Thanks for listening to the His Hands Church podcast. If you're using the His Hands Church mobile app, please turn off the auto lock on your phone's general settings so that you can listen to the message uninterrupted. And thank you for being part of what God is doing at His Hands. Well, Merry Christmas. You guys can all grab a seat. Man, it is so exciting to be here tonight. I said to myself like eight times before I walked out. Don't say good morning. Don't say good morning. Because I'm so used to that. But Merry Christmas. If it's your first time here, we are thrilled that you're here at His Hands this morning. If it's your 400th time here, we are thrilled. I did say, did I just say good morning? See? I knew it. I had a conversation with someone a minute ago and I said I just don't want to say morning. And they're like, you're going to say it now. So that's out of the way. I'm excited. But we are excited you're here. His hands is a family. We're a place where uh you're loved, you're accepted, where you're challenged and encouraged to grow in your relationship with Jesus in a place where amazing people come alongside of you and support you like family. So if it is your first time here, we are thrilled that you're you're here. We're gonna take next Sunday off. Always want to remind us of that. We always take a Sunday off so all of our volunteers can stay at home with their families and get a little bit of extra rest. But we'll be back on January 5th, ready to kick off an amazing 2014 together. And we really hope that you join us. It's gonna be what we believe is our best year ever, and we know God's gonna do some amazing things. We want all of us to be part of it. Here in a few minutes, we'll do some more worship and celebrating together. You should have all had a candle. Chances are if you haven't seen one yet, you're sitting on it. So I'll let you take a second and readjust and figure that out. Uh here in a few minutes, we're gonna do a song where we'll all turn those candles on together. It's not real fire, which is great. Your kids can play with it, you don't have to worry about waving it around. Just have fun with it. Just have fun. And if you could do us one small favor, and that's when we leave, just put it right back on your seat so that the people in the next get together have a candle. Otherwise, they have to use their phones. Then it feels like a concert. That's not what we're going for, so just help us out with that. Let's pray and let's let's talk about Jesus. Jesus, thank you so much for giving us a reason to celebrate tonight. And you are that reason. We love you, and we pray that for the next few minutes that you would speak to us through your word, that you would get us refocused on you and who you are, and let us enjoy your presence. And we pray all this in your name, Jesus. Amen. Well, I hope that your Christmas has been restful and relaxing, a chance to refresh. That's what the Christmas season's all about, right? Everyone slows down, everyone relaxes. It's awesome. I know that's not the case for most of us. This this Christmas season has been by far the busiest my family has ever had. And there have been a few reasons for that. Part of that was that Thanksgiving was very late. And so everything was really compressed this year. Black Friday started on Thursday. Eventually, it's gonna be the day after Halloween. That's what everything's moving toward. We got our Christmas gifts later than ever, and judging by the number of people that honked at me on Barrett Parkway a few weeks ago, I know we're not alone. Anyone else encounter any of that? There's a lot of people in a real hurry at Christmas. It's hard to rest, it's hard to relax at Christmas. And for me personally, when I get busy around this time of the year, it's really difficult for me just to step back and breathe and remember what this time of year is all about. I know what Christmas means to my schedule. I know what Christmas means to my bank account. It fills one, it empties the other. I'm trying to figure out a way to reverse it, but it just hasn't happened yet. I know what Christmas means to my son. I have a three-year-old. I asked him the other day, son, what is Christmas about? I was testing how good of a job I've done as his father. And he got this slightly maniacal look in his eyes. This big smile came over him, his fingers kind of started to twitch together, and he just went, presents. You know, that was what he did. Anyone else have a child that when when you talk about Christmas, it's just their face lights up. That's my son. Apparently, I haven't done a good job, so we're not gonna get him any gifts this year, so we really teach him what it's all about. It's gonna be I'm joking. I'm joking. No, he's gonna have a he's gonna have a great moment, but that is what Christmas means to children. But really, Christmas is the anticipation of presence to a child. And we were all like that at one point in time. That's what kept us up on Christmas Eve, what made it hard to sleep, the anticipation of presence. And it's only as we get older that that goes away, and it's not because we get, you know, more morally sound and we start to see the good in things, it's because we just get slowly weaned off of awesome presence as we get older. When we're young, every gift we get, right, they're all unnecessary but awesome. And then eventually you start to get more practical things, things that you're grateful for, and things you'll definitely use, but not the kind of things that keep you up until midnight dreaming about. One day you've gotten enough pairs of socks that you are now completely weaned off of the anticipation of presence. And then you say, I guess it's about giving things to people now, because that's that's all I've got left. Christmas, it's about a lot of things. But tonight, what I need is to remember what Christmas means to my soul. And that's what I hope tonight is about. Getting back to what Christmas really means to our spirits and to our soul. And sometimes the best way to step back and remember what something's really all about is just to go to the beginning. So that's what we're gonna do tonight. We're gonna go back to the beginning of Christmas. In Luke chapter 2, we see the birth of Jesus. This is not a typical royal birth. Jesus is the king of everything, and his birth is not what you would expect for the birth of a king. There was no pomp and circumstance. They weren't in some fancy place. I mean, Bethlehem was a very small town near Jerusalem, but it was not an important town by any stretch of the imagination. Homebirthing has become a real trend in the last few years. Mary and Joseph were like trendsetters to the nth degree. There were no honored guests. Our nativity scenes at home might have three kings, but in reality the Magi weren't really kings. There were way more than three of them. They didn't arrive for about two years anyway. But there were some guests. There were some special visitors that night. And we see that in Luke chapter 2. It says, That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord's glory surrounded them. They were terrified. But the angel reassured them, Don't be afraid, he said, I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior, yes, the Messiah, the Lord, has been born today in Bethlehem in the city of David. And you will recognize him by this sign. You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger. Suddenly the angel was joined by a vast host of others, the armies of heaven, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased. And then it goes on to say that when the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, Let's go to Bethlehem. That's a I love that. That's that's their response. I guess we should go check it out. Let's see this thing that's happened, which the Lord has told us about. They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph, and there was the baby lying in the manger. After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. So, of all the people God could have invited to witness the birth of Jesus, he picks shepherds. And that's kind of interesting because shepherds were not socially elite people in the society they lived in. In fact, they were outcasts. Their jobs, their way of life made it virtually impossible for them to keep the laws and the traditions of the Jewish people. They were the last people that you would invite to your home for dinner, for a celebration, and they're the first people that God invites. And shepherds means sheep, it means live animals. And I know that every woman here who's ever had a child has thought the first thing I want in the room, I want a petting zoo, right? I want as many live animals as possible. I know sanitation standards have gotten better in the last few thousand years, but I'm still guessing Mary wasn't thrilled. Nonetheless, these are the ones that God brings. And even though shepherds were not looked upon highly, sheep played a very, very important role in Jewish culture. Every single year at Passover, a single lamb was chosen to be a sacrifice for all the people of Israel. An innocent sacrifice to buy mercy for everyone else's guilt. And it's interesting because there was one flock, one flock of sheep, one group of shepherds that tended this flock that was responsible for the flock that would produce the Passover lamb every year. They picked the lamb from the same flock every single year. And it just so happens that that flock was kept in Bethlehem. And so it's entirely possible that this group of shepherds just so happen to be the same shepherds that witnessed the birth of the Passover lamb every single year. The ones that separated that lamb from the others and said, This one is the perfect one, this is the spotless one, this is the blameless one, this is the one that we can't find a single flaw in. This is the one that's right for sacrifice. And what an amazing and beautiful thought to think that these were the men that got to witness the birth of the true Lamb of God, the one that would purchase mercy for all of our sins, for everyone's sins for all time. And just as a side note, what a nice God to give these men 30 plus years of notice that they would need to find new jobs because their services would no longer be required. Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice, he was the last one, and he was spotless and blameless. You have to think that upon seeing him, they were like, This child is it's perfect. He's perfect. We have to go tell everyone about this child. These weren't the only men that looked at Jesus and couldn't find any flaws. In fact, Pontius Pilate, before sending Jesus to the cross, said to everyone, I can't find a flaw in this man. Jesus really is the blameless, perfect Lamb that's purchased mercy for all of us. And for my soul at Christmas, I need to be reminded of that. This is a time of year that we look back. We look back on the year we've had, we look at the joys, we look at the celebrations, but if you're anything like me, we also see the failures. The things that we wish we could go back and redo, the moments that we're not proud of. And I need to remember at this time of year that I have mercy, that Jesus brought us mercy. I don't have to worry about those things, I don't have to stress about those things, that in God's eyes, they don't exist because Jesus was that perfect, perfect Lamb. That's important. Christmas is about mercy. But even though the birth of Jesus seems like the beginning of Christmas, it's not the actual start to the Christmas story. And I said a minute ago that we need to go to the beginning, so let's go back just a little bit. In Matthew chapter 1, Mary has become pregnant. She's become pregnant in a miraculous, unbelievable way. Now, the man she's engaged to, Joseph, he doesn't so much see the miraculous part at first, he sees the unbelievable part. And so he decides that he's gonna separate, he's gonna end the engagement, he's gonna do it in a nice way, and that's where we are when we get to Matthew chapter 1, verse 18. It says, This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother Mary was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, her fiance, was a good man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly. As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. Joseph, son of David, the angel said, Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. And then he finally says this to Joseph. He says, All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord's message through his prophet. Look, the virgin will conceive a child, she will give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God is with us. God is with us. Those are four very powerful words. And when I look at those words, it makes me think that, hey, maybe my son and the rest of the kids in the room tonight are right about the meaning of Christmas. Maybe Christmas really is all about presence, just a different kind of presence. Maybe Christmas is a time for us to remember that God is with us. His presence came here to live with us. And when Jesus left through the Holy Spirit, his presence is still with us. And tonight is an opportunity for all of us to do something Jesus recommended that we do and become like children. And let Christmas once again be about the anticipation of presence. The anticipation of his presence in our life. God is with us. Experiencing his presence is something that we are not limited to on Sundays. It's something we're not limited to at a church here tonight. It's something we can have every single day in our lives. In fact, in Revelation 3.20, Jesus says, Look, I stand at the door and I knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and we will share a meal as friends. Jesus says, if you want my presence in your life, all you have to do is open the door. Just be open. You know, we always talk about how we need to invite Jesus into our lives. He's already knocking. We don't have to invite him in. He's already there. All we have to do is open that door. And it doesn't say that he comes in and starts immediately criticizing all the decorating decisions that we've made, the way we've arranged things in our lives, so to speak. It doesn't say that he comes in and immediately starts to change everything. Oh, he changes us, but that's not where he starts. It says that he wants to come in and share a meal with us as friends. He wants a relationship. And all we have to do is open a door. And we get to experience his presence. The very first time I opened that door in my life, I was 10 years old. But I found that life has a tendency to try to blow that door shut. And it's good for me every day, every chance I remember to go check on that door and make sure it's still open. And so tonight is a night where we can open that door. Whether it's for the first time or just the first time today, and experience his presence. But his presence is not just something that we experience ourselves, it's something we experience together. In Matthew 18, 20 it says, For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them. I'm not very good at math, but I can guess that he's with us tonight. And he doesn't say 200, and he doesn't say 300 or 1,000. He said, if two or three gather together as my followers. So his presence is with us when we sit across from our spouses and pray together. When we grab our children together and reflect and talk and just love each other the way that Jesus showed us to love and serve each other. His presence is among us anytime we get together as his followers. And that is something we can experience now. That is something we can experience later tonight, the first thing tomorrow, every single day of our lives. Christmas can be about the anticipation of presence. Before we wrap up and sing some more songs and celebrate a little bit, I want to go a little further back because even that is not the actual beginning of the Christmas story. Christmas begins far, far earlier than that. It's not when Jesus is born, it's not when Mary first gets pregnant, it's not the Old Testament prophecies that talk about Jesus coming. It's not even the creation of the world. In fact, it's much earlier than even that. And like we said, if we want to get to the true point of Christmas, the true meaning for our spirit, for our souls, we need to look to the beginning. And yes, Christmas is about mercy, and yes, it's about his presence in our lives. It's about giving and sharing and joy and peace and serving one another. Christmas is about a lot of things, but if we want to, if we want to boil it down to one thing, what it was originally intended to be, we have to go to the very beginning. And we get there in Ephesians chapter one. And this is one of my favorite verses in the entire Bible. It's so powerful. It says, long before he laid down earth's foundations, long before he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. What pleasure he took in planning this. He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift giving by the hand of his beloved son. This is what this tells us. The beginning of Christmas was long before Jesus was born. It was long before Mary became pregnant. It was before the earth was even created. And before any of that happened, God knew you and he loved you. In fact, it says you were created not to love him, but you were created to be the focus of his love. And the true, most simple meaning of Christmas is for us to just receive that love. For us to be recipients of his love. We see the gift giving here. Gift giving is pretty synonymous with Christmas, and it was even in this verse the lavish gift giving by the hand of Jesus. Jesus is the one that gives. We're the ones that receive. And so tonight, if we want to get to the true meaning of Christmas in our souls and in our spirits, it just means taking a moment to receive that love. Sometimes love is hard to receive. We're our own worst enemies in that way. Sometimes we can look at ourselves with shame and guilt and say, hey, 2013 is not going on my highlight reel one day. This has not been my best year. I don't feel deserving of that love. In fact, in some ways, I might feel a little bit like a failure, but but Jesus decided to make you the focus of his love before you had breathed, before anyone had breathed. What could you have done to earn it? You don't have to earn it. You don't have to feel guilt and shame. You just receive. Sometimes it might be pride. We get to a certain point where we love Jesus so much that we don't want to receive it. We want to earn it. We want to look at Jesus and say, hey, let me earn it. Let me do my part. But that's not what Christmas is about. It didn't say that Jesus was a stopgap. It doesn't say that Jesus was a solution that God had to figure out because he didn't foresee our mistakes. It said that all along, before the earth even existed, he knew. He knew he would send Jesus. He was excited about sending Jesus. It gave him pleasure to think about Jesus coming. Jesus came willingly for us to demonstrate for us how far he would go. You know, the most impossible thing that a big God could do would be to become small. And that's what he did. He went to every length we can imagine, and the whole reason was so that we could receive his love. So tonight, if that's a love you've never received, or if it's a love that you just need to receive a little bit more of, just receive. Be like a child. I can promise you that my son is not thinking for a second about what other people are going to get for Christmas tomorrow. And that's okay. He is focused on what he will receive. And as selfish as it sounds, that's what God wanted. For us to receive love from him. Tonight let's receive that. We're gonna worship a little bit more, we're gonna celebrate a little bit more, but let's go to him in prayer right now and let's open our hearts to receive that love for the rest of our time together tonight. Jesus, thank you so much for your love. Thank you so much for this family and for a place where we can all come together and express that love and demonstrate that love. God, we pray if if there is one person tonight that hasn't received that love fully, that's never been able to open that door and experience friendship with you, that that would happen now. And for all of us, Jesus, for every single one of us in this room, bring us back to a place where we can anticipate your presence and be thankful for your mercy. But most of all, Jesus, just receive your love and we love you so much. Amen. Merry Christmas!