Are We Ready? Proclaiming Christ!

Welcome/Prayer/ Intro

Good Morning Church! How is everyone doing this morning? I am excited to wrap up our series on Advent called Are You Ready? We’ve talked about what it means to be prepared for Advent and Christ’s coming! This morning we are going to talk about what it means to proclaim Christ this Christmas season.

Prayer- God we come before you this morning and invite you to move in this space. We ask that you would be incarnate in this place of worship. That you would be incarnate in our lives this day. Jesus as we reflect on this season of your coming, may you come alive in our hearts once again! We ask that we might be transformed by your living word this morning! Amen!

Intro Question: Three things happened in the past two weeks that God used to speak to me about why we need to be proclaiming Christ.

Keep Christ in Christmas Sign:

Made me think what does that mean to Keep Christ in Christmas? How do we do that?

Im sure most people have heard phrases like keep christ in christmas, say merry christmas not happy holidays, but people have also heard the christmas story too! So how can we proclaim Christ today?

Customers at the Store: Ive had countless customers ask me about my plans for Christmas, but not once did I use it to talk about Jesus? When I shared that with Dean later on, he said well how do I as a teacher share the story of Jesus to my students, when Im not allowed to talk about it unless they ask. Made me think how can we share the story of Jesus that invites people in?

I noticed how we can all too quickly gloss over shocking stories and not unpack them especially when they are all too familar and weve heard them over and over.

I was sharing in young adult group how I have a brother who got into a car accident when he was younger and the gear shifter went through his head, but hes fine now. Everyone stopped and said, wait what? Back up explain!

It made me wonder, Do we do this with the Christmas story? Do we share the summed up version that everyone knows, and what parts do we leave out? What realities do we like my brother’s story forget to acknowledge and describe

Transition: Today, I hope to upack the Christmas story in new ways, in addressing not Just what happened, but why the details are so important. We are also going to walk through details of Jesus’ birth that connect with millions of people today. Finally, we are going to talk about practical real world ways that We can proclaim Christ this Christmas season! Are we ready Church?

Walking through the Text: Why is the Story so important? (Turn to Hebrew 1:1)

Hebrews talks about why the story of Jesus’ birth is so important it invites us to think about the implications of Jesus’ birth not merely the circumstances.

In this Four verses the writer of Hebrews highlights Why Jesus is so important how its not just a story we tell, but a historical turning point.

In the opening Lines, the writer says in the former days God spoke through prophets in various ways, but now He has spoken through His son!

Reality number 1: Jesus is the message made man! He is what the whole story of the Bible is pointing Too!

The author then says that all things were created and sustained by Christ

Reality number 2: The entirety of Creation points to its creator. This baby was the same being that created the world around us. That in and of itself should make us look at the story differently!

The Son is the light of God’s glory and imprint of His being! This person: is the clearest image of God, He is the standard by which we evaluate and understand Yahweh.

Reality 3: That means We look to Jesus to see what God is like. God chose to be born to poor parents, under questionable circumstances, and in a stable of all places.

Yet, it doesnt stop their, as a adult, Jesus hung-out with fisherman, tax collectors, and sinners.

Went out of his way to engage with people others avoided and pushed away.

He chose the least of Jewish/Roman society to proclaim the good news.

Hebrews notes: That Jesus carried out the cleansing of the people from their sins. Yes, Jesus brought salvation. But Jesus wasnt just born so He could die on a cross.

In the Christmas story, we see a savior who entered the mess of this world in order to help fix it! Yes, His death brought forgiveness, but it brought about the Kingdom of God too!

When we share the story, we must not just share the circumstances of Jesus’ birth and how he was born, but talk about how that changed the world as we know it.

Transition: Yet, the details of Jesus’ birth are important too! How Jesus came to earth is just as important as why! If we look in the details we see not only a birth story that speaks to our world today, but we see realities that Jesus faced that millions face today!

Walking through the Text: Not just a story in the past, but Realities in the present.

I think we often like to make the story of Jesus, being born in a stable this cute little scene with animals surrounding Jesus in a nice and clean little barn area like this. (Slide)

But this is what Jesus’ first bed probably actually looked like: Slide

This is a stone manger! Now farmers, what is this used for? Feeding your animals? Question: Would anyone here put their newborn baby in one of these?

Truth is Jesus was born as a poor carpenters son, in a backwater town. Everything about his life was the opposite of what you would expect from God of the universe!

Yet, there are more babies born today into poverty and born to poor parents than we would like to admit.

Jesus’ story connects with these people.

Another aspect of Jesus’ story that we overlook or gloss over is the fact that Jesus was in fact a refugee.

Here what Matthew writes about the early life of Jesus Matthew 2:13-18 (Slide).

Do we read this and think about how it fufilled a prophecy? or do we think about how hard this must have been for these people to be displaced into another country because the goverment wanted this baby dead and was actively killing others?

Do we read this and connect this story of God as a refugee with those in similar circumstances today. This life that Jesus was born into, this reality is the reality faced by millions in our wold today. Here are some statistics

84 million people are forcibly displaced world wide. (Slide)

35 million of those are children (Slide)

Between 2018-2020- one million children were born into refugee life

Transition: Jesus faced harsh realities when he was born and although for very different reasons, we must see that Jesus’ story is not just a reality of the past brought on by specific circumstances, but these realities are faced by countless people around the world today!

When I read these statistics, I was overwhelmed by how clearly the Christmas story connects with our world today! I couldnt help but ask, “ in a world that is constantly arguing how do we deal with the refugee crisis, have we ever paused to think about how the story of Jesus can speak into our conversation?”

Do we think about the fact that someone once took Jesus in as a refugee?

My hope is that we can at the very least invite these parts of the Christmas story into our conversations over the holidays with family and friends.

Transition: We have talked about sharing more than just the story of Jesus, but what the story means and we have talked about how the story connects with the lives of many people in our world today, but How do we tell the story in a way that is both personal and practical?

Walking through the Text: 1 John 1:1-4 teaches us how to practically proclaim Christ this Christmas!

If we look at the second scripture text for this morning we see how the early Christians proclaimed Christ!

We proclaim what we have seen, heard, and touched with our own hands. The disciples shared their personal experiences with Jesus!

They shared not just how Jesus is the Life, but how life appeared to them that Jesus came in the flesh to them!

Early Christains didnt just share a true story, but what really happend to them! This is something we can learn from Church!

Moving beyond telling Jesus’ Story and Talking about How Jesus changed our stories

God was born in manger, magi came and worshiped, escaped death, grew up taught moral lessons on how to live, died and came back to life.

Or we can share how God’s story became part of our story. We can say because a baby was born 2000 years ago, here is how that has changed my life!

This is also how we can invite people into the Christmas story, When I share how Jesus changed my story, there is an invitation for that person to allow Jesus to do the same.

This is the first step- The christmas story isnt just a story we should tell, but our story about how one man named Jesus didnt just change the world, but changed my world!

But, I think Dean had a good point when he said, “but what does that look like?” How do I practically do that?

Application: 3 ways to share Jesus with others this Christmas season!

Ask Questions:

Do you know what a manger is?

Have you ever heard the story of the poorest King?

Did you know Jesus was related to a prostitue?

Did you know the Bible has alot to say about refugees and immigrants?

Then we can share some of what we learned today!

Share present facts that disrupt the noise! We are bound to have conversation around current events and politics at every dinner table! Lets get creative on how we bring Jesus into the conversation!

there are 84 million displaced people in the world. Those people have more in common with Jesus than we think!

Right now, Hundreds of thousands of Babies are born into poverty! God cares about that because He was one of them!

Remind people of the difficult realities that Jesus, Joseph and especially Mary faced.

How can we share with single mothers that, Mary was a single mother, who was rejected by her community, talked about.

How can we share with those that have lost fathers that Jesus lost Joseph.

Mary was alive to see both of her sons killed.

These are facts that connect the story to today.

The most powerful way to proclaim Christ and the most difficult is to share personal stories and How Jesus’ story Changed yours!

When people ask what are going to do over the holiday, Tell them...

Im going to celbrate my 2000 year old friends birthday. Well, were not quite sure the exact date, but anyway.

Garentee you people are going to want to know more!

After Christmas, when people ask what did you do over the holidays?

We sang about a poor middle eastern baby who’s first bed was a feeding trough

I reflected on how my life has been more impacted by a refugee from the middle east than anyone else on the planet.

These are all ways we can start the conversation about Jesus!

So How do we Keep Christ in Christmas?

Share the unknown parts of the Christmas story!

We talk about why the stories matters and what Jesus did!

These are all ways we can start the conversation about Jesus!

We share How the Christmas story is part of our story!

I want to close with a video from the chosen that Highlights what we have talked about so well!