What Does God Look LIke? - John 1

You may have heard the story about the little boy in Sunday School who was given some crayons and paper.  The chlidren were told to draw a picture of whatever they wanted.  The teacher saw a little boy named Michael drawing in different colors with a zeal she had never seen before.  "So what are you working on", she asked Michael. "I am drawing a picture of God.", he said never looking up from the paper.  She smiled broadly and said to the boy somewhat pejoratively, "But no one knows what God looks like!" Without missing a beat the boy said, "Well they will now!" 

As we begin in John 1, the writer of the Gospel begins by telling us about the "Word of God" who became flesh and dwelt among us.  This Word of God becoming flesh is Jesus. Jesus will show the world what God looks like!

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.15 (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

Bible scholars teach us that the word "Word" comes from the greek word "logos".  There is where we get our english word "logic".  We use logic to figure things out.  Logic explains things and helps them to make sense to us.  Earlier in the chapter John writes, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God."  Right away we might ask the question how can something or someone be with someone and also be that same someone.  

Welcome to the paradox of Jesus being both fully God and fully human.  This is the single purpose of John's gospel to show how Jesus is the complete revelation of God and is also God himself!  Jesus is God. Eventually this claim, that Jesus will also make, will get him killed.  But that's 20 chapters from today! 

So we might say, if you want a picture of God, just look at the person of Jesus. His life, his works, and his character.  This at the heart of what it means to be a Christian.  A Christian believes that Jesus came from heaven to earth to show us the way back to God and everything he did shows us what God is like.  So if Jesus is the exact representation of God what does He show us about God?

1. God wants to be near us.  When it said, "the Word made his dwelling among us", a good translation is, "God made his home with us."  God is not aloof. God wants us to know him.  Jesus was the way in which God came down out of heaven to introduce himself to us. 

2. God is full of grace.  Grace is complete and unmerited acceptance.  Jesus showed God's grace in all he did.  He didn't give people what they deserved.  He forgave prostitutes, tax collectors and a woman who had five husbands.  Jesus didn't focus on someone's past but how their experience of God's grace would make them whole. 

3. God is truth.  Though Jesus showed God was full of grace, He also spoke the truth into people's lives.  Though he accepted people as they were, he never let them stay there.  He confronted sin in both sinners and the self righteous religious leaders.  He knew it was only through accepting the truth about themselves and the truth about him that they could be saved and be set free.  And ultimately the truth was that He was the one and only Son of God.  And by receiving and believing in him one could find eternal life.

As we journey through the gospel of John, the gospel writer will be drawing a picture of what God looks like through the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ!  He draws it with great zeal and lots of color, let's get at it!