Destruction and Deliverance

My father was the youngest of four children and he was notorious for snooping around under the Christmas tree and counting how many presents he was gonna get and shaking boxes. And I think one Christmas in order to trick him, he found a very heavy rectangular box under the tree and his mom told him that it was a brick. And he was so angry about that brick that he refused to open it on Christmas morning. And I think for some of us, that is kind of a metaphor for what the Christmas experience is like. You know, it's neatly wrapped on the outside. It looks good. It passes the eye test. It's full of sentiment and memories and happiness. But beneath the surface, it's actually cold and hard and lifeless. One of the consistent themes of 2018 has been what's been dubbed as the loneliness epidemic. that people are theoretically more connected than we've ever been and yet at the same time our relationships are more shallow and less fulfilling than they've ever been. And then there's the reality of loss that we experience acutely this time of year. A friend of mine last week buried his wife, 41 years old. He was in seminary with me and Christmas won't be the same for him and his three boys. Some of you in this room even are experiencing that first Christmas alone or first Christmas different without a loved one this year. And even if it's not those really, really heavy things, I think a lot of us can acknowledge that Christmas often comes as a bit of a letdown. That estranged relative doesn't finally pick up the phone and make the phone call to make things right and come back to the family. The table erupts once again into arguing and shouting. Or that gift that you wanted so badly isn't there. Or even if it is, it doesn't quite live up to the hype. The bottom line is that Christmas, just like every other day of the year, is plagued with the fundamental flaw of sin. We may experience it in different ways, but we all experience it. And as Ben reminded us yesterday, we feel it most acutely in the universal problem of death. Everything and everyone has an expiration date. And that in itself would be really sad and depressing. If we just lived under a materialist worldview that said everything essentially is meaningless after death, that would be sad enough. But the Bible tells us that our problem is far worse than that. That it's been appointed for man to die once, and after that comes the judgment. And it's this problem that the author of Hebrews is addressing. And so tonight, again, we're focusing, usually a lot of times on this time of year, we're focusing on the what of Christmas, the angels, the shepherds, Mary and Joseph, and all that's good and right. Tonight we're going straight to the why. Why is Christmas, why are these events so important? And we're gonna consider that from Hebrews chapter two. So let me read Hebrews two, 14 and 15. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself, that is Jesus, likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. So it's kind of odd, but it's Christmas Eve and we're gonna talk about the devil. Satan is God's enemy. He's been leading a rebellion against God since Adam and Eve in the garden. And his main strategy is to induce us to be afraid of God. He wants us to be scared of God and run away from him, rather than delighting in him and worshiping him as God. And he does this in a couple of different ways. First of all, he leads us to doubt God's goodness. If you remember back to the garden, that's how he tempted Adam and Eve. God isn't really good. He doesn't want you to have pleasure or freedom. He's restricting you, he's holding out on you. And so Satan leads us to believe that to live according to God's word and God's ways is a form of death. And that the way to life is to go our own way, to break free from the shackles of God and to chart our own course. And then his second strategy is guilt. He reminds us of our real sin against God, and the fact that we deserve judgment and condemnation because of that. And so whether we're trying to ignore God through outright rebellion against him, whether we're trying to distract ourselves through all sorts of things in this world from our sense of internal guilt, or whether we're trying to do enough good things to earn God's favor, earn our way back to him, what we are, according to the Bible, is enslaved. We're all enslaved. We aren't in a right relationship with God, and that's really all that Satan's after. He wants us not to be in a right relationship with God. He wants us to live in the fear of death, dreading the inevitable day that we would face our holy creator God. And the answer to this problem is the good news that we celebrate at Christmas. We call this the gospel, the good news that changes everything. So you can imagine how it would feel if we got news that foreign bombers were on their way to the United States and in just a few minutes our whole area was going to be detonated. And then, just before they got here, it was announced that US fighter jets had intercepted them and shot them down. The bombers were no longer a threat. That would be exceedingly good news, right? It's news that changes everything. And so the Christmas story is like that. It's not a once upon a time fairy tale. It's about real events in human history that changed everything. And at the center of the story, the birth of Jesus is what we call the incarnation. Jesus, the God taking on flesh. He was God, he was the second person of the Trinity who took on flesh and blood. He became a human being to walk among us, to be one of us. And that's really just, that whole idea is just incomprehensible. We wouldn't even be able to believe that if it wasn't for the fact that God himself told us that that's what was happening. Creator has become creation. That's the Christmas story. But it's not just a quaint story of someone humbling himself, someone who's great and humbled himself, although it's not less than that. It's that he became a man so that he could die as a man. That's the author of Hebrews' point here. It's through death. That's why he took on flesh and blood. And it's through death that he's brought about the good news that we celebrate at Christmas time. The author describes this as Jesus' victory and our freedom. So as we think about Jesus' victory, we see that through death, he's destroyed the one who has power over death. He's destroyed Satan. God promised Adam and Eve that he would one day provide a son to crush the head of the deceiving serpent, and Jesus is that son. You see, Satan's power of death comes through his valid accusations of our guilt, right? He's not wrong in saying that we are sinners and that we're guilty and we deserve God's judgment. He stands in God's courtroom to accuse all of us according to God's holiness and prove that we're all guilty. And his goal is to leave no one left to praise and worship and honor God. But Jesus destroys Satan by suffering in the place of sinners. He offers himself as the perfect and eternal sacrifice for sin in order to pay the penalty that sin deserves, that Satan is seeking. And so God answers Satan by saying the penalty has been paid in full. He doesn't just randomly acquit people. He says your sin has been paid for. And so Jesus destroys Satan in that way. And because Jesus has victory over Satan, we can consider our freedom. Through Jesus's death, he provides for our forgiveness. On the cross, Jesus bore God's wrath against our sin. So the offense of our rebellion against God has been satisfied. So through Jesus, sin no longer stands as a barrier to a relationship with God. It doesn't keep us from God anymore. Christians don't have to fear death and fear facing God because we know that the penalty for our sin has been paid. But his work also provides us with a gift of adoption. So it would be reason for us to celebrate forever if we were merely acquitted for our sins. That in itself would be really good news. But God doesn't just leave us acquitted and free from the penalty of our sin. He sent Jesus to identify with us as brothers and sisters, to make us part of his family, as objects of divine love forever, and secure an eternal inheritance for us. And so we're not just free from sin and its penalty, but we are welcome before God as dearly loved children. That's good news, friends. And so among other things... that unites us not only with God, but with each other. So I just want to say a word to those of you who come to church once a year, not those of you who are here at this church once a year, but somewhere else, but just really, this is the only time you ever come to any church. I just want to lovingly caution you against assuming that you have a good relationship with God because of that, any more than you would think you had a good relationship with your family if you only saw them once a year. And again, I encourage you, if you don't have a church home, we would love the opportunity to get to know you better and to make this your church home. Third, Jesus gives us the gift of his help. So the most natural thing for children to do is to cry out to their parents for help. Jesus came to identify with us, to suffer as one of us, to die in our place, and to be raised from the dead, and even now, to intercede for us in the presence of God. And so Jesus's life provides an example for us to follow of how to persevere in trusting and believing and following God. And even now he's praying for us and advocating on our behalf before God the Father. And he sent his spirit into us to transform us and empower us from the inside out. And so we see that through Jesus, through all these different gifts, Christians are delivered from Satan's power. He disarms Satan's attacks. So when Satan comes to us with temptation, Christians can say no, because we know God is good. We know that he loves us. We know that we're his beloved children. We know he has only good in store for us. And so the lies of Satan don't have any traction with us. And then when Satan comes at us with accusation over real sin and real weakness and real failure in our lives, we don't have to deny it. We don't have to run away from it or try to pay for it ourselves. We understand that Jesus has already paid that debt in full. And that since it's paid, it cannot be held against us. We're not afraid of God. We run to God for help. One of the most uncomfortable things for us is to receive a gift from someone when you didn't get a gift for that person, right? Or at least you didn't get as good of a gift for that person. But you know who never worries about that? It's children. Right? Little kids, they're not worried about getting the right gift for their parents. Never heard a four-year-old really torn up on Christmas morning because his parents way overspent on him and he didn't proportionally spend on them, right? They don't care. Children receive gladly. And that's exactly what Jesus demands of us. To receive him like a child, unashamed and with open hands. The Christmas message is not about inspiring good people to do a little bit better. It's about saving sinful, needy people from their sin. And so the gospel is news that demands a response. It's what Jesus describes as faith and repentance. Faith is believing the truth about who Jesus is and what he's done. And repentance is turning away from sin to follow Jesus. They're two sides of the same coin. And so it's one thing to be proclaimed free by having your shackles unlocked, but it's another thing to actually walk out of that cell and live. And that's what Jesus commands us to do. Eventually, my dad overcame his fear of disappointment and the shame of embarrassment, and he unwrapped that brick. But it turned out it wasn't a brick. It was a box of shotgun shells. And for him, that was a perfect gift. He's a hunter. It was great. And my hope is that for all of us, that we experience Christmas like that, that we're not enslaved by the superficial wrapping or the disappointment of unmet expectations, and that in an ultimate sense, by the fear of death, that that doesn't enslave us anymore, but that we freely receive the reality of a God who knows us and loves us and gave himself for us in order to rescue us from sin and death, so that we can be at peace with him and be part of his family forever, a gift that's far greater than anything we could have hoped or imagined. And then we can truly celebrate by tracing all the good things of this season up to the Father of Lights, the giver of every good and perfect gift who gives us life through his word, which became flesh and dwelled among us, Jesus, our King.