Candle Light Sermon

Introduction:

Who here is excited for Christmas?

I am.

Who wouldn’t be.

Everyone gets excited for Christmas, but no where are we told to celebrate it.

It is not in the Bible.

There was no commandment.

Why do we celebrate it?

It is neither an ordinance nor a sacrament.

Sacraments are traditions, and practices that one must do to become saved.

They are required.

Ordinances are traditions or practices that are commanded to do.

But they aren’t required for salvation.

There are no sacraments that the Bible says you need other than putting your faith in christ.

There are 2 ordinances though:

Baptism.

Communion.

Anything else is not in the scriptures.

Easter, Christmas, etc.

Some have found problems with celebrating things that the Bible doesn’t spell out verbatim.

This is not how God works though.

There things called the adiophora.

These are things that are not commanded nor condemned in the scripture.

They are things that God gives us the liberty and the will to do.

I believe Christmas is an adiphora.

But the problem is that when people celebrate something, it becomes robotic.

We just like doing things to do them, and they just become a tradition.

God had

God is a fan of celebrating holidays and festivals.

He did this in the Old Testament many times.

I believe His intention behind anything is to have them remember an event or lesson.

That is what I want to accomplish tonight.

I want to bring us back to why we are celebrating a holiday that isn’t commanded by God to celebrate, but maybe His spirit inspired and stirred up some ancient people to do out of liberty.

I want to help us understand why we should be excited about Christmas, more than the gifts and the cultural phenomenon it has become.

When we celebrate something with meaning and intention, it can change our lives.

What is the Christmas story?:

Most of us always think of mangers and wisemen.

We think of a baby being born into a hard situation.

We think of angels and Mary and Joseph.

Most of our biblical thought of Christmas come from the beginning chapters of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

They are the main sources and they are describing the events of Jesus being born.

There is another of the 4 Gospels that records the Christmas story, but most overlook it.

John 1:1–4 NKJV

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 nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

John 1:1 NKJV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

;

What is the word?

John is responding to the Greek philosophers of the day.

They taught that everything that exists, preexisted in a thought.

Words are symbols or representatives of a thought.

So the two were synonomous a word and a thought.

John is taking it a step back.

In order to have a thought you have to have a thinker.

A thinker is a mind in essence.

So John takes this idea full circle for his audience.

What John does in these first few verses, is explain what where and what Jesus was doing before Christmas.

The when is before He was born.

He was with God.

They were before time or anything else existed.

They were together.

Have you ever tried remembering back all the way to your first memory?

The farther back you get, the more you will come to a vanishing point.

God and Jesus existed before a vanishing point.

In eternity.

The word for ‘with’ here in Greek is not what we should translate the word as.

When it says that Jesus is with God, it is the word ‘pros’.

That can mean that they were looking at each other face to face from eternity past as equals and partners.

John is showing that Jesus is God.

It is even more obvious from verses 2-4.

He is the creator.

John also introduces Jesus as two other symbols.

As life, and the Light of men.

John will go on to use this symbol of light, and He will use it in His version of the Christmas story.

John 1:9–11 NKJV

9 That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.

John 1:9-

What John does in this chapter is echo the creation passage in Genesis one.

The very first verse of the Bible says that God created the light out of darkness.

Now we have this same imagery being echoed in a different way.

John is describing the Christmas story.

God who is light, came into the world.

This is described in Matthew and Luke from a worms eye view.

We are getting a bird’s eye view.

If you could see the effect that God becoming a man could have, it would be like watching utter darkness, and then that darkness being consumed by the light of God.

The darkness is us and it says that we did not comprehend it.

Think about that.

The nature of light is that it reveals realities that were not known before.

It helps us to understand our world and yet we could not understand it.

Think about that… The author became a character in His story.

This is a common thing that authors do.

They will insert themselves and this will often affect the whole characters as a turning point for the characters.

God came down to His creation, and we still wanted darkness.

Because, people do not want light.

We want to have our own little darkness.

But there isn’t anything we can do to expunge the light.

It works the other way around.

John 1:12–13 NKJV

12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Not only should we be celebrating the birth of God becoming a man....but what that means for us.

God could have become a man to come down and enslave His wayward creation.

He could have come down, and done so many things.

I think the problem most of us have is, we just take things for granted.

He came down, and those who believe in Him, and receive this light have the right to become His child.

Not by the will of man, or flesh, but only by His will and power.

We should celebrate with the understanding that we are only celebrating His birth.

But the fact that we can be and have been reborn, with His light.

I hope this means something to you tonight.

I hope there can be excitement for what He has done, and what you can be.

john 1:

John 1:14 NKJV

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

I don’t think anyone really just comprehended what I read.

I don’t think it is possible to truly understand the implications of what this means.

We can have ideas, but that is like an ant trying to understand a computer.

We need to understand that our understanding here is feeble and that should bring us to fall on our knees and cry out in worship.

God becoming a man, is is so beyond a miracle that when we celebrate Christmas, we are celebrating this and we need to just worship Him.

1 Timothy 3:16 NKJV

16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Preached among the Gentiles, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory.

2 Corinthians 4:1–6 NKJV

1 Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart. 2 But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. 3 But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. 5 For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Paul uses some of the same terms and concepts that John does in the beginning of His gospel.

Things like the word, and light.

There is something else that Paul explains earlier that in chapter 3 that he is expounding upon.

It is the idea of when Moses was in the presence of God, his face was shining light that was reflecting the glory of God.

This is called the Shekhinah glory.

The idea if God’s glory is typically symbolized by light.

The people did not want it, so God veiled it up from them and blinded them.

Typically just the

God was trying to reveal Himself.

I love this passage because Paul is explaining that revelation of God.

The nature of light is that it reveals realities that are around it.

When we focus in on verse 4, we see that there is another parallel from the initial creation, where there was darkness being consumed by light from God, and our hearts.

When we are born again, it is the same phenomenon as creation.

A new birth.