Christmas Miracles
0 ratings
· 5 viewsThe miracles made possible by the incarnation
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
RECORD
RECORD
I have recently noticed on social media that there a lot of people who like to spend their time around Christmas watching some of the many movies that have a Christmas theme to them
In fact if I understand correctly, there is even a hallmark channel that this time of year plays sappy Christmas movies 24/7
Some people like these kind of movies where the big city lawyer who has lost his/her moral compass has to come home for the holidays because of a sick relative and falls deeply in love again with their old high school boyfriend/girlfriend
Or perhaps your taste goes more towards the Jim Carrey rendition of The Grinch or the Will Ferrell story Elf
Maybe instead you go in for some of the more classics like Miracle on 34th Street or the 1951 A Christmas Carol or maybe even what is considered the first ever animated Christmas special, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (Although Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol actually came out 2 years earlier)
Regardless of your taste in Christmas movies there is one thing that they all have in common, the Christmas miracle
The lawyer finds true love and his purpose in life once again, the Grinch’s heart grows 4.5 sizes, Elf finds love, restores his new family and saves Santa thus saving Christmas, Kris Kringle is proven in court to be THE Santa Clause, Ebenezer Scrooge gets the Christmas Spirit and Rudolph saves Christmas with his bright shiny nose
Of course each of these movies have many more details as part of their plot but they always include a Christmas miracle
Miracles are as synonomous with Christmas as taxes are with government
Perhaps the reason for that is because the first Christmas was about one thing and one thing only, the greatest miracle to ever take place, what theology refers to as The Incarnation
Unfortunately this is one of those words that we throw around so frequently that we have rarely give it a second thought
C.S. Lewis called the incarnation “the Grand Miracle.” He wrote: “The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation…. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this…. It was the central event in the history of the Earth—the very thing that the whole story has been about” (Miracles, chapter 14).
The word itself comes from the Latin “in” meaning “in” and “carn” meaning flesh so it literally means “in the flesh”
The Gospel of John stands alone in the way the apostle describes the events of the first Christmas
Instead of focusing on genealogy and lineage, or prophecy fulfillment, or shepherds and magi, John begins His story of Christ with,
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
And then we jump down a few verses to what I believe to be the greatest verse in all of the book
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
That’s right, God Himself, without diminishing His Godness in any way, took on the same form as His creation and stepped into time and space as a tiny defenseless baby
Now if you can wrap your mind around that you are better than 100% of the rest of us because fully God and fully man is just not something that we are able to comprehend or explain
But this morning I don’t want to talk about the incarnation itself because I don’t believe that this was the greatest miracle
After all God is God and He can do whatever He wants to do as long as it is within His nature and so while the incarnation is extreme to me and you to God it was an expression of His character
I would submit to you that it is the results of the incarnation, those things which the incarnation made possible that were otherwise impossible where the GREATEST miracle lies
Skip down another 2 verses to where the original NIV says, “From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.”
Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given.
Did you catch that? Verse 14 says that as part of His incarnation He came full of grace and verse 16 says that from that full grace we receive one blessing after another
The Message Bible puts it this way, “ We all live off his generous bounty, gift after gift after gift.”
So this morning I want to give you 4 blessings/gifts that we have received because of the incarnation for therein lies the greatest miracles
16–18 We all live off his generous bounty,
The first of these 4 miracles is that because of the incarnation the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, holy God of the universe can empathize with us mere mortals
gift after gift after gift.
In other words, He can relate to us
says, “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity”
And follows that up by saying, “For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way”
Isn’t that incredible? Because of the incarnation God Himself knows what it’s like to be hungry, full, happy, sad, tired, excited, impatient and so on
Jesus even wanted to hit people!
How do I know that?
Because says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.”
Now I don’t know if you’ve ever been tempted to hit someone but I know that I have and He has been tempted in EVERY way that I have therefore…!
Think about that for a second, because of the incarnation there is nothing that you can go through that He can’t understand
That’s why the very next verse in Hebrews says,
Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
That is a miracle ladies and gentlemen, a Christmas miracle
Secondly because of the incarnation He can Explain God to us in ways that we could comprehend
Or in other words the incarnation gives us a reflection of God
Genesis explains that we were all created in the image of God but because of our sin that image has been warped so that when we look at man instead of seeing God we see greed and hatred and selfishness
But because of the incarnation we can see what the image of God in man is supposed to look like
Remember that famous verse in when Jesus declares that He is the way, the truth and the life?
Well have you ever looked at what comes right after it?
If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
In Moses asks God to see His glory and God replies,
But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”
But because of the miracle of the incarnation we can see God, another Christmas miracle
Moving on to the third miracle because of the incarnation He has provided us with an example on how to live
Or in other words, because of the incarnation we can realize what it means to live God pleasing lives
In his letter to the Ephesians Paul writes, “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us”
and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us
And in his letter to the Romans he says, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son”
And I could give you dozens of other verses all about how Christ is the example that we as “Christians” (which means Christ-like) are to follow
God had given us His Word to explain to us how it is that we ought to live but mankind wasn’t getting it right so through the miracle of the incarnation He showed us how we as humans ought to live
That’s the third Christmas miracle
The 4th one that I want to touch on here this morning is that it is only through the incarnation that Christ could become our expiator which means the one who atones for us
In other words, only by way of the incarnation could it be possible for Christ to redeem us
For what good would it be if God could relate to us and if we could now understand God and how it is that we ought to live but we were still destined for eternal separation from Him because of our sin
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—
For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!
Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
Death was the result of the introduction of sin and the introduction of sin was through a man and therefore God could only resolve the problem and its consequence through a man for man had to pay the price for his sins
But that man had to be perfect and righteous and holy if this plan were to work for the sacrificial requirements were to be met there could be no blemish in this man
And if the righteousness of this man was to be imparted to others by their faith in him, it had to be complete or else God could not receive them as His own
And so God Himself had to become man in order to make that happen
It couldn’t be an imperfect man, it couldn’t be an angel and it couldn’t even be God in some spiritual form, it had to be God in the flesh
And so the incarnation paved the way, the only way through which we could be forgiven, and redeemed
The only way that our sins could be atoned for and the righteousness that God requires could be provided for us and to us
That is the miracle of the incarnation and the miracle of Christmas
That is the miracle of the incarnation and the miracle of Christmas
So remember this season as you see and hear about the miracles of Christmas that there is a greater miracle, the miracle of the incarnation through which
God became able to relate to us in our weaknesses
God became able to reflect to us His nature
We become able to recognize how to live as God desires us to
God became able to redeem us and make us His beloved children
Because of the incarnation “we are living off the bounty of His full grace, gift after gift after gift”!
Let’s pray