LORD’s Day #51

“Your love, LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep.“

Psalms 36:5

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MORNING SERMON

SERMON FOCUS: “CHRIST CAME: A RADICAL REVERSAL AND AN UNDESERVED GIFT”

Text: Luke 2:1-18
” So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.”

1. A RADICAL REVERSAL
2. AN UNDESERVED GIFT

– It is about the incarnation of Christ. Jesus Christ is the greatest gift God has given to men.
– Example of gifts given to humanity- The prophets, outstanding men or women (Hebrews 1:1) – But Christ surpassed all – He is the greatest gift of all.
– The giving of the son of God is the final act. God’s supreme gift is Christ.
– Satan’s business is to deviate the real message of Christmas. God has sent His only son to this world- the greatest gift.
– Christ solved our greatest problem – the problem of sin.
– “People expect great things to happen in a great manner but God’s greatest gift to man is a complete reversal – a total opposite of what humanity expects.”
– The gospel is opposite of what men wants and expects.
– The world regarded Christ as ridiculous.  Christ was just a simple and humble preacher.
– Christ was also arrested in an apparent weakness and condemned to death without speaking a word.
– What happened to Jesus was the opposite of the design of crucifixion.
– The gospel of Christ is the greatest gift of God- a proclamation of what God has done.
– Galatians 4:4-5 (there is only one eternal condemnation and one way to redemption and adoption)
– Why God the Father gave God the Son as a gift to us? It is still opposite to the world’s concept of gift giving.
– In spite of us being unworthy we are given this greatest gift- It is all of God’s grace.
– Man’s expectation of Victory is opposite of humanity’s concept of it.
– Human philosophy cannot give peace and holiness. It is ONLY possible in the Lord Jesus Christ – He is both the wisdom, power and the redemption of God.
– The wisdom of God shows we have to preach the gospel.

AFTERNOON MESSAGE

SERMON FOCUS: CHRISTOLOGY: THE IMMORTAL, INCOMPREHENSIBLE GOD

Text: ‭‭John‬ ‭1‬:‭14
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

1. CHRIST’s EXISTENCE
2. GOD’s REVELATION
3. CHRIST’s CONDESCENSION
4. GOD’s ACCOMPLISHMENT

– Christmas has become a materialistic season.  Most of what Christmas is right now was from the secular world.
– As Christians, this is a time of the year to consider the importance of the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ.
– Though there’s no command to commemorate Christ’s birth, this is a wonderful time to meditate the incarnation of Christ.
– The existence of Christ did not start from Mary’s womb, it started from eternity past.
– The grace of God appeared and did not start because Christ existed even before.
– When time began, Jesus “was” already. Christ is self-existent. His being is in himself.
– Christ possesses the divine attributes of God. (Isaiah 6:1-3)
– The eternal God became temporal without losing His eternal attribute.
– The source of life died on the cross of Calvary: This is beyond our comprehension and a mystery.
– The existence of Christ was from everlasting to everlasting
– This incarnation is a declaration of God in bodily form.
– God is transcendent and is infinitely beyond His creation. God is above us, beyond us and incomprehensible.
– We will not know God if He will not reveal Himself unto us. (General Revelation/ Natural Revelation and Special Revelation)
– Christ voluntarily left His kingdom and condescended as a man.
– Jesus was and is the exact form of God. Jesus Christ possessed all things that make God God
– Christ became a servant / man. He did not remove the existence of His divinity – just the manifestation of His divinity
– There is no salvation apart from Christ. Christ chose to redeem fallen sinners.
– The incarnation is the greatest of all miracles. It is something incomprehensible and is the most mysterious miracle ever recorded in the Scriptures.
– In the end of the incarnation, Jesus Christ would suffer and die so that sinners will be reconciled to God.

“The doctrine of the two natures in one person transcends human reason. It is the expression of a supersensible reality, and of an incomprehensible mystery, which has no analogy in the life of man as we know it, and finds no support in human reason, and therefore can only be accepted by faith on the authority of the Word of God.”

Louis Berkhof

Blessed LORD’s day, dear brethren!
To God alone be the glory!