The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 4: Christmas Eve

Episode Date: December 24, 2021

Well, Merry Christmas, everybody. All right. When Pastor Jehovah called me and said, you're up. Had a couple thoughts. One thought that came to my mind was in 2 Timothy 4.2. It says, be ready, end season and out of season. So I did what you should do when you get that last minute call. I went and pulled a paper towel out and wrote my sermon notes down.

So this sermon is brought to you by bounty. And the second thought that I had comes from Isaiah 55-11, which is the promise that the Lord said, my word will not return void, but it will accomplish exactly what I set out for it to do. And so, listen, our hope is not in these amazing paper towel sermon notes. Our hope is in the sure promise that as we do, that as we dive into the scriptures,

God is going to do what he promised to do, and it will not return void. Amen? Amen. Now, listen, I love Christmas. One of the things that I love about Christmas is I love Christmas stockings. Anybody else a big stocking fan?

Yeah? Anybody? Raise my hands. Let me see. Come on. Where are my stocking fans? Here's why I love stockings. Because it can go one of two ways.

Right? You're laughing because you know what I'm saying. I mean, the one way it can go is it can go like dollar store janky. Or it can go awesome. Like the whole Christmas tree got shoved in your stocking. And when Kristen and I were first married, I was in seminary, we were both working jobs, and we were broke. I mean, not two pennies to rub together. Po.

And our first Christmas came around and Kristen said, listen, Let's not buy each other presents. Let's just open our stockings together, to which I was like, buy a humbug. That's terrible. First Christmas, don't buy each other presents? She's like, no, seriously, we're not.

And I'm like, okay. So what did I do? I went to the store, and I bought her a pair of big knee-high boots, and I just shoved all the presents I would put under the tree in her boots, and I was like, stockings, surprise. And so I got her stockings. And I'm just wondering, I know it's the last service of the evening, but does anybody still need to make a Walgreens run

because you have flaked out. Come on, raise them high. Come on. It is to your advantage. Right here. Come on, right here. Yes, you going like this. Come here. Come on. Yep, no, that's you. Come here. Come on. Come on. Come up here. Come on. Give her up. I will have you know you're the only girl. It's been guys all night, just slacking off, fellas. But listen, I have, I have, tell me your Hey Kate, I'm Adam. It's great to meet you too. So we got you this stocking, and I'll show you what's in there because I told you you want, look at it, check this out.

There's coffee for tomorrow morning, all sorts of gift cards. Those are not cigars. Those are chocolate covered pretzels. There's some sunglasses, our favorite sunglasses. There's AirPods in there. And the banana, just come see me after the service. I will tell you why there's a banana in there. But Merry Christmas.

You got a stocking. Right on. It's your advantage to be honest, people. You should have fessed up that you got to go to Walgreens. And the question you're probably thinking is like, why did he give a stocking away? The answer is, because I wanted to. No reason. Just felt like it.

Thought it was fun. Now, when it comes to Christmas, I think we think a lot about the fact that Jesus was born. We just don't talk about. a whole lot about why it is that Jesus was born. Or we spend a whole bunch of time thinking about how we're going to celebrate that Jesus was born, don't we? We think about, okay, how's the meal going to go down, and whose house are we going to go to first, and are we going to travel, are they going to come to us, and are we going to open presents at our house? Are we going to open some presents, you know, on Christmas Eve, and then others on Christmas morning? And we think

a whole lot about how Christmas is going to go down. The question I have is, why did Christmas go down? Why was it that Jesus was born? And the answer is not because God just had no reason, just thought it was fun. God had some very specific plans and some very specific things in mind and some very specific reasons for why it is that Jesus would be born. And the first one is that Jesus was born to live perfectly. In John chapter 6, starting in verse 38, Jesus says this, for I have come down from heaven. I was born.

I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. and this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my father that everyone, that everyone who looks on the son and believes in him should have eternal life.

I will raise him up on the last day. Jesus was born to be actively, perfectly obedient to the Father. Now that in the inner of itself is good news that Jesus was perfectly actively obedient, but it's even better good news. It's even more good news when you think about the fact that he was perfectly faithful when we were unfaithful, that he was perfectly holy, when we sinned, that he perfectly resisted temptation when we gave into temptation, that he perfectly obeyed where we disobeyed, that he perfectly measured up where we fell short, that he perfectly

kept God's law where we broke God's law, and he perfectly succeeded where we failed. Theologians talk about Jesus' obedience. in two different ways. They talk about his passive obedience and his active obedience. When they talk about Jesus' passive obedience, what they're talking about is Jesus on the cross, what God did through him as he hung on that cross.

Jesus' active obedience is everything that he actively did his entire life, that Jesus was actively, perfectly obedient to God, the Father, every second of every minute, of every hour, of every day, of every year of his life. Now, the reason that matters is because if Jesus was not always forever, perfectly obedient to God the Father, it would have meant that his death was like any other death. The scriptures tell us that the wages of sin is death.

so if Jesus had not lived a perfectly obedient life, then he should have deserved to go to the cross. But because he lived a perfectly obedient life, Jesus did not in and of himself deserve to go to the cross. So that when he goes to the cross, he doesn't die for his own sin. He dies for the sin of those who would trust in him. that on the cross what happens is Jesus takes his perfect obedience and there's an exchange

that takes place for you and I that for those of us that profess faith in Jesus there's an exchange where he gives us his perfect obedience and he takes our disobedience he gives us his perfect righteousness and he takes our unrighteousness he gives us his sinlessness and takes our sinfulness from us. He takes our death and gives us his life. And what that means for you and for me is this. It's really good news. It means that you and I don't have to live with shame before God the Father. Because when God sees us in Jesus, he sees the perfection of his son, Jesus. And it also means that you and I don't need to strive to him. impress the father anymore. Because when Jesus, when God sees us, he sees the perfect obedience of

his son. And that is such good news for you and for me. And so we can just rest in the active, perfect obedience of Jesus. And so Jesus was born to live perfectly. And Jesus was born to be with us in the middle of our mess. In Matthew chapter 1, starting in verse 23, this is the story of Jesus's birth, and an angel comes to Joseph, and it goes like this, behold, a virgin shall

conceive and bear a son. This is what the angel is saying to Joseph. And they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. Now, does anybody else's smoke detectors only go off at three in the morning?

Mind the only one? Why do smoke detectors not go off at three in the afternoon? Why? You are dead asleep. You are rocking the greatest dream ever. And then all of a sudden, ch-p! Yeah.

And you kind of like sit up and you're bleary-eyed and you're like, whoa, what was it? And so you get out of bed, right? And you kind of stumble out into the living room and you're like, and then you hear, and you're like, there it is, there it is. And you're, okay, so you go to the garage, right? You get your ladder and you bring it in

and you're banging holes down the hallway and you get it set up and you're standing there and all of a sudden, chirp, and you're like, it's over there. And I think a bunch of us think that that's what God is doing to us. It's like, let me see if I can somehow fool them. We think like God is playing a game like,

am I over here? Nope, I'm over here. Chirp I'm over here, chirp I'm over there. Like God is playing some big, giant game of cosmic hide-and-seek from us. But Jesus was born, the miracle of Christmas, is that God is not hiding from you. He's not messing with you.

He's not playing games with you. The miracle of Christmas is that God is with us, which means this. You don't have to fear the unexpected and the unknown in your life. You may have no idea how things are going to turn out, but you can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is with you no matter what comes, because Jesus was born to be with us. And not only was he born to be with us,

he was born to be with us in the middle of our mess. Now, I don't know about you, but when I think back about Christmas, like that first Christmas, I have a tendency to kind of romanticize it. But the truth of the matter is, it was not romantic at all. It was a mess.

Israel was under the imperial boot of Rome. It was just oppression like we have never known. And then you have Mary and Joseph. You have this guy engaged to this teenage girl, maybe 12, 13 years old. And then all of a sudden he finds out that she's pregnant with a baby that's not his. I don't care how you dress that up.

That's a mess for them. And then you don't, you don't. take Mary, nine months pregnant, sticker on a donkey, and treadge across the desert. Ladies, can you romanticize anything about that, a donkey nine months pregnant through the desert? It's a mess. It's a mess. But God, here it is, God did not wait for you and I to clean our axe up. He didn't wait for us to do enough good works to prove. that we could be with him. He didn't wait for us to attend enough services.

He didn't wait for us to sing enough songs, say enough prayers, read enough Bible verses, give enough money. He didn't wait for us to do any of those sorts of things. He came into the middle of the mess of our lives. He was born to be in the middle of the mess. Now, I want to challenge you. I want to double dog dare you to do something tomorrow, all right? you can't pass on a double dog there.

Tomorrow morning, when you're opening up your Christmas presents, in our house, when we open up Christmas presents and you start unwrapping your presents, we get a garbage bag, and we take the presents that get unwrapped, we take the wrapping paper and the bow, and we put them in the garbage bag, right? That's what you do. Or some of you, which I don't understand this,

but you carefully untie the bow, and you wrap it up and you, like, undo the wrapping paper, and you fold it. Like, you're going to save it for later, so I don't even, I don't get that, but whatever. Here's what I want you to do. I don't want you to do any of that tomorrow. I want you to tear into your Christmas presents.

I mean, like, rip it, like rip it shreds little bits all over the place. Your dog will probably eat it. He'll be fine. It'll be okay. And I want you to just let the trash pile up and pile up and pile up. And some of you are like, like, twitching. He'll like, stop. Let it pile up.

And then when it, when the pile peaks, out and you can't take it anymore and it's a total disaster in your living room. I want you to gather everybody up and I want you to sit down in the middle of the mess of the trash and you're grown people so you shouldn't ever take a selfie but this is the one time you should do it. You sit down there and get your phone out and you take a picture of everybody that's in the mess and then I want you to put it up whatever social media you use and I want you to use this hat. Hashtag, hashtag middle of the mess. So don't you put your picture up and put hashtag middle of the mess?

And then when somebody asked, why are we leaving this thing a mess? And why are we taking pictures? You can look at them and you can say because Jesus was born to be in the middle of the mess of our lives. That God came to meet us at our darkest, at our worst, in our brokenness. Jesus was born to be in the middle of the mess. And Jesus was born to defeat Satan. Merry Christmas. Nothing like talking about Satan on Christmas Eve.

I thought you were getting baby Jesus tonight. 1 John 3.8, listen to what this says. The reason the Son of God appeared. The reason Jesus was born was to destroy, destroy the works of the devil. Two days ago, Sophie, who's our 16-year-old daughter, she pulls into the garage, and all of a sudden I hear her start yelling out in the garage. I don't know what's going on. So I go out in the garage, and she's like, Dad, Dad, Dad, there's a snake in the garage.

Get it. Kill the snake. There's a snake in the garage. Go get him. He's over there. So I run over there. I'm expecting to find this, like, giant cotton mouth or something in our snake. It's this little itty-bitty, like pinky-sized little milk snake.

And she's like, kill it. kill it, kill. I'm like, no, like, they eat the, like, and I sweep it out into the driveway, close the garage door. I'm like, come on, let's go. We go inside. A couple hours later, Kristen, my wife is out running errands. She comes home. She, I hear the garage door go up, and then I hear the car door shut, and then I hear a blood-curdling scream from the garage, and I'm like, I know what that's about. And Sophie jumps up, and she runs out there, and the two of them are just screaming, and they're going, He's a snake.

It's a snake. Kill it. Crush its head. Chop it. I mean, it was like, I was like, this is a little scary. And I'm like, it's a garter snake. I'm like, we'll just shoe it out. And they're like, kill it.

Crush its head. I go over. I get a broom. I pick it up. I fling it in our neighbor's yard. Sorry, Carl, if you're watching. That snake is on me. Listen, that snake, harmless.

But you have. an enemy, the serpent, the devil, Satan, who is venomous and deadly. There is an enemy who wants to steal and kill and destroy. And do you know who he wants to steal, kill, and destroy? You. You have an enemy whose native tongue is lying and he has been a deceiver from the beginning. Do you know who he's lying to and you know who he wants to deceive? You. There's an enemy that is prowling around looking for one to devour. Do you know who he wants to devour?

You. You have an enemy that would love to take you captive. There is an enemy that has been trying to dethrone God for all of eternity. And Jesus was born to crush the head of that serpent. He was not born to just sort of shoe him out. Jesus was born to crush his head. And when that baby grew up, Jesus, after living a purpose of, perfectly obedient life in the middle of the mess of the earth.

He died on that cross, and when he died on the cross, it looked like Satan had crushed his head. But what really happened was it just bruised his heel. And when Jesus rose three days later, he proved that his death was actually the death blow to Satan. And Jesus, who was born a baby to crush the head of Satan, who did. died to inflict the death blow on Satan. That Jesus has resurrected and is ascended, and one day he will return, and in the new heaven and the new earth with Jesus in the middle of it, he will rid Satan of Satan and of his works and of his effects, and we will never feel it again.

That's why Jesus was born, which means you don't have to fear because you have a conquering Savior. And so Jesus was born also to lead us to repentance. In Luke chapter 5, starting in verse 27, Luke records it this way. After he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, he's talking about Jesus, sees Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, follow me. And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. And Levi made him a great. feast in his house. And there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at the table with them. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled at his disciples saying, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus answered them, those who are well

have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Not only did Jesus come to this earth in his birth, but Jesus came to sinners in his birth. Now here's the bad news. Every single one of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There is not a single one of us drawing breath that has, not sinned. You can take the Ten Commandments away. We don't even keep our own resolutions and our own rules. Every single one of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Now that is really

hard news to take. But if Jesus is true, and I really do believe he is, he said he came not to call righteous but to call sinners, which means that Jesus came to call the likes of you and me. The thing that qualifies you for Jesus to call you into salvation is not your goodness and not your righteousness and not your good works, but it was actually your sin. The thing that you and I contribute to our salvation is the sin that makes it necessary. And not only, did Jesus come to this earth and to sinners, us, but he came to call us to repentance. You see, confession is admitting that you've done something wrong. Repentance is as if you're walking this direction and God takes you and turns you in a

whole new direction. It's as if you're living according to the way you think you should live, and God turns you and makes you live the way he knows is best to live. It's as if God turns you from a dead end life and gives you a whole new way of life. You see, you can confess, you can admit that you've done something wrong without ever having anything change in your life, without repenting. But you cannot repent without confessing. and it is the kindness of the Lord that leads us to repentance. Jesus did not come to make you and I a better version of ourselves.

He came to give us a new life, to turn our life in a new direction, to take our dead lives and make them new again. That's why he came. there was a guy that lived in the early 1500s in Germany. He was a monk. His name was Martin Luther. And if you're in a Protestant church ever, of which we are one of them, any Protestant church of any sort of denomination or flavor,

the family tree eventually leads back up to this guy named Martin Luther. And he had a beef with the established church at the time over things that they were teaching that he considered to be unbiblical. And so he wrote this document. that's become called the 95 Theses. He had these 95 statements that he wrote. And he took this document and he nailed it to a church door in the center of a town called Wittenberg, Germany.

And that document is what kicked off the Protestant Reformation. And do you know what the very first one of those 95 Theses was? Of all the things that he could have said, But think of that. Think of all the things that he could have written about what he believes about the gospel. The number one thing he said is that all of a Christian's life is one of repentance. Which means, yes, when we come to faith, we respond to the grace of God by confessing and repenting of our sin. but it also means that we don't just do that one time. All of our life is one of repentance.

All of our life is being turned by God in response to the grace of God in a new life that looks more and more like the whole life that Jesus came and lived for us. And so Jesus was born to lead us to repentance. And then lastly, Jesus was born to save us. In 1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 15, Paul writes this. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.

That Christ Jesus came into the world. Jesus was born in this world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life, to the king of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, the honor and glory forever and ever, amen. Have you seen the bumper stickers or the little signs around that say Jesus is the reason for the season? I mean, it's a cute little saying, isn't it? But in actuality, you and I are the reason for the season. I mean, more specifically,

our sin is the reason for the season. The reason Jesus came into this world was not to be a moral example for you and me. Jesus didn't come into this world because we needed a life coach to give us some tips and tricks to get us back on track. Jesus didn't come into this world to simply just be a religious teacher to teach us some facts so that we could know and think our way into a better way of living.

Jesus came into this world to be a savior. Because you and I are sinners. And the wages of our sin is death. know what dead people can contribute to their salvation? Nothing. They're dead. We are dead in our trespasses and sins. But God, but God sent his son Jesus Christ to live perfectly the entirety of his life, to live among us perfectly, to live the life we should have lived. And in doing that, he crushes the power of Satan. And he goes to the cross, not simply to be a demonstration of his love.

Not simply to be a sign that God loves you. But Jesus died on the cross because you and I needed a Savior. We needed one who would take our place that would pay us. the penalty for our sin that would satisfy a holy God and satisfy the justice of God and give us the grace and the mercy and the love of God. And Jesus died on that cross and he bore the weight of our sin. And then look what it says. To those who believe in him, there is eternal life. to believe in Jesus is to receive eternal life. To say, Jesus, I believe that you are my Savior,

not just a hope or a help or a coach. But believing is putting the full weight of our life on Jesus. Believing is putting the full weight of our eternity on Jesus. Believing is taking all the chips of our life and pushing them across the table. in saying, Jesus, I'm betting everything on you. Everything on you. And he said to those who would believe in him,

you would have eternal life forever. And he would never lose you. Now, do you know why you can trust that word? Because that baby that was born who lived a perfect life, who crushed the head of Satan, dying on the cross to pay the penalty for your sin. and my sin, they took his body off that cross, they put it in a tomb. And then three days later, he was resurrected. The way that you know that you're not just guessing on something, but the way

that you know the promises and the words and the life and the saving acts of Jesus are true and trustworthy is that he was resurrected from the grave. And for 40 days, he went to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people and said, if you will trust in me, you can have your sins forgiven. If you will trust in me, you can have life forevermore. And I believe right now, tonight in this room and at our campuses, there are some of us who walked in here and we thought we're going to sing some songs. We're going to sing some carols. We'll hear about a baby born in a manger, a romantic story from 2,000 years ago. But there's something stirring deep in your soul right now.

And that is the spirit of God, breathing new life into you. And you're thinking, I don't know why. I didn't walk in here thinking I was going to believe this, but for some reason you're like, I think this is actually true. I think this thing actually counted for me. That is God taking your dead heart and giving you a living, a living new heart.

And the response is Jesus, I believe. And so I'm going to give you the opportunity to respond right now. Would you bow your heads? And if for the first time, if you've never declared Jesus as your Lord and Savior, but you believe that Jesus is your Savior, that he was born and lived a perfect life for you and is your Savior? If you want to believe that for the first time, Would you raise your hand high?

Come on, raise them up high. Up for everybody's, come on. Amen. Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you for your son, Jesus. Thank you not just that he was born. But thank you for why he was born. Oh, God, may we never be the same.

May everything about everything, about everything be different because you stepped in, and took on flesh in the middle of our mess and rescued us. We love you, Jesus. It's in your name that we pray. Amen. Would you stand and we're going to respond?

Somebody need to come down here and confess and repent. Somebody need to worship God for the first time. So what we're going to do, we gave you a candle on the way in. And so would you go ahead grab it? Push that little button. We didn't actually give you a real candle. so that you wouldn't drip wax and it wouldn't look like seagulls went wild

all over the place. What I want you to do is I want you to hold it up and we're going to sing and don't put them down. And at some point, look around and see the light. Jesus is the light of the world. And let's sing the good news of that child born to us today.