Good to be together. This is new, but significant and hopefully meaningful. So we are doing the combined, we've had our men's and women's groups, but we're doing a combined lesson study for adults and also an activity with the children. Thursday nights leading up to up to Christmas and we are for the adults talking about a theme called the Christ before Christmas. If you didn't get a handout there's a handout right as you walked in the room which is probably going to be helpful. Sorry I should have said that earlier with passages and references. It actually might not help at all, but who knows? It still may be as unclear as anything. So we are going to be doing this Thursday nights leading up to Christmas. So this is the first of four. Each night is somewhat standalone. There is an overall theme, but each night is relatively standalone. So if you know someone who might like to join us, they can come at any point. and are welcome. The same is true with the kids activity that each week they're doing a different carol and that's again it's kind of a standalone each week. And there are flyers in the back wall of the sanctuary by the tables so if you want to invite someone they're kind of a nice little handy invitation type card. So let's pray and we'll start. Dear God, Father in heaven, we thank you for this day. Thank you for this opportunity to be together. Thank you for your word, its truth, its impact and power, its ability to correct us, to convict us, to encourage us, to change us. And we thank you, Lord, that it is by your spirit that your word comes alive in our hearts. So we open ourselves to your leading now, Lord, and pray that you would be with us in Jesus' name. Amen. Well G.K. Chesterton had this somewhat famous quote about Christmas and I'm sure I'll butcher it or at least I'll probably just manipulate it to my purposes. But basically it went like this regarding Christmas. Good news, but about what we have no idea. In other words, there's something supposed to be really good and really exciting and encouraging about Christmas, but we seldom get to the essence of it. And that was true, I guess, that would have been 100 years ago or so that he lived and did his primary writing. But still true today, obviously. We have great expectations, great preparations for Christmas, and that's appropriate. And yet, somehow, we might wonder. Why? And it might also leave us with a sense that there was barely maybe a glimmer of that joy that we suspected we should be having. So there's no magic answers per se. I mean, there's not a formula I'm going to share, but in these weeks leading up to Christmas, I do want us to dig in a little bit with an assumption that the fact that maybe we don't get the whole joy and significance of Christmas may just be because we don't get the whole picture of Christmas. And that's why I wanted to take these couple of weeks to think about the Old Testament and think of that as kind of the bigger picture, the broader lens with which to think about the birth of Jesus. So, for instance, just imagine that you had a novel. and you're excited to get it and you jumped right to the last chapter and read the last chapter and only the last chapter. You would know. Whodunit, right? You would get maybe kind of that, an answer. But would you really enjoy it? Would you appreciate it? You wouldn't, if you just went to the last chapter, didn't read the whole book, you might not and probably wouldn't get a sense of maybe the way the characters were developed or the plot lines and even those closing scenes and events wouldn't have the same kind of impact. Or imagine going to an art gallery and approaching a painting and just zeroing in and focusing in on one corner of the painting and just trying to, you know, get absorbed with that. You would be seeing something true, right? You would be seeing something that was accurate. But because you didn't see the whole painting, you probably wouldn't really appreciate what it was meant to be. In fact, if you were talking to someone else who had known the painting and seen that painting and they were talking about, oh, wasn't this amazing, you'd probably be confused because you didn't have the whole picture. Well, in a similar way, could it be that the meaning of Christmas and the birth of Jesus, who he is, why he came, could it be that maybe we're not having The full appreciation and the deepest possible appreciation is because we've done, in a sense, read the last chapter or just zeroed in on a certain portion of the painting. Just take a broader look, and it won't be exhaustive because the Bible's a big book and the Old Testament's a big book, but just trying to think a little bit about some of the things that relate to the coming of Christ from the Old Testament. And ultimately, the goal is our love for the Lord, our joy in His coming. I want to read just a paragraph or so from a Puritan author named Thomas Vincent and this book is called The True Christian's Love to the Unseen Christ. And so he's just talking about the kind of love a believer is meant to have for Jesus and I was reading this recently and it was just honestly convicted of the way my love for Jesus is so inadequate. But anyway, you'll get the sense as I read a few of these lines of why. Can you love one, love someone, who has some inferior honor and power and authority, and not love Jesus Christ, who is the Lord of glory, who has all power and authority, both in heaven and earth. Can you love such as have some earthly wisdom and learning and not love Jesus Christ, who is the wisdom of the Father, who knows all things and whose wisdom is divine? Can you love such as are somewhat liberal and bountiful and not love Christ whose bounty is superlative, whose gifts are most rich? Can you love friends who are somewhat kind and not love Jesus Christ, who is the best friend that men ever had? Can you love a benefactor who feeds you and clothes you and gives money to you? and yet not love Christ who offers to feed you, feed your hunger, starved souls with the bread of life, to clothe your naked souls with the robes of his righteousness and to give the spiritual riches of grace to you, the least of which is of more worth than all the riches of the earth. Can you love honors and not love Christ, by whom you have the highest dignities, the honor of children to the King of heaven now, and a crown of glory in the heavenly world? Can you love liberty and not love Christ, by whom you may be made free from the slavery of the devil and your own lusts? Can you love safety and not love Christ, who is the only Savior of mankind and who alone puts you in safety from the reach of the worst of enemies and the worst of evils? Can you love peace and not love Christ, by whom you may have peace with God and peace in your own conscience? It goes on, but I think you get the idea there. call to love the Lord and maybe the lack of love that we have for him. So the goal of trying to understand more of who Jesus is through his coming as the promised Messiah, looking at the broader lens, through the broader lens of the Old Testament, hopefully will promote and prompt that greater love in your heart. So this is the overview of the lessons. Again, this is on a handout in the back if anyone didn't get this and would like it. Today we're going to talk about the promise and the person of the coming Christ. Next time we're going to look at these categories, sometimes called offices, of prophet, priest, and king. So these were Old Testament institutions that often are used to understand the nature of Jesus and his coming. And then the third week we'll look at specific prophecies of the coming Messiah, and there are many of them. And then the last week we'll look at some characters of the Old Testament, how they point to Jesus and prepare for his coming. So tonight, again, thinking of the promise and person of the coming Christ. It may be a strange place to start, but I want to read from Acts 17, the story of the Bereans, those wonderful group of people recorded in the book of Acts. So this is Acts 17 verses 11 to 12, one of the accounts of Paul's missionary journey. He comes to Berea after leaving Thessalonica, where things didn't end well there. But verses 11 and 12, we read this. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. So again, these are the Bereans. They're gonna examine the scriptures to hear what Paul shared with them, whether it was true, and what was it that Paul shared with them? Well, it was the same thing he shared everywhere. In fact, if we just back up a little bit, we hear about the previous town Thessalonica, and notice there, Acts 17, verses two and three, It says, Paul went in, this is in Thessalonica, as was his custom. And on three Sabbath days, he reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and rise from the dead and saying, this Jesus whom I proclaim to you is the Christ. So, you with me? Paul consistently preached from the scriptures, everywhere he went, that Jesus was the Christ, that is, the promised Messiah. And he did that in Thessalonica, he did it in Berea. And so when he gets to Berea, the Bereans likewise examined the scriptures to see if that was in fact the case, that Paul's message of Jesus as the promised Messiah was true. And this is a good thing, right? Sometimes Sunday school classes might call themselves the Bereans or something like that, because it's a good thing to use the Bible and study and search the Bible when you're making decisions about doctrines and actions. Sometimes we think of this as sola scriptura, the Bible alone. The Bible is a supreme authority and so that's to be commended. But there's another implication in this passage and why I wanted to start with it. So here's the question. What Scriptures did the Bereans study to see if Paul was correct in what he said about Jesus as the promised Messiah. And the answer is the Old Testament. And why would they search the Old Testament? Because they didn't have a New Testament yet, right? So this is probably in AD 50s or something. There probably might have been some writings, but they weren't compiled in such a way that you could just pull them out like you would pull out the Old Testament. So put it all together. The Old Testament had sufficient information about the Christ and his coming for Paul, and we'll see Peter also, for Paul to preach about Jesus as the fulfillment of the promised Messiah. And likewise, the Old Testament had sufficient information for the Bereans to cross-reference and to check it out. Which again, you put it all together and the point is this, the story of Christmas, the story of Jesus coming into the world, didn't start with Mary and Joseph, didn't start with angels and shepherds, things like that. The story of Christmas and the coming of the Messiah started in the Old Testament. And again, be redundant here, if it is the case that our Christmas celebrations are thinking about Jesus, what it means, this season, if it only starts at the time of Mary and Joseph, And there's some great stories there, don't get me wrong. Zechariah, the priest, and all of that. If that's the case though, you know what it is? It's like jumping to almost the last chapter of the book, of that novel we talked about, right? And trying to appreciate, what's it mean? It's kind of like zeroing in on just that little corner of a painting and trying to appreciate the painting without looking at this broader scope. So the story of Christmas begins in the Old Testament. And where? Where would we go? Where do you start? As they say, the beginning is a good place to start. And indeed, The first book of the Bible, the opening, really all of the Bible, but we'll look at this passage printed there in your handout. Genesis 3.15, God speaking, I will put enmity between you and the woman, this is speaking to the serpent that had deceived the woman and likely the man. And between your offspring and her offspring, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel." So the man and woman, if you recall, that God had created, they rebelled against God. They ate of the one tree, of all the trees that they weren't supposed to eat of, the one thing, you know, God said, don't do this. And that is, of course, what they did. And the result is this devastating impact on everything, relationship between people and God, between people and other people, even the very fabric of the creation is damaged. There's brokenness, there's death, disease, disasters, all these things come into the world because of that rebellion. But the passage we just read, or I just read, Genesis 3.15, is the good news that it's not the end of the story. God, in the midst of describing the consequences of the rebellion against him, also goes on to give a promise. And the promise is of a coming offspring of the woman, an offspring who's going to bruise, some translations say crush, the head of the serpent. And that offspring is going to undo The damage that was done, that offspring, that promised seed is going to defeat the power of the one who brought sin and death and destruction into the world. That's the idea of damaging, bruising, crushing the head of the serpent. And so what follows the story of the Bible is the story of the coming of this child, the preparation for his coming. And so if Jesus is the promised Messiah, if you call him Christ, which again isn't a name but that's a title, if you call him Christ, believe he's Christ, then he is the fulfillment of that promise and that tells you a great deal about the purpose of his coming into the world and what Christmas is about. He is coming into the world to undo the curse and instead of the curse bringing life to people, renewal to God's creation. The carol that young people are learning today is Joy to the World and there's a wonderful part of that carol that reflects that renewal, describes it. The carol, Joy to the World, was written by Isaac Watts. He was a prolific hymn writer. It's a marvelous story of Isaac as a young man, probably still just a teenager. He complained to his father that church was boring. And the music was boring. And so his dad replied to him, not thinking young Isaac would take him up on this, but his dad replied, well, if you can do better. And Isaac had a great response. He said, I already have. Isaac had been working on putting Psalms and other scripture passages to music. I don't think this one was one of those early on references or pieces that he put together. But again, that kind of launched his service to the Lord and to the church with his music writing. So anyway, Joy to the World has a stanza. that I will not sing, but it says, he comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. Far as, far as, far as the curse is found. You know how it goes, right? So the point is the curse did spread far and wide. The curse touched every corner of creation, every aspect of your life has been affected by the curse. The good news is that promised Messiah brings a blessing and a renewal everywhere the curse spread. Now that doesn't mean everything the curse damaged has been completely restored, that doesn't happen until the new creation that we enjoy in heaven, but it does mean that the fruit and the work of that coming Messiah is to undo the evil and the damage that was done at the dawn of creation. So this is the promise of the seed who is to come. This is the unfolding theme of the Old Testament. And this probably answers a question you've had many times in your life. If you've read the Bible very much, Why are there these long genealogies with names that are so hard to pronounce? You've wondered that, right? Why do we have to go through all the lists of this person and this tribe and this group? And it's because of the promise. Because every generation, people were on the edge of their seat thinking, is he coming? Has he come? Where will he be born? When will he be born? So there was an accounting to anticipate his coming. Now in the course of time, we read in the Bible, God does not leave it totally up for grabs, that God chooses a people, that there will be a people who will be part of fulfilling this promise, they will preserve the seed. So Abraham and then Israel as a nation, God chooses, God calls. And it's very clear that this isn't a random act, this is part of the fulfillment of the promise that was given in Genesis. So in Genesis 12 verses 2 and 3 it says, God again speaking to Abram, I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse, get this, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So God chose Abraham, God prepared the nation of Israel. to be the blessing to undo the curse of that through the coming Messiah. So God zooms in more. He chooses a tribe and a leader to preserve that seed to fulfill the promise. God has a plan, right? It was all part of a plan. It wasn't like God was at the chalkboard. And this guy and thinking, you know, like the head coach at halftime, oh boy, that play really bombed. We need to read. We need to revamp our defense. We need to restructure the offense. No, this was all part of the unfolding plan. And as we'll see, the New Testament gets this. They understand what's happening. So in Psalm 132, verse 11, notice that. So the Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back. One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. So here is that promised seed is now we see going to come through David. And we'll look at this a little more, maybe not that exact verse, but just the idea of the prophet, priest, and king. Why was it that God set up kings? Well, this was to prepare the way for our understanding of the Messiah, of that seed promised to the woman. In Galatians 4, jumping to the New Testament, we begin to see how this was all part of an intentional plan. So Galatians 4, verses 4 and 5, It said, 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. That phrase, the fullness of time, what do you think that means? It means it's just the right moment. You know, just when all the preparations had been complete. It's secular, but just think of preparing for the holidays. People are coming, and you've got to get everything ready. You're thinking about the menu. You're thinking about cleaning the house. You're thinking about who's going to sleep where. And so you could say, when the time had fully come, When everything was prepared, when it was just the right moment, God sent his son into the world. So, as I said, the New Testament leaders that Jesus chose, they got it. They got this idea that the promised Messiah was the fulfillment of all the preparations that had been being done. Now, again, they didn't get it right away. They stumbled a lot, they got confused a lot, but golly day, when you start hearing Peter preach, and the sermons recorded by Peter, especially, I guess, explicitly in the book of Acts, when you hear Paul's sermons in the book of Acts, guess where they begin? They begin in the Old Testament. All of the sermons that we have of the leaders of the church. They don't begin with Mary and Joseph. They don't begin with angels singing on high. They have laborious, almost detailed references, even that sermon of Stephen before he died. They rehash the history of the Old Testament. and then present Christ as the fulfillment of it. So you see, this is all part of the idea that when we think about Christmas, there is a promise being fulfilled. and there is the person who fulfills it. I've got references, I don't know if we have time to look at these, but in that handout to Peter's sermon in Acts 4, Paul's sermon in Acts 13, but you can see those and think about those, and again, we've actually been looking at Acts on Sunday morning, so we've got to think about these a lot, and it is 100%, no deviation, no variation, of any sermon given by a leader of the early church that doesn't go back and talk about the great hand of God through these acts of God that all point to Jesus. Let's hear it from Jesus himself. How about that? So I will reference this. I don't know if we'd call this a sermon. I did on the handout but you think of this as a Jesus sermon after his death and resurrection and this quote unquote road to Emmaus in Luke 24. Jesus said to the two disciples who were walking with him. Oh foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them and all the scriptures, the things concerning himself. Well, I've thought many times that it would be wonderful to know exactly what Jesus shared with those disciples that day. You know, exactly what scriptures did he, point to and talk about as preparing for him and being about him. So we won't know that exactly, obviously, until we are in heaven. But the reference to Moses talks about beginning with Moses. That's a reference to the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible that Moses wrote. So beginning with Moses is talking about those opening books of the Bible, beginning with Genesis. And what do we read in the Pentateuch? We have the early history of the world. We have the Exodus, the calling and creating of a people. In the Pentateuch, we have the law, the giving of God's commandments. This is a part of the Bible. We have institution of the priesthood, the sacrifices, the temple. This is the part of the Bible where we have the blessing of land, the promise of land, the blessing of rest. And what Jesus is saying is all these are pointing to me. All these are about me. And again, when we think about Christmas, we think about Jesus being born. Wouldn't Jesus tell us what he told the disciples after his resurrection? You want to know about me? This is where you look. Look to those first five books of the Bible. Look to the prophets. Look to the message that they had, you know, we think of prophets and prophecies and so often our attention, you know, we just want to kind of just launch right over Jesus and think of how does that relate to today? What would Jesus say? They're about me. They may have implications for the future, but don't go there, don't go to the future without going to me first and seeing them in me. Again, we'll be going a little bit, not exhaustively, but try to get into a little bit more of that in the weeks ahead. So there is this unfolding story of the promise throughout the Old Testament and we, you can learn about Jesus and celebrate Jesus as you think about that plan and how it was, that promise and how it was fulfilled in the plan of God. But also, there is a person, the person who fulfilled that plan. And who was the person? Was there a Jesus before Christmas? What was he doing? Have you ever thought of that? Well, there wasn't a Jesus, per se, before Christmas. But the coming Messiah, that promised Messiah, was the eternal Son of God. So there was. The son, before Christmas, the son of God, notice this familiar verse, John 3, 16, right? For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. You think about that, God sent the one who was already the son. Jesus did not become a son when he was born on the first Christmas. It may be a little abstract, but I think this is important. What would the cost of the Father's sacrifice be? Would we understand the Father's love if we didn't realize there was already the Son of God who was with the Father? So before Christmas, Before all time, there were, there was, there is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. There was never a time when the Son was not. There was never a time when the Father was not the Father. So the Son of God, what we celebrate at Christmas, is that God came into the world, and that the Son is truly, eternally God. And every time we hear God mentioned or described, we can connect that to the Son, because the Son is truly God. The Son's not a lesser God, He's not a different God, He is one in being and essence with God the Father. So, just to be specific here, we say God is holy. What does that mean for the Son? The Son is holy because the Son is God. If the Son is God, He can't be just part God. You can't be part God, you're either God or not God. So the Son is holy, the Father, Son, and Spirit is holy. God is love. What does that mean? It means the Father, Son, and Spirit is love. God is almighty. What does that mean? It means the Father, the Son, and the Spirit is almighty. I know grammatically it gets tough because they're three in one. Is that an is or an are? We're going to say is. God is eternal, right? Because if you're not eternal, you're not God. And if you're God, you're eternal. So what does that mean? The Father, the Son, the Spirit is eternal. And what in the world does that have to do with Christmas? Because God the Son took on flesh and became human and lived among us. Isaiah 40 verses 1 to 5. I didn't print this out on the handout, but I do have, I do want to turn this just in closing for a few minutes here. And just think about, again, what is said of God is true of the Son. And I hope this will help us, once again, get that broader, bigger picture. We've been thinking about the plan. We're going to think about the person to appreciate and to ultimately love Jesus. So Isaiah 40, verses one to five, classic Christmastime-type passage we have heard, probably. Comfort, comfort, my people says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. A voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the desert, in the desert, a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain shall be made low, the uneven ground shall become level, the rough places a plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. So here is this great promise of the Lord coming in glory. And notice what comes next, verses six and following, six to eight. A voice says cry and I said, and usually this doesn't make the Christmas cards for some reason, I don't know. The voice says cry and I said, what shall I cry? All flesh is grass and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. So this is kind of the human conditions and the limitations of man and that's compared to God and the glory of God. So just jumping ahead a couple of verses into verse 12. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span and closed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales? Who has measured the spirit of the Lord or what man shows him his counsel? Let's see, jump down to verse 18. To whom then will you liken God or what likeness compare with him? An idol. A craftsman casts it, a goldsmith overlays it with gold, he casts it for silver, for its silver change. So anyway, just there's nothing like God. I think I skipped over the better part of that. I wanted to read, but no. Even the best of what we have on earth is nothing compared to God. And if that's true of God, what does that say of Jesus? Are you with me? Then that is true of Jesus. God is high above us in his nature. And that means the son who took on flesh and was born, what we celebrate at Christmas, is high and above us in his nature. God is also not only high above us in his nature, God is high above us in his completeness, even his happiness. There is the Trinity of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Their love is complete. Their relationship is self-sustaining, self-sufficient. In other words, God doesn't need us. God wasn't lonely. Jesus didn't come into the world because somehow this relationship of God, Father, Son, and Spirit was lacking. No, the amazing love, the amazing grace of God, Father, Son, and Spirit is that in Christmas, the one who was perfect, that person who was perfect and complete and sufficient and had all, gave and sacrificed that glory to take on flesh. This God, that God became man, this God, that God. Let that relationship not be fully experienced. Philippians 2 verses 5 and 8 says, have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant. Being born in the likeness of men, being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. So Jesus, who is truly God and now truly man, he did not become less God when he became man. He didn't empty his deity, his divinity, He didn't lose his essence of being God, what he did empty was his privileges and his place of glory when he took on human nature. So in the book of Acts, as I mentioned, we're studying, mentioned a few times the question, what's the most important relationship in your life? Maybe that's worth thinking about, chew on that for a little bit. What is the most important relationship in your life? And what I've come to realize particularly through Acts and thinking about more of the Father, Son, and the Spirit that the most important relationship in my life is that very relationship, the relationship of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Because if that relationship is good, then everything else is good. If the relationship between the Father and the Son and the Spirit is complete, it doesn't mean I'm insignificant. It just means I now have the greatest security imaginable. If the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit can covenant together, love one another, be yoked in purpose and joy, then no matter what happens in life, there always is a security and a foundation. And the amazing thing is, when I became a believer, I mysteriously, mystically almost even, entered into that relationship. And again, that's the hope. What is my security? Not much. My life is comfortable. My life is good. I like my life. But ultimately, my life is incredibly insecure, if I were to be honest, apart from the security of that love relationship, that eternal purpose and connection of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. The point of reflecting on it today is just to think of that's the relationship, the Son of God. and actually the Father and the Holy Spirit were willing to allow for a season to be somehow different in that eternal Son of God leaving the glories and the joys and the privileges of heaven and entering the womb of a woman and being born and living a pretty challenging life in its own right. So this is a mystery, and I just want to end by saying, you know, I used to think of a mystery as kind of like a red light. You know, if someone says, okay, you start talking, and you think, how does this work, you know, how's the father-son spirit, or how is Jesus, you know, how is he truly God, who's truly man? And people say, well, it's a mystery. End of discussion. That's terrible, isn't it? I mean, a mystery doesn't mean I'm gonna, obviously it's a mystery, it doesn't mean I can perfectly understand it. But really, a mystery's not a red light. Maybe it's a yellow light. You proceed with caution. Don't be arrogant, don't be self-confident, don't think you always have all the answers. But really, a mystery, it should be an invitation to explore, to seek. to dig in further and cherish even the things we can't exhaust with our understanding. So I hope we can do some of that in these coming weeks and can build on what we started tonight. Again, just to highlight, remember we're thinking of the promise and the person of the coming Messiah, the Old Testament And the new as well but especially the Old Testament is part of the plan of God to fulfill the promise of the coming Messiah and that person is the eternal son of God full of glory, truly completely one with God and completely complete in his Godhead.