Sermon Tone Analysis
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ME: Intro
Try to think of the best gift you have ever given.
If you are like me,
It is much easier to think of the best gift I have ever been given.
But I want to you to try and think about the best give you have ever given.
Can anyone think of their answer?
And who did you give this best gift ever to?
A spouse?
A child?
A parent?
A sibling?
Another family member?
A close friend?
Whoever it was,
Think about why that was the person you gave your best gift ever to?
My assumption is that you gave them the best give ever,
Because you love them, right?
We give our best gifts to those we most love.
And the same is true with God.
Slide
The Bible says in John 3:16,
John 3:16 (ESV)
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
God so loved the world.
That means God gave you His best gift ever,
His only Son.
Because of His love for you.
But do you believe that?
Do you believe God really loves you?
Perhaps you would admit,
“Yea, I know that’s what this says.”
But in your mind,
You wonder how could God love you.
Knowing some of the things you have done,
Or things you have said,
Or even just thought.
You are left asking yourself,
Does God really love me?
For the month of December,
We have been doing a series called Ghosts of Christmas Past.
It is about the things from our past that cause us to ask this question,
Things from our past that haunt us.
So, each Sunday we focused on offenses, shame, and labels.
We talked about how we have struggled to let go of offenses from our past.
And how things we have done or things that have been done to us leave us feeling this sense of shame.
And how we get labeled by others because of our past.
But the purpose of these discussions have been to help us discover how to overcome these things.
How to overcome offenses, shame, and labels.
Christmas shows us that we overcome because love came down.
So, to go back to that question,
Does God really love me?
To put it simply,
Yes, you are the one Jesus loves.
That is why love came down.
WE:
I would like to share an example of this from John 6:25-35,
Where love came down in the form of a feast!
Big feasts are a common part of Christmas celebrations around the world.
When we think of Christmas,
Part of what comes to mind is a table full of delicious food filling the house with smells that make our mouths water.
We bust out our nice dishes,
And we eagerly await the moment we get to dig in to fill our stomachs.
Only to figure out how to make room for the cookies that follow.
Slide
In fact, the famous Charles Dickens’ play, A Christmas Carol, taps into this.
The Ghost of Christmas present is described as a luxurious figure,
Sitting on a throne of food from Christmas feasts around the world.
Turkeys, geese, poultry, pork, sausages, mince-pies, plum puddings, oysters, chestnuts, apples, oranges, pears, and punch.
Slide
Then, this ghost takes Scrooge to the home of Bob Cratchit,
His overworked and underpaid clerk.
The Cratchits were having their own dinner:
A small goose with stuffing, mashed potatoes, and apple sauce,
Followed by plum pudding.
A relatively substantial meal that the family saved up all year to have.
But it is still too small to meet their needs.
Fast forward to the end of the story.
Scrooge buys the massive prize turkey that was bigger than Tiny Tim for their Christmas feast.
So, although I do not know what each of you will do for a Christmas meal tomorrow.
I am sure each of you have your own traditions.
But in John 6, Jesus teaches about a different kind of feast,
A spiritual one,
And the food at this feast He calls the Bread of Heaven.
Slide
This term first appears in Exodus 16:4.
This was an astonishing time for the people of God.
They were en route from their slavery in Egypt to the land that was promised to them by God.
This journey began with God miraculously splitting the Red Sea open,
So, they could cross it on dry land while the water was walled up around them on both sides.
Then, once they crossed,
God collapsed the water on the Egyptian army pursuing after them,
Delivering from that threat.
But then, a new threat emerged.
The threat of starvation.
Because they were in the desert with no food.
It is estimated that it could be as many as two million people in need of food.
So, God addressed this threat in Exodus 16:4,
Exodus 16:4 (ESV)
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you.”
So, God made this bread miraculously appear every morning for people to collect and eat.
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