The Reason for the Season

Introduction

Christmas with the Cranks

Decided they were going to skip Christmas because their daughter wasn’t going to be able to spend Christmas with them.

Book a cruise over Christmas

Don’t buy a tree, don’t buy presents, don’t decorate, don’t put up frosty, and they don’t have their annual Christmas party at their house

SPOILER ALERT: Their daughter calls them the day before when their Christmas party usually is and says she is coming home for Christmas after all and is bringing her new fiance from Peru who has never experienced an American Christmas celebration and wants to do all of the traditional things to see what it is like.

They frantically decorate the house, arrange for the Christmas party, and everything works out and they have a wonderful Christmas.

But, what gets me about that movie, is that they still never realized the true reason for Christmas!!!

We do this sometimes too by only telling the story of the birth of Jesus out of tradition and not really understanding why He came in the first place.

It’s not just a story about a baby born in a manger with angels singing and a bright star and the wise men who brought gifts.

It’s the story of the God of the universe coming down from heaven and entering into our story as a human!

Philippians 2:5–7 ESV

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

Explanation

Jesus came to identify with us.

Jesus has existed throughout all of eternity with the Father and the Holy Spirit. (John 1:1-3)

As a member of the Holy Trinity, Jesus is fully, 100% God.

As God, Jesus deserves all glory, honor, and praise. All things were created through Him, so He would be completely right to demand us to bow down and worship Him since we wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Him.

Even though He deserved to be glorified and praised, there was something that Jesus desired even more than that. “He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.” What Jesus desired was to be glorified and praise by those with whom He is in relationship—those whom He calls friends, those whom He knows and who know Him. People who desire to love and worship Him. But, there was only one way for Jesus to accomplish this. Jesus had to enter into the human story Himself.

He goes from being the rightful king to being a servant by His own choice. We can’t comprehend the extent of this. We don’t fully understand now just how much greater God is than us, but Jesus becoming a man in what we call the incarnation is the single greatest act of humility to ever be committed. If you ever wanted to see an example of someone being humble, this is it.

Illustration

Buster Taylor, former Executive Director at Shocco Springs handing out gatorades. The second summer I worked at Shocco, Eddie Steers started working there too. One night, we had just finished eating dinner in the cafeteria and were hanging out outside before we went back to the rec office for our night shift and Buster comes and puts his arms around Eddie and I and just starts talking to us. He asked us how everything was going and what our plans were for after high school and we had a good conversation. He walks off and Eddie looks at me and says, “Who was that guy?”

Buster was so humble and personable that Eddie never even realized that he was the executive director. Buster knew how important it was as a leader step inside our shoes and see what things were like from our perspective and understand what things were like for us. If he had never done that, he would never have sympathized with us about being out in the heat all day! He would never have any credibility to comment on our work! He would never have built any relationships with any of us!

It’s the same way with Jesus. In order to restore our relationship with Him, He had to enter into our story.

Application

Jesus, the greatest and most deserving person in all of history to receive glory and honor and praise humbled and lowered Himself to enter into our story.

Do you find yourself lacking the humility to associate with people you consider to be less popular or outcasts? (They smell bad, they don’t talk to anyone, they’re weird) Jesus came and died for them too.

As you seek opportunities to be a servant, is there anything that you consider yourself to be above doing?

Philippians 2:8 ESV

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Explanation

2. Jesus came to die for us.

More than just identifying with us as people going through the same struggles that we go through and understanding our situation, Jesus ultimately came to die for us.

Why did Jesus have to die? Why couldn’t God just forgive us of our sins some other way?

Romans 5:12 ESV

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

The entire human race was tainted and placed under the curse of sin. Ever since Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, people have been trapped in a constant cycle of sinning and turning back to God.

The Jews made animal sacrifices to try to atone for their sin, but no sacrifice was good enough to take their guilt away.

Because humans were the ones who were guilty of sin, a human sacrifice would have had to have been made in order to break the curse of sin and death.

But, the problem is that no human can be good enough to be a blameless sacrifice. If any regular person were nailed to the cross instead of Jesus, it wouldn’t do a thing. People were crucified all the time. They got what they deserved. In fact, what we all deserve is eternal punishment and death since we have all sinned.

Because of this, God came to the earth as a man and did what we could not do. Because Jesus lived a perfect life and never sinned, He was able to take a punishment He didn’t deserve and take away the curse of sin and death.

Now, those who place their faith in Jesus are freed from this curse, but those who don’t will suffer eternal death and punishment.

Illustration

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

The witch made it so that it was always winter and never Christmas in Narnia. That was the curse that the Narnians were under.

To break that curse, the king, Aslan, willingly died.

Everything thaws out and the winter turns into summer.

But the thing is, the queen still had an army. Everyone who trusted Aslan to rule Narnia was saved, but the queen’s army remained under her power and was ultimately destroyed.

Application

If you haven’t accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you remain under the curse of sin and death. There is a real place called hell where those who never accept Jesus will suffer forever.

If you have truly place your faith in Jesus, your eternity is sealed and no matter what happens on earth, when you die you will be in a perfect place forever with Jesus called heaven.

If you have received salvation, you ought to be so secure in your eternity, that you don’t need all of the worldly pleasures so many people cling to and you are willing to deny yourself for the sake of Christ and others to the point of death.

If Jesus didn’t deserve to die for you but he did, and you do deserve to die but won’t, you should be happy to serve God and consider it a privilege to be part of His plan.

Philippians 2:9–11 ESV

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Explanation

3. Jesus is coming to be glorified in us.

The first time Jesus came to this earth, He came as an innocent baby, but the second time He comes; He will come like the mighty king that He is.

Every single person on earth will confess him as Lord whether they had previously accepted Him or not and it will be too late for those who never accepted Him to receive salvation. They will then have no other choice to bow before Him and confess Him as Lord.

You can either confess Him as Lord now and be saved or when you see Him face to face and it’s too late to be saved. And the same is true for every single person outside of these walls too.

There will be a time when we can’t help but praise Him because it’s what we were made to do.

The king is coming again and we don’t know when. If you are a believer,

Illustration

A lot of you guys have final exams and papers coming up that you have to turn in.

You can work hard on those things all you want but if you don’t turn them in before the semester is over, it doesn’t count for anything.

In the same way, it won’t count for anything for those who recognize Jesus as king when He returns. Jesus will receive the glory that He deserves.

Application

If you’re a believer, does your life show that you recognize Jesus as your king?

If there has not been a time in your life when you have placed your faith in Jesus and you absolutely, 100% meant it, will you recognize Him as king right now? Why wait?

Maybe you have made this decision but you have never told anybody about it. If that’s you, let me know tonight so we can encourage you and help you take the next steps to growing in Christ.

Maybe you’ve even placed your faith in Jesus and told people about it, but you have never been baptized. That’s something else that we need to take care of.