The Seven Miracles of Christmas - The Miracle of Christmas

Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.

I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.

Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.

Welcome to the Born for War podcast.

For some of you here tonight, you may not be looking at a joyful Christmas.

It brings back memories.

Maybe it's been a hard year.

Maybe you've lost someone, a loved one.

Maybe you've gone through a divorce.

Maybe you've you lost your job.

I don't know.

But I do know this that sometimes we have this view of Christmas that's kind of romantic and sort of mystical.

And what I want to talk about tonight is the reality of Christmas is that it's miraculous.

That Christmas itself is one miracle after another.

And the and the beginning of the Christmas story, the one we're celebrating tonight, the manger scene that we had outside, that picture of a baby being born in a barn to two peasant men and women who had very little is treasured in our heart.

And it becomes sort of this romantic, mystical view of Christmas that causes us to miss what the real, true reality and power of Christmas is all about.

And so I'm going to be talking about the miracles of Christmas.

I'm talking about seven miracles that I see in the Christmas, the whole event of Christmas, and also the power that's carried on now for 2,000 years with Christmas.

So if you would turn, if you have your Bibles, look at Luke chapter 2.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

That's the classic Christmas story.

Luke chapter 2.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

And for you that don't normally come to the road, we've been actually going through for a whole month now the miracle of Christmas, going through Luke.

And I've saved Luke 2 for tonight, the Christmas Eve candlelight service.

So Luke 2, starting in verse 1.

And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.

This census first took place while Corinius was governing Syria.

So all went to be registered, every one to his own city.

Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth, into 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 wife, who was with child.

So it was that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night.

And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid.

Then the angel said to them, Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.

For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

And this will be the sign to you, you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men.

And by the way, that really has been the message of Christianity, though there are marks in history of mistakes made that many pundits and those that are very anti-Christian will point out without delay.

But the reality is, for the past 2,000 years, wherever Christ has been named and proclaimed and preached, the result has been glory to God and the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.

I mean, the power of the Christian message is in and of itself amazing in freeing people from slavery.

Those that are going after the sex trafficking today in America and around the world are all Christians.

I mean, they're the ones who care.

Those that care about the unborn, they're always Christians.

Those are the ones who care.

And so there's an element of society that just hates that because that's the message of Jesus.

And so it all started right here at the beginning, men and women.

And so it was when the angels had gone away from them into heaven that the shepherds said to one another, Let us now go to Bethlehem, which the Lord has made known to us.

And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger.

Verse 17.

Now when they had seen him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning the child.

And all those who heard it, they marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds.

But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her head and in her heart.

And then the shepherds returned and glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen as it was told to them.

So this is the story.

This is a story we're all pretty familiar with.

Some of us may not be as much as others, but we've heard it.

I've heard it since I was a kid.

And I have this mystical, kind of romantic view of Christmas, too.

And I could tell you all the different symbols at Christmas on the Christmas tree, but also in my home that were always there for Christmas.

And there's something about it that's almost like kind of dreamy.

Sort of this dreaminess.

But I don't want to talk about that.

I don't want to talk about that aspect of Christmas here today.

I want to talk about miracles.

The miracle that began with the birth of Christ.

This miracle story.

It's just, it's it just blows every scientific, agnostic mind away that this babe, this little child, changed the world and made such an amazing impact that's still happening today.

So I want to tell you about seven.

There's about a hundred.

And I had to narrow it down.

I actually narrowed it down yesterday.

I went from like 12, which is gonna take us too long because we have two services.

So I went to 10.

10 sounded right.

And then as I thought about 10, I thought that's still too long.

So then I went to nine, and then I was down to eight.

And that was when I was getting ready to send to our producer team, and then I ended up with seven.

So these are the irreducible minimum great miracles of Christmas.

Okay, seven miracles of Christmas.

Here's the first one.

This one's amazing.

This is by far the most important miracle of all, and that is the incarnation.

You may have heard that term before, the incarnation.

It's the idea that God became man, that deity was wrapped up in humanity.

Nothing like it.

There's nothing like that in Buddhism, there's nothing like that in Hinduism, there's nothing like that in Islam.

There's no other religion or faith in the world that claims that its founder was fully human and fully God, fully divine.

So in Isaiah, hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, we read, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign, behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel.

I mean, think about that verse.

That a virgin is gonna become pregnant with a child called Emmanuel, which means God with us.

That's what Emmanuel means.

So a virgin who's never had relations with a man is gonna be conceived by the divine, by the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit conceiving the divine in a child is gonna come through a human channel and be birthed.

Fully human, fully divine.

That's the miracle of Christmas.

Everything rises and falls, everything else I'm gonna say rises and falls on that first miracle, which we call theologically the incarnation.

Now, John, one of the apostles, writes this in the beginning was the word, the logos, the logos.

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 nothing was made that was made.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

In other words, the Logos, the God whose self-existent came forth in a time immemorial, we don't know when, but was a part of the whole creation narrative, was right there with the Father in the creation.

He's the life, he's the light of men, and then he continues this word, this logos, became flesh and dwelt among us.

And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

So John trying to describe Jesus, who he walked with for three and a half years, says, He's the eternal Logos, he's the eternal word.

And he says, in the beginning.

So you know what John's doing?

John is hearkening back to Genesis 1.

In the beginning was God.

God created the heavens and the earth.

In the beginning is Logos, and this Logos was with God.

Everything that was created with God was through him.

So he's actually speaking of the Trinitarian God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all in one.

That's a miracle.

Folks, that is Christmas.

All right, let's all go home.

I mean, that's the Christmas story.

It's the incarnation that the Son became a human, born of a woman, conceived by the Holy Spirit, who came to this earth to save all humanity from their sin.

In other words, one writer says, it was the Son from eternity who was creating the heavens and the earth with the Father, became incarnate.

The Son who is in eternal relation to the Father and Spirit willingly humbled himself and chose to assume a human nature in obedience to the Father and for our salvation.

End quote.

That's the first miracle.

Incarnation.

Second miracle.

465 prophecies of the coming of Jesus.

465 prophecies in the Old Testament of the coming of Jesus.

Hundreds of years, in several of the prophecies, over 1700 years before Christ, from all these different authors from all walks of life, all over that whole Asia Minor, that area around Egypt and all around the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean, who had no relation in most cases with each other, all saying the same thing that a Messiah was coming, 465 prophecies fulfilled in one man.

Jesus of Nazareth.

And mathematicians and statisticians show that for one person to have fulfilled just eight, just eight of the 465 prophecies in one's lifetime is one out of ten to the 21st power.

Virtually impossible unless it's supernatural.

That's a miracle.

Here are just eight prophecies fulfilled in Christ.

Entering Jerusalem on a donkey, being called a Nazarene, being born of a virgin, proclaiming good news to the poor, offering physical healing, inheriting an everlasting kingdom, being born as the Savior, and suffering agony on a cross.

All fulfilled in Jesus.

All fulfilled on that Christmas evening or morning.

And we've had seven kids.

So it was probably at night.

Third miracle.

Third miracle.

Jesus being born in Bethlehem.

Jesus being born in Bethlehem.

Prophesied 700 years before the birth of Jesus Christ by the prophet Micah, the exact place of the birth of the Messiah Jesus would be in Bethlehem.

Now the Bethlehem where Jesus was born, Bethlehem Ephrath, did not exist when Micah gave the prophetic word.

So what's interesting from a Jewish perspective is how the scholars and the scribes had looked at Micah 5.2, and they looked at these passages and said, he's gonna be born in Bethlehem, Ephraim, because there were two Bethlehems, and they knew specifically it was that particular Bethlehem.

And so when Jesus had already been born, we believe with Epiphany, probably two years he had already been born, that's when the wise men, the magi, the magicians, the astrologers came.

When the astronomers, astrologers, the scientists of that time came looking because they were following that star, they came to Herod.

Listen to what happens here.

Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king.

Now you could put a parentheses around that, and it was about two years later.

We think it's all happened at the same time.

Like, if you've been a part of the road church over the years, sometimes we have a manger scene up here, a little manger scene.

And then I instruct all of our team to don't put the wise men up there.

Because the wise men weren't there when he was born.

So we put the white, we we hide, we hide the wise men.

Sometimes we hide them in the lobby, sometimes we hide them up there in the mezzanine, and sometimes we hide them in different places.

And kids come in, and we didn't do it this year.

Um but kids will come in and say, Where's the wise men?

I said, I don't know.

And they where are they?

I said, you have to go look.

They'll go looking around the church to find them, and we keep moving them closer.

But actually, at the last day, you know, Christmas Eve, we've got it, and you got the wise men.

But that's fake, that didn't really happen.

They came two years later, and if you study the passage, it says they came to a house.

So at that point, they're not in a barn, they're in a house.

So anyway, these these uh Magi come and they say to Herod the king, Where is he who has been born, king of the Jews?

We have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him.

When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all of Jerusalem with him.

And when he had gathered, listen, he gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.

So the top Jewish scholars come, they meet with King Herod, and this is what they said.

So they said to Herod, in Bethlehem, Ephratha of Judea, for this it is written by the prophet.

Now they quote Micah, but you Bethlehem in the land of Judah are not the least among the rulers of Judah, for out of you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.

So even then there was this consensus among Jewish scholars that the king of the Jews, the Messiah Jesus, would come from Bethlehem Ephraim.

That's miraculous.

Didn't even exist when Micah gave the word.

Fourth miracle: a forerunner, a forerunner, a prophet will announce his coming.

So it's not just that Jesus is gonna be born, there's actually gonna be this other individual, this prophetic type of forerunner that's gonna come before the Messiah, announcing that the Messiah is coming.

And this comes from Malachi.

So don't, I think I feel I feel like I confused things a little bit in the first server.

Let me make it clear here.

Malachi is the last writerslash prophet in the Old Testament books of the Bible.

That's important to understand what I'm saying.

So Malachi is the last book, and then there's 400 years of silence called the intertestamental period.

That 400 years of silence, there's nothing, no new scholarship, nothing written that was the canon of Scripture during that time.

And then Jesus comes along.

After Jesus dies on the cross, is resurrected, and ascends to heaven, the apostles begin to write letters, begin to write things about the life of Jesus that became the New Testament, the New Canon.

And so then we have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

About 300 years later is when they codified all that.

But in that period, you got Malachi.

So Malachi says this, as the last writer in the Old Testament, behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me.

And the me here is capitalized, meaning the Messiah, God.

Then in the last chapter, Malachi says, Behold, I send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

So Malachi is announcing there's gonna be this day coming.

He's the last, these are the last sentences of the last prophecy that's in the Old Testament.

There is a preparing the way one who is coming.

And he will be, this is important, he will be the last Old Testament prophet, and his name was John, called John the Baptist.

So in his account, Luke, so if you got your Bible, you don't have to turn it, I'll just turn for you.

But Luke chapter one, because Luke understood when he was writing the history of Jesus, the important that we get this prepare the way one, this guy, John first.

So in chapter one, it's all about Zacharias being in the temple.

Angel comes to him, tells him his wife Elizabeth's gonna get pregnant, who's a distant cousin of Mary.

And so six months before Jesus gets the announcement and she is conceived by the Holy Spirit, she becomes pregnant with John, John the Baptist, and he becomes the messenger ahead of Jesus.

He's gonna go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah.

So John writes in his gospel, John the Baptist, he's speaking of, John bore witness of him and cried out, saying, This was he of whom I said, he who comes after me is preferred before me, for he was before me.

And of his fullness we have all received grace for grace, for the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

That's a miracle.

Exact guy, that guy, John the Baptist, was gonna be the messenger before the Messiah would come by Malachi 400 years before.

Fifth miracle.

This is one of my favorite ones.

I wasn't gonna cut this one out.

Satan gets crushed.

Satan gets crushed by the Messiah.

I don't know about you, but that really picks me up on a bad day.

So when I'm having a bad day, and I don't want to say a devil made me do it or whatever, the reality is the devil didn't make me do it.

I did it, and then I'm blaming the devil.

But the devil has been crushed through the cross of Jesus Christ.

But you don't have a cross if you don't have a birth.

So the so that little baby in that little manger in that little insignificant town of Bethlehem, Ephraim, in a barn or a cave, whatever, if you go there and I've led tours there, they say it's a cave.

I don't care whether it was a cave or a barn or whatever, there does seem like there were some stinky animals in there.

So the place stunk, okay?

And you come there and it's like, what?

This is the king of the Jews?

This is the savior of the world?

Are you kidding me?

And yet, that right there, that's the beginning of.

Of crushing the head of Satan.

So when Satan rebelled, when he came out of heaven, when he was kicked out of heaven, he took a third of the angels.

So these demons under Satan have all been crushed by the Messiah Jesus.

That's a miracle.

And you don't even know what I'm talking about until you've cast out a few of them.

I know this.

Jesus spent a third of his ministry casting out demons.

Fully 30% of Jesus' ministry was casting out demons.

He came to truly set the captives free from the demonic.

Jesus never met a demon that he liked.

So in Isaiah 9, we have this prophecy.

Those who dwelt in the land of the shadows of death, upon them a light has shone through.

Luke 4, Jesus gives his mission statement, his reason for coming to the earth.

He said, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.

He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and to set at liberty those who are oppressed.

You realize that you have the job description of Jesus and the job description of Satan in the same two verses.

In other words, the job description of Satan and demons is to keep us poor, keep you brokenhearted, make you a captive, keep you blind, and keep you oppressed.

And Jesus comes in the opposite spirit and he says, Come on, I'm gonna preach the gospel to the poor, I'm gonna heal the brokenhearted, I'm gonna proclaim liberty to the captives, I'm gonna recover its sight to the blind, set at liberty to those who are oppressed.

I have come to crush Satan's head, as Genesis had so prophesied.

John writes in 1 John 3.8, the purpose of the Son of God, when he was manifested, was that he might destroy the works of the devil.

So if you give your heart to Christ today, if you've never given your heart to Christ, if you've never surrendered to Christ, the first thing he's gonna do when he comes into your heart is he's gonna start crushing those demons.

He's gonna start setting you free.

He's gonna break off the power of demonic spirits over your life.

And you say, Well, I don't have any demons.

Well, I'm not talking about something out of exorcist where your head spins around and you're probably going, ah, something like that.

Demons don't work that way most of the time.

I mean, they do if people are just really whacked out.

But I'm talking about normal people, most of us here, they're pretty sane.

You drove here, you can drive, you got a driver's license and everything.

What it is, is that the demons work through oppression and depression.

They work through addictions, they work through causing you to come under the shackles and the slavery of your flesh.

Jesus can set you free.

Now, some of you don't want to be set free.

So you can I always say, man, if you're packing growlers and you like them, then go do your thing.

But I'm telling you, there's nothing like getting set free.

Everybody look at me.

Nothing like walking in freedom and liberty.

You can.

That's what Jesus does.

That's a miracle.

So Jesus has these 70 disciples that he's gathered, right?

He goes out, he says, Look, I'm gonna send you out.

What I want you to do is preach the kingdom of God, heal the sick, and cast out demons.

That's what I want you to do.

So he sends them out, they all come back.

They come back, here's what they say.

The seventy return with joy, saying to Jesus, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.

And he said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.

Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

Isn't that great news?

That's a miracle.

Satan and demons have been crushed.

Sixth miracle.

Number six.

This is a good one.

A kingdom with no end.

A kingdom that's not going to end.

All the political and geographical kingdoms of the earth come to an end.

There is a day when America will come to an end, but there is a kingdom.

It's called the kingdom of God.

And not only will it not come to an end, it's going to keep increasing all over the globe.

Join the team.

You're on the winning team if you join this team.

This is really good news.

This is really a miracle.

Communism will end.

Islam will end.

Socialism will end.

Democracy will end, but the kingdom of God will continue to advance.

And so in Isaiah 9 we read, For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor Mighty God.

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, and listen now, of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end.

Hello?

That's really good news.

That's a miracle.

That means that where the light comes, it drives back darkness.

And that darkness is being driven back in Russia right now.

That darkness is being driven back in South America right now.

That darkness is being driven back in India right now and in China and all over the world.

Even in America.

Kingdom's coming, gang.

Americans are purchasing more Bibles at a record rate ever in the history of our nation.

The Wall Street Journal reports more than 13.7 million Bibles were sold in the first 10 months of 2024.

Book sale tracker, Circana Book Scan found that Bible sales increased by 22% through the end of October compared to the same period in 2023.

The growth is even more astonishing when you look at data from 2019, when Bible sales hit 9.7 million per year.

That's a 41% increase in sales from 2019 to 2024.

Even more encouraging, first-time buyers are driving many of the sales, with the most coming from Gen Z and younger Americans who are showing an increased interest in the Bible.

And it's not Christian, it's not Christian stores.

They're not selling them at Christian stores.

The main places Bibles are being sold are places like Amazon and mainstream retailers.

They're getting on board.

They gotta have Bibles because people are asking for them.

This is all consistent with the 2023 American Bible Society survey, which found that nearly three in four Americans, 71%, are curious about and want to learn more about the Bible.

Folks, that's unprecedented.

Media influencers who are Christians, younger generation, including Tim Tebow, Jackie Hill Perry, Tony Tone, Nikita Johnson, Sarah Jake Roberts, Corey Robertson, Justin Beaver, Thadie Robertson Hoff, Bethany Hamilton, and Jefferson Bethkay.

And I could give you dozens of others.

Cultural influencers who have recently become Christians or become avid readers of the Bible, or Candace Owen, Tucker Carlson, and Joe Rogan.

I mean, Joe Rogan can't put two sentences together without the F-word.

And yet he's reading the Bible.

And he's he's digging it, man.

I heard him talk about it.

And it was the influence of Jordan Peterson.

Jordan Peterson's Bible tour has influenced millions.

When you look up any of the stuff on Genesis, Exodus, any of the areas of Jordan Peterson, who doesn't even call himself a Christian, has spoken on you'll see a million, you'll see millions of views.

Man, don't worry about mainstream reporting.

That's so, that's so lame.

That's like so in the past, man.

Only people who watch those people on CNN and MSNBC and ABC, CBS, and NBC are people my age and above.

The young people don't.

There's no you young people in this room, anybody like I consider young people if you're 50 and below.

Okay?

If you're 50 and below, you're a young person.

You don't listen to those people.

All the it's just the same, it's the same like 500,000 all orbiting around the same, you know, newscast.

And then you look at a Joe Rogan when when Trump was on there, 70 million?

70 million?

Are you kidding me?

So there you go.

The increase of his government will never end.

It's increasing, it's getting out of control, and the media is freaking out.

Jordan Peterson's Bible, too, I already mentioned that.

Tammy, his wife, was recently baptized after being miraculously healed of kidney cancer.

Michaela, his daughter, who's also a big media influencer, became a Christian because of a dream that she had from the Lord.

It's going to encompass the whole planet.

If you want to be on the winning team, follow Jesus.

Seventh miracle, and this is the most important one of all.

This one's the most important.

This is the most important.

This is the one I don't want you to miss, and that is Jesus Christ can change your life.

Jesus Christ can change your life.

You may think you're unchangeable.

You may think that you've always been that way.

You're always going to be that way.

You can't change because your dad told you you'd never change.

Your mom told you you'd never change.

That school teacher, that coach told you you'd never change.

You're always going to be like that.

Jesus says, if you will let me come into your life, I will rebirth you.

It'll be like you've gone through a spiritual womb.

You can be a new person.

The Bible says you'll be a new creation in Christ.

That is the greatest miracle of all.

That God wants you to be a new creation in Christ.

And if you've never given your heart to Jesus, if you've never experienced the flame of the power of the Holy Spirit in your heart, you can start tonight.

You can go into the new year, a new creation, a new person, born again is the word we use.

You can be born again.

Galatians 4, 4.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law that we might become adopted as sons and daughters.

You can be adopted by God.

You can be adopted by God.

God the Father can become your dad.

You may have had a good dad, you may have had a crummy dad.

But you can have a new dad.

And he's perfect.

And he created you for a purpose.

And the only way you're going to discover your purpose on this planet is to know the one who created you for the purpose that he put you on this planet to do.

You're here to do something, you're here to make an impact, you're here to touch other people's lives.

You will never know that until you're born again.

That's why Jesus said, I am the light of the world.

I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father but through me.

So this is a guy, his name was Joshua, and Joshua was a military leader under Moses.

And when they got to the promised land, Moses was not able to lead them into the promised land.

But Joshua was.

So Joshua led them in, and they took land away from the Canaanites to the point where they'd almost taken most of the land.

Joshua comes to the end of his life, and he's giving his final speech.

This is what he says.

And if it seems evil to you to serve God, choose for yourself this day whom you will serve.

And I challenge you here today, Christmas 2024.

Who will you serve?

We were at theater watching the best Christmas pageant ever about a week ago, and I saw that there's a new movie out on Bob Dylan.

And Bob Dylan once said you gotta serve somebody.

That's what Joshua's saying.

Probably Dylan got it from Joshua.

You gotta serve somebody.

You gotta decide really who you're gonna serve.

Well, Joshua continues, whether the gods which your father served that were on the other side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you now dwell.

But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Make a choice.

Make a choice.

You can serve the gods of materialism, you can you can serve the gods of sexual pleasure, or you can serve God.

Capital G.

The Lord and the Savior came at Christmas.

That's what you're looking for.

That's what you're longing for.

Thank you for listening to the Born for War podcast.

We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.

To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steveholtonline.org.

God bless.