"Christmas on the Big Screen: Love"

Accidents. Wrong lanes. I was cut off 10 times. People were driving like they’d never seen snow or ice before. I’m patient, gracious, frustrated – whatever!
The radio DJ says “Just wanted to get you in the Christmas spirit,” and plays “Silver bells, silver bells, it’s Christmas time in the city.”

No it’s not. It’s stupid drivers day in the city.

So, needless to say I wasn’t really spreading too much love around and obviously wasn’t too engaged in Christmas on Thursday night. Friday morning I had to finish this message.

And so I came in Friday and read some verses that began to put this together for me. See, before we can love other people, before we even try to do that, we need to understand God’s love in our lives and the incredible difference that it can make.

Here’s the verse I read Friday morning. It was written by the prophet Isaiah 100’s of years before that first Christmas. He described in great anticipation what the birth of Jesus would mean and how that single event would usher in a whole new realm of spiritual reality.

This was written 100’s of years before Jesus’ birth:
Isaiah 9:2 & 6 & 7 (NIV)

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given. And He will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

People, here’s what I realized this week and it was like a brighter light got turned on for me that shed a whole lot more emphasis and meaning on just how big this whole Christmas thing really is.
This one single event was not only anticipated for 100’s of years by millions of people, like Isaiah, before it happened. It was the most anticipated event in history. But when it finally happened, in that moment when Jesus was born, everything changed; the course of history changed. And because of that first Christmas, the church was started and the Christian faith began to grow, but that is really just the small stuff. That stuff just changed the history books, but here’s the big stuff.
In another realm, the moment Jesus was born on that first Christmas, everything changed as well in the spiritual realm. This single event turned everything upside down or I should say up and to the right, because on the day Jesus was born God made a decision that he would no longer be distant and far away and unapproachable.

On that first Christmas God made a decision, a choice to come near to us, and to dwell among us. He made a choice to humble himself and step down from his rightful place and place himself in a position that we can recognize and relate to. The Creator became creation. Think about that. Wait, and then just a few pages later Isaiah says one more line that puts all this together. He said:
Isaiah 7:14 (NIV)

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: A virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

Immanuel means God with us. Folks, God with us – Immanuel, is what happened that first Christmas. God came to us born into a smelly stable in an obscure village called Bethlehem. And from that moment on everything changed because He took His light and brought it into the darkness and now because of Jesus it shines in hearts of mankind.

God coming near, that is what Christmas is all about; God within reach, God with us.

Then I put something else together this week. The Bible also says that God is love. That word is the definition of God. He is love. So lets put that together; not only did light come near to us that first Christmas, but so did love.

God is love and God is with us. Because of that first Christmas God’s love is within reach of us, God’s love within our grasp.

Quite remarkable when you think through it. And really, that is the most significant news there is at Christmas and if I’m gonna be honest with you, God’s love with us is the single biggest news in all of history.

Now, you may have heard all this before and maybe like me, perhaps for 20 or 30 years, you’ve been hearing that story and you’re going, “okay, great Dean, God is with us”, but just hearing that doesn’t make your heart beat faster.

Well, here’s what I did this week that changed that for me a bit. Simple; I asked God to breathe a little life into my spirit about Christmas. I just prayed a simple prayer and by faith I asked that over the next 4 weeks He would take this story of Christmas and make the truth of it come alive to me and to us; that this Christmas wouldn’t be just another nice Christmas at Lakeview. I prayed that the history changing spiritually transforming power of God with us would begin to transform us this Christmas and that it would begin to change our families and our marriages and change our futures and most of all, I prayed that it would change our hearts. So, just in case you are there, Christmas has come a bit early.

1. God’s love is with us – tomorrow

I’m not sure how many of you have been lost before. I have been. Lost, as in wandering around in the wilderness and can’t find your way home kinda lost. When I was young, I was on a trap line, it was dark, there was a storm and I was lost. That is a terrifying feeling, but being lost in direction for life can be a terrible feeling also:
· like being 18 + and out of high school, and not having a clue what to do with your life. That’s a lost feeling.
· like being 24+, having a college degree and still not having a clue what to do with your life. That’s a lost feeling.
· like going through a time when you’re hating your job and can’t figure out the next move.
· like going through financial struggles in your own business, wondering if it’s always gonna take everything you’ve got and a little more.
· like when your marriage is fading and has been for 2 years, and it doesn’t look like anything is changing.
· like when you can’t communicate with your teenager and they can’t talk to you, and you can’t hear them.

See, I don’t want to assume that just because you came to church this weekend and just because its Christmas, that everything is peachy and that your life is crystal clear and that the pathway in front of you is super straight forward. The truth of the matter is that most of us, a lot of the time, are in seasons where we may feel a little bit lost. We can still feel lost in the fog of life even if we have been following God for a long long time. And I think I just needed to say that out loud, as we head into this Christmas season.

You are not alone in your specific situation, not at all. Especially if you feel lost and the way in front of you is not clear.

See, we feel lost and it seems to last forever; that sense of desperation just goes on and on and on and on, and we wonder where is God in the mix of lostness? In life?

Now this may seem quite simple and very obvious but I just really wanted to remind us of where God is when we feel lost, even at Christmas; or maybe especially at Christmas.

Well the truth is this: He is with you – He is with us - Emmanuel. Remember what that means. God’s love is with us.

Listen to a few of the amazing promises of God being with us into tomorrow:
Psalm 139:5-10:
You hem me in—behind and before; You have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, or if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast.

Isaiah 30:21: Whether You turn to the right or to the left, Your ears will hear – ‘this is the way’ walk in it.

Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

When I feel a little bit lost in life I need to hear those promises loud and clear.

Psalm 32:8 is another promise I cling to: I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you and watch over you.

Folks, let me tell you that to know that God will teach us and will instruct us and will counsel us as we walk through our lives is so amazing I don’t want you to miss the obvious. These are promises that I continue to hold on to; that as I follow Jesus, He will be with me into the future.

So people, no matter what your future holds, good news or bad news, will you realize this one fact today? Emmanuel is with us whether the path leads to the left or to the right we will hear His voice saying, “This is the way, walk into it”.

Folks, the truth of Immanuel is this. We can walk into the future with confidence, knowing that God and his love are beside us. Hold onto that truth tightly this Christmas.
The second aspect of this Christmas reality that will help make sense of our spiritual life is this: realizing that . . .

2. God’s love is with us – yesterday

A second very basic truth we need to remind ourselves of this Christmas.

I have always felt that the best part of following God into the future is walking with the knowledge of what He has done with our pasts. See, the truth of the matter is that the grace and love and forgiveness of God goes forward into the future of our lives as we’ve just pointed out. But it also goes back to cover our past.

You know, I’ve gotta be honest with you. After 18 years of doing this job and seeing 1000’s of people come through these doors and 100’s more come through my office doors, there is one constant that I have seen, one thing that holds us back from following Jesus completely with our lives, one thing that stops us from being able to fully engage in the future of our lives. That one thing is our pasts and dealing with our guilt or with the pain of our past lives. So let me read some words of truth about God’s love with us from Psalm 103 in the Bible:

Let these words be a clear reminder of what God is able to do with our pasts.
Psalm 103 in the Bible talks about who God is. It says God is the one who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who saves your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion. The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will He harbour His anger forever; He does not treat us as our sins deserves or repay us according to our failures. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who follow Him; as far as the East is from the West, so far has He removed our sins from us.
The truth of the matter is that we have a God who is very serious about cleaning up our pasts, so we can be secure in the fact that we are forgiven and healed.

That’s one side of understanding God’s grace and love with us for yesterday; to understand that we need forgiveness to see Him clearly. The other side of knowing that God is with us into yesterday is about getting our past hurts healed. Everyone of us has scars of one kind or another. Some are very deep ugly raw wounds that with even the slightest bump begin to bleed again. Others are hidden, and well scarred over, yet still very very painful. You know what those scars are better than I do.
· You know the sting of broken relationships
· You know the scars that fight after fight after fight can cause
· You know the wounds of abuse
· You know the heavy load that failure can bring
· You know the hurt that comes with betrayal

Every one of you has a package of pain that you carry with you from the wounds of a father you could never please, to that last business failure that crushed you.

My question is this: What do you do with your hurt, especially at Christmas? Do you just cover those wounds up all over again? Do you put another layer of scar tissue on top? Or do you simply wait and wait and wait, hoping the hurt will go away? Or do you take this promise to heart from the bible that we just read:

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who follow Him. As a father or mother has compassion on their children, so the Lord has compassion on those who follow Him.
People do you know in your heart that God actually does have compassion and mercy and love and grace; that He actually does have the ability to heal your hurts and bind up your brokenness and mend your pain?

Folks, trust me on this one. I have seen the power and love of God heal the harshest of wounds. Wounds that many of you cannot even imagine - God can heal.

So just in case you think your life is too scarred or messy for God to deal with, or your past is too dark for Him to forgive, think again. The whole reason Jesus came to earth that first Christmas was so humanity, you and I, could get a picture of the extent to which God was willing to go to forgive us and heal us and walk beside us.

Folks, let me talk very clearly to you. Let’s not sit on our sin any longer and let’s get our hurts healed completely.

Jesus, Emmanuel, God’s love in us, is waiting for us to follow Him into our past so we can look clearly at the future. God is with us - yesterday. He’ll give you a fresh start!

One more truth about God’s love. Catch this one:

3. God’s love is with us – today

This is the knowledge that today when you woke up, God was with you. As you brushed your teeth and fixed your hair this morning, God was with you. When you were frustrated at the way people drive in our parking lot, or were happy, glad, sad or mad at whoever or whatever – God was with you. And as you lie down in your bed tonight, guess what? God is with you.

I want you to get a clear picture of what this faith following really is. It’s simply walking through life in light of the fact that Jesus is walking with you.

Let me tell you a story to close.

A few years ago, a good friend of mine got cancer, bad stuff - stomach cancer. He just got very sick very fast. He got a stomach pain one day and it just got worse and worse. They did tests and then they did radiation treatments and then they did chemotherapy and for 3 months it was just bad news, more bad news and then more bad news.

Now this guy was a man’s man kinda guy – loved to hunt and fish and drove a truck. He’s what I considered a strong guy. But the whole thing I was amazed at with that whole cancer deal is how his faith grew stronger as his physical strength grew weaker. His body of strength failed him and yet his soul strength saved him.

In his final weeks he would talk about giving his life to Jesus Christ every day. He would talk about how his prayers kept him going and how his faith was real – not perfect – but real every day.

My point for telling his story is simple: my friend’s faith during the final months of his life was more real than any thing else in his life moment by moment. Why? Because he knew there wasn’t anything else in the world he could rely on forever - not his physical strength, not his health, not his money, nothing. But Jesus’ love was real and vital every minute of every day.

The Bible says that when we become a Christian and invite Jesus, by faith, to come into our lives, that is exactly what happens. He comes into our lives and lives in our lives. He becomes part of us; God inside, each and every day. It’s very possible and very real. God is with you today.

People, my hope for you this Christmas is that you will strip away all those things that life isn’t about. Life isn’t about your career, or how much money you make, what crowd you get to hang out with, what kind of home you have or car you drive, or how strong you are physically or mentally. It’s about a real faith in a real Jesus that you cannot replace with anything else you can think of. You can’t replace it.

Folks, here’s my prayer for you: that you would build a solid foundation into your daily life, that you would know Jesus everyday, and live in a vital relationship with Him.

Because I know, trust me on this one, I know that when you catch a glimpse of that kind of real everyday vital faith, you’ll never want to put anything else in front of it again. It’ll change your heart. It’s the life you’ve always wanted and hoped for and it’s available with Jesus, walking with you, today.

So, that’s week one of Christmas – God’s love with us.
- our yesterdays can get forgiven and healed
- our tomorrows will have clear direction
- and our todays can be marked with the reality of His presence each and every minute

That’s the truth of God with us.