Christmas Eve 2016

Well, we're finally here.

It sort of feels like that.

Because that list always builds throughout the Christmas season.

The things you need to buy, the presents you need to buy, the presents you need to wrap.

It can feel like a lot of stress.

Maybe you had to go to one party, or maybe you had to go to 12 parties, or your kids Christmas sing along, or your nephews, and all of it can kind of start to add up.

And some of you love it, right?

Some of you love the festivities.

Like you are starting to sing with Amy Grant Christmas at Halloween, going right through Thanksgiving all the way to Christmas.

Others of you, you would like to join me on a beach in Mexico, sort of skip December, you'd be real happy for that.

But something happens to me come December 24th, something shifts.

And it always happens, it happens every year.

There's a shift that occurs on Christmas Eve.

And I've just been starting to think about like, what is it?

Why does this shift occur and all of a sudden I start to enjoy this?

I only have one day to go, but all of a sudden I enjoy it on Christmas Eve.

And you know, you know why?

The pressure's off.

The list is gone.

I mean, either I lived up to it or I failed miserably before it, right?

And I forgot a few things.

Either way, it's over.

Like there's just not a lot of room left to like really show up to things and do things and be Mr.

Christmas.

There's just not a lot of room for it.

And so this list is sort of, there's this feeling like, oh, okay.

Okay.

You know, either I fulfilled it or I didn't, and finally we're here.

And when Christmas season can feel never-ending, finally we're at the point where all that's left is to sit back, to sit back and enjoy the story.

Like the actual story itself.

I've been, just to catch you up, I've been at home this week with eight females and me.

Okay?

That's my wife, my three girls, my two nieces, my sister, and my mom, and myself.

That's why my yard looks good.

That's why.

Because I'm making stuff up.

What needs to be done, what's going on.

I'm outside, I'm moving around.

You don't know where I'm at.

I need to run an errand.

You know what I'm talking about?

You've done it, or you saw your uncle do it, and you're like, why is he always leaving?

He doesn't want to be there.

That's why he's leaving.

He needs a breather.

That's what's going on with Uncle Lou.

Uncle Lou needs a breather.

That's what's going on.

Alright, so here we go.

So Luke chapter 2, which Katie read, that is the narrative of Christmas.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

So in Matthew and in Luke, they write the narrative.

They write the story.

Now John does something different, which is really interesting, and that's what we're going to look at tonight.

He said, he talks about what does this mean?

So the narrative, Matthew and Luke, we just heard it, but John doesn't start with the narrative.

He doesn't start with the story of how Jesus is born.

He starts with, what does this mean for you and your crazy, messy, performing, anxiety-ridden heart?

So we get this verse in John 1, verse 14.

John 1:14

So you're bulletined.

We're just going to break down the first half of this verse just in a few minutes.

And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory.

Glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

So Jim is my friend at the gym.

Jim at the gym.

He's my friend.

Up at Health Place, up at the hospital.

There's guys up there working out in jeans.

That's going on.

That's going on in case you're wondering.

And you know, that's the doctor tells you to be there, but you're not sure if you want to be there.

So I'm going in jeans.

You know, doctor tell me I'm going in jeans.

Jim's not that.

Jim's showing up.

He's a casual workout guy.

He's very friendly.

He's very boisterous even in the morning.

I'm not that.

I'm sort of kind of warming up to the day.

And so I observe Jim for probably, I don't know, a year before we start to talk.

Jim shows up every morning with a lady his age.

They don't leave together.

I start to notice this.

That's interesting.

I don't know the story there.

He's friendly, showing up a lady his age.

They don't leave together, okay?

So at this point, I don't know a lot about Jim, right?

You don't know a lot about somebody if you haven't talked to them.

You make a certain amount of inferences, observations, and so you learn a certain amount, but there's a certain point where you can't learn anymore.

You have to know them.

You have to have their word, is what you have to have.

Well, Jim and I start talking.

We start, it is his wife, by the way.

Good news, right?

That's good news.

It's his wife.

They drive in from Rome in the mornings together and they leave a car at the gym.

So they leave the gym to go to their two jobs.

They come back, getting one car to go back north.

Brilliant.

I love that.

They're also building a house off of Whitlock.

They have two sons.

He's in financial planning.

I know all of this by his word.

Right.

I also know how he feels about personal finance.

I know how he feels about immigration.

I know how he feels about politics.

I know how he feels about religion.

I know, I know there's a Marietta Community Church and he loves his pastor.

I know that he's spiritual.

I know that he's enamored that God loves him.

I know that he likes salty language every once in a while.

I know a lot about Jim.

And how do I know this?

By his word.

Thank you.

Some life in here.

It's good.

That's point number one.

That's point number one.

Jesus is the word of God.

We can learn a certain amount about God without Jesus.

You can learn a certain amount about God without Jesus from creation.

But at a certain point, Jesus is the word.

Jesus is the way in which you know more.

In the abstract world of God and philosophy, Jesus is the concrete way we know.

God is saying, hey, you want to know me?

Here, here.

Look at this person.

You can know me.

And then it's interesting, this word, word in that verse, the word word, word is the word logos or logic.

And so John is saying, Jesus is the logic of God for you to know.

And this gives us our second point, point number two.

Jesus is the logic by which we are finally at peace.

Right?

I mean, our logic is to wake up and prove our value and justify our existence and earn someone's approval.

A boss, a mom, a dad, a girl, a guy, a spouse, somebody.

Or justify our existence within our career path or how much money we have, or justify our existence within a spirituality.

Like we'll get in within a spirituality, just put ourselves to work, and I'm the wake up today.

I'm not going to be justified by what God's done for me.

I'll be justified by what I'm doing.

And all of this is a burden.

It is exhaustion.

It is not the logic of God.

That's our logic.

The logic of God is while you're messed up, I will come toward you in the most vulnerable, approachable way possible.

So you will forever know how I regard you.

See, our hearts are just wandering in utter confusion.

Using merit for things that only grace, only grace provides.

And this grace logic, the unconditionality of God's favor toward you because of Jesus and his work for you.

That's for you today.

Not just to become a Christian, right?

It's not like become a Christian and then back to work.

No, like that's for you today to know you are secure as a child of God.

That's what the incarnation's about.

Now listen to the rest of those verse, John 1, 1.14.

And the word became flesh, so the logic of God became flesh.

So we'll know it.

The logic of God became flesh and dwelt among us.

So point number three, the logic makes his home in you.

A few weeks ago, I went up to my family's lake house to meet a worker who's doing a few things.

So my grandparents bought this lake house 40 years ago before I was born.

This old beat-up cabin.

And now my mom owns it because my grandmother passed away this year.

So I was up there meeting Ray, Ray the worker.

And so I get up there and my phone dies as soon as I get up there because I'm too prideful to get a car charger.

As I secretly believe anybody who's a car charger does not ration their battery power correctly throughout the day.

And that's my prideful view of all car chargers.

Although I'm running out of power pretty much every day at 3:30 in the afternoon.

That's another subject.

Still too prideful to get the car charger.

Anyone with me on car charger?

You're prideful of okay, there's three of us.

It shows you how illogical we are.

We are in the minority here.

We're not thinking straight.

And we know it, but we're not giving up.

I understand.

So I'm at the lake house, and no phone power, there's no TV going on up there.

And I'm sitting out on the patio, I'm looking out over the lake, out over the dock my dad and my granddad built.

I mean, this is this is a dock I've jumped off of my entire life.

And it's just it's dead silent.

It is totally quiet.

And just hurt floods my heart.

I don't like hurt.

It's usually why I carry my cell phone, is to be able to pull up the Zillow app.

I mean, this is a great time to figure out, you know, what the pricing of houses is in watercolor Florida, because you need that when you're starting to feel hurt, right?

This is why we all love to medicate on something.

I like the Zillow app.

You like something else, I don't know what it is, but you have it.

And you do it.

And most of us are using our cell phones for this, but mine's dead because of my pride, but it's coming back in my favor.

So I'm sitting there, no phone, and just hurt.

I have nowhere to go.

I'm waiting on, I'm waiting on Ray, the worker, to show up.

And I and I'm just sitting there.

And it's it's broken, it's the brokenness of my family when I was 13, the way my family broke apart.

My grandfather passed away the next year.

And this place, this place that had been my entire life a place of relief.

It became a place where I, as a 13-year-old boy, had to show up and work.

And now this is no story of poverty, right?

This is no story of suffering.

I don't pretend to act like a family's extra house on the lake is some story of poverty because it's not about the house.

And that's what the Lord was speaking to me.

It's not about the house.

What it's about, and I don't like this.

It's about the fact that I have a wound of abandonment.

And like that, I like to close that door real quick when that door starts to crack open just a little bit.

That's a door I like to shut real fast, but it's there, and I know it's there.

And I just started to think back because I'm stuck, I'm nowhere to go.

I'm starting to cry, hoping Ray doesn't show up, mid-cry.

That would be awkward.

And I don't cry a lot, unless I'm watching an episode of This Is Us, because we're all crying when we watch This Is Us.

If you haven't, if you need a cry, just watch an episode and you'll join the crying club.

So I'm sitting there crying, hoping Ray doesn't show up, phone's dead.

It's hurt.

But not just hurt that I received, but then I think back of all the times my grandmother was asking me to do things and I resisted.

Because I was upset, I was mad, I was angry.

So there's all this hurt that I caused.

You know, I couldn't see the fact that she had lost a husband, right?

That wasn't in my view as a teenage boy.

So there's all this mess.

There's this hurt caused to me, hurt that I caused, there's there's all of this going on.

I'm sitting there, I'm thinking, I'm thinking toward Christmas.

It's been 25 years.

I'm sitting there 25 years since the break of my family, grandfather passing away, and the Lord allowed me to see this abandonment, and then as well, allowed me to see like this is Christmas.

That you're never alone.

That he comes into the mess, that he comes into your hurt, he comes into the hurt you've caused, and he comes into the hurt you've received.

And you don't have to get your act together for him to come to you.

Right?

This is the fact that the incarnation, he could have come as military presence, he could have come as a as a king on a horse, he comes as a baby, the most vulnerable, approachable form.

And it's for it's for us, that's for us to know his forever regard toward us.

I mean, John's telling us this this is a new spirituality for us to receive.

This is a cosmic shift.

For these people hearing this, reading this John's teaching.

See, these people at the time, the only God they knew was the one behind the curtain in the temple, the one that you had to live up to in order to even get close.

Get your act together before the law, get your sacrifices together, and then you can approach a little bit.

And God says, no, no, no, that God behind the curtain has made himself flesh, the most vulnerable, approachable form possible, and he has come, he's coming toward you.

Imperfect you.

And he dwells with you.

Christmas tells me, tells you, tells us.

This is what Christmas tells us God cares to pursue us.

And Jesus dwells not with those who pretend that they have their acts together, Jesus dwells with the broken.

And the logic of God, the word, the logic of God.

We need a new logic, right?

We need God's logic.

The logic of God is that he stepped into that gap between who we should be and who we actually are, and he and his sacrifice took on that gap, took on our sin and our shame and all the mess, and he gifts over to us his righteousness and makes us secure children, so that by his death and resurrection we know his regard to us.

Birth, death, and resurrection, his regard to us is not one of judgment, but one of love.

So, my brothers and sisters, may you know this gracious logic, the person of Jesus who came in the flesh to bring you peace.

Let's pray together.

God, we thank you that while we could not move toward you, you moved toward us, and we come and we celebrate Christmas to receive a coming Savior.

And we say tonight, we need an outside savior.

We have tried on our own, by our own resources and our own work, and it exhausts us.

The burden of the law and who we should be is crushing.

And we receive Jesus, who fulfills the law.

Would we receive this great gift of the unconditionality of your love?

And would it radically transform our hearts in grateful response?

Would the incarnation be more to us?

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.