December 1, 2024
Morning Service

In the next couple of weeks, we will be looking at the people who were involved in the Christmas story.  We will see the parts that Zacharias, Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, Gabriel, the shepherds, and the three wise played in the birth of the baby Jesus.  It will be good for us to review the “who and what” that goes along with the Christmas story and season, but today I want us to focus on the “Why?”  Why did God do this?   Why did He decide, as the Creator, to become like His creation?  The motivation this comes from is a clear explanation of the character of God given to us by John the Apostle in one of his letters to us.  He just comes and tells us that “God is love.” (I Jn. 4:8) His love for us is the “why” behind this wonderful love story that we see set into full motion with the birth of Jesus in a manger.  This love story however, does not actually begin here, but began back even before the creation of man.  God desired to have a relationship with someone who chose of their own free will to reciprocate His love back to Him.  God then wrote this love story from start to finish including a few plot twists in the middle of it.  So let’s go back to the true beginning of the story and fill in a few blanks starting with Adam and Eve in the garden.

Gen 1:26-27  Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."  (27)  So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Here is the account of God creating Adam and Eve. In chapter 2, God placed them in the garden “to tend and keep it.”  God then saw what He had created and said it was good.  During the cool of the evening, God would come and walk in the garden and have fellowship with His creation and it was good.  This is where Hallmark movies actually copy the story of the scriptures.  Boy meets girl and all is good.  Enter conflict and boy loses girl.  Something special then happens to bring them back together.  The only thing different is that the broken relationship is between God and His creation, not boy and girl.  Enter the conflict.

 

Gen 3:8-10  And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.  (9)  Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, "Where are you?"  (10)  So he said, "I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself."

            We all know the story of the serpent tempting them to disobey God and eat of the tree that had been forbidden for them to eat.  Sin had entered God’s perfect world and now this conflict becomes the major twist in this love story.  Up to this point Adam had enjoyed the company of his Creator but now suddenly he was afraid and ashamed: why?  Sin had caused their relationship to change.  The perfection of the relationship in the garden was now tainted and broken.  Sin separates us from God.

  Isa 59:2  But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear.

            Our Creator is Holy, Just and Good and we are not because of sin in our lives.  God cannot violate His character by having a relationship with anything or anyone that is stained with sin.  Through Adam’s sin God and man’s relationship had been broken and needed fixed.  This is all part of this love story and it has many twists and turns before being resolved.

            God then chose Abraham to be the beginning of His own special people.  Through many years and miraculous events, He brought them together at Mt. Sinai and mapped out for them the Law of Moses giving them a path to repairing their broken relationship.  He promised to forgive them IF they would humble themselves and faithfully obey Him.  It was a plan that was destined to fail, as no one was able to keep the Law perfectly to earn God’s forgiveness.   God wanted to prove to us that this broken relationship could not be healed from man’s side as it was impossible for us to live a life to that high standard. Paul describes man’s brokenness and also the solution for this to the Roman church:

Rom 3:23  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Rom 6:23  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

            All of us have sinned and deserve our wages; death (separation from God).  It appears hopeless if not for that huge three letter word BUT.  Paul says “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  The gift of God, what is the gift of God?  It is the key to our love story as Gabriel answers that question in his announcement to the shepherds.

Luke 2:8-14  Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.  (9)  And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid.  (10)  Then the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.  (11)  For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  (12)  And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger."  (13)  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:  (14)  "Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!"

            “Do not be afraid, for I bring you good tidings of great joy” the angel proclaimed as he had done previously in our story to Zacharias, Mary and Joseph.  Adam was afraid when his relationship with God was broken, but now the shepherds are told not to be afraid because the gift of God had arrived.  The angel said “there is born to you this day a Savior.”  Jesus was born to us (a gift) as our Savior. He is our Savior saving us from the wages of our own sin. The Gift of God given is the Restorer and Healer of mankind’s broken relationship with God.  A task that proved impossible for us to do on our own was now being completed by God Himself.  Because of Jesus, sin no longer has to have its hold upon us separating us form God (if we choose to accept it and follow Him).  Paul again explained it this way to the Romans:

 

Rom 8:1-5  There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.  (2)  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.  (3)  For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,  (4)  that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  (5)  For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

            Who would have guessed that we find the true meaning of the Christmas season right here in the letter to the Romans?  The conflict of sin that has been with us since the Garden of Eden was resolved when that Baby in the manger lived a perfect life and then gave His life for ours upon the cross.  Jesus, our gift from God, restored the relationship that was broken in the garden.  All we have to do is accept that gift as our own.  Paul again explained it us like this:

 

Rom 10:9-10  that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.  (10)  For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Through Jesus, we can have our sins forgiven and that tears down the wall that stood between us and God restoring our broken relationship.  We too can now walk and talk with our Creator in the cool of the evening.  We can have a close personal relationship with Him because of Jesus. Our hearts will belong to Him and we will seek to faithfully follow Him who loved us enough to be born in a manger only to die upon a cross. That truly is “good tidings of great joy.”  The true story behind Christmas; the greatest love story ever told.

 

Joh 3:16-17  For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  (17)  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

 

Heavenly Father, as we enter into this Christmas season, open our hearts to keep in focus that it is the love God has for each one of us that is the motivating factor for all that happens.  “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.”