In this special Christmas Day sermon, Pastor Joe Babij presents the true meaning of Christmas by way of the person of Jesus Christ. More specifically, from Luke 1:31-35, Pastor Babij explains three foundational truths that inform you about the uniqueness of the identity of Jesus.
1. Jesus Is God (v. 35)
2. Jesus Is Man (vv. 31, 35)
3. Jesus Is Holy (v. 35)
Full Transcript:
We are looking at this morning Luke chapter 1, and I’d like your attention this morning on just three passages, actually verse 32, verse 31, verse 32, and verse 35 of chapter 1 of Luke, and let me read that for you. Verse 31 says:
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus.
Verse 32:
And he will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.
Then down to verse 35, it says:
The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.
Let’s pray. Father, this morning, as we come to celebrate this great time of year, that we know that Christ came into the world. He robed himself with human flesh, and he came into this world for a specific reason. And Lord, we are benefiting from that reason right now for all those who’ve come to believe in Christ as Lord and Savior. So Lord, for this time of year, this is special. No matter what all the others are saying, this is a special time for those who know you. And Lord, we are looking forward to what you’re going to finish doing as us being part of your plan, and then Lord, looking forward to the consummation of everything, knowing that you are Lord of all, from beginning to end and everything in the middle. And so for this we praise you. Lord, bless us this morning as we celebrate this day, and as we look at your word, which really gives us clarity on what really took place. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Christmas may mean different things to many people. It may mean gifts, receiving and giving. It means to some, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and his boss Santa Claus. It means mistletoe to some. I’m dreaming of a white Christmas to others. It may mean being together with family and friends, good fellowship, good food, singing Christmas carols, sitting down and watching ‘It Is a Christmas Carol’ or ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ And for some, this time of year is bittersweet, has a bittersweet feeling to it because of a loss of a loved one or declining health or family troubles or financial issues or maybe just the despair of life and the weight of life. All these may have meaning for you or they may be meaningless to you. The most important thing to know is that these things are not the true meaning of Christmas. No matter what you think of Christmas or what you should or should not do at Christmas, if we’re going to celebrate Christmas at all, then the focus must be on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, while the New Testament doesn’t require that we celebrate Christmas every year, that, of course, there is certainly nothing wrong with the churches entering into a joyous time of celebrating the incarnation of Jesus into this cursed world as one of the most significant historical events that has ever occurred. And just like in the Old Testament when God commanded the people to remember certain events with annual celebration, it is the church’s opportunity to proclaim the truth concerning Jesus Christ and, yes, the incarnation of Emmanuel, God with us. And it is clear that human tradition has robbed so many of the truths concerning the birth of Jesus, why he came, who he is. The birth of Jesus Christ was the only way God chose that can provide a savior for lost and fallen humanity. How important that we sweep aside all human traditions and all the commercialism and the pagan errors and seek the truth that’s found in the Word of God. It is the Christian that can share about God’s indescribable gift of grace, about the hope that one has in Christ in the middle of a world of despair, about the truth of salvation in the midst of a world of noise and chaos and confusion.
Now, in our text this morning, there’s three foundational truths in this scripture which inform us about the uniqueness of the identity of Jesus. It was also these that the angel Gabriel included in his communication to Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, and Mary. The angel Gabriel came to Zechariah about the birth of John the Baptist who was going to prepare the way for the Lord. And when he came to him, the angel answered and said to him, I am Gabriel who stands in the presence of God. Now, if you know anything about what was going on, God hadn’t spoken through a prophet for 400 years. So for God to speak at all, they had the word of God, yes. But for God to speak through a prophet or an angel would be a very unusual event. And so Mary, I’m sure, and Zechariah was all ears when this took place. And they were as surprised as anyone else about the pronouncement that was coming their way.
And so John the Baptist is the first one, and he’s going to be the one who lays out the groundwork for the king to come. And only kings have a person assigned to prepare the things that are going to take place before the king arrives. And then the angel Gabriel speaks to Mary. What does he speak to her about? About the miracle that would take place in her body. For it says in chapter 1, verse 26 through 31, it says:
Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the descendants of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming in, he said to her, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was very perplexed at this statement, and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus.
But don’t get from that passage of Scripture that Mary was sinless. She was not sinless. She was a sinner just like everyone else and needed to be a savior just like anyone else. Now Mary’s child would be born as a result of the direct initiative of God. For it says in Luke 1:35,
The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.
Now Joseph had really nothing to do with it. He was an outsider. He was a passive observer to the whole miraculous event. If God had not told him what was happening, he would have no idea what was happening. It is also significant that the angel Gabriel did not tell Mary to do something, to do anything. All he said to her and told her is that God was going to do something.
See, God was going to take the initiative. See, Mary was entirely passive also. Mary’s privilege was that God’s greatest miracle would take place in her body. So you see, brethren, God does not wait for us to save ourselves because we never will or never could save ourselves. What He does is He doesn’t wait for a deliverer to arise from the human race. He sends His Son to the human race. Jesus is the most unique person who ever was born into this world. And if you just read the Scripture, verse by verse, all the way through, you have to conclude that.
Now, this Lord’s Day and this Christmas morning, let’s consider together three foundational truths found in our Scripture text, which inform us about the unique identity of Jesus. And these were the very things that the angel Gabriel told to Mary. So then they’re important to us, too. I’m going to make it pretty simple this morning. The first unique thing about Jesus’ identity is this. Jesus is God.
Now, if you look in verse number 34, it says, ‘He will be great and He will be called the Son of the Most High.’ And then at the last part of verse number 35, it says, ‘And for that reason the Holy Child shall be called the Son of God.’ Now, your life, my life, began when you were conceived in your mother’s womb. Before that moment, you didn’t exist. God used the union of your mother and father to bring you into being. Before that, you were not. And without that, you would not have been. But before Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, God, the Son, already enjoyed a marvelous life.
In fact, speaking of Jesus’ birth, Paul, the Apostle Paul, said this in 2 Corinthians:
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.
And then Jesus himself makes a reference to this truth in the high priestly prayer where he prays and recorded in the Gospel of John where he says:
Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.
See, Jesus was not like any other. His life did not begin in the Virgin’s womb. Before He was born in the stable, He shared the life of God. He was there in the beginning. It says in the Gospel of John 1, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ The Word is the Son of God who took human flesh and was born of a virgin. The one who has always shared the glory of the Father came to us. He did not rise up out of the human race by union of a father and a mother, but He came as a gift to the human race.
Now, why is this of such great importance that God should communicate to Mary this truth about Jesus being God? Well, it’s for this reason, because only God can reconcile sinful man to God. The only way on which sinful man could be delivered from the condemnation of sin was for someone to come from heaven to save them. As it says in 1 Peter:
For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;
So salvation has to be from above down in order for God to bring us to Himself. Think of it like this, that suppose you are in a little small raft on the water, and you need to be rescued because you’ve lost your way. There’s a rope in the raft, but you can’t use it to climb up to the helicopter. Salvation has to be from the top down, so someone who is secured at the top is lowered on the winch, and by embracing Him, you are lifted with Him to the position from where He came. In other words, salvation has to be from above. Only God can save. We cannot climb up for the simple reason that we have nothing to climb on.
So this male child will be God, as it’s recorded in Scripture, His name will be called Emmanuel, which is translated God with us. So you see, Christ has come to us from heaven to earth, and in Him, God is reaching out to every person on this planet. Our Savior is God and therefore able to save to the uttermost.
I read a story about a man named Mel Trotter. He had lived most of his life as a drunkard and outcast. And just to show how much he loved liquor, when his little child was very sick, his wife gave him money to buy medicine, and instead he spent it on booze and the child ended up dying. Trotter was so drunk that he could not even attend the funeral. And later, he came under the hearing of the gospel of Jesus Christ and was marvelously saved and became a preacher. And after painfully retelling his story in a message he preached from Hebrews 7:25, which says,
Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him,
And you may ask, well, how could a person like that be saved? He should be judged and condemned. The answer to that question is that he was judged and condemned. And because of his faith in Jesus, Jesus took the judgment in his place and paid his penalty in full by His sacrificial death, satisfying the justice of the Father. See, only God can reconcile sinful man to God. Mel Trotter concluded his story with these words, God is able to save from the gutter most to the uttermost. How great a salvation this is. God can save all immoral people as well as moral people, as well as Christless people. See, where sin and evil is found in the highest and in the lowest places, Jesus can save. So Mary needed to know that Jesus was God.
Secondly, the second unique thing about Jesus’ identity is pretty simple. Verse 35 in Matthew chapter 1, verse 23, and then also in verse 31, Jesus is a man. Now for some who have been around the Word of God for a while and a Christian for a while, to say that Jesus is a man may be a given. However, once we have grasped that Jesus is God, it is really every bit as important for us to grasp that He’s a man. Because on both of these fronts, these have been attacked during church history. His deity has been attacked and His humanity has been attacked. You have to have both to have what the Bible speaks of concerning Jesus Christ.
Now once you have grasped that Jesus is God, it is every bit as important for us to grasp that He is a man again. He took on human flesh and was born as one of us, entering and sharing our life. He became a human being. With all that goes with it, He became a human being. And in our passage in Luke 1:35, the angel Gabriel stressed to Mary that this child shall be born of you. In verse 31,
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus.
So she was going to actually have a real human baby. The child born would have a supernatural birth, unprecedented in all of human history, something that would never happen again. Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son. The Messiah would be born of a virgin. And if a woman became pregnant and had a son, that would not be a special sign. But if a virgin became pregnant and brought a son into this world, that’s a miracle. See, it was a miraculous sign that God gave us. It was foretold in Isaiah 7:14, where Isaiah says,
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign:
All these promises of God are like signposts on a highway. You don’t sit on the top of the sign and expect the sign to take you to your destination. Instead, by faith in the message on the signpost and in the scripture, you follow its direction and move forward to where it points. See, God’s promise and his promises point us to a person, to a male child who would be called Jesus.
The fact that Jesus is a man is as important to our salvation as the fact that he is God. Now why? Because only a man can bear the punishment for man’s sins. That’s why Jesus had to become a man, so he can actually bear the punishment for our sins. But Jesus is a very unique and special man in at least four ways in regards to the bearing of the punishment for man’s sin. Number one, He was a sinless man. The scripture tells us He did not sin in His conduct. He committed no sin in 1 Peter 2. It says there He knew no sin. He didn’t even sin in His words. Jesus did not use words to bring insult. He didn’t use violence or threats ever. And people said he was possessed by demons. He was a glutton and a wine-bibber and a blasphemer. He was delusional. He was a perverter of the nation and a deceiver of people. Yet Jesus never strayed in word or deed, never got upset unjustly. Jesus never used anyone for a laugh, ever. 1 John 3:5 says,
You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.
So He was a sinless man. He was also a perfect man. No one has been perfect. God requires perfection to get into His presence, to be in His presence. And yet scripture tells us that He was the spotless, sinless Son of God. And for 33 years He lived it. And John the Baptist pointed to Him as the one, the Lamb of God, who will take away the sin of the world. And then 1 Peter, it tells us,
but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.
So God ransomed His children by the highest cost possible, the precious blood of the Savior. That Christ’s blood is of inestimable great value that any earthly temporary commodity like silver or gold can compare to. That Christ purchased us with His own blood, not with any temporal human payment, but with the shedding of blood. And without Christ’s death as a man on the cross, nobody could be saved. And that was God’s plan, so He had to be a perfect man.
But he also had to be a willing man. The Bible tells us He had to be willing to die in the place of sinners. He didn’t die for Himself. He didn’t need to die for Himself. He had to die in the place of others. Like what Romans chapter 5 tells us,
For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
And then in verse 8,
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
In other words, Christ had to become a man to die in our place. But He also had to be an able man. He had the ability to carry out the plan of salvation. And He had to carry it out to completion. He had to carry out to its finishing point. This man must be able to carry our sin away and lift it from us, and then pay the full price for that sin. The Bible says to give his life a ransom for many. So His life was a ransom. A “lutron” in scripture, a price paid to affect the release of one who is held in bondage. It was you and I who was held in bondage by sin, kept there, unable to free ourselves.
So the ransom was offered to God the Father against whom we had sinned, and who alone has the power to inflict the penalty. So then Jesus saw us caught in the slave market of sin, and had pity on our hopeless situation by paying the ransom price with His own blood in order to redeem us out of the slave market and bring us into the family of God. His sacrificial death on the cross purchased the release from bondage of those many sinners who would believe in Him.
And would you think that this baby in the virgin womb would accomplish such a thing? That the baby in the virgin’s womb was also the One who made the moon. He was the One, and Mary and all of us would learn that He would also be the one who would make the deaf hear, make the blind see, and raise the dead, and that He would be the wonderful Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace, the King of all creation, the Savior, the great I Am, is who we’re talking about here. And no one else could have done this. Not one other person who ever lived in this world could have ever done this except Jesus Christ.
But there’s one other thing the Bible teaches us in this passage of scripture about the identity of Jesus, that Jesus was not only God, he was not only a man, but Jesus was also holy. It says here in verse 35,
The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.
See, Jesus Christ is like us in every respect except one. He’s holy and we are not. That means ultimately that He did not commit a single sin. Jesus was holy in His thoughts. He was holy in His intentions. He was holy in His whole character. He was never drawn to sin. He had no propensity to sin at all whatsoever. And there has never been anybody else in human history about whom this could be said. Not then, not now, not ever. Everyone born since the first Adam was not born holy. And what was holy was not born until Jesus Christ came into the world.
See, Jesus blazes the trail of a new humanity that will be holy, free from sin, and no longer subject to death. That’s why when you get to the book of Revelation, what do you find out? When the curse is removed, there is no more crying. There’s no more death. There’s no more any of those things that bring sorrow in the world because Jesus has taken care of it. And that there also will be a new heaven and new earth where righteousness dwells. See, because Jesus is sinless and perfectly righteous, he is the only basis of our forgiveness with God the Father. Jesus is our only basis of righteousness before God. Faith in Christ alone, not our own goodness, saves us.
So then the angel communicated to Mary three important facts about Jesus’ identity. That He is God, that He is a man, and that He’s holy. And when we grasp these, we see that the whole purpose of the love of God was to redeem all of God’s children from the devil’s hell and take them to His wonderful heaven where she will bear a son. And you shall call His name Jesus, and He will save His people from their sin. That’s what we all need. No one will ever have to add or subtract to what Jesus has done to have eternal life. All they must do is to repent of their sins and unbelief and believe and receive His free gift of salvation.
And who are those who are saved from their sin? Anyone who comes to the God-man in repentance and faith. That’s what it says in Scripture. Repentance towards God the Father and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, which was the plan for salvation. Anyone who calls upon Jesus from their heart of belief. As it says in Romans,
that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
In other words, God wants you to ask Him to save you. Of course, that comes with understanding, understanding what He did on behalf of sinners. And then also anyone who is willing to forsake everything else they’re trusting in to hopefully save themselves. Like what? Like being religious, like good works, like morality, like keeping the sacraments, like thinking that you can keep the commandments when the commandments were never given to us to cause us to keep them, but show us that we’re sinners so we would call upon Christ.
See, when faith looks at the birth of Jesus, faith sees God at work and believes His promises. Faith sees this is why Christ came into the world. Faith reckons that if God has said Christ will save his people from their sins, then that’s exactly what He will do, and that’s exactly what He has done.
See, Jesus the Savior has transformed millions of alcoholics and drug addicts. Vile and profane persons have been made pure of speech. All manner of people have been changed by the amazing, wonderful grace of Jesus Christ who is God, who is a man, and who is holy. So we should be glad today that Jesus receives sinners, and we have many examples in scriptures that He did and still does receive sinners. All kinds of people caught in all various levels of condemning sin, He saves. Mary Magdalene possessed with seven demons, she becomes a believer. The maniac of Gadaria, the man possessed with legions of demons. He wore no clothes, he lived in tombs, he was in a sense insane. When he met Jesus, the devils departed, and he sat, the Bible says, clothed in his right mind and became a witness to the power of Christ in his region where he grew up. And we see from scripture that as he gave that testimony, that area became evangelized and many came to know the Lord because of his witness.
We have the Samaritan woman who was an adulterer, a sinner, married five times, and the man that she was living with when Jesus was talking to her wasn’t her husband. And what did she do? She hears the message of the gospel, she realizes who Jesus is, and what does she do? She believes and she gets saved. And then Lydia, just a regular businesswoman, what does she do? She hears the gospel, God opens her heart, and she repents and believes and she gets baptized.
See, no sinner is beyond the saving power of Jesus Christ. No homosexual, no harlot, no liar, no murderer, no religious person, no moral person, or ethical person, or religious self-righteous person, all of them can be saved. See, the Lord Jesus Christ is indeed the one who receives sinners. He receives them to pardon them. He receives them to sanctify them. He receives them to forgive them and to make them fit for heaven, for His presence.
So why do we need to know what the angel Gabriel said to Mary? Because only God can reconcile sinful man to God, and only man can bear the punishment for man’s sin, and only the holy God-man can accomplish such a great salvation. That’s why. So if you know Jesus as your Savior this morning, worship Him. If you don’t know Him, ask Him to deliver you from your guilt, the power, and the consequences of your sin. Ask Him to pardon you, wash you in His own blood, and make you fit for His holy presence. Ask Him for that, because He’s able to do it. He’s willing to do it. He’s qualified to do it. And he’s the only one who can do it. Muhammad can’t do it. Buddha can’t do it. No religious leader in the world can do it. It’s only Christ who has done it and will do it if you ask Him to.
Now, if you don’t want to know Him or worship Him, then the Bible says you remain under the wrath and judgment of God. And if you remain that way and close your eyes in death, then your future is not going to be a pleasant one. It’s going to be separated from God.
But if you do know Jesus, your future, present and future, will be a glorious one. We will have a hope that we can’t even define. We will have a joy that’s inexpressible. We will be in the presence of a holy, righteous, perfect God, and we’ll be able to be there because of what Jesus did, not because of what you did. See, God takes the initiative. Salvation must come from heaven to the earth. It’s not the other way. And all God’s people said, Amen. God bless. Let’s stand together and let’s sing our last praise song. Merry Christmas to everyone.