Planning For Christmas Discovering Christmas from Behind the
Planning For Christmas: Discovering Christmas from Behind the Scenes God’s Plan for Christmas Centers on a Person
• See for many…when it comes to understanding the true meaning of Christmas there are some people who view Christmas like it is some foreign language…they can see the words, the characters, the markings but none of it makes sense. – So what they need is someone who knows the “language” to interpret it for them.
• But what happens when the person who is supposed to know the “language” has difficulty translating because over time they have become so comfortable with other “languages” that the “original language” is easily forgotten. – Has the meaning of Christmas become filled with meaningless motions we’ve learned over the course of our lives that we have difficulty really translating the significance of Christmas?
• But when was the last time you stopped to think about the events of Christmas and realized that every single detail of Christmas was predicted by God HUNDREDS and in some cases THOUSANDS of years before the event. • Much of what God had to predict, to prophesy, was entirely unusual, was entirely unexpected and provides insight into His character.
• God’s Plan for Christmas centers on His Son. – The true meaning of Christmas is answered by understanding WHY Jesus had to be born as a baby. – Why the manger…why Bethlehem? • It comes down to this…to translate the Christmas language we must be able to understand why God became a man.
1. God would be able to prove that he could keep his promises. • Remember the historic context…Jewish audience facing invasion by Assyria. – 2 Samuel 7: 14 – The Davidic covenant is one of the most significant promises God makes • God would establish the throne of David as an eternal throne.
• But when this prophecy is given in David’s day about 1, 000 BC, people would have surely scratched their heads and asked in part, “How in the world is God going to have a Son? ” • The focus is not first on him as an adult, it’s on him at his birth and they would have known that Isaiah was talking in 700 BC about the fulfillment of a prophecy that had first been given to David in 1, 000 BC
• Psalm 2: 7 • How in the world does God have a Son? And in what sense would he be begotten and rule on the earth just like the Davidic Covenant said that he would? • That’s the same emphasis given in our key text in Isaiah. “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given. ”
• When followers of Jesus Christ look into the manger, we don’t just get a warm fuzzy feeling similar to watching a holiday movie on the Hallmark Channel. We stand in awe of a God who predicts something 1, 000 years in advance and brings his word to pass in stunning detail. • The manger proves that God keeps His promises.
2. So Jesus could legitimately atone for our sin. • Isaiah 7: 14 • Why do we believe in the virgin birth? – Because God said it would happen and it did. • Why is the virgin birth necessary? – so there would be no transmission of the sin nature and, therefore, Jesus could be the perfect Lamb of God.
• There’s a sense in which the manger should not only conjure up thoughts that are warm and fuzzy, but it should also remind us of our sin. • It should create a recognition that because of our sin, there was absolutely no other way for our salvation to be secured other than Jesus being born of a virgin and then being willing to die an atoning death in our place.
3. That our relationship with him could be personal. • Immanuel = God WITH us = God wants a relationship with us. – Once your sin has been addressed by the payment of the perfect Lamb of God, you can have a personal relationship with him that is characterized by fellowship and intimacy.
4. That our relationship with him would be transformative. • Matthew 4: 12 • Exactly as it had been prophesied 700 years before and Matthew makes sure we get it. • That means the Son who was given makes it possible for us to be transferred from the kingdom of darkness
Life Step – Focus on the Person not simply Principles. • We’re talking about letting the Redeemer transform us. The manger was not filled with a book. The manger was filled with a person. You can love the word of God, but if you just take his word apart from a growing relationship with the Redeemer, it will become stale, it will become callous and you will probably end up using it on someone else instead of yourself.
Final Thought As we enjoy our Christmas time with our families, pray that our faith would be deepened by a God who made promises and a God who kept them.
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