If you'll notice an outline that is provided, the first thing that I want you to notice from the text is that Christmas is God taking action, which He does, even structurally, in the verse. God is the subject of the sentence, so He takes the action. God is sinful to the text, if you, if you were to glance down and you look at Galatians 4.4, all of your attention is drawn to God. All of your interest is focused on God, right there in the middle, right in the center of the verse. And so it is that Galatians 4.4 actually gives to us an example of what our Christmas should be, that God is a very sin for our Christmas. All of our attention at Christmas is drawn to God. All of our interest is focused on Him, that's not always the way it is, as we said earlier, there are many competitors out there. I think some contrasting would help make it clear that actually God is to be the center of our Christmas. Contrasting in one regard, for example, the Spirit Christmas is not portrayed in Santa Claus as much as we may want it to be that way. As much as we may enjoy Jolly Saint Nick and we enjoy the reindeer and we enjoy reading the night before Christmas, all of that skill, the Spirit of Christmas is not wrapped up in a Jolly fat man and a red tooth that gives away trinkets, really, as much as we may want to, or even as the world would certainly attempt to be by Him, sure, you know the song, he knows when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows that you've been bad or good. So why be good, be good for goodness, say, get some, but sure, you know that's wrong, you know, obviously. We try to make him out to be God, Santa Claus is not God, so we shouldn't let him become the center, Elizabeth Dole said, thank God, Santa is alive and real and we'll be a thousand years from now, yay, 10,000 years from now, another one of those experts. Again, as much as we may attempt to deify Santa Claus, he's not God and we shouldn't treat him like God today or tomorrow, nor is the Spirit of Christmas to be found in the Spirit of giving or the Spirit of brotherly law even as outstanding as those Christian virtues are and we should give, we should be given a coat off our backs, this is the time of years ever, give, give and give and show brotherly law, but let's not make them idols. We don't worship giving, we don't worship brotherly law, we worship God, we worship the true God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is this God? We say, he's the center of the, of the tech, he's the center of Christmas, Paul wrote these words, well who, who is the God of Paul? I know he's the creator of all things, Genesis 1, 1 in the beginning, God created out of nothing by the power of his spoken word, in the span of six days, God created the heavens and the earth, he's our creator, we should treat him as our creator, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, not let him take the back seat, I mean he's the creator, and he's our father, we've logged in the past, I haven't done it as much this year, I wish we had, but we just have in our family worship around the tree, or just at least in the room with the tree in the light and the presence or there and where it really gets in, where you put it in perspective when you're there, really the worship God, and I can remember a couple of years ago, the magic are doing the catechism at that time, and I ask in the chair there more than one God, or there are more gods than one, they answer there's only one God, and how many persons of the one God exists in three persons, what are they, the plot of the sun, the holy ghost, and then you know that's Christmas, even seeing there in front of the presents, it's God, there's the triumphant God, and triumphant God, the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mormons, they cannot truly celebrate Christmas, they sing all the Christmas Carol to get out of there, they put on religious heirs, but they can't truly call it Christmas, they can't call it a Christmas center around God because they're not trying to carry them, they don't believe that Jesus is the eternal son of God, they reject the Christ of the Bible, and they reject the Christ of the Bible, they reject the God of the Bible, but that's not really our focus, and the question is what about you, what's your focus? What is the center of your Christmas, is the triumphant God, the centerpiece of your Christmas? Is the God of the Bible the focus of your festivities, he should be? If for no other reason Christmas is God taking action, it's God sending his son, if you'll notice after God in the verse, it says, but when the fullness of time it comes, God sent for his son, God is a subject, Jesus, or God's son, is the object of the sentence. Christmas is not just some earthly story at the FDA prayer breakfast yesterday, the blue gray game, one of the so-ons, special music centered around that very thing, that this is not just some story, it's not like all the other stories, earthly stories, this is a story about God's son, it's not just some story about any old baby born in a stable, some baby that was laid in a manger, this isn't just any old baby that grew to manhood in Palestine, it's not just any old person that grew to manhood in the title of cloth as a criminal, it's not just any old man who would die on a cross and then they reported that he resurrected from the dead, this is the Christmas story, the Christmas story, those things, and more, Christmas story is how God sent his son, not just he didn't just send anybody's son, I'll do it myself, I'll send my own son, and so it's God's son in the stable, God's son in that manger, it's God's son who grows to manhood of all things, God's man in Palestine, it's God's son who became man and God on the cross, God's son who pays the penalty of sin and was indeed gloriously resurrected from the dead, and that's what captures our hearts, the Christmas, that's what warms our hearts, it's the real Christmas story, the story about God sending his son, who is the son, who is he, who says he's God's son, second leader says he's God himself, from all eternity, you know that, the baby in the manger, the one who comes in the flesh, that's God's, and it's always been God's for all eternity, as we read earlier in the call to worship, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, he's the creator himself, that's John 1 3, that was also read in the call to worship, all things came into being through him, from the part from him nothing came into being that has come into being, he's not only the object of the text, you know who Jesus is, he's the object of our worship, that's what Christmas is all about, the object of our worship is Christ those three chains, the three magi who came from the east following the star, Matthew tells us when the star rests over the place where Jesus wasn't stable by the light, there's our nativity, nativity things, things, things, try to convey, it was a house some years later, Matthew 2, verse 11, they came into the house and saw the child, well Mary has felt child with Mary and his mother, and they fell down in worship to him, and literally the text that having fallen, they prostrated themselves before him, in other words they fell in their place, another problem with our nativity things, those three wise men, so we have one on the camel, one on the ground, one kneeling possibly, none of that straight, they were prostrated, they were lying face down before the child came, because they knew he was God, will your Christmas center around God sending his son, will it fast or noon, portray that among your family time, tonight after the service, we come to this hour, we come to the hour tonight, what about the other hours, is it going to center around Christ, no doubt, do you picture that Jesus, would you maybe even lie, prostrate yourself trying to water the Christmas tree, getting on your knees to wrap pledges and get the pots and pans out and clean for your family coming, I urge you to get on your knees today in prayer, get away from the family for a little while and go in a room somewhere and lie, prostrate physically, and just thank you for coming in the flesh, thank you for what that means to me, why, because of the definition of Christmas as God sending his son to die for others, you notice the verse says God sent forth his son, it sends somebody, you send somebody, you got to send it from a place where he come from, he came from heaven, he came from the very presence of God, the very throne room of God, Jesus is face to face with God in heaven and God the Father sends him from that place, what place, he brings 9-11, tells us the holy place of God is not of this creation, from asking you to contemplate something you can't comprehend, so you can't understand it, to think about the fact that Jesus was sent from a place outside of this creation to what, to this creation, his creation, you think about that, the next time you can go out perhaps at night and see the stars and look at and think beyond that experience, God's hanging in the flesh through the milky way, you might say in our galaxy, into this world and into this world indeed into a stable, a barn of animals,
some of you mothers would shudder to think of putting your child much less your first child. Some unsanitized traw, feeding traw for animals, but he leaves the corridors of glory and enters the fallen world, it follows what is at war with his father. Why would he do that? He tells us that he came to give his life a ransom for many. That's why he came, that's what we're going to center upon tonight. We're trying to keep it as simple as we can, this hour, now or 430, Lord willing. As simple as it can be that he came to give his life a ransom for many, he came first, bringing his 15th grade, he died for our sins. That's Christmas. It's Christ the son leading the father's throne room to hang on a cross and pay for our sins without the marvel that God sent his son to die for our sins of the world. Without that marvel, there is no Christmas. Without the marvel of that second person of the God had to son leaving that slice of God's glory to come to that very place that he had created himself, there is no Christmas. And if you don't understand that, you've never celebrated Christmas. You've gone through the motions, but you've never really celebrated Christmas. You've never really washed it. You've washed it in other ways. As Proto, his name's Dennis Proto, I've got a lot from him for his exposition and his sermon, but he said that at Christmas time, it is our usual practice to gather before many and very altars. We gather before the cash registers in the stores to offer up large portions of our salaries. With pride, we gather around our Christmas trees and lay our offerings of multi-colored packages. We gather various Christmas parties to offer up thanks to one another for jobs well done. We gather our children around Santa Claus to offer the deepest wishes of their hearts. We gather around Christmas tables to sacrifice a turkey and offer a pumpkin pie for our own satisfaction. And all of this we do with the utmost of religious zeal and we call it Christmas. I hope we know better from just one verse of scripture, Galatians 4, 4, it's a very simple definition to remember but one that I hope that you'll take very seriously, not just today but every day of the year. And we take our eyes off of ourselves and perhaps that's what this worship service is worth besides the worth of giving to God and being here, but maybe it's a recommitment today to say, I'm going to take my eyes off of myself and I'm going to put them on the center of Christmas God and realize it's not the pine trees and packages and parties and pumpkin pies, Christmas is God sending His Son. As we pray together, our God and our Father, we do pray that you would take a very simple verse, a very simple thought and if you make it by your spirit, you make it profound. Even this worship service and the word that has been preached to be the very means of salvation for one seated here this morning could be, Father, we don't know that. We pray, we pray to that end that there might be one or more that the light has come out, maybe after 70 Christmas are more. To understand for the first time what it means to me that Jesus came in the flesh, so remind us of it now, make it very real to us as we go, as we depart from this place, change people, we make our prayer in Jesus name. Amen.