Thank you and Just want you to know that they they never applaud for me when I'm done preaching A little more housekeeping a couple weeks ago I was out the first Sunday of the month rather than expected laying some of you fussed at me because they didn't tell you I didn't know okay I do know that I will be your Friday night for our Christmassy of service and you should be as well then I'll be out next Sunday the 26th and also the first Sunday of 2011 January 2nd. I'll be out. Bill Miller will be preaching and again It's good to have a couple of brothers. I can turn to anytime. I need to be out But you should be here with your family Again Friday night at 7 and then next to Sunday's bill will be in house. Well, let's pray together Father, it is good for the family to be here together. It's even better that You've told us in scripture that You meet with your people in worship you look for people who will worship you in spirit and in truth Father, we are Giving our utmost for your highest this morning Giving back to you the best you've given us Lord be pleased we ask be pleased to accept our offerings of worship As we have worship you now in our fellowship in our singing in our offerings and our prayers Are reading the scripture now the preaching of the word that you would be pleased to dwell within the praises of your people and Lift us up this Sunday morning We would in Everything we do seek to exalt Christ first and foremost And we make our prayer in his name. Amen I don't know if you pay any attention to this past week. I love stories like this Did you pick up at all this past week on the story of NASA's spacecraft careful. I say that space craft the Voyager one did you pay attention at all? Here was a story the Voyager one is a spacecraft that is now coming close to the edge of our solar system Let me back up a little bit. It was launched on September the 5th 1977 So long ago that how can I put this in King James many of you as yet were not That was 33 years ago and along with its twin Voyager two and paradoxically Voyager two was launched first about a month earlier, but Voyager one and two have made a tour of our solar system they have now flown by and sent back dreams of data and Pictures of all of our planetary neighbors. They're hurtling along At 38,000 miles per hour Which is even faster than you drive when you're late for an appointment I dare say and they're moving and once they got done with all of our planetary neighbors They split up Voyager two and north Voyager one went south and Voyager one now is the one is coming very close The edge of our solar system is 10.8 billion miles from the Sun By far the farthest away man-made object in the history of Humanity it takes a signal from earth 12.8 light years to reach Voyager one Twitter takes slightly longer, but you get the idea. That's a long way. How many of you think we can really tweet with that But that spacecraft you look at me like, okay, I can't how many of you don't know what Twitter is maybe that's the problem 12.8 light years to get a signal from here there. You can't help but marvel at the ingenuity and the dedication and the and the vision and the commitment and the perseverance to the task of the Scientists at NASA and also at Jet Propulsion Laboratory who built who designed Voyager one and Voyager two you can't help be astonished what they've accomplished In this 33-year mission doing things that have never been done before to coin a phrase going boldly where no man has ever gone before Why am I taking time? I'm sending more than to talk about space crafts and think that you know people say well It's not rocket science. This is rocket science Why am I taking a few moments to talk about that as fantastic and awe-inspiring and outright audacious as the mission of Voyager one Voyager two are Or the mission is I want to tell you a story that is Well it makes the stories of Voyager one and two pale in comparison the significance of the story we're going to read now in John chapter 1 John chapter 1 versus 1 through 14 there are several text preachers love to preach at Christmas time It's in the Bible once in your Bible is in the Bible in front of you You got in your bulletin we got it on the screen. We want you to be familiar with guys word This is one of those text preachers love to preach you know the one from Luke 2 and we'll read it Friday night I came to pass in those days the decree went forth from Caesar Augustus all the world should be taxed This tax is the first down this arrangements with governor Syria. You know that passage. We love to hear it Matthew 2 How the mage I came from the east to Jerusalem's that we've seen the star in the east of the one who's been born King of the Jews and then followed Herod's slaughter the innocence and Isaiah Isaiah 7 his name shall be called wonderful counselor mighty God everlasting father prince of peace Micah 5 to you Bethlehem F. Bethlehem though your little monotons of Judah your by no means least From you will come forth one who's going forth or from eternity. We love those passages They're beautiful. They're marvelous. They're familiar. They're rich. I think this is the most loaded of all the passages the preachers preach at a time like this it tells us about another mission It's also bold and visionary. It's a quite great commitment dedication and sheer audacity for what had accomplished in this 33 year mission Going where no man had ever gone before or God had never gone before In the beginning was the word and the word was with God the word was God He was with God in the beginning Through him all things were made without him nothing was made that has been made in him was life and That life was the light of men The light shines in the darkness the darkness is not understood it There came a man who was sent from God his name was John He came as a witness to testify concerning that light so that through him all men might believe He himself was not the light. He came only as a witness to the light The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world He was in the world Though the world was made through him the world did not recognize him He came to that which was his own but his own did not receive him Yet to all who received him to those who believed in his name He gave the right to become children of God children born out of natural descent nor of human decision or a husband's will But born of God The word became flesh It made his dwelling among us We have seen his glory for glory the one and only who came from the Father full of grace and truth The mission of the Son of God what was it? Why did he come and what did he hope to accomplish? What was the mission of Jesus and Nazareth? Well the text tells us Not all that tells us a lot of it. He came to give life Verse forces in him was life and that life was the light of men John 10-10 tells us that the thief comes only to kill and destroy But Jesus as I have come they might have life and have it abundantly have it to the full and then John 14 verse 6 Averse may be probably know by heart. Jesus said I am the way the truth and life No one comes to the Father but through me. You know this one's so contrary to the prevailing cultural minds that you know what it is Christians Christians are the vein of existence. They're no fun Every party needs a poop or let's invite a Christian. You know how this goes We're no fun where the people who reign on the parade all the time Christians are kill joys HL-Macon the late novelist essay of satirist cynic Define Puritanism as Puritanism is The haunting fear that someone somewhere is having fun That's what the world thinks about us Vailing cultural mindset Is that Christian life is bland and sip it and boring and Colorless and some Christians are okay? Can we just confess some Christians are exactly that? But I challenge anyone in the room this morning or listen to this on the internet I Challenge any of you to read the newer testament with a starting January 1 or starting today To read a new retestment and come to the conclusion that the Christian life is boring and dull I challenge you to look at the life of Jesus And the early Christians and conclude that they were bland and incipited in oatmeal In fact, they were accused of a lot of things and being too tame wasn't one of them You get to Acts chapter 17 and Paul and the boys are in Thessalonica And they drag them out before the authorities to get rid of them and they do not accuse them They're boring us to tears. They're just no fun We can't stand having around anymore with a party to begin. You know what they can say about them These men they've upset the world proclaiming there's another king named Jesus They've come here to say that also Ladies and gentlemen upset the world they did Because from this humble birth in Bethlehem the man whose birth was celebrate who grew up in Nazareth who went on to have a three-year public ministry and then from 12 I'm sorry. I know I'll see 11 of them in heaven, but 12 losers He fashioned them into a team of men a band of brothers That changed the world the world has never been the same will never be the same for what our Christian forebred bland boring not these boys Not these really Christians Dorothy Sayers has an essay that I love and I pull it out every couple of years or so because I want you to love it, too That's it's called the greatest drama ever staged you can find it on the internet Google Dorothy Sayers and then the greatest drama ever staged so it's long Relatively, I'm gonna read a few paragraphs from it. I'm gonna post it on our churches website this week Kindle press dot org Lot of good stuff on the website if you're now accessing it brilliant brilliant blogs by the pastor and you should read them They'll change your life. You'll laugh. You'll cry. They'll chain. They'll move you Check it out either on the internet or on our website Dorothy Sayers the greatest drama ever staged. Let me redo this a few paragraphs I want you to list this is written in the 1940s by a British novelist writing in Dorothy Sayers Official Christianity of late years has been having what is known as bad press We're constantly assured that the churches are empty because preachers insist too much upon doctrine dull dogmas people call it The fact is the precise opposite Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination man and the dogma is the drama That drama is summarized quite clearly in the creeds of the church and we think it dull is because we either have never really read those Amazing documents where we've cited them so often some mechanically as there's lost all sense of their meaning The plot pivots upon a single character and the whole action is the answer to a single problem what to think you Of Christ Before we adopt any of the unofficial solutions some of which are indeed excessively dull Before we dismiss Christ as a myth An idealist demagogue a liar Or lunatic it will do no harm to find out What does the church think of Christ? The church's answer is categorical and uncompromising and it is this That Jesus bar Joseph which is how he would have been known the carpenter of Nazareth Was in fact and in truth and in the most exact literal sense of the words The god by whom all things were made and here she goes on to summarize Of the nice and clear that we just affirm we believe in the one Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten son of the god The god of his father before all worlds begotten not made Being a one substance with the father By whom all things were made god of god light of light Very god of very god Who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary was made Man he suffered for us Was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate he was buried and on the third day he rose again from the dead This is what the church believes ladies and gentlemen She goes on Whatever game is playing with his creation. He has kept his own rules and played fair He can exact nothing for man that he is not exacted from himself He has himself gone through the whole of human experience from the trivial irritation of the family life And the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money To the worst horrors of pain humiliation defeat despair and death When he was a man he played the man He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it all worthwhile Possibly we might prefer not to take this tale too seriously. There are disquietting points about it Here we had a man of divine character walking and talking among us What do we find to do with him? The common people indeed heard him gladly There are leading authorities and church and state considered that he talked too much and uttered too many disconcerting truths So we brought born his friends to hand him over quietly to the police We tried him on a rather vague charge of creating a disturbance and hadn't publicly flagged and hanged on the common gallows All this was not very credible to us Even if he was as many people thought and think Only a harmless crazy preacher but if the church is right about him It was more discreditable still for the man we crucified Was god almighty If this is dull and what in heaven's name is worthy to be called exciting The people who crucified Christ never do their credit do them justice They never accused him of being a bore On the contrary they thought him too dynamic to be safe It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround him with an atmosphere of tedium We have very efficiently paired the claws of the lion of Judah Certified him meek and mild and recommended him as a fitting household pet for pale priests and mild-mannered old ladies To those who knew him however He in no way suggests a milk and water person they objected to him as a dangerous firebrand He was emphatically not a dull man in his human lifetime and if he was god There could be nothing dull about god either in any case Those who saw the risen Christ remain persuaded The life was worth living and death of triviality An attitude curiously unlike that of the modern defeatists Who is firm persuaded that life is a disaster and the death rather inconsistently a major catastrophe Now we may call that doctrine exhilarating we may call it devastating We may call it revelation Well, we may call it rubbish But if we find it dull The words have no meaning at all Ladies and gentlemen, this is the greatest drama ever stayed This is the greatest story ever told and if you know Christ as Lord and Savior Then you're part of the story You're written into the drama and if you don't know Christ And if you have never by faith received him as your Lord and Savior received the payment he made for you on the cross You are not part of that story And when you die you are written out of it forever What better time than Christmas? To ask God to write you into story and he'll be glad to do it The good news of the gospel the good news of Christmas is If you want to be a part of the story you can be He came to give life life eternal He also came to give light verse 9 says the true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world Later on in John chapter 8 verse 12 Jesus says I am The light of the world whoever follows me will never walk in darkness We'll have the light of life Then in John 12 where he 60 says I have come into the world as a light So that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness This is dark world ladies and gentlemen. It's getting darker by the day My hope as much as I love my country as much as I love our armed services Folks in the intelligence communities so I love and respect those people my hopes not in them My hope is in Christ some Christ alone for myself for my children That's where my hope is T-bone Bernad a musician most you've never heard of Said a Christian by the way said I learned a long time ago that if you believe Jesus is the light of the world There are two kinds of songs you can write you can write songs about that light Or about what you see by that light He gives light ladies and gentlemen. He gives the light of truth And if Jesus is not who we say he is if Jesus is not who the church and the bible say he is Do you realize how ridiculous Christmas is you realize that If Jesus is not who we say he is we're celebrating December 25th That's all We're going through the motions of having a birthday party For someone we either think didn't really exist or isn't really deserving of a party But we're gonna have a party anyway any excuse for a party. That's what Christmas is If Jesus isn't who we say he is who the bible says he is You pay against you cynics deal with that Your celebration on December 25th is the height of hypocrisy
But if Jesus is who we say he is And I'm betting my life in my eternal life that he is Then we see God for who he truly is Full of mercy and grace and compassion judgment. Yes The buy his mercy. We do not have to be exposed to that judgment because Jesus already was We see others for who they really are You're not just Lumps of proto plasm thrown together by time plus matter plus chance
Darwin has to do with that the bible says you are made in the image of God You are created to be treated with dignity and respect and compassion And you may be my bitter enemy, but you're still a creature made in the image of God And I see him in you however faint and distorted it might be You see his image in me. I see myself for who I really am Yes, the image bearer of God Almighty. That's my glory But also a person falling into sin radically and pervasively to pray every aspect of my existence intellectually Emotionally volitionally Physically Attitudinally behaviorally, relationally every ever you can apply To my life. I am a fallen creature and that is my shame The glory and the shame that I live my life between those two extremes But praise God Almighty Jesus has come And has shown us the glory of God the Father and has taken about himself My sins pass present and future and yours too if you receive the payment he's made for you on the cross He comes to give light to be the light. We're going to sing it probably night and hark the herald angel sing Light and life to all he brings risen with healing in his wings
My all he lays is glory by Born that man no more may die Come to raise the sons of earth come to give us Second birth I would ask you ladies and gentlemen this Christmas time How many times you've been born? I know you've been born once But have you been born again in Christ Jesus whose birth we celebrate If you know him you walk in the light And if you don't know him on the authority of God's word you walk in darkness When you like to come out join the party The one that truly celebrate who is why did Jesus come like came to give life He came to give light and I could say so much more about him you know preachers I could say so much more but he came to serve the son of man did not come to be served but to serve And to give his life as a ransom for many He came to invite sinners to be his disciples. I have not come to call the righteous But sinners it's not the healthy who need a doctor. It's the sick That's who he calls to himself He's going to present the truth He's come to be the truth. He's come to seek and to say that which was lost To call proud of us to himself He came to die His high priestly prayer He said my heart is troubled. Watch how I say Father saved me from this hour. No It was for this very reason I came to this hour Father glorify your name And he submitted to death even death on a cross And he came to rise again from the death so that we who are in Christ could too He came to give life He came to give light He came to give us the right to become the children of God The right to become part of God's family. Look at verse 12 again Yet to all who received him to those who believed in his name He gave the right to become children of God. How do we become children of God I'm trying really hard by doing good things By being good or not being better every time I say that my children will take me home saying and daddy You set something wrong this morning try harder do good or Don't be bad Avoid all the really big sins go to church all the time give lots of money We're for all those things by the way
Will that get you into heaven? Let me ask you a question If trying hard and being good and avoiding a lot of sins and going to church and giving money get you into heaven Why on earth Jesus come You could do all that without him you could You don't need a savior for that you certainly don't need and are telling sacrifice on a cross And he came to give us the right to become children of God To those who believed In his name he gave the right We get that right Through Christ alone and that's the message ladies and gentlemen And that's the reason we celebrate at christmas time because Christ has come And opened up the way to paradise through faith in Christ by the grace of God will know not through works Knowing you are you trusting in something besides Christ Church membership your religiosity how many good works you do the fact that you avoided some sins It you give a lot of money to charity good for you God bless you. I won't get you an inch off the ground You stand before the Lord what will? Faith in Christ By the grace of God and faith in Christ alone You know I started this one and talking about the voyager voyager one It's kind of a cool thing they did with voyager This is 1977 you understand back then young people we had these things before there was There are iTunes and iPods before there were MP3 players before there were CDs you remember CDs I'm not sure if you all do Before that there were cassette tapes I'm really digging in the archaeology now for that. There were eight tracks Come on some of you know you listen to them
In voyager one they put a couple of basically Ancient discs, okay, they don't look like they're 12 inch discs They had a gold wrapped up in aluminum on those gold discs They have they have etched They put symbols on it etched symbol and you can look at stuff up online if you don't know what they look like But they've got On these discs two hours Can of images and music and other sounds degrees a multimedia presentation for the age they call it and on that disc Which is basically what you put on a phonograph that you may not know what that is But when MCs are in the clubs and they scratch those things back That's called a phonograph, okay, and that needle is called a stylus And this disc is basically basically for us a really old disc With with markings that show you what to do with it and there's a needle in it There's a stylus that shows you how to play the thing and if the if et finds voyager one It'll tell him what to do and how to play this thing and up will pop these images of earth 120 images of earth And sounds of earth like the surf crashing and the wind blowing and whale songs and the sound of speech 55 different languages ranging from ancient accadian The first known language 6,000 years ago I'm sorry 6,000 BC row 6,000 BC all the way up to a modern Chinese dialect called woo
And there are recorded messages in there from at that time President Carter at that time secretary of the United Nations curve ball time I want you to imagine from your ET And voyager lands on your plan are you intercepted in space somehow some way and you You take this contraption which you might look very prehistoric and you open up and you find this this You see the etchings on there and you put the needle down and you begin to play it and you see these images of this Other world And hear the sound you hear these voices greeting you Your ET Do you say Whoa I better pay attention to this Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to send me a message And I need to hear what it is it could be extremely important or do you say Eh Probably an accidental conglomeration of molecules thrown at get it by time plus matter plus chance And those messages those images No big deal Let's go out and have a party and celebrate the day we intercepted this disc But who cares about the disc and the message what are you going to do
Ladies and gentlemen the message of Christmas Is that god almighty left the glories and the splendors of heaven and the form person fuses the measure And he came He walked our earth and he worked our job and he breathed our air He suffered our pains and he died our death He rose again from our grave and that message is for you If you don't believe me I can show you a record of it you've got a copy of the right in front of you there I can show you the record of what he did and what he said and that message is for you And this Christmas time What are we going to do? Shop till we drop My presence Give him out to other people just because it's December 25th We're going to celebrate the birth of the one who came and brought us the message And brought us the life It's changed everything Forever and ever. We're all that in Amen. Let's pray together
Father, I'm Just amazed I'm just in awe when I think of something that for us is staggering like sending a satellite to the outer reaches of our solar system
Transmitting a message And then I think about What it is you've done sending your son to leave the splendors of heaven not like carrying a message but being the message Lord, I'm so grateful for What you've done for us and this Christmas time I pray for everybody in here and especially for this preacher He'd remind us What an incredible thing you've done for us that we would celebrate not just Giving a gift. That's fine. That's great. It's wonderful To have somebody to give a gift to and people to receive gifts from The Lord that you would Remind us The greatest gift of all. Give it to your son His name I pray. Amen Hey, man. Thank you again for being here with us today We've asked you to receive now the Lord's vendediction Go now the love of God the Father The grace and mercy of God the Son The fellowship and companionship of God the Holy Spirit Live the life I'm in