Good morning. Welcome to Lakeside. According to Gallup, the average American will spend $830 on gifts this season. With that much money in play, everyone is competing for a slice of your attention! Retailers want it, your spouse wants it, the kids want it. Businesses are pulling out every stop to be seen and heard and visited. Yea, they want to end the year in black, and for you to end the year in a deficit!
We have this moment to point our friends toward Jesus—that He might be seen and heard, and be known. The true meaning of Christmas is captured in 2 Corinthians 8:9: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”
The true meaning of Christmas is that God broke himself. God became poor. For love, God spends Himself, to pour out His grace, to make us rich! Christmas isn’t even about what you or I give to others—though we love sharing gifts! Christmas is about what God has given. And because of what Father has given we’re never at a deficit before God. We’re loved, we’re accepted, we’re forgiven, we’ve been clothed in righteousness, we’ve been blessed with eternal riches, with every spiritual blessing in Christ, with eternal life, with God’s Holy Spirit. We no longer have to justify ourselves before God because Christ becomes our justification.
In Jesus, our deficits have been wiped free/clear! It’s unfortunate when Christmas is about our gifts, and what they cost us… and we miss that Christmas is about God’s gift, and what it cost him, and the abundance that’s ours by faith!
Make a note: Christmas is about God’s gift, God’s grace. It’s about the price he willingly paid, not a price he demanded of us!
Not only is (1) Christmas about God’s gift, (2) Christmas is about God’s plan. Maybe you’ve noticed, we barely get out of October, past Halloween, and they’re gearing up for the Holidays! Now why is that? Retailers have learned that to get our attention they need to start talking about Christmas early and often. Now where did they get such an idea? Maybe retailers are just taking a play out of God’s playbook?
How early is too early? The Bible tells us that before the creation of the world, God was already prepping for Christmas… before the foundations of the world God was already planning to send his One and Only Son into the world… that through his life, his death, his sacrifice… we might be rich.
1 Peter 1:18-20 says, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 21 Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.”
Notice how this captures everything we’ve been saying. First, Christmas is about God’s gift. It’s not with perishable things… material things… nor gold and silver that God redeems us from our empty way of life. This is after all the hope of retailers. They want us to believe that black Friday holds the key to everlasting joy and happiness! But God says that its not with silver or God, or material things that he redeems us. Rather, its with something infinitely more precious -- the blood of his One and Son Jesus Christ. We’re redeems not by what’s offered by retailers on black Friday but what God offered on that cross on Good Friday.
But this verse speaks to a second point… that Christmas is (and always has been) God’s plan from even before the creation of the world. Yes, its true, the gift has been most fully revealed in these last days. But make no mistake the gift was being prepared from the very beginning of time. God’s gifts are not an afterthought.
Well what do you mean Jesus was God’s plan all along? Let me give you several examples. Genesis 1, God creates the heaven and earth, and all that is in it. Genesis 2, God forms man from the dust of the earth. He breathes into his nostrils the breath of life. He takes the man and puts him in the Garden of Eden. God entrusts everything to Adam, takes his rib, and makes a woman, that they might be “one.” Genesis 3. Adam and Eve are deceived Satan and sin against God. Immediately their eyes are opened, they know good and evil, they become afraid, and hide from God, they come under a curse because they’ve defied God.
But guess what? God already has a plan, and his plan is Christmas. In Genesis 3:15 he tells Satan, “I will put enmity between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike his heal…” Now what does God mean there? Offspring? And “He”??? God is saying, “soon a child, an offspring, a son, a “he” will be born and rise up to crush Satan! The first chapters of the Bible speak of Christmas!
Let me give a second example of how Jesus was God’s plan. In the Bible we find God speaking of Jesus early and often. In Genesis 12, God called Abram. Jews, Christians, Muslims all claim patronage to Abraham. God commands Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” It’s this last phrase that’s of interest…
In Acts 3:25-26 Peter understands it as God making a covenant with Abraham. That God was saying to Abraham, “‘. . . in your offspring {i.e. through your child, a son} shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ Peter understands Jesus having fulfilled God’s promise: “God, having raised up his servant, sent him {Jesus} to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.”
Jesus will crush Satan’s power. He will bless me by turning me from wickedness. Here is another example, God talking about Christmas early and often… In Genesis 49:9-10, at the end of his life, Jacob understands the promise of God being fulfilled through his son Judah. He says, “You are a lion’s cub O Judah; you return from the prey, my son. Like a Lion he crouches and lies down, like a lioness—who dares to rouse him? The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his…”
What is Jacob saying? He is saying the promise of a child extends through his son Judah. And the child that will come will rise up not just to defeat Satan, not just to turn people from wickedness… but when he comes he will establish a Kingdom that will never be taken away… a Kingdom that will bring about the obedience not just of individuals but nations! If you were Adam & Eve… if you were Jacob & Judah… or any of Jacob’s sons… you’d want to know one thing… just who will this child, this son, this offspring be?
I told you Jesus is God’s gift, and Jesus is God’s plan, and that God started talking Christmas early and often in the Bible. What did God reveal to Moses? Deuteronomy 18:18-22, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. 19 I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. 20 But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.”
21 You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?” 22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.”
What kind of child, son, offspring would Jesus be? He would speak the very words of God. He would do the very works of His Father. His identity would be undeniable because everything he would prophesy (like his own death, burial, resurrection) would become true. He would never lie!
This is the exact proof Jesus offers of his messianic identity in the gospels… I say what I hear father saying… I do what I see my father doing… if you chose not to believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves… then believe on my resurrection… for son of man will be betrayed and after three days be raised by the power of God.
Christmas is about God’s gift. Christmas is about God’s plan. Do you realize that you Christmas was talked about hundreds, thousands of years before it even happened? It’s like, in the Old Testament, God was sending out early Christmas Cards, to ready us so we wouldn’t miss something eternally important!
In your Bible you can find the Old Testament book of Isaiah. Isaiah was a prophet—and you may have already guessed—God spoke to him about Christmas! If you consider yourself a skeptic, keep in mind that the entire book of Isaiah was found among the dead sea scrolls verbatim… and not only that… the dead sea scrolls were carbon dated. The Bible is absolutely trustworthy…
Here is what we know Isaiah said about Jesus. Isaiah 7:14, “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel”… Immanuel means “God with us.” Now the Jewish people interpreted this figuratively, not literally. But in Christ this verse became literally true. Jesus was born of a virgin, having been conceived not of man but of the Holy Spirit. And Jesus was called “Immanuel… God with us… God among us…”
In Isaiah 9, Isaiah reveals several things about Jesus. He says, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. . . 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 greatness of his government and peace there will be no end.” —Isaiah 9:2,5–7.
The child, the son… spoken about to Adam & Eve, Jacob, Judah, Moses… the prophets… He is God come of the flesh, He will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace… he will establish a Kingdom/government to which there will be no end! Isaiah is ascribing to a child, a son, an offspring things Jewish people only ascribed to God himself! How would the fullness of God and the fullness of Man possibly come together in a child, a son, an offspring of Adam/Eve?
By the way, guess which prophet Jesus quotes to announce his public ministry? He quotes Isaiah 61:1-2! “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Not only is Jesus God’s gift, and God’s plan… but we see that Jesus is God’s promise. A promise kept, a promise fulfilled. I want to end this message by encouraging you to get excited about Christmas. Throughout this month we’re going to take Isaiah’s ancient description of Jesus, phrase by phrase, and unpack its relevance to our lives.
We want you to invite friends to our services… to Christmas Eve… to Christmas morning services. We have this moment to point our friends toward Jesus—that He might be seen and heard, and be known.