Disruptions Of The Christmas Season Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: December 21, 2010 (edited)

Date Preached: December 17, 2006; Repreached Dec 26, 2010

Where Preached: OZHBC (AM) OPBC (AM)

Sermon Details:

Sermon Series: Christmas Sermons

Sermon Title: Disruptions of The Christmas Season

Sermon Text: Matt 1:18-25 [NASB]

Introduction:

This morning I will be reading from Matt 1:18-25 out of the NASB. Please follow along in your Bible or you can follow along on the screen…

18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. 19 And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. 20 But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 21 "She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins." 22 Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 "BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD AND SHALL BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL," which translated means, "GOD WITH US." 24 And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, 25 but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus. Matt 1:18-25 (NASB)

Let me ask you a question this morning… DID you have really high expectations for your Christmas this year? Did you expect a lot of stuff? Did you expect that perfect gift? Just what was it that you expected out of this Christmas season?

I know that SO many of us want our Christmas season to be that picture perfect time of year where everything goes right! When everyone in our family gets along! AND when you have ALL the time you need to do the things you want to do…

We see our kids playing together in harmony…

We want our family to ALL get along…

We want our church family to get along with no problems or issues…

We want to walk down the street and have all the strangers smile at us and wave…

HELLO! WAKE UP! This is NOT the Twilight Zone! Now for all of you that had these things happen to you this Christmas season… raise your hand!

I guess what I am really trying to say is that so often we set our expectations for the Christmas season REALLY, REALLY high! AND we discover that the realities of life are usually NOT what we thought they would be…

Let me give you a little example of what I mean: I heard that there was a woman who REALLY wanted her husband to buy her some beautiful jewelry and a nice outfit! However, she didn’t want to just come out and say it, so she wrote him a note and left it in his wallet…Here is what the note said:

Honey, for Christmas this year I want you to get me something that will make me look beautiful!

Christmas morning she was giddy with excitement because her husband had been dropping hints about her present… and like a little kid she got up at 6am and made her husband get up with her! She then dragged him downstairs and went straight to the tree!

Her husband pulled her present out from under the tree and she tore into it with the excitement of a 5 yr old boy! When she ripped off the wrapping paper she discovered that he had bought her an “exercise bike”! Her HIGH expectations did not meet with her reality!

And I guess if I were to ask some of you here this morning… that I would find that your very HIGH expectations of Christmas DID NOT meet with the cold hard reality of what actually happened this Christmas.

BUT that is NOT the way it is supposed to be is it? We sing songs like, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year…” or “the hap-happiest time of the year”

But statistics reveal to us that this time of year is probably the most difficult time of year for MANY people because something has disrupted their rather lofty expectations of what Christmas is supposed to be!

That disruption could take the form of a sickness, an emergency surgery, a heart attack, an automobile accident, a death or divorce in the family, for our military believers it could mean receiving orders to be shipped overseas or deployed into a warzone… For many people, the supposed happiness of this joyous season is disrupted by life itself!