Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Today is the last Sunday before Christmas.

We will wrap up our series The Promise next Sunday.

We have been exploring the themes of Advent each week leading up to Christmas.

The first week, we discovered that God’s promised hope came in the form of a person.

Jesus meets our deepest longings and is the hope for our present and our future.

The second week, we looked at the promise of peace that was given to the lowly shepherds.

There would be a new government that would come that would bring peace to the world.

Last week, we discovered deep joy in the promise that the Savior of the world was coming.

It is a joy to receive and a joy to share.

Today we will consider God’s promise of love that was born into the world in the form of a baby in a manger.

We saw how Jesus’ advent affected the lives of Simeon, the shepherd, Zacharias, and today we will consider how Mary’s life was changed forever.

How has Jesus affected your life?

Have you met the Savior, personally?

PRAY

How many of us have a nativity scene set up in the living room or on the mantle of the fireplace.

Ours is on a radiator cover in the Dining Room.

What is a nativity?

And what does that word even mean?

Our word nativitycomes from the Latin word nativitas which means “birth.”

In Ireland they called a nativity “The Creche.”

And when we took Will to church, the nursery was also called the Creche.

The nativity scene that we set out each year is a depiction of the birth of the God of the universe into the world.

Surrounded by his mother Mary and earthly father Joseph, barnyard animals, shepherds, and angels.

All eyes of the nativity are fixed on the baby Jesus because it is all about His birth.

We have a beautiful life-sized nativity out on the front lawn of the church reminding everyone who drives by of the meaning of Christmas.

Thank you Len Czyzewski and J.C. Emmot!

📷You’ve probably noticed a new event for many pregnant couples.

After announcing the arrival of a new baby, there is often a special event - the gender reveal party.

Some elaborate gender reveal events are now costing $10,000!

Couples have pink or blue cakes baked that give away their secret when they are sliced.

Some couples fill balloons with pink or blue powder or use colored Tannerite and shoot them with guns.

Other couples have boxes full of pink or blue balloons and release them to rounds of applause.

You name it, and it has probably happened.

Here is Will and Alyssa’s announcement of our new grandson with blue streamers.

He’s due to arrive next May.

You can see the excitement on faces.

We were there through video chat.

Wow.

I must be officially in Pop mode.

That’s two Sundays in a row I talked about grandkids!

Forgive me!

Today I have four points to share about God’s promise of Love.

If you like taking notes, you can fill in the blanks and jot some personal thoughts on the insert in the bulletin.

1: We Prepare for the Birth of Something New

The reason the nativity, the birth of Jesus, is so significant is not because this birth happened one night long ago, but because God’s desire for each of us is for Christ to be born within us even today.

And for the love of God to be revealed to the world by the way we live.

What would happen if each of us, full of expectation that God could birth something new within us this season, began to prepare ourselves for all that God desires to do?

There is another promise given in the Old Testament that is fulfilled in this nativity scene that we are so familiar with.

Again we hear from Isaiah.

READ Isaiah 7:14.

There would be a sign given to God’s people that they had not been forgotten in their sinful and broken states, but instead, when they see a virgin gives birth to a child, they would see the tangible love of God coming into the world to rescue us all.

The instruction given in Isaiah is to be prepared.

Be ready for this revelation.

Live your life with expectancy that God would come to us.

Make space in our lives.

Make room for the birth of a work of God within us right now, even before the arrival comes.

In the New Testament Gospels, we have two different accounts of the nativity, this birth.

Matthew and Luke each give an explanation of the way in which God came to us in the middle of our mess to be with us because of His love.

Luke captured a bit more backstory within the nativity narrative.

It begins with an angel called Gabriel, speaking to a young teenage girl named Mary.

READ Luke 1:26–33.

The message brought by the angel is that Mary would conceive a child within her womb whose name would be Jesus.

Don’t miss the key to the story here.

It’s truly a miracle.

Mary is a virgin.

Mary is engaged.

She has not yet been married to Joseph, so this announcement must have been a difficult thing to process.

What?

What do you mean I am going to become pregnant?

What do you mean this child, Jesus, will be the Sonof the Most High, a king who will rule over all things?

When God is ready to do something new, it almost always is a disruption.

In a world that is broken and marked by sin, the arrival of love is disruptive.

How many of you like disruption?

Change?

We usually fight pretty hard against it, don’t we?

2: When God Shows Up, Our Lives Are Disrupted

Mary’s life is taking a turn here that she could have never expected.

As far as she knew, she was about to marry this nice Jewish boy Joseph, when suddenly she has been chosen to give birth to the Savior of the world.

This was a major disruption.

For Joseph, your fiancée suddenly becomes pregnant, and it’s not your baby.

How do you explain this to all your friends and your family?

I know that Mary says an angeltold her that this baby is not from another man, but how do I know for sure?

For Joseph, this was a disruption.

For the political power of that day, King Herod was in control of all of Israel.

For this baby to come into the world and the Son of God, being called the King of kings, this meant that all the old kings would have to go.

This was a disruption.

This disruption comes because of the promise that God loves His people so much that He would come to dwell with them through this humble young girl.

We have two choices disruption comes: avoid it or embrace it.

I believe that when God is trying to birth something new within us, it will always feel like something confusing, something hard, something exciting, something inexplicable, something uncontrollable.

When this happens . . .

what will you do?

Avoid it or embrace it?

When Cindi and I answered God’s call to ministry – there was major disruption - things started to change.

We planned to go to Galway Ireland as missionaries and that meant selling our house and cars.

Quitting my corporate marketing career with a good salary and benefits.

Leaving behind family and friends.

Bringing our 2- and 5-year-old boys to a foreign country.

Learning a new culture and a new way of doing church, ministry, and life.

Talk about disruption!