Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / Special Services

Christmas Day 2005

Message:  ‘Christmas Present’                  Text: Ephesians 3:16-19
 

Introduction: According to National Public Radio, what do you think is the most popular song of all time?  White Christmas.
    •    Could it be because that song strikes a chord deep within us all?
    •    Could it be because we long for a better time…an easier time...a time ‘just like the ones we used to know’?

White Christmas, is not in our hymnbooks because it isn’t a religious song, but, it makes us feel good, it gives us ‘warm fuzzies’, it’s comfortable. Perhaps because in Christmases past a loved one was still with you, or you had a better job or the whole family was home.

But there’s a problem inherent with the song and it’s theme…it shows us that at Christmas we spend too much time dreaming of what ‘used to be’ instead of appreciating ‘what is’. That’s why I titled this message ‘Christmas Present’.

What are you dreaming about this Christmas? A better job in the new year, a better relationship with a loved one, better health, a renewed sense of worth perhaps? May I suggest there is no better dream than the one Paul prays for in Eph 3:16-19.  Actually, this isn’t a dream at all, it’s something that’s already available to every Christian…but isn’t always appropriated. Why? Because it’s sometimes easier to choose to live in a time ‘just like the ones we used to know’ rather than in the present.

Transition: At Christmas we celebrate the incarnation, that God took on flesh and dwelt among us. But what Paul is praying for in our text is that each Christian would recognize that the presence of God dwells in them, not just in Christmas past, but in Christmas present.

The Reality of Christ’s Presence
Read: Ephesians 3:16-17a

The great and wonderful truth of the Christian faith is that God not only chose to dwell among us…but to dwell in us. That’s what Paul meant when he wrote this in  Col. 1:27: ‘the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory,’ We must not overlook the uniqueness of Christianity as compared to other world religions. Christianity is not something that we ‘get in to’. It’s Someone who ‘gets in to’ us.

This comes from the meaning of the phrase ‘to dwell’ which in the Greek means ‘to settle down in a house’. The idea is that Jesus is literally ‘at home in us’, that is, in the very center of the Christian’s life. (Pastor John Hutchinson)

Paul was writing to Christians living in Ephesus, Jesus was already in their hearts, by faith…but that’s a huge concept to comprehend. And they didn’t fully understand what that meant in the day to day living out of their faith…and neither do many Christian today.

That’s why Paul prayed they and we would be strengthened by the Holy Spirit. Because we think God dwells in us is a spiritual way, or it is only a religious figure of speech. Yes it’s comforting, but not an actual reality. Listen to what Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones, a godly scholar had to say about this because it’s what Paul wants us to get not only from the text, but from Christmas as a whole.

    •    This presence of Christ in the heart is something real. It does not only mean that he is present through the Spirit, or present in the sense that he is influencing us           in a general manner and giving us graces and enabling us to feel certain of his influence. It goes beyond that. It means that he himself in some mystical sense that           we cannot begin to understand really does dwell in us.

Transition:  Paul prays that the Christian will experience the dwelling of Jesus Christ in their hearts as a reality and not just as a spiritual figure of speech. Why? Because those who recognize the presence of Jesus in their lives, enjoy the riches of his presence.

The Riches of Christ’s Presence
Read: Ephesians 3:17b-19

Paul prays for the Christian to enjoy the riches associated with the presence of Jesus in their life. And it seems that the bottom line to enjoying the riches of the presence of Jesus in your life, is experiencing  the multidimensional love of God, demonstrated in Jesus his Son.

From his prayer, Paul wants us to somehow grasp and then live in the enormity of God’s love for us in Jesus.  So, Paul prays that we would not put limits on God’s love.

ILL: God’s love is similar to what happened to the little boy that was digging a hole near the ocean side. After reaching a depth of only a couple of inches, the hole started to fill with water. The boy tried to scoop out the water and pour it back into the ocean, but, it the water kept filling up faster than he could empty it. Then, he found out a very important fact. He stopped scooping the water and let the hole fill up. The water stopped, right at the top of the hole that he had dug. No more water came in. He thought it had stopped, so he started to empty it once again. But, the water continued to ‘seep’ in. The hole continued to fill to the same measure of the size the boy had dug.

That’s the measure that Paul is talking about. That’s the measure with which God will use to fill you with His love. It’s endless, and it continues to fill, no matter how much you use. You can never get to the end of God’s love.

But there’s more. The little boy made that hole bigger, thinking that the water couldn’t possibly fill a bigger hole, but it did.

That’s God measure, too. When you enlarge yourself, when you give more and more room to God in your life, today, you enlarge the amount of love you can hold, and when you enlarge the amount you can hold, GOD WILL FILL IT! (David Richardson)

Paul mixes his metaphors here when he prays that we would be rooted like a plant and established like a building in the love of God by the presence of Jesus in our lives.
    •    The phrases ‘being rooted’ and ‘established’ are in the Greek perfect tense. That means it is a past action (represented by his death on the cross) and a
         continuing result (represented by his presence in your life).

There is no end to the love of God and there is no greater joy than experiencing it each day…in the present, not just hoping for it in the future when you get to heaven, or being thankful for it when he died on the cross to forgive your sin. There is so much more.

Paul is praying not for a taste, but the fullness of God in the life of the Christian. To experience the fullness of God means you are complete in him. You don’t need to look anywhere else, you don’t need anything else. God is enough and you can experience this fullness.

How? When each day you live in the Christmas Present
    •    acknowledging and experiencing the presence of Jesus Christ in your life.
    •    He wants you to enjoy the fullness of God’s riches because of his presence with you…now.


Conclusion
ILL: John Wendel was able to influence five of his six sisters never to marry, and they lived in the same house in New York City for 50 years. When the last sister died in 1931, her estate was valued at more than $100 million. Her only dress was one that she had made herself, and she had worn it for 25 years. The Wendels had such a compulsion to hold on to their possessions that they lived like paupers. It is rumored that when the one behind this excessive penny-pinching, John Wendel, passed away, his sisters were told they needed to put a notice of his death in the paper. That also serves as a legal notification of a death. Now, they were also told that the notice would cost just two dollars for five words. The sisters asked if they could put in just two words, instead, such as, “WENDEL DEAD” and only have to pay for those two words. No, the minimum payment, they were told, was two dollars whether it was one, two, or five words.  So, to save the rest of the ‘three words’, since they were paying for them, they put in this statement, “Wendel Dead. Car for Sale.”  (David Richardson)

John Wendel and his sisters were rich but chose not to take advantage of their riches.
    •    Christmas is about taking advantage of the riches of God in Christ, now, in the present.
    •    Christmas is about the Incarnation: God became man and dwelt among us.
    •    Christmas is about Emmanuel: God with us

Yet we often live as if Christmas was only a past event and not a present reality and we fail to appropriate the riches of God’s presence as Children of God.

How about you Christian?
    •    Do you know you are rich but are not enjoying the wealth you have in Jesus Christ? (insert)
    •    Do you know just how much God loves you?
    •    Are you singing White Christmas and remembering Christmas past ‘just like the ones you used to know’? or
    •    Are you experiencing the real presence of God in your life and tapping into the tremendous resources available to you?
Paul was convinced of three things…
1.    That Jesus dwells in the Christian in a very real and powerful way.
2.    That recognizing the presence of Jesus in our lives allows us to enjoy the great love of God for us.
3.    That both of these truths are yours…today.

So, what are you dreaming of this Christmas? I pray that Christmas becomes a present reality enjoyed by experiencing the riches of Christ’s loving presence.