Sermon prepared by the Holy Spirit and Pastor Andrew T. Okai

Sunday, Christmas Eve, December 24, 2017

Sermon text: Matthew 1:18–21

Sermon theme: Why This Jesus?

Introduction

Grace, mercy, and peace…

We gather once again in a grand celebration of this blessed night… this night we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

Somebody once said that God is too kind to do evil, too wise to make a mistake, and too deep to explain himself. Based on these three qualities, he executes his sovereign plans.

The subject of our message is “Why This Jesus?” The reason we use titled is that during the time of this Jesus, there were many with the name Jesus. The question is what distinguished this Jesus from the others.

Definition

The name Jesus means “God saves.” So others who carried this name carried it looking unto the God who saves. But here we find this Jesus carrying the name, not looking unto, but rather coming as the God who saves. This is why he is not only know as Jesus, but Jesus Christ, meaning the one who has been anointed to save.

Description

All of us have birthdays, but why is Jesus’ birthday so important to the whole world? The answer is that he is the only one who has ever been able to save the whole world. He was the only one who died in the place of humanity.

Disgrace

Jesus said he will save his people from their sins. Sin is a disgrace - we see that in the garden after Adam and Eve sinned, in that moment of disgrace they hid from God. Like many today who are hiding from God because they feel too disgraced to come to his grace. But whenever we feel this way, we must also remember that this is why Jesus came into our world, to save us from our sins…

It’s because we know that God came down looking for us that we come here not only on the Eve of Christmas, but every week just to meet him.