The Reason for the Season
The Light Shines in the Darkness • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Introduction
Introduction
· ‟The War on Christmas”
o Secularization of Christmas has been underway for quite some time.
§ We’ve seen the prevailing culture rebel and reject Christmas as a holiday, preferring the useless phrase “happy holidays” in an attempt to seem inclusive of those who do not celebrate Christmas.
§ This is a troubling movement because it is evidence of a broad rejection of Jesus Christ.
o But there are even more who have secularized Christmas by attaching it to modern myths and stories with meanings that cast a different reason for Christmas.
§ Grinch—Christmas is not about materialism, but about
§ Christmas Carols
§ Santa Clause
§ Every single thing on the Hallmark Channel…
· Perhaps the most pointless thing that I am proud of is that I have never watched a single Hallmark Christmas movie.
§ I love these things( Except the Hallmark Channel).
· They evoke a great deal of nostalgia in me…and many of you.
· It’s not my goal to taint or ruin any of these things for you but to help you see them in the right perspective.
o While the messages they send are moral, noble, and even Christian…none of these can truly claim to be the “Reason for the Season.”
Context
Context
· We are entering the advent season…we will be spending December in the account contained in the gospel of John.
· Why John? Because of all the gospels, it is the clearest message of the “reason for the season.”
· John’s gospel is the last written, and it was likely written long after the other apostles had suffered martyrdom.
o John’s gospel is a transitional one…meant to communicate the meaning of Jesus’s life to the generation after the apostles…to carry the message of Jesus forward.
· Each gospel deals with the Christmas story differently.
o Mark…doesn’t.
§ He is focused totally on the mission and message of Jesus.
o Matthew is focused on the incarnation as the fulfillment of God’s messianic promises.
§ He is focused on the “why”
o Luke is focused on the events as they happened chronologically.
§ He is focused on the “what.”
o John is focused on the “who.”
§ Who was it that was coming into the world.
· John’s Christmas story, like his gospel, is fundamentally a theological message.
o He makes this clear at the end of his gospel:
31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
o He wants to express what Christmas means that Christ came into the world.
§ So that through the story of Christmas you would come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
§ So that by believing you would have eternal life…that’s the reason of season.
· I chose John for my first Christmas series for theological reasons.
o I want you all to know that Jesus is the reason for the season.
§ Christmas is about Jesus.
o But Christmas means much more than mangers, shepherds, magi, and stars…it is nothing less than the story of God coming to earth.
§ It’s not just the baby in the manger. It’s that the baby is God.
§ And when we read Matthew and Luke’s accounts through John’s theological lens, it will enrich those stories all the more.
· So, let’s read the text one more time.
o This message will be less of a verse-by-verse lesson and more of an exposition of what these three verses indicate about Jesus.
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 were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
Jesus is the Divine Word of God.
Jesus is the Divine Word of God.
· The first thing John teaches us is about the person of Jesus Christ.
o And what we must always keep in mind is that Jesus’s life did not begin in the manger.
· To explain, John echoes the pattern of Genesis 1:1:
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
o This isn’t a coincidence…John wants you to see Jesus in the beginning, before creation. A place we only expect to find God.
o Theologian Mark Johnson writes:
“Without apology or qualification, John goes back in time beyond Bethlehem where Jesus was born, and Nazareth where he was conceived, indeed back beyond the beginning of time itself, and allows us a glimpse of a glorious person who has an eternal existence.”[1]
· Three aspects of Jesus’s deity and character become apparent to us in these verses.
1. The eternal being of the Word.
1. The eternal being of the Word.
o When creation was made, the Word was already there.
o The Word of God is not created…we take this for granted.
§ This was the very fight that caused the Council of Nicaea in A.D.325.
§ The Jehovah’s Witnesses, who try and pass themselves off as Christians today hold to this age-old Arian heresy. Believing that Jesus is a created being like an exalted angel.
o John says that the Word was not merely a “god-like” being. He can’t be because He was present at Creation. Therefore, He must either be with God or he must be God. Which is it?
§ John’s answer… “Yes!”
o The Word was “with” God.
§ This speaks to a person, not an abstract concept, or a possession of God.
o The Word “was” God.
§ The Son is the executor of Creation. God’s agent in accomplishing His will. When we see “And God said…,” the word of God is the “said.”
§ This is attested in the Old Testament:
6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.
§ The Word of God also brings salvation.
20 He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction.
§ In Genesis 1:26, we see God create mankind:
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
2. His full personhood of the Word.
2. His full personhood of the Word.
· There is a sense of companionship with God evidenced in this passage.
· There is a level of unity within the Godhead that is beyond our capacity to comprehend.
o The Word of God is God, yet He is a distinct person from the Father who speaks.
o When John Speaks of “the Word,” he means the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity.
§ The Word eternally lives in personal relationship with and doing the will of the Father.
3. The full deity of the Word.
3. The full deity of the Word.
· John makes an astoundingly explicit statement about the Word of God at the end of his prologue:
18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
o Jesus isn’t a god…He is the only God.
o This is the point of John’s gospel, remember?
· The Christmas story is that the Word of God was born into His creation as a child.
o The full deity of Christ is one of the most important doctrines in all the Christian faith…everything depends upon it.
§ This is because Jesus’s divine sonship is the source of our salvation as much as any of His works.
· A.W. Pink explained it this way:
In this book we are shown that the One who was heralded by the angels to the Bethlehem shepherds, who walked this earth for thirty-three years, who was crucified at Calvary, who rose in triumph from the grave, and who forty days later departed from these scenes, was none other than the Lord of glory.[2]
· It’s theological…not just that these things happened, but why they happened and what it means for us today.
Jesus is the Saving Word of God
Jesus is the Saving Word of God
· The second thing that John teaches us in this passage is about the work of Jesus Christ.
· And it is that Jesus is the Christ. The Greek word for Messiah or Savior.
o He is the anointed on. The one chosen by God to save His people.
· The divine Word of God came into the world to become a Savior.
· John is known for using words that carry a lot of weight. “Word” is one of these.
· Logos was an important concept in Greek culture, John’s audience.
o It comes from philosophy and means the purpose or design underneath the world and its events.
o Logos carried the meaning of divine logic. The logic that makes everything make sense.
· John says that Jesus is the embodiment of this divine logic, and Paul seems to agree with him.
16 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.
17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
· It is a characteristic of mankind to struggle with the “big questions.” Forever in search of the answer to the meaning of everything.
· Again, Paul address this very theme in his sermon on Mars Hill.
23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,
25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,
27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,
· To bring this back to John, what He is indicating in these opening passages is that all of the searching and wondering after meaning and purpose finds its end in a manger in Bethlehem.
o Jesus isn’t just the reason for the season, He’s the reason for everything!
· The prevailing culture today sees many people live without meaning or purpose in their lives. After all, we live in the days predicted by Paul:
1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.
2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,
3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good,
4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions,
7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.
· We stumble after meaning in sensual pleasure, treasures, experiences, and relationships…hoping that they will fill the emptiness, but leaving us with only discontentment.
· Only in Jesus can we find the meaning of life…to recover that likeness of God that was marred in the fall.
o Meaning, purpose and joy come from knowing Jesus and doing His will.
· Jesus reveals the mind and heart of God.
o He is the answer to the big problems.
o Life vs. death.
§ Jesus gives eternal life:
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,
26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
o Individual vs. group.
§ Jesus makes us one with God and one another:
14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility
o Aspirations vs. achievement.
§ Jesus makes us what we are supposed to be:
6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
o And the biggest problem, alienation from God:
§ Jesus came to die that we might live:
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
Jesus is the Word of God for Us
Jesus is the Word of God for Us
· John 3 is a perfect pivot point:
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
· Jesus came to show God’s love for us.
· We come to know God through His words…and Jesus is His Word. Consider the beginning of Hebrews:
1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,
2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
3 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. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
· What John is saying, is that when you know Jesus, you know God.
o You know Him truly and sufficiently.
o Jesus is the ultimate Word of God: It’s said in the Old Testament, He is anticipated. In the gospels, He is revealed. In Acts, He is proclaimed. In the epistles, He is explained. In Revelation, He is coming again.
o Jesus is the final Word of God: God has provided everything necessary for life and godliness through His Son.
· This is an encouragement, because all that is good about God we have in Jesus.
o Most importantly, we have the love of God revealed in Jesus.
o William Barclay: “What Jesus did was to open a window in time that we might see the eternal and unchanging love of God.”[3]
· So, the meaning of Christmas in John is that the most important thing ever to happen in the world happened.
o When that baby was born to Mary, God came to save his people.
o He did what we could not and took care of our sin:
3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
o He brought peace into the world. Between us and God, and us and ourselves:
14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility
Conclusion
Conclusion
· Nothing is more important than our relationship with the God who became a man.
· It is one of the most important dates in human history…it shapes our calendar.
o Everything that has happened in human history happened either before or after Jesus’s birth.
· So let us not remain indifferent to what Jesus’s birth means for us.
· We must reject in ourselves the temptation to try and find meaning and purpose apart from knowing Jesus and walking with Him in obedience.
· After all, what are hoping for?
18 For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.
19 Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.
20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
· A couple ways that we can practice obedience:
· In church fellowship, it's easy to maintain a façade or only interact superficially.
o The beauty of the incarnation is that Jesus came while we were still weak.
o Let’s keep an eye out for each other and come around those who might be isolated or carrying burdens.
§ Invite them to share a meal or coffee.
o As Jesus revealed God’s love for us, let’s be the love of God to one another.
· You may be frustrated with the harsh realities of public life, where negativity often dominates.
o As you encounter this atmosphere, remember how the incarnation empowers us to bring hope into dark situations.
o Jesus calls us to bring light into the darkness.
· If you're struggling to show grace to people in your life who drive you crazy, reflect on the incarnation and how Jesus chose to embrace humanity fully, imperfections and all.
o Bear with each other in their failings and seek to bring Christ’s love to the fore.
· I’ll conclude with John’s own words from his first epistle:
23 And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.
24 Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.
[1]Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, The Incarnation in the Gospels, ed. Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 139.
[2]Arthur Walkington Pink, Exposition of the Gospel of John (Swengel, PA: Bible Truth Depot, 1923–1945), 17.
[3]Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, The Incarnation in the Gospels, ed. Daniel M. Doriani, Philip Graham Ryken, and Richard D. Phillips, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 146–147.
Questions
Questions
How can recognizing Jesus as both fully God and fully man change our approach to personal challenges?
What significance does the Incarnation hold for our understanding of God's relationship with humanity?
How does the concept of the Incarnation inform our understanding of God's desire to communicate with humanity?
How does the Incarnation reflect God's desire to be in relationship with humanity?
Why is it important to view Jesus not merely as a historical figure but as both fully God and fully man?
How does the Incarnation help us understand God's plan for humanity throughout the Bible?
Why is the Incarnation considered a foundational aspect of Christian faith?
