TEXT: Luke 2:1-20

SUBJECT: Christ Born For You

One upon a time a man was walking in the park when he stubbed his toe on a big muddy rock. ‘Ouch’—he cried—and kicked the offending rock into a shallow creek twenty feet ahead of him. When he passed by the place it went in, he looked down and saw it was no ordinary rock. It was a bright and shiny quartz, about the size of a softball. ‘That’s pretty’—he said to himself—‘it’ll make a nice paperweight’. He took it home, put it on his desk, and it held down his papers very well for six months.

One day a friend came over and said the quartz might be worth something—‘A buddy of mine is a jeweler; let me take it in for an appraisal’. ‘Go ahead’.

A couple of hours later, the friend came back white as a sheet and trembling all over. ‘The jeweler looked at the quartz and said it’s not a quartz; it’s a diamond, the biggest one he’s ever seen, and worth, well, he couldn’t even guess how much it’s worth’.

The man jumped into his car, raced to the jewelers and discovered his friend was not kidding: the muddy rock he kicked half-a-year ago was the biggest diamond in the world and worth tens of millions of dollars. A couple of weeks later, it was sold for a record price, and the man, his wife, and kids lived happily ever after. The end.

What do you think of my story?

If I were back teaching sixth grade, I’d give my student a ‘C’ for the paper. The plot was pretty thin, there was no character development, and it could have used more details. But at least there were no spelling mistakes and the grammar was okay for a kid that age. As a made up story, it’s fair.

But what if the story wasn’t made up? What if instead of writing it myself, I only copied it from the newspaper? What if the park was Garin Park in Hayward, and the man who kicked the rock was somebody you work with—or used to! As a true story it’s a very good one.

It’s so good, in fact, there’s only one way I could make it better: what if the man who kicked the rock was you? Now, the mediocre fiction and the interesting news report becomes The Greatest Story Ever Told.

Why? Because the riches didn’t go to a made-up character or to a guy you used to work with; they went to you.

This brings us to the announcement of our Lord’s birth. Joseph and Mary are a young couple living in Nazareth, in the northern part of Israel. They lived up there because the market had priced them and other poor people out of town. Now they were back in Bethlehem, not to live, but to pay their taxes. Mary was great with child at the time, but all the hotels were booked solid and no one opened his home to the poor couple with nowhere to go. Having to stop somewhere, they pitched their camp in a barn or stable, and there, Mary went into labor and gave birth to her first-born Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Though He was King even then, He did not receive a royal welcome into the world. His first outfit was swaddling cloths a rough fabric, maybe burlap. The throne He first occupied was a manger, the trough livestock had been eating or drinking out of that very day. This, in part, is what Paul had in mind when He praised the Lord’s extraordinary step down to become our Savior—

While Mary is recovering from her labor and Joseph is doing whatever new fathers did in those days—boiling water? Handing our cigars? Something is going on out of town.

Shepherds are keeping an eye on their flocks, when an angel appears to them. The Gospels don’t tell us what angel it was, but I suspect it was Gabriel, who was the Lord’s chief spokesman. Seeing him strikes the men down with terror. Angels are not the cuddly babies with wings we see on Christmas cards, they are the soldiers of God—big, powerful, awesome, dangerous. John the Apostle had seen a lot of amazing things in his life, but when he saw an angel in all his splendor, he—

That’s what angels do to people. Some say they’d like to see an angel. If they did, they would wish they hadn’t. God save us from the sight of these terrifying creatures, till we’re resurrected and able to see them without messing our pants!

As the shepherds stood—or more like, lay face down in the dirt—the angel told them to stop being afraid. This was mighty hard to do, and they wouldn’t have been able to do it had he left it there—with a bare command. But he doesn’t stop there, he goes on to tell them why they mustn’t fear—

The angel’s every word is thrilling, but the ones that move me most are in the middle, ‘to you’. A Savior born is good; a Savior born to others is even better; but what’s best of all, is a Savior born to us.

If the Gospel is a made-up tale we’d say it’s a good one. If it’s a true story that affects no one it is even better. But if the Savior was really born, and if He was really born for us, then it really is The Greatest Story Ever Told.

I say it is true! The Savior really was born and He was really born for us. Can I prove it? Not in the same way a mathematician can prove his formulas. No one debates the area of a circle; it’s demonstrated and not a matter of faith. A = p r² This is good to know if you’re taking high school geometry. But, setting aside your GPA, the things that matter most cannot be demonstrated; they have to be taken on faith; your beliefs may be well-supported, but that’s all they are. I believe my wife loves me, but maybe she’s an actress training for the part of a neurotic man’s wife! That’s hypothetically possible, but I know it isn’t true. Though I cannot prove it, I know it isn’t true…because I know her.

This is how we know the Gospel is true. Don’t get me wrong: there are rational and historical reasons to believe the Gospel. The Apostles and others who tell us the story were not the superstitious men so many people say they were. Joseph, for example, knew the facts of life. He was no more likely to believe his fiancé was pregnant by the Holy Spirit than you would believe yours was! The reason he didn’t break off the engagement, is because an angel told him she was—and angels can be trusted. The Apostles did not believe dead men came back to life and then flew up to heaven any more than you do. But then they did because they saw it with their own two eyes. Fulfilled prophecies support the truth of the Bible, and then you have to account for the millions of lives radically changed by the Gospel.

You can read all of this—and a lot more—in a book on Christian apologetics. Get one if you like; it’s better than surfing the net!

If evidence and arguments support the Gospel, they do not prove it. The only way to know the Story is true is to know the One who tells it. Matthew and Luke put down the Story in the Bible for us, but we know next to nothing about them—and don’t need to know more. The One we need to know is God. If you know Him, the Gospel with all its miracles and wonders is believable. Because—

I urge you, therefore, to know this God, to know Him as He reveals Himself in His Word, and not as people make him up to be. The Lord can be known to anyone who wants to know Him; in fact, He will be known! He says so Himself and His Word is true—

When people tell me they don’t know if there is a God or if God is the Christian God, I always answer them—‘Are you serious?’ They always say they are, and then I ask, ‘What have you done about it? Read the Bible all the way through? Listened to people who know Him? Confessed and forsaken the sins you know of and told Him you’re willing to give up everything He doesn’t want you to have in order to know Him?’

Not one of them has done all of these things, and hardly any of them have done even one of them. And so, I go back to the question, ‘Are you serious?’ The fact is, they’re not. They want to know God so long as He’s the kind of God they want to know. If He isn’t they either say there is no God or they’re still looking.

We know the Gospel Story is true because we know God and we know God, not because we’ve figured Him out, but because He’s figured us out. Knowing the darkness that fills our minds and hearts, He dispels it by is Gospel—

The Gospel Story is true and we know it’s true because we know God. Not because we are smarter or holier or more sincere than others, but because God Himself has persuaded us. This does not make us proud of ourselves, but just the opposite: it breaks our pride and makes us thankful. It was our Lord who prayed—

The word brought to the shepherds that night was called good news of great joy. News, it was, not a set of rules. It wasn’t what they had to do to win God; it was what He had done to win them. The Good News would bring them—and us—great joy.

It tells us Christ was born for us.

Born to you means, God loves us. Love can be toted up by what it costs you. To tell a needy brother, Be warmed and filled, costs me very little. But to take the money I need and give it to him costs me dearly. And to give him more than money—to put myself at his disposal—costs me even more. But if I am to love him in truth—and not just in words—this is what I’ve got to do; I’ve got to sacrifice; I’ve got to do without so he can have what he needs.

This is precisely what God did in Christ: He did without; He humbled Himself; He took upon Himself the form of a servant and submitted to death, even the death of the cross. For us, to save us from worst enemies: self, sin, Satan, and death.

No one who looks into the manger and see who lies in it can wonder if God loves us or not.

Born to you means ‘born to show you how to live’. Some Christians hold up Jesus as our example only. They’re wrong; He’s far more than that. But, ‘more than that’ means ‘not less than that’. He is our example. He has shown us how to live. Last week, I spent a lot of time showing you how He lived toward God—His trust, His obedience, and His eagerness to do what His Father told Him to do. We also looked at how He treated His friends and people who weren’t so friendly. The thing I left out then I’ll say now.

The first people He knew were the same people you first knew: parents. Mary and Joseph were good people, but, unlike their Son, they were not sinless. When He was twelve years old, the family went down to Jerusalem to worship at the Temple. At the end of the Festival, they all packed up and went home—they all did, but Jesus. Miles from the capital, they found He wasn’t with them. Frantically, they retraced their steps, and there He was in the Temple discussing the Law with the learned men. When Mary saw Him, she chided—

She was amazed that her son had treated his mother and father this way. The Son was even more amazed—picking up on the word, ‘father’, He replied—

If this was all we knew of our Lord and His parents, we might He ruled the home or, if not ruled it, did as He pleased. But Luke won’t let us think this way, for on the heels of this story he tells us—

It is easy to be meek and mild in the abstract; in real life, it’s easier to be self-willed and trample on the rights and wishes of other people—especially the ones we live with. But look at our Lord—the Son of God, the King of Israel—respecting his parents and, insofar as He could, putting their wishes above His own.

The Early Church concocted legends about the boyhood of Jesus and all replete with miracles. The New Testament says nothing about the wonders He performed then, but only about His character. Why? Because it’s the character God wants for you.

The respect He had for His parents did not rub off with time. Joseph, it seems, died some time before Jesus did, but, on the cross, our Lord took responsibility for His mother’s welfare. Apparently, He had done it Himself since her husband died, but now that He too, was leaving the world, He turned to His most trusted friend, John, and said—

From that day on, John took care of Mary as his own mother. And all because of our Lord’s character—the kind of man He was to others.

Born to you means ‘born to give us hope’. The Lord Jesus was born twice. First He was born in Bethlehem; that’s the story we read today, the story everyone hears at Christmas. But this is not His only birth. Colossians 1:18 says He is also—

Jesus Christ died on the cross, but He didn’t stay dead; nor was He resuscitated the way His friend Lazarus was, to return to his old life and then die again. No, our Lord rose from the dead and entered the fullness of life, eternal life, heavenly life. This means He shares the life of God and could no more die again than God could die.

And He’s the firstborn from the dead—not the last, but the first. This means others will follow Him into the life of heaven, and the ones who will do that are the ones who believe in Him. We have His word on it—

Born to us is not rhetoric! It’s not pretty words to make us feel warm and fuzzy waiting for Santa Claus! Born to us is true—it really happened, in a real place at a real time and for a real people.

We cannot be thankful enough that we are some of the people to whom and for whom He was born. The angel was right. This is—