Arrival

Good morning and welcome to CCC. What a joy and honor to be able to gather together to worship Jesus on His birthday!!!!!

This morning we are breaking away from our sermon series We Are The Church to look at the Arrival of Jesus

I thought and prayed long and hard about this message today. So many directions that one could go this morning. I felt God leading me in the direction we are headed this morning.

As soon as sin entered the world, actually even before, God had a redemptive plan. The arrival of Jesus put that plan into motion.

Our key or main verse this morning was uttered 700 years before Jesus…the plan was there waiting on the right moment....the right time…God’s perfect time 2022 years ago was that right time

I love Christmas

I Love Jesus

I love celebrating Jesus birthday every year

I love nativity scenes

I love worship songs about Jesus’ birth

i Love Christmas eve communion that we enjoyed together last night

But Christmas....the arrival of Jesus is about so much more than all of that....

God with us

Savior

Redeemer

Deliverer

Let’s Pray

START OBS

This morning I want to look to Isaiah prophesying 700 years before Jesus of just how Jesus’ arrival would talk place and what impact it would have on the world

Isaiah 9:6

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6  For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:And the government shall be upon his shoulder:And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God,The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

I feel lead to explore some concepts that I draw from this verse and Jesus coming to the earth 2022 years ago today

First

Jesus was fully human

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For unto us a child is born…unto us a son is given

Luke 1:26-35

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26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” 29 But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. 30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”35 And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God

Vs 31 you will conceive in your womb, and bear a son....Physical fleshly baby

Jesus was real

Jesus was flesh and bone

Luke 2:1-7

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“In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”

the time came for her to give birth and she gave birth to her first born and wrapped him in swaddling cloths

She gave birth and treated Jesus just like they treated any child born in that day....wrapped him in swaddling cloths.

Physical birth

natural birth

Baby boy born to Mary in a barn

Why is that important? Why make a point of Jesus being fully human?

Because the enemy has many believing, maybe even you, that no one knows what you are going through

No one can understand you and your struggles

No one can relate to you

The feelings you have are yours alone, no one else has or will have them

You may feel alone and doomed

That is all false.

Scripture destroys that lie in many ways

I want to look at two here this morning

1st Jesus was fully human…we have seen that in scripture this morning. On the cross He took…bore our sins

Hebrews 9:28

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“so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”

I Peter 2:24

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“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”

offered once to bear the sins of many and He himself bore our sins

What does that mean?

It means Jesus knows. He bore your sin…actually the Bible goes further

II Corinthians 5:21

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“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Jesus not only bore your and my sin He became our sin.

Jesus knows our sin better than we know it

He felt all that we feel and more

He relates to you

He understands you

He knows your feelings and thoughts

He became your sin

Fully human

If he was only human however the story would end right with His death

The rest of this morning I want to look a the names that Isaiah uses in prophesying that Jesus would come to earth

Wonderful

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This comes from a Hebrew word that means miracle, marvellous thing

Jesus was fully human but also fully God. Supernatural

God is clear in His Word about Jesus and the fact that through God’s redemptive plan Jesus would come to earth and save His people

Isaiah 7:14

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“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

Luke 2:11

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“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

Jesus is called Wonderful because He is the way where there was no way

You and I and all of mankind were doomed to hell because we are all born sinners with sinful natures

We could never pay our own price

We could never atone for our own sin

God is holy and sin must be paid for by blood, perfect blood so you and I are out

Jesus however was and is perfect. His blood paid for our sin if we will only accept the payment!

Counselor

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The Hebrew word means to advise

Before we get going I am not bashing Christian counseling

I believe God works through Christian counselors everyday

In my doctoral classes I have had a few classes on pastoral counseling and one thing that jumped out at me and has stayed with me is this thought

One must be a Christian to both give and receive counsel because all counsel is founded in and based upon God’s Word. When non-Christians are involved it is truly pre-counseling preparing for the true counseling that comes after salvation

Jesus is our counselor. He must be sought first middle and last to advise us in where to go and how to live our lives

If you have a situation you have no idea how to handle seek counsel

Get into God’s Word

Get into prayer

Listen to the Holy Spirit

He may and probably will send you to other believers for counsel like me as your pastor, the elders maybe even an Christian counselor

Here is where we Christians must be careful and unwilling to budge. Seeking counsel from a non-Christian is never something a Christian should do

Think about it. You are going to someone for life advice.....to help you work through a problem....to help you with mental issues

Their advice will be at best worldly and at worst evil

Seek Christians that God will place in your path

Don’t get caught up in the self-help books and industry.

You CANNOT help yourself only Jesus can help you

He is your counselor

Mighty

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Hebrew word means powerful, warrior, champion, chief

Jesus is all of those things

As a Christian He is all of those things in and through you!

God has been and still is very clear in His Word about who fights battles

Exodus 14:14

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“The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.””

Look. The battle has nothing to do with you.

God fights it. Be quiet and let Him fight it

He doesn’t need or want your help

We just get in the way and complicate and mess things up

Isaiah 54:17

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“no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their vindication from me, declares the Lord.”

I want us to notice a few things here

1st weapons will be formed against us

satan refuses to stay down and continues to fight

evil will be against us. We will be attacked spiritually and sometimes even physically however the weapon and attack will fail because of God Be quiet and let Him fight

2nd tongues will rise against us

People will say horrible things to you and about you

They will lie to try and destroy you but again because of God they will fail

Now it may look to them and the world that they were successful but you have to remember God cares about eternity so being quiet and relying on God and believing Him protects your soul and heaven is still your home. That is what they can’t touch

Prince of Peace

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The Hebrew for prince is head person and peace is safe and well

Jesus is your safety

He is my safety

By being in His Word.....allowing the Holy Spirit to apply that Word to our lives we are safe

Not safe in a physical sense but a spiritual sense which is all that matters

Jesus’ arrival followed by His life and death on the cross signified a change

When Jesus died God ripped the curtain that separated people from the holy of holies where God lived in the temple to show that Jesus’ sacrifice was enough and we were no longer separated from God because of sin

When you and I accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior we are accepting that payment for sin. We are giving our lives, the old earthly, fleshly lives to Him.

We are dying to the old self and old ways to walk in the newness of life.

Jesus is that life. The peace talked about here is the fact that despite what happens around and to us we KNOW that in Jesus we are good.

We may be sick

We may be persecuted

We may be physically attacked

We may die

But and here is a huge but......in Christ we still belong to Him and will go to heaven.

Christians Jesus’ arrival signified a change.

Jesus’ arrival was God putting His redemptive plan in motion

Jesus’ arrival and death means life for us.

I want to close with the true meaning of Christmas

John 10:10

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“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

The thief is satan and he only is here to steal from you

kill you

destroy you

I is Jesus

Jesus came to give life and life abundantly

Now we need to make sure we are all on the same page here.

This has nothing to do with physical life

If you don’t believe me....read the gospels and look at just how much Jesus could care less about physical things.

This is talking about spiritual things. Jesus’ arrival was played out in the flesh but was totally about the spiritual

satan may steal physical things from you, money, time, people, etc etc

he may kill your body and destroy your relationships but that is not what the verse is talking about

He wants to steal your soul. Steal your salvation.

If he can get you to buy into his lies and stop you from ever accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior he wins and you will spend eternity in hell

If he can’t stop you from being saved he will do all he can to steal your growth in Christ

He will steal your secret place time

He will steal your prayer time

He will make you believe you cant understand the Bible, he is right you can’t but the Holy Spirit will teach you

He will make you believe that you cant pray good enough to be heard

He will steal you ability or drive to minister to others and serve Jesus

He may convince you that you are not called to serve

That is someone else’s job

He may say you cant help with children

you can’t run the computers

you cant sing or play an instrument in the praise band

you cant you cant you cant

He could care less what you do or dont do what he is stealing is your relationship with Jesus and he knows obedience is how we love Jesus so he can even steal your love for Jesus by stealing your obedience

He wants to kill and destroy you spiritually

Jesus came.....His arrival was about life and life abundantly

Now many use this to say see Jesus wants me rich

He wants me to have nice things

Health and wealth gospel and it is wrong.

This again has nothing to do with physical life but spiritual life

Jesus wants you walking with Him

He wants you maturing in Him

He wants you moving from milk to meat

Heaven is all about Jesus and being with Him and Jesus wants you to experience that here on earth that is the abundant life He refers to here

He never moves. We move.

Jesus arrived to save us

To give us life

To show us how much God truly loves us

To give us life abundantly

Enjoy Christmas

Enjoy your family and friends

But please never lose sight of what Jesus’ arrival truly means....life....life in and through Jesus Christ!