This recording is from Christ Kingdom Church in Waterford Lakes, East Orlando. Visit us online at ChristKingdom.org for our calendar, driving directions, and more audio recordings.
All right, this is coming from Luke 2, starting in verse 35, maybe 25. Yes, I knew that. All right, starting in verse 25 through 35, right? All right, thanks everybody. Now, there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon. He was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ. Move by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the law required. Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people. A light for the revelation to the Gentiles and for the glory to your people Israel. The child's father and mother marveled at what was said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to marry his mother, this child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed and a sword will pierce your own soul to the Word of the Lord. Let's pray. Father, thank you for today. Thank you for the celebration of Christmas and the celebration of your son coming into this world. Lord, would we have our hearts and minds prepared for what you have in store for us this evening and for these next days ahead? Would we look for ways that we would be a blessing to others? We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Merry Christmas. Strange phenomenon. Most of you know that I make an office at a Panera Bread up here at the Order of Lakes Town Center. There is one day a year that there is, and it's this day, it's Christmas Eve. It's the strangest thing during daylight hours to see all of Lisa's organized activity, apparently on this side of town dispersing, stores closing early. I mean, earlier in the day there, the town center, probably some of you were there, it was ridiculously crazy. But there's no other time a year that people seem to all of a sudden start evacuating around the four o'clock, five o'clock timeframe. Now, as I'm there reviewing and getting ready and praying and thinking about here tonight, it was, it was realizing people are leaving with a sense of expectation, the sense of excitement. You know, in our day and age and culture with, you know, people, some people go to work at night and work all night long and different things. I mean, you just don't see activity like that all of a sudden happen during daylight hours where people are expectantly moving in a direction. Excitedly, maybe a little frantically with last-minute ideas and things to do, but dispersing in anticipation. And just about everybody that was able to observe that could tell, has that anticipation for different reasons, each and every one. But it only happens. It seems like one day a year. And I'm at Panera Bread almost every day of the year, so I'm a pretty good authority on that. It's an amazing sense there. And I just want to invite you right now to lean in into Christmas Eve. I know you got a lot on your mind. I know there's things that some of you still have yet to do tonight. Some of you are going to be up very late tonight. Some of you are going to be up very early in the morning or maybe even both. But would you pause expectantly? Would you let your feet and your body, which is sitting in this room, which is getting a little bit cooler, thankfully, I think they see kicked on. And lean in and forward to what Christmas is really all about and have expectations, have anticipation, but what God might want to say to you in your heart this evening. I'm going to pray one more time. We join me. Holy Spirit, we ask for you to come and work and move. You are the spirit of Christmas. And if you do not move, this really is nothing more than just a fun family event. Nothing more than a fun time to sing, carols with friends and maybe new friends and family and to quickly rush off to other activities. But God, would you in space in time? Would you interrupt? Like you did 2,000 years ago, would you do that tonight to step into our moment and reveal yourself in your presence here tonight in a way that would leave us and have us leave here changed. Understanding Christmas in your presence in a way maybe we haven't before. And I pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Let me ask you a question. How many of you have a Christmas tree? Raise your hand. How many of you have a Christmas tree? That's just about everybody it looks like. We actually don't have a Christmas tree this year about explain more about that in a moment. You know, much of your time whether it's tonight, because in the tradition, some of you will be hung around the tree tonight, some of you may already have. Many of you may be tomorrow morning or sometime tomorrow day, but you will spend some type of extended time probably around your Christmas tree or a family member's Christmas tree or neighbors, whatever the case might be. Christmas trees are pretty important, pretty important symbol to this season. Not that we appropriate that we talk about them tonight and look at three primary ways. We'll look at that we can look at Christmas this year and all three have a relate to a tree. So first one here I wanted to think about here tonight is under the tree. Most of our Christmas trees at this point, at least I would think, have packages underneath them. Maybe a month ago, they didn't. Maybe they started trickling and building up. At this point, most of our trees have some level or some amount of packages under them. Gifts. Children are most captivated perhaps by the gifts under the Christmas tree during the month of December. I remember for me personally when I was a kid growing up, the very first thing that was most important for me was to quantify the number of gifts under the tree that were addressed to me. That was very important to do. So I kind of had to keep track and did I have as many as my brother did and if that wasn't the case, maybe we need to have a talk mom and dad. Whatever was necessary for that, but there was a qualifying of the gifts. The second thing was the calculating to see if a certain gift seemed to match the dimensions of a certain request that something I was looking for that was on my Christmas wish list. And if I saw something that might match that description that was very encouraging and if I didn't see anything that seemed to match that description well, that was something to be a little worried or troubled some over. And the last thing I remember about the gifts under the tree is a kid growing up that was relevant to me. Maybe maybe more for boys growing up than girls perhaps, but was the weight of the gift. Help me men or especially some of you young men that are out there. Isn't there a correlation between the heavier the gift usually the better the gift if you're a boy. Is that not true? I think that was true. So those were some of the things that were going through my head as a kid and maybe some of you kids have already checked that out have your own list. But did you know that the average American, at least according to surveys, they expected to spend $781 on Christmas gifts this year, the average American, $781. You can kind of calculate that see how you're ranked up or doing with that. One of the stories that captured my attention and probably some of yours because it's been all over social media and things like that was the story of what happened in Lowell, Michigan. The Lowell, Michigan police department, there were several stories like this going around, but this was one. They set out to enforce some traffic violations in a particular part of town. In fact, most of them were just very, very minor traffic violations, and they purposely tried to pick cars as they were driving by. They maybe gave indication that the owner or the operator of the car maybe didn't have a lot of extra cash flowing around. Maybe they were a little bit more limited in their resources for Christmas. So they would kind of pick out which vehicles seem to meet that description, and they would purposely wait to one, violated some kind of traffic violation, pulled them over, and of course go through the whole routine of asking them for their driver's license, their registration, and so on. Some of you who've seen the video for that. But then along the way they would strike a casual conversation about saying, hey, what's going on for Christmas? What are your kids doing? And through radio, they were able to communicate with people that were apparently in a nearby store, but as they share some of the things that they probably weren't going to be able to get, or yeah, my child wants this, there's no way we're going to be able to afford it. They were relaying it to other people that were just around the corner, whether it was a target or best fire, whatever else. And within a matter of minutes, wrapped, that item showed up by the police car, and the police officer himself, as you can see, presented them with the gift. And the expressions on people face the attitudes that changed from being annoyed by being pulled over for a minor traffic violation to all of a sudden, are you kidding me? I could never have afforded that for my child or I never would have gotten that for myself. Those kind of stories, those kinds of things. Gifts have the power to fill us with joy, don't they? Gifts an amazing way have the power to even fill us with security sometimes. Gifts have an amazing way to be able to present love, an tangible way that we can see and feel from giving to us, from maybe I love one. However, I don't know if you notice this and you probably won't notice it right away. This will take a few days, but there's something about gifts. The power from those things begin to fade pretty quickly with gifts. Am I right here? Kids, the batteries will run out soon, right? If your parents remembered to get the batteries, some of your parents are thinking, when did these open until 9 p.m. tonight. Something breaks on that brand new gift. The novelty wears off. It was cool, it was exciting, but after a few days, well, what's next? Maybe the clothes start to fade or they already go out of style. It doesn't take long for that to happen these days. Or the new technology, as we all know, will very soon become old technology. Gifts under the tree leave us wanting. The joy and security, they come with an expiration date. Even the gestures of love slowly begin to fade. I mean, think about that. You could have gotten, you know, maybe your spouse or a friend or your best friend, a great gift last Christmas. But don't show up tomorrow and go, hey, remember what I got you last year? I didn't get you anything this year. But remember what I got you last year? Wasn't that awesome? Even the gestures of love fade, don't they? They require renewal from a gift. Gifts under the tree can't bear the weight of the true hope of Christmas. They were never designed to. But we grow up from childhood and we learn that there is more to Christmas, right? Then what is under the tree? And we come to understand the importance of this other type. It's what's around the tree. I got a Christmas card just this week, as a matter of fact, that said this. This was on the cover of the Christmas card. It's Christmas. It's not about what is under the tree. It's about the people around it. And I thought, you know, that's true, isn't it? That is quite a bit different and quite a bit more significant in many ways. The people in our lives, the family, the friends, the loved ones, the time to be able to be with them, the time to celebrate something like Christmas with them, the time to tell and relive stories, maybe a past Christmas or thinking about future Christmases, the time to just enjoy the presence of one another, of those that will be around the tree tonight, tomorrow, whatever the case might be. You know, me and my family are experiencing this in an exciting way this year, actually for us. Our son, Michael, who's right back here, is actually getting married this coming Monday to her. That's Emily. Yeah, you did well. You did well, son. So on that, and that's been exciting for us. I mean, in fact, this is, I've mentioned to you earlier, we didn't have a Christmas tree. They're getting married under a big tree up in Tallahassee and we've kind of made that part of our celebration. We purposely thought, you know, we're going to be using finances and resources and much of our energy to do that, because that, what's under that tree and what's going to happen there coming this coming Monday at two o'clock is what we're really celebrating and giving to one another in many ways here. We're looking forward to that because it is true that what's in who's around the tree is far more important than what's under the tree in so many ways. You know, people we love having much stronger power than gifts to help us feel joy, to help us feel secure, to help bring a sense of love. They don't need batteries, thank goodness, right? They don't go out of style. Well, maybe their clothing's clothing does, but they don't go out of style, right? In fact, relationships grow deeper over time and they become more meaningful as memories grow and we have shared memories and experiences. However, though, we learn at some point that even as we grow older, they aren't the source of lasting eternal joy, security, and love. Because even those things, those relationships weren't designed to meet that purpose. Think about it. Relationships have ups and downs, right? If you're in an up cycle with the relationships of those closest to you, that's going fine, right? But what if you're in a down cycle? What if there's somebody in the family that you're not talking to, or there's a difficulty, there's division and strife that feels a little different maybe this year. Distance itself can separate us in relationships. I'm not sure everybody here has a spouse in the armed services, but they may not be able to be home with you this Christmas. Relationships break, divisions come, sometimes it takes years for those to mend, sometimes they never mend. We can be left with memories that bring now pain, disillusionment, regret, maybe even bitterness, even great relationships, even ones that have nothing wrong with them apparently can change in an instant, the passing of a loved one. In a group this size, I'm going to bet there's a good chance. Several of you are experiencing that this Christmas. Even people around the tree leave us wanting. People around the tree can't bear the weight of the true ultimate hope of Christmas. They were never designed to, but we learn to cope over time, don't we, with relationships. We don't forget people that are lost, relationships that are lost. We just learn to accept what we cannot change and we persevere through most of the time. After all, what more is there after that? However, some, some of us, not all of us sadly, but some will come to discover that it's not what's under the tree. That's not what's around the tree that's ultimately most important or what carries the power of Christmas. But rather it's who was on a tree. The only tree directly associated with the coming of Jesus Christ, whose birth we celebrate at Christmas time, was the one that he was nailed on some 2,000 years ago, 30 years or so into his life. He was born to die for the forgiveness of sins. He was born to die to conquer sin and death once and for all. He was born to die to take the curse that we had earned through rebellion against God and to give us the blessing that he had earned through living a perfect life in perfect obedience to God the Father. Listen to what the Apostle Paul writes in Galatians 3. It's kind of small, I'm not sure you can read that. He writes this and says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. He redeemed us in order that the blessings given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. The promise of the Spirit is a manual that is God with us. It is a restored relationship between God and his people or those that follow him. You see gifts under the tree and people around the tree leave us wanting gifts under the tree and people around the tree can't bear the weight of the true ultimate hope of Christmas and they were never designed to. Jesus Christ was born to come and live the perfect life we chose not to live in the Garden of Eden and live the perfect life that we cannot live in and of ourselves. He dies in the place of all those who will choose to believe and follow him with their life. He carries the weight of sin and death for his followers so he's the only one that can truly bear the weight of the ultimate hope of Christmas. He is the gift that we were made for. He is the relationship that we were truly made to long for and to find fulfillment in ultimately. I love the Chronicles of Narnia how the story that C.S. Lewis writes there. He describes Narnia under the control of the evil white witch and he describes it as always winter but never Christmas. And so Jesus comes to earth and as C.S. Lewis described him he was the lion he was Aslan and when Aslan was on the move winter began to fall because Christmas was coming and he's coming back to restore everything to his marvelous design expel all sin and evil from this world once and for all. So we're going to sing Joy the world into the service. Joy the world is not so much written for his first coming it's all about his second coming when you read those and sing those words before we leave here tonight. I want you to sing it in anticipation and longing for his second coming his return where he rules the world with truth and grace. That's what Christmas is all about you're not hungry for what's under the tree or even what's around the tree you're hungry for the one who made you the one who Beck is you home and guess what tomorrow is his birthday. I want you to watch this video kind of sums that up for us. I sincerely hope you get what you want underneath your Christmas tree tomorrow. I hope you have some great gifts. I really hope that you get to be around a tree with some very special people in your life. I desperately hope and I pray that you will come to know him or be refreshed for those of you that do know him and who he is and why he came to earth and that he is coming back and it's to be and to live with you and you with him. That's the story of Christmas. Let me pray. God I ask that you would come and as we have leaned in tonight for just a few moments. God would you now draw near to us your word says that we draw near to you you will draw near to us and we're asking for you to do that for your manual presence to come and reveal yourself to us. God maybe there's one here tonight that knows that they have not even understood the story of Christmas and maybe just something click tonight for the first time when you reveal yourself to them that you are real and that you love them and that you died on a cross to pay for their sins. And would you leave them God to say that they trust you and that they're going to give their life to follow you. Then God for some that maybe are here that are hurting, that are struggling, that are hanging on by the very fingernails to life, struggling. God would you come alongside to let them know they're not alone. You enter space in time not just to come to earth God to do this but you came to come to identify with us to be a perfect high priest that can intercede for us. And your word says that you live to make intercession for us. You're praying for us right now. God would you mind them that they're being prayed for by you that you're drawing them to you. And would you allow us to leave God with more than having lit a candle on our hand. God would you have lit God a fire in our hearts tonight as we draw near to you. Now we might live and worship you and manual God with us. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.