Finding CHRIST In Our World

REFLECTION / ADVENT READING: John 1:1-14

SERMON: Luke 2:6-7

BENEDICTION: Luke 2:10-14

INTRODUCTION

We are here! We have made it to Christmas Eve. Did you ever think we would…after 238 days of March 15th?

I know you kids are still counting down to tomorrow and the excitement that will come. Christmas can’t come soon enough!

I think that’s true for all of us this year.

In case you’re just joining us tonight, we’ve been journeying through Advent - a season of expectant waiting as we focus and reflect on Christ’s coming—His coming to earth on that first Christmas long ago and His eventual triumphant return to earth to complete God’s ultimate work of redemption.

The Christmas story is a powerful account, filled with wonder and miracles and very real life. It is the story of Jesus come to earth as the most wonderful gift of all eternity.

We have explored how Jesus intersected in the lives of real people who played a role in His arrival. The hope, peace, joy, and love that only Jesus could bring into their lives in very real ways, He will do for you today.

TRANSITION

In these precious moments together, let’s briefly highlight all that it means that Christ is come, and all we can rediscover about Christmas in Him.

Because of Jesus, we can

1. Find Hope in Our Uncertainties

When uncertainty surrounds us, the promise of Christ fills us with hope to carry on.

In the worst sufferings and atrocities and catastrophes of human history, there has always remained a flicker of hope. Throughout enslavement, imprisonment, torture, and tragedy, there have been those who have clung to the smallest sparks of hope and fanned them within to an eventual survival or freedom or release.

Throughout the history of the Jewish people, there was the hope of God’s covenant. There was the promise of restoration and blessing through the Messiah. But time dragged on, and the nation was plundered. Its people were exiled and conquered. “How long, O God?” was the cry of the ancient Israelite people as year after year, century after century passed.

But there were those who kept hope alive, living expectantly and faithfully, trusting openly and wholeheartedly that God would come through. Simeon and Anna were two of those people who encountered the baby Jesus. They had lived long, difficult lives. They had known loss and disappointment. But they did not abandon hope. And when they saw the baby Jesus, just about six weeks old, in the temple, they knew without a doubt that this was the Messiah, the promised one, the Son of God. They were ready and waiting for this moment. And they embraced the moment of this hope fulfilled with rejoicing and worshiping and spreading the news. The flames of their hope spread beyond and multiplied.

Friends, how is the flame of your hope today? Let me encourage you, no matter what you are facing - to rediscover hope this Christmas in the coming of the Christ child.

With this verse as our prayer, let’s rediscover the hope that Christ has come and He is working in our lives today:

Romans 15:13 ESV

13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Because of Jesus, we can

2. Find Peace in Our Struggles

The struggles are real, but the peace of Christ transcends within us, even in our darkest days.

Of course the announcement came in the dark of the night. Of course the angels began their announcement to the shepherds with the words, “Don’t be afraid!” Because of course they were afraid. Because they were human, and there’s so much in our world that causes us to fear.

We’re not struggling because magnificent, terrifying heavenly beings were showing up in the middle of the night sky. For us, it’s the normal pressures and disappointments and uncertainties of our frailty in a broken world. And that’s true even without the roiling events of a global pandemic.

But in Jesus, the Prince of Peace arrived on earth. And the angels proclaimed a new peace:

Luke 2:10–14 ESV

10 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. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

The favor of God is here with humans. The peace of shalom, the Jewish concept of fullness, safety, completeness, and wholeness, is available to us. This is the peace of restoration with God.

- Jesus is the bringer of peace between us and God BECAUSE He is the sacrificial lamb, the giver of life.

You cannot experience Shalom…unless you have Peace WITH God.

Lest we forget, before we come to the LORD Jesus Christ in repentance and submission, we are rebels at war with this Holy God!

The angels point to the only HOPE of PEACE…Jesus!

It is the peace that settles our souls deeply. It is the calm acceptance that “it is well with my soul” no matter what swirls and storms around me.

Let me encourage you to turn your heart to Christ, bringing Him your hurt and your needs. And let me trust with you that:

Philippians 4:7 ESV

7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

This is the rediscovery of the peace of Christ in this season.

Because of Christ, we

3. Find Joy in Our Discouragements

We all have one of those days, or weeks, or years. Even then, Christ fills us with joy that defies our circumstances.

King David wrote in the Psalms (Psa 30:5b),

“Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”

We’ve seen this in the stories of Elizabeth and Mary, united in the shared joy of their pregnancies, both miraculous. For Elizabeth, joy was a fulfillment of long-dashed dreams of motherhood and the erasure of cultural shame because she had never been able to bear a child. Her joy erased decades of disgrace. For Mary, joy was a relief of acceptance and understanding, and a celebration of being in the middle of God’s greatest miracle. Surely Mary knew that she would face scorn, disbelief, and misunderstanding for her pregnancy, but in her encounter with Elizabeth, she finds the freedom of joy.

Probably for most of us, Christmas brings a mixture of happiness and sorrow, joy and pain.

As we pour out our hearts to Him even in the midst of our pain, He can transform our weeping into the joy that lets us appreciate and enjoy the goodness of His greater work within us and in our world.

It’s my prayer, written by the apostle Peter, that,

1 Peter 1:8–9 ESV

8 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, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

This past Sunday, we were reminded that because of Christ, we can

4. Find Love in Our Differences

There’s so much in our world that drives us apart. The love of Christ runs deeper than our differences with a flood of grace, forgiveness, and unity.

Instead of a culture that exemplifies love, we are a nation and a world filled with division and conflict and hatred. Despite our best intentions, our broken human nature divides us.

Jesus, on the other hand, is the bridge of love that unites us. He is the long-promised Messiah, sent because God loves us so much that He allowed His only Son to be the sacrifice for all our sins and shortcomings. And when He did, Jesus made the way for us to be restored into relationship with God, love Himself.

God gathered the young and old, the earthly and the heavenly, the lowly and the noble, Jews and Gentiles, clean and unclean to be involved in the arrival of His Son - representing all kinds of barriers and divisions bridged by His love.

As we rediscover the love of Christ, we find a divine love that washes over us and fulfills us from within, I pray that it propels us to reach across the divisions around us, even to our enemies, with humility and forgiveness and grace.

The Bible says,

1 John 4:18–19 ESV

18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us.

Wow, what a love! This is our God. This is our Jesus.

Our Challenge this day, and every day is to:

5. Find Christ in Our World

Christ has come with hope, peace, joy, and love. Christ has come to change our world—and us—forever.

This is His arrival into our world as described by Luke:

Luke 2:6–7 ESV

6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

It’s such a humble birth, such an understated beginning to life, yet such a normal entry into our existence. Human birth as a fragile, helpless baby. Jesus is truly man - - able to understand everything we go through, all of our longings and struggles and pain.

Yet Jesus is truly God. He is hope, joy, peace, and love personified. And as Heaven’s Spotless Lamb, He is the only capable of taking the sins of the world (your sins…my sins), and satisfying God’s wrath which we all deserve in our rebellion.

Sin has robbed us of life. Sin has robbed us of hope, peace, joy, and it has corrupted love into something perverse.

Rediscover Jesus this morning.

The virgin-conceived, sinless substitute who is our crucified and resurrected King is HERE with us...

In our uncertainties, struggles, discouragement, and differences.

In our celebration and mourning.

In our crying and rejoicing.

In our fear and in our triumphs.

In our losses and our victories.

In our brokenness and healing.

In our sickness and our health.

In our life and our death.

He is Immanuel, God With Us, for eternity. And He will never leave or forsake His children.

And He is working, and He is moving. He is offering life and forgiveness. He is calling us to trust Him on His terms so we can see beyond our immediate circumstances to His deeper, bigger, broader, wider, higher picture and work.

Jesus has come to our world and is present in the lives of His followers through the person of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is the discovery of Christmas.

Let’s run like the shepherds to encounter Him this season.

Let’s worship and find renewal in His presence this year.

Let’s rediscover Christmas in the life He offers in and around us.

If you are in need of lasting HOPE, real PEACE, true JOY, and LOVE that will not let you go…confess your need for the LORD JESUS CHRIST by confessing your sinfulness and desperate need for a Savior TO Him!

Merry Christmas! Christ has come! Christ is working through His Church! Christ will come again!

Let’s Pray!

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Benediction

Luke 2:10–14 ESV

10 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. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”