Chaotic Christmas Week 3-Jesus Changes EVERYTHING

Big Idea: Because of Jesus, everything changes

Primary Scripture: Luke 2:8-20

Supporting Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 5:22-23

CAPTURE (Why should students pay attention to and care about your message?)

· How many of you have made (or have asked your parents to make) an online purchase recently?

o Probably most of you.

o When you’re shopping online, you can be selective.

o There’s less pressure to make a fast decision, and you never have to leave your home.

o Online shopping has changed the world in a major way.

· Along with that, it also flipped the Christmas season upside down.

· Before Amazon Prime and Cyber Monday, the day after Thanksgiving was pure chaos.

o It was an elbows out, every person for themselves, real-life version of the Hunger Games—survival of the fittest.

o Hundreds—sometimes even thousands—of people in lines stretching around the block waiting for the stores to open.

o Most people had been there all night with little regard for the weather.

o When the doors flew open, people sprinted, pushed, and shoved. It wasn’t uncommon to see one person jump over another person if it meant they had even the slightest chance of being one of the few to walk out with the most coveted Christmas toy of all time.

· The Tickle Me Elmo doll.

· People got trampled. Fights broke out. People chased down delivery trucks. All for a doll that laughed when you tickled it.

· People also wanted TVs, gaming systems, even blenders. If it had a “doorbuster” tag, it became a war zone.

Black Friday was unhinged chaos.

· Something shifted around 2010.

o Online shopping started accounting for more and more of Black Friday shopping.

o Suddenly, there were no stampedes. No elbows. Just leftover pumpkin pie, pajamas, and the “add to cart” button.

· Just one change—online shopping—transformed the whole experience.

· Here we are in the last week of our Chaotic Christmas series.

o That kind of change, that kind of transformation is exactly what we’re talking about.

o But this time, we’re not talking about changing how we shop, we’re talking about changing everything.

SCRIPTURE (What does God’s Word say?)

· To see the moment when literally everything changed, let’s rewind back to that very first Christmas night.

8 That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. (Luke 2:8 – NLT)

· Shepherds were ordinary people doing ordinary work. They weren’t kings or nobles. They were just regular people pulling the night shift.

· This is where God shows up.

· He chooses to show up in the lives of normal people doing normal things.

9 Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified. (Luke 2:9 – NLT)

· Imagine the night sky suddenly lighting up brighter than daylight, and when you look, right in front of you is a heavenly messenger glowing with God’s glory.

10 “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. 11 The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! (Luke 2:10-11 – NLT)

· This announcement is what the world has been waiting for.

· What the angel is telling the shepherds is exactly what humanity has needed since we were first banished from the Garden of Eden.

· This is good news of great joy

· The angel makes it clear that this good news is for all people, including those shepherds and including us.

12 “You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:12 – NLT)

· A manger is just another way of saying “feeding trough.”

· Jesus didn’t exactly show up in the way that everyone was expecting.

· Before the shepherds could even process what they’ve been told, things got even more chaotic.

13 Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying,14 “Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.” (Luke 2:13-14 – NLT)

· Did you catch the two ideas their victory shout included?

o Glory to God and peace on earth.

· In the middle of all that chaos, the armies of heaven were proclaiming that God was bringing peace.

15 “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” (Luke 2:15 – NLT)

· When they find Mary, Joseph, and the baby, it’s exactly like the angel said, manger and all.

17 After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. (Luke 2:17 – NLT)

· These average people, doing average work, in an average field, on a not-so-average night, became the first people to preach the Good News about Jesus to a world who so desperately needed Him.

20 The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. (Luke 2:20 – NLT)

· They return to the same job, the same fields, the same sheep, but they are most definitely not the same people.

INSIGHTS (What might this Scripture mean?)

1. Jesus’ birth changed everything.  

· Because of Jesus, our entire world changed.

10 “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. (Luke 2:10 – NLT)

· A Savior was born in Bethlehem—Jesus, God in the flesh.

o Jesus grew up, lived a perfect life, showed people what it meant to live as part of God’s kingdom, was sentenced to death, and was crucified. But three days later, He rose again, and now we can have life through Him.

o That story is what we now call the Gospel, and gospel is a word that literally means good news.

· The angel shares that it was for all people.

· That change started with a baby born in a feeding trough.

· If we’re willing to join in, He’s still changing the world today.

· Jesus’ birth is a very personal experience.

2. Jesus’ birth also changed the shepherds.

· The good news isn’t just reserved for the popular, the admired, or the rich. It’s for everyone, including the overlooked and underestimated.

15 “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” (Luke 2:15 – NLT)

· After they met Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the shepherds didn’t just immediately go back to their sheep—they told EVERYONE what had happened.

· It must have been pure chaos, but the reality is that when you’ve experienced Jesus for yourself, it’s pretty difficult to stay silent.

3. Knowing Jesus changes us, too.

· When we truly encounter Jesus, we can't stay the same.

· That same life-changing power is available to us today.

17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! (2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT)

· What does that actually look like in real life?

· When online shopping became popular, people were still buying the same types of things they always bought—TVs, clothes, electronics, gifts.

· How they approached shopping completely changed. Same idea, but totally different experience.

· That's a lot like what happens when we encounter Jesus.

· We're still the same person on the outside, but our approach to life starts to become completely different. Our priorities shift. Our perspective changes.

22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23 – NLT)

· When we know Jesus—really know Him, not just know about Him—these changes start happening naturally.

· These changes don’t always happen overnight.

Before I gave my life to Christ back in 2004, I was know for having a serious potty mouth. Bleepedy bleep everything all day every day. Especially when I was hooping. When I came to Jesus, the way I spoke change A LOT in a hurry, but there were a few slip ups in the following weeks when I was playing pickup ball at my college Rec Center. But God cleaned up my mouth quickly because my heart wasn’t sick anymore…

Luke 6:45 “Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.”

Other things took longer for the Lord to clean up in my life, and He’s still working on me 21 years later…

· When when we truly know Jesus, we start seeing evidence of His presence in our lives.

· We start caring about things that matter to God, and we start finding peace in the middle of chaos.

ACTION (How could we live this out?)

1. Look for God in ordinary moments.

· This week, pay attention to the everyday moments of your life and ask God to help you see Him there.

· If you commit to being on the lookout for what God is doing in the world around you, you’ll notice Him quite a bit more than you do when you’re not paying attention.

· One way to help might be to set a reminder on your phone to go off at a few specific times during the day just reminding you to be on the lookout.

o When it goes off, say a quick prayer asking God to help you be more aware of how He’s showing up in your life on a daily basis.

2. Tell someone else about God has done in your life.

· Who in your world needs to hear about the hope you’ve found?

· You don’t have to preach a sermon or have all the answers

· Don’t overthink it, just share what you’ve seen and heard.

· When you do, you’re continuing what the shepherds started—ordinary people pointing others to an awesome God.

3. Have a Merry Christmas!!

· Think about what it actually means to have a merry Christmas by taking the time to remember that Jesus changed everything.

· Pick one Christmas tradition your family does and take a moment to connect it back to Jesus.

o Before you open presents, you could thank God for the gift of His Son, Jesus by reading Luke Chapter 2.

o During Christmas dinner, you could share one way you've seen God show up in your life this year.

o When you are looking at Christmas lights, you could take a moment to imagine what it might have been like to be one of those shepherds standing on the hillside that night when thousands of angels started singing in the night sky.

*Prayer*