{NOTE: This series is best used with the clips provided by HomeWord with Jim Burns and Max Lucado. You can find many free resources at this link: http://www.homeword.com/PolarExpress/ You may also be able to secure the clips by contacting them.}
This Christmas Season - Believe
“Grab Your Ticket: How God planned Christmas”
GALATIANS 4:4-7
INTRODUCTION:
In the movie, the Polar Express, the “Ticket” is essential to ride to the North Pole. It’s important enough that when hero-boy finds that the girl has misplaced her ticket he hides hers in his shoe, but as you’ll see, he almost loses it.
The Ticket - Clip - 1:15
Ever had that kind of day? An “oh no!” day? Maybe you feel your life slipping, unable to find stable tracks or the maybe you feel that no matter how many “louies” you hang or how many “richies” you throw, the things you prize most are slipping away. Well, God wants you to know this morning that you never have to worry about a spiritual “oh no!” day with Him. You see, God had you in mind from the beginning of time and has taken care of everything you need to ride aboard his train. No, His train doesn’t go to a mythical place, like the North Pole, but to a very real place: heaven. And never is His care, His provision seen more clearly then in how God planned that first Christmas.
Gal. 4:4 says- "When the right time came, God sent his son into the world..." Please understand, Christmas was not a last minute brainstorm by the Creator, some hectic attempt to rescue man. As we learned last week, God had prepared to reconcile man to Himself even before man sinned. Rev. 13:8 talks about the Book of Life being opened at the end of time and says- "That book belongs to the Lamb who was slaughtered before the creation of the world." And although I don’t fully understand it, the Bible teaches, that God knew, even before He created man, exactly what was going to happen and so planned, from the beginning of time, to send forth His Son as a Redeemer, that is, to buy us back from sin. And every detail was prearranged, every circumstance was perfect, every event happened right on cue.
Last week we saw our need for Christmas, that we needed to climb aboard God’s grace train because we are sinners and the real meaning of Christmas is that Jesus came to save us from our sin. This morning I’d like us to consider the details of God’s plan for Christmas. I believe that when we truly understand how God planned that first Christmas, we’ll not only comprehend how we can secure our ticket to heaven, but we’ll better appreciate God’s love for us all through the year and won’t miss the real reason for the season.
I. PREDICTING IT THROUGH PROPHECY: vs:4b
God prepared for Christmas, first, by predicting it through prophecy. God had predicted, for hundreds of years, exactly what was going to happen. He used prophecy to prepare man and also prove His identity. Now the world tries to predict the future. But people aren’t able to perfectly predict what is going to happen tomorrow, let alone for centuries to come. Meteorologist have all kinds of sophisticated instruments but they cannot exactly predict what is going to happen with the weather. That’s never truer than when you live here in Colorado is it? It’s often said, “The only thing predictable Colorado weather is you can’t predict it!” The expert odds makers in Las Vegas analyze almost every athletic contest, they predict the winner & even the point spread. They are very skillful but seldom are they exact and sometimes they’re way off base. After all, some of them predicted the Bronco’s would win the AFC West and the Chargers would finish last. So much for that prediction.
So whether it is meteorologists, odds makers, or psychics, they are all imperfect when it comes to predicting the future. But God’s predictions are always without flaw, always right on target, always perfect! Because only God knows and holds the future. And He proved His Word and authenticated His Son by predicting details about the birth and life of Jesus, hundreds of years in advance that all came true. We discovered last week that the first prophecy of the coming of Christ was actually at the beginning of time in Gen.3:15. The first prediction of Christmas was when God said to the serpent, "The seed of the woman will crush your head.. You will strike his heel."(NIV) In other words, Satan was going to have a temporary victory over a descendant of Eve, which was Jesus.. striking His heel at the cross. But Jesus would have the ultimate victory, the one that would crush the head of Satan, defeating everything the devil had done by dying on the cross and then raising from the dead. An interesting thing about that prophecy is that it speaks about the seed of the woman. Most of the time when the Bible speaks about a seed, in terms of offspring, it refers to the seed of the man. But in this prophecy it only speaks of the seed of the woman. Why? Well, that was a prediction that this particular offspring would be born of a virgin, He would have no earthly father but be conceived by the Spirit.
I want us to spend just a few moments looking at some of these detailed prophecies about the birth of Jesus that were made centuries before He was born in Bethlehem. Even the world agrees that these prophecies have been found in manuscripts that are proven to be written 100’s of years before Jesus’ arrival; i.e. these prophecies weren’t inserted later to make Him look good. Micah 5:2 predicts Jesus’ birthplace, "O Bethlehem.. you are but a small Judean village, yet you will be the birthplace of my King who is alive from everlasting ages past!"(LB) Matt. 2:6 tells us that Bethlehem was where He was born. Isa. 7:14, prophesied 100’s of years before the Lord’s birth that a virgin would give birth to a son and they would call Him Emmanuel, which means “God with us.” Matt. 1:3 tells us that Jesus was conceived in Mary through the Holy Spirit giving us the fulfillment of both His type of birth and His name. Jeremiah 31:15 predicts that there would be a cry of anguish out of Ramah, which is the region of Bethlehem, because of a massacre of infants. Then 100’s of years later, Matt. 2:16 tells us that Herod gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem & the vicinity and vs:17-18 tells us that, "What was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled."(NIV) Hosea 11:1 predicts that God would call His son out of Egypt. Matt. 2:14 reads, "Joseph obeyed. He got up, took the child and his mother under cover of darkness. They were out of town and well on their way by daylight. They lived in Egypt until Herod’s death. This Egyptian exile fulfilled what Hosea had preached: “I called my son out of Egypt." (Message)
Added to all these prophesies about Jesus’ birth area myriad of predictions about His life. Isa. 53:3 forecast that the Messiah would be despised by His own people. Psa. 41:9- He would be betrayed by a trusted friend.. and he was by Judas, one of His disciples. Zech.11:13- gives the exact amount of the betrayal.. 30 pieces of silver. Isa. 50:6- says He would be spit upon. Isa. 53:12 that He would die with criminals. Psa. 22:16-18 predicted that His hands and feet would be pierced and that was 100’s of years before crucifixion was even invented as a method of execution! Isa. 53:9 that Jesus would be buried in a rich man’s tomb, Psa. 16:10 predicted the resurrection when it said that "You will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay."(NIV) It is amazing when you study these predictions about “Emmanuel” God with us.
Prophecies VIDEO CLIP 3:15
And how rare would it be to have all of these prophecies about “Emmanuel: God with us” fulfilled? Dr. Peter Stoner, Professor Emeritus of Science at Westmont College, wrote a book entitled Science Speaks, (Moody Press, 1969, P.109) in which he wrote about the law of "compound probability" in reference to just 8 of these prophecies about Jesus coming true. He said that the odds of one man accidently fulfilling 8 of these detailed prophecies is 1 in 10 to the 17th power. That’s 1 with 17 zero’s after it. In order for you to understand how incredible that number is in regards to fulfilled prophecy he gave this illustration. Let’s imagine you had that many silver dollars.. 1 in 10 to the 17th power. Those silver dollars would cover the entire land mass of Texas to a depth of 2 feet. Now, let’s suppose you took one of those silver dollars and marked with a red dot and then dropped it from an airplane. Then, you thoroughly stirred up the entire mass. Now, you blind fold your mate or a friend and tell them they can go wherever they want in the state of Texas. But sometime they must stop, reach down in that two feet of silver dollars and try to pull up that one specific coin marked with the red dot. What are the odds that they are going to select the red dotted coin? Dr. Stoner wrote that those are the same odds of 8 of these prophesies being fulfilled in this detail by Jesus, & we’ve listed over 14 of them and there are at least 48 that came true!
You see, it was no fluke that Jesus’ arrival was when, where and how it was.. it was predicted accurately 100’s of years before. God perfectly planned Christmas by those predictions, which proved Jesus’ identity and demonstrated the power and the all knowing mind of God.
II. THROUGH THE OLD TESTAMENT: Gal. 4:5-7
God also prepared for Christmas through the O.T. In fact, the O.T. becomes a “provision ground” for the coming of Jesus. By that I mean that God provided several things through the O.T. that shows His planning for this event. God planned for Jesus’ birth by providing.. (1) The law. Gal. 4 says that "But when the right time came, God sent His Son into the world. A woman gave birth to him, and he came under the control of God’s laws." The law in the O.T. that we are most familiar with is the 10 commandments but in fact there are over 600 laws that God told His people, the Israelites, to obey. Now, it surprises some people to understand that the primary purpose of the law was not to perfect man but to prepare man. God did not give us the 10 commandments and the rest of the law to make us better.. He gave them to us so that we would recognize our sin and see our need for a Savior. Rom. 3:20- "No man can justify himself before God by a perfect performance of the Law’s demands - indeed it is the straight edge of the law that shows us how crooked we are." (Phillips) You see, when we compare ourselves to Hitler, or Madonna or Scott Peterson we can feel smugly righteous. But when we line ourselves up with the straight edge of the law we see that we are not all that good. The law makes us conscious of our sin. And no matter how we might brag on ourselves or how good we think others might be, the truth is: no one is perfect. Let me ask you a question. How many commandments do you have to break to break them all? 10? 614? No, 1.. James 2:10- "A person who follows all of God’s law but fails to obey even one command is guilty of breaking all the commands in that law."(NCV) Isa. 64:6- "“We are all infected and impure with sin. Even when we do the best things, we find they are but filthy rags compared to God’s holiness.”(GN) You see, the worst thing that can happen to us is for us to think we are good because we don’t think we need God. But the law prepares us for Christmas in that it makes us realize how sinful we are and that we need a Savior. The angel said, "You shall call his name Jesus, for he shall.. What? Save his people from their sin." (NIV)
(2) God provided through the O.T. in preparation for Christmas was a system of sacrifice. All of us learned in school about Pavlov’s dogs.. When they heard a bell they would be fed and after a while they would be salivating and ready whenever they heard that bell to eat, because they knew, through repetition the bell meant “chow-time.” Now, just like with animals, repetition is a powerful learning tool for us. And God used that by establishing a system of sacrifice in the O.T. The people of Israel, each year had to sacrifice a lamb in order to roll back their sin. Their sin wasn’t forgiven, just rolled back one year. They had to kill a lamb the next year and next - to keep rolling back their sin. So God gave this system of sacrifice to condition man to understand some basics about salvation; and by repeating these sacrifices, year in and year out eventually the lesson God was trying to teach got through man’s thick skull. It was that "sin means death." (Repeat) And the Bible says, "without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins."(Heb. 9:22 - NLT) (repeat) And after years of repetition it was time for the Lamb of God to come who would be the ultimate sacrifice, shedding His blood on the cross. So, the O.T. system of sacrifice was an object lesson of the sacrifice that Jesus would make for us. Vs:5 tells us that Jesus came “..to pay for the freedom of those who were controlled by these laws so that we would be adopted as his children.” You see, Christmas reminds us that we have been freed from the penalty of not being able to live up to the law’s requirements.
And God gave a type of that ultimate sacrifice in the O.T. through the incident of Isaac in Gen. 22. A “type” is an illustration of something yet to come. A Godly man Abraham was promised a son by God. Yet Abraham and Sarah were too old to have children but miraculously God gave Abraham and Sarah a son named Isaac. Jesus’ birth was miraculous too. One day God told Abraham to take Isaac and sacrifice him on Mt. Moriah. When they got there Isaac carried the wood for the sacrifice up the mountain. Jesus would carry the wooden cross up Mt. Calvary. Isaac was bound and laid on the altar. Jesus was bound, fastened with nails to the cross. Abraham raised his hand to plunge the knife into Isaac. The Roman soldiers raised their hands to drive the nails in Jesus’ hands and feet. But God stopped Abraham and provided a ram for a substitute. But there was no ram to be the substitute for the Son of God. You see God was using people like Isaac and Abraham to show us that one day He would send His Son, and we would see how perfectly God had planned Christmas.
III. THROUGH WORLD CONDITIONS IN THAT DAY: 4a
So, there was prophecy, there were laws, there were sacrifices, and there were types.. but God’s detailed planning for Christmas is also seen in the precise preparation of the world’s conditions of that day. "But when the right time came.." Anytime you are going to give a very special gift you try to give it in the right timing. When I gave my wife her engagement ring I had everything thought out. I invited her to a special banquet and flew her up to Atlanta to go with me to that special occasion. Then after, I took her to Stone Mountain Park and we went to a place that was out on the water, quiet, dimly lit, romantic... and there, under the stars.. I asked her to marry me & gave her the ring, just the right setting. Don’t you think if a knucklehead like me could pull that off that God could too? When He planned the event of Christmas, giving the best gift of all, everything was right.
It was the right time culturally. Alexander the Great had conquered the world. Alexander was followed by the Greeks.. artists, philosophers, athletes that permeated the whole known world and when Jesus was born almost everybody spoke and understood Greek.. what better time to communicate the gospel!
It was the right time politically. We read at the birth of Jesus.. "Caesar Augustus issued a decree.." (Lk. 2:1 NIV) The Romans ruled the world. The Roman empire was held together by an effective network of roads and trade. The Roman soldiers guarded the peace. Jesus was born at the time of history called "Pax Romana," a time of world peace. So missionaries like Paul were free to travel from one country to another without restriction to tell the Good News that Jesus had come.
It was also just the right time spiritually. For 2000 years God had been training the Jewish people about the basics of the faith. They knew that there was one God not a multiplicity of gods. They knew that God was a Spirit not one made with hands. They knew that Jesus, the Messiah was coming. And God had been silent for 400 years between the last prophet and the time of Jesus’ birth. There was a spiritual void.. people everywhere were looking for answers. No wonder when a star appeared in the East, men from afar said, "Something special is happening. Let’s go see what it is." The time had come. Jesus was born at a unique moment in history.. when the Roman peace, the Greek culture, and the Jewish religion all merged into one.. and the fullness of time had come.
In Act 8 there is a story of a man from Ethiopia that becomes a Christian that I think shows us how all this worked together. He had become Jew by religion, believing in the One True God. He had traveled on Roman roads all the way to worship in Jerusalem. While there he heard about Jesus, probably in the common Greek language. On the way home he was reading Scripture & Philip, a Jewish Christian, came and talked to him, once again Greek would of been known by both. And the Bible says that as they traveled they saw some water and the Ethiopian said, "Look, there’s some water! Why can’t I be baptized?" (Acts 8:36 NLT) They stopped the chariot and this Ethiopian surrendered his life to the Lord. The Jewish religion had influenced him, the Romans roads had provided ease of travel and the Greek language enabled them to communicate, so that the gospel could be spread. Oh, don’t you see... Jesus came, not as an accident but as an appointment. Rom. 5:6- "When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners."(NLT) God didn’t put a hasty plan together to save us, He planned from the beginning of time to send Jesus to offer us salvation. And all we need do is accept that offer.
Robert Zemeckis, not only directed The Polar Express but helped write the screenplay. He said, “This is a story everyone can relate to. So many of us, as children or adults, have questioned our belief in something or gone through the process of having our faith tested and restored. Kids can take the story literally as a journey to find Santa Claus, while older readers understand it as a metaphor for much bigger ideas. It deals with the symbols of Christmas but at its core is a universal story about belief in things you don’t completely see or understand.”
CLIP - Things you cannot see - 1:01
The conductor is right.. The most important things in the world are the things you cannot see. The most important of those happened over 2000 years ago in the small village of Bethlehem and culminated on a cross in Jerusalem. And when that Babe of Bethlehem became the Christ of Calvary He also became our “ticket.” Not to the North Pole but, at the end of our life’s journey, to a place of perfection. You see, our ultimate ticket is not a paper of gold but is the person of God - Jesus Christ.
God planned, planned mind you, the gift of Jesus, just for you. "But when the right time came, God sent His Son into the world. God sent him to pay for the freedom of those who were controlled by the law so that we could be adopted as His children." And all you have to do to take full advantage of that gift is to “grab your ticket” by submitting your life to Jesus, trusting Him and believe. Because the most important thing in this world is the Person you cannot see.
{All Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, God’s Word translation unless otherwise noted.}
