1. The theme of the Christmas program tonight is “the journey of Christmas.”
2. Most people would say the journey began when Mary and Joseph began their trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem (Luke 2:4-7).
3. Others would go back further, perhaps to when the angel Gabriel visited Mary and told her she would be the mother of our Saviour (Luke 1:26-33).
4. But actually the journey goes back much further than that.
5. Remember, Jesus said in John 8:58, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.”
6. By claiming pre-existence for himself (John 8:58), our Lord was asserting that He transcends time.
7. Strictly speaking, for God there was no beginning to the journey because God is eternal.  But we think in terms of time – past, present, and future – so we must study the Bible that way.

I. THE BEGINNING OF THE JOURNEY (REV. 13:8).

1. In Revelation 13:8, the Lord Jesus Christ is called “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”
2. So before God created this world, before God created man, the Lord Jesus Christ was “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”
3. Back in the Garden of Eden, the LORD said to the serpent, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15).
4. The seed of the woman is Christ.  He bruised the serpent’s (Satan’s) head at the cross, and Satan bruised our Lord’s heel.
5. The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 16:20, “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.”
6. “Under your feet” – not just the Lord’s feet, but our feet.  We are the body of Christ.  Christ is the head of the body. 
7. Colossians 1:18 says, “And he is the head of the body, the church.”
8. So the journey goes back to the foundation of the world, and it continued on to the Garden of Eden.  “It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
9. Charles Wesley put it this way:
   Come, Desire of nations, come,
   Fix in us Thy humble home;
   Rise, the woman’s conqu’ring Seed,
   Bruise in us the serpent’s head.

II. THE JOURNEY THROUGH OT PROPHECY.

1. The LORD said the Messiah would come into the world through the seed of the woman, and later on, in Genesis 49:8, we learn He would come through the tribe of Judah.
2. Jacob said to his son Judah, “Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down before thee.”
3. Later on, it was revealed that the Messiah would come through the line of King David.
4. The LORD told King David through Nathan the prophet, “Thy throne shall be established for ever.”
5. This promise was repeated to Mary by the angel Gabriel (Luke 1:31-33).
6. Jesus is descended from David through both Mary and His stepfather Joseph. 
7. The prophet Isaiah said the Messiah would be born of a virgin (Isa. 7:14).
8. The prophet Micah said He would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2).

III. THE JOURNEY INTO THE NT (GAL. 4:4).

1. All of the OT prophecies were literally fulfilled in the NT.
2. Our Lord was born to a virgin (Matt. 1:22-25).
3. Our Lord was born in Bethlehem (Matt. 2:1-6; Luke 2:1-7; cf. Micah 5:2).
4. Just as all the prophecies regarding the first coming of Christ (Psalm 22; Isaiah 53) were accurately fulfilled, we can be confident that all of the prophecies regarding the second coming of Christ will also be accurately fulfilled.

CONCLUSION:

1. Each one of us is on a journey.  The journey will come to an end some day.
2. Though it seems like there are many different roads to take, our Lord said there are really only two – the broad way and the narrow way (Matt. 7:13, 14).
3. Which road are you on?