Sermon Tone Analysis

The Fulfillment

This picture has captivated our hearts for years...

we have many nativity scenes that show much of what was described.

Some good some not so accurate, but either way there is a more important thing happening than just the historic accuracy of what it actually looked like..

The bigger picture is that of a Promise being fulfilled!

What you need to know is that the Jewish nation is in a very different time and place than when they first heard the Promise of .

Back then they were a divided kingdom, but they would go on to be captured and brought into exile.

They would fight many times for their freedom and the Lord would raise up many prophets to speak on his behalf about their rebellion and his intent to redeem them someday.

From till this passage we read today it was some 700 years… but while that may seem like a long time keep this in mind… from the time of ’s prophecies concerning the Messiah God continued to speak to them by his Prophets for the next 300 years.

But then… Silence for 400 years… While there is much duress in their culture and many fights for religious freedom that the Jewish nation must endure, they ultimately are conquered by the Romans who, at that point are now dominating the world.

Because of the rise of the Roman empire, what was a world of multiple languages that were separated by different governments and geographical barriers, now some 700 yrs later the world is united under the power of One nation… And this one Roman nation not only made everyone come under their authority, but made them learn their language and connected them by their roads which were built well and safe to travel.

The world was experiencing a time of peace under Rome, which is called Pax Romana.

It was a time of prosperity and connectedness that they had not known previously...

Yet it was full of tension because they were subjects to a foreign government that did not appreciate their religious worship.

Israel hated their roman occupying governors, they despised Caesar the king of Rome, and they Loathed the Roman Soldiers who were in their towns and villages to keep the peace and force the taxation of their people.

Yet for all the division of the world 700 yrs before, when the promise was made, there was a much more unified world at this time… They may not have liked it, but none the less God knew what he was doing by allowing his promised son to come at this specific time.

God’s people Israel, and his Kingdom promised to be redeemed by a Messiah was starting to look like some old religious system that had no real value by the days standards of economy and materialism… Does that sound at all like the day and age we live in?

Many had forgotten the promise made, and others were wanting the promise of a King to be someone who would only deliver their nation from other nations, as if their king was coming to make his kingdom in the middle of other peoples kingdoms.

Either way they would be looking for a KING to Come… one that would Be Immanuel, God with US!

These were the Days of Fulfillment!

Fulfillment means completed… Or that the Promise of a King who will save, one that would be God with us, has now come and this is completed!

The problem of course was that the Fulfillment didn’t look like the promise

The fulfillment didn’t look like the Promise

Remember … Wonderful counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace… That was the Promise…

The promise speaks of royalty, strength, Authority, Providence, Might and Peace...

But what is the Beginning of this King forever after the Line of David whose throne would be established forever???

Born to a young Virgin who is to be married to a carpenter, and is brought into the world in an animal stable.

Let’s take a closer look at this passage and see the fulfillment of God’s promise in an effort to understand how supremely wise God actually is, even if we do not see it in the moment.

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The first thing I want you to see here is that the entire world is given a census… A census is a counting of people if you don’t know.

But the idea of the whole world is better captured by saying the entire Roman world which is pretty much most of the known world, yet did not include people groups outside of the romans control.

Caesar Augustus is the King, and he made the decree of a registration or census to be taken.

And we see that this took place when Quirinius was governor of Syria… Why is that important?

Because this is real world History… When Luke writes this Gospel, he doesn’t make up names or leave out names.

There is real historical and verifiable facts for us to look at, which gives us great confidence that these events actually happened.

This is one of the greatest defining factors in being a Christian… The Bible is full of real History that is verifiable by outside sources, because it is all true… this really happened.

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So everyone under Roman control is sent back to their home town, or the place or origin for their family, in order to be registered there.

If this happened now, my family would be traveling back to Buffalo NY.

Where would you have to go? some would be close to where they need to register and some would have to make a long journey, and some would be somewhere in between.

But again… Why is this important information to include???

Remember there was many promises made by God on who would come and where they would be coming to Save his people..

God sends Angels to Mary and Joseph to tell them that they will be having a son and that this child is the Son of God and it is ok even though they don’t know each other intimately yet.

She was a virgin and they lived in Nazareth.

Now God could have said you will have this baby but first you need to go somewhere else to have, and that would not have been as verifiable as the way it happens...

First the Promise...

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God distinctly says the king will come from Bethlehem!

And notice that his coming forth is FROM OLD, From Ancient of Days!

Before the foundation of the world was laid God knew he was sending his son, and he knew where he was sending him, and he knew when he was sending him!

Notice that God knows everything and is in control of everything… thats what it means to be Sovereign!

What great Hope we get from the promise, because...

The Promise assures us that God is Sovereign

Think about it, God knew the child would be born in Bethlehem, but he also knew that Jesus would be born during the roman empires rule… A time when the world would be forced to be united, which looks bad, but is actually great for getting News out.

So he knows when the rise of Rome would be and when they would control Bethlehem.

And he also used and Earthly King caesar, to force his people Mary and Joseph to be in the right place at the right time so that the heavenly King can come and fulfill the promise!

Only a Sovereign God can use an earthly King to manipulate the world in an effort to have the True King born exactly where and when he wants.

What wouldn’t have made sense to world and certainly not to God people at that time, makes so much sense now that we can see what he did and why.

So now God has created an environment where his chosen servants will have to go and be recorded by History to have his Son!

They do not have a choice, and we cannot deny the history...

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Not only are they going to where God promised this king would come from, but this is who the king will come from...

Notice Joseph is in the House and lineage of David!!! Why is that important???

between this verse and this one

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We can see that this King being promised is to come from the Lineage of David… The Messiah has to be from David Family otherwise he does not qualify.

furthermore, earlier in Luke we hear of what the angles told Mary and Jospeh about this Son who would be born...

None of this would make sense unless Joseph has a legitimate claim to the house and lineage of David.

And it isn’t enough to say that they all have some connection to David, he had to be sure that he was part of David Family, and so he had to go to Bethlehem because that was David city, it was his home town.

Luke makes sure that we know God has moved Jospeh and Mary to the very place where the promise is said to be fulfilled!

This King must come from the house of David, and Jesus clearly does… This King must come from Bethlehem and jesus clearly does!

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SO the time has come upon them, Mary has been pregnant and they have been forced by circumstances to go and travel to Bethlehem… I am sure they did not want to do this, especially because what pregnant woman wants to travel when she knows the her baby is coming soon.

Everything about how the promise was fulfilled looks like less than perfect circumstances, and dare I say they were the kind of circumstances that I know at least for me, we would be complaining about.

Not even focusing on the fact that an angel tells Mary she will be pregnant and then tells Jospeh not to divorce her, that would be enough to say it is less than perfect circumstances, but that they have to travel because of a census that the Roman government says they have to do.

Jews of this day hated the roman government already and now these people are being majorly inconvenienced to follow their rules.

This is really not a good thing for anyone living through this… and then we get to verse 6...

While they were there… meaning sometime after they show up in Bethlehem for the census… While they were there in Bethlehem, the time came...

Those words, “the time came” have been translated by others as “the days were fulfilled”, or as “just the right time” Mary gave birth...

The fulfillment came and the child was born! and it was the right time...

What we see in Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus is what Paul told the Galatian church about… it was when the fullness of time had come… The Promise had been fulfilled...

Mary didn’t just happen to have the baby while she was in Bethlehem, it was only when the fullness of time had come, it was at just the right time that God sent forth his son!

He had to be born of a woman and he had to be born under the Law, and he had to be born at a time when the world would be in a certain state mind having difficult tension between political and religious matters, and yet being more unified by the roads and languages that Rome had forced.

Finally the promise of a king, some 700 yrs later was happening...

Our Wonderful Counselor, our Mighty God, our everlasting Father, our Prince of Peace, our Immanuel God with us is being born… and what would the circumstances of his birth be???

And this is where everything changes… this is where we need to understand what an INN is, Why was there no room for them there, what does it mean to be wrapped in swaddling cloths, and what this manger is...

If there is no awareness of these things, it sounds like a baby is born, and they put him in his snug little outfit in a crib, and thats all there is to it...

If we take a look at the culture, and we understand that society ,and what was happening in that time historically we get a better picture of this...

First, if they were traveling to Jospehs hometown, why is he not staying with family?

Without going into too much detail and speculating, I would suggest that the fact that his Fiance is pregnant, would suggest that he doesn’t really want people to know that this child is not really his, and so he doesn’t push it too hard with the family to stay with them… But that is pure speculation based on knowing the culture and reading from Matthew that Jospeh wanted to divorce her because of this but an angel appeared to him in a dream and told him not to.

What we do know is that everyone has to come back to their hometown to register for the census.. .

this means everyone’s houses are packed with relatives and if you don’t get there soon enough there will be no room for you.

But there is something else we can often overlook when thinking about this… there had to be a place for all the Roman soldiers to stay too.

The problem with that is that Jews of that time were terribly afraid of coming into contact with non-jews… And so it is very possible that there was no room at the INN because it was either packed full of families for the census or it was full of Roman soldiers that Jews were not allowed to be near.

The reality is that some of both is probably true.

But what was an INN.

What Bible scholars can tell us is that an INN was a place where travelers would stop for the night to get a room and store their animals.

Usually an INN would be built around four sides of an inner court.

it generally had two stories with rooms on the second story and stables for animals on the ground floor.

Any Cargo and animals used for transport were stored in the stables with servants.