Christmas Theology

When we write letters.

The tone of the letter of the content of the letter and the purpose of the letter is dependent on who were writing the letter to, for example, if I'm writing a letter to a bank than my salutation is probably going to be different than it would be to other places. I'll probably write something like to whom it may concern then would maybe express an interest in the interest rate or a loan or whatever it might be from writing to my grandchildren is going to be a different salutation it's going to be much more much more gentle. I'm going outright to my grand daughter Madison dear Madison Auriga CJ hey CJ and I would write in a way that would try to be encouraging to them, even in the site. If I was away from Cindy for a while now to write her a letter. My salutation would be loving dear honey dear lamb and content would probably be romantic but but you know he I would not address Cindy or my grandkids or my kids with the term are salutation to whom it may concern, I would not do that because of whom I'm writing to. And I want you to know that who a person is writing to you in a letter is extremely important. The same thing is true with the Gospels flips the four Gospels all teach us about the person of the Lord Jesus Christ it all for them, teach us about Jesus perfect sinless life is atoning death on the cross and his resurrection. His powerful ascension and is promised second coming, but all four Gospels were written to different people and they have different emphases and they even have different introductions the gospel of Matthew. For example, was written specifically to the Jewish people and Matthew was portraying Jesus Christ as the prophesied King as the Messiah.

PAN and his gospel starts off with a genealogy a genealogy that proves to us that Jesus Christ is heir to the throne of David. Then he goes immediately to the virgin birth of Christ tells us about the wise men that are coming to worship Jesus as King of Kings and we go to the gospel of Mark, the gospel of Mark was written primarily to the Roman people in it and Mark portrays a Jesus is the perfect servant were the primary verses in the gospel of Mark is marked in 45 this is for the Son of Man came not to serve, but to serve, to indicate not to be served but to serve, to give his life a ransom for many. So so when when Mark starts his gospel. He didn't start off with his birth.

He starts off with the baptism of Jesus by John and then immediately jumps into his public ministry usually servants don't care too much about ancestry or genealogies we skip over all of that and he jumped right into the the ministry of service of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and we get to the gospel of Luke.

Luke wrote his gospel primarily to the Greeks and he portrays Jesus as the perfect man. He starts off with the birth of Christ, the virgin birth of Jesus and he gives it a genealogy as well but his genealogy is different than that of Matthew. Matthew goes all the way back to Abraham, the father of the Jews, but Luke's gospel goes back much further than that. At his genealogy goes all the way back to Adam, the first man.

But then we come to the gospel of John and who does John write his gospel to where we were not in doubt about that friend and in the gospel of John, chapter 20 verse 31. The Scripture says this but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name, John just writes to everybody he writes to Jew and Gentile male and female bonded free upper-class lower-class, rich and poor highly educated non-educated he's writing to every body telling them that Jesus Christ is Lord, that he is the way the truth and the life that nobody comes to the father except through him as he started his gospel. He doesn't start his gospel off of the genealogy. He doesn't start his gospel off with the birth of Christ doesn't start his gospel off of the public ministry of Jesus because all the way back into eternity past to let us know that Jesus did not get a start in a little manger in Bethlehem. He is the eternal God, I love the way John writes. He wrote his gospel about 20 years before Matthew Mark and Luke wrote layers we call Matthew Mark and Luke. The synoptic Gospels because they look at at at at at at everything from the same perspective. In Matthew Martin Luther portraying Jesus they portraying his humanity and put much more emphasis on that John writes he is about 20 years later. He says dodgy you left out some pretty important at a said you left out the deity of Christ, you don't get heavy enough in the last so he writes his gospel and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to teach us that Jesus Christ is not just fully man, but that he is in fact God soulless to look at the prologue to the gospel of John today and I want us to to see real Christmas theology five points on the share with you. Number one the word look at that.

The first verse. The first part in the beginning was the word John to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God gives Jesus a title or a a name and that is the word the word what the words do words define words express words explain. You will know who God is, you will know what God does, you will know what God is like. Then look at Jesus good Hebrews chapter 1 verse three and you read that the old King James version and the Scripture there refers to Jesus as the express image of God. If John had been riding that he would just set it another way, he was a Jesus is the word so when he starts teaching us about Christmas. He doesn't start Christmas Christmas story at the virgin birth even started at the manger in Bethlehem, because all the way back into eternity past to teach us that Jesus Christ is God in the beginning was the word sound like Genesis 11 done it. That's not a coincidence he does that on purpose H teaching us he's letting us know that Jesus Christ is is who he is that he is truly God and he transports us back in time before creation before time to teach us that Jesus Christ is God. When you go back to Genesis. You'll see one phrase over and over again and that phrase is. And God said and God said, let there be light. And God said, let there be a separation of the of the land from the from the waters. And God said, let let the earth sprout out in vegetation and God said, let the earth bring forth living creatures that term. And God says could be written this way and the word acted. Another words, and Jesus created on the second point is this the word was with God. The word with is the interesting word in the Greek it's a work process and it means towards or face-to-face go over in the 32nd chapter of Genesis, and that's a story of of Jacob who is wrestling with the angel of the Lord, and he wrestles all night long.

He won't letting go and finally the sun is rising in the angel the Lord reaches over and touches them in the hollow of his thigh to stop pops out of joint. So he has to walk with a limp for the rest of his life and that told him to quit depending on yourself and start depending on God. And after all that happened.

Jacob said and I will name this place put Nigel. I will name this place put Nigel because I've seen God face-to-face and he's delivered me the word process in the Greek and the word PNA which Pelayo comes from in the Hebrew means the same thing. It means face to face, and when you see those words. It always denotes a deep and sweet intimacy. Listen carefully, here.

This relationship between God the father and God the son is a face-to-face relationship. We are talking here about a holy intimacy.

The idea here is that they have their eyes locked on each other. You guys out there that are married. If you see your wife and she happens to be looking at another guy and he locks eyes on her. She locks eyes on him. Was I going to do to your heart's gonna make you feel betrayed and it that that's what Jesus was talking about having eyes that are filled with adultery and that's why Jesus condemned it so badly because it's betrayal and it breaks the heart Sinclair Ferguson has some great insight on this. Listen carefully.

We all understand this etiquette of intimacy, but think of it as a window into the etiquette of heaven. Neither man nor angel may look on God and live far less lock eyes with him in the deepest intimacy of mutual devotion yet.

John says that the word of God could lock eyes with God, drinking in his love and returning it to the doctrine of Trinity is a tough doctrine, but it's a glorious doctrine.

John Calvin used to say if you try to figure out the doctrine of the Trinity, you lose your mind and he said, but if you deny the doctrine of the Trinity, you lose your soul. This concept of Jesus looking locking eyes with the father makes me want to ship out to me this is glorious thought. Folks, what we need to see is that the three persons of the Trinity are different in office and in function, but they are the same in substance and in essence they are never in disagreement. They are never at odds with each other. The law that goes on between the father the son and the Holy Spirit is beyond our comprehension. And this gospel of John tells us that this kind of intimate, intense love goes on between God the father all the time and not only does it go on between God the father, but it goes on between God the father and us in Jesus Christ and us.

When I was studying this passage this week.

My mind went back to 24 years ago when I fell in love with Cindy, and I was at a wedding that I was officiate, and I was them that the front and is waiting for the groomsmen and the bridesmaids to come down and as I did, I, looked frantic. The congregation and and there was Cindy, and when I looked at her. Our eyes locked, and I can remember thinking to myself she is exactly what I wanted in a wife she loves Jesus more than she loves me so I can trust her. She she likes my company she's my best friend and when my eyes locked with her eyes. There was just this intensity of joy and peace and excitement like I had never felt before it in my entire life is always studying this this phrase that the word was with God, meaning face-to-face, locked eyes, communicating with each other, deep, deep love for each other. I remember that day of the wedding. I want you to take the love that I felt for Cindy Lynn and the love that I still feel for her. Now multiply that by about a million or millions of millions. You have a vague understanding of the father's love for Jesus Christ of Jesus's love for him and which is absolutely glorious that here's the kicker in John 15 nine Jesus said, as the father has loved me, so I have loved you. I can understand how God the father loves Jesus was such a powerful intimacy.

Jesus was perfect. He was sinless. He was gloriously righteous I can really understand why God the father would love him so powerfully so intimately so joyfully like I can understand that what I can understand is how Jesus could love me that way. That blows my mind went when I try to think about it when I was a sinner. I was in rebellion against God. I was breaking God's commandments and yelling come to God looking for him. He came to me and he pulled me up out of the muck in the mire, and he saved me for all of eternity. And yet, even though he saved me.

I still mess up her temptation comes. I give into it, a thought comes into my mind that out to get rid of quickly. I let it linger. Somebody hurts my feelings.

I get resentful and yet Jesus locks his eyes on me and loves me despite my failures. He loves me enough to chase me when I sin and to break that sin out of my heart that's called amazing Grace last week I told you that the ability to persevere in our faith lies in this question is Jesus Christ your treasure. Do you realize how deep and have penetrating his love is for you, think, think of it this way, and the Word was with God and the same word is with you face-to-face. I also locked and we will experience that that intensity of love, we will experience that not just now and then sporadically but continuously for ever and ever and ever. .3. The word was God look at verses 1 to 4 in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God all things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made in him was life and the life was the light of men. Jesus was not a created being. He was and is the creator he didn't get a start in Bethlehem.

He has been here forever.

He will be here forever. He is the eternal God, I don't know if you read CS Lewis's book mere Christianity. If you have not, I would really encourage you to to purchase a copy and spend some time in that great book. One of the chapters that book is about the deity of Christ, and he said some things they are that it's just helped countless thousands of people down for the last 60 or 70 years. Lewis said this, Jesus told people that their sins were forgiven. That makes sense only if he really was the God whose walls are broken and his love is wounded in every sin I'm trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him. I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say.

A man it was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.

He would either be a lunatic on a level with the man who would say is a poached egg or else he would be the Devil of hail. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and killing him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God.

But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He is not left that open to us. He did not intend in the word was God in the John chapter 8 the religious leaders were questioning Jesus exegesis do you think your greater than our father Abraham and Jesus said to them, before Abraham was, I am the worst IM layers in the Greek it is. It's the word ego on the if he was speaking in Hebrew, the at that point in time.

It would've been Yahweh or or Jehovah.

He was saying.

I am that I am I am the eternal God, how I love to go to the gospel of John and just read all about the IM passages.

I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the good Shepherd.

I am the door. The sheet I am the way, the truth of the life I am the resurrection of the life. In other words, I am everything that you will ever need. I am the eternal God port for the Word became flesh for first part of verse 14 and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Now we see Christmas. The Word became flesh, he never ceased to be God, but he took on flesh so they could dwell among us know on Sunday nights we have been a going to a study on the on the one of the epistles of John.

First John and we have seen that John had to deal with a group of very incompetent theologians in that day who were called Gnostics and the Gnostics believed that the body was essentially evil, and that the spirit was essentially good and that when the body died. The body just dictated. Forget about that.

It didn't matter and and that the Spirit would go on to be with the Lord and so they said it doesn't really matter what you do with your body because bodies going to decay. This can be gone. It doesn't matter so if you want to be a murderer or a rapist or an abortionist aura of a robbery or adulterer, or whatever you want to be. That's okay don't worry about that picture spirit that's going to go on to be with the Lord's one of the reasons I hated the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. The same Jesus John who wrote the Gospel of John also wrote first second and third John and first John chapter 4 verse two John came down heavy on the Gnostics and listen to what he said about this. You know that the spirit of this you know the Spirit of God.

Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. He was saying this, Jesus is not a ghost. He's not a phantom. He's not a spirit he is fully man. This is Christmas theology.

The second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ would leave his throne in glory, and he would be born of the Virgin Mary, the Word became flesh and in the form of the Word became flesh in the form of an embryo for nine months. Jesus was in the darkness of the womb of his mother Mary in a fetal position. Then he was born his birth cause great pain, physical pain for Mary when he left the one thing that he gasped for air as babies do, and he got his first first tasted of air and is he did that he begin to cry like babies do. That night the shepherds came by. He opened his eyes and he looked up and saw the shepherds that were worshiping him a few days later they were dedicating Jesus in the temple and an old prophet, Simeon held him in his arms and wept over him and then prophesied that this Jesus would cause a sword to go through the heart of his mother Mary is a little boy he played.

He sweated, he scanned his knees when he failed down. He got hungry he got thirsty when he became a man. The Roman soldiers took in the day they tied him up to a whipping post. They stripped him of his close they took our cat of nine tails. We up the beam across his back until his back was totally lacerated and he bled profusely, they nailed him to across and Jesus died.

He never ceased to be God, but he was fully man the word became flesh like my fifth point is that the word dwelt among us. Look at verse 14 and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory is the only son from the father full of grace and truth. If we were reading this verse in the in the Hebrew we would read it this way, and the Word became flesh and tabernacles among us has tabernacles very very important to the Jewish people. It was the place then you work God dwelt one day a year, the high priest would go when I go in and find a goat and kill the goat. He then wash himself over and over again put on his holy vestments, then he would take the basin of the goat's blood. He would walk into the tabernacle you go through the first room of that tabernacle. Call the holy place, then he would go back behind the veil and go into the most holy place on the face the earth the holy of holies and there would be the ark of the covenant he would reach Sandy would take the branch of hyssop, dip it down into that basin of goat's blood, and then he would sprinkle it on the mercy seat, which was the lid on the ark of the covenant and what he would do that, the very presence of God in a bright cloud told the Shekinah glory would come in. However, between the wings of the cherubim, assuring the priest and the people of Israel that their sins have been forgiven for that year.

The tabernacle was precious to the Israelites because it was the place where God dwelt and it was the place of forgiveness.

John chapter 1 verse 14 tells us that that tabernacle was just a type of picture, a symbol of something else. And what did it symbolize it symbolize Jesus Christ himself. It symbolize the one who became flesh and tabernacle among us. Christmas theology, the son of God, the second person of the Trinity left his throne in glory and became flesh he was born of the Virgin Mary is born in a manger in Bethlehem. He was born to a poor but very godly family on that night the shepherds came to worship him. A few nights later, the wisemen came they gave him gifts to represent partially his deity, gold, frankincense and myrrh and then they came to worship him as King of Kings and Lord of lords. They understood a lot they got a lot but I don't think they understood the full purpose of why the word became flesh and dwelt among us. 38 years ago I preached a Christmas sermon in my former church, and on title that sermon. Seeing the cross to the manger.

My son Mitch was five years old at the time he had artistic ability. That's a whole lot better five years over him. The money is now it was just amazing to me but I started preaching that sermon I looked at on the front row you seated on the front peeve and he was just drawing something. I mean just going crazy with a pencil and so I finish my sermon that day and I started to walk down and to go back to the back of the church and to speak to people on their way out and as I was walking by the pew where he was. Mitch jumped up and he ran over to me to grab my leg.

He said look at this and I looked at his picture is a picture of the baby Jesus in the manger and back behind the manger was the cross at that time Mitch was too little to know how to read and write and he said dad would you would you write a title on it and I said yeah I said what your title what what you want me to say he thought a minute and he said, born to die, born to die. I can remember in and there was a tear rolling down my cheek. He was my five-year-old son who got it who understood what it meant that the word became flesh and dwelt among us, you shall call his name Jesus.

Why, for he shall save his people from their sins folks is that real to you.

Have you trusted in the payment that Jesus made for sinners on the cross, if not, then why not, why not. And why not today. John Piper puts out a devotional on Internet I get it every day. Skull solid. Joyce this week. He had some pretty good stuff that I would call Christmas theology and wanted to read you something he said he are not close with this Jesus became man because what was needed was the death of a man who was more than a man. The incarnation was God's locking himself into Death Rd., Christ did not risk death. He chose death.

He embraced it.

That is precisely why Cain not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.

Hebrews 214 says that Satan has the power of death, that means Satan has the ability to make death fearful the power of death is the power that holds men in bondage through fear of death is the power to keep me in in sin so that death comes as a dreadful thing. But Jesus stripped sight of his power, he disarmed him.

He molded a breastplate of righteousness for us that makes us immune to the devil's condemnation.

You do this by his death, Jesus walked away all our sins, and a person without sin cannot be condemned by Satan forgiven.

We are finally indestructible.

Satan's plan was to destroy God's rule by condemning God's followers in God's own courtroom. But now in Christ there is no condemnation. Satan's treason is aborted is cosmic treachery is fold his rage we can endure for low's doom is sure the cross is running through and he will gasp his last. Before long, Jesus took our nature in Bethlehem to dire death in Jerusalem.

All that we might be fearless in our city today. Yes, fearless because it's the biggest threat to my joy is gone, then why should I fret over the little ones. How can you say really well not afraid to die, but I am afraid to lose my job. No no no think if death I said death, no pulse coals gone if death is no longer a theater where three really three free to take any risk under the sun for Christ and for love no more enslavement to anxiety.

If the sun has set you free. Then you shall be free indeed. If you're here today and you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. I can't think of a better time to surrender to his Lordship to trust in what he did for you.

2000 years ago on the cross of Calvary to commit yourself to him to put your trust not in what you've done, but in what he did for sinners on the cross.

If you here today and you don't know Jesus that would be my prayer for you that would be my advice to you and I would encourage you with all my heart to not put it off as prey. Heavenly father, we come before you today to praise you and thank you for your goodness and your love. I pray heavenly father that she would help us, that we might walk in your past that we might be everything that she wants to be. We thank you Lord that through the cross, you have defeated Satan destroy the works of the devil. We don't have to fear led to fear anything. If we know you because we belong to you and will be with you for ever and ever and ever. Father I pray that you will help us, that we might be good witnesses this Christmas season that Lord, people might look at us they might see Jesus is reality and our lives.

And Lord, that they might hunger after what we have. We love you Jesus, thank you for loving us this in your holy and precious name we pray. Amen