{"id":397,"date":"2006-12-11T05:44:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-11T05:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2006\/12\/11\/on-its-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-christmas-sermon-summaries-121006\/"},"modified":"2006-12-11T05:44:00","modified_gmt":"2006-12-11T05:44:00","slug":"on-its-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-christmas-sermon-summaries-121006","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/2006\/12\/11\/on-its-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-christmas-sermon-summaries-121006\/","title":{"rendered":"on its beginning to look a lot like Christmas (sermon summaries 12.10.06)"},"content":{"rendered":"
Traditionally I try to preach a Christmas theme for the whole month of December and sometimes try to sneak in a few Sunday’s in November as well. I am pretty much a bah humbug kind of guy when it comes to the decorations, the trees, the commercialism, etc, but when it comes to the incarnation, well, that is a great delight. I never get tired of that story.<\/p>\n
Today was the first day of our special Christmas preaching series this year. Since we are going chronologically through the NT this year, I decided to go back to the Matthew and Luke passages and go chronologically through the Christmas story. That means we will dedicate 12 services to working our way through the passages. My sons will be home from BJU to help with two messages each which will make Christmas just great for dear old dad.<\/p>\n
Before I get into today’s messages, I would also like to report two visiting families today who seemed quite interesting. One is a lady who moved here from Nova Scotia a year ago who has been looking for a church all this time. She seemed quite interested and brought along a young adoptive son who is challenged with FAS, but seems like a nice boy in spite of his handicaps. The other family are friends of a family who attend our church. The attending family are immigrants from Russia with a tremendous salvation testimony. The visiting family are from the Ukraine, originally, I think, but moved here last week from Ontario. They are a young couple with a one year old son. Obviously, having had no children’s ministry for a while, we dearly covet (in a godly sort of way) new families like this.<\/p>\n
Our first message today was from the genealogy in Matthew, entitled ‘Genealogy of the King<\/a>‘. Genealogies seem dry and dull to our western minds, but they were full of significance to the Jews. The more I study them in Scripture, the richer they become. The genealogy in Matthew proves the rights of the Messiah to the throne of David, but it teaches much more than that. My proposition for this message was: ‘The plan of God is unfolding as God intended in spite of the many failings of mankind and in spite of the many failings of you<\/i>.’ First we covered the Promise that is highlighted in the genealogy, first the promise to David, but also the promise to Abraham. The promise belonged to the whole nation is underscored by the prominence of David in the genealogy, and is concluded in the person of the Messiah himself. Then we considered some of the problems in the genealogy – the problems of exclusion (prominently three kings between Joram and Uzziah), but others as well. And then there are the problems of inclusion – the most wicked king of Judah, Manasseh is included. And then the four mothers of Israel with the sordid pasts (or a connection to a sordid past in the case of Ruth the Moabitess). Why all these inclusions and exclusions? The answer is in the plan of God, to display the Messiah’s title in a symmetrical list of fourteens (the numerical value of David’s name) and to display Messiah’s identification with sinners by connecting him with these who had so much wickedness, and to display Messiah’s grace, especially in the case of these women who could easily have been left out. Dr. Custer said this about Bathsheba: “Bathsheba was the woman who flaunted her beauty at King David and got invited into the palace (2 Sam 11.2-5; 12.24). The record is stained by sin, which the coming king will atone for by His death. Contrary to customary usage, all these sinful people are mentioned with a definite purpose. God\u2019s people are not saved because they are so good; they are saved by the grace of God because He is so good and merciful. Every saint in Heaven is a sinner saved by grace.” [Stewart Custer, The Gospel of the King<\/i>, p. 4.]<\/p>\n