Each year in the weeks or months before Christmas I look over the list of what I have preached about on previous Christmases to see if there are any significant texts I have overlooked and to pick a new set of topics. And when I did that this year I made an interesting discovery. I discovered that in all my years of preaching I have never preached a Christmas message from the opening chapter of John’s gospel, the chapter that begins: “In the beginning was the Word” (v. 1).

We do not repent because of grace, of course. We are going to explore that sad fact in a moment. But before we do, there is something else that needs to be noted about common grace. Up to now I have been showing that good things happen even to bad people. But now I want to acknowledge that bad things also happen, but that these are also good things in the sense that they should remind us of the destructive nature of sin, the shortness of life, and the need for redemption, so that we will seek God and find him through these bad but good things even if not through those which are an unmixed good.