St Theodore's

Wattle Park

Sermon of the Week
Look up the passage

25/12/05

A Word from Our Sponsor Heb 1:1-4
John 1:1-14

There always seems to be some sort of controversy this time of the year about Christmas plays at schools and kindergartens; about Christmas carols being played at shopping malls, etc. Mind you no-one minds that we want to keep Christmas Day as a public holiday, but the forces of political correctness are so concerned that we don't upset those whose religious beliefs might be different from ours.

There seems to be an idea that if we celebrate a Christian festival like Christmas then we're being exclusive. There's even the suggestion that it's arrogant of Christians to want to parade our beliefs in public as though they're the only ones that are true, that our claim that Jesus' birth was God appearing among us in human form denies the validity of other religions. After all, aren't all religions the same? Don't they all claim some sort of divine origin, divine inspiration?

It's true that most religions would claim to have received an understanding of their faith through divine intervention of some sort. So, for example, the Jews claim to have received their faith through Moses, through the prophets, through the writings of their great spiritual leaders of the past; Sikhs claim to have received their religion by divine inspiration; Mormonism came about through a direct revelation to Joseph Smith; and of course Islam was given through Mohammed who claimed to have received the words of the Qur'an by direct dictation.

But that just leaves us with an even bigger question. The question isn't whether we should celebrate Christmas, but why should we follow Christianity at all. Is ours just one of the world's great religions, no better or worse than any other, or is our claim to uniqueness justified? Are we Christians just being arrogant in suggesting that Christianity is the only way to God? Is there any justification for setting aside a public holiday so we can remember the birth of Jesus Christ, thus depriving a whole host of businesses of another days profit?

Well the answer to that question lies in our reading today. You see while Christianity does claim similar origins to those other religions in one respect, what we discover here in Heb 1 is that it's vastly different from any other. Listen to the first verse of Heb 1: "Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets." In that sense it's not so different is it? While it differs markedly from those animist religions that arise from people's observation of the world, its origins to that point are identical to Judaism. The prophets he speaks of are Jewish prophets, speaking to Jewish people.

But then he goes on: "²but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son." Here is something absolutely different. This isn't God speaking through an intermediary. This is God speaking directly to us in the person of his Son. John puts it like this: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." He describes him as being the eternal Word, the Word that spoke at creation, through whom all things were created, the Word that was God; the Word by whom God communicates with us his creatures. This Jesus whose birth we celebrate today is God's own Son, God speaking directly to us.

So the writer to the Hebrews says "²but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds." This isn't just different, it's amazing! How can this child, lying so weak and defenseless in a cow's feeding trough be the same Son of God through whom all the worlds were created? Yet that's what we're told is the case. This child, small and insignificant as he may appear, is "the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being" (v3).

One of the common features of the religions of the world is that God is unseen. No-one has ever seen God. There are plenty of representations of God of course. Most religions, apart from those that derive from the Judeo-Christian tradition, use pictures or carvings to represent God, but I don't think any of them would ever claim that that was what God actually looked like. No, no-one has ever seen God. Yet the sort of questions that have occupied the minds of religious people throughout the ages have been ones like, "what is God like?" particularly his glory and majesty, and how can we get close to him? New age proponents today are big on suggesting ways to get in touch with God, usually the god within you; people have made all sorts of attempts to describe what God might be like, or what it might be like to stand in God's presence. But here we find that it's finally happened. Jesus has shown us God's glory. John 1 tells us that "¹⁴The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth."

The pages of the gospels paint a picture of Jesus that gives us in turn a picture of God. As John 1 tells us "¹⁸No-one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known." What an amazing thing! That God would make himself known, not just by speaking to us through prophets and such, but by coming himself in the form of Jesus.

Notice too, that not only is Jesus the one who created the world, but we're told he also "sustains all things by his powerful word." I'm not going to get into a debate today on intelligent design vs evolution, but it's true to say that most scientists today would hold to some sort of a mechanistic view of the universe. That is, we think of the universe as being governed by certain immutable laws and principles. It's as though the universe works something like clockwork. Everything beats to a certain rhythm. Even a mechanism like evolution can be defined and quantified if you try hard enough. But what we're told here is that this isn't some random relationship going on between inanimate objects, but the sustaining work of God's Son, keeping all things operating as God designed them to be.

Then he goes on. Jesus doesn't only show God's glory. He doesn't just sustain the universe by his powerful word. He also does what's necessary to bring us, his people, back to God and into his presence without fear.

I guess most religions have an awareness of the frailty and fallenness of human nature. Most religions have some sort of system of atonement for sins. Some do this through sacrifice or offerings to their god/s. Others deal with it through a belief in reincarnation where a person returns to live one life after another until they slowly perfect themselves to the point where they're ready to join God in their equivalent of heaven. But none of them provide a solution to the evil and wickedness we see in the world around us. None provide a way to change the human heart. None, that is, apart from Christianity. Jesus has made purification for our sins. That is, he's wiped us clean. Our sins are taken away and we're left pure once more.

You wouldn't be in much doubt about the wickedness of the world after the last couple of weeks of rioting in Sydney, would you? How is it that people living in a land as rich and prosperous as ours, with such a long history of multiculturalism, could be so hard hearted as to act the way those people did last week? If that can happen in Australia it's no wonder that other parts of the world, where life is a lot tougher, have their problems, is it!? But of course people act like that in smaller ways all the time, don't they? Even if it isn't as obvious as that, everyone of us is guilty of self-centredness, of party spirit, of anger, of pride, of envy, of greed.

So how can this evil in the world be overcome? How can this evil in our own natures be taken away? Well, we're told Jesus has made purification for our sins. So at one level, there's forgiveness made possible by Jesus' death on the cross. But it actually goes deeper than that. You see if it were just God saying don't worry, I forgive you. It'll be all right. Like when someone breaks one of your favourite dinner plates, or scratches your new car, then the basic problem wouldn't have been overcome, would it? Let's face it, all of us are just going to make the same mistakes over and over again if that's all there is to it. No, when we read that Jesus has made purification for sins it means all sins. What this world needs is for sin to be wiped away completely; for all the impurity in the world to be cleansed, for the world to be totally purified from the stain of sin. And that's what Jesus has done. His death means that all the sin in the world can now be wiped away. What's more it means that we can be remade, brought back to life, made fit to serve God again.

We saw this last week when we read in 1 John 3 that God has made us his children by filling us with his Spirit to remake us in his image.

What's more as a result of Jesus' death and resurrection we look forward to a day when the whole earth will be remade as a fit dwelling place for God and his people. This is how Rev 21 puts it: "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. ²And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; ⁴he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.' ⁵And the one who was seated on the throne said, 'See, I am making all things new.'"

God will renew his creation. He'll remove evil and suffering from the world when Jesus returns. And the proof that this'll happen, that Jesus has achieved what he came to do, is that death couldn't hold him. Having made purification for sins, "he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, ⁴having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs."

Jesus' sitting at the Father's right hand carries both the idea of his sovereignty: he can sit beside the Father because he's an equal; and of the fact that his job is now finished. There's nothing more to be done. All that's left is for the final day to come when God will bring all his plans to completion.

In the meantime there's something that we need to do. Listen to what John 1:12 says: "¹²To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God." The thing we have to do is to receive him, to believe in his name. God has sent his Son to live among us, but we need to make sure that we receive him as the Son of God.

This message of Christmas is indeed unique, because it's a message that's delivered personally, direct from God, our Lord and maker, the one who created and sustains the universe. God gives us the opportunity to hear him and respond, not to an impersonal message brought by a prophet, but through a personal encounter with his only Son, Jesus Christ.

That image of Jesus lying in the manger isn't just a cute symbol of peace on earth or of the loving God that we worship. The majority of people in our world would prefer it if that were all he were. Gentle Jesus, meek and mild is not a problem. But when we proclaim him as the only Son of God, as the Lord of creation, as the Way, the Truth and the Life, as the one who came to bring us back to God through faith in his name, then we get into trouble. But you see, the Christ child lying in the manger is actually a reminder to us that we need to renew our commitment to God and to his Son Jesus Christ. It's an invitation for all of us to welcome him into our lives, our work, our homes, our relationships; to ask him again to form the foundation of everything we do.

That's the challenge for us this Christmas morning.

Lets pray that Jesus Christ may be the centre of our life, of our worship, of our service of God in the year to come.

Lord God, help us to welcome Jesus today as Lord of our lives. Help us to invite him in, every day, to rule over our lives, our work, our homes, our relationships, so his light might shine through us, to the glory of your name. Amen.

Contact us

Check our Mission Statement

Our Mission Strategy

Our 5-Year Plan

Preaching Program

Home



Last Week's Sermon



Index of Sermons

Receive each week's
sermon by email

	Sermon of the Week	Look up the passage
	25/12/05
	A Word from Our Sponsor	Heb 1:1-4 John 1:1-14

	There always seems to be some sort of controversy this time of the year about Christmas plays at schools and kindergartens; about Christmas carols being played at shopping malls, etc. Mind you no-one minds that we want to keep Christmas Day as a public holiday, but the forces of political correctness are so concerned that we don't upset those whose religious beliefs might be different from ours.
	There seems to be an idea that if we celebrate a Christian festival like Christmas then we're being exclusive. There's even the suggestion that it's arrogant of Christians to want to parade our beliefs in public as though they're the only ones that are true, that our claim that Jesus' birth was God appearing among us in human form denies the validity of other religions. After all, aren't all religions the same? Don't they all claim some sort of divine origin, divine inspiration?
	It's true that most religions would claim to have received an understanding of their faith through divine intervention of some sort. So, for example, the Jews claim to have received their faith through Moses, through the prophets, through the writings of their great spiritual leaders of the past; Sikhs claim to have received their religion by divine inspiration; Mormonism came about through a direct revelation to Joseph Smith; and of course Islam was given through Mohammed who claimed to have received the words of the Qur'an by direct dictation.
	But that just leaves us with an even bigger question. The question isn't whether we should celebrate Christmas, but why should we follow Christianity at all. Is ours just one of the world's great religions, no better or worse than any other, or is our claim to uniqueness justified? Are we Christians just being arrogant in suggesting that Christianity is the only way to God? Is there any justification for setting aside a public holiday so we can remember the birth of Jesus Christ, thus depriving a whole host of businesses of another days profit?
	Well the answer to that question lies in our reading today. You see while Christianity does claim similar origins to those other religions in one respect, what we discover here in Heb 1 is that it's vastly different from any other. Listen to the first verse of Heb 1: "Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets." In that sense it's not so different is it? While it differs markedly from those animist religions that arise from people's observation of the world, its origins to that point are identical to Judaism. The prophets he speaks of are Jewish prophets, speaking to Jewish people.
	But then he goes on: "²but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son." Here is something absolutely different. This isn't God speaking through an intermediary. This is God speaking directly to us in the person of his Son. John puts it like this: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." He describes him as being the eternal Word, the Word that spoke at creation, through whom all things were created, the Word that was God; the Word by whom God communicates with us his creatures. This Jesus whose birth we celebrate today is God's own Son, God speaking directly to us.
	So the writer to the Hebrews says "²but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds." This isn't just different, it's amazing! How can this child, lying so weak and defenseless in a cow's feeding trough be the same Son of God through whom all the worlds were created? Yet that's what we're told is the case. This child, small and insignificant as he may appear, is "the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being" (v3).
	One of the common features of the religions of the world is that God is unseen. No-one has ever seen God. There are plenty of representations of God of course. Most religions, apart from those that derive from the Judeo-Christian tradition, use pictures or carvings to represent God, but I don't think any of them would ever claim that that was what God actually looked like. No, no-one has ever seen God. Yet the sort of questions that have occupied the minds of religious people throughout the ages have been ones like, "what is God like?" particularly his glory and majesty, and how can we get close to him? New age proponents today are big on suggesting ways to get in touch with God, usually the god within you; people have made all sorts of attempts to describe what God might be like, or what it might be like to stand in God's presence. But here we find that it's finally happened. Jesus has shown us God's glory. John 1 tells us that "¹⁴The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth."
	The pages of the gospels paint a picture of Jesus that gives us in turn a picture of God. As John 1 tells us "¹⁸No-one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known." What an amazing thing! That God would make himself known, not just by speaking to us through prophets and such, but by coming himself in the form of Jesus.
	Notice too, that not only is Jesus the one who created the world, but we're told he also "sustains all things by his powerful word." I'm not going to get into a debate today on intelligent design vs evolution, but it's true to say that most scientists today would hold to some sort of a mechanistic view of the universe. That is, we think of the universe as being governed by certain immutable laws and principles. It's as though the universe works something like clockwork. Everything beats to a certain rhythm. Even a mechanism like evolution can be defined and quantified if you try hard enough. But what we're told here is that this isn't some random relationship going on between inanimate objects, but the sustaining work of God's Son, keeping all things operating as God designed them to be.
	Then he goes on. Jesus doesn't only show God's glory. He doesn't just sustain the universe by his powerful word. He also does what's necessary to bring us, his people, back to God and into his presence without fear.
	I guess most religions have an awareness of the frailty and fallenness of human nature. Most religions have some sort of system of atonement for sins. Some do this through sacrifice or offerings to their god/s. Others deal with it through a belief in reincarnation where a person returns to live one life after another until they slowly perfect themselves to the point where they're ready to join God in their equivalent of heaven. But none of them provide a solution to the evil and wickedness we see in the world around us. None provide a way to change the human heart. None, that is, apart from Christianity. Jesus has made purification for our sins. That is, he's wiped us clean. Our sins are taken away and we're left pure once more.
	You wouldn't be in much doubt about the wickedness of the world after the last couple of weeks of rioting in Sydney, would you? How is it that people living in a land as rich and prosperous as ours, with such a long history of multiculturalism, could be so hard hearted as to act the way those people did last week? If that can happen in Australia it's no wonder that other parts of the world, where life is a lot tougher, have their problems, is it!? But of course people act like that in smaller ways all the time, don't they? Even if it isn't as obvious as that, everyone of us is guilty of self-centredness, of party spirit, of anger, of pride, of envy, of greed.
	So how can this evil in the world be overcome? How can this evil in our own natures be taken away? Well, we're told Jesus has made purification for our sins. So at one level, there's forgiveness made possible by Jesus' death on the cross. But it actually goes deeper than that. You see if it were just God saying don't worry, I forgive you. It'll be all right. Like when someone breaks one of your favourite dinner plates, or scratches your new car, then the basic problem wouldn't have been overcome, would it? Let's face it, all of us are just going to make the same mistakes over and over again if that's all there is to it. No, when we read that Jesus has made purification for sins it means all sins. What this world needs is for sin to be wiped away completely; for all the impurity in the world to be cleansed, for the world to be totally purified from the stain of sin. And that's what Jesus has done. His death means that all the sin in the world can now be wiped away. What's more it means that we can be remade, brought back to life, made fit to serve God again.
	We saw this last week when we read in 1 John 3 that God has made us his children by filling us with his Spirit to remake us in his image.
	What's more as a result of Jesus' death and resurrection we look forward to a day when the whole earth will be remade as a fit dwelling place for God and his people. This is how Rev 21 puts it: "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. ²And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; ⁴he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.' ⁵And the one who was seated on the throne said, 'See, I am making all things new.'"
	God will renew his creation. He'll remove evil and suffering from the world when Jesus returns. And the proof that this'll happen, that Jesus has achieved what he came to do, is that death couldn't hold him. Having made purification for sins, "he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, ⁴having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs."
	Jesus' sitting at the Father's right hand carries both the idea of his sovereignty: he can sit beside the Father because he's an equal; and of the fact that his job is now finished. There's nothing more to be done. All that's left is for the final day to come when God will bring all his plans to completion.
	In the meantime there's something that we need to do. Listen to what John 1:12 says: "¹²To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God." The thing we have to do is to receive him, to believe in his name. God has sent his Son to live among us, but we need to make sure that we receive him as the Son of God.
	This message of Christmas is indeed unique, because it's a message that's delivered personally, direct from God, our Lord and maker, the one who created and sustains the universe. God gives us the opportunity to hear him and respond, not to an impersonal message brought by a prophet, but through a personal encounter with his only Son, Jesus Christ.
	That image of Jesus lying in the manger isn't just a cute symbol of peace on earth or of the loving God that we worship. The majority of people in our world would prefer it if that were all he were. Gentle Jesus, meek and mild is not a problem. But when we proclaim him as the only Son of God, as the Lord of creation, as the Way, the Truth and the Life, as the one who came to bring us back to God through faith in his name, then we get into trouble. But you see, the Christ child lying in the manger is actually a reminder to us that we need to renew our commitment to God and to his Son Jesus Christ. It's an invitation for all of us to welcome him into our lives, our work, our homes, our relationships; to ask him again to form the foundation of everything we do.
	That's the challenge for us this Christmas morning.
	Lets pray that Jesus Christ may be the centre of our life, of our worship, of our service of God in the year to come.
	Lord God, help us to welcome Jesus today as Lord of our lives. Help us to invite him in, every day, to rule over our lives, our work, our homes, our relationships, so his light might shine through us, to the glory of your name. Amen.

St Theodore's

Wattle Park

Contact us

Check our Mission Statement

Our Mission Strategy

Our 5-Year Plan

Preaching Program

Home

Last Week's Sermon

Index of Sermons

Receive each week's sermon by email

Receive each week's
sermon by email