Believe the Wonder of Christmas

Christmas Eve 2016

This is the time of year where families come together, where we buy gifts for one another and eat great food. It’s a celebration, a time of year where we find joy, rest and peace. But what if I told you that the true story of Christmas involves two confused parents who needed angels to help them wrap their minds around what was happening? That it is a story of a virgin birth, and a young couple who trusted the message that they had been told. It is a story of new beginnings, new creation and a story about saving broken people in a broken world.

In the beginning of time, when God created the heavens and the earth, everything was perfect. We lived as human beings in perfect harmony with our creator, able to recognize our need for our creator and live our lives in harmony with creation. You can see this story in Genesis chapters 1 &2. In the third chapter of Genesis, the story takes a turn for the worse. We decided as human beings, to take things into our own hands, and gain knowledge of good and evil. This decision changed everything. I believe that Adam and Eve had good intentions when they ate the apple, I believe they were convinced that knowing what God knew would help them grow closer to their creator. I believe that we as human beings today have the same good intentions, but it’s tainted, just like Adam and Eve in the garden. It’s tainted because we used our God given zeal for knowledge, for our satisfaction instead of God’s. Zeal for something is what generates passion, and passion often generates our motivation to believe in something. This zeal that is imbedded in us is a gift, but it is a gift when manipulated, just like in the story of the fall, can be trouble and we don’t even know it.

Many of us strive to be good people, especially in a season like this which calls on us to be generous and others centered. In scripture, we have the story of a nation that was striving to be in harmony with God. They followed rules and regulations called “the law” to restore harmony with their creator. But once again we see zeal for something being misused. The story tells us that we are a bunch of people striving for good, but unable to achieve true goodness. Our zeal being misused and misdirected.

We All Have Zeal for Something.

Zeal can be treacherous if it’s misplaced. It can lead us to set and strictly follow standards that have nothing to do with God’s work—standards that make us feel like good people but that can devastate our lives and the lives of others. The bible shows us this throughout the Old Testament. But the bible also gives us the solution to this human problem.

Romans 10:1–4 ESV

Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

Many Jewish people who had rejected the Messiah were attempting to make themselves right with God by keeping the OT law. In doing so, they missed God by seeking their own righteousness. Paul tells the Romans that these Jewish people ignored the “righteousness of God”—God’s work of salvation in Jesus Christ. It’s only by submitting to God that they could be “right with God” through Jesus Christ.

This lesson isn’t applicable only to the Jewish people and their relationship to the law. Jesus restored relationship with God when we couldn’t. We only have to believe in Him. Yet a dangerous zeal can still trip us up. If we rest in anything except Christ’s work and try to reach God by being good people, we are sure to miss Him. And in the process, we can become stumbling blocks in the lives of others.

God gave us an answer to our misguided zeal. He came in the form of a child in a small insignificant town called Bethlehem. The reason for this mysterious birth was simple. God needed to come and live with us, just like in the garden. He needed to come so he could die, so He could set the human race back on track. So, He could help us refocus our zeal for knowledge and help us to see where our knowledge and gifts were truly from. God needed to come in the form of a child to save us. To save us from ourselves, and our deep need to satisfy our own needs rather than others. Some of you might say to yourselves, “I don’t need to be saved from anything” and I see why you would think that, but it proves my point. Each year at Christmas I am deeply reminded just how broken our world really is. It reminds me because once a year we become like Jesus, we give, we love, we find joy in other people’s joy. But after the season, we go back to living with a zeal for self.

This Christmas season we have a choice, we can be reminded of how the birth of a child changed everything. How the birth of a child reminds us to reflect and become aware of others, and the deep need for salvation. We can focus our zeal, and our passions on Christ, or we can lose focus and try to find hope, and righteousness within ourselves. You see salvation in Jesus Christ brings a changed heart, a new birth so to speak. It creates in the person a refocused zeal that focuses on being in a relationship with our creator.

The child’s birth that we are celebrating has nothing to do with gifts, or food. It has everything to do with brokenness and a deep need for salvation. Yet the birth of this child represents the peace that can only be found in salvation. Through believing that this baby was born of a virgin, to bring peace on earth. The peace comes through individuals who place their faith in this child, as the creator of heaven and earth. Our zeal becomes centered on Jesus, the scriptures tell us that:

Romans 10:9 ESV

because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Closing

So, let me ask you on this Christmas Eve, do you believe? Are you ready to use your zeal to serve Jesus and others in a way that only faith can bring? It is my prayer that you would see this season as a launching pad to a new way of life through faith in a child named Jesus. As we sing this last song, I am going to ask that everyone move to the outside walls of the church, with their candles, Darren can join us on the piano. As we sing this well-known Christmas carol, I want you to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas, and what the birth of this child does for you. That it brings you the possibility of new life, simply by believing in Him.