Carols By Candlelight 2023

It’s always hard to know what to say at Christmas Carol service. Lots of good people here, all with different expectations and understandings and opinions about what Christmas is all about.

In fact that’s the voice of our age isn’t it. Everyone has a right to decide what is right.

But it’s not a new way of thinking, it’s come and gone for thousands of years.

This is how a preacher called Paul, 2000 years ago, started his sermon to group of people who also were good people - like you here today.

I’ve adjusted it for us a little:

People of Worcester Park!

I see that in many ways you are a very good and moral people.

For as I walk around and look carefully at your lifestyles and choices I see you aim to be good.

Yet I also see that you are unsure about the true meaning and purpose of life.

You have Hope for a good future, but you don’t know if the gods you trust in will deliver - the gods of money, hard work or privilege.

So you are ignorant of the very thing you live for - and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

This is the claim of the bible you see - that as human beings we can’t all be right about God, about Jesus, about Hope, by definition we must be ignorant.

But if there is a God who came to us that first Christmas - he needs to show himself to us - to reveal THE truth, and The Hope we all want.

And that is what God has given us in the bible.

Now of course if you don’t believe the bible is God’s revelation of himself, then you might dismiss all this quickly.

But there are things about the bible that no-man or woman should risk dismissing too fast.

Take this preacher Paul for example who we just quoted.

He began his career by persecuting and killing Christians while Jesus was still alive and after he was crucified on the cross.

But then, the risen Lord Jesus - I know, if you’re not a Christian it’s hard to believe Jesus rose from the dead - but bear with me - having met the risen Lord Jesus - Paul committed the rest of his life to proclaiming the good news of Jesus.

And he hardly did it for the sort of future and hope we often have. That of a wealthy retirement, good holidays, and healthy and happy family. A festive and enjoyable Christmas.

Far from it - he faced nothing but human and natural opposition for converting to Christianity!

His challenges are even listed in a letter he wrote to the Collossians in the NT:

whipped with 39 lashes (5 different times)

beaten with rods (3 different times)

pummelled with stones

shipwrecked

adrift at sea

frequent difficult journeys

danger from rivers

danger from robbers

danger from his own people

danger from Gentiles

danger in the city

danger in the wilderness

danger at sea

danger from false brothers

toil and hardship

sleepless nights

hungry and thirsty

cold and exposed

The point is that something extraordinary must have happened to make him change from a respected religious persecutor of this new upstart faith in Jesus,

to be willing to face untold misery and persecution himself for the Lord Jesus.

I barely risk going in my own Child’s bedroom if he’s upset incase I stand on a piece of lego!

And yet Paul eventually died defending that he’d seen Jesus risen from the dead.

Why would he do that for a lie?

Maybe he is worth listening too after all.

Maybe he had seen proof of a Hope far beyond what any of us could hope for in this life.

Maybe he is qualified to tell us - “I see you have hope for a good future, but you don’t know what that hope is truly based on!”

Well then - this is what he said next:

- again I have adjusted it for our own context:

‘The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples or worldviews built or imagined by human hands or minds. And he is not served by human hands or minds, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.

We should not think that the divine being is like all other religions, or cultural opinions about what is right and wrong — he is not an image or idea made up by human design and skill - to reject him, or replace him with some other thinking is vanity.

In the past God overlooked such ignorance as that, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man, Jesus, he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Jesus from the dead.’

Now

When the people of Paul’s time heard about the resurrection of the dead and the judgement to come, some of them sneered, we read, but others said, ‘We want to hear you again on this subject.’

I wonder which you are?

Do you sneer at the claims of Christianity - that the God of the bible is the only God.

He created all and sustains all life.

All people belong to him.

And yet - as we each know - we have hardly lived a life as if we belong to God.

We instead look for hope in money, or family, or power or simply by being a good person.

‘Repent’ commands God - or we will be judged justly - as we deserve.

Is any of that worth our consideration? Can we risk dismissing it all? When the eyewitnesses of that time were prepared to die for this message?

Or do you want to find out more?

Perhpas you’re prepared to investigate whether there is enough evidence that Jesus did rise from the dead - and so he and his claims to be God would have to be taken very seriously!

Perhaps the story of Paul gives you enough confidence for once, to stop looking for Hope in manmade ideas that are all eventually robbed by death - and to at least consider Jesus

Perhaps there is something here!

SO - what is this something - what is the good news of Jesus.

What is the point of Christmas - that for once might be worth listening to?

Well, Jesus did not come to bring us festive family fun each year.

He didn’t even come to give us the sort of hope we often think we want. A comfortable future here on earth.

Rather - he came at Christmas to bring us - a sure and certain hope beyond our imagining!

One of our readings told us exactly why Jesus came, and why it is good news for us.

As the Angels appeared to some very ordinary people - shepherds, they announced to them what we all need to know:

Luke 2:10–11 NIV 2011

But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.

I too would be afraid if an angel appeared out of nowhere and started talking.

BUt If we’re honest , many of us are actually afraid of what this world is coming too as well.

Wars, climate concerns, a crumbling NHS, economic meltdown.

And more seriously, if God is real - and we keep dismissing Him, then judgement too.

But don’t be afraid is the message - Christmas is Good news for our dark world and lives.

It’s good news because God has sent His son - and the angels highlighted 3 titles for Jesus in that verse:

A Saviour has been born

He is the Messiah

The Lord.

We’ve already thought about the coming judgement that faces those who do not repent before the God of all things.

But God doesn’t judge becasue he is mean or unkind - but becasue he is good.

He desires a future where all evil, all sadness, all tears are wiped away - and sadly that means non of us by our own strength could be there.

So does this mean God does not love his own created people?

Does God love you, sat in church today for the 1st time, or the 4th, or the hundreths!?

God does love you - and despite our rejection of Him, he has not rejected us.

And he sends a saviour to be born.

The simple Christmas and Christian message is that God loves us enough to come to us himself in the person of Jesus.

This is why the death of Jesus on the cross that we remember at Easter is so key to the Christian faith. Jesus was literally born - to die.

Because on the cross, Jesus willingly took the judgement from God upon himself for those who repent and believe in him.

God’s justice and goodness is satified - and yet we can be saved!

Jesus came to be our saviour.

Secondly he is the Messiah.

Messiah means the promised one.

In other words, in the OT of the bible, God made many promises to His people that a saviour and king would come to make all things right.

We read part of one earlier from the book of Isaiah:

‘The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.’

Jesus is the light in let’s face it a dark world!

He fulfils the promises of salvation and Hope that we don’t have without him.

And as we read the bible and see Jesus fulfilling these promises written hundreds of years before he was even born.

Well then we have more reason to trust the Bible as a reliable and accurate account of who God is.

Christianity is not a myth based, leave you head at the door religion.

It is a historical, logical assessment that should cause us to think seriously about it’s claims..

Just as Paul did who went from persecutor to persecuted for the salvation and Hope that Jesus offers.

So Jesus is the Saviour - so we must repent and believe in him,

and the Messiah - so we can trust his words and promises of the coming judgement and our need for salvation in Him alone..

And 3rdly - He came as Lord.

We don’t really have Lords anymore - not in the full sense of the Title.

But a Lord is someone who you belong too. You live in their land, you work for them, they provide what you need and you do what they say.

The difference between human lord’s and the Lord Jesus - is that Jesus is and always will be a wonderful Lord.

Because he made us he knows what we need more than we do.

He knows what is best for us.

And he has a sure future of eternity with Him held out for us.

A HOPE that is far better, and completely certain.

Christians still live in the world as we all do, but we have been saved by our saviour, we trust our Messiah, and we now live for our Lord.

Christian hope is not based on retirement, or comfort, or health - Christians face the same things we all do.

Christians are not special or super moral,

We have just found truth, and a Hope beyond this world in Jesus.

Christmas - gives Christians A sure and certain Hope for our future - whatever we face now.

We have been saved by our saviour, we trust in promises that he will return -and we live for him for he is Lord both now and always.

Christmas says - God Loves you.

Here is your saviour, messiah and Lord.

He commands you to repent to access the full Hope he offers.

And I plead with you to do the same - or at the very least - do not let this Christmas pass without committing to finding out more about Jesus.

Pray - repentance.