Christmas Eve

? ? ? ? do do ? ? ? ? the the the the the the the do do do do uh... do and and and Good evening and welcome to the Holly Hills Bible Church Christmas Eve service. We're going to have a combination of congregational music and some music will be performed for you, as well as going through some scripture passages keying on the one you see on the screen here, Galatians 4, 4 and 5.

Let's begin, however, just with a word of prayer. Lord, we thank you as we gather that we gather not just because it's the right time of year or something, but we gather with purpose. And how astounding and awesome and wonderful a thing it was that you sent your Son. And we want to look at the depth of it here as we gather here tonight. And so we give you thanks for the opportunity, the time, and the wonderful, marvelous things you've done for us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Let's stand and have you sing. Hark the herald angels sing. Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king. Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled. Joyful, all ye nations rise, Join the triumph of the skies. With angelic host proclaim, Christ is born in Bethlehem. Hark, the herald angels sing, Glory to the newborn King Christ by highest heaven adored Christ the everlasting Lord Late in time behold Him come Offspring of a virgin's womb Hail in flesh the Godhead see, Hail incarnate Deity! Please His man with men to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel. Hark the herald angels sing, Glory to the newborn King! Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!

Hail the Son of Righteousness! Light and life to all He brings Risen with healing in His wings While He lays His glory by Born that man no more may die Born to raise the sons of earth Born to give second birth Hark the herald angels sing Glory to the Newborn King.

Well, this evening we're going to be looking at a verse in Galatians. Galatians chapter 4, verses 4 and 5 will be the main focus. And actually, we're going to do it in three parts. I get the first part, and Mike's going to do the middle part, and then Vernal will do the last part. So it's a wonderful passage. Let me just read verses 4 and 5.

When the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that he might redeem those who were under the law, that they might receive the adoption as sons." That first phrase there, when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his son. If you look at verse 4, the central core of that passage is that God sent forth his son. The rest of it kind of modifies that and gives us more information about that. So God sent forth his son.

So the idea of sending forth is to send forth from a place. If you think about our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, there are many passages in scripture, especially in the Gospel of John, that talk about the word. And he was with the Father in eternity past. So we see that the Lord Jesus Christ left a place with his Father and was sent to this earth as a God-man, as a baby, and ultimately to die on the cross. So he was sent forth.

And then we see that little phrase, in the fullness of the time. And for many years, you know, I pondered that and I pondered that. And actually, we've actually taught this, if you're here in 2007, this is, we taught that before. But I found, I found some new additional really neat stuff about that in the fullness of the time. And, you know, the fullness is actually the abundance of time.

And, you know, God could have said, the Lord Jesus will come on and give him a date in scripture. But he didn't do that. He gave this idea of fullness or completeness. And you look at that carefully and what we're going to see is that that was really a total change in the way God was looking at man. He was going to look at him based upon his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He was going to look upon him in grace. Prior to that, man was under the law, the mosaic system. And the law said, I'll bless you if you obey me. I'll curse you if you disobey me. It was very hard and rigid. And man couldn't obtain salvation that way.

But God, in his grace, provided a savior for that. So we see that transition, the fullness of time. And actually, God sent forth his son, brought in this fullness of time. And there's a verse that I'd like to read. I don't have it in the overhead, but it actually helps to maybe give a parallel passage about this. It's in Galatians 3, verse 23. It says, So another way of looking at this is that faith Faith was not part of what God was asking the nation of Israel to do.

He was asking them to obey him, to keep these set of rules. And he knew they could not keep it. So he had a plan. And faith was shut up. Faith was not available. But faith was going to be brought in under grace, under the Savior. So that's the before case.

The after case is a verse in Galatians 3.25. It says, but now faith has come. We are no longer under a tutor, and a tutor is actually a picture of the law. The law was a taskmaster, not a kind tutor as you might think, it was a taskmaster. And God knew that man could not keep that, and that's why he had a plan to bring in this fullness of time.

And then there's another verse, Galatians 3.19, which I think is on a couple of overheads up there.

And it's another little picture of what's going on here. It says, why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made. So this brings in a picture that the law was given until the seed would come. So here's another kind of time thing, another benchmark.

The seed is going to come, and there's just a tremendous number of prophecies in the Old Testament talking about the seed. And the first one I'd like to offer is in Genesis 22. And it says, indeed, I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and the sands which are on the seashore. And your seed shall possess the gates of your enemy, In your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice. If you look carefully at that passage, you'll see that actually the seed is mentioned three times. The first two times, the first phrase is, I will greatly bless you and greatly multiply your seed.

He's talking to Abraham here. And that was his physical seed. And he did. He greatly blessed Abraham's physical seed. The second occurrence is a very similar kind of idea. He said, you shall possess your seed, shall possess the gates of your enemies. But the third one in verse 18 there is really pretty special. It says, in your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. That's a tremendous statement. That says that Abraham's seed, which is looking forward to our Savior. With that passage alone, we'd have difficulty understanding the full impact of the seed.

But if we were to turn in your Bibles, we had one here, and look at Galatians 3.16, you would see that the seed is stated to be the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's one of many passages. Another passage I'd like to share is in Deuteronomy, which is the next slide. And I'm going to read parts of this.

It says, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you from your countrymen and you shall listen to him. And then skip down to verse 18. I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you and I will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I command him.

So if you look carefully, Moses is speaking here. He says, Moses was a prophet. He says there's going to be another prophet. And he uses himself. That's kind of interesting. I could say, I, Roger, am going to have somebody that comes like me. Well, Moses said, I'm going to have a person like myself who's going to come and prophesy. He's going to tell you things. And then in verse 18, he says this prophet, this person like Moses, is going to have God's words put in his mouth. and he shall speak them to all that I command him." If you think about it, Moses is a figure of the Savior. Moses was a Redeemer, and our Lord Jesus Christ is a Redeemer. He was a mediator, and our Savior was a mediator. He was an intercessor, Moses was, and our Savior was an intercessor.

Like so many times in scripture, the Old Testament helps us to amplify what the New Testament tells us. And then the last passage is in Isaiah. You may have a familiar one at this time of the year. Isaiah 40. A voice is calling, clear the way for the Lord, and the wilderness makes smooth, and the desert a highway for our God. Let every valley be lifted up, every mountain and hill be made low, and let the rough ground be made plain, and the rugged terrain a broad valley. Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken." I'll just stop there.

So we see this is a proclaiming by Isaiah of what's to happen. And we see in the New Testament that John the Baptist, he repeats this exact passage or portions of it. In Matthew, he talks about, in verse 3 of Matthew, it says, for this is the one referred to by Isaiah, the prophet, when he said, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the Lord. So this is going to be a glorious coming of our Savior.

And then lastly, I'd like to share that in Galatians 3, 24 and 25, it says, and I've already talked about this a little bit, but now faith has come. We're no longer under a tutor. So that's kind of the bottom line of all this. The fullness of the time came. We're no longer under the law operating system. We're now under this marvelous system of grace. Grace through faith. And you ask the question, what faith am I supposed to have? Some people say, I have faith and faith alone. Well, this is faith in a person and a work. The person is our Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man. And what did he do? He came as a baby. He came to die on the cross. He was buried, and he rose, and he was raised on the third day.

That's what we're to believe, and that's the good news that we're to remember. And now we have some special music. By the Beach family, the parts of Andreana and Hermelinda will be sung by their understudy this evening. Child in the manger, infant of Mary, God-cast and stranger, Lord of all.

Child who inherits all our transgressions, All our demerits, on Him fall. Was the most holy Child of salvation, Gently and lowly lay it below. Now is our glorious mighty Redeemer, See Him victorious over each foe. Prophets foretold him, infant of wonder, angels behold him on his throne. Worthy our Savior of all their praises, happy forever are his own.

OK, and continuing on with the same theme that Roger talked about, the first verses I'd like you to look at is John chapter 1, verses 1 through 3. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him. And apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being. So the first question you have to ask is, who's the word? Because if you don't identify who the word is, the rest of the information is superfluous. The Greek word for word here is the word Lagos. And here's the issue.

God the Father and God the Holy Spirit are spirits. And they're not identifiable or knowable in and of themselves because they are spirits. The Lord Jesus Christ is God himself. And he is the expression of who God is in humanity. And I'll expand a little bit on that. So when you see this word, word, it refers to a person who reflects another and the other is God himself. So Christ appears, he comes into the world and notice that it is first says in the beginning was the word. It's interesting that in the beginning, the beginning of creation, the Word already was. So He didn't start or show up at that point. He always had already been.

Then if you skip down to verse 11 in John 1, it says, He came unto His own. Those who were His own did not receive Him. Who were His own? Well, He's the Creator, as we've just learned in verse 1 and verse 3. But the world is his because he created it. The country he came to belongs to him. The city he's born in belongs to him. The temple in Jerusalem belongs to him. He created it all. The nation of Israel belongs to him and all of the Jewish people are his chosen people. And you know what?

The entire group rejected him. The entire group. How did the world reject Christ? They rejected him initially as creator and that's what we do today. The fundamental assumption of scripture is that he is a creator. He is the creator. The world rejects the concept of a creator God. The teaching of evolution is a rejection of the most fundamental assumption of the Bible that Jesus is a creator.

Here's the logic. If God created all things, then in all things is the knowledge of God because he has created them therefore all men have light every man knows and if you read Romans chapter 1 from about verse 11 through 23 Paul says men are without excuse because what may be known of God is evident to them they can see it in the creation they have it built within them The teaching or the existence my existence and your existence is a revelation that God is This point is the grounds of Romans 1 as I've just said now interesting when a Human being rejects Christ. There's a profound statement in Romans chapter 1 verse 18 Paul says professing to be wise they became fools and and exchange the glory of the incorruptible God, the Word, for the image in the form of corruptible man of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. If a human being or humanity rejects the Word or God as a creator, what they do is they begin to deify the things that he has created. However, the person of Christ is the light. And I don't think anybody can say that Jesus Christ, who is God, didn't visit this earth. I think everybody knows that, whether they'll admit it or not.

Now, verse 14, And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld or we saw his glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. The Word became flesh. He took a body. And this body that he took, he intends to stay united to it for eternity, forever. It's an eternal transaction. I want to put together two verses that don't normally go together, but I think they'll help us see and understand this.

Verse 1 says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we saw his glory, the glory as the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. The first thing that we need to know is that the Word, the second person of the Trinity as we know him, Jesus Christ became a man.

He is the God-man. He's 100% God and he's 100% man. The interesting thing about the teaching of Jesus being a man does not affect his deity one iota. He was eternal before he took a body, he's eternal now. He was omnipresent, which means he's everywhere, before he took a body, and he still is. He was all-powerful before he took a body, and he still is. He was omniscient, which means he knows everything before he took a body and he still is. He's undiminished deity plus he's perfect humanity.

What does this tell us? It reveals to us the glory of the only begotten from the Father. The English translation there might seem to indicate that Christ had a beginning. but he didn't. When you look at these Greek words, there's no case that he wasn't eternal. This word only begotten is the Greek word monogenes, and it's a really cool word.

The critical idea of this word is the uniqueness of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's one and only of his kind. There's no other like him. because he's the only member of the Godhead that has a body. He is totally a unique person. He does have a temporal aspect to his incarnation, and that is that he only was here the first time for 33 years. He dwelt among us. He just was here until the crucifixion, burial, death, burial, and resurrection, and then his assumption into heaven.

And it's interesting in Acts 1.9 When he goes back to heaven, it says that after he had said these things, he was lifted up as they were looking on, and a cloud received him out of their sight. The Bible does not say that he disappeared. It says that he left by just going out of their sight. He still had this body, but now they couldn't see him because he had gone. He now sits at the right hand of the Father, in all of his glory in the body. It's always been fascinating to me that sitting on the throne of God today, this very second, is a human being, Jesus Christ.

So John says in the second half, we saw his glory The glory is that the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. The word saw there is a word that we would get. It isn't that he just sort of glanced at him as he was coming by. It really means to gaze with careful attention, to examine, to examine more than one time, to repeatedly examine. John is saying that we spent night and day with him, and as a result of our association with him, we saw his glory.

Glory is the sum total of the intrinsic attributes of who the Lord Jesus is as 100% God and 100% man. And he also brings two things with him. He brings grace and truth. And as Roger said, until this time grace was not the operating principle in which God dealt with man. Today it is.

So there are benefits to us. For his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace. What does it mean for us to have received grace upon grace? Jesus was full of grace and truth, and he's invited us to participate in both. Everything he brings, we can participate in. Grace in exchange for grace. To put it simply, you can't use up grace. The more you use it, the more there is of it. So use it. Take it. Take all that he has because you cannot out grace God. It's a system that we live in now that totally surpasses any kind of law or system that was written on stones, the grace system and the truth system is now a person, not a stone. Verse 18 says that no one has seen God at any time.

The only begotten, the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, he's explained him or he's made him clear. Here we have that word again, the only begotten is that monogamous word. So where did the Lord Jesus come from? He came from the very heart of the Father. He came out of the bosom of the Father.

And that tells us two really important things. One, that the Lord Jesus Christ has intimate fellowship with the Father. And like I said, we can participate in everything that He brings. We can participate in the intimate fellowship that the Lord Jesus has with the Father. The second thing that it tells us is that he has intimate knowledge of the Father. We can participate in that too, because he brings those things with him.

The word explained or make clear means to lead out or to interpret, to explain fully, to describe or to reveal. In other words, if you and I want to know what God is exactly like, get to know the Lord Jesus. He's the one that reveals him and explains him. So what did he come to do? Did he accomplish the task that he came to do? Yeah, he did.

In John 1.29, one day the Lord Jesus is walking by and John the Baptist looks at him and says, the next day, He saw Jesus coming to him and said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. So now we're going to have a performance by the Case family. I wonder, I wonder as I wander. I wander as I wander out under the sky How Jesus, my Savior, did come for to die For poor, ornery sinners like you and like I I wonder as I wander out under the sky Free with Jesus was in a cow stall With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all But high from God's heaven a starlight did call Then through a mist of ages its infant recall If Jesus had wanted for anything A star in the sky or a bird on the wing Or all of God's angels in heaven to sing He surely could have it, cause He was the King I wander as I wander out under the sky Of Jesus my Savior did come for to die For poor, ornery sinners like you and like I I wander as I wander out under the sky I wonder as I wander out under the sky Thou, Jesus, my Savior, didst come for to die For poor, lonely sinners like you and like I I wonder as I wander out under the sky Thank you. The question on the table is still there.

Did he take away the sin of the world? That's what he came to do. Did he accomplish the work? Was he successful? John 19 30 says that therefore, when Jesus had received the sour wine, he's on the cross now. He said it's finished. And he bowed his head and he gave up his spirit. When the work of the cross was done, finished, he took away the sins of the world, he gave up his life. Is that the end of the story?

Luke 24, 6, he says at the resurrection when the women had gone to see, they were going to move the body and make sure it wasn't moved and they were going to anoint it. Here they are at the tomb. And they're told he's not here, but he's risen. Remember how he spoke to you while he was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered up into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise again.

And they remembered his words. And he returned from the tomb and reported all these things to the eleven disciples and to all the rest. Down in verse 44, the Lord Jesus says, Now he said to them, These are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. And he said to them, Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead on the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.

And you are witnesses to these things. We as believers are all witnesses of these things by faith. And we are now, as sons, the ones that our Father has determined should be his witnesses to this grace and to this truth that now has come to be. The next person on the program is Grace Anderson.

She will perform for us. uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... oh oh As we look at the last part of this passage, we see that this verse is read so far, but when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth a son born of a woman, born under the law.

So that, do you see that? Consequences, there's an outcome. from what happened. It wasn't just the story, isn't that a cute story about a baby being born in a little town called Bethlehem? It's more than that. There's an outcome from this, and that outcome, well, it goes like this, so that he might redeem those who were under the law. Now, a few things to take note of here.

This word redeem means to buy out of the marketplace as a slave. Not just buy one, but buy completely out of the marketplace, never to go back in again. It's a one-time, one-shot deal. To redeem those who were under the law. Now that should tell us something about the relationship with the law, right? Those who were under, are they now? It's not present tense. to redeem those who were under the law.

But that's not the end of the outcome. That's not the end of the consequences. So that we might receive the adoption of sons. That's another outcome and consequence. Redeeming those who are under the law is to take us out from something that's not good. But this is a receiving into something that is good. The adoption of sons is something that we often think of as a Oh, you know, a little baby or child or something of that sort.

Under the Roman law, adoption of sons was only actually done with an adult. And it was so that there was an heir to a high position. It was done, for example, with Caesar Augustus, who was the one who was the emperor during the time when Christ was born. And so under this adoption of sons, what would happen is someone would be chosen to be adopted in order that they take on a very high position. Now to get there, I would have to have the highest level of approval. For an emperor, it would be the Roman Senate would have to approve this. It would be done in front of seven witnesses.

But furthermore, the adoption of sons process would mean that if that person had any debts, no matter what the number, no matter how large, they were all completely forgotten. And if that person had any criminal history of any kind, that was also completely expunged. No debts, no crimes, you have a new history. So this adoption of sons is a phenomenal thing.

That person was then placed in this new role at a place of very high position. So when they read this, they weren't thinking, oh isn't that a cute little baby that's being adopted. They were astounded because of all that was forgiven. They were astounded because of the high position that the person had. This was an amazing statement.

So that he might redeem those who were under the law, get them out from underneath that, pull them away from that, buy them out completely and permanently, so that we might receive. You see, it's a received from, but it's also a received to. Redeemed from, redeemed to. In 1 Peter 1, 17-19, it reads like this. If you address as father the one who impartially judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth, knowing that you are not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.

So, in fact, we were redeemed, but we weren't redeemed with some commodity, even a valuable commodity. We were redeemed by Christ's own blood, by his own sacrifice. We were redeemed from this futile way of life. You see, until a person is redeemed by Christ, their life is really kind of senseless and useless. It doesn't go anywhere. So Christ redeemed us from that. How? With his own blood. It's a redemption from and it's a redemption to. This is a wonderful, marvelous thing that the Lord has done.

That's why he sent his son Jesus. He sent his son Jesus not just to have a cute little baby born in some little quaint village back in Israel 2,000 years ago. But he sent his son Jesus to redeem us from the futile way of life that we had, to redeem us out from under law, and instead to have us enjoy this phenomenal, amazing grace, all debts paid, a new history, that's fantastic, that's wonderful, that's the way it ought to be. Love was when God became a man Locked in time and space Without rank or place Love was God Born of Jewish kin Just a carpenter With some fishermen Love was when Jesus walked in history Lovingly he brought a new life that's free As God nailed to bleed and die To reach and love one such as I Love was when God became a man Down where I could see Love that reached to me Love was God dying for my sin And so trapped was I My whole world caved in Love was when Jesus rose to walk with me Lovingly he brought a new life that's free Love was gone, only he would try To reach a loved one such as I Let's stand and sing together. God rest ye merry gentlemen.

Now before we do, I just want to point out a few things. This is God rest. Now we can only rest because of what God has done. God does the resting here. God does the accomplishing of what we can rest in. So God rest is God's doing. We couldn't rest without him. And God rest ye, that's talking about you. Each of us. This is what God accomplished for us so that we could rest. And then Mary, that's more than just being kind of jolly and happy because of the time of year and it's the season. But it's something about which we can be deeply joyous and happy forever. So as we sing these words, think of that. Let's go ahead.

God rest ye merry gentlemen Let nothing you dismay Remember Christ our Savior Was born on Christmas Day To save us all from Satan's power When we were gone astray O tidings of comfort and joy Comfort and joy hidings of comfort and joy. In Bethlehem in Jewry this blessed babe was born, and laid within a manger upon this blessed morn.

The witch, his mother Mary, did nothing take in scorn, O tidings of comfort and joy! Comfort and joy! O tidings of comfort and joy! From God, our Heavenly Father, A blessed angel came, And into certain shepherds Brought tidings of the same. How that in Bethlehem was born the Son of God by name. O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy. O tidings of comfort and joy.

OK, before we dismiss you, I just want to mention that Kaylee and Tristan will be handing out some Christmas activity books for the children and candy canes for the children and anyone else who would like them. OK? And so let's close our time here in prayer. Lord, we do thank you that as we gather, we gather not just to Adore a cute little baby under unusual circumstances born, but rather we come together celebrating the birth that would change our eternity. We just thank you for that marvelous truth and we just have such a richness to rejoice in this Christmas. Amen. A blessed and Merry Christmas to you all.