1-15-12 Sermon

To listen to today's sermon click here. To read, see below. Our prayer is that this sermon will cause change in your life and you will draw closer to God through service to others in His name.

THE FIVE ESSENTIALS OF LIFE

01-15-12 Sermon

If you were to ask a biologist, “What are the essentials of life?” he’d answer, air, food, water, light.  If you were to ask a pharmacist, “What are the essentials of life?” he’d probably give you a long list of trace minerals, and important vitamins that you need.  If you were to ask a survivalist, “What are the essentials of life?”, he’d say a shotgun, bottled water and a bunker. 

But you are more than just physical life.  Life has a spiritual element and life has an emotional element and there are spiritual and emotional factors that are just as essential to life as air and water and food and you need these to really live.  In fact without these you’re not living, you’re just existing.  You’re not thriving, you’re just surviving. 

We want to look at five essentials for a balanced life.                

1.  YOU NEED POWER TO LIVE ON

You need that because there are a lot of things in life that drain your life of power, drain your life of energy and strength and vitality and stamina.  Change definitely can rob you of energy.  Stress can rob you of power.  Conflict can drain your life.  Delay can drain your life of energy.  Frustration can drain your life of energy.  And everyday work can drain you of the power in your life. 

Where do you get the energy and the stamina and the power to live on?  Where do you get the energy to just keep going when you feel like giving up? 

People try different things: fads, therapies, pills, things like that.  But the real secret of power to live on is this: focus on God.  The more you focus on God the more power you’re going to have in your life.  God is the source of all power.  God has all the power you need.  Just look around nature.  His power is evidenced everywhere you look.  The Bible says, “Nothing is impossible with God.”  He’s got more power than you could possibly imagine.  That power is available to you but you get it by focusing on God.  You get your eyes off your problems and you get your eyes onto God, onto Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 40:30-31 “Even youth grow weary and tired and vigorous young men stumble badly yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength.  They will mount up with wings like eagles.  They will run and not get tired.  They will walk and not become weary.” 

God has all the power you need and you get it by waiting on Him or by focusing on Him.  The more you focus on God the more you plug into His power.  If you spend a lot of your life focusing on God, you’re going to have a lot of power in your life.  If you spend a little time focusing on God, you’re going to have a little power in your life.  If you don’t spend any time focusing on God, you’re going to have no power in your life.       

There’s a word for focusing on God in the Bible.  That word is “worship”.  Worship is simply focusing on God.  Some people think worship is a ritual.  It’s not.  Some people think worship is a regimen, rules and regulations.  It is not.  Some people think it’s a ceremony.  Worship is not a ceremony.  It’s not a list of things you do or don’t do.  Worship simply means focusing on God.

You can worship by yourself in your backyard.  You can worship with another person or a couple of people in a small group.  You can worship in a large crowd.  Whenever you are focusing on God, you are worshiping and that is the secret of the power to live on.

How do you worship?  Psalm 46:10 “Be still and know that I am God.”  You need to quiet yourself, drop the distractions, center in on God and His greatness and His love and what He wants to do in your life – His plan and purpose.  The more you do this, the more you be still and know that God is God, the more you’re going to find yourself restored, renewed and refreshed on a daily basis. 

The same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead, the same power that rolled the stone away from the tomb so people could see that Christ is risen is available to you.  And you will not make it if you don’t have power to live on.  That is your first and foremost greatest need.  But you need more than that.

2.  YOU NEED PEOPLE TO LIVE WITH

The Bible calls it fellowship.  You were made for relationships.  You do need the power of God in your life but you also need people around you to support you, encourage you and to fellowship with.  The Bible tells us that when God made Adam, He put him in the Garden of Eden which was a perfect environment.  No problems, no pressure, no pain.  Yet God looked down at Adam in a perfect environment and said it’s still not good enough.  There’s something terribly wrong.  And in Genesis 2:18 “God said, ‘It is not good for man to be alone.’”

It is not God’s will for you to be lonely.  You were made for relationships.  You were made for other people.  And God says you need people to live with not just power to live on.

A study by the Department of Mental Health of California said that they discovered that if you isolate yourself from other people, if all you have is acquaintances, no close friends, you have no intimate relationships with other believers, other people, you are three times more likely to die an early death, you are four times more likely to suffer emotional burnout, you are five times more likely to be clinically depressed and you are ten times more likely to be hospitalized for emotional or mental disorder.  You were made for relationships. 

The Bible says we’re supposed to help each other.  We’re not supposed to go through life as Lone Rangers.  You are supposed to have people that you depend on.  Close friends.  The Bible calls it fellowship. 

In Ecclesiastes 4 the Bible says, “Two people are better than one because they get more done by working together.  If one falls down, the other can help him up.”  The next verse in that chapter says, “If you don’t have anybody to help you up when you’re all alone, pity on you.”  You need people to live with.

Fortunately God has designed a custom-made support network just for you.  That is called the church.  Church is not something you go to.  Church is not an event you attend.  Church is a family that God meant for you to be connected to, to be a part of.  He wants you to have relationships and connections and fellowship in the body of Christ, in the family of God.  You need people to live with.

When you get busy the first thing that gets short-changed in your life are your relationships.  You start cutting back.  The first relationship that gets hurt when you get busy is your relationship to God.  You start saying, “I don’t have time to pray.  I don’t have time to talk to God.  I don’t have time to read my Bible.  I don’t have time to be quiet and focused like we just talked about.”  God always gets short-changed first in relationships.  And then if the pressure and the stress stays on, you start cutting back in your family, and you start cutting back in your relationships with other Christians.  “I don’t have time to be a part of a small group.  I don’t have time to go to special programs.  I don’t have time to come every weekend to church.” 

If that’s the case in your life, you’re too busy.  Your priorities are all out of whack.  And when you start skimping on relationships it always comes back to haunt you.  You’re going to get hurt in the end.  You cannot cut back on an emotional and spiritual need of your life – people to live with.  If you don’t have meaningful, supportive and accountable relationships you’re going to go under at some point in your life.

The Bible warns about this in Hebrews 10:25 “Let us not neglect our meeting together.”  Why?  Because you need it.  It’s not just what you hear and learn, it’s the relationships that you build in those meetings. 

There’s a third essential you’re going to need in the 21^st century.

3.  YOU NEED PRINCIPLES TO LIVE BY.

You need power to live on and people to live with but you also need principles to live by.  You need a clearly thought out philosophy of life.  You need a moral foundation.  You need a code of conduct and conviction that gives you stability when everything’s flying off the wall. 

The Bible says that you were created to have a relationship with God.  That’s why you were made.  And God wants you to live with Him in eternity by first developing a relationship with him here on earth.  You’re not going to spend forever here on earth.  You’re only here 60, 70, 80, maybe 90 years on earth.  When your body dies, that’s not the end of you.  You’re going to keep on living.  Where you spend your eternity and what you do in eternity is largely going to be determined by how well you follow the directions of God here on earth.  If you don’t do too good at that here you’re not going to do too good in eternity. 

You are being tested.  Life is a test.  It is not the final act.  This is the warm up act.  You are being tested by how well you follow what God says to do in His word.  And you need principles to live by.  God’s going to see if you’re going to live by them or not. 

Every principle you need for life is in the Bible.  It is in the Bible and the Bible says in Psalm 119:19 “I am a pilgrim here on earth [that means you’re just passing through; you’re not going to stay here] I need a map and Your commands are my chart and my guide.”  Everything you need is right in there – the principles to build your life on and to live by. 

Here’s the problem.  God’s principles for living are the exact opposite of conventional wisdom.  I used to have a saying in big letters on the wall of my office that said:  What is popular is not always right, and what is right is not always popular.  And another that says Stand up for what is right, even if you’re standing alone.  Figure out the popular thing to do and it’s almost always the wrong thing to do.  Because God’s principles for living about time management, and God’s principles for living about sex, and God’s principles for living about how you use your money, and God’s principles for living in so many areas, are the exact opposite of what popular culture tells you.  Popular culture almost always gets it wrong. 

They say, “You earn your way to heaven by being good enough.  And if your good works are better than your bad works, you’re going to make it.”  So you work real hard and hope to get into heaven.  God says, “Not a chance.  There’s no way you can earn your way into a perfect place.  It’s a gift.  You must accept it by faith in My Son.  It’s a free gift of grace.  Accept it.”  Popular culture says, Get all you can, get it as fast as you can and don’t let anybody else have any of it.  God says, “The way to be happy is to give your life away.  A man’s life does not consist of the abundance of things he possesses.”  Learn to give, learn to share, because happiness comes from being generous, from being a giving person.

Today, more than ever before and particularly in the 21^st century, you are going to need to settle in your mind the principles that you’re going to live on.  What are the statements, the values that are going to hold your life up?  The reason that’s important is because we are moving from the modern age to what they’re now calling the postmodern age.  The 21^st century will definitely be the postmodern age. 

What’s the difference between the modern age that we live in right now and the postmodern age?  There are many differences and we’re going to look at those in this series in detail.  But let me give you one today.

In the modern age, truth was discussed and debated and fought over.  In the postmodern age, people don’t even believe there’s such a thing as truth.  We’re already seeing that in our culture today.  “There is no such thing as truth.  What’s right for you may be wrong for me.  What’s right for me may be wrong for you.  What’s true for you may not be true for these people.  There is no such thing as truth.  It’s just a figment of your imagination.  It’s all an illusion.”  We’re seeing this attitude being implemented in every area of our society – politics, government, education, every area of life.  You’re hearing people say things like “There are no absolutes.  There is no absolute right and there is no absolute wrong.  It’s just what you want it to be.”  Whenever I hear anybody say that I want to say, “Are you absolutely sure?”  That statement in itself is an absolute. 

There are profound implications if there is no truth.  And people who say this don’t even think it through.  It’s true that for people today tolerance is more important that truth.  You don’t have to tell the truth you just have to be tolerant of everybody else no matter how devious they are.  Today the supreme value is not truth.  It’s political correctness.  I need to warn you that the moment you decide to say, “Here are some principles to live by,” this is always right and this is always wrong,” the moment you say that you may be labeled a bigot.  No matter what you say.  The moment that anybody has the courage to stand up and say this is right and this is wrong, always.  Then you’re labeled a fundamentalist, a bigot, a nutcase of some kind.  Because you’re not tolerant.

Folks, we need to be tolerant of people, but not truth.  It is not tolerance that sets you free.  It’s truth that sets you free.  You can be very tolerant and building your life on a total lie.  It does not make sense to affirm two contradictory ideas as true.  You need to be tolerant of people but not of truth.  You need principles to live by. 

        

If there is no such thing as truth, nothing matters.  There is no meaning.  There is no significance.  And you don’t matter.  You’re just some primordial ooze that happened to evolve.  You don’t matter. 

Jesus told a story at the end of the Sermon on the Mount where He said, two guys went out and built homes.  One built his home on shifting sand.  And when the storms came along that are inevitable in life and the rains hit it and the winds battered it, it fell apart because it had no solid foundation.  But there was a wise person who built his house on solid rock, a solid foundation.  And when the winds came and the storms blew, the rains came down, it remained solid because it had a stable foundation. 

In a society where things are crumbing all around us, how do you have hope?  How do you be optimistic?  Look at the next verse.  “Everyone who hears My words and obeys them is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”  You need principles to live by. 

There’s a word for people who do this.  A word for people who build a foundation, who live by God’s principles – holy.  God wants you to be holy.  Holiness should be a goal of your life.  That is a word we’re not used to.  When we think of holy we think of nuns or priests or holy men on the mountain, a hermit who hides in a cave or monastery, some super saint or spiritual superstar.  We don’t think of ourselves as being holy.  Holiness means being totally dedicated to doing what God wants.  That ought to be your desire in the 21^st century, to be wholly dedicated to God’s principles, to be wholly committed to God’s word and way of life, to be wholly sold out to what He wants for your life.  In the 21^st century you need to make that your desire.  You need to say, “Lord, holiness is what I long for.  Holiness is what I need.” 

There’s a fourth ingredient, a fourth essential you have to have to be all God wants you to be. 

4.  YOU NEED A PLAN TO LIVE OUT

You need an outlet for expressing the talents and abilities that God has given you.  You need a plan and a place where you can make a contribution with your life, with your talents, with your abilities, with your giftings in this world.  You need a plan for how God is going to use you to make the world a better place.  Really it all boils down to two options: You can live your life by design or you can live your life by default.  You can live your life intentionally or you can live your life accidentally.  You can make the most of what God has given you or you can waste it, blow it, and kind of drift through life unintentionally, without a plan and wasting what God has given to you. 

The truth and good news is, God does have a plan for your life. The fact that you’re alive means He has a plan for you.  Life does not make sense until you understand you were made by God and for God.  He made you for Himself.  Life doesn’t make sense until you understand that.

So how do I know God’s plan for my life?  How do I know my place in this world?  How do I know my niche, what I'm supposed to do, where I'm supposed to give back?  What am I supposed to do with my life? I can say it in one word.  God’s plan for your life is service.  That’s God’s plan for your life.  God wants you to serve Him and God wants you to serve Him by serving others. 

Notice Ephesians 2:10 “God has made us what we are…” You are who you are and what you are because God intended that.  He has a plan for you to fulfill.  If you don’t be you, who’s going to be you?  Only you can be you in this world.  So you may not like it, you may say, “I wish I looked like ‘that’ or have ‘that’ talent…” God wants you to be you and He want you to fulfill the role He made you for and that’s where fulfillment and meaning and significance comes from.  God made us what we are.

It says “… in Christ Jesus God made us…” …to watch television?  No. “God made us to do good works.”  That’s service.  God made you to serve.  God didn’t put you on this earth to be a selfish little clod where you live totally for yourself and everybody in the world exists for you, to meet your needs, to give you pleasure.  God did not mean for you to just live for yourself.  He wants you to make a contribution in life.  He wants you to give something back, to make an impact in the world, in the way that’s best for you based on how He made you. 

How do I know God’s plan for my life?  I look at the Bible.  The Bible says serve Him.  It says “God made us to do good works, which God planned in advance for us to live our lives doing.”  Before you were even born, God planned the ways of service, the ways of making an impact in the world that He wanted you to do specifically.  When you get to heaven, God isn’t going to say, “Why weren’t you like that person over there?”  He’s going to say, “Why didn’t you do what I made you to do?  Why didn’t you make the impact that you were designed to make and influence where I designed you to influence?” 

How do I know what God wants me to do?  How do I know where He wants me to serve?  I look at the way God has wired me up.  God has uniquely shaped you for a reason.  There is an acrostic, SHAPE.  Five things that shape you, that make you, you.  Your Spiritual gifts, your Heart, your Ability, your Personality, your Experiences.  All these five things shape you and make you, you.  When you understand how God has shaped you, then you’ll know your niche in life.  You’ll know what you should be doing in investing your life.

Here’s the thing: when you’re a child, it’s very obvious what your spiritual SHAPE is because your parents and everybody else can see it.  If you’re good at art, you’re good at art.  If you’re good at music, you’re good at music.  If you’re good at numbers or words or pictures or mechanical things or animals, those things just naturally come out.  If you’re a leader, you end up being a leader on the playground.  Whatever it is, it starts showing up pretty early.

But as you grow older, socialization kicks in and you start saying, “That’s what gets rewarded in this society,” or “That’s what makes money in this culture.  That’s where the big bucks are,” or “That’s what gets the approval of my parents or my friends,” or “That’s what will make me famous and give me status.”  And you end up, often, in some area of life that you weren’t shaped for and no amount of money, no amount of prestige and status, and no amount of fame is going to compensate for that, so you’re still miserable.  You’re wondering why you have all these things yet you still don’t feel satisfied.  Because you’re not doing what you’re shaped to do.  And you let somebody get you off track. 

Here’s the good news.  Your shape is unique.  There’s nobody else like you in the world, shaped just like you.  God made your shape unique – your heart, ability, personality, experiences, all those things – because He has a unique contribution He wants you to make in this world.  And He wants you to do it.  But you will miss that contribution if you start copying other people.  Most people start off as originals in life but they end up as carbon copies of other people.  “Look at what the Jones’ are doing.  We need to do that!”  You end up being like somebody that God never intended you to be like.  And you miss the glory and the wonder and the satisfaction of being fully who God meant for you to be.  Don’t miss it by copying others.

The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 12 “God gives us many kinds of special abilities, but it is the same Holy Spirit who is the source of them all and there are different kinds of service to God but it is the same Lord that we are serving.”  God uses us all in many different ways. 

5.  YOU NEED A PURPOSE TO LIVE FOR.

Everybody needs to feel like their life matters.  You need to feel like you’re not just taking up space, that you’re not just using oxygen, wasting resources, that your life matters and it counts.  That you not only have a plan to live out but you have a purpose to live for.  You need to know your purpose.  In fact, if you don’t understand your purpose, life doesn’t make sense.  Why bother?  Why get up in the morning?  If you don’t know your purpose in life and you’re not fulfilling God’s plan in life, God doesn’t owe you one more day.  Why does God owe you one more second of breath of life if you’re just going to use it on yourself rather than fulfilling His plan and His purpose for your life? 

Sadly, most people never even discover God’s purpose for their lives.  They live and die just existing.  What do you do when you don’t know your purpose in life? 

Some make up a purpose.  And a lot of people do that.  They just grab something, grab onto it and that becomes their meaning for life.  They say things like, “I'm into sports…  I'm into music…  I'm into politics…  I'm into making money…  I'm into golf…  I'm into redecorating my home.”  All those are fine things but they’re lousy purposes for living.  You try to make up a purpose and people do that. 

You were made with a hole in your heart that only God can fill.  You were made to have God at the center of your life.  If God isn’t number one and at the center of your life, then you’re going to try to cram something else in there that’s a poor, second class substitute.  And you’re going to be disappointed.  If you give first class allegiance to a second class cause, you’re going to be betrayed.  Nothing can take the place of God in your life.  When you try to fill it with something else and put something else at the center of your life instead of God that becomes your god and it becomes an addiction. 

One guy who clearly understood his purpose was Paul in the Bible.  The Bible says in Acts 20 “The most important thing is that I complete my mission, the work that the Lord Jesus gave me to tell people the good news about God’s grace.”  God had a mission and a work for Paul to do. 

God has a mission and a work for you.  A life mission, a life purpose that He intends for you to fulfill while you’re here on this earth.  Part of the job of this church is to help you understand that. 

These are the five essentials you have to have to live in the 21^st century.

Matthew 6:33 “The thing that you should want most [circle “want most”] is God’s kingdom and doing what God wants  [You should want most what God wants.]  then all these other things you need will be given to you.”  If you want most what God wants most for your life, then all these other things you need will be given to you. 

The Bible tells us in 2 Peter 1 “Jesus has the power of God and His power has given us everything we need to live [that’s all the essentials of life] and to serve God.  And we have these things because we know Him.”  It starts by getting to know Christ.  If you’ve not gotten to know Jesus Christ, you need to do that.  Get connected.

Prayer:

      Father, I want to thank You that You’ve promised to provide everything that we need to live and to serve You, if we will put our trust in Your Son, Jesus Christ. 

      Why don’t you pray?  Pray this in your mind.  Say, “Dear God, today I want to get started getting to know You better.”  Just say that in your mind.  “I want to get connected to You.  I'm going to look to You to meet my needs in these five essentials in my life.  Please give me Your power to live on.  And please bring the right people into my life that I need for support.  And help me to live by Your principles.  I want to know You and I want to follow Your plan for my life and I want to fulfill the purpose that You created me for.  In Your name I pray.  Amen.”

1-8-12 Sermon

To listen click here. To read the manuscript, see below. Blessings!

SEARCHING FOR A SAVIOR

01-08-12 Sermon

Several Christmases ago all of the national newsmagazines had cover articles on searching.  U.S.A. Today, US News Report – “In search of Christmas”.  Time had one out on “Finding God on the Internet: Searching for Jesus Online.”  Newsweek had one called The Search for the Sacred: America’s Quest for Spiritual Meaning.”

What the media had figured out is that America has become a nation of seekers.  As people look around and see the collapse of materialism, the collapse of hedonism and other things, what they’re saying is, “Who can give me the answers to the basic questions of life?  The spiritual questions like, “Why am I here?  Where am I going?  Where did I come from?  What is the meaning of life?  Is there a purpose in life?  Is there a God?  If there is a God, does He care about me?  How can I know Him?”  Those kinds of questions are being asked by millions of people. 

If you are a spiritual seeker here this morning, I want to say you’re in good company.  It’s good to be a seeker.  You have a lot in common with a group of people who were at the very first Christmas – the wise men.  Some people call them the magi, or the three kings.  But I think the best term for them is The Original Seekers.  Because that’s who they were.  They were seekers of God, searching for truth, searching for a Savior.

Who were these guys anyway?  Who were these mystery men from the east?  Who were these wise men, these three men and a baby?  The Bible doesn’t tell us a lot about the wise men.  It doesn’t give us a lot of details about who they really were.  In fact, we know less about them than almost any of the other people involved in the Christmas story.  The passage from Matthew 2 is the only place in the bible where the wise men are mentioned.  We don’t know really who they were.  It doesn’t say they were kings.  They were given the term magi in the Bible.  A magi is a term for a person who is kind of a combination astronomer, scientist, doctor and philosopher.  They were very wise men.  They were well educated.  We don’t know where they came from.  The Bible says they came from the east.  They could have come from Persia.  They could have come from India.  They could have come from China.  We don’t really know.  We do know that they had to cross all that Middle Eastern desert and that trip probably took months or years to get to Israel.  Note that this scripture passage says that they found the child not an infant and they found the child in a house not a stable.  That shows that the wise men really don’t belong in a nativity scene coming in right behind the shepherds. 

And we don’t even know how many of the wise men there were.  We’ve always thought there were three wise men but the Bible doesn’t say that.  The Bible says that there were three gifts.  Because there were three gifts, people think there must have been three guys.  There could have been as many as a dozen.  In fact, people often traveled together in caravans for safety reasons, although there is no mention of camels or caravans in the scripture passage.  So, there could have been a dozen of these guys.

What we do know about the wise men is what they did.  The wise men did three things that caused them to find God. 

And if you’re a seeker today, if you say, “I’m genuinely searching for the truth in life.  If there is a God I want to know Him,” then if you will do the three things the wise men did, you’ll find God too.

1.  SEEK THE TRUTH

If you want to find God today, if you want to know God better, you’ve got to seek the truth.  Go after it.  Become a seeker.  Take it serious. 

There’s a big difference between seekers and speculators.  There are far more speculators in the world than there are seekers.  Speculators are people who say, “Well, I think God is like…  My idea of God is like….  I really imagine God to be….”  Who cares?  Just because you think something doesn’t make it true.  There’s a difference between a speculator and a seeker.  Speculators just guess, they conjecture, and your guess is as good as mine what God is like.  But seekers are people who diligently search for the truth, they search for answers, they search for a person.  They don’t just make assumptions.  They take the time and effort to find the truth.

And that’s what the wise men were, seekers.  Matthew 2, the story of the wise men.  “After Jesus’ birth [that tells you this was some time later than the nativity, the event in the stable] wise men from the east arrived in Jerusalem asking, `Where is the child born to be king of the Jews?  We observed His star rising and have come to worship Him.’”  Notice in this verse, you can see three things that genuine seekers do. 

First, genuine seekers watch what’s happening in the world.  They’re alert, observant.  They saw a star that was different in the sky.  They were alert to it.

         Second, genuine seekers ask questions.  They said, “What do you think this means?”  and they started asking around.  What does this sign mean?  Where is it?  Where do we go?

         Third, they do whatever it takes to find the answer.  If you’re a genuine seeker, I encourage you to do that.  Do whatever it takes to find out the truth about, Why am I here?  Where am I going?  Is there a God?  Does He care?  What is he like?  Does he have a plan for my life?

It’s ironic to me that when Jesus was born, the religious center of the universe, Jerusalem, was just six miles away from where Jesus was born in Bethlehem.  All of the religious scholarship in the world at that time was concentrated in Jerusalem.  They’re only six miles away from Jesus’ birth.  But not one religious leader went six miles to search for Jesus. 

These guys that did come weren’t even believers.  They were “pagans” from some foreign country.  But they were genuine seekers so they found Jesus. 

In contrast to those religious leaders, these wise men probably took a long time to get there.  That revealed a serious commitment to searching for the truth.  The problem with many of us today is we all want to know the truth but we don’t want to take the time to find it.  We all want to know God but we don’t want to take the time to find out about Him.  So people say, “I want to know the truth,” but we’re too busy to search for the answers.  To me that’s a tragedy.  The most tragic thing in life is to go all through life never figuring out why am I here.  Never figuring out what is the reason, what is the meaning of life.  That is a wasted life.

When you feel unfulfilled.  When you get those feelings of, Do I really matter?  Why put forth the effort? You feel unsatisfied, unfulfilled.  You may feel a little confused about life.  That is God creating that desire in your life.  God created you with a God shaped vacuum that nothing else can fill.  Not money, not fame, not pleasure, not having all kind of things.  Only God can fill that God-shaped emptiness.  And that’s really what you’re searching for. 

The good news is this.  While you’re trying to search for God, God’s searching for you.  In fact, God wants you to get to know Him.  He wants you.  He’s interested.  He wants to have a relationship with you.  So notice what He promises in Jeremiah 29:13 “When you search for Me with all your heart, you will find Me.”  That’s a great promise.  That’s the Good News.  He wants you to meet Him.  He wants you to know Him. 

So if you’re a seeker, you really want to know the truth, you want to know God,  Congratulations.  Because God loves seekers.  God loves people who genuinely want to know Him.  God wants you to know Him and He wants you to love Him and He wants you to trust Him and He wants you to follow Him and He wants to have a relationship with you.  That’s what Christmas is all about.  The essence of Christianity is a relationship, not a religion.  God is not interested in religion.  He’s not “into” religion.  Religion is man’s attempt to get to God.  Religion is rules and regulations and rituals.   Christmas is about God coming to earth, wanting a relationship with you.

God is interested in a relationship with you. 

The second thing the wise men did was…2.  EXPERIENCE THE JOY

Enjoy the fact that God has already taken the first step, hoping you’d come to know Him.  God wants to help you get to know Him.  So He gives you a sign.  He always does this, to any genuine seeker.  He gives you a sign, a clue, a trail marking, travel guide so you can find Him.  He’s not going to just leave you out there on your own.  He gives you a travel guide to find Him. 

In the wise men’s case, their travel guide was a star, a very special star.  It was no mere, normal star.  A lot of people say that maybe the star they were following was some comet or supernova or asteroid.  But there’s no star that ever preformed like this star.  The Bible says it led them from the east directly to Jerusalem.  It led them east.  Then it turned south and went south to Bethlehem.  No star does that.  Then it settled right over the home where Jesus and Mary and Joseph were.  I’ve never seen a star like that, have you? 

On top of that, we don’t have any indication from the Bible that anybody else ever saw the star.  It doesn’t say that Herod or the people in Jerusalem saw the star.  The only people, to our knowledge, that actually saw the star were the wise men.  It was a special star, a custom made heavenly light.  God often does this.  All throughout history, God has used different kinds of instruments to get people’s attention.  Whether it was opening the Red Sea, bring down manna from heaven, a pillar of fire by night or cloud by day.  God has always done different kinds of signs.  He always rewards genuine seekers with clues with a travel guide, a star. 

Today there are numerous testimonies of God reaching out to Muslims in dreams and visions in Muslim countries where there are no missionaries.  God knows the hearts of people.  If he sees that a Muslim person is truly seeking God, God wants to be found and he reaches out to them and draws them to Jesus.  When they are seeking the light he provides more light.

Chances are, you have a star in your life.  You may have just never recognized it.  God put it there to bring you to Him.  That star may be a book you’ve read or a person you know or an experience you’ve had or a TV show or a movie.  It may be some event.  It may be a church.  I have no doubt that God has brought people across your path in order to be a travel guide to bring you to Him.  It may be a believing parent or a believing wife or husband who is a believer, or a neighbor or friend or somebody at work or a pastor, or even a child.  But God does not leave genuine seekers without a travel guide.  He brings these people into our lives so we can see where He wants us to be headed. 

So what’s the star in your life?

There are three possible reactions when God starts to guide your life and you start to realize, “Maybe God is talking to me and trying to guide me through this person, this book, whatever.”  You can react like Herod did which was fear.  He was afraid of being guided by God.  Or you can react like the religious leaders did, be indifferent, be apathetic, be skeptical.  Or you can react like the wise men did and that was celebrate.  They rejoiced.  They experienced the joy of being led by God.

Matthew 2:10 “And when they saw the star they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.”  The Greek there literally means they jumped up and down with joy.  They were ecstatic.  The Greek word is Muchow!  It means they were joyful beyond belief.  They couldn’t contain themselves.  They were overwhelmed with joy. 

If you’re a believer, I want to challenge you sometime this Christmas season to thank God for the stars in your life.  The travel guides, the clues.  They may be people or they may be events.  But thank God for the people or events that caused you to find Christ, that led you to the Savior.  And rejoice with exceeding great joy for those people. 

If you’re not a believer, if you’re still a seeker, you’re still on the way, I want to say to you, use the star, take advantage of it.  Don’t just let it be there.  Let it lead you to God to find the basic questions of life answered in your life.  Use that star.

Because God loves you and He has a plan and He has a purpose for your life, He will use anything to get your attention.  And that even means pain if necessary.  Because He loves you too much to let you go through life wandering.  Some of you have had a tough year.  You’ve had marriage problems.  Or you’ve had problems with your children, problems with your health.  Or maybe you’ve had financial difficulties.  Or maybe goals and dreams you’ve wanted just didn’t fit together, you’ve been stymied and you’ve been stressed.  Have you considered that the stress might be a star?  Maybe God is trying to get your attention.  He may be saying , “I didn’t mean for you to live your life without Me in it.”  Whoever said you’re supposed to go through life depending all on your own efforts?  God is trying to get your attention even in the middle of all those problems.

At Christmas time, I have some really good news for you.  Luke 2, the angels said at Christmas, the very first one, “I bring you the most joyful news ever announced and it is for everyone.  Your Savior has been born tonight.”  Why is Christmas such good news?  Because of what Christ came to do.  He came to be our Savior.  He came to save us.

What does that mean?  You hear the words “salvation” and you hear people say, “I’m saved.’  What does that mean anyway?  Saved from what?  What does it mean to be saved?  What does it mean to have Christ as your Savior?

It means three things.  God has a Christmas gift for you.  It’s Jesus Christ, His Son.  And wrapped up in that Christmas gift are three wonderful things.  He says,

1.  I want to give you forgiveness for everything you’ve ever done wrong in your past. 

2.  I want to give you a purpose and power to live today. 

3.  I want to give you the security of knowing your home in heaven is there for you when you die. 

That’s a pretty good deal.  You’re never going to get a better Christmas gift than that.  Forgiveness for your past, help in the present, security for your future.  That’s called salvation.  And that’s good news.

You need to seek the truth and then you need to experience the joy and realize that God has a gift for you.  John 10:10 Jesus said, “I came to give you life, life in all its fullness.”  Most people don’t live.  They just exist.  They don’t enjoy life, they just endure it.  This Christmas, God invites you to not only seek the truth but experience the joy.

If you want to find God at Christmas, you have to do three things that the wise men did: Seek the truth, Experience the joy and , third,

3.  RECOGNIZE THE GIFT

Recognize who this baby really was.  What makes this baby any different from any other baby?  Hundreds of babies were probably born around the world that night 2000 years ago.  Why do we split history into A.D. and B.C. over the birth of this baby?  What makes Him so different?  You’ve got to recognize the gift.  Who was He?

The Bible says He was no mere baby.  He was God.  Why was He God?  God came to earth in human form so we could get to know Him.  You can’t recognize God very well just in nature.  There are some things you can know about God in nature.  You can know God is powerful.  You can know God is creative.  You can look at nature and realize God likes variety.  But if Jesus had not come to earth, you would not know that God is loving, that God is personal, that God is available, that God has a plan for your life and a purpose for your life.  Those things happen because God gave us this Christmas gift.  He came to earth in human form so nobody would be afraid of Him.  Because nobody’s afraid of a baby.

Colossians 1 “Christ is the exact likeness of the unseen God.  He existed before God made anything at all and in fact Christ Himself is the creator who made everything in heaven and earth.”  That baby made you!  That’s the amazing thing of Christmas, that God would so humble Himself, and condescend to human being, and become one of us and put Himself in the hands of normal human beings as an innocent, helpless little child.  You’ve got to recognize the gift. 

Why do we give gifts at Christmas?  Billions of dollars were be spent this year on Christmas gifts.  Why do we do that?  Because it was God’s idea.  He started the whole thing.  He gave the first Christmas gift.  The Bible says, “For God so loved the world He gave…” He gave His only Son.  He took the initiative.  And that’s what it’s all about.  God gives us His Christmas gifts.

In order to enjoy a gift, I have to be able to do two things:  (1) I must be able to recognize them, and (2) I must receive them.

Have you ever got a gift that you never had the slightest idea what it was all about?  You open the present.  “It’s great!  What is it?  How do I use it?”  You can’t use a gift you don’t recognize.  And until you recognize that Jesus really was God this makes no sense to you.  You may as well not celebrate Christmas.  There’s no use celebrating the birthday of somebody that’s just like us.  You must recognize the gift.  He was God.

But more than that, you’ve got to receive the gift.  If I were to put a brand new Lexus out in the parking lot and say, “I’m going to give that car to the first person up here,” I’d be mobbed.  You would recognize the gift, but it wouldn’t be yours until you received it.

The same is true with God’s gift at Christmas.  Let’s say you gave me a gift at Christmas, then next summer you say, "How did you like the Christmas gift I gave you?"  It’s beautiful.  In fact it’s still setting over in the corner of my living room.  Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to unwrap it yet.  You’d think what kind of guy is this?  He didn’t even unwrap the gift. 

Yet people do this with God’s gift year after year.  They put up lights.  They put up a tree.  They sing the Christmas carols.  They go to church.  They do all those things at Christmas but they’ve never received the gift. 

This Christmas what you need to do is ask yourself the important question: Who was this child?  What child is this?  Was this really God?  Was Jesus really who He claimed to be?  If He was, He deserves a part of your life. 

How do we know that the wise men recognized the gift?  How do we know that they really realized that they were worshiping God?  We know because of the way they reacted when they saw the baby and we know because of the presents that they gave the baby.  The Bible says in Matthew 2:11 “When the magi, the wise men, went into the house, they saw the child with His mother Mary and they bowed down and they worshiped Him.” 

I don’t know when the last time was that you bowed down and worshipped a baby, but this was no ordinary baby.  It says, “Then they opened their treasure chests and they offered Him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.”  We know that they recognized Him as God because they were filled with awe.  And the Bible says they fell on their knees.  Worship is something that you offer to a god not a person.

Sincere investigation of the wise men turned into sacrificial adoration by the wise men.  They worshiped him.  It’s interesting to me that when they went into that room; they didn’t worship the star.  They didn’t worship Mary.  No, they bowed down before the baby.  Because Jesus is the only one worthy of adoration.  He is our Savior. 

Then it says that the magi brought gifts.  (One little preschooler said, “The maggots brought gifts.  They brought gifts of gold, Frankenstein and Smurfs.”)  But even the gifts that the wise men brought tell us who Jesus was. 

First they brought gold.  Gold is the gift you always give to kings.  It represents royalty.  In those days, you always offered gold to the king.  In giving the gift of gold they were saying this baby is our king.

Then it says they gave frankincense.  Frankincense is a very rare and very expensive incense.  It’s made from the bark of a tree in Arabia.  Frankincense was burned in the temple to worship God.  When they brought the baby frankincense, they were saying this is God.  He’s worthy of our worship. 

Then it says they brought the baby myrrh.  That’s an odd gift to give a baby.  Myrrh is the spice that in the ancient world they used to embalm dead bodies.  Why in the world would you give a death spice to a baby?  Because even in that they were saying, He’s not only our king, He’s not only our God, but also He is our Savior who is going to die for us.  He’s going to sacrifice His life for the world so we can be saved, so we can go to heaven.  This baby did not come just to live.  This baby came to die. 

What is the Spirit of Christmas?  You might say the Spirit of Christmas is giving.…Receiving….  Good will toward all men.  That’s part of it.  But the ultimate gift, the ultimate Spirit of Christmas is worship. When we realize in a sense, in awe, that God came to earth, became a human being, it is mind boggling.  And it is worthy of our worship.  It was a holy night.  An awesome night.  A night like has never been and never will happen again. 

So this Christmas, I invite you to recognize the gift, who Jesus really was.  And then receive God’s gift, receive His Son into your life and heart and let Him fill you with love.  Recognize and receive the gift.  The wise men did.  And you’ll be wise to when you do it. 

What is it that you’re searching for?  “I just want to be happy.”  Ok.  “I just want my kids to grow up safe.”  Ok.  “I just want to feel loved.”  Ok.  What is it that you are really searching for in life?  “I want to feel like my life counts.  I want to feel that there’s a meaning to all of this.  I want to know why I am here, what is my purpose.  I want to feel good about life.”  Beneath all those desires is an even deeper one.  It is ultimately, that you’re hungering for God.  He made you to have a relationship with Him and until that is in place, nothing else is going to satisfy.  It starts with getting in tune with your creator. 

The wise men came to Christ as seekers, they left as believers.  Their investigation turned into sacrificial adoration, which resulted in personal transformation.  They were changed. 

The end of the story in Matthew says that after they had seen Christ and given the gifts, it says they went home another way.  I think there’s a double meaning in that.  They went home another way geographically because they didn’t believe Herod really wanted to worship the newborn king.  But, I think they also went home changed people.  You cannot come into an encounter with Jesus Christ, the living God and Savior, and experience His unconditional love and forgiveness and remain unchanged.  It changes you.  It just changes you!  And you’re never the same again.  You walk around in gratitude, grateful for a God who loves you that much. 

Jesus' birthday, which is Christmas, means that Christmas is essentially a birthday party.  It’s a birthday party for Jesus.  Whoever heard of a birthday where everybody gives each other gifts except to the birthday boy?  What do you give the guy who’s got everything?  What do you give God who’s got everything?

The fact is, God does not have everything.  God does not have your life unless you give it to Him.  God does not have your trust unless you give it to Him.  God does not have your worship unless you give it to Him.  God does not have your service unless you give it to Him.  God does not have your treasure and talents and time and your abilities, all He gave you, He does have that to use in this world unless you give it to Him. 

I challenge you to give your life to Christ.  He gave His life for you.  Give your life to Christ this Christmas as your Christmas gift to Him.

12-25-2011 Sermon

To listen to the sermon, click here (recording started a few moments late). The manuscript appears below (please forgive any typos!!)

O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM                  12-25-11 Sermon

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from old, from ancient times.  Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor give birth and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites.  He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.  And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth.  And he will be their peace.  Micah 5:2-5

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.  An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid.  I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.  This will be a sign to you:  You will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger.”

         Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel; praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.” 

         When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord as told us about.”

         So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.  When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.  Luke 2:8-18

Today’s sermon is based not on a scripture per se, but on a well known Christmas hymn—O Little Town of Bethlehem.  Peg will project the verses of that hymn on the wall so you can follow along as we look at this hymn and hear its message to us.  It’s so easy to sing the familiar Christmas hymns over and over again, year after year, without ever really hearing what they have to say to us.  Too many times we sing through the great hymns of the church and especially the seasonal ones, without really meaning what the words say.

A group of neighborhood kids went caroling one crisp December night, much like some of us did a few weeks ago.  And they were heard singing as they went down the streets, While shepherds washed their socks by night.  Little four year old Janine went throughout her house singing her favorite song at the top of her lungs—Slick the walls with bowls of jelly!  Fa-la-la-la-la…

O Little Town of Bethlehem and It Came Upon a Midnight Clear are two popular Christmas hymns that have come from America.           O Little Town of Bethlehem was written by Bishop Phillips Brooks, a famous preacher from two centuries ago.  Though a bachelor, Brooks was especially fond of children.  It is said that he kept a supply of toys, dolls and other objects of interest to children in his study so children would be encouraged to stop in and chat with him.  It was a familiar sight to see this important man of the pulpit sitting on the floor of his study sharing a fun time with a group of youngsters. 

Bishop Brooks wrote this hymn in the early days of his ministry when he was rector of Holy Trinity Episcopal church in Philadelphia.  He had just turned 30 and Christmas 1866 found him in the Holy Land.  On Christmas Eve he rode on horseback from Jerusalem to Bethlehem.  He looked around the village, visited the field of the shepherds, and finally joined in the midnight service in the Church of the Nativity.

The experience made a deep impression on him.  Having spent Christmas in Bethlehem, he had a desire to record something of what he had felt and seen; and on his return to Philadelphia he wrote this hymn, explicitly for the children of his Sunday school to sing in their Sunday School Christmas program.  Phillips Brooks asked the superintendent of his Sunday School Lewis Redner, who was also the church organist, to compose a suitable tune for it.  Redner struggled for some time to come up with just the right tune for his pastor’s text.  On the evening before the program was to be given, he suddenly awakened from his sleep and quickly composed the current melody.  Redner always insisted that the tune was a gift from heaven.  The hymn was an immediate favorite with the children and it soon found an established place in the worship of American churches. 

Of course hymns were never written just to fill in time in worship services for smooth transitions from one act of worship to another.  They were written to communicate a message.  So, what does O Little Town of Bethlehem have to say to us? 

Originally, the hymn had 5 verses.  Each one is worth looking at in more detail.  The first verse describes the scene of a sleeping town of Bethlehem. 

O Little Town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie;

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.

Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light;

The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

Little Bethlehem was not much more than a village, situated some 6 miles south of Jerusalem.  But small though it may have been, Bethlehem was by no means insignificant.  It was known as the city of David, for it is the place where David was born.  It had another significance as well, for it figured in an important prophecy about the coming messiah which we read from the prophet Micah this morning-- But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from old, from ancient times. 

On Christmas night, little Bethlehem seems no different from usual.  It is sleeping peacefully under the silent stars. To all appearances how still we see thee lie.  But there is more here than meets the eye.  God is working his purposes out, and all unknown to its people this is an historic night for Bethlehem.  In its dark streets there is shining the everlasting Light with a capital “L”, the light of Christ.  As John 1:9 tells us:  The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. The hopes and fears of all the years met in that climactic moment.  No less than 300 biblical prophecies concerning the promise of the messiah were fulfilled in Jesus’ coming that night.  The world’s only true hope came, and by coming, conquered all the fears to which mankind, whether in the first or the 21^st century, is subject to.

Where in your life do you need the Light of Christ to shine?  Where do you need his guidance?  Where do you need his cleansing?  The message of Christmas and of this hymn is that the Light of the world has come to be the light that you need in your life.

Bishop Brooks says that the hopes and fears of all the years are met in Christ.  The message of the angels was Fear not, for I bring you good news of great joy.  John tells us that the perfect love of Christ casts out all fear.  Paul tells us If Christ is for us, who can be against us; Who can separate us from the love of Christ.  Jesus said, Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.  This Christmas allow Christ to meet you at the point of your fears.  Let him replace fear with hope in your life.

What happened that night is told in the second verse: 

O morning stars, together proclaim the holy birth,

And praises sing to God the King, and peace to men on earth;

For Christ is born of Mary; and, gathered all above,

While mortals sleep, the angels keep their watch of wondering love. 

Christ was born of Mary.  That is the great fact of Christmas that we affirm in the Apostles’ Creed each time we say, He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.  But surrounding that event itself Bishop Brooks sees much activity in the spiritual world.  The angels were busy when Jesus was born.  They are referred to both at the beginning and the end of the verse.  The morning stars which are called upon to proclaim the holy birth are in fact the Christmas angels of the fifth verse, the same morning stars that sang together at the creation in Job 38:7.  It was to the shepherds that they made their proclamation and sang their anthem, ascribing glory to God in the highest and announcing peace to men on earth.  Again, while mortals sleep, they are pictured as gathered all above and keeping their watch of wondering love over the holy child and his mother, like the two cherubim overshadowing the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant in the Old Testament. 

There is probably also a reference here to 1 Peter 1:12 where Peter describes the gospel mysteries as things into which angels desire to look.  His words indicate the angels’ intense interest in the salvation of sinful human beings while at the same time implying that the work of redemption is ultimately beyond their comprehension.  God sent his Son at Christmas not for fallen angels, but for fallen human beings, like you and I.  The angels cannot understand the depth of God’s love for human beings, a love so deep that he would send his Son into a world that would kill that beloved son; a love so deep that it would allow that crucifixion to happen in order that God might offer you and I eternal life both here on earth now and later in heaven. 

In the third verse, the hymn writer reflects that it happened so strangely, this amazing thing, this coming of God into his world in our human flesh and blood.

How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given;

So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven.

No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin,

Where meek souls will receive him, still, the dear Christ enters in.

The miracle of God taking on human flesh takes place so quietly.  There is no pomp and show.  No fanfare announces the event.  How silently God comes.  How silently the wondrous gift is given.  Who would have dreamt that the phenomenon of God-become-man would have taken place in so obscure a fashion? 

In the words of Dr. J. Patterson Smyth—Simply, ordinarily as the coming of the dawn, happened this tremendous thing in the history of the universe, the coming of the Lord of Glory into human life.  On the earthly side just a stable, a manger, the cattle in the stalls, a woman wrapping her baby in swaddling clothes, nothing of wonder in it.  Nothing of awe, until the world from which he comes flashed in upon the scene, where high over the stable, outside in the starlight, was the heavenly host stirred to its depths at the coming of the Christ child. 

God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform.  And it was so in the supreme wonder of the Word made flesh.  In a similar manner he fulfills his purpose in human lives today and imparts to us the blessing of his heaven; and though no ear may hear his coming, Christ still enters in wherever meek souls will receive him.

Jesus says in the book of Revelation, Behold I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and answers the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me.

Have you invited Christ into your heart and life?  Have you invited him into that problem area, that trouble spot?  Do you wonder if he’s working there, do you wonder if he’s answering your prayer?  Remember how silently the greatest miracle of all human history, God taking on human flesh, took place. Most of the world missed the event.  Most of the world missed the miracle.  Most of Bethlehem was asleep.  Some shepherds knew about it.  Some wise men knew.  It wasn’t obvious to the general public but it took place nevertheless.  How silently God can work his miracles.  Trust him to bring to completion the work that he has begun in your life.  Trust God to fulfill his purposes in your life.

It is the fourth verse of this hymn that is omitted from most hymnals.  No doubt it can be argued that the hymn is complete without it.  Nevertheless it does convey a message and adds something other than length to the hymn.  It goes like this:

Where children pure and happy pray to the blessed child,

Where misery cries out to thee, Son of the mother mild;

Where charity stands watching and faith holds wide the door,

The dark night wakes, the glory breaks, and Christmas comes once more. 

The key to this verse is in the last two lines—the glory breaks, and Christmas comes once more.  Where does the glory of Christmas break into human life?  In a number of situations, the fourth verse suggests.  It comes where, in their happiness, children pray to the blessed child of Bethlehem.  It comes where in its misery humanity cried out for help to the compassionate Son of the mother mild.  It comes where charity stands watching over the needs of the poor and underprivileged, and faith holds wide the door to welcome them in.  Christmas comes again, so to speak, in all these situations for at such times Christ himself draws near to listen, to nourish and to bless.

So we make our own prayer to him in the last verse:

O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray;

Cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today.

We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell:

O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel. 

The hymn began with Christmas in Bethlehem, it ends with Christmas in the heart.  It begins with Christ being born of Mary; it ends with Christ being born in us.  The Christian poet of the 17^th century, Angelus Silesius, wrote:

Should Christ be born a thousand times anew,

Despair, O man, unless he’s born in you.

This spiritual birth happens when, after our sin has been cast out, we allow Christ to enter in and take possession of our lives.  Christmas thus has for each of us a contemporary message and a personal meaning.  Amid the festivities of the season we must take time to pause and listen to the grad glad tidings of the Christmas angels as if they were speaking directly to us, and then ask our Lord Emmanuel to come to us and abide wit us—God with us forever.

Paul writes in Galatians 4:19 that he yearns for Christ to be formed in the Galatians.  That is the message of this last verse of the hymn—that Christ would be born in us.  Paul’s great definition of a Christian is that of a person being “in Christ.”  He used that picture over and over again.  If anyone is in Christ, he says in 2 Corinthians, he is a new creation.  In Colossians he says, And the secret is simply this, Christ in you.  Christ in us and us in Christ—that’s the message of this Christmas hymn.

Have you asked Christ to cast out the sin in your life?  Has Christ been born in your heart?  Have you asked him to enter into your heart and life?

The important news at Christmas is not who came down the chimney, but who came down from heaven.  The greatest gift of Christmas is not found under a tree.  It was found in a manger.  And yet any gift that is given does no good unless that gift is received, opened and used.  Some gifts are received but never opened.  Some are opened but never used.  Unless the gift is used, it might as well not have been given at all.  What will you do with God’s gift to you?

Gove gave you his Son at Christmas.  What will you give HIM for Christmas?  In the words of Christina Rosetti, in another Christmas hymn: 

What can I give him, poor as I am?  If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;

If I were a wise man, I would do my part; yet, what I can I give him;

I give him my heart.

O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel.  Let us sing O Little Town of Bethlehem as our closing hymn of commitment to God this morning.