Christmas Through The Eyes Of The Father Series

Christmas through the eyes of the Father

Well, for most of us the family gatherings have passed, the meals have been shared, the gifts have been exchanged and several are probably ready for a long nap. If you are like me, you really love Christmas, but sometimes feel emotionally down the day after Christmas.

You look around and about the only remnants left of Christmas is the Tree. Some of us may be taking down our tree today, and many of us will leave our trees up for several more days – even a week or two. We’ll probably take our tree down sometime around the 1st of the year.

See, I love the Christmas tree – I love the beauty of the tree – I love the lights – I love the smell – well, I used to love the smell. See, we became sell-outs while we lived here in Moweaqua – December 1996. I like to call that the Christmas that almost let to court. It was quite an ordeal – I won’t go into the details – but the end result, after two live trees bit the dust and we ended up w/ a “Charlie Brown” tree, the Taylor’s became artificial tree people.

Today we are in the final part of our three-part Christmas series entitled Viewing Christmas.

12/12 – Christmas through the eyes of Mary – Luke 1 – the Call, the Cost and the Courage of embracing God’s will for her life.

12/19 – Christmas through the eyes of Joseph – Matthew 1 – being a righteous man of God and listening to the voice of God.

Today – 12/26 – we are looking at Christmas through the eyes of the Father

- You can’t celebrate Christmas without understanding the Tree.

- Another way of communicating my point is this:

“Christmas through the eyes of the Father is the picture of 3 trees.”

1. The first tree of Christmas must be the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

- Genesis 2 and 3 – our past shame

- You may be thinking – how can you equate the fall of man w/ Christmas?

- Christmas became needed when Adam and Eve ate the fruit.

- Look at Genesis chapter two – God has created the heavens and the earth. He has created man – Adam and gives him everything he would possibly need to survive – a garden in the east, in Eden – listen to verses 8 and 9.

- Verse fifteen tells us: “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” – everything sounds good.

- Look at verse 16 and 17 – “the LORD God commands the man, ‘you are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.’”

- Sound pretty good to me – how about you? Any tree in the entire garden, except for one?

- Can you imagine if God told you, “you can eat from any restaurant in Decatur, anyone, except for Red Lobster – but if you eat at the Lobster, as my mom calls it, you will surely die.” - I think I’d hit the Texas Roadhouse, Carlos, Cheddars, Steak N Shake – I’m not a big buffet fan, but maybe Hometown or Country Buffet’s – I’d steer clear of Red Lobster – well, I say I would, but it might be kind of difficult to pull off – the temptation – what am I missing?

- The narrative doesn’t end in chapter two – after God creates a suitable helper for Adam – her name is Eve – we get ready for the rest of our story.

- Look at verse 25 of chapter two – “the man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” This is innocence – this is pre-fall – this is a state of total communion w/ the Creater, God.

- But it doesn’t last for long – look at chapter three – you probably know the story – Eve and Adam are tempted by the serpent “Did God really say, ‘you must not eat from any tree in the garden?’”

- Look at verses 1 through 6 – we can call this paradise lost – and it changes them and changes the world forever.

- It was so tempting – so enticing – such a potential thrill – sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Sounds like the downward spiral of sin we see in James 1:14 and 15.

- Romans 3:23 tells us all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God – and this fall began right here in Genesis 3