christmas2008b

WHO IS THE CHILD OF CHRISTMAS     COLOSSIANS 1:15-20

            This morning, we talked about how the world has missed the reason for Christmas. For many, it is about gifts, food, and time spent with each other. Our world has completely commercialized this holiday and if you do away with it they would not fuss about the real celebration being forgotten but the loss of revenue from the sale of goods.

Two women who were having lunch in an elegant hotel were approached by a mutual friend who asked the occasion for the meal. One lady replied, “We are celebrating the birth of my baby boy.” “But where is he?” inquired the friend. “Oh,” said the mother, “you didn’t think I’d bring him, did you?” What a picture of the way the world treats Jesus at Christmas. In fact, many could have Christmas with Christ.

            Yet, I believe that we need to be reminded what Christmas is all about. I said this morning, it is about God leaving his home in heaven and taking on flesh in His Son. It is about Christ identifying with humanity, who he created and redeeming them from their sins. Christmas is about the incarnation of Christ, which simply means that God came in the flesh to rescue us from his wrath and hell.

            Paul said it this way, “Though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, 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” (Phil 2:6-8). So Christ came into this world for one reason. He came to glorify God through his death and save those who would turn from their sins and put their faith in Him.

            So this morning, in our passage we saw that Christ is supreme over creation, in verses 15-17. This evening, I want to show you how Christ is supreme over the church. But in order for us to really grasp who the child of Christmas is, I want to read the entire passage again. So open you Bibles and turn to Colossians 1: 15-20.

            Paul, in verses 18-20, shows us how Christ is supreme over the church. In verse 18, Christ is the head of the body, which is the church. Biblically the metaphor of the body is often used.  The church is like a body and Christ is like its head. That's comprehensible to us.  It means what we would assume it means the ability to produce growth.  In your brain at the base of your skull is a small cavity.  In that cavity is contained a gland that is called the pituitary gland, is related to growth.  It carries the growth hormone, among others, that stimulate growth.  And growth of the body is directly related to the power provided by the head.

            Our cerebrum controls parts of the body.  Cerebellum has been called the harmonizer of muscle action.  All the functions of the human body are under the control of the brain, both voluntary and involuntary.  They are stimulated by what goes on in the head...growth, guidance.  And certainly all the thought processes are contained in the mind and the head that give the direction to all that we do and say and think.  And that simply illustrates the fact that Christ is the source of all truth, all knowledge, all wisdom, all growth and all guidance in His church.  He is the head of the church.

            So Paul in this verse states that Christ, not the angels or the emanations that come from God according to the false teachings, is the head of the church, which is his body. In Ephesians 1:22-23, Paul said, “And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” Christ is the Lord of the world, and as the risen Lord he takes control over it through the church, which is thus relevant to all things.

            Next, Paul says that this child of Christmas is the beginning. What Paul means is the Christ is the beginning of the church. He is the source of the church. In Matthew 16, when Jesus asks the disciples who do people say that I am? And they respond by giving him a list of names that they have heard people say who Jesus is. Then he asks them who do they say that he is? And Peter answer for the group by saying that Jesus is the Christ. On this confession, Jesus stated that he will build his church.

            So what Jesus was saying is that he is the source of its existence and its most prominent member by virtue of the resurrection. This word “beginning” means pioneer, leader, forerunner. In other words, Christ is the source of the church.

            Next, Paul claims that Jesus is the firstborn among the dead. Now this does not mean that Christ is the first to be raised from the dead because in the Old Testament, Elijah raised a widow’s son from the dead. In the New Testament, Jesus raised several from the dead, including Lazarus. Even Peter and Paul raised people from the dead. So this does not mean that Christ is the first one raised from the dead.

            No, what this means is that he is the supreme one to be raised from the dead. Paul is talking about his resurrection after his death on the cross. In other words, Jesus becomes the firstfruit of those who have died in him. His resurrection guarantees the resurrection of those who have given their heart to Christ in the final resurrection to eternal life.

            He is unlike the many false religions of today that celebrate the life of a dead hero. Christ resurrection with a glorified body is the guarantee of our hope. Without this resurrection there is ground for hope.  And the Apostle Paul says elsewhere, that “if Christ be not raised from the dead, we are of all people most miserable.” Do you see the significance of this statement? He is the resurrected God-man. All of those who will come from the dead Christ is the supreme one, the superior one.

So Paul in mentioning these things about Christ’s supremacy over creation by being the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, the one created all things and is before all things and holds all things together; and Paul mentioning that Christ is supreme over his church by being the head, the beginning, and the firstborn from the dead. No, wonder he ends verse 18, that in everything he might be preeminent. All Paul is saying is that Christ is first in rank in the universe and first in rank in the church.

And it amazes me that the world can ignore the reason for the celebration of Christmas. In fact, it has gotten bad enough that the atheists are putting up signs to get people to ignore the reason for Christmas. Folks, we need to remember that people are not just ignoring a historical figure, but they are ignoring the living God.

In verse 19, Paul was to make sure that we do not miss who and all that Christ is. He says, “In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” Paul is arguing that because Christ is supreme, in creation and in redemption, therefore, He is sufficient, His person is sufficient.

The word “fullness” was apparently used by the false teachers at Colossae (and in later Gnosticism) to denote the divine nature distributed among numerous intermediaries between God and the world. Paul insisted that Christ alone embodies the full measure of deity.

Folks, what Paul is saying is not that Jesus is God, even though we know that to be true. What Paul means is Christ is God in human body. This means that he is fully divine. He didn’t lose any of the attributes of God when he came in the flesh. Everything is in Him.  He is the fullness of God's essence, God's glory.  And it's in Him and Him alone.  And that is to say if somebody comes along after this and says, "I'm God," don't believe it.  He needs no supplement.  He has no rivals.  There are no more revelations.  It's in Him and Him alone that God has put all the fullness of His own deity because it pleased Him to do that.

Finally, Paul closes this great passage about Christ in telling us why he came. He came to save sinners. To rescue those who would put their faith in Christ from the wrath to come. To bring peace to those who were at one time enemies of God. He came to go to the cross, shed his blood on the cross and pay the price for sins in order to present a people to God holy and blameless. The reason for the child at Christmas was to save sinners. This is why Christmas is so important. This is why we should celebrate this holiday season.

Let us look at this verse for a few moments to appreciate the reason for Christ’s coming. Because in Jesus the fullness of Deity dwells which makes him sinless and perfect, Christ is able to reconcile to himself all things. The word “reconcile” conveys the thought that there was a preceding enmity. And there was because the Bible speaks of us being under the wrath of God, enmity and hostility between two parties. But Christ came to reconcile to himself all things. He came to bring us back to God because we are the ones who have strayed and gone away. In other words, this was total reconciliation.

The all things refer to redeemed humanity and the world that we live in. In other words, the church which has become a new creation in Christ will be reconciled to God by the blood of the cross. Christ suffered and died, in order to redeem sinners from their sins. Therefore Christ will bring those who belong to him into the new creation, a new heaven and earth.

Also, Christ will reconcile all creation on earth and in heaven. In Romans chapter 8, Paul writes about how the inanimate creation of our earth, the non-human creation, awaits the return of Christ. This is in the context of a future time when we receive glorified bodies. Verse 19: "For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it..." In other words, when Adam sinned, the curse of sin impacted all creation. Now the ground brings forth thorns and thistles. The ground didn't personally rebel against God, but the impact of man's rebellion has impacted the creation. So we don't live in a perfect world. We have disasters and acts of nature, as we call them. We have the beauty of the flowers that die. But the creation was subjected to futility "...in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God." You see, when we are brought into the fullness of our glory, the impact of that reconciliation that we experience also encompasses the rest of the creation. In that sense, it is reconciled to God and brought back into proper relationship to God now to fulfill the purpose for which God created it. So in that sense a reconciliation of the creation itself takes place, which ultimately is realized in the new heavens and the new earth mentioned at the end of the book of Revelation.

This is one of THE best stories to explain why Christ came that I've ever seen. What a good analogy!

There was once a man who didn't believe in God, and he didn't hesitate to let others know how he felt about religion and religious holidays. His wife, however, did believe, and she raised their children to also have faith in God and Jesus, despite his disparaging comments.
            One snowy eve, his wife was taking their children to  a service in the farm community in which they lived.  They were to talk about Jesus' birth. She asked him to come, but he refused.  "That story is nonsense!" he said. "Why would God lower Himself to come to Earth as a man? That's ridiculous!"

So she and the children left, and he stayed home. A while later, the winds grew stronger and the snow turned into a blizzard. As the man looked out the window, all he saw was a blinding snowstorm. He sat down to relax before the fire for the evening. Then he heard a loud thump. Something had hit the window. He looked out, but couldn't see more than a few feet.

When the snow let up a little, he ventured outside to see what could have been beating on his window. In the field near his house he saw a flock of wild geese. Apparently they had been flying south for the winter when they got caught in the snowstorm and couldn't go on. They were lost and stranded on his farm, with no food or shelter. They just flapped their wings and flew around the field in low circles, blindly and aimlessly. A couple of them had flown into his window, it seemed.

The man felt sorry for the geese and wanted to help them. The barn would be a great place for them to stay, he thought. It's warm and safe; surely they could spend the night and wait out the storm.

So he walked over to the barn and opened the doors wide, then watched and waited, hoping they would notice the open barn and go inside. But the geese just fluttered around aimlessly and didn't seem to notice the barn or realize what it could mean for them. The man tried to get their attention, but that just seemed to scare them, and they moved further away. He went into the house and came with some bread, broke it up, and made a bread crumb trail leading to the barn. They still didn't catch on.

Now he was getting frustrated. He got behind them and tried to shoo them toward the barn, but they only got more scared and scattered in every direction except toward the barn. Nothing he did could get them to go into the barn where they would be warm and safe. "Why don't they follow me?!" he exclaimed. "Can't they see this is the only place where they can survive the storm?"

He thought for a moment and realized that they just wouldn't follow a human. "If only I were a goose, then I could save them," he said out loud. Then he had an idea. He went into barn, got one of his own geese, and carried it in his arms as he circled around behind the flock of wild geese. He then released it. His goose flew through the flock and straight into the barn--and one-by-one, the other geese followed it to safety.

He stood silently for a moment as the words he had spoken a few minutes earlier replayed in his mind: "If only I were a goose, then I could save them!" Then he thought about what he had said to his wife earlier. "Why would God want to be like us? That's ridiculous!"  Suddenly it all made sense. That is what God had done. We were like the geese--blind, lost, perishing. God had His Son become like us so He could show us the way and save us.

As the winds and blinding snow died down, his soul became quiet and pondered this wonderful thought.  Suddenly he understood why Christ had come.  Years of doubt and disbelief vanished with the passing storm. He fell to his knees in the snow, and prayed his first prayer:  "Thank You, God, for coming in human form to get me out of the storm.

And I think in closing it behooves us at a time like this to take every opportunity we can to make sure that people do understand what Christmas is really all about.  Now I'm not defending December 25 as if it were the day that Jesus were born, that's very unlikely.  I'm not defending all of the stuff that goes on around Christmas, but I am saying if the world is going to give us an opportunity to focus on the birth of Jesus Christ, let's take advantage of it.  Let's take advantage of it in order to worship and praise Him because that's right and in order to speak of Him to those who so much need to hear.  Foolish, foolish people who want to eliminate Jesus Christ, keep the party just get rid of the reason.  And in so doing in their effort to gain the world, they lose their soul. We have a tremendous responsibility to them.