David Jeremiah - Unto You Is Born This Day a Savior
For some reason, lots of people want to strip Christmas of its historic and spiritual heritage. But I just want to remind you today that it's a little hard to get Christmas out of Christmas. Recently, I read this.
If they want to call it Christmas, great, let's point out that the first six letters of that word spell our Savior's name, Christ. If they want to call it a holiday, that's their right. We'll simply remind them that the word 'holiday' is derived from the words 'holy day,' and it refers to the holiness of the birth of Christ. If they want to call it Yuletide, that's fine. That's the old phrase for the 12 days of Christmas, which people in olden times called the feast of the Nativity. If they want to talk about the seasonal holiday, we'll tell them how Jesus came in due season and in the fullness of time. If they want to talk about Santa Claus, we're happy to explain that there really was a Christian leader named Saint Nicholas, who lived in the city of Myra, Turkey in the fourth century, and was famous for his generous gifts to the poor. If they want to talk about gift giving, I'll tell them about the Magi, who brought the first Christmas gifts to Christ. If they want to talk about the songs and sounds of the season, I'll tell them about the first choirs that filled the Bethlehem skies on the night that Christ was born. If they want to talk about Hanukkah, we'll talk about the Christ who is the light of the world, the personification and fulfillment of the Jewish menorah that stood in the ancient temple. And if, perhaps, they want to use the phrase 'X-mas,' we will just point out that the X in the Greek letter is the word 'chi,' C-H-I, which is the first letter and the symbol of Jesus Christ.
So I'm just saying that it's a little hard to get Christ out of Christmas. Christmas has always been about Christ, it always will be. The Bible uses more than 300 different names and titles to describe him. But Jesus can no more be contained in the number of his names than the ocean can be bottled up in a collection of beautiful containers. The names of Jesus, if we could understand them all, still fall short of declaring his glory. We love the name Jesus, it's the name of our Lord's personality. We love the name Emmanuel, it reminds us that he is God with us. But the name we should be most in love with, if we stop and think about it, is the name Savior. It's the name of our Lord's purpose, and his mission on this earth. Jesus and Emmanuel were names given to the parents of our Lord by the angel, but the name Savior was announced first to a group of shepherds on a hillside.
The record of it is in the famous Christmas chapter, Luke 2, and this is what it says. "Then the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.'" Israel in her history had had many so-called saviors. Nehemiah refers to that in his Old Testament book. He says, "Therefore you delivered them into the hand of their enemies, who oppressed them; and in the time of trouble, they cried out to you. You heard from heaven, and according to your abundant mercies you gave them deliverers who saved them from the hand of their enemies". They had many physical saviors. But Israel had never had a Savior like the one who was about to be born. Jesus took the title of Savior and gave it new and eternal meaning.
In the New Testament, the title Savior is found five times in the writings of Peter. I smile when I read that. If ever there was a man who needed a Savior, it was Peter. Even after he got saved, he needed a Savior to save him from himself most of the time. When he tried to walk on the water and he lost his faith, Peter cried out, "Lord, save me"! And Peter's whole life, like most of ours, was one long cry for a Savior. When the angels gave Jesus that name, they defined his life and his death. First of all, in Luke 2:11, we have this wonderful promise of the Savior. "For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord".
This is the fulfillment of a promise made through Isaiah the prophet over 700 years before the record of Luke chapter 2. Here is Isaiah, speaking into the future these words about a coming redeemer. "For unto us a child is born, and unto us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder. And his name will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, prince of peace". This is the promise the angel had made to Joseph just a few months earlier. Here is Matthew 1:21, "And she will bring forth a Son, and you will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins". Just when the people needed hope, God sent spokesmen to offer a foretaste of a better future. Throughout the words and the works of the prophets, there were glimmers of a Savior, a king, someone who would come and rescue and restore the people of God.
In fact, there were more than 300 specific prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures about the promised Messiah, as they called him. No, in Luke chapter 2, verse 11, where we are introduced to the title of Jesus as our Savior, it is all the pinnacle of the long-spoken words of the prophets of old that one day, God would send someone to redeem his lost people. The promise of the Savior. And then verse 11 tells us about the purpose of this Savior. "For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord". There never was a time in Jesus' life on this earth when he was unaware of his purpose. In fact, I doubt if ever a man walked on this earth who knew more of his mission from the beginning to the end than did Jesus. One of the reasons we know this is because the Lord Jesus described why he had come. His words are definitive. His words are clear. And all of them point to the one particular reason why he was born.
In Matthew 9, we read, "I have come to call sinners". In John 5, we read, "I have come in my Father's name". In John 6, we read, "I have come to do the will of him who sent me". In John 7, "I have come from him, and he sent me". In John 12, "I have come as a light unto the world, that whoever believes in me should not abide in darkness". If the written record is any clue, there is no sense of mission that has ever burned brighter than that which burned in the heart of the Lord Jesus. But perhaps his most moving statement came on the day when he encountered a strange little man named Zacchaeus. When I was growing up, we used to sing a chorus, and it had in the lyric these words, "Zacchaeus was a wee little man," and he was.
Yet, when Jesus passed through the town where Zacchaeus was, this wee little man ran ahead of the crowd and climbed into the branches of a tree. And Jesus called him by name, and invited him to lunch. And when the townspeople reacted to Jesus inviting Zacchaeus, a hated tax collector, to lunch, Jesus responded with this word, "The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost". When we celebrate Christmas, we're celebrating the fact that the God of heaven has sent a Savior to this world, not just a little baby for us to fawn over, not just a pageant for us to celebrate, not just a long-held time of buying and giving and receiving, but of acknowledging the fact that Almighty God cared enough for us that he would save us from our sin.
It is here that the ancient Jews and the modern religious people have misunderstood the purpose of his coming. In the days of our Lord's birth, the people of Israel were looking for a savior, but not like the Savior who was sent. Oh, they wanted to be saved, all right, from the Romans primarily. They wanted to get out from under the bondage of Roman dominion. They wanted their savior to set them free physically. And Jesus came to set them free spiritually, far more important, but they didn't know it then, and it's so sad that many times they do not know it now. We're not far behind them in many respects. We want a savior too, don't we? We want someone to save us from our bad marriages. We want someone to save us from our indebtedness. We want someone to save us from our boring jobs and our meaningless lives. And he came to save us from our sins.
We want him to save us from the sins of others. We'd like very much for him to forgive the sins of our spouses, for instance. "Lord, please come and save me from the sin of my husband, or the sin of my wife, or the sin of my boss". But in spite of the fact that many modern messages pander to that kind of gospel, that is not the gospel at all. Jesus came into the world to save us from our own sins. And you see, we needed a Savior. A Savior is needed to seek the lost because the lost will not seek the Savior. "The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost". Why do we not seek for a Savior? Because we believe we ourselves are the savior.
I remember some years ago, actually back in the late 90s, the media mogul Ted Turner, founder of CNN, established the United Nations Foundation with a pledge of $1 billion. And a CNN reporter asked him what prompted him to make such a donation. Was he hoping for some reward from God? "I'm not looking for any big rewards," he said, "I'm not a religious person. I believe this life is all we have. I'm not doing what I'm doing to be rewarded in heaven or punished in hell. I am doing it because I feel it's the right thing to do. Almost every religion talks about a savior coming. When you look in the mirror in the morning, when you're putting on your lipstick or shaving, you're looking at the savior. Nobody else is going to save you but yourself".
How glad I am that that is not true. We do need a Savior, all of us, every one of us. We understand that. We've all tried to save ourselves, and we are pitiful at it. Oh, we can make things a little better here and there, but when it comes to the deep, dark issues of our soul, we have no power to make it any different than it is. Because, you see, we were all born with the same disease. We inherited the old nature from Adam and Eve. And in our sin, we are incapable of saving ourselves. We will not come to God unaided. In Luke 15, there are three stories that are put together about something that was lost: a lost coin, a lost sheep, and a lost son. It's interesting that in that story, the lost sheep didn't come and find the shepherd, the lost coin didn't come and find the owner, and the lost son didn't come and find the father.
They were all pursued and had to be sought. The Lord God sent Jesus Christ into this world to seek after us. And this Savior, who was born in Bethlehem, is particularly and wonderfully suited for your salvation. He's come to seek and to save you because you were lost. Oh, not lost in the sense of that you don't know your way, but when we think of being saved, we usually think of pictures of sailors clinging to the wreckage of a ship, or helicopters hovering in the night sky, shining their beacons on the sea, and looking for the living who must be saved. We think of a collapsed mine, where workers are trapped beneath the earth. We think of a little girl at the bottom of a well, or even the favorite word picture of a single stray sheep trapped on a perilous slope. The Coast Guard will find those lost sailors, no taxpayer will complain about the expense. The miners will not be abandoned, the little girl must see the sunshine once more, and that one sheep must be rescued from danger.
These situations are urgent. And when we see them on television, we stop, and we pray, and we wait. But these temporal situations are transcended by the true tragedy of men and women who are lost in their own rubble of sin and darkness and pain, often without even knowing what they are longing for. Our world's inhabitants cry out for a Savior. We don't need to be saved from the sins of others. We need salvation from our own sin. And until we are willing to acknowledge that, the Savior cannot help us. When we open our hearts and receive his offer to save us, he never, ever turns anyone away. There is no one, no matter who they are or what they have done, who is ever rejected by the God of heaven. In his Word, he says that he is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
The Savior's coming, you see, is a fact of history. He did come on a special day, at a special time. It is not only a fact of history, it's a fulfillment of prophecy. He came to a special place. You say, why in this little verse does it say that he came to Bethlehem? So that you and I would know it was an historic event. Bethlehem was unknown when the prophecies concerning it were made. But in that little city, in the city of Bethlehem, Jesus Christ was born. On a certain day, in a certain place, a Savior came to this earth. He's the Savior for the whole world. He's my Savior. And he wants to be your Savior if you will just allow him to do so.
Sometimes, people say, "Oh, I believe that Jesus is the Savior of the world," but that's not enough. You must believe that he is your Savior. You must believe that Jesus has come to save you, and then you must ask him to be your Savior. You must open your heart. He doesn't force his way in to anyone's life. But I promise you today what he did when he died on the cross was sufficient payment for anything you have ever done, or will ever do. And he wants you to be forgiven. He wants to save you.
I remember, one day, seeing how people mocked the term "being saved". I notice in our evangelical language, we don't use that word very much anymore. We talk about coming to Jesus, or being converted, or giving our lives to Christ. But when you need a Savior, you need to be saved. When you need a Savior, you need someone to rescue you, to get you out of the situation you're in. And that's what Jesus came to do. And the Bible says that if you have the Savior, you have life everlasting. The only way you can get from here on this earth to heaven where the Lord is is to be saved. You must repent of your sin, you must ask God to forgive you, and you must acknowledge that Jesus Christ was born to be your Savior. He was the Son of God, perfect in every way, the son of man, human in every way, God the Son, and the son of man, the only one who could ever do what needed to be done, for he's the only one who ever was God and man.
And in his deity and in his humanity, he brought together a holy God and a sinful man, and on the cross outside of Jerusalem, when he hung there dying, he paid the supreme penalty for all the sin we would ever commit. And he says, "If you will believe that I am the Son of God and that I am your Savior, I will forgive you, and I will give you the gift of eternal life". In this day in which there is so much being promoted about how we can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, how if we just dig our feet in a little deeper in the trenches, we can make it different, there needs to be a re-emphasis in our churches about the importance of being saved. I hope, as you hear that, it brings confidence and affirmation to your heart. But if it doesn't, let me tell you it's never too late to be saved. Wherever you are, how many years you've spent on this earth, if you have never trusted Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sin, the Savior of Bethlehem is waiting for you just to say yes.
There are so many stories. And as you know, during the seasons of Christmas and Easter, I love the stories that illustrate the truths. Dr. R.G. Lee was one time the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, one of the great preachers of the generation before mine, many years the pastor of a wonderful church in Memphis, Tennessee. Just about every year at Christmas, he would tell some version of the following story. The story takes place in the mountains of Virginia, in a one-room school that was so tough, no teacher ever lasted more than a few weeks. It was a school populated with mean-spirited mountain boys, who thought their main objective in life was to run off every new teacher who dared to enter their classroom.
One day, a very young teacher applied for the job. The director of the school actually tried to talk him out of it. He said, "Young man, you are not ready for this. You are going to take an awful beating because you're so young. Even the most experienced teachers never last more than 2 months". "Well," said the young teacher, "I'm going to give it a risk," and he took the job. On the first day, as he walked into the classroom, he noticed that the kids were gathered in the back of the room, and there was one big old fella in the class whose name was Tom. Big Ol' Tom they called him. That's what they called him because he was the bully of the class.
Loud enough so that the new teacher could hear him, Big Ol' Tom said, "I'll take care of this one by myself. I won't need anybody's help, he'll be gone by the end of the day". When the young teacher got to the front of the class, he said, "I have come to conduct school, but I confess I can't do it without your help. I think we need a few rules, and I'm going to let you make the rules. What rules do you think we should have in the operation of this classroom"? Well, that was a new one for this class. Nobody ever asked them to make the rules before, all they did was break them. As the teacher went to the blackboard, one kid hollered out, "No stealing". And the teacher wrote it on the board.
And by the time he finished, the teacher had ten rules, including don't be late. And everybody agreed on these ten rules, and everybody agreed, and they were all laughing out loud as they agreed. "Now," the teacher said, "there's no such thing as a good rule without a penalty if the rule is broken. What should be the penalty if the rule is broken"? And Big Ol' Tom stood up and said, "Whoever breaks one of the rules gets ten licks across his bare back". This is obviously a story from a different time. The teacher thought the rule was a bit severe, and obviously the story is dated, but he reluctantly agreed.
So they went to school the next day. And as you can well imagine, the morning had not ended before a rule was broken. Big Tom showed up at the teacher's desk and said, "Somebody stole my lunch". So the teacher held court and said, "Class, one of the rules is no stealing. Somebody stole Big Tom's lunch, and I want to know who it was". After everyone had been questioned, a little 10-year-old boy stood up and said, "I stole his lunch. I was so hungry, I couldn't help it, I stole his lunch". Well, the teacher said, "You know what the rule is. You know that you get ten licks across your back without your coat on". And the little boy began to beg, "Teacher, please don't do that. And whatever you do, don't make me take off my coat".
Finally, the teacher, knowing he was on trial at this moment, made the young boy unbutton his coat. Underneath, there was no shirt, just the suspenders that were holding up his pants. The teacher was thinking, "How can I whip that child? How can I do that? But if I don't, I will have forever lost control of this classroom. What will I do"? He said to the boy, "Son, how is it that you don't have a shirt on"? And the boy answered, "My father died, and my mom's real, real poor, and I only have one shirt. On the day that she washes my shirt, I wear my brother's coat so I don't get cold. I'll have my shirt tomorrow, but I don't have it today".
The teacher got the paddle, and as he was hesitating, trying to get the courage to inflict the punishment, Big Ol' Tom jumped up and walked over to where the teacher was and said, "If you don't object, I'll take Jim's licking for him". The teacher made some philosophical statement about there being the right for substitute punishment, and off came Tom's coat. And after five hard strokes, he paused and realized that everyone in the classroom was crying, especially little Jim. And by the time had come, little Jim ran up to Tom and had him by the neck, hanging on for all he was worth. He was saying, "Tom, I'm awfully sorry I stole your lunch. I was so hungry. I will love you till I die for taking my licking for me". And it broke the heart of those hard-nosed kids. Tom had become Jim's savior.
More than any story I've ever heard, that tells you what the Bible means when it calls Jesus your Savior. You and I have broken the rules. We deserve to be punished. But one day, the Lord Jesus came into this world of ours, and he took off his coat, and stretched out across a wooden beam and said, "I'm going to take the punishment you deserve". And he paid the price I deserve in full. He is my Savior. Is he your Savior? Have you ever put your trust in this Savior? Is that not a wonderful truth? "For unto you is born this day a Savior, who is Christ the Lord". As we prepare for the final busy days before Christmas, let us pause as we are able to give thanks to Almighty God, that one day, he took what we deserved so that we could be saved.