Myths That Make Us Miserable VIII, The Truth About Christmas

Read the text right off of the teaching outline. You all have it? Hold it up. Great. Okay, here we go. Two separate texts, but one important message. Here we go. The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. I can't hear you. Let's try it again. The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. You know, let me just stop right here. This is a big room. When you whisper, this is God's Word. How many of you are embarrassed about this? Nobody, right? We love God's Word. Let's read God's Word with some declaration. Are you ready? Here we go. Ready again. The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. Much better. Let's go on. Therefore, when Christ came into the world, He said, Sacrifice an offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for Me. With burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, Here I am. It is written about Me in the scroll. I have come to do your will, O God. Well, there's a particular sweetness about this first Christmas in this new building. I mean, it's been a long and sometimes bumpy road, but I feel like we're home. Still getting sort of acclimated, but we're home. But I also know that there's a lot of folks that are with us for the first Christmas at North Way. A lot of you have become regular parts of the life of this church, but this is your first Christmas. And so for you, and for those of you who maybe have forgotten some of the real foundational truths, I wanted to revisit what I'm going to call the core value of Christmas, as I understand it here at North Way. I want to get right down to what this is really about. Take away some of the fluff and some of the myths. We're in a series called Exploding the Myths that Make Us Miserable. There's a lot of myths about Christmas, isn't there? What's the biggest myth about Christmas? You say Santa Claus. First service, they said, we can afford it. Maybe it's the frost of the snowman or the reindeer or whatever. There's another myth out there that pastors like chia pets and clap lights. No, thanks. It's a myth. But because we decorate and we have poinsettias and lights and wonderful music, it's possible, I don't know about you, but it's possible that we can get consumed with all of the sort of externals of Christmas and get on this fast track with all these gatherings and family things and so on, and not even stop as a people of God to consider what is the truth. I just flicked through the TV dial here the other day, and in the afternoon in one of those garbagey kind of talk shows, the theme for that day was how to survive the holiday. How sad. The magazine cover read, Ten Tips to Beating the Christmas Blues. This is supposed to be the most glorious holiday of the year, and people are trying to survive it, trying to bear up under the pressure of it all. Maybe that's you today. So let's look at the truth about Christmas. First of all, I want us to look at the perspective, God's perspective in the Incarnation. What does God see when he sees the Incarnation? When we were talking about this piece of property and developing it, we tried our best to figure out how it connected with everything and where it sat geographically with the property in the back, and we walked out and got topographical maps, you know, the kind with the little lines, and tried to figure out where this was going and up and down and where the water would sit and all that stuff, and how it connected with the northern property and the southern property, and what intersection and all. Finally, I was asked to go up in a small private plane that one of our members has to fly over the property to get a perspective of how it sat here in this particular piece of ground in reference to the other things. So we circled around at 2,000 feet while we pointed at different things and saw different landmarks. We said, ah, that's where that is, and so on. Oh, that's the turnpike. And then we circled some more, and we took some photographs. And then we circled some more and talked about some other reference points. And as we kept circling, I got sicker and sicker and sicker. You've got to try taking pictures while you're going around and circling. But I did end up with a great perspective of this piece of property. I knew a lot about it by being up high. And I just want to ask, lift yourself up high for a few minutes and try to get God's perspective on the incarnation. What was God at work doing when he sent his son? Now, in case you don't know, God had supplied in the Old Testament a sacrificial system for dealing with man's single greatest problem, which is sin, a problem which leads him to separation from God's presence. And this system involved the sacrificial offering of animals' blood in a very prescribed kind of way. Because the Bible says, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin, Hebrews 9.22. So every day the priest would step up, and they would sacrifice animals, drain their blood, and in a prescribed way present it to God as a sin offering. Once a year, the high priest would put on his garb and walk into the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle of the temple, and while in the presence of God, ask for mercy over the sins of all the people for another year. And it was an awesome moment in the history of the people of Israel, once a year, called the Day of Atonement. And on that day, the people would all gather to see if the high priest would come back, because some years he went in and didn't come out. And they used to send another guy in to get him and pull him out, and he didn't come out. So after a few years of that, they got wise, and they tied a rope around his ankle. And he went in, and if he died, they just pulled him out by the rope. Why? Because in the presence of a holy God, sometimes the offering was... And so this system went on and on for generations. But the Bible says in Hebrews 10, if you turn there, that that sacrificial system wasn't really working because the people's hearts wasn't right. But every time the people would offer up another animal, they were reminded of two things about themselves. They were reminded of their sin problem, and they were reminded of the mercy of God. And I want to pause right now and ask you a question. I wonder how often we're reminded of our sin problem, and how often we're reminded of the mercy of God. I might as well say it. Sin isn't a pleasant topic. It's not a very popular one, not politically correct. You're not going to hear about it on a radio talk show or Larry King Live. It's not seasonal, but it is real. And we deal with it and its consequences all the time in our lives. The fact is, from God's perspective, sin is a very big problem. 100% of the human race has it. It's called depravity in God's language, which means it rhymes with gravity. Just think, pulling me down away from God. And 100% of human beings who have it will find it is 100% of the time fatal to their spiritual destiny. Sin kills the soul every time. It's like an HIV virus. It can be lying dormant, and everything kind of looks fine, and the person next to you seems real normal in your office, and all of a sudden you hear this wild story, and you think, where'd that come from? It's sin. We've had a lot of illustrations of this lately, haven't we? O.J. Simpson? Hey, there's the normal guy. I mean, there's the guy who had everything, right? Multi-millionaire, football hero, beautiful family, and on and on. What happened to him? We don't know. I'm not making any judgment. It just sure appears that sin was involved. How about Susan Smith? You've forgotten that name already? Who is she? She was that mother that we all heard about who tragically rolled a car into a lake in which her kids were strapped back in the car seat. And we all sat with amazement and wondered, how could she do that? Newsweek in a cover story raised this comment. They said, once again, the perversity of human nature has confounded our wildest expectations. That's not a theologian. That's just an editor for Newsweek talking about perversity in the human spirit. It's this streak in human beings that's almost unexplainable, except in spiritual terms. And if you're willing to call it what the Bible calls it, dear ones, it's sinfulness, it's depravity. And it's in us, and we have the hardest time dealing with this and understanding why it comes out when it does. A couple weeks later, in a letter to the editor of that same magazine, a person wrote this. The most disconcerting aspect of Susan Smith's actions is that she talks, walks, looks, and acts like the rest of middle-class America. By all accounts, she was a model mother, no different than any other. What fine line was crossed the night she let the car roll into the lake? How unsettling it is to think that we live our lives a hair's breadth away from such acts. Is that true? Is it? Are you a hair's breadth away from doing something awful? James Wilson, a Harvard professor, writes, the veneer of civilization is very thin. Given right circumstances, any of us could do unimaginable acts. Think about Africa. Think about Rwanda. Dallas Willard, who is one of my favorite Christian authors, also happens to be a professor at USC in philosophy, wrote a book called The Spirit of Discipline, which I recommend to you. He calls it the readiness to sin factor. He says, given the right set of circumstances, there's a readiness to sin that just comes out in ways that we don't understand. And we say, whoa, where'd that come from in me? What's that all about? Have you really faced that about yourself, friend? Have you acknowledged humbly before God that there's something in you that you just don't understand? And you don't know where it comes from? Have you seen it? I have. I guess the first time I was really aware of how deep it went, I was a fairly young Christian. I was in college. I was at the end of a real busy term. I had to take my organic chemistry final. I think chemistry, remember organic chemistry, it's the killer exam of all time. I was playing sports in the spring. I had a campus job. I was in student government. I had a lot of things going. And I was buried, and I knew I wasn't going to make it in this exam. And in the study, Carol, next to mine in the library, someone left a copy of the previous year's organic chemistry. It was a gold mine. I mean, I knew, pick that thing up, there's 30 or 40 hours of study right there. I mean, I could have picked it up and breathed. Well, in fact, I did pick it up. I'm walking to the doors of the library. Did I mention I was the president of the honor council at my school? And in my mind, I'm rationalizing as I walk, you know, hey, it's last year's exam, it's going to change. This will just be a study guide kind of thing. All those kinds of things we rationalize when we're in temptation to sin. And I got to the door, and I heard this voice in my head that said, what are you doing? And I froze and walked back, very quietly put the test back into Carol. And that experience, so effective, it so jolted me. It helped me to realize that given the right set of circumstances, I was capable of doing something very stupid and very sinful, and may have cost me my college education, and who knows what else. I mean, it comes out at the strangest times, doesn't it? Do you have that awareness? Two years ago, I was playing basketball for the North Way team. And we had a game against, you know, one of the local bar teams. I forget which one it was, but, you know, nice guys, and they're sponsors of one of the local bars. Great guys. But they also had a reputation as being like the hammers of the league. And we're getting ready and going through the warm-ups and so on, and one guy says to me, oh, aren't you Pastor Jay from North Way? I said, oh, I'm so-and-so. I come to your church once in a while. Great. He said, yeah, in fact, I'm coming this weekend, and I think I'm bringing my buddy here on the team. Great. Well, we'll talk about it after the game. In fact, if we win, you can buy me lunch in front. Maybe early into the second quarter, that guy, the same guy, came over my back with an elbow down on my shoulder. And I fell to the ground, and then I jumped up, and I was going to go after him. What kind of play is that? And I was ready to scream at the guy, you know. And I'd be like, wait a minute. I'm the pastor of North Way. He just said he's coming to church on Sunday, bringing his buddy from the team. I mean, if I started screaming at this guy, what would that do? How many of you have had something like that in your life? And you go, what is that about? Well, the Bible calls it. And you can't patch over it with the sacrifice of animals' blood. And in the New Testament, you can't patch over it with good works and trying hard to be a good person and the right church membership and doing this and that. You need to have a Savior. You need to see it the way God sees it, and you need to understand that your sin problem is fatal 100% of the time. And you need to move out of the shadows of it all and into the substance of what Hebrews 10, verse 1 says is God's provision for our sin. You see, God looked down and said, these people have a big problem. I will send them a solution. And he said, I will send them one who will bear the penalty for their sin. And I will send them one who will give them a new heart. A heart that desires to follow after me. From God's perspective, you see, the incarnation was not just an option among many. It was the only possible way that our sin problem could be healed. The only way. It took a sinless substitute to pay for our penalty. And the only sinless substitute was the Son of God. J. Rodman Williams writes in, he was one of my favorite spirit-filled theologians, writes this in his book called Renewal Theology. We must pause a moment. And folks, that's what we're doing. We're pausing right now for a moment to reflect on the wonder, the awesomeness, the utterly amazing character of the incarnation. This event is a fact of such proportion as to transcend human imagination. The God of the universe, the creator of all things visible and invisible, angelic host as well as countless galaxies and stars, has in Jesus Christ come to this minute planet called Earth and taken upon himself our human existence. If the original creation of the universe out of nothing is an immeasurably incomprehensible act of almighty God, the incarnation is surely no less dependent. Superlatives will not suffice. Perhaps the best words are the words of Paul in 1 Timothy 3.16, Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great, Paul writes. He appeared in a body. Look at your notes once again. You see, Jesus, look at the top of the page. Pick them up. There you go, pick them up. You're looking in on a conversation that Jesus had with the Father before the first Christmas. This is sort of a pre-incarnational quote here. Look at it. We're kind of like eavesdropping on a conversation that Jesus had with the Father, and he says this. Sacrifice an offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared. Jesus is saying it wasn't enough to sacrifice animals' blood, but I will come, he says. Here it is written of me on the scroll. I have come to do your will, O God. You see, that's what Christmas is all about, church. It's about Jesus doing what he had to do for us, coming in the flesh, incarnating all of God into a human body so that our sin might be paid for. You see, the Lord knew if he could deal with the root of all of our problems, sin, then every other problem was small in comparison. Violence, hate, rape, the attitudes that grip us, the responses that choke us, all of it is secondary to the sin problem. Deal with the sin problem, and all these other things will fall into place. Yet millions will walk by manger scenes today, this week. Millions will fill churches over the next week and not get it. They'll not see God's provision for their sin. They'll see some little baby lying there and say, Well, I guess it's cute. They'll have no clue as to what really happened in the incarnation. And they'll not understand that he who came was fully divine and fully human. What does that mean? Fully divine, fully human. It means all the Godhead, all the nature of God was in that baby. But he was also a baby. You know, just a regular kid. This is the incredible thing. I mean, when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, he didn't say, Well, you know what? You're going to have the Messiah. We're going to make this a two-week pregnancy. How long was the pregnancy? Nine months. Read it in Luke chapter 1. He didn't say, Because you're bearing the one who's going to take away the sins of the world, no pain in your labor. Hey, Mary had labor. I mean, it was just like, you know, the relatives couldn't look at Mary carrying the baby and say, Boy, that's a big baby. Maybe it's the Messiah. It wasn't like that. It was a normal kid. And when Jesus was born, he was like a normal baby. You know, we see these Christmas cards with Jesus, and, you know, he has this little halo and stuff, and his hair is perfect. I mean, he came out, and he was probably like every other newborn baby. Right? Ugly. I know, I mean, just... No. Hey, now, wait a minute. All right, let's be real honest here, okay? How many of you have walked up to one of those little windows, you know, and seen them all laying out there, and they point to the one that you know or related to, whatever it is, and they'll look at that thing and look at it. Isn't he or she cute? Now, how do you define cute? Do you define cute as, like, all wrinkled, preveled up like that? It's not. I look at that and say, That's cute. It will be cute. Give it a couple weeks. Its bones will grow into its skin, and things will fashion. I'm going to feed it and keep it warm. Well, that's the way Jesus came. He came as a baby, and he grew up and grew in wisdom and stature as a human. And what's important, we have to understand, it's important that this baby is fully God and fully man. Gary Packer says this, The Christmas message rests on this staggering fact that the child in the manger was God. He goes on to write, That's only half the story. Trinity and incarnation belong together. The doctrine of the Trinity declares that this man, Jesus, is truly divine, but the doctrine of the incarnation declares that this divine Jesus is truly human. God's perspective is, We had a sin problem that only Jesus could solve. Number two, then, why did he come? What's his purpose? What's God's purpose in the incarnation? Some would say, Well, his purpose was to live a good life, and we could see all how to live in a way to love one another. And some would say, Well, Jesus came to heal the sick. And some would say, Well, Jesus came to show us the way to God. But dear ones, the truth is this. Listen now. The truth is, he came, Take your outline, flip it over, and circle the top right-hand phrase there. It was for this very reason, Circle it. This very reason, Jesus says, that I came to this hour. I came to die. Now, when you think of Christmas, what town comes to mind? A little town of Bethlehem. But when God looks at Christmas, he sees not just Bethlehem, he sees history and looks all the way to Calvary. Please understand that, church. The truth about Christmas is it doesn't end at Bethlehem. In fact, it doesn't make sense at Bethlehem. It only makes sense at Calvary. God sent his son with the motive that he would die. That's the only thing you really have to understand about Christmas to get God's message, is that Jesus came to die for us. And yet, if you talk about Bethlehem, people say, Oh, you know, I love, I asked the guy at the hospital, What's your favorite holiday? He said, I love Christmas. You know, I love the light. I love the warm feelings. I love babies. Ask that same guy a little bit later, What do you think about Calvary? People are real nervous about thinking about Calvary. And yet, this makes no sense in Bethlehem if you don't follow it to Calvary. That was what was in the heart of God. And understand something, at any point in that journey, Jesus could have bailed out. Listen carefully, because there's a lot of people who bail out on you. Jesus didn't bail. You know, he could have bailed when he was 12 years old. And everyone said, Boy, you're a smart kid. He could have said, You know, I like this. Father, take me home. He could have bailed a little later on the Mount of Transfiguration. When he was in the glory of God and being transfigured, he could have said, You know what, Father? This is too cool. I'm going home with you now. He could have bailed out when the disciples betrayed him and said, Well, if you're not going to stand for me, I'm not going to stand for you. And he could have bailed when they were driving the nails in his hands and into his feet. He could have said, Enough of this. I'm going home. But he loved it so much that all the way he hung. In Hebrews 10, 19, look what it says. It says, Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, you see, we don't have a rope tied around our ankle. We have the privilege of coming into the presence of God with confidence in what He gave to us. But so many will lose that. And sparkle night and light up nights and sales nights and parties and number three, what then? If you believe what the Bible says, what promises then can we receive? What's open to us by the Incarnation? And all the promises of God become available. But let's just focus, first of all, on pardon for sin. It says, God says this. He says, You know that problem in you that you can't seem to figure out? He said, I'll deal with it for you. Look at Romans 1, 8 verse 1 says, Therefore, there is now, say it with me, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Circle the word no. It is the strongest expression in the New Testament Greek of a negative. It means no way, absolutely not, can't happen, no condemnation. And folks, my experience is most people, if they get depressed at all, they get depressed at Christmas time. And it's usually because they look at their lives and say, I made a mess of it. I have broken family relationships. I'm all upside down with my priorities. And they get depressed and they get under guilt and shame. And guilt and shame leads to depression. And the Bible says, you don't have to put up with that. If you trust Christ, there's no condemnation from God. What can man do to you? People said, I'll get through the holidays. It's all they say on television. How do I get through? I get through by drinking a bottle of brandy. The Lord says, whatever you've done, no matter how dark, no matter how diabolic or complex, there's forgiveness available at the cross. You know the word pardon means that your sentence was commuted. It's over and no one can come back and put it on you. Jesus says, your past sins, your present sins, and your future sins are forgiven. Trust in me. What a great God. I had a weird dream this week, thinking about this. I dreamed I died and I was going to heaven. Someone, I guess it was Saint Peter, met me at the bottom of this long stair step and he said, Heaven's right up there. Don't need to worry. But when you get up to the main gate, there's this big blackboard. I couldn't see because of the clouds. He said, when you get up there, I want you to take all your sins and write them on that blackboard. Then we'll wash them away. I said, you've got to write them out. So I picked up this little piece of chalk, like this, and he walked out with this huge, big thing, like six foot high chalk, real thick. He said, I told you to put all your sins on that blackboard. So I said, climbing up these steps, and I get up about halfway, and here comes Pastor Scott down the steps. I said, where are you going? He said, I'm getting some more chalk. Just, you know, take care of it. Pardon means that the board has been wiped clean. There won't be any accounting. Number two, God's power makes me like him. In other words, power to live a godly life. Because through Christ Jesus, the Bible says, Romans 8, 2, the law of the spirit of life has set me free from the law. You could put cycle of sin and death. How many of you find that you just keep doing the same things over again? Go ahead, admit it. How many, oh man, I did it again. Why did I say it again? How come I allowed it to happen again? Why did I spend it again? Why did I drink it again, smoke it again, do it again? Why? The Bible says, Christ Jesus, the law of the spirit of life, can set you free from the law of sin, the cycle of sin. In my counseling and my interactions with Christians, I lump it into two basic categories. Two kinds of people. People say, number one, my life is out of control. I can't seem to organize it. Stress is breaking my heart. I can't keep up with things. And number two, people say, I can't change. I keep doing the same things. Same habits, same responses, same hang-ups. I can't let them go. Jesus says, you don't have to be hung up on those things anymore. Someone wrote me a note after the message on lust and love, and they said, for the first time I understand why I do the things I do. And I believe I'm going to be free to break out of the cycle. Why? Because the law of love, of the spirit of Jesus, sets us free if you embrace it. If there's one thing you could change about you in 1995, put it in your mind right now. You don't have to get into some weird program. You just need to bring that before God and wait on Him to speak a real word into your life and let His power. And let me assure you that nothing's too difficult for Him, whatever it is you're facing. The third thing is God's purpose. The third promise is God's purpose transforms my problems. You know, Christmas time reminds all of us of the best and worst in life. I have a conviction about things in our lives, and my conviction in a nutshell, life is really just a series of problems. You're one of three categories today. You are coming out of a problem, you're in the middle of a problem, or you're about to go into your next one. I'm not sure, but that's life. The question is, what do you do with those problems? And so many believers, and I fall into this like some of you do sometimes, we get focused on the problem and not on God's solution. What does He say about problems? Well, let's just look at one promise here. If God can redeem... Let me ask you this way. Did God redeem Calvary? Did God take the worst evil that man had ever known and do something good with it? Darn right He did. He saved the world. Can He take the evil that's happening in our lives and do something good with it? Absolutely. Let's look at Romans 8. As I close, Romans 8, 28. In fact, I just put it up on the overhead. Read it with me. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God and to those who are called according to His purpose, that's the new American standard. Leave it up for just a minute. Here's what it doesn't say. It doesn't say all things are good. Cancer and rape and violence. I've heard people say, well, hey, just praise God for cancer. No, you don't. All things aren't good in this life. Heaven has perfection. This life does not. But people tend to blame God for the things that aren't good and never give Him any glory for the things that are. All things aren't good. It doesn't say that. It also doesn't say that all things work out the way we'd like them to, does it? And it also doesn't say everything has a happy ending. There are some sad endings in life. But it does say these several things. It does say, look at this. We know. Everyone say, we know. We know. We don't guess. It's not a question mark. I'm not unsure. I know that God, I know with certainty that He's working, causing, putting in motion the forces that will bring about good. Causes means that God sovereignly is in control. And what things is it? How many things? Now, what is all things? All things is everything. Unemployment? Yes. Illness? Yes. A battle with your spouse? Yes. Divorce? Yes. Bankruptcy? All things means all things. God is working in them to bring about His purpose. Now, notice it doesn't say that every single thing that happens to you is good. He said He's working all things together for good. Notice that it says there, working them together. Now, how many of you bake Christmas cookies? Put your hand up again. I'm going to observe from here. Thank you. I have one gentleman with his hand and two gentlemen, about 300 women. When you made a chocolate chip or Toll House cookie, just a quick question, how many of you made Toll House cookies this year? What goes into them? Well, there's some shortening. What happens if you eat the shortening by itself? Gross, right? What else? Flour? I'd put a spoonful of flour in there. I don't know about that. You get salt. What else? Baking soda? Gross. Eggs? Yeah, you know, unless you're rocky or something. I have eggs out there. I mean, about the only thing you can eat by itself is what? Those little chips. Those little guys aren't bad, are they? Okay. You could eat those. But what happens when you mix all that together and you stick them in the oven for ten minutes or whatever? What happens? Yeah, you bring them over to my house, right? I don't know most of you. You have a great taste in cookie, right? I mean, I know it's a simple analogy, but life is much that way. Stuff happens to us individually. It doesn't make sense. But God, you see, has taken all the ingredients and he's making them into a cookie. And it's sweet. He's working all things together for good. But notice, it doesn't happen to everyone. It happens to those who are called. Those who love God and are called according to his purpose. You have to be one who trusts in God's provision. One who looks to God. Good things don't happen to bad people. God works in all things for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. And so what is Christmas all about? What's the truth about it? Well, the truth is that God looked down and saw our sin condition. Saw how broken and hopeless and unable to help ourselves we really were. And God, in his mercy, sent his Son, the perfect sinless substitute for our sins. Who took upon him the wrath of God that we might have eternal life. And in the process receive all the promises of God. All the promises of God are yea or yes. And that we can stand before him. Perfect one day. There's going to come a day when we're going to stand, literally, at the throne of God. And either your sin problem will be solved or the Father will say, depart from me, I never need you. But if you trust in Christ, Jesus will step down and say, and the Father will say to us, come to my Father. And he'll say, Father, this one was born in Zion. This one belongs to you. What a gift his righteousness is. What a God you are. Let's stand and thank him for that.