Following is the preaching text (not narrative text) of my Christmas Eve service, December 24, 2019. Most of my sermons are hand written. But my tradition at Christmas is a typed bullet point text. Rarely do I write manuscript text of sermons.
Merry Christmas!
___________________________________
The Christmas story answers the law – The death, burial, resurrection crushes the enemy, death.
The Law demands a payment.
The payment is death of a worthy sacrifice
- This worthy sacrifice must be blameless from beginning to end.
- This worthy sacrifice must not be guilty of trespass against the Law, ultimately the Law Giver.
- Because the payment for this sin requires death of the worthy sacrifice it becomes necessary for the sacrifice to be human.
- God is altogether different than human, thus it would be fitting for God to put on human flesh to be the qualified, worthy sacrifice. Not just that Christ must take upon him a created nature, but that he should take upon him our nature. Not the nature of an angel, not the nature of an animal, but the nature of man.
- This is God’s way, not God’s problem he is required to fix.
- Man broke the law of God – it is required of man to pay the penalty for breaking the law. God told man to “not eat of the tree.” This was a command to man, man is guilty.
- Man was told he would surely die. Not another thing, but “he” – mankind.
- The same place (temporal day with time/space/motion) that man broke the law would require man to satisfy the demand of the law.
- The only solution was God’s doing… INCARNATION
- He would be born from the womb of the human race. Making him truly, the Son of Man. Like Adam, the uncreated God put on created flesh. Not the way of natural conception, but rather by the Power of the Holy Spirit.
- Christ was formed in the womb of an actual virgin. Not of a fallen man. Not by physical intercourse (God is spirit and must be worshiped in spirit and truth).
- His birth, though conceived supernaturally, was of a common, simple way. Not of royalty of men, but in a manger in Bethlehem as foretold by God so that when it happened men might know it was God.
- His birth was “in the fullness of time”. This is similar to how Isaiah tells God’s people that he is unlike the worthless idols of the imaginations of men who cannot tell of things before they happen.
- It was the complete, proper, right time.
- Why not before the flood? most of the cursed were not yet even back to dust
- Why not before Moses? Man’s mortality had not fully been known. Sin was well known but the mortality of man was confused.
- Why not before the formation of the nation of Israel?
- Why not before the prophets?
- Why not during the Babylonian era, the Medo/Persian era, the Greacian era?
- Why after a long stretch of silence and during the Roman era?
- What qualifies that as the “proper time”?
- It was the complete, proper, right time.
- The Incarnation of Christ came during the worlds greatest, most powerful display of what sinful man could accomplish. And in doing so with no awareness of the creator.
- Greater than the act of creation is the incarnation of Christ in the promised city, of a virgin, under the rule of the most powerful nation the world would ever know.
- Amos 9:11 “In that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches, and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old.”
- Malachi 4 the announcement of John the Baptist (the last O.T. prophet) after centuries of silence.
- The angelic visitation to the shepherds at the timely place, more than at any other time, more than at creation, the angels shout only when the uncreated Christ is incarnated to finish the work of redemption.
Now, Go! The time since the incarnation (including the death, burial, resurrection) is our appointed day. In this time, it is fitting that those whom God has saved from His judgment must be the most active of all time in the missionary cause of the advancement of the Gospel. We are given a command from a military field general, go! Take the field!
The enemy of the Messiah has launched a full front attack. He began with babies. He’s so pathetic in his arrogance that he gives no regard to babies. This strategy is still employed. This has confused the powerful. This causes the foolish to think themselves wise. This numbs the masses. Rise up in our day o church, rise up and shout for joy in Christ.
You deserve hell, Christ secures heaven.
You deserve death, Christ gives life.
You deserve the wrath of God, Christ gives you sonship, with full inheritance.
Then my grown children and their lovely wives gathered at our home, along with my mom who now lives in Twin Falls. During this time we read Scripture together, shared gifts with each other, ate lunch together and played a game of Monopoly. During this time I like to always give a verbal and written blessing to my family. The verbal is more general and applies to all of our households. The written is personal.
