Sermon Tone Analysis

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We’re only ten days from Christmas!

Can you believe it?

Every year it seems to get here faster than we imagine it could.

It also means we’re still amid the Advent season.

We’ve been looking back in the OT quite a bit, and since we don’t trace this much OT history all the time, this week and next I’ll bring a significant review to help us see how these things build on one another and tie together.

This year we’re peering through the windows of OT snapshots to help us look back well, to understand how the OT helps us both understand their longing, but also helps us look forward to Christmas yes, but primarily to the second advent, the second coming of Jesus.

Since we don’t trace this much OT history all the time, this week and next I’ll bring a significant review to help us see how these things build on one another and tie together.

Review

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Rekindling the wonder of Christmas is being captivated by God - awestruck - as we see God working in the lives of men and women throughout the centuries, unfolding his masterful plan to save a people unto himself.

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We began in and with a couple glimpses of God’s people who were about to be routed by godless pagan nations.

Everything was bleak.

We’re not talking about minor struggles here: we’re talking about death and destruction, that an eternal promise brought light into, and the same truths for them are true for us:

But God - who knows a little something about death and destruction - spoke into their world through the prophets and he speaks into ours.

The same truths for them are true for us:

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Only from deepest darkness does the True Light shine most brightly!

So faith - confidence in what you don’t see/who you don’t see, but you know - faith in the Lord and his promises is the only helpful approach to life however great the crisis.

helps us see this.

We saw that:

Jesus would come humanly to meet us where we are.

Jesus came humanly to meet us where we are.

Jesus would come as deity to accomplish what we could not.

faith in the Lord and in his promises is a practical, indeed the only, approach to life however great the crisis.

Isaiah promised them that their gloom would turn to rejoicing, their distress would turn to joy, their darkness would turn to light by the One True Light, and the shadow of death would be overcome by the Anointed One, Jesus, the life-giving savior who would come 750 years later.

Gloom (1) would turn to rejoicing (3)

Gloom would turn to rejoicing

Gloom (1) would turn to rejoicing (3)

Distress would turn to joy

Oppression would turn to a broken yoke

Darkness would turn to Light

Shadow of death would be overcome

And all of these things would be possible, Isaiah says, through the Anointed One, Jesus, who would come 750 years later.

Micah 5 point us to Bethlehem, where we see that:

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God delights to choose the weak and despised/lowly things of this world to shame the wise and strong.

So we rekindle the wonder of Christmas by boasting in the Lord.

By God’s transforming mercy and power our imperfection, our weakness, our lives that, and let’s be honest here, aren’t that impressive on our own, are used to point to the strong and caring Father in Heaven, the all-wise Holy Spirit, and the sacrificial brotherly love of our Savior, Jesus.

We find joy in the that it’s only

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Advent - it means coming - and we remember how they OT saints waited.

We intentionally go back to help us be able to look forward as we also wait.

We wait on the Lord in dark days, and we stand in awe as we see God working in the lives of people: saving, bringing renewed desire and focus on living to see Jesus magnified above everything and everyone, even ourselves.

Oh, I pray that these truths warm your heart as your thinking is saturated with the greatness and majesty of God and helps you rekindle the wonder of Christmas this year!

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Transition: Today we turn to the NT to look more closely at the greatest miracle of Christmas...

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The Righteousness & Kindness of God seen in the Virgin Birth

Take your Bible/App and go with me to Matthew chapter 1 (p 757), the first book in the NT.

(As your getting there, just the fact that we’re opening to a book in the Bible named after a crooked tax collector who was given new life in Christ through repentance and faith is astounding (you know that?).)

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Todd Driessen sings “Matthew’s Begats”

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(Love me some Andrew Peterson sung by Todd Driessen!

Thank you, brother!)

The Righteousness & Kindness of God seen in the Virgin Birth

We love to tell the story of our children’s births, don’t we.

It takes our minds back to those wonderful moments, often including some scary turns along the way.

In Matthew, more than focusing primarily on the birth of Jesus, he focuses on the virgin conception of Jesus as the eternal Son of God becomes a man.

God’s Spirit forms the human baby in the womb of a virgin.

The angel of the Lord even tells Joseph and Mary all they need to know to care for this child who was, months later, born into their family.

So now having beautifully made our way through verse 17 let’s dive into the virgin birth of Jesus, which ushers in a new era in Israel’s history.

Alright - now having beautifully made our way through verse 17 let’s dive into the virgin birth of Jesus, which ushers in a new era in Israel’s history.

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18Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.

When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

19And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ (hear the accent…that’s in the text) took place in this way.

When his mother Mary had been betrothed (that is, legally engaged) to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

20But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

Now, let’s pause for a moment here.

One of the questions you want to ask often is, “Why is this here?

Why is he telling this to us in this way?”

Matthew opens his book with a long list of names, and though we won’t have time to trace them all today, each and every name is significant, because it takes us back to the promise the God made in Abram that he would bless all nations through his offspring!

That’s massive.

21She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

Now we are sometimes short-sighted in our appreciation for God’s faithfulness to himself and his promises, aren’t we?

I know I’m quick to ask, “Yeah, but what’s that do for me now?” or “Big deal.”

First we simply need to acknowledge our gut-instinct to focus on us, on the here-and-now, rather than on God’s grand narrative, which is really the perspective we need to affect all of our thinking about life.

This is a pretty big deal.

So, now we’re asking, “why does all this matter?”

Well let’s keep reading together.

22All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: (from ) 23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, 25 but knew her not until she had given birth to a son.

And he called his name Jesus.

23“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

In Matthew, more than focusing primarily on the birth of Jesus, he focuses on the virgin conception of Jesus as the eternal Son of God becomes a man.

God’s Spirit forms the human baby in the womb of a virgin.

In verse 18, the word translated “birth” is “γένεσις” which refers to the beginning or origin of something.

So while the narrative is about the birth of Jesus Christ, every name in this lineage, and now the Holy Spirit’s producing a baby in Mary’s womb is very much about the origin, the giving of, and the begotten-ness of Jesus.

24When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife,

18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.