Read Ps 119:49-56.

The world is divided, we are told, into two camps: the haves and the have-nots. Whilst there is truth in this statement (and our support of the Salvation Army Christmas Appeal seeks to give to those in need), the world is also divided spiritually: those who believe in God and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and those who don’t (see John 3:16-21, 1 John 2:22-23). The psalmist struggles with issues concerning good and evil: ‘indignation grips me because of the wicked who have forsaken Your law.’ (Ps 119:53) We, too, wrestle with questions of evil and suffering, but are preserved by God’s Word (Ps 119:50).

God’s Word gives us comfort and hope (Ps 119:49-50), enabling us to cope with mocking and endless baiting from the arrogant who think they know it all (Ps 119:51). Remembering God’s laws helps to focus us on right paths (‘treasuring Your revelation’, Ps 119:55, The Message) and thus we can ‘walk through a rain of derision because [we] live by Your Word and counsel.’ (Ps 119:56, The Message).

Our response to God’s word spoken in Jesus will determine how we live on earth and our eternal destiny. (John 3:36) We need to hold on to the revelation God has given and keep walking in His ways.

We also had a December birthday to celebrate:

Activities included colouring Christmas pictures for children and puzzles involving words: how many words of three letters or more can you find from the word ‘CHRISTMAS’? (Have a go… our total was 75!) How many unusual Christmas-related words can you think of beginning with each of the letters of the word ‘Christmas’? Some answers to this last question included ‘celebration’, ‘Clark Griswald’, ‘cherub’, ‘herald’, ‘realm’, ‘reign’, ‘incarnation’, ‘ivy’, ‘sausage rolls’, ‘sherry’,  ‘trifle’ (sensing a theme here…!), ‘tinsel’, ‘trimmings’, ‘thanksgiving’ (without the capital T!),  ‘mass’, ‘Mary’, ‘mistletoe’, ‘mincemeat’,  ‘angels’, ‘announcement’, ‘shepherds’ and ‘stable.’

There are many hugely enjoyable aspects of Christmas listed above, but what is crucial is for us to keep Christ central to all our celebrations. Without Christ, there is no reason for Christmas, but with Him, we have so many reasons to celebrate, to rejoice and to have fun.

Jesus is central to the whole Bible, even if we see Him most clearly in the New Testament. Tonight’s sermon looked at some of the ways we find Him foreshadowed in the Old Testament.

In Genesis, God promises that He will send a Saviour, a Deliverer, a Rescuer to deliver us from the problem caused by sin in the Garden of Eden (see Gen 3:15), a Messiah from the line of God’s special people (hence the importance of the genealogies in Matthew & Luke.)

In Exodus, we read how God delivered His people from slavery and the importance of the Passover Lamb (Ex 12). Jesus is described as ‘the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’ (John 1:29), and in many other places, we read of Jesus as the Lamb (see 1 Pet 1:19, where Jesus is described as ‘a lamb without blemish or defect’ or Rev 5:6, where John sees ‘a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain in the centre before the throne.’)

In Leviticus, all the sacrifices and offerings described in such detail there are fulfilled ultimately in Jesus, as the book of Hebrews makes clear. Numbers shows us that the Messiah will be a King: Num 24:17 says ‘a star will come out of Jacob, a sceptre will rise out of Israel,’ and the New Testament shows us wise men bringing gifts fit for a king – gold, frankincense and myrrh – to Jesus (Matt 2:1-12), with Revelation proclaiming Jesus as ‘King of Kings and Lord of Lords.’ (Rev 19:16)

Deuteronomy shows us that the Messiah will also be a prophet (Deut 18:15-19, see John 6:14). In Joshua, the ‘commander of the army of the Lord’ appears to Joshua, thought to be a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ to Joshua, who himself is a picture of Christ as our leader. The book of Judges shows us how God gave Israel different judges or rulers to help them; Jesus said that the Father had entrusted all judgment to the Son (John 5:22) and given Him authority to judge (John 5:27).

Ruth not only teaches us that the Messiah would be a descendant of Boaz and Ruth (Ruth 4:12-17, see Matt 1:5), but talks of how Boaz acted as a ‘kinsman redeemer’ (Ruth 2:1). Jesus, being fully human as well as fully God, is the only One able to redeem people (see 1 Pet 1:17-19).

In 1 & 2 Samuel, we see more about prophets and kings, roles which Jesus Himself fulfilled (see 2 Sam 7:11-12, Matt 1:1). In 1 & 2 Kings, we see glimpses of what will come in the life and miracles of the prophet Elisha (who multiplies bread in 2 Kings 4:42, just as Jesus does in the feeding of the five thousand, and heals a leper in 2 Kings 5, just as Jesus does (Mark 1:40-42, Luke 5:1-13). In 1 & 2 Chronicles, we hear of the wisdom of Solomon (2 Chron 9:22) whilst in the gospels, we see the wisdom of Christ as He answers all the trick questions of the Pharisees and other religious leaders who are constantly left astounded by how He speaks. 1 Chron 5:2 tells us that the Messiah would be from the tribe of Judah, a prophecy fulfilled in Luke 3:33.

Ezra and Nehemiah are both faithful servants of God, and this notion of the ‘faithful servant’ is taken by Isaiah, in particular, as a feature of the Messiah (see Ezra 4, Isaiah 40-53). There are many specific prophecies concerning the Messiah in this book, seen especially in Isaiah’s description of the ‘Suffering Servant’ (Is 53) which describes vividly the death and resurrection of Christ.

There are many specific references to Christ in the book of Psalms (see Ps 2, Ps 22, Ps 69, Ps 110, Ps 118 in particular.) Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are books that talk much about wisdom and foolishness, including wisdom from everlasting (Prov 8:22-23), which echoes Jesus’s assertion that He is eternal (‘glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.’ (John 17:5)) In the Song of Songs, we see a parable of God’s love for us acted out by the Bridegroom and the Bride. Revelation 21 makes it clear that God is the Bridegroom and the Church is the Bride; Christ identified Himself with the bridegroom when He explained why his disciples did not fast like John the Baptist’s (Luke 5:33-35).

Wherever we look in the Bible, we find God’s great plan of salvation being worked out and we can be confident that God is in complete control of our lives and of the world. As we celebrate Christmas this year, let’s do so knowing that Jesus is the real reason we have for celebration and let’s put Him at the centre of all we do during this season.

Tonight’s family service looked at the theme of ‘Christ in Christmas.’ Christmas is the time of year when we particularly think about how God sent Jesus as a baby to be born in Bethlehem. It’s a time of celebration: ‘good news that will cause great joy for all the people’, as the angels proclaimed to the shepherds (Luke 2:10). The Christmas story is worth all our attention and celebration because we see in this story how God sent His only Son to be born of the virgin Mary; it’s the start of the ‘good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God’ (Mark 1:1), for we see throughout the four gospels how this helpless baby born in a stable in Bethlehem grew to be the Saviour of the whole world, the sinless One who would die on a cross to take away the sins of the whole world.

Christmas is not the start of God’s story of salvation, however. Christmas is the time when we remember the birth of Jesus, but God’s plan to bridge the gulf between people and Himself caused by sin and rebellion and disobedience didn’t start at that point. One of the amazing truths of the Bible is that Jesus is central to the whole of the Bible. He is ‘in all the books of the Bible’; He is pictured or prophesied about in each of the 66 Bible books as well as in countless types in the lives of different characters in the Bible – which is why it’s important to read the Old Testament as well as the New Testament! On the road to Emmaus, ‘beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself’ (Luke 24:25-26) – a truly memorable Bible study!

A whistle-stop tour of Messianic prophecy in the Old Testament showed us Jesus in every book we find there. Many of the Messianic prophecies were fulfilled in His birth (see Isaiah’s prophecy that the virgin would bear a son in Is 7:14 or Micah’s prophecy that Bethlehem would be His birthplace (Mic 5:2)) and a scientist who picked out 48 prophecies about Jesus found in the Old Testament determined that the probability of one man randomly fulfilling them all is 1 in 10 to the exponent of 157. That is one followed by 157 zeros! – not very likely at all! Yet because God knows all things and inspired the Bible, Jesus was able to fulfil all these prophecies, and we can have confidence that the prophecies yet to be fulfilled – such as His coming to earth again for His people and His ultimate judgment of all – will one day, at the right time, be fulfilled. Our God is an amazing God!

The third fruit of the Spirit listed in Gal 5:23-24 is peace. Dave spoke from Rom 5:1-8 this morning. Peace in the world has never been evident and wars continue to be fought in many areas of the world. What, then, do Paul and Jesus mean when they talk about peace?

Paul talks primarily about the peace with God obtained through Christ’s sacrifice for us. Is 57:19-21 describes the peace that God brings and contrasts this with the wicked, for whom there is no peace, ‘whose waves cast up mire and mud.’ Just as the sea is constantly moving, affected by the pull of the moon and the pull of gravity and churns up seaweed and debris as a result, so people are restless without God, with the devil constantly tempting us to sin and the faint memory of all God intended for us pulling us in opposite directions. People are like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed about by the wind (Js 1:6), and there is a constant need for entertainment and distraction because all people desperately need peace with God, but look to find satisfaction in the wrong places.

All people need peace with God (Eph 2:17). The good news of Christmas is that peace is precisely what God promises to all people on whom His favour rests (Luke 2:14). God’s peace is available to us through Christ (see 1 Pet 2:24), a peace which helps to answer all our fears and give us assurance of God’s acceptance. Jesus promised to leave His peace with us (Jn 14:27); all we have to do is bring our problems and petitions to God and allow His perfect peace to guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Phil 4:7)

Life is supposed to be lived with God, but for most of us, the visible and tangible appear more real to us than the invisible, immortal God who gives us life. Ps 119 helps to anchor us in the reality of God in a world full of enemies who taunt us (Ps 119:42) and those who stoutly refuse to believe.

Anchors are hugely important in times of storm and uncertainty, keeping us fixed to truth. One of the great truths of the Christian faith, and a key message of Christmas, is that we have hope – hope we’ve grabbed hold of with both hands, ‘an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God where Jesus, running on ahead of us, has taken up his permanent post as high priest for ever, in the order of Melchizedek.’ (Heb 6:19-20, The Message) This hope is rooted in God’s unfailing love for us which brings us salvation (Ps 119:41) and which leads us into freedom (Ps 119:45).

Our response to hope is delight (Ps 119:47). Those who have put their hope in God’s ways (Ps 119:43) have boldness to speak of this freely (Ps 119:46) and love to meditate on His decrees (Ps 119:46).

Advent is the time when we remember that light has come to our world in the person of Jesus Christ: ‘The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.’ (Is 9:2) Hope, in our terror-stricken world of fear and uncertainty, poverty and misery, is sorely and desperately needed. Let’s hold on to hope as the anchor for our soul.