sERMON oUTLINE
Scripture: Matthew 1:1-17
I. The message of Christmas is that the Gospel is good news, not good advice.
A. Matthew begins the Christmas story with a list of names. He lists many of the ancestors of Jesus. Why? He is grounding the person of Jesus in history. He is saying that Jesus is real. Jesus is not some fairy tale. And many of these ancestors of Jesus were pretty famous to the Jewish people. So, Matthew begins the Christmas story by saying Jesus is real. He is just as real as these other people that you know from history. If Matthew had begun the story of Jesus with “Once upon a time”, then he would have ended the fairy tale with a moral or with some good advice.
B. Matthew’s story ends not with a moral but with Gospel which means good news. The Gospel tells you not what you should do but what God has done. The Gospel tells you that Jesus entered the world in order to ultimately die on the cross to save you. You don’t need to do anything to save yourself. You just need to believe what God has done for you. Galatians 4:4-5: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”
II. The message of Christmas is that the Gospel turns the world’s values upside down.
A. When you read the list of names in Matthew 1, most of the names have something in common. They are male. But it is very interesting that it is not just the fathers of Jesus that are listed. Five of the ancestral mothers of Jesus are listed as well: Tamar (vs. 3), Rahab (vs. 5), Ruth (vs. 5), Bathsheba (vs. 6), and Mary (vs. 16). Matthew deliberately recalls for his readers some of the most sordid, nasty, and immoral incidents in the whole Old Testament. Why? He is reminding us that Jesus came from a totally dysfunctional family for dysfunctional people.
B. Matthew is trying to tell us that God’s values are very different from our values. God is saying to us today, “It does not matter to me if you are a man or a woman. It does not matter to me who your family is. It doesn’t matter to me what you have done. It doesn’t even matter to me whether you have killed someone or committed adultery. If you repent of your sin and believe that Christ died for that sin, the grace and mercy of Jesus can forgive you and bring you into God’s family.” What is truly valuable is the mercy of God. It is God’s grace that is the true treasure.
III. The message of Christmas is that God may take His time, but He keeps His word.
A. When you read the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1, it’s clear that the promise of a Messiah took years and generations to be fulfilled. The promise that God would send Christ began with Abraham (vs. 1). Jesus would be the fulfillment of all the hopes and prophecies of Israel. But how many years did Abraham live before Jesus? 2,000 years. God had promised Abraham in Genesis 12:3: “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” All families on earth, Jews and Gentiles, would be blessed through Abraham’s descendant Jesus who would come through the line of King David. 2,000 years is a
long time. It looked like God had forgotten His promise. It looked like no one was coming to save us. But then the Messiah, Jesus, came. You can’t judge God by your calendar. God may appear to be slow, but He never forgets His promises. Never.
Application:
The meaning of Christmas is that God keeps His word to send a Savior for all of us. Trust Him.
Sources:
“Hidden Christmas” by Timothy Keller
Commentaries on Matthew by D.A. Carson and Craig Blomberg
sERMON dISCUSSION qUESTIONS
1) What is the difference between good news and good advice? Why is the Gospel not good advice for us about what we should do? How instead is the Gospel good news about what God has done?
2) Would you have included the names of Jesus’ female ancestors in His genealogy if you were Matthew? So why did he do that?
3) Why do you think it takes so long from our perspective for God to keep His promises? What do we learn about God when He keeps His promise in a surprising way at a surprising time?