Christmas is Over: Now What
Notes
Transcript
Merry Christmas Trinity!
What an exciting time to join you!
We are so excited to be with you this morning, our first Sunday Morning as your pastor!
I pray the each of you have had a wonderful Christmas.
Before I even get started can i begin by telling you how blessed you are.
You have two amazing pastors who have already been leading you well in your Student Pastor (Pastor Coop) and your Worship Pastor (Pastor Ross) Not to mention a great Children’s minister and great offices staff.
I am excited to come along side of them and see what God is going to do in 2022.
Speaking of that, I want to also invite everyone who is going to be in town to join me next Sunday night at Woodland Hills Baptist Church in Longview. I have been invited to preach a message at their annual Bible conference.
They are going to have a meal at 5, I will preach at 6, and then they have another speaker at 7.
Amen,
Well, Christmas is over, now what???
Luke 2:15–20 (CSB)
15 When the angels had left them and returned to heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go straight to Bethlehem and see what has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”
16 They hurried off and found both Mary and Joseph, and the baby who was lying in the manger.
17 After seeing them, they reported the message they were told about this child,
18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.
19 But Mary was treasuring up all these things in her heart and meditating on them.
20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had seen and heard, which were just as they had been told.
Every year, we have our Christmas morning, we open our presents, we eat candy for breakfast, we take pictures and do all the things.
If we are truly spiritual people we may take a moment and read Luke 2 and maybe have a short devotional (hopefully BEFORE opening the gifts.)
But then We look at the mess.
How many by Christmas afternoon, are already thinking, when is the right time to take all of this down and put it up and get my house back in order?
Hallmark, does the Christmas movies 2 months before Christmas.
Freeform does the 25 days of Christmas countdown.
I start my countdown today…Amen, only 364 days till Christmas.
But what do we do after its over?
When family leaves, when the lights come down, when the music stops playing?
I think the Lord, in Luke 2 shared with us an example of exactly what we should do after Christmas.
Lets look back. at vs. 19
I. Ponder What has happened.
I. Ponder What has happened.
She knew her Child was in some mysterious sense the Son of God. A glorious being not of earth had told her that her Boy would be the Saviour of Israel.
The visit of the rough shepherds to her in the crowded caravanserai, and their strange but quiet and circumstantial story of the angel’s visit to them, was only another link in the wondrous chain of events which was day by day influencing her young pure life.
She could not as yet grasp it all, perhaps she never did in its mighty gracious fulness; but, as at the first, when Gabriel the angel spoke to her, so at each new phase of her life, she bowed herself in quiet trustful faith, and waited and thought, writing down, we dare to believe, the record of all that was passing, and this record, we think, she showed to Luke or Paul.
Oxford defines ponder as “to think about (something) carefully, especially before making a decision or reaching a conclusion.
I have been saved for 14 years and friend, I am still pondering the depth of what God did for me on that Christmas day some 2000 years ago.
I LOVE CHRISTMAS, OKAY. UNDERSTAND, I LOVE THE LIGHTS, I LOVE THE SMELL, I LOVE THE MUSIC, I LOVE SANTA CLAUSE (JUST SO YOU KNOW WHERE I STAND) I LOVE THE MOVIES…I LOVE IT ALL!!!
BUT I WILL ALSO BE THE FIRST TO TELL YOU THAT THE REASON WHY THIS HAS BECOME SUCH A STRESSFUL AND COMMERCIALIZED TIME OF YEAR IS BECAUSE WE DON’T STOP TO PONDER EXACTLY WHAT HAS BEEN DONE FOR US!
It is because we focus more on Santa than the Savior!
We are worried more about the stuff we will be given than we are about the ETERNAL SECURITY we were given through the Sacrificial Lamb who lay in that Manger!
Friend we need to Ponder what God did that day are remember:
There is no Grace without a Cross and there is no Cross without a manger!
If you are thankful for your salvation, you only have it because of Christmas!
Mary Pondered all that had happened.
Look next to verse 20.
II. Praise Him for what has happened
II. Praise Him for what has happened
The words of the angel, spoken not only for the shepherds but for all of us, were wonderful, for they promised a Savior: “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord”
It was because of Christ’s incarnation and his perfect identification with humanity—his taking on our nature, though without sin—that he could save us. He became “perfect” in regard to temptation by suffering temptation as a real man and putting the tempter to flight
Luke, Vol. 1—That You May Know the Truth Wonderful Savior
As a real man he became a perfect surrogate for us so he could take our sins upon himself, become “sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21), and die an atoning death for us. As Peter explained: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24).
Whatever our situation, he can deliver us. The angel said that the “good news” was “for all the people.” Whoever you are, he can deliver you, help you, save you. “Because Jesus lives forever … he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them”
24 But because he remains forever, he holds his priesthood permanently.
25 Therefore, he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, since he always lives to intercede for them.
What I am trying to tell you this morning is that because of Christmas Day, Because of the events that happened 2000 years ago, we have reason to go out of this place praising God!
Your life may be hard but friend you have a Savior!
Your storm may be strong but you have a deliverer!
He is the prince of peace, He is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.
He left heaven for you, He was born for you, He lived for you and He died for you, He was raised for you!
Praise God this morning, there is hope for you in the Name that is above ever other name!
Praise God that you can have salvation through the Name Jesus!
For there is not other name under heaven given among men whereby you must be saved!
PRAISE HIS HOLY NAME!!!!
Amen?
The Shepherds were praising.
By the way, the angels in Heaven were praising God for what happened that night.
There were Wise men, Likely kings, who traveled quite a long distance to worship the new born king.
When we think about what yesterday represents, we should be bursting at the seams, ready to go out and tell someone about the new born King.
Dr. Matt Queen said this about our Lord. God so loved man, that He became man, so that he could save man!
Praise God for what has happened!
Notice lastly verse 17.
III. Proclaim what has happened
III. Proclaim what has happened
Seeing the baby Jesus was not enough for the shepherds.
They had to share the story. Everyone they met heard from them about angelic visits, angelic songs of praise, and a trip to a manger to find the baby of God’s glory.
Most important, they shared what had been told them about this child. The fact of the child was news.
The function of the child was gospel.
Shepherds found in a manger the Savior, the Messiah, the Lord himself. They let everyone in hearing distance know.
This is the responsibility of EVERYONE who celebrates the birth of the Savior!
We should run with excitement and be bursting with a desire to share the good news with the world that unto us a child was born, a Savior who is CHRIST THE LORD!
The world does not know Jesus, but they need to.!
My son made this statement one time, “It is not the lost’s job to find the saved, its the saved’s job to find the Lost.
The bible says it like this.
14 How, then, can they call on him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about him? And how can they hear without a preacher?
You see yes Romans 10:13 indeed says that whosoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, but friends if we are not faithful to go out and to proclaim what has happened then your neighbors, your husbands, your children, your grandchildren...
How will the lost and dying world hear about Jesus.
Yes friend Christmas is over but we must remember that Jesus is not just part of the Christmas story, Christmas is just part of the Jesus story!
Proclaim him today, and tomorrow! when you go eat lunch, ask your server if anyone has taken time to share with him or her that God loves them!
Ponder what God did for you.
Praise Him for what he did for you.
Proclaim to the world, what he has done for Everyone.