God's Perfect Timing: The Gift of Christmas

"Christmas is just a few days away. Did you guys know that? You know, Christmas is almost here. Raise your hand if Christmas is your favorite holiday of the year, of the whole year. It's mine. I tell you what, it's a wonderful time of year. It's also the busiest time of year. And it seems just like yesterday that we were up here celebrating Christmas, but that was a whole year ago." [00:00:30] (21 seconds)


"Today, we're continuing our sermon series called The Gospel of Christmas, and the title of the sermon today is What Is Christmas? Christmas All About. In our house, we have a tradition that every Christmas Eve, we get together as a family and we read the Christmas story from Luke chapter two. I'm sure many of you probably do that as well. I want us to do something today. Maybe we'll start a new tradition here." [00:07:58] (25 seconds)


"Christ came at the perfect time in history. The ensemble just sang a song called In the Fullness of Time. We've read this verse already today. Paul says in Galatians 4 .4, but when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law. God's timing is always perfect." [00:11:52] (28 seconds)


"You see, there's many factors that go into why Jesus came some 2,000 years ago. It was a time when the world was ruled primarily by one government, the Roman government, which made travel a little bit easier than it had been. Ironically, the spread of the gospel can be attributed to this government that had so much persecution against the Christians." [00:12:39] (26 seconds)


"There was a peace in Rome called the Pax Romana. This peace allowed people to transfer, to go from place to place without fear of losing their life. It was unprecedented peace in the world at that time. The infrastructure, the roads, made travel a lot easier. There were trade routes that were well-established that allowed traveling to happen easier. It's called the Roman Road. It spread the gospel faster." [00:13:05] (27 seconds)


"God's grace means knowing something is going to happen, but having a contingency plan to fix it before it even comes to pass. Acts 15, 18, known to God from eternity are all his works. Bethlehem was the beginning of God's contingency plan with the birth of Christ, and Jerusalem was the climax of this plan with the resurrection of Jesus Christ." [00:22:41] (34 seconds)


"Christmas drew the shepherds in, Luke 2 .8. Now, there were in the same country shepherds living, out in the fields keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. 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." [00:26:33] (26 seconds)


"This announcement came to none other than lowly shepherds. Just like David, Jesus came as a humble child, a lowly shepherd boy, to defeat a giant named sin with a well-aimed shot from his cross that toppled it once and for all, for all of us sitting here today, for you and for me." [00:29:04] (29 seconds)


"We saw how Mary responded to the angel announcing Christ's birth, but how did the shepherds respond? Let's look. Luke 2 15. So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us." [00:30:12] (21 seconds)


"Nowhere in Luke do the angels tell the shepherds to go and see this baby. The angels don't say, go see him. They just announce the birth of Christ. In fact, Luke could have ended that part of the story right there in verse 14 with the angel saying, go see him. Angel's announcing glory to God and the shepherd's not doing anything else. And it would have been a fine story." [00:30:33] (22 seconds)


"Christmas is just a few days away, and I'm sure that all of us have a million things to do before Wednesday. This year, I want you to stop and think about what God has done for you. Like those rescuers who went down to the well to rescue baby Jessica, God came down to this earth in the form of a baby to experience every aspect of life that we experience." [00:35:37] (31 seconds)