A father called a family conference and challenged everyone to be more disciplined in the management of their time during the busy Christmas season and to curtail excessive spending on gifts. He talked about better relations between visiting relatives and a more congenial atmosphere around their home. He brought his speech to a crescendo with his final rally cry, "Let’s make this the BEST Christmas EVER!" His little second grade son countered the big motivational speech by noting, "But dad, I don’t see how we could ever improve on the first Christmas."
We certainly can’t improve on the first Christmas, but we can improve on the way we celebrate it today. As we conclude our reflections on Christmas, I want us to turn our thoughts to how we ought to rejoice in the birth of our Savior. As we think about how we should rejoice in Christmas, let’s consider the song that the angels sang when they announced the event of our Savior’s birth:
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests."
From the song of the angels, we learn the following things about how we should go about rejoicing in Christmas:
1. Let’s Rejoice In The Greatness Of God - v. 14a
Secularists have put forth great effort in seeking to remove God from the celebration of Christmas. From judges banning nativity scenes, to retailers renaming Christmas trees "Holiday trees," to schools forbidding children from singing Christmas carols, the unbelieving world continues to make one attempt after another to remove Christ from Christmas.
But Christmas is all about God and what He has done for us in the person of Christ. He is to be at the heart of our rejoicing at Christmas. To remove God from our celebration of Christmas is to miss what Christmas is all about.
"Christmas is all about God coming to earth as a man,
so that men on earth might come to God."
In rejoicing in the greatness of God, we need to . . .
A. Rejoice In His Person - "Glory to God"
Two Texas Aggies went to Minnesota one winter to do some ice fishing. After setting up their tent, they pulled the cord on their chain saw to cut a hole in the ice. Then they heard a mysterious voice from above saying, "There are no fish under the ice."
"Is that You, God?" they asked in awe.
"No," came the reply, "but I know that there are no fish under the ice. I’m the owner of this ice-skating rink."
We may have all the "trapping" of Christmas celebration, but if our focus isn’t on God and what He has done through Christ, then our worship is just as futile as was the Aggies attempt at ice fishing.
B. Rejoice In His Position - "in the highest"
One of our favorite Christmas carols, "Joy To The World," is not just about the first coming of Christ, but also about His second coming!
Verse 1 - The first advent of Christ
1) Joy to the world! The Lord is come; let earth receive her King; let every heart prepare Him room, and heaven and nature sing.
Verse 2 - The present activity of Christ
2) Joy to the world! The Savior reigns; let men their songs employ; while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy.
Verses 3 & 4 - The future advent of Christ
3) No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found.
4) He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove the glories of His righteousness, and wonders of his love.
"Because of Christmas, the One who reigns up above, will one day reign here below!"
"The message of Christmas is the Christmas story. If it is false, we are doomed.
If it is true, as it must be, it makes everything else in the world all right." - Harry Reasoner, 60 Minutes
2. Let’s Rejoice In The Grace Of God - v. 14b
A little girl was overheard, after a day at church, asking her mother, "Mommy, does God believe in us?" Give that question some serious thought. Does God believe in us? He created us. He sustains us. He sent His only Son to die for us on the cross. He has entrusted us with the responsibility to spread the gospel.
The answer is "YES!" He believes that though we are sinful, we are worth redeeming. Though we are lost, we are worth finding. Though we are condemned, we are worth saving! By His grace - His unmerited favor and kindness - He has reached out to us, so that we might become all that He created us to be!
A. The Providential Target Of It - "on earth"
This earth that is full of sinful, imperfect, rebellious men, women, boys, and girls, was the providential target of God’s grace when He took on human form to pay the price for our sin and salvation in the person of Christ! By His grace, through the person of Christ, the One who is beyond us has come down to us, so that we might have a personal relationship with Him.
When Apollo 11 neared the moon in July 1969, the editors of, The New York Times felt their cover¬age of the first step on lunar soil should go beyond headlines and pho¬tos to embrace an achievement shared by all humanity. So they asked Pulitzer Prize-winner Archibald MacLeish to write a poem. The day after Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin Jr. walked on the moon, the front page contained these words:
You were a wonder to us, unattainable, a longing past the reach of longing, a light beyond our light, our lives - perhaps a meaning to us . . . Our hands have touched you in your depth of night.
That day, through the hands of others, we touched the moon.
The apostle John wrote some memorable words, about an even more significant historical event - the visit of God’s Son to this planet. He wrote: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” - 1 John 1:1, 3 (NIV)
John touched Jesus. And today, so can we. As surely as John held Him in the flesh, we can grasp the Son of God through faith. We too can experience the joy of having a close relationship with the Father and the Son. In faith, in fellowship, and in times of greatest need, we can say, "Our hands have touched You."
B. The Powerful Transformation Of It - "peace to men"
God’s desire in sending His Son was to make it possible to change our lives through changing the nature of our relationship with Him.
“For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross. This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.” - Colossians l:19-22 (NLT)
Jim Walton was translating the New Testament for a tribe living in the jungles of Colom¬bia. But he was having trouble with the word peace.
During this time, the village chief, was promised a 20-minute plane ride to a location that would have taken him 3 days to travel by foot. The plane was delayed in arriving, so he began the journey on foot. When the plane final¬ly arrived, a runner took off to bring the chief back. But by the time he had returned, the plane had left.
The chief was livid because of the mix-up. He went to Jim and launched into an angry tirade. Fortunately, Walton had taped the chief’s diatribe. When he later translated it, he discovered that the chief kept repeating the phrase, "I don’t have one heart." Jim asked other villagers what having "one heart" meant, and he found that it was like saying, "There is noth¬ing between you and the other person." That, Walton real¬ized, was just what he needed to translate the word peace.
To have peace with God means that there is nothing, no sin, no guilt, no condemnation, that separates us. And that peace with God is possible only through Christ.
"When you put your life in God’s hands, He puts His peace in your heart."
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” - John 14:27 (NIV)
C. The Personal Taking Of It - "on whom His favor rests"
Though God offers peace and new life to all, His peace does not rest upon everyone. Only those who personal accept the gift of eternal peace through a personal relationship with Christ are the beneficiaries of what was made possible because of Christmas. But if you will turn to Christ - the One who came to die for your sins be raised from the dead, and return to heaven, where by the person of His Spirit, He stands ready to enter into your life and change you from the inside out - you can become the personal beneficiary of His grace. Jesus said, "Whoever comes to me I will never drive away" - John 6:37 (NIV)
B. H. Carroll once said that he read the four gospels and noted the times people tried to get an audience with Jesus - either one person or a group. Carroll noted that there were at least 150 times when someone sought Jesus . . . and not once was anyone turned away.
"It’s not what you know about Jesus that counts, it’s what you do with Him."
Conclusion:
The Gold Rush of 1849 had people from all over the world heading to California with dollar signs in their eyes. Each person came with visions of finding a fortune and many miners did indeed strike it rich. This phenomenon was all started by James Marshall who discovered gold in Sutter’s Creek. You would think the man responsible for starting all of that gold craze would have died knee deep in wealth. Ironically, Mr. Marshall died in the late 1880s as a penniless itinerant miner just a few hours from the place he first struck gold. His fortune was never realized because he failed to stake his own claim. An individual can know all about God and the abundant life He has to offer, but if you don’t stake your claim through a life-long commitment to Christ you will never experience the riches of eternal life.
In celebrating Christmas, don’t forget to "stake your claim" on the gift of eternal made possible because of God’s gift of his Son. As ones who have "staked our claim" let’s celebrate what we have to proclaim!
Suppose that Christ had not been born
That far away Judean morn.
Suppose that God, whose mighty hand
Created worlds, had never planned
A way for man to be redeemed.
Suppose the wise men only dreamed
That guiding star whose light still glows
Down through the centuries.
Suppose Christ never walked here in men’s sight.
Our blessed Way, and Truth, and Light.
Suppose He counted all the cost,
And never cared that we were lost,
And never died for you or me,
Nor shed His blood on Calvary upon a shameful cross.
Suppose that having died, He never rose,
And there was none with power to save
Our souls from death beyond the grave!
As far as unbelievers know,
These things that I’ve supposed are so.
