Experiencing Christmas
Text: John 1:1,14-18
Introduction
1. Illustration: Typical of last minute Christmas shoppers, a mother was running furiously from store to store. Suddenly she became aware that the pudgy little hand of her three year old son was no longer clutched in hers. In a panic she retraced her steps and found him standing with his little nose pressed flatly against a frosty window. He was gazing at a manger scene. Hearing his mother’s near hysterical call, he turned and shouted with innocent glee: "look mommy! it’s Jesus - baby Jesus in the hay". With obvious indifference to his joy and wonder, she impatiently jerked him away saying, "we don’t have time for that!"
2. Now this mother has either never experienced the real meaning of Christmas or she has forgotten it.
3. When we experience Christmas we experience...
a. The vastness of God's love
b. The vastness of God's grace
c. The vastness of God character
4. Read John 1:1, 14-18
Proposition: We cannot separate the true meaning of Christmas from a personal experience with the Living God.
Transition: The first thing we experience at Christmas is...
I. The Vastness of God's Love (1, 14).
A. The Word Became Human
1. To understand the true meaning of Christmas we have to understand the true nature of Jesus.
2. John tells us, "In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God."
a. John proclaims the true nature of Jesus by referring to him as the Word, in the Greek he uses the term logos.
b. In Greek thought, the logos was the rational principle guiding the universe and making life coherent.
c. For Jewish people, the logos was the word of the Lord, an expression of God's wisdom and creative power.
d. By Jesus' time, the logos was viewed as coming from God and having his personality (NLT Study Bible).
e. However, John is going to take it a step further. He not only refers to Jesus as the Word of God, but he draws a direct connection between the Word and God himself.
f. John is making an absolute affirmation about the eternal existence of the Word.
g. It did not come into being nor was there ever a time when "the Word was not."
h. Whatever we can say about God, we can and must say about the Word (Burge, NIV Application Commentary, New Testament: John, 54-55).
3. In beginning his Gospel with this understanding John is telling us something highly significant about the nature of Jesus.
a. He is telling us that Jesus was not created, but that he always is, always was, and always shall be.
b. He is telling us that Jesus wasn't like God, but that he is God.
c. He is telling us that Jesus has always been with and fellowshipped with God since before time began.
d. Jesus is the Word and heaven is his only home.
4. The significance that this has with Christmas and why it shows the vastness of God's love is "So the Word became human..."
a. The idea that the Word became human (literally became flesh) stunned both Greeks and Jews.
b. Greeks separated the sphere of God from the mundane world of humanity, which they called flesh (Greek sarx).
c. The whole idea of God becoming like on of us was totally incomprehensible.
d. It's kind of like saying, "I'm moving to Michigan!"
e. John wrote that God himself became flesh in Christ.
f. Jesus' humanity and divinity were complete, not partial. The two ideas—Jesus as 100-percent divine and 100-percent human—form the bedrock of a Christian understanding of Christ (NLT Study Bible).
5. Not only does John say that he became like one of us, but he also "made his home among us."
a. The verb translated "lived" means "to pitch a tent, to dwell temporarily" (BAG, p. 762).
b. He left his usual place and accepted the conditions of human life and environment, with the attendant temporal limitations that all humans experience (Tenney, Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM).
c. He not only became like one of us, but he also submitted himself to all the same garbage that we do.
6. However, the significance goes even deeper.
a. This Greek word is related to the word used for the OT Tabernacle (Greek skēnē, "tent, tabernacle"), the tent in the wilderness where the Lord's glory resided and where Israel came to worship.
b. The Father's glory in the Tabernacle was now present in Jesus Christ.
c. This experience of glory is concrete. It is not a mystical vision and an inward illumination. The glory of God took up tangible form and was touched.
d. Another aspect is that this glory was not merely a display of power.
e. For John the deepest irony is how glory is to be found in suffering and humiliation, for in this Gospel, the cross of Christ is again and again described as Jesus’ glorification.
f. His signs and miracles showed his glory, to be sure, but it is in the cross that the mysterious, unfathomable glory of God is to be found (Burge, 59).
7. As if John hasn't already said enough, he also says, "He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness..."
a. Jesus offered God's unfailing love and faithfulness.
b. Despite the world's hostile darkness, Jesus entered the world to save it.
c. Even though we had rebelled against him and disobeyed.
d. Even though we repeatedly turned our backs on him.
e. Even though we didn't deserve it, Jesus came to show the full extent of God's love by dying on the cross for us.
f. Make no mistake about it, the Word became human so that he could save us from ourselves.
B. Loved Us So Much
1. Illustration: A certain medieval monk announced he would be preaching next Sunday evening on "The Love of God." As the shadows fell and the light ceased to come in through the cathedral windows, the congregation gathered. In the darkness of the altar, the monk lighted a candle and carried it to the crucifix. First of all, he illumined the crown of thorns, next, the two wounded hands, then the marks of the spear wound. In the hush that fell, he blew out the candle and left the chapel. There was nothing else to say.
2. The love of God is demonstrated to us in the incarnation.
a. Philippians 2:6-7 (NLT)
6 Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.
7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form,
b. He gave up his rights.
c. He gave up his privileges.
d. He gave up his comfort.
e. He gave up his home.
f. So that he could stand in our place.
g. That's what God's love is all about.
3. The love of God is demonstrated to us in the reason for the incarnation.
a. John 3:16 (NLT)
“For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life."
b. He came to die for our sins.
c. He came to set us free from our sins.
d. He came to give us victory over our sins.
e. He came because he loved us beyond all comprehension.
4. The love of God is demonstrated to us in his identification.
a. Hebrews 4:15 (NLT)
This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testing’s we do, yet he did not sin.
b. In his identification he shows that he understands temptation.
c. In his identification he shows that he understands our pain.
d. In his identification he shows that he understands our hurt.
e. In his identification he shows that he understands what we are going through.
Transition: The next thing we experience at Christmas is...
II. The Vastness of Grace (15-17).
A. One Gracious Blessing
1. Perhaps there is no one who understands the coming of Jesus better than John the Baptist.
2. In referring to Jesus, John the Baptist said, “This is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘Someone is coming after me who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before me.’”
a. Keep in mind that John made this statement long after Jesus' birth.
b. The manifestation of Jesus came after John's appearance, but in importance Jesus took precedence over him.
c. "Far greater" is the translation of an adverb that denotes positional precedence, whereas "before" refers to rank of importance.
d. Jesus surpassed John because he was intrinsically greater (Tenney, Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM).
e. In a society where age was respected and honored, John the Baptist emphasized Jesus' honor by pointing to his existence even before creation (NLT Study Bible).
f. Even though John was considered a great prophet in his day, he could not even compare in importance to Jesus.
3. The importance of Jesus coming was to bring to us God's grace. The beloved apostle tells us, "From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another."
a. The word "abundance" means that which fills, the sum total.
b. Can there be a more abundant grace than that brought by Jesus?
c. The term "one gracious blessings after another" means that He gives grace upon grace, grace enough to meet all our needs, no matter the circumstances.
d. It is one blessing leading to another blessing; new wonders dawning upon us every day; fresh experiences constantly springing into one's life.
e. It is curious that the word "grace," so common in the rest of the New Testament, is virtually unused by John and appears only here in the prologue (four times) and then disappears.
f. Following the common understanding of the New Testament, John likely has in mind the generous work of God in sending his Son, which results in our salvation.
g. Grace is found in God’s coming and working despite the hostility and rejection of the world.
h. Grace is not merely an attribute of God. It is known when someone enjoys his goodness.
i. It is the recipient who knows grace, not the theologian who has studied it.
j. John emphasizes our experience and reception of this grace as its chief merit (Burge, 59).
4. This concept is important because we needed grace. Keeping the law and trying to be good on our own wasn't enough.
5. John tells us, "For the law was given through Moses, but God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ."
a. The contrast between law and grace as methods of God's dealing with men is expressed here as plainly as in the Pauline writings.
b. The law represented God's standard of righteousness; grace exhibited his attitude to human beings who found that they could not keep the law (Tenney, Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM).
c. We couldn't deserve God's favor so God sent us undeserved favor in Jesus.
B. By Grace
1. Illustration: Charles Spurgeon and Joseph Parker both had churches in London in the 19th century. On one occasion, Parker commented on the poor condition of children admitted to Spurgeon's orphanage. It was reported to Spurgeon however, that Parker had criticized the orphanage itself. Spurgeon blasted Parker the next week from the pulpit. The attack was printed in the newspapers and became the talk of the town. People flocked to Parker's church the next Sunday to hear his rebuttal. "I understand Dr. Spurgeon is not in his pulpit today, and this is the Sunday they use to take an offering for the orphanage. I suggest we take a love offering here instead." The crowd was delighted. The ushers had to empty the collection plates 3 times. Later that week there was a knock at Parker's study. It was Spurgeon. "You know Parker, you have practiced grace on me. You have given me not what I deserved, you have given me what I needed.
2. We needed God's grace through Jesus because our best wasn't good enough.
a. Isaiah 64:6 (NLT)
We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind.
b. We couldn't be good enough.
c. We couldn't be holy enough.
d. We couldn't love enough.
e. We couldn't give enough.
f. We need grace.
3. The only way we can come to God is through his grace.
a. Ephesians 2:8-9 (NLT)
8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.
9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.
b. When Jesus came so did grace.
c. When Jesus came his grace opened up the way of salvation by grace through faith.
d. Money won't do it.
e. Fame won't do it.
f. Only his grace!
Transition: By experiencing Christmas we also experience...
III. The Vastness of God's Character (18).
A. Revealed God to Us
1. When Jesus came to earth we learned fist hand about the nature and character of God.
2. John tells us, "No one has ever seen God. But the one and only Son is himself God..."
a. The noun God (theon) has no article in the Greek text, which indicates that the author is presenting God in his nature of being rather than as a person.
b. "Deity" might be a more accurate rendering.
c. The meaning is that no human has ever seen the essence of deity.
d. God is invisible, not because he is unreal, but because physical eyes are incapable of detecting him.
e. The infrared and ultraviolet rays of the light spectrum are invisible because the human eye is not sensitive enough to register them.
f. However, photographic plates or a spectroscope can make them visible to us.
g. Deity as a being is consequently known only through spiritual means that are able to receive his communications (Tenney, Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM).
3. The fact that Jesus is the exact representation of God can be seen by John's statement that he is "near to the Father’s heart..."
a. This means that he came from the deepest part, the most intimate place.
b. The Son, who sees the Father, is himself God—not simply a messenger who knows something about God.
c. John explicitly affirms Christ's deity.
d. Jesus shares the substance of God's being (NLT Study Bible).
e. What we know of the Father is because we have seen it in Jesus.
4. Therefore, John declares, "He has revealed God to us."
a. Jesus is the explanation (the exegesis) of God the Father.
b. The greatness of Christ explains the greatness of the Father.
c. The greatness of Christ's love explains the greatness of the Father's love.
d. And the greatness of Christ's grace explains the greatness of the Father's grace.
B. Character Is the Issue
1. Illustration: Mike Huckabee in his book, Character Is the Issue, stated, "Yet our character defines the world we live in. Our government, welfare programs, schools, and everything else in our lives are shaped and directed according to our character (1).
2. Everything we know about God we learned from Jesus.
a. Colossians 1:15 (NLT)
Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,
b. Everything that God is Christ is
c. Everything that God says Christ says.
d. Everything that about God's character is a part of Jesus' character.
3. Everything we know about God's love we learned from Jesus.
a. Romans 5:8 (NLT)
But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
b. If it wasn't for Jesus we wouldn't know what love is all about.
c. If it wasn't for Jesus we wouldn't know the extent of God's love.
d. If it wasn't for Jesus we wouldn't know how to love each other.
4. Everything we know about God's compassion we learned from Jesus.
a. Matthew 9:36 (NLT)
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
b. Jesus had compassion on everyone he met.
c. Jesus shared compassion with those in need.
d. Jesus compassion came from the compassionate heart of the Father.
Transition: The character of the Father is the expressed character we have seen in Jesus.
Conclusion
1. When we experience Christmas we experience...
a. The vastness of God's love
b. The vastness of God's grace
c. The vastness of God character
2. The Christmas that we share with others ought to be the experience of knowing Jesus.
3. We say that Jesus is the reason for the season, but we also need to say that Jesus is the season.
