God Came Down!

Sermon by
Rev. S. Bajema
on LORD’S DAY 14
of the Heidelberg Catechism
Scripture Readings: Luke 1:26-38; Romans 1:1-7

Fellow saints...
You think of the most powerful person you know. Picture in your mind how important that person is. He can do so much. He goes places - he’s seen with all the famous faces. He has so much power and wealth.
Now - what would he want with you? It’s true - isn’t it? We’ve all felt this immense difference at some time.
Boys and girls - it could have been when you started school, or joined a new Club. There you are, just young or new, and all those other bigger boys and girls around you! So many things you didn’t know. But they knew it all.
Did you have same feeling when we read Answer 35? You didn’t see a lovely baby, all meek and mild, lying so helplessly upon the manger. This is God come down!
Here we don’t read about a Christmas full of peace and goodwill. This is no airy-fairy, sugar-coated sweetener. This is about the power of God! For He went to this extent to love us in the most difficult way! In the words of the first point to this sermon... THE ONE WHO ALL THINGS CAN DO.

Congregation, Answer 35 begins right at the top. It confesses about “the eternal Son of God, who is and remains true and eternal God.”
Let’s not get the message wrong. You know how right this is! You have faith - don’t you? Isn’t this the self-same Jesus Christ who is your own Saviour and Lord? And though the world doesn’t understand - you do. It’s His Spirit Himself who lives in your heart, always reminding, ever-guiding.
Friend, He - the most powerful person who ever was, and who ever will be - He decided to visit you. Ah, yes, physically speaking that happened in the Middle East two thousand years ago. But the effect of what he did is still happening spiritually today!
That’s why we understand the Apostles’ Creed to be our own personal confession right now! Almighty God, in the person of Jesus Christ - who together with the Father and the Holy Spirit is the One True God, ever to be worshipped and praised - He joined with that which He most definitely wasn’t! In the words of Charles Wesley, “Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heaven to earth come down.” 
	
Boys and girls, you especially remember when someone important talked to you. You almost couldn’t believe it! He’s talking to me! And I’m no one!
THE ONE WHO ALL THINGS CAN DO...HE CAME DOWN TO YOU! This is the second aspect to this Lord’s Day - HE CAME DOWN TO YOU.
He really did! Do you honestly believe it? Is this whole story of Christ’s Incarnation a great wonder to you?
The Old Testament is full of this incredible love. For from the very moment that our representative, Adam, sinned in Paradise, the LORD set into action this special plan to make us right again with Him.

Imagine if someone devastatingly let’s you down. There’s no way we’d be straight-away thinking of having things back the way they were! Yet Answer 35 goes on to show that this is exactly what God did. It says, “from the flesh and blood of the virgin Mary.”
That’s the plan the LORD worked out throughout human history. It was by Himself becoming one of us that we’re made right again with Him. It cost that much!
But it’s this greatest example of love that so many who call themselves Christians refuse to believe. This simple statement about Jesus “being conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary,” simply cannot be accepted by them. There are literally thousands of clergymen who scoff that God could do such a thing!
And, you know, the world thinks they’re just great! What original and interesting perspectives they have. They make great headlines - especially at Christmas and Easter time! And they’re such nice people.
God looks on the inside, though. He sees what stubborn, foolish hearts they have. A terrible end is in store for them if they don’t repent.
You see, those people are actually so proud. Like Abraham Kuyper was before his conversion. He, too, was a liberal minister who openly derided the Gospel account. He was humbled so that he simply believed. And so must they! THE ONE WHO ALL THINGS CAN DO...HE CAME DOWN TO YOU.

The first chapter of John couldn’t put it more plainly. As the apostle says there in the verses 1 and 14, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us.”
It’s this most special privilege of meeting God through Christ Jesus in faith that moves Paul to write the opening verses in that letter to the Romans. Belonging to Jesus Christ is what eternal life is all about. Unless you personally confess this for your own life there is no future life. Then there’s of hope of anything at all!
But to know that not only did God Himself come to visit - He actually lived with us! He took to Himself “a truly human nature so that he might become David’s true descendant, in all things like us his brothers.”
The Gospel is about ‘God with us’ - Emmanuel. God so worked it, by His Spirit that He - in His Son -would come down. 
What a comforting thought! The Almighty LORD - the commander of heaven’s hosts, the director of eternity itself - thought before time about you. He took a most unruly and sinful race - the people of Israel - and He persevered with them so that through them He would save us all.

The line of David may seem a glorious enough name. But looking closely it shows us just how exactly Jesus became one of us. There were the adulterers, the murderers, the thieves, the child abusers. A real cross section of the worst in society today.
God was showing how much this meant, though! Here is no impulsive, one-off, charitable act. The Lord knew exactly the cost.
Just as when Jesus came it was no one-day visit. Here is no magical touch. This is about relationship. This is the greatest commitment. For we confess, “in all things like us his brothers.”
Friends, He was no rich man suddenly feeling a little generous. Jesus identified with us completely. He loved us though He had nothing to love. He even put aside His heavenly splendour to be with you and me.
Yes, I’m making this very personal. He’s your brother. The older brother who has shown the rest of His brothers and sisters the good way.
To follow through our theme, THE ONE WHO ALL THINGS CAN DO...HE CAME DOWN TO YOU...EXACTLY SO YOU CAN MAKE IT THROUGH! We’ve come to the third part... EXACTLY SO YOU CAN MAKE IT THROUGH!

Answer 35 ends with the difference between Jesus and us to make all the difference. After having stated the complete extent to which He joined in our life here below, the last line says, ever so briefly, “except for sin.”
Except for sin. Jesus Christ alone could and did His life perfectly. It was the Son of God Himself who alone could satisfy God’s justice. We blew it through sin. As we still do. Though now - through faith - Jesus is there, standing in our place. In the words of Paul to Timothy, in his first letter chapter 2, the verse 5 till 6, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men - the testimony given in its proper time.”
Can you see, congregation, it’s EXACTLY SO YOU CAN MAKE IT THROUGH! And how can you know you are making it through? Well, does Answer 36 answer for you? Are these your words? “He is our mediator, and with his innocence and perfect holiness he removes from God’s sight my sin - mine since I was conceived.”
Sin. The word our society hates more than any other. Because how could anyone be to blame for how they are? That’s what others have done to them! Or it’s just the way they’re born! And rather than get to the real reason for what causes their pain, they look for all kinds of self-gratifying things.

Listen carefully to this story: A minister in America in the 19th century was going up the aisle of his church during a revival. Suddenly a young man cried to him, “Sir, can you tell me the way to Christ?” “No,” that minister deliberately answered, “I cannot tell you the way to Christ.” The young man replied, “Excuse me - I thought you were a minister of the gospel.” “So I am,” he answered. “How is it that you cannot tell me the way to Christ?” “My friend,” said the minister, “there is no way to Christ. He is Himself the way. All who believe in Him are justified from all things. There is no way to Christ; Christ is here!”
Did you ‘get’ the story? Have you understood it? For that young man was another self-gratifier. He didn’t get to the real cause of his pain. He used being nice to the minister as the way to avoid it altogether. But the minister saw through that.
Dear friend, have you become to the right confession now? For being in church this very moment isn’t being surrounded with people you’re comfortable with, or worshipping the way you like. Actually, it pains your natural self to hear these words. Often you are far more uncomfortable here than at ease. But to stay away from here? That would be worse even than to be apart from the closest of your family. Because then you would be away from Jesus - the oldest brother of them all.
They say that blood is thicker than water. Yet His blood is thickest of them of all! Being related to Him by faith matters more than all those other things I hold so dear.
You see - He’s here! Even now He stoops to speak and to listen. The One who came down to this sinful ground, being born in that lowly stable, living amongst the poor, the sick, and the sinners - He knows where you’re at! He’s the very One who has bought you back! He paid the price that makes us right in God’s sight! On Calvary He took your place.
Because of that, He is here. And you are there! Amen.

PRAYER:
Let’s pray...
Father God, where can we begin to thank You for the greatest gift of all? We know what it is to be thankful for good gifts but how can we begin to describe the greatness of what You gave in Your Son? We who never had any rights have been made right with You.
And, dear Jesus, that You are our way! Now we are not lost. We’ve been found - by You! Please, don’t ever let us go. Amen.