Experiencing Christmas ~ A Different Road

As most of you know, I collect nativity scenes and while I do have over 80 of them, some of them are very small. One of the things I’ve come to realize about most nativity scenes is that they are not biblically accurate. Very few of them reflect the Biblical story well because they put the wisemen at the manger with the shepherds and angels – like this one. But as I was setting out some of my nativities this year, I noticed that a few of them are much more accurate. For example, this nativity has shepherds and the manger, but no wisemen so it reflects the Biblical story found in Luke and this one has the wisemen and the star over a house, but no angels or shepherds so it reflects the story found in Matthew.


The birth of story of Jesus is only found in Matthew and Luke, but each focuses on different parts of the story. Luke talks about the shepherds and angels and the night Jesus was born and laid in a manger but in Matthew’s gospel there is no manger, there are no shepherds and there are no heavenly angels singing Glory to God. In Matthew there is a star that guides wisemen, or magi, to the town of Bethlehem and when they arrive Mary and Jesus are not in a stable but in a home.

Now if that doesn’t mess with your traditional view of the nativity, this might. A careful reading of Matthew’s gospel tells us that the journey of the Magi could have taken up to 2 years. We can figure this out if we keep reading in Matthew 2:16. So when they finally find Jesus he wouldn’t have been sleeping in a manger or even any kind of crib and it doesn’t say that, it says when the arrive at the home they find the child with his mothers Mary. Now none of these details are really all that important. They are interesting, but not that important to the story, what is important is the response of the Magi when they find Jesus. The Magi do three important things that we need to think about as we prepare to enter into the New Year:
• They worship Jesus.
• They give gifts to Jesus
• They go home a different way - they are changed

So let’s go back to Matthew 2:11. When the Magi finally arrive it says that the very first thing they do is kneel down and pay Jesus homage. Homage means to show reverence and respect. So the Magi are acknowledging the power and holiness of Jesus and they are already beginning to submit themselves to his authority. What they are doing here is worshipping. Worship isn’t just what we do in this place on Sunday morning, this is an expression of our worship, but true worship takes place in our hearts and lives when we pay homage to God, when we submit our lives to God’s authority. True worship is giving control of our lives to God and seeking to live the way God calls us to live. When they wisemen pay homage to Jesus that is what they are doing, they are acknowledging the authority of this child and while they don’t fully understand all that it means for their lives or how it will change they, they are submitting themselves to him.

The truth is that when we give control of our lives to God, when we call Jesus our Lord, we don’t fully understand what it means for us either, making Jesus our Lord is a journey as God slowly reveals to us what we need to do and who we need to become. This process may take a lifetime, but we have to be willing to keep on going, we have to keep paying homage to Jesus. So worshipping God isn’t a commitment of one hour on Sunday, it is living every moment of everyday according to the will and the word of God. Mike Slaughter, the author of Christmas is not your Birthday, has said that the worst kind of fool is the person who believes that God exists but doesn’t take his directives (or his word) seriously. To worship God and to pay him homage means that we take God’s word seriously and it means working to apply that word to our lives. Again, this will be a process that will take a lifetime, but we have to be willing to commit ourselves to the journey.

Now, while this hour on Sunday morning is not all that it means to worship, this hour is important to our worship because it helps keep us focused and intentional. There are so many forces at work pulling us away from God today. We live in an entertainment driven culture where we are constantly bombarded with messages that distract us from all that God wants for us. Do you know what the word entertain means? It means to divert and honestly, most entertainment today tends to subtly and effectively divert us from the things of God, so we need to set aside some intentional and consistent time to return to God and refocus on God’s word which contains God’s will for us. Worship on Sunday helps to do this. When we gather to sing and pray and hear God’s word read it reorients us toward God and it reminds us of who we want to be and how we want to live our lives. So a commitment to this time is important, but we need to remember that worship is much for a lifestyle than an activity. It’s how we live our lives 24/7 not one hour on Sunday. So as we enter into 2013 how can we, like the magi, pay homage to God every day? How can we show more respect and give God more authority in our lives? How can we worship more fully and make Jesus Lord of every part of our lives?

The Magi not only pay homage to Jesus but as part of that submission and worship they give gifts to him. They give Jesus gold, frankincense and myrrh. Now the gold sounds good and very practical, but the frankincense and myrrh seem a little strange to us, but they were seen as gifts that were fitting to give a king. They were costly and royal and they reflected the attitude of the Magi’s heart. They just wanted to give this child all they had because they understood that anyone whose birth was announced by a star in the sky must be divine and powerful. So from the Magi we need to learn how to give God gifts that are appropriate for who he is.

Giving to God is one of the most ancient acts of worship recorded. It was Cain and Able who first gave to God a portion of what they had and what their hands had helped create. Cain was the one who grew the crops so he gave to God a portion of the harvest and Able gave the first born of his livestock and the choicest parts of the meat. They simply returned to God a portion of what God had enabled them to produce and they did this because they understood that without God, they were nothing. They understood their complete dependence upon God and so they submitted themselves to His authority and power. Their giving was an act of worship just as it was for the Magi and our giving needs to be an act of worship as well.

As we move into a new year, I want to encourage us to reflect on how and what we give to God. Specifically, how much time do we give to God and how much money do we give. These two are specifically important to us because they reflect our most costly and precious commodities and so reflecting on these gifts will help us see if we are giving to God the way we want to and need to. When it comes to our money, the Biblical directive is 10%, called the tithe, and if we aren’t currently tithing we need to take some steps to get there. The Bible is clear that when we are willing to make this commitment to God, God will bless us as we give and about all I can say is that this has been my experience. When I began to tithe about 20 years ago, the blessings of God in my life have been clear.

Now while tithing is a biblical directive, the truth is that God really calls for so much more. In Jesus day the offerings were collected by people walking through the Temple and placing their gifts into a box. It would be like all of us walking forward to place our offering in the plate, which I have done in a few churches, by the way. I fact, they took up the offering at a revival service when I was in Seminary that way and I was so embarrassed because I had no money on me at the time. A professor was sitting behind a number of us students and he saw our situation so he kindly handed us some money to put in the offering. That was great, until they went off, counted the money and then came back and said, we didn’t get so we are going to take another offering. That time I stayed in my seat because I wasn’t going to borrow more money. I shouldn’t say borrow because I don’t know if I ever paid him back.

But that was how they did it in Jesus day and one day Jesus was watching as the people put their offering in and while he saw all the wealthy people giving their tithes, what caught Jesus attention was the poor women who put in 2 pennies and he commended her because she didn’t give 10% she gave 100% of what she had. So the tithe is really just the place to start. What we really need to do is ask God what it is he wants us to give. What % of our money is right of us? (By the way, in that story Jesus was watching people give their offerings to God, and just in case you wondered, God still watches what we give to him.)

But money is just one way to give to God, our time is another way. Time is precious for most of us and so carving out time for God can be difficult – but it’s important. How much time do we spend each week in prayer and the reading of Scripture? How much time do we spend serving God in some capacity? If we were to tithe our time to God, give God 10% of our time, then every week we would need to give God almost 17 hours. If we take out the 8 hours of sleep we should get each night, we would still need to give God 11 hours each week. That would be over an hour and a half every day. While we can’t get legalistic about it, we need to ask ourselves if in the coming year we can simply give God more time? Can we take 5 extra minute every day to pray? Can we give an hour of service each week either through the church or in the community? The gifts the Magi gave were generous and sacrificial and that needs to reflect the kind of gifts we give to God. How can we give more to God in the coming year?

The last thing that the Magi did was go home by a different road. Instead of returning home the way they came, which would have taken them back to Jerusalem where King Herod would have questioned them about finding the baby, they decided to find a different way home. After experiencing the presence of God in Jesus, they honored him and went home a different way to keep Jesus and his family safe. What’s interesting is that we see from the very beginning that everyone who came to Jesus left changed. The shepherds in Luke left glorifying God. The Magi returned home by a different road. Fishermen dropped their nets and jobs and became followers of Jesus. The sick were healed, the dead were raised, the hungry were fed and the rich who didn’t want to give away what they had, left sad. Everyone who ever encountered Jesus was changed in some way, which means that our encounter with Jesus needs to change us too.

We all need to find new ways to live our lives that reflect our understanding of Jesus and our experience with him. It’s not enough for us to just believe in God and confess Jesus as our savior and then never make any changes in our lives, our lives need to reflect God’s presence and purpose and power working within us. As we enter into 2013, how can our faith change us? What can we do to make sure that our faith changes us?

Two things we can do to intentionally change direction in our lives is to go back to the story of the Magi and see what it was that changed them, part of what changed them was that they worshipped Jesus and gave gifts to Jesus. So worship and giving change us. Let me say that again, worship and giving change us, not instantly, but slowly and over time. Worship changes our focus and directs our hearts and lives back to God. Worship helps us seek God’s kingdom first and make God’s word the foundation of our lives. Consistent worship with God’s people shapes our hearts so we begin to desire the things of God. So if we want to live differently we need to take seriously the call to worship God, not just an hour on Sunday but every day.

Giving also changes us. Giving changes our priorities by helping see that we don’t as much as we think we do in life. Most of us think we need more than we do and when we start to give things away, it changes our attitudes. Giving also opens our eyes to the needs of people around us. When we give to organizations like the FaithCentre and Habitat for humanity we begin to see the needs I our community. When we give to things like the Christmas dinner offering we see the needs of orphans in Haiti. Once our eyes are opened to the needs around us, more ways to give become clear. We think about sponsoring children, giving to well drilling projects that help provide clean water. So giving to God changes us, again it happens slowly over time, but it changes and shapes our heart to reflect the heart of Jesus.

As we approach this new year, let’s find a different road home, let’s make some changes. Let’s worship fully and give more.

Next Steps
Experiencing Christmas ~ A Different Road

After experiencing the presence of Jesus, the Magi went home by a different road ~ they were changed.
What changes (New Year Resolutions) can you make as we enter into 2013?

1. Worship Fully
I will deepen my relationship with God through:
• Prayer
• Service
• Sunday Worship
• Reading Scripture
• Faith Sharing

2. Give More
I will work toward tithing by increasing my giving to God and the church by ____%

I will give hours a week more to God through
• Sunday School
• Small Groups
• Serving in the church
• Serving in the community

Experiencing Christmas ~ Don't Put Christmas Away ~ Christmas Eve 2012

This is always one of my most favorite moments of the Christmas season because I think to myself, well, if I haven’t purchased the gift by now, I’m not going to get it. But then I remind myself that Wal-Mart might still be open or at least Sheetz is open. While there still might be lots of things you need to do tonight and tomorrow will be a busy day for many, at least for this moment, there is nothing to do but to stop and take a deep breath. One thing I hope you don’t have to do tonight is go home and put up your Christmas tree! While many people put up their tree right after thanksgiving, when I was growing up we didn’t put our tree up until just a few days before Christmas. Does anyone else decorate that late? Is anyone going home tonight to decorate a tree? I really hope not. Now, here’s the next question, when will you take the decorations down? We always took down our tree (well, disassembled it really, we always had an artificial tree) on New Year’s Day. That was our tradition, watching the parades and taking down the tree, and the tree always had to be down before the football games started, but now it doesn’t really matter because most of the bowl games aren’t even on New Year’s Day. I miss tradition.


But seriously, how many of you will take down your decorations on New Year’s Day? Will anyone take them down tomorrow? How about Wednesday? I hope not, but eventually the tree gets dragged to the curb (or in our case put back in the box) and the ornaments get carefully wrapped up for another year and all the Christmas decorations get put away, but when we do this, we need to make sure that Christmas itself doesn’t get put away. The message of Christmas can’t be boxed up until next year, it needs to be experienced every day of the year and after the events we have gone through during the past few weeks we understand more fully that we need to keep the message of Christmas alive in our hearts and minds and lives, among our families and in our communities.

So what is this message of Christmas that we need to make sure stays out long after the tree comes down? It is the amazing and somewhat absurd claim that the God of the universe, the God who said let there be light and there was light, the God who called the all the worlds in to being and yet created us in the tender care of his love, this God has come to live among us in the person of Jesus. We call this the doctrine of the incarnation, God in the flesh, and while it is difficult to comprehend, it is what the Bible teaches us happened that night in Bethlehem.

In John 1:1,14 it says that in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God, and this word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. God himself became flesh and blood and lived among us in the person of Jesus. This idea is reinforced in Colossians 1:15 where it says of Jesus that He is the image of the invisible God. Now the reason God did all of this was so he could say to us, I really do exist – look at me. God came in the flesh to say, this is what I am like just in case you are wondering and God came in the flesh to say most of all, I am with you – that is actually part of the Christmas story. Look at Matthew1:22-23.

So the absurd and amazing claim that we can’t box up and put away until next year is the message that God has come to be with us, but that claim becomes even more amazing and more absurd when we think about how God came. God entered our world not as a warrior coming down from heaven, but as a baby coming forth from the womb. God came in the flesh and blood of a helpless, vulnerable, completely dependent child. This is how God first entered the world. Crazy isn’t it? But then again, maybe it’s not so crazy. While we tend to think of babies as being powerless and weak, they are actually one of the most powerful forces on the face of the planet. If you don’t believe me, hold a child in your arms for a few moments, or take a child and hold their hand.

Children not only love unconditionally but they draw love from us. Babies change us; they change our hearts and lives. They change our priorities and purpose. They can bring healing and wholeness to the brokenness of our lives and world. When an infant grabs hold of your finger or falls asleep in your arms they not only express unconditional love but they draw love from us.

Maybe that’s why God came as a baby, to begin to change our hearts and lives. Maybe God came as a child to show us what it means to be loved by God and what it feels like to love God in return. God came as a baby so that he could begin to draw us into a relationship of love with him and that’s the Christmas message we can’t put away with the ornaments. This is a message we need to keep out and keep alive all year. Our community and nation and world needs the message of God’s love.

There is another reason God came in the flesh and blood of a human being, and that was so he could experience the fullness of our lives. You see the infant who was laid in a manger didn’t stay a baby forever. He grew up to become a child who probably threw temper tantrums when he was tired, cried when he was hurt and was teased by his brothers and sisters. That child then became a teenager and experienced the rush of hormones and the confusion that comes when we grow into adulthood. As a man Jesus experienced all that we do, all the love and joy and pain and disappointments of life. God came in the flesh not just to love us but so he could really know us and experience all that we do in life.

In Jesus, God experienced the fullness of our lives, that’s what it says in Hebrews 4:15. So in Jesus, God has experienced everything that we have. God experienced hunger and thirst. God experienced loneliness and fear. God experienced laughter and joy. God experienced the connection and the brokenness that comes with family. God experienced disappointment and success. God felt pain and God felt love. God really does know what we are going through in life and how we are feeling tonight because God came in the flesh to experienced it for himself, and because he did, we can turn to him for help.

Look Hebrews 4:16. He knows what we are going through so he can help us in times of need. How can we put this message away until next year? No matter what we need in life, God is ready to help. When we have doubts – God understands and he is here to help. When we are ready to give up – God understands and he is here to help. When we are hungry for more in life – God understands and he is here to help. In fact, the Christmas story itself makes clear to us that God is here to give us what we need. Did you hear that in the story tonight?

You know sometimes the Christmas story from Luke is so familiar that we often miss some of the details that are important for us to hear. Did you hear that three times in the story we heard about the crib Jesus was laid in. Who does that? Who sends out baby announcements that says, on his first night we laid our son in the Graco Charleston classic convertible crib? No one does that, so there must be something important about that detail. The crib Mary and Joseph used wasn’t a Graco Charleston classic convertible crib, it was a manger. A manger was a simple trough used to feed animals. It could have been made of stone or wood but either way it would have been a pretty dirty place that night. Remember, Bethlehem was a busy town because of the census, which meant there were lots of extra people and lots of extra animals, so that manger would have been well used.

So what is the message of the manger? The manger tells us that no matter what our hearts and lives hunger for – Jesus is the answer. Whatever our need is tonight, Jesus is the answer. Jesus is the gift that can satisfy the deepest longing of our hearts not for a day or week, but for eternity. There’s nothing Santa will bring tonight that will satisfy our deepest longings, in fact, many of the gifts we receive will soon be broken or forgotten. How many of us can even remember what we got for Christmas last year, or the year before? But what God is offering us tonight in Jesus can satisfy our deepest needs and it can meet the need our world has for hope and grace and healing and peace.

So one of the messages of Christmas we need to keep out all year is this message that in Jesus, God has come to be with us and he came to fully understand who we are so that he could to satisfy the deepest needs and desires of our hearts. God came in the flesh to love us and to draw love from us, but there is another message we need to keep out after Christmas and that is the message that in Jesus God also came to save us. In Matthew’s version of the Christmas story it says that Joseph was to give his son the name Jesus because he would save people from the sin. That’s what the name Jesus means, it literally means God saves. I don’t know what you need to be saved from tonight, maybe it’s fear of the future, maybe it’s the darkness of despair, maybe is the constant pull of addictions - whatever it is; God is here to save us. God is here to help us experience more freedom and power in life.

While each of us may need to be saved in different ways, there is one way we all need to be saved and that is from sin. Sin is simply our straying away from God, it’s missing the mark of how God wants us to live our lives and treat other people. As we have seen clearly in the past few days, sin hurts others and it hurts ourselves and it breaks down our society and it separates us from God. The bible says that the consequence of our sin is death, but God doesn’t leave us in this state of brokenness and pain. God saves us from sin and death through Jesus. John 3:16 says, God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

So when we place our faith and trust in Jesus, we are saved from sin and death, and when we allow the power of God to enter our lives we can begin to experience the freedom and joy God wants for us. Again, I don’t know how you might need to experience the fullness of life tonight, but God is here to offer us that gift. If we are struggling to experience the freedom that comes with forgiveness – God is here to forgive. If we are struggling to experience a renewed sense of direction and meaning, God is here to offer life. Whatever it is we need and whatever power we need to overcome – God is here to help. That’s why Jesus was laid in a manger, that’s part of the Christmas message that we can’t put away. Every day I need to be saved from the power of sin at work in my life and every day God is here to offer me that salvation. How can we box that up until next year?

The last message we can’t put away until next year is that because of Jesus there is always hope, even in the face of death. We have seen a lot of death recently. Whether in Gesseytown or Newtown, we have seen senseless death but even in the midst of death, there is hope because Jesus didn’t stay a little baby lying in a manger. Jesus grew up to be a man who not only taught us but showed us how to live life. He taught us and showed us how to love others and how to take care of people, and how to forgive and he said that when we do these things we experience hope and the kingdom of God.

The baby in the manger didn’t say in the manger. At about 33 years of age Jesus died on a cross but his death didn’t have the final say because three days after he was placed behind the stone of a tomb and all hope seemed to be lost, Jesus rose from the dead and with his resurrection he destroyed the power of death once and for all. In 1 Corinthians 15:54 it says that death has been swallowed up in victory… the victory of Jesus Christ. Because Jesus is God, God rose from the dead. In Jesus, God defeated death once and for all, which means that we have the hope of an eternal life. When we place our faith and trust in God’s love for us and when we trust in and believe that Jesus lived and died and rose again to save us from sin, then we can find hope in every situation, even death.

So if God can overcome death, God can overcome the problems we face and our world needs this kind of hope. Our community needs this kind of hope. Our families need this kind of hope. We need this kind of hope. We need to know that no matter where we are tonight, no matter what situation we find ourselves in, the message of Christmas is that there is always hope because God is here and God is powerful and God loves us and God is here to save us.

So while the decorations may get boxed up and put away the message of Christmas can’t be put away. Tonight I want to invite you to do something that might help keep the message of Christmas alive all year. Whenever you put your decorations away, don’t put them all away. Leave out one decoration, one ornament, one nativity scene, one snowman… leave out one decoration to remind you and your family and everyone who asks why you have a snowman or a manger scene up in July… that God is with us and that God has come to save us which means that no matter what we are going through – we have hope, hope for our future. Don’t put that message away.

Let me also invite you tonight to say yes to the story we have heard. Say yes to the God who has come to be with us. Say yes to Jesus who has come to save us. Say yes to the God who sees what we need tonight, who sees the deepest longings of our heart and who is ready and willing and able to give us and our families the help and hope we need. Say yes to Jesus and allow the power of God’s love to change you and to save you. I invite you tonight, if you have never done it or if you just need to do it again, say yes to Jesus. Let us all allow the love of this child to forgive us of sin and draw us deeper into a relationship with the God who is with us.

Don’t put Christmas away. This year, make tonight and Christmas day not the end of the season but just the beginning of Experiencing Christmas.

 

Experiencing Christmas ~ The Best Gift... for Jesus

OK, this is no joke… I did a google search for the best Christmas gifts of the year and the first site it took me too was gifts.com and the very first gift in their list of best gifts was this…

Here’s what it said, The nose blows! Just squeeze or press it and green shower gel oozes out of the right nostril. Gross and funny at the same time! $17.29. Who thinks these things up? I don’t think this would qualify as the best gift of the year, maybe one of the most memorable gifts, but certainly not the best. I’m always afraid to share items like this because all of you listen and apply these sermons so well and I really do not want to find this in my shower… ever!


But can you remember the best gift you ever got? Do you have this kind of childhood memory? (video clip) Maybe it was the year you got the easy bake oven or that Red Rider BB Gun. Maybe it was the year you got the new bike or the new car. Maybe the best gift you ever got wasn’t anything they could wrap up or put a bow on, but was the gift of family or friends being together. One of the best Christmas’s for our family was when my Mom was battling cancer but she was able to travel and be with us for the holidays. Her presence was the only present we really needed that year. When we are kids we spend a lot of time thinking about the best gifts to get and as adults we spend a lot of time thinking about the best gifts to give and yet what gets forgotten during this entire is season is that Christmas is not our birthday, what we are celebrating is Jesus’ birthday, so what is the best gift we can give to Jesus?

I actually hope we will give this question some serious thought. What is the best gift we can give to Jesus? How can we turn this holiday around so that the focus isn’t on the gifts we give to one another but the gifts we can give to Jesus? Now these gifts won’t be anything we find at the mall or from gifts.com and it won’t be anything we can put in a box or wrap up with a bow, but Jesus did give us a gift list. Jesus was pretty clear about the gifts he wanted us to give to him and we find part of that list in Matthew 25:35-36.

Now here’s the thing, these things never happened to Jesus. There was never a time when people took care of him and helped meet his basic needs, so they asked him, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you something to drink. When did we ever see you in need and help you in any way, and Jesus replied, Matthew 25:40. So we give to Jesus the gifts he wants when we give to anyone around us who is in need. We give to Jesus when we feed the hungry. We give to Jesus when we help clothe the naked, provide clean water for those who are thirsty and when we visit the sick and those in need. Now for Jesus, this gift list was not a wish list, Jesus actually expects his followers to give these kinds of gifts to him.

That Jesus really wants us to do these things was made clear to the disciples when Jesus told them one day to actually feed those who were hungry. As you know, Jesus’ teaching and preaching drew huge crowds, sometimes numbering into the thousands, and no matter what Jesus did or where he went, the crowds followed him. At one point in time Jesus was looking for some solitude, in fact, he wanted some time alone to grieve the death of John the Baptist. John was not only a teacher and preacher who prepared people for the message of Jesus, but John was a distant cousin to Jesus. John the Baptist was the son of Elizabeth and Zechariah and we heard last week that Elizabeth was the cousin to Mary. Not only were they related, but both boys were born about 6 months apart. John the Baptist was an outspoken prophet and he spoke out about the injustice and immorality he saw around him which cost him his head, literally. Jesus had just gotten the news that John had been beheaded in prison and he wanted to get away to be alone, but the crowds followed him.

When Jesus saw that the crowds didn’t go away, it says he had compassion on them and so took time to heal the sick. By the end of the day the disciples are pleading with Jesus to send the crowds away because it is getting late and the people needed to go into the towns to buy food for dinner. Jesus response to the disciples is one of the clearest teachings for us as God’s people - Matthew 14:16. Now this wasn’t a mission statement Jesus gave for the disciples to think about, Jesus wanted them to actually feed the thousands of people who were right there in front of them. When the disciples heard this they are stunned. To buy enough food to feed the thousands of people who are there would have taken at least three months worth of wages and they are sure that there is no way they can work out the logistics of buying that much food and getting it to the people before nightfall. It just can’t be done. Now, it’s not recorded in the gospels, but you can just hear the disciples say, but Jesus, we don’t have enough money. But Jesus, we can’t get that much food here that quickly. But Jesus, there are just 12 of us and there are thousands of them. But Jesus…

Today we are still saying that, but Jesus… But Jesus, I am just one person, what can I do to help solve the problem of world hunger? But Jesus, we are just one church, what can we do to bring about clean water to a poor nation? But Jesus, the need for healing and hope and peace in our nation today is beyond our ability to address. But Jesus… We are still saying that and it’s time we stopped making excuses and started asking Jesus how to do it.

When the disciples pushed back on Jesus request to feed the people, he responded with one simple and yet powerful question, what do you have? What do you have to give me that I can use to feed these people? They replied 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. Jesus said, then bring them to me, and when they did he blesses them and then those 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish fed the entire crowd. The lesson for the disciples is that when they offered to Jesus what they had – he used it to solve the problems they faced. The lesson for us today is that when we offer Jesus what we have – he can use our gifts to solve the problems we face. When we offer to Jesus what we have, God will use it to feed those who are hungry, whether it is food for those whose stomachs are empty or hope and peace and love for those whose hearts and lives are empty. God will use what we have to feed the people. When we offer to Jesus what we have and who we are, God will use it to give the world what it needs. And that is all Jesus wants for his birthday.

So what gift will you give to Jesus? What resources do you have that God can use to change our world? At the Church of the Resurrection in KC there was a 10 year old girl named Gracie Schram

who heard that question a few years ago and what she had to give was a beautiful voice, so she recorded a CD and sold them to the people she knew and her goal was to raise $1,000 to help build a fish pond in Africa for a village. To date, Gracie has raised over $30,000. She has helped build 2 fish ponds in Africa and an orphanage in Haiti that now is home to 12 boys.



A young boy at that same church, Jeffrey Owen Hanson,

gave his artistic talent to Jesus, and God has used him in amazing ways to help thousands of people around the world. Jeffrey was born with a genetic condition called Neurofibromatosis, which is a tumor on the optic nerve which caused Jeffrey to begin to lose his vision. When he was about 12 years old he not only started radiation and chemotherapy but he also started to paint. Jeffrey’s vision did not permit him to create any concrete images, but his bold color combinations caught people’s attention. Jeffrey sold note cards from a table at the end of his driveway and the first year he painted and sold over 5,000 cards. He raised over $15,000 for the children’s tumor foundation, an organization which helps fund research for Neurofibromatosis and other optic tumors.

Since that time, Jeff has moved into larger works of art using acrylics on canvas.

Today Jeff donates paintings to several of his favorite charity auctions and many of his paintings have raised as much as $15,000 each! To date, Jeff has painted over 800 original works of art and has donated money to hospitals, AIDS foundations and orphanages around the world. Jeff is now 18 and has already given over half a million dollars to charity!

 But it all started when he offered his gift to Jesus and allowed God to bless him and use him.



Now if you think making this kind of difference is just for those who are young, here is another amazing story.

Dr. Bob Sayson was a successful doctor in Oregon when he heard the call of God to sell his practice and open a community health clinic to help those who could not afford to see a doctor. 5 years ago he started the Good News Community Health Care Center which addresses the physical, mental, and spiritual needs of people in a way that promotes healthy individuals and a healthy community. This is not a free health care clinic, people pay $15 or $25 per visit and if they can’t pay then Dr. Sayson asks them to volunteer at a charity for at least one hour. Dr. Sayson understands that giving to God and the community is part of the healing process and our becoming whole. The Good News Center offers physical and emotional help but they also care for the spiritual well being of people by asking if they can pray with people before they leave.

Each one of these people answered this simple question, what gift will you give to Jesus? When we stop making excusing, when we stop saying, but Jesus I don’t have anything to offer and start giving to God what we have and what he has given us, we will begin to make a difference in our world. It’s not too late to give a gift to Jesus on his birthday. You can make a donation to the Christmas Dinner, you can bake us a pie or 2 and bring it to the church tomorrow. You can sign up to serve meals in the dining room or come at the end of the day and help clean up.

Another way you can give through the Christmas Dinner is to help feed those who are hungry in Haiti. Cindy Lingle has made 2 mission trips to Haiti and she invited the pastor from the church to come and talk with us a few weeks ago. He shared with us about the orphanage they have started and how when they began they just had babies and so the cost of feeding them wasn’t that much, but babies grow, and so has the food bill. Today it cost about $2,000 a month to feed the children of the orphanage and we want to help them do that. So this year, all the money we collect on Christmas Day will be a gift to Jesus, and it’s a gift he said he wants, it will go to help feed hungry children in Haiti. If you want to give specifically to this mission you can use a pew envelope and simply mark it Haiti and we will add it to that gift.

The Christmas Dinner is just one way we can give a gift to Jesus on his birthday, but please don’t make Christmas the only day we give to Jesus. We need to find ways to give to Jesus in every season of the year. Give your time and talent and money to God every week and month throughout the year by simply being part of God’s work in and through the church. Right now I know all of our hearts go out to the people of Newtown CT, and we want to do something to help them, but the truth is there’s not much we can do for them, but there are children right here who need you. Our children’s ministry needs your time and your gifts. We need prayer partners for families and missionaries. Shut-ins need cards and visits. Resources are needed throughout the church and every gift we give to Jesus changes the heart and life of someone somewhere. So again, what is the best gift you can give to Jesus?

Our next steps this week simply asks that question. What gift can you give to Jesus? You don’t need to go to the mall, you don’t need to shop on line and you don’t need any wrapping paper, boxes, gift bags or bows, all you need is to make the decision today to give Jesus whatever gift you can. As we close this morning we want to invite you to think about what gift you can give to Jesus. What resource can you offer to God that he can use to address the needs and problems of our community and world? We are going to give you some time to reflect and maybe answer that question, and then during our last song or after worship we invite you to simply place your gift in the box so that we can give these gifts to Jesus because Christmas is his birthday, not ours. You don’t need to sign your name, God will know who it is from, but we do invite you to fill out the bottom of the sheet to remind you what you are giving to Jesus. We would encourage you to be as specific as possible and to make it sacrificial and personal.

Now just one final note, the gift you may need to give to Jesus today is the gift of your heart and life. You may need to make the decision today to simply place your faith and trust in Jesus Christ as your savior and allow his mercy and grace to forgive you of sin and open up to you the life of faith. Our hearts and lives are also a gift that Jesus wants from all of us, in fact, we need to give Jesus our hearts and lives before we can give him any other gift. So if you need to give Jesus your heart today, if you need to put aside your fear or your doubts or your pride and ask Jesus to be your savior and lord, then we would invite you to give that gift as well. Make that the gift you give to Jesus today.


Next Steps:

My Gift to Jesus:__________________________

Experiencing Christmas ~ Never Home Alone

In the movie Home Alone, Kevin wakes up to find that his entire family has gone off on their Christmas Vacation and has left him behind. In all the chaos and confusion of trying to get their large family out of the house, no one notices that Kevin is not with them, so he wakes up in the morning and realizes he is home alone. If you have seen the movie, you know that Kevin experiences some of the joy a 10 year old boy faces when he is left home by himself, but the movie also shows some of the sadness and fear he faces as he encounters dangerous and uncertain situations. For many of us, one of the things we fear most is finding ourselves home alone. The fear of being alone to face the challenges of life is scary whether we are 10 or 70 but the good news of the Christmas story is that God never leaves us home alone. Jesus came to be Emmanuel, which means God with us but as we read through the Christmas story we also see that God provides people to walk with us during the joys and challenges of life.


The last two weeks we heard the story of the angel appearing to both Mary and Joseph with the news that Mary was going to have a child who was going to be the son of God. For each of them, this presented some incredible challenges. Mary had to explain to Joseph and her family what was taking place and pray that they believed her story about the angel, and once Joseph got confirmation that Mary’s story was true, he still faced the challenge of being the husband to Mary and the father to a child that wasn’t his and was in fact, the son of God. So both Mary and Joseph are facing huge challenges here and while they were assured that God was with them, I’m also sure that each of them experienced a deep sense of loneliness, after all, this kind of news isn’t something that is easily shared with family and friends. And it’s not the kind of thing that many people can relate to and understand, so in many ways Mary and Joseph were alone, but as we keep reading the Christmas story, we find that God provides people to encourage and walk with them during this difficult time in their lives.

Let’s look at Luke 1:39-49, 56.

So as soon as Mary heard the news that she was going to be pregnant with the son of God, it says she went with haste to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Now there was a reason Mary chose to visit this particular cousin. Of all the women Mary must have known, Elizabeth would be the only one to understand her situation because Elizabeth herself was pregnant under some very unique circumstances. Elizabeth was an older woman who had never had children and everyone, including her, assumed that she would never have children and yet both she and her husband Zechariah longed for a child. Children were seen as a blessing from God and they both longed for and prayed for that blessing.

When the news came to Zechariah that he and his wife would have a son who would grow up to be a prophet, he was skeptical because they were both so old – but in time Elizabeth became pregnant, and people would have seen this as a miracle. (Just an aside here, their child did become a prophet, the man he grew up to be we know as John the Baptist, and John was the one who called people to repent of their sins and prepare themselves for the coming of the Messiah.) So when Mary finds herself miraculously pregnant, there is only one woman who would be sure to understand her situation and that one woman just happened to be her cousin Elizabeth. Think about it, God could have chosen any woman to be the mother of John the Baptist, but he chose Elizabeth because she was related to Mary so that when Mary got the news of her pregnancy she would not be alone. God provided a mentor for Mary. God provided support and encouragement for Mary. God didn’t leave her home alone.

So Mary traveled the 80+ miles to Ein Karem, the village where Elizabeth lived so that neither woman would be alone. Elizabeth needed help as an older woman about to give birth to her first child, and Mary needed reassurance. Mary needed a mentor and friend; she needed someone who would understand her situation. Now last year when we studied the journey of Mary and Joseph we learned that Ein Karem, the village where Elizabeth and Zechariah lived, was just a few miles from Bethlehem, where many people believe that Joseph lived. So it actually could have been that Joseph heard the news about Mary being pregnant at Ein Karem, which would mean that when he heard the news he also was not alone. Zechariah and Elizabeth would have been there for Joseph as well.

It must have been an encouragement for Joseph to see another couple dealing with the miracle of an unexpected pregnancy. Remember, there is only one thing Joseph knows for sure and that is that the baby Mary carries is not his. He is taking it on faith and trusting the words of the angel that the child is God’s, so it must have been an encouragement for Joseph to see another miraculous pregnancy. Joseph wasn’t home alone dealing with this situation. He had Mary and perhaps Zechariah and Elizabeth who could help him come to terms with the sudden change in his life.

So neither Mary nor Joseph had to deal with this situation alone. They didn’t face the obstacles of an unplanned unexpected and unexplainable pregnancy alone. They didn’t face the fear alone and they didn’t face the uncertain future alone. Mary and Joseph were not home alone – God provided them with people who would support them and understand them. The truth of the Christmas story isn’t just that God has come to be with us in the person of Jesus, but that God never intends us to be home alone. God provides people to support and encourage us throughout our lives.

While circumstances in life might cause us to feel alone today, the truth is that God has provided people to support us and encourage us, but we have to be willing to reach out to them. God provided someone for Mary but Mary did have to make the 8-10 day trip to be with Elizabeth. Mary had to make the decision to seek out someone for help and she had to make the journey to be with her. God does provide us with people in life but we have to be willing to reach out to them.

As most of you know, I went to Michigan State University, but when I arrived on campus I didn’t know a single person in the state of Michigan let alone anyone at Michigan State. I am also somewhat of an introvert, so making friends is not always easy for me, so my first few weeks at college were pretty difficult. My roommate never showed up so I sat home alone while everyone around me had roommates to go off and do things with. I was incredibly homesick and thought about returning home when I got a letter in the mail from a high school friend whose sister had attended Michigan State years earlier.

Cindy wrote me and told me about a group her sister had been part of called Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship and she told me it was a lot like our church youth group and that I should check it out. Now here’s the thing. I didn’t get that letter on just any day or at just any time. I received and read that letter right after walking by a huge banner for IV at freshman orientation. Now I didn’t pay any attention to the banner because I assumed IV was a sports organization and as you know I was a less than ordinary athlete – but after reading Cindy’s letter I realized I had just seen that organization on campus so I immediately went back and talked to the students who were there. Gary and Ruth invited me to attend the first meeting which just happened to be that night. While I didn’t know anyone in Michigan and I struggled to find support at Michigan State, God did not intend me to go through it alone. Through miraculous ways, God guided me to the group of people who would be my support and fellowship for the next 5 years and more.

Now what I love about this story is that it has entire second chapter. 25 years later I was telling this very story in a sermon at my church in Lewisburg when a visitor came up to me after worship and said, I bet your friend’s name was Cindy Ball and her sister who went to Michigan State was named Mary. Well, I just about fell over because she was right. I had never seen this woman before in my life, she was a first time visitor who had just moved to Lewisburg and I was stunned. It turned out that Pat was good friends with Mary and had just moved to Lewisburg and was looking for a church, that day she decided we were the church for her and while she lived in Lewisburg we were her support and the support for her daughter Sara.

God never intends for us to be home alone. But the truth is that we have to reach out to those people God brings into our lives. Mary and Joseph had to reach out Elizabeth and Zechariah. I had to reach out to Gary and Ruth and the rest of the people in Inter-Varsity and Pat had to reach out to the people of St. Paul’s Church in Lewisburg to find her support and fellowship. God provides us with people for support but we have to reach out to connect with them and we need to be willing to lean on them and the truth is that this comes with a certain amount of risk. Mary didn’t know for sure how her cousin Elizabeth would take the news of her situation. Elizabeth could have been skeptical and critical – she could have thrown Mary out of the house. Mary took a risk to travel to Elizabeth and reach out to her. Joseph took a risk to take Mary as his wife and to walk together in life. It’s always risky to reach out to someone, but we have to take the risk because we were created for relationship.

God created us because first and foremost he wants to have a relationship with us. Think about it, even God doesn’t want to be home alone. God wants a relationship with us, and He promises to never leave us nor forsake us. While Kevin’s family forgot him on their Christmas Vacation, God has promised to never forget us, look at Isaiah 49:15. As unlikely as it might be that a mother would forget her child, God will never forget His children. God will never forget us and God has promised again and again to be with us no matter what. We were created for a relationship with God and God is always there for us, but God also created us for human relationship. God created man for woman and woman for man. God places us in families to be supported by brothers and sisters. God unites us in a church to be encouraged, inspired and nurtured by friends. God has created us for relationship and so we need to take the risk and seek out those relationships.

But what this also means is that we need to be there when others reach out to us. Actually, let me take that a step further, we need to intentionally reach out to those around us that today are home alone. God has always had a special concern for those who live alone, in fact in Psalm 146:9 it says the Lord watches over the alien, he sustains the fatherless and the widow and in James 1:27 it says a religion God accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress.

God doesn’t want anyone to go through life alone so those that have no families are to get special care and attention. We should work extra hard to make sure that as God’s people we are taking care of the widow and orphans. We need to reach out to those that are alone, especially in this season, and we need to make sure that we are doing what we can to support them and remind them that they are not forgotten. We need to make sure that they aren’t feeling home alone.

But it’s not just those that are physically by themselves that struggle with feeling alone, however, many people do and it’s important for us to keep our eyes and ears open to those who might need some encouragement during this season. While for many the Christmas season is filled with love and laughter, for others it is a dark and depressing time and we need to be open to the ways God might want to use us in the lives of others. Especially now, there are many people today who are struggling to make sense out of things that are senseless. There are many hearts that are broken and we will all struggle to celebrate the gift of life and love in the midst of tragedy, violence and death – but we need to. We need to offer hope to a dark world. We need to remind people here and in CT and around the world that God has not forgotten us and God has not given up on us. In fact, what we are celebrating is Emmanuel – God with us. God is with us in the this mess and we need to be there for those that are hurting. Elizabeth was willing to be a support and mentor to Mary. Are we willing to support and mentor those around us who need someone of faith in their lives? Are we willing to reach out in love to those that are hurting today?

Maybe more than anything else what we need to do right now is remind one another that we aren’t home alone. We aren’t alone in life and we aren’t alone as we struggle through difficult times, not only is God with us but God has provided us with people to surround us and support us. Look around you… there are people right here who love and support you. Look around you… there are people right here who need your love and support. What we need to do is reach out to one another in love and help each other through.

Rex Mattern shared with me a book called Implosion and the author Joel Rosenberg talks about what we need in our nation to experience a religious revival and what is needed is for each of us to get right with God. I have to say that in the wake of what we have seen these last few days, I couldn’t agree more, we need a religious awakening in our nation because what can heal the brokenness and offer hope is Jesus. Now one of the ways that Joel Rosenberg talks about bringing this kind of awakening into our lives and into our community is for us to reach out to others and make a disciple for Jesus Christ. Joel writes, Christianity is not a solo sport. It’s about building strong, healthy teams of fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ whom God can use to change the world. It’s about older believers taking younger believers under their wings to love them, help them grow in faith, and help them reproduce their faith in the lives of other, younger believers.

Isn’t this what we need today? Isn’t it the love of God lived out daily in the life of God’s people that can begin to bring transformation to our families and communities? Isn’t it the love of God lived out in our lives that can begin to heal the brokenness we see all around us? One way we can do this is to reach out and nurture and mentor those around us. That’s what it means to experience Christmas. Elizabeth and Zechariah took Mary and Joseph under their wing and they loved them and help them grow in their faith and trust in God. So experiencing Christmas means reaching out to build relationships with those that are alone, and those that are new to the faith, and those that are struggling to make sense out of life, and those that today are broken and hurting. Will we do it? Will we start connecting with and sharing our faith and simply loving and supporting the people God has placed in our lives? How can you help others experience this part of the Christmas story and just let them know that they are not home alone?

It’s been a hard couple days, so let’s end on a positive, fun and somewhat child-like note. This idea that we experience Christmas when we realize that we are never home alone is actually the message of most of our favorite Christmas TV specials. Think about it… the Grinch experiences Christmas when he reaches out to the who’s in whoville and they accept him at their table. Frosty experiences Christmas when the children laugh and play with him. Charlie Brown experiences Christmas when the Peanuts gang help transform Charlie Brown’s tree into something special. Rudolph experiences Christmas when he finds support from the runaway elf who wants to be a dentist and Yukon Cornelius. Maybe all those Christmas specials have gotten it right.

We experience Christmas when we realize that God doesn’t intend for us to go through life alone. We experience Christmas when we reach out to God and allow him into our lives but we also experience Christmas when we reach out to those people God has placed in our lives. I want to invite you to experience Christmas. Enter into a deeper relationship with Jesus, and then reach out to those you need in your life and those that you need as part of their lives. And maybe most important of all, today we need to reach out to all of our children, in our families and in our community and remind them that they are never alone. Whatever you do this season, never stay home alone.

Next Steps
Experiencing Christmas ~ Never Home Alone

1. Read the following scriptures and reflect on the ways that God has promised to never leave us nor forsake us.
• Isaiah 43:1-7
• Isaiah 54:9-10
• Matthew 28:16-20
• Romans 8:31-39
• Hebrews 13:5-6

2. Commit to doing one thing this week that can strengthen your relationship with God. (Suggestions: pray, read God’s word, serve in the community, reach out in love to someone new, forgive someone, help someone in need, invite someone to Christmas Eve Worship.)

3. In his book, Implosion, Joel C. Rosenberg wrote:
Christianity is not a solo sport. It’s about building strong, healthy teams of fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ whom God can use to change the world. It’s about older believers taking younger believers under their wings to love them, help them grow in faith, and help them reproduce their faith in the lives of other, younger believers.
• Identify some young believers you can reach out to mentor and encourage in their life and faith.
• Identify some older believers you could ask to mentor and encourage you and your family in life and faith.

4. Commit to or continue on in the Take 5 Challenge.
• Take 5 minutes each morning to pray.
• Take 5 minutes each evening to read the gospel of Luke.
• Find 5 ways you can give that will make a difference.
• Find 5 people to encourage and help.

Experiencing Christmas ~ Give Up on Perfection

One year for Christmas I thought it would be great to decorate our family table in a different way so I had seen this idea on TV and decided to try it. You take apples and take out some of the core and turn them into candleholders. I thought that white candles in red and green apples would look beautiful on the table and it seemed like such an easy thing to do so I tried it. But here was the problem, the candles never stood up straight. Their either fell over or they all leaned one way or the other which meant that wax dripped on everything. The other problem was that after an hour or so the holes I cored out got bigger and bigger and then turned brown and mushy so the candles ended up being even more unsteady and I was afraid we were going to set the table on fire. So, needless to say we didn’t have beautiful apple candle holders that year, but we did have some good apple pie and applesauce!


How many great ideas for the holidays have you had like that? You look for the perfect tree but find it’s either too big or too small or all the needles fall off on December 23rd. Or maybe you start baking everyone’s favorite Christmas cookies and once they are all done you realize you forgot to put in the chocolate chips or vanilla. Or maybe you work hard to try and get the lights on your house to look something like this... (video clip), but what you get instead is something like this… (video clip).

From wobbly apples to lighting disasters, if you have ever had to give up on perfection to celebrate Christmas, then you know something about what it was like on that first Christmas because that was the year that Joseph had to give up on perfection. You see, everything in Joseph’s life was going along really well. He was engaged to a lovely young woman named Mary. Mary was faithful, devout and hard working and she was going to be a good wife and mother. Joseph was going to be able to provide well for his family because he had a good name and a good future as a carpenter so everything looked perfect until the day Mary came with the news. She was pregnant.

Mary was pregnant and the only thing Joseph knew for sure was that he was not the father. Life, for Joseph, suddenly gotten very messy. This was not the way it was supposed to go. Children were supposed to come after the wedding and the children were supposed to be his. That’s how life was supposed to turn out, but now everything has been turned upside down. Life is like that sometimes. It doesn’t take much for our lives to suddenly get very messy. We get the phone call from the doctor’s office confirming the unfavorable test results and life gets messy. We get the call from the school principal about our children’s grades or activities and life gets messy. We go to work and hear the news that the company is downsizing and our jobs are in danger and life gets messy. We come from work to find a note that says the relationship is over and life gets messy. We find out that trusted leaders in our community have failed and let us down and life gets messy and all of these things can happen in an instant and that’s how it was for Joseph, in an instant – with two words - life got messy.

I can’t even imagine what that conversation was like. Umm, Joseph I have some news for you. I’m pregnant, but don’t worry, an angel told me that the baby is God’s son so everything’s going to be ok. For Joseph, everything was not ok. His world had been turned upside down and all he could think about was how to get himself out of this situation the best way he could. In Matthew 1:19 we heard Joseph’s solution. He was basically going to file for divorce. In Jewish culture the betrothal or engagement was legally binding so at this point to end the engagement would be like getting a divorce.

Now according to the law, Joseph could have had Mary stoned for being unfaithful, he could have publically humiliated her which might have helped save his reputation a little bit, but he chose to simply dismiss her quietly because he wanted to keep her, and maybe himself from public shame. While people would certainly talk when the baby arrived, at least this solution would enable both of them to recover from the situation and move on with life. This was Joseph’s way to clean up the mess, but look at what God does. God doesn’t say, let’s clean up the mess, God says, I will come and be part of the mess. Matthew 1:20-23.

It is in Matthew that Jesus is given the name Emmanuel which means God with us, which for Joseph meant that God was in the mess that his life had suddenly become. God was in the messy relationship with Mary. God was in the child that he knew wasn’t his. God was in the uncertain future that Joseph now faced as he would have to help raise that child. God was in the chaos of the angels message which I’m sure didn’t make any sense. God was in the mess, and that is the message of Christmas, that God comes to dwell in the mess of our lives. In the mess of cancer and heart disease, in the mess of mistakes and accidents, in the mess of financial and job insecurity, in the mess of loneliness, doubt and fear – God is with us. When life doesn’t turn out the way we thought it should, it is ok for us to give up on perfection because God is with us in the mess – that’s the Christmas story.

Joseph had planned on a wedding and then children, but when Mary came with the news of a pregnancy God assured Joseph that he was there. Joseph planned on having Mary give birth in her hometown of Nazareth where she would be surrounded by her family, but when the decree is given that all must return to their hometown to be counted, Joseph now had to travel with his pregnant wife to Bethlehem, and yet once again, God was in that mess. God wanted Jesus born in the city of David so the decree and the mess it created was all part of God’s plan. When they arrived in Bethlehem and none of Joseph’s relatives had room for him or maybe didn’t want him in their homes or rooms, God provided a stable. Now think about it, the first place where God dwelled on the face of the earth was in the mess of a feeding trough or a manger – God is in the mess. While our Christmas cards make it look serene and beautiful, the truth is that it was a very messy night in Bethlehem and yet into that mess – God showed up.

If you are looking at your life today and it has not turned out the way you wanted it to, or the way you thought it should, if you are up to your knees in… well, in the manure and mess of life and loss then believe it or not – you are experiencing Christmas because that is what Christmas is all about. Christmas is not about perfect tables, trees, lights and gifts; it’s about giving up on perfection and allowing God to come and dwell in the mess of our lives. And here is what we need to remember, when God shows up he doesn’t always make the mess go away – he doesn’t always clean it out or clean it up, he just promises to be with us through it all.

Many people have this mistaken idea that once we make the decision to follow Jesus that everything in our lives should become perfect and if it’s not perfect then somehow we have failed. Either we don’t have enough faith or God doesn’t really love us or our sin is too great for God to really forgive, so if life isn’t perfect we think either we have failed or God has failed us, but none of that is true. The truth of the Christmas story isn’t that God makes the mess of our lives go away; the truth of the Christmas story is that God comes to dwell in the mess of our lives and he comes to give us the strength and power we need to just make it through.

Think again about Joseph. After Jesus was born, things didn’t go smoothly. While both Mary and Joseph had been told that this child was to be the Messiah and the son of God, the only people who came to welcome him were a local band of shepherds. Even though Mary and Joseph had been faithful in all God asked them to do to bring Jesus into the world, it was just a few years later that King Herod issued a decree that all baby boys born in Bethlehem should be killed so now Joseph had to take Mary and Jesus and flee to Egypt. Again, sometimes the Christmas story is so familiar that it keeps us from seeing the deeper truth for our own lives, but think about it. The mess for Mary and Joseph continued AFTER Jesus was born.

The mess for Joseph and Mary continued AFTER they had said yes to God and AFTER they faithful moved forward trusting God and AFTER they accepted Jesus into their lives which tells us that God doesn’t always make the mess of our lives go away. God’s love for us and God’s favor upon us doesn’t mean that everything will be perfect, God simply says he will give us the strength and power to make it through. So if our lives are kind of messy today, if things aren’t the way we thought they should be, if we are disappointed, discouraged and depressed by the circumstances of life - then the truth is that we are experiencing Christmas. If our lives today aren’t perfect, then we need to give up on perfection so we can grab hold of Jesus, who came to be Emmanuel – God with us.

As I was thinking about how Christmas is the celebration of God coming to dwell in the mess of our lives, I realized that the entire Biblical story is God running to the mess of our lives. When Adam and Eve made a mess of their lives and turned from God’s will, God didn’t run away from them. In fact, God went out to find them in the mess they had created. When the world was messed up with sin in the days of Noah, God didn’t destroy it all but ran into the mess and saved Noah and his family and worked through them to reestablish his kingdom. When God’s people were living in the mess of slavery God heard their cry and rescued them. Every time people made a mess of their lives by turning away from God, God never turned away from his people – he heard their cry, he saw their mess and he reached out to be with them and to save them. I believe the same is true today.

God not only sees the mess of our lives, but he sees the mess of our world and God hears the cry of those in need, and while many today may ask, where is God? I believe God is right there but maybe even more important I believe that God wants us to be right there. God wants us to be his presence in the mess that surrounds us. God wants us to be his hands and feet that offers help to those in the mess of hunger and pain. God wants us to be his ears that will listen to those that are in the mess of loneliness and confusion. God wants us to be his mouth and a voice that offers words of grace and hope to those who are feeling hopeless. God wants us to be his heart that not only beats for but offers an unconditional love to a messy world. So as we go in Jesus name we need to give up on perfection because the mess may not go away – but through us and in us God is there.

As we continue to make our way to the celebration of Christmas, I want to invite you to give up on perfection. Don’t look for the perfect tree, don’t try and set the perfect table, and don’t make sure every light on the house is in perfect sync – give up on perfection and experience the presence of Jesus. And if your life is looking pretty messy and uncertain right now then be assured that you are experiencing Christmas and trust that the gift of Jesus is with you. And may this message be the gift we share this Christmas.



Next Steps
Experiencing Christmas ~ Give Up On Perfection.

1. What imperfect circumstances will you face this Christmas? What mess are you and your family dealing with right now? As you give up on perfection, re-read the story of Joseph found in Matthew 1:18-25. What would it look like for you to experience God’s presence and power in the midst of your mess? How can God use your struggles to help others?

2. An angel spoke to Joseph to tell him that God was in the mess of his life. How will you open yourself to the word of God? Bible reading? Prayer? Worship? Sunday School?

3. What mess (problem) in our community or world is God calling you to enter? What can you do before Christmas to help be Emmanuel (God with us) for those in need?

One way to experience God in the mess of our lives is to join the Take 5 Challenge. For the next 3 weeks…
• Take 5 minutes each morning to pray.
• Take 5 minutes each evening to read the gospel of Luke.
• Find 5 ways you can give that will make a difference.
• Find 5 people to encourage and help

Experiencing Christmas ~ Expect a Miracle

About 20 years ago my nephew told everyone he wanted a robot for Christmas. Now we had no idea where this idea came from. There were no robots on TV, no robots in recently released Disney movies and no robots that he would have seen somewhere so we had no idea what it was he wanted or what we were even looking for, but for the next month everyone in the family searched for a robot. Many of us will spend the next month looking for that robot or doll or top selling xbox game that our children and grandchildren want. We will also be looking for the perfect gift to buy for someone who has everything and doesn’t really need a thing and if you are like me, we will be looking for all these gifts to be on sale for less than $20. Many of us will be spending the next month searching for that perfect present to give to our family and friends, but what we really should be looking for this season is the perfect presence.


While we have turned this entire season into a frenzy of presents that can be bought, wrapped and placed under a tree, God wants this to be a season where will experience the power of His presence, a presence that will last for more than a few minutes or days. God wants us to experience the power of His presence that can fill us with hope and joy, and a presence that can change our lives and through us be able to change our world. As we journey together through this Advent season, we want to invite you to experience something more this Christmas than just the rush to buy presents; we want you to experience the power of God’s presence because that’s how this entire story started. Let’s go back to the beginning of the Christmas story found in Luke 1:26-38.

So the story starts with the presence of God coming to a young girl named Mary. From what we know, Mary was just an ordinary girl. While she lived in Nazareth, she most likely worked as a servant to one of the wealthy families in the neighboring city of Sepphoris. From what we are told, there is nothing extraordinary about Mary that God would have chosen her. She wasn’t overly spiritual. She hadn’t been spending hours a day in prayer in fact she probably spent most of her days working. Like most young girls of her day she received no formal religious training or education so we can assume that she had not been able to read God’s word for herself. She was just an ordinary girl engaged to man named Joseph. And yet through the angel Gabriel God revealed his presence and his plan to this ordinary girl.

Now let’s just stop here so we don’t miss this. Sometimes the familiarity of this story means we don’t see the power of it for our own lives. The Christmas story begins with God revealing his presence and plan to a very ordinary girl. If we stop and think about it, God always reveals his presence and plan to ordinary people. There was nothing special about Abraham that God should have called him to the be the father of God’s people, in fact Abraham turned out to be a coward at times and he often struggled to trust God in difficult situations. And while God chose Moses to lead his people out of slavery in Egypt, he was not an eloquent speaker and because of his deep insecurities Moses asked God to send someone else to speak for him. Generations later God chose David to be the king of Israel, even though David was the youngest in his family and ended up struggling with all kinds of sin in his life. It seems that God doesn’t just delight in revealing his presence and plan to ordinary people, he loves inviting those ordinary people to be part of his plan. God chose barren women like Sarah, Hannah and Elizabeth to bring about his chosen servants and then through Jesus God chose ordinary fisherman and tax collectors to be the building blocks of the church.

So what we see at the very beginning of the Christmas story is that God chose an ordinary person to bring about his purpose and plan. I don’t know about you, but I’m glad God chooses the ordinary because it means that there is hope for someone like me. I can relate to being ordinary. I was a very ordinary kid. There was nothing special about me growing up. I was not a stellar athlete; in fact I was too fat, too slow and too uncoordinated to do much of anything in sports so I was always the kid chosen last in gym class. Since sports weren’t my thing, I tried to excel in music. In 4th grade I began to play the violin and by the time I got to Junior High two years later, I was pretty good, but I wanted to be in the band, so I started playing the tuba.

Now the tuba was good for me because it was an instrument my parents didn’t have to buy and since I was a big kid at the time, the tuba seemed perfect. For six months I immersed myself in learning how to play the tuba which meant that I never touched the violin. When I was finally asked to play the violin in a school orchestra they were trying to start up, I sat down, opened up the music and was totally stumped. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know where to put my fingers on the strings to make the notes. I had totally forgotten how to play the violin. While I picked it up again in time and even played it for a few years after that, I was never as good as I was in 5th grade. I was a very ordinary high school musician. You know the type, so ordinary that after 2 years in college I couldn’t play any musical instrument at all. So I can relate to being ordinary. I was an ordinary musician, an ordinary student and a very less than ordinary athlete.

And yet I am here today because, believe it or not, God does choose ordinary men and women. God reveals his presence and plan to ordinary men and women which means that God reveals his presence and plan to each and every one of us. If you are sitting here this morning thinking that you are not able to experience the presence and power of God, think again. If you are sitting here today thinking that God doesn’t have a plan to use your life for his purpose and glory, think again. God is right here and what the story of Mary shows us is that God delights in revealing his presence to those who feel ordinary and even unworthy. God loves to use imperfect and flawed people to bring about his purpose, which means that today God is longing to use us and he will, if we will just say yes.

Again, that is what we see in the Christmas story. God revealed his presence to a very ordinary girl and then he shared with her his plan for bringing the Savior of the world into the world, but then God made it clear that his plan included her, look at Luke 1:31-32. The angel told Mary that she was the one who was going to give birth to a child who would be called the son of the Most High and it would be her son who would be the Messiah and Savior of the world. That was God’s plan and all God needed was for Mary to say yes. All God needed was for Mary to allow the experience of God’s presence and power to fill her life. I believe that in this coming season of Advent and Christmas, God wants the same thing from us.

While we are out searching for the perfect present, God wants us to surrender ourselves to his perfect presence. God wants us to say yes to him and then open ourselves up so the power of his spirit can overshadow us and fill us. If we will do this, if we will stop looking for gifts long enough to receive the gift of God’s Holy Spirit, we can expect a miracle to take place in us and through us because that also is the message of the first Christmas story. When Mary said yes to God’s plan it meant that she was now expecting God to do a miracle in her life. Since Mary was a virgin she was not going to be able to bring the Messiah into this world on her own so when she says yes to God’s plan she is expecting God to do a miracle in her life.

I’m not sure I have ever thought of it this way, but every time we say yes to God, we are expecting God to do a miracle in our lives because saying yes to God means we are allowing God to do in us and through that which we can’t do on our own. Whether it is the miracle of forgiveness, the miracle of healing and strength, the miracle of hope in the midst of hopelessness, peace in the midst of pain, delight in the midst of despair, life in the midst of death whenever we say yes to God – God’s presence brings a miracle of power and life that we can not produce on our own.

When Mary said yes to God – God’s presence brought her the miracle of life. What is the miracle of God’s presence you need today? Is it forgiveness for sin that seems too great to overcome? Is it hope in the midst of a situation that seems beyond your ability to change? Is it a sense of purpose and direction for a life that seems to have stalled? Is it for a light to start shining in the darkness that seems to have overtaken everything? Is it a deeper faith and trust in God’s complete and unconditional love? Is it the ability to see that even in the midst of death there is life and life eternal? What is the miracle that God’s presence can bring to your life today?

The Christmas story begins with Mary experiencing the presence of God and then expecting God to do a miracle in her life. That’s still the Christmas story for us today. We experience Christmas when we open ourselves up to the presence of God and then expect God to do a miracle in our lives. Mary’s experience of Christmas, the coming of Jesus, begins when she says yes to God’s presence so the miracle can take place. Our experience of Christmas begins when we say yes to God’s presence so a miracle can take place. Can we simply say yes to God today?

Now when Mary said yes, she knew that the miracle that was about to take place wasn’t just for her, it was also for the entire world. The miracle God was going to do in her life was going to change the world and I believe that the miracle God wants to do in our lives is also never just for us. God does miracles in our lives to also help others. For example, when we experience the miracle of God’s forgiveness it awakens within us a desire to share the love of God with others who struggle with sin or struggle to see the value and worth in their lives. When we experience hope in the midst of a situation we thought was hopeless it gives us the strength to work for change in other situations that seem impossible to overcome like world hunger and the need for people to have clean water and basic medical care. And when we experience the miracle of God’s purpose and plan for our lives when we thought there was nothing God could do with an ordinary person like me, we empower and excite others to search for God’s purpose and plan for their lives. And it is all of us doing what God has called and empowered us to do that changes the world.

The miracle God wants to do in our lives is never just for us – it is to help bring life, hope and a deeper faith to those around us. So every time we say yes to God’s presence, we should expect a miracle and every miracle brings more of God’s presence into the world and it is God’s presence which changes our world. That’s really what this entire season is all about. An ordinary girl said yes to God and expected a miracle in her life. That miracle was Jesus who brought the fullness of God’s presence into the world for everyone to experience and it was the fullness of God’s presence in the person of Jesus that changed everything. So if we want to truly experience Christmas then today and everyday during this season we need to search for God’s presence and then expect a miracle.


Next Steps

Experiencing Christmas ~ Expect a Miracle

1. Search for God’s presence. For the next 4 weeks:
• Take 5 minutes each morning to pray.
• Take 5 minutes each evening to read the gospel of Luke.
• Find 5 ways you can give that will make a difference.
• Find 5 people to encourage and help.
(We’re calling this the “Take 5 Challenge”)

2. Expect a Miracle. What is the miracle you want God to do in your life?

3. Share God’s presence. God’s miracles are never just for us. Begin to think of ways the miracle of God’s presence in your life can help the lives of others.

The WOW of Thanks-giving

One of the big stories this past week was how Black Friday is slowly creeping into Thanksgiving. Retailers like Wal-Mart and Target have now opened their doors on Thursday evening to get a jump on the Christmas shopping season. So Thanksgiving is literally being consumed not by Christmas but by Christmas consumerism. Before we get too critical of the culture around us, the sad truth is that sometimes this happens in the church as well. Many years the first Sunday of Advent, which is the 4 week season leading up to Christmas, begins the Sunday after Thanksgiving so we end up having to decorate and get ready for Christmas before Thanksgiving, but not this year. This year the Advent season begins next Sunday which means we can take time today and throughout this week to linger a little bit on one of the most important and foundational teachings of our faith – giving thanks.


For the past three weeks we looked at 3 simple rules that John Wesley gave to the early Methodists. When people asked Wesley what they needed to do in order to faithfully follow God, he replied, do no harm, do good and stay in love with God. These general rules form the foundation of how we are to live out our faith, but maybe there should be one more. As we heard from 1 Thessalonians 5, giving thanks in all circumstances is part of God’s will for us, so let me bold and add a 4th rule to the 3 Wesley gave us – give thanks. We live out our faith by giving thanks to God and the reason we do this isn’t because God has called us to, and it’s not because it is God’s will for us; the reason we give thanks is because God is the one who has given us everything in the first place. All that we have and all that we are has come from God and ultimately belongs to God and that is the reason to give thanks.

During the long presidential campaign we have just endured, President Obama got into some trouble for one particular comment he made back in July. At a speech in Roanoke VA he said, “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business—you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.” While there was a lot of controversy around that you didn’t build that comment, maybe there was more truth in that statement than the president or anyone else thought. If we have created a successful business or nurtured a strong family or developed a solid faith – we didn’t do it on our own, we did it with the help and power and resources given to us not by the government but by God.
The opportunities we have come from God.
The creativity we have comes from God.
The hard work ethic which helps us succeed comes from God.
The ability to solve problems comes from God.
The help we need when things get hard comes from God.
The resources we have to build a strong business, family or faith comes from God.

In so many ways this is the story of the first Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims understood that all they had in this world was a gift from God. Their ability to survive the first harsh year in the new lands was because of the grace and power of God so they stopped to give thanks. Like the Pilgrims, we are not who we are today and we do not have what we have today because we have done it on our own and (let me be clear) it is not because the government has given it to us, it is because God, the creator, provider and sustainer of all things has given it to us. Look at Colossians 1:15-17. All things have come from God and all things hold together because of God which means that all that we have in our lives is a gift from God and what God desires most from us is to simply say thank you, give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for us in Christ Jesus.

So we are to give thanks at all times, but how do we do this? How do we give thanks to God? To help us think about that this morning, I want us to focus on just one word, and my hope is that maybe this was a word you heard on Thanksgiving. How many of you, when you gathered around the table with your family and friends said, Wow?

Maybe you said wow because the turkey looked picture perfect. Maybe you said wow because the turkey didn’t turn out the way it was supposed to. Maybe you said wow because the pies were delicious or maybe you said, WOW, I ate way too much! I hope at some point on Thanksgiving Day you said wow because that is the word that teaches us how to give thanks. We give thanks through our Words, Offering and Worship – WOW.

Let’s start with our words. Words have power and meaning, so it is important for us to say thank you. My parents are visiting for Thanksgiving and one of the things they taught my sisters and I was that we needed to say thank you – for everything. I remember going out to eat as a family when my sisters and I were fairly young and every time the waitress came to the table do anything, we said thank you. She handed us the menus and we said, thank you. She took our orders and we said thank you. When she brought our food and then later took our plates away we said thank you and every time she filled our water glasses, which was often, we said thank you. After hearing thank you so many times from three children she commented about how nice it was to hear. The words meant something to her – it encouraged her.

Words are powerful and words can be a blessing. I remember at one of the 5th Quarters last year I was working at the sign in table where we were giving out the wrist bands to students and I was encouraged and blessed to hear so many of them say, thank you. It was just a wrist band – but they stopped to say thank you and I appreciated it; it blessed me. Now if I appreciated those simple words for something as insignificant as a wristband – think about how God must feel when we use those two simple words to thank Him for all he has given us. We know those words are important to God because they were important to Jesus.

In one of the classic stories about giving thanks we find in the Bible, Jesus was travelling to Jerusalem and when he entered a certain village he was approached by 10 lepers. Now because of their disease they had to keep their distance, but they came close enough to shout to Jesus and ask him for help. When Jesus saw them and heard their cries for help he had compassion on them so told them to go show themselves to the priest. The reason he does this was because the priest was only one who could pronounce them clean. So they went to the priest and as they were walking something extraordinary happened - they begin to see their skin clear up. As they traveled their dead skin became healthy and alive, they were being healed and you can just imagine their excitement.

Their entire lives were going to be transformed. They were going to be reunited with their family, friends and community; they were going to be able to return to a normal life. Now I picture it this way, when they saw their skin becoming healthy, their walk turned into a run but as they ran, one of them stopped. He realized that what was taking place in his body was not his doing – he didn’t heal himself, what was taking place in his life was a gift from God so he turned and ran back to Jesus. When he got there all he had to offer Jesus were simple words of thanks, but those words meant something to Jesus.

Those two simple words were important and powerful and the truth is that Jesus wanted to hear it from all 10, look at Luke 17:17. It’s not that Jesus healed them to get the thanks and praise, but he wanted them to acknowledge the power and love of God working in them. Jesus shows us that our words of thanks-giving are important because they let God know we are grateful for his power and love working in our lives, so can we use simple words to thank God?

These words can be spoken, they can be prayed or they can be written down. We can simply speak words of thanks to God but if talking out loud to God makes us feel uncomfortable then we can use the words God gives us in scripture. For example, we can simply read Psalm 138:1-3. But our words don’t have to be spoken, we can also pray in the silence of our hearts and share with God simple thoughts that express our deep appreciation, or our words can be written down. Many people love to journal and find it helpful to write things down so they can see it, so we could make a list of things God has given us and use that list to help us see the power and love of God working in our lives.

So words are important but sometimes they don’t go far enough in expressing our gratitude so another way we can give thanks is to give God an offering. Making an offering to God is one of the earliest expressions of giving thanks that we find in the Bible. In Genesis 4 it says that in the course of time both Cain and Able brought a portion of what they produced and gave it to God as an offering. Cain was a farmer so he brought an offering from his harvest and Able, as a shepherd, brought the best cuts of meat from the first born of his flock. He gave God the best of his best. Now no one told them they had to give this offering. There was no law saying they had to give a portion of their lives to God, they did it because at some point in time one of them said, Wow, look at all God has given me, this is all God’s doing not my own so I am going to give a portion back to God. And at least Able said, I’m going to make sure that the portion I give to God is some of the best.

So offerings have always been used as an expression of giving thanks and they continue to be used that way today. When we take up an offering in worship we aren’t paying our dues to the church or giving to some specific need, the offering we take up in worship is an expression of our thanks and gratitude. We are saying thank you God for all that you have given us. As a genuine expression of thanksgiving, our offerings need to be a generous and sacrificial portion of all that we have and not just a fraction of what we have left over. And like Able we need to strive to give God the best of our best. This is where the discipline of tithing is helpful. Tithing is the practice of giving 10% of our income to God, which requires us to actually sit down and figure out what this amount would be. Once we figure out the amount of our tithe, we can then determine the best way to give that to God. Do we give it weekly, monthly, or once a year? That doesn’t really matter; what matters is to give faithfully as an expression of thanks for all God has given to us.

Tithing is a good practice because it helps us give to God first, and we are giving God some of our best, but the tithe is just the place to start, there are many other ways we can say thank you to God through our offerings. We can offer God our time and energy by serving the people of God in the church or serving the needs of those in our community. The truth is that God doesn’t just want our money, God wants our full lives dedicated and devoted to him, which means giving him a portion of our time and energy and talents as well. There are so many places where your hands and heart and faith are needed in the life of Faith Church and so many ways your gift can make a difference in the lives of others.

So our words and our offerings are expressions of our gratitude, but so is our worship. The leper who returned to Jesus to say thank you for the healing he received didn’t just say thank you, it says he prostrated himself at the feet if Jesus. He literally laid himself down on the ground in an act of humble worship. Our worship is also an expression of thanks to God. When we gather for worship we are communicating to God and the world around us that our lives are a gift from God and that we appreciate the grace, mercy and love that God gives us. Worship is the time and place where we say thank you for God’s gift of forgiveness and salvation that leads to abundance and eternal life. One of the ways we give thanks in all circumstances is to commit ourselves to a life of worship both personally and as part of the church so I want to invite you to keep making this time part of your spiritual discipline and practice. Make this time an ongoing part of giving thanks.

As we enter into the busy Christmas season it might be tempting to say, I need this hour on Sunday to get ready for the holiday, or to get some rest, but the truth is we need this time in worship to make sure that we are keeping our hearts and minds focused on what this season is and what it isn’t. The coming Advent season is a time for us to focus on God, it is a time for us to thank God for his daily presence in our lives, it is a time for us to remember that God has come to be with us in the person of Jesus. This is the time for us to remember that God has given us the best of his best in the gift of his son Jesus, it is not a time for us to go deeper into debt buying gifts that won’t make it to the New Year. So worship is an opportunity for us to not only thank God, but it also helps us sustain that attitude long after the turkey is gone.

So the word that I hope we heard a lot this thanksgiving is the same word that can teach us how to give thanks all year – WOW. Through this week and this coming Christmas season let’s thank God through our words, our offerings and our worship. Wow, thank you God.


Next Steps
The WOW of Thanks-Giving

Thank God through your words.
• Thank God for what He has given you.
• Read Psalms that express in words our gratitude to God. (See Psalms 19, 92, 95, 100, 107, 138)
• Make a list of all the things for which you thank God.

Thank God through your offerings.
• Does your regular offering to God reflect God’s generosity to you and your family?
• If you are not currently tithing (giving 10% to God), commit to it for the month of December. If God blesses you as you give, commit to tithing in 2013.
• Consider giving a gift of your time during the Advent and Christmas season to the Christmas Dinner or a community service agency like the Faith Centre.
• Consider an Alternative Christmas gift for your family and friends.

Thank God through your worship.
• Commit to being in worship for the Advent Season.
• Consider using an advent devotional for personal worship. (Last year’s devotional, Let Heaven and Nature Sing, is still available.)