2023-11-26 - Christmas 1

Well Pleased

Intro:

Do you ever have a project your working on and when its finished you look back and think, wow, I am pleased in how this has turned out? Perhaps a crafting project, a building project or even a beautiful meal at Thanksgiving or Christmas?

Link:

At Christmas, we enjoy in our family setting up our Christmas tree and then for a month, 2 or 3 we will sit back and enjoy its beauty, were pleased in the work of putting it up and decorating it.

Christmas trees are a big part of our traditional Christmas celebration. But where did they originate from and why? There are some differences in understandings of how they came to be part of our celebration but most tradition gives the idea of how: Some legends tell us that a missionary who planted churches across Europe, one day used the Evergreen as an object lesson to show how the tree is triangular like the triangle we would see in a description of the Holy Trinity. He used its green needle to talk about Jesus and hope and life in the cold harsh season of winter.

Eventually we hear of how Martian Luther walking home in the winter one night saw the stars glowing through the tree and he saw light and hope in the cold season. He went home, put a tree in his house and put candles on it to duplicate the look of the stars. He told and taught his family this:

Luther taught his friends and family that the tree represented the everlasting love of God. He pointed out that the evergreen’s color did not fade, just as the Lord’s love would not fade, no matter what the circumstance or trial. The candlelight represented the hope that Christ brought to the world through his birth and resurrection. Thus, to those who knew Luther, the tree evolved into a symbol not just of Christmas but of Christian faith in general. - Collins, Ace. Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas (Stories Behind Books) (pp. 73-74). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

By the mid 1840’s it finally made its way to the USA for good and became a Christmas Tradition.

As we look Evergreens though, their is something unique to them, that is the “Leader” branch.

The dominant stem that grows straight up

Responsible for its overall height

It’s thicker and longer that its surrounding branches

It holds the tissue responsible for new growth

It provides structural support for the trees crown

It distributes water and nutrients through the plant

it determiners the tree’s overall shape

Produces new growth

So how does this relate to us as we are heading int the Christmas season?

Mankind needs a leader, this is part of God’s design. We are all drawn to leaders and aven as were looking on Sunday nights, Leaders have Leaders to Follow. The leader of Israel, King Saul has a leader to follow, God.

Mankind elected a new leader

Just as the Israelites elected a new leader, a human leader… At one point in time Adam elected to follow a new leader also, he stopped following God and started to follow Satan.

Genesis 3:14–15 “So the Lord God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life. 16 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.””

In his popular sermon “Kingdom Authority,” Dr. Adrian Rogers shares with us how as mankind, we removed our leader in our lives. Adam believing Satan's lie, removed God off the throne of his heart and life and gave the throne to Satan. Like the removal or the “Leader branch”, a new one will come inits place, in our situation, man removed God and Satan quickly sat on the throne of our hearts.

Sin is passed down to all men and thus the heart of all men has satan sitting on it.

Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—

God made a way for that to be righteously redeemed

Jesus Righteously made a way to dethrone satan in your heart.

Jesus was tested before he was able to make that way of escape for us. God confirmed it too.

Luke 3:22 And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.

Jesus at his baptism by John the Baptist, the Trinity was present, the Holy Spirit & the Father both showed up and laid claim to Jesus as the third part of the Trinity.

God was pleased with Jesus. In Christ, God is pleased with us.

2 Corinthians 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

We couldn’t dethrone satan, no matter what we do

God made a way though, he gave us the means to do it - JESUS

If we invite God into our lives again, he legally and righteously will come in and dethrone satan and place Jesus there in our hearts to lead us.

Application 1: If you find satan lying to you, telling you he’s still on the throne of your heart, or he just is standing there by Christ on His throne of your heart and he’s yelling orders to you, stop, pray, rebuke satan and he’ll flee from you.

James 4:7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

For us as a church, we must also recognize that like a Leader branch, Jesus is our head and leader.

As a local body, if we want to grow, then we must look to Jesus and follow him as He moves upward, forward.

We must realize the ways of God and implement them if we are going to grow strong, healthy and vibrant.

Obeying the line of authority that God has given over us as a church, our church leadership that is.

Obeying His word which instructs us in how we should act and live our lives morally and Biblically

So this Christmas when you see a Christmas Tree, you can think of the Trinity, the hope we have in this cold dark world of sin we live in but we also can see that top branch where we put the star or the angel. We can remember the tree is tall and has grown to new heights b/c of that one branch, the leader branch. It can remind us that Christ is the head of the church and if we want to grow healthy as a church, then we must recognize Him “FULLY” as our leader, we must not just say this but we must do this, implement into action what His word teaches all of us.

So how about you? Whose on the throne of your heart? ABC

So how about you? If your answer was Jesus, then are you following Him, are you trusting what He says to do or do you struggle with it and some days you are living like Satan is still on the throne of your heart? do you miss those days?

Closing Song: #4 - Now I Belong To Jesus