Incarnation: God Among Us

12/10/17—Highland—Meute

The Incarnation: “God Among Us”

Malachi 3: 1-5; John 1: 6-14

Pearl: Incarnation is communal as Christ dwells AMONG US.

Function: To impress upon listeners the truth that God dwells with the community as a whole and so to temper the individualistic emphasis of the Western church.

If you embrace Jesus the Christ, you must also embrace the church, the community of Jesus the Christ.

Christians in the Western hemisphere have gone too far in stressing the individual nature of the spiritual life.

1. This “spiritual individualism” is evident in the “sawdust” trail of American Christianity through the Great Awakenings of the 18^th and even on through the 20^th Traveling evangelists held crusades and still do today as you see “revival” weeks being held by local churches.
   1. Chances are that most of us were impacted by that kind of religious fervor in our spiritual development.
   2. How many have attended a Billy Graham Crusade or watched one on television? Rev. Graham’s influence on the soul of our nation cannot be underestimated. Think of all of the US Presidents that called upon him to be the “Nation’s Pastor.”
2. The notion of our Lord Jesus dwelling within the heart of individual believers is powerful and correct but it is by no means enough or the whole picture.
   1. When the Graham team came to a local city to conduct a crusade his organization worked closely with local churches. They stressed that everyone who made a decision for Christ needed to be connected to a local body of believers, a local church. A large organizational structure was put in place to make sure that some local church tried to bring those individuals into the COMMUNITY.
3. You should with all of your heart and with all of your mind and with all of your soul seek to relate to God but you should seek with just as much of yourself to relate to God’s people, the church, and the community as well.
4. The spiritual life is profoundly COMMUNAL.

I challenge you to become more and more a fan of plural pronouns when you think of your relationship with God.

1. One of the deficiencies of the “Me and Jesus” Movement of the 1970’s was that it became too overly personal. In the west we need to recover the usage of the plural pronouns.
   1. It is about going from “Me to We,” “Us,” “they,” “you,” etc.
   2. Many of our favorite spiritual songs could be improved if plural pronouns were inserted for all of the singular pronouns. That would be a theological improvement!
   3. Sometimes it is awkward for the song but for most it is easy to do.
2. Our faith in Christ, our spiritual life is a thoroughly communal thing. Christ lives in his people. “The Word became flesh and lived among us.”
3. Maybe we believe deep down that our faith is easier to live out if we do it privately and personally.
   1. It is challenging to embrace the church community as fervently as we embrace the Lord Jesus himself.
   2. Yet that is our calling.
      1. We cannot love God and hate a brother or a sister. We read in I John 2: 9-11: Whoever says, ‘I am in the light,’ while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness…whoever hates another believer is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness.
      2. Further in I John 4 it is written: Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love…No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

When God in Christ lived among us it meant that we have to embrace the collective community of the church. The church comes in all shapes and sizes and colors and varieties and emphases. It is a magnificent tapestry.

1. It is by no means perfect! It errs. It constantly requires reforming. It will hurt you and disappoint you. It will let you down. But it is the “body of Christ” (I Corinthians 12) and we are meant to embrace it!
2. Christ is present in his people collectively.
   1. We should never speak ill of the church.
      1. In my 30 years of ordained ministry I have heard plenty of negative comments about our Presbyterian Church (USA). Be warned.
         1. When you speak ill of the church, you speak ill of the very Bride of Christ.
            1. In Revelation, Chapter 21, where the “new heaven” and the “new earth” is written about has this: I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.
            2. I urge people to be very careful in what they say about the church or any church. The church is the Bride of Christ. When you speak ill of someone’s spouse you expect them to defend that spouse. If you speak ill of the Bride of Christ, the church, you are likely offending God.
            3. Be very careful in what you say about the church.
               1. There are times when prophetic things should be said to the church.
               2. The church always needs “reforming,” as I said earlier.

• But I am speaking about making general statements and taking overly critical attitudes toward the church in general.

1. Christ lives among his people.

2. Among his last words before he ascended to heaven Jesus said to his disciples,

“Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28: 20). He was speaking to a group.

Christ is in his people, his church. He is in the community. Embrace the community and you embrace your Lord. He is also in others even beyond his people.

1. In Matthew 25 we have the compelling parable of the sheep and the goats. Jesus used that story to say that he was in other people. He said that when you give clothing or food to another person you give it to him. He said that when you visit someone in prison you visit him. He said that when you do anything for the least of these who are members of his family you do it for him. He also said that when you do not do it for the least of these who are members of his family you do not do it for him.
   1. Jesus is very much in others. He wants us to always look for him in other people.
   2. That is a challenging exercise if you take it up.
      1. Many like to “people watch.” When you “people watch” add a new layer to the practice. Look for Jesus as you people watch.
      2. Making that a spiritual practice will help you to love people more. And this is necessary if you hope to love God.

• You cannot love God and hate people.

2. We talk of having a “personal relationship” with Jesus Christ. It is used as a litmus test. All of my life people have asked me if I have a personal relationship with Jesus. I do. I have always been ready to answer that question.
   1. That question is not enough. The next question or better the second part of that question should be: “Do you have a communal relationship with Jesus Christ?”
   2. They are two sides of the same coin. The life with God is both personal and communal.
3. And of course, this is because God is not solitary but communal in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit.

The Word became flesh and lived among us… and the Lord Jesus Christ continues to live with, to live in, and to live among his people forever, to the end of the age.