The story of Christ's birth is the ultimate love story. A story that can be expressed in a single word, Emmanuel. Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah considers the significance of that word, which means God with us, and why it makes Christmas worth celebrating every day of the year. From Why the Nativity?
Here's David with the conclusion of his message. Why did Jesus become a man? And thank you for joining us. We are beginning a new series for the month of December. It's the Why in the Nativity series, answering the questions about Christmas, based upon a book that I wrote several years ago by the same name.
And each day I'll be taking a different question, and we'll answer those questions throughout the week and throughout the month from the Bible. And we want you to be a part of it. We want you to know there's a study guide that will help you go through this as you review it. You can get that material from davidjeremiah.org. Most important of all, during this month, we make available a beautiful Beautiful devotional.
This year it is a beautiful blue-gray cover with silver embossed letters. And the title of this year's devotional is A Closer Walk with Jesus. 365 devotionals, one for each day of the year. And you will be blessed by these devotionals. They'll jumpstart you spiritually and help you get going each day.
This beautiful book is available for a gift of any size to Turning Point during the month of December. All you have to do is ask for it when you send your gift today. If you are interested in finding out how you can get more than one of these, there is a bundle project that's available on our website. Go to davidjeremiah.org and you'll find out all about it. And don't forget, this is December, very important month, and a month that we ask people very specifically to make special gifts to Turning Point because this is one of two months during the year when we talk about financial things.
And obviously, as we move toward the end of the year, We're asking God for a great ingathering of funds to help us as we face the challenges of the year to come. You can be a part of that. I hope you will be. If you haven't given before, this would be a good place to start. And many of you have been faithfully giving for a long time.
We say thank you and God bless you. And you could only know what God is doing through radio and television if you could see it through His eyes. One day you will. But right now, by faith, we walk and move forward with the gospel. Thank you for your gift during December.
And now, here's part two of Why Did Jesus Become a Man. Don't let anyone ever tell you that Jesus began in Bethlehem. He did not begin there, he had existed from time past. But he came into this form of humanity. when he was born in Bethlehem.
Historian William Barclay is in awe of this truth. And in one of his books, he writes these words: Here was the shatteringly new thing. that God could and would become a human person. That God could enter into this life that we live, that eternity could appear in time, that somehow the Creator could appear in creation in such a way that men's eyes could actually see Him. Jesus did not come to talk to men about God.
He came to show men what God is like, so that the simplest mind might know Him as intimately as the mind of the greatest philosopher. When John says that Jesus dwelt among us, He uses a word that means to live in a tent. Military people would say he came to bivouac with us. Or, as theologians define, he came to tabernacle with us. And that's what Jesus did, isn't it?
He came to be one of us. He came and moved in among us.
So Jesus came to be a man, to show us God as he really is. Once again, Barclay explains that before Jesus came, men could only grasp. and understand God's nature and His ways in part. It was only when Jesus came that they saw fully and completely what God has always been like. Jesus is telling us that God was and is and ever shall be like Jesus.
But men could never know and realize that. Until he came. Why did Jesus become a man? So that those of us who are men and women who understand other men and women. Would be able to understand God.
When you see Jesus doing what He did in the Gospels, You are watching. God. at work. Do you want to know God? Get to know Jesus.
That's why the only way you can become a Christian. It is to know Jesus because Jesus is the way that you know God. That's why Jesus said, I am the way. the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but through me.
If you want to know God, You have to know Jesus because Jesus is God's revelation to you about Himself. First of all, Jesus became a man to satisfy the prophecies of the Old Testament. Jesus became a man to show us the Father. Thirdly, Jesus became a man to save us from our sin. I love what Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:15.
He says, This is a faithful saying and worthy of All acceptance. That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, Paul wrote. And I'm the chief of them. I got to tell you something. If Paul is the chief of sinners, we're all in trouble.
Amen? That means that if Jesus came to save Paul and Paul considers himself the chief of sinners, then all of us here need to be saved. every single one of us. And how could Jesus come into this world to save us? And why was it necessary?
Why couldn't God, from His throne in heaven, make a sovereign decree of some sort that sin problem was over and that we would all be saved? Because, in the nature of God's holiness and his justice, he had to become one of us so that as a representative of mankind, he could go to the cross and on our behalf pay the penalty that we deserve. If God paid the penalty for us, it would have been an edict, it would have been a sovereign act, but it wouldn't have been. The ministry of redemption that the scripture speaks of and that the Old Testament portrays. We had to have a God-man.
to save us. A man couldn't do it. He would have no more power than any other man. And God could not do it in the sense of God the Father doing it without being identified with us in humanity. And I like to say it this way, and I've said this over and over throughout the years: that because he was God and man, He lifted up one hand and he took hold of the Father, and he reached down the other hand and he took hold of man, and at the cross.
In a moment of time he brought them together. And now with his hands reached out, he offers his salvation to all who will come. But he could not have done that. Had he not been God In the flesh. We needed Jesus to come to be our Savior.
If he had not come, we would be lost. God would not have saved us apart from the gift of His Son. The awful price that was paid for us on Calvary is really the story. of the cradle. Luke 19, 10, Jesus says, I have come to seek and to save that which is lost.
John the Baptist realized this when one day he saw Jesus coming and he said, Behold, the Lamb of God, which Takes away the sin of the world. Paul wrote about it in Ephesians when he said, In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. My friends, if Christ had not come, the course of humanity would be one long, downward, hopeless trudge toward the eternal night of despair. But Almighty God interrupted all of that. He shut down the cycle of sin by sending Jesus to be our Savior.
And if you've never put your trust in Jesus Christ, it would be true to say that without knowing Him, you cannot know God, and without accepting Him, you cannot be forgiven. for that's the purpose for his coming. to forgive us of our sins. And then there's another reason why he came. Jesus came to satisfy the prophecies of the Old Testament.
Jesus became a man to show us the Father. Jesus became a man to save us from our sins. And here's the fourth one: Jesus became a man. to sympathize with our weaknesses.
Now, this is something that is truly astounding to me. And you say, where in the world would you pick up such a doctrine? It sounds almost heretical. That Jesus would come down here to identify with our weaknesses.
Well, I didn't make this up, friends. It's right in the scripture. In the book of Hebrews, in the fourth chapter, we read these words: For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize. With our weaknesses. He came to sympathize with our weaknesses.
But was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we might obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of need. Get your arms around the scripture, especially at this season of the year. Do you know why you can go to Jesus with whatever is going on in your life and know that He hears you and understands you? You know that because one day He came down here to walk among us and experience everything that we've experienced.
And the Scripture says, He experienced it all to the fullest, apart from sin.
Some theologians like to argue about that, and they say. If Jesus could not sin, Then temptation could not have been temptation. Testing could not have been testing. All they understand is their own finite comprehension of this. But think about it for a moment.
Jesus wasn't tempted up until the third hour, or the fourth hour, or the fifth hour. He felt the whole weight of the temptation. Jesus wasn't tested just a little bit. He felt the whole weight of the testing. Jesus has been tempted and tested in areas you could never comprehend because nothing ever stopped it since he did not yield to it.
He felt the full force of it. And he understands you. Like no one else. That's why I love the term that comes at Christmastime when we say you call his name Emmanuel. And Emmanuel means what, class?
God with us. Not just God present with us, but God. As one of us. God understanding us. God entering into all of our sorrow and our sadness.
One of the disconnects at the Christmas season is that so many people who do not know Christ find the season to be one of despair and discouragement. Because apart from Christ, someone who can identify with us, where do we go to find help in the time of need? The passage says that because He is who He is, and because He did what He did in becoming one of us and identifying with our weakness, that means that we can be bold in going to Him in prayer, knowing that in praying to Him, we will find grace to help in our time of need. Do you need grace in your time of need? I do, and I'm so thankful that my Lord cared enough about me to come down here.
and become Like I am. Apart from sin. Dr. Maxwell Maltz. He's a plastic surgeon.
He tells a remarkable story. of this kind of love. He said there was a man who had been injured. attempting to save his parents in a terrible fire. His elderly parents were both burned to death in that fire.
And he was burned over a great part of his body, and his face was badly disfigured. He mistakenly interpreted what happened to him as some sort of punishment from God. for not having gotten his parents out safely. And in his sorrow and anguish and torture of soul, he would not let anyone see him. not even his own wife.
His wife went to see doctor Maltz. a plastic surgeon for help. And he told the woman not to worry. He said, I can fix him, I can restore his face. I can give him back his Features.
And the wife says, Well, that's great, except He has repeatedly refused help from anybody. He won't even see me. And she knew that if he went to her husband with this offer of some sort of plastic surgery. that he would be turned down.
Well, doctor Maltz was called again by this woman. And he asked her why she had come again when it seemed as if the problem had been resolved between them, that nothing could be done. And she said to him, I want you to disfigure my face.
so that I can be like him. If I can share in his pain, then maybe he will let me back in his life. Maltz wrote in his book, I had never heard anything like that in my life. He said, I'd always been paid to help people look better. She wanted me to make her look like her husband.
He wouldn't do it, obviously. He refused. But he decided to go and tell her husband what she had said.
So he went to the place where he was, and he knocked on the man's door, and he called loudly, I am a plastic surgeon, and I want you to know that I can restore your face. There was no response. Please come out, he said. Again there was no answer. Still speaking through the door, doctor Maltz told the man of his wife's proposal.
She wants me to disfigure her face to make her face like yours in the hope that you will let her back into your life. That's how much she loves you. And he said there was a brief moment of silence, and then, ever so slowly, The doorknob. began to turn. Jesus came into this world knowing what it would cost him.
He bore in his body the marks of evil. that we deserve. He bore in his sinless soul the weight of sin so that we could be forgiven. He bore in his manly frame the hurt and the pain of injustice that we might be understood. The way that woman felt about her husband is the way God feels about you and me.
But I want to tell you something. He did more than make the offer. He took on our face and our disfigurement. He became a man so that God would become touchable and approachable and reachable. He is Emmanuel.
God is with us. Whatever it is you have experienced, you can be sure that God has been all the way to the end of that road. And when you offer your prayer to him, He will embrace you with his love and he will be able to say, I have been there. and experience that. Jesus became a man to satisfy the prophecies of the Old Testament.
He became a man to show us the Father. He became a man to save us from our sin. And He became a man to sympathize with our weaknesses. Finally, he became a man to secure our hope of heaven. He came down here to be one of us, so that he could take us up there to be one of them.
He came down so that we could go up. Colossians 1:27 says, Christ in you, the hope of glory. Let me say it to you this way, friends. Until Christ comes to live within your heart, you are not fit for heaven. You couldn't exist up there.
You can't get in for one thing, but you couldn't exist if you did. The only way you can live in heaven is with Christ in you. He's the one who gives you the heaven equipment. He's the one who makes you fit for heaven. And until Christ is in you, you can't go to heaven.
You say, well, that's very arbitrary. That's very politically uncorrect. You know what? I don't care. Because it's the truth of the Word of God, you know?
I'm not trying to be nasty or in your face. This is not a put-down of anyone else. I don't know about anybody else. I just know what my Bible says. And my Bible says, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man comes to the Father except through me. There is one way to God, and as we understand the whole story, it becomes more and more easy for us to understand that, does it not? If God is the only one who became man, If God is the only one who cared enough to take us Away from the cross and put his own son there. If God has paid the entire price for all of this, this is God's idea, not mine. And God says, this is the way this works.
You come to God by coming to Jesus because Jesus is God. Jesus is the revelation of God. And Jesus is the one who paid the penalty for your sin and for mine. And one day, if we live until he returns, we'll hear the trumpet and we'll go up to be with him. And if we should die before he comes, our bodies will go in the grave and we will go in our spirit to be with him.
And one day our soul and our spirit and our body will be rejoined and we shall live with him forever in heaven. How do I know that? The Bible says it. The Bible teaches it, and listen to me. If Almighty God said all that He said about the first coming of Christ and it came true minutely in an accurate fashion, everything he says about the second coming of Christ will happen the same way.
Everything I believe about the first coming comes from the Old Testament, fulfilled in the New Testament. And now, here are some more promises. I believe all of those too. He's coming again, and when he does. We're going up to be with him.
Now I want to give you a little paradigm. And I want you to think about this really carefully, and I want to make sure I get this right because this is a little heady. Are you ready for that? Just a little bit brainy. But I want you to think about it because it's the kind of thing that if you care about it, it'll stick in your head.
And here's what it says. It says this about Jesus, this little paradigm. He had to come. as he came. To be what he was.
He had to be. What he was. to live as he lived. He had to live as he lived. to do.
What he did.
Now let me go back and explain that briefly. He had to come as he came. to be what he was. Both God and And man. He had to be what he was to live as he lived.
totally depended as a man on his father. in heaven. He had to live as he lived. He lived an absolutely perfect life. To do what he did, he gave that life in service.
and in sacrifice for us.
Now let's go back over that just one more time. He had to come. as he came. Born of a virgin. uniquely entering into the human race.
He had to come as he came. To be who he was. If he had come the normal route, he would have inherited the sin nature of humanity. But he came as he came to be what he was. And he had to be what he was.
The sinless Son of God to live as he lived. How did he live? Without sin. He was the perfect Son of God. And he had to live as he lived to do what he did.
Because if he had gone to the cross with one sin stain in his soul, he would have been disqualified as the savior of the world.
So he had to come as he came to be what he was. He had to be what he was to live as he lived. And he had to live as he lived to do what he did. Hallelujah. He is my savior and my Lord.
And we take for granted at this season of the year. All that happens is, you know, I love this season. I have to be one of the true romantics when it comes to Christmas. But I don't want us to get lost. and the tinsel and the paper and the fun.
and miss out on this truth. I've told people as I've done interviews with response to this book on the nativity, they asked me why did I do it? And I said, Because I want to take back Christmas. Because the story of Christmas as it was originally written is more exciting than anything I have ever heard that they've tried to come up with since then. And it's filled with the redemptive truth for all mankind.
Wouldn't you want to really get excited about that? Because Almighty God has visited us. He has come to be one of us, and we take it for granted. Charlie was ten. School is out for Christmas.
and the family had chosen to spend the holiday in the country. The boy pressed his nose against the bay window of the vacation home and marveled at the British winter they were experiencing. He was happy to trade the blackened streets of London for the cottonwhite freshness of the snow-covered hills. His mom invited him to go for a drive, and he quickly accepted, and they snaked the car down the twisty road, the tires crunching the snow as they went. And the boy puffed his breath on the window.
If you have never lived in the Midwest, you won't understand that, but it is a marvelous thing that happens at a certain time of the year. He was thrilled, and the mother, however, was a bit anxious. She could tell that this was more than a normal storm. Heavy snowfall came down, visibility lessened. And as she took a curve, the car started to slide, and it didn't stop until it was in a ditch.
She tried to drive out of the ditch, but She couldn't do it. Little Charlie pushed, she pressed the gas, but they were just digging themselves in deeper. They were really stuck, and they needed help. A mile down the road, there was a house and off they went, knocked on the door. Of course, the woman told them, of course you can come in.
Please come in and warm yourselves. The phone is yours. And she offered them tea and cookies and urged them to stay until the help arrived. An ordinary event. Don't suggest that to the woman who opened the door.
She has never forgotten that day. She retold the story a thousand times if she's told it once, and who could blame her? It's not often that royalty appears on your porch. for the two travellers stranded by the England winter were no less than Queen Elizabeth and the heir to the throne, ten year old Charles. You wouldn't forget that day, would you?
But I want to tell you something far more wonderful than that has happened. The message of Christmas is that royalty has walked down our streets. Heaven's prince has knocked on our door, and God has moved into our neighborhood, and He has you on His heart today. He has moved into our neighborhood. He is one of us.
He is here. Almighty God is here. We do not serve a God who is far away. We serve a God who is close at hand, for He has come to be with us. He is.
Our Saviour. And Christmas. He's here. Amen. Christmas is this marvelous story.
of God becoming a man. Five reasons for it these last two days. Tomorrow we're going to talk about why Joseph. I hope you'll be with us as we tackle that question. The study guide for this series is available from Turning Point at davidjeremiah.org.
It's beautiful. On the front cover are pictures from the movie, Why the Nativity, and inside notes and outlines for all of the why subjects that we're going to talk about this month. You need to get this. It's a great study, and it's available to you by going to davidjeremiah.org. You can purchase it there.
This will be a great help to you if you're doing devotionals anywhere during the Christmas season. All kinds of ideas for you to do that, and we're glad to supply it. Don't forget to ask for your copy of A closer walk with Jesus, the devotional for this month, It's our way of saying thank you to you when you send your gift to Turning Point of any size, but you must ask for this devotional when you write. Thank you for doing that, and we'll see you right here tomorrow. Today's message came to you from Shadow Mountain Community Church and senior pastor Dr.
David Jeremiah. We love hearing how God is using this ministry in your life.
So please write to us at TurningPoint, P.O. Box 3838, San Diego, California, 92163. Visit our website at davidjeremiah.org/slash radio or call 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's helpful new 365-day devotional for 2026, A Closer Walk with Jesus. Yours for a gift of any amount.
You can also download the free Turning Point mobile app for your smartphone or tablet, or search in your app store for Turning Point Ministries to access our content. Visit davidjeremiah.org/slash radio for details. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series, Why the Nativity? on Turning Point with Dr.
David Jeremiah.
