Christmas Means Love

Life of the Church

Good morning everyone, happy Sunday to you. And Merry Christmas.

It’s good to see you here with us today or visiting us online. If you are here for the first time, you’ll find a visitor card in the back of the chair in front of you. Please fill that out and leave it in our offering plate to let us know you were here.

I’ll begin our announcements today with a bit of sad news. Kitty Marion passed away this morning. She was Richard Marion’s mother and grandmother to Shannon Bartley and Holly Marion. I’m sure funeral details will be coming, but please keep Kitty’s family in your prayers.

You’ll notice that Sue isn’t here this morning. She’s home and not feeling well, so please be praying for her. She did text me this morning to say that both the orchestra and bells will be rehearsing tonight, so please keep that in mind if that applies to you.

We are celebrating the Lord’s Supper this morning. If you didn’t get your cup and bread and would like one, would you please raise your hand?

We’re largely going meeting free this month as far as deacons and church council and building and ground goes, and that includes the Men’s Ministry. They will be taking the month of December off.

The personnel team will be meeting this coming Friday morning at 10:00, though.

We would appreciate any donations for our Cookie Decorating event. We’ll need those today by 2:30, and today is also the deadline if you want to place a red Poinsettia in the church for Christmas.

Also, be sure to grab a yard sign on your way out for our Christmas Eve service. Sue is working on what that’s going to look like this year, but there will be a Christmas sermon, so please bring yourselves, your families, your neighbors, and whoever else at 7:00 on Christmas Eve for a very special worship service.

We’ll now begin worship with a prelude.

Opening Prayer

Let’s pray:

Father we’re so thankful for this morning, for everyone gathered here in Your name, and for this holy season that celebrates the arrival of Your son. We pray Your presence here this morning. We pray Your Spirit lifts up our voices in song, lifts our hearts to hear your truth, and lifts our spirits so that we may leave this place filled with joy and peace and love. For it’s in Christ’s name we ask it, Amen.

Our opening hymn this morning is #100 in your hymnals, “Angels We Have Heard on High.” Will you please stand?

Advent Candle

Today is the second Sunday of Advent, when we light the second candle on the Advent wreath—the Bethlehem candle. Like the Prophecy candle, the Bethlehem candle is purple, signifying seriousness, repentance, and royalty. The Bethlehem candle recalls the preparations Mary and Joseph made for the birth of Jesus.

Their preparations were probably not unlike ours when we’re looking forward to the birth of a child. Joseph and Mary wanted to be sure their son would have the necessary food, clothing, and shelter for life in this world. But while they were getting ready for that birth, they were interrupted by the Roman census.

Luke 2:1-7 reads:

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

And this is God’s holy word.

(LIGHT)

(I’ll invite the praise team up to) Our praise team will now sing one of my favorite Christmas carols, “Do You Hear What I Hear?”

Lottie Moon

As a part of the Southern Baptist church, one of our Christmas traditions is the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering to support international missions. Della, would you like to share a bit about what this offering is for?

(This offering was officially named in 1918 by the Woman’s Missionary Union in honor of the missionary to China who urged church in America to give sacrificially in support of spreading the gospel to all parts of the world.)

Please watch this video that shows some of the incredible blessings that your gifts to Lottie Moon provide.

(Video)

Our church goal for Lottie Moon this year is $5,000. Please consider giving.

Our offertory hymn this morning is #103, “Away in a Manger.”

Ladies Ensemble

I’ll invite our ladies up front now. We like to expand our musical offerings during the Christmas season. Included in that is our ladies ensemble. This morning, they’ll be singing “All is Well.”

Lord’s Supper

Christian tradition says that Jesus and his disciples celebrated the last supper on the Thursday before his arrest. We celebrate and honor the last supper this morning as part of our preparation for Christmas.

I invite all who know Jesus as their Savior to participate. As always, we begin with the bread, so have that ready.

These disposable communion cups have two layers and it’s a little tricky, but there’s a thin piece of cellophane right above the tab that opens the juice. Pull back on that top tab, and you’ll find the bread. Fair warning though, that bread’s not the best.

Scripture teaches us that through Holy Communion, we connect with Christ not only in the memory of his death, but in the spiritual life he gives us. We have eternal life only with the life of Christ inside us.

Matthew writes that on the night of Jesus’s betrayal, he gathered his disciples in the very Upper Room where they would witness him resurrected. Each of the twelve were there. And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.”

And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

By him, we are made one with him. By his blood, we are made eternal.

Amen.

Sermon

Christmas means a lot of things to us, both as people living in America and as Christians living in the world. Last week we talked about the happiness of Christmas, and the difference between the happiness that the world offers and the happiness that God offers.

The happiness that comes from God is rooted in hope, and I can’t think of a better picture of hope than the child in the manger. But that’s just one aspect of what that child in the manger represents. He’s more than hope, isn’t he? A lot more.

I’m going to be spending the month of December talking about the things that Christmas is, and by “Christmas” I don’t mean the tree and the lights and the presents. I mean the child. And if there’s any word at all that best describes that child, it’s love.

Love is the very definition of God. It’s the power behind His every act and word, and it’s the reason why we celebrate the miracle of Christmas every year.

One of the first things we’re taught as new Christians is that we’re bound by sin. No matter who we are, we’re broken and mangled in our hearts, always doing what we know we shouldn't be doing, always stumbling, always choosing what we want over what is right.

And no matter who we are, there’s no fixing that on our own. That sinful nature we have is what separates us from God. That’s basic Christianity, sin’t it? To the Christian faith, sin is a central tenet. It explains everything from why the world is such a mess to why we’re all such a mess.

And make no mistake — that mess is our own doing. We had paradise, had a garden and a fresh new world where there was no pain, no want, no worry, no fear. A place where God Himself would come down to walk among His creation. Everything — everything — was perfect in every sense. And we gave it all away. We had everything but thought we needed even more.

So what’s God supposed to do? I’ll tell you what He’s supposed to do. He’s supposed to just cut us loose. He’s supposed to say, “If that’s the way you want it, fine. Go ahead. Make your choices and suffer your consequences. Have it your way.”

Because that’s what we would do in God’s place, right? Honestly? We’d say, “Fine, have it your way. You want nothing to do with me, then I’ll have nothing to do with you.” And there aren’t many people who’d say we’d be wrong in saying that.

But, you see, God isn’t us. Have you ever stopped and thought about that? We talked a few weeks ago about being thankful. If you ever really want to be thankful for the God you serve, if you ever want a reason to bow down and worship Him, all you have to do is stop for a minute and think about how God isn’t like you.

Because — and let’s just say this as plain as we can — every day, every single day, we break God’s heart. Think of the best, most faithful, most Christ-like person you know. That person can’t make it through the morning without breaking God’s heart, and if that person can’t, what chance do you have?

But now think about the one person in the world you love the most. The person you always want to be there for. The one who holds your heart. You would do anything for that person, wouldn’t you? There’s no mountain you wouldn’t climb, no pain you wouldn’t endure. The only thing you want and work for is their safety and comfort and happiness.

So where did the love you have for that person come from? A biologist might say it’s a product of evolution, a leftover in our DNA from a time when we all had to stick together or die. A sociologist might say it’s a way of making sure that society remains together, that without love the entire social structure begins to fall apart.

Both of them are wrong. Love isn’t a process of evolution. It’s not some human invention. The love we have to give to others is there because we are made in the image of God. That love we have for our one special person is the dimmest shadow of God’s love for you. That is the barest amount of God’s love, but it’s the most love that can fit inside the human heart.

There is no greater power we can have. Without it, we’re less than human. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians, “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”

Why? Why is love so highly valued in the Bible? Simply put, because God is love. Because we have no greater likeness to the God who created us than when we love someone else. And because love is what Christmas is truly all about.

Today, we’re going to be looking at a time just before that first Christmas, and a person who served as the bridge between the Old Testament prophets and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That person is John the Baptist, and we’ll be reading about him from the book of Mark, chapter 1, verses 1-8. Turn with me there now, and follow along:

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,

“Behold, I send my messenger before your face,

who will prepare your way,

the voice of one crying in the wilderness:

‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight,’”

John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

And this is God’s word.

John Mark, the author of this gospel, doesn’t mess around. He gets right into the story from word one. You won’t find a genealogy of ancestors from Adam to Jesus like you will in Matthew. There’s no story of the nativity like you’ll find in Luke. And there’s no beautiful prose like you’ll find at the beginning of John.

Mark just jumps right into it, and verse 1 is all the introduction we get. But notice at what that introduction says: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

That’s interesting, isn’t it? Mark’s saying that the gospel of Christ didn’t begin with the birth of Christ. It actually begins with John the Baptist. Then a few verses later, Mark actually says it began even earlier than that with prophets like Isaiah, and earlier still with patriarchs like Abraham, all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

All through the Bible we read names associated with Jesus: Emmanuel. Christ. Logos. Lord. Master. Son of Man. Mark adds his own — this is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Again, not mincing words.

All of the gospel writers wrote their books to different audiences. Matthew’s gospel, for instance, was written for the Jewish Christians. Mark is writing to the gentiles, people who have no idea of the Hebrew God, so the best way he can describe Jesus is the way he does here — Jesus is the Son of God. He’s equal with his father, having the same sinless nature, all the same perfection.

This is what John the Baptist preached. Mark uses the word “proclaimed.” And what did John proclaim? What did he say that drew people the way he did? This is what Mark begins to talk about next.

He says there are four things that make up John’s ministry: one, the Old Testament anticipated Christ, namely in the promises of the prophets. Two, John appeared in a wilderness according to those promises. Three, he announced the way to God. And four, he assured people that all of this was true by the symbol of baptism. Let’s look at each of these.

First, the anticipation. Look at what Mark says in verses 2 and 3: “As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’”

This translation — the English Standard — gives the reference for this quotation to Isaiah. But in many of the earlier translations, the first part verse 2 simply says, “As it is written in the prophets.”

Remember, Mark is writing to the Gentiles, people who have no background knowledge at all about the Jewish faith or the religious leaders of their past. So he has to keep it general, which is why he says “the prophets” instead of stating the specific one.

But it’s Isaiah who wrote the words quoted here, and also the prophet Malachi, who wrote in Malachi 4:5:

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.”

And this quote is exactly what is given in Luke 1:17, when an angel comes to Zechariah to say his wife will have a son named John:

“...and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

Both prophesied that before the great king would come to Israel, a messenger would come before him, to prepare the way. And the message he would bring would come at the greatest moment with the greatest importance, which is why the first word of Isaiah’s quote is that beautiful word “Behold.”

Whenever you see that word in the Bible, it means you better pay attention to what comes next, because it’s important. And this messenger will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

Isaiah and Malachi anticipated John. There’s a sense in their words of a thing so certain that even those hundreds of years before this moment, God had already brought it to pass. John would come. He would make his appearance in Israel and declare that the long-expected Messiah was born. The kingdom of heaven was at hand, so the Jews must repent of their sins and believe in Christ.

Now, why would God send John the Baptist ahead of Christ to announce the Messiah’s arrival?

God knew that before He and humanity could come together, there had to be a step of preparation. God doesn’t just suddenly appear before us and expect us to receive Him. Some preparation has to be made first. That’s why He sends John as that preparer, to go before the Lord and make a way for him through repentance, and we’ll get to that in a moment.

Before we do that, though, we have to look at the second thing that made up John’s ministry: “the voice of one,” it says in verse 3, “crying in the wilderness.”

Then in verse 4 we read, “John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

The wilderness. Why in the world would John begin his ministry in the wilderness? If he’d listened to the public relations people of the day, the wilderness would be the last place John would choose to begin his ministry.

John preached in the desert region that extended from Hebron to the Dead Sea. It’s a dreary place of rocky valleys, some more than a thousand feet deep. The Hebrews called that wilderness “Jeshimon”, which means “the appalling desolation”, or “the horror.”

Sounds like a great place to start a ministry, doesn’t it? Sounds like the perfect environment to grow something. But really, it is. God chose this place for John because the wilderness is a symbol. The desert is a picture of our world. More than that, it’s a picture of us — of our dry, empty, barren, tired lives.

People think that physical or emotional pain is the worst thing that can happen in life. That’s the thing we should do all we can to avoid. But that’s not exactly true. Do you know what’s really behind all the money we spend? All the chasing after things that we do? Do you want to know what the wilderness of life truly is?

I read an article the other day about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. They were the original power couple, two of the most powerful people in Hollywood. Also, according to just about everyone in America, the perfect couple.

Do you know what broke up their marriage? Boredom. They were just bored. Bored with their lives, bored with each other. They had everything they could possibly want, but didn’t want anything they had.

That is the symbol of the desert where John preached. That is the symbol of human life, and in that dry and barren place where nothing good can grow, God will spring up new and eternal life.

And how will God bring that new life to pass? By using John to announce the way to heaven. Look at the end of verse 4: “... proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

That’s John’s ministry in just a few words. That’s the message. Repentance is the way that we come to God, and the result of that repentance is the forgiveness of our sins.

And of all the blessings that God gives us, is there any greater blessing than forgiveness? When we come right down to it, is there anything any of us want more than the peace of being right with God? The peace that comes when we know fully and finally that there is nothing separating us from Him?

That’s what all of the people in and around Jerusalem were looking for, because that’s what all people in all places at all times have always been looking for. And they found it when they went out into the wilderness to listen to John. They found that forgiveness of sins in the promise of a Messiah who had already been born.

But now wait — John’s baptizing people. How can he do that? How can sins be taken away before the death of Christ happens? Because that faith in Christ’s resurrection is what allows our sins to be forgiven, right? So what’s John doing here?

It all comes down to what forgiveness means. Forgiveness needs to be understood in order to be practiced.

Forgiveness always comes in two parts. Somehow we’ve all grown up with the idea that the only way forgiveness happens is if someone comes up and apologizes to you for something. Right? If someone’s done something wrong to you, and if you can get them to admit it and apologize, then you forgive them.

But that’s completely wrong. When you think about it, how many acts of forgiveness, of reconciliation, would ever happen based on doing things like that? Hardly any. That’s why God sent John out into the desert to start preaching something that only Christ could ultimately fulfill. Because forgiveness always has to start before the person who offended you comes to you.

That’s the lesson of the prodigal son. The prodigal son comes home after wasting his father’s wealth and his own life. He’s broken. He’s humbled to the point where he just wants to be his father’s servant.

But the moment his father sees him coming down the road, he flings open his arms and runs. And before the son can even ask for forgiveness, he’s being held and kissed while a fatted calf is being prepared.

You see? Forgiveness doesn’t start with the words, “I’m sorry.” Forgiveness starts in the heart of the one who’s been wronged. It begins with being ready to forget the hurt, because that’s what forgiveness really is. Not holding what someone has done over their head, bringing it up every once in a while. It’s forgetting it. It’s treating the person as if it had never happened.

John’s message is that God will offer that forgiveness, but you have to repent. And in verse 5, we see how much that message resonated with the people.

“And all the country of Judaea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.”

People came from everywhere. They heard of this new preacher saying things that were ancient, like the prophets of old, but saying them in a way that no one had ever said before. “All the country of Judaea,” Mark says. “All Jerusalem.”

Does that mean that every single person in the country came out there to hear him preach and be baptized? No, of course not. No matter where or when it is, there will always be people who won’t respond to God’s call.

No, what Mark means is that every kind of person came. The rich came. The poor. The famous. The unknown. Men. Women. Children. The powerful. The weak. Tax collectors and soldiers. Jews and Gentiles.

Why? Because the message John had for them was God’s message, and God’s message isn’t to anyone, it’s to everyone. It’s universal. It spans all of time. The people who walked out into that desert to hear John preach might be long dead. They might have lived in an entirely different world than the one we live in today. But they were no different than us.

Mark now moves from John’s message to John’s appearance. His clothes were made of camel hair. He wore a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts and wild honey.

Mark doesn’t mention these things just to create a picture of John in our minds. Instead, he mentions them because they’re all symbols of the purpose God had given him. Everything about John was the message he preached. Here is the rugged prophet we all know, who looks very much like Elijah — the prophet that Malachi compared him to.

Clothes made of camel hair. Do you know what a camel’s hair feels like? It’s coarse. Rough. Like sackcloth, the garments people in the Old Testament would wear when they mourned or repented of their sins. The clothing of the penitent. Just like John’s preaching.

You want forgiveness? It’s yours, but you have to repent. You want heaven? It’s yours for the having, but you have to turn away from all the temptations of this world to get to the point where you can have the next one.

A belt made of leather. The people of that land wore a girdle around their waist to keep their long robes tight around them. That way they could move more freely as they journeyed or worked.

And for John, life was all about journeying and working. That was his message too. Life — real life, the life God wants you to have and the life that’s meant for you to enjoy — is not boring. It’s the furthest thing from boring there is.

His diet was simple. To John, food was fuel for the body rather than an indulgence. It was another way of demonstrating his separateness from the world.

Both honey and locusts were permitted to be eaten by Jewish law. Sometimes locusts were ground and mixed with flour and water to make cakes. Other times, they were simply salted and eaten. The wild honey was simply honey made from wild bees, either in the trees or in the hollows of rocks.

Food at its most basic. Inferior food. Again, this is consistent with the message John preached — stop living like this world is the only world that matters, because everything in this world points toward the eternal one that follows.

What was John’s ministry? What did his clothing and diet represent? Simple beginnings. If you looked at him, you saw a picture of every sermon he preached — this is not the end, it is only the beginning. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God is repentance on our part. That’s where we begin.

Most of us think of John as this rugged, fearless guy who preached judgment and torment. But if that was the message John preached, who in their right mind would leave Jerusalem to hear it?

Nobody is going to want to listen to someone who preaches like that. Hellfire and brimstone won’t get you far in drawing people to church. People don’t need to always be told there’s a hell, because most of them are already living inside some version of one. And John didn’t preach like that either. He preached the gospel. And what does the gospel mean? It means the good news.

Something drew all of those people out of their cities and towns and homes to the desert. It was a hunger they couldn’t feed, a thirst that no water could get rid of. What did Christ come with? He came with love. And what does that love drive out? Sin.

And what is sin? It’s always good to get a little refresher on the basics from time to time, so let’s do that right now. What is sin? Sin is basically self-centeredness. We sin because we’re constantly thinking of ourselves, indulging ourselves, looking out for ourselves.

And we’re all its victims. We’re trapped in it constantly. It’s the curse that hangs over the entire human race. God made us to be vessels of His love. His love fills us, and through us His love overflows into the world. But sin twists all of that to where instead of reaching out to the world, we reach inside and love ourselves first.

And what’s the result of that? What does our sin always produce in us? Guilt. Guilt is always the consequence of sin. We hate ourselves because of what we do. We don’t like the fact that we hurt other people, and yet we still do. We feel responsible because we see the damage we do in other people’s lives, and we feel guilty about it. Talk to any psychologist, they’ll tell you the greatest problem people wrestle with is self-hatred. That’s guilt.

And the result of that guilt always the same — it’s fear. It’s the feeling that we can’t handle life anymore, knowing that there are things we just can’t control. So we run from them the same way that Adam and Eve ran when they felt the guilt of their own sin, and we’ve been running ever since.

That fear grows inside us, that uncertainty about the future, and we’re afraid of what will happen next. We’re walking on eggshells, afraid of being rejected, afraid of what people will do to us, and especially afraid of what God will do to us. And that’s a pain like no other.

But there’s hope, and that was John’s message. Hope is coming, and it’s coming in the form of unconditional love. Verses 7 and 8:

And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

Sandals were the shoes of that day, and they were fastened by a lace. To stop down and loosen the sandals was an act that a servant would do for his master, and John says he’s not even worthy to be called a servant to Christ. He says, “I baptize you with water. He will pour out his spirit on you so completely that you will be cleansed of every sin.

That’s why Isaiah said that John’s message would prepare the road to Christ by making the way straight. John’s words were like a bulldozer right through the wilderness of our hearts. They make the highway in the desert, leading straight to Jesus.

That, friends, is love. That is Christmas. A child born as a gift to the entire world, wrapped not in flesh and bone, but in the love of a God who will pursue you every day in every circumstance because He refuses to give up on you. Refuses to leave you broken and alone. Refuses to let you go another moment without knowing how much He cares.

This is the season for hope. And it is the season for love. There is a broken world right out there, and we are the hands and hearts to piece it back together. Christmas is a time to reflect on the greatest gift the world has ever received.

But it’s also a call to action for anyone who calls Christ Lord. It’s a reminder that the good news still has places to reach, and those places are right here. Because we’re all a desert inside, and it’s our job to let God make a road. And if you’re tired of walking in that desert, I invite you up here as we sing our closing hymn.

Let’s pray:

Father when we think about Christmas we think about joy. We think about happiness. We think about family. And most of all, Father, we think about love. Not the fragile sort of love that humans can offer, but the deep and abiding and eternal love of you for each of us. The love of Christmas. Help us this day and every day to accept that love you have for us. Help us to embrace that love as the foundation for all of our faith and hope and trust in You. And help us, Father, every day, to mirror that love to all we meet. For it’s in Jesus’s name we pray, Amen.

Our closing hymn this morning is #118, “What Child is This?” Will you please stand.