What God has done: The Miracle of the Incarnation
Do you remember the old song by Jackie DeShannon, “What the World Needs Now—Is Love?” Came out in 1965. What the world needs now is love, sweet love; it’s the only thing that there’s just too little of. Can’t really argue that. Every Christian should agree that our world is in desperate need of love, and as the song says, Not just for some but for everyone.
What Jackie DeShannon left out of her song is what we celebrate at Christmas. The perfect expression of love that God showed us in sending his Son to this world to save it—to save us. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son…” the very familiar John 3:16 says. We often think of his sacrificial death as the expression of his love, but it started much earlier than that when God clothed himself in humanity. This is referred to as the incarnation. Think about it: We have a God who loved us so much that he became like us.
I get why Jackie DeShannon left God out of the lyrics. She, like so many others, believe God to be distant and uninvolved. Fifty years after the song was written, we have pushed God even further to the periphery of life. In the minds of most people today, God is so irrelevant that they don’t even think about him, let alone believe that he loves them.
Here is the truth: God is very much alive and active in our world, so much so that he became like us simply because he loves us and wants us to know him. The incarnation is something we desperately need today. People around us want to know that they are loved, and God stands ready to love them. As we approach Christmas, we look into various passages of Scripture to see what God has done in the miracle of the incarnation, and to gain a greater grasp of his love for everyone.
Sermon Notes
What God has done
The Miracle of the Incarnation
Pastor Todd Dugard
December 16, 2018God is alive and active in our world… (Psalm 66:5)
…so much so that he became like us (John 1:14; Philippians 2:5–8; 1 Timothy 3:16)
…simply because he loves us (John 3:16a)
…and wants us to know him (John 3:16b; Isaiah 9:6–7)