Sermon Transcript Tone Analysis

You know, the title of my messages of preparing for Christmas spiritually.

Cuz I thought about that a lot, you know, as we did all the decorating here at the church, you know, as the lady said, you know, it always starts here with the carrying all the tubs up and fluffing all the branches.

And I always laugh because these two sections, the pews are always entirely full of branches as they get fluffed in or laid out and all their to be assembled into this tree.

And then, for a church, that's kind of become the Symbol of the beginning of the season, right?

When we bring the tree up out and we put it all together and we do all of those things.

You know what?

I thought.

It's no different in my house, you know?

If my house, it seems like every year, it's starts with this group effort to construct, our Christmas Village.

You know, we have all these little tiny lighted houses and things that sit on top of our cabinets in our kitchen and it keeps growing.

We are now out of space.

So I don't know if we're going to have to start suburbs and other locations, or what James was wondering, if we could construct some sort of bridge between cabinets to, you know, put house is on, but it's become kind of a thing that you know, marks the beginning of the season for us.

And I always think it's hilarious to hear how much thought and debate goes on between my children of which house needs to be placed where as they do this every year, it's a discussion but it's kind of marks the beginning in the end of the season because it's always the first.

Decoration to go out in the last one to come down.

You know, but the bigger question that I really want to spend some time looking at today, as how do you prepare for Christmas spiritually.

You're the first one I think because when we truly prepare for Christmas there's a personal cleansing.

Isn't that kind of how it starts at our house is right?

You know, if we're going to get ready to start decorating, one of the things we do is we got to clean first, right?

Cuz if you move anything or bring all those tubs out there all dusty dirty, he got to clean it.

Matthew 5:8 says, blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.

You know, the word blessed in the original, Greek literally means happy.

You know, I'm from this statement it means that Jesus is telling us that the pure in heart are those who are happy and heart.

Simply because they will one day get to see God.

You know, when I read that I always think what sounds really simple.

All you have to do is be pure in heart, right?

But that whole pure in heart things, just not quite as simple as we would like it to be, is it?

Cuz I don't know about you but I know that there are a lot of days.

When if I'm honest with myself, if I'm honest with everybody else, it seems like my heart is a lot more polluted than pure.

You know, I still get angry when someone cuts me off in traffic, right?

Yeah, I still get frustrated when I lay out these really, really good plans and none of it happens that way.

None of it works that way.

I still get upset, you know, and Probably lose my temper, and my cool over things that really when I stopped and look back at it later.

Think that was stupid cuz it doesn't really matter, but at the time, it can seem so upsetting to us so important.

And we do those things.

You know what?

Maybe none of this applies to you.

Maybe you guys aren't like me.

Maybe you guys have it all, 100% figure it out and everything together and your heart is 100% pure.

You know, maybe you have no problem with that.

But for those of you who do for those of you who are like me and still struggle with it, you know I have I think we have to take this time when we start this whole spiritual journey at Christmas and we start thinking about these things to ask ourselves enough.

What do we have to do to be pure in heart?

You know, there's only one thing we can do and it's what we've been talking about with God's truth and Grace, you know, leading up to this.

You know, we cling to that good news that if we believe in God, if we confess our sins to him that he Will save us from our sins.

That he is our Salvation, he washes his clean.

That is how we become pure in heart.

Your King.

David ask God for the exact same thing and Psalm 51 10.

He wrote create in me a pure heart and renew a right Spirit Within Me.

And God knew David's heart.

He knew what it would take to make him clean and he granted that and we all need to know that it is simply that easy for all of us as well that God will allow us to be clean in heart.

He will give us that if we repent and we call on his name.

So it's that cleansing of heart that should start off this spiritual journey.

This Christmas The second one, you know, when we truly prepare for Christmas, there is a new arrangement of our priorities.

Matthew 6:33 says, but seek first, his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Yeah, it seems that an essential part of preparing for Christmas involves rearranging some things.

You know, for us, we always seems like we end up rearranging our furniture in our living room to decide where we're going to put the Christmas tree.

Yeah, this year we were trying to be strategic about how do you rearrange the furniture to kind of block the dog from being able to get to the tree?

Cuz we're not sure how are puppies going to handle her first Christmas?

And she's only tried to eat one ornament so far, but you know, we rearrange things.

But, you know, just as we rearrange our homes, seems like during this holiday season, a lot of other things.

Get rearranged to we rearrange schedules.

We arrange a lot of aspects of Our Lives.

For some reason, during this time of year were a lot more willing to do that.

We make things that may not have been a priority for us throughout the rest of your priority.

You know, will change schedules will work less will work late one night be able to leave early the next day to be able to make these family functions were willing to do that.

I think about our willingness to rearrange our homes and our schedules and other things, you know, are we Willing to rearrange our priorities.

Are we willing to move things around to make extra room in our heart for God to be able to fill us with more of his holy spirit, more of his presence during this time of year?

Cuz you know, if I've learned anything, it's that when we put Christ at the center of our Lives, it seems that all the other pieces, start to fall into place.

You know what, I think that's what Jesus meant in that verse that I shared their when he's talks about, you know, seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to, you know, Jesus is giving us an essential part of the puzzle of life there.

Yeah, Jesus makes it clear that if we are to succeed in life, our Focus must be on God first.

so often we just give God what's left over, what we didn't need for other things, the time, the resources, when we have it all backwards, but I don't think we can really consider ourselves prepared for Christmas prepared for the season.

If we haven't shifted some of our priorities, The third thing when we truly prepare for Christmas, there is a redecorating of your heart.

Now, how many of you like to watch those, you know, Home Makeover shows?

I know Connie probably never watch has any of those, but You know, they're entertaining to watch sometimes mean sometimes.

I can't stand them cuz I think, you know, all this does is give husbands chore list whenever they're Viet mats mats with me.

He knows what I mean, when our wives watch these things and they think my hubby could do that.

but, you know, if you ever noticed that a lot of the times when these designers come in and they're wanting to renovate, someone's house to make it more usable for them or just to make it look better to add value to it that Whenever the people having the work done, trust.

The contractor enough to let them do what they think needs to be done.

It usually turns out pretty good.

but every now and then you get that interesting episode where you have You know, the person who is too much of a control freak for that the person that has to maintain control over what's happening with their house with their space.

You know, they need to know everything that's going to happen.

They have to approve every step of it and if they don't, they're just not happy.

And in the end, they usually end up not getting what they wanted anyway, because they wouldn't just let the contractor, do what the contractor needed to do.

And, you know, it's sad because you think, man, if they just would have listened to that contractor, they could have turned that into something much more than what they were wanting.

Ezekiel 11:19.

Does, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.

I will remove from you, Your Heart of Stone.

And give you a heart of Flesh.

You know, part of preparing for not just Christmas but I think for the Christian life in general means that, you know, we need to let God come in and do what he needs to do.

But you know, when God redecorates a heart he must have complete control over that in order to accomplish what needs to be done.

You know, that can't be one of those things where we are only going to give him partial control because he know far too often.

We only give him that little bit of leeway, but I'm pretty tight.

Standards in the, you know, the only changes that were willing to allow him to make or the ones that we approve.

And that's sad because God's desire is to make your life and take it and make it into something far more than you could ever imagine.

You know, sometimes I feel like we think we have big hopes and Big Dreams for what we think our life could be, but I always think, The sad thing is, that's probably far less than what God knows we can do what God created us for.

If we simply will give him that control in our life, but we struggle to do that.

We struggle to give him that, you know, Blank Slate of okay, Lord, do whatever you need to do.

Make me into what you want me to be.

But if we will allow God to shape us into the person that he created, each of us to be, he can create something far more beautiful than anything we would ever imagine.

It's just like those designers who want to do their best work for those people in renovating their homes.