What’s the best gift you have ever received?  That feeling we feel when we think about the greatest gift we have received should be multiplied by a billion when we think about Christmas.  Why? Because God saw us and loved us so much to give us the greatest gift ever.  I know, I just broke my own rule from earlier.  But the truth remains.  This Christmas I want you know this:

Jesus sees you.  As a church, we went through the entire book of Matthew this year.  The book of Matthew is one of the 4 accounts of the life of Jesus while He was on earth.  There is one passage left that we will look at tonight.  It may not seem like your typical Christmas passage, but it shows the heart of why Jesus was born. Read Matthew 9:35-38.  In this passage, we see Jesus is travelling around announcing the Good News.  Take a look at verse 35:  35 Jesus traveled through all the towns and villages of that area, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And he healed every kind of disease and illness.   What’s the Good News?  If Jesus was bringing Good News, then there must have been bad news.  The bad news is that people are spiritually lost.  The Good News was that Jesus was bringing spiritual hope.  

If you were to flip back a few pages in your Bible, in Matthew 1:23, it reads:  “Look! The virgin will conceive a child!  She will give birth to a son,  and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’”  It’s way we are gathering tonight.  We celebrate the birth of Jesus because He is the Good News.  Jesus is God entering into humanity to give us hope – to give us the Good News that Jesus is the Savior of the World.  We see Jesus announcing the Good News. We also see Jesus’s heart.  “36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”  When Matthew wrote this book, the crowds weren’t just a few hundred people on a hillside listening to Jesus.  There would have been an estimated 200 towns and villages in Galilee with an estimated 3 million people.  And when Jesus looks on the crowds, He has compassion on them.  This term “compassion” refers to the “bowels and kidneys”.  What he felt for those who did not know Him was a gut-level feeling.  Jesus was deeply moved at the sight of the millions near Him that were hopeless.  

This Christmas Eve, I want you to know:  Jesus sees you even when you feel lost in the crowds.  You may feel just like those crowds – confused, helpless, distressed, and dejected.  Jesus was born – entered into humanity – because He doesn’t want you to stay that way.  He wants to have hope and feel loved and feel seen.  Jesus sees everything about you and loves you.  Psalm 139:  1 O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me.  2 You know when I sit down or stand up.  You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.  3 You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do.  4 You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord.  16 You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.  17 How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.  They cannot be numbered!  Jesus sees you and He loves you.  What’s so powerful about receiving a gift that you really wanted?  Because it makes you feel seen.  This Christmas, I want you to embrace the gift of Jesus’ birth.  I want you to be seen, be heard, and be wrapped up in the arms of Jesus.  We are all lost to sin without Jesus.  He’s the only One who made a way to eternal life with God.  We must see the Gift-Giver and receive the free gift of eternal life.  And when you do, feel loved and feel seen.

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