Sermon Tone Analysis

Dear Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,

Here we are like the Israelites of old, gathered to remember God’s great works of salvaiton.

Once a year to mark it and remember it, and to live more fully into what God accomplished by sending His Son to us.

And we have in the last 4 Sundays seen what Jesus coming was about, how he would work among us, why - what was his purpose - that we might serve him.

We saw how we are to apply this by becoming the READY-PEOPLE OF GOD - by faith in the forgiveness Christ came to bring.

And now we come to the concluding and climactic result - if you embrace Christ like this this morning what can you expect to happen now?

Two powerful lenses through which we should gaze upon the Christ child in the manager this morning: He is a sunrise in your soul, and He opens a path for your feet!

Isn’t one of the most wonderful parts of our Christmas celebrations?

The lights!

Twinkling of Christmas tree, St Marie among the Hurons, whole paths lit up by light.

Walk down the street - crazy LED projection lights.

Perhaps even why chose this date Dec 25.

Don’t know date but event of Christ’s birth was when shepherds were grazing flocks in the hill country,on that ground stubble after the harvest had begun in May.

But still early Christians new the pull of their culture to celebrate Saturnalia - birth of a star, past winter equinox - celebrate that the darkening is over, days gets longer.

What is this light that embracing the Christ will bring in to your life?

Where does the sun rise come from - myths, fables, scientific explanation, but the dawning of a new day - wonderful thing - KJV dayspring from on high visit us.

Imagine that the source of the dawn comes to you personally, As we celebrate the child in the manger - do yo see that He is full of light. said the Messiah would be like this:

As we celebrate the child in the manger - do yo see that He is full of light, said the Messiah would be like this:

Do you sense that new season, like spring - see calves skipping.

But there is more.

This child is not just little bit like a new season or the dawning of a new season.

This child is the light:

Christmas morning is a welcome morning for those who recognize they are in darkness, there world, but also in their heart!

And this prophesy is not even just that this Christ is the LIght of the World, and the Ligh to f the Universe, but that he is light from on high, coming down to visit us.

In John the Baptist and Zechariah’s time, Christ’s light only began to break over the horizon.

Have you ever watched the sunrise , sunset.

People actually cheer - but sunrise - And the thing about this word Dawn is that it refers to a light that won’t go away but is going to go on growing strong and brighter until noon day bright!

John was a morning star signal sunrise coming.

And Jesus is the sunrise in his earthly life - glory still a little veiled - breaks through in HIs miracles, in HIs saving work; broke through on Mt of Tranfsiguration.

The rest of the NT speaks of Jesus like that in his glory now:

This is the exact same title given as the last name used of Jesus in the Bible until he comes again:

Christ’s glory was great in his earthly life, but now salvation accomplsihed, and reigning in glory - soon returning on the Last Day - the moring sun is groiwng bigger and soon will be noon day bright.

If you could see him now - transformed by His light - what awaits us:

But until that day what is Jesus light and why do we need it, how do we receive it into our souls?

But until that day what is Jesus light and why do we need it, how do we receive it into our souls?

Greet the Dawn of Jesus by: Stepping into His DISCOVERING LIGHT

The light of Jesus is all the grace He shines , all the blessing he brings to all who will receive him.

The gospel then is the second half of this verse.

Christ is the light come into our world, but his gospel is the way he shines that light into our lives.

Now that’s a different word.

It one thing for Jesus to be light, but it is another for him to give light.

When he comes to visit us, he actually epiphanies to us - it reveals.

That’s the picture we are sitting in darkness, this whole world, like at the beginning of time, but God speak let there be light - and flash…

So too her in Bethlehem, God sees the spiritual darkness sadness, confusion, the deadness of our lives, and he shines through Christ the light we need.

Remember that saying: All is yellow to the jaundice eye.

That is fallen man; Jesus says:

This is what Axel Smith - “Something wrong with the world today, don’t know what it is, something with our eyes.

God knows it sure ain’t his!

Why we are living on the edge of destruction.

But he came to grant us this Light.

SO that to know Christ, to be converted, is descrbied by Luke this way:

Do you acknowledge your need to see things differently things morning.

in darkness this morning - like many of the Jews of Jesus’ day just clinging to rituals of religion, just living in the shadows and not yet taken hold of Christ himself in glory.

Others like like the gentile without even the shadowy rituals that point to Christ - they only have glimmers of God in creation, but not His fulness - we need the LIGHT that Jesus promises to shine into us!

Listen to Paul’s prayer for new Christians at Ephesus : ,

Praying for this kind of light of revelation for yourself, for others?

Later that’s what aged Simeon waiting for Messiah said “a light for revelation to the Gentiles!”

Are you looking to Jesus this mornign for the light of life, to understand yourself, to understand God - only light in Christ can give it!

2. Greet the Dawn of Jesus by: Warming to His REVIVING Light!

But Christ light will not only be for an epiphany that gives us real knowledge of salvation, it will also be a reviving light.

Think of what sunlight does and then think of what Christ does?

On whom does this light shine?

Do you know the shadow of death - it is what winter is to sping time.

Seasonal depression, lack of Vitamin D, but think of our poor trees and the plants under the snow - imagine being as dormant as that - This is the picture of our world overshadowed with suffering, groaning, brokennness and sin - picture of winter death, some say that’s how this world will end - sun die - and no sun light no life!

But God has said that this has already has happened spiritually to everyone that enters the world.

No Son-Light - we are in a deep dark pit, dungeon spiritually, kind of like walking dead.

Christmas is the announcement that we in the shadow death, we condemned prisoners in the dark.

It’s like we are drowning in a dark deep well.

And can’t get out!

But a light has broken through - Christ.

He is the stair case out of that dark deep well.

Remember Christian in the Dungeon of Giant Despair.

Just about to commit suicide, , scroll proimse seal - Key opens the door, light penetrates castle, giant despair can’t stand it weakens.

they’re out! - He paralyzes the powers of darkness.

LIGHT penetrates and blinds that giant!

Jesus comes to do the same in our lives, and he announces a pardon get out of prison free: Look at the prophesy

And so now opening our prison, he brings the light of life!

End of the OT period, city of God, flooded with darkness and had become a hell, but with the coming of Christ:

Do you know anyone languishing in darkness and they are living life in shadows.

Listen to Jesus:

Let me share an illustration from a prayer of Reuben’s.

Our sister Jeannette dying, Reuben prayed often.

What I told him that she had died.

The next morning a breakfast table - prayer that she had to pass through the valley of the shadow of death - but now God had anointed her head with oil!

I want you to feel this this morning.

We all have darkness to walk through, even after we turn to Christ.

But the promises of the Bible is God says He will be with us in trouble.

He feels his people’s affliction, he will walk with them and lead them through like a pillar of fire in the night.

And that light is the beginning of eternal life for us!

And the darkness can’t extinguish it!

But look at the third reason Jesus must be your light this Christmas - look at he ersult if your embrace Him.

Trust this light, this reviving light.

Have you ever heard of sympathetic resonance.

If this piano and that piano perfectly tuned.

And I hit high C on this piano - did you know the strings on that piano - will sound high C too.

Jesus was taking on a human nature, he was entering our darkness and eventually even death for us, so that every experience of darkness you and I must feel, he has felt , he has borne, and he has made a way through for us.

And when you are feeling, like sympathetic resonance He even in heaven now feels it.

You are not alone and he intercedes for you, He’s lived and died and been raised to make a away through, but he prays for you now from heaven - and that revives us even in the darkness here!

This is the promise to come to the light of life., but then we are called to walk with him.

And that is the third reason Jesus must be your light this Christmas - look at the result if your embrace Him.