Rediscovering the True Essence of Christmas

"I want you to imagine there was a medium-sized town and this town had a local painter and the painter was really good and so they were so excited about his paintings that they built him a museum. They're gonna show off his paintings and as they got it up and running they decided you know what we need is we need a little gift shop. People can take something home and they said well you know what else we need I mean people are here for a while why don't we make a little restaurant people can stay at the restaurant and peruse the paintings and and by the way now that that's kind of taken off why don't we put like a little playground and maybe a carousel and all that kind of let's put all that in here and as the years went by they kept building on more and more and more until finally somebody came around said hey whatever happened to all those paintings that were a part of this and the director had to admit well you know we had to make room for the water slide and all the circus animals and so we just don't have the painting anymore. That's an illustration of sometimes how the main thing can be swallowed up and overshadowed by kind of peripheral things or exterior things." [00:00:00]

"Christmas as you know is the time of the year when we have a lot of fun and we have a lot of fun and we have a lot of fun. A big deal all around the world right now billions of people celebrate Christmas and they change they turn their lives upside down don't they like starting for a whole month of the year and at the end of Thanksgiving they give themselves to entirely different things they tear down their homes and they put up all kinds of Christmassy stuff they go see special kind of ritualistic movies that they watch all the time they listen to different songs they travel to places that they go to only occasionally they um do special events food events events events people events I don't know what your favorite thing is but I'll bet you there's a favorite thing that you've got that comes around on Christmas maybe it's two or three things." [00:00:55] (43 seconds)

"The real message of Christmas is, yo, things are so bad that the only way to fix it is for the son of God to be put to death on behalf of humans. That's what Christmas is really about. It's not that we're all just going to kind of get better somehow by cheer and and eggnog. No, it is that things, the alarm bells should be sounding because things are so bad. The only way we can do anything about it is by embracing the son of God who comes and is murdered on behalf of the people in order to reconcile them and their world back to God. That's alarming, man. But that is the most direct statement of what Christmas is about." [00:04:23] (45 seconds)

"And for them, they keep embracing the ways of evil. They're embracing injustice. They don't mind murder. They don't mind taking advantage of people. But at the same time, they're trying to do a lot of exterior stuff to somehow get God to help them. And so they're doing a lot of rituals. They're doing a lot of quote-unquote worship. They're going to temple, they're bringing sacrifices, and they're doing everything they can to do it. And God is going to break in through his prophet Isaiah. He's going to say, guys, what are you doing? This is a lot of exterior. This is a lot of bells and whistles. This is a lot of gift shops, but it's missing the point of what it was your worship is supposed to be about." [00:06:11] (42 seconds)

"Why does God even ask for worship? See, God wanted a people. He always wanted a people. He wanted a people that would understand his heart and who would understand his character and would respond to him by saying, God, wow. I mean, you're just like the highest and most important, most wonderful, most awesome thing. I get my very being from you. I'm borrowing my soul and my body and my talents and everything that I have, I'm borrowing from you. And I just want to like acknowledge it and say, thank you and say, you are the guy. You made me and you are everything." [00:07:40] (34 seconds)

"Because even when we give ourselves to just calling our brother or sister a fool, even when we hate somebody, Jesus says, that's actually murder. It's not murder, murder, but it's a version of murder. It's a demonstration that you're not like God in the way you're supposed to be. You're not loving him. You're even, as the scripture will say in a second, you're even just, even when you overlook the good you should have done to somebody, even when you should have protected somebody and you didn't, even when you were supposed to stand up, because that's what I would have done, Jesus says, and you don't, God says, yeah, your hands are bloody for that. You should have, and you could have, you could have protected and you didn't." [00:12:03] (36 seconds)

"God is inviting everyone to a healed relationship, not a guilt trip, not a to-do list. God is inviting everyone to a healed relationship. Everyone you know, not a guilt trip or a to-do list. Do you see this? This is what he commanded them to do. Verse 18, you are stained red with sin, but I will wash you clean as snow. Did you notice that? Like he didn't say, all right, so go do the things, all right? Go do it better. Do 100 push-ups, all right? Do whatever you're going to do, and then come back to me, and I'll check it out and see if it's good enough. He didn't say that at all. He said, just drop all that. Drop what you're doing, and come to me. It's an invitation because he's an invitational God, because he's a relational God. He says, you come to me. I will take care of all the business that needs taking care of." [00:19:37] (52 seconds)

"Now, what we need though, is we need to abandon our own attempts and we need to turn to Jesus. Jesus has got a plan. He says, I'm just going to forgive you. I'm going to die on the cross for your sins. And I'm going to forgive you a hundred percent free. And that's the purpose of Christmas. I'm going to take all the debt that your sin has accrued and listen, all the damage your sin has done to others and to yourself. I'm just going to take it away and I'm going to nail it into my own hand on the cross. And I'm going to let it die there. I'm going to let it be judged. So don't worry. It's not that it's just, it's not that no one ever deals with it. Oh, it's being dealt with. It's just not being dealt with by you." [00:23:57] (41 seconds)

"Well, you tend to get more peace, tend to get more peace because you know that you have peace with God. So you're not, there's no like anxiety about that. You tend to get more guidance, meaning even if you still make a lot of dumb choices, you're still making more right choices than you would have because there's guidance through the Holy Spirit. There's guidance through God's word. There's freedom, knowing, wow, I did, I like, I like jack stuff up this week and I never have to pay for that. I don't have to feel bad one more day about that. like I'm moving on. It's easy to get up and just move on. Yes, I made a mistake. Now here I'm up and I move on. It tends to produce just a wiser life. It tends to produce more confidence because dude, I'll tell you, I mean, you guys know this. When you know that God is behind you, no matter what, not that he endorses everything you do, but when it's just like, my God, my dad is with me, like he's down with me. And even if I do jack some stuff, some stuff up, he's got the power to fix it. There's just a different confidence level that can come when we trust Jesus about that." [00:25:39] (56 seconds)

"Parenting doesn't always, but tends to get a little bit better because parents now have this thing of like, oh, I need to be intentional with my kid and maybe a way that I wouldn't have before because that's what God does with me. It's not, it's not that this always happens exactly this way, but trusting Christ tends to produce better finances because you're getting the wisdom of God's word. And that wisdom tends to produce the results of, well, you know, you have a better work ethic. You save more. You don't get into debt as much. You can kind of build as things go. Even doors open. I don't know if you've seen this. I've seen this. People become a better person. And so doors start to open for them. Like they're just more reliable. They're a nicer, kinder person. So doors that would have been shut. Now people like want to hire them because they're not such a, maybe case." [00:26:49] (47 seconds)

"What if you coming to Jesus and saying, I want you to cleanse me or maybe cleanse me again. And I want you to cleanse me for the purposes of being used for your purpose on this planet. I've been holding stuff back and I want to give it to you and ask God, make me your gift. Make me a gift to the whole doggone world and make me a gift to you. Here's what I want to do. I want to give all of us, the opportunity to pray that and maybe pray it again. Maybe I like to pray it every stinking Christmas, man, because I just want Jesus to know, Hey, I don't need. It's not like I need you to make sure it worked because I know it worked. But nevertheless, God, I am for you. And I just want you to know, I'm all in on trusting you completely. If that's what pleases you, then that's what I want to do. I want to trust you completely to wash me and wash me again." [00:28:46] (51 seconds)