Sermon Tone Analysis

A Christmas Message from 1 John ()

約翰一書的聖誕信息

Message at SDBC Chinese congregations, 16/12/18

John Coulson

Text to be read: (NIV 2011)

Good morning.

Thank you . . .

Is there anyone here who is excited about Christmas?

Christmas is a very precious time for many people, but especially for God’s people who understand what Christmas is about and celebrate its real meaning.

I pray for God’s blessing on you this Christmas.

Each Christmas I try to think more deeply about the meaning of Christmas.

Recently, I have been reading and meditating on John’s first letter.

I have been thinking about what John would say to us about Christmas.Obviously, John does not talk about Christmas.

It is a tradition that began long after him.John does not have Christmas trees and bells and lights; he does not have food and gifts; he does not have a holiday.But John does write about the central truth of Christmas: the coming of God’s Son into the world as a true human being.This is what Christian theology calls “The Incarnation”: “the becoming flesh” of God’s Son.

What would John say to us about Christmas?

I’m confident that he would draw our attention to the same basic truths that he writes to his original audience.

John had thought for a long time about the truth of the gospel and what the Christian life is about.He is old when he writes this letter, perhaps 80 or so years old.

In the letter he is giving the essence of what he has learned about the Christian life during 50 or so years.

And remember, for us who believe that the Bible is God’s message to us: John’s letter is God’s Word to us.

His letter is “worth its weight in gold.”

So what would John say to us about Christmas?

In his letter there are numerous references to the Incarnation—the coming of God’s Son.John says three main things about the coming of Jesus.And I think he would say the same to us.

The first thing that he would say is:

第一樣約翰想和我們說的是：

Be very careful that you believe the truth about who Jesus is.

Because what you believe in your heart about Jesus is the difference between life and death.

你們要很小心相信耶穌是誰的真理。因爲你心裏相信關於耶穌的什麼是生死攸關的。

John was writing to believers who had experienced other so-called believers

leaving them because they disputed the apostolic teaching about Jesus.

So what is the truth about who Jesus is?

John says it numerous times in the letter.

A key verse is chapter 4, verse 2:

2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus

Christ has come in the flesh is from God (TNIV)

John is affirming the truth of the Incarnation: that “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh”, that is, as a true human being.

In many places in the letter John calls Jesus God’s Son.

John says in chapter 1, which we read earlier, that God’s Son was “from the beginning” (1:1).

He is eternal.

John says in chapter 1, verse 2, that “the eternal life, which was with the Father . . .

has appeared to us.”

John believes that Jesus is truly God and truly human.

He is God’s eternal Son who became a human being in order to save us.

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke teach us that he became a human being at his conception through the creative working of the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary the virgin.

This is what the creeds of the church affirm—the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed.

Until recently these creeds have been part of Western culture.

But most people in the West never truly believed these creeds.

They said the words but their lives were not lives of faith in God’s Son.

And today most young people in the West don’t even know these creeds.

We live in a society that now generally rejects the truth of the Incarnation.

It believes that Jesus Christ is simply a human being, one among many religious teachers, not God’s eternal Son who became a human being to save us.

We are different from most people in our society, just as the early Christians were different from their society.

We believe in the incarnation of God’s Son.

It’s what we celebrate at Christmas.

Only God can save us; we cannot save ourselves.

Jesus is God the Son who saves us.

But only a human being can save us, one who shares our humanity, one who can then stand in for us and take away our sin, enter into our death, and save us from the power of sin and death.

Jesus is the human who did this for us, who paid the costly price of his own unique, sinless, human life to bring us bring us back to God.

And Jesus is alive today.

In his resurrection he broke the power of death.

The apostles heard, saw and touched Jesus in his earthly ministry.

They also heard, saw and touched him as the risen Lord.

John says in chapter 1, verse 1: “what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled” (NASB).

This is the One we believe in, the One we entrust our lives to.

We do not trust in ourselves.

We trust in him alone.

We have no hope apart from him.

But in him we have an eternal hope.

John says in 5:13:

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

Is your faith in the Son of God—not in yourself, not in how good you are, certainly not in how bad you are, but in him alone?

If you have not truly trusted in him yet: today, ask him to forgive you of all your sins; ask him to save you, and trust him to do it.

He has promised that he will.

We just read the promise.

He is powerful.

He is faithful.

The first thing that John would say to us this Christmas is about believing the truth.

This is how John finishes his letter in 5:20-21:

20 We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true.

And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ.

He is the true God and eternal life.

20 We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true.

And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ.

He is the true God and eternal life.

21 Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.

John says: believe in the true God, not in false gods—not in idols.

Let’s be clear this Christmas about the One we believe in, the One we trust in.

The second thing that John would say to us this Christmas is:

約約翰和我們說的第二件事是

Understand clearly the spiritual battle you are in.

Live on God’s side, not on the devil’s side.

清楚明白我們所身處的屬靈爭戰。活在上帝那邊，不是在魔鬼那邊。

明白我們所身處的屬靈爭戰。

Let’s read :

8 The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning.

The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work.

Notice the language of incarnation: “the Son of God appeared.”

Jesus came to “dismantle” the works of the devil—sinful works that the devil, and humans who follow him, have been doing from the beginning of creation.

The fundamental problem that we as humans have before God is our sin—our rebellion and the evil works that result from it.

We are so used to it that much of the time it hardly bothers us.

We are hard-hearted, blind and deceived.

Johns says:

Jesus came to set us free from sin, to release us from Satan’s prison, to open our eyes to our real problem, to bring us into a life of being God’s friends—his children—who learn a new way of living—not sinning, but learning to do what is right, what pleases God, living in the way that he intended in the beginning.

This is real freedom and joy.

John has a major focus on waking up his audience to God’s will for them.

He says: “Stop sinning; be serious about learning how to walk in righteousness.”

The letter is full of this message.