Seeing the Bigger Picture

Introduction (5m)

What are your Christmas Priorities? What’s on your Christmas List?

Seeing family (COVID), buying gifts, writing cards, ordering food, etc. Are we prioritising the right things?

Our priorities can change

LJ’s - XBox, hairdryer, etc. to food, crockery, bedclothes, food, petrol (probably more expensive!). Their priorities have changed.

The Grinch had a “God moment” and his understanding/priorities changed

Mean, green, hates Christmas. Lives bitter life on Mt. Crumpet, watching residents of Whoville celebrating Christmas. Decides enough is enough. Conspires to steal Christmas, taking away presents, decorations, trees and everything else they prioritised at Christmas. Having carried out his crime, he looks down on Christmas Day to discover that despite all the things they prioritised being taken away, the Who’s decide to celebrate anyway. Here’s his God moment:

Video: Grinch - Means Something More | 2:00

“Maybe Christmas”, he thought, “doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more”.

Suddenly, his priorities had changed.

What would you do if God asked you to change your priorities this Christmas?

What if, amidst the food, drink, gifts, cards, having fun, God asked us to see the bigger picture of Christmas?

Explanation (5m)

God’s priority at Christmas - Immanuel - God with us

Matthew 1:23 NLT

“Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’ ”

First Christmas > today: one priority, one message: Immanuel. God is with us. J = proof that God, Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, Provider is with us - in our human condition, in our circumstances, for all time.

This is God’s story, his priority

Present with his people. Not “a distant God, remote, unfeeling” (John Gowans), but loves, cares for us. Doesn’t intervene from a distance. Active in our lives, sometimes in unexpected ways, sometimes unseen until later.

His priority is to rescue us from sin and death, because we cannot do it ourselves

Matthew 1:21 NLT

And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

God has to take the initiative and has to do it in ways inconceivable to the human mind. Come to earth as helpless, human baby and then eventually die an excruciating death on the worst instrument of torture known to humans at that time and rise again from the dead.

This is our God. This is his priority. This is Jesus. Immanuel. God is with us. And he invites everyone to make accepting his love and grace their priority - even, and especially at Christmas

Sometimes, we have to be willing to change our priorities to be able to see this bigger picture - Joseph did

Matthew 1:19 NLT

Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly.

Priority: righteous, keeping the law, obeying the rules, being a good religious Jew

If SA soldier, would prioritise keeping his soldier’s covenant, pressed uniform, excellent deportment.

Finds himself engaged to be married to a girl - Mary - who became pregnant

Engagement in 1st C Palestine different to our concept. Like being married. “Divorce” to describe end of an engagement.

Priority/right thing to do in case of adultery during engagement - divorce

Expected to denounce his fiance in public in a trial for adultery - to make a public example of her.

Even his compassionate, merciful feelings towards Mary couldn’t get him away from the priority of keeping the law, obeying the rules

Only allowed him to make his mind up to divorce, leave her in secret rather than humiliate her in public. His mind was made up. This was his priority.

God breaks through and asks him to see the bigger picture

Matthew 1:20–21 NLT

As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

Angel explains that Jesus - Mary’s child - will accomplish God’s priority of saving his people for his purposes

Jesus, Emmanuel is the culmination of God’s bigger picture - he will embody God’s presence and his willingness to save humanity.

And if Joseph chooses to change his priorities, then he has a significant role to play in all of this

Joseph, as righteous, God-fearing, religious Jew, knew Messiah would come from line of David:

Isaiah 11:1–2 NLT

Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot— yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root. And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

As genealogy in Matthew 1:1-16 shows, God had chosen Joseph to bestow that Davidic descent upon J. He would be the one to help fulfil those prophecies in full.

Without him, Jesus, Messiah, the one who would save his people from their sins, who would be God is with us, would not have fully fulfilled the prophecies about him.

Joseph saw the bigger picture. He was willing to change his priorities

Matthew 1:24 NLT

When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife.

Application (5m)

This Christmas, we can learn from Joseph

If you have not yet accepted Jesus as your Saviour, if you have not yet accepted God’s love and grace to you, then make that your priority this Christmas

Unhappy, unfulfilled, if, when you think about it honestly, food, drink, decorations, cards, parties, Christmas TV don’t make you truly happy, then you need a Saviour.

If you are happy and contented, good income, love from family and friends, enjoy life in general, but sometimes wonder, what am I here for? What’s my purpose in life? What does life mean in the end? Then you need a Saviour. Make that your priority this Christmas.

If you have accepted Christ as your Saviour and your leader in life, examine your priorities - are they still the right ones

Joseph’s priority was to obey the law, to obey God. As a young teen he determined to display sexual restraint, thought it important enough that his fiance did they same that he was prepared to leave/divorce her when it seemed she had broken that law.

But God showed him the bigger picture and asked him to change his priorities. He allowed God to change his heart/mind, to overcome his suspicions over Mary’s pregnancy and put aside his worries about his own reputation and honour.

Instead, he decides to take his place in God’s mission to save humanity.

Each of us face unexpected circumstances and risks as we seek to obey God in all we do. Maybe even this Christmas. Perhaps our greatest priority this Christmas should be to trust God. To place ourselves in his hands. To believe in him. To trust the One whose first priority this Christmas is to save us from ourselves and our sin and to assure us that God is with us. Immanuel.

Next Steps

CC 43 - In the bleak mid-winter

In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, Long ago. 2 Our God, Heaven cannot hold him, Nor earth sustain; Heaven and earth shall flee away When he comes to reign: In the bleak midwinter A stable-place sufficed The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ. 3 Angels and archangels May have gathered there, Cherubim and seraphim Thronged the air; But his mother only, In her maiden bliss, Worshipped the Belovèd With a kiss. 4 What can I give him, Poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb; If I were a wise man, I would do my part; Yet what I can I give him ? Give my heart. Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)