The Power of Christmas Truth

His name is Jesus because He saves us from our sins. His name is Emmanuel because He is our sympathizing strengthener. He is God with us. His name is King because He's our sovereign and the sovereign of the universe.

And His name is Christ because He is the source of our life. In terms of energy use, the numbers are probably higher at Christmas than any other time. There's the decorative lights, ovens, phones, and children's toys. Power in one form or another really flows on Christmas, yet the most significant Christmas power has nothing to do with batteries and it won't be showing up on your utility bill. Today on Grace to You, as John MacArthur continues his series, The Best of Christmas, you'll see where the real power of Christmas comes from. Today's message is called The Power of Christmas Truth. So take your Bible if you're able, turn to Matthew chapter 1, and follow along with John MacArthur. Will you open your Bible as we look together to this great, great story of the birth of Christ? And our text, Matthew 1 21, And she will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins. Now all this took place, that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bear a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which translated means God with us. And Joseph arose from his sleep, and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took her as his wife, and kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?

For we saw his star in the east, and have come to worship him. And when Herod the king heard it, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him, and gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he began to inquire of them where the Christ was to be born. I want to speak to you this morning on the theme, The Power of Christmas Truth. I would pray that somehow, even in our society, there would be nothing that would distract us from the awesomeness of Christmas, although such a prayer I admit I find almost wishful thinking. Christmas has become so complex, so chaotic, so confusing with all the stuff, that the reality of the simplicity of the birth of Christ has been blended into the fantasy and lost its significance. Christmas should be simple, not complex.

Very simple. Christmas should be stripped of all of its trappings so that all that is left is the simplicity of God becoming man. That is the only element in the Christmas seasonal celebration that has in it any lasting power to effect life. There is no real strength, no real peace or comfort or hope or love or promise or confidence for the future to be found in Santa Claus. There's no lasting value in any earthly gift or any earthly sentiment expressed. The tree always dies metaphorically unless it never lived because it was fake to begin with.

No package and no party can really sustain a flickering life. No bright lights can lift up the downcast soul to a higher spiritual level. There is no power in Santa Claus. There is no power in the tree. There's no power in fellowship and there's no power in lights, sentiments.

And when you are desperate, you need power. In the hour of need, all Christmas has to offer is Jesus Christ, and He is utterly sufficient. Only He can fill the heart with hope in the time of doubt. Only He can fill the heart with lasting joy in the time of sadness. Only He can fill the heart with peace in a time of fear.

When life reaches its moment of desperation, the only hope is Christ. But what is it about Christ that gives this hope? What is it about Christ that gives this joy and deep sadness? What is it about Christ that provides comfort and loneliness?

What is it about Christ that gives peace in fear? One simple look at the birth of the Son of God should tell us the answer to that question. If I might, may I draw you back to our passage in Matthew 1 and 2 and point you to four titles given to Christ. Each of which gives us insight into why He was so sufficient for us and the only real power in Christmas. The four titles, verse 21, He is called Jesus. Verse 23, He is called Emmanuel. Verse 2, He is called King. Verse 4, He is called Christ. All of those titles for that one little child, Jesus, Emmanuel, King Christ. Jesus, Emmanuel, King Christ.

These titles will tell us how the child of Christmas has the power to restore the fainting heart. First of all, let's consider the name Jesus. Verse 21, And she will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus.

Why? Because it is He who will save His people from their sins. Jesus, He gives salvation to His people.

He saves them from their sins. Down in verse 25, When He was born, it says that Joseph called His name Jesus in obedience to the divine command. The name Jesus, by the way, is the sweetest name the Savior knows, at least from an earthly viewpoint. It is used over 700 times in the New Testament.

It is a form of the Hebrew word Yeshua, Joshua, Jeshua, Jehoshua. It means Yahweh or God will save. Luke 2.11 says He would be born a Savior. Mark 10.45 says the Son of Man is come to save. Luke 19.10, He has come to save. He shall save His people from their sins.

That is a glorious reality. The Apostle Paul writing in Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 7 says, In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. Now the implication here is that men are sinners and that sin is a damning reality from which man needs to be saved or delivered or rescued. And Jesus came into the world to save you from your sins.

In what sense? To save you from the ultimate consequence of your sins, namely eternal damnation. To save you as well from even the present domination of your sin. But primarily and ultimately, He came to save you in the sense that He delivers you and He delivers me and He delivers all who believe in Him from the ultimate damnation that sin requires. You might say, and I think fairly so, that forgiveness of sins is the primary result of salvation as presented in both the Old and the New Testament. Salvation is by definition a rescuing from the consequence of sin. At the Last Supper, as Jesus gathered with His disciples the night before He was to be taken prisoner and then crucified, it says He took the cup and He said regarding that cup that that cup was representative of the blood of the covenant, His own blood, which is poured out, He said, Matthew 26, 28, for the forgiveness of sins. In Acts 13, 38, and 39, the Scripture says, Through Him, that is Jesus, forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things.

You see, He was a child born to provide forgiveness for sins. Israel's great holy day is a day called Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Annually, the ancient Jews celebrated that one day in which a great offering was given for all the sins of all the people through the previous year. And on that day, according to Leviticus chapter 16, the high priest would select two goats, two sacrificial goats. One of those goats was killed, slaughtered, and his blood was splattered all over the altar as a sacrifice for sin, as a symbol of the need for death with regard to sin.

But the other animal was not killed. The high priest would go to the other goat and put his hands on that goat, symbolically transferring the sins of all the people onto that goat, and then that goat was taken into the wilderness so far away that it could never find its way back or be seen again. Symbolically, God ordained that simple and graphic ceremony to show that where there was a sacrifice for sins, there was a removal of sin so that they would never, ever be brought to attention again. Now that goat that was slaughtered couldn't really pay the price. It could only symbolize the one who could. And that goat that carried sin out into the wilderness symbolically couldn't really carry away sin, but it symbolized the one who could. And it didn't take two, it only took one, Jesus, who both gave the sacrifice for sin and carried our sins away. In fact, the word to forgive, aphiemi, means to send away, to dismiss.

It is used in legal terminology to refer to canceling a debt or granting a pardon. So, through His death on the cross, Jesus took the sins of all of us on Himself and died our death as a blood sacrifice for our sins, and then carried them away an infinite distance from where they will never return again. The Bible speaks of this in Psalm 103, 12, it says, As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgression from us.

How far is the east from the west? That's infinite. That's a Jewish expression for infinity. Isaiah 44, 22 says, I have wiped out your transgressions like a thick cloud and your sins like a heavy mist. I can no longer see your sins any more than you can see a mountain in a dense fog, blotted out. And Micah, the great prophet, in chapter 7 says, Who is a pardoning god like you, who passes by our transgressions and who buries them in the depths of the sea.

Oh my, are we hearing this great truth. This was a child born to take away sin, to pay the price for our sins so we don't have to pay that price. That is why Paul says, There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8 and 1. No judgment to us.

Why? Because the judgment fell on Christ. He will save His people from their sins.

And He has done that. He paid the price. He died the death that we would have had to die. And He carried our sins so far away even God will never again consider their existence. 1 John 2.12. John writes, I'm writing to you little children because your sins are forgiven for His name's sake. Just because of who He is, just for His own purpose, just for His own glory, He forgave all your sins. What a blessed reality that Jesus Christ came into the world to forgive sin. Doesn't mean that we don't commit sin. We do. Doesn't mean that sin won't have harmful effects in this life. It does. What it does mean is we will never pay the ultimate penalty for sin.

It's been paid. We will never die eternally. We will never spend a moment in hell. We will go from this life into heaven. Listen, no matter what deprivation a man or a woman might experience, no matter how lonely your life might be, no matter how sad it might be, no matter how painful your situation, no matter how bleak the Christmas season, no matter what dungeon or prison cell you might find yourself in, no matter how strong your fears and how terrifying the prospects of the future to you might be, if you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you can see through to the One who has forgiven all your sins. And in that there is fullness of joy. You do not need to fear that your difficulty is God's way of making you offer full atonement for your own iniquity.

Not so. No matter what goes wrong in this life, no matter what is not the way you would like it, no matter how much unfulfillment you face, know this, you have complete and perfect forgiveness for all your sins through Jesus Christ if you place your faith in Him and you will never pay for your sins. Christ has done that.

Christ has done that. Second title given to the child of Christmas comes in verse 23. This is one of the great, great titles that he bears. Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son and they shall call His name Immanuel, which translated means God with us. He is not only Jesus, He is Immanuel.

And to see that at this time of year is to see a great reality. By the way, verse 23 is a quote from the Old Testament. It is taken from Isaiah chapter 7 and verse 14. Here the angel of the Lord speaking to Joseph quotes Isaiah 7, 14. Let me tell you a little bit of background about that because you might wonder as you study the Bible, why do you read along and all of a sudden, boom, here's a prophecy about Messiah.

Let me just give you a little bit of the background. The scene in Isaiah chapter 7 is during the reign of King Ahaz in Judah. You remember that after Solomon's life, the kingdom was split. Israel in the north, ten tribes, Judah in the south with just Judah and the tribe of Benjamin.

The northern kingdom was apostate. The southern kingdom at times was true to Jehovah God. It is in the southern kingdom that Isaiah is prophesying. It is in the southern kingdom that Ahaz is king. Ahaz, by the way, is the son of one of the great kings, Uzziah. But Ahaz, though son of the great Uzziah, filled Jerusalem with idols. He reinstated the worship of the pagan god Molech which required, by the way, sacrificial burning of babies and he burned his own baby on the altar to Molech.

He was so wicked and so evil that even wicked kings around him were upset at what he was doing. Two of them, a man named Risen, who was king of Syria, and a man named Pekah, who was ruling over the area of Israel, that territory, decided to get rid of Ahaz. So these two kings, Risen and Pekah, were going to move against Ahaz to get him out. In the face of such a threat, he decided to strengthen his hand, not by turning to God to preserve the Davidic line and preserve the people, but he decided to turn to the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser, feeling that if he made an alliance with this great Assyrian monarch, Risen and Pekah would think a long time before they would attack him because of the formidable nature of this man and his powerful army.

In fact, he was so adamant about it that he went and plundered the temple, stole all the gold and silver, and gave it to Tiglath-Pileser to buy him and buy his allegiance. It was precisely at that time that God said, Isaiah, you need to go have a talk with Ahaz. And so God sent Isaiah to Ahaz to confront him, to tell him not to trust the Assyrians, but trust God, the living God. In spite of all of his evil, he said, God will preserve your people, and God will preserve the Davidic line. He will deliver you from those two kings. You don't need this alliance with the Assyrians.

Ahaz refused to listen. And it's at that juncture that the prophet said this, Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel. What's he saying?

How does this fit? He's saying, look, God is saying to you, no one will be allowed to destroy the people of God, and no one will be allowed to destroy David's royal line. The virgin shall be with child, shall bear a son, shall call his name Immanuel.

This thing is going to go off the way it was planned. That's what he's saying. Even if the armies of reason and Pekah come against you, the virgin born son of God who is Immanuel will come. Now what does that mean? Listen carefully to this. What Isaiah is saying to him is, God has promised not to forsake his people.

That's what he's saying. You don't have to fear these two petty kings. God won't forsake you. In fact, when the Messiah comes, it will be God with us. God not only will not forsake you, he will come among you. That's the point.

That's the point. Just trust him. He won't forsake you. Don't you know his promises to come and dwell among you? What does Immanuel mean? It means God lives among us. It means God became a man. God will be present with his people.

The child of Christmas is Immanuel, God with us. That child that was born that day, though fully human, was also fully God. In the Old Testament, the presence of God was in the tabernacle. The presence of God was in the temple. And now, in the New Testament, the presence of God is in a body in the person of Christ.

God with us. Listen to Hebrews chapter 2, verse 14. Since then the children share in flesh and blood. He himself, that is Christ the Lord, also partook of the same. We have flesh and blood, so he took flesh and blood. We share, we koinonia in the same common physical elements. And he partook.

He took them on. We are by nature flesh and blood. Immanuel was not, but he became flesh and blood.

He added to himself our nature to die our death, to save us from our sin. You're listening to Grace to You with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. His current study, The Best of Christmas, is a collection of some of John's most popular Christmas messages from five decades of ministry.

Well, with the weekend upon us and just over a week until Christmas, for lots of people, John, I'm sure shopping is on the agenda. For those like me who still haven't checked off everyone on their Christmas list, I know you have some ideas for gifts that can make a profound spiritual difference long after December 25th. Absolutely, and these are the spiritual resources that are going to be transformative in the lives of God's people. First of all, I would mention Truth for Today. Truth for Today is a compact, kind of beginner-level daily devotional book, particularly helpful for someone who may not even be a Christian. This would be a very, very accessible introduction into Christian truth, exposing the reader to a brief portion of Bible truth every day. Again, this devotional is called Truth for Today, kind of a basic beginner's devotional. And then one of my favorite resources, One Perfect Life.

This is a very unusual book. It weaves together everything the Bible says in the New Testament and the Old Testament about the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, and it weaves it together in a complete chronological narrative so all the various scriptures, including the four gospels, are pulled together in one narrative. And you just read the full story as if it were written in one book, and that's what One Perfect Life is. It harmonizes all the details from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John without repeating exact parallel statements, and it includes some select notes from the MacArthur Study Bible that are also helpful.

It's one of my favorites. I have a copy of One Perfect Life at arm's length all the time because I refer to it so frequently. And then, of course, I want to mention the MacArthur Study Bible. We have it in the New American Standard, the English Standard, and the New King James.

Plus, we have it in Spanish, French, Russian, Italian, Chinese, and more. And this is a study Bible, as you probably know if you've been listening. If you don't have one, you ought to get it. We have it in everything from hardcover to leather editions, including premium goatskin, just a wonderful gift to give. So think about these gifts as you think about the people you love this Christmas season.

Thanks, John. And, friend, these books are gifts that will bless the recipient all year long. To order one of the resources John just mentioned, One Perfect Life, Truth for Today, or the MacArthur Study Bible, or any item from Grace to You, contact us today. You can place your order by phone at 855-GRACE, and our customer service team will help you find the right shipping option to make sure your gifts arrive before Christmas. Just call during regular business hours, Monday through Friday, 730 to 4 o'clock Pacific time.

You can also choose an express shipping option when you order from our website. That's GTY.org. And, again, to order One Perfect Life, Truth for Today, and the MacArthur Study Bible, call 855-GRACE or visit our website GTY.org. And while you're at the website, GTY.org, keep in mind that there are thousands of free resources available to you.

At the Grace to You blog, look for the series of articles titled God in a Manger. It's a great supplement to John's current study. And don't forget, John's entire sermon archive, more than 3,600 sermons, is available to download for free in MP3 and transcript format.

All of that and much more is free at GTY.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Be sure to watch Grace to You Television this Sunday, Direct TV, Channel 378. And be here Monday for the next installment of John's current study, The Best of Christmas. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace to You.