Throughout time, from the beginning
of time, God promised a Redeemer, one who would come and deliver
his people from the very sins by which they came under the
sentence of death. And what Brad just read to you
right there was the fulfillment of that promise, that eternal
promise that was secret until the world was made. Everything
in this world was made as a picture of the coming and the redeeming
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it was all picturing his,
not only his creative power and his sustaining power over all
things, but his purpose for doing that, which was to save a people
for himself, to give them eternal life, to bring them from the
ruin of their sins and the guilt and the condemnation, the punishment
of them, and the death of them to the Lord Jesus Christ as their
God and Savior. And this came in history according
to God's promise, His eternal promise, made to Christ with
His people and fulfilled at this point in time. And that's why
this is recorded for us in Scripture to show us that the great And
glorious God came in the form of the lowest form possible,
an infant. the ancient of days, became the
infant in the stable, laid in a manger, the trough where animals
would eat, wrapped in swaddling clothes, the child born, the
firstborn of a virgin who was made to conceive by the power
and the promise of the Spirit of God. Not by a man, but by
God, the Lord Jesus Christ was made in his human nature. He had no relationship to Adam
as a sinner. He was holy and harmless and
undefiled. Now this promise is repeated
so many times throughout Scripture that we could really say that
all of the testimony of Scripture was about the coming of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so it is at this time of
the year when we remember the birth of Christ. It's good to
remember the birth of Christ. Unfortunately, the world has
changed, and especially religion, has changed the birth of Christ
into something that is not good. And you can see this in many
ways. One of the most, maybe not the
most, but the second most deceptive way this happens is that Christmas
time is made to be a time of joy and cheer because of various
things. Snow, trees, things that smell
good, cute little babies and bunny rabbits and deer and candles in cabins and family
gatherings and large meals and all these things. And then of
course there's gift giving and the times of family together.
And all of that is made to be some kind of a celebration. Everybody takes part in it, or
not everybody, but most people take part in it. There's nothing
wrong with getting together as a family, that's a good thing.
But what's wrong is when we make the birth of Christ to be for
that purpose. And another way, and this is
even worse, is that religion has made the birth of Christ
to be a celebration of a worldwide and universal salvation that
God has provided and men need now to accept in order to make
it work. This is the most deceptive of
all, is that Jesus came to save the world, and to all those who
will have him, he will save them, but to those who won't, then
he will not save them. But of course we don't mention
the last part there, we just assume that Jesus died for everyone
and everyone's going to heaven. Ultimately, nowadays, it wasn't
like this historically, but nowadays when you stand by the graveside,
nobody ever considers the fact that the person who just died
may not be with God in glory. And so that was one of the reasons
that I, two or three weeks ago, asked that question, are, am
I ready to die? Are you? And how do I know? What is my only hope? And of
course, the answer from scripture is that our only hope is not
found in us. And this is the surprising news
of scripture. The surprising news of the gospel
is that the very person who is at fault The very person who
is under the condemnation of God for their sins, that person
is not the person who we look to to save us. We have to look
to the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, completely away from
ourselves. We have no strength, we have
no knowledge, we have no understanding, no power to deliver ourselves
from our sins. This is why Jesus was born. This is why. Now, don't, as a
family, don't let your children believe the lies of the world. Don't let them become sucked
into the distractions of all the things that go commercially
with Christmas, and especially not the religious things that
go with Christmas, this notion that Jesus died to save everybody
and that now it's up to you in order to make what he did work.
It's the same lie of everything, of Easter and Christmas and everything.
God gives a very clear answer to the birth of Christ, and we
just read it. And if you remember the words of the angels, unto
you is born this day in the city of David, and mark these words,
a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. The baby is Christ. The baby is the Lord. The baby
is God in human nature, in the weakest form, laid in a manger. It was the time when the king
in Luke chapter 2, who was Caesar Augustus, it was not his given
name, it was a name he assumed in order to portray this majesty
called Auguste. He was Auguste, you know, he
was dreadful in his power and his self-proclaimed majesty,
but he was nothing but a man. In fact, he was a man God had
no regard for because he didn't know Christ. And it says here,
he made a decree that all the world should be taxed. It doesn't
mean to levy a tax on people, it means to count them. It means
to take a census, to gather everyone together, to make them go back
to their city of birth and to register. And so since Joseph
and Mary were both descendants of David, they had to go to Bethlehem
where David was born. The town of Bethlehem was a town
of shepherds. It was a place where the shepherds
went to graze and feed their sheep. And so by the providence
of God, this didn't happen, according to a commentator that I read
about here. It didn't happen when the king
wanted it to happen. It had to be delayed until this
time. And it happened here that he
set forth this decree. Everyone needed to return to
their city. And so at this time, Joseph and
Mary were required to go to Bethlehem, Mary was ready to be delivered
of her firstborn child, which was Jesus. And it was a hardship. You can imagine our children,
when our own daughters or our daughters-in-law are about to
give birth, we're very anxious about it. Can you imagine Mary
now, ready to give birth, having to go to Bethlehem just because
of some, quote, stupid edict by a king? And yet they submitted
to it, didn't they? They didn't complain, they just
went there. Because it was God's providence to bring them to this
place to fulfill scripture. And so it is in our own day,
we are submissive to God when we submit to the ordinances of
our government, even though they seem crazy at times. And we don't
see how they fit to anything. It seems like they should be
overturned, but no. God does it according to his
perfect will, and he uses even the evil intentions of men to
bring about his perfect will. And so we see here, this was
all in God's providence. And Joseph and Mary went there,
and we see here that she brought forth her firstborn son. The days were accomplished that
she should be delivered in verse 6. She was great with child.
She brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling
clothes and laid him in a manger. We have the delight of our daughter
and her husband, and their two children are with us this entire
month. And they have a six-month-old.
And I love to hold that baby. I love to look at her. And when
she cries, I want to comfort her. And she's sick now, and
she's got pink eye, and she's got a little cough. And her eyes
are running, and I just want to take it away. She's just a
little baby. and her skin is perfect, her
hair is pretty, and I just like to be with her.
Here Mary is with this baby, and she is her baby. But it's
not just an ordinary baby. This is God come by the will
of God, the eternal will of God. Why did he come? Why was he born
as a baby? Why did he suffer all of the
humiliation of being born to a woman? I was outside this morning
putting things in the car and it was kind of cold and looking
up as I do often into the sky and thinking about the greatness
of creation and the world and how insignificant I am. and that
the creator who spoke and the worlds were created, separating
land from water and darkness from light, bringing herbs and
trees and fruit and animals by his will and his word into being
and creating man out of the dust and putting in him the breath
of life. And then that man rebelling in disobedience to God and sinning
and separated himself from all of that comfort and consolation
and communion with God himself. And then God purposing in his
own great mercy and his grace in order to save that undeserving
and ill-deserving person, that man Adam and his children that
God had chosen to save. determined to do that by himself
coming in his son and taking on that very nature in which
Adam sinned and redeeming him by laying down his life, bearing
their sins in himself in order to save them. What a God, that
he would, like Brad said, that he would even think of us. It says in Job 4 that he charges
his angels with folly. He has to humble himself to look
upon the things on earth. And yet this God, who is infinite
and independent and depends on nothing and gives to all life,
breath, and all things, has undertaken for the one who rebelled against
him in order to save him from the ruin of his sins, and the
guilt, and the shame, and the condemnation, and the eternal
death his sins deserve, and to interpose himself to take those
sins on himself, and bear them too, and to answer his own justice,
and righteousness, and truth, in order to magnify himself as
God in the person of his Son, and in the perfection of man. and to fulfill that will in righteousness,
to save a sinful people who were helpless and opposed even to
their own salvation. That's grace. And that's God
doing it. That's not man doing one part
of it. God did it all in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, I want to turn with you to the book of Matthew again,
where we were last week. And I want to read this verse
of scripture. We always read this verse of scripture. We love
to read this. We cling to this. We are not
pretending here. We are not putting on a performance.
This is not a drama. This is our life. This is what we believe. We believe
something. God has convinced us of the truth,
of heaven. the truth of heaven and earth
in the person of his son. We didn't invent this. God spoke
this. We would have no valid basis,
no warrant to even consider these things unless God had written
it in his word. And yet we find here a reason
for the most despondent and despairing sinner. to have an expectation
that the God of glory would have mercy upon me in this verse of
scripture. And listen to what he says here
in verse 20 of Matthew chapter 1. He says, while Joseph thought
on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to
him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to
take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in
her is of the Holy Ghost, And she shall bring forth a son. How did the angel know it would
be a son, not a daughter? Because God put this child in
the womb of Mary. God created a son, his son, not
as his son, but as the son of man. He was eternally the son
of God, but he was created now as the son of man. She shall
bring forth a son. And thou shall call his name
Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. This is why he came. Don't teach
your children anything else. This is why Christ was born,
as a man, to save his people from their sins. Where is that? Where is that when you hear music
on the radio? Where is that when people go
to an idolatrous church and take a wafer on their lips and say,
now somehow your sins are expunged by this man with a high-peaked
hat and a stupid-looking robe pretending to be able to forgive
sins? It's a sham. It's the kind of
stuff that drama, Disney makes this stuff up. It's ridiculous. This is the truth. Jesus Christ,
God, was manifest in the flesh. And he was born as a man in the
humiliation of the form of a baby and grew up and lived the full
life of a man. And did nothing but the will
of God. He came to do the will of God,
the eternal will of God. And this is what it was, to save
his people from their sins, their sins against God. Their sins
of their heart. Their sins of thoughts. Their
sins of motive. Their sins of not doing what
they were supposed to do. Their sins of doing the very
thing God said not to do. The sins of doing what they knew
was wrong. The sins of continuously doing
it. The sins of heart. The sins of
word. The sins of action. Every sin. All of their sins. Jesus Christ
came to save his people from their sins. The guilt of their
sins. The consequences of their sins. The death into which their spirits
were put because of their sins. To raise them from the death
their sins brought upon them. To deliver them from the enemy
they had no power over. Satan. Everything to do with
sin, everything that is a burden to me is because of my foolish,
willful sins against God. Jesus Christ came to save His
people from their sins. That is reason for joy. That
is reason for cheer, isn't it? That is reason for assurance
and confidence to come to God, to the one God set up from eternity
and put it in his heart. Didn't put it in his heart, it
was in his heart, but put it in his hand to save his people
from their sins. And he came willingly, voluntarily. He was born. He said, a body
thou hast prepared me. It is in my heart to do thy will,
O God. It's written of me in the volume
of the book. What an amazing What an amazing
account of God's work. He directs us away from ourselves
to Jesus. His name, Jesus, means what?
It means Jehovah Salvation. That's what it means, literally.
It's the same name as the Old Testament name, Joshua. Jehovah
Salvation. The Lord Jesus Christ. That's
why it says here, He shall save His people from their sins. Amazing
grace. Verse 23 says, His name is Immanuel,
which means God with us. This is God. Salvation. God has become my salvation. Isaiah chapter 12 says, God has
become my salvation. God has become my salvation.
So when we walk out in the morning or the evening or the noontime,
and we see God's creation, God who created this, me, The sinful
man, he who created this, came in the form of an infant in order
to live as a man and die as a man in order to save his people from
their sins. Now I'm a sinner and what do
I do? What do I do? Look at Luke chap,
I'm not Luke, Isaiah chapter 45. Isaiah chapter 45. This is the same one speaking
in Isaiah 45 who was born. The one who was born is speaking
before he was born in scripture. The eternal God, the Lord of
glory. He says in Isaiah 45, he says, In verse 21, tell ye and bring
them near, yea, let them take counsel together. Who has declared
this from ancient time? Who has told it from that time? And from the beginning, from
ancient time. Have not I the Lord? There is no God else beside
me. A just God and a Savior. You see that? Who was born? When Brad read to us, the angels
declared, unto you is born, this day, in the city of David, a
Savior. Here he says, there's none else
beside me, a just God and a Savior. Now, I don't know about you,
but that word Savior, that title, that name Savior, attracts me
with an an irresistible, drawing attraction to the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Savior. I need a God who is a Savior,
but He's also a just God, because God will not compromise His nature,
His character, who He is. He is both just and a Savior,
and there is none beside me. None but Christ. None but He
is God. None but He is God and man. He
says in verse 22, this is his command, the one who is coming,
look unto me. Look upon me. Don't look to the
enormity of your sins. Don't look to the devil. Don't
look to death. Look unto me and be ye saved. all the ends of the earth for
I am God and there is none else. I have sworn by myself the word
has gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return that unto
me every knee shall bow and every tongue shall swear. Surely shall
one say, everyone who is born of God will say this, in the
Lord have I righteousness and strength. Even to him shall men
come, and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed."
All those who reject Christ, ashamed. Notice, in verse 25
of Isaiah 45, in the Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, Jehovah, salvation,
in the Lord, shall all the seed of Israel be justified and shall
glory." Justified means God says that one is righteous, perfect,
without sin. Before me, in the presence of
God, in all of his holiness, with the onlooking universe of
angels and devils and men, And God says, of that one in Christ,
absolutely righteous, pure, holy before me, in Christ. That's what he's saying here.
And the Lord Jesus says, to every sinner hearing these words, throughout
the earth, look unto me. That's his name. Jesus, he will
save his people from their sins. Now, this is cause for rejoicing. This is a reason for the despairing
and the despondent and the helpless, the ruined, the weak, the sinfully
weak, the one who can't rid themselves of either the guilt or the power
of their sins, isn't it? This is God's promise. God's
Christ has come to save from sin, save his people from their
sins. Are you a sinner? Isn't that
the question here then? Am I a sinner? Do I need this
savior? Then look unto him. He says,
look, look unto me. Don't look to religion. Don't
look to all of the foolishness of religion. Look to the Lord
Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ himself.
The one who was crucified. The one who was crucified. And
in his death, he put away the sins of his people. Notice, he
shall save his people from their sins. He shall save them. There's no failure. When God
undertakes, when God speaks, there's no possibility of failure. Look at Hebrews chapter 1. Hebrews
chapter 1. And listen to these words very
carefully. This is the same one who was born, the same one who
came and whose name is Jesus. He says this of him. Verse 1 of Hebrews 1, God who
at sundry times and in divers manners In spaking time passed
to the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken
unto us by his son, whom, his son, he has appointed heir of
all things. Everything is given to him. By
whom also he made the worlds. He's the creator of everything.
Who being the brightness of God's glory, and the express image
of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his
power. This is almighty God, isn't it? Notice. This is what
he did. When he had by himself purged
our sins, what happened? He sat down on the right hand
of the Majesty on high. You see that little word, when?
When he had, when he had. He came to do what? To save his
people from their sins. Did he do it? It says here, when
he had purged our sins, he sat down on the right hand of the
majesty on high. Do you have any other hope? Do
you have any other possible confidence or hope that there's one word
from God that you as a helpless and ruined sinner who have offended
God innumerable times, do you have any other hope but that
when Jesus Christ by himself purged all of the sins of all
of his people and took his place on the right hand of God, that
your sins were purged? Is there any other possible hope?
Don't think about that time when you did something in response,
but think only about what Christ did, why he came, what he accomplished. And the fact that he's seated
there means that the work was done, finished, accomplished. He's seated because it's finished,
there's no work left to do. He's given all the majesty as
God-man, all the majesty of the Redeemer, who was promised and
who successfully saved his people. There's no cause for despair
here. This is the lesson of Scripture. This is the lesson of Christmas.
Jesus Christ came into the world to save his people from their
sins. Now, I want you to look at this verse with me. We looked
at it a few weeks ago. But look at 1 Thessalonians chapter
5 again. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. If you just back up from Hebrews,
a few books, you'll find it in 1 Thessalonians and chapter 5. I want to read these verses to
you. He says in verse 9. 1 Thessalonians 5.9, God has
not appointed us to wrath. That's what we deserve. But he
has not appointed us to that. Why? But he appointed us to obtain
salvation. How? By our Lord Jesus Christ. Did we do something? No. He did
everything. Who died for us, that whether
we wake, We're alive in this life. I can talk to you now.
We're all alive. Or sleep. That means we've died,
our bodies have died. Whether we're alive now or sleep
in death, we should live together with Him. You see that promise?
Christ died that we should live. That's what it's saying. He died
for us that whether in this life or in our bodies die, we are
alive with Him. We're alive with Him. And that's
the promise here. And then he goes on in verse
11. You see? Comfort one another with this. This is the gospel. This is why Christ came. He came
to save His people from their sins. He came to die that we
might live. He came to bear our sins that
we would bear them no more. He came to die in order to take
away the wrath so that God would be able to appoint us to salvation
according to holiness and righteousness. This is the good news, isn't
it? This is the most glorious news possible, that the Lord
Jesus Christ would do this. Look at 1 John, the book of 1
John, the epistle, in chapter 4. 1 John chapter 4 and verse
9. In this, it says, in 1 John 4,
9, in this was manifested, this is how we know, in other words,
it was manifested, it was set before us, it was set forth,
declared, and evidently it came to pass and was talked about
by God, given messengers. In this was manifested the love
of God toward us. because God sent his only begotten
son into the world that we might live through him. You see, why
would we even be talking about our need to live? Because we're
dead. Because of our sins. Now we need
to be, our sins need to be removed and we, so that we can live.
And that happens through Him. God sent His Son. This is God's
love toward us. And how do we know it? Well,
this is how. God sent His Son that we might live through Him.
He sent Him into the world. Look at verse 10. Herein is love. Not that we love God. That's
what people are always talking about. They talk about love.
They want to make a big deal of their love. Love for one another,
love for God. No, God says here in His love,
not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son. This is why He sent Him. This
is why Jesus was born to be the propitiation for our sins. The sacrifice made by God's will
offered to God a sacrifice of one chosen by God, pure, able
to bear the sins of His people. Those sins laid on Him, and God
poured out His wrath, and His wrath was pacified, and God received
just payment from Him. That one is the propitiation
for our sins. He satisfied God in justice and
pacified his wrath. And God now is favorable to his
people because of that, that sacrifice. Now he goes on in
verse 16, look at this. And we have known. and believed the love that God
has to us. We've known, we've heard in the
gospel that God sent his son that we might live because he
made him the propitiation for our sins. God is love and he
that dwells in love dwells in God and God in him. Herein is
our love made perfect that we may have boldness in the day
of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world. There's
no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear
has torment. He that feareth is not made perfect
in love, we love him because he first loved us. You see? It's all about what God has done.
It's all about what Christ has done. God has done all of this
in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's why we know this. Now
as a sinner, this is nothing but good news. If you are burdened
by your sins, then Jesus Christ will be the most desirable. thing, the most desirable one
to you in all of your life, won't he? And these things are taught
to us, and the effect of it is that God gives us this grace
to believe him. When we hear these words, look
at Colossians chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3, he says
this, because Christ died for us and we died with him, and
because Christ rose, Victorious over our sin and over death,
we rose with Him. God justified us in Him. We were
with Him there when He died, with Him when He rose. He says,
if you then, Colossians 3.1, if you then be risen with Christ,
seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right
hand of God. That's where He is because He
purged our sins. Now, here's the effect it has
upon every believer. Set your affections on things
above, not on things on the earth, for you are dead, and your life
is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory."
And then he goes on to say, this is what this faith in Christ
does It causes us to do this. He says, mortified therefore
your members which are on earth, and it lists all these sins,
fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, and so on. You see,
these things that were natural to us before now become loathsome
to us and we cry out to God. the one who is the savior from
our sins, we cry out to him to save us from these sins. We keep
going back to him and looking to him and abiding in the gospel,
trusting him to deliver us from all of our sins. And this is
why he came. This is why we're so delighted
that he came. This is why we have confidence before the Lord,
because he did this. One more verse and then we'll
close. Look at 2nd Timothy. 2nd Timothy in chapter 1. 2nd
Timothy chapter 1, he says in verse 8, Paul tells Timothy,
Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord,
nor of me, his prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions
of the gospel according to the power of God. Notice what he
says here about Christ. Who has saved us and called us. with a holy calling. How do we
know we're saved? Because the Lord has called us.
He's drawn us to Christ. Jesus said, whoever comes to
me, I will in no wise cast out. This is why I came. He saved
us. He called us with a holy calling.
not according to our works. That is such a hard thing for
us to let go of, isn't it? We think on the one hand, look,
I'm doing all these things, I'm going to church, I mean, I've
cleaned up my life, I've got some reason for confidence now.
That's the lowest, that's the worst. condition you can find
yourself when you begin to have confidence in your religious
performances. Or you can say, well, I'm such
a sinner, how could God ever look upon me? I've got to fix
things in order for God to have mercy. Again, that's thinking
in terms of what I must do. All these things are set aside,
not according to our works, but according to his own purpose
and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began." You see, it's all God's work. "...but is now made manifest..."
See? See those words? "...it is now
made manifest by the appearing Christ born, living, suffering,
dying, rising. By now, by the appearing of our
Savior, Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and has brought
life and immortality to light through the gospel. The message
of Christmas is the gospel. The message of the birth of Christ
is the gospel. The message of scripture is the
gospel. The message Christ has given to his disciples to preach
is the gospel. The message we believe unto eternal
life is the gospel. It's about Jesus Christ. the
one who is God and man who bore the sins of his people to bring
us to God. He was birthed, he was born as
a child, a baby in Bethlehem and he lived a life without sin
and bore the sins of his people to save them from their sins
and is seated in glory because he actually accomplished that
work. Oh, may you and I abide in this
gospel, in the Lord Jesus Christ. May we in our hearts cry out
to Him who was born in Bethlehem. May we find no other message
but this message of Christ and Him crucified, seated in glory
because He accomplished our salvation, to be our only hope, all of our
confidence, and produce in us a love to God and for His people
that is a love that grows more and more through this faith that
God gives us more and more through the gospel He has given to us.
And I pray that this day and tomorrow and the rest of this
year and next year and the rest of our lives, you would find
Christ to be so delightful that everything else would grow extremely
dim. Let's pray. Father, we pray that
you would look upon the Lord Jesus Christ you would not consider
our sins in us, but consider only our sins placed on him,
born by him. enduring the wrath of God against
our sins and taking away our sins, and Him now risen and ascended
and seated at your own right hand, pleading Himself, who gave
Himself for our sins, that He might redeem us from all sin
and from this world. to bring us to Himself, to make
Himself known by His Spirit given to us so that we might believe
Him and love Him and live in this life so enthralled in worshiping
Him and worshiping You by Him. Lord, we pray, save us from our
sins for Christ's sake and receive Him and us with Him to Your glory
for our salvation. Be with our children. Be with
our families. Help us, Lord, to know you. In
Jesus' name we pray. Amen.