Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning everybody. It's nice to have you here and it's nice to see some new faces. As Janine said, my name is Claire and it's a real privilege to be sharing with you this morning.
[00:00:12] So I started thinking about this message back in late October, early November, when stores began displaying Christmas items for sale and carols began playing in the background and some well known Christmas love songs began getting stuck in my head.
[00:00:29] So I went home and I googled the top Christmas love songs and a list of about 40 came up.
[00:00:36] But what I did discover when googling the top Christmas love songs were that some really well known ones were missing songs like Away in a Manger, O Holy Night, Silent Night, what Child is this?
[00:00:53] Joy to the World, the First Noel, Hark the Herald Angel, Sing O Come, O Come Emmanuel, even all the songs we've so far sung today.
[00:01:03] And I say this because the greatest Christmas love songs shouldn't be limited between the relationship of that between a man and a woman as what act of love is greater than that between the relationship between God and man?
[00:01:18] You see, the very heart of Christmas isn't about gifts or gatherings with family and friends.
[00:01:24] It's not about the Christmas parade or Christmas trees or Christmas light looking or writing out cards, although all those things are wonderful and they really have their place.
[00:01:34] But ultimately, Christmas is about the birth of Christ and why he was born in the first place.
[00:01:41] So God, the creator of the universe and every living thing in it, including you and I, created us to be in a relationship with him and to walk and to talk with Him.
[00:01:52] But people increasingly wanted to do the opposite and do what pleased them and satisfied their own desires. And they didn't fulfill their God given purposes, nor followed God's law, which we know as the Ten Commandments.
[00:02:07] And for thousands of years, God was trying to reach out to his people in various ways through prophets and through his scriptures and through visions and dreams.
[00:02:16] And he would tell the world to turn away from the lifestyle they were living and to repent and follow Him.
[00:02:23] But people kept doing the opposite.
[00:02:26] And so God the Father ended up sending His Son Jesus, who is essentially God in the flesh form, so that he could walk and talk among us and show the people their need for Him.
[00:02:39] God left his kingdom in heaven, giving up his.
[00:02:43] Sorry, yeah. Giving up his divine privileges to be born in a humble manger, not even a house, but a lowly barn.
[00:02:52] And he remained living humbly, not as a carpenter, sorry, not as a king, but as a carpenter. And not as rich, but sometimes having nowhere to even lay his head.
[00:03:05] And as he walked and talked on this earth, he was faultless, and he lived without sin, meaning that Jesus never did anything that would disobey his Father or separate himself from him.
[00:03:16] And never once did he break one of his laws.
[00:03:20] Instead, Jesus did the exact opposite.
[00:03:22] He loved his Father in heaven, he honoured his Father in heaven, and he performed all sorts of miracles and signs and wonders.
[00:03:31] He opened blind eyes.
[00:03:33] He raised the dead.
[00:03:35] He healed all sorts of sicknesses and diseases.
[00:03:39] He loved the oppressed.
[00:03:41] He fed the poor. He looked after widows and orphans.
[00:03:45] And yet, ultimately, at the young age of 33, he was arrested and charged not for a serious crime like murder or theft, but for telling people the truth.
[00:03:57] And that truth was that he was the Son of God, sent down from heaven to share God's love and hope for salvation, for humanity, and to do for us what we could never do for ourselves or accomplish on our own.
[00:04:11] His trial saw Jesus sent to Calvary, where, after being beaten and whipped and mocked, he was nailed to a cross and died a criminal's death.
[00:04:21] But this was all a part of God's plan. And Jesus accepted this plan because he knew that the death that he would take upon himself would be the atonement for all our sins, past, present, and future.
[00:04:35] Our guilt and our sin was taken upon his body, and he willingly died that criminal's death so that we wouldn't have to.
[00:04:44] He rose again on the third day, showing us that God has power over sin and death and is reunited with his Father in heaven for an eternity.
[00:04:55] So in simple terms, God is a holy God.
[00:05:00] He is just and merciful and righteous.
[00:05:04] And therefore, in order to spend an eternity with him, we must be holy and perfect and righteous, too, or else we will tarnish that holy place.
[00:05:15] So let's imagine at the end of our life, I was to stand in the presence of God, and God was to say to me, claire, I would love to spend an eternity with you, but what I need to do is put in a DVD of your life first.
[00:05:29] And if I see you breaking any of my commandments, like lying or stealing or disobeying your parents or hating someone in your heart or having idols in your life, then that would be breaking my law, and you wouldn't be able to come into my perfect place.
[00:05:46] I can tell you, in that moment, I'd be nervous.
[00:05:49] That DVD would only need to play for a couple seconds before my sin would be revealed and I'd be found guilty of breaking God's laws.
[00:05:57] It's impossible not to after all.
[00:06:00] But imagine that this is when Jesus walks into the room and he goes up to that DVD player and instead of pressing Play, he presses the eject button and he puts a DVD in of his own life.
[00:06:14] What would God see?
[00:06:17] God would see holiness and perfection and righteousness and that never once was his laws broken.
[00:06:26] And then God could look at me and say, because you've accepted Jesus into your heart.
[00:06:31] I see Jesus when I look at you and I see a righteous life lived.
[00:06:38] And this is why I stand here today. And I say that these carols are the greatest Christmas love songs out there.
[00:06:45] Because the world sings about weather and snow and sleigh rides and.
[00:06:49] And Christmas trees and mistletoe.
[00:06:53] That God's love isn't about wanting us home for Christmas, like that other popular Christmas song you might know, but it's about wanting us with him for an eternity and all the steps that he took to make that possible.
[00:07:08] A baby born in a manger who grew to be the Saviour of the world for those generations, past, present and future.
[00:07:16] And all we need to do is accept him and that free gift and thank Jesus for taking our sin and giving us his righteousness.
[00:07:27] So, as Janine and the singers come and close off today, I want us to think about the lyrics to the final song that we're going to sing and also just ponder on how much God loves you.
[00:07:38] There's many verses in the Bible that speak about this, but I'm going to close with John 3:16, for it says, God so loved the world that he gave his only son, and whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. So thank you and Merry Christmas.
