Week 1 - Spoiler Alert (Christmas Fortold)

Introduction

Merry Christmas! It is the most wonderful time of the year, isn’t it? I’m personally excited! Listen, I love the Chosen but I miss talking to y’all! Today we’re diving head first into our Christmas series which we’ve called “Spoiler Alert!” We’re going to look at Christmas through the lens of prophecy. Christmas is more than a day where a chubby guy shows up to our house and gives us presents, it’s a day that had been prophesied about for thousands of years. We’re going to look at it through that lens.

You want to know one of my favorite things about the Bible is? We can read the same story year after year after year and there is always more to explore. A new insight, a new perspective, a new word from God, and I believe over the next three weeks, God is going to be speaking to you. He’s going to tell you something very important as we look at the Christmas story together, so do not miss a week!

Let’s Pray.

Who here has a tradition they do on Christmas?

What are some of them?

For us, we always exchange a couple gifts before Christmas day. Then on Christmas Eve, we put out cookies for Jesus and sing Happy Birthday Jesus with the kids. Christmas morning, we wake up and put on matching pajamas and open presents. We go to Jess’ mom’s house and have breakfast, open gifts there. I’m not sure if you’ve ever opened gifts with some small ones but it’s chaotic. Half the time, they are tearing gifts open before we know who’s they are, the other half, their playing in the boxes rather than with the presents.

It’s chaos, but it’s amazing. Your family may be a little bit of a hot mess but they’re family and one day you’ll miss these days, so cherish them.

Time with family has always been one of my favorite parts of the Holidays. Which is funny because family is exactly what the first Christmas brought. You and I get to be part of the family of God because of what happened on the first Christmas night in Bethlehem.

So let’s open our bibles because I want to show you why I have this Christmas tree up here. Let’s take a look at some Christmas spoilers that you may not be too familiar with.

Before we jump in, I want to explain a few things about the bible. I remember just a few years ago, I didn’t know anything about the bible so I like to explain it out thoroughly. The bible was not all written at the same time by the same person, no in fact the bible was written over the course of 1,500 years by over 45 different authors and is made up of 66 individual books. Trust me, this is important.

The bible is also made up of the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament is all the books written before Jesus was ever born. The New Testament are all written after Jesus was born and crucified. That is very important, a lot of people don’t believe in the bible because they think it was written to manipulate people but most of the bible authors didn’t even know each other, they were just writing down what God told them to write. Which makes it even more impressive that all 66 books tell one cohesive story that all points to Jesus.

Today, we’re going to look at prophecies written about the birth of the Messiah. That means, these were written 100’s of years before Jesus was even born, they were predicting his birth before He was even thought of.

Isaiah says, about 1,500 years before Jesus’ birth:

Isaiah 7:14 NLT

All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).

He predicts what about the Messiah? He will be born of a virgin and He will be “God with us.”

Isaiah writes again in chapter 9:

Isaiah 9:6–7 NLT

For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for all eternity. The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will make this happen!

Here he predicts that the Messiah will be a Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. He will be of the lineage of David and over his kingdom.

The next prophecy we have comes from Micah, written about 700 years before Jesus was born.

Micah 5:2 NIV

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”

Micah predicts that the Messiah will be from a specific place, and this isn’t a big place either. Like, it’s one thing to be like the Messiah will come from New York, yeah New York has about 8.4 million people in it, you have pretty good chances of getting that right. No no, Micah is like He’ll be born in Crab Orchard or Pleasant Hill. Bethlehem was a small city, yet it was predicted that that is where the Messiah would be born.

When I talk to people about Christianity, those who don’t believe hardly ever say that Jesus was not a real person. It should be noted, even Atheists believe Jesus existed. He is a real historical person, He actually existed, actually walked this earth. The question we have to ask, was He God?

Not is Jesus real, that’s historically proven to be true. Jesus is real but is He God? This is the most important question you can ask yourself today.

I’ve heard many people say that Jesus was simply a good teacher. They say that He was a good teacher and that’s why he amassed so many followers. Basically, He became a celebrity of His day and that’s how all this came about. Yet, what celebrity was predicted 1,500 years before his birth? What celebrity was written about by 30 different men who would never live to see Him? What celebrity died and their followers swore to their torturous deaths that He was alive? None. Jesus is either Lord or Lunatic. He claimed to be God, performed miracles and forgave sins as though He was God, He told His followers that there was no other way to heaven except through Him.

His very birth on this planet fulfilled numerous prophecies. In scripture, Jesus fulfilled over 300 prophecies that told of Him, yet it is mathematically impossible for Him to have just fulfilled the 8 that His birth fulfilled.

So let’s look at scripture again. Is Jesus who He claimed to be? We know from texts written over 700 years before Jesus was born that He needed to be from the lineage of David, He needed to be of the tribe of Judah and He had to be born in the small town of Bethlehem.

This is interesting because the timing also had to be right. So the timing of His birth had to be exact as well. You see, not everyone of the lineage of David lived in Bethlehem, in fact Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth. But conveniently just before Jesus is to be born, Caesar Augustus declares a census so all people had to return to their own town. So because Joseph belonged to the house and line of David, he had to return to Bethlehem, where Jesus would be born and fulfill the prophecy from Micah 5:2.

Jesus had no control over this. He had no control over being born in the lineage of David. He had no control of being in the tribe of Judah. Yet it all took place. He fulfilled 6 prophecies in His genealogy alone.

Isaiah says in 11:1

Isaiah 11:1 NLT

Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot— yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root.

Here is the fulfillment of these in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew:

Matthew 1:1–2 NLT

This is a record of the ancestors of Jesus the Messiah, a descendant of David and of Abraham: Abraham was the father of Isaac. Isaac was the father of Jacob. Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers.

Matthew 1:6 NLT

Jesse was the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon (whose mother was Bathsheba, the widow of Uriah).

Acts 13:22–23 NLT

But God removed Saul and replaced him with David, a man about whom God said, ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart. He will do everything I want him to do.’ “And it is one of King David’s descendants, Jesus, who is God’s promised Savior of Israel!

For hundreds of years, the birth of Jesus was foretold. The Jews knew that the “Messiah” or “Christ” would come one day to make all the wrong things right but they didn’t know who it would be. Those spoilers we talked about today are only a handful of the over 100 prophecies in the Old Testament that confirm Jesus is the Messiah that the Jews were anxiously waiting for.

Jesus was part of an amazing family tree. But how many of you know that we can be included in that same family tree? We are invited to be a part of God’s family.

Tension

It hasn’t always been this way though. Before Jesus was born in Bethelehem and eventually died on the cross in Jerusalem, we didn’t get to be part of God’s family.

Approach the tree as we discuss this.

You see, we are separated from God because of our sin. This sin in our lives traces all the way back up the family tree to Adam and Eve, the first people created. This sin has spread to everything and everyone now. There was no cure before Jesus was born. There were only band-aids.

I read a story from a fellow Youth Pastor this week. She has a one-year-old daughter with a genetic disorder called Prader-Willi Syndrome. There is no cure or medicine to treat it. Because of this debilitating genetic disease, she will always feel like she is starving for the rest of her life, no matter how much she eats.

Don’t you know that her mother would do anything and everything in her power to help her daughter? She already does all she can to raise funds for more research on the disease. If there was a cure, they would sell their house, cars, iphones, the clothes off their back. They would do anything and everything to get the cure for this disease.

I also know the love of a mother, she would take the pain from her daughter Eden and wear it herself in a second if she could.

God, who is rich in mercy and love, incarnated Himself. It means, He became human. He was born as a baby in a feeding trough for barn animals. Jesus gave up everything to cure us. He gave up His heavenly comfort to enter our world as a baby, He lived perfect and sinless for 33 years, then He willingly took on Himself our disease of sin. The very people He loved and came to save, beat Him and hung Him on a cross. The blood drained from His body and the air left His lungs so that He could take away the disease of sin and death for us. He is a loving Father.

He died the death we deserved in our place so that we could be in the family of God. Even though our blood doesn’t come from the line of Judah or David, when Jesus was born on this earth 2,000 years ago, He made a way for us to be grafted into God’s family tree. The Bible says if you believe in your hearts and say with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. You will be in God’s family.

Ephesians 2:12–13 NLT

In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope. But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ.

I want you to walk away today knowing that God keeps His promises.

Are you hopeless?

Have you had a promise broken?

Is your life chaos?

Is your life confusion?

Emptiness?

Anxiety or depression?

Loneliness? Anger?

Fear?

Disease?

Hustle and exhaustion?

Striving for perfection?

Failure?

These prophecies fulfilled in Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection prove to us that God is with us! He promised to send a Messiah in the Old Testament and we see the fulfillment of that promise at Christmas when the Messiah is born in a manger. He is God with us. He is close. He is our peace. He is the cure. He keeps His promises.

As this final prayer song plays, if you are a child of God. If you’ve accepted Jesus as your savior, then you belong to the family of God. I want you to write your name on one of these Christmas tags and come up and put it on the tree, symbolizing that you are a part of God’s family tree because of Jesus. He is a promise keeper and you are not alone.