Dennis Tuuri

been talking about in the last month or two from night to day. The Lord’s day is celebrated typically morning to morning. The Old Testament Sabbath was celebrated night to night. The definitive change of the world from night to day has been accomplished through the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. We read the herald of that in Matthew’s gospel today in chapter 1. And in today’s sermon, we’ll be talking about Matthew chapter 1 and four names, the four prominent names of it.

Please stand for the reading of God’s word. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham begat Isaac. Isaac begat Jacob. And Jacob begot Judah and his brothers. Judah begat Perez and Zerah by Tamar. Perez begat Hezron. And Hezron begat Ram. Ram begat Amminadab. Amminadab begot Nahshon. And Nahshon begot Salmon. And Salmon begat Boaz by Rahab. Boaz begot Obed by Ruth. Obed begot Jesse.

And Jesse begot David the king. David the king begat Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah. Solomon begot Rehoboam. Rehoboam begat Abijah. And Abijah begot Asa. Asa begat Jehoshaphat. And Jehoshaphat begot Joram and Joram begot Uzziah. Uzziah begot Jotham. And Jotham begot Ahaz and Ahaz begot Hezekiah. Hezekiah begot Manasseh. Manasseh begot Amon. And Amon begot Josiah. Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers.

About the time they were carried away to Babylon. And after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconiah begot Shealtiel. And Shealtiel begot Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel begot Abiud. Abiud begot Eliakim. And Eliakim begot Azor. And Azor begat Zadok. Zadok begat Achim. And Achim begot Eliud. And Eliud begot Eleazar. Eleazar begat Matthan. And Matthan begot Jacob. And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ.

So all the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations. From David into the captivity in Babylon are 14 generations. And from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are 14 generations. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. After his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph her husband being a just man and not wanting to make her a public example was minded to put her away secretly.

But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit, and she will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is translated God with us.

Then Joseph being aroused from sleep did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn son. And he called his name Jesus. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your scriptures. We thank you for your spirit given to us in the basis of this Jesus’s work. Help us to understand that work. Help us to be transformed by your scriptures today.

May your Holy Spirit lighten up this text to our understanding and transform and change us, Lord God, as a result of it. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen. Please be seated.

Well, it’s a wonderful time of year. We are children here, the young ones. I suppose most of them are patiently or maybe impatiently waiting for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s, whatever the tradition is in your particular family in terms of gifts.

You know, you always hear it bemoaned, the commercialization of Christmas, doesn’t bother me that much. I mean, it isn’t good that people focus too much on things, but on the other hand, as we said several years ago in the preaching from the book of Esther, when God grants victory to his people, they sent presents to one another to celebrate victory and the giving of presents on Christmas Day as a reminder that we have been delivered definitively into all victories through the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And it’s a good time to give presents. It’s a good time to make our children wait patiently for those presents. It’s a good time to train our children that it’s more blessed to give than to receive. When you hit my age, you know that hopefully most of the adults here recognize they have much more joy out of giving gifts to people than they do receiving them. We weren’t like that as children. It’s a time for parents to be patient with their children as they learn these lessons.

It’s a time to serve one another through the giving of gifts and the bringing of joy. And it’s a time to remember that the great victory Jesus has affected has two prongs to it according to the scriptures. It is the deliverance from all of our enemies, but it’s also the deliverance from our sins first and foremost. That’s our great enemy. We talked this morning in Psalm high school Sunday school class about fourth book of the psalter hinging on the pivot point of Psalm 98.

Before that is a psalm of affliction from external enemies and after that a few psalms after in a matching up in a chiastic way is a psalm about internal afflictions from our sin. The kingdom moves definitively forward at the coming of Jesus and we move more and more into understanding our great afflictions come from our own sin. And this is a time of year to rejoice that God has given us victory and given us all things that are necessary for salvation through the work of our savior.

Many ways to address the text before us. One of the synoptic Gospel texts of the coming of Jesus, the birth of our savior that we typically will have read this time of year. I’ve preached from this genealogy before and talked about the women for instance that are in it. The sin of some men that are evident in it, the kingly ancestry of the Lord Jesus Christ, both related back to his father and his mother’s genealogy in the Gospel of Luke.

I think it’s interesting to note that in this gospel, it begins with tying Jesus to Abraham, not back to Adam that comes in the gospel of Luke. Matthew is written for a Jewish audience primarily and it pictures Jesus coming as the son of Abraham and it ends not with a Jewish reflection on his genealogy but now the worldwide implications of the gospel at the great commission. So we begin with the Jewish genealogy and we end with the fact that Jew gentile distinction is now gone and all the nations will be discipled.

There’s many things we could talk about from the text before us but I’ve chosen to very simply talk on the four predominant or preeminent names in this first chapter. Jesus is the son of Abraham. He’s the son of David. He is named Jesus because he saves his people from their sins. And he is Emmanuel, God with us. So Abraham, David, Jesus, and Emmanuel. And each of these names can bring reflections upon particular character attributes that really are the great gifts of God to an impatient, selfish, sin-ridden people that are isolated because of that.

Jesus comes as the greater Abraham bringing patience. He gives us his patience. He comes as the greater David, the servant king. He gives us a servant mindset as the way to exercise proper authority in the world. He comes to affect our deliverance from sin. And he comes to assure us that he is with us always even until the end of the age as this gospel finishes off by saying. So let’s think of these four names and let’s have this reflection of these four names be part of our reflection this week as we rejoice and celebrate the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ during this particular time of year.

And may we not let the Grinches kind of ruin this celebration for us by various means and difficulties. Let us rejoice. Let us hear the heralding forth of the good news of the coming of Christ and its implications. We come today to celebrate and we celebrate today the advent of the descendant of Abraham, the son of Abraham. The text tells us the coming of patience and blessings to the world.

You know, we have these four advent candles all now all lit and we can think of these four names as we think of those candles and the four implications from this text of the coming of the savior. And you know it may not be we always think of patience most of us related to Job. But the scriptures do I think give us good reason to talk about the patience of Abraham.

In Hebrews 6:12 we read this do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For when God made a promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself. The promise to Abraham, saying, “Surely blessing, I will bless you, multiplying, I will multiply you.” And so after he, that is Abraham, had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.

So Abraham is given to us in the scriptures as a picture of patience. Now, I’ve got in on your outline a reminder of what we’ve talked about in this church. And for those of you that are newer here, you may not have heard this or reflected on this. But as we read the book of Genesis, we can sort of reflect on three falls of man and three recoveries of falls and character attributes that we can associate with those.

Adam comes along and his great sin is impatience. God has said he’ll get to that tree of the knowledge of good and evil ruling, but he’s got to go through the tree of life. He has to patiently wait for God to give him that fruit. All trees, God said, were for fruit to mankind. But not yet, Adam. Not yet. Wait until you grow up, before you take the car keys and go taking it down the road. Wait until you’re a man and have proven yourself responsible to a woman’s father before you try to enter into marriage.

Wait patiently before you use that skill saw. You’re liable to saw off your thumb. Well, Adam wasn’t patient. Adam ate the fruit because he believed the lie of the serpent. Adam was impatient. Not waiting for all the good gifts that he properly wanted. We want the good things, but we must see them as coming to us as mediated properly through God. And when we seek for these things on our own, we’re become impatient.

We’re like little children. Little children not patient at all. You know that Ecclesiastes, the child first thing he gets up wants food, can’t wait. And we’re supposed to have princes who don’t when they get up in the morning, want food first thing, who patiently wait and have that food for strength at the right time. Patience. Adam’s impatience. Adam, the sin of Adam is reflected further in the sin of Cain, who strikes out at his brother with hatred.

Impatience toward the father. It’s theft of what the father has said he’ll give to us eventually, but not yet. And Cain strikes out against the image of God in his brother and kills him. Brotherly hatred is what Cain reflects to us. Unkindness. And then after that later on, the sons of God and that godly line, you know, they strive with the spirit. And the spirit is telling them, don’t marry outside of the faith.

Don’t marry Cain’s daughters, the people that came from his line. Marry in the context of the faith. But they won’t do it. The sons of God marry the daughters of men. And they fall further. But then the rest of Genesis tells us that God is in the business of restoring the world. He’s in the business of bringing back recovery to these falls, the implications of our sin begun by Adam in the garden. Along comes Abraham.

And Abraham is given promise. promises. He’s going to have land. He’s going to have a child, a seed, and he’s going to be a blessing to the nations. But Abraham doesn’t see that. He doesn’t have a child. He’s tempted to sin, to have children improperly. He has to wait patiently for that promised child. And ultimately, of course, Galatians tells us that the seed was Jesus had to wait several thousand years.

The world had to wait 4,000 years for Jesus to come after the fall. Patience. And Abraham waited patiently for that child and eventually got the child. Abraham was promised land, but he had to go to Egypt. Things were so bad in the land he was given. Abraham was promised he’d be a blessing to the nations, but it seems like he only brings trouble to the nations that he visits. Abraham has to wait and wait and wait.

And when he’s an old man, he gets more land. Not all of it yet. When he’s an old man, you know, he gets the seed and becomes more of a blessing to the nations. Abraham is a picture of patience. Now, in the flow of the gospel of the book of Genesis, the gospel, the good news of the recovery of things for the coming Christ, we then could talk and we won’t today, but Jacob comes after. There’s no real section in Genesis dealing with Isaac’s life.

He’s just sort of there. But Jacob comes along and instead of striking out against his brother who’s treated him unjustly, Esau, eventually reconciles with him, goes out of his way to exhibit brotherly kindness in spite of people that do him wrong. And we see the reversal of that brotherly hatred and the brotherly kindness of Jacob. And then at the end of the gospel, we have Joseph. And instead of being unholy and driven by lust, we see Joseph properly fleeing the advances of Potiphar’s wife.

Joseph recovers, as it were, as a picture of the recovery through the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ of mankind and a restoration to great blessing. Now, we could, if we wanted to, spend a little bit of time on this, reflecting on those three falls as they relate to the father and to the son and to the Holy Spirit. We’ve mentioned that impatience to the father, brotherly kindness or hatred and reflection against God’s image bearer and our brothers and then a spiritfilled walk.

Joseph was acknowledged by Pharaoh to be full of the spirit of God because he had a full testimony of faithfulness to God in holiness. Patience, kindness, and holiness is what’s going on here. And Abraham is the very picture in these texts in the book of Genesis of patience. And that’s why it’s not surprising to us when we read this. this in Hebrews that indeed Abraham is the one who is patient.

Abraham is preeminently the man who through patience and faith inherited the promises. Now when we come then to celebrate this day, we come to celebrate the coming of the seed that was promised to Abraham, the coming of the one who would inherit all the world. Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thy inheritance. The uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. And we can be assured that the son asked just that and received that in a fuller sense in his incarnation and his resurrection.

And so the gospel spreads over all the world. All the land of the world is now the inheritance of the greater Abraham. And all the blessings to the nations are mediated through the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. At the end of this gospel, the gospel goes into all the nations and all the nations will be discipled. That’s what history is about. That’s the big timeline view of what history is. Is the discipling of the nations been going on for 2,000 years will go on for thousands more and the gospel will become more and more evident as the good news that establishes the manifestation of Christ’s kingdom everywhere and all their enemies whether it’s communism in my day and age or Islam in your day and age they all fall to the side in history because they’re all irrelevant to the kingdom of Christ and he crushes all their kingdoms as he establishes his kingdom not through imposition of might as these other isms and or as these other isms and philosophies go, but rather through the preaching of the gospel, the songs of the church as we talked about last week are the power of God to change the world.

It’s kind of like Dune, you know, at the Gom Jabbar with the modules. It’s your voice that shatters enemies now. And it’s a voice that’s amplified through the songs of the church and the praises to Christ. And God moves in the terms of the world and changes men’s hearts and brings the world to great blessing. So all those promises to Abraham given to him in Genesis 17 and Genesis 22, all of these are fulfilled with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is the patient servant, is he not? He patiently endures all the meanness of men. He patiently endures and goes to the cross. And because of his patience and faith, he ultimately secures all the promises that would come then to Abraham and now to us, patience, patience, patience. Jesus comes this Christmas and under the tree, if we think of it correctly, what he gives to us today is his patience.

Jesus comes in the Lord’s day worship service to evaluate his people, but to empower them. What does he say in the letters to the churches in Revelation? I’m the one that has what you need. He says, I can see all things and you need ice, but come get it for me at worship. Buy it for me at no cost. and I’ll give you understanding and the ability to see the world around you correctly. Jesus says to you today, confess your sin of impatience and understand that I’ve come to bring you into more and more patience.

Week by week, Sunday by Sunday, Jesus gives us patience. And so, what a marvelous lesson at Christmas time for our children. Patiently waiting, the unwrapping of the gifts. And we patiently waiting. We want our children to delight in what we’ve got them. We’re tempted to give it to them early. Patience. Patience. Patience. The Lord Jesus Christ is the one who gives us patience and admonishes us to patience.

And this text talking about Jesus being the son of Abraham is a reminder of all that we are to have patience. James 5:8 says, “You also be patient. Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand.” Doesn’t look like that song we sang earlier written during the time of the Civil War and the things that were going bad there. It seems like there’s no peace and goodwill on earth today. But we wait patiently through the difficulties of the geopolitical situations.

We wait patiently through the difficulties we may have in our lives. We wait patiently through the difficulties we might have in our economic sphere with our friends or whatever it might be. And as we’re patient, we’re reminded that the basis for this is not some kind of gnostic. We just put up with what’s happening. No, it’s not that at all. We’re to be patient and establish our hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

He is making his advent known. Throughout history, he comes in particular times to deliver his people. We could be patient knowing that we have a God who cares for us. Cast all your care upon him, the scriptures say, because he careth for you. And that word careth means he thinks about you. He meditates on you. His mind is on you because of his work through the beloved. And you are now beloved in his sight.

And he sees you. He knows what’s the best time to take care of difficult. He knows just how long to take you through the hard providences, just how long the trials should last to develop you and mature you. Be patient. The coming of the Lord is at hand. He’ll deliver you from external enemies and from your own sin. This patience is an important attribute of our savior. Well, that’s how we read him described in Revelation 1:9.

We’re to have the patience of Jesus Christ. And in 2 Thessalonians 3:5, may the Lord God direct your hearts into the love of God and into the patience of Christ. See, how is Jesus described in these verses? As patience incarnate. Lord God sends his beloved son become incarnate for us and to live for us this life of patience. And he’s got that as an attribute of the father. He is patient and he gives us to that today.

Patience. Jesus is the son of Abraham who brings us patience. Hebrews 10. You have need of patience that after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise. Patience. Dear ones, Christmas will come, little children. God will give you your presents. But more than anything else, he’s actually giving you in the very process patience. What was Adam guilty of? Adam was guilty of impatience. Abraham had to be patient.

His name was changed from Abram, father of a people, to Abraham, father of many nations. Big Daddy, kids, on your kids outline today. That’s what should go in there. What does Abraham mean? Big Daddy. He was a daddy before, a father to people, but now he was going to be big daddy, father of all the world. And all the world moves now because of the coming of Christ in terms of the faith and patience of Abraham.

And he is fathered as it were by means of his faith, so to speak. And Galatians describes it this way. Christians are all of the household of Abraham. That’s who we are. We’re Abrahamic patient people. He is big daddy. And he had to be very patient. Who was very patient. Big daddy had no kids. He walked around with the name, not just the name of dad, but he walked around to his wife and his servants and the people, his friends and his enemies.

And his name was a mockery to him. Abraham, big daddy walks around. What’s your name? Big Daddy. How many kids you got, Big Daddy? I don’t have any. God says I’m going to get one, though. Getting one someday. I wait patiently. Oh, okay. Imagine the slings and arrows of abuse. Patience. Abraham patiently receives that promise. Like Abraham and Jesus, we should be patient today because we know we’re beloved. And that’s what David means.

That’s the next name, David. We celebrate today the advent of the descendant, the son of David. The coming of service, blessings to the world. David is the beloved of God. That’s what his very name means. David is beloved. We talked about Abraham in Genesis. And then next is Jacob who doesn’t kill his brother the way Cain did. but what we what we see in David is similar to that, isn’t it?

Does he have a brother, so to speak, somebody not a physical brother, but a fellow imagebearer who hates him and he’s got to put up with the way that Jacob put up with all those bad people that came after him. Yeah, he does. He’s got Saul out there chasing him. Now, he’s got to be patient, too. He’s got to patiently wait. He’s been anointed king. He’s got to wait years. I see you anointed king. That’s what I hear.

Yeah. How come you’re not ruling? Well, God hasn’t put me there yet. See, he’s got to be patient. He’s got to have brotherly kindness to Saul. And he does. He befriends him. He tries to assist him and serve him correctly even though Saul is trying to kill him. He’s the reversal of this. And he could be today we could stress the idea that he’s the coming of brotherly kindness. And that would certainly be true.

And in a way that’s sort of subsumed under the characteristic I’ve got here that David was a servant king. David comes to serve. And wherever you see David, he’s serving people, isn’t he? Where do we first see David? Well, he’s seen at his house of his father, and he’s the one that takes care of his dad’s sheep. He’s the one that feeds the goats faithfully, serving the home by taking care of the flock.

Saul, kind of the counterpart of David, the first king. David’s the second king. Saul’s kind of the same way. He’s taking care of his dad’s flocks, but he’s not doing a very good job. He’s lost them when we come upon him. He’s out there looking for the flock. Doesn’t know where they’re at, but he’s still, you know, kind of that way. But David is one who takes care of the sheep. He serves the family. And he wants to serve the nation, right?

We’ve got a guy out there blaspheming God. We want to have him taken care of. Our nation should be served by killing that guy in military combat. And David’s the guy to do it. He’s been faithful in service here. He’s been faithful in taking care of the flocks and warding off enemies from them. Now he’s faithful in serving the state by taking care of the enemy of God, Goliath. And that’ll be his life, won’t it?

Service to the state by leading warfare against God’s enemies. David serves the church. He writes that beautiful hymn book right in the middle of our Bible. This is that book of the Psalms. We talked about it again in our high school class today. It is the way your if you write music, if you write lyrics, if you write songs, that’s what you’ve got to study. That’s the inspired song book of God. And David wrote most of that stuff because he was serving the church.

He produced hymns for the church. David is the picture of the servant king. He’s king. All right. Jesus is the son of David the king. The text tells us very explicitly. David the king. David the king. Jesus is king. He’s big daddy, but he’s king, but he’s the servant king. He’s like David was. He serves. And as a result of his service, that’s how he rules. He bleeds for you, then commands you. He goes to the cross for your sake.

He serves you by taking care of your sins. And then he commands authority to himself. We read in Matthew 10:45, “Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.” Now, the context for this, we’ll read in Luke 22, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them. Those who exercise authority over them are called benefactors, but not so among you.

On the contrary, he who is greatest among you, let him be as younger and he who governs as he who serves. For who is greater, he who sits at the table or he who serves? Is it not he who sits at the table? Yet I am among you as the one who serves. It’s the Gentiles that think the way to be king is to gather most power to yourself and exercise powerful tyrannical despotic lordship over other people. That’s the gentile, the Adamic model of rule.

Jesus says, “If you want to be kings and you all should be because that’s who you are. You all are the recipients of the proverbs. You’re all princes and princesses that God is in the business of causing to be grown up to be king in your household, king over your particular part of the world. How do we do it? We do it through service. You know, it’s like economics. How are you going to rule the economic arena?

You’re not going to do it if you’re first and foremost trying to get money. If you’re always trying to get money, you’ve got the whole thing backwards. Money is a trailing indicator of service. When you serve people, God enriches you. When you serve people, God makes you the head and not the tail. It’s contrary to what our Adamic flesh tells us. If we’re going to be kings, we got to rule. We got to grab some authority over some folks.

No, you serve. Some of you children watch your parents serving you and you think they’re weak. What’s wrong with my parents? They’re strong. They’re weak. They’re serving all the time. They’re training you that the way to become a man and a woman, a godly man, a dominion man and woman, a strong Proverbs woman or a strong dominion man is through service. Jesus is the coming of the greater David. He is king of kings and lord of lords and he tells us that the way we exercise dominion in the context of the world is not through power and might and lording it over and raising the voice.

It’s through service. You serve people. God will enrich your authority as you serve other people. God will cause you to inherit the promises as you’re patient and serve him. What did Cain do? Cain was guilty of hating his brother. And David was kind to Saul. David served Saul, did he not? And a reverse shows the reversal that comes to the Savior’s gifts to us. David, three ways that he served God. I’ve got your kids outlines, flocks, Goliath, and Psalms.

Flocks, he took care of his dad’s flocks. He served the home. Goliath, he took care of the state’s enemies. He served the state by enlisting in the military, as it were, and defeating the enemy of God. And he served the church by writing psalms. Now, in all of these, he was serving God. First and foremost, he’s serving God. And that’s reflected through his service to his home, to his state, and to the church.

Godly kings children are servants. Godly kings are servants. David means beloved. He’s beloved of the Lord. We’re beloved of the Lord because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are covenantally seen by God through the eyes that see us with the imputation of Christ on us. We’re in union with Christ who is the great beloved of the father. And we are beloved of God. We are David’s as it were.

And as we remember our beloved stature with God, then we can be patient and we can be servants. Instead of lashing out and trying to rule by authority or being impatient for rule, impatient for the blessings that God says are ours. You see, Jesus comes to give us salvation. And salvation is the ringing out of our impatience, the ringing out of the attitude that wants to lord it over people.

He comes to deliver us from our sins. And that’s the third name is Jesus. Jesus comes as the greater Joshua. And he comes to bring us honesty. And maybe a different h word that I could have put in the outline, maybe should have was holiness. Holiness or honesty. You know, Joseph is told specifically that he’s to name the son, the one that Mary will birth, Jesus. And the angel says specifically, name him Jesus because he is going to save his people from their sins.

He’s the savior from sins. Now, Jesus is the exact same name as Joshua. Joshua in the Old Testament, the Hebrew, Jesus in the New Testament, same thing. So Jesus is like Joshua. Jesus comes to give us victory. Now Joshua came along. Now both names mean, by the way, this is on your outline. Yahweh saves. Yahweh saves. Jesus saves. So those churches had that big picture of Jesus saves. That’s right. That’s what Jesus means.

Jesus saves. Yahweh saves. Jesus and Yahweh are the same. Yahweh is the father, son, and holy spirit. Jesus and Joshua mean the same thing. Joshua of course defeated the external enemies of the church, right? What do we think of Joshua? We don’t think of him in terms of saving people from their sins. Joshua comes along to give him victory over those terrible Canaanites that they had to kick out of the land.

So Joshua is the picture of the effective deliverance from external enemies. Jesus comes as the greater Joshua to deliver us from the internal afflictions of our own sin. Now apart from this truth, Jesus saving us from our sins. To try to be patient or servant-like in the power of the flesh, so to speak, without a reliance upon Jesus’s definitive salvation by going to the cross and dying for our sins would just be to try to make our lives more moralistic.

You can’t get to heaven by being good enough. Jesus comes to die for our sins, to take the penalty upon himself. Bible says the wages of sin are death. Because we are born in rebellion to God and because we sin, God says that what we deserve in that state is to go to hell forever. And many people do. Some people do, I should say. But God says that Jesus came along. He sent his son to pay the price for our sins to die.

We can’t pay that price of eternal damnation for our sins. Jesus took upon himself the proper punishment for our sins. And not only that, but Jesus was patient always. He was always doing the right thing. He never did the wrong thing. And that total goodness of Jesus is what God requires for us to live in his presence eternally. So Jesus pays the price for our sins. Jesus is the goodness that God calls to our account.

He looks at us and says, “Jesus’s righteousness, his perfectly keeping the law is your obedience. I’m going to count it for you.” And because of that, he saves us from our sins. And if you believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins, if you believe that you’re a sinner, and that apart from Jesus, you deserve to go to hell and that’s where you’re headed. But you believe that Jesus died for your sins and he’s the only one righteous enough to go to heaven.

And it’s only as you’re linked up with him that you can go to heaven. Then God says, “You’ve been saved from your sins.” But it doesn’t end there. Jesus comes to save us from our internal afflictions of our sins by causing us to be honest about our shortcomings. He brings us an honesty, the gift of honesty to acknowledge that we are sinners and that not just generally but yesterday when I did so and so that was a sin against God.

That’s a gift from God because apart from Jesus we are self-deluded. We don’t know what we’ve done wrong really. We think we do pretty good. Jesus comes to bring us into holiness via honesty. And I’ve got here that the greater Joshua deals with our internal enemies. And I’ve got the seven A’s of confession here because we’re told that Jesus delivers us from our sins. But it works itself out first. John 1 says in this way if we say that we have no sins we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins take care of the past and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness to help us not to sin like that in the future. In the scriptures repentance is turning away from something and turning towards something else. Repentance is not sorrow. Repentance the word translated repentance means a change. change of being to move from sin to righteousness.

Okay. Now, I’ve got here material from the peacemakers, the seven A’s of confession. These are very important things for us to teach. I am amazed. Last night, I this is not unusual for me to hear. Nearly every week, every few weeks, I hear things, you know, I hear a lot of stuff. You think I’m not hearing it, you’re wrong. I hear most things about this church. And you know, it’s if some it’s very disappointing to me.

What we’ve got here, this seven days of confession, this is kindergarten stuff for Christians. This is stuff that our kids should know from their earliest days, what to do when you sin. And all too often, I think what we see reflected around us here in this church is that we don’t know these basics. Or we may know them, we just don’t do them. You know, it’s like Matthew 18. What do you do if you see somebody sinning?

Well, it’s a clear thing. It’s real clear what you’re supposed to do, right? And yet, we just don’t seem to be able to get it done most of the time. Well, it’s important for us as we pause in the midst of our celebration. Remember, we’re celebrating when we get together on Christmas Day and have fun and open those presents. We’re celebrating the coming of patience, the coming of service, and the coming of holiness and honesty.

And we’re celebrating the fact that God has told us what we’ve got to do to move away from sin and into the power of righteousness. We got to address people that we sin against. Address them specifically. If you sinned, and there were four five of your buddies with you when you sinned. When you come to your senses and you confess that sin to God, talk to your buddies. This is easy, but it very rarely happens. If people saw you sin, you had an effect on them and you’ll have an effect and you go back, you speak words of grace about how you’ve repented, man, that’s going to have a great effect on them.

Address everybody involved. Admit what you did specifically. Oh yeah, I did something wrong. No, what did you do wrong? What specific ific commandment did you break? What part of scripture were you in violation of? Admit it specifically. And when you’re admitting it, don’t say, “Well, I was tired and so I yada yada.” Or, you know, if my dad had helped me a little more, I wouldn’t have done yada yada. No. Avoid ifs, ands, buts, mays.

That’s what Adam did. Well, the woman, that’s what the woman did. Well, the serpent. You know, that’s what the Adamic nature does is it deflects. It diverts. It says, “No, no, no, not me.” Well, it was me, but it was kind of his fault. Avoid ifs and buts or mays when you confess sin. Apologize. There is a place for sorrow. You should be sorry toward God. Always address him. He’s the one you most sinned against.

You should be sorry toward your brothers if they’ve seen you sin. Apologize for what you did. Certainly sorrow was part of it. Accept any consequences. Tell people that you sin against it. You’ll accept, you know, biblical consequences to your action. What would you like me to do to make it better? How can I fix what I kind of messed up here by my sin? Accept consequences and then alter your behavior. Repentance isn’t just stopping something.

It’s starting doing what’s right. It’s not just not stealing anymore. It’s working to give to people that have need. You see, alter your behavior. That’s what repentance is. And then ask for forgiveness. And as we apply these things, we celebrate this gift of honesty about our sins, moving us to personal holiness and the presence of the Savior. The Old Testament way of saying Jesus children was Joshua. J O S H U A. Joshua.

What does Jesus mean? Yahweh saves. Yahweh saves. We can’t save ourselves. It’s the power of the Holy Spirit that moves us in terms of repentance. And even that will never accomplish the righteousness needed for heaven. That’s the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yahweh saves. Jesus is God’s salvation to us. What’s our biggest enemy we need to be saved from? It’s not the bully on the corner. The biggest enemy that we need to be saved from is our sin.

Our own sin. S I N. And why? And we rather should be honest. Honest when we sin. Children, God brings you the attribute of honesty. Now, you’re not going to be honest if you think that your confession won’t be accepted by God or somehow you’re going to lose or whatever. Honesty has to have a degree of courage attached to it. But we can be courageous because Jesus is not just the coming of patience, the greater Abraham, the coming of service.

the greater David, the coming of salvation, the greater Joshua, not just dealing with external enemies, but internal enemies. Jesus, the text before us says, is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. And because God is with us, we can have courage. Courage is the attribute I’ve kind of changed or adapted u inserted along with this name of Emmanuel. Emmanuel means God with us.

And the fulfillment of The prophecy that the angel tells Joseph about here is found in Isaiah 7 and 8. We won’t turn back there. But what was going on was they were scared some enemies were going to come in and take them out. Now eventually God does judge them and remove them. But they were afraid of some enemies. And they were told by the prophet that no, the enemies weren’t going to be able to take care of them.

The enemies were going to be troubled and diverted and they weren’t going to have to be afraid of them. And in order to establish this with the king that the prophet was speaking to, he says, “Ask a sign.” King in his piousness, self-pious. He said, “No, I won’t ask a sign.” Well, the prophet just told you, “Ask a sign, man. I’m going to give you a sign.” The sign is a virgin will have a child and he will be Emmanuel, God with us.

So, Emmanuel in its first appearance in the scriptures and the prophecy that’s being spoken of in Matthew 1 is the idea that God is with us to protect us from enemies. He’s doing stuff out there with our enemies that we don’t have any knowledge of, but we got to trust him that he’s with us. And as a result of him being with us, we’re going to have deliverance from the defeat of our enemies. So, Emmanuel is the courage that God gives to us to know that God is with us.

Jesus says at the end of this gospel, go into all the world, disciple all the nations. And what’s the courage building factor in that? Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age. You don’t have courage, you know, to talk to your buddies about what you did wrong maybe or talk to your parents or talk to your children or talk to your wife. God says the courage you to have is that Emmanuel, God is with us now.

The Lord Jesus Christ came then went away. But when he went away, he said he sent the Holy Spirit that he might ever be present with us through the Holy Spirit. Never departs. God is always with us. There is no reason to be afraid of anything because God is with us and has provided all things. It wouldn’t be any need reason to be afraid if he wasn’t with us. I was talking to one of my little charity the other day and she was just so happy.

And I said, “Why are you so happy?” And she said, “Well, everything’s taking care Yeah, you know, God took care of everything in Jesus. If I drown tonight, I’m going to be in heaven. Even if I drowned, everything’s okay. See, she’s right. You know, fears build up in us. And we got to tell ourselves, God is taking care of us. We die tonight. Worst thing that can happen, we die. Or maybe some of us, great fear is insaneness.

God will be taking care of us. He’s got our destination. That ticket’s punched. We’re going there. We can relax. So, even if he wasn’t with us, As long as he’s guaranteed the end, there’s no need to fear. But you know, blessing upon blessing, he’s with us. He’s actually present with us always. He is Emmanuel. So, not only will we get through this at the end be okay, but as we’re going through it, he’s with us in the fiery furnace.

As we’re going through the difficulties, he is with us, comforting us, the Holy Spirit strengthening us by the spirit of God that he sent to dwell in the context of us. Strength for the battles ahead. Strength to appropriate these blessings of patience. You got to be strong to be patient and courageous. And that courage comes from the knowledge that Jesus comes and now he’s always with us. Strength, not just strength though.

Outline point number C here. Strength and sensitivity for the battle. Sensitivity. We joy in the assurance of his being with us. But that assurance of him being with us also drives this idea of holiness that we just spoke of in terms of Jesus saving us from our sins. It’s when we have an awareness of the presence of Christ with us that we’re going to be most sensitive to our own personal sin. If we don’t believe that Jesus is Emmanuel, he’s not always present with us, then we’ve reduced our sensitivity to our own sin.

But as we understand that he is Emmanuel, always with us by the Holy Spirit and is are sensitive to his presence, sensitive to the conviction of the Holy Spirit, then we move in terms of patience, service, and holiness and honesty about our sins. Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is a coming of great blessings. He is the one who is patient. if we believe that God is with us, we will be children on your outline number 14.

Brave and holy. Brave and holy is what we will be. Jesus comes and brings us patience. He brings us service. He brings us honesty. And he brings us courage. He is each of these things. In Exodus 34, before Yahweh is being spoken of. And here’s what it says about Yahweh says that Yahweh is the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, patient, abounding in love and faithfulness. He is the servant of servants, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.

He saves us from our sin. Yahweh is described as the one who is slow to anger, patient, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, the greater the beloved of God who now sees us as his beloved and so brings us that love, that faithfulness, that service that we might be slow to anger, that we might be quick to love and faithfulness in terms of our brothers and sisters. And he brings us salvation from sin, forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.

We celebrate at Christmas time the advent of Yahweh with strength and blessing in his hand, who delivers us from impatience. selfishness, cruelty, who delivers us from our deceitful sin, and who delivers us from the isolation that sin affected in the context of our lives. Now, the sermon today is entitled at the top of your outline, what is our hope or joy or crown of rejoicing? Well, we expect the answer to be Jesus.

But in 1 Thessalonians 2:19, we read this. When we wanted to come to you, even I, Paul, time and again, but Satan hindered us. He said, talking to Christians. For what is our hope or joy or crown of rejoicing? Paul says, our hope or joy or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? Our joy, our hope, our crown of rejoicing today is you. Each of us should look around at our fellow men, our fellow church members here at RCC and say, “Praise God.

We’ve got a congregation that still sins. but is marked, I think, by patience, is marked by service, understands that we’re the beloved of Christ, understands that he has come to affect deliverance from our sins, and that he’s always with us. And so, we rejoice in this Christmas season. Be patient with one another. Be patient with your children. Serve each other. When you get together on Christmas Day to celebrate, rejoice in each other.

You are the manifestation of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in every act of patience. every act of service, every confession of sin and repentance and turning from it and every bit of courage you have in the midst of difficulties knowing that God is with you. You evidence the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in his presence in the context of the world. What is our hope or joy or crown of rejoicing?

Is it not even you? Is it not even us in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ at his coming today to evaluate us and to assure us that he has brought all things for our salvation. Let’s thank him. Father, we thank you for this wondrous season. We thank you for the wondrous events that we celebrate. We thank you Lord God that you have transformed us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.