Christmas Eve 2024

Well, Merry Christmas everybody. Great to see you here. I love being up here surrounded by all of these beautiful Christmas trees, because Christmas trees are a fundamental part of just about everybody Christmas traditions. So let me ask you a question. Show of hands. How many of you are live Christmas tree in your homes kind of people? Put your hands up. Okay. Wow. Cool. A little more than maybe, the earlier services. And then how many of you are artificial tree people? Because you're artificial people? No. I'm kidding. It's a joke. It's a joke. I didn't mean that at all. I am only kidding. It's funny because actually, artificial trees, are now, the vast majority, of the trees that we find inside of our houses, obviously, up until, like for the lion's share of the 20th century, it was all live trees that were in, in our homes. But starting in the late 1990s into the early 2000, artificial trees actually surpassed live trees, in homes. And now artificial trees make up 75% of the trees that are in our homes. Now, why do I tell you that? Well, because I'm I'm curious as to why that actually happened. Why do you think we went from live trees to artificial trees? Well, I was curious, so I looked it up, and I know the answer. I'm not guessing here. Michigan State researchers actually looked into this and did some research on why people went from live trees to artificial trees, and there were some secondary reasons, like environmental factors and cost and those kinds of things. But the prime reason that you could probably guess, the primary reason people went from live trees to artificial trees, they're not messy and they're perfect, right? Which is what we're all shooting for at Christmas with our trees and our, you know, what we're trying to create in the narrative that we're trying to create. We know this is true even for those of us who are live Christmas tree people like me. We make sure that even though we don't have an artificial tree that's perfect, we look at our tree and we know that there's a bad side of the tree. Like everybody who's a live tree person, you know, there's a bad side of the tree, right? It's got broken branches. It's got gaping holes. It's just part of the deal. So what do you do? You make sure that that goes in the corner and it's not facing out. And then it starts to look really, really good. Right. Because we want the Christmas tree. Whether it's artificial or whether it's live. We want it to be beautiful and perfect. But here's the thing we all know that's not really how trees are, by the way. It's also not how the Christmas story is either. And that's something that I think we need to wrap our minds around. So, so often we like to start the Christmas story with kind of the Christmas card part of the story. And by the way, that's a beautiful part of the story. Like for instance, in Matthew chapter one, beginning in verse 18, it says, this is how the birth of Jesus, the Messiah came about. His mother, Mary, was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. We love that passage right? It's familiar, it's presentable, but there's actually something that comes right before that. I mean, that's in the 18th verse of the first chapter of Matthew's gospel. But if you're looking at Matthew's gospel, like in my Bible right here, if you're looking at it, the 18th verses right around here and all of this stuff, right here comes before that actual greeting card part of the story. And you know what comes before it a tree. Let me see if I can be more specific. A family tree. It's a genealogy in Matthew chapter one that actually comes first. But the interesting thing is, is this family tree of Jesus does not put its best side facing out. And that's really odd for an ancient genealogy. So here's what Matthew's doing. Stay with me in this. Matthew is actually making the case in his gospel that Jesus is the great King of the Jews. And so he traces Jesus life through the line of King David, who was the greatest figure of a king that Israel had ever known. But what genealogies of kings did in the ancient world is they always put their best side facing out. That's what they always did. They left out the bad parts, the broken branches, the gaping holes. They would leave all of that stuff out, or at least cover them up to some degree so that they would look awesome because they were kings and they wanted to look awesome in their genealogy, but not the family tree of Jesus. It's a mess.
Now, what Matthew did is he broke this genealogy down into three parts based on what he wanted to include. No ancient genealogies were concerned with including every single person who ever came before. That's not what they were about. So what they would do is they would abridge them. They would shorten them down. And that was normal and acceptable practice. And it's no different in Matthew's genealogy as well. And here's how Matthew broke it down. Some of you are going, am I getting a history lesson here? Sort of. But it's going to make sense to you in just a moment. Matthew broke it down this way into three parts. He broke it down from Abraham to David, from King David to the Babylonian exile, and from the Babylonian exile to Jesus. That's how he broke all of this down. And in fact, you're saying you're thinking to yourself right now, did I actually show up here and you're going to read a genealogy? The answer is yes, I am, but but I'm going to do it quick. And I've practiced because I'm good at reading. Here you go, Matthew. Chapter one. Here's how it starts. This is the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, Judah, the father of Perez and Zera, whose mother was Tamar. Perez, the father of has run, has run. The father of Ram. Ram, the father of a minitab, a minitab, the father of nation, nation, the father of salmon. Salmon. The father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab. Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth. Obed, the father of Jesse. And Jesse, the father of King David. Yeah. This is this is what you call in the speaking world a cheap applause work right there. That's how I did it. I just gave myself a little Christmas gift of applause. Here's why I read that to you. Now, remember, that was just the first part. I read that to you because in that line of people, they're a mess. I mean, Abraham, who we think is awesome, actually lied about his wife, Sarah being his sister. Jacob was a deceiver from the very beginning. That's what his name meant. And he deceived his father Isaac, because he wanted to steal the birthright of the older son, which was Esau. And then you've got Judah and Tamar who are mentioned in here. Now, this is a family service, so I'm not going to get too specific, but let's just say this is what happened. Judah had a son. He had a few sons, but he had a son that was married to Tamar. But that son was evil and awful, and he was killed before they were ever able to have children. So Judah then provided his second son to marry Tamar so that she could have children. But that second son was also evil and wicked, and he was killed and he didn't give her children. So Judah promised his third child to Tamar, and he never planned on delivering on that third child. So what Tamar did is something unique. How can I say it? She disguised herself as an employee of the evening Family service. Right? She describes herself as an employee of the evening, and she, tricked her father in law Judah into being with her. And she finally did bear sons. His. These people are in Jesus family. And then they mentioned Rahab. Rahab is listed here. She's not even a Jew, by the way. She's a moabite. Us. And her actual line of work was being an employee of the evening. And then you've got Ruth, who's also listed, and she's not a Jew either. And I would think to myself, man, Matthew, if you're trying to make the case that Jesus is the great king of the Jews and these are all the people that are in there, this seems an odd way to get there. And that's just the first grouping. There's a second. Here you go. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife, Solomon, the father of Rainbow Rainbow and the father of Abigail. Abigail, the father of Asa. Ace of the father of Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat, the father of Joram. Joram, the father of Isaiah, using the father of Jotham. Jotham the father of Ahaz. He has the father of Hezekiah. Hezekiah, the father of Manasseh. Manasseh, the father of Amon. Hayman, the father of Josiah. And Josiah the father of Jacob and his brothers at the time of the exile of Babylon. That practice this, if you ask me if I have memorized that, the answer is no. Somebody in the atrium after one of the services, like, can you do that from memory? And I was like, are you crazy? Okay, you know how long it took me just to pronounce all of these names? Cut me some slack, man. See, here's what they did in the second grouping. Remember I told you there were three groupings, right? The second grouping, David, is the centerpiece of this whole family tree. And here's what you think. You would think that the entire family tree would display how awesome David is, because what what Matthew's doing is he's showing that Jesus comes through the line of David. You would think he would show how awesome David was, but you'd be wrong, because not only does this family tree not display any of the great successes that David had, it actually puts David's worst moment on display. David lusted after a woman that wasn't his wife while his soldiers were out fighting a battle, one of whom was this woman's husband, and he ended up impregnating her and having her husband killed. This is Jesus family, other people that are mentioned in that group. Rehoboam, that was the son of Solomon. Rehoboam. He was responsible for the division of the kingdom. The reason that the kingdom of Israel broke into two was because of rebel. And then there's other people listed there like a has. Ahaz was awful. He was a king in Israel, and he led Israel into idol worship and pagan practices. And that's the second grouping. There's a third. Here you go. After the exile to Babylon, Giacconi, who was the father of Shield teal. Shield teal was the father of Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel the father of ABBA. ABBA who the father of Eliakim. Eliakim the father of Azor. Azor, the father of Zadok. Zadok, the father of Akim. Achim, the father of Elihu. Elihu, the father of Eliezer Eliezer, the father of math and math, and the father of Jacob and Jacob, the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary and Mary was the mother of Jesus, who is called the Messiah. Thus there were 14 generations in all from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the exile to Babylon, and 14 from the exile to the Messiah. So even in this third grouping, which I'm not going to go into detail about, just let me say this. They were a mass. I mean, if I pulled out one of them draconian. He was a wicked king who ruled for a short time before Israel went into Babylonian captivity in exile. And he was the last king of Judah in the line of David, and some of the others were a mass as well. This is a messed up family tree, man. I mean broken branches, gaping holes everywhere in this particular Christmas tree. Now, Matthew, he finishes this broken family tree by telling us that there were 14 generations from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the exile, and 14 from the exile to Jesus. Right. Here's a here's a question. Why do you think that Matthew chose to use 14 as the number? He did it on purpose, by the way, because remember, this is an abridged genealogy. So he chose how he wanted to do this. Well, some argue it's because of of the numerical value of David's name in in the Jewish world, like in Hebrew alphabet, each letter has a corresponding numerical value. So if, for instance, we were taking the Hebrew for the word David, it would. In English it would be four, it would be three consonants d, d. The word the letter d in Hebrew has a numerical value of four, w has a value of six, and then the other d would also be four, four plus six plus four. For all you math whizzes is 14. So some of them were saying oh okay. They they kind of built in David as the centerpiece here because they're making the case that Jesus came through the line of David. And that's why he chose 14. That may be a part of it, but I have a tendency to think that maybe it was for two other primary reasons. The first reason is because for those of you who kind of are experts in the Old Testament, in first Chronicles one and two, there's actually a genealogy there that shows 14 generations from Abraham to David, and Matthew probably just borrowed from that and began to build upon it. But there's probably a third reason that I think is a compelling one. I think that the reason that Matthew chose 14 is because all Jewish people realize the significance of the number 14. It was on the 14th day of the first month where the Passover happened, and the Passover lamb was slaughtered. You see, this genealogy uses David as a centerpiece, but it's all pointing to Jesus. And the reason is because everyone would have known that's reading this, that God made a promise to David in second Samuel chapter number seven that said, from your line, David is coming one who would rule forever. But how is that the case from such a messed up family tree? Because even the the last king in the line of Judah.
Jacob. He's done. He's gone. How is this actually going to play out? It seems like there are far too many branches that are broken, and too many gaping holes in this particular tree for it to be repaired. But maybe, maybe that's why Jesus is referred to by some of the prophets as the branch. You see, listen to the prophets speak of the coming Messiah. Isaiah says it this way in Isaiah 11, a shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse, from his roots, a capital B branch will bear fruit. The spirit of the Lord will rest upon him. Earlier in Isaiah it says this in that day the branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of the survivors in Israel. And then in Jeremiah says, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, a king who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. Jesus is the branch, the Messiah is the branch. And Matthew is showing us that Jesus is that branch. You see, after Matthew chronicles this broken family tree in Matthew chapter one, then we start to see the story of Christmas unfold, the one that we're familiar with, the one that we just read a moment ago that she will she'll be pregnant by the Holy Spirit, right? And then the next couple of verses pick up this way. It's just because Joseph, Mary's husband, was faithful to the Lord and did not want to expose Mary to public disgrace. He had in mind to divorce her quietly, as you can imagine. But just pause. You can imagine right? She's pregnant. Joseph knows not his, and she's like, it was the Holy Spirit. And he's like, I'm what? But after he considered this an angel, the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you were to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. How would Jesus save his people from their sins? He would die for them. He was literally born to die. And by the time you start in Matthew's gospel where you get this seed thought that Jesus is going to save his people from their sins, and we've already been told 14 generations, 14 generations, 14 right. By the time that you get to Matthew chapter 26, listen to what you hear Jesus saying. As you know, the Passover is two days away and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified. The 14th of the first month was coming and Jesus said he would die to save his people. You see all the brokenness and messiness of Jesus own family Christmas tree needed to be repaired. And not just his family, by the way, but entire human family needs to be repaired. You see, because of our sin and our brokenness, we were destined for condemnation and separation from God. But you know what God did? It's beautiful. The branch Jesus was broken on our tree across so that we could be made whole. The branch Jesus was broken on our tree across so we could be made whole. See, friends, here's what we need to understand. Our human family tree is messed up because of sin. It's all messed up. So like. But like this live tree that we have on stage. We love to dress it up and show it off right? Trying to trying to help people kind of not think that we're as broken as we really, really are. We put pretty decorations on it, we make it cosmetic, we put the ribbons on it. But let's be honest, right? We all know the truth, don't we? Don't we? Every one of us knows the truth. We know that there's a messed up side. We know that there's broken branches all over the place. We know that there's gaping holes in here. No matter how much we put on the front, no matter how much we try to spin this, we still know that this is the case. And here's the thing. This is indicative of us. This is our human family tree. We are less than perfect, way less than perfect. We have gaping holes in our lives. We have broken branches all over our lives, and sometimes we just look downright messy. If we're being honest, the only way the human family tree could be rescued is if the eternal Son of God put on flesh and became like one of us so that he could rescue us, and how would he rescue us? By dying on a tree called a cross. That's how he would do it. You see, friends, what we have to remember is that what Jesus did is he was born to die so that he could die in our place, on our tree, our broken tree, across, and so he could take upon himself the judgment of a holy God against our sin and against our brokenness. And then by rising from the dead, demonstrate that his sacrifice was sufficient, and he is overcome by the power of his life. That means that by faith in what Jesus has done, he can repair our hearts and even impact our relationships here on earth. He can change us and restore us and make us to who we're supposed to be, and fit us for the life that is to come. And it will change not only what we are, but it will change the relationships that we have. Listen, I'm looking out on people who many of you. I know some of your stories, and I know that you are people that you could under the sound of my voice. You're people that could stand up and go, yep, he's done that in my life. He repaired my world. And as a result, repaired some of the relationships and all the damage and the brokenness and the gaping holes in my life. But I want to add one more story to that that demonstrates the power of Jesus to repair what was broken. Listen to a story. My name is Kimberly. I came to Buffalo when I was 17 years old. I moved here from the Bronx. I was born and raised in New York City. I was raised by a single mother. My mom and I were quite close. I was her only child. It was just her and I. My dad had laughed about the time I was two, as close as I was to my mom. I think her knowing she was chronically ill. She had been diagnosed with HIV. She almost, in order to save me, changed our closeness. So I think it was in a way, as a mom, allowing yourself to then say she'll be okay when I'm not here. I had my mom until I was ten, so I stayed with my aunts. It was obvious she wasn't interested in raising me. She never took custody of me. I don't even remember being taken to a doctor for, you know, even routine care. It was difficult times to go through and a feeling of of being lost and alone. We were regular churchgoers, a part of, a church that was strict with its traditions. I know when to kneel, when to sing and what him to sing. I was prepared for those things. But as life became more difficult and had more adversities, I didn't know to rely on Jesus. When I moved to Buffalo. A friend invited me to church, and it was there that I learned what a relationship was with Jesus Christ, and I was saved in that church, and it changed everything. There was a warmth and a love amongst her family, and even when I walked into the church that I had never experienced before. It was a feeling of being home. It was a feeling of no longer being alone, no longer fighting a battle for myself, by myself. With raising my daughter. My goal and hope is that she always put God first. And I think and feel deeply that the foundation has been put there for her to continue that throughout her life. This June, my daughter and I chose to get baptized and we were able to do it together. And how do we follow that up? Well, we bring a young woman who's got to see the faith of her mother and is here to follow in her steps. I want to declare that I believe in Jesus Christ, and that God will always be first in my life. As a mom, I couldn't be more proud that she's made a decision to accept Christ into her life so early. God is certainly a God of redemption in spite of what the enemy had planned. He took my life in another direction. Today I set of service to him, service to his people and am able to be a mother. That is an example of how Christ wants one to live, and I am grateful that I get to raise her. I am so grateful that strongholds have been broken. I'm grateful that I have been given the wisdom to do this differently. My life has a different trajectory because of Jesus and my relationship with him. You know. What a beautiful story. You know, Jesus came so that he could take all the broken branches and the gaping holes that had been Kim's life and repair them and make a new. And it had an effect on her relationships. It had an effect on her daughter. Jesus came for you to to do the same thing. Jesus came for all of us. And yes, he was born to die, but his death was for us to rescue us, to repair us. See the messed up people in Jesus family Christmas tree? Those are representative of all of us. That's what we should be reminded of. Not that we look at it and go, oh man, they were messed up. No, no, that's representative of us all. See, Jesus came for the violent and the vile. He came for the self-assured, and he came for the self despised. Jesus came for the arrogant, and he came for the unseen. He came for the popular and the forgotten. He came for those with a lot, and those who have very little. We all friends, we all have the same need for a savior. Every single one of us, no matter who we are, no matter where we've been, no matter where we think we are in life, we need a savior. Listen, listen. But if you try to put your best foot forward in order to impress him, it won't work. See? He sees everything. He sees the front to the back. He sees the inside to the out. He knows everything. He knows everything. He sees you exactly as you are. But here's the good news. That even though he sees you exactly as you are, he will take you just like you are. And he will make you so different that you will barely remember who you were before him. This is what Jesus does. You see, maybe you think you're too far away this Christmas. Maybe you've been acting like a broken branch that tried to hide the worst part of you. Right? Stuff it away so you sparkle up the front, make sure it's super presentable, and you want to keep that side showing all the time. I mean, it is Christmas Eve, and you're a beautiful grouping and you get all that part right. But inside you think maybe you think God can't be repaired. The story of Christmas friends tells you that you're wrong. You can't be repaired. You do have hope. There is a chance to be healed and fruitful. And it's all because Jesus became that broken branch on our family tree, so that in him we could find forgiveness and we could find healing, and we could find hope. You see, that's that's why the story of Christmas is so great, because it matters right this moment. So many of you have come in here in various ways and from various circumstances in life. But let me remind you of the danger, the danger for us when we hear what we just heard is to think to ourselves, I'm going to compare myself to somebody else. I'm not as messed up as somebody else. My cousin Eddie, no pun intended. My cousin Eddie's a mess. My Uncle Phil's a mess. My sister's a mess. And I'm glad I'm not like them. Listen to me, listen to me. All of us. Broken branches, gaping holes. Bible says it this way. We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. And the wages for that sin is death. It's separation from God. But God so loved the world that he gave his only son, who was born of a virgin, who lived a sinless life, who went to a cross to die. Our death, that he would be broken in our place, taking upon himself the judgment for our sin, and then rising from the dead concrete, so that now by faith in him we can have our sins forgiven and removed. We can have new life in this life and eternal life for the life to come. What an incredible offer and what a story Christmas is for us. So I don't know if you came in here and you think that somehow your you're being good enough or you're showing yourself good enough is somehow going to force God's hand, and you're going to tie his hands behind his back and go, wow, they're so good. I can't do anything. No, no, no, listen. None of us, none of us. We're all in need of a Savior. It's why Jesus came. If you could earn your way to God, what was Jesus doing? You can't. So, can I say this to you? If you've never before put your faith or trust in Jesus. I can't think of a better place than here in a better time than now for you to be able to do that. You just simply need to ask him by faith. There's no magic words. It's not a formula. You just need to, by faith, say Jesus, I surrender my life to you. I ask you to come into my life and forgive me of my sins and change my life. I surrender to you. You are Lord. I am not. I believe you died for me. I believe you rose from the dead. If that's your heart and you want to see your life changed. Like Kim's. Like AJ's like mine. And like so many others, then I hope that by faith, you'll put your trust in Jesus. And here's what we'd like to do as a church. We'd like to encourage you in that decision. And can I tell you how we're going to do that? It's real simple one of three ways. Okay. The first way is on that back of that bulletin that you got when you came in. There's a QR code. If some of you are older and you're like, I don't even know what a QR code is, no problem. I'm coming to you in a minute. But if you if you want to go to that QR code, it's going to take you to a place that maybe others of you will know how to do. And that's the chapel.com/christmas. It's going to ask you for your name and how we can contact you. So I don't want to like there's no bait and switch. Like if you're serious about Jesus, we want to just be an encouragement to you. If you need a Bible, if we can help you with some other information, and you can even tell us on that, how we can help you, how do you want us to? You want us to send you an email? Do you want us to give you a phone call? What? What does that look like? We're glad to do it. You tell us. But if that's your need, go to either that QR code or go to the chapel.com/christmas and let us know. Or thirdly, how about face to face. We'll have people that are at the connection center. And Pastor Dan will tell you about that in just a few minutes. Okay. We'd love to talk to you there. And if you need a Bible, we'd be glad to give you one. Whatever your need is, we'd love to help meet it, because we're just really glad you're here. And we want to make sure that you hear the beauty of the gospel. Now, let me tell you what we're about to do next. About to lead us in a song. But I want you to stay seated. I want to give some of you some time during when he's singing that if you need to go to that QR code and you need to fill that out, then please do. Please do. And then at some point along the line, as they move into another song, Nick will come out and he'll let you know that we're going to stand together to sing. But why don't you just take some time right now to reflect on the beauty of what Jesus has done? The branch who was broken on our tree so that we could be made whole.