God With Us, Long Before Us
John 1:1, 14
Introduction
Good evening everyone, and Merry Christmas!
It is so good to be with you tonight.
Christmas has a way at tugging at our hearts, especially as it brings to mind long forgotten, fond memories. I don’t know if it’s the sights and sounds — or traditions we share, but it has a way of taking us back to earlier days (to cherished memories). But as meaningful as those memories are, Christmas is about MORE than nostalgia!
The real Christmas story takes us back to a time before our earliest memories. It takes us back to the very beginning…to a moment that precedes time and space (and creation as we know it).
And so tonight, instead of telling the story of Christmas from the point of Jesus’s birth, I want to tell it from a different perspective. If you have your Bible, turn with me to John chapter 1.
Unlike other Gospel writers, John doesn’t start with shepherds, angels, or a manger scene. John takes us back to the beginning. Look with me at John 1, verse 1. Here John writes,
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” — John 1:1 (NIV)
John reminds us that the One we celebrate at Christmas is more than a baby in the manger. He’s the Eternal Son of God.
So, if we’re going to understand Christmas correctly, we must:
1. Recognize Jesus as Eternal.
Notice again, John opens his Gospel by echoing the words of Genesis. Just as Moses opened the book of Genesis, John opens his gospel, when he says:
“In the beginning…”
And with those words, he takes us back to a moment that preceded creation. A time before time. As John puts it,
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
That single line is so full of deeply challenging thoughts. But it’s because John wants us to recognize that Christmas didn’t start with a baby lying in a manger, it began with the eternal Son of God who existed long before that moment. Before He was ever arrived in Bethlehem as Emanuel, He was already reigning over creation.
That’s why the message of Christmas is not simply God with us, it is — God with us, long before us!
The writer of Hebrews affirms this when he writes in Hebrews 1,
“But in these last days (God) has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” — Hebrews 1:2–3 (NIV)
So, understand this — Christmas isn’t about Jesus being created, it’s about Jesus being REVEALED!
He didn’t get his start in Bethlehem — He’s always existed! I know this sounds crazy, but the fact that it’s mind-blowing, or difficult to understand, doesn’t lessen its truthfulness. Just because my mind my struggle to understand (or figure something out), doesn’t mean that its untrue.
There are plenty of things in life I don’t fully understand, but I trust them anyway. Things like:
- How an engine turns fuel into motion, (I don’t understand it, but it doesn’t stop me from driving a car)
- Or How electricity moves through wires, (I don’t understand it, bit I still flip on switches, and expect the lights to come on).
- Or How a cell phone transports my voice to someone miles away, (yet I rely on it constantly).
My point is, there are a lot of things that I can’t fully explain or even comprehend — but that doesn’t stop me from believing or trusting in them.
And the same is true with this — the doctrine of Christ’s eternal deityis mind blowing, but I still believe it!
I believe that Jesus is the ETERNAL CHRIST! (The Messiah, the promised savior).
As the late A. W. Tozer once said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
And that’s why understanding Christmas correctly is so important. When we do, it calls us to recognize Jesus for who He is — THE ETERNAL ONE!
Well, the second thing the Story of Christmas calls us to do is:
2. Embrace Jesus as God Incarnate.
What I mean by that is — we must is embrace Him for who He is.
He is God incarnate — His fully God, Jesus is fully God…and yet at the same time, He’s fully human.
In the person of Jesus, God came near. According to John, He moved from eternity — into history…He went from being the God OF the universe, to being God IN the universe.
As John writes in verse 14,
“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.”
John is describing how the eternal became temporal.
How the invisible became visible.
And listen, if you thought it was a stretch to understand Jesus’s eternality — try wrapping your mind around this fact, that God (in all of His fullness), came down from heaven, compressed Himself into the confines of a human body. More specifically, into the frame of an infant! A baby!
That’s what John means when he says,
“the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”
The phrase literally means He pitched His tent in our camp. He build his home in our community. Think of it — Jesus became our neighbor.
In the same way that God’s glory once filled the tabernacle in the wilderness (as God encamped among the people of Israel in the Old Testament), in the New Testament, God put on flesh, left heaven, and brought the fullness of His glory down — to dwell among us.
And doing so, He subjected Himself to all the pains and struggles we face. The Scriptures tell us:
— He knew hunger.
— He experienced weariness.
— He felt grief.
— He understood temptation.
— He experienced pain and suffering.
And all of this — just for us.
John tells us that when we look at Jesus, we see all the glory of God. Not a political glory. Not a military glory. But the divine glory of God —the glory of grace and truth.
The Grace that welcomes us as sinners.
And the Truth that transforms our hearts.
So, at Christmas, we celebrate God becoming flesh. Literally, He came down. He didn’t lower His standards. Rather, He lowered Himself!
So if we want to understand Christmas correctly, we need to know who Jesus is, how He came, but we also need to understand what He came to do.
Which leads us to the final challenge of this story. We must:
3. Celebrate the Gift Jesus Offers
One of the reasons I love John’s gospel so much, is because He doesn’t just make it clear who Jesus is, but…he also makes clear what Jesus came to do. He reveals His Mission.
Throughout his gospel, John tells us that Jesus came for one single purpose: To save us from our Sin!
In John 1:29, he quotes John the Baptist when he points to Jesus and says,
“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
Everyone is familiar with John 3:16:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in His would not perish, but have eternal life.”.
But in the verse that follows, in John 3:17 he again states His purpose for coming, when he says,
“God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.”
And them in John 10:10, he quotes Jesus as saying,
“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
And in John 10:15, Jesus clarifies how he will save us — when he says,
“I lay down My life for the sheep.”
The apostle Paul sums it up like this (in Galatians 4:4-5), he says,
“When the set time had fully come, God sent His Son… to redeem those under the law.”
Those words remind us that Christmas is not simply about God coming near— it’s about God redeeming mankind. He came to save us. Because we needed saving!
We needed someone to pay the high price for our salvation! And Jesus came to do just that.
— He didn’t enter the world to be admired. He entered the world to be offered.
— He didn’t come to give us a holiday. He came to give us hope.
— He did not come to make life easier. He came to make salvation possible.
And that’s the good news of Christmas. God with us, God for us, God long before us!
— And what I want you to understand tonight is this, if Jesus would choose to enter the brokenness of this world… then He will also choose to enter the brokenness of your world (of your life).
— And, if He would step into the messiness if a manger, then He will also step into the messiness of your circumstances.
Because that’s His mission, that’s His purpose, to seek and save the lost. That’s the story of Christmas.
And so tonight, the greatest gift you can receive isn’t something you’ll hold in your hands, but it’s Someone you can welcome into your life.
It’s God with us. Long before us. And yet, still with us now!
Conclusion
So tonight, we haven’t gathered for novelty. We gathered for clarity. Because, the baby in the manger is the eternal Word of God. Made flesh, dwelt among us…to free us from our sin.
That’s the message of Christmas!
PRAYER:
As we close — would you bow your heads with me?
If, as you’ve been listening to the story of Christmas as told by John — and the Holy Spirit’s been stirring in you, drawing you close with the thought of that GIFT of forgiveness and salvation. I mentioned a few moments ago. And, if you’d like experience that today — then would pray and invite Christ to come into your life, to save you? Maybe you’d pray:
Heavenly Father, I thank you for the story of Christmas. Thank you for coming and making a way for me to be free of sin and know your gift of salvation. Tonight I admit that I have sinned. I’ve chosen my way over yours too often. But all that changes tonight, because, I confess my sin before you. And I confess my faith in Jesus. Forgive me, and save me, and allow Your Spirit to live in me. And let this Christmas be the best I’ve ever experienced. I pray this in Jesus name, Amen.
Hey, if you just prayed that prayer — I AM SO PROUD OF YOU! That’s the greatest decision you’ve ever made. With that prayer, you’ve been completely forgiven for your sin, and promised the gift of eternity with Jesus.
And now, for the rest of us…let us pray:
Closing Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank you Jesus! We’re amazed by your love for us…and the fact that You (who is eternal), would come and make yourself subject to the things of this temporal world, just for us. Thank You coming to be near us. Thank you for giving yourself to save our lives.
This Christmas, help us see You even more clearly. Help us to honor you with our worship, and to trust You even more fully. Help us as we seek to open our hearts to You again tonight. We love you and thank you for loving us. We pray this in Your holy name, Amen.