Rick Warren - The Incredible Story of Christmas & The Birth of Jesus Christ

You know, I saw a TV show this week that

is called the Miracle of Christmas. And what's so miraculous

about Christmas? I mean, it's just the birth of the baby,

isn't it. Well, actually, there are four big miracles that

happen at Christmas. The first miracle is who came at Christmas.

The second miracle is how he came at Christmas. The

third miracle is who he came to, and the fourth

miracle is why he came. So what's the first miracle

of Christmas? The first miracle is that very issue, God

came to earth. God came to earth. He said, well,

I thought it was just a birthday of Jesus. With

Jesus is God. Let me show you some verses from

the Bible. Colossians chapter one says, this Christ is the

exact likeness of the unseen God. He existed before God

made anything at all. And in fact, Christ himself is

our creator who made everything in heaven and on earth.

You know, some people think, well, I believe Jesus was

a good man. The problem is he couldn't have been

a good man, because no good man would claim to

be God. You see, if I stood here today and

I said Hi, I'm Rick Warren and I'm a good teacher.

You might say, yeah, okay, I might believe that. I

might even say Hi, I'm a man of God. He said, well,

I don't know about that, but maybe. But if I

stood up here and I said, hi, my name's Rick Warren,

I'm the son of God. I'm God in human form,

now you've got a decision to make. I'm either telling

the truth or I'm crazy, or I'm a liar. You

cannot be a good man and claim to be God.

Jesus was either who he was, or we should just

close up everything and go home and forget Christmas and

all the big celebration that's going on. You know, today

most of the world is focused on this single event

that split our calendar. All the offices, all the stores

are shut down. Everything else becomes secondary. Why because God

invaded earth, Jesus didn't start in a state. Notice that

verse we just read it said Jesus was the creator.

Jesus was the creator who created earth. And noticed what

Jesus said about himself in this verse John ten, verse thirty,

Jesus said, we are the same father and son, he

and me and I and M in him If you

want to know what God looks like, you look at Jesus. Now,

the second miracle was not the fact that just God

came to earth in human form, but it was how

God came to earth. And what it was is he

became a man. That's even more mind boggling. The Bible

says it like this in Philippians chapter two. Christ gave

up his place as God and made himself nothing. He

was born to be a man, and he became like

a servant. This is God. And when he was living

as a man, he humbled himself. Now, just think of

all the ways could have revealed himself human beings. I mean,

he could have written it in the sky in fiery letters,

he could have used thunder, and he could have invented

world satellites two thousand years in advance and beamed it

into everybody. But he didn't. Of all the ways God

could have come to earth, he came as a baby.

God entered the world the same way you and I

entered the world. Everybody in the world ended the world

by being born into it by birth. Now, why did

God come to earth as a baby. I'll tell you why.

Because he came to save us, not to scare us.

And nobody is afraid of a baby. When people look

at a little baby, then they can they're not afraid.

In fact, it's tenderizing, it's loving, it's compassionate. You see,

I can't relate to some impersonal force in the world,

but I can relate to God in human form. See.

If God had wanted to communicate the bird, he would

have become a bird. If he'd wanted to communicate to cats,

he could have become a cat. If he wanted to

communicate to cows, he would have become a cow. But

God wanted to communicate to humans, so he became one

of us. This is the second miracle of how God

came to earth. God became a man. Now, Jesus was

a real man. He was real man, and he was

real God. He was not a half and half. He

was one hundred percent God and he was one hundred

percent man. He's no myth. Did you know that in

the Encyclopedia Britannica there are more pages on the man

Jesus Christ than any other subject in Encyclopedia Britannica. The

Bible says, in the amplified translation, he became like men

and was born a human being. How was Jesus like you?

How is Jesus like me? Well, first of this said,

he was born like us, no flashy entrance. Second, he

grew up like us. The Bible says he grew in

wisdom that's intellection, growth in stature, physical growth, favor with

God that spiritual growth, and favor with man that's social growth.

Same four ways you grow. Jesus did not walk around

wearing a halo with a warm glow and radiating, you know,

like kryptonite. He was just like us. The Bible says.

He was born like us, he grew like us. He

was tempted like us. Did you know that? The Bible says,

Jesus has been tempted in every way you have, and

yet he never sinned. And that's why he's not offended

when you talk to him about your temptations. He understands,

he knows what it's like. He can relate to your struggles.

He experienced the same needs and the same drives and

the same pressures, but he never sinned. And then not

only that, Jesus suffered like us. Jesus understands pain. God

understands pain. Why because he went through it? He felt pain,

he felt disappointment, he felt loneliness, he felt betrayal, he

felt grief, He felt the nails going through his hands

and being stabbed in the side. He felt what it

was like when he got tired. And so when you're tired,

God understands how you feel because he's been there. Here's

the point, Jesus can relate to everything you're going through

or will go through in the future because he's been

there too. You see, God wants you to know him.

And because he wants you to know him, he wants

you to know that he knows everything about you. He

knows every moment in your life. He knows everything that's

ever happened from the moment you took your first breath.

In fact, he saw you in your mother's womb. He

thought you up. The Bible says God planned your days

even before you took your first breath. You were designed. Listen,

you were designed for a relationship with God. If you

want to know why you're alive right now, God made

you to love you. He made you to have a

relationship with him. You were not put here on this

earth by accident. You were put here for a purpose.

And the first purpose of your life is to get

to know your creator. Have you done that? If you

haven't got to know your creator in a personal relationship,

you've missed the very first purpose of your life. God

did not put you here on earth just to mark

things off your to do list. Now, this is the

second miracle of all. Not only that God came to earth,

but that God came to earth as a human being

so we could relate to him. We could touch him,

we could see him, we could feel him, and he

could understand exactly all that we're going through his creatures creation.

Now here's the third beard miracle. Jesus came to ordinary people,

very common people. He didn't come for a select few.

He didn't come for the elite. He didn't come for

only the brightest and the best and the most righteous. No, no, no, no,

he came for all of us. That's a miracle that

God came to earth for all of us. He didn't

come for religious people. Did you hear that he didn't

come for religious people. He came for all people. He

came for people who don't even care about religion. That's

a miracle. In fact, the Bible says that Jesus said,

I didn't come for the righteous. I came for the unrighteous.

So if you've ever done anything wrong, if you've ever sinned,

if you've ever had any regrets in your life, if

you've ever messed up, Jesus came for you. He said,

I came for not the perfect people. And by the way,

there aren't any perfect people. But Jesus came to ordinary

common people. He shows us even in his original births.

Where is he born. He's born in a barn, not

in a palace. Okay, not on a bed of gold.

And you know we sentimentalized. He said, he was born

in a manger. Do you know what a manger is.

A manger is simply the Old English word for a

cow feed trough. You put the grain when you put

the hay in there in the cow eats the grain

and slobbers all over it. That's where he was born.

He's born in a bond. His first visitors were not royalty,

those shepherds who were at the low end of the

totem pole in social class in those days. No political

figures showed up at his birth. In fact, no religious

figures showed up at jesus birth. There were some wise

men from the East and philosophers who came. You know,

today we treat the shepherds like heroes, but in those

days they were really zeros. They were the least respected

people because they smelled like sheep. They're at the bottom

of the social ladder. They're the outcast of society. They're

considered dirty, they're considered uncouth. They're treated with contempt by

the people in proper society. And yet that's who Jesus

has the angels announce his birth due the improper people

of society. The point is this, Jesus came for everyone,

ordinary people like you, like me, like the people sitting

next to you. Right now, let me give you some

Bible verses John one fourteen. Christ became a human being

and lived here on earth among us. He lived among us.

The message paraphrase, I love. This says Jesus became flesh

and blood and moved into the neighborhood. He moved into

the neighborhood. He's not in the fancy house up on

the hill. He moved into the neighborhood. Now here's the

good news. Because we could not reach up to God,

he reached down to us. That's the whole message of Christianity.

He came down to our level, he became a human being.

He came to reach to you. And now anyone, anyone

can have a relationship with Jesus Christ. Do you have

that relationship? You should not go into a brand new

year without having that relationship to the one who made you,

who loved you, who saves you, who died for you.

The Bible says in Luke two seven Mary gave birth

and wrapped him in clothes cloths and placed him in

a manger that feed trough because there was no room

for them in the inn. And Luke two sixteen says,

the shepherds ran to the village and found their way

to where the baby lay. Now, just like those shepherds

in the very first Christmas, you can come to Jesus.

You can see his glory. He is inviting you this Christmas,

just like he invited the shepherds the first Christmas. He

invites you this Christmas to come and see him, to

come and know him, to come and learn to feel

his love and to be loved by him, and to

learn to love him back. Now later on, wise men

from the east, we know, probably from Babylon area in Iraq,

came to worship Jesus and bring gifts. The Bible tells

us that they brought gold representing his kingdomship, and franknsense

and mrr. Now frank and sense and merge, you know

what they are. They're spices that in ancient days were

used to prepare a body for burial. They would use

franknsense and mrr. It's kind of an incense, and they

would wrap strips of cloth kind of like a mummy,

and they would bury them in burial clothes. These gifts,

gold representing his kingdom and frank Sinson mirror representing his death,

were actually foretelling what Jesus came to do. He didn't

just come to live on earth. He came to die

for us. Now, the greatest miracle is not how Jesus

came or even who he came to, But the greatest

miracle is why he came. And this is the fourth miracle,

is that he came for our benefit. He came for

our The Bible says that the first angels announced that

that first Christmas for to you is born this day

a savior who is Christ the Lord. Believe me, if

you didn't need a savior, God wouldn't have wasted the

time sending him at Christmas. He came for our benefit.

What benefit? Well, let me just share with you some

of the words of Jesus himself. First, Jesus came to

tell us the truth. Jesus came to tell us the

truth that you say, what kind of truth? The truth

about life, the truth about ourselves, the truth about God,

the truth about death, the truth about good and evil,

the truth about your past, the truth about your presence,

and the truth about your future. You see, if you

base your life on faulty information, then you've got an

unstable foundation for your life. You've got to base your

life on the bedrock of truth. Jesus said, the truth

will set you free. And here's the truth. I want

you to listen very closely. Here's the truth. You matter

to God. It doesn't matter who you are, what you've done,

how long you've done it, or who you did it with.

You matter to God. That is the truth that God

came to tell us. In John eighteen, verse thirty seven.

This is in the Bible, Jesus says this. I was

born for this purpose. I came to bring the truth

to the world. So Jesus came for our benefits. If

you build your life on lies, you're going to have

an unstable life, unstable emotions, unstable relationships, unstable finances. But

if you build your life on the truth, then you'll

have a solid rock foundation. So many people will lie

to you, tod age affect you, even lie to yourself.

You know your emotions lie to you, Your mind lies

to you all the time. Not everything you tell yourself

is true. We lie to ourselves all the time. But

God will never tell you a lie. Jesus will always

tell you the truth. Second thing Jesus came to do

is it came not only to give us the truth.

He came to give us life, to give us life

in all its fullness. Verse ten says this, I came

to give you life, life in all its fullness. Now,

let me ask you a really personal question. Are you

living life to all its fullness? I mean, really, just

be honest with yourself. Are you you say, oh, yeah,

there's nothing better than the way I'm living right now?

Are you living life to its fullness? See, most people

really aren't even living, They're just existing. They just get

up in the morning and go to work and come home,

watch TV. And go to bed and maybe relax or

go to a party on the weekend, and they it

just the same routine over and over. They're not really living.

You can be so busy making a living you forget

to make a life. So many people regret the past,

they worry about the future, so you end up wasting today.

Jesus that I came to give you life. The greatest

tragedy is not death. The greatest tragedy is to go

through life not knowing your purpose. God has a purpose

for your life, and it begins by getting to know him.

You will never know the purpose of your life without

getting to know your creator, because you can't tell yourself

what your purpose is. Only your creator, your inventor, your

God can tell you your purpose. Jesus said, I came

to give you life in all its fullness. Now, the

kind of life that Jesus wants to give you has

three different dimensions. It's three dimensional life. My past can

be forgiven, my present has a new purpose for it,

and it can be managed. And my future is secured.

God put a God shaped vacuum inside you, and nothing

will fill that hole in your heart except God. Augustine said, Lord,

you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are

restless until they find our rest in you. You can

try to fill that hole in your heart with money.

It doesn't work. You can try to fill it with sex,

it doesn't work. Status, it doesn't work. Salary it doesn't work. Passion, possession, position, pleasure,

None of those things work. What you need is God's

purpose for your life. And that purpose is not found

in a principle or in a pill. It's found in

a person, the person of Jesus Christ. Now, he said,

I came to give you truth, I came to give

you life, and I came to give you Here's a

big one forgiveness and salvation for unto you is born

this day as savior. Who is Christ the Lord. You

see what do I need to be saved from? Oh,

we need to be saved from a lot of things.

We need to be saved from sin, But we also

need to be saved from ourselves. We need to be

saved from the habits that mess up our lives and

the hurts and the hang ups. We need to be

saved from the lives we believe about ourselves that hinder ourselves.

In fact, they limit us in a self impost prison.

You see, if our greatest need had been education, God

would have sent a teacher. And if our greatest need

had been money, then God would have sent a banker.

And if our greatest need had been just physical health,

God would have sent a doctor. And if our greatest

need had been you know how to succeed in life,

God could have sent a consultant or a coach. But

our greatest need is salvation and forgiveness, so we sent

a savior. Now let me tell you this. You can't

save You can't save yourself. In fact, God can't save

you until you stop trying to save yourself. Many years ago,

when I was a young man, I was a lifeguard

for three years. And one of the things that we've

learned we're taught in Red Cross lifeguarding and I have

for three years as a lifeguard. When somebody starts to drown,

you swim out to them in the ocean and they're

flailing around, and you don't dare try to grab on

to them while they're flailing around because they may pull

you under themselves. What you do is you wait until

they give up. And when they finally just give up

and they start to sink, then it's actually quite easy

to save them. You simply put your arm over their

chest and under their arm, and you use your other

arm to row back to shore. But you can't save

somebody as long as they're trying to save themselves. Have

you been trying to save yourself? Have you been trying

to save your marriage? Have you been trying to save

your reputation, or your career or your investments? You know what,

why don't you just relax this Christmas and accept the

savior that God sent to you. You may have been

pretending you didn't need God, but you really do. And

then the deepest heart of your hearts, you know that's true.

Jesus said this in John chapter twelve. I've come to

save the world and not to judge it. Some of

you think if you come to Jesus, he's just going

to criticize you, condemn you, put you down, give you

a stern lecture, tell you all the things you're doing wrong.

Listen to this verse again, John twelve forty eight. I

have come to save the world and not to judge it.

Have you ever thought about why we give gifts at Christmas? Well,

the reason why is because God started the idea. God

gave the original Christmas gift. He gave himself. He came

to earth in the form of a human being, Jesus Christ,

and he gave himself to you. And he died on

the cross for all of your sins so you don't

have to pay for them. He was hung up on

the cross. He was hung up for your hang ups.

You can stop nailing yourself to the cross for all

the things you feel ashamed of or regret, because Jesus

Christ already paid for all your sins. Now, imagine if

we had a christ service where people give you a

Christmas gift and a year later you still haven't opened it.

That would be offensive to the giver and it would

be no use to you. And yet many many people

celebrate Christmas after Christmas, after Christmas after Christmas and never

open the gift. They never unwrap the gift. God's gift

to you is the truth. God's gift to you is salvation.

God's gift to you is forgiveness. God's gift to you

is a life, eternal life, purpose in life, abundant life,

a fulfilled life. These are the gifts God has for you.

Will you open and receive that gift today. The Bible

says this in Romans three twenty three. All of us

need to be made right with God by his grace,

which is a free gift. That's God's gift to you.

That's God's Christmas gift. All of us need to be

made right with God by his grace, which is a

free gift. We need to be made free from sin

through Jesus Christ. If you haven't done that, I want

to invite you to receive God's Christmas gift today. And

in this service, I'm going to ask that we all

just bow our heads right now. Okay, just bow your head.

You don't have to close your eyes, and I'm going

to pray a simple Christmas prayer. I invite you to

follow me in it right now, and if you'll sincerely

meet it with all your heart, God will hear you,

and this will be the starting point of a brand

new relationship of God that gives you a new life,

eternal life, and abundant life. Let's pray, bow your head

and I just say something like this, Dear God, thank

you for the miracle of Christmas. Thank you that you

came to earth in the form of Jesus Christ. And

thank you that you didn't just come for a few people,

for the elite, for the super good, or the super rich,

but you came for everybody, including me. And thank you

that you came not to scold us, but to save us.

Dear God, today I admit I cannot save myself. I

can't even solve all my own problems. I need a savior.

I need you in my life, and I need you

to give me the truth. I need you to give

me the power to make changes that I want to change,

that you want to see change in my life. And

I need the power to be forgiven by what you

did for me on the Cross. I ask you to

come into my life. I don't understand it all, but

as much as I know how, I want to follow you.

I want to learn to love you and trust you,

and I want this to be the new direction for

the rest of my life. And I humbly ask this

that you invite me into your family and accept in

Jesus name, I pray Amen.