Many families gather on Christmas, there is excitement in the air, everyone is off from work and school and gifts are under the tree. The focus is on ourselves, even when we are thinking about the giving of gifts to others to see the joy on their faces, we are thinking of ourselves as a whole. We often neglect to focus on the purpose of Christmas. Even for those who do try to focus on Christ, we may talk about or read the "Christmas story" the birth of Christ but often fail to capture the beauty and depth of the incarnation. We want to challenge each person to first change the focus of Christmas in your family to Christ and Christ alone. Yes, we can spend time together, laugh, eat and share gifts, but everything we do should be for the glory of God alone. Our children need to understand who Christ is and why He came. It is more than a story about a baby; it is about God Himself volunteering to lower Himself as a servant, abandoning heaven and His throne to live the life we could not live perfectly. We became our substitute, bearing our sins and enduring the wrath of God, which we deserved so that could be freed from sin and reconciled unto the Father. Justified, clothed with the righteousness of Christ so that we can stand before a Holy God, the veil torn in two, with complete access to God. Once we were dead in sin and enemies of God, now alive in Christ and adopted as children of God.
Oh, the richness of the glorious work of Christ He accomplished on the cross and through His resurrection so that we may stand in awe of His grace, the grace we don't deserve and have the privilege to obey and serve Him with the hope of one day spending eternity in His presence.
This is Christmas, Christ!
1. All the Scriptures bear witness to Christ. Moses wrote about Christ.
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me. . . . If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.” (John 5:39, 46)
2. All the Scriptures are about Jesus Christ, even where there is no explicit prediction. That is, there is a fullness of implication in all the Scriptures that points to Christ and is satisfied only when he has come and done his work.
And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. (Luke 24:27)
3. Jesus came to fulfill all that was written in the Law and the Prophets. All of it was pointing to him, even where it is not explicitly prophetic. He accomplishes what the Law required.
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” (Matthew 5:17–18)
4. All the promises of God in the Old Testament are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. That is, when you have Christ, sooner or later you will have both Christ himself and all else that God promised through Christ.
For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. (2 Corinthians 1:20)
5. The law was kept perfectly by Christ. And all its penalties against God’s sinful people were poured out on Christ. Therefore, the law is now manifestly not the path to righteousness; Christ is. The ultimate goal of the law is that we would look to Christ, not law-keeping, for our righteousness.
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. (Romans 10:4)
Therefore, with the coming of Christ, virtually everything has changed
Philippians 2: 5-11
5 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited.
7 Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity.
And when he had come as a man, 8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross.
9 For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow—in heaven and on earth and under the earth—11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
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