Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Nearly 40 years before the birth of Jesus Christ, Julius Caesar (the emperor of Rome) was murdered.

His adoptive son, Augustus held a ceremony celebrating his life and during the ceremonial games a comet hung in the sky over Rome.

The Romans believed that this comet represented Caesar’s soul ascending to the heavens to be with the Roman gods.

Augustus capitalized on this comet and began putting it on much of the Roman coins in order to demonstrate that his dad truly was divine and ascended to godlike status.

In Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology there was something special about a man working really hard and doing something very brave and appearing to become like lower g god… This story has been replicated a billion times over in the years since!

Consider how the Christmas story stands out.

In our world we celebrate starting from the bottom and working your way to the top.

The Christmas story shares with us that our God came from the heights of glory to the depths of shame.

In our world many people try to live a good life hoping to go from earth to heaven… The Christmas story tells us that God came from heaven to earth so that there would be assurance for His people regarding where they would spend their eternity.

Our world looks to the stars in hopes of finding something supernatural while the Christmas story tells us that a star signaled an announcement of unrivaled importance: God had come.

A King had been born and His Kingdom is not of this world.

But why did He come?

This is the question we ponder on Christmas Day.

People wonder what is the big deal about Christmas and we pause and think about special memories and fun traditions and meaningful gifts.

Here are some quick facts about the way that Americans celebrate this day

90% of Americans and 95% of Christians in the United States celebrate Christmas

Nearly half of Americans believe that Christmas is primarily a religious holiday

Just over half of Americans believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, was visited by wisemen sometime after his birth, and had angels announce his birth to the shepherds

The 217 million American Christmas shoppers will spend $178 billion on Christmas presents and gifts this year - an average of over $800/person!

We love our gifts.

We love our Christmas traditions.

We love our families.

We love our food.

But what makes Christmas, Christmas?

It’s not about a gift, it’s about THE gift.

The gift of our God loving us as sinners enough to send His only Son to the earth not as a prince in a pristine palace, but as the king in a stinky manger.

We celebrate the love of grace of our God in not sending a message or an angel or a wealthy, popular, conquering king who we could never truly relate with… Instead, He sent His Son as a baby… Born to a lowly carpenter.

Born in a stinky barn… why?

So that He would grow up and save stinky, sinful people.

We celebrate a story unlike any other.

Other cultures celebrate a baby growing up to become a king and ruling his nation well… Christianity celebrates the King of Kings becoming a baby in order to save the nations.

What a joy it is today to be able to celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ together on Christmas morning.

Today we’ll be looking in Matthew 1, as you see in the screen, and we’re going to look at the real significance of Christmas back then and its significance to us today as well.

Matthew 1 begins the New Testament by looking backward in order to move forward.

In order for us to understand Who Jesus is and what Jesus has done, we first have to understand where Jesus came from and why He had to come in the first place.

This is Matthew’s goal in this opening chapter.

The King has Come!

Waiting is no more.

God has answered the cries of His people and He has done so by sending a baby.

Friend, God continues to hear His people today.

He sent His Son.

He loves His children.

Today, wherever you are, I pray that you walk away from our service assured that you not only know the reason that we celebrate today but that you leave here assured that you belong to Jesus.

The People in Christmas (1-17)

Who is Jesus Christ?

This is the question that many people want to know and many think that they have a satisfactory answer in place for the question in the first place.

76% of Americans believe that Jesus was a real, historical person.

That’s good news, right?

The Bible tells us that even the demons know who Jesus is and they aren’t saved, so that doesn’t mean all that much.

What do people actually believe about Jesus Christ?

Many people say that He was a great teacher, a wise counselor, an advocate for justice, a powerful speaker, and a mysterious healer… all of these things are true, but Jesus better be more than just a good teacher or a nice guy or a person that we go to when we’re a little upset but only 1x a week or when its convenient.

Who is Jesus Christ?

Matthew tells us the answer in verse 1 of the New Testament.

This Jesus is the Christ and the Son of David and the Son of Abraham.

We see in the New Testament the word Christ follow Jesus often.

So often in fact that there are some who believe that it is His last name… That’s not true, though.

Christ is a title which means the anointed one - this is a designation of a king and was promised to King David hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth that from Him would come a king who would reign forever and ever.

Literally if you see the words Jesus Christ those words break down like this, “Jesus” or “God saves” and Christ or “Anointed One.”

In other words even Jesus’ name is significant because they describe Who He is and what He has come to do.

He is the King who has come to save - which is what Luke’s Gospel tells us

This is good news!

But this isn’t where Matthew stops.

He hits on humanity of Jesus here - He is the anointed King who is the Son of David and the Son of Abraham.

Matthew, written to a primarily Jewish audience, uses King David 17x in his Gospel to highlight how this Jesus of Nazareth is in fact the promised King from David’s line who will be the Messiah and save His people.

Not to be confused with just saving the people of Israel, though, Matthew in his opening verse also states that Jesus is the Son of Abraham.

Are you ready for some good news today?

How many of you here today are ethnic Jews?

If all that Jesus does is help the Jewish people then we’re up a creek without a paddle.

This is bad news bears.

What Jesus does is He fulfills God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12 to bless all the nations of the earth

Here God shares good news for all the nations of the earth.

He will have a covenant people who will be blessed by God and used by God for a global purpose.

How do we know this?

Because of the list of people that follow from verses 2-16!

Matthew lists Jesus’ genealogy and this list can be easy to gloss over because, after all, who likes looking at obscure names that we only seem to read about 1 or 2 times every year?

What’s the big deal about a genealogy? 2 things

Jesus’ genealogy list verifies His humanity

Jesus’ genealogy list demonstrates God’s intentionality

So many people in Jesus’ day and in the years since have believed false teachings about who He was.

Many today believe that Jesus was a real man but He wasn’t really God.

Throughout the years the opposite teaching was believed: Jesus was God but not really a person… He just looked like a man but He wasn’t really a person like you and me.

This genealogy list helps prove that He was a person.

He fulfills promises God made to Abraham and David and others by being born in their lineage.

He was a true human.

This genealogy also demonstrates God’s intentionality to use and save people from all walks of life.

For the people who say that God only cares about ethnic Jews, there are gentiles in this lineage.

For the person who says that God only cares about men, there are 4 women listed in this lineage.

For the person who says that God only cares about rich people, there are very poor people listed in this lineage.

Why?

This doesn’t seem like a very powerful lineage to descend from?

That’s the point.

God uses weak, insignificant, outcast, and poor people for His glory and the good of others!

This lineage is so purposeful that it makes no sense to make it up.

It would have had no added benefit to include certain people the way that Matthew did… Yet under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, this is what we have.

Why?

To demonstrate that God uses evil kings, societal outcasts, broken relationships, unfaithful leaders, and faithful followers for His sovereign purposes.

He uses the good kings and the bad ones for a purpose as Daniel tells us, He raises them up and He brings them back down.

The people in the Christmas story matter because they point us to King Jesus - the hero and center of history!

CS Lewis appropriately shared that there are only 3 options when it comes to your view of Jesus.