Jim Van Gelderen: Welcome to Thee Generation Podcast. This is Jim Van Gelderen, and I am podcasting here from Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. Well, I want to wish you a Merry Christmas.
Perhaps you’re listening to it on Christmas Eve, perhaps Christmas day or the day after, but anyway, it is the time to remember the birth of our Savior. And that’s what I want to reflect on for a few short minutes here. And my burden is for us to, in this time of the year, not just get caught up with the Christmas trees and the gift giving and the tinsel, and the Christmas carols—all of which are wonderful.
Certainly it’s a great time not just to enjoy the festive atmosphere, but to realize the real meaning and the real message of Christmas. We all know it’s the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, but I want us to reflect on a verse of scripture that maybe takes us deeper. The Bible tells us in Matthew 1, it’s one of the accounts of the Christmas story.
And verse 21, of course Joseph is having a dream and the angel is revealing to him some things. I’ll start in verse 20, “But while he thought on these things, behold the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, that’s Joseph, in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus’” Now here’s what I want us to reflect on for a few short moments. “For he shall save his people from their sins”. Maybe you know this, that Jesus actually is the same name as was given Joshua.
It means “Jehovah is salvation.” And of course they were transliterated differently because one is the Hebrew and the other one’s the Greek. But anyway, Jehovah is salvation. So for he shall save his people from their sins.
Jesus’ very name is embedded with the fact of what he came to do. He came to save his people from their sins. He didn’t come into the world to condemn the world, but “that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17).
Now I want to just see two thoughts about Christmas that we often don’t think about. Number one, one of the very important truths of Christmas is that it involves the issue of sin. We all know, “for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” But Christmas really is, would not be here if it was not for sin.
It is the answer to man’s sin is that a savior was born. And sometimes we forget, now some of the Christmas carols really do bring this out. “Hark the herald angels sing glory to the newborn king, peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.” Really a great truth.
And how about O Holy night, “long lay the world in sin. and error pining.” That is certainly, there it is, the world lay in sin. Okay, there would not have been a birth of a Savior if there was not something they needed to be saved from.
Then of course, “God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day to save us all from Satan’s power.” Here it is “when we were gone astray.” You know that comes right out of Isaiah 53, “All we like sheep have gone astray.” And friends, because you and I went astray, there was Christmas. Christmas was the birth of a savior to save us from our sins.
Now, friends, we often think of that only in salvation or being delivered from the penalty of sin: hell, which is a wonderful thing. But I want you Christians to recognize Jesus didn’t come just to deliver you from the penalty of sin, He came to deliver you from the power of sin. And Christmas is all about the fact that man has a sin problem, and Jesus came to be our rescuer, our Savior.
Sometimes when I’m preaching the message 0/100, I will encourage people to think about accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. What does that mean? And I sometimes use synonyms in the physical realm, accepting Jesus Christ as your personal EMT, accepting Jesus Christ as your personal lifeguard, accepting Jesus Christ as your personal fireman, accepting Jesus Christ as your personal rescue worker.
What are those? Synonyms of a Savior. When you got saved, Jesus’ saving work didn’t stop.
It started. First thing he did was save you from hell, the penalty of sin, but now, till the moment you die, he wants to save you from the power of sin. And that brings us to the second thing, I’ve really alluded to it, he came to save or deliver his people from their sins.
Christmas is about deliverance. A deliverer was born, not just to keep you out of hell, but to keep you out of sin. And I want to remind you as you celebrate Christmas, if you’re defeated, you’re discouraged, you’re down, Christmas is all about the fact that Jesus is there to deliver you.
And there are so many passages of Scripture that we could deal with that, but let me just encourage you this way. Are you struggling? Some people really struggle with anger.
They seem to be defeated often with that. Some with worry, unbelief, others with a loss. They just can’t overcome.
We live in a sensual world and they fall prey to the temptation there, not only mentally, but sometimes in what they sometimes call acting out, which can be a variety of sin issues. And we certainly live in a world where we’re constantly under temptation. The flesh is enticing us to sin.
And many times God’s people get into cycles of sin, besetting sins we could call them, bondage is another word the Bible uses to help us understand what can happen in the Christian life. And the answer is Jesus wants to deliver you. He is the deliverer.
And although I don’t have time to go into it all, it starts with this, recognizing that deliverance is not 50-50, it’s not 50% you and 50% Jesus. It is a total dependence on Jesus to do the miraculous.
Now there’s steps of faith, yes, if you’ve heard my message 0/100, getting out of the boat, we’re not trusting our muscles to walk on water, but we get out of the boat in obedience, because Jesus told us to come, trusting Him to enable us to do what we could never do unless He enabled us to do it.
But many times, friends, when we get into a, “I gotta do better,” or “I gotta try harder,” or “I gotta grit my teeth a little bit longer,” we actually mix faith with works, and in doing so, we abort the truth of the gospel to the saint. That Jesus wants to deliver you from sin’s power.
And it starts with just trusting God for divine intervention and then being willing to obey, believing that He is going to enable you for that kind of victory. I find a verse of Scripture there in Ephesians chapter 4 interesting when it talks about bitterness. “And let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking” and the list goes on and “with all malice let it be put away from you” is the idea.
That’s passive in voice. And really it’s the same truth. It’s saying Jesus, I want to be delivered from bitterness and from anger and wrath and clamor and I can’t do it.
If it’s passive it means it’s not me actively trying to put it away, it is letting God, letting the Holy Spirit deliver me from this. And friends, you have a deliverer. His name is Jesus.
It starts with trusting Him and believing that He will deliver you and that He is delivering you and that He’s working things together for good. Even your failure He is working together for good. He knows you.
He knows your inclinations your dispositions. He knows your temptations, and he knows enough about you that you can trust him, knowing you, to give you the victory that only he can give. He is the victory.
It’s not just a thing, it’s a person. It’s Jesus Christ. So when I think about Christmas, friends, it’s that Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world was born, God in human flesh.
Jehovah is salvation, Jesus’ very name, and He has come to save His people from their sins, not just the penalty in hell, though that’d be enough, it’s sins power right now. And may you on Christmas Day have a fresh sense of confidence and expectation that victory, that Jesus Christ is the victory over the sin you’re struggling with. Because that’s what Christmas really is all about.
It really is about a total dependence on Jesus to deliver you from your sins and a surrender to Him to do what His will is in your life. Merry Christmas!
