Christmas Eve 2018

"We’ve been conditioned to earn for as long as we can remember — earning praise and affirmation from parents, earning grades from teachers, earning playing time from coaches, earning attention from boys or girls, eventually earning paychecks from employers. We learned how to earn before we learned how to speak or even walk."

Marshall Segal from Desiring God

It is this conditioning that limits our ability to grasp the

There is a sense of obligation we have to have some skin in the game.

And so we miss the true wonder of Christmas. The magnificence of this day.

God didn’t send Jesus because

The Wonder of Christmas in the beauty of the Gospel

Galatians 4:4–5 ESV

4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

“When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son.”

There is a temptation to overthink this:

God chose the time because of the urbanization of the world or the ease of travel on the Roman roads.

It came to pass as all the prophecies aligned and things were completed in order that Jesus could come.

Or whatever other theories have been made up.

But the significance of this statement is in it’s simplicity.

the Crux of history.

God's glorious plan of redemption had reached it climax.

The very fact that God would act at all is a testament to His love and grace toward sinful man.

Christmas is a gift from our sovereign God.

the moment he had planned before creation had even started had come

and we, each person in this room was on His mind the moment Jesus took his first breath.

That is wonderful!

“Born of a Woman”

Paul here doesn’t focus on the wonder of the conception (conceived in a virgin woman by God the Father).

Rather He focuses on the normality of the birth.

The New American Commentary: Galatians (2) The Radical Change: From Slavery to Sonship (4:1–7)

his birth was perfectly normal, complete with a dingy manger, soiled swaddling clothes, and other unsanitary conditions attending the birth of a poor peasant in ancient Palestine.

Jesus was born in a much worse setting than anyone in this room quite likely.

And the meagerness of his birth points to the posture of God’s Love.

Let us WONDER at the beauty of God love for us.

“born under the law”

The New American Commentary: Galatians (2) The Radical Change: From Slavery to Sonship (4:1–7)

Not only was he a man, but he also was a Jewish man, circumcised on the eighth day as all Jewish males were. He grew up in a Jewish home reading the Torah, praying to his Heavenly Father, attending synagogue, faithfully fulfilling, as no one before or after him has ever done, all of the precepts and demands of the law.

“Every single moment of every single day of his private life, even before his public ministry began, Jesus worked to fulfill the law for us.

Hebrews 4:12 ESV

12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Hebrews 4:15 ESV

15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

“Every single moment of every single day of his private life, even before his public ministry began, Jesus worked to fulfill the law for us.

“Everything that you’ve left undone, he did for you. Every sin you’ve committed, he joyfully shunned out of love for you. Day after day for thirty years his one desire was to please his Father and live perfectly in your place so that he could bring you to glory. “

Elise Fitzpatrick

“to redeem”

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 10: Romans through Galatians 6. Heirs of God (4:1–7)

Men were slaves either to the law, as Jews, or to the elemental spirits of the universe, as Gentiles. Christ paid the price of their redemption and set them free

He did all this to pay the dept we could never pay.

To restore a relationship we have no chance of restoring in our own merit.

“so that we might receive adoption”

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 10: Romans through Galatians 6. Heirs of God (4:1–7)

Moreover, it is through him that men have the adoption. That is, they move not only from bondage into freedom, they also move into the great household of God where all are free men and all are also “heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ” (Rom 8:17).

He came to bring us into the family of God.

In other words, by adoption, those of us whom God has justified have the same name, the same inheritance, the same standing, and the same rights as the one who is the Son of God.