Don't Be Fooled By "Christmas"!

During this time of year, people celebrate Christmas for a number of reasons. It’s fun to celebrate during Christmas, and we should, but we must never forget what we are celebrating!

Most of you remember this during Nelson Mandela’s Memorial Service (show Fake signer pic#1)…. What does this look like??

For most of us, this looked like someone interpreting by sign language!! But we found out that only the deaf knew that this guy was in error; regular folks like us accepted what was going on and many even thought how nice it was to have someone interpret for the deaf!!

The reality actually was this…. Show next slide with captions…

To those in the know, the signing was jibberish! Why do I show this?

You see this happens during Christmas time; We see and experience all sorts of things during Christmas, but sadly much of it are just a façade (a false interpretation of the truth)!

We can get caught up in all sorts of fun during Christmas time that we forget the real reason to celebrate. Are we fooling ourselves during Christmas? If Jesus Christ is our Creator, Savior, and God, would He approve of the things we do during Christmas? Is what I am doing during Christmas be approved by Jesus Christ? This is the main challenge from this simple message today.

We need to Really know, then celebrate, the truths about Christmas!

And so, let’s answer this simple question: What was the main event that happened which gave us Christmas??

On that first Christmas day, God left heaven and became a human being on earth for a reason!

How do we know this? 1st of all Jesus Christ is part of history! No one can erase from history what happened in Israel about 2000 years ago and the people involved with Jesus Christ such as Ceasar Augustus, King Herod, Joseph and Mary, the Wisemen for the East, and many others are in our history books. Jesus Christ was a real human being who lived in our real world!

2ndly, the Bible tells us about Christmas. The Bible is ultimate truth because it is from God! You know, if someone refuses to believe the Bible as truth, challenge them to prove you wrong! If they seriously look with their hearts, they will find the Bible as God’s truths!

Here’s another sign of fighting for the truth, people today are refusing to place their hand on a Bible and give an oath to tell the truth; let us be careful, too many people today are living in lies, including Christmas!

We note the truth in Luke 2:11 - Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Lord who left heaven and was born on earth!

And why was Jesus Christ born on earth? We read, The Savior has been born to you; in other words, Jesus Christ was born to save you and me!

God through the Old Testament promised a Messiah who will suffer and die for people’s sin; one who will replace all the animal sacrifices, one who is the perfect unblemished lamb to be sacrificed for people’s sin once and for all!

Jesus Christ is the Messiah who was born on earth to save people; how does He save people?

- Jesus Christ became a man who lived perfectly for God!

- Although He did not do anything wrong, the world crucified Jesus to death!

- Jesus suffered and died for all the sins of people (but only those who truly believe in Him are forgiven) – what good is truth when you don’t believe!

- Jesus rose from the dead because He is God and to be an example for all Believers.

If Jesus Christ was not born, He could not die for people’s sins and be forgiven by God.

That is the Good News and the reason why we are to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ; Jesus was born so He could die for all our sins against God!

God accomplished His promise of a Savior by giving us Christmas and what we call Easter, when Jesus rose from the dead!

Like being fooled by an erroneous interpreter, Let us not be fooled with all the fluff during Christmas time, which many just call holidays. Yes, we are to love people and not be obnoxious and offend people; but Christmas is to be celebrated because God Jesus Christ was born so He could die for our sins. Don’t be fooled! Don’t just believe in a baby born, believe in God who became flesh, lived a perfect life on earth, died for our sins, then rose from the dead!

How do we know our sins are forgiven because of our belief in Jesus Christ? Jesus ascended to heaven, gave us the Holy Spirit to live in us, and He promised to return for us to perfect us and take us to heaven with Him forever (that will be the eternal Christmas to come!).