The Power of Christmas Truth

And so I say to you, friends, that no matter how bleak the cell, no matter how lonely the life there, no matter how painful the situation, no matter how stark the scene, no matter how mistreated, rejected, scorned and unjustly treated you are, no matter what life is dishing out to you, no matter how unfulfilled, you can live in the hope of life to come. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Whether you grew up going to church or not, you're probably familiar with the basic facts of Christmas. Jesus was born, angels announced his birth, and shepherds visited the baby. But if someone asked you, what makes all those details so life-changing, would you know what to say? For some overlooked yet profound Christmas truth, stay here as John continues his two-week study titled, The Best of Christmas.

Follow along now as John begins the lesson. 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. And if I might, may I draw you 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. 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. 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 like the term Jesus, Immanuel is a powerful Christmas truth. What does it mean?

Listen to what it means when you extrapolate its significance. 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.

By the way, that word meteko usually has to do with something that someone has which is not theirs naturally. 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 sins.

But there's more. Look at verse 17 of Hebrews 2. He had to be made like his brethren in all things. He had to be fully human in every sense in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest.

So what do you mean? A priest is someone who intercedes for you, someone who goes to God for you. How can he go to God for us and plead our case and ask God to help us if he doesn't understand us? So a priest was always chosen from among men because he could then pray for the needs of men because he knew what they were.

Jesus became one of us in order that he might rightly represent us as our faithful high priest before God. And verse 18 says he himself was tempted in that which he suffered and so he is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted. He knew temptation.

He knew testing. He knew suffering. Chapter 4 verse 15 says he was tempted in all things like we are but without sin. He never sinned but he still knew all the temptations, all the temptations. Say, what is this saying to us?

Listen, at Christmas when you see the child, see who he is, Emmanuel God with us. He was hungry. He was thirsty. He was tired. He slept.

He learned. He was glad. He was sad. He was angry. He was indignant. He was grieved. He was troubled. He was disappointed. He was tearful. He was overcome by the prospect of future events. He exercised faith. He read the Scripture. He prayed.

He sighed with an aching heart. He felt everything. You say your life is in danger. His was always in danger. You say you've been mistreated and misjudged.

So was he. No, this is not a cosmic God who is utterly indifferent. He knows our hurts and he knows our weaknesses and he's not only the Christ of salvation but he's the Christ of sympathy.

This is a Christmas perspective. The child born that day was God with us to feel what we feel, to experience what we experience, to be tempted and tested as we are tempted and tested in order that he might sympathize with us on the one hand, in order that he might aid us on the other hand. It's not just to sympathize. It's also to aid us. Yes, we cast our care on him because he cares for us, but it says here in Hebrews 2.18, he is able to come to the aid of those who are tested, God with us. What does it mean to come to our aid? What does he do?

I'll tell you what he does. He gives you the courage to face your cares. He gives you the wisdom to understand your cares.

He gives you the strength to endure your cares and he gives you the faith to trust him for the rest. No tree is going to give you that. No Christmas card. No Santa Claus. No person.

Just Emmanuel. God with us not only to understand us but help us. If all we needed was understanding, we could ask another man.

We need more. We need help. He gives us supernatural help. Jesus, for he saves us from our sins. Emmanuel, for he's God with us to help us in our struggle.

Third title. When the wise men arrived and confronted Herod, verse 2 of chapter 2, they said, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? Here he is introduced as king. He came not only to save his people from their sins. He came not only to sympathize and succor and help his people, but he came to rule the world. He came to rule the world. Down in verse 6 it says he will be a ruler.

A ruler. It is now many months after the birth of Christ when the wise men arrived. Chapter 2, verse 11 says the family is in a house by now and the wise men have come on a long journey. They go to King Herod to find out about this other king and of course King Herod is paranoid. King Herod is a maniac of the worst order. King Herod isn't even a king and that's why he was so nervous. He was an Idumean who was put into that position by the Romans. He was a political king.

He'd been in a long time by now, but he was paranoid about losing his position. So paranoid was he that if he didn't like somebody, he got rid of them. If he felt them threatening him, he killed them. He drowned the high priest, for one. He murdered his wife. He murdered his wife's mother and he murdered three of his sons because he thought they were all threatening to his throne. And then he went through the city of Jerusalem, found all the most distinguished citizens in the whole population and said to his soldiers, put them all in prison and keep them in prison. And the minute I die, execute all of them. And when asked why, he said, because no one will mourn when I die and when I die, I want mourning in Jerusalem.

And if they won't mourn for me, they'll mourn for them. Then, when he heard there was a little baby king born, he set out to murder all the male children under two years of age and massacred babies all over. He was paranoid.

He was a maniac. He wasn't even a true king. And set against that fake king who wasn't a king, who didn't come from a royal line and who wasn't even a Jew, is the true king of the Jews. Jesus. Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?

There's something to focus on when you look into the Christmas scene. Jesus, savior. Emmanuel, sympathetic high priest. King, ruler, monarch, sovereign. That child was born a king. The wise men brought fitting gifts for a king.

Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. He was a king. Not a very auspicious beginning for a king. Not for the king.

The king of kings and lord of lords. And even through his life, it didn't appear that he was the kind of king that they wanted him to be. And even the disciples were wondering, when is he going to take his kingdom?

When is he going to assert himself? And Pilate confronted him and said, Are you a king? And he said, Yes, I'm a king. But he said, My kingdom is not of this world.

If it were of this world, my servants would fight. He said, I'm a king, but my kingdom is a spiritual kingdom. But he also demonstrated in his transfiguration that someday his spiritual kingdom would come to earth in the great future millennium when Christ reigns on the earth. Yes, he was a king. Not just a king like other kings, but a king unlike any other king.

A king over all kings. In fact, in Psalm 2, the Father said to the Son, This day have I begotten thee, and I have given thee the nations of the world as thine inheritance, and thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron. In the book of Revelation, we look to the future. And as we look to the future, we see Jesus, already the spiritual King of Kings, begin to take his earthly throne. It tells us in Revelation chapter 11 and verse 15, As we look ahead, and the seventh angel sounded, and there arose loud voices in heaven, saying, The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever. Chapter 12 verse 5 says, And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. And we see him as he comes to his kingdom in Revelation 19.

Heaven opens up. He comes on a white horse. His name is faithful and true. Verse 11, And in righteousness he judges and wages war, and his eyes are a flame of fire, and upon his head are many diadems, and he has a name written upon him which no one knows except himself, and he is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God.

And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following him on white horses, and from his mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it he may smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, and he treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God Almighty, and on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He will come. He will come, and I believe he will come soon.

He will come as the equalizer. He will come as the avenger. He will come as the king, the puny, petty, little monarchs of this world who raise their fists in an assumed pseudo-sovereignty as if they ruled anything will learn who really rules, like Nebuchadnezzar who thought he had made his own kingdom and wound up eating grass in insanity because he thought he could take the glory of the true king. All the monarchs of this world will bow their knee to Jesus Christ when he comes in his kingly glory. He is king in the spiritual kingdom. He will be king over the world and the universe in the future. And as you look at that little babe in the manger, that is the Christmas reality.

What a child. Jesus, he saves his people from their sins. Emmanuel, he is God with us, sympathetic high priest, able to understand and to aid us.

King who rules a spiritual kingdom which will someday come to his people, and at which point he will rule the world. Finally, verse 4 gives us one more very familiar term. It says that he began to inquire of them where the Christ was to be born. The Christ is just a term that means the Messiah, the anointed. Messiah, Christ, same thing. One from Hebrew, one from Greek means the anointed one, God's special anointed one. And it reflects his right to rule, his right to have authority and sovereignty as the promised Messiah of God. There's so much in that term that we can't focus on at all, but let me just capture one element that I believe is inherent in that. When you have the great prophecy of Isaiah chapter 9 introducing the coming Messiah, it says that there will be a child, a son, and he will be wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, or the Father of eternity or the eternal Father.

You could translate it a number of ways. The Messiah is the eternal one, and he is the eternal Father in the sense that he is the eternal generator of life. He is the life giver, and that is certainly the intent of John 1. In him was what?

Life. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. When you see the word Christ, think of him in this way as the generator of life, the giver of life, the originator of life, the creator of life, the giver of life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

I am come that you might have what? Life. I am, John 11, 25, and 26 says, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and he that liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

Do you believe this? John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. John 14, 19, because I live, you shall live also. Peter says, you have put to death the prince of life, the one whom God raised from the dead, and therein was the essence of his life demonstrating. He gave his demonstration that he was in charge of life.

How? By rising from the dead. So when Peter calls him the prince of life, he identifies him as the giver of life.

By the way, the word prince is archigos, which means beginner, initiator, author, my favorite, originator, originator. So when you think about this child, think of him as the originator of life. When you think about the cross, think about the unbelievable conundrum, the hopeless paradox that they actually took the life of the giver of life.

And if, spiritually speaking, you take the life of the giver of life, you will never be able to receive life. Jesus, Emmanuel King, is the one who gives life, sustains life. He is the one of whom it is said in Psalm 36, 9, for with thee is the fountain of life. You who were dead in trespasses and sin, has he made alive together with Christ.

And so I say to you, friends, that no matter how bleak the cell, no matter how lonely the life there, no matter how painful the situation, no matter how stark the scene, no matter how mistreated, rejected, scorned, and unjustly treated you are, no matter what life is dishing out to you, no matter how unfulfilled, you can live in the hope of life to come. His name is not Jesus, Emmanuel King Christ, because he's our example. His name is not Jesus, Emmanuel King Christ, because he's our teacher. His name is not Jesus, Emmanuel King Christ, because he's our guide. His name is not Jesus, Emmanuel King Christ, because he's our friend.

He is all of that. But 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. And when you know all that, and when you believe all that, and when you confess all that, then you have seen through the trappings, through the simplicity of the birth of Christ. That'll make your Christmas significant, really significant. If you'll do what Hebrews 12, 2 says, Fix your eyes on Jesus, King Jesus, Christ Jesus, Emmanuel.

It ought to make it the greatest Christmas for you two. Let's pray. Father, we express to you our worship at this moment, thanking you for the gift of Jesus Christ. Lord, help us who are free and unbound, who have spouse and children and home and friends and all the good things of life, not to squander our attention on those things and miss those contemplative, worshipful moments of focusing on you, fixing our eyes on Jesus and all that he is.

Make this the most significant Christmas for all of us. And for those for whom Jesus is not the Savior of their sins, who has not delivered them from death, who has not forgiven them because they have never come in repentance, may this be the day that they turn from their sin and fall on the mercy of a forgiving Savior. And for those who know nothing of the Emmanuel, who know not what it is to have a sympathetic, compassionate, strong high priest, may this be the day that they embrace Jesus Christ and find his sufficiency. And for those who are not a part of his kingdom, who do not enjoy the bliss of being ruled by his beneficent sovereignty, may this be the day that they subject themselves to him and enter the kingdom. For those who have no life, may this be the day that he gives them life. May we worship Jesus, Emmanuel, King, Christ with all our hearts, and may he be pleased with the gifts that we bring.

Amen. That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, and you just heard John's lesson titled The Power of Christmas Truth Here on Grace to You. It's part of John's series called The Best of Christmas. Well, John, today, if I may, I'd like to add another of Jesus' titles to your list from the lesson. The title is simply The Word. Jesus is called that in the first chapter of the Gospel of John. Talk about the significance of that name and the practical difference it makes for believers. Yeah, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. The Word was with God and the Word was God.

That's a beautiful name for Jesus because he is, as the writer of Hebrews says, the exact representation of God. He is the fullness of God's majesty. He is God in flesh, so he is God who speaks.

That's why he's called the Word. So Christ is the very living Word of God, and that's why in his ministry he said, I speak only what the Father tells me to speak. My words are the Father's words.

If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. He is the Word of God. He is God speaking. He is God revealed. If we didn't have Christ, we wouldn't have the clearest of all revelations of God. I mean, there's a revelation of God throughout the Old Testament.

You learn much about his attributes. But God has spoken in his Son in a way that is the most full and rich and complete and comprehensive manifestation of God. So he is God's Word spoken in human form and at the same time fully divine. Christ is everything. He is God revealed to us. And beyond that, of course, he is our personal loving Lord and Savior.

You shouldn't ever think that you have enough of him. There ought to be constantly in your heart a hunger for more. And we'd love to help you with that.

So there's still some time to purchase. Let me start with this. The MacArthur New Testament Commentary Series covering every verse of the New Testament. And the New Testament is the full revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It goes through every phrase in the New Testament. And let me remind you also of the flagship resource of our ministry, the MacArthur Study Bible, full of footnotes explaining every passage in the Scripture. Another devotional book that we'd love to offer to you, Remember and Return, 31-day devotional intended to increase your love for Christ.

And then a devotional with 365 entries, daily readings from the life of Christ. All these things and many more are available from Grace To You. Thanks, John, and friend, as John said, there is still time to place your Christmas order, but you need to get in touch soon. All of those resources would make great gifts for family, friends, and neighbors you've been witnessing to.

Again, the resources John mentioned, the devotional books Remember and Return and daily readings from the life of Christ, the MacArthur New Testament Commentary with 33 volumes to choose from, and the MacArthur Study Bible. To place your Christmas order, contact us today. Our number here is 855-GRACE, and make sure you call between 730 and 4 o'clock Pacific time.

You can speak directly to one of our customer service representatives, and they'll get you the right shipping option for pre-Christmas delivery. The titles to ask for again, the MacArthur New Testament Commentary, the devotional books Remember and Return and daily readings from the life of Christ, and the MacArthur Study Bible. Our number again, 855-GRACE. And sometime this week, I'd encourage you to go to gty.org and look for a two-part Christmas presentation titled One Perfect Life. In these special audio messages, John MacArthur weaves together the life of Christ from his birth in Bethlehem to his death on the cross. And it might be just the thing for your family devotions as Christmas draws closer. Again, to listen to the One Perfect Life Christmas special, go to gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Make sure you're here for tomorrow's broadcast when John looks at why Christ is worthy of your worship and why it's so important to make Him central in your Christmas celebrations. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Grace To You. .