Episode Transcript
[00:00:17] Speaker A: Hello there. It's good to have this time together. My name is Philip McNeil. I'm the president of Elam Fellowship, and I just wanted to give you some Christmas thoughts.
Maybe some of them you can use for your own life, of course, but also in the ministry you're involved. I know at Christmas personally, when I was pastoring more, I would preach five Christmas messages every December. And so drawing from other people's material is not bad. Feel free to use any of this, but I hope also that it blesses your life as you come into the Christmas season. You know, it's a tremendous time for people who sometimes don't even come to church. We do a Christmas Eve at the church where my wife now pastors. But we get every year, 20 to 30% of the people are people that never come any other time. So take advantage of the season and let's bring people into the kingdom. Amen. I'm going to be sharing with you about the redemption, the redeeming power of the Christmas message. If you have a device, you can turn to Matthew 1 and just get ready. We're going to read together.
And because this is a time of year where no matter where you're from, no matter what you've been or haven't been, the Gospel is always about redemption. It's always about the fact that Jesus came to give his life so that you and I, and he came as a baby, the most vulnerable thing in the world, so that you and I could be free.
And I want you, as you hear this, don't let any condemnation ruin you or your calling God, because as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. And if you're guilty, that comes out. But if you understand the forgiveness and the redeeming power of God, that he redeems what the locust has devoured. And so that's our title today as we look at Christmas redemption, starting in Matthew 1.
You know, this is, you know, not exactly the easiest chapter to read, the beginning verses, because of all the different names. And I promise you, I will stumble over some of them. And we probably won't read it all. But it's the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah.
This is the genealogy verse 1 of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar. Remember that. Judah, the father of Perez and Terah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram. So what's important about the genealogy is that we can see the see of Abraham follows all the way through to the birth of Jesus Christ. That that promise that was made in Genesis that the whole world would be blessed through the seed of Abraham and then a Messiah would come. And so Matthew is laying out all of the important.
[00:03:28] Speaker A: Details of the genealogy to see that from Abraham, it goes all the way to the birth of Jesus Christ.
And so we read again, starting in verse six, just above it. Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David. So now we're at King David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife. Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijab, Abijab the father of Asa. Asa the father. Jehoshaphat. It just keeps going down all the different names of people in Jesus genealogy.
And Jacob the Father, verse 16. We'll just skip right down. And Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus, who was called the Messiah. Thus there were 14 generations. Verse 17 now. And all from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the exile to Babylon, and 14 from the exile to the Messiah. I want you to see something here just how powerful that lineage is. We're going somewhere with this. Just stay with me. But we starting in verse 18. Now, Joseph accepts Jesus as his son. This is how the birth of Jesus, the Messiah came about.
His mother, Mary, was pledged to be married to Joseph. But before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph, her husband, was faithful to the law and did not want to expose her to public disgrace. He had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save people from their sins. That's the gospel right there. To save people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet. The virgin will conceive and give birth to his son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us. When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the Name Jesus. Let's pray. Lord, bless this word. Let's bless this message. May it touch hearts and bear much fruit in people's lives. For the kingdom, in Jesus name, Amen.
Christmas can be a challenging time of year.
There's a lot of joy, but there's also a lot of pain. A lot to be thankful for, but also regrets. But Christmas is about the redemption of God, that Jesus came into the human condition and brought life. The gospel is not about us being perfect or perfect pedigrees, but about his perfection. He bore our shame, he bore our past. No matter where you come from, no matter what your heritage, listen to me, it doesn't matter. Jesus can reestablish your life. And that's what the Christmas season is all about. You know, I never want to do one of those ancestry studies for my own life because I just don't want to know.
You know, I'm sure there's Phil the bank robber, Phil the pirate, Phil, all sorts of things. I don't want to know what my past was or what my parents, well, not my past, but my parents past or my in laws past or way back. Because at the end of the day I am a new creature in Christ. The old has gone and the new has come and that's Christmas. And when we take here a look at the.
[00:07:13] Speaker A: Lineage, the account of the genealogy of Jesus, it's very, very interesting. When you look at some of these people, you have women involved. Probably a little conservative for the Jewish culture. Hey, what about that? God used women. There's a good thought right there.
We see here Loaf, something very interesting in Matthew 1:3, Judah, the Father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar Perez, the father of Hezron. Now Tamar, this is an interesting story here when we look at the genealogy, Jesus, because when you look at the story of Tamar, it's very interesting. She was married to both of Judah's sons and both them passed away. And then Judah's wife passes away. So now Tamar is single and Judah is single. But so Judah goes on a trip and Tamar knew this. And on the road for the trip, Tamar nudists and dressed as a prostitute with a veil.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: Wow.
Judah hired her for the night but never knew who she was.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Later on Judah finds out that she has become pregnant as a prostitute. Judah is indignant with Tamar and wants to stone her to death. Then Judah finds out that it's his son Tamar, a gentile, tricked and seduced her father in law, then bore illegitimate twins. So you can read about this in Genesis 8. So when we look at the lineage, what's powerful is this. The gospel is not held back, and the plans of God are not held back. And no matter what your past is, no matter what your lineage is, Christmas. And the account of Jesus genealogy tells us that God can redeem and restore and bring your life into the purposes. No matter if you were filled the pirate somewhere in your past.
That's powerful.
And what I love about the gospel is it doesn't hide, gets right to it.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: In the genealogy. In verse five, Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse, the father of King Dan or King David. Sorry. Rahab, another Gentile. Gentile, sorry.
Once worked as a prostitute.
How great.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: Is our God?
Ruth also grew up as a pagan Gentile, a Moabitess.
Uriah's wife Bathsheba committed adultery with King David.
My point in this is the Christmas message. When you look at that genealogy, there are not perfect people involved. And God is not called perfect people. He's called people who've been made perfect by the finished work of Calvary.
And so you kite people coming into your church with all sorts of backgrounds. You've got all sorts of backgrounds and you look at it sometimes and you say.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: Or sing how great.
Or that old hymn my father in law sings. It's a glorious church without spot or wrinkle. But what's powerful is there is therefore now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: The ancestry of Jesus is in essence what the gospel is all about.
It doesn't matter what your past is.
Jesus came and receives everyone the same. The gospel is about opening your arms to everyone, no matter how unsavory they seem, no matter how unsavory your past seems to you. God is able to cast it into the sea of forgetfulness, and he is able to renew and restore what the locusts have devoured. Come on, that's Christmas. That's the gospel. And I'm not against holiness and righteous living. For me, it's more about pain.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: I recognize that sin is sin and it separates us from a holy God. But the truth of the matter is, for me, the reason I avoid sin is because sin represents pain.
I want to avoid sin because of pain. It'll affect me, it'll affect my marriage, it'll affect my children, all sorts of things. So for me, sin is more about pain. When I talk about the gospel, yeah, sin has separated Us, you cannot not make important the death of Christ on the cross and his blood shed for us and so the forgiveness of sin. But more than that.
[00:11:47] Speaker A: It teaches us how to live to avoid pain.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Titus 3:5. He saved us not because of righteous things we have done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. You may be listening today with things in your past or family that you are not particularly proud of. But Jesus came for the ordinary person. Not one of Jesus disciples was a Pharisee. He chose common fishermen.
[00:12:25] Speaker A: It's important that we as believers don't get self righteous.
Some of us may get it cleaned up pretty good. But when we get to the point where we think that our righteousness is our credibility, or now I'm not saying our character integrity is not important, but we can never take pride in our own righteousness because all of us have in our path somewhere. Phil the pirate, Phil the bank robber. All of us do. But here's the glorious thing about Christmas when you look at Jesus lineage. Yet God came and no sin could stop the purposes of God coming to pass.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: The promises of God.
Take this by faith. No matter what you're living in right now, the promises of God are not hindered by human sin and frailty. We see here in this lineage of Jesus many human failures and sinful frailties. However, none of these hindered the word of the Lord going forth. You may be listening right now from a very human family. I am. You may be around very human people, but none of them can hinder the word of God going forth. In your life and situation. You have may have had people in your past who are not completely faithful to the Lord, but again, that is the glory of the gospel. You may say, my father and mother were this or that, so I will be this or that. Don't receive that you're a new creature in Christ.
You may even be bitter towards your parents or someone else. But this as we listen today. God wants you to forgive them and move to a new level in Him. It does not matter where you come from. Jesus lineage is questionable. Your lineage may be questionable, but that is the beauty of the gospel. God is in the restoration business. He came as a baby to restore this world. Can I say something to you? All of us come from families. All of us come from parents that weren't perfect. I'm a Parent. I wasn't perfect. But there comes a point in life where you've got to look to God, where you're not entangled by that, but you look forward to what God has done in your life. You can't always be dwelling on the past. If you dwell on your past, then you don't come into your future. There's a reason why the window on the front of the car is bigger than the rear view mirror. Keep your vision forward. Don't be dwelling on what mom and dad did or grandparents. I'm not saying those things don't affect us on some level, but they do not need to imprison us and they do not need to be an anchor. And they. What does it say? Forgetting what lies behind and why be entangled by the sin that so easily besets us? Move forward. Stop looking back. Stop blaming everyone. Look to the Lord. And I'm not discounting what can happen in childhood. And please, that's not my heart at all. And I'm not saying those things aren't, are sometimes real. But the truth of the gospel is he makes all things new.
See, I set before you today, life or death. Choose life.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: Look forward.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: Don't let your lineage hold you back from the truth of the Christmas message, which is we just read Jesus boy. You can, you can make a lot of good movies out of that, right? And some of them would not be pg. Can we say amen? But look what the Lord did. He brought together his purposes and he worked it all out.
Jesus birth was so prophetic. Evidence that demands a verdict is a really good book written by Josh McDowell about all the prophecies in scripture. I believe one of his illustrations is for all this. He was a man that didn't really believe. And so he set out to prove that the. That Jesus wasn't a messiah. And he wrote this book years ago. Josh McDowell. Evidence that demands a verdict. And you know, I might not have this illustration completely correct, but I'm pretty sure I'm pretty accurate. He said for all the prophecies to be fulfilled that came to pass in the Bible. He took the mathematical odds of that and it was astronomical. But then he said it's kind of like filling the state of Texas with. I think it was a foot or two foot of quarters taken. One or it might have been silver dollars, painting it red and throwing it into the state of Texas, stirring it all up and somehow reaching in down and pulling out that one red coin.
Now, I might not have that illustration perfect, but I'm pretty Sure, I'm accurate.
The point of it is.
[00:16:47] Speaker A: Jesus birth was prophetic. That's the message of Christmas. Now I understand we want to find Jesus by examining the Scriptures.
And I think it's very good that it's important that we do.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: And if that's where you're at, do it. You will find that there's so much prophecy foretelling the birth of Jesus and how it came to pass.
But I hope you find Jesus on another level.
I hope you're born again too, that you come. Sure, Bible says that they search the scriptures, they, they debated this 100%. But I hope you find Jesus more than on just some logical level. But if you're looking for facts, you cannot deny the facts of the birth of Jesus is so prophetic in Scripture. It starts in Genesis 3:15. And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you and you will strike his heel.
We can see it through the lineage of Christ, Abraham.
Genesis 12. The Lord said to Abraham, leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land. I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. And whoever curses you, I will curse. And all peoples on the earth will be blessed through you. All the people on the earth were blessed through his seed. David, second Samuel 7:16. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me. Your throne will be established forever. Prophetic of another kingdom. Out of the lineage of David would come Jesus and the throne of God would be established forever. The Lord promises to establish David's throne forever was a covenant between God and his people. The New Testament sees this promise fulfilled in Jesus, a son of David and king of kings forever. Matthew 1:22. All this our text that we read from. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet. The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son. Now think about this. This is hundreds of years ago.
In Isaiah, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to his son. And they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us.
That is prophesied in Isaiah 7:14.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: Matthew 26, our text again today. But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. For out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel. Out of you prophesied in Micah that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem. Micah 5:2. But you, Bethlehem Ephraim, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times. The Gospel is something, as we look at Christmas, that you can put your faith in. It is not just some new revelation, but as hundreds and even thousands of years of prophecy were fulfilled at the birth of Jesus.
[00:20:00] Speaker A: It's Christmas.
Jesus birth was the beginning of our salvation. From our text, she will give birth to a son. And you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save people from their sins.
Jesus is the Greek word, Greek form, sorry of Joshua, which means the lord saves.
Isaiah 9, 6, 7. Think about these verses.
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.
And the government shall be upon his shoulders. And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and peace, there shall be no end. Upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom, to order it and to establish it, with judgment and with justice, from henceforth forth, even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this, the birth of Jesus.
Christmas is bigger than your past.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: God moves beyond our past.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: God moves beyond the sin of others. Look at the sin of all those people and the genealogy of Jesus. But it did not stop the purposes of God and it will not stop the purposes of God in your life.
And don't let it become bondage to you. Move forward.
[00:21:38] Speaker A: Our faith is based on hundreds of years of prophecy fulfilled, and Jesus is our deliverer.
[00:21:48] Speaker A: I want to pray for you this morning.
Where are you at?
Are you letting condemnation hold you back at this Christmas time?
Look, when you get up there, you let the forgiveness and the power of God flow through everything you say. Whether you're a pastor, whether you're a leader, whatever you are, whether you're in your household, whether you're a husband or a wife or a teenager. Whatever you are, don't you let anything keep the the good news from being alive in your spirit.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: Let it flow.
God has not given us a spirit of fear.
There's therefore now no condemnation.
Jesus and Christmas is about what God can do in any life and how he can redeem and restore yours. God bless every life that's listening.
Just agree with me.
Let there be no guilt, let there be no condemnation.
Let there be no fear in any way.
In Jesus name. Amen. Hey, before we go, I just want to thank you for your faithful support of Healing, fellowship.
A lot of good things going on here. We just had a zoom call on Saturday, 7am, 7pm we had missionaries from, from different places in the world that called in. We heard the word together, we shared together. I'm excited about things coming up. The OASIS conference this year, May 4th, I think it is. 5th, 6th and something like that.
First Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday of May. I know that we have SCU worship. We have Adam McCain coming. We've got all sorts of workshops. We got great worship lined up. Mark your calendar and come and be a part of this. Look at. You need fellowship. You need fellowship. And that's what we're about. Come and be a part. I know you will. I can. You know, you always want to careful what you say. But I promise you, you will be met and you will meet the Lord at that conference and leave encouraged. You need to make the time for brethren and sisters of Like Precious Faith continue to pray for us. We're stretching out next year with different programs. We're going to believe the lord for about $100,000 extra in income to come in to support all the different things we're doing. They're all Great. We had 13 regionals this year.
We're doing this because we're planting, we're watering for you. So we're believing for God to bring the increase of his presence and his power in your life. God bless you. Have a merry Christmas and a prosperous new year. God bless.
