Good morning. Welcome to part one of our new series, the story of Jesus, the birth of a king.
Our life groups are going to be studying this same material in homes during the week,
and so we'll be making some discussion questions to help you with that,
and they are posted on our website.
You can also get a copy in the welcome center, if you'd like, before you leave,
to use as your study for the group this week.
There's also an option of watching this talk again online, and then going through the discussion questions also,
so that's up to you.
Many of you knew my father.
He lived with us the last two years of his life.
He loved Argyle, and he loved coming here on Sunday, and he looked forward to it.
Dad never met a stranger.
He was always a center of attention.
I'm just fine sitting in a corner somewhere, but not Dad.
I'm sure many of you had been captivated by his amazing stories and his tales of wonder.
He loved to talk and tell stories.
When he entered a room, he just lit it up.
You knew that he was there. He always made an impact.
He changed the room he was in.
Some of you know people who are like that.
God enters the room when God came to earth, and the story of Jesus comes front and center.
Everything changed forever when God came to us.
When God became a man, nothing stayed the same.
The Son of God was born in a nasty, smelly barn.
He lived his life as a servant, ministering to people his whole life.
And he has brought life change to millions of people in the last 2,000 years.
Today, God is here.
He came to us. We know it's real. We know it's true because we sense his presence all around us.
But there's so much more that we can learn about the story of Jesus from the Bible,
and that's what we'll be doing for the next few weeks.
This is the story of Jesus. If you want to put it in one phrase, one sentence.
He changes the lives of those who give their hearts to God.
So today, may the story of Jesus speak to your heart.
God is here. He came to us.
And because he did, everything changed.
So this is your story. This is my story. But most of all, it's the greatest story that's ever been told.
The story of Jesus. All through the Bible.
There are two stories that are kind of going in the same direction.
First, there's the heavenly story.
God is directing the action in this story.
He is real, and he's working in our world through us, through his grace, through his mercy, through his love.
The heavenly story desires to be part of our story.
And that fact alone is amazing and astonishing that the creator of the universe wants a relationship with you and with me.
That's the heavenly story.
And then there's the earthly story. That's where we hang out most of the time.
This is where we live.
We mess up. We make mistakes. We sin.
And because of that, we find ourselves sometimes far from God.
You might remember the story of Adam and Eve and how after their sin, they tried to hide themselves from God.
And so the earthly story begins in the Garden of Eden. And ever since then, we've been running and we've been hiding from God.
We get so bogged down sometimes in the earthly story that we miss the glory and the presence of God that's all around us.
Sometimes we forget that God desperately wants to have a growing relationship with each one of us.
It's through the story of Jesus that the heavenly story and the earthly story connect and become one as God Himself comes to earth through His Son, Jesus Christ.
When He enters the room, everything changes for all eternity, for all history.
God wants to be with us. He wants to be with you and with me. This is the story of Jesus.
Solomon, the wisest person who ever lives, asked this question as he dedicated the temple.
In 1 Kings chapter 8 verse 27,
But will God really dwell on the earth?
You know, God's glory dwelt in the tabernacle. God's glory dwelt in the temple.
But that glory left because of the disobedience of His people.
But God is faithful even when we are not faithful.
And He proved His faithfulness when an amazing thing happened.
The glory of God returned to the people through His Son, Jesus Christ.
The first four books of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we call them the Gospels.
Gospel means good news. It's the good news that God came to us and we have a Savior.
The Gospels give us a glimpse into the story of Jesus, just the highlights.
So much more happened that we'll never know probably until we get to heaven.
John chapter 21, 25 says this, Jesus did many other things as well.
Every one of them were written down.
I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
Matthew wrote with the Jewish people in mind.
He was convincing them that Jesus is the Messiah and that He fulfilled all the prophecies in the Old Testament about the Messiah.
Mark wrote mainly to the Romans and his style was good for their busy lifestyle.
Matthew talked a lot about Jesus the King.
Mark talked a lot about Jesus the servant, a servant who is a king, a completely new concept.
Luke wrote to the Greeks about the Son of Man, but it was John who wrote to all people about the Son of God, Jesus.
The first three Gospels focused on the events in Jesus's life, but the fourth Gospel, John, focused on the meaning of these events in Jesus's story.
In his first chapter, John gives us five names for Jesus Christ that prove Jesus is God.
The first name is the Word. We saw in our last series reset that our words tell about what's in our heart and what's in our mind.
And Jesus Christ is God's Word and it gives us a chance to see what is in God's heart and what is in God's mind.
John chapter one, verse one, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning. Jesus was there in the beginning, not because He had a beginning, but because He didn't.
Jesus always was and is. He's eternal. That's something that our human brain can just barely comprehend.
We believe this by faith. God is so much bigger than we are.
The second name for Jesus is the light. There are at least four things that are necessary to sustain life.
Light, air, water, and food. Jesus is all of these.
You would think that everyone would welcome the light when He came, but they didn't because the light exposed the darkness.
John chapter one, verse four, in Him was life and that life was the light of all mankind.
The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
The next name for Jesus is the Son of God. John chapter one, verse 18, no one has ever seen God,
but the one and only Son who is Himself God and His closest relationship with the Father has made Him known.
You see, it's not possible for us to know God without knowing His Son, Jesus.
The word Son is used for the first time in the book of John for the name of Jesus Christ.
The Son of God is used nine times in the Gospel of John.
The name Son, again, does not mean that there was a time when He wasn't there because He always was.
He's eternal. Jesus Christ is eternal and always existed.
Again, this is some tough stuff that's really hard for us to understand. It's by faith.
We believe in the truth of God.
One of the main reasons for John's writing in his Gospel was to prove that Jesus is the Son of God.
The next thing for Jesus is Lamb of God. In John chapter one, verse 29,
the next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
The message of the Bible can actually be summed up in this name for Jesus, Lamb of God.
In the Old Testament, they were asking, where is the Lamb?
In the New Testament, it's behold the Lamb of God.
The people of Israel knew all about using lambs as a sacrifice, a Passover. They had to sacrifice a lamb.
Those lambs were given by people for people.
But here is the Lamb of God who is given by God for all people.
The lambs given by people could not take away sin.
But the Lamb of God, given to us by God, takes on himself the sins of the whole world.
The last name for Jesus here is the Messiah.
This part of the story is so good, we'll just read it right from John.
John chapter one and verse 35.
The next day, John was there again with two of his disciples.
When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, look, the Lamb of God.
When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus.
Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, what do you want?
And they said, Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying?
Come, he replied, and you will see.
So they went and saw where he was staying and they spent that day with him.
There was about four in the afternoon.
Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said
and who had followed Jesus.
The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother, Simon, and tell him,
we have found the Messiah, that is the Christ, and he brought him to Jesus.
The Jews had different ideas about what the Messiah was like and what he was going to be.
Some saw him as the suffering sacrifice that Isaiah talked about.
Some saw him as a king that would come to lead their revolution,
but many of them missed the prophecy talking about a suffering savior
who must endure suffering before he ruled in his glory.
Jesus Christ fulfilled every prophecy.
He is the Messiah.
It was prophesied about the unusual way that he would come to earth to save his people.
The true story of Christmas is found in the story of Jesus.
The earthly story is told as well as the heavenly story about how God came to earth to be our savior.
In the earthly story of Christmas, we have a skeleton in the closet.
A young couple is engaged to be married, and as a surprise to everyone,
the bride-to-be becomes pregnant out of nowhere.
Her fiance is not the father.
When the news of this scandal gets out, the gossips begin to buzz.
What does Joseph do in this situation?
Joseph was a good man.
He was a noble man.
He loved Mary and didn't want her to be hurt.
So he thought the best thing would be to end the engagement,
and then they would go their separate ways.
But in the heavenly story, God had a whole different plan.
There's no skeleton in the closet in the heavenly story.
God is busy at work making a way for his people to come to him.
God knew that he was going to make a way for all of us to come back to him.
And that way would be the baby that's inside of Mary.
God works in mysterious ways.
You see, God had promised that through the family of Abraham,
there will be a blessing for all nations.
The baby inside of Mary was that blessing because Mary and Joseph
are from the family of Abraham.
Joseph plans to end the engagement,
which makes perfect sense in the earthly story,
but it's not what God had planned for the heavenly story.
And which one do you think wins out?
An angel came to Joseph in a dream, and he said this in Matthew 1, verse 20,
Joseph's son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife
because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
She will give birth to a son,
and you are to give him the name Jesus
because he will save his people from their sins.
First, the angel reminds Joseph that he's of the family of King David,
and the prophecies say that the Messiah would come through the family of David.
Also, the angel assures him that Mary is not pregnant because of an affair.
The virgin is pregnant by a miracle from the Holy Spirit of God.
Now, this is so important, not just because it saved this marriage and it did,
but there's so much more to this story than just that.
The scriptures teach that a sin nature is transmitted to everyone
who is from the family of Adam.
We are all from the family of Adam,
and so that means we are all infected.
The baby that Mary carried inside of her was not conceived of a man,
but by the Holy Spirit.
This means that the sin nature was not transmitted to this very special child.
In the earthly story,
it would look like this baby was conceived out of a sin,
but we learn the truth from the heavenly story,
that this baby was conceived and born and lived his whole life without one sin.
The angel tells Joseph that he is to name him Jesus.
Jesus is essentially the name Joshua, which means God saves.
His name describes his mission.
He came to save people from their sins,
and only someone who is perfect can do that.
It's the forgiveness of sin that allows us to have a growing relationship with God.
Everything in the Bible has been pointing to this event all along,
and even 2,000 years later, it still is amazing as ever.
God keeps his promises.
Matthew chapter 1 verse 23,
the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son,
and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us.
Everything happening here had been prophesied by Isaiah 700 years before.
This is the first of at least 47 quotations that refers to Jesus as the Messiah.
Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us.
You can imagine that Joseph must have had many questions.
For instance, what parenting style do you use when your child is God?
I'm not sure we're counted to three.
Jesus put that down.
One?
Joseph decides what he's going to do,
and the first thing he needs to do is make things right with Mary.
Bible scholars tell us that she was about 14 years old.
She knew that Joseph had every right to break the engagement.
But Joseph tells her about his heavenly encounter with the angel,
and that he believes the truth that God has revealed to him.
We don't know exactly how all this takes place,
but I can imagine Joseph getting down on one knee in front of Mary.
If you're still willing, I would love to be your husband,
and we can make it through this together.
They get married, and they don't have sex until the baby Jesus is born.
When Mary is about due and ready to deliver,
an inconvenient command comes into this earthly story.
Caesar, Augustus, Emperor of Rome,
requires all people to return to their town to take a census.
Mary and Joseph's hometown is not Nazareth, it's Bethlehem.
It's a three-day journey by donkey, and so they head to Bethlehem.
Just as they arrive, Mary goes into labor.
The only place that they could find to deliver God is in a dirty barn
behind one of the Bethlehem ends.
It's sad that the best that we could do for the arrival of God
until our world is a birth in a barn.
When I was in kindergarten,
we did a great Christmas pageant, like many kindergartens do.
All of the most important parts were given to the best students.
The smartest girl in the class got to be married.
The smartest guy in the class got to play Joseph.
The next smartest groups would be the wise men,
and then the next group would be the angels,
and the next group would be the shepherds,
and somehow I slipped into the shepherd group.
There was only one part that no one wanted in the Christmas pageant,
and that's the part of the innkeeper.
We went to the least gifted of all the students in the class,
and as the day approached,
the boy playing the innkeeper was getting very nervous and started to worry.
He couldn't imagine how he could tell Mary and Joseph
that there was no room for them in the inn.
So what was he going to do?
So on the day of the show,
all the parents and the relatives and the friends packed the auditorium,
and they proudly watched the Christmas story
as each of the talented kids played their important roles.
Meanwhile, the innkeeper grew more and more anxious,
and as Mary and Joseph approached,
and they were going to knock on the door,
he didn't know what he was going to do, but they knocked,
and he threw open the door and said,
Welcome, I've been waiting for you for a long time.
Come on in.
And at that, the crowd applauded, everyone cheered,
and the play came to an early end.
But in the heavenly story,
God had something different in mind.
You see, Jesus had to be born this way because that was prophesied
that he would be born into a humble birth.
Caesar thought that he was in charge of the world,
but God's always in charge,
and he's able to use something as insignificant as a census
to accomplish his will in the heavenly story.
Later, in the story of Jesus,
and we'll see this in the coming weeks,
that we are told many times
that if we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior
for the forgiveness of our sins,
that he comes into us just like he came into Mary,
not into our womb, but into our lives, into our heart.
And just like in the case of Mary,
as Jesus continued to grow in her,
he eventually had to come out,
and the same thing will happen with us.
As Jesus grows inside of us and we grow in him,
he's eventually going to come out,
and people are going to see Jesus in our life.
This great, great news
should cause all of us to shout the same words that the angels did,
glory to God in the highest,
and on peace, on earth, peace to men on whom his favor rests.
The story of Jesus is best told through his names.
The Word, the Light, the Son of God,
the Lamb of God, the Messiah.
So today, would you allow the story of Jesus
to change your earthly story to a heavenly story?
That's his desire today.
Let's pray.
As morning dawns and evening fades,
you inspire songs of praise
that rise from earth to touch your heart.
And glorify your name.
Your name is a strong and mighty child.
Your name is a shelter like no other.
Your name let the nations sing it loud,
because nothing has the power to save
but your name.
Jesus, in your name we pray,
come and fill our hearts today,
but give us strength to live for you
and glorify your name.
Your name is a strong and mighty child.
Your name is a shelter like no other.
Your name let the nations sing it loud,
because nothing has the power to save
but your name.
Your name is a strong and mighty child.
Your name is a shelter like no other.
Your name let the nations sing it loud,
because nothing has the power to save
but your name.
Your name is a strong and mighty child.
Your name is a shelter like no other.
Your name let the nations sing it loud,
because nothing has the power to save
but your name.
Your name is a strong and mighty child.
Your name is a shelter like no other.
Your name let the nations sing it loud,
because nothing has the power to save
but your name.
Give us strength for another day.
Give us strength for another day.
Give us forgiveness in your name.
Healing in your name.
There is power in your name.
All salvation in your name.
Tell your mercies in your name.
What joy is in your name.
There is comfort in your name.
Tell your mercies in your name.
There is strength for another day.
Salvation in your name.
Forgiveness in your name.
What love puts in your name.
Oh Jesus.
Forgiveness in your name.
Jesus.
Oh Jesus.
Tell your mercies in your name.
Oh Jesus.
There is no other name than Jesus.
Oh Jesus.
