G’day and Happy Christmas. My name is Martyn Iles, and I am talking to you because of this: “Truth, as Told by Luke”—also known as “The Gospel of Luke,” more traditionally.

Luke was a doctor and a historian and a contemporary of Jesus Christ, and he wrote down, in exacting detail, a reliable account of Jesus’ life and teaching.

Christmas was established to celebrate the events described in the first 11 pages of this book, surrounding the birth of Christ.

But there is a bigger reason why you’ve received this book from members of your community. . . . It’s not only about Christmas. The book is a little longer than 11 pages.

You may have noticed something about human nature—that people tend to blame others and excuse themselves.

We live in a culture where we instinctively think of evil and sin and wrong as things outside of us. We’re victims of what other people do or we’re victims of unjust systems, you might have heard it said in the political world.

But Jesus confronted our pride and pointed out that we are sinners too.

He said, “From within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting [that means desiring what isn’t rightfully yours], wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within.”

He never failed to tell people about their problem. You can read it for yourself in the interactions that he had with people.

If he was here today, he would tell you and me about our problem—our pride, envy, slander, evil things, sin—that alienates us from God, because God is good.

Now, people tend to get very upset when they hear about this. They find fault with God, and they say, “Well, if God is good, then why is there sin and wrong in the world, and in me for that matter?”

You know, Scripture does not ultimately tell us where evil came from. Something happened in realms that are beyond this world which caused it. But we do learn that it has entered this world through tragic events known as “the fall,” and we’re all stained by it. We’re all guilty by God’s pure and glorious standard. We’re all opposed to him by nature and that cannot end well for any of us, to say the very least.

But God didn’t sit by and leave us in our plight.

Elsewhere, the New Testament says, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

Christmas reminds us that God has come from heaven to answer the human condition, to make us righteous, to take away our judgment, and to reconcile us to friendship with God himself.

In other words, God is resolving evil. He is dealing with sin. He is doing the very things that his critics demand of him!

And it cost him more than it will ever cost us. No matter how far down we go in this life, we know that Jesus Christ has been deeper down on account of us.

He entered the depths of God’s judgment against sin—an affliction, a suffering, and a horror that none of us can ever imagine, and we don’t have to because we can be identified with him and what he has done for us.

He has the very thing we need: righteousness.

I want to ask you, does God identify you with Jesus Christ? Or not?

If yes, then you are reconciled to God. Christ died your death, suffered under the justice that was for you, and has his righteousness to give you—the very righteousness of God.

If no, then today is a good day, because God has kept a door open for your salvation, right up until now. As the New Testament says elsewhere, “So long as it is called today—harden not your heart.”

Pray that God would open your understanding as you read this book, to see that Jesus Christ is the answer for sinners. Pray that he would cause you to have faith in Christ, to trust him for salvation, and cause you to repent of your sin, to reject it and seek his righteousness instead.

There is a little extract from the book here in the opening pages which captures this thought so well. It says,

[Jesus] opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations.” (Luke 24:45-47 LSB)

My prayer is for that to become not just a concept or a general truth, but something that is personally true in your heart this Christmas.

Repentance means to be convicted of your sin, to reject it and to turn from it, and to turn to Jesus Christ, the One whose righteousness and whose death for us brings us peace with God.