Born To Give Series

Theme: Born to Give

Text: Matthew 2:1-11

Greetings: The Lord is good and his love endures forever.

Illustration:

A pastor was greeting the believers after the Christmas service.

He saw a young man who came after many months. He encouraged him to attend regularly, and told him. “It’s time for you to join the Army of the Lord. I would like to see you on every Sunday.”

The young man replied:

“Pastor, I’m already in the Army of the Lord.”

Pastor said:

“But, I only see you on Christmas and Easter?”

The young man told Pastor:

“I’m in the Secret Service.” (Adopted).

Today, I would like to share with on this Christmas Eve service that Jesus is a Historical God, Jesus is the Scriptural God, and Jesus is an Eschatological God.

1. Jesus is a Historical God

Our Christmas is not only celebration of Balloons, games, get-togethers, carols, cakes, skits, and dramas and more than that it is a time of remembering Jesus who is the central figure of the Christmas. The word Christmas spells as Christ + Mass = Christmas, a mass or a service held in honour of Jesus. The symbols of X-Mas doesn’t mean the unknown arithmetic numbers of X, Y, Z but the X refers to the first letter of Christ’s name in Greek ???st?? (christós). The word Christmas refers to the celebration of the Birth of Jesus who is a Historical Person.

Jesus was neither a mythological person nor an imaginary god. His birth narratives were not the timeless fables but an event occurred in the Historical setting. Jesus was born in the History, his birth divided the History as BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini- Latin word means ‘in the year of the Lord’). The very date of 25.12.2024 refers to the very annual calendar calculated form the Birth of Jesus. So, Jesus is a historical person.

Though Jesus Christ was born in an unnatural process of procreation, but was supernaturally conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, and born of her, without sin is the Miracle.

Jesus was Historical, it is proved through the secular Historians through the Evidences of the existence of Herod, Augustus, Quirinius, Pilate and Caesar.

The first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, twice mentions the name and events of Jesus in his massive 20-volume history of the Jewish people in 93 A.D. Then, the Roman governor Pliny the Younger wrote to Emperor Trajan that early Christians would “sing hymns to Christ as to a god.”

Another account on Jesus appears in Annals of Imperial Rome, a first-century history of the Roman Empire written around A.D. 116 by the Roman senator and historian Tacitus. In chronicling the burning of Rome in A.D. 64, Tacitus mentions that Emperor Nero falsely blamed “the persons commonly called Christians, followers of Christus, who was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius.”

Biblical Evidences are:

Mathew 2:1: “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem”

Luke 2:1-3: “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.”

Herod was a Historical person, indeed he was great ruler, builder and administrator of Judea. He was politically gifted, intensely loyal to Rome, and clever enough to remain in the good graces of successive Roman emperors because of his slave mentality.

According to Matthew Jesus was born roughly two years before the death of Herod the Great (4 BCE), but Luke writes Jesus was born during the governorship of Quirinus in Syria (6 CE).

All the gospel writers place the ministry and death of Jesus during the reign of the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate who reigned from 26-36 AD. So, the common date for the death of Jesus falls between 30 and 33 AD.

Jesus was called Son of Joseph (Luke 4:22; John 1:45, 6:42), Jesus of Nazareth (Acts 10:38), or Jesus the Nazarene (Mark 1:24; Luke 24:19). Son of David, Son of Abraham (Matthew 1:1).

So, Jesus is historical, and many of his believers, followers are historical over the centuries, first his disciples; then the apostles; then the martyrs; then the church fathers; then the missionaries; then the preachers; and now everyone who believes in Jesus and ready to die for this faith, you and me.

2. Jesus is a Scriptural God

“Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.”(Matthew 2:2).