Rev. David Holwick ZP What We Bring To Christmas, #4
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
December 23, 2007
John 1:1-14
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I. Around the world, this is the season of light.
A. Americans contribute their fair share.
The latest trend is LED lights that are synchronized with
pounding music.
One guy uses 128 channels on a soundboard to blink his
lights ten different ways each second.
When I was a kid in Germany, all the locals would visit the
American housing area to see our Christmas decorations.
The Germans were much too sophisticated for that.
Then again... a couple in Hungary is using 65,000 light bulbs
to decorate their house.
The walls and roof of their house, the fence and bushes in the
garden, as well as wooden silhouettes of snowmen and Santa
Claus are all covered with Christmas lights.
They have been doing it for 15 years.
Kind of sounds like Dover, New Jersey!
B. Light can be dangerous.
Sharon Kirkland of Decatur, Alabama, spends weeks each year
putting up lights around her house.
She even recreates the village of Bedford Falls, Jimmy Stewart's
hometown in the movie "It's A Wonderful Life."
She gets a lot of attention for it.
Last December she more than she bargained for.
Sharon was setting out the final lights when they all went out.
She went to the back to reset them and saw smoke and smelled
wires burning.
In a few minutes she had several fire trucks joining her
audience.
The firemen were very helpful.
They moved many of her interior decorations to the other side
of the house before they pulled her ceiling down.
C. You can't do Christmas without light.
1) But our light displays are pretty superficial.
2) Have you experienced the real light of Christmas?
II. God the Father's light illuminated the future.
A. John's gospel echoes the book of Genesis.
1) "In the beginning..."
a) But actually John reaches back BEFORE the creation
of the physical universe.
b) He highlights Jesus' eternal divinity.
2) Interestingly, the book of Genesis contains the first
prophecy of a Messiah.
a) In Genesis 3:5, God says to Satan:
"I will put enmity between you and the woman, and
between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."
b) Not exactly an equal exchange!
B. God has illuminated the way throughout history.
1) In 1400 BC, Moses predicted his future replacement (the
Messiah) would be a Jew like himself. Deut 18:15
2) In 1000 BC, King David was promised he would always
have a descendant on Israel's throne.
a) Jesus was such a descendent.
b) One hundred years after Jesus' death, no one else
can claim it.
3) In 700 BC, the prophet Micah predicted the Messiah would
be born in the little hamlet of Bethlehem.
4) About the same time, the prophet Isaiah predicted the
Messiah would be born, killed as a sacrifice, and
yet would live again. Isa 53
C. We often wish it were clearer.
1) Many want proof that these events really happened, and that
God is behind it.
2) Jesus faced the same attitude.
a) His response was that, in the end, all you need is
Easter.
b) If people cannot accept the resurrection, nothing else
God can do will convince them.
III. Jesus' light illuminates our souls.
A. John says Jesus' life can be light to us.
1) The teachings of Jesus have amazed people for centuries.
a) Forgiving our enemies.
b) Radical concern for the poor.
c) Total dependence on God for material provision.
2) Even those who don't believe in Jesus are intrigued by him.
a) Gandhi, the great leader of India, loved Jesus.
1> A picture of Jesus was the only picture in his home.
2> Gandhi got his principle of non-retaliation from him.
b) Gandhi may have become a Christian - if it wasn't
for Christians!
3) Consider Jesus' impact on western culture.
a) Militant Atheist Richard Dawkins even describes
himself as a Christian atheist.
b) He loves to sing Christmas carols!
B. You cannot escape the impact Christianity has had on our society.
James Allan Francis wrote a poem back in 1926 that was
used by President Reagan in his Christmas address:
He was born in an obscure village.
He worked in a carpenter shop until he was 30.
He then became a traveling* preacher.
He never held an office.
He never had a family or owned a house.
He didn't go to college.
He had no credentials but himself....
Nineteen centuries have come and gone,
and today he is the central figure of the human race.
All the armies that ever marched,
and all the navies that ever sailed,
all the parliaments that ever sat,
and all the kings that ever reigned,
have not affected the life of man on earth
as much as that...
One solitary life. #21973
C. The light still shines in darkness.
1) In Isaiah 9:2 it says, "The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light; on those living in the land
of the shadow of death a light has dawned."
2) Christians acknowledge the cruelty in this life.
a) We are not pollyannas who think everything is wonderful.
b) The light of Jesus illuminates our utter sinfulness.
1> Consider the Christian baseball players implicated
in the recent Mitchell steroid report...
c) But the light of Jesus can also show us the way out
of darkness.
1> We must believe in him as our Savior.
2> We must bear his light to others.
IV. Our light can illuminate the world.
A. Evangelicals have shifted from curiosities to world-changers.
1) Christians are having an impact in India, Korea and China
all out of proportion to their numbers. #18605
a) In areas of education, medicine, human rights.
2) Here in the United States, Christians have been the impetus
behind our government's effort against AIDS in poor
countries.
a) We are also speaking out on the environment.
B. In the end, it is not politics but a relationship.
1) God changes the world one person at a time.
2) Sharing the good news about Jesus must always be a priority.
V. How much light have you caught?
A. You can tell how much is caught by how much shines.
1) Our attitudes and actions reveal our real faith.
2) Expel the darkness from your life and seek God in all
you do.
B. Illuminate Jesus!
Kelly Boggs is a Southern Baptist preacher in Oregon, and he
recently moved to a new neighborhood.
He bought it in the summer, so he didn't realize it was one of
those neighborhoods where everyone is expected to decorate
- really decorate - for Christmas.
Everyone puts up lights to the hilt, and expects their
neighbors to do the same so they can entertain the tourists
who drive through.
He says he wished he had known this ahead of time.
There should have been a clause about it in the deed - a
"Santa clause."
But there wasn't.
Boggs doesn't put up a bunch of lights for two reasons.
For one, he is cheap and admits it.
Secondly, he wants to proclaim Christ.
Lots of Christmas decorations impress but few inspire.
So Boggs decided to decorate with an edge.
A few week before Christmas he went out to the middle of his
yard and placed a traditional manger scene.
It is the kind with internally lighted plastic figures of
Joseph and Mary and baby Jesus.
Behind the manger he put an 8-foot-tall cross, wrapped in lights
so people can see it at night.
Apart from a few lights on his roof, that's it.
Just a cross and a simple manger scene.
The message he hopes to communicate is that the real meaning of
Christmas is found only when the manager and the cross are
taken together.
Without the cross, the manager is meaningless.
Together, they reveal God's light for this world.
Someone once observed, "There has only been one Christmas.
The rest have all been anniversaries."
#33925
Have you accepted Jesus as your personal Savior?
It's the only way to have a real Christmas!
* [original poem says "itinerant" instead of "traveling"]
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
#18605 "A Miraculous Faith: The Jesus Experience," by Charles Colson,
BreakPoint Commentary, March 7, 2003.
#21973 "One Solitary Life," by James Allan Francis, compiled by Rev. David
Holwick on December 22, 1985.
#33925 "Remembering The Cross At Christmas," by Kelly Boggs, Baptist
Press, http://www.baptistpress.org, December 15, 2006.
These and 30,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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