Hope Church LV Sermons
Christmas Eve 2012
(upbeat music) I don't know about you, but I love a good story. I love a story in any fashion or form that it may come. I love a good book. I'm an avid reader. I love to read a good story. I'm one of my wife and I's favorite hobbies is to go to the movies. We love to watch a good story. I like, I enjoy plays and musicals. Any way that you can tell a good story, I love a good story. Now, Christmas is a season that is filled with amazing stories. It's one of the things that we kind of all grow up with. These stories that are so familiar to us, stories that kind of saturate and dominate this season. And again, they come in all shapes and sizes, for example. Some of the stories that we know as Christmas stories come in the shape of a poem. One of the most famous is written by Clement Clark Moore. I want you to say it with me if you know this opening line. Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung on the chimney with care in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there, right? How many of you know that story, right? Some of you have even read that this week in preparation for Christmas. Maybe you've had that moment when you gathered the kids around and you read the night before Christmas. Another way that sometimes these stories come to us is in the form of famous or beloved children's books, right? One of the most famous is this one right here, right? How many of you have read this story? How the grand stole Christmas, right? Here's the way this story opens up. Every hoo down in Hooville, like Christmas a lot, but the Grinch who lived just north of Hooville did not, right? We all love the Grinch who stole Christmas. Now, they come in poems, they come in children's books. Some of these stories even come to us through a song. ♪ You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Nixon ♪ ♪ Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen ♪ ♪ But do you recall ♪ ♪ The most famous reindeer of all ♪ You know you want to finish it, root off the red. No, no, we're not going to do that this morning, right? They come to us in a song. My dad would be so proud that I played Gene Autry in our church service out here in Las Vegas. If you didn't know that's who that was, that's who sings that little lyric. These stories go on and on books and songs and movies like "It's a Wonderful Life" or "Miracle on 34th Street." And then there's our personal stories. When it comes to Christmas, we all have personal stories that are kind of our story of growing up around Christmas. And maybe for you, it's waking up on Christmas morning with snow all over the ground. Maybe that's the way that you grew up with Christmas. Or maybe for you, it's dinner over at Grandma's house. It's the thing that you remember most about Christmas. For me, my Christmas story is really kind of like that. I remember every morning on Christmas, I had one brother, my younger brother, he's about six years younger than me. And we would wake up on Christmas morning, whoever woke up first. And we would always, you know how you do, you tiptoe down the hallway to kind of peek and see what's in there. And then you run back and wake up mom and dad and drag them down the hallway and you go in and you celebrate Christmas morning opening all the presents and enjoying all that you've been blessed with. And we would always do that and we'd tear the paper up and make the house a wreck, you know. But then came that tragic moment of the morning. And it was that moment of the morning when it was time to load up in the car and go to Grandma's house. And here's why it was tragic. Because here was the rule at our house. The rule at our house growing up was when it was time to go to Grandma's house for Christmas lunch, you can only take one toy with you, right? That's like the worst rule ever. That's the cruelest thing in the world. They open up all this stuff and it's like you can only take one. But see what mom and dad knew, I didn't know, mom and dad knew that we were coming home with more loot, right from Grandma and Grandpa's house. So we didn't have room in the car for all of it to go and come. So we would always pick the one toy and I mean, we would sweat and go through the process of man, do I take this one or that one? And then we'd all load up in the car and we'd go to Grandma's house. Now, my grandparents, we called them Big Daddy and Me Mommy. That was their names to my brother and I. Big Daddy and Me Mommy. Now, Me Mommy was a southern woman. Me Mommy knew how to cook southern food. So I mean, it was like real food. It wasn't none of this, it was real food. I mean, we cooked it with lard and butter and there was biscuits and cornbread. And she made sweet tea that looked like motor oil. I mean, it would stand up in the glass all by itself, right? You could take it through your mouth or you could take it intravenously as an IV. It worked either way. Sixth stuff, man, she would put the spread out there with all the food with the turkey and the ham and she'd make macaroni and cheese. And I'm not talking about that stuff that comes out of a box. I'm talking about the kind you can cut out in a square like lasagna. That's macaroni and cheese, right? The good stuff. That's my story of Christmas. Now, you have story. We all have memories and stories of Christmas. But the reality this morning is that Christmas is much bigger than any one of those stories. As a matter of fact, Christmas is about the story. It is the story of all stories. And it's not just a story that is a fairy tale that's created by some author. It's actually a true story. And the author of this story is God himself. I want to read it for you because it's found in the pages of the Bible. If you have your Bible, I want you to open it to Matthew chapter 1. And I want to read you this real story of Christmas. Matthew chapter 1, we're going to begin reading in verse number 18. Here's what it says. Now, the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife for the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name, set with me, Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. What a great statement. Now, all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name, set with me, Emmanuel, which translated means God with us. And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did is the angel of the Lord commanded him and took Mary as his wife, kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son, and he called his name, say it again, Jesus. I want to give you this morning three realities about the story of Christmas. Here's the first one. Christmas is the story of God. Christmas is the story of God. One of the great tragedies in our culture is that we have settled for a much lesser story than what the Bible records for us. Christmas has been twisted into a very man-centered materialistic story that is all about shopping and sales and what's under the tree for me, right? We've settled for a much lesser story in our culture. But the reality is Christmas is so much more than that Christmas really is a holiday. Now, I know even using the word holiday now, kind of, especially some Christians, it makes us mad. We get in the big debate about whether we ought to use the word Christmas or the word holiday. But if we're going to have that argument, if we're going to have that discussion, we at least ought to know our history. The word holiday came from Old English. And in the Old English, it was pronounced Holigdig, Holigdig. And it literally meant holy day. And in the Old English language, the Holigdigs, were set aside for festivals and celebrations to worship and honor God. And can I be honest with you? That is exactly what Christmas is. Christmas is a holy day. It is a day that is set apart for the worship and the celebration of the greatness and the glory of God. First and foremost, we must remember that Christmas is not primarily a story about us. It is the story of God. Now, let me just say there, that simple statement should change the way you and I celebrate Christmas. Because often, we get so caught up in our culture that the Christmas celebration is really all about us. It's all about us, even if we make it about our family, it's all about our family, it's all about us. But the reality of Scripture is Christmas is so much bigger than that. Christmas is the story of God. It is a holy day that is set aside to worship and to celebrate and to honor Him above everything else. Listen to the way Matthew records it in verse 22. Listen to what he says. Now, all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet. He says, now, all this. It means everything about this story, the conception of this little baby in the womb of Mary by the agent of the Holy Spirit of God. This baby that would be born into the world as God with us, a Messiah. All of this, the entire event, the Bible says, took place. It's a word that literally means it happened. It literally happened in time. All that we've read about here. And then the Bible says it did so to fulfill. And that's an interesting way to say that. It's really in the passive voice. And here's what that means. They're describing an event that happened in history as God Himself in His sovereignty chose to reach into time that He created. I think about that for a minute. What we're celebrating at Christmas is a definite point in history. When in a very unique way, never done like this again. In a very unique way, the God who created all of time and space that we know, we're celebrating a moment in history when God Himself happened in time. We're reading here the story of God's activity in the world. When we celebrate Christmas, we're celebrating the sovereign divine hand of God moving in time. But not only are we celebrating God's activity in the world, we're celebrating God's eternal purpose for the world. Listen to what He says here. It happened to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord. I want you to think about that for a minute. It fulfilled what was spoken by the Lord. You see what we read about here in Matthew chapter one, this account of this story being played out is not just an act of God in time that was a reaction to something going on in history. But what we're understanding here is that this is part of the eternal plan established before the world ever began and the plan that God had been revealing since creation. You see, this event that we're reading about was no ambulance sent to an accident. This event was a part of the divine sovereign plan of God before the world was ever even created. That's why in Genesis chapter three all the way back to the very beginning of time. In Genesis chapter three and verse 15, we find the first promise of God that one day a Messiah would come through the womb of a virgin woman. It's right there in the book of Genesis all the way in the beginning of history. God began to lay out the promise that one day a Messiah would come and be the savior of the world. That's why Matthew and his account here quotes Isaiah chapter seven. What Matthew quotes here is a prophecy from Isaiah chapter seven that was written 700 years before Jesus was even born. I want you to think about that for a minute. We've just come off a big deal on Friday, right? That turned out to be about like Y2K, nothing. The Mayans, oh my goodness, because the Mayans ended their calendar by thought the world's coming to an end. Well, the Mayans may have missed their date, but listen to me, God didn't miss his. 700 years before Jesus was born, I want you to listen what Isaiah wrote in Isaiah chapter seven verse 14. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear son, and she will call his name, say it again, Emmanuel. Then a couple of chapters later in chapter nine of Isaiah, he says, for a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on his shoulders, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. You see, God had made a promise that he would send a Messiah into the world to redeem his people. And what we're reading about in Matthew, what we're celebrating around Christmas is that moment in history when in the sovereign eternal plan of God, God happened in time and God entered time to accomplish everything that he'd planned in eternity past before the first star ever twinkled in the sky. Here's what that means. This idea of Christmas? Man, it's a really big story. It's so big that the way Matthew writes about it, here is interesting. What I just read for you in Matthew chapter one was written 2,000 years ago. And yet when Matthew wrote it 2,000 years ago, he wrote it in a very unique tense in the Greek language. And the tense with which he wrote it is called the perfect tense. You say, why is that important? Here's why it's important. When something happens in the perfect tense, it means it's a definite action that happened in the past, but it has ongoing continuous effect in the future. That's pretty bold, right? Matthew's writing about something 2,000 years ago, and he said, hey, this didn't just happen today. Matthew said, as long as the world's around, this is gonna continue to have impact. And what are we doing today? Here we are 2,000 years this side of this event in history, 2,000 years this side of Matthew writing it that way, and 2,000 years later all over the world from the Ukraine to Iran to right here in America, people are gathering today and tomorrow to celebrate the reality that God happened in time. It's the story of God. Number two, Christmas is the story of God with us. Christmas is the story of God with us. It's not just the story of God, it's the story of God with us. Matthew uses two very interesting and important phrases to describe Jesus' birth. The first phrase I wanna point out is in verse 21, look what it says, you shall call his name what? Jesus, right? That's interesting, this is the angel speaking to Joseph. You shall call his name Jesus. Now, we've heard that little phrase so many times in light of the Christmas story that we hear it through our Christian ears, and we hear it with a sense of awe and wonder, but you gotta realize that what he said to him was very ordinary. I mean, how many of you named your children when they were born, right? That goes with the package. That's part of what you do. You name your child, and the angel says, "Joseph, I want you to name your child. "Here's what I want you to name him Jesus." Now, we hear the name Jesus and we think, "Oh, Jesus, whoo, big name." But in their day, it'd be like saying, "You'll have a child and I want you to name him Steve," or Mike, or Harry, or John. You see, Jesus, in the time of Joseph, was a very common name. It was a name that many of the children there in Bethlehem would have had. It was a name that other people in the New Testament have. They have the name Jesus. In the Hebrew language, it's simply the name Joshua. The angel comes to Joseph and says, the child that is in Mary's womb is conceived of a Holy Spirit of God, and you're gonna name him ordinary Jesus. What does that speak to? Let me tell you what he speaks to. It speaks to the humanity of the person of Christ. He was an ordinary human being. The Bible says of him in the book of Isaiah, chapter 53, that he was so ordinary that there was nothing about him that would even attract you to him. There was nothing stately about his appearance, meaning that if Jesus was sitting in the room right now, you wouldn't be like, "Oh, there's Jesus." He'd just be ordinary. He was common. Given a common name, born in a stable, not a splendid birth, right? Now, we've kind of glamorized it and, but I mean, he was born where animals lived. Ordinary, common. It speaks to his humanity. Here's the point. Jesus Christ was 100% man. You shall call his name Jesus. But then in verse 23, there's a second phrase. They will call his name, what? Emmanuel. Now, Jesus was very common. Emmanuel was not. Emmanuel was the Hebrew word that literally meant God with us. On one side, you, Joseph and Mary, you will name him Jesus. He's ordinary, he's common. On the other side, listen to it. They, everybody who comes into contact with him, you call him Jesus, they're gonna call him Emmanuel. What does this phrase speak to? It speaks to his deity. You see, Jesus was 100% God. Now, you say, wait a minute. Just a minute ago, you said he was 100% man. Yep, it's exactly what I said. Now you said he was 100% God. That's exactly what I said. You said, what does that mean? Here's what it means. Jesus Christ was 100% man and he was 100% God. He was so much man, it's as if he were not God at all. And he was so much God, it was if he were not man at all. He was the God man. He was God in the flesh. God, the God that created everything you can see, taste, taste, feel or smell. The God who exists outside the parameters of time. The God that spoke everything we experience into existence. That God became an ordinary man. Listen to the way John wrote about it in his gospel. In John chapter one, the Bible says in the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the word was God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we saw his glory. Glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. The disciples who walked with him, their testimony was, he was a man, but he was God. God became a man. Paul wrote it this way in Colossians chapter two in verse nine, I love this verse. For in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. Here's what that means. Everything that God is, Jesus is with skin all. All that God is, in bodily form. The theologians call it the incarnation. Here's what it means. God entered the world as a man through the virgin birth. And let me tell you something. That's a story worth celebrating. God entered time. We'll never be able to wrap our heads around that. Listen to the way Clyde Cranford described it in his book, "Because We Love Him." Look at it on the screen. The incarnation is the most cataclysmic event in all the history of the universe. Every other historical fact pales in comparison to this incomprehensible wonder, God has come in the flesh. In his incarnation, Jesus did not come as a full grown man, but as a helpless infant who had to learn how to walk and talk, how to read and write. As a boy and a young man, he studied and memorized the scriptures of which he himself is the author. He studied by the light of an oil lamp, though he himself is the creator of electricity. Christmas is the story of God with us, but there's one final thing I want to share with you and we're done. Christmas is not only the story of God and the story of God with us, but Christmas is finally the story of God saving us. There's a beautiful phrase here in verse 21. The angel is speaking and he says, "She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." He will save. You know, one of the great tragedies in the church in America today is we've become so cool and so relevant that now we think we're smarter than the words in the Bible. And there are words in the Bible that we don't like to use in our churches anymore because we're afraid they're gonna offend or that people aren't gonna get it. There's a good Bible, there's two good Bible words here. I wanna put out the first one is the word saved. Listen to me, that's a good Bible word. The Bible says he came that we might be saved. I don't know about you, but I am thankful that Jesus saved me. Amen? Now, what does it mean to be saved? The word saved is a word that literally means to rescue from danger or to deliver or to make whole again. Here's the point, the story of Christmas is the story of God coming into the world and the person of Jesus to rescue us and make us whole. Let me give it to you in two statements. Here's the first one. To be saved is to be set free from life's greatest evil. To be saved is to be set free from life's greatest evil. Here, the Bible uses a word sin. I don't have to convince you that there's evil in the world. We live in a world that is filled with evil. We've seen it play out in our society even in the last week. We live in a world filled with evil, but the source of all evil in the world is sin. Sin lies, sin cheats, sin deceives, sin destroys, sin kills. It's another word that we're not comfortable using in the contemporary church today to talk about this idea of sin, but the biblical reality is sin is an evil that is in the world. And what the Bible, when the Bible uses the word sin, it's actually a word that's borrowed from the field of archery. It's a word that means to miss the mark and it's the picture of an archer out in the field shooting a bow, anything other than a perfect bull's eye is hamartia or the Greek word sin. That's where we get it from. It's the idea of missing the mark. God has defined his standard of righteousness. God through his word has given us a picture of holiness, but we as sinful human beings choose to do it our own way. We believe the lie of the enemy that sin is more pleasurable and sin is what really makes you happy. If I do it my way instead of God's way, but sin is evil, it lies, it deceives, it destroys, it kills, there are two things the Bible teaches us about sin. Number one, every one of us has sin. Listen to the way the Bible says it in Romans chapter three and verse 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Read that with me this morning. Ready one, two, three. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Here's what that verse says. It says we all have sinned, that's the word Mr. Mark. Every one of us has done it and not only have we done it in the past, but presently we continuously fall short of the glory of God. Not only in the past have I sinned against God, but because of my sinful nature I continually fall short of the glorious standard of God. There may be somebody I've never met them, but I've never met anybody who would deny that. Everybody I know would say, I have. I've never met anybody, I said, no, you know, I'm perfect. I'm good. And then maybe you're living with that person, right? And you hear that often. But most everybody would acknowledge that what the Bible said there is true. Yeah, you know, I'm not perfect. I've sinned, I've missed the mark. What we don't understand is the severity of that. You see, we hear that, yeah, well, everybody's done it. We're not none of us are perfect. And we think it's no big deal. But the second thing the Bible teaches us about sin is that sin always has a payday. Listen what the Bible says in the first half of Romans 623. It says for the wages of sin is, say it with me, dad. Here's what that means. Because of my sin, I'm dead to God in this life. One day I will die physically because of sin. Sin is what brought death into the world. And ultimately if you die separated from God in your sin, you spend eternity separated from God in a place called hell. Eternal separate, that's the penalty for sin. The Bible calls it a wage. You know what a wage is, it's something that you earn. If a man works 40 hours this week and he makes $10 an hour, he's earned $400, right? It belongs to him. He deserves it, right? It's his. Well, the Bible says, because I've sinned, because I've missed the mark, because I've fallen short of God's standard, I've earned something. It's mine. I'm the proud owner of it. It belongs to me. You know what it is? Death. Sin separates me from God. And if I die in that condition, I spend eternity separated from God. What does all this have to do with Christmas? Christmas is the wonderful story that Jesus came as God in the flesh to rescue me from my sin. That's why Christmas is so significant. Christ came into the world to rescue us. Let me show it to you in the Bible. Romans chapter five and verse eight, listen what it says. But God demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, read the last part out loud. Christ died for us. You know what that says? What belonged to me? What was mine? What I had earned because of my sin against God. He paid for me. Jesus, the only qualified because he was God in the flesh. He died spiritually. He died physically, but because he was God, he died eternally. All the consequence of my sin. Jesus died on the cross and rose again. You say, wait a minute, I thought this was Christmas. We're talking about the baby and the manger. Let me show it to you. Clyde Cranford said it this way. Had there been no babe in Bethlehem's manger, there could have been no sacrifice on Calvary's cross. You see, it was the sinless son of God born into the world through the virgin Mary that qualified him as our acceptable sacrifice before God to take all of our sins on himself. To be saved means that I get set free from life's greatest evil, but finally, to be saved means that I also am given life's greatest good. I told you that the word save means to rescue. It also means to make whole. You see, sin robbed us of the real reason for life. The reason God made us is to live our lives in fellowship with him. Anything other than a fellowship relationship with God, and you've missed out on the real essence and meaning and significance of life. But Christ came into the world, not only to forgive us of our sins, but he came that he might restore and make whole that which we'd lost because of sin. Let me show you the rest of Romans 6, 23. For the wages of sin is death. Look at the second half, but read it out loud. The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. You see it? Because of what Jesus did on the cross and dying from my sin, now by turning from my sin and putting my faith and trust in Jesus, I am given a gift. People say, oh, Christmas is not about giving and receiving gifts, oh, you couldn't be more wrong, friend. Christmas is about the greatest gift that's ever been given. And it's free, no strings attached. Because of what Jesus did on the cross, I can be given life's greatest good. A personal love relationship with God where I'll wake up every day with meaning and significance and value because Christ has restored that which I lost because of sin, a relationship with God. That's why in the Bible, it said, he will save his people from their sins, his. They belong to him, redeemed into a love relationship. Christmas is the story of God with us. Christmas is the story of God saving us. Let me close with one final thought. The story of Christmas in one sense is still being written today. Say, what do you mean by that? You see, it's important that the story of Christmas becomes my personal story. In September of 1989, I was a freshman in college at the University of North Alabama in a little town called Florence, Alabama. I'd been born into a Christian family. My mom and dad were followers of Jesus Christ. Now, my mom and dad were first generation Christians. What does that mean? That means that their parents were not Christians. It was later on that my grandparents came to Christ. My grandparents had not been Christians when they raised my mom and dad. My mom and dad came to Christ as teenagers. They married, they raised my brother and I in a Christian home. They raised us to know the gospel. They taught us about the love of Jesus. They taught us the word of God. And it's wonderful to be brought up in a Christian home in a Christian family, but that doesn't make you a Christian. When I was a freshman in college at the University of North Alabama, that's when the story of Christmas, it became my story. God had deeply convicted me of my sin and my desire to live my life my way. And I'll never forget on a September night kneeling down beside my bed and my apartment there in Florence and crying out to God and turning over the control of my life to Jesus Christ. I was a pretty good person, but it didn't change the fact that I'd sinned against God. And because I'd sinned, I owed a debt I couldn't pay. But because of Jesus, he paid a debt he didn't owe. I could be forgiven of my sin and be given a relationship with God. And that night in my apartment, I knelt down and I cried out to God and I turned over my life to Jesus and I embraced him as my Lord and Savior. And that night for me in 1989, the story of Christmas became my story. So my question for you today is has the story of Christmas ever become your story. You see, it's one thing to know about the story of Christmas. It's something else to be in the story. A whole lot of people in America know about the story. I'm asking if you're in the story, is the story in you? Have you become a part of the story of Christmas? Have you been forgiven of your sin? And have you received the free gift of a personal love relationship with God?