So, Lord, give us your blessing here tonight. Grateful just to be able to assemble. We recognize that these are strange times that we're living in, but we are very grateful people here. Most of us here have escaped this dreadful plague, and we're hoping, Lord, to get through the next number of months until hopefully this all dissipates. We know, Lord, that your hand is upon all things, and things really are happening rapidly, and we're grateful for that. And Lord, we promise not to complain. So you help us, Lord, as we endure whatever little hardships we have to go through, remembering that there are people in third world countries who would be glad to have the comforts and abilities that we all possess here. So we're just, we're here to thank you, Lord, and to celebrate the greatest event in human history, the entry of God, the invisible, immortal, eternal God, coming to earth in a fleshly form. Amazing, and we're here to praise you for that and to meditate on that. It's the best way to begin this season, Lord. So, you help us and bless us, we pray. Bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. Well, we know what happens next. Of course, the entire panoramic view from the mount's right, kind of overlooking Jerusalem, and then it was suddenly filled with angels. And the word suddenly here means they just burst out of nowhere and light up the entire field. I'm sure only the shepherds were allowed to see it. They were tuned into that frequency. So suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and goodwill toward men. The angel said unto them, fear not. So the prince of peace has come to be our savior. We have a savior that's been born to redeem us from all of our iniquity. And so this message is the message of God visiting earth in a fleshly form. It is quite an amazing, miraculous thing, and there's no way really to humanly frame this miracle. It's all a matter of faith, to understand the virgin birth, to understand the glorious, sinless life of Christ, to understand the magnificent way that He laid down His life in sacrificial love for us. And then, of course, on the third day to rise again from the dead, there is no human syntax that can describe what God has done for us. So we encapsulate it in a single word, theologically, and we call that incarnation. Incarnation just means that he's taken a fleshly form. He's incarnate and has come here to dwell among us. John 1.1 says, In the beginning was the Word, but the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was with God in the beginning, and all things were made by Him. Without Him was not anything made that was made, and Him was life. And the life was the light of men, and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not." And then he skipped down to that 14th verse and tells us, "...the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We bailed His glory, the glories of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." So it truly is miraculous. God in the flesh. He's come here to meet with us, to live our life. And the ways that we have failed Him and erred in so many ways, He lived it in a perfect way in pleasing the Father in all things. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Now, when we get into the deep mysteries of this incarnation, we'd have to go to the second chapter of Hebrews, and in it we find we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man. Now we understand the whole nature of it, kind of again just in a single verse here, the incarnation, the doctrine of God coming down here in a fleshly form, being made lower than the angels in the sense of principality and priority. But why did he do this? Why did he take a fleshly form? And the scripture tells us it became him for whom are all things and by whom are all things. In bringing many sons to glory, that's us. In redeeming us, in other words, to bring us to glory one day. To make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering. So, here he comes in our place, the great high priest from heaven who has come now to be tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin. Becomes what every man should have been, what Adam should have been in all of Adam's generation. We all have failed and come short of that glory, but Jesus comes and shows us how to do it and lives the life the way you and I must, by the way, in the same way, tempted as I am and as you are, but the great difference is he never once yields to Satan's temptations. So the way to understand this in a pictorial form or a time graph, so to speak, this passage we see Jesus made a little lower than the angels. Now I'm using here just a Greek word, kenosis, and the word simply means he empties himself. So he comes here intentionally laying aside all of the abiliments of heaven and all the royal titles that belong to him rightfully and were his from eternity past. He lays all that aside in the sense of he does not access its privilege. He never ceases being God, even while in gestation. He is still very God of very God. But he comes here in this lowly form, below the angels in order, and comes here as we must, and does so to suffer the death that we must suffer. and thus crowned with glory and honor because he's raised the third day incorruptibly. And he does this in our behalf. So he descended also and also ascended above the heavens that he might fill all things. Here we have, if you put all these verses together, Christ being born, self-emptying, kenosis, he comes down, says, I'm going to pour myself into a finite beaker of life. I'm going to experience life the way you do, even in the womb, and come out and go through all of maturation process. All of this, we stand in awe of this. This is the eternal, infinite God, does not have to do this, but intentionally does it so that he can say he tasted life as we did. Then he walks the perfect life for 30 years, is baptized at the River Jordan. John announces him to be the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. He thereby embarks upon his earthly ministry of three and a half years, in which many miracles, signs, and wonders were done by him, all of which validated that he was indeed the Messiah from God, the appointed one. So he goes, of course, to his own, and his own received him not, and they crucified him. They put him on the cross. But three days and three nights he rises from the dead, ascends up to heaven, and then he comes back that same night, what we call Easter evening, and then he communes with his brethren for 40 days and teaches them, and it's a glorious lesson time for them all. And then, just as the scripture tells us, And this again, you almost have the whole gospel condensed into a single verse here, truncated to a 316, another 316 that I think is very important. So without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. And the word there simply means godliness in the sense of God becoming man. God was manifest in the flesh. justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, that would include all of us, and believed on in the world, and then received up into glory. So after the 40 days and 40 nights he ascends back up where he takes his place at the right hand of God where he is tonight celebrating Christmas as we here on earth he is in heaven. Now I didn't include the final arrow which means he's coming back again in glory and he's going to come back as King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Now Hebrews 2 even goes a little deeper than what I gave you. There are more passages involved. For as much as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same. So again, this is the mystery of incarnation, the nature that God becomes man. And we have the infusion in the spirit, the eternal spirit of God, this fleshly nature. So it's conjoined to his already eternal perfect nature. And so these two natures normally we would consider contrary to the other. And yet now they're galvanized together in the man, Christ Jesus. So the children, us, were partakers of flesh and blood. He also, himself, likewise, all of that indicates he did this without compulsion. It wasn't anybody forcing him to do this. He did it willingly. I must say, he did it lovingly and mercifully. There was no other way for us to escape the damnation of hell fire. And those that mock hellfire one day may find themselves in it. But this eternal God is going to judge, and He's going to judge swiftly and righteously in the last hour. Be sure you're under the blood here tonight. So, He likewise, through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil. and to deliver them who through fear of death, that's us, were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the form of angels, or the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham, he became flesh again. Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be named like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and a faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, that he might make reconciliation for the sins of the people, Oh, what a difference that is. And that's what the gift is, beloved. That's what the gift of Christmas is all about. God making reconciliation for my sin debt. And he has written across that, forgiven of all your iniquities. For in him, in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor or help them that are tempted. Again, there are other places in the scripture that point to this nature of the incarnation, certainly here in Philippians 2, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself. of no reputation, took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Isn't that a glory? No wonder when we sing, oh come let us adore him, right? Christ the Lord, even the death of the cross, Wherefore God hath also highly exalted him, the resurrection, the ascension, and given him a name which is above every name. Now they curse his name. The unbelievers of this world will mock God and curse God, but we glorify that name. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. We call this, well, if you want to use high and mighty terms, hypostatic union, right? Write all that down so you can have good definitions, right? Hypostatic. So what is hypostatic? Well, okay, so we're putting two contrary natures together in union. And so naturally, hypo and static, they're almost, they're oxymoronic. So you put them together, hypostatic union. We've got God and man commingled, the mystery of godliness it's called, the two natures, the divine and the human residing in one person, Jesus Christ, completely human and divine. You can use that just as a modified definition of what we're celebrating tonight. So it's said, of course, throughout the scripture the word became flesh. and dwelt among us." Now, the passage we already saw in 1st Timothy 3.16, that God was manifest in the flesh, very simple sentence there, but, oh, listen, the depths of its profundity. There's no scholar that can get to the bottom of that simple phrase, God manifest in the flesh. And Luke tells us, of course, in the account of the Magnificat when he's announcing this to Mary, therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. So as you're reading your Bibles, you begin to see this hypostatic union. In other words, you see God and man sometimes reflected almost in the same breath, almost in the same lines of Scripture. You'll notice when they're on the boat there, the sea is rocking them to and fro. They're about to sink. Peter, James, and John were born on the sea. They've certainly seen terrible storms before, but nothing like this one. They were frightened. To death they were frightened. They awaken the master. So now we find that the master, as a man, just like the rest of us, we have to sleep, don't we? Now, you don't have to sleep while I'm preaching. But some of you get used to that, right? But he was asleep during a storm, which is, of course, rather difficult with the water crashing into the thunder and the lightning and the wind. But he has perfect peace. All is in the hands of the Lord. There's no reason ever really to worry about anything in our lives. So as a man, he has to sleep. But as a God, They woke him up, said, Master, don't you care that we perish? And he arose. And he rebuked the wind and the raging of the waters. And he said, and they ceased. And there was a calm. He said, peace, be still. That was the end of that. We find him in John chapter 11. His friends, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. But the message was sent out. He whom thou lovest, Lazarus, is sick. And then Lazarus, well, he dies. Jesus comes four days late. If the huts had been here, our brother would not have died. Both Mary and Martha had rehearsed that complaint. And Jesus said, where is he? Take me to the tomb. They take him to the tomb, and he groaned in the spirit. As a man would, he wept. He wept because he felt the loss. And as I will, as you will, anybody that we love, it hurts us. It grieves us. And some people even foolishly disbelieve in God because he didn't keep or preserve somebody's life, which he never promised to do in this world. But as God, the hypostatic union, the God nature in Christ. He was able to stand right in front of the tomb and say, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth. You know, he was hungry one day and he was coming into Jerusalem. He saw the fig tree, a type of Israel, but no fruit on it. Leaves, but no fruit. It was, as a man, he hungered. But as a God, he cursed the fig tree. And when they came back that same day, they saw that it was taken right down to the ground. So, and there are some other illustrations here as you go through your Bible you'll certainly find them and everywhere you look you might be looking for that anytime Jesus is in some sort of a circumstance. You can probably find the humanity and you can find the divinity and sometimes they're so well blended together you can't tell the difference. And I would have to say the greatest moment is when, as a man, he experienced death. First, second, third century Gnostics rejected the notion that Christ was divine. They said because the immortal is immortal, he can't die. And so they rejected the notion that Jesus was God. They do this to their own damnation, by the way. But he was, in fact, he was just submitting himself to the experience that all of us must experience, death itself. If he was going to extract the stinger from death, he had to go through death. Remember in Hebrews 2, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. And so, yet rising from the dead, he proves himself divine, doesn't he? So, great illustrations of God becoming like us, becoming flesh. So if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, the good news is thou shalt be saved. And God who came here at a point in time and surrendered to a certain degree of finiteness Remember and never forget who he actually was. He was of the Old Testament called El Olam. Olamic means to be everlasting. It is a Hebrew expression, Olam. And the everlasting God is seen, of course, the first time that name is revealed in Genesis 21, but the nature of this everlasting God is seen throughout the scripture, but it's applied to the Son of God in Micah chapter 5. Thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me, that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." And so Isaiah, when he used the expression in Isaiah 9.6, unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, The government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. I'll close with this story. The man to whom I'm going to introduce you to was not a scrooge. He was a kind, he was a decent man, mostly. Generous, certainly, to his family. Provided for them, protected them. Upright in all of his dealings with other men. But, he just didn't believe all that incarnation stuff, which the churches proclaim every Christmas. It just didn't make sense. It wasn't rational. And he wasn't about to pretend otherwise. He just couldn't swallow the Jesus story about God coming to earth as a man. And so, Christmas Eve, he said to his wife and his daughter, I'm truly sorry to distress you, but I'm not going with you to church, to the Christmas service. He said he'd feel like a hypocrite, that he'd much rather just stay at home. And so he stayed at home. And they, they went to the service. Shortly after the family drove away in the car, the snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier, then went back to his fireside chair and just began to read his newspaper. Minutes later, He was startled by a thudding sound. Then another, and then another. Soft, but a thump nonetheless. At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate, he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They'd been caught in the storm. And in a desperate search for shelter, they tried to fly through his large landscape window. Well, he couldn't let those poor creatures die in the snow. So he thought, he remembered that barn, the barn where his children stapled their pony. He thought that would provide a warm shelter if he could just direct the birds to go into it. Well, quickly, he put on a coat and boots, and he tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide, and he turned on the light. But the birds did not come in. Well, he figured maybe some food would entice them. So he hurried back to the house. And he fetched some breadcrumbs and sprinkled them onto the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted, wide-open doorway of the stable. But, to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. Well, he tried catching them. He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them, waving his arms. Instead, they scattered in every direction except into the warm lighted barn. Then he realized they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I must be a stranger. I'm terrifying. I'm a terrifying creature to them. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me, that I'm not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Because any move he made tended to frighten them and even confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him. He thought to himself, if only, if only I could be a bird. I could mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to safe, warm haven to the barn. But I would have to be one of them so they could see and hear and understand. At that moment, the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. He stood there listening to the bells. O come, all ye faithful, listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. And he sank to his knees in the snow and surrendered his heart to Jesus. Let's bow our heads together. Lord, we have to think how beautiful a love you had to us that you would provide a way through all of the darkness. How glad we are that you cared for us enough to provide eternal life. Lord, we look for your blessing here. We must receive this great gift if we hope to spend eternity with you. You became like us. When we first heard of God, we were fearful. We were afraid. We feared, rightly, that there'd be a judgment awaiting us, and so we ran from you. But you decided to come yourself, personally, to become as we are, and to rightly show us the way of life. Thank you for opening the doors of heaven, Lord, and gathering us up. You've gone to prepare a place for us, And if you've gone to prepare a place you said you would come again, receive us unto yourself, that where you are, we might be with you. We thank you for eternal life, what a gift. Help every person in this room to understand it tonight, and to embrace with all of their heart the gift of God, eternal life. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.