The Proof is in the Manger

Hello everyone,

We are so grateful that you have decided to join us on this Christmas eve. It’s a privilege, and we as a church believe that God has you here for a specific reason. Whether this is your first Christmas Eve service ever, or in a very long time, or this is one of your long standing traditions, we believe with everything in us that the God of the universe has a reason for you being here.

And I don’t say that simply generically, as if, it’s good for us all to be here as a group, but I mean that individually. I mean that to say that, whether your first service or your fiftieth, the God of the universe saw fit for you to be here in this place and in this time, for this occasion. He doesn’t have you here by chance. He knows the hairs on your heads, He knows every thought and inclination of your heart, He knows every word that will ever come out of your mouth before you say it, and He has brought you here.

I’m blown away that the Creator of the Universe is so intimately personal with us. With me. With you. And we, Crossway Fellowship, are so privileged to have you with us.

I would ask that you would see the sacredness of this time together, and in light of that, would you join me in asking God to speak to our hearts during this evening. Please pray with me.

PRAYER

The title of this message is “The Proof is in the Manger.”

The proof is in the pudding.

Now, Have you ever heard somebody say to you, “The proof is in the pudding?” You understand what they mean with they say that, right? We all know that it’s one thing to talk about something, but the verdict is out until you actually have seen, tasted, or experienced that thing.

I can tell you all day long how delicious my buffalo chicken dip is, but you’re not going to really embrace it to be true until you’ve seen and eaten the finished product yourself. The proof is in the pudding (or buffalo chicken dip, in this case).

Well, as much as I love buffalo chicken dip, and even greater truth is what we have come here to celebrate this Christmas Eve.

That is the truth that the God of the universe has declared His love, grace, and rescue towards sinful humanity, and has not just declared–but demonstrated and made a way for us to be forever forgiven and given new, eternal life in His presence.

All I’m trying to tell you today is that The proof is in the Manger.

The proof is in the Manger.

Christmas proves to us that God makes good on His promises.

Christmas shows us that God makes good on His promises.

So the question we’re going to look at from Scripture today is:

What does the Manger say about our Maker?

Would you open up your Bibles to ?

Luke 8:8-

Luke 2:8–14 ESV

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!”

Today we’re gonna look at two different things that the manger says about our Maker… God intervenes. God Rescues.

God Intervenes

The first thing we must understand about God from the manger is that He makes the first move. He is intimately involved with His creation. God intervenes.

It’s interesting too, because at this point in history, Israel isn’t doing too hot in their relationship with the living God. They’ve got all these pagan cultural influences going on, and are actually under Roman rule. In fact, they’ve been enduring a period of 400 years where God has been silent. Historically, God spoke to His people through His prophets–His representatives–but there has been no speaking the past 400 years. It’s under this backdrop of darkness–of perceived loss of intimacy with the living God that God shows up. His light shines brightest into the darkest darkness.

We tend to think that God intervenes when we get our act together. That, once we’ve turned back to Him, and we want Him to come, then He’ll come. But the crazy truth about Christianity is that God intervenes for undeserving people. That He shows up when people are not searching for Him. He makes the first move to us. He is a relentless pursuer of His people.

It’s intereste

But not only does He simply intervene, but God speaks. He speaks to people. He communicates with His creation. His representatives appeared, and shown His glory all around, but they do more. They speak.

They say in v. 10, “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”

The unbelievable thing about this is when we look at who God communicates this good news of great joy with. He communicates to regular folks. To shepherds who were working the night shift out in the fields. Shepherds who were oftentimes ceremonially unclean (thus, religiously unacceptable to enter the temple) because of their work with the animals. In our minds, who would have been the one’s ‘deserving’ of God showing up to, or communicating with? The religious elite, right? Who are ‘following the rules.’ Or the prestigious ‘kings’ of the day, right? But my how upside down God is.

Isn’t it crazy that God associates with the humble, the lowly, those who don’t have all the right pedigrees. He speaks. He intervenes. The greatest news in all of human history, he communicates with those that society aren’t looking to.

He appears on the scene communicating through His angels, but what the

Have you ever thought how crazy it is that God appears to people? That the God of the universe shows up on scene?

This is what we celebrate on Christmas. That no longer is God merely speaking to His people ‘through’ prophets, ‘through’ visions, ‘through’ dreams–but that He actually comes down to His own creation in the Person of Jesus Christ. He is Immanuel – “God with Us.”

And the reason of His appearing is the greatest news ever. Let’s look there –

God Rescues

The next thing we must realize from the manger is that God doesn’t simply intervene with an appearance, his appearance is rescue. God rescues.

God Rescues

The next thing we must realize from the manger is that God doesn’t simply intervene with appearance and speech, he sends rescue. God rescues.

Verse 11, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

So God has sent a Savior. It would make sense that if He is sending a Savior, then people need saving? , another account of the birth of Jesus, tells us that an angel of the Lord tells Joseph, Mary’s husband, that Mary “will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” The Hebrew form of Jesus literally means ‘the LORD is salvation’. We as people need to be saved.

All humans are enslaved to sin–words, thoughts, actions, inactions that dishonor the One who created us in love for His glory. The One who is fully holy and pure, no sin is in Him, and thus He cannot tolerate sin in His presence. And Scripture is clear that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” All are under His judgment on their own. We are hopeless apart from Him. We all need rescue.

But God does not enact your traditional rescue mission, does He?

Traditionally, the highest officers of the military don’t go into battle, do they? The general remains in some sort of command station, because He is too valuable to lose in combat.

General

But, the next thing we must realize from the manger is that God doesn’t simply intervene with appearance and speech, he sends rescue. God rescues.

Yet we humans are in quite the predicament–who other then a perfectly holy God save the people from their sins? No one. In order for God to forever forgive sinners, someone who was sinless had to substitute Themselves as an acceptable sacrifice in our place. Who is worthy?

The manger shows us that there is One who is able to rescue, and it is God Himself. God in flesh–Jesus, our Savior. Jesus is “Christ the Lord” – Christ means ‘anointed One’ the One whom God has promised from long ago, the long awaited king, and He is Lord–master, ruler, Creator of everything–God Himself in flesh.

The scandalous news of Jesus is that God offered Himself. The Scriptures say that “He who knew no sin became sin, in order that we might become the righteousness of God.” This is the gospel.

God knew that the only way to bring those outside the kingdom of light was to go into the dark to get us.

Let me bring this to your life a little closer...

In reflecting upon Jesus, the Greatest gift, I came to this question…

Aren’t you grateful that God doesn’t give gifts like us?

How do we give gifts during the holidays? Well, historically we talk about these twos ‘lists’ right? And all the names of the people in the world are on either the naughty or nice list. The good or bad list.

And those that are on the good list get gifts, and those that are on the bad list don’t get gifts. We extend or withhold gifts based on people’s behavior. We use gifts as a behavior modification tool–almost like a carrot stick. Be good, get a gift. Be bad, and you won’t get a gift.

I’m not say that there isn’t a place for discipline, or trying to train our children to honor their parents, or treat each other well, but I am say that that method of gift-giving totally misses the heart of Christmas.

The bad news of Christmas is that, on our own, none of us are on God’s ‘nice’ list.

The heart of Christmas begins with the bad news that, on our own, none of us are on God’s ‘nice’ list. More than a ‘nice’ list, it’s a ‘holy’ list. God has a ‘holy’ & ‘sinful’ list, if we’re carrying out the analogy.

The miracle of Christmas, and the heart of the gospel (the ‘good news’ of Jesus coming to rescue sinners and turn them into beloved sons and daughters), is that God of the universe doesn’t withhold the offer of salvation to those on the ‘bad’ or ‘sinful’ list. And every human, apart from the grace of Christ, is on that list, so that is GOOD NEWS for us.

Jesus, the only one on the ‘holy’ list, took the consequences of the ‘sinful’ list for us, in order that, all people who repent–who turn from their sinfulness, and turn to Jesus for forgiveness, and follow them with their lives, are FOREVER FORGIVEN of their sins, and brought into the family of God forever! He puts us forever on the ‘holy’ list on the basis of Jesus’ sacrificing His life for our sins. We receive that gift through faith in Him with our whole lives. This is good news of great joy.

Eternal life is certain for all who receive Jesus.

This is the miracle of Christmas. God Himself stepped into our darkness in order to make a way for us to come into His kingdom of light. He has done what you and I cannot do. Our Maker gives gifts to us that we don’t deserve.

Check out what happened after that promise was given. Verse 13-14 | “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!’”

Check out what happened after that promise was given. Verse 13-14 | “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!’”

The only response to this kind of news is PRAISE! More angels showed up on the scene and had a praise break. The message of God’s salvation was too wonderful not to shout about.

It is good news of great joy for ALL the people. Later on in this chapter, in guy name Simeon came to Jesus in the temple and blessed Jesus, saying “my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.”

Jesus is the Savior of the all who trust in Him. His grace is not limited to a specific ethnicity, economic class, or social group of people. It is for ALL who receive Him!

And all who receive Him receive His ‘peace’ – a better translation of the second part of 14 is ‘peace to those on whom his favor rests.’ Peace here is essentially synonymous with Messianic salvation, it refers to the fullness of the blessing that the Savior/Christ/Lord brings to His people.

God gives His peace to His people. He gives

It is wonderful!

The proof of God’s love for us is in the Manger. Would you receive Him and receive new life, life eternal, with our good good Father?

Israel was under Roman rule.

We are hopeless apart from Him.

God Rescues

Eternal life is certain for all who receive Jesus.

This is why Jesus’ coming is good news of great joy.

This is why Christmas is good news of great joy. This is why we celebrate. This is why we hope. This is why we exist.