As they're finding their way back to their seat, I'm going to
read to you the scripture for the Christmas sermon tonight.
It's in John chapter 1, verses one through 3.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. He was in the beginning with
God. All things were made through him
and without Him was not anything made that was made.
This is the word of the Lord, Amen.
Would you guys pray with me? Father, we do come to you this
morning thankful that you sent your son, thankful that we have
a Savior, Jesus Christ. The Lord who first had to become
human, had to become one of us. And every year we make a big
deal out of it, although our world has and even the enemy has
tried to to drown it out or confuse this holiday.
We come together as your people claiming this holiday back as as
ours. It's a Christian holiday.
This is about Jesus. This is about 2000 years ago you
came down to be one of us grew up, lived a sinless life and
died for us to be, as Matthew says, to save us from our sins.
So Father, help us to understand your son even more.
Help us to hear all the, the glories and the wisdom and the
the majesty that is that's wrapped up in him as we look at
your word once more tonight I pray in Jesus name, Amen.
Well, my name is Eric. I'm one of the pastors here.
Thank you for being here on this Christmas Eve.
This is our second one as a church plant.
And so hopefully it's better than last year.
But in either either case is about what does God's word have
to say about who Jesus is? And I've titled today's message,
God became human. And in those verses it said the
word. It talked about this, this, this
being called the word. What or who is the Word now?
Back in 600 BC in Ephesus, there was a a philosopher named
Heraclitus who who came up with these ideas about an impersonal
force that was the principle of reason.
This, this rational force that gave order to the universe and
and Plato and Socrates and Philo, who were philosophers
later in Greece followed this and they, he was famous for
asking these questions like it's or it's, he said it's impossible
to step into the same river twice, meaning that if you take
your foot out of the river and then step back in, it's a New
River now completely the the water has flowed down it and
asking these questions like philosophers do.
One was that if that be so, how is it that everything that
exists is not in a state of perpetual chaos?
And they came to believe and reason that there's an ordered
change out there in the universe.
There's a a divine reason or a word.
And that's that word in the Greek, the New Testament was
written in Greek. The word word is Lagos, which
means statement or speech or a message or reason.
John, John is believed to be the apostle John, a pastor in
Ephesus later on in his ministry.
And he pastored there and, and it's believed that he wrote this
gospel, the book of John about Jesus from Ephesus, from from
his ministry while he was in Ephesus.
And he knew about the philosophers and, and what they
believed about reason and logic. And so John opens his gospel
unlike any of the other gospels, talking about this person, the
Word, the Logos, the one who brings all reason, the one who
holds all things together, who brings order to the universe.
And so we're going to look at this being whom philosophers
tried to grasp but didn't quite get it.
John brings clarity. And so I've got 4 points from
this text I want to look at tonight.
And the first is answering the question, who is the Word?
Jesus is the Word. The first verse in the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
In Revelation 1913 it says He is clothed in a robe dipped in
blood, and the name by which he is called is the Word of God.
This is a title of Jesus Christ in the Bible.
In fact, if you Scroll down to verse 14, it says the Word
became flesh and dwelt among us. So we know that this first
verse, John is telling us that this word, this Lagos, this
statement, this speech is a person, not just an in
impersonal force out there in the world like a law of nature,
but the one who spoke all the laws of nature, nature into
existence. But it's not only that that he
speaks, he also comes with a message.
The word comes with this message, and in Hebrews 1 verses
one through 3, it says long ago, at many times in many ways, God
spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days
He has spoken to us by His Son, whom he appointed the heir of
all things, and through whom also He created the world.
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of
His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His
power. So the apostle John, along with
all the other writers of the New Testament, are trying to get us
to understand who Jesus is. And this says that Jesus is God,
Jesus is God. And there's so much to that
statement to try to understand. But back in that first verse, it
says in the beginning was the Word, the word was with God and
the word was God. And so there's these
distinctions that the word was with God, another person, and
yet the word was also God. So right there is just the the
beginning of this understanding that God is triune.
He exists as three persons in one being, the Father, Son, and
the Holy Spirit. And that's what John is getting
at. He's trying to get that that
look, God became human and by believing and trusting in him
and the message that he brings, Can you have eternal life?
That's what John's gospel is all about.
But let me go on as we look into these verses.
And my next point is that Jesus is eternal.
You see, if God is eternal, then Jesus is eternal.
And John's trying to prove to us here in these verses again that
Jesus has always existed with God the Father.
In the beginning of time, Jesus already existed.
And that's the word he's using here.
In the beginning was the Word. The word was with God.
The Word was God. He was in the beginning with
God. And this isn't just the
beginning of creation. This goes further back.
Before anything was ever made, Jesus was with God.
That word beginning is the word archae, which which also means
the alpha. Revelation 18 says he's the
alpha and the Omega. He's the the.
The word means first, 'cause often times, you know, atheistic
science tries to explain how the world came about and the the
theists, the people that believe in God, say it's irrational that
something came out of nothing. You see, that's what a lot of
people believe when it comes to The Big Bang, that just out of
nowhere, at some point in time, from nothing, everything
happened. And that's what you see here.
But the rational way to look at it, the logical way to look at
it, is that there has to be a first 'cause there's always
cause and effect. That is, that is observational
science or observable science is that we see cause and effect.
Well, Jesus is the uncaused first, 'cause nobody caused him.
Why? Because He always existed.
In fact, a famous Christmas verse that we often read in
Micah 52. We looked at this in our sermon
last Sunday. But As for you, Bethlehem,
Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah.
From you one will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel.
His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.
This person to be that that was prophesied about the Messiah,
Jesus the Christ to come, whom we're talking about here on
Christmas Eve. He is from eternity.
And in first John, John wrote this letter later in his life
after he wrote the Gospel. And it says that which was from
the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with
our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands,
concerning the word of life. The life was made manifest, and
we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the
eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to
us. Jesus is the eternal life that
He's talking about here. Who was with the Father.
As he had already told us, He starts off this letter pretty
similar to his his gospel. Within the beginning.
His emphasis is to teach us who Jesus is.
So then, if Jesus is the Word and Jesus is eternal, then my
Third Point then is that he must be the Creator.
Often times we think of the Father as the Creator, but the
Bible tells us that the whole triune God was involved in this
creation of the universe and the earth and everything in it.
And going back to our verses again in verse 3, it says all
things were made through him and without him was not anything
made that was made. Now this is this is this kind of
blows my mind here because if we think about Jesus, the second
member of the Trinity, the Son of God, he's always existed, but
he wasn't human. He only took on flesh later on
Christmas, the first Christmas before that though, how did he
exist in what? In what kind of essence or being
did he exist? And and while I don't know that
I can answer that other than God is Spirit and so he existed as
Spirit with the Father and the Holy Spirit, but there's
something else to it that I think just helps us to worship
Jesus a little bit more and understand his power.
As I said, the Lagos, the word of God, his, his title is a
message, a speech. And if you think about Jesus
being the creator and we go back to the narrative that we get in
the very beginning of the Bible, look how the world was created.
It says in the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth. The earth was without form and
void and darkness was over the face of the deep and the Spirit
of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
And God said let there be light and there was light.
You see, God spoke the world into existence, the universe,
earth, everything that you can see, and even the things that
are unseen. When God said a word that was in
somehow in some way, the word of God was the Son of God and those
words that the Father spoke were, were through the Son's
power, through the sun's creating power.
Do we see everything that was made and, and going back to what
those philosophers believed about a, a force, some kind of
a, a rational reason that held everything together in that in
this verse in in Genesis 1, it says second in second verse, the
earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face
of the deep and in the, the timeline of creation days one
through six, it wasn't complete. And, and at this time God had
just started creating and, and often many theologians say the
world was in chaos without form and void.
There was darkness. This there was not order.
The order had not happened yet on the first day in God's
creation. And the Word of God brings about
that order to everything in the universe, the laws of nature,
gravity, thermodynamics, things like this.
And it is Jesus. And let me just tell you what
Paul says about him in Colossians then that ties into
this. It says he is the image of the
invisible God, the first born of all creation.
And by the way, that word first born in its original language,
Protata cost doesn't mean although he was physically born,
it also means first in rank. If you know anything about
Jewish tradition, it was always the first born son who gained
the inheritance, who took over the blessing.
And and this is saying that Jesus is the protatacost, the
first in rank of all creation. Why?
Because he's the creator. Let me go on.
For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible, whether Thrones or dominions or rulers
or authorities, All things were created through Him and for Him.
And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
So what the Greeks thought was an impersonal force.
We know as Christians that God is a very personal being and
very powerful. And this God who was born as a
baby, even now, because when Paul wrote this in Colossians,
Jesus had already ascended and he's sitting on his throne in
heaven, ruling and reigning his king.
And somehow in his reign, he is still holding all things
together. Isn't it amazing to think about
Jesus that way, as Almighty God? Because that's who he is.
That's the significance of Christmas.
It's not just a baby that was born to be king to, to save his
people from oppression one day, but this was God coming down in
all of his power, in all of his might, in all of His Majesty.
A great commentary which I think you should all look at.
It's very accessible and easy to get by.
A guy named Matthew Henry. It's free anywhere.
You can download it off the Internet.
Or he said this. This proves the Excellency of
the Christian religion that the author and founder of it is the
same one who is the author and founder of the world, the one
that we believe in, that our faith is completely built
around. As Hebrew says, he's the author
and perfector or finisher of our faith.
He's also the author of the world in everything that you can
see. Jesus created the world and then
later he came into the world to save it because we plunged it
into sin. As human beings, we chose to go
our own way, follow our own passions and desires, and when
those don't line up with God's Word and God's will, and when
God isn't the first one we worship in our lives, in fact,
the only God who we worship, that is sin and all of the other
moral failings that God has said in His Word, we tend to go
against those not just on a yearly basis or monthly basis, a
daily basis even, me included. We've plunged the world into sin
and we ourself are sinners and that is why God had to come,
because only God could take away the sins of the world, not some
created being. Back in John's day in Ephesus,
there was a man named Cerinthus and there was this heresy going
around that that God was or Jesus was a created being.
But when the Spirit came on him and his baptism, that was the
the, the, the height of his deity and then and then
eventually before the suffering God, the spirit left him again
and he was just a human being suffering.
This was a heresy that one of John's direct disciples,
Polycarp, who we have many of his writings, said that when
John ran into this guy Cerinthus in Ephesus at the bathhouse, it
says let us flee lest even the bathhouse fall down because
Cerinthus the enemy of the truth.
It is a heresy to not believe that Jesus is God.
It is a it is the only way to truly understand and know the
sacrifice that was made for your sin and in the power of the one
who can save you is to believe that Jesus is God.
Now you might not fully understand it or wrap your mind
around it, but that is what God's Word says and we must come
to that conclusion. But He also, although he was
fully God, he was fully human as well.
We must understand this about His nature.
In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word
was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
And we have seen His glory, glory of the only Son from the
Father, full of grace and truth. Jesus is the perfect picture of
God here on earth because God is so transcendent and mighty.
But he's also a personal God. He decided I'm going to come
down and I'm going to show you who I am in the most perfect
human being, whoever existed, and that's Jesus Christ.
And it is only by him becoming a human could God die for the
sacrifices of our sins. So this is how it needed to
happen as Philippians tells us, who though he was in the form of
God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but
emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in
the likeness of men and being found in human form.
He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross. So I want to end with this.
I hope I've proven to you that Jesus is God, and the whole
Bible tells us that Jesus is God.
And not only that, but Jesus can take away your sins by faith
alone in him, by believing the work he did on the cross was
sufficient enough to forgive you past, present and future.
Let me read you this illustration by a man who I
follow, great theologian Joel Beaky.
There was a farmer whose wife became a Christian.
He was upset and didn't want her to become a Christian.
He rejected the incarnation of Jesus.
Him being born as a human baby. He said to his wife, why would
God lower himself to be human like us?
His wife said I hope you see it someday.
One snowy Sunday evening the wife took the kids to church.
After the farmer fed the animals, he read a little and
took a nap. Suddenly the weather got worse.
It was a snowstorm. He got concerned about his
family. He thought should I go to
church, Take the 4 wheel drive to get them.
He loved his family and his. He is thinking.
He hears a loud thump against the house, and then another, and
he looks out the door and he sees a large flock of Canadian
geese. They are disoriented from the
storm and stranded on his farm, not knowing where to go, unable
to fly, unable to see their way. It's a Blizzard.
The farmer has compassion on the geese, he thinks to himself.
The only good thing is to give them shelter in the barn for the
night. So he gets on his jacket in his
hat and he opens the barn doors and he tries to invite them in
and they scatter and emotions to them to go in and they won't.
He tries to get behind them and shoo them in but they go off in
all directions. They'll go anywhere but inside
the barn. He's tired and confused, not
sure what to do. He goes back inside, get some
feed and figures he will make a trail of food and they would
follow him in. So he spreads the feed all over
the ground. And still they won't come in.
He says to himself. How can I possibly save these
geese? The only way I can save them if
if I was a goose myself and I could lead them into the barn
and the the geese would follow another goose.
He realizes as all this is going on that it was time for his
family to follow or to come home.
So he jumps in his four wheel drive, goes down to the church,
picks up his family and the children are happy to see him
and start saying Daddy, daddy, we thought you would come for
us. He said, did you have a good
service? They said yes, yes.
We sang our favorite songs and the preacher was preaching from
John 1 where it says the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
And Daddy, the preacher told us that Jesus became one of us so
that we might find salvation and security in him.
And immediately the farmer thought, oh, become one of us.
And he thought about the geese, and it kept swirling around in
his head how he would save them by becoming one of them.
And for the first time in his life he had insight into what
God was doing when he sent his Son into a Manger in Bethlehem.
He didn't tell them of his new found insight, but he told them
about the geese. And when they got home, they
could not see the geese anywhere, but then they could
hear some honking. And when they got to the barn,
they found all of the geese eating.
And he said to his children, come see, come, see.
Well, that family never went to church without their daddy
again. And the Holy Spirit worked on
his heart until he too put his trust in the God who was made
manifest in the flesh. The God who says to you today,
come into my barn of grace. Come into the Manger, come into
the open stable door. Why do you flounder outside in
the storm of the wrath of God? You're disoriented out there.
Come in, there's food enough and more to spare in my son Jesus
Christ. I say to you today, come to
Christ, the Lagos of God. Your life is in chaos and it may
have no meaning because you have not Jesus, the author and
perfector of the world. As the author and perfector of
your faith, trust in Him as Lord and Savior.
Tonight, while there's still time, repent and turn back.
Acknowledge that your sins put Jesus on that cross and it was
because of your sins personally that He came down to become a
human. And it was only through that
death and resurrection could you be made right with God.
Believe in Jesus and follow Him. Now would you pray with me,
Father, Gracious and merciful Son, the Majesty, the King of
Kings and the Lord of Lords, Holy Spirit, the one who draws
us and helps us to understand. We come to you, God, and ask
that you would do a miracle, and those who do not believe in you
tonight that they would, that they would finally see why you
became a man. Every Christmas passes by every
year, but make this the year that they finally get why you
came. And I pray Father, that you help
them to come back Sunday after Sunday and meet more and more
people and read their Bible and pray until they get that Jesus
Christ is Lord who came to save sinners.
I pray in Jesus name, Amen.