Sermon Tone Analysis

YOU KNOW CHRISTMAS IS ALMOST HERE WHEN:

There are more pine needles on your carpet than on your tree

The credit card is smoked along with the turkey and ham.

A trip to the mall and back is more challenging then the Indy 500

You are pulling an all-nighter because of the words "Some Assembly Required"

Your Christmas list is written in black while your check book balance is written in red.

The infamous fruitcake returns from it’s 12 months of hiding.

Christmas is a wonderful time of the year of being with family and enjoying all the activities surrounding the Christmas season.

It is also be a stressful season with busyness and added expenses...

It is a difficult time of the year for those who have lost loved ones through the year....

My prayer this morning ... is that as we Celebrate the Birth of Christ...we will receive the gift of His strengthening.

When then angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, He came to her with "Great News" that she would be the mother of the Messiah... but ... for Mary it was also troubling news... we are told that it caused Mary great anxiety... she was greatly troubled by the angels Greeting...

Mary is anxious and --- with good reason...

You can imagine being found with a Child while you still betrothed to be married - especially in a religious and legalistic environment of Pharisees, Sadducees and scribes... it would have naturally caused a young women like Mary to be trouble and anxious ....

A Betrothal represented a permanent relationship nearly equivalent to marriage; breaking off a betrothal required a decision akin to divorce.

The problem with Mary being with child would be the issue of unfaithfulness and adultery....

This explains Josephs response when discovering that Mary was pregnant that he was secretly planning to quitly divorce Mary...

There is this tension, a juxtaposition - there is the privilege for Mary of being chosen (called) and favored but it also came at personal cost ....

You have Privilege and Persecution...

but at the same time... God has provided for Mary - grace and favor --- Mary has been promised the gift of strength..

The Angel Gabriel strengthens Mary's faith... he assures her that- she should not fear... "Do not be afraid" ---- why because - "Lord is with Her."

She is favored by God"

--- Mary would be part of the greatest miracle that would ever happen in History.... the coming of Son of God.

Her womb would literally become the Holy of Holies ... where God himself would be formed and born.. in the narrative of Luke that Mary moves from the place of fear ...to the place of faith where Mary submits herself to the will of God.,

Being a Christian doesn't mean that we will experience less troubles... than the agnostic or the athiest... Being a Christian does however mean that we will be equipped and strengthen for challenges of life.

What is Strength?

Strength is the quality of inner resolve or the physical ability to accomplish an endeavor, influence an outcome, or prevail in a conflict.

The incarnation reminds us with that with God nothing is impossible..

J.I. Packer “... the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of Christian revelation lie.

The more you think about this, the more staggering it gets.”

The Mystery of the incarnation... Is the fact God came to earth... that the God in heaven in His the fulness of Deity (being God) sunk himself into human flesh... God did not become -- less than... half man and half God... rather he was fully God and fully man ....one Person in two Natures.

John tells

The WORD... here is the word ...... logos a term familiar to the Greek philosophers.

They used it to mean “reason, thought... speech.." it was the principle or the force that gave order to the universe and generative power to nature.

Philosophers loved to argue about the meaning of life and for centuries have been debating the reason and meaning of life.

The same philosophical question you and I have wrestled with ....the question... What am I living for?

What is life for?

were debated for centuries...

John settles the Big Debate-- the answer to life is found in the descent of God.... that God came to us.. Heaven comes to earth in the form of a baby..

John tells us...

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God... that in Christ all things were made and all things are through him and without him nothing was made..

The same God who created the universe was the same God in the manger ....

The most incredible words in the Bible are the words are found in John 1:14 "

The incarnation has been a core teaching of the Church since its inception...

The early church father Origen (200 AD - That just 160 some years after Christs death.)

gave this illustration....A village had a statue so immense that you couldn’t see exactly what it represented.

Someone finally miniaturized the statue so one could see the person it honored.

“That is what God did in his Son".

----

What the incarnation does is give us this framework to understand the omnipotent.... all powerful God.

In the Gospels we have the eye witness testimony/account of the life of Jesus... We have a record of His immaculate Birth (the virgin birth), His miracles, His teachings, His Death and His resurrection...and His ascension..

John says in this text, "We witnessed Jesus in the Flesh.... he ate with us ...he lived with us... and even in his Humanity we saw the glory of God... We saw past his humanity we got a glimpse of his Divinity... the glory of the Father.... Full of Grace and Truth... Jesus came to us in the Flesh...

The incarnation made the God of heaven knowable..

I could describe to you some of the people who have profoundly influenced my life... mentors, pastors, professors... (and you could do the same thing) but unless you have met them in person... its a limited perspective... ... without Jesus becoming a man we would have an incomplete perspective of God of the Bible.....

You can learn a lot of things about God.

You can know all sorts of things about God.

You can believe in him.

You can do all sorts of things you believe God wants you to do.

But to know him it takes Jesus, because Jesus is the ultimate revelation of who God is.

Christ is the image of God..

Christ is the visible icon or image of the invisible God (Colossians 1).

In Christ we have can know God in a comprehensible way.... whether visible... visible...

As we come to the manger this morning.... we not only marvel at the incarnation... we also receive the gift of strength through --Jesus in the manger..

t/s How does the incarnation (the virgin birth give you and I strength?)

1. Christ's Strengthens us through His Light.

With all the progress in our postmodern world... with all our collective enlightenment and knowledge.....all advancement in Technology.... we seem to have be more convinced today by secularism ... that..... we actually don't need God.

It's amazing how many people celebrate Christmas without believing in Christ...

I spoke with a young man this week told me he is working Christmas eve but it is okay because he is not religious...but in the next breath he told he was going caroling that night...

That is exactly what our world does... it loves the sentiment of Christmas with out the Christ of Christmas.

It reminds me of the story.... told between of a convesation between..God and a scientist.

One day God was approached by a scientist who said, "Listen God, we have decided we don't need you anymore.

These days we can clone people, transplant organs and do all sorts of things that used to be considered miraculous..

God replied,"Don't me huh?

How about we put your theory to the test.

Why don't we have a completion to see who can make a human being, say, a male human being.

God and the scientist.

agree to do it the old fashioned way... the same way, that God did it when he created Adam...

The Scientist bends down to scoop out a handful of dirt .... God stops the scientist and says... "Not so fast.

You get your own dirt."

According to scripture, God is both the source and sustainer of all life.

The book of Hebrews introduces Christ as God the creator.... Christ being Brilliance of Gods's light... Hebrews we told that Christ the radiance of the glory of God the exact imprint of his nature...

It's the Brilliance of  the radiance of the glory of God that is holding everything in balance in the Universe....

In other words.. the Son is sustaining the universe in a dynamic way;

He is “carrying CREATION along” or guiding it towards its intended goal, rather than merely passively supporting IT if CREATION were a burden.

Science tells us that creation BEGAN as an accident (big Bang) and will probably end with an accident (big bang)...

The bible teachers us Divine initiative and intention... all things moving towards a purpose... new creation moves towards a new heaven and new earth..

This is what gives us strength and hope at Christmas..

That Christ brings light (illumination) and purpose and meaning to life...

There is a play of words in this section... Life and light are used interchangeably...

When God in the beginning initiates creation he does so with the words, "let there be light" and there was light...

Light is essential in creation and crucial part of all physical life.. everything in creation needs light in order to grow and function... without the sun..nothing would live.

Light makes life possible in the physical world; Jesus is the light that makes salvation possible in the spiritual world.

The word life is used in technical way in the book of John it is speaks of Salvation, a state of reconciliation and access to the presence of God... Light invokes the association with divine Glory and speaks of spiritual awakening..

In him was life "Salvation, reconciliation, access with God" and this was the light of men.

This does not mean universal salvation or general revelation or even inner illumination.

Instead, it means that Christ as the Light shines on each person in salvation...

John the Baptist was the forerunner to Christ... he was the one who announced the coming of Christ.... .He pointed to the truth of Jesus, the Reveler of the Father.

People were in sin and in such darkness that they needed someone to tell them what is light.

John’s goal was that all men might come to trust in Jesus.

Here is what makes light powerful... is that Christs light dispels Darkness... both phyiscal and spiritual world.

Light’s nature is to shine and dispel darkness.