The Savior is Born

Luke 2:8–12 (NIV)

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Introduction

Knows what we want but gives us what we need.

Transition

God our Savior

When we get to Luke 2 we read the story of the shepherds finding out about the birth of the savior. The angels tell them that today a Savior has been born to you.

Now, I’ve been thinking about that a lot over the last couple of weeks because in the story of the Bible, God has been doing a lot of saving. God has been saving people and he has been saving Israel for a really long time.

I want to show you what I am talking about, but before I can do that let me just give us the basis for what salvation means in the bible. To be saved is to be rescued from destruction.

We typically equate being saved as “I’m going to heaven.” I was saved, so now I get to go to heaven.

That’s colloquial and commonly understood.

But if we are to sit with the first hearers of the scriptures, to them to be saved was to be rescued from danger. Our life was headed to destruction, and we needed saving. This wasn’t necessarily heaven or hell, this was just get me out of the mess that I am in.

I am in need of saving.

Throughout story of the Bible I see three very distinct saving events. Yes, there are more when we see the hand of God save people, but there are three major events of salvation.

So let’s back all the way back up to Genesis, and let’s start in the garden.

For anyone that was here when we kicked off the message you’re probably thinking, “how in the word are we preaching about Christmas in the Garden of Eden?”

Your Pastor is a big time Bible nerd and we will always go bak to the garden when the opportunity presents itself!

The Garden

So in the garden we have the perfect environment for life to THRIVE!

Not survive… THRIVE!

God put Adam and Even in the garden, he gave them dominion and he said to take care of this beautiful place that I have created just for you!

But in order to thrive there has to be choice. If there is no choice, there is no free will. If there is no free will, then you aren’t thriving you are in prison, where your choices are made for you.

So in this perfect environment Adam & Eve needed to only stay away from one tree in the garden. Naturally, they didn’t.

And here is how things went from beautiful to disaster in a heart beat.

Genesis 3:6–7 NIV

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Let’s pause right here.

God gave them the perfect environment where they felt no shame, and then here in a moment their eyes are opened to their reality and immediately they try to cover themselves up.

What’s the reality?

The reality is that they were created exactly the way God designed for them to be made and they were ok with that!

They weren’t perfect, but they were perfectly made. That’s a word for somebody. Too often we are chasing some ideal of perfection, but God has given us the grace to understand and receive the fact that we were perfectly made.

That’s not my message, but I had to work that in there…

The eye opening experience that they had was that they just now realized that they had flaws. They had mistakes. They looked at their bodies and felt shame for how they looked, and so rather than bring their shame to God, they covered up their shame, and then, here’s what they tried to do next:

Genesis 3:8 (NIV)

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

They tried to hide from God. The once perfect union and relationship with God has been compromised because they listened to the voice of the serpent rather than listen to the voice of God.

And what does God do? How does God respond?

Genesis 3:21–23 (NIV)

The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

God himself took an animal, sacrificed it, and with the skin of the animal he clothed Adam and Eve.

God performed the first sacrifice in order to forgive the sins of Adam and Eve.

God becomes the High Priest.

God steps into the mess that Adam and Eve made and he performs a saving sacrifice, a rescuing sacrifice.

Then, he takes then out of the Garden so that they wouldn’t be tempted to eat from the Tree of Life. This is actually kind of weird, because this is a Tree that they were not previously forbidden to eat from. They could eat from the Tree of Life up until the Fall. The reason he stopped them from eating from the Tree of Life was because now they were in a sinful condition and had they eaten from the Tree of Life they would have been eternally in that sinful condition.

So God rescues them by moving them out of the Garden.

What was meant to be their place of blessing, now could have been their place of destruction.

But God saved them. God rescued them. God brought them out of what could have been, and hit the reset button on their life.

Egypt

Now, I need to take you to the second significant event of salvation.

Everyone say Egypt.

We have to go all the way to Egypt and add in the context now that God has a people group - Israel.

Israel was God’s people group here on earth to demonstrate to all of humanity how to live in relationship with the Lord.

In time, God led Israel into Egypt.

God led Israel into Egypt to flourish, and they did. Until they didn’t.

Exodus 1:6–10 (NIV)

Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them. Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”

God rescued Israel from Egypt. Like the garden, Egypt was good for Israel, until it wasn’t.

God would use Egypt to shape and prepare his deliverer Moses. He was trained by the best minds in Egypt so that he would be prepared and capable to lead Israel, and then when it was time God manifested himself in signs and wonders that demonstrated the power of God to the rest of the world.

I want you to sit with that for a moment.

In the garden, God used an animal and performed the sacrifice.

In Egypt, God used Moses, and then built on the principle of an animal sacrifice, which is the passover.

All of us to rescue humanity and to rescue Israel.

For Us

And that brings us to the third event of salvation and the one person in which all other events derive their power - Jesus.

And let’s just pause for station identification here and take some notes of what is happening here… the Angels have appeared before Shepherds. What a beautiful picture of the Kingdom of God in that he makes his entrance into the world, and rather than make it known to Kings and Queens, he tells the shepherds.

He goes to the blue collar working class of Israel with the news that forever changes the world.

The Savior is born!

The one who will rescue them is born!

[Transition]

But we have to now layer his birth with the New Testament revelation of his purpose here on Earth. When Jesus was born he progressively revealed to his followers that he wasn’t just here for Israel.

Uh oh… that’s not what they had in mind.

You see their concept of a Savior was for them, but Jesus’ plan for a Savior was for us.

Jesus wasn’t just going to save Israel again. This time Jesus was on a mission to save the world.

John 3:16 (NIV)

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

So Jesus flips the script and goes from just saving Israel to saving the world. That’s me, that’s you, that’s the people who share your values, the people who do not share your values.

Oh what a Savior we have that would come and rescue the world from the entanglement and the destruction of sin!

Conclusion - Rescued from Our Mindsets

Now, I want to talk about a growing concern I have about how we have treated salvation.

As I said earlier in our message, we will simply say that to be saved is to make it to heaven. I’m saved. I’m safe.

And the issue with that mindset is that we don’t need rescuing, we just want heaven. Is that the same, maybe. But maybe it isn’t.

Let me try and explain it…

We don’t think we need recusing. We think we need a promotion.

We don’t think we need rescuing. We think we need a spouse.

We don’t think we need rescuing. We think we need more money.

So when we come to Him, we don’t come to him because we need him to rescue us from our condition, we come to him for what we can get from him.

We don’t want a Savior, we want a Genie. And that’s not who He is!

And I don’t want to put anyone down this morning who may feel like this is all new to you, and that this isn’t what you heard about Jesus. That’s because we have commodified Him. He’s just another commodity in our busy lives.

We need Jesus to rescue us from ourselves.

We need to stop treating our Lord and Savior as a means to a selfish end in our life.

[Transition]

So Pastor, are you saying that the promotion, the raise, the security in my life… Jesus doesn’t want those things for me?

I know that he does.

But could I show you what I believe to be the appropriate expectation?

When we become more like Jesus. When we begin to manifest the character of Jesus, so many of the things that you are searching for in life will follow you.

As your character changes, and you begin to live and love and treat people like Jesus, doors will be opening for you! Wisdom is coming into your life. Favor is coming into your life.

But those things follow us, we don’t follow those things.

Let’s keep the main things the main things and ALL THESE THINGS will added to us.