Glorious Way Church

God Pitched His Tent | Pastor John Greiner

• Pastor John Greiner

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This Christmas message centers on John chapter 1, revealing Jesus as the eternal Word who became flesh and “pitched His tent” among us. The teaching explores the deeper meaning of the incarnation—God stepping into humanity to bring light, grace, and truth into a dark world. Listeners are reminded that Christ not only dwells among us but lives within believers today, filling them with His presence, love, and hope. The message closes with a call to reflect Christ’s light to the world, especially in seasons of darkness.

SPEAKER_00:

Let's lift our Bibles up and I want to get into the word with you just a brief bit before we have our lighting of candles and lay those Bibles around. Make Jesus glad, the devil mad. Let's say this together. Say, Heavenly Father, I'm so glad for Christmas. I celebrate the Lord's birthday. So glad he was born in the earth. So glad he was born in my heart. I receive the word of God tonight. It helps to have revelation about Jesus, who he is, and what he's doing. And I give you praise for all of that in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's look at John chapter 1. If you didn't bring your Bible, it's okay. I'll read the verses. John chapter 1, verse 1. The Gospel of John. It says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. And then I'll skip down to verse 14. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And verse 16, of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace. And uh, you know, I like the Rotherham version of the Bible, verse 14, and the word became flesh and pitched his tent among us. And we gazed upon his glory, a glory full of favor and truth. Isn't that powerful? He pitched his tent among us. So Christmas, God pitched his tent. God pitched his tent. Isn't that great? Christmas. What does it mean? A lot of people just kind of hit the high spots. They know that Jesus, birthday, Jesus, happy birthday, the Christ child, so forth and so on. They never get into the deeper part of what it means. But uh the biggest thing is that God became a man legally by birth, even though he, as the word of God, was eternally coexistent with the Father and with the Holy Ghost. You know, without him in the book of Hebrews, not anything made was made. I mean, he was there. And uh the second person of the Godhead, the word, became a human being. The Webster's 1828 version of the Bi of the uh dictionary is kind of like the Bible because it's got Bible words in it. It's like a concordance. Webster was a really a great man of God. That that version uh he takes a lot of the definitions of the English words right out of the concordance, and he defines the word incarnation, which is the unity of divinity with humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. Incarnation. Any religion that denies the incarnation of Jesus Christ of Nazareth is false. There's lots of lots of religions on in America itself. You know, America, you know, basically just mostly Christian. That's why it's a Christian nation. I mean, our founders were not Muslim, they were not from Somalia. And notice the uh the uh mayor of uh of uh no Boston. She's just giving so much credit to the Somalis, man. What the great things I I don't think Charles, I don't think uh, you know, Revere, you know, Paul Revere was a Somalian. I don't think he was. I think he was think he was a New Englander. He warned us, you know, all those churches there, there weren't any Somalis there. I mean, it's crazy. People are nuts. No, it's a Christian nation. And we needed, you know, human humanity needed the the incarnation, something fierce, because man had been born into darkness. Mankind had been born into sin, born into darkness, born into a world ruled by Satan. And it's a miserable world without Jesus. It's a miserable world without hope, without the access to God the Father. And Jesus bridged the gap. Jesus said, All right, I'm gonna strap it all. I'm gonna do it myself. You know, the Father sent Jesus to do that. And uh I'm so glad he did. We had to have the incarnation. He pitched his tent among us. I like the message Bible. He moved into the neighborhood. I mean, isn't that cool? Jesus moved into the neighborhood to change everything about our neighborhood. Praise God. And so the writers of the Gospels record that this glory that he talks about here in John, this glory was full of favor and truth. Verse 16, I like verse 16, John 1.16 in the amplified, it says, and we have all received his fullness, and one grace upon another, and spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing, and even favor upon favor, and gift heaped upon gift. And really, last year, in the year of milestones, that was part of what I believe that God wanted to do for us. We had this milestone Sunday just back on December the 7th. We've had so many, we have a backlog of people that want to testify, so we're gonna have another milestone Sunday coming up. We'll let you know when it is. Don't miss it. If you miss that one, boy, that I think we have it all on uh Facebook, don't we, somewhere or YouTube. You should be able to hear all the testimonies that we had that Sunday. They were powerful. There were financial testimonies, there were testimonies about relatives getting saved, testimonies about healing. I mean, it was just, it was marvelous. But God said in the beginning of that year, about a year ago, you know, when he told me, you know, it was going to be the year of a new anointing, a fresh anointing. God was gonna anoint the church with an anointing we're not even really familiar with. And it was a year of exceeding abundantly above. It was a year of grace upon grace, favor upon favor. I'm reminded of this verse right here. I mean, God wanted to take a red marker and underline 2025 and make it a milestone for us because sometimes, you know, we we have to by faith accept what God has for us. Gift heaped upon gift. He pitched his tent first. He pitched it among us 2,000 years ago. So he could secondly pitch his tent in us. He pitched his tent in me. You know, when I was 33 years old, I'm so glad I'm so glad I invited him in. He was knocking on my door many times over the years, knocked on my door as a little Catholic boy, four years old. You know, first time I remember God talking to me was in a Catholic church, in a Catholic service. South American ministers, missionaries were there in the little church, Our Lady of Fatima Church in Galena Park, Texas. I mean, a lot of people think it's, you know, that the Catholic Church is the Antichrist, but I'm here to tell you there are seeds of salvation there. Some people are saved, some people are, you know, but I just know he picked that venue for me, let me know, because when they were giving their testimony about being missionaries to South America and talking about the Amazon River, I don't even remember. I'm four years old. I don't know anything about South America. But my little heart was burning. And I knew that I needed to be like them. I knew I was called into the ministry. Well, you know, I got buried under a mile of uh, you know, of dirt and everything else. I mean, I remember in grade school I knew there was a deeper walk that God was calling me to, and I put him off and said, No, I I don't want to be crazy. I don't I don't I don't I don't want that. I'll do that later. I put God off. Aren't you glad he didn't give up on me? Because he didn't give up on me. He hadn't given up on your relatives, your children, or your parents, or your family, or people that you've been praying over. He hadn't given up on them. So he pitched his tent among us, then he pitched his tent in us. We became his personal tent individually, and then he pitched his tent here corporately. He's here. He's here. There's just something about church. There's something about, I can't, I, you know, I just I just smile every time we have one of these meetings where other people come in. They're not church, they're not our church members. Some of them are church members, all right. Some of them are not. They say, man, this place feels such an atmosphere here, you know. Because there's angels here. They carry the presence of God. There's, and and usually when we've got a meeting, like a, you know, here recently we had a uh a forum, and it was almost, man, we must have had 200 people here for a candidate forum. But the presence of God was here and wasn't a church service. And so he's pitched his tent. And so now we qualify for verse 16, the unlimited measure of the new birth. Ephesians 3.19 says God wants us to be filled up. Uh he wants us to be thrilled, uh, he wants us to be filled up throughout our being to all the fullness of God, so that we may have the richest experience of God's presence in our lives, completely filled and flooded with God Himself. Man, let's just lift your hand. I mean, that's God's plan. God wants you to be so uh mindful of him and his presence in you. Filled and flooded. Everybody say, filled and flooded with God Himself. I mean, we've only just begun to plumb the depths of what God started that night in Bethlehem. He started that night, a little baby in a manger, and he never quit. So filled with the Holy Ghost, that's what he wants. He wants us so filled with the Holy Ghost that he flows out of us into this dark world. So, in a minute here, we're gonna light our candles, except I'm not. I'm gonna have an electric candle. I hope you don't, and just y'all forgive me, but I'm just gonna do this tonight. Because I'm singing and I, you know, sometimes I forget, and so hot wax drops on my hand and distracts me, and I miss a note. So that won't happen with this. But uh I want to read to you out of Matthew 14, 16, in the message. Jesus is a light in a dark world. It's dark out there, but we're the light of the world, and we've got him with us. Matthew 4, 16, in the message, over Jordan, Galilee, crossroads of the nations. People sitting out their lives in the dark saw a huge light. Sitting in that dark country of death, they watched the sun come up. Praise God. So as we worship him, and worship team, you can make your way back up. But uh, as we worship him tonight and we sing silent night together, we light our candles. Let's think about three things. Number one, at one time we lived in darkness. I remember it. I'm not so sanctified that I don't remember what it was like being lost. I thank God every day I'm saved. We lived in darkness, but when we were born again, he came in, the light of the world in the person of the Holy Ghost. Number two, at the same time, God's love was implanted on the inside. God's burning love for us, and also God's burning love through us to a lost world. And finally, let's think about God's light and God's love are the reason why, no matter how dark the world gets, there's still hope. There's always hope. As long as the church is on the earth, there's always hope. Jesus is coming as he did the first time, he's coming the second time. And we can look forward to that. Praise God.