Good morning everybody. I cannot believe we are less than three weeks away from Christmas day And so this morning we got to get out of this we are kicking off our Christmas series Which is going to call me in on Christmas Eve my favorite night of the year stay tuned for details on that and this new series Entitled is entitled appropriate enough for 2020 worst Christmas ever But notice now the graphic does not end with an exclamation point Which is what I feel like a whole world would have you believe about this year This is not going to be a declaration for me And I hope it won't be for you either by the time we're done and it's not a pronouncement This is a question Look if you still have a pulse if you're still sucking an air through your pie hole You've been told over and over again seemingly by everybody everywhere that this is going to be the worst Christmas ever And maybe you're thinking that not I would understand. I mean let's be honest 2020 is going to have a lot of superlatives listed next to it in the history books And in no way please hear me on this am I making light of this situation I mean at one level it has been bleak people very close to me people are part of this community They've lost a lot financially occupationally relationally and most painfully family members and loved one So that's why I believe the truths of Christmas are more important and more needed and need to be understood more deeply and more personally This Christmas than any Christmas before now I'm not going to be breaking any new ground here when I tell you that over the centuries we have somewhat mythologized this scene Now I don't want anybody making any snide remarks in the comment section on Facebook about the condition of my beautiful manger set This craish was my grandmothers whom I loved and had a special relationship with and and to this day I still mister terribly as I remember when I was a little boy She got this set from saving up green stamps and redeeming them at a local store anybody remember snh green stamps I loved seeing this at our house each Christmas and when she passed away over 20 years ago now It was the one thing of hers. I really wanted has it aged well?
No, not at all we lost lives wise man along the way some years ago and this year when I opened it up the the camel had been decapitated over the summer And some of the sheep had lost some more of their legs Yet I treasure So here's the thing for us though what when you grow up around this scene when it becomes as it has in our culture kind of ubiquitous Especially within the church this scene has a propensity to lose its power and purpose Truth winds up feeling like story or fiction and real history can fade to fable Away in a manger no crib for a bed the little lord jesus laid down his sweet head Yeah, he laid it down in a feeding trough the cattle are lowing the poor baby wakes but little lord jesus no crying he makes Yeah, no, I had four babies and all four of them screamed their heads off if I even got up to go to the bathroom Let alone if they had a cow moon next to them You see when we fictionalize this scene when we pull it out of its historical context It loses power and then what happens is christmas just becomes well it becomes about an old story a fable like quality Overcomes it or worse yet. It just becomes about getting in the spirit of the season Which is really hard to do during a pandemic if this is just about getting in the spirit of the season Then yes, then this will be the worst christmas ever But it is so much more than that And my goal over the next few weeks is to look at christmas through the eyes of history I want you to understand that it's true. It's historical and why it matters and why every person in this scene Would have had every right to say that first christmas night. This is the worst christmas ever Because for all of them in this scene Well at a minimum was unexpected and truthfully it was quite disturbing You see the very first christmas was a lot like a 2020 christmas It didn't start out as a merry time for most of those involved Mary's confused and worried joseph is hurt and broken hearted the shepherds are afraid the wise men are perplexed They they show up under threat You see that first christmas came for everyone here at the wrong time at the wrong place to the wrong people and under the wrong Circumstances That's what we're going to be looking at over this week or these weeks this week I want to jump in looking at the wrong time What turned out to be god's time I've been thinking a lot this year about timing and my lack of appreciation for gods God's timing turns out doesn't really often coincide with my ideals My youngest daughter was a high school senior this year She had her senior year of high school all ahead of her From graduation sports championships were all kind of on the horizon and every single one of those things wiped out Never got a chance to live out the last couple months of her high school career My son kalab was a senior of virginia tech we were supposed to watch him graduate after working incredibly hard With all of his classmates at lain stadium instead We sat on our deck and watched a virtual ceremony on a small tv with kalab and his cap and gown on our picnic table I'm not even going to get into my daughter court and you got engaged this year and she's been trying to plan a wedding Have you tried to plan a wedding during a pandemic impossible?
I have I'm more than one occasion. This is the truth Grumble to god about this specifically. I found myself saying to him why me god and why now I think through with all of the of the folks that I know that have come before me people and my family friends People for the last hundred years would live without some pandemic messing up their lives Why god did you have to have one come along during my lifetime? It's really messing things up It's like I've given away a year of my precious time Your timing god is inconvenient at best and and at well at worst it's the rilling Which brings me back to the scene see this scene this birth narrative for most of us Well for most of us it begins this night a starting night in betlam We see it as a moment in time But I want you this morning to see that it is so much more than that This is the culmination of a millennial long kept promise And for many it was a forgotten hope According to jesus's disciple john, you know, matthew mark luke john according to john The scene did not just randomly happen But this jesus whom his cousin john the vapis would refer to later as the lamb of god This lamb is quote the lamb who is slain from the creation of the world in other words guys before the big bang was this scene is Planned not happenstance the promise Was first given at the dawn of creation maybe you know the story got creates man and woman in his image He places them in the garden of paradise and they choose to abandon god in favor of being a god of their own Now the story seems kind of crazy if you know what they fall prey to the temptation of this snake This creature rebellion to god who entices them to join him by disobeying god and eating the fruit of a forbidden tree and they do and they fall St.
enters the garden sin enters the world. It's actually worse than that sin enters the human heart the human story the human condition But I need you to see this as a precisely that moment that the promise first comes God in speaking to this sermon or serpent and into a future day says I'm going to put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and other translations between the seat of a woman Note that now this is a promise not regarding the seat of a man, but the seed the offspring of a woman and hers He will crush your head and you will strike his heel Enter into our world the promise of one who is coming to crush the head of evil Now you fast forward in the scriptures about nine chapters in your bible Many generations have now come and evil is raining in people and on the face of the earth and god mysteriously comes to a man named abram and says Go from your country your people in your father's household to the land i'm going to show you Which of course in antiquity was a pretty big ask right you're gonna out of nowhere Ask people in that day to do that because all they had was their country their people and their father's household That was their everything god is asking abram to do that. Why would he do that? Well because again this promise was attached abram i'm gonna make you into a great nation and i'm gonna bless you and i'm going to make your name great and you You are going to be a blessing i'm gonna bless those who bless you and whoever curses you i'll curse And here comes the crazy part all peoples on earth are going to be blessed through you Now that's a pretty good promise right You are going to be your own great nation abram i'm gonna make you famous God's gonna bless you and protect you and and again the crazy part of the promise everybody on earth is going to be blessed through you That's an incredible promise That might make you go Unless you're abram who later is somebody you know becomes known as abraham you know why?
Because this promise it seems kind of late Abraham's 75 years old. He's an old man His wife is way way way past childbearing age God appears late. This is the promise that can't be kept But the scriptures say that despite all of that abraham believed Abraham get this now believed in the promise of god which at the time seemed wholly completely and utterly unbelievable Now did he believe it perfectly? No he didn't in fact if you know this story He actually screws a lot of things up tries to think matters into his own hands and moves gods timing along faster, right Cooks up a plan to have this child with a servant of his wife named hagar They have a son named ishmael, but this is not the child of promise Abraham and his wife sarah actually cause a lot of problems in trying to help god keep his promises to try to make gods promises come along on their timeline side note church God doesn't need our help in keeping his promises He's fully capable of delivering on each and every one of them so wait Don't take measures in your own hands.
You're likely going to mess things up Now god despite the timing being all wrong and seemingly late incredibly against all odds He keeps this promise to abraham and sarah and they have a son if you've been around the church You might know his name was isek and then isek he goes on to have a son named jacob and jacob while jacob is prodigious Jacob has 12 sons one of them joseph is sold into slavery in egypt by 10 of his brothers because well to sum it quickly They didn't like his attitude and they weren't a fan of his technicolor dream code But in egypt this joseph he rises to a position of influence within the egyptian kingdom with the farrow And he saves his family and the Egyptians from famine and believe it or not Crazy story within a few generations abraham's offspring led by joseph egypt grow into this nation But they're not the nation promise or hope for They're a nation of slaves Working inside of egypt and they likely didn't feel all that blessed And they certainly didn't seem to be any kind of position to bless all the people on earth And you have to remember now These generations that are born into this egyptian captivity born in a sense with the egyptian boot on their necks Sentence the making brick after brick after brick in the egyptian sun generation after generation after generation 400 years of bricks each of these children is raised with the knowledge of the promise made to father abraham That god was going to make them into a nation and he seems to have done that all right But they certainly seem far from great and they're in no position to help anyone But then just when all seems lost people might check out give up hope god sends moses to deliver as people from this slavery You know the story frogs plagues boils the death of the firstborn and by the time By the time that that he's done that moses is done with pharaoh known in egypt is doing all that blessed by Abraham's descendants But eventually god leads his people into this promise land the land of canan But that creates conflict with those already living there the cany-nites who is war rages and their land is lost They're not feeling especially blessed by the descendants of abraham either And so now it's been around a thousand years since that promise was made to abraham And this nation which has now become known as the king of israel This nation is no longer a nomadic wandering people but they are a country they have a homeland and while god was seemingly kept his promise He wanted to be their king. He told the nation they didn't need a king the people of god in a dangerous world full of full of physical enemies Well, they wanted an earthly king and not a heavily one The most famous of which was david You know him as the boy you took down a goliath and went on to write about half of the songs david the warrior king Well, he raises is Israel into a military powerhouse And he's followed by his king salman who builds Israel up into an economic powerhouse Salman goes on to build the first temple one of the wonders of the ancient world the inside ceiling was 180 feet long 90 feet wide 50 feet high The highest point on the temple was 20 stories tall and it stood as a testimony to the power of the great nation of israel But it didn't stand for long Because just when the nation seemed poised to be all that god promised it would be Salomon the king began to worship the gods of other nations instead of blessing the world Israel became just like the rest of the world and as a result god kept a promise that he made to salomon Which is was that if he did this he would allow the nation to fall and be divided in the temple torn down And he's handling his book who needs christmas picks up the timeline wonderfully from here Israel after salomon's death was split into two a northern king known as israel in a southern kingdom known as juda In the year 732 BC israel is overrun by asiria You can look this up. It's actually called the Assyrian captivity Assyria in attempt in attempt to completely destroy israel takes people from israel israel forcibly and resettles them all over other nations And then it ports people from all the other nations to populate israel and so now for all intent and purposes israel Seemingly along with the promise of god is gone. It's dead There's no way back from this The nation doesn't even exist anymore and as for juda the southern kingdom sometime later they find themselves teetering on the brink of destruction too Is the Syria ready to conquer them And it's during this very troubling time in israel's history that god sends them the prophet isiah who we hear so much about at christmas time Here's what god says to isiah as israel appears doomed to be a smoldering ash heap in history I will also make you a light for the gentiles that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth To which is stanley points out the remaining southern kingdom folks must have been saying you're kidding right A light to the world this light is about to go out salvation to the ends of the earth we can't even save ourselves Great promise god, but you missed the opportunity we have the opportunity, but you missed it.
It's too late It can't happen wrong place wrong time wrong circumstances It sure to seem that way when a syrian vated juda and overtook it too Several hundred more years ago by generation after generation grow up knowing the promises made to abraham Knowing that that they had the potential to come true at one point in their history But seemingly and painfully they've come up so short And it was right in the midst of israel's darkest hour in the last book of your old testament the prophet malachi Records god saying this my name will be great among the nations from where the sun rises to where it sets And again as stanley points out to the people of israel juda this must have seemed ridiculous God's name is being mocked among the nations his name was a joke No one from the surrounding nations was looking at the fate of israel thinking well I want to worship their god Israel couldn't feed or protect itself it looked like a nation on its last legs And then it got worse in 63 bc romesons pompe the great to the area of juda and galloli and he conquers town after town until he was outside the walls of Jerusalem the capital of israel And so began the violent roman occupation of what came to be called the holy land For 400 years god's promises to abraham seem to be null and void a promise made and a promise uncapped but then something extraordinary happened This happened Paul in writing the Galatians put it this way But when the set time had fully come God sent his son born of a woman Born under the law You know when it happened it It happened just when everyone had given up it happened just when everyone had said it was over You know what had happened it happened just when everyone thought god had forgotten about his promise It happened when everybody was certain that it was impossible for god to come through It was at that very moment the darkest of moments that god sent the angel Gabriel to a virgin A virgin the offspring of not a man but a woman pledged to be married to a man named joseph a descendant of david Miss virgin's name was mary The angel went to her and said greetings you who are highly favored the lord is with you Well mary was greatly troubled his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be But the angel said to her do not be afraid mary You have found favor with god You will conceive and give birth to a son and you're a column jesus He will be great And will be called the son of the most high The lord god will give him the throne of his father david And he will reign over jake up's descendants forever And here's the promise his kingdom will never end Church i i need you to understand This is not a standalone event and time This is not a fable or a myth or a narrative or a story This is the ultimate fulfillment of an incredible promise laid out before the foundations of the earth Spoken at the very dawn of creation Given to an old man named abrum from the town of erb the chaldines nowhere It was foreshadowed through the centuries by isek and jake up moses and david It was seemingly squashed for centuries by the Assyrians the Babylonians the Romans and yet kept And it was kept at just the right time just when the set time had fully come And you see this is why mary sang he has helped to serve an israel remembering to be merciful to abraham and his descendants forever Just as he promised our ancestors mary grew up knowing the story But now she knew the truth guys God's timing is not our timing But god's timing is perfect and mine's not This promise was a long time in coming in fact it was 400 years before this scene where god had sent no prophets to speak It looked to everybody for generations that god had forgotten but god's grace comes at the appointed hour This jesus He would grow up to minister all over this roman ruled southern kingdom of juda There's a story in his ministry that mark records that reminds us of the key to the biblical story He writes them one of the synagogue leaders named jarius came and when he saw jesus He fell at his feet and he pleaded earnestly with him My little daughter is dying Please come and put your hands on her so that she'll be healed and live so jesus went with him But jesus can't wait late along the way and he gets involved in another situation and while jesus was still dealing with that Some people came from the house of jarius the synagogue leader Your daughter is dead. They said Why bother the teacher anymore In other words his friends come to him and tell him it's too late It's not to wear out jesus messed mess it up. God missed his opportunity time. He's all wrong He's not gonna be done now Wrong place wrong time wrong circumstances.
I love the wording. Why even bother? Just give up give in to your circumstances overhearing what they said jesus told him Don't be afraid Just believe Don't be afraid Just believe Abraham go don't be afraid Just believe moses cross don't be afraid just believe Mary Give birth Don't be afraid Just believe I love how tim keller refrised what what jesus was saying to jarius here If you want to impose your time frame on me, you'll never feel loved by me And it'll be your fault because I do love you I will fulfill my promises Where's christmas ever? I don't I don't think so friends God hasn't abandoned us or forsaken us or forgotten us Every promise he has ever made is still at work in his perfect time He is keeping it and we need to know this the world needs to know this christmas more than ever Got me seem to have forgotten but right now in you and with you and in the midst of coronavirus We're through and despite coronavirus.
He is in the process of arranging everything to fulfill his great promises I do remember that this week This Thanksgiving my beautiful mother I think for the first time in her life sat alone By herself had to cook herself Thanksgiving dinner eat it by herself because she has COPD so bad It's way too dangerous for her to be around others Hey mom It's christmas God's promise for healing Is true And it's coming I have a friend goes to church here a minute this week she had some lymph nodes removed as she teeters on on perhaps a third bout of stage four cancer See my friend needs to know if she's watching this at home this morning that God has not forgotten her There's nothing a test result can do to invalidate one of these promises of God As I was working on this message this week I closed up my computer and I was headed home I was coming up school. He's mountain in Long Valley And as I was going up a hearse past me coming by in the other direction and as it went by I just kind of heard in my spirit the Lord say to me hey john promise kept And it's because of this promise it's because of this truth that this scene Is not the last tidbit of my grandmother that I'm gonna hold on to I'm gonna hold on to my grandmother again I'm gonna close with this Matthew begins is telling the birth of christ not with mary or joseph or wise men Nothing from this scene yet because he understood it started way before this so he starts with the genealogy Why will first he wants to connect this scene to all of God's great promises He writes what we just recounted that thus there were 14 generations in all from Abraham to David 14 from David to the exile in Babylon and 14 from the exile to the messiah Now check this out So there have been six sevens of generations and that makes jesus the beginning of the seventh generation Now remember when did jesus come at just the right time at the appointed time What's the significance? Why is Matthew writing it this way? Well in Israel's history numbers carry significance In genesis on what day does god rest in the creation story?
Well, he rests on the seventh day It goes further in the mosaic law every seven year the seven years the farmers were to let the grand the ground lie fallow to give it a chance They're replenished so the farmers were to rest in the seventh year in the Old Testament book of Leviticus We're told the last year of the seventh period of seven years the 49th year That's the year of jubilee in that year all the slaves were to be freed all the debts were to be forgiven and the land and the people were to rest from their burdens Jim tell her something up this way matthew is telling us and I Need to hear this Christmas especially if somebody tells you that this is gonna be the worst Christmas ever Matthew is telling us that rest comes through Jesus Christ Do you understand that Jesus was not born once upon a time? But he broke into time in space and then he was he accomplished exactly what god promised your salvation Friends, how do you get that how do you get the rest? How do you get that salvation the same way Abraham did the same way jarias did Despite your circumstances despite the timing despite god seeming absence You believe Worst Christmas ever I don't think so God, is it work? He has appointed you and I to be alive right now He means for you and I to live to be alive in this time at this moment through this pandemic and this Christmas He is at work like never before in our lives and all you have to do to experience it to find his salvation To know his peace this Christmas believe