[Machine transcription]
With you and all your families this blessed holiday please be seated. I can’t
relate but I understand that the birth of a baby is pretty awesome and that’s
what we celebrate now the birth of baby Jesus. Babies are so cute even a fake
baby Jesus lying in a manger always seems so cute.
People seem to love baby Jesus,
especially Ricky Bobby in the movie,
Talladega Nights.
If you haven’t seen the movie, that’s okay.
I’ll explain.
If you have seen it, shame on you.
I jest, I jest a little.
The movie is a parody of the NASCAR racing scene and the main character,
Ricky Bobby, he’s at a meal and saying grace. And he prays thusly,
Dear tiny infant Jesus, and the others at the table interrupt him and give him a
hard time about praying to baby Jesus. But Ricky replies, I like the baby Jesus.
Jesus. I like the Christmas Jesus best.” And he continues praying thusly,
“‘Dear eight pounds, six ounce, newborn infant Jesus, in your golden fleece diapers,
so cuddly, don’t even know a word yet.'” And then the others at the table tell him
to stop. And they went, “‘Jesus grew up.’ They said, “‘He became a man. He had a beard.'”
Well, along with Ricky Bobby,
I think most people like baby Jesus.
They like the Christmas Jesus.
And I would venture to say that most people,
Christians or not, realize that this holiday
involves the celebration of the birth of baby Jesus.
And they may even know the story of the events
of how Jesus was born.
but the bigger question though is why was Jesus born? Now we just heard the
story the Christmas story that Mary became pregnant and there’s the trip to
Bethlehem there were no comfortable accommodations for the birth and then
there’s baby Jesus in the manger then the angels appear to the shepherds and
they go visit the newborn baby lying in the manger. And in there, in that
Christmas story, is the reason why Jesus was born. It’s when the angel said to the
shepherds, for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is
Christ the Lord. A Savior. That’s why Jesus was born. And you see that’s why
he’s named Jesus actually in the Hebrew language the language of the of the
Jewish people Yeshua or in English we say Jesus it means Savior that’s why he
was born to save his people to save them from their sins another question then
how did he do this how did Jesus do this saving well not just by being born Jesus
Jesus wasn’t born just to be a cuddly,
8 pounds, 6 ounce infant
in golden fleece diapers.
No, He did grow up.
He did become an adult, a man.
Maybe He even had a beard.
And people love the baby Jesus.
They like the Christmas Jesus best.
But it’s the adult Jesus.
That’s the Jesus that people
can have trouble with.
That’s the Jesus that’s maybe
not liked as much as the baby Jesus because it’s the grown-up adult man
Jesus who pointed out people’s sins that’s the Jesus who challenged people
about loving God and loving others above all else that’s the Jesus who chased
crooked merchants out of the temple that’s the Jesus who said woe to you who
cheat others, who are greedy and self-indulging, and woe to those who look
good on the outside but inwardly they’re full of sin. People have trouble with the
Jesus who said repent and stop doing sinful things. The little eight pounds
six ounce baby Jesus, gentle meek and mild and lying in a manger, wasn’t born
just to be a friend, or a good teacher, or a moral guide, or a life coach, or some
sort of model for living. He wasn’t born to be a Republican, or a Democrat, or a
socialist, or anything political. He came to be a Savior. He came to be your Savior.
And people can have trouble with that too. They say, I don’t need a Savior. I
I don’t want a savior.
But yeah, you need a savior.
You need saving because we all do things that are wrong.
We all do things that hurt others or hurt ourselves and hurt God.
Oftentimes we’re all on the naughty list.
We all sin.
sin. We all do our part to make this a hurtful world because all have sinned. In the book
of Romans in the Bible it says, all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory. And that the
wages of sin is death. Death isn’t just the result of sin, death is what you deserve,
what you earn because of your sin yeah your sins are that bad and maybe you’re
hurting from the effects of sin from from violence injustice from from
financial problems from worry or stress or an unsure future maybe you’re you’re
hurting from that and and you’re struggling maybe with guilt over
something that you’ve done wrong guilt over sin and and you want to be saved
well that’s why Jesus was born to save you by being born yes and by growing to
be a man and to die that’s how Jesus is your Savior he died for you Jesus died a
horrible death it’s a death that we deserve because of our sin because yes
our sin is that bad.
It takes death to pay for sin.
And people can have trouble with that.
Again, the Christmas Jesus is what they like best.
They like the baby Jesus.
They like the Christmas Jesus,
but not the Good Friday Jesus.
The Jesus who was whipped, and beaten,
and spit on, and nailed to a cross,
suffering a very painful death.
People have trouble with the suffering,
dying, and getting buried Jesus.
Jesus, the one who does all of that to save you.
That’s why Jesus was born.
That’s why Jesus became a man.
That’s why Jesus died.
People have trouble with it because they don’t want to think
that their sins are that bad.
And then people can have problems
with the resurrected Jesus.
Jesus was born, He suffered, and He died, and He rose again.
People have trouble with that because, well,
dead people just don’t get up again but a loving God can do that and God loves
us so much that he sent his son Jesus to be born but also to die for us to be our
Savior in a way we can say that Jesus was born to die born so that one day he
would be nailed to a cross and die for us die for you to forgive your sins by
giving his life Jesus died for you and forgives you of all of your sins all of
it but he also gave his life to give you life he did this by rising from the dead
that thing that dead people don’t do but a loving God will do that because he
wants you to have life so he raises Jesus from the dead giving us eternal
life see there’s always this connection between Jesus’s birth and his death
between the manger and the cross the cuddly little 8 pounds 6 ounce infant
baby Christmas Jesus lying in the manger the purpose he had was to save his
people from their sins, because dying for you is the reason why he was born. Now I
have an illustration here, hopefully this will work, and I have to come down here
to do it because it just doesn’t work up there, I don’t think, but something to
illustrate. So this, what does this look like anybody? A manger! It’s like the end
of a manger, it’s kind of the universal symbol for the manger here. Well
But with just a little bit of adjustment,
we just bring it down like this,
and there’s the cross.
You see, there’s always this connection
between the manger and the cross,
between Jesus’ birth and His death.
The purpose of being born to be our Savior
and dying to make that happen.
So yeah, you can celebrate the cuddly,
eight pounds, six ounce, newborn infant Jesus
who doesn’t even know a word yet,
but celebrate also the adult Jesus,
the man who died to fulfill that purpose of Him being born.
Amen.
