The Alpha and the Omega
Brian Fletcher
John 1:1-18
Introduction: We talk about being followers of Jesus and spend a lot of time discussing what Jesus wants us to do. But do we talk enough about who Jesus actually is, what is the essence of Jesus? What characterizes Jesus? What are his attributes?
And so I was reading John Chapter 1 and it says that Jesus is full of grace and truth and that from his fullness we have received grace upon grace. So I thought it would be great to look at the definition of grace as it pertains directly to Jesus in this passage.
So I thought ''what are the common definitions of grace that we use?
One is that grace is God's unmerited favor towards those who don't deserve it.
The second is an acronym: God's Riches At Christ's Expense.
So I started studying, getting out my Greek New Testament, my Lexicons (fancy word for dictionary), I'm looking at online resources, I even had Cory Mansfield start doing some research for me with his own software.
What I found was a much fuller definition of grace and its use.
It's not that the definitions above are particularly wrong but that they are particularly deficient.
And while we use the word grace all the time, I wanted to see what are some synonyms or phrases that help define this word.
So here it is:
Grace is favor, blessing, joy, pleasure, delight, goodwill, kindness, attractiveness, beauty. Grace is used as a noun to describe the essence of God and in John 1 the essence of Jesus (who is God) or adjective to describe God, or even as a verb grace would be to perform an action prompted by favor, kindness, and goodwill toward someone else.
Now, we say that grace is ''unmerited favor'' because the New Testament talks about how God gives us grace unconditionally, not based on us deserving it. Our sin keeps us from deserving grace and yet God still gives us grace because of what Jesus has done for us in his life, death, and resurrection.
Ephesians 2: 8-9
''For by gra ...
Brian Fletcher
John 1:1-18
Introduction: We talk about being followers of Jesus and spend a lot of time discussing what Jesus wants us to do. But do we talk enough about who Jesus actually is, what is the essence of Jesus? What characterizes Jesus? What are his attributes?
And so I was reading John Chapter 1 and it says that Jesus is full of grace and truth and that from his fullness we have received grace upon grace. So I thought it would be great to look at the definition of grace as it pertains directly to Jesus in this passage.
So I thought ''what are the common definitions of grace that we use?
One is that grace is God's unmerited favor towards those who don't deserve it.
The second is an acronym: God's Riches At Christ's Expense.
So I started studying, getting out my Greek New Testament, my Lexicons (fancy word for dictionary), I'm looking at online resources, I even had Cory Mansfield start doing some research for me with his own software.
What I found was a much fuller definition of grace and its use.
It's not that the definitions above are particularly wrong but that they are particularly deficient.
And while we use the word grace all the time, I wanted to see what are some synonyms or phrases that help define this word.
So here it is:
Grace is favor, blessing, joy, pleasure, delight, goodwill, kindness, attractiveness, beauty. Grace is used as a noun to describe the essence of God and in John 1 the essence of Jesus (who is God) or adjective to describe God, or even as a verb grace would be to perform an action prompted by favor, kindness, and goodwill toward someone else.
Now, we say that grace is ''unmerited favor'' because the New Testament talks about how God gives us grace unconditionally, not based on us deserving it. Our sin keeps us from deserving grace and yet God still gives us grace because of what Jesus has done for us in his life, death, and resurrection.
Ephesians 2: 8-9
''For by gra ...
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