Christmas is more than a cultural celebration of gifts and gatherings: a Christmas tree and gifts waiting to be opened under it. It is the reminder of when God Himself came in the Person of His Son to take on humanity and be one with us in a brand new way. The act of the Spirit of God to bring about the conception of Jesus as He overshadowed the womb of Mary gave a humanity to the Christ who already was eternally and totally divine, but now was also “one with us” a member of the human race. Yet the message does not end there. The Father now offers that same Holy Spirit to all who ask Him, not just for spiritual power as experienced in the Old Testament (Saul and Samson etc) but the indwelling of the Spirit within the New Testament believer bringing Christ’s indwelling permanently into our very persons. To grasp the true meaning of Christmas is to receive not only the knowledge that God came to earth, but the Spirit is now given to each person who is born again through Christ bringing His presence and salvation into their hearts.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] Now, it’s interesting to compare the four Gospels that we have that begin our New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and all of them begin, of course, with the very clear idea that the Gospel has begun with the build-up to the birth of the Messiah. It is Jesus Christ, and he is the one who, by his coming, has introduced us to what is going to be the new period. There’s an old period that the Old Testament speaks of, and there was a covenant that it was based on, God through Moses, Ten Commandments, you know about that. But there is a new covenant that’s to be made with the arrival of the Messiah, and the introduction of the ministry and the purpose that Jesus Christ came into the world. And, of course, that which we know that introduction is the word Christmas.

[00:00:55] Now, it’s really interesting to watch and to see how people understand what Christmas is, and when you ask folk about their childhood or what do they remember from their first introduction to Christianity if they came in as adults or what happened when they were a child, and you say, what was Christmas about? I know what I used to say was it’s getting in the back of a truck which had a whole lot of feed for cattle on and sitting there and jumping off to sing at people’s front doors. This is in Perth, West Australia, and to sing the Christmas carols. And Christmas, to me, was getting around on the back of a truck and singing. But the other thing that I think most of us would associate with Christmas, of course, are presents.

[00:01:44] And the Christmas present is understood just about by every child, as well as us giving presents to each other. And the reason for the giving of the presents can sometimes take over so that what Christmas means to someone is really just an aspect of the culture that you grew up in. And so that’s what Christmas is for you, dominantly. But there’s something deeper in the storyline of Christmas that we need to underline this morning and in these weeks that lead up to the Christmas all our messages will be on the fact of what Christmas is actually about. And it isn’t only the culture that we surround in celebration of it, even the idea of presents is really only surfacy in terms of what is the real present that Christmas is about. and it is what we’re reading right now in Matthew’s Gospel.

[00:02:42] Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way and the birth of Jesus is what makes Christmas. It’s interesting nonetheless as you go through in Matthew’s Gospel and this little series of sentences tell us about Jesus’ coming and who he is in his lineage and about Mary, etc. and the need for the angel to come and help Joseph to understand he can marry Mary and that which is being formed in her womb is from the Holy Spirit. And so the very first thing we notice in the storyline is this that is said to the Joseph before. If you look at line three on the screen, you’ll see that Joseph, before they came together, she was found, she, Mary, was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And my topic this morning is to connect Christmas with the offer of the Holy Spirit.

[00:03:42] And the reason for doing that is because very often in our development of culture, Christmas gets to be the cultural things that we do that identify the season of Christmas. And very often Jesus drops out of that. and what the real meaning of Christian is blurred by our culture. And that’s why I think Matthew’s Gospel is terrific, the way it speaks, that before she was found to be a child from the Holy Spirit. And it is the action of the Holy Spirit that brought the eternal Son of God who never had been born. He’s somebody who was a member of the triune God from eternity past to eternity to come. This one was brought by the Holy Spirit into the womb of Mary and that’s what produced the first Christmas. It’s a miracle and it’s a miracle done by the Holy Spirit and so we really can’t get to the bottom,

[00:04:51] we can’t get to the heart, the hearth, if you like, of Christmas, to put a Scottish accent on, unless we see the role of the Holy Spirit is right there in the actual moment of bringing to the womb of Mary that which is to be born of her. And so it’s an encouragement to Joseph not to have to go into a divorce which his period of time would have required of him. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him a dream. Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son

[00:05:54] and you shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. Now you can spot in that narrative just there in Matthew’s Gospel the two major thrusts of what makes Christmas. It is that the Son is born of the Virgin. What a strange statement. The Son of God is born as a human and comes to earth as a human. He takes on humanity and therefore the scriptures say it shows that God is with us. So the birth of the Saviour and what it achieves is that God comes to be with us by his own Son taking up humanity. It isn’t only just that God is near to us as our God and we’re humans and he’s still God but it is that God takes on humanity. He takes on humanity. Do you get it? That he’s with us in a sense that’s more than just the presence of deity with humanity. It’s deity in humanity. The God child. He’s with us. That’s what Christmas is

[00:07:03] and it’s made by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary. It’s a fantastic thought. What I find interesting is how the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, all concentrate on the bringing of the Son of God to earth. They say in their narratives slightly different things. You can put them all together and get such an interesting set of teachings about what Christmas is by reading the Gospels. It’s the beginning of the Gospel is Christmas. You can’t have a Gospel without a Christmas. You know the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which of those four is getting to the point the quickest? It’s Mark’s Gospel. Some later time go and read the way it starts off, the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Because Christmas is the beginning of the Gospel. That’s what it’s all about.

[00:08:00] Then I took a bit of a look at how this same set of information from Matthew that we’ve just read is also reflected in Luke. Luke being very good at giving some of the historical statements. And when you read pretty much the same statement, but with one more emphasis added in, you find it in Luke. And go to our next passage in Luke, I think it is chapter 11. I’m not sure. Let me see. Luke 11, 9 or 8 to 13. Let’s see what we did. 9. Thank you. Good man. And let’s read it through and see if you can spot what is that which is underlined in Luke that wasn’t quite so heavily emphasised in Matthew. And I tell you, ask and it will be given to you. You seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you. The same statements are made in Matthew. I didn’t get us to read them,

[00:09:02] but the same statements are made about God answering prayer. And Luke seems to say the same things. For to everyone who asks, they receive. And the one who seeks, finds. And to the one who knocks, it will be opened. What father among you? And immediately the drawing of the peril of the father God. He’s our father, our father who is in heaven, we pray. Yes, what father among you? The comparison is made if his son asks for a fish. Instead of a fish, gives him a serpent. For if he asks for an egg, will he give him a scorpion? Depends on how old that egg is, I guess. Anyway, no. For if you then, who are evil, given the basic fact that we have all got some sinful parts of us, if you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,

[00:10:02] how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them who ask him? Now this gospel that begins with Christmas, that begins with God with us, which begins with the incarnation of the Son in Mary’s womb. This Christmas finishes with the offer of God answering a prayer for you to receive the Holy Spirit. Now I don’t know whether this is dawning on you yet, I’m not sure how to make it clear, but Christmas in our culture often is such a shallow thing. Getting presents, unwrapping them, going and shopping, getting together with all the family and having lots of food and having Christmas cake or whatever it is that you’re going to be doing in a few weeks’ time. That’s Christmas for us or having one of my kids shown her over with Jess, her husband, in Dallas Seminary at the moment

[00:11:08] and getting to talk on the telephone, which is so wonderfully easily done these days and hearing of the culture over there. They have two times of a quick holiday at this time of the year and one is Thanksgiving to do with the beginning of the nation when the Indians help them, I think, or something happened to have Thanksgiving about. Anyway, there’s Thanksgiving and do you know the Americans actually travel back home for Thanksgiving, sometimes even more than Christmas. Not because Christmas is downplayed, but because Thanksgiving you can whip home and have a dinner and go back again. But Christmas is a big choice to spend your holiday time. They don’t have long holidays over there as much as we do. You should be glad you’re in Australia, especially if you’re a student

[00:11:55] and you get four months holiday at this time of year. Over there they whiz home for a quick two weeks at Christmas and that’s more than Thanksgiving. Anyway, what I’m trying to say about this is that the storyline of Christmas finishes with prayer for the Holy Spirit. And so my thesis this morning that made me get this sermon ready is I wanted to bring the whole story of Christmas in line with the fact that we are charismatics. Oh, I’m sorry if I used a word that shocked you. But do you know that to be a Christian is to be a charismatic? Because the gospel tells us not only did Jesus come to be with us, but that he came to save us. And in that first passage, I didn’t bring it out as I was intending to, that they’re the two things in the Matthew passage.

[00:12:48] It is that God is with you and Jesus has come to save us. A saviour is the one who’s been born and we remember at Christmas. But that saviourhood is told by the gospel and the concluding part of it is the offer of the Holy Spirit. And you have not yet responded to the gospel and got what Christmas is all about. Now, if you’ve only had ceremonies, if you’ve only gone to churches and observed the recognition that Christmas celebrates the coming of Christ to the world, yes, he came to the world, God with us as a race. But the whole gospel is not just that God should be with us as the person from heaven comes to humanity. It isn’t only that Jesus came to humanity, it is that he offers to come to your heart. He offers that there might be the gift of the Holy Spirit.

[00:13:50] It was culminated on the day of Pentecost as a fulfilment of the offer of the gospel. That if you would believe in Jesus, if you would take him as your saviour, if you would ask of him the forgiveness of sins, if you do it with repentance, which means reverse your verdict and change your walk of life to let him be Lord and saviour, then you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And the point I want to get to just at this moment is that the receiving of the Spirit is when you ask him to come. And so the equivalent of Matthew, which talks about the God, the Heavenly Father, how much more will he give good gifts to his children, so shall he give, when it’s written up in Luke, so shall he give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. I’m asking you the question, have you asked for the Holy Spirit?

[00:14:49] That’s what makes you a Christian. It may be you asked for the Holy Spirit when you asked for Christ, not only to save you from your sins, that is, be your saviour, but also to come by his Spirit into your life, for he does that through the agency of the Holy Spirit. There is no such thing as receiving Christ into your life and then needing to have a second receiving, which is a different part of God’s provision, and you get the Holy Spirit as a second blessing, I want to tell you there’s only one blessing, the blessing of Christmas that finishes with people asking for the Holy Spirit. How much more shall the Father give the Holy Spirit to his children when they ask him? All my life of being a travelling preacher, well, not my whole life, but all of my adult life,

[00:15:55] I’ve confronted the scenario of people in churches who have come to Christianity and acknowledged that Jesus came into the world, who’ve gone sometimes across a lifetime of being Christian attending and have recognised the Christmas story that Jesus came to earth, but have never caught on to what he did in coming to earth to bring God not only to be with us, the human race, but to bring the opportunity for God to be in us through his Holy Spirit, which awaits them receiving him personally. What makes you a Christian is not your attendance at the church ordinances. It’s not just that you have recognised the truth of the Bible that objectively the Son came from heaven and came to earth and there’s the Christmas story and you’ve celebrated that for years perhaps. But it’s all that you might come to the moment

[00:17:21] of recognising, of seeing the call, of feeling the call that the Heavenly Father is giving when he says, how much more will the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? And if you’ve never quite realised what it is, somehow you don’t always feel connected in. Go home today, get down by your bed and ask the Holy Spirit to come as the gift of the Father that Christmas was all about. Christmas is about the day of Pentecost and all that period of time works on through to the moment where Jesus makes sure his disciples who’ve been serving him and doing things and suffering things understand this point that I’m trying to say. Let’s run through a few places. Let’s look in the book of Acts chapter 1 verses 4 to 8. Honey, if you’d like to bring me my bit of water, I’ll loosen up a bit here. And this is in the book of Acts

[00:18:39] in chapter 1 and this is after the whole journey through of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Thank you. After the whole of the going through of Jesus’ death and on the cross for our sins, his resurrection, and here we read and while staying with them, this is after Jesus has resurrected and he’s appeared to them. Right? He’s gone to heaven, actually and he’s appeared to them. Or has he gone to heaven? Let me work it out. While staying with them, he’s staying for a few little time, a couple of weeks or whatever it is. He ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father. Now I’ve just been doing a little bit of shouting, a little bit of emphasising. The promise of the Father is that if you ask for the Holy Spirit, he’ll give him to you.

[00:19:38] The promise of the Father which he said you heard from me. For John baptised with order, that didn’t do it for you. Joining a church, that won’t do it for you. Becoming someone who attends to the steps of Christianity and history, that’ll be educative for you. But until you’re baptised with the Holy Spirit, you haven’t really got what Christmas is about. That’s why I addressed you all as charismatics, if you really are Christians. The word charisma has to do with the word for, the charisma is the charisma of the Spirit, the fact that you’ve got the Spirit. And what you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit, not many days from now, because that had never been formally given, that which the Gospel talks about, until the day of Pentecost. Pentecost. Pentecost was 50 days after the Atonement.

[00:20:40] And that’s the day that the Holy Spirit was given to people to live in their lives. So when they come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? They were keen about that. He didn’t say that he wasn’t going to do that one day. He just said, this is not the time. He also said, it wasn’t for you to know the time. Look at it. This is not for you to know the times or seasons the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive the power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Joel, Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. You only have to read the book of Acts to find out when they did just that. It was after the day of Pentecost when the Spirit of God came to all those

[00:21:27] and Peter preached a powerful gospel message on how Jesus had died and Jesus had risen from the dead, how Jesus had gone back to heaven and been crowned King of kings and Lord of lords. And now he offers the gift of the Holy Spirit. If you would but repent of your sin and put your faith in Jesus, showing it by being baptized, that you are receiving the forgiveness of his death for you, and you shall receive, Acts says, I’ll go to my next verse to show you, you’ll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. That’s the day of Pentecost. That’s why in a sense, people who receive the gospel are all Pentecostals. Now I didn’t mean the ones that have a brand on their church Pentecostal. I meant Christians who’ve come to Christ because he died for their sins

[00:22:20] and have wanted him to be their saviour and have asked Jesus for the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we word it for the spirit of Christ. Sometimes we word it to have Jesus come into our life. They’re all different aspects of the one thing. There’s only one grand salvation that came because of Christmas, because of the gospel of Jesus and what He did in His life and His death on the cross because of the success of how He died for our sins and the success of His raising from the dead and His wonderful, glorious resurrection back to glory, not resurrection from the dead but His ascension to heaven where He was crowned King of kings and Lord of lords and then sent His Holy Spirit that this statement of Jesus If you pray the Father, he will give you the Holy Spirit will come true for you.

[00:23:14] That was the day of Pentecost and thousands got in the door of being saved. Thousands got in the door of knowing Christ. Thousands that day knew what it was to have the Holy Spirit come into their hearts. Are you certain that your Spirit indwelt? I was saying to you a little earlier how going around Australia, I kept bumping into all sorts of people well bumping is the wrong word but sometimes they were ministers who asked me to preach and after we did the business of the Sunday evening service at their church they’d take me home and then one guy just wouldn’t let me get to sleep until he got out that he wasn’t sure it had happened to him and he was a minister. You’d be surprised how many people trust in the fact of there being a church and it has ordinances and they’ve been through all the different rites

[00:24:10] they’ve been sprinkled as a baby and they’ve been this or that and they’ve been confirmed and they’ve gone to services and they’ve knelt their knees and they’ve taken the sacraments they’ve done this, done that but they have no sense of ever realising they needed to ask God to give them himself the one who lives within your heart the one who makes you a Christian and how from that moment on it’s altogether different so I’m asking you this morning do you know him have you responded to him have you asked the Father to give you his Holy Spirit the Spirit of which he speaks is the Spirit of Jesus the Spirit that made Jesus the Saviour that’s why he was called Christ that’s what the word Christ means anointed one of the Spirit the Spirit of the Lord is upon me he said he’s anointed me to preach to the captives

[00:25:23] and to bring forgiveness of sins and a number of things that’s the ministry of Jesus that Christmas came to begin but it finishes with a statement that you need to ask the Father to give you the Holy Spirit. There’s nothing wrong with someone who’s felt that they’ve not noticed in themselves a spirituality as deep as they’d like to say I’m going to pray a prayer like that even if because you first prayed something similar when you were so young you don’t remember or even if in all the things you’ve done God has taken you as having given by that journey a tacit request that you’ve been trying to get heaven to hear you haven’t quite understood it there’s nothing wrong with you if you’re not certain that you’ve made it clear enough of saying to God again for you I want the Holy Spirit to take over me Father

[00:26:27] how much more shall the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him that won’t turn you into anything that other people say you’ve become a holy roller or you’ve become you know whatever the whole business of saying that there are pentecostals who alone have the Spirit is a misunderstanding both of history and of the facts of the Bible if you’re not a true pentecostal I mean by that someone that has asked the Father and you’ve got the Spirit you’re not in the door as a Christian you’re someone serving him someone acknowledging him and someone somehow halting before the final moment you need to go home and say Father whatever I lack I don’t want to lack anything give me now please how much more shall the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those that ask him that’s Jesus and that’s the Gospel let me pray

[00:27:37] Heavenly Father I thank you today for the Christmas story Lord if there’s somebody who’s never noticed it’s not about our culture just much and the giving presence is a nice touch it’s an expensive one too but Lord Christmas is about asking the Father to give us the Holy Spirit thank you for Luke in chapter 11 how much more shall the Father give the Holy Spirit to those that ask him and I pray that you’ll use this word of part of your word to generate a number of people who will go home and say Father I want all of the Spirit that you can give me Father I pray this in Jesus name Amen