Before we come to the baby in a manger, we must see the Lord sitting upon his throne in all his glory and holiness. But the only way for us to come before the Lord is by the baby in a manger.
Category: Sermons
In his death Jesus embodied humility for you. You want to think about success in terms of power or wealth or influence? No one’s got more of that than God! But Jesus was willing to lay all of that down, to face the failure and defeat of the cross in your place, taking all the penalty of sin upon himself, so that you might share in the victory of his life.
Jesus stepped in between you and the enemy of your soul. See the lengths to which Jesus went to save you! Jesus, God himself, came from the spiritual to the material—the Word took on flesh. He came from the glory of heaven to the last place on earth you’d expect to meet a pure and holy God: a cradle in a manger, a cross on a hill, and he’d go to another cemetery to rescue you.
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:31–32)
When Jesus was crucified, He was hung between two convicted criminals, one of his left and one on his right. And do you know what they had been convicted of? Robbery. Jesus was crucified between two thieves. But, as one person has pointed out, as far as justice goes, there were really three thieves on the cross that day. Two died for their own crimes. One died for ours.
This is why Jesus came—not to condemn the world, but to save it. Jesus came to take the guilt of of all the harm and hatred you’ve ever committed against his image-bearers, and to place it upon himself. He takes the hell of fire we deserve and in his dying breath says “Father, forgive them.”
Here’s the beautiful thing about the true and living God: we never would have come up with the gospel. A god of our own creation would never humble us so severely as to die in our place. We don’t see our sin as all that bad, so we can’t imagine God as all that good. The good news is, Jesus sees us clearly.
In every way, Jesus lived out the beauty and integrity the law was meant to produce, revealing what true humanity looks like under God’s reign. So this Summer, as we study the Ten Commandments, recognize that we are putting our finger on the very pulse of our Savior’s heart. The law matters like a sunrise—we are invited to admire it, and to admire the God who reveals himself through it.
It’s no small thing that of all people, David calls himself a sheep. He recognizes something in his own heart—something that’s in the heart of every human—that’s mirrored by his flock: we all need to be led. If you can accept the fact that you are like a sheep, you can have the Lord as your shepherd. You shall not want. And the Lord finds his glory in restoring your soul.
Abundant life is found only in the person of Jesus Christ and having a personal relationship with him. And the most important thing we can to do reach abundant life in Jesus is encounter him in his word. So that’s what we’re going to do this week. We’re simply going to see Jesus in the gospels, we’ll walk with him through the most critical week of his life. That week starts with a donkey and palm branches and a crowd shouting “Hosannah.”
Take Note Of This 