Latest / Saint City Chapel / Christmas Eve at Saint City

Transcript

Christmas Eve at Saint City · Saint City Chapel

• 0:00
  Well, good afternoon. It is good to see you all here
• 0:03
  on this incredibly beautiful Christmas Eve day here in
• 0:08
  Arizona. If I don't know you, my name is
• 0:10
  Brandon. I serve as the pastor here at
• 0:12
  Saint City. And I am so thankful that you
• 0:15
  would choose to come here on your holiday and to hear what
• 0:18
  God has to say for your life. And I've been waiting for this
• 0:22
  day for a long time as a church planter.
• 0:24
  Like the first Christmas Eve service feels like a rite of
• 0:27
  passage. You know, I feel like I got like
• 0:29
  a, a new belt. I didn't do karate or jiu jitsu
• 0:31
  or any of those things, but I feel like I got a new belt, you
• 0:33
  know, that like, I graduated a bit as a pastor today.
• 0:35
  Having a Christmas Eve service and waiting is a hard thing.
• 0:39
  Kids, I need your help with this, kids in the room.
• 0:41
  I need you to participate in the serum right now so you're not
• 0:43
  interrupting. You're actually helping me out.
• 0:44
  Kids, what is your favorite Christmas tradition?
• 0:47
  Kids room? Shout it out, kids presents is a
• 0:52
  good thing to wait for. I like that.
• 0:54
  What'd you say? Favorite Christmas tradition?
• 0:59
  Kids is probably like watching movies, baking cookies, going to
• 1:02
  grandma's house. We all have favorite traditions.
• 1:05
  One of mine growing up going out with my family was going to see
• 1:08
  the lights and I think not. One new favorite Christmas
• 1:11
  traditions is Papa Preston sitting in a chair right here
• 1:15
  reading to us. It is.
• 1:17
  It is good to have traditions, but one of my least favorite
• 1:20
  traditions growing up was waiting for my turn to open the
• 1:25
  presents. Now, I don't know if you had
• 1:27
  cousins or if you went to the family party and if you were one
• 1:30
  of those chaotic families that ordered opened up all the
• 1:33
  presents all at once. That was not my side of the
• 1:35
  family. We went from youngest to oldest
• 1:40
  and I was the second oldest cousin, which meant I had to
• 1:44
  watch my baby brothers open their presents and my cousins
• 1:48
  and there was 17 of us. So I would sit there on
• 1:52
  Christmas Eve night or Christmas Day depending on the year,
• 1:55
  right? I was sitting there agitated on
• 1:58
  Christmas. Why?
• 1:59
  Because I had to wait to open my presents.
• 2:02
  And it was always funny because my grandpa would be sitting next
• 2:05
  to me and he would, he'd be the oldest.
• 2:07
  So he didn't care though, because it was his house.
• 2:09
  So what he would do is he would just open up his presents while
• 2:11
  everybody was paying attention to the little kids, you know.
• 2:15
  And I just love watching him not wait while he was forcing me to
• 2:18
  wait. And I learned something even at
• 2:21
  a young age, those days that it's, it's actually hard for
• 2:25
  someone to relate to a wait. And what I mean by that is if
• 2:29
  you didn't experience the wait for yourself, it's really hard
• 2:33
  to imagine just what it felt like to have to wait for that
• 2:36
  thing. And there's lighter weights that
• 2:40
  we have in our life. Maybe it's waiting for presents.
• 2:43
  Maybe it's waiting for our table at the reservation at PF Chang's
• 2:46
  after service tonight. Maybe it's waiting for something
• 2:50
  like that. But I'm sure there are heavier
• 2:52
  waiting rooms here, things for healing, things for like
• 2:58
  relationships, things like relief that there's something in
• 3:06
  your life that you've been waiting on or waiting for and
• 3:09
  you felt the sting of having to wait.
• 3:13
  And on Christmas, we are actually celebrating.
• 3:16
  We are actually commemorating and reflecting upon waiting for
• 3:21
  God to come to earth, that there was a waiting period, a holding
• 3:25
  pattern that happened that we on the other side of the cross, on
• 3:29
  the other side of Jesus coming to earth.
• 3:30
  We don't quite feel. And if you're new to church and,
• 3:36
  or if you're even thinking about Christmas, you're, you're
• 3:38
  familiar certainly with the themes of family, you're
• 3:42
  familiar with the themes of keeping, you know, the spirit of
• 3:45
  Christmas or what not. But there's a seriousness to
• 3:52
  Christmas that Christians feel that we embrace, that we're
• 3:57
  pumped about, that we have joy for.
• 4:02
  And if you're asking yourself like, why so serious Heath
• 4:05
  Ledger style? Well, it's because of this.
• 4:08
  It's because Christmas makes sense.
• 4:10
  Once you understand the weight that Jesus stepped into, it
• 4:15
  makes sense. Like why do we celebrate a baby?
• 4:18
  Why is there a whole holiday? And why do people take it so
• 4:23
  spiritually serious? Because God stepped into the
• 4:28
  wait on that day. I'm in Luke chapter 1.
• 4:32
  I don't just want to share my thoughts with you today.
• 4:34
  I want to share with you God's words and God's thoughts.
• 4:36
  And here's what happened when Mary found out that the wait was
• 4:39
  over, that this is what happened when we found out that Jesus
• 4:44
  Christ was going to cross the horizon of this world and encase
• 4:47
  himself in human flesh. This is the story of one of
• 4:50
  Jesus's friends helping catalog for us just how it went down.
• 4:56
  We're Luke chapter one, verse 26.
• 4:59
  And it says this in the sixth month of her relative
• 5:05
  Elizabeth's pregnancy, the Angel Gabriel was sent from God to a
• 5:09
  city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man
• 5:14
  whose name was Joseph of the House of David.
• 5:17
  In the virgin's name was Mary. And the Angel came to her, and
• 5:23
  he said, greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you.
• 5:27
  But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern
• 5:30
  what sort of greeting this might be.
• 5:32
  I mean, she wasn't having regular occurrences and
• 5:34
  interactions with angels. You know, a very common
• 5:38
  experience for for Mary. So what happens next?
• 5:41
  And the Angel said to her, Do not be afraid Mary, for you have
• 5:46
  found favor with God, and behold, you will conceive in
• 5:53
  your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
• 5:59
  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High,
• 6:05
  and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father
• 6:09
  David, and he will reign over the House of Jacob Forever, and
• 6:14
  of his Kingdom there will be no end.
• 6:18
  And Mary said to the Angel, How will this be, since I am a
• 6:25
  virgin? And the Angel answered her, The
• 6:28
  Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High
• 6:32
  will over shadow you. Therefore the child to be born
• 6:35
  will be called holy, the Son of God.
• 6:42
  And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has
• 6:44
  also conceived a son, and this is the 6th month with her who
• 6:47
  was called barren. For nothing will be impossible
• 6:51
  with God. And Mary said, Behold, I am the
• 6:55
  servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.
• 6:58
  And the Angel Gabriel departed from her.
• 7:02
  Now I don't have all night and neither do you.
• 7:04
  It's a holiday. But I want to give you 3 quick
• 7:07
  things, kind of summarizing what God is doing inside of this
• 7:10
  story that I think are helpful for you and understanding
• 7:12
  Christmas. It is the weight, the work and
• 7:16
  the will. The weight, the work and the
• 7:19
  will and God's activity inside of all of them.
• 7:21
  First, the weight. You see right there in the sixth
• 7:25
  month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, we meet this virgin named Mary.
• 7:29
  And what we don't have necessarily is all the context
• 7:32
  of this part of your Bible. There's a whole lot of Bible
• 7:35
  before Luke chapter one, right? And that's one story, though,
• 7:39
  leading to this very moment. Now it is 400 years between the
• 7:45
  book of Malachi, which ends the Old Testament, and Matthew which
• 7:49
  begins 400 years of silence, of darkness, of the world waiting
• 7:57
  for God to speak again. 400 years is a long time.
• 8:02
  I did a few math things with ChatGPT for you on this.
• 8:05
  You see, 400 years would be 12.6 billion seconds.
• 8:12
  OK, it would you'd have to listen to Mariah Carey's All I
• 8:15
  Want for Christmas Is You 52.4 million times.
• 8:20
  Press play 52.4 million times in a torture chamber.
• 8:24
  You would arrive at 400 years. Historically, you would have to
• 8:30
  go back in American history to Jamestown.
• 8:34
  So if you're at Jamestown when America is found and started
• 8:39
  counting one year after after another after another, that
• 8:47
  would be 400 years. And that's where Mary's coming
• 8:55
  into the story is There was 400 years of darkness.
• 9:05
  That Isaiah 92 actually helps us see this prophetically, that the
• 9:09
  world was trapped in deep darkness, waiting, waiting,
• 9:23
  anticipating the most pregnant of pauses from God.
• 9:35
  And in the midst of that silence, there was people
• 9:38
  waiting for God to work, waiting for the God of Abraham and Isaac
• 9:46
  and Jacob to deliver on his promises to fulfill the
• 9:50
  prophecies. The wait was happening.
• 9:57
  And now we meet this teenager, Mary, who now has to wait for
• 10:03
  the arrival of a baby. Now, it's significant that Jesus
• 10:08
  is born of a woman because we needed Jesus to be a human being
• 10:14
  to save us. Now you might be wondering
• 10:18
  yourself, like, OK, we need him to be human.
• 10:19
  Why did he have to come as a baby?
• 10:21
  Like, did he, like, know Ricky Bobby was going to be a thing in
• 10:24
  love? Sweet baby Jesus?
• 10:26
  Like, is that why Jesus came as a baby?
• 10:28
  No, no, no, that's not why Jesus came as a baby.
• 10:31
  Jesus came as a baby. For this reason, Jesus cannot
• 10:37
  save what he does not assume. That God had to be born of a
• 10:44
  woman. He had to be a human like us in
• 10:47
  every way, but without sin. That for God to be just, for him
• 10:54
  to be the loving God that He is, that God the Son had to be a
• 11:00
  human being to represent us in judgment before God the Father.
• 11:07
  He cannot save what He has not assumed.
• 11:10
  It's like a currency, that there is a real and royal and eternal
• 11:17
  currency with God, and He only takes payment one way.
• 11:22
  That if a human being sends in a human being has to be perfect in
• 11:25
  a human being's place, that my dollar bill wouldn't work the
• 11:30
  same way overseas in the same way.
• 11:34
  We needed a human being to represent us before God.
• 11:37
  And so Jesus is born of this Virgin Mary, and he is a human
• 11:41
  being. He has feelings, He cries, He is
• 11:45
  a human being, He needs sleep. He is a human being in every
• 11:50
  way, yet without sin. And Mary in this story has begun
• 11:57
  her wait for this baby to arrive.
• 12:02
  What she doesn't know is 9 months from now that he won't be
• 12:05
  delivered in a royal hall. But this king of kings, this
• 12:09
  king of David, he's going to be born in the most humblest of
• 12:14
  ways in a Manger that the second person of the triune God, Jesus
• 12:23
  Christ, the Son of God, was going to take a demotion from
• 12:28
  heaven's throne to a cradle and a dirt.
• 12:35
  And Mary was waiting for God to work.
• 12:42
  I imagine some of you are in that very spot right now,
• 12:44
  waiting for the work that kind of summarizes the whole
• 12:49
  Christian life. We wait, God works.
• 12:54
  We keep waiting actively in faith, going about the mission,
• 12:59
  worshipping him, and he continues to work.
• 13:02
  He does what only God can do. Verse 35 And the Angel answered
• 13:08
  her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the
• 13:11
  Most High will over shadow you. Therefore the child to be born
• 13:16
  will be called holy, the Son of God.
• 13:21
  It is not enough for God the Son to encase himself a few human
• 13:25
  flesh. To Incarnate himself is a fancy
• 13:28
  theological word for it that He took on flesh.
• 13:31
  But God the Son had to still be God for the power of His
• 13:37
  salvation to take any hold on human beings.
• 13:40
  That God the Son had to be conceived by the Spirit because
• 13:43
  he was conceived by a man. He would have inherited a sin
• 13:47
  nature like you and I did that God the Son had to be conceived
• 13:54
  by the Spirit. Now this fulfills a prophecy of
• 14:00
  Jesus. Isaiah Chapter 7 verse 14 says
• 14:03
  that Jesus will be born in this way.
• 14:07
  Now Jesus fulfills depending on the count, around 40 prophecies.
• 14:12
  You know, three to four dozen depending on how you count them
• 14:14
  or if you double. But I just want to give you a
• 14:16
  little math equation for you that Jesus even fulfilling one
• 14:22
  of those prophecies would be like this.
• 14:23
  Imagine if I were to cover the entire state of Texas with
• 14:29
  pennies 2 feet deep and I were to paint one red, cover the
• 14:35
  entire square mileage of the state, and I were to paint one
• 14:39
  red and leave it in the dirt somewhere in Texas.
• 14:41
  I was going to blindfold you. I was going to drop you in the
• 14:44
  state of Texas. I was going to say, hey, guess
• 14:45
  what? You need to go find the red
• 14:48
  penny. The odds of that happening would
• 14:56
  be miraculous. You stand no chance.
• 15:00
  Only God could do that. Now in every world view there's
• 15:07
  some form of a miracle that has to take place, either the virgin
• 15:10
  birth of the earth or the virgin birth of the Christ.
• 15:18
  That something came from nothing, that it took a miracle
• 15:23
  for it to happen. And God the Son takes on human
• 15:27
  flesh. He becomes a baby.
• 15:28
  He doesn't become less than God in any way, but instead he shows
• 15:32
  us the face of God because he loves us, because he wants to be
• 15:39
  there for us, because he wants to save us from the Father
• 15:41
  through the Son by the Spirit. Jesus Christ, Son of God, became
• 15:47
  a baby conceived by the Spirit. And if Jesus is not a man, he
• 15:54
  can't represent us. But if Jesus is not God, he
• 15:58
  can't save you from your sin. That the deep darkness, you're
• 16:02
  still waiting. You're still waiting for a
• 16:06
  Savior to save you from the exile from God.
• 16:10
  Who is going to get you back in relationship with God if not God
• 16:14
  himself? You are without hope, waiting in
• 16:17
  darkness still if not for Jesus entrance into the world that if
• 16:23
  he doesn't come this way there is no savior to believe in.
• 16:27
  There is no hope for eternal life.
• 16:30
  This had to be this way, and it is only grace and the love of
• 16:35
  God that prompted God the Son to step into a Manger and go to a
• 16:40
  cross for us. This is the story of Christmas,
• 16:46
  that God the Son became a baby and needed a mom to wipe his
• 16:52
  tears and his behind. Like God the Son did that.
• 16:59
  How humiliating, how humble. That's how God works.
• 17:11
  That he didn't come to earth to be served, but rather to serve
• 17:18
  and to give his life as a ransom payment for many.
• 17:23
  That he didn't count equality with God, a thing that he had to
• 17:26
  hold on to, but he emptied himself by taking the form of a
• 17:29
  servant. And now at the name of Jesus,
• 17:32
  every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that he is
• 17:35
  Lord to the glory of God the Father.
• 17:37
  Because there is no other name by which we can be saved.
• 17:40
  That He works for you and I on our behalf by going to a Roman
• 17:44
  cross, dying the death we should have died, paying for the sin
• 17:48
  that we have committed, having no sin of His own to pay for.
• 17:51
  He does it so that you and I can have the hope and the love of
• 17:55
  God in our lives. It's the wait, it's the work.
• 18:03
  And I want you to see the will of the Father.
• 18:05
  Look back at the text with me, verse 30 through 33.
• 18:10
  And the Angel said to her, Don't be afraid, Mary, for you have
• 18:13
  found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in
• 18:18
  your womb and bear a son. You shall call his name Jesus.
• 18:22
  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.
• 18:27
  And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father
• 18:29
  David, and he will reign over the House of Jacob Forever.
• 18:33
  And of his Kingdom there will be no end.
• 18:38
  And then Mary in verse 34 asks a question.
• 18:40
  Then how will this be? Because I'm legally bound to
• 18:48
  Joseph. And we have honored the reality
• 18:50
  that we have not slept together. I am still a virgin.
• 18:53
  So how are we going to do this, God?
• 18:55
  Because I've never seen this done before.
• 18:56
  You're going to have to tell me some of the logistics of this.
• 18:59
  This doesn't make much sense. Listen to what he says.
• 19:02
  The Angel answered. The Holy Spirit will come upon
• 19:05
  you. That word will is there 11 times
• 19:09
  in just this little section of Scripture.
• 19:10
  And here's what I want you to see.
• 19:14
  When Mary asks how will this be? You need to know something about
• 19:18
  God that when God says He will, there is nothing that says He
• 19:22
  won't. When God says He will do
• 19:26
  something, it's as good as done. When God speaks it's done.
• 19:34
  In Genesis 1 he said let there be light, there was light.
• 19:38
  When he says here in Luke chapter 1 he will be great,
• 19:41
  guess what done? How will this be?
• 19:48
  Because God said it will be that simple.
• 19:54
  The question is, is what will you do?
• 19:57
  What will you do with what God has done?
• 20:03
  That's the question of Christmas.
• 20:05
  This isn't an argument of whether or not you understand
• 20:09
  everything about the Bible. It's will you believe that Jesus
• 20:14
  is the Christ, the Son of God, the one that you need?
• 20:18
  Will you believe it? Will you take God at his word?
• 20:24
  That is the question of Christmas.
• 20:26
  Will you believe Mary season verse 37 this, that for nothing
• 20:34
  will be impossible with God? Some of you are here today as an
• 20:39
  invitation from a friend. You are here and you are hearing
• 20:43
  for the first time that there is more depth to this, more
• 20:46
  reality, to Jesus Christ. And you could have ever dared
• 20:49
  believe never, and never even understood just how grave it is,
• 20:53
  how much darkness is in your life, and that there is no
• 20:56
  antidote, no solution apart from Christ.
• 20:59
  But I have good news for you today, that the love of God, it
• 21:02
  was demonstrated for you, and that while you were at your
• 21:05
  worst, at your darkest waiting, guess what?
• 21:08
  God came for you to die. The death you should have died
• 21:11
  paying for, the darkness in your life, the sin you committed.
• 21:15
  And he had none of his own to pay for.
• 21:16
  He did it so you and him could be in relationship once again
• 21:21
  that God in his perfection and holiness, He saw your sin and he
• 21:27
  said I will be the substitute for it.
• 21:30
  And if you would just believe in me, that you would believe in
• 21:33
  why I came at Christmas. It wasn't just for your family.
• 21:37
  It wasn't so you would have purpose.
• 21:39
  The primary reason Jesus came was that you could be forgiven
• 21:42
  of your sins. It was the only hope you had.
• 21:47
  And if you would trust in him, if you'd repent of your sins and
• 21:50
  believe in Jesus Christ by faith and take God at his word, you
• 21:55
  would have life and life eternal starting right now.
• 22:01
  That's the hope and the message of Christmas, that God would
• 22:05
  call you not to a cradle like His Son, but to an altar.
• 22:11
  Mary's very last words were this, Let it be done to me.
• 22:17
  As you have said, I am your servant.
• 22:22
  I'm your servant. That's what it means to be a
• 22:25
  Christian. It's not just going to church on
• 22:28
  Christmas and Easter. It's not just having an
• 22:30
  understanding that Jesus Christ was a real person.
• 22:32
  It's believing and putting your faith in full trust in a
• 22:36
  reality, the reality that you are a Sinner in need of his
• 22:39
  grace and his power that you, like Mary, this mother of Jesus,
• 22:44
  needed God's grace. You needed him to look at you,
• 22:50
  to see you for all that you are, see the doubts and the struggles
• 22:54
  and the hurt, and say I love you.
• 22:58
  I loved you in this way that I gave my only Son, that you would
• 23:05
  not perish but have eternal life.
• 23:10
  It's good news of great joy. And that is the hope and the
• 23:16
  message of Christmas. Now, here's what I want to do.
• 23:19
  I'm going to invite the worship team out and we're going to
• 23:20
  respond to worship in just a moment before we close our
• 23:22
  service. But here's what I want to do.
• 23:28
  If you are here today and you are seeing, you are seeing
• 23:34
  Christ for all that he is for the first time or for real, I
• 23:41
  want to give you the opportunity to respond physically to what's
• 23:43
  happening in you, to give you the opportunity to respond
• 23:47
  spiritually what's happening to you.
• 23:53
  Which means this, the faith in Jesus is what saves, not the
• 23:59
  prayer that you're going to pray, but if you would look to
• 24:02
  Christ and he would run to him and say, save me from my sin, he
• 24:07
  will do it. And so the team is going to sing
• 24:10
  a song over you, and I want you to reflect on the words and the
• 24:15
  reality of your life with Jesus and your relationship with him.
• 24:18
  And if he's somebody you want, if his grace is what you know
• 24:21
  that you need, would you cry out to him to save you?
• 24:24
  And I'm going to lead you and response to that in just a
• 24:27
  moment. So for now, the team will sing,
• 24:30
  they will worship, and I'll be back up to respond in just a
• 24:33
  moment.