Embracing the True Purpose of Christmas

"You know, when you understand the purpose of something, it brings clarity to it, right? When you understand, hey, this exists for this very reason, it helps you make better decisions and be able to appreciate things. I'll give you an example. My youngest daughter years ago, when she was little, she had one of those electric scooters that you could sit on and you could ride. And you just, you know, hit the gas. And she would drive it all around our neighborhood." [00:02:29] (21 seconds)


"If you understand what your purpose is, I exist. God created me. God made me for this. It changes everything. It'll shape. It'll shape what job you take. It'll shape how you react to your family and friends. It'll shape what you do with your finances when you go, hey, this is what I was created for." [00:05:09] (18 seconds)


"The angel says, you have a son, and the son is renamed Jesus, Yeshua in Hebrew, which means God, saves. The baby, his purpose, the reason why he was born is in his name. God saves. And then the angel clarifies it, and he will save his people from their sins. That's the reason he came." [00:17:07] (24 seconds)


"Don't waste the gift. Don't waste the gift. We're going home, and we're going to trade presents. We do that in honor of the gift that God gave in Jesus. Don't waste the gift of Jesus' life for us. When Apollo 17 came back from the moon, they brought moon rocks back with them. And they put those moon rocks, and they gave them, little pieces of them, to allied countries all over the world to celebrate, hey, we've landed on the moon." [00:24:00] (28 seconds)


"I don't want us to go sit around the Christmas tree, sit around the table with our family and take the gift of Jesus who was born to save you and me from sin so that we could have eternity. So we could spend forever in the presence of God, what we were created for, so that we could have what the scripture says, an overflowing or an abundant life, like the greatest life here now." [00:24:40] (26 seconds)


"Love others with your life. What does that look like? Let me just tell you. Make it real, like, tangible. How do we love others with our life? We've been called to love God, love people. They asked Jesus, what's the greatest commandment? That's what he said. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. Second greatest commandment is like, love your neighbor as yourself." [00:25:29] (20 seconds)


"How do we love others with our life? Like the angels did, who were in a continual state of worship. God, I will worship you. How do we love others with our life? Like the shepherds did, who went and saw the baby Jesus and walked out. About telling everyone about what they had seen and what they had heard. How do we love others with our lives? Like the magi did, the wise men. With our resources." [00:25:56] (23 seconds)


"When the flight was going down, Mom unbuckled her seatbelt and got down on her knees in between her daughter and the seat and grabbed her daughter with both arms and wrapped her around, refusing to let go. And when that plane crashed, Mom didn't survive, but baby did. It's the picture of Christmas. Jesus, in a world that's chaotic, headed for disaster, broken, crazy, there's God in the form of Jesus who wraps his arms around us to save us." [00:27:41] (44 seconds)