The Indescribable Gift that Makes the Poor Rich!
Notes
Transcript
Dear Congregation of our Lord Christ,
One of the most practical applications of this season of Christmas is giving. In fact I bet even you kids, think as much about the gifts you give as the ones you get. In terms of giving money for kingdom causes, and charitable help - 1/3rd of it comes in at the end of the year, in December in this season of Christmas. And some may teach Christmas as look at this example of God gave he gave us us his Son who emptied himself, so we should do the same. Other places of the NT speak about imitating Christ self-giving love something like that. His incarnation gives us the mind-set we are are to copy. But that’s not the logic of the gospel of Christmas that Paul appeals to here. He is not saying become poor like Christ did. NO the logic of the gospel here, is that you have experienced the riches of Christ life and grace, so give and love and live out of the riches of the new status you have in His grace. The emphasis is on the riches we gain in Christ to share!
Tonight I want you to ponder, and treasure this one truth: Christ came to take you out of your poverty, and lift you into His riches! When you experience that grace of Christmas, then exercise a genuine self-giving love to others. The experience of riches in Christ comes first then the exercise of love to others follows!
Key Truth: Become rich in the grace of Jesus, so that you can give in genuine love.
God’s message to us tonight comes in two parts. First: 1. What God was doing in Christ, and then 2. What Christ does in you! Let’s consider first what God was doing in Christ.
If you want to understand the grace of Christmas, you must begin with who Christ was like way before his birth, just like in our Lesson and Carols, at Creation and even before creation. Consider, the Son of God, second person of the Trinity in creation - Col 1 all thins were created through him and for him, all things hold together in him. Proverbs 8-9 show He is the eternal wisdom f God before creation, and the master builder laying down the blue print as the Holy Spirit makes it all - he is the first born of all creation, not that he was made, eternally begotten and then in Creation he is the Heir of this World, holds place of Preeminence. So you want to talk about riches - in a sense we could say as maker and owner of all creation - the Son is materially rich!
But go back further before the Creation, Christ is the eternal Son who has this glory and fellowship and friendship and love in eternal relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Listen to Jesus in John 17:5
And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
Equal in dignity and power and glory with the Father and the Spirit - Christ before creation - is the self-sufficient God - eternal life and joy - this we could say are the spiritual riches of Christ.
But then there is the second fact about the Son that we must reckon with at Christmas: though he was rich, he became poor.
Now of course we ought to think about, and be moved by the humility with which Jesus came materially. He entered this world - not in a place in Jerusalem, but a stable out back in Bethlehem and then as a refugee in Egypt. He grew up not in the temple or corridors of power but in backwoods Nazareth, Galilee. He in his public ministry said: foxes have holes and the birds have their nests, but the Sn of Man has no where to lay his head. No earthly inheritance, the fate of the world laid on the shoulder s of a homeless man. Yes he physically lived a life not of luxury, but of simplicity for the sake of others.
But that is not the point Paul is making, nor the poverty that Christmas is about. Listen carefully, the Son of God in all his glory from eternity, in his exalted position and authority over creation - how does He become poor?
The invisible eternal infinite all-knowing, all powerful God, as the Second Person of the Trinity - takes to Himself our human nature - without stopping to be God he suspends the use of his glory and power and knowledge and position, He accepts all the limitations not only of being human, but of being human in a fallen world. He assumes the place of his fallen creatures.
Like a boy with an Insectarium - saying I’ll become an insect and get into their world. And now the Mighty One, is a helpless baby who can’t change his own diaper. Now the All-kinwoing one must learn to speak and read in his human mind just like you and me. Now the Holy One - must face real temptation of evil. Now the pure one - is plunged into the heart of such ugliness and brokenness that his heart will break. He assumes our human flesh and situation.
But there is more to his poverty. Though by the virgin conception, in the power of the Holy, Spirit, though he is sinless, he takes upon himself all our fallen state, all the consequences of sin, - Hi body will hurt and have pain, his heart will grieve, real tears will fall from his weeping eyes as he feels what death does to his friend Lazarus. And the Son of God now in our poverty, will take on the curse of our sin, he will be born to die, he will carry our srrows, and sin. He will know the shame and pain.
The principle here is the same as is the same as in 1 Cor 5:21 For our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin. Except though he was not sinful in himself, he truly took on all the weakness of our humanity. Now why would he do this? For Jews and Muslims, God taking to himself our weakness, becoming truly human is blasphemy.
Well now we must move to the Second half of our message: What Christ can do in you because of this!
B. Christ came to lift you ought of your poverty into His riches!
Boys and girls understand where Christ was before he came to earth, and know that He comes so lowly to meet us in our weakness, and meeting us there, to take hold of us - and lift us up into all those riches of his life with God, his life in heaven, his life as King of creation.
Paul the big deal is knowing why the Son of God did this. The emphasis of Paul’s explanation, falls completely on those words, YET FOR YOUR SAKE. The Son of God was not doing some science experiment - Lets see what God can do. No, having created a world that could fall and that did rebel against Him, in God’s infinite wisdom and love has a plan that would be free for us, but would cost Father Son and Holy Spirit so much. And if you want to know your worth - look what God did for you, for your sake!
CS Lewis compared it to a pearl diver - stripping off all the clothing of his glory - laying aside all the kingly robes - deep down, lungs bursting, takes hold of precious pearl - you and me. down there in the mud and slime. Up up up he bears us - new life … riches..
He became poor - means like 2 Cor 5 said: He became sin, legally took our place before God as sinner, to be condemned and punished - that’s our poverty - our spiritual poverty before a holy God. Christ becomes sin to condemn sin in sinful man so that we become the rightoueness of God - all the whole ness rightness goodness, beauty count for us. Do you feel that he became not only poor for you, but he became sin for you, mission of the Cross. But all in order that becoming the righteousness of God - having taken hold of us like that precious pearl, lift us out of the mud and mire fo sin, shame, of guilt, of broken relatinoship with God and others. - he might lift us up - and guess why? He came to share all His riches!
After his descent down to us and to the Cross, God vindicated him, - now not just first born of all Creation like at the beginning, that place of preeminence. Now Jesus is becoming the first born from the Dead. He is the given not only his former glory and joy but something more - He’s begun the new creation and in it He says - you and I, whom he took hold of are co-heirs with this Christ. This is how Jesus put it, just before he went down into our lowest poverty so he could raise up with to his highest riches. Jesus said in John 17:24
Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
He says: John 17:13
But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
Do you see it now the poverty of Christmas for Jesus and the riches of Christmas for us? Listen how one Muslim came to admire God actin ginthis way: “To a Muslim the very idea of God becoming man is blasphemous, but it was this ‘blasphemy’ that saved me from unbelief. To me it came to be the most natural thing. Stories are told of Shah Abbas and how, in order to get to know his poorer subjects, he used to dress up as a poor man—as a dervish—and thus go among them. This gracious act he was able to do precisely because he was king and by such an action nothing was taken away from the glory of his kingship. If we admire such action in human beings, why should we not admire it in God?” That great Shah who dressed as a poor man, Befriended bath house fireman, later revealed best gift already given me, to remain my friend. SOURCE: Hassan Dehqani-Tafti, Design of My World (United Society for Christian Literature, 1959), 63–64.
And so what does it mean that we become rich in Christ. Not trouble-less and wealthy in this life - but all these riches of salvation - eternal life, inheritance, adopted - assurance - But as that fireman stated, best gift is not all the riches treasures of spiritual blessings, but the gift of Himself, in friendship Christ by the Spirit dwells within us.
And think about it - if he gave us all those blessings, while ministering on earth in his humility, imagine now that He has been gloried - will God not give us all things in Him? Save you to the uttermost!!!
And Paul says, because God has raised us up in this Chrsit ike this, now we can give ourselves in this kind of love to others. We can love and give, Not just money, but ourselves.
Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!