-I want us to do something a little different today. I think if I asked you to most of you could tell me the Christmas story pretty much without a problem. So I want to look at it from the other side of the coin.
-here’s a simple fact: God plans ahead. There were prophecies about Jesus before He was born, and today I thought we’d look at those so you can kind of see how that all worked together when Jesus was born.
**Acts. 3:18 -> 18But God was fulfilling what all the prophets had foretold about the Messiah—that He must suffer these things. (NLT)
-now there are about fifty prophecies about the Messiah coming, not just His birth but how He’d live, miracles, etc. So what are the odds of that happening? I mean, how do we know that Jesus wasn’t just a fluke and happened to fulfill those prophecies?
-well, there was a guy who calculated what the odds were for just eight prophecies about Jesus to come true, what the odds were of it just happening.
-so the probability of just eight prophecies is this [SHOW #], one in one hundred million billion (or one hundred quadrillion). In all of human history, we haven’t even had that many people on the planet yet!
-now that’s a big number, so let’s see if we can make it a little more easy to understand. Imagine you had one hundred million billion silver dollars. That would be enough to cover the entire state of Texas two feet deep (those who went to Mexico, remember driving through Texas). Now let’s say you marked one of those silver dollars. What are the odds that you would walk into Texas blindfolded and find it on your first try? That’s the odds of just eight prophecies of the Messiah being fulfilled. That’s one big coincidence.
-now just wait. Mathematician Peter W. Stoner decided if that was true for eight, what are the odds of forty-eight prophecies coming true? Here’s the number [SHOW #]. From our knowledge, that’s a bigger number than there are atoms in the universe (but we may not have found some atoms yet…)
-and to clarify, we won’t go through every single prophecy because, well, that would take us days. We’re going to focus on Christmas ones (and not even all of them), because, well, it’s Christmas.
-so,
SON OF JACOB
-this basically means that the Messiah would be Jewish. Makes sense for the Savior of the Jewish people to be Jewish.
-this one actually comes from Balaam, the guy who had the talking donkey (remember that one?). He was a prophet and said this:
**Nu. 24:17a -> 17I see someone who will come someday, someone who will come, but not soon. A Star will come from Jacob; a Ruler will rise from Israel. (NCV)
-Balaam was saying that one day there will be a Savior coming to save Israel, someone from the descendants of Jacob, who was later named Israel (remember the fight with the angel?).
-so where does it say that about Jesus?
**Matt. 1:5-16 -> 5From Abraham to King David, the following ancestors are listed: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah and his brothers; then Perez and Zerah (their mother was Tamar), Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon, Boaz (his mother was Rahab), Obed (his mother was Ruth), Jesse, and King David. 11From David to the time when the people of Israel were taken into exile in Babylon, the following ancestors are listed: David, Solomon (his mother was the woman who had been Uriah’s wife), Rehoboam, Abijah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, Josiah, and Jehoiachin and his brothers. 16From the time after the exile in Babylon to the birth of Jesus, the following ancestors are listed: Jehoiachin, Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, Abiud, Eliakim, Azor, Zadok, Achim, Eliud, Eleazar, Matthan, Jacob, and Joseph, who married Mary, the mother of Jesus, who was called the Messiah. (GNT)
-that’s the abridged version (why I chose that translation, less begetting). But it’s true, Jesus was Jewish. He was a son of Jacob.
-so that narrows it down a little, but there are still a lot of people who are Jewish, what about a little more prophecy?
FROM THE HOUSE OF DAVID
-remember, the Messiah needed to be king. To be a king you have to be a descendant of a king, part of the royal family. So where was that prophesied?
**Jer. 23:5-6 -> 5“For the time is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will raise up a righteous descendant from King David’s line. He will be a King who rules with wisdom. He will do what is just and right throughout the land. 6And this will be His name: ‘The Lord Is Our Righteousness.’ In that day Judah will be saved, and Israel will live in safety. (NLT)
-that name, “The Lord Is Our Righteousness” is one of the names or titles of God, Yahweh Tsidkenu.
-or another one that we hear every Christmas:
**Is. 9:6-7 -> 6For a Child is born to us, a Son is given to us. The government will rest on His shoulders. And He will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7His government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of His ancestor David for all eternity. The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will make this happen! (NLT)
-so we know the Messiah will have to be an ancestor of David. Well, look back at our list, Jesus’ ancestry, [SHOW MATT. 1:5-16 AGAIN] David’s in there (on both Mary and Joseph’s side I might add). But it’s pointed out again in the story:
**Luke 2:4a -> 4 And because Joseph was a descendant of King David… (NLT)
-so that narrows it down a little, but David lived almost 1000 years before Jesus, there would have been a lot of descendants. So let’s get a little more in depth.
BORN IN BETHLEHEM
-we all know the name of Bethlehem now because of Christmas, but trust me, if Jesus hadn’t been born there, you wouldn’t know where it was. We’re talking a few hundred people.
-but Jesus being born there, God let them know before it happened.
**Mi. 5:2 -> 2But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village among all the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel will come from you, One whose origins are from the distant past. (NLT)
-hmm, a ruler who has ancient origins, like the Messiah.
-and we know Jesus was born in Bethlehem. That verse about Joseph being a descendant of David, let’s finish it.
**Luke 2:4-7a -> 4And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. 5He took with him Mary, his fiancée, who was now obviously pregnant. 6And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. 7She gave birth to her first child, a son. (NLT)
-I like how she was obviously pregnant. Anyway…
-so Jesus was born in Bethlehem. But I’m sure over the years lots of people have been born in Bethlehem. So how can we narrow it down more?
KINGS WILL BRING HIM GIFTS
-now we’re getting somewhere. I’m pretty sure that only so many Jewish kids born in Bethlehem had kings come and visit them.
-so for this we’re going to Psalm 72, which is a psalm generally thought of as being about the Messiah, it tells of how He will rescue the poor, help the oppressed, love them and redeem them, like Jesus. Here’s a section from the middle.
**Ps. 72:9-11 -> 9Let the people of the desert bow down to him, and make his enemies lick the dust. 10 Let the kings of Tarshish and the faraway lands bring him gifts. Let the kings of Sheba and Seba bring their presents to him. 11Let all kings bow down to him and all nations serve him. (NCV)
-I think that’s part of the story that we all know and love.
**Matt. 2:9-11 -> 9After the wise men heard the king, they left. The star that they had seen in the east went before them until it stopped above the place where the Child was. 10When the wise men saw the star, they were filled with joy. 11They came to the house where the Child was and saw Him with His mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped Him. They opened their gifts and gave Him treasures of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. (NCV)
-if anyone wants to know what to get me for Christmas, there you go.
-and as an added bonus, I still have some frankincense and myrrh from when we talked about it in NewSong a few years ago, so if you’d like some, here you go, take a little bit, but not all of it [PASS OUT].
-but wait, there’s more to that part of the story:
THE STAR
-we already mentioned in Numbers how a “Star” would come out of Jacob’s line, but here’s another older verse for you.
**Gen. 1:!4 -> 14Then God said, “Let there be lights in the sky to separate day from night. These lights will be used for signs, seasons, days, and years. (NCV)
-now some people translated this mean that the stars would be used for signs to tell the seasons and days, some people translated it to mean there would be signs in the sky to tell of important events, and the Persian people, they believed the stars were signs.
-we just read how the wise men saw the star, but here’s a little piece of trivia for you. Ernest Martin from Griffith Park Observatory came out with a study almost thirty years ago that showed that two years after Jesus was born (right about the time people think the wise men showed up) that there was converging in the sky of nine planets and stars, Mercury, Saturn, Venus, Jupiter (those were the two bright ones my the moon last week), Regulus, also known as the king star because it’s so bright by itself. So all these would have looked like one star in the sky. And when they were in the sky, they just happened to be in the southwest, kind of like Bethlehem is southwest of Jerusalem, so if they saw the star from Jerusalem like the Matthew says and walked towards it, they would have hit Bethlehem and found Jesus.
-that’s pretty cool, and a pretty precise time frame, but there was another hint as to when Jesus would be born.
ALL THE BABIES WOULD BE KILLED
-remember that part of the story? There’s only one other person who went through a similar thing, Moses. And he was used to free the people of Israel, just he did it physically and Jesus did it spiritually (see the connection?).
-in the story told by Matthew, he quotes a verse from Jeremiah:
**Jer. 31:15 -> 15This is what the Lord says: “A voice was heard in Ramah of painful crying and deep sadness: Rachel crying for her children. She refused to be comforted, because her children are dead!” (NCV)
-it’s really a sad part of the story, but it definitely ties what the Jews would look to as a Savior with the Moses connection, and it narrows down the time frame even more. There may have been more than one “bright star”, but this?
**Matt. 2:16-17 -> 16Herod was furious when he realized that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, based on the wise men’s report of the star’s first appearance. 17Herod’s brutal action fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah. (NLT)
-so again, this narrows down even more the possible time and place that the Messiah could have been born.
-but wait there’s more.
ESCAPE TO EGYPT
-remember, Mary, Joseph and Jesus ran away when the babies were all killed so Jesus would live. They escaped to Egypt, not the first place you would think for the Messiah to appear from. But they did. And it was all a part of God’s plan.
**Ho. 11:1 -> 1The Lord says, “When Israel was a child, I loved him and called him out of Egypt as my son. (GNT)
-the “son” coming out of Egypt. Remember again, this would be a tie in to the Exodus story, so the Jewish people would see the connections and see how the Messiah would save them and set them free like Moses did fifteen hundred years before.
-so Jesus, he went to Egypt.
**Matt. 2:13-15 -> 13After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the Child and His mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the Child to kill Him.” 14That night Joseph left for Egypt with the Child and Mary, His mother, 15and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “I called my Son out of Egypt.” (NLT)
-so we’ve narrowed it down even more. Another prophecy that Jesus fulfilled in the Christmas story. But there’s one more prophecy that I’m sure He’s the only one to live through.
THE VIRGIN BIRTH
-that’s right, I can safely say that so far, other than Anakin Skywalker, no one other than Jesus has been born from a virgin.
-and just like everything else, God planned it all out in advance and told the prophets.
**Is. 7:14 -> 14The Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be pregnant. She will have a son, and she will name Him Immanuel. (NCV)
-this is one so far that only Jesus has fulfilled through Mary.
**Luke 1:26-38 -> 26During Elizabeth’s sixth month of pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27to a virgin. She was engaged to marry a man named Joseph from the family of David. Her name was Mary. 28The angel came to her and said, “Greetings! The Lord has blessed you and is with you.” 29But Mary was very startled by what the angel said and wondered what this greeting might mean. 30The angel said to her, “Don’t be afraid, Mary; God has shown you His grace. 31Listen! You will become pregnant and give birth to a Son, and you will name Him Jesus. 32He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of King David, His ancestor. 33He will rule over the people of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will never end.” 34 Mary said to the angel, “How will this happen since I am a virgin?” 35The angel said to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will cover you. For this reason the Baby will be holy and will be called the Son of God. 36Now Elizabeth, your relative, is also pregnant with a son though she is very old. Everyone thought she could not have a baby, but she has been pregnant for six months. 37God can do anything!” 38Mary said, “I am the servant of the Lord. Let this happen to me as you say!” Then the angel went away. (NCV)
-after talking about the other prophecies, do you see some of them in this short conversation? And the biggest and baddest of them all, the virgin birth is told about here.
-and with that, that’s eight prophecies about Christmas, that number we mentioned at the beginning with the silver dollars covering Texas, fulfilling all of these would be that likely.
-but there’s one more really important thing I want you to think about this Christmas. This is an amazing story and it’s full of miracles and signs from God. But if you read all four gospels, this story, one of the biggest holidays we celebrate in the church, and definitely in our society, the Christmas story only takes up 0.6% of the gospels. Less than one percent is focused on Jesus birth.
-why? Because the birth of Jesus is not nearly as important as the life of Jesus. The only reason all this happened, all these miracles and prophecies was so God could say, “See that? Now, pay attention for the rest of His life.”
-because here’s the sad fact. Almost everyone knows the story of Jesus’ birth. Maybe a few less know the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. But very few people know about His life in between.
-the focus of Jesus’ life was not on the beginning, and we shouldn’t make it our focus too. Over Christmas, try reading the story of His life, not just His birth and see what you can get out or it!
