Sermon Central
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Christmas Is Complete Series
Contributed by Ed Mcneely on Dec 18, 2007 (message contributor)
Summary: The real Christmas tree completed God’s gift to mankind--eternal and abundant life to any and all who will accept it.
CHRISTMAS IS COMPLETE
The gift is given!
The veil in the temple is ripped from top to bottom! Everyone has equal access to God! God has delivered his Christmas Gift to us.
For those of us still wrestling with life, our God is no more high and lifted up except in our own esteem.
He is here with us—in us, a part of us—living in our own Spirit that he created and now makes it his home.
Jesus has suffered much to give us salvation full and free. He gave up the glory of God—the might, the power, the prestige, the sovereignty!
He left heaven! He left a universe of wealth and beauty to make his home on what God the Father called his footstool.
Acts7: 48“However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says:
49 ‘Heaven is My throne,
And earth is My footstool.
What house will you build for Me? says the LORD,
Or what is the place of My rest?
50 Has My hand not made all these things?’
This is quoted from Isaiah 66:1, 2.
John 16: 27, Jesus is talking to his disciples and he says: for the Father Himself loves you, (Why?)
Because you have loved Me, and have believed
that I came forth from God.
As a human stripped of his former glory, he could say that.
28 I came forth from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father.”
He does not return the same way he came down. He goes back with a resurrection body and with all the glory of God before he took on flesh.
Once again he controls the universe and everything and everyone in it.
John 17:20“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word;
21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.
Here is the prayer of Jesus, himself, for us—all who have accepted him personally as savior—that we might be one with him… in Us!
22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:
Here we have the unity of the faith-- that they may be one.
23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect(complete) in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
We are made complete in Jesus—reunited with God, the same fellowship that Adam and Eve enjoyed in the Garden.
This completeness leads us to glorification.
As Jesus said, And the glory which You gave Me I have given them(Why?), That they may be one just as We are one:
24 “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.
We have difficulty in understanding the glory of deity!
But John gives us a hint in his own relationship with Jesus.
In the flesh, at the communion supper, John was comfortable to lay his head back on the chest of Jesus just to look up at him to ask a question.
Yet, on the Isle of Patmos, that Roman prison colony, when the resurrected Jesus in all of his inherent glory appeared to John, he fell at his feet. Let’s read it:
Rev. 1:13…the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band.
14 His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire;
15 His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters;
If you have ever been to Niagara Falls or another of similar magnitude, you know what “many waters” sounds like.
16 He had in His right hand seven stars, out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength.
Not dim! Not bright! But the very brightest!
17 And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last.
18 I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen.
I know it all sounds spooky, but remember he told John: “Do not be afraid…
