Christmas 2022

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” “The Root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations; in him the Gentiles will hope.” May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We light the candle of Peace. Let us remember our need for a Savior to save us from our sins, and give us peace with God.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

We light the candle of Joy.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.

We light the candle of Hope.

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. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

We light the candle of Love.

Jesus Christ is the true reason for hope, peace, joy, and love in this season and all to come. As we light the Christ candle, celebrating the end of Advent and the arrival of Christ and Christmas, let us remember how our savior came once as a lowly baby, that the world through him might be saved, and how he will return one day in glory.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

As we celebrate… lets us be reminded tonight that Jesus, Emmanuel, The Son of GOd, He lives!

Sermon beginning Have you ever looked into a mirror and just stared at yourself, looking at your eyes, nose, and hair? When I do this, I often get caught up in how amazing life is, and I often look in the mirror and wonder, "Do I really have the image of God?" As a child, I recall my curiosity occasionally capturing my attention. I still remember asking my mother some deep theological questions—simple questions that I am sure every kid would have asked. Questions like, "Mom, why is the sky blue or why is the grass green?" "Because that's what God wanted," Mom frequently replied. It still amazes me how God fit into our conversations at the same time our family knew nothing of God. I didn't grow up in a church, or with church people. I did, however, have very basic knowledge from the vibrant storybooks many might remember from the 1970s and 1980s and the songs I would hear my mom sing often. I remember the story of Noah most of all, but as I grew older, I became interested in the story of Joseph and his coat of many colors. I believe that story became interesting because I grew up in the Appalachian mountains and Dolly Parton came out with a song called, "The Coat of Many Colors," and I remember my mom singing that song along with another song called "Fancy" by Reba Macintyre. I remember my mother would get emotional and loud when it would come to the part where Reba would sing, “You know I might have been born just plain white trash, But Fancy was my name” You couldn't tell it when I was younger, but as an adult, I was learning that she needed love and to feel safe and appreciated, just as I needed to be loved, safe, and appreciated. We were living in a world of darkness and we have no clue. I think it's the habits we create in our lives that trap us into believing that darkness is good. We can do something for so long and believe it to be true, honest and right. And when someone comes along and challenges our way of doing something. We can reject their attempt to show us something completely different. Honesty, I never knew I was living in darkness. I don’t think we really know until someone shows us. For me, it was a young lady who invited me into a place where they would leave the light on for you. No, I'm not talking about a motel room, as the commercial would say. I'm talking about a small Baptist church in a small town called Nutterfort that was a light house for the community. Unbeknownst to me, Jesus sent a young lady into a dark world to meet with me at the crossroads of grace at a local video store. She didn’t tell me I was sinful. She didn’t smack me on the head with her Bible. She didn’t even give me the gospel. All she did was invite me to church, and as many of you know, I met Jesus there. I learned over the course of a year that life comes only from God and that Jesus is the light of the world. Our Scripture said, Life was with him. Life originates with God. Nobody made him the way He is. He was not created by force or power. He has been what he is forever and ever and ever and ever. He just is. That's what it means to be God—a constant, always-flowing, and outpouring source of life. He is life, and "life was in him." This morning I awoke and looked out my kitchen window at the apple tree in my backyard. It stood naked through the darkness, waiting, watching, and enduring the hard, cold winter night. One could say the tree is dead. The once vibrant tree, filled with life and fruit, has lost all of its splendor and radiance while sitting naked in its shame. My focus began to be on the leaves and how they once clothed the tree in beauty but now lie on the ground as dried-up rags. My eyes looked up into the tree and gazed through every branch that stood bare and frosted by the harsh wind and snow. But then, I lifted my gaze up and through the clouds towards the hills to see the sun's light bursting through the clouds. Grace. That’s what I felt…. The solstice season of winter reminds me of the importance of proximity. The closer we are to the sun, the more life we see and experience. Have you ever wondered why Pharoah's heart was hardened by God? I've learned that his heart was hardened, but not because God hardened it in anger, overtaking Pharaoh's free will. But because Pharoah's heart wasn't connected to life. His life was focused on his god's, and he looked at himself as a god, so his life was focused on himself. He didn't have the same connection to the God of life as Moses did. The fall season gives an example of Pharaoh's life and what happens when our proximity to life decreases. What happens in fall is that the leaves have fallen and are no longer connected to their source. The same sun, with its constant, always-flowing, and outpouring source of life that gave life to the leaves still attached to the tree, will also dry up the leaves that have let go. The same sun, power, and chance at life exist—but one accepts and the other rejects. 1 John 5:11–12 reminds us: "God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. "Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. " There we see it again, "In him was life." So if you have Jesus, you have life. If you reject Jesus, you reject life. Again, Jesus gives examples to this life all through out Johns gospel… John 5:40: "You refuse to come to me that you may have life." John 10:10: "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." John 10:28: "I give them eternal life, and they will never perish." It's written all over the Bible: "In him was life, and this life brings light." That’s the way the new birth works. The Spirit imparts life because light was received. Proximity to the light brings warmth. Warmth brings new life, and before long, the world will be teeming with new buds of life as spring arrives. Our Scripture says… ”In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” This light I speak of is represented this morning in these candles. The candle of peace reminds us that peace has come. The angels have testified to the lowly Shepards, “Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men” Luke 2:14 The next candle represents hope. It symbolizes the anticipation felt in awaiting the coming Messiah, and our faithful waiting in His return. The next candle we see is Joy! Joy is found not in consuming more. Joy is found in a transformed life. This new life is one of generosity, compassion, and care for those around us. It’s the calling of the church, this church, this church… we’re called to be joyful and to spread Joy! Joy can only be given if life is received. And it’s with the fourth candle that we are reminded that all of this is possible, hope, joy, and peace… the fourth candle is love. Love is at the core of all we do. It’s the core of the fruit of the spirit. With the love of God in our hearts, may we work to see the love of God at work in the world. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. There it is again in Scripture….Life. but lovelily coupled with this word…. eternal. If we are going to see anything, even to look into the mirror and see the reflection of ourselves, it takes light. I can look in the mirror and say that I am alive because I breathe, live, and I am aware. I see my imperfections. I see my crooked nose from when it was broken as a child. I see my graying hair, I see my sagging eyes from anxiety and sleepless nights… but, yet in all of these imperfections, I still think I’m alive. I look alive! But, if I asked myself, "Am I dead?" would I even believe it or would I have thought to myself, “Man I’ve lost my mind. Of course! I'm not dead I see my reflection looking back at me in all of its; imperfections. But then, I realize. This Scripture of life and light isn’t about physical things but it tells of Spiritual life and death. If you substitute spiritual blindness and darkness for deadness, then you start to see what John means. People aren’t dead because they can walk or talk or think or feel or even see with physical eyes see themselves in mirrors. People are dead because "seeing they do not see" Jesus tells of this blindness in Matthew 13:13.. “This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.” They don’t see! What do they not see? They don’t see… Their deadness. They don’t see! They are walking in darkness.. They don’t see… Jesus as valuable. His sacrifice as precious. Relationship and fellowship as a treasure. or the possibility of peace, joy, hope, and love that enters the darkness to bring light to the world. They are blind to these things because they choose to walk in darkness. Jesus tells us why those who are blind and numb to the light reject it… And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. They are dead, spiritually speaking. If they are going to see these things and receive them, they must have life. Life will make seeing possible. But without light revealing truth, then life isn’t shown. So John says in verse 4, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” What we see is that life brings light. When death is replaced with life and darkness replaced with light, new life is possible. So what is God’s answer to darkness, and deadness and blindness of the world? It’s a new birth. Without it the world will never understand. Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God”? John 3:3 You can’t see it. No one can. And if you can’t see it, then you can’t receive it. And because that is the case, you are not permitted to enter. Everything hangs on the truth and reality of being born again through life and light. Because without light and life, we are dead, blind, and living in darkness. God’s remedy? John tells us: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. His remedy was new birth, and birth that began with his only son. God sends his son, Jesus into the world as the light of life to lay down his life for us and then causes people to be born again so they can see him and receive him. John writes: children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, It’s received. Just as all of creation received Christ into this world. Life stays with us…. That’s the beauty of Emmanual… God with us… He’s with us at his birth into this world, and he’s with us, in our birth into new eternal life with him. As I close, I would like to ask you to focus one question… Does the light of Christ reside in me? Or am I still walking in darkness? Jesus said: 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." John 8:12 What he means is this.. Jesus’s being “the light of the world” means the world has no other light than him. If there is going to be a light for the world, it will be Jesus. It is Jesus or darkness. There is no third alternative. No other light. John piper writes: It means, therefore, that all the world, and everyone in it needs Jesus as their light. It means that the world was made for this light. This is not a foreign light. This is the light of the owner of the world. When this light comes, it not only makes sin plain as foreign and ugly, but it also makes everything good in the world shine with its full and true beauty. This world was made to be illumined by this light. This light of Christ is native to the world. And finally, Jesus being “the light of the world” means that that one day this world will be filled with this light as the waters cover the sea, and all darkness, and all the works of darkness, and all the sons of darkness will be cast out. That’s why Jesus called hell “outer darkness” (Matthew 8:12; 22:13; 25:30). In that day, all will be light. Jesus, the radiance of the Father, will fill the world, and everything will be beautiful with the light of Christ. That’s what makes my mothers and I story so uniquely ordinary. She and I were searching for love, we were searching to feel safe, we were searching to be accepted and appreciated. That’s what the light of Christ does to one who reject darkness, repents of their sin and finds Christ to be the most precious thing in life… because Christ is our light! And that light must come from the church. That light is so bright that when new people come in, they witness life, and love, hope and joy and peace. I believe with all of my heart, that when we together, surrender to the light of the world, to Jesus, and he brightly shines within us… this place will explode with faithful things. If you’ve not, taken that step of faith out of the darkness and into the light. Why not today? Why not while we celebrate the birth of Christ, why not let this day be a day where you can also celebrate the birth of Christ in you? Because only through him can our deadness be replaced with life and our blindness be replaced with light. He calls int he darkness… Come to him. Believe on him. Receive him. And grow with him… And trust me, he is faithful to be your life, and then you’ll find through true relationship.. he will also be your everlasting joy. *