December 25
1 John 4:7-5:21; 2 John 1:1-13; 3 1:1-15
What does Christmas mean to you? Is it a cute and familiar story of a little baby being born to a poor young couple in a stable, surrounded by animals, shepherds, and angels? Stories can be true or false. Over time stories can be added to or subtracted from, and turn into legends. Many don't realize that John was confronting one of the first heresies to creep into the church, Gnosticism. Gnostics taught that salvation could be gained through possessing a special knowledge, and that all matter was evil. This led to the denial of the incarnation of God the Son into the human, baby Jesus. According to their thinking, how could what is pure live in what is evil. This thinking was gaining traction. Realize that John wrote this letter, probably from Ephesus, around 85-95 A.D, at close to the age of one hundred. John was the last living apostle. The last eyewitness to the reality of who Jesus was. He could not allow the lie to move forward that Jesus was only Spirit, and that the physical Jesus was false or mythical.
Notice the emphasis of the reality of Jesus and who He was while He walked this earth in John introduction in 1 John 1:1-4, "We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy." Why is this so important? Because if the incarnation never took place and Jesus was not God, then His perfect sacrifice could be called into question, and then our salvation would be in question. We should also realize that God's presence in the person of the Messiah was not some new teaching as we read in Isaiah 9:6, "For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Yes this child would indeed be "Mighty God and Everlasting Father". We also read in Jeremiah 23:5-6, "“For the time is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will raise up a righteous descendant from King David’s line. He will be a King who rules with wisdom. He will do what is just and right throughout the land. And this will be his name: ‘The Lord Is Our Righteousness.’ In that day Judah will be saved, and Israel will live in safety." Yes, this child would be Jehovah Tsidkenu, or "The Lord is Our Righteousness". What we place our hope and trust in is stated so precisely in 1 John 5:11-12, "And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life."
This Christmas, rather than all of the distractions and superficialities that surround this holiday, perhaps pause for a moment and appreciate just what it is that God did because of His love for you and me, as we read Philippians 2:6-8, "Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross." There were the Gnostics then, but there are many now who go by different names and who fall under various religions of the world, as we read in 2 John 1:7, "I say this because many deceivers have gone out into the world. They deny that Jesus Christ came in a real body. Such a person is a deceiver and an antichrist." But we know in 1 John 5:20, "And we know that the Son of God has come, and he has given us understanding so that we can know the true God. And now we live in fellowship with the true God because we live in fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the only true God, and he is eternal life." Hallelujah, what a Savior!!!
Messages from Pastor Lloyd Pulley: