I don't think I need it. Do I need the I'm on right? All right.
Hopefully. It won't break up. If it does, we'll have to go get that
Before I began. Let's open, and prayer
Father. We thank you for bringing us together this morning. Thank you for the gift of your son.
We pray that as we look into your word and consider him this morning, that your spirit would be our guide, that you would open our hearts to learn the truth, that you would help me to speak truly, and be a blessing on the hearts of those who listen, that they may hear what is good, and take from it what
is useful in Christ's name. We pray Amen.
So we're not a very liturgical church.
We don't follow a lot of, you know, technical, extensive, Chris liturgical calendars and all kinds of things like that.
So this morning when you left home, you might not have known what day it was in the Christian calendar.
I'm not sure, but I bet by now, based on all the songs that got picked out you've probably figured out today's Christmas, so I'll give you a a traditional Christmas greeting.
Merry Christmas! If we were in! Where Kara's here somewhere, right so nice here, we would say, Happy Christmas in England, wouldn't we?
But we're in America so merry Christmas! So Christmas has come to mean a lot of things in our society.
I know for my family a lot of years. Christmas means a long drive to North Carolina, so I see Nate shaking his head because he has that coming up in a few days
We went to North Carolina Thanksgiving this year, so I don't have to drive this year at Christmas, but it's a long drive.
It's a chance to see family gift giving, and I think that that's a good thing.
I think that all of those are good things, particularly gift giving right that recalls that this commemorates the giving of the greatest gift of all gifts.
The fact that God gave His Son as a gift to the world, and we celebrate that birth.
We celebrate it with all kinds of different traditions there, right?
We sell it with major scenes on our mantle, although, as I think about it, hours as an out this year.
But we celebrate it with manger scenes on the mantle, or a table or sideboard somewhere.
We celebrate it with lots of singing like we did this morning with Christmas plays, with movies.
Right, John. John Dcorn knows what I'm talking about with those Christmas movies, and we celebrate it with big musical events like handles.
Messiah, even though you know, Handle thought that it was a crisp an Easter piece. That was what he wrote it for.
We've adopted it and moved it to Christmas in this country.
But you know, that's that's fine. We it covers that also.
And yes, in giving gifts, and we can you know I don't know how your different families have done it, but you've either opened some gifts already, or your eager for me to finish up so that you can go home and open those gifts, but either way, the most important part of what
We celebrate at Christmas is is the incarnation.
What we read. Dan read this morning at the Lord's Supper, John, 1, 14, says, so.
Succinctly. The word became flesh. That's what we celebrate.
Now, if we were some of those more liturgically talent, more liturgical calendar paying attention Christians, we might have an E an additional day that we would have celebrated 9 months ago, Christians who who commemorate the Annunciation which is the
commemoration of the event. When Gabriel comes and announces to Mary that she's going to be the mother of the Lord and the Holy Spirit overshadows her, and Christ is conceived in her on that day, if we celebrated that day, if we marked it off on
our calendars, like some Christians do. That would really be the incarnation right?
Because from that moment, from the moment of conception which would have been 9 months ago, which is when they celebrate it.
March the 20 fifth. That would really be the moment of incarnation.
But I think it's okay. That we don't have that.
We've got. We celebrate that. We think most about it at Christmas, and I think that's okay.
Because I think Christmas and the the story surrounding the birth of Christ brings out some other details better.
Important for us to think about this morning at the Lord's Supper.
Numerous of those details came out, and I was glad of that, because it means that I don't have to spend quite as much time hammering on it, and I was also glad of it, because it means that so many of the people here are already thinking about the real humanity the real incarnation of
Our Lord. So what I want to do is, I want to say that this is something that when I was little, when I was a Sunday school student this was tough for me, the idea of the incarnation, and I want to to pitch it to reinforce to the parents so that mandy when He
Asks his kids those questions gets that reinforcement of yeah.
He really was a baby, and also for the for the young kids to understand that, you know this is hard, but and sometimes we think about it wrong.
I think we're drawn by various things just about how we think about Jesus.
We think about him in a particular way sometimes. How easy is it so?
Think of Jesus as God. Right. We know that Jesus is God, and we think about Him that way.
And that's right, that's true. But a lot of times when we think about them that way, we put him way way up here, and we think of him as this.
This amazing man who, you know, was unfazed by anything he knew what was gonna happen.
He was already aware. New Testament even tells us various times, you know, but he knew what was in man's heart, and so we think of him, and that way, and we forget how real of a man how real of a boy how real of a baby he was.
So let me ask particularly the kids. I have feeling Monday and Dan based on what they said of the Lord's Supper.
Would would knock this one out of the part. But let me ask the kids, do we really think that Jesus, when he was your age or my age?
Because I do it, too. Do we really think he stubborn his tug
You know? Did? Was Jesus walking across the the yard? And he stubbed his toe on something and tripped and fell, and maybe got a bloody nose?
Or do we think of Jesus, as you know? Well he was God.
He. He had infinite knowledge. He was onniscient.
He knew where every root and every rock and everything on the playground was, and so he never would have tripped on any of them.
You know I I knew where all the roots in my backyard, within a certain range of my basketball goal, were, and so I could pretty well pretty well predict.
But if you took me away from that I wouldn't know.
So did Jesus trip to Jesus, Stubb his toe.
That seems like we're not supposed to think that right.
He didn't bump in to stop. He didn't drop things in the workshop when he was working with Joseph right
I don't think so.
I think he did. Let's look at some Scripture
We'll start in Luke chapter 2. That's where you're supposed to start on Christmas. Right?
So. Luke, chapter 2,
And this is actually, after you know, the the Christmas part of the Christmas story.
Luke. Chapter 2 covers all the way through his teenage years, and this is after the incident where he stays behind in Jerusalem, and his parents have to go get him, and and they talk to them about it, and find out what he was doing there and you know what was going on
And in verse 52, after we've gotten this whole story, and and Mary has found out, and it says, You know, his mother treasured up all these things in her heart, and then in verse 6, 52.
It says, and Jesus increased in wisdom, and then stature and in favor with God and man.
Look at the first part of that there Jesus increased in wisdom
Now that word increased does not imply. Some people have tried to spin it, but it does not just imply.
You know more and more of his knowledge and his wisdom became apparent to everybody around him.
That's not what that word means. This word has to mean an actual growth, an actual increase.
Paul uses it several times, and and one time in particular, in Galatians, 1, 14. I won't ask you to turn this, but you're familiar with it.
It's when he's talking about his own life as a as a Jew as a Pharisee, as a Jewish scholar, and he talks about how he was increasing in his Judaism.
Well, he's not talking about something that's just becoming manifest.
No, he's learning more. He's doing more. He's gaining more.
He's becoming more, and that's what Luke says.
Here about the Lord, he increased, and wisdom
Jesus grew, he encountered, he learned Hebrews, 5, 8.
Tells us that that Jesus learned, he said, although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.
So we have scriptural proof. He at least learned that much, but he was able to learn as a small child also
And I asked, you know, did he know where every single thing was?
Did he just have this like supernatural awareness?
Well do you remember the story when the woman who's had an issue of blood, I think, is the King James?
I don't know what it says, and the Esp.
That I'm reading now. But she she's been bleeding for years and years and years, and hasn't been able to stop it.
It's a hemorrhage, and she touches him, touches just grasps at his robe, and he stops, stops everybody.
He's wandering through a crowd, and one person reaches out and brushes on his robe, and he stops everybody.
So we think, oh, yeah, supernatural awareness. Well, not quite.
If you want to turn there. It's in Luke, chapter 8.
But in verse 45, what he says is not, you know, hey?
That woman right? That no, he says somebody touched me who touched me, and nobody would say, Oh, yeah, that was me.
And he says I felt power go out from me. So he knew that power had gone out from him.
He knew that she had been healed, but I don't think he's just setting this up as a as a retical question, to elicit some sort of answer from his disciples.
Let's not read that into Scripture. Jesus asks who it was.
He didn't know who it was. He's not aware of, you know.
Every atom in the universe he's holding together every atom in the universe, just because he's in Carn.
It doesn't mean that he is not still the Eternal Word, and in him all things consist.
That's definitely true. But as he's walking through that crowd, and people are bumping against him and jostling, he doesn't know who every person is, just like when you're walking through the Mall, or walking through the halls at school, or walking around at any crowded place you
Don't know who everybody is. Jesus didn't know
There's another another aspect of our humanity, and that is temptation.
Let's look at Mark chapter one. This is the famous temptation, the the one that gets highlighted right after he's baptized. He goes off into the wilderness
I'll just start reading in verse 12, mark ch.
Chapter one, verse 12, this is after he's been baptized, like I said.
The spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness 40 days, and Satan was trying to tempt him
So what your Bibles say
It's not what my Bible said. I changed it
Doesn't say. And Satan was trying to tempt him.
It says he was in the wilderness 40 days, being tempted by Satan.
Now, what's the difference between you? Satan was trying to tempt him, and he was being tempted by Satan I'll tell you what the difference is.
You all throw me out, you'll make me leave the State of Wisconsin
I don't like custard
I'll give everyone time to recover
I do. I like ice cream. I don't like custard.
I don't like it at cops. I don't like it at covers.
I don't like it at Leon's. I don't like it at Oscars. I don't like it.
At gillies. If you throw out some more, if I've tried them.
I didn't like it. If I haven't, let's sorry I didn't actually try the custard there, cause I already know that I don't like custard.
Okay. So if you bring me on a hot summer day, a bowl of custard was slow. Duke's best flavor
Sure.
Okay. According to grammar Macleod Ladukes, butter, Pecan is the best, and you know what if we were talking about ice cream?
I love butter, pecan, ice cream.
But you know what if you brought me that bowl of custard and said, my Costard, would I be tempted now you might.
I see you smiling, Ellie. Ellie's tempted.
I'm not tempted. You tried to tempt me, but I'm not tempted.
I don't want the custard. I don't like it.
I don't like the way it feels in my mouth.
That's not temptation. Temptation is, if Nate walked up there and he'd already had more to eat than he wanted, and they said Nate, he would really want it.
He would be in fact, he's probably thinking right now.
Let's see, would it be possible to stop by la dukes on the way home this afternoon?
Probably not. That's temptation.
And Hebrews, says.
Hebrews tells us in chapter 4, verse 15, speaking of Christ, says, we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, and our desires for custom or other stuff, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin.
Tempted as we are not just somebody holding out something towards him, trying to come to know, tempted as we are, so if you've ever been tempted, you know what Christ was feeling there in the wilderness, as Satan was tempting Him presumably you know what Christ was feeling at other
At other less. You know, cosmic moments throughout his life as temptations arose because he was a real man.
He was a real boy. It was a real baby, so I can't completely unpack what calls talking about.
And Philippians, 2, 7. Where he says that he emptied himself, or in the King James.
He made himself of no reputation, and if you, if you go with the King James there, I think the emphasis is not on reputation, because that makes it seem like it's just what's known about, and I think you have to put the emphasis on made he made himself of no
Reputation, but I don't know exactly what Paul is saying.
I can't unpack that that is, that is bigger than I am able to imagine.
But here's what I do know from it, so that when he emptied himself when he was born that day when he was conceived by the Holy Spirit, we've got a real live no kidding other than being sunless normal boy, normal man just like any of us
To me that makes his choice to become human even more frankly unthinkable.
I I can't even imagine it. I I sometimes marvel at the idea of the the infinite, omniscient God of the universe, Creator of the world, trapped, contained, you know. I I don't even know what word to use within a human being
But but ultimately it's even more than that. It's not just that he was contained right with his humanity was not a vehicle.
He wasn't a divine mind driving around this human body so that he could accomplish these things.
That's a version. It's maybe a modernized version.
They didn't say vehicle, but that's a version of a a second century heresy that people pursued and tried to come up with because they couldn't wrap their heads around.
This idea. They couldn't accept the complexity of what happened in the Incarnation.
They couldn't accept that. No, no, he really became up plain old human being, just the same kind that we see a room full of today, and so they made up all kinds of crazy stories, and fortunately we're pressed for time.
So I won't go into them, because they're just silly nonsense.
You've probably seen them in movies and didn't realize that they had 1,800 years of heritage.
But it's all nonsense. How are you turning a a clay bird into a living bird and stuff like that?
It's all nonsense, so all the stories that people concocted because they had trouble really accepting the truth now he must have, you know, exercise all this power just all that.
No, that's not what he says, and it's not just 1,800 years ago that people had this.
You know this misguided idea, and we've totally shaken it off right? I'm gonna get in trouble again.
One of the songs that we like to sing. We didn't sing it today cause I told you that we probably shouldn't.
But one of the songs that we like to sing, and don't get me wrong.
I like to sing. It, too, is a way in a manger, and I I even have a good enough interpretation of what the songwriter was trying to say that I'm perfectly comfortable singing it.
But there was a line that I don't know. Maybe all you kids are smarter than I was, but it sort of misled me when I was singing it as a kid, and I still have a little bit of a problem with it.
So in the second second verse, yeah. And it is the cattle are lowing.
The baby awakes but little Lord Jesus. No crying he makes, and all the parents laugh right.
Really no crying. He makes that does that spark. Now, maybe the songwriter was just trying to describe, you know, a peaceful, lovely evening, and that's what I tell myself, and that's why I'm happy to sing the song.
But when I was when I was young it seemed to me, and I think that it's not an unreasonable assumption that you know this.
This is suggesting that Jesus was a kind of baby that didn't cry, you know, when, when the when the cow was looking for a little bit of straw, or hay, and came and was munching on the hey? Right next to us foot and woke Him up cause that happens to all babies right he
Woke up, and he was like, Oh, hello there, Cal, I will not cry.
Well, I tell you I'm I'm not a baby anymore, but if account was munching on, hey!
Down near my feet, and I woke up. I would not say, Oh, hello!
There, Cal, I would I might cry
I would at least shout.
I don't think I don't think that Jesus just said Hello!
There, Cal, I think, he cried. I went through all of those other human things.
No, are true.
I I'm not gonna I'm not gonna insist on it.
We don't have anything explicit in Scripture saying that he cried as a baby.
We don't know for sure that Jesus cried until after last night, but we do know that! He cried.
Then, and so I'm gonna say he was at least capable of it, and I think, as a baby, he cried.
After all, how else is he going to tell me, little hungry over here?
How else is he? Gonna say, you know the diaper could use changing?
That's how babies communicate. Jesus got hungry.
We know we got hungry. The New Testament tells us he got hungry.
We know we got tired. We know that he we can assume that he got hurt right.
He running across the playground, tripped on a rocky, didn't see because he wasn't, you know, supernaturally aware of the placement of every atom.
Because how much fun is it really to play on the playground?
If you know where everything is
If if he's, you know, cooking over a charcoal fire as we need.
He was want to do, and he he did I mean he he cooked over charcoal and a coal popped out of the fire because they do that and it landed on his foot.
It would have burned him if he hadn't brushed it off fast enough.
He was just a normal, red blooded man. He was sendlessly perfect, but otherwise he was perfectly normal.
Now? Why have I spent pretty much all of the time that I had talking about?
You know what kind of humanity Jesus had that it wasn't some sort of some sort of thing where his body was human, but the divine mind was driving it around.
No, he had a human mind. Why have I spent all of that time talking about that
It's because what he came for. He came to be a sacrifice.
He came to offer himself as a sacrifice, and here's the thing just like in the Old Testament.
The blood of bulls and goats. It just kind of covers up.
Send for a time. It cleanses, you know. They take it into the tabernacle, or later to the temple, and it would purify the objects in there so that they can continue to use them in worship and that would be for a time, and then the high priest was doing this daily the or the priests were doing this daily the high
Priest would go into the Holy of holies every year, year after year.
But all of those offerings could not truly cleanse and redeem humanity in the same way the sacrifice of some kind of fake human, some kind of halfway human.
A human body with with no human soul but a divine mind driving it around and doing things that wouldn't redeem humanity either.
Thousands of years later Paul would reflect on this, and after describing salvation in Romans, chapter 5,
And I would encourage you to read through Romans chapter 5. Later on.
We don't have time for all of it today. But after describing the kind of salvation that he has, and the reason that we need it, reason that goes back to Jenesis, chapter 2.
Where God says to Adam, he says, in the day that you eat of the tree of knowledge, of good and evil, in that day you shall surely die.
And then in chapter 3 versus 15, when he's talking to Adam and Eve and the serpent, and he particularly tells the serpent that the offspring of the woman, the seed of the woman is
Would there would be enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, he says that the seed of the woman would bruise that serpent's head he gives that promise he's speaking to the serpent but eve hears it and takes it as
a promise, and she thinks that it's Kane.
When Kane's born she thinks oh, I got me a man!
This is the seat of the woman that's gonna crush the head of the serpent, and we're gonna be done with all this nonsense.
She had to wait a few more generations than that, but she was hoping already that it was Kane.
So thousands of years later, Paul's talking, thinking about all of these events
And he says, I'll just. I'll skip around a little bit.
But he says in verse chapter 5, verse 12, just as sin came into the world through one man. That one man that he's talking about is Adam
We go on, and virtual 15, he said. Many died through one man's trespass, much more the grace of God and the free gift.
By the grace of that one man, Jesus
And verse 16. Again, one man sin, one trespass brought condemnation for 17, one man's trespass end of the verse and verse 17.
Through the one man Jesus Christ, and then, in verse 19, Romans 5, 19, he pulls all of this together.
He boils it down, and he says, for as by the one man's disobedience, the many were made centers.
So by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous.
He said, one man, one man, one man, one man all the way through.
It's because the problem that has to be addressed was caused by one man, a real, no kidding human being man.
The solution couldn't come by anything other. Then another real live.
No kidding human being couldn't be part human. Couldn't be surrounding cultures.
Had all these notions of gods showing up in human form that wasn't gonna work even in the Old Testament.
We have lots of instances of God appearing before Israel before Moses, before Joshua in a human form, before Abraham, right right before they go off to wipe out Sodom and Gomorrah.
It says that the Lord appeared to Abraham, and he looked up, and there were 3 men standing there.
God was there in human form. Most, I think most of, not all of the references to the angel of the Lord.
We're talking about God, the Son, the second Person appearing in human form.
So why couldn't he just do that? It's because God, appearing in human form is not a human being.
The only way this could be resolved was by a real, live human being.
He couldn't show up 35 years 30 years old.
Sorry pop into existence as an adult male, and conduct his ministry, and then be sacrificed.
That's not a real human being. How many of you would believe that if a 30 year old guy just popped into existence, you would say, Oh, yeah, that's a normal human being.
Just like me. I wouldn't now, a real human being is conceived and is born, and cries and puts up with the fact that he's helpless.
He can't eat unless mama notices that he's crying, and says, Oh, come here, let me feed you.
He can't! He can't stand up and walk around his legs.
Don't have the strength right. He increased in wisdom and in stature, which includes strength.
He had to gain strength. He had to learn how to balance himself.
He entered into that kind of humanity. That's the humanity of you know that we symbolize with the little, the little baby in the manger in your manager, saying, If you have one
That's the humanity that he entered into, and he entered into it.
To call it was necessary. He entered into that. He took on all the problems of being a baby, of being a 5 year old, being a teenager and there's plenty of problems with all of those.
It's, you know, not the most he had to be a middle school student and go to middle school.
He went to middle school for you it wasn't the same as ours, but the point is, all of those things that that all of you adults have been through, and all of the things that you adults have are going through, and all of the things that you kids are going through.
He went through all of those things, because that was the only way.
That was the condition of being a real live, honest to goodness.
Human being who could be our sacrifice? Who could cleanse us?
Who could redeem us. So when we think about the birth, don't just think about, don't just think about the amazingness of God.
Think also about the fact that he took on all of the bad stuff of being a human being.
So that we could be with him. Let's close in prayer
Father. We thank you that you sent your son
We thank you that he came
We thank you that he came as a helpless baby
And that he grew up one day at a time, and that he waited patiently
That he learned that he studied your word
That he talk that to the people around him, and father, that he then submitted himself to death.
So that he could be the Savior, so that he could be the sacrifice that was required.
Fulfilling the the debt, fulfilling the punishment that that the first Adam brought about.
We thank you that he has the second item. Resolved, That father, we pray that we would celebrate and recognize and remember, and be grateful for all of his sacrifices.
Not just the sacrifice on the cross, but but allowing himself to become a human being for our sake. In His name, we pray Amen.
Alright! Christmas!
Okay.