Pastor Tim Patoka A Savior Is Born: To Change the World
Christmas Eve December 24, 2022
A Glaring Need Genesis 3:1-7 Sometimes you can tell what a person’s glaring need is just by looking at them. A disheveled and smelly person needs a place to wash up after a rough night or prolonged transition to a new home. A person with red, puffy eyes and tearstreaked makeup needs a hug and a listening ear because something broke their heart. Sometimes, the need isn’t so glaring. An illness of the mind is made fun of or cast aside when it should be treated with professional help. Unspoken regrets from long ago need the liberation of forgiveness, yet never will because they remain a secret. How glaring would you say our need for a Savior is? We know we need him because we have a problem with sin! Once Adam and Eve brought sin into the world, it’s been passed down through the generations all the way to us. Sometimes our need for a Savior is glaringly obvious, like when death claims another soul. Other times it’s explained away as typical behavior, like feeling shame over nakedness. Perhaps we make it worse when we desire to know good and evil from firsthand experience. Regardless of how glaring our problem with sin is, it doesn’t change the fact of how helpless we are fix it. We need a Savior. That’s why we listen to Christmas’ good news of a Savior born to us. So we start with these verses from Genesis that tune our ears to our glaring need for a Savior and his birth on Christmas.
1