Why Christmas?

[00:00:01] Hello and welcome to Tal Paul's preaching. [00:00:04] Episode 11 closes out the year of 2018 with a sermon titled why Christmas. [00:00:12] Episode 11 was recorded on December 9, 2018 and the main texts are Isaiah 7, Isaiah chapter 9, Matthew chapter 1, and the radio legend Paul Harvey's Christmas birds from from 1965. [00:00:33] Let's bow our hearts in prayer. [00:00:35] Heavenly Father, you love us. You love us so much you sent your only son. [00:00:43] And Lord, we, we're human and we get colds and we get sick and we don't feel great all the time. And so Lord, we just pray for your mercy, Lord, upon us, that those colds would go right past us and we wouldn't get sick. And those who are sick, that we would recover quickly, very quickly, Lord, and you would heal us. [00:01:10] We know you love us and we thank you for all that you do. [00:01:15] And Lord, just open our ears this morning and open our hearts and may what you want us to hear, Lord, may that take root in our hearts. Lord, we just want to honor you this morning in Jesus name, Amen. [00:01:34] Well, the Christmas season is definitely upon us and today we're going to explore why Christmas. Today we obviously we celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus the Christ on December 25, even though that is most likely not the day, the actual day of our Savior's birth. [00:02:01] Some people put it in September, some in. I mean there's all different dates and speculation on when Jesus was actually born. But we have picked 25th December as our birthday celebration for Jesus. [00:02:19] Even those who call it winter Festivus or holiday or Xmas or whatever they call it, deep down inside they know the true meaning of Christmas. [00:02:34] And Christmas is not just a single day, a birthday, it's an entire season of celebration. [00:02:44] From the day after Thanksgiving, we start our preparations for the Christmas celebration. And I noticed this year that Walmart started even earlier than that. They started back in October. [00:03:00] But it's not just a single day holiday or even a three day weekend like Memorial Day or Labor Day or Independence Day. [00:03:12] More than any other holiday, including Thanksgiving and Easter, Christmas has become the biggest. [00:03:21] I mean you've got Christmas decorations, Christmas parties, Christmas bonuses, and even though they don't call them Christmas programs in schools anymore, we still have those holidays or winter programs at schools. [00:03:41] We have Christmas cards and special Christmas music, even all for Christmas. [00:03:50] I don't remember that Thanksgiving song. But I mean people have boxes and boxes of Christmas stuff, just special Christmas stuff. [00:04:04] I mean when you think about it, Christmas, the birth of our Lord divided time in half. [00:04:13] So why is Christmas so big? [00:04:17] Why not Easter? [00:04:18] I mean, it's the resurrection of our Lord. It's the Passover celebration. [00:04:25] I mean, Jesus lives. [00:04:28] Awesome. [00:04:30] He's risen from the dead. He conquered sin and death. [00:04:35] Why isn't that as big a celebration? [00:04:40] I've noticed the Jews, that they don't celebrate births like we do. They don't celebrate birthdays or when was this prophet born, or the father Abraham or Moses. [00:04:53] They focus on where they're going to be buried. [00:04:57] This man was buried with the bones of his father. [00:05:01] And there's so much focus on purchasing a tomb that was important to the Jews. And it's the hope of the resurrection that signifies the hope of resurrection. [00:05:19] But I think the reason that Easter isn't bigger than Christmas is because it's a reminder of what we've lost. [00:05:28] The death of a loved one. [00:05:31] Sure, our loved one is in heaven with our Lord, but we're not. [00:05:38] Take Jesus for example. [00:05:40] He was crucified, dead and buried. And the third day he rose again to be at the right hand of the Father. [00:05:48] But boy, wouldn't it be nice to just sit with him face to face, get a hug from our Savior. [00:05:56] I think that's why Easter isn't as big as Christmas. [00:06:02] But why Christmas? I'll let you think about that for a little bit. [00:06:07] Christmas was certainly a long, long awaited occasion. [00:06:14] Not just for the Israelites, and not just for us, but for the entire host of heaven. [00:06:21] See, Christmas was planned from before time, before the world, before any human God knew our destiny. And he came up with a plan. [00:06:34] God first announced the plan way back at the fall of man, Adam and Eve, way back in Genesis, Genesis 3:15. [00:06:47] Now we all know the story. Eve fell. [00:06:52] And the Lord goes to Eve and says, what have you done? And Eve blames it on the serpent. [00:07:01] And this is God cursing the serpent in Genesis 3:15. And it says, I will put enmity, a battle opposition between you and the woman. [00:07:14] And between your seed and her seed. [00:07:18] It shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. [00:07:24] You see, there's this battle between your seed, all of the devils and demons of Satan and the woman's seed. Well, wait a minute. [00:07:36] The woman has eggs. [00:07:38] The man has the seed. [00:07:41] So what is going on there? [00:07:44] That as we are going to get to, is where the virgin birth came from. [00:07:50] See, God declared war on Satan and sin at this point. [00:07:56] And he declares it, meaning the Messiah. The woman's seed will bruise our head. In other words, Satan is going to be defeated. [00:08:07] But it says, you shall bruise his the Messiah's heel. [00:08:14] Jesus is going to go to the cross. [00:08:16] It is going to look like defeat, but he is going to take Satan's head. [00:08:24] But since then, since that declaration, Satan has tried to destroy and thwart God's plan. [00:08:35] You look at Cain, who slew Abel. You look at the degradation of human generations, why the flood was needed, from Abraham to Moses, enslaving all of the Israelites. [00:08:54] And that new Pharaoh wanted to kill all the firstborn of every male of the Israelites. [00:09:03] Then he focused his attack on David and David's seed. When God said that it was going to be the seed of David that was going to sit on the throne, Satan must have rejoiced when the son of David, Jeconiah, was so evil that God declared a blood curse, a line of David saying, no one of that seed shall ever sit on the throne and prosper. [00:09:34] Satan must have been so glad. [00:09:37] And God probably turned to his angels and said, watch this one. [00:09:43] Because that is why we need needed a virgin birth. [00:09:48] See, it's the woman's seed as the Savior. [00:09:52] And it was declared back In Isaiah, chapter 7, verses 10 through 14, as the declaration of the virgin birth. [00:10:03] Moreover, the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, ask a sign of the Lord your God. Ask it either in the depths or, or in the height above. [00:10:16] But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. Now Ahaz was being petulant basically, and didn't ask for a sign. And so Isaiah said, listen now. And instead of focusing just on Ahaz, he announces this to the house of David. [00:10:37] Listen now in verse 13, O House of David, is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God as well? [00:10:48] Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Ahaz, because you did not ask, I am going to give you a sign. [00:10:56] And it says, behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. [00:11:06] That is the Christmas story. [00:11:08] Immanuel means God with us. [00:11:12] God is going to come and be with us. [00:11:15] In fact, I am going to call it a Christmas quote. It is often quoted in Christmas cards and songs even. [00:11:25] And that is a little bit later. Isaiah, chapter nine, verses six and seven. [00:11:32] And it starts out in the very familiar. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. [00:11:41] And the government shall be upon his shoulder. And his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. [00:11:57] Of the increase of his government and peace. There shall be no end upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom, to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice. From henceforth, even forever. [00:12:13] The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. [00:12:18] And you'll notice it starts out unto us a child is born. And Mary had a child. [00:12:26] But it says unto us a son is given. And those are two completely different things. You see, Jesus the Son was always. [00:12:37] He wasn't created at the birth. He was always the Son. And the Son was given to us by God at that birth. [00:12:49] It was the long awaited appearance of the Savior of the world planned from before time. [00:12:58] And he is to rule and reign forever now. We did not expect him to die. Many at that time, even his disciples could not comprehend it. Why did Christ die? [00:13:14] We often fall into that trap of wanting to make God into our own image. We want God to do it our way. [00:13:23] And see, if I were God, I wouldn't have picked a lowly baby man form to come. [00:13:30] Why not come as a unicorn or a giant, a 50 foot giant? [00:13:37] Or how about a living fire breathing flying dragon? [00:13:44] God certainly could have, but that would not have been enough to redeem us. [00:13:51] We need a kinsman Redeemer to save us from our sins. We needed someone to fulfill the law, to be righteous and just. [00:14:03] That kinsman Redeemer, that Redeemer had to be human without sin, of the royal line of David. [00:14:12] Not only must it have been a human, but it must be able to perform the redemption Jesus was sent us. [00:14:22] And that Redeemer had to be willing according to the law. [00:14:26] And Jesus was willing to pay our price. [00:14:31] And according to the law, that Redeemer must assume all of the obligations. [00:14:36] And Jesus is still a man. He's a man forever. He came as God took on this man form and is still a man. [00:14:48] See, Jesus became a baby boy. [00:14:51] So vulnerable, so helpless. [00:14:56] He's not like other animals. You know, a porcupine can climb to the top of a tree right after birth. [00:15:03] There are horses and deer can. They can walk and they can run, you know, the day of their birth. But a human can't lift his head. [00:15:16] We can't grab onto anything. We can't support our weight. We can't even heat ourselves. We don't have a fur coat. [00:15:25] There's no way for us to get food without it being given to us. [00:15:31] And need. We mentioned the need for changing. [00:15:38] See, God needed us to take care of him. [00:15:43] God entrusted us with his son and that little baby. [00:15:48] This was a huge deal. [00:15:52] Only once in the entirety of the universe. [00:15:55] Was this going to happen? This birth, this Christmas event is going to take place now? I hope all of you remember Paul Harvey. [00:16:09] I grew up on radio. My dad would listen to the radio as he fed us breakfast in the morning. And. [00:16:16] And my dad was a great radio guy. And Paul Harvey was just. He had. I'm not going to do his story any justice at all because he just had a way of delivering things. [00:16:27] He's the guy, you know, the rest of the story. Now, that's the rest of the story. [00:16:32] And in this story, this Christmas bird story, he told it back in 1965, but I think this story just fits exactly with the theme of why Christmas. [00:16:50] It's a story of a man. He was a farmer, and he just didn't believe all the Christmas hoopla. [00:16:58] He didn't believe that God would come incarnate as a man. [00:17:05] You know, at this time, the churches all proclaim that virgin birth. And it just didn't make sense to him. [00:17:14] And he was just too honest of a guy to pretend. [00:17:18] He felt like a hypocrite. He just couldn't swallow the Jesus story. [00:17:24] And so he told his wife that, you know, I'm truly sorry, but I'm not going with you to church this Christmas Eve. [00:17:34] He said that he'd feel like a hypocrite and he would just rather stay home, but he would wait up for them. [00:17:43] So he stayed home and they went to the Christmas Eve service. And shortly after the family drove away in the car, the snow began to fall. So he went to the large living room window and was watching the flurries getting heavier and heavier. [00:18:03] Then he went to his fireside chair and he read his newspaper for a while. And while he was reading his. [00:18:10] His newspaper, he heard a thudding sound. [00:18:15] And then another, and then yet another. [00:18:21] And at first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his window. [00:18:28] So he goes to the front door and he looks out, trying to figure out what's going on, and he sees this flock of birds. [00:18:38] They were huddled out there miserably in the snow. [00:18:42] They had been caught in the storm. [00:18:45] And in desperate search for shelter, they tried to fly through his large landscaped window. [00:18:53] That is what had been making the sound. [00:18:57] Well, he couldn't just let those poor birds lie there, now, could he? [00:19:02] He didn't want them to freeze. And so he. He remembered the barn that his kids keep their pony in and figured that would provide them warm shelter. [00:19:16] All he would have to do is direct the birds into the shelter. So he quickly put on his coat and galoshes and tramped out into the deepening snow to the barn. And he opened the barn doors wide, and he turned on the light inside the barn so that the birds would see the way in. [00:19:37] But the birds did not go in. [00:19:41] So he figured that food would entice him. So he went back into the house and he got some bread, and he broke it up into crumbs, and he laid out the crumbs as a path to the barn. [00:19:53] But the birds ignored the food. [00:19:59] To his dismay, the birds continued to flop around helplessly in the snow. [00:20:06] He tried catching them, he could not. [00:20:11] He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around and waving his arms. [00:20:17] Instead, they just scattered in every direction. [00:20:22] Every direction except into the barn. [00:20:27] That's when he realized they were just too afraid of him. [00:20:33] They were scared. [00:20:34] And he reasoned, I'm a terrifying creature to these little birds. [00:20:39] I'm strange and terrifying. If only I could come up with some way to let them know that they can trust me, that I'm not trying to hurt them, but I'm trying to help them. [00:20:53] But how? [00:20:54] Any move he made tended to frighten and confuse them. [00:20:58] They just would not follow. [00:21:02] They would not be led or shooed because they feared him. And he thought to himself, if only I could be a bird right now. [00:21:14] If I could be a bird and mingle with them, I could speak their language and tell them to not be afraid, and then I could show them the way to the safety of that lighted, warm barn. [00:21:32] But I would have to be one of them, he reasoned, wouldn't I? [00:21:38] So that they could see, so that they could hear, that they would understand the way to safety. [00:21:49] And at that moment, the church bells began to ring. [00:21:54] And the sound reached his ears above the sound of the wind and the storm. [00:22:01] And he stood there, listening to the bells, listening to the bells announcing the glad tidings of Christmas. [00:22:10] And he sank to his knees in the snow. [00:22:16] See, that farmer was hit with the why of Christmas. [00:22:21] At that moment, the farmer saw it all from God's perspective, from God's point of view. [00:22:29] We are in danger. [00:22:33] We are lost and helpless, just as those little birds. [00:22:40] But God provided us with the means for shelter everlasting through Jesus Christ. [00:22:48] God has done all the work. [00:22:51] There is an open door to the light of salvation. We just have to believe and enter by faith. [00:23:02] Jesus became everyman, a man, a human. [00:23:07] Not just to communicate with us, but he experienced and overcame. [00:23:16] He redeemed what we had lost. [00:23:20] Jesus is and was for all, for everyone. [00:23:27] Anyone could go Visit him at his birthday, to worship, to congratulate, to honor. [00:23:36] The shepherds were given access. These shepherds, these low down on the totem pole job, dirty, unclean shepherds told where the birth of a king was. [00:23:53] The rich could go, anyone could go. The rich, they would have to watch their footing, watch where they step, and stoop down low to a manger. [00:24:04] But anyone, every man, could go to Jesus. [00:24:11] Jesus was born king, but he was normal. He wasn't privileged, he wasn't above, he wasn't born with a halo glowing. [00:24:23] He wasn't born in a castle as a king should be. The prince, the son of a king, with only those cleared servants having access. [00:24:34] He was not even born in a house where you could shut the door. [00:24:39] He was born in a manger which was open to all, from the little mice and the creatures and the donkeys and the cows to the magi and kings. [00:24:54] And it was such a great event that even the angels proclaimed just how great Christmas should be and is In Luke, chapter 2, verse 10, this is the angels proclaiming to those shepherds, fear not, for behold, I bring to you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. [00:25:27] We understand how awesome it was that God came down to us, met us here where we are. [00:25:35] Not as a superhero with awesome powers to wow and amaze us, to make us worship him in fear and trembling as God. [00:25:48] He came as one of us, to serve us. He came as a little helpless baby boy on that very first Christmas, with love. [00:26:04] We love him because he first loved us. [00:26:10] Christmas is the birth of love. [00:26:16] So that's why Christmas. [00:26:18] Christmas is hope. [00:26:22] Hope in a savior, hope in a life. [00:26:27] Christmas is that new life. We are born anew. Just as Jesus was born a helpless little baby. We are born as a helpless little Christian. [00:26:39] We need the Savior to walk. [00:26:42] Christmas is the recognition of God's love, of his gift of salvation to us by faith in Jesus Christ. [00:26:56] And Christmas is that celebration. [00:26:59] And just as it should be, it is the greatest of all. [00:27:07] Christmas is the greatest celebration. [00:27:12] See, if God would give his only begotten son to come to us as a little baby, so helpless, what more could God give? [00:27:26] There's nothing more God could give. There's nothing more God could do. [00:27:32] And what wouldn't God do if he was willing to give his only begotten son? [00:27:39] God would do everything and did do everything. [00:27:44] That's why Christmas is so awesome. [00:27:49] Let's pray. [00:27:51] Heavenly Father, your will and your plans are perfect. [00:27:59] Lord, you loved us before we even acknowledged you. While we're yet still sinners. Lord, you planned and made a way for us. [00:28:12] And that Christmas morning, a little baby boy born to grow up sinless, to take our place on that cross, Lord, to pay our penalty. [00:28:25] Lord, it just doesn't get any better than that. That we simply by grace, through faith and our belief in Jesus, the Son of God, that he died and rose again on the third day up there with you and making intercession for us every moment of every day. [00:28:46] Praise God. [00:28:48] Praise you, Lord, for what you have done. [00:28:52] And may we not forget that this Christmas, at the depths that you stooped to save us and the heights that you would go in your love for us, Lord, as we remember you this Christmas, we now want to bless you, Lord. Christmas time is a time time of giving. And as we give our offerings, Lord, would it bless your heart, Lord, and would you take the money and make great use of it, More than even we dream about, Lord, we love you and we thank you for that great gift. Jesus, your son. [00:29:37] In Jesus name we pray. [00:29:39] Amen. [00:29:42] Thank you for listening to this message. [00:29:45] We hope you enjoyed it. [00:29:47] Our prayer is that the message, in some way or another, helped in your walk with God and that your relationship with God was strengthened and grew more intimate. [00:30:00] If you would like to contact us with questions or comments, you can email us at the following. [00:30:08] That's [email protected] or me at R E D L E T T E R S Com. [00:30:21] Thank you.