In your Bibles this morning to Matthew chapter 1.
I love Christmas and I love
everything about it. And I grew up in Indiana and it
was almost a guarantee that you were going to get snow on
Christmas. Not always.
We didn't have snow every year, but almost every year you were
going to have some snow. And it changed that.
You know, when I left Indiana, I don't, I don't miss the cold.
I'll be honest with you. I don't miss it at all.
And I, you know, the last year that I was up there, I, I, I
graduated college and then I worked on staff there for, for
about a year at the college and the church and in the school.
And one of the jobs that I had, I was single.
I was not married. And they were like perfect job
for him. I had to wake up at 4:00 in the
morning and if it had snowed even a half an inch, I had to go
out and shovel all the sidewalks.
And so I got to the point where I absolutely hated snow.
I didn't want to one snowflake. And so when I left, I said I
don't care if I never see snow again.
And I came down here in Virginia 2006 and we did not get one snow
that year. Nothing.
And I said, well, maybe, maybe a little bit of snow is all right,
but just one or two a year is fine.
I'm, I've already had my fill. I don't know about you, but we
can go. We can go back to 75° and sunny
and I'm good. But anyway, I heard a story
about a little boy who had grown up in church, obviously realized
that Santa was not the one that could bring him the gifts.
He knew that God was the one that gave it to him.
And so he started writing a letter.
He sat down and he said, God, I've been a pretty good boy for
the last six months. He thought about it for a
second. He crossed it off.
I've been a pretty good boy for the last three months.
They said, well, God knows everything crossed it off.
I've been a pretty good boy for the last two weeks.
And he started thinking about it again.
He said, man, that's, that's not going to work either.
And so he walked over to the little, little nativity scene
that they had set up in their in their house on the Mantel.
And he climbed up there on the chair and he grabbed the little
figure of Mary out of the nativity scene.
And he walked over to the kitchen.
He grabbed the kitchen towel and he wrapped Mary up in the towel.
And he walked over and put that whole thing in the top drawer of
his dresser. And he went back to his pen and
paper, and he wrote, Dear God, if you ever want to see your
mother again, obviously not what Christmas is about, but Matthew
chapter 1, Matthew chapter 1, and verse #1 The Bible says
this, the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of
David, the son of Abraham. Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac
begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren.
And Judas begat Pheres And Zara of Tamar.
And Pheres begat Ezram. And Ezram begat Aram.
And Aram begat Aminadab, And Aminadab begat NASAN, and NASAN
begat Salman. And Salman begat Boaz of Rahab
or Rahab, as is pronounced here. And Boaz begat Obed of Ruth, and
Obed begat Jesse. And Jesse begat David the king.
And David the king begat begat Solomon of her that had been the
wife of Urias. And we've read all that we need
to read this morning for me to get to my point.
You might be wondering what in the world?
And that's fair because you know, most Christians don't get
excited about the genealogies, right?
Let's be honest, the story that we're looking for for Christmas
is in the rest of Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 and maybe even Luke
chapter 2. Why aren't we looking at those
stories? But there are four names in this
list that really stick out for out to me.
You know, we we know all about Joseph and Mary.
We know about the inn at Bethlehem.
We know about the shepherds that were feeding their flocks and
the angels that came to them. And, and of course, we know
about the wise men following the star.
We know all of those things about the story of Christmas.
They're all part of that wonderful story that we remember
every year, that we love to tell every year.
But there's more to the story. And I think here in this
passage, it's, it's very obscure, it's overlooked.
But Matthew gives his genealogies that are leading up
to the birth of Jesus Christ. And in that genealogy, we
actually find 4 women, which is very, very rare.
You, you start, you go back through the, the genealogies in
the Old Testament and you read through all those.
It is rare to find a woman in a genealogy, but we have four of
them here. Verse #3 tells us, and Judas
begat Pharahs and Zara of Tamar. Verse #5 and Salman begat Boaz
of Rakab, just a different same person.
Boaz begat Obed of Ruth, and Obed begat Jesse.
And then in verse number six, and we see Jesse begat David the
king and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the
wife of Urias. Now she's not mentioned, but we
know who that is. If you go back and look in the
Old Testament, that is Bathsheba, the one that David
sinned with. Now there's something very
unique about the inclusion of these four women in this
genealogy. It was not customary in those
days for women to be part of the genealogies at all, especially
when it comes to listing these who are in the line of Jesus
Christ. As a matter of fact, women had
very little rights back in, in those days.
They were, they were basically possessions of their fathers
until they became possessions of their husbands.
And that's kind of how they were treated in a lot of cases.
And so you may recognize some of those names.
You may recognize Tamar, you may recognize Rahab, you may
recognize Ruth, you may recognize Bathsheba, or you may
not recognize them at all. But let me give you a little
background to each of these four women.
And, and, and I think it might be a little bit uncomfortable
this morning, but, but I think it's important for us to
understand where these women came from and who they were in
Genesis chapter 38. And you don't have to turn
there. I'll kind of give you the the
rundown here. This is the story of Tamar.
Now, David had a daughter named Tamar.
This is not the same Tamar. This is a different Tamar.
This is one who was most likely a Canaanite woman, which
obviously the Bible had told them many times in the Old
Testament as they were coming into the land of Canaan.
Don't marry the Canaanites. Don't give your daughters to
marry Canaanite men. Don't let your men marry
Canaanite women. Don't do that.
You are to stay separate. You are to be Israel.
You're to keep your line pure. Do not marry with the
Canaanites. This is a land that I'm
promising you, but I'm promising you this land so you can go in
and have it for yourself, not so you can mix and share it with
everybody else. But this woman was married to
one of the sons of Judah. Judah was one of the twelve sons
of Jacob, who is also a brother to Joseph.
That's the Tamar that we're talking about here.
But Tamar's husband, Judah's son died.
And the way that things would go back then, which very different
from what we do today. But if, if a brother's wife
died, then the brother who was living had the responsibility to
bring her in as his wife, to carry on the name of that
family. And so that's exactly what
happened. Tamar's husband died.
Her, his brother was then given Tamar to be his wife.
That brother died and now here's Tamar.
The only one that was left was a little boy not old enough to be
married. And so Judah told her to wait
for his youngest son. But he really had no intention
of allowing them to marry. He probably thought she was very
bad luck for this family lion. And what is she doing?
And why are all my sons dying every time they married Tamar?
But Tamar then posed as a prostitute, had a sexual
encounter with Judah who was her father-in-law, and found out
then that she was with child. And that's the child that's
mentioned there in verse #3 Judas or Judah begat fairest and
Zara of Tamar. Now we find the next lady
mentioned in Joshua chapter 2, that is Rahab.
Rahab was from Jericho. If you know anything about
Jericho, it's the first place that they came to when they
crossed the Jordan River into the promised land.
They marched around the city. Jericho is famous because the
walls fell down and they went in there and they took the city and
many things happen from there. But this is a very interesting
story as well because not only was Rahab A Canaanite woman, but
Rahab was also a prostitute. And she allowed the two spies to
come in and stay in her house and the others that that were
there coming to see if they could take the land.
But she came to recognize Jehovah as the one true God.
She saved those Hebrew spies and and through faith, as we're told
in Hebrews Chapter 11, she found favor in in God's eyes and
became a part of God's covenant people.
Now Joshua chapter 2 and verse 11, she said this, the Lord your
God, He is God in heaven above and in earth beneath.
And she asked them, when you come in here to destroy this
city, because I know that's exactly what you're going to do
when you come in here to destroy the city, would you please save
me and my family? Because we saved you.
And they said, all right, we'll make a deal with you.
A scarlet cord needs to be hung out your window when we come
into the city. And if that scarlet cord is hung
in your window, then whoever is in your house will be saved when
we come in to take that city. And by the way, I've been to
Israel, I've been to Jericho. And do you know that there's
evidence that there was one part of that wall that did not fall
down? Rahab's house was the one that
did not fall. But the Bible says this in
Hebrews Chapter 11 and verse 31. She's listed.
Rahab is listed in the great, what we call the Hall of Faith,
but it says this by faith the harlot Rahab perished not with
them that believe not. James mentioned her in James
chapter 2 as somebody who was an example of faith.
But she tied that scarlet coat, that scarlet cord out her
window, and she was delivered safely.
Her family was delivered safely. And we find her in verse #5
Salman begat Boaz of Rahab. Now, Boaz is a man that we know
because we read through the entire book of Ruth.
And Boaz is kind of the hero of the story of the book of Ruth.
He he redeems Ruth back to himself when she really had
nothing. But most of us don't remember or
don't realize that Rahab actually was the mother of Boaz,
our third one, Ruth. The Moabitus people of Moab were
despised. They were outcast people.
The Moabites and the Ammonites had their origin in a very, a
very disturbing way as well. Do you remember the story of Lot
and his wife? They lived in Sodom and
Gomorrah. And God came and he said, I'm
going to destroy the entire city.
And Abraham begged him, God, if you can, just if we can just
find 50 righteous 4030 twenty, if I can just find 10 righteous,
can you save the city? And they couldn't find even that
many. And so that God came to Lot and
he said, you better get out of the city and you better take
your family with you, and you better not look back.
They started getting out of the city.
Lot's wife turned around and looked behind her, and she
turned into a pillar of salt. But Lot made it up into the
mountains with a couple of his daughters and in a moment where
he was not thinking clearly, obviously in the moment of of
horrible decision, his daughters lie with him and both of them
became with child by their father.
That is who we're talking about in this passage.
That's that is Ruth. She was a Moabitess of the lion
of the Moabites in the Ammonites.
In fact, Deuteronomy chapter 23 and verse #3 says an Ammonite or
Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.
Even to their 10th generation. Shall they not enter into the
congregation of the Lord forever?
The sons that were born of Lot's two daughters were Ammon and
Moab. What a horrible situation.
And yet from the Moabites along comes Ruth.
She was not part of the nation of Israel, but Ruth displayed
courageous love and an unshakable loyalty.
Ruth chapter 1 and verse 16 and 17 tells us where I where you
lodge, I will lodge. Where you go I will go.
Your people will be my people. Your God will be my God.
And she accepted the God of Israel.
And she is mentioned in verse #5 Boaz begat Obed of Ruth.
She became the great grandmother of King David, and obviously
then her place took her place in the lineage of Christ.
And now the scripture does not give us the nationality of
Bathsheba. But Bathsheba was married to a
Hittite, also not a Jew, so it's also quite possible that she was
not Jewish either. The woman that David had an
adulterous affair with before he put her husband Uriah to death.
After marrying David, she became the mother of Solomon and like
the other women that were mentioned in this passage, she
became in the ancestral lion of Jesus Christ.
What's amazing to me is that Matthew does not make any
attempt to hide this. All Matthew had to do to keep
their names out of the story and to keep from highlighting these
facts about these women is to just not put their names in
there. Nobody would ever think twice
about the fact that that that that Tamar was in the line of
Christ and that this was her heritage or that that Ruth and
Rahab and Bathsheba, these women who really don't have a good
past. Nobody would think twice about
them being in the line of Christ if Matthew hadn't put their
names in there. But Matthew did for some reason.
Bible doesn't candy coat the facts.
He highlighted these four women in an age when women were
typically ignored. And I, and I think even beyond
that, he, he neglected to mention any of the other women
in the lineage of Jesus, which would be Sarah, Abraham's wife,
which would be Mary, the mother of Jesus.
Many other women that that could have been put in there, Rebecca,
Leah, all of them could have been put in this lineage of
Jesus Christ. And yet as they're leading up to
that, he doesn't put them in there.
Four women, as far as we can tell, none of them were Jewish.
All of them outcast for very different reasons, each of their
stories a tragedy. That is, until God changed their
lives. When we read the stories in the
Old Testament, their lives were were characterized by
misfortune, by desperation, by loss, by mistreatment, by shame.
And every one of their marriages was unusual in some way.
Matthew uses that list to present the identity of Jesus
and his right to the throne of David as he prophesied the
Messiah. How interesting.
Why would that be the case? He begins his genealogy as you
read in verse #1 by talking about Abraham and and King
David, Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Matthew chapter one, verse one says he chose four women whose
stories began with tragedy. 4 women whose stories identified
the type of people that Christ was sent to seek and to save.
Four women whose stories were changed by this Christmas story.
And in verse 21 of Matthew chapter 1, the Bible says, and
she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins.
The moment Jesus Christ was born in that little town of
Bethlehem, their story changed. They were no longer named in a
long list of genealogies. They were now in the line of
Jesus Christ. And at that point, it didn't
matter what was in their past. It didn't matter who they were
before. The only thing that mattered was
who they became because of Jesus Christ.
William Barkley, a commentator, said this of these four women.
If Matthew had ransacked the pages of the Old Testament for
improbable candidates, he could not have discovered four more
incredible ancestors for Jesus Christ.
But surely there is something very lovely in this.
Here at the very beginning of the Gospel, we are given a hint
of the all embracing width of the love of God.
God can find his servants amongst those from whom the
respectable orthodox would shudder away in horror.
What is what a what a what a great reminder.
What, what, What you need to know this morning is that Jesus
Christ can change your story as well.
That was a long introduction, but I want to give you 3 quick
points this morning and talk about how Christmas changed
their story. Christmas changed their story.
Let's have a word of prayer and I'll give you 3 short points
this morning. Father, again, we thank you so
much for your goodness to us. Thank you for an opportunity we
have to be here today. Thank you for the fact that we
have stories like this in Your word that can help us to
understand that it doesn't matter who we are, doesn't
matter where we came from, it doesn't matter what our past is.
You can change it because Jesus Christ came.
Thank you again for all you do for us in Jesus name, Amen.
First thing I want you to see is this, and I don't have a fancy
alliterated outline this morning.
I've just got three simple points.
The first one is this, because our Lord included them.
He can include you 4 people, 44 ladies who if you as, as William
Barclay said, were to, were to go through the Old Testament and
try to find the least likely candidates to be in the line of
Christ, it would be those 4. I don't I don't know if you can
find anybody else that would be less likely to be in there.
I mean, maybe you do have some, some people who who had some
checkered past, but I don't know how you can find checkered past
any worse than what these these ladies had.
And I know we only brushed the surface of each of their
stories, but Jesus loved them very much.
And Jesus loves you very much. In fact, the Bible says this in
John chapter 3 and verse #16 probably one of the most
recognized verses in the Bible. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life.
That whosoever encompasses a lot of people.
It encompasses the entire world. It's not just Jesus Christ
didn't just come to be born as a baby and die on the cross and
raise again from the dead for a certain number of people, for a
certain elect people. He died for everybody.
And that's why the Bible says whosoever that means, anybody,
whosoever believeth in him, should not perish but have
everlasting life. And I'll tell you this, many
people feel as if they're too unworthy for God to save them.
But what they didn't realize is that that puts them in the
perfect position to be able to accept Jesus Christ as your
Savior. If you come to Christ with all
of your good things and all of your good deeds and all of the
things that you've accomplished for him and everything that
you've tried to do in his name, and you come to him and you say,
I'm accepting you because look what I've done for you.
That's not salvation. You have to come to Christ in
faith plus nothing. It's, it's, it's all him or it's
not salvation. And so many people will come and
say, well, I've done all of these things.
Certainly God will allow me into heaven someday.
No, it's the ones who come and say, God, I'm a worthless
Sinner. I don't deserve heaven.
I don't deserve your love. I don't deserve your mercy.
I don't deserve your forgiveness.
But I know you want to give it to me and I'm willing to accept
it. Those are the people that can
come and, and get salvation. And so when you have somebody
who says, Oh, I'm so unworthy, if if anybody doesn't deserve
Christ, it's me, you're in the perfect position to receive
Christ for yourself. The first step in coming to
Christ is to realize that we are all sinners.
Romans chapter 3 and verse #23 says, for all have sinned and
come short of the glory of God. I don't think, and I'm not going
to ask you to do this because I don't want to embarrass you if
you feel like it, but I don't think anybody would raise their
hand and say, I've never sinned. I've never done anything wrong
in my life. Like everybody realizes that
they have, right? It doesn't say for all have
sinned except your name and come short of the glory of God,
right? All means all.
That's everybody, that's all of us.
We all are sinners. We all, we all have done things
that have gone against the law of God.
We've all done things to break the commandments of God.
Boy, you just start with the 10 commandments.
There's a lot of commandments in the Bible, but there's 10.
Thou shalt not bear false witness.
You know what that is? That's a lie, right?
That broke it for most of us right there.
In fact, probably all of us right there.
I don't know if there's anybody in the world that's never told a
lie. Thou shalt not steal.
Well, there's, there's, there's so many things that we have done
that break God's law. And just to break God's law one
time makes us a criminal in his eyes, right?
The same way that somebody who goes out and murders somebody
else and stands before a judge and, and you say, well, why are
you putting me in jail? I've only done it once.
I've only murdered one person, right?
You think that's ridiculous? Yeah.
You murdered somebody. You go to jail for that, right?
And the Bible says, for all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God, and we stand before him.
And we say, well, what are you condemning me for?
I only sinned once. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. That's all it takes is 1 sin.
One sin is enough to keep us out of heaven.
And you might be a good person. You might have done a lot of
good things in your life, but God is absolutely holy.
And because he is absolutely holy, he can't even look upon
sin. So it doesn't matter if you have
10,000 sins or one sin, it's enough to keep us out of heaven,
for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
It's almost like you, you picture sin as a bomb, right?
And you put a bomb in the middle of a bridge that's leading to
heaven, and all it takes is 1 and you blow that bridge up and
now you can't get across. It doesn't matter if there's
tons of the rest of the bridge left, right?
I mean, you got 10,000 sins. You blew the entire bridge up.
There's no chance for you to get into heaven, right?
But you had one, and you blew that bridge up.
And a giant section is missing and you can't get across.
For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
When we're too proud to realize our need for a Savior, we cannot
be saved. When we look at ourselves as too
good as to need saving, then that can never lead to
salvation. The Bible says this in Titus
chapter 3 and verse #5 not by works of righteousness, which we
have done, but according to His mercy.
He saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of
the Holy Ghost, not by works of righteousness.
It doesn't have anything to do with me, has everything to do
with what Christ did for me. When we are when we see
ourselves as sinners having no hope.
When you get to that spot in the bridge that you blew up because
of your sin and you can see the other side, but there's no way
that you can get there, then you're in the perfect spot when
you say God, I can't make that junk myself.
I can't I can't go from here to heaven myself.
I need a savior. That's when you're in the
perfect position to accept Christ.
See, when we see ourselves as a Sinner with no hope, that's when
Christ steps in and says, let me be your Savior.
Let me take the blame that was meant for you.
Let me take the sins that you've committed in your life and I'll
take those on myself. And so when you stand before
God, he's not going to see you and all the ugliness of your
sin. He's not going to see all of
those things because I took those for you.
Those are all on me. Only thing that God sees when he
looks at you will be the righteousness of Jesus Christ
here. You, you give me your sins and
I'll give you my righteousness. Boy, what an exchange doesn't
make sense to anybody in a, in a, in their right mind.
Why would you do that? I'm, I'm, I've never committed a
crime. Nobody's ever arrested me and,
and, and put me on trial to put me in jail for something that
I've done. I'm I'm clean as the law goes.
And now here's somebody else on the other side who, who is
standing before a judge for murder.
And I walk over there and I say, hey, let me, let me stand in
your place. You can go stand over there as
somebody who's never committed a crime.
I'll stand in your spot as somebody who is guilty of
murder. Doesn't make sense.
Why would you do that? You're you're, you're throwing
away your entire life and you're giving a murderer a free pass to
go out and live his. Why would you do that?
Doesn't make sense in our minds, but that's exactly what Jesus
Christ did for us. He's standing.
We're standing here as guilty sinners.
We have no standing before God. We have no hope of ever escaping
that punishment that's going to come because of our sins.
And yet here's Jesus Christ on the other side, Not only not not
guilty before the law, but never done one thing wrong, never sin.
He was the Son of God and the Son of man at the same time.
He was perfect. And he looks over at us and he
says, I love him so much. I love her so much.
I can't watch them. I can't bear to stand them.
Pay the penalty for their sin. Here.
You come over and you take my place and I'll come over and
I'll take yours. I'll stand here before God as
the condemn you. Stand before God as somebody who
is clean and righteous before him.
And how foolish to stand here as somebody who's condemned before
God and say appreciate it, thank you.
I'm good enough. Certainly God's going to see me
and say, well, come on into heaven.
Look at all the good things he's done.
Yeah, I know he's got a lot of bad, but look at all the good
he's done. No, that's not how the law sees
it. If you murder somebody, doesn't
matter if you taught in school for 50 years and we're involved
in all in every charitable outreach there was possibly
available to be involved. It doesn't matter what you've
done in your life. If you've murdered somebody and
you're guilty, you're going to go to prison.
And the same is true with us. We're sinners.
There is a penalty for that sin. And that penalty the Bible says
is death for the wages of sin is death.
But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Wouldn't it, wouldn't it be
really interesting if the judge and the one who is innocent,
we're all in on it together, right?
If the judge was secretly working behind the scenes to get
the criminal off and put somebody in who was innocent,
right? That's exactly what happened
with Jesus Christ. God, the righteous judge is
standing there. Jesus is on one side.
We're on the other side. God is the judge and he's
telling Jesus, hey, go take their place.
He's going to be guilty. If if you don't take his place,
he's going to be guilty. He's going to have to.
I'm going to have to condemn him to hell forever.
Go, go take his place. Jesus.
I can do that. Yeah, you can do that.
In fact, that's the whole reason why we've why, why I created the
earth. Well, the whole, it's the whole
reason why I've done everything. It's a, it's a, it's a plan that
I've had from before I even created anything.
You were going to go and you're, you're going to, you're going to
die in their place. And how crazy that Jesus says,
OK, I'll go die in their place. But he did it for you and he did
it for me. We don't deserve it.
There's nothing that there's nothing in a, in a criminal that
deserves for somebody who was innocent to stand in their
place. But that's what God did for us.
That's what Jesus Christ did for us.
John chapter 1 and verse #12 says, But as many as received
him to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to
them that believe on his name. What an amazing thing.
Not only did I stand here as a condemned Sinner waiting to get
my punishment, waiting to be condemned to hell forever, but
Jesus says, hang on, let me take his place.
I'll come over here. I'll stand as the one condemned.
Let him go over here and stand in this box as somebody who's
never done anything wrong. And we make that exchange.
And then the judge says, and you know what?
Now only are you not condemned? You're going to be my son.
You're going to be my daughter. You're coming home with me boy.
Talk about I don't deserve that. Talk about something that is is
just not fair. I hear people say that all the
time. Oh, life's not fair.
No, it's not. If we got what we really
deserved, it would be a whole lot worse.
But because our Lord included those 4 ladies, He can include
you. I want to tell you this number 2
because He changed their story. He can also take your life and
change your story. If you want to turn to these
passages, you're welcome to. I have put some of them up on
the screen to make it a little bit easier for you.
But the Bible says in first John chapter 5 and verse #13 these
things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the
Son of God, that ye may know that you have eternal life and
that you may believe on the name of the Son of God.
It's not by the good things that we do.
In fact, Ephesians chapter 2 makes that very plain.
For by grace are you safe through faith, and then not of
yourselves. It's a gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast.
If it was about how much good I can do #1 how would I ever know
that I've done enough good? I would never, as the Bible says
in first John chapter 5, know that I have eternal life.
Because I would never know when I've done enough.
I would never know when I've reached that tipping point where
here's all my bad works, here's my good works, and finally my
good works are starting to outweigh my bad works and
finally God's going to have to let me in.
But I don't know. It's, it's such a fine balance.
I don't know if I'm ever going to.
That's not knowing that you have eternal life.
But he says that you may know that you have eternal life,
right? How do you know?
Well, because it doesn't have anything to do with the works,
doesn't have anything to do with how good I am or how bad I am.
If it had anything to do with how good I am, then it's all on
me. It's it's about what I've done.
And then it doesn't even matter what Jesus Christ did.
Why does it matter if Jesus Christ came and was born as a
baby? Why does it matter if he died on
a cross? Why does it matter if he rose
again from the dead if that was only part of the story?
If that was only part of it, He's either got the power to
save us by his death burial in resurrection, or he doesn't.
He doesn't have half power and we got to do the rest.
That's why he says not of works, lest any man should boast.
If I'm in heaven telling everybody that I'm there because
of how good I am, then it's all about me and my works.
But if I'm in heaven saying I don't deserve to be here, but
Jesus Christ paid the penalty for me and I'm here because of
him, then it's not of works lest any man should boast.
It's not by baptism, it's not by communion, it's not by church
attendance, it's not by giving money to the poor, it's not by
giving money to church. It's not by any of those things.
None of those things can buy you a spot in heaven, and the Bible
is very clear about that. It's not just my opinion.
We could look at a lot of verses, in fact, that this verse
right here, Ephesians 28 and 9, makes that very clear.
It's not by anything that we can do, not because we deserve it.
It's because He loves us and because He desires for each one
of us to come to know Jesus Christ as our Savior.
Romans chapter 6 and verse 23 I quoted already For the wages of
sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord. There comes a point in every
single person's life where they have to make a choice to either
accept or reject Jesus Christ. You cannot remain neutral.
There's no neutral ground. You have two choices.
You're either going to accept Him or you're going to reject
Him. There's no way around that
decision, and to do nothing is to choose not to.
We all face the consequences of our decisions, and I want you to
understand this. Lastly #3 if you accept Jesus
Christ as your Savior, he can write a new story.
He can write a story of restoration, a story of grace, a
story of hope. I will ask you to turn over to
Ephesians chapter 2. Christmas story is more than
just a baby born in a Manger. It's a story of a life capital L
that was given to mankind to change our eternal destiny and
to write a new chapter to our story.
We were once outcast and you still might be.
We were once on our way to hell and you still might be.
But there is hope, because Jesus Christ can and will change that
story, if you'll open up your heart and allow Him to come in
and write your story instead of trying to do it for yourself.
Of course, if we write our story and he died and he went to
heaven, that's how we'd all write our story.
But we don't get to be the ones that write it.
In fact, the Bible says this in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse
#12 that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens
from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants
of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.
But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off, are made
nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath
made both, 1 and hath broken down the middle wall of
partition between us, verse #17 and came and preached peace to
you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.
For through Him we both have access by 1 Spirit unto the
Father. Now therefore, you are no more
strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the Saints
and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of
the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief
cornerstone. Boy, what a wonderful passage,
Tamar. When nobody else cares for you,
Christ does. Are you tired of being
overlooked? Are you tired of being
forgotten? Are you tired of being rejected?
Are you tired of being underappreciated when no one
believes you, no one chooses you, no one accepts you.
Jesus Christ does. He chose you to be included in
his lineage. Rahab.
You no longer have to remember you for what you used to be.
We can remember you. Forget what God changed you to
become, Ruth. We don't think of you as a
stranger anymore. You're one of the mothers in the
lineage of Jesus Christ. Bathsheba, your story has
changed from one that began with loss and shame to one that's a
story of hope and restoration through Jesus Christ.
Every one of those women had something in their past that was
looked on with shame. And I told you it was going to
be a little bit uncomfortable as we talked about their stories.
But it's necessary for you to understand that their past were
full of shame, that their past were full of things that they
were not proud of. So their pasts were full of
things that most of the world looks down upon.
They were at times despised, Some of them were victims, but
they were abused and abhorred and mistreated and despised and
rejected and even condemned until the Lord changed their
story, they accepted him, they changed their minds, they
changed their hearts, they changed their direction and God
changed their lives. So the question for you this
morning is will you accept the gift that God is offering you
today? Doesn't matter how bad you think
you are, doesn't matter how good you think you are.
The story of Christmas changed their story and it can change
yours as well. Turn, if you will, to one last
passage in Romans chapter 5. AJ Gordon was a Baptist preacher
many years ago of the Clarendon Church in Boston, MA.
And one day he met a young boy that was, that had come into
the, to the auditorium there. And it was carrying a rusty cage
with several birds that were flooding around in the inside of
the cage. And the pastor walked out of his
office when he heard somebody open the door.
And he walked in there and he saw that boy standing there with
that cage and those birds in there.
And he said, what are you, what are you doing, young man?
What are, what are, what are those birds?
They said, well, I, I just captured them out in the field
and I put them in this, in this cage because I wanted to watch
him for a little while. And he said, well, what are you
going to do with them after you're done with them?
And he said, well, I suppose I'll just take them home and
feed him to the cat. And the pastor said, I'll tell
you what, I'll give you $2 for the cage and the birds.
And that boy said, oh, it's not they're just wild.
They're just wild birds. And they don't even have a nice
song. They don't even really sing at
all. It's not they're not worth
$2.00. And he said, but I'll give you
$2 for them. The boy said, all right, but
you're making a bad deal. And he walked out Jingle in
those couple coins in his pocket.
And that pastor, AJ Gordon, walked out the back of the
sanctuary there, and he opened that cage and he let those birds
fly away. And that Sunday morning he came
back into the pulpit and he brought that cage with him, just
a little wire cage. It wasn't much to it didn't even
hardly look like a bird cage. But he took that empty cage in
the pulpit to illustrate the, the, the, the, the coming of
Christ to seek and to save the lost.
He paid for them with his own precious blood.
And this is what he said. He said that boy told me the
birds were not songsters. But when I released them and
they winged their way heaven what it seemed to me they were
singing redeemed, redeemed, redeemed.
That's Christmas. That's the message of Christmas.
And the message of these times is the is the song of those wild
birds in the in the in the song of every song that's sung in
this season is all about redeemed.
Every gift that we give under the tree is a, is a, is a
reminder that we have been redeemed back to Jesus Christ.
The word of the shepherds redeemed, the word of Mary, the
assurance that Mary received redeemed.
The star that the the wise men followed redeemed and reminds us
the whole story of Christmas reminds us of the fact that we
can be redeemed back to God because of what he did for us.
You and I have been trapped by sin, but Christ has purchased
our redemption. We have been redeemed.
Every one of us has been redeemed back to God.
And yet there's still people who turn around and they say, I
don't want it. You can keep your redemption.
You can. I'll take the punishment that's
coming to me because of my sin. I'll have this.
I'll enjoy my life. I'll, I'll live in the sin as
long as I want to. You can keep it.
How foolish. How foolish for somebody who has
been given a pardon. How foolish for somebody who can
get away from the punishment that comes from their sin.
How foolish for somebody who doesn't have to spend an
eternity in hell and not only doesn't have to spend an
eternity in hell, but has been promised an eternity in heaven
with Jesus, with the mansions and the streets of gold and all
the other promises that we have of heaven.
And to say, Nah, I'd rather enjoy it in this life.
I'd rather live my life the way that I want to live it.
I'll take the punishment that's coming at the end when you've
already been redeemed. The payment has already been
made. The sacrifice has already been
made. Everything has already been done
for you. You don't have to spend a minute
in hell. You don't have to spend a minute
paying for your sins. Jesus Christ, the righteous, the
one who never did anything wrong, the one who doesn't
deserve any punishment, walked over to our side and tells us,
you, you go stand over there in my place, I'll take yours.
That's why I came. That's why I was born in that
Manger. That's, that's, that's why I
lived my life on earth with humans.
That's why I put up with all the things that I put up with.
That's why I did everything that I did.
And that's why I, I, I agonized in the Garden of Gethsemane
because I knew how difficult that would be.
And I knew that God was going to turn his back on me because I'm
taking this sin on myself. I knew that's what was going to
happen. But I love you so much.
I don't want to see you have to take that punishment.
Please. Here's the gift.
The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Please, it's here. It's yours.
I've already done everything that you need to do.
Won't you just accept it? You don't have to stand
condemned before God. You don't have to be the one who
pays for your sins. I'll take the payment for you.
I've already taken the payment for you.
Just let me have it. Just let me have it.
Just accept my gift. Somebody said this.
If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent
us an educator. If our greatest need had been
technology, God would have sent us a scientist.
If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an
economist. If our greatest need had been
pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer.
But our greatest need was forgiveness.
So God sent us a Savior. I enjoy the trees and the lights
and the festivities and all the things that that are are part of
the season of Christmas. But the true beauty of Christmas
is not found in any of those things.
It's found in the eternal fact that we read in Romans chapter 5
and verse #8. But God commendeth his love
toward us. God gave His love to us in that
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
All through history God sought us.
Even when our attitudes and our actions were against Him.
He was for us. When we were at our very worst.
God gave us His very best. Will you accept the gift of His
Son? To reject it is to continue
living life in misery, in defeat, in discouragement, in
despair and shame, in emptiness. Every one of those women whose
lives were changed by the Christmas story came to the
realization that their past was nothing to be proud of, but
their future in Christ was something that would hide their
past under the blood of Jesus Christ.
God can change your life. He can rewrite your story
through the Savior that was born as a baby all those years ago.
Christmas changed their story. Christmas can change yours too.
Won't you let him? Won't you let him?
Let's pray. Father, again, we thank you so
much for your goodness to us. We thank you for the fact that
we can have eternal life. We thank you for the fact that
we can accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and God.
I do pray that if there is even one person in here this morning
that does not know for sure that Jesus Christ as their Savior,
does not know that their sins are covered under the blood of
Jesus Christ, does not know that they're on their way to heaven.
God, I pray that you'd help them to make that decision for you
today. Thank you so much for loving me
enough that I was allowed to hear the message of the gospel
and accept it for myself. Pray the same for everybody else
in here this morning again for all you do for us in Jesus name,
Amen, if you.