Christmas Message

This is the text of a message that I delivered at the Christmas morning service last year, feel free to borrow/plagiarise/steal as you see fit. I wrapped up each of the objects like presents and had my daughter help me open each one.

Item 1: A Map/AtoZ

I think that most of the parents will agree with me when I say that traveling any distance with children is not much fun.
The excellent timing that they seem to have with toilet breaks, the constant cries of “Are we there yet?” (and the kids are worse!)
A friend of mine recently bought a couple of those in-car DVD players that strap over the back of the seats so that his young daughters could watch a film or cartoons on long trips rather than making lots of noise.
The only problem is that now his oldest daughter insists on giving a running commentary on the film so that her parents can enjoy it too.
Have you noticed how there is a lot of traveling going on in the Bible? First there was Noah who went on a very long boat trip. Then there was Abraham who traveled hundreds of miles to be where God wanted him and of course there was Moses who had all of God’s people trailing around after him in the desert for forty years.
Joseph and Mary were traveling from their home in Nazareth to Joseph’s home town of Bethlehem so they could pay their taxes. The journey would have taken them about a week and remember that Mary was heavily pregnant and her baby was nearly ready to be born!

Item 2: Santa

Did anyone see Father Christmas last night? Maybe he brought you some presents. The problem with Santa is that like a lot of the things we do at Christmas, he tends to take over; All the gifts and the food that we get take up so much of our time and space that we don’t leave any room for anything else!
Because of all the people in Bethlehem Joseph and Mary couldn’t find anywhere to stay, all of the inns were full! Every door they knocked on gave the same response; “Sorry, no room”
We can be a bit like that sometimes; our lives get so full up with all the things around us, especially at this time of year.
All the cards and presents, all the food and drink, all the family and friends.
We’ve only got a little Christmas tree this year but there was so much stuff underneath it that there was no room for anything else! Now we’ve got a recycling box full of Christmas paper with no room and a house full of toys with no room… We get so busy with it all that we have no room for our saviour Jesus Christ. What room will you be able to offer Jesus when He comes knocking on the door of your heart this Christmas day?
We know that there was someone who found some room for Joseph and Mary that night in Bethlehem. It might have only been a stable where the animals were kept but it was warm and dry and God used it.

Item 3: Baby Jesus

And this is what God did in that stable. Our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ was born that night, God himself came down to live with His creation! Isn’t it amazing that the same God who created the whole Universe just by speaking was born as a little helpless baby. It didn’t just happen by accident though, God had it all planned from before he created the world! He even told people how and where it would happen hundreds of years before it did!
A king should be born in a palace, not in a musty old stable, but God chose to send His son into the world like this, not just to rule over us but to save us.

Item 4: Cross

The really great news is though that Jesus didn’t stay as that little baby, He grew up to be a great man. Jesus did many wonderful things that we can read about in the Bible: He made blind people see, he made lame people walk, he even brought a little girl back from the dead! But the most important thing of all is that time we celebrate in a few months. When Jesus went to the cross and died to take the punishment for all our sins and the the wonderful good news that God raised him up from the dead and He’s alive today in heaven.
tem 5: Mobile Phone

Those of you with little brothers or sisters will know that when a new baby is born in a family the mum and dad want to tell everyone all about it and they want to show it off to the whole world! Well when God’s son was born in that stable in Bethlehem He wanted to tell the whole world too. God sent His Angels out into the fields around Bethlehem to tell people what had happened:

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 Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths 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 favour rests.
Luke 2:8-14

Everyone who came to see the baby Jesus was invited, from the Shepherds to the Kings. Christmas is a time to spend with your family; around the tree with the presents, coming to church together, being around the table with all the food then later watching Dad doze off in front of the TV!
But If you really want to take part in Christmas then there is only one family that you need to be a member of, that is God’s family. And through that little baby born all those years ago and through that man who died on the cross and rose up from the dead you to can be a member of God’s family. All you need to do is to turn to God, say sorry for your sins and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Mobile Phone vs Bible

I Stumbled across this this morning, looks like it’s been around for a few years but I’d not read it before. Very telling and very challenging:

I wonder what would happen if we treated our Bible like we treat our cell phones?

What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets?
What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?
What if we flipped through it several times a day?
What if we used it to receive messages?
What if we treated it like we couldn’t live without it?
What if we gave it to kids as gifts?
What if we used it as we traveled?
What if we used it in case of an emergency?
What if we upgraded it to get the latest version?

This is something to make you go, hmmm, where is my Bible? Oh, and one more thing. Unlike our cellphones, we don’t ever have to worry about our bible being disconnected because Jesus already paid the bill!

Source

Free to Think

Personally, I find it impossible from a logical perspective to accept that there is no God. That is not to say that I believe that anyone who chooses not to do so is ignorant or illogical, but from my own experience of life and study of God through the Bible I can come to no other conclusion than the existence of a good and just creator of everything.

Contrary to the currently fashionable secular view of faith, the true New Testament faith is not something made stronger by ignorance or by believing against the evidence. Faith is consistent with knowledge and a true understanding of facts and evidence that we can see around us.

I personally find it immensely frustrating that the world uses ’straw men’ arguments against the simple logic and truth of the Christian faith, setting up caricatures and twistings or misunderstandings of the truths revealed in scripture in order to undermine the message and keep people believing that faith is blind and ignorant.

Sadly many have fallen for the lie and believe that Christians are easily lead, simple minded fools at best for following the teachings of Christ. At worst we are zealous ‘fundamentalists’ who threaten the perceived freedom of our society.

John 8:44 says Satan is the father of lies, Jesus goes on in this passage to explain that the people do not believe the truth when they hear it because they are not of God. We are by our very nature, sinful (See my previous post) and so we cannot be ‘of God’ so it’s no surprise that a proportion of the world is following a lie.

Paul said in Romans 10:17 that “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.” Only when the Holy Spirit reveals the truth of the mercy and grace of the love of God for us, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ can anyone accept it. Once we accept that understanding given by the Holy Spirit it makes perfect sense and the lies are revealed for what they are. Only then, when the clouds of lies are lifted and our eyes spiritually open can we be truly free to think.

Why is it broken?

If God is perfect, good, just and righteous, why is the world he created and the people in it that he created in his own image so obviously broken? Why do we continue to kill and destroy each other with words and weapons? God has given us instructions on how he expects his creations to behave but whether we believe the Bible or not we sin daily against our God even when we know what we are doing is wrong in God’s eyes and sometimes even in regard to what is acceptable in our society. Why?

It all comes down to what is called our ’sinful nature’ or inherited corruption, we are all born with a rebellious and sinful nature within us, to rebel against authority (God, as our creator, being the ultimate authority). It is natural for us to sin and rebel and it is this nature that leads us to sin even when we know better.

I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
Romans 7:18 (in context)

My wife and I have a young daughter and I can see this nature in her, from the moment she was old enough to begin to assert herself as a person she began to rebel against us. We certainly didn’t teach her to do that, in fact like most parents we try to teach her to respect and obey us but her sinful nature causes her to rebel whether she understands it or not.

I see this nature in myself; I read the bible (although not as much as I should) and even when through His word God warns me about my actions, words and thoughts I still cannot help but rebel against Him, even though I know He is right and I am wrong.

But God did not make His creation with this sinful nature and there is only one place and time that it could have begun in order to affect everyone on earth today: Back in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve fell into the temptation of Satan and they understood good and evil they and every child they would ever have, from generation to generation were left with this sinful nature which we have inherited.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned
Romans 5:12 (in context)

Yes we can do good, and sometimes great things for education, society, the development of civilization, science and technology, arts laws and so on but because of that sinful nature, because of the corruption inherited from Adam, as far as God is concerned (and let’s face it, it’s His opinion that counts) we can’t do anything that pleases Him.

Our sinful nature is not like that characterized by the little devil on the shoulder, always opposed by the angel on the other side, our entire being is affected by sin, thoughts and actions, feelings and motives, everything we are is bound up in sin.

Everything that we are and everything that we do condemns us before our just, holy and righteous creator God, and so we stand helpless before Him. It may sound depressing but that is the true state of man as it has been since that day in the Garden of Eden.

I’m trying to make it sound like that for a reason, the better the understanding of our position before God the more amazing this next verse (a personal favorite) sounds:

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Ephesians 2:4-5 (in context)

This is the Good News of the Gospel message that while we were still lost and helpless in our sin, God sent His son, Jesus Christ, into the world to take the punishment that should be ours, and what do we have to do to be a part of this? do we need to perform some sort of ritual, or perhaps go to church every week or pray every day? Not at all.

He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved”
Acts 16:30-31 (in context)