Love Came Down at Christmas

Intro: The advent book I’m using this year is titled Love Came Down at Christmas by Sinclair Fergusion, who used to pastor at First Pres downtown.

For many people, Christmas means many things—

--Time with family; off from work; traveling; gifts; overly excited children;

--Countless Netflix and Hallmark Christmas movies that I’m not really sure the point

--For some, Christmas is not happy but hard; a time of loneliness, grief, bereavement

Regardless of how you come to see Christmas, Christians unite around one central meaning:

Love Came Down at Christmas

That is what these two verses in Gal 4 tell us—Love Came Down

Love comes in God’s perfect timing (v4)

(v4) When the fulness of time had come…..

There is an African proverb that goes like this: “Americans have watches, Africans have time.”

It reminds us that as Americans, we tend to be ruled by the clock

—You can be fired from a job if you show up late too many times

—How many clocks do you have in your home? (I would have tried to count, but couldn't’ find the time!)

—How often do you get a knot in the stomach because you are going to be late?

—Do you ever get impatient, or angry sitting in a traffic jam, or waiting in line?

—Every catch yourself saying, “this is such a waste of time….or that person wastes my time”

Point is, we can be ruled by time. But God is not

God is not ruled by time, but rules over time; God is outside of time, transcends time.

So a starting point for understanding the Christmas story is knowing that God works all things according to his watch, his time. When God sent his Son, it was in his perfect timing

This implies something else about God—he is patient, waiting centuries for redemptive promises and prophecies to unfold and be fulfilled.

Apply: Love is patient (1 Cor 13)

…but its not a dragging the feet kind of slowness we may think of....

2 Peter 3:9 ESV

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Or

Romans 2:4 ESV

Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

So even in the working of history we see the kindness and patience of God…

Apply: God could have just finished it all at the flood, right?

But he didn’t—and we can have the joy of worship because he is a patient God.

2. Love comes with a high price

The passage goes on….God sent for his Son, born of woman, born under the law

—There is a lot that can be said there

It’s also vital to see that God didn’t create a Son, he sent a Son

(Christology 101)

—Born of a Woman: took on human flesh

—Born under the Law

These qualify Jesus to be a redeemer: God’s true son, truly humanity, a true Israelite, submitting to all the requirements to God’s Law

**In this statement is packed the divinity, humanity, and righteousness of Christ

The key action word is redeemed. Jesus was sent to redeem—(to deliver, liberate, or set free)

We come across that same verb one other time in Gal

Galatians 3:13 ESV

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—

It also helps us get at what the phrase “under the law” means for us....; it means to be under the curse, or as 3:22 “under sin”

Over the last few months, we’ve been hit with multiple things going wrong with our house. At one point I told my wife—I think our house in under a curse. My wife grew up with acreage, so I tempted her: “Do you want to move? Find that nice yard somewhere off Kennerly Rd We can have land.

Friends, picture that spiritually our lives are like a money pit house. So much continually goes wrong; you don’t have the knack fo DIY, and each repair is a major and keeps wiping you out, leaving you buried in debt.

It’s so bad that you feel overwhelmed, depressed, maybe you cry—it’s beyond yourself to repair or pay for.

**When we come into the world, that is the hopeless condition we are born in—we are under a curse

I may look at mounting house repairs and make a joke about being under a curse.....but truly being under a curse is no joke...

The staggering thing about Christmas is not just that Jesus came, but that he submitted himself to the curse we deserve.

—He came to become a curse

That’s why Christians can say: Love came down at Christmas.

Or, even more personally, like Paul the author of Gal: “He loved me; the curse-bearing Son of God, loved me.”

Galatians 2:20 ESV

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Conclusion:

I read in a Christmas devotional article this morning in Tabletalk (Geoff Thomas—Far as the Curse is Found)

“We can tell every single person we meet that we have good news for them.”

—I have good news: Christians, there is nothing better that the truth of these verses.

It keeps us persevering in the faith through the peaks and valleys.

—Non Christian: I have good news: You can be set free from the curse, from the eternal penalty and enslaving power of your sin; you can be a new creation....all because:

Love came down at Christmas