Today I would like to share the grace of God under the title, “The God Who Became a Man.” Nowadays we see many foreigners acquiring Korean citizenship and legally becoming Koreans. However, in order to become true Koreans, they need to be born to Korean parents. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the body of the Virgin Mary, and was born as a complete human being. Even though He is God in very nature, He came as a human being and became the sin offering for the salvation of humanity. Swedish Lutheran theologian Anders Nygren classified all the religions in the world into two groups: the one is that humans seek and go to God and the other is that God seeks and comes to humans. Christianity is the only religion where God came to humans. In Christianity humans do not seek God through human effort or mortification, but God Himself in human flesh came to seek humans. Today’s Christmas celebrates the day of two thousand years ago when God came to the earth as a human to seek us. Today’s Scripture says, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.” Isaiah belonged to the era 700 years before the birth of Jesus. He was so inspired by the Holy Spirit that he wrote about the birth of the Messiah 700 years before it. Isaiah 9:6 says, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Amazingly he described what kind of a person Jesus was here on earth. In Isaiah 9:6 the names of Messiah were depicted as Wonderful Counselor. Even 600 or 700 years before Jesus was born, His name was given as Wonderful Counselor. The word, ‘Wonderful’ means amazing and best while the word, ‘Counselor’ indicates consultant. Therefore, in the English Bible, Jesus is translated as “Wonderful Counselor.” There are so many insoluble things in our life which can’t be solved on our own. However, Jesus is our Wonderful Counselor and the best Consultant so we can receive His counseling anytime and anywhere. As Jesus came to the earth in human flesh and shared all kinds of emotion with us, He can understand and sympathize with our suffering and pain more than enough. Hebrews 4:15-16 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” When we come before Jesus He will solve whatever problem we may have. He is also called Mighty God and Everlasting Father. He received these glorious names from God the Father. Zephaniah 3:17 says, “The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save.” As Jesus is Mighty God and Everlasting Father, He is also mighty to save! “He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." Matthew 6:9 says, "This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.’ ” When we pray to God, we usually emphasize Our Father in heaven in our prayer. It will be much more effective and powerful to ask help from Father in heaven than to ask help from any other person. Matthew 7:11 says, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” We must accept God as our real Father in our prayer. We call Him Everlasting Father. Isaiah 9:6 explains Jesus, coming Messiah, as Everlasting Father. The Lord would feed us, clothe us, become our protector, and take good care of us. Therefore, before Jesus came to the earth, Isaiah 49:15-16 already said "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.” The Lord said that He would not forget us. Even though our physical parents may forget us, God would not abandon us. However, we are overly self-conscious before God so we don’t have any intimacy or feeling toward Him. Jesus said in Matthew 6:26, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Here Jesus emphasized that the Heavenly Father raises us! Therefore, we should invite Him in our daily life and rejoice over Him whenever we come to meet Him in our worship service. Today our God the Father is here now. And again Matthew 6:31-32 says, “So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.” Orphans ought to worry about what to eat, what to drink, and where to live, but children with parents don’t need to worry at all. As we have this heavenly Father with us, we don’t need to worry about anything but to pray with faith! When we come before God the Father, He will reveal His other names to us. He is also called Prince of Peace! Psalm 29:11 says, “The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with peace.” He gives us peace of mind. So God is said to be Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6 says that Jesus is the Prince of Peace. Peace is Shalom in Hebrew and means that all those estranged from God in our spirit, soul, and body will be restored. In other words, all oppression and curses that came from our sins will disappear and we are healed from all diseases and restored from all parts of our life: This is true Shalom. All true restoration comes only from Jesus. When He enters into our life, He will give us spiritual, material, and physical prosperity as blessings of peace. Colossians 1:20 says, “and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” Through the blood of Jesus on the cross God forgives those who become His enemies and reconciles them to Himself. Jesus finished reconciliation between God and us through His torn flesh and shed blood on the cross. Therefore, whosover believes in Jesus, Prince of Peace, will enjoy true peace with God. Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is too difficult to have peace with God. It is because there is the dividing wall of hostility between God and us. Then Jesus has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, and brought peace so whosoever accepts Jesus as his Savior can boldly come before God without fear. We should know that God creates and gives us true peace, which can’t be given through human power or effort, but only be given by God. Before Jesus was crucified, He promised His disciples, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”(John 14:27) As Jesus has given us His peace, we can say, “Lord, thanks for Your peace.” even though He is invisible. Jesus is our peace and joy so when we give thanks to God for His peace, He will say, “It will be done according to your faith!” The Bible says that Jesus was born with the government on his shoulders and the increase of His government and peace will be without end and that He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom. Jesus was prophesied concerning His relationship with each of us. In addition, Isaiah 9:7 says, “Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.” This shows that Jesus will be KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS and reign over every country with peace. Matthew 2:6 says, " 'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'" John 17:2 says, “For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.” As Jesus reigns over us and we are His people, how great it will be as Jesus almighty God presides over us. It will be a mighty blessing as we are under justice and righteousness without any corruption and graft. The Bible shows us how God was born as a human. Isaiah 53:1-3 says, “Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” The Bible prophesied how God was born in human flesh and lived as a human in this world. Philippians 2:6-8 says, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!” The Lord completely lowered Himself as a human and redeemed all humankind. Jesus’ redemption is a suffering in our place. Please listen carefully to what Isaiah 53:4-9 says. “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”(Isaiah 53:4-6) Jesus was pierced and crushed for our transgressions and iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.”(Isaiah 53:7-9) This was fulfilled as the rich man named Joseph of Arimathea took down the body of Jesus and placed it in his tomb. 1 Peter 2:24 says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” Mark 8:31 says, “He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.” Jesus took the cross not only to reconcile us with God but also suffered to make us children of God. Please think of this. Before the fall, Adam and Eve had fellowship with God and pleased Him as His children in the Garden of Eden. But because of their fall their descendants all had to experience death. However, through Jesus we can enjoy good health and all may go well with us, even as our soul is getting along well. We also become a citizen of paradise in heaven and never die but live with Jesus for eternity. If it comes true in the near future, how wonderful it will be! It will surely be beyond any human description. Jesus was born in human flesh and took humankind’s sins and transgressions and suffered for them. Actually His suffering on the cross was for human sins and He prayed for sinners! Today through this once dead and resurrected Jesus the Holy Spirit of God says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” He wants to renew our thinking. We must have renewed thoughts through the Fivefold Gospel and the Threefold Blessing of Jesus. Then dreams and visions will be given to us accordingly. Because of Christmas we can have new visions and dreams. Because of Christmas we should be different. Our thoughts should be changed. We must have specific dreams. We must live with faith. Our creative mouth confession should follow! Then we can live with the wonderful miracles of God the Father and the Holy Spirit.