"The Word Made Flesh" - John 1:14

Well, with Christmas, I know with a lot of families come Christmas traditions.

I don't know if you have any. I'm sure everyone does. Hopefully yours are positive.

I was talking to one of the guys on our job sites this week and kind of talking

about Christmas and what we do.

And I was telling him some of the things that I did growing up,

you know, with my family in Palestine and things like that.

And he goes, yeah, my family has a Christmas tradition too. And I was like,

what is it? He's like fighting. I was like, man, that is exciting.

Merry Christmas, right? I can remember growing up, one of the things we always

did every year is there was a kind of drive-through Christmas story.

You know, we would get hot chocolate and snacks and pile in the car and drive

through the Christmas story.

I remember one year they had real camels and one of the camels got loose and

was just like walking down 110 and we saw the camels we were driving in and

I was like, man, they've really gotten into it this year.

They're meeting people on the road on camels. This is getting really intense.

But I love all the things that Christmas brings.

I don't necessarily love the season itself sometimes because of all the craziness that ensues.

I tried to go to Lowe's yesterday, which I live five minutes from,

and I got back six days later.

And so it's things like that that are frustrating, but obviously I had a positive

experience with Christmas.

But like I said earlier this morning, I want to look at maybe a different Christmas

story than you're used to looking at.

I want to look at the way John tells the Christmas story.

And John leaves out Mary and Joseph and all of the people that are involved in there.

He leaves out the journey and the innkeeper and all of those things.

John kind of leaves those things out.

He doesn't focus on them like Matthew or especially Luke would.

And I think the reason John does that is John's just trying to make one singular

point when he's talking about Christmas, when he's talking about the coming of Christ.

John's going to take a microscope and turn it up to a thousand and zoom in on

things in such a way that makes us go, okay, this is the point.

If we miss everything else, this is the point. This is why Christmas is important.

And I think that's a good thing because it's easy to,

not in even a bad way, and I don't think it's on purpose, but it's easy to get

wrapped up in the story of a young girl who's a virgin who becomes pregnant

and a young man who's engaged to her and now is asked to take on the responsibility

of raising this child that's not really his,

and the innkeeper, and the journey, and him being born in a manger,

and all of those things which are wonderful, and they are all important.

It's just that they're not the most important part. And if we aren't careful

because we are who we are and we all love a good story,

we can get lost in the story and kind of the emotionalism of that and miss the

fact that what's happening at Christmas is the coming of God in the flesh.

It is God made flesh. And so that is what John is going to zero in on.

So let me just do this. Let me just read out of John 1.

If you want to, grab a Bible on the table. It's on page 981.

See, I made it easy for you. 981. And then if you kind of want to put a thumb

in it, we're also going to be in Exodus this later.

And about Exodus 19, I looked, I'll be honest, I forgot, I think around page

70. If you get to page 70, you'll be close.

In your bulletin there, worship guide, I've got John, I think 9 through 14.

Let me read John 1, 1 through 4 before I get to verse 9 to kind of set the stage, give us some context.

John 1 says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

So from the very beginning, John wants you to know there was this Word that

was in the beginning. He was before all things.

The Word was with God. In other words, He wasn't God the Father.

He's different from that. He was with God the Father, but the Word was God.

This is a Trinitarian statement. This is John giving you a good Christological

theology to say, Christ is God.

He was with God, but he's not God the Father. He's different.

Verse 2 says, he was in the beginning with God. Without him was not anything that was made.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Then John's going to give you a little biography about himself,

and then we get to verse 9.

It says, The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.

He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right

to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the.

And we read in Matthew that Jesus will save his people.

And John says the same thing in verse 13.

They were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of

man, but of God, because God will save his people.

Verse 14, And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

So again, John's going to skip a lot of the details that we know,

a lot of the details that we think about, a lot of the details that you may

have seen like I did growing up.

And he's just going to give you who is Jesus, right? Who was he?

He's eternal. He is God. He was with the Father in the beginning.

All things are created by him. And then the climax of chapter one in verse 14,

and this word became flesh and dwelt among us.

We're really going to camp for the next about 30 minutes in that verse,

really in the first half of that verse.

And the word of God, the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

So the first thing John says, right? The word became flesh. It's the first thing

John doesn't want you to miss. The word becomes flesh.

John has already identified again, the word at the beginning of his gospel.

He identifies this word as eternal God, existing before anything existed.

Everything that was made was

made through him. Colossians 1.16 says this about the word, about Jesus.

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.

Angels, demons, heaven and hell, earth, the planets, the stars,

realms that you and I can't even fathom exist, things that you and I can never

fathom existing in any way, shape, or form.

All of those things were created by him and for him.

And yet this God takes on flesh.

He takes on the flesh that you and me wear every single day.

He's above all things, and yet he takes on flesh.

He takes on what you and me wear every day and in every sense of the word,

not just what he took on flesh, but he was a superhuman and he didn't feel pain

and he didn't get cuts and bruises and he didn't feel heartache.

No, he takes on all of it.

He takes on all of it. We know at the cross he will bleed and he will cry out

in agony because he feels pain.

We know at the grave of Lazarus he cries because he feels the sting of the death of a close friend.

We know he knows what it means to be ditched by your friends and ditched by

your family and called crazy and stupid and cast aside. He knows all of those

feelings. Why? Because he took on flesh.

He didn't have to, but he did. He lowers himself by addition.

We just got through studying Philippians. Philippians 1, 16 says he took on

the form of a servant, right? This is subtraction by addition.

Think of it like this way. if you were a king in a land where you had sovereign

rule over everything, you could do whatever you want, whenever you wanted.

No one could tell you anything.

You were the king, and you took a job digging ditches on the side of the road

and all that comes with that. You took the pay.

You took the hours. You took the ridicule. You took the pain.

Doing that makes you no less a king, but doing that robs you of the glory of being a king.

Again, what Jesus does when he takes on flesh does not change who Jesus is.

He is not half God and half man.

He's fully God and fully man.

What changes is he no longer wears the glory of what it means to be the king

of the earth, the sovereign ruler of every nation, both seen and unseen. He takes on flesh.

And again, it says he dwelt among us. Not only does God just take on flesh as

a king, he dwells among us.

He doesn't take on flesh, enter the world, and set up a throne where no one

can enter in, where no one can come and talk to him. No one can come and see him.

No, the God that created all things and it holds all things and that all things are made to glorify.

The God that delivers his people from Egypt and supplied his people in the wilderness,

that gave him victory over their enemies in the promised land that no man has

ever seen the face of, that God not only becomes flesh, but he dwells among his people.

You may hear this very clearly this morning, but you were made to dwell with God.

And Christmas is the ultimate reminder that God would leave heaven above and

take on flesh so he could dwell with you.

Because even though you were made to dwell with God, you have no ability to do that.

You've lost your right to commune with God.

Every single one of us have sinned. Every single one of us have fallen short

of the glory of God. Paul makes that clear.

The Bible makes that clear. And we've lost the right to enter into God's presence.

But Christmas is the reminder that God has come to dwell with us.

And again, why is this such a big deal? And why should this message bring us

to our knees in worship when we hear about this story?

And maybe a better question is, how can we be all so surrounded by this message?

I'm not just saying everyone in this room.

I'm saying in general, how can we be so surrounded by this message and be so unaffected by it?

I mean, just so numb to it. And I think I have the answer to that.

I think the answer is found not so much in that we don't think about Jesus,

but we don't understand who us is.

That the Word took on flesh and dwelled among us.

If we understood who we were a little better, we would be amazed at the grace

and mercy that God shows us in taking on flesh to dwell among us.

Think of the first time you hear of God dwelling with His people,

walking with His people. You hear that in Genesis 3.

The first thing we hear after Adam and Eve sinned, it's Genesis 3, 8 through 10.

It says, and they, that's Adam and Eve, heard the sound of the Lord God walking

in the garden in the cool of the day.

This is what we were made for, to walk with God, to be with him, to commune with him.

And yet, what is Adam and Eve's response because of their sin?

And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden.

But the Lord God called to man and said, where are you?

And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because

I was naked and I hid myself.

The first time we see God walking with the us of John 1 14, we see why we should

be amazed because the us have fallen short.

Even Adam and Eve were placed in the perfect position. They have everything

at their disposal, every advantage fail. And what do they do?

They hide. They look at God and they say, listen, I know you've given me everything

I could ever want and need, but that's not good enough. That's not good enough.

And before we point the fingers at them, Christ has come to deliver you from

your sins and he one day will come back again to give you eternal life with him.

No crying, no tears, no pain, no suffering, nothing that will ever bring you

any cause for any sorrow.

And yet we all find ourselves plenty of times looking at God and going,

yeah, that's not good enough.

I'm going to need you to do a little more, God, before you really want me to

commit to some of these things you're asking me to do. That's not good enough.

And so what do we tend to do? We tend to do the exact same thing that Adam and Eve did, and we hide.

We hide. Sometimes we hide behind our sins, and we go off and we try and find

peace, doing whatever it is we think will make us happy.

I think more oftentimes, especially if you live in East Texas,

you hide at churches, and you hide at Christian things, and you hide behind

prayers at meals, and you go, I'm doing the things that you want me to do.

I'm kind of doing this Christian thing. all the while you've got all these things

in your life and all these things going on in your heart that you know you probably

should deal with, you know you should probably deal with, but instead of doing that,

you hide behind these Christian things so that God just might not see those things in your life.

At the very least, the other people in your life won't see them.

See, the Bible really is a story about how God's going to restore his people

into fellowship that was lost in Genesis 3.

That's the story of your Bible.

So I want to make this point kind of like I did last week.

If you were here using 1 Samuel, I want to make this point using the book of

Exodus. So if you have a Bible, hop over to Exodus.

Like I said, I think it's about page 70 over there. We're going to start in Exodus 19.

And so you know the story. God has delivered his people out of Egypt after 400 years of slavery.

He delivers about 2 million people roughly out.

But he does not do this just to leave them, right? He doesn't deliver them out

of slavery and get them out and say, hey, you're welcome, and toss them the

keys to the promised land like, hey, I'll see you later.

No, he does this. He makes clear so that he might dwell with them,

so that they would worship him and he could be with his people.

The story reaches one of its pinnacles in chapter 19, verses 16 through 21.

It says this, on the morning of the third day, there were thunders and lightnings

and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast,

so that all the people in the camp trembled.

Again, this is about two million people.

So whatever is going on, it's got the attention of two million people.

Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God and they took their

stand at the foot of the mountain.

Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in

fire, the smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln.

The whole mountain trembled.

And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke,

and God answered him in thunder.

The Lord came down on Mount Sinai to the top of the mountain,

and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.

And the Lord said to Moses, Go down and warn the people, lest they break through

to the Lord to look, and many of them perish.

Again, this is the scene. This is the greatest moment for God's people since Genesis 3.

It seems as though God has delivered his people and now he's going to meet with them.

What they lost in Genesis 3, what they were created to do, the reason you and

I have so many longings and pangs that are never met because we were made to dwell with God,

they've got to be thinking, man, this is it. The mountain is shaking.

There's trumpets blaring. There's smoke and fire.

All of the, God is here. He's coming down to us. He's delivered us from Egypt.

And man, he is going to be with us forever.

And yet he calls one man, one man, two million people, two million of his people

that he's delivered out of Egypt.

And yet one man, only one man is able to go to that mountain.

You imagine the letdown, what they wouldn't give to go up on that mountain,

what they wouldn't give to be with God.

And yet we know even when Moses goes up to the mountain, he asks him, right?

God, show me your glory. He wants to see the glory of God. And what does God

say? If I showed you my glory, you would die.

The word literally in Hebrew is you would be destroyed. You would cease to exist

if you saw me the way I truly am because you have so much sin in your life,

you're not able to stand before me.

So again, two million people, they have the holiest one go up to the mountain

and not even he can dwell with God.

Not even he can be with him.

The story continues in Exodus 25, a few pages over.

It's important to know that there's two chapters in the Bible on how God creates

every single thing in the universe.

There's about 50 chapters in the Bible in the Old Testament of how God is going

to dwell with his people.

I only say that to say, choose your time wisely.

Choose your time wisely on how you read your Bible. Maybe don't spend all your

time trying to figure out the details of Genesis 1 and 2. I'm not saying they're not important.

I love studying them, but just that's a complete side note. That was free.

But 2 and 50 is a pretty good number. Let me read Exodus 25, 8 and 9.

It says, and let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst,

exactly as I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle and all of its

furniture, and you shall make it.

This is just, again, a quick snippet. We don't have time to read all of these things.

We'd be here a while, but the instruction has come down from God to Moses to

say, listen, here's how I'm going to dwell with you out in this wilderness.

None of you can come in to see me.

Not even Moses. Moses, you do not qualify to come in and be with me,

but here's what we're going to do.

I want you to build me a tabernacle. I want you to build me a tent.

I want you to build me a place of dwelling that I can be amongst my people.

Again, you can't come to me, but I'll come to you, and I'm going to make a way for me to be in there.

Now, important here that this word tabernacle in the Greek, in the Septuagint,

the Greek translation of the Old Testament is the word skene.

That's going to be important later, so hold on to that.

I mean, if you don't learn anything else, you learned a Greek word this morning,

you can go show off with your friends, okay? But skene is this word that's translated tabernacle.

It means to dwell with or to build their tent with.

And this tabernacle, again, is God's way of making himself a place to be with

his people. He cannot walk with them because of their sin.

But what you do see is his desire to dwell with them.

You see his desire to be with his people.

This story culminates in Exodus chapter 40. Exodus chapter 40.

Exodus 40 · chapter mention Exodus 40 · chapter mention

Be in verses 34 and 35, but let me just kind of give you again some context.

The chapter begins saying, the Lord spoke to Moses saying, on the first day

of the first month, you shall erect the tabernacle of the tent of meeting and

you shall put it at the ark of the testimony and you shall screen the ark with the veil.

So he tells Moses, hey, listen, on this 40th day, I want you to build this tabernacle

that I've just spent 15 chapters telling you how to build.

And in the center of that tabernacle, I want you to put the ark of the covenant,

where you're going to place the Ten Commandments among some other things.

And then I want you to veil it.

Again, the reminder, you better put a veil over it because if I show up and

it's not veiled and you see me for who I truly am, you will be destroyed. You will be.

So he does exactly what God asked him. He places the Ark of the Covenant in the center.

He even builds, he veils it, builds a section around it so that people could

go in kind of outer courtyard area.

And then we get to verse 34.

It says, And the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

Again, they've got to be thinking, okay, it didn't happen at Sinai,

but maybe this is the moment.

This is the moment where God's glory will come down. We will see him.

We will be with him. We will walk with him. He will make everything right.

He will bring us back to the Garden of Eden where there was no sin and no struggles

and no strife, right? No murder.

No betrayal, no divorce, no death, nothing. Everything will be made right.

Moses arranges the 12 tribes of Israel around there.

Three tribes one way, three tribes one way, three tribes one way, three tribes another.

Two million people surrounding this tabernacle. They're watching the glory of

God about to descend on this, and they're thinking, man, this is the moment.

This is the greatest, again, moment in the history of God's people.

Until we see the great tragedy of verse 35.

Five says, and Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud

settled on it and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

The holiest man on earth is unable to go into the tent of meeting.

The holiest man on earth is unable to be in the presence of God.

I often wonder if that's not how you can feel in churches where it's like,

man, I feel so close to God. I feel like he's around me, I'm around him,

but they were just kind of dodging each other.

You see other Christians and they talk about what it means to dwell with God

and walk with God, but maybe you haven't experienced that.

I think these 2 million people would be able to sympathize with you as they

surround the tabernacle and wonder, why can't any of us get in?

Is our sin really that bad?

Are we really that separated from him? And the answer is yes, you are.

Going back to John 1.14, this is the us and why we should be so astounded at the story of Christmas.

In our culture and the way we think about ourselves, much of the Bible's awe

and wonder are lost because we think of ourselves more highly than we ought to.

We think we're better. We think we know more. We think we're smarter.

We think we're really not that bad. And the Bible's clear message over and over

again is, no, you're way worse than you think you are.

You're way worse than you think you are. And if you came into the presence of

God without your sin being taken care of, he would kill you.

His glory itself would destroy you. But when you read, the word was made flesh to dwell among them.

This is that same, if anybody knows them, they can invite them in.

We're not going to kick them out.

14, when we see the Word made flesh and dwelt among us, that word dwell is that

word I taught you five minutes ago.

The Word made flesh and skinne among them.

You can read it this way, the Word made flesh and tabernacled among them.

The very thing that God couldn't do with them before, God takes on flesh. Why?

Because He can't dwell with His people in a tabernacle. He can be amongst them.

He can be in the middle of them, but they can't be with him. So what does God do?

God veils himself in flesh. He takes on flesh. He lowers himself in the person

of Jesus, born in the majors. Why?

So that he can tabernacle with his people.

So that his people don't have to stand outside the tent. They don't have to

be outside. They don't have to be away from him.

He can walk with them and he can be with them as they struggle with all the

things that he'll struggle with, and they deal with this sinful world that they live in.

They deal with their own sins and the sins that are done to them.

And John's Christmas story is focused singularly on this point,

that God will dwell with man, because man cannot dwell with God.

You can't go to God by yourself.

You can't request access. You can't earn your way to Him.

You can't baptize yourself to Him. You can't say a prayer and gain access to

Him. You can't walk an aisle to gain access to Him.

You can't do enough good works, attend enough church services,

sing enough songs to gain access into the presence of the glory of God,

but God can be with you, and God can take you into His presence.

This is what John makes clear.

He say that Jesus came to do? Verse 9, the true light which gives light to everyone

was coming into the world. He was in the world. The world was made through him,

yet the world did not know him.

Verse 12, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name,

he gave the right to become children of God.

Unless you think, John's going, unless you think that this is about you and

all of a sudden you're saying, well, that's my get out of jail free card.

All I got to do is just believe in it. All I got to do is say the prayer.

All I got to do is do that and everything else work out for me.

He makes clear again in verse 13, who were born, right? How did you become a

child of God who were born?

Not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of the will of God.

So yes, you believe and you cry out and you walk an aisle and you pray,

and we are not against any of those things.

I pray that you've done all those things. I pray that you have called out to

God, that you have believed in God, that you have cried out with your voice

that you've said out loud that you believe and you trust in him.

I pray that you've gotten baptized if you've done that.

I pray that you come to church and that you sing songs and that you read your

Bible and that you do all the things that God has called you to do.

But John wants to remind them right at the beginning of his gospel,

don't think for a second that any of those things have earned you an audience with God Almighty.

What has earned you an audience with God Almighty is not what you've done,

but what He has done, what He has accomplished for you.

And this is, again, what John's Christmas story is all about,

that God has come to dwell with you because you were made to dwell with Him.

You were made to be in relationship with Him.

Because Christ came to dwell with us and because Christ ultimately died in our

place, taking on our sin and our shame, we get verses like Hebrews 4.16.

Let us then with confidence, with confidence draw near to the throne of grace

that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Think about that verse in the context of what we just read in Genesis 3,

Exodus 19, Exodus 25, Exodus 40.

Think about you hearing that verse for the first time if you're a Jewish believer

in the first century and all you know of God is the Old Testament and all you've

ever heard is if you get anywhere near God, if you go anywhere near him,

if you see his glory, you will perish.

Listen, their kids are growing up and they're saying, listen,

even Moses would perish in the presence of God.

And so to hear somebody coming into the presence of God would have struck fear

into every single Hebrew.

And yet the book of Hebrews written to Hebrews says, because of what Christ

has done, you can draw near with confidence.

Have to be like Adam and Eve and hide yourself from him anymore. He's taken care of that.

Now, what you do have to be is honest about your sin.

You have to be honest about who you are. You have to be honest about your struggles.

You can't hide from them or run from them.

But when you're honest and you repent and believe, the book of Hebrews says,

listen, you can with confidence do what 2 million people who were just delivered

from slavery in Egypt could not do.

You can do what Noah, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, Isaiah, Ezekiel,

pick your favorite person, what they could never do.

You can draw near to the throne of grace.

And ultimately, you will do that with him forever. Revelation 21,

3 and 4 is a verse we've read before.

This is John, the same person who wrote our gospel writing this.

He says, and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold,

the dwelling place of God is with man. Guess what? Same word.

The skinne, the tabernacle, the dwelling place of God is with man,

and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people.

And God himself will be with them as their God.

And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.

Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore,

for the former things have passed away.

It is not that those things won't exist anymore. Those things will exist.

This is why hell exists. Hell is a place. It's a real place.

It's going to be a place that exists, and those things will still exist in those places.

The difference is when you dwell with God, when God makes his dwelling place

with you, those things can't exist.

It's the reason they didn't exist in the garden. It's not because those things

didn't exist. It's because God dwelled with his people in the garden.

And one day he will dwell with his people forever once again in the new Israel.

When this earth is remade and God takes his rightful place among his people

and Jesus sits on the throne, all of those things will go away.

Not because they don't exist, not because he gets rid of them entirely,

but because he will be with his people.

Close, I just want you to ask that question. Can you dwell with God this morning?

Are you dwelling with God this morning?

Again, I'm not asking about church attendance and how you feel about Christmas,

how you voted, or I don't really care about any of that because you can do all

of those things, quote unquote, rightly and still miss what John is saying.

John's writing to a primarily Jewish audience. Many of the people he's writing

to would have been better at

being Jewish and been better at following the law than you or I would be.

They're better at it. And we know, we've studied Paul, the Hebrew of Hebrews,

Pharisee of Pharisees, as to the law, blameless, right? He has every advantage.

You can do everything you think you should do right, but that doesn't gain you access to God.

That's why I ask you, can you dwell with God this morning?

Or do you feel like Adam and Eve and you feel like you're hiding from him,

constantly trying to cover up all the sins in your life, make sure nobody knows

what you're looking at and what you're thinking about and what's really going

on in your heart, because you just don't want people to see that side of you.

Are you like the 2 million Israelites in the wilderness who are surrounded by

the tabernacle? You can see the glory of God.

You know that's where you're supposed to be. You know that's where you will find peace,

joy, and love, and grace, but you just don't see a way in because you just can't

fathom that God would dwell with you, and what does that look like,

and what does that seem to be, and I mean, it's confusing.

The Israelites once they got into the promised land and just decided,

you know, I'll keep God around, but I just really don't care about him all that much.

I'll follow some of his laws, but I'm also going to want to do what I want to

do. And so if God wants to come along to my life, that's fine,

but I'm not going to commit my life to him.

There's so many ways, so many ways that you can be near God and yet not know him.

Judas heard every single one of Christ's sermons, and he was still Judas.

So the question is, can you dwell with God this morning?

I can't answer that question for you. I can't really even give you a test.

Say like, here, just answer these five questions and that'll tell you if you're saved or not.

What I can do is just ask you to pray, consider, meditate on what it means to know God.

And if you've wrapped those things together with, well, I'm a Christian because

I go to church or got baptized or have a signed Bible from Billy Graham or whatever

your thing is, I don't know.

And I would just ask you to reconsider and be reminded this morning that John

makes clear the dwelling place of God is with man.

Can you dwell with him? Do you like being around him?

Do you like reading his word? Do you like praying? Do you like singing?

Do you like those things? Because the people that know God well like those things.

I don't like reading my Bible so that I can look smart. I like reading my Bible

because I find God there.

I've admitted before, I'm not the best prayer in the world.

My brain's not good at sitting still for 10 minutes and doing something,

but I enjoy praying not because it's meditative, but because I find rest for

my soul there, because God meets me there.

Not because he gives me what I want, but because he helps me see that what he's

doing is better than what I want.

And I wonder this morning if he's even regenerating your heart right now,

if he's working on your heart right now.

That's what the Bible says He's going to do. And Jeremiah, He doesn't say that

He'll give you an invitation and play nine songs and bring you down front and

hope everything works out.

He says that He will take out the heart of stone from your body and put in a heart of flesh.

It'll give you new eyes to see and new ears to hear, and that when He does that,

you will respond by saying, I believe.

I trust Him. I see Him now. I hear Him now. I can feel him in my heart. I know he's there.

I act differently because of what he's done.

I would just encourage you, if that's you or you've got questions,

grab somebody and ask them about it.

About it. There's plenty of us here who would love to talk to you about it.

I can give you my number, but don't leave thinking, man, that dwelling with

God thing sure sounds nice.

Yeah, it's the best thing that could ever happen to you, not even in this life,

but for your eternal salvation.

It's worth the conversation figuring out what that means. So let's pray.

Father, thank you for Christmas and what it stands for.

I pray that we would be a group of people that is reminded to not get caught

up in the craziness of it without doing what John implores us to do.

Focusing in, zeroing in on what the meaning of Christmas really is,

that the Word took on flesh and dwelled among us.

That He has come, as Matthew tells us, to save His people.

God, we have wonderful times with our family, with our friends,

that we would be able to share some gifts and some laughs and some times together,

but again, not at the expense of forgetting what we're celebrating,

that the eternal God made flesh and dwelled, tabernacled among His people.

All the things that the Old Testament pointed to, those millions of people,

your prophets your priests your kings who

would have given anything to be in your presence given

anything to dwell with you god your son

has made a way for us to do that i just pray that we would take that seriously

we would take your word seriously that we would consider what it means to dwell

with you and to be with you and to live a life treasuring what we've been given

that we would be honest about who us is.

That in being honest about those things, that we wouldn't allow the Christmas

story to become some mundane thing that we see on billboards and on the side

of the road, and that we quickly pray before the meal to honor you for something that should,

consume our entire lives, thoughts, and actions. In your name I pray. Amen.