Sermon Tone Analysis
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Intro
Here’s what I want to do tonight and next week.
From the beginning of this series in the Gospel of Luke, it was planned to do Luke 1 and 2 for the Christmas season…because…Luke 1 and 2 are the Christmas story.
Makes sense right?
So if you look at my preaching calendar you’ll see an outline of what I want to preach each week.
And usually the week before a message I’ll open up the document, look at what I’m preaching, and start wrapping my mind around it.
So, I do that last week to start preparing myself for this week…and all it says is “Luke 1”.
No thoughts that I had, no theme to draw out, no specific part of the passage…nothing.
And I’m thinking, okay…that’s fine.
I’ll just start reading and figuring it out…and I do that.
and do it again.
and do it again.
and nothing.
Came in this week, looked at it again Tuesday for a minute…nothing.
Dedicated a few hours to it yesterday, lots of research and reading…nothing.
Not gonna lie, started getting nervous…I’ve never had this happen…where I come up to the day that I’m preaching…and I don’t know what I’m preaching.
So this morning, instead of my normal bible reading…I decide to scrap it and spend more time in Luke 1 and 2 looking for a specific passage.
And I think I identified the reason I was having a hard time...
The reason is…I felt a tension.
A tension between what I wanted to tell you, and finding it in just one particular passage in Luke.
Because that’s what we normally do here…we open to one very specific passage…and we go through it verse by verse to draw out the meaning and application of it.
But when it came to the Christmas season…I approached it like I normally do… “God, what would you have for our ministry this season?”
“What do you want them to learn?” “What do they need to hear that is from your word?”
What I believe is that the Lord brought clarity this morning.
And that clarity, is that what he has for you, isn’t found in just one passage in Luke 1 or 2, but is instead found throughout the entirety of both chapters.
I believe the Holy Spirit wants us to spend intentional time understanding why we celebrate Christmas.
And I don’t just mean “Jesus is the reason for the season” type of stuff.
I mean, I believe that God wants us to understand the implications of Jesus being born.
The things it fulfilled, the hope that it meant for God’s people…the reason why things happened the way they did.
So here’s what we are going to do.
We are going to spend this week and next week in a two part message called “Celebrating Christmas”.
And what we are going to look at, is what we are actually doing when we celebrate Christmas.
Because…it’s not about the time of year.
Not sure how many of you know this, but most scholars believe that Jesus actually wasn’t born in December.
Most study leads us to believe that we was actually born in September, with another possibility being March.
This is based off a whole bunch of things that I don’t have the time to get into, but if you’re interested, come find me afterwards and I’d love to break that down for you.
So anyway, when we are celebrating Christmas, it’s not a chronological thing we are celebrating…and in fact, it’s not a scriptural command we are following.
There actually isn’t any scriptural support for having a separate holiday set apart for Christmas, and in fact the early church didn’t celebrate it...
So, it’s not an historical even we are celebrating, it’s not a scriptural command we are following...
What is it?
Celebrating Christmas is a redemptive celebration.
That is, we are celebrating a specific moment in God’s history of redemption.
That is, the history of God bringing people to himself.
Think of it like this…how many of you have celebrated some kind of anniversary before?
Whether it’s a relationship, work related, friend related?
Let’s just use a relationship anniversary as an example.
Brittany and I were married on October 18th, 2014.
Every year, when October 18th comes around…we celebrate our anniversary.
But here’s the thing…we don’t always celebrate it on the specific day.
Because sometimes…the 18th is on a Monday, or Wednesday…and it’s just not practical or fun even to celebrate then.
Sometimes I buy us tickets to something that’s a month away, and we celebrate it then.
How many of you have some type of anniversary or even birthday, in which you’re okay if you’re actually celebrating it a little before or after?
Why is that?
It’s because the date, the moment in history, is not what you’re celebrating.
Instead, what you’re celebrating is a specific point in your life.
It’s the relationship, or life, that you’re celebrating…and not the actual date.
And so to, is Christmas for the church.
To the church, it doesn’t matter the exact day Jesus was born, but just the fact that he was born.
And to the church back in 3rd or 4th century…Jesus’ birth was worthy celebrating, even if it meant they were just putting it somewhere in the calendar that they use to celebrate other things as a culture.
Celebrating Christmas is a way for the church, worldwide, to come together and celebrate the redemptive history.
To come together in the midst of winter, to refocus our hearts, and lift our eyes up to God as a redeemed people.
It’s a part of the liturgy, the order of worship, for the global church.
Much like Easter is.
All that to say…and here’s the first point...
When celebrating Christmas…
We celebrate a savior born.
I want to be very clear.
We celebrate the birth, not the birth date.
So that’s the first point, and we aren’t even in the scripture yet…we want to make sure that doesn’t happen very often, so let’s get to the the meat and open our Bibles to Luke 1.
As you’re turning there.
Let me pray for our time in the word together.
Alright, so we are going to be doing just a little bit of jumping around in the text today.
If you have a physical bible, you’ll be better off then just your phone, because you’ll be able to see multiple things at once.
Like I said, we are in Luke 1 and 2 for the next few weeks.
I want to take a moment and point out some events that happen rather than specific verses.
I’m going to point these out and just add them to our bucket of understanding, then we’ll pour the bucket out and see what all we have.
Here’s the first drop in the bucket.
Look at Luke 1.
Here we see the birth of John the Baptist.
John’s dad was a priest in the temple of God.
And as he’s doing his priestly duties, something happens.
So, we will stop there for now.
We will come back to the second part a bit later , but this will do for now.
To summarize, an angel shows up and declares a prophecy to Zechariah.
So first drop in the bucket.
Angel declares prophecy.
Next, turn the page and look...
Same thing.
We will stop there for now, but come back to the second half a bit later.
So first drop in the bucket, angel declares prophecy about John.
Second drop in the bucket, angel declares prophecy about Jesus.
Next turn the page and look at Mary’s Song.
So we won’t get into this line by line for now…but I just want you to see what’s going on here.
So, the drops in the bucket…you’ll see how all these relate in just a moment, I promise, just stay with me.
1st drop: Angel prophecy about John
2nd drop: Angel prophecy about Jesus
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