Our text for this Christmas Eve morning is found in Galatians Chapter 4, verses 4 and 5, But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
	This is the time of year that is celebrated around the world as a special event that happened over two thousand years ago. The world stops to consider the story of a child, born in a manger. The hymns are sung about peace on Earth and goodwill toward men. The words are spoken about the joy of the season, and generally, people try to show, at least temporarily, a better face toward their neighbors and associates. The time is used as a means to patch old quarrels, and sentimental statements are common among those who had formerly not spoken to one another. Family members try to get along for the sake of the memories of an earlier time in one’s life when things were less complicated and much less hectic.
	Christmas time is, generally, seen as man’s finest hour of behavior filled with all the elements of kindness, generosity, and sentimentality. Yet, the fact is, that no matter how much the holiday season seems to change the human attitude, there dawns that January morning which means a return to business as usual. Old hatreds resurface, hurts are remembered, and the human capacity for inhumanity toward one another proceeds as before, sometimes with even more vengeance than before. Nothing has changed except the ferocity, because in all the talk and songs, the reality of Christ has been considered as nothing more than a great story which can be commercially exploited to a capacity of seemingly, unending proportions.
	More and more, the course of this world brings forth the elements of the severity of our time, the fulness of time. God has not been side-tracked from His plan and purpose in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. All the sweet sentiments of man’s holiday season have not impressed God with any tribute given to the story of Christmas. These are elements of man’s corruption of that which God has done in His fulness of time. He appointed the moment of Christ’s birth, with the expressed determination to bring forth, from the seed of Adam, the perfect One to save those who were afar off. Christ, born of a woman, and fully under the curse of the law, was the selfless means of so satisfying God, and completely fulfilling the law that was considered a curse by all humanity. He came, not to usher in a season of human efforts at trying to make things better in any sentimental sense, but rather in order to fulfill all the just requirements of the law for you and for me. He purposed in his heart to bring complete glory to the Father by bringing forth a race of humanity that would, by His perfect atonement, be brought into perfect fellowship with God. 
	This is the result of the birth that took place in Bethlehem so long ago. But this is just the initial import of such a great salvation that was ushered in with the life, crucifixion, resurrection, and glorification of our Lord Jesus Christ. The light of the law gave corrupt humanity the vision of God as an enemy. He was seen as the One who had sentenced us to death, the severest of spiritual deaths in which we lost all fellowship with God. The law, fulfilling its course of time, severed to make known the utter corruptness of humanity apart from God. The fulness of the time of the law revealed that there was none righteousness, no not one. It was as the fulness of the time of the law was at its zenith, in its revelation of the need for a Savior, that God sent forth His only begotten son, born of a virgin, wrapped in the humanity which had become so defiled and separated from the plan and purpose of God. This was not some great recovery plan, instituted because plan A didn’t work properly, as some would put it. Rather, God, in His infinite wisdom had foreseen the need to reveal the great need for Christ, from before the ages of the ages. It was not a means to show how great God was in that only He could create the situation that would require divine intervention, but rather it was the plan that, from the beginning, was the only perfect way to show just how much God loved us. For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16.
	Christ is the love of God, Immanuel, God with us. We no longer are visionaries of God in nature, seeing the works of His hand as a mighty creative Being in the Heavens. The Earth is full of His glory, and serves to prove that there is a God, but that does not reveal the essence of God. It shows the reality of the Creator, for no other way could truly explain the intricate details and laws of nature except for our God, the Creator of all things.
	The law revealed the righteousness and holiness of God. It showed that the laws of nature and of heaven are fully in force and that we are under them in every sense. It showed a God who could not abide faithlessness and sin. The Jews served this holy God to the best of their ability, but never in perfection. They had glimpses of God, but never were able to know God in true fellowship. They kept Him tied to a specific, physical location. As Matthew Henry states, they had God present with them in types and shadows, dwelling between the cherubim.
	But now, in Christ, we have God with us, Immanuel. In the Old Testament, the priests would occasionally experience the Shechinah Glory of God in the holiest of holies. Today, however, we live in the Shechinah glory of God in Christ Jesus, the Word made flesh. As Matthew Henry continues, “Immanuel signifies God with us; a mysterious name, but very precious; God incarnate among us, and so God reconcilable to us, at peace with us, and taking us into covenant and communion with himself.”
	This is the glad tidings of great joy that we experience in the celebration of our Lord Jesus Christ coming to dwell in us. This is the gospel message. God so loved us that He made the only possible provision to bring us into proper relationship with Himself. He chose to love us and to bless us by bringing us into communion with Himself. It is no longer a consideration of our unworthiness, but rather the joyous tidings that Christ is worthy to receive all glory and honor and praise, and that we are now partakers of Christ, living forth as His Body of believers, partaking of the Shechinah glory of God as we live forth from Christ each and every day.
	Let the angels proclaim to all creation what we now know in reality, that our God reigns on high and has made a dwelling place for Himself, not of wood and stone, but of the human hearts who will but receive the great tidings of glad joy that Jesus Christ the Lord is here!  
	But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.