Series: Re-Discovering Christmas
Week 4: Finding Purpose in My Problems
Hope is a steadying, stabilizing gift that God has given us through Jesus Christ. If your hope is found in the things of this world, you will lose hope. If your hope is found in those temporary things, you will lose hope and then your hope is gone if that is where your hope is found.
But if your hope is found in Jesus coming, His death, His resurrection, His return you can’t lose hope for Jesus is eternal. He is the Promise Keeper, Covenant Keeper, Son of God, Unchanging King, Faithful One, always sufficient Lord, the Way Maker. And if your hope is found in Him, you will never lose hope.
Matthew 1:18-21.1:18: birth – normal Greek word that is used for birth or to be born is not used right here. The word that’s used right here for birth in Greek is the word genesis (ghen’-es-is). It’s only used 3 times in the entire New Testament. reminded of the very first book of the book Genesis. The word genesis means “the beginning of the natural.”
Genesis is all about the beginning of the origins of natural things, the natural world. The genesis of Jesus –the origin of the natural life of Jesus. Not the spiritual life because Christ has been forever. This is the beginning of His natural life.
What Matthew says in 1:18 is now the genesis, the origin of Jesus’ natural life. And we can see the similarities to Genesis.
In Genesis, the Spirit gives life to mankind. Genesis1:1-2 says … But in Matthew the Spirit gives life to the Messiah. In Matthew 1:20 it says … In Genesis, God promises a victorious offspring from a woman. Genesis 3:15… In Matthew, God delivers that victorious offspring through a woman.
The seed of a child born in normal human pregnancy, that seed comes from a man. But here, in the only instance in human history, that seed is delivered by God through a woman in fulfillment of His promise. And that child would grow into a man who would hang on a cross and would fully die to forgive us from our sins, and then fully would be brought back to life by the power of the Spirit, defeating death, defeating our sin, and defeating this enemy.
God said that in Genesis 3:15 Satan will be crushed by this new offspring. In Matthew, God delivers that victorious offspring through a woman. Matthew 1:21 …
By the way, the entire Bible could be predicated on those 2verbs: Promise and Deliver. OT is God’s promise. NT is God delivered. And God is still delivering today.
In Genesis, a man was born who would enslave us to sin: Adam, Genesis 3:19… Romans 5:12, that the sin of this one man would condemn us all. All of us have inherited his sinful nature. We are all born with this enslavement to sin. We are all men and women who will succumb to sin.
But in Matthew, a man is born who would rescue us from sin. The story is reversed. Jesus does not come with an inherited sinful nature. Romans 5:18-19 Jesus did not succumb to sin. He would be born to free us from our spiritual enslavement, which is what we see here in this passage Matthew 1:21…
God who is creating in Genesis 1 is now Re-Creating in Matthew 1. He’s making a way through Christ for humanity to be rescued from sin and to be reconciled to God.
Christmas says our God is a turnaround God. When Christ came, everything began to turn around. God was now redeeming or reversing all things. God can take suffering in our lives and turn it around for our good and His glory. He’s the God who can take the pain we’ve experienced, turn around, and give us a ministry to other people who are going through difficult times. He’s the God who could take a difficult year, turn it around, and remind us what is truly eternal and what is truly important. He’s the God who can take the mess that we have all made of our lives, and the rebellion that all of us have been a part of, and turn us around into brand new creations, forgiven women, forgiven men when we put our faith in Jesus. God loves to and can redeem all things. He’s a turnaround God. Christmas says it’s true.
Matthew 1:19… Let’s just agree to this statement, the incarnation could be the most profound mystery of all time. Incarnation means “God made flesh, God in human form, God with skin on.”
Had Jesus come with into the world and had no biological father or mother, no human parents, it’d be hard for us really to believe that He identifies with us. If He just came to the world, just kind of appeared, then Jesus would be some fantastical creature from another planet, or some odd mythological being with no empathy toward us and no understanding of us.
On the other hand, if Jesus would have come from 2 biological parents, a biological father & mother, it would be so difficult for us to believe that He’s fully God because His origins would have been just like all of us. So God, in His perfect wisdom & His creative sovereignty ordained a virgin birth. Jesus would come born fully a man from a woman, born fully God from the Holy Spirit. And in this way, this mystery actually makes absolute spiritual sense. Because He’s fully man, He understands us. Because He’s fully God, He alone can save us.
Matthew 1:21… You will bear a son. And His name is going to be Yeshua, or Jesus. Because that very name means “He will save us”. See, this is the reason He came. His name describes His purpose. His name describes His mission. But please don’t miss this. His name also describes our need. His name describes the deepest need we have—the need to be rescued. Salvation is in the very name of Jesus. His name not only shows us His purpose, but it helps us see into our hearts. No matter how good you think you might be, no matter how good this preacher might think he might be, all of us needed to be saved. And the very name of Jesus not only gives us His mission but also gives us a glimpse into our hearts. We were people in need of salvation and ultimately Jesus came to rescue the lost, what we were before Jesus entered in our lives.
This is who you are if Christ is not in your life. Jesus has come to this sin-stained world for sin stained women & men to take the penalty of sin and to stand in the place of sinners. We were separated from God. We were condemned before God. We were cut off from God. We were deserving of death, eternal death. And then here comes God, coming to us through the virgin birth of Jesus. He has come to us. He has come to live among us. He is Emmanuel, the God who is with us. And Jesus lived this life that we could not live, and then He died this death that we should have died. He conquered this enemy that we could not conquer: the grave and death. There is no greater story. There’s no greater reality in all the world than this. This is the magnitude of what is celebrated in the birth of Jesus. This is the magnitude of the reality, what is celebrated at Christmas, that Christ, the Rescuer of His people has come.
This is good news. Hope has a name: Jesus. Let me end this with 2 thoughts. The world cannot take away what the world cannot give. The world cannot take away what it cannot give to us. The world cannot take away deep rich promises because the world cannot give deep rich promises. The world can’t take away your security, the world can’t take away your peace because the world cannot give security, and the world cannot give peace. It can’t take away this hope that serves as an anchor for our souls, because this world was never designed to give us hope. Not that kind of hope. The world can’t take away what the world can’t give.
And you can’t lose what only Jesus gives. He gives life, you can’t lose it. Love, freedom, joy, salvation, you can’t lose it. He gives peace. He gives promises you can’t lose. He gives assurance you cannot lose. What Jesus gives Jesus, the Rescuer of His people, gives hope. The world can’t take that away. What the world can’t give, and you can’t lose only Jesus gives.
This is the story of Christmas, the hope of Christmas. It’s not a feeling. It’s not a desire. Hope is a person. He is Jesus the Rescuer, the Savior of His people.