Untitled Sermon

Merry Christmas! I so hope you enjoyed hearing the familiar words from Luke chapter 2 about the birth of Jesus. The words are familiar, and over the years we have become used to our traditions, and we look forward to it, sometimes all year.

Then some sort of major event disrupts our Christmas, and it hurts. I am sure that many of you have had Christmases that were not like you have wanted them be. Some have suffered illnesses and have been in the hospital for Christmas. Others have suffered the loss of family member or close friend, and Christmas seems lonely and empty. Some have been miles apart for their loved ones for Christmas. This year of course, we are not even having our traditional Christmas Eve Service.

These things hurt, I get that. They hurt real bad. Although it seems like everyone is having the perfect Christmas the truth is that even without a pandemic, most people do not have a perfect Christmas. They are alone, or ill, or suffering loss, or in war torn areas, or in hones with dirt floors. In reality the perfect Christmas is just an illusion.

It is an illusion that the marketers of the United States and world try to put on you to spend more. The reality is that the world is broken. Most everyone in the world is suffering in some way. There is this pain, and loss and sickness, and that my friends is the very reason we have Christmas at all.

We have Christmas because a God from on high, took on flesh and dwelt among us, in order to save us from the brokenness of this world.

John 3:16 NIV

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

God took on flesh and lived life. All of life-With its pain and sorrow and brokenness, and in Him we have life. We have hope as we wait and joy in knowing that we have peace with God- Listen to these words from ROmans 5,

Romans 5:1–15 NIV

1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. 6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. 12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned— 13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come. 15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!

Brothers and sister- The message of Christmas is this- God Almighty has given you a gift-The Gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ. That is the gift that came at Christmas, and when you know Christ, all the suffering in this world pales for all the unsurpassing greatness of knowing him.

If you do not know this hope, if you do not know this peace and joy, you can know it today. Turn to Jesus, Pray ask Him to save you

He is Emmanuel God with us.