CHRISTMAS EVE 2024

Welcome/Open

[ 001 ] Just wanted to welcome you to River City! My name is Rodney, I’m one of the pastors around here, and it’s so good to have you here tonight.

Most Sunday mornings, we have class for ages 12 and under, but tonight it’s just nursery. So if you want to take advantage of that, parents, you are welcome to do so – the nursery is for children that have not had their 3rd birthday yet. That happens in the hallway to the right as you exit the room. For you parents who have young children with you in here, I’m aiming for 25 minutes or less, just so you know what you’re up against, and I’m going to speak tonight in a way that hopefully most of them can understand.

So, kids, since you’re staying in here with us tonight, I need your help. So raise your hand when I ask the question –

What is your favorite thing about Christmas?

Presents: Why do you think we like presents so much? • We like getting new things • We like surprises • It feels special.

Now, if you wanted to find out what your present was before you opened it, what are some things you can do to try to figure it out? Shake it • lift it to see if it’s heavy or not • listen closely to see if it’s something that makes a noise

I have a gift here with me tonight. It’s not a huge gift but it’s big enough. Someone want to come here and see if you can figure out what it is? Is it heavy? What do you think it is?

Let me ask you this, would you want to trade me for one of the gifts at your house? I would get yours and you would get mine?

2-3 kids guess

Now, I’m going to unwrap this gift in a few minutes, but for right now, I’m going to set it down and talk about a Gift that God has for us. If you start reading the Bible at the very beginning, you would read that God made the world, and he made it incredible. It’s why we like going on vacations to new places. It’s why we enjoy parks and waterfalls and beaches and mountains. It’s why we like good food and candy, sports and pets and friendships. God made the world, with Jesus his Son helping him – and he wants us to take good care of it – but even more than that, he wants us to love him with all of our hearts while we enjoy those good things that he made. He wants us to know how much he loves us.

And there’s one way we show that we love him. We listen to what he says. If he tells us something is good for us, we enjoy it as something good from him. If he tells us something is bad for us, we listen to him and stay away from it. And if you keep reading the first part of the Bible, you’ll also see that people didn’t listen to God very long. He told them to stay away from one tree that would be bad for them, and they didn’t listen. They did it anyway.

When someone knows what God wants them to do, but doesn’t do it – That’s called sin. Now when your parents or your boss asks you to do something and you don’t do it, they usually get at least a little upset with you, right? Sin makes God angry too – not because he’s mean, but because he knows that sin steals what’s best for us, and gives us death instead. And when we say no to him, we are saying no to what he says is best for us, and it hurts us.

There’s a story in the beginning of the Bible where God tells an older brother who was very, very angry with God that his sin is like a hungry lion inside of him that wants to eat him for breakfast. That’s pretty scary actually. Maybe some of you my age and older remember that old Val Kilmer movie, the Ghost and the Darkness. I would highly recommend that you don’t watch that with your kids later tonight. At least if you want them to ever sleep through the night again.

[ 002 ] But Genesis 4 says sin is like a lion that’s trying to kill you, and we have to master it. But If you go all the way to the other end of the Bible, the last book, it says the devil is like a giant red dragon that’s trying to eat us. It’s too powerful for us. We need help!

And that’s where Christmas comes in. See the Bible is not a book of rules we need to follow. It’s not a list of things we need to do to make God happy so nothing bad ever happens to us. The whole Bible is really a Christmas story about God giving a gift to the world at just the right time, a gift that would take away our sin, so that we could know who God is!

See God had always told his people that he was going to give them a gift. For hundreds of years, he kept promising that he would give them a gift that would take away their sin problem. [ 003-1 ] Matthew 1:21 - She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." [ 003-2 ] [22] Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: [ 003-3 ] [23] See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name him Immanuel, which is translated "God is with us."

He even told them that the gift would be himself. God is with us. That HE would come to earth and clean up their hearts, so they could be saved from their sin – saved from that lion that was trying to eat them up.

[ 004-1 - title ] So let’s come back to this gift. Are you ready to see what’s inside? Should I tell you what the gift is first? Let me tell you what the gift is. There is a pair of brand new shoes in this box. Raise your hand if you want new shoes for Christmas this year!

I like shoes a lot. You have so many different kinds of shoes. Flat ones, tall ones, white ones, colorful ones, black ones, all kinds. Some shoes have flashing lights on them – some are for running, some are for walking, some are for working. I love shoes. I can’t wait to see what these are!

Alright, let’s check it out.

What do you think? I mean, I told you it was shoes. Look at that. Brand new shoes. What do you notice about them? They are brown. What else? Nothing right? They are very ordinary shoes. Almost boring. If you had asked your mom or dad for new shoes for school, would you wear these?

You know what – they are plain. Ordinary. No fancy colors.

Just like you might have imagined these shoes would be much more exciting than these, God’s people had some pretty high hopes for the gift he would give them. [ 005 ] Maybe it would be a King with a huge army. [ 006 ] Maybe like the 3 muskateers, who were skilled and courageous fighters, maybe it would [ 007 ] be like Batman, working at night to take out the bad guys.

But when the gift finally came, it wasn’t a king or a superhero or a soldier that everybody thought it would be – [ 008 ] it was an ordinary baby. He wasn’t even born in a hospital or nice quiet clean place – it happened in a side room of a house where people kept their animals.

[ 009 ] And John 1:11 says the world didn’t like the gift. After Jesus grew up and started talking to people, and teaching them about who God was, and how much sin had been hurting them, it made them even more angry that they didn’t get the gift they wanted. They wanted God to take it back and give them a different one. They wanted someone stronger. More powerful. That lion of sin was working hard in their hearts to get them to say no to God yet again. And after three years of letting Jesus teach them, some very powerful people hated Jesus so much that they had him killed. [ 010 ] They didn’t want to hear another word from him. They buried him in a tomb and that was supposed to be the end of Jesus. They took the gift and threw it away!

But God knew that this was the most important gift the world could ever have been given. Better than the internet. Better than the gift of eyesight or hearing or iPhones or electricity or new gaming consoles – Look at the verse on the scrreen – As it turns out, Christmas wasn’t the gift – Jesus dying was the gift! This all happened according to the plan! I know that sounds like a strange gift to get, but remember the name of the gift – Jesus, which means, the one who saves us. So God didn’t let his Son Jesus stay dead. No Way! [ 011 ] Jesus obeyed his Father perfectly, so his Father was excited to bring him back to life again, and bring him back home to heaven where he is right now.

But not everyone had said no to the gift of Jesus! Some people said yes. They believed that Jesus was God’s Son, and that he could fix what was wrong with our hearts, if we take the gift and thank God for it. They were called disciples. [ 012 ] And he told them to go into all the world and keep telling people to take the gift of grace!

You as parents might hear that and look around the world and say, wow, some Savior he must have been – doesn’t look like sin has really been done away with. Still have people driving cars into Christmas parties in Europe – that seems to happen about every year. Governments collapsing, wars ongoing and threats of bigger ones, we still have school violence, crime, corruption, etc. Wow, some Savior that was. Doesn’t seem like much of the sin has been done away with – or maybe it did back in his day, and now it’s all come back.

But kids, you know this part – if your mom buys you new shoes what does she want you to do with them? PUT THEM ON. She didn’t give them to you because she wanted you to look at them and just talk about them and then put them in the closet. What makes her the happiest is if you put the shoes on, even if they weren’t what you were expecting! That’s the way the gift is supposed to work!

You don’t just get to say, “oh I believe in Jesus”, and put him on a shelf in the garage. That doesn’t honor the giver of the gift, and it’s the same as if you would have taken the gift back or throw it away. [ 013 ] Romans 13:14 says this: “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.”

Two things quickly and then we’re done.

[ 014 ] Put on the Lord Jesus. How do you do that? What does that mean? Well first of all it means you have to receive him as the gift that he is. Salvation is a gift, not a job. You don’t earn it. You don’t work for it. You receive it when you believe that you need it.

1 John 1:8 says “If we say, “I’m not a sinner, I don’t need a Savior,” we are lying to ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Everyone on the planet needs to receive this gift. If you believe that it’s only through Jesus you can be saved, and that he died for YOU – you are receiving the gift by faith. To receive the gift means you stop looking at the person sitting next to you and how much they have sinned. You stop looking at the terrorists and the corrupt polititcians and Hollywood stars and how much they have sinned, and you recognize your own. God will not compare you to them and say “you aren’t as bad as so and so, I guess you don’t need to repent.” God compares you to Jesus who was perfect, and we fall short of that pretty hard.

Putting on the Lord Jesus means confessing your sin, and allowing God to make you into a new person – the person you were always created to be! A person full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – the very kind of person Jesus was and still is. And if that feels overwhelming to you, there’s even better news – You don’t just get one gift when you get Jesus. You don’t just get salvation, stamp the passport, and now you’re done. Oh no. You get another gift, and that is the gift of the Holy Spirit – the very presence of Jesus (GOD WITH US) – to live in you, to work God’s will into your heart, to change you on the inside by showing you where the dark parts are, leading you to repentance, helping you love and enjoy and trust Christ, giving you the faith to believe, and actually guaranteeing that you are in fact a follower of Jesus.

[ 015 ] And then part 2 of that verse is this: Make no provision for the flesh to gratify it’s desires.

Acts 17:30 says ,“...God now commands all people everywhere to repent,” It’s not an invitation – it’s a command. Repent. Go and stop sinning. If Jesus really is who he said he is, then when you repent of your sin and accept the fact that he is Lord, you give up the right to live the way you want to live. You don’t get to just say “I’m a Christian,” put the shoes on the shelf and then do whatever you want. You don’t get to say, “but this is how I was born?” Or “it’s just the way I am!” If Jesus is who he said he is, then his will trumps our will; his plans trump our plans; his word trumps our words; his definition of sin trumps our definitions of sin.

Because of the cross, that lion of sin doesn’t have the power to separate us from God forever anymore. Jesus settled that. But that lion still wants to eat. It’s still hungry. And the Holy Spirit is given to believers to help us, so that we don’t feed that lion anymore. Make no provision for the flesh. Don’t feed your sin. Pray all the time. Be in community with other believers. Stay rooted in God’s word. Worship God in everything you do.

Put on Jesus, and don’t feed your sin. Everyone who has ever come to Jesus has found him to be faithful. True to his word. They have found in him a refuge for the weary. Water for the thirsty. Food for the hungry. A Father for the lonely.

So can I encourage you tonight: Don’t keep Jesus in the manger. Follow him to the cross. See his death in your place. Follow him to the tomb, where he was buried in your place. Then see him resurrected, raised to life, ascended to the throne of heaven, where to this day he invites anyone who is burnt out on life to come to him for rest. No matter what gifts you unwrap later tonight or tomorrow morning, the greatest, most useful, longest lasting “never-end-up-in-a-landfill gift you can receive this Christmas is the gift of “God with us.”

Maybe you’re here tonight and you’re the kid who wasn’t so good this year. It was a rough year for you. Maybe you’re the parent who didn’t have a great year either. It wasn’t what you wanted it to be. You hoped for better, and here you are. Maybe you’re suffering the effects of sin – sin someone did to you, or something you have allowed into your life. Maybe you’re the addict who broke a long streak and fed the lion this year. Maybe you’re here tonight and as you look back on the year, you can’t point to any way you leveled up or increased or really grew in Jesus – might even feel like you took some steps backward.

[ 016 ] The message of the baby in the manger, the man on the cross, the king on his throne is not get it figured out or God won’t love you – the message is “BEHOLD! There is good news, not just for the good kids, but for ALL people. Come and see how much God loves the kids who need him, the parents who need him, the sinners who admit their sin. The message of the cross is come and see the God of glory, the God of grace, the God of rescue and redemption, putting himself in the shoes of sinners, so that anyone who believes in him would not perish but have life – both now and forever.

[ 017 ]

Father God - your name is holy. Your love is like no other love. Your peace is like no other peace. Your joy is like no other joy. You have given us the most incredible gift we could ever have been given – the gift of grace through faith in Jesus Christ your Son. Lord, I pray for each person that is here tonight, that we wouldn’t just walk away and put the gift on the shelf until next Christmas. But that we would put on Jesus Christ, and that you would give us your strength and the wisdom and the grace to put away sin this week.

SONGS

BENEDICTION

This gift is something you can receive tonight before you leave. If you have never said yes to Jesus, never followed him to the cross and the empty tomb, tonight can be the night you receive his gift of Grace. If that’s you, and you would like someone to pray with you, I invite you to come to the front here tonight as soon as I dismiss you in 30 seconds, and there will be people up here who are happy to pray with you as you step into faith in Christ.

Otherwise, let me send you out with these words from Titus 2:

“For the grace of God has been revealed, bringing salvation to all people.

Grant us, Lord, the wisdom and courage to turn from godless living and sinful pleasures. By your Spirit, fill us with strength to live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness, and devotion to God, while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed.

Thank you for joining us here tonight! Have a great evening, and a Merry Christmas tomorrow.