The Very Bad News of Christmas

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The Good News of Christmas is not Good News Without the Bad News of Sin’s Brokenness

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Introduction

Reflections at Christmas
December 2008 (12 years ago…I was 26)
By Michael Stitzel
I wrote this one afternoon as I lay on the floor of my office. I realized that I had gotten so involved with reading Christian blogs, reading sermons, listening to podcasts, studying God’s word, and reflecting on truth that I had failed to “Be Still” and be with God. As I settled my mind and my heart before God, I began weeping over my sin and His Holiness. This poem was the expression of those thoughts and emotions.
I fall on my face and weep
Grief so deep, all I desire is sleep
I am all to aware how short I fall
Of breaking God’s Law, I am guilty of all
Your holiness, so perfect and pure
I could never attain, of this I am sure
Your justice demands compensation
Of which I have no hope of reconciliation.
Death and eternal punishment are on my statement
And I have nothing else to offer as payment
My fate seems sealed and sure
For my condition there seems to be no cure
My sin too great, my ability to small
The task is too enormous, I will surely fall
Grief and despair fill my bones, I cannot cope
I cry out, surely there must be some hope!
Then You reveal a secret so true
Of what You had always intended to do
You prepared Your own Son
To bear my sin, though He had none
Only the shed blood of One so perfect
The consequences of my sin could correct
So, the only One never to sin
Bore my sin, the victory to win
Choosing me, changing me
He drew me to Himself, His to be
“My Child” He exclaims in delight
As I enter the presence of His sight.
So, on my face I lay and weep
Knowing Your Laws I can never fully keep
Although, in my heart, I desire to please You
And to obey and give You thanks in all I do
I weep that I rejoice when Christ was born
And when He came to earth to bear scorn
For by coming to face death for me
I have hope that Your child I can be
But the cost of that great hope was high
And Your only Son to death You had to resign
I’m sorry that it cost so great a price
I’m sorry that my joy is your grief
I’m sorry that my sin caused such pain
Thank You for the grief and pain You endured
Hope and joy are mine; from sin’s power I am cured
Thank You for willingly paying the cost
To save an enemy and sinner who was lost
I rejoice this Christmas season, more than ever before at the remembrance of Christ’s birth. It is the greatest and only gift I actually need.
Praise You God in Heaven. The Giver of Hope, Grace, Mercy, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation

Outline

Big Idea: The Good News of Christmas is not Good News Without the Bad News of Sin’s Brokenness
The Bad News of Sin’s Brokenness
Paul Tripp defines the Brokenness of Sin Using Five Words. We will explore those words this morning.
Separation (Ephesians 2:11-12)
Inability (Ephesians 2:1-3; John 6:44)
Delusion (Romans 1:18-23)
Judgment (Hebrews 9:27; Matthew 16:27)
Hopelessness (Ephesians 2:12)
The Good News of Christmas
God has come near (Ephesians 2:13-22)
What we were unable to do, God has done (Ephesians 2:4-6; 13)
Understanding has been Enlightened (Ephesians 1:15-22, esp 18)
Salvation, not Judgment is our Lot (Ephesians 2:8)
Hope (Romans 5:1-5)

Sermon Body

Big Idea: The Good News of Christmas is not Good News Without the Bad News of Sin’s Brokenness

The Bad News of Sin’s Brokenness

Paul Tripp defines the Brokenness of Sin Using Five Words. We will explore those words this morning.

Separation (Ephesians 2:11-12)

Separation
To keep apart, to set apart
The absence of something.
When we think separation, we think....
Loneliness
Isolation
Being kept apart from something you WANT to be near, to be around.
2020 has given us plenty of opportunities to experience that.
Isolation, separating from others to avoid passing germs/infection
Quarantining when sick
Businesses, social activities, all shutting down due to restrictions
Social interactions going digital, virtual, online.
Being made to be community, social beings, separation is hard.
Take the wife whose husband (or vice versa) has been deployed
Take the parents whose child has just gone to college for the first time.
Physical closeness and interaction is essential.
Being separated from the ones we love is exceptionally hard, isn’t it?
No one WANTS to be alone. We were created for intimacy and we desire it. Only our hurts and griefs cause us to reject it and decide against it.
Separation from the ones we love is at times, a grief too hard to bear.
Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 3176 Daughter’s Death Kills Father

3176 Daughter’s Death Kills Father

A heart-rending story was reported by the press, telling of a young father who shot himself in a telephone booth. James Lee had called a Chicago newspaper and told a reporter he had sent the paper a manila envelope containing the story of his suicide.

The reporter frantically traced the call, but it was too late! When the police arrived, the young man was slumped in the booth with a bullet through his head.

In one of his pockets, they found a child’s crayon drawing, much faded and worn. On it was written, “Please leave this in my coat pocket. I want to have it buried with me.” The drawing was signed in a childish print by his little blonde daughter, Shirley, who had perished in a fire just five months before.

Lee had been so grief-stricken that he asked total strangers to attend his daughter’s funeral so she would have a nice service. He said there was no family to go to because Shirley’s mother had been dead since the child was two years old.

The grieving father could not stand the loneliness or the loss, so he took his life.

—Selected

We were never meant to live alone, separated and isolated. Such that God MADE Adam a lifemate.
And if this is true of our earthly, human relationship, how much more with God? Consider how our relationship with God is described after the entrance of sin...
Alienated
Estranged
To make hostile
To be withdrawn
Strangers
Unfamiliar
Strange
Unacquainted
This separation is made infinitesimally more difficult when applied to our relationship to God - THE CORE relationship WE WERE CREATED FOR.
The core purpose of our existence is connection with God. Losing that, being separated from that robs us of our core reason for existence.
Relationship to God is HARDWIRED into our being as we it is the very reason for which we were created.
The problem of sin; the need of Christmas is that sin has separated us from God and offers no way of return.
Sin was that one way ticket AWAY from God
Not only does separate, it make us unable.

Inability (Ephesians 2:1-3; John 6:44)

We were DEAD. What can dead do?
Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 990 Lincoln’s Body Moved 17 Times

990 Lincoln’s Body Moved 17 Times

Following the burial of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, his casket was moved 17 times, chiefly to prevent its being stolen and held for ransom. Six men nearly succeeded once, on a night in 1876, but they were surprised and frightened away by the custodian when leaving the tomb with the body. Consequently, it was hidden under a pile of a scrap lumber in the cellar during the next two years. Since 1901, the casket has been locked in a steel cage and buried in solid cement ten feet below the floor of the mausoleum in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois.

—Freling Foster

He had no ability to defend himself, hide himself, move himself. He had no knowledge of it even happening.
Dead men possess no ability.
Dead
Loss of life
Never having had life
Lifelessness.
Spiritually, Ephesians 2 explains, we are dead. We had no spiritual ability, understanding, or knowledge.
Not only are we UNABLE, but we are UNWILLING.
Romans 3 - Not even a hint of a desire to even do so; to even seek God.
Apart from an intervention and assistance, we would be helpless and hopeless.
In this state, we are no better than the dead body of Abraham Lincoln, carried about by every whim and fancy of those who desire to snatch us up.
John 6 makes our inability even clearer when it says....
John 6:44 - No one can come unless the Father Draw him.
Draw - To move an object from one area to another in a pulling motion, draw, with implications that the object being moved is incapable of propelling itself or in the case of pers. is unwilling to do so voluntarily, in either case with implication of exertion on the part of the mover.
As a kid, I remember sitting in one of our church gatherings and remember a toddler deciding he did not want to sit still and participate, so he decided to run. Well, he was wearing suspenders and his mother grabbed the back of his suspenders as he darted away and when he reached the end of the elasticity of those suspenders, he snapped back into his mother’s arms. He did not want to come, but he was drawn back, pulled back. This is actually the imagery of this word.
Initially, we DO NOT WANT TO BE DRAWN, but as God draw us and changes us, he grants, no only the ability, but the desire to come. But that is not where it begins for us.
Sin leaves us UNABLE and UNWILLING to come to Him.
Sit and ponder that truth for a moment. Does that not make our salvation and rescue even more glorious?
What’s more, sin’s brokenness leave us with a grant delusion.

Delusion (Romans 1:18-23; 1 Corinthians 2:6-16)

Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 5559 Emperor of United States

5559 Emperor Of United States

America’s only emperor lived in San Francisco in the last century and was mildly mad. Noblest and best-known of all early California characters, Joshua A. Norton was a successful businessman when speculation in the rice market brought financial ruin. Whether this clouded his mind or he started it as a joke, he began telling everyone he was “Emperor of these United States.”

This thought grew into an obsession, until in 1859, he officially claimed, in printed proclamation, himself to be emperor by an 1853 act of the California legislature. He assumed a sword and plume and strutted the streets in colorful costume.

Citizens of San Francisco were amused by the harmless ploy and went along with the self-styled emperor. They gave him recognition through free tickets to opening nights, and newspaper publicity, and by permitting him to collect small taxes and issue his own currency. It was all done in fun, and the emperor became a fixture in the city for several years.

However, all of this was very serious to him and he believed in his position. When tension developed in Mexico, he expanded his authority to “emperor of these United States and Protector of Mexico.” When the tragic figure-object of many practical jokes died in 1880, he had ten thousand curious citizens at his funeral. He had lived and died in his own delusions.

—C. R. Hembree

We are most adept at self deception and delusion. Romans 1:21-22 paints a clear picture of this very thing.
Romans
Vs. 21 - They became futile in their thinking...
Vs. 21 - Their foolish hearts were darkened
Vs. 22 - Claiming to be wise, they became fools...
The delusion of this California man, is the same delusion of every man entranced in sin and blinded by it. We become our our gods. Our understanding is darkened.
1 Corinthians 2:8
Vs. 8 - None of the rulers of this age understood this...
Vs. 9 - No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined...
Vs. 14 - The Natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned
Things of the Spirit of God
Sin
Righteousness
Gospel
Spiritually discerned
Not able to comprehend, understand.
Not able to accept, not willing to accept.
We delude ourselves into thinking we are better than we are...
We delude ourselves into thinking we understand when we don’t.
Without God, we neither have the ability nor the desire to think biblically and rightly.
Because of all of this, we fall under divine judgement and condemnation.

Judgment (Hebrews 9:27; Matthew 16:27)

administration of what is right and fair.
Determination relating from the act of judging
In this case, it is the righteous act of God determining the just and right response to man’s sins and the just consequence of that sin.
No action goes unnoticed or ignored. Each one is justly addressed.
For some, like us, our was addressed in the person of Jesus on the cross. We will never be condemned or have our wrongs used against us again. They have been justly dealt with once and for all
For some, who have rejected that payment, they will give an account of every sin and wrong deed and will justly be required to pay the cost of that disobedience themselves. They MAY have not paid the penalty here or yet, but they will. Everyone will. Every act will be justly addressed.
This reality of Judgment struck Charles Finney hard at the end of his study to practice law
Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 2861 For Finney: “Then What?”

2861 For Finney: “Then What?”

Charles G. Finney, a young lawyer, was sitting in a village law office in the state of New York. Finney had just come into the old squire’s office. It was very early in the day, and he was all alone when the Lord began to deal with him.

“Finney, what are you going to do when you finish your course?”

“Put out a shingle and practice law.”

“Then what?” “Get rich.”

“Then what?” “Retire.”

“Then what?” “Die.”

“Then what?” And the words came tremblingly, “The judgment.”

He ran for the woods a half mile away. All day he prayed, and vowed that he would never leave until he had made his peace with God. He saw himself at the judgment bar of God. For four years he had studied law, and now the vanity of a selfish life, lived for the enjoyment of the things of this world, was made clear to him.

Finney came out of the woods that evening, after a long struggle, with the high purpose of living henceforth to the glory of God and of enjoying Him forever.

From that moment blessings untold filled his life, and God used him in a mighty way, not as a lawyer but as a preacher, to bring thousands to conversion over a useful period of fifty years.

—The Church Herald

Oh that more would take seriously this judgment that is to come. Perhaps more would be granted repentance and find salvation from the coming wrath.
Our sin merits just judgment and holy wrath.
This judgement comes at the end of time. At the end of life, at the end of all things.
God who is just and holy, MUST justly address all wrong doing.
Our rebellion and sin MUST be addressed if God is to be holy and just.

Hopelessness (Ephesians 2:12)

2274 No Hope Carter

While attending college, I visited a psychiatric institution with a group of students to observe various types of mental illness. The experience proved to be very disturbing. I remember one man who was called “No Hope Carter.” His was a tragic case. A victim of venereal disease, he was going through the final stages when the brain is affected.

Before he began to lose his mind, this man was told by the doctors that there was no known cure for him. He begged for one ray of light in his darkness, but had been told that the disease would run its inevitable course and end in death. Gradually his brain deteriorated and he became more and more despondent.

When I saw him in his small, barred room about 2 weeks before he died, he was pacing up and down in mental agony. His eyes stared blankly, and his face was drawn and ashen. Over and over he muttered these two forlorn and fateful words: “No hope! No hope!” He said nothing else.

—Our Daily Bread

This sad picture is what is true of all who find themselves in the brokenness of sin.
Ephesians 2:12 calls it, Having no hope
Hope - Confident Expectation
Why are we hopeless?
Because we are separated, unable, deluded, and facing judgment.
This is the bad news of sins brokenness.
And if we were to stop here, it would be legit hopelessness. Consider the beginnings of this brokenness...
Play video - Free Fall (Sermon Spice)
Can we stop for a moment this morning and grasp the bad news of that situation. Of Sin’s Brokenness. Until we grasp the depth of horror of sin’s brokenness…the good news of Christmas means nothing.
Here, beloved, here is the good news of Christmas...

The Good News of Christmas

Big Idea: The Good News of Christmas is not Good News Without the Bad News of Sin’s Brokenness

God has come near (Ephesians 2:13-22)

You who ONCE WERE FAR OFF…HAVE BEEN BROUGHT NEAR
HE HIMSELF IN OUR PEACE
We are reconciled to God
We are FELLOW citizens
We are being built up into a dwelling place for God
NO LONGER are we separated, alienated! WE are NEAR!

What we were unable to do, God has done (Ephesians 2:4-6; 13)

GOD MADE US ALIVE - Passive…we are the inactive recipient, not the initiator and actor here...
By Grace, we are saved
It is NOT of our doing, but of God’s
Vs. 13 - We have been BROUGHT near to God by Jesus.
We are drug, carried, brought near by His work, not ours.
What we were both unable and unwilling to do, God has done for us.
He has made the way through Jesus’s death and resurrection.
He has given us a new heart and enabled us to come near to him.
He has granted us faith (Romans 12:3) and repentance (2 Timothy 2:24-26), inviting us to come him.
This required that our understanding be enlightened and we be saved from our delusion.

Understanding has been Enlightened (Ephesians 1:15-22, esp 18)

Because of the spiritual death and the spiritual discernment, the gospel is foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:22-24) to the sinful man.
If we are to come to truth, the accept it, to embrace it, the Spirit of God must enlighten our hearts.
And he has.
The result is salvation

Salvation, not Judgment is our Lot (Ephesians 2:8)

Salvation from the righteous wrath of God over our sin
John 3:36
His GRACE saves us when we believe and repent IN RESPONSE to His enabling, enlightening, faith giving, repentance granting work.
We are forgiven, reconciled, and delivered out of the war path of a righteous and wrathful God over wickedness of rebellious, sinful man.
And as as result, we are given a hope that cannot be stripped away.

Hope (Romans 5:1-5)

We have been justified, declared right in the HIGHEST legal court of law to exist
We have peace with God
We have access to grace
We rejoice IN HOPE of the glory of God!
We rejoice then, in suffering because the salvation that has been given to us has granted us a hope that cannot be taken away no matter the suffering, sorrow, or hardship that we face in this life.

Conclusion

Play Video - The Good News of Christ (Skit Guys) 5 min
Probably for many of us, the truths shared here today are not new.
I think I would be worried if they were.
For those of us who bear the name of Christ and share a profession of salvation, these truths SHOULD NOT BE NEW
But the SHOULD BE meaningful, cherished, significant.
The GOSPEL is what our Christmas celebrations and remembrances should be about.

Application and Discussion Questions

What other words, besides the five suggested by Paul Tripp, might you use to describe the brokenness of sin? Are there any better words to use?
As you meditate and think upon these five words; separation, inability, delusion, judgment, hopelessness, what response does the Spirit invoke in your heart?
How is the gospel at the center of your Christmas celebrations?
Why is it so necessary for the bad news of Christmas, the bad news of sin’s brokenness to be understood before we can fully appreciate the good news of Christmas? How does meditating upon the bad news strengthen the worship and remembrance of Christ’s birth?
What Christmas traditions that we engage in tend to dilute and drown out the true message of Christ?
What can we do to correct that problem? How do we, as individuals and as a collective body, ensure that the bad news of sin’s brokenness and the good news of Christ’s birth remain the central focus of all we do in our annual celebration as well as in our daily lives?
How will this change your celebrations this year?
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