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Expository Sermon on Christmas

Expository Christmas Sermons

21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”” 

Matthew 1:21

Expository preaching in it’s essence is clear, accurate biblical teaching.  There are few doctrines more important than that of the birth of Jesus Christ (Christmas).  He who though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross (phillipians 2:6-8).  Sorry, I got a little carried away thinking about Jesus! 

But this doctrine we have to get right concerning Jesus and Christmas.  Below you will find some examples of great expository christmas sermons for your edification and enjoyment.  And if you are reading this during Christmas season, Merry Christmas!

Christmas Sermons by John Piper

Two times in 1 John 3:1–10 we are told why Christmas happened — that is, why the eternal, divine Son of God came into the world as a human being. In verse 5, John says, “You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.” So the sinlessness of Christ is affirmed — “in him there is no sin.” And the reason for his coming is affirmed — “he appeared to take away sins.” Then in the second part of verse 8, John says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” And the specific focus John has in mind when he says “works of the devil” is the sin that the devil promotes. We see that in the first part of verse 8: “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.” So the works of the devil that Jesus came to destroy are the works of sin. So two times John tells us that Christmas happened — the Son of God became a human being — to take away sin, or to destroy the works of the devil, namely, sin. So Jesus was born of a virgin by the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:18, 20), and “increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man,” (Luke 2:52), and was perfectly obedient and sinless in all his life and ministry, all the way to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:5–8; Hebrews 4:15) — in order to destroy the works of the devil — to take away sin. Jesus’s Incarnation and Our Regeneration Now we are in a series of messages on the new birth. So the question I am asking today is: What is the connection between Jesus’s birth and our new birth? What is the relationship between Jesus’s incarnation and our regeneration? To answer this question let me try to build a bridge from last week’s message to this text here in 1 John 3:1–10. Last week we saw that when we ask why we need to be born again, the answer could look backward to our miserable condition in sin and corruption and say that’s why we need to be born again. Or we could look forward to the good things we will not experience if we are not born again — like entering the kingdom of God — and say that’s why we need to be born again. We gave ten answers to the question why we need to be born again in the first sense — looking back on what we were apart from new birth. And we gave five answers to the question why we need to be born again in the second sense — looking forward to what we will not enjoy if we aren’t born again. The Great Love of God Now the bridge between that message and this text today is the great love of God that comes to people who are dead in trespasses and sins and who are his enemies, not his children, and makes them alive. Ephesians 2:4–5 puts it like this: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love [!] with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.” So the greatness of the love of God is magnified in that it gives spiritual life — that is new birth — to those who have no claim on God at all. “God made us his children. This is the new birth. God made us alive.” We were spiritually dead and in our deadness were walking in lockstep with God’s archenemy — the devil (Ephesians 2:2). The justice of God would have been well served if we had perished forever in that condition. But for that very reason our new birth — our being made alive — is a magnificent display of the greatness of the love of God. “Because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ.” You owe your spiritual life, and all its impulses to the greatness and the freedom of the love of God. Now, this is the bridge to today’s text. Look at 1 John 3:1–2 and think with me how John magnifies the love of God in this passage. See what kind of love the Father has given to us [there’s the link with the greatness of the love of God], that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved [loved ones!], we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. Four Observations from 1 John 3:1–2 Make four observations with me to connect this text with the greatness of the love of God in Ephesians 2:4 last week and our question from last week about why we need to be born again. Observation #1: Made God’s Children When verse 1 says that we are “called” the children of God, it doesn’t mean we were the children of God but not called that, and then God called us that. No, it means that we were not children of God. We were like the rest of the world referred to in verse 1. We were dead and outside the family. Then God called us children. And we became children of God. Notice the words “and so we are.” Verse 1b: We are “called children of God; and so we are.” The point is God made us his children. This is the new birth. God made us alive. Observation #2: The Greatness of the Love of God This new birth into the family of God is owing to the greatness of the love of God, just like it was in Ephesians 2:4–5. “See [Look! This is amazing!] what kind of love the Father has given us that we should be called the children of God.” John was amazed, just like Paul was — just like we should be — that rebels, enemies, dead, unresponsive slaves to sin like us are made alive, born again, and called the children of God. John wanted you to feel the wonder of it. Observation #3: Our Final Perfection Secured This amazing love of God that gave us life when we were dead and caused us to be born again and brought us into the family of God secures our final perfection in the presence of God forever. Look at the way verse 2 connects the love of God, our present life as his children, and the future we long for: “Beloved [those loved by God in this amazing way!], we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” John sees an unbreakable link between what we are now and what we will be when Christ comes. He expresses it with the words “we know.” “We are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared [our perfect conformity to Christ awaits his coming]; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him.” In other words, perfection of our sonship is coming. We know it is. How? We are his children. And all that’s left in this adoption is the consummation of our transformation when we see Jesus face to face. His presence will complete it for all the children of God. And “we are God’s children now.” Observation #4: The Necessity of the New Birth The fourth observation simply makes explicit something obvious in what we’ve said so far: the new birth is a necessary prerequisite and a guarantee of our future perfection in the presence of Christ forever. Or, to put it the way Jesus did, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). But if you are born again you will see the kingdom of God — you will see Christ and be perfected in the end and spend eternity with joy in his presence. Why We Must Be Born Again So here we are with John’s answer to the question Why must we be born again? John’s answer is: Because if you are not born again you will not look upon Jesus someday and in the twinkling of an eye be changed into his image. Instead, you will remain under the wrath of God, as Jesus says in John 3:36. Or, to put it positively, if the immeasurable love of God causes you to be born again and gives you new spiritual life in union with Jesus Christ, you know that when he appears you will be like him. Because of the new birth, you know you will enter the kingdom of God. That’s why we must be born again. Jesus’s Birth and Our New Birth Now we are in a position to answer the question posed at the beginning: What is the connection between Jesus’s birth and our new birth? What is the relationship of Jesus’s incarnation and our regeneration? Could not God have simply caused sinners to be born again and then finally conformed them to his own character in heaven, without sending his Son into the world? Did there need to be an incarnation of the Son of God and a perfect life of obedience and a death on the cross? The answer is: the new birth and all of its effects, including faith and justification and purification and final conformity to Christ in heaven, would be impossible without the incarnation and life and death of Jesus — without Christmas. Let’s get a glimpse of this from 1 John. And may your love for Christ and his coming increase because of this glimpse. “Faith is the sign that the new birth has happened.” First, consider that the aim of the new birth is to enable us to believe in the incarnate Jesus Christ. If there were no Jesus Christ to believe in, then the new birth would not happen. Look at 1 John 5:1: “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ [that is everyone who believes that this incarnate Jewish man from Nazareth is the promised divine Messiah] has been born of God.” That means that the Holy Spirit causes people to be born again with a view to creating faith in the incarnate God-man, Jesus Christ (see 1 John 4:2–3). That’s the aim of the new birth. And so faith in Jesus Christ is the first evidence that it has happened. “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.” Faith is the sign that the new birth has happened. But that’s not the only reason the incarnation is necessary for the new birth — not just because the aim of the new birth is faith in Jesus Christ. The incarnation of the Son of God is necessary because the life we have through the new birth is life in union with the incarnate Christ. Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:51). That life that we have in union with Christ is the life that Jesus obtained for us by the life he lived and the death he died in the flesh. Look at 1 John 5:10–12 and keep in mind as you read that the Son of God here is the incarnate Son of God. “Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. . . . And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” In other words, the new birth gives us life by bringing us into spiritual connection with Jesus Christ. He is our life. His new life in us, with all the changes that it brings, is the testimony of God that we are his children. And this life is the life of the incarnate Son of God. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us . . . And from his fullness [the fullness of the incarnate one] we have all received, grace upon grace” (John 1:14, 16) — that is new birth, new life. No Incarnation, No Regeneration So if there were no incarnation — no Christmas — there would be no regeneration for these two reasons: (1) If there were no incarnation, there would be no incarnate Jesus Christ to believe in, and that’s the aim of the new birth, and so the new birth would not happen. (2) If there were no incarnation, there would be no vital union or connection between us and the incarnate Christ, and so the new birth would abort because there would be no source of new life. Christianity is not a kind of spirituality that floats from religion to religion. It is historically rooted in the person of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the Scripture says, “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:12). “Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him” (John 5:23). “The one who rejects me,” Jesus said, “rejects him who sent me” (Luke 10:16). If there is no incarnation, there is no union with the Son or with the Father, and no regeneration, and no salvation. The Incarnation and Purification So without the incarnation of the Son of God as the Messiah, Jesus Christ there would be no regeneration and no saving faith. And we may add then briefly, there would be no justification and no purification. And without these, no final salvation. Look at 1 John 3:3–5: Everyone who thus hopes in him [in other words, every child of God who is assured of being made like Christ when he comes] purifies himself as he is pure. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. Both justification and purification are implied here. Purification is explicit. John says: if you have experienced the new birth, you will love the day of Christ’s appearing and long for the day when you will be transformed into his perfect likeness (as verse 2 says, “when he appears we shall be like him”). And then, John says in verse 3, “Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” That means everyone who loves the day of his final purification loves purity now, and hates impurity now, and fights sin now. This means that the new birth, which awakens faith and fills us with love for that last great day of purification, produces the fight for purity. And so, since there is no regeneration without the incarnation, there will be no purification now and no final, Christ-like purity in the end, if there is no incarnation. Christianity is not a general program for moral transformation that floats from religion to religion. The transformation it calls for is historically rooted in the person of Jesus Christ. The new birth awakens faith in him. And he — the incarnate one — secures our final purification. And we, with that unshakable hope in him, purify ourselves as he is pure. The Incarnation and Justification This leaves one last great work of Christ to touch on: justification. It is hinted at in 1 John 3:4–5. Right after saying that those who are born again and set their hope in final perfect Christlikeness purify themselves as he is pure, John says something about sin that seems out of the blue. He says, “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.” What’s the point of telling us suddenly that “sin is lawlessness” and that therefore all sins are lawlessness? And then adding that Christ appeared “to take away sins”? I think the point is this. He wants to make clear that the great work of Christ in saving us from sin is not just a work of purification. The language of cleansing and purifying fail to deal with a huge and terrible dimension of our sin, namely, that all sin is law-breaking. We don’t just incur defilement that has to be purified, we incur guilt that has to be forgiven and wrath that has to be propitiated, and a falling short of righteousness that needs to be imputed. That’s why he says in verses 4–5, “Sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared to take away sins.” This “take away sin” is not mere cleansing. This is the work of Christ in taking away the guilt of sin, and the wrath of God that is on sin. And how did Christ do this? He did it by his incarnation and life and death. Here are two texts from 1 John to show how John thought about this. “The perfection we do not have, Jesus provided. The judgment we do not want, Jesus bore.” First, look at 1 John 4:10: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” He sent his Son — that’s the incarnation — to die in our place and so absorb the wrath of God and thus become the propitiation for our sins. Second, look at 1 John 2:1: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” Why is Jesus in heaven explicitly called “the righteous” when he is described as the advocate we need because of our sin? It’s because what he pleads before the Father is not only his blood, but also his righteousness. Which is why 1 John 3:5 says, “In him there is no sin.” The perfection we do not have, Jesus provided. The judgment we do not want, Jesus bore. Christmas Was Not Optional All of this because he was born. He was incarnate. He was the God-man. No incarnation, no regeneration. No faith. No justification. No purification. No final glorification. Christmas was not optional. And therefore being rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, while we were dead in trespasses, God sent his Son into the world to live without sin and die in our place. What a great love the Father has shown to us! What a great obedience and sacrifice the Lord Jesus gave for us! What a great awakening the Spirit has worked in us to bring us to faith and everlasting life! Amen.
We focus our attention this Advent on Luke 2:10–11: “The angel said to [the shepherds], ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord’” (Luke 2:10–11). And the question for us is this: how does the Lordship of this newborn baby boy make possible the fearlessness and greatness of your joy this Christmas and as 2022 begins? And I do mean you — not just the shepherds — because it is clear from this context and this gospel, as we will see, that the fearlessness and the greatness of the joy is not just for the shepherds. It is for everyone who says, “Jesus is Lord!” and is glad to have it so. We know this because of the word for at the beginning of Luke 2:11. This word signals that calling Jesus “my Lord and my God” (John 20:28) is the foundation of Christian fearlessness and great joy. Luke 2:10 tells us that fearless, great joy is coming into this world, and Luke 2:11 answers the questions, How can it come? How can it be sustained in such a world? Because this baby boy is not only a Savior — not only the Christ, the Messiah — but is the Lord. What makes the fearlessness and the greatness of your joy possible in 2022 and beyond is not just that this baby boy will be a Savior, and not just that he will be the long-awaited Messiah, but that he is the Lord. This is the foundation of your fearlessness and the greatness of your joy this Christmas and in the coming year. Imagine someone says to you, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling! It’s falling on your family. It’s falling on your church. It’s falling on your city. It’s falling on your nation. It’s falling on the world. Don’t you realize the sky is falling?” What will be the foundation of the fearlessness and the greatness of your joy as you go merrily on your way to do more good until Jesus comes? So that’s our question: How does the Lordship of this newborn baby boy make possible the fearlessness and greatness of your joy this Christmas and in the coming year? Here are six wonders of Jesus’s Lordship that answer this question. 1. Jesus the Divine Lord The fearlessness and greatness of your joy is possible because Jesus is a divine Lord. When we say, “Jesus is Lord,” we mean no less than “Jesus is God.” Luke says this in many ways in his gospel. I’ll mention only four. God from God First, Luke uses the word Lord interchangeably with God in reference to Jesus. Take just the first two chapters for example. The word Lord occurs twenty-seven times, with twenty-five of them referring to God. Look right here in our text: “An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them” (Luke 2:9). Two verses later he says, “Unto you is born Christ, the Lord” (Luke 2:11). No hesitation. No qualification. The Lord (God) sent his angel, and the glory of the Lord (God) shone — and the child born is the Lord. In Luke 2:26, Jesus is called “the Lord’s Christ,” and here in Luke 2:11 he is called “Christ the Lord.” That’s virtually the same as the apostle John saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Jesus is “the Lord’s Christ,” and Jesus is “Christ the Lord.” Born of a Virgin Second, the divine lordship of Jesus is the point of the virgin birth. Look at Luke 1:31. Gabriel tells Mary she will have a child. Mary asks how that can be (Luke 1:34). Here’s how the angel answers in Luke 1:35: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy — the Son of God.” This is not the crass slander of Christianity that claims God the Father had sex with Mary, and that’s why Christians call Jesus the Son of God. This is the Holy Spirit making clear that no human father will be needed because he is going to work an unfathomable miracle in Mary’s womb so that there will be a child with two natures, divine and human: Jesus the God-man, Jesus the Lord. Greater than David’s Son Third, in Luke 20:41–44, Jesus will go on the offensive to challenge the Jewish leaders with his identity. He says, “How can they say that the Christ is David’s son? For David himself says in the Book of Psalms, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”’ David thus calls him Lord, so how is he his son?” No answer. Because the point was that already, in the Psalms, the Holy Spirit was pointing to the fact that the Messiah, the Christ, would be vastly more than a human son of David. Worthy of Worship Fourth, where does the Gospel of Luke leave us at the end? What are we doing as we walk away from this inspired display of the Lord Jesus? Luke 24:51–52: “While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.” They worshiped him! That’s the point of Luke’s Gospel: Worship him with great joy! Cherish him as your greatest treasure! So, the fearlessness and greatness of your joy this Christmas is possible because Jesus is a divine Lord. “Jesus is Lord” means “Jesus is God.” 2. Jesus the Historical Lord The fearlessness and greatness of your joy is also possible because Jesus is a historical Lord. What I mean by this is that the accounts of Jesus’s birth, life, death, and resurrection are not mythical. They are not like Greek mythology. They are rooted in world history — the kind of history you can read and know about whether you are Christian or not. The life of Jesus does not take place in Middle-earth or in a galaxy far, far away. It takes place “in the days of Herod, king of Judea” (Luke 1:5). Mary was from “a city of Galilee named Nazareth” (Luke 1:26). She came with Joseph to Bethlehem, a town about five miles outside Jerusalem, because “a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria” (Luke 2:1–2). And John the Baptist began his ministry “in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene” (Luke 3:1–2). What’s the point of all these secular, historical references? The point is that Jesus was just as real as if he had been born when Joe Biden was president of the United States, when Tim Walz was governor of Minnesota, and when Jacob Frey was the mayor of Minneapolis. He was not, and is not, mythical. So, the fearlessness and greatness of your joy is possible because Jesus is a historical Lord. 3. Jesus the All-Governing Lord The fearlessness and greatness of your joy is possible because Jesus is an all-governing Lord. From a boat during the storm, his disciples cry out, “‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased . . . and [his disciples] marveled, saying to one another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?’” (Luke 8:24–25). The answer is obvious: the one who made them. Then there were the demons: “Demons also came out crying, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak” (Luke 4:41). And then there were the diseases of every kind: “All those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them” (Luke 4:40). No failures. What about our great enemy, death? “[Jesus] came up and touched the [casket] . . . And he said [to the dead man], ‘Young man, I say to you, arise.’ And the dead man sat up and began to speak” (Luke 7:14–15). What about the so-called “self-determination of the human will” in coming to know Christ? “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Luke 10:22). Jesus the Lord governs all natural events. No demons can do anything but by his permission. He can heal any disease. He can and will raise the dead. And it is he who opens the blind eyes of the human heart to know God. Luke loves the all-governing Lordship of God, which is shared by the God-man Jesus Christ. Why else would Luke begin his gospel with God’s amazing reversal of the butterfly effect? The butterfly effect is the theory that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil may cause a tornado in Oklahoma because of a thousand unknown links working in a causal chain. But God reverses the butterfly effect, using something as massive as a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico to cause a single Chinese university student in Beijing to stumble into Christian fellowship and be saved. So, don’t you think Luke was smiling as he began his Gospel with this story? God chose a virgin, and her betrothed, who were living in Nazareth. Their family line was from Bethlehem, where the Messiah must be born. To get this virgin to the proper birthplace, he puts it in the mind of Caesar Augustus — the most powerful person in the world, living over a thousand miles away — to call for empire-wide registration, involving millions of people, at exactly the moment when it would get this one obscure, pregnant Jewish girl from Nazareth to Bethlehem. “The events of history are not about nations and industries. God governs the world for the sake of his children.” God did all this to fulfill his prophecy. That’s amazing. That’s our all-governing God, and that’s the Lord Jesus. And he is doing that today. Do you think the great events on the stage of world history are about nations and industries? They’re not. They are about you. God governs the world for the sake of his children. Jesus governs the world for the sake of those who say, “Jesus is Lord!” and mean it. 4. Jesus the Everlasting Lord The fearlessness and greatness of your joy is possible because Jesus is an everlasting Lord. As the angel Gabriel said to Mary in Luke 1:31–33, You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. He will reign forever. His kingdom will have no end. If you are the subject of his Lordship, you will live forever. He will raise you from the dead. He will bring you with him into everlasting life. His power to govern all things for your good will never end. Never. You can never be lost if you are his. 5. Jesus the God-Glorifying Lord The fearlessness and greatness of your joy is possible because Jesus is a God-glorifying Lord. Look at these five verses in Luke: The lame man who Jesus healed, after the man was lowered through the roof, “went home, glorifying God” (Luke 5:25). The crowd who saw Jesus heal him “glorified God and were filled with awe” (Luke 5:26). When he raised the widow’s son from the dead, “fear seized them all, and they glorified God” (Luke 7:16). The woman whose back had been bent over for eighteen years was straightened, “and she glorified God” (Luke 13:13). When the blind beggar received his sight, he “followed [Jesus], glorifying God” (Luke 18:43). We don’t need to make our way through the rest of Luke’s Gospel to see the God-glorifying purpose of the birth of this Lord. In Luke 2:12, the angel gives the shepherds a sign. The angel says, “This Savior, this Christ, this Lord — you will find him ‘lying in a feeding trough.’” I cannot help but think that the shepherds, at that point, would have been totally confused: Savior, Christ, Lord — plus dirty, smelly feeding trough. But before they can venture to ask this angel for clarification, the sky fills with armies of angels praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest” (Luke 2:14). “The mission of the Savior is to show the world that God is infinitely great, beautiful, and valuable.” The Savior is born. The Messiah is born. The Lord of the universe is born. And before you can layer your perplexed interpretation on top of it, Mr. Shepherd, here’s the point: “Glory to God in the highest” (Luke 2:14). The point of this birth is that God is glorious. The mission of this Savior and this Messiah and this Lord is to show the world, and the powers of darkness, that God is infinitely great and beautiful and valuable. Glorious. But we should ask a question. Since God has sent a Savior to save man, and a Messiah to fulfill all the promises made to man, and a Lord to rule all things for the good of man — why don’t the heavenly armies say, “Glory to man in the highest”? Why not? Because the universe was created to display and uphold and communicate the glory of God. If we displace God as the ultimate end and goal of creation, history, and redemption, we don’t gain status. We lose God. And then, losing God, we lose joy. Great joy. This brings us now to the sixth wonder of the Lordship of Jesus. 6. Jesus the Happy Lord Finally, the fearlessness and greatness of your joy is possible because Jesus is a happy Lord. Not only this, but he is the perfect embodiment of his Father’s happiness. When the angels say, “Glory to God in the highest!” (Luke 2:14), they are obeying God — that’s what he wants said! — and it is a happy shout. This is a glad night. And the gladness started in heaven. Luke completes the picture of God’s gladness later in his Gospel. Only Luke records the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son (Luke 15), and Jesus tells all three parables to explain why he eats with tax collectors and sinners. He does it because he embodies his Father’s happiness in saving sinners. Here’s Luke 15:9–10: “When she has found [her lost coin, representing Jesus finding a lost sinner], she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’” And Jesus adds, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Look carefully to the wording. It doesn’t say, “There is joy among the angels.” It says, “There is joy before the angels,” joy in their presence. This is God’s joy. That’s God’s happiness. Then comes the parable of the lost or prodigal son. He has squandered all the father’s inheritance. He heads home, hoping to be a taken-care-of slave. “While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20). And then the Father says, “‘Bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.” And, as if to make it crystal clear, the father says to the grumbling older brother: “It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:32). In Luke’s inspired view of the all-glorious, God-glorifying God, what makes God happy? What makes the Lord Jesus happy? The joy of his people as they rediscover the happy goodness of their Father. This is a parable about the glory of the Father and the awakening of a blind son to that glory — namely, the beauty of his Father’s happy goodness. Fearless (and Happy) Under Fallen Skies When the angels say, “Glory to God in the highest” (Luke 2:14), this is not at the expense of God’s people. This story is the joy of God’s people. Seeing and savoring and being caught up into this glory is the salvation of God’s people. This glory is the fulfillment of all the messianic promises. This glory is the overflow of the happy Lordship of Jesus. Bethlehem’s mission statement didn’t come out of nowhere: “We exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.” We got it, in part, from Luke’s Gospel: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:14). God gets the glory. We get the peace. We get the fearlessness of great joy within his glory. “The Holy Spirit frees us from the deceit that self-lordship is the path of joy.” As the angel says, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10). Will the fearlessness and the greatness of this joy be yours this Christmas? You can’t take away your own fear, and you can’t create your own joy. The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12:3, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” It is a divine miracle when a sinful, self-exalting human being says, “Jesus is Lord!” and means it. The Holy Spirit works this miracle by the word of God. This is why our submission to the Lordship of Christ is a free act. The Holy Spirit opens the eyes of our hearts and frees us from the slavery, from the deceit, that self-lordship is the path of joy. He fixes our gaze on Christ and causes us to leave our fears and leap for joy. Great joy. So, if someone says to you, “Don’t you know the sky is falling?” you will say, “Perhaps, and if it is, my divine, historical, all-governing, everlasting, God-glorifying, happy Lord Jesus — he is in charge of the sky falling. And he will make it serve the great and fearless joy of his church. So why don’t you come on in? Everyone is invited: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).

Birth of Jesus Messages by Tony Evans

As the year comes to a close, you’ll find many houses with decorative presents placed outside in preparation for the holidays. But while they may look beautiful on the outside, they’re still empty on the inside. Well, Dr. Tony Evans says this empty present is no different from the Christmas you’ll get when Christ isn’t at the center, and in Don’t Miss Christ this Christmas, he’ll show you the results of those who remembered or overlooked celebrating the birth of the Savior.
On the night that Christ was born, there are a number of people who missed the greatest birth of all time because they were either too busy or refused to acknowledge it. Well, in order to help prevent you from making the same mistake, Tony Evans takes a look at each of those people on that fateful night as he reminds you not to overlook the reason for the season.

More Resources and Study Notes Christmas

We all are in agreement that God uses expository preaching to expose His glory of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  Christmas isn’t about presents or trees or snow flakes.  It is about the son of God Jesus Christ, of whom the bible tells the story of His Christmas birth in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  The message of Christmas is that of Emmanuel, God with us living among His people.  John describes it as the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us.  Pastors across the world will be preaching about Jesus and the hope His birth into the world on Christmas brought.  I pray you preach and herald Jesus with all of your heart during this christmas season.