Sermon Tone Analysis

I love Christmas time.

It gives time for extended family to gather together and celebrate.

I have a lot of family that I never see other than Christmas time.

Often people come from all over back home to Mawmaw’s house or whoever is your patriarch of your family.

People catch up about their lives over ham and turkey, fruit salad and pecan pie.

Earlier sons were failures: Adam, Israel, David.

Jesus as Son: approx.

150 NT references to Christ as “Son.”

Most of which are in the Gospels.

Earlier sons were failures: Adam, Israel, David.

Jesus as Son: approx.

150 NT references to Christ as “Son.”

Most of which are in the Gospels.

Family is important to God.

God created the whole concept of the family.

But family is actually even more important than that.

Family is part of the very nature of who God is.

When God describes to us who he is, he says that he is one God made up of three persons, the Trinity.

To describe the Trinity, he uses language of family: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Over 150 times, the NT references the Christ as “Son.”

Earlier sons were failures: Adam, Israel, David.

Jesus as Son: approx.

150 NT references to Christ as “Son.”

Most of which are in the Gospels.

It is important to note as we prepare for our Christmas season, as we celebrate the incarnation of Christ, that the Son of God was born a son on earth.

Jesus was born the son of Mary and stepson of Joseph.

In so many ways, this is a very human story of a young teenage girl that has the fingerprints of God all over it.

Many mothers here can sympathize with Mary in her labor pains.

Many of you dads can identify with Joseph as you watch the baby placed on Mary’s chest for the first time.

The evangelist tells us that Joseph and Mary were required to travel to Bethlehem to register.

“The time of which Luke speaks refers not only to the fact that Mary’s period of gestation was coming to an end (), but that events are progressing according to the divine plan.

God is the one moving the hands of the clock of salvation history as the countdown for Mary’s firstborn son enters the world.

When Luke says, “the time came for her to give birth” (v.6), he is not simply speaking of the end of 9 months, but that God is unfolding his plan in his perfect timing to bring salvation to the world.

Luke 2:4

This was the blessing of family.

God intends family to be a blessing.

We like to say that God created the family and ordained the family.

But really family is even more foundational than that.

Family is even at the core of the nature of God.

We recognize that there is one God and three persons.

But those three persons are related to each other.

God even calls the second person of the Trinity, his Son.

The Story of God is the story of family.

4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David,

The apostle Paul strikes a similar note when he writes:

When a Jewish girl was married, her mother would give her a small piece of leavened dough from a batch baked just before the wedding.

From that gift of leaven the bride would bake bread for her own household throughout her married life.

That gift, simple as it was, was among the most cherished that the bride received, because it represented the love and blessedness of the household in which she grew up and that would be carried into the household she was about to establish.

6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth.

7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

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This was the blessing of family.

God intends family to be a blessing.

We like to say that God created the family and ordained the family.

But really family is even more foundational than that.

Family is even at the core of the nature of God.

We recognize that there is one God and three persons.

But those three persons are related to each other.

God even calls the second person of the Trinity, his Son.

The Story of God is the story of family.

Paul emphasized here that the concept of Christ’s sonship provides a foundation of what it means for Christians to become sons and daughters of God.

Why would he say this?

Where did this come from?

This idea of sonship is embedded in the Old Testament message and helps us understand the Gospel.

Christians become sons and daughters of God because Jesus was the son of God.

We enter his family not via our physical birth, but we enter God’s family view our spiritual birth in Christ.

Jesus isn’t the first person to be called the son of God.

In the OT, we see types of Christ that failed as sons.

Adam, Israel, David were all considered “sons of God.”

Jesus is the Son who did not fail.

He fulfilled perfect sonship.

By doing so, he accomplishes everything needed for us to become sons and daughters of God and also shows us how to live as part of the family of God on earth.

38 the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

Yet they all failed.

Adam cast mankind into sin.

Israel had a faithful Father from which they constantly rebelled against.

David was a man after God’s own heart, but ultimately he became prideful, took another man’s wife and had him killed.

Jesus is the Son who did not fail.

He fulfilled perfect sonship.

By doing so, he accomplishes everything needed for us to become sons and daughters of God and also shows us how to live as part of the family of God on earth.

Only when we have first understood Jesus’ filial relationship to his Father will we ever be able to grasp the significance this might have for the Christian’s relation to God as his sons and daughters.

Do the New Testament authors present Jesus’ sonship as a model for Christians as the children of God to emulate and follow?

To help us answer these questions we will emulate and follow?

We will focus on the critical points in Jesus’ life, his birth (); 2:13-18), baptism (), temptation (), transfiguration (), death (, ) and resurrection ().

Each of these scenes is a cameo of the life of Jesus and should help us glean important insights into his sonship.

I.Birth and Infancy narratives

4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David,

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The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

(2016).

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Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth.

7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

()

22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.”

If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’ ”

So Jesus is san integral part of the rich and many layered tradition of sonship which flows directly out of the OT.

The firstborn son is not only first by reason of being the first child and therefore special, but is also thereby the leader of a new spiritual family.

So Jesus is san integral part of the rich and many layered tradition of sonship which flows directly out of the OT.

The firstborn son is not only first by reason of being the first child and therefore special, but is also thereby the leader of a new spiritual family.

The apostle Paul strikes a similar note when he writes:

Paul refers to here that Jesus’ sonship is also the basis for our becoming the sons and daughters of God.

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1. Sonship distinguishes the family of Christ.