One of the things I struggle with lately is forgetfulness. I hate to admit it but it seems as if I have more and more “senior moments” these days. Some of this stems from the extra-busy-ness that comes from being understaffed here at RBC, something that I’m praying will change in the next couple months! But much of my failing memory is due to age. I can relate to the middle-aged woman who said that whenever she went down to the basement she was always preoccupied with the hereafter. When asked what she meant by that she said, “Whenever I go down there to get something, I can’t remember what I’m here after.”
Now, like you, I do several things to help me remember things.
- For example, I know that in the morning I’m kind of groggy and befuddled so I always make the coffee the night before. That way I’m sure to get the measurements right. In fact I set the timer so that when I wake up, that precious black liquid stimulant is done and all I have to do to get my brain going is pour it in a mug and drink it!
- I also have a pillbox with four compartments for each day of the week that helps me make sure to remember to take my medication at the right time.
- But my most important memory-jogging tool is my day-timer. It includes a calendar-based to-do list that I religiously maintain because I know that if something gets in my day-timer I almost never forget it.
Well, I don’t know if you realize it or not, but we have four great memory jogging tools right here in our sanctuary and I’m referring to our stained glass windows. Thanks to the generosity of several Redland families, we installed these windows about nine years ago as part of a much-needed sanctuary renovation, and they aren’t here just to make our worship place more beautiful, which they of course do. No, these four windows are also designed to help us remember important truth.
As I told you a few months back on Vision Sunday, I want us to take advantage of these memory tools this year to help us recall the basic elements of the Gospel message, the Good News that our Lord has commissioned us to share with a lost world. My plan is to do a sermon on each window as a way of prompting us to get more serious about personal evangelism. We’ll use these beautiful windows to jar our memories such that we will be better able to, “give an answer to everyone who asks us to give the reason for the hope that we have.”
- On April 8, Easter Sunday, we’ll look at the first window to my right and study Jesus’ resurrection.
- On April 1, Palm Sunday, we’ll look at the next one and study Jesus’ crucifixion.
- On March 25, we’ll look at His baptism.
- And today we begin by looking at His birth.
Take your Bibles and let’s turn to Luke 2 and read verses 1-20, that very familiar text that tells us about our Lord’s birth.
1 – In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.
2 – (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)
3 – And everyone went to his own town to register.
4 – So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.
5 – He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a Child.
6 – While they were there, the time came for the Baby to be born,
7 – and she gave birth to her Firstborn, a Son. She wrapped Him in cloths and placed Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
8 – There were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.
9 – An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
10 – But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
11 – Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord.
12 – This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
13 – Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14 – “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests.”
15 – When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
16 – So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the Baby, Who was lying in the manger.
17 – When they had seen Him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this Child,
18 – and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.
19 – But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
20 – The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
This is the Word of the Lord . Thanks be to God.
Now, what part of the gospel should this first window prompt us to remember? I want to suggest two things.
(1) First, this window serves to remind us of the way Jesus was born.
Whenever we look at it, we should recall the fact that unlike any other baby, our Savior, Jesus, the Christ, was born of a virgin, a female who had never had sexual union with a man. I believe that is the symbolism behind the halo that we see around Jesus’ head. Now of course, at other times God had brought children into the world in amazing ways. He created Adam without the channel of father or mother, forming Him from the dust of the ground. He made Eve from man’s rib. God miraculously brought children to the elderly, women like Sarah in the Old Testament and Elizabeth in the New, women who were decades past menopause. He also healed the wombs of barren women like Rebekah and Rachel enabling them to give birth. So the Bible teaches that making miraculous births possible is nothing new to God.
But the birth of Jesus was something absolutely unique, for He was born of a virgin. God had never done that before, nor has He done so since. Jesus’ conception came about through the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, using Mary as His vessel to accomplish God’s eternal plan. As David Jeremiah puts it, “[Jesus] is in no way a product of the natural union of a human father and mother. Instead He is the eternal person of the Lord Himself, the infinite One Who created the universe taking on the limited form of a human being.”
And please understand, God’s Word teaches the truth of this aspect of Jesus’ birth from the very beginning. Do you remember way back in the book of Genesis where it tells about the punishment Adam and Eve and the serpent received for disobeying God? In Genesis 3:15 God said to Satan: “I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her Seed .He will crush your head and you will strike His heel.” Every other time the Bible speaks of someone’s offspring as “seed,” it is referring to the male seed, or semen. Only here in Genesis 3 does Scripture ever speak of the seed of a woman, and that’s an indication of something special. This is the only time in history that a woman had a seed within her that did not originate from a human man so to call it “something special” is an understatement!
The last part of that verse in Genesis 3 tells us more about this seed of a woman, for it refers to the Cross when it says that Satan struck at Jesus’ “heel,” but it also refers to Jesus’ victorious resurrection where He “crushed Satan’s head”, that first Easter Sunday morning when He totally defeated him as we talked about last Sunday.
And Genesis 3 isn’t the only Old Testament text that speaks of Jesus’ virgin birth. Jeremiah 31:22 hints at it as well by saying, “The Lord has created a new thing in the earth, a woman will encompass a man.” The prophet Isaiah 7:14 clarifies this “woman encompassing a man” deal by saying, “A virgin shall conceive and bare a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which is translated, ‘God with us.'” The word we translate here in Isaiah as “virgin” is the Hebrew word “almah” and some liberal scholars say this does not refer to a virgin birth because this particular Hebrew word can mean either “virgin” or “young woman” depending on the context. Look at the context here in Isaiah 7. Verse 14 begins, “The Lord Himself will give you a sign: the ‘alma’ will be with child “ Now, would it be a special “sign” for a young woman to be with child? No, of course not. That happens all the time on this planet, which greatly pleases the manufacturers of Pampers. In this context we can see that Isaiah is saying the thing that will make this pregnancy something unparalleled, the thing that will make it a “sign” that God is up to something, is that a virgin would conceive! Plus, when Matthew’s gospel quotes this prophecy from Isaiah he uses the Greek word “parthenos,” a word that can only be translated as “virgin.”
Here are some additional texts that tell about this unique way Jesus was born. In both the genealogy in Luke and the one in Matthew it says that Jesus was born of a virgin. And the Apostle Paul also referred to the virgin birth in Galatians 4:4 where he said, “When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman.”
I like what ole W. A. Criswell said about this. Some one once asked,
“Dr. Criswell, if an unwed mother were to avow to you that her child was conceived by the Spirit without an earthly father, would you believer her?” Criswell replied, “Yes, if the birth of that child was foretold thousands of years before. Yes, if when the Child was born the angels sang and the star of promise stood over the place where the Infant lay. Yes, if when the Child were grown He had power over the wind and the waves over disease and death. Yes, if when He was slain, the third day He was raised from the dead. Yes, if when He ascended to heaven His disciples through the centuries were numbered by the millions and increasing millions.”
Now, why is it that a belief in the virgin birth of Jesus so important? Why have a window to remind us of this? What has this got to do with personal evangelism? Or, to put it a bit more boldly, why does the Gospel we are commissioned to proclaim hinge on this truth (because it does!)?
A. Well first, there is the principle of Biblical authority.
As I have shown this morning, God’s written Word very clearly states that Jesus was the Son of God, not man. That He was born of a virgin. It says it over and over and over again. So to deny this is to deny the authority of the Bible. And if we deny it’s authority at this point, we are likely to make the mistake of denying it at other pivotal points as well. All maturing Christians must be people of The Book. The Bible, not our fickle feelings, not our faulty experience, not our limited intellect, The Bible. God’s unchanging written Word is our sole source of authority in faith and life, so to deny something that it clearly teaches is both foolish and sinful.
B. A second reason the virgin birth is an important, even essential, belief is because of the doctrine of Christ.
You see, some teach that Jesus was Joseph’s or some other man’s physical son and that some time in His life, for example at His baptism, He “became” the Christ. They say that, at that moment God “adopted” Him as His Son. The virgin birth refutes this false teaching because it shows that there was never even a moment in the human life of Jesus Christ, going back to the very instant of His conception, when He was not God. Jesus was the God-man from the beginning, and as such was also sinless in thought, word, and deed from the beginning.
C. This leads to a third reason that belief in the virgin birth is so foundational to our faith. You see, it has an impact on another essential, the doctrine of salvation.
Had Jesus been conceived by natural means, with Joseph or anyone else as His father, He would not have been the Son of God and would not have been able to be the true Savior of sinners. Only someone perfect would be able to offer His life as a sacrifice for humanity. And God alone is holy and perfect so God alone can atone for man’s sin.
On the other hand God is a spirit and a spirit cannot die. The only possible solution then would be for God to become a man retaining His purity and perfection and only through the miracle of the virgin birth would this be possible. Only as God in the flesh would Jesus have had the power to say “No” to sin and be the spotless Lamb of God. So, to be our Savior, He had to be God! As someone once put it:
“Some say He was just a good teacher but good teachers don’t claim to be God. Some say He was merely a good example but good examples don’t mingle with prostitutes and sinners. Some say He was a madman but madmen don’t speak the way He spoke. Some say He was a crazed fanatic, but crazed fanatics don’t draw children to themselves or attract men of intellect like Paul or Luke to be their followers. Some say He was a religious phony but phonies don’t rise from the dead. Some say He was only a phantom but phantoms can’t give their flesh and blood to be crucified. Some say He was only a myth but myths don’t set the calendar for history.”
Jesus has been called the ideal man, an example of love, the highest model of religion, the foremost pattern of virtue, the greatest of all men, and the finest teacher who ever lived. All of those descriptions capture elements of His character, but they all fall short of the full truth. The apostle Thomas expressed it perfectly when he saw Jesus after the resurrection, and exclaimed, “My Lord and My God!” (John 20:28)
So you see, if we deny the virgin birth, we are denying that Jesus is God’s Son and in so doing we have denied the very essence of Christianity. Everything else the Bible teaches about Christ hinges on this truth we celebrate at Christmas, that Jesus is God in human flesh. And, for Jesus to be God, He must be born of God. Joseph a man, and Mary, a woman, cannot produce God. God cannot be born into this world by natural human processes. There’s no way He could be God apart from being conceived by God. As Oswald Chambers puts it, “Jesus was born into the world, but not from it.” So the Virgin Birth of the Christ is indeed a foundational truth. To throw it out as unnecessary is to reject Christ’s deity, the accuracy and authority of Scripture, and a host of other related doctrines that are the heart of our Christian faith.
And, by the way, Jesus Himself viewed the question of His parentage as a watershed issue. Matthew 22:41-46 records one of the last confrontations He had with the Pharisees. Listen as I read this conversation to you:
“While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, ‘What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?’ They said to Him, ‘The Son of David.’ He said to them [referring to Psalm 110,] ‘Then how does David in the Spirit call Him “Lord,” saying, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, until I put Thine enemies beneath thy feet.’ If David then calls Him “Lord,” how is He his son?” And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor did anyone dare from that day on to ask Him another question.”
So it is important to believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus. This is what makes Him the long awaited Messiah, the Savior of the world!
During one of his broadcasts Larry King was once asked, “If you had a chance to interview anybody throughout history, whom would you choose above all others?” He said he would choose Jesus Christ and he said he picked Jesus because he would like to ask Him this question: “Are you virgin born?” King explained by saying, “The positive answer to that question would explain history to me.” You see, even King, someone who is not a Christian, knows that if this great miracle was true, then Christ would have to be all He claimed to be, and Larry King is right.
Whenever you look at that first window, remember that! Remember the way Jesus was born!
(2) And then a second thing this window should help us recall is why Jesus was born.
Let’s review why.
A. First, Jesus was born to show us what God is really like.
You see, before the coming of Christ mankind struggled to understand and relate to God because He is infinitely above us. As God Himself said in Isaiah 55:8, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Remember? Moses couldn’t look at God’s face without dying, so God let him look at His back as He passed by. And even then Moses’ face glowed for days such that he had to wear a veil to avoid blinding the other Hebrews. But in Jesus, God became approachable and seeable and touchable. He became one of us. He came down to our level. And because He did, we could finally relate to Him and begin to fathom His love for us.
George Buttrick, former chaplain at Harvard writes that students would frequently come to his office and ask, “You’re the chaplain?” When he said he was they would then state emphatically, “I don’t believe in God!” Butrick would reply, “Sit down and tell me the kind of God you don’t believe in. I probably don’t believe in that God either.” And when they did, he would tell them about Jesus, and in so doing he would give them a correct comprehension of the nature of God. You see, Jesus is the visible expression of the invisible Deity. He is God expressing Himself in language that we can understand.
When our kids were little and they were learning their colors we bought them a children’s book to help. We used the same book on Daniel and then Sarah and then Rebecca.
- On one page it had all the things that were green: frogs, turtles, trees.
- On another page it had all the things that are red: apples, fire-trucks, barns.
- On another all the things that are blue: blueberries, bluebirds, the ocean, etc.
It was a great book for teaching our kids about abstract things like colors, because we could point at concrete things that were that color and help them to begin to understand. With this book we taught them what red was and what green was and what blue and grey and yellow and orange was, and all the colors of the rainbow. Now, let me say reverently but with great seriousness, that what a red apple is to redness what a green frog is to greenness what a blue berry is to blueness, the man Jesus is to God! Jesus is the concrete image through which God became tangible and understandable. As someone once put it, “At Bethlehem, Jesus became what we are so we could begin to understand what He is.”
You know, I love old movies. My favorite channels are TCM and AMC. A popular plot in classic films from yesteryear is the story of a famous actress or dancer who receives a dozen roses after her performance with a card signed, “secret admirer.” The tension of the plot lay in discovering who the secret admirer was. Finally he would reveal himself, and they would go out for dinner, fall in love, get married and in the good old days live happily ever after.
From the beginning of human history people who looked at the beauty of our world have been hungry to know, “Who is the ‘secret Admirer, this God Who made all this for me?” This was the heart cry of man, and God revealed Who He is and what He is like by sending His Son. As Hebrews 1:3 puts it, Jesus, “is the exact representation of God’s being.” If you’ve ever felt like God was far away and mysterious, if you have ever desired to know Him but didn’t know where to begin, then let me urge you to begin by looking at Jesus. Get a New Testament and read the gospels, especially the words that are printed in red, for they are Jesus’ own words. Examine Jesus and you will find God, the God Who has descended to your level, the Creator of the universe Who wants nothing more than to pursue a love relationship with you.
This leads me to remind you of a second reason Jesus was born.
B. He was born to die in our place.
You know, in maternity wards around the world, most parents dream about what their children will accomplish through their life, but not so with the Christ child. His greatest accomplishment would not be through His life but rather through His death. As John MacArthur says in his book, God With Us,
“Jesus’ life of course was important. He did come to earth to reveal God to mankind. He did come to teach truth, to fulfill the law, to offer His kingdom. Jesus came to show us how to live. He came to communicate God’s love; to bring peace; to heal the sick and minister to the needy. But all those reasons are secondary to His ultimate purpose. All those other things could have been done without His being born as a human. He could have simply appeared, like the angel of the Lord often did in the Old Testament, and accomplished everything in the above list, without literally becoming a man. The truth is there was no salvation in His birth nor did the sinless way He lived His life have any redemptive force of it’s own. His example, as flawless as it was, could not rescue men from their sins. Even His teaching, the greatest truth ever revealed to man, could not save us, because there was a price to be paid for our sins! Someone had to die. And only Jesus, as the sinless Son of God, could do it.”
MacArthur says it so well, doesn’t he? Jesus was born; He came to earth to die, for as 1st John 2:2 says, He is “the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins for the whole world.”
And this leads to one final reason Jesus came.
C. He came to change us.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone! The new has come!” When a man or woman or boy or girl prays claiming the forgiveness for sins that Jesus made possible on the cross, and invites Him into their lives as Lord, a change takes place. A “rebirth” takes place within as the spirit of Jesus takes up residence in our hearts and lives. When we become Christians, we become new people.
I’m reminded of the old story of a family from a remote area that was making their first visit to the big city. They checked into a grand hotel and stood in amazement at the impressive sight. Leaving the reception desk they came to the elevator entrance. They’d never seen an elevator before, and they just stared at it, unable to figure out what it was for. As they looked at that odd room, an old lady hobbled towards the elevator and went inside. The door closed. About a minute later, the door opened and out came a stunningly good-looking young woman. The father couldn’t stop staring. Without turning his head he patted his son’s arm and said, “Son, go get your mother.”
When we become Christians, Jesus changes us, but in a far better and more eternally significant way. As we give Him more and more control of our lives, He begins to deal with our nature our “bent” towards sinning. He makes us different. He deals with the damage sin has caused. In essence, He “fixes” us.
Missionary Allen Golding writes,
“When we were missionaries in the Philippines, we vacationed in Baguio City in the mountains of Northern Luzon. While there, we visited the St. Louis Silver School, where silversmiths are trained. We admired exquisite workmanship in the workshop and gift shop, and took home a souvenir a pure silver money clip embellished with a distinctive design. I carried that clip for the next 24 years. And day it finally broke as I slipped a few bills into it. I then took the two pieces of the money clip back to the silver school in Baguio. One workman, about my age, asked if he could help me. I explained my predicament and laid the pieces in his outstretched hand. After examining the pieces for a minute or so, he looked up at me and said, ‘I designed this clip. I was the only one to make this design. I made all of these that were ever made.” I asked, “can you fix it?” He said, “I designed it. I made it. Of course I can fix it!”
When we give our broken lives to Jesus, then as our Redeemer and Creator He begins to fix us such that gradually we conform to our original design as we begin to become more and more like Him. Author, pastor, and one time atheist Lee Strobel talks about this and writes:
“How can I tell you the difference God has made in my life? My daughter Allison, was 5-years-old when I became a follower of Jesus, and all she had known in those 5 years was a dad who was profane and angry. remember I came home one night and kicked a hole in the living-room wall just out of anger with life. I am ashamed to think of the times Allison hid in her room to get away from me. Five months after I gave my life to Jesus Christ, that little girl went to my wife and said, ‘Mommy, I want God to do for me what he’s done for Daddy.’ At age 5! What was she saying? She’d never studied the archaeological evidence regarding the truth of the Bible. All she knew was that her dad used to be this way: hard to live with. But more and more her dad was becoming different.And if that is what God does to people, then sign her up. At age 5 she gave her life to Jesus. God changed my family. He changed my world. He changed my eternity.”
Turn around and look at that window once again and as you do remember the way Jesus was born. Unlike any other human being, He was born of a virgin. As John 1:14 puts it, “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, Who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Look at that window and remember that only as the one and only Son of God could Jesus be our Savior. And then also remember why He came. He came to show us what God is really like; He came to die for our sins; He came to change us conform us to His image.
If you are here and you’re not a Christian, then my prayer is God will use our look at this first window, to help you see your need to become one. Pray right now, and tell God you are a flawed sinful human being in need of His forgiveness. Tell Him you believe that Jesus was His Son and that He died on the cross for your sins. Commit to give Him your life and then walk the aisle and tell us about your decision.
And, if you are a Christian I would remind you that as wonderful an evangelism tool as this window is, the most powerful evangelistic tool you have is your life. I hope you’ll make a commitment this morning to use your life in that way, I mean, decide to get more serious about doing your part to fulfill the Great Commission.
As we stand and sing, come forward and share any public decision God has laid on your heart.
Amen