back to index2017-12-24 Immanuel, God With Us
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I'm going to be on this text, but I want to read this this morning before we get started. 00:00:17.400 |
And then we'll jump into the message this morning. 00:00:25.040 |
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his 00:00:31.680 |
shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, 00:00:38.320 |
Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end. 00:00:42.320 |
And on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice 00:00:47.720 |
and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of hosts 00:01:05.680 |
That even as we prepare for the various things that we'll be doing with our families, with 00:01:11.520 |
the busy season of exchanging gifts, vacations, rest, that in the midst of all of this, help 00:01:19.600 |
us to remember what we are truly celebrating, that you've sacrificed your only begotten 00:01:25.960 |
Son to live on this earth, Lord God, in suffering, humbled. 00:01:32.920 |
I pray that you would help us to understand the meaning behind all of this, Lord. 00:01:38.920 |
That we would grow in appreciation, that we would be men and women who worship you genuinely 00:01:46.760 |
We ask that you would anoint this morning for the sake of your name. 00:01:53.280 |
Again, as you guys know, Christmas every year we celebrate the coming of our Savior, Jesus 00:02:00.440 |
And as the gospels represent him and teach us that he is the King of kings and Lord of 00:02:07.440 |
So when we think about the coming of the King, we celebrate the coming of the King because 00:02:15.860 |
So it's not just about Jesus himself, but why he came. 00:02:19.560 |
Not simply because he came as an infant child born in a manger with all these things we 00:02:24.900 |
sing about and we view and we have time with our children, but in the end, the King came 00:02:36.680 |
The kingdom that Jesus brought is filled with paradoxes because it is against so much of 00:02:43.840 |
what we understand the world believes in and teaches. 00:02:48.880 |
And nowhere is that more clear when we see it in the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5. 00:02:54.280 |
Matthew chapter 5 through chapter 7 is what we call the Sermon on the Mount. 00:02:58.640 |
And Sermon on the Mount basically is Jesus describing what the kingdom of heaven is like. 00:03:03.800 |
And so you'll see that phrase over and over again repeated in his teaching. 00:03:10.040 |
But before he even gets into the core of his message, he begins the message by saying, 00:03:15.760 |
blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 00:03:19.160 |
So every one of these Beatitudes are things that have flipped our worldview completely 00:03:25.680 |
upside down because we don't normally think that those who are poor in spirit are the 00:03:32.080 |
In fact, oftentimes when we are poor in spirit, we seek God and say, what did I do wrong? 00:03:38.880 |
Maybe if I did this, maybe there's some sin in my life. 00:03:41.640 |
But instead, Jesus turns that upside down and says, no, blessed are those who are poor. 00:03:45.720 |
Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. 00:03:49.920 |
Not those who are rejoicing, not those who is nothing is going wrong in their life, but 00:03:55.360 |
those who mourn because he himself will come in comfort. 00:03:59.360 |
Blessed are those who are meek for they shall inherit the earth. 00:04:03.760 |
Not the go-getters, not the CEOs, but those who are meek. 00:04:08.800 |
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied. 00:04:13.560 |
I'm not going to go through all of them, but if you look at the Beatitudes, every part 00:04:17.400 |
of the Beatitudes flips the world values completely upside down. 00:04:21.720 |
And this is the paradox of God's kingdom that though we live in the world who teaches the 00:04:26.840 |
opposite of the Beatitudes, that his kingdom has come to establish his kingdom within the 00:04:34.120 |
church a completely different set of rules and set of values. 00:04:39.040 |
And that's what Christmas ultimately is about. 00:04:43.460 |
It's about him coming to establish his kingdom. 00:04:47.460 |
Jesus in his teaching repeatedly said, it is those who are the weakest in the kingdom, 00:04:52.480 |
those who serve are those who are the greatest in the kingdom of God. 00:04:57.200 |
In fact, there's nothing more paradoxical than when he says, if you want to live, you 00:05:04.080 |
I mean, that pretty much sums up everything that he says. 00:05:12.000 |
Since the day we are born, those of you who have children, when you have infants coming 00:05:17.040 |
out of the mother's womb, the first thing that they do is they open their eyes, they 00:05:27.200 |
The instinct to live, to survive, for self-preservation is innate in us from the day that we are born. 00:05:34.640 |
And yet Jesus says, if you really truly want to live, you must learn how to die to yourself. 00:05:40.480 |
So the kingdom of God is filled with paradoxes. 00:05:43.480 |
Again, as I mentioned last week, we have to be careful that we don't apply the kingdom, 00:05:49.240 |
the worldly principles into his kingdom because it is completely the opposite. 00:05:53.200 |
And that's why Paul tells us in Romans chapter 12 not to be conformed but to be transformed 00:06:01.080 |
But of all the paradoxes that we see in his kingdom and of his teaching, there is nothing 00:06:07.280 |
more paradoxical than what you and I celebrate today. 00:06:12.360 |
Jesus Christ himself, his very presence, that he walked with us, he was born into this world, 00:06:20.120 |
is a paradox above all the other paradoxes because his name, according to Isaiah 714, 00:06:27.920 |
And the word Immanuel simply means God with us. 00:06:32.440 |
It was prophesied in Isaiah 714 that therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. 00:06:38.040 |
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. 00:06:43.400 |
This prophecy was given 750 plus years before Jesus ever showed up. 00:06:48.480 |
Today and tomorrow is a day that we remember Christ coming. 00:06:53.720 |
Matthew 123, the angel says, "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they 00:06:59.120 |
shall call his name Immanuel," which means God with us. 00:07:06.360 |
Some theologians will actually say that the greatest of all the miracles that you and 00:07:18.920 |
And again, that's another huge Christian holiday that we celebrate and we want to make sure 00:07:24.320 |
You know, in our church, we take a whole week doing morning devotions and early morning 00:07:29.680 |
And so it is a big deal because Jesus said he was going to leave one sign of his resurrection. 00:07:34.580 |
But many theologians believe that all of that really hinges upon your belief in the incarnation 00:07:42.420 |
In fact, J.I. Packer says this in his book, Knowing God, "God became man, the divine son 00:07:48.780 |
became a Jew, the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more 00:07:54.800 |
than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to 00:08:03.400 |
The babyhood of the son of God was a reality. 00:08:06.420 |
The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. 00:08:09.460 |
Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as is this truth of the incarnation." 00:08:17.100 |
Tim Keller in his book called The Hidden Christmas says this, "Some have argued that the supreme 00:08:22.880 |
miracle of Christianity is not the resurrection of Christ from the dead, but the incarnation. 00:08:28.780 |
The beginningless, omnipotent creator of the universe took on a human nature without the 00:08:34.080 |
loss of his deity so that Jesus, the son of Joseph of Nazareth, was both fully divine 00:08:41.540 |
Of all the things that Christianity proclaims, this is the most staggering. 00:08:47.420 |
That God of the universe took on human form." 00:08:52.900 |
If you've ever held a child, even if you are not a mother or father, and if you've been 00:08:57.260 |
around an infant child, you know how fragile they are. 00:09:01.780 |
I remember the very first time when the doctor handed the baby over to me, I remember very 00:09:07.580 |
distinctly my dad would always say, "Peter, whatever you touch, you break because I'm 00:09:15.380 |
Whether it was an instrument or whatever in the home, if it falls in my hands, it'll break. 00:09:23.220 |
I'm not the type of person to be nurturing, and so I just wanted to see how far is this 00:09:31.020 |
It was so distinct to me when the doctor gave my first child into my hands, my dad's voice 00:09:46.420 |
To think that the God who created the universe took on human form, not as Samson, not as 00:09:59.220 |
In Colossians 1, 16, 17, "For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible 00:10:04.500 |
and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authority, all things were created 00:10:12.340 |
So think about who Jesus is that we are celebrating. 00:10:17.540 |
Everything that you and I see, everything that you and I know, the very reason why you 00:10:20.540 |
and I even have air to breathe is because Jesus is sustaining all things. 00:10:27.100 |
He created all things, all authority, all dominion, all power in heaven and on earth 00:10:35.500 |
And yet the scripture says that he came as a fragile baby, an infant. 00:10:42.580 |
The almighty powerful God became an infant needing help. 00:10:48.700 |
Again, if you've ever had a little child, and I was there with many of our young families 00:10:55.980 |
who had children, and I remember sometimes getting phone calls from young parents not 00:11:01.260 |
knowing if what they're doing is right or wrong, and I'm not going to expose some of 00:11:08.060 |
And I remember opening up the diaper and asking, "Is this okay?" 00:11:12.740 |
And I'd see their little tiny butts all scratched up because the parents were wiping too hard. 00:11:24.660 |
The same advice my dad gave me, I gave to some of you guys. 00:11:37.700 |
Not only was he a child, he didn't come to a royal family. 00:11:42.500 |
To a teenage girl who had access to almost no resources. 00:11:49.020 |
To the father who was a lonely carpenter who didn't have the resources to raise him up 00:11:54.820 |
In a city called Nazareth, where people believe that there's no access. 00:11:58.820 |
If you want to become somebody of great stature, you can't be from Nazareth. 00:12:02.860 |
I mean, it's not like today in the United States where you can just simply move and 00:12:06.580 |
go somewhere else and seek out other opportunities. 00:12:11.100 |
Wherever you were born, that's probably where you're going to die. 00:12:14.900 |
You don't really have much access to improve your life. 00:12:17.140 |
So Jesus was born in Nazareth from a very ordinary background. 00:12:27.580 |
The Bible describes him in Isaiah 53, 2-3, "For he who grew up before him like a young 00:12:33.540 |
plant and like a root out of a dry ground, he had no form of majesty that we should look 00:12:39.560 |
at him and no beauty that we should desire him. 00:12:42.980 |
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. 00:12:47.300 |
And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not." 00:12:56.020 |
We can understand why the early Jews had such a hard time understanding who Jesus was. 00:13:03.740 |
Because they spent hundreds, thousands of years worshipping God the creator. 00:13:18.980 |
And so when Jesus came, he didn't simply say, "I'm your Messiah." 00:13:25.960 |
He said he was that God who created the universe, that all things are sustained by him. 00:13:33.860 |
He made it very clear that he wasn't just a messenger of God, but he himself was God. 00:13:39.980 |
And that's why the Jews picked up stones and said, "We are stoning you not because of the 00:13:43.940 |
miracles that you're performing, but because you, a mere man, claim to be God." 00:13:52.220 |
As a result of that, in John 9-11, it says, "The true light which enlightened everyone 00:13:59.140 |
He was in the world and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 00:14:04.580 |
He came to his own and his own people did not receive him." 00:14:09.900 |
Before we judge the early Jews, we can understand, humanly speaking, how can this fragile baby, 00:14:17.580 |
how can this child of Joseph, the carpenter from Nazareth, he walked with us, he went 00:14:36.500 |
In fact, his very first miracle in ministry was a very mundane miracle. 00:14:43.580 |
He just turned water into wine because the mother was concerned that the host was going 00:14:50.300 |
So, he calls Jesus and says, "Hey, can you help out? 00:14:55.900 |
So, his very first miracle was just very mundane, something that would happen in any marriage. 00:15:08.980 |
But that part in and of itself, as difficult as that is to understand, as paradoxical as 00:15:14.900 |
that is, it is the nature of our God, not simply his power, but his very nature that 00:15:29.140 |
Revelation chapter 6, where Isaiah is being called into ministry and God allows him to 00:15:34.820 |
see a glimpse of the glory of God in his throne, and the creatures are surrounding the throne 00:15:44.940 |
The word holy literally simply means to be set apart. 00:15:49.340 |
He's separate in every way, in his nature, in his power, in his moral righteousness, 00:15:57.620 |
in every aspect of who God is, he is completely separate. 00:16:03.260 |
An application of the word holy basically means that God, that the Jews worshipped, 00:16:13.180 |
And if you've ever studied through the Old Testament, you'll see that every aspect of 00:16:18.220 |
Jewish history, every aspect of the tabernacle, the temple worship, the sacrifices, every 00:16:22.780 |
part of that reminded the nation of Israel that you cannot simply come to me with sinful 00:16:33.300 |
Moses, desiring to see the glory of God, said, "If you would just give me a glimpse, if you're 00:16:38.500 |
going to ask me to lead the nation of Israel through this desert, let me see who you are." 00:16:44.740 |
And God repeated to him, "Any man who sees me will surely die, but I will show you a 00:16:53.780 |
glimpse of me because that's about all you can handle." 00:16:57.100 |
So God gave him a glimpse, a small portion of his glory as he was passing by, and even 00:17:02.900 |
that he had to protect Moses from his full glory or else he would die. 00:17:08.180 |
Moses, just a reflection of God's glory, came down and people, when they saw the reflection 00:17:16.580 |
They asked Moses, "Could you please go into the tent so we don't have to look at your 00:17:21.340 |
Because they were terrified by the presence of God. 00:17:24.900 |
Every part of God's nature said it was completely unapproachable. 00:17:32.940 |
Isaiah's response when he saw God's glory was to face down on the floor, "Woe is me, 00:17:46.180 |
He saw God's glory and he recognized immediately what was going to happen to him. 00:17:52.820 |
Nadab and Abihu, the first two priests who represented the sins of Israel, they experienced 00:18:00.300 |
capital punishment because they didn't take God's rule seriously and they decided to offer 00:18:06.780 |
up sacrifice, whatever they saw fit, and God punished them as a result of that. 00:18:12.340 |
In fact, Israelites were so afraid to even say his name wrong that they would say it 00:18:19.700 |
in a way that would bring judgment upon them, that they would never even say his name Yahweh. 00:18:26.060 |
So if you look at the Old Testament, every instance where the Hebrew Bible has the word 00:18:35.140 |
So the way you're going to know that is you go to the Old Testament and if it is spelled 00:18:38.340 |
out capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, it means that the Hebrew Bible actually 00:18:45.700 |
But the Jews were so afraid to even say his name and get it wrong and to incur punishment 00:18:52.420 |
upon them that they wouldn't even say his name. 00:18:54.940 |
In fact, part of the reason why we're not even sure today whether his name should be 00:18:59.780 |
pronounced Yahweh or Yehoah is because they lost how to say it. 00:19:05.860 |
Because the Hebrew language, at least at that time, didn't have vowels, so they only have 00:19:15.380 |
So we're not exactly sure today whether it should be pronounced Yehoah or Yahweh because 00:19:29.660 |
How can that God that they couldn't even look at, that they couldn't approach, the glimpse 00:19:37.660 |
of his glory brought fear to the nation of Israel, be in that manger? 00:19:47.140 |
See, Christmas is a day that we celebrate the holy, holy, holy God dwelling among us. 00:19:57.460 |
If we truly understood who it is that we are celebrating, our natural response wouldn't 00:20:07.260 |
be, "Let's celebrate Jesus," like make a little manger, give gifts to each other, drink eggnog, 00:20:16.780 |
Our natural response is what we would see in Revelation chapter 6, 15 to 16. 00:20:22.300 |
In Revelation chapter 6, 15 to 16, it describes the coming of Jesus a second time. 00:20:29.980 |
And in his second coming, he says Jesus does not come as a child. 00:20:38.900 |
And when Jesus comes in his full glory, the response in verse 15 and 16 is that people 00:20:43.340 |
hide in terror and they run up to the mountains hiding under rocks because they see his glory 00:20:50.780 |
And their response is the same response that the Jews had whenever they saw his glory. 00:20:58.540 |
So what is strange is not what's happening in Revelation. 00:21:02.060 |
What is strange is not what's happening in the Old Testament. 00:21:05.420 |
What is strange is what we are celebrating today. 00:21:09.660 |
That God, that holy, holy, holy God that in his wrath and anger wiped out the human race, 00:21:17.580 |
that holy, holy, holy God that you couldn't even enter the holy of holies where he dwelt, 00:21:24.300 |
only the most, the high priest of Israel once a year just goes in and just spends a brief 00:21:36.020 |
That everybody that we know in the Old Testament who even saw a glimpse of his glory fell down 00:21:41.620 |
It's that God, it's that same God who will come in his full glory in the book of Revelation. 00:21:51.860 |
We understand Revelation because it's consistent with what we see of God in the Old Testament. 00:21:58.700 |
But how do we understand Jesus of the Gospel? 00:22:02.220 |
How do we understand Jesus of the New Testament? 00:22:06.900 |
See, the scripture says that when Jesus came, he stepped down from his glory, Philippians 00:22:17.140 |
Jesus though he was in form God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but 00:22:26.420 |
Taken the form of a servant, being born in likeness of man. 00:22:30.580 |
The only reason why you and I are still here is because Jesus Christ came, veiled in his 00:22:41.580 |
And nowhere is that revealed more clearly than in Matthew chapter 1. 00:22:47.420 |
Now I'm not going to go through all the genealogy with you, but there's something about his 00:22:50.760 |
genealogy that, again, if you've been in the habit of reading Matthew and just kind of 00:22:54.540 |
skimming over the genealogy, genealogy is basically a summary of God's redemptive history. 00:23:00.620 |
So even if you skim over everything else, I strongly encourage you to study through 00:23:06.420 |
the genealogy of Christ, to know who they are, know the history behind each one of these 00:23:11.700 |
I'm just going to highlight a few things that, again, the paradox of the son of God taking 00:23:18.380 |
First thing I want to point out here is that in his genealogy, there's mention of five 00:23:25.140 |
Now that may not sound like anything in our generation. 00:23:27.940 |
In fact, it might even sound sexist that I even said anything. 00:23:31.700 |
But at that particular time, women were not added to the genealogy at all. 00:23:41.300 |
And so again, the fact that five women are mentioned in this genealogy, in and of itself, 00:23:48.540 |
a modern-day Jew or even a Gentile would look at this genealogy and say, "Something is wrong. 00:23:55.500 |
Not only does he mention five separate women, of the five, three of them are Gentiles. 00:24:01.540 |
Again, to a Gentile reading this, it may not mean anything, but to a Jew, not only to mention 00:24:07.700 |
five females, but that of the five, three of them in Jesus' line in which Jesus came 00:24:13.780 |
were Gentiles, people that they would have considered unclean. 00:24:18.480 |
But what's even more amazing about that, that among these Gentiles, there's a woman named 00:24:23.820 |
Tamar, who was a daughter-in-law of Judah, which is the line that Jesus came, the kingly 00:24:32.860 |
But if you know about the history of Tamar, Tamar's husband dies. 00:24:38.020 |
And again, at that particular time, the tradition was that the second brother would conceive 00:24:43.120 |
a child with the sister-in-law in order to keep the genealogy, keep the line going. 00:24:49.480 |
But the brother-in-laws were wicked, and they wouldn't do that. 00:24:53.080 |
So Tamar decided that she's going to take it upon herself, and she tricks Judah, her 00:24:57.420 |
father-in-law, to think that she's a prostitute, and then she ends up causing him to come into 00:25:08.340 |
That's one of his lines, that Jesus, the Son of God, the holy, holy, holy God, in his genealogy, 00:25:18.100 |
Rahab, a Gentile prostitute, is in his genealogy. 00:25:25.420 |
Ruth, a Moabite, if you again study through the Old Testament, the Moabites were a constant 00:25:36.320 |
And yet we have Ruth, one of the great, great, great, great, great grandmothers of Jesus, 00:25:46.080 |
And incest in this line, you would think that this King of kings and Lord of lords, the 00:25:52.520 |
holy, holy, holy God, that God created the universe, that his line would be different 00:26:02.860 |
Not only that, Ahaz and Manasseh, the two kings of Israel, that again, in the line of 00:26:09.240 |
Jesus, they are both two of the most wicked men of Israel. 00:26:15.160 |
They actually even sacrificed their own children. 00:26:26.000 |
He's the golden child of the nation of Israel. 00:26:29.580 |
When they mention Jesus and David from that line, look what he says. 00:26:35.720 |
He says, "David, the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife." 00:26:40.320 |
If you don't know the history behind that, it may not sound like much. 00:26:45.280 |
He could have easily just said, "Solomon, the son of Bathsheba," and then just moved 00:26:56.160 |
He highlights the sin of David, this golden child. 00:27:08.840 |
And so again, some of you guys may know that David commits adultery because he sees her 00:27:13.120 |
taking a bath, and then he's aroused, and he's the king of Israel. 00:27:16.400 |
He can do whatever he wants, and he goes after her and then commits adultery. 00:27:21.160 |
And as a result of that, trying to hide that, he ends up killing her husband, Uriah. 00:27:27.320 |
See, the genealogy of Jesus doesn't hide any of that. 00:27:33.680 |
He could have easily just bypassed it and said, "Well, these are all these good people 00:27:39.640 |
And it wasn't simply because Matthew was being thorough. 00:27:43.240 |
He just happened to be a tax collector, and he's good at keeping records, and he wanted 00:27:47.080 |
to make sure that everything was put in line. 00:27:49.760 |
That's not what happens, because there are plenty of people that are left out in this 00:27:54.400 |
So every single person that is mentioned in Matthew's genealogy, chapter 1, is purposeful. 00:28:00.920 |
So the fact that he places Tamar and the line in which Jesus came, the Moabite, the prostitute, 00:28:09.080 |
the idol worshippers, the sinners, and then even David, the golden child, and highlighting 00:28:27.400 |
See, the paradox of what Jesus is doing is that this holy, holy, holy God, he walked 00:28:36.040 |
among us, and in every way, he experienced our weakness. 00:28:42.720 |
The nature in which he comes is directly related to why he came. 00:28:49.920 |
The nature in which he comes is directly related to why he came. 00:28:55.000 |
The scripture says that he came to be the perfect mediator between man and God. 00:29:00.680 |
So the perfect mediator would be a man who fully understands the plight of mankind. 00:29:09.000 |
The sin, not only in man, but that is passed down from generation to generation to generation. 00:29:17.680 |
The scripture says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." 00:29:21.680 |
And as a result of that, death and punishment reigns upon mankind. 00:29:27.480 |
That no matter how much we strive, no matter how much we try to better ourselves, it is 00:29:31.360 |
within the umbrella of the judgment of God because of a rebellion against God. 00:29:36.040 |
So when Christ came on, took on human form, he came right into that human drama. 00:29:42.280 |
Even in his genealogy, even Jesus' perfect genealogy was not exempt from that. 00:29:48.400 |
Every human sin, every human drama that you could possibly think of, Jesus in his genealogy 00:29:57.880 |
He came to sin for man because his ultimate reason why he came was to bring us to God. 00:30:05.280 |
So Jesus serves as the perfect mediator between us and God. 00:30:10.900 |
This holy, holy, holy God that we could not even look upon his face while he walked upon 00:30:17.280 |
earth, little children had complete access to him. 00:30:23.040 |
Remember, when the children would come to Jesus, the disciples would say, "How dare 00:30:34.920 |
If they knew who he really was at that time, there's no way that they would have given 00:30:44.440 |
But even as the Messiah said, "How dare your little children come to him?" 00:30:48.720 |
Not only does he not stop them from coming, he says to his disciples, "If your faith 00:30:53.560 |
does not reflect that these little children, even you cannot enter." 00:30:59.000 |
Tax collectors, that was shunned by the Jewish community. 00:31:03.600 |
They couldn't possibly think of coming into the temple. 00:31:06.800 |
Even if they wanted to come and worship God, the priests and the Pharisees would block 00:31:13.040 |
The tax collectors were the worst of sinners in Israel. 00:31:19.360 |
And yet tax collectors would invite Jesus to his house. 00:31:25.760 |
The prostitutes, they ran to Jesus for protection when they wanted to stone her. 00:31:36.440 |
She somehow knew that this holy man, the holiest of Israel, was where she ran for protection. 00:31:47.640 |
A hemorrhaging woman, a leper, by Jewish law, if you were a hemorrhaging woman, just the 00:31:54.520 |
fact that you were in the presence of the crowd, you would have tainted every single 00:31:59.320 |
And if anybody knew the problem that she had, they would have stoned her right there. 00:32:05.760 |
A leper, he had to stay a certain distance and had to warn people constantly. 00:32:13.280 |
He was forced to yell even before he came into any human contact. 00:32:18.880 |
So that give enough opportunity for people to get out of his way. 00:32:26.720 |
Because his very presence would make anybody else that he comes into contact with unclean. 00:32:31.480 |
And yet, the hemorrhaging woman and the lepers ran to Jesus, had full access to him. 00:32:39.720 |
Sinners who could not even lift their heads in prayer to God, came to Jesus, kissed his 00:32:50.960 |
The poor, the blind, the lame, they all sought him to seek refuge. 00:33:04.800 |
In every way, he represented the glory of God. 00:33:09.360 |
Everything was made by him and for him, took on human form, and literally became nothing. 00:33:17.360 |
Not simply to show us how humble he is, but to draw sinners like you and me to himself. 00:33:29.280 |
See, for Jesus, to exalt himself is a second nature. 00:33:38.120 |
Matthew chapter 9, there's a story of this lame man that wanted to be healed and they 00:33:43.520 |
break into Peter's house, they lower him down, hoping that Jesus would lay hands on him and 00:33:51.320 |
And instead of doing that, Jesus says, "Your sins are forgiven." 00:34:03.440 |
Jesus responded to them in saying, "Which is harder to do? 00:34:07.680 |
To say your sins are forgiven or to get up and walk?" 00:34:12.760 |
To you and I, I can say your sins are forgiven. 00:34:24.960 |
I could just say it, but it has no real power. 00:34:28.040 |
So humanly speaking, I may superficially say this, but I've never raised anybody from the 00:34:34.280 |
I've never had anybody who was lame and then get back up. 00:34:37.040 |
So when he asked them, "What is harder to do?" 00:34:41.760 |
On the surface, it may seem like the hard thing to do is to raise him. 00:34:45.280 |
See, but for Jesus, raising him to walk is nothing. 00:34:53.760 |
What would it take for him to just snap his finger and straighten up his leg to get up 00:35:00.860 |
He feeds 5,000 with a few loaves and a few fish. 00:35:08.200 |
He opens up the mouth of the fish and coins drop out of his mouth. 00:35:14.060 |
For Jesus to say, "Get up and walk," to exalt himself is nothing. 00:35:21.520 |
But in order to say, "Your sins are forgiven," the Son of God had to empty himself and took 00:35:26.820 |
on human form and walk on earth in humiliation. 00:35:33.080 |
And even the very people that he came to be crucified and die spat on him because they 00:35:42.260 |
All of that is explained to us in 2 Corinthians 5, 18-21. 00:35:49.300 |
All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of 00:35:56.840 |
That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses 00:36:02.380 |
against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 00:36:12.000 |
We implore you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God. 00:36:16.260 |
For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the 00:36:24.060 |
As we celebrate Christmas, we don't forget what this day really is. 00:36:33.460 |
This was not just some great man who decided to take on human form. 00:36:37.620 |
This is the God of the universe who emptied himself of all glory. 00:36:44.740 |
Not only did he take on human form, he humbled himself to the point of crucifixion on the 00:36:49.220 |
cross, all for the purpose of calling sinners to himself, that he may bring us to God. 00:36:56.180 |
And so Christmas is a day that we celebrate the Son of God beckoning to the sinful world, 00:37:06.940 |
The prostitutes, tax collectors, the lame, the poor, the broken, the sinners, the disenfranchised, 00:37:16.060 |
the lonely, the dejected, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, for he will 00:37:31.700 |
In Hebrews chapter 4, 15-16, it says, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable 00:37:36.260 |
to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we 00:37:45.340 |
Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy 00:37:55.020 |
Again, I know there's a lot of stuff probably, you know, most of you guys have planned today 00:38:00.680 |
and tomorrow, you know, the family's going to get together and share gifts and all these 00:38:05.540 |
things and again, I hope that God would bless your families and bless your homes richly, 00:38:11.420 |
but in the midst of all of this, let's not forget what we are celebrating. 00:38:17.800 |
Let's not stop with Christmas just giving gifts to people that we love. 00:38:25.300 |
That Christmas is ultimately Christ saw the sins of the world and instead of running the 00:38:35.340 |
So I pray that our application would be that when we see sin in others, that we would bring 00:38:45.700 |
As we again ask our praise team to come back up, let's take some time to really reflect 00:38:51.860 |
and pray that again, in every sermon that we give, that there would be an application. 00:39:00.380 |
How do we celebrate the coming of the Son of God in a way that honors him? 00:39:10.860 |
So today, as all over the world and all over the world, the churches are being filled, 00:39:19.420 |
Christians and non-Christians to understand what this meaning is and I pray with all my 00:39:23.900 |
heart that those of you who understand what this really means, that you would not celebrate 00:39:30.780 |
like the world, that we would celebrate in a way that honors and properly reflects who 00:39:35.140 |
he is. So let's take some time to pray as we invite our worship team to come up.