The Incarnation

I have to say the order of worship, the liturgy we have used this day has just really blessed me. Not only the beauty of the choir and the instrumentalists who have played, but the texts that have been chosen are perfect for what I've been meditating on all week long. So it's with joy and excitement. I bring to you God's word today. Let's start with just a word of prayer and ask God to attend this. God most high, you dwell in light, you are most holy, most glorious, all together majestic. Wonderful and beauty, infinite wisdom and power. You alone created all things through your son who upholds and sustains all things of mercy upon us and grant that in this moment your spirit would give us new insights into your beauty and majesty and glory that we may exalt in Christ Jesus. Until that end, help me to speak clearly and accurately from your word and work in our hearts those things that are pleasing to you that Jesus Christ may be praised in his name we pray. Amen. You'll find the text both on the overhead and on page 10 with the outline on page 11 of your bulletin from the book of Hebrews and the second chapter here as I read to you what God himself would say in his word. But one has testified somewhere saying what is man and that you remember him or the son of man that you are concerned about him. You have made him for a little while lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor and have appointed him over the works of your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet. Now for in subjecting all things to him, he left nothing that is not subject to him. But we do, but now we do not yet see all things subjected to him. But we do see him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely Jesus because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things and bringing many sons to glory to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. For both he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one father for which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will proclaim your name to my brethren. In the midst of the congregation, I will sing your praise. And again, I will put my trust in him, and again, behold, I and the children whom God has given me. Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise also partook of the same. That through death he might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. For assuredly, he does not give help to angels, but he gives help to the descendant of Abraham. Therefore, he had to be made like his brethren in all things, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. We are deep into the holiday season, the Christmas lights are on in most of our neighborhoods at night, some of the various decorations on the corner that I turn on before I get to my home. There's a house with lots of lights and Santa Claus on the roof hanging on, trying to get on top of it, I think, and also a giant grinch that stands at the front door, welcoming people, thought about stealing him. For my house, but I figured that wouldn't be a Christian thing to do, so I asked my son to do it, and he said no, because he's a Christian. Why do we celebrate Christmas? I think of Christmas season and what we see around us, what we may hear in the malls, Andy Williams, it's the most wonderful time of the year, right? And that song just kind of, you can almost hear him with me reading it. I won't try and sing it, I'll just ruin it for you. With the kids jingling, jingle belling and everyone telling you, be of good cheer, it's the most wonderful time of the year. It's the happiest season of all. Is it making you a little nauseous there? With those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings, when friends come to call, it's the happiest season of all. There'll be parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting, and caroling out in the snow and on it goes. It never really speaks of why, just a lot of the nice things we like to do, and so in my studies, I looked a little further in thinking of the Grinch, I read the story again about the Grinch, and you know, he tried to steal Christmas, how the Grinch stole Christmas, and he didn't do a very good job, he only stole the gifts and holiday decorations and all that, and you know the story, perhaps you've seen it, I don't know if it's been on TV yet, or if it's this coming week, but all the who's and who will can sing their who songs, even without the decorations and such, and there's a miraculous conversion, and the Grinch is converted, and he says, maybe Christmas, he thought it doesn't come from a store, maybe Christmas perhaps means a little bit more, and then his conversion story, but no Christ in the story. My favorite kind of family tradition is the Christmas carol, we watch the Muppets version of it, and I read the, or skimmed, I should say the book that Dickens wrote just to check the accuracy, and I'm glad I did, I took something out of my notes from it, but you know they talk about Christmas a lot as well, and what a great season it is, and it's a season for joy and merit to spread the news of peace and keep love alive, and it's not the Holy Spirit, but three spirits that help bring about a conversion experience for old Scrooge, and he's changed, and while the Muppet movie does talk about him who made lame beggars walk and the blind sea, that would be the only reference to Christ, to praying, but that would be the only reference to Christ, so why do we celebrate Christmas? Well, we celebrate Christmas because of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, right? And it's not merely that it's his birthday, and we don't know what day it was born, but we mark that he was born, but the significance is that he came to be made like us, and this morning I want to talk about that, just a bit, the significance of his incarnation, the significance that he came to dwell among us, as one of us, and three simple points. The first one is I want to call you to appreciate the cost to Jesus. As we think about the incarnation, as we think about Jesus coming to earth,

it's easy to get this wrong, there's some who like to sing happy birthday to Jesus, there is in the Czech Republic kind of a perversion of the gospel that is infiltrated the culture so that it's always baby Jesus, it's baby Jesus who gives gifts and baby Jesus never grows up, he's just a baby, he's just a sweet little baby that gives gifts, but I think these things kind of kind of hurt us from appreciating the cost for Jesus to be born, for Christ to come into this world. We've looked during the Advent season about how great he is. If you remember from Hebrews chapter 1, verses 2 and 3, it tells us that in these last days God has spoken to us in his son, whom he appointed, heir of all things through whom he made the world, and we learned that Jesus is the radiance of God's nature, the exact representation of his nature, and he upholds all things by his powerful word. He is glorious, and beautiful, and majestic, and rules, and he did that before he was born. When we celebrate the birth of a child, we think of them in terms of coming into existence, but with our Lord Jesus, he existed beforehand, and it was at great cost that he came down. It was in our liturgy today, who, being in the very form, God did not record equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, how, by taking to himself human likeness and being found in appearance, in the form, in the morph, in the substance, man, appreciate the cost of the humility for the Lord of glory, the Creator, to take on flesh and to dwell among us. It was that theologian said humiliation, humiliation. The Apostle Paul talked about it in Philippians, the Westminster Divines, those theologians, they asked the question, where in did Christ humiliation consist, and the answer is, Christ humiliation consisted in his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, the curse of death of the cross, and being buried and continuing under the power of death, or a time. If we were to ask Jesus about his birth, he may say it was the most humiliating day of my life. All four lovesake, he became four. Appreciate the cost to our Lord Jesus and coming to earth. I just love, I love the peace that choir did. Let me call your attention to it. Let all mortal flesh keep silence and with fear and trembling stand, ponder nothing earthly-minded, for with blessing in his hand, Christ our God to earth descended our full homage to the man.

King of kings, yet born of Mary, as of old on earth, he stood, Lord of lords and human vassager, in the body and the blood, he will give to all the faithful his own self for heavenly food. Rank on, rank the hosts of heaven's spread its vanguard on the way as the light of light descendeth from the realms of endless day, that the powers of hell may vanish as the darkness clears away. At his feet the six-winged serif, cherubim with sleepless eye, veil their faces to the presence, as with ceaseless voice they cry. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, Lord Most High, what a cost to our Lord. That brings us really to the second point, that we should value the necessity of Jesus's birth. Why was he born? Why did he have to come? Why did he humble himself? Why the humiliation of Christ? Well, we know he had to die for sins and he had to die for sins, right? He had to deal with our greatest problem. You know what that is, don't you? Our greatest problem, not only in all the earth, but in the universe, as we've offended a holy God who is just at the core of his being, and he's offended by our sin, and he expresses his holy and just and righteous wrath toward those who have broken his laws and committed cosmic treason. Our greatest problem is the wrath of God. We'll talk about that a little bit more next week when we look specifically at the fact that Jesus came to, as our text tells us in verse 17, make propitiation for sins, or as it says in Hebrews chapter 1, when he made purification for sins, and we'll talk about how Jesus took care of our biggest problem, but as we think about the necessity of the Atonement, I want us to think about our second biggest problem. Let me show you first from the text that it's speaking about the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, right? In verse 14, if you look at the text in verse 14, it's written there for you, therefore since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise also, partook of the same. There it is, he was made like us, and in verse 17, therefore he had to be made like his brother in all things. Therefore, he had to be made like his brother in all things. The necessity is spoken of in that very, verse, he had to be made like his brother in all things. The word we translate, it had to be made like us. The verb construction there is, it's the verb construction from which we get the term debts, like, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, that word debt, when it's put in the verb form, it's to, oh, okay, and in this particular verb construction, it carries that idea, and it carries the idea of an obligation, being under obligation, being under duty, being under necessity. And when the scriptures talk about it in this idea of the necessity of Jesus' birth, the necessity of his being made flesh and blood, partaking in flesh and blood, as we do, is that there was no other way for God to redeem us. Now, God could, as the just judge of all the earth, even though merciful and gracious, he could just say, the hell with him, and that would be the end of the story. The Bible would end with Genesis about 3, 8, 3, 9 right around in there, and that would just be the end of the story. But wanting to display the glory of his grace, wanting to reconcile people to himself, to rescue them, there was no other way. Okay. He couldn't just say, well, you know, I can perceive of sending my son, and, you know, just mentally, that would do it, and because I could do it that way, we don't really have to go through with it. No, that would not be just, according to the scriptures, his justice had to be vindicated. It wasn't enough for him to just decree, I shall forgive, pardon. No, because that would have the justice of God, which again is at the very core of his nature that he's just and righteous. By the way, we want him to be that way. We really do, not toward us, of course, but toward those worst sinners, especially the vile that Hitler is, you know, that type. It became absolutely necessary for him to be born to deal with our greatest problem. And what I might call from this text are, our second greatest problem. And that's what I want to look at a little bit this morning, versus 13 and 14, or 14 and 15, excuse me. Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise also, particularly the same, that, that's a...

God said, I will accept him merely to cover my wrath. You're forgiven. We would still have an insurmountable problem, because our ancient foe would still work to bring us woe, and his craft and power are great, and he is armed with cruel hate, and on earth is not as equal. That's more theology, by the way. This scripture is talking about that, don't they? This is true. Job chapter one is probably one and two anyway, or devastating, as far as the power of Satan. I won't read the text to you, but if you want to look it up later, Job one, 13 to 22, we see that Satan by his power is able to command the storms to come and the wind to blow and destroy fortresses, to bring fire and to destroy crops, and livestock and this sort of stuff, and to enter the savings and cause them to come and slaughter the people and to take plunder and such. We find that his power is great. In Chronicles, we're told that Satan stood up against Israel and incited David to number the people. That's Chronicles 1 Chronicles 211. We remember our Lord's disciple Peter, who loved the Lord, who gave the great testimony. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, and when Jesus told him what he had to do, what was necessary? The God of Jerusalem, the baby trade, crucified, raised on the third day, Peter said, Lord, God forbid that that happened. This shall never happen to you, and you remember Jesus' words to him. Get behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to me, for you are not setting your mind on God's interests. But man, we would still have a problem. We would still have a problem. Satan would demand to sift us like we. Satan would bind us with disease. Satan would continue to accuse before us. Yeah, you were forgiven, but remember your sin. He's the accuser of the brotherhood. And so it was necessary for God to rescue us, to save us, not only from his wrath, but from all our enemies, from the world of the flesh, and the devil. That's what our text tells us, doesn't it? It tells us that that's why one of the reasons why Jesus came, again 14 and 15, that through death he might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and might free those who threw fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. Now if Jesus did that, and his death burial and resurrection, then why are we still dogged by the devil? Why are we told by the Apostle Peter, beyond the alerts, your adversary, the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking whom he made about. Well, I think if we look at our text carefully, there's many clues as to why that is. There is this idea that he will come again, right? From chapter one, it tells us, sit at my, there's the quote from the Psalms, I'm going to sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a foot still for your feet. There is in verse eight. Now we see that not all things are subjected to him, and that fits in well, that Christ is still cocking his enemies. He's won the victory, but it's not done yet. And we have the second Advent, we still look forward to the coming of the Lord when Satan will be thrown into the lake of fire and where his destruction and all gods and our enemies are destroyed forever. But I want us to go to point number three because there's a sense where we wait, we long for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we don't have to wait to find some victory in our lives. Number three is exercise your freedom in Christ Jesus. Paul tells us in Galatians it was for freedom that Christ set us free, therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. There is a freedom that is ours already in Christ. Christ has set us free. He has bound the strong man. And in Christ Jesus, we are set free and beloved brothers and sisters, we have not exercised the full extent of the freedom that Christ has given to us. We still believe the lies even though we have the truth, and there is more freedom for us to enjoy in this life. While we wait the consummation of the ages, Jesus in talking to those who had come to believe John 8, 31 and 32, Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed in him. If you continue in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. There is a freedom in Christ Jesus that is ours. One of the reasons why Paul would say now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church, because there is more that God will do in and through us. Think of the sin you struggle with. Think of the sin you struggle with. What comes to your mind? You know what it is? Is it something you are doing or saying? Is it the pride that so easily entangles your heart? What is the sin you are struggling with? I want to tell you the gospel is powerful and will bring you freedom as you believe the gospel, and you believe the gospel more than that sin has power in your life. It is for freedom that you have been set free, and Christ's death has secured that already. Let me end with 1 Corinthians 15, 30, 53 to 58. This is worth looking up later on as well, although I will read it to you. And 1 Corinthians 15, Paul gives the many gospel in the first few verses. Christ was died and buried and rose again and many witnessed it. And then he begins to speak about the resurrection, and that it is common. And he gives a lot of treatment to that. And toward the end, in verse 53, for this perishable must put on the imperishable, he says, speaking of our bodies that they must be resurrected. Well, I'll read on it, we'll become clear. And this mortal must put on immortality. But when the perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then we'll come about the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. 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. Therefore, my beloved brother, and be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. Brothers and sisters, we have a lot to celebrate. The God who created all things, and incredible humiliation became man and lived for us and died for us and was raised from the dead. Exaltation. And he has taken care of our greatest problem, he's taken care of all of our problems. That's truer than the problems you have.

And so exercise, your liberation, because of the incarnation, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, because you know your toil is not in vain in the Lord. That's pray. We thank you, O Lord Jesus Christ, for your perfect obedience, for your great humiliation and taking on flesh and being made like us, for your incarnation,

and for the freedom that is ours in you. We thank you, and we ask, cast out the dark of doubt, and fill us with the light of your spirit, that believing we may be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in your work, for your glory. Amen.