Have you ever seen a need, made a plan to fix it, and then benefited from the blessing of carrying out that plan? When our family lived in Kentucky, we lived in a house that was built in 1900. It had a lot of the original 1900 components, including the old clay pipes that ran from the gutters to the city drainage. As a result, we got a lot of water seeping into our basement. So, I put a sump pump in the basement and replaced the old clay pipes with PVC. Then, we had much less water in our basement.
You see, I saw a need, I came up with a plan, then I experienced a blessing.
God did that for us in the gift of Christmas, didn’t He? He saw that we were in need, He came up with a plan, and He brought a blessing to us.
Over the next three Sundays, we’re going to hear three messages, entitled “The Need for Christmas,” “The Planning of Christmas,” and “The Blessing of Christmas.”
Today, let’s discover how there was a need for Christmas.
Before we do, would you join me in prayer?
(prayer)
With my old house, I knew I had a need because there was water in the basement.
Well, why do we need Christmas? Let’s look now at three reasons.
First, . . .
I. The need for a faithful child.
You see, God created humanity to dwell with Him and be in a loving relationship with Him. God created us as His children.
Our initial relationship with God as our Father was good! Yet, we were unfaithful.
Many of you know this story, right?
Adam and Eve broke the one rule that God gave them not to break. We can read about it in Genesis 3:1–6:
“Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’ ” “No! You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman. “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”
Up until this point, Adam and Eve were faithful children of God. However, it was at this moment, when they rejected God’s ways, that they became unfaithful children.
That’s terrible news because unfaithful children have a damaged relationship with their father.
Here’s what’s terrible news for us: Not only were Adam and Eve unfaithful children, but all of us were also unfaithful children.
Romans 5:12 says, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people, because all sinned.”
Our sin not only breaks our relationship with our Heavenly Father, but our sin also brings death into our lives.
This is a major problem. This is a major need.
We need a faithful child.
Through the miracle of Christmas, God gave us the Faithful Child.
Jesus came as the Son of God and lived faithfully in obedience to God and His ways. He was perfect in every way. He was righteous when we were unrighteous.
Listen to what 1 Peter 3:18 says: “For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God.”
Isn’t that incredible? Adam and Eve were unrighteous. They were unfaithful children. You and I were unrighteous. We were unfaithful children. Jesus was righteous. Jesus was faithful. Then, He died, the righteous for the unrighteous, so that our unfaithfulness could be paid for and we could be made righteous.
You might wonder if that’s really possible. Could Jesus really change my unrighteousness and my unfaithfulness?
The story of Christmas gives us the answer as a resounding, “YES!”
Listen to what we learn in Romans 5:15: “But the gift is not like the trespass. For if by the one man’s trespass (that would be Adam) the many died, how much more have the grace of God and the gift which comes through the grace of the one man Jesus Christ overflowed to the many.”
The curse of sin is devastating. The curse that comes to unfaithful children is devastating. But how much more does the grace of God and the gift of Jesus overflow to those who trust in the Faithful Child, Jesus?!?!
We have a need for a faithful child, and Christmas brought Jesus, the faithful child.
Second, we see . . .
II. The need for a supernatural birth.
When Jennifer and I had our first child, Jeremiah, we called him the miracle baby. You see, her doctor told her that it was unlikely that she would get pregnant, yet she did. We truly believe God intervened. However, Jeremiah’s birth was not what we would characterize as a supernatural birth. Some natural things happened in order for Jeremiah to be born.
However, the birth of Jesus Christ was a supernatural birth. The Faithful Child came about through a supernatural birth.
Matthew 1:23 points us back to an old prophecy in the Old Testament that was fulfilled in Jesus. It says, “See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name him Immanuel, which is translated “God is with us.”
Did you catch that? The virgin will become pregnant. This birth was not natural. The Holy Spirit of God intervened so that a supernatural birth would take place.
We needed intervention. The natural would not be good enough. We needed something supernatural.
This supernatural birth was planned from the very beginning, when unfaithfulness came into the world.
When Adam and Eve, the first unfaithful children, sinned against God, they did so because of the temptation of the serpent, the devil.
Listen to how God responded to the serpent after that moment.
God said in Genesis 3:15 “I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”
You see, “the seed of the woman” referred to a child who would be born from the line of Eve, the very first woman. That child would come from another woman, Mary. That Faithful Child, from a supernatural birth, would strike the head of the serpent.
We see this supernatural miracle fulfilled when Jesus, the Son of God, born of supernatural life, would rise supernaturally to new life. Jesus was crucified for our sin, buried in the ground, then He supernaturally rose to new life, and in doing so struck the head of the devil. What the devil meant for harm, God would use for good.
Every human since Adam and Eve were natural humans. But there was one, Jesus Christ, who was and is, supernatural.
As 1 Corinthians 15:47 says, “The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.”
That second man, Jesus Christ, was the supernatural man whom we needed. He was the supernatural child whom we needed. He came through the supernatural birth that we needed.
We need Christmas because we need the supernatural birth.
Finally, . . .
III. The need for unworldly love.
We need love, don’t we? “What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.”
We need love that is not of this world. We need love that is from outside this world. We need unworldly love.
John 3:16 says, “For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”
God came from outside the world and brought love into our world.
Christmas meets our need for unworldly love. We need the story of Christmas. We need the child of Christmas. We need the birth of Christmas. We need the love of Christmas.
You see, we were lost in our sin because of unfaithfulness. We were unable to help ourselves because of our natural birth. We needed someone to love us, and God loved us by sending His Son, Jesus, to rescue us from our sin.
Think about this: God didn’t simply love us; He loved us when we were unlovable; He loved us when we were unfaithful.
Romans 5:8 says, “But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
When we were still sinners, God sent His faithful Son, Jesus.
When we were still sinners, God sent His Son by supernatural birth.
When we were still sinners, God called His Son to lay down His life on the cross.
When we were still sinners, God raised Jesus from the dead.
When we were still sinners, God sent His Holy Spirit to the earth to call us to Himself, save us from our sins, and make us new.
We need the unworldly love of Jesus that we experience through the miracle of Christmas.
That takes us nicely to our bottom line:
Bottom Line: Our greatest need is met by the miracle of Christmas.
God knew about our need. God saw our need. God even planned to meet our need.
That will be our sermon for next week: “The Planning of Christmas.”
For now, ask yourself if you have recognized your need and if your need has been met by the work of God through the Christmas story.
(Gospel presentation)
(closing prayer)
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