Seated. You may be seated. Amen. Good morning again, everyone. It's so good to see everybody today. We're glad that you're here with us. Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas. Welcome to Smart Campus. We'll see you next time. We love you guys.
Everybody connecting with us online, we're so happy to have that connection with you as well. I'm glad you're here, to be honest with you. A lot of churches I saw went to an online service only today. I guess they were trying to give everybody a break, and I'm not trying to judge them, but I miss you guys too much. I didn't want to just have it just online. I wanted to be together again after Christmas and getting ready to head into the new year.
And we have dedicated servants that are willing to serve even on the Sunday after Christmas, even after we had a great Christmas Eve candlelight service. So let's thank everybody that helped out with that. They did such a great job. Our staff and volunteers are amazing, and I appreciate all of them very, very much.
And we've had a great year of service and celebration as a church, and we've had over a hundred additions to Lakeshore this year. So we're very grateful for that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Some of you, I'm sure, even though you're here, are pretty tired. You've had family, you've had Christmas activities, you've had gift buying and all of that. Myself, I'm not tired because my wife, as I've said, does almost all of that for us. I'm sure she's tired, but she loves it and she loves being able to do it. And I'm sure you love parts of it too.
But I know even though you've had an exhausting few days these past few days, past week, you're in God's house with God's presence. You're in the presence of God's people, and you came to hear God's word proclaimed.
One guy said that his in-laws gave him a beautiful knife set. It was top quality, but the accompanying cutting board was a different story. On the wrapping paper around the cutting board, it said, "Caution: opening with a sharp object may damage this product." It's a cutting board, remember?
Obviously, we all got some gifts that we were truly grateful for, probably grateful for all the gifts that we got, some though, probably more than others. Maybe you know more thought went into it or more effort went into it. You know they really wanted to get something just right for you, and that's a beautiful thing to be able to celebrate.
But I agree with the 20th-century humorist, Ken Hubbard. He said this: "Next to a circus, there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit." That's kind of a sad but funny statement, isn't it? But there's some truth to it.
During the Christmas holidays, there are people that are normally really grumpy and mean-spirited that for a little while can reel that back in and be kind of nice for Christmas. There are people that during the year aren't generous at all, but at Christmas, maybe it's obligation or whatever, but they decide to give some gifts and give some things away and buy things for others.
And then, man, once Christmas is over, it's like they go right back to what they were before Christmas. I don't want you to do that. I want us to understand that the beauty and the spirit of Christmas is a year-round, every-day, 24/7 kind of thing. It's what we're celebrating that is for all people, for all time, and every circumstance.
So as we put Christmas in our rearview mirror today, I thought that we could make three stops along the way on the week after Christmas, and hopefully we can learn to make the most of every day that God gives us. I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, have a great Christmas, and I hope I'll see you next time. We're going to move on to moving into 2025.
When I say that, it sounds futuristic to me. 2025, like a space odyssey kind of thing, right? That's the year we're about to hit, and it's amazing that God allows us to have the time that we do have.
So let's begin with taking a glimpse at the week after Christmas for three groups here, okay? The first one is... What was it like for the shepherds after that night? What changed for them? He said, "It's a new reality."
After the angels had appeared to the shepherds, they were told this great event had happened by the angel, and the heavenly host came and sang praises with the angel, and they knew right away that this was a new reality. If this is true, everything was going to change if what the angel said was true.
And so, let's open up our Bibles to Luke chapter 2. We're going to spend some time again in the gospel of Luke today. We're going to pick up with verse 15. I know you're familiar with the story. I think we can pick up here kind of in the middle of this encounter.
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about." So, they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in the manger.
When they had seen him, they said, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened." They spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child. And all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.
So, they believed the angel at least enough to go check it out. And remember, the angel gave them a sign to look for. You'll find the baby wrapped in cloths was not the sign. Remember, all the babies born at that time would have been wrapped in cloths. They couldn't have picked out that baby by that.
The sign was wrapped in cloths lying where? In a manger. That's the sign. That's the unusual thing. That's the thing that's going to stand out. You wouldn't head into town looking for a newborn baby in a stable. That's not where you would go had you not been told to go there.
So, they're clued in. Here's the sign. You're going to find this baby in a manger. Where would a manger be? It's going to be in a stable where they feed the animals. So, they knew to go look there for this baby.
And the cool thing is, when they got there, it was exactly like the angel told them. Everything happened just like the angel said. And you see, that's a thing throughout all of God's Word, isn't it? If God says it, that's the way it's going to be.
If God says it, even when you can't see it ahead of time, even when you don't see any way for it to happen, if God says it, it's going to happen the way God says it's going to happen. And the sooner we can learn to trust God on this, to take God at His Word, even when we can't believe what He's saying, we can't say it first.
If we can just wrap our head around the fact that we can trust God, then our response time to God's instructions is going to be better. It's going to be quicker. And then we'll start getting more of the benefits of living life the way God wants us to live.
So, the shepherds responded quickly. They went to the stable. They found the baby. Everything was just like the angel said. And I'm sure that when they got there and saw that, they were just as happy as they were. As the Scripture says, they were overjoyed.
I mean, first of all, I bet they had a hard time trying to get over the fact that God sent an angel to them. Now, even though we talk about it a lot in church, that didn't happen very often. That was not a normal occurrence.
They didn't go out on the hillside every night watching their sheep thinking, "Well, maybe an angel's coming again tonight," because it had not happened to them before. It was a very unusual occurrence.
So, I'm sure they're processing. After they see the baby, spend time there with the baby and Mary and Joseph, I'm sure they're still processing after that. Isn't it something that God sent an angel to us to announce this birth?
This is the King of Kings. This is God come to earth in the flesh. And God picked us to send the announcement to so that we could go there and be a part of this most amazing occurrence that just happened.
God allowed them to be participants in His plan for the redemption of the world. And sometimes I think we take for granted way too much the privilege we have of God making sure we've heard about the Savior, about Jesus coming for us.
We take it so much for granted that following God's way and following His teachings and being part of God's church just doesn't have the priority it ought to have for us in our lives. And so we need to be brought back to this place of awe in the fact that God has allowed us to be participants in His plan to redeem the world.
He's called us, He's invited us in to be part of what He's doing in the world today, just like He invited those shepherds in to be a part of what God was doing. You see, this was all part of God's plan to bring healing and restoration to a broken world when He sent Jesus here to be born as that baby in the manger.
And then He put the church on the earth that we are privileged to be a part of so that we can be part of His plan to continue that message of reconciliation and redemption for the world that has been broken by sin. It's an honor and a privilege to be invited into that.
And sometimes we turn it around and act like the church should feel privileged to have us. If we decide to come to your church, Pastor, wouldn't that be wonderful for you? Wouldn't that be great for your church?
Now, make sure you do things the way we want you to so we'll be part of your church because you'll be privileged to have us at your church. Isn't that the attitude so many Christ followers take today? Not at Lakeshore, of course, but other places, other churches. I've heard stories from other pastors, right?
Yeah, we talk, we talk to each other. There are people like that out there. And I'm just amazed at how any of us, myself included, could think that the church is privileged to have us. That's when this fact is just the opposite. We're privileged to have the church.
We're privileged to be invited into the family of God to make up the bride of Christ, the body of Christ, the church. What an honor it is to be invited into that.
So these shepherds are processing after Christmas, after that night of seeing the birth of the baby, they're processing how God has invited them in to be a part of that. I mean, He could have invited the elite of their culture, right? He could have invited the press corps to come to report on it, right? He could have invited anybody, but He invited these shepherds to come and be part of this group of lowly servants that weren't highly regarded in their culture.
So they are thinking about those things, I'm sure. And look at verse 20 again, the shepherds. Look at Luke 2, verse 20. The shepherds returned, and what were they doing after Christmas? They were glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
You see, they're praising God for His faithfulness, for His truthfulness, for being a God of His Word who was doing exactly what He said He was going to do. Part of what happened with societies that worshiped idols and pagan gods, we would call them not the real God, as they find out that those gods oftentimes let them down. They don't do what they've been told those gods will do for them, and the reason is because they're not really God at all, and we know that, but they don't know that.
They're trusting in those what we would call false gods to really be God, but when they can't do for them what they end up having in those religions is this concept with the reason that God didn't do that is because I messed up, right? I didn't do all the works I was supposed to do. I didn't get everything right like I was supposed to get it right.
Aren't you glad our God doesn't depend on that to be truthful to His Word? He keeps His Word whether we're getting everything right or not. He brought Jesus even when the world was still messed up, even when they were still rebelling against God, even when we were still sinners, Christ came to die for the ungodly, right? While we were enemies, it says Christ died for us.
You see, He didn't wait for the ungodly to die for us. He didn't wait for the ungodly to die for us until we got it all right to do for us what He wanted to do for us because He loved us so much, and the shepherds are invited into that. And that's why they are praising God and glorifying God.
And then it says they were spreading the word. They found the baby in the manger. Everything was just as God had promised. There was the virgin who conceived, the baby was born in Bethlehem just like the prophet said. They found Him in a manger just like the angel said. Everything was just as He promised.
And when they went back to their lives, it couldn't be the same anymore. They're still going to be shepherds; that hasn't changed. Probably that's still going to be their occupation, their job, the way they make a living. But everything is different now as a shepherd.
Now they are shepherds knowing that God loves them, that God has kept His promise to them, that God includes them in that plan, that God is restoring His creation back to Himself and reconciling the world from their sin. Now they have a whole different world view of life because of God inviting them into His story for this redemption.
And you see, as we get past Christmas and head into the new year, everything's not going to magically change in your life. You may still be working the same job. You may still have the same boss that you don't like, or maybe you are that boss they don't like, who knows, right?
Probably not going to just automatically have a whole bunch more money. Just magically all the bills aren't going to be paid, right? If you've got bratty kids, they're still going to be what? Bratty kids. There you go. Some of you don't know it, but you got them, right?
All that's not going to magically change. But what I hope is going to change for all of us, if you've been listening to this series, if you've been participating, if you missed any, you can go back and catch them on our YouTube channel. Here's what we've been doing: we've been focusing on what really does matter here.
And when we get our focus, we're going to be focusing on where it needs to be and keep our eyes on Jesus. Then that changes how we go about the everyday part of our life. Now there's a greater purpose, and we understand there's a greater plan, and that God has welcomed us into that plan, and we are people who matter to the God who created everything.
Doesn't that change how you go about your everyday life? It should. It should change everything about the peace and the joy and the approach that you take to life.
Well, that's the shepherd. What about Mary and Joseph? What was things like for them after that Christmas night when Mary gave birth to that baby? I mean, that's a transitional time, isn't it, for first-time parents? A new baby in the house now, doesn't that change things?
If you have it, in case some of you are far removed from that like me, you may forget just how much that changes life. Everything changes when you bring a baby into the mix, into the picture.
Now, I want you to understand this. I don't want to get any bad emails on this, okay? But hear me out: your pet is not your baby. I just want to be clear on it, okay? You may love your pet, and you should. You may care for your pet deeply, and you should. We've had pets that we love and cared for very much, and certainly we felt like they were part of our family, but they are not your baby.
And they were not our family, our babies. You see, a pet can pretty much, even if you left it alone, survive for a while. You can't do that with a baby. A pet, you're not responsible for making sure it gets the education it needs, making sure it has the opportunities it needs to have to advance in life, making sure one day it can get out of the house and take care of itself.
You don't have to do that with a pet. It's a totally different thing. Don't ever think that having a dog or a cat or it does not, it cannot, it's not supposed to. It's supposed to be a blessing to you that you enjoy, but not a substitute for having children, human beings that you become responsible for as parents. That's a whole different thing.
So if you want to push it in a buggy or a stroller and act like it's your baby, that's up to you, but it's not your baby. It's your dog, it's your cat, it's your dog or whatever, and be thankful and be blessed, but don't ever think that that's the same as taking responsibility for an actual human being.
Mary and Joseph not only have the responsibility of a baby now, but they have been told this is the Son of God, and they have to take on that responsibility to raise that baby in the same world we live in, right? With all the dangers, with all the temptations, with all the struggles, with all the challenges that come with raising a child in any day and time.
We act like it was so much easier back in the day, but it wasn't. There were other challenges; there were different challenges. But there's always been challenges in raising children, and this child is the Son of God that God has said has come to them in a miraculous way.
And I can imagine that night how reassuring it was when those shepherds showed up for Mary and Joseph because they were probably scared to death. You see, it's been a little while since the angel came and told them what was going to happen. It's been a little while since they said, "You're going to give birth to this child, and it's going to be the Son of God, and it's going to be from the line of David. He's going to have a kingdom that he rules over."
It's been a little while, and they've had to go through some hard things in the in-between time. Some of you ladies have recently gone through pregnancy and given birth. That's a tough thing; it's a hard thing. Some of you have maybe, it's been long enough you don't remember even how hard it was.
I think that's how God tricks us into having more kids. It's a hard thing, and Mary's been through nine months of pregnancy, and she's given birth now. And I'm sure when they got the word they had to go to Bethlehem, they had to be there at the time the baby was born, they didn't have room in the inn, so they're out there in a stable.
Don't you think things are running through their mind like maybe we didn't hear the angel the right way? Maybe we misunderstood what the angel was saying. I mean, would this really be God's plan that we end up having to come here under these conditions at the time the baby was going to be born and have to be in a stable for the Son of God to be born there?
Maybe questioning that a little bit in their minds. You know how sometimes you question things in your mind without saying it out loud? Now, some of you aren't good at not letting your thoughts come out, but some of you can hold it in a little bit, and you're thinking it in your mind even if you're not saying it out loud.
And I'm sure they have to be struggling with that a little bit, and then these shepherds show up at the stable, and what do they say? "You're not going to believe this, Mary and Joseph, but when we walked in here and saw that baby in the manger, we knew it really was an angel of God that came to us on the hillside to tell us about this baby being born."
Look at how God brought them that reassurance that this is God's plan, this is God's story, this is God welcoming them into His story of that redemption of all that was broken by sin. It's God's validation that all this is happening just the way He said it would, and it wasn't that they misunderstood the angel; it was the way God was fulfilling what the angel said.
And remember, they got this baby now, and parenthood sinks in really quickly. And you have to remember back then they didn't have Pampers; they didn't have wet wipes. It was just all of a sudden we got a baby here we got to take care of with whatever resources we have, and we do the best we can to make sure that we end with the resources we have, right?
I hope you do. You try to take good care of your baby. They've got to do it under different circumstances and different conditions, but now all of a sudden it begins to sink in. Not only are we a mom and dad, but we're mom and dad of God on earth in the form of a baby. It changed everything for their lives.
Look at verse 19 of Luke 2. After the shepherds came and said that to them, Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. That word translated "pondered" is a word that means to chew over it over time and work through it and digest all that you've just seen and heard and experienced to try to soak it all in and get a better grasp and understanding of all that's going on.
You see, even though Mary was chosen by God, she's still going to be a part of the world. She's still just a human being. She's still just a young girl who just gave birth to a baby, and she's still got to process all this that's going on, and she's working through that in her mind because we know Mary's heart from how she responded right before we looked at it in Scripture.
She wanted to be God's servant. She wanted to be used by God, and I'm sure more than anything she wanted to do everything she could to get it right, to do exactly what they were supposed to do with this child.
I mean, up until that point, she's tried to honor God with all of her decisions, right? She's a virgin. She's going into marriage the way God says to go into marriage. She's doing it the way God planned for it to be done. And everything changed for her.
And she's still trying to honor God and do it the right way in raising this baby that they now have to take care of. You know, the very first book that Max Lucado ever wrote is a book called "God Came Near." I want to read to you an excerpt from that book because he talks about questions that he would like to ask Mary after she raised Jesus, okay?
He writes, "Here are the questions he wants to ask Mary. How did he act when he got his first haircut? Did he ever come home with a black eye? Did you ever see him with a distant look on his face as if he were listening to someone that you couldn't hear? When he saw a lamb being led to the slaughter, did he act differently? Did the thought ever occur to you, Mary, that the God to whom you were praying was asleep unawakened?"
I mean, think about those questions. These are parents, young parents, first child, raising this special baby in their home. I don't know what it must have been like with all the different questions she had to be pondering with all that was happening.
Think about some questions she might be asking herself, like, when is he going to establish himself as a king, right? Because the angel said he was going to have a kingdom that he would rule over forever. Well, when's he going to make that known, right? How's that going to look? What's going to happen when he starts doing that?
When is he going to reveal himself to be the Messiah? The angel told us he's the Messiah. We know he's the Messiah. When is he going to let other people know that he's the Messiah, right? All that is going on, I'm sure.
When will people think, Mary must be thinking, and Joseph too, you got to include Joseph in this. Joseph gets very little credit here at the Christmas story. We were talking about the other day, all the songs about the birth of the baby and about Mary. Almost none of them even mentioned Joseph.
Think about it for a minute. He got almost no attention from this, and yet he's doing there. He's faithful. He's being there for what God told him to do. He's being obedient to that. They must be thinking, when will people stop thinking we're crazy and believe our story, our family and our friends?
Can you imagine that? I mean, the story they had to tell was pretty remarkable, pretty unbelievable about how all this transpired, and I'm sure they had family and friends that would just kind of smile and nod their head and say, "Sure. I'm sure that's how it all went down, Joseph. Of course. Yeah, everything's good," right?
While the whole time they're thinking, "No way, that can't be the real story," and they've got to deal with that, with all the looks and all the snickers and all the doubts and all the accusations as they raise this baby that God called them into this process to raise.
So the week after Christmas, reality has sunk in on both Mary and Joseph, and there's no turning back. This is the course that God's charted for them. As Mary said earlier, "May it be to me as you have said," and they followed God's will, and they raised that child that went on to save them and us.
Look on later in Luke 2, verse 21 and 22. This is later on. This is after Christmas, right? The days after that. On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, that's the Jewish law and how they did it, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived.
When the time came for the purification rites required by the law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. What are they doing? They're following God's teaching, God's example, God's plan for how a child is supposed to be raised up under that day, the law of God.
You see, they're very conscientious about doing what God called them to do, doing it the right way. I mean, they were trusted with this precious gift to take care of in the right way. And all children are precious, and we need to take seriously raising up all of our kids. But they had a special calling, right, in this plan.
Because they have the baby Jesus to raise. And so they're following all of these instructions that were given in the law about how this baby is supposed to be raised. And it goes on to say that they went on to follow the whole plan where they brought, let's look at verse 23 and following.
It says, "As it's written in the law of the Lord, every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of doves or two young pigeons."
Now, we know that Mary and Joseph gave two young pigeons, which tells us what? They were poor. You see, when you give the offerings, there was a choice of a lamb or young doves. And the reason God allowed that choice was because some people couldn't afford to do the lamb. So He gave them the option of giving the doves or pigeons as an offering to the Lord.
See, God's compassionate on those who couldn't afford to do it the other way. And it went on to say, "Now, there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel." That's a phrase that means for the coming of the Messiah, the consolation of Israel.
Okay. And the Holy Spirit was on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the law required, Simeon took him in his arms and prayed, "Praise God," saying, "Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all the nations, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel."
It says, "The child's mother and father marveled at what was said about him." Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And then he added this: 'And a sword will pierce your own soul too.'"
God's continuing to give them confirmation that this is the child He told them about. This is the one who was going to accomplish all of this that He said He was going to accomplish. And He was speaking through one there in the temple to reassure them, "Yes, this is exactly where you need to be and what you need to be doing as His parents."
And then there was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, the tribe of Asher. She was very old. She had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage and then was a widow until she was 84. Think about that, 84. She's still being included in God's plan. You're never too old, right, to be a participant in God's plan.
She never left the temple but worshiped day and night, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Israel.
See, God's just reassuring Mary and Joseph, stick with the plan, follow the law, do what you're supposed to be doing as a parent. This is how God's plan is going to be fulfilled, through His people being obedient to His Word.
What a message to us today. God's plan is going to be accomplished through His people being obedient to His teaching. That includes us. He's invited us into that plan.
That if we will listen to God and follow God's instructions and do it God's way, God's using all of that in His plan for the redemption of the world. He's inviting you to be part of that plan by following His teaching.
When Mary and Joseph had done everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. And the child, listen to this, the child grew and became strong. He was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was with him.
He was on him. Listen to this added note, verse 41. Every year Jesus' parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. What are they still doing? Even as Jesus gets older, what are they still doing? Following God's plan, obeying God's Word, doing it the way God says to do it.
They didn't neglect bringing Jesus to the temple like they were supposed to. They didn't neglect the Jewish festivals and feasts that they were supposed to participate in. And friends, parents today and grandparents, we don't need to neglect those things with our children and our grandchildren either.
We need to make sure they're the priority of how we're raising up our kids today. We have them in church. We have them in the Word. We have them in devotion time. We have them included in the plan that God has for our lives and their lives.
Don't ever let that be secondary to the things of the world. The things of the world can't do for your children what only God can do for your children and His plan for them.
It says in verse 52 then, "Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man." In other words, He grew up the way God planned for Him to grow up in that family. When He chose Mary and Joseph for this job, He believed when He picked them that He could trust them to raise Jesus the right way so that Jesus can fulfill that ultimate plan that He has for the redemption of the world.
Well, there's a third area I want us to see real quick as we close today. I want to personalize this message. We've got to make one more stop. What about the day after Christmas for you and me? What does it look like for us?
I mean, we all view Christmas differently. We all fall into different categories. For some of you, Christmas is a very difficult time. And you're so happy to get past it and for the new year to begin. Maybe this year it was because you experienced a divorce. Or maybe there was a death of a loved one. Or maybe it was downsizing at work that cost you your job. Or whatever your situation.
Maybe you didn't have family to enjoy it with you. Or maybe there was an empty seat at the table. And maybe, to be totally honest, you look forward to the day after Christmas more than you look forward to Christmas. You just wanted to get past it.
Well, I've got good news for you. If you're here today, hearing these words, you made it. You got past it. You survived it, right? So what now? What happens next?
You see, whatever your situation, no matter what it was or how hard it was for you, I want you to understand that you've got that under your belt now, but God's not done with you. There's still a plan and a purpose for you still being in the world, still having life and breath in your body.
Don't think you're just here to survive Christmas. That's not God's plan for you. It's more than that. It has greater impact and meaning than that, than just getting by and getting through something. So don't limit it to that.
And maybe for some of you, there's a second category that you find yourselves in that you actually enjoy this season, and it's a fun time and a festive time, but it's also a crazy time. And because you've packed it with so many things and so much family in town and all of that, that you're just still glad it's over with.
I heard a couple of people this morning say, "I can't wait for some of the family to go home now." I can relate to that. I understand. Company and fish have a lot in common, right? After three or four days, they both begin to smell bad.
Now, here's the thing. It was never meant to be so chaotic that you're glad it's over. We do that to ourselves. Don't blame God for that. Don't blame Christmas for that. We do that to ourselves when we pack in all the stuff we try to pack in and do all the things we try to do for Christmas.
Guess what? If you want to see family and friends, you don't have to wait for Christmas. You can do that during the year. You can do that on a regular basis any other time. Don't think you've got to pack it all in in one few days of the year.
Make that something you do over time as a part of your life with your family and your friends. Stay in touch all the time, not just for Christmas holidays. Now, I understand maybe you get some time off work that frees you up, but don't pack it so full of stuff that you just regret all the stuff after you do it and you're just glad it's over with.
Well, there's another category. Maybe you fall into this category. Maybe you're the kind of people that it's a sense that you pour so much into the holidays, and you get so excited about it, that when the 26th comes, it's not so much that you're glad it's over, it's that you're a little bit sad that it's over.
I mean, I've talked about this. I've confessed this, and it's a true thing. We haven't taken our holiday decorations down at our house. We haven't taken them down yet here at the church. And we could have. We could have gotten our staff together and come in here and taken all this down this week. We could have done that.
But I'm the one that decided, "No, I want to leave them up one more week." I mean, we're getting just past Christmas. We're going into the new year. We're going to celebrate, you know, Happy New Year and all that. The decorations will be good to have for all of that, right?
But here's the thing. There's another reason I didn't want to do it. It makes me kind of sad when all the decorations come down. I kind of have a little bit of a, "Oh, man, everything looks really plain and gray and dull now when all the decorations come down." I wish we could just have Christmas all the time.
But if we had them all the time, what would happen? I would get tired of that too, right? We'd have to try to top that. We'd have to try to make it more spectacular. You see, our joy can't come from just the decorations and the Christmas activities.
The joy has to come from why we decorate and why we have the celebration and the activities. But I start thinking about things like, you know what? As many trips as I made out to the shed to put this stuff up, I got to make back to the shed to put it back. You know, I start thinking about all of that stuff.
And it can kind of bring you down when you're thinking about it that way. But let me ask you something. Does it really have to be like that? It doesn't. It doesn't have to be like that at all. In fact, it flies in the face of what the Apostle Paul said in Colossians 4 and verse 5.
Listen to what he said there. "Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders." And I love this phrase. "Make the most of every opportunity." Is the day after Christmas an opportunity you need to make the most of? The week after Christmas? The day after New Year's? Yeah.
You see, here's the thing. The Christian life should never be one of just getting by and making it through one more day or one more holiday or one more activity or one more festivity. It's got to be more than that. God planned it to be more than that, to have a deeper meaning and a deeper purpose than that.
You see, here's the thing. Day in and day out is fleshing out for others what it means to follow Christ, to have your past forgiven, to have your future settled. So we need to be trying to reach those outside of Christ through our actions by making the most of every opportunity every day.
You see, we are on mission here every day, not just at Christmas. God has entrusted to us the mission of the salvation and the healing of the world and the curse of sin in the world. He's invited us to be part of that mission.
We all have a place to fill in that mission, and there are certain people that you will have influence over and opportunity to influence that nobody else is going to have the opportunity to influence the way you can.
But if you get all down in the dumps and we ought to take the decorations down and I'm just so glad it's over, how are we going to fulfill the mission like that? We're not. We've got to do better than that. We've got to be excited about every opportunity and make the most of it.
In Ephesians 5 verse 15 and 16 it says, "Be careful then how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every, what's that word again? Opportunity because the days are evil."
Of course, the days we live in are evil. Of course, there's bad stuff out there. That's why it's even more important for God's people to make the most of every opportunity we have to share the good news, to tell about the difference Christ makes in our lives and the difference He can make for others.
We are on mission. You say it doesn't matter if it's December 25th or December 31st. It doesn't matter if it's the 4th of July or the 5th of July. If it's your birthday or the day after your birthday, make the most of every what? Opportunity.
Make the most of every opportunity. God is still God, even in the mundane moments and the routine of life. And the mission doesn't change in the mundane moments that aren't the celebrations of the holidays. The mission stays the same.
And the opportunities are still out there. In fact, sometimes the opportunities are greater when it's not those celebrations because the world just kind of expects the church to celebrate Christmas, but it doesn't expect God to celebrate Christmas and God's people to celebrate the everyday mundane ordinary and to make the most of those days.
They're not surprised when we have Christmas Eve candlelight services. They're not surprised even for the Sunday weekend services. What might surprise them is when they see you at work honoring God, making the right choices, speaking the way God would want you to speak, having the attitude that God would want you to have, even in the hard day at work when things have gone terribly wrong.
What a great opportunity to witness then. That day. For the Savior that we celebrate at Christmas. You see, every day belongs to Him.
So I want to close with this. We think that when we commit our life to Christ, it's like one big sweeping motion. "Jesus, I'm just laying down my life for you. All at once today, I'm giving you everything, and I'm ready to go out in a blaze of glory for you."
I would die for you, Jesus. Remember Peter saying that? "I'd never deny you, Jesus. I would die for you." What did he do overnight the next morning? Denied Him three times, right? Because Peter meant it when he said he would die for Jesus, when he said it.
Just like when we give our lives to Jesus, we really usually mean it. We know what we're saying. We really mean it. We really believe it. And we want to lay down our life for Jesus. But here's the thing, that's not the way it works.
Here's the way it really works. I've heard another pastor give this illustration, and I love it because it's so true. We think that our life is represented like by a $10,000 bill. Now, I've never seen one. I don't know if they really exist. But let's just imagine that they do, okay? A $10,000 bill.
We imagine that our lives are represented by that $10,000 bill, and we say, "Okay, Lord, I'm going to lay it down on Your altar, and I'm going to say, 'Here it is, Lord, take me. I'm Yours.'" But it's not that simple.
In actuality, it's more like this. You take that $10,000 bill to the bank, and you change it out for quarters. Now, you've got to have a big truck. But you get $10,000 in quarters.
And giving your life to Jesus is more like this. You take all those quarters, and you spend your entire life pouring yourself out for the Lord, day in and day out, a quarter here, a quarter there, a quarter there, a quarter there.
There's no way you can do it all at once. It has to be done in the day-to-day, in the ordinary and the spectacular, in the mundane and in the exciting and everything in between. It's every day in those moments.
You lay down that quarter of your life. You lay down that moment of your life. You lay down that time of your life to Jesus. You give it to Him a little bit at a time every day. A lunch here with someone, a prayer there, an arm around the shoulder, a cup of cold water.
It's serving at the church the Sunday after Christmas. It's serving at the mission a month after Christmas, not just during the Christmas holidays. It's serving out of gratitude for what Christ has done for us, and the mundane day-in and day-out life that we live here on this earth.
It's not always the spectacular that accomplishes the most for Jesus. In fact, most often, it's that day-to-day faithful witness that you've given to your family, to your friends, with consistency over time.
And none of us is going to be perfect at that, but it's also the witness that when we mess up, we do with that what God says to do with that. We repent, and we ask for forgiveness, and we return to that path that God wants us to be on. And they see that too.
That even when we've come short, we come before God with that, and we're honest, and we got it taken care of by the blood of Jesus. You see, we've received the best gift ever, Jesus Christ.
And we need to live out our response to what He's done for us, not just in the big moments, but in the day-to-day faithfulness and consistency that are marks of maturity for the Christian.
Chuck Swindoll reminds us of this. He says, "When the wrappings and the ribbons are in the trash can, and the manger scene is back in the attic, and the friends and family have said goodbye, and the house feels empty, and so do you, there is One who waits to fill your heart and renew your hope, and His name is Jesus. He was there on December the 25th, He'll still be there on the 31st, and He will be there on January the 1st, and He'll be there on January the 2nd, and every day after."
He never leaves or forsakes us on the day-to-day mundane things of life. We should never leave or forsake Jesus.
Let's pray together. Father, we thank You. We thank You that we could celebrate Christmas. It's a beautiful thing to celebrate what You've done in sending Your Son Jesus here.
We thank You for Mary and Joseph and their faithfulness. We thank You for the shepherds and their willingness to spread the Good News after they saw the child. We're thankful for all here at Lakeshore that have celebrated Christmas with the right meaning and the right purpose, and they've lifted up Jesus through the process.
But help us to know, Father, that these days after Christmas are just as important for us to honor You, to praise You, to serve You, to be obedient to Your Word. Because in all of that, not only are You glorified, but through all of that, it's Your plan to call others to know and follow Jesus.
Help us to be that witness for You. And if someone today wants to make that decision to give their lives to Jesus, I pray that this could be the day, even a day after Christmas, that changes their lives forever because they made the decision to surrender to the Lordship of Jesus in their lives.
We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen.
We're going to stand and sing and offer this time of invitation. We invite you to come right up front if you have a decision to make while we're standing and seated.
Please, Tammy, come on up. Come up to the mic here just for a moment. Here she comes as a part of our church family asking for prayer for your... my... having some real health problems.
Yeah, he's having... Yeah, certainly we'll be praying for him. You guys come on up too with another prayer request, and we'll pray for both of these. I know there are other requests too. Come right on up.
Ted and Rhonda come asking for prayer for their son, who they know is going through a divorce right now. And it's a very hard time, of course, for him and for the family. So we want to be lifting them up in prayer right now too.
And here's what I know, that even through a hard thing like this, and this is their prayer, is that God's going to use this to direct him back to the Lord and the Lord's plan for his life, the Lord's walk for him that God wants him to have.
And I know God can work through even a hard thing like this for that to happen. I know there are other prayer needs within the church family. Let's lift them all up in prayer right now.
Father, we just thank you that as we come before you right now, that we can come in the name of Jesus and boldly approach your throne of grace. We know that when we come to your throne of grace, you welcome us there because we're covered by the blood of your Son.
And He makes it possible for us to find the help that we need as we come to you. So we lift up these needs and the others within our church family. We've just celebrated a wonderful thing in the birth of Jesus where He came here for things like this too, for the hard things, for the struggles that we face, so that we could have your power at work, even in those things, for your glory, for your honor, and for our good and the good of all involved.
We pray for your will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
God bless you. Thank you. This time, Hugh is going to come and lead us in a time of communion around the Lord's table.
Amen. We want to thank you again for being here with us today. And thank you for making the effort after Christmas and after the Christmas Eve service and all that to come back and be together here on the first day of the week as we get ready to end this year and, God willing, start a new year together as the body of Christ here at Lakeshore.
We're glad to have you as a part of that. If you'd like to continue your worship through the giving of offerings, we have an offering box available in the back of the auditorium. And one is you exit the auditorium, mine are on a post there. It's got a slot in the top. You can put your offering in those boxes there.
You can also give online at lakeshorechristian.com, and you can mail in your offerings to the church office. Either way you do it, it's an act of worship, and it's a way to support the work and ministry of the church.
There's another way you can support the ministry of the church today. We have our final bake sale before the Tennessee Christian Teen Convention where our teenagers, high schoolers go to a convention in Gatlinburg. And this bake sale, all the funds go, all the proceeds go to help with the cost of taking them to that convention.
So even though you've had a lot of treats over the Christmas holidays, there's more. And you know that the money is going to a good cause when you get those today. So stop by the cafe out of the lobby area there before you leave and pick up a few items there if you haven't already done so.
I will also say Jeremy's going to come up and close out with a few announcements. But before that, I had one more I wanted to mention. I think with the holidays hitting the way they did this year with Christmas in the middle of the week and all that and the kind of light service and all that, we kind of lost track of the calendar.
But normally on the fifth Sundays of the month, which we have today is the fifth Sunday in December, we call it Family Sunday. We have all the kids come into the auditorium with their parents because we want to get them exposed to worshiping with the parents in the big auditorium thing.
And we had some very dedicated children's workers that forgot, and they're back there taking care of kids anyway. So let's thank them for their good work. I think we just lost track of the calendar, but that's okay. We always love having the kids here, whether they're in this auditorium with us or in their programming that we have in our children's ministry.
So Jeremy, come on up. He's going to close this out here with announcements and a word of prayer there.
on Dec 29, 2024
