Why did God give us Christmas? Does it even matter in today’s world? Let’s get real—what if we might be avoiding what God came to fix? Let’s wrestle with this together. ❤️
EASY TO GIVE at Harmony, text any amount to (859) 459-0316 to get started (or give online @ my.harmonychurch.cc/give ). Get the fill in the blank bulletins my.harmonychurch.cc/bulletins.
——————
OPENING ILLUSTRATION:
When I was working on this sermon I asked my wife Jenni if she could think of any funny stories where she said to me “Why?” (needs to be said with contempt/confusion). Her answer: “I’m sure there were plenty of times where that happened…” lol. I think she’s right. I can remember driving down a grassy hill when there was a road right next to it and her saying, “why?”. I can remember undergarments that ended up on the floor right next to a hamper and hearing a “why”? Lol. Let’s be honest, living with me, that’s probably the most often posed question…
I want to flip the question on yall though and on God little bit..
I want to ask the question of “why” Christmas?
Don’t be too quick to answer…
I know you probably have an answer, but I think people who are far from God don’t get it…
b
They get the lights, and the fun, and the gifts, what they don’t get is why the Christ of Christmas…
b
On first blush for the non-Follower of Jesus, Christianity feels like the answer to a question they are not asking or more likely, are avoiding…
b
CS Lewis said this about avoiding God
“…in our own time and place, [avoiding God] is extremely easy. Avoid silence, avoid solitude, avoid any train of thought that leads off the beaten track. Concentrate on money, sex, status, health and (above all) on your own grievances. Keep the radio on. Live in a crowd. Use plenty of sedation. If you must read books, select them very carefully. But you’d be safer to stick to the papers. You’ll find the advertisements helpful; especially those with a sexy or a snobbish appeal.”
-CS Lewis
b
What are we avoiding?
b
We are avoiding our deep disfunction, what the bible calls sin, and our profound need for something more, God.
b
And when we do look for God, we end up looking in the wrong places…
ILLUSTRATION:
In the 1960’s during the space race – the Russians who were atheists send Yuri Gagarin to space. When he came back he said, “I went to space, I looked and looked for God but never saw Him…”
ILLUSTRATION:
I get this way of thinking of God. When I was in college, I can remember really struggling. Our bible college had chapel services – in the evenings and I was so mad at God. I left the service and I went outside and I remember in my head just yelling, “God if you are real, I need to see you, I need to have you show up…”
Yuri went into space, and I went out to a parking lot…
CS Lewis’ response about avoiding God came from his response to Yuri’s statement, in that essay called “The Seeing Eye” he wrote, “looking for God is not like one person who lives on the first floor going to the second floor looking for the person who lives upstairs” It’s more like a character in a Shakespeare play looking for Shakespeare. Even though Shakespeare is to be found on every page and in every word, he is not found in the pages. I heard Tim Keller talk about this once and he said the only way Hamlet would know about Shakespeare would before Shakespeare to write Himself into the story… This is the reason for Christmas. God saw the condition of our story, the condition of the world we had made for ourselves after choosing to go our own way and he wrote himself into the story…
Listen to how John the apostle describes the need for Christmas…
John 3:16-21
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. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
ILLUSTRATION:
John is saying “God wrote Himself into the story”…
did you hear why He did this? It wasn’t the reason most people seem to think – most people think God just wants to condemn the world.
Isn’t that how most people tend to perceive Christians and their message? That we are just in the business of condemning people?
That’s not why Jesus came.
Jesus came to give life eternal…
b
it is literally God taking on flesh, becoming like you and me -> so He can redeem you and me out from under the crushing weight of our deep disfunction…
Jesus came to give you life!
John 10:10 (The Message Version)
I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.
How do you get this life? This eternal, “better than every dreamed of” life?
b
Jesus says He gives it to whoever believes in Him…
ILLUSTRATION:
years ago I saw this comedian from Canada who was mocking Americans because we are SO good at taking opinions and treating them like they are deeply held beliefs. He asked people what they thought of the Canadians sending elderly people out on ice flows to die. Americans were up in arms about it. The video was really funny… His point was Americans will have opinions about anything they are asked about…
When John says that whoever believes in Jesus shall not perish but have eternal life. The belief he is talking about is not just a strongly held opinion.
This kind of belief is a deeply held confidence and trust.
b
Belief is better seen than it is stated…
This is why John says “it’s plain to see who these people are, they come into the light – because they aren’t afraid of being exposed by it – why aren’t they afraid? it’s because they know God didn’t come to put His thumb on them and make them pay. He came to say, “There’s an author in the story, and I want/long to rescue you out of the predicament you’ve gotten yourself into…”
CLOSING ILLUSTRATION:
You know that day in the parking lot looking up at the cold night yelling at God, I remember turning around and seeing all of the sudden someone walking in the parking lot – it was super odd, cause people didn’t really cut through this part of the campus. I’m praying this in my head that I just want to see God in person and this person in a hoody where I can’t see his face is walking right for me. I remember I started getting nervous, he kept walking closer and closer and was coming right for me. My heart was beating like crazy. He literally walked right up to me, looked at me for a split second and went “hey” and then walked right by me… lol. I’m sure God was dying laughing…
Here’s what I realized later. I wanted God to come into the world, but He had already answered that prayer. He did come into the world, He came and became completely, 100% human – God knows what it’s like to go through puberty. God knows what it’s like to have a crush on someone. He knows what it’s like to be hungry and constipated and a million other human conditions. God knows it because He came in Christmas. And the reason He came was for you. He sent me all the way to Kentucky to walk right up to your face and look you in the eyes and say “hey”. For you to hear that God loves YOU! He loves you, He gave Himself – His only Son for YOU! All you have to do is deeply choose to trust in Him – place your confidence in Him.
You are about to get and give a bunch of Christmas presents. What if TODAY you chose to accept the only true Christmas gift, the gift of the Christ…
