I go to the hospital sometimes and I notice through the window as I look at the newborn babies there's baby so-and-so. To me this means the parents yet haven't decided. on what they're going to name the child. I've often asked, do you have to name that baby before you leave the hospital? And I never really have gotten an answer. Do you have to name a baby before you leave, or can you just leave it Baby Boy Brunson or Baby Girl Brunson, you see? I don't know whether you have to name it or not. And then later on in life, you can say, well, child, we never named you anything. Now just get out the little book and pick out anything you want and then we'll go down and we'll make that legal for you I've never heard of that being done now in Proverbs 22 1 it says a good name is rather to be chosen Than great riches, but who's gonna choose the name? that's the question the proverb does not answer and it seemingly implies when you pick out a name for your child and Well, pick out a good one, or as you live, live in such a way that whatever name you have, it'll be associated with something good. That's probably what the verse means. But a good name is to be chosen. Now, Bible names had biblical meanings. There was a meaning to each name. There was an explanation that went along with it. And I'll talk about that in a minute as we look at the name that was given to the Christ child. What is a good name? I said in my class this morning, I don't know of anybody that's named their child Beelzebub. That is one of the names that's given to Satan. I know of no child named Satan. What is a good name? What is a bad name? I understand that most Hollywood stars all have their stage name and it's nothing like their actual name. I don't know whether you go by the name your parents gave you or whether you too have been given a nickname. In Texas, there are two names that I find quite unusual. It's the Hogg family. You know, they named one girl, I'm a hog, and one girl, you're a hog. I never really understood how parents could do that. But I guess when you have the wealth, the hog family had, you can do what you want to. But anyway, that's two of the most unusual names. I'm is not unusual, and you're is not unusual. When you put hog after it, it does come out kind of unusual. Now Joseph and Mary were told they were going to have a baby boy. And the normal thing you do is when you hear about that, you say, well, let's begin to think about a name. But in this case, they did not have any option as to what they were going to name this baby that was going to be born to Mary, because that was settled by God and announced by the angel. He was going to be named a certain name, and that's all there was to it. Look at Luke 1.32. Now, of course, we're just going to read something you already know, but anyway, let's just read it together. Luke 1.32. This son said to Mary, Shall be great, and you shall call him the son of the highest. Now, that's one title given to him, but that's not a name. Look at Matthew 1.23. Behold, the virgin shall be with child, thou shalt bring forth a son, thou shalt call his name Emmanuel. But again, that's not the name that really was given to him by the parents, and you know as well as I do what the name was. The angel told Joseph, and the angel told Mary, you shall name the child what? Jesus. J-E-S-U-S. I often thought for years that that was an unusual name, and nobody was ever named that, but that child born to Mary, I later found out it was a very common name. It was as common then as Dick and John and Bill would be today. But anyway, the child was named Jesus. What is the meaning of a name? Well, if we look at all the names given to Christ, the list would go on and on and on. If you were an artist, you could call him One Altogether Lovely. That's a Bible name. If you were an architect this morning, you might like to call him the Chief Cornerstone. If you were a banker, you could call him the baker, you could call him the living bread. It's a good name for a baker. If you were a builder, he's the sure foundation. If you're the doctor, he's the great physician. If you were a farmer, he's the lord of the harvest. If you're a florist, well, he's the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley. If you were a geologist, you might like to call him the rock of ages. If you were a judge, you must like to call him the righteous judge. A lawyer, you could call him the advocate. If you were a botanist, you could call him the true vine. If you were a sculptor, you'd call him the living stone. If you were a student, you could call him the good master. If you were a shepherd, you could call him the lamb of God. But we're just basically Christians, so we call him Jesus Christ. Now, when it comes to Christmas time, what name shines the brightest? I'll say it again, at Christmas name, what name shines the brightest? That is, what name is heard most during this time of the calendar year? I spoke to Mary Lou, I said, Mary Lou, give me some names that normally go with Christmas. You got Rudolph, and you have Frosty. I always think of root building, I think of Frosty. Frosty, and you have Saint Nick, and you have Scrooge, and you have Santa Claus. So we have a number of names that come to mind when you think of Christmas, and we must not leave out, of course, Jesus. Now let us say we have a child this morning that was not raised in a Christian home and was not subjected to other children who knew a great deal about the Bible story of the birth of Christ. And all they knew was what they heard in songs and read in fairy tale books and heard their peers talk about. And they would piece together what to them Christmas was all about. Let me tell you what I think they could come up with. They could write their own Christmas story and include all the popular names. First of all, somebody would tell them about Joseph, so they would say, Joseph was the one that raised the reindeer for Santa Claus. And Joseph had a favorite reindeer, and his name was Rudolph. Now, among the visitors, of course, that would go to the manger, along with the shepherds and the wise men, would be Frosty and the snowmen. Then there was a star, they would hear about that. And so they would say this, some wise men followed the star, but also accompanying the wise men in the scene would be a Santa Claus flying overhead, following the same star, riding in his sleigh. He'd get to the manger just like the wise men. He would just travel in better class. Then, of course, the wise men gave gifts, and Santa Claus gives gifts, too. Santa Claus would give all the toys, because he's a toy maker, and the wise men would give gold and frankincense and myrrh. And the one person you wouldn't want to invite would be Scrooge. And you can feasibly see how a child with no real knowledge could put all of these names together and come up with a story about Christmas that's far from the truth. I wonder how many people really understand the true meaning of the name Jesus at Christmas time. If you were to ask today, basically children, what Christmas reminds them of, how many of them would think about Jesus? Odds would probably be very slim. Now of all the names that have stuck that the Bible talks about, the one that really has stuck the most has been the name Jesus. You'll hear this name when you go to Christ. It was on a special day years ago that a woman named, really Miriam, was engaged to a man named Joseph, who was spoken to by an angel named Gabriel. The announcement came, a son shall be born, you shall call Jesus. That's in Luke 1, 30 and 31, the name Jesus. What does the word Jesus really mean? The word Jesus really is Joshua. And it talks about a person that is going to bring to us a gift from God. And we associate with Christmas gifts. But what is the gift God wants to give? It's the gift of God's grace. When I think of Christmas, I think of three basic colors. And I think three colors associated most with Christmas. First of all, you have the color red. Secondly, you have the color green. And the third color I associate with Christmas is white. Why white? Because I guess the song I'm dreaming of a white Christmas. I associate white with Christmas. One of the common symbols of Christmas is a holly. You have the green leaf and the red berry, and I think of it growing where there is snow on the ground. In Isaiah 118, the Bible tells you what the color red means. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Now, in the Bible, symbolically speaking, red is the color of sin. White is the color of purity, being innocent. What's the color of God's grace. You know that? It's green. Grace depicts new life. This is in the springtime. You have the green leaves springing out. It seems as though the grass is dead, the trees are dead, the flowers are dead, but all of a sudden they come to life. Green is a symbolic color of something living. Man, because of sin, is dead. White purity is gone. And he deserves, as being dead in sin, to perish. But down from heaven, God says, I'd like to give him new life. I'd like for him to sprout forth and come forth a new creature. And as he comes forth a new creature that depicts the color green. Did you know in heaven that there is a rainbow? Now, when you see a rainbow, normally many of the colors are not real distinct, especially the lavenders and violets. Usually the red stands out more than any of it. But in heaven, there is a predominant rainbow color. There's one band that stands out above all others. And I believe the Bible says as around the throne of God, there is a rainbow. If you went to heaven right now, I think you'd see a rainbow. The predominant color is green in Revelation 4 through 3. Green is the color of new life. Now when God looked down upon the earth, he said, all I see is man stained with sin. What he lacks is white or purity. And he cannot in any way change his color. A spot leopard cannot change his spots. A sinner cannot change his stain. All right? And God said, he looked down, my grace can make possible the change of color. Grace can change the spots on the leopard. I can take a man who is red and through grace make him white. That's an impossibility for a man to do. And when Jesus came, what he was really saying, I am what? The way and the truth and the light. I am the way that man can change from red to white. I am grace. We are saved by grace through faith, not of our works. Man cannot erase the stain of sin from his life. And so when I think of Christmas, I think of man the sinner, I think of the holiness of God, but I also think of the grace that came down and shone in a manger in Bethlehem. Why should God care that much about a scarlet sinner? I can't answer that, but grace provided at the birth of Christ, the birth of Jesus, the way by which the man stained with sin could be made as white as snow. John 3, 16 is really, to me, a great Christmas verse. For God so loved the world, that's grace, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. That's changing from red to white. Now look at Matthew 121. You shall bring forth a son, you shall call his name Jesus. Why? He shall save his people from their sins. The word Jesus just simply means Savior. A deliverer. God's deliverer. God's Savior. Now of all the things the world needs today, It still needs one thing more than anything else. It needs a savior. For no one can take away a man's sin. No one can change him from red to white, but a savior. A man one time saw a stone in a shallow creek, North Carolina. To him, it was a ugly old rock. And he passed by it many times. Another man passed by and said that ugly old rock to him looked like a real good doorstop. So he picked it up and took it home, and for a long time it was a doorstop. Then a man came by one day to visit him and saw that lump on the floor by the door and said, man, that's a valuable hunk of rock, where it turned out to be a lump of gold, and it was the largest stone ever found east of the Rocky Mountain. Now, this story is a real sense, tells us a lot about the way people look at Jesus. Many pass by on Christmas time and, well, there's a cute little baby born in a manger, but no more. That's all he is. Just a rock and a brook, really of no value whatsoever to me. I look at it and I pass by my way. To others, like the doorstop, he is a prophet. And he tells you a lot of things that really might be true and you need to know. So we all take heed to what he has to say about the future events of the world. So in a sense, sort of like a doorstop, we take him home and we listen to what he has to say. But then there are some people who see in Jesus more than a predictor of the future and more as a cute little trinket at Christmas time. He's precious like gold. He becomes their savior and their Lord, for he is able to save them from their sins. Now, Christ is not just a good man or a good prophet or a great teacher. But he's the only savior. If you go shopping for saviors, there's not but one available that can save you from sin. And his name is Jesus. Before Christ was born in Bethlehem, as far as I know, he was never called Jesus in heaven. Now, Christ, the son of God, always existed. He's God. But he was never called Jesus. God has a new name today. If you go to heaven, you still call him Jesus. I'm not sure the angels will ever call him Jesus, because he's not their savior. Although the angel announced, you shall call his name Jesus, he was the savior of men, not the savior of angels. I don't believe angels will ever sing salvation songs, because they're not going to be saved. Though it was an ordinary name, today it's the name that God will always have, and will always refer to. It'll always be a precious name to us. We'll call him Jesus. Why? Because he is our Savior. As I said a while ago, the name Jesus really is Joshua. The word Joshua means Jehovah salvation or salvation through Jehovah. And Jesus came, but you and I might have a what? A new name written down in glory. A new name. He was named Jesus, but what do we call? I don't know if you can say Christian is a new name, but definitely our name is written down in heaven because there was a man named Jesus born in Bethlehem. I'll close with this thought. A minister one time thought that he would give each of his members in the church a little box for Christmas, a little small box. He would wrap it up tie a ribbon around it and write the name of every member on a box. Then he would take it along and he would give it to each one and says, this is a gift from Jesus. You say, what's going to be inside the little box? A piece of paper. And on the piece of paper he was going to write salvation from the penalty of sin, from the power of sin, from the presence of sin. Then he was going to sign it, Jesus Christ. Everybody opened it up. The last present, he was going to say, now this will be your last present. He opened it up. And there would be salvation from Jesus Christ. And he changed his mind. He said, no, I won't do that. What would happen if I gave a person a box who wasn't a Christian? And I caused them to assume that they had salvation when really they had never made this Jesus their own personal Lord and Savior. He said that would be a tragic mistake to give somebody a gift that really wasn't theirs. And so he changed his mind and he never did it. The only people who have a right this Christmas to have a gift like that, of course, are those who are willing to give their life to Jesus Christ and make Him their Lord and Savior. But if you're a Christian, you could do a little box like that, and you could put your name in it and write all that down and sign it, Jesus Christ, and wrap it up. And know it's the last present you got, because it'd be the best one you got. When everything you and I give this Christmas has come and gone, there's one thing we'll always need, and that's the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. There is no more precious gift that God could give by his grace than that. Father, we're thankful this day as we look at the colors of Christmas. Though we were red, because your grace shone down, we can be white as snow. We ask thy blessing now upon each one here. And may we truly this day look upon the gift of salvation as the greatest gift of God's love that could ever be bestowed to any human being. Make us aware of the gift and make us appreciative of Jesus this Christmas. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.