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00:04 In case you didn't get that, that's called a poetry slam. So, give it up for
00:09 the youth. Jessica
00:15 and the other girl there. Very familiar to me. Quite forgot the name somehow.
00:22 And did you not enjoy the choir? Wow. Give it up for our choir.
00:31 And we had, wow, we can do black gospel music, man. Know what I'm saying?
00:38 This church has got talent, man. Dude, sorry. My wife told me I better behave
00:43 myself. So, I better take a deep breath, control myself. Uh, I'm going to give you a
00:50 short message, so don't worry. Uh you know last Sunday
00:56 Elder Yian gave a fantastic sermon. Were you guys around? Wasn't it a great sermon? And yeah, by the way he wants to
01:06 preach less in 2019. Please tell him the errors of his ways. Okay. But before we
01:12 go there, he he said something quite interesting. And he said sometimes when he misbehaves at home uh when he's not a
01:19 very good husband the wife his beautiful wife gives him the silent treatment and he gave this very profound remark which
01:26 I put it up here. I never heard silence quite this loud or silence is deafening
01:32 and of course when he said that my wife nudged me. She nudged me and she went
01:39 h that is very true. When a woman does this to you, no need to say anything one you know it means honor limb how you
01:46 know. So that night me and Steven s and some ableboded men had a talk and we found out this silent treatment is very
01:52 common one. So if you're a husband here your wife give you silent treatment. Hallelujah. You're in a majority
01:58 most men cannot this one. All right. Now this statement is what we call a paradox
02:07 because it's silence but silence speaks. And I wanted to just take you this
02:12 morning on the idea of a paradox. My daughter was reminding me, dad, don't make this too intellectual, but I think
02:20 it's quite simple. So, let me just explain a little bit about what a paradox is for those of you who may not
02:27 be very clear. It means a seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or
02:33 proposition which when investigated may prove to be wellfounded or true. So when
02:38 you say silence is deafening, silence means no sound but silence can speak. Uh
02:46 here's a very famous paradox. It's called the liars paradox. So when I tell you this sentence is false, am I telling
02:55 you the truth or am I lying to you? You see where we're going with this? So
03:00 this is called the liars paradox. Now paradoxes don't have to be just words.
03:06 They can be in pictures. This is the latest craze in China.
03:11 This is their version of of the evolution of the selfie, you know. So,
03:17 uh it's called the falling star photo. Uh so you you are supposed to stage
03:23 falling out and as you fall out, you spill out things and what you spill out is what's important to you. So you can
03:31 see on the right hand side the young lady falling out of a very expensive car and you can see what is spilling out and
03:38 then you see the other guy falling down the library and you look at the books he's reading he's got you know a socialist book on the left so on one
03:45 hand the photo doesn't tell you anything about the person but on the other hand it tells you everything.
03:52 So that's what paradoxes are. Now why am I bringing you that? Because Christmas
03:58 is in my view the ultimate paradox, the ultimate contradiction. Here's one.
04:05 Christmas is a secular celebration. That's really odd, right? Uh yesterday,
04:11 uh the youth past leaders said that, you know, Muslims shouldn't wish Christians
04:16 uh uh merry Christmas because other secret
04:22 among many other things. But it's bizarre because Christmas is actually a
04:28 religious celebration, right? Like besa or Diwali. But Christmas is the only
04:34 religious celebration which I think there are more non-Christians celebrating.
04:39 It's very strange. It's almost as a competition to for Christmas. And so
04:45 it's it's a ultimate paradox. So today we're going to look at the Christmas
04:50 paradox. I just want to just give you through this 50 minutes. But before we do that, today is a great day. The
04:57 church is packed. Everyone's happy. But I just want us to slow down a little bit
05:02 and think of our friends in Indonesia.
05:07 And as you celebrate here, as you can't wait to go back to open presence and have a great day, many people out there
05:15 in salute in the streets of Sunda are suffering. So I want you to join me in
05:20 just a short moment of prayer and I want to just encourage us as we pray this in our national language as we think of our
05:27 friends there in Indonesia who are suffering.
05:48 Indonesia
06:20 Lord, as we just remember um what's happening there, we're reminded of the
06:26 sins of the world and it's not just man's heart which is far from you that the environment has
06:32 broken down. to teach us not to be insular people. And this morning as you know this
06:38 glorious day um we remember how this world is broken and in many way life is
06:46 a paradox. We live in the best of times but at the same time we live in the
06:54 worst of times. And we say this in Jesus name. Amen. Uh I'm going to give you
07:01 three paradoxes. God became man. That's quite obvious.
07:06 Kings who are slaves. That's not very obvious unless you listen to the poetry
07:11 slam. And we're going to come back to the choir in a while. And weakness which brings strength.
07:17 Now in the last few weeks in FBC, we've been looking at Christmas through the eyes of Joseph. Christmas through the
07:24 eyes of you know uh many characters.
07:30 and is basically characters who are from earth's perspective. And I wonder what if we
07:37 looked at it from God's perspective. What if we didn't look at it from a
07:43 human perspective? What if we we took it from a cosmic view looking down? Could
07:49 we find a verse that gave us God's perspective? And I thought of this one verse.
07:58 The word became flesh and dwelt among us. And this morning I'm just going to
08:03 speak on one verse. And you know this verse doesn't tell you about Mary and
08:09 Joseph. Doesn't tell you about wise men. Doesn't tell you about a manger. Doesn't tell you about shepherds. Doesn't tell
08:14 you about angels. But it's a really interesting verse. And I just thought
08:19 one verse is very loaded. In fact, it's very paradoxical. Let's just look at what it says and what it tells us about
08:27 Christmas. And the way we're going to do, we're going to break down three big words in this verse. And what's the
08:35 first word we're going to break down is the word dwelt. Or if you have your ESV, it says
08:41 dwelling. In fact, if you have your Bibles here, you could open it from John 1. We'll read it all the way to the
08:47 verse. We get some context with us. Now the the other rendering of it is
08:53 actually the word became flesh or if you're visitor with us in simple English it means God became man
09:01 and dwelt among us or they use another word tabernacled among us. You see the
09:07 verse the Jews understood it because it's a reference to Exodus and he says
09:13 this in Exodus 25 in the wilderness God gave a commandment to those who were
09:20 moving to Exodus then have them make a sanctuary for me and I will dwell among
09:26 them. So what's the verse telling us? It means very simply, God came down and
09:34 basically rented your apartment. God came down and took your spare room.
09:45 God came down and moved into USJ tree.
09:51 That's really what the verse says. Or to be more accurate, on Christmas day, God
09:56 came down in a manger. Jesus lives here.
10:03 And nobody knew he came. That's the point of the verse. He came.
10:10 He walked with us, but we didn't realize he had moved in.
10:16 Uh we had a camp speaker about two years ago uh pastor Christia and he gave a
10:22 sermon with with a line that I always remembered. It was something that just
10:27 kept in my mind and he said this. God is most revealed
10:33 when he is most hidden. Now that's a paradox.
10:39 God is most revealed when he is most hidden. You see on the first Christmas
10:47 God came nobody noticed him they were too busy
10:53 and this Christmas I think that message came to us if you look at your context
10:58 of your verse verse 10 says this he was in the world and though the world was
11:05 made through him the world did not recognize him. So what is the text
11:12 telling us? Let me give you an example. Uh this is George, the late George Bush.
11:18 You know, uh there are more presidents than Donald Trump. And
11:24 you know, when you're the president of the United States, you're actually the most powerful person on the planet. You
11:29 are king, king of kings, as big as you can get. And on one Christmas day um run
11:36 by a Christian organization called Compassion International, they basically
11:41 take care of poor children. And George Bush goes for a dinner on Christmas Day
11:47 and he sees a picture of a very young poor Filipino boy. And George Bush
11:53 decides to be his pen pal. And he writes a letter. Dear Timothy, I want to be
11:59 your new pen pal. I'm an old man, 72 years old, I love kids, and though we
12:05 have not met, I love you already. Doesn't that say a little bit? Doesn't
12:11 that sort of give you a hint of the Christmas story? I live in Texas. I will write to you from time to time. Good
12:19 luck. Now, look what he signs off. Does he sign off as George Bush?
12:24 He uses another name. And so this very powerful king
12:32 starts a relationship with a poor Filipino village boy.
12:40 And he tells him about God. He says, "Be sure to say your prayers. I do every
12:48 day." And then he gives gifts. The birthday present will show you the
12:54 time around the world. It's a fascinating story and they only recently
12:60 discovered this two weeks ago when he went through the documents of George Bush and they picked up this
13:08 and he gives another one of letters which was quite interesting in this. He say dear Timothy I just go to third
13:14 paragraph have you ever heard of the white house? I know where the president USA lives.
13:23 I go to the White House at Christmas time. Hello.
13:28 How many people go to the White House? No. What is happening is that he's
13:34 dropping hints. You know, sometimes we hear but we don't
13:39 listen. And if you open your eyes enough and you
13:45 read the letters carefully, you would know that the King of Kings, the
13:51 President of the United States was writing to you.
13:57 It is is a really remarkable story. And so it is with us. We are like that
14:02 little kid. And very often God comes in a way we
14:08 don't see. God's here.
14:13 The King is here. But we're so busy, we don't pick it up.
14:18 So, it's going to start off in one little point in the hustle and bustle of Christmas. And you know, it's really
14:25 hard to do a Christmas sermon because everyone's heard it before. But if you just slow down and quieten your hearts,
14:32 God's here in this hall. He moved into
14:38 Sububa and this morning he's speaking to you.
14:44 But will you listen? You don't dabble on your phone. If you don't worry about the dinner later, you
14:50 don't worry about the Christmas presents. If you if you just find a quiet moment now, he speaks.
14:60 But what is he saying? So let's go to the next verse and then uh next point and we'll find out what
15:06 he's saying. We look at the word dwell. I want to give you another word here. It's a big word is called word because
15:14 why did John say word? Why don't you just say God? Why word? Or the Greek
15:20 rendering is logos. And this is really from a perspective of creation because
15:28 we just had a intimate impression of God. God dwells with us. God walks with
15:33 me. God understands who I am. God is like bush in a very, you know, that's
15:39 not very good example, but he, you know, he he he has love. He understands my
15:44 hurt. God is like one of us. Now we push to the opposite other end. On the other
15:50 end, here is your cosmic God. The Jews understand this. And in many ways, the
15:56 Greeks understood this. Have you ever wondered about the beginning of the universe? You know when I was a younger
16:01 man you know we all questioned about know is there really a god? I mean I think a lot of people go through that
16:08 and one of the questions I always asked was that you know what is the universe infinite
16:13 and then you ask the ultimate paradoxical question is there an end to the universe
16:19 and and if you know your signs the universe is expanding. So you read Stephen Hawkins, he tells
16:25 you, you know what, you know, gases formed together and the universe came.
16:30 But the Bible just says the infinite had the beginning. That's another paradox.
16:37 And in the beginning was God. But why does he use the word word? Because God
16:43 spoke and the universe came to being. I want you to ponder on that because God Paul
16:51 ties that. John ties that with the word made flesh. And when you take the two
16:56 words together, one which is so cosmic, God of gods, the universe, the infinite,
17:05 the cosmic, just take one step back and look why is in this huge universe.
17:10 There's only one planet up to now that inhabited. And then you have this very intimate
17:17 description of God. When you tie the two together, it gives you one proposition. You see, most people struggle if you're
17:23 if you're not a Christian here today, most people struggle with the concept of God on two fronts. One rationally, they
17:31 you know, if you you're you're mentally of that kind of persuasion, you say, you know what, I I can't believe there's a
17:36 God. You know, uh science doesn't prove it. You know, how do you how do you answer dinosaurs? How do you answer
17:42 evolution? So, some people are very much persuaded only on rationally. you got to convince me God exists. Then on the
17:48 other hand, there are those who need to have an experience. They need to have this wow thing happening to them. Then
17:55 only they believe God exists. And what is interesting when you put word and
18:00 dwelt, you begin to see what John is saying. He's saying, you want to know
18:05 God, it's not about meeting your mental capacity. God's not here to meet your mental
18:12 rational expectations. God is not here to meet your mystical experiential expectations.
18:19 And this is one thing that really sort of pushed me to becoming a Christian is about this word called revelation.
18:26 God reveals himself. And this Christmas, God reveals himself.
18:35 How does he reveal himself? The word speaks. And in the past, he spoke. He
18:41 spoke through his prophets. But now he speaks through Christ. And that's what
18:48 it means, through Christ. But our poetry slam girls put it right. Crowning Jesus
18:54 as king over our lives. Well, the consequences are overwhelming. The
19:00 stakes are too high. He's extremely extremely demanding. And boy is that
19:06 right. You see, if he's king of the universe, if he's the word that created everything, he should be king of my life
19:15 and your life. And this is where the issue is. Because the issue is not so
19:21 much that we can't believe is because we don't want to believe because we don't
19:26 want God as king. We want to run our lives our way. This
19:33 is a very famous statement and and you meet a lot of people to tell you that
19:38 I want to be captain of my ship. So let me just do a simple test on that. Right?
19:43 You you you are king of your life. Right? You are king. Okay? Let's just
19:49 pause for a while and I want you to think of some of your bad habits. Don't need to tell anyone.
19:56 Think of all the bad things you do nobody sees. Think of all the bad things your wife
20:02 says you do, your boss says you do. You're king of your life, right?
20:08 Okay, stop doing it. Stop doing it. You're king.
20:14 Why can't you do it? Why can't you stop feeling envious? Why
20:20 can't you stop all those bad thoughts? Why can't you stop all those things you
20:25 do that no one sees? Stop doing that. And here's the other paradox.
20:32 And Paul says this, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do
20:37 not do. But what I hate, I do." And Christmas has a dark side. It reminds us
20:44 that while we want to be kings in our lives, very often we are slaves.
20:52 We are all slaves. These things bondage us. You know the very famous story of
20:57 Scrooge, right? He think he's king. But what is his bondage? Money.
21:05 And all of us here have our bondages. It could be envy. It could be lust. It
21:12 could be insecurity. It could be something that happened in your past that you can't let go. It
21:18 could be jealousy. It could be in a marriage which you feel very let down.
21:23 These things tie you. You're not a king. I'm not a king. We are all slaves. So
21:30 let me go now to the third point. How do people announce their birth of their
21:36 kings? And you know the last two years we have a lot of royal birth. And when a king is announced, a birth of a king,
21:43 there's a lot of fanfare. There's a lot of big huh. There's a lot of noise. But
21:48 when the King of Kings was born, God made sure the inn was full.
21:56 So that the King of Kings had to be born in a manger. You know the term the smell
22:02 of Christmas. The smell of Christmas isn't turkey.
22:08 The smell of Christmas isn't your pudding. What is the smell of Christmas?
22:14 Animal poo. That's really the smell of Christmas.
22:19 Now, here's the irony of it. It's not that Joseph and Mary were that poor they
22:25 could afford to go to an inn or in modern English they could go to AB and
22:30 B. But they made their booking and when there were double booked
22:36 that's the common language. And so they had to go to Kandang Kbau
22:41 and I don't mean a hospital in Singapore. You see the whole intention was God
22:47 wanted the birth of Jesus to be as shameful as possible. You don't get as
22:55 lowly as this. The smell of Christmas is the smell of animal pool. And it begins
23:02 to ask why? Because if there's a sign of weakness, this is it. And so we go to
23:09 the third point, weakness which leads to strength. And I want to just go on this last word flesh.
23:16 We looked at word powerful God bigger than Thanos from Avengers. King of kings
23:25 created the universe. Then we have intimacy dwelt among us. He was like you
23:30 and me. He took the subway train. He sat with us at with prostitutes as with tax
23:36 collectors. He went to the mama store, the two extremes, and right smack in the
23:41 middle is the word flesh. You know what the Greek meaning of the word flesh means? It means it be God became
23:49 killable. You could hurt God. Now that's a real
23:56 paradox. So when you says God became flesh, he
24:03 became fleshy. You could drive a nail through his hands
24:10 and he would bleed. The God who promised you heaven will go
24:19 through hell. So when you tie the tree together and if
24:25 you really have the moment to just quietly ponder on it, my view this is
24:31 one of the most powerful verses in the Bible. It is so powerful that if you
24:37 just pause on this, it's so overwhelming. You see,
24:43 the Christmas paradox in the end isn't really about Christmas.
24:51 The Christmas paradox is the God paradox.
24:57 Is the God you and I worship. And if you get the God paradox right,
25:05 it completely changes your perspective in life. The God paradox is found from
25:12 the cradle of shame to the cross of shame. And 30 years later, the God who promised
25:20 heaven experiences hell on a cross.
25:27 And everyone mocks him and says, "King of Jews, king of Jews, save yourself."
25:34 But one person next to him, a penitent criminal, realizes something about himself
25:42 that he's a sinner and in his pain looks to
25:48 God hanging on the cross and says, "Remember me when you enter paradise."
25:56 And in his weakness, ultimate weakness, he says, "Truly I say to you, you will
26:03 be with me today in paradise." Now, I want you to pause on that because
26:08 there's only three options from a statement like that. One,
26:14 Jesus is crazy. Why would you accept the word of a
26:21 person hanging on a cross that he's going to give you heaven? is like a school dropout telling you, "Hey, I'm
26:28 going to make sure you're going to score in your SPM." You know, is like a person who's a bankrupt coming
26:36 and tell you, you know what, you follow me, you're going to make a billion dollars.
26:42 Or someone who's very sick who says, "Here, I got a health plan. You follow me, you're never going to see a doctor
26:48 again." It's as paradoxical as that because there's no reason to listen to a
26:54 man hanging on a cross, especially when you're in pain.
26:59 But here, this criminal saw something. So, either he's mad or be he's a liar
27:07 or he's a straight shooter. And this is why the God paradox
27:15 tells us from the cradle of shame to the cross of shame, it takes us to the
27:22 crown. Because if you look at the verse we just read, the word became flesh. The
27:29 second part of verse says this, we have seen his glory. The glory of the one and
27:35 only son who came for the father full of grace and truth. You see the God paradox
27:44 radically changes our reality paradox. And and I I I I want to tell you this
27:49 because you know you you all have came in to Christmas. Christmas is like going for for a concert in the in the in the
27:56 west. In the west when they go for concerts they take their coats they put it in the hall out there they come in
28:01 listen to something very great something very entertaining then they go out they take the coat put it on and then they go
28:07 out the code is like your problem you know you leave your problem at the door you come into church have a great time
28:13 listen to the choir clap your hands when the sermon comes you f your hands because how many times can you tell a
28:19 Christmas story then you go out put on your coat which is your problem then you
28:24 go back to the real And I challenge you we do that that means God didn't speak to you today
28:31 because this morning even here some of us are going through that life
28:36 paradox and and one of the things that really assures me of Christmas is this. It is when I am at the weakest
28:45 he gives me the strength and that is what that paradox is.
28:52 God. Give God your weakness, he'll give you his strength. And this morning, if if
28:58 you're going through a marriage issue, if you are going through a financial
29:04 problem, don't be like a guy who put his code at out there, came in, took the code, and go out there. Let God speak to
29:11 you. He is here. You're going through some issues of unforgiveness.
29:17 Maybe you're going through some issues of struggling with sins and nobody knows.
29:22 Give it to him and he will give you his strength.
29:28 Let me end with one last paradox. You know everything I told you just now some
29:34 people will say is just completely crazy. And that's why Paul says the message of
29:39 the cross is foolishness to the world. But to us who are being saved, it is
29:46 both wisdom and salvation from God. And if this morning God spoke to you and you
29:52 didn't quite get it, part of it made sense, part of it didn't really, let me
29:59 leave you with the last paradox. Tell this to God. I believe.
30:06 Help my unbelief. I want to ask the worship team to come up
30:12 because the king is here. Let peace arise.
30:18 Let darkness fall. Let all the earth join heaven's song.
30:23 The death of death. The end of fear. Joy to the world. The
30:30 king is here. As the worship team prepares, I want us to just maybe slow down. And we started off by talking
30:37 about silence is deafening. But here's the other thing. Silence, God speaks.
30:43 And on that first silent night, God spoke. So as the band sort of prepares itself, perhaps you could have some
30:50 keyboards and before you rush off to your turkey and opening your presence and all of
30:56 that, God is here. Let him speak to you.
31:02 Lord, we just bite our hearts and some of us feel very weak.
31:08 We look around at life and we just say that, you know, things are not well. And
31:14 Christmas just becomes escapism. But this morning, let your work speak to
31:20 us that when we are at our weakest, you give us your strength.
31:26 So for those of you who are not going through a good time right now, let this
31:32 Christmas not be a time of escapism.
31:37 Let be a time that you know the king is here. He has moved into your life.
31:44 [Music] If you will let him in, he will recognize that you should give
31:50 up your god forsaking you as king lives.
31:57 That is the reality paradox God is challenging us. And this morning I
32:02 challenge us here. Stop being king of your lives
32:08 and let Jesus be king. But when he saves, he rules.
32:16 For those of us who are just struggling as a Christian for many years, we feel we're not getting anywhere.
32:22 Again, this morning, let this not be a time of escapism.
32:28 Bring it before God at your weakness moment. He will give you his strength.
32:33 That is the God paradox. And for some of you who struggle, perhaps you came into church and this is
32:40 all very new. [Music] This is something you have never heard
32:46 or something in something this morning tugs at you and says, "You know what? Maybe there's some
32:51 truth in this." We encourage you to stay with us. Come back next week and come to
32:57 church. Talk to us and you're not sure to believe.
33:03 Hear the word of God. I believe. Help my belief.
33:11 going to close with this song and we're going to take all our issues and bring it before God because God will carry us.
33:18 And as we sing this song that he will carry you, I just want us to just maybe
33:24 make this Christmas a special Christmas that he will take your issues and he
33:29 will give you power and he will give you a crown and you will be victorious.
33:37 Amen. And let me tell you that will be the best Christmas gift you will ever
33:44 get. Shall we rise? Because you and I are meant to be victorious. You're not
33:50 supposed to live in the shadow of your life. You're not supposed to leave defeated. You're not supposed to come
33:56 this morning in escapism. You're supposed to leave here challenged knowing in this life you will be
34:04 victorious. Amen. And you cannot do that if you take your weakness and you put it to him and he
34:12 will give you his strength. Let's sing this song. He will carry you.
34:18 I just let the spirit just move to us now as we just prepare our hearts for this song.
34:25 [Music] Hallelujah.
34:31 Come in our midst.
