Hey, I want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas.

So glad you're with us to celebrate Christmas Eve.

And as I've mentioned before, Christmas is one of my deep, actually, it is my favorite time of year because I get to delve into these passages in the Christmas narrative.

And over time, I've learned that they are a microcosm of our lives.

We continue to look in the story and we continue to realize how much God really does understand the lives and the challenges that we face.

So as we enter into Christmas Eve.

We're going to take a different approach.

Matthew, Mark, Luke talk about the facts of Christmas, and typically Christmas messages are delivered out of those three texts, out of those three books, Matthew, Mark, Luke.

John, however, is totally different.

He doesn't give us the facts of Christmas, Bethlehem, the place where Jesus was born, doesn't talk about the wise men, he doesn't talk about Simeon, he doesn't talk about Zechariah and Elizabeth.

He gives us the theology of Christmas, but in doing so, he really does open up the door to heaven.

So I want you to think about, just for a moment, as you think about the heavens, the constellation, the atmosphere, Mercury is 96 million miles away from the earth.

Did you know that?

96 million miles away from the earth.

That's okay because Venus is only 24 million miles away.

In fact...

If you could get there by commercial jet, which travels somewhere around 500 miles per hour, it would only take you 37 years to get to Venus.

And then there's Jupiter, 367 miles away, 83 years if you could travel there.

Saturn is 790 million miles away.

Again, if you could travel by commercial jet, if it's possible that it could go there, it would take you 228 years.

And then you've got Neptune, 3 billion miles away.

Now you think about this.

If you could travel at 500 miles per hour, which is the typical speed a commercial jet travels, it would still take you 616 years to get there.

And our Earth, as we've said in the past, is one of nine planets revolving around the Sun.

And the Earth has a diameter of about 8,000 miles and a mass of almost 7 septillion tons.

Imagine that.

But as large of a mass as that is, It pales in comparison to the sun.

The sun has a diameter of 866,000 miles and a mass that's 330,000 times larger than the earth.

Now, think about that for a moment.

And here's the thing.

The sun is only one star in a galaxy of 100 billion other stars.

And there are billions of other galaxies.

Do you get that?

I mean, I always like to repeat that.

The sun is only one star in the galaxy of a hundred billion other stars, and it's in one galaxy, and there are billions of other galaxies.

In fact, let's take our galaxy.

If you tried to travel across our galaxy, it would take you a hundred thousand light years to complete the journey.

Light years, and one million light years as far as...

how wide our galaxy is.

So elongated and then width, it would take you, well, much more time than any of us have.

I could travel to London.

It would take me about 10 hours.

But if you could get in a jet again and travel 500 miles per hour, and you just wanted to cross our galaxy, if you just wanted to cross the Milky Way, it would only take you 13 billion years.

When you start thinking of the vastness of the universe, it boggles the mind.

What kind of mind?

is behind this universe.

Isn't that really the ultimate question?

If I knocked on the door of the universe, who's going to answer?

What's this entity like?

I mean, seriously, I know he's creator, but is this creator involved or is he apathetic?

Is he hard and rigid or is he caring and compassionate?

I'm reminded of the philosopher's conundrum.

If a tree falls in a forest and no ones around to hear it.

Does it make a sound?

I prefer the more modern day version.

If a man speaks in a forest and there's no woman around to hear him, is he still wrong?

One man's response to the philosopher's query goes like this.

There once was a man who said, God must think it exceedingly odd if he finds that this tree continues to be when there's no one about in the quad.

Dear sir, your astonishment's odd.

I'm always about in the quad.

And that's why the tree will continue to be, since observed by yours faithfully, God.

God is always around, yes.

But the question has always been, what is God really like?

Isn't that the question of humanity?

Can God not open the windows of heaven and let us all have a little look inside?

Yes, we know by pure logic, of course, God exists.

Romans 1.20 says, for since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made so that people are without excuse.

So of course, there's no mental excuse that can explain.

the belief that God does not exist.

Of course God exists.

I was in a debate once in my days in New Zealand, and I was invited to debate a man by the name of Tim Dower and anybody else that wanted to call in across the country on the national radio station called News Talk ZB.

And finally, we came to a point when I had all of these atheists trying to claim that there was no God, and my simple question to them was this.

I still ask it today.

How can something come from nothing?

And there's no answer to that.

It's an impossibility.

I gave the example, a lot of people at that time knew that one of my favorite cars in the late 80s and 90s was a Jeep Cherokee.

I always dreamt of having a forest green Jeep Cherokee, and everybody knew that, including my radio guests.

So I used this example.

I said, you're wanting me to believe that one morning I wake up, let's say I wake up in front of my house, in the driveway, is a forest green Jeep Cherokee.

And I'm wondering how it got there.

The most plausible explanation is somebody drove it there, parked it in the driveway after they had put it together and left the keys in the ignition, and it's a gift.

But you're asking me to believe that somehow over periods of time, through random processes, the wind blew the engine in and then the tires and the doors and the seats and the steering mechanism and placed them all together in just the right order for the Jeep Cherokee to exist and become fully functional.

Now, Tim Dower...

Looked at me and said, that's too simplistic.

And I said, you bet your life it is because you're asking me to believe that kind of scenario explains the enormous mind-boggling complexity of the universe.

I just don't have that kind of faith.

And even though we know that the evidence for God is overwhelming, the problem is we need more than that.

It's not enough.

I want revelation.

We want heaven to open and allow us to have a look in.

God exists, but what is he really like?

Look.

If you took one of those old cars, one of those old Model T Fords that you see on the screen right now, and you start digging into it, you're going to discover a lot of things.

You might discover the inclined four-cylinder.

You might discover the 20 horsepower at 16 RPMs.

You might discover the single updraft carburetor or the cast iron block and head or even the hand-cranked starter.

But what you will not find in the car is Henry Ford himself.

You may find evidences of Henry Ford all around.

but you're never going to meet Henry Ford.

C.S.

Lewis in The Weight of Glory says this, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door, which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation.

What does that mean?

We want to know who God is, not just that he exists.

Now, this is where Christmas gives us the greatest message and understanding of the existence of God.

And as I turn the pages of Scripture, as I said in the introduction, and I read the Christmas narratives, I notice something peculiar.

Each writer attempts to open the heavens and introduce us to God, Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us.

However, while Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us the facts surrounding Christmas, John is different.

He wants us to know the meaning of Christmas.

And he gives us the key to unlock the door.

to God's mysterious nature when he writes in the first chapter of the book of John, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

He was with God in the beginning.

Through him, all things were made.

Without him, nothing was made that has been made.

In him was life and that life was the light of all mankind.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

And then verse 14 is the operative verse.

The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son who came from the father, full of grace and truth.

Astounding.

John says, God, the one who holds all things together, the one who made all things became flesh and lived among us.

You think about if Christmas is true, would this whole thing not be a pretty big deal?

Would it not be of paramount importance?

Would we not want to pay very close attention to everything Jesus said and did?

I mean, we're talking about God here, Emmanuel, God with us.

Christmas is true.

Are we not looking into the face of God?

Have we not met God?

Has He not spoken to us?

Have the heavens not been opened to us?

The thought is almost inconceivable until you realize that if God is God, there would be no limitations.

If He wants to reduce Himself to a man and walk among us, this would not be a difficult thing for God.

I have a friend that every time around Christmas time, we get in this discussion.

And he always says to me, Pastor Jeff, you can say whatever you want, but I struggle with the idea of a virgin birth.

And I always ask him why.

And he always responds with these words, I just don't see how something like that is possible.

And I like to remind him, as I would remind some of you, you don't struggle with a virgin birth, you struggle with God.

By definition, God is self-existing.

He doesn't depend on anything outside of himself for his existence.

You and I do.

He holds all of us together and all things together.

But he doesn't depend on anything outside of himself.

Therefore, he's not limited, limited to anything he himself has created.

He's not limited by time and space unless he self-limits in order to step into his creation, which is exactly, according to the Apostle Paul in Philippians 2, what God did.

It's the Greek word kenosis.

God reduced himself and came to planet Earth and walked among us so that he could reveal to us, so that he could open the doors of heaven to us.

That's exactly what John is claiming.

More than the facts of the Christmas story, this is the meaning of the Christmas story.

Listen again.

The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

We have seen the glory, his glory, the glory of the one and only son who came from the father, full of grace and truth.

And then at the end of John chapter one, John recounts the story of Jesus' encounter with Nathaniel.

We're still in chapter one of the gospel of John.

And at the end of the chapter, Jesus tells Nathanael something astounding that the writer of the book of John felt was important to insert in his Christmas story.

And in John 1 51, Jesus speaks to Nathanael and says, very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven open and the angel of God, angels of God, ascending and descending on the son of man.

Folks, this is remarkable.

It's transformative.

Jesus ties his coming, the Christmas story, to the story of Jacob.

Again, I tell you, you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.

I'm not sure if there's any more remarkable statement that has ever been made by any human being.

But to get it, you would have to know the story of Jacob.

You know, Jacob, he's a conniver.

He'll do whatever he has to do to get whatever it is he wants.

He's egocentric and self-centered.

In other words, he's you and me.

He's us.

And the more you deny this in your humanity, the more empirically verifiable it becomes.

Jacob goes so far as to steal his brother's birthright.

With the help of his enabling mother, he glues goat hair to his skin and sprays animal perfume onto his body to make himself smell and feel like his brother Esau, the outdoorsman.

So that when the time comes for his father Isaac, who is aging and somewhat blind, to give the blessing to the firstborn son.

He thinks Jacob is Esau, and he puts the youngest before the oldest.

He gives the blessing to the second son, which is the ultimate shame in an honor-shame culture of primogeniture.

Ironically, the results are devastating to Jacob.

He's got to run away from home now because his brother wants to chase him to the ends of the earth to kill him.

He's never going to see his mother again, the only woman who ever really loved him.

His father is ashamed of him, embarrassed by him, but Jacob's deception, he is so bent on getting what he wants that his deception and conniving do not stop there.

He runs to his uncle Laban and he sees one of uncle Laban's daughters and he falls in lust, not love, lust.

In fact, in Genesis 29, 11, we discover that Jacob kissed Rachel and began to weep aloud.

I always like to ask the question at this point, ladies, how many of your husbands have kissed you and then were so overwhelmed they just began to weep?

You say, well, Pastor Dev, how do you know it's lust?

Because in Genesis 29, 21, then Jacob said to Laban, give me my wife.

My time is completed and I want to sleep with her.

Man, that's not what you say to the father of the bride.

It's crass and uncouth as it gets.

The point the writer makes is that Jacob wants what Jacob wants and manipulates the world and violates even decency to make sure that he gets it.

But here's the interesting story about Jacob.

As we follow his story, we realize that everything Jacob is chasing God wants to give him anyway.

The problem is Jacob refuses to humble himself and trust God's ways to fulfill the deepest desires of his heart.

Now, let me just stop here as we're on our way to make this connection.

Let me just say straight up, there are many listening to this message this Christmas Eve who've been wrestling with God their entire lives.

All along, you've believed that your problem Was your brother or your sister, your mother, your dad, your coach, a teacher, a boss, a lover, a spouse?

You've always believed that they were the reason that your life has turned out the way that it's turned out or that it's so difficult.

You think to yourself that life would be much better if that didn't happen or life would be much better if they didn't happen.

But the real problem is you've been fighting God all of your life.

The common denominator in all of your problems is you.

You've been wrestling with God all your life.

You've been manipulating your circumstances all of your life, using people as a means to an end all of your life, manipulating God to get what you want or what you think you can't live without with no intentions whatsoever of ever getting to discover who God is and what he's like and what he expects of you.

Oh, you believe in God insofar is God will give you what you think he has the power to give you.

Now imagine how insane it is that you would snub your maker and attempt to use him as a means to get what you think you can't live without.

That's Jacob.

And quite frankly, that's you and me.

And it destroys us.

It turns out Jesus was right.

Man cannot live by bread alone.

And in our affluence, depression and anxiety are of epidemic proportions.

And then comes Jacob's encounter with God.

The encounter that Jesus mentions in John 1 and that John writes about in his version of the Christmas story.

Jacob is at the end of his rope, which is where you have to be before you meet God.

And this happens in Genesis 28 verse 12.

He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth with its top reaching to heaven.

And the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

Does that sound familiar?

Thereabove it stood the Lord and he said, I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham.

and the God of Isaac.

I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.

Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and the south.

And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.

I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land, and I will not leave you until I have done all that I promised you.

Now, what's the translation here?

God speaks to Jacob, Jacob, all these things you're chasing, I have already determined, I'm going to give them to you.

I have opened up heaven to you.

I am the Lord, your God.

I am the one who can bless you.

I have descended to you.

I have opened up heaven to you, Jacob.

Now, what's amazing about this story is if you know it, that Jacob sees the opening of heaven before him, he realizes God has indeed come to him and he still doesn't get it.

And some of you might say, wow, if God gave me that kind of revelation of himself, that would be a game changer.

And I always say, really?

In my experience, the problem has never been insufficient evidence, but the suppression of it.

So what does God do?

He basically says to Jacob, you don't believe me?

You want some of this?

You want me right here, right now, face to face?

And then in Genesis 32, we read that Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.

When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.

Then the man said, let me go for it is daybreak.

But Jacob replied, I will not let you go unless you bless me.

Oh, this is so good.

In the original language, Jacob is saying this, I will not let go until you bless me with you.

He stops asking for the things he thinks God can give him, and he wants God himself.

He's finally discovered the truth.

I don't need all this stuff.

I need you.

I have come face to face with you, and you, you're what I want.

You're what I need.

In that moment, after God significantly wounds him, he ceases to fight Jacob that is with God, and he begins fighting for God.

Jacob says, I want you.

I want to know you.

In Genesis 32, 29, Jacob said, I want to know your name.

That's identity.

He replied, why do you ask my name?

Then he blessed them there.

Jacob says, I want you to bless me with you.

I want to know your name.

I want to know your identity.

I want to know who you are.

Heaven has been opened to me.

I want you, God.

What is your identity?

I don't need all this other stuff.

I just want you.

If I have you, I have everything else.

Don't you see?

I don't know any other way to say it, but to open Jacob's eyes, God has to kick his backside.

John's Christmas story.

Tells us, do you want to begin to understand the mind behind the universe?

Do you want to know who answers the door when you knock on the door of this vast universe?

Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man.

Do you know how remarkable of a statement that is?

Because had Jesus said, I can show you the gate of heaven.

I can show you the connection between heaven and earth.

I can show you how.

The blessing and honor and life and the glory of God can come into your life.

If he had even said that, that would be amazing because he would be claiming to be a prophet.

And if he had said, you know, there's a gate to heaven, there's a connection to God.

And if you do these things, do these five things, 10 things, 15 things, and do all of them well, then you'll have God in your life.

That too would have been an amazing statement because many say there is no gate, there is no connection.

And if Jesus even said that, it's still great.

If he was pointing to that gate.

That would still be an interesting comment, but Jesus was saying so much more than that.

Jesus is saying, heaven and earth intersect upon me.

Angels descend and ascend on me.

I am the gateway.

I am the doorway into heaven, the passageway into everything for which you've been searching.

You want to see God, you look into my face.

I am now the meeting place between heaven and earth, and I've opened up the heavens to all who will come.

In me, God is revealed, accessible, and at work, and you're about to see it all unfold.

Do you see how marvelous this is?

Jesus says, if you enter through me, seek me, find me, God can come into your life just like that.

God we're talking about, the creator of this vast universe, that God.

can come into your life.

Heaven comes down to us in Jesus, and Jesus plans on staying.

Angels are ascending and descending all around Jesus.

The stairway to heaven and everything associated with it goes through Christ.

So that means if Christmas is true, it means that you Jacobs of the world, you people who have messed up your lives, and you've squandered the very best of things through selfishness, arrogance, have lost everything that is good.

It means that even you can have the glory and the power of God in your life.

Say, okay, Pastor Jeff, I've never heard the Christmas story like this.

What is exactly the Christmas story according to John?

I'll tell you what it is.

First, it means that heaven has been opened.

Heaven has been opened, but two, not for everyone, only the humbled.

Everything about the Christmas narrative tells you that over and over again.

What do I mean by that?

Why was Nathanael so skeptical about Philip's proposal that this one was the Messiah?

Do you know the rest of the story?

When Philip came to Nathanael and told him, come see Messiah, come see the one we've been waiting for.

And then Nathanael hears from Philip that this Messiah, the one, is from a place called Nazareth.

And Nathanael says, whoa, nothing good comes out of Nazareth.

In fact, all of us have places or people in our minds that we just disdain.

And if you know anything about Nazareth, it was a backwater place.

It was dueling banjo country.

Believe me, it was the worst of the worst.

But when God came into the world, despite what Nathaniel thinks, he came not as a philosopher or as a general, but as a carpenter.

When God came into the world, he didn't come in a prominent family or successful family.

but into the life of a poor family.

He was born in a manger, a feeding trough.

And when his parents went to the temple to dedicate him, their offering consisted of two pigeons, which was only allowed among the poorest of the poor.

So Jesus is not only from a backwater place, he came from the poorest part of the backwater place.

So contrary to what Nathaniel believes, God's glory tends to come down in mangers, not luxury hotels, onto crosses, not thrones.

And into the lives of desolate people with a stone for a pillow, into the life of disgraced people, into the lives of peoples whose lives have fallen apart.

That's where heaven tends to open.

In Isaiah 57, 15, the Bible says, I, meaning God, live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.

There it is.

There are two places God says he dwells, his power dwells, one in the highest of the highest heaven, and two in the heart of a humble person.

And do you know why that's true?

Because God's salvation was achieved by humbling, that means it's received by humbling.

God's salvation was achieved by humbling, that means it's received by humbling.

And so the question then comes, how is it?

The salvation, the salvation of God, his salvation can come into the world.

How can it come into your life?

If you think about Jesus.

Not only was he humbled at his birth, he was humbled in his life.

He did not come as a general, as a philosopher, or as a political leader.

Instead, he came as a humble carpenter.

He was a wandering preacher.

Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

But most of all, he was humbled in his death.

He lost all honor.

He was crucified outside the gate.

He didn't come with a sword in his hand, he came with nails in his hands.

and yet he triumphed through death.

He received the ultimate power through giving all power away, and he became incredibly rich by becoming incredibly poor.

Now, I need you to think about something for a moment.

What is the greatest power, the most inexorable power, the most unstoppable power in this world today?

I asked that question, and someone said, a toddler with a permanent marker.

Yeah, that's pretty much unstoppable.

Some others might say Mike Tyson, you know, one of the greatest.

Heavyweight champions are unstoppable.

I remember the phrase or the statement about Michael Jordan.

You can't stop him.

You can only hope to contain him.

What is it?

What's the only thing in the world that's unstoppable?

Everything else is stoppable except one thing, death.

The most powerful thing in this world that you can do nothing about whatsoever.

No matter how much money you have, no matter how much power or authority you have, you can't stop death.

But Jesus did.

He owns death.

He defeated death.

He put sin and death in its place.

They are connected.

He defeated both.

And for those who humble themselves at the cross, his defeat of sin is credited to your account, which means his defeat of death is also credited to your account and no longer has any hold on you.

That's the identity of the universe.

That's the identity.

If you knock on the door of the universe, you meet a God who makes himself, who humbles himself, who becomes a man and who does for you what you cannot do for yourself.

So that all you can do now is face death, knowing that death actually makes you better, knowing that death will actually make you more happy, more glorious, more wonderful.

Because all those who place their faith and trust in Christ, they will ascend with Christ into the heavens because he owns the gateway.

He owns the door.

The angels descend and ascend through him so that death becomes the doorway into the heavens.

Life, death, and new life intersects in Christ so that death has lost its sting.

In the words of Eugene O'Neill in the play entitled Lazarus Laughed, haven't you heard?

Death is dead.

Death is dead.

So first, heaven has been opened to those who humble themselves to receive it.

And third, how does salvation come into your life?

There's a major problem with the gift Jesus offers you, because for you to receive it, you've got to admit a couple of things about yourself.

You've got to admit that you're a sinner and that you're in need of salvation.

So two questions emerge from John's Christmas story.

Number one, have you looked into your heart far enough to see that you're a sinner on your best days?

And if not, heaven will not open to you.

That's the message of Christmas.

You have to admit that you're a sinner in need of a savior.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

But the second question is, and I think this is the very reason that John includes the story of Jesus' words to Nathanael.

The second question, is God humbling you now?

Are you aware of the context in which Jesus speaks these words to Nathanael?

That heaven and earth intersect in Christ?

Well, if you know the story, Philip had invited Nathaniel to come and see Jesus to meet the one, the Messiah.

Evidently, when Philip invited Nathanael to come and see the Lord, Nathanael had been sitting under a fig tree in a very private moment, and something so private and so personal and so significant had taken place, something so dramatic, that only Nathanael knew.

No one knows what happens there.

Perhaps Nathanael was at the end of his rope and considering taking his own life.

Perhaps his life had taken a turn for the worse and he had cried out to God, God, if you're real, reveal yourself to me.

Maybe he was carrying a burden far too long and he was pleading with God to lighten the load.

We don't know what Nathanael was doing under the fig tree.

What we do know is this.

When Nathanael meets Jesus for the first time, Jesus says, Hey, Nate, I saw you under the fig tree.

Nathanael says, Pardon me?

Come again?

And Jesus says, I saw you under the fig tree.

Whatever it was was so personal and private and significant.

that Nathaniel's response was, you're the one, you're Messiah.

You're the one who was to come, is to come.

You're the one who changes everything.

And that's the context in which Jesus made his bold statement.

You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree, you're going to see a greater thing than that.

And then he said, verily, truly, I tell you, you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man.

Don't you see?

Nathanael was able to see Jesus' true identity in the midst of the worst season of his life.

That's the story of Christmas.

Do you come to this Christmas at the end of your rope?

You think God has abandoned you.

Is he wrestling with you?

That's what God does to the Jacobs of the world.

He has to slay you to save you.

When did Elijah get the still small voice?

When he was so depressed he wanted to die, he was so exhausted he met God.

When did Jacob see the stairway?

When he was so exhausted and depressed from ruining his own life and he wants to die and he has a stone for a pillow, he meets God.

When did Moses see the burning bush?

When he was out in the wilderness thinking his life was over, God showed up.

People who have the longest relationship with God will tell you.

That it's the lonely places, the humbling experiences, the experience of desolation and loneliness that drive you to God.

Those times are the gate of heaven.

That's when the angels descend and ascend.

It's the more humbling experiences that bring more of God into your life.

It always has been the case.

And so what's the message of Christmas?

Very simple.

God came to earth in a humble state.

and walked among us.

And this is what he said, I have opened heaven to all who would humble themselves, admit their sin, fall on their knees and seek me above and beyond everything else.

No matter what you've done, where you've been, Jesus came for the unrighteous, not the righteous.

And on this Christmas night, I'm saying to you, heaven has opened up to all of us.

For those who will humble themselves, admit their need for a Savior and their sinful heart, they too can cross over from darkness into light, from death into life.

Father, we thank you for the power of the Christmas narrative, for John's reflection of the birth of Christ and what it really means that Emmanuel, God, is with us and Christ has come to this earth to show us what God is like.

to open up the doors of heaven to all who would come in.

And I pray that all who hear this message will be convicted and will be reminded it's in our darkest days that the brightest light shines, the light of Christmas.

In Christ's name, amen.