The Word Was Made Flesh

It's a well-known fact that most people are more afraid of speaking in public than they are of dying.

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We've been looking at chapter 1 of Gospel of John during Advent and there is a sermon outline.

If you'd like to follow along today, our ushers have one.

If you didn't get one, or you'd like to borrow a Bible, they have those too.

Just raise your hand and they'll be happy to help you.

As we've said through this series, while John, the Apostle, john does not describe the details of Jesus' birth like Matthew and Luke, but his point is to try to explain the meaning of Christmas.

What does it mean?

Without ever mentioning Jesus' name?

John is very fond of using metaphors to help us understand who Jesus is and why he came, so let me read the passage today and then we'll talk about it for a few minutes.

I'm going to read John 1.1, and then I'm going to jump down and read John 1.14 to 18.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

We saw his glory, glory as the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John testified about him and cried out saying this is he of whom I said.

He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for he existed before me, for of all his fullness we have all received grace upon grace, for the law was given through Moses.

Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.

Now no one has seen God at any time, but the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father.

He has explained Him.

The Word was God and the Word became flesh.

This is probably the most profound and concise summary of what Christmas is all about.

But to us here and many others, this verse has become way too familiar.

It doesn't give us pause anymore.

We're just too used to it.

We read it and are very familiar with it.

We don't think about what it means, but I'll tell you what.

To the Jews and to the Greeks, who were the original hearers of John's Gospel, what John says here was absolutely revolutionary.

To the Jews, the word in Greek it's the logos referred to Yahweh.

The self in Greek it's the Lagos referred to Yahweh, the self-revealing God who spoke to them through the prophets.

To the Greeks, who heard John describe God as the word or the Lagos, to them the Lagos referred to the impersonal, ultimate mind and logic behind the universe, explaining why things exist.

Then, suddenly, john comes along and says the word that logos became flesh and dwelt among us and we saw his glory.

The logos behind the universe was God, who became a man.

Now, this week and next, as we wrap up Advent, I want to look at a few of the amazing things this passage teaches us about the meaning of Christmas but, more importantly, how I believe it should change our lives.

We'll look at two things today the meaning of Christmas and the implications of Christmas for us.

So John 1, 1, and John 1, 14.

This is just amazing.

In the beginning was the Word.

The Word was with God, the Word was God and the Word became flesh.

The Jews, reading this, they would have realized what John was saying was that, even if we read all the Hebrew words of the Old Testament, the Lagos, the way to really know God is to know the human being.

He's referring to the self-revealing God Yahweh, who became a living human being To the Greeks, reading this, they would have realized what John was saying was that if you want to connect with the very center of the cosmos in the universe, the logos, you must know this human being, the word of God, the cosmic center of the universe, became flesh.

Who could be known?

That's Christmas, the word flesh.

It's interesting.

I love John just does a beautiful job.

It's just so beautiful the way he presents the Messiah here.

The word flesh is a very graphic word.

It literally means meat.

It's a way of saying the word became really physical.

He didn't just appear to be human, he wasn't just a humanoid, he was actually a real human being.

Yahweh, the cosmic center of the universe, the word of God, yahweh, became a human being, personable and knowable.

That is the meaning of Christmas.

And now, what are the implications of that for us?

First, if the God of the universe became personal and knowable, we need to understand how.

How can we know him?

John answers that question in the next few verses, which we already looked at, but here it is John 1, 12 to 13.

But as many as received him, jesus, 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 the will of flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.

This is John's introduction to being born again by the Spirit of God.

And what he's saying God is knowable and we know him personally through through faith in his son Jesus.

Then Jesus actually linked having eternal life with knowing him, knowing him and knowing the Father.

In his prayer to his father in John 17, 3, he point blank says this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Because Jesus became flesh, god himself can become known.

And Jesus said if we know him we have eternal life.

That's the key.

And then, in a letter John writes later and then, in a letter John writes later, john actually links eternal life with having Jesus, the Son of God, living in us.

1 John 5, 11 and 12.

And this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life.

This life is in his Son.

He who has the Son has the life.

He who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.

And then the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 8 and 9, if we don't have the Spirit of Christ in us, we don't belong to him.

That means we can't know him, we can't share him, we can't communicate with him.

Only through Jesus being in us, through the person of the Holy Spirit, can we have this knowing relationship with God.

So that's the first implication, the meaning of Christmas.

We've been given the privilege to actually know God personally, with the Holy Spirit able to live inside us through our faith in Jesus.

The Holy Spirit able to live inside us through our faith in Jesus.

The second implication of Christmas what it means is that, because God became flesh, he can give us great comfort and strength in our suffering and troubles that we face.

You know, through the years, I've sometimes hear people criticize God and explain that they're not going to trust him, because look at all the suffering in the world, look at all he's allowing to happen.

I've heard people say I can't believe in a God who would do that, I'm not kidding.

I can't believe in a God who would do that, I'm not kidding.

Or they'll say what kind of God would allow that?

Why should I trust a God like that?

Here's why Christmas Christmas when the Word of God became flesh, it means Jesus became weak and vulnerable and suffered.

Now, I'm not a.

I got a.

Albert Camus, some of you may be familiar.

He was a French existentialist philosopher who wrote works like the Plague.

I had to read that in school.

He also, though, wrote about Christ.

This is what he said.

Christ the God-man suffers too with patience.

Christ the God-man suffers too, with patience.

Evil and death can no longer be entirely imputed to him, since he suffers and dies.

In other words, we can stop charging God with wrong and then he goes on.

The night on Golgotha is so important in the a history of man only because in its shadows, the divinity ostensibly abandoned its traditional privilege and lived through to the end, despair included the agony of death.

Thus is explained my God, my God, why have you forsaken me and the frightful doubt of Christ in agony?

We may not know the reasons why there's so much suffering or why we're suffering, but we do know the reasons.

It isn't it isn't because God doesn't care.

It isn't because God is too remote.

It isn't because God is not powerful.

It isn't because God is not powerful.

It isn't because he doesn't love us.

The fact that God became one of us, suffered and died.

Then, whatever his reasons are, it is not due to the unknowing, uncaring about him that we think of him, of.

If you're going through something really hard I'm sure some of you have had this experience If you're going through something really hard and some well-meaning person comes up to you and who's never experienced the kind of suffering you have, comes up and says hey, come on, buck up.

You're a Christian, you should be.

Something inside us says you have no idea what I'm going through.

But if somebody in your suffering who came up to you, who has suffered more deeply than you, and says I understand that gives you strength what you're going through, somebody gets it, somebody can share it with me.

Me, jesus has been in every darkness you have ever been in or will be in.

He understands us, he gets us, he's in it with us, you see, becoming flesh.

Do you feel alone?

So did he.

Do you experience unremitting pain?

So did he.

Have you ever been betrayed?

So was he.

He gets it.

Are you destitute?

So was he.

Are you grieving a loss?

So did he.

Are you anxious about facing death?

So did he.

I could go on and on Every place you and I could go.

He's been there.

He understands us and he can strengthen us.

That's what we read earlier today Faithful and merciful high priest who comes to the aid of anyone in need.

The truth of Christmas, if you really let it grasp you that he became flesh dwelt among us, view that he became flesh dwelt among us can give us tremendous comfort and strength in our suffering.

Then there's a third implication I'll mention of Christmas that because God became flesh, it gives us a very powerful reason to serve Now listen to me on this until I get all the way through.

Gives us a very powerful reason to serve Because when Jesus became flesh, god came down to us, let that sink in, and he got involved.

He got involved to serve, involved, he got involved to serve.

I hate to relate this story, but it's so fitting for this particular point.

Some of you may recall this in the news eons ago, but in the early hours of March 13, 1964, kitty Genovese, a 28-year-old bartender, was raped and stabbed outside the apartment building where she lived in New York City.

As she was being stabbed, she screamed and cried out for help.

People heard the screams from the apartments all along the way, but not only did no one come to help her, they didn't even call the police, they left her.

Afterward she died Afterward.

When some of the bystanders were interviewed, people saw this happening.

They asked why they didn't do anything and the people, pretty much per person, responded by saying I didn't want to get involved In the plain sight of 38 neighbors who didn't want to get involved.

Her sensational case provoked a national outcry and launched, actually, a sociological theory known as the bystander effect.

Think about it Now if you were to come down to try to help her, you might have been killed yourself, or if the offender found out about you, you might be next.

I don't want to get involved.

Why?

Because getting involved makes you vulnerable.

That's why the first place we see this image in the Bible is when Cain kills his brother Abel and God comes to Cain and he says what have you done?

The blood of your brother Abel cries out to me from the ground.

You know, and there are a number of places that you go through the Bible where it says the blood of the innocent, the blood of the incident, the evil and injustice on earth cries out to God.

Here's the truth of Christmas God heard those cries and he came down.

He came down, he got involved, he made himself vulnerable, risking his own life.

He knew it was going to happen.

He'd be killed.

Now here's what's scary.

Brace yourself.

You do realize, if you are a believer in Jesus, that God wants us to be conformed to the image of Christ Jesus.

Wow, he wants us to come down and get involved, just like Jesus.

Listen to what the Apostle Paul writes to the Philippians Philippians 2, 3-8.

He says to these believers do absolutely nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but, with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves.

Don't merely look out for your own personal interests, also for the interests of others.

Why does he say that?

Because he's describing Jesus.

Have this mindset, this attitude in yourself, which was also in Christ Jesus who, although he existed in the form of God, didn't count equality with God a thing to be grasped, held on to forever.

He emptied himself to be grasped, held on to forever.

He emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant being made in the likeness of men, incarnation becoming flesh being, found in appearances of man.

He humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.

We are being asked to have the same mindset and motivations as our Lord, jesus Christ.

That's awesome, I mean, that's scary, that's profound.

Look at him.

He came down and he got involved.

See him, who became vulnerable and drained of life.

Now you go and do that.

He says oh, man, now this point, this implication is not like the last point.

Oh, he can give us great comfort and strength.

No, not this one.

You see, this point comes from a powerful conviction that when Jesus came down, he's showing us really the real essence of life as God created us.

It's not about self.

It's about giving ourself, just like God did, for the love of God and others.

This principle, by the way, can be applied in so many different ways if we just think about it.

This is the life-changing part of the Christmas story, the meaning of Christmas that I'm leaving you with.

Life-changing it really is.

Now, not everything we're going to do in this principle is life-threatening, like we're going to pour out our life.

Well, it might be, but let me give you some other simple examples of this principle.

For example, giving, giving Time, talents, treasures.

Giving, giving time, talents, treasures you can give to the point where it's comfortable, which coming from your disposable income or whatever, but that's not getting involved, involved like Jesus.

Giving to the point where you feel vulnerable is Giving to the point where you can't stay in your glory.

Is Things you would like to do.

I'm sure Jesus would have loved to just stay in heaven forever.

Let us well, we deserve no, that's not him and he doesn't want that to be us.

Give until you're starting to act like Jesus.

Another principle that ties into this is the idea of serving, serving others, serving in the church where you attend.

Look, over the years.

Some people come to church and they want to remain anonymous.

Some people come, never join, never commit themselves to a body of believers.

Some people come just to receive but they don't give back.

They don't want accountability, spiritual accountability for their life.

They just don't want to get involved Because that will make me vulnerable.

They don't want to get involved because that's going to be very inconveniencing to them.

It's true, here's one more.

I could give you ten, but I know you're thanking me, I'm just going to give you three.

Another example of this principle getting involved, coming down from your glory, is being willing to identify yourself with Jesus and share the gospel.

To do that, you're going to be vulnerable.

There are people all around you.

You may know who they are, but that's as far as you go, not going to go any further because you don't want to get involved.

You publicly identify with Jesus.

You might be a little uncomfortable, at the point of vulnerability, but that's what it means to come down and get involved, vulnerable, for the sake of God and others.

That's what God did.

That's the incarnation.

He came down from his glory and got involved and basically gave his life.

Why, for us?

He heard the cries In John 1.14,.

We've seen the meaning of Christmas.

I'm telling you it's the most concise, profound statement of Christmas.

The Word was God and the Word became flesh, dwelt among us.

The meaning of Christmas that he became like us.

Sharing our humanity means that we can know him personally through faith in Jesus.

So let me ask you do you know him?

Do you have the Son, the person of the Holy Spirit giving you confidence that you have him and you have eternal life?

Do you have that confidence?

Do you believe that Jesus is the promised Messiah, who died for your sins and gives eternal life to everyone who believes in him, who receives him?

Well then I ask you if you haven't believe in him as the promised Messiah, the Savior of the world, receive him into your life.

You can do that just by praying and asking him.

And second, because God became human, like us, he understands what we're going through and we can receive.

I hope you've experienced this.

You can receive great comfort and strength, knowing he's in you and with you, emmanuel.

So what are you going through?

He understands, he gets it, he gets you.

He knows you better than you know yourself.

He knows what you need and he has the power to give it to you Strength, inner strength, perseverance.

Draw near to him, let him share it with you.

Don't shake your fist.

Bring him in to your situation.

Let him share it with you.

Experience his presence with you in it.

That's the Christian life knowing that he cares and loves you.

Because God became human, like us, it means he got involved and became vulnerable for us.

And now, followers of Jesus, we're called to follow his example, his mindset, his motivation to get involved and serve others, not just ourselves.

We read this morning are you being vulnerable to serve God, be a witness to him or give?

Where, where, where?

Have you come down from your glory and are getting involved in people's lives for the kingdom, where?

So my challenge is this Christmas, let's celebrate the God who became flesh for us, by becoming vulnerable in our flesh, to serve as a reflection of Jesus, his image, in all that we say and do, and let's pray.

Father, thank you that Jesus voluntarily left his glory with you from eternity.

He came down to us I can't get my head around that and got involved when he became human, very vulnerable, and he knew what it would cost to serve us.

Thank you that he did come to serve us and paid the ultimate price for his vulnerability dying for our sins that we committed so we could be with you in heaven for eternity.

Thank you.

Now would you please help us to have Jesus' mindset to serve others, to come down from our glory to get involved in our service, to help bring others to faith in Jesus and to give like Jesus.

Would I pray this today in Jesus' name, amen.