Iwant To Be Close To God Series

INTRODUCTION

• THE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS VIDEO (Sermonvideo.com)

• SLIDE #1

• How many of you have watched any of the Christmas movies or specials yet? I love watching “It’s a Wonderful Life”, “A Christmas Story”, “Frosty The Snowman”, “Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer”, “How The Grinch stole Christmas”, and one I have not seen a while, “The Little Drummer Boy.”

• When you think of these great movies and shows (except possibly “The Christmas Story”) all of them have something in common, they all have something miraculous that happens to make people see the meaning of Christmas the show wants you to see.

• With the exception of the “Little Drummer Boy”, the others shows miss the real meaning of Christmas by focusing on the importance of family or that it is better to give than receive.

• There is more to Christmas than that. From our video clip it seems the meaning of Christmas is rather elusive to some.

• Today we are going to finish our “iWant Series” by looking at what I see at the ultimate iWant, that is iWant to be close to God.

• When you break down Christmas, this is the real meaning of the holiday. God did some miraculous things to make it possible for us to be close to Him. He did some miraculous things in order for us to be able to see the real meaning of Christmas.

• Today let us journey through Matthew 1:18-25 together so we can see what miraculous things were done so our desire to be close to God could be made possible!

• Let us begin by looking at our text.

• SLIDE #2

• Matthew 1:18-25 ( ESV ) 18Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. 20But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: 23“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). 24When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, 25but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

• SLIDE #3

SERMON

We are able to be close to God because of:

I. A MIRACULOUS EVENT FROM GOD. (18-20)

• When we look at our text we see that we have a young lady who is pregnant. This young lady was what we would call engaged to a man named Joseph.

• We are told Joseph is her husband. In Mary’s day, when you agreed to get married, you entered into what was basically a contract. Your engagement lasted a year and the bride to be would live with the parents or another family member. During this engagement, if you cheated on the man, it would be treated as adultery.

• Now Joseph did not want to bring shame on Mary, but he KNEW he was not the father, and it would be hard to believe a girl telling you she was going to have a virgin birth.

• Nevertheless, Joseph was going to quietly divorce her. He needed to do that because his family would have been stained by this also if he married this girl who broke her engagement covenant.

• The interesting part of this is the fact that Mary was with child even though she was still a virgin.

• Notice also that the text tells us that she was pregnant before they came together.

• Listen to what Mary says about this when it is being told to her by an angel in Luke 1:34.

• SLIDE #4

• Luke 1:34 ( ESV ) 34And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

• Mary is surprised to say the least and if anyone would know if she were still a virgin, it would be Mary.

• Now Joseph went to sleep, he was pondering what to do about this situation when an angel of the Lord came to him in a dream and told Joseph that Mary was indeed pregnant and her child was conceived by the Holy Spirit.