The Promise Provided
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
It is such a blessing to get to worship with you tonight on this Christmas Eve. I have a confession to make. I haven’t always liked Christmas Eve services. If I have to be honest, I used to want to do everything but have to come to church on a Christmas Eve.
I’m so glad God changed my heart about that. There is not reason to celebrate Christmas without Jesus and there is no better tradition or place we could be than in the Lord’s house worshiping Him on Christmas Eve.
I’m glad you and I get to celebrate tonight, and I want to talk to you for just a moment about the Promise God Provided for us. We’ve been walking through the Book of Luke and the Christmas story in our morning worship hour each week and tonight we are going to finally arrive at the beloved and well-known Christmas story recorded for us in Luke’s gospel.
Look with me for a moment at these passages as I read them.
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.
And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.
Pray
I want to share with you three truths tonight about the promise God provided for us.
Promise 1: Christ Came in the Fulness of Time (vv.1-3, 6)
Promise 1: Christ Came in the Fulness of Time (vv.1-3, 6)
Did you know that God is working in history right now to accomplish His purposes?
Sometimes we can tend to think that God is just a God of the past. He may have worked in the lives of people back then in Bible days, but the truth is that God is working even now in our day to accomplish His plans.
You see for the people of Mary and Joseph’s day, they were waiting for the promise of the Messiah to come and save their people, but God had been silent for 400 years.
No signs or miracles
No prophet
No hope (at least it seemed)
Some people look at the world today and think that God is not working anymore. We say that we know He’s coming again, but we almost act and believe like what happens in Russia or the Middle East or in the good ole USA is no longer a part of the work God was doing in the Bible.
I want to take you on a little history lesson for just a moment if I can. I want to read to you a very Un-Christmas-like passage from the Book of Daniel
“In those times many shall rise against the king of the south, and the violent among your own people shall lift themselves up in order to fulfill the vision, but they shall fail.
If we were to read the rest of the chapter, we would come to the prophecies about the events that would take place around the time of the Maccabean revolt and the beginning of the Hannukah celebration.
Also what we see, if we read some of the earlier chapters in Daniel, are many prophecies about the kingdoms of Greece and Persia and even what would become the Romans.
Remember how I said that there were 400 years of silence where the Jewish people were waiting for the appearing of the Messiah with no signs or miracles and no prophtes?
Well, God was at work. These events in Daniel describe what was happening in world history during that time to set up the scene for the birth of Jesus.
You see, even when we aren’t aware of how the dots connect, God is working in world history to bring about His plan of redemption.
Christ has already come once at the first Christmas, but we still wait just like those people did, only this time for the reappearing of the Messiah to come and take us to be with Him in heaven.
God did not do all of this that is recorded in the Bible for us to just keep living here on earth. He did it all to bring about a new heaven and a new earth and everything that is happening in the world today is still a part of setting things up for the final unveling of that plan.
But first, the Savior had to come to make it possible for us to be a part of that new heaven and earth.
There is no kingdom of God without the King
The king had to come at just the right time in world history for all of the promises made about Him in the prophecies to come about.\
Galatians 4:4-6 says
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
Maybe tonight you are waiting on God to do something you really need in your life right now. Trust His timing. He is always on time.
Speaking of timing, the Bible also tells us there is no better time than now to trust in Jesus as your savior.
Promise 2: Christ Came According to the Scripture (vv.4-7)
Promise 2: Christ Came According to the Scripture (vv.4-7)
You know what is crazy about Jesus’s birth is the number of prophecies that were fulfilled in it.
Jesus birth is prophesied from as early as the Book of Genesis all the way back in the Garden of Eden right after Adam and Eve sinned.
We see the story continue to unfold as we walk through the Scripture.
It is like looking through a telescope at some far off object. You can tell that it’s there but you can’t quite make out a lot of its features. You then begin to twist the scope and more and more of the picture comes into focus until you can clearly see the object you’ve been staring at. Sometimes it takes getting closer to the object itself before you can see it because you are just too far off.
That’s the way it is with the prophecies about Jesus. Jesus was promised in Genesis, but more and more details are given as the Lord makes His revelation known to us.
But then Jesus did come! These weren’t just promises made, they were promises kept.
I’m sure all of us have made promises that we haven’t kept before. We sometimes give out IOUs and we swear we will do what we say this time, but then we don’t keep our word. But that is not how God is. God cannot lie.
2 Tim. 2:13 says,
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—
for he cannot deny himself.
and again in Titus 1:1-3
Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior;
You see, God keeps His word and when He makes a promise about sending a Savior, He means it!
Promise 3: Christ Came to Save the World (vv. 8-20)
Promise 3: Christ Came to Save the World (vv. 8-20)
All of what we have said so far points to this last point. Why did Jesus come?
ItJ's smply this: Jesus came to be the Savior
Look at what the angels told the shepherds in vv. 10-14
And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
Even what these angels saw and heard from the angels was revelation from God to them. They were told the Savior had been born.They weren’t really looking for a baby or a king or a savior.
They were minding their sheep
The angel appeared and announced the birth to them and told them how they could find out which baby it was.
Perhaps there were a number of new babies in Bethlehem. That’s not too far fetched to believe since there were so many people there at that time to be registered.
They went and found out that the angels were right in what they said.
Tonight I want you to be like the Shepherds.
You’ve got access to a Bible. You can even do a search and ask what prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus’s birth.
Read them and search them out.
You will see that Christ came according to the promises in the Scriptures.
When you hear the revelation and you see the signs, the only rational thing to do is believe the truth and trust in Jesus as your Savior and Lord.
Conclusion
Tonight is a special night. It is a special service.
I know that some of you will leave here and if you are like my family growing up, you will open presents tonight because you can’t wait until Christmas morning. That’s okay!
However, if you don’t know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are missing out on the greatest gift that you could receive this Christmas - eternal life with the Father in Heaven.
All you have to do to receive this gift is to place your faith in what Jesus did to save you by dying on that cross for you and me. You must repent, which means to turn from your sin, and turn to Christ.
If you would like to receive Christ as your Savior, you don’t need anything special, you just ask Him right now to save you and forgive you of your sins. Make a commitment to follow Him and live your life in worship with Him.
We would love to talk to you about what this means and how you can start off on the right foot if you are trusting Christ today. If that is you, I want to encourage you to step out boldly in faith and let us know that you have trusted Christ to be your Savior and let us help you.
We want to celebrate with you.
For the rest of you, remember what the shepherds did after they found everything the angels said was true? They went and told everyone they could find about all that they had heard and seen.
That’s you! You and I are supposed to do that very thing!
We are supposed
Let’s make sure that we make Jesus known to everyone this Christmas so that they can experience the promise that God provided for us by sending Jesus.
