What Child is this

Amen.

Glad y'all are here this morning kicking off the events of Christmas.

I want you to turn your Bibles this morning to John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

Pastor Danny called this morning.

He sends his greetings.

He is quarantined because he has knee surgery this week on Tuesday, so be in prayer for him.

He passed his COVID test.

He wanted me to make sure you knew that.

Or COVA or whatever he calls it.

But he passed it.

And so be praying for him Tuesday.

He doesn't know what time yet, but that'll be happening.

Continue prayers for Steve McClendon and an update on him.

He's doing better.

I talked to Ann yesterday.

He's doing better slowly.

So he's progressing.

Numbers are getting where they need to be.

And uh a kind of sad and scary thing.

He went in on a Thursday for an outpatient deal and has been there almost 10 days.

So keep him in your prayers.

I know that uh Deidra's mother uh had a scare this week.

Um, so keep her in your prayers and much to pray about.

But we're gonna kick off this morning.

The events of Christmas.

And so I want to take you to a song title for today's theme, What Child Is This?

is our song title.

Many of you heard that, many of you loved that song.

As you're turning to John 1, I want to read one of the first events of Christmas.

I was thinking about what is the first, the chronology of the events of Christmas, what sort of started happening first?

So in Matthew 1, Joseph is met with an angel, and this is what the angel says to Joseph Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary, your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.

And she will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

And so the first thing we see is this encounter with an angel, and it's about the birth of a child that's coming.

How many of you can raise your hand and say, ladies, that you remember all the things about your first pregnancy?

All kinds of newness.

Okay.

When I think back about Heather's first pregnancy, we read books.

Um, she read books.

I heard about books.

Um, we watched horrible videos.

Um we had showers and we had gifts and we got gadgets and we got clothes and we got diapers and we painted and we were readying for this event.

And I want to tell you, none of those things helped us to be ready for what we got.

Nothing, none, not one of the tips we read made us ready for a child.

And until you have a child, you have no idea what you're getting.

And here's the thing about children, they're funny this way.

No two of them are alike.

And so just because you got used to one doesn't mean you're ready for the next one.

You have no clue what you're getting.

Am I parents?

Am I right?

And so, before you have a child, you might ask yourself a question like, what child is this?

And so I wonder about Mary and Joseph as they were looking into the manger, what they were thinking.

As they were looking at this child, that angels came to them.

The announcement.

Now, we did all kinds of things, but I'm gonna tell you, an angel didn't come to announce the birth of our children.

Um, and I wondered, I thought maybe they could have echoed the words that William Dix penned in 1865.

What child is this?

Lay to rest.

A Mary's lap is sleeping, whom angels greet with anthem sweet, while shepherds watch our keeping.

What child is this?

And so in John this morning, I want to present to you three reasons why, of all the ways God could have saved people from their sins, why that Jesus was his way.

Let's pray.

Father, I pray that you bless the reading of your word.

Lord, we understand that it has the power to save, change, redirect.

God, it has the power to transform a life.

And so I pray that it would do its work.

Lord, we're not here for performance, we're not here for man.

We're not here for anything but the Holy Spirit and his moving and your bidding, Father.

So I pray that you would speak to us today.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

And John 1, if you'll turn there, it says this.

We're gonna look at verse 14 and then go back.

John 1, 14, it says, And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only one begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

So the first point this morning is this that the child was the God man.

Child was the God man.

That word is monogenes, which means the only one, the begotten, the God man.

There's only one like that.

There's only ever been one in history.

He is begotten.

He is unique.

And the God man, the child, became flesh.

Letter A is that, that the child was flesh.

And the law would require for the child to become flesh.

And I want you uh to see and understand what that means.

In Galatians 4, verses 4 and 5.

Galatians 4:4

This is what it says.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law.

Now listen, this is why.

To redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

So the child was flesh, and it says that the law required flesh.

It required there to be someone flesh for flesh.

There's just one problem.

The law demands are impossible for flesh.

You can't not sin.

Just try.

We can't not sin.

Romans 5 22 says, For by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so that the whole world was covered with this sin, and like a bad strain of the flu, it covered all of humanity.

And if you think that this sickness that we've been watching and seeing news on is not pure evil, you're crazy.

Because sickness is the result of sin.

Disease is the result of sin.

It is the epitome of God's judgment.

And so, yes, COVID, I believe, is pure evil.

It's a plague.

Whether it's man-made in a laboratory, or it's man-made any way you want to look at it, because it's a sickness.

And we are filled in our flesh with sickness and sin.

Disease is riddling this world.

And no matter how hard you and I try to erase sin, we can't because we're flesh.

We inherited it.

We would have chosen it anyway, but we are sinful.

So there's the predicament.

Flesh failing requires a flesh redemption, and we can't do it.

Authority requires flesh.

How many of you have ever, I know that you have.

You got on the phone and you got the automated system, right?

You called Publix and it said, uh, one for the bakery, uh, dial two for the deli, dial three for John in the back.

Uh, you know, it just goes through a whole list of things, and you're like, I just need a human.

Can I just speak to a human?

Because all of these things don't know what I need.

Or you go to another one and they ask you, you got to dial in your number, your social security, your blood type.

You go through everything on that system, and then you get to a human and they're like, give me your social, give me your, and they're like, just get all this.

And so this is what happens.

You say, I just want a man.

I want someone to, someone in flesh to hear my problem out.

If there's ever a zero option, I'm hitting that thing as fast as I can.

Zero, zero.

Get me to an operator so I can talk to a man.

And so Genesis 126 presents our problem and it shows why we had to have the God man.

It says, He let us make man in our own image and let them have dominion over the sea and the air and everything of the earth.

And so God and Jesus together at creation made man, and they had dominion.

They had rule over the earth.

And it says, but they put men under the law.

Psalms 115, 16 says this.

Stay with me.

I want to develop why we had to have the God man.

The heavens are the Lord's, but the earth God has given to men.

So our plight is man is stuck.

We are authority.

God gave us authority, but the earth is riddled with our own sin.

So what can we do?

Well, we find out not only does flesh require authority, but we find out that the child was flesh.

The child letter B was finite.

The child had an expiration.

The child, Hebrews 4:15, says, Jesus knew our weaknesses.

Hebrews 4:15

We don't have a high priest that's not familiar with our weaknesses.

He says, He was tempted in all points, yet without sin.

Jesus was hungry, Jesus was sick, Jesus was frustrated, Jesus was tired, Jesus was emotional, Jesus went through things like we went, we go through.

And so he understood what it meant to be man.

And he had the same type of flesh uh emotions, flesh frustrations.

He had the same type of thing.

Do you ever in your flesh make bad decisions just because you have flesh?

Like you're tired, and because you're tired, you made a bad decision.

Because you're tired, you got testy with your wife or your husband.

Am I like this?

The other night, I promise, I was tired and I made a bad decision.

Now, right after Thanksgiving, right after wearing my sweatpants all day long, to make sure, y'all with me, um, I ate and ate and ate, and then I think it was last night, night before, I walked through the kitchen, you know, for the hundredth time, and I look at pie at 10:30 at night, and I'm like, I know I shouldn't have this.

I know I don't need this.

But there it was.

And I cut the biggest slice of pecan pie, and then I got a big glass of milk, and Callie's looking at me.

She's like, huh, I never even see you drink milk.

That's weird.

And I'm like, you know, it's late.

Now the next morning I woke up like, oh I knew I had made a bad decision.

Why?

I didn't need, I was not even hungry, but there it was.

It was just saying my name.

And so in my flesh, I make bad decisions.

And so I'm trying to help you understand Jesus was fully flesh.

He was finite, and that meant a couple of things.

It meant he was without glory.

In Exodus 33, 20, Moses wanted to see the brilliance of God.

He asked God, let me see you.

Don't let yourself be hidden from me.

And so Moses comes in the cleft, or God comes in the uh in the cleft of the rock, Moses is hidden.

He says, I will show you from the shadow, the back side of me.

I could never show the front side of me, because if I show myself to a man, the brilliance of all that I am would kill him.

And so when Jesus came, he couldn't come as God.

He had to come without glory.

The brilliance of who God is would have killed me.

It's like the first time I saw Heather across campus at Tennessee Temple University.

I went, whoo! Literally, my breath came out of me.

Oh, it hurt.

I had hurt in my heart.

I went, oh, look at that.

Physically took my breath.

By the way, it still does.

You see, God, church, I tell teen boys all the time, if you will be godly and a little bit funny, there's a chance.

There's hope for any young man.

Just keep trying, just keep making her laugh and pray like I pray that she'll have a heart, you know, for missions.

Lord, let her have a heart for a wretch like me.

But have you ever been awestruck by something that you saw?

You've seen the Grand Canyon, and you went, wow, can you believe that?

Niagara Falls, just looking at pictures of it, never been there.

But it's the beauty is amazing or a sunrise, and you just gasped in all of what you were looking at.

Wow, can you believe this?

The ocean, as far as it as you look at it, it goes as far as you can see, and you go, wow, Jesus spoke in the beginning with God, and out of the glory of his essence, out of his syllables, this beauty was created.

Can you imagine the glory of a person that out of their speaking created all the things that make us awe struck?

And I can tell you, man, none of our voices have that power.

It's unbelievable.

His glory is matchless, it's priceless.

There's nothing that can fathom that type of glory.

And it says that to become the God man, he had to give up that glory to be flesh.

Imagine it this way: C.S.

Lewis presented this.

Imagine your dog is at your feet, and every dog of all creation are in deep despair.

And to help all of dogs and all of creation, you're presented with the opportunity to become a dog.

If you'll become a dog to help all of dogs, you'll exchange the glory of your hobbies, your job, your purpose, your love, and all that you are, and substitute, being on all floors, slobbering, wagging your tail, so that all dogs can have a chance.

I love my dog.

But I would never give up my humanity, not for one day, for my dog or any other dog.

Jesus became flesh for the dog.

You with me?

Jesus became flesh so that we would have a chance.

The poor substitute of flesh meant he was glorious.

Well, being finite meant something else, that he was mortal.

He gave up immortality.

What that means is he gave up his foreverness, his eternality.

He became flesh, so he became finite so that he could not live forever.

He would have an expiration in his fleshly world.

And it was so that we would have a worthy payment for sin because Romans 6.23 says the wages of sin is death.

And so he became finite so that he could go to the death.

He had to have a worthy payment for our sin.

Now it's Christmas time.

And when I hear that verse and I quote it to lead someone to the Lord, I go through it and I say, the wages of sin is death.

But the gift.

But the gift.

It didn't end with just sin has a payment and it's death.

But the gift.

Look at someone next to you and say, but the gift.

But the gift.

You see, here's what had to happen because God the Father is eternal.

He is immortal.

There's no expiration on God the Father.

God the Father cannot die.

Before everything he was, he was, after everything will be, he will be.

He's called the great I am in Scripture, which means to be, or it's another word for existent.

He's the Alpha and Omega.

He's the beginning and end, first and last.

He's imminent, which means he's not bound in time like we are.

So what child is this as onlookers have their first glimpse of a spectacular sight?

It was the God man.

He was born of a virgin, conceived of the Holy Spirit, truly the Messiah, because he was the only one, God and flesh, that could save.

He was the monogenous, the only one.

He was the God man.

And secondly, he was always God's plan.

The child was God's plan.

That's the second point this morning.

And I want you to look in John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

We're going to read verse 1 through 5.

He was God's plan.

In the beginning was the Word.

That's Jesus.

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.

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

And so the child from the beginning was God's plan, and He was God's plan letter A for light.

When I was about 21, 22 years old, I had a plan to trick out my Dodge Dakota.

I had this blue Dodge Dakota, and I started buying these little blue LED lights, and I had inside of it lights that looked like the glow-in-the-dark bracelets that ran around my radio and down on the floor.

And I had carpet like this put in so that it would glow brighter.

And Heather would get in there and she would think, This is so dumb.

This is dumb.

There's nothing right about this.

But I had in my mind a plan that these lights were going to illuminate, make my truck so cool.

I was going to be cool.

And so I did this and I put it all different places.

Well, uh one particular trip I went to go see Heather.

And in Maryland, I pulled through, passed through the border of Delaware, and I get into Maryland, and you know what I see?

I see lights.

It's not the kind I wanted to see.

And so these lights are going, and I'm like, oh no.

Well, you know, I'm like, I'm not even speeding.

And so he pulls me over and he's like, Do you know why I pulled you over?

And I'm like, no.

And he's like, you've got illegal lights on the front of your car, these LED blue lights.

I think at the time they were okay in Delaware, not okay in Maryland.

So I got written a$120 ticket right there.

I'm like, oh.

And so I he he moves on.

I drive on.

I drive 30 minutes further and I get into the border of Virginia.

Guess what I see?

Blue and red lights.

And I'm like, are you serious?

And I'm like, you know, what?

I'm not speeding.

Well, I get into Virginia, and the guy you know I pulled you over?

He's like, these lights are loud.

I'm like, I just got a ticket for this.

I'm good.

I just got to know it's okay.

And you know, he's like, no, it's not okay.

You're in another state and you're getting a ticket from me.

Another$120 ticket for these lights.

And so you know what I did?

I went around to the back of my truck.

I had a toolbox.

I grabbed a hammer and I get on my hood in front of the police officers.

I go, poof, poof,$240 for$16 worth of lights?

Are you crazy?

I couldn't believe this.

I had a plan for lights.

Have you ever realized your plans were not the best plans?

I realized it cost me.

But God had a plan for you.

In the beginning of time.

And God handcrafted a specific plan for your life.

In Psalms, it says that when you were in your mother's womb before, he knew you and has a plan for you.

And in the beginning of time, part of his plan for you, it says there in John, in the beginning was the word.

Jesus was his plan, and it was his plan for light in your life.

Light reflects what it mirrors.

Jesus, while he could not radiate the brilliance of divinity, God, he reflected God to a world in darkness.

And so I've got a picture of what it looks like to reflect light and darkness.

Alright, now this is a simple drawing.

Okay.

All right, I drew it myself.

Not really.

And so, but as you see here, in order for something to reflect, light requires a conduit, a carrier, and then vision or perception happens.

So light has to hit something, and then it springs from your eyes, and because you have light, you can see a form and an image and color.

And it's like, let me help you with something.

So when you go to sleep and you wake up in the middle of the night, right?

Everybody says, you know, it's completely dark.

And then your eyes sort of like adjust, you know what I'm talking about when it's really dark.

But then you you can sort of see, okay.

Maybe it's a little bit memory, but you're like, okay, that's where the stool is, the bed, but it starts to come back.

You know, you can't see anything at all if there is no light.

I want you to understand that.

There has to be some tiny, it can be the tiniest portion of light, but you will only see pure darkness, black, if there is no light.

And so light comes into the room and our eyes start to adjust because there's a little bit of light.

And so God had a plan for light.

It's like, I have another picture I want you to put up of Heather.

She'll love me for this, and her mom.

So take a look at this for a second.

All right.

So when you see something, when light occurs, it reflects, it's a reflection of something that already exists.

Okay.

Heather cannot deny her mother, and her mother cannot deny her.

And Callie cannot deny her mother, nor can she deny.

Her grandmother.

Why?

Because there is something within them that is reflecting something of someone else.

Y'all with me?

They literally have within them a piece of someone else.

It's there.

And so they cannot deny one another.

You can move that picture along before I get in trouble.

So they are a reflection of something that exists.

So you can't say, whose is she?

When you look at them, you say, and it happens to you all the time.

You're walking somewhere, you have your children, and they say, Well, you can't deny that kid right there.

I'll tell you what.

Looks just like.

And so we are a reflection of something that exists.

Stay with me, okay?

So I want you to turn to Romans chapter 8 to break this down a little further.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

I got a few verses.

So if we're a reflection of something and God's plan was for light, let me tell you what happened with Jesus.

Romans 8, we're going to read five verses here.

It says, There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made us free from the law of sin and death.

For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, this is what we're talking about right here, by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh.

For what?

On the account of sin.

He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled.

In us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds in the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit, the things of the spirit.

So here's what it's saying.

If you have light, light will reflect out of you, and people will see it.

You can't deny what is in you.

Matthew 5, 16 says, Let your light so shine that others would see it.

2 Corinthians 5.17 says, if any man is in Christ, he's a new creation.

We're shining light.

Romans 12.2 says, Don't be conformed to this world.

Then James 1.22 says, be a doer of the word, not hears only.

See, here's the thing that the spirit within us bears witness.

If it's in you, people can't deny it.

Your light will shine.

So if it's in you, people can't deny it.

And that scripture, by the way, it says the spirit bears witness.

If the spirit's in you and you got a light, and you get near into something, that's why you get by someone in a minute of conversation, you start thinking, I wonder if they're a Christian.

I kind of, I feel like we got something going on here.

There's this unspoken bond between me and you.

And by the way, it also works the other way.

If you get around somebody, they might say they're a Christian, but you say, I've heard a lot of people in my life say the spirit really just didn't bear witness.

Why?

Light reflects something.

It reflects something on your face, it reflects something on your attitude, the way that you interact and the way that you proceed with negativity 2020.

Hello?

And so light reflects.

So if you have light in you, there is no excuse for it not coming out of you.

Why don't you look at your neighbor and say, you got a light?

This is church, folks.

My goodness.

You got a light, right?

Remember the little song you sang?

This little light of mine?

I'm gonna let it shine.

Let it shine.

I'm telling you, if 2020, there's so many people today and they're bought into the negativity.

I've seen it, and I I can't do a lot of it.

I can't get a lot on here right now.

It's just, you know, I kind of try to stay informed.

But when I look at it, I'm like, it's so negative.

And there's lies, and it's so, and if you fill your head with negativity and lies, and I watch people, this is the worst year ever.

I'm like, I don't, I'm not gonna think that.

There are some bad, yes, but I have a choice.

Do you know that rejoicing is a choice?

It's an action, it's a verb, it's not an emotion.

I don't say, well, I feel good, so I'll rejoice.

No, rejoicing is an action that we choose.

Being thankful, being grateful.

And so when I look at this, I can say, man, the cup is so empty.

It's it's it's half empty.

It's there's only a quarter left.

Or I can say, Praise God.

I've got breath and I've got being.

And as long as I got light, I'm gonna shine it to the world around me.

Because you are a reflection of something.

Jesus was God's plan for light in this dark world.

And then let her see, Jesus was God's plan for the lost.

Look at verse 12 in John.

Jesus was God's plan for the lost, but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God.

Jesus was God's plan.

This child that would be born, that Joseph and Mary and Shepherds would get to set their eyes on would be God's plan to save the lost.

There's a lifeguard named Tom Lopez who was being interviewed after he dove into waters and saved a man's life.

And the big controversy was Tom Lopez was fired after saving a man's life.

And they they were asking him, Well, why would they fire you after you were there to save a man's life?

And he shared with them, well, it's illegal for me to go outside of certain boundaries out of my territory, because they say that it will put others in danger if I go outside of my territory.

And he said, But a man was losing his life.

And if I didn't go and save it, he might not have been saved.

And so Tom Lopez was willing to put himself on the line, lost his job to save a life.

I want you to understand something, church.

Our part in Romans 10, 9 is that we call out for help.

Our part is that if we'll confess with our mouth and believe in our heart the Lord Jesus, then we can be saved.

Our part is 911.

Our part is to call on, it's to recognize in the mirror of life that sin has me and to put my pride down and say, I've got a problem, I've got an issue, and I've got to get it solved, and I need help.

And the problem with so many people is that they won't look in the mirror of their life and say, I need help.

I'm okay.

I got this, I'll get by.

And so our part is to call and confess.

His part, Jesus' part, is this that he swam into every territory.

And when he took those nails, he went to the deepest depths.

Can you imagine when Mary and Joseph gazed?

I think Joseph might have recalled what the angel said.

His name shall be called Jesus, and he will save his people from their sins.

See, church, Jesus doesn't care what you're swimming in and how deep you've gotten.

He doesn't care how far that you've gotten away.

He's willing to save.

There's no saving boundary where he's going to lose his job.

He doesn't care about your social status.

He doesn't care about your race, if you're wealthy, if you're not wealthy.

He doesn't care how far you've gotten into sin.

He comes with a blood life preserver and he's running to save.

You see, Heather is a trained lifeguard, and she shares with me that when you go to save a person from drowning, you can't grab them immediately.

You have to come into the situation calmly, sort of assess it, and you have to wait for them, listen to me and hear this, to stop fighting.

So they are ready to receive rescuing.

See, sin can be suffocating, and people get into the waters of sin and they are drowning.

And what I'm saying today, church, is quit fighting.

Let go.

Aren't you tired of being tired?

Aren't you weary of being wearied, trying to fill every hole of our life with something else that is not the life preserver, and we're just sinking and sinking, and the water's rising, and it's getting into our throat, and we're gasping and we can't breathe, and we're struggling, and he says, just let go.

Just let me rescue you.

Quit fighting and doing all the things that you think you gotta do.

I'm right here.

I've got a preserver.

I want to save your life, but you've got to let go.

It's not your flesh.

I've already sent the God man, the flesh, to save you.

And it's been done and it's finished, but you gotta let go.

Third point is this.

Because the child was the God man, God's plan.

The third thing is the child is the God Lamb.

It's God's Lamb.

Go with me to chapter 1, verse 29.

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him.

And he said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

You know, there's been a lot of famous voices in history.

Famous voices that have said things that we can't get out of our heads.

Some we've just seen, some you're old enough here to have been with it live, but like there's 700 million people who viewed the Apollo 11's landing, and a man got out and said, one step for man, one giant leap for mankind, or Al Michaels in 1980 announcing one great announcement about the U.S.

hockey team.

Do you believe in miracles?

Or you've watched other announcements and things that have lived in your mind through generations.

Maybe you've watched movies like Dorothy, and you said, There's no place like home.

There's no place like home.

Or maybe your kids here today, you watch Buzz Lightyear to infinity and beyond.

You can't get these great announcements from your mind.

But maybe the most important announcement of all time, John called the voice in the wilderness, says, Behold the Lamb of God who has come to take away the sins of the world.

John was that first voice, but can I submit something, church?

You're a voice.

John was that first voice, but you're the next voice.

You're a voice for someone in the wilderness.

You're a voice for someone who's in darkness.

You're a voice with still the greatest announcement of history.

Why would you not want to repeat this line?

Man, if we get a line, we repeat it.

My kids were watching something the other day, and it was funny.

But they over and over, and if they get something they think is funny, they make it not funny in about seven minutes.

Over and over and over, they repeated this line.

I'm like, okay, it's not funny anymore.

You dried it up because you spoke.

Okay, but we get these lines and we get these things.

What about behold the Lamb of God?

Still the greatest announcement of history.

This is the gift of Christmas.

Letter A, it's God's Lamb of Promise.

He was the Lamb of promise.

Look at verse 27, and then we'll look at 30.

John the Baptist says, Is he who coming after me is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I'm not worthy to lose?

Verse 30, this is he of whom I said, after me comes a man who is preferred before me, for he was before me.

So how could a man be born after John, but he was before John?

That's what probably his audience is trying to figure out.

How could he be born after you, but you're saying he's before you?

And so back to verse 1, he says, In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God.

Jesus is a part of God and always was.

And so John says, He's coming.

Soon he's coming.

And then he got to make this great announcement, the Lamb of God.

He was a Lamb of promise.

He was God's promise.

I've got a picture.

It's a page, you probably won't see it real well, but it's a prophecy book.

And it talks about their Jesus' birth, right?

And in Jesus' birth, this book on the first page, there's 15 plus prophecies fulfilled just by the birth of Jesus.

15 promises filled between 500 and 1200 years before they ever happened.

People sat down and started spewing out from the Holy Spirit things that were going to happen.

And they all happened.

Verbatim, they all happened.

Is it chance something that we believe?

Is it magical or mystical?

The promised lamb came.

You know, in the Old Testament, they had to have a lamb for their sin, an offering, and hundreds, if not thousands, of offerings would go up.

And one of the promises is that this is a blood offering like the Passover.

And in the Passover, you had to get blood of a spotless lamb, put it on your doorpost, and then the death angel would go by your home and not kill any of the children or the boys in the home.

And so this was a promise.

This was a blood offering.

See, the blood presents an interesting issue for us.

Back to that flesh problem.

We can't cover our sin.

Why?

The blood in 1 Peter 1:19 and 20 says this the lamb must be without spot or blemish.

1 Peter 1:19

The substitute for you and me.

It couldn't have just been any substitute.

Couldn't have been Elijah.

It couldn't have been Moses.

It couldn't have been just a good man.

Couldn't have been me or you.

It had to be a spotless, sinless lamb.

Commentaries have stated that the perfection of the offering highlights the enormity of Christ's forfeiture.

He was perfect and he came.

He left glory.

His divinity was gone of him.

God promised in Isaiah 53 that a lamb before the slaughter, that upon him the earth of God or the earth sin could be satisfied in God.

It was God's lamb of promise.

Let it be, it was God's lamb of propitiation.

There's a couple of words I want to define to you there.

Propitiation in Scripture, two different ways it's used.

One is hilasmos, and the other is hilesterion.

They're very closely related, but the first is more of an expiation.

It's an appeasement for wrong.

Hilesterion, on the other hand, is a punishment that fits a crime.

Let me give you an example.

We'll say that you just stole from a store, you've been caught, and the store owner is furious.

In the hilasmos, Jesus would intercede and pay for the thing that you stole.

And the owner is appeased.

There's an appeasement there.

And so that is used in scripture, an appeasement.

Okay?

This happened, and I'm okay with it.

The hilasmos, which you see more often, Jesus intercedes and goes to jail for your crime.

And to the satisfaction of the offended store owner, this is the propitiation.

And so Jesus went to jail for our crime.

He emptied himself of his godness, his glory, came to this earth, and died for somebody else's punishment.

That's the hilasmos.

Or that's the Hilesterion.

And so this is what Scripture says we should do with that.

2 Corinthians 5, 18 and 19 says this.

God who has reconciled us.

Now listen to these words, please, because this is the practicality for you and me today.

God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

That is that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their sin, their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

So now it's our job to be light.

It's our job to be a voice.

It's our job to pass on this gift.

And church, if you are not doing it, nobody is doing it.

Do you understand me?

That cousin, that family member, that teammate, that coworker, if nobody is giving the gift, if you're not doing it, church, I can promise you the rest of the world is not.

He reconciled us and he took our payment, our judgment, so that we would reconcile others.

It's our job to pass on the gift.

Let me ask you a question.

How have we been doing?

We've set up trees and we've started setting up lights and we've started our big family gatherings and ideas for decorative things and food.

But the real gift of Christmas is the lamb.

The lamb offering.

It's a worthy gift, church.

1 Peter 1.18 says, you were not redeemed.

This propitiation was not a redemption by corruptible things like gold or silver or traditions of your fathers.

He says, it's not money that's gonna come and go that can buy a momentary happiness.

It's not something that's just gonna be forfeited.

It's not something that can't forgive sin.

He says, No gold, statue, no prestige, no power, no trophy, no accolade, no possession will set your soul free except the blood of the spotless Lamb.

Romans 6 10 says, It was the death he died, he died for all.

And whosoever calls can be saved.

You see, the Lamb was worthy.

And this is the song of Revelation I'm about to wrap up.

The Lamb that was worthy.

Revelation 5, 12, it says, 10,000 thousands of angels in heaven were singing.

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain.

Blessing and glory and power and honor be to him forever.

So what child is this?

The child was God's Lamb.

You see, William Dix inherited his father's passion for literature.

He was well educated in the Bristol School of Grammar, but fortune got a hold of his heart, and he would become a marine insurance salesman, doing quite well and making his way through life and into his 20s as he was living life up, living the dream.

At 29, William Dix was struck with a fatal illness.

When he was struck with this, it had him bedridden for months upon months, confined to a bed.

He naturally sort of became depressed.

Life was dark, it was dreary.

Have you ever been sick for multiple weeks?

Weary and faint.

And he says this one day, as his hand trembled, he grabbed a hold of a pen, could barely hold it in his hand as he started.

But he decided in that darkness to go back to his love for writing.

Can you picture William Dick sick and faint and weary and in darkness?

Wrote from the worst year of his life.

Here's some words that he wrote.

So bring him incense, golden myrrh.

Come peasant king to own him.

The king of kings salvation brings.

Let loving hearts enthrone him.

He said later, after I recovered, I always looked back to the writing of Christmas hymns as a turning point in my illness.

God took what was dark in my life and he brought light.

He wrote, This, this, this is Christ the King, whom shepherd guard and angel sing.

Haste, haste to bring him Lord, the babe, the son of Mary.

What child is this?

I tell you, church, the child is the one who can take the heart of the depressed, darkened, dreary, and desperate, and bring light and life.

The child is the Messiah, the only one.

The mahogany.

He's unique.

He's the God man, he's God's plan.

He's God's Lamb.

And he came for you and me.

And so when Mary and Joseph looked at that child and thought, what child is this?

I want you to understand that child is the one that came to give you light and life.

He came to reconcile you so you would in turn reconcile others through him.

He came so you could say confidently in 2020, in a time of disarray, that you can proclaim, I know the answer.

I know salvation.

I have the gift.

Can I share with you about Messiah, this child that's been born?

I want you to bow your heads and close your eyes.