What Child Is This

The Announcement

Matthew 1:18–21 NLT

This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly. As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

We have before us today, the announcement of the most wonderful event that ever happened in the world-the incarnation and birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. There has never been a better good news proclaimed then what the angel Gabriel spoke to Mary that day. The world was tail spinning out of control in sin and had not heard from God for a while. Then as if out of nowhere comes an angel to a young girl from a lowly family in a nowhere land to announce the greatest news ever heard by human ears. God has spoken to sinful humans. His message is Jesus Christ the Savior.

Luke 1:26-38

Luke 1:26–38 NLT

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!” Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!” Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.” The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. For the word of God will never fail.” Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her.

CS Lewis wrote of an interesting experience that his brother had one Christmas season. He said Warnie was riding on a big English double Dekker bus one day, and they passed a church with a manger scene outside of it. Warnie overheard an English lady exclaim “Lori, they’re dragging religion into everything these days; look they’re even dragging it into Christmas now”!

Well, as you and I know, we are not “dragging” religion into Christmas; the true meaning of Christmas is about what God did for us in Jesus Christ, the baby in the manger. What did he come to do? We get the answer to that in our passage from this morning Matthew chapter 1 verses 19 through 21 we’re told the angel told Joseph “You should call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” What is the significance of this saying? The name Jesus or Yeshua means Yahweh is salvation; so in calling the baby Jesus they were saying that God was saving his people through him. But the angel specifically said that he would save His people from their sins. What does this mean, He will save His people from their sins? All of us have sinned, the Bible says in( Romans 3:23 ).We have all done things that were wrong, and said things that were wrong, thought things that were wrong, and had attitudes that were wrong. Sin has numerous destructive effect in our lives. Sin makes us guilty before God for the wrong we have committed. Sin enslaves us in its power. And sin would separate from God and His Holy heaven forever. But when Jesus came “to save His people from their sins”,these things were reverse!

So this morning I want to talk to you about the greatest gift given to us.

Jesus was not born in a place of Gold; he was born in a Stable. He was close with Rags. He was laid in the feeding trough. Yeah these things do not, in any way, diminish the story of Christ birth. If anything they help us realize the greatest sacrifice God made for us. Gods gift to humanity, the ultimate gift of eternal life through his son, Jesus Christ, came in the simplest and humble us of wrappings.

At Christmas, we get gifts to those who we care about, who has being kind to us over the past year, or who has given us a gift first. We don’t give gifts to the person who has been slandering our name or to the angry neighbor who never has a kind word to say. Yeah God gave us his gift when we were his enemies. He didn’t give this gift to us because we deserved it. In fact, it was just the opposite the Bible tells us, but God demonstrates his own love towards us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.(Romans 5:8).

The gift tells us something about the giver.

When you want to give someone a gift, you start thinking about it ahead of time. Hopefully, you try to find what that person wants or needs. When God decided to give us the gift of eternal life, it wasn’t something that he just thought of on the fly. Long before there was a town called Bethlehem, a garden called Eden, and a planet called earth, a decision was made in eternity that God would send fourth His Son, born of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those that are under the law.

The Bible says that he was slain from the foundations of the world (Revelations 13:8). Make no mistake about it; this gift that God has given to us was the most sacrificial thing He possibly could have offered.

so Christmas is an about the gifts that you have under your tree right now. All of those things will be gone one day. All that will be left after this life is the human soul, and that will live forever. We put so much stock in what we have, but this is going to pass away. Life is about what happens beyond the grave. Life is about knowing the God who made you and who gave you the greatest gift you will ever receive.