Sermon 12-22-2013

Christmas Service

December 22, 2013

Why Was Jesus Born?

Why we celebrate Christmas!!

So why do we celebrate every year this great birth of Jesus, the most important person who’s ever lived in the history of the world.

·      More songs have been sung about him

·      More paintings painted of him

·      More books have written regarding him, more than anyone else who lived in the history of the world.

·      Our calendar is all about Jesus: B.C., before Christ, A.D., anno Domini, “the year of our Lord,” is what it means in Latin.

·      Our entire recording of human history is around the birth of this baby, the Lord Jesus Christ.

·      That’s why we sing songs about the birth of Jesus, we send out cards with depictions of the birth of Jesus, that’s why we are all here to celebrate the birth of a savior!

So that’s why we’re here today to examine the birth of Jesus.

·      I know some of you are Christians and you believe that Jesus grew up and lived without sin, and died for your sin, and rose for your salvation, and ascended into heaven, and he’s alive and well today.

·      Some of you don’t believe that or you at least question that or in the process of coming to believe that.

So here’s the question I want to answer in what should be a short sermon for you. Maybe that’s my Christmas gift: you get one short sermon a year. So here it is, we’re going to answer this question:

·      Why was Jesus born? At Christmas we celebrate that he was born, the question is, why was Jesus born?

·      Here’s the answer: Jesus was born so that we could be born again.

So today we are looking at 1 Peter 1:3, and before we do lets remember who he is:

·      For those of you who may not be familiar with the ministry of Jesus, he had disciples, students, and they followed him and they learned from him.

·      One of them was a man named Peter, and he ended up being the leader of the disciples.

·      So when Peter wrote this, Jesus has died, risen, returned to heaven, and this man Peter is the leader of early Christianity.

·      He was one of the closest to Jesus

Jesus said this about Peter:

Matthew 16:18 (NIV)

¹⁸ And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

So lets read it together;

1 Peter 1:3 (ESV)

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!”

·      He says, “I’m really excited about something.

·      I want to share something amazing with you.

·      This is something to be really enthusiastic about.”

·      That whole concept of “blessed be” is a way of rejoicing, of celebrating

·      It’s the kind of emotional response we have when a really sweet couple comes up and says, “We’re engaged,” or a couple comes up and says, “We’re pregnant,” or someone comes up and says, “Meet my newborn baby.” It’s a rejoicing; it’s a celebrating.

·      And Peter is excited as we all should be to share the “Good News”

·      He lived it with Jesus, and he wants to tell the world about Jesus!

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy”

·      He’s here alluding to the love of God

·      The kindness of God

·      The compassion of God

·      The affection of God

·      The Father heart of God

·      He just told us that God is a Father, and he has now told us this great insight of the mercy that the Father’s heart has toward us.

·      God is perfect love, and his love us even in our sin, even when we are enemies of God he still loves us

Some of us don’t understand this concept, of a fathers love

·      Some of you didn’t have a father.

·      Some of you didn’t have a good father and when you would do something wrong you would live in terror of your father.

o   Will he get angry?

o   Will he care?

o   Will he help?

o   Will he hurt?

Well, God’s a Father whose heart is filled with mercy. God’s a Father who loves his kids. God’s the kind of Father that in your time of need you run to him, not from him, knowing that he’ll help you and not harm you. I know for some this a new concept, but the father we can all share in, is a good Dad, that loves his kids and wants only the best for them!

We are Born Again!!!

“According to his great mercy—” What has he done for us?

·      What has this great Father done for the family of God?

·      “He has caused us to be born again”.

·      So Jesus was born that we might be born again, as peter says “to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Lets deal with this for a min!

·      In John 3 there is a guy named Nicodemus

·      He is a Pharisee, a man with great wisdom

·      And he humbles himself and comes to Jesus looking for the truth

·      He even calls him Teacher

·      And what Jesus tells him floors him

·      Jesus looked at him right in the eye and he said, “You must be born again.” Nicodemus was confused. “What do you mean born again?”

What he’s talking about is that we are born physically and we celebrate that. That’s why we have birthdays and we celebrate our birth. But in addition to being born physically we need to be born again spiritually. We need a second birth of our soul. The first birth is of our body, the second birth is of our soul.

Why that’s is so important!!

Let me explain why being “Born Again” is necessary.

·      We are born in sin.

·      Some of you don’t like to hear about sin, but let me say, it is incredibly helpful to believe in sin.

·      It explains why the world is not the way that it should be.

·      It explains why we are not the way we should be.

·      It explains even why our relationships and why our families are not the way they should be.

And the Bible tells us that it’s sin.

·      Sin is in relation to God. The Bible says that God is holy, and God is good, and God is perfect.

·      Sin is anything that is contrary to the will of God, the Word of God, the ways of God.

·      To make it as simple as possible, sin is whatever God is not.

·      Sin includes our thoughts because God knows our thoughts. Sin includes our words, sin includes our deeds, sin includes our motives, why we do and don’t do the things we do and don’t do.

·      All of that is what the Bible means by “sin.”

And we’re sinful from our mother’s womb.

·      Psalm 51 says that we are sinful from our mother’s womb.

·      Everyone is, with the exception of Jesus Christ.

·      That’s why Jesus had an earthly mother but no earthly father.

·      He did not have any inherited sin nature handed down to him; he was without sin. He was the beginning of a whole new humanity.

Now, the truth is, going back to the very beginning, we had two parents: our first parents, Adam and Eve. They were created by God, and he loved them and provided a perfect environment for them, and they sinned against him. And as a result we inherit a sin nature from our mother’s womb. This leads to a life of sin separated from God, the consequence of which is death, so we could be born physically, live sinfully, and die eternally.

Gods a good Dad!

God loves us so much that he chose to do something to save us from Sin. So God’s a Father, we’re a sinners, and Jesus is the Savior. And what he’s saying is this: salvation, this great gift of mercy, is the means by which we are born again spiritually. Because you could be physically alive but spiritually dead, you could be breathing but not connected relationally to the God of the Bible.  God has done something to take away our sin problem, and he does that through Jesus Christ.

Jesus is our Savior!!!

So now we’re back to the Christmas story.

Why was Jesus born?

·      Well, his name indicates the reason that he came. The name “Jesus” literally means he is our Savior, he is our Savior.

·      so Jesus is born, conceived in the womb of Mary. He does not have an earthly father, he does not have an inherited sin nature, he’s not a biological descendant of Adam, our first father, and he is born. And that’s what we celebrate at Christmas.

·      He preaches, he teaches, he heals people, he cares for the widow, the orphan, the outcast, the marginalized, the needy.

·      Jesus lives the most amazing, extraordinary life in the history of the world.

·      Jesus lives without sin, and he goes to the cross, and he dies in our place for our sins.

·      Death is the consequence for sin, and because Jesus had no sin, death could not hold him. And since he died for our sin, his resurrection is our victory.

Here’s my question to you: Have you been born again? You say, “I don’t know.” Have you turned from sin and trusted in Jesus? See, what I don’t want you to do is simply appreciate the life of Jesus; I want you to experience the life of Jesus. Anyone can appreciate the life of Jesus, loving, gracious, merciful, kind, generous. But only someone who’s been born again can experience the life of Jesus, the resurrected life of Jesus Christ coming into your life.

That’s what it means to be born again. It means to be born again in Jesus Christ. That takes two things: repentance and faith. Repentance is where we see ourselves as a sinner in need of a Savior, and faith is where we trust in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Again, back to Peter. “He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Everything Changes!

What happens to you when you become born again? Everything changes. For some it changes a little bit at a time, for some it changes a lot at a time, but you begin to change. Just like when someone is born physically, their environment changes, their activities change, they begin to grow and change outside of the womb. The analogy is similar. When you’re born again spiritually you start to grow, and you change, and the life of Jesus starts working through you and taking over your life. That means you’ll never be the same, and for the rest of your life you’ll grow to be more and more and more like Jesus, if you’ve been born again.

A few things that this includes:

 One: a new Lord.

·      All of a sudden the most important person in your life is not you; it’s Jesus.

·      The highest authority in your life is not you; it’s Jesus.

·      The greatest goal of your life is not your will, but his will be done. A new Lord.

Two: you become a new person.

·      The Bible talks about Christians becoming new creations.

·      You’re a new person.

·      You get a fresh, clean start and total forgiveness.

·      This is why sometimes in the Bible people who become Christians, they get a new name, that’s how new they are.

·      Here’s the big idea: You can’t meet Jesus and not change. Some of you may say, “Oh, but I’m a Christian but I’ve not changed.” You may not be a Christian.

Three: You get a new identity.

·      You no longer identify yourself by what you’ve done, or what others have done to you, what successes, failures, achievements you have throughout the course of your life.

·      Now your identity is in Christ. “He loved me, he forgives me, he saves me, he’ll never leave me, he’ll never forsake me.

·      Whatever I go through is an opportunity to become more like him.” It changes our entire understanding of who we are, where we come from, why we’re here, and where we’re going.

Four: a new power.

·      What happens with sin is that it becomes very powerful, and in the face of it we feel very powerless.

·      This is why around New Year’s there’s a flood of new books, “New Year, New You,” that’s what all the marketing slogans say.

·      Everybody gets a gym membership and is totally committed to the treadmill for three consecutive days and then it’s over.

·      Here’s the truth: Apart from God’s power, we cannot live a new life. We may be able to make some changes, but we’re ultimately not changed.

·      Some of you have besetting sins. What that means is you’ve tried, and you can’t stop. You may try to excuse it, blame someone else for it, manage it, control it, deny it, hide it. In Christ you can be rid of it because there’s a new power if you’re born again.

·      It’s not your power living a life for God; it’s God’s power living a new life in you.

·      That Jesus will send the Holy Spirit, the third member of the Trinity, the same power that allowed him to live a sinless life and to live in victory over temptation, he will send through the new birth the Holy Spirit to live in you.

·      Now there’s a new power. You don’t have to do what you used to do. You can act differently. And it’s not by your power. What we’re not talking about here is more self-discipline, more self-condemnation, more self-motivation; we’re talking about the life of Jesus in you, and all of a sudden, you’re a different person, and you’re able to live a different and new life.

Five: This includes a new mind.

·      You start to think differently.

·      Things you used to be ashamed of, you’re now proud of.

·      Things that you used to be proud of, you’re now ashamed of.

·      The way you used to see God and the world and yourself has changed and all of a sudden you see God as good, and yourself as sinful, and the world is in need of him.

·      Your mind changes. How you view your identity, your relationships, your finances, your work, your family, your spouse, your kids, your whole mindset changes.

·      How many of you have experienced this?

Six: You get a new community.

·      The church then becomes a family.

·      God is the Father; Jesus is the saving big brother.

·      That means that the church becomes a new family.

·      That ladies are like sisters, and men are like brothers, and leaders are like big brothers and big sisters.

·      Some of you don’t have a family or a good family, when your born again you get a brand new family! A family that loves you and wants to grow with you!

Seven: You get new desires.

·      You want to do things you never wanted to do and you don’t want to do things that you always used to want to do.

·      When you’re born again spiritually you’re hungry for the Word of God. It’s the nourishment that sustains your soul.

·      All of a sudden, you start to get new desires.

o   It’s like, “I want to read the Bible.

o   I want to learn how to pray.

o   I want to serve other people.

o   I want to get to know Christians.

o   I want to look at my possessions and my time.

o   I want to look at my life and figure out how to steward that, to manage that in a way that is most effective for God’s glory and others’ good and my joy.” New desires.

·      Let me ask you, those of you who’ve been born again, what new desires has God given you? You don’t want to do what you used to do, you want to be more like Jesus, not because you have to but because you want to.

·      Let me say this, if you are not a Christian your deepest desire is for sin. If you are a Christian and you’ve been born again in Jesus Christ, your deepest desire is for the will of God. So for those of you who are Christians, let me give you a secret, live a very passionate, devoted, committed life and don’t settle for lesser desires, they tend to be sinful. Strive for the deeper desires, the deepest desire of your heart because if you’re born again, your deepest, strongest desires are God’s desires placed in you through Jesus.