Oh wow, what a wonderful performance, kids, that has
really blessed me. Actually, growing up, I would
have turned up a bit sceptical, but actually that was brilliant.
So thank you, kids. And I think wonderful sort of
sums up what we're here to talk about tonight.
It's a phrase that gets thrown around with this season.
There's a famous Christmas song. It's the most wonderful time of
the year, a time to celebrate with joy, with love.
Maybe it means Christmas trees for you.
Maybe it's Turkey, chocolates, family, friends.
But if you're like me and you're from this country or another
Western nation, you'll likely know where Christmas comes from.
And our kids have shown it tonight in a bit of an
alternative style. But it's about this baby, Baby
Jesus. I don't know where.
Oh, he's, he's over there as wonderfully presented.
And it's about Jesus. But if you want to be really
cynical, if you come in to a church for the first time, you
might say, now I'm not going to complain because Christmas comes
with a lot of good things for me.
I get presents, I get food. But what relevance does a tiny
baby born over 2000 years ago in the Middle East have to me?
Why should I care at all? And that's an attitude now that
is becoming more prevalent. Christmas is becoming more about
Santa and trees and chocolates and it's nice, but that's not
all there is to it. Now, it was referenced in the
play that actually this is the most famous person ever.
But I had written down, I wonder if I said who is the most famous
baby ever to be born, the most anticipated child to be born.
I wonder who you'd say. I was trying to think of a
different example to Jesus. And I think the most famous
example in the world is probably when the royal family in this
country have children. Prince William and his wife Kate
have had three children now. And every time you see a media
store unlike anything else, camera crews, journalists, all
camped outside of a hospital, not even waiting to see the
baby, but just to hear of the news of a successful birth.
And when Kate eventually did give birth, every time it became
a headline around the entire world.
And yet this baby that the kids have shown us about tonight,
this baby Jesus was far more famous and far more important.
It's funny though because you see donkeys instead of doctors,
camels instead of cameras, and a Manger instead of a hospital
manager. Yet this is the most influential
birth the world has ever seen. See, people knew for about 6 or
seven months before Kate had a child that a royal Prince was
being born. But Jesus birth was predicted
hundreds of years before by multiple people.
And these people, they, they didn't keep it a secret.
They didn't decide, oh, we'll do a, we'll do a news reveal a bit
closer to the time they wrote it down, some over 700 years before
Jesus was born. I mean, that's crazy.
The only possible way to get that is if God was to reveal it
to them. You might say, well, Isaac, if I
told you that a baby was going to be born in 700 years, I want
you to get a name. I'd have some chance of getting
it right. I mean, a lot of people get
born, so why is it special? But these prophecies were more
than that. In Micah, we read that a ruler
will be born out of Bethlehem. And in Hosea, we we see that God
says my child out of Egypt, I call my child.
And if you look at the baby's life, as was referenced, he was
born in a Manger in Bethlehem and had to flee to Egypt for his
safety before later returning to Nazareth.
See, statistically, it's impossible for a human just to
guess that and put that all right, and especially multiple
people, and you might still be saying, well, it's a special
baby. He moved around a bit.
People guessed, why should I care?
But it comes down to why the baby was born.
Why was baby Jesus born? There's this famous phrase in
the world now. I was born to do this.
If you listen to people, especially those of high
influence, they might say I was born to play football, I was
born to sing, I was born to drive.
I was born to do all this. I was born to solve this
problem. I wonder what you would say your
purpose is. And I think for Jesus, I can sum
it up. I was trying to think of a, of a
way to sum it up. And as I was praying, getting
ready for tonight, I had this phrase come to me, this sort of
James Bond esque phrase. Jesus was born to die.
You really did hear that Born and die don't sound like they
should go in the same sentence. You know, 1 is the start of life
and one is the end of life. But that is Jesus story.
And it might seem weird that at Christmas I'm talking about
Jesus dying. But actually for us to
understand really we have to go into this because it comes from
His purpose that see, purpose makes this world go round.
Most of what you do and what you have in your life is driven by
purpose, whether it's good or bad.
See, I could ask how you turned up today, and a lot of people
will say they drove. So I could say, why do you have
a car? Well, actually, the purpose of a
car is to get you places. Why do you watch that TV show
when you go home tonight? Why are you going to put that on
the TV? Or because you find it
entertaining? See, purpose drives everything,
and without a purpose then things tend not to matter.
And there's a reason why God revealed information about Jesus
and his birth, and it's because of what he came to do, His
purpose for arriving. Now again, at this point, as I
talk about Jesus being born to die, you might say, well that's
me as well. Everybody dies.
But see, as we talk about Jesus's death, it's different to
the death that you and I will face.
I was reminded of this yesterday.
I spoke to somebody at work and he's turned up and he'd been off
earlier in the week because he was at a funeral.
And I was asking how was it? How had he found it?
Had it gone OK? And he told me the last thing he
said before we said our buys and he went off was, it's the only
thing we're guaranteed. But this is where Jesus is deaf
differs. I mentioned before that Jesus
death was at birth was predicted way in advance.
So I want to turn to scripture, but not just to see about where
his birth was predicted, but to see about what else was
foretold. There's a very famous bit of
scripture. She turned to Isaiah 53.
I'm sorry that I don't have it on the screen tonight.
But verse 2 says he grew up before Him like a tender shoe
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in
his appearance that we should desire in Him.
See, that is Jesus. He grew up nothing special,
nothing amazing that would make you go, oh, this is a king of
kings. This is somebody that's going to
rule the world. He was born in a Manger.
He was a carpet and a son, not rich.
No particular beauty that made Him stand out as a special
somebody. And as you read the next verses,
you see He was despised and rejected by mankind.
A man of suffering and familiar with pain, like one from whom
people hide their faces. He was despised and we held Him
in low esteem. See, He was so lowly despised.
Before one of his disciples got to know Him and meet Him, He
wrote Him off completely because of where he was from.
After his parents returned to Israel, they went to this place
called Nazareth and that's where he grew up.
And in John one we hear about Nathaniel who goes on to become
one of Jesus disciples. But the first thing he says
about Jesus is Nazareth. Can anything good come from
there? This is someone written off,
rejected completely. Maybe you relate to that today.
But Jesus still continued to walk out in the way that he was
called to. He continued to do what he did
and people started to realise that he was in fact the Saviour
of earth, the Son of God, the Messiah himself.
This is who the Jewish people had been waiting hundreds of
years for. They were anticipating somebody
to come, but he turned out to be far more than what they
realised. As Jesus lived, he frustrated
people. The elites and those who loved
their power became scared as people started to follow and
listen to Jesus. See, he quickly went from a baby
up into being a teacher. He got called rabbi a lot and as
he taught, people listened and people followed.
And so those in the elite got scared.
They said we need to stop this. We need to kill him now.
What they thought they were doing at this moment in time was
stopping Jesus, putting an end to what he was doing.
But this is exactly what is foretold about Jesus life.
Jesus was born to die, but not just to die himself.
Jesus died for me and for you. Now I'm going to pause for a
second and I go right back to the start.
And when I say right back to the start, I mean it.
See in Genesis one we read about creation and we see how God
ended ends up making humans and he makes them in his image with
the whole purpose to have relationship and bring glory to
God. But in the Garden of Eden, Adam
and Eve were tempted and sin entered the earth and took hold
of their lives. That if you're from this country
especially, you might have heard of this word sin.
But before I carry on, I want to clear up what I'm talking about
when I say sin. See, sin just means disobedience
of what God has said. It's disobeying what they were
told to do. So in the garden that was do not
eat from a tree, and they ate from a tree.
And so sin entered. Now the thing about sin and why
it comes up so much in Christian circles is because sin separates
us from God. Sin is impurity and God is
perfect. And so sin cannot be in the
presence of God. And So what you see is Adam and
Eve have to leave the Garden of Eden where they've been well
provided and looked after. But this wasn't God's intention.
So God gave grace. He said, oh, do this, follow
these and you'll be closer to me.
But in our flesh and our frailty, humanity always failed.
Jesus had gave instructions. 10 commandments do not lie, do not
steal. But they kept being broken and
broken. The Jewish nation who God had
made in his image and called everybody to be, was still
missing the mark. So God realised he needed a
rescue plan. And this is where Christmas
becomes relevant. This is where the baby Jesus
we've heard about tonight becomes special.
See, if you die without your sin being atoned for, we will be
eternally separated from God. Romans 623 says for the wages of
sin is death. And this isn't talking about the
death we talk about on this earth when someone gets on old,
but lifelong separation from the source of life.
And so God himself came to deal with sin to serve as a Saviour.
This baby was born with a very purpose, to die.
See, Jesus came and lived for 33 years perfectly, never sinning,
doing what we as humans could never do, meeting God's perfect
standard. And in that time he went around
transforming lives, healing people, teaching, but everything
was preparation for him to die. He experienced every human
emotion, hunger, sadness, anger, Lovejoy, grief, anything you can
name Jesus went through. And I realised that as I talk,
there's a sombre tone ringing around the room, especially at
Christmas. But this is good news.
See, when Jesus was crucified, he took all of humanity's sin,
past, present and future, and took it on himself.
Isaiah 53, which I mentioned before, continues to say, surely
He took up our pain and bore our suffering, Yet we considered Him
punished by God, stricken by Him, and afflicted.
But He was pierced for our transgressions.
He was crushed for our iniquities.
This is 700 years before Jesus ever hung on a cross.
Jesus died from my faults, for your faults, for my sin, for
your sin, for everybody's sin. But that's not the end of the
story. See His body was buried, but
three days later he rose again, and when he came out that grave
he left. My sin, my shame, your sin, your
shame, and death was defeated. It was left in the grave.
Isaiah 53 five finishes with the punishment that brought us peace
was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
It sounds crazy because God took our punishment.
We were healed. And This is why we celebrate at
Christmas because it was the beginning of the rescue plan.
If you're familiar with Star Wars, the fourth film or the
first depending on how old you are, is known as A New Hope.
But victory wasn't secured in that film, but it was the start
of the journey to the victory and that is what Christmas is.
The world celebrates because God's supreme rescue plan was
put into action as Jesus was born.
He was born on earth and what he came to do was began.
And see, this is the good news because it gives us an
opportunity to have a certain hope that we know that when we
die, we know what where we can go.
It's not in what we have done, but what Jesus did on that
cross. See I stated before sin
separates us from God and Romans 323 three chapters earlier than
for the wages of sin is death. It says for all have sinned all
so we're all guilty and that means you and I without Jesus
when we die. If you walk out tonight and you
end up in a car crash and you do not know Jesus that one that
you're going to stand face to face and you're going to be
eternally separated from him. The source of life itself is
gone. So every good thing you
experience on this earth will be gone, but Jesus, God himself
came as the solution to that. The most famous Bible verse in
the whole world is John 316. It says for God so loved the
world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes
shall not perish, but have everlasting life.
See, God sent his Son baby Jesus, that if you believe that
he died and rose again and you repent, that you shall not
perish, but you'll be able to live in his presence forever.
See what happens is there's this thing called the great exchange.
We get our sin, our shame, our mock, our dirt dealt with, and
we get Jesus's righteousness in return.
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we
might become the righteousness of God.
That's 2 Corinthians 521 And see, this is the very purpose,
right from when the kings came to bring gifts, the shepherds
decided to go and visit as well. That was the purpose why Jesus
was born. He was born to die.
But when I say that there's a greater truth than born to die,
Jesus was born to save, to save the world, to save me, to save
you. And this wasn't just some sort
of lame idea that God came up with as things were going wrong,
but from the very moment sin enters the earth, you can see
this plan be formed even before sacrifices.
You read about Leviticus and laws In Genesis 315, God
addresses Satan the devil, or as he's called in Genesis 315, the
serpent who deceives and leads people into sin.
And God says to him, he will crush your head and you will
strike his heel. Now the best thing to do to
understand this truly is to read it backwards.
You will strike his heel. See, as Jesus died, Satan lands
a blow on God, or so he fought. See that death was the most
painful death ever experienced. But what came through it is
Jesus crushed death. The head of the serpent was
crushed and victory was sealed. Death was defeated.
The whole reason why death is feared in the world is because
it's unknown or some people don't know what's going to
happen, and there's this fear of what comes after, especially in
the context of being separated from God for all eternity.
But as you read 1 Corinthians 15 verses 54 to 57, it says when
the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the
mortal with immortality. Now I'm going to pause halfway
through here. This is what happens when you
accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour.
When you realise that Christ died on a cross for you and your
sin, you get clothed with the imperishable.
Your mortality becomes immortality and the verse
continues saying then the saying that is written will come true.
Death has been swallowed up in victory.
Where O death is your sting? Where O death is your victory?
The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is law.
But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lords
Jesus Christ. See, if you believe that Jesus
died for you, you get Jesus's righteousness, it gets put on
you, death is defeated. That is no longer gone because
when you die, you'll be recognised as Jesus is.
And that means when you stand face to face with God, you'll be
welcomed into the Kingdom of heaven.
And this is the good news. This is why we celebrate at
Christmas a random baby being born.
Well known is not any random baby.
It was the saviour of the world. See.
Why we celebrate at Jesus Santa, food, trees, drinks, these are
good things, but it all comes seconds to Jesus.
See, Jesus is the reason for the season.
And just to give you a picture of what heaven will look like
for those who know Jesus, John, a disciple of Jesus got a vision
and this is in the Book of Revelation.
And he writes, and I heard a loud voice from the throne
saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.
He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God
himself will be with them as their God.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
There shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor
crying nor pain anymore for the former things that passed away.
And he who was seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making
all things new. And it also, he said, write this
down, for these words are trustworthy and true.
Maybe you've never heard this before.
Maybe you didn't know that if you were to die, your sin would
separate you from God. Maybe you've never heard that.
Maybe as I talk about what John saw about heaven, you're like, I
want that. I long for a place where there
is no more tears, there is no more pain.
And so I'm here simply as a sign, poets, to point to that
baby, to that Saviour, to say Jesus is the way.
See, Christmas is about celebrating his arrival who came
to die for you so you can live with him.
So I'm going to pray. If you'd like to accept what
Jesus did for you, you can just repeat in your head after me.
I encourage you afterwards. Come and tell me.
Come and tell Ben somebody that who invited you.
Tell them that you prayed this prayer.
If you do, and it's not about what you can do, but what has
already been done, maybe you still have questions and that's
OK. Before I mentioned the disciple
who said what good can come from Nazareth, the very reply he gets
is come and see. That's my invitation tonight.
Whether you've known Jesus for years and years, maybe you're
ready to pray. What?
I'm about to pray in a minute. And if you are, that's great.
But maybe you're not ready. But whatever stage you are in
life, my invitation tonight is come and see.
Come and see what Jesus has done for you.
So I'm going to pray and then I'm going to hand back over.
So repeat after me if you wish in your head, Yes, God, thank
you for your love for me. Thank you that you made me to
know you. Tonight I say I want to know you
more. I'm sorry for when I've gone
wrong. I'm sorry for when I've sinned,
when I've walked away from you. Jesus, please forgive me.
And Jesus, I accept that you died for me, that you taught my
punishment so that I may have your righteousness and eternal
life with you. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.
Amen. Thank you so much, Isaac.
We're going to, I'm going to invite the band back up and
we're going to end by singing Joy to the world.
And you know what, if you are a Christian, I don't know everyone
here, but if you're a Christian in this room, it is our
privilege to be able to sing, to be able to say how amazing Jesus
is. The fact that he came is the
fact that we get to live forever.
We get to be with Him forever, that we will rule and reign with
him forever and ever and ever. That when we die, when our
physical bodies die, we will be with him in heaven.
And one day we will be resurrected and live with him
for all eternity. That's why we get to sing with
such joy, because we know a God who died for us.
And my question is, if you don't know that, as Isaac said,
actually you can know him today. You can know him today.
It doesn't matter whether you're a child here or whether you're
the other end of the spectrum. You can turn and know him.
But he is well worth knowing. He is an amazing saviour and I
encourage you if you want to know more about Him, come and
speak to whoever you came with. If you came on your own, come
and speak to me or someone up here.
We'd love to talk to you more about it.
But yeah, we're going to sing Joy to the World before we have
some drinks and biscuits and stuff.