I'm going to be on this text, but I want to read this this morning before we get started. Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6 and 7. And then we'll jump into the message this morning. Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6 through 7. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end. And on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Amen. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we want to praise you and thank you. That even as we prepare for the various things that we'll be doing with our families, with the busy season of exchanging gifts, vacations, rest, that in the midst of all of this, help us to remember what we are truly celebrating, that you've sacrificed your only begotten Son to live on this earth, Lord God, in suffering, humbled.

I pray that you would help us to understand the meaning behind all of this, Lord. That we would grow in appreciation, that we would be men and women who worship you genuinely from our hearts. We ask that you would anoint this morning for the sake of your name. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. Again, as you guys know, Christmas every year we celebrate the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And as the gospels represent him and teach us that he is the King of kings and Lord of lords. So when we think about the coming of the King, we celebrate the coming of the King because the King comes to establish his kingdom.

So it's not just about Jesus himself, but why he came. Not simply because he came as an infant child born in a manger with all these things we sing about and we view and we have time with our children, but in the end, the King came in order to establish his kingdom.

The kingdom that Jesus brought is filled with paradoxes because it is against so much of what we understand the world believes in and teaches. And nowhere is that more clear when we see it in the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5 through chapter 7 is what we call the Sermon on the Mount.

And Sermon on the Mount basically is Jesus describing what the kingdom of heaven is like. And so you'll see that phrase over and over again repeated in his teaching. The kingdom of heaven is like this. The kingdom of heaven is like that. But before he even gets into the core of his message, he begins the message by saying, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

So every one of these Beatitudes are things that have flipped our worldview completely upside down because we don't normally think that those who are poor in spirit are the ones who are blessed. In fact, oftentimes when we are poor in spirit, we seek God and say, what did I do wrong?

Maybe if I did this, maybe there's some sin in my life. But instead, Jesus turns that upside down and says, no, blessed are those who are poor. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. Not those who are rejoicing, not those who is nothing is going wrong in their life, but those who mourn because he himself will come in comfort.

Blessed are those who are meek for they shall inherit the earth. Not the go-getters, not the CEOs, but those who are meek. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied. I'm not going to go through all of them, but if you look at the Beatitudes, every part of the Beatitudes flips the world values completely upside down.

And this is the paradox of God's kingdom that though we live in the world who teaches the opposite of the Beatitudes, that his kingdom has come to establish his kingdom within the church a completely different set of rules and set of values. And that's what Christmas ultimately is about.

It's not simply about Jesus Christ coming. It's about him coming to establish his kingdom. Jesus in his teaching repeatedly said, it is those who are the weakest in the kingdom, those who serve are those who are the greatest in the kingdom of God. In fact, there's nothing more paradoxical than when he says, if you want to live, you must, what, die.

I mean, that pretty much sums up everything that he says. If you want to live, you must die. Think about it. Since the day we are born, those of you who have children, when you have infants coming out of the mother's womb, the first thing that they do is they open their eyes, they begin to cry.

And some babies immediately begin to suck. They know how to eat. The instinct to live, to survive, for self-preservation is innate in us from the day that we are born. And yet Jesus says, if you really truly want to live, you must learn how to die to yourself. So the kingdom of God is filled with paradoxes.

Again, as I mentioned last week, we have to be careful that we don't apply the kingdom, the worldly principles into his kingdom because it is completely the opposite. And that's why Paul tells us in Romans chapter 12 not to be conformed but to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.

But of all the paradoxes that we see in his kingdom and of his teaching, there is nothing more paradoxical than what you and I celebrate today. Jesus Christ himself, his very presence, that he walked with us, he was born into this world, is a paradox above all the other paradoxes because his name, according to Isaiah 714, is Immanuel.

And the word Immanuel simply means God with us. It was prophesied in Isaiah 714 that therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. This prophecy was given 750 plus years before Jesus ever showed up.

Today and tomorrow is a day that we remember Christ coming. Matthew 123, the angel says, "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Immanuel," which means God with us. God with us. Some theologians will actually say that the greatest of all the miracles that you and I celebrate is this incarnation of Christ.

We often talk about the resurrection. And again, that's another huge Christian holiday that we celebrate and we want to make sure that the gospel goes out. You know, in our church, we take a whole week doing morning devotions and early morning service and Friday night. And so it is a big deal because Jesus said he was going to leave one sign of his resurrection.

But many theologians believe that all of that really hinges upon your belief in the incarnation of Christ. In fact, J.I. Packer says this in his book, Knowing God, "God became man, the divine son became a Jew, the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child.

The babyhood of the son of God was a reality. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as is this truth of the incarnation." Tim Keller in his book called The Hidden Christmas says this, "Some have argued that the supreme miracle of Christianity is not the resurrection of Christ from the dead, but the incarnation.

The beginningless, omnipotent creator of the universe took on a human nature without the loss of his deity so that Jesus, the son of Joseph of Nazareth, was both fully divine and fully human. Of all the things that Christianity proclaims, this is the most staggering. That God of the universe took on human form." If you've ever held a child, even if you are not a mother or father, and if you've been around an infant child, you know how fragile they are.

I remember the very first time when the doctor handed the baby over to me, I remember very distinctly my dad would always say, "Peter, whatever you touch, you break because I'm not gentle." Whether it was an instrument or whatever in the home, if it falls in my hands, it'll break.

I'm not the type of person to be nurturing, and so I just wanted to see how far is this thing going to bend. That's usually my mentality. It was so distinct to me when the doctor gave my first child into my hands, my dad's voice was ringing in my head, "Don't break him.

Don't break him." He's a human being. That's how fragile a baby is. To think that the God who created the universe took on human form, not as Samson, not as a mighty warrior, but an infant child. In Colossians 1, 16, 17, "For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authority, all things were created through him and for him." So think about who Jesus is that we are celebrating.

Everything that you and I see, everything that you and I know, the very reason why you and I even have air to breathe is because Jesus is sustaining all things. He created all things, all authority, all dominion, all power in heaven and on earth was created by Jesus himself.

And yet the scripture says that he came as a fragile baby, an infant. The almighty powerful God became an infant needing help. Again, if you've ever had a little child, and I was there with many of our young families who had children, and I remember sometimes getting phone calls from young parents not knowing if what they're doing is right or wrong, and I'm not going to expose some of you, and getting phone calls.

And I remember opening up the diaper and asking, "Is this okay?" And I'd see their little tiny butts all scratched up because the parents were wiping too hard. And I remember saying, "Don't do that. You're going to break him." The same advice my dad gave me, I gave to some of you guys.

How fragile this human being is. And yet Jesus took on that form. Not only was he a child, he didn't come to a royal family. To a teenage girl who had access to almost no resources. To the father who was a lonely carpenter who didn't have the resources to raise him up in a comfortable home.

In a city called Nazareth, where people believe that there's no access. If you want to become somebody of great stature, you can't be from Nazareth. I mean, it's not like today in the United States where you can just simply move and go somewhere else and seek out other opportunities.

Wherever you were born, that's probably where you're going to die. You don't really have much access to improve your life. So Jesus was born in Nazareth from a very ordinary background. In fact, less than ordinary. The Bible describes him in Isaiah 53, 2-3, "For he who grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of a dry ground, he had no form of majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not." We can understand why the early Jews had such a hard time understanding who Jesus was. Because they spent hundreds, thousands of years worshipping God the creator.

He's the one who delivered them from Egypt. They worshipped him day in and day out. And so when Jesus came, he didn't simply say, "I'm your Messiah." Jesus said that he was God. He said he was that God who created the universe, that all things are sustained by him.

He was that God. He said before Moses, "I am." He made it very clear that he wasn't just a messenger of God, but he himself was God. And that's why the Jews picked up stones and said, "We are stoning you not because of the miracles that you're performing, but because you, a mere man, claim to be God." They understood exactly what he was saying.

As a result of that, in John 9-11, it says, "The true light which enlightened everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him." Before we judge the early Jews, we can understand, humanly speaking, how can this fragile baby, how can this child of Joseph, the carpenter from Nazareth, he walked with us, he went to school with us.

We've seen him get tired and go to sleep. He had to learn like we had to learn. He had human relations. He had a mother. He had a father. In fact, his very first miracle in ministry was a very mundane miracle. He just turned water into wine because the mother was concerned that the host was going to get embarrassed.

So, he calls Jesus and says, "Hey, can you help out? Can you turn this water into wine?" So, his very first miracle was just very mundane, something that would happen in any marriage. How can this be the Son of God? But that part in and of itself, as difficult as that is to understand, as paradoxical as that is, it is the nature of our God, not simply his power, but his very nature that makes it very difficult to understand.

How could he come as a human being? Revelation chapter 6, where Isaiah is being called into ministry and God allows him to see a glimpse of the glory of God in his throne, and the creatures are surrounding the throne proclaiming, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord." The word holy literally simply means to be set apart.

He's separate in every way, in his nature, in his power, in his moral righteousness, in every aspect of who God is, he is completely separate. An application of the word holy basically means that God, that the Jews worshipped, was completely unapproachable. And if you've ever studied through the Old Testament, you'll see that every aspect of Jewish history, every aspect of the tabernacle, the temple worship, the sacrifices, every part of that reminded the nation of Israel that you cannot simply come to me with sinful hands and sinful eyes and sinful mouth.

Moses, desiring to see the glory of God, said, "If you would just give me a glimpse, if you're going to ask me to lead the nation of Israel through this desert, let me see who you are." And God repeated to him, "Any man who sees me will surely die, but I will show you a glimpse of me because that's about all you can handle." So God gave him a glimpse, a small portion of his glory as he was passing by, and even that he had to protect Moses from his full glory or else he would die.

Moses, just a reflection of God's glory, came down and people, when they saw the reflection of God's glory on his face, were so fearful. They asked Moses, "Could you please go into the tent so we don't have to look at your face?" Because they were terrified by the presence of God.

Every part of God's nature said it was completely unapproachable. Isaiah's response when he saw God's glory was to face down on the floor, "Woe is me, woe is me. I am ruined. I am going to die." He saw God's glory and he recognized immediately what was going to happen to him.

Nadab and Abihu, the first two priests who represented the sins of Israel, they experienced capital punishment because they didn't take God's rule seriously and they decided to offer up sacrifice, whatever they saw fit, and God punished them as a result of that. In fact, Israelites were so afraid to even say his name wrong that they would say it in a way that would bring judgment upon them, that they would never even say his name Yahweh.

So if you look at the Old Testament, every instance where the Hebrew Bible has the word Yahweh, they actually put the word Adonai. So the way you're going to know that is you go to the Old Testament and if it is spelled out capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, it means that the Hebrew Bible actually has the word Yahweh in it.

But the Jews were so afraid to even say his name and get it wrong and to incur punishment upon them that they wouldn't even say his name. In fact, part of the reason why we're not even sure today whether his name should be pronounced Yahweh or Yehoah is because they lost how to say it.

Because the Hebrew language, at least at that time, didn't have vowels, so they only have consonants. So we're not exactly sure today whether it should be pronounced Yehoah or Yahweh because the Jews just didn't say it. They just called him Adonai. That's who Jesus was. It is that God.

How can that God that they couldn't even look at, that they couldn't approach, the glimpse of his glory brought fear to the nation of Israel, be in that manger? How can it be that child? See, Christmas is a day that we celebrate the holy, holy, holy God dwelling among us.

If we truly understood who it is that we are celebrating, our natural response wouldn't be, "Let's celebrate Jesus," like make a little manger, give gifts to each other, drink eggnog, and have Christmas party. Our natural response is what we would see in Revelation chapter 6, 15 to 16. In Revelation chapter 6, 15 to 16, it describes the coming of Jesus a second time.

And in his second coming, he says Jesus does not come as a child. He doesn't come as a humbled servant. He will come in his full glory. And when Jesus comes in his full glory, the response in verse 15 and 16 is that people hide in terror and they run up to the mountains hiding under rocks because they see his glory coming.

And their response is the same response that the Jews had whenever they saw his glory. So what is strange is not what's happening in Revelation. What is strange is not what's happening in the Old Testament. What is strange is what we are celebrating today. That God, that holy, holy, holy God that in his wrath and anger wiped out the human race, that holy, holy, holy God that you couldn't even enter the holy of holies where he dwelt, only the most, the high priest of Israel once a year just goes in and just spends a brief moment, does his job and comes out.

That everybody that we know in the Old Testament who even saw a glimpse of his glory fell down in terror. It's that God, it's that same God who will come in his full glory in the book of Revelation. So how do we understand? We understand Revelation because it's consistent with what we see of God in the Old Testament.

But how do we understand Jesus of the Gospel? How do we understand Jesus of the New Testament? See, the scripture says that when Jesus came, he stepped down from his glory, Philippians 2.6. Jesus though he was in form God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing.

Taken the form of a servant, being born in likeness of man. The only reason why you and I are still here is because Jesus Christ came, veiled in his glory. He came fully as a human being. And nowhere is that revealed more clearly than in Matthew chapter 1. Now I'm not going to go through all the genealogy with you, but there's something about his genealogy that, again, if you've been in the habit of reading Matthew and just kind of skimming over the genealogy, genealogy is basically a summary of God's redemptive history.

So even if you skim over everything else, I strongly encourage you to study through the genealogy of Christ, to know who they are, know the history behind each one of these names. I'm just going to highlight a few things that, again, the paradox of the son of God taking on human form.

First thing I want to point out here is that in his genealogy, there's mention of five females. Now that may not sound like anything in our generation. In fact, it might even sound sexist that I even said anything. But at that particular time, women were not added to the genealogy at all.

They didn't have rights to purchase land. They couldn't vote. And so again, the fact that five women are mentioned in this genealogy, in and of itself, a modern-day Jew or even a Gentile would look at this genealogy and say, "Something is wrong. Why would he mention these women?" Not only does he mention five separate women, of the five, three of them are Gentiles.

Again, to a Gentile reading this, it may not mean anything, but to a Jew, not only to mention five females, but that of the five, three of them in Jesus' line in which Jesus came were Gentiles, people that they would have considered unclean. But what's even more amazing about that, that among these Gentiles, there's a woman named Tamar, who was a daughter-in-law of Judah, which is the line that Jesus came, the kingly line.

But if you know about the history of Tamar, Tamar's husband dies. And again, at that particular time, the tradition was that the second brother would conceive a child with the sister-in-law in order to keep the genealogy, keep the line going. But the brother-in-laws were wicked, and they wouldn't do that.

So Tamar decided that she's going to take it upon herself, and she tricks Judah, her father-in-law, to think that she's a prostitute, and then she ends up causing him to come into her, and then she ends up having a child. That's one of his lines, that Jesus, the Son of God, the holy, holy, holy God, in his genealogy, there is incest.

Rahab, a Gentile prostitute, is in his genealogy. Ruth, a Moabite, if you again study through the Old Testament, the Moabites were a constant thorn on the side of the nation of Israel. They were the enemies of the Israelites. And yet we have Ruth, one of the great, great, great, great, great grandmothers of Jesus, was a Moabite, a Gentile, a prostitute.

And incest in this line, you would think that this King of kings and Lord of lords, the holy, holy, holy God, that God created the universe, that his line would be different than this, but it's filled with sin. Not only that, Ahaz and Manasseh, the two kings of Israel, that again, in the line of Jesus, they are both two of the most wicked men of Israel.

They actually even sacrificed their own children. And then clearly everybody knows King David. King David is the king. He's the golden child of the nation of Israel. But you know what's interesting? When they mention Jesus and David from that line, look what he says. He says, "David, the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife." If you don't know the history behind that, it may not sound like much.

He could have easily just said, "Solomon, the son of Bathsheba," and then just moved on. But Matthew doesn't do that. He highlights the sin of David, this golden child. See, Uriah was the husband of Bathsheba. And so again, some of you guys may know that David commits adultery because he sees her taking a bath, and then he's aroused, and he's the king of Israel.

He can do whatever he wants, and he goes after her and then commits adultery. And as a result of that, trying to hide that, he ends up killing her husband, Uriah. See, the genealogy of Jesus doesn't hide any of that. It exposes all of that. He could have easily just bypassed it and said, "Well, these are all these good people in the line of Jesus' genealogy." And it wasn't simply because Matthew was being thorough.

He just happened to be a tax collector, and he's good at keeping records, and he wanted to make sure that everything was put in line. That's not what happens, because there are plenty of people that are left out in this genealogy. So every single person that is mentioned in Matthew's genealogy, chapter 1, is purposeful.

So the fact that he places Tamar and the line in which Jesus came, the Moabite, the prostitute, the idol worshippers, the sinners, and then even David, the golden child, and highlighting his sin in the line of Jesus' coming. Why does Matthew do that? Why does God allow that to happen?

See, the paradox of what Jesus is doing is that this holy, holy, holy God, he walked among us, and in every way, he experienced our weakness. The nature in which he comes is directly related to why he came. Let me say that again. The nature in which he comes is directly related to why he came.

The scripture says that he came to be the perfect mediator between man and God. So the perfect mediator would be a man who fully understands the plight of mankind. The sin, not only in man, but that is passed down from generation to generation to generation. The scripture says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." And as a result of that, death and punishment reigns upon mankind.

That no matter how much we strive, no matter how much we try to better ourselves, it is within the umbrella of the judgment of God because of a rebellion against God. So when Christ came on, took on human form, he came right into that human drama. Even in his genealogy, even Jesus' perfect genealogy was not exempt from that.

Every human sin, every human drama that you could possibly think of, Jesus in his genealogy was exposed. He came to sin for man because his ultimate reason why he came was to bring us to God. So Jesus serves as the perfect mediator between us and God. This holy, holy, holy God that we could not even look upon his face while he walked upon earth, little children had complete access to him.

Remember, when the children would come to Jesus, the disciples would say, "How dare these little children? They have no idea who he is. He is the Messiah." They didn't fully understand who he was. If they knew who he really was at that time, there's no way that they would have given access to children to God.

But even as the Messiah said, "How dare your little children come to him?" And Jesus stops them. Not only does he not stop them from coming, he says to his disciples, "If your faith does not reflect that these little children, even you cannot enter." Tax collectors, that was shunned by the Jewish community.

They couldn't possibly think of coming into the temple. Even if they wanted to come and worship God, the priests and the Pharisees would block the door miles before they would ever come. The tax collectors were the worst of sinners in Israel. They were traitors to the nation. And yet tax collectors would invite Jesus to his house.

The prostitutes, they ran to Jesus for protection when they wanted to stone her. She didn't run out of town. She somehow knew that this holy man, the holiest of Israel, was where she ran for protection. A hemorrhaging woman, a leper, by Jewish law, if you were a hemorrhaging woman, just the fact that you were in the presence of the crowd, you would have tainted every single person in that place.

And if anybody knew the problem that she had, they would have stoned her right there. A leper, he had to stay a certain distance and had to warn people constantly. "Unclean, unclean!" He was forced to yell even before he came into any human contact. "Unclean, unclean!" So that give enough opportunity for people to get out of his way.

Or to stone him, to chase him out of town. Because his very presence would make anybody else that he comes into contact with unclean. And yet, the hemorrhaging woman and the lepers ran to Jesus, had full access to him. Sinners who could not even lift their heads in prayer to God, came to Jesus, kissed his feet, embraced him in adoration.

The poor, the blind, the lame, they all sought him to seek refuge. See, Christmas is about the Son of God. In every way, he represented the glory of God. Everything was made by him and for him, took on human form, and literally became nothing. Not simply to show us how humble he is, but to draw sinners like you and me to himself.

To give us access to this God. See, for Jesus, to exalt himself is a second nature. It's not hard for him. Matthew chapter 9, there's a story of this lame man that wanted to be healed and they break into Peter's house, they lower him down, hoping that Jesus would lay hands on him and then raise him so that he can walk.

And instead of doing that, Jesus says, "Your sins are forgiven." And then the Jews became irate and angry. How dare you say that? Only God can do that. And they were absolutely right. Jesus responded to them in saying, "Which is harder to do? To say your sins are forgiven or to get up and walk?" To you and I, I can say your sins are forgiven.

I can just say it. That was easy. I just said it. But I have no power to do anything. I could just say it, but it has no real power. So humanly speaking, I may superficially say this, but I've never raised anybody from the dead. I've never had anybody who was lame and then get back up.

So when he asked them, "What is harder to do?" I mean, it's a rhetorical question. On the surface, it may seem like the hard thing to do is to raise him. See, but for Jesus, raising him to walk is nothing. He created the universe. What would it take for him to just snap his finger and straighten up his leg to get up and walk?

He raised people from the dead. He walks on water. He feeds 5,000 with a few loaves and a few fish. He can calm the storm. He runs out of money. He opens up the mouth of the fish and coins drop out of his mouth. For Jesus to say, "Get up and walk," to exalt himself is nothing.

But in order to say, "Your sins are forgiven," the Son of God had to empty himself and took on human form and walk on earth in humiliation. And even the very people that he came to be crucified and die spat on him because they did not understand who he was.

All of that is explained to us in 2 Corinthians 5, 18-21. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. As we celebrate Christmas, we don't forget what this day really is.

This was not an average birth. This was not just some great man who decided to take on human form. This is the God of the universe who emptied himself of all glory. Not only did he take on human form, he humbled himself to the point of crucifixion on the cross, all for the purpose of calling sinners to himself, that he may bring us to God.

And so Christmas is a day that we celebrate the Son of God beckoning to the sinful world, "Come! Come to me! The prostitutes, tax collectors, the lame, the poor, the broken, the sinners, the disenfranchised, the lonely, the dejected, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, for he will give you rest." Jesus is the perfect mediator.

In Hebrews chapter 4, 15-16, it says, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." Again, I know there's a lot of stuff probably, you know, most of you guys have planned today and tomorrow, you know, the family's going to get together and share gifts and all these things and again, I hope that God would bless your families and bless your homes richly, but in the midst of all of this, let's not forget what we are celebrating.

Let's not stop with Christmas just giving gifts to people that we love. That Christmas is ultimately Christ saw the sins of the world and instead of running the other direction, he came toward us. So I pray that our application would be that when we see sin in others, that we would bring the grace of God to them as well.

As we again ask our praise team to come back up, let's take some time to really reflect and pray that again, in every sermon that we give, that there would be an application. How do we celebrate the coming of the Son of God in a way that honors him?

How do we join him in seeking the lost? So today, as all over the world and all over the world, the churches are being filled, Christians and non-Christians to understand what this meaning is and I pray with all my heart that those of you who understand what this really means, that you would not celebrate like the world, that we would celebrate in a way that honors and properly reflects who he is.

So let's take some time to pray as we invite our worship team to come up.