00 - If Jesus Had Never Been Born - 2019 By Pastor Jeff Wickwire Notes

“If Jesus Had Never Been Born”

12/22/19

John 15:22 NKJV “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.”

I want to pull the first five words out of this passage for us to consider today—“If I had not come.”

What a thought! If Jesus had not come.

We’re witnessing an attempt in our culture today to remove Jesus from every public square, from the classrooms, the military, the government—everywhere there is an attempt to secularize and de-Christianize America.

So I got to thinking—if the secularists and the humanists and atheists, and Christ haters had their way and Jesus had never come, what would it be like in our world?

So let's consider it today.

I’m reminded of the Christmas movie classic, It's a Wonderful Life.

A man named George Bailey played by Jimmy Stewart is the main character.

The movie begins with George marrying a wonderful woman, played by Donna Reed.

After having several children and starting a banking business, they are the perfect picture of a classic American family.

George’s business is doing great until his uncle Billy makes a financial blunder that places him in jeopardy of losing everything.

In the pit of depression and despair he finds himself standing on a snow covered iron bridge wishing he’d never been born.

An angel named Clarence hears his wish and grants to him a very real vision of what his town and loved ones would have been like had he never been born.

And it was terrible—the town of Bedford Falls is taken over by an evil man named Mr. Potter who changes the town’s name to Pottersville.

His quaint upstate New York town slid from Currier and Ives to Sodom and Gomorrah—All because George Bailey had never been born.

The message of the movie is George realizing just how important his life was to everyone around him—It MATTERED that he’d been born!

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But what if Jesus, the most perfect man, the God man had not been born?

What difference would it have made if a Bethlehem stable had never served as an emergency delivery room?

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To bring that thought home, I want you to imagine with me what just one day in your life would be like if Jesus had never been born.

Here's how a day in my own life just this past week might have been.

I rolled out of bed at a phone call to learn that a person I’d ministered to for years had passed away and I was asked to perform the funeral.

If Jesus had never been born, I would have had no consolation to offer to the family that their loved one had gone to heaven, because there would have been no heaven to go to if Jesus had not been born.

I could not have given hope about a mansion in glory because none would have been built because the builder was Jesus.

I could not have encouraged family members that the Holy spirit was there to heal their broken hearts because there would have been no Holy spirit poured out on mankind because Jesus had never been born to pour Him out.

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Going into my study to grab my Bible in order to prepare a message for the funeral, there would have been no Bible.

Nor would there have been any other writings to bring faith and comfort to a grieving family because there would have been no Christians to write them!

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Taking it a little further—I would not have been born again, so I would not have had the Holy spirit within me to comfort my own soul.

I would have been an empty man speaking to empty people because Jesus is our comfort and hope!

Leaving my house, it would have struck me that there wasn't a funeral home to meet the family in because the funeral home they mentioned in the call was Mount Olivet, taken from the Mount of Olives where Jesus taught.

But since Jesus was never there to teach on the Mount of Olives, no funeral home would have existed with that name.

If I had then decided to hold a service at the family’s church home, it would quickly have occurred to me that there was no church home because there were no churches because there was no Savior.

Sadly, I would have had nothing to offer a hurting family but a dead, dry “dust to dust and ashes to ashes” sermon delivered in some secular morgue.

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Then, getting into my car and pulling onto the highway I would have noticed that so much of the familiar landscape of Fort worth was gone.

The reassuring, familiar site of All Saints hospital on the Fort worth horizon—gone, along with Harris Methodist, and Huguley, all founded by Christians.

The fact is that if Jesus had never been born, many of America’s best hospitals would be gone, for most hospitals are named after Christians.

St. Luke's, or St. Mary's, or St. Marks, St. Judes, All Saints—all named after Christians.

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If I had pulled into Walmart, if there were a Walmart, I would have encountered no Santa Claus ringing a bell on behalf of the Salvation Army because there would be no Salvation Army because there is no Savior to save us!

In fact, if Jesus had never been born, the other great charity organizations of the world like the American Red Cross, Feed The Children, Samaritan’s Purse would not exist.

And there would be no Christmas because Jesus was not born.

What a grim world it would be without Jesus!

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Pulling back out onto the highway, I would likely have been greeted by the sight of military police patrolling the city as representatives of a godless, Marxist, or communist nation, for America as we know it would not exist.

Columbus who believed he was being led by Christ and directed by the will of God would not have discovered America.

There would have been no Christians to break off from England in search of a place to worship Christ in freedom.

There would be no Declaration of Independence founded on the Christian principles of all men being created equal under God for there would've been no founding fathers possessing faith in Christ.

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And what about education?

Many aren’t aware that most of the world's greatest universities would also be gone if Jesus had never been born.

Princeton, Oxford, Harvard, and Yale were all begun by Christians.

Bible study was the major topic, and spreading the gospel was their top mission.

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And the abolition of slavery, which was spearheaded by Christians like William Wilberforce who felt that it was a sin against God to own a human being, would not have happened.

The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 was passed because Wilberforce became convinced by reading Jesus’s words that it was wrong.

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And you ladies also need to know that the elevation of women came more through Christ than any other source in history.

In the ancient world women had the equivalent status of a donkey or a cow....They were slaves.

But Jesus treated women with respect and dignity.

He saved the woman caught in adultery,

Lifted Mary Magdalene out of prostitution into a place of dignity,

Gave the woman at the well the salvation she’d longed for,

And made certain His own mother Mary was cared for after His crucifixion.

Jesus honored women!

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Oh folks, what if Jesus had never been born!

If Jesus had never been born, the high regard for human life found amongst Bible believing Christians would not be heard today in our abortion culture.

Many don’t know that it was a dangerous thing in the days of Jesus for a baby to be conceived, just as it is today.

In those days abortion was rampant and abandonment of babies was commonplace.

Roman women would give birth to unwanted babies and take them to some forest or field to leave them to die.

But then Jesus came with His message of love and compassion for even the leper, and his followers learned to cherish life as sacred.

History tells us that the early church rescued many of these forsaken babies and brought them up in the faith.

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And it goes without saying that if Jesus had never been born, the eternal salvation of countless souls who were transformed by the gospel would never have taken place.

Think of everyone in this room.

Where would YOU be if Jesus had never been born?

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But the Good News is that Jesus WAS BORN!

As the angels told the shepherds, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Lk. 2:10-11 ESV).

Thank God, Jesus, God’s only begotten Son, was born!