Transcript

This account of the the coming of Christ, John 1. We’ll look at verses 1 through 5 and then verse 14. It’s quite unique what the Holy Spirit impressed the Apostle John to say about the coming of Christ because he reaches out and goes beyond the historical narrative which is important. If Christ did not come actually, literally, physically in time and space history, then he could not be an actual, literal Savior. There are too many today who view the Scriptures as analogies, even a form of mythology that has good lessons and good things but our faith crumbles into oblivion if the truths of the Gospel are not historical facts. But John takes us from just the historical facts and let’s us delve into the rich doctrine and theology of who Christ was and what he accomplished.

John 1:1-5 and 14,

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John refers to Christ as “the Word.” The original Greek that’s translated into W-o-r-d, Word, is the word “logos.” Now, in this day and age that the Scriptures were written, it had the idea of greatness. For example, the ancient Greek philosophers used it to refer to the principle that controls the universe. The Stoics referred to it as the soul of the world. It just literally means to speak or to express an opinion. But the Apostle John, as we see all through the New Testament epistles, takes these words that were common in their day and brings them over to the church and gives them rich theological implications. John uses this word like the Old Testament use of it and that is to say that Jesus is the expression of God. In John 1:18, for example, he says, “He has explained Him.” Jesus has come and explained God or declared God. Jesus Christ is the manifestation of God specifically. He’s not the manifestation of God in some nebulous or general way, he’s not the expression of God partially, he’s the expression of God. A lot of religions and a lot of philosophies through the ages that would view Christ the way a number of “deities” were used, as a higher than man but lower than true God of very God. Not Jesus Christ, he is the specific revelation of God. So in Jesus Christ, God has spoken to us his very thoughts and his very wisdom. Hebrews 1:2 says that God in those last days, “has spoken to us in His Son.”

Now, there was a herald sent before Jesus, the herald was John, son of Zacharias and Elizabeth, John the Baptist we call him, and the Bible says John was the voice crying in the wilderness. Well, John may have been the voice, Jesus is the Word, God’s very expression to the world. He’s the truth, the faithful witness and the amen. He’s the mind and the wisdom of God. That’s who came that very first Christmas. But today the meaning of Christmas is smothered under cloaks that the modern culture has cast over it. I remember when I was a boy there was the cloak of mythologizing that was cast over the Christmas holiday and we don’t see it much anymore but in my day there were all kinds of little things that were added into the Christmas story that kind of made it just a sweet story. There was the Little Drummer Boy, remember him, that would come up to Jesus’ manger and play his drum for the Lord and that’s a precious story but it’s very unbiblical. There is no Little Drummer Boy. That’s a myth. And there’s another cartoon animation when I was a little boy that had the animals coming to the manger scene and they all began to talk one to another. Again, interesting and fantastic in a child’s mind but it’s mythology; they were not there. And then all through the ages, three kings would arrive to worship baby Jesus. Three kings never came to worship baby Jesus. There were three wise men, scientists of the day who came, but they were not kings.

So on and on we could go but I don’t see so much of that anymore. I mean, our culture has departed from any historical aspect. Today there’s just an overall minimizing. We’ve gone from mythologizing to another cloak thrown over the Christmas holiday and that’s a minimizing. You just sort of, in my phrase and it sounds a little crude, but just dumb down the message; make the coming of the Christ child just a generic and broad message of hope for the world; a generic and broad message of love for all men; a generic and broad message of peace on earth, and that way just most every religion can kind of embrace it and you won’t be offensive to anybody and keep everybody happy. I remember last year about this time, the Home and Garden channel was celebrating Kwanza as a part of the Christmas holiday season. Just a mixture of every religion that has the ideas of hope or peace or love for men in it. Then, of course, this one seems to neither come nor go, it seems to stay around and that’s the smothering cloak of commercializing. Commercializing. Christ’s birth has become a pillar in the religion of materialism, but that’s not what our Lord had in mind.

That first Christmas, the incarnation of Christ, in that first Christmas, God initiated worship and he did it in the form of rejoicing and in celebrating. You see, rejoicing in God and in the great works of God and celebrating God and the great works of God is a proper and I’m convinced, even essential form of worship. If there is no part of your being that rejoices and celebrates God and the great works of God, I’m telling you, I think you’re a very incomplete worshiper. Now, not everybody celebrates and rejoices the same way but there ought to be a celebration in your heart over the glories and the goodness of God.

The Bible is full of this. In Luke 1, Zacharias, who became John the Baptist’s father, is told by the angle as he’s ministering in the temple that his older barren wife, Elizabeth, is going to have a son and that son would be the forerunner of Jesus, the Messiah, and Zacharias is filled with rejoicing over that. And then the Scripture says Zacharias’ wife, Elizabeth, is informed that she indeed is going to conceive and she will bear the son, John, who will be the forerunner to Jesus and she is filled with rejoicing. And then Mary is informed by the angel that she, a virgin, would conceive of the Holy Spirit and she would bear a son who would be the Savior of the world, who would save God’s people from their sins and she is full of rejoicing. She rushes to meet with Elizabeth, her relative, and they’re both rejoicing, John in the womb of Elizabeth and Jesus in the womb of Mary and the Scripture says that John leaped for joy in the womb of Elizabeth just being in the presence of the unborn Christ. There is just rejoicing everywhere.

The time comes for Mary to have her baby and she’s in this lonely, cold, dark, literally hewn out place in the side of a rock wall they would use to give the animals some shelter and she lays the baby in a manger, it literally just means a feed trough for livestock. And then out on the hillside adjacent to where they were, some shepherds are keeping watch over their flock by night and a powerful, brilliant host of heavenly angels appear. Can you imagine on that sleepy, dark, cold night what it must have been like to be a shepherd and, boom! God’s holy angels appear before you. They said, “Guys, get up.” Well, not exactly like that. “Behold, I give you good news of great,” what’s the word? “Joy.” More rejoicing. The shepherds make their way to baby Jesus and they see the child that has been promised to be born to them and the Scripture says they leave there rejoicing. Rejoicing. Some time later, magi follow the star to find baby Jesus and the Scripture says they too rejoice and celebrate. So whatever else we do at Christmas, we need to worship by rejoicing and celebrating what God has done and he has provided for us through his Son.

Let’s talk about this because we need to be mindful that we are not free to put our own spin, that’s a popular vernacular, a spin on the story. We must go to what the story is because Jesus said, “Those who worship me must worship me in spirit and in truth.” The Holy Spirit reveals the truth of Scripture but it must be the truth of Scripture. Not some sentimental or deep felt thought about how Christ came or why he came or who he is, but what does the Scripture say. We want to rejoice in the truth about Christ.

Let’s look at that for a moment. To truly celebrate Christmas and therefore worship aright, first of all, we must celebrate remembering his heritage. Remembering his heritage. We see this back in John in the first sub point here would be we remember his heritage concerning the fact that he was the pre-existing one. John writes, “In the beginning was the Word.” In the beginning was the Word. In other words, Jesus was already there when the beginning of heaven and earth began. He was already present. In Genesis 1:1, the word for “God” when it says “God created” is “Elohim.” It’s a plural word and theologians say that means there’s a plurality in the Godhead: God the Father and God the Holy Spirit and God the Son, Jesus, were there before anything else was there; before the heavens and the earth and the universe as we know it were spoken into existence. In Genesis 1:26 as God is creating, he says, “Let Us make man in Our own image.” A plurality: God the Father, God the Holy Spirit and God the Son.

As a matter of fact, not only was Jesus already there in the beginning and certainly did he exist before he was born of the virgin and laid in the manger, his incarnation didn’t even have it’s original beginning in Bethlehem when he was born of the virgin. In Genesis 32, Jacob is wrestling with a man and the Bible says Jacob wrestles with the man all night long and finally Jacob comes to surrender. It’s a picture of salvation. It’s a picture of a new birth experience where Jacob comes to the end of himself and surrenders to God and he has a lame leg from it for the rest of his life to remind him that God is his Lord and he’s not Lord. And Jacob responds at the end of that narrative that he had seen God face- to-face. Who is this one that Jacob wrestles with all night long and at the end of the wrestling with this man, he says, “I’ve seen God face-to-face”? The God-man who wrestled with Jacob was Jesus. Put on clothes for a season and went down and wrestled with Jacob.

Joshua is about the lead the children of Israel across the river into the Promised Land, I’m sure Joshua like all had heard about the difficulties and the challenges of the enemies that face Israel as they march across the river, and that night he’s pacing back and forth, he’s on the outskirts of the camp and he’s wondering. He must have some anxiety. There must be some fear. There must be some trepidation. And all of a sudden Joshua looks up and the Scripture says standing before Joshua is one with a sword drawn, it’s a mighty warrior standing before him. Joshua looks at him and the warrior speaks and says, “Joshua, take the sandals off of your feet for the ground where you are standing is holy ground.” And Joshua, in effect says, “Well, whose side are you on? Are you for us or are you for them?” He said, “Joshua, I’m the Captain of the Lord’s host,” and in effect says, “I did not come to take sides, I came to take over.” Who is this man standing before Joshua whose very presence means that the earth before him is holy and Joshua bowed and worshiped with sword drawn? It is Jesus Christ making a pre-Bethlehem incarnate presence on planet earth.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego would not bow, would not bend, and would not burn. The king throws them into the fiery furnace. Nebuchadnezzar looks into the fiery furnace and says, “How many men did we throw in the fiery furnace?” They said, “Well, we threw in three men.” He said, “Well, I see four walking around in there but the fourth ones different, he looks like the Son of God.” Who is this glorious one in the fiery furnace that even a page wretch like Nebuchadnezzar says, “I see God’s glory on this one”? I’m telling you, that was Jesus Christ, a pre-Bethlehem incarnation of Christ.

He didn’t begin at Bethlehem. The Scripture says, “In the beginning was.” He was already the Word. You see, at Christmas we celebrate his coming, not his creation. He was already there so when we worship properly at Christmas, we celebrate Jesus, the pre- existing one but, secondly, if we worship properly at Christmas we celebrate Jesus the prestigious one. The prestigious one. “In the beginning was the Word,” here it is, “and the Word was,” key phrase, “with God.” No one else could that be said about but Christ. He was with God. He had a prestigiousness which means he was distinct from all others. He has been with the Father, God the Father from all eternity. You see, Jesus is one of grand and unmatchable distinction. From all eternity, he had a oneness and a unity with God the Father that is incomparable to any human unity ever known and completely incomprehensible to the human mind. It reminds me of Diana of Wales who nobody had ever heard about until Prince Charles chose her as his bride and then she became Diana, the Princess. She became royalty. She gained prestige because of who she was now associated with. John says of Jesus, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.”

He is the prestigious one but we need to remind ourselves that as Jesus’ incarnation didn’t actually begin at Bethlehem, now Bethlehem was the beginning of the full and final incarnation of Christ, but we need to remember that Jesus’ incarnation did not end in the tomb either. Why, he’s back with God today, the Scripture tells us. In Hebrews the Bible says, Hebrews 9:24, “For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.” There he is. Do you know who’s sitting on the throne of the universe right now? A man, the God-man, Jesus Christ. Jesus right now is there at the right hand of the Father where he lives to ever make intercession for us. His oneness with God did not begin in Bethlehem at his birth and his oneness with God did not end in the tomb at his death. He is the exclusive prestigious one of the universe. No other can claim that, no other can even comprehend that, and no other has experienced that. And we will only know God because we know him.

Well, if we’re going to worship properly at Christmas, we must celebrate rightly and we must celebrate that this Jesus born of Mary was already the pre-existing one; he was the prestigious one; but, thirdly, we celebrate that he was the pre-eminent one. The pre- eminent one. John says, “In the beginning was the Word,” pre-existing, “the Word was with God,” prestigious, “and the Word was God.” Not that the Word was like God, not that the Word had many characteristics of God. No, that is liberal theology and not good biblical doctrine. No, the Word was God. You see, in the beginning he wasn’t there just with God, in the beginning he was there as God. Theologians coined a phrase about Jesus to get the proper understanding. They say that Jesus was God of very God. He’s God of very God. In no way is he just like God, he is God. You say, “I can’t comprehend that.” Well, I’ll talk about that in a moment. Again, ancient pagans through the ages have had their demigods they are called, idols that they would worship that they say are above man but not truly the one true God, but Jesus did not come as another demigod; he’s not one of the many saints; he’s not somehow in cold redemptive work with Mary in heaven right now, by the way. Some theologies say Mary is a co-redemptrix; Mary helps redeem us, Jesus helps. No, no, no, no, no. They’re not in league together. There is only one who is the pre-eminent one and that is Jesus. The Scripture says in Hebrews 1:3 that Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory and the outshining or outpouring of pure deity. Hebrews 1:3 says he is the exact representation of God’s nature. In Hebrews 1:8, God the Father looks at Jesus and calls him God. In Colossians 1:15, the text tells us he’s the image of the invisible God. In Colossians 1:16, the Bible says Jesus is the Creator of all things. Only God can do that.

Now, the skeptic would ask, “How could God become human and still be God?” There is only one answer: only God could do that. There have been so many men, Mussolini and Hitler and others, who would be God but only one God became man and his name is Jesus. Colossians 1:19 says all the fullness of deity dwells in him. Colossians 2:9 says all the fullness dwells in him in bodily form. In Colossians 1:18, it says that in all things he might have the pre-eminence.

If we’re going to worship properly at Christmas, we must worship remembering his heritage. When he was born of the virgin 2,000 years ago, he was already the pre-existing one, he just came and put on human clothing. The prestigious one, he was the one who was with God. And the pre-eminent one, he was God. Now secondly and more practically for us, if we’re going to worship properly at Christmas we should celebrate in the renewal of our lives. It should be renewal in our hearts. Now, this is a renewal that should happen every week, every day, every moment, but at a special time when we see all these rejoicings around the original first coming of Christ, there should be a special emphasis on renewing our hearts and being true worshipers at Christmas. First of all, the manner of our lives need to be renewed. The manner of our lives. In verse 14 of John 1, John says, “And the Word became flesh.” Oh, don’t just read that and go on.

The pre-existing, prestigious, pre-eminent one became flesh and then “dwelt among us.” It speaks of humility so let’s mark that as the first practical renewal of proper Christmas worship that we renew a commitment to humility. Now, don’t be like the idolaters of poverty that have come out of many religious traditions around the world. Poverty does not equal humility and humility does not equal poverty. Some of the proudest people I know are poor people. Humility is simply this: losing one’s self to the will of God. That’s what Jesus did because, by the way, he came with great humility but I’m going to tell you, he now lives in infinite riches. Both are perfectly the will of God but the point is he was 100% yielded to the will of God and that’s humility. When the will of God was to be born of Mary, when the will of God was to grow up in a lowly carpenter’s home, Joseph, and live in a nowhere place called Nazareth, and to minister with nowhere to lay his head, that was the will of God and he was humble and yielded to it. That ought to be the renewal of our hearts today as we think on how he came and veiled his glory, not being born in a palace or in regal splendor. He didn’t come originally as a mighty or great king, but the baby of a poor family and his first bed was a feed trough. So let’s renew the manner of our lives in a new spirit of humility.

Secondly, let’s renew the manner of our lives concerning a new spirit of holiness. Of holiness. At his birth the angels appeared and the angel said to the shepherds on the hillside, “Glory to God in the highest.” Why would they say that? Because the holy one was born. Now, don’t get lost in that word “holy.” It’s a word that actually is impossible for this finite mind to wrap completely around but whatever else holiness means, it means in every good way that God has made us like himself. Telling the truth, we can tell the truth. It’s because God is of the truth. Loving, we can love because God is a loving God, but in every way we’re like God, he’s infinitely superior to us. He is loving in ways we can’t comprehend. He’s of the truth and speaks the truth in ways we will never comprehend. He’s infinitely greater than us in all of those communicable attributes we share with him. But there is vast unlimited ways that he’s totally unique from us and these are glorious things. That God is Spirit. God is eternal. So in every way you measure God, he is distinct from and superior to man. Holiness, a holy one had come. The magi come bringing precious gifts. Why did they come? Because not just another king or a promised ruler, no, the holy one was born. And of course, the doctrine of the virgin birth which is a foundational non-negotiable doctrine of the Christian church. Why must he be born of a virgin? Because he is a holy one. Holiness means that we do not find ourselves clamored about with only the aspirations and viewpoints of this fallen temporal world. We look distinct. We look at life separate from the way the rest of the world looks at it. Our values are different. Our priorities are different. Our goals are different. We strive to be unworldly, more like the holy world that Jesus came from.

So to properly worship at Christmas, we celebrate by renewing the manner of our lives in the spirit of humility and in the spirit of holiness but, lastly, we would properly worship if we renew the mission of our lives. The mission of our lives. Look at verse 14 again of John 1, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father,” here’s the phrase, “full of grace and truth.” Oh, we could preach a week on grace and truth. Jesus came full of grace and full of truth. Now, the modern thing for man to do is to bring a saving mission to Jesus that’s not very truthful and doesn’t need a lot of grace, but the truth is man is sinful and man is lost and man abides under the holy wrath of a righteous God and the truth is, only Jesus was qualified to atone for and redeem men from their sins. But now listen, that’s the truth and Jesus didn’t have to do that. He didn’t have to come and he didn’t have to live like he lived and fulfill the law, and he did not have to go to the cross and become a substitutionary sacrifice in our place and literally bear the wrath of God in our place. These are not things he had to do. That’s the truth if we’re going to be redeemed but he didn’t have to do it but that’s where grace comes in. Grace is a magnificent doctrine but whatever else grace means, it means this: unmerited favor. God looked on sinners, you and you and you and you and you and you. Everyone of you and me, God looked and said, “There is nothing about them that compels me to do anything for them except I have the kind of love that desires to do good for those who do not have anything attractive about them; who are totally unworthy of me doing anything for them. God has that kind of love. We don’t have that, he does, and so he chooses to favor with the power of the Godhead unworthy, undesirable, unattractive sinners. That’s grace.

Aren’t you glad he came in both grace and truth? Fulfilled the truth of God in righteously redeeming our souls and did it with the kind of grace we can’t comprehend. That was the mission of his life. You see, Jesus came to the earth looking for sinners. The angel told Joseph when he was troubled or at least would be troubled about his wife being pregnant, they weren’t married, he had not been with her physically and the angel reassured Joseph, “No, no, no, the Holy Spirit has conceived this child in your betrothed, Mary, and he will save his people from their sins.” Hey, can I let you in on something? Jesus never fails. When he came to save his people from their sins, now listen to me, he did save them, he is saving them, and he will save them perfectly. I don’t know about you but that calls for a little celebration. He accomplished all of it completely.

That’s the mission of his coming. You know, it’s interesting as you study the biblical text, you’ll never find one place where Jesus says, “Remember my birth.” He doesn’t say that. It’s another area where many religious traditions have taken this holiday and turned it into some sacrament whereby you can help earn your closeness to God. That’s wrong. He didn’t say to remember his birth but he does say, “Remember my death.” And Paul in his epistles writes, “I preach Christ, not born in Bethlehem. No, I preach Christ and him crucified.” So Jesus in the New Testament epistles remind us to remember his death, not his birth. I think I know the partial reason for that. That is because if you take the birth of Christ alone, you can make it mean anything you want it to mean, but when you add a bloody cross, when you add dying as he died, it narrows the field of options down and all of a sudden you have to deal with the reality of your sin and wickedness and your need for a Savior. I think that’s why he didn’t leave his birth with this nebulous, undefinable purpose. Even before he was born, the angel said, “He’s coming to save his people from their sins.” We must never, never separate Bethlehem from Calvary. We must never separate the incarnation from the crucifixion because God never separated them and never intended for them to be separate.

He came on a quest for souls and if we properly celebrate Christmas, we dedicate our lives to world missions; we dedicate our lives to a church that preaches the true Gospel and calls men to repentance and faith, that faithfully expounds the whole counsel of God. We faithfully commit ourselves here at Grace Life to things like small group ministry where we’re about to being an enrollment campaign so that we might do what Andrew did and we’re calling it Operation Andrew, by the way. Andrew first went out and found his brother, Peter, and said, “Come and see.” And everybody can do that. Bring one in and let them see, let them hear. That’s the mission Jesus came on, a quest for souls, and that ought to be our mission.

Well, if we’re going to properly worship and celebrate at Christmas, we need to renew the manner of our lives and the spirit of humility and holiness; we need to renew the mission of our lives and the spirit of evangelism and reaching out to others who need to know Christ. It was 24 years ago today, this very day, I was sitting in the hospital, my wife had just had our firstborn child and I remembered two days from now is Sunday and I’m supposed to preach and I didn’t have a sermon. No deacon or elder called and said, “Pastor, your wife has just had a baby, take this Sunday off. We’ll take care of the pulpit.” Now, they do better now. Now, to be honest in defense of those good men and I do mean good men, I was very proud and bullheaded and I would not have let anybody else preach so that was my fault. But I’m sitting by my wife’s bedside at the hospital and I began to write and the sermon you just heard was the sermon I wrote in the hospital. And I remember running across this story and I don’t remember where I found it but it’s the story of a wealthy Boston family who had just had the christening service for their little baby. In their tradition, they sprinkle babies right after they’re born and the tradition is then they take the baby home after the christening service and many of the church members, friends and family all come over and they have a big celebratory party and that’s okay. Maybe they shouldn’t drink all the booze they drink but the celebration is good. But on this occasion, the wealthy family, the mom had laid the little newborn baby on the front bedroom bed and she hurried herself to the kitchen to get the hors d’oeuvres and the party trays and the food ready and on that cold Boston morning, a guest came in and went to the front bedroom and unknowingly threw a heavy cloak over that little baby. More guests arrived and another cloak was thrown over and another guest arrived and another cloak was thrown over and 20-30 minutes later when the mom went to check on the little baby, she with great, great, great horror discovered that he had suffocated under the cloaks and I believe that’s what’s happened to Christmas today. One cloak of mythologizing, another cloak of minimalizing, another cloak of commercializing, another cloak of materialism and Jesus gets smothered out of the whole picture.

But let’s worship him properly. As we think on Christmas this year, let’s think on the unbelievable glory and miracle that that one born of the virgin and laid in a feed trough 2,000 years ago was the pre-existing one. That one born of the lowly virgin and laid in that feed trough was the pre-eminent one. That one born of the virgin and laid in that feed trough was the prestigious one. Brothers and sisters, the baby in Bethlehem’s feed trough was God.

Let’s stand in prayer.