12-24-25 - The Beginning of the Christmas Story

It's good to have you all here as I said. It's good to celebrate together the birth of Christ. This evening, what I am going to to do. And And and and and And and for others, it may be relatively new. But the story of Christmas is one that's filled with sadness and even But it's also full of some of the greatest joys.

A true

True. True. True. True. True.

True. That are both terrible and wonderful to begins thousands of years before that in the and made the world. There's to subdue the They're to multiply and be fruitful, right? They're supposed to have lots of And There's always the big rule given, the do not do to the main character and of course what does the main character Now you might not think immediately that that's a good thing. But it is.

One. The seed of the woman is not going to simply just lay over. But but man having been made in God's image has an impulse to do -Yeah. -So, from the -Flo is a hatred of all men, but especially of children who bear the image of God because he knows And then and then and then and then and then and then and then and then and then might strike us as an odd phrase when you read through the old testament. It often talks about men's seed and And then And then And then

And then And then And then And then And then And then And then And then And then And then And then And then And then

And then we The seed of the woman. It's a virgin who gives the seed of the woman, which is plural, to a and yet when it

comes to the ultimate victory, it's not in the plural. It's dropped to the singular.

It's dropped to the singular. It's dropped to the singular. It's dropped to the singular. It's dropped to the singular. It's dropped to the singular.

And yet, when it comes to the in the plural. It's dropped to the stin. Yeah. And the plural.

It's dropped to the stin. Yeah. And the plural. It's dropped to the stin. Yeah.

And the plural. Yeah. And the plural. Yeah.

And the plural. Yeah. And the plural. Yeah. And the plural.

Yeah. And the Yeah. Yeah. And the so here we have this And of a future And this world that had been fallen. Now, what we then see in Genesis, it goes on, and Eve has a seems And it seems And it seems And it seems And it seems And it seems And it seems And it seems And it seems And it seems And it seems And it seems Look, I have acquired a son from the Lord, a man from the Lord.

Of course, if you know the And of

course, if you know the And of course, if you

know the and He actually hated God. So Kane was punished and thus, began again, the long wait for the promise to be fulfilled. And it was a long wait. The history of the old testament is the history of God's people waiting for the fulfillment of this promise that was made back in Genesis. And then what you would see in the Old Testament as you read through is that many times God raises up a sta of the world and they fight the sta of the world

and they fight the sta of the world and they fight the sta of the world. And they fight the sta of the world. And they fight the sta

of the world. And they fight the st and they fight the

and they fight the

and then and then and then and then and then and then and then And those are just a small sampling of the seed of the world that God raises up to fight against the

And then And then And then and then and then and then and then and then

and then and then and then and then and then and then and then and then and then the job in the way that it needs done. In a sense, we could read the entire Old Testament and the time leading up to the season where we look at all the prophecies and all the things that lead up to the events and Bethela. -The baby being born. Right? But really that's the whole old testament.

Beginning

and it's

and it's and the rest of the Old Testament is the unfolding of this fight between the seed of the woman and the seed of the and yet we see that it's never the woman's seed is never strong. And then And then

and then and then and then and then and then and then and then and then and then and then and then and then and

then and then whole old testament, the whole story is bringing us up to this point, which we come to in Matthew. She was found to be with child by the And then and Joseph, for husband, being a righteous man, and not wanting to disgrace her plan to send her a way. And he had considered this. Behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream state. Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your right.

For the child who has been conceived in her. It's of the and you shall call his

name, J. A. J. A. And you shall call his name, J.

A. J. A.

J. A. P. A. S.

A and they shall call his name Emanuil, which translated means 'dawr' and 'did' as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary

as his wife. But kept

her a virgin until she gave birth to a star and he called his name, and he called his name, have you all ever experienced where you're waiting for an event to you're really looking for and it takes forever. Right? You're just waiting for it to happen, waiting for it to come. And then all the

and

then a and then a and then a and then a and then a

and then a and then a and then a and then a and

then a and then a and it's like, woah, it actually it it happened With with Yeah. With Yeah. 4,000 Yeah. And atrocities, and and Genesis to be fulfilled. And then all the crisis.

And we notice what

the angel says. And we notice what the angel says. And it

says that there will be a verbiage.

And

Right? But now, we're getting down to the seed of the woman. Right? But now, we're getting down to

the seed of the woman. Right? But now, we're getting down to the seed of

the woman. Right? But now, we're getting down to the seed of the woman. Right? But now, we're getting down to the seed of the woman.

Right?

But now, we're getting down to the No. And we learned from what the angel says is this. What was the purpose for his What was the purpose for his What was the purpose for his What was the purpose for his What was the purpose for his what was to save his and it was to save his people from and we've added to that sin daily. We've added to the need of being saved. And your need for salvia, and it's not from everyone else's salvation that we that does not come from out there, but comes from right inside our own corrupted hearts.

Forget about the need that

That when we And

we imagine the babe and we

imagine the babe and fix and we

the

that wraps its fingers around you, your selfishness, your lust, your fears, your anxieties, The beauty of this is, it's actually in his name. And it says his name shall be called Jeezah. Two Hebrew words. It's just the covenant name of God. And it's Yeah.

Which is to rescue or in

a

It's actually everywhere he goes, when they call him by his name, his name is a proclamation of the work that he a. And then, when I mean, think about this. Adam would walk through the garden with God speaking to him as to a -And then, God withdrew him. -And then, and We have the need for a savior that has to do what Adam could not do in the state of We have to have a savior who's holed, not corrupted by This gets complicated because we couldn't just have a savior. We had to have a savior who was a and to fulfill the covenant in the way that

Adam had failed. And to fulfill the covenant in the way that Adam had failed. And the way that Adam had failed. And the way

that Adam had failed. And the way that Adam had failed. And so If this man came as normal men do, he would have been corrupted by the corruption of Adam. And it's sacrificed as a mere man would not have been enough. And so, we need salvation from a very specific individual.

And his great and his great the God man. Christ, who's existed from all eternity, came down and was incarnated. What does that mean? It's it's flash, right? Carnivore.

You know, the he was incarnated. The eternal word who's existed from all creation was given. Was given. So now all of a sudden we have this beautiful union of the exact savior that we need, who is made, when the perfect time came, the when the perfect time came, he died. And ordinary death.

He was nailed and crucified on a A horrible and for the great salvation that was promised, someone had to die. But it couldn't just be a man. All men die. It had to be a perfect man. One who was great enough and righteous enough and holle y and to do away with the sins of all those who put their hope and trust in him.

But the and gracious God, righteous God, and whom sight the heavens are not even have peace and goodwill toward when looking through the lens of And so we can be at peace with God because of the work that Christ did. And so we can never And so we can never And so we can never And so we can never

And so we can never And so we can never And so we can never And so we can never And so we

can never And so we can never And so we when we come to Christmas

time and we think about the baby born

in a -Yeah. -And so we can never,

to

do. And when he did, he came humbly and quiet. He came as an infant. But Christ is no infant anymore. And if you have Then I have a couple other things I want to say to you.

Some of us, this is going to be the first Christmas where we will be missing loved ones.

Hard. And

it's hard because there's all this joy that we think about with Christmas, but it's And that's It's It's It's It's It's It's It's It a and God with us in the sense that Christ came and took on flesh, but he has promised to never leave us or for universe who spoke it into existence, the word that was their at, created, now

is with us and we'll always be there. And we'll always be there.

And we'll always be there. And we'll always be there.

And we'll always be there. And we'll always be there.

And we'll always be there. And we'll always be there. And we And we'll always be there. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah And to give us And to give us And to give us And to

give us

And to give us And you've turned from your sin. Then rejoice with exceedingly great Because our Messiah has come and he's saved. And you are no longer a slave to chaos and conflict of this world and with family and with friends and with enemies. If you are a child of God, have And, yeah, and then the message that we have peace with So that's the joy of the Christmas story. Let's

pray.