For many of you, what you're about to hear, you've heard
before. For some of you, it's going to
be the first time. For some of you, you think
there's nothing more you can learn.
You're the ones I'm deeply concerned about because this is
the living Word. And there's so much here in this
Colossians text. In fact, the longer you know
Christ, the more in awe you should be, the louder your voice
should be, or the deeper the contemplation as you treasure
these things in your heart because you learn more about
your sin, more about your brokenness, more about your need
for Jesus, not less. And the Savior, this baby in the
Manger becomes bigger and bigger, and may he swell.
Today in the season, in our lives, I'm going to be preaching
from the same text we were in last week.
If you weren't here, there will be things that I don't touch on
because I touched on in the last week, so maybe you'll need to
listen to that as well. But this is one of the most
remarkable statements ever written about the identity of
Jesus Christ. I've added a few verses to the
text. I'll begin at verse 15 of
Colossians One. Read through 23, and then I will
also read chapter 29 and 10. Paul wrote these words carried
along by the Holy Spirit. He, Jesus, is the image of the
invisible God, the first born of all creation.
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, and he is the head of the body,
the Church. He's the beginning, the first
born from the dead, that in everything He might be
preeminent. For in Him all the fullness of
God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to
Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace
by the blood of His cross. And you who once were alienated
and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, He is now reconciled in
His body of flesh by His death, in order to present you holy and
blameless, and above reproach before Him.
If indeed you continue in the faith stable and steadfast, not
shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has
been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and in which I,
Paul, became a minister. Now chapter 29 and 10.
For in him all the whole fullness of Deity dwells bodily,
and you have been filled in Him who is the head of all rule and
authority. This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God. Please be seated during the
season of Advent, which is such a gift.
I love doing the same things over and over and over again.
I love tradition. I love that I'll be here this
evening for the concert, which is a highlight every Advent
season. When we first moved here in
2003, that first season of Advent, I don't want to
embarrass him, but I remember receiving a letter from Frank
Purcell, one of our members, who had a list with very specific
details of many of the things that were available for people
to do around Dallas when choirs would be singing at North Park
Center, which different plays might be play.
All sorts of things were on this very detailed list.
We loved receiving that list. It was helpful because we enjoy
doing the same things over and over again, but also new things
like this Wednesday night we're going to Christmas at the Wind
Spear, first time it's ever been held.
It's being produced by one of our members, Yon Zonka, who has
a desire to see people calm, for all the glitter, to hear the
true meaning of Christmas. Perhaps if you don't have
anything going on Wednesday night, you would want to be a
part of this first time event. Maybe it will become a tradition
we love, doing the same things over and over, but also inviting
new things that our eyes might see anew.
The wonder of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
For a moment, I want you to think about what it would be
like to have someone in your car who has never heard the story of
Christmas. They've never heard about
Christ. They have some remote idea about
how we in the West might celebrate Christmas.
But I want you to imagine for a moment that there is an
individual in your car. Maybe it's a foreign exchange
student from a land where they don't celebrate this holiday.
And while you're in your car, you decide that on this Friday
night or Saturday night or Sunday night, we're going to
actually drive through many different neighborhoods looking
at Christmas lights. Now, why don't you imagine the
individuals? No idea what you're talking
about and while he or she is in the car with you, you have one O
2.1 playing or the apples essential Christmas playing and
suddenly the individual that you are hosting begins to see things
all scattered through different yards.
He sees the big man in the red suit with the white flowing
beard and wants to know if is that Santa Claus?
Yes, next to him he sees Frosty, then he sees Rudolph, and then
he sees a Manger, and he doesn't understand why there is this
baby in this Manger with a mom and a dad and some cattle
around, maybe an Angel that is above hovering and he's just
overwhelmed, or she's overwhelmed by what she sees.
What does it all mean? Imagine if you don't know what
kind of confusion would be going in through your eyes.
But what about what they're hearing?
Unless you have selected a playlist that says Sacred
Christmas Hits, they're going to hear some crazy things.
They're going to hear What Child Is This?
Followed by Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer, A song sung by a
snowman who came to life one day.
A foggy night where Santa needed a reindeer with a glowy nose to
guide his sleigh. Next hit, Oh, holy night.
That's what we present. That's amazing.
Think about it. You've never seen it.
And suddenly you hear, oh, that's the Grinch that stole
Christmas. What does this?
What does that mean? At some point his interest is
deep enough or her interest is deep enough to say what is true.
And the truth is, both stories really come across as fantastic.
The sacred story? Jesus Christ was born of a
teenage virgin, and he was fully God and fully man.
That's a tabloid headline. And we believe it's true because
we believe his word is true and only he could do it.
Speaking of new things that came across an Advent devotion, I'm
making my way through now, written by a pastor who died in
his 50s in the 70s, I think 1975, he died.
His name is Harold Kahn and he served in Michigan and was a man
of the land and a poet and an artist.
He has a section titled The Tinsel and the Hay.
He writes. Two of our common Christmas
decorations serve to remind us of the meaning of Christmas.
Tinsel glittering on the Christmas tree, symbolic of a
superficial celebration of this holy day.
While hay and the Manger lies there.
The figure of the infant Savior signifies the essential
significance of Christmas. Tinsel represents the
glistening, showy things of the world and stands for superficial
riches. Fanfare, gaudy, displays the
power that dazzle and astound. Tinsel represent Herod and
Caesar Augustus and all those of Jesus day and ours whose first
interest is surface glamour. This is the world of secondary
matters, the world of incidentals that overlook
elementals, of powers that time erodes, the world that comes and
goes while Christmas comes to stay.
It is the world we see today in artificial icicles and
artificial snow that are pretty decorative and impressive, but
non essential and so secondary that we can pack them away in
boxes when Christmas is over and label them Christmas decorations
and store them away to use but once a year.
The deeper meaning of Christmas are represented by hay in
Bethlehem's Manger. Who's in that Manger?
How confident would you be to explain to the individual who is
in your car who that baby is? Today from this passage, I want
to speak and preach about this Jesus, the one in the Manger who
is fully God and fully man, true God and true man.
Then I want to answer the question, why does it matter?
Why did he have to be a man and why did the Savior have to be
God? I hope that by the time you
leave today, you're going to have greater confidence in being
able to answer that question. Don't rely upon your own
history. Don't rely upon your own
faculties. Trust the Holy Spirit, even in
this moment to show you something new.
The same God who in a quiet, silent moment, if you're in
Christ, called you to Himself, made today in a similar silent
way. May He open your eyes to see you
knew the wonder of who He is. The text tells us with these
most phenomenal words in verse 19 for in him that's Jesus all
the fullness of God was pleased to dwell when we speak of Jesus
and the incarnation him becoming flesh, the word becoming flesh.
What we are saying and this is really important and it's
created controversy throughout, especially the early church.
We are saying that this man Jesus is true God and true man.
He is fully God, not just part God and fully man.
He has two natures, the divine nature and his manhood nature.
He is fully God, 100%. Not 95, not 90, not 50, not a
mix. He's fully God, always was and
always is. And He is 100% man, not part
man, not some parts of him a man, all of him, a man, just
like you and me. Except He was not born in
corruption. He was not born in sin like all
the rest of mankind. These two natures are in this
one person. Listen to some things that have
been said about that. He's always God, never ceases to
be fully God. Now imagine you're hearing that
for the first time, and maybe some of you are.
This is what we believe the Word of God teaches.
All that is always true of God is always true of Jesus.
Do you hear that? All that is always true of God
is always true of Him who has these two natures in one person.
The baby in the Manger is at that moment as a baby, a full
newborn baby that will not survive without his mother's
milk. But that baby in the Manger at
that moment is also fully God. Just let it blow your mind.
If it's not blowing your mind, no matter how long you've been
doing Jesus, pray that God would blow your mind.
This is mind blowing truth. The one who is nursing at his
mother's breast is the one who made that woman.
The one who is clinging to his earthly father's finger is the
one who by his own finger in his own word, is upholding the
universe by the word of his power in that Manger.
How do you know what that means? That noise I made, it's just
mind blowing. The baby in the Manger from Joel
Beeke, his wonderful systematic theology series.
So good. The baby in the Manger is at
that moment fully God since the beginning of the incarnation.
He is both at the same time, one person existing in two natures.
He is not less of God, and He is not less of man.
BB Warfield says this. The glory of the Incarnation is
that it presents to our adoring gaze.
When I read that, I thought, I hope that's true of me.
I hope that my gaze right now in this season is adoring.
And not just this season. Every season the glory of the
incarnation is that it presents to our adoring gaze not a
humanized God or a deified man, but a true God, man, one who is
all that God is and at the same time all that man is on whose
almighty arm we can rest and to whose human sympathy we can
appeal. Right now, where do you need to
rest? On his arm?
Right now where do you need to appeal to his sympathy?
He is the high priest, He is the king, he is the prophet,
Warfield says. We cannot afford to lose either
the God and the man or the man and the God.
Our hearts cry out for the complete God, man, whom the
Scriptures offer. The Scriptures do offer this,
not just in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but all the way back
to Genesis and all the way through Revelation.
The prophets foretold that one Messiah would be both.
So this is the Old Testament. The prophets foretold that one
Messiah would be both. Eternal God meaning always
exists, and a covenant servant. The prophets foretold that he
would be a needy child and at the same time mighty God, that
he would be born in lowly Bethlehem and yet eternal and
omnipotent, that he would be born a son of David and David's
Lord. And the Gospels we see that
Jesus hungered, He had to eat and he was thirsty, He had to
drink that he got tired. But we also see that he called a
dead man to rise. He bled, He suffered.
The Gospels teaches he died, but all the while he had all
authority in heaven and earth. He rose with feet that could be
touched. He ascended in a body that he
still has. He no longer walks upon this
earth, but he is present wherever two or three gather in
his name. The Epistles teach us, like here
in Colossians, that this is God's Son and the Son of David
who dies, who gives all spiritual gifts, who is promised
the Spirit. We can say of Jesus that he was
about 30 years old when his ministry started, but that he
eternally existed. We can say of Jesus that he was
tired and asleep and still upholding the universe by the
word of his power in the boat, when the disciples said to him,
Don't you care, teacher, that we are going to die, that we are
drowning? He was sleepy, he was exhausted,
but he stood up and rebuked the wind in the sea and they were
calm from the bottom of that vessel.
He slept as a man, but remained Almighty God, upholding
everything in the world from the boat but also from the Manger.
Why did he have to be true God and true man?
How would you answer that question as you're driving
through the neighborhood, as your friend begins to ask
questions, as he begins to see that you take much more
seriously that which is pictured in the stall and in the Manger,
with the wise men, with the angels, with the star?
How would you answer the question when your friend asked,
why did he have to become a man? Why did he or why must he be
God? Jesus had to be man because of
the horrible reality of sin. Back to the text in Colossians
one verse 21, Paul says as he speaks to this church at Callasi
and you who once were alienated and hostile in mind doing evil
deeds. He that's Jesus has now
reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present
you holy and blameless above reproach before him.
Adam was our first representative.
First Adam sinned and when Adam sinned, sinned, entered into the
world and therefore every person, every child born from
that moment forward was born and sent except Jesus.
That's why there had to be the conception of the Holy Spirit,
the virgin birth. You and I weren't born just sick
and a little bit immoral with a little bit of selfishness.
We were born in sin, which means that we were dead in our
trespasses and sin. We weren't just sick, Paul tells
the church at Ephesus. But God, being rich in mercy
because of the great love with which he loved us, made us alive
together in Christ. Because of sin, we were
separated from God. And this is true of all of us.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray.
All of us, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has
laid on him the iniquity of us all.
God is a holy God. The incarnation was necessary
for our salvation because God's holiness and righteousness
demanded that satisfaction be made for sin by blood sacrifice.
This was God's plan from Genesis to the end.
It was God's plan. There has to be payment for sin.
There has to be a sacrifice, and the sacrifice has to be perfect.
Jesus had to be man because we needed representative obedience.
The one who's going to be sacrificed had to obey the law
perfectly. And Jesus never sinned.
Walking along at some point in his life, he would have stubbed
his toe and bled, and it would have hurt just like it would
hurt you. But he's also fully God.
He never sinned. He never responded to things
that way. You and I might find our nature
wanting us to respond. He didn't have a sinful nature,
but he was tempted constantly by the evil 1 and he never fell.
We needed that perfect, righteous, representative
obedience. That's why Jesus is called the
second Adam. We needed a substitute sacrifice
because we couldn't make the sacrifice for ourselves.
We needed a mediator because Robbie mentioned a gulf.
There was a real gulf between God and man.
Because of sin. We were separated.
We were not in relationship with him anymore, and there had to be
a mediator, one like us, who would build and be that bridge.
We needed a sympathetic high priest.
We needed his example and his pattern, and he had to be a man
in order to do all those things. The mediator had to be both a
perfectly righteous man, because the justice of God requires that
the same human nature which has sinned should likewise make
satisfaction for sin. And one who is himself a Sinner,
that's another human being like just like me, one who himself is
a Sinner, cannot satisfy this for others.
So therefore the Mediator must also be God, true God, that he
might, by the power of his Godhead, sustain in his human
nature the burden of God's wrath, and might obtain for and
restore to us righteousness in life.
I know that's a lot, but it's important.
Jesus Christ, true God and true man is not just a worldview, it
is that, but it's not just that. It's not just an idea and an
example of a moral man that we had our own flesh can follow.
It is that God, bringing about His plan of salvation, created
this plan by sending His Son who was always God, never not God.
He was not a God who shedded his skin like a snake and then
became less God for 33 years and then ascended to heaven.
He was fully God. He is fully God.
He was fully God when he walked up on this earth and fully man
when the incarnation took place. Now he is fully man and fully
God in heaven. We will see his flesh.
We'll see his hands, the nails where they were, and his feet
and his side. Salvation meant that it had to
be a man like us, but also that it had to be a God, the God.
Why? Remember Jonah chapter 2 verse
9? Salvation belongs to the Lord.
It's God's idea. Only God could provide a
mediator that could bring us back to Himself.
Only God could reveal Himself to us in the word made flesh.
Only the divine has the power to bear the weight of the just
penalty of sin. So what does this mean?
Now this is where it gets amazing, as if it hadn't been
already that one in the Manger is given to us as a gift.
A gift that never grows old. A gift that truly gets better
with age and will for all eternity.
A gift that we would never choose to open unless the Holy
Spirit, in a silent way behind the scenes, draws us to Himself
as He causes our dead hearts to beat.
And when we rest and receive Him alone for salvation, what
happens? We become one with Him, one with
the one who is fully God, one with the one who is fully man.
In chapter 2, verse 10, I'll do both 9 and 10.
Paul writes. For in Him the whole fullness of
deity dwells bodily. And you Speaking of those who
are in Christ, you have been filled in Him who is the head of
all rule and authority. And if you're in Christ and
you've been filled with him, what does that mean?
Go back to verse 22, chapter 1. He, Jesus, has now reconciled in
order to present you by His body of flesh and His death, in order
to present you holy and blameless and above reproach
before Him. Yesterday I surprised my wife
with the Christmas present. I have always struggled to wait
once I've got a gift that I know she or someone else is going to
love. Waiting till the 25th is hard.
Some of you are like that. I had a plan to wait.
I even told her yesterday morning, I've got you a great
gift for Christmas. I'm going to wait till
Christmas. But then the gentleman who
created it before we called me and said it's ready.
And so I went. I asked this gentleman who has a
shop at Forest and Marsh. His billboard just says TV/VCR
found him. His name's Bill and he converted
28 tapes from the 90s and early 2000s when our children were
born and their first Christmases. 28 tapes and
there's about 100 more to go. I'm not giving those to him yet
and based on the price, I'm not sure I will.
But I couldn't wait. It's on the disk.
I plugged it in the TVI saw what I saw and I couldn't believe it.
There's our first born daughter, Kara in the hospital.
Next tape was our last Christmas in Saint Louis, 2002, and it
snowed so deep. Our next Christmas was here in
Dallas. It snowed once since we've been
here since 2002. But what I saw on the tape and
we have lots to watch, what I saw on the tape was a mom and
dad young telling their children in the best way we could what I
just told you about the wonder of who the Savior is.
And the next year, the same message was given, so much so
that they could begin to repeat the truth.
Now with their own children, they will.
The gift that we have been given in Christ is beyond our ability
to explain, but one of the best attempts I've ever heard.
I want to leave with you now. And it comes from John Calvin in
his Institutes. This is what he says.
This is the wonderful exchange, the measureless benevolence of
God, when Christ, becoming the Son of man with us, made us sons
of God forever. My word with Him.
By His descent to earth He has prepared an ascent to heaven for
us. By taking on our mortality, He
has conferred His immortality upon us.
Accepting our weakness, He has strengthened us.
By His power, receiving our poverty unto Himself, He has
transferred His wealth to us, Immeasurable wealth.
Your wealth can be counted, so can mine not the Lord's.
Lastly, taking the weight of our iniquity upon Himself, He has
clothed us, clothed us with His righteousness.
That baby in the Manger, clothed by his mother Mary, was God,
full and true. That man would grow and live on
this earth for 33 years. He would die the death we all
deserve to die after living the life we could never live.
He would be raised from the dead.
He would ascend to heaven. He reigns now as our King and is
going to return. If you know him, you know the
true God and true man. If you don't know Him, then what
I have been speaking to you is a gift that you have not yet
opened. So imagine you're listening to
music with someone who has never seen or heard music like this,
and you're seeing things that are both secular and sacred.
But imagine as you pull the car back into your drive for the
last time, the individual that has been seeing these sights and
hearing these sounds. Here's the last song, the one we
sang third today, a little town of Bethlehem.
And they're the truth of that third stanza.
Silently, silently, the Lord draws people to himself.
Maybe that's why you're here today is that even though you
have heard and seen many things, silently, the Spirit of God is
revealing to you the truth about Jesus, the true God, true man.
If you want to know more, come talk to us.
Talk to somebody you came with. If you want to know right now
what it means to be with him forever, then pray the prayer
that simply admits you are a Sinner and need of a Savior.
He's the only one. If you pray that prayer today or
sometime soon, let us know. If you've prayed that prayer
before, then may you and I be in awe and wonder of what He has
given us in Himself. Hark the Herald, angels sing.
Glory to the newborn King. Father, thank you for this
congregation, their patience, this day, all that you're doing
in our midst. And Lord, would you enable us to
see new things and hear new things and be eternally changed
by the truth of the gospel. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.
Please stand.