Sermon Tone Analysis

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Luke 1:67-

The First Advent

The First Advent

This is the good news that the world has been waiting for.

From the moment of the Fall of man in the garden of Eden, when God first promised to send a son of Eve to crush the head of the serpent, the world has been waiting in distress for that promise to be fulfilled.

Waiting in distress is an understatement.

Because when Adam committed that first act of high treason against God, he brought a curse on himself and on all creation.

That curse brought death into the world.

And when I say death I don’t just mean that man was given a limited lifespan, but that man was now born with a fallen heart so that, if left to carry out his worst desires, would bring death to each other.

And we see that play out very quickly… The Fall takes place in chapter 3, and in chapter 4 we see the first murder committed.

By chapter 6, the entire world has become so evil that God sends a flood to destroy them all except for just a few - not because they were without sin, but because God was faithful to His promise regarding the seed of Eve.

And so God, by grace alone, preserved Noah and his family.

It wasn’t in man to be able to stay faithful to God, you see.

Noah was a sinner and so were his sons and grandsons after him.

Even Moses and Israel, the people chosen by God to be a people of His own possession - a people who were meant to reflect the glory of God to the nations… the judges, the kings, and even David himself, the man whom God said was a man after His own heart… they all failed to remain faithful to God.

Rather than worship God, they rebelled against Him.

Rather than proclaim God to the gentiles, they instead adopted the gentile gods as their own.

As Paul puts it so bluntly in , quoting from the Psalms… “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks God.

All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one… All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

By the time that the story turns to Mary and Joseph, the world is in no better shape.

In the Roman Empire, men were taken as slaves and butchered in arenas and in Collosseums for entertainment.

The emperor was elevated as a god to be worshiped and obeyed on pain of death.

Whole nations, including Israel itself, were subdued by war and conquest, and the people forced to submit to Roman rule.

The whole world, and every kind of people, including Israel, were lost and dead in their sin.

It seems appropriate then that if God should visit His creation in such a condition, that He should do so in wrath and judgement.

He is after all a holy God who hates sin.

He is the same God who destroyed the whole earth with a flood.

Who caused the earth to open up and swallow rebellious people, who Isaiah the prophet caught a glimpse of and fell as dead saying “woe is me for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”

The same God who slayed Ananias and Sapphira for lying to the Holy Spirit.

That same God… if He were to have come in wrath and anger against sin, He would be right and just to do so and to condemn every man and woman - including us - to eternal condemnation.

But He didn’t come in wrath.

He didn’t come in judgement.

Paul says “The grace of God has appeared”...

Grace has come to us in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Israel expected a mighty conqueror who would wipe their enemies off the face of the earth.

They deserved, and so do we, a judge with a sword, a rod of iron and robes dipped in blood ().

But instead, He came as a child.

God in flesh.

And instead of bringing judgement, Paul says he came “bringing salvation for all people”.

This is the most incredible act of grace and kindness!

Instead of coming to bring condemnation, He came to bring mercy.

Instead of coming to bring judgement, He came to bring mercy.

There wasn’t a single human being who had walked the face of the earth before Jesus, and nor has there ever been one since, who had earned such kindness.

As John puts it in , “God became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son of God from the Father, full of grace and truth.

For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

No my friends, grace is not something that can be earned.

By its very definition, grace is undeserved.

To get what we deserved would mean paying the just penalty for our sins against God.

The grace of God has appeared to us.

Jesus came and lived among us - the second Adam.

And everything that the first Adam could not do, Jesus did.

The birth of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ

He lived in perfect righteousness, always obedient to His Father’s will.

He fulfilled every requirement of the Law.

But He didn’t come only to live among us, but to die for us.

But God was merciful, not giving us what we deserve.

And He was gracious, giving us what only Jesus deserves - eternal life - as a gift of grace.

Paul says in verse 14 that Jesus “gave himself for us to redeem us...”

And this Jesus accomplished in full on the cross.

There, hanging on a wooden cross, being nailed to it by men whose every breath and heartbeat was being given to them by Christ as they tortured Him, Jesus paid our debt to God in full.

The debt wasn’t paid because of what those men did to Him, but because of what God the Father did to Him.

You see the fact of the matter is that sin is sin, and God is just, and God said to Moses in that He “will by no means clear the guilty”.

God doesn’t sweep your sin or my sin under the carpet.

God is good and perfect in all His ways, He is not corruptible and he cannot be bought.

Since man sinned, man must die.

But the good news is that Jesus, the man, the second Adam, took our place on the altar as our substitute, and settled our debt by dying as our representative on the cross.

All the fullness of the wrath of God against sin was poured out on His own Son.

Why?

To glorify God and to reveal His glory to His creation in justice, redemption and grace.

To redeem for Himself a people for His own possession.

To be faithful to keep the promises that He made to Adam, Eve, Abraham, to Israel, and to His elect through the prophets and through the Scriptures.

To display His grace.

Charles Spurgeon wrote: “In the person of Christ the grace of God is revealed, as when the sun rises and makes glad all lands.

… it is an open declaration of the grace of God to every creature under heaven… When the Lord Jesus Christ came to Bethlehem, and when He closed a perfect life by death upon Calvary, He manifested the grace of God more gloriously than has been done by creation or providence.

This is the clearest revelation of the everlasting mercy of the living God.”

Living in Light of the First Advent

Of course, such glorious grace demands a response from us.

It should move us to a response.

Now some have heard this news and concluded that all will now go on to eternal life, since Paul says that Jesus brought “salvation to all”.

But this is a grave mistake.

Paul does not have every individual person in view here, but every kind of person.

In verses 1-10, Paul mentions old men, old women, young women, husbands, children, young men, and even slaves.

And having given all of those kinds of people exhortations on how to live, he gives them the motivation for it - “for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people” - every kind of people.

If Jesus brought salvation to every individual person, then there would be nobody in hell and no reason for any of us to live righteous lives from here on.

But we know that’s not true.

Rather, Jesus brought salvation for every kind of person, whether young or old, slave or free, Jewish or Gentile - none are excluded, since it is all of grace.

Salvation is then applied to the individual person only when they believe this gospel and begin to trust wholly on the finished work of Christ.

We must respond to the call of Christ in - “the time has come, the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe the gospel.”

The salvation which Christ has brought is held up as sufficient for all

Another wrong conclusion is that which says that once we have believed this gospel, we are free to sin or to live without obedience without any fear of condemnation.

Some who hold to this kind of view refer to it as the Hyper Grace gospel, thinking that they are upholding the highest degree of grace; but actually, they are limiting grace, because they suppose that grace can save us, but can’t change us.

But what does Paul say?

He says “The grace of God has appeared… training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.”

Grace doesn’t set us free to sin, it sets us free from sin.

Why would we ever want to run back to those things which Christ came to die to save us from?

Grace trains us.

The word Paul uses here includes the ideas of educating, teaching, and disciplining.

Grace teaches us educates us and disciplines us.