The Cross
A Jesus-Centered Christmas • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction
Introduction
During this season, we are celebrating a Jesus-Centered Christmas. We have talked about the Christ and looked at Genesis 3:15 that describes how sin came into our world and God’s remedy was in Christ. We have talked about the cradle and Jesus the Christ was brought into this world as a human being so He could fully relate to us. The life of Jesus began as a baby and He lived, walked and talked among people. He taught them the things of God and we have His example to live by.
Peter Larson wrote, “The life of Jesus is bracketed by two impossibilities: A virgin’s womb and an empty tomb. Jesus entered our world through a door marked ‘No Entrance’ and left through a door marked ‘No Exit.’”
The way He left through that door was through the cross and ultimately in the resurrection. As we celebrate Christmas, it is imperative that we fully understand that the Christ who came to the cradle had a mission to die on a cross. 1 John 4:9-10 sums it so beautifully for us.
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
As we dive deeper into these two verses, let us look at God’s solution, God’s sacrifice which leads to God’s salvation He has for us.
God’s Solution
God’s Solution
God’s solution all about love. It always has been. The first phrase of these two verses reiterates God’s love. This is how God loved us. Love comes from God because God is the source and author of all love. In fact, in the verse preceding these, 1 John 4:8 we see in plainly written, God is love. Because God is love, everything that comes from Him is done with love and He has lots of love for us!
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
In fact, Philippians 2:1 tells us that we can find comfort from His love. It is not from us that God loves, it cannot begin with us.
We love because he first loved us.
It begins with God. He loved us and He acted on that love. It is through His great love that He sent His Son. The nature of the coming of God’s Son was through His love.
The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying:
“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
I have drawn you with loving-kindness.
God’s Son
God’s Son
We know that the entire Bible in some way or another is about how God manifested this love for us through His Son Jesus. We know from that beautiful prophetic passage in Isaiah 9:6-7 that a Son was to be given.
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 increase 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.
Dear friend, the Son God did come just as promised and He is still called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God and Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace. We read of the good tidings of the angels when the Christ child was born in Luke 2:14:
“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”
We know that just as the newborn Christ was prophesied to come, He was also prophesied to be despised and rejected.
He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
We learn that the Wonderful Counselor that was despised and rejected was indeed the Son of God. The Son of God was purposed to be God in the flesh.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.
It would take God in the Flesh to be able to make the Father fully known.
God’s Sacrifice
God’s Sacrifice
The purpose of Christ coming to this earth was to redeem mankind, but that purpose came with an atoning sacrifice. The Greek word for the phrase atoning sacrifice is hilasmos. It is used only two times in the Greek New Testament in 1 John 4:10 and also in 1 John 2:2 which reads:
However, in the Greek Old Testament known as the Septuagint, it is used in more ways that help us understand better its full use.
Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land.
We see that hilasmos is referring to a specific time.
But if that person has no close relative to whom restitution can be made for the wrong, the restitution belongs to the Lord and must be given to the priest, along with the ram with which atonement is made for him.
We see that hilasmos refers to a specific object, in this case a ram, used for the atonement of the people’s sins.
But with you there is forgiveness;
therefore you are feared.
We see that hilasmos refers to forgiveness.
In addition to all your other detestable practices, you brought foreigners uncircumcised in heart and flesh into my sanctuary, desecrating my temple while you offered me food, fat and blood, and you broke my covenant.
We see that hilasmos refers to the sin offering.
The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him;
We see one more representation of this being expressed in the mercies and forgiveness of the Lord.
All of these different uses help us mold together the full meaning of what Jesus became for us. In theological terms, He became our expiation, which is the removal of guilt. He became our propitiation, which is the appeasing of God’s anger towards all those who sin. Finally, we see Christ became our forgiveness by God offering the expiation and propitiation to all humanity.
You see, it was because of the cross on which all this took place that we can receive the greatest gift of all.
Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
God’s Salvation
God’s Salvation
The greatest gift of all was not wrapped in beautiful paper with an expensively hand made bow. The greatest gift of all came in the form of a baby who grew into the Man that hung on a cross to gives us God’s salvation. Jesus became the Lamb of God.
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.
The Lamb of God is our Savior of the World.
And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
As our Savior of the world, Jesus gives us life through Him. because He was lifted up on a cross, suspended between heaven and earth to take own our sins.
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
We are given atonement.
God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—
By this atonement, we are given life everlasting and abundantly as it says in John 10:10.
Have you ever wondered what would have happened had there been no cross?
In her classic book, Streams in the Desert, L. B. Cowman gives us a story that answers that question. She writes,
A number of years ago a remarkable Christmas card was published by the title, “If Christ Had Not Come.” It was based on our Savior’s own words, “If I had not come,” in John 15:22. the card pictured a minister falling asleep in his study on Christmas morning and then dreaming of a world in Christ had never come and had never died on the cross.
In his dream, he saw himself walking through his house, but as he looked, he saw no stockings hung on the chimney, no Christmas tree, no wreaths of holly, and no Christ to comfort or gladden hearts or to save us. He then walked onto the street outside, but there was no church with its spire pointing toward Heaven. And when he came back and sat down in his library, he realized every book about our Savior had disappeared.
The minister dreamed that the doorbell rang and a messenger asked him to visit a friend’s dying mother. He reached her home, and as his friend wept, he said, “I have something here that will comfort you.” He opened his Bible to look for a familiar promise, but it ended with Malachi. there was no gospel and no promise of hope and salvation, and all he could do was bow his head and weep with his friend and his mother in bitter despair.
Two days later he stood beside her coffin and conducted her funeral service, but there was no message of comfort, no words of a glorious resurrection, and no thought of a mansion awaiting her in Heaven. There was only “dust to dust, and ashes to ashes,” and one long, eternal farewell. Finally he realized that Christ had not come, and burst into tears, weeping bitterly in his sorrowful dream.
Then suddenly he awoke with a start, and a great shout of joy and praise burst from his lips as he heard his choir singing these words in his church nearby:
O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem!
Com and behold Him, born the King of angels, O come let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!
Dear friend, He did come as Christ in that cradle but became our atoning sacrifice as Christ on the Cross! As you celebrate Christmas this week, focus on the cross.
But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.