Today we are going to talk about the Incarnation. “Incarnation” is a fancy theological word that means God, who doesn’t have a body and isn’t confined to time and space, entered into time and space in a human body. The Creator became a creature, if you will, in the person of Jesus Christ, becoming like us in every way so that we could become like Him! The Sovereign became a subject. The Sovereign became our sacrifice.
What did it look like for King Jesus, to become a lowly infant? John puts it this way:
John 1:14-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.
From the perfection and splendor of Heaven to the limitations and hardships of earth. That was no small thing. It wasn’t a minor inconvenience. It was a complete emptying of self to take on the human life, the human experience. The King of Glory was stripped of His regal robes, was wrapped in flesh, and then wrapped in swaddling clothes and was placed in a manger. The One who created everything became dependent on Mary and Joseph, mere creatures He had created to feed Him, change Him, protect Him, teach Him, and to raise Him to fulfill His life’s purpose. He subjected Himself to all that it means to be human, to have to learn and grow as we do and to have to learn dependence upon the Heavenly Father, even though He was God, Himself.
Paul describes the Incarnation this way in Philippians 2:5-8 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature[a] God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature[b] of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
Jesus forfeited or suspended, however you want to look at it, His Divine privilege, and all of the rights He could claim as the King of the Universe and lowered Himself to the position of servant, not for a two-week mission trip, not for a reality TV show, but for 33 years with the understanding that His earthly life would culminate in a horrific death as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. At His baptism, it was the Father who declared, “This is my Son, in whom I am well-pleased, listen to Him.” Jesus never went anywhere demanding to be listened to. He never used His “God-card” when He was preaching. He didn’t call attention to His royal status to gain favor or a following. Instead, He came, full of grace and truth, John 1:14. Though He was the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and could have squashed anyone who opposed Him, and could have used His power to cause people to listen and line up with His message, He didn’t lead in that way. He didn’t utilize any of those abilities. He simply came with grace and truth.
What a reach! What a sacrifice! What a lowering! What a condescension in the most-humble way! And it began with the miracle we know is the Virgin Birth. It is a miracle that Mary, who had never been with a man, was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, that her body was seized by Heaven itself and that the sinless Son of God was placed in her womb. God reached into the womb of a virgin. Without that reality we wouldn’t be here today.
Heaven’s Royal Reach was met with submission by sweet Mary. A young, teenage girl said “yes,” to the Divine Reach. So much hinged on Mary’s willingness to say, “yes” to the Divine Reach, “yes,” to the plan of God. Mary’s life was about to change and in monumental ways. She was going to be thrust into the spotlight, into a space she had never dreamed of occupying, but, Heaven had come to earth. It had to be acknowledged. The Supreme Royal King had come to rescue humanity. Of course her life could never be the same.
When Jesus was born, there were all kinds of people drawn to know about Him. Some were also desperate to take Him out. Look at Matthew 2:
2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
Here is another response to the Divine Invasion of Jesus, the King of Kings, entering into time and space. Here, Heaven’s Royal Reach was met with worship by the Magi.
It was no short trip for the Magi, also known as the wisemen, to come to see this Christ-child. His royal status was declared in the Heavens by a star so bright, so unusual, that it compelled them to make a 4 to 5-month journey to meet the One they believed had been born as a special King. They called Him the King of the Jews, but we know He was and is so much more.
Notice that they said, “We saw His star when it rose.” Note they didn’t say, “We saw an awesome star” or “We saw an incredibly bright star,” but they said, “We saw HIS star!” That star, often called the Bethlehem star, was known by the wisemen as the Jesus’ Star, the Royal Star. To understand what compelled them to come to the conclusion that the star they followed was the Jesus’ star, you have to go back more than a thousand years before Jesus was born.
During the time of exodus, there was a ruler of Moab named Balak. You can read about him in Numbers 22. He saw how the Israelites, the Jewish people, had defeated the Amorites, and he was afraid of them. Balak and the Moabites began to feel the threat of the people of Israel moving closer. If they had defeated the Amorites so handily, what would keep the Jewish people from defeating his people?
So, Balak sent word to a prophet named Balaam and asked him to curse the people of Israel on behalf of Moab. God told Balaam to refuse to do so. But after several exchanges between Balak’s messengers and Balaam, the prophet, Balaam finally went to meet with Balak. (Stay with me.)
Despite God’s displeasure with Balaam, the prophet, and after God miraculously delivered Balaam’s life through the voice of a talking donkey, which is a super wild story, God allowed Balaam to present a message to Balak, the King of Moab. The message wasn’t what the king wanted to hear. Balaam was not going to curse Israel. He was going to bless Israel, and listen to that blessing from Numbers 24, beginning with verse 15.15 “The prophecy of Balaam son of Beor, the prophecy of one whose eye sees clearly, 16 the prophecy of one who hears the words of God, who has knowledge from the Most High, who sees a vision from the Almighty, who falls prostrate, and whose eyes are opened: 17 “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel.
That wasn’t the message that Balak wanted to hear out of Balaam’s mouth, but O, how thrilling it is for us this morning! How the wisemen of old took it to heart and studied it through the centuries. They believed that a special kind of Royalty would one day be born and that a scepter, a sign of kingship, would rise out of Israel. In the context of Balak and Balaam, God wanted King Balak to know of a coming judgment on Moab, but in the context of the eternal plan of God, God wanted the wisemen and the whole world to know that one day there would arise a King in Israel who would lead all people to the ultimate victory!
Back to Matthew 2:3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a RULER who will shepherd my people Israel.’[b]”
Though Jesus would willingly put aside His Divinity, He understood His royal assignment from birth to shepherd God’s people. The Wisemen wanted to worship Him. Herod wanted to destroy the newborn King and went on to attempt to do so by murdering all of the baby in Bethlehem murdered. That scene doesn’t make for a pretty Christmas card, now does it? The Royal Reach of Heaven threatened all who were living for earthly power and all who were under Satan’s control. Jesus’ royal entrance caused quite a stir with the powers of the day. His Royal Reign is still controversial and problematic for those who seek human power and authority.
Listen, every person has to make a decision regarding the royal reach of God to humanity. Will we bow or will we seek to cancel and remove Him from our existence? The natural application for us this morning is found in the answer to a simple question. What will YOU do with Jesus?
The wisemen didn’t just talk a good talk. They did what they had set out to do. Matthew 2:11–11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
The very gifts the wisemen brought pointed to Jesus’ Royalty. This was no ordinary baby. They brought the kind of gifts that were customarily given to a King. It is beautiful that people even outside of the Jewish nation recognized Heaven’s Royal Reach.
The wisemen weren’t just hopeful about Jesus. They didn’t worship Him in hopes that one day He would become the King that had been prophesied to come. No, they understood that even while lying in a manger, Jesus was the Royal Prince of Heaven, the Promised Messiah, who had the goods, even at birth, the sinless perfection even at birth, the favor of the Father, even at birth, and the determination, even at birth, to deliver humanity from sin and Satan. Jesus didn’t have to get used to the idea of being the sinless sacrifice for humanity’s need. It didn’t have to grow on Him. He didn’t have to be talked into His mission. He left the halls of Heaven knowing exactly Who He was, why He was coming, and what He would do for us! I love the line in the Christmas carol, “Away in a Manger,” that declares, “Jesus, Lord at Thy Birth!” Jesus didn’t have to grow into something, He was something at the very moment of His conception and at the very moment of His birth!
Gold represented Kingship on earth. They bowed in honor of Jesus’ royal status. Frankincense was a symbol of deity. They bowed in honor of Jesus’ Divine status.
Myrrh was an embalming oil, a symbol of death. Whether they understood it or not, they were bowing in worship to the plan God had set in motion when He sent Jesus into the world. Oh, the Royal Reach inspired the worship of Kings.
Jesus was fully God and fully human at the same time. Fully both. Not sometimes one and sometimes the other, but fully both. His Divinity never compromised His humanity, and His humanity never compromised His Divinity. I don’t have time to unpack all of that, but that is the witness of Scripture. Jesus was like us in every way. He also was referred to over and over again as the Son of God. He said, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father,” declaring He was God in the flesh. Only God could pull off the salvation of the world. Only a perfect human could help all of humanity escape the condemnation of sin. It had to be a God-man. There was no other way. The Bible says that Jesus became sin, even though He had never sinned, He became sin by taking on all of our sin so that we could become the righteousness of God, II Corinthians 5:21. How far did God reach? In Christ, He became the very thing He hated and punished Himself for it and as He did, He let us go free! Not only did He let us go free, but He clothed us with the righteousness, with the perfection of Christ! O magnify the Lord with me, let us exalt His name together!
I’m about to quote a well-known theologian here, so listen closely. “All that God is, and all that God has, was fully possessed by Jesus. That means God gave all He had, and all He had was Jesus. On the cross, Jesus gave all that He was and all that He has and when we receive Jesus, we get all that He is and all that He has.” Kim Miller, Milton, WV
Take that in! Sit with that for a second! Heaven’s Royal reach makes us royalty, friends! Those in Christ are called a Kingdom of Royal Priests, I Peter 2:9. Check out Romans 8:17, “Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”
Ephesians 2:6 tells us that even though we are physically on earth, if we have trusted Christ, we are living with royal privilege and authority now! It says, 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. We are seated with Him. Where is He seated? On His throne! We are ruling and reigning NOW with Jesus. He has triumphed over Satan by the cross. That was Satan’s best effort to take Jesus out, but Jesus has made a spectacle out of Satan’s best effort. Death could not hold Him and the grave could not keep Him, and if we have placed our trust in Christ, Satan is now under our feet as well!
Y’all, the King of Glory, the One whose glory we have seen in Jesus, now shares His glory with us! What a Royal Reach! He has given us a new status! None of that could have happened without the Reach. Jesus had to descend so that we can ascend with Him!
Jesus descended into our pit, into the muck and mire of humanity, taking a human name, being found in human form, being numbered with the guilty, with the sinners, even though He had never sinned. He willingly gave up His existence with the Father and the Spirit to come and suffer those wilderness temptations. He willingly exchanged His royal status for a life of poverty. He traded privilege for taxing and tiring relationships with people. He came to literally “walk a mile in our shoes.” He signed up for persecution and a hard life. He lived under constant scrutiny and pressure. The crucifixion and the events leading up to it were beyond comprehension. No one here can say they have it more difficult than Jesus. Jesus had a target on His back from the time He was born. But nothing can stop Heaven’s Reach!
He came to teach us what it meant to fully depend on God. Examine His life in Scripture. Though He was Heaven’s Royalty, He never acted alone. He always waited on instructions from Heaven. He came to bring light to our darkness. Jesus is the Light of the World and the Light of Life. His descent from Heaven to earth was so cosmic, so seismic, so epic, that I believe when the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary and inserted the life of Jesus in her womb there was a shift in the atmosphere. I believe Satan and the powers of darkness went, “Uh oh, it’s time. God is making good on His promise to redeem His people, and we are in big trouble.” And buddy, they were.
Because after the crucifixion, though Heaven’s Royalty, the Darling of Heaven, the Prince of Redemption, although He was placed in a borrowed tomb, three days later He arose with a shout of triumph and victory that shook the whole earth! He overcame death, Hell, and the grave all in one fell swoop! And 40 days later, He ascended into Heaven in a cloud of glory, the kind fitting to usher the King of Glory to His throne.
And that is the antithesis of the Divine Reach. Jesus became obedient to death on the cross, but look at the next verse from Philippians 2 passage. It describes His Royal Elevation! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
I’ve tried to describe the extent of this Royal Reach in this message because I want you to understand that Jesus’ sacrifice didn’t begin on the cross when nails pierced His hands and His feet, but it began when He stepped out of the Heavenly Realms and came to earth. He gave up so much to become what we are so that we can become like Him. He wasn’t a regular guy with nothing to lose. He had it all and willingly gave it all up to save you and me. That is the King we worship this Christmas. That is the King we owe our lives to. That is the King whose very nature should elicit our submission and worship. Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her KING!
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