Christmas, What's the Big Deal?

We are going to be talking about Christmas, and my title this

morning is Christmas. What's the big deal?

And if you know, you know, right?

But we're going to be in Luke 2. And I think everybody's probably

heard Linus read these words. So starting verse one, in those

days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the

world should be registered. This was the first registration

when Cornelius was governor of Syria.

And all went to be registered, each to his own town.

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of

Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David, which is called

Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to

be registered with Mary his betrothed, who was with child.

And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth,

and she gave birth to her first born son, and wrapped him in

swaddling cloth and laid him in a Manger, because there was no

place for them in the end. And in the same region there

were shepherds out in a field, keeping watch over their flock

by night. And the Angel of the Lord

appeared to them in the glory of the Lord, shone around them, and

they were filled with great fear.

And the Angel said to them, Fear not, for behold, I bring good,

tight, good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who

is Christ the Lord, and this will be a sign for you.

You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloth, lying in a

major. And suddenly there was the

angels, and a multitude with the angels, a multitude of the

heavenly host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the

highest and on earth, peace among those whom he is pleased.

When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherd

said to one another, Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this

thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.

And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and

worship. And Lord, I just lift up this

time, Lord, And I lift up just what you've done.

And Lord, that we, that we get to spend time with you that you

came to us, Lord, or that you would fill each and every one of

us, Lord, that you would speak through me and to me that you'd

guide and direct this in the season of time that you're just

in everybody's in everybody's thoughts and minds.

Lord, that you, you are an easy conversation to have with people

right now, Lord, in this season that you've given us, and I pray

this all in Jesus name, Amen. So, so then that's the end of

the Bible study. That's why it's a big deal right

there. Sorry.

So when we're thinking about Christmas, it's important and

why it's important. It's, it's really about context

of, of who Jesus is and why he came and what is the whole

picture. But the story of Jesus starts in

Genesis and and that is Genesis 315 is the first mention of him.

And it is I will put enmity between you and the woman,

between your offspring and her offspring.

He shall bruise your head and you shall brew his heel.

And that that he shall, that he is Jesus, right?

And it's called the seed of the woman.

And that seed is Jesus. The first time the Bible talks

about Jesus, here it is talking about the final battle at the

cross, when Jesus said it's finished.

But as is typical with Satan, he didn't understand what it meant.

But he did know that somehow from the woman, her offspring,

we're going to crush his head. So he instantly went after her

offspring, right? So the first thing he did was he

went after Cain and Cain and Abel and they were Eve's first

born sons. And we all know how that ended.

So then God, then Satan's like, ha, ha, I've won.

I've killed one son and the other son can't be the can't be

the good one because he was the murderer.

So I'm good. And when you watch all through

the Bible, every time God gives a prophecy about where the

Messiah is going to come from, Satan attacks that all the way

up to the point where in the Kingdom of Judah and the line of

David that the Messiah has to come out of, Satan has hears God

hears God curse the line of David, that no one from your

line will ever sit on the throne.

And you got to think that Satan as he is inside of time and God

is outside of time. Satan's got to go.

I won because you said he has to come out of the line of David.

And I just had you curse the whole line.

So we're good. And of course, God's plan is

bigger than that. And we'll get into how that

works and why, why Satan can't win, right?

And that it's not even a battle, right?

I always, I compare him to that, that middle school bully that

thinks he knows something, but God is in charge and outside of

time. So God made Adam in his image.

And the point of that was he wanted to walk with him.

He wanted to talk with him. He wanted to love him, right?

He want that, that, that time he came down in Genesis to walk

with him in the cool of the evening.

That's what God wants to do. That's what God wanted to do at

that time is to have that relationship with him.

And at this point in Genesis, Adam had sinned and, and that

separated Adam from God, right? And God, God had to kill an

animal to cover Adam and Eve's nakedness, their sin.

And then he sent them out of the garden.

And everybody always asks, well, why did he punish them?

So guys, this is not punishment. It is, it is consequences.

And when, what I mean by that is when I tell my daughter or my

son, don't stick your hand in the fire or you'll get burned.

I don't punish them when they get burned.

Right now they did get burned, right?

If they stick there, you know, if they stick their hand in a

fire, the punishment, I mean the, the consequence is now

they're burned because they didn't listen.

And Genesis 216 and 17, God had told Adam and the Lord God

commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of

the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

You shall not eat for that for the day, for in the day you eat

of it, you shall surely die. So God had warned Adam, right?

But it's not a warning like I it's, it's, there's consequences

for disobedience and that he will now die.

And, and Adam from that moment forward was dying.

It was an instant, but it was dying.

So Adam had allowed death to enter, right.

And allowing that death to enter God was just allowing Adam's

choice and the world through Adam's choice.

Now is is fallen right there death has entered the world and

sin through death, right, or death through sin.

And Romans 512 it says it like this.

Therefore, just as through one man, sin entered the world and

death through sin, and thus death spread to all man because

of all sin. And and that's always the, you

know, why did Adam have to sin? Then maybe I wouldn't have

sinned. Well, guys, I, I know my heart.

I would have sinned, right? And, and I know your heart

because it's dreadfully wicked. You know, that's the, the world

we live in that talks about. Well, just follow your heart.

Well, the, the Lord's pretty clear that our heart is

dreadfully wicked and can't be trusted.

So don't follow your heart, follow the Lord it it's really

that simple. So when the Lord sent them out,

it's like telling your child to, I mean, like I just said about

not touching it and, and they got burnt.

But and the Lord says, and this is the part whenever anybody

talks about, well, he just punished them.

Read what he said in Genesis 322.

The Lord said, the Lord God said, behold, the man has become

like one of us, knowing good and evil now, lest he reach out his

hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live

forever, right. Then he has to kick him out of

the garden so that he doesn't live forever because what he's

doing isn't living. And what I mean by that is

there's a CS Lewis actually explains it better, but this is

ghosty. Where we're at right now is

ghosty and heaven is solid. So the Kingdom of heaven is real

and we're just ghosty. A picture of that.

So at this point, God, God doesn't want Adam to live

forever outside of his presence, right?

There's got to be a way for Adam to get back into God's presence.

And God, God, God's plan, because he is outside of time,

was from the beginning of time, right from the moment he made

everything. He knew how this was going to

work out. He didn't.

He didn't. As we go through this, God did

not say, oh, you sinned. Now let me come up with a plan

to redeem you. He knew the plan from the

beginning, right? Jesus, Jesus was from the

foundation of the earth going to come as a baby, right?

It isn't, it isn't a reaction to our sin.

It was a plan because he knew we were going to sin because our

free will is that important to God.

And what that means is it is so important to God that we have

free will because that way we can freely choose to love Him.

If we don't have free will and He forces us to do anything,

then then I don't truly love him, right?

If I'm forced to, then I'm not loving him.

And Adam, the cure was going to be painful for this for Adam,

but as Adam sin, he put impurity into his life.

He had, he had cancer in his life that that meant that in the

presence of the Lord in his state, the Lord would burn him

up. If you think of sulfuric acid,

and this is everybody knows that you can put sulfuric acid in

glass in like a glass speaker. You see it in science movies and

all that. And it's it's unreactionary in

glass because of its silica content stops the sulfuric acid

from doing anything. But if it's leaded glass, if

there's impurities in the glass, the sulfuric acid will eat the

glass, it will break it down. And as those impurities go up,

the the glass becomes less and less able to hold the acid.

Well, in our case, any sin is that level of impurity to God,

right? He is 100% pure.

So any darkness in US is that out and outside of Christ, we

have no standing to be in his presence.

Even Moses, which I don't have the verse here, but even Moses

asked to see his face and, and the Lord said you would die.

You would die if you saw my face because you are unable in your

current state to be in my presence.

And so it is that Adam's only hope was in death.

So it isn't punishment that he kicked him out of the garden.

It was mercy, Hebrews 927 and 28 says.

And just as it is appointed for a man to die once, and after

that comes the judgement, so Christ, having been offered once

to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to

deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

And in order for Christ to appear a second time, he has to

appear the first time, right? Which as we go through this,

you'll see that that truly Christ is all through the Bible

and but he has to come as a baby.

He has to come as a man. And Jesus came to say that which

was lost, right? He came to came for us.

And that is that John 317 For God did not send His Son into

the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world

might be saved through him. And that's that same idea of

getting kicked out of the garden.

That was not a condemning thing. That was consequences followed

by God's plan to redeem us. Isaiah.

In Isaiah, God shares some of His plan with Isaiah, and it is

Isaiah 714 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.

Behold, a virgin so conceive and bear a son, and you should call

his name Emmanuel. So the virgin birth over 700

years before Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary before we talk

about sorry, So that is that is prophetic, right?

And you got to remember when God taught, when we talk about

prophecies, we talk about what's going to happen or God said, you

know, God prophesied that 700 years later that Jesus, we're

going to be born. A very well.

The trick there is from God's perspective, he doesn't tell you

anything that's going to happen from God's perspective, he's

perspective, he's telling you what did happen, right?

It's why his why his prophecies can be so, so specific and so

clear because God's outside of time.

So he just looks over here and says, so Jesus is going to die

on the cross and there's going to be dogs around then he's

going to be they're going to, they're going to bid for his

clothing. There's going to be, you know,

the reason he can be that specific in prophecy is because

he isn't telling you what's going to happen and then he's

going to manipulate it and make it happen.

He tells you what happened and gives you gives you points on

that. So Isaiah also says this in in

Chapter 9 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and

the government shall be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be

called. Wonderful counselor, mighty God,

everlasting Father, Prince of peace, of the increase of his

government and the peace there will be no end on the throne of

David and over his Kingdom to establish it and to uphold it

with justice and with the righteousness from time forth

and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts

will do this. So you guys probably all heard

those verses, but have you thought about them?

So Jesus is going to be born. So God is going to be a baby.

And this isn't I'm, I'm looking at it from 2000 years past it

and I can tell you how that works.

Isaiah is writing this 700 years before it and he's writing that

a baby is going to be born called wonderful counselor,

mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

So mighty God is going to be born, everlasting father born.

So no beginning, no end for a baby.

So think about Isaiah writing this down and, and how it's

like, you know, we as we look through the Bible, as we're

reading it, you guys, we get 2000 years of perspective or

4000 years of perspective and we can look back and see all the

things God has done. So the the benefit of that is

when I look in front of my life, I can see all the things God is

going to do because I can trust him to do them.

You know, phase story. The reason she can trust God and

when he says give the property back to just give the property

back is because God has done things in phase life that she

can say this happened. And I know God is God and I know

he has a plan as we're reading our Bible, as we're going

through it. Do you have that kind of

confidence in your life on what he has for you?

And John one one tries to explain how big God is and and

who he is and who Jesus is in the the 1st 4 verses and it's in

the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the

word was God. He was in the beginning with

God. All things were made through him

and without him was nothing was not anything made that was made

in him was life and the life was the light of men.

So in the beginning was Jesus the word and, and that is so

Jesus is the revelation of God and not revelation in the book,

but he, he is the revealed person of the Trinity.

There's the Spirit and the Father, right?

And when, when you see God anywhere in the Old Testament,

you're seeing Jesus, right? And Revelation 9/19/13 just to

point out that to keep the word of God as Jesus, he is clothed

in a robe dipped in blood and the name by which he is called

is the word of God. That's a good Christmas first,

right? He made everything that was

made. And guys, that's the that's so

the the God that made everything that is made came down as a

baby. And I I'm going to I'm.

I'm going to beat that up on why is it a big deal and and Matt

last week kind of stole the Thunder on that.

But the the omnipresent all knowing outside of time, God had

to come down and be 100% God and 100% man.

And that doesn't mean that he, he didn't cheat, right?

He came down and is 100% man. He learned to walk.

So God learned to walk. God learned to speak.

Now I'll explain exactly how he can, how he can be God and man

and set the God part of his his deity aside enough that he can

learn things because God cannot learn anything.

But as Jesus, Jesus didn't pop out of Mary's womb walking,

talking and quoting, quoting the Bible, right?

He, he learned he would, but he was about his father's business

his entire life. Now when you read Isaiah and and

it's really when you go through what the disciples as Jesus was

here 30 years when he was 30 years old and the disciples

confusion on or the apostles confusion on what bringing his

Kingdom in looked like. But you look at 2000 years ago

in a little town named Bethlehem that God was going to come as a

baby is a little confusing to Israel.

Exodus 32, huh? He came as a fire, and the Angel

of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst

of a Bush. He took, and behold, the Bush

was burning, yet it was not consumed.

And then if you skip the verse 5, it says, then he said, do not

come near, take your sandals off your feet, for the place which

you are standing is holy ground, not as a booming, scary,

terrible presence in a cloud. You didn't come like that,

Exodus 1916 says on the morning of the third day there was

thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and

a very loud trumpet blast so that all the people in the camp

tremble. That's God coming down to earth.

My favorite 1. You guys have heard it numerous

times because it really is my. This is the conversation we all

have with the Lord a lot. Joshua 513.

He didn't come down as a man of war.

When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked

and behold, a man was standing before him with his with his

drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said

to him, Are you for us or our adversaries?

And he said no, which how often does it anyway?

That's my that's what we want to know.

Are you for me or them? No, you are for me, but I am the

commander of the army of the Lord, and now I have come.

And Joshua fell at his face, fell on his face to the earth

and worshipped and said to him, What does my Lord say to his

servant? And the commander of the Lord's

army said to Joshua, take off your sandals from your feet, for

the place where you stand is holy.

So I just that place where you stand is holy is tying those two

together. This is Joshua is looking at

God, which means he is looking at Jesus, right?

Because no Angel of the Lord is going to stand there and tell

him to worship him, right? Not and it wouldn't accept that

worship. And you can go through the Old

Testament and you can see all the places where angels did come

down and people attempted to worship them and they said they

get up, stop that, right? The Angel is an Angel at no

point thinks they are worthy of any worship.

They are they are servants like us.

But God's going to come down as a baby.

And we look at it, like I said, from 2000 years away and go,

well, yeah, Jesus, he's a little baby in a Manger.

But for Israel, it's it's like us trying to figure out how the

second coming looks and trying to spell it out.

And Israel's trying to figure out how their Messiah comes and

they can't imagine he's actually going to come as a baby, that

that's not a thing. But Matthew 118 to 23 says now

the birth of Jesus took place in this way when his mother Mary

had betrothed Joseph before they came together.

She was born, found to be with child from the Holy Spirit, and

her husband Joseph, being a just man, unwilling to put her to

shame, resolve 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 your wife, 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 sin.

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord has spoken by the

Prophet. Behold, a virgin shall conceive

and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which

means God with us. So that's the tie in with Isaiah

that we talked about. But I would like to point out

the Angel did not say Jesus is going to come and pay for our

sin. He said he's going to come and

save us from our sin, right? Which is that when Jesus came

and saved us from our sin, it is that he is coming to heal the

burn, right? The the he's coming to the fire

was hot. You burned yourself.

I'm here to heal that. And that's why he came and why

he had to come as a baby is because Adam came.

And when Adam had the choice between God or sin, Adam chose

sin. He chose self.

And when Jesus had the choice, Jesus chose God and he chose to,

to die for our sins. But in order to be a valid, A

valid sacrifice, a valid substitution, he had to be not

only man. Because if, if Jesus had walked

the earth as a perfect man who had sinned not at all for

anything ever, if he did that somehow he could have died for

one person. Because he could have laid his

life down for one person. But he had to be God, because

only then did his life could his life cover all people.

Now Adam, Adam could have laid his life down for one person

because sin, because Eve had taken the fruit and eaten it,

and Adam could have taken that punishment until he took the

fruit, right? And that was that's the, the

difference between the first Adam and the second Adam and why

it's important that Jesus came as a baby, as a human.

So Jesus came to lower himself to the level of dirt like I

talked about. That's, that's what Adam was

made out of. And that's when I, I think of

angels, they just have to look down at God's creation and go,

the dirt is up walking around. It's, it's weird.

They're and they're, and they're not real smart.

They're about as smart as the dirt, but because they know who

the Lord of Lord is and the King of kings and they serve him.

And when we make choices that aren't when we know what God

wants us to do and we make choices because we think this is

better, they have to sit up there going and they're not

smart. And but what did it cost God?

What what to get? You mean?

Because if this is just if this is just a bunch of this is just

a game. OK, three gods outside of time,

though, three days in the grave doesn't really matter. 30 days

doesn't or 30 years doesn't really matter.

You know, Jesus died, but that was, I mean God's outside of

time. The difference is guys, is that

Jesus is now Jesus for eternity. And I've had it explained like

this. God the Father came to God the

Son and said, Hey, so I need you to go down to the planet and you

got to picture us. I said we're dirt, but picture

us is a bunch of cockroaches because we don't like

cockroaches, right? We think they're kind of gross

and God the Father says so. But what I need you to do is I

need you to go down to the cockroaches.

But in order to go down to the cockroaches, I need you to

become a cockroach. Sun's like, yeah, I can do that.

Well, before you say yes, there's, there's another,

there's. So from that moment on, you will

always be in the form of a cockroach and that's Jesus.

He's sitting at the right hand of the Father with holes in his

hands, with a hole in his side, right.

And and that's his eternity with us.

He is our, he is our propitiation.

He's our substitution. He's our he.

He prays for us. He intercedes for us, right?

But he does it from the form of he is 100% God, but he

represents dirt to the Father and and that's the big deal,

right? And all it takes for me to to

accept that is to say, as Peter said, Lord, save me and he will

come into us right? Fill us with his spirit.

Revelation 320 says, Behold, I stand at the door, knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into

him and he with him and he with me and Romans it says, calling

his name, right? And this is guys, this is he

came so that we could when you look at the new in the Old

Testament, right when I, I got my Bible here and I look at the

new in the Old Testament, God was explaining to the Israelites

for that much of the book who he was and what they needed.

And then He was explaining to us and the Israelites and the world

what He has done, not what He's going to do.

There's some about what He's going to do, but this is what He

has done. And it's all very simply, the

whole book from cover to cover is the Lord came down to walk

with Adam in the cool of the evening and then to revelation

his God. God is going to walk with us in

the cool of the evening. And that's his desire, right?

That's why why he came, why he was willing to sacrifice what he

sacrificed for us is so he can spend time with his dirt, with

his people that he made purely so that we could love him with

an honest love. Angels love him out of

requirement, right? And they they are in his

presence and if they when they when they don't love him, they

are castaway from his presence. See see Satan, his and his

demons, right. Angels are are required to love

him. We are not required to love him,

but because of that free choice that we get that give our love

is sincere and it is what he desires they if God desires

anything it is it is that it is your heart truly in love with

him and Romans 10/9. It just says because if you

confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in

your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be

saved. Not you might be saved, not it

maybe happens you will be saved, but that is you have to rely on

him, right? You have to believe in him and,

and believe that he came and believe that he cares.

We're going to go through communion here in a minute.

Aunt Sherry and Spencer, you want to come up and just this is

a time, especially Christmas as we're coming into it, to just

dwell on what he's done in our lives, right?

And communion is a symbol of his body that that came as a baby,

but then was broken on a cross for us and his blood that

cleanses us, right? And that is, he did it all to

have that relationship with you. And he's not willing to allow

those imperfections in our lives to separate us from him, right?

He's he's here to heal that burn.

And in doing that, it takes us having real relationship with

him. So spend this time as guys are

passing out the elements and singing some songs, but spend

this time with you and him. And what is there anything

between us now? Is there anything that I need to

get right with you? And then, then after it's passed

out, I'll come back up and we'll we'll take it together.