Christmas Eve Service | Special Event

Welcome to our Christmas Eve service tonight at Kootenai Church.

Would you please stand as we begin our service this evening with a call to worship from the Gospel of John. In chapter 1, verse 14, it says,

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the

Father, full of grace and truth. Let's sing together,

Tell Me the Story of Jesus. Tell me the story most proud, sweetest that ever was heard.

Tell the story of Jesus, tell me the story of Jesus.

Sweetest that ever was heard.

See the star shine on the virgin for the Lord. Angels sing and light up the sky, footprints out in a newborn's cry.

Swing wide, you ancient gates, for Christ is born today.

Preparedness has come to be.

This the one the prophets are longing to see. In the darkness of blazing light, to the hungry the words of life.

His kingdom now is near. Don't say there's no room in the cradle, cross, and grave.

See the Lamb now He's risen. Praise the name of the

King. His day is true.

His day is day.

Come, His day shall cease.

Welcome to follow along with me if you have your

Bibles. Turn in the New Testament to the Gospel of Matthew, to Matthew chapter 1.

I'm going to read verse 18 through the end of the chapter, Matthew chapter 1. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows.

When His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child by the

Holy Spirit. And Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly.

But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take

Mary as your wife, for the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.

She will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.

Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call

His name Emmanuel, which translated means God with us. And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the

Lord commanded him and took Mary as his wife, but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son, and he called

His name Jesus. Let's pray together. Our Father, we gather here this evening to worship and adore

You, our great God, who has planned salvation and then promised salvation and then provided salvation in Your Son, the

Lord Jesus Christ. He is the long -expected Jesus promised in the garden immediately after our fall in Adam.

You purposed to redeem a people for Yourself, for Your glory and for their good, and we are grateful that we can worship and adore

You for that great salvation that is provided for us in the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So as we are here tonight reflecting upon the words of these songs and on Your Word written in Scripture, we pray that our hearts will be filled with love and joy and affection for Your Son, for Your glory.

We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Nail to the tree a brill

Christ the Conqueror was rager Sing praise to the

King Messiah Eyes were stretched abroad

From everlasting was the Word God was

He, the Word was God And He must be adored

The universe and all contained Showing God's authority

His power and His reign His majesty

And took on You The Heavenly Father's perfect Son Full of truth and full of grace

The Savior now So we tell

Christ the Word has come to us Our Lord And we'll sing together,

Hark the Herald Angels Sing Peace on and child

Joy, joy,

Christ in Christ By mercy of Him Bibles, will you please turn to the

Gospel of Luke, to chapter 1. The Gospel of Luke, chapter 1.

There is much about the Christmas narratives, the Nativity narratives in the Gospel of Matthew and the

Gospel of Luke which might be unexpected. Not just the unexpected announcement of angels to a virgin that she would be with child.

Of course, that would have been very unexpected to Mary and to Joseph. But also, the humble circumstances of the birth of Christ.

The announcement of angels to shepherds out in their fields at night. Not having the birth of the sovereign

Son of God announced to the ruling class of Israel or to Rome.

And the fact that He would be born in Bethlehem, which is a lowly small town just in the shadow of Jerusalem.

Rather insignificant city by itself. All of that is rather unexpected given the nature of who it is that was born there.

Those are humble circumstances. And given the exalted nature of what was promised in the Old Testament.

Our expectations would be that someone who was born of that type of nature would be someone, if he's born into a royal family, in a royal lineage, from a royal line.

We would expect him to be born amidst the pomp and the circumstance amidst the ease and privilege and wealth and comfort and convenience that might accompany the birth of a king.

That's what we might expect. After all, this was the heir to David's line. This was the heir to the throne.

This one being born was himself the king who would inherit the nations and rule them with a rod of iron.

This is David's greater son. The one to whom an eternal kingdom is promised in Scripture.

And one to whom an eternal kingdom will be given. He is the great shepherd, the king, the priest, the deliverer, the fulfillment of all

Old Testament expectation. He is the one that Moses and the prophets and the Psalms all wrote about.

He is the one that everybody anticipated and expected from the time in the garden. Every righteous heart longed for the day that they might see the fulfillment of this promise.

This deliverer who would come to crush the head of the serpent. And yet without denying that any of those things are true of Christ, Scripture tells us that his birth was humble and for the most part, unrecognized, unobserved, unnoted by anybody, unnoticed.

And the Jewish expectation of the Messiah did not completely match the person and the work of Christ at his first coming.

They were not expecting a suffering serpent born in humble circumstances. They were expecting a conquering king.

They expected a king who would judge the world in righteousness. A deliverer who would subdue the nations.

A king who would overthrow Gentile nations and pagan powers. A king who would establish an eternal kingdom under David's throne.

A king who would cut off the wicked from the land. Who would bring safety and security and peace and prosperity to the world.

That was the Jewish expectation of the first century. Now, were they wrong to expect that?

They weren't wrong to expect that because that's exactly what Yahweh promised all of those things. On multiple occasions in the

Old Testament. The problem was not that their expectations were wrong.

In fact, their expectations were simply inaccurate. The problem was that their expectations were incomplete.

Because scripture also promised one who would be born in Bethlehem. He would grow up like a tender shoot.

It's Isaiah 53. He would have no stately form or majesty that we should desire him.

He would be presented to them lowly and riding on a donkey. Zechariah 9. He would be pierced for their transgressions and crushed for their iniquities.

He would be as a lamb led to the slaughter. He would be cut off from the land of the living.

Isaiah 53. He would render himself as a sacrifice for sin. Some would gamble for his garments.

Psalm 22. He would have no place to lay his head. He would die with criminals and be buried with the rich.

And his body would not see corruption, but he would be raised again on the third day. All of those passages were fulfilled just as they were written in the prophets and in the

Psalms. So were the Jews wrong to expect a conquering king? No, but they should have added to that the suffering servant who would come first.

And I would submit to you that all of the passages regarding his rule and his kingdom and what is to come will be fulfilled in the same way that all of the prophecies regarding his first coming were fulfilled.

That is to say, literally just as they are written. We know how

God is going to fulfill future prophecy because he has a track record of fulfilling past prophecies that have already been fulfilled.

And this, in fact, is what we see in the angel's announcement in Luke chapter 1. So if you are there, we're going to begin reading at verse 26.

We're going to read through the end of verse 38. We're going to focus in on verses 31 and 32.

Luke 1, 26. Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called

Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph of the descendants of David, and the virgin's name was

Mary. Verse 26 mentions the sixth month. Luke is referring there to the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, who is mentioned earlier in the chapter, in fact, just in the previous verses.

Verse 28, And coming in, he said to her, Greetings, favored one, the Lord is with you. She was very perplexed at this statement and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was.

She's wondering why she is favored. What would occasion such a blessing, such a visitation like this from an angel?

So she's perplexed. Why she of all people would be seeing an angel? She doesn't understand that. Verse 30,

The angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him

Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father

David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end.

Mary said to the angel, How can this be, since I am a virgin? The angel answered and said to her,

The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And for that reason, the

Holy Child shall be called the Son of God. And behold, even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age, and she who was called barren is now in her sixth month, for nothing will be impossible with God.

And Mary said, Behold, the bond slave of the Lord may it be done to me according to your word.

And the angel departed from her. Now that's the announcement. We read earlier the visitation of the angel to Joseph and what he was informed of.

Now we're reading here of the visitation to Mary and what she is informed of. In Matthew's gospel, the announcement to Joseph focuses in on his savior capacity, the fact that he is the savior of his, he will save his people from their sins.

And here, the emphasis is on him being great, being called the Son of the Most High, 32, verse 32, and that the

Lord God would give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end.

Well, I want you to notice two things here that the angel communicates to Mary. First, that Christ is a divine son.

And second, that he is the Davidic sovereign. He is the divine son, and he is the sovereign or the king who comes from the line of David.

Verse 31, behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the

Son of the Most High. He is the divine son, and his greatness is tied to his nature.

You and I are called sons of God or daughters of God, children of God. When we make reference to that, we mean something different than what is meant here.

We mean that we are sons by adoption. We are adopted into a family that we have no right to enter into on our own, by ourselves.

We're brought in as adopted sons, but when we describe Jesus as the Son of the

Most High, we mean that he is a son by nature. That is, he is the second person of the

Trinity. He is God himself. He is Yahweh. That is what is meant by that. He is the eternal one.

And the eternal one who did not regard his equality with God as something to be held onto, but instead he laid aside the comforts and conveniences of heaven, and he stepped into time and space and took upon himself human flesh and a real human nature.

Without ever ceasing to be what he had always been, the divine Son became something that he had never been before.

He became Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, united fully and completely and eternally with a true human nature.

So the divine Son, the second person of the Trinity who spoke all things into existence, he, in his divine nature, without changing his deity, without divesting himself of his deity, without surrendering any of his divine nature or any of his divine attributes and without ever changing his divine nature, became something that he had never been when he took upon himself a human nature, a true and real human nature, united forever in that one person, the

Lord Jesus Christ. The Godhead was veiled in human flesh so that the

Lord Jesus Christ would know and experience all of the limitations and frailties of humanity, the very humanity that he assumed.

And we're not talking about sinful humanity. We're not talking about the limitations of sin or the frailties of sin, but the limitations of being finite, being human in nature.

Without sin, without fallenness, the preexistent Son of Yahweh, who shares fully the divine nature, became

Jesus of Nazareth in the incarnation. And he didn't give up his deity. He didn't change his deity.

He didn't forfeit his deity so that we can confess that Jesus Christ is truly man and truly

God. That is why we worship him. He is truly man and truly God. Luke 1 .32

says he will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. That Jesus himself did not shy away even in the least of affirming that he was

God in human flesh. In John 5, after doing a miracle, he defended his actions for doing that on the

Sabbath to the Pharisees by saying, the Father has been working until now and I have been working. And John says the

Jews sought to kill him because he, being a man, made himself out to be

God. By claiming to be the Son of God with the authority to heal and to work on the

Sabbath, the Jews understood exactly what he was claiming. Then in John 8, he said, before Abraham was,

I am. And he took the divine name to himself. And again, the Jews picked up stones to stone him because they understood exactly what he was claiming to be, the preexistent and eternal

God. In John 10, when he said, I and the Father are one, the Jews again picked up stones to stone him.

Why? Because they understood exactly what he was claiming to be, God in human flesh. And all of this was accomplished through this miraculous conception.

Luke 1 .35, the angel answered and said to her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the

Most High will overshadow you. And for that reason, the Holy Child shall be called the Son of God. And this was to fulfill the scripture which promised this in Isaiah 7 .14.

Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin will conceive, will be with child and bear a son and she will call his name

Emmanuel. Emmanuel translated God with us. That was the promise. The virgin would bear somebody whom we can call

God with us. So he is the divine son. That's what the angel promised. Second, the angel promised that Christ would be the

Davidic sovereign. Look again at the end of verse 32. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father,

David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and his kingdom will have no end. He will be given a throne.

He will reign over the house of Jacob and his kingdom will never end. Over the last several weeks and actually a few months as we've been going through the

Psalms, we've had opportunity to jump back into the Old Testament and look at some of the Old Testament promises regarding that king and the kingdom.

In Psalm 2, we see that king in his divine nature expressing his right to rule the nations and to be given all of the nations as an inheritance.

That's in Psalm 2. In Psalm 89, we see reiterated the promise to David from 2

Samuel 7, that God would seat one of David's descendants upon his throne and that he would rule over the house of Jacob, over David's kingdom forever.

The words of the angel here in Luke 1 are directly almost word for word from Isaiah 9, verses 6 and 7.

In fact, I want you to look at verses 32 and 33 and I'll read Isaiah 9, 6 and 7.

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on his shoulders.

That's rule and reign. And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father or Father of Eternity and the

Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore, the zeal of the

Lord of hosts will accomplish this. Now you can see how the angel is taking language from Isaiah 9, 6 and 7 and he is restating the promises to Mary regarding this child that she would bear.

Just on Sunday, we looked at Jeremiah 23, 5 and 6. Behold, the days are coming, declares the

Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch and he will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land.

In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely and his name by which he will be called the

Lord of Righteousness. This righteous branch would be called Yahweh, Our Righteousness.

He will be called Son of the Most High God and he will rule over the house of David where he will take the throne of David.

Now notice when the angel promises this to Mary in Luke 1, notice from all of the

Old Testament texts that we've looked at, 2 Samuel 7, Psalm 2, Psalm 89, Jeremiah 23,

Ezekiel 33 and 34, Jeremiah 33, all of those passages that we've been going through in recent weeks.

Notice that the angel signals no change of plans to Mary regarding the nature of this king and his kingdom.

There's no alteration in the promises from the Old Testament. They're simply restated in the same language that the

Old Testament prophets used. The same language with the same promises and the same details.

The angel does not spiritualize the promises. He doesn't redefine David's throne or David's kingdom.

He doesn't spiritualize the rule and the reign or the notion of him ruling a government.

He doesn't make the house of Jacob symbolic of all of God's people over all of time or the church or some spiritual kingdom.

He doesn't do this because Mary understood exactly what it was that the nation of Israel should expect in their

Messiah. She understood the Old Testament prophets and the passages. She understood the promises from the

Old Testament. She was of David's line. She could probably recite the details of the Davidic covenant.

She could probably recite Psalm 89. She knew that God had promised to the lineage of her great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather,

David, that someday God would raise up a king from David's line to sit on David's throne and to rule the nations forever.

Mary knew the promises. She understood what the son of David was destined to do. And so the angel doesn't change anything regarding the promises.

Simply says Isaiah 9, 6, and 7, all that Isaiah promised, all that the prophets promised is coming to pass.

And the one that you will give birth to is the one who will fulfill those prophecies just as those prophecies were given.

That is what the angel promised. Notice that Mary's question is something different than you might expect given what the angel has just said.

The angel has just promised that this child would rule on David's throne with the right to rule the nations, fulfill all the

Old Testament prophets, reestablish the throne of David. And Mary doesn't ask a question regarding any of that.

She doesn't ask, how's this gonna be since David's kingdom has come to an end 500 years ago?

How can this possibly be since the line of David's succession was cursed under Caniah?

How can this possibly be since there is no Davidic kingdom and for the last five centuries, we as a people have been ruled by Gentile powers from all over our region.

We have not ruled ourselves yet. How can this possibly be that Joseph, who might be a descendant of Caniah, himself cannot take the throne because of the curse upon Caniah's line?

She doesn't question any of that. What does she wonder about? How can this be since I'm a virgin? That's the question she asked.

In her mind, it's difficult for God to create a child in her womb.

Not so difficult for God to revivify the throne of David and to establish the kingdom. For her, the big hurdle was the fact that she is a virgin.

Not that the Davidic dynasty has fallen into nothing and that Caniah's line was cursed and that they haven't been ruling themselves for the last five centuries.

None of that is an issue to Mary. She's just wondering, how can this be since I'm a virgin? The answer is, there would be a creative miracle wrought by the

Spirit of God in the virgin Mary and God miraculously caused, just as God miraculously caused

Elizabeth to conceive in her old age, God would do something similar in Mary in a miraculous conception there as well.

Now, Elizabeth's conception was not without the agency of her husband, not apart from her husband, but it was a supernatural work nonetheless.

And so the angel affirms in Luke 1, verse 37, for nothing will be impossible with God. And nothing we have read in this text is impossible.

Nothing is. Not conceptions in old age, not virgins conceiving, not the revivification of David's throne and his kingdom, and certainly not

Christ taking that throne and ruling in his kingdom forever over the nations. None of that is impossible.

God keeps His promises. And this King that was born of a virgin to live and die as our

Savior also rose from the dead as our Redeemer because God keeps His promises. He died as our sacrifice and fulfilled the

Scripture, and through His one and atoning death and His resurrection, He has purchased salvation for any and all who will come to Him in faith.

He ascended to Heaven where He sits at the Father's right hand, and He will come again, and He will fulfill

His word. He will sit on the throne of David and rule over the house of Jacob forever. God keeps

His promises. He keeps His promises to forgive and to redeem the one who places their faith in this

Savior, the guilty sinner who sees their need for a Savior, their need for forgiveness, and their need for righteousness.

You, guilty sinner, are commanded to come, to come to this Christ, to come to this

Holy One, to come to this Divine Son, born of a virgin, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law.

Come to Him in repentance. Do you as a sinner see your need for forgiveness and salvation?

Do you see your guilt and your condemnation, that you have lied and stolen and blasphemed and committed idolatry, that you have been covetous, that you have lusted, that you have hated in your heart, that you are wicked, and that if God were to judge you today on the basis of His ten commandments, that He would find you guilty?

And do you come to see that if He finds you guilty because He is good and righteous and holy and just, that He must punish your sin and send you to eternal damnation?

If you see that, and you feel the weight of that, and you hunger for the words of life, for the bread of life, and for the living water,

I have good news for you. You ought also to see that this One who was born of Mary has righteousness and forgiveness available.

He is your only hope for righteousness. He is the only One who has paid the price for guilty sinners.

He is the only One who has offered an atoning sacrifice sufficient to pay the price for your sin and for my sin.

And only He was born to save His people from their sins, and only He offers you pardon and forgiveness, clemency and righteousness even tonight.

So turn from your sin and come to this One who died to save you. Come to this One who is coming again to judge the living and the dead.

He will receive a kingdom, He will crush the nations, He will rule the world in righteousness, He will cut off the wicked from the land, and He will bless

His people with abundant peace forever. He commands you this day to repent that is deterred from your sin, and to believe and trust

Him for the salvation that He offers you. Worship Him who is born King of the Jews. Worship Him who is born the

Son of God and the Savior of sinners. Bow our heads. Our Father, we delight and rejoice in the fulfillment of promise in Your Son, the

Lord Jesus Christ. We thank You that You have provided for us in Him all that is necessary for our forgiveness, for our righteousness, and for eternal life.

We who have hungered for living water and hungered for the bread of life have found our souls satisfied in Your Son in Christ who lived and died for us.

Fully man able to represent us, fully God able to bear our sin and our punishment.

And so we thank You for a Savior who has been born to us, Christ the Lord. We thank

You for the fact that He has risen from the dead, death no longer has dominion over Him, and we thank

You for the hope that He is coming again to take the throne of David as You have promised, and to rule and reign over the nations forever.

Thank You for including us in that everlasting kingdom. And it is our prayer for any here who do not know this

Savior, born of the Virgin Mary, that You would draw their hearts to You and open their eyes to their need for salvation and a

Savior from their sin so that they may have righteousness and find peace with You, a

God whom they have offended by their sin. Be magnified and glorified to draw sinners to Yourself and to comfort the hearts of Your people as we worship

You tonight for all that You have done for us in Your Son in whose name we pray. Amen.

Would you please stand as we end our service this evening and sing together Silent Night.

Let the just rejoice for their

Justifier is born. Let the sick and infirm rejoice for their

Savior. Let the captives rejoice for their Redeemer.

Let slaves rejoice for their Master. Let free men rejoice for their

Liberator is born. Let all Christians rejoice for Jesus Christ is born.