The Gospel of Christmas

Christ Alone Is the Gospel of Christmas

Amen. Well, if you like sports, you like stats, you like touchdowns, you like batting averages, home run count, three-point percentages, these things, if you like sports, these things are fun to keep track of.

Of course, stats, you know, are not the reason that games were designed. Games were designed not for stats, but they were designed to be won. So there is a way, if you think about it, and this happens all the time, especially if your team is not good, like the Dallas Cowboys, right?

There is a way that stats can actually distract from the goal at hand, namely victory. Or maybe you don't like sports, well, let me use deer hunting. So it's enjoyable, isn't it, to sit out in the woods.

We like that. We like to, they call it deer hunting, not deer killing. So there's a lot of time you're just sitting out in the woods, at peace of mind, watching God's creation. This is all an important and good part of hunting.

But at some point, right, at some point, in some season, you would like to get a big buck. I mean, that's the goal, right? So turn to 1 Peter 2. Similarly, I wonder today if we've lost the plot. So we're doing a short series surrounding Christmas, not because I think churches have to do that.

You don't have to do that. But I want you to know this morning, and I hope that you see there's a burden on my heart. For years, we have fought the war, keep Christ in Christmas. But I'm not fighting that battle today.

You say, well, you don't want Christ in Christmas? Of course, of course, of course we should keep Christ in Christmas. Of course I want Christ in Christmas. But I'm just saying, I think that we're far beyond that fight today.

I'm fighting to keep Christ in Christianity. A lot of things occupying people's minds today. A lot of focus today. Some of this focus is even on otherwise good things, maybe family, maybe patriotism. These aren't bad things.

The good things, good gifts from God, our nation and our families, wonderful things. But I see so many focus on other things. And I see in our churches and in our conversations and even in our pulpits, so little Christ.

And that's really what this sermon today focuses on, and that's really what this whole sermon series is about, the gospel of Christmas. I'll give it to you this way, a quote from Sinclair Ferguson. Jesus Christ is the gospel, no Christ.

No gospel. No gospel. No Christ, no Christ, no hope, no Christianity. So today we begin with Mas Christ. OK, yes, I know I took liberty to borrow from our I didn't just adopt speaking in tongues today.

I took liberty to borrow from our Spanish brothers and sisters to do a little creative, maybe play on words, Mas Christ, that is more Christ.

That's what I need.

As one of your pastors of this church, I'm telling you, that's what I need. That's what I need in my life. That's what I need in my heart. That's what I need in my family. That's what I need to see in Providence Baptist Church.

That's what our country needs. Give us Christ.

And it is enough.

So let's consider that from our text, first, Peter, 224, would you stand with me as we honor the reading of God's word, not so much a traditional Christmas text, but what glory. He himself bore our sins.

In his body. On the tree. That we might die to sin. And live to righteousness. By his wounds. You have been healed, Father. Would you show us Christ, we understand this morning that we cannot see. By sight.

But by faith. So would you give us the faith that our hearts need, would you grant us the grace that we need this morning, may we see Christ, may we leave today not thinking about the singing, not thinking about the preaching, not thinking about the confession and catechism reading, not thinking about how beautiful the decorations were, not thinking about the sweet Christmas cards.

Will we leave this morning with Christ on our lips, with Christ on our hearts, with Christ in our minds, give us more Christ, prepare us even now to receive the blessing of Christ. Let us grow in our love for Christ.

Let us grow in our understanding of Christ. Some, oh, God, you know, you know, vastly more than I do here. Some this morning need to come to a saving knowledge of Christ even today. And I pray they would grant us grace this Christmas to make much of Jesus and we pray.

It all in his name.

Amen. You may be seated. You can fact check me here, but if my math is right, there are twenty eight English words in verse twenty four. And this morning we will cover two of those words. He himself. Now, if it makes you feel any better, if you ask Brother Charles Carter in his version of the scriptures, it's four words.

So who his own self. So I'm going to cover four words in the King James two in the ESV. But what I want to do this morning and what you've already seen, hopefully, is to just set before you Christ. That is Christ, his own self alone and not any other, not anything extra, no works of our own is our only suitable and all sufficient savior.

All of Christianity flows out of and through and with and for and in the person and work.

Of Christ.

So you consider this morning, church, do we desire more Christ? Do we want Christ? Let this month and every month and every day and every sermon be permeated with the worship of Christ. Christ alone saves.

And Christ saves to the uttermost, see it in the text, those first two words, he. Himself, now a little context here in the midst of this teaching about suffering in first Peter and this midst of teaching about following Christ as our example, Peter, in this verse, lays down for us the absolute bedrock of our faith.

So if you take this verse and you somehow could lodge it out of your head, if you just pull it all the way out of the Bible, then all of Christianity would just crumble. In fact, I would argue that many have done that.

They have pulled this text and all of its threads and all of its implications out of the Bible. And what they practice is ultimately a shell with no kernel, all sizzle, no steak. Big hat, no cattle, right?

Right. So Jesus in these places.

May be named.

You walk into some churches today, Christ may be sung, that's why it's so hard to discern, because you think maybe, well, he's just talking about those churches that have apostatized completely. No, I'm talking about even Baptist churches.

I'm talking about even Southern Baptist churches. I'm talking about even churches that you think, shouldn't this be a conservative place? Missionary Baptist church, whatever you walk in and Jesus is mentioned and Jesus, you see in the hymn book, maybe he's sung about and maybe even, of course, Jesus would be mentioned from the pulpit.

But I'm telling you, the centrality of who he is and what he has done has been relegated to the back corner or maybe lost altogether. But here's what I'm saying to Providence Baptist Church. Give me more, Christ, I need him, I need his love, I need his grace, I need what this text tells me, burying my sins in his body on the tree.

I need his work on my behalf. I need his kingship. I need to behold his glory. A wedding with no groom, a feast with no food, a lamp with no light, that's Christianity without Christ, that's miserable.

Dark, unfulfilling and ultimately hopeless. But here in our text, we have Jesus, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree. I'll just pause there and let you know something about the word himself.

It's not needed, it's not necessary to understand the meaning of the text. Rather, it's just emphatic. So what I mean is let's read it without himself. I'm just going to read it without himself and just see if it can make sense.

He bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness by his wounds. You have been healed.

Does that make sense? Yes, it makes sense.

You don't have to have the word himself in order for the passage to make sense to your mind. We get it, right? We get it, Peter. Jesus is the one who bore our sins. So why, as Peter is pinning this and remember, it's a mystery and a beautiful thing.

But Peter wants to include this this himself and the Holy Spirit operating through Peter wants to include them himself. So why is the Holy Spirit moving upon Peter to write he himself instead of just he?

Well, it's because the Holy Spirit is putting an emphasis here upon Christ. Think of it this way, it is, though, as though the Holy Spirit took a great big pen and underlined Christ, it is a an exclamation point, if you will, upon Christ is a highlighter, maybe, if you will, not a yellow highlighter, a red highlighter like the blood of Christ.

It's a it's a giant arrow reminding us of the centrality of Christ is not just Christ in the text, it's Christ himself, a great big blinking sign saying Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, it's.

All Jesus.

The one commentator put it this way, our whole salvation and all of its parts are comprehended in Christ. We should therefore take care not to derive the least portion of it from anywhere else. So today we just feast our eyes and hearts upon King Jesus, and here's the outline.

Number one, no one else but Christ. Number two, nothing else but Christ, and number three, never less than Christ. Today, I wonder, would you be willing to just ask the Lord to give you fresh ears to hear this desire here today is that you would teach this, receive this teaching afresh, that you wouldn't foolishly close your Bible right now and say, I know everything there is to know about Jesus.

I'll take a nap. Listen to what Robert Murray McShane says. Unfathomable oceans of grace are in Christ for you. Dive and dive again. You will never come to the bottom of these depths. How many millions of dazzling pearls and gems are at this moment hid in the deep recesses of the ocean caves?

But there are unsearchable riches in Christ.

That's McShane.

Dive with me this morning into the bottomless depths of Christ's ocean. Number one, no one else but Christ. Verse 24, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness by his wounds.

You have been healed. Now read the whole verse there to show you something that maybe you didn't catch. Probably most of you did. But that is Peter's drawing from the Old Testament here, isn't he? He is drawing heavily from and even quotes part of Isaiah 53.

So Isaiah 53 5 says this, and I'm going to read it with an emphasis on the masculine pronouns. So Isaiah 53 5 says, but he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.

And with his wounds, we are healed. That's what Peter's drawing this from. Where is our hope of salvation this morning? And my answer in this first point is no one else but Christ by himself. He himself.

In fact, Peter's emphasis upon Christ in the text is just a repetition. It's just it's it's more of the same. It's a repeated theme in the whole of the scriptures. The Bible is but many streams terminating in the one great ocean of Christ.

He was in the beginning. He is before the beginning, for he is the eternal son of God. He is the one foretold and not just foretold, but but think about this, the tabernacle and the temple and the sacrifices and the feasts.

What are these things? They're all pointing to Christ. The offices of the Old Testament, the offices of a prophet and priest and king, they point to him. They are fulfilled by him. He is the end of the law for righteousness.

He is wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption and truth for the church. Behold, our God, Malachi 4, 1 and 2. Do you ever, we sing Hark the Herald Angels Sing, you ever, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, you ever wonder there's a strange line that talks about the son of righteousness?

And you think to yourself. Is there a typo in my hymnal? Because this is son of righteousness, S-U-N of righteousness. It shouldn't be S-O-N of righteousness. No, it shouldn't. Malachi 4 says this, verse 1 and 2.

For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

But for you who fear my name, the son, S-U-N of righteousness, shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. The son of righteousness has risen in the day of Christ's coming.

Isaiah 25, 9. It will be said on that day, behold, this is our God. We have waited for him that he might save us. This is the Lord. We have waited for him. Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

And so what I'm saying is these verses and all these things that I've just talked about and all the typology in the Old Testament and everything that we have and the prophecy and all these things, all this and more is fulfilled in Peter's point.

He himself, Jesus has come.

Christ has come to us. That's Christmas. He's come.

He's bore our sins in his body on the tree. Christ has come to us. Christ alone is our hope, truly God, truly man, representing God to us and representing us to God. Himself, even you think about this, a Trinitarian work here, he himself.

OK, salvation is Trinitarian. You understand what I mean by that, that the father, the son and the Holy Spirit all play a role. You're not saved apart from the Trinity. The father plays a role. The son plays a role.

The Holy Spirit plays a role. But let's get these roles correct. He himself bore our sins, meaning the Holy Spirit doesn't take on flesh. The father doesn't take on flesh. We don't pray to the father.

Maybe some of you have prayed this before.

It's wrong.

It's actually heretical. Sometimes it's just a misspoke.

You're not you're not here.

I'm not you're not trying to be a heretic. Obviously, you just misspeak. Thank you, Father, for dying on the cross for us. The father didn't do that. The father didn't take on human flesh. The Holy Spirit didn't take on human flesh.

I'm telling you from the text, it is Christ alone whose role is to be sin bearer and the one mediator between God and man. So John Owen says it is in Christ alone that we may have a clear, distinct view of the glory of God and his excellencies.

Have you this morning, Providence, tasted and seen that God is good? It is only possible in Christ alone. It is no one else but Christ himself. The work of salvation, friends, is not you and Christ together.

You're not partial sin bearer, Jesus bore some of your sins and you're going to bear some of them. No, it's not Jesus bore your sins and then you die and go to purgatory and you bear some. No, you're not partial sin bearer.

You're not partial law keeper. It's not you at all. It's Christ, and this important word, alone. He himself and even beyond that. Listen to this, Christian. Robert Murray McShane again says every one of you that has been saved, Jesus has tracked you.

You've heard his footsteps. You have wearied him with your sins. Yet he followed. He sent ministers, providences, sickness.

He knocked at the door.

He waited long. Oh, surely you have cause to say unto him that loved me. This is the believer's testimony. So I'm telling you this morning, don't you dare for a second try to put yourself in this text where we are preaching from.

Don't dare insert yourself here and detract from all of us. The love of Christ for his people, because he's and you are not my savior.

It is he himself.

No one else but Christ can be our only suitable and all sufficient savior. That is terribly offensive to a lost and dying world. We live in a society that promotes religious pluralism. Religious pluralism states that all religions are equally valid.

By the way, can I just let me insert a historical note. Our founding fathers didn't believe that. Our nation is not founded upon this idea that all religions are equally valid. You hear people today talk about separation of church and state.

And they take that to mean atheism. You know, all these all false religions are equally as true as Christianity. No one in the founding fathers believed that. Religious pluralism can be summed up best.

I don't quote her often, but Oprah Winfrey's statement. She says, there are many paths to what you call God, and there couldn't possibly be just one way, I quote the great theologian Dwight K. Schrute.

False. False.

You're wrong, Oprah.

You're wrong.

Your neighbor is wrong. The entire group of people, I don't even know if they meet or what time they meet, but there's an entire group of people that are, what, less than a mile or just up the road there.

The Jehovah's Witnesses building there. They are wrong. Religious pluralism is wrong. Islam is wrong.

Buddhism is wrong.

New Age mysticism is wrong. Atheism is wrong. The Mormons, they're wrong. Roman Catholicism is wrong. There's just one way. It's no one else but Christ alone. Christ alone without any help from us. We are saved by His work in our confession.

Chapter eight, paragraph one. God was pleased in His eternal purpose to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, His only begotten Son, according to the covenant made between them to be the mediator between God and humanity.

God chose Him to be prophet, priest and king and to be head and savior of the church, the heir of all things and judge of the world. From all eternity, God gave to a son of people to be his offspring.

In time, these people would be redeemed, called, justified, sanctified and glorified by Him. You say, well, I don't know if I believe all that. That's what our text is saying, but at least part of it.

He Himself bore our sins, our sins in His body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds, you have been healed. That is spiritually healed. If I may just kind of get ahead of myself a little bit in the weeks to come.

That is, you don't use Isaiah 53 in the health, wealth and prosperity gospel. Kenneth Copeland, you're wrong. It's not about can you get physically healed? If you're physically healed and your soul goes to hell, what have you gained?

That's not what the text refers to. It's not what Isaiah 53 refers to. It's not what 1 Peter 2 refers to. What these texts refer to is that we have salvation in Christ. Salvation, spiritual salvation, our soul is made pure, forgiven, cleansed.

Christ alone is the perfect prophet, revealing God to us. Christ alone is the priest, the one who sacrificed himself and the mediator between us and God. And Christ alone is king. And he's coming again to vanquish all of his foes and to rescue his loyal subjects.

Jesus alone, alone, is our only suitable and all sufficient savior. No one else but Christ can fulfill that role for you. Secondly, nothing else but Christ. He himself, Robert Trill, says this, the right saving knowledge of God centers in this one person, Jesus Christ.

You want to know God this morning? Children, do you want to know God? Unbelievers in this room, you want to know God, then you must know Christ. You want to know Christ? Oh, yes. OK, I'm with you so far.

So how might I know Christ? You must trust Christ. You want Christ? You trust him. You don't just, I think it's R .C. Sproul's quote, you don't just believe that Christ exists. You believe Christ. You don't just believe about God.

You believe God.

You believe Christ.

You trust him. You come to him. The only way to behold his glory in this life is the eyes of faith. And so that involves nothing else but Christ. That's the point. So remember here that involved forsaking all else, even what you do.

Especially maybe what you do. And you trust Christ, the eyes of faith must move away from my hands and my feet and what I can offer and what I can do and on to Christ. Luther says it this way, Martin Luther, I must listen to the gospel.

It tells me not what I must do, but what Jesus Christ, the son of God, has done for me. Isaac said, Father. I see the fire, I see the wood, but there is no lamb for the offering, Abraham says. God will provide himself.

For a burnt offering in steps, Jesus. Father, I, I see the wood. I see the fires of judgment. I see the nails. I see the people. I see the scourging, not my will. But thine be done. God provided a lamb.

Jesus offered.

Himself.

He says.

No one takes my life, you guys think the Jews could have killed Jesus? You think the Romans could have killed you, you think Pontius Pilate?

He's nothing. He's nothing.

Only reason we remember Pontius Pilate's name is because it's recorded for us in scripture. If it wasn't, we wouldn't even know him. Christ laid down his life himself. Every worldview acknowledges something wrong with humanity.

I could trace a tangent there, but let me just tell you what the Bible says. The Bible identifies this problem as sin. The breaking of God's law. When God says to do something, not doing it, that's sin.

When God says not to do something and you do it anyway, that's sin. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And as a result, we're deserving judgment, judgment from a just and holy God. And outside of Christ, we remain his enemies.

And so the conundrum is here. The problem is here. Our only hope is if the offended party, our triune God, is willing to make peace. Because it's not in us. Number one, we don't have the right to be the ones to offer peace.

Number two, we don't have the desire. We don't want to offer peace. Our only hope lies if the offended party is willing to make peace. And 2 ,000 years ago, the angels helped answer that question. You remember what they declared to the shepherds?

Peace on earth. So the good news is God is willing to make peace. But there's only way.

Listen to me. Listen now for your soul.

God is willing to make peace with you. But the only way he's willing to do that is the blood of the cross of Christ. Therefore, our hope for rescue and reconciliation with God, it doesn't lie within you.

You've got to look not within you for hope, but outside of you to rescue outside of yourself that we desperately need. We can't do it. And there's nothing that you can do to add or even subtract from the work of Christ.

There is nothing that we can bring to the table. Nothing in my hands I bring. It is in our text.

Again, verse 24, he himself.

Himself, Jesus said in Matthew 10, 33, whoever denies me before me, and I will also deny my father before my father who is in heaven.

So listen to this.

Often people are denying Christ alone by the works that they're trying to add to his perfect work. I did bad things. Therefore, I will do good things to make up for these bad things, and God will forgive me.

This is works. This is anti gospel. I will go to church. I will participate in family worship. I will memorize the scriptures. I will sit dutifully and listen to the catechism and the confession being read.

I will tell Brother Quacho or Brother Jacob, good sermon today. I will do these things. I'll give money in the church. I will do these things. And at the end of days, when I close my eyes and sleep and God says, why should I let you into heaven? I will say to him, well, I did this, this, this, this, this.

You gotta let me in.

That's works.

That's anti.

Christ.

Hear me this morning. It's nothing else but Christ, he himself is our savior, not he and your works. Now, there's the other side. Are you just saying live ungodly? Well, others deny Christ by the ungodly life they live.

Well, Jesus will save me. The preacher says, so I'll just give myself over to the world and its pleasures. Let me ask you this. I wonder if the sovereign and all powerful Christ is able to do what he intended to do or not.

Is it like look at the text? He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.

Why?

Now, there's a lot of answers that we could give to that, but specifically to the text.

Why?

That we might die, by the way, might is causative there. It's not saying it's you use might. Like maybe tell your kids like, are we going to go to Pizza Hut?

I want to know one likes pizza anymore, right?

Whatever.

Pick a fancy restaurant. Are we going to?

I was almost said Chuck E.

Cheese.

That's a step in the wrong direction.

Is it? OK, somewhere. Are we going to go eat there today? Well, we might. What does that mean? That means maybe we will, but maybe we won't. But that's not how it's used in the text. It's using the text and the idea this is the cause.

This is the reason.

Jesus gave his life. He bore the sins of his people on the cross.

He died.

He rose again.

Why?

That we might die, that we would die to sin and live to righteous. You tell me you're going to stand there and tell me with a straight face that the sovereign king of the universe is unable to procure what he intended to procure in his life, death, burial and resurrection.

Shame to think such a thing. So, again, I say to you, nothing else but Christ can save you from the judgment that is to come. You can't pray your way to heaven. You can't baptize or Lord's Supper your way to heaven.

You can't give enough money to get to heaven. You can't church your way into heaven. This is not saying that any of these things are unimportant. They are important. But it is to adamantly deny that any of these things that I just mentioned can reconcile us to a holy God.

You can't even want heaven enough to procure heaven. You have to stake the entirety of your salvation all in on what Christ has done for you in his righteous life. In his substitutionary death on the cross, in his sin bearing, in his becoming a curse for us, in his victorious resurrection, all our hope, Providence, is in Christ.

This is the gospel.

This is the gospel of Christmas. This is the gospel of Isaiah. This is the gospel of Moses. This is the gospel of the entirety of the Old Testament. This is the gospel that the apostles preach. And this is the gospel that we believe at Providence Baptist Church.

We're all equal at the foot of the cross.

Listen to that.

There's no good work to get you closer to salvation. You're not more savable because you live in Perryville. Children, my children, children in this room, you're not more savable because your parents do family worship.

You're not more savable in here today because you voted for Donald Trump. You aren't more savable because you don't struggle with certain sins that maybe others struggle with. The reverse side is true as well.

You aren't less savable because of who you are, who your parents were, where you've been. You aren't less savable because of what your past looked like. You aren't less savable because you think that the shame and the guilt that you carry this morning is worse than anyone else can imagine.

I'm saying to us that all, I was going to say the good, the bad and the ugly, but maybe I'll say the bad, the worse and the ugly. All stand justly condemned. All equally justly condemned under the righteous wrath of God and will endure that wrath in eternal hellfire if you cling to anything else this morning other than Christ alone.

But here is Christmas. Here is the gospel. God has done something about our sins.

Christ came to us.

He, the text, he himself completed the work. The door of salvation is open in this moment. The door is Christ. It's open. We proclaim to the city and we pass out tracks and not long we'll be preaching crazy church preaching from the from the Christmas parade.

We just preach, pass out tracks. And one of the things we talk about is this. The door is open, man. You go in, go, all may enter therein, but it's the only door that you can enter. And it's too small.

It's wide enough for any person to come in, but it's way too small for you to come in dragging anything else along with you. Do you understand this? He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, Christ alone.

Let me even say to our church and even members and even guests this morning, children, you need to understand today that you must enter in this way.

Enter in today.

Go to Christ.

Find forgiveness of your sins.

Find eternal life.

Come to Christ.

Enter the narrow way.

Be saved.

This is the gospel.

Christ is the gospel. Repent and believe these truths you've heard. Jesus alone is our righteous law keeper. Jesus alone is our sin bearing substitute. Jesus alone resurrected in triumph as king. Jesus saves and he saves to the uttermost.

What I'm saying to you this morning is Christ is the only answer to your sin problem.

I'm saying even more than that.

Christ is the answer to all the questions the church gurus are asking. Let's get together. Let's huddle around the table. Let's put our thinking caps on. Let's look at these studies.

Let's consider.

Let's contemplate. How do we reach the next generation? How do we reach the millennials? And there's one after them, whatever. Generation X. I don't know all the orders.

Sorry. Correct me later.

How do we reach the next people?

How do we reach the next group?

How do we reach this specific demographic? How do we reach those who are caught in this specific sin? How do we engage the culture effectively? How do we see more people saved? How do we get more people to be committed to the church?

What do we do?

More surveys, more stats, more demographic studies.

What do we know?

We're just running around. We got no idea. I've got the answer.

Preach Christ.

Preach Jesus. Look to what he's done. Rest in him. Look at this verse. Preach Jesus in all his fullness.

Preach the height and the depth and the breath and the glory of the gospel. Proclaim to our friends and neighbors the free and full forgiveness of sins purchased by his precious blood for the sake of his name.

Among the nations, preach the sovereign king of heaven. Preach the one born of the Virgin Mary. Preach the one who completed the covenant of works. Preach him who knew no sin. Preach the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Preach Christ. Preach Christ. And see our questions fade into the background. The things of earth will go strangely dim, won't they? In the light of his glory and grace. Christ alone is our only suitable and all sufficient savior.

No one else but Christ can reconcile us to God. Nothing else but Christ can bring about the redemption we so desperately need.

It's Christ alone.