Sermon Tone Analysis
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Intro:
Good morning.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Thank you for joining us for our Christmas Service.
Christmas is a very special holiday for us.
We love the generosity, kindness, and hope of the season.
But most of all, as a church, we love celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.
And we appreciate you being here with us!
For the month of December, we’ve been studying the Christmas story, and focusing on God’s surprises found in it.
And as we’ve read through the first two chapters of Matthew, there have been things that left us saying, “I Didn’t Expect That!”
Here at The River Church, we value the Bible.
We believe it’s God’s word.
And we believe it’s alive, relevant, and applicable to our lives.
Therefore, we’ve been reading through the Christmas story found in Matthew chapters one and two.
And as we’ve read, there have been numerous things that cause us to say, “I Didn’t Expect That!”
For example, we’ve looked at Jesus’ family tree.
Jesus has some crazy unexpected relatives.
We also looked at His family’s story and it’s not a story you’d expect.
And last week, we saw Jesus got unexpected visitors (wise men from the east).
There are a lot of unexpected and surprising events in the Christmas story!
And so, we’ve titled the series, “I Didn’t Expect That!”
And this morning, we’re going to wrap up the series with our final Christmas surprise.
If you have a Bible/app, open to .
What we’re going to do is read the entire passage together and then talk about how it applies to our lives.
For all our guests, we’ve spent the month December looking at God’s Christmas Surprises found in the Matthew’s gospel.
At The River Church, we value the Bible.
We believe it’s God’s word and we believe it’s both relevant and applicable to our lives.
Luke 2:1
Exegesis:
That story is probably familiar to you.
Maybe pictures of Linus holding his blue blanket, with Snoopy and the Peanut gang surrounding him, flashes across your mind.
It’s a well-known story of hope!
At least that’s the intention!
But let’s be honest: It’s only REALLY gives hope if you truly understand the story.
Otherwise, it’s just a religious feel-good story that accompanies a fun holiday; along with the stories of Santa Claus and Frosty the Snowman.
But let me tell you: It’s much more than that!
So, what is the Christmas story about?
Charlie Brown didn’t get it.
He asked, “Does anyone know what’s Christmas all about?”
I get that.
Part of my personal story is I didn’t grow up in the church.
Until I was 23, I had little exposure to Jesus.
I always loved Christmas, but didn’t truly know what it was about.
And if I heard that the good news was “a Savior is born,” I’d ask, “Why is that good news?
Better yet, why do I need a Savior?”
Maybe you’ve asked that too!
Maybe you’re still wondering that!
Why do we need a Savior?
The answer to this question goes way back!
Way before the first Christmas.
It actually goes back to the beginning - to Creation - which we find in Genesis (the first book of the Bible).
In the beginning, God created everything.
And the most special part of His creation were humans (men and women).
And their value is highlighted by this statement:
God has a unique and special relationship with us.
We are created in HIS IMAGE.
And let me tell you one reason that’s special:
God has a will.
Meaning He can freely choose.
And He chose to CREATE us and LOVE us... by His own free will.
And since we’re made in His image, God gave us the same ability!
We too have a free will and can choose.
We can choose who we love.
You get how special this is, right?
None of us want to be in a relationship based on obligation.
On the other hand, how special are relationships when people choose to love each other.
That’s the kind of relationship God designed us for.
He envisioned a special relationship between Him and His Creation, both choosing to love one another.
Additionally, God created a perfect world - the perfect environment - for this to happen.
But early on, something TERRIBLE happened.
The very first humans (Adam and Eve), who lived in this perfect world, chose to love something other than God.
And they rebelled against God - the Bible calls this sin.
And from that point, creation (the world and people) have been broken.
Have you ever looked around and though, “Life shouldn’t be this way.
It seems off.
It seems broken.”
That’s because it is!
And it started with Adam and Eve.
But there’s even worse news (stick with me - I promise good news is coming!
I’m not trying to be a Grinchy-pastor who stole Christmas).
Since Adam and Even are our great-great-great -times-thousands grandparents, their sin affected us; since, if you will, we were all “in” them when they sinned.
Therefore, because they chose to disobey God, instead of love Him, they became cursed.
We call this curse “the fall.”
What that means is they lost the ability to love God the way they were supposed to.
And they passed that brokenness onto us.
Sometimes, we call this the sin nature.
It’s now part of our nature (from birth) to rebel against God, because we’re broken.
Let me prove it.
One time, Jesus was asked what the most important thing we can do.
He said this...
This is what matters to God.
It’s how He designed us to function.
So, let’s look at our own life.
How often do we forget to love God? Furthermore, how often do we forget to love our neighbor?
It’s like the only words we’re good at is, “You shall love… [skip over words] yourself.”
So, to summarize:
Adam and Eve passed a curse to us.
When they sinned, all of us were in them, and we inherited brokenness.
To make matters worse, not only did their curse pass on to us, but, by our own choices, we too rebel against God.
We choose not to love God.
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