Transcript
COLSON: Welcome, my brothers and sisters in Christ. All of us, I know, have gone through times in our lives of great trial and tribulation. But as we come upon this season of the year, the third Sunday in Advent, let us reflect for a moment or two upon the great joy, the meaning of the coming of Christ.
When we think of trial and difficulty, which each of us must experience in life -- I think back in my own life to a period a little over a year ago, when I reached what I believed then was the low point of my own life, a prisoner in a federal prisoner, surrounded by cold concrete walls, knowing that my freedom
could be achieved only when someone reached in and let me out of the confinement, surrounded by men who had been subjected to the most dreadful human tragedies, who lived in darkness and despair, who had lost hope, self-dignity, self-esteem, self-respect; separated from loved ones and feeling, yes, feeling self-pity.
Even though I had come to know the reality of a personal relationship with God through the presence of Jesus Christ, which each of us may have. People think that conversions to Christ, acceptance of Christ, gives us a life of nothing but joy and beauty and happiness, but that isn't true. We slip,
and we fall, we falter, we fail, we get up again and try harder the next time. It was in my first days in prison that I slipped and fell and wondered about my faith, wondered why all of this was happening to me. I had made a decision in my own life to plead guilty; I knew I had to be in prison. It was just a time that I had to endure, but for no purpose. Until one day,
I read a passage of Scripture which I would like to share with you this morning, in the second letter to the Jewish Christians as it is listed in the Phillips version of the Bible -- the Letter to the Hebrews in King James -- in which the writer says, what we actually see is Jesus, after being made temporarily inferior to the angels and so subject to pain and death
in order that He should, by God's grace, taste death for every man, now crowned with glory and honor. It was right and proper that in bringing many sons to glory, God, from whom and by whom everything exists, should make the leader of their salvation a perfect leader, through the fact that He suffered. For the One who makes men holy
, and then men who are made holy, share a common humanity. So that He, speaking of God, so that He is not ashamed to call them His brothers. And later in the same chapter, the writer goes on, since then the children have a common physical nature as human beings. He, now talking of God, also became a human being.
So that by going through death as a man, He might destroy him who had the power of death; that is the devil. It is plain that for this purpose He did not become an angel, he became a man, in actual fact a descendant of Abraham. It was imperative that he should be made like his brothers in every respect, if he were to become a High Priest both compassionate and faithful in the things of God,
and at the same time able to make atonement for the sins of the people. For by virtue of His own suffering, God's own suffering, under temptation, He is able to help those who are exposed to temptation. And as we think about our own lives -- and as I thought about my life that dreary, sultry late summer hot morning in Alabama, and as I read this passage of Scripture,
it came to me that even in the darkest hours of our lives, we can have the joy of knowing that the loving God, the creator of this universe, the Divine Creator, could so humble Himself that He could come in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ to live among us, to speak to us, to feel our pains
, to know our temptations, to suffer with us. And suddenly the situation in which I found myself no longer seemed to bleak and dark. The men around me, who I never thought I'd be associating with in my life, suddenly became my brothers. I could love them, and I could thank God that I was in prison, because I could thank God that in coming in the person of Christ
He had set me free. What a humbling thought it is for each of us that the God Almighty, the ruler of the universe, could, with the birth of Jesus Christ and the presence of Jesus Christ on this earth, live among us as one of us, as our elder brother. Think of it. The Lord God is each one of our elder brother. Each one of us
can look at God as our elder brother by a personal relationship made possible through the fact that God would come and live among us in the body and flesh of Jesus Christ. And something else became very real to me. I'd always known of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, as a theological doctrine, but when you think of God coming and living with us and being our elder brother,
it is no longer a theological doctrine. It is reality, because down through the ages, God dealt with man through the prophets, man's own nature rebelling against God. God then came and lived with us, among us, as one of us in the flesh, so that by His words and by His life and by His death and the Resurrection, He could give each of us eternal life.
That's the second part of the Trinity. And then, since Christ would die and rise again, Christ before He left, promised His disciples that He would send the great comforter to be with us in His absence, the Holy Spirit. And so God, Jesus Christ -- God in the flesh -- God the Holy Spirit to dwell in each one of us and to be in our midst
after the risen Christ had gone back to the Father. And so we thank You, God, that You came and lived among us, that Your son was born, that You lived in Him and that You live in us this day.
HUGHES: He was, before the foundation of the world was laid. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the writer of the Book says, "And the Word became flesh and dwelled among us." And as my brother Chuck was saying this morning, as we approach this season commemorating and celebrating the birth of Jesus, the Christ, the entry into his
own creation of God Himself in the mystery of the Trinity. And we look about us, in the world that we live in, the confusion, that our dear brother Dean Gordon had mentioned, that is abroad in the world and abroad in our land. And as we wonder in our own hearts what God's purpose is, and as the faith of millions is challenged, we see that we have commercialized,
we have debauched, we have destroyed the very season that God has brought forth, that we might profit by it, that we might forget the real reason of the real person that comes forth, because the person of Jesus, the person of Jesus Christ, is the Gospel. He is a person, and He came
into the world born as we were born. And when the sudden realization dawned upon me that Jesus was tempted even as I am tempted, and that when the temptations come, and the evil thoughts race through my mind, I can remember that my Lord and my Savior felt the same thought, felt the same temptation, and through the power of God Himself which He was, He resisted that temptation
of Satan himself and went to the cross. I could hardly accept the forgiveness of my own sins. It seemed wrong, that someone else should pay the debt for the wrongs that I have committed. It seemed irrational that I could be forgiven 2,000 years before the act. It seemed impossible that even my own sin could be blotted out of
the mind of God Himself, as the Scripture says, that my sins are no longer remembered. God came into the world to save sinners. He condemned the sin and saved the sinner. If we go back to the Book of Genesis and
remembering who God was, His program of redemption, and that it was He who laid the foundations of creation, for in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form, and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, "Let there be light." And there was light.
He spoke into existence, all that there is. The Word went forth and it became. Out of nothing there became all that there is and ever shall be. And He came, not as men expected Him to come, not riding a chariot and casting spears and blowing fire; He came as a baby, poor in state, born in a manger. And the angels heralded His beginning
and His entrance, and He walked the earth, and He proclaimed words that were radical and irrational in the way of life and still are today. But He meant what He said. And as my brother has indicated to you, in the mystery of the Trinity that God is, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost,
that when it came time for Him to depart, that when it became time for the Ascension, and He said, "I must leave, that Ye may receive the power of Him who will come, the Comforter", and it is written in the Book that after the Holy Ghost has come upon ye, ye shall receive power, not if, maybe,
or possibly. Ye shall receive power. And He shall teach you. He shall speak for you. He shall recall the Scripture to your mind. Worry not, when you are called before kings and magistrates, and the leaders of this world, for He will plead your case. The mystery of the Holy Spirit
of Jesus Christ, of God Almighty of the triune God, and the love and the nature of man himself. We stand before you this morning, a mock microcosm of the healing love of Jesus Christ. The representation of the division in our own country, neither seeking the other nor wanting the other in the material, the practical,
and the political world. And yet, God Himself, through Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit brought the two of us together, and we are one in Christ. And when the seed of doubt is in your own heart about the reality of whether I or my brother believe, or accept or follow the Lord, then
recall that it is not you who we deceive, but God Himself, and we would be blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. We thank our Father in heaven, that He has showed us a way through our savior Jesus Christ, that we can truly love one another.
COLSON: Those of you who were with us, my brother Harold and myself in Alexander Hall last night may have been saying to yourselves when the evening was over, well, that was sort of dramatic. You know, the conversions, the acceptance of Christ that you read about in books or that you hear men like us speak about, a recovered alcoholic finding God in his life, a White House hatchet man turning
to God in the depths of his despair in Watergate. Dramatic stories, all of them, but really, what does God tell us? It need not be a dramatic circumstance that turns you to the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior. He made it much, much simpler than recovering from alcoholism, or enduring the agonies
of a great national political scandal. His words, the words of Jesus Christ, whose birth we're about to celebrate, are so wonderfully plain and direct. He says, "I solemnly assure you that the man who hears what I have to say and believes in the One who has sent me has eternal life. He does not have to face judgment.
He has already passed from death into life." All that the Lord Jesus Christ asks of me, of you, of each one of you, is that you hear His words and believe in the One who has sent Him. And in the simplest prayer, in the quiet of your room, or during our prayers in this service, in this lovely
cathedral today, you may merely by saying to the Lord Jesus Christ that you hear his words and believe in the One who has sent Him pass from death into life, to have the joy of putting your own life in tune with that of the Divine Creator, all made possible. The love which my brother Harold and
I have for one another is the love of a bond of Jesus Christ. Christ makes possible the kind of love that heals all divisions, all hurts, everything in the world through the Lord Jesus Christ. And as we reflect upon Christmas, yes, it is a time for celebration, for joyous times with family and friends,
but, my brothers and sisters, it is a time for humility, to fall on our knees and thank God that He could come and live among us, die for us, hang on the cross, the death of the lowliest criminal, so that others would not follow Him, but for 2000 years, men have followed and laid down their lives, and known the joy of Jesus Christ. A time for humility, for thanking God.
HUGHES: May we this morning open our hearts regardless of our age or the purpose we came, and Lord God, we just praise Your holy name and thank You so very much, with an inability in the flesh to even understand the overwhelming love that you have poured out upon us. Receive that which He gives you, right now, in this holy season, and believe, and trust that which He is saying to you.
For God will keep His Word, and the power of intellect and the power of man and the power of doubt that is so broad in the world can never, never, never, never bend, dispute, or alter the Word of God. And that Word of God became flesh and dwelled in our midst, and He has now replaced it with the Comforter,
and it has been written that He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world. And we need never fear. So let's renew our lives. As I have travelled the world, in this past year, I realize that I find the followers of Christ feeling very lonely, like there aren't very many left in many areas, and yet, as I've gone about the world, I have seen
that God has placed His people in every position in every place in every country on the face of the earth. And you can rest assured with comfort in your heart as we stand here tonight and today, the realization that God will raise up His people, and that His plan is moving according to purpose. And you can be optimistic, because you have read the last page in the Bible. God's plan is working; it will come
into fruition. It will be fulfilled. And you need have no doubt. So let us celebrate in joy the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, the great and wonderful love, and feel the assurance in the power of the Holy Spirit, and to open our hearts in humility and accept the forgiveness of God Almighty and be free, now and forever. And remember always, that the Gospel is a person, our Lord Jesus Christ.