h2>Sermon
Now, as you know, we’re in the midst of the annual celebration of the nativity of the most precious child ever born on this planet. Mankind awaited His birth not for just nine months but for thousands of years! But-unlike other children-we don’t celebrate what He did with His LIFE as much as we do what He accomplished by His DEATH. That may seem an odd way of looking at Christmas but we must remember that Jesus was born — God sent HIM into the world — for the express purpose of dying. I read a Christmas card a couple of years ago that said:
- If our greatest need was for information, God would have sent an educator.
- If our greatest need was for technology, God would have sent a scientist.
- If our greatest need was for pleasure, God would have sent an entertainer
- If our greatest need was for money, God would have sent an economist.
But since our greatest need is for forgiveness…God sent a Savior…a Redeemer.
Even the name they gave the Christ child pointed to His death….The name JESUS is “Yeshua” in Hebrew, often translated as “Joshua.” It means, “God saves.” “Jesus” was a common name in those days, just as MIKE or JOHN or JENNIFER would be today. Many boys were named Jesus.
But this Jesus wasn’t like the others; this Jesus would truly live up to His name. He would die as the Savior of the world.
Now of course Jesus’ life was important. He DID come to earth to reveal God to mankind….to teach truth….to fulfill the law….to offer His kingdom. He 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. You see, 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 could do it.
So, those soft little hands, fashioned by the Holy Spirit in Mary’s womb, were made so that nails might be driven through them. Those baby feet, pink and unable to walk, would one day walk up a dusty hill to be nailed to a cross. That sweet infant’s head with sparkling eyes and eager mouth was formed so that some day men might force a crown of thorns onto it. That tender body, warm and soft, wrapped in swaddling clothes, would one day be ripped open by a spear. Jesus WAS born to die…..for your sins and mine…and the sins of all mankind.
Hebrews 10:5-7 gives us a picture of the farewell that must have taken place in heaven on the first Christmas Eve as Jesus prepared to come to earth. It reads very much like a good-bye message in which Jesus says to the Father, “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You prepared for Me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings You were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am-I have come to do Your will Oh God.'” These verses give us a remarkable look into Jesus’ heart before His birth. They show that He knew He was entering the world to be the final and ultimate sacrifice for sin. His body had been divinely prepared by God specifically for that purpose.
So He was in essence “born crucified.”
Now, I’m not trying to put a damper on your Christmas spirit (far from it!) because even though His death was devised and carried out by men with evil intentions…it was in no sense a tragedy!
In fact, it represents the greatest victory over evil that has ever been achieved or ever will be!
And, on this last Sunday before Christmas, 1999, I want us to augment our celebration of Jesus’ birth by reminding ourselves of three things that our promised Redeemer achieved through His death.
1. First of all, He provided payment for our Sins.
Now, have you ever been in debt-I mean REALLY in debt? I’m not talking about the debt of buying a house for the first time. You know — when you can’t sleep for a few days because you just can’t stand owing someone that much money? You get over that feeling in a few weeks. I’m talking about debt so great that it is constantly on your mind. Your bills are so enormous that you don’t know how you’ll ever get in a position to pay them off. In fact you are behind on your payments. Bell Atlantic has turned off your phone and you fear Pepco will soon follow suit. You are about to go under — just one step away from bankruptcy. Well-imagine that feeling and multiply it an infinite number of times — and you begin to get a sense of our position before God due to our sin. Our debt to God is STAGGERING, for we are all sinners both by nature and by choice.
In his book, In The Grip of Grace, Max Lucado recalls the days when credit cards were imprinted by hand. I don’t know about you but I remember those days. I worked at Holiday Inn when I was in college and I remember a machine we had that we used for this purpose. You’d put the credit card in a special slot on one side and a carbon receipt slip on the other side and pull the two sides together and the machine would forcibly rub the card across the carbon paper leaving an imprint of the number. And when it did this you’d hear a distinctive “RACK-RACK” sound that tended to cause a painful expression on the face of the card holder. I confess, it was kind of fun to use this machine and watch the effect it had on the guest. Nowadays credit-card purchases aren’t nearly so dramatic. The magnetic strip is swiped silently through the slot or the numbers are entered on the keyboard.
No noise.
No drama.
No pain. Perhaps this is one reason we get ourselves into debt so easily at this time of year. Maybe we should bring back those “rack-rack” days when the purchase was announced for all to hear. You’d buy gas….RACK-RACK! You’d purchase some clothes….RACK-RACK! You’d pay for dinner….RACK-RACK! And if the RACK-RACK noise didn’t bother you, the statement at the end of the month would. Thirty days is ample time to rack up enough purchases to “rack” any budget.
And, you know, a LIFETIME is enough to “rack” up some major debt in heaven. You yell at your kids, RACK-RACK! You covet a friend’s car, RACK-RACK! You envy your neighbor’s success, RACK-RACK! You gossip about someone behind their back, RACK-RACK! You break a promise, RACK-RACK! You lose control, RACK-RACK! You entertain thoughts of lust in your mind, RACK-RACK! Your mind drifts while listening to this sermon, RACK-RACK!
We are born in a state of sin-hopelessly in debt from the start-and all our lives we sin and sin and sin and the more we sin, the deeper in debt we become. John R. W. Stott once said, “We human beings have both a unique dignity as creatures made in God’s image…and a unique depravity as sinners under His judgement. The former gives us hope; the latter places a limit on our expectations….this is ‘man,’ a strange bewildering paradox, dust of earth and breath of God, shame and glory.” But…the man, Jesus Christ, is the exception to Stott’s statement-there is no shame in Him, only glory. The Bible says three things about Christ: He KNEW now sin…He HAD no sin…He DID no sin. And since He was born without sin and lived without sinfulness, He incurred no debt. Because of this, He qualified to be the Lamb of God Who, through His death, could pay our sin debt and set us free. And that is exactly what happened. Hebrews 9:15 says, “Christ…died as a ransom to set us free from our sins.” It’s like the words in that popular praise chorus… “He paid a debt He did now owe. I owed a debt I could not pay.”
In the days when Jesus walked the earth, when a criminal was hung on the cross, his crime had to be publicly proclaimed. The list of transgressions was written on a placard and nailed above the dying man. You probably remember that Pontius Pilate did this when Jesus died. He put a notice above Christ’s head with the accusation, “JESUS THE NAZARENE, THE KING OF THE JEWS.” (John 19:19 ) But high above Pilate’s words, there was a cosmic placard on which our sins were listed. Though I wasn’t born yet, the sins that I would commit two thousand years later were recorded there. You see, God did not see Christ dying for His own crimes-He had of course committed none; No. Jesus died for your crimes and mine. He paid our penalty. As prophesied through the Isaiah, our Redeemer was “….pierced for OUR transgressions….He was crushed for OUR iniquities…” In dying on that cross He paid OUR sin debt.
Like you, I get many bills each month. I almost dread opening the mail box each day because there is always at least one there. I charge gas at EXXON or clothes at J. C. PENNEY and they send a bill. I write a check for the full amount and mail it back to them. And, unless I charge some more on their accounts I never hear from EXXON or J. C. PENNEY again. That’s the way it works. But I learned long ago that SHELL OIL COMPANY and EDDIE BAUER do things differently. If I pay my full debt and don’t charge anymore. They send me a statement a month later saying my balance is ZERO.
Now, I always forget that. I open the mail box and see the bills from SHELL or EDDIE BAUER laying there and I think, “how much do I owe them this month!?” But then I open the bill and it says, I owe them nothing…the debt has already been paid and I smile and walk back up the driveway to the house with a skip in my step! And one of the reasons that we rejoice at this time of year is because the only One capable of paying our sin debt, did so! When we confess our sin and ask His forgiveness, He wipes out our tab. In God’s eyes we then have a ZERO balance! And this leads us to the second basis of our celebration at this time of year because, through His death, Jesus also…
2. pioneered our salvation.
Hebrews 2:10 says, “It was fitting that God, for Whom and through Whom everything exists, should make the Author of their salvation perfect through suffering.” The phrase, “Author of salvation” of course refers to Christ and it means “leader,” or “trailblazer.” It alludes to to someone who starts something for others to follow. The word could refer to the founder of a city, or to the leader of a pioneer exploration like DANIEL BOONE or LEWIS and CLARK. It doesn’t refer to someone who stands at the rear and issues orders…or to someone who follows a path that has already been laid out.
So this verse says that Christ was the trailblazer, the initiator of our salvation. He paved the way for us to get to God…so that we could enjoy fellowship with our Heavenly Father. You see, due to sin, mankind was far removed from God with no route into His presence. Isaiah 59:8 says, “Your sins have separated you from your God. They have caused Him to turn His face away.”
Ron Mehl writes of an incomplete bridge span across the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon. When the bridge was built back in the mid-1960’s, it was designed to accommodate an east-running freeway, still on the drawing boards….which was to be known as The Mount Hood Freeway. But the freeway was never built. Even though land on the east side had been purchased and cleared for it’s path, Oregon voters opted for a light rail line instead and plans for the highway were scrapped. If you look carefully when you cross the bridge, you can see how it was built to accommodate a freeway lane veering off to the southeast. There’s a lane that juts out just a bit from the bridge structure, but then is cut off as though sliced by a giant knife. The “exit,” permanently blocked, now goes nowhere…except to the waters of the Willamette River far below.
You can still see Mount Hood in all its beauty, glistening like a jewel in the distance. In the evenings, the setting sun clothes it with a mantle of pink and gold. But you could never, never reach the high slopes of that mighty peak via the Mount Hood Freeway, because…the freeway doesn’t exist.
Now, that’s a picture of man’s relationship with God. We might understand that there is a God and even yearn to reach Him across an impossible distance. We might recognize His power and glory, His majesty and goodness, and desire with all our hearts to know Him and be with Him. But the distance is too great. The gulf is too wide. None of us can reach Him. None of us can see Him or be near Him….not on our own! The relationship that existed back in Eden was broken. The road was shattered. The exit ramp to God’s presence was cut off and ended in empty space. There was no way…until God in Jesus made one.
The writer of Hebrews called it “a new and living way opened for us.” (Hebrews 10:20 ) Peter bluntly warned his audience not to search for any other road. In Acts 4:12 he said, “Salvation is found in no one else….” And it is not….Jesus-the pioneer of our salvation-said, “I am the way, and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.” (John 14:6 )
Jesus paid our sin debt and that made Him the perfect “author of our salvation.” His death opened the path-blazed the trail wide-so that He could bring “many sons to glory.” He paved the way for us to have fellowship with God. And that is another feat worth celebrating!
And then, .the third thing Jesus accomplished with His death is this…
3. He crushed the works of our enemy…Satan…
Have you every had an enemy? Someone you were afraid of? Someone bigger than you? I remember bullies in school whom I avoided at all costs! Well, the best way to deal with bullies or enemies is to is to get a friend who is bigger than the bully to deal with them. Its in times like these that big brothers come in handy.
Well as Christians, Jesus is our “big brother” and through His death and resurrection He has more than taken care our enemy…Satan. He has crushed him — totally defeated him. God promised long ago that He would do this. In the Garden of Eden immediately after the sin of Adam and Eve, God said to Satan, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; HE WILL CRUSH YOUR HEAD.” (Genesis 3:15 ) And God has kept His promise…for that is exactly what our Redeemer-Jesus, the offspring of woman-has done. Hebrews 2:14 says, “Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death-that is, the devil-and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” I John 3:8 says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.”
So, one of the main purposes for the incarnation was so Christ could deliver a death blow to Satan.
Now, Satan’s great power is death. Think of him as the “paymaster” for the wages of sin. If he can keep a person living in sin until death, he’s got that person forever.
So, Someone had to conquer death to destroy Satan’s weapon, and that’s exactly what Jesus did. He came out of the grave, exploded the shackles of death and announced, “Because I live, you shall live also.” (John 14:19 ). All of Jesus’ life Satan attacked Him and tried to foil God’s plan. When Christ was born in Bethlehem, Satan’s first strategy was to kill Him. Wicked King Herod tried to carry out the diabolical deed. But Joseph and Mary took the baby to Egypt, and the plan was foiled. Since He could not kill the Christ, Satan tried to corrupt Him. But in the desert, Christ proved that He would not bow to satanic temptation. Jesus saw the cross itself as a struggle with Satan. In John 12 He predicted His death and then said, “Now judgement is upon this world; now the ruler of this world shall be cast out.” And God made no secret of Christ’s success in this struggle. Colossians 2:15 says, “When [Jesus] had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them.” Satan was disarmed…the Greek here means he was “stripped of His weapons.”
Now, this victory does not mean that Satan can no longer fight against us. He hates the children of God and does everything he can to thwart their furthering of the kingdom of God. Even though he has been defeated, he fights on. Think of it this way. God stripped King Saul of his title as king even though he was still allowed to harass King David for ten long years. And, although the forces who war against us had their authority removed at the cross, they continue to attack. They prefer to live in denial rather than face the humiliation of defeat. But make no doubt about it. Satan has been defeated. On the cross, our “Big Brother” whipped Him good. D. L. Moody once said, “My friends, you are no match for Satan, and when he wants to fight you just run to your elder Brother, Who is more than a match for all the devils in hell.”
Martin Luther spent ten months hiding from his persecutors in the Wartburg Castle in Germany.
There in a small room, no bigger than fifteen feet square, he anguished, often feeling the attacks of Satan. Tradition says that in that room he threw his inkwell at the devil. Maybe this is what he was referring to when he wrote in his TABLE TALKS, “I fought the devil with ink.” Surely it was his struggle with Satan within this castle that inspired him to write the following stanza from A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD:
“And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us, We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us. The prince of darkness grim-we tremble not for him; His rage we can endure, for lo! His doom is sure. One little word shall fell him.”
And what is that “little word.” It is the six-letter word, “Christ.” Christ properly understood, can fell him. The cross proved it.
18 – This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.
19 – Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20 – But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
21 – She will give birth to a Son, and you are to give Him the name JESUS, because He will save His people from their sins.”
22 – All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:
23 – “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a Son, and they will call Him IMMANUEL” -which means, “God with us.”
One of the most exciting events in the life of any family is the birth of a child. For nine months the future parents along with grandparents, uncles, aunts, and even cousins eagerly anticipate the little one’s arrival. They constantly check on the expectant mother as the months drag by. And they rejoice to hear things like: “I felt the baby move for the first time this morning!” “I’m having some weird cravings!” or, “We heard the heartbeat today!” And, when the big day finally DOES arrive….AT & T also rejoices because the long distance phone lines buzz with excitement as reports are passed around containing the weight, length, eye-color, hair color, and which family member he or she looks like. Then the US Postal service joins in the rejoicing as pictures are mailed to family and friends…and they rejoice even more as family and friends respond to their pictures of the little one by spending large amounts of money mailing presents back to the new parents. Having a baby is just about the most thrilling thing that can happen to a family — as many of you Adult One-ers have recently discovered!
And much of our excitement over the arrival of a little girl or boy stems from our anticipation over what this little one will accomplish with his or her life. We wonder things like: Will he grow up to be a doctor and discover a cure for cancer? Or a scientist and come up with some new fuel source? Maybe she’ll grow up to be a lawyer or enter politics-why she could be the first woman president! Will he be athletic like his dad and play pro-basketball? Will he become a teacher or college professor. He might even write a best-selling novel someday! Maybe she’ll become a CPA like her mom. Who knows she might even take Alan Greenspan’s job! Families spend a lot of time happily speculating over all that this little one will do with his or her LIFE.
As you travel along I-10 in Louisiana there is a large billboard which catches your eye. It stands high above the city just as you start up the Mississippi river bridge. On it is a picture of Jesus Christ hanging on the cross of Calvary, head bowed. The caption underneath says in bold letters, “IT’S YOUR MOVE!” What a powerful thought. God has already taken the initiative in salvation. Christ died for you. And through His death, He accomplished so much: He paid our sin debt, He pioneered our salvation, and He conquered our enemy, Satan. He has done His part. Now-its your move! I invite you to make your move today…accept the forgiveness and victory that Jesus’ death makes possible! Give your life to Christ. If you do, you will come to understand just what Christians mean when they wish one another a MERRY CHRISTMAS!