God the Son in those verses and it's expressing the fact that coherent understandable receivable communication about the infinite eternal God is being revealed to us and it's being revealed through God the Son he is the word of God and John goes on to explain that in verse 18 no one has ever seen God the only God who's at the Father's side he has made him known so this this this this who's at the Father's side is all referring to the same person and it's he is doing the same thing he is making God known the the triune God is revealed through God the Son now that revelation happens in two ways and you'll be familiar with these terms I'm sure we have what we call general revelation and we have special revelation general revelation is talking to the fact about the fact that the created world reveals God in lots of ways the heavens declare the glory of God the beautiful environment around us shows us the creativity and majesty of God and in particular the human race bears the image of God and we see so many qualities in humanity that teach us and show us what God is like and special revelation is referring to the scriptures contained in the Bible and a key emphasis of scripture is that both of these both of these come through God the Son and that's what we read in Hebrews 1 at the start of the service in these last days God spoke into us by his Son he appointed the heir of all things through whom he also created the world he's the radiance of the glory of God the exact imprint of his nature this and other passages are emphasizing to us that God's revelation is in and through God the Son Jesus Christ now this is so important for our understanding of the Bible it's so important that we we must not separate the Bible as the word of God from Jesus as the word of God the Bible is the word of God because in it Jesus Christ

[12:07] God the Son the word of God is speaking to us and is revealing God to us in other words the Bible is not an amazing book of words the Bible is the words of an amazing person of an amazing person through it Jesus is speaking God is revealing himself and that's why the whole Bible points us towards God's revelation of himself through Jesus so if we're thinking about the word you look at the Old Testament all pointing forward towards the coming of Jesus in the gospel the rest of the New Testament all explaining what Jesus accomplished when he came everything is centered on Jesus Christ from the very beginning of Genesis right through to the very end of revelation and it's all about the fact that God is revealing himself to us everything in the word of God the Bible is pointing us to the word of God Jesus because it's only in and through him that we can know the God who's infinite eternal and utterly beyond what our minds can take in and this is why we can call the Bible a living word because it's the communication of a living person

[13:25] God the Son and this is so important for us to recognize because God it's telling us that God in his utter massiveness in his incomprehensible magnificence in his immeasurable power and glory he's revealing himself so that you can know him and the person responsible for making that happen the person who is through whom God is communicating to us is his word his one and only Son he's the one who makes God known but what's even more astonishing is that just a few verses later John says that that word who's come from eternity dwelt in eternity shares and enjoys fellowship with the Father and the Holy Spirit fully God himself has become flesh and so what that's telling us is that he's gone from eternity into history

[14:36] John 1 14 is telling us that he became flesh and dwelt among us you'll maybe know that that word dwelt is the word tabernacle it's the idea of a tent that moves it's all journey language what was that journey it was the journey of becoming a human it was the journey of becoming one of us and by becoming a human it's inevitable that Jesus goes on a journey because being a human is a journey we're all born as infants but we're not born to be infants birth is a starting point and that takes us from infancy to maturity which you can see is where we're going to go as we move along our slide and so we grow physically and mentally physically we start with DNA and in our genes that provides the building blocks for our bodies cells form they're organized into tissue and organs and through our physical growth we eventually learn to roll over stand up walk eventually we become tall and strong and we grow mentally we learn to understand voices to speak to solve problems to make decisions to have relationships that's the journey of being a human the key point is that for the word to become flesh for the word to become flesh it means that God the Son has to take exactly the same path and so God the Son is born into history as infant flesh he is given the name Jesus by

[16:14] Mary and Joseph and from there he grew physically and he grew mentally and that's what we read about in Luke 2 52 Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man and so you think how did that happen how did Jesus grow how did he develop how did he mature well the answer is he grew in exactly the same way as you and so he had to eat in order to have energy and grow taller he had to absorb information in order to grow in wisdom the baby in a manger couldn't speak baby in the manger couldn't walk he couldn't read he couldn't preach he could not articulate the eternal purposes of God and so behind that word flesh in John 14 lies all the weakness and limitation and infirmity that being a baby brings and there's an inescapable need to grow and that's reminding us of two crucial truths about Jesus it's so important to remember that that in Jesus there's no ungodness at all and there's no semi-godness in Jesus so he is fully

[17:38] God fully God not mostly God not similar to God fully God and so that means if you want to know what God is like you look at Jesus but secondly it's also so important to remember that in Jesus there's no unhumanness or or and at the same time there's also no superhumanness either he's a human just like you are and just like I am the only difference is that he's not been broken by sin but in terms of what a human is Jesus is everything that we were created to be that's why if you want to know what true humanity looks like you also look at Jesus and all of this brings us to a really difficult and I guess quite a complicated point on our journey because we've got the eternal Son of God Jesus the Word through whom the greatest knowledge of all the knowledge of God is revealed we've also got now the incarnate Son of God the Word made flesh the human Jesus who as an infant doesn't even know how to read and like the rest of us he needs information if he's going to grow to know anything in other words the one who knows everything God the Son now becomes the one who needs to learn everything a baby and the question asks we ask is how did he do it how did that happen well in terms of everyday stuff he learned to talk from his parents just like you did

[19:20] I'm sure he learned to walk by falling over a lot just like you did he would have been taught to read just like you were and he would have learned carpentry from Joseph just like we learned skills and talents from others and so everyday stuff you would have learned from his parents but what about the most important stuff how did the baby in the manger who couldn't speak become the preacher who like Peter says has the words of eternal life how did that happen well I guess we won't really be able to answer every aspect of that question but I think I think a key answer to that question is that Jesus read his Bible I think that's how it happened and that takes us to the next stage of the journey to maturity we don't know a huge amount about the years between Jesus's infancy and his public ministry which began around the age of 30 late 20s or so with the exception of the fascinating account we read about when he was 12 years old when he was taken to the temple stayed behind and interacted with the religious leaders there what we do know however is the fruit of those 30 odd years and what is crystal clear is that by the time Jesus reached human maturity he knew his Bible in fact he knew it better than anybody who has ever lived which is of course white people who met him said no one ever spoke like this man and so how did that happen was it a moment when God came and kind of zapped Jesus's brain and filled it all with this knowledge

[21:04] I don't think so and I think the account of Jesus asking questions as a 12 year old shows us that he learned gradually but the key point is that when Jesus read the scriptures when Jesus read the scriptures everything he learned came together with perfect clarity coherence and understanding in other words I want to suggest to you that the information that Jesus read in the Bible clicked in his mind as he read it why did that happen why did why did the Bible click so perfectly in the child Jesus's mind the teenager Jesus's mind well sure there's a lot more to it than I can fully explain but I think that the reason the information in the scriptures clicked so perfectly is because when Jesus read the Bible the word of God was coming home the word of God was coming home and the result is the most mature human mind that has ever lived and all of this means that Jesus the word of God the Bible the word of God go hand in hand they're they're inseparable and you go on to see in scripture that the Bible has a crucial place in the life of Jesus and I want us just to highlight a few things that we see and all of them are going to take us to the next stopping point on our journey to Calvary so let me highlight five things about Jesus and his Bible first of all Jesus learned the scriptures and the verses we read from Luke describe that learning process he asked questions he engaged in discussion he listened to teacher he absorbed information in other words he sat he listened he thought he worked at learning the Bible Jesus then obeyed the scriptures and so what Jesus learned he put into practice which is exactly what the Bible means when it talks about being wise and so as Jesus grows in wisdom he's putting the scriptures into practice there's an example of this in the screen from Luke chapter 5

[23:18] Jesus making sure that the specific requirements of the Old Testament law were kept after he cleansed the leper in other words Jesus didn't just do his own thing he always followed what scripture said but at the same time Jesus never went beyond scripture to add all the man-made rules that the Pharisees of his day had added on to scripture and so Jesus in every area of life followed and obeyed God's law thirdly Jesus used the scriptures throughout his ministry he quoted from the Bible I want to notice especially that one of the key moments when Jesus used the scriptures was in moments of crisis one example is the temptation the devil comes and tempts Jesus what does Jesus respond with his word the Bible another example is the cross he cries out my god my god why have you forsaken me quoting his word from Psalm 22 in his dying moment he quotes from another Sam

[24:20]  Psalm 31 father into your hands I commit my spirit and the crucial point is this in crisis moments Jesus didn't summon a legion of angels did Jesus didn't call down fire from heaven Jesus didn't give a mighty show of his strength instead he grabbed the words of scripture and he used them fourth Jesus proclaimed the scriptures it's easy to forget that Jesus was a preacher in fact Jesus was the greatest preacher that the world has ever known he went around preaching from passages of scripture and as he did so he proclaimed the good news and one of the wonderful things that Jesus did was he explained how scripture fitted together a great example of this is in Luke 24 on the road to Emmaus when Jesus explained to the two who were walking that the Christ should suffer and entered into glory and then beginning with Moses and all the property he interpreted to them all the scriptures the things concerning himself and then fifthly Jesus fulfills the scriptures and you see that again and again at key points in his ministry at his birth he fulfills the scriptures at as he began his public ministry there in Luke chapter 4 as he approached the end of his ministry it's all about scripture being fulfilled scripture being accomplished the journey that Jesus took when the word became flesh was along the pathway that the scriptures had set out and it's a journey that's taking him all the way here to the cross and this is where I hope we can bring everything together from eternity God is revealing himself through God the Son the word of God that revelation has happened in history first through the creation now through the scriptures the first part of that scripture is pointing us towards the fact that not only God's word but God the Son himself is going to enter history at the incarnation that happens the Son takes that journey enters history from that point onwards he's on a journey into maturity and that journey into maturity led him to learn all the basics of life from the people and the environment around him and led him to learn how the scriptures fitted together how they had found their origin and their home in him they taught him his mission and by the time Jesus reaches maturity and begins his public ministry he knows who he is he knows why he's come and he knows what he has to do and it all culminates at the cross that's where God's great plan of salvation is fulfilled that's where the word who was always with the Father who became infant flesh has now grown into mature flesh is now crucified and risen flesh as the God man exalted now he is the king of the universe the savior of men and women and everything that God wanted to happen has been revealed implemented and accomplished through the word of God incarnate accomplishing what was anticipated by the word of God written the result is that the great revelation of God is complete let me recap the word of God eternal became the word of God incarnate and he's fulfilled the word of God written all so that the infinite triune God can be revealed and the utterly incredible truth of all that theology which is stretching us to our limits is that the eternal unreachable unfathomable unmeasurable God is actually the God who loves you so much that he will give his son to die for you so that he can be fully revealed to you so that you can know him and this is what I want you to see in all of this that the infinity of God is being revealed in Jesus in his life in his death and his resurrection and what do you see when you look at it you see that God is gentle and kind and true and brave and trustworthy and friendly and compassionate and merciful and humble and tender and protective and he loves you so much that he will die for you because that's the whole reason that he took this journey so that he could stand in your place and make you his own forever that's the whole reason why it all happened and it's all because he wanted to build this a community a family that every one of us is being called into and that community is the church and now the word of God through Jesus proclaimed through scripture is calling men and women to come to faith in Jesus under the guidance of the Holy Spirit the real-time historical events of the church of Jesus himself and the ministry of the apostles after him has now been recorded and now we have the written words of the risen word in our hands we've got it we're part of that community that Jesus is establishing by his word and now that we have that word in our hands what are we to do with it we're to do exactly what Jesus did with it we are to learn the Bible reading it studying it thinking about it that's what a disciple is a learner we are to obey the Bible following God's instructions in our lives standing out from the people around us as we follow God's ways instead of all the ways of the culture around us we use the Bible and so we trust what God says we hold on to his promises we take the encouragement that he gives us we accept the challenges that he presses into our hearts and we hold on to the Bible even when we are really struggling and we need to now proclaim and explain it we're believers and we're witnesses telling others about what God has done and amazingly we also fulfill it because the Bible continues to look forward Jesus speaks about how he is going to build his church how the gospel is going to reach all nations we are part of that and that's why the last stop of our journey is Monday morning because because all of this should shape every single part of our day-to-day lives the great revelation of God from eternity the intervention of God the Son coming into history as he grows into maturity culminating in Calvary risen and ascended and forming a community means that every single day of our lives are for him and we need to take the word of God with us into tomorrow morning as well taking the teaching of scripture written onto our hearts flowing through our minds always on our lips guiding and shaping us in every single part of our lives Jesus the word of God is always speaking to us now through the Bible the word of God so that by his strength with his guidance we can live for him every single day that is a very complicated sermon and lots of terrible drogs but I want it all to just teach you all something about how far how far Jesus has come to reach you of how precious his word is and of the amazing difference that it makes to us as we go into a new week together and please don't think that all of this theology is is a million miles from you please don't think that it's a million miles for you for every one of us who's a Christian all of this truth is to encourage us and equip us as we go into a new week together and and for anyone who's not yet a Christian you know that theology might have sounded a bit complicated maybe you did I don't think I explained it very well but you can talk to me afterwards if it didn't make sense and that's just the tip of the iceberg there's a ton of far deeper richer mind-blowing theology in the gospel it's also that you could be saved it's also that Jesus could hold you in his arms forever tonight once again he's calling us all to follow him amen let's pray