Two weeks ago we started this “PORTRAITS” series, where we are taking a look at the 4 PORTRAITS of Christ, as painted in the 4 Gospels. Each of the Gospels presents a slightly different portrait of Christ, highlighting different parts of His person and mission. And here is what I am saying through this series.

All are correct. None are complete.

That is our bottom line for the series. We get a better picture of who Jesus IS when we look through the lens of ALL 4 Gospels! Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Last week we looked at a Scripture in Ezekiel that scholars believe is symbolic of the 4 Gospels. Remember:

Let me give you one other place in Scripture where we see these same 4 faces…heaven.

Revelation 4:6b-7 – NLT – “In the center and around the throne were four living beings, each covered with eyes, front and back. The first of these living beings was like a lion; the second was like an ox; the third had a human face; and the fourth was like an eagle in flight.”

Theologians have seen those 4 symbols as 4 PORTRAITS of the Messiah, as symbols of the 4 GOSPELS that would tell the story of the Messiah. And here is the order I believe they are in.

· Matthew is all about Jesus as the King, which is best represented by the Lion.
· Mark is about the Suffering Servant, which points to the Ox
· Luke, which we will talk about on Christmas Eve, is about Jesus being the Son of Man, the Savior and it pictures the face of the man.
· And then there’s John, represented by the face of the eagle. I will come back to that a little later.

All are correct. None are complete.

We’ll come back to the eagle in a little bit, for now, let me give you a few interesting things to know about the Gospel of John.
· John’s Gospel is perhaps the most loved of the 4 Gospels.
· It is also the most widely distributed, often being printed as a separate booklet for evangelistic purposes, which John would have LOVED!
· The Gospel of John is quite unique among the Gospels. In fact, 90% of what is in John is unique to John.
· John is missing some of the key features of Jesus’ ministry. There are no exorcisms or parables in John.
· The phrase, “the kingdom of God”, a key concept in the other Gospels, is found only 2 times in John.
· 5 of the 8 miracles found in John do not occur in the other Gospels.
· John doesn’t report on His baptism, His temptation in the wilderness, the transfiguration, or the institution of the Lord’s Supper.
· It’s John’s Gospel where Jesus lays claim to God’s covenant name in the OT, I AM. And we hear 7 statements ABOUT Jesus using God’s name. Jesus said:

o I AM the Bread of Life
o I AM the Light of the World
o I AM the Door
o I AM the Resurrection and the Life
o I AM the Good Shepherd
o I AM the WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE
o I AM the TRUE VINE

· John is the only one that reports on Jesus’ ministry in Judea. The other Gospels focus on His time and ministry in Galilee and Jerusalem.
· John includes some great stories not found in the other Gospels.
o Changing the water to wine
o Raising of Lazarus
o Washing the disciples feet
o Jesus’ conversations with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman
to name a few.
John presents the most profound statement of Jesus’ identity in the NT. John 1:1-18 identifies Jesus as The WORD, the preexistent Creator of the universe, distinct from the Father yet fully divine. And one verse in particular is one of the greatest verses in all the Bible that describes the purpose of Christmas.

This takes us back to the face of the eagle. The purpose of John is to convince the reader that Jesus WAS GOD…in the flesh! The eagle signifies the soaring, transcendent, powerful, divine life of God.

If you grew up in church, this truth was preached and was likely quite clear. That Jesus was God. Most of us are familiar with that. But have you ever really paused and considered HOW absolutely mind blowing that was when Jesus came on the earth?
· He looked like a man,
· He walked like a man.
· He ate like a man.
· He needed rest, like a man.
Yet, John makes the case that though Jesus WAS 100% man, He WAS and IS… AT THE SAME TIME, 100% God! That is the portrait of Jesus that John paints in His Gospel! We could say it this way:

Jesus was FULLY human in WHAT He was, but FULLY God in WHO He was!

And THAT is amazing! Seeing the right picture of Jesus SHOULD change the way we see ourselves. In other words:

Seeing Jesus IS God helps us in seeing the value He sees in us!

A few years ago, Dove soap came out with a commercial where individual women would describe themselves to a FBI sketch artist without him seeing them. And he would draw their picture. Then another woman, who was a stranger to that woman, but had been assigned to spend some time with them, came in and described her to the same sketch artist. He drew that picture next to the other. In the commercial, the person’s view of themselves was uglier than the view that the other person had of them. The women saw their:
· Every flaw
· Their plain cheeks, flat lips
· How they looked tired or had crows feet or had dark circles
under their eyes
· Or had a big jaw or protruding chin
· Thick eyebrows
· Fat, rounded face
· Too many freckles, moles or scars

The other people saw their most attractive features:
· She had a nice round chin
· She had nice eyes. They lit up when she spoke
· Her face was thin
· She had blue eyes, very nice blue eyes
· She looked friendly
The commercial does an incredible job of pointing out our tendency, at times, to focus on our worst traits.
· How many times we have blown it.
· How we have failed
· How we have hurt other people
· How we have done things we said we wouldn’t do
· How we have come up SO short of what we thought we would
be.
· How we just seem to keep hurting ourselves or others.
· And we can’t seem to believe others when they SAY they care
about us or love us.

But we need the eyes of an EAGLE, to see how much VALUE we have.

Seeing Jesus IS God helps us in seeing the value He sees in us!

That value is found in one of the key verses in John. It’s one of the most known and quoted verses in all of the Bible. It’s usually the first memorized verse for kids.

Here is the truth that is found in that verse:
· Jesus IS God!
· God LOVES us!
· God gave His Son…FOR us
· He offers eternal life for those who BELIEVE
· If He was God AND He was willing to die…FOR ME, He MUST
see an entirely different person than I see in myself.

GOD SEES YOU DIFFERENTLY than you SEE YOURSELF!

God tried to tell us how He saw us in several places in the OT. Let’s look at a few.

This is but a SMALL sampling to SHOW you that:

GOD SEES YOU DIFFERENTLY than you SEE YOURSELF!

And JOHN writes His Gospel for a clearly expressed purpose. He literally tells us WHY he wrote his Gospel.

Let’s stop there for a second. Have you ever thought about or considered that verse before. John tells us that there are LOTS of other SIGNS (John’s word for miracles) that Jesus did in front of witnesses that were not recorded. I can’t wait to watch heaven’s DVR and check out the archive of ALL the other miracles that Jesus did! But then John adds HIS purpose for writing HIS Gospel in the next verse.

Seeing Jesus IS God helps us in seeing the value He sees in us!

Have you thought about what it means that “the Word became human and made His home among us”? THAT is such an astounding truth!

The apostle Paul said it like this:

It is incomprehensible that GOD…became…MAN because of what He saw in us that was of great value! We MUST see Jesus AS GOD! That will change everything.

Seeing Jesus IS God helps us in seeing the value He sees in us!

The words of one poem get this idea, better than any other I’ve seen. It’s called:
“Lower Still”.
Look, He's covered in dirt
The blood of His mother has mixed with the Earth
and she's just a child who's throbbing in pain
from the terror of birth by the light of a cave

Now they've laid that small baby
where creatures come eat
like a meal for the swine who have no clue that He
is still holding together the world that they see
they don't know just how low He has to go
Lower still

Later in the poem, the author continues:

all these steps are personal
all His shame is ransom
oh do you see, do you see just how low, He has come
do you see it now?
no one takes from Him
what He freely gives away

beat in His face
tear the skin off His back
Lower still, lower still
strip off His clothes
make Him crawl through the streets
Lower still, lower still
hang Him like meat
on a criminal's tree
Lower still, lower still
bury His corpse in the Earth
like a seed,
Lower still, lower still...

How LOW did He go….?

GOD BECAME MAN!

We really cannot comprehend what it would be like to LEAVE heaven, to empty yourself of your divine privileges and willingly BECOME HUMAN flesh. I heard one story that helps me.

A father and son were walking through the woods. The son picked up a stick and started swinging it around and hitting things with it. He swung it like a golf club and hit the ground and struck a large ant hill. And he noticed them running, scattering away. The boy had a sensitive and caring heart and began to apologize to them and tell them that he wasn’t there to hurt them. That he wanted to help them. They were safe. And he started to cry because none of them were turning around. And he looked to his father and said, “why can’t they understand me?” His father looked at him and said, “because you are not an ant”. You would have to become an ant for the ant to understand you.

And that is what Jesus did for us. GOD BECAME MAN because He loves us and wants us with Him! The incarnation is an AMAZING truth!

And it is what separates Christianity from every other religion. Every other religion is man trying to get to god, man sacrificing something or someone to get to god, man coming to god, but Christianity is GOD…coming to man! Sacrificing FOR man!

But somehow that isn’t what people in that day were expecting. Yet Isaiah had leaked that secret some 700 years earlier.

GOD IS WITH US IN JESUS!

I am so glad that Jesus did not leave us alone…but came PERSONALLY…The WORD BECAME HUMAN…and made His HOME among us! He wants to make His HOME in YOUR heart! THAT is why He came…fully God…became…fully MAN!

The apostle Paul highlights this same truth.

HE LOVES YOU! And He came to earth AS a King, AS a Suffering Servant, AS a Man…but also AS FULLY GOD…TO REDEEM YOU, to ADOPT YOU as His own. Remember:

John’s Gospel is fundamentally a call to decision. His claims are laid out. He wrote His Gospel SO THAT you might BELIEVE that Jesus IS God! And IF Jesus IS GOD, there is no middle ground. That is why Jesus said, “I AM THE Way, THE Truth and THE Life!”

Seeing Jesus IS God helps us in seeing the value He sees in us!

Will you trust the value that God sees in you! He loves you SO much that He sent His Son FOR YOU! That truth should change EVERYTHING for you! Do you BELIEVE that? Will you RECEIVE Christ?