Great singing, great reading because we have a great Savior. Praise the Lord. It's a great honor and privilege for me to be here this evening. I'm thankful and grateful to Northbrook Bible Chapel family for asking me to share the Christmas Eve message.
I want to welcome everyone and all of those who joined us by online as well. Let us bow our heads and place ourselves in the presence of the Lord. Loving Heavenly Father, we come to you this hour, asking for your blessing and open our hearts and minds to hear you. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you.
Lord, my prayer for this evening that I may able to speak so in tune with your blessed Holy Spirit and bring edification to those who are hearing me this evening. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen. Merry Christmas to all of you.
The title of my message today is Good Tydings of Great Joy, Celebration of the Saviour's Birth. The outline of my message today is based on four important questions that we need to know. Where was Jesus born? Why was Jesus born?
Who all came to visit Jesus? Why do we need Jesus? To begin with, wherever you are, I encourage you to open your Bible to Luke chapter 2 verses 10 to 12. Luke chapter 2 verses 10 to 12.
And the angels said unto them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy. We shall be to all people, for unto you is born this day, in the city of David as Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be signed unto you. You shall find the baby wrapped in a swaddling cloth lying in a manger.
Good tidings of great joy. Good tidings of great joy. What does it mean? During times of various wars, many mothers try to keep in memory of her young son's father, fresh on the boy's mind.
When their fathers being away at war, during their formative years, it brings an irreparable rift. Once I heard a story that was happened during the Second World War, that was a global war that was lost from 1939 to 1945. A mother took her son into his father's room every day and would stay in gaze at a huge portrait of the father who was far away at war. One day the little boy looked at his father's portrait for long period of time, with a tearful heart, with a tearful eye and a painful heart, and asked his mother, wouldn't it be great that my father would just step down from the frame, so that I can feel his presence, ask him what I need and enjoy my time with him.
For centuries, the entire human race had lived into the heavens and longing for God to step down from the frame. And then he came to the world as a virgin-born baby. The virgin-born baby was God in human form. He made himself of no reputation and took upon him a form of a servant and made him in the likeness of men.
Now we have a great savior. We have a great deliviror. We have a great healer in our life. The angels said to them, fear not.
For I bring you good tidings of great joy. We need to celebrate Christ every day in our life, and it is a time for jubilation for everyone who trusts Jesus as their savior. Where was Jesus born? Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King.
I saw a great prophet of the woltzment, announced the birth of Messiah several hundred years before the time of Christ. I saw a 714 says, the Lord himself shall give you a sign. He declared, behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. In my cup fight too, there is a prophecy that reveals that Bethlehem would be the birthplace of the messiah.
The angel appeared to Mary and said, blessed are you among women, fear not Mary, for your firm favor with God, you shall bring forth the son and shall call his name Jesus. Mary said to the angel, how shall this be? I have no husband. The angel said to her, the holy spirit shall come upon you and the power of most high shall overshade you.
The child that is born of you shall be holy and shall be called the son of God. So those days Israel was part of the Roman Empire ruled by the emperor Caesar Augustus. He commanded all the citizens of the empire to return their own towns so that the names could be listed in a census. Both Joseph and Mary were descended from the family of King David.
So they returned to the hometown of Bethlehem, that's King David's birthplace. When they reached to Bethlehem, the town was filled with people who had come in from the countryside to be listed by the Romans. And when they were there, the time came for her to be delivered. And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped in a swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no place for him in the in.
He is the king of kings. He is the Lord of lords, came from heaven, but we fail to provide a place for him. Matthew 8, 20 says, Foxes have dense and birds have nursed, but the son of man has no place to lay his head. In Revelation chapter 1, we see the seven churches which are in Asia.
And if you read continuously later in Revelation chapter 3, we see behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and will sub with him. Here is talking about the seventh church in Asia. That is a church located in Laodhesia, one of the early center of Christianity.
And it is evident that there is no place for him in the church as well. It is interesting to know the church or temple that is mentioned here is all about us. First, worldian 3 clearly says, you, yourselves or God's temple, you are that temple. We see in Song of Solomon chapter 5, he says, I sleep, but my heart is awake.
It is my voice of beloved. He knows saying open for me. My sister, my love, my daww, my perfect one for my head is covered with dew, my locks with the drops of the night. Today we are all sitting inside of our church or at our home, but he is standing outside of our church in the cold weather and waiting for us to open the door of our hearts.
In the midst of the Christmas rush, Jesus is often forgot, often left out from our heart. Even today, there is no room for Jesus. Last Sunday, Brother John Wells, shed a wonderful message and left us a questine to think about it. I'm asking the same questine tonight.
Is there any room for Jesus in the end of your heart? We have room for pleasure. We have room for business. We have room for every other need, but Jesus still knocks and looking for a home in your heart, not only in his birth, but also in his death.
There was no room for him. He was despised and rejected all of his life. If he want peace to rule in our lives, Christ must rule in our lives and Christ must live in our hearts. Why was Jesus born?
John 3 16 forgot so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, whose soul would believe it in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life. Love, it is love that gives. God so loved that he gave himself. First Timothy 1, 15 says, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
To understand the birth of Jesus Christ, we need to understand what is sin and why did it come from. In the beginning, God created a perfect place for his people, Adam and Eve, where they enjoyed a perfect fellowship in Genesis 2 BC. The God planted a garden eastward, eastward in Eden. We know the story in the garden of Eden.
There are many trees, but two trees standing in the midst of it. One was the tree of life and the other was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Tree of life represented a right relationship with God, but Adam and Eve sinned against God which resulted in a broken fellowship, their choice to decide for themselves what is right and wrong that brings consequences to themselves and the entire human race. Genesis 3, 24 BC, God drow out the man and he placed Jerusalem in the east of the garden, in the east of the garden of Eden and a flaming sword which turned every way to God, the way to the tree of life.
In connection to this we see John chapter 1, 1. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. In John 1, 14 says the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. The sword is nothing but the word and the word became flesh and that is Jesus Christ.
Look to 35, Sumian prophesized to Mary, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also and the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. It is interesting to see here the wise man also saw the shining star at the yeast who came to this world to save the sinners and provide an eternal life to us. What a powerful message we can see through these scriptures. He was born to remove the sins of mankind through a perfect sacrifice and to redeem his people.
Romans 3, verse 23 says, all have sinned and false short glory of God. 2nd Corinthians 5, 21 says, God made him who had no sinned to be sinned for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Isaiah 53 says, he describes him as a suffering servant who would bear our sins. Who all came to visit Jesus?
The angels visited Jesus. The shepherds visited Jesus and the wise man visited Jesus. Look chapter 2, we see the sky was filled with angels, praising God, saying glory to God in the highest and on yet peace good world toward man. Then the angels disappeared in the words of angel.
The birth of the Lord was indeed a good news and it's a great joy for all people. The angels told the shepherd they could find Jesus in a line in a manger. Immediately the shepherds they hurried into battle with him and found Jesus in the manger as the angel had told them. We all heard about Jesus and his gospel several times.
But are we spreading the good news to others? It is a question we need to ask every day in our life because there are millions of people they don't know about the love of Christ. It is our responsibility to spread the good news to others like the shepherds they did in 2000 years ago. One night soon after the birth of Jesus Christ the wise man had come from a land forth to the east.
They were men of great learning and wisdom and had spent many years studying the mysteries of the world. When they had seen a new and magnificent star shining in the sky the wise man followed the star and at loss they came to the land of Judea. They were thinking that everyone in the land would know of new born king. They asked where is he?
That's the where is he that's born the king of Jews. In the east we have seen his star. We have come to worship him. They have come to worship him.
Herod immediately feared a threat to his rule and was keen to locate the baby. The wise man finally saw the child and knelt before him and presented gifts of gold and of rare perfumes called frankincense and mire which were used at the time in religious ceremonies. The treasures of the wise man brought where a significant value and prophetic importance gold as a symbol of kingship on earth frankincense as a symbol of deity and mire as a symbol of death coming from the east. The wise man were the first men outside of Israel.
They represent the gentle world coming to worship this new king and they were the first to see him. Each of these groups learned about the birth of Jesus Christ differently but they all reacted in faith. We are not told of any doubts or hesitation by any of these groups. They all worship him.
I would like to ask you, O Kostin, to you and me or we worshiping our Lord faithfully in Matthew 5 we see God bless us worshipers and worshipers are salt and light to the world. Christmas calls us to worship. Why do we need Jesus? The moment we were born in this world we have a tendency to sin.
Romans 3, 10 says there is no righteous not even one. The bad news is that our sins separates us from a relationship with God. We all sinned and the consequence of sin is death. The good news is that God sent his only son Jesus to take the punishment of our sin and make the way for us to have a relationship with God.
It is impossible to think Christmas without the cross and the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I saw chapter 9 verse 6 for unto us a child is born and to us the sun is given and the government shall upon his shoulders and his name shall be called wonderful. Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting father, the prince of peace, the Bible tells that Jesus Christ is the only way for us to come into relationship with God. That's what we see in John chapter 14 verse 6.
At this Christmas season you can be assured that Jesus Christ is here in our midst. He is here to give us hope to save us from our sins to bring healing, forgiveness, no matter what trials or temptations or pain we may suffer. We can always hold on to the hope God extends to us. The world's primary need today is Savior, salvation from sin.
During uncertain times like this our faith can be challenged and it can be hard to see where God fix in our lives. COVID-19 is continuously creating anxiety and worry for the future. Some of you may feel lonely, some of you go through challenges in your life, some of you might have lost your jobs, some of you might have financial difficulties, some of you might have lost your loved ones. Whatever may be the situation, I ingrate you to have trusting God.
No matter how lonely we may feel, we are never truly alone because Christ dulls in our hearts through faith. Let us embrace the thing that matter. We might have celebrated so many Christmases without knowing the real meaning of the Christmas. Tonight let us invite Christ Jesus in our heart and surrender our life into his hands when we believe that Jesus is God and that he gave his life for us and when we surrender our life to him we are saved from our sin and we begin our new relationship with him.
That's what we see in Romans chapter 10, 9. For God so loved the world that he gave himself. This is God's greatest gift to us. This gift is offered freely.
This is the gift of our eternal life with him. I remember my dear brothers and sisters, the gift to be complete, we must receive it. We know what Christ has done for us, then what for we are twiddling our fingers. Have you received the gift of God?
If not, it is not too late. Tonight is a time for you to make the decision and it is going to be a memorable day in your life. Recently some of you had two great testimonies shared by our dear brothers here at our not book Bible Chapel and how God changed their lives. You too will have experience, a peaceful and meaningful life in Christ.
Let me be sticking. Don't forget the gift to be complete. We must receive it. Shall we pray?
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your great love and blessing over our lives. Lord I pray for the people who don't understand the true meaning of Christmas. Tonight I pray for them and let them surrender their life into your mighty hands. Lord we pray for those people who are going through tough times and challenges in their life.
You are our wonderful counselor, mighty God everlasting Father and Prince of Peace. Help us to kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another just as you forgive us. May the spirit of Christmas fill our homes with joy, peace and love in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Have a wonderful Christmas. May I greet you with a blessed Christmas of new life and a continuing, wonderful new year. God bless you.