Good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Some mornings worship is so sweet that I feel like I ruin it by getting up on stage, and I just want to keep doing that. That was one of those mornings. So thank you, best band in the city of Raleigh, apparently. Happy Mother's Day to everyone. It's a good day to celebrate moms. I hope that you are married to a mom worth celebrating. I hope you have a mom worth celebrating. I hope it's a special and happy day for you. And for many of us, it is. But I would be remiss, and I don't let a Mother's Day go by without acknowledging that for some, Mother's Day is very hard. For some, Mother's Day is mixed. It's exciting and it's painful. For some of you, it reminds you of a mom that you had, and she's not here now. For others, a mom that maybe you never had a great relationship with. For others, as it did for Jen and I for so many years, it just reminds you of what you don't have yet and what you hope for and pray for. And so if that's you, and today is hard, we see you. We love you. We care about you. And I'd like to start the sermon by praying for you, and then we'll move on with the sermon. Father, thank you so much for those who, like me, are fortunate enough to have a remarkable mom who loves you and shows us you. Thank you, God, on behalf of the men like me who are married to remarkable mothers that outpace us and cause us to marvel with their patience. But God, I also know that among us are people who are hurting because of loss, because of want, because of hurt. And I just pray, God, that they would feel your presence in a special way today. I pray that you would use your body, use the people, your children, to wrap their arms around them and comfort them and let them know that they're seen and cared for and that you are caring for them. So we pray these things in your son's name. Amen. Now, as we begin and we jump into the sermon, I just want to give this disclaimer. I know that we have an unusual population of people who are here who do not normally go to Grace because you're here to support your families and people getting married. There's also another demographic. You're here because your mom asked you to come to church with her once a year, and so you're going to grit your teeth and do it right now this morning. So I'm aware that to many of you, I exist as a speed bump to babies and brunch. So we're going to try to get you there quick. All right. I'm not long winded today. I just have just a short, simple message to the people of grace and what I consider to be the family of grace. So as I was planning out this sermon and this service or the series, rather, excuse me, as I was planning this out, this whole series was my wife Jen's idea. She's in there momming the fourth and fifth graders right now. This was her idea. She loves the book of Isaiah. And so I kind of sat down and I mapped it out. I looked at the passages that I wanted to cover while we went through Isaiah together. And then I went to her and I said, hey, here's what I have. Am I missing anything? Is there anything that you love that I haven't seen, I haven't thought about? And she pointed me to this verse. She said, I've always loved, especially as a mother, I love this verse in Isaiah. So I want us to look together at Isaiah chapter 40, verse 11. It's a short, simple verse. And it simply says this, he being God, he tends his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart. He gently leads those that have young. I love that verse. That's a verse that I had read before, but I had never noticed before until Jen pointed it out to me that day. And I love the message for the moms on Mother's Day. I particularly love the message for the young moms on Mother's Day. That God is a good shepherd and he leads gently those with young. And I was thinking about why this is special. And if you think about, I mean, I'm clearly not a shepherd, all right? I don't know anything more about shepherding than you do. I didn't even do any research to make this point. I'm just guessing that when a sheep herder is trying to move the herd from one field to the next, the young moms go slower than the rest. They can't keep up with the herd in general because they have babies that they're trying to herd themselves and they're trying to watch after and they're trying to go and they're trying to bring along. So young, young moms in the herd cannot move as efficiently as they would like to, as quickly as they would like to, because the demands of motherhood, and for fathers, the demands of fatherhood, cause them to lag behind and try to keep up as they wrangle their babies that are inefficient and slow and needy and disobedient and mouthy. I don't know if the lambs are that way, but I have personal experience with children. And it occurs to me, and I see it all over our church. I see it in my life. Right now, I don't mean to be myopic in the presentation, but we're in the thick of it. We have a three-year-old and an eight-year-old. And as I reflect on what it is to have young children, one of the things that I realize is when you have young kids, and I really want to talk to the moms, and I specifically want to talk to the mamas that have children in the house right now, especially if they're young and they're needy. Listen, when you have young children in your house, you are not as efficient as you would like to be. You fall behind. Nothing, the house is never as clean as you want. It never looks the way you want it to look. The meals are never as high quality and as nutritious as you want them to be. There's going to be a mom in the PTA that's going to bring better looking cupcakes than you. Your kids, there's somebody else who's making more money and they're going to throw a bigger party and someone's yard is going to look nicer than yours. Dads, that's a tough one for me. This is a season of life when you have young children where you simply can't keep up the way that you used to. And that's okay because you're tending to your kids because you're giving them the care that they need and they will slow you down and they will make you inefficient. And that's all right because God even makes an allowance for it in this verse. Why else would he gently lead, would he isolate and specify that particular demographic that he gently leads those who are parents of the young, because he knows that's a challenging season in life. And so God sees you and he leads you gently. Now, how does he do this? I think he does it in myriad ways. I think he whispers encouragement to you. I think he brings people around you. But one of the ways that I'm certain that he does it, and we talk about this here at Grace sometimes, is that he surrounds you with a spiritual family. One way that God gently leads young mothers is through providing a spiritual family for you. One way that he gently leads young mothers is by providing a spiritual family to come around you. So I want to say this. I'm going to talk about the familial nature of church. I'm going to talk about how we all fit into, I'm going to break us into three categories today, children, parents, grandparents. You're going to assign yourself into a category. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to put an age threshold on it. Although I'm 43, so grandparents probably started like 45. You put yourself wherever it is you fit. But as we talk about this spiritual family that is the church, I want to be very clear. For those of you longing for a biological or a natural, even adoptive family that you call your own, I am not trying to replace your family that you desire with the spiritual family that you have. Those of you who long for children but you don't have children yet, I'm not about to tell you, but listen, great news. My son John is your spiritual son, so you should feel fulfilled there. That's not what I'm telling you today. But rather, as a family of faith, we have familial responsibilities to each other within our family of faith. And I would also say this. I know that many of you are here this morning, and you don't come to Grace regularly. I'm so glad that you're here. Maybe you're a part of a family of faith. What I'm going to say to you this morning, maybe you have your own churches. What I'm going to say to you this morning is applicable in those places too, and you can carry out those roles there as well. And I know some of you may not have a church home. You don't go to church regularly. And if you don't, what I would tell you is I'm very sure you have a good reason for that. But I also believe that God designed you, that we have a creator and he designed you to be inside of, thrive within, flourish within a spiritual family. So if that touches something in you, if you've been thinking about that, I hope you'll accept this morning as a nudge to consider being a part of a spiritual family. With that preamble, how can I be certain about the familial nature of church? It's all throughout scripture, but one of the first places my mind goes is to some instructions that Paul gave Timothy in his letter to him when he sent Timothy to take over the church in Ephesus. And Paul writes this to Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 5 verses 1 and 2. He's giving him instructions about how he should relate to the people in the church. He says this, do not rebuke an older man harshly, but extort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters with absolute purity. So he's sending, Paul is sending Timothy to the church in Ephesus. He says, you're going to take this over. Here's how I want you to relate to the people in and around your church. Treat the older men like fathers with respect. Treat the younger men like brothers, mutual encouragement. Treat the older women like mothers. Love them, be devoted to them, honor them. Treat the younger women like sisters, total purity. Encourage them in their spiritual walks. And so he introduces into the thought process this familial nature of what church should be. And so it makes me conclude this. We come to church not for ourselves, but for something bigger than ourselves. This isn't the only bigger thing we come for, but we come to be a part of a spiritual family. So what I want to do this morning very simply is talk first to the children, then to the parents, and then to the grandchildren, and say within this family, what are your responsibilities? What does God want of you? This is not an exhaustive list. This is one simple idea that we're going to carry through the service. There's more things to say here. We could do a series on this. But very simply this morning, I want us to think about our roles within the family that is the church. So first, the children. I had the idea in this part to bring in the kids, the kids K through 5, because I wanted them to hear what I'm about to say. And I pitched it to Erin Winston, our children's pastor. And she said, it's very nice that you want to do that, but none of them will care. And they'll just be a distraction to the church. And which is funny because I told Jen what I wanted to do, and she said, I don't think that's a good idea because nobody's going to care what you have to say. And I went, no, no, they will. I'm their pastor. They want to hear from me. And then Aaron said the same thing. I was like, okay, loud and clear, God. Nobody cares. Which may be the general ethos right now. I don't know. But I do have middle schoolers and high schoolers in the room. I do have college students in the room. And to you, I would say this when we think about our roles within our spiritual family. Do you know that the Bible that I'm aware of only has one instruction for you? One instruction that's specifically for children. We find it all all over scripture but the first place we find it is in Exodus chapter 20 in the middle of commitment 10 commandments when he says this honor your father and mother so that you may live long in the land the Lord has given you children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right the only instructions that are given specifically to children in scripture are that we would honor our father and mother. We do all the other things, but while we're kids, we do that. We honor our father and mother in the Lord for this is right. So listen, middle schoolers, high schoolers, college students, your responsibility is to first honor your father and mother. And then horizontally, it's to help your friends live lives that honor their parents as well. That's your responsibility to each other. We've got a great group of middle school guys here. I can see two of them right now. Three of them. They're a good crew. Hang out all the time. They're good boys. Kyle, our youth pastor, spends a lot of time with them. I love that they're a part of our church. Your responsibility to each other is to encourage one another to live in such a way when parents aren't around and no one can see you that you are honoring your parents. We've got a great group of middle school girls. Same thing. Your responsibility is to encourage one another when no one's around and no one can see, to live lives in private that honor your father and mother in public. That's our role as friends and as peers, as children, to help each other live out that commandment. Now, here's the challenging part. Implicit in that commandment, parents, I'm going to shift to the parent demographic here. If you feel like you're there, then you're there. If you don't, then you're not. The people who are of the age to be parents. Implicit in this commandment to the kids, if all God is ever telling the kids is, hey, honor your father and mother in the Lord for this is right. If that's the instruction to your children, then implicit in that instruction, like it or not, is by honoring you, they will de facto honor God. If your children grow up in your home and they honor you, what that means is they are by default honoring God because that's the way in which you are leading them. What a shame it would be, what a tragedy it would be for children to grow up in a home with parents that come to church and are spiritually minded people and value Jesus in the home. Your kid grows up and honors you and yet fall short of honoring God because the example that you set for them was insufficient. So parents, it's our job to live lives worthy of emulation and worthy of honoring. So that as our children grow up honoring us, they by default honor God. We are to show them that path. I skipped a point here. I'm going to go down to the verse. This is the verse that I have for the parents. As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Parents, with that in mind, that our kids should grow up in our home and by default honor the God that we serve, then our responsibility, our familial responsibility to our brothers and sisters in our generation is to help one another live lives worthy of honoring to encourage one another to live lives worthy of emulation by our children to make sure that one another for the kids growing up in our homes that I know that a kid growing up in your home is going to grow up to honor God. It is my responsibility to my brothers and sisters in this family to make sure that happens. It's why a couple of months ago in January, I talked about this idea, and I talked about the idea of sacred spaces. We have our small groups, and our small groups are wonderful. We've got two really vibrant small groups for young families. And then we've got another, we got another ladies group as well for moms. It's wonderful to have those groups. Those groups exist, not just to connect us to the church, to the church, not just to make us feel friends, feel like we have friends, but they exist so that we can sharpen one another. But a few months ago, I told you those are insufficient for that task. We can't get into the deep heart work that we need to get into and a big co-ed small group. There's just sins. I'm not going to confess in front of your wife. Sorry, man. So we need sacred spaces. We need two or three people in our life that know us intimately, that are safe places for confession, that are safe places for weakness, where we can encourage one another. I'll tell you transparently, I sat on Thursday, my sacred space met, three of us. And we sat around, and not every time we gather is it like this, but this one was a special one, and it lasted for four hours. God bless our wives. And there was tears and prayers and hugs and a deep, deep level of sharing that is not accomplished in small group. If you are here in the generation of parents, I believe it is your spiritual responsibility to have those spaces in your life so that we can sharpen one another and we can be sure that our children are growing up in homes whereby honoring us, they honor God. Parents, that's our responsibility to one another. That's what we must do to make sure that, I mean, think about it. The kids that are about to be dedicated at the end of my sermon. What can I do to make sure that these kids grow up knowing Jesus in exactly the way that God wants them to grow up? I think about that verse in Ephesians 2.10. We are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that we should walk in them. I have a God's son in Chicago, and they asked me, the church reached out and asked, is there anything you'd like to contribute to say, would you like to write a short note to Tucker? And I said, Tucker, we're told in Ephesians, he's five, so he might be able to gather some of this. Tucker, we're told in Ephesians that we are created by God and purposed for good works. So my prayer for you is that you'll find your good works. And my prayer for your parents is that they will help you find those and that you'll walk in them. If we are to look at the kids that are going to be dedicated, if we are going to think about the kids littering that hallway and ask ourselves how we can honor them, how we can partner with them, how we can surround them, what's the best thing we can do? The best thing we can do is to partner with their fathers and mothers to make sure that they're living in houses so that when they grow up honoring their parents, they will by default grow up honoring God. That's our responsibility. Grandparents, your responsibility is even harder because you should have figured this out by now. So Titus chapter two, I'm going to look at verses two through four and then seven and eight. Here's what it says to the older generations. Grandparents, your job is to show us how to be honorable. If you are in the demographic where you would consider yourself a grandparent or of that age, it is your spiritual responsibility within the church to show us what it looks like to live honorable lives. We need your example. I don't know how to be more clear about this. I'm a pastor. Traditionally, I'm expected to have it figured out. I do not. And I make no bones about that. Jen was telling me just this last week that I do an exceptional job of living a life that makes it hard to put me on a pedestal. That's my spiritual gift to you. I think about it this way, and I don't mean to put too fine a point on it, but most Sunday mornings, we have a phenomenal covenant group that sits back there. If they have hair, it's gray. And then we have a young small group. Both of our young small groups sit over here. I'm not speaking only to the covenant group. I'm not speaking only to the young small group. But I am speaking to everyone that fits in those places. As clearly as I can say it, I don't know why I'm getting emotional about this, but, you know, stuff happens. You guys, they need you. They need to look at you, and they need to know what it is to weather the storms of marriage loving God well. They need to look at you and know what it is to have an eight-year-old that won't listen or a college student who wanders or adult children that disappoint. They need to know what it is to face the slings and the arrows and the storms of life and to watch you walk through it well. We need you. I have wonderful parents that I can learn so much from. But Jen and I need to be able to look at the people in our church and learn from you and hear from you and ask you and watch you and know what it looks like to be honorable. So grandparents, keep it up, keeping each other honorable. Keep it up, sharpening iron with iron for the sakes of your families and your walks. But please know that those of us who are younger than you are watching you to learn from you and to see what it looks like to live lives that are honorable. So show us that, please. Those are the roles of the families within churches. That's what we are supposed to do. Children, honor your father and mother. Children, hold each other accountable to honor them. Be a good friend. Help your friends honor their parents. Parents, be a good friend. Help your friends lead households that are worthy of emulation so that if children grow up in this church, they grow up and they honor their parents, they by default honor God. Grandparents, continue to encourage and walk with one another and please know that we need you. We need to look at you and see what it looks like to live lives that are worthy of emulation. This is how God leads young mothers gently, by surrounding them with that sort of environment. Young mothers, go get your kids. We're going to dedicate them. It's Graham. Get out of here. I'm going to pray, and when I'm done, we're going to invite those families up. We're going to say some words about what it means to dedicate children. And then we're going to pray. And y'all are going to brunch. Let's pray. Father, we thank you. We thank you for the good moms that we have. We thank you for days like today that we can stop and pause and reflect on what's really important. God, I thank you for the spiritual family that you've given us, for the way that you've surrounded your people with your children. Lord, I pray that the kids in this church would hold each other accountable, would encourage one another to honor their parents and in turn honor you. Father, I pray the parents in this church would sharpen one another and be actively involved in helping their peers have homes that are worthy of emulation and honor. And God, I lift up our grandparents. I ask that you would move in them, work in them, and that you would use them as examples in the lives of those watching to know what it is to honor you with their lives. God, we thank you for the joy and the privilege of making the dedication that we're about to make. We thank you for the young babies and the families that you've blessed these families with and in turn blessed the church with. And God, we pray that it pleases you to see these moms and dads offering their children back to you. In Jesus' name, amen.
Good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Some mornings worship is so sweet that I feel like I ruin it by getting up on stage, and I just want to keep doing that. That was one of those mornings. So thank you, best band in the city of Raleigh, apparently. Happy Mother's Day to everyone. It's a good day to celebrate moms. I hope that you are married to a mom worth celebrating. I hope you have a mom worth celebrating. I hope it's a special and happy day for you. And for many of us, it is. But I would be remiss, and I don't let a Mother's Day go by without acknowledging that for some, Mother's Day is very hard. For some, Mother's Day is mixed. It's exciting and it's painful. For some of you, it reminds you of a mom that you had, and she's not here now. For others, a mom that maybe you never had a great relationship with. For others, as it did for Jen and I for so many years, it just reminds you of what you don't have yet and what you hope for and pray for. And so if that's you, and today is hard, we see you. We love you. We care about you. And I'd like to start the sermon by praying for you, and then we'll move on with the sermon. Father, thank you so much for those who, like me, are fortunate enough to have a remarkable mom who loves you and shows us you. Thank you, God, on behalf of the men like me who are married to remarkable mothers that outpace us and cause us to marvel with their patience. But God, I also know that among us are people who are hurting because of loss, because of want, because of hurt. And I just pray, God, that they would feel your presence in a special way today. I pray that you would use your body, use the people, your children, to wrap their arms around them and comfort them and let them know that they're seen and cared for and that you are caring for them. So we pray these things in your son's name. Amen. Now, as we begin and we jump into the sermon, I just want to give this disclaimer. I know that we have an unusual population of people who are here who do not normally go to Grace because you're here to support your families and people getting married. There's also another demographic. You're here because your mom asked you to come to church with her once a year, and so you're going to grit your teeth and do it right now this morning. So I'm aware that to many of you, I exist as a speed bump to babies and brunch. So we're going to try to get you there quick. All right. I'm not long winded today. I just have just a short, simple message to the people of grace and what I consider to be the family of grace. So as I was planning out this sermon and this service or the series, rather, excuse me, as I was planning this out, this whole series was my wife Jen's idea. She's in there momming the fourth and fifth graders right now. This was her idea. She loves the book of Isaiah. And so I kind of sat down and I mapped it out. I looked at the passages that I wanted to cover while we went through Isaiah together. And then I went to her and I said, hey, here's what I have. Am I missing anything? Is there anything that you love that I haven't seen, I haven't thought about? And she pointed me to this verse. She said, I've always loved, especially as a mother, I love this verse in Isaiah. So I want us to look together at Isaiah chapter 40, verse 11. It's a short, simple verse. And it simply says this, he being God, he tends his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart. He gently leads those that have young. I love that verse. That's a verse that I had read before, but I had never noticed before until Jen pointed it out to me that day. And I love the message for the moms on Mother's Day. I particularly love the message for the young moms on Mother's Day. That God is a good shepherd and he leads gently those with young. And I was thinking about why this is special. And if you think about, I mean, I'm clearly not a shepherd, all right? I don't know anything more about shepherding than you do. I didn't even do any research to make this point. I'm just guessing that when a sheep herder is trying to move the herd from one field to the next, the young moms go slower than the rest. They can't keep up with the herd in general because they have babies that they're trying to herd themselves and they're trying to watch after and they're trying to go and they're trying to bring along. So young, young moms in the herd cannot move as efficiently as they would like to, as quickly as they would like to, because the demands of motherhood, and for fathers, the demands of fatherhood, cause them to lag behind and try to keep up as they wrangle their babies that are inefficient and slow and needy and disobedient and mouthy. I don't know if the lambs are that way, but I have personal experience with children. And it occurs to me, and I see it all over our church. I see it in my life. Right now, I don't mean to be myopic in the presentation, but we're in the thick of it. We have a three-year-old and an eight-year-old. And as I reflect on what it is to have young children, one of the things that I realize is when you have young kids, and I really want to talk to the moms, and I specifically want to talk to the mamas that have children in the house right now, especially if they're young and they're needy. Listen, when you have young children in your house, you are not as efficient as you would like to be. You fall behind. Nothing, the house is never as clean as you want. It never looks the way you want it to look. The meals are never as high quality and as nutritious as you want them to be. There's going to be a mom in the PTA that's going to bring better looking cupcakes than you. Your kids, there's somebody else who's making more money and they're going to throw a bigger party and someone's yard is going to look nicer than yours. Dads, that's a tough one for me. This is a season of life when you have young children where you simply can't keep up the way that you used to. And that's okay because you're tending to your kids because you're giving them the care that they need and they will slow you down and they will make you inefficient. And that's all right because God even makes an allowance for it in this verse. Why else would he gently lead, would he isolate and specify that particular demographic that he gently leads those who are parents of the young, because he knows that's a challenging season in life. And so God sees you and he leads you gently. Now, how does he do this? I think he does it in myriad ways. I think he whispers encouragement to you. I think he brings people around you. But one of the ways that I'm certain that he does it, and we talk about this here at Grace sometimes, is that he surrounds you with a spiritual family. One way that God gently leads young mothers is through providing a spiritual family for you. One way that he gently leads young mothers is by providing a spiritual family to come around you. So I want to say this. I'm going to talk about the familial nature of church. I'm going to talk about how we all fit into, I'm going to break us into three categories today, children, parents, grandparents. You're going to assign yourself into a category. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to put an age threshold on it. Although I'm 43, so grandparents probably started like 45. You put yourself wherever it is you fit. But as we talk about this spiritual family that is the church, I want to be very clear. For those of you longing for a biological or a natural, even adoptive family that you call your own, I am not trying to replace your family that you desire with the spiritual family that you have. Those of you who long for children but you don't have children yet, I'm not about to tell you, but listen, great news. My son John is your spiritual son, so you should feel fulfilled there. That's not what I'm telling you today. But rather, as a family of faith, we have familial responsibilities to each other within our family of faith. And I would also say this. I know that many of you are here this morning, and you don't come to Grace regularly. I'm so glad that you're here. Maybe you're a part of a family of faith. What I'm going to say to you this morning, maybe you have your own churches. What I'm going to say to you this morning is applicable in those places too, and you can carry out those roles there as well. And I know some of you may not have a church home. You don't go to church regularly. And if you don't, what I would tell you is I'm very sure you have a good reason for that. But I also believe that God designed you, that we have a creator and he designed you to be inside of, thrive within, flourish within a spiritual family. So if that touches something in you, if you've been thinking about that, I hope you'll accept this morning as a nudge to consider being a part of a spiritual family. With that preamble, how can I be certain about the familial nature of church? It's all throughout scripture, but one of the first places my mind goes is to some instructions that Paul gave Timothy in his letter to him when he sent Timothy to take over the church in Ephesus. And Paul writes this to Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 5 verses 1 and 2. He's giving him instructions about how he should relate to the people in the church. He says this, do not rebuke an older man harshly, but extort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters with absolute purity. So he's sending, Paul is sending Timothy to the church in Ephesus. He says, you're going to take this over. Here's how I want you to relate to the people in and around your church. Treat the older men like fathers with respect. Treat the younger men like brothers, mutual encouragement. Treat the older women like mothers. Love them, be devoted to them, honor them. Treat the younger women like sisters, total purity. Encourage them in their spiritual walks. And so he introduces into the thought process this familial nature of what church should be. And so it makes me conclude this. We come to church not for ourselves, but for something bigger than ourselves. This isn't the only bigger thing we come for, but we come to be a part of a spiritual family. So what I want to do this morning very simply is talk first to the children, then to the parents, and then to the grandchildren, and say within this family, what are your responsibilities? What does God want of you? This is not an exhaustive list. This is one simple idea that we're going to carry through the service. There's more things to say here. We could do a series on this. But very simply this morning, I want us to think about our roles within the family that is the church. So first, the children. I had the idea in this part to bring in the kids, the kids K through 5, because I wanted them to hear what I'm about to say. And I pitched it to Erin Winston, our children's pastor. And she said, it's very nice that you want to do that, but none of them will care. And they'll just be a distraction to the church. And which is funny because I told Jen what I wanted to do, and she said, I don't think that's a good idea because nobody's going to care what you have to say. And I went, no, no, they will. I'm their pastor. They want to hear from me. And then Aaron said the same thing. I was like, okay, loud and clear, God. Nobody cares. Which may be the general ethos right now. I don't know. But I do have middle schoolers and high schoolers in the room. I do have college students in the room. And to you, I would say this when we think about our roles within our spiritual family. Do you know that the Bible that I'm aware of only has one instruction for you? One instruction that's specifically for children. We find it all all over scripture but the first place we find it is in Exodus chapter 20 in the middle of commitment 10 commandments when he says this honor your father and mother so that you may live long in the land the Lord has given you children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right the only instructions that are given specifically to children in scripture are that we would honor our father and mother. We do all the other things, but while we're kids, we do that. We honor our father and mother in the Lord for this is right. So listen, middle schoolers, high schoolers, college students, your responsibility is to first honor your father and mother. And then horizontally, it's to help your friends live lives that honor their parents as well. That's your responsibility to each other. We've got a great group of middle school guys here. I can see two of them right now. Three of them. They're a good crew. Hang out all the time. They're good boys. Kyle, our youth pastor, spends a lot of time with them. I love that they're a part of our church. Your responsibility to each other is to encourage one another to live in such a way when parents aren't around and no one can see you that you are honoring your parents. We've got a great group of middle school girls. Same thing. Your responsibility is to encourage one another when no one's around and no one can see, to live lives in private that honor your father and mother in public. That's our role as friends and as peers, as children, to help each other live out that commandment. Now, here's the challenging part. Implicit in that commandment, parents, I'm going to shift to the parent demographic here. If you feel like you're there, then you're there. If you don't, then you're not. The people who are of the age to be parents. Implicit in this commandment to the kids, if all God is ever telling the kids is, hey, honor your father and mother in the Lord for this is right. If that's the instruction to your children, then implicit in that instruction, like it or not, is by honoring you, they will de facto honor God. If your children grow up in your home and they honor you, what that means is they are by default honoring God because that's the way in which you are leading them. What a shame it would be, what a tragedy it would be for children to grow up in a home with parents that come to church and are spiritually minded people and value Jesus in the home. Your kid grows up and honors you and yet fall short of honoring God because the example that you set for them was insufficient. So parents, it's our job to live lives worthy of emulation and worthy of honoring. So that as our children grow up honoring us, they by default honor God. We are to show them that path. I skipped a point here. I'm going to go down to the verse. This is the verse that I have for the parents. As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Parents, with that in mind, that our kids should grow up in our home and by default honor the God that we serve, then our responsibility, our familial responsibility to our brothers and sisters in our generation is to help one another live lives worthy of honoring to encourage one another to live lives worthy of emulation by our children to make sure that one another for the kids growing up in our homes that I know that a kid growing up in your home is going to grow up to honor God. It is my responsibility to my brothers and sisters in this family to make sure that happens. It's why a couple of months ago in January, I talked about this idea, and I talked about the idea of sacred spaces. We have our small groups, and our small groups are wonderful. We've got two really vibrant small groups for young families. And then we've got another, we got another ladies group as well for moms. It's wonderful to have those groups. Those groups exist, not just to connect us to the church, to the church, not just to make us feel friends, feel like we have friends, but they exist so that we can sharpen one another. But a few months ago, I told you those are insufficient for that task. We can't get into the deep heart work that we need to get into and a big co-ed small group. There's just sins. I'm not going to confess in front of your wife. Sorry, man. So we need sacred spaces. We need two or three people in our life that know us intimately, that are safe places for confession, that are safe places for weakness, where we can encourage one another. I'll tell you transparently, I sat on Thursday, my sacred space met, three of us. And we sat around, and not every time we gather is it like this, but this one was a special one, and it lasted for four hours. God bless our wives. And there was tears and prayers and hugs and a deep, deep level of sharing that is not accomplished in small group. If you are here in the generation of parents, I believe it is your spiritual responsibility to have those spaces in your life so that we can sharpen one another and we can be sure that our children are growing up in homes whereby honoring us, they honor God. Parents, that's our responsibility to one another. That's what we must do to make sure that, I mean, think about it. The kids that are about to be dedicated at the end of my sermon. What can I do to make sure that these kids grow up knowing Jesus in exactly the way that God wants them to grow up? I think about that verse in Ephesians 2.10. We are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that we should walk in them. I have a God's son in Chicago, and they asked me, the church reached out and asked, is there anything you'd like to contribute to say, would you like to write a short note to Tucker? And I said, Tucker, we're told in Ephesians, he's five, so he might be able to gather some of this. Tucker, we're told in Ephesians that we are created by God and purposed for good works. So my prayer for you is that you'll find your good works. And my prayer for your parents is that they will help you find those and that you'll walk in them. If we are to look at the kids that are going to be dedicated, if we are going to think about the kids littering that hallway and ask ourselves how we can honor them, how we can partner with them, how we can surround them, what's the best thing we can do? The best thing we can do is to partner with their fathers and mothers to make sure that they're living in houses so that when they grow up honoring their parents, they will by default grow up honoring God. That's our responsibility. Grandparents, your responsibility is even harder because you should have figured this out by now. So Titus chapter two, I'm going to look at verses two through four and then seven and eight. Here's what it says to the older generations. Grandparents, your job is to show us how to be honorable. If you are in the demographic where you would consider yourself a grandparent or of that age, it is your spiritual responsibility within the church to show us what it looks like to live honorable lives. We need your example. I don't know how to be more clear about this. I'm a pastor. Traditionally, I'm expected to have it figured out. I do not. And I make no bones about that. Jen was telling me just this last week that I do an exceptional job of living a life that makes it hard to put me on a pedestal. That's my spiritual gift to you. I think about it this way, and I don't mean to put too fine a point on it, but most Sunday mornings, we have a phenomenal covenant group that sits back there. If they have hair, it's gray. And then we have a young small group. Both of our young small groups sit over here. I'm not speaking only to the covenant group. I'm not speaking only to the young small group. But I am speaking to everyone that fits in those places. As clearly as I can say it, I don't know why I'm getting emotional about this, but, you know, stuff happens. You guys, they need you. They need to look at you, and they need to know what it is to weather the storms of marriage loving God well. They need to look at you and know what it is to have an eight-year-old that won't listen or a college student who wanders or adult children that disappoint. They need to know what it is to face the slings and the arrows and the storms of life and to watch you walk through it well. We need you. I have wonderful parents that I can learn so much from. But Jen and I need to be able to look at the people in our church and learn from you and hear from you and ask you and watch you and know what it looks like to be honorable. So grandparents, keep it up, keeping each other honorable. Keep it up, sharpening iron with iron for the sakes of your families and your walks. But please know that those of us who are younger than you are watching you to learn from you and to see what it looks like to live lives that are honorable. So show us that, please. Those are the roles of the families within churches. That's what we are supposed to do. Children, honor your father and mother. Children, hold each other accountable to honor them. Be a good friend. Help your friends honor their parents. Parents, be a good friend. Help your friends lead households that are worthy of emulation so that if children grow up in this church, they grow up and they honor their parents, they by default honor God. Grandparents, continue to encourage and walk with one another and please know that we need you. We need to look at you and see what it looks like to live lives that are worthy of emulation. This is how God leads young mothers gently, by surrounding them with that sort of environment. Young mothers, go get your kids. We're going to dedicate them. It's Graham. Get out of here. I'm going to pray, and when I'm done, we're going to invite those families up. We're going to say some words about what it means to dedicate children. And then we're going to pray. And y'all are going to brunch. Let's pray. Father, we thank you. We thank you for the good moms that we have. We thank you for days like today that we can stop and pause and reflect on what's really important. God, I thank you for the spiritual family that you've given us, for the way that you've surrounded your people with your children. Lord, I pray that the kids in this church would hold each other accountable, would encourage one another to honor their parents and in turn honor you. Father, I pray the parents in this church would sharpen one another and be actively involved in helping their peers have homes that are worthy of emulation and honor. And God, I lift up our grandparents. I ask that you would move in them, work in them, and that you would use them as examples in the lives of those watching to know what it is to honor you with their lives. God, we thank you for the joy and the privilege of making the dedication that we're about to make. We thank you for the young babies and the families that you've blessed these families with and in turn blessed the church with. And God, we pray that it pleases you to see these moms and dads offering their children back to you. In Jesus' name, amen.
Good morning. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Some mornings worship is so sweet that I feel like I ruin it by getting up on stage, and I just want to keep doing that. That was one of those mornings. So thank you, best band in the city of Raleigh, apparently. Happy Mother's Day to everyone. It's a good day to celebrate moms. I hope that you are married to a mom worth celebrating. I hope you have a mom worth celebrating. I hope it's a special and happy day for you. And for many of us, it is. But I would be remiss, and I don't let a Mother's Day go by without acknowledging that for some, Mother's Day is very hard. For some, Mother's Day is mixed. It's exciting and it's painful. For some of you, it reminds you of a mom that you had, and she's not here now. For others, a mom that maybe you never had a great relationship with. For others, as it did for Jen and I for so many years, it just reminds you of what you don't have yet and what you hope for and pray for. And so if that's you, and today is hard, we see you. We love you. We care about you. And I'd like to start the sermon by praying for you, and then we'll move on with the sermon. Father, thank you so much for those who, like me, are fortunate enough to have a remarkable mom who loves you and shows us you. Thank you, God, on behalf of the men like me who are married to remarkable mothers that outpace us and cause us to marvel with their patience. But God, I also know that among us are people who are hurting because of loss, because of want, because of hurt. And I just pray, God, that they would feel your presence in a special way today. I pray that you would use your body, use the people, your children, to wrap their arms around them and comfort them and let them know that they're seen and cared for and that you are caring for them. So we pray these things in your son's name. Amen. Now, as we begin and we jump into the sermon, I just want to give this disclaimer. I know that we have an unusual population of people who are here who do not normally go to Grace because you're here to support your families and people getting married. There's also another demographic. You're here because your mom asked you to come to church with her once a year, and so you're going to grit your teeth and do it right now this morning. So I'm aware that to many of you, I exist as a speed bump to babies and brunch. So we're going to try to get you there quick. All right. I'm not long winded today. I just have just a short, simple message to the people of grace and what I consider to be the family of grace. So as I was planning out this sermon and this service or the series, rather, excuse me, as I was planning this out, this whole series was my wife Jen's idea. She's in there momming the fourth and fifth graders right now. This was her idea. She loves the book of Isaiah. And so I kind of sat down and I mapped it out. I looked at the passages that I wanted to cover while we went through Isaiah together. And then I went to her and I said, hey, here's what I have. Am I missing anything? Is there anything that you love that I haven't seen, I haven't thought about? And she pointed me to this verse. She said, I've always loved, especially as a mother, I love this verse in Isaiah. So I want us to look together at Isaiah chapter 40, verse 11. It's a short, simple verse. And it simply says this, he being God, he tends his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart. He gently leads those that have young. I love that verse. That's a verse that I had read before, but I had never noticed before until Jen pointed it out to me that day. And I love the message for the moms on Mother's Day. I particularly love the message for the young moms on Mother's Day. That God is a good shepherd and he leads gently those with young. And I was thinking about why this is special. And if you think about, I mean, I'm clearly not a shepherd, all right? I don't know anything more about shepherding than you do. I didn't even do any research to make this point. I'm just guessing that when a sheep herder is trying to move the herd from one field to the next, the young moms go slower than the rest. They can't keep up with the herd in general because they have babies that they're trying to herd themselves and they're trying to watch after and they're trying to go and they're trying to bring along. So young, young moms in the herd cannot move as efficiently as they would like to, as quickly as they would like to, because the demands of motherhood, and for fathers, the demands of fatherhood, cause them to lag behind and try to keep up as they wrangle their babies that are inefficient and slow and needy and disobedient and mouthy. I don't know if the lambs are that way, but I have personal experience with children. And it occurs to me, and I see it all over our church. I see it in my life. Right now, I don't mean to be myopic in the presentation, but we're in the thick of it. We have a three-year-old and an eight-year-old. And as I reflect on what it is to have young children, one of the things that I realize is when you have young kids, and I really want to talk to the moms, and I specifically want to talk to the mamas that have children in the house right now, especially if they're young and they're needy. Listen, when you have young children in your house, you are not as efficient as you would like to be. You fall behind. Nothing, the house is never as clean as you want. It never looks the way you want it to look. The meals are never as high quality and as nutritious as you want them to be. There's going to be a mom in the PTA that's going to bring better looking cupcakes than you. Your kids, there's somebody else who's making more money and they're going to throw a bigger party and someone's yard is going to look nicer than yours. Dads, that's a tough one for me. This is a season of life when you have young children where you simply can't keep up the way that you used to. And that's okay because you're tending to your kids because you're giving them the care that they need and they will slow you down and they will make you inefficient. And that's all right because God even makes an allowance for it in this verse. Why else would he gently lead, would he isolate and specify that particular demographic that he gently leads those who are parents of the young, because he knows that's a challenging season in life. And so God sees you and he leads you gently. Now, how does he do this? I think he does it in myriad ways. I think he whispers encouragement to you. I think he brings people around you. But one of the ways that I'm certain that he does it, and we talk about this here at Grace sometimes, is that he surrounds you with a spiritual family. One way that God gently leads young mothers is through providing a spiritual family for you. One way that he gently leads young mothers is by providing a spiritual family to come around you. So I want to say this. I'm going to talk about the familial nature of church. I'm going to talk about how we all fit into, I'm going to break us into three categories today, children, parents, grandparents. You're going to assign yourself into a category. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to put an age threshold on it. Although I'm 43, so grandparents probably started like 45. You put yourself wherever it is you fit. But as we talk about this spiritual family that is the church, I want to be very clear. For those of you longing for a biological or a natural, even adoptive family that you call your own, I am not trying to replace your family that you desire with the spiritual family that you have. Those of you who long for children but you don't have children yet, I'm not about to tell you, but listen, great news. My son John is your spiritual son, so you should feel fulfilled there. That's not what I'm telling you today. But rather, as a family of faith, we have familial responsibilities to each other within our family of faith. And I would also say this. I know that many of you are here this morning, and you don't come to Grace regularly. I'm so glad that you're here. Maybe you're a part of a family of faith. What I'm going to say to you this morning, maybe you have your own churches. What I'm going to say to you this morning is applicable in those places too, and you can carry out those roles there as well. And I know some of you may not have a church home. You don't go to church regularly. And if you don't, what I would tell you is I'm very sure you have a good reason for that. But I also believe that God designed you, that we have a creator and he designed you to be inside of, thrive within, flourish within a spiritual family. So if that touches something in you, if you've been thinking about that, I hope you'll accept this morning as a nudge to consider being a part of a spiritual family. With that preamble, how can I be certain about the familial nature of church? It's all throughout scripture, but one of the first places my mind goes is to some instructions that Paul gave Timothy in his letter to him when he sent Timothy to take over the church in Ephesus. And Paul writes this to Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 5 verses 1 and 2. He's giving him instructions about how he should relate to the people in the church. He says this, do not rebuke an older man harshly, but extort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters with absolute purity. So he's sending, Paul is sending Timothy to the church in Ephesus. He says, you're going to take this over. Here's how I want you to relate to the people in and around your church. Treat the older men like fathers with respect. Treat the younger men like brothers, mutual encouragement. Treat the older women like mothers. Love them, be devoted to them, honor them. Treat the younger women like sisters, total purity. Encourage them in their spiritual walks. And so he introduces into the thought process this familial nature of what church should be. And so it makes me conclude this. We come to church not for ourselves, but for something bigger than ourselves. This isn't the only bigger thing we come for, but we come to be a part of a spiritual family. So what I want to do this morning very simply is talk first to the children, then to the parents, and then to the grandchildren, and say within this family, what are your responsibilities? What does God want of you? This is not an exhaustive list. This is one simple idea that we're going to carry through the service. There's more things to say here. We could do a series on this. But very simply this morning, I want us to think about our roles within the family that is the church. So first, the children. I had the idea in this part to bring in the kids, the kids K through 5, because I wanted them to hear what I'm about to say. And I pitched it to Erin Winston, our children's pastor. And she said, it's very nice that you want to do that, but none of them will care. And they'll just be a distraction to the church. And which is funny because I told Jen what I wanted to do, and she said, I don't think that's a good idea because nobody's going to care what you have to say. And I went, no, no, they will. I'm their pastor. They want to hear from me. And then Aaron said the same thing. I was like, okay, loud and clear, God. Nobody cares. Which may be the general ethos right now. I don't know. But I do have middle schoolers and high schoolers in the room. I do have college students in the room. And to you, I would say this when we think about our roles within our spiritual family. Do you know that the Bible that I'm aware of only has one instruction for you? One instruction that's specifically for children. We find it all all over scripture but the first place we find it is in Exodus chapter 20 in the middle of commitment 10 commandments when he says this honor your father and mother so that you may live long in the land the Lord has given you children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right the only instructions that are given specifically to children in scripture are that we would honor our father and mother. We do all the other things, but while we're kids, we do that. We honor our father and mother in the Lord for this is right. So listen, middle schoolers, high schoolers, college students, your responsibility is to first honor your father and mother. And then horizontally, it's to help your friends live lives that honor their parents as well. That's your responsibility to each other. We've got a great group of middle school guys here. I can see two of them right now. Three of them. They're a good crew. Hang out all the time. They're good boys. Kyle, our youth pastor, spends a lot of time with them. I love that they're a part of our church. Your responsibility to each other is to encourage one another to live in such a way when parents aren't around and no one can see you that you are honoring your parents. We've got a great group of middle school girls. Same thing. Your responsibility is to encourage one another when no one's around and no one can see, to live lives in private that honor your father and mother in public. That's our role as friends and as peers, as children, to help each other live out that commandment. Now, here's the challenging part. Implicit in that commandment, parents, I'm going to shift to the parent demographic here. If you feel like you're there, then you're there. If you don't, then you're not. The people who are of the age to be parents. Implicit in this commandment to the kids, if all God is ever telling the kids is, hey, honor your father and mother in the Lord for this is right. If that's the instruction to your children, then implicit in that instruction, like it or not, is by honoring you, they will de facto honor God. If your children grow up in your home and they honor you, what that means is they are by default honoring God because that's the way in which you are leading them. What a shame it would be, what a tragedy it would be for children to grow up in a home with parents that come to church and are spiritually minded people and value Jesus in the home. Your kid grows up and honors you and yet fall short of honoring God because the example that you set for them was insufficient. So parents, it's our job to live lives worthy of emulation and worthy of honoring. So that as our children grow up honoring us, they by default honor God. We are to show them that path. I skipped a point here. I'm going to go down to the verse. This is the verse that I have for the parents. As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Parents, with that in mind, that our kids should grow up in our home and by default honor the God that we serve, then our responsibility, our familial responsibility to our brothers and sisters in our generation is to help one another live lives worthy of honoring to encourage one another to live lives worthy of emulation by our children to make sure that one another for the kids growing up in our homes that I know that a kid growing up in your home is going to grow up to honor God. It is my responsibility to my brothers and sisters in this family to make sure that happens. It's why a couple of months ago in January, I talked about this idea, and I talked about the idea of sacred spaces. We have our small groups, and our small groups are wonderful. We've got two really vibrant small groups for young families. And then we've got another, we got another ladies group as well for moms. It's wonderful to have those groups. Those groups exist, not just to connect us to the church, to the church, not just to make us feel friends, feel like we have friends, but they exist so that we can sharpen one another. But a few months ago, I told you those are insufficient for that task. We can't get into the deep heart work that we need to get into and a big co-ed small group. There's just sins. I'm not going to confess in front of your wife. Sorry, man. So we need sacred spaces. We need two or three people in our life that know us intimately, that are safe places for confession, that are safe places for weakness, where we can encourage one another. I'll tell you transparently, I sat on Thursday, my sacred space met, three of us. And we sat around, and not every time we gather is it like this, but this one was a special one, and it lasted for four hours. God bless our wives. And there was tears and prayers and hugs and a deep, deep level of sharing that is not accomplished in small group. If you are here in the generation of parents, I believe it is your spiritual responsibility to have those spaces in your life so that we can sharpen one another and we can be sure that our children are growing up in homes whereby honoring us, they honor God. Parents, that's our responsibility to one another. That's what we must do to make sure that, I mean, think about it. The kids that are about to be dedicated at the end of my sermon. What can I do to make sure that these kids grow up knowing Jesus in exactly the way that God wants them to grow up? I think about that verse in Ephesians 2.10. We are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that we should walk in them. I have a God's son in Chicago, and they asked me, the church reached out and asked, is there anything you'd like to contribute to say, would you like to write a short note to Tucker? And I said, Tucker, we're told in Ephesians, he's five, so he might be able to gather some of this. Tucker, we're told in Ephesians that we are created by God and purposed for good works. So my prayer for you is that you'll find your good works. And my prayer for your parents is that they will help you find those and that you'll walk in them. If we are to look at the kids that are going to be dedicated, if we are going to think about the kids littering that hallway and ask ourselves how we can honor them, how we can partner with them, how we can surround them, what's the best thing we can do? The best thing we can do is to partner with their fathers and mothers to make sure that they're living in houses so that when they grow up honoring their parents, they will by default grow up honoring God. That's our responsibility. Grandparents, your responsibility is even harder because you should have figured this out by now. So Titus chapter two, I'm going to look at verses two through four and then seven and eight. Here's what it says to the older generations. Grandparents, your job is to show us how to be honorable. If you are in the demographic where you would consider yourself a grandparent or of that age, it is your spiritual responsibility within the church to show us what it looks like to live honorable lives. We need your example. I don't know how to be more clear about this. I'm a pastor. Traditionally, I'm expected to have it figured out. I do not. And I make no bones about that. Jen was telling me just this last week that I do an exceptional job of living a life that makes it hard to put me on a pedestal. That's my spiritual gift to you. I think about it this way, and I don't mean to put too fine a point on it, but most Sunday mornings, we have a phenomenal covenant group that sits back there. If they have hair, it's gray. And then we have a young small group. Both of our young small groups sit over here. I'm not speaking only to the covenant group. I'm not speaking only to the young small group. But I am speaking to everyone that fits in those places. As clearly as I can say it, I don't know why I'm getting emotional about this, but, you know, stuff happens. You guys, they need you. They need to look at you, and they need to know what it is to weather the storms of marriage loving God well. They need to look at you and know what it is to have an eight-year-old that won't listen or a college student who wanders or adult children that disappoint. They need to know what it is to face the slings and the arrows and the storms of life and to watch you walk through it well. We need you. I have wonderful parents that I can learn so much from. But Jen and I need to be able to look at the people in our church and learn from you and hear from you and ask you and watch you and know what it looks like to be honorable. So grandparents, keep it up, keeping each other honorable. Keep it up, sharpening iron with iron for the sakes of your families and your walks. But please know that those of us who are younger than you are watching you to learn from you and to see what it looks like to live lives that are honorable. So show us that, please. Those are the roles of the families within churches. That's what we are supposed to do. Children, honor your father and mother. Children, hold each other accountable to honor them. Be a good friend. Help your friends honor their parents. Parents, be a good friend. Help your friends lead households that are worthy of emulation so that if children grow up in this church, they grow up and they honor their parents, they by default honor God. Grandparents, continue to encourage and walk with one another and please know that we need you. We need to look at you and see what it looks like to live lives that are worthy of emulation. This is how God leads young mothers gently, by surrounding them with that sort of environment. Young mothers, go get your kids. We're going to dedicate them. It's Graham. Get out of here. I'm going to pray, and when I'm done, we're going to invite those families up. We're going to say some words about what it means to dedicate children. And then we're going to pray. And y'all are going to brunch. Let's pray. Father, we thank you. We thank you for the good moms that we have. We thank you for days like today that we can stop and pause and reflect on what's really important. God, I thank you for the spiritual family that you've given us, for the way that you've surrounded your people with your children. Lord, I pray that the kids in this church would hold each other accountable, would encourage one another to honor their parents and in turn honor you. Father, I pray the parents in this church would sharpen one another and be actively involved in helping their peers have homes that are worthy of emulation and honor. And God, I lift up our grandparents. I ask that you would move in them, work in them, and that you would use them as examples in the lives of those watching to know what it is to honor you with their lives. God, we thank you for the joy and the privilege of making the dedication that we're about to make. We thank you for the young babies and the families that you've blessed these families with and in turn blessed the church with. And God, we pray that it pleases you to see these moms and dads offering their children back to you. In Jesus' name, amen.
Merry Christmas everybody! My name is Fort and I'm a junior partner at Grace. Now come and join me. This is going to be the best Christmas Eve service ever! I can't wait! I know because I've been here at Grace for my whole life. Thanks for watching. Merry Christmas, everybody. Bye. Well, Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope that you'll stand up and join us as we sing. guitar solo joyful and try Oh, come ye to Bethlehem Come and behold Him Born the King of angels Oh, come let us adore Him Oh, come let us adore Him Oh Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation. Sing, all ye citizens of heaven above. Glory to God all, oh Oh, come let us adore Him. Oh, come let us adore Him. Christ the Lord. Every nation will bow down before You. Every tongue will confess You are God. We worship and adore you. We worship and adore. this happy morning Oh oh Let's birth. Oh, tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. In a lonely manger, the humble Christ was born. And God sent a salvation, the blessed Christmas is born. Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on new content That Jesus Christ is born. Go tell it on the mountain over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. That Jesus Christ is born. is Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn King. Peace on earth and mercy mild. God and sinners reconciled. Joyful all ye nations rise Join the triumph of the skies With angelic hosts proclaim Christ is born in Bethlehem Hark the herald angels sing is Lord in time behold him come offspring of a virgin's womb veiled in flesh the Godhead see hail incarnate deity pleased as man with men to dwell Jesus our Emmanuel Jesus But him, born Prince of Peace, hail the song of righteousness. Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings. While he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die. Born to raise the sons of earth, Bye. to the newborn king. Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn king. The first Noel the angel did say Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay. In fields where they lay keeping their sheep. On a cold winter's night that was so deep. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel. They looked up and saw a star Shining in the east beyond them far Into the earth it gave great light and so it continued both day and night. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the king of israel is to our heavenly Lord that hath made heaven and earth of naught and with his blood mankind has brought Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel Born is the King of Israel Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel Born is the King of Israel In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place. While Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone went to their hometown to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea. To Bethlehem, the town of David. Because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary. He was pledged to be married to him. And was expecting a child. While they were there, the time 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. He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths. Suddenly a great companion of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God, saying, Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God in the highest heavens and on His mother Mary laid down his sweet head. The wise men were led. Come see the baby and worship him. His name is Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, Emmanuel, Holy One, Son of God, Savior of the world Come and adore Him On bended knee He came to ransom Someone like me What could I offer? What could I bring? Come and adore him. King of kings, his name is wonderful. Counselor, mighty God. Prince of peace, Everlasting Father, Emmanuel. Holy One, Son of God, Savior of the world. And the greatness of His reign will never end. Let there be peace on earth and all good will to men. Come, us worship him. Wonderful counselor. Mighty God. Prince of peace. Everlasting father. Emmanuel. Holy one. Son of God, Savior of the world. His name is Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, Emmanuel. You're the Holy One, Son of God, isn't a store-bought gift under the tree that we are waiting to open. We've been waiting. Waiting for something much more important. For hope to rise up. For love to embrace. For peace to invade. For joy to bubble up. In the midst of our waiting and longing, the prophet Isaiah from the Old Testament tells us, For unto us a child is born, 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. When we see it like this, we should remember that in our turbulent world, the government is on his shoulders. For he is our love, our highest governing power. And so right now, we light the central Christ candle because we have found our hope. We have discovered our love. We have realized our joy. We have encountered our peace. Today we celebrate joy to the world. The Lord is come. Choose today to step out of the darkness and into his marvelous light. And as we light this final candle, we ask you, light of the world, to light a fire within us, to burn this a part of your Christmas Eve. You know, earlier, the kids did a great job of reading the traditional Christmas story, and that's a great story. That's the big story. That's the one that we all care about on Christmas. That's what Christmas is all about, is the gift of God's Son, Jesus, the greatest gift that was ever given. But one of the things I like about that story, as we retell it over the years, is that we are actually in the habit of placing people in that story who were never a part of that story to begin with. We see this in our nativity scenes all over the place. If you go through your house or your mom's house or the front lawns of churches, we see these nativity scenes. And in those scenes, we see, of course, baby Jesus. We see Mary and Martha or Mary and Joseph, his parents. And then we see angels and we see shepherds. There's usually a donkey involved, and inevitably there's three wise men, right? And those nativities in symbol tell the story of Christmas. And it's always been interesting to me that we place the wise men at the manger of Jesus as part of the Christmas story, when in all actuality, they had nothing to do with Christmas. Not only are they not a part of the Christmas story, but they never even saw Jesus on a Christmas, let alone the first Christmas. And this is something that's always been interesting to me. It's kind of one of those little Bible facts that I've always thought was kind of neat, but I wasn't sure that it was very significant. But this year, as I was thinking about the Christmas message and rereading the Christmas story, I was reminded of this fact that we always place the wise men at Christmas, even though they weren't even a part of Christmas. And I began to reflect on that, and it became evident to me that there is something in the Christmas experience of the wise men that speaks absolutely to us and is representative of us. And so I thought we would take this Christmas Eve service, this Christmas Eve message, and focus on what Christmas meant to those wise men. I would almost say those three wise men, but we don't even know that that's true. We just traditionally say that there was three wise men because there was three gifts, but there could have been any number of wise men who came from the East. So let's look at the story of these men who came to fall on their face and worship Jesus. The only place we see the wise men is in Matthew chapter 2. So let's look at the beginning of this chapter when we miss all the time. Something that just tradition just glosses over. It's right there in the passage. It says, now after Jesus was born, this was years after Jesus was born, they come to Herod and they're looking for him, which means they were journeying to see him for a while. And it also tells us that unlike our nativity scenes reflect, they weren't at Christmas. And it's interesting to me that they weren't a part of Christmas, but that they came in later to find Jesus because for them, Christmas invited them to Jesus. They weren't a part of the first Christmas, so they didn't get to participate in seeing the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and laying in a manger. No, they weren't participants in the first Christmas. Rather, Christmas for them was an invitation to Jesus. From the east, from very far off, from Iraq, Iran, India, China, somewhere in that region, Christmas, when Jesus was born and the guiding star over Bethlehem appeared, Christmas was an invitation to the wise men to come and find Jesus. They weren't there, but they were invited by Christmas, and in that way they represent all of us. And that way they represent all of who we are. I see the wise men now as representative of the rest of the world coming to Christ after he was born. We couldn't be there for the birth. We couldn't be there to celebrate the first Christmas. But the same invitation that the wise men received is the one that we are offered, an invitation to come and find Jesus. And I think in this story, they represent all of us. All of us who couldn't be there at that very first Christmas. All of us for whom Christmas is an invitation to our Savior to come and to find Him. And so if that's true, if the wise men in the Bible represent us, and Christmas is an invitation to us that they received as well, then what can we learn from their pursuit of Christ? Well, one of the first things we see based on clues in Scripture is that they searched for Jesus for nearly two years. We see that once they got there that King Herod was an evil king and he was afraid that Jesus would be the king of the Jews and take his throne away from him. So he had all the firstborns, all the sons ages three and younger killed in Israel. Which means that their journey was at least two years long before they found Jesus. Do you understand that that means the wise men searched for Jesus for two full years at minimum before they really experienced him? Before they really were able to worship him? Before they really were able to find him? I wonder how arduous that journey was. I wonder how many times they wanted to quit. I wonder how many nights the storms that came blocked out the light that was guiding them. I wonder how many conversations they had about turning around and going home. I wonder how many people called them ridiculous for their pursuit. I wonder how long it took them to work up the courage to leave and to go. Two years is a long time to search for one thing. But I love that they had to do that. I love that they searched for Jesus for two years before they experienced him. Because that search and the arduous nature of it and the necessary persistence of it is so true to life. Some of us experience Jesus like the shepherds did that night in the meadows. In the Christmas story that the children read, we're reminded that the shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks by night. And then the angels appeared in the sky and sang to them and ushered them over to the manger so they could see this baby Savior. And for some of us, our experience with Jesus is like that. We're minding our business, tending our flocks in the fields, and angels appear to us and they sing from on high and we're whisked into the presence of Jesus and we experience it right there in that moment. And some of us have stories like that where our experience of Jesus and our understanding of him and being swept away by him was just instantaneous. But for many of us, our stories with Jesus are a lot more like the wise men. We had to search, and we had to persist, and we had to overcome discouragement. And there were times when the storms of life might block out the light that is guiding us. There may have been times where we have wanted to quit. There may be times when we wanted to walk away. We may have had discussions with those around us about just going home and saying, this is too difficult. The truth of it is, we are told in Scripture to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We see in Scripture that there is this process where we grow closer to Jesus and that sometimes finding him is difficult. It's not that he's not there. It's not that he hides himself from us, but it's just more true to life that the search for Jesus is arduous, that it requires persistence. And it also makes me wonder about these men. How did they know to follow that light? How did they know that that star in the sky right there, that's the one, and we're going to follow that for two years. The only answer I can come up with is that to recognize the star, they had to listen to the voice of God that was in their lives. It's interesting to me that Herod and the men and women in his court could see the same star that the wise men saw. But when the wise men know that that was the star and the people in Herod's court didn't? I think the only difference is that the wise men were listening to the voice of God. I believe that Scripture teaches us that God has written himself on our souls. That our Creator God breathed in us spirit. He breathed into us the breath of life. And he gave us souls that yearn for him. He gave us souls that pine for him. He gave us souls that year. They listened to that yearning. And so they had the faith to follow the guiding light. And I'm comforted by the fact that that same yearning is written on our souls. Our souls were designed and intended to be united with Christ. Our souls yearn to be united with our Savior. And because of that, God always provides guiding lights. God always provides a flicker of hope. He always maintains a course of direction. He always beckons to us. He always invites. He never shuts the door. He never gets stamped out. His invitation never goes bad. He always shows us guiding light, sometimes in stars, sometimes in a flicker, sometimes in a pillar of fire, sometimes in a voice in our ear. But make no mistake about it, God? What did the wise men do when their journey was done and they're experiencing Jesus? Well, look at what offered Him themselves and they offered him their treasures. They immediately, haphazardly, without hesitation, offered themselves and their treasures to this baby Christ. And it wasn't, it's important to note, it wasn't out of the sense of ought. It wasn't out of obligation. It wasn't, well, I guess this is what we need to do now. It wasn't even out of a desire to placate this deity or to get God on their side or to endear Jesus to them. It wasn't for any of those things. It was this spontaneous and natural response to fall on their face and worship the creator of their soul and to rejoice that they had been united with their Savior and to offer everything that they were and everything that they had. That's the natural response when we encounter our Savior. I believe that so ardently that I would even say this. If we feel like we've experienced Jesus and our first inclination in that moment isn't to fall on our face and worship his majesty, isn't to be overwhelmed by his goodness and to celebrate his kindness, if our first response isn't to fall on our face and worship him and offer all that we have and all that we are, then we haven't yet fully experienced him. Maybe we have a notion of who he is. Maybe we have an idea or we've heard a teaching or we've seen a glimpse and our soul has lurched and responded. But if it's not this full, submissive worship, then we haven't yet experienced who Jesus is, and our search continues, and we have to keep looking for him. But I think it's interesting that we exist in this culture that ebbs and flows and is progressive and is conservative and cares about Christian values over here and over here, not so much, and sometimes it's hard to tell what those Christian values are, and we all experience this culture in different ways. But amidst all the changes in our culture over the years, Christmas stands as this guiding light every year. Every December, our culture stops and we focus on Christmas. It starts as soon as Halloween is done. Things get swept aside and we throw up the Christmas decorations and we start to decorate our house and we start to do all the things and we look forward to celebrating the holiday and Christmas music started in my house very early this year because I think 2020 needs a little extra Christmas. But if we'll sweep all the extra things away, what we see is that we live in this culture that has exalted Christmas, that God has strategically placed in the middle of our joint attention as this guiding light, as this beacon calling our souls home to Jesus. And what we have in Christmas is the same invitation that was offered to the wise men. We can't participate in the first Christmas. It's already happened, but in that light, in that star, in that very first Christmas was an invitation to come to their Savior. And the same invitation that was offered to the wise men is offered to you. It's offered to you right now, the opportunity to come and sit at the feet for whom your soul was created to desire. Now some of you have been looking forward to this all year. Some of you make it a habit to regularly sit and worship at the foot of your Savior. Some of you have been looking forward to Christmas because it allows you to celebrate the one that created you. It allows you to celebrate the one that saves you and who conquers death for you. It allows you to celebrate the one who loves you. You are already like the wise men. You have made your journey and you are experiencing Jesus and you are sitting at his feet and worshiping. And for you, I hope that this service is only a help in doing that. For others, we've tasted and we've seen. We've experienced Christ. Maybe even got glimpses of who He is. Maybe felt His warmth from time to time, but for one reason or another we've wandered off. And maybe we're a little bit further away from Him at the end of this year than we have been in previous years. Maybe we haven't paid attention to that light in a while, even as it beckons us back. My hope and prayer is that this Christmas you'll hear that invitation anew. And you'll turn and you'll take a step back towards your Savior. And you'll begin that search again. Or maybe we've never begun our search. Maybe we're like Herod in his court. And the light is there. The invitation has been extended. But we haven't been listening. So we don't hear it and we don't heed it. My prayer is that this Christmas would be the first time that you open your eyes to the beckoning of God. That you would listen to Him calling to your soul. That you would acknowledge that He is the one who created it. And that you would begin your journey towards Christ and experiencing Him. The great news is, if we seek him, we are promised that we will find him. We are told that if we ask, we will receive. That if we seek, we will find. That if we knock, the door will be opened to us. That's Jesus himself speaking to you. So my prayer this year for all of us listening is that we would heed the invitation of Christmas to come to our Savior. That this year we would take a step further in our journey. That we would take a step closer to Christ. And that all of you, whether it's right now in the service, whether it's this month, whether it's in months to come or years to come, but that all of you within the sound of my voice would have a moment where you fall at the feet of Jesus and you offer all that you are and all that you have and you worship him because you are experiencing your Savior. I hope that you know that Christmas is an invitation to do that. In just a few minutes, our great children's pastor, Erin Winston, is going to come with her family, and they're going to light the Christ candle to close out Advent. And when that flame lights on the wick, I hope that you will look at that and you will see that as God's guiding light. That you will see that as his invitation that he offered and extended to the wise men that he is extending to you in this moment to come and to be a part of Christmas and to come and to find your Savior and to know him and to fall down and worship him. I hope that you'll accept the invitation of Christmas this year. Let me pray for you. Father, thank you for always beckoning to us. Thank you for always inviting us, for always calling for us, for never giving up on us, even when we give up on you. May we, God, all who are listening, accept the invitation that you extend through the birth of your son in Christmas. May we be guided by your light. May we have the privilege of experiencing Christ. And may we be so overwhelmed by him when we find him that we fall on our feet and we worship. Father, I pray that through song and through reflection and through communion to come in this service that the rest of our time together would be a time where we sit at your feet and we worship with grateful hearts and spirits at the miracle of the invitation of Christmas. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for the greatest gift that's ever been given. It's in that gift's name we pray. Amen. are brightly shining, it is the breaks a new and glorious dawn. Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices. O night divine, O night when Christ was born. O night, O night Oh truly he taught us to love one another. His law is love and his gospel is peace. Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother, and in his name all oppression shall cease. Sweet hymns of praise in grateful chorus raise we Let all within us praise his holy name Christ is the Lord O praise his name forever Oh is proclaim fall on your knees oh hear the angel voices When Christ was born O Holy Night O Night Divine If you have been around Grace Raleigh on Christmas Eve in the past, you know that communion is a very special part of our evening. And we wanted this year to be no different. So we're going to give you the opportunity to participate in communion at home, giving us the opportunity as a body of believers to come together in fellowship and in communion. And so if you joined us and picked up a participation bag over the last week, you received in your participation package this cute little cup. This is what we will be using during communion. If, however, you were unable to pick up a participation package or you're joining us from somewhere, a different state maybe, and don't have access, then we ask that you take a journey into your kitchen and find some juice or some wine or some bread and then come back and join us. And while you're doing that, we will walk through a little tutorial on how to best utilize these cute little cups. So first of all on our cute cups there is a pointed side and if you bend it upward you will notice that there is a piece of aluminum foil and a piece of cellophane. The first thing that we want to do is take the piece of cellophane off. Underneath there, you will find your wafer or your bread, which we will use later. The next step is to then take your edge and to pull it back ever so slowly. And I caution you to do it slowly because if you just rip it off, you're liable to baptize the person sitting next to you or end up with a beautiful grape juice stain on your pretty carpet. So ever so slowly, pull back on the aluminum foil and you will reveal the juice that we will use in communion. And so now, I hope that those who have gone to the kitchen have returned. You have had the opportunity to open your elements. And now I'd like to prepare our hearts for this moment of communion by reading a piece of scripture from 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 23 through 26. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is the body of Christ broken for you. Take and eat. The blood of Christ shed for you. Take and drink. And now I'd like to take the opportunity to pray for us. Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you for moments like this when we have the opportunity to remember who you are and the sacrifices that you gave for us. Thank you also, Lord, that you give us the opportunity to come together as a body of believers. Even though we are separated and in our homes, we still feel that communion with you and with each other. And thank you, Lord, most of all, for loving us so much that you sent us your son on this very, very special night. And Lord, we love you. And it's in your son's most holy name that we pray. Amen. And now I would like to invite my family to join me on stage as we light the Advent candle. John 1, 1 through 5. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Tonight we light the final candle of Advent, the Christ candle. This candle represents the light of life. It is the same light that we began talking about on that first Sunday of Advent when we spoke of this light crashing into the darkness of the world with the arrival of Jesus. It is his arrival, it is this precious child and the promised king that invites us to seek him, to follow him, and to become people who walk in and share his light. So therefore, go into the world with great joy, love, hope, and peace, knowing that he is with you on and go ahead and light them. Now, normally the worship team would sing Silent Night, but this year, being so strange, I thought it was fitting to show what it was like singing Silent Night last year. So here's some footage of Grace singing Silent Night in 2019, and we hope that in 2021, we can all be together again. Merry Christmas. All is calm, all is bright Round yon virgin, mother and child Holy infant so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace. Silent night, holy night, shepherds quake at the sight. Glories stream from heaven afar. Heavenly hosts sing alleluia. All sing hallelujah. Christ the Savior is born. Christ the Savior is born. Silent night, holy night. Son of God, love's pure light radiant peace from thy holy face with the dawn of redeeming grace Jesus Lord at thy birth Jesus Lord at thy birth Jesus Lord Merry Christmas, everyone. Heavenly Father, this has been a difficult year, a year fraught with challenges, hardships, isolation, tension, anger, and uncertainty. We know, Father, that you have seen your church and your people through more trying times, but for us, this year was hard. It was unlike any we've known. Yet in your word, you tell us to behold, for you are doing a new thing. You tell us that you make paths through the wilderness and streams in the desert. So even though at first glance it seems this year is one defined by pain and uncertainty, even though it may feel like we've been left alone to wander, God, we know that you are doing new things. You've done new things in the families of grace, allowing us to welcome new blessings into our homes. You've enabled couples to experience the life-giving fullness of holding their child for the first time. You've made it possible for children to feel the sense of privilege and responsibility that comes with being an older brother or sister. We see new things as this dark year has been brightened by announcements of children yet to come and blessings yet to experience. Even in a season of profound isolation, you've orchestrated the lives of those you love for our pleasure and your glory as parents saw the personification of years of prayers in the marriages you formed this year. We saw baptisms to celebrate and new families to welcome and small groups that tenaciously persisted. We do not deny that this year was trying and even for some of us, marked by loss. But we also acknowledge in that loss the years of profound gratitude for the time shared with those we love so much. More than that, we know that Christmas carries with it a promise that we will see them again. As this unique year comes to a close, we are more certain than ever of your presence and your goodness, bringing us together in socially distant circles and parking lots and driveways and backyards and drive-by birthday parties. Father, you've brushed away the fog of pain and uncertainty with moments of laughter and joy. We remember you on our soccer fields and baseball fields and Zoom calls and family outings and see you in the blessing of soul-warming friendships. After all that, we say thank you to our good Father. Thank you for the blessings in the midst of our struggles. Thank you for always making new paths for your children. Thank you for 2020 and all the new things it held and the future hope it has preserved. Amen. you
Merry Christmas everybody! My name is Fort and I'm a junior partner at Grace. Now come and join me. This is going to be the best Christmas Eve service ever! I can't wait! I know because I've been here at Grace for my whole life. Thanks for watching. Merry Christmas, everybody. Bye. Well, Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope that you'll stand up and join us as we sing. guitar solo joyful and try Oh, come ye to Bethlehem Come and behold Him Born the King of angels Oh, come let us adore Him Oh, come let us adore Him Oh Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation. Sing, all ye citizens of heaven above. Glory to God all, oh Oh, come let us adore Him. Oh, come let us adore Him. Christ the Lord. Every nation will bow down before You. Every tongue will confess You are God. We worship and adore you. We worship and adore. this happy morning Oh oh Let's birth. Oh, tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. In a lonely manger, the humble Christ was born. And God sent a salvation, the blessed Christmas is born. Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on new content That Jesus Christ is born. Go tell it on the mountain over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. That Jesus Christ is born. is Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn King. Peace on earth and mercy mild. God and sinners reconciled. Joyful all ye nations rise Join the triumph of the skies With angelic hosts proclaim Christ is born in Bethlehem Hark the herald angels sing is Lord in time behold him come offspring of a virgin's womb veiled in flesh the Godhead see hail incarnate deity pleased as man with men to dwell Jesus our Emmanuel Jesus But him, born Prince of Peace, hail the song of righteousness. Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings. While he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die. Born to raise the sons of earth, Bye. to the newborn king. Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn king. The first Noel the angel did say Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay. In fields where they lay keeping their sheep. On a cold winter's night that was so deep. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel. They looked up and saw a star Shining in the east beyond them far Into the earth it gave great light and so it continued both day and night. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the king of israel is to our heavenly Lord that hath made heaven and earth of naught and with his blood mankind has brought Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel Born is the King of Israel Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel Born is the King of Israel In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place. While Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone went to their hometown to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea. To Bethlehem, the town of David. Because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary. He was pledged to be married to him. And was expecting a child. While they were there, the time 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. He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths. Suddenly a great companion of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God, saying, Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God in the highest heavens and on His mother Mary laid down his sweet head. The wise men were led. Come see the baby and worship him. His name is Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, Emmanuel, Holy One, Son of God, Savior of the world Come and adore Him On bended knee He came to ransom Someone like me What could I offer? What could I bring? Come and adore him. King of kings, his name is wonderful. Counselor, mighty God. Prince of peace, Everlasting Father, Emmanuel. Holy One, Son of God, Savior of the world. And the greatness of His reign will never end. Let there be peace on earth and all good will to men. Come, us worship him. Wonderful counselor. Mighty God. Prince of peace. Everlasting father. Emmanuel. Holy one. Son of God, Savior of the world. His name is Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, Emmanuel. You're the Holy One, Son of God, isn't a store-bought gift under the tree that we are waiting to open. We've been waiting. Waiting for something much more important. For hope to rise up. For love to embrace. For peace to invade. For joy to bubble up. In the midst of our waiting and longing, the prophet Isaiah from the Old Testament tells us, For unto us a child is born, 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. When we see it like this, we should remember that in our turbulent world, the government is on his shoulders. For he is our love, our highest governing power. And so right now, we light the central Christ candle because we have found our hope. We have discovered our love. We have realized our joy. We have encountered our peace. Today we celebrate joy to the world. The Lord is come. Choose today to step out of the darkness and into his marvelous light. And as we light this final candle, we ask you, light of the world, to light a fire within us, to burn this a part of your Christmas Eve. You know, earlier, the kids did a great job of reading the traditional Christmas story, and that's a great story. That's the big story. That's the one that we all care about on Christmas. That's what Christmas is all about, is the gift of God's Son, Jesus, the greatest gift that was ever given. But one of the things I like about that story, as we retell it over the years, is that we are actually in the habit of placing people in that story who were never a part of that story to begin with. We see this in our nativity scenes all over the place. If you go through your house or your mom's house or the front lawns of churches, we see these nativity scenes. And in those scenes, we see, of course, baby Jesus. We see Mary and Martha or Mary and Joseph, his parents. And then we see angels and we see shepherds. There's usually a donkey involved, and inevitably there's three wise men, right? And those nativities in symbol tell the story of Christmas. And it's always been interesting to me that we place the wise men at the manger of Jesus as part of the Christmas story, when in all actuality, they had nothing to do with Christmas. Not only are they not a part of the Christmas story, but they never even saw Jesus on a Christmas, let alone the first Christmas. And this is something that's always been interesting to me. It's kind of one of those little Bible facts that I've always thought was kind of neat, but I wasn't sure that it was very significant. But this year, as I was thinking about the Christmas message and rereading the Christmas story, I was reminded of this fact that we always place the wise men at Christmas, even though they weren't even a part of Christmas. And I began to reflect on that, and it became evident to me that there is something in the Christmas experience of the wise men that speaks absolutely to us and is representative of us. And so I thought we would take this Christmas Eve service, this Christmas Eve message, and focus on what Christmas meant to those wise men. I would almost say those three wise men, but we don't even know that that's true. We just traditionally say that there was three wise men because there was three gifts, but there could have been any number of wise men who came from the East. So let's look at the story of these men who came to fall on their face and worship Jesus. The only place we see the wise men is in Matthew chapter 2. So let's look at the beginning of this chapter when we miss all the time. Something that just tradition just glosses over. It's right there in the passage. It says, now after Jesus was born, this was years after Jesus was born, they come to Herod and they're looking for him, which means they were journeying to see him for a while. And it also tells us that unlike our nativity scenes reflect, they weren't at Christmas. And it's interesting to me that they weren't a part of Christmas, but that they came in later to find Jesus because for them, Christmas invited them to Jesus. They weren't a part of the first Christmas, so they didn't get to participate in seeing the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and laying in a manger. No, they weren't participants in the first Christmas. Rather, Christmas for them was an invitation to Jesus. From the east, from very far off, from Iraq, Iran, India, China, somewhere in that region, Christmas, when Jesus was born and the guiding star over Bethlehem appeared, Christmas was an invitation to the wise men to come and find Jesus. They weren't there, but they were invited by Christmas, and in that way they represent all of us. And that way they represent all of who we are. I see the wise men now as representative of the rest of the world coming to Christ after he was born. We couldn't be there for the birth. We couldn't be there to celebrate the first Christmas. But the same invitation that the wise men received is the one that we are offered, an invitation to come and find Jesus. And I think in this story, they represent all of us. All of us who couldn't be there at that very first Christmas. All of us for whom Christmas is an invitation to our Savior to come and to find Him. And so if that's true, if the wise men in the Bible represent us, and Christmas is an invitation to us that they received as well, then what can we learn from their pursuit of Christ? Well, one of the first things we see based on clues in Scripture is that they searched for Jesus for nearly two years. We see that once they got there that King Herod was an evil king and he was afraid that Jesus would be the king of the Jews and take his throne away from him. So he had all the firstborns, all the sons ages three and younger killed in Israel. Which means that their journey was at least two years long before they found Jesus. Do you understand that that means the wise men searched for Jesus for two full years at minimum before they really experienced him? Before they really were able to worship him? Before they really were able to find him? I wonder how arduous that journey was. I wonder how many times they wanted to quit. I wonder how many nights the storms that came blocked out the light that was guiding them. I wonder how many conversations they had about turning around and going home. I wonder how many people called them ridiculous for their pursuit. I wonder how long it took them to work up the courage to leave and to go. Two years is a long time to search for one thing. But I love that they had to do that. I love that they searched for Jesus for two years before they experienced him. Because that search and the arduous nature of it and the necessary persistence of it is so true to life. Some of us experience Jesus like the shepherds did that night in the meadows. In the Christmas story that the children read, we're reminded that the shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks by night. And then the angels appeared in the sky and sang to them and ushered them over to the manger so they could see this baby Savior. And for some of us, our experience with Jesus is like that. We're minding our business, tending our flocks in the fields, and angels appear to us and they sing from on high and we're whisked into the presence of Jesus and we experience it right there in that moment. And some of us have stories like that where our experience of Jesus and our understanding of him and being swept away by him was just instantaneous. But for many of us, our stories with Jesus are a lot more like the wise men. We had to search, and we had to persist, and we had to overcome discouragement. And there were times when the storms of life might block out the light that is guiding us. There may have been times where we have wanted to quit. There may be times when we wanted to walk away. We may have had discussions with those around us about just going home and saying, this is too difficult. The truth of it is, we are told in Scripture to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We see in Scripture that there is this process where we grow closer to Jesus and that sometimes finding him is difficult. It's not that he's not there. It's not that he hides himself from us, but it's just more true to life that the search for Jesus is arduous, that it requires persistence. And it also makes me wonder about these men. How did they know to follow that light? How did they know that that star in the sky right there, that's the one, and we're going to follow that for two years. The only answer I can come up with is that to recognize the star, they had to listen to the voice of God that was in their lives. It's interesting to me that Herod and the men and women in his court could see the same star that the wise men saw. But when the wise men know that that was the star and the people in Herod's court didn't? I think the only difference is that the wise men were listening to the voice of God. I believe that Scripture teaches us that God has written himself on our souls. That our Creator God breathed in us spirit. He breathed into us the breath of life. And he gave us souls that yearn for him. He gave us souls that pine for him. He gave us souls that year. They listened to that yearning. And so they had the faith to follow the guiding light. And I'm comforted by the fact that that same yearning is written on our souls. Our souls were designed and intended to be united with Christ. Our souls yearn to be united with our Savior. And because of that, God always provides guiding lights. God always provides a flicker of hope. He always maintains a course of direction. He always beckons to us. He always invites. He never shuts the door. He never gets stamped out. His invitation never goes bad. He always shows us guiding light, sometimes in stars, sometimes in a flicker, sometimes in a pillar of fire, sometimes in a voice in our ear. But make no mistake about it, God? What did the wise men do when their journey was done and they're experiencing Jesus? Well, look at what offered Him themselves and they offered him their treasures. They immediately, haphazardly, without hesitation, offered themselves and their treasures to this baby Christ. And it wasn't, it's important to note, it wasn't out of the sense of ought. It wasn't out of obligation. It wasn't, well, I guess this is what we need to do now. It wasn't even out of a desire to placate this deity or to get God on their side or to endear Jesus to them. It wasn't for any of those things. It was this spontaneous and natural response to fall on their face and worship the creator of their soul and to rejoice that they had been united with their Savior and to offer everything that they were and everything that they had. That's the natural response when we encounter our Savior. I believe that so ardently that I would even say this. If we feel like we've experienced Jesus and our first inclination in that moment isn't to fall on our face and worship his majesty, isn't to be overwhelmed by his goodness and to celebrate his kindness, if our first response isn't to fall on our face and worship him and offer all that we have and all that we are, then we haven't yet fully experienced him. Maybe we have a notion of who he is. Maybe we have an idea or we've heard a teaching or we've seen a glimpse and our soul has lurched and responded. But if it's not this full, submissive worship, then we haven't yet experienced who Jesus is, and our search continues, and we have to keep looking for him. But I think it's interesting that we exist in this culture that ebbs and flows and is progressive and is conservative and cares about Christian values over here and over here, not so much, and sometimes it's hard to tell what those Christian values are, and we all experience this culture in different ways. But amidst all the changes in our culture over the years, Christmas stands as this guiding light every year. Every December, our culture stops and we focus on Christmas. It starts as soon as Halloween is done. Things get swept aside and we throw up the Christmas decorations and we start to decorate our house and we start to do all the things and we look forward to celebrating the holiday and Christmas music started in my house very early this year because I think 2020 needs a little extra Christmas. But if we'll sweep all the extra things away, what we see is that we live in this culture that has exalted Christmas, that God has strategically placed in the middle of our joint attention as this guiding light, as this beacon calling our souls home to Jesus. And what we have in Christmas is the same invitation that was offered to the wise men. We can't participate in the first Christmas. It's already happened, but in that light, in that star, in that very first Christmas was an invitation to come to their Savior. And the same invitation that was offered to the wise men is offered to you. It's offered to you right now, the opportunity to come and sit at the feet for whom your soul was created to desire. Now some of you have been looking forward to this all year. Some of you make it a habit to regularly sit and worship at the foot of your Savior. Some of you have been looking forward to Christmas because it allows you to celebrate the one that created you. It allows you to celebrate the one that saves you and who conquers death for you. It allows you to celebrate the one who loves you. You are already like the wise men. You have made your journey and you are experiencing Jesus and you are sitting at his feet and worshiping. And for you, I hope that this service is only a help in doing that. For others, we've tasted and we've seen. We've experienced Christ. Maybe even got glimpses of who He is. Maybe felt His warmth from time to time, but for one reason or another we've wandered off. And maybe we're a little bit further away from Him at the end of this year than we have been in previous years. Maybe we haven't paid attention to that light in a while, even as it beckons us back. My hope and prayer is that this Christmas you'll hear that invitation anew. And you'll turn and you'll take a step back towards your Savior. And you'll begin that search again. Or maybe we've never begun our search. Maybe we're like Herod in his court. And the light is there. The invitation has been extended. But we haven't been listening. So we don't hear it and we don't heed it. My prayer is that this Christmas would be the first time that you open your eyes to the beckoning of God. That you would listen to Him calling to your soul. That you would acknowledge that He is the one who created it. And that you would begin your journey towards Christ and experiencing Him. The great news is, if we seek him, we are promised that we will find him. We are told that if we ask, we will receive. That if we seek, we will find. That if we knock, the door will be opened to us. That's Jesus himself speaking to you. So my prayer this year for all of us listening is that we would heed the invitation of Christmas to come to our Savior. That this year we would take a step further in our journey. That we would take a step closer to Christ. And that all of you, whether it's right now in the service, whether it's this month, whether it's in months to come or years to come, but that all of you within the sound of my voice would have a moment where you fall at the feet of Jesus and you offer all that you are and all that you have and you worship him because you are experiencing your Savior. I hope that you know that Christmas is an invitation to do that. In just a few minutes, our great children's pastor, Erin Winston, is going to come with her family, and they're going to light the Christ candle to close out Advent. And when that flame lights on the wick, I hope that you will look at that and you will see that as God's guiding light. That you will see that as his invitation that he offered and extended to the wise men that he is extending to you in this moment to come and to be a part of Christmas and to come and to find your Savior and to know him and to fall down and worship him. I hope that you'll accept the invitation of Christmas this year. Let me pray for you. Father, thank you for always beckoning to us. Thank you for always inviting us, for always calling for us, for never giving up on us, even when we give up on you. May we, God, all who are listening, accept the invitation that you extend through the birth of your son in Christmas. May we be guided by your light. May we have the privilege of experiencing Christ. And may we be so overwhelmed by him when we find him that we fall on our feet and we worship. Father, I pray that through song and through reflection and through communion to come in this service that the rest of our time together would be a time where we sit at your feet and we worship with grateful hearts and spirits at the miracle of the invitation of Christmas. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for the greatest gift that's ever been given. It's in that gift's name we pray. Amen. are brightly shining, it is the breaks a new and glorious dawn. Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices. O night divine, O night when Christ was born. O night, O night Oh truly he taught us to love one another. His law is love and his gospel is peace. Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother, and in his name all oppression shall cease. Sweet hymns of praise in grateful chorus raise we Let all within us praise his holy name Christ is the Lord O praise his name forever Oh is proclaim fall on your knees oh hear the angel voices When Christ was born O Holy Night O Night Divine If you have been around Grace Raleigh on Christmas Eve in the past, you know that communion is a very special part of our evening. And we wanted this year to be no different. So we're going to give you the opportunity to participate in communion at home, giving us the opportunity as a body of believers to come together in fellowship and in communion. And so if you joined us and picked up a participation bag over the last week, you received in your participation package this cute little cup. This is what we will be using during communion. If, however, you were unable to pick up a participation package or you're joining us from somewhere, a different state maybe, and don't have access, then we ask that you take a journey into your kitchen and find some juice or some wine or some bread and then come back and join us. And while you're doing that, we will walk through a little tutorial on how to best utilize these cute little cups. So first of all on our cute cups there is a pointed side and if you bend it upward you will notice that there is a piece of aluminum foil and a piece of cellophane. The first thing that we want to do is take the piece of cellophane off. Underneath there, you will find your wafer or your bread, which we will use later. The next step is to then take your edge and to pull it back ever so slowly. And I caution you to do it slowly because if you just rip it off, you're liable to baptize the person sitting next to you or end up with a beautiful grape juice stain on your pretty carpet. So ever so slowly, pull back on the aluminum foil and you will reveal the juice that we will use in communion. And so now, I hope that those who have gone to the kitchen have returned. You have had the opportunity to open your elements. And now I'd like to prepare our hearts for this moment of communion by reading a piece of scripture from 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 23 through 26. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is the body of Christ broken for you. Take and eat. The blood of Christ shed for you. Take and drink. And now I'd like to take the opportunity to pray for us. Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you for moments like this when we have the opportunity to remember who you are and the sacrifices that you gave for us. Thank you also, Lord, that you give us the opportunity to come together as a body of believers. Even though we are separated and in our homes, we still feel that communion with you and with each other. And thank you, Lord, most of all, for loving us so much that you sent us your son on this very, very special night. And Lord, we love you. And it's in your son's most holy name that we pray. Amen. And now I would like to invite my family to join me on stage as we light the Advent candle. John 1, 1 through 5. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Tonight we light the final candle of Advent, the Christ candle. This candle represents the light of life. It is the same light that we began talking about on that first Sunday of Advent when we spoke of this light crashing into the darkness of the world with the arrival of Jesus. It is his arrival, it is this precious child and the promised king that invites us to seek him, to follow him, and to become people who walk in and share his light. So therefore, go into the world with great joy, love, hope, and peace, knowing that he is with you on and go ahead and light them. Now, normally the worship team would sing Silent Night, but this year, being so strange, I thought it was fitting to show what it was like singing Silent Night last year. So here's some footage of Grace singing Silent Night in 2019, and we hope that in 2021, we can all be together again. Merry Christmas. All is calm, all is bright Round yon virgin, mother and child Holy infant so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace. Silent night, holy night, shepherds quake at the sight. Glories stream from heaven afar. Heavenly hosts sing alleluia. All sing hallelujah. Christ the Savior is born. Christ the Savior is born. Silent night, holy night. Son of God, love's pure light radiant peace from thy holy face with the dawn of redeeming grace Jesus Lord at thy birth Jesus Lord at thy birth Jesus Lord Merry Christmas, everyone. Heavenly Father, this has been a difficult year, a year fraught with challenges, hardships, isolation, tension, anger, and uncertainty. We know, Father, that you have seen your church and your people through more trying times, but for us, this year was hard. It was unlike any we've known. Yet in your word, you tell us to behold, for you are doing a new thing. You tell us that you make paths through the wilderness and streams in the desert. So even though at first glance it seems this year is one defined by pain and uncertainty, even though it may feel like we've been left alone to wander, God, we know that you are doing new things. You've done new things in the families of grace, allowing us to welcome new blessings into our homes. You've enabled couples to experience the life-giving fullness of holding their child for the first time. You've made it possible for children to feel the sense of privilege and responsibility that comes with being an older brother or sister. We see new things as this dark year has been brightened by announcements of children yet to come and blessings yet to experience. Even in a season of profound isolation, you've orchestrated the lives of those you love for our pleasure and your glory as parents saw the personification of years of prayers in the marriages you formed this year. We saw baptisms to celebrate and new families to welcome and small groups that tenaciously persisted. We do not deny that this year was trying and even for some of us, marked by loss. But we also acknowledge in that loss the years of profound gratitude for the time shared with those we love so much. More than that, we know that Christmas carries with it a promise that we will see them again. As this unique year comes to a close, we are more certain than ever of your presence and your goodness, bringing us together in socially distant circles and parking lots and driveways and backyards and drive-by birthday parties. Father, you've brushed away the fog of pain and uncertainty with moments of laughter and joy. We remember you on our soccer fields and baseball fields and Zoom calls and family outings and see you in the blessing of soul-warming friendships. After all that, we say thank you to our good Father. Thank you for the blessings in the midst of our struggles. Thank you for always making new paths for your children. Thank you for 2020 and all the new things it held and the future hope it has preserved. Amen. you
Merry Christmas everybody! My name is Fort and I'm a junior partner at Grace. Now come and join me. This is going to be the best Christmas Eve service ever! I can't wait! I know because I've been here at Grace for my whole life. Thanks for watching. Merry Christmas, everybody. Bye. Well, Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope that you'll stand up and join us as we sing. guitar solo joyful and try Oh, come ye to Bethlehem Come and behold Him Born the King of angels Oh, come let us adore Him Oh, come let us adore Him Oh Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation. Sing, all ye citizens of heaven above. Glory to God all, oh Oh, come let us adore Him. Oh, come let us adore Him. Christ the Lord. Every nation will bow down before You. Every tongue will confess You are God. We worship and adore you. We worship and adore. this happy morning Oh oh Let's birth. Oh, tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. In a lonely manger, the humble Christ was born. And God sent a salvation, the blessed Christmas is born. Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on new content That Jesus Christ is born. Go tell it on the mountain over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. That Jesus Christ is born. is Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn King. Peace on earth and mercy mild. God and sinners reconciled. Joyful all ye nations rise Join the triumph of the skies With angelic hosts proclaim Christ is born in Bethlehem Hark the herald angels sing is Lord in time behold him come offspring of a virgin's womb veiled in flesh the Godhead see hail incarnate deity pleased as man with men to dwell Jesus our Emmanuel Jesus But him, born Prince of Peace, hail the song of righteousness. Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings. While he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die. Born to raise the sons of earth, Bye. to the newborn king. Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn king. The first Noel the angel did say Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay. In fields where they lay keeping their sheep. On a cold winter's night that was so deep. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel. They looked up and saw a star Shining in the east beyond them far Into the earth it gave great light and so it continued both day and night. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the king of israel is to our heavenly Lord that hath made heaven and earth of naught and with his blood mankind has brought Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel Born is the King of Israel Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel Born is the King of Israel In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place. While Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone went to their hometown to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea. To Bethlehem, the town of David. Because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary. He was pledged to be married to him. And was expecting a child. While they were there, the time 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. He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths. Suddenly a great companion of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God, saying, Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God in the highest heavens and on His mother Mary laid down his sweet head. The wise men were led. Come see the baby and worship him. His name is Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, Emmanuel, Holy One, Son of God, Savior of the world Come and adore Him On bended knee He came to ransom Someone like me What could I offer? What could I bring? Come and adore him. King of kings, his name is wonderful. Counselor, mighty God. Prince of peace, Everlasting Father, Emmanuel. Holy One, Son of God, Savior of the world. And the greatness of His reign will never end. Let there be peace on earth and all good will to men. Come, us worship him. Wonderful counselor. Mighty God. Prince of peace. Everlasting father. Emmanuel. Holy one. Son of God, Savior of the world. His name is Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, Emmanuel. You're the Holy One, Son of God, isn't a store-bought gift under the tree that we are waiting to open. We've been waiting. Waiting for something much more important. For hope to rise up. For love to embrace. For peace to invade. For joy to bubble up. In the midst of our waiting and longing, the prophet Isaiah from the Old Testament tells us, For unto us a child is born, 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. When we see it like this, we should remember that in our turbulent world, the government is on his shoulders. For he is our love, our highest governing power. And so right now, we light the central Christ candle because we have found our hope. We have discovered our love. We have realized our joy. We have encountered our peace. Today we celebrate joy to the world. The Lord is come. Choose today to step out of the darkness and into his marvelous light. And as we light this final candle, we ask you, light of the world, to light a fire within us, to burn this a part of your Christmas Eve. You know, earlier, the kids did a great job of reading the traditional Christmas story, and that's a great story. That's the big story. That's the one that we all care about on Christmas. That's what Christmas is all about, is the gift of God's Son, Jesus, the greatest gift that was ever given. But one of the things I like about that story, as we retell it over the years, is that we are actually in the habit of placing people in that story who were never a part of that story to begin with. We see this in our nativity scenes all over the place. If you go through your house or your mom's house or the front lawns of churches, we see these nativity scenes. And in those scenes, we see, of course, baby Jesus. We see Mary and Martha or Mary and Joseph, his parents. And then we see angels and we see shepherds. There's usually a donkey involved, and inevitably there's three wise men, right? And those nativities in symbol tell the story of Christmas. And it's always been interesting to me that we place the wise men at the manger of Jesus as part of the Christmas story, when in all actuality, they had nothing to do with Christmas. Not only are they not a part of the Christmas story, but they never even saw Jesus on a Christmas, let alone the first Christmas. And this is something that's always been interesting to me. It's kind of one of those little Bible facts that I've always thought was kind of neat, but I wasn't sure that it was very significant. But this year, as I was thinking about the Christmas message and rereading the Christmas story, I was reminded of this fact that we always place the wise men at Christmas, even though they weren't even a part of Christmas. And I began to reflect on that, and it became evident to me that there is something in the Christmas experience of the wise men that speaks absolutely to us and is representative of us. And so I thought we would take this Christmas Eve service, this Christmas Eve message, and focus on what Christmas meant to those wise men. I would almost say those three wise men, but we don't even know that that's true. We just traditionally say that there was three wise men because there was three gifts, but there could have been any number of wise men who came from the East. So let's look at the story of these men who came to fall on their face and worship Jesus. The only place we see the wise men is in Matthew chapter 2. So let's look at the beginning of this chapter when we miss all the time. Something that just tradition just glosses over. It's right there in the passage. It says, now after Jesus was born, this was years after Jesus was born, they come to Herod and they're looking for him, which means they were journeying to see him for a while. And it also tells us that unlike our nativity scenes reflect, they weren't at Christmas. And it's interesting to me that they weren't a part of Christmas, but that they came in later to find Jesus because for them, Christmas invited them to Jesus. They weren't a part of the first Christmas, so they didn't get to participate in seeing the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and laying in a manger. No, they weren't participants in the first Christmas. Rather, Christmas for them was an invitation to Jesus. From the east, from very far off, from Iraq, Iran, India, China, somewhere in that region, Christmas, when Jesus was born and the guiding star over Bethlehem appeared, Christmas was an invitation to the wise men to come and find Jesus. They weren't there, but they were invited by Christmas, and in that way they represent all of us. And that way they represent all of who we are. I see the wise men now as representative of the rest of the world coming to Christ after he was born. We couldn't be there for the birth. We couldn't be there to celebrate the first Christmas. But the same invitation that the wise men received is the one that we are offered, an invitation to come and find Jesus. And I think in this story, they represent all of us. All of us who couldn't be there at that very first Christmas. All of us for whom Christmas is an invitation to our Savior to come and to find Him. And so if that's true, if the wise men in the Bible represent us, and Christmas is an invitation to us that they received as well, then what can we learn from their pursuit of Christ? Well, one of the first things we see based on clues in Scripture is that they searched for Jesus for nearly two years. We see that once they got there that King Herod was an evil king and he was afraid that Jesus would be the king of the Jews and take his throne away from him. So he had all the firstborns, all the sons ages three and younger killed in Israel. Which means that their journey was at least two years long before they found Jesus. Do you understand that that means the wise men searched for Jesus for two full years at minimum before they really experienced him? Before they really were able to worship him? Before they really were able to find him? I wonder how arduous that journey was. I wonder how many times they wanted to quit. I wonder how many nights the storms that came blocked out the light that was guiding them. I wonder how many conversations they had about turning around and going home. I wonder how many people called them ridiculous for their pursuit. I wonder how long it took them to work up the courage to leave and to go. Two years is a long time to search for one thing. But I love that they had to do that. I love that they searched for Jesus for two years before they experienced him. Because that search and the arduous nature of it and the necessary persistence of it is so true to life. Some of us experience Jesus like the shepherds did that night in the meadows. In the Christmas story that the children read, we're reminded that the shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks by night. And then the angels appeared in the sky and sang to them and ushered them over to the manger so they could see this baby Savior. And for some of us, our experience with Jesus is like that. We're minding our business, tending our flocks in the fields, and angels appear to us and they sing from on high and we're whisked into the presence of Jesus and we experience it right there in that moment. And some of us have stories like that where our experience of Jesus and our understanding of him and being swept away by him was just instantaneous. But for many of us, our stories with Jesus are a lot more like the wise men. We had to search, and we had to persist, and we had to overcome discouragement. And there were times when the storms of life might block out the light that is guiding us. There may have been times where we have wanted to quit. There may be times when we wanted to walk away. We may have had discussions with those around us about just going home and saying, this is too difficult. The truth of it is, we are told in Scripture to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We see in Scripture that there is this process where we grow closer to Jesus and that sometimes finding him is difficult. It's not that he's not there. It's not that he hides himself from us, but it's just more true to life that the search for Jesus is arduous, that it requires persistence. And it also makes me wonder about these men. How did they know to follow that light? How did they know that that star in the sky right there, that's the one, and we're going to follow that for two years. The only answer I can come up with is that to recognize the star, they had to listen to the voice of God that was in their lives. It's interesting to me that Herod and the men and women in his court could see the same star that the wise men saw. But when the wise men know that that was the star and the people in Herod's court didn't? I think the only difference is that the wise men were listening to the voice of God. I believe that Scripture teaches us that God has written himself on our souls. That our Creator God breathed in us spirit. He breathed into us the breath of life. And he gave us souls that yearn for him. He gave us souls that pine for him. He gave us souls that year. They listened to that yearning. And so they had the faith to follow the guiding light. And I'm comforted by the fact that that same yearning is written on our souls. Our souls were designed and intended to be united with Christ. Our souls yearn to be united with our Savior. And because of that, God always provides guiding lights. God always provides a flicker of hope. He always maintains a course of direction. He always beckons to us. He always invites. He never shuts the door. He never gets stamped out. His invitation never goes bad. He always shows us guiding light, sometimes in stars, sometimes in a flicker, sometimes in a pillar of fire, sometimes in a voice in our ear. But make no mistake about it, God? What did the wise men do when their journey was done and they're experiencing Jesus? Well, look at what offered Him themselves and they offered him their treasures. They immediately, haphazardly, without hesitation, offered themselves and their treasures to this baby Christ. And it wasn't, it's important to note, it wasn't out of the sense of ought. It wasn't out of obligation. It wasn't, well, I guess this is what we need to do now. It wasn't even out of a desire to placate this deity or to get God on their side or to endear Jesus to them. It wasn't for any of those things. It was this spontaneous and natural response to fall on their face and worship the creator of their soul and to rejoice that they had been united with their Savior and to offer everything that they were and everything that they had. That's the natural response when we encounter our Savior. I believe that so ardently that I would even say this. If we feel like we've experienced Jesus and our first inclination in that moment isn't to fall on our face and worship his majesty, isn't to be overwhelmed by his goodness and to celebrate his kindness, if our first response isn't to fall on our face and worship him and offer all that we have and all that we are, then we haven't yet fully experienced him. Maybe we have a notion of who he is. Maybe we have an idea or we've heard a teaching or we've seen a glimpse and our soul has lurched and responded. But if it's not this full, submissive worship, then we haven't yet experienced who Jesus is, and our search continues, and we have to keep looking for him. But I think it's interesting that we exist in this culture that ebbs and flows and is progressive and is conservative and cares about Christian values over here and over here, not so much, and sometimes it's hard to tell what those Christian values are, and we all experience this culture in different ways. But amidst all the changes in our culture over the years, Christmas stands as this guiding light every year. Every December, our culture stops and we focus on Christmas. It starts as soon as Halloween is done. Things get swept aside and we throw up the Christmas decorations and we start to decorate our house and we start to do all the things and we look forward to celebrating the holiday and Christmas music started in my house very early this year because I think 2020 needs a little extra Christmas. But if we'll sweep all the extra things away, what we see is that we live in this culture that has exalted Christmas, that God has strategically placed in the middle of our joint attention as this guiding light, as this beacon calling our souls home to Jesus. And what we have in Christmas is the same invitation that was offered to the wise men. We can't participate in the first Christmas. It's already happened, but in that light, in that star, in that very first Christmas was an invitation to come to their Savior. And the same invitation that was offered to the wise men is offered to you. It's offered to you right now, the opportunity to come and sit at the feet for whom your soul was created to desire. Now some of you have been looking forward to this all year. Some of you make it a habit to regularly sit and worship at the foot of your Savior. Some of you have been looking forward to Christmas because it allows you to celebrate the one that created you. It allows you to celebrate the one that saves you and who conquers death for you. It allows you to celebrate the one who loves you. You are already like the wise men. You have made your journey and you are experiencing Jesus and you are sitting at his feet and worshiping. And for you, I hope that this service is only a help in doing that. For others, we've tasted and we've seen. We've experienced Christ. Maybe even got glimpses of who He is. Maybe felt His warmth from time to time, but for one reason or another we've wandered off. And maybe we're a little bit further away from Him at the end of this year than we have been in previous years. Maybe we haven't paid attention to that light in a while, even as it beckons us back. My hope and prayer is that this Christmas you'll hear that invitation anew. And you'll turn and you'll take a step back towards your Savior. And you'll begin that search again. Or maybe we've never begun our search. Maybe we're like Herod in his court. And the light is there. The invitation has been extended. But we haven't been listening. So we don't hear it and we don't heed it. My prayer is that this Christmas would be the first time that you open your eyes to the beckoning of God. That you would listen to Him calling to your soul. That you would acknowledge that He is the one who created it. And that you would begin your journey towards Christ and experiencing Him. The great news is, if we seek him, we are promised that we will find him. We are told that if we ask, we will receive. That if we seek, we will find. That if we knock, the door will be opened to us. That's Jesus himself speaking to you. So my prayer this year for all of us listening is that we would heed the invitation of Christmas to come to our Savior. That this year we would take a step further in our journey. That we would take a step closer to Christ. And that all of you, whether it's right now in the service, whether it's this month, whether it's in months to come or years to come, but that all of you within the sound of my voice would have a moment where you fall at the feet of Jesus and you offer all that you are and all that you have and you worship him because you are experiencing your Savior. I hope that you know that Christmas is an invitation to do that. In just a few minutes, our great children's pastor, Erin Winston, is going to come with her family, and they're going to light the Christ candle to close out Advent. And when that flame lights on the wick, I hope that you will look at that and you will see that as God's guiding light. That you will see that as his invitation that he offered and extended to the wise men that he is extending to you in this moment to come and to be a part of Christmas and to come and to find your Savior and to know him and to fall down and worship him. I hope that you'll accept the invitation of Christmas this year. Let me pray for you. Father, thank you for always beckoning to us. Thank you for always inviting us, for always calling for us, for never giving up on us, even when we give up on you. May we, God, all who are listening, accept the invitation that you extend through the birth of your son in Christmas. May we be guided by your light. May we have the privilege of experiencing Christ. And may we be so overwhelmed by him when we find him that we fall on our feet and we worship. Father, I pray that through song and through reflection and through communion to come in this service that the rest of our time together would be a time where we sit at your feet and we worship with grateful hearts and spirits at the miracle of the invitation of Christmas. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for the greatest gift that's ever been given. It's in that gift's name we pray. Amen. are brightly shining, it is the breaks a new and glorious dawn. Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices. O night divine, O night when Christ was born. O night, O night Oh truly he taught us to love one another. His law is love and his gospel is peace. Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother, and in his name all oppression shall cease. Sweet hymns of praise in grateful chorus raise we Let all within us praise his holy name Christ is the Lord O praise his name forever Oh is proclaim fall on your knees oh hear the angel voices When Christ was born O Holy Night O Night Divine If you have been around Grace Raleigh on Christmas Eve in the past, you know that communion is a very special part of our evening. And we wanted this year to be no different. So we're going to give you the opportunity to participate in communion at home, giving us the opportunity as a body of believers to come together in fellowship and in communion. And so if you joined us and picked up a participation bag over the last week, you received in your participation package this cute little cup. This is what we will be using during communion. If, however, you were unable to pick up a participation package or you're joining us from somewhere, a different state maybe, and don't have access, then we ask that you take a journey into your kitchen and find some juice or some wine or some bread and then come back and join us. And while you're doing that, we will walk through a little tutorial on how to best utilize these cute little cups. So first of all on our cute cups there is a pointed side and if you bend it upward you will notice that there is a piece of aluminum foil and a piece of cellophane. The first thing that we want to do is take the piece of cellophane off. Underneath there, you will find your wafer or your bread, which we will use later. The next step is to then take your edge and to pull it back ever so slowly. And I caution you to do it slowly because if you just rip it off, you're liable to baptize the person sitting next to you or end up with a beautiful grape juice stain on your pretty carpet. So ever so slowly, pull back on the aluminum foil and you will reveal the juice that we will use in communion. And so now, I hope that those who have gone to the kitchen have returned. You have had the opportunity to open your elements. And now I'd like to prepare our hearts for this moment of communion by reading a piece of scripture from 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 23 through 26. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is the body of Christ broken for you. Take and eat. The blood of Christ shed for you. Take and drink. And now I'd like to take the opportunity to pray for us. Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you for moments like this when we have the opportunity to remember who you are and the sacrifices that you gave for us. Thank you also, Lord, that you give us the opportunity to come together as a body of believers. Even though we are separated and in our homes, we still feel that communion with you and with each other. And thank you, Lord, most of all, for loving us so much that you sent us your son on this very, very special night. And Lord, we love you. And it's in your son's most holy name that we pray. Amen. And now I would like to invite my family to join me on stage as we light the Advent candle. John 1, 1 through 5. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Tonight we light the final candle of Advent, the Christ candle. This candle represents the light of life. It is the same light that we began talking about on that first Sunday of Advent when we spoke of this light crashing into the darkness of the world with the arrival of Jesus. It is his arrival, it is this precious child and the promised king that invites us to seek him, to follow him, and to become people who walk in and share his light. So therefore, go into the world with great joy, love, hope, and peace, knowing that he is with you on and go ahead and light them. Now, normally the worship team would sing Silent Night, but this year, being so strange, I thought it was fitting to show what it was like singing Silent Night last year. So here's some footage of Grace singing Silent Night in 2019, and we hope that in 2021, we can all be together again. Merry Christmas. All is calm, all is bright Round yon virgin, mother and child Holy infant so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace. Silent night, holy night, shepherds quake at the sight. Glories stream from heaven afar. Heavenly hosts sing alleluia. All sing hallelujah. Christ the Savior is born. Christ the Savior is born. Silent night, holy night. Son of God, love's pure light radiant peace from thy holy face with the dawn of redeeming grace Jesus Lord at thy birth Jesus Lord at thy birth Jesus Lord Merry Christmas, everyone. Heavenly Father, this has been a difficult year, a year fraught with challenges, hardships, isolation, tension, anger, and uncertainty. We know, Father, that you have seen your church and your people through more trying times, but for us, this year was hard. It was unlike any we've known. Yet in your word, you tell us to behold, for you are doing a new thing. You tell us that you make paths through the wilderness and streams in the desert. So even though at first glance it seems this year is one defined by pain and uncertainty, even though it may feel like we've been left alone to wander, God, we know that you are doing new things. You've done new things in the families of grace, allowing us to welcome new blessings into our homes. You've enabled couples to experience the life-giving fullness of holding their child for the first time. You've made it possible for children to feel the sense of privilege and responsibility that comes with being an older brother or sister. We see new things as this dark year has been brightened by announcements of children yet to come and blessings yet to experience. Even in a season of profound isolation, you've orchestrated the lives of those you love for our pleasure and your glory as parents saw the personification of years of prayers in the marriages you formed this year. We saw baptisms to celebrate and new families to welcome and small groups that tenaciously persisted. We do not deny that this year was trying and even for some of us, marked by loss. But we also acknowledge in that loss the years of profound gratitude for the time shared with those we love so much. More than that, we know that Christmas carries with it a promise that we will see them again. As this unique year comes to a close, we are more certain than ever of your presence and your goodness, bringing us together in socially distant circles and parking lots and driveways and backyards and drive-by birthday parties. Father, you've brushed away the fog of pain and uncertainty with moments of laughter and joy. We remember you on our soccer fields and baseball fields and Zoom calls and family outings and see you in the blessing of soul-warming friendships. After all that, we say thank you to our good Father. Thank you for the blessings in the midst of our struggles. Thank you for always making new paths for your children. Thank you for 2020 and all the new things it held and the future hope it has preserved. Amen. you
Merry Christmas everybody! My name is Fort and I'm a junior partner at Grace. Now come and join me. This is going to be the best Christmas Eve service ever! I can't wait! I know because I've been here at Grace for my whole life. Thanks for watching. Merry Christmas, everybody. Bye. Well, Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope that you'll stand up and join us as we sing. guitar solo joyful and try Oh, come ye to Bethlehem Come and behold Him Born the King of angels Oh, come let us adore Him Oh, come let us adore Him Oh Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation. Sing, all ye citizens of heaven above. Glory to God all, oh Oh, come let us adore Him. Oh, come let us adore Him. Christ the Lord. Every nation will bow down before You. Every tongue will confess You are God. We worship and adore you. We worship and adore. this happy morning Oh oh Let's birth. Oh, tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. In a lonely manger, the humble Christ was born. And God sent a salvation, the blessed Christmas is born. Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on new content That Jesus Christ is born. Go tell it on the mountain over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. That Jesus Christ is born. is Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn King. Peace on earth and mercy mild. God and sinners reconciled. Joyful all ye nations rise Join the triumph of the skies With angelic hosts proclaim Christ is born in Bethlehem Hark the herald angels sing is Lord in time behold him come offspring of a virgin's womb veiled in flesh the Godhead see hail incarnate deity pleased as man with men to dwell Jesus our Emmanuel Jesus But him, born Prince of Peace, hail the song of righteousness. Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings. While he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die. Born to raise the sons of earth, Bye. to the newborn king. Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn king. The first Noel the angel did say Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay. In fields where they lay keeping their sheep. On a cold winter's night that was so deep. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel. They looked up and saw a star Shining in the east beyond them far Into the earth it gave great light and so it continued both day and night. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the king of israel is to our heavenly Lord that hath made heaven and earth of naught and with his blood mankind has brought Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel Born is the King of Israel Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel Born is the King of Israel In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place. While Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone went to their hometown to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea. To Bethlehem, the town of David. Because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary. He was pledged to be married to him. And was expecting a child. While they were there, the time 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. He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths. Suddenly a great companion of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God, saying, Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God in the highest heavens and on His mother Mary laid down his sweet head. The wise men were led. Come see the baby and worship him. His name is Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, Emmanuel, Holy One, Son of God, Savior of the world Come and adore Him On bended knee He came to ransom Someone like me What could I offer? What could I bring? Come and adore him. King of kings, his name is wonderful. Counselor, mighty God. Prince of peace, Everlasting Father, Emmanuel. Holy One, Son of God, Savior of the world. And the greatness of His reign will never end. Let there be peace on earth and all good will to men. Come, us worship him. Wonderful counselor. Mighty God. Prince of peace. Everlasting father. Emmanuel. Holy one. Son of God, Savior of the world. His name is Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, Emmanuel. You're the Holy One, Son of God, isn't a store-bought gift under the tree that we are waiting to open. We've been waiting. Waiting for something much more important. For hope to rise up. For love to embrace. For peace to invade. For joy to bubble up. In the midst of our waiting and longing, the prophet Isaiah from the Old Testament tells us, For unto us a child is born, 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. When we see it like this, we should remember that in our turbulent world, the government is on his shoulders. For he is our love, our highest governing power. And so right now, we light the central Christ candle because we have found our hope. We have discovered our love. We have realized our joy. We have encountered our peace. Today we celebrate joy to the world. The Lord is come. Choose today to step out of the darkness and into his marvelous light. And as we light this final candle, we ask you, light of the world, to light a fire within us, to burn this a part of your Christmas Eve. You know, earlier, the kids did a great job of reading the traditional Christmas story, and that's a great story. That's the big story. That's the one that we all care about on Christmas. That's what Christmas is all about, is the gift of God's Son, Jesus, the greatest gift that was ever given. But one of the things I like about that story, as we retell it over the years, is that we are actually in the habit of placing people in that story who were never a part of that story to begin with. We see this in our nativity scenes all over the place. If you go through your house or your mom's house or the front lawns of churches, we see these nativity scenes. And in those scenes, we see, of course, baby Jesus. We see Mary and Martha or Mary and Joseph, his parents. And then we see angels and we see shepherds. There's usually a donkey involved, and inevitably there's three wise men, right? And those nativities in symbol tell the story of Christmas. And it's always been interesting to me that we place the wise men at the manger of Jesus as part of the Christmas story, when in all actuality, they had nothing to do with Christmas. Not only are they not a part of the Christmas story, but they never even saw Jesus on a Christmas, let alone the first Christmas. And this is something that's always been interesting to me. It's kind of one of those little Bible facts that I've always thought was kind of neat, but I wasn't sure that it was very significant. But this year, as I was thinking about the Christmas message and rereading the Christmas story, I was reminded of this fact that we always place the wise men at Christmas, even though they weren't even a part of Christmas. And I began to reflect on that, and it became evident to me that there is something in the Christmas experience of the wise men that speaks absolutely to us and is representative of us. And so I thought we would take this Christmas Eve service, this Christmas Eve message, and focus on what Christmas meant to those wise men. I would almost say those three wise men, but we don't even know that that's true. We just traditionally say that there was three wise men because there was three gifts, but there could have been any number of wise men who came from the East. So let's look at the story of these men who came to fall on their face and worship Jesus. The only place we see the wise men is in Matthew chapter 2. So let's look at the beginning of this chapter when we miss all the time. Something that just tradition just glosses over. It's right there in the passage. It says, now after Jesus was born, this was years after Jesus was born, they come to Herod and they're looking for him, which means they were journeying to see him for a while. And it also tells us that unlike our nativity scenes reflect, they weren't at Christmas. And it's interesting to me that they weren't a part of Christmas, but that they came in later to find Jesus because for them, Christmas invited them to Jesus. They weren't a part of the first Christmas, so they didn't get to participate in seeing the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and laying in a manger. No, they weren't participants in the first Christmas. Rather, Christmas for them was an invitation to Jesus. From the east, from very far off, from Iraq, Iran, India, China, somewhere in that region, Christmas, when Jesus was born and the guiding star over Bethlehem appeared, Christmas was an invitation to the wise men to come and find Jesus. They weren't there, but they were invited by Christmas, and in that way they represent all of us. And that way they represent all of who we are. I see the wise men now as representative of the rest of the world coming to Christ after he was born. We couldn't be there for the birth. We couldn't be there to celebrate the first Christmas. But the same invitation that the wise men received is the one that we are offered, an invitation to come and find Jesus. And I think in this story, they represent all of us. All of us who couldn't be there at that very first Christmas. All of us for whom Christmas is an invitation to our Savior to come and to find Him. And so if that's true, if the wise men in the Bible represent us, and Christmas is an invitation to us that they received as well, then what can we learn from their pursuit of Christ? Well, one of the first things we see based on clues in Scripture is that they searched for Jesus for nearly two years. We see that once they got there that King Herod was an evil king and he was afraid that Jesus would be the king of the Jews and take his throne away from him. So he had all the firstborns, all the sons ages three and younger killed in Israel. Which means that their journey was at least two years long before they found Jesus. Do you understand that that means the wise men searched for Jesus for two full years at minimum before they really experienced him? Before they really were able to worship him? Before they really were able to find him? I wonder how arduous that journey was. I wonder how many times they wanted to quit. I wonder how many nights the storms that came blocked out the light that was guiding them. I wonder how many conversations they had about turning around and going home. I wonder how many people called them ridiculous for their pursuit. I wonder how long it took them to work up the courage to leave and to go. Two years is a long time to search for one thing. But I love that they had to do that. I love that they searched for Jesus for two years before they experienced him. Because that search and the arduous nature of it and the necessary persistence of it is so true to life. Some of us experience Jesus like the shepherds did that night in the meadows. In the Christmas story that the children read, we're reminded that the shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks by night. And then the angels appeared in the sky and sang to them and ushered them over to the manger so they could see this baby Savior. And for some of us, our experience with Jesus is like that. We're minding our business, tending our flocks in the fields, and angels appear to us and they sing from on high and we're whisked into the presence of Jesus and we experience it right there in that moment. And some of us have stories like that where our experience of Jesus and our understanding of him and being swept away by him was just instantaneous. But for many of us, our stories with Jesus are a lot more like the wise men. We had to search, and we had to persist, and we had to overcome discouragement. And there were times when the storms of life might block out the light that is guiding us. There may have been times where we have wanted to quit. There may be times when we wanted to walk away. We may have had discussions with those around us about just going home and saying, this is too difficult. The truth of it is, we are told in Scripture to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We see in Scripture that there is this process where we grow closer to Jesus and that sometimes finding him is difficult. It's not that he's not there. It's not that he hides himself from us, but it's just more true to life that the search for Jesus is arduous, that it requires persistence. And it also makes me wonder about these men. How did they know to follow that light? How did they know that that star in the sky right there, that's the one, and we're going to follow that for two years. The only answer I can come up with is that to recognize the star, they had to listen to the voice of God that was in their lives. It's interesting to me that Herod and the men and women in his court could see the same star that the wise men saw. But when the wise men know that that was the star and the people in Herod's court didn't? I think the only difference is that the wise men were listening to the voice of God. I believe that Scripture teaches us that God has written himself on our souls. That our Creator God breathed in us spirit. He breathed into us the breath of life. And he gave us souls that yearn for him. He gave us souls that pine for him. He gave us souls that year. They listened to that yearning. And so they had the faith to follow the guiding light. And I'm comforted by the fact that that same yearning is written on our souls. Our souls were designed and intended to be united with Christ. Our souls yearn to be united with our Savior. And because of that, God always provides guiding lights. God always provides a flicker of hope. He always maintains a course of direction. He always beckons to us. He always invites. He never shuts the door. He never gets stamped out. His invitation never goes bad. He always shows us guiding light, sometimes in stars, sometimes in a flicker, sometimes in a pillar of fire, sometimes in a voice in our ear. But make no mistake about it, God? What did the wise men do when their journey was done and they're experiencing Jesus? Well, look at what offered Him themselves and they offered him their treasures. They immediately, haphazardly, without hesitation, offered themselves and their treasures to this baby Christ. And it wasn't, it's important to note, it wasn't out of the sense of ought. It wasn't out of obligation. It wasn't, well, I guess this is what we need to do now. It wasn't even out of a desire to placate this deity or to get God on their side or to endear Jesus to them. It wasn't for any of those things. It was this spontaneous and natural response to fall on their face and worship the creator of their soul and to rejoice that they had been united with their Savior and to offer everything that they were and everything that they had. That's the natural response when we encounter our Savior. I believe that so ardently that I would even say this. If we feel like we've experienced Jesus and our first inclination in that moment isn't to fall on our face and worship his majesty, isn't to be overwhelmed by his goodness and to celebrate his kindness, if our first response isn't to fall on our face and worship him and offer all that we have and all that we are, then we haven't yet fully experienced him. Maybe we have a notion of who he is. Maybe we have an idea or we've heard a teaching or we've seen a glimpse and our soul has lurched and responded. But if it's not this full, submissive worship, then we haven't yet experienced who Jesus is, and our search continues, and we have to keep looking for him. But I think it's interesting that we exist in this culture that ebbs and flows and is progressive and is conservative and cares about Christian values over here and over here, not so much, and sometimes it's hard to tell what those Christian values are, and we all experience this culture in different ways. But amidst all the changes in our culture over the years, Christmas stands as this guiding light every year. Every December, our culture stops and we focus on Christmas. It starts as soon as Halloween is done. Things get swept aside and we throw up the Christmas decorations and we start to decorate our house and we start to do all the things and we look forward to celebrating the holiday and Christmas music started in my house very early this year because I think 2020 needs a little extra Christmas. But if we'll sweep all the extra things away, what we see is that we live in this culture that has exalted Christmas, that God has strategically placed in the middle of our joint attention as this guiding light, as this beacon calling our souls home to Jesus. And what we have in Christmas is the same invitation that was offered to the wise men. We can't participate in the first Christmas. It's already happened, but in that light, in that star, in that very first Christmas was an invitation to come to their Savior. And the same invitation that was offered to the wise men is offered to you. It's offered to you right now, the opportunity to come and sit at the feet for whom your soul was created to desire. Now some of you have been looking forward to this all year. Some of you make it a habit to regularly sit and worship at the foot of your Savior. Some of you have been looking forward to Christmas because it allows you to celebrate the one that created you. It allows you to celebrate the one that saves you and who conquers death for you. It allows you to celebrate the one who loves you. You are already like the wise men. You have made your journey and you are experiencing Jesus and you are sitting at his feet and worshiping. And for you, I hope that this service is only a help in doing that. For others, we've tasted and we've seen. We've experienced Christ. Maybe even got glimpses of who He is. Maybe felt His warmth from time to time, but for one reason or another we've wandered off. And maybe we're a little bit further away from Him at the end of this year than we have been in previous years. Maybe we haven't paid attention to that light in a while, even as it beckons us back. My hope and prayer is that this Christmas you'll hear that invitation anew. And you'll turn and you'll take a step back towards your Savior. And you'll begin that search again. Or maybe we've never begun our search. Maybe we're like Herod in his court. And the light is there. The invitation has been extended. But we haven't been listening. So we don't hear it and we don't heed it. My prayer is that this Christmas would be the first time that you open your eyes to the beckoning of God. That you would listen to Him calling to your soul. That you would acknowledge that He is the one who created it. And that you would begin your journey towards Christ and experiencing Him. The great news is, if we seek him, we are promised that we will find him. We are told that if we ask, we will receive. That if we seek, we will find. That if we knock, the door will be opened to us. That's Jesus himself speaking to you. So my prayer this year for all of us listening is that we would heed the invitation of Christmas to come to our Savior. That this year we would take a step further in our journey. That we would take a step closer to Christ. And that all of you, whether it's right now in the service, whether it's this month, whether it's in months to come or years to come, but that all of you within the sound of my voice would have a moment where you fall at the feet of Jesus and you offer all that you are and all that you have and you worship him because you are experiencing your Savior. I hope that you know that Christmas is an invitation to do that. In just a few minutes, our great children's pastor, Erin Winston, is going to come with her family, and they're going to light the Christ candle to close out Advent. And when that flame lights on the wick, I hope that you will look at that and you will see that as God's guiding light. That you will see that as his invitation that he offered and extended to the wise men that he is extending to you in this moment to come and to be a part of Christmas and to come and to find your Savior and to know him and to fall down and worship him. I hope that you'll accept the invitation of Christmas this year. Let me pray for you. Father, thank you for always beckoning to us. Thank you for always inviting us, for always calling for us, for never giving up on us, even when we give up on you. May we, God, all who are listening, accept the invitation that you extend through the birth of your son in Christmas. May we be guided by your light. May we have the privilege of experiencing Christ. And may we be so overwhelmed by him when we find him that we fall on our feet and we worship. Father, I pray that through song and through reflection and through communion to come in this service that the rest of our time together would be a time where we sit at your feet and we worship with grateful hearts and spirits at the miracle of the invitation of Christmas. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for the greatest gift that's ever been given. It's in that gift's name we pray. Amen. are brightly shining, it is the breaks a new and glorious dawn. Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices. O night divine, O night when Christ was born. O night, O night Oh truly he taught us to love one another. His law is love and his gospel is peace. Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother, and in his name all oppression shall cease. Sweet hymns of praise in grateful chorus raise we Let all within us praise his holy name Christ is the Lord O praise his name forever Oh is proclaim fall on your knees oh hear the angel voices When Christ was born O Holy Night O Night Divine If you have been around Grace Raleigh on Christmas Eve in the past, you know that communion is a very special part of our evening. And we wanted this year to be no different. So we're going to give you the opportunity to participate in communion at home, giving us the opportunity as a body of believers to come together in fellowship and in communion. And so if you joined us and picked up a participation bag over the last week, you received in your participation package this cute little cup. This is what we will be using during communion. If, however, you were unable to pick up a participation package or you're joining us from somewhere, a different state maybe, and don't have access, then we ask that you take a journey into your kitchen and find some juice or some wine or some bread and then come back and join us. And while you're doing that, we will walk through a little tutorial on how to best utilize these cute little cups. So first of all on our cute cups there is a pointed side and if you bend it upward you will notice that there is a piece of aluminum foil and a piece of cellophane. The first thing that we want to do is take the piece of cellophane off. Underneath there, you will find your wafer or your bread, which we will use later. The next step is to then take your edge and to pull it back ever so slowly. And I caution you to do it slowly because if you just rip it off, you're liable to baptize the person sitting next to you or end up with a beautiful grape juice stain on your pretty carpet. So ever so slowly, pull back on the aluminum foil and you will reveal the juice that we will use in communion. And so now, I hope that those who have gone to the kitchen have returned. You have had the opportunity to open your elements. And now I'd like to prepare our hearts for this moment of communion by reading a piece of scripture from 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 23 through 26. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is the body of Christ broken for you. Take and eat. The blood of Christ shed for you. Take and drink. And now I'd like to take the opportunity to pray for us. Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you for moments like this when we have the opportunity to remember who you are and the sacrifices that you gave for us. Thank you also, Lord, that you give us the opportunity to come together as a body of believers. Even though we are separated and in our homes, we still feel that communion with you and with each other. And thank you, Lord, most of all, for loving us so much that you sent us your son on this very, very special night. And Lord, we love you. And it's in your son's most holy name that we pray. Amen. And now I would like to invite my family to join me on stage as we light the Advent candle. John 1, 1 through 5. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Tonight we light the final candle of Advent, the Christ candle. This candle represents the light of life. It is the same light that we began talking about on that first Sunday of Advent when we spoke of this light crashing into the darkness of the world with the arrival of Jesus. It is his arrival, it is this precious child and the promised king that invites us to seek him, to follow him, and to become people who walk in and share his light. So therefore, go into the world with great joy, love, hope, and peace, knowing that he is with you on and go ahead and light them. Now, normally the worship team would sing Silent Night, but this year, being so strange, I thought it was fitting to show what it was like singing Silent Night last year. So here's some footage of Grace singing Silent Night in 2019, and we hope that in 2021, we can all be together again. Merry Christmas. All is calm, all is bright Round yon virgin, mother and child Holy infant so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace. Silent night, holy night, shepherds quake at the sight. Glories stream from heaven afar. Heavenly hosts sing alleluia. All sing hallelujah. Christ the Savior is born. Christ the Savior is born. Silent night, holy night. Son of God, love's pure light radiant peace from thy holy face with the dawn of redeeming grace Jesus Lord at thy birth Jesus Lord at thy birth Jesus Lord Merry Christmas, everyone. Heavenly Father, this has been a difficult year, a year fraught with challenges, hardships, isolation, tension, anger, and uncertainty. We know, Father, that you have seen your church and your people through more trying times, but for us, this year was hard. It was unlike any we've known. Yet in your word, you tell us to behold, for you are doing a new thing. You tell us that you make paths through the wilderness and streams in the desert. So even though at first glance it seems this year is one defined by pain and uncertainty, even though it may feel like we've been left alone to wander, God, we know that you are doing new things. You've done new things in the families of grace, allowing us to welcome new blessings into our homes. You've enabled couples to experience the life-giving fullness of holding their child for the first time. You've made it possible for children to feel the sense of privilege and responsibility that comes with being an older brother or sister. We see new things as this dark year has been brightened by announcements of children yet to come and blessings yet to experience. Even in a season of profound isolation, you've orchestrated the lives of those you love for our pleasure and your glory as parents saw the personification of years of prayers in the marriages you formed this year. We saw baptisms to celebrate and new families to welcome and small groups that tenaciously persisted. We do not deny that this year was trying and even for some of us, marked by loss. But we also acknowledge in that loss the years of profound gratitude for the time shared with those we love so much. More than that, we know that Christmas carries with it a promise that we will see them again. As this unique year comes to a close, we are more certain than ever of your presence and your goodness, bringing us together in socially distant circles and parking lots and driveways and backyards and drive-by birthday parties. Father, you've brushed away the fog of pain and uncertainty with moments of laughter and joy. We remember you on our soccer fields and baseball fields and Zoom calls and family outings and see you in the blessing of soul-warming friendships. After all that, we say thank you to our good Father. Thank you for the blessings in the midst of our struggles. Thank you for always making new paths for your children. Thank you for 2020 and all the new things it held and the future hope it has preserved. Amen. you
Merry Christmas everybody! My name is Fort and I'm a junior partner at Grace. Now come and join me. This is going to be the best Christmas Eve service ever! I can't wait! I know because I've been here at Grace for my whole life. Thanks for watching. Merry Christmas, everybody. Bye. Well, Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope that you'll stand up and join us as we sing. guitar solo joyful and try Oh, come ye to Bethlehem Come and behold Him Born the King of angels Oh, come let us adore Him Oh, come let us adore Him Oh Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation. Sing, all ye citizens of heaven above. Glory to God all, oh Oh, come let us adore Him. Oh, come let us adore Him. Christ the Lord. Every nation will bow down before You. Every tongue will confess You are God. We worship and adore you. We worship and adore. this happy morning Oh oh Let's birth. Oh, tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. In a lonely manger, the humble Christ was born. And God sent a salvation, the blessed Christmas is born. Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on new content That Jesus Christ is born. Go tell it on the mountain over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. That Jesus Christ is born. is Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn King. Peace on earth and mercy mild. God and sinners reconciled. Joyful all ye nations rise Join the triumph of the skies With angelic hosts proclaim Christ is born in Bethlehem Hark the herald angels sing is Lord in time behold him come offspring of a virgin's womb veiled in flesh the Godhead see hail incarnate deity pleased as man with men to dwell Jesus our Emmanuel Jesus But him, born Prince of Peace, hail the song of righteousness. Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings. While he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die. Born to raise the sons of earth, Bye. to the newborn king. Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn king. The first Noel the angel did say Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay. In fields where they lay keeping their sheep. On a cold winter's night that was so deep. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel. They looked up and saw a star Shining in the east beyond them far Into the earth it gave great light and so it continued both day and night. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the king of israel is to our heavenly Lord that hath made heaven and earth of naught and with his blood mankind has brought Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel Born is the King of Israel Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel Born is the King of Israel In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place. While Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone went to their hometown to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea. To Bethlehem, the town of David. Because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary. He was pledged to be married to him. And was expecting a child. While they were there, the time 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. He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths. Suddenly a great companion of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God, saying, Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God in the highest heavens and on His mother Mary laid down his sweet head. The wise men were led. Come see the baby and worship him. His name is Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, Emmanuel, Holy One, Son of God, Savior of the world Come and adore Him On bended knee He came to ransom Someone like me What could I offer? What could I bring? Come and adore him. King of kings, his name is wonderful. Counselor, mighty God. Prince of peace, Everlasting Father, Emmanuel. Holy One, Son of God, Savior of the world. And the greatness of His reign will never end. Let there be peace on earth and all good will to men. Come, us worship him. Wonderful counselor. Mighty God. Prince of peace. Everlasting father. Emmanuel. Holy one. Son of God, Savior of the world. His name is Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, Emmanuel. You're the Holy One, Son of God, isn't a store-bought gift under the tree that we are waiting to open. We've been waiting. Waiting for something much more important. For hope to rise up. For love to embrace. For peace to invade. For joy to bubble up. In the midst of our waiting and longing, the prophet Isaiah from the Old Testament tells us, For unto us a child is born, 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. When we see it like this, we should remember that in our turbulent world, the government is on his shoulders. For he is our love, our highest governing power. And so right now, we light the central Christ candle because we have found our hope. We have discovered our love. We have realized our joy. We have encountered our peace. Today we celebrate joy to the world. The Lord is come. Choose today to step out of the darkness and into his marvelous light. And as we light this final candle, we ask you, light of the world, to light a fire within us, to burn this a part of your Christmas Eve. You know, earlier, the kids did a great job of reading the traditional Christmas story, and that's a great story. That's the big story. That's the one that we all care about on Christmas. That's what Christmas is all about, is the gift of God's Son, Jesus, the greatest gift that was ever given. But one of the things I like about that story, as we retell it over the years, is that we are actually in the habit of placing people in that story who were never a part of that story to begin with. We see this in our nativity scenes all over the place. If you go through your house or your mom's house or the front lawns of churches, we see these nativity scenes. And in those scenes, we see, of course, baby Jesus. We see Mary and Martha or Mary and Joseph, his parents. And then we see angels and we see shepherds. There's usually a donkey involved, and inevitably there's three wise men, right? And those nativities in symbol tell the story of Christmas. And it's always been interesting to me that we place the wise men at the manger of Jesus as part of the Christmas story, when in all actuality, they had nothing to do with Christmas. Not only are they not a part of the Christmas story, but they never even saw Jesus on a Christmas, let alone the first Christmas. And this is something that's always been interesting to me. It's kind of one of those little Bible facts that I've always thought was kind of neat, but I wasn't sure that it was very significant. But this year, as I was thinking about the Christmas message and rereading the Christmas story, I was reminded of this fact that we always place the wise men at Christmas, even though they weren't even a part of Christmas. And I began to reflect on that, and it became evident to me that there is something in the Christmas experience of the wise men that speaks absolutely to us and is representative of us. And so I thought we would take this Christmas Eve service, this Christmas Eve message, and focus on what Christmas meant to those wise men. I would almost say those three wise men, but we don't even know that that's true. We just traditionally say that there was three wise men because there was three gifts, but there could have been any number of wise men who came from the East. So let's look at the story of these men who came to fall on their face and worship Jesus. The only place we see the wise men is in Matthew chapter 2. So let's look at the beginning of this chapter when we miss all the time. Something that just tradition just glosses over. It's right there in the passage. It says, now after Jesus was born, this was years after Jesus was born, they come to Herod and they're looking for him, which means they were journeying to see him for a while. And it also tells us that unlike our nativity scenes reflect, they weren't at Christmas. And it's interesting to me that they weren't a part of Christmas, but that they came in later to find Jesus because for them, Christmas invited them to Jesus. They weren't a part of the first Christmas, so they didn't get to participate in seeing the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and laying in a manger. No, they weren't participants in the first Christmas. Rather, Christmas for them was an invitation to Jesus. From the east, from very far off, from Iraq, Iran, India, China, somewhere in that region, Christmas, when Jesus was born and the guiding star over Bethlehem appeared, Christmas was an invitation to the wise men to come and find Jesus. They weren't there, but they were invited by Christmas, and in that way they represent all of us. And that way they represent all of who we are. I see the wise men now as representative of the rest of the world coming to Christ after he was born. We couldn't be there for the birth. We couldn't be there to celebrate the first Christmas. But the same invitation that the wise men received is the one that we are offered, an invitation to come and find Jesus. And I think in this story, they represent all of us. All of us who couldn't be there at that very first Christmas. All of us for whom Christmas is an invitation to our Savior to come and to find Him. And so if that's true, if the wise men in the Bible represent us, and Christmas is an invitation to us that they received as well, then what can we learn from their pursuit of Christ? Well, one of the first things we see based on clues in Scripture is that they searched for Jesus for nearly two years. We see that once they got there that King Herod was an evil king and he was afraid that Jesus would be the king of the Jews and take his throne away from him. So he had all the firstborns, all the sons ages three and younger killed in Israel. Which means that their journey was at least two years long before they found Jesus. Do you understand that that means the wise men searched for Jesus for two full years at minimum before they really experienced him? Before they really were able to worship him? Before they really were able to find him? I wonder how arduous that journey was. I wonder how many times they wanted to quit. I wonder how many nights the storms that came blocked out the light that was guiding them. I wonder how many conversations they had about turning around and going home. I wonder how many people called them ridiculous for their pursuit. I wonder how long it took them to work up the courage to leave and to go. Two years is a long time to search for one thing. But I love that they had to do that. I love that they searched for Jesus for two years before they experienced him. Because that search and the arduous nature of it and the necessary persistence of it is so true to life. Some of us experience Jesus like the shepherds did that night in the meadows. In the Christmas story that the children read, we're reminded that the shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks by night. And then the angels appeared in the sky and sang to them and ushered them over to the manger so they could see this baby Savior. And for some of us, our experience with Jesus is like that. We're minding our business, tending our flocks in the fields, and angels appear to us and they sing from on high and we're whisked into the presence of Jesus and we experience it right there in that moment. And some of us have stories like that where our experience of Jesus and our understanding of him and being swept away by him was just instantaneous. But for many of us, our stories with Jesus are a lot more like the wise men. We had to search, and we had to persist, and we had to overcome discouragement. And there were times when the storms of life might block out the light that is guiding us. There may have been times where we have wanted to quit. There may be times when we wanted to walk away. We may have had discussions with those around us about just going home and saying, this is too difficult. The truth of it is, we are told in Scripture to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We see in Scripture that there is this process where we grow closer to Jesus and that sometimes finding him is difficult. It's not that he's not there. It's not that he hides himself from us, but it's just more true to life that the search for Jesus is arduous, that it requires persistence. And it also makes me wonder about these men. How did they know to follow that light? How did they know that that star in the sky right there, that's the one, and we're going to follow that for two years. The only answer I can come up with is that to recognize the star, they had to listen to the voice of God that was in their lives. It's interesting to me that Herod and the men and women in his court could see the same star that the wise men saw. But when the wise men know that that was the star and the people in Herod's court didn't? I think the only difference is that the wise men were listening to the voice of God. I believe that Scripture teaches us that God has written himself on our souls. That our Creator God breathed in us spirit. He breathed into us the breath of life. And he gave us souls that yearn for him. He gave us souls that pine for him. He gave us souls that year. They listened to that yearning. And so they had the faith to follow the guiding light. And I'm comforted by the fact that that same yearning is written on our souls. Our souls were designed and intended to be united with Christ. Our souls yearn to be united with our Savior. And because of that, God always provides guiding lights. God always provides a flicker of hope. He always maintains a course of direction. He always beckons to us. He always invites. He never shuts the door. He never gets stamped out. His invitation never goes bad. He always shows us guiding light, sometimes in stars, sometimes in a flicker, sometimes in a pillar of fire, sometimes in a voice in our ear. But make no mistake about it, God? What did the wise men do when their journey was done and they're experiencing Jesus? Well, look at what offered Him themselves and they offered him their treasures. They immediately, haphazardly, without hesitation, offered themselves and their treasures to this baby Christ. And it wasn't, it's important to note, it wasn't out of the sense of ought. It wasn't out of obligation. It wasn't, well, I guess this is what we need to do now. It wasn't even out of a desire to placate this deity or to get God on their side or to endear Jesus to them. It wasn't for any of those things. It was this spontaneous and natural response to fall on their face and worship the creator of their soul and to rejoice that they had been united with their Savior and to offer everything that they were and everything that they had. That's the natural response when we encounter our Savior. I believe that so ardently that I would even say this. If we feel like we've experienced Jesus and our first inclination in that moment isn't to fall on our face and worship his majesty, isn't to be overwhelmed by his goodness and to celebrate his kindness, if our first response isn't to fall on our face and worship him and offer all that we have and all that we are, then we haven't yet fully experienced him. Maybe we have a notion of who he is. Maybe we have an idea or we've heard a teaching or we've seen a glimpse and our soul has lurched and responded. But if it's not this full, submissive worship, then we haven't yet experienced who Jesus is, and our search continues, and we have to keep looking for him. But I think it's interesting that we exist in this culture that ebbs and flows and is progressive and is conservative and cares about Christian values over here and over here, not so much, and sometimes it's hard to tell what those Christian values are, and we all experience this culture in different ways. But amidst all the changes in our culture over the years, Christmas stands as this guiding light every year. Every December, our culture stops and we focus on Christmas. It starts as soon as Halloween is done. Things get swept aside and we throw up the Christmas decorations and we start to decorate our house and we start to do all the things and we look forward to celebrating the holiday and Christmas music started in my house very early this year because I think 2020 needs a little extra Christmas. But if we'll sweep all the extra things away, what we see is that we live in this culture that has exalted Christmas, that God has strategically placed in the middle of our joint attention as this guiding light, as this beacon calling our souls home to Jesus. And what we have in Christmas is the same invitation that was offered to the wise men. We can't participate in the first Christmas. It's already happened, but in that light, in that star, in that very first Christmas was an invitation to come to their Savior. And the same invitation that was offered to the wise men is offered to you. It's offered to you right now, the opportunity to come and sit at the feet for whom your soul was created to desire. Now some of you have been looking forward to this all year. Some of you make it a habit to regularly sit and worship at the foot of your Savior. Some of you have been looking forward to Christmas because it allows you to celebrate the one that created you. It allows you to celebrate the one that saves you and who conquers death for you. It allows you to celebrate the one who loves you. You are already like the wise men. You have made your journey and you are experiencing Jesus and you are sitting at his feet and worshiping. And for you, I hope that this service is only a help in doing that. For others, we've tasted and we've seen. We've experienced Christ. Maybe even got glimpses of who He is. Maybe felt His warmth from time to time, but for one reason or another we've wandered off. And maybe we're a little bit further away from Him at the end of this year than we have been in previous years. Maybe we haven't paid attention to that light in a while, even as it beckons us back. My hope and prayer is that this Christmas you'll hear that invitation anew. And you'll turn and you'll take a step back towards your Savior. And you'll begin that search again. Or maybe we've never begun our search. Maybe we're like Herod in his court. And the light is there. The invitation has been extended. But we haven't been listening. So we don't hear it and we don't heed it. My prayer is that this Christmas would be the first time that you open your eyes to the beckoning of God. That you would listen to Him calling to your soul. That you would acknowledge that He is the one who created it. And that you would begin your journey towards Christ and experiencing Him. The great news is, if we seek him, we are promised that we will find him. We are told that if we ask, we will receive. That if we seek, we will find. That if we knock, the door will be opened to us. That's Jesus himself speaking to you. So my prayer this year for all of us listening is that we would heed the invitation of Christmas to come to our Savior. That this year we would take a step further in our journey. That we would take a step closer to Christ. And that all of you, whether it's right now in the service, whether it's this month, whether it's in months to come or years to come, but that all of you within the sound of my voice would have a moment where you fall at the feet of Jesus and you offer all that you are and all that you have and you worship him because you are experiencing your Savior. I hope that you know that Christmas is an invitation to do that. In just a few minutes, our great children's pastor, Erin Winston, is going to come with her family, and they're going to light the Christ candle to close out Advent. And when that flame lights on the wick, I hope that you will look at that and you will see that as God's guiding light. That you will see that as his invitation that he offered and extended to the wise men that he is extending to you in this moment to come and to be a part of Christmas and to come and to find your Savior and to know him and to fall down and worship him. I hope that you'll accept the invitation of Christmas this year. Let me pray for you. Father, thank you for always beckoning to us. Thank you for always inviting us, for always calling for us, for never giving up on us, even when we give up on you. May we, God, all who are listening, accept the invitation that you extend through the birth of your son in Christmas. May we be guided by your light. May we have the privilege of experiencing Christ. And may we be so overwhelmed by him when we find him that we fall on our feet and we worship. Father, I pray that through song and through reflection and through communion to come in this service that the rest of our time together would be a time where we sit at your feet and we worship with grateful hearts and spirits at the miracle of the invitation of Christmas. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for the greatest gift that's ever been given. It's in that gift's name we pray. Amen. are brightly shining, it is the breaks a new and glorious dawn. Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices. O night divine, O night when Christ was born. O night, O night Oh truly he taught us to love one another. His law is love and his gospel is peace. Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother, and in his name all oppression shall cease. Sweet hymns of praise in grateful chorus raise we Let all within us praise his holy name Christ is the Lord O praise his name forever Oh is proclaim fall on your knees oh hear the angel voices When Christ was born O Holy Night O Night Divine If you have been around Grace Raleigh on Christmas Eve in the past, you know that communion is a very special part of our evening. And we wanted this year to be no different. So we're going to give you the opportunity to participate in communion at home, giving us the opportunity as a body of believers to come together in fellowship and in communion. And so if you joined us and picked up a participation bag over the last week, you received in your participation package this cute little cup. This is what we will be using during communion. If, however, you were unable to pick up a participation package or you're joining us from somewhere, a different state maybe, and don't have access, then we ask that you take a journey into your kitchen and find some juice or some wine or some bread and then come back and join us. And while you're doing that, we will walk through a little tutorial on how to best utilize these cute little cups. So first of all on our cute cups there is a pointed side and if you bend it upward you will notice that there is a piece of aluminum foil and a piece of cellophane. The first thing that we want to do is take the piece of cellophane off. Underneath there, you will find your wafer or your bread, which we will use later. The next step is to then take your edge and to pull it back ever so slowly. And I caution you to do it slowly because if you just rip it off, you're liable to baptize the person sitting next to you or end up with a beautiful grape juice stain on your pretty carpet. So ever so slowly, pull back on the aluminum foil and you will reveal the juice that we will use in communion. And so now, I hope that those who have gone to the kitchen have returned. You have had the opportunity to open your elements. And now I'd like to prepare our hearts for this moment of communion by reading a piece of scripture from 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 23 through 26. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is the body of Christ broken for you. Take and eat. The blood of Christ shed for you. Take and drink. And now I'd like to take the opportunity to pray for us. Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you for moments like this when we have the opportunity to remember who you are and the sacrifices that you gave for us. Thank you also, Lord, that you give us the opportunity to come together as a body of believers. Even though we are separated and in our homes, we still feel that communion with you and with each other. And thank you, Lord, most of all, for loving us so much that you sent us your son on this very, very special night. And Lord, we love you. And it's in your son's most holy name that we pray. Amen. And now I would like to invite my family to join me on stage as we light the Advent candle. John 1, 1 through 5. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Tonight we light the final candle of Advent, the Christ candle. This candle represents the light of life. It is the same light that we began talking about on that first Sunday of Advent when we spoke of this light crashing into the darkness of the world with the arrival of Jesus. It is his arrival, it is this precious child and the promised king that invites us to seek him, to follow him, and to become people who walk in and share his light. So therefore, go into the world with great joy, love, hope, and peace, knowing that he is with you on and go ahead and light them. Now, normally the worship team would sing Silent Night, but this year, being so strange, I thought it was fitting to show what it was like singing Silent Night last year. So here's some footage of Grace singing Silent Night in 2019, and we hope that in 2021, we can all be together again. Merry Christmas. All is calm, all is bright Round yon virgin, mother and child Holy infant so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace. Silent night, holy night, shepherds quake at the sight. Glories stream from heaven afar. Heavenly hosts sing alleluia. All sing hallelujah. Christ the Savior is born. Christ the Savior is born. Silent night, holy night. Son of God, love's pure light radiant peace from thy holy face with the dawn of redeeming grace Jesus Lord at thy birth Jesus Lord at thy birth Jesus Lord Merry Christmas, everyone. Heavenly Father, this has been a difficult year, a year fraught with challenges, hardships, isolation, tension, anger, and uncertainty. We know, Father, that you have seen your church and your people through more trying times, but for us, this year was hard. It was unlike any we've known. Yet in your word, you tell us to behold, for you are doing a new thing. You tell us that you make paths through the wilderness and streams in the desert. So even though at first glance it seems this year is one defined by pain and uncertainty, even though it may feel like we've been left alone to wander, God, we know that you are doing new things. You've done new things in the families of grace, allowing us to welcome new blessings into our homes. You've enabled couples to experience the life-giving fullness of holding their child for the first time. You've made it possible for children to feel the sense of privilege and responsibility that comes with being an older brother or sister. We see new things as this dark year has been brightened by announcements of children yet to come and blessings yet to experience. Even in a season of profound isolation, you've orchestrated the lives of those you love for our pleasure and your glory as parents saw the personification of years of prayers in the marriages you formed this year. We saw baptisms to celebrate and new families to welcome and small groups that tenaciously persisted. We do not deny that this year was trying and even for some of us, marked by loss. But we also acknowledge in that loss the years of profound gratitude for the time shared with those we love so much. More than that, we know that Christmas carries with it a promise that we will see them again. As this unique year comes to a close, we are more certain than ever of your presence and your goodness, bringing us together in socially distant circles and parking lots and driveways and backyards and drive-by birthday parties. Father, you've brushed away the fog of pain and uncertainty with moments of laughter and joy. We remember you on our soccer fields and baseball fields and Zoom calls and family outings and see you in the blessing of soul-warming friendships. After all that, we say thank you to our good Father. Thank you for the blessings in the midst of our struggles. Thank you for always making new paths for your children. Thank you for 2020 and all the new things it held and the future hope it has preserved. Amen. you
Well, good morning. My name is Nate. I am one of the pastors here. This morning is a little different. We're in the 10th part of our series going through the Gospel of John. And we arrived this morning at the story of the crucifixion. And as I thought and prayed over how best to cover this, my conclusion was that the best possible thing to do, the best possible way to honor the text and to honor our God and to honor you is to simply tell the story and to let that be enough. And so this morning feels a little different. I don't have any jokes or stories for you this morning. We're not going to turn the lights on because there's no notes. There's not going to be any scriptures up on the screen. What I'm going to tell you is an amalgamation or a synthesis of the account of the crucifixion from all four gospels, beginning in the Garden of Gethsemane. At the end of Jesus' life, he celebrated the Passover with the disciples. He was 33 years old. He had been with them for three years, and it was the night that he was going to be arrested and tried and crucified. The disciples didn't know that, but he did. And so after the Passover, after their celebration, it's getting towards the evening, think 10 or 11 o'clock at night. Jesus grabs his three closest disciples, Peter, James, and John, and he says, would you come and pray with me? And they go to a place called the Garden of Gethsemane. If you're in Jerusalem and you go directly east, there's a valley, there's the temple mount, and then a little valley, and then on the other side of that valley is a hill. That hill is the Garden of Gethsemane, and that's where they are. And so Jesus takes his three disciples with him, Peter, James, and John, his closest confidants, and he says, would you come with me while I pray? And he leaves them in an area of the garden, and he goes, the Bible says, about a stone's throw from them. And he says, will you stay here, and will you pray for me and pray for yourself? And Jesus goes, and he prays. And in the Garden of Gethsemane, the night that he was going to be arrested, knees and he begins to pray that the Father would take this cup from him. Father, this is going to be difficult. This is going to be painful. If there's any other way to do this, Father, you're capable of all things. Let there be another way to do this. Please don't make me drink this cup. Please don't make me have to walk through what I'm about to have to walk through in the crucifixion. After praying for a while, he comes back to check on his three disciples, and he finds them sleeping. It's late at night. It's after dinner. They've had a lot of food. They've had wine, and their eyes are heavy. And it's here where we can already begin to see the isolation of Jesus as he goes through these next several hours. His closest people, his closest friends in his whole life can't even stay awake to pray for him because they don't understand what he's about to do. So he wakes them up and he says, this time I want you to pray for yourself that you wouldn't fall into temptation. And he goes back and he begins to pray again. And this time he begins to pray more fervently. I think we picture Jesus, if we ever picture him, we picture him on his knees in the garden praying quietly, maybe passively or submissively. But I think the text indicates that he was at this point crying out. I saw a pastor talk about this one time and he laid prostrate on his face and screamed. And what we know about these prayers is that he uses this word that we don't see Jesus use before this time. He's calling out to God and he says, Abba, Father, please don't make me do this. Abba, Father, please don't make me drink of this cup. Please don't make me walk through this pain. And he uses that word Abba, and we only see that in Romans when Paul is using it as a way to refer to God intimately, when he tells us that because of what Jesus is about to walk through, we have the right to call God what Jesus calls him, that nobody else calls him. It's daddy or papa. And he's crying out to God the Father, please don't make me do this, Abba. If you have a child, can you imagine the anguish of the father hearing his son cry out to him, calling him Abba, Daddy, saying, please don't make me do this, knowing that you have the power to stop it, knowing that he doesn't have to do this and and you don't have to watch this, but sitting in heaven being willing to say, no, I'm sorry, son, this is a thing you're going to have to do. And so Jesus continues to pray. He prays so fervently that Luke tells us that his sweat began to fall like blood, and there is debate on whether or not that means he was just sweating profusely, which is intense enough, or if he was actually undergoing a medical condition called hemohidrosis, where capillaries in the blood vessels rupture due to extreme stress or fear, and actually blood mixes with the sweat. We don't know for sure which one it was, but we do know that Jesus was at the height of stress and he was at the height of anxiety and he's crying out to his father in a way that we don't see him do in any other place in scripture. Please don't make me do this. He's already a sweaty mess. The disciples have fallen asleep again and the isolation begins to set in. He finishes praying and he walks and so they had a king named Herod, but he was really impotent. The real power in Israel lie in the Sanhedrin, which was essentially a religious senate. And the head of this senate was the high priest, a man at the time named Caiaphas. And Caiaphas had sent his guards with Judas to arrest Jesus. And so Judas betrays him with a kiss. They ask Jesus, are you Jesus of Nazareth? And he says, I am he. And when he says that, they step back and they fall down because he's using the words of the great I am from Exodus 3 when God introduces himself for the first time. And they get back up and they go to arrest Jesus. And Peter, of course, Peter is the one who does this. He takes the sword and he goes to try to kill one of the guards. He misses and takes off his ear. We know that it was a guard named Malchus. And so Jesus tells him to stop it. He heals Malchus and he tells Peter, don't you know that if I didn't want to do this, that my father could send 12 legions of angels right now to save me and to protect me. And just so we're clear, 12 legions of angels is enough to handle any army in the history of history. He says, Peter, it's not the time. Because the prophecy said he needed to go silently like a lamb to the slaughter. And so he's arrested and he's taken to Caiaphas' house. At this point, the disciples follow at a distance and eventually scatter. He's held in the courtyard of Caiaphas' house with Peter on the perimeter and one unnamed disciple inside, and that's all he has for support. Caiaphas begins the ceremony, begins the hearings by inviting people to hurl false accusations against Jesus. They're unclaimed, they're unsubstantiated, and they're unfair. This is the Savior of the world, the Son of God who loves us so much that he condescended to be one of us and take on our frailty, who is sweaty and perhaps lightly bloody as he's cried out to his Father, please don't make me do this, and now he knows he's going to have to do it, and there's no one there with him. He is the person who has least deserved this treatment in the history of the world, and he is there, and they are hurling false accusations against a man who could not be kinder, and who could not be more gracious, and who could not be more loving, and who even as these people hurl these accusations, he is looking at them knowing that he is going to die for them, hoping that through this death that they will come to believe in the person that they are mocking. And it's a kangaroo court. And eventually, they ask Jesus, are you the son of God? And he says, I am who you say I am. And Caiaphas in this show, I think of this disgusting show of false abhorrence, tears his garments and yells and says, what more do we need to hear? He's just an old guy protecting his power. It's disgusting. And the temple guards put a blindfold on Jesus and they begin to punch him and slap him and say, you're a prophet. Why don't you prophesy who hit you, Jesus? It's at this point the Jewish tradition would say that he had his beard ripped out of his face. His face is bloody. It's likely swollen. They're spitting on him, and they are mocking him, and everyone around him is making a show of him. And they're saying, you're a prophet. You're so smart. Tell us who hit you. And the thing is, he knew who hit him. He knew his name. He knew his wife. He knew his kids. And he loved him. And he sat there, and he took it. And when they had had their fun, and they had finished beating our Jesus, they took him to most likely an isolation chamber. In the basement of Caiaphas' house, I was there back in 2013. Underneath his house in Jerusalem is a dungeon. And there's these columns and a wall that's concave. And you can see the brass rings where they would string up people or where they would chain them to the wall. And you think that this is where Jesus was, but then they walk you around the corner, and there's actually this hole in the ground. It's literally about this wide. There's no stairs at the time. There were no stairs that led to it. And they would tie a rope underneath your arms, and they would lower you into the hole where it was totally black and totally dark and totally isolated. If you need a sense of what it was like for Jesus to be there, read Psalm 88. When we went there, we stood in that cell and it was read to us. And it's one of the most moving things I've ever experienced. Who knows what's in that pitch black cell as Jesus sits there in his isolation, knowing the death that he is facing the next day. In the morning, they get him and they take him to Pilate. Pilate was the governor assigned by Rome to the area, to the province of Israel. He was the man who was actually in charge. You could not crucify anybody. You could not administer the death penalty in Israel without Roman permission. They had to actually administer it. And so they take Jesus to Pilate. They tell Pilate what he's done, and they say that we want to kill him. And Pilate talks to Jesus. And some of the most interesting conversations in the Bible to me are the exchanges between Pilate and Jesus. He asks him, he says, they say you're a king. Are you a king? And he says, well, I'm not the kind of king you think I am. If I were, my servants would be here to defend me, but my kingdom is not of this world. And Pilate is pressing him for answers, but Jesus really won't give them. And Pilate actually finds him innocent. His wife had a dream about him the night before, and she told him, you're going to meet this guy. Jesus don't have anything to do with him. He's innocent. And a lot of people think that Pilate actually believed his story. And so he goes to the Hebrew people who are outside. They're in the Fortress Antonia, which is connected to the Temple Mount. And he goes outside, and he looks at what I presume are gates, and there's throngs of people outside of them. And Pilate tells them, it's Passover, it's your tradition that I would let a prisoner go at Passover who's due the death penalty. Why don't I just let Jesus go? Why don't I return him to you? He doesn't seem guilty. And the crowd says, no, give us Barabbas. Barabbas was a man who was guilty of insurrection, He was guilty of murder. He was guilty of thievery. He deserved the death penalty. He was a known criminal in Israel. And they say, give us Barabbas. Let Jesus die. And Pilate ceremonially washes his hands and says, his blood is not on me. And the Jewish people say, that's fine. His blood is on us and on our children. Give us Barabbas and crucify Jesus. And so Pilate bends to the will of the people and he orders Jesus crucified. And the first step of this crucifixion is a scourging or a flogging. And what we know about this is that it was standard Roman procedure. The crucifixion was standard procedure under Roman rule. It was a death penalty that had been designed and refined over decades, if not centuries. And the men who administered it were sadistic and sick, and I am convinced, evil. They were men who this is all they did. All they did is administer the death penalty. All they did is torture people. All they did is take you to within an inch of your life and back off. And that's what the scourging was. It was done with what's called a cat of nine tails, which is a handle with nine straps of leather that come out of it. And into the straps of leather are woven glass and shards of bone and metal and sometimes metal balls intended to bruise. And I've been where they did this. It's a place called the Stone Pavement in the Bible. The entire battalion that was there at the far-flung province of Israel with nothing better to do gathered to watch this man who claimed he was God be beaten. There's a square cement thing that comes out of the ground. It's about this tall. And you can see that somebody gets on their knees in front of it and is bent over it with their arms strapped around it. And they take the cat of nine tails and they hit Jesus with it. And when they hit him, they don't hit him dead on. They stand off to the side and hit him so that it hits here and wraps around and digs in. And then they don't pull it off. They rip it off so that when they rip it off, it takes with its skin and chunks. And they do this 39 times. 39 times because the understanding was that 40 lashes would kill a man. And it wasn't exactly 39 times. 39 times because the understanding was that 40 lashes would kill a man. And it wasn't exactly 39 every time. The idea was the person administering it, who is just pure evil, knew exactly how far he could go before the man was about to die and then he would stop. And by the time he finished, Jesus' back is totally exposed, spine exposed, and it was from the shoulders to all the way down the back of the legs to the top of the knees. Then they take him, and as entertainment for the whole battalion, they begin to mock him. And they get a robe and they put it on his wounds. And they take a crown of thorns, not briars, thorns. And they shove it into his skull. And they make him a king. And they begin to mock him as they fake worship him. And these Roman soldiers, not Hebrew temple guards, Roman trained soldiers begin to punch him in the face over and over again, mocking him, saying you're the king, fake bowing down to him as entertainment. And Jesus is utterly isolated and alone. When they had had their fill, they take the cross beam of the cross and they put it on his back. They redress him in his own tattered clothes. They put that wooden cross on his back and they tell him to walk to Golgotha, the place of the skull, where he's going to be crucified. On the way there, he falters and he can't make it. There's a man named Siren of Cyrene that they grab and ask him to carry the rest of the way. They get to Golgotha and they place Jesus on the cross, first laying on the ground, and they take the nails and they drive them into his hands. Some of us know this, but just so we're clear, when we think of the nails going into the hands of Jesus, we usually think of them going here, but really those nails had to be weight bearing. And so to put them there means that he would fall off the cross because there's not enough to hold him there. So where they would put the nails, the Hebrew word for hand is actually elbow to fingertip. And so where they would put the nail is actually right here. If you've seen an x-ray, you know that there's two bones in the forearm that meet at the wrist. And where they meet is a bundle of nerves. When you were in elementary school, you probably found this and know it as a pressure point. It's incredibly sensitive. And they would take the nail and they would drive it through the wrist there where those bones meet and where the nerves are. And when I say nail, don't think nail. Think more like something that you would drive into a railroad tie. And they drive his hand into the wood. And then they take him and they stretch him as far as he can go. They pull him against that nail because it's important that they spread out his chest and they drive one in the other hand. Then they take his feet and they put his feet over top of one another and they drive the nail through his feet. And we usually, when we see a picture of people on the cross, we see them with their legs extended, but more likely they were tucked up underneath him like this and his feet driven in together. Because once you hung up on the cross, I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but you don't die by pain or blood loss. You die from suffocating. Because when you're hanging like that and your legs are bent and your arms are outstretched, he cannot bring in air. There's no more room left in his lungs. The only way when you're hanging on the cross dying to breathe is to push up on the nails in your feet and to pull on the nails in your hand and take in a breath at the top and then sink back down and hope that lasts longer than the last one. Can you imagine the futility of hanging on the cross, trying to decide whether or not to push yourself up and take one more futile breath? Can you imagine watching someone you love go through these things? Which is why it's remarkable that Jesus says anything at all on the cross. He pushes up and he takes a breath and he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's the final isolation. It's the first time in eternity he's been separated from the presence of God the Father as the sins of the world, my sins and yours and everyone who's ever lived is heaped on Jesus in that moment. He's separated from the Father as he bears the penalty for our sin. He pushes up again and he tells the prisoner next to him, today you'll be with me in paradise because that prisoner had faith. He pushes up again and he looks at John and he says, take care of my mom. And then at about three o'clock in the afternoon, he pushes up one last time and he takes a breath and he says, to tell us thy, it is finished. It is finished. That word means it is finished. It also means the debt is paid in full. It's an incredibly appropriate word. Jesus is saying in that moment, everything that I've come to do has been done. He came to live a perfect life. He did that. He came to train the disciples and launch the church, his kingdom here on earth, And he did that. He came to suffer for us. And he did that. He came to fulfill prophecy in Isaiah 53, where it says, by his stripes, we will be healed. And he did that. And now it was time for him to die. And so he says, to Telestai, it's finished. And he sinks back down and he breathes his last. And when he does, the skies go black and the temple veil is torn in two. And the Roman centurions around him say, surely this must be the Son of God. And a man named Joseph of Arimathea takes his body and embalms it and buries him. And that's the story of the crucifixion. The only thing that I have for you after we tell that story is to just make the point that he did that for you. He did all of that for you. He lived the life. He put up with being misunderstood. He endured mockery. He had people spit in his face. He had people punch him. He had people fake worship him. He had people mock him. He sat around while an entire battalion took joy in his pain. He took 39 lashes. He had himself nailed to the cross, the person who's least deserved this ever. And he hung up there and he suffocated for you because he loves you. Because at the beginning of time when they created us, they made the decision that we're doing this because we want them to be with us for all of eternity. And since we sinned and broke that relationship, it made it necessary for Jesus to go and be broken for us. And so he went and he did that for you. And he knew how many times you would sin. He knew how many times you would tell him that you believe him and that you trust him and then you would walk away from him. He knew how many times you would walk back with your head in your hands and ask him to forgive you again. And he knew how many times he was gonna have to offer that forgiveness. He died knowing the spiritual condition that I was gonna be in when I preached this message. He died knowing all the things that we were gonna mess up. He died knowing that by our actions, we will spit on that. We will disrespect that. We will not appreciate that. He died for you knowing everything there is to know about you. Because he loves you. And the only reason he came here is to rescue you. And so the question this morning becomes, how do we respond to that truth? How do we respond to what Jesus did on the cross? We might respond with disbelief. I don't believe that story and we shove it away. We might respond with skepticism. Keep it at arm's length. Maybe because of the type of response it would elicit if it's true. But if we believe that story, if we think that Jesus was real and he was who he said he was and that that's what he did for us. The only proper response is humble gratitude. It's a deep and abiding and reverent sense of gratitude that he would do that for us. And so in a minute, we're going to take communion and have a chance to respond in gratitude together. I hope that that's the response of your heart, marveling at God the Son who would do that for us, marveling at God the Father who would watch and allow his Son to do that for us and that we would respond with humble gratitude at the story of the crucifixion. I'm gonna pray and invite up the band and the ushers or the elders. Father, my goodness, we don't know what to say. We can't believe that you allowed your son to do that for us. Jesus, we can't believe that you did that for us. Knowing all the things that you could possibly know, knowing all the ways that we would feel that we disappoint and let you down and dishonor. You did it anyways. God, I am so grateful for you, for your patience, the way that you love us. I'm so grateful for your son who died for us. God, I pray that we would respond collectively with a humble gratitude and awe at what you gave and at what was won for us on the cross. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen.
Well, good morning. My name is Nate. I am one of the pastors here. This morning is a little different. We're in the 10th part of our series going through the Gospel of John. And we arrived this morning at the story of the crucifixion. And as I thought and prayed over how best to cover this, my conclusion was that the best possible thing to do, the best possible way to honor the text and to honor our God and to honor you is to simply tell the story and to let that be enough. And so this morning feels a little different. I don't have any jokes or stories for you this morning. We're not going to turn the lights on because there's no notes. There's not going to be any scriptures up on the screen. What I'm going to tell you is an amalgamation or a synthesis of the account of the crucifixion from all four gospels, beginning in the Garden of Gethsemane. At the end of Jesus' life, he celebrated the Passover with the disciples. He was 33 years old. He had been with them for three years, and it was the night that he was going to be arrested and tried and crucified. The disciples didn't know that, but he did. And so after the Passover, after their celebration, it's getting towards the evening, think 10 or 11 o'clock at night. Jesus grabs his three closest disciples, Peter, James, and John, and he says, would you come and pray with me? And they go to a place called the Garden of Gethsemane. If you're in Jerusalem and you go directly east, there's a valley, there's the temple mount, and then a little valley, and then on the other side of that valley is a hill. That hill is the Garden of Gethsemane, and that's where they are. And so Jesus takes his three disciples with him, Peter, James, and John, his closest confidants, and he says, would you come with me while I pray? And he leaves them in an area of the garden, and he goes, the Bible says, about a stone's throw from them. And he says, will you stay here, and will you pray for me and pray for yourself? And Jesus goes, and he prays. And in the Garden of Gethsemane, the night that he was going to be arrested, knees and he begins to pray that the Father would take this cup from him. Father, this is going to be difficult. This is going to be painful. If there's any other way to do this, Father, you're capable of all things. Let there be another way to do this. Please don't make me drink this cup. Please don't make me have to walk through what I'm about to have to walk through in the crucifixion. After praying for a while, he comes back to check on his three disciples, and he finds them sleeping. It's late at night. It's after dinner. They've had a lot of food. They've had wine, and their eyes are heavy. And it's here where we can already begin to see the isolation of Jesus as he goes through these next several hours. His closest people, his closest friends in his whole life can't even stay awake to pray for him because they don't understand what he's about to do. So he wakes them up and he says, this time I want you to pray for yourself that you wouldn't fall into temptation. And he goes back and he begins to pray again. And this time he begins to pray more fervently. I think we picture Jesus, if we ever picture him, we picture him on his knees in the garden praying quietly, maybe passively or submissively. But I think the text indicates that he was at this point crying out. I saw a pastor talk about this one time and he laid prostrate on his face and screamed. And what we know about these prayers is that he uses this word that we don't see Jesus use before this time. He's calling out to God and he says, Abba, Father, please don't make me do this. Abba, Father, please don't make me drink of this cup. Please don't make me walk through this pain. And he uses that word Abba, and we only see that in Romans when Paul is using it as a way to refer to God intimately, when he tells us that because of what Jesus is about to walk through, we have the right to call God what Jesus calls him, that nobody else calls him. It's daddy or papa. And he's crying out to God the Father, please don't make me do this, Abba. If you have a child, can you imagine the anguish of the father hearing his son cry out to him, calling him Abba, Daddy, saying, please don't make me do this, knowing that you have the power to stop it, knowing that he doesn't have to do this and and you don't have to watch this, but sitting in heaven being willing to say, no, I'm sorry, son, this is a thing you're going to have to do. And so Jesus continues to pray. He prays so fervently that Luke tells us that his sweat began to fall like blood, and there is debate on whether or not that means he was just sweating profusely, which is intense enough, or if he was actually undergoing a medical condition called hemohidrosis, where capillaries in the blood vessels rupture due to extreme stress or fear, and actually blood mixes with the sweat. We don't know for sure which one it was, but we do know that Jesus was at the height of stress and he was at the height of anxiety and he's crying out to his father in a way that we don't see him do in any other place in scripture. Please don't make me do this. He's already a sweaty mess. The disciples have fallen asleep again and the isolation begins to set in. He finishes praying and he walks and so they had a king named Herod, but he was really impotent. The real power in Israel lie in the Sanhedrin, which was essentially a religious senate. And the head of this senate was the high priest, a man at the time named Caiaphas. And Caiaphas had sent his guards with Judas to arrest Jesus. And so Judas betrays him with a kiss. They ask Jesus, are you Jesus of Nazareth? And he says, I am he. And when he says that, they step back and they fall down because he's using the words of the great I am from Exodus 3 when God introduces himself for the first time. And they get back up and they go to arrest Jesus. And Peter, of course, Peter is the one who does this. He takes the sword and he goes to try to kill one of the guards. He misses and takes off his ear. We know that it was a guard named Malchus. And so Jesus tells him to stop it. He heals Malchus and he tells Peter, don't you know that if I didn't want to do this, that my father could send 12 legions of angels right now to save me and to protect me. And just so we're clear, 12 legions of angels is enough to handle any army in the history of history. He says, Peter, it's not the time. Because the prophecy said he needed to go silently like a lamb to the slaughter. And so he's arrested and he's taken to Caiaphas' house. At this point, the disciples follow at a distance and eventually scatter. He's held in the courtyard of Caiaphas' house with Peter on the perimeter and one unnamed disciple inside, and that's all he has for support. Caiaphas begins the ceremony, begins the hearings by inviting people to hurl false accusations against Jesus. They're unclaimed, they're unsubstantiated, and they're unfair. This is the Savior of the world, the Son of God who loves us so much that he condescended to be one of us and take on our frailty, who is sweaty and perhaps lightly bloody as he's cried out to his Father, please don't make me do this, and now he knows he's going to have to do it, and there's no one there with him. He is the person who has least deserved this treatment in the history of the world, and he is there, and they are hurling false accusations against a man who could not be kinder, and who could not be more gracious, and who could not be more loving, and who even as these people hurl these accusations, he is looking at them knowing that he is going to die for them, hoping that through this death that they will come to believe in the person that they are mocking. And it's a kangaroo court. And eventually, they ask Jesus, are you the son of God? And he says, I am who you say I am. And Caiaphas in this show, I think of this disgusting show of false abhorrence, tears his garments and yells and says, what more do we need to hear? He's just an old guy protecting his power. It's disgusting. And the temple guards put a blindfold on Jesus and they begin to punch him and slap him and say, you're a prophet. Why don't you prophesy who hit you, Jesus? It's at this point the Jewish tradition would say that he had his beard ripped out of his face. His face is bloody. It's likely swollen. They're spitting on him, and they are mocking him, and everyone around him is making a show of him. And they're saying, you're a prophet. You're so smart. Tell us who hit you. And the thing is, he knew who hit him. He knew his name. He knew his wife. He knew his kids. And he loved him. And he sat there, and he took it. And when they had had their fun, and they had finished beating our Jesus, they took him to most likely an isolation chamber. In the basement of Caiaphas' house, I was there back in 2013. Underneath his house in Jerusalem is a dungeon. And there's these columns and a wall that's concave. And you can see the brass rings where they would string up people or where they would chain them to the wall. And you think that this is where Jesus was, but then they walk you around the corner, and there's actually this hole in the ground. It's literally about this wide. There's no stairs at the time. There were no stairs that led to it. And they would tie a rope underneath your arms, and they would lower you into the hole where it was totally black and totally dark and totally isolated. If you need a sense of what it was like for Jesus to be there, read Psalm 88. When we went there, we stood in that cell and it was read to us. And it's one of the most moving things I've ever experienced. Who knows what's in that pitch black cell as Jesus sits there in his isolation, knowing the death that he is facing the next day. In the morning, they get him and they take him to Pilate. Pilate was the governor assigned by Rome to the area, to the province of Israel. He was the man who was actually in charge. You could not crucify anybody. You could not administer the death penalty in Israel without Roman permission. They had to actually administer it. And so they take Jesus to Pilate. They tell Pilate what he's done, and they say that we want to kill him. And Pilate talks to Jesus. And some of the most interesting conversations in the Bible to me are the exchanges between Pilate and Jesus. He asks him, he says, they say you're a king. Are you a king? And he says, well, I'm not the kind of king you think I am. If I were, my servants would be here to defend me, but my kingdom is not of this world. And Pilate is pressing him for answers, but Jesus really won't give them. And Pilate actually finds him innocent. His wife had a dream about him the night before, and she told him, you're going to meet this guy. Jesus don't have anything to do with him. He's innocent. And a lot of people think that Pilate actually believed his story. And so he goes to the Hebrew people who are outside. They're in the Fortress Antonia, which is connected to the Temple Mount. And he goes outside, and he looks at what I presume are gates, and there's throngs of people outside of them. And Pilate tells them, it's Passover, it's your tradition that I would let a prisoner go at Passover who's due the death penalty. Why don't I just let Jesus go? Why don't I return him to you? He doesn't seem guilty. And the crowd says, no, give us Barabbas. Barabbas was a man who was guilty of insurrection, He was guilty of murder. He was guilty of thievery. He deserved the death penalty. He was a known criminal in Israel. And they say, give us Barabbas. Let Jesus die. And Pilate ceremonially washes his hands and says, his blood is not on me. And the Jewish people say, that's fine. His blood is on us and on our children. Give us Barabbas and crucify Jesus. And so Pilate bends to the will of the people and he orders Jesus crucified. And the first step of this crucifixion is a scourging or a flogging. And what we know about this is that it was standard Roman procedure. The crucifixion was standard procedure under Roman rule. It was a death penalty that had been designed and refined over decades, if not centuries. And the men who administered it were sadistic and sick, and I am convinced, evil. They were men who this is all they did. All they did is administer the death penalty. All they did is torture people. All they did is take you to within an inch of your life and back off. And that's what the scourging was. It was done with what's called a cat of nine tails, which is a handle with nine straps of leather that come out of it. And into the straps of leather are woven glass and shards of bone and metal and sometimes metal balls intended to bruise. And I've been where they did this. It's a place called the Stone Pavement in the Bible. The entire battalion that was there at the far-flung province of Israel with nothing better to do gathered to watch this man who claimed he was God be beaten. There's a square cement thing that comes out of the ground. It's about this tall. And you can see that somebody gets on their knees in front of it and is bent over it with their arms strapped around it. And they take the cat of nine tails and they hit Jesus with it. And when they hit him, they don't hit him dead on. They stand off to the side and hit him so that it hits here and wraps around and digs in. And then they don't pull it off. They rip it off so that when they rip it off, it takes with its skin and chunks. And they do this 39 times. 39 times because the understanding was that 40 lashes would kill a man. And it wasn't exactly 39 times. 39 times because the understanding was that 40 lashes would kill a man. And it wasn't exactly 39 every time. The idea was the person administering it, who is just pure evil, knew exactly how far he could go before the man was about to die and then he would stop. And by the time he finished, Jesus' back is totally exposed, spine exposed, and it was from the shoulders to all the way down the back of the legs to the top of the knees. Then they take him, and as entertainment for the whole battalion, they begin to mock him. And they get a robe and they put it on his wounds. And they take a crown of thorns, not briars, thorns. And they shove it into his skull. And they make him a king. And they begin to mock him as they fake worship him. And these Roman soldiers, not Hebrew temple guards, Roman trained soldiers begin to punch him in the face over and over again, mocking him, saying you're the king, fake bowing down to him as entertainment. And Jesus is utterly isolated and alone. When they had had their fill, they take the cross beam of the cross and they put it on his back. They redress him in his own tattered clothes. They put that wooden cross on his back and they tell him to walk to Golgotha, the place of the skull, where he's going to be crucified. On the way there, he falters and he can't make it. There's a man named Siren of Cyrene that they grab and ask him to carry the rest of the way. They get to Golgotha and they place Jesus on the cross, first laying on the ground, and they take the nails and they drive them into his hands. Some of us know this, but just so we're clear, when we think of the nails going into the hands of Jesus, we usually think of them going here, but really those nails had to be weight bearing. And so to put them there means that he would fall off the cross because there's not enough to hold him there. So where they would put the nails, the Hebrew word for hand is actually elbow to fingertip. And so where they would put the nail is actually right here. If you've seen an x-ray, you know that there's two bones in the forearm that meet at the wrist. And where they meet is a bundle of nerves. When you were in elementary school, you probably found this and know it as a pressure point. It's incredibly sensitive. And they would take the nail and they would drive it through the wrist there where those bones meet and where the nerves are. And when I say nail, don't think nail. Think more like something that you would drive into a railroad tie. And they drive his hand into the wood. And then they take him and they stretch him as far as he can go. They pull him against that nail because it's important that they spread out his chest and they drive one in the other hand. Then they take his feet and they put his feet over top of one another and they drive the nail through his feet. And we usually, when we see a picture of people on the cross, we see them with their legs extended, but more likely they were tucked up underneath him like this and his feet driven in together. Because once you hung up on the cross, I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but you don't die by pain or blood loss. You die from suffocating. Because when you're hanging like that and your legs are bent and your arms are outstretched, he cannot bring in air. There's no more room left in his lungs. The only way when you're hanging on the cross dying to breathe is to push up on the nails in your feet and to pull on the nails in your hand and take in a breath at the top and then sink back down and hope that lasts longer than the last one. Can you imagine the futility of hanging on the cross, trying to decide whether or not to push yourself up and take one more futile breath? Can you imagine watching someone you love go through these things? Which is why it's remarkable that Jesus says anything at all on the cross. He pushes up and he takes a breath and he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's the final isolation. It's the first time in eternity he's been separated from the presence of God the Father as the sins of the world, my sins and yours and everyone who's ever lived is heaped on Jesus in that moment. He's separated from the Father as he bears the penalty for our sin. He pushes up again and he tells the prisoner next to him, today you'll be with me in paradise because that prisoner had faith. He pushes up again and he looks at John and he says, take care of my mom. And then at about three o'clock in the afternoon, he pushes up one last time and he takes a breath and he says, to tell us thy, it is finished. It is finished. That word means it is finished. It also means the debt is paid in full. It's an incredibly appropriate word. Jesus is saying in that moment, everything that I've come to do has been done. He came to live a perfect life. He did that. He came to train the disciples and launch the church, his kingdom here on earth, And he did that. He came to suffer for us. And he did that. He came to fulfill prophecy in Isaiah 53, where it says, by his stripes, we will be healed. And he did that. And now it was time for him to die. And so he says, to Telestai, it's finished. And he sinks back down and he breathes his last. And when he does, the skies go black and the temple veil is torn in two. And the Roman centurions around him say, surely this must be the Son of God. And a man named Joseph of Arimathea takes his body and embalms it and buries him. And that's the story of the crucifixion. The only thing that I have for you after we tell that story is to just make the point that he did that for you. He did all of that for you. He lived the life. He put up with being misunderstood. He endured mockery. He had people spit in his face. He had people punch him. He had people fake worship him. He had people mock him. He sat around while an entire battalion took joy in his pain. He took 39 lashes. He had himself nailed to the cross, the person who's least deserved this ever. And he hung up there and he suffocated for you because he loves you. Because at the beginning of time when they created us, they made the decision that we're doing this because we want them to be with us for all of eternity. And since we sinned and broke that relationship, it made it necessary for Jesus to go and be broken for us. And so he went and he did that for you. And he knew how many times you would sin. He knew how many times you would tell him that you believe him and that you trust him and then you would walk away from him. He knew how many times you would walk back with your head in your hands and ask him to forgive you again. And he knew how many times he was gonna have to offer that forgiveness. He died knowing the spiritual condition that I was gonna be in when I preached this message. He died knowing all the things that we were gonna mess up. He died knowing that by our actions, we will spit on that. We will disrespect that. We will not appreciate that. He died for you knowing everything there is to know about you. Because he loves you. And the only reason he came here is to rescue you. And so the question this morning becomes, how do we respond to that truth? How do we respond to what Jesus did on the cross? We might respond with disbelief. I don't believe that story and we shove it away. We might respond with skepticism. Keep it at arm's length. Maybe because of the type of response it would elicit if it's true. But if we believe that story, if we think that Jesus was real and he was who he said he was and that that's what he did for us. The only proper response is humble gratitude. It's a deep and abiding and reverent sense of gratitude that he would do that for us. And so in a minute, we're going to take communion and have a chance to respond in gratitude together. I hope that that's the response of your heart, marveling at God the Son who would do that for us, marveling at God the Father who would watch and allow his Son to do that for us and that we would respond with humble gratitude at the story of the crucifixion. I'm gonna pray and invite up the band and the ushers or the elders. Father, my goodness, we don't know what to say. We can't believe that you allowed your son to do that for us. Jesus, we can't believe that you did that for us. Knowing all the things that you could possibly know, knowing all the ways that we would feel that we disappoint and let you down and dishonor. You did it anyways. God, I am so grateful for you, for your patience, the way that you love us. I'm so grateful for your son who died for us. God, I pray that we would respond collectively with a humble gratitude and awe at what you gave and at what was won for us on the cross. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen.
