Beacon Sunday Service: December 22nd, 2024

I'm gonna read for us the passage for today, which is John chapter 1, verses 12 to 14. And this is a reading of God's word. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as one of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. Would you join me in prayer? Father, we're very grateful this morning to gather with your saints around the world. And I pray, Father, that you would fill us truly with joy, not a joy that is manipulated by our circumstance or a joy that we try to force ourselves to feel.

But as we hear this morning your truth proclaimed, that the Spirit within us that cries out, Abba, Father, would delight in the truth that is spoken. And as we are fed, as we are challenged, help us, Lord God, really to be well known for our joy and for our love and our compassion. A joy that is not manufactured or fake, but something that really comes from a life that desires to magnify the person of Jesus. So we thank you for just giving us an opportunity to fellowship this morning together on Christmas Sunday. We pray that your word really would powerfully bear its fruit in and through us. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Go ahead and be seated. So most of you guys know Becky and I uh we lived in Beijing for three years.

We were in Asia for a decade. And in December 2009, our very first winter there, we were surprised that Christmas was a big holiday. And even though the Chinese viewed Christianity as a uniquely Western religion, in many ways a religion hostile to the Chinese government, they still celebrated it in the big cities. And Becky and I lived very close to a very large indoor shopping mall. And early in December that year, uh we noticed a giant Christmas tree pop out in the front of the mall, and a huge display of Christmas lights on the roof of the mall. And the sign read, C O O O K I Christmas in bright red and green lights. Cookie, Christmas. And for the life of me, I could not figure out the meaning.

And to this day, 15 years later, I still have no clue what was meant. It wasn't a Merry Christmas or a happy Christmas, but cookie Christmas. And behind the brightly lit exclamation point at the end of the phrase was a giant image of a chocolate chip cookie with a Santa hat on the top. It was confusing. It was kind of funny. In some ways it was very cute. In some ways it was laughable, but in many ways it was horribly strange and offensive. It was a celebration of Christmas with no trace or element of Christ. It was a Christless observance of the birth of Christ Jesus. And because I was homesick, especially that first Christmas, I felt the sadness of it and the offense of it a little bit more acutely.

Christ for sure was not the reason for the season there in front of the Hualian Mall in Beijing, China. And from our Western vantage point, cookie Christmas is laughable. Some of you guys chuckled, because it seems to totally have missed the point of Christmas. But here's a question. Is the celebration of Christmas, is the observation of Christmas here in the States, any less Christless? Some of the most beloved Christmas movies here are Elf, Home Alone, Die Hard, Love Actually. I actually looked it up. Okay, Miracle on 34th Street, a Christmas Carol, and to my surprise, the Grinch. None of which, like cookies, have anything to do with the birth of Jesus. So, what is the reason for the season?

And let us be reminded of this together this morning. And I pray that this reminder will fill our hearts with awe, humility, thanksgiving, and great, great joy. Indeed, the Lord has come. Let Earth receive her king, and let every single one of our hearts this morning truly prepare him room as we hear heaven and nature both sing. And this is the outline for today. We're going to be looking at John 1, 12 to 14, and we'll be focusing specifically on why Jesus' entrance into the world is so important. First, we'll be looking at what Christmas is and why it's perhaps the most significant day in all of human history. Second, we're going to be looking at who the focus of Christmas is supposed to be on.

And then we'll be looking at how the first recipient of the Christmas announcement, how they received it. And you guys are familiar with the Magi, the shepherds, and King Herod, how they received it, and we can glean from that how we're supposed to receive it today. So I want to read John 1, 12 to 14 again. What is Christmas? And it reads, but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

So what we do is we celebrate God taking on human likeness and entering into the world into human history in the form of a little helpless baby. And from the world standards, that's absurd. Right? But that's what we're celebrating. John 1 14 describes this entrance as the word becoming flesh. And in the word becoming flesh, the adoption process for all believers, all of us spiritual orphans, that set in motion, God would adopt sinful, hostile rebels unto himself through the sacrifice of this little baby. The right to become children of God now had a means.

And I don't want to minimize that. And the entire thing was purposed by God and purposed for his glory. And this was the fulfillment of a great promise that God had made in the beginning. The word becoming flesh was the long-awaited fulfillment that all of creation had been longing for since the rebellion and the fall of man. So think with me.

How absurd is that? We're a tiny little pebble, Earth is.

All of creation had been groaning. All of creation had been longing for and eagerly awaiting the revealing of the sons of God, the children of God. At the disobedience of the fall of man, all creation had been plunged into corruption, depravity, and despair. So it's not hard for a Christian to understand the root of all of the problems that we have in the world. Man fell. Satan had succeeded in deceiving Adam and Eve, and in so doing, death and decay had been introduced into the entire cosmos. But immediately after the fall, God made a promise there in the Garden of Eden to Satan. And that's what we call the proto-Uangelion, the first mention of the gospel. And this is God's speaking a promise to the devil.

And this is what he said. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise you on the head. He will crush your head, he will kill you, and you shall bruise him on the heel. So God declared that the curse of sin would one day be reversed, and that the devil's realm and power would be destroyed, fatally bruised on the head. So, and as history slowly unfolded, God continued to reveal his plan to his saints in almost like a historic but uh prophetic baton pass. God told Abraham that in and through his family, all the families of the earth would be blessed, Genesis 12, 3. Through Moses and the book of Leviticus, God revealed the intricate means by which forgiveness of sins would require the bloodshed of an innocent lamb.

Then 700 years before the birth of Jesus, God revealed that the entrance of his Messiah into the world would involve no ordinary natural birth, Isaiah 7.14. A virgin, a woman who has never been with a man, would immaculately conceive, and that would be a sign, God himself would give to the world. And that Messiah would be called Emmanuel, God with us. So the word would become flesh and would dwell with man, literally pitch a tent among people, tabernacle among men. And then God even provided a specific location of this entrance. He gave the GPS coordinates. The virgin, the supernaturally pregnant virgin, would give birth in Bethlehem, Micah chapter 5, verse 2, in the city of David. And that baby would rule Israel.

So everlasting God from ancient of days will become a man. And then Hosea was told that the Messiah, even though he's God, he would be symbolic of the new Moses, but even this God would have to flee to Egypt to avoid slaughter, reminiscent of the days of Pharaoh. And later Jeremiah the prophet would be told that this slaughter would be so devastating that there would be so much wailing and bitter weeping among the remnant of Israel, especially those of the tribe of Benjamin, one of the two sons born to Rachel. So this baby would be born to suffer and die. And the future wounds and the sufferings and the substitution of that baby, through all of that, we would be healed, and sin and death would be permanently defeated.

Isaiah 53, verse 5, and this is often read at Easter. But he was pierced through for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, a chastening for our peace, this exchange fell upon him, and by his wounds, literally the word is scourging. By his scourging, we are healed. So we celebrate today that God is and has always been faithful to his word. And as we reflect on that, let's join with heaven and nature and sing joy to the world. Why? Because God is a promise keeper. Every word that he's written down in the scriptures is true and will come to pass. This has always been the case. This will always be the case. And with the birth of Jesus, the word becoming flesh, all the prophecies and all the promises were beginning their fulfillment.

And this is something that all of creation was waiting for. This is what all the people of God were waiting for by faith, Hebrews 11, verse 2. And now Christmas was here. The promised seed of the woman and the seed of Abraham and the seed of David was here. He is born to fulfill God's promises. He would be born that we would have abundant life. He was born so that we would be adopted. Galatians 4, 4, 5. He was born to suffer and die. And because of his suffering and his death, we could and we would be reconciled to God. In one of his many Christian or Christmas sermons, Martin Lloyd Jones once said, we are not going to understand Christmas unless we understand Calvary.

And he was born that we might have life. And Christmas is the word that we use to describe all of this.

Repeat after me, Christas. Mace. Okay, and the spelling is interesting. Alright. It combines Christ, which means the Messiah, anointed or promised one, with the word mace, which refers to the celebration or Mass of the and the Eucharist. So hence the word Christ, Mass. Christmas. So what is Christmas? It's basically the Messiah of God, the promise of God taking on human form, flesh and blood. And that's so rich. It's the fulfillment of so many promises and prophecies. It is the most significant birth in all of human history. It's a greatest promise kept in all of human history. So here's just in an effort to capture the richness. Here's my definition. It's a mouthful. Alright. It's the celebration of the fulfillment and consummation of the promises of God to restore fallen man and creation back to himself through the sending of his son into the world, that he might live a perfect and satisfactory life, to die in man's stead, to appease the wrath of holy God, and to reverse the curse of sin.

That's a sexy definition, right? It's mine. Okay? If you're gonna quote it, you have to quote me. It's the so Christmas, it's the beginning of a new chapter for all mankind. If eternity with God in heaven is described as like a marriage, and the Bible describes it as a marriage, right? If the Christian life then is an engagement period where we actually wait for that marriage, then Christmas is kind of like the purchase of the ring for the proposal. Does that make sense? The ball is now rolling, events are now set into motion, things have just gotten real serious. God himself, after many years has finally entered into humanity, joy to the world. Man, if we understood all of this correctly, no elf, no snowman, no grandma being run over by no reindeer would ever be spotlighted in this celebration.

All of that would be as strange to us as a cookie donning a Santa hat. If we make Christmas about anything other than the birth of Jesus, it would kind of be akin to a woman at the halftime of a Laker game, being proposed to by the man of her dreams, and her going home and being so excited that she got to see LeBron play basketball. That's the parallel.

Amen. Christmas is about Jesus, fully God and fully man.

Who were born. This is describing the Christian, not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man. So none of us actually willed this to be. If you believe in Christ Jesus and He is your Lord and Savior, this was given to you. You are born of God. All of this is set in motion by God. God willed all of this. This was all part of God's plan. And the focus of Christmas is God. Amen. He's a God of compassion who comes to seek and to save the lost. But the lost are not the focus. It is the seeker and the saver of the lost who is of significance. Yahweh, God who wills the forgiveness and the adoption of hostile sinners, he is a good, good God. He's the one, King of kings, Lord of Lords, creator of the universe, takes on the form of a helpless baby, enters into the world.

So we're gathering every Christmas to celebrate the earthly birthday of eternal God. How absurd and ridiculous and offensive is that.

Now he is a God, because in the old testament, they couldn't see him lest they die. But now he was a God who could be heard, who could be felt, who could be seen. And first John says, we've placed our hands on him, who could be touched. This is God in human form. Hebrews 1 3 and Colossians 1 15 in these passages, Jesus is described as the exact representation of God. He is invisible God, now made visible. So now people could see, hear, touch, observe, and even just laugh with him and hug him. Had this happened in our day, how would we describe this occurrence, this incarnation? We would say, oh, man, God is so loving and warm. God is so patient and generous.

Wow, God loves to give gifts. And he loves to bring delight to his children. He loves to just have us sit on his knee and listen to our requests as we rest against his bosom. Children adore him, right? Children adore Jesus.

He has such a hearty laugh. And you know what else? He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've made bad or good. But he loves you no matter what, for goodness sake. Do you realize that man desires a God who resembles Santa Claus? Man has fashioned a theology that makes God resemble Santa. People want a God who will spend his entire existence obsessing over them, preparing all year to shower them with gifts. And he's omnipresent. Completely selfless and warm, almost as if he existed only to give gifts even to those who are undeserving. Santa would have a very different reception if he claimed to be king, deserving of allegiance, obedience, and adoration, even if he was worthy of it.

If he said, I am king, that would be quite an offense. But the central figure of Christmas is Jesus. He is God, He is owner, He is creator, He is Lord, He is King. He does not exist for us, we exist for Him. You and I have been created by God and for God to love God and to serve God. Amen. So the apostle Paul describes God in this way. Yet for us there is one God the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him. And one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist because of Him, or through Him. So He is a Father, He is owner of everything. He is the reason we exist. He's the purpose for which we exist. And we are most blessed and filled with the most joy when we're actually living in an alignment with his will for our lives.

And God has come to bring that abundant and joy everlasting. But this abundant joy and life everlasting is only properly possible when we actually see him for who he is. So who is this Jesus incarnate? All of the characteristics I've listed of Santa apply to Christ. But this is actually his identity as the prophet Isaiah, and this is what you see in Christmas cards all the time, right? For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, the government, all the governments of the world will rest on his shoulders, and his name, he will be addressed as wonderful counselor, mighty God, eternal father, prince of peace. There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace. What that means is if we could feel it, it would feel like peace is exponentially growing.

His good reign is exponentially growing. I mean, he's the same, but that's how it would feel on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it, to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore, the zeal of Yahweh of hosts will accomplish this. This ain't no Santa. The prophet Isaiah saw a vision of a king. We don't go up to a powerful king with demands. Right? We dare not approach a powerful king, expecting him to bow before us, expecting him to introduce himself to us. That would be very absurd and inappropriate. We would never draw near to a king's throne of grace with rudeness. We would go near there with humility and terror.

Right? The word becoming flesh is an absolutely absurd demonstration of grace, kindness, unmerited favor, and especially at Christmas, it is only appropriate to remember and understand that though he is good, though he is the most wonderful of counselors, he is king, he is God. We exist for him, and in his kindness, he has made a way for salvation, not through the will of man, nor the will of the flesh, nor anything of human scheming, but his will alone. And so the only appropriate response to being invited to the king's presence is worship. The magi understood. They fell on their faces and they worshiped. We're going to read about that. The shepherds understood. They fell on their faces and worshiped.

And you know what? You know who else fell on their faces and worshiped? The angels. Multitudes of them. At this scene, they who have a complete understanding of who the king of kings is, they worship. King Herod understood as well. He understood very accurately, but his response was a little bit different. So I want to take a deeper look at together each of these responses in the gospel narratives.

Only Matthew and Luke give us a detail into the birth of Jesus. So most of what you see is human imagination. But the text in and of itself have just these two accounts. And the two gospel accounts, they include very different details. And it's understandable since the purpose and the original audience of Matthew and the purpose and the original audience of Luke, they're very different. So they mention different things. In Matthew's account, we have only the mention of King Herod and the Magi. Shepherds don't appear there. In Luke's account, we have only the mention of the shepherds. There's no mention of the magi or Herod. You guys track in with that? Okay. Nowhere in the Bible is a mention of a little drummer boy.

Right? Who plays his best for him? There's no mention of that. The closest thing we have to a drummer in the Bible is the praise leader Asaph, who led praise with symbols. Imagine that. Howard, next week, try that, brother. Okay? Lead on symbols. So these are the only accounts we have of the nativity. And so how was Jesus' birth received by those whom the scriptures recorded were either present or who wanted to be present? I want to uh look at Magi's response in Matthew's account, and then the shepherd's response in Luke's account. But before we do that, I want to look at Herod's response. Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, Magi, wise men from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?

For we saw his star. I don't know how they understood that it was, but they understood. We saw his star in the east, and we have come to worship him. And when Herod heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. So here we see Herod and the Magi introduced together. There are six Herods mentioned in the New Testament. When we say Pope, it's many people, right? Herod, there are six of them that we see in the New Testament, five or six. None of the Herods are of Jewish descent. So in this period of time, the Romans, everywhere they conquered, they actually left, like uh, they divided the lands into four regions, and they put client kings. They call them tetrarch, tetra means four, right?

They would place a client king in that land to serve as a governor. And these positions would be given out as a favor or as a war to curry allegiance. So Herod was not a Jew. And this Herod is named Herod the Great. And history describes him as one who has always been paranoid of different assassination attempts. In 27 BC, he actually survived an assassination attempt. See, he was so paranoid, he actually assassinated one of his five wives and a different son born to a different wife by drowning him in Jericho. So that's what history tells us. So in fear of losing his status and power, he hears of this grassroots king of the Jews, and he's troubled. Any threat to his lifestyle, his status or his power, he's zealous to eliminate.

So if Jesus was really who he said he was, this would change everything for him in the worst ways. So Herod's kingdom, his value, his worth, his entire being was on this earth as a tetrarch to that little area. So he offers lip service, superficial loyalty, and an effort to gain access to the king of the Jews. Matthew chapter 2, verse 8. He sent the Magi to Bethlehem and said, Go and search carefully for the child, and when you have found him, report to me, so that I too may come and worship him.

He wanted to exterminate this king. And what happens when he realizes he can't get to Jesus? He has the temper tantrum of all temperatantrums. Every two-year-old, he decrees to be killed. Okay. Matthew 2 16. Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the Magi, he became very enraged. And he sent and slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity, from two years and old and under, according to the time which he had carefully determined from the Magi. So here's a parallel. Those who have much to lose in this life, those who have many thrones in this life hate all rivals, hate all threats. Those who have staked a great claim in this dark world, they will hate the light.

You guys tracking with that? Who are the magi from the east? Some believe them to be descendants of the astrologers from Babylon. Some believe them to be Zoroastrian priests descended from the Persian Empire. But either way, they were foreigners. They were non-Jews. They were foreigners seeking to worship the one true God. So how do these Gentile wise men respond? Matthew 2, 10 and 11. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. That's a pretty strong word, right? And after coming into the house, they saw the child with Mary's mother, and they fell to the ground and worshipped him, and then opening their treasures, they presented to him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Now that's a quieter response. These men rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. Imagine what that looks like. Dude, our pastor this Sunday, he rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. He went nuts. He went buck wild with joy. Imagine what expression of joy like that would look like. But they fall prostrate to the ground when they see baby Jesus and they worship him. And what's interesting is that they bring frankincense and myrrh. These are saps that have a very pleasant aroma taken from trees. They're used for lotion and they're used for soap, and they're used to bury corpses. The text doesn't explicitly say why they brought these things. The gold we can understand. But perhaps the magi knew that this baby was born with the objective to be slaughtered.

Who are the shepherds? They were likely Jewish shepherds, and in Jesus' day, shepherds were at one of the lowest levels of society. They were on par with tax collectors and dung sweepers. Do you know what a dung sweeper is? A poop collector. They were considered perpetually unclean. Do Jews like poop? Okay, nobody likes poop, but do Jews have a different view of poop? Well, absolutely. So these shepherds who were in daily contact with dirty, smelly sheep, insects, lots of blood, unclean fecal matter, they were always breaking the Sabbath because they had to work seven days a week. So they were perpetually unclean, perpetually impious. But the cool thing is that these shepherds are given an amazing privilege.

They're standing there.

They've seen crazy stuff. Look, and this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in clothes, cloths, and lying in a manger. And suddenly there appeared with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace among men with whom he is pleased. And then the angels go away. And it happened when the angels had gone away from them back into heaven. The shepherds say to one another, let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us. Remember, perpetually unclean, perpetually impious men who knew that they were at the bottom of the totem pole for religiosity, they saw heaven.

So they go and encourage and they share with Mary and Joseph about all that they just saw. And the narrative of Jesus' birth ends with the shepherds glorifying and praising God for all that they had just seen. They were, they not only were the very first people to see God incarnate, they got to see all the angels worshiping God for what's taking place. Perpetually unclean, perpetually impious Sabbath breaker shepherds. We're one of the first people to worship the Lamb of God. Interesting, ironic. Huh? They know what a lamb of God or a lamb being sacrificed means. They sold these lambs all year long to worshipers, among whom they were excluded. But they saw the Lamb of God who will be sacrificed for the sins of the world.

So Magi, dirty lowly shepherds, and a despised non-Jewish puppet king. It's interesting that their responses are the only ones that are recorded in the scriptures. Why them? There is never any ink wasted on the Bible, on the scriptures. Foreigners, non-Jews, they're invited to the table. Jews who everyone else deemed to be the lowest of the low, they're also invited to the table. And we see in the rest of Jesus' ministry, who's invited to the table? Tax collectors, thieves, harlots, drunkards, vile sinners, even Pharisees who realize that the law in and of itself they could not keep.

Everyone was invited. But when the playing field gets leveled, the elite are not happy. Right. The greater the despair, the greater the insurmountable distance between me and God, the greater the gratitude and the greater the worship, the more passionate the worship. The greater the awareness of me being in darkness, the more blindingly beautiful the light. Amen.

Fall down and prostrate and worship before this guy. Isaiah 9 2 says, the people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in the land of the shadow of death, the light will shine on them. This comes just before the unto us a child is born in verse 6. Do you realize that? So how do we respond to a great light? The Magi saw the light, they worshiped. The shepherds saw the light, they worshiped. Herod was told of the light, he wanted to turn it off. He hated it. He wanted it snuffed out. When light is too bright and it's painful, you either have to cover it off, or you have to cover it, or turn it off completely. When truth is spoken, there's only two ways to respond. You either acknowledge it and submit to it, or you call truth a lie and you kill the messenger.

That's human nature. And you turn it somehow into an untruth. You guys have lived long enough to understand that, right? John 1 9, this is a few verses before the text I read today. There was a true light which coming into the world enlightens everyone. And John 3, this is after God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, verse 19. This is the judgment that the light has come into the world, and men love the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates truth, the light.

Think about this.

And as the light exposes all my blemishes, I can praise God for his grace. I will not go to the light, because I am not that bad.

I don't want to be uncomfortable. I don't want to let go of that. The true light burst forth into the dark world, and many did not like it. Herod didn't like it. Scribes and Pharisees and others with much to lose, they did not like it. And we see that theme running through the whole of all four of the gospel accounts. You either hate the light or you love the light. Is there any in between? No. Bible says there's no in between. Common sense tells us there's no one in between. There's either light or darkness. So what is Christmas? It is God's entering into humanity to fulfill promises and to reverse the curse of sin. Those who understand their great desperate need for saving. I don't know what you see in me, God, outside of desperation, but thank you.

I have nothing to bring. I have nothing to offer. I have no status. I have no worth. I have no wealth. I have nothing. People in desperate need of saving fall down in worship. And they receive him with great joy and awe. Those who don't feel the need for a savior, those who have too much to lose in this life, those who don't want to share their earthly thrones, those who hate the light, to them. Christmas cannot be but be anything but an offensive threat to be eradicated, made politically correct or tame, distorted. Christmas cannot but be anything but maybe cookie. Completely unrelated to the point. Is Jesus your main reason for the season?

Because if it is, joy to the world. Come behold the mystery of all mysteries. God would become man. Holy, holy, holy God would selflessly give of himself for sinful, hostile, rebellious sinners. Holy, holy, holy, all powerful God who would be robed in frail humanity. He didn't even come as a conquering king. He came as a baby who needed care. Come behold the wondrous mystery of all mysteries.

Amen. May our Christmas never ever, ever be cookie. And we're dangerously close to becoming cookie. I want to close with John 1, 12 to 14. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God. Even to those who believe in his name, who are born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor any effort of man, but of God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. Amen. Would you pray with me?

Father. Fill us afresh with awe and with joy that we would be so powerfully reminded, not only why we gather every Sunday, but especially on a Christmas Sunday where we reflect on your entrance into this world. Fill us with awe, fill us with humility, fill us with disgust for the things of the world, and help us to crave your presence, your nearness, your glory, and help us to spend the remainder of our earthly lives really for faithful service to our King. And we pray this in Jesus' name.