Countdown to Christmas - Day 4: God’s Bold Move

Welcome to Aggressive Life. This is the fourth and final day of the Christmas countdown. And I hope you've been getting some things that have helped orient or reorient your heart towards Jesus this Christmas. We're going to look at John chapter 114. You know, the stories around Christmas in the Bible really come from the books of Matthew and Luke. That's where we see the more detailed play by play and the character interaction around the miraculous virgin birth and other things that are in that area. Book of John, though, it actually has a very profound statement that is not traditionally read at Christmas, but actually is Christmas as Christmas gets. I'll read it for you. John chapter 114, it says this, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. John 1 chapter 1, it says, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was God and the Word was with God. And it goes on to talk about the Word. The Word is their Logos and the Logos is known as this, the Logos in the first century Greek empire, if you will, Roman empire, was known as sort of the cosmic goo that held everything together. That's what the Logos was. The Word, it's this spiritual stuff that just is the real stuff and holds everything, everything together. And John is making the argument of, hey, whatever holds anything together, that's God. You may call him Logos. He's actually God. He's actually Jesus. He's holding it together. And in this verse, it says that Word, that spiritual connective tissue goo that holds everything together, that Word actually became flesh, actual physical flesh and dwelt in our neighborhood.

That's what Eugene Peterson put it. He is the guy who wrote the Bible or the translation called The Message, which is really not translation. It's more every verse Eugene Peterson gives a little devotional and a couple extra words on that specific verse. It's not a translation, but it's helpful. Instead of him saying the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us, he says came and lived in our neighborhood. God came with us, which I love that. That's really rich. That's really meaty. Christmas says that Jesus came here. He dummy-proofed the identity of God. He's no longer an ethereal, philosophical Logos, spiritual entity out there. He took on flesh so we could relate to him. Jesus says, when you've seen me, you've seen the Father. That's how I'm dummy-proofing for you who God is, because the Word has taken on flesh. God the Father has taken on flesh. By the way, Theology 101, Jesus existed before Bethlehem. He wasn't created at Bethlehem. It's just he took on flesh at Bethlehem. That is an astounding understanding that he is God. He wasn't rewarded with divinity because of what he did. He always possessed divinity. He's always been the one true God. Actually, as God spoke things into existence in Genesis 1, he was the actual Word that was being spoken. He's participating in creation at the very, very beginning of earth's known history or recorded history in the book of Genesis chapter 1. That's what he does.

He creates. He points to the Father. He dummy-proofs us on who the Father is when he comes, and he dwells in our neighborhood. He hangs out. That is the unbelievable thing about Christmas. He came here, here to our world, and he still wants to come to your world right now. Maybe this is the Christmas where you move from having him as a philosophical, spiritual conjunction, where you move from him being the reason for the season, where you move from him being a great teacher and moral example, but where you move from him actually being in your neighborhood, in your life. Revelation chapter 3, John, the same John who's doing this, says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Whoever will open the door, I will come and dine with him. There is a knock, there's a knock of Christmas, there's a knock of Jesus on your heart right now if you're hearing what I'm saying and if anything is making sense to you, it's making sense to you because Jesus is knocking on your heart and He wants to come and dwell with you. He wants to be in your neighborhood. The greatest gift you can receive on Christmas is receive Jesus as the Lord of your life. The greatest gift you can give anyone this Christmas is to give God the gift of you. This is who I am. I'm giving myself to you. That's where you are right now. Let me just end our time and say a prayer right now. God, thank you for the reminder that you have dwelt with us and you are dwelling with us. Thank you for being inside so many of us, inside the lives of so many of us and some of us, God, we want you to be in our neighborhood right now, not just generally in the neighborhood called earth, but I mean in our lives and so we just say to you, Jesus, come dwell inside of me.

I hear you knocking. I want to have you. I want to receive you. I ask for your forgiveness and I ask for your fullness, the fullness of your spirit to come inside of me right now and I will walk with you and live with you as best I can the rest of my life. Amen. Hey, thanks for you to think about with that is if there's been any separation between you and God, a way that you've been felt distant or rebellious or a way that you have wrongly believed that he's abandoned you, it's time to set that straight and say, Hey God, I don't want to feel this way anymore. It's not the right way. Let's let's get back to living together. Let's get back to dwelling in the same neighborhood. And then big out of the thing is this is, is there a neighborhood he wants you to move to if he came and dwelt in your neighborhood and he wants us to be like him is, is there some neighborhood he wants you to dwell in? Some people group he wants you to go and bless some, some person he wants you to go spend time with. Maybe it's the opportunity to make somebody else's Christmas the way God made our life by coming and dwelling with us as flesh, be the flesh on behalf of God in somebody else's life. You have a great Christmas and we'll see you next year on the aggressive life. Thanks for joining us on this journey toward aggressive living. Find more resources, articles, past episodes, and more at bryantome.com. My new book, a 60 day devotional called the five marks for man 60 days to a powerful life along with all the other books in the five marks library are open right now on Amazon. Be sure to leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts, then send an email to dirt, that's dirt at bryantome.com to get a free aggressive life sticker. Find more on Instagram at bryantome.

The aggressive life is a production of Crossroads Church, Cincinnati, Ohio.