He is a Divine Miracle
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L uke 1:26-38
Silent night, holy night!
All is calm, all is bright.
Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child.
Holy infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace
Silent night, holy night!
Shepherds quake at the sight.
Glories stream from heaven afar
Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia,
Christ the Savior is born!
Christ the Savior is born
Silent night, holy night!
Son of God love's pure light.
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus Lord, at Thy birth
Jesus Lord, at Thy birth
Obviously, those are the lyrics to “silent night”
A song that will echo all years for all of eternity...
The night that heaven touched earth with the coming of God in the flesh..
Immanuel, God with us!
700 years before this night, the Prophet Isaiah spoke..
14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
On this night a young virgin gave birth to a perfect baby boy...
But how can this be?
Biologically it doesn’t make any sense..baby’s don’t just come out of no where....
Joseph probably had the same question...
Matthew tells us...
18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet 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.”
How does this happen?
For what is impossible with man is possible with God...
The Holy Spirit came upon Mary....
The birth conception of Jesus is a divine miracle...
If you want to disprove christianity, there are two key things that you can disprove in order to make the whole religion fall..
The resurrection - if you can prove that Jesus did not raise from the grave, then Jesus doesn’t have the power of death…this makes the whole faith fail...
Disprove the miraculous conception. If Jesus was born of two people, then he is not divine…if He is not divine, then christianity would ultimately fail....
The divinity of Jesus is something that is quite fascinating..
And, because of it, there is some interesting facts:
1. He Is the Power of God in the Flesh
1. He Is the Power of God in the Flesh
Jesus does nothing apart from the Father...
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
Jesus says nothing apart from the Father...
28 So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.
Jesus makes no judgements (conclusions) apart from the Father...
30 By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.
And in....
30 I and the Father are one.”
So Jesus and the Father are one, He says nothing apart from the Father, does nothing apart from the Father, and makes no judgements apart from the Father....
This is the reason that everything that Jesus says and does has immense power behind it!
In Matthew 28 Jesus says:
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Jesus embodied all the power and authority of God...
And this is really really important because Jesus is still alive! He is still active and working in this world!
His divinity is what enabled Him to work the miracles that He did.
Let’s just recall really quickly some of the miracles of Jesus:
Turned the water into wine
Miraculous catch of fish
Coin in fishes mouth
Fed 5000 people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish
Calmed the wind and waves with His voice
Healed the blind, mute, disabled
Cast out demons
Raised the dead
This is the power of God!
Immanuel - God with us!
The hope found in the divinity of Jesus didn’t just end when Jesus ascended....
So, the second fact about Christ’s divinity is:
2. We have His Divine Power Inside of Us
2. We have His Divine Power Inside of Us
15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.
4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
This was the first major outpouring of the Holy Spirit....
Since then, the Holy Spirit indwells a person when they confess their sins, repent of them, and turn towards God...
38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
So, we receive the Holy Spirit when we are saved....and now, we have the divine power of God living inside of us!
19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;
16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?
Because God is inside of us, we are walking shells of the power of God!
Now, to be clear, we are not divine, but we have divine power inside of us!
4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
Think about this for a second…the power that rose Jesus from the gave, lives inside of us!
Mark records Jesus’ last words to the disciples in this way
15 He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues;
18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”
Now I’m not going to spend too much time diving into each of these things…but wanted to make the point that we have the divinity of God living in us!
Because of this, we have supernatural power within us...
But, how many of us walk around like everyone else in the world?
Jesus started as divine, walked as divine, and now, by His Spirit, lives in us as divine...
On Christmas eve we will dive more into intimacy with Christ and what that looks like, but for now, begin thinking about this power inside of you!
As we respond this morning, if you do not have the power of God inside of you because you are not in right relationship with Him, I want to give you a chance to receive His gift of salvation.