The Amazing Story of Christmas
Notes
Transcript
What do I want them to know? The meaning of Christmas (presence, unbelievable promise, unbelievable fulfilment of the promise)
Why? It leads to hope and redemption
What do I want them to do? Believe, remember, hope
Why? It leads to hope and redemption
ME/WE
What is the big deal with Christmas? What is Christmas all about? What makes Christmas so wonderful and magical? This is the question many people are wondering.
Depending on who you talk to you you will get different answers.
Some will say Christmas is about gathering together as a family. The most important thing about Christmas is for families to come gather together.
Others say Christmas is about the guy in the red suit and red hat, Santa, that Christmas is the time we give gifts to each other.
Some people will say Christmas is a time of loneliness and hurt ache and bitterness…they say who needs Christmas? and we will see in a minute we all need Christmas
Then others will say Christmas is the story of the birth of Jesus…it is the celebration of the BIRTH of JESUS....
TENSION
BUT WHAT MAKES JESUS BIRTH SO SPECIAL???
Birth’s are important, births are a big deal. We are about to celebrate this Tuesday the birthday of my son Caleb.
But what makes Jesus birth so wonderful, such a big deal that we are celebrating His birthday 2000 years later, we have the HOLIDAY of Christmas; HOLIDAY stems from HOLY Day, the calendar changing we have B.C. “before Christ” and A.D.
- A.D. stands for the Latin phrase "Anno Domini"(anno dominee) meaning "in the year of our Lord (Jesus Christ)."
This is what we are going to unpack today, the significance of Christmas, the significance of the birth of Jesus that has alter for the good and blessed for the good all of the world.
IN 2 VERSES THAT LEAD TO THREE THINGS
We read about the story of Christmas in Gal 4:4-5
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,
to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
That is the story of Christmas.
What does that mean????
Let’s unpack what this means in it means 3 things
Story of Christmas is the story of God’s presence “God with us” the first present we open on Christmas is a God’s presence
But when the fullness of time had come God sent forth His son born of a woman.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Tabernacled, God moved into the neighborhood and after Jesus leaves we learn God moves inside of us, we are God’s temple.
How does He come to dwell with us?
We read about it in Matt
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.
But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).
When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife,
but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.
(Holy Spirit in a supernatural way made Mary pregnant)
(What are you talking about your pregnant and God did it???)
The birth of Jesus is this divine act that God does, Holy Spirit brings conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary.
What is one of the names besides Jesus given to Jesus. They shall call him Immanuel “God with us”
The beginning of the story of Christmas is the story of God coming with us
- in the muck and mire of all life.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Do we know how beautiful this is?
God is not like all the other gods who say it is figure it out.
God doesn’t say figure it out.
God doesn’t say I am sorry that stinks for you
God doesn’t say that’s their problem
God see and cares that humanity is suffering and struggling as John 1:14 says God moves into the neighborhood
God says I am moving into the neighborhood as John 1:1,14
Think about that God left His throne
The story of Christmas is that God is with us at all times, He is not absent or too busy.
GOD IS WITH ME
Some us need to hear this because we feel alone....that is not true God is with you, He has come to save you not condem you,
The story of Christmas is God with us
Some of us need to here this today because we FEEL alone, that’s not true…God is Immunaul “God with us”
and one of the best presence for us to remember this is God is present with me the creator of the whole world.
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.
Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The story of Christmas is God is with us, love is with us.
2. Unbelievable Promise Given
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,
to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
“he will crush your head.” That is, the seed of the woman will crush the serpent’s head.
Proclamination, a promise that God is going defeat the enemy through the enemies seed.
The story about God is faithful to fulfill His promises.
I am going to defeat sin, sin is going to be done.
The promise of Christmas is not given 2000 years ago to Mary and Joseph, to a couple who are trying to explain to the world how Mary got pregnant, “she’s pregnant and it was God.”
We know so many people had a problem believing God brought conception into Mary’s womb and that Jesus was God.
But it is a promise given to a couple who were trying to get pregnant but couldn’t. The story of Christmas starts 4000 years ago when God gives a promise to a man named Abraham.
Let’s read
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.
And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
God says Abraham through your line I am going to bless the whole world . Pretty amazing promise, unbelievable promise.
But what’s theirs one BIG problem when God says this?
Abram and Sara have not kids
Not only do they not have any children
They are past child bearing age
Abram was 75 years old and Sarah was 65 years old
Gal 3:6
just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?
At points they disbelieved God, probably we would too and God kept reminding them that
Gen 18:14
Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.”
Some of us need to hear that, that God speaks a promise and then says “is there anything too hard for the Lord?”…the answer is NO, nothing, not one thing is too hard for God.
Not only was there the problem of age
2. What is also so fascinating is that when God called Abram was Abram following God? Not walking with God, he was following other gods, is this not so god? God calls Paul when he is walking against god, perscuting Christians, Ruth a Moabite, Matthew a tax collector.
3. I am going to bless the whole world…not just Israel the whole world.
4. What’s so interesting about this promise connected to Jesus, given 2000 years before Jesus, is the fulfillment of the promise going to happen?
Start next year with a birth of a child, then a decades later they will be a great nation, then they will be a blessing?
NO, it doesn’t happen next year, or the year after that, or 10 years later, but 25 years later does Abram and Sarah have a son named Isaac there is a gap between promise and the fulfillment of the promise.
This good for us to know because if we do not realize there is going ot be a gap it will causes us to doubt, disbelieve, and disobey and we see Abram and Sarah do this and others and us do this.
But God says I am faithful to fulfill my promise
And we see God grow this one family into a great nation a couple centuries later, but the nation is in jeopardy again because they are a great nation but a nation under slavery, oppressed, God says that was not promise.
He send Moses to deliver the people out of Egypt
Joshua takes them into the promise land
Israel start growing and growing
Then they have King Saul, who not a good king, God annoints a king after His own heart in David, who continues to grow them but he’s not a good king and he is replaced by David and the nation keeps growing and growing, but God said david has too much blood on his hand that Solomon will build the temple
and they keep growing as a nation, growing growing and then something happens, then we get to Solomon the high point of Israel but then something happens
What happens? sexual desires derails everything…all hope seems lost…we were moving forward
Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women,
from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love.
He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart.
For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.
For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done.
Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem.
And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods.
And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice
and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the Lord commanded.
Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant.
WHAT WE REALIZE IS NO HUMAN BEING CAN TRULY FULFILL THE PROMISE OF BLESSING AND REDEMPTION...
All hope seems lost, it goes from bad to worse, to worse yet still
We watch for the next 1000 years, from 1000 B.C. to 0 A.D. the nation of Israel get conquered and captured by Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, and at 0 A.D. Rome.
We were a great nation, but now we are a nation of being wiped out.
BUT GOD REMINDS THEM OVER AND OVER through the prophets and scriptures.
This promise to Abram is based on what God is not over.
We see it Jeremiah, Micah, Maliacha, the Psalms and others.
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,
to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
God kept sending profits over and
But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.
You have multiplied the nation; you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil.
For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.
For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
Tribes first captured and perscuted
But in the later times God is going to make this way glorious this place that was hit hardest by persuctution and catpivity…a place that turns into a multi ethinic place.
Isaiah is saying the promise is still yet to come…God is going to come to the northern tribes, where a mix multitude of nations reside and I am going to bless the whole world.
Then what do we read in Matt 4 some 700 years later after Isaiah prophecy?
Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee.
And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali,
so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
“The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—
the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.”
From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Jesus is the fulfillment of the blessing
What is the blessing? That Jesus has come to save sinners
She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
The blessings that Jesus brings is SALVATION and SONSHIP
- Not just forgive sinners but save sinners and adopt sinners
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,
to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
The story of Christmas is about salavtion, sonship, not just forgiveness, it’s more than forgiveness.
That’s the story of Christmas
God says to us to become sons and daughters is not through WORKs but through belief in Jesus
because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.