Behold the Mess that is Christmas

Notes for December 4th, 2022

Behold the Mess that is Christmas

· Opening

o Introduction of myself

· 2 Christmas stories?

· Word bubble?

· Turn to Matthew 1

· Everyone's Favorite Bible Study Material – A Genealogy

· Carmen Imes Quote on Gene

o Genealogies tend to convey details about the background and history that the author wants to stress that apply to the current events.

· Big Idea: Until you see through the mess that is Christmas, you cannot behold Jesus as king.

· How’d we get here?

o So what?

· Matthew 1 is a long list but, we will be only highlighting some of the greatest hits

o Turn to Matthew 1:5

· Rahab, what do we know?

o Worst of the worst

§ Shes a woman

§ A Prostitute

§ Not God’s chosen

o Joshua 2

§ V18 -Her entire hope rests on the little scarlet thread in her window

o She sees through the mess of everything around her and the only thing that makes sense is God

§ Reasonable to say part of her decision was made in fear

§ Sometimes it is in those moments when we have exhausted every option that we finally find God

o She was set apart from God’s people

§ Alone, not to be spared, not chosen

o Moved to Set apart for God’s people,

§ Adopted, chosen, spared to be into the family of God

· Ruth

o Forgotten, isolated, left with nothing

o Moabite, widow, not worth anything, and even more so would be a debt to whoever took her in

o Cannot tell the story of Ruth without mentioning Naomi

o The two scourged for grain, gleaning in the fields and picking up their scrap

o Slow burn redemption

o Ruth 2:10-11

o Ruth offers herself to Boaz

o Boaz is clever – knows the closer relative does not want to take on her debt and both she and Naomi

o Scares him away and takes Ruth as his wife

o Ruth bears a son Obed, the father of Jesse who fathered David

· Unredeemable situation

o Separated from worth, humanity, community

o Moved to be embraced, loved, and given an inheritance

· Theme Matthew is capturing the idea of Redemption

o That something is coming and that the people mentioned here will not be the only one with stories like these

· Bathsheba

o Matthew intentionally doesn’t mention her, why?

§ Matthew is being intentional about not giving the spotlight to how evil our sin is, but in hopes of reflecting back on us how good God is.

o Matthew mentions Uriah and David’s great sin as it has been forgiven but not forgotten

· Lets get Real

· 2 Samuel 11:1-4

o Nothing here says that Bathsheba was provoking David

o Nothing here says Bathsheba contributed to this in anyway

o Bathsheba was raped

o David, being her King, a man after God’s own heart was to be trusted and he broke that.

o Not only did he do that, he left her to wash back to spiritual cleanliness and sent her home used.

o Took it a step further after finding her to be pregnant

o Uriah comes home, and tries to trick him into laying with her so that he thinks the child is his

o Why doesn’t he? If they were in battle and in war at that time, it would not be appropriate to lay her with, especially if he was unclean so he lays on outside David’s own home

o Sent Uriah to die on the front line

· Where is Bathsheba's redemption?

o Does not say.

o Matthew does not forget

o Our redemption doesn’t always come now, somethings are left until Jesus returns

o The pain we carry with us is still recognized by God and the point remains that no matter how large our hurt is, Gods goodness is bigger

o Our goal is not to feed you the story that it will all be okay and that it will all get better

o For Bathsheba, it didn’t, at least not in a way that have been made aware of

o Her own family later on went about having incest and murdering each other

So what?

· God is so good that no matter how unredeemable you think you are, or how far from him you are, he can fix that. He can and has changed that.

· God can redeem any of it

· Does he have to?

o No

· Jesus is still a gift

o This is not an instant gift

· Still a slow burn for that of Ruth

o Took time for her to be redeemed

· Bathsheba never got it

o Had to wait, again as far as we have been made aware until she was with God finally.

· Some of these things will not be redeemed until he comes back

· This does not mean this is a license to be messy but, it does warrant us having hope for our redemption

· We need to redefine what redemption looks like

· This all combines to lead up to Christmas with the idea that we need to redefine what Royalty is.

· This is the royal line of Jesus, announcing Jesus, and Matthew begins the most important story the world will ever know saying, “behold your King.”