You are invited to look beyond the trees and lights to see the true gift God gave you in Jesus. If you feel separated from God by your own mistakes, His sacrifice offers you a way back to Him today. Don't leave this season without accepting the salvation He prepared for you.
Well, Merry Christmas. Alright. Well, I'm so excited that y'all came and and joined us for Oh, he's he's telling So I'm basically I'm not up here a whole lot. So like, hello, echo, echo. So David's telling me like, you need to back up and he's gotta fix my mic and everything.
But I'm super excited to be here. Just kinda letting you know, I use my phone like all the time. So I'm just gonna use this for my notes and stuff. Is that okay? Okay.
That's how you get 1. That is my child. Well, Merry Christmas. My name is Courtney. And just so you know, I know that there are a couple of kids in the room and I know that tonight's a very busy night, so we are not gonna take a whole lot of your time.
But we do want to honor the Lord by remembering why we celebrate celebrate the Christmas season. I personally am all about Christmas. I love Santa. I love hot cocoa, which if if you haven't seen, right outside here, we're gonna have just kind of a hangout time after service, and miss Noni and the cafe team has created, like, I call it fancy hot cocoa. It's really, really good according to people who have had it.
I haven't had it yet, so you can find me out there drinking hot cocoa after the service. But I love the trees and the lights and all things Christmas because of all of the traditions that my family had growing up. And so I I believe there's nothing wrong with those things. In fact, we can find Jesus in all of it, honestly. You know, Jesus is the "light of the world".
Right? Well, just look right there. Really, our salvation was ushered in by a tree. Right? Right.
Y'all can tell it back to me. Yeah. Yeah. So I love telling stories. And since we have kids in here and and that's just the way that I learn the best, if you to tell me something for me to remember, I encourage you to tell it to me in a story form.
It's how I graduated college. I learned everything about radiology through stories, because I created my own story so that I could remember stuff. And so I'm going to share the story with you of Christmas. But I'm not gonna start in the manger. I'm not gonna start with, you know, the wise men or the shepherds or the angels.
I'm actually starting in the very beginning because for us to really grasp the significance of Christmas and what it means for us today, I think that we have to go back to the very beginning. And so in Genesis, in the in the bible, the first chapter of the first book of the bible, it says that God created everything. He created the the dogs, and he created the the stars and the moon. He created the cosmos. He created everything.
And then he created man named Adam, and put him in a garden of Eden. It was this beautiful perfect garden. In fact, everything that he made, including Adam, he said was good. And just kind of a side note, was joking with my husband the other day. God said everything was good, but whenever he created woman, he said it was very good.
So just wanna throw that out there. It's true. Right? But God created everything, and everything was good. In fact, Adam and Eve had no knowledge of anything that wasn't good.
Their entire world was built around God's goodness and everything that he made that was just perfect and holy and pure and sweet. And as a as a mom of 4, I want to protect my kids from the realities of the evils of this world. Right? I think all of the parents in here would agree that that's something that we wanna do for our children. Well, God had the same attitude.
He said, there's a tree in the center of the garden that I don't want you to eat of. You can have everything else, but I don't want you to eat of this tree, because this tree is called the "tree of the knowledge" of good and evil. And if you eat of it, you will die. And that's a very significant consequence of eating a fruit of a tree. But but it's because the knowledge of good they already have, but God wanted to protect them from the knowledge of all of the evil.
Because the reality is that there is an an evil 1, and his his name is Satan, and he wants to do everything he can to steal, kill, and destroy everything good that comes from God. Right? And so so Adam and Eve, if you know the rest of the story, they end up disobeying God, and they ate of that tree. And this this death that God talked about, you will eat of it, you will surely die, there are actually 3 parts of death. Part of it is physical.
Yes. At that point, mankind ended up with an expiration date. See, God said that in the beginning, like it was all life, and God didn't create people to die. But whenever they disobeyed, they ended up having an end date. So I'm gonna take a mom moment.
Stella, sit down for just a second. Okay, babe? Thank you, my love. I love you. This is real church, this is real life.
So I As I was looking at this this story of of the beginning of Adam and Eve and them making the mistake, they had this physical death that they experienced, but they also had an emotional death. See, immediately, it says that they hid from God because they experienced something that they had never felt before, that was shame and fear. They all of a sudden, these these evil things that they had no knowledge of before hit them. So there was an emotional death that they experienced, but then, what I believe is the most significant 1 was a spiritual death. Because they were walking with God at first, but then God said, where are you?
Why are you hiding? Because all of a sudden, this sweet and perfect relationship that Adam and Eve had with God was separated. And it wasn't just separated for them, because sin is so significant that it it divides man from God. And so all of a sudden, mankind was separated from God for all eternity. *Hebrews-9:22* says, without the "shedding of blood", there is no forgiveness of sin.
And I wanna I wanna sit on just a little bit of bible history for those of you that maybe remember in Exodus. I encourage you to read this story. God's people were enslaved, and God wanted to free them from slavery. And so, he gave them some instructions, kind of a temporary solution to forgive their sins. But this was only temporary, it wasn't permanent.
Again, Hebrews, without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of sin. And so, he said, I want you to raise a little lamb, a perfect little lamb. And I I I love animals, and so I just think this sweet little lamb. I want God said, want you to raise it. I want you to care for it.
I want it to have no spot, no stain. I don't want it to be dirty. I want it to be perfect. And then, when it's 365 old, when it's when when I say so, I want you to slaughter it. And I think as a you know, that's heartbreaking when someone raises an animal just to slaughter it, because that is the price of sin.
*Death* is the price of sin. And so, he gave them this temporary solution that every year, they call it the Passover. He said, if you will slaughter this lamb, take its blood, paint it on the doorposts of your home, the angel of death will pass over your home. Do you all remember that from Exodus? And so, the angel won't take out your family, basically.
This lamb is very significant. What they would do to protect it is they would wrap it up in in blankets, and they would put it in this little this little thing made of limestone. They would put it in there to protect it from the other animals. And so, I wanna fast forward a little bit. I want this in the backdrop of your mind, about the little lamb and the little limestone thing to protect it, wrapped up in clothes to keep it clean.
And I wanna jump ahead to why we're here tonight, and that is the Christmas story. I'm gonna be taking it from Luke, but like I said, I'm a story teller. And so, when I read the Bible, I actually read it as though it's happening, and my mind goes to I'm looking in here right now for for Luke. My mind goes to how did this really happen? Like, what was the reality of this this situation more than just a story that I'm reading?
In Luke-2, it says, in those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. So basically, today we have what's called a census, that's what it was. And we get a paper in every couple of years that tell you know, you have to write down how many people are in your home, what kind of home you live in, a lot of details, and then you mail it somewhere. I don't even know where it goes. But we do it so that the government can keep track of how many people are here.
And so that's what was happening. So so Caesar Augustus said that all of the world should be registered. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. We mail mail in in the the registration. Registration.
They had to travel from where they lived to where they grew up. And so, just to kinda gloss over this, Joseph takes his wife to his hometown of Bethlehem. I'm gonna read on. Mary, who is married to Joseph, was with child. See in Luke-1, all of these I'm I'm getting a little I'm getting a little off base, and I'm sorry.
I'm I'm, I don't speak a whole lot anymore, so please forgive me. So I Give me 1 second. Okay? Is that okay? Yeah.
Take 5 seconds. I'm gonna take 5 seconds, miss Judy. God, I love you so much, And I pray that you'll use my mouth to speak out what you wanna speak tonight. God, we worship you, and everything that we do tonight is of you. And anything that's of me, I pray that you'll take it away.
And in Jesus' precious name I pray. Amen. I should've done that in the first place. Right? In Luke-1, an angel visits this young girl named Mary and says, hey, you're you're gonna actually have a baby.
And Mary says, I don't I I don't have a husband. I don't know how this is gonna work. Right? And so, the angel says that God is gonna come upon you and the power of the most high is gonna overshadow you. And you are going to have a son, and he's going to be the savior of the world.
Now, what is significant about this is that in Isaiah-9:6-7, there's a prophecy about this baby that Mary was gonna have. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder. And his name shall be called wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting father, the prince of peace. Of the increase of his government and peace, there shall be no end. Upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom to order it and to establish it with just judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. See, mankind had been waiting because of prophecy on a savior, a final sacrifice. The temporary lamb was not gonna be forever. There was gonna be a final sacrifice that was gonna be made, and people were waiting on this this Savior, this final sacrifice. And as we see in Isaiah, we see that that this this Savior, he's gonna be mighty.
And so the last place that I would think to look for a savior is in a young peasant girl named Mary. And so Mary is engaged to Joseph. An angel comes to her and says, hey, you're gonna have a baby. And then the angel explains, hey, like, this is this is good. This is a good thing, and and this is gonna be God's doing.
And Mary's response is, I think, the most significant response next to Jesus saying, not my will, but yours be done. She sang a song. And she said, be it unto me according to your word, and then she says, my soul magnifies the Lord. Thank you for looking on the humble state of your servant. She was submissive to the word of God through this angel to the extent that she was willing to go through a pregnancy that was miraculously conceived in her womb.
But then, this is where my my human mind kinda goes, she has to go tell her fiance. And so I was talk I I was sharing this with David, and I was like, when we were in college, if I would have come to you and been like So I I got this story to tell you. So basically, I'm pregnant, but it's okay because it God did it. An angel told me that God was gonna do this. And I was like, how would you respond?
He said, I'm gonna go find that angel. And so Joseph did what any normal man would do. Okay. My girlfriend, you know, I'm gonna just break up with her, and we're gonna keep it quiet. Because he was a man of honor.
He didn't wanna embarrass her. He's like, I'm just gonna keep it quiet. But then an angel came to him and said, okay, no, like, this is legit. Like, you're you're going to basically be the stepfather to the "king of the world". And so, said, okay, I figure there were some questions, there was a lot of not knowing, but but they both said okay.
And so, when it came time for the baby to be born, he, you know, puts his pregnant wife on a donkey or a camel or something, and they have to travel for days to his hometown of Bethlehem because they have to be registered. And so I I have a 5 month old. She's actually talking back to me right now. And and I think, you know, I had this controlled situation. I had a crib at home, I had gifts that my church family had had bought for her, like, was very comfortable.
I went to a hospital, had the baby, came home. It was very easy, but but childbirth never really is. But I just think how it must have been, not only was this young girl impregnated by the Lord, she had this miraculous baby in her belly who was gonna be the king of the world, and through prophecy, he's going to have the world's governments on his shoulder. She's traveling to her husband's hometown of Bethlehem at 9 months pregnant. And it says in Luke-2, and while they were there in Bethlehem, the time came for her to give birth.
And she gave birth to her first born son, and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn. So there were so many people in Bethlehem that there wasn't any any hotel room for her to give birth in. She wasn't in a hospital. She couldn't just go home. They were a long ways from home.
Like, this was a lot for this young girl and her husband. Right? And so in verse 8, it says, in the same region, there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night. And I'm going back to that that temporary sacrifice that I talked about with the with the shepherds and and with the the little lamb that they would raise and they would they would sacrifice to cover sins. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.
And the angel said to them, fear not, for behold, I bring you "good news" of "great joy" that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace among those with whom he is pleased.
So the shepherds here, this will be a sign to you. The sign is the savior that you've been waiting on for these thousands of years, he will be lying in a manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes, just like that little lamb that you raised from birth to sacrifice, wrapped in clothes to keep him safe and put in a little limestone feeding trough. It's a sign to them because it wasn't just any baby, it wasn't just any family, this wasn't just an insignificant night, and you're gonna go see this child. They would recognize that that was the king and the savior that they were waiting on laying in a feeding trough because of the sacrifices that they made over and over and over. Wow.
This is him. He's here. *Messiah*? I'm sorry? How long before he came?
Thousands of years. I mean Thousands. Thousands of years. Because prophecy foretold it thousands of years before. And so, this baby is laying in a manger, and they come and they glorify him.
And it says in verse 19, but Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And I wonder if she recognized, oh, and all the craziness of of getting impregnated and and having to tell my boyfriend and going through this pregnancy and traveling and and all of these things. He's laying in a in a manger like a like a lamb, And he's wrapped in in clothes like a lamb. He's not in a crib. He's in a feeding trough where they used to protect these little lambs to be sacrificed, knowing the prophecy said that there was gonna be 1 who would be sacrificed for our sins.
I have a feeling that when she said, or it said that she pondered these things in her heart, that it crushed her. Eventually, on in Luke, 1 of the prophets told her that there will be something that crushes your soul. And I believe she recognized not just what God had said, but the reality that set in that my baby was born to die. As a mom, that crushes me. But I'm so grateful that she said, be it unto me according to your word, God.
She was willing. When Adam and Eve sinned, when they disobeyed God, it separated mankind from a relationship with our heavenly father forever. And God immediately gave them a temporary solution to take care of sin temporarily, but he was so loving. In John-3:16, it says, for God so loved the world that he sent his only son. And anybody that believes in him will not perish or will not will not die that eternal death, but will have everlasting life.
Christmas is more than about a baby in a manger. Christmas is about a solution that God gave to a mess that we made. In the beginning, we messed up. *Sin* infiltrated mankind, it infiltrated the world because we messed up, and God is merciful. And he says that anybody who believes in me won't perish.
And so I wanna I wanna invite the band back up for a moment. We're gonna be worshiping. But I wanna worship in light of this, Not anticipating Santa, not about the trees and the lights and the presents. But the "greatest gift" that we've ever been given is Jesus Christ as a final sacrifice. Because you see, 33 ish years later after he was born, God told him, hey, it's time.
And he said, as a as a human being, Jesus, **God in the flesh*, God stepped out of eternity* and entered time, humbled himself into the most the most weak person or the weakest thing, and that's a baby. Jesus was in the Garden Of Gethsemane, and he said, I don't I don't want this to happen. I don't wanna have to die for for for the sins of the world. However, not my will, but yours be done, God. What *love* is that?
What great love? I wanna invite you to stand for a moment. In the book of Revelation-3:20, it says, behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him, and he with me. God wants to eat with us, y'all.
That is good news. He wants to be with us in our everyday lives. *Romans-10:9 says, if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord* and that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Jesus went to the cross on our behalf. He died on the cross as our sin, but then 3 days later, he defeated death and he rose again.
And this says that if we believe that and we confess it with our mouths that we will be saved, saved from what? Well, saved from those those deaths. You know, we will have there is a day that is appointed for us once to die here, but that spiritual separation from God doesn't have to happen anymore. Could everyone close their eyes for just a second? If this story resonates with you and you say, wow, I I don't know God.
Like, I don't know God like like Adam knew God. I don't I don't know God like Adam knew him before sin. I don't I don't know this this loving father, this loving God that you're talking about. This is a foreign concept to me. If that's you and you say, but I but I really want to.
If you would say that that this story rings true to me that that that cross that Jesus died on that we talk about was meant for me, for my sin, for my junk, but but I really don't know what's gonna happen when I breathe my last. This isn't a scare tactic by any means, but this is kind of a "reality check". This is real. If that's you and you say that you wanna know the Lord in a real way, would you slip up your hand? God, for those who desire to know you in a real way, for those who recognize their mess that they made, but the solution that you made through Jesus.
God, I pray that they will seek after you with their whole heart. If that's you, feel free to to grab somebody with 1 of those black tags on. You can come up and talk to David. You can talk to me. But don't leave here, please.
I'm pleading with you. Do not leave here without getting to know this good God. This good God that paid a price for my sin and for yours. God, we worship you. We lift you up in this place.
We love you. God, I pray that the words that have been shared today, the ones that are from you, God, I pray that they will sink in deep in all of our hearts, God. And as we wake up tomorrow and we celebrate your birthday, Jesus, I pray that we will remember that that was a very a somber day then. We celebrate now, but let us just remember the somberness of it. The reality that a baby was born to grow up and die.
That was his purpose. But not just to die, but to die on our behalf. We love you, father. We humbly submit our lives to you. And in Jesus' holy and precious name, pray.
Thank you for tuning in today to the Real Church podcast. I pray that you walk away from today encouraged and with a deeper understanding of how much God *loves* you. If you'd like to connect with us, we can't wait to reach out to you and pray for you. You can go to www.realchurch.us/connect. And then also, if you would like to give to what God is doing in and through our ministry, you can do so at www.realchurch.us/giving or you can text any amount to 84321, and then just search in the link that comes up.
Search for Real Church Clearwater. God bless you, and the "best is yet to come".