Getting Beyond The Manger Scene

Let’s take our Bibles this morning and see what we can learn about this babe, the son of Mary, in the book of Galatians Chapter 4.  We have been following the Christmas passages through the New Testament and some of them get ignored because they are not in the Gospels where we expect to find them.  If you want to follow along, and I would strongly suggest you do, in the scriptures, you can find the Bible text we are using this morning on Page 974 in the pew Bible.  It is Galatians Chapter 4.

The strangest days in which to preach to the church, to bring a message, to say what you think needs to be said, are those which should be the easiest, but I find Christmas and Easter to be two of the most difficult messages to ever bring.  The reason is I feel like I have to get on a horse and ride, and I’m not a good rider of horses, and get the rope out and harness the reality of what the Bible teaches and [laughter….”did I do that?” laughter…”that was good… the microphone fell off…okay, wow!  I thought somebody was doing sound effects from up there…let’s do that again… laughter]  Well…. like I said, Christmas is difficult.  To pull it back down to reality there are some ropes that we will use this morning from the songs that were sung.  The whole idea is that we’ve got to get beyond the manger scene.  It is warm, it is fuzzy, it is very comfortable, and if you know anything about God at all, the last thing I would call God is… is ‘comfortable.’  Every time I get comfortable in the presence of God, I am reminded I have more reason for discomfort than I do for comfort.  Now, don’t take that too far.  He is the God of all comfort, but He is that because He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. 

So, let’s rope Christmas back in with a few things.  The children’s song we sang had this line in it… you know them all, but I’m gonna tell you.  We sang a prayer and part of that prayer said “fit us for Heaven to live with Thee there.”  What is it going to take to fit you for Heaven?  A little sandpaper, maybe a bath, clean up, put on your suit, fix your hair.  What’s it gonna take to fit you for Heaven.  Well, according to the song, it took Almighty God becoming man to fit you for heaven and that’s just the beginning of the story because we have to get Christmas out of the manger scene.  And then the song the choir and Penny did was obviously written in a day unlike our own because it is terribly politically uncorrect.  Who would have ever in this sensitive age written a song that says “for poor ornery people like you and like I?”  Do you want me to call you ornery again and see if you get the point?  We just sang a song and we are into this song with her and rightly from the Christmas perspective we are seeing that Jesus came for poor ornery people like you and like I.  But you know what?  If you never take Christmas out of the stable, people never look too ornery. But when you put Christ on the cross, we get a different view of ourselves.

“If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing, he surely would have it, ‘cause He was the King!”  But he gave that up.  He said goodbye to his glory.  I have no idea what it was like in Heaven when the Son of God left, but the angels had to be in some kind of shocked awe to see their creator being made flesh….. and then….”haste, haste to bring Him laud, the babe, the Son of Mary.”

Somehow the manger scene no longer causes us to want to run to God and get on our knees before Him and say “thank you for what you’ve done.”  But the writer of that song thought we should make haste to honor Christ as Lord.

So, let’s look at Galatians Chapter 4 and let’s see if we can get a clear picture of Christmas.  We want to see it in its proper proportion.  We want to then ask ourselves again as we have been asking for the last 4 weeks, “What has Christmas done to me and what have I done to Christmas?”

Paul says in Verse 4, and I’ll explain the context as we go along…  [Excuse me, Chapter 4, Verse 1…If I had a nickel for every time I did that in the pulpit I would be rich…calling the chapter the verse.]  Chapter 4, verse 1:

 “I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child is no different from a slave though he is the owner of everything.  But he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father.  In the same way, we also when we were children were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.  And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into your hearts crying “Abba, Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”

What kind of inheritance are your parents gonna leave you?  If you are a Christian because of Christmas have become an heir of God.  What we want to do is just look at Christmas in 3 dimensions: 

Do we see why Christmas is needed?  Can we see why Christmas is needed? Sometimes we are so familiar with it that all we think about is well, that’s just what this time of year is, but why did we need Christmas?

Paul always talks in the Bible, the Bible itself always speaks of life in context and I saw life so out of context this week on a television program.  We’ll get to that in a minute, but Paul put life in context and when he did that he talked about two things over humanity that keep us in bondage, but he did it this way.  He reminded us of life as a whole, that we are created, that after creation there was a fall into sin, that after the fall a promise from God came to this man named Abraham that through his lineage, through his seed, all the generations, all the families of the earth would be blessed and then after the promise came the law.  So, if you want a context in which to see all of human life, that would be it.  Just remember 4 words: Creation, Fall, Promise, Law.  Because if you see anything out of its context it is impossible to define it correctly.  What Paul dealt with in Chapter 3 were Jewish people in their condition under this thing called The Law.  They knew that God had made them, they knew they had fallen into sin, they knew there had been a promise given to Abraham; they knew there had been a law given through Moses.  And then Paul says these words in Chapter 3, verse 21:

          “Has the law been contrary to the promises of God?  Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.  But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin.”

[There’s the context.  Here scripture is not just speaking of the Word of God, it is used as a synonym for God Himself.]

 “The scripture imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.  Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming of faith would be revealed.  So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.”

I want you to walk with me and think hard for just a minute  to make sure we get this context right.  God is overall.  He created us. He created the earth.  He created us as individuals down through the ages.  That is how we got here even though we got here through the relationship of our parents.  Because our first parents, Adam and Eve, fell into sin we inherited what they were and we have a propensity, a bent, to do what is wrong.  It is called “Sin” in the scriptures and I am not talking about when you go out and do something wrong.  I am talking about a nature.  It is just in us to do that.  So, I am not talking about correcting a particular problem, but correcting a nature that is within us.  All of creation has been affected by this.  Then God gave this promise to Abraham saying one day a deliverer is going to come from your seed and he is going to deliver you from this bondage to sin you are under.  And then, 435 years later came the law, not the promise but the law.  The law was not a way for you and I to impress and please God and to become Christians. The law had at least two functions:  One was to provide a civil organization for human life to keep the law-breakers in check.  So many laws across the world are still based on God’s law, especially in our country.  It would be better if we would follow them and recognize that a little better I think.  But there was a second, and more important use of the law, and strange as it is, the law was never given to give us life.  It was given to show us that we are dead.  Paul said, “without the law I didn’t know what coveting was, but then the law came which says ‘you shall not covet’ and he said then I couldn’t stop.”  Actually, the law of God is what stirs up in you that which causes you to do wrong. 

Now that you look cross-eyed at me, let me see if I can explain it where we can feel it.  Do you remember when you were younger, the compelling… and I’m using younger so you’ll be honest.  If I told you right now, you wouldn’t be honest.  When you were younger and there was this compelling nature inside of you to do that which was wrong and see if you could get away with it…. You know, to cheat on a test, to do something at school you know you weren’t supposed to do, you know, cut class and then go back in.  What are you looking down for?  Are you feeling bad about it now?  Well, go back to school and apologize to your teacher.  I cut class once when I was in the 8^th grade.  It was wintertime and it was snowing a little bit outside.  I don’t know why I did what I did.  It was really stupid, but while I was outside of the class I was supposed to be in, and, obviously a friend did it with me because sinners love company, we were running through the hall of the school because no one was in it.  You know, the more you do wrong, the more you have this urge to do wrong.  Well, also, when you were about that age, I was a little bitty short guy in the 7^th grade, but in the 8^th grade I started growing a lot, and those of you who have boys, do you remember the time they started to touch the door frame when they would go through?  They would jump and touch it, and then they got to where they could touch the 8-foot ceilings and you had finger marks all the way across your ceilings?  Well, I had gotten to where I could touch the 10-foot ceilings in the hallway…actually not the 10-foot ones yet, but the lights.  The lights hung down a little bit, so I was showing everybody…”Watch this, I’m gonna get the light.”  And we were on the floor our class was on, and my feet were wet from just coming from outside, and so, as I run, and I go just like this to jump, my left foot goes out from under me, and I go bam…flat on my back… right in front of the classroom to where my teacher was.  You have never seen anybody get up so fast and run in your life.  But what compelled me to go out of class?  I had no purpose in doing that except to see if I could get away with it. 

Why does a human act that way?  If you have trouble understanding that in yourself or your children, I want you to understand that when the law comes and says “You shall not commit adultery” it not only has the sense of prohibition to that, somehow the law aggravates that sin within us, it makes you want to do that which it tells you not to do.  It tells you not to lie.  It tells you not to steal.  Do you know how many hours are stolen from employers these days with people playing on the Internet?  Steal….It gets inside of us and it is as if there is this thing that compels us to go forward and do what is wrong.  It is the aggravating sense, so then when the law comes and it is holy, it is good, and shines that light on us, all we can say is “I can’t keep it, God, I can’t do it.”  And God wants the law to come into our lives and to screw us down to the floor so tight where we throw our hands up in helplessness and say “I cannot keep your law.”  And bondage…that’s what Paul was telling the Jewish people here, but he didn’t let us escape. 

That is where we begin in verse 1 of Chapter 4.  He said,  I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child is no different from a slave.  The analogy was this:  It is as if when you were under the law you were a child and the law was your guardian, a ruthless taskmaster making you do everything right.  And now, he’s telling the gentiles who aren’t under the law a little bit of a different thing.  This child, though he is the owner of everything until the Father appoints a time, verse 2, “But he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father.”  The Father is in control of all things here.  The son can’t do a thing until the Father sets the date.

Verse 3:  “In the same way [this is us] In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.”

These are the things that are around us that cannot be seen.  The principles under which the world operates.  The world of the spiritual demonic forces, the flow of the world and the way it thinks, we are held captive to those things.  Bondage is what Paul is trying to get us to see; we are under bondage because we fell into sin, because there is a law that tells us how God expects us to live and we see we cannot keep it, we are under bondage.

Can you see it in today’s world?   You know something that helped me see it…actually, it encouraged my faith as much as anything I have seen in awhile and it was the ridiculous show that Barbara Walters was the host  of about Heaven.  Did any of you watch that show, or have seen it before, about Heaven?  Well, it was a real help to me.  Some of you are afraid to raise your hands. [Laughter]  And here’s how it was.  I saw how senseless the world and humanity sees God and Heaven.  So let’s look at it how we are in bondage to elementary principles and the reality of that in the world, first religiously.

This Barbara Walters show did the strangest of things.  We talk about wanting to be logical, wanting to think things through clearly, and I’m wondering at the strangeness of human logic that is using the combined knowledge of opposing religions to gather truth about heaven.  Have you ever wondered who got so smart, not the religious people at all, to discover that Islam and Christianity and Hinduism and Buddhism were all going to the same goal?  You know, people that tell us that never tell us where they got that idea, because a good Hindu, and a good Buddhist and a good Islamic person and a good Christian would tell you none of us are headed to the same goal.  We have been opposite since the day we became that.  We are polar, but, our wisdom says “If you’ll gather these opposing views, you might find some truth about heaven.”  And then, the ironic thing of using human wisdom to find God’s house…that would be like you coming to ask me where your grandmother lives.  I wouldn’t know.  So, why in the world would I ask you where someone’s house is that you’ve never been to?  Duh!  But we sit and we watch those things and think, “Oh, yeah…that’s really good, that’s cool.” 

They had the Dahli Lama on, the spiritual leader of Buddhism.  He is the first one to ever travel outside of Tibet.  He was asked what life’s goal was.  According to him, life’s goal is “Happiness.”  I know a lot of evangelical Christians that would totally agree.  Happiness!  Is that really a goal in life?  Did not Jesus say, “If you want to gain your life, you must lose it?”

Barbara Walters asked him, [by the way, I get really tickled at these interviews on television…first of all they’ve got somebody back here telling them what to say in their ear… second, they’ve already scripted this whole thing and it is hardly ever based on facts.  It is based on what would irritate the people watching the television show because irritation is what keeps us glued to the screen]   So, she’s imprisoned with some Islamic guy and she looks him right in the eye and says, “So you would like to tell me I’m going to Hell.” 

I’m thinking, “Why?”  There was no purpose in that question but to irritate you and me and to keep us watching!  So I went and watched “Meet the Santas.”

The Dahli Lama was asked, by Barbara Walters, “So are we closer to Heaven or to Hell on earth presently.”  “Oh, we are closer to Heaven, I think.”  He didn’t get out of Tibet much!  Man…What world does he live in?  Richard Gere has been practicing Buddhism for 30 years, I think it said.  His thought about Heaven and Hell was, “Hell is here on earth for those who are bitter and Heaven is here on earth for those who are content.  I really believe this, Barbara.”

 Well, I’m happy you do, but believing in something never verifies its truth.  You can have all the faith in the world that you want to have, but you can never have faith in faith.  You have to have faith in something concrete….[Oh, I hurt my back. I’m too old to do that anymore.]  You have to have something to put your faith in.

Then there was a lady, I don’t know who the lady was, it was one of the times I left the “Meet the Santas” and back to Barbara, and she said, “I just want you to know that you were not alive before you were born and there is no life after you die.”  I wanted to say, “How do you know that?”  What is your evidence?  Based on what empirical findings?  Have you been there and come back so you could tell us you know this for certain, or is it some kind of human conjecture?

 Then the scientists have found what they call “The God Gene.”  “That there are certain people that are…they just have a greater propensity to spirituality.”

That’s about the stupidest science I’ve ever heard in my life.  You could take every church, you could take this church right here, and every single human temperament is represented among us.  We don’t have a propensity to be spiritual.  We have propensities to reflect our spirituality in different ways.  Genetic research is wonderful, my friend, but our genetic research will always be limited to mankind’s knowledge. What about revelation?  What about if God spoke to the world and represented himself?  What if God said, “I can tell you how to get to my house if you would just listen to me?”  Doesn’t that make a whole lot more sense than trying to guess your way to Heaven?  That’s why we have to get Christmas out of the manger.  The world is in bondage socially, we still cannot get along, we are in bondage economically, we need money, we lust for money and the more money we lust for the poorer we feel.  The world is in bondage sexually, the perversions increase with haste every day.  We are in bondage to the elementary principles of this world.

The law then comes and reminds us that we can’t keep this.  Jesus said, “Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father who is in Heaven is perfect.”  And we can’t do that.  However, verse 4: 

          “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son. 

And Christ has the power over the law and over these elementary principles.  When he walked on the earth he cast out demons.  He stilled the winds and the water.  He cleansed lepers.  He raised the dead.  He forgave sins.  So, the first question, the first thing is this:  Why Christmas is needed because of life’s context and because of life’s reality.  We are in bondage.

What Christmas has accomplished….can you see that? 

Let’s just walk through the scriptures.  There are three things you’re gonna see here, let’s just walk through.  Look at verse 4: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son.  Notice that God is in control here.  The first thing we see here is a demonstration of God’s plan.  It is showing us that He is in control.  He decided when time was full; He decided when it was the right time for His Son to come.  He didn’t wait for us to plead for Him, to beg for Him, He initiated that at His on sovereign will and in this plan we see that God has an intimate interest in His creation and He demonstrates His sovereign power of His own choice that He sends His Son.  He set the time and the time was right, but the Son He sent was born of a woman; that means He was human, but He was God’s Son long before He came, He sent His son.  He has always been God the Son.  Anytime we want to take God and fashion Him the way we want him, that’s an idol.  But, God reveals Himself and that’s the second thing we see here.  There is a demonstration of God’s plan, but there is a revelation of God’s person. This Father, God the Father sent his Son, He was born of a woman and He was born under the law.  But Jesus kept the law.  The law could not stir up any sin in Jesus because there was none there.  When the law said, “You shall not covet,”  He said “I won’t and I don’t.”  When the law said, “You shall not commit adultery,” He said, “I haven’t and I won’t.”  When the law said, “Do not steal,” when the law said “To have no other gods before Yahweh,” He said, “I don’t and I never will.”

You see, He was under the law but He was not under bondage to the law.  It had no power over Him.  It stirred up no sin in Him because there was no sin in Him and it is a revelation that there is God the Father, who sent, there is God the Son who came and redeemed and adopted us into God’s family, then there is God the Spirit, who is now there to assure us, putting His spirit in our hearts to help us cry, “Abba, Father!”  The Triune God:  God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.  And then there is the redemption and adoption of God’s people.

I want you to look at the verse there, Verse 4 again.  We’re getting Christmas out of the manger scene:

                   “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman.”

Yes, there in the manger; born under the law, yes in that context, to redeem those who were under the law. He came with the purpose of purchasing us back who were under the bondage of the law and of sin’s power.  That’s what the word redeem means.  We were under a power; He came with the purchase price and the power to pull us out of that, and to redeem us, and after He did that, to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. 

There are three other places the word adoption is used in the scriptures for believers:

1.                 Ephesians 1 – It’s about eternity past – that God predestined us to be adopted.  He was thinking about you as the Father waiting for the fullness of time, before time ever began.

2.                 Romans 8:23 – It speaks of adoption, the redemption of our bodies.  We are waiting for that….that’s in the future… that there is gonna come a time when He is going to make you whole and perfect. 

3.                 Galatians 4, Romans 8: And what about today?  God has in mind before you were born, God has in mind after you die, and God has in mind now in Galatians 4 as well as Romans 8 our experience at the present.  He sent His Spirit into our hearts whereby we cry, “Abba, Father!”

So, you see what Christmas has accomplished.  It demonstrated God’s plan, His intimate interest in the world, it was a revelation of God’s person, who He is, how He goes about fitting us for Heaven to live with Him there, and Christmas accomplished the redemption and adoption of God’s people.  If Christmas never gets out of the manger scene, we’ll never get into Heaven.  If we don’t get beyond the manger, we place ourself in greatest danger.

And, finally, do you see what the Spirit of Christ is doing presently, today?  Christmas is not only to be looked back on.  Christmas not only does something for us in the far future.  God is active because of Christmas right now.  He says this in Verse 6:

          “And because you are sons, or children, God has sent the Spirit of His Son Into our hearts crying, Abba, Father!”

Sometimes God talks about his past work.  That’s what Paul was talking about at first.  God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those under the law.  He talks about our past adoption, but now, he’s talking about God is doing right now.

I wonder if Richard Gere, or the Dahli Lama, or Barbara Walters could say with confidence what God is doing right now.  I have no confidence in my knowledge of what God is doing right now, but I have utmost confidence in what God’s knowledge is of what He’s doing right now and this is what He says Christmas has done.  That when Jesus came for us, and by his sovereign power adopted us into His family, God not only had sent His son, but God sent His Spirit into our hearts whereby we cry “Abba, Father!”  The Spirit was never not a part of the Christmas Story.  Now, I know that’s a double negative, but He was always there, He has been in all the actions of God. He brooded over the waters at Creation, He took part in the counsel to create man, He guided Israel through the prophets, He overshadowed Mary with the divine pregnancy, He came on Christ at His baptism, He came on the early church, but here, Paul is not talking about those operations of the Spirit.  He is talking about the Spirit’s operation in and upon you as an individual.  That’s direct.  God, because of Christmas, works not only on His people as a whole, but he works on you as an individual and I need that.  I can know that.  The Spirit of God brings the Christmas Story out of the manger to you today and here’s what He does.  He assures us that we are God’s child.  Romans Chapter 8, the other verse that talks about the present adopting work of the Spirit, says “But God’s Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.”  He assures us we are God’s.  The second thing He does is He assists us in calling God, “Father.”  We know the Lord’s Prayer.  Based on my study this week, I think there was a time in the early church where the leader of the congregation, the pastor, the liturgist, whoever it was, when the congregation prayed the Lord’s Prayer together, the leader would probably say something like this: 

“We’re going to pray to God and we’re going to use Our Lord’s model , but only because He has given us permission are we going to call God, “Father.”  And then… with a sigh, a deep breath, and great caution, he would lead them and say “Our Father.” 

The term, Abba, we’ve misdirected people about that and Abba is not used in the Lord’s Prayer, but it is here.  It is not an infant’s term.  The infants may have been able to get those syllables out.  It is not so much the term of infancy as it is intimacy.  We have records where adults used that speaking to their father.  It is a relational word that teaches us what Christmas has done for us and the only way we can do it with that reverential fear is when the Spirit of God has been sent into our hearts….and we don’t say it in some detached manner….Father in Heaven…hallowed it be thy name.  Yeah, God’s my father, that’s really cool.  Because of Jesus, we’re like this!

No, it says…..”He sent his Spirit into our hearts and we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’ ”

It is no light thing that God fit you for Heaven.  Actually Christmas is the most costly and violent thing God has ever done.  Think about it with me.  The Son of God left Heaven in all his Glory and omniscience and omnipotence and omnipresence were clothed in the flesh of a human baby.  That is more than the human mind can comprehend.  That baby lived on this earth, born of a woman, born under the law, never sinning, never disappointing God, always honoring the Name of God, always telling people the truth about God and this world crucified Him because God foreordained that that is how He would die.  Christmas has got to get out of the manger, because Christmas is the beginning of fitting you and I for Heaven. 

You say, “Man, this is just too intense for Christmas Eve, Tony.”  No…..NO…This is what Christmas is all about.  And then God’s Son was buried and three days later, by the power of God, was raised from the dead. 

So, I don’t go on how I feel…that God could take me to Heaven.  I have based my single hope of Heaven on what He has done in Christ.  It has NOTHING to do with my feelings or I think this is right.  It has to do with God revealing the way and saying if you will trust me, I will do everything I have promised and here is the evidence, the birth, death, burial and resurrection of my Son!  That’s what it takes to fit us for Heaven.  Wow!

 So, let’s get Christmas out of the manger.  I know it feels warm and it feels good.  But it has no power to redeem, to adopt, or to assure us that we are God’s child. Can you see why you need Christmas?  Oh…I can.  I know why I need it.  I’m so grateful for it.  I’m in bondage.  Without my deliverer I’m hopeless, but with Him, I have full hope.  Have you experienced the accomplishments that Christ made because of Christmas?  He’s redeemed you.  He’s adopted you into God’s family.  His Spirit dwells within you and you call God, Father.  And are you experiencing the daily reality of Christmas?  Assurance in your heart that you are God’s.  Listen…..get the guesswork out of your religious hopes of Heaven and bank them on the one who has died, been there and come back to tell us how to get to God’s house.  Let’s pray together.