Dec. 19, 2021 Matt. 1:18-25 “Count Your Blessings!”

17 Dec Dec. 19, 2021 Matt. 1:18-25 “Count Your Blessings!”

Dec. 19, 2021    Matt. 1:18-25      “Count Your Blessings!”

I think that this is probably the most joyous time of year for many.  I also know that it’s the saddest time for others.  I hope that you have heeded me a little when I’ve told you not to pay too much attention to the news media.  I think that they are terribly biased and much of what they say or print is a lie.  Therefore, if you steer away from these news casts you will probably be a happier person.  This Christmas might also be the first one without a loved one at our side.  Or we may have some illness that prevents happiness.  There are many reasons for this season to be without joy.  I want all those who are listening to this today who are full of joy to think about your family, friends and neighbors who you know are having a tough time.  Go to them and be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ in this world.  Give them the Christmas message by your actions.  This world is tough on all of us so we need to band together as Christians to help our brothers and sisters in Christ.  You are even to help total strangers.  What I’m going to try to do today is to show you just how much Jesus loves you even if you are in the midst of problems.  Hopefully, you will be able to see the joy in this holiday and maybe, just maybe some of this will rub off on you and help you out of your problems.

You know that there are lots of miracles going on around us every day and I’m here to tell you that one happened to me this week.  The miracle is that I learned something new or that I didn’t know before.  It just shows that you can teach us older folks new things.  But seriously, I was reading about Bethlehem and I began to wonder what it meant.  I found out that Bethlehem means ‘house of bread.’  So, that means that Jesus was not born in a house of royalty or house of riches or even a house of a celebrity.  He was not born in Jerusalem, or in Rome or in Athens or Alexandria or any other big city.  He was not born in any political, commercial, cultural, educational or socially significant city of the day.  His birth was foretold in Bethlehem by the prophet Micah.  He was born in the House of Bread because bread has always been one of the most common foods of the world.  Jesus came to be common and also available to all.  Isn’t it wonderful how God makes perfect sense all the time!

The first thing I would like us to notice is that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit.  Whole books have been written on this subject so I’m just going to go into this a little bit.  We need to remember that sin entered the world through Adam and Eve.  When they ate of the fruit in the Garden of Eden, every generation after them was doomed to sin.  We were like this until Jesus came along.

Jesus had to be conceived by the Holy Spirit in order for this to all work.  What happens when two normal people have children?  They have the traits of the parents but they also have one trait of Adam and Eve.  They will all sin.  It is part of them.  God in His infinite wisdom made one of the parents of Jesus be the Holy Spirit, who is God and is perfect.  The Holy Spirit has no traits of Adam and Eve.  One of the parents had a sinful nature and one was perfect.  Jesus was both fully human and fully God at the same time.  He has been where you have been.  He knows all about your sinful nature and yet He is fully God and can deal with all of it.  This could never work with two human parents.

Not too long ago, there was a pew poll and here are some of the results.  93% of all Americans believe Jesus really lived.  Slightly over half know that Jesus is God or the Son of God.  73% believe that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirt and born of the Virgin Mary.  67% feel that the Christmas story is true as it is written in the Bible.  84% felt that they were Christians.  This is all pretty good news in some areas because we should believe our Bibles.  I temper this good news with what I have observed.  We seem to believe the Bible as long as we can define who Jesus is and not have the Bible define Jesus.  We say that He is my Jesus and I will define Him.  That is how we have gotten into all the heretic beliefs that we have today.  They are not centered in the Bible but in us.  We define who Jesus is and this isn’t right.  We even have a group of so-called Biblical scholars who have come out and said that there is no part of the Christmas stories in Matthew and Luke that are true.  These are Biblical scholars.  It goes to show that it is important that we believe the Holy Scriptures as written and not on our own devices.  Goodness, that almost sounds like a Proverb from 3:5 which says “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”  So, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and we know this when we trust in the Lord with all our heart.

Now if the so-called Biblical scholars cannot believe in the conception by the Holy Spirit, then they will never believe that an angel came to talk to Joseph.  However, just in the Christmas story we have angels talking with Mary, then Joseph and finally the shepherds not to mention the wise men.  There are many places in the Bible that talk about angels.  I would go so far as to say that angels are a major part of our belief.  And yet, yet our scholars don’t believe any of this.  This is terribly sad and misleading. Be ware of so-called Biblical scholars.

God was very wise in sending angels to these people.  These people believe 100% in God and what He said.  But He was going into some uncharted grounds here.  There had never been a virgin giving birth before and it has never happened again.  Therefore, God sent the angels to explain what was going to happen.  He didn’t need to explain this to everyone, only the central players.  And that is just what He did.  Joseph was thinking about not marrying Mary because it was against all of their marriage traditions and laws.  Therefore, God had to do something to make this work so in come the angels.  And I might have to say, that they did an absolutely wonderful job.  These people listened.

Today, if you ask people about angels, you will get a wide variety of answers as to whether they believe or not.  Here are a couple of things to think about as far as angels are concerned.  Have you ever asked a little child if they have seen an angel or God?  They will tell you yes just about every time, unless they are too old.  Children see angels and they know all about them.  It’s the adults that get a little thick headed.

But adults get to see them also.  These are a couple of true stories.  There was a woman who had to walk in a very bad part of town where a known violent thief hung out.  Later they picked up this thief for something else and he told the police about this lady walking down the street with a small army of huge men behind her.  There was no way he was going to try to assault her.  She had actually been alone but had been surrounded by angels, big tough looking angels.  There are many cases of angels in hospitals talking to patients and then they disappear.  No had ever heard or seen them but they attended and helped a patient.  A man came out of nowhere and lifted a car off a woman.  Then he disappeared and the authorities could not find a trace of him.  These people were all visited by angels.  People, angels are as real as we are sitting here today.

The third thing that is very important here to show us that this actually happened is that the prophet Isaiah is quoted from hundreds of years before this.  He said, “the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel.”  There are several other prophecies that were fulfilled by the birth of Jesus and there were dozens fulfilled by the life of Jesus.  Micah tells us that Jesus will not be born in Jerusalem but Bethlehem.  That isn’t a bad prophecy considering they were originally from Nazareth.  God sent them the census so they would be in Bethlehem.  Hosea 11:1 tells us that they would end up in Egypt.  Samuel tells us that the offspring of David will have an eternal throne.  There are several more prophecies but the point is that these things couldn’t happen by chance.  It would be humanly impossible for all the prophecies about Jesus to be fulfilled in just one person, but Jesus did.  People, Jesus Christ is exactly who He said He was and the prophecies pave the way.

Now you may be wondering about why this is so important because you believe all of this anyway.  First of all, maybe you don’t really believe all of this, only some of it or just kind of believe.  It is important that you examine your belief a little to make sure that you totally agree with everything in the Bible.  You cannot define Jesus.  As I mentioned, you have to read your Bibles to find and get the definition of Jesus.

The other thing I would like to point out today is that by quoting these centuries old passages, we find that we can trust God with everything.  This is what really need today.  We need someone to trust.  The media and the government are about the biggest liars in the world.  We know that but it seems that we can do nothing about it.  We are stuck…or are we.  Jesus came just as it is told many, many times in the Old Testament.  He came for you.  He came so that you can have someone to trust.  Jesus is the very author of trust.  It will always be a huge mystery to me as to why so many people don’t want to know about Jesus and all the good that He will supply.  He will help you and help you and help you.  He will do this forever if you just come to Him.  All you have to do is confess your sins to Him and ask Him to be Lord and Savior of your life.  Trust completely in Jesus.  There is no other way.  The prophets of the Old Testament were right on the mark with their predictions.  These have been fulfilled at the unheard-of rate of 100%.  The New Testament has many prophecies also.  These will also come true at the rate of 100%.  I know this to be a fact because the Bible tells us so.  Don’t be left standing in this world when Jesus comes back.  He has made this very easy for you and all people.

The last thing I would like you to notice today is that Joseph obeyed.  He obeyed in everything including naming the baby Jesus.  Jesus was not a family name or a name that would even be considered.  They had pretty strict rules for lots of things including naming their babies.

I would like to contrast Joseph obeying the angel and the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah.  Elizabeth was pregnant with John the Baptist when she was well beyond child bearing years so this was another major miracle.  The angel came to Zechariah to tell him this wonderful news.  Their son would make the path for the Messiah.  Well, Zechariah, was disobedient right from the beginning as he didn’t believe the angel.  Because of this, the angel made him mute until the birth of John the Baptist.  There are many other stories of people being disobedient to God and the results are usually the same.  Bad things happen.

This is an important lesson for us today.  How many of us are obedient?  That is a hard question to answer because none of us are obedient.  If you want proof of this then just take a look at our society.  It is decadent everywhere.  And it’s not the fault of the Democrats or the Republicans.  It’s not the fault of any of the things that you can think about unless you are thinking of yourself.  How many of you allow you children to take part in sporting or other activities on Sunday morning?  How many of you cheat on things?  How many of you extremely dislike the Democrats or the Republicans?  I could go on and on with this list because you are not nearly as obedient as you think.

Being obedient to Christ is a cornerstone to a happy, successful life as is believing all that the Bible has to say.  But it’s not always easy.  This is Christmas so I’m going to give you a little tip on how to have a better life.  Now I never think of anything myself and this one comes from Daniel Defoe who wrote Robinson Crusoe.  The first thing that Crusoe did when he found himself on a deserted island was to make a list.  He had a column of all his problems and one with all his blessings.  One problem he had was he had not clothes.  One of the blessings was that it was warm there and he didn’t need any.  A problem was that he had lost all his provisions.  A blessing was that the island had plenty of good water and fresh fruit.  The list went on but I think you get the idea.

I want you to give yourself a Christmas present this year.  I would like you to make a list of all your problems and one with all your blessings, just like Robinson Crusoe.  Maybe you cannot get out and about to visit people anymore.  The blessing is that we now have cell phones and ways to have video chats with anyone.  Maybe there is a shortage of staples that we usually have on Christmas day for dinner.  We also live in an age where there are many other choices for dinner that might even be as good or better than the traditional foods.  Make your list and be sure to add more blessings as they come to you.  You should be able to have at least twice as many blessings as problems.  I want you to focus on your blessings this year and not your problems.  Then try to continue this throughout next year.  You may find yourself a better person for doing this.

I think you will find the love of God is overwhelming if you just look for it.  Jesus wants everyone to have the best Christmas ever.  And you will have the best when you realize that Jesus is blessing you every step of the way.  He loves you that much.  And thank you Jesus for first loving us and giving us Christmas.  Merry Christmas!  Let’s pray.