Sermon Tone Analysis

Merry Christmas!

For the last three weeks we’ve been looking at what it is to be the family of God—what it means to belong to the family of God, to live as the family of God, and to multiply as the family of God.

And obviously we’ve been talking about these things to bring us to this point.

Tomorrow is Christmas—the day on which we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

We exist as a family to tell others about Jesus, to rejoice in Jesus, to cherish Jesus above all things.

But the hard thing for us to remember sometimes is why we should do that, and how.

Now, we saw the “how” last week, in :

24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

We won’t go over all of that again—

If you were to ask any number of Christians why we should love Jesus more than anything, the answer many Christians would give is, “Because he died for our sins.”

And while that is absolutely true—as we’ll see—the good news of the gospel is that we have many more reasons than just that.

So we’re going to start in today, to see just a couple of reasons why Jesus is worth celebrating in this way, and then afterward we’ll look at how we do this as a church—how we do this as families in the church, how we do this as adults in the church, how we do this as children in the church.

Jesus in the World

:

Jesus is God.

15 [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

How many of you are sometimes frustrated by the fact that you can’t see God? Sometimes I wish for nothing more than to be able to open my eyes and see God physically in front of me.

The thing is that God has always showed himself to his people.

First he showed himself to them in the things he did (like rescuing them from slavery in Egypt); and he showed himself to them by the things he said, by the law he gave to his people, that told them what he was like.

But it’s still not quite the same, is it?

I live far away from my parents and my brothers; I can send them letters and talk to them on the phone.

That’s still not the same as having them in the same room with me.

So at the right time, God became a man—a man named Jesus.

And the apostle Paul tells us that this man Jesus was the perfect image of the invisible God.

When you looked at this man, what you saw was God.

Now, we haven’t seen Jesus with our eyes—he came a long time ago, and in a different place—but plenty of people did see him, and wrote down what they saw.

The people who knew him best told other people about Jesus, and they recorded these stories for us.

This is why we read the Bible: when we read in the pages of Scripture descriptions of who Jesus is and what he did while he was on earth, we are seeing Jesus every bit as clearly as his disciples did (even though it may not seem that way).

In Jesus, we can see a perfect picture of God himself.

“What Paul had in mind was the rights and privileges of a firstborn son, especially the son of a monarch who would inherit ruling sovereignty.”

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

18 And he is the head of the body, the church.

He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Jesus created everything.

16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

Let me ask you a question—what is your favorite thing?

Think about it.

What is your favorite thing?

It’s hard to pick.

If I had to pick, then coffee, steak, huge trees, big mountains, a good story, my wife, my son...

Here’s what Paul is telling us: all these things we love were created by Jesus.

He’s not being general, merely saying that “God” created these things.

Jesus created these things.

Jesus is God.

So when I enjoy a good cup of hot coffee, when I eat a good, juicy steak, when I go to the mountains and admire the scenery, when I enjoy spending time with my family… Jesus made all of these things!

Everything that exists, Jesus created.

And here’s the thing—he didn’t created them primarily for us.

All things were created THROUGH him and FOR him.

I don’t know why it’s comforting to know that all the things I love that are good, Jesus loves them too.

Jesus loves coffee, because he created it and knows it’s good.

Jesus loves the mountains, because he created them and knows they are good.

Even those things that someone else made, like a good story, whether we realize it or not, these things were created for him as well, because in making these things, human beings reflect the image of God in them.

Jesus put that ability in us to make new things, and when we do it, he is pleased.

Jesus holds everything together.

17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

This is just as beautiful—the things that Jesus created, Jesus sustains.

We have lots of pregnant women in the church at this time.

Those women have little babies in their wombs, babies whose hearts are beating.

A baby’s heart starts beating around six weeks after conception.

Think about this—Jesus created that little baby; he created that little heart.

And from the second that baby’s heart begins to beat, Jesus keeps that heart beating.

And when that baby is born and starts to grow, Jesus keeps that heart beating.

And if that baby should grow and live to be a hundred years old, every beat of that hundred-year lifespan will be sustained by Jesus.

Kids, you probably will have an easier time with this idea than the adults will.

Adults have been disappointed a lot in their lives.

Things don’t always go the way we want them to.

And so it’s easy for adults to get the feeling that even if God created the world, he’s detached from it—like he created it and then took his hands off and said, “Well, good luck!”

But it’s not true.

In Jesus all things hold together.

There is not a heartbeat that he does not hold up.

There is not a breath that he does not ordain.

The bonds that hold our molecules together are governed by him.

If you feel like God is distant, if you feel like Jesus is absent, he’s not.

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

This is the Savior we serve—Jesus is God, he created everything, and he holds everything together.

Jesus in the Church

18 And he is the head of the body, the church.

We have been talking about what it means to be the family of God this month—what it means to be the church.

Specifically, the first week of our series, we looked at , where Paul described what it looks like to be the body of Christ.

We saw that if we have faith in Christ, we are all members of his body, and none of us is insignificant.

As he said in v. 21, The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you.’

Kids, listen to me.

(You weren’t in here with us when I said this to the adults.)

It’s easy for kids to think they’re small, and that there’s a lot they can’t do.

But we need you.

The grown-ups in the church need you.

Your parents need you.

Very often, you guys see things more clearly than we do.

It’s easier for you to believe that you need Jesus; for adults this is hard—we think we’re so smart!

But no one is so smart that they don’t need Jesus anymore.

And you guys help us remember that.

So we are the body of Christ, and we function as the body—but what Paul says here is important: if we are members of Jesus’s body, Jesus is the head.

The head is where the brain is.

The head is the thing that controls where the members go; how the arms and legs move; when we eat and when we work and when we sleep.

If anyone is wondering who is really the pastor of this church, it’s not me, or Arnaud, or Paul.

The real pastor of this church is Jesus.

He is the head.