The Gospel at Christmas

Christmas is the day when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. The date itself has been the source of much debate, and while the 25^th of December is an unlikely date for the event, that doesn’t change anything. Because for many hundreds of years that’s the day which we celebrate it.

But the debate over the date is another typical distraction by those who would take our eyes off the point of Christmas, namely the gospel, which begins with the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ on that day in Bethlehem.

What God accomplished at Calvary, He started that day. What He proved by his resurrection, started its manifestation in the manger. What had been planned and prophesied over for many years and on many occasions, finished and was fulfilled finally as Jesus Christ bore the sins of His elect on that Cross.

But at His birth, His humiliation began. He laid aside many aspects of His divine nature, instead, he took for Himself the lowliest for of humanity, namely a baby, at the same time, to a poor family, a not yet married teenage mother, under Roman occupation and generally a very hard life, or to quote the hymn writer, a ‘mean estate’.

He grew up, under the rule of His parents, subjecting Himself to His subjects. He lived as the son of a carpenter, manual collar work. He once fasted for 40 days, while staying in a wilderness and undergoing the strongest temptations Satan could throw at Him. He spent 3 years absolutely packed with ministry work, preaching, miracle working. During that time He didn’t even have a place to lay His head. He also had many enemies, mostly from the religious rulers of His time. Eventually they arrested Him, subjected Him to an extremely cruel torture and finally breathed His last, naked, nailed to a wooden cross. And in that action, God poured out His wrath onto, and Christ bore it. On His shoulders were placed the sins of those God had chosen to save. Finally, He was laid in a borrowed tomb, and for three days, His body remained. Then on the third day He rose, resurrection, the culmination. What began in Bethlehem, had finished.

The Gospel is the good news that despite a man’s rebellion, despite every single sin done, every lie, every blasphemy, every act and moment of hatred, very lustful thought, and of selfishness, Christ has provided a way for that wicked man to be reconciled to God, forgiven of his sins, to ease his conscience and give him eternal life. Jesus Christ, the God-man, provides the only way to God. He commands you today to repent, and to put your trust in His son, Jesus Christ. Don’t delay, tomorrow is not promised, please be reconciled to God, put your faith in Him, He will save you.

To sum up. Jesus Christ, the God man, bore the sins of people on the cross. At Christmas, we celebrate is birth, the day he began to live on the earth, the start of His humiliation, which culminated in His exultation, and our salvation.

Ravi Raccharias Shares The Gospel To A Muslim

Very much worth watching

What is the Gospel?

Watch this video to find out. The composer takes various preachers of God, mixed some of their best preaching with a nice piano piece to explain the gospel.

This is a long one, but very very good, well worth watching

 

Oh His deep deep Love

This is one of my favourite hymns ands as providence would have it, our opening hymn at tonight’s service. It reminds me of one of my favourite verses from one of my favourite chapters of the bible Romans 5.

Romans 5:8  but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

While we were still sinners, not once we had reformed ourselves, or had been good or otherwise had somehow earned God’s favour. NO, God demonstrating His great love for us, died for us sinners, taking away our sin and making us Holy, justified in His sight.

Praise God for that, and all that to say, that idea springs out of the song for me also, so please give it a listen.

Sin or no Gospel

Some might correctly think that this is a strange title for a blog post, and possibly it is, however is does the job for setting out the topic of this post.

I am sure that almost every westerner who reads this will have heard of the phrase ‘All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God’ Romans 3 vs 23. Here is a typical example of what I mean:

God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. But there is a problem, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So accept Jesus and pray the following prayer…

Ok, while not deconstructing this entire unbiblical presentation, I want you to focus on the ‘for all have sinned’ part.

This is my contention: any Gospel presentation that makes the (biblical) claim that all have sinned without explaining exactly what:

1. sin is
2. why it is so personal
3. Offensive to the Holy God

Is not a true gospel presentation at all. Why? Because the Gospel demands a response. The bible says that sinners must REPENT and put their FAITH in Jesus. Here is the problem, repent of what? We (Christians) have repented of our personal sins against the Holy God of the universe. But just telling sinners that all have sinned leaves the potential convert without the ability to repent, because he or she doesn’t know what to repent of nor why.

THE SOLUTION

Preach the Law (10 Commandments)

1Jn 3:4  Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.

This verse tells us exactly what sin is, namely lawlessness, or as another translation puts it, transgression of the Law. So by telling sinners what sin is (breaking God’s Law) we fulfil half our task, the other half is to make it personal. It is effective and biblical to hold up the Law as a mirror, showing sinners just how dirty they are, show them that they have lied, stolen, committed adultery through lust etc. make it personal.

Then they can understand what sin is, repent of it and be saved.

To God alone be the glory