Why the Incarnation Matters | Christmas Eve Sermon

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One of the hardest things to do at this time of the year is to rescue all that you see and sense from what I call sentiment, because the older we get, the greater our tendency is to let this just become sentimental.

And one of the ways that we rescue the incarnation, when I say the incarnation, what I mean is the fact that God put on flesh and moved into the neighborhood.

And John says in John chapter 1, and we beheld his glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1 · chapter mention

And so the way we rescue Christmas in the incarnation that the Messiah, Christ was born, actually in flesh and blood, and came to be among us, the way we rescue that from sentiment and everything, it's just by telling the truth.

And so what I want to do in just a few minutes is just kind of tell you why the incarnation matters and what it means.

And so I want to make five statements very briefly.

And then I want to ask you to just center down and focus and think about that for about 30 seconds, okay?

And then we'll celebrate passing of the peace, which is a ritual we observe here at Grand Park as we close our Christmas Eve services.

Here's the first statement I want to say to you.

The incarnation means that change is possible.

The incarnation, the fact that God took on flesh and came into the world, uh means that change is possible.

And here's why.

Because Jesus was born of a virgin, which means he was the Son of God, which was who was conceived by God.

That means his life and death made possible something that no other life and no other death makes possible.

Now, I realize that in 2015, soon to be 2016, that I sound foolish when I say because Jesus was born of a virgin.

You realize he was born of a virgin, don't you?

That was pathetic.

I know.

Some of you are kind of like, well, I'm an engineer and I've got a slide roll in my pocket to prove it, and I'm just too smart for that.

Uh let me just say to you, if you don't believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, you may be looking at that through the lens of your own morality, or you you you you you I think you're you're saying things you don't want to say.

Here's what I mean.

Uh if you deny the virgin birth, then you're ruling out, number one, the deity of Christ.

That he can't be the Son of God.

If he's not born of a virgin, then he was born with a sinful nature, just like you and I.

So to say that, hey, I'm too smart for that or I outgrew that, I believe that earlier, but I read some books and I got on the internet, then you're ruling out, number one, the deity of Christ, the authority of the Bible.

And thirdly, you're ruling out the fact that sinful people can actually be forgiven and can be changed.

And you say, well, they can be changed on what basis?

I would ask you.

Who pays for their sin?

Without the virgin birth, we have no Savior.

It's worse than you can imagine.

Because I know it's hip and hipster to kind of say, Well, I used to believe that when I was 17, but now that I'm 38, I move beyond that.

Beloved, to move beyond that is to move to a place of desperation and hopelessness.

And so the incarnation means that change is possible because he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and he was born of a virgin, and he went on to live a sinless life.

He could offer his life up for sinners like me.

First thing the Bible tells us is the incarnation means change is possible.

Secondly, the incarnation means that God cares about people.

Well, one of the things that was read earlier, he said, For unto you this day in the city of David is born a savior.

Just those little two little words.

Unto you.

This means God cares about people because who's he talking to?

He's talking to shepherds.

That's the dregs of society back then.

Uh I mean, they just weren't very well thought of.

They stood out in the fields on the outskirts of town.

They watched over the lambs that were sacrificed in the temple as payment for people's sins.

They were considered ceremonially unclean because of what they did.

So they couldn't even kind of fit in.

To use a vernacular in the town that I grew up in, they were kind of white trash.

So whenever I read about the shepherds, I just think, oh, there I'm in the Bible.

So if you grew up white trash, you're in the Bible too.

Good news tonight, okay?

But here's the thing: the incarnation means that God cares about people, because ask yourself this question.

Of all the people that God could kick this thing off and announce it to, why does he choose them?

People that society has given up on, they're kind of like, hey, we've accepted our lot in life.

This is as good as it's gonna get.

Let's make the most of it.

I believe one of the reasons God did that is because in this room right now, some of you are kind of like, this is my lot in life.

It's never gonna really change.

Let me just make the most of it.

And here's all I want to say to you tonight is that God's not given up on you.

There's none of you in this room that have done so much that God's like, that's it.

I'm just done with you.

See, the incarnation reminds us it means that God cares about people.

Third thing it means is that it reminds us that God works in his time, not ours.

Let me say this again because we don't acknowledge this enough in church and in Christianity.

God works in his time, not ours.

Uh, let's face it, as we sit here tonight, some of you in this room are still waiting for something that you've been waiting for for a long time.

And it's not that God can't do it, he just hasn't chose to do it yet.

And you say, well, what do you mean?

For some of you, you're waiting on your company.

When they gave you the pink slip a couple months ago, they said, Hey, as soon as this turns around, we're gonna call you back.

And every time you're away from your cell phone for a couple hours, you pick it up in this anticipatory hope that maybe they're, and they're not.

Some of you are waiting for two blue lines to show up on a little stick.

Some of you are waiting on the guy you're sitting next to to pop the question.

Relax.

I see some of you guys looking like, you're not you, is it?

If it is you, we have a nice backdrop here against this table.

For 50 bucks, we can tie the knot right here and be done.

Bam.

We'll take pictures with an iPhone and save you a wedding photographer.

And you can just tell your friends we had a festive winter wedding.

All these people will stay for 10 minutes afterwards, won't you?

There we go.

And you ain't gotta feed them.

Yes, I see that hand, or there are others.

This guy's like, dude, you keep talking.

I'm gonna take you up on that.

The incarnation reminds us that God works in his time, not ours.

What does that mean?

That means that the Bible says while they were there, the time came for her to give birth.

Now hear that just for a second.

It says, now while they were there, the time came for her to give birth.

That word, when it says the time, it's not time like we think of it.

It's not the it in the Bible, there's two words for time.

There's kairos, or excuse me, chronos, which is chronological, and then there's kairos, which is the word that's used here in Luke chapter 2, when the time came.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

Kronos is this chronological.

We talk about wasting time or losing time or all that, but the Bible is not talking like that when it says when the time came, it's kairos in the fullness of time.

See, for us, time wastes away, and for God, time fills up.

And so in time, when the fullness of time, when God came, just as God, just at the same time, God always wanted to come.

Nothing held him back.

It's not like I wanted to get here sooner, but I was stuck in traffic.

No, no, no.

In the fullness of time.

What does that mean?

Kairos means this: it means that in the fullness of time, things happen as they should, when they should, and how they should.

And here's the part that galls us about that.

Let me say that again.

Things happen when they should, okay?

Things happen as, excuse me, they happen as they should, when they should, and how they should.

Here's the galling thing about that for humanity.

It reminds us that someone else is in control of the world besides us.

I said to one of my little buddies sitting right over here in the first in the four o'clock service today, I said, he's a pistol.

I mean, he is a handful.

And I said to him, hey, the world's not the three-foot circle you're sitting in right now.

And he went, I don't know what you're talking about.

And I thought, we're that way too as adults.

See, in the fullness of time, the Bible says, and while they were there, the time came for her to give birth.

Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean God can't do it.

Maybe God's waiting for time to fill up.

Because in the fullness of time, everything that God said God will do, God will do.

You know that, right?

Fourth thing.

I want to remind you about the incarnation, is it makes heaven possible.

It makes heaven possible.

Simply put, he came to live inside of her so that he could one day live inside of you.

Let me say that again.

He came to live inside of the Virgin Mary so that one day he could live inside of you.

I have very intellectual friends and they like to give me the business about the virgin birth.

And like, you you really don't believe that.

I mean, your church probably requires you to believe that you have to sign a contract or something that you want.

And I'm just like, how can you be so smart and be so stupid?

And they're like, oh, come on, are you I mean, are you serious?

And so here's the way I answer the question every time, this time of year, he was born the same way I was born again.

And they look at me like, say, what?

And I say, hey, Jesus was born the same way I was born again.

And it ought to give you hope because again, your conversion, the possibility of you getting into heaven, you being forgiven, it's really tied up in the virgin birth.

And then I got their attention.

Because they think I'm gonna write a check and give a lot of money to the church, and that's gonna get me in.

That doesn't get you one eye older closer to God.

But by all means, write the check.

Amen?

No.

And now my friends are like, what do you mean?

He was born the same way you were born again.

The Bible says this of Mary.

This is how a virgin conceives and gives birth to a child.

The Bible says, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

And if you're in this room and you're a Christ's follower, you got that way because the power of the Most High overshadowed you at one point in your life.

And so I can say to my friends that don't believe, hey, it just hadn't happened for you yet, and I pray it does.

I pray it does because the incarnation is what makes heaven possible.

He came into the world at a manger, a place of stench and noise and cold foulness where beasts live.

Now hear that again.

He came into the manger, a place of stench and cold foulness where beasts live.

You go, what's it got to do with me?

That's what your heart's like.

That's what my unconverted heart was like before the power of the Most High overshadowed me.

And my heart changed.

And so here's why I tell you that.

I'm not getting on to you.

Don't walk to the bureaucracy in about six minutes and go, man, that dude was kind of honest.

Does he know it's Christmas Eve?

Lighten up, Francis.

I know it's Christmas Eve.

But if we're not careful, the older you get, the more sentimental this will become.

And you'll die believing less truth than when you started off.

And that's not the way God designed this to be.

Why do I tell you that?

I tell you that because most of you hear all of this through the lens of who you know you really are.

And look at me, beloved.

This is the closest I'll get to meddling tonight.

Who you know you really are, God has already known that's who you really are.

And He's not afraid to come and set up shop in the manger of your heart.

He's already come into cold, foul places.

So however dark your heart is, God's not put off by that.

The Bible says in Isaiah, the people dwelling in deep darkness have seen a great light.

The incarnation is what makes heaven possible.

If you walk out with anything tonight, walk out with this.

God's not afraid of the lowliness of our nature.

It's not beneath him to put on what he made.

No one done it before, no one did it since.

But here's what I want you to remember: God came to earth so people could go to heaven.

It's as simple as I know how to say it.

God came to earth in the form of a baby from the womb of a virgin so people could go to heaven.

Last thing I want to say to you is that God does big things in little ways.

Let me say that again.

God does big things in little ways.

Because we got exactly opposite in our culture.

We do little things in big ways.

For example, there's a lady named Adele.

I don't know if you've ever heard of her.

She sings.

Yeah.

I told somebody the other day, I haven't heard the her, I've never heard the song Hello.

And they were like, What?

It's like, I'm sorry.

I've got a real job.

Anyway, uh no.

Adele's coming to Houston next November, 11 months from now.

Tickets sold out in a matter of hours.

And if you were in her fan club, you could get on the Ticketmaster app and get tickets early, and a lot of people are mad because they they tickets were gone for the, and now they're on eBay for$12,000 apiece.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I ain't paying$12,000 to see anybody unless they dig up Johnny Cash, then I'll be in line.

And by the way, don't get mad at all you ladies that are like, oh, you're hating on a deal.

I'm not hating on a deal, got a great voice.

I mean, hello.

I get it.

I get it.

It's awesome.

All that good stuff.

But here's the thing.

Think about it at the end of the day, people in we live in a country that is so misunderstands value that somebody is going to pay$12,000 to go to a concert that'll be over in a matter of hours.

And they'll live a secondhand life.

They won't even watch it, they'll film it on their phone so they can tell everybody, look, I was there.

And yet, the God of the universe smuggled himself into the world in the womb of a teenage virgin and didn't tell anybody.

There wasn't an app where you could kind of watch it on live, streaming live.

And was born.

And they laid him in a wooden trough where they feed animals from, we now call a manger.

God does big things in little ways.

We live in a culture that does little things in big ways.

And we're always left disappointed when it's over.

With a sense of buyer's remorse.

The question you've got to ask yourself when you walk out of here in a few minutes is why did this happen?

Why did God send his only son into the world?

See, the incarnation is that big word again that just, hey, God came to be with us.

The Bible's very clear about why he did it and what it was about.

He said he looked down and he saw people living in this deep darkness.

He didn't come like a politician.

It's going to be huge.

What are you going to do?

It's going to be awesome.

What are you going to do?

Can you give specifics?

Awesome and huge.

No.

No.

Once again, he does these big things in little ways.

And here's why.

And I'm going to shut up.

Look at me.

Because God wants to make sure that people are listening and people are looking.

So as you wind your year down, I'm going to voice a prayer in just a minute and I'm going to ask us to do one thing while I'm praying.

Just listen.

Just listen to your life and ask yourself, hey, I'm finishing one year and I'm going to start another one.

Do I want to do this the same way?

Is there anything I would change?

Because here's what you're going to realize that whether you believe there's a God or not, or you know that, and you're you're you're in a relationship with God, or I used to be, but I'm kind of, God and I aren't on speaking terms these days, that you're safe.

But ask yourself, hey, maybe if I just listened a little bit, this would make a little bit more sense.

Let me pray.

Before I pray, I just want you just to take just a few seconds and just kind of slow yourself down.

The Bible says of Mary, then God dropped this news on her that she treasured this up and pondered it in her heart.

And so just kind of ponder while the cattle are lowing all around you.

And just ask yourself, hey man, as I wind this year down, is there anything I need to slow down and think about a little bit more?

Father, the Bible tells us that you came to shepherds.

You came to people that society had given up on to say, I'm not giving up on you.

I'm full of grace and truth.

I'm not the God that yells at you and makes you feel bad.

I know you don't need any help feeling bad.

I'm the God of grace, but I'm also the God of truth.

And so thank you, Lord, that you punched a hole in our darkness and said, I'm here, I'm here.

And I came as a baby, so you would have 33, best we can tell, 33 years to taste and see that the Lord is good.

To disqualify me if you can, but I'm not some late-night shenanigan TV preacher.

I'm God concarni.

I am God with flesh on.

Put your hand here and touch me, you doubters.

Give me something to eat.

I'm telling you, I'm the resurrection and I'm the life.

God, we're grateful for who you are and for how you provided for us and sustained us this past year.

And we believe that surely, surely, goodness and mercy is going to continue to follow us into the new year.

And so we just pause to say thank you.

Thanks for the incarnation and for the life and the death, the burial and the resurrection that followed.

Because it all validates and certifies who you are and everything you've said.

And for that we're grateful.

So we say thank you in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, We light the Christ candle as a reminder to ourselves that we're not alone, we're not at the mercy of our appetites.

God has come in demonstration of his attributes.

Let's behold this mystery.

The Bible goes on to say, When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.

And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in the manger.

When they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told to them concerning the child.

We always close our Christmas Eve services with a ritual we call passing the peace.

And I've asked some of our staff families to help me.

So if they would come at this time, just gather here at the front.

And what they're gonna do is that I'll light one of their candles, and then they'll turn and light each other's candle.

When all their candles are lit here, they'll each go to a section in our sanctuary.

They'll just light your candle.

And when they do, just turn around and light the candle of the person behind you, and we'll just pass it back.

And as we pass it back, we'll speak the blessing to one another by saying, peace of Christ.

Because this is how it all got started.

Just with a couple of shepherds.

Now, some of you will be tempted to be efficient and run back down the aisle and light everybody's.

You don't have to.

God didn't come to be efficient, He came to be available.

And so, as they scatter to their sections, we'll just pass the peace by speaking out loud the blessing.

Peace of Christ as we pass the peace.

So God's not afraid of the confines of your heart.

He came to be with you because he likes you.

You've been told your whole life he loves you and it's kind of gotten rope.

He likes you.

He came to be with you because you're easy to be with, despite what your husband says.

So as you stop beating that kid, please.

So as you prepare to leave here in just about one minute, you walk out.

I don't care who you are, what you think, how you think, how scientific or engineering you are, or whatever.

And you tell yourself, he came into this world to be with me.

That's what the incarnation, that's what baby Jesus in the manger is all about.

We speak a blessing over you.

Just, I'm not gonna ask you to hold your hands out because you pour wax on your neighbor.

We speak a blessing over you.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

Cause his face to shine upon you.

May the Lord turn his face towards you and give you peace.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.

You're dismissed.