Christmas Eve Service 2024 - 6pm
First B Jackson
2024-12-25

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Every mediation joy of every longing heart born thy people to deliver born a child.

Amen. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife for the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit and she will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.

Now, all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet Isaiah. Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son and they shall call his name. Emmanuel, which translated means God with us. And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took Mary as his wife. Thank you.

Thank you, James. Now in those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken by all of the inhabited earth and this was the first census that was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria and everyone was on his way to register for the census each into his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee from the city of Nazareth to Judea to the city of David which is called Bethlehem because he was of the house and of the family of David. In order to register along with Mary for that census, Mary who was engaged to him and was with child. And while they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth and she gave birth to her firstborn son and she wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

Thank you, Maria and Judy and Brian. In the same region, there were some shepherds that were staying out in the fields and they were keeping watch over their flock by night, and an angel of the Lord. Angel, Angelos, means messenger. Anytime that you see angel in the Bible, it means messenger, so they're carrying a message. You have to pay attention to message.

I also wanna say, I didn't mention it at Joseph, but when the angel, the messenger brought the message, he acted on it immediately and we'll see what they do, shepherds. An angel of lord suddenly stood before them and the glory of the Lord shown round about them and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, do not be afraid for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all of the peoples. For today in the city of David, there has been born for you a savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you.

You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Now, this is a sign for them. Right? This is a sign for them. Those guys out there working hard in the evening and they see this and it's a direct message directly to them.

This will be a sign for you, you'll find a baby wrapped in claws and lying in a manger. That's not a normal place to put a baby by the way. It's gonna stand out. And if you're looking through a town of a several 100 people, there might be multiple babies and this is the way you're gonna know which one it is. Okay?

Suddenly, with that angel there appeared, a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill towards men or this translation says, and on earth peace among men with whom God is pleased. When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, let's go straight to Bethlehem then and let's see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us. They're acting on the message. So then, they came in a hurry. It says, and found their way to Mary and Joseph and the baby as he lay in the manger.

And when they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this child. I also like to put myself in the position of Joseph who had seen a messenger, and Mary who had seen a messenger, and then this pregnancy is coming to fruition, it's coming to the birth of this child, and then these guys show up, and they said, we received a message from an angel, scared us half to death. But what he said is we're gonna find it just like it is. Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace. They knew what the baby was all about, peace and goodwill towards men.

When they had seen this, they may known the statement which had been told them about the child and all who heard it wondered at the things that they were told by these shepherds but Mary treasured all of these things in her heart. The shepherds went back and they were glorifying and praising God for all that they had seen and heard, just as it had been told them. They received a message, they acted upon it, and they were filled with good news of great joy that they themselves began to spread.

So speaking of glorifying and praising God, good news, great joy, would you stand again? We'll get a chance to sing again. Noel, the good news about Jesus' birth.

Amen. Y'all can have a seat. Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem Of Judea in the days of Herod the king. Now, there are five different Herods mentioned in scripture. This Herod is the baddest one of them all.

Okay? He's a bad dude. He has by this point already, no joke, had already murdered multiple members of his own family to keep them from getting onto what he saw as his throne. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, the days of Herod the king, Magi from the East arrived in Jerusalem saying, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? Now, I've sung the same songs my whole life just like you have and we hear we three kings of Orient are.

But the word here Magi is what the Bible calls them. And the magi, magi is the same place where we get our word for magic. They were most likely astrologers, sorcerers, outsiders is an understatement from far far far away. We saw his star in the East and we have come to worship him. Now, when Herod the king heard this, he was troubled in all Jerusalem with him.

Now, when there's an evil king and he's a bad dude, baddest in his family and he's already murdered multiple people and he's troubled? No doubt. All of Jerusalem is troubled because when the king ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Gathering together all of the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. And they said to him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for this is what has been told written by the prophet, and this is Micah, and you Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the leaders of Judah, for out of you shall come forth a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.

Then Herod secretly called the Magi and determined from them the exact time that the star had appeared and he said to them to go to Bethlehem. He sent them to Bethlehem in fact and said, go and search carefully for this child. It's interesting. Shepherds were sent by an angel. These sorcerer, astrologer, wise men from the East were sent by the puppet king.

Go and search carefully for child. And when you have found the report back to me so that I too may come and worship him. Was he gonna worship him? No. He had determined the exact time so he'd know the age of this child.

After hearing the king, they went on their way and the star which had been seen in the East went on before them until it came and it stood still over the place where the child was. And when they saw the star, I should say, when they saw the star standing still, that's when they got to be really happy and they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy because this journey was come to an end. And after coming into the house, they saw the child, the Christ child Jesus with Mary his mother and they fell to the ground and they worshiped him. Is it interesting to you that God is reaching out to outsiders and going to such great lengths and they went to such great lengths acting upon the message that they received. Psalm 19 says that day after day, creation is pouring forth speech and there's no language where it cannot be understood.

God is reaching out to the very uttermost parts. It's interesting that even at Jesus' birth, we hear the great commission and we say, oh, we're supposed to be going and as we're going, we're going to the nations and we're baptizing them and teaching them and making disciples to the very uttermost parts. And this at Jesus's birth, he was already drawing people from the absolute uttermost parts. There they were, worshiping him and they opened up their treasures and they presented to him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.

We're gonna pause there just for a moment in the spirit of giving, joy and generosity like the Magi in the story. We too have an opportunity to give this evening. So I'll invite our ushers to come on forward, and Rachel Galbra is gonna play a little bit on her heart. And while they're coming forward, I I want you to know that you are not obligated to give at all. That's not why we hold this service.

If you feel compelled to give, I I do want you to know what you're giving too. At First Be, we support missionaries all over the world here in The US and South America and Africa, Asia, Europe. And this year, our staff, our elders, our our missions team agreed that we want to bless our missionaries even more so above and beyond. And there... These are folks who are wholeheartedly serving in bringing the light of Christ to some of the most spiritually dark places in the world.

And so if that sounds like something that you would like to give to, wonderful. If not, that's okay. But we'll pause for a moment to reflect, to give thanks. And Ray, may I ask you to just pray blessing over that?

God, we do ask you blessing over this offering, Lord, the gift and the giver. But what we want to do, Lord, what we long to do is just to do whatever your will is and whatever your way of doing that will is. Lord, would you show us the next right step? I pray, Lord, that this would advance your good gospel, that it would go forward, that the message about Jesus would be heard, understood, comprehended, then acted upon in Jesus name right here in this room tonight, but also to the very outermost parts of the world. Would you use us the way that pleases you in Jesus name, amen.

Thank thank you, Rachel. It's in the notes. It says sermonette, like little short sermon right here. And so Carl said, do it if you want to but you don't have to. We've already told the story.

I'm gonna do a bigger picture little thing. If you're here Sunday, you heard these verses. It was a lot longer than this, trust me. Galatians four, four and five is a big picture verse. It it sums up the Christmas message in one sentence and here it is.

It says, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, Jesus, born of a woman, Mary. We've heard the details. We heard a lot of the details ahead of time actually from Isaiah and Micah and actually Zechariah and a bunch of others. Seven hundred years before, a thousand years before, four hundred years before, a lot of time had passed. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, Jesus, born of a woman, Mary, born under the law, Torah, to redeem those who are under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.

The so that there, in Greek it's called a... It's a henna. Henna is a purpose. It introduces the purpose for why something happened. Now, the front part of that sentence says, God acted in a very specific way and then the henna says, so that or this is the reason that God acted that way.

So that we might receive adoption as sons. So that we might be welcomed into the family of God with all the rights of a child of God. Actually, Carl will read it in a minute, but for those who believe, he gives them the right to become children of God. There's another verse, second Corinthians eight. This is a big picture verse too.

For you know the grace and grace means unmerited favor. You know the unmerited favor of our Lord Jesus Christ. We're seeing him at Christmas in a a manger. We're seeing him at Christmas as a baby, but think about this, he is the eternal one. He was in the beginning with God.

He was the word and the word became flesh. This is amazing for you know the unmerited favor, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich in eternity with God, yet for your sake, he became poor. He took on flesh. Philippians two says, he took on flesh, he humbled himself and found himself in the very likeness of us as a man and he humbled himself even to death and death on a cross. Yet for your sake, he became poor and there's another henna there.

The henna is so that you through his poverty might become rich. He took on poverty so that you might be enriched. John three sixteen, same exact format to this verse. It's a indicative thing about what God has done, no doubt about it and then he tells us why he did it, so that so that indeed God loved the world in such a way as this that he gave his one and only son, so that whoever's putting their trust in him might not perish but have everlasting life. That is telling you exactly why God did it, but it's also giving you the option to either accept it, believe it, receive it or not to reject it.

That's what it is. C. S. Lewis, actually I found this quote to be fun because it's in exactly the same format. Here it is, the son of God became a son of man in order that or so that the sons of men might become the sons of God.

To those who believed, he gave them the right to be called children of God. I I have in my hand a scroll, I don't usually read out of a scroll, I usually read books or you know, on the phone, whatever. This though, I printed up. This is 11 font. I did this like eight years ago.

It just sits on my shelf. But it's it's 11 font. It's single spaced and it just goes down and it has every henna clause in the whole Bible. Actually, think I've just got the New Testament. This is just the New Testament.

So this is not the Old Testament, just the New Testament. Henna is in Greek. So this I'll show you. This is all the times where God shows us why he did what he did. Here it is.

So it's like 15 or 16 feet and 11.5. That went better this service than it did last service. I'll torch it over here. No. God has done his part.

That's... He condescended in the best possible term, best possible use of this term. God above became flesh and dwelt among us and it's amazing that he has done everything and that he's not gonna force you in any way. He's leaving it in your lap and I'm gonna leave it in your lap. I I I emphasize the message to Joseph, the message to Mary, the message to the shepherds, the message to those wise men even though it was a little bit weird.

If God is prompting you, I'd say act on the message. Act on the message that he's sending and the message is clear as a bell tonight. It's just the Christmas story. Right? So I think that's all I got, Carl.

Okay.

So as Jesus grew and he began his public ministry in John eight twelve, he said, I'm the light of the world. And if you follow me, you won't have to walk in darkness because you'll have the light that leads to life. And tonight, I want you to hear that very real invitation to you. As Ray said, to act on, to act on, to trust, to follow Jesus whom God sent as the light of the world to rescue us from the power of sin and darkness and give us light that leads to life. Not just not just life eternal, but abundant life right now and then into eternity.

And and in response to this invitation, we're gonna close in a candle lighting. And so I'll invite you to stand, if you would, with your candle, and I'll invite Rachel and Angelina to come forward as well as our elders to come forward. And the elders are gonna light their candles from the Christ candle, that candle representing Jesus as the light of life. And then we'll pass that light to one another representing our task to let that light of Christ shine through us and to the world. So when your candle's lit, would you be sure to hold it straight up and let that person next to you with their unlit candle tip theirs tip theirs toward yours.

And while we're lighting these candles, I'll invite you to sing a couple of songs with us. We're gonna sing Away in a Manger and Silent Night, and let's do that together. Away in a major, no Sing together. I almost hate to ask you to blow out those candles. It is so pretty.

But as you do, as you do, would you consider this that we blow out these candles, but scripture says there's nothing that can extinguish the true light of Christ. John one five it says, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness can never extinguish it or overcome it. Would you be encouraged by that, by that... Those words from Jesus this evening that the light of Christ cannot be overcome by darkness. Jesus is that true light who gives light to everyone.

And John goes on to say that all who believe and receive, he gives the right to become children of God. That's the good news of the gospel. What are we called to do? To believe it and to be light bearers. Light bearers and children of God through belief in Jesus.

That's why in Matthew five Jesus says, now you're the light of the world. First, he says, I'm the light of the world. Then he says, you're the light of the world. He's passing that to us. We're passing that to one another.

A town built on a hill cannot be hidden, neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, you put it on a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In that same way, says light, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven. He gets the credit. That's what this last song is about.

I encourage you to sing out and sing loud. You can blow out those candles. Christ is born. Whoo. Merry Christmas, everybody, and go in peace.