Celebrating Christmas

This is it! For a child, it’s the best night of the year. For a parent, it’s the most stressful night of the year as you prepare for you 6 a.m. wakeup call of children jumping on your bed ready to dive into Christmas joy! It is time to celebrate!

But, what are we celebrating? Or maybe better, do you even feel like celebrating? You’ve had a tough year - challenges and changes - losses and heartache, stress and anxiety, etc. You don’t want to celebrate, you want to complain!

If you were to look back over this past year, would your life be characterized more by complaining and worry or rejoicing? 

Regardless of what 2018 has been like for you, how can this Christmas be the greatest day of celebration that you’ve had all year?

Focusing in on Mary - her life turned upside down, but the babe in her womb changed her even before He was born...

Focus on the blessings; not your circumstances.

How can you exchange your complaining and worry for rejoicing?

Focus on the blessings; not your circumstances.

Mary – ordinary teenage girl with plans for her life; for marriage and family. 

Gabriel appears to Mary – – favor (grace) – turns Mary’s world upside down. Grace changed everything. 

“How could this be? I’m a virgin.” Mary tries to wrap her finite mind around the infinite greatness of God. 

Let it be done to me according to your word. – That’s the response to grace! 

Journey to see Elizabeth – also with child, John, the forerunner of the Messiah – prepare the way. Interesting – text records no complaining or worry – ladies focused on God’s plan of redemption. 

Elizabeth – “Why should the mother of my Lord come to me?” An awareness of the spiritual significance of these children. 

Mary bursts into praise – “My soul magnifies the Lord. I rejoice in my Savior. All generations will call me blessed”

Blessed? What about all that Mary would experience. The ridicule, the questioning of her fiancée, the pressure of being the mother of Jesus. If anyone had reason to complain it was Mary. “God, it’s too hard. God, I can’t do it.” If anyone had reason to worry it was Mary. Wouldn’t you be worried? 

Worry and anxiety are the farthest things from your mind when you are overwhelmed by God’s grace and realize the blessing – Our problem is that we are not very overwhelmed by God’s grace. 

When you know you are blessed:

How has God blessed you?

You are full of confidence - you know that God is at work in you.

You are full of joy - celebrate what He has done and will do.

You are full of hope - He will pull you through your circumstances.

Focus on others; not yourself. 

You complain because you do not believe God is bigger than your circumstances. Was it going to be hard for Mary? Yes, but God was in control. He was orchestrating the events of her life for His purpose, and He’s doing the same in you. 

You complain because you are selfish. You simply want your way, and you expect God and others to give you what you want. But, God has every right to do in your life what He wants for His purpose, not what you want, even if that means putting you through immense difficulty to accomplish what He wants in you. After all, you’re a dead man – (, )

Complaining is natural – rejoicing is unnatural. It’s a battle. You must constantly remind yourself of grace and immerse yourself in God’s goodness. 

Focus on others; not yourself. 

Focus of Mary’s song is not simply self, but her people. This is not a self-centered song, but rather it’s a song centered on others. 

God was extending grace to Mary so that He might ultimately extend grace to others. Mary gets it. 

Through this child, God would raise up those who were oppressed while scattering those who sought power for themselves. Through this child, God’s people would finally be satisfied. They would find real wealth, while the wealthy who trusted their wealth rather than God would be sent away in poverty. In His grace, God would turn the social order upside down. 

The root of complaining and worry is a life that is focused primarily on self. Therefore, the cure for worry and complaining is to take your eyes off of yourself and begin to consider what God desires to do not only in you but in those around you. 

God has extended grace to you so that He might ultimately extend grace to others. It’s not about you! You were saved for God’s glory and the good of others!

How do you know if you focus more on yourself than you do others?

Do you rejoice more in what God is doing in your life of what God is doing in the lives of others?  “For I could wish I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”

Are you more concerned about your preferences than you are Gospel proclamation? (Ill. Change at Antioch) – What’s most important is not what you want but the Gospel going forth. Could it be that our preferences are our god? Do we worship our preferences or God? Could it be that our demand to have our preferences met are actually hindering the proclamation of the Gospel?

Are you more concerned about how people are investing in you or how you are investing in others? Do you desire to be catered to, or do you desire to be a spiritual parent that goes out of your way to help someone else grow in Christlikeness

The cure for complaining is to focus on others. When you focus on others, it will lead you to rejoice as you see God at work through you in the lives of others. 

3. Focus on the good news; not your limited understanding. 

3. Focus on the good news; not your limited understanding. 

If Mary would have tried to figure it out – she would have worried. She believed God’s plan and trusted Him to work out the details. We complain and worry because we lean on our own understanding rather than trusting the Lord and looking past our understanding. 

In spite of the difficulties to come – Mary’s eyes on the Gospel – the redemptive work of God. She didn’t understand the details, but she looked past her own understanding and trusted God with the big picture. 

Did not know how God would save the world through her Son – no idea He would be rejected, homeless, mocked, etc. No idea He would be tortured, crucified on a Roman cross, humiliated before all humanity. No idea that the baby in her womb would one day experience the wrath of God – she had no idea that the death He would die would be for her. It would be her sins that would ultimately put the little baby in her womb on the cross. She had no idea that her baby would rise from the dead, victorious over sin and death so that she and all who believe could escape death. While she didn’t understand the full work of redemption, she focused on the Good News trusting God was going to work through this child even if it was beyond her ability to comprehend. 

Focus on the Good News: God has saved you, He is saving you, and He will save you. He will use you to accomplish His purpose, and He will accomplish His purpose in you. You simply don’t have all the answers. We simply don’t know why God chooses to allow some of us to suffer more than others. We don’t understand the reasons for all the testing, but we believe that His hand is on every detail of our lives to accomplish His purpose for our good. 

Whenever you are tempted to worry and complain remember that you are loved – the message of Christmas – . God adores you – so much so that He came to earth to rescue you from sin, and so much that He even uses the bad stuff of this life to refine you. Why worry? God is in control. Why worry? He knows what He’s doing. Why complain? It won’t help. Instead, why not rejoice because you know the good news. You know that God is at work in you and through you redeeming you for His glory.

Do you believe? Turn to Him today. Repent and trust in the One who will make your heart sing. Trust the One who will give you every reason to rejoice. 

Are you a believer who is filled with worry and complaining? Exchange it for rejoicing. Repent this morning and rediscover your reason for rejoicing.