Christmas Message

The angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: today, in the city of David, a Savior has been born to you, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: you will find the child wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.’

Let us then go to the account there in verse 25, when the Lord is presented in the temple. A few days have now passed, 8 days to be specific; on the eighth day a male child was circumcised and taken to the temple to be presented. And they arrive at the temple in Jerusalem, and something very interesting happens there.

It says in verse 25: “...and behold, there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon, and this righteous and devout man was waiting for the consolation of Israel. And the Holy Spirit was upon him, and it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Anointed.”

What does that expression, the Lord’s Anointed, mean? That is where the word Messiah comes from; Christ means anointed.

“...And moved by the Spirit, he came into the temple, and when the parents of the child Jesus brought him to the temple to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him in his arms—and look at how he blesses that child and what he says—...and blessed God, saying, ‘Lord, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word, because my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples: a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory to your people Israel.’”

In verse 36 it says, “...Anna was also there, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher, very advanced in age, for she had lived with her husband 7 years from her virginity and had been a widow for 84 years.”

That is to say, she was already a woman in her nineties, perhaps even older.

“...and she did not depart from the temple, serving night and day with fasting and prayers; and coming in at that very hour, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were waiting for redemption in Jerusalem.”

That is to say, as you can see, the special character of that child, his extraordinary function—a Savior—he was going to bring peace to humanity; many important things were taking place. And if all we had were the accounts in the Gospels, the 4 Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—if that were all we had, then really, just imagine, one could not truly understand what these people meant by saying that he was the Savior, that he was the anointed Messiah. According to their own Scriptures, the Jews themselves did not clearly understand the function of this mysterious being who had been foretold by the prophets centuries earlier.

They thought he was a king who would come to save Israel from its oppressors and would once again give Israel dominion over the nations. They viewed the Messiah in political terms, in purely military, governmental terms. That was all they understood. They did not know exactly what this being would do, the one who had been foretold by the prophets and whom God, from the very beginning, back at creation in the Garden of Eden, had already foretold would come—a being who would crush the serpent’s head and remove the curse.

But people did not really understand what this being meant or what his function was, and even when we read those Gospel accounts, we cannot fully understand what that being was supposed to do. And if we read the Gospel accounts, even those about the life of Jesus, you realize that many things are left unsaid, not precisely explained. We understand the Gospels because we have already read the passages in Paul’s letters and all these things, but by reading only the accounts and the narrative, we cannot understand how Jesus—how it was that he saved humanity. What did that mean? What was his function? And so on.

That task falls to those epistles, to that second part of the New Testament consisting of the epistles of Paul, Peter, John, James, and all these things. That completes the revelation we read in the Gospels.

Romans, for example, is marvelous in that respect, because Romans is an explanation of the true function of that Messiah who is announced to the shepherds, and why the shepherds say, ‘Peace to men of goodwill.’ And why Anna and Simeon speak of a Savior who will bring redemption to humanity, and so forth. That is what Paul explains in his letter to the Romans.

Let us now go to Romans, Chapter 5, to understand a few things a little better. Remember that last Sunday we discussed Chapter 4, where Paul ultimately points out that it is by faith that man is saved, and it is by faith that man has dealings with God. It is by believing what God says; it is by believing God. When God says, for example, on the day Christ is baptized, ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him...’

In other words, pay attention to him. He is my beloved Son; he is the person I have chosen to carry out and reveal my will to humanity. If one believes what God says, then one enters into that command of God. Then I listen to what Jesus says, to the words of Jesus.

The Lord said, ‘He who hears my words and does them will be saved.’ So it is by believing what God says about his Son—that he is the mediator between God and men—that we can be saved. That is the salvation Paul develops in Chapter 4 when he says, for example—let us go to verse 24—he says, “...but also with respect to us, to whom it is to be credited, that is, to those of us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up for our transgressions and raised for our justification.”

That is what we must believe from God: what he says about his Son. And we must enter into that revelation of God by faith. Then, in Chapter 5, Paul develops that idea: just as Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, for Abraham’s salvation, so now we too, following Abraham’s example, must also believe what God says about Jesus Christ.

Then Chapter 5 says, “...therefore, having been justified by faith...” What does it mean to be justified? Being justified means that we owed a very great debt to God; we were guilty because of our sins. We were under sentence of death; we were condemned to die. We were in prison waiting to be executed, but Christ comes and says, ‘That person does not have to die; I am going to die in his place.’ Then he pays the price for my guilt, and I come to be saved through Jesus’ sacrifice. And I believe that, and then it becomes a reality in my life, and God justifies me.

In other words, he cancels the sin within me and says to me, ‘Now I consider you righteous.’ That is why it says, “Therefore, having been justified by faith”—faith in whom? In that child born in Bethlehem, in that tiny, fragile, utterly helpless creature. It required a very great leap of the mind to believe that that little child, born in a manger, who did not even have money for a hotel—that in that creature, there was God.

Yesterday, Stephen Johnson preached about the absurdity of Christmas. And it is true, because it was impossible to imagine that that little child, born to two extremely poor people in an insignificant village...

Brothers and sisters, if you go to Israel, one of the things you discover when you travel there is that everything is tiny. Israel is smaller than the state of Rhode Island, which is the smallest state in New England, and everything there is small. And sometimes one goes to places like Capernaum, for example; sometimes when you read the Bible, you picture Capernaum as a village, and you see many people walking around, and you imagine something almost like Fifth Avenue here in New York. Look, Capernaum is a tiny hole, there practically in the middle of a desert, and all there is consists of a few small ruins, and you say, Wow, is that all! And you find yourself looking for something more, something bigger, right?

And Bethlehem was even smaller. Bethlehem was an insignificant village at the time Jesus was born there. And to think that there in that village, in a manger for cows and foul-smelling animals, a little child wrapped in cloths—that he was the Son of God, the Savior of humanity—requires a very great leap of the imagination, and that is what God asks of us.

He says, ‘That creature, impossible as it may be to imagine there, that is my beloved Son.’ And whoever is willing to believe that is saved by believing God. Do you see? That is what Paul is saying here:

“...therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

You understand why the angel says to the shepherds, ‘Do not be afraid, for I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: today, in the city of David, a Savior has been born to you, who is Christ the Lord.’

And it says that ‘when the heavenly hosts praise God, they say, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth”—what?—“peace, goodwill toward men.”’

That is to say, Paul says that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. That is why the Bible calls Jesus the Prince of Peace, because Christ came to bring peace and reconciliation to a creation that was divided and in conflict. The Fall—the sin that entered creation—shattered the harmony God had established when he created the perfect world. Everything entered into a relationship of conflict: man with woman, rich with poor. The earth no longer yielded its fruit to man unless he dug it, wounded it, and worked it. Previously, the woman gave birth without pain, and now she has to endure all the labor and all the suffering of childbirth.

The Apostle Paul also says later, in Chapter 8 of Romans—or 9, I believe—that ‘creation itself groans with labor pains as it waits for the day of its liberation.’ And in that anguished creation, in conflict and at war, there is Christ Jesus bringing peace with God, bringing peace within us, bringing reconciliation to man, who is divided within himself by those struggles that produce anxiety and agony in us. Christ comes to bring peace to all of that.

And how is that peace found? Through Jesus, by believing Jesus. That Jesus in whom Carlos believed, the painter brother who was here with us. He dared to believe him. Carlos was—the alcoholism, the drugs, all those things are ways, traps into which men fall because there is something within them that has no peace, and they are seeking that satisfaction. Men seek peace in sex, in money, in the approval of others, in fame, in drugs; in all those things they are seeking something they need. And when they find Christ and accept him and receive him into their hearts as Lord and Savior, then everything seems to be reconciled. And then that man is set free so that what God has placed within him or her can come forth—in this case, that beautiful gift for painting.

It was there, but it was as though a pile of rubble had fallen upon something beautiful, a jewel, and it was lost among the rubble, dirty. And Christ comes, and when that man allows Christ to enter his house filled with rubble, the Lord comes and begins to put everything in order, begins to bring harmony to all things. He removes the dirty, corroded beams, removes the dust, cleans, and throws out all the garbage, and suddenly that jewel that was buried there beneath that whole collapse begins to shine.

Peace. You see. That is what Christ makes possible. Peace between God and man. When man does not have peace with God, he will also be at war with himself. Humanity does not have peace with God; that is why it is at war. This very day, there are surely dozens of people dying in Iraq and Afghanistan because they do not know God; they have not believed him. Even in this country, many of the things that happen—the wars and the things that exist—happen because the rulers in this country have not believed God. They say that they believe, and with their mouths they say that they believe in Jesus Christ, but they do not believe in their hearts. And they do not have enough faith to say, ‘If we act according to the principles of the Gospel, we will have peace in this country.’

No, what governs US policy is Realpolitik, as it is called in German; it means ‘being realistic.’ It means watching out for the interests of this nation—no idealism, no morality, but simply whatever is practical, whatever is pragmatic. That is what rules today, and Bush is accused of having been too idealistic. The problem with Bush is that he wanted to be idealistic, I think, but he did not have—he was not sufficiently idealistic. It is dangerous to do things halfway, you know? Either you do it all the way; if you are going to venture into certain waters, plunge all the way in, but do not go in halfway, because then you will be with neither God nor the devil, and they will both come down on you.

And that is what happens. But today many are already saying, Bush has failed. That idea of an idealistic policy of bringing democracy to the nations, of trying to defend nations from their dictators—that does not work. Let us return to the interests of our nation; that is what should... realism, realism.

And Christ says, “No, that is not realism; it is believing God.” Believe God that if you put Christ first, and his principles first, even if it seems contradictory, God will establish peace and prosperity. That is the difference. And that is what happens with us as well: when we choose by faith to believe that the principles of the Bible produce prosperity, blessing, success in life, family reconciliation, and deliverance from the things that torment us, and we put those principles into practice, even if it seems impossible, God brings blessing into our lives. And we see it, brothers and sisters, we see that it works, because little by little everything falls into place and the peace God promises comes. Ah, but it requires faith.

Because when someone tells you, “Look, do business this way. Lie there; say that this milk is one hundred percent pure, but it isn’t—it’s 80 percent milk and 20 percent water. But don’t worry, because that way you’re going to make more money. You’ll have more milk to sell, and say that it is one hundred percent pure.” That sounds good to the realistic person, the materialistic, pragmatic person, who says, “Of course! That extra 20 percent covers all the salary, rent, and electricity bills. I can pay all that with it, and everything else is profit for me.” That is the mindset, isn’t it?

But the man of faith, the woman of faith who believes God, says, “No, lying never leads to blessing. I will tell the truth, and God will bless me somehow. I will not rob my neighbor, I will not deceive my neighbor; I will speak the truth to my neighbor, and the Lord will take care of everything.” And you know what? You do it, and people will laugh at you. Those who think with the human mind will laugh, because you say, “No, I am going to believe the Lord; I am going to believe his principles, the Word of God.” And in the long run, you are blessed. And what you have is not wasted, but is a pressed-down measure, it says, that remains, and you are blessed. And God becomes the defender of your finances.

That is believing God; it is living by the principles of faith. When you give the Lord your money, your time, your energy, people say, “No, you are becoming a fanatic. You are giving everything to the church,” and this and that. “Don’t worry; I know whom I have believed.” You live that way, and God blesses, God prospers you, God gives you much more, because it is by faith.

And the same is true of Jesus Christ. The mind tells you, “Look, but there are so many other gods, so many other things you can believe in, and this and that, and no one has ever even proved that he existed....” You say, “No, I am going to believe God, and I am going to believe that my justification lies not in doing good works, not in behaving well, not in giving money to the poor, but in Christ Jesus, who died for me on the cross and justified me. That baby born in a manger in Israel two thousand years ago—I have never even seen a picture of him; I am not even one hundred percent sure that he existed, but I believe what the Word of the Lord says, and I know that I will place in him all my hope of eternal life, of salvation, of everything. Even if my mind tells me, ‘It is a lie,’ I am going to believe it.”

And you know what? When you believe God, then you are justified, and you receive eternal life and receive peace and reconciliation in your heart.

“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

That Jesus who was born in Bethlehem and was humbly presented there by his parents gives us peace.

“...through whom we also have access by faith,” verse 2 says, “into this grace in which we stand firm.”

We must stand firm in that faith, brothers and sisters, because many things will contradict Christ, and questions and circumstances will arise in your life. But you remain firm, and then you have access to that grace which God makes possible through Christ Jesus.

Later, in verse 8, it says, “...because Christ, when we were still weak, in due time died for the ungodly. Certainly, scarcely will someone die for a righteous person, though perhaps someone might dare to die for a good person; but God demonstrates his love toward us in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

What does the Bible say? That when we were dead in sin, Christ came into the world. Christ came into the world not when humanity asked him to come into the world, not when humanity was ready for Christ to come. It was not that we had already recognized that we were condemned to death and humanity then pleaded with God, “Lord, send a savior to bring us out of our darkness.” No, the Bible says that when we were lost in our sins, when humanity was most entangled in sin, that was when God sent Christ to die.

That is to say, Christ dies not for people who are seeking him, but for people who have no desire to know him. The Romans did not want him; the Jews certainly rejected him; the Greeks were not interested either—they were deeply absorbed in human wisdom and philosophy. No one wanted Jesus. There was the paganism, the sensuality of the world—and let us not even mention the Aztecs or the Maya here in the Americas at that time, or Africa. No one was seeking God. At that time the Lord sent Jesus to die for us. At that time God sent Jesus to be born in that humble manger in Israel.

And that is why we worship Jesus and serve Jesus. In chapter 5, verse 12, the Apostle Paul then continues developing this image of the Lord Jesus as.... There is something here I want to explain to you: this matter of the first Adam and the second Adam.

This matter is very important, because when you go through these passages, I want you to understand what they are about and what the Bible is talking about. If you could help us, please, I am trying to.... The little baby... could you just quiet her down a little bit? Thank you. I’m so sorry; I am having a hard time keeping up. Sorry, thank you.

Brothers and sisters, it says here: “...therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man—verse 12—and death through sin, thus death spread to all people, because all sinned. For before the law, there was sin in the world, but where there is no law, sin is not charged against anyone. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin in the manner of Adam’s transgression, who is a figure of the one who was to come.”

What is the Bible saying here? It is saying—he is developing the ministry of the Messiah—that child who was born in Bethlehem came to neutralize the damage done by the first Adam. The Adam who sinned in the Garden of Eden brought a curse upon humanity. When Adam and Eve sinned there in Eden, they destroyed the perfect work God had done; they damaged it. And they left behind a perverted and distorted world.

So when that child is born, he is like a new Adam. He is a new humanity. Jesus is the firstborn; he is the one who represents a new order in humanity, a new beginning for humanity. Jesus is the firstborn—that is, he is the first of a new, redeemed race—and thus he represents the anti-Adam. He now comes to neutralize every harmful thing Adam did. But he comes not only to neutralize it, but to surpass it and overwhelm it with far more blessing than the curse Adam caused.

In other words, the Lord did not merely neutralize each thing Adam did with its equivalent; he went much further. The blessing Christ releases upon humanity is far greater than the curse the first Adam left behind. And that is why all of this here says:

“...But the gift—that is, Jesus, the gift to humanity—was not like the transgression, that is, like what Adam’s disobedience did. For if through the transgression of that one man—that is, Adam—the many died—that is, all humanity, which dies as a consequence of Adam’s sin—much more did the grace and the gift of God abound to the many through the grace of one man, Jesus Christ.”

That is why the Apostle Paul speaks of a better covenant through Jesus. And I want us to understand this, brothers and sisters: what Christ has done through Christmas is to unleash upon all of us who believe in him the possibility of blessing far greater than the curse under which we previously existed.

If you are in Christ through that covenant you have made in him, I want you to know that you have many more blessings than the Jews had under the Mosaic covenant. Because Christ’s covenant is a much better covenant.

That is why God told the Hebrews, “If you follow me, obey me, and do my will, I will not put upon you any of the diseases I put upon the Egyptians.”

That means, brothers and sisters, as I understand it, that we Christians are entitled to a much healthier physical life than those who do not know God through Christ Jesus, because the curse of sin releases all those diseases amid which we live in the modern world. But through Christ Jesus, by faith, we can aspire to a healthy life, to a vigorous life, brothers and sisters, to a wholesome life, in the name of Jesus.

Do you know what happens? We do not meditate on that enough, and we have not made it something to live by: God’s health in us, God’s vigor in us, God’s abundance in us. We have not believed God enough. Because what Christ is saying—what the Holy Spirit is saying here through Paul—is this: look, when Adam sinned, he unleashed the curse; he unleashed sickness, death, want, violence, and conflict. But now, in Christ Jesus, all of that has been neutralized. The curse has been neutralized, and we can aspire to live a healthy life, a happy life, a prosperous life, a blessed life, a life of prosperity and harmony in our homes.

Now, we have to believe that and live by the Word of God. We must obey the Lord. I am not saying that illnesses and struggles will not come into your life. What I am saying is that if they do come, you can overcome them in the name of Christ Jesus. There is a special grace; there is abundance. I believe that if, in our lives, we thought more about health, prosperity, blessing, vigor, harmony, and peace, and did not think about fear, disaster, violence, conflict, and illness, and if we focused our minds more and more on the blessing that comes through Christ Jesus, that newborn child at Christmas, we could live a much more blessed, fruitful, and productive life.

But what happens is that many of us have not changed the radio station. And we are receiving signals and messages of evil, fear, anguish, illness, and loneliness. Long before we reach old age, many of us are preparing ourselves for an old age that is lonely, frail, feeble, sickly, and senile. And of course, if that is what you are expecting, rest assured that your faith will take you there, because there is positive faith and there is negative faith.

But if you say, “No, I have a better covenant. Christ is the mediator of a better covenant. Christ neutralized the curse of the first Adam. I now live in the blessing of the second Adam, which he made possible through his coming into the world.” And if you meditate on that, live in it, obey him, live by faith, and put his principles and commandments into practice, brothers and sisters, blessing will accompany your life.

As the psalmist says in Psalm 23, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” Hallelujah!

That is what the second Adam made possible. That is Christmas, brothers and sisters; that is what we celebrate at Christmas. He is the mediator of a better covenant; he is the new Adam; he is the new creation. That is why the Word says in Second Corinthians, I believe it is 5:17 or something like that, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.”

Do you see? Because we are a new creation through a new Adam. It is as if God were starting over again from scratch. We now live in our own Eden, created by the second Adam, who is Christ Jesus. Even as we walk in this world, full of problems and difficulties, we are in our own Garden of Eden. Wherever I go, Eden is there. That is what we must say, brothers and sisters, because the new Adam made it possible.

That is what Paul is establishing here. He says that “...the gift—verse 15—was not like the transgression. For if through the transgression of that one man the many died, much more did the grace and the gift of God abound to the many through the grace of one man, Jesus Christ.”

And look at what verse 16 says: “...and with the gift it does not happen as in the case of that one man who sinned”—that is, Adam—“for certainly the judgment came because of a single sin.” When Adam ate the fruit of which God had said, “Do not eat from it,” a single sin brought a curse upon humanity.

Do you understand why Paul says, “No one can be saved by the works of the law”? No one can hope to save himself by behaving well. Why? Because one sin is all it takes for a person to fall into disobedience and deserve death—one sin. And who can tell me that they have not committed a single sin in their life? Everyone, everyone has; and as I have said, the only thing that allows you to pass God’s test is a perfect one hundred, a solid A, and no one can score one hundred before God’s judgment. That is why we need Christ Jesus.

Because, notice, one sin in Eden damaged God’s entire plan for many, many centuries, and the new Adam had to come to correct it.

It says, “...but the gift came because of many transgressions, resulting in justification.”

If condemnation and death came through one sin, now the gift of God, the blessing of God, came because of the many sins humanity had accumulated throughout century after century.

“...for if, by the transgression of one man, death reigned, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.”

Brothers and sisters, there it is very, very clearly. Much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.”

That is what I want, brothers and sisters: to reign in life, you know? I like the idea of going to heaven, but I still have a few years left here, and I would like to reign here in life too, wouldn’t you? To enjoy life. Wouldn’t you like that too? Wouldn’t you like to enjoy a healthy old age, blessing, your family, a blessed marriage, children who love the Lord, and good finances? Why not? We have many years here in this life. And Christ said, ‘I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it abundantly.’

The Christian must aspire to reign here in life. Get that idea of failure out of your mind—a hand-to-mouth life, as they say, living there by the teaspoonful, little by little. We must aspire to an abundant life, a life of triumph, because that is what Christ did. Christ became poor, it says, so that we might become rich. He possessed all the riches of the universe, and he made himself small, he emptied himself, Philippians 2 says, and became poor; he assumed the incredibly fragile form of a poor baby. He was born in a village in an insignificant country so that we might reign in life.

And unfortunately, we Christians often live like paupers because we have chosen not to adopt that prescription for life that Christ has given. Even as Christians, we have accepted Christ, but we have not changed our way of thinking. We live according to the same patterns as before, like miserable people, like people who are always keeping score against others. He stole a little from me, so I am going to keep holding on to my desire for revenge, and I am going to curse him, and I am going to do this to him. He did that to me, and I am going to do something else to him, instead of saying, ‘Hey, I am rich. I am going to forgive, I am going to bless, I am going to pour out grace because I live in abundance.’

Brothers and sisters, abundance is the Christian’s word. Abundance. Because that is what the new Adam made possible. That is why, when the angels reveal themselves to the shepherds, they tell them, ‘Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: a Savior has been born to you in the city of David, who is Christ the Lord.’ And that said it all. Good news of great joy.

That is why we must live in joy. If we are children of God, we must live in joy, in abundance; and if every now and then you experience a little depression and sadness, you must move quickly, strike it down, and cast it aside as you would a mangy dog, because that is not your natural state—or rather, your supernatural state is one of joy, abundance, hope, and complete fulfillment in Christ Jesus.

We have to change the program, brothers and sisters, in other words, because that is what Christmas is. Christmas only makes sense in light of that Christ who made possible....

I am going to ask the musicians to come up here, please.

That is why I rebel against the idea, brothers and sisters, of wanting to take Christmas and turn it into something purely secular. Of all the things that bother me most, it is that they want to steal Christmas from us, because Christmas has no meaning without the work that Christ made possible by coming into the world.

If we remove Christ from this equation, the only thing we have left, brothers and sisters, is what? It is like my hoping to climb into the shell of a car from which they have removed the engine, the transmission, the wiring and electricity, and all four wheels, and wanting to travel from here to New York in that wreck, that piece of junk. That is what it is, and that is what people want, isn’t it? They want to suck all the spiritual meaning out of Christmas: remove Christ, remove the wise men, remove Mary and Joseph, remove the cross, remove everything, and leave us only with the dirty bodywork. What good is that? What good is it? Just the advertisements and the stores and the gifts, when all that really causes is pain among people, drunkenness and problems and spending money.

Is that Christmas? What garbage, what an enormous lie. What makes Christmas possible is Christ Jesus, what he did through his sacrifice on the cross. And that is what we celebrate: the message of that God who came and said, ‘Everyone who believes in me will be saved. Believe in me and you will be saved. I have come to provide mediation between God and you.’ And that is Christmas. It is the beginning of that magical work that Christ Jesus carries out through the centuries. Everyone who believes in him does not perish but receives eternal life—life here on earth and life there in heaven.

Glory to the Lord. Abundant life here and absolutely inconceivable life there in heaven. What a beautiful package, what a beautiful gift! That is Christmas, brothers and sisters. And anyone who loses sight of that is miserable.

Nowadays, so many people are thinking only about the party, about the drinking, and that is all. What a terrible deception! It is like taking the banana, the guineo, throwing away the fruit inside, and eating the peel. Maybe monkeys do that; I do not know whether they do. I do not think even monkeys do that. They peel it, don’t they? Nevertheless, that is what so many people are doing nowadays, and they think they are deceiving God; they are deceiving themselves. It is impossible.

The message—what Paul talks about in that fifth chapter of Romans—is this: “...therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through Christ Jesus.” That is Christmas, brothers and sisters. And that is what we are celebrating this morning.

Has Christ been born in your heart? Has Christ been born in your life? If so, say amen this morning. Amen. Glory to God.

And if Christ has not been born in your heart, I want to encourage you this morning to let that happen, and I am simply going to ask the question because it must be asked. Has Christ dawned in your life? Has Christ been born to you? And if he has not been born to you, I invite you to raise your hand so that I may pray with you this morning, that Christ may enter your life and you may receive that salvation and eternal life.

Has Christ been born in your life? If not, raise your hand so that I can pray for you and set you on that path of relationship with Jesus Christ. Is there anyone who has done it before and wants to receive that salvation today through Jesus? I will give you a moment to think it over carefully. Amen.

If not, are all of us here clear about our faith in Jesus? Glory to the Lord, you leave as you ought to leave; and if not, know that Christmas truly has no meaning for you. There is no Christmas for anyone who is not in Christ Jesus, but there is indeed Christmas for anyone who is in Jesus Christ.

Father, thank you for the Christmas message. Thank you for what Christ has done on the cross of Calvary. Thank you for the salvation we have received.

Father, we surrender our lives to you once again. May the beautiful Christmas message dawn in our lives. Keep praying there for another moment.

Lord, may the Christmas message never leave our hearts. Although we celebrate it today, next week and in the coming weeks of the future year, 2007, Father, we want that Christmas to remain there always. Every time we come to church, every time we are on the road, at work, or at home, may we always remember that Christ has already been born and is born to us day after day in our hearts. Each day, by faith, when we receive him, accept him, and live in him, it is Christmas again in our lives.

Thank you because you have made peace between God and humanity. Peace, reconciliation, mediation, communication. Christ is the bridge, the door; he is the way to our Heavenly Father, from whom we were separated and estranged. We celebrate your birth, Lord Jesus. Thank you because that child who was announced to the shepherds, whom Simeon and Anna were able to see in the temple, today we too see through the eyes of faith: that risen Christ, that Christ of power, that Christ who became poor so that we might become rich through his poverty. We celebrate him this morning, Lord. And to him we give all the glory and all the honor. We bless you, Father. Thank you, in Jesus’ name.

Give the Lord a great round of applause.