Today, we continue our message series “Jesus the Messiah.” The title Messiah means the anointed one, the one anointed as King of Kings. As we learn more about Jesus this Christmas season, God wants to move our hearts to worshiping Jesus the Messiah.
Today’s message is entitled Jesus’ Birth Foretold. Of course Christmas is a celebration of Jesus’ birth and it’s less than two weeks away this year. Christmas can be a crazy time of year with a lot of busyness that does not have a lot to do with Jesus. This year, 2020, really has been an unusual year in many respects and so Christmas will be unique this year.
To put this Christmas 2020 in perspective, I’d like us to watch a short video called Adore Him. Let’s use this Christmas season, unusual as it is, to take time to reflect, to worship and to adore Jesus the Messiah. Truly Jesus is the reason for the season. Even though the Christmas story is very familiar to most of us, it is truly an amazing, miraculous story. My prayer is that as we go through this series, God will speak to us and cause our hearts to be moved toward Jesus in a fresh way.
That baby boy born two thousand years ago was the Messiah, born to be King. Let’s read from Psalm 2, the importance of the Messiah.
Psalm 2:2-3 (ESV) The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”
In these verses, the LORD is God the Father and his Anointed is Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Many, we can safely say, most earthly leaders of nations are not believers. They do not wish to submit their governments or authorities to the rule of Jesus. In fact, they conspire together to resist God’s authority and God’s people. We see this today in America and around the world. Laws being made and edicts being pronounced that are contrary to God’s Word and God’s rule.
We may be tempted to become anxious or worried about the state of our nation and our world. But how should we respond? How does God respond?
Psalm 2:5-6 (ESV) Then he (the Lord) will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.”
God’s King is Jesus Christ and He is the one who truly reigns today. Those that oppose His reign will eventually face His judgement. No matter, who is the leader of our country or our state, Jesus is still the King to whom we owe our allegiance. So this Christmas, let’s take time this morning and throughout the season to worship Jesus the King. As we do that, it will bring peace and rest to our souls.
Christmas is also a time when we can speak to others about the birth of the Messiah that changed history forever. This morning, we are going to look at some amazing Old Testament prophecies that foretold the birth of Jesus the Messiah in amazing detail. We’re going to see how they apply to our lives today. So, let’s begin with …