Preached Christmas Sunday, December 19, 2010
Theme: If the Christmas story is taken as literally true, then certain, life-transforming conclusions must logically follow.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
Bethany Bible Church; Christmas Sunday; December 19, 2010
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
The Bible tells us that, before Jesus was born — and before Joseph and Mary had come together in marriage — an angel came to Joseph and said,
“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.” So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us” (Matthew 1:20-23).
Traditionally on ‘Christmas Sunday’, we would spend our time studying a particular passage — such as this one — that tells us something of the Christmas story. But this morning, I ask that we do something a little different. Rather than focus in on a particular passage of Scripture, I ask that we explore a particular idea about all of them.
The idea that I propose we think about is this: the Bible’s story of the angel’s announcement regarding the Birth of Jesus is the report of a literal, historical event that actually occurred in the real-life, time/space material world.
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Now; to most of us here in church today, of course, that would be obvious and immediately accepted. But to many of our friends, family-members, neighbors and work-associates outside of church, it’s not so obvious or so readily accepted. In fact, the idea that the story of the birth of Christ — as the Bible presents it — should be thought of as a literal, historical, actual event is something that would seem very strange to the minds of many people today.
Many people today think of Christmas as a “wonderful” holiday. Even unbelieving people will tell you that they enjoy all the wonderful things that come with the Christmas season; the gift-giving, the food, the carols, the decorations, and the general spirit of good will. Some will even admit that they have very fond and sentimental feelings about the Christmas story. They would say that it’s “important”. But they wouldn’t necessarily say that it was actually “true” — not in the same sense, anyway, that we would say that other events that we see on the daily news are true events that happened in the real world. They would say that its “truth” is a personal matter-”If you want to believe it, then it’s true for you; but it isn’t true for me.”
But the idea I’m proposing for consideration this morning is that the Bible simply will not allow anyone to treat the Christmas story that way! It presents the things it tells us about the birth of Jesus as a literal, historical event that deserves the same sort of acceptance as we would give to other events that we recognize as true in the realm of everyday ‘real life’. The Bible presents it as absolutely true for you, and absolutely true for me, and absolutely true for everyone on earth — whether they accept it as true or not. And that is an idea that, from the standpoint of many people in this world, is very radical indeed!
Think with me for a moment about what the Bible says that the main proposition of the Christmas story is. It’s that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14a). The “Word” is described, in the first three verses of John’s Gospel, as a Person who was eternally with God and who was Himself God. And the Bible doesn’t treat the Christmas story as something that can be isolated from the rest of the amazing things it teaches us about this Person who is called “the Word”. The Christmas story is a part of the whole story of “the Word”. Jesus’ birth means nothing less than that the Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity, willingly left His heavenly glory, was conceived in the womb of the virgin Mary, was born into the human family as “God with us”, lived a sinless life, was crucified, and was raised from the dead three days later.
And this whole, complete story — the story of the Son of God’s incarnation into the human family, along with everything else it tells us that He did on this earth — is not presented to us as a fable, or as a myth, or as mere symbolism; but rather as a literal, historical, actual event in the material world that could have been observed and experienced and verified. John went on to say of himself and the other apostles, “and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14b); and you simply can’t “behold” something, in the sense that John meant it, if it isn’t actually real.
The apostles, who were the earliest witnesses to the life and teaching of Jesus, treated everything they said about Him — including the story of His birth into this world as the Son of God in human flesh — as a literal, historical fact that was as true as anything else we would experience in the material world. Peter, for example, once wrote;
For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty (2 Peter 1:16).
The apostle John puts it about as plainly as it can be put when he wrote;
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life — the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us — that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1:1-3).
John even draws what you might call “a line in the sand”, in his claim for truth concerning the story of Jesus’ birth, when he writes, “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God” (1 John 4:2-3). And he draws it even more clearly when he says, “Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?” (1 John 2:22).
So; the idea that I propose we expand upon this morning with respect to the amazing portion of the Christmas story that I just read to you a moment ago — and with respect to every other portion of the Christmas story that we find in the pages of Scripture — is this: the Bible’s story of Christmas is nothing less than the report of an actual, literal, historical event.
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Now; once we embrace that idea — once we allow the Christmas story to be the sort of actual, ‘real-life’, literal, historically true event in the real world that the Bible presents it to be — then certain rather revolutionary conclusions must logically follow. I suspect that the necessity of these conclusions is why so many intelligent unbelieving people prefer to keep Christ out of Christmas, or to insist that “it may be ‘true’ for you, but not ‘true’ for me”. If indeed it is “true” in the same way we take other things to be true, then certain things inescapably follow.
First, if we take the Christmas story to be literally true as the Bible presents it to us, then it follows that . . .
1. THE GOD OF THE BIBLE TRULY EXISTS.
Just think of what a remarkable thing that is! If the Christmas story is taken to be a true event in the real world — if the Son of God truly was born into the human family — then one of the greatest philosophical questions of the ages is automatically answered. The great debate is finally resolved! God exists — and He’s the God we find in the Bible! Christmas presents to us the wonderful truth we find expressed in John 1:18: “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”
And that’s consistent with the way the Bible treats the whole story of Jesus in relation to the evidence of the existence of God His Father. Do you remember the story of how the apostle Paul spoke to the people of Athens? Theirs was a pagan culture that worshiped so many gods, and had so many altars and temples erected to so many different deities, that they no longer knew who it was they were worshiping. The felt after Someone, and groped after Him through their idolatries; but they could not find Him. And Paul told them;
“Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:
TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.
Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:22-31).
Jesus’ resurrection could be treated by Paul as evidence that God truly is there; because it was presented as something that really happened in the time/space material world. And the same is true for the story of Christmas. Once the Christmas story is taken as truth, then God’s existence is no longer a question. God took the initiative to reveal Himself to us. The search is over! He has declared Himself to us by sending His Son Jesus Christ into the world!
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If the Christmas story is taken as truth, then another thing that follows is that . . .
2. OUR NEED FOR A SAVIOR IS VERY GREAT.
Once you accept it as a fact that God sent His eternally pre-existent Son to leave the splendor of heavenly glory, and to condescend to be born into the real world of human experience as one of us, you have to then ask why such a wondrous thing would have needed to be done. And the answer that the Bible gives is that it’s because we needed to be redeemed from our sins. We could not save ourselves, and God sent His own Son to be the Savior we need!
Before Jesus came, we were condemned by the holy standards of the law of God — a law that we could not obey, and that only succeeded in making sinners out of us. The Ten Commandments made sinners of us tens-of-thousands of times over! But as Paul says in Galatians 4:4-5;
Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons (Galatians 4:4-5).
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If we take the Christmas story to be true, then — in all honesty — it’s not a complement to us. It declares to us that our sin is so bad, and our helplessness to save ourselves so great, and our situation so desperate, that we needed a Savior. And that leads us to another thing that the event of Christmas — if fully accepted as a true event — also declares to us; that . . .
3. GOD TRULY LOVES US.
Our holy Creator God would have been just to leave us in our condition of sin and separation from Himself. But He didn’t do so. Instead, He did something about the situation that was very costly to Himself — something that would save us from our condition and to reconcile us to Himself. And the motive for doing so was love. This God who exists, and before whom we are sinners, is not a God who hates us and wishes to destroy us. The wonderful declaration of Christmas is that He is a God who deeply, actively, sacrificially loves us.
As it says in John 3:16-17;
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved (John 3:16-17).
Of all the pieces of good news we poor sinners can hear from Christmas, isn’t this the most wonderful of all? And the Bible presents it to us — not as a myth — but as very truth! We should be deeply grateful for that; because a myth wouldn’t be any kind of “good news” to us at all if our need for salvation was real.
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Here’s another great ‘declaration’ of Christmas. If the Christmas story is taken to be literally true, then it follows that . . .
4. THE SCRIPTURES TELL US THE TRUTH AND CAN BE TRUSTED.
The Scriptures as a whole — from beginning to end — are about Jesus Christ. The great theme of the Old Testament is that He would come into this world as the Seed of the woman; born of the offspring of Abraham, from the tribe of Judah, unto a virgin, in Bethlehem, to be the Savior of those who trusted in Him. And the great theme of the New Testament is that He was everything that the Old Testament promised He would be. If what the Bible tells us about His birth is not true, then neither could it be a true fulfillment of the Bible’s promises about Him; and neither could it be said that the Bible could be trusted.
Because of Christmas, the Scriptures have been confirmed to us; and we now can and should base our hopes for eternity on what they tell us! The apostle Peter once wrote about another event in the life of Jesus: His transfiguration on the mountain. Peter — who was an eyewitness to that amazing event — said;
For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain. And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts . . . (2 Peter 1:17-19).
The story the Bible tells us of the birth of Jesus — if absolutely true — then makes the whole Bible trustworthy as a revelation from God!
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If the Christmas story is literally true — if it is the report of something that actually happened in history — then there’s another very wonderful and very practical conclusion must follow; and that is that . . .
5. THERE IS NOW A SOLID BASIS FOR HOPE.
Hope is one of the most important of all human needs. People need to know that their existence isn’t pointless — that history is actually going somewhere, and that there’s something good ahead in the future. And if Christmas didn’t really happen in an actual, literal sense, then there’d be no solid, substantial basis for hope in this world. But if the Christmas story is the report of something that actually happened in this world, just as the Bible presents to be — if it’s really true that God stepped into the picture, and communicated Himself in love to us through the gift of His Son — then we have the basis of genuine hope in this dark and fallen world that transcends all the darkness and fallenness of this world.
Way back in Genesis 12:2-3 — when God made the promise to poor, hopeless old Abraham that he would have a son — He told him, “I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:2-3; emphasis added).
That promise — that in the body of childless Abraham was the blessing of all the families of the earth — was a promise that was ultimately fulfilled in the Christmas story! The blessing of all the families of the earth had come! The angel announced Jesus’ birth in these words,
“Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be for all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:29-32; emphasis added).
If the Christmas story is true, then it is truly global “good news”! It really is a declaration of universal “good tidings” for all people, of all nations, in all cultures, and in all ages! It’s good news for the fumbling and failing governments of this world; that a King has been born who will one day return to earth and make all things just and right. And it’s good news for all of us personally, who suffer and struggle in this world; that no matter what, each one of us who trusts in Him will have surely a place in His glorious kingdom!
Because the Son of God was born into this world, we have a solid basis for real hope! That alone is a reason for us to rejoice in the Christmas story!
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Now; if the Christmas story is taken to as the literally, historically true event that it’s presented in the Bible to be — if the unique Son of God truly was born into this world as one of us — then other conclusions must also logically follow from the truth of this story. And they are conclusions that, we have to say, are objectionable to the unbelieving world.
For example, if the Christmas story is true, then . . .
6. THE ALTERNATIVES TO IT ARE FALSE.
I’m careful not to say in this that there’s absolutely no truth whatsoever to be found in any other religions; because that simply isn’t the case. But there’s really not any way around it; if the Christmas story is absolutely true, then other religions have to be false to the degree that they set themselves up in opposition to it and as alternatives to faith in it.
As Christians, we should have respect for the rights of all people to believe as they wish. Nevertheless, we can’t be shy about it. We need to be bold in saying said that if the Christmas story is true, then the other religions or belief-systems cannot also be true that deny the fundamental affirmations of Christmas story about Jesus: that Jesus was the pre-existent, only begotten Son of God — the Creator of all — who took full human nature to Himself without ceasing to be God; that He was not a man who became God, but rather that He was God who became man! If the Christmas story is true, then other religions or belief systems cannot be true that deny the Triune nature of God; or that hold to a plurality of gods; or that teach that all things are God, or that we are ourselves are gods, or that that there is no God whatsoever. If the Christmas story is true, then other systems of philosophy cannot be true that say that God — if He exists — cannot be known or have any meaningful relationship with human beings.
The Christmas story is God’s own loud, unambiguous “NO!” to all those things!
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What’s more, it must be said that if the Christmas story is true, then . . .
7. EFFORTS TO SUPRESS IT ARE HOSTILE TOWARD HUMANITY.
I’m not talking here about the right of people to suppress the Christmas story in their own hearts if they wish. No one has to hear the story of Jesus or believe it if they don’t want to. Rather, I’m talking about people who not only don’t want to hear it, but who also want to make sure no one else does — who seek to suppress its proclamation to others, and to prevent others from believing it. To do that is to act in hostility toward humanity itself and to be, as Paul said elsewhere, “contrary to all men” (1 Thessalonians 2:15)!
Now; that may sound like a strong thing to say. But I’m simply taking seriously what the Bible itself tells us about the Christ who was born on Christmas. In John 1:4-5, we’re told that Jesus was “the life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness . . .” That is who has come into the world — if the Christmas story is true: Life — which is the light of men! And if that’s the case, then what human being has a right to deny God’s gift of the light to other human beings? This means that any government, any human institution, or any individual or group of individuals that works to silence the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ — who He is, how He was born, and what He came to do — is engaging in an act that is fundamentally hostile to their fellow human beings. They arrogantly seek to prevent other people from hearing of “the life” which is “the light of men”. In the words of our Lord, they “shut up the kingdom of heaven against men”; for they neither “go in” themselves, nor do they “allow those who are entering to go in” (Matthew 23:13).
Certainly, one of the practical implications of the Christmas story being true is that we must always fight to protect freedom of conscience, and the religious liberty of all. All people have the right to hear what the Bible tells us about Jesus Christ — and must have the freedom to either accept it or reject it for themselves. All people have the basic, fundamental “human right” — in the truest sense — to hear the Christmas story as the Bible tells it to us. No one has the right to deny this to others.
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That, of course, leads us to yet another conclusion we can draw from the Christmas story. If it is literally true, then . . .
8. THE WAY OF SALVATION IS NOW MADE PLAIN.
If it is the literal truth, then people no longer have to search around in the philosophic fog — groping along and feeling their way toward a relationship with God. They no longer need to seek the way to get God’s attention; or strive to appease His wrath with good works, or rituals, or religious ceremonies. Life has come, which is “the light of men”.
If the Christmas story is true, then it’s no longer a matter of sinful man trying to reach out and find God. Rather, God has lovingly and mercifully reached down and found sinful man. He Himself has said this about Christ that was born on Christmas: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” (Matthew 17:5). Jesus Himself has said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). He has promised, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37).
Praise God! Because of Christmas, the “way” is now made clear!
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And this leaves us with one more conclusion we must draw from the Christmas story. If it is the report of an actual, literal, historical event that happened in the real, material world — and the way is now made clear — then it logically follows that . . .
9. WE MUST PERSONALLY RESPOND TO IT.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us — and that is an event that changes everything! It is the most pivotal event in all of human history! To walk away from it, and to ignore such a monumental thing as the Son of God being born into the human family as our Savior — if it is indeed true that it actually happened — would be an unspeakably tragic thing to do. The only logical response to such a marvelous event is to fully believe Jesus as one’s Savior and Lord.
People once asked this very same Jesus what they should do to do the works of God. And He answered by telling them,
“This is the work of God, that you believe in Him who He sent” (John 6:29).
I personally respond by placing — and keeping — my faith in Him. Given my conviction that the story of Christmas is the report of something that truly happened, what else can I do? And in doing so, I find that He wonderfully proves Himself to me over and over.
“The Word” truly has “became flesh and dwelt among us”. I hope you will believe on Him too.
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