Seven Reasons for the Birth of Christ

Transcript

GRM 1209
12/23/2018
Seven Reasons for the Birth of Christ
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh

We come to the end of the year and it is a great time as we celebrate the birth of the Son of God into the human race. And we as believers in Jesus Christ, saved by God's grace, appreciate with a fullness and clarity of understanding the world cannot appreciate how momentous that birth really was and continues to be with its impact upon us.

I just want to review some of the reasons for the birth of Christ. I periodically do this with you as a congregation, and we talk about the birth of Christ, we sing songs, there is discussion, there is mention of Him, but we ought to understand the birth of Christ is foundational to everything God is doing in the world. So, I want to look at some of the reasons for the incarnation. If I ask you to give me some of the reasons why Christ was born, we could come up with several. But I have seven because seven is the number of completion in the Bible. That doesn't mean these are the only reasons that could be given, but I think that they are seven that help focus our attention on ‘why was Jesus Christ born?’ Why is that so important and so significant? It is foundational to everything that God is doing in the world and everything that God will accomplish for our redemption and in the ultimate, redemption of all creation in the eternal kingdom that we have just studied about as we have completed our study of the book of Revelation.

I'll just walk through these points. What I want to do is just walk through point by point different reasons for the incarnation. And I have selected some examples from the Scripture, but we don't have time to look through an extensive list of Scriptures. These will give you an idea and you can expand your list of Scriptures on your own study.

But first I have started with it was necessary for Christ to be born at Bethlehem to confirm God's promises. Very basic to everything—to confirm the promises God had given. And they could not be accomplished apart from the birth of Christ.

Come over to Romans 15 in your Bibles, and the Apostle Paul writing, and we are breaking into his context here. Verse 8 begins with the preposition for, “For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision.” And Paul as a Jew is writing and reminding that he came to be a servant to the Jews. The Jews had rejected Him, but He came for their salvation, He came to be their King. “He has become a servant to the circumcision,” note, “on behalf of the truth of God, to confirm the promises given to the fathers.” The fathers—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the covenant established with the Jewish people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. How could they be fulfilled? He came to confirm them, to settle them, to make possible the fulfillment of what God had promised in the redemption if the nation Israel, in the establishing of that nation as His covenant people. And included, as we have seen in other studies, in the Abrahamic Covenant was a provision for the salvation of Gentiles because in Abraham's seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed. They are special, unique promises to the Jewish people, but there is a provision of salvation not only for the Jews, but also for the Gentiles alike.

So, for the confirmation of the promises given in the covenant originally given to Abraham, reiterated to his son Isaac, reiterated to Isaac's son Jacob, that had to have the coming of Christ. He had to become a servant, the eternal God who created has stepped from the throne of glory, as Isaiah saw Him in Isaiah 6, and be born into the human race so that the promises that God had given would be fulfilled.

Turn over to 2 Corinthians 1, verse 18, God is faithful as God is faithful. That is foundational. When God makes a promise, it has to be realized. He is the God who cannot lie, and for the promises of God to be fulfilled, confirmed, Christ had to come. As you move down in this section, Christ was preached by Paul among the Corinthians, in verse 19, and then in verse 20, “For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes.” The “in Him” is referring to Christ Jesus of verse 19. The promises of God throughout the Old Testament and down to Paul's time of writing, in Christ they are yes, meaning they can be fulfilled, they will be realized. He is the confirmation, the guarantee that the promises of God will be realized. In Christ Jesus, in the One born at Bethlehem, the God/Man, His birth is tremendously important. You understand, remove His birth at Bethlehem, God becoming man without giving up anything of His deity, that is essential. Without that everything else in the Scripture would become null and void. But it could not happen because God cannot fail.

So first and foundational, Christ had to be born at Bethlehem to confirm God's promises.

A second reason for the incarnation, He came to reveal the Father. God had revealed Himself through old Testament Scriptures, but the fullest, clearest manifestation of God given to man was in the person of Jesus Christ. He came to reveal the Father.

Back up to Matthew, we can't look at a lot of verses but Matthew 11:27. And Jesus is drawing near to the time when He will move to Jerusalem for His crucifixion. Matthew 12, if you remember, is a transition from offering the kingdom to Israel in His earthly ministry to moving to Jerusalem where He will be crucified. And the offer of Himself to the nation Israel as the Messiah is being shut down, and the truth will now be veiled to them, as the parables of Matthew 13 make clear. But in Matthew 11:27 Jesus said, “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” The way that you come to know God the Father is through God the Son. And that clarity of revelation of God began with the birth of Jesus Christ. God is now present in human form, in a human body.

Keep coming back through the Gospels to John 14, and this comes out when Philip says in verse 8, “Lord,” talking about Christ, talking to Christ, “show us the Father and that will be enough.” If I could only see God the Father, then that would settle it for me. “And Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been so long with you and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father.’ How can you say, show us the Father?” I'm standing before you. That does not mean that Jesus is God the Father, but He is God. You see the attributes of God, God's character, God's nature. I am God, the eternal God exists in three persons—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So, when you have seen Me you have seen the Father.

In John 17:25, “Oh righteous Father, though the world has not known You, yet I have known You. These have known that You have sent Me. And I have made Your name known to them.” His name stands for what He is. It's not just a name like we give a name to a person, but the name in Scripture reveals something of them, His character. In the Old Testament the pre-incarnate Christ was asked, what is your name? Why do you ask My name? It is Wonderful. That idea of the name. Verse 26, “I have made Your name known to them and will make it known so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them and I in them.” You see the revelation of the Father comes through the Son.

One other portion of Scripture, Colossians 1. This states clearly, verse 15, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” And that word firstborn doesn't mean He was born first, it comes from the Old Testament background and indicates He has the superiority, the priority. And, of course, he goes on to explain that. “For by Him all things were created.” He is not part of the creation, He is the Creator of the creation, so He is the firstborn, He is the One who has priority over the creation. And all that was created, in heaven and on earth. Come down to verse 19, “For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him.” He is talking about the fullness of deity.

Look over in Colossians 2:9, “For in Him,” in Christ, “all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.” So as amazing as it is, Jesus Christ in His human body was fully God. He didn't give up any of the attributes that make God, God. He was fully God, but He was fully man. That is the uniqueness of the virgin conception, conception by Mary through the Holy Spirit and a wonder that we cannot fully grasp—that God could be born into the human race, be completely God, be fully human, the God/Man, here to reveal God. I mean, God was walking the earth during Christ's earthly ministry. He came to reveal the Father and now with His finished work of redemption, that revelation, we come to know God the Father through God the Son when we believe in Him because He is the revealer, the One who came to make God known, to reveal in a fuller way, a more complete way than God had ever been known before. So, He came to confirm God's promises, He came to reveal the Father. If we stopped there it would be significant, but there is more.

Thirdly, He came to become a faithful High Priest. What man needs is a high priest. Some religions have created human priests. The Old Testament had a priestly system, what is known as the Aaronic priesthood, the line of Aaron. And the High Priest was at the head of that priesthood. And what does a priest do? He represents people before God, to enable the people to connect and have a relationship with God. He would act on behalf of the people.

Come back to Job, we're not going to the Old Testament much today, but Job 9. And most understand that Job would have been in the time of probably Abraham, preceding the Mosaic Law and the establishing of that priesthood. But in Job 9, Job is going through these trials and troubles. He has lived a godly life, he is a righteous man. God Himself declared that there was no one like Job, a righteous man, faithful to God. But now Job's life has, we would say, come apart. His children have all died, his wealth has been removed, his health has evaporated. He is now a miserable mess, humanly speaking. People didn't even like to look at him in his condition. And he is wondering what happens, and how can I bring my case before God. God, have you left me? What are You doing? What can I do? Well, here is what he asks in Job 9:32, “For He is not a man as I am that I may answer Him.”

In other words, if God were just a man like I am, I could talk to Him, I could bring my arguments, I could defend myself “That we may go to court together.” What do you do when you have a dispute? You go to have it resolved. He says, God is not a man like I am. We can't go and ask for a resolution of our situation. “There is no umpire between us who may lay his hand upon us both.” Job says, here is what I need, I need someone who can stand between God and me, reach out to touch God and reach down to touch me and be the go-between. The realization of that is Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself said, “no man comes to the Father but by Me.” That's the ministry of the High Priest. He came to become a High Priest, to do what Job longed for, to do what only could be seen in a picture way, a preliminary way in the Aaronic system with the high priest who went to the presence of God once a year to offer sacrifice for the sins of the nation. But it never was done because he had to go back, and he had to go back, and he had to go back. But it reminded the people of the need of a high priest.

Come over to Hebrews 2:17. You see the connection here, verse 14, “Therefore since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same so that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death.” We'll come back to that at a later point. But you see He had to partake of flesh and blood. Why? Verse 17, “He had to be made like His brethren in all things.” The brethren he is talking about, the descendants of Abraham, human beings. He had to be made like His brethren, He had to become a human being, had to be born at Bethlehem into the human race “so that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” Here is the One who could be the go-between. When we study the book of Hebrews we see that emphasis on the high priestly ministry of Christ. He does what no other priest could do. All the Old Testament priests could do was offer the sacrifice of an animal, but “the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin.” Now we see the sense of need in this and other religious systems, some under the guise of Christianity. But there is only one High Priest, Jesus Christ, and every other person who places his faith in Jesus Christ are themselves priests who have access to God directly through Christ.

Come over to Hebrews 4:14, “Therefore, since we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted,” or tested, “in all things like we are. But He never sinned.” His is a sinless High Priest, that's what we need. The book of Hebrews will elaborate it. Do you know what the Old Testament high priest had to do? He had to first go offer a sacrifice for his own sins, and then offer sacrifice for the sins of the people. Jesus Christ had no sin. He went through the trials, the tests that come to being human, getting tired, getting hungry, suffering pain, being rejected. Verse 16, “Because we have this kind of High Priest who knows what it means to be human, but without sin, He was made like His brethren.” He has been tempted. “Let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace.” Do you know what? I don't need anybody else to go to the throne of God for me, Jesus Christ is the only One. He has provided the access.

It is a creation of men that they create human priests and supposedly they have access to God that the ordinary person doesn't. It's a way of cutting people off from God, not bringing them to God; denying the truth. Why was Christ born at Bethlehem? To become our High Priest. That's why the Bible can refer to us as priests. What do priests have? Access to God. What do we have? “Let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and grace to help in time of need.” I'm not your priest, you have just as much access to God as I do, as a believer in Jesus Christ. And there are no men that stand between God and us. That doesn't mean we can't pray for one another, we do. But we don't pray instead of one another.

Some have even created saints that you can pray to. That is one of my problems with Roman Catholicism and their doctrine. You can even pray to Mary, and it is a logical deduction. You should go to Mary because would Christ ever reject His mother? So, if you go and bring your requests to Mary, then Mary takes them to Christ, there is more assurance that you will get a response that you want. Where in the Bible does that come from? When Jesus' mother and brothers came and wanted to seek Him while He was on earth, He said, “who is My mother and My brother?” These, those who belong to Him, those who have trusted Him. He wasn't being disrespectful to His mother, but she has no more access to Him than the other believers do. So, we are reminded there is one High Priest, one Redeemer.

Back up to 1 Timothy 2:5. God in His grace, we are told in verse 4, “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” And the only way to be saved is to come to the knowledge of the truth. You come to the knowledge of the truth when you hear the truth of the suffering and death of Christ to pay the penalty for your sin that could not be paid in any other way. You trust Him, you enter into that experiential knowledge of the truth. Why? “For there is one God and one Mediator also between God and men, the Man, Christ Jesus.” Couldn't be any clearer.

There is one God, He eternally exists in three persons—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And the Mediator between God and men is the God/Man, the One who can put His hand, if you will, on humanity and the One who can reach out and touch deity, who himself is the God/Man. He is our High Priest. There is one Mediator between God and men, you ought to circle that, underline that, however you mark your Bible. Only one! And He is sufficient for all who come to believe in Him, and as we are going to look at in our next point, is provision for us for salvation. Men set up systems and people are lured into believing them. The only access to God is through Jesus Christ. “Jesus said I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.” Well, we come to the Father by Christ, but it is through this and this and this. I am sorry, no. “There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

The third point was He came to become a faithful High Priest, which leads us to the fourth reason for the incarnation. It was to put away sin, to deal with the sin issue. That's the problem—sin. Isn't that what most religions are about, providing some way to deal with sin? Something is wrong in this miserable world, terrible things going on. Just a manifestation of the rebellion in the heart of men against the God who has created order. So “out of the heart which is deceitful and desperately above all things,” Jeremiah the prophet said. Christ came to deal with it. Jesus said it is out of the heart that comes all kinds of sinful actions and behavior. So, He came to put away sin, to deal with sin.

Come to Matthew 20. Important to understand this. People celebrate Christmas and the birth of Christ and they sing the songs and sometimes don't pay attention. Do you know what it means? It means we are hopelessly lost in our sin, it means we are on our way to an eternal hell. But God in grace has intervened, providing His Son to be the propitiation, to turn away God's wrath by the sacrifice of Himself. Matthew 20:28 says, “For just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve,” note, “and to give His life a ransom for many,” pay the penalty to set us free. The wages of sin is good works, baptism, church membership. No, “the wages of sin is death,” death, death. You can't get around it. The wages of sin is death. You don't think so, wait a while. Why? Because death comes to us all. Everyone sitting here has probably had a loved one or friend who has died and we say, that's terrible. Why? They were good people, we needed them. You hear all these things. The wages of sin is death and all have sinned, so no one escapes the penalty.

Some have a longer life, some have a shorter life, but there are three kinds of death—there is spiritual death. Death in the Bible is separation, but you are spiritually dead when you are separated from God. That's why God says “we are dead in our trespasses and sins,” relationship with Him has been broken. You say, I feel like I have a relationship with God. It doesn't matter how you feel, God says sin has separated us from God. There is physical death. The Bible says the body without the spirit is dead. When you die physically, you won't cease to exist, your spirit, the immaterial part of you will leave that body. The body will crumple, they will come and say there is no pulse, they'll check and say they are dead. Pretty soon the process of deterioration will quickly begin, but you will be alive spiritually.

And then there is eternal death. For those who die not having experienced the salvation that Christ was born at Bethlehem to provide, to be the Savior, to pay the penalty for our sin, they will live eternally in hell. Those who trust in Him will live eternally in the glories of His presence.

He came to give His life a ransom for many. We are all familiar with the verse John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” So He was born to die, “in order that those who believe might not perish but have everlasting life.” You understand you can grow up in a Christian home, grow up with believing parents, attend a believing church, spend your life doing good things and die and go to hell because the penalty for sin is death. Until you place your faith in Jesus Christ you are still liable for the penalty. The penalty will be paid. God will accept the payment of Christ when you believe in Christ, or He will require it of you. That's why He had to be both God and man, so in His suffering He could pay in full the penalty for all, so that all who would believe in Him might experience that redemption.

So He came, He died to put away sin. Come back again to 1 Timothy 2, “There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Note verse 6, “Who gave Himself as a ransom for all.” That's the point, He paid the penalty. That's pretty clear, it's not confusing. Paul had to come to believe in Christ for his salvation. Back up to 1 Timothy 1:15, Paul says, “It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” That's why He came into the world. “Among whom I am foremost.” Paul was aware of his own sin and guilt. This is an issue that keeps people from coming to Christ. They think they are good enough. I may not be perfect, but I am not bad enough to have to go to hell. But we are not the judge. We think our own evaluation will pass, but it won't.

We will be judged compared to God's holiness, His righteousness. He has already told us, you are condemned, you are under the penalty of your sin, destined to eternal condemnation in hell. Well, that's not nice, this is Christmas. Brighten it up. That's what Christmas is about, there is hope—the Savior has come. “Unto you this day in the city of David is born a Savior.” That's what is exciting about Christmas. I'm not down on celebrating Christmas, I think it is great, we ought to celebrate Christmas. I realize there are a lot of things . . . But we as believers, I am excited that Christ was born. There would be no hope for my salvation if He wasn't, because I needed someone who could put His hand on me and His hand on God and having provided the penalty for my sin could have me declared clean, have the righteousness of God credited to me. That's what Christ did.

We have to come back to Isaiah 53; here is a great prophecy, hundreds of years before Christ was born. You have His description as the servant of God, remember Isaiah 52:13, “Behold My servant,” remember we read in Matthew that “Jesus said, ‘I did not come to be served but to serve and give My life a ransom.’” Here is “My servant will prosper,” but verse 14, He is so abused, so marred is His appearance through the events of the crucifixion that it is greater suffering than anyone has ever endured. Come down into Isaiah 53:2, “He has no stately form or majesty that we would look upon Him.” He didn't come as a king in glory with all the splendor and attention and power that they expected. Verse 5, “He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our wellbeing fell upon Him.” You see what was due me was put on Him—for our transgressions, for our iniquities, for our wellbeing. “By His scourging,” the events of His suffering and death, “we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray.” You don't think you are bad enough, sinful enough, your dispute is with God. He says we have all gone astray, “each of us has turned to his own way. But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” How amazing is that.

Wretched, hell-deserving sinners, and the Son of God is born at Bethlehem to be the Savior. How will He be the Savior? He'll bear the horror of the suffering of the cross, carrying the penalty for our sin so that we could receive the free gift of life through faith in Him. He has done it all. Some people are still trying to work their way to heaven—be a good person, keep the Ten Commandments. God says if you could be saved by keeping the Ten Commandments, the Mosaic Law, Christ died to no purpose. Now this is a terrible thought, that God would send His Son to earth to die for our sins and it was futile, it was unnecessary because you could be saved by keeping the Ten Commandments, by trying to keep the Law, by trying to be a good person, by going to church, by getting baptized, by taking communion. All of them are irrelevant. We say we also believe in Christ. Well, when you also believe in Christ, it doesn't count. You must only believe in Christ. That's the point.

Isaiah anticipated it, Christ came to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. That's foundational to everything. So, the birth of Christ and the death of Christ are inseparably connected.

The fifth reason for the incarnation, Christ came to destroy the works of the devil. That's part of His work of salvation. He came to destroy the works of the devil. Come back to the New Testament, John 12. Again here we come to a transition in Christ's earthly ministry as John records it. And we are going to the events of the crucifixion when we come to John 13. Here as He wraps up His public ministry in John 12:31, “Now judgment is upon this world, now the ruler of this world will be cast out.” What do you mean, cast out? His authority, his power will be broken. Provision is made for people to be free. You understand every person who has not placed their faith in Christ is a slave of the devil. I'm not saying they are not very religious, they may be very religious. Jesus said in John 8 to the religious leaders of His day, “you are of your father, the devil. You always do his will.” That's where we were apart from Christ, that's what we are apart from Him.

But judgment is upon the world, this world system, Satan is the ruler of the world because when Adam, our father in the Garden from whom we are all descended, chose to follow Satan and rebel against God, he subjected the human race to the power and authority of the devil in their sin. “But Christ, when He is lifted up from the earth,” verse 32, “will draw all men to Myself. This He was saying to indicate the kind of death He was to die.” And being lifted up became a euphemism, if you will, for crucifixion, because the cross is laid down, the person is laid on it, nailed to that cross, then they lift it up and set it in the ground. When you are lifted up, talking about that kind of event, it becomes a way of speaking of the crucifixion. That will bring judgment upon the world and break the power and authority of Satan.

Come over to Hebrews 2:14, “Therefore since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same.” That was so He could be a merciful and faithful High Priest. What does the high priest have to do? He has to offer the acceptable sacrifice to God. “That through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.” Death looms over, doesn't matter whether you are a multi-billionaire or you are in abject poverty. Death will overtake you, comes to all. We don't have any 200-year old people on earth today. Doesn't matter.

I've shared, one of the wealthiest men in the world, when I read his biography, and his closing years of life, it said he almost never left the study he had in the mansion that he had. He said he spent his days trying to find someone in the world who could extend his life. You can't do it. Be thankful for the medicine we have, thankful for the doctors that help us, but probably none of you will be here to celebrate your 150th birthday. Now when the Lord comes, things change. But as we are now, that's the course of the road.

But what Christ came to do was to “render powerless him who had the power of death.” How did he have the power of death? We are sinners. Satan could claim us as his own, but his power has been broken. I've been set free through faith in Christ. The authority of Satan over my life has been broken. Doesn't mean I never sin, I never have to sin. Sometimes I choose to sin in rebellion, but as God's people that's not where we live. We can't live there, we have been made new. So, He came to destroy the works of the devil.

Come to 1 John 3:8, and just look at the last part of verse 8 first. “The Son of God appeared.” How did He appear? He was born at Bethlehem. “For this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.” That's it. He came because that has to do with dealing with sin because He couldn't destroy the power of the devil, his authority and his work, his continual rebellion against God without providing a sacrifice that could set us free, where God could declare me, my penalty paid in full. I credit you with My righteousness. There is no cause of condemnation anymore, your penalty has been paid. How sad it is, people celebrate Christmas and don't understand the beauty and wonder of this, that Christ came.

Now the result of that is, verse 9, “No one who is born of God practices sin because His seed abides in him.” Peter says we partake of the divine nature, we don't become God, but we partake of His very nature, His very being, His character, as we were created to be before Adam sinned. So, we don't live in the realm of sin anymore, and when we stumble we get up, we move on in right relationship with God. The one who practices sin belongs to the devil. So, you have to get the order, it’s important here. People are trying to do good things so they can be saved, accepted by God. You have to realize first you can do nothing to make yourself acceptable to God except place your faith in what Christ did for you. When you place your faith in what Christ did for you, what did Jesus say? You must be born again, you must be born from above, the new birth. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, a new creation. Old things have passed away, behold new things have come,” Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5. Sad thing is people get the order reversed and think I'm going to try to keep the Ten Commandments, I'm going to try to do good, I go to church, I take communion. For what? You can't clean up yourself, you can't make yourself acceptable to God. I can't. I'm no more acceptable to God because I'm a preacher than any other dirty sinner. It's when God saves us, cleanses us, makes us new on the inside, sets us free from our slavery to the devil and to sin that now we can manifest His character in the way we live and we have His Spirit indwelling to be the power that is our sufficiency.

All right, we have to go to point six. Christ not only came to confirm God's promises, to reveal the Father, to become a faithful High Priest, to put away sin, to destroy the works of the devil, but sixth, to give us an example of a holy life. This is important, this ties to what we were just talking about. You have to have the order. People talk about, I want to follow the example of Christ. There is an element of truth in that, and there is an element that will send you to an eternal hell if you get it confused.

Turn to 1 Peter 2:21. He has been talking about the example, that we, as believers, ought to live godly and holy lives in the midst of an ungodly world. And that means even when things aren't going well. Sometimes Christians get the idea that if I trust in Christ and now am His child, I should expect a good life. That's the message of the health and wealth preachers—now that you are God's child He wants you to be rich, He doesn't want you to ever be sick, He doesn't want you to have problems, we are children of the King. Well, the only element of truth in that is we are children of the King because you place your faith in Him.

Here what he is saying is we, as God's people, ought to manifest God's character in the worst of situations. 1 Peter 2:20, “For what credit is there if when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience. But when you do what is right and suffer for it, you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. For we have been called for this purpose since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps.” But who is he writing to? He is writing to those who have placed their faith in Christ, who have been transformed by the power of God. Now we do want to manifest the character of Christ in what we do. How did He conduct Himself? No sin, not any deceit was found in His mouth. “When people reviled Him, He did not revile in return; while suffering He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to God who judges righteously.”

Our attitude, my life is in the hands of the Lord that I serve. I mean, if He has chosen to put me in a situation where people revile me, mistreat me, make my life very difficult and painful, I don't respond in return if I am following the example of Christ. No one suffered like He did. So that's the example of Christ. It is sort of like we might have in our own family where a child follows the example of a parent. Hopefully, we set a good example. We sing the song, “May those who come behind us find us faithful.” That's what we want. And Paul said, you follow my example, I'm following Christ's example. So when you are following me, you should be following Christ. And that should be the example we set for one another. And pressure reveals our character. It not only develops and produces character, it reveals character. We do well until things are going badly, then we are upset. All of a sudden, I thought we were dealing with Christians. That is how He is our example.

Don't get it reversed. If you think trying to be like Christ and live the best life you can live will make you acceptable for God, you are on your way to hell. God already says you are not righteous enough. “There is none righteous, there is none that does good,” there is not a just man upon the earth who always does good and never sins, Solomon wrote in the book of Ecclesiastes. You can't do it, and if you could do it Christ wouldn't have needed to come to earth. But now that He has come, and you have been transformed by the power of His salvation, you are to live for Him, in good times and bad times, in times of happiness and times of sorrow because I trust God and He is in charge. Why should I be upset about things I can't change? All I can do is be what He says I am to be.

We have to go to point seven because seven is the number of completion and we want to complete. So, the seventh point is He came to prepare for the Second Coming. We just finished the book of Revelation for those of you who are here regularly, after a couple of years. And I'm sorry we are done, but where is it all going? To the return of Christ in Revelation 19 to do what He didn't do the first time. He came the first time to provide salvation, He'll come the second time to establish a kingdom. And that's the subject of Revelation 19, 20, 21, and the first part of 22. That's what was announced. The Old Testament prophets, Isaiah in Isaiah 53 wrote about the suffering of Christ.

But do you know what he wrote about in chapter 2? What he wrote about in chapter 9? What he wrote about in chapter 11 and those other early chapters? Will write about again in the later chapters of his prophecy? The kingdom, when ultimately heaven will come down on earth, God's throne will dwell on the new earth, as we saw. How could that be? Well we saw in Revelation 5 there was celebration in heaven because the Lamb could open the book, the scroll, seven-sealed scroll that could bring everything, all creation to its ultimate appointed end because He was the Lamb that had been sacrificed. So, if Christ hadn't been born at Bethlehem to provide salvation, there could be no eternal kingdom because there would be no eternal people to dwell in the eternal kingdom because everybody would be in hell that was created for the devil and his angels.

So, Christ had to be born at Bethlehem, that's His first coming to earth, so that He could come to earth again in victory, in clouds and great glory as they expected Him to come at the first coming. But you understand God hadn't made it as clear as it is to us. He said that Messiah will rule and reign in glory and that Messiah will suffer and die in ignominy. They chose to reject the One and hold on to the other—the only Messiah we will accept is One who comes in power and glory and destroys our enemies. If that is all He had done, everyone would have been destroyed because they were His enemies. You had pious, self-righteous religious people, and you had openly pagan people, but you just had two kinds of sinners on their way to hell.

So, the birth of Christ was necessary to bring about the glorious conclusion that there will be a kingdom established that will be eternal. And it is because God became man, and as the God/Man He died on the cross, paid in full the penalty. This enables all the promises of God to be fulfilled and enables sin to be forgiven, and so on it goes. I hope as you have come today that you know the Savior, that you have come to understand the importance of His birth. He came to be your Savior, He came to offer you salvation, right down to today, that God “is not willing that any should perish but all should come to the knowledge of the truth.” Today could be a day of salvation. For those of us who have trusted Him, it's a reminder that it is a life to be lived. He is a Savior, a Lord to be served. We are to manifest the beauty of His character in all we do.

Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, for the riches of Your Word. How blessed we are to have the revelation You have given, contained in this book, the Bible. And we can learn of the Savior who came to earth 2,000 years ago, born in humble circumstances, but the One born at Bethlehem, the One who dwelt in eternity is God becoming man. What an awesome wonder that event is, but amazing beyond our understanding. He came to be our Savior, He came to die so that we could be saved, He came to pay the penalty we could not pay, He came to enable us by your grace, to be born again. We pray this truth will grip each one of our hearts. We commit this day to you, pray our testimony will be strong, pray that you might use the power of the Gospel to bring about the salvation of souls. We pray in Christ's name, amen.