Last week as we gathered for church, I had titled the teaching simply as “Hope”. And we took the time last week to look all the way back to the garden of Eden where unfortunately, Adam and Eve sinned, and broke mankind’s relationship with God. And since then, every single one of us has been born into a sin problem and a broken relationship with God. But right in the wake of Adam and Eve’s sin, right after it happened, even when everything looked hopeless, because sin messed everything up, even then, God spoke HOPE into the situation and said that one day, SOMEONE, was going to come and deal with these problems.
And from that point, the promise continued, it was spoken to Abraham, it was spoken to King David, it was said that One born from this family line would bless every single other family on Earth. And these promises were held onto, they were spoken of, they were passed on from generation to generation for thousands of years. Eventually God used men like Isaiah and Malachi to prophecy, to really speak the future, of what this One would be like, and what He was coming to do. Isaiah said that He was coming to deal with our sin problem and that’s exactly what we needed more than anything else in this world. But after God spoke through the prophets, after He spoke through Malachi, at that point, things went quiet for about 400 years. Can you imagine waiting for something for 400 years?
Kids, how hard has it been to wait even just the last few weeks to get to Christmas? It was probably hard, wasn’t it? But could you imagine waiting even a month for something, or a year, 5 years, 10 years, can you imagine waiting and never getting to see the thing that you are waiting for?
Sin is the biggest problem that people have ever faced. Because sin will stop us from ever getting to be with God, and ever having a relationship with Him. That’s a terrible thing to never get to have. And so, I am sure through all of these hundreds and even thousands of years of people waiting that there were kids hearing these stories from their parents, and the people around them, of the One that was coming to fix this huge problem. They had hope in something that was going to happen one day in the future, and that’s what they held on to, through all of those years, for all of those families. And we get to have hope too, but the amazing thing is that we don’t have to wait for it anymore. And it’s only because of what we celebrate, today, on Christmas.
Today we celebrate the fact that after all of that waiting, Jesus Christ was born. And I want to read about this right out of the Bible. We’re going to read out of Matthew chapter 1.
Read Matthew 1:18-25
As we start this passage, we find out about a couple named Mary and Joseph. Mary and Joseph were preparing to get married, but God had chosen Mary to be the one that would give birth to the newborn baby Jesus. And you know this is a crazy situation, this isn’t something that happens ever day, in fact it has only happened this once, and God miraculously put baby Jesus inside of Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. Nobody has ever had to walk in these shoes before, and Joseph is kind of trying to figure out what to do in this situation. But we see in verse 20, that while Joseph is trying to work these things out, he must have fallen asleep, and then an angel shows up in his dream and tells him exactly what is going on.
He says that you can go ahead and take Mary to be your wife still, he says that the Baby inside of Mary was put there by the Holy Spirit, he says that Mary is going to give birth to a Son and that they need to name Him Jesus.
And why Jesus? Because the angel says that He is going to save His people from their sins. That’s exactly what everyone has been waiting for, and it’s exactly what we need. Jesus’ name literally means “the Lord is salvation” or even simpler “God saves”.
Just like He promised, because He always keeps His promises, God has come to rescue His people.
And so, Joseph woke up, he now knew exactly what was going on, and he did what the angel told him to do. They called the baby Immanuel, and they named Him Jesus. Which means God with us, and God saves. And if you put those two things together then we have a basic understanding of what is happening in this moment. This is the moment were everything changes for mankind. Last week we talked about the hope that was carried through generations, waiting for this. Today we see that HOPE FULFILLED in Jesus Christ. God the Son, Jesus Christ, had left the glory of heaven and come down to Earth to be with us, to walk in our shoes, and ultimately to deal with our problems.
Kids, everyone, this isn’t just a storybook story that we like to read each year. This is the true story, the history, the moment when real hope arrived in person on Earth.
And right now, He was just a little baby, born into very humble circumstances. And I want to read a little more of the story, but let’s move over to the Gospel of Luke, to Luke chapter 2. And we’ll pick up in verse 7.
Read Luke 2:7-20
I said a minute ago that Jesus was born into very humble circumstances. You see in verse 7 that Mary and Joseph had tried to find a room at the inn, or like a hotel or motel for us these days, and there was no room in the inn for them. And so, what they ended up finding, must have been like an animal shed or barn or something, because when Jesus is born it says that they laid Him in a manger, which is just another word for an animal feeding trough. It’s the thing that they throw the food into for the animals to come and eat out of it. Jesus wasn’t born in a hospital, or even in a nice room in the inn, Jesus was born in basically an animal shed and laid in a feeding trough.
This was God, He’s King, He’s Lord, He’s Savior, He’s the hope for all of mankind. And He came humble. Really humble.
But while Jesus is lying in this manger in this animal shed, there is an angel appearing to shepherds in the fields nearby, and the angel delivers to them the news that probably their family, their parents, their grandparents, their great grandparents, and so on, have been so anxiously waiting so long for.
That TODAY, in Bethlehem, the SAVIOR has been born.
And right as they received this news, more angels appeared, and they were all praising God in front of them. The angels said that Jesus was born, that He was in Bethlehem, and so the shepherds took off. It says that they went with haste, they were probably running, and they found Mary, Joseph, and Jesus there lying in the manger. And they now knew, what we need to know. That this Jesus, is God, He is Christ, He is Lord, He is the Messiah, He is Savior, and He has come to save us.
These shepherds had the opportunity to see Immanuel, God with us, or Jesus, God saves, right there in person, right in front of them. And when they left from Jesus that night, they were so excited, and they went, and they told everyone they possibly could about Him. All of human history had been waiting for this moment and they just got to see Him. There’s more to this part of His story, and things that happened at His birth, there’s even more people that showed up other than the shepherds to visit Him.
But while the history of Jesus’ birth is amazing and extremely important, it’s the centerpiece of the Christmas celebration. But it’s also not the whole story. Jesus didn’t save us, just by showing up. He’s going to grow up, He’s going to live, He’s going to teach, He’s going to lead people, He’s going to show us His ways, but about 33 years after His birth, He is going to give up His life, on a cross, because of all of our sin.
As I said at the beginning, our sin will stop us from ever being with God, but Jesus came and said I will take all of their sin on Me, I will take the punishment, or I will get in trouble for their sin, so they don’t have to. Your sin with be nailed to that cross with me. And He gave up His life to save us. They took His body off of the cross and even put it into a tomb. But three days later, Jesus came back to life and walked out of that tomb. And now that He is alive, He has called us to turn away from the sinfulness, that we all have, and believe in what He has done to save us. He is Lord, He is Savior, and now He’s not just hope to wait for, He is HOPE FULFILLED.
There is absolutely nothing stopping you from talking to Him today. He can hear you anytime and anywhere, whether you are young or older. And you can go to Him and say I don’t want to be about this sin anymore, I want to be with You. I believe that You died for my sins and that You are now alive, and I want to follow You, because You are Lord, and You are my Savior and I want to be with You forever.
Salvation from sin and a relationship with God is a free gift for all of us, because Jesus came down here to deal with our sin problem.
And so, for us, today, the reason that we celebrate Christmas is extremely important. It’s great to have fun with family and friends, it’s even great to maybe get some gifts, and while that has become part of the celebration, let’s make sure that we don’t miss the incredible truth of God coming down to save us in the middle of all of the other things. Because all of these other things, are very small things, compared to that.