God’s grace comes through Jesus Christ.

 

Sermon for Advent 3, December 14, 2025

Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

John 1:15-18  ¹⁵John testified about him.  He cried out, “This was the one I spoke about when I said, ‘The one coming after me outranks me because he existed before me.’”  ¹⁶For out of his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.  ¹⁷For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  ¹⁸No one has ever seen God.  The only-begotten Son, who is close to the Father’s side, has made him known. (EHV)

God’s grace comes through Jesus Christ.

Dear fellow redeemed,

            At the beginning, no one had to teach Adam and Eve how to live.  They knew exactly how to live in righteousness with God because His righteousness was incorporated into them at the creation.  They knew nothing of evil.  All they knew was God’s love and how to react to His love in perfect holiness.

As we now know, that all changed when the serpent convinced Eve that God had withheld something desirable in the knowledge of evil.  When Adam and Eve fell into sin, the whole world became corrupted with evil, and the perfect knowledge of holiness in Adam and Eve was shattered.

Today, in our world, we see all kinds of evidence of people still imagining that evil is something to be desired.  Obeying God’s will is far from the natural mind, because being corrupted by sin, sinners imagine themselves gods unto themselves.  For that reason, people are left forever seeking some reason for living, or some happiness just out of reach, or for a peace that just can never be found in this world.

For all of these reasons, God gave us His testimony of His plan to redeem mankind from the sin and guilt that separated us all from His love.  His book, the Bible, contains two primary teachings: the Law and the Gospel.  The Law teaches what is necessary for us to be holy in God’s eyes, while the Gospel teaches us all that God has done, and continues to do, to make restored holiness possible for us.  St. John, in our text, mentions these two teachings, but the main point the Apostle brings us is that God’s grace comes through Jesus Christ.

God gave both of these main teachings because He loves us unreservedly.  Both teachings are needed because God’s love isn’t some frivolous affection that approves of any way of life or action.  Rather, God’s divine honor and majesty require us to be restored to the same holiness Adam and Eve enjoyed at creation, when being made in the image of God they walked with God in peace and harmony.  Thus, John wrote, “For out of his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.  For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

God gave three types of law through Moses: civil law to direct the nation in its daily affairs, ceremonial law to govern their worship life and point them forward to the promised Messiah and the sacrifice He would make to purify sinners, and the moral law which is affirmed in the New Testament to apply to all people of all time.

The civil law was specifically for the nation God made with the Children of Israel.  That law built a fence around Israel to keep them from following the ways of the pagans surrounding them.  While that civil law no longer applies to us, we do refer to it at times to help us understand what actions are pleasing in God’s sight.  The immorality God forbade for the Israelites must certainly not be pleasing in our lives either.

The ceremonial law pointed the people forward to the coming Messiah.  It was a sacrificial system designed to teach the people how seriously God takes sin, and to demonstrate the great sacrifice God’s Son, Jesus, would make to cleanse us of all guilt.  These laws were all fulfilled in Christ Jesus and therefore no longer regulate our worship life.  The temple itself no longer exists, nor is it needed, because God now resides in the hearts of those He rescues from darkness.

Finally, the moral law is intended for all people of all time.  It is summarized in the Ten Commandments.  Many of our civil laws seem to be rooted in the Ten Commandments, but this is mostly because the laws of our cities, towns, counties, states, and country are laid down in response to the natural law written in the hearts of all people.  This natural law influences our desire for justice, but because of the fall into sin, our understanding of natural law is fractured somewhat like a shattered mirror.  It still reflects sin in us, but only in parts and it is often twisted by human desires.  That is why we see more and more rulings that defy what God said in the Ten Commandments.

Still, the main purpose and teaching of the Bible is the Gospel.  God wants us to know that even though we can’t satisfy His holiness and righteous demand for obedience on our own, God, in His great love and mercy, sent His Son to be our redemption and peace.  Therefore, we see here that God’s grace comes through Jesus Christ.

By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, St. John wrote, “Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  No one has ever seen God.  The only-begotten Son, who is close to the Father’s side, has made him known.”  After Adam and Eve fell into sin, seeing God’s face would destroy the soul.  It is too holy for sinners to view.  Even Moses, when He asked to see God’s glory, was told, “I will make all my goodness pass in front of you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord in your presence.  I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy.”  He said, “You cannot see my face, for no human may see me and live.” (Exodus 33:19-20)

Still, there is One Man who has seen God directly and that is God’s Son.  The second person of the Trinity came to earth when the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and united God with man in the form of the Baby Jesus.  Thus, God’s Son, who has known the Father from all eternity, came into human flesh, the true God-Man, to live for us the holiness only God could supply.  No ordinary man could ever achieve what was needed to save us.  And God, without becoming Man, could no longer be present among us.  Yet, in His infinite wisdom and love, God solved the problem of sin by becoming one of us.

Now, when Jesus came to earth and became one of us, He didn’t live and act in sin as we do.  Rather, from the moment of conception until He gave up His spirit on the cross, Jesus lived in perfect obedience to His Father’s will, and in perfect obedience of every law, even those laws that were laid down through civil authority.  Jesus was obedient to His parents, even when they were unreasonable and ignorant of His whereabouts.  In every aspect of His life, Jesus was holiness lived for us.  Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, St. Peter testifies, “He did not commit a sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.  When he was insulted, he did not insult in return.  When he suffered, he made no threats.  Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.” (1 Peter 2:22-23)

You might think that someone so pure and so good, righteous, and kind in everything He did for the people around Him, that Jesus would be loved, respected and honored by all who knew Him.  Yet, the opposite happened.  Many enemies opposed Jesus, even those who were tasked with teaching His Word.  Toward the end of His ministry, it seemed like the whole world was against Jesus, and when the authorities came to arrest Him, even Jesus’ friends abandoned Him.  Isaiah foretold this all, and the reason why: “Surely he was taking up our weaknesses, and he was carrying our sufferings.  We thought it was because of God that he was stricken, smitten, and afflicted, but it was because of our rebellion that he was pierced.  He was crushed for the guilt our sins deserved.  The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:4-5)

This is the Gospel of God’s grace; Jesus lived perfect holiness for us and then paid the penalty of death for sin that all of us deserved.  Thus, recognizing Jesus’ perfect righteousness on our behalf, God accepted His death as full satisfaction for the demands of the law.  God now sees those who believe in Jesus as perfectly righteous and holy, so that with Jesus now interceding for us and covering us with His righteousness, we are invited to believe in Him and be welcome in heaven as God’s own children. 

This grace comes to us through the message of the Gospel, but so that we receive it with certainty, God also provides for His Gospel to be administered to us in the Sacraments.  What joy is ours that, today, we again receive those blessings in our service.  Baptism for Emmett is God giving this little child entrance into His kingdom of grace.  It is God putting His seal of ownership and family name on Emmett Tubbs, so that the faith in Jesus needed for salvation is now granted to this little boy by the power of the Holy Spirit in the words of consecration.

At the same time, God has not forgotten those of us who have been previously called into His kingdom.  So that our souls and spirits are refreshed in the forgiveness Jesus won for all, our Lord brings us the very body and blood He sacrificed on that cross outside of Jerusalem in the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper.  Meeting with us in this precious meal, Jesus gives His body and blood to His people as an enduring proclamation of the Gospel and as a medicine of immortality for those who partake with faith.

All of this is part and parcel of God’s Word of salvation.  God the Father sent His Son to redeem and save us by making Himself the sacrifice that brought peace with God, and the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, both caused the words of salvation to be written down for our hearing and learning, but He also works through those words of peace to bring to life new hearts of faith in formerly dead sinners, and He continues to feed and strengthen faith in those who hear and believe the Gospel of all Jesus has done for us.

Dear friends, welcome again to God’s peace.  God’s grace comes through Jesus Christ.  Amen.

The Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way.  The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.  Amen.