The Call of Christmas

Song Introduction

Opening Song(s): A lot of churches have Christmas Hymns or Carols that they enjoy each year, here are some that you might want to include: O Come, All Ye Faithful, Joy To The World! The Lord Is Come, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, O Little Town of Bethlehem, The First Noel, O Holy Night, What Child Is This, Silent Night

Song – One Small Child (3 min)

Prayer

Advent candle

Relight

Hope

Peace

Joy

Love

Light

Christ

As we light this candle, we honor Christ, His birth and the Gospel. This evening is dedicated in worship and honor of our great King, Savior, Father.

Welcome and Introduction

Abba,

How do you make that which is familiar, novel again?

How do you make that which is common, unique once more?

How do you treasure anew that which has lost its luster?

How do you regain a sense of majesty and wonder, innocence and awe for that which we have permitted to become ordinary?

Why is this our tendency and flaw?

Why is this our burden to bear?

Why are we so prone to marginalization?

To the trap of familiarity?

Why do we so easily downgrade the divine?

Of course, these are rhetorical.

The answer is obvious

The condition of humanity plain

OUR condition is clear

We are sinful

Fallen

Broken.

Sin strips the shine from the divine

Sin dulls the luster of majesty

Sin diverts Glory’s rays to attract lesser things

Sin takes the supreme, the ultimate, the transcendent

Making it plain, familiar, common, ordinary…

And it becomes lost to our sight.

What a tragedy!

What a loss!

And yet, hope is not all lost

The divine, the majesty, the glory is not lost forever

That which sin has minimized

That which we take for granted

That which we have forgotten, forsaken, and ignored

Has never lost is luster or glory shine!

Where we have failed, You succeed, Abba.

You don’t let us forget. You awaken your people.

Though we may slumber for a time,

You will always draw your own back to divine wonder at your presence!

You know our propensity for forgetfulness; for depreciation of the divine.

There is great danger in this familiarity that results in this devastating depreciation.

That which is familiar is not valued.

That which is common is not treasured.

Christmas, this celebration of your birth, Jesus, has been familiar, common, for too long.

How has it come to mean so little to us?

How has the miraculous become plain?

When did the gospel, the very reason for this miraculous birth, lose its magnificent shine in our hearts?

When did our preferences press out the gospel?

When did consumerism replace salvation?

When did covetousness and greed press out reconciliation?

When did traditions overwrite remembrance?

When did lights and glitz hide the simplicity of a manger?

When did our comfort distort the salvation message?

When did our temporal safety take primary concern over eternal deliverance from a just God’s wrath?

When did our personal agenda’s corrupt the pure purpose of Your great love story?

Abba, I can’t shake the profound sense of gospel neglectfulness we have fallen into

I can’t shake the sense of gospel depreciation that has gripped your church.

Too often do I sense it in my own life.

Too often is it clear in your church

Glaringly obvious is it in the world at large

How easily the mission of gospel has been marginalized

How quickly has it been sidelined.

How readily has the work of our ambassadorship been replaced.

Abba, I am acutely aware of the complexities of this life and the legitimacy of proceeding with wisdom and discernment in the face of real threats.

But when did temporal concerns override those of eternal?

When did fleshly concerns come to mean more than spiritual?

And how do we get it back?

The mandate of the gospel has not changed

How do we reach a world being forced into isolation?

How are we embracing the opportunities for the gospel in a time ripe with readiness?

Has our response revealed our readiness, our shoes shod with the readiness of the gospel of peace?

Or has our response revealed our sleepiness and indifference?

Christmas has not changed.

It’s meaning remains the same

The intent of our celebrations has always intended to be gospel focused.

It is we who have changed

We who have permitted a God rejecting world

To redefine what our sacred remembrance is about

And little by little, we have lost our way

And while we profess remembrance

So much of our “remembrance” is forced justification

To ease our guilty conscience

Over gospel forgetfulness

Over marginalizing of the divine

Over fleshly indulgence

Abba, return us to sacred remembrance

To undivided worship

To purposeful meditation

To humble thankfulness

Return our focus

To gospel centeredness

To passionate servanthood

To global proclamation

To universal church edification

To majestic glorification

To Divine Worship!

Abba, return our hearts

Rescue us from the ordinary

Clear the fog from our eyes

Burn off the dross of familiarity

Shine bright the majestic once more

Outshine the lesser lights

Make us tremble once more

In terror and awe of Your great glory

Revealed, displayed, and executed

Through the gospel narrative

Of a Savior come near

A Messiah standing in my place

Of reconciliation offered

Of the way made open….

Because….

Of a babe in a manger!

Sermon Body

A CALL TO PREPARE

Read: ​Luke 1:1-25 (2 Min)

Watch/Perform: Zechariah (4:19)

John the Baptist would describe his role and ministry as a call to prepare the way for the Messiah

He was to prepare the hearts and minds of people to recognize and receive the promised Messiah when he showed up.

He was a herald

Their joy was about MORE than just having a child in their old age and about MORE than Elizabeth’s shame of being childless being nullified.

They knew what this child was going to be! They knew what this meant. At least Zechariah did and I am sure he explained it the best he could to his wife (doing so with no voice).

Theirs was a ministry preparation.

John’s was a ministry preparation.

So important was the coming of the Messiah, the King, that God told them to prepare. He sent one with the specific task of preparation. His arrival was one that merited their alertness and preparedness.

Why is it any different for us? How are we preparing? How are we alert and ready?

As we look toward tomorrow morning and the celebrations of tomorrow, we are being called to prepare as well.

And I don’t mean by decoration, precooking food, etc.

I am talking about preparing our hearts to receive the Messiah, to make the day about HIM and about the mission of salvation he came to engage in.

We are being called to prepare our hearts to have the right focus, the goal, the attitude in place as we gather and celebrate tomorrow.

How will you prepare your heart to receive the King tomorrow?

The call of Christmas is a call to prepare our hearts for him, moment by moment of our lives.

Song: O Come, O Come Emmanuel (3 min)

A CALL TO PROVIDE

Read: ​Luke 1:26-38 (2 min)

Watch/Perform: Mary (3:28)

Mary was being called. Called to provide the human means for the Messiah to enter the world.

This call was costly.

Many would not believer her message.

E.G. – Card I read growing up. Outside of card: Christmas Canceled. Inside of Card. Joseph Confessed.

She would be scorned, ridiculed, accused of immorality.

Mary was being called to bear, raise, and care for THE MESSIAH. She was being called to bear THE CHILD that would provide salvation, reconciliation, and peace between God and man.

The call of Mary is a call to provide.

The theological truth being: Mary by herself could not produce a son, but God could give her one whose name, Jesus, means “God saves.” This, in essence, is the gospel: humans cannot produce their own salvation, but God can and has chosen to accomplish it for all of humanity. He just desired for the Call of Christmas to come through the womb of a virgin from a remote country village. Mary’s call was a call to provide what God had decided. She provided herself, and God would do the rest.

When we make ourselves available to God, as humble, willing servants, it is amazing what He will do through us.

In college, I once had the opportunity to interview Coach Huckabee (Now at home with the Lord), a long standing, well loved coach, man of God. He was sharing the challenges with the gym, particularly the floor and had been praying, asking God to provide for a new floor as the old was in poor shape. He knew it was a small thing in the grand scope, but it was a prayer and felt so huge and insurmountable. Then, one morning in his bible reading, he read this passage. Elizabeth’s situation was impossible with man. It was physically not a possibility. The same way he felt about the floor. But God did it because he wanted it to be done. He had a purpose in accomplishing it. And Coach sensed that the message was this…the floor replacement may be a big thing for you…it is not for me. He went on to share that within a matter of months, that way for the floor replacement was opened wide and God accomplished that which man thought was too big. I left that interview with one question hovering….Where is your Elizabeth? What is the impossible thing in your life that seems undoable but with God is possible? And how will you pray and seek God in that? There are, of course, no guarantees that it will be supplied, but the point is, is your faith and trust of God limiting your prayers and is God calling you to surrender, to obey in the waiting?

Perhaps what God wants is an opportunity TO PROVIDE THROUGH willing, humble, and obedient servants what ONLY HE can provide when we pray, ask, and step aside allowing him to work?

The Call of Christmas is a call to provide…ourselves for his use.

Will you provide all of who you are to all of whom God is?

Video: Gabriel’s Message (3 min)

A CALL TO PROTECT

Read: ​Matthew 1:18-25 (2 Min)

Watch/Perform: Joseph (4 min)

Joseph’s was a call to protect.

Protect Mary, his wife, from the scorn and ridicule that would most certainly come

Protect Jesus, this Messiah child that was given to them to raise until he reached maturity and began his adult life and ministry.

Notice the protective nature of Joseph as the righteous man that he was….

The betrothal in first-century Jewish culture meant more than merely being engaged. It meant this couple legally was married in the eyes of the law. However, due to the customs of the day, they were in a waiting period that would enable their love and faithfulness to be tested as Joseph prepared a home that would demonstrate provision and protection for his wife when they soon would live life no longer apart, but together. This waiting period was a time to prepare for intimacy and a cultural call for chastity as was the expected norm in that day. Even back then true love waited until marriage to express itself in sexual intimacy. When Joseph found out Mary was with child, his eventual desire to protect included both Mary’s well-being and his own.

Joseph’s desire to keep Mary from public disgrace shows his bent-ness toward being a protector. While a loud and public divorce certainly was within Joseph’s rights, the law also allowed for private divorce before two witnesses as Numbers 5:11-31 suggests. Because the description of Joseph from verse 19 is one of a “just” man, he did not want to shame Mary publicly any more than she likely had and would continue to receive as her “baby bump” grew. With the eventual advent of her child, a constant reminder of “what she did” would be hers to bear among the cutting eyes and sneering whispers from the community.

Joseph wanted to protect Mary as much as possible with a quiet divorce once his emotional heart had settled and his cognitive mind took over. However, his own protection was at play in this decision. Had he gone ahead and taken Mary as his wife, it would be perceived as an unspoken admission of guilt that he was the biological father of the child Mary was carrying inside her womb. Thus, a divorce would protect his righteousness under the law, his reputation in the community, and still allow his compassion to remain intact all at the same time.

This was the righteous character of this man Joseph, that he would seek to live righteously while at the same time protecting one whom he believed to be guilty of sin. He took a protective, compassionate approach to handling this situation.

He embraced the dream and the message of it and when he awoke, he was immediately obedient.

Consider a minute the faith and righteousness of this man to response in such a way. Mary gets all the credit for her response, but Joseph’s response is no less amazing and extraordinary. His righteous character had to be strong and resolute for God to entrust him and Mary with the Messiah.

Later when he is warned in a dream to flee to Egypt and again to return, Joseph again, obeys immediately and without question.

Joseph embraced the call to protect Mary and to protect the Messiah.

It would not have been an easy task. But God granted him courage to embrace the deep fears of the unknown to obey and he is forever remembered for his faith and obedience to God’s call to protect.

This Christmas, what is God calling you to protect?

We have spoken lot about the gospel needing to be center stage of our Christmas celebrations. Perhaps we need to protect the centrality and essentiality of the gospel in our celebrations.

Perhaps we need to protect truth, righteous living, intimacy with the Savior, a godly example, etc.

God went to great lengths to get the Messiah here to earth. Perhaps God’s call to us is to protect the MAIN message of that coming for this generation and for all future generations against the distractions of cultural expectations.

I read to you my opening mediations on Christmas this year. You may not agree, you may think I am overreacting, but I wonder….I wonder in what ways do we need to change our traditions and rewrite cultural expectations to recenter the gospel over the manger and the birth of our King.

Perhaps this is call to protect.

Song: Away In A Manger (3 min)

A CALL TO PRAISE

Read: ​Luke 2:1-20 (2 Min)

Watch/Perform: Shepherds (3:28)

Angels arrived to praise and glorify God, proclaiming his birth to the most unexpected people.

Angels are seen throughout scripture to be heralds of praise!

Isaiah 6:1-7

Revelation 4:1-11

Revelation 5:1-14

We even see them present at creation singing in worship to the God who creates - Job 38:4-7

Now suddenly, we see angels praising God here, at this momentous occasions. When angels show up to sing, to praise, to declare, it is a glorious moment indeed!

But shepherds are different.

Shepherds were not heralds. They were not John the Baptist. They were not the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth.

They were outcasts. Lowlifes. They were the nobodies.

Just as God came to small town, to an insignificant woman and her betrothed. Just as God was born in to a manger, in a barn, so God gave to lowly shepherds with a call to praise.

God uses the simple to showcase the extravagant. He uses the ordinary and makes it extraordinary. He uses the common to display the divine!

God uses the unexpected to showcase his glory.

And he uses this night, the shepherds to proclaim the praises of his Son’s birth to all who would listen.

Their inclusion is in stark contrast to that of the angels. Perhaps the picture is this…God invites all, both high and lowly (or what we deem to be so) to worship, to praise, to extol his name. He invites ALL of creation to do so.

He comes to the shepherds because he invites them to praise and uses them to invite others to praise Him.

This Christmas, how are you embracing the call to praise? How are you inviting others to praise God with you?

In your Christmas celebrations, how is Praise and worship of God at the center of it all?

Video: Angels from the Realms of Glory (4 min)

THE CALL INTERRUPTS

Read: ​Isaiah 9:6-7 (0:30)

Watch/Perform: The Call Of Christmas Anthem (2:24)

We would do well to contemplate how God is calling each of us this Christmas:

Maybe He is calling you to get prepared. Maybe you need to learn to be silent. You spend so much time talking, texting, posting, proclaiming. Maybe as we experience this last week of the year, you are being called to be quiet.

Maybe He is calling you to provide. Jesus...the grown man, not the baby....would say, “Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me.” (Matthew 25) Maybe this Christmas, God is calling you to start a life of giving rather than receiving. Could He be longing to hear from you, “I am the Lord’s servant” and then watching you follow through by providing food for the hungry, clothes for the needy, a home for the orphan, or simply a cold cup of water to someone in His name.

Maybe He is calling you to protect. Look, let’s be honest, God doesn’t need you for anything. So if you are asking what would He want me to protect, then you’re missing the point. Maybe God wants you to help protect those who cannot protect themselves. To risk your livelihood for those who have no life...Maybe God’s calling you to help protect His good name by being His hands and feet in this broken world. No matter what He may be calling you to protect, I am pretty sure it will upset your plans. But good news...He loves you enough...to ask you to let go of your plans and join Him in His plans.

Maybe God is calling you to praise Him! Not just to sing another song. Not just to attend church. Maybe God is calling you to really praise Him by taking steps of faith that show your respect and gratitude for our Lord.

Yes, calling is about interruption. Calling is about changing our lives in scary ways. But calling is always accompanied by joy and tears and passion and a sense of living life with purpose. What is your purpose this holiday? Better yet...what is your call this Christmas?

Song: All Glory to You

Conclusion

This Christmas Eve...

Tomorrow on Christmas Day...

and Everyday after....

Will you and I heed the call of Christmas and allow it to shape our lives; our EVERY DAY lives…not just our Christmas day lives.

Our yearly celebration IS NOT primarily about family gatherings, decorations, lights, vacations, giving and receiving of gifts.

Our celebration IS about the GOSPEL.

The Divine becoming flesh

The Just and Righteous paving the way for the wicked and rebellious to be restored

The wrath of justice being satisfied in perfect payment

It is about man being forgiven, restored, and reconciled to God.

And THAT does change our daily lives, not just our annual celebrations.

May today be the start, or the renewal of answer the call of Christmas in every day life.