Life in Me: Christmas 2019

CHRISTMAS EVE 2019 - LIFE IN ME

OPENING

Prelude - instrumental

OPENING SONG - Life In Me (solo/Music Worship Team only) 

WELCOME + INTRO - Pastor Kyle 

MOVEMENT 1 - The Hope of the World

SCRIPTURE 1 - Isaiah 9:1a, 2; 6-7 - Matt Roberts 

But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish The people who walked in darkness

    have seen a great light;

those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,

    on them has light shone.

For to us a child is born,

    to us a son is given;

and the government shall be upon his shoulder,

    and his name shall be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and of peace

    there will be no end,

on the throne of David and over his kingdom,

    to establish it and to uphold it

with justice and with righteousness

    from this time forth and forevermore.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

REFLECTION 1 - Pastor Jason 

When we use the word hope it usually means something distinguished from certainty. We say, "I don't know what's going to happen, but I hope it happens."

I hope you have a Merry Christmas. I hope I get what I want this year.

I hope we can pay off these credit cards. 

(to the audience) I hope you got all of your shopping done, well, because you're here now. 

Many of us are hoping for more. We hope the next year is better. We hope that things are going to work out. Some of us are hoping to find true love or a job. Maybe others here are just hoping the new year finally brings us some peace, and maybe even a little joy or at the very least some happier days.  

Our hopes are commonly wishful thinking - a desire for something we might not receive, but which we desperately wish to have. 

Christian hope though is nothing like that. The Hope of God is an optimistic assurance that something will be fulfilled.

Our culture's hopes for a better world, and our own hopes for a better tomorrow leave us adrift on the seas of this life, tossed about by waves of circumstance. Is it going to work out? Oh, man I hope it does. Things look good. No, wait, now they look hopeless again!  

But Christian hope serves is an anchor for our souls, holding us steady even in the most uncertain of times because in it we can say assuredly,  God is always working it all out.

That's because the Christian hope is anchored in Jesus Christ, the unchanging Son of God and in every single unchanging promise found in His Word. Our hope is the confident affirmation that God is faithful, that He will complete what He has begun. It is the confident expectation which waits patiently and fervently for God, for whom nothing is too out of control, too dark, or too impossible, to fulfill His purposes.

In Bethlehem of Judea, over two thousand years ago, God’s people had almost given up hope. Would God ever deliver us, would He finally come to set us free from the Romans controlling us and the sin chaining us? 

The people walked in a spiritual darkness that was beyond any hope of their own fixing up, impossible for them to lighten up. 

And then, a Light shown. A light bigger than bright. Beyond  brilliant. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

To those in darkness, the Light of Life, the Savior and hope of the whole world, had finally come -- Jesus born to set His people free. 

What Hope indeed! Hope that God heard His people's cries. Hope that God cares.  Hope that He can do something very real, very wonderful, and very permanent to turn our hopelessness into enduring hope. Hope that those who walk in this Light, who believe in His name, He gives the right to become children of God. 

Do you know that hope this evening?

Hope of living water, of endless wellsprings, by which you will thirst no more

Hope of a sure way to the Father, through Jesus Himself 

Hope of the God who hears you, who knows you, and still loves you

Hope of real life, of everlasting life. 

Tonight, let us find our rest in Jesus Christ, the fulfiller of all of our longings. 

Let us find our hope in the hope of the World.

[Invite to stand] Will you now stand with us as we sing of this hope, our long expected Jesus. 

Song 1 - Come Thou Long Expected Jesus

MOVEMENT 2 - The PEACE of our coming King 

[You may remain standing] 

SCRIPTURE 2 - Luke 2:8-14 - Matt Roberts 

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 

And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 

And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased!”

SONG 2  - I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day (Casting Crowns)

[You may be seated] 

REFLECTION 2 - Pastor Kyle 

What a stunning announcement to hear breaking out through the stillness of a dark night sky - “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” To shepherds caught in the commonness of their everyday work, among the baa’s and bleating of sheep, comes the very words of God delivered through His messengers “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” 

To a people who had not heard God speak in centuries, to a nation that had known countless wars, captivity, exile, and everyday struggles, and to a whole world restless in the discomfort of sin - “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased!”

For most of us, peace means a truce - at least a short stoppage in the fighting, either with our kids or our spouse or our neighbors. Some of us are seeking financial peace. Social peace. Or just peace of mind. 

The peace of God - the kind the angels announced in Jesus’ coming to earth - is much, much bigger than not fighting, much greater than national border peace, and more stunning than even peace and quiet. It is more lasting, more complete, and more real than the peace of politicians and the dreams of utopia. 

It is everlasting. And it is holistic. It is shalom that means everything in life - in your life and mine - is working as it should. It’s not a just getting-by but a wondrous flourishing. The peace of God is life without a single piece, even a tiny piece, missing. It is completeness. 

Peace is God’s word for wholeness and goodness and total satisfaction in life. 

It is the abundant life Jesus promised, the gift of precious well-being when there is wholeness and harmony in our relationship with God. When there isn’t anything broken between you and God but instead there is a thriving, a wholeness, a beautiful relationship.  

Such peace is the deepest desire and most nagging need of the human heart. 

How can I be at peace within myself? How can I be at peace with myself? 

Underneath those comes the bigger question of our hearts, of all human life - How can I be at peace with God?

That is the good news the angels brought that night. It is why they burst forth, heralding the arrival of the Son of God on earth, with such great joy - The Peace we most need has really come. True peace is finally here.   Because the Peacemaker, the Prince of Peace, had come.

Some religions tell you to try to buy off God with trinkets and offerings, with enough good works and right rule keeping. But that isn’t very good news at all. It means constantly looking over my shoulder, anxiously wondering if I’ve done enough, if I’m strong enough, moral enough, good enough. 

The one real God says simply look to Jesus. Look to our Peace who brings the final end to the ancient war that rages between righteous God and sinful humanity. 

The Peace plan of the world laid that night in swaddling cloths. That lowly wooden manger would one day give way to a wooden cross on which Jesus would purchase our peace with His life. For true peace comes when there is restored righteousness, when our sin against God is forgiven, our debt against God wiped clean. What peace to be right with God! Forever forgiven - all because of the Savior, Christ the Lord, the Peace of the whole world.

How beautiful that this peace was proclaimed here first not to princes, priests or politicians but to shepherds. Shepherds who were treated as unclean outcasts. What great news indeed that God’s peace will be for all the people - peace that crosses all borders and classes, every line of education and pedigree, across all cultures and languages, skin colors and job types, the well-fed and the welfare, those we call good and those we call bad. No matter where you are or who you are, God’s peace can be real for you, for all of us, right now. 

For this is true peace, when we are made right with God. No more looking over the shoulder. Look now to Jesus. No more adding up my life to see if I’ve performed well enough. Jesus has done it all. 

Dear friends, God is not to be bought off. He is to be returned to. 

He calls us not to impress Him but to know Him. To know His Peace. To know His Son. 

So let us stand to rejoice, rejoice, our God has come for us. Immanuel, our God is here with us. 

MOVEMENT 3 - The JOY of our coming King 

SONG 3  - Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee (Rend Collective)

[You may be seated] 

SCRIPTURE 3 -  Matthew 2:1-11 - Matt Roberts 

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” 

When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. 

They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:

“‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for from you shall come a ruler

    who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” 

After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. 

And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.

REFLECTION 3 - Pastor Jason 

What happiness some of us will know tomorrow ripping open a pile of gifts. And then it is over and we're on to the next thing. The next thing we want or need to have or just have to do and get on with. 

Things come and things go, right? But the joy of the Lord is lasting. It is enduring. It satisfies you all the way, so much that you don’t need to go looking for the next thing. 

Sometimes we’re hunting for happiness in all sorts of things, in all kinds of people. But God offers us something far greater. He holds out true joy. The Magi finally found what they were looking for, and He was a Person, the Living God, Jesus Christ. And they fell down at His feet in worship.

When God had delivered them to the Messiah, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. 

What can give someone that kind of feeling? They overflowed with more than happiness - they rejoiced in joy. It was bigger than the delight of a day well-spent with amazing friends. It was something beyond the bliss that fluttered in your heart when you first fell in love. And their rejoicing was something deeper than even the exhilaration of holding your first child. 

So what can give you something more than a feeling, something that doesn't go up and down or come and go, but stays and lasts?

Herod heard the news of the coming King and tried vainly to kill off the Joy of the world. 

But the Magi came seeking a King to worship. What joy there is in discovering the truth. What joy there is in finding what you have long needed even if you didn’t know its name before - something missing, something glorious that always seemed to be around the corner, the thing that would finally make life make sense and fill you up to overflowing. 

1 Peter 1 tells us, Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:8-9)

What joy it is to find satisfaction for the soul. To know God’s acceptance. To know the hope and peace of His salvation. To know Him and be with Him. What joy indeed it is to be found by God - for in Him your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. (Jn. 16:22b)

The Father found those Magi and brought them to His Son, the King over everything. And their response is the same as all those who follow God’s light - to fall at the feet of Jesus and worship. 

We rejoice in Thee, our Lord, our joy. Glory to God in the highest. Glory to God forevermore. 

[invite to stand] Let us stand to sing in adoration of our Lord. 

MOVEMENT 4 - The LOVE Sent to Save 

SONG 4 - Midnight Clear (Love Song)

SCRIPTURE 4 - Matthew 1:18-21 + 1 John 4:9-10 - Matt Roberts 

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 

MESSAGE + INVITATION + PRAYER - A Look to Tomorrow - Pastor Kyle 

On the day Jesus entered into His own creation, everything changed.

Angels announced it. Shepherds marvelled at. Herod shook. Mary treasured up. 

And yet on the surface, everything remained just the same. The world was still in turmoil. Tyrants ruled. Life was cheap. Taxes took your money and the grind of life sapped bones. People laughed. People cried. Some slept. Some worked. 

Some witnessed this most miraculous thing - Jesus, fully God, who knows no was or will be, but simply is - the great I AM - He took on flesh, took on humanity, and was born into the very world He had made in a particular time and a specific space. The true Christmas story speaks in reality and sparkles with mystery. 

The God to whom all things belong became really, really poor. 

The God to whom belongs all praise and honor and glory, humbly took His fist gasps of air into infant lungs in a stable smelling of livestock. 

The God who has no form, who is beyond our understanding, who is perfectly holy and righteous, shrunk down and down to a babe wrapped and lying in a manger, in a town, in a country, in a world of people of unclean lips and unclean hearts that did not know Him and did not love Him. 

Mattthew tells us Jesus’ human genealogy - the family line through which He came to earth. It is comprised of men and women, adulterers, murders, prostitutes, godly kings and very ungodly ones, heroes and liars, Gentiles and Jews. 

And Jesus is the Savior of them all. For with such of mankind He was pleased to dwell. For to us - in all of our dust and disaster - Jesus came.

Not because in ourselves we are so particularly lovable, but because He in Himself, is pleased to be our Savior, to rebirth all stripes of humanity into a new genealogy that finds its beginning and end in the Alpha and Omega, in Him, Jesus the Christ. 

You shall His name Jesus,for He will save His people from their sins. The name Jesus - Yeshua or Joshua - YHWH Saves - was given to Jewish boys as a symbolic hope for the Lord's long awaited sending of salvation through a Messiah who would purify His people and save them from oppression. 

But the angel points out something amazing - this saving would be of a much greater importance than anyone ever imagined, more than anyone could have ever dreamed - this Savior came to save His people from their sins. 

To save people from themselves. To save us from our willful and natural disobedience to God, our inner and outer rebellion against the One who made us, who organized our DNA, and who counted the hairs on our heads, put our hearts in our chests and air in our lungs. The God for whom we were made. 

But He is the God against whom we have raged, rejected, shrugged off and ignored as we went on about our lives like He was not here. This one real God, who knows us, knows what is in our hearts and heads, what we do in secret and what we desire. This God had come into the world, looking like one of us. Looking to save us. 

The light shone into the darkness. The righteous One walked among the evil ones. The Savior of the world was here to rescue. The Life of the world came to Die that we will be forgiven, so that we could live.  

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.  1 Timothy 1:15 

But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Hebrews 9:26

Our unfailing hope is that Jesus can save us. Our everlasting peace comes in His once-for-all sacrifice that forever forgives us. Our complete joy comes in being accepted by God through Jesus. And all this is possible because of the stunning, intense, other-worldly love of God.  

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation, the redemption, the One who would pay for our sins. 

SPEAK TO THEM - 3 groups of people

This time of year many of us are happy, and a whole lot of us are sad. But all of us have broken hearts that need mending. Broken lives that need the gift of forgiveness. We don’t need just a little more cheer or a few more happy memories this Christmas. We need Jesus Christ. We need what only He can give. We need His very good news. 

Jesus told us that gospel in why He came

I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. JOHN 12:46

He came to  bring good news to the poor in spirit 

To heal the brokenhearted 

To proclaim liberty to the captives and set free those who are bound in sin

To announce the Lord's favor, bring God’s peace, and complete our joy. 

He came to give us the truth 

To reveal God's glory 

To Satisfy the deepest thirsts of our lives and our hearts' greatest hungers

To bring us back to a right relationship with our heavenly Father 

He came to give you life, life more abundantly. Fulfilled life. Complete life. Real life. Lasting, enduring, life. Life that goes on. Eternal, forever life. Life lived with God, lived for God, and lived by God’s life actually in you. 

Jesus came to give us a full life of God’s hope that never runs out, His peace that lasts, Christ’s joy that overflows, and the Father’s love that never gives up.  

In a room this size, there are surely some of us who came here perhaps a little reluctantly. Maybe you were even dragged or just tugged really hard. I want to tell you the good news that you might have just been drawn here by God. The truth is that no one finds God. He finds you. Just like He found the magi, and Mary, and Matthew, and me.  

So look around. Listen. See and hear what He is saying about who you are, what you need. About why He came. About His gift of life held out to you this very night. I invite you to investigate. Look into these things. He came for you. He died for you. He can accept you in His family. God knows you already. Will you take a step toward knowing Him, Jesus Christ? 

There are some of us here tonight who feel far from God. Some feel ashamed. Some of us have come to realize our brokenness, our sinfulness. Some here feel you are not deserving of God’s love. Friends, you are in a very good place - God’s light is shining on you. God is not embarrassed of you. You are not beyond His reach or beneath His ability to love you. He has come to save you. To cleanse you. To make you right with God. Turn to Him, cry out to Him, call upon the one who is named God Saves, God With Us. Believe in Him and receive His forgiveness and His life. 

Some of us here know Jesus. We have followed Him. But things in our lives have creeped up, stepped between, stumbled us and led us astray. We’ve stopped going to church, maybe even stopped talking to God. Brothers and sisters, Christmas is here, Christ is here - it is not too late to turn back to our Savior. You know Him, you believe in Him, come and adore Him again, come walk with Him this Christmas and all the Christmases to come. 

Others of us love Jesus. We know the hope of His love and the freedom of His salvation from sin and the chains that once bound us. We know the peace of His forgiveness and are rejoicing this Christmas that we have been found by God and that His great love has been changing us. 

Be of good cheer and continue to fight the good fight. Rejoice with those who rejoice and stay holding onto your Savior this day and in the days to come. Share His love, tell about His life. Tell the world that Christmas story is no storybook tale or wide-eyed dream but is the beautiful reality of Jesus come to give us life. 

PRAYER - Pray with me; we have people to answer questions and pray with you; Come to church to find out more; Look to Tomorrow; Christ Coming again 

[invite to stand]

CLOSING SONG 1 - Life in Me 

INVITE / CLOSE - Pastor Jason - (1) Invite to Grace River this Sunday; (2) Invite to enjoy some more treats and fellowship  

CLOSING SONG 2 - All Creation Sing (Joy to the World) 

POSTLUDE - Life in Me (instrumental)

LIFE IN ME I have come 

To give you life 

To give you life 

Life more abundantly 

I have come to light your way 

The way to the Father

Through Me 

So come and drink of living water 

You will thirst no more 

Come and draw from endless wellsprings Life abundantly 

Life in Me 

I have come to give you life 

To give you life 

Life more abundantly 

I have come to light your way 

The way to the Father 

Through Me 

Just believe 

So come and drink of living water 

You will thirst no more 

Come and draw from endless wellsprings Life abundantly 

So come and drink of living water 

You will thirst no more 

Come and draw from endless wellsprings

Life abundantly 

Life in Me 

Just believe 

Life in Me