Let's Start Before the Beginning, Part 3

On the very first Christmas Day, Jesus appeared on the world stage unlike any other human before or since. The Apostle John said this about Jesus, In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God and the Word was God. What does John's mysterious statement mean?

And what are the implications for you and me on December 16th, 2020? Well, today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll will examine the first chapter of John. This passage will surprise us as John magnifies the origin of the Christmas miracle.

Chuck titled his message, Let's Start Before the Beginning. In a beginning was the Word. John's favorite name for Jesus is Logos. In a beginning, which really never has a beginning, eternally existed, Logos. The Word was with God. The Word was God. Lest we be confused, we will use the word deity.

Logos was deity. He existed in the beginning with God. In fact, God created everything through him. Apart from him, there is no life.

And it adds, apart from him, there is no light. Jesus, the original architect of it all. And you thought he just began as a baby in a manger.

No, no, no. The baby in the manger held the universe in place. So Logos became human.

Never before in all of history, never before has such a transition taken place. God, while remaining God, now becomes truly human. The unique God-man. Theologians call him the theanthropic person.

Theos anthropos. This is the fulfillment of the prophet's words. A child will be born.

A son will be given. Here he is, God in flesh. Verse 14 says he was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.

How true. How magnificent. But look, for example, at what Paul wrote. Colossians 1 15. Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.

How beautiful to write it like that. He's visible. We could see him, but in fact, in him there is the nature of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation. Well, of course, the creator is supreme over the creation. He is that.

Paul goes on through him. God created everything, verifying what John wrote. In the heavenly realms and on earth, he made the things we can see and the things we can't see. He made it all. He saw it all.

Designed it all. And the immensity of space. If we could travel the speed of light, last time I checked, that's 186,000 miles a second. If we could take a direct trajectory from Earth into the spaces, none of the orbiting, just go direct, we'd be at the moon in one and one third seconds. You know how long it would take us to get to the first star? Just the first star in our galaxy?

Four years. That's just the first star. I love it that when Genesis records the making of the stars, it says, half verse, Genesis 1 16. He made the stars also. Oh, before I forget.

He put those stars there too. Don't you love it? You can laugh.

It's okay. You know why we laugh? Because we can't imagine it.

We laugh because it is beyond our comprehension. He existed before anything else. He holds all creation together. He is the head of the church, which is his body. He's the beginning, the supreme over all who rise from the dead.

He's first in everything. And it pleased the father to reconcile everything to himself as he comes to the cross. By the way, he died upon a cross of wood, but he had made the hill on which it stood. He's the creator, the savior of ours. He's no happen-along child of the Mary of Nazareth. He's the perfectly designed human form that God took upon himself and lived on this earth 33 years. John writes, he came unto his own things, verse 10, but his own ones did not even recognize him.

You know what's interesting to think about while we're thinking in our vehicles here? When he walked on the hill, he had made it. When he sailed the lake, he had put the lake in place.

When he netted the fish from the lake, he had made the fish. When he stilled the storm, he had made the clouds. The prophet writes, the clouds are but the dust of his feet. This is our savior. This is our Lord. He who came in Bethlehem's manger in that nativity scene, as you look at that baby, understand what you're looking at. What is remarkable is what you cannot see, and that is what he represents. Now, coming from heaven to earth was a shocking descent.

Think about it. While he is in the infinity of eternity past, why, he has all the prerogatives and blessings of heaven. He has the worship of myriad of angels. Every comfort one can even imagine and beyond imagination is his.

All authority, all rule, all power, all power, all power. He made all the kingdoms, all those spaces there he put together. And when he said yes to the father's will, he began a journey of descent. Philippians chapter 2 tracks the journey. Turn there now. Open your map here to Philippians 2 verse 6.

Here we go. Though he was God, so Paul begins where John ends his statement, he was God. Though that's true, he did not think equality with God is something to cling to.

So Paul is getting ready to describe the process of moving from heaven to earth. He didn't cling to the prerogatives of deity. He didn't hold on to being co-equal, co-eternal, and co-existent with the father and the spirit. He let it go. He was willing to release it, to surrender it for a time.

What else? Instead, he gave up his divine privileges. Not really a great translation. The Greek says simply, he emptied himself. This is probably the most important part of his incarnation. What does that mean? He certainly didn't empty himself of his deity, for he's stilling storms and healing the sick and raising the dead, calming the waters. So what does it mean?

Listen carefully. He willingly set aside the independent, voluntary use of his divine attributes and personal prerogatives while earthbound. Again, he willingly set aside the independent, voluntary use of his divine attributes and personal prerogatives while earthbound. As a human being, he didn't act independently.

Remember his words? I do always the things that please the father. That was never true before we became a man. He was co-equal with the father.

Remember in eternity past, co-equal, co-eternal, co-existent? But when he became a man, he willingly bowed to the will of his father. He submitted himself to the father's will. Instead of remaining creator designer, he became a humble servant on this earth. That's what it says here. He took upon himself the humble position of a servant.

Born as a human being, he appeared in human form and humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death on a cross. Wonderful journey we've had. We'll end our tour, but we're not through with the journey. We'll be on it for a while. We've thought together about where?

From infinity, eternity past, to creation, to nativity, to Calvary, to the resurrection where he gained victory over deaths and in the grave. So we've dealt with where? We've also addressed who? And our focus has been on the second member, the Lord Jesus, who was chosen, originally the designer and the creator of all things, now comes as the servant to give himself for us. You know what we haven't addressed?

Why? Why would the father send us his son? What's the why around the Christmas story? It's in one four-letter word, love. Yeah, God so loved the world that he gave us his word. Yeah, God so loved the world that he gave us his one and only son. He proved his love to us and that while we were yet sinning, Christ died for us.

It was love. Back behind the scene from eternity past where there is love, all the way through time, all the way to the nativity, to his childhood, his ministry, his suffering and death, it is love. As he reaches out to us, just like his father, he so loved us he gave himself for us. And that calls for a response, so that whoever believes in him would never perish but have everlasting life.

That's the why. And that's what makes our response so important. We're not just sitting and listening with our arms folded, learning new things about theology.

We're preparing ourselves for a response. I know a man who is a very keen thinking individual. He's an author of a number of books. On one occasion, he decided to make his own study of Jesus of Nazareth. Oh, he had been raised in a home where he heard the name of Jesus. He was a part of a church where they had talked a lot about Jesus. He went to a college where Jesus was often mentioned, but he never really felt he knew the real Jesus. So as part of a book he wrote, which he titled, The Jesus I Never Knew, he includes these words.

Listen to the thoughts of Philip Yancey. It is almost beyond my comprehension and yet I accept this. Love is the key to understanding Christmas and is, in fact, the touch of the heart of the world.

Love is the key to understanding Christmas and is, in fact, the touchstone of my faith. As a Christian, I believe that we live in parallel worlds. One world consists of hills and lakes and barns and politicians and shepherds watching their flocks by night. The other consists of angels and sinister forces.

Somewhere out there, places called heaven and hell. One night in the cold, in the dark, among the wrinkled hills of Bethlehem, those two worlds came together at a dramatic point of intersection. God, who knows no before or after, entered time and space. God, who knows no boundaries, took on the shocking confines of a baby's skin. The ominous restraints of mortality. He continues, he is the invisible, he is the image of the invisible God. The firstborn over all creation, an apostle would later write, he is before all things and in him all things hold together. But the few eyewitnesses on Christmas night saw none of that.

They saw an infant struggling to work never before used lungs. Could it be true? Could it be this Bethlehem story of a creator descending to be born on one small planet? If so, it is a story like no other.

Little wonder a choir of angels broke out in spontaneous song, disturbing not only a few shepherds, but the entire universe. Having guided you through this part of the tour, you may not be disturbed over what you have heard. Because for the first time, perhaps, you've heard more about the story than you've ever heard before. But you've never responded to the story, you've only listened to it.

This is a story that calls for a response. Will you accept the Father's love? Will you accept the Savior's death on your behalf? Will you acknowledge that you need the Savior to find your eternity that will be without time or ending once you have died? Once you have died, the offer of salvation is made available to us today.

Today is the day to respond, not only to hear the story, but to take it personally, believe it, embrace it. Because just as his life was transformed, he will transform yours as well. Please bow your heads with me. Just sit there with your eyes closed and imagine for a moment the day you're taking your final breath. You're not going to pass into nothingness in spite of what your college prof may have told you. You're going to move into another whole realm of life called eternal life. Where you spend that will depend on what you have done with Jesus while you're alive.

There's no second chance. There is no purgatory. There is no such thing as being prayed out of a bad place into a good place after you're gone. All the praying, all the believing is limited to now, right now.

As many who receive Christ, to each one, he became, gave him the power to become children of God, even to those of us who believe in his name. I invite you to believe in him now, right now. If you find it hard, we're here to help you believe. We're here to help you believe. We're here to help you make that journey.

I'll be glad to be your tour guide in that process as well. Thank you, dear Father, for the journey. Thank you for sending your son for us. We didn't deserve him. We don't deserve what he gave us, gave us his life, all the blessings of life eternal, but we claim them by faith because of your grace. Speak directly to those who've never come to know your son and give them no peace or rest till they find that in you through Jesus Christ. I ask these things. Everyone say, amen.

Before the beginning. To learn more about Chuck Swindoll and this ministry, visit us online at insightworld.org. Chuck is in the studio today, prepared to share some personal comments just for our radio family. But first, it's important to remind you that time is running short to take advantage of the Christmas shopping opportunities at Insight for Living. There's no better gift to share on December 25th than one that includes spiritual encouragement. And the Insight for Living online store is filled with wonderful opportunities. For instance, you'll find the Swindoll Study Bible comes in a variety of cover preferences. There's an assortment of creative children's books, too.

And Chuck has just completed the entire New Testament commentary series in 16 hardbound volumes. So while there's still time to receive your purchase before Christmas, be sure to go online today. Our web address is insight.org slash store. If you're listening in the United States and you prefer to call, here's the number 1-800-772-8888. There's hardly a nation in the world that hasn't suffered from the complications of this coronavirus. The 2020 pandemic that spread like wildfire has become truly global. The insidious bug has crossed every border, broken every barrier humanity has placed in its way. In spiritual terms, COVID has spread like human sinful nature. Without prejudice, the disease has violated every continent on our globe, just as sin courses through the veins of every man, every woman, every child in this world.

Well, at Insight for Living Ministries, we're painfully aware of the collateral damage caused by the pandemic of man's sin, let alone the global suffering caused by the coronavirus. But in both cases, we know that God is neither surprised nor stymied. God is the answer.

He's not the problem. And our greatest calling is to point our suffering world to the one who is able to save us. Remarkably, while churches and much of our economy were obstructed through 2020, Insight for Living never missed one day of Bible teaching, not one.

In fact, our mission to reach all 195 countries of the world through Vision 195 moved ahead without hindrance. And if the compounding events of 2020 taught us anything, it's certainly true that our lives are fragile, our times are volatile, and our need for a Savior is urgent. So, let me ask, won't you join me in giving generously to the mission of Insight for Living Ministries?

Think about that question. By teaching God's Word, we will serve as a calming voice of stability. You could have a part in that. As we point people to the Savior in every corner of the world, you can do that with us. So, let's do this together. Let's do this now while there's still time and people are hurting so deeply.

Jesus said, we must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us, for the night is coming when no one can work. Thanks for hearing me. I'm speaking today from my heart.

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And we take delight in linking arms with men and women like you, to bring the good news about Jesus to a world that's craving to hear the truth. It might be easier for you to use the convenient Insight for Living mobile app. Just click the donate button and follow the simple instructions. Or, if you prefer the old-fashioned way and you're living in the U.S., our phone number, once again, is 1-800-772-8888. Or, go online to insight.org. Join us again next time when Chuck Swindoll invites us to witness a troubled romance in Nazareth. Listen Thursday to Insight for Living.