It's Christmas: Right on Time
Notes
Transcript
Handout
We are taking a break from working through the book of Genesis in our series The Promise in order to spend a couple of weeks remembering the season of Christmas.
It’s Christmas. Everyone knows this is a special time of year. We plan gifts, parties, ugly sweaters, bring trees indoors; all sorts of things we don’t normally do… because It’s Christmas!
And if you are a Christian, this is a very special time of year.
I shared this week in my online devotions a story of a man who wrote a letter complaining to his pastor. Yes people complain to the pastor… true, most people just complain about the pastor, but some folks actually care enough to talk directly to the pastor… I know crazy right.
Anyway, he wrote a letter to the pastor and asked if he ever preached any other messages. He wrote that in all the years of being a church member, every service he had been in the pastor preached one of two messages… it was either Jesus is born… or Jesus is alive. He accused the pastor of probably not knowing any other scriptures to preach.
The pastor wanted to respond, but thought better of it. He decided he would speak to the man the next time he saw him in church.
Sure enough, just like clockwork, the man showed up on Christmas Eve, the first time he had been in church since Easter.
You may have missed it, but the man only heard two messages, because he only attended on those two distinct holy days.
I used to be that man. I made sure to be in church those two Sunday’s, I was there a few others maybe, but those two I was there. The rest of the time, I had trouble making time to be there.
So I get it, I get it if you are one who thinks of Christmas worship and thinks… I know the story; it’s a miracle.
I know you know the story, I do as well. The problem is, I tend to overlook the significance of the story in my day to day life.
So this Christmas I want to go back and reflect on this simple familiar story and hear it again for the first time. I want us to be excited about Christmas again… for a uniquely Christian reason.
In order to do that, though, I want us to spend a bit of time thinking about what Christmas was at first. Not for us .... but for the people alive in the first century.
I believe that as we get a deeper understanding of the first Christmas, will impact our Christmas and everyone we share it with.
When you go back and consider, while it was a miracle for sure, God the Son taking on flesh… to be one of us, with us, for us.
Mary and Joseph were surprised, but their surprise was in that they would be the ones… not that God was doing this. In fact it had been anticipated for generations.
The prophecy for a Messiah is traced back to Genesis 3:15, but that first prophecy is about Jesus’s victory over sin and death. When we think of a prophecy for the birth of Jesus, we tend to think of the words of the prophet Isaiah.
I want to look there this Christmas. Looking back 600 years before Mary and Joseph will help us understand why the miracle of the Messiah wasn’t a surprise, but a long awaited reality that wouldn’t come soon enough.
IT’s Christmas!!!
Isaiah wrote one of the most poweful prophecies for the Messiah
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.
You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder.
For as in the day of Midian’s defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor.
Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.
What a promise. It’s a beautiful picture of the ministry of Jesus. But it leaves me with a question, and if you are like me, you may be asking why did God promise this… instead of just making it happen?
It’s Christmas: Right on Time
It’s Christmas: Right on Time
The prophecy is great, but Jesus is better. Why not make it happen right then?
God knew we needed a savior… why not send us one?
I’m going to spend the next couple of weeks drawing this out. Today we are looking at the timing of the first Christmas. Christmas eve we will look at the person of Christmas, and the following Sunday, during our online worship, we will reflect on the impact of Christmas.
To start answering this question of God’s timing of the first Christmas, I want us to look at a story referenced in Isaiah’s passage above where God compares the coming of the promised Messiah will be like unto Midian’s defeat.
When I read that a moment ago, be honest, how many of you went … oh yea.. Midian’s defeat… it all makes sense. I didn’t. But once I saw it I was like oh yea!
Now most of us don't remember Midian’s defeat. But those who are pretty familiar with the OT might remember a man named Gideon.
I looked it up for you. It’s in the book of Judges chapter 6-7. I’ll give you the cliff-note version.
God had brought judgement on the Israelites because of their sin, by the hands of the Midianites. For 7 years, the Midianites took everything out of Israel. the oppression was harsh so much so the people cried out to God, and he heard their cries.
God called Gideon to deliver them. Gideon protested saying his clan was the weakest in Israel… There would be no way he could battle the 135,000 soldiers gathered against Israel. But God said I’ll be with you.
God went on to provide amazing signs and wonders to confirm for Gideon that he was at work in this
Gideon gathered his men, twenty three thousand of them. But God said that’s too many. Through an amazing process, God reduced Gideon’s army to 300 soldiers.
They went to battle against over a hundred thousand. It would be amazing for the 300 to be successful in a battle. But God wanted to leave no doubt that the victory was due to Him so he instructed Gideon that the battle would be fought by blowing horns and smashing jars. The army of Midian began to fight itself… leaving Gideon to pursue the survivors.
It is an amazing story of How God works in mysterious ways… in ways we can’t possibly fully understand, all we can do is trust Him.
Isaiah says, the coming of the Messiah is going to be just like that… He’s coming in ways that you can’t fully understand, But even though it doesn’t make sense, you can trust that God is working His plan and His plan will work.
Part of God’s plan was the timing of Jesus’s birth.
Now...
How are we to understand that Jesus’s birth was right on time.
The first thing we must remember in this is God’s nature . God is eternal, we aren’t. We are here on earth where our days are numbered and ruled by the rising and setting of the sun, this is only a phenomenon of being on a spinning ball in the milky way named Earth. Outside of the earth, there is no rising and setting of the sun.
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.
Time as we understand it is irrelevant to God as He is not of this world.
So when we wonder, why did God wait? Why didn’t he just send the Son back in Genesis? We need to remember that time as we know it isn’t a factor to God like it is to us.
So what would shape the arrival of the Son? God’s Plan.
As Paul wrote in Galatians 4
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.
The “fullness of time” means that God sent Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, when everything was ready.
Today I want to look at three elements of this Fullness of Time.
First, is our hearts.
Fullness of Time: God measures the heart
Fullness of Time: God measures the heart
Our study of Genesis has taught us that God has a plan to exercise judgement and deliverance and the timing of those has a lot to do with the hearts of man. There was a time for creation. It was time for a flood. There was a time for God to chose Abraham. Then when Abraham was shown the land he was promised he had to wait until the time was right to occupy the land until as God said in Gen 15:16, the sin of the Amorites had reached it’s “full measure”.
There was a right time but there wasn’t a clock to tell God when. It was our hearts that prompted God to act.
Isaiah 9:8-21
If we keep reading in Isaiah, we see that some things had to happen before the promise would be answered. Remember, they were being oppressed, God gave them this word of encouragement we read a moment ago. But then he says in verse 12, that while things may get better, you won’t see the Messiah because
God’s “anger is not turned away, His hand is still upraised”
God says, that in the judgement, in my bringing relief, "the people have not returned.”
God says that he is going to destroy Israel, then in vs 17 “for everyone is ungodly and wicked, every mouth speaks folly.”
This is terrible. But it is the pattern of the OT.
Disobedience followed by punishment, followed by repentance, followed by mercy, followed by disobedience, followed by punishment, followed by repentance, followed by mercy, and on and on.
When you read the OT chronologically, it’s an awful story really. And yet:
He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.
Finally, the Jews were ready. Not ready in the sense that you and I think of being ready for Christmas, in fact they rejected him. But ready in the sense that they had become living proof that the law, requiring perfect obedience, couldn’t be kept. The law couldn’t save them, they needed a savior.
God had one planned.
Second, Christmas came right on time because of the fulfillment of prophecy.
Fullness of Time: Just as promised
Fullness of Time: Just as promised
Right on time even though the promise for the Messiah had been out there for hundreds of years and this time was required in order for the prophecies to come about.
It’s like, this is an artist, you might say, painting a canvas and saying: The reason this color is here is because later I am going to add this color, and those two colors together make this beautiful whole.
One time God told Isaiah In 6:10 that he is going to preach in a way that actually hardens the people hearts.
Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”
Isaiah asks… “How Long o Lord?” God says, until the cities lie in waste and houses are without people, and the land is desolate, and the Lord removes the people, and the land becomes a forsaken place. That’s going to take some time.
In the book of Daniel 9:24-27 there is an amazing prediction of the rebuilding of Jerusalem that aligns with the historical record of 483 years as well as the death of the Messiah in 30 ad… which just so happens to align with when Jesus was crucified. There are other prophecies: Micah prophesied the town where Jesus would be born. The genealogy of Mary and Joseph in Matthew and Luke align perfectly with the promises of a savior from the line of Judah.
These things take time but Christmas is right on time.
Fullness of Time: Just look around
Fullness of Time: Just look around
The third thing that shows us that Christmas came right on time is the historical setting. When Jesus arrived.
At the time of Christ’s birth, the known world was experiencing peace and stability, the Pax Romana. The irony is that the peace that Rome brought came on the point of a spear. Rome had peace because they had killed their enemies and would kill anyone who stood against them.
Favorable means of travel were available, and a common language (Greek) existed making trade amongst nations the most accessible in history to this point. Society at the time was amazingly cosmopolitan, making for a quick spread of the gospel.
Prosperity was common.
But the religious world was bankrupt, unable to meet the spiritual needs of the people because they were solely focused on political influence.
The world had everything to offer but what people needed most. It was the perfect time for Jesus the Messiah to make his presence known.
What a great God we have.
Luke 2:1-20
It’s Christmas: Right on time
It’s Christmas: Right on time
It seems we are always waiting for just the right time to do things.
We are waiting for just the right time to make that commitment of our life to Christ as Savior and Lord. Maybe you are waiting for just the right time to make that commitment to church membership. Maybe you are waiting for just the right time to commit to a closer walk with Christ. Maybe you've been waiting for just the right time to give up that bad habit.
For God says, “At just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you.” Indeed, the “right time” is now. Today is the day of salvation.
Now is the right time to make that commitment to Christ. Jesus said in Mark 1:15, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe in the good news!"
Now is the right time to make that commitment to Christ and receive God's gift of salvation.
Now is the time to join the church.
Now is the time to recommit to your marriage and family.
Now is the time to renew your commitment to walk in close fellowship with Christ.
The right time is now to draw close to the Lord!
I’ve read a few biographies and the amazing thing si that many of them trace back the significance of their life to one moment, one decision where everything changed. Right now, this Christmas, offers you and I just such a moment. Today is the right time to receive God's gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. If you have never made a commitment of your life to Jesus Christ receiving Him as your Lord and Savior, then I want to invite you to make that commitment today. This moment can change your earthly direction as well as your eternal destiny. Choose Jesus and you are choosing an abundant life on earth and an eternal life with Christ in heaven. It is just what you need for just this exact moment. That represents the miracle of Christmas.