Hope for Me
Hope for Christmas • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 40:11
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· 34 viewsEver feel like the good news of Christmas is meant for anyone but you? Find out how Jesus' history, family, and welcoming party help us see that there is hope for you!
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Happy “Last Sunday before Christmas”! This is the last time we will gather together for corporate worship before the day we celebrate Jesus’ birth with our families.
We are going to bounce between two different passages this morning, so flip over to both Matthew 1 and Luke 2, where we are actually going to start.
There is so much bound up in these incredible verses. We could slice them up and look from any number of angles.
Today, though, we want to answer the question, “Is there really hope for me?”
We talked last week about Jesus, the eternal God, taking on flesh and walking among us, dying in our place, and rising from the dead to offer us himself.
It is possible that, when you hear something that incredible, your reaction is, “That’s great, but it couldn’t possibly be talking about me.”
You know your failures, you know what people have said about you, so all this is great, but for someone else.
Maybe you are too strong and independent, so you hear this and think it is a great crutch for those who need things like that.
Can I challenge you this morning that the hope that I and those who follow Jesus have is a hope that is for every human heart in history?
How do we know?
Because after Jesus was born, a group of angels appeared to shepherds who were in the fields nearby.
We read what they said in Luke 2:8-14.
In the middle of these verses, you have this incredible proclamation that is good news for everyone in the entire world: this child has come to save anyone who will believe in him.
The entire Christmas story, as we refer to it, points to this.
We see that the good news of Jesus’ birth was good news for the entire world.
To get a picture of that, I want to back out of our text for a bit and see some of the other characters in the Christmas story.
As we look at the men and women involved, I hope you see that this means the hope of Christmas is a hope for you, too.
We will start by looking backwards at:
1) Jesus’ history.
1) Jesus’ history.
Keep your finger there in Luke 2 and turn with me over to Matthew 1.
Here, we have a list of the Jesus’ earthly genealogy. Most of us skip over these verses when we get to them because it just seems like a useless list of names.
However, there is something important to draw from these names. This is Jesus’ family tree, if you will. These are Jesus’ people, who he came from, physically speaking.
As we look through the list, we see that his background is full of people who didn’t deserve to be in the list. They were sinners, enemies of God, yet they make it into the line of Christ.
Let’s look at some of them:
Abraham – moon worshipper, liar, adulterer
Tamar – Perez and Zerah were sons from a scandalous relationship between Tamar and her former father-in-law.
Rahab – Prostitute of Jericho who lied when the spies were hidden
Ruth – A Moabitess; from a group of people who were constantly at warfare/oppressing Israel (e.g. Eglon in Judges 3)
David – Murderous adulterer
Bathsheba – Some could say she was an adulteress, but it is likely that since David was king, she was more of a victim of rape.
With the exception of Hezekiah and Josiah, most if not all the other kings mentioned turned from God and led the nation to do so!
After the captivity, the names fade into oblivion – they are men we know nothing about, yet they are a part of the lineage of Christ!
What does that tell me? It tells me that God is a grace-giving God who can transform even sinful, selfish, foolish people like me!
Remember how John wrote in last week’s passage that we have all received grace upon grace from God’s fullness?
The names in this list are a testimony to God’s grace in using sinful people and their wrong choices to bring himself glory and work in incredible ways.
That means there is hope for me and for you!
Just in case you think this was an Old Testament thing, look at what Paul said:
Brothers and sisters, consider your calling: Not many were wise from a human perspective, not many powerful, not many of noble birth.
Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong.
God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world—what is viewed as nothing—to bring to nothing what is viewed as something,
so that no one may boast in his presence.
It is from him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom from God for us—our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption
—in order that, as it is written: Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.
God is still in the business of showing grace to those who don’t deserve it and using them in great ways in his kingdom.
I don’t know what you’ve done today, but I know that God can forgive and that God can still use you in some way.
Look, guys, if God can use the people to bring the Savior of the world into existence, he can use you!
As an aside, though, I also see this: God’s plan is bigger than me. Even though God used some of these circumstances to bring Christ into the world, those who didn’t obey dealt with serious consequences. God’s plan continued, but they paid a steep price.
With all the grace God showed Jesus’ line in the past, it’s no surprise that his immediate family had that same kind of grace:
2) Jesus’ family.
2) Jesus’ family.
Flip back to the book of Luke.
Look at 1:26-38.
God chose to use Mary, a young girl engaged to a tradesman. Although a descendant of David herself, she wasn’t noble, she wasn’t royalty.
However, despite her lack of royal pedigree, she was willing to be used of God.
In Luke 1, we also read of Zechariah and Elizabeth, godly relatives of Mary who were seeing God work in great ways as well.
In God’s grace, God sustained Mary through the pregnancy and birth. Think of the support she received from Elizabeth, when it’s likely that very few of her friends and family believed her. Yet God gave her a support system in Elizabeth to help her through.
Not only did He give her support through Elizabeth, he also gave her support through Joseph.
Flip back over to Matthew 1:18-25 to see the grace given and shown by Joseph.
Here, he loves Mary, although he can’t believe her incredulous story. Instead of demanding her death, he graciously seeks to put her away privately.
Then, when he hears from an angel that this is of God, Joseph takes her as his wife.
God gave him great grace to be able to take on this shame that would have followed him for years.
Keep in mind that these were small towns. Everyone knew everyone else’s business.
Yet Mary & Joseph, because of the grace given to them, were willing to put up with the shame to be used of God.
They were quiet, ordinary people. Mary was a teenager, and Joseph was a blue-collar worker. Yet, in his grace, God used them to change the world!
See, this baby that the angels proclaimed really is good news for everyone. Young and old, men and women, rich and poor.
Jesus’ family shows that his coming into the world means there is still hope for me.
As if Jesus’ background and family history weren’t enough, let’s look at one more group of characters:
3) Jesus’ welcoming party.
3) Jesus’ welcoming party.
Flipping back to Luke 2:8-20, you and I meet another group who give us hope.
The angels came to the shepherds. Let me remind you of some facts about shepherds.
These guys were lonely men who worked hard.
One author described their work this way:
In early morning he led forth the flock from the fold, marching at its head to the spot where they were to be pastured. Here he watched them all day, taking care that none of the sheep strayed, and if any for a time eluded his watch and wandered away from the rest, seeking diligently till he found and brought it back. In those lands sheep require to be supplied regularly with water, and the shepherd for this purpose has to guide them either to some running stream or to wells dug in the wilderness and furnished with troughs. At night he brought the flock home to the fold, counting them as they passed under the rod at the door to assure himself that none were missing. Nor did his labours always end with sunset. Often he had to guard the fold through the dark hours from the attack of wild beasts, or the wily attempts of the prowling thief (see 1 Sam. 17:34).”, Deane’s David. [1]
These were hard-working men, but they weren’t respected for it.
In fact, they had a reputation around town. Other sources tell us that shepherds were such a rough group that their testimony was not admissible in court.
Yet, it is to these unsuspecting men that the birth of the Savior was announced first. This group of rough, grimy men was the first group outside of his family to know that Jesus was born!
How marvelous—God didn’t start with the powerful, the wealthy, the well-connected. In fact, he began with the least of the least.
There is a beautiful picture, here, because Jesus would take the title of, “the Good Shepherd.” The birth of the Good Shepherd is announced first to those who understand his heart—to seek and save lost sheep; to gently guide those sheep for their own good; to save them no matter the cost.
By coming to the least, to the outcasts, to the “regular Joe’s”, if you will, Jesus was turning the world upside down.
He came to bring hope of salvation, of peace with God that goes deeper than our suffering, and a hope for being part of his kingdom both now and in the future.
He offers that hope to anyone, regardless of how they have sinned in the past, regardless of status or education or wealth, he came to bring hope to us all.
The baby, born in a small town to a largely unknown family, heralded by angels, and welcomed by shepherds came to give hope to me.
That baby would grow, and just as the angel predicted, would become the Savior of the world.
He would pay the ultimate price, dying on the cross to pay for all the sins I have committed, and raising from the dead to show that he had overcome.
Now, he is calling anyone, no matter how famous or how unknown, to come to him for life.
As we saw last week,
But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name,
Any who will believe on his name can be saved, and I mean that in the most literal sense of the word.
No matter what you have accomplished or what you have failed in or what you have done, the hope of eternal life that changes the way you live and continues after you die is available to you today.
We all have a desire, at some level, to be the best at something or to make ourselves significant somehow, but in our hearts apart from Christ, we all have to confess that there is a nagging feeling that we will never be enough.
The freeing hope at Christmas is that it isn’t about you being good enough, because Jesus came to give hope to everyone!
Would you surrender to him?
Once you surrender to him, then you can live a life out of the significance and hope that only Christ can give
[1]Easton, M. (1996, c1897). Easton's Bible dictionary. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.