Christmas Sermon
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If you want to get a good grip on The Bible…there are three people you need to know really well:
Adam
Abraham
Jesus, the Second Adam
Jesus…did you know that His Hebrew name was “Joshua”. The Hebrew name “Joshua” is translated into “Jesus” in the Greek, which was the language of the people. His Hebrew name means “the Lord saves” or “The Lord is salvation”.
I hope that isn’t the only thing new you learn this morning.
I pray that we see something more this morning when it comes to this baby in a manger.
Now we all know that Jesus was born in a manger and was visited buy shepherds. The Bread of Heaven was born in Bethlehem…the House of Bread.
This morning I hope you see something new. I hope you see something more in this baby in a manger.
I want you all to leave here knowing:
Why Jesus came
Why Jesus came WHEN He came
When is Jesus coming back
Before we answer those questions…I want to first look at the genealogies of Christ real fast…lets see who HE is...
Matthew and Luke begin their Gospel with the Genealogy of Jesus.
Luke records Jesus’ genealogy and it goes all the way back to God!
Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli,
Luke’s genealogy of Jesus seems to begin with Joseph…but it doesn’t…it begins with God.
I’m not going to go through all of the names but there are a total of 78 and this is how it ends…it ends with the beginning:
the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.
Luke begins the genealogy of Jesus beginning with God…then Adam.
Jesus is the Son of God through Adam.
Christ came through a long line of sinful people to redeem sinful people!
Matthew starts his genealogy this way:
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
What does it mean that Jesus was a descendant from Abraham?
Why is that significant?
Because Abraham was the prototype, the forerunner, for all who believe in Christ…Jew and Gentile.
So WHY did Jesus come?
Well, verse 21 tells us this:
She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
“for he will save his people from their sins”.
He WILL save…not TRY to save…HE WILL SAVE ...who?
HIS PEOPLE!
This baby in this manger…came on a mission…to SAVE HIS PEOPLE!
Now…look at verse 22 and 23.
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel”
(which means, God with us).
Immanuel…God with us…DON’T FORGET THAT
Jesus, the Son of Adam, the Son of God…BORN OF A VIRGIN.
Why did He come?
To save HIS people
But why did specifically HIM? Why did the God the Son have to become a baby in a manger…grow into a man, live a life perfectly and be put on a cross and die for man?
Because we are born from Adam
Fallen in sin
sinful and guilty…
And we can’t pay Him for our sin...
The only person that can pay God back is GOD...
So, God the Son became man because it was man who sinned against God…and only He can pay Himself back.
And He came to “save HIS people from their sins”
Look at Gen 5:1-3 with me:
This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.
I want you to notice something here:
When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.
God created male and female and He blessed them and named THEM man (male and female)
But Adam… “he fathered a son”…and look what it says:
in his own likeness
after his image
Do you see the difference?
God made man in His own likeness
But Adam…after the fall, after his sin, after being covered in guilt and shame...
He fathered a man…in his own likeness, after his image.
What hope do we have now?
We come from a fallen, guilty, sinful, man…in his own likeness and after his image.
Born in sin and shame
Ahh…remember
the Second Adam?
The Baby in the manger
who came to save His people
Remember Immanuel…God with us
If you surrender everything to Jesus Christ, I mean everything…give Him everything, the DEAD spirit within you will become ALIVE:
Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
See, the Second Adam…Jesus Christ, this baby in a manger, came to undo what the first Adam did.
The first Adam, in his disobedience, brought sin and death into the world
Jesus Christ, the Second Adam, in his OBEDIENCE to the point of death brings life and righteousness.
Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
But how is that?
How can we, sinful people bear the IMAGE of the Man of Heaven?
How can we bear the IMAGE of Jesus Christ?
Because He is Immanuel…GOD WITH US.
Thats how!
It is true that we come from the fallen image of Adam…but when we TRULY believe and put our trust in Christ…Immanuel…we begin to change.
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
So: WHY DID HE COME?
TO SAVE HIS PEOPLE
TO DO WHAT THE FIRST ADAM FAILED TO DO
AND TO TRANSFORM US BACK INTO HIS IMAGE.
Next question:
WHY DID HE COME WHEN HE CAME?
Ya’ll…this one blew my mind.
And I am going to confess to you that I am not a good preacher.
I’ve always had this idea that these “good preachers” who have all this knowledge must be holding back a little you know?
I feel like they learn something here and then they learn something new “there” and they just tuck it way and just DROP it on people one Sunday.
They might hold onto it for months or years
Im probably way off but that is what I think…I think thats whats going on.
But…I’m not one of those good preachers.
Im horrible with secrets.
When I learn something I can’t hold onto it…I just start callin’ people and just hit them with it.
So, I’ve told some of yall this already but its amazing!
Sorry I ruined this part but I couldn’t help myself.
You want to know WHY Jesus Christ came when he came?
We have been going through the Gospel of John here at POTR and we will be picking up where we left off next week.
We will be picking up at John 11:17…but we are going to look at this morning and we will just hit it again next week too...
Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.
Lazarus, a close friend of Jesus’ had died…obviously. But when Jesus heard that he was really sick He decided to wait a few more days before he made the trip back to Bethany.
HE decides to come back when Lazarus had been in the tomb…dead for four days.
What is the significance of Him coming to the tomb to raise Lazarus when he had been in the tomb for four days?
Im glad you asked!
The Jewish people believed that the spirit of a person who had died would hover over the body for THREE days and could enter back into the dead person and bring them back to life.
But…after THREE days, if the spirit of the person did not enter back into the person then it would leave.
The Jewish people, the Pharisees, knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if a person had been dead longer than THREE days that there was ABSOLUTELY NO HOPE for them to come back to life.
The person is dead
They are hopeless
Unresponsive … DEAD!
So…why did Jesus come to Bethany to raise Lazarus on the FOURTH day?
Because He is jealous God
He wants and deserves all the Glory
HE wants to make it clear that He is God in the flesh…Immanuel…God with us
Here is what is interesting:
2 Peter 3:8 says:
But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
A day to the Lord is like a thousand years to man… “DO NOT overlook this one FACT”… Peter tells us...
You know when this baby came in this manger?
FOUR DAYS ( or four-thousand years) after Adam!
4,000 years, which is like 4 days to God, IMMANUEL…God with us!
So if you ever wondered why Christ came when He came…it is the same reason He came when He came to Bethany to raise Lazarus:
Just like the Jews KNEW that if a person had been dead FOUR DAYS…they had no hope…nothing could save them
BUT GOD
And when God looked down on humanity FOUR DAYS after Adam…4,000 YEARS…we should all know:
there was no hope for us...
We were dead in our sins
BUT GOD...
who gets ALL THE GLORY
came to EARTH to save sinful man…to save HIS PEOPLE...
Immanuel…GOD WITH US!
NOW YOU KNOW WHY CHRIST CAME WHEN HE CAME!
The THIRD thing I want you to know this morning is the answer to the question…that SO MANY people are asking today… “When is CHIRST coming back”? When is the Baby in the Manger, Immanuel, coming back?
I think thats about the most CHARISMATIC thing you will hear me say…EVER.
What I am about to tell you is a very popular historical Christian view but I will be the first to tell you that it isn’t the most popular view today.
There are a lot of preachers today that make a lot of money off of telling people when Christ is coming back...
They keep getting the dates wrong over and over again but people keep going back to them to hear about how they messed up their calculations and they convince them of ANOTHER date…whats about to happen on the world stage.
SAD.
So…If you want to know when this Baby in this manger, that we read about in Matthew 1 and Luke 3, is coming back…I’m about to tell you:
And it will require something of you.... (but its not buying some book I wrote for $39.95 so you can get all the details)
Before I tell you…I need to remind you of some things.
Remember that there are 3 people in the Bible you need to know well if you want a good understanding of the Bible.
The Fist Adam - who failed to accomplish the mission that God put him on Earth to do
The Second Adam .... Jesus Christ.... Immanuel (God with Us):Abraham - the father of our faith.
and Abraham…lets look at him real quick so we can learn more about this baby in a manger
Now, I told Darcy earlier this week that I wanted to cover the whole Bible but she said that wouldn’t be a good idea to try to squeeze that in on our Christmas service
So…let me give a quick rundown so we can find out when Immanuel is coming back.
Abraham was called by God in Genesis 12.
God made Abraham a promise:
And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Then God promises Abraham a son…Isaac:
And God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”
And to speed things up…Isaac has Jacob, God changes Jacob’s name to Israel…Jacob has 12 sons (the 12 Tribes of Israel).
Jacob, his sons, and their wives and children enter Egypt.
They multiply in Egypt and the Egyptians want to enslave them because they are outnumbering the Egyptians.
God rescues them out of Egypt by using Moses.
God tells Moses this:
So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
After the Exodus…they wander in the desert for 40 years…we all know the story.
But…they finally make it to the promised land.
And they think to themselves, “It all came true! The promise to Abraham has come true!”
They remembered God’s promise to Abraham in Gen 15:4-5.
And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
So the people look around and they see ALL of these people who came from Abraham say, “man, look at all the descendants of Abraham!”
But…they misunderstood the promises of God.
See, this baby in a manger showed came to Earth…Immanuel…HE grew up and started teaching and preaching to the people of Israel
but many of them didn’t like what they heard.
It made them think to themselves, “are you saying my daddy was wrong? Are you saying that my grandparents were wrong? Are you saying I don’t understand?”
Who do you think you are, Jesus?
Because what Jesus was telling them is that they misunderstood the promise to Abraham!
They thought that because they had the blood of Abraham running through their veins that they were the descendants of Abraham.
and because they didn’t accurately understand the promises of God, the teachings of Christ, the King, always caused divisions among the people.
See, the promises to Abraham is not just for those who have his DNA running through them…
and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
Israel…these true descendants of Abraham are not those who have his bloodline...
Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
and it goes on to say in VERSE 28-29:
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
Remember what Matthew said in CHAPTER 1 when he told us about the BIRTH OF CHIRST…????
She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
See…they misunderstood the promises of God.
They thought “THEY” were His people...
But His people are those who have faith in Him...
And they are not just Israelites…they are all over the world.
because Christ came to SAVE HIS PEOPLE…but they were dead in their sins. So he came to purchase them…HE came to pay the Price of THEM…that is a story no fallen man could make up…it makes you want to sing!
So they do:
And they sang a new song, saying,
“Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
BUT WHEN IS HE COMING B ACK...
The people misunderstood another promise too.
They believed that their Messiah would come and conquer the world.
They were looking for a conquering King…not a weak beggar!
But I want them to know…this baby in the manger, Immanuel, is HIM!
He is the CONQUERING KING THAT WAS PROPHESIED ABOUT!
He WILL CONQUER THE WORLD!
When this baby in the manger was put to death on a cross for His people that HE came to save…He rose three days later and before He ascended into Heaven He said:
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Why did He say this as His departing words?
Because of what The Father promised Him...
Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
“Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”
He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
“As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”
I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
And because He has ALL Authority in Heaven and Earth right now…because He is reining on His THRONE right NOW…He says go…GO TO THE NATIONS and get MY people!
So We GO...
BECAUSE… 1 Co 15:25 says:
Look at 1 Co 15 25
For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
Church…Jesus, THE SECOND ADAM is coming back when He completes what the FIRST ADAM FAILED TO DO… “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it”.
The First Adam failed
The Second Adam will NOT…HE WILL SURELY DO IT.
LISTEN TO THIS PROPHECY OF WHAT THIS BABY IN A MANGER WILL DO...
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
How will He do it…
THROUGH HIS CHURCH.
HOW WILL HIS CHURCH DO THIS?
THROUGH IMMANUEL…GOD WITH US!
This prophecy of Matthew 1:23 is originally found in Isa. 7.
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
King Ahaz was about to be attacked and God told him through the prophet Isaiah that if Ahaz trusted God that nothing would happen to him.
God told Ahaz to ask him for a sign so he would have confidence in God’s promise.
But Ahaz would not ask for a sign because in the end he trusted other alliances with other kings to save him…not trusting God.
So God gave him a sign anyway…regardless. And then God brought judgement on Ahaz.
Here is the point.
IF you believe and lay everything at the feet of this baby in a manger, Immanuel, you will be blessed.
If you give Him everything that HE deserves…EVERYTHING, your life and everything you have…YOU WILL BE BLESSED.
IF YOU REFUSE TO BELIEVE IN THIS BABY IN A MANGER, IMMANUEL…YOU WILL RECEIVE HIS JUDGMENT and CURSES.
Whether you believe this or not....just like KING AHAZ…it doesn’t change the fact of Immanuel…God is with us!
God is with us if you believe it or not....
The question is…will you receive his Blessings or His Curses