Unbelieving “Christians”
Please stand as we read our newest memory Scripture together …
Isaiah 9:6
“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder. And His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
And our memory refresher verse(s) for today is(are) …
Galatians 2:20
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
Please open your Bibles to John 1:1-18
Today is what we call Christmas Sunday – the day we celebrate the birth of Christ our Savior together as a congregation. Today we come together to worship Jesus just as did the Shepherds and the Magi who are parts of the great narrative.
The four Gospels each give us a perspective on Birth of Jesus.
Matthew starts out with a genealogy of Jesus’ lineage back to the time of Abraham, followed by a “Reader’s Digest” version of all that took place between an angel, Mary and Joseph. He follows that with the account of the Magi, the escape to Egypt and the return from Egypt.
Mark does not engage at all with the account of Jesus’ arrival on earth. It seems that Mark relies on the arrival of John the Baptist and his testimony to introduce Jesus as the Messiah.
Luke is the most descriptive with accounts of angelic visits to Zechariah and Mary, Mary’s visit to see Elizabeth (Zechariah’s wife), the birth of John the Baptist, followed by Jesus’ birth, and the proclamations of the prophets Simeon and Anna at the Temple.
But John takes another path not so much to describe Jesus’ entry into the world but to tell us who it was who actually entered the world and why He came!
With that in mind let’s go ahead and read John 1:1-18
May the Lord bless the reading of His Holy Word.
(Prayer for the Lord’s help with the message)
I am sure that there are entire books, or maybe even sets of books, written on these first 18 verses of the Gospel of John.
What are some of the amazing statements that we see in this passage?
- Jesus (The Word) existed pre-Creation
- The Word was and is God
- Jesus is the Creator of all that exists
- Jesus is the source of all true spiritual light for all of humanity
- The Lord sent a prophet, John the Baptist, ahead of Jesus to announce His arrival
- Eternal salvation is available to anyone who believes in Jesus’ name; to anyone who places their faith and trust and life itself into the care of Jesus
- Jesus the Son of God came to make God the Father known
How close are God the Father and God the Son?
The NASB translates it like this, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.”
Here we see something that is incomprehensible to us. Something which we try to describe with our limited language and our limited understanding …
Jesus the Son of God is not beside the God the Father, He is not next to the bosom of the Father but He is IN the Father and The Father is In Him! This is a partial glimpse of the Holy Trinity; the Holy Trinary-Unity!
And this Trinary-Unity is inserting Himself in to humanity in another incomprehensible way that is Fully God and fully human!
That is called the incarnation. And the incarnation is attempted to be defined by something call the Hypostatic Union.
“Jesus’ two natures, human and divine, are inseparable. Jesus will forever be the God-man, fully God and fully human, two distinct natures in one Person. Jesus’ humanity and divinity are not mixed, but are united without loss of separate identity. In summary, the hypostatic union teaches that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine, that there is no mixture or dilution of either nature, and that He is one united Person, forever.”
Now, that is really an amazing concept. It’s a mind-boggler!
But, at Christmas time it is so easy to think of Jesus as just a tiny baby in a manger being worshiped by shepherds and wise men from a distant country.
And we need to ask ourselves, “How much of that do we really believe?”
Just look at this list of what we find in the Gospels …
- An angel visits Zechariah and tells him that he will have a son in his old age
- Elizabeth in her old aged becomes pregnant
- An angel visits the Mary to tell her that she will become pregnant even though she is still a virgin and will give birth, not just to a child, but to the Son of God, the long awaited Messiah, who will save His people from their sin
- Joseph, Mary’s betrothed husband, gets a vision in a dream confirming that what Mary is telling him is true
- Joseph and Mary travel to Bethlehem fulfilling a prophecy that the Messiah would come from the Town of David
- Angels appear to shepherds and the shepherds find Jesus just as the angels said they would
- A star appears leading Wise Men from an eastern country to bring Jesus gifts and worship Him
- Herod tries to kill Jesus fulfilling another Old Testament Prophecy
- An angel tells Joseph in a dream to take Jesus and Mary to Egypt to keep Jesus alive
- Joseph brings Jesus and Mary back from Egypt fulfilling another prophecy
- Instead of Joseph taking Jesus and Mary back to Bethlehem he takes them back to Nazareth fulfilling yet another Old Testament Prophecy
And … that’s only a partial listing!
But, John doesn’t bother with as many details, he just starts right out with an amazing declaration; Jesus Is God and He came to save us!!
Can you believe it? Many don’t.
Of course, you already know that many don’t believe all of this. There are those who hate all aspects of Christianity and want nothing to do with Jesus.
But what about people IN the church? What about people who identify as Christians and do not believe that even one word in the New Testament is factual in any way; what about them; are there really people like that?
Let’s look at a couple of people from extreme opposite ends of the “Believe-in-Jesus” spectrum. John Spong and Billy Graham.
What do they believe about the Bible?
John Spong, a retired bishop has written, “Let it be clearly stated, the Gospels are not in any literal sense holy, they are not accurate, and they are not to be confused with reality.”
Billy Graham said, “The Bible is to your soul what (food) is to your body. You need it daily. One good meal does not suffice for a lifetime.”
What about the virgin birth of Jesus?
John Spong said, “The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's Divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.”
Billy Graham said, “Why is the miracle of Jesus’ virgin birth important? It tells us that Jesus was indeed the Divine Son of God, sent from Heaven to save us from our sins. We are separated from God because of sin - but Jesus Christ came into the world to bring us back to God. During this Christmas season I urge you to realize your need for God, and to open your heart and life to Jesus Christ. He is the greatest Christmas gift you will ever receive!”
What about the death and resurrection of Jesus?
John Spong declared, “If the resurrection of Jesus cannot be believed except by assenting to the fantastic descriptions included in the Gospels, then Christianity is doomed. For that view of resurrection is not believable, and if that is all there is, then Christianity, which depends upon the truth and authenticity of Jesus’ resurrection, also is not believable.”
Billy Graham said, “God undertook the most dramatic rescue operation in cosmic history. He determined to save the human race from self-destruction, and He sent His Son Jesus Christ to salvage and redeem them. The work of man’s redemption was accomplished at the cross.”
Don’t you wonder how two opinions could be so diametrically opposed?
Spong thinks that the story of Jesus’ birth, life and death is just something that people thought up as a helpful way to get through life and which has now been grossly misinterpreted by those from the “shallow end” (his words) of the intellectual pool.
Billy Graham, on the other hand, simply believes that the Bible is God’s holy Word given to us by Divine inspiration in order to lead us in to salvation and fellowship with the One True God.
How did that happen? Both of them had read the Bible; probably dozens of times!
If you read the Bible you will inevitably run into something that is miraculous.
And, when you encounter the miraculous you will have a decision to make.
Is this true or is this just made up?
That decision will start you down a path.
Let’s just take the crux of the Scripture we read today ….
John 1:1-4 and John 1:14a and John 1:11-12
Is Jesus REALLY the God who is eternal and who created everything that exists?
Did Jesus REALLY merge Himself with Humanity in order to reveal the truth about God to us?
Can we REALLY find salvation and eternal life through placing our faith, our trust and our very lives into the hands of Jesus?
All these questions about the truth of the Bible are really challenge points to our heart.
To each of these questions we must answer, it is the Truth or it is a Lie.
Our answers to these claims of the Holy Bible will determine which road we take.
Our belief or disbelief in the claims of the Bible does not determine whether the Bible is true or false. The Bible stands on its own.
So, what on earth does this have to do with Christmas?
Let’s just look at three groups of people in the Christmas narrative in the Bible.
The religious leaders in Jerusalem, the shepherds and the Magi …
They all had the Word of God
The religious leaders in Jerusalem and the Magi both had the Word of God given through the prophets
The shepherds had the Word of God given through angels.
We assume that the religious leaders in Jerusalem, the Magi and the shepherds all could see the amazing star.
The religious leaders, having both the Word of God and the star, did not bother following either but expended their efforts in trying to hold on to the religion that they had made out of true Judaism. They had taken the simple Word of God and made it into something unrecognizable and missed the most important thing they were hoping for; their Messiah.
The Magi saw the star, searched the Scriptures, simply believed them, pursued them both and found Jesus.
The Shepherds heard the message from the angels, simply believed the message and found the Christ Child in a manger.
How does that apply to us?
The Bible is the Word of God. The Bible is our guiding star.
We can choose to be a hyper intellectual non-believer like John Spong and miss Jesus altogether.
Or, we can simply believe the message and find the One who came to bring salvation to anyone who believes.
Here’s the thing. You don’t have to set aside your brains to believe.
The shepherds were simple men who simply believed the Word of God given to them by the angels and they found Jesus.
On the other hand, the Magi were not simple men. They are called the wise men for a reason. They were the intellectuals of their nation.
But they did not allow their intellect to get in the way of believing the Word of God. As Proverbs 3:7 says, "Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and shun evil."
They could have very well allowed the bright star to be an astronomical distraction on its own.
Instead they searched the Scriptures and found the Messiah!
So, where do you see yourself in all of this?
When you are sitting there listening to all of this in which end of the spectrum of belief or unbelief do you find yourself?
Do you wish that that guy up front would just shut up so we can get out of here because any reasonable person could not possibly believe such stuff?
Or do you say:
Thank you God for sending your Son to earth to bring us salvation!
Thank you Jesus for not only being born in this most fantastical way but for living a sinless life and sacrificing that sinless life on the cross of Calvary so that I can have eternal life!
Thank you Jesus for rising from the dead and ascending back into heaven to be our Mediator between us and the Father.
Do you say, “I don’t understand how this could all be true but Lord please help my unbelief and give me the faith to accept Your great gift to us, not just at Christmas time but for all of my life and for all of eternity.”
(As the Spirit leads give a brief synopsis of the plan of salvation and final words and prayer.)
