Consider Christmas

CONSIDER CHRISTMAS

With Pastor~Timothy G. Porter

The Bridge Church Upstate

John 1:1-5

Introduction:

So, here we are. We are at the beginning of a very special time of the year. The season that began this past Thursday (Thanksgiving) and runs through New Years has come to be known as the holiday season. The word “holiday” is a shortened form of what ancient people called “the holy days”. So I want you to know, It doesn't bother me to hear this time of year called the holidays, because they are holy days indeed.

Some of you grumble about the holidays and you gripe about how people begin preparing for Christmas earlier each year. You fuss about all the activities and the expense this season brings into your lives. You complain about how society has commercialized a day set apart to honor the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.

For the next few weeks I am going to Preach on the thought of "Discovering Christmas"

? The emphasis is going to be on getting Christmas right. We want it white and bright. We want the tree, the decorations, the lights, the ham, the eggnog and the presents. We want everyone to be happy. Even the disfuncintional family wants everyone to get along and be together. We want to be able to get and give plenty. We want peace and joy to be plentiful. That's what we want right?

But, In reality, Christmas often turns into a real hassle.

?You are rushed and pushed for time.

?You spend money you don't have ~ for people you don't even like ~ to acquire things they don't even want or need.

?In our struggle to get it right, we often get it dead wrong and end up making ourselves and others miserable.

?I believe God wants us to get it right. I believe that He is not so interested in our having a white Christmas as He is interested in our having and "Discovering the right Christmas."

So, how can we have a right Christmas? What do we need to understand and change in our lives that will allow Christmas to be a time of blessing and wonder instead of being a time of stress and tension?

The passage today reveals some ingredients that are absolutely essential if we are to have a right Christmas. (Turn you copy of God's Word to John 1:1-5)

Now, I realize that this is not the traditional Christmas text.

*** STAND *** READ *** PRAY ***

John does not write about angels, shepherds, stars or sheep. But, He does something the other Gospel writers do not do. John puts the greatest Christmas delivery of all time into context. He tells us all we need to know to have a right Christmas. Before we can have the right Christmas we must ~ "Consider The Person Of Christmas".

? Christmas is filled with many distractions. Between the Personalities, the Presents and the Practices, it is easy to forget the real reason for this day. In fact, many of the things we do and love so are nothing more than pagan rituals and symbols that were hijacked by the Christian church. Verse 1 brings us back to the real essence of Christmas.

*? We know Who the Word is, 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.

So if we say we know who the word is and we are going to consider the Person of Christmas we must understand, it is not santa clause, it is Jesus.

So the first thing to consider when we consider the person of Christmas is

I.) He Is Eternally God

“In the beginning was the Word.” — This phrase does not imply that the Word had a beginning. It means that the Word has always existed. The word “was” is in the “imperfect tense” it signifies “an action of the past that continues into the present.” Now let me give you a little bit of Timology and give you Pastor Tim's translation. It could be read this way, “In the beginning was the word, is the Word and always will be the Word.”

The Word is eternal! He always has been and He always will be. Before there was anything else, there was the Word. Jesus had His birth in Bethlehem, but not His beginning.

? Before there was a ______; there was Jesus! Jesus was not “Plan B”. There never was another plan!

? ILLUSTRATION: A couple of months before Christmas, the wife of a mail carrier was killed in a car accident. The husband was overcome with grief and was trying to work through his sorrow, and he had stayed late at his post office sorting through the mountain of mail that always comes through at Christmas time. His job that day was to go through the mail that had been lost and to find out where it should be re-routed.