This sermon idea is not original to me as the sermon outline was taken from Proclaim magazine - Winter 2001-02. Text is my fleshing out of the outline.
Sermon Series: Christmas Sermons
Sermon Title: Disruptions of The Christmas Season
Sermon Text: Matt 1:18-25
Introduction:
Please stand with me this morning in reverence to the reading of God’s word. 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… Do you have high expectations for your Christmas this year? I am not just speaking about getting a lot of stuff or that perfect gift, but what you expect out of this Christmas season.
So many of us want Christmas to be that perfect time of year where everything goes right and when everyone gets along and you have time to do all the things you want to do…
• We see our kids playing together in harmony…
• We see our church family getting along with no problems…
• We walk down the street and strangers smile at us and wave…
HELLO! WAKE UP! This is NOT the Twilight Zone… how many of you here this morning believe that these things are going to happen for you this Christmas season?
I guess what I am trying to say is that our expectations of the Christmas season and the realities of life are usually NOT one and the same… are they?
There was a middle aged woman who wanted her husband to buy her some beautiful jewelry and a nice outfit or a nice expensive coat, but she didn’t want to just come out and say it, so she wrote a note and left it on the refrigerator… the note said…
Honey, for Christmas this year I want you to get me something that will make me look beautiful!
On Christmas morning she was like a little kid… she got up and made her husband get up with her and dragged him downstairs. She unwrapped his gift and it was an “exercise bike”… her expectations did not meet with reality!
I believe if I were to ask many of you here this morning I would find that you’re expectations of Christmas rarely meet with the reality of what actually happens.
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 in reality, this time of year is probably the most difficult time of year for MANY people because something has disrupted their expectations of what Christmas is supposed to be like!
That disruption could be a sickness, a surgery, an accident, a death or divorce in the family, being shipped overseas, or loneliness. For many people, the supposed happiness of this joyous season is disrupted by life itself!
We all look forward to Christmas… at least I think we all do… We want it to be a time of joy and peace and harmony… a time without conflict, but there is something I want you to know… the very first Christmas, the very reason we celebrate Christmas today, was NOT a time of perfect peace and harmony, in fact it was a difficult time filled with all sorts of turmoil!
There was a major disruption in the lives of Joseph and Mary during this time, and what I want you to hear this morning is that disruptions are a part of life and they are going to come our way, it is how we handle these disruptions that will determine how ‘joyful’ or ‘peaceful’ our lives will be…
The first observation I want to make about disruptions is that…
1. Disruptions can happen at any good time (v.18)…
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.
Matt 1:18 (NASB)
Have you ever noticed that the disruptions of life never show up when you are ready for them or when you are expecting them! I once heard it said that life happens to us while we are making plans… and how true that is!
I want us to take a look at the plans that were being made in Nazareth by Joseph and Mary. A wedding was coming and they were planning all the details of their upcoming life.
But it was at this special time in their lives that a very powerful disruption in their lives came about… An angel appeared to Mary and told her that she would miraculously give birth to Jesus… the Christ child… the long-awaited Messiah of Israel.
But his news was not that she would have a son after she got married but that she was going to be pregnant RIGHT NOW and she would have the baby before she ever was intimate with her husband…
The wonderful news of her being favored by God and giving birth to the Son of God was difficult to hear and even more difficult to tell. Mary had to tell Joseph what she had been told by Gabriel, the Angel.
How would she tell him? Would he believe her story? And even if he DID believe her story what was he going to do? Would he be willing to take on the great and enormous responsibility this would bring to him? And what about her wedding and her honeymoon?
What about the dreams she had about this marriage? This news that had come to her was NOT her plan… in fact it was a major disruption in her plan, yet we find Mary accepting God’s plan and she did NOT allow this disruption to shake her faith in God.
I can only imagine that for a short time Mary may have wanted to say, NO… I don’t want to do this! But she didn’t, she was submissive and obedient to God’s call on her life.
And from our passage this morning we know how Joseph responded. We know that at first he did NOT believe her story, but he was going to deal with her in a discreet manner so as NOT to embarrass her.
All the plans he had made were now cast to the side, how could this have happened? His plans for a happy home with this woman he loved so much… were seemingly torn to shreds right before his eyes. His life as well as hers had been powerfully disrupted and changed!
And like Mary and Joseph we all know how disruption can and does come quickly in our lives and it disrupts and changes our plans… and worse than that… it does not tell you when it is coming… and it is NEVER a good time for it to show up!
Sometimes we seem to know that a bad day is coming, like this article I once read… it was entitled, “You know it’s going to be a bad day when…”
• You see the 60 minutes crew in your office…
• You call the suicide prevention hotline and they put you on hold…
• You turn on the news and they are showing emergency evacuation routes out of the city…
• Your twin sister forgot your birthday…
• Your car horn gets stuck and stays stuck when you are behind a group of ‘Hell’s Angels” on the interstate…
• Or when you put both contacts in ONE eye…
In this life we can NEVER know when disruptions will come. I am sure that Susan Chapman NEVER in her wildest imagination could foresee the terrible disruption that has come into her life! And again I say, it is not THAT we have distractions it is WHEN we do have distractions then what are we going to do about it?
We need to have a game plan, we need to understand how important this is because, and this is my 2 observation this morning…
2. Disruptions can send us down the wrong path (v.19)
19 And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly.
Matt 1:19 (NASB)
If we are not careful, how we respond to any disruption in our lives can send us down the wrong path. We can see that Joseph almost went down the wrong path.
We can see that he truly did not believe Mary and as much as he loved her and wanted her to be his wife, there was nothing he could do but divorce her (in society’s eyes)
The betrothal (ancient engagement) was much more binding than what we would consider here in today’s society. A betrothal was actually the first step in the marriage process. Joseph had the right to have Mary stoned to death for unfaithfulness’, yet because he was a good man he did not wish to harm or embarrass her.
The Bible says he was going to divorce her privately. This was Joseph’s human response to a powerful and life-altering disruption in his life. But when we look back on this… we can see with 20/20 vision that decision would have been the worst ever made.
So often when we face an unexpected disruption in our lives we have what I call a ‘knee jerk’ reaction… we try to fix it by doing something drastic. And when we make decisions in that frame of mind we usually, almost 99.9% of the time make the wrong one…
But if we were better informed on the matter we may make better decisions that we do now…
Mrs. Jones came home from shopping one day and she saw her 5 darling children sitting in the middle of the living room floor playing with something.
She could not see what it was so she walked over to see what they were enjoying and MUCH to her surprise she saw them playing with 5 baby skunks.
She began to scream and told the children to run, so all 5 children picked up their skunk and began to run…not knowing why Mom was screaming. When they did this, Mom began to scream even louder and it scared the children who then squeezed the skunks… and… well you can figure out what happened next!
So many times we allow a disruption in our lives to cause us to make rash and hasty decisions that we end up regretting and suffering for… We have to be careful that when disruption comes into our lives that we don’t just react to our feelings and our fears… because when we do… we are in for even MORE trouble!
Disruptions in life NEVER come at a ‘good’ time and when they do we need to be careful how we react to them, because we can get ourselves into even greater difficulty if we react in the wrong way…
But the 3rd observation I can see when it comes to disruption in life is that…
3. The key to handling disruptions is to get God’s take on them (v.20-23)
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." Matt 1:20-23 (NASB)
Can you imagine Joseph trying to go to sleep after what Mary had just told him? I can just imagine that he was tossing and turning because he really did not know what to do. He loved her, but this was an impossible situation.
So Joseph came to a decision in his mind to divorce Mary secretly and try to make this whole thing go away. I guess this calmed Joseph enough that he was able to fall asleep, but we can be thankful that God did not give up on Joseph.
In his sleep, God comes to Joseph in a dream and tells him to believe what Mary had told him and NOT to worry that all would work out just fine.
God instructs Joseph on just how important this birth is going to be and WHO is going to be born. Can you imagine his excitement when he finally realized that the Messiah had come and God had chosen Mary and Joseph to shepherd the Messiah during his youth.
Joseph received God’s perspective and thankfully he listened to God and took heed to God’s directions. I know that so often we have a disruption in our life and we toss and turn over what to do, and then we try to come up with a solution on our own… when all along we should have been seeking out God’s solution!
Even worse, many of us receive God’s solution and then we choose to ignore it and insist on doing what WE think is the best thing to do… and it ultimately leads us to TROUBLE and heartache.
As the writer of Proverbs tells us in Prov 3:5-6, we are NOT to seek our own understanding about things, but we are to seek God’s understanding because God will NOT lead us down the wrong path!
When we run into disruption in our lives we can help ourselves a great deal by remembering to seek God first and we can do this by remembering 3 very simple words… prayer, perspective and providence.
The first thing we must always do is pray… go to God for his direction and guidance in any situation…
The 2nd thing is that we must understand God’s perspective. God sees the big picture and knows what is around the corner in life. Our perspective is very narrow and short sighted, but God’s is all knowing… we need to lean on His perspective of things.
Finally I believe we must keep in mind the providence of God. God is in control and nothing is going to happen to you that God does NOT know about. The psalmist tells us in Ps 139 that there is NO place we can go or be without being in God’s presence!
In other words, NOTHING takes God by surprise. It may floor us and leave us baffled, but understand that we do not have the providence of God in our minds, but we can know the providence of God if we go to Him in prayer and if we study His word!
I want you to understand that God is in control and if a disruption comes your way, God is NOT wasting your time, but He has a plan. He allows disruption to teach us or so that something special can be accomplished because of the situation, we must always trust in the Providence of God!
Getting God’s perspective is what really saved Joseph from making the biggest mistake of his life… When those disruptions of life begin to take you down remember that we must be careful in how we respond and we must trust in God and His providence, by getting God’s perspective on matters.
Finally this morning I want to share the 4th observation that I can see in this passage is that…
4. Disruptions can redirect our lives in a new and positive way (v.24-25)
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 1:24, 25 (NASB)
Although their plans were disrupted by this event in their life, we can see that Joseph and Mary both were submissive and sought God.
And we can praise God today because of that wonderful disruption of their life… because it is why we celebrate this season… it is why we can know salvation… it is why we can know we are going to heaven!
I cannot imagine the responsibility of being the human parents of the Son of God… it took them in a direction that they were NOT planning on going, but with their submissive obedience they were blessed of God.
I want you to ask yourself, “Could God ever do that for me?” Not be the parents of God’s Son… because that was a one time deal. But what I am speaking about this morning is could God send a disruption into your life that was so powerful it changed you so much that you began to rely on God for all parts of your life!
A disruption that would cause you to lean on Him and He would use that disruption and set your life on a totally new and exciting track that you never would have dreamed about!
Chuck Colson was on the fast track in the political world as he had become Richard Nixon’s right hand man for handling situations in and around the White House.
But when Nixon resigned in disgrace, Colson was charged and convicted and sentenced to prison for obstruction of justice. Colson served 7 months in prison… while he was in prison Chuck Colson was saved!
Colson tells us that he cannot imagine what his life would have turned out to be like had he NOT been disrupted in a mighty way with his time in prison. In 1976 Chuck Colson founded the Prison Fellowship that reaches thousands of inmates each year.
In 1993 Colson rec’d the Templeton Award for progress in religion and the $1 million dollar prize that goes with it. Colson said, “out of tragedy and adversity came great blessings, I shudder to think what I would have been if I had not gone to prison…”
What seemed like a political career headed for the top, God disrupted his plans and implemented his own plans and placed Colson in a ministry to reach many MORE than he ever could in politics.
When disruption comes your way, instead of complaining and whining about it, I challenge you to say, “…God, are you using this disruption for the advancement of Your kingdom and to make me grow as a believer?” And then prepare your self for marvelous things from God.
I want us to reflect on just how much of a disruption Mary and Joseph had in their lives… it was tremendous, but we find that they did not panic and they sought God’s direction and guidance and they did not go off and do things their way… and I am thankful… SO THANKFUL for their obedience!
Today you may have a great disruption in your life…
• It may be that you have lost a loved one…
• It may be that you have lost your job…
• It may be that you have medical problems…
• It may be that your family is NOT easy to get along with…
Whatever the disruption is, I urge you to understand that disruptions are GONNA happen. The book of James tells us that as believers we should “…count it all joy my brethren WHEN trials and tribulations [disruptions in life] come our way…”
We are gonna experience disruption but when we do we must learn NOT to panic and try to handle it on our own… because when we try to do things OUR way we end up going down the WRONG path and things get even worse!
We need to understand that when disruptions come our way that our view of them is very limited but God’s perspective is eternal and all knowing! God can see what we cannot… trust His perspective on your troubles!
Finally today we must always understand that no matter how difficult the disruption may be God is going to work it out for our good. There is a promise in Rom 8:28 where the Apostle Paul shares with us, “…all things work together for the GOOD of those who love Him and are called according to His grace…”
The disruptions in our life may seem terrible, but God can use them to place us in a better place in life… to put us on a better path so that His kingdom is served better! We must learn to trust God!
This morning you have heard about the disruptions of life and how God is there for the believer. It does not mean that the believer NEVER faces difficulty or trouble, but simply that God is with them… regardless of what is happening!
You have heard how Mary was told by Gabriel that she was going to give birth to a son, and they were to call him Jesus. This baby born so many yrs ago in a small indistinct stable in Bethlehem is the Christ… the long awaited Anointed of God… the Savior and deliverer of sinful souls.
This babe we speak about in the manger one day stretched His arms out wide and died on a cross for you and me and our sin! He died that you may have life in Him!
.Today I call on ALL here to surrender their heart to Christ. For those who have professed Christ as Savior, confess your sin to Him and be cleansed and restored!
For those here who do NOT know Him as Savior, come to Him and He will clean you up. You don’t have to try to start living better… let Him do the cleaning and He will lead you to a better life… He will save your soul…
He will rescue you from the darkness of this world! He and he alone can do this… what are your waiting for, as Bro Jerry comes I urge you to come and kneel and surrender to God today…
