The Born Identity

12-16-07 message by Pastor Rich Doebler

Luke 2:10-12 - ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. ¹¹ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

The simple truth: Christmas is about the birth of Jesus. Christmas celebrates that Jesus has been born to you!

The "born identity," however, includes more than just the birth of Jesus. Think, for a moment, about the circumstances surrounding your own birth. You had no control over those circumstances. You could not choose when you were born. You could not choose your parents... nationality... place of birth... family... relatives... home...

This is Bahati, whom I met in a Tanzanian orphanage.

• No one knows when he was born--not exactly, not precisely.
• No one knows who his parents are--he was abandoned.
• No one knows where he was born--he was found in a field, a garden.

But they call him "Bahati"--which means "lucky" in Swahili because:
He wasn't aborted, he was born;
Though he was abandoned, someone found him;
Though he was thrown away, he got a second chance at life.
Though his mother couldn't care for him, he was brought to an orphanage, which could.

Bahati, the boy, is defined by the circumstances of his birth. His birth defines him--it is his identity:

• He wasn't born in America--he was born in Tanzania;
• He wasn't born to a stable home--he has no family;
• He wasn't born with privileges and advantages--he is an orphan;
• He is immersed in his African culture--Swahili is his native tongue.

I tell you his story just to emphasize how significant are the circumstances of our birth. So much of who we are is defined by our birth: our LANGUAGE, CULTURE, ECONOMIC STATUS, OPPORTUNITIES. Whether we're raised in a dysfunctional or a functional home depends on the circumstances of our birth.

Job, with all his troubles, one time wished that he had never been born. But none of us gets to make that choice. Someone else makes that choice for us. Today. thousands of unborn babies have mothers choosing that they should not be born. The babies don't get a choice.

You didn't have any say about the circumstances of your birth: WHEN...WHERE...TO WHOM you're born. Only one person in all of history had something to say about his own birth. Jesus Christ, the Messiah, Son of God, chose to be born in this world.

Phil 2:6-7 - ⁶ Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, ⁷ but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

• Jesus willingly came to be born as a helpless infant--not as a conquering king or as a majestic, supernatural being, but as a baby!
• He was born in a humble stable--not a palace, not a mansion, not even a hospital, but in a barn!
• He was born under the cloud of social stigma--people whispering about his illegitimate birth, about Mary's bastard son, there were more than enough rumors and talk.

The simple truth: Christmas is about Jesus' birth.

Luke 2:10-12 - ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. ¹¹ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

You've seen some nice birth announcements--complete with pictures, stats, and all the rest that proud parents put out. But this announcement wasn't merely a card and a photo: "It's a boy, born to Joe and Mary." No, THIS was a birth announcement to end all birth announcements!

A chorus of angels out of heaven announced Jesus' birth, identifying who he was: Savior, Christ, Lord.

Jesus wasn't born just to a young woman named Mary; he wasn't born just to this couple from Nazareth; he wasn't even born just to save his people. The gospel says he was born to you--to the entire human race, to the whole world.

John 1:14 - The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us...

John 3:16 - For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

1. Christmas celebrates the birth of the Savior! The birth of Jesus--the Savior--opened the way of salvation to us!

Matt 1:21 - [To Joseph] She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.

Jesus (Gr) ß Joshua/Yeshua (Heb) ß Yahweh + yasha = Yehoshua (the Lord is salvation).

Why do we need a Savior? Because we cannot save ourselves!

We are born into a fallen world, into a world of sin. The circumstances of our birth mean that SIN is our mother tongue, our native culture, our ethnic roots, our world view. We cannot help ourselves--our nature is to sin. It's the human condition--and we can do nothing about it. We cannot save ourselves. That's why we need a Savior!

Ever skip a rock across a lake? What's the most number of times you've gotten a rock to skip? Imagine holding a rock in your hand and telling it that you're going to throw it, but you want it to only skip--you don't want it to sink. No matter how much you try to encourage it, no matter what you do to motivate it, no matter what you say, when you throw that rock into the water, it will sink. It is the nature of the rock to sink. It cannot help itself. It has no hands or feet to paddle; it has no buoyancy to float; it is heavier than the water. You cannot stand on the shore and holler to the rock: "Try harder!" You cannot make a rock skip or swim or float by giving it counseling. There is no self-help book to teach rocks how to swim. There is no Twelve-Step program for rocks--Sinkers Anonymous. "Hi, my name is Rocky, and I'm a sinker... I have a sinking problem."

We're like that rock. It is our nature to sink in sin. We cannot lift ourselves out of sin. How many of you remember that old song that says: I was sinking deep in sin? That's why we need a Savior: we cannot save ourselves. The rock gets out of the water only when someone reaches in and lifts it out. We get out of sin only when a Savior reaches down and lifts us up.

But the angels call him more than Savior--they also say that he is Christ.

2. Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ. Christ (Gr) ß Messiah (Heb) = Anointed One: one who is called and designated for a special purpose or mission. In the OT, they anointed individuals with oil to signify that the Spirit of God coming upon them. They anointed three kinds of people for special roles:

• Prophets (1 Kings 19:16 - Elisha)
• Priests (Exod. 40:13 - Aaron)
• Kings (1 Sam. 16:12-13 - David)

When Jesus--THE ANOINTED ONE--was born, he took on ALL of those roles--prophet, priest, AND king.

• He was born to deliver God's Word to us (what a prophet does);
• He was born to be the mediator between God and us (what a priest does--represents God to the people and pleads to God on behalf of the people);
• He was born to establish a kingdom; born to rule in the hearts of people (what a king does).

But the angels didn't just identify this newborn baby as Savior and Christ. They also announced that he was the Lord.

3. Christmas celebrates the birth of our Lord. This is not the same word that you read in the OT where Lord is the translation for the Hebrew Yahweh (or Jehovah). Lord in the NT was kurios (Gr) = master, owner, the one in authority. In American, we use it in that sense when we say "landlord."

It is an irony that the Lord of the universe, the Creator and Master of all things, the King of Kings, the Ruler of our hearts came as a helpless baby!

Too many people miss the full significance of Christmas because they simply cannot get past the image of a baby lying in a manger.

• They can't see Jesus as their Lord and Savior--because they see a sweet, adorable baby.
• They can't see him as the Christ, the Anointed One--because they see merely a child lying in a feeding trough.
• They can't surrender their lives to him--because they see just a helpless infant.

We need to see the rest of the story! To be complete, the story of Christmas is about Jesus' birth--AND Christmas is about your birth (or, more precisely, your rebirth). "A Savior is born to YOU" becomes real when you are born to him!

Jesus said you must be "born again" (John 3:3) or "born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). His birth is only the start of the work of salvation because salvation requires BOTH God's work AND your response.

It is a historical fact that the Savior was born in Bethlehem many years ago. But it's also a fact that many people are not saved. Why? Because they are not born again; they are not born of the Spirit.

Why do we need to be reborn? Because you can't merely repair or renovate a human life. You can't fix sin--you have to kill it! It's like cancer in the body--we want it gone! Surgery, radiation, chemo.

Spiritual rehab, human effort, and good intentions cannot get rid of the cancer of sin. We need it gone so we can start with a clean slate. We need to put sin and the old nature to death--bury it so we can be spiritually reborn, miraculously and supernaturally.

Your identity is largely defined by your birth--your culture, customs, mannerisms, language, your world view--they're all shaped by where you were born. Someone born in America is not going to blend easily into a foreign country. Missionaries for more than 20 years still are not like the natives.

Just as people cannot radically change who they are just by moving to another country; neither can sinners change who they are just by going to church and trying harder. But we can be born again!

John 1:12-13 - ¹² ...to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- ¹³ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

Phil 3:20 - ... our citizenship is in heaven...

You can become a "naturalized" citizen of another country...but you cannot become a "naturalized" citizen of God's kingdom. You have to be born into it! When we are reborn in Christ, we become citizens of heaven. We die to the kingdom of darkness and become citizens of the kingdom of light.

Col 1:13 - For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.

Eph 5:8 - For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.

Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, but believers have more to celebrate than his birth. We can also celebrate our own spiritual birth. Jesus is Savior only if we give him permission to be born in our hearts, so we can be born again, born of the Spirit.

Have you done that? Are you living as God's child?