Catching The Miracles Of Christmas Series

Turn Your Bibles to John 1: 14

Title: Catching the Miracles of Christmas

Theme: Miracles of Christmas

Sermon Series: Grasping the Truths of Christmas

Introduction: Miracles are an absolutely essential element in Christianity. If Jesus Christ is not God manifested in the flesh, then our faith is a silly myth. If He did not rise from the dead in bodily form, with the grave being empty and His appearance being recognizable, then we are yet in our sins and, of all people, the most miserable. If the miracle of grace is not verifiable in the transformation of the life of the one who puts his faith and trust in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, then our Christian gospel is a miserable fraud. (The New International Dictionary of the Bible)

C.S. Lewis gives this definition, “A miracle is an interference with nature by supernatural power.” One of the greatest miracles to have ever taken place was in Bethlehem a little over 2,000 years ago, when God interfered with the natural way of bringing children into this world through a virgin who gave birth to a child.

Listen as I read about one of the greatest miracles of all, John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) Pray!

Proposition: I would propose to you that one of the best ways to grasp the joys of Christmas is to fully understand and be prepared to tell others about the miracles of Christmas.

Many people including Christians, too often focus on the manger, the stable, and many of the other earthly surroundings of the birth of Christ but miss the truths and purposes of God becoming man.

Interrogative Sentence: Just what are four miracles that took place during that first Christmas season? Christians need to understand and be able to teach others who came at Christmas, how He came, who He came to and the benefits of His coming.

Transitional Sentence: Christians need to take the event of the birth of Christ and point people to the miracles that took place at the time of His birth. One being God’s coming to earth.

The world stood amazed and watched as man walked on the moon. They need to know, however, that there was a much more amazing event that took place in Bethlehem. Christ while keeping His Deity, came as a baby and walked this earth for 30 plus years. Christmas is not the celebration of the beginning of Jesus Christ, it is the celebration of His arrival on earth. It must be understood and taught that Jesus’ true beginnings were not in a stable.

Colossians 1:15-17 says, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:15-17)

The Holy Spirit wants you to catch this in the first division of today’s message, “He is the image of the invisible God.” The key word is “image” (eikon) and here it means that Jesus is the image of God indicating the revelatory character of the incarnation. Yes Jesus is man; however, His character is the exact representation of God. (Word Study Dictionary of the New Testament; Word meaning in the New Testament) Jesus is not a feeble copy. He is the illumination of, the very essence of the heart of God. Our Lord said, “…Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9) Jesus is the manifestation of God, literally displaying and proving the very existence of God.

The apostle Paul writes in Colossians 1:19 that “…God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in [Jesus].” (Colossians 1:19) Jesus is a portrait of God not a mere sketch. In Jesus you see the characteristics and the distinguishing marks of God. If you want to see what God is like you must look to Christ. Get a Biblical understanding of Jesus and the Holy Spirit will give you revelation of God.

This Greek word for image (eikon) is sometimes a diminutive form of another Greek word (eikonion) meaning portrait. It is the equivalent to our word photograph. It is also used when referring to a legal document which is drawn up for a receipt or an IOU. It always includes a description of the chief parties, so that there are no mistakes to all who are involved in the agreement.

I read a story about a boy whose dad went off to World War II for many years. The boy was just a toddler when his dad went away. Before he went away, dad made sure that he left a portrait of himself for his son. After a while the boy forgot about his dad as a person. He would look at the portrait of his dad more and more frequently and say, “If only Dad could step out of the picture and be real.”