Sermon Tone Analysis

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news.

That’s a poetic way of saying… how awesome it is to be the one who gets to deliver good news.

It’s the image of a messenger coming back from the battlefield.

It’s the messenger running up the hill to his hometown with a message of victory and glad tidings.

We have won.

The enemy has been defeated and peace has come to our city.

Don’t you love to be the person who gets to give good news?

You get a promotion at work and you get to go home and tell your spouse how big your pay increase is going to be.

You get an A on a test that you’ve been worried about for a week, and you get to go home and tell your parents.

It’s just good to be able to go to someone else and tell them exciting news.

And one of the most exciting pieces of news that someone could share, is that their family is expanding.

I remember when Beck and I first got to share with our families that Becky was pregnant.

Understand that we had tried, unsuccessfully, for a while.

So when it finally happened, we were ecstatic.

I sat down, wrote a computer program… burned it on a CD.

And I went to my parent’s house… telling them how excited I was about this computer program that I wrote that was going to change the world.

And when they put the program into their computer to see it… and it popped up Congratulations… You’re going to be a grandparent.

It was just a really cool moment.

Christmas revolves around the biggest birth announcement the world has ever known.

We read it last week… Matthew chapter 1, verse 23…

And also verse 21…

This birth announcement announces who this baby is and what this baby is going to do.

This baby is Immanuel.

This child is none other than God himself among us… God breaking into our world… God breaking into time and space to be with us.

Jesus… God saves.

Why is God breaking into our time and space?

In order to save us.

In Luke chapter 2, we see the birth announced to some shepherds… Luke chapter 2, verse 10…

In this announcement, we see these 3 titles… He is the Savior… He is the promised Messiah… or the promised anointed King… and He is the Lord, capital Lord… He is the one in control.

These are the great birth announcements of Christmas… Joseph and Mary’s family expanded unexpectedly… and this is who their baby is.

And this is what Christmas is truly all about.

That God has come to the world, in order to save.

Christmas is not only the announcement that Joseph and Mary’s family is expanding… but another family is expanding because of Christmas as well.

If you have your Bible, and I hope that you do, turn with me to John chapter 1.

The Gospel According To John chapter 1.

What John chapter 1 does is… it pulls back the curtains of the Christmas story and gives us a behind the scenes look at who this child is that was born on Christmas day.

Look at it with me…

(explain who the “Word” is)

Again, this is kind of a peek behind the curtains… the back story of this child.

The true origin of this child is that He has no origin.

Because He is none other than the eternal God Himself.

He is the Creator of the heavens and the Earth.

This child that Mary delivered was none other than God Himself.

This gets explained a little furter… Skip down to verse 14…

God has become flesh, came to this Earth to be our Savior… to be our Lord.

And sandwiched in the middle of these verses is an important announcement about a new family that is being started on Christmas Day.

Look at verse 10…

What John is saying here is that any person… regardless of age, background, ethnicity, or anything else… anyone who looks on this child that was born and says… I trust you with all my heart… becomes a part of a new family.

It’s not a family that is based upon biology… it’s not a family connected by DNA or blood… it’s a family that’s connected by the Spirit of the God in whom we trust.

All who believe in Jesus will become children of God.

Sons and daughters of God… brothers and sisters of one another.

And the language used here is adoption language.

Because God has come into this world to be with us, in order to save us… for those He saves… He’s adopting them and creating a brand-new family.

Isn’t adoption a beautiful picture?

On the screen, you’ll see photos of several children who have been adopted out of the foster care system.

And if you look… you can see the joy on their faces.

You can see the excitement.

I’m part of a family now.

I have a brother… I have a sister… I have a family to surround me… to love me… to support me.

Adoption has changed these children’s lives significantly!

This is what happens to us when we trust Jesus.

There’s a scene from a TV show that illustrates this quite well.

I don’t know anything about the show, but when I saw this clip, it just does a great job of illustrating what it looks like when a child is adopted into a family.

Take a look…

*PLAY VIDEO*

A couple things that I want to mention real quick.

Did you notice the words of the judge?

The child is give all the rights and privileges of a natural born child.

We have an everlasting inheritance.

We are co-heirs with Jesus.

And take a guess what Jesus inherits…

It’s everything!

Think of all that means.

Everything that God owns belongs to us as well because we belong to Him.

Our eternal inheritance as co-heirs with Christ is the result of the amazing grace of God.

But inheriting all things… really isn’t the joy of the Christian.

You see… even though God is the Creator of all things… and even though God is the King over all things… and even though God is the Lord… in control over all things… we are not simply His subjects.

Because we’ve been adopted, we get to say Abba Father… closest translation we have to Abba is daddy.

It’s a term of endearment for a father.

We have an intimate connection with God because He’s brought us into His family.

We get a Father… a daddy!

And that, is the true joy of the adopted child.

But it goes beyond even that!

I love how that scene points out that the adopted child doesn’t just get parents… but also his new uncles, new aunts, new cousins… brothers, sisters… and they all promise to love that boy… they promise to surround him with love… to support him… to teach him… to be with him at all times… to grow together.

This is the church.

That’s what it means to be a son or daughter of God.

Christmas is the announcement that a new family is beginning.

We are that family… those of us who trust in Jesus Christ… we are brothers and sisters.

And you can have all this too if you would trust in Jesus.

John said…

Believe in Jesus today.

Trust in what Jesus did for you.

He came to this earth… God with us, in order to save us… And He accomplished just that by living the perfect life… by going to the cross… and being crucified in our place.

The death that we deserve, the penalty that we were owed because of sin… Jesus took that for us.

He became our substitute in death… in order to bring us life.

If you would trust Him today… you will find life… and you will find family.

Would you pray with me…