The Birth that Changes Everything
Gal.5:4-7
The birth of a baby can change things.
At 3:00 a.m. the young wife shakes her husband awake, telling him to check on the newborn baby. He sits up for a minute listening before he protests, "But I don’t hear her crying." "I know" she replied, "And it’s your turn to go see why not!"
A baby changes a lot of things. A baby can change your sleeping habits. After you bring home that bundle of joy, your life will almost certainly get noisier. Grocery shopping will be a little different as you discover how many different kinds of formula and food are available. You will learn what foods makes junior smile, and what foods produce more unpleasant reactions. If you’re wise you’ll “child-proof” your home. With time you’ll be able to tell if her tears are tears of pain, tears of anger, or frustration. The birth of a baby brings some big changes in your life.
Christmas is the celebration of the birth of a Baby Who changed everything. He not only made a big difference in His own home, but a big difference in the whole world. His birth is meant to change everything for you, too. I want to talk this morning to you about the how the birth of Jesus Christ can change your life. Look with me in Gal.4:4-7 at 3 changes Christmas can bring into your life.
PRAYER
I. THE BIRTH OF CHRIST CHANGED HISTORY (v. 4a) But when the fullness of time had come….
The world we live in is shaped by the past. You and I live in America because an explorer named Christopher Columbus discovered the New World, and opened the door for European settlers (our ancestors) to make their home here. You don’t speak French or Spanish, because the British, who spoke English, colonized most of North America. You live in a democracy because our forefathers fought and died, and soldiers since have fought and died to preserve our freedom. The world today was shaped by many events from the past. But no event has changed the world as much as the birth of Jesus Christ in the manger of Bethlehem. What are some changes His birth produced?
The most obvious change you see every time you check the expiration date on your milk, or write out a check, or sign any legal document—you need to know what year it is. Where does that number for the year come from? It comes from the birth of Christ. Some still use the terms B. C. (before Christ) and A. D. (Latin, Anno Domini= the year of our Lord) to outline history. They’re trying to change that now to get rid of Christ’s Name by calling it BCE (before the Common Era) and ACE (after the Common Era).
One thing nobody can deny: all of human history is divided by His entrance into this world. How would the world have been different if He had not been born …in the fullness of time… ? Remove every reference to Christ from the world’s greatest literature, and the library will almost be empty. Erase from every great painting or statue any work which includes Christ, and you don’t have much art left to appreciate. Close down all the great colleges originally founded to train preachers of the Gospel —Harvard, Yale, Princeton--- and you eliminate some of our greatest seats of learning. Christianity, with all of its failures and faults, has been one of the most powerful forces in all history. But if Christ was never born, human history would be a very different story.
But Christ was born Paul declares. At just the right time, right on schedule, according to the plan mapped out long before creation, God sent forth His Son to be born into this world. His birth changed human history; but He wants to do more: He wants to change your history.
He wants to draw a line separating BC from AD in your life. He wants to transform everything in your history. The Bible says in
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Christ’s birth changed human history; but Christ’s entrance into your life will change your history. When Christ enters your life:
He changes your direction. A Christian is a person who is no longer chasing after sin, but pursuing righteousness. He is following Christ, following His plan for their lives.
He changes our desires. A Christian wants to please God. She may struggle with sinful desires, but her ultimate desire is to live worthy of her Lord. Even when she fails, a Christian wants to be forgiven, to be cleansed, to do better for Jesus’ sake.
He changes our destiny. When Christ enters your life, He doesn’t erase the past, but He changes how you relate to your past, changes how you live in your present, and changes your hopes and goals for the future.
This is how Christ can change your history. Have you experienced this change? You might be a good person or even a religious person, but if you’ve never personally invited Jesus to enter your life and change you, you are missing out on the most important change a person can experience.
Robert C. Shannon writes Always the adoption of Christianity is a turning point--for nations, for civilizations, for individuals.
The birth of Jesus Christ truly is a turning point in human history. He wants to be a turning point in your history. Paul goes on to describe two of the most radical changes Christ will bring in our lives:
II. THE BIRTH OF CHRIST CAN CHANGE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD (v. 4b-5)
In one sentence, how would you describe your relationship with God? Stop and think about that for a minute. The default setting for most of us is everything is OK between God and me. Why wouldn’t everything be OK between me and God?
When Jesus begins His preaching, He begins by calling everybody to make a change: Repent (change your mind! Change your life!) for the kingdom of heaven is at hand! Both Christ and the apostle Paul preached that everybody needs a fundamental change in their relationship with God. Paul uses two words to explain the change Jesus was born to bring:
Redemption. …born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law…The word redemption entails two ideas: to purchase and to liberate. When you redeem a coupon for a free dinner, you are using that coupon to buy something. Paul’s idea redemption comes from the slave market of the ancient world. People became slaves in those days for a variety of reasons, but there were basically only two ways a slave found freedom: either his master freed him, or else somebody else redeemed him= paid the price for him to be set free. OK Bro. Mike, I understand the concept, but what does that have to do with me? I’m not a slave. Nobody is my master. Jesus has a different opinion.
John 8:34 …“Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.
Have you ever committed sin? Have you ever done wrong, knowing you were doing wrong? Jesus says you are a slave –a slave to sin. You are a slave to sin’s penalty—guilt. You are a slave to sin’s power---you do wrong even when you mean to do right. You are a slave to sin’s destiny.
Ezekiel 18:20 The soul who sins is the one who will die…
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death…
Here’s a real downer: you can’t free yourself from sin. You can’t free yourself from your guilt. You can deny it, try to forget it, but it won’t go away. You cannot free yourself from sin’s power: no matter how hard you try to reform, you can’t get lose from its grip. There’s no way you, by yourself, can escape sin’s destiny.
One more bit of bad news: sin ruins your relationship with God. God is Holy. He hates sin. As long as you are a slave to sin, your relationship with God is ruined.
But the good news is the Baby born in Bethlehem’s manger can redeem you from sin. He is fully human--born of a woman, just as you were. He was born under the Law, that is, subject to God’s demand for perfect obedience. The big difference is He kept God’s Law perfectly, because He was not a slave to sin.
Because He was free, He could pay the price for your freedom--His own death on a cruel Cross.
He was born to die to redeem you from sin, to offer you a “not guilty” verdict before a holy God, to set you free from guilt, from defeat, from eternal death. Jesus put it this way in
John 8:36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
But Jesus was not born just to free you from slavery. God wants more than that in your relationship with Him. Jesus was also born to change our relationship with God through
Adoption. …that we might receive the adoption as sons…Buy a slave, set him free, and you go your way, and he goes his way. But God freeds us from slavery to make us His sons and daughters. He sent Jesus not just to take off our chains, but to adopt us into His family.
Bruce Barton writes: In Roman culture, a wealthy…man could take a slave…and make that slave his child and heir. The adopted person was no longer a slave. He became a full heir…guaranteed all legal rights to his father’s property. He was not a second-class son; he was equal to all other sons…in his father’s family. That person’s origin or past was no longer a factor in his legal standing.
Jesus wasn’t born just to set you free, but to set your place at God’s table, to welcome you home to a new family, to make you a beloved child of God.
The Son of God became man to enable men to become the sons of God. - C S. Lewis in Mere Christianity.
How would you describe your relationship with God right now?
Maybe you’re not sure how to answer that question. You try to live right, stay out of trouble, do the best you can. But is that enough? Could there be some changes that need to be made for you to be sure of where you stand with the Lord?
Jesus Christ was born to change your relationship with God. He came to earth to redeem you- to set you free from the guilt of your sins, from the power of sin, from the penalty of your sins. His redemption makes it possible for you to become a beloved child of God, to give up trying to earn your way into heaven, but to enjoy life as a child of God.
Gerald Penix writes, My wife and I waited 15 years for a child before we decided to adopt a baby boy. As we stood before the judge as he told us “From today on, he is your son. He may disappoint you, even grieve you but he is your son. Everything you own one day will be his and he will bear your name.” Then he looked to the clerk and gave this command. “So order a change in this child’s birth certificate and may it reflect that these are the parents of this child.”
Jesus came to earth to do this for you in your relationship with your Heavenly Father. But it’s one thing to know this in your mind; it’s another thing to be sure of it in your heart. That’s why Paul adds one more area where the birth of Christ can change in your life:
III. THE BIRTH OF CHRIST CAN CHANGE YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH GOD (v. 6-7)
Joan of Arc was a deeply religious French peasant girl who victoriously led the armies of France against the armies of England during the 100 Years War. She claimed she was guided by the voice of God, and when she was captured by the English, one of the soldiers mocked her by saying, “She says she hears God’s voice; why I don’t hear his voice.” To which Joan is said to have replied, “But don’t you wish you did?”
No, Joan, I’m not sure I want to hear voices. I’ve read about times when people heard God’s voice, and it was pretty scary. And yet, in some way, I do want to connect personally with God. I want to experience God in a real way, not just in my mind, but in my heart. That, Paul says, is one of the reasons Jesus Christ was born into this world.
And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!” declares vs. 6. When you are redeemed and adopted into God’s family, He sends His spirit to inhabit your mind, your heart, and your will. He gives you the assurance in your heart you are a child of God---the assurance that dares to call God Abba! Papa! Daddy! Family words cried out by a child in joy, or fear, or love. That’s the kind of relationship Jesus came to enable you to experience with God- the secure, warm love between a father and his child. Live that way Paul warns in vs. 7. Don’t go on living like a slave! Live like a child, loved and treasured by your Heavenly Father! Don’t keep trying to earn your way into His heart—don’t keep living like a slave! Live like His Child!
My friend, Jesus came to this earth to make that kind of relationship with God possible. Is it really possible? Do you really believe it’s possible to live so sure of God’s love for you, so certain of His acceptance? He came to be Emmanuel---God with us—in a way more real than we could ever imagine. That, Paul says, is the change the birth of Jesus Christ came to make in your heart, and in your life.
Did you ever read Bret Harte’s story The Luck of Roaring Camp? Roaring Camp was, according to the story, the meanest, toughest mining town in the West inhabited entirely by men, and one woman who tried to serve them all named Cherokee Sal. One day Cherokee Sal dies as she gives birth to a baby girl. The men take the baby and put her in a box with some old rags under her. But they decide that doesn’t look right, so they send one man 80 miles to buy a rosewood cradle. He brings it back, they put the rags and the baby in the rosewood cradle, but it still doesn’t look right. So they send another man to Sacramento who comes back with beautiful silk and lace blankets. Now it looks fine--until someone notices the floor is so filthy. So these hardened, tough men get down on their hands and knees scrubbing that floor clean. That makes the walls and ceiling and the dirty windows without curtains look absolutely terrible. So they wash the walls and the ceiling, and put curtains at the windows.
After they finally get things looking better, their behavior starts to change. They give up a lot of their fighting, because babies can’t sleep during a brawl. They watch their words when she starts learning to speak, because they don’t want to teach her bad language.
The whole temperature of Roaring Camp seemed to go down. They take the baby out and set her by the entrance to the mine in her rosewood cradle so they could see her when they came up. When somebody notices what a dirty place it is, they plant flowers, and a very nice garden there. It looked quite beautiful. They would bring her shiny little stones and things they find in the mine, until they would put their hands down next to hers, their hands looked so dirty. Pretty soon the general store was all sold out of soap and shaving gear…
What changed Roaring Camp? A baby. That baby changed everything.
Can the birth of Jesus change everything for you? You will never know the answer to that question unless you come to Him and ask Him to change your history, change your relationship with God, change your experience with God. This is His invitation to you this morning. Come to Him, believe, and see for yourself how Christmas changes everything.
