The Wonder of Christmas: God's Love and Peace

"We are in this series called Christmas Time, and this is what we've been looking at, that Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, right? And so there's a lot of different reasons for that. We've discovered that it's not just one thing. It's a whole bunch of different things. It's the songs of the season. It's the decorations of the season. It's the memories of Christmas. It's past. It's the gift giving. Like Pastor Becky was just talking about, the giving and the receiving of gifts. And then we've also been focusing on some very specific reasons why we believe that this is the most wonderful time of the year because it's a time of hope, right? This season reminds us that we have a hope because Jesus came to be our Savior, and that understanding, that knowledge is an anchor for our souls, that we just know, we know. We just have this confidence that we have this hope in Jesus that we are going to spend our eternity with him in heaven because we've been given this hope." [00:37:41] (50 seconds)


"We were thinking, man, we're going to help build. We're going to help rebuild three orphanages. And God said, no, you're going to help do a whole lot more. I've got something even bigger in mind that you don't even realize that you don't even understand. And church, I want to thank you for being faithful. I want to thank you for giving generously. Because God has something so much bigger in mind. That total is amazing. It just blows my mind. And so I want you to know that I reached out to the missionary after I realized how much came in. I said, hey, just, I didn't tell him how much. I said. We got a little bit more than what we thought." [00:42:46] (37 seconds)


"And on top of that, every one of those kids that we're helping to rebuild, in fact, can you flash the pictures up? I want you to know we've already sent the money. They've already started rebuilding these orphanages. All right? The work has already begun because of your faithfulness. Okay? And so things are already happening. But all these kids that lost their homes, these orphanages, not only did they lose their homes, but they lost all their possessions. And so none of these kids have blankets. They're heading into the... They're cold season. And so we're buying every one of the kids in those four orphanages blankets this year for Christmas. They're all getting new clothes this year for Christmas." [00:43:29] (37 seconds)


"It's just that look in their eyes and they're like, oh my God, if we're gonna define it, that word wonder, it means a feeling of surprise, amazement, something that is incomprehensible, meaning I can't even begin to comprehend, I can't even begin to get my mind around it and it's due to the miraculous works of God. When we talk about wonder, we're talking about things that God is up to, that God is doing that we can't even begin to understand, we can't even begin to see. It is so amazing that our minds can't even make sense of it. We can't even make sense of what God is up to. I want you to understand that that's really what the Christmas story is all about." [00:45:24] (38 seconds)


"But if your perspective of Christmas is the real story of Christmas, the story of Jesus, the story of God loving the world and sending his son to come and be our savior and then you begin to look at the story of his coming, his birth, your sense of wonder about Christmas will grow and grow and grow and the more you study, the more you research, the more you come to understand, the more your sense of wonder will grow. Every year, your sense of wonder in regards to Christmas could get bigger and bigger and bigger. It's all a matter of perspective." [00:46:57] (34 seconds)


"Mary, this young woman, who's engaged to be married to Joseph in the middle of the night has an angel. The Bible tells us this is Gabriel. Gabriel shows up and says, Mary, I got great news for you. Now, just stop right there. That in and of itself. See, we just read the Christmas story. Oh yeah, the angel showed up and talked to Mary. An angel showed up. When's the last time you had an angel show up in your bedroom? Probably hasn't happened. And if it did, it wouldn't be yet. Oh yeah. It would mark your life from that moment on, right? The sense of wonder that God would send an angel to talk to you and then to give you a message like he gave Mary. You're highly favored, God's blessed you." [00:47:51] (53 seconds)


"Isaiah in chapter 9, he's talking about, he's prophetically talking about the Messiah coming. And he makes this statement that the zeal of God will make this happen. This story that we're just quickly looking over this morning, it's God's zeal that will make it happen. And I started looking at that. And you know, we think of zeal to be his excitement or his passion, right? That it's going to make it happen. And I'm like, but it's even more than that. I looked up that word zeal. the zeal of God and the word that's actually used in the Hebrew word it means a jealous passion." [01:00:21] (39 seconds)


"understand what this is saying it's saying this Christmas story and all the wonders that it holds it all takes place because of God's jealous passion for you he's a jealous God he loves you with a jealousy because he doesn't want anyone or anything to come between you and him and he loves you so much that he's willing to put this story together if you will and it doesn't matter how crazy it sounds or how far fetched it sounds he's a God of wonders and he will do whatever he has to do to make a way possible for you and I to be saved and he's so so jealously passionate about you and about me that he will do miracle after miracle after miracle to make it happen that's what Isaiah is saying it's the jealous passion of God that's going to bring the coming of the Messiah to pass" [01:00:58] (64 seconds)


"Jesus came, the scripture tells us, to seek and to save those that were lost. He came for us, to seek us. and to save us. He came to be our Savior. And the reason why that is so significant is because of what Romans chapter 5 talks about. If you read Romans chapter 5, you'll see that in this passage it talks about how because of our sin, and every one of us, by the way, has sinned. We've all done things that are wrong. Not one of us in this room, not one of us on the planet is perfect. Perfect. And scripture tells us here in Romans 5 that that sin causes us to be enemies with God." [01:07:49] (45 seconds)


"But thanks to God, we're not enemies. We're not enemies. We're not enemies. Thanks to Jesus, he came to be the Prince of Peace. And look what Romans chapter 5 verse 1 says. Therefore, since we have been justified through faith. Stop right there. Justified through faith. That means when you've put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, he came to be our Savior. So if you put your faith in it, meaning I believe that you came. I believe that you lived a sinless life. I believe that you were crucified on a cross. You suffered. You bled. You died. You gave your life. And in doing so, you paid the price. For my sin." [01:08:48] (33 seconds)