CELEBRATE JESUS AT CHRISTMAS!

DECEMBER 23, 2013

DECLARE WHO JESUS IS (LUKE 1:30-33)

30    The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. 31    "And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. 32    "He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; 33    and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end."     NASB

“This is plain language. There is no way of misinterpreting it. This passage is quite literal.”

J. Vernon McGee Commentary on Luke 1:30-33

“Nazareth, so still, so shut in from the world around, that it is not once mentioned in connection - with any single event in the whole of the Old Testament; not once in the Talmud, where names of obscure places occur in plenty...”

Biblical Illustrator 

VERSE 30:

·        From verse 29 we see that Mary was very perplexed; Strong’s Dictionary says  the word translated as perplexed means “to disturb wholly, that is, agitate (with alarm): - trouble.”

·        Here Gabriel tell her, “Do not be afraid” (to frighten, that is, (passively) to be alarmed; by analogy to be in awe of, that is, revere: - be (+ sore) afraid, fear (exceedingly), reverence. per Strong’s again)

VERSE 31:

·        The word behold translates a Greek term that was used to stress the importance of what followed.

VERSE 32-33:

·        Submission to God involves humility and surrendering control of our lives to Him.

·        Because of our carnal nature, we sometimes think of people who submit as being weak.

·        In reality, submission to God required strength which we can only have as He enables us by His Holy Spirit.

·        John the Baptist would be “great in the sight of God”, but Jesus would be great without any qualification; thus expressing Jesus’ superiority over John the Baptist.

APPRECIATE HOW JESUS CAME (LUKE 1:34-35, 38)

34    Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" 35    The angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.

38    And Mary said, "Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her.     NASB

VERSE 34:

·        She had correctly interpreted the angel's message to mean that without the assistance of a husband she is about to conceive a child.

VERSE 35:

·        We are told in the Book of Leviticus that the birth of a child caused a woman to be unclean because she brought a sinner into the world.

Psalms 51:5    Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.     NASB

·        Mary is told that she is NOT bringing a sinner into the world; but He that is the Holy One.

·        People can deny the Virgin Birth, but they cannot say that the Bible does not teach the Virgin Birth.

 “Christ as God had no mother, and as man no father. But His mother as man was Mary. She was the seed of Abraham; and so Christ was that seed of Abraham, in whom all nations were to be blessed.” Biblical Illustrator

“These three facts can aid our faith: (1) Luke was a medical doctor, and he knew perfectly well how babies are made. It would have been just as hard for him to believe in a virgin birth as it is for us, yet he reports it as fact. (2) Luke was a painstaking researcher who based his Gospel on eyewitness accounts. Tradition holds that he talked with Mary about the events he recorded in the first two chapters. This is Mary's story, not a fictional invention. (3) Christians and Jews, who worship God as the Creator of the universe, should have no doubts that God has the power to create a child in a virgin's womb.” Life Application Notes

VERSE 38:

·        Mary's expression of unqualified submission to God's will is all that one could desire.

·        This is the key verse of this lesson, because it shows us what our best response to God ought always to be.

“It is to the humble and childlike maiden that the supreme honor of womanhood is given. The choice was one of pure grace. The Creator-Spirit Himself wrought this divine miracle. The appearance of our Savior among mankind was the direct and immediate act of Deity, so far as His body was concerned, but as to His spirit, it was the voluntary emptying on His own part, of which Paul speaks,...” F B Meyer

PROCLAIM GOD’S GREATNESS (LUKE 1:46-49)

46    And Mary said: "My soul exalts the Lord, 47    And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. 48    "For He has had regard for the humble state of His bondslave; For behold, from this time on all generations will count me blessed. 49    "For the Mighty One has done great things for me; And holy is His name.     NASB

VERSE 46:

·        God has become a bigger and a more personal God to her because of this experience.

·        This starts what is known as the Magnificat which runs through verse 56.

“Mary, in her naturalness, unself-consciousness and humility, was now able to sing about how proud she was that God had chosen her. In her true humility, she praised God that she was especially blessed.”  Preachers Commentary

VERSE 47:

·        Hypocrites sing the praises of God with open mouths but have no feeling of affection from the their heart.

·        Not so with Mary, who is genuinely filled with love for her God who has honored her from among all women.

·        “soul" and "spirit” are used in the scriptures to denote various things.

·        But when used together:

·        Spirit generally refers to understanding; the soul generally the seat of emotions.

VERSE 48:

·        It was her glorious privilege to be the mother of the Son of God, to bring him into the world.

·        We should not play it down, but we should not play it up either.

VERSE 49:

·        As did David, Mary reflects on the great things of God.

·        Note the "for me."

·        True religion is a personal relationship between God and His child.

“There is a danger in trying to spiritualize the Magnificat. These are the most revolutionary words ever spoken. Through the Messiah, the mighty will be brought low; the humble, the lowly, will be exalted. William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, warned his missionaries to India never to read the Magnificat in public. Christians were already suspect in that country and they were cautioned against reading verses so inflammatory. Jesus, the ultimate revolutionary, completely reverses all human values. What Mary was prophesying about her unborn son is terrifying to the establishment, whoever and wherever they are. They cannot hear these words gladly.”  Preachers Commentary

WELCOME JESUS (LUKE 2:4-7)

4    Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, 5    in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child. 6    While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. 7    And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.     NASB

“Luke begins this Christmas story with the mention of Caesar Augustus, nephew of Julius Caesar and one of the most powerful of the Caesars. It was said of him that he came to a Rome made of brick and left it a city of marble. He transformed not just Rome but the entire known world with his roads and his armies. At his funeral, his mourners comforted themselves with the belief that he was a god and therefore immortal. The man believed to be a god intercepted in time and space the God who became a man. And this mightiest man of his time decreed that a census was to be taken, which forced Joseph and Mary to travel to Bethlehem.

You might ask, ‘Who determines history—the Caesars, the kings, and the presidents?’ In faith we believe that God is not only the Ruler of all things, but even the Ruler of human history and that many unwittingly serve Him. Bethlehem is a Hebrew word meaning ‘house of bread.’ Micah predicted that the Savior who said to us, ‘I am the bread of life, and he that eats of Me shall never die,’ would be born in Bethlehem, the House of Bread. Most of us have seen countless Sunday school pageants portraying these events of Jesus' birth, and invariably the innkeeper is cast as something of a villain. But let's not be hard on the innkeeper. He represents most of us. He is not a bad man, but a busy man.

We can identify with that. In the season when we celebrate this birth we get so busy with Christmas cards and presents, with year-end internal revenue matters, with shopping and cooking, that there is no room in our lives for the most important guest of all. Like the innkeeper, we are not villains; we're just preoccupied and harried.”     The Preachers Commentary

VERSE 4:

·        Thank God our census does not require us to travel to another city.

VERSE 5: 

“Hereby it appeared that Jesus Christ was of the seed of David; for what brings his mother to Bethlehem now, but because she was of the stock and lineage of David? This was a material thing to be proved, and required such an authentic proof as this. Justin Martyr and Tertullian, two of the earliest advocates for the Christian religion, appeal to these rolls or records of the Roman empire, for the proof of Christ's being born of the house of David.”     Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible

VERSE 6:

·        Even though the conception itself was a miracle, the process of development within the womb was allowed to run its usual course.

VERSE 7:

“Swaddling clothes - When a child among the Hebrews was born, it was washed in water, rubbed in salt, and then wrapped in swaddling clothes; that is, not garments regularly made, as with us, but bands or blankets that confined the limbs closely, Eze 16:4. There was nothing special in the manner in which the infant Jesus was treated.”.    Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible