Christmas Eve 2014

Merry Christmas. We gather tonight to think about a birth. The cities and towns all over the world have stopped what they're doing tonight and tomorrow because of one single birth. Why? Why would one birth, one baby, mean so much that for 2,000 years people have been stopping what they normally do to think about it, to meditate upon it, to sing about it, to write songs, to read scripture. Why was this one baby so important? In the midst of the busyness of all the things we've stopped doing, in the midst of the busyness of the things we've added to our Christmas season, it's important to simply ask, what was so unique about this baby? What was so unique about this birth? Tonight, we're going to be doing a meditation, a brief meditation from Matthew chapter one, It'll largely be from the text that Arena read, so you can either read along in your bulletin or you can turn in a pew Bible if you need it to page 807. We're in Matthew 1, we'll begin in verse 18. If you do not have a Bible and would like that Bible, please take it with you. We would love to give you that as our gift. Here again, God's Word, as it tells us, the birth of Christ. Now, the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother, Mary, had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband, Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife. For that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son. And you shall call his name Jesus. For he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which means God with us. When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife, but he knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus. There's a number of things we see in our text and a number of things that tell us why we stop what we're doing to think about who this child is. And one of the traditional confessions of faith that the church has always insisted upon must be true. Jesus is fully God. He's fully man. Jesus is fully God. Jesus is fully man. And I want us to think about those two declarations as we look at this text. Jesus is fully God. Notice that Matthew tells us all these things took place. He takes an opportunity as a narrator to tell us these things that took place because they've been prophesied. God told us this was going to happen years, years before it actually took place. A virgin shall conceive. Should I be careful? All right, this is going to be different. A virgin is going to conceive and bear a son. And they shall call his name Emmanuel God with us. Those words are precious to the Israelites, to the old covenant people of God. That was a precious declaration because when they were enslaved, God came and said, I am with you. I am for you. God said to his people, I am your God. I will be with you. This is a unique relationship that Yahweh, the one true God, made with a unique people. He promised to be with them so that they could know him, so they could love him, so that we could love him and obey him. The beauty of God of Israel is that he was with his people. When the other nations would gather and see Israel, they were supposed to say, how great is this nation? Look how wise and righteous the rulers are. Look how close their God is to them. God wanted to be with his people so that he could speak to them, lead them, provide for them, and protect them. God with us was the foundation of the entire Old Testament. And here, this baby, this baby being born is declared to be God with us. Every Old Testament promise is being fulfilled in this baby being born of a version. Jesus is God with us. Not just in the picture of a cloud by day or a fire by night. Jesus came to be with us in the most intimate and personal way. God came to be with his creation, walking with them, talking with them. That echoes the Garden of Eden, the original creation, the way God intended it to be, to be walking with us. and talking with us. Only this time when God comes down to be with his people, walking and talking, he's reversing what took place in the garden. He's removing the curse that we brought so that we could once again know him. The only way we can know God and his love is if he comes to us. This is an amazing thing about Christmas. This is what should amaze us about Christmas. God, the creator, came down to personally be a part of creation. To renew a relationship with us. Now, this is the sad thing about Christmas. When God comes to be personally With his people to be walking and talking with his people when God comes down, his people do not recognize him. His people reject him. As we read from Matthew. They nail him to a cross. They murder him. It's amazing that he comes to be with us. It's amazing he comes to die for us. And here's where we see grace. God came to be with his people to save them. He came because we were rebelling against Him, even while He knew we would rebel against Him and kill Him. He said, I'm going to come down because it's the only way they will have hope. God came down to save us from our sins. Jesus Christ came down to save us from our sins because He had to fight for us. He came down to shine light in the midst of our darkness. Lies swirl around us. His truth has to reveal who He is and what He has called us to be. He came down to end the fear of death. Death is dead in the death of Christ. He died so that we no longer have to be afraid of death. He came down to declare His love. While we were sinning, He died for us. God came to be with us. Jesus is fully God. Now, the other part of this we have to really see to appreciate is that Jesus is fully God. He's also fully and truly man. God with us is who Jesus Christ is. We can often see he was conceived by the Holy Spirit. He's fully man. He has taken a human nature by being conceived in the womb of Mary. Again, this is mind-blowing. If we really think about what the Word of God says happened, the Holy Spirit is going to come in the womb of a virgin and conceive a child. Joseph had no part in the birth. No man had any part in the conception. God himself brought a miraculous conception. And the reason this is important is that he's fully God. The Holy Spirit brought about God taking upon himself a human nature in the womb. So that he could be like us in every way. Except he did not have sin. The Holy Spirit is not only bringing a conception that's miraculous, he's protecting this human baby. From sin. Mary's sin is not connected to this baby. As Luke tells us in his narrative of the birth, the Holy Spirit will overshadow you, an angel tells Mary. The Holy Spirit is in the womb protecting this baby from inheriting a fallen nature like ours. He's born miraculously. He's also born without sin. Now, this is important because this baby is the beginning of a new humanity. That's why I said he's truly man. You see, there's something about us that is inhuman. Everyone in this room shares something that is not proper to being human. It's sin. Sin isn't the way it's supposed to be. God didn't create us to be sinners. God didn't create us for sin. But Jesus is born without sin. It's a beautiful picture where Adam failed as the head of the race. Jesus succeeds. He comes to give a new beginning so that in our failure we can have new life. We get to be born again. This is how you are born again. Jesus came to live the perfect life that we could not. This is why when God declares this is my beloved son and whom I'm well pleased, Jesus lived the perfectly obedient life. He's righteous. When he died on the cross, he died as a righteous man in the place of sinners. He takes the wrath of God himself for our sin so that he can give us his righteousness for all those who believe. As Hebrews 217 tells us, Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation, taking the wrath of God away for the sins of the people. And then he goes on, verse 18, for because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. Jesus came to be like us, to help us. Now, what does it mean to need help? This is a very important part of understanding why this birth is so important. What does it mean to need help? Do we need to call somebody and ask for some technical support? Is that the kind of help we need? Do we need good advice to help us avoid some errors? Maybe we need help as if we're in the pool, we're kind of not so sure about swimming, and we call for the lifeguard, would you please come help me? I think it's much worse than that. The help we need is more as if we were sunk down to the bottom of the ocean. No breath in our lungs, no blood pumping through our veins and our heart, no activity in our brain. We're dead. We're dead in our sins, completely helpless. Someone must come down and breathe new life in us. Someone must come down and give us a new heart that will pump new life into our veins. Someone must come down and transform our mind. Jesus came down to give us new life. Because we were dead, he had to come. become like us in every way, yet without sin, so that his death, in his death, we could find forgiveness. In his death, we could receive life. Jesus is fully God, he's fully man, and this is why he is the savior for sinners. Notice what's in a name here. She will bear a son, you shall call his name Jesus. There's a lot to this name. For he will save his people from their sins. That's what Jesus means, means Yahweh saves. There's a lot to this name. We find that he's he's the fulfillment of every promise that Yahweh, the God of Israel, has made. Yahweh has now sent the perfect Savior. If we look at this, the Savior, he's fully God and fully man. He defended. Before he was conceived in the womb of Mary, the Son of God was in heaven, being praised and worshipped, being glorified by all the angels around him. He was receiving what he deserved, which is glory. Jesus, before he was in the womb of Mary, was receiving what he deserved, which is glory. When he descended, He came down to be harassed. To be mocked, to be questioned, to be beaten, to be spat upon, to be nailed to a cross. He chose to descend from being glorified to great suffering. Why? So that he could receive what he did not deserve, so that he could receive what we deserve. He came to take the wrath of God against our sin so that we can now delight in glory in God. There's a key word that really should define Christmas for us. It's humility. God humbled himself and took a nature and a status that was lower than what is rightfully his. He humbled himself. He lowered himself. He did this because he saw that in our futility we're fighting against him. He saw that in our frailty we were destined for defeat. God came and humbled himself to save us. What does God require of us? That we would be humble before him. This is God's humility. God doesn't think less of himself in humility. That would be a sin. Because he's God and he's great in his glory. God's humility in God's humility, he said, I'm going to think more of them. I'm going to consider them above myself, speaking of his people that he would die for. So this is what humility means for us. We stop thinking so little of God. We begin to think about him rightly and correctly. We begin to think of Him in His glory. We begin to think of Him as the one we should worship. We need to see in our humility that we need help. We need help from our sin. We need help from a Savior who has come to be like us. If you're not a Christian this morning, ask God for the grace to be humble enough to receive help. That's a struggle. It's a struggle that Christians have as well. But you need to ask God for the grace to be humble enough to receive help. To see that you are a sinner in need of a savior, to see that you're a sinner in the wrath of God who needs to be forgiven. Christian. Commit yourself to the way of Christ. To walk in humility, following Him, obeying Him. To consider others more important than yourself and their interests more important than your own. This Christmas. Commit yourself to what Paul teaches us in Philippians 2. So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility. Count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. But made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, being found in human form, he humbled himself By becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name of that is above every name so that that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. We pray with me. Almighty God, we thank You that when You saw us dead and in need of help, You chose to love us. You chose to show mercy to us. You chose to come down to us and breathe new life into us. God, we thank You that Jesus Christ has come to walk among us, to talk with us, most of all, to die for us. Help us, Lord, now to walk in Him. to love one another, to proclaim Him, to exalt Him, the name that is above every name. In His name we pray, Amen.