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So, ironically, in the last few weeks or so, I’ve been thinking, man, I haven’t preached for a while and I’d really like to get the opportunity to probably sometime, like in January, you know, when you get used to having the newborn. And then I get off work yesterday and Nathaniel texts me and says, hey, I’m stuck, you’re preaching tomorrow. And I was like, all right. I guess God answers prayers quicker than you think. So it is a joy always to be able to be up in front of you guys and just share God’s Word with you and what’s been on my heart. Um, you all do have the privilege of hearing the first sermon that I’ve preached after becoming a dad. Um, so I will go ahead right now and get all of the baby, um, mentions out of the way and just let you know that I do have the most beautiful daughter ever. Um. I’m sorry. Daughters that are out there. She’s the best, but she’s in the back. This is her first Sunday here at church, so you guys can say hi to her. We do ask that you. If you have a sniffle or a cold or something, that you keep a respectful distance. We don’t want baby getting sick. Um, but say hi to mama and baby. That’s their first Sunday back. Some of you might not recognize me. I’ve lost six inches of facial hair since, um, since the last time I preached, so a little bit different.
Look, but I’m happy to be back up here. Um, so it’s December, so obviously we got to talk about Christmas, right? Um, and the advantage of being put on last minute notice to preach in December is you at least already have a topic. You just have to figure out where you want to go with that topic of Christmas. Um, when I think of Christmas, a lot of the stuff that comes to mind is Christmas songs. I don’t know if it’s because we’re only allowed to sing them for like a month and a half out of the year that they stand out, or if it’s because the words are really good, or if it’s some combination of that. But I love Christmas music. I love the old carols. I love the remakes of the old carols. I love all of the Christmas music. And the song that has been kind of sticking with me is actually one of my least favorite songs. But the song Mary, did You know? Um, it’s a popular song. The song asks the question, you know, Mary, did you understand? Did you comprehend who this baby that you just gave birth to? Who that was? Did you understand what that meant? And the reason I don’t like this song is because I think it’s kind of unfair and becoming a dad recently, I think it’s even more unfair than I did previously, because I don’t think it’s fair to ask Mary, who just gave birth, if she can comprehend who that baby is.
I can barely comprehend that I still have a baby and it’s been almost a month, and so I don’t think it’s fair to ask her if she can comprehend who that is because she was in the moment. But I think a better question for us to ask is church. Do we know, do we know and comprehend who that baby was? We’re several thousand years removed from it, and so we’ve had time to sit and think and contemplate on it. And so we can ask ourselves, do we know, do we really understand what Christmas is really all about? Now we have the the obvious answers, you know? Well, Christmas is about Jesus. It’s about the coming of the king. It’s about our Savior being born. Um, and we say those things. But do we really know what they mean? I mean, I can give answers to questions, but have no idea what I’m talking about. You know, when asked what the theory of relativity is, I can tell you it’s e equals MC squared. What that means, I don’t know, um, I know that Einstein came up with it. It was revolutionary when he came up with it. Nobody had even thought of something like that before. But to really give you any explanation other than those three letters in a number, I have no idea what the theory of relativity is.
And so often I think that’s where I at least find myself. And I’m sure a lot of you find yourselves thinking when we answer the question, What is Christmas about? Well, it’s about Jesus, but I have no idea what that really means. What does that mean for us? It’s about Jesus. It’s about the coming of a king. It’s about a Savior. It’s about God coming to earth. But what does that mean to us? What does that really what are the implications of that? So to answer the question, I’m going to go to a verse, to a passage that’s not traditionally thought of as a Christmas passage, but I feel it’s one of the best descriptions of who Christ is. Um, it’s it’s beautiful and poetic, and it’s in Colossians chapter one, we’re going to be in verses 15 through 22. Um, just so you’re aware, the translation on the screen is the English Standard version. So if you’re following along in the Bible in the back of the chairs, it’ll be a little bit different. Says the same thing, just a couple different words here and there. Um, but Colossians 115 through 22 says he, referring back to Christ, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 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.
And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him. Before we start to unpack this, let’s just take a moment to pray and just prepare our hearts for for what God has for us from His Word. God, we just thank you for your word, for revealing yourself to us through your word. Um, God, I just pray that as we look at it, that we would all just open our hearts and be receptive to to what you have to say to us, Lord, that we would apply it to our lives, God, and that we wouldn’t just leave here unchanged God, but that we would be not just hearers of the word, but doers also. Lord, just be with me as I as I share. God, I pray that you would just use me. Work through me and in spite of me. God. Um. Just be with our time together now.
In Jesus name, Amen. All right, so this, um, in this passage here, there’s a lot of different aspects of Christ, but they kind of grouped together in two, two really big themes. The first of which is Christ as Lord of of creation. And that’s going to be in your first several verses. And then in the last portion portion of the passage, we can see Christ as Lord of redemption. So the first thing we want to look at is Christ as Lord over creation. And in the first verse, Paul just starts at the very foundation, the very fundamental. He says he is the the image of the invisible God. Christ is God manifest to us. Um, when Christ came, he wasn’t just another spirit coming to earth. He wasn’t another prophet or one of many gods. He wasn’t a demi god like in Greek mythology. He was the god coming to earth, the one true God coming to earth. Philippians two five through six tells us, have this mind among you, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. So we can see that Christ. The first thing that Paul wants us to understand in Colossians of who Christ is, is that he isn’t just another spirit.
He. Most of the letters that Paul wrote to the churches Galatians, Colossians, Philippians, Corinthians, all those things, he was addressing a heretical issue that was coming up. There was false teaching arising, and it needed to be fixed and corrected. And the false teaching in the book of Colossians that he’s addressing, it’s not 100% clear as to what it is, but we have a good idea of what it was about. It was this a heresy that involved spirits and and elevating angels and worshiping angels and spirits and things like that, and they lost focus on worshiping God. And so he starts by saying, Christ is God. He’s he’s better than an angel. He is the God. John one one says, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. A lot of times when we sing Christmas songs, I don’t think we really think about what we’re saying. We just sing the words because we know them. But when we sing lines like veiled in flesh, the Godhead see hail incarnate deity. Do you know what that means? It means that God on high gave up his throne, or his full time job was to sit there and listen to tens of thousands of angels sing him praise was born in a feeding trough with a bunch of cows and donkeys for you. Hail the incarnate deity. God in flesh. That’s what Christmas is. It’s not just a simple story of a virgin teenager engaged to a poor carpenter.
Um. It’s the story of God coming to the rescue of man. God in flesh. Christmas is about the God of the universe, humbly taking on flesh to share in our temptation to share in our pain, our joy, our heartache, our despair, our grief, and suffer our punishment so that we might be spared. That’s what Christmas is about. He goes on to tell us more about who Christ is, and he says that he’s the first born of all creation. It’s not Paul saying that Christ was physically born before all of creation, but what he’s talking about is Christ’s preeminence. There’s a popular misinterpretation and misapplication of this verse that stems all the way back to an early Arian belief that Christ was literally formed and created before the rest of creation, and not actually a part of the eternal Godhead. But what Paul wants to make clear is that Christ is the eternal God. He has no beginning. He has no end. He wasn’t formed, he wasn’t born. But what he means when he says, the first born of all creation is he’s talking about the firstborn, right? The heir to to the throne, he’s particularly in the language that he uses talking about the heir, the firstborn of a of a monarch, of a king. And what he’s telling us in these first lines is that he is God manifest to us, and he is the heir before all creation, before the angels, before these spirits that that this church was worshiping Christ is ahead of all of those things.
What what he’s showing for us is that Christ as heir is in line to rule. He’s he’s second to none. He’s supreme. And we know that. We then get to share as heirs with him. Romans 815 through 17 tells us that it says, for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, ABBA, father! The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. What Christ coming did was it allowed us to join that firstborn of creation, that preeminent heir of all things. We get to join him as heirs, not of anything that we did, but of what he did. We’re going to unpack how that happens a little bit later in the last verses of this passage. But Christ, being fully God, opens up his inheritance to share with us. So the first in line, first of all, creation, the Supreme, the paramount, the peerless, the superior humbled himself and came. The head of all creation was born in a stable. The heir of everything that has ever existed was born into a poor carpenter’s family. And he did it for us. Not only do we see in this passage that Christ is preeminent among all things, he’s before all creation, and he is the heir of all things.
But in verse 16 we see that he is the creator of all things. It says, 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. I think a lot of times when we think about creation, we know that God created everything. You know, he created the world in seven days or six days. And on the seventh he rested. And we know those stories. But I think we forget that next to last word there, and we forget the fact that he created creation for him. The reason that there is creation is for God. It’s to glorify God. The rocks cry out to God. He’s made his invisible attributes known through his creation. The chief purpose of man is that we would honor God, that we would glorify God. Verses like this. Knowing that Christ has created all things, gives, gives more meaning and strength to verses like Romans chapter eight, verses 38 and 39 says, for I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
If Jesus created all things, and then he promises us that none of those things that have been created can take us out of his hand. That has gripped us and wrapped his love around us. And we can be sure that that promise is true because he’s created them, and he knows that they can’t do anything to get you out of his hand of love. God has you, and he’s gripped you, and he’s not letting go. And nothing that has been created. No angels, no demons, nothing can separate you from that love. And we know that love is real because we celebrate Christmas. That’s what Christmas is. Is the creator becoming part of creation so that he can hold on to us for eternity. The God who breathed the stars into existence, that’s what it says in Psalms, became a baby who had to cry when he was hungry so he could be fed. The God who spoke worlds into existence had to learn to talk. The God who carved the mountains. Practice carving on a wood block in his daddy’s shop. The God who holds the stars in his hand. Came and lived and opened his hand. And received the nails that were for me. That’s Christmas. That’s what it’s about. It’s about Jesus. But it’s about what he did for us. It’s easy to say things like Christmas is about Jesus and Christmas is about God and and things like that. It becomes cliche almost.
Jesus is the reason for the season. He’s a lot more than that. If you limit him to the season, you’re really putting a box on on God, and you can’t put a box on the infinite God of the universe. Little baby Jesus that we sing about away in a manger. No crib for a bed is the Creator God. And we see this picture that Paul just gave us of Christ ruling over all creation. He’s the image of God. He’s preeminent before all creation. He’s the heir of all things. He’s created all things, and for him, they exist. And then in verse 18, he goes on to show us that not only is he the Lord of creation, but he’s the Lord of redemption. And he gives us just this great picture of this Almighty God and how he he came to show us, um, salvation. Verse 18 says, he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. Throughout Paul’s writings, he often talks of the body of believers. He talks about the church as the body of Christ. You can read in Romans 12, first Corinthians 12, Ephesians one, Ephesians four, Ephesians five. He has all kinds of analogies about the church and Christ as the head of the body, that is the church. He talks about how though all of us are different and have different functions, we all serve the same purpose and work together for that purpose.
And what he’s telling us is that Christ is in charge of that body. He is the head of that body. Ephesians 415 he says, speaking the truth in love. We are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ. So we see that Christ is who we are to emulate as a church body. If what we’re doing doesn’t look like Jesus, it’s wrong. As an individual, if what we’re doing doesn’t look like Jesus, it’s wrong. We’re to grow up into him, into his image, into his likeness. Hebrews 12 two says, he is the founder and perfecter of our faith. Whenever you’re trying to learn a new skill or a new trait, you find somebody who’s already mastered that, and you try and emulate them, and you try and mimic them and do what they do so that you can become that good. When I was a kid, me and my brother, we weren’t allowed to stay up late enough to watch Monday Night Football, so we would always record it on VHS tape. I don’t know if anybody in the front row over here knows what a VHS tape is, but this is really cool technology. It kind of looked like a really big cassette, but you probably don’t know what a cassette is either. But we would record we would record Monday Night Football on a VHS tape, and then the next day we would sit there and we would watch it after school and fast forward through all the all the commercials and stuff and just watch the plays.
And we would we played football growing up and we would, we would always watch the position that we played to see what they did on every play, because I knew that I was going to be exactly like Mike Singletary. And I tried my hardest to be like Mike Singletary. Now it turns out when it comes to football and things like that, no matter how much you watch a master at it, sometimes you just don’t have the gift. And it turns out that I can’t run a 40 under five seconds and I’m not six four and £250 of solid muscle, close to £250. Not quite solid muscle. So it turns out, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t emulate and become like Mike Singletary. Like I wanted to. But our goal as Christians is to watch the game tape of Jesus and become like Jesus, see what he does on certain plays, act like Jesus, know where to be. Know what to do. He is the head of the body. We’re to grow into Jesus. We don’t have game tape on Jesus, but we have his playbook. And if you’re not in his playbook and you’re not studying, you can’t emulate him and you can’t grow into the head that is Jesus because you don’t know what he’s going to do.
You don’t know what he wants you to do. You don’t know where to go. You don’t know what to do when the play breaks down. He is the head of the church. He is the head of the body. Philippians two tells us that we’re supposed to have the same mind in us that is in Christ, who humbled himself and came. We see also that he’s the firstborn from the dead. And that gives us great hope, knowing that Christ is again not the literal firstborn of death, but he is the first to overcome death. He’s the first to conquer death. And we who believe in him are his body will follow him in conquering death. Because the baby that we celebrate the birth of is the one who conquered death means that we can cry out like Paul cries out in first Corinthians 1555 through 57 he says, O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. That verse doesn’t happen without Christmas. When you say Christmas is about Jesus, it’s about him giving us the victory over the grave. It’s about him coming to die so we don’t have to. It’s about hope. Because no longer is this world the end. Because Jesus has conquered death. And there’s more after death.
He’s more authoritative than death. Matthew 28. After Christ has risen his last address to the disciples, he says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth, even authority over death. We see we tend to as people, even though we believe. If we believe in eternity and an afterlife, we still tend to think of death as as the end point and the end game. And that’s the final. And what Christ is saying is, no, death isn’t the end. In the final. I’ve beaten that. That’s nothing. Little baby Jesus came to put an end to death so that he has authority over death. So the one with authority, even over death humbled himself and was subject to his parents. He who has all authority and is the head of the church came to suffer for the church. That’s Christmas. That’s what Christmas is about. Paul again emphasizes the deity of Christ, and this is why he is the head of the church. This is why he is the firstborn of the dead is because in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. What Paul is saying is he’s bursting at the seams, okay? He is overflowing from from end to end, top to bottom, completely filled with God. Not only does Jesus bear the glory of God as the image of the invisible God, but all that is God dwells in him. Christmas is about God becoming flesh.
It’s the celebration of the hypostatic union. The hypostatic union is a fancy theological term that sounds really cool, but really all it means is 100% God becoming 100% man in Jesus. That’s what Christmas is. God coming for us. John 114 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory. John 14 nine Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long? And you still don’t know Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the father. How can you say, show us the father? Christ is saying, I am God. I am the father. We are one and the same. I am full of God in me. Philip’s question kind of gives me some hope because a lot of times I get discouraged or or feel down that, you know, I man, it just seems like it’s taking me so long to to grow or to learn or to, you know, to advance in this, this understanding of who Jesus is or his word. And then I read stuff like that and I realize, you know, the disciples lived with Jesus and they still didn’t get a lot of stuff. So there’s still hope for us. So if you feel like if you feel like you’re stuck and you haven’t learned anything or you haven’t grown or it’s difficult to do those things. The disciples ate and walked and talked and hung out with Jesus, and they still missed a lot of stuff.
So if it takes you a while, don’t give up. That’s the hope that I see out of Philip there. But Christmas is about God revealing himself to us through Jesus. If you read the book of John, this this concept, never really lost, was lost on John. He didn’t let it become cliché, and he didn’t let it become just something that he said, but he let it really affect him. If you read the book of John, throughout the book of John, John uses strong language. He’s written the book years after his after his time with Christ, and he still uses language that’s just powerful. And the imagery that he uses for Christ becoming flesh and living with us. And God became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. And John did not let that fact become cliché, and he didn’t let it become Jesus is the reason for the season. He let it affect his life deeply because he knew how significant it was. And that’s the call for us today, is that we don’t forget what Christmas really is all about. We don’t let it become a cliche answer that we know we’re supposed to give. When somebody from church asks us what we think about when we think about Christmas. Christmas should affect more than just the time from Thanksgiving and the way retail is working now. It’s from Halloween till December 31st Christmas. What it means should affect everything all the time.
What Paul tells us next in Colossians about who Christ is, is what the pinnacle of what Christmas is all about is. And we’ve already touched on it a little bit, but it says and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And then he lets us know. And you, who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him. The whole reason God became man, that the preeminent creator of the universe took on flesh, was so that he might take on the cross for us. This is how we become heirs with the firstborn of all creation. This is how we join into his inheritance is by his work on the cross, not by anything that we do. If you read these verses, it at no point mentions after you do this or when you do this, then you can be reconciled by him. He came to reconcile to himself all things by making peace by the blood of his cross. That’s what Christmas is, because the sovereign God of the universe gave himself up to die for those who were at war against his kingdom, so they might have peace with him and be reconciled back to him. Ephesians tells us that we were enemies of God.
Romans tells us that we’re enemies of God. But Christ came even though we were warring against him and had no intent to love him or follow him. He came and died for us anyway so that we might have peace with God even though we didn’t want it. That’s what Christmas is about. God didn’t leave us up to our own devices. He didn’t leave us up with a checklist of do this, but don’t do this. And after you’ve done this, then you can do this, and this is how you’re going to elevate yourself. Because he knew that checklist we could never meet. It would never be good enough. No matter what checklist we can follow, no matter how many things we do that are right, how few things we do that are wrong, it’s never going to be enough. And he knew that. And so he came to bridge that gap that can’t be filled by us. He came because there is no plan B Christmas, is it? Without Christmas, we’re We’re done. It’s hopeless. But because there is Christmas, we have hope. Because the one who came at Christmas, the baby that we celebrate at Christmas, is the God of the universe. Who created all things, who came just to die so that we can live. We have hope because he conquered death. He is the firstborn of the dead. Hebrews tells us that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins, and we celebrate the birth of the one who came to shed his blood to remove our sins.
So we got to ask ourselves. Church, do we know? Do we know what it really means when we say that Christmas is about Christ? Christmas is the coming of the King. Christmas is God becoming flesh. Do we really know what that means? Because if we do, we’re going to live a lot differently. I think it’s going to affect more than the holidays, when we’re stressed about making sure we get gifts for everybody. And we didn’t forget to send a Christmas card to anybody. So uncle Bill, who lives way out in Timbuktu, isn’t going to be mad at us because we forgot him on our Christmas card list and we got to make sure all the presents get shipped out on time. Because if they don’t get to, that’s not what Christmas is about. Christmas is a year round celebration of God coming to save us, even though we didn’t deserve it and we didn’t want it. Amen. So maybe instead of Jesus is the reason for the season, which is true. Maybe we should just leave it at Jesus is the reason. Without Jesus, we have no reason. Without Christmas, nothing else matters. Without God coming as a helpless baby to live and die for us, we have nothing But because he chose to do that for us, we have everything. We have hope in a dark world that makes no sense.
We have hope because of Christmas. I don’t know why things happen. I don’t know why somebody takes a gun into a school. And shoots innocent kids. I don’t have those answers other than we live in a crappy world that’s full of hate and sin. But I do have the hope, because of Christmas, that even though sinful people do terrible sinful things to other people, that this world is not it. It gets better. There is more to life than what’s here on Earth. There is more to life than than what we see around us. So when I see tragedy like that. My heart breaks. And I long to see the return of the king who came 2000 years ago as a baby. When he comes to conquer sin and death, and to show us that hope that we have of a better life, of a better future. That’s what Christmas is. It doesn’t give us all the answers to every situation. And I don’t know how to to answer the grieving heart of those parents. But I do know that Christ came to give us hope that we can have life after this life, because he has reconciled to himself all things. Through the blood of his cross. And I don’t know where this hits you today. Um, but for me, just in the the few hours of time I got to study. Um, it was a real slap in the face.
Um, working in retail, a lot of times, uh, Christmas just becomes a pain in the butt because it’s busy and everybody always wants, um, something. And it’s. It can be a headache. Um, and I’ve really kind of. This year, usually when Christmas comes around, like Thanksgiving night at 1201, I’m like, Christmas music is on, the lights are up, the tree is up, and I’m pumped about Christmas. But this year I don’t I don’t know what it was, but there was something that was just kind of off Christmas. It’s that time of year again where we got to pretend like it’s the most wonderful time of the year, and we sing songs and okay, it’s Christmas. Um, but then as I started to really study God was like, are you kidding me? You used to limit me to this one month and a half span to say that I’m the reason. And now you’ve not even done that. You’ve just kind of brushed me aside. So I don’t know where this hits you today, but for me, it was a real gut check. So if nobody else got anything out of it, I can tell you that, uh, God has really opened my eyes to a lot of a lot of stuff in my life. And as a church, we need to make sure that Jesus is the reason for more than just this Christmas season. He’s more than just a baby who came. He is God. He loved us and he gave himself for us. That’s what Christmas is about. That’s what it’s all about.