What Does Christmas Mean?
TEXT: Gal. 4:4-7
Introduction:
Here are some facts about Christmas from The History Channel Website:
• Each year, 30-35 million real Christmas trees are sold in the United States alone.
• Today, in the Greek and Russian orthodox churches, Christmas is celebrated 13 days after the 25th, which is also referred to as the Epiphany or Three Kings Day.
• In the Middle Ages, Christmas celebrations were rowdy and raucous—a lot like today’s Mardi Gras parties.
• From 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was outlawed in Boston by the Puritans, and law-breakers were fined five shillings.
• Christmas wasn’t declared a federal holiday in the United States until June 26, 1870.
• The first eggnog made in the United States was consumed in Captain John Smith’s 1607 Jamestown settlement.
• The Salvation Army has been sending Santa Claus-clad donation collectors into the streets since the 1890s.
• Rudolph, “the most famous reindeer of all,” was the product of Robert L. May’s imagination in 1939. The copywriter wrote a poem about the reindeer to help lure customers into the Montgomery Ward department store.
Those are all interesting, but the real, most important fact about Christmas is in our text: Paul wrote by the Spirit that “…the fulness of time had come and God sent forth His Son.” The vast, magnificent plan of salvation had been put into place before the universe was ever created. Before anything ever existed, when there was only the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirt, even then, the day had been set when God would become man, and dwell on the earth He had created, and walk among humankind. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke don’t give us a date for the birth of Jesus, and it’s a likely probability that Jesus was not born on December 25th. Why would shepherds be tending their flocks in the winter? But let theologians quibble, what matters is that He WAS BORN.
There was no chance, or happen-stance, or fate involved. In the eternal counsels of the Holy Trinity, it was determined, that when the exact religious, social, cultural, and political conditions demanded by His perfect plan were in place, Jesus would come into the world. John MacArthur says this about our text: ”…As a father set the time for the ceremony of his son coming of age and being released from the guardians, stewards, and tutors, so God sent His Son at the precise moment to bring all who believe in Him out from under bondage to the law—a truth Jesus repeatedly affirmed…That the Father sent Jesus into the world teaches His the preexistence of Jesus as the eternal second member of the Trinity…born of a woman…emphasizes Jesus’ full humanity, not merely His virgin birth. Jesus had to be fully God for His sacrifice to be of the infinite worth needed to atone for sin. But He also had to be fully man, so He could take upon Himself the penalty of sin as the substitute for man…’ so that His “…perfect righteousness…” could be “imputed to those who believe in Him…”
He came to redeem sinners who are under the demands and curses of the law, and who needed a Savior. He came not only to redeem – to buy sinners back from the devel, to whom they were in bondage, but He also came to do much more: to adopt us as His very own children. Since unregenerate people are by nature children of the devil, the only way they can become God’s children is by spiritual adoption.
Let’s look at what Christmas means? It means God came to this earth to be born a man, and to live among humankind.
I. Because He was born, we can have His unceasing presence
A. Can you imagine a prayer of Jesus being unanswered? I can’t. when He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, He said He was not praying for the world, but for His disciples, and for all those “…which shall believe on Me through their word.”
B. He then went on to pray: “…that all those may all be one, just as you, Father, are in Me, and I in you, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me…that they may be one even as We are one, I in them and You in Me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as You loved Me” (John 17:21-23).
1. That prayer was answered. So now, from God’s perspective, all those who belong to Christ, are one with Christ and the Father.
2. That means He is always and will always be WITH us.
3. We have unceasing presence.
C. The Apostle Paul echoed this truth, in another place in his letter to the Galatians. He told them that they saw him as a living man, then went on to write: “I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me, and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live through the faith of Christ who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).
D. In another place he wrote: “…Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). One commentator wrote: “…that Christ would dwell in Gentile converts was unknown at that time…That Christ’s life, character, virtues, values, thoughts, attitudes, and deeds are present in Christians is evidence that they are headed toward glory.”
E. And didn’t Jesus say toward the end of His ministry, as recorded in Matt. 28:20, “…I am with you always, even to the end of the world.”
F. Because He was born, He is always abiding with us. For the Christian, we have His unceasing presence. THIS is what Christmas really means.
II. Because He was born, we can have His unfading peace
A. This world is in turmoil. There are wars and rumors of wars. A recent online article from the United Kingdom’s Independent Magazine says, “It may make for bleak reading, but of the 162 countries covered by the Institute for Economics and Peace’s (IEP’s) latest study, just 11 were not involved in conflict of one kind or another.”
B. The article goes on to say, “…the world as a whole has been getting incrementally less peaceful every year since 2007…” All around us we see a world of chaos, confusion, and turmoil. According to my research there are at least 10 hot wars going on now, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, the Sudan, Pakistan, and Nigeria, and the on-going war against the Drug Cartels in Mexico and Columbia
C. And of course, we can’t forget the war that Islamic Jihadists are waging against those they consider infidels – that’s all those who are not Muslims. According the website: The Religion of Peace, as of yesterday, there have been 34,224 deadly terror attacks since 9-11.
D. Beside the actual armed conflicts, we see societal problems that also evidence a lack of peace. 1 out of every 2 U.S. marriages end in divorce, child abuse is epidemic; behavioral units in hospitals are still needed, and sexual promiscuity has brought upon us and the world a flood of new sexually-transmitted diseases.
E. And beside the lack of external peace because of armed conflict, and lack of peace in society, individual people all over the world are longing for peace of mind.
1. As a Social Worker most of my career has been spent working with people who have emotional and mental diseases due to lack of peace of mind
2. Quoting from one of my own sermons, “Our emotions are so unreliable, as they take us on a roller coaster ride from depression to elation – happy then sad. The mind, always in a constant state of flux and instability, can’t be trusted or depended on to be unchanging.”
F. But because Jesus was born, those who are His can have real peace. The night He as born angels filled the sky and cried, “Peace on Earth…Good will toward Men,” because, “…unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. The peace Jesus gives is an unfading peace. He said, “Peace, be still to the storm and the wind ceased and there was a great calm” (Mark 4:39).
1. He told the woman with the issue of blood to “go in peace…” (Mark 5:34).
2. After He had arisen and appeared to the disciples, He said, “Peace be unto you” (Lk. 24:36).
3. In John 14:27, when He knew He would soon be leaving His disciples to be crucified, buried, risen and then would ascend back to Heaven, He said: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.”
4. In John 16:33 He said, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me you might have peace…”
G. This is what Christmas means. Because He was born, we have His unfading peace.
III. Because He was born, we can have His unfailing provision
A. As I’ve said many times, we are a needy people, but He is a wonderful provider
B. Psalmist says in Psalm 37:21-25, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and He delights in his way. Though he falls he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholds him with His hand. I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor His seed begging bread.”
C. Two times Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes, first, feeding 5,000 and a 2nd time 4,000 men along with the women and children.
1. After the 2nd miracle, the disciples still didn’t understand that He was their unfailing provision. He said, “Having eyes do you not see? and having ears, hear not? and do you not remember?
2. When I broke the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up? They said to Him, Twelve.
3. And when the seven among four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up? And they said, Seven. And He said unto them, how is it that you do not understand?
4. He was trying to teach them that He was their provision. We have the benefit of hindsight and could see their lack of faith. And, we have the Bible, so we should have no excuse.
D. The Apostle Paul wrote by the Spirit, “My God shall supply all you need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Php. 4:19). We can be assured that He who knows when a sparrow falls to earth, and who knows how many hairs are on our head, knows our need, and will provide
E. Let’s agree with the Psalmist who wrote of God’s unfailing provision: “He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honor him” (Psm. 91:15).
Closing:
Christmas is truly God’s gift to the world. Going back to our text in Galatians, Paul tells us that the Holy Son of God came to “…redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” Because Christ came, guilty sinners, who are under the grip of the law’s demands and its curses, can become the very children of God by adoption. Those who are by birth and nature children of the devel, have opened to them a way to become God’s children by spiritual adoption, so that we can speak to our heavenly Father, and even call Him “Papa” or “Daddy.” And because of the miraculous birth of our Lord, we are also the heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ, so that we can be recipients of the same inheritance Christ has received. (Rom. 8: 15-17).
And what is the inheritance Christ received? Jesus said, “All that the Father has is Mine…” (John 16:15). The Father owns the universe because He is its creator. The Bible says, “All the silver and gold is His. (Haggai 2:8). He said again, in His High Priestly Prayer in John 17, verses 9, 20, 21 and 23: “I am praying for those whom You’ve given Me…all mine our Yours, and all Yours are mine…” He goes on to say, “I also pray for all those who will believe on Me through their word (that’s us), that they all may be one, just as You Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be in us…I in them and You in Me.”
This is what Christmas means – because Christ was born in Bethlehem, we can have His unceasing presence, His unfading peace, and His unfailing provision.
