Love All - Advent week 4

Merry Christmas!

I’m so glad to have you all join us this morning…the day after Christmas! Thanks too to everyone who planned on coming to the Christmas Eve service! Hopefully, we have the snowstorms on “church days” out of our system for the winter!

I hope that you had a good Christmas with your family and friends! I REALLY hope that through some of the things we’ve been talking about over the past month that you had a little bit of a different focus on Christmas. I hope that you were in some way able to go against the culture and were able to be part of the Advent Conspiracy and that you turned up the intensity of your focus on Jesus…the true reason for this season.

As I mentioned in my conclusion last Sunday, the contrast between our cultural Christmas and the true Christian Christmas are huge. Society continues to push us to:

Worship in Stores

Spend More Money

Give More Costly Gifts, and to

Love Ourselves.

In fact, already on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I was receiving ads in my email for HUGE after Christmas sales…that I could even access online on Christmas Day!

So, just to re-cap where we’ve been, here are the themes we’ve been working on this year as we’ve talked about keeping Jesus the center of HIS birthday celebration:

Worship Fully

Spend Less

Give More

Love All

Another church who is going through the Advent Conspiracy put together a video that repetitively shows not only the phrase “Love All”, but it also shows clips from some of their missionary endeavors and carries through one of the theme projects that the Advent Conspiracy group has focused on…the giving of clean water to people who don’t have it. As the lady paints the words “Love All” and as you see the internal video clips, ask yourself who God may be calling you to Love during this Christmas season as well as in the coming year.

WATCH: Love All Video

I don’t know about you, but I appreciated the repetition of seeing Love All painted again and again. I think that sometimes we find Loving others to be a hard task and something that we can push off instead of fully embracing it.

However, Christmas is really all about love! As I’ve been thinking about this week’s theme, I’ve been overwhelmed by the incredible love that is shown throughout this amazing and wonderful story!

I know that I referenced this verse already in the series, but I believe it is so appropriate to mention again:

1. God Loved us All

John 3:16 God so Loved the world! As a result of Adam’s sin, our relationship with our Heavenly Father was broken and there was no way for us to repair that relationship. God set up an elaborate system of various sacrifices and offerings to temporarily cover the sins of His people. Yet, these sins were not erased…just kind of hidden until the time that the Savior would come and actually pay the penalty for those sins so they could be forgiven forever!

We know that God is a righteous and holy God! He had a standard but none of us could keep that. Instead of crushing us because we weren’t holy and righteous, God was moved by incredible LOVE to send his ONLY Son to the earth to be that blood sacrifice that would satisfy God’s holiness, justice, and righteousness.

God LOVED ALL the world enough to send us His Son…even though He knew that not everyone would accept that sacrifice or that everyone would be thrilled that a new Savior was coming to earth.

Think about it…if you had worked hard to find and obtain the most perfect Christmas present that your family needed but you knew one or two members would still complain about it, would it be easy or hard to give that gift that you knew they needed? It would take a crazy kind of love to do that wouldn’t it?

I often work with families who have kids who are in the midst of major crises: problems with the police; drug and alcohol addictions; or mental health issues. It is often painful to walk with the parents through the process of allowing the courts to place their child in a residential drug facility or to allow them to be incarcerated as 14 year old until their 21^st birthday or to listen to a son scream during a phone staffing that they MUST get out the mental hospital for Christmas. However, we work with parents to put aside some of their emotions to know that in reality, the most loving thing IS to get their child some help and to let them experience some of the consequences from actions. They show love…even though they know they may be rejected even as many people have rejected God’s love towards us!

A second aspect of love in the Christmas story is that of Christ’s mother.

2. Mary Loved God with her All

In Luke 2:19, after the shepherds leave Mary, Joseph and Jesus, we’re told that Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

In this immediate passage, it seems to be referring to the coming of the shepherds and their story of the Angels’ appearing to them. However, I think that it’s also safe to see that the “all these things” that Mary evaluated included all the events that had happened up until that particular point.

Think about it, Mary was just an average young Jewish woman who was engaged to the “man of her dreams” and was eagerly anticipating her impending wedding so that the next phase of her life could begin.

Luke tells us in chapter 1 of his Gospel that Mary had found favor in God’s eyes. Mary was a young woman who was living her life according to God’s standards. She must have been a faithful and devout believer in Yahweh. Otherwise, the Lord wouldn’t have entrusted His One and Only Son to her to raise! So, it’s pretty clear here that she was a Lover of God!

In that same chapter of Luke 1, we’re told that when Mary was told about her upcoming pregnancy that her response was “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” She was so in love with the Lord that she was willing to move forward as part of this crazy story where an engaged virgin was going to become pregnant by the working of the Holy Spirit. This was going to MESS UP her life!

Remember how we talked last week about the seriousness of the Jewish engagement process in this time? How in the world is Mary going to tell her family and especially Joseph that she is expecting a Son…and NO, it’s NOT Joseph’s!

That is incredible love for God and it was also something else that Mary would treasure and ponder in her heart!

Our theme for this week is our need to Love All, and as we come to the final week in this series, we have the opportunity to purposefully and intentionally work at loving others.

3. We need to Love All

John 13:34-35 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

I think that many times the Global Church has read this verse and applied it to our need to love others in our own congregation that we like and already get along with. If pushed, we might apply this verse to others in our denomination, or in a stretch, it might even apply to believers at Deer Creek Baptist, Rock Creek Bible Church, Eureka Bible Church, or Crosspoint Community Church. If push comes to shove, we might even be convinced that we probably should even love someone from a church that is more different than we are…but only if there is some kind of reason for it.

However, these verses are very explicit in our need to Love ALL. There are NO limiting exclusions in this mandate. Before you pull the, “BUT Pastor, you don’t know what someone has done to me!!!!” routine, that is very true…I don’t know your particular situation, but between working with foster kids, working with very tough families and kids, having a family and in-laws, and having gone through some tough church situations, I’m very aware of how hard it can be to love everyone!

I also know that it’s tough to forgive everyone at once and to get all lovie dovie with people you have problems with. Yet, as we close out this year’s Advent series, I believe we really need to think about ways we can love others in order to bring honor to Jesus and to obey His command to Love All.

As I was thinking about some areas where we might have some challenges to Love All, I put together a list of some various compartments in our lives that might give us opportunity to demonstrate Love to others

v Someone in your family

Ø Maybe you have a young child, grandchild or a spouse that is easy to love…be thankful

Ø Maybe you have a child or grandchild that isn’t walking with the Lord, but God is calling us to keep loving them

Ø Maybe you have stress in your relationship with your parents or siblings…whether you’re a teenager or are 55

Ø Maybe someone in your family has done something either purposeful or unintentionally that has hurt your feelings…how can you love them better?

v Someone in our church

Ø I was in church within 48 hours of being born, so over the past forty-some years, I’ve seen incredibly great relationships and terrible relationships inside the walls of local churches

Ø Is there someone in the church you need to show some love and appreciation to…maybe it’s the person who first invited you to church here, maybe it’s someone who had a significant impact on you or one of your kids, maybe it’s someone who is working hard…Let them know you Love them!

Ø Is there someone in the church that you have a disagreement with…either major or minor? I’m not naive enough to think that each and every one of us is Best Friends Forever with everyone else in the church. But, if there is someone you disagree with, figure out a way that you can still demonstrate Christ’s love to them without being disagreeable.

v Someone who “used to” come to Goodfield Baptist

Ø Every week as I come in, I see the attendance board over on the wall. It shows the record attendance as 160 people. Then, as you look at the current numbers, we’re obviously a little bit away from that high mark. Is there someone in that 130 or so people that you need to reach out to and show some love?

Ø Again, you don’t necessarily have to become best buds, but is God telling you to step out of your comfort zone and give someone a call, drop some cookies off, or let them know that you miss seeing them here?

Ø God’s Word tells us that others around us will know we are Christians/Christ followers by the love that we show to others

Ø Quiz time: Who lives in the Congerville Area? Do people know what others in Congerville are doing? How easy is it to keep secrets there? Are there any people who are related to someone else in Congerville? How long does it take for news about something bad happening at Eureka High School to spread around Congerville?

Ø For those of you feeling pretty smug that I’m picking on Congerville, how different is it in Deer Creek or Goodfield? Do you have any friends who have driven around the new subdivisions south of the highway or over by Conklin’s and have asked why “those kinds of people are moving to town” or “what are they doing to be able to afford such nice houses”? What about in the big city of Eureka? Are things drastically different in a town of 5,000 than they are in towns of 700?

Ø I went through all of that to cause us to think a little bit about how others may view us. Is it possible that people who are no longer here have less than positive things to say about the church that have now spread around the area? So, we have a couple of choices…we can get mad or we can get even…WAIT…NO! I’m just kidding! We need to choose to love others and work to reestablish positive, God honoring relationships with them…whether or not they ever choose to come to church here.

v Someone at work or neighborhood

Ø Who is there at work that you can reach out to and show Christ’s love?

Ø Is there someone going through financial, relational, emotional, or even spiritual struggles?

Ø Have you ever thought that just like God placing Queen Esther at the right place at the right time that maybe God plans on you being involved in someone’s life for such a time as this?

Ø Think about how you can reach out to someone in this coming year to build a bridge of love to them.

v Someone who is different than you

Ø This could be someone of a different ethnic, cultural or racial background than you are. I realize that Woodford and Tazewell counties have between 97 and 99% of the inhabitants who are White. But, about 11% of Eureka College students are from a minority background and you may work with people who are different. Get to know someone who is different and you’ll be surprised what happens as you show Christ’s love to them.

Ø This could be someone of a different economic background than you…Again, in these verses, it doesn’t say that we are to only love people who are in the same tax bracket that we are. Obviously, here in the Goodfield area, we have homes that some of us would think are almost uninhabitable as well as those some of us think are too fancy. But, remember in the Christmas story, God orchestrated the very poor shepherds and the wealthy magi to come and worship the Lord.

Ø Are there people whose lifestyle is very different than yours that you could reach out to and love? I am constantly amazed at the number of people I encounter who have NO clue about church or about Jesus…entire generations of families who do not know what the Gospel message is all about. There are so many of these people who would LOVE to be LOVED by one of us…even if it’s a stretch for us to love them!

Ø Are there people on the other side of the world that we could love through our missionary efforts? As we talked last week about ways to give more, who could God be calling you to show love to…even if you never personally meet them?

OK…these are a lot of ideas… I realize that, but I want us to really think long and hard in this coming year about the kind of transformation that could take place if Goodfield Baptist were know as the place that Loves All.

Think with me for a minute in another quiz time…At Eureka College, which former president of the United States is the most famous alumnus? In Deer Creek/Goodfield, what is HomeWay Homes known for?  Less than two miles from here is a big barn that people come from all around to see…What is its name and what is it known for? Down 150 about a mile east of here is a building with a red sign out front. What is that company, and what do they make there? When I tell people that I’m preaching in Goodfield, what do they usually start talking about? Busy Corner…and they’re especially known for their?

OK…do you get the picture? Places in our communities are indeed known by the products they produce…whether presidents, pre-manufactured homes, parts for farming, or even pies!

What would happen if in this Advent season, as we developed our passions to:

Worship Fully

Spend Less

Give More

And Love All?

Could we become known in the Eureka, Deer Creek, Congerville, Goodfield region as the church that produces love? Could we be people who love so well that others KNOW that we are followers of the Baby in the manger?

Could we overcome the anger, hurt feelings, ambivalence, and apathy that others have towards the Church and Jesus? Could we make a difference in the lives of rich, poor, middle class, White, Black, Brown, Mixed, religious, unreligious, rule followers, rule breakers, people loved by their families, people abandoned by their birth families, people who trace their roots in these communities back 150 years, those who moved in last week, students who will only be here for four or five years, families with babies, middle aged families, people in the latter parts of their lives, single, married, divorced, widowed, those with their iPods permanently attached, those still listening to their records, those who are college graduates, those who didn’t complete high school, and the lists of comparisons and contrasts could go on and on.

God so LOVED the world that He gave His Only Son at Christmas that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life! We are commanded to love others in such a way that everyone will know that we are passionately following Jesus because we produce love towards others.

Let’s work together in this coming year to demonstrate that love to our families, people in and out of our church, people at work and in our towns, and even to people who are very different from “us”.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Weather didn't allow for Christmas Eve service to happen at Goodfield Baptist, but if the service had happened, this is what you would have heard:

Merry Christmas!

Welcome tonight as we come together to celebrate the virgin born Son of God, Jesus the Messiah, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the One Who came to bring salvation, Emmanuel-God with us….the baby in the manger.

As we start this Christmas weekend together, I think that it’s a great time to stop and reflect on why we gather at Christmas.

I read information about a survey this week that tells us:

Survey: Family Trumps Jesus in Christmas Celebrations

Family is the "reason for the season" for 81 percent of people who celebrate Christmas in America, according to a Lifeway Research survey. [E]ven among Christians, Christ's birth tends to get lost among other traditions. "[A] closer look at how they celebrate reveals that it typically revolves around family and that Christ-centered elements are not as common," said Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research. "For many in our culture, the season is disconnected from the reason. For many of those, family is the reason for the season."

One of the things that I’m thankful for this year is that together as a church family, we have been looking at ways to return the rightful place of Jesus to the center of our Christmas celebrations.

We have looked at our need to:

Worship Jesus Fully as the wisemen/magi did

Spend Less and focus on Jesus like the shepherds did

Give More like we saw God the Father, Joseph and Jesus do

And Sunday, we’ll look at our need to Love All

As the Lifeway Survey demonstrates, many of our friends and family (surely none of us here tonight) think of Christmas as a holiday that is here for us to spend money on buying presents and spending time together as a family.

As we’ve looked this month, there are very important family relationships between Joseph and Mary and their new Son. There are the relationships among the Godhead as God the Father sends His Son on the most important rescue mission ever conceived. There are relationships between the Magi as they spent many months together traveling to see Jesus. There are the relationships between the shepherds who worked and lived together.

So, while all of these people spent part of their Christmas experience celebrating relationships between family and friends, the common focus was on the birth of Jesus.

So, how do we leave here in a few minutes and change the focus that we’ve been working on for days, weeks, months, or even all year?

Here are three easy ideas of ways you can slightly tweak your celebration this weekend to focus more on Jesus.

1.   Read the Christmas story before you open presents and talk about Jesus being the real reason for the season.

2.   Bake a birthday cake for Jesus and celebrate that

3.   Set an empty place setting at your Christmas dinner to remember that Jesus is with you for HIS birthday party

Yes, these are all simple things, but each of them could be a small step as part of our Advent Conspiracy of moving our Christmas passions from giving and getting gifts to giving honor to the One Whose birth 2000 years ago in that manger is truly the main focus of this time of year!

As part of our commitment to keeping Christ in the center of our lives, we’re going to take some time remembering the ultimate reason that Jesus came to earth…not just to be the baby in the manger, but ultimately to give His life on the cross to provide the opportunity for us to restore our relationship with God the Father through Christ’s sacrifice of His life to pay for our sins.

As John comes up to lead us in that time, I encourage you to right now spend just a minute thanking God for sending Jesus to be the Savior of our lives!

Give More! Christmas Advent

Thanks so much for joining us today! As a church, we’re on a journey together this Christmas season. We are spending four weeks together looking at Christmas or Advent through the lens of ~

1. Worship Fully

2. Spend Less

3. Give More

4. Love All

As we start today, here is a video clip from the Advent Conspiracy.

Watch: Give More

Two weeks ago…before the blizzard, we looked at some ways to spend less during this Christmas season. Despite the crazy pressure to look at Christmas as the time to get more gifts.

This week, we’re looking at ways to give more. NO, I’m not going to set you up in some Ponzi Scheme or sign you up in my multi-level marketing company so your can earn more money in order to give more.  For you visitors, I’m not going to pass the offering plate again and ask you to give more…so you can sit back and relax!

Rather, we’re going to look in a few minutes at some specific ways to share our Treasures, Talents, and Time during this Advent Season. As we’ve discussed some the last two weeks, we want though to remember the honored Guest at Christmas…the One whose birthday we’re celebrating…the Savior who came as a baby.

This morning, we’re going to look at a passage the Gospel of Matthew. As we start, we will look at chapter 1 of Matthew, verses 18-25.

18   Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.  

19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.  

20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  

21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”  

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

23          “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,

              and they shall call his name Immanuel”

              (which means, God with us).  

24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife,  

25 but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

In this passage, we’re given the story of Christ’s coming from Joseph’s perspective.  How do we know? It’s clear, direct, and short and to the point.

We’re told that while Mary and Joseph were engaged that the Holy Spirit caused Jesus to be conceived in her womb. Joseph who was a godly man planned on giving grace and mercy to his fiancé.

In their culture, since they did not have the sophisticated medical technology that we currently have, a man and woman would get engaged, and then wait about a year before their marriage to make sure that the woman was pure and not pregnant. This engagement period was as serious as full marriage as the courts had to grant a divorce certificate in order for it to be broken. In fact, if one partner were to die during this period, they were referred to as a widow. That’s the reason we see both the word “betrothed” and “husband” used to describe Joseph. So, after finding out that Mary was pregnant during this engagement period, Joseph had the right to not only divorce Mary and expose her shame to the world, but due to her obvious infidelity, he could arrange things for her to be stoned.

WOW! Can you imagine if things were still done that way today? Can you imagine how Joseph must have felt as he found out that his girlfriend…his fiancé…his wife was pregnant, and he KNEW it wasn’t his baby? In the midst of that anger, rage, hurt, disappointment, etc…, instead of pursuing revenge or even justice, Joseph determined to avoid embarrassing Mary by parading her in front of the city elders and he refused to sentence her to death, but rather, as a righteous man, he decided to quietly divorce her.

As we are in this time of celebrating the Advent Conspiracy, maybe you need to follow Joseph’s lead and give more grace, mercy, forgiveness, tolerance, love, and the list could continue on and on. While these attitudes and resulting actions are sometimes hard to measure, I know that many of us probably have someone we need to reach out to and offer to make things right. That would be a GREAT Christmas present for someone to get this year!

Not only do we see Joseph giving grace and mercy to Mary, but we also see God giving salvation. In the midst of Joseph’s consternation about what to do about Mary and her pregnancy, God steps in and send an angel to him letting him know that Mary, as unlikely as it seems, is telling the truth and that the Baby is God’s Son!

As the angel tells Joseph about the coming of the Baby, the message is clear: This is going to be a very special Baby! Not only was He conceived by the Holy Spirit, but also, He is to have a special name, “Jesus”. In Greek, Jesus means “Yahweh is salvation”. It also sounds very close to the word that means “he will save”. So, there is great meaning in this name! It also parallels one of the most known verses in the New Testament, John 3:16. In this verse, we’re clearly told that God loved the world so much that He GAVE His only Son so that whoever believes in Him can be saved.

The birth of the Baby in the manger is so much more than just another birth! I had the chance to go and visit Larry and Judy’s new grandson shortly after he was born. He was small, and good looking, and all of that. Almost everyone loves babies and enjoys looking at them and touching them and holding them. However, the birth of Jesus signaled that God had given His Son to mankind so that we could achieve salvation through the ultimate death of Christ on the cross.

Thinking about giving up one of my sons…even so that one of you could be saved is a tough concept! I’m kind of selfish about my kids. I love them and want to keep them from harm and from getting hurt by people. Yet, in incomparable love and grace, God GAVE His Son so we could have our relationship restored with Him.

This Christmas time would be a wonderful time for you to investigate your relationship with God through His Son Jesus. If you haven’t made a decision to accept this gift that God offers, I’d encourage you to talk with myself or one of the members of the church here before you leave today.

A third gift we see in this passage is the fact that Jesus came to live among us. He wasn’t born in a palace behind locked gates where He avoided people. Rather, He came and lived among us. He was God with flesh.

He came and invested His life serving others. He left the glories of Heaven to live here in our world. I once worked with a student over at ISU who grew up very poor in one of the Chicago suburbs. She had a tough life growing up because her family lived “on the other side of the tracks” and her home was worth under $5 million while most of her friends lived in $15 million homes!

She was a great gal, but she had a tough time understanding how to relate to people who lived in “the real middle class” or the “real lower class”. As we know, living in heaven and coming down to earth is kind of like my friend leaving her poor $5 million home and moving into a one bedroom apartment in the projects…except way different!

I think this is a great way for us to think about another way to give during this Advent season. How can we give our life away to help others and to help bring people to salvation? I want to encourage you to be bold…not rude…but willing to tell people why you’re excited to celebrate Christmas…Christ’s birthday.

So, in today’s text, we have examples from Joseph, God the Father, and Jesus of ways they GAVE MORE at Christmas. I want us to think of some practical ways that we too can give more this year…and in weeks to come.

If we’ve spent less as we talked about two weeks ago, we might have some extra money that we can invest in eternal projects that will make a difference in Christ’s name.

If we purchase 2 presents instead of 3; if we purchase things on sale instead of at full price; if we don’t buy something for all 1200 friends on our Facebook list; we can purposefully choose ways to give financially of our Treasures to important organizations, individuals, and causes.

Over the past several months as we’ve prepared to bring Barret and Andrew into our home (after lunch today, we’re going to pick them up and they’ll be with us permanently!), we’ve been working at downsizing on various things so we’d have more room for them. I have been amazed at the incredible amount of STUFF we have in our home! We have taken what seems to be a small U-Haul full of stuff to the foster/adoptive family King’s Closet and to Home Sweet Home’s thrift shop. Truth be told, much of what we took was probably Christmas gifts from some time in the past…clothes and toys that have been outgrown or are no longer wanted and so on. It was a great reminder that we don’t NEED to keep buying things for ourselves but instead need to be looking at other ways to give more.

While there are probably a nearly infinite number of groups that you could donate money to, I thought I’d give you a list of just a few representatives in a few categories that might help you brainstorm about others that you’ve heard of:

·      Individuals:

o   Do you know someone who won’t have much for Christmas this year? Help provide a great Christmas for them!

o   Do you know someone who has a specific need that you have the funds to supply? I know people who have received appliances, vehicles, hot water heaters, help with medical bills, etc… from others in the Body of Christ.

o   Do you know someone who is discouraged with issues going on in their life and with just a little bit of generosity, it could make a long-term difference? Give a gift card, send some money to them, give them a special present to let them know they aren’t forgotten!

·      Local Ministries:

o   The Eureka Food Pantry: What if instead of just using your bags and “just bringing” one jar of peanut butter you invested $25 and gave a case of it?

o   The Baby Fold: I know, it’s a shameless plug, but our organization has a flyer about all kinds of ways you can invest from $10 to $5000 to help foster children, kids who are in our residential center, kids who are in our schools and are among the poorest and needy that God tells us about.

o   The Salvation Army: has anybody seen a red kettle and heard a bell?

o   The Gideons: you can purchase Bibles that are used in hotels; hospitals, with our service people; and with students in grade schools as well as our colleges.

·      Larger Organizations:

o   Heifer International: Provide help for families in other parts of the world become more self-sufficient

o   Samaritan’s Purse: Whether it’s buying things for the Christmas shoe boxes or helping with their relief work in places like Haiti

o   Projects that the Great Rivers Region and the American Baptist Churches are cooperating on…like the jar for the pennies up front; our American Baptist International Ministries are currently raising money and supplies to help with the Cholera Outbreak in Haiti

o   Advent Conspiracy: working on providing clean water around the world

o   Donating your good used stuff for a good cause: Our church over in Normal holds an incredible garage sale every summer. Year after year, we’ve raised between $15-20,000 from our own treasures and then have been able to give a nice financial Christmas gift to each of our missionaries.

In addition to being able to give more money as we spend less at Christmas, I believe we have the opportunity to redefine some of what giving is all about during this Advent season. I know I’ve mentioned it the past two weeks, but nowhere in this section of Scripture where we look at the coming of Jesus the Savior do we see references to credit cards, spending loads of money, or even sponsorships by Best Buy, Target, State Farm, or Wal-Mart.

Just because our culture tells us that Christmas is about buying and getting doesn’t mean we have to fall into that mold. God has given each of us talents that we can also use as we seek to Give More.

·      Give of your talents:

o   What do you do well? How can you give more with your talents?

o   Can you pray and let someone know that you’re supporting them that way?

o   Could you make a meal, cookies, or something else and share it with another individual or family?

o   Could you use your financial skills to help someone understand how to set up a budget or how to make major financial decisions?

o   Could you give music lessons?

o   Could you tutor students who are struggling in a certain subject?

o   Could you offer to do some yard or house work for others who may struggle at that?

o   Are there other talents…special or ordinary that you could give to others? Whether you are one of the youngest or one of the oldest here today, you have some kind of gift that you could share.

o   Remember, the drummer boy??? (I know he’s not in the real Christmas story either) But, the point of that song is that he wants to use his talent instead of giving a financial gift.

·      Give more of your time.

o   Now, I know, time and talents can seem to overlap some, but there are some things that may not take tons of supernatural talent to do, but just an investment of time.

o   Invite a friend over for supper or dessert. NOT for an agenda…just because you’re friends

o   Volunteer at school, a nursing home, the library, help a shut-in. (Kathy B & Eloise)

o   Get to know a kid and become a “big brother/big sister” for them. So many of the kids I work with do not have ANY positive adult role models in their lives…YOU could be that one! (Max Hutchinson coming to Hammitt)

o   Invite a Eureka College kid over…REAL food, wash clothes, HOME! If little boys like Max scare you, I’m sure Craig and Lisa would have ideas of kids at Eureka or even youth group kids who could use some extra time.

o   Spend time with YOUR kids and grandkids! Be a Godly role model for them! Go to their athletic and musical events. My mother flew in last Monday to visit us and we are excited to just have her with us for a week!

o   Missions trips: to Judson University, Haiti, inner-city Memphis…God can use you!

Christmas is almost here…it’s less than a week away. All around us, we are being pressured to Worship in Stores, Spend More Money, Give More Costly Gifts, and to Love Ourselves.

This week, I want to challenge us all to really think about the four themes from this series and to...

~ Worship Christ Fully

~ Spend Less

~ Give More of Ourselves

~ And Love All

Spending Less At Christmas!

This Christmas or Advent season, we’re working together as a church to go through some thoughts about conspiring against our culture’s view of Christmas. We are taking themes from the Advent Conspiracy website and are looking at ways we can:

Worship Fully

Spend Less

Give More

Love All

Here is a video clip from Rick McKinley, one of the founders of Advent Conspiracy. I think it gives us some serious food to think about over the next couple of weeks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65At9FOluRI&feature=related

Wow…that makes me really think about this whole thing we call Christmas.

Last week we started the process of turning our focus from Thanksgiving to the coming (or advent) of our Lord. We looked at our need to spend time this (and every Christmas) worshipping Jesus our Savior. The wise men/magi/kings showed us our need to worship by:

1.    Investing our time, energy, and money to worship Jesus

2.    Demonstrating diligence in our worship of Jesus

3.    Showing humility as we worship Jesus

I’m in the process of wrapping up the college classes that I teach for the semester, so as we get started this week, I thought it would be a great time for a pop quiz. This is the part of the service where you can interact officially with me (instead of writing notes to someone else or muttering under your breath about something I said).

How many of you have seen or heard Christmas ads this year?

Do any stand out for you?

Where do we see ads? Paper, TV, billboard, computer, and now even my cell phone?

What information are the ads telling us?

EXCELLENT! The ad agencies are earning their salaries…they have all of us paying attention to what they’re trying to sell us…whether we need it or not!

This week, we’re moving on to the second topic, “Spend Less”. As I’ve been wrestling with this topic all week, I’ve been really trying to figure out how to present it to a hostile audience. J  You have all demonstrated that you are paying attention to the “Spend MORE!!!” voices in our society. Obviously, Goodfield Baptist’s advertising budget doesn’t compare to the money that Wal-Mart or Best Buy are spending to tell us the meaning of Christmas.

This is Christmas, the season of giving! It’s the season of getting!

As Americans, it seems like our economic culture is driven by the sales that are made at Christmas time. The news has been filled this week with reports of how much money exchanged hands on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We have also been given estimates of how this year’s sales compare with other years. Other reports have focused on how many jobs this year’s ongoing economic decline will either give or take away from seasonal retail employees. And the evaluation of all of these details could go on and on!

In the midst of all of that cultural pressure, how in the world can I come up here to say, “Our topic today is “Spend Less”? That is just plain un-American! I’m afraid, that the Church in America is not living a much different lifestyle. As I talk to my Christian friends, they too are talking about the latest, coolest, “impossible to live without” toys for their kids or even for themselves. As members of a very vocal culture, it becomes so easy for us to conform to the world around us. Our goal during this Advent season is to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

A few years ago, Veggie Tales came out with a video called, “The Toy that Saved Christmas”. This little video clip gives such a great satirical perspective that I thought you’d love to see it.

I know that was overkill, but it’s a pretty realistic portrayal of what we hear…isn’t it? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXxE9vFiPL4 

Just so we can refocus our lives for this minute…what is Christmas supposed to celebrate?

Christmas is about JESUS:  

I know it is a VERY familiar story! I know it’s the foundation of our faith! I know it forms the basis for the season, but I thought today would be a great day to re-familiarize ourselves with the incredible story of God Himself becoming flesh. Last week, we looked at Matthew 2 with the story of the Magi. This week, I want to invite you to open your Bibles to Luke 2.

Luke 2:1   In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.  2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria.  3 And all went to be registered, each to his own town.  4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David,  5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.  6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth.  7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

Luke 2:8   And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.  9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear.  10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”  13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

Luke 2:14            “Glory to God in the highest,

                  and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

Luke 2:15   When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”  16 And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger.  17 And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.  18 And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.  19 But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.  20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

While of course, the Christmas story really starts before time and then back in Genesis when God foretells about the coming of One Who will crush the serpent’s head and then in a multitude of prophecies throughout the Old Testament, this passage tells us how we get to the celebration of Christ’s birth and what happens that day.

One of my little pet peeves during this time of year is when school gets canceled for a snow like we got yesterday, but then it seems like everyone can still make it to the mall or Wal-Mart. We’re able to make journeys for things that we’re highly motivated to get to.

As we enter this story in Luke 2, we find out that Joseph and Mary have become highly motivated to go on a journey…even though Mary is quite pregnant at this point and time. The distance from Nazareth to Bethlehem is about 80 miles.

Now I was born over in Western Illinois in a town called Avon, and that’s where my father was born too. My grandfather and great-grandfather were born south of there in Summum. Either way, these towns of my fathers are about 80 miles from my home in Normal. Thanks to modern roads and vehicles, I can get there in about an hour and a half. However, scholars believe that it would have minimally taken four or five days to travel that far, and maybe longer with a pregnant wife.

So, the requirement of the Israeli IRS that everyone had to go back to the home of their fathers was a huge motivator to get Joseph, Mary, and the soon to be born baby to Bethlehem in order to fulfill the prophecy in Micah that we saw last week as the Magi talked with Herod.

Just so we’re clear, the original Advent season did NOT start with Mary getting on her donkey & going to Bed, Bath, & Beyond or Macy’s or even Target to go shopping for a cool gift for someone else! She was on her way to have a baby.

Now, I have a lot of questions that come to mind as I read this passage. Again, much of our Christmas celebrations and our traditions come from places outside of the Scriptures. However, most of my questions aren’t clearly answered in the text.

·      Were Mary and Joseph waiting until the last minute hoping Jesus would come before they went to Bethlehem?

·      Was the sonogram off a month?

·      How early did they get to Bethlehem (the text says “while they were there”…NOT “that night”)?

·      If they knew they had to go to Bethlehem for the census, why didn’t they have a room reserved? Remember, this would be all of Joseph’s brothers, cousins, uncles, etc…didn’t they get a block of rooms to stay in for the family reunion that would also take place?

·      Were they so poor that they ended up in the barn because they couldn’t afford to rent a room?

There are so many questions, but again, nowhere in the Scriptural Texts do we see people giving other people gifts like we do in our culture today.

Instead, this couple gets to Bethlehem and has their baby…God’s Baby. The story is so simple. It doesn’t sound like they got gift cards to buy the newest fashions for their little boy. It doesn’t sound like they had all kinds of house warming gifts. It doesn’t sound like the focus the day that Jesus was born was on external things at all.

The focus…very simply…was JESUS!

Then BOOM! God sent an angel to a group of shepherds who were out working second or third shift. He announced to them that Jesus, the Christ, the Savior was born in Bethlehem! And then, BOOM, again, and a group of angels joined the first angel! No wonder the poor shepherds were afraid…I’m sure I would be too!

All together, this group of angels started saying (not necessarily singing), “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

As soon as the angels left, the shepherds hurried into town to see in person the new Baby that the Lord told them about. Again, strangely silent, the Scriptures don’t tell us that they stopped at a 24 hour Meijer or even the corner Freedom gas station in order to get a gift to take to the new King of kings. And, it’s doubly sure they didn’t stop and get gifts for all of their friends before stopping to worship the Holy Child in the manger.

What we do see here is that the shepherds evidently didn’t go into town quietly! In verses 17 and 18, we are told that they must have texted or Facebooked their friends and others. We are told here that the shepherds made it known and that all who heard about what the shepherds told them were filled with wonder.

The birth of the Savior of the world caused this group of shepherds to become evangelists…ones that told the story of what God was doing! They also become worshipers. In verse 20, we see that they were glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen on that special night.

That’s it in a nutshell…verse 11 sums it up…Jesus…the Savior…the Christ has been born, and we need to share that with others as we joyously praise and worship God!

BUT…back to our theme…how do we reconcile this clear message of the birth of the Savior with a culture that tells us that Christmas is all about giving and getting?

Christmas can be great…even if you spend less!

Just to be clear…I AM buying presents for my children (at least the little ones), I AM participating in the Secret Santa tradition at my work, and we DO have presents under our Christmas tree.

So, I’m NOT saying that we need to spend NOTHING, but how can we be wise stewards of our finances?

The research shows that collectively, Americans spend around 450 BILLLON on Christmas presents, decorations, parties, etc… EACH and EVERY year! That is a LOT of money that is spent!

The “average” American spends somewhere between $750 & $1000 on Christmas EACH year. If a couple were to spend $1500 on Christmas this year and then put that on their credit card and pay a little more than the minimum, it will still likely take almost 2.5 years to get it paid off! That’s a problem!

As we hear people argue about budgets, this would sure seem to be one area where Christians could cut back!

According to the US Constitution, who are we REQUIRED to give Christmas presents to? NOBODY

However, I would guess that all of us feel the cultural and guilt driven need to purchase presents for all kinds of people. I heard a commercial this past week about our need to give lottery tickets as Christmas presents to everybody in our lives…even if we don’t know their name or exactly how we know them. That’s one example of the kind of spending less that we’re talking about.

Why do we feel compelled to give presents to others on the day we celebrate Christ’s birthday? Why should we feel compelled to give Christmas gifts to people we don’t even really know?

The folks at Advent Conspiracy encourage several simple ways for us to evaluate our gift giving. We’ve heard a few of them in the video clips, and I want to add some to that list:

·      Can you get by purchasing less expensive gifts?

o   Maybe by shopping the sales better?

o   Maybe by buying someone 2 presents instead of 3?

o   Maybe by reducing your self-imposed price guidelines?

o   Maybe by starting now or right after Christmas to look for great deals for next year’s presents

·      Can you get by purchasing gifts for fewer people?

o   Do you really have to purchase a gift for your third cousin’s daughter’s boyfriend? OK…that’s a little bit of hyperbole, but seriously, are there some people that you don’t NEED to be spending more money on?

o   Do you have the option of purchasing one larger gift for a family instead of purchasing several smaller individual gifts that add up to a larger price tag?

o   Do you have the option of maybe “drawing names” for a particular group instead of purchasing something for everyone?

o   Do you have the ability to make something special for someone instead of purchasing a gift (for instance, could you work with your child to make some home made bread instead of purchasing another coffee cup that says, “World’s Best Teacher”? Can you do some kind of craft project to keep costs low?)

·      Can you become more creative in your gift giving?

o   Could you make a coupon book giving your time or talents to help your child, your parents, your neighbor, your cousin?

o   Could you give the gift of time by volunteering in honor of someone else…give them a gift certificate saying you will volunteer at the school, the hospital, here at church, etc…in their honor?

o   Could you give the use of something of value that you have…a free use of your convertible for a date night; chauffeuring your grand-daughter around for a special event; inviting people out to ride four-wheelers or snowmobiles; serving a fancy meal for Valentine’s Day; loaning a video projector for a special birthday video party; etc…?

These are three categories where I think we can look at cutting back our spending during the Christmas season. I realize they are FAR from being all inclusive or exhaustive, but I hope I’ve whetted your appetite to think of additional ways that you could improve on cutting back on your spending.

Just so we’re clear as we wrap up, the reason for “Spending Less” is NOT to undermine the American Economy. Rather, it’s based firmly on our desire in this Advent season to “Worship Fully” the Christ Who came as a baby in a manger so that He could ultimately give His life as the ransom for our sins.

It’s also so that we can look at ways to invest more into eternal things…which we’ll look at more closely next week as we investigate ways we can actually “Give More” during this season. Then in two weeks, we’ll look at how we can Love All!

Pray