Sermon Tone Analysis
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Big Idea: Jesus is the greater Moses.
Jesus is the perfect Israel.
Jesus is the God of the Exodus here to deliver us from sin.
This is the picture that Matthew is trying to convey through his Gospel account.
We will look at all the ways Jesus as Emmanuel comes to deliver be with His people and to deliver them from a greater oppressor than Egypt…their own sinful heart.
Matthew is retelling the Exodus story with Jesus at the center.
God comes to be the leader they needed, the people they were meant to be, and the God who would rescue them from their sin.
This image of Emmanuel is meant to show us how Jesus came to be with man and deal with the root of the problem.
Israel was in captivity by Rome and yet this was just a picture of the state of their own hearts captivity by sin.
Many people missed the Messiah because they were looking for a greater Moses to come lead them out of captivity to Rome but that’s not what a greater Moses would do.
A greater Moses would lead them out of captivity to sin.
This is what Emmanuel (or God with us) changed.
If you have your Bibles, open up to Matthew chapter one and we are going to start by reading the text that our Christmas series is based off of.
- I was gone so we need to rehash it.-
I said we need to look at Immanuel because…(two verses prior 21)…explain
Emmanuel isn’t a name.
His name is Jesus which means “God is salvation.”
We also said that:
Emmanuel isn’t a title either.
Do title bit: Messiah, Christ, Savior, Prince of Peace, Wonderful Counselor.
No, actually,
Emmanuel is a marker of remembrance of change.
We said that’s what all of our holidays are...
Explain how Matthew expects us to just get the significance of this bomb...We grew up Saturday morning cartoons, and Matthews audience grew up on the story of the Old Testament.
Here is an example: Three weeks ago we talked about how:
When God comes to ‘BE WITH US’ it means change is coming.
Gen 1 Garden - Kicked out of God’s kingdom.
Gen 11 Babel - Scattered across the earth.
Gen 12 Abram - God is promising a way back into his kingdom and sends his presence to mark that change.
So this week, we are going to continue on with this theme tracking the significance of Emmanuel or God with us and what that means for you and me.
But, in order to do that, I need you to do something for me.
I need you to wipe everything you think you know about the Christmas story out of your mind.
Here is what I mean:
READ THIS:
When you think about the biblical Christmas story, what are the first things that come to mind?
Maybe the angel Gabriel announcing the birth of Jesus to Mary.
Or it could even be the birth of John and how Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth.
Maybe its the census and that fateful journey to Bethlehem just to discover there was no room at the inn.
Maybe its a manger scene filled with animals.
Or perhaps it is images of shepherds tending their sheep and the choirs of angels announcing the birth of the Savior?
Those are all great parts of the story and all of them are being used by the other Gospel authors to convey some incredibly important messages…there is just one problem, however.
We are looking at Matthews account and exactly NONE of those things are in Matthews Christmas story account.
Go back and read Matthew one and two and you’ll notice that none of those things I mentioned are in there.
So this morning, I want you to pretend like you’ve never heard it before because we are going to let Matthew’s recounting of the Christmas story shape the way we see it this morning.
You see, Matthew has a very specific purpose in telling the Christmas story the way that he did and if we’ve got all of these other images in our mind, we are likely to miss the powerful thing that he is communicating.
So what is Matthew trying to communicate through his telling of the Christmas story and what does it have to do with our lives?
I’m so glad you asked that question and I will answer it here in just a second.
But first, we have to talk about Batman.
Funny bit about just using a Batman example a few weeks ago…I promise I’m not hung up on Batman.
Bit about the surprise reveal of the villain…Batman and Bane true villain bit.
Miranda Tate the daughter or Ras Al Ghul is the real villain.
Red Herring bit.
Matthew is going to pull the Red Herring curtain back and show us that the villain is not who we think it is because if we miss who the real villain is, we will also miss the hope connected to the birth of Emmanuel.
Look at Matthew’s thesis statement for his Gospel account.
For those of you who’ve been out of school for a few years, a thesis statement is your purpose statement.
It is the point that you are going to prove through supporting evidence over the rest of your text.
Check this out…Jesus means savior.
Look at verse 21.
What is Jesus saving his people from?
Their sins!
How is he going to do it?
Well Matthew is going to work out the how over the rest of the book but he does tell us at least this much…that Jesus is going to do it by being “God with us.”
That if rescue from sin is the purpose and God coming to dwell with mankind always means a change then Jesus’ birth is the linchpin in that equation.
Let’s start with an easy question.
Did people in Jesus’ day get this?
NO!
What did people in Jesus’ day see as being the main villain?
For them, the major villain was Rome.
Rome had been around for about 60 years prior to the birth of Jesus ruling brutally with an iron fist.
Before them it was the Greek empire.
That wasn’t a cake walk either…google the story of Antiochus Epiphanes if you don’t already know it.
Before the Greeks it was the Medo-Persians.
Before them it was the Babylonians…and so on and so forth all the way back to the origin of the Israelites story in Egypt.
There was always a bad guy.
There was always a big brute that looked like Bane…real villainous, like he’s definitely the big bad guy...looming over them.
And so, they expected their Messiah to come and free them from Rome and set up the eternal kingdom of Israel.
Jewish political leaders were looking for a political Messiah.
While the religious leaders and many of the people were looking for a military leader.
Its easy to give those guys a hard time.
Like how could you possibly miss the fact that Jesus was obviously the messiah?
He was giving sight to the blind, healing obvious physical deformities before their very eyes, and even raising the dead back to life.
And so we think…how blind were they not to see that.
But check this out lest we get high and mighty and think we would’ve been any better:
Check this out from Acts chapter 1:
You guys have missed it.
Make it funny…these are guys who had literally witnessed the resurrected Jesus and had been hearing him preach the gospel for 3.5 years.
And guess what…you and I miss the real root of the problem as well.
We fall for the Red Herring all the time.
Its the people on the other side of the political isle.
Its the public school system.
Its my work or my boss or if my coworkers weren’t so terrible things would just be better there.
Its my financial situation.
Based off the last fight you had perhaps you think its your spouse or your kids.
The real problem is social media.
The biggest issue is some of the radical anti-God social agendas.
Perhaps you are particularly sensitive to injustices and so you would say social, racial, gender, income inequality, or judicial injustices are the true evil.
Maybe its poverty or hunger or access to healthcare.
Here is the deal…Did Jesus say that He wasn’t going to address all of those things?
No!
He just tells his followers that its not for them to know the time when he is going to address those things.
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