SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe you're here and uh you're a normal church attender, maybe you are like a super attender and you're at church all the time, the doors are open, the doors are locked, you find a way in.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's your situation.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're more of the kind of Easter, Christmas uh showing up for church, or maybe you you you tend to come to church when maybe perhaps you feel guilty about something, or or or maybe you you feel helpless, or um, and maybe that's when you go to church, or maybe you feel really grateful, and so that's when you go to church, or maybe you're drugged here by your family, you know.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, just kind of you're not sure how you got here, you don't want to be here, but you're here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh possibly you're here and you're you're from a different faith, and you got here through family, and you're here and you're not sure maybe if you're even allowed to be here according to your faith.
SPEAKER_00: And um it's all very possible.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to say uh we're we're very we're so happy you're here.
SPEAKER_00: Um no matter what category you fall into, there, we're so happy you're here.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe when it comes to this story, this Christmas story, this idea of God to man into the world through a woman, uh, a virgin born uh as a boy, growing up and becoming a rabbi, a great teacher, and then dying for our sin and then resurrecting, maybe that story to you feels maybe a little uh far-fetched.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it feels a little like a like a legend or uh a little antiquated to some extent, maybe it feels a little removed from your modern life.
SPEAKER_00: Uh wherever you're at on this continuum, I just would you give me the next 10 minutes, 12 minutes maybe, uh, to ask three questions?
SPEAKER_00: And even even when I say these questions, they're gonna come off and go, well, I know the answer to those questions because that's just kind of the Christmas story.
SPEAKER_00: But would you stick with me?
SPEAKER_00: Would you be willing to kind of dig in just a little bit to think through this?
SPEAKER_00: Um, these three questions.
SPEAKER_00: The first one being, how did God come to man?
SPEAKER_00: How did God come?
SPEAKER_00: Number two, why did he come?
SPEAKER_00: And number three, what does this mean for you and for me?
SPEAKER_00: So that first question, how did he come?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Matthew 1, what Sam just read, Matthew 1, 18 through 25, that's the Christmas story.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Mary, this young girl, by the way, probably 13-ish.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine that, 13, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they married younger culture 2,000 years ago, and married younger for many reasons, and so she's young, she's a young girl, and she finds out she's pregnant, and she gets the word from God, and she and she knows, well, I haven't done that, and I'm pregnant, and so she's to be okay with this, and then Joseph doesn't bail on her.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph sticks with her, is faithful to her, and they make that trip to Bethlehem, and they get down there and they find out they're homeless, and then she's going into labor, and they end up in that stable with the farm animals, and then and then the baby is born and it's put in a manger, a feeding trough.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is this is as as low as it gets.
SPEAKER_00: This is as lowly as possible, and God is coming into the world in the lowest place.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't get any lower.
SPEAKER_00: What's interesting, that reading Sam read before it, Matthew 1, 1 through 7, he's this long genealogy, and I won't read through that because it'll bore you.
SPEAKER_00: The point of that is a little bit to say to us this is history, not just legend, but this is history, and you can trace the genealogy of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting about that is Matthew's writing to Jewish people, he's writing to religious people, and he points out four kind of discrepancies, not discrepancies, four exceptions.
SPEAKER_00: Usually when you do genealogy back then, it was men.
SPEAKER_00: And you look into this genealogy in Matthew 1, there's four women listed.
SPEAKER_00: And it's just to say, uh say something, because each of these four women are women that have huge mistakes in their life.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's the kind of mistakes, I was looking at it today, it's the kind of mistakes Nash Christian said, can I go into it all, the life of Tamar and Rahab and Ruth and Bathsheba?
SPEAKER_00: Can I can I go into that with children in the room?
SPEAKER_00: And Christian's like, no, you can't.
SPEAKER_00: You can't even go into it with children in the room.
SPEAKER_00: I can't, I can't even go into the storylines of those four women.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is not rated G.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't Disney.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is this is R-rated.
SPEAKER_00: This is this is I mean, it is a biblical storyline of the bloodline of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is immorality at its lowest point.
SPEAKER_00: And what Matthew's doing, he is rubbing it in the face of these religious people.
SPEAKER_00: This is humanity.
SPEAKER_00: This this is this is you.
SPEAKER_00: This is what you're like.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what he came out of, and this is what he came for.
SPEAKER_00: To redeem broken people, not to sort of like pat religious people on the back, oh, you're doing a great job.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's just like, no, no, you're all people and broken in some way, and dealing with your own depravity in some way, and trying to act like your own savior in some way, trying to deliver yourself either by you know just paganism and pleasure or religion and merit, either way being your own savior, but refusing to come and just say, I'm I'm broken?
SPEAKER_00: That's me, Rahab and Tamar and Ruth and Bathsheba.
SPEAKER_00: I do those same things in my own way, maybe not with my body, maybe with my heart.
SPEAKER_00: So this leads us to that second question.
SPEAKER_00: You know, how did he come?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he he came in humility and in brokenness, is how he came.
SPEAKER_00: Why did he come?
SPEAKER_00: This week I was reading in chap in Hebrews chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this won't excite you, it really excited me because I get about halfway through chapter 8 of Hebrews, and it says this for if there had been nothing wrong with the first covenant.
SPEAKER_00: So the first covenant was that covenant of law given to Moses, the moral covenant, some sacrificial covenant, so the moral, the standard of righteous, how we should live.
SPEAKER_00: Don't envy, don't have any other gods.
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: Not doing real well.
SPEAKER_00: Sacrificial system set up so that we have forgiveness of this, a sacrifice is made to be right with God.
SPEAKER_00: If nothing was wrong with that first covenant, that way of life of trying to live up to a standard of righteousness, meeting the standard.
SPEAKER_00: And the writer says, if nothing had been wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another, for something different.
SPEAKER_00: But God found fault with the people.
SPEAKER_00: So nothing wrong with the standard of righteousness, something wrong with us before the standard of righteousness, because we can't we can't live up to it.
SPEAKER_00: So the first covenant, it's not good, and what it does is it condemns us.
SPEAKER_00: The standard of righteousness, constantly living up to a standard of righteousness to say, well, if I if I if I just do enough, or I am enough, or I behave enough, or I live righteous enough, and I'm gonna hold this up to God for my acceptance before him, this way of life, there's no end to it.
SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna get there.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we're like Rahab and Tamar and Ruth and Bathsheba.
SPEAKER_00: And the writer says, if nothing was wrong with that covenant, a new one would not be needed.
SPEAKER_00: And the new one, by the way, is the Christmas story, the birth of God into humanity to die for us.
SPEAKER_00: And it says this, but God found fault with the people and said, the time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm getting really excited at this point because I need a new covenant.
SPEAKER_00: I don't need the old covenant.
SPEAKER_00: Old covenant just condemns me.
SPEAKER_00: When I live that way, when I live by demand, I'm condemned.
SPEAKER_00: When I live by grace, I'm rescued.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, the writer goes into verses 9 through 11, what this new covenant is like, and then he summarizes this final statement for I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.
SPEAKER_00: And sins not just being that nasty, drunken knight that you're ashamed of, or whatever that massive mistake was, but also sins being all that judgment or impatience or self-absorption or religious pride or moralism, all of that also.
SPEAKER_00: All that propensity that we have to be our own saviors, and sort of nod at the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is sufficient, but really I place my faith in me.
SPEAKER_00: See, that's sin.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're forgiven of.
SPEAKER_00: That's the new covenant, and we need it, and it's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: So, question number one, how did he come?
SPEAKER_00: In humility, into brokenness.
SPEAKER_00: Question number two, why did he come?
SPEAKER_00: He came because the old covenant wasn't enough.
SPEAKER_00: Wasn't enough back then, still not enough if we return to it today.
SPEAKER_00: Question number three, what does this mean?
SPEAKER_00: Here's what it means.
SPEAKER_00: This is what we talk about at our church a lot.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to pretend and you don't have to perform.
SPEAKER_00: So let me explain it this way.
SPEAKER_00: So uh my little girls, Izzy and Josie, we were watching the other night, we were watching the Charlie Brown Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody watch Charlie Brown Christmas this Christmas?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, okay.
SPEAKER_00: Any parents?
SPEAKER_00: Did you did you tune in?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I was tuning in to watch Charlie Brown Christmas, and here's the storyline in case you forgot.
SPEAKER_00: So Charlie Brown, he's depressed.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't get to Christmas, he's depressed about Christmas, and so he decides he's gonna get involved.
SPEAKER_00: Involvement and Lucy kind of bosses him into it.
SPEAKER_00: Lucy's bossy, and so Lucy kind of bosses him into it, and so he decides he's gonna direct the school play, and so he gets there.
SPEAKER_00: He's not real good at directing the school play, so eventually Lucy kind of bosses him out to go get a Christmas tree.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember the scene?
SPEAKER_00: He gets to the Christmas tree lot, and the Christmas tree lot, and apparently there was a market for this back when the cartoon was was uh created, aluminum trees.
SPEAKER_00: They were shiny and big and beautiful, and he walks through the lot and sees all these beautiful, shiny, big, apparently perfect trees, and then he finds this little raggedy, scrawny tree.
SPEAKER_00: And and what we know is is that the tree is a projection of its owner.
SPEAKER_00: So you have Charlie and then you have Charlie.
SPEAKER_00: You're like Charlie the the boy, and they have Charlie the tree.
SPEAKER_00: The tree is a projection of its owner, but Charlie Brown exalts the tree and he gives the tree undeserved love.
SPEAKER_00: And if we're honest, we're all the raggedy tree in the midst of the lot of shiny trees that are enough that we're not enough.
SPEAKER_00: And so Charlie brings this tree back, and Lucy and the other kids, they belittle him, and how could you bring this tree and just calls him a name?
SPEAKER_00: And you know, and how could you, you've never done anything like this, it's just horrible.
SPEAKER_00: And what they're saying to him is they're saying, Well, this tree is not enough, it's not shiny enough, it's not big enough, it's not, is it's not pretty enough, it's not smart enough, it's not rich enough, not connected enough, it's not, you know, hasn't had enough achievement, it's not the right size.
SPEAKER_00: This tree, you, me, is not enough.
SPEAKER_00: And Lucy just lets him have it.
SPEAKER_00: The tree's not enough, you're not enough.
SPEAKER_00: And so what we have here is we have this raggedy old tree, and then we have this raggedy Charlie Brown both beaten up by their inability to live up to the standard.
SPEAKER_00: That they are never enough.
SPEAKER_00: And the question comes, who will deliver them?
SPEAKER_00: And then Linus proclaims good tidings of great joy of a savior, which is Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So Charlie hears this, and what he does, right, he goes on loving the tree.
SPEAKER_00: And then the other kids actually change their minds.
SPEAKER_00: And then Linus says, I never thought it was such a bad little tree.
SPEAKER_00: It's not bad at all, really.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it just needs a little love.
SPEAKER_00: And here is the act of Christmas, the act of two big church words, if we if we can put them out here.
SPEAKER_00: Incarnation and imputation.
SPEAKER_00: So, incarnation, God who is love, becoming man.
SPEAKER_00: Imputation, God giving to us his righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: And the kids literally cover the tree and make it beautiful, transforming the tree.
SPEAKER_00: And this is done not by what the tree did for itself, this is done by what is given to the tree, what is put over the tree.
SPEAKER_00: See, this is this is the Christmas story.
SPEAKER_00: This is the baby in a manger who grows up and dies for our sins to take on our sins and give us his righteousness, the incarnation that we are loved, and the imputation that we are made righteous by him.
SPEAKER_00: So that third question, what does this mean for you and for me?
SPEAKER_00: What it means is it means you can be all of you.
SPEAKER_00: All of you in front of God.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to pretend, you don't have to perform, that He loves you in your imperfection.
SPEAKER_00: And what being a Christian is about is not about pretending or performing or becoming perfect.
SPEAKER_00: But being a Christian is about a shift occurring, that you shift that faith that we want to have in ourselves and what we produce and what we do, and that that shift moves, the core of the center of your being shifts from trust and faith in you to trust and faith and what He did for you.
SPEAKER_00: And what this means for us is it means we can be at rest.
SPEAKER_00: And we're free.
SPEAKER_00: It means you are raggedy.
SPEAKER_00: And that this is this is the best news possible.
SPEAKER_00: Because only when we when we get honest and face up to that do we become free.
SPEAKER_00: And are we rescued and do we accept and receive a baby in a manger who grows up and dies for our sins.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we come before you and we do say we like to dress ourselves up.
SPEAKER_00: We like to pretend, we like to perform, we like to we like to be perfect, we like to save ourselves and deliver ourselves from our inadequacy by what we do, what we look like.
SPEAKER_00: And God, we say we do that.
SPEAKER_00: God, we, but it's toil.
SPEAKER_00: Would you give us the faith to rest more in what you have done for us?
SPEAKER_00: And that when we think about this Christmas story and a baby coming into the world, when you coming into the world, would we see the incarnation?
SPEAKER_00: You love us.
SPEAKER_00: And would we understand imputation that you make us righteous by what you did for us, not what we do.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.