Family Christmas Service
Sunday, December 20, 2020
Luke 2:1-7 NLT
“At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. 2 (This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. 4 And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. 5 He took with him Mary, to whom he was engaged, who was now expecting a child. 6 And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. 7 She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.”
Now, in the account we just read of the baby Jesus’s birth, we find that He arrived like a mysterious gift on the front porch of humanity.
A host of angels appeared to a group of shepherds watching over their flock, announcing to them, “Don’t be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people…and this will be the sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger …” (Luke 2:10,12 NKJV).
Notes
I. Who sent the gift?
2 Timothy 1:9 TLB
“It is he who saved us and chose us for his holy work not because we deserved it but because that was his plan long before the world began—to show his love and kindness to us through Christ.”
Then we read that in the ancient Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve fell into sin, God revealed to Satan and to the first couple His plan for the Gift to be sent: “And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen. 3:15 NLT).
Then in Genesis 12:1, God called a man named Abram out of his idolatrous culture to go to a land God would show him. He promised Abram that he would become a great nation, and that through his descendants “all the families of the earth would be blessed” (12:3).
And it was here in Genesis 12 that God chose the exact people through whom the Gift would arrive to earth—the Hebrew people that would descend from the first Hebrew, Abram.
Notes
As the Bible continued to unfold God’s plan for the Gift’s arrival, we find greater specificity—He chose the lineage of David, and the tribe of Judah to be the precise conduits through which the Gift would arrive: “His government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for all eternity” (Isaiah 9:7 NLT).
And as for the tribe of Judah: “The scepter [of royalty] shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh [the Messiah, the Peaceful One] comes, and to Him shall be the obedience of the peoples” (Gen. 49:10 AMP).
Notes
II. What is it?
2 Corinthians 9:15 NASB
“Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!”
Colossians 1:21 NLT
“you…were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions.”
Paul writes: “But God clearly shows and proves His own love for us, by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Ro. 5:8 AMP).
John 14:1-3 ERV
“Don’t be troubled. Trust in God, and trust in me. 2 There are many rooms in my Father’s house. I would not tell you this if it were not true. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 After I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back. Then I will take you with me, so that you can be where I am.”
Galatians 1:4 ERV
“Jesus gave himself for our sins to free us from this evil world we live in.”
Titus 2:14 NLT
“He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people.”
Notes
Have you opened the Gift by placing your faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?