| Introduction There are very few people that are indifferent to the holiday season, regardless of religious persuasion. A lot of people love it. Time off, presents, extra time with family, food, eggnog, special church services. As the Hallmark Channel puts it: it is the magic of Christmas. But for quite a few people, the holiday season is not magical at all. It can often be a time of increased loneliness. It can be a time when the memories of broken relationships become more powerful. The rate of depression among the general population in the U.S. increases to its peak during this time of the year. For Christians, the loneliness and depression are often accompanied by a sense of guilt and embarrassment because everyone around them is happy (so they think) and they are not. So, they feel broken and incomplete. They feel judged even when people are not aware of their struggles at all. Often this darkness that comes over the soul during the Christmas season is related to family. A father who spent the entire holiday season drunk. Kids who no longer speak to mom or dad. A death or rejection that happened during this time of the year. Sometimes these situations are accompanied by a large those of self-pity. Those who don't believe in Jesus Christ for their salvation have no real hope of deliverance from this darkness of the soul unless God changes their hearts and they believe in Jesus Christ for the salvation of their souls. If that is you this morning, I urge you to listen very carefully to what I am saying. Your response to what I am saying will be the difference between eternal life and eternal death for you. Jesus says, "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly" (Jn. 10:10b). For those who have entrusted their souls to Jesus Christ, the Lord of life, the very thing we are celebrating this time of the year is the light that shines on your souls and dispels the darkness of despair and discouragement: the birth of Jesus Christ, the incarnation of God the Son, in order to save his people. The light and glory demonstrated 2,000 years ago at the birth of Jesus shines in our hearts as we believe in him. Lk. 2:13-14– And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!" Why does the incarnation of God the Son dispel the darkness, the discouragement, the depression that you may associate with this time of the year? There are so many answers to this question. We could spend the next few years talking about it. For today, I want us to think of one reason why Jesus Christ dispels the darkness of the soul. Christ has brought you into his family and the Father will never leave you or forsake you. I. You Were Brought into the Family of God through Faith in Jesus Christ, 14-15. A. The Holy Spirit identifies God as the Father of the whole family in heaven and on earth. 1. You are part of a family that is more numerous than the stars of heaven, the grains of sand on the seashore, or the dust of the earth. 2. You are part of a family whose some of its members have gone before us to glory and stand now in heaven. 3. You are part of a family whose members are spread all over the earth. 4. No Christian is objectively alone. 5. God has brought us into one family and has knitted us together. Eph. 4:15-16– ... speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. B. It is a wonderful thing to be part of the family of God, brothers and sisters, bearing the name of God. C. The Father through the Lord Jesus Christ adopted us as his own children. Eph. 1:5-6– having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. 1. His adoption of us wasn't a rash decision made in the excitement of the birth of his Son in Bethlehem. 2. It was carefully planned from all eternity that through the incarnation of Jesus Christ you would be adopted and given the name Child of God. Gal. 4:6– And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!" a. Christian, God is your Father and Jesus Christ is your elder Brother. b. Your Father has given you Jesus Christ, the most precious thing he had, what good thing is he going to keep from you? c. Despite your sinfulness and natural hatred toward him, your heavenly Father changed your heart and put his name on you. d. He has made you heirs of all things. Rom. 8:15-17– For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father." The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him,that we may also be glorified together. D.The birth of Jesus, the life of obedience he lived, his death and resurrection were the final preparations for the adoption of his family. 1. All that in preparation for you to believe in Jesus Christ and be adopted into the family of God. 2. God took all the risk, made all the plans, incurred all the costs for you to bear his name. Eph. 2:19– Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God…. II. Our Father Blesses Us beyond What We can Ask Him or even Imagine, 16-18 (19-20). A. This is a prayer of Paul for the church, but he is praying that God through Jesus Christ would do the things that the Father had already promised he would do for those who are his children through faith in Jesus. B. The measure of God's blessings is his glorious riches, 16a. 1. The resources of God's blessings are nothing less than the infinity of God. 2. Paul tells us that we can't even imagine the extent of the resources that our Father puts into blessing us and that the power (the Holy Spirit) is already working in us, 20. C. Our Father strengthens us at the deepest level, 16b. 1. He strengthens us with power through his Spirit who is already working in us, 20. 2. This strengthening is not a superficial, temporary condition. 3. It is the strengthening of the core of who we are – the inner man. a. In v. 13, Paul acknowledges that the brothers and sisters were discouraged because of situations in life. b. The solution for that discouragement is the strength that God provides through the Spirit that already lives in us. c. Bother, sisters, if you are losing heart right now, your Father is ready to strengthen you – no strings attached. 1 Cor. 10:13– No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God isfaithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. D.Our Father has his Son dwell in us through his Spirit, 17a. 1. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all involved with the family of God, each one doing his part in ministering to us. 2. Christ continually dwells with us and that is demonstrated in our increased conformity to whom he is (we call that obedience). "It is true that all who are truly Christians are indwelt by Jesus Christ, but it is also true that this is something they grow into as Christ takes stronger and fuller possession of every corner of their lives." James Montgomery Boice E. Our Father strengthens, sends his Son to dwell in us through his Spirit as we believe in him, but the greatest blessing and one that fuels all others is that our Father loves us, 17b-19. 1. Paul prays that the family of God would understand how great the Father's love for us is. 2. It is a paradoxical thing – we are to grasp what we can't fully understand. 3. First, the Christian is like a tree with deep roots in the soil of love and a building with strong foundations laid on the rock of love. a. Primarily God's love for us because he initiates love. 1 Jn. 4:16– And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. 1 Jn. 4:19– We love because he first loved us. b. Then, our response in loving him and his people. 4. The love of God for us is displayed in Christ's love for us, 18-19. a. The impression we get from reading these verses is that Paul got choked up in talking about the love of Christ as represented by the dash between the two verses. b. The love of Christ is for the entire family – all the saints. c. The Love of Christ is something that we need to grasp (comprehend). 1) The idea here is grasp as one's own, to experience it. 2) We do that by realizing what the love of Christ does – will see that in a moment. d. We are not to leave any corner of the love of Christ for us unexplored, 18 – look at the four dimensions indicating completeness. "[The love of Christ] is wide enough to reach the whole world and beyond…. It is long enough to stretch from eternity to eternity…. It is high enough to raise both Gentiles and Jews to heavenly places in Christ Jesus…. It is deep enough to rescue people from sin's degradation and even from the grip of Satan himself…." A. Skevington Wood in EBC 5. We grasp the love of Christ by knowing and experiencing what it is and what it does, 19 – canonical order, not necessarily in order of importance. a. It is the pattern for our love for one another, Jn. 13:34. b. It always points to the fact that the Father loves us, Jn. 15:9. c. We demonstrate that we have experienced it by obeying Jesus, Jn. 15:9-10. d. It has been poured in our hearts by the Spirit, Rom. 5:5. e. It is displayed in the death of Jesus, Rom. 5:8. f. It brings hope to our hearts, Rom. 5:15. g. We cannot be separated from it, Rom. 8:35. h. It leads us to rely on God through prayer, Rom. 15:30. i. It compels us to selfless living, 2 Cor. 5:14. j. It unites us, 2 Cor. 13:11. k. It enables us to walk in love for others, Eph. 5:2. l. It purifies and sanctifies us, Eph. 5:25-26. m.It enables us to follow what the apostles teach in the NT, 2 Tim. 1:13. n. It saves us, Titus 3:4-5. o. Obedience completes it in our lives, 1 Jn. 2:5. p. It adopts us as children of God, 1 Jn. 3:1. q. It opens our hearts to the needs of the brethren, 1 Jn. 3:17. r. It is declared in the incarnation of the Son, 1 Jn. 4:9. 6. This love is infinite and not something we would have come up with – passes all understanding. 7. As we move deeper and deeper into grasping and experiencing the love of Christ, ten million years from now we will not have come any closer to exhausting it.
The result, the goal, of the Father strengthening us, Christ dwelling in us, and our grasping it is that we may be filled with the fullness of God. I am not sure how that works since God is infinite and we are finite, but it seems worth it! The notion of being filled is the notion of being satisfied, of being blessed to overflowing. God fills his family. God fills you with himself. Life can be extremely difficult and this season can be tough for some of us. But there is nothing that dispels the darkness of the soul, that lifts up the droopy hands, that encourages the faint-hearted like the love of God through Jesus Christ. In a season in which some of you may feel very alone, the reality is that you are not alone. Your Father is ready to fill you to the brim with himself. And you family, the household of God himself, is here to love you.
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