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Location:
6425 Jefferson Rd. For
directions, click here.
Jerry
Varnado,
pastor December
25, 2005 Main
Scripture text:
John
1:1-18. For
some time I had been relaxing in
the comfort of a successful law
career, a picture-perfect family
and a wealth of friends and
social acquaintances. But
during the course of that
two-year period, my
eight-year-old daughter was
killed in an accident, my best
friend died without warning, and
my wife divorced me. My
success and comfort turned to
near unbearable grief, despair
and hopelessness. But
on August 29, 1980, through the
witness of a friend, God
intervened and miraculously
changed my life. The
circumstances didn't change --
but somehow I gained courage and
strength to deal with them
effectively, and felt a sense joy
and peace in spite of it
all. My
image of God had always been
omnipotent creator, but God's
omnipotence belonged to another
world and made little difference
in my life. God was up in the
heavens somewhere and I was down
here on earth. Church
was dull and boring; it seemed to
be nothing more than another
institution of human
invention. But
suddenly, the God I began to
encounter was a God of present
power. He healed me of many deep
hurts and set me free from
destructive habits that were
draining me of life and hope.
Worship
services suddenly became
exciting; the church became the
center of my non-work activity
and later became my
work. What
was the difference? Why hadn't
found this life-changing power
before? I
believe the main factor is that
the faith I had before was devoid
of experience. There is no way to
experience God when He's "up
there" and I'm "down here."
Religion without experience is
always ineffectual in producing
substantive, lasting change in
life. The
problem was my image of God was
pre-Christmas; the God out there,
rather than Incarnate God of the
New Testament, the Word made
Flesh in Jesus Christ, who makes
His power available to transform
our lives and bring about change
in the world. Until
we understand that concept, God
is just an abstract thought in
our minds. He is the almighty,
incomprehensible being who lives
up in the clouds
somewhere. Christmas
is God becoming actual to us! The
eternal Word became flesh and
entered the dimension of human
experience. This
is an incredible thing God has
done. As he does so well, C.S
Lewis gets it down to our
level: Why
did God do this? You could say He
did it to reveal himself to us,
or to reveal the beauty and
nobility of humanity untarnished
by sin. Both are true but those
are the results of His coming,
not the purpose. The
reason why Jesus came is:
redemption. Speaking
of his impending death in John
12:27, Jesus says: Jesus
was born to die for our
redemption. What is redemption?
It is the recovering of ownership
of something by paying a required
price. Redemption
implies preceding bondage. We are
born into bondage to the curse of
sin and death. That's what was
draining me of life and
hope! We
are in bondage to death because
we sin, we transgress
Godís laws, and we have no
power within us to stop it.
Jesus
came to redeem us from that
curse! The incredible claim of
Jesus Christ is that He can
reproduce his own life, His own
heredity in anyone who believes
and receives Him! God
incarnate in human flesh waded
straightway into the mire of sin
and death and hell -- and cleared
a path for us back to God that we
might stand before His majesty
and glory as we were created to
do, as friends and lovers of
God. The
eternal God, the Creator of all
things became the weakest thing
in that creation, a baby, so
majestically small most of the
world never saw Him. Then God
used that baby to redeem us from
the power of sin and give us his
heredity. 2
Corinthians 5:2 says this: "God
made him who had no sin to be sin
for us, so that in him we might
become the righteousness of
God." With
that righteousness comes the
power of God, so that even the
weakest one among us can be more
than a conqueror. Hear
again the Good News from John's
Gospel about Jesus Christ, the
Word made flesh:
Gateway
Church gathers
for worship
Sundays
at 10:30 a.m.
(Hwy. 129) in Athens,
Georgia.
Ministry
of the
Word:
Recent
sermons
Our quarterly e-magazine
Gateway
Today
For the Gateway family
Pastor
Jerry's Weekly
E-Mail
A
GATEWAY SERMON
The
Word became flesh
Gateway
Church,
Athens GA
(Christmas Day)
On August 29, 1980 something
happened to me which has
radically changed my life. That
day marks the end of a two-year
struggle that had virtually
destroyed my life and every
reason I had for
living.
The
God who is hereThe
Second Person in God, the Son,
became human Himself: was born
into the world as an actual
man -- a real man of a
particular height, with hair
of a particular color,
speaking a particular
language, weighing so many
pounds. The Eternal Being, who
knows everything and who
created the whole universe,
became not only a man but,
before that, a baby, and
before that a fetus inside a
woman's body. If you want to
get the hang of it, think what
it be like for you to become a
slug or a crab.
God's
purposeNow
my heart is troubled, and what
shall I say? Father, save me
from this hour? No, it was
for
this very
reason
I came to this hour. Father,
glorify your name.
A
mission to rescue
usTo
all who received him, to those
who believed in his name, he
gave the right to become
children of God.
No
audio available.
©
2005 Gerald R.
Varnado