Christmas And The Incarnation

Our text for this evening to Isaiah, a popular verse and one of our favorites at Apologia Church, Isaiah 6 -7. This does dovetail well in our study of the Gospel. According to Matthew, we call this series the Kingdom of God series, and it's just a perfect time of year really to celebrate and revel in this truth, the truth of the Incarnation, God taking on flesh, entering into human existence and touching us, walking among us.

Hear now the reading of God's holy and inspired word. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end. On the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

As far as the reading of God's holy word, let's pray. Father, I want to pray that you'd bless today us, your people, with your word, that you would by your Spirit guide this message and Lord, impress these truths upon us.

Lord, open our eyes to see your truth. I pray that you open our ears to give us understanding. Give us hearts, God, that are soft towards you and receptive. God, I pray that you change us, transform us.

God, allow us, God, to move away from, Lord, our indifference towards these truths, God, and allow us to see afresh and once again anew, Lord, the beauty and the majesty of the incarnation. Lord Jesus, there's no way that we will ever be able to fully comprehend your glory, your power, your goodness, your mercy, your love displayed in the incarnation.

But help us, God, to get a glimpse. I pray that you, God, would cause me to decrease and Jesus to increase. Get me out of the way. Work in this broken vessel, God, for your glory in Jesus' name, amen.

So Isaiah 9, 6 through 7, one of our favorite verses, you've probably heard it a hundred times in the Kingdom of God series, working through Matthew, because so much of Isaiah is in the back of Matthew's mind as he's under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit giving to us the revelation of God in Jesus Christ and the gospel according to Matthew.

But Isaiah 9 is particularly important because if you remember in Matthew chapter 4, after Jesus defeats Satan in the wilderness, he goes through the temptations, he goes through really the same kinds of things that Adam, our first parent, went through in terms of a testing.

He goes through what Israel went through in the wilderness and Jesus comes out victorious. He's better than Adam. He's better than Jesus. He is that second Adam, the image of God, what God intended us to be, and he is what Israel was supposed to be.

Israel was called the Son of God, and Jesus is the true Son of God, the perfect Son of.

God.

He's everything that God intended for us to be, and if you remember in Matthew chapter 4, when he defeats Satan in the wilderness, he goes out, the first thing out of his lips he says, repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, and then he's going around proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom, but Matthew quotes from Isaiah chapter 9, Isaiah chapter 9 about Jesus being the light of the world.

He goes out and the light has now broken into darkness, and in Isaiah chapter 9, the section that he quotes from right after that section is Isaiah 9, verses 6 through 7, and this is a compelling thing because I want to say this, this is really important for us as Christians in terms of like apologetics and the defense of the faith.

We can show from the Old Testament that Jesus is there. He is there in vivid detail. The who, the where, the what, the why, the when, the how, everything about the Messiah is in the Old Testament. We know that, but I think at times we don't really fully grasp really the mysterious nature of those prophecies in terms of if you were a Jew before Jesus came, in Isaiah chapter 9, it's not like Nebuchadnezzar came years before Jesus, and they were like, oh yeah, he's a human, but he's fully God.

Yahweh's coming to save us from our sins.

There's a mystery there.

There were things that they really didn't fully understand. If you remember the most popular, it's the Bible study that every Christian wishes they.

Were a part of.

After the resurrection of Jesus, when he's on the road to Emmaus, when he's walking along that road and the disciples are there and they're freaking out, they're like, oh, he thought he was Messiah and it's all over now, and it's like Jesus is standing right.

There.

And it says that Jesus goes into all the Old Testament scriptures and he walks them through them and their eyes were opened and their hearts burning within them because they saw with this Bible study that Jesus shows them that I was there.

That was about me in the Old Testament. That's my story. But I think what's a mystery in a sense, if I can use that word, is the fact that in the Old Testament, those Jews didn't look at Isaiah 9 necessarily and say, oh, clearly that's a hypostatic union, right?

Homoousius, not homoousius, right? Like they didn't do that. They weren't like all like necessarily saying 100 God, 100 man. It was this mystery just planted right there in front of them that there was going to be God with us, born of a virgin, the one who owned the land.

He was coming to have a kingdom that would increase, a government that would increase with peace and God was going to do this. It was going to be God himself coming as a man. There's such a glorious, mysterious nature to the incarnation in this respect.

God's coming as a man. They could not have fully understood that. Nobody really could wrap their minds around that. The one and only true and living God is coming to take on flesh, to walk among us, to take away our sins.

He's going to humble himself like a servant. This is why it was such, they were so tripped out by Jesus. In John chapter 8 when he says, before Abraham was, ego eimi, I am, and they pick up stones.

To kill him.

Why?

Because he was saying that he was Yahweh. He was God in the flesh and they saw that as a little offensive as monotheistic Jews, that a man calls himself God, that he would call himself equal with the Father.

I and the Father are one. There's so much to the incarnation that I believe if you spent your entire life studying just this truth, you would never, ever tap the richness of the incarnation. Because there's so much here for us in terms of drawing praise from us and worship from us towards God because of what God has done to humble himself to save us from our sins.

But there's also so much here for us in terms of our practical walk with God that we have so much in Jesus who sympathizes with us in our weaknesses because he actually took on human form and he walked among us and he tasted what we taste.

He knows what it's like to have people die that he loves and he weeps over it. He knows what it's like to have people betray him and lie about him in a court of law. Jesus knows what it's like to be physically abused.

He knows what it's like to be abandoned by his family. There's so much to the incarnation that I don't even think we can tap. It's so big. And that's why I love Christmas. It's my way to sneak it back in, okay?

Because, you know, and especially on like social media now, you have, you know, people that are like, oh, Christmas, Christmas, you know, you know, pagan holiday. Well, here's what I'm going to say. Whatever you believe about the origins of Christmas, here's the thing.

We won.

We won.

You don't see a lot of people around like in the mall celebrating winter solstice or all the other pagan holidays and the other gods. You don't see that. What do you hear like in the mall? Songs about Jesus?

Songs about God becoming a man to rescue us from our sins?

So we won.

Christmas is a time of celebration of God becoming a man, and that's really why I love it so much. If it were up to me, I think we should keep our lights up all year long, our trees up.

All year long.

We should do it forever, all the time. Like I really actually want in my family for us to start doing the 12 days of Christmas, like the kind of historical liturgical way of doing Christmas celebration, 12 days of.

Christmas.

You know the song, first day of Christmas, don't ask me to sing it because I'm bad, but even each of those things and each day of that song represents biblical truths. The partridge in a pear tree is Jesus, keeps us under his wings.

What's the second thing? What's the second day?

I forget.

Two turtle doves represent the Old and New Testament. You've got the four, what's the four? Four calling birds represent the four gospels. You've got five gold rings, that's the five books of Moses, and all those things move.

Along.

And so I want to just feast and go crazy and celebrate God becoming a man because it's awesome. The only time we should really stop is like Resurrection Sunday. That's the only time we take a turn, right?

It's like, and then he died and rose again, and now we're back. God became a man. Like, you know, and we just keep doing it, right? And it's really an amazing time for us as Christians because here we are in a culture that is so hostile towards us and the songs about Jesus, God becoming a man.

You turn on the radio, it's songs about Jesus. You go to a store, restaurant, songs about Jesus. You go to a friend's house and they got, you know, so we're having Christmas dinner. It's like, well, but you're an atheist.

Well, pretend that's not happening, right? You know, kind of a weird situation. And you know, and it's amazing because this is a cool time of year where like at least for one month, the modern, you know, 21st century American evangelical is totally post.

Mill.

Like, at least for a four minute song, right? Joy to the world is a song we sang.

Joy to the world is straight.

It's dat post mill.

It is.

Joy to the world. Listen.

Joy to the world.

Jeremiah was a bull.

No, that's not.

That's the wrong joy to the world.

Sorry.

Not three dog night. Did I say that right?

Is that right?

Okay, good.

Sorry, I'm not as old as some of you guys, I don't know. So I'm just kidding.

I get it.

I get it all week for my kids. I got to give it back to somebody.

All right.

So listen to the song, joy to the world.

Joy to the world.

The Lord has come. Let earth receive her King. Let every heart prepare him. Room and heaven and nature sing. Heaven and nature sing.

Joy to the world.

The Savior reigns. Let men, their songs employ while fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains repeat the sounding joy. No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground.

Do you hear that?

No more let sins and sorrow grow, nor thorns infest the ground. It has to do with the curse. It has to do with the fall. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. Like that's what it's all about.

Jesus, God becomes a man. He does the work that we couldn't do. He's a perfect covenant keeper. He's a law-keeping image of God. He dies a death we deserve.

He was buried.

He conquered death, rose again. He's ascended, seated on his throne today, reigning as King of Kings and Lord of Lords right now. And he, as the perfect image of God, is taking dominion from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth, Psalm 72.

He has dominion and he's bringing that dominion to the ends of the earth. And that curse, that curse of the fall, that fallen nature of humanity, Jesus is coming to rescue those rebels and he's bringing the blessings of his salvation to the ends of the earth as far as the curse is found.

Jesus is restoring everything and that's really the majesty of Christmas. That's really the glory of Christmas, what makes it so wonderful and beautiful. And it's really, this is an amazing time for us as Christians and I want to just really encourage you with this.

This is a time of year where it's much easier for us to talk to people that we love about Jesus because they're already hearing about him constantly. And that's why it's such a special time for us because this is a really good time where we can actually have conversations and engage with people maybe in a way we couldn't have done in November or October.

Now obviously we want to, but this is such a great time. There are celebrations, people are talking about Christmas. So what I'm saying is this, is that I want to encourage you as the people of God at Apologia to really seize the opportunity here to invite people to hear the gospel at church, to invite people into your homes and to talk about Jesus and what he's done in your life and to talk about what happened when God became a man and why God became a man.

This is really a spectacular time of year to do it. But let's talk about the incarnation and in order to really talk about what makes the incarnation so powerful, you have to go back to the beginning of the Bible.

The verse we just quoted from in our catechism, Genesis chapter one verses 27 through 28. Let's go there so we can begin to unpack the glory of the incarnation. Genesis chapter one. Now I want to say as you guys get to Genesis chapter one, there's no way to fully do it in this sermon because it's not really a sermon about Genesis chapter one, unpacking it.

But let me just say this, Genesis as it gets into the world, when Moses pens Genesis, obviously God through his spirit ordained and carried people along as they wrote what they wrote or spoke what they spoke.

Peter says holy men of God spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. But I want to just point this out to you, Moses is a real person in time and in space amidst a people who are pagans worshiping false gods.

And when the story of Genesis comes into the world by the hand of Moses, it was really contrary to what really a lot of cultures thought. This is really compelling because you'll oftentimes run into the atheist today who will try to compare Jesus to other pagan deities or they try to compare Yahweh to other pagan deities or biblical stories to other pagan stories.

But there really is no parallel. Think about this for a moment. When Genesis opens up, you've got God who exists in a transcendent way outside of his own creation and he speaks it into existence. He's not dependent upon anything.

You've got pagans that worship the sun, they worship the moon, they worship the earth. People do that really today. But these pagans, they thought that their gods were a part of the created order and there were even aspects of pagan thought where you have gods that had intimate relations with other gods and they created little baby gods and then those gods grew up and had fights with other gods and these gods were capricious and these gods were sort of not to be trusted.

They weren't just. They could do whatever they wanted and it didn't have to be right. That's just what they were like. And yet Genesis opens up and it's completely contrary to all the pagan myths. Because God isn't a part of his creation.

He's actually above it. He stands above it. He stands in a sense as transcendent above it, but yet he interacts with it. He's covenantally attached to that world. He's imminent. He's active and he speaks and it comes into existence.

He speaks and the earth comes into existence. He speaks and stars spread out across the universe. He speaks and oceans roar. He speaks and little insects, weird little insects like bumblebees, like they come into existence and it's, I'm going to say this real fast, if you haven't seen it yet, I got to interview Nate Wilson, Doug Wilson's son.

It's up on our YouTube channel, Apologia Studios. If you guys remember when we first planted the church, we did notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl. It was amazing. I got to sit down with Nate in Moscow and it was really cool.

And I wanted to say this as an aside, that Nate is right. We don't often as Christians think about the fact that like God made that bumblebee and that's supposed to speak to us something about God and what he's like, like, you know, when your kids like draw pictures and they make little things, it says something about what's going on in their heads.

Like when they do it, sometimes you wish they didn't do it because you don't want that like actually in the world, what was in their head. Right. But, but, but, but you know what I'm talking about? You said like a kindergarten class, all these kids making pictures and they're doing little things and make little statues and Play-Doh and weird stuff.

And these kids are real creative in there. You're like, oh, that's nice, you know. And but it's telling you something about that child. Right. And but Nate said, we don't often do that with God. Like we never like draw any conclusions from the bumblebee, like anything about God and like what he really is like that he made a bumblebee.

It's so interesting and weird. And like it's it's it should tell us something about what God is like, like flamingos. God is obviously hilarious. Right. And fun. Right. But like God, he stands in Genesis above his own creation.

And he's not he's not part of it in the sense that he's dependent upon it. He's he is outside of it in a sense. He's transcendent. And he it really it comes into existence because he wills it and he speaks it into existence.

But he's not below it.

He's not dependent on it.

He's the one that wields it. He's in control of it. And he is so different. And so Genesis is completely contrary to anything you would see in the pagan world. And the fact that this God exists eternally prior to creation, God not dependent, God not needing this world and creation to be satisfied and be full of delight, the eternal one that speaks and it comes into creation by his words.

But he's not in it in the sense that he's dependent upon it or he's somehow part of that nature. And then Genesis chapter one, you see something compelling in God's creation story starting in verse 26.

Then God said, let us make man in our image. Notice something. God says, let us create man in our image. This is really compelling because Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. Jesus confirmed that the history of Israel shows that that was the tradition.

Jesus said, that's the way that it was. Moses wrote it. Moses wrote those first five books. And all throughout those five books, you see repeated statements that are monotheistic, exclusively monotheistic.

There is only one God. Deuteronomy chapter four, verses thirty five and thirty nine. He is God alone in the heavens above and on the earth below. There is no other. Deuteronomy chapter six, verse four.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord is one. OK, there's only one God. You should love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind and strength, Jesus says. That's the greatest first and greatest commandment. And so it's repeated statements.

There's only one God, one God, one God. And yet in Genesis chapter one, same author of that book says, God said, let. Us create man in our image, singular. After our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God. He created him male and female. He created them and God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

That's the beginning.

God takes his image, he plants his image in the garden. We're supposed to be in God's likeness, like God. It's almost like God's image comes down into the world and shoots out across the world. I showed you, I think it was about two years ago.

We talked about what it means to be in God's image. And I said, think about it like a mirror that you lean against something and light shines off that mirror and bounces back into the world. We're not to think about ourselves as image of God in a sense that we're a reflection of God, like God's looking back at us.

But image of God really is in another sense where what people are supposed to see, what creation is supposed to see in humans is the image of God really reflecting out into the world. God made us, put us in the garden.

And he says, now you go be my image in the world. You subdue the earth, you take dominion over it. You're my representative in this world. And so we were supposed to be in our first parents, God's light into the world, his own creation, where his creatures and the world is supposed to look to the image of God and see the eternal God, the creator of the universe.

That was our purpose.

And God says, take dominion. So think about that. Adam, image of God, Eve, image of God, he created them. And God says, now go and you take dominion over the earth, subdue the earth. And God puts him in the garden.

He's supposed to cultivate it. He's supposed to make the world a beautiful place. And he even gives Adam responsibility and authority. And he tells Adam, he says, now go name the animals. In Hebrew thought, naming something was taking ownership of it, sort of like in Matthew's gospel, when Joseph is told to name Jesus, Yeshua, the Savior.

Well, that's that's Joseph taking ownership of Jesus as his father by adoption. He's naming Jesus and God in the Old Testament. He names his people. He gives them names. Abram is then called Abraham, father of many by God.

He actually names and takes ownership of them and gives them a designated role in the world. And God has his image in the world. Humanity, image of God. And he says, now you go be my image in the world.

Subdue the earth, cultivate it, make it beautiful, make it bring the glory. We know the story. The story, interestingly, ever print send all that was from the New England Primer. First book, first line ever written in North America in Adam's fall, we send all.

God puts his image in the garden. He stands above his creation, but he's transcendent and imminent. He's actually communicating with us in covenant with his people. Adam was in covenant with God. God told him what he was to do and God told him what he was not to do.

And we know what took place. Our first parent broke covenant with God. God said, I'll bless you, I'll curse you. You're going to die if you do this. And Adam sinned against God with a high hand. He sinned against God because he saw it and he wanted it.

And it didn't matter that it was fruit. It could have been sticks. It could have been don't walk that direction. Don't move that direction. Don't say that thing. This is my covenant God's making with his people.

And in that moment, Adam, the image of God turns away from God and what takes place? God's image in creation, all of creation falls when his image falls. Now, the amazing thing which makes the incarnation so beautiful is that if God, if God in that moment had destroyed his image, judged him for what he did, he would be right to do it.

If God allowed Adam to go which direction he wanted to go and he left him to his own devices and he left him to his sin. If God wanted to do that, he'd be right and good and true to do it. But the glory of the incarnation is in Genesis chapter three, when the story first opens, the fall enters God's image, his what's supposed to be his light into the world.

God's image rebels against the creator and all of creation falls. But Genesis chapter three, go to the text. You have to see it. Genesis chapter three. You see the beginning of the promise of the incarnation and redemption.

Watch this. Genesis chapter three, 15. I will put enmity between you and the woman. This is God speaking to Satan. And between your offspring and her offspring, he, a specific person, shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

You've got to stop for a moment and think about how big this is, how earth shattering this is, how completely other this is, the one and only true and living God, the holy one, the just one, the good one, the one who is love and mercy.

That God spoke in the universe, came into existence. He puts his image into the garden. He comes into a covenant and relationship, an intimate relationship with them. There is where Adam and Eve were with God in fellowship and perfection.

It was paradise. No sin. They were upright and they fall. And as soon as the fall takes place, God, in relationship with his image, comes in and starts talking to him. And what does he do? Tell him you're just cursed.

You're just going to die. You deserve what you what you get. You should own your sin. It's all your fault. And I don't have anything to do with this. No, God does something great. God steps in and he actually says, here's what's going to take place.

Satan, the woman's seed is going to crush your head and you'll wound him on the heel. The amazing thing is that in that text, you know that it's the woman's seed, not the man's seed, which is totally contrary to their culture to speak of somebody as the woman's seed.

You were the man's seed. That's just how they talked. And yet Moses says it's the woman's seed who's going to crush the head of the serpent, deliver the death blow to Satan. When you get your head crushed, that's a mortal wound.

When you get wounded on your heel, that it's a heel to head wound, which means there's going to be a simultaneous action in history, something that occurs with this woman's seed that at the same time of the bruising and the wounding, you're going to have healing.

That's the beginning of the story. And so we know the fall enters and the fall answers so much, guys. It answers so much in terms of our depravity and our brokenness. I got to say this. When we talk about the second thing I want to talk about today, what makes the incarnation so beautiful and so majestic?

You have to think about our nature and experience. Dr. White used to say something that bothered me. He didn't say a lot of things that bother me, but he said this and it really bothered me. I heard it many years ago.

It's probably over a decade ago. He was talking to people who like want to be in full time ministry, right? And he's like talking on the dividing line about people wanting to be in full time ministry.

And he said something. He said this. He said, I think he's probably said it more than once. He said, if you could do anything else and be remotely happy, you should do that and not full time ministry.

And I thought, how rude, right? A way to shoot down people's dreams, right? Like half his glasses, half full kind of guy, you know, like that's that's why. Why wouldn't we want to send out ministers into the field and people to go, you know, serve God full time in that way?

And after years of being in the ministry, I could say I fully agree if you could do anything else and be remotely happy, even in a small way, don't do full time ministry. Because let me just say this.

When when you get the gospel is glorious and amazing and beautiful, but I'm going to say this as a pastor, you hear the worst of the worst all the time. It's the most brokenness. You get to come into contact with the ugliest all the time.

When people contact you as a pastor, when do they usually want to contact you? When something's wrong, right? The wheels have fallen off. The house is burning down. Everything is broken. And so what you have to face constantly is is constant burdens of brokenness and sin and despair and all this.

I must say this. It's absolutely because I'm supposed to be a pastor. My joy to do this.

But I want to say this.

The amazing thing for me about the incarnation really became even more glorious. After I became a pastor. And got to see all of the ugliness of the world on a regular basis, because you see really the results of the fall are so deep.

They're so deep. They go they go to the smallest mundane details of life in terms of how I can face daily my worries. How I can face my own health problems. How I face difficulties in my family and all the damage that's been done to me by my own parents.

Like it's everything. The fall has infiltrated and found its way into every part of our being. Our mind, how we think about God in the world, again, how we trust God and worry and fear all the things that get done to us, people that hurt us, the injustice done to us, the injustice and ugliness in the world, the murder that happens around us on a regular basis.

The fall answers all of that. Everything lies, despair, deception, abuse, rape, you name it. The fall is the reason the world is the way that it is. And the truth is, is God sovereign all over that? Yes, he is.

He's the one that declares the end from the beginning. The truth is, though, our first parents and we in Adam really are responsible for all of that. We're the rebels against the king that say no to his ways and yes to ours.

We're the ones that can see the glory of God and the light of God and preferred darkness over the lights. That's just part of our existence. That's what we do. And the world experience the brokenness that it does.

We experience the brokenness that we do because of the most popular arguments, do you think? From atheists towards Christians in terms of arguing against God. Evil in the world. How can God be all powerful and good and there still be evil in the world?

Now, it's not a good argument. It's not a good argument because the answer is immediate. There is no evil in an atheist universe. That's an immediate answer when the atheist says, well, how can there be an all powerful good God if there's so much evil in the world?

The answer is immediately there is no evil in an atheist universe.

You just showed your colors.

You just revealed a bit about yourself that you're really image of God. You know, there is such a thing as good and evil. We're not just in a universe of blind and pitiless indifference. We're not just protoplasm, really, that amounts to nothing but stardust.

We're just not stuff moving around the universe purposely. You know the God that is there. But watch this. Here's what's really powerful. That argument about evil in the world, though it's not a good argument coming from an atheist, it's a compelling argument.

It's an emotionally powerful argument.

Because it hurts a lot.

And every one of us in God's image knows that it hurts to walk into a hospital for children that's a cancer hospital. Every one of us knows if you're an adult, you know what it's like to sit at someone's bedside who's dying.

You know what it's like to suffer through trials and tribulations. You know what you've seen on the news. You know what you saw driving to work that day when you saw the ambulances and the fire trucks and you saw the person laid out on the freeway, you know.

And so, again, while the argument is not a good argument coming from an atheist, it is an emotionally powerful argument. And watch.

First,.

As a Christian, you have an answer as to why that should hurt and as to how you can embrace that pain and go to God for the answers. And as a Christian, you know the reason it is the way that it is. And the answer is us.

Why is the world a wreck? Why is the world the way that it is?

Here's why. Because God's image in the world has hated him, has rebelled against him, doesn't want him, doesn't want him as king. And we try to form little revolutions against God. We do it as communities, as cultures, as tribes and as individuals every day.

We try to revolt against the king. That's what all sin is. It's revolt against the king.

And the world is the way that it is today.

Because of the fall, God's image in the world, rebelling against the creator, saying no to God.

I won't be like you. I won't reflect you into the world. I don't want your ways.

I want my kingdom in my ways. And so the world is plunged into darkness, and this is where the glory of the incarnation comes in. God became man. Now, this is really important for us to wrap our minds around because you hear it so much as a Christian that you might actually, over a period of time, become jaded to that.

God became man.