Christmas Eve: Finding Christ in Our World

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The Series: Rediscover Christmas

Title of the message this Morning

Christmas Eve: Finding Christ in Our World

Introduction

As you know, we’ve been on a journey together over the past four weeks through Advent.

We’ve learned together that Advent is a season of expectant waiting as we focus and reflect on Christ’s coming—

His coming to earth on that first Christmas long ago and His eventual triumphant return to earth to complete God’s ultimate work of redemption.

Each week of Advent we have focused on a different aspect of God’s character embodied in, brought into our world, and lived out in Jesus: hope, peace, joy, and love.

The Christmas story is a powerful story, filled with wonder and miracles.

It is the story of Jesus coming to earth as the most wonderful gift of all eternity.

As we have walked through various parts of the Christmas story these past four weeks, we have explored the intersection of Jesus in the lives of real people who played a role in His arrival.

And we have seen that as He brought hope, love, joy, and peace into their lives in very real ways, He will do the same for us today.

Today, let’s briefly trace our way through portions of this Christmas story again, highlighting all that it means that Christ is come, and all we can rediscover about Christmas in Him.

Main Teaching

1. Finding Hope in Our Uncertainties

When uncertainty surrounds us, the promise of Christ fills us with hope to carry on.

Hope is the breath that keeps us alive.

Hope is the fuel of faith. And dreams. And possibilities.

Hope is that whisper of maybe, just maybe.

It’s the spark in the cold darkness that catches flame.

It’s the flicker of first light on a new morning.

In the worst sufferings and atrocities and catastrophes of human history, there has always remained a flicker of hope.

Throughout enslavement, imprisonment, torture, and tragedy, there have been those who have clung to the smallest sparks of hope and fanned them within to an eventual survival or freedom or release.

Throughout the history of the Jewish people, there was the hope of God’s covenant.

There was the promise of restoration and blessing through the Messiah.

But time dragged on, and the nation was plundered.

Its people were exiled and conquered.

“How long, O God?” was the cry of the ancient Israelite people as year after year, century after century passed.

But there were those who kept hope alive, living expectantly and faithfully, trusting openly and wholeheartedly that God would come through.

Simeon and Anna were two of those people who encountered the baby Jesus.

They had lived long, difficult lives.

They had known loss and disappointment.

But they did not abandon hope.

And when they saw the baby Jesus, just about six weeks old, in the temple, they knew without a doubt that this was the Messiah, the promised one, the Son of God.

They were ready and waiting for this moment.

And they embraced the moment of this hope fulfilled with rejoicing and worshiping and spreading the news.

The flames of their hope spread beyond and multiplied.

Friends, how is the flame of your hope today?

This might have been a tough year for you, the kind of year that threatens to extinguish the flames of our hope.

Let me encourage you, no matter where you’re at, to rediscover hope this Christmas in the coming of the Christ child.

With the arrival of Immanuel, God With Us, God has come to restore hope—the hope of salvation, the hope of restoration and healing, the hope of His continued work that He will one day complete in our bodies and souls and world.

As we come humbly to worship Jesus, we can find the renewal of His hope within us, the strength to take the next hopeful step, and the strength to carry us forward.

With this verse as our prayer, let’s rediscover the hope that Christ has come and He is working in our lives today: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13, NIV).

2. Finding Peace in Our Struggles

The struggles are real, but the peace of Christ transcends within us, even in our darkest days.

Of course the announcement came in the dark of the night.

Of course the angels began their announcement to the shepherds with the words, “Don’t be afraid!”

Because of course they were afraid.

Because they were human, and there’s so much in our world that causes us to fear.

There’s so much that happens that we struggle to understand.

For the shepherds, that included why these magnificent, terrifying heavenly beings were showing up in the middle of the night sky.

For us, it’s the normal pressures and disappointments and uncertainties of our frailty in a broken world.

But in Jesus, the Prince of Peace arrived on earth.

And the angels proclaimed a new peace: Read - (Luke 2:10-14, NIV).

The favor of God is here with humans.

The peace of shalom, the Jewish concept of fullness, safety, completeness, and wholeness, is available to us.

This is the peace of restoration with God.

It is the peace that settles our souls deeply.

It is the calm acceptance that “it is well with my soul” no matter what storms comes my way.

In a sense, it’s almost like the coming of Jesus was the eye of the hurricane of human existence.

The chaos of our world swirled before Jesus’s earthly life and ministry, and it swirls after.

But it’s as if there was a cosmic pause that night as angels sang and ordinary shepherds gathered around a baby who was God.

Let me encourage you to turn your heart to Christ, bringing Him your hurt and your needs.

And “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, NIV).

This is the rediscovery of the peace of Christ in this season.

3. Finding Joy in Our Discouragements

We all have one of those days, or weeks, or years.

Even then, Christ fills us with joy that defies our circumstances.

King David wrote in the Psalms, “Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5, NIV).

But as we can rediscover this Christmas, the good news of great joy that is alive in us through Jesus is the strength that sustains us.

We’ve seen this in the stories of Elizabeth and Mary, united in the shared joy of their pregnancies, both miraculous.

For Elizabeth, joy was a fulfillment of long-dashed dreams of motherhood and the erasure of cultural shame because she had never been able to bear a child.

Her joy erased decades of disgrace.

For Mary, joy was a relief of acceptance and understanding, and a celebration of being in the middle of God’s greatest miracle.

Surely Mary knew that she would face scorn, disbelief, and misunderstanding for her pregnancy, but in her encounter with Elizabeth, she finds the freedom of joy.

For some of us, Christmas is a joyful season filled with songs and celebrations and traditions and comforts.

For others, the expectations of Christmas joy serve as reminders of deeper pains and disappointments and the lack of all this merriment we’re supposed to be enjoying.

Probably for most of us, Christmas brings a mixture of both.

It’s my hope that we will all rediscover joy this Christmas season as we choose to rejoice.

As we return our focus to Jesus, we can find His strength.

As we pour out our hearts to Him even in the midst of our pain, He can transform our weeping into the joy that lets us appreciate and enjoy the goodness of His greater work within us and in our world.

It’s my prayer, written by the apostle Peter, that, “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:8-9, NIV).

4. Finding Love in Our Differences

There’s so much in our world that drives us apart.

The love of Christ runs deeper than our differences with a flood of grace, forgiveness, and unity.

Instead of a culture that exemplifies love, we are a nation and a world filled with division and conflict and hatred.

Despite our best intentions, our broken human nature divides us.

Jesus, on the other hand, is the bridge of love that unites us.

He is the long-promised Messiah, sent because God loves us so much that He allowed His only Son to be the sacrifice for all our sins and shortcomings.

And when He did, Jesus made the way for us to be restored into relationship with God, love Himself.

As we explored love on our Advent journey, we saw how God gathered a varied group of very different people to be involved in the arrival of His Son.

And we discovered how these people represented the barriers and divisions that God was uniting.

There were young and old, the earthly and the heavenly, the lowly and the noble, Jews and Gentiles, clean and unclean.

Ultimately, there was God and humanity.

As we rediscover this Christmas, it’s my prayer that we rediscover the love of Christ, the perfect love that allows us to experience complete acceptance by God and the perfect love that removes our fears.

And as this love washes over us and fulfills us from within, I pray that it propels us to reach across the divisions around us, even to our enemies, with humility and forgiveness and grace.

And like the apostle Paul wrote, “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:17-19, NIV).

Wow, what a love! This is our God.

This is our Jesus.

Conclusion

Finding Christ in Our World

Christ has come with hope, peace, joy, and love.

Christ has come to change our world—and us—forever.

This is His arrival into our world as described by Luke: “While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them” (Luke 2:6-7, NIV).

It’s such a humble birth, such an understated beginning to life, yet such a normal entry into our existence.

Human birth as a fragile, helpless baby.

Jesus is one of us, able to understand everything we go through, all of our longings and struggles and pain.

Yet Jesus is God.

He is hope, joy, peace, and love personified;here to restore these characteristics in us as a byproduct of restored life in relationship with God.

Jesus is life rediscovered.

if you are struggling this year, asking, “Where is Jesus?”

Let me offer this.

He is Immanuel, God With Us, for eternity.

And He will never leave you or forsake you.

Jesus is the discovery of Christmas.

Let’s run like the shepherds to encounter Him this season.

Let’s worship and find renewal in His presence this year.

Let’s rediscover Christmas in the life He brings within us and around us.

Merry Christmas!

Christ has come!

Christ is here among us!

Christ will come again!

Let’s pray together.

Salvation:

The Word of God says in:

John 3:16

16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Romans 10:13

13 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

If you’d would like to receive Jesus today, please pray this prayer with all of us:

Lord I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that He died On the cross for my sins and His resurrection from the dead gives me eternal life. I ask forgiveness of my sins, and I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Amen.

Pastor [e-mail]

Church Office: 909-922-8090

And I will send you a Bible & a Free Book on how to begin your first 21 steps with Jesus (show the book)

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This is Pastor Doc & Lady Pepper with:

Faith Vision Christian Ministries

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Benediction

“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 Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (Luke 2:10-14, NIV)

Have a Great Week! Goodbye!