How Do I Prepare My Heart For Christmas?

Introduction

No one has a debate on when its appropriate to start listening to Easter music

There isn’t a debate on when to start decorating for labor day

But people are passionate about when to begin Christmas preparations and anticipation

When is it ok to start getting excited about what is coming

When is it ok to be re-enchanted and have child like wonder again

We want to start feeling that way about Christmas as soon as we can

Because we want to feel those things again if we are honest

The daily story we live 11 months out of the year isn’t very enchanting

It us unlike anything else

The Christmas season brings with it a heightened feeling that something wonderful is coming.

What we need to see is that the heart change the Christmas story tells is what should shape our everday

it is the story of the good guy winning and happily ever after coming

The bible shouts it from cover to cover

In the grand story it is telling it is shouting get excited about what is coming

Christmas is not sentimental background music to the christian story; it is the climax of God’s redemptive story breaking into history.

We prepare our hearts by entering more deeply into God’s unfolding plan in the grand story of the bible

Look in anticipation for what is coming in every scene of the bibles story

Luke 2:10–11 “But the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: Today in the city of David a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

Joy means the abscence of the fear and regret and threats to our hope that surround us

We long for that every day of the year and long for the one day it burst into human history

The advent of Jesus is what the whole bibles story is about …and his second advent to make everything sad come untrue should create the same anticipation that something wonderful is coming to give us hope the other 364 days of the year

We are going to walk through the whole story today to show us how to prepare our hearts and hopes for what is coming

The bible can be summed up in 5 scenes..Creation, Fall, Promise, Fullfillment and Consumation

We are going to trace Christmas through every scene of the bibles story and be captivated by wonder at what is coming

Scene 1- CREATION

Christmas had to happen because something was lost the hero needed to take back

Things weren’t always broken

We long because deep down we all long for what Eden was and we are in a war for our hearts to tell us how to get back there

We don’t see it as a longing for Eden but it is

In Genesis 1:26–28 God formed our hearts for worship, obedience, and joy in Him.

We were who we were made to be

We weren’t aware we are broken or had regret

We didn’t know the pain of cancer or funerals

We were whole in who we were - we were people made to reflect God’s image

That image means we were made to have our hearts - our greatest loves that drive our actions - aiming in right directions

James Smith says

You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit Orienting Desire: The Quest to Be Human

it’s a question not of whether you long for some version of the kingdom but of which version you long for

Christmas preparation begins by remembering what the human heart was made for: communion with God.

Here is where creation collides with Christmas

B. Application

What desires compete with the original design of my heart?

The reality is that Christmas preparation begins not with activity, but with reorientation of our hearts

that is what Christianity is …it is a heart rehabilitation program

Things went wrong

Scene 2 The FALL

The fall Created The Heart’s Deep Need for Rescue

Sin Misordered Loves

In Genesis 3 Humanity turned inward, seeking autonomy.

We believed the lie that God was holding out the good life from us and that true happiness would be found by sawing off the very limb that held us up

Ephesians 2:1-3 tells us we aren’t just wounded by the fall but that our hearts are dead

But in the fall a promise came in Genesis 3:15

The hero we need was lying in wait to kill what haunts us

Christmas was not the coming of weak passive “good moral teacher”

it was the assault of a lion in wait on what stole us from Him

It was the promise that faith alone in the promised lion alone through grace alone will save us

There is a danger at Christmas that preparation prepares our hearts for his arrival

We make Christianity the same pursuit that religious business welcomes him into our lives

But the bible tells us The Broken Heart Cannot Prepare Itself

Any attempt to “prepare ourselves for Christmas” apart from grace becomes self-righteousness.

We confront the reality that the heart cannot fix itself.

A heart captivated by Grace , NOT RELIGION, repents, believes and is re-enchated by the scandalous saving of the Gospel

Christmas readiness comes through humble dependence, not holiday performance.

At the fall we entered a war for our hearts

it is not a war for head knowledge or how you can perform better

it is a war for what you want at your deepest longings, where you believe it can be found, and what you are living toward as your ultimate love

And a dead heart cannot fight the fight we are in

Ender the promise that started in the Garden

Scene 3 - The PROMISE

Our Heart is Trained by Waiting

Sin and your savior are playing the long game

We are numb in a world of instant gratification

We want a change of mood now

We want an end to the distress we feel in the moment

We want an answer to our suffering now

But the Gospel is a long game promise and a long game restoration of our hearts

God’s Covenant Promises Build Christmas Expectation

I can picture Adam and Eve hearing the promise in Genesis 3:15

Ok we really screwed this up but just have a kid and boom the mess is fixed

They had no category that the lion in wait would be waiting for thousands of years

Suffering like the loss of a son, tragedy, rebellious kids, murder, and death would be the long game human experience

The Story would be an epic not a short story

But scene by scene of the Epic was anticipation of God coming to so the impossible

Genesis 12; 17; 22 — The promise of a Seed.

2 Samuel 7 — The promised King.

Isaiah 9; 11; 40; 53 — The promised Servant-King who would restore God’s people.

Our hearts are trained by the unfolding of the epic NOT by instant gratification

GOd is not failing because it seems to be taking time

Peter warns us of this very thing

2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.”

he is playing to long game not to increase our suffering but to save everyone who would be His

The promise is that He would conquer our funeral by having His own and walking to the gates of hell and ripping its gates off the hinges

We long the way Eve and Abraham, and believing Israel longed

We long with Hope and honest lament and wrestling with God

We long by praying Your Kingdom Come Your Will Be Done

We long through desperate praying

Paul Miller says: If you try to seize the day, the day will eventually break you. Seize the corner of his garment and don't let go until he blesses you. He will reshape the day. Prayer is a moment of incarnation - God with us. God involved in the details of my life.

C. Application

Preparing our heart for Christmas means cultivating expectant waiting.

Preparing our hearts for the war everyday means desperate praying

As Paul Miller said - “Prayer is asking God to incarnate, to get dirty in your life…..Seize the corner of his garment and don't let go until he blesses you. He will reshape the day. Prayer is a moment of incarnation - God with us. God involved in the details of my life.

Because Christmas shouts he does come through on every promise

2 Corinthians 1:20 “For every one of God’s promises is “Yes” in him. Therefore, through him we also say “Amen” to the glory of God.”

Scene 4 FULFILLMENT

The Word Became Flesh

Jesus came to be the 2nd Adam not a 2nd chance

John 1:14 says God Himself enters our story to do what we fail to do

The incarnation is not merely God’s sympathy but God’s saving presence.

God didn’t look at you and think he was getting a bad pick

He was stopping at nothing to get you back

he wrote himself into your story to save you

But what is His saving for?

If the war is for our hearts, then Christ Came to Give a New Heart

Ezekiel 36:26–27 “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place my Spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.”

That is what He came to do

He doesn’t simply keep us out of hell and say good luck on your monday

He changes everything by changing our heart

Christmas is not about what we bring to Christ, but about what Christ brings to us: a new heart, new affections, new life.

Prepare your heart by:

Meditating on the incarnation’s necessity and beauty.

We don’t remember regularly enough how necessary the gospel was…how desperate we are…and how the Gospel says He stopped at nothing to save us

Remembering again the grace of the gospel.

Resting in Christ’s finished work.

If he did it once HE will come through on His promise that He is coming again to make everything new

that is what we still long for and wait for and see everything moving too

That re-enchants us to see every day as part of the epic to save the lost and make everything new

Scene 5 CONSUMMATION

The First Advent Points to the Second

Titus 2:11–13 “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, …..while we wait for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

The grace that appeared trains us to wait for His 2nd appearing

I have said this before but we all need it

I was at seminary and in my internship/apprenticeship

I was working and delivering a sermon a week and then they would give feedback on it

One day one of my mentors said the messages have been good but i need more eschatology every week because people need more eschatology in their everyday

I knew exactly what he meant

Eschatology is the hope of what is surely coming

We need it in our everyday

Christmas Preparation Means Eschatological hope in our everyday

We prepare not only to celebrate His birth but to await His return and what it means

As Tim Keller says - It means everything sad we face today will come untrue and will somehow be better for having once been broken

With Christmas music coming I said this a couple weeks ago

Isaac Watts wrote the Christmas song Joy To The World in 1719

Heaven was His hope and he describes it so well in the song we will sing in just a month

He wrote about Heaven- No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found,

How far will heaven fill the earth and our bodies?

As far as the curse is found

The heart prepared for Christmas is the heart longing for the King who will finish His work and push back the curse as far as it is found

Suffering doesn’t get the last word because when we returns he will wipe every tear from our eyes

Cultivate hope through: praying and longing for that day to come

Examining the heart in light of Christ’s return.

Asking How does what is coming change how I view what I am going through today?

How do we live in light of what is coming?

1 John 3:2–3 “Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him as he is. And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure.”

we live with new hearts and new affections

We fight the fight our hearts greatest affections

We find in the gospel what Thomas Chalmers called The expulsive power of a new affection

We live looking forward playing the long game

Paul Tripp says so well: we will either be living for paradise in this life, you try your hardest to turn this into paradise. You surround yourself with paradise people have a paradise marriage find a paradise church, and live a paradise life inward focused. Or we will hunger for what will only come on the other side. Nothing in this broken world will deliver on the paradise you long for. this is a preparation for what is coming hungering and living for what is coming”

We live on mission to see others have dead hearts and no hope come alive

We live in the now as people who have seen how the story ends

Knowing how the sotry ends should change everything about how we live right now

What would change in your everyday if what is promised is true?

How would you hope different, pray different, give different, be obedient different, long different, what Gospel risks would you take, how much bolder would you be?

Live like you believe the end is real because he has done it once

He will resurrect us because Christmas and Easter say he has practiced resurrection before

I close with this:

Christmas preparation is not business but Gospel Awakening

We prepare not by striving upward but by beholding the One who came down.

From creation to consummation, God is shaping a people whose hearts treasure His Son, people who are re-enchanted and wonder again in awe everyday

Have wonder again but let it drive you to the wonder you were made for

The only wonder that can satisfy

The only wonder that lasts

Let the epic story of the Gospel RE-enchant your everyday

And trust if he came to us once…he is coming again to finish what He started