Sermon Preached by Rev. Larry C. Brincefield at Belleview Church of the Nazarene on November 28, 2004
Title: Advent 1: Jesus the Creator With Us.
Text: John 1:1-14
Introduction
1. God is sitting in heaven when a scientist prays to Him and says, "God, we don’t need you anymore….
Science has finally figured out a way to create life out of nothing
in other words, we can now do what You did in the beginning."…
"Oh, is that so? Tell Me more..." God asked.
"Well," says the scientist, "we can take dirt and form it into the likeness of You and breathe life into it, thus creating man."
"Well, that’s very interesting...show Me."
So the scientist bends down to the earth and starts to mold the soil into the shape of a man.
"No, no, no..." interrupts God, "Get your own dirt.
2. That’s the difference between God and man isn’t it?
People can be very creative…
They can take wood, paint, pen, or brush…
And create some of the most beautiful masterpieces…
But in the end,…
When you boil everything down to the most basic level…
We still have to start with God’s dirt…
God’s trees…
God’s plants…
God’s water…
When God started…there was nothing…
The earth was formless and empty…
And then from the emptiness…
God created everything in all creation.
3. This Christmas Season…
I would like for us to look at it from a slightly different angle…
Normally, ministers will focus of different aspects of the Christmas story…
Which is certainly a valuable thing…
Scripture is always new…
Always refreshing…
It seems that no matter how many times you read and re-read different passages of Scripture…
The Holy Spirit seems to provide new light and fresh insight…
Even in the Christmas story…
But, as valuable as that may be…
I’d like to look at Jesus in a little different way this year.
4. One of my favorite names for Jesus is Emmanuel.
Which means “God with us”…
Typically at Christmas time we think of Jesus…
Coming to earth in the form of a little Baby…
And becoming God with us…
But Jesus is with us in not only as a little Baby at Christmas time…
But Jesus is with us in many different ways…
And different aspects…
And it is these different ways that Jesus is with us that I would like to look at for these 4 Sundays of Advent.
Today, I would like for us to look at Jesus…The Creator with us.
5. When we want to study and learn more about Jesus…
Obviously as some point, we will turn to the 4 Gospel writers…
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
This morning, I would like for us to turn to John’s Gospel…
Read Text: John 1:1-14
Body
1. First of all, John tells us that In the beginning was the Word
A. When the 4 Gospel writers wrote…
They each had a different readership in mind…
And each one approached the story of Jesus in a different way…
1) Matthew was writing with the Jews in mind…
He started with the genealogy of Jesus…
from the time of Abraham forward…
2) Mark wrote for more of a Roman readership…
They were more concerned with what people did…
Instead of their genealogy…
So Mark didn’t even go there…
He started at the beginning of Christ’s adult ministry…
Many times, we don’t even turn to Mark to study the Christmas story…
3) Luke wrote with Gentiles in mind…
Luke was a Gentile himself…
And a physician…
Luke begins his Gospel narrative telling about his methods of research…
And in Chapter 3, Luke undertakes the ambitious undertaking of tracing the line of Jesus all the way back to Adam…
4) John, however, wrote for a primarily Greek readership…
Greeks were interested in education and philosophy…
They were great thinkers…
And so John takes the story of Jesus back…
Way back before His earthly ministry…like Mark did…
Way back before His genealogy to Abraham…like Matthew did…
Way back before His genealogy to Adam…like Luke did…
John reaches all the way back into eternity…
And tells us, “in the beginning was the Word”.
John’s introduction is reminiscent of the beginning of Genesis…”In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”…1
B. John’s writing and referring to Jesus as “the Word” is very interesting…
When we think of words…
Perhaps we think of written words…
We play word games with paper and pencil…
Unless you are a very confident wordsmith…
And use a pen!
But for people in Bible times…
When they thought of words…
They thought of the spoken word…
Which brings to mind another allegory to the Genesis story of creation…
When we read the story of creation…
We are quick to notice that God SPOKE the world into existence…
“God SAID let there be light…and there was light”…
Using words, God spoke the world into being…
John tells us, “In the beginning, was the Word”…
and the Word was WITH God…
and the Word WAS God”
Jesus was there…
With God…
In the beginning.
2. Next, John tells us that Jesus was intimately involved in the creation of the world
A. “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”
In Genesis 1:26, God says, “Let US make man in OUR image, in OUR likeness”
Jesus was there from the beginning…
He has always existed…
With God
He, as God, was responsible for all creation…
B. So, when we turn our attention to Christ during the Christmas season…
Of course, we always picture Christ as a Baby in the manger…
But let us also realize that …
As we look at that Baby in the manger…
He was with God in the beginning…
And He was intimately involved with creating all this beauty that we enjoy looking at.
Emmanuel…Jesus, the Creator…with us.
3. In verse 10, John tells the sad commentary that …
A. …although Christ came into this world
And walked among us…
The world, by and large, did not receive Him…
B. And it saddens me every day…
To realize that that trend continues even today…
Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us…
But people today fail to see Him…
They look at creation and see a thing of beauty…
But they don’t recognize the handiwork of Jesus…
C. Increasingly, the world is trying to take Jesus out of the world…
They try to remove “one nation, under God”…
From our pledge…
They try to remove the 10 commandments from public buildings…
I even read recently about a school in California that refused to allow a Christian teacher to hand out copies of the Declaration of Independence to his 5th grade class.
Let me read just a portion of that document…
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights
That would be Jesus…
It is as if any history in our country that has anything to do with God, or Jesus, or faith…
Is slowly being erased from our country’s history….
D. Many people celebration Christmas…
But not Christ!...
You often hear about people who get depressed during the holidays…
In fact, suicides increase during the holiday season…
As I was preparing this sermon, I read about a man in his 30’s who committed suicide by jumping off the empire state building.
At the end of the article, the newsman wrote this, “Feelings of despair or isolation can increase during the holiday season, which is why suicides can be most prevalent at this time, psychologists say.” (http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/manhattan/nyc-emp1127,0,2574610,print.story?coll=nyc-homepage-headlines by Robert Polner of NYNewsDay.com )
John says, “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him”
Do you think that man recognized Jesus Christ?
No, if he would have had a relationship with Jesus…
Emmanuel…God with us…
I think that would have made all the difference…
Jesus brings hope…
Jesus brings peace…
Jesus brings comfort…
Jesus…the One Who created us…is with us…
John tells us that “In him was life, and that life was the light of men”
Conclusion
1. So how can we apply this to our lives this Christmas, here in 2004…
Let’s start by remembering that Jesus is Emmanuel…
God with us…
Jesus, the Creator…is with us…
When Jesus created the first time…
He took that which was formless, empty, void, and dark…
And brought life out of it…
He created all of it…
Including you and me…
2. And, if you have accepted Jesus as your personal savior…
You know that Jesus is still in the business of taking something dark, and lost and lonely…
And giving it new life…
3. And He doesn’t stop working in our lives once we get saved…
There are times when life seems to be difficult…
Family problems…
Health problems…
Financial problems…
So many problems…
But Jesus is able to take that which is chaos…
And bring order…
Let Him be Emmanuel…
Jesus…the Creator with you and with me.
2. So this Christmas season…
Sure, I hope you look back to the manger and see Jesus as a Baby…
But, I hope you are able to look even beyond the manger…
And see that Jesus was with us even before that…
He is Jesus the Creator with us from even before the beginning of time…
And, then bring your vision all the way down to today…
Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us today…
He created us…
He knows all about us…
He is still creatively involved in our lives…
He is still able to bring the chaos into order…
He is still able to bring the darkness into light…
He is Jesus, the Creator…and He is with us today.
I was inspired for this sermon by “The Herschel Hobbs Commentary” by Herschel Hobbs. Oct-Dec. 1995
