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Sermon - Rev Hap Arnold
Church of the Faithful Centurion -
Descanso, California
Today’s sermon is
the message of Christmas. He came unto his own, and His own received Him
not.[1] Christ came unto His own, the people he
created, to show them the Word which He is the living But as many as received Him, to them he gave
the power to become the sons of God. He has adopted us unto his family, through His
Word, which he has spoken unto us, that we may fulfill it and live in harmony
with others in this word.
And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among
us. This speaks to the living
incarnate nature of the Word, (Christ) who dwelt among us 2,000 years ago, that
He might understand our nature completely, so that He could teach us with understanding,
understanding to which the Devil has no access. If He lived in our conditions,
it would be easier for Him to relate to us when He taught and spake the Word of
His Father. And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the
Father, full of grace and truth. In
That Word, He spake both full of grace and of truth as John said in the last
Gospel. If we will accept His grace and truth
though the Holy Ghost, then can we do things for His Glory. Without that in our
hearts, we cannot do anything for Him.
We are imperfect creatures, but now accounted for and spoken for by
Christ. With the Word, we are empowered to do things for Him. The birth of
Christ would foreshadow his death, which would bring about the ultimate
freedom, that from sin and death.
That
is such an important point. 16 For
God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) Not just that God, the Almighty Creator of
Heaven and Earth, would send His only begotten Son, but that the Son came
knowing not only that He, King of Kings, would be born in a manger, live a life
of relative poverty, but that He would die a horrible, horrible death so we
might have eternal life. He came to this
miserable planet for us, to give us life eternal! He knew when He came here precisely how He
would leave, yet He came anyway. Think
of that on this Christmas Day!
Today we
recall the birth of our Lord and Savior, the only means by which we, imperfect
creatures with free will, might be accounted as perfect before God when our day
of judgment comes. Born, not in a
palace, but in a stable, He is all that we have been promised. Taking the substance of Man, all Man and all
God, He knows our temptations, He knows our failures, He knows our failings, He
knows our sorrow; He also knows our happiness, our small triumphs, our hopes
and our dreams. He is the only one in
this world who will never fail us in the slightest. He gives us His example to follow. If we will but follow Him, we will draw
closer to God. He made the world, He
knows the world. He defeated the Prince
of this World, thus with His Help, so will we.
This is a day of joy, foreshadowing a day of sorrow, leading to the
greatest joy of all.
Let us
joyfully receive Him into our hearts and homes, that we might do what He asks
and spread the Joy of His Arrival on Earth that we might prepare for His Second
Coming. If we do this and what he asks, which is a common theme that stays the
same throughout the Christian Year, we shall be Blessed with good things, as a
result of doing what He asks. On this Christmas Day, let us Rejoice in His
Coming and begin our preparations for His Second Coming.
Let this be
a blessed and happy Christmas. He has
come to us!
Be of God - Live of God - Act of God
[1]
John 1:11
