Christmas and the Church and the End Times

The Branch Who Builds the Temple

Thus says the Lord of Hosts, Behold the man whose name is the branch. For he shall branch out from his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord.". The temple of Yahweh. The branch is coming, the text says, to build the temple.

Now, there's a play on words here. The Hebrew is moving from a noun to a verb. You see it there in verse 12. The branch will branch out. The Son of God came as a humble branch, right? He came as a humble baby, but the branch grew.

Not only does he grow physically and grow up in stature and submission to his parents and obedience to God, not only does he grow that way, but he's going to branch out in such a way that he builds the temple.

Now, many wanna jump ahead and take this text and say, well, that's talking about the third temple in Jerusalem, and hear me. I think there's a simpler explanation here. The temple the branch is going to build is the church.

Now, you say to me, well, why would you say something like, are you just pulling that out of thin air? No, Jesus says that. In Matthew 16, 18, for example, he says, and I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church.

Now, you say, that just comes out of nowhere in Matthew. No, it doesn't, not if we understand the Bible, not if we understand that the branch has a spectacular mission. He's going to build the church.

The Church as the Temple of God

First Peter says the church is made up of living stones being built into a spiritual house. Paul says in 2 Corinthians that church members are the temple of the living God. Each Christian, as it were then, is a little temple of God as the Holy Spirit indwells us.

But the temple that Christ is building is even far more glorious than just a bunch of little temples around. Each Christian is a living stone being built into the grand temple of God, namely the church, and each local church is a small representation of that temple on earth today.

1 Timothy 3, 15 says the church is the household of God. You cannot separate, friends, Christmas from the church. If you try to isolate Christmas to only be about individual people being saved, you miss one of the grand realities and prophecies of who Christ is.

Christ came not only, listen, Matthew 121, we love to quote that verse.

What does it say?

And you will call his name, she will bear a son, the angel to Joseph, she will bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus because he will save persons from their sins. That's not what it says. It says he will save, what?

His people from their sins. This is the reality of Christmas. The branch came to build the temple of Yahweh and so he has and so he is. You literally cannot separate Christmas from the local church. You do not understand tonight the fullness of Christmas without understanding Christ coming to build his church.

Christ Building His Church in the Nations

Look around us even this evening. You wanna talk about small, out of the way places? There are not many more smaller, is that word right, more smaller? There are not many more smaller places in the world today than Perryville, Arkansas.

And yet what is happening in Perryville, Arkansas? Christ is building his church. And he's doing it in Mexico and he's doing it in China and he's doing it in close countries and he's doing it all over the world today.

Branch, branched.

I'm convinced that when it comes to the end times, people get too concerned about the Middle East and not nearly as concerned about the local church. Christ's mission is to build his church and he is doing that in the world today and he's going to keep doing that until he returns to judge the nations.

What God is doing in the world today centers on, in, and through the local church. How does the branch build the church? Well, he builds the church through the gospel. Remember back in the Jeremiah text that I referenced that Jesus is called the righteous branch and he was mentioned that in Isaiah 11.

This branch is the righteous branch. He is born of the Virgin Mary to be our righteous representative. The branch branches out in all righteousness. Each budding that is on the branch is fruit of righteousness.

He's righteous in his preaching. He preaches righteously. He lives righteously. He's righteous in his healings. He's righteous in his motivations. Sometimes he's a bit sarcastic to the Pharisees. He's righteous in his sarcasm.

Sometimes he gets angry and flips over tables. He's righteous in his anger. In everything he does, he is righteous in every way, every thought, motivation, and deed, and then he's righteous in his death.

The Righteous Branch, the Cross, and the Resurrection

The branch was nailed to a tree. The branch of life was affixed to the tree of death. Friends, God didn't wrap his present and put it under the tree for Christmas. God gave his gift upon the tree to bear our sins in his body, to die the death that we deserve, and to raise again in victory over death, hell, and the grave.

The righteous branch took on God's wrath for sinners. The leaves wilted. The sap dried up.

The branch died.

The Bible says that he became sin for us. Thus, in a very real sense, Jesus, the God-man, does not merely die for us, although he does die for us, certainly, but also as us, as our representative, as our perfect representative in his death, and as our perfect representative in his victory, because Jesus got up out of the grave.

Believers will do the same. He resurrected for our justification. He defeated death, and hell, and the grave, and he crushed the serpent's head. Oh, this Messiah's gonna come all the way back in Genesis 3.

He's gonna come, and he's gonna crush the head of the serpent.

First John says he came to destroy.

The works of the devil, and he has. Now, I understand we still live in such a evil and wicked day, but Satan's days are numbered. The fruit of the work of the branch continues today.