I'd like you to turn to the gospel of...you know, I'm supposed to tell you right now to turn to Matthew or Luke, but we've been together, for those of you who've been with us for a while, we've been together for 20 years, and we've done all that, right? So I'd like you to turn to the gospel of John 1. We're going to be in verses 1 through 18. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness about Him and cried out. This was He of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me, because He was before me. From His fullness, we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, the only God, who is at the Father's side. He has made him known. The word of the Lord, brothers and sisters. Contrary to popular opinion, I love the Christmas story. I know I've stood up here several years and kind of debunked some of the myths that surround the Christmas story. You know, those myths are okay. If you want to think that the three wise men showed up in Bethlehem the night Jesus was died, I'm okay with that. If you want to think that there were just these gentle candle and lambies and that sort of thing, I'm okay with that. But the Christmas story captures us, doesn't it? There's something, it just kind of tugs on the strings of our heart. And whatever way we look at it, there's something about this day that causes us all to kind of pause and take a breath. And we all focus, you know, you've got the little manger scenes, you've got the nativities and all that, we all focus on Bethlehem. and what happened that night in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago. But I'm here today to tell you, Christmas story doesn't start in Bethlehem. That's not where it starts. Most folks think that the Christmas story starts somewhere around the first century AD, AD 1, AD 3, AD 5. That's when Jesus was born. Really? I mean, do we really think that that's when the Christmas story starts? The truth is, by the first century AD, the Christmas story was already ancient. How ancient was it? Well, it's pretty ancient. I want to show you why it's important. We're going to talk about this a little bit this week. Now we're going to talk a little bit more next week. Why it's important to know your Bible. If you're serious about who you are as a Christian, if you want the type of relationship that we just saw in Colossians, that sanctifying intimate relationship. It all begins with reading our Bibles. And only then, once we read our Bibles, can we begin to explore the incredible depth of the Scripture. And as we do, they begin to impact our daily lives. And the more they impact our daily lives, they begin to minister to our hearts. And what I'm talking about is they begin to bring us hope. They begin to bring us vision for the future. They give us a way to navigate. They give us a way to navigate the ups and downs of life, to make it through the long, dark night of the soul, to deal with those unexpected things that bring us grief or pain. And they give us a way to do all that in this life, while we eagerly await the next life. So what we need to understand is that the Bible isn't a collection of books. I hear that. Oh, there are 66 books in the Bible, depending on how you break them down, I guess. It's a book. It's meant to be read in its entirety. You know, people tell me, well, you know, I read the Psalms. Great. That's fantastic. My favorite book in the Bible is Nobody Ever Said Joke. But I need to ask you. Somebody hands you a book to read. I just gave some to Jen. You read one chapter and then go, I think I know the whole thing. Do you read a chapter at the beginning and one in the middle and maybe one at the end, and now I can write my book report? That's what we did in school, wasn't it? And the teacher always knew. None of us would like to think that we read the whole book just by reading a few chapters here and there. We would never understand what the book says. To get the full story, we need to read the whole book. I recommend you do it in an orderly fashion. But when we do that, when we make a practice of ingesting the Bible on a daily basis, we get a fuller picture of what God is trying to say to us. And we begin to see themes. We begin to see phrases that pop up over and over again. And we begin to see threads that run through the entire Bible, holding everything together and making it into one big story. And we learn about God. He's the author. He inspired it. 40 authors, some authors over 1,700 years, one big story spans eons, culture, language, one story. Now, the Christmas story is one of those threads, not a new chapter, not just the beginning of the New Testament. Certainly not a change in God's plan. It was part of God's plan all along, part of the book that tells God's entire story. So this sermon is The Word Became Flesh. And let me show you what I'm talking about. In this passage, we're going to see three elements of that story. We're going to look at the word in verses 1 through 5 of John 1. We'll look at the witness in verses 6 through 8. And then we will look at the world in verses 9 through 18. So let's take a look at this word. If you don't have your Bibles open, turn to Genesis 1. If you do have your Bibles open, turn to Genesis 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That's familiar. But I want you to stop and just ingest this for a moment. Think about it. God created. We know that. How did he create? He created by speaking. Created by, watch this, by using words. God's word. The agent of creation, the means of creation were God's words. The ever so subtle hint about how God is going to function in relation to his creation. One of those recurring themes that I talked about. God creates with his word. The next hint we get comes two chapters later. Now, by then, God had created a garden, put a man and a woman in it. Don't let them do anything they want. I'll give you everything you need, except eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The woman bites the forbidden fruit. gives it to the man, he eats it too. God confronts him and then this happens in Genesis chapter 3. He curses the snake in verse 14. Snake is the serpent, is the devil. Then in verse 15, God says to the serpent, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. Now with that, the man and the woman are banned from the garden. They're ejected. And even in this dark hour, we see two incredible blessings. The first blessing is that the evil that came along with what we call the fall is going to, at some point, be defeated. The serpent is going to bruise the offspring of the woman on the heel, And the woman will crush the head of the serpent. Now, the word for crush here means to bruise, means to crush. The serpent, Satan, will at some point be crushed. So that's the first blessing. Evil will be defeated. The second blessing, better look a little bit deeper to see this. Now that these two people have proven to be disobedient, they're removed from the garden. They're ejected. And it's there to prevent them from eating from the second tree. Yeah, there's a second tree right there in the garden. The second one is a tree of life. And that tree gives eternal life. Now we see the fullness of that in verse 22 of Genesis 3. Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Why would God not want these people to live forever? I mean, isn't that the whole gospel eternal life? The problem is they're fallen. They're living in sin. The second blessing is deeper than the first, has to be teased out. They're removed from the garden to keep them from living forever in their sin. Now, this is important because the eviction from the garden shows us that sin separates us from our Father, creates a division. The man and woman have sinned by disobeying God, and God graciously allows them to live and keeps them from living eternally in that state of sin. So we find out there's a tree of life, and it gives eternal life. Now we put the first blessing and the second blessing together here, we see that God reserves a time that the tree of life can be eaten from. Now the fullness of that we don't see until the book of Revelation. In Revelation 2 verse 7, it says, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches, to the one who conquers He's talking about believers. I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in paradise with God. See, the blessings show us that God will eventually provide a way, a way back to the garden, a way to return to that perfection. And that's paradise. The tree of life is still there. You didn't do away with it. There's going to be an appropriate time to eat from the tree of life. OK, good plan, right? How's all this going to happen? Well, we now know that God, just reading the first three chapters of Genesis, we now know that God creates everything by his word. We know that sin separates us from God. We know that God promises that a descendant of Adam and Eve will crush the head of evil. We know that there's a tree of life waiting for those who have fallen, but for now, they can't get to it. It all is from the first three chapters of Genesis. That still leaves us with the question, how's God going to do all that? How will the head of evil be crushed? How will the believer get back to the garden? And how will those believers eat from the tree of life? Now, to get the answer to that, we need to flash forward from Genesis 3, 4,000 years to get to the beginning of the first century AD. Look at how John's gospel begins, John 1, 1, in the beginning. That sound familiar? I mean, weren't those exact words that were in Genesis 1-1, the first phrase? Not a coincidence, not a happenstance, not a new beginning. Keep in mind, these scriptures are inspired by God, who's telling us His story. showing us his way of doing things. And right here, he wants us thinking about creation. He wants us thinking about how everything got started. If you're a Jew back in the first century, you would be familiar enough with the scriptures, the ones that we now know as the Old Testament. that you would immediately begin thinking about the garden, the fall, the promise of crushing evil. And you'd immediately begin thinking about that tree of life. God uses the phrase to set us on the right track towards finding the answer to all those questions about how this is going to work out, how God would do the things that he's promised us to do. And he does it by reminding us of the beginning and how God spoke, using his word, everything into existence. So in the beginning was the word. There it is. God was speaking. And the next phrase is, and the word was with God. It's getting a little tricky now. Was the word with God by virtue of him speaking it? Or could there be something a bit more beautiful here? Is there something else going on? Let me tell you something. There is definitely something else going on. There's definitely something deeper here. Look at what God inspires John to write next. And here comes the game changer. And the Word was God. The Word, God's Word, is one with God. It bears his character and nature. It exhibits his supreme, sovereign authority. God is inextricably united to his word. But there's even more, because the beginning of verse 2 says, he was in the beginning with God. He! This is an incredibly profound revelation. It would be easy to miss, because we're so familiar with it. But look at what it says. It says, he! God's Word is now personified. What we thought initially was just sound vibrations making the air move around us is now physically embodied. The Word of God is a person. That's a radical change in thinking for God's people at this point, first century. Because up until this revelation, God interacted with his children in only two ways. You think about this, you look at your scriptures, you'll see. Either by speaking to them or by revealing his glory to them. People were changed either by the things that were said to them through prophets, dreams, visitations, anointed leaders, or by seeing the glory of God manifest itself. miracles, supernatural occurrence, visions, Theophany's appearances of God, Christophany's appearances of the pre-incarnate Christ. Now we hear that the Word is a person. Well, OK. Who's that person? Don't get too far ahead of me. Look at verse three. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything that was made. That person was there at creation. Physically there. He was the agent through which all creation was formed. And look at this, verse four. In him was what? Life. That sound a little bit like that tree Is God purposely causing us to look back to Genesis chapter 1, 2, and 3? Are we talking about the tree of life? That tree that's up until this point no longer available to mortal men? The tree that can bestow eternal life? Yes, it is. And furthermore, and the life was the light of men. The agent of creation, the personified word of God, the tree that gives life is also light. And that light, brothers and sisters, enables men and women to see. Verse 5, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The light comes into a dark world, a world with no hope of redemption, a world desperate for answers. And the darkness of the world cannot stand against the light. It cannot stand against the personified Word of God. You see what's happening? God is revealing His plan. He's showing how the redeemed that fell are going to be returned to the garden. He's showing his children the way back to the garden. He's showing how he's going to crush the head of Satan. He's going to show his children how they can come back into an unhindered, unfettered relationship with their Father in heaven and give them the gift of the tree of the life. And it's all based on the Word. Then God begins to describe the next couple steps in his plans by describing this witness. Verse 6, there was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness to light. Witness is in there twice. Now, we know that the witness is John the Baptist. Like every other prophet before him, he's a herald of the word. He comes before the word. Because God always, always telegraphs his intention. He always tells us what he's going to do for two reasons. Number one, so that when he does it, we know that it's intentional, that God's not reacting to the situation. He's actually creating a situation and bringing it to a place where it will give Him glory. So He tells us ahead of time these things, and we can look back historically and see how that works, so that we know that God is intentional about everything He does. But He also tells us so that we know that He's intentional about the promises He's given us. He's faithful, steadfast, and true. So God appoints John to proclaim his plan. Everything goes according to God's plan. He's there to announce the person who is the Word. He's there to usher in the light. And before that light comes, John brings a message to the world. Verse 9, the true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. Everybody will understand at some point what the light means. It doesn't mean everybody's going to be saved. It just means that people are going to be without excuses, what Scripture tells us. He was in the world, verse 10, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. We know that. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." We could probably do a whole sermon series on those phrases right there. Matter of fact, I might do that. You guys got anything to do the rest of the day? It's all good and fine. But the mind-blowing element of this story is what we hear next. Verse 14, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. Oh my God. The union of the glory of God and His Word. What we see is the fullness of God's self-revelation. is going to take on flesh. That's kind of mind-boggling. But God doesn't stop there. He explicitly states who that physical body is, who that flesh is, just so that we have no mistake about what's happening here. Verse 15, John bore witness about him and cried out, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me ranks before me because he was before me. From his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth come through Jesus Christ. Come through Jesus Christ. The word becomes flesh. It's Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, the only God, who is at the Father's side. He's made him known. What John's trying to say, you all haven't seen God, but now you will. He's taking on flesh and is going to live among you. Now bend your mind a little bit. God walking through the door, sitting down, Having a sausage roll with you before the service? You really want to blow your mind? He now lives in us. He now lives in us. Oh, this is getting complicated. This whole amazing, miraculous, supernatural story doesn't come into focus until we see that tiny little village in Israel. Not where it starts, but that's where clarity begins. First century A.D., comes through a young girl and her fiance living under extreme rejected circumstances. They're a group of highly unlikely players, isn't it? Tells us something about God right there. So I hope what you can see is that if you know your Bible, all of it, the Christmas story doesn't begin in Bethlehem. Oh, it's a key point. It really is. That little time is just a footnote of the greatest story ever told. And the entire story is there in the Bible. God takes on flesh in the form of a helpless babe, lives among us, and then is rejected by us every step of the way. And still, still, he sacrifices himself to save us, to redeem us, to bring us back into the garden, to invite us to eat from the tree of life, and to live forever. That's the Christmas story. That's the gift that we have this week that we look back upon. Not just a little nativity scene, but God coming down to earth, sacrificing himself, living inside us so that when the resurrection comes, we go with him. God's not going to be standing there going, oh, wait a minute, I forgot somebody. Or, oh, you can't come. You said a bad word when you were eight years old. He's living inside us. If you believe in Jesus Christ, if you believe He's the Son of God, if you've asked forgiveness for your sins, He has come to live inside you. That baby born in that dusty little murky house in that little nondescript village is now living inside you. And He is the Savior of the world. And that story is rampant throughout the entire Bible. And if you're not reading the entire Bible, you're not getting the whole story. How do we lay hold of that life, that eternal life? We believe. We confess and we believe. Look at Mark chapter 1 verse 14. Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God. How do you think he proclaimed that gospel? Yeah, thank you. Words. Yeah, he used words. He was the word. And he uses words to convey that. And saying, the time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. God's Christmas gift to us. Merry Christmas. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the power and the glory revealed in your word. Thank you for that moment in Bethlehem where heaven intersected with earth, where you came down and lived in the filth and the squalor that we've become so accustomed to that we don't even notice it anymore. You endured the pain of living among sinners, not because you tolerated them, but because you loved them. We thank you for the sacrifice you made. We thank you for the eternal life that is offered to those who believe. And I pray, Father, that there's anybody in the sound of my voice that doesn't believe, that they would follow your command to repent, confess of their sin, and to believe that Jesus Christ, the incarnate word, is your son. And we pray this as a Christmas blessing In the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Thank you for joining us online. If anybody would like prayer or would like to talk, I'll be right over here. Thank you.