Seven Reasons for Sending the Son
Christmas means different things to different people. To most children — it means gifts; to many mothers — it means scheduling convenient times for family and friends to meet, giving the house a thorough cleaning and preparing huge feasts; to grandparents — it means having the family together again and sharing memories; to merchants — it means money; and to many — it means financial stress. To Pastors, it means preparing one of the most important worship services of the year! To Christians, Christmas is celebrating Christ’s incarnation, His birth, and God’s purpose in sending His Son.
#281 What Child Is This?
#249 O Come All Ye Faithful (O Come Let us adore Him!)
WHY SHOULD WE ADORE JESUS: We are going to look at 7 reasons from the Bible.
1. To fulfill the Law (In Matthew 5:17: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”). God is HOLY and God’s Law is holy and keeping that law perfectly is the only way to enter God’s Kingdom and have an relationship with God. Because of man’s inherited sinfulness no one is capable of fulfilling the requirements of God’s holy Law. Have you ever broken one of God’s LAWS? Have you ever even had an evil thought? If you have, then you are a LAW-BREAKER in God’s Sight.
However, Christ, who is both the Son of man and the Son of God, lived out every demand and aspect of God’s Law. Doing so PERFECTLY He “finished”, FULFILLED. In JESUS, the unfinished and incomplete became absolutely complete and perfect. Jesus came To fulfill the Law perfectly.
2. We should adore Jesus because Jesus came in order To reveal God the Father to us. Later in Jesus ministry, Jesus was having a conversation with his disciples in John 14:7-10: “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” 8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” 9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.”
Hebrews 1:1-3 says this too:1 “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” (TWO FLASHLIGHT EXAMPLE GOES TO WORK HERE: two beams, same light, put together they only shine one beam.)
As a consequence of Adam’s sin all mankind lost the ability and intimacy of knowing God. As a consequence of Christ’s incarnation, His being conceived in Mary by the Holy Spirit, God is revealed to all mankind through Christ: (John 1:9) for “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten (one of a kind) of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14).
# Here I Am to Worship (“Light of the World you stepped down into darkness”)
3. “The Light of the World stepped down into darkness.” We worship because Jesus came To light the way of God: Twice the Bible warns, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. (Proverbs 14:12; 16:25). Mankind is truly lost. Jesus declared, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him. He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:6-9). The Lord Jesus came not only to show us the way to God but also to actually become the way through repentance and faith in Him. He said: “I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.” (John 12:46) Jesus IS THE LIGHT of the world shining the way to the Father.
4. Jesus came To seek and save the lost. Like lost sheep, we have all wandered far away from God; we’ve stumbled and fallen in sin. We all need a Savior, someone to rescue and restore us back to God. “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:10) Are you “LOST”? Jesus came to save you. This is the Message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
#278 Angels We Have Heard on High (Gloria in excelsius Deo)
5. “Glory to God in the Highest” is what we just sang in Latin. Why do we sing that? Because God sent Jesus into the world, into YOUR word To give new life (I John 5:11-13,And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life…20 We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true–even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.”
All man-kind is not only lost, we are tragically and totally dead in our trespasses and sin (Ephesians 2:1). Jesus announced, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). The only way that you will have abundant life is in and through Christ alone.
6. HOW DOES JESUS GIVE LIFE? By giving His own life. He Came To give His own life as a payment for your sinful life.(John 10:11,15). For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life IN Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Christ came to die. For He (God the Father) made Him (God the Son) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (II Corinthians 5:21). He identified with our sin. He died in our place as our substitute on Calvary’s cross, giving His life to redeem us.
#277 Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
7. “Glory to the Newborn King”: That’s why Jesus came: To destroy Satan’s works and power and to give FREEDOM from satan’s LIES: (He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. I John 3:8). The devil works to destroy, to bind, blind and keep us in darkness. Christ came to break Satan’s grip on us and to enable us to walk in the light. We give gifts at Christmas because Jesus was GIVEN as our gift for forgiveness. The serpent that bound Adam and Eve, and every person since in sin, was destroyed. (John 3:16). “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
My friend, the baby in Bethlehem is the Son of the living God, the baby who invaded our world that He might redeem those who believe on Him. This King, Jesus, is God’s greatest gift to you — the gift of salvation. Have you received Him? He came as the God’s gift to meet your GREATEST NEED. A SAVIOR, who is Christ the Lord. “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8).
“Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” (II Corinthians 9:15)
#253 Silent Night (Sharing of the Light)
VERSES OF LIGHT
John 8:12 – When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
1 John 1:5 & 7 – - This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all….But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
John 1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
Ephesians 5:8 – 8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light .
2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Luke 11: 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” If the Father gives the gift of the Holy Spirit to you, you will have all of the things that Christ came to give: He fulfills there requirements of the law for you. He will show you the Father. He will be the light of your life in this dark world. He gave His life so that you would have NEW and abundant life.
How do you receive that gift of life? Come to the Father and ASK. Turn from YOUR way of doing and thinking and follow the Lord Jesus Christ. He has come to be your SAVIOR.
Prelude
#240 Of the Father’s Love Begotten (no guitar)
#245 O Come, O Come, Emmanuel (no guitar)
Welcome and Prayer:
#281 What Child Is This?
#249 O Come All Ye Faithful
1. To FULFILL the Law
2. To reveal God the FATHER
# Here I Am to Worship (Guitars and Keyboard)
3. To LIGHT the way of God
4. To seek and save the LOST
#278 Angels We Have Heard on High
5. To give new LIFE
6. To give His own LIFE
#277 Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
7. To give freedom from satan’s LIES and works.
#253 Silent Night (Sharing of the Light) in A major
